She's dead," Lance said softly, walking out of the hospital room and into the waiting room. "She's dead." He sat down next to Calypso. "I can't believe it. She's dead."
"It's ok, Lance," Calypso told him, wrapping an arm around him. "Everything'll be ok."
"No, no it's not ok. I killed her." Lance was in tears. "Oh god, Calypso, I killed her. If I hadn't forced her to go to the store, she wouldn't be dead."
"But then you would be, and that would have killed Amaryllis."
"But I killed her. I killed her," Lance sobbed. "I killed her and put Circe in the hospital."
`"Lance, it's not your fault," Joey said. "It's just as much my fault as it is yours."
"None of you understand," Lance shouted. "I killed the love of my life." He stormed out of the hospital."
Joey started to follow him. Calypso stopped him. "Don't, Joey. It'll make everything worse. He'll realize that it's not his fault."Lance wandered the hospital, walking into another waiting room for another section of the hospital. Two people, teenagers, were there. They were obviously twins.
"Everything'll be ok, Kali," the boy said. He wrapped an arm around his sister.
"Oh god, Azriel, what are we going to do?" the girl, Kali, asked. "We've got three kids to raise and we're only 18. We can't do that."
"Kal, don't worry. We've got the rest of our family."
"I know, AJ, but that doesn't change it. Besides, look at our family. Would you say they're ever going to keep any promises made to us?"
"Not really, but at least we've got each other."
Lance watched as the girl hugged her brother and he returned the hug. They stood there, hugging, drawing strength from each other.
Kali let go of her brother and walked out of the room, passing Lance.
He watched her walk away, then looked back at her brother. He was watching him, with strange silvery blue eyes that stood out against his pale skin and black hair.
Lance walked out of the room, the scene he had just witnessed fresh in his memory.He continued to wander the hospital corridors, memories of Amaryllis and everything they had gone through fresh in his mind. He loved her so much. He couldn't believe she was gone.
"And I killed her," he muttered under his breath. "She's gone because of me."
Chris was the one who found him, around ten that morning. "I'm sorry, man," he said to Lance. "I know how much you care for her."
"She was my life, Chris. What am I going to do now?"
"Go on living, Lance. She wouldn't want you to stop living just because she's dead."
"What if I don't want to go on? How the hell can I?"
"Lance, you gotta go on. For the other people you love and who love you." Chris took his arm. "Now, we gotta get back to everyone else. Ary's parents are here, along with yours. So are the others. JC and Lorelie will be back in town tonight."
Chris drove them back to Lance's house, where everyone had gathered.
"Lance, I'm so sorry," Amaryllis's mother, Celeste Trenton, said, hugging him. "I know how much you loved her."
This choked Lance up. Here was Ary's mother, comforting the person who was responsible for her death.
"Thank you, he murmured. "I'm sorry she's gone. I know you'll miss her."
"If you ever need to talk, just call me, sweetie," Celeste said. "We're all here for you."
I can't tell her that I killed her daughter. She wouldn't understand. It's not my fault. Bullshit.~*~*~*~
The funeral was held three days later. MTV had a news report on it.
"Lance Bass, along with the other members of *NSYNC will be attending a funeral today, to honor the life of Amaryllis Trenton, Bass's fiancee. Trenton, age 22, died Sunday morning of a gunshot wound. She and Circe McKenzie, a friend of Trenton's, walked into the middle of a robbery in a convience store. McKenzie, daughter of Clayton McKenzie, CEO of Untied Enterprises, and Lady Mikayla McKenzie, has a fractured arm. *NSYNC still has yet to release any information regarding this incident and what will happen next. This is Kurt Loder, MTV News."
Lance watched the news report with dry eyes. He was saving all of his tears for the funeral. He had been asked to speak. He had no idea what he was going to say, how he was going to be able to stand up in front of the crowd and talk, without breaking down.
Justin, who was staying at his house with him- no one wanted him to be alone- walked in the room.
"You almost ready, Lance?" he asked.
"Yeah," Lance replied, standing up. "What should I say Justin?"
"Talk about Ary, how much you loved, what a wonderful person she was. And don't worry about breaking down up there. Everyone'll understand."
They left then.
As they were walking inside, Lance caught a glimpse of the two people he had seen the day Ary died, the twins whose conversation he had eavesdropped on. They both looked upset, the boy pissed, the girl determined. Their voices carried to him and he stopped on the stairs to listen.
"You can't drop out, Kali. You're the smartest person in our family. You need to go to college."
"I can't go to college, work full time, and raise those kids. I won't have time to do anything, AJ."
"Kali, we'll find a way to do this. But you can't drop out of college."
"Azriel James, I'm dropping out and that's final. I'll go back in a few years, once things are settled down.."
"We don't need to be home during the day, the kids will all be in school. We won't have to be home until five. You can go to college during the day, work at night."
"But when would I find time to do homework? And what about the costs?"
"You have a full scholarship."
"There are still going to be other things that need to be paid for. I should probably get two jobs."
"Kali, you can't quit school. You're too smart for that. I've got a good job with Sam, it pays well. You don't need two jobs and you don't need to quit."
"Your job pays well if you're single, AJ. Not if you have kids to raise. We have rent, utilities, food, clothes, insurance, and everything else to worry about. If we got twice what you made a week, we'd be ok, but unfortunately, I won't make what you make with just one job."
"Lance," Justin began, "are you coming inside?"
They must have heard him, because both turned around, looking at them with the their pale silvery blue eyes. Then they left.
Lance shook himself and walked inside.~*~*~*~
The funeral was a blur to Lance. He remembered crying almost nonstop, tears streaming down his face as he gave his eulogy.
Afterwards, Justin drove him home and he laid on his bed, wondering how he was going to live.~*~*~*~
Lance moved out of his house three days later. It held too many memories of Amaryllis for him to stay there and not go insane.
He rented an apartment and the guys helped him move in. Within a day, he was settled in.
The night he moved in, Lance was sitting on the balcony, watching the stars.
Below him, a car pulled into one of the spaces.
And the girl he had noticed in the hospital the day Amaryllis died and then later, the day of her funeral, got out of the car and walked up the stairs.