"Thanks for coming Dougie." Mrs Fletcher whispered to me as we walked out of the church. It was the day of Tom's funeral, we'd just had a little memorial for him inside and prayed for him, wishing him the best in Heaven. "Tom would've been glad that you were here. You were a great friend to him."
I opened my mouth but no words came out. I just nodded, slowly walking away. Walking around the crowds of people, I saw the hole where in a few minutes, we would be placing Tom's body in. I felt a clammy hand on my shoulder, making me shiver.
Harry turned to me, holding onto the hand of a very miserable Danny. I tried to muster a smile to them. "How're you doing, Dan?" I whispered.
He just shook his head, a few tears falling from his eyes.
"What the fuck is she doing here?"
I whipped my head around to where Harry was pointing. There, stood in a black dress, walking with her head down, was Vicky Jones. "Wait here." I muttered, as Harry pulled Danny away before he could see.
I marched over to her. "Excuse me?"
She looked up, removing the veil from her face. She looked rather upset.
"You need to go. You're not welcome here. Why aren't you locked up with the other nutters anyway?!" I spat.
She shook her head. "You have to believe me, I didn't kill him. I swear." She said seriously, looking me in the eye.
"I don't. Why should I?" I said firmly.
She wiped her eyes. "I'm innocent. The police let me go."
"What?!" I gasped. "How do you have proof?!"
"They finally found these photographs from a CCTV camera they've been looking for, I'm shown on there. I'm leaving the building, walking to my car at an earlier time, before he was spotted outside on the camera. You have to see the photos, Dougie. I didn't like Tom that much, but I would never kill him! I just have to accept that my brother is in love with him!"
And I believed her.
X-X
I tightly held hands with Danny as we stood at the front, watching as Tom's coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. I looked opposite me and saw Tom's parents and sister, all clutching each other; weeping.
After there were some words said, we were then to bury him. Danny went first, slowly bending down and picking up some soil in a trembling hand. He sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he softly sprinkled it over Tom's coffin.
I held onto Danny's hand the whole time as his family covered him up in the ground. I promised I'd hold his hand for the whole service. Reaching forward, I sprinkled the last bit over until he was officially covered up. Gone.
Danny began to cry, his hands were shaking and I thought he was going to have a fit. Pulling him close to me, I looked desperately around for Harry. "Shh, don't worry Dan. He's in a great place now, he's in Heaven with the angels and in the future, we'll be able to join him in there."
Danny shuddered. "I'd rather join him now." He muttered.
X-X
Finding Harry a bit later, we got Danny safely back to the hospital into good hands.
"How is he?" Danny's doctor, Margaret spoke softly to us as Danny slumped off into his room.
"Worse." I muttered. "He'll get better, I know he will. He just needs time to forget about it, he's safe in here. That's all that matters."
Harry nodded. "I know your visiting hours are quite strict, but as he's so bad, please can we visit him as often as we like?"
"Well..." She hesitated. "That isn't really my decision, but I'll allow you to come every day, but the time will have to be quite limited."
"Thank you." He smiled.
We stayed with Danny for a few minutes, making sure he was a bit more settled, trying to tell him funny moments and memories of Tom that he could think about. We even got him to smile a couple of times at some things we said.
"Just remember, you're here because we don't want you to do anything stupid. They're looking after you." I said, as it was time to leave.
"We'll visit you every day if you like." Said Harry, giving Danny a kiss on his forehead.
His face fell, watching us leave. I almost couldn't leave him, but I knew we had to.
X-X
"So what was Vicky doing at his funeral?" Harry muttered tiredly, playing with my fingers as I lay on the sofa, eyes closed.
I slowly sat up, getting up from the sofa. "Where did you put those print outs from the CCTV camera?"
"After you stuffed them down my trousers, you mean?" He chuckled softly. "They're on my bedside table. Doug, wha..."
Ignoring him, I raced up the stairs into his room, grabbing the evidence off the table before disappearing back into the living room.
"Look here!" I said, pointing to a photo. "This is what Vicky was saying, here is the evidence that she didn't kill him. The camera is really crap but you can just about make out most of the people on here. 10:10, this here is clearly Tom, there's only one picture but he's just standing outside the building, looking at his phone, I think. 10:00, look who's leaving in their car; Vicky!" I exclaim.
Harry peered at the photo. "Oh."
"This means...that, that Vicky is innocent! She couldn't have been able to do anything to Tom because it would've been caught on camera! She was with me for all that time, I remember!"
Harry frowned. "Yeah...I guess so."
"We need to show this to Danny. He'll be so pleased that it wasn't his sister! And I think we should also go and apologise to Vicky, imagine getting blamed for something like this?! It's horrible!"
"I know, terrible. I'll just ring that police officer we talked to, just to check."
I nodded, watching him dial the number. "Hello." He said into the phone. "Vicky Jones. Ah yes...so it's true? Wow...I know." I tried to listen to the rest of the conversation until Harry hung up.
"Yeah." He whispered. "It wasn't her."
I sat on the sofa, suddenly realizing something. "Harry, I just realized...If it wasn't Vicky, then who the hell killed my best friend?!"...
X-X
Epilogue
Almost a year had gone since the brutal murder of my best friend, Tom Fletcher. Everything is perfect with Harry, as a special Christmas present, his parents bought us our own little cottage a few towns away from where we lived before. I'd got onto speaking terms with my mother, who sent me birthday/Christmas cards with money in and occasionally sent me little messages on Facebook, asking how I am. I'm so glad that she can finally accept my love for Harry. It'll be great the day when we're both brave enough to talk to each other in person.
As for Danny, he's much healthier and happier. He's now living fairly happily with his mother and sister again in a new town, starting a new life. He spent his last few days at rehab last month. It was such a great feeling to be able to let him out and see him so happy.
I'm still great friends with Ash, after finding out from the police that he didn't have anything to do with that night, we can now still be great friends, and I've even become good friends with his band mates too!
As for James Bourne and Izzy Johnston, nobody has heard or seen from them since that night. I don't believe they had anything to do with Tom's murder as I had my eye on them for a lot of the time that night.
My life seems to be so perfect now, but it's not. Have the police given up? I will not just forget about this, somebody killed my best friend and I intend to find out who...
To be continued...
A/N: So this story is finally finished! In case I didn't already tell you, I am writing a sequel to this, which will obviously be them around a year later. I'm not quite sure when I'll start writing that but hopefully it will be soon! I was also talking with Kbeto and I thought it would be a nice idea to write a little prequel about Tom and Danny's secret relationship for all those years. Let me know what you think about that, I'll gladly write one whenever possible :)
There are too many people that I need to thank for not only reading this, but for also helping me write this! A lot of your reviews and our conversations have sprung ideas into my head, so I thank you all for that! You know who you are :)
Watch out for the sequel coming soon... :) x