Of Medallions and Memories: A Final Farewell
by Cher

She slipped her hand slowly across the cool steel hull of the vessel that sheathed her brother's body, its sheen turned to dusk by the starless night, its icy chill a reflection of her angry and saddened heart.

Titanium, she thought, so serviceable with its sleek lines and cool exterior, so analogous to the complicated man that lay beneath its curved cover.

"How much more," she whispered as she stroked the cool steel, "I believe you would have loved a coffin of wood, a sturdy resting place made from life deeply rooted in the earth, so much like our ancient heritage that you prized so highly, so much more elegant a way to house the remains of your life."

She thought of the earth that would fall upon this casket, shovel upon shovel of grainy black loam that would cover not just her brother's body but a multitude of sins, the sins passed through the generations by father, mother, brother, even those he created himself. They all carried a mark upon them, she no less than the rest, a stain born of heritage and entitlement, of having too much and always wanting more, ravenous and uncompromising. Life and destiny led to her one true want - to live with her daughter in a life free from the constraints of who they both are, to become what they both can be without looking behind them in fear. But the last year has shown that not even the uncompromising sense of purpose her questionable heritage bestowed upon her will be enough to attain that life with her daughter.

She thought of other caskets, other lives lost to retain what ancient history foisted upon them - her Father buried in a crypt in Greece, her Mother in a serene graveyard in her homeland, her eldest brother sealed in a pit of his own making, her beloved sister's ashes resting in a Chinese porcelain vase buried beneath the Port Charles earth, a small jade Kuan Yin, the goddess of compassion, interred alongside her to watch over her soul. Each now mere splinters of decaying bone drying to dust, their spirits blowing like tumbleweeds across her restless heart, alighting for isolated moments of wistful memory only to be swiftly blown away by the stiff winds of regret and loss.

She fingered her neck as her mind unconsciously searched for it, reality returning as her fingers brushed her smooth but empty throat. Her medallion, the sign that marked her Cassadine heritage in the guise of an elegant noose around her neck, was now drifting beneath the murky waters of the harbor as her brother will soon be lowered beneath the darkness of earth.

She caressed the casket with loving care, rubbing her fingers along the engraved faceplate that declared for all to see who lies there.

"How did we find ourselves here, my brother? How did we drift so far apart that we became like two strangers passing in the void of night, wary and angered by each other?" she asked, wishing for an answer to the questions that haunted her since she last saw Stefan alive, knowing that silence and speculation was the only response she would receive.

"Who were you? What changed you so drastically that you were a stranger to me? I need to know!" she declared as her fist bounced off the casket, her voice carrying on the chill evening breeze.

He watched her standing by the grave, her strength a clarion call sounded by the rigid set of her shoulders and spine, her hands clenched into fists at her side like so many times before, her way to submerge the pain within until it finally overwhelmed her and the tears would fight their way to the surface and finally fall. Always hidden, always controlled, always alone. It saddened him but a lifetime of dealing with anguish and loss builds up walls. Brick by brick each emotion fills the cracks to where one's open heart lies and soon all that remains of the entrance to that chamber is the vacuum of lost dreams that expire from lack of hope.

"Do you remember when we were children? How Helena used to taunt me about being an ugly orphan who should be forever grateful for the scraps she chose to throw my way? How she slowly chipped away at my self-esteem until I felt less than nothing, a piece of dirt under her heel," she asked as she paced in front of the grave, the memory pooling tears in her eyes.

"You told me she did not have the power to break me. That only I held the true power over my life and how I chose to live it. That I was allowing her to win the battle by default and handing over a power to her she did not earn and should never have. You told me never to allow anyone to have power over me, that I am the final arbiter of my own destiny."

She leaned down toward the casket. "Powerful fighting words to a child that gave me the will to survive her. You were always there to urge me on when I would all but give up hope. You helped me win many of those battles. You always cared in your quiet intense way, sharing the dreams and hopes you never told another soul unaware even then I was your sister. You cared, Stefan, and loved me as much as I loved you. You proved that every day of my life and despite the battles we waged against one another from time to time as life intervened, there remained that bond we forged in childhood. When you came back this time, you changed. I knew it wasn't just your concern about our finances that drew that ugly veil over your face. It was something else, coming from so deep inside you it bespoke of the blackness of the void and chilled me to the marrow of my bones. There was not just bleakness in your eyes, there was a dangerous evil that reminded me of our brother and it frightened me. Not that you would harm me but that in the end relentless evil would consume you as it did him."

She picked up a flower and plucked the petals as she continued to speak to her brother.

"What happened in Milan to change you? You wanted so much to capture what had always eluded you - your own life free of the restraints of what you were born to be. You promised Chloe you would find yourself and I prayed you would, that you would be rewarded for every sacrifice made for Nikolas, for me. But you returned a stranger, cold and aloof and twisted. You became the very thing you struggled against so hard all your life - you became our brother. For that, Stefan, is where you ended your life - a mirror image of Stavros."

A muffled cry broke from her as she reached out her arms, dropping to her knees to hug the casket. "And that, my brother, broke that bond which nothing - not even Helena - ever could."

The tears flowed and soon a quiet cry became deep, unrelenting sobs as her anguish finally arose from deep within the caverns of her soul where she hoards it away like precious gold, afraid its release will spill out and reveal before the world the losses that pile like decaying corpses on her heart, the weight of their bitter memory leaving her without breath.

She laid her head upon the casket, its coolness drying her tears.

"I lost you twice. The day you betrayed me, when everything we were to each other since the day you grasped the shaking hand of a frightened child and told her she was not alone, when memories that sustained both of us all our lives were obliterated by words spoken in anger and bitterness. I lost you the day you walked away in the PCPD and now I lost you again to death. I was angry with you and I still am perhaps more so because I just do not understand why you turned your back on me. And now I will never know and I do not intend to live my life in endless speculation - not even for the brother I loved and lost."

She arose to her feet and stood with her head bowed before the casket, her heaving shoulders now merely shivering in the night.

"But I will always love the memory of the brother that loved me - once upon a time."

He wondered if he should disturb her as her questions and her secrets, uttered in the pain of her loss, still echoed on the wind as she reached out to touch her brother for the last time. He stared at the casket reflected in the torchlight wrapping his coat tightly about his body as he looked around. What a cold and soulless place for a memorial garden, the eerie sound of the foghorn and the buoy bells out over the water magnified by the silence of the trees. There was no life in this place, a fitting memorial to the family that built it.

Except for her, he thought gently, the strong yet vulnerable woman who stood before him, the vestiges of the lost child she carries within visible for those who knew where to look. A woman with life's journey ahead of her caught on a winding side path choked with weeds, the road overgrown with the repercussions of decisions made in haste but not without reason, a diversion that threatens to strip her of the opportunity to fulfill the destiny she seeks.

He would never allow that to happen.

Another man strode past and entered the garden, reaching out to gently place his hands on her shoulders. He could see her lean into the man with the exhaustion of the emotions he witnessed, the weight of bitter regret at so much gone wrong in her life pulling her down. The man kneaded her shoulders, caressing her as they spoke softly before the grave.

He asked, "Why does it always come to this? Why do we end up here?"

She looked down at the casket. "We go back to the beginning."

He looked up to the sky, searching for a star or perhaps the wish unfulfilled that lurks in the night sky waiting for someone to grasp it and pull it gently to earth. "Burying one you love is never easy."

She stared at the flowers, the shovel thrown carelessly near the fence and back to the gleaming casket wishing once again it was wood. "Ritual must be maintained to help us work through the pain."

He smiled gently as he smoothed her hair. "That sounds very clinical."

She leaned back and looked up into his dark eyes, the empathy she saw warming the coldness of a forlorn heart. "Perhaps I've been spending too much time with you."

Cameron turned her to him and enfolded her into his embrace, holding her as she shivered with sadness and those intangibles of life that can never again be.

The man watched and wondered if he had the right to disturb them, to inflict his presence where he was sure it would not be wanted. He looked at her safe in the embrace of the man and sighed with relief if not contentment, for content he would never truly be.

He raised his fingers to his lips and gently blew a kiss on the breeze. It was best this way, to maintain the past and leave the present and future to what Fate would decree in its own time.

He took one last look, burning the images into his heart as a Father anguished by the losses of one lifetime slowly turned away from a son now gone and the daughter that remained of a love sublime and melted into the night.