Years passed before Lana visited the graveyard again, but time couldn't touch such a place. Breeze stirred the trees to reverent whispering; white clouds huddled. Her heels clicked slow on walkway stones, back and forth, one tranquil row at a time.

    She always brought daisies, a leafy bundle of them. Daisies blossomed in the dull sands no one spared a glance for -- they seemed sincere. She hoped to be.

    Most of them went to victims, the swarms of names with sympathy tied on, people who had to be more than their crime scene but Lana would never know. Sometimes the daisies paled beside grander arrangements, roses' curls and lilies' sprawl and showers of lacy fern. Sometimes the daisies lay on ragged grass, alone. Lana read each headstone, turned each name on her tongue and wondered if she had any right to remember.

      Neil's grave brought memories back, visions of his easy smile, the soft drawl of his words and the ghost-scents of leather and blood.  She knelt to pull fine-rooted weed sprouts, and left a daisy in their place. He would have appreciated the simplicity of just one, nestled against the headstone for small shelter.

    A maple stood outside the low fence, solemn. It hurt, failing to know where Mia rested -- another graveyard, another city, anywhere in the world -- but Lana looked up at the light-dappled canopy and thought of fall, the red-blazing maples marking school's beginning, classes, late nights poring over books. She lay a daisy on a root's swell, and hoped hard that the gesture counted. 

    Close, a few clicking steps back along the walkway, was her parents' grave. Those memories were time-faded but no less warm. Two daisies had twisted together, a spiral distinct from the other flowers, and they were laid where they belonged.

    Bruce's headstone stabbed Lana hard with guilt -- but she deserved as much.  She closed her eyes and saw the friendly glitter of his dark eyes, felt daisy's thin stem leave her fingers, couldn't shut out out the feel of lifting stiff weight.

    The names marched on, the bundle dwindled. Lana searched her heavy heart for anything missed and that was when it seized her gaze, the grave in the lot's corner: Damon's. She knew, of course she knew but the letters carved in stone were strange like a trick of her mind, the grass too plain to belong. He stood larger than life itself. He lingered in her dreams, dark and smiling, always watching; legendary, the headstone said and it was true -- she couldn't mourn a man who hadn't died.

    Breeze murmured too loud. Lana had run out of names, of fond thoughts, the daisies stared at nothing and their stems mutely crackled in her grip. She threw them onto his grave and left. Years still weren't long enough.