(A/N: I apologize for this being un-betaed. I couldn't not do this, and I hope it delivers.)
Sarah looked away from the screen, tears pouring down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” her angel companion asked, instinct telling him that something was indeed very, very wrong.
Sarah was silent. Her partners looked up from whatever they were doing, worried expressions on their faces. Sarah Katherine Squall was virtually never silent. If she was… That was a cause for concern.
Lapis walked over to her, and patted her shoulder, almost expecting her hand to be swatted away, but the rebuke never came.
“It’s alright to let us know.” The blue-haired girl’s voice was kind, learned, sympathetic. “There’s no need to keep things quiet with us two. We are your partners, after all.”
The older girl sniffled, her head still bowed. “I never thought this day would come,” she said, forcing back a choked sob. “All my life, I thought that he was unchanging, forever, a constant force of goodness in this world.”
“He?” asked Cupid, beginning to sound worried. “Who’s he?”
“On an objective front, I knew the day would come when he’d finally leave this world,” the superheroine continued. “He was aging, and he had fought numerous illnesses before, and it was only a matter of time before he’d finally lose that internal fight. But that knowledge never made me ready for this, for the day, for the hour when his life would finally slip away.”
“And still the day came anyway,” Lapis finished. “But for whom?”
Sarah looked at her with a visage wracked with utter despair. “We were all blindsided. None of us could believe it at first, but then the truth finally began to sink in that it had happened. So many of us believed that we’d go through our entire life, and not know of it. And yet… Yet so many of us can now say that we lived to hear of it.
“Knowing that, knowing exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard of it… Knowing this fills me with a grief I can’t even begin to describe. Some would say that I shouldn’t care for losses outside of my own family. Believe me, I’ve heard that from some of my own family members. But it doesn’t change the fact that there’s been a hole blown in my heart that can never be filled ever again.”
Cupid realized that whomever she was talking about, it must’ve been very, very important to her. He tilted his head to notice that there was an article on the console screen. “Uh… Lapis? Could you read that? You guys know I can’t–”
“We do,” Lapis replied with an exasperated look. She glanced at the console, and once she saw the title of the article on the screen, her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with both hands, a gasp of horror resounding throughout the RC.
“He was a great man,” said Sarah. “He still is a great man. None of us will ever forget what he did for you and I. For us. For everyone. The world will be a much sadder place without him, and the worst part of all is that it was a much happier place with him. There is nothing in the world we can ever do to repay him, and all we can do now is remember his life, his legacy, his greatness. All we can do is remember him as he was, as he is, and tell our children and our grandchildren about the wholesome greatness that they never were around to experience.”
“Oh dear Arceus…” was all Lapis could say. She looked to Cupid and mouthed, “Sarah’s favorite comics artist in the multiverse has passed away.”
The angel said nothing. He was as speechless as the other two. But then he got to his feet and walked over to his taller partner. And then he hugged her, enveloping her with his arms and wings and resting his head next to hers’.
Sarah hugged him back with one hand, and spread the other arm for Lapis to join. She did the same, tears of her own now leaking from the corners of her eyes. The dark-haired Super promptly buried her face in their shoulders, and started crying in earnest. And her partners cried too, sharing in her pain and grief.
Eventually, Sarah finally managed to calm down, though she was still sniffling and shuddering. She finally lifted her head and looked into the eyes of her partners, recognizing their sympathetic expressions.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“Words fail me right now,” said Cupid. “I guess I can say that I hope all of us can eventually cope with the loss we’ve sustained.”
“I can’t agree more with that sentiment,” added Lapis.
Sarah turned back to the console and smiled, wiping the tears from her face. “Godspeed, you amazing, wonderful person, and may you find peace and prosperity in the multiverse beyond. Excelsior.”
“Excelsior,” repeated the other two.
They were silent for a long moment. And then Cupid piped up with “…You guys wanna watch Ant Man and the Wasp for movie night tonight? I… I actually haven’t seen that one. And it’s only fair that we spend the evening honoring him. For Sarah’s sake.”
The girls looked at each other, and exchanged smiles in spite of themselves.
“I’d like that more than anything, I think,” replied Sarah.
R.I.P. Stan Lee
December 28, 1922 - November 12, 2018
Excelsior