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Author's Note: This story takes place in a basically canon universe.

DISCLAIMER: The name "Jericho" and all character names and trademarks associated with the television program are the intellectual property of Junction Entertainment, Fixed Mark Productions, CBS Paramount Television and/or CBS Studios, Inc. The following story is a work of fan fiction intended solely as an intellectual exercise without profit motive. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be implied.

 Very Special Thanks to Skyrose, for all her feedback and encouragement.

 It could be any day.

She doesn't let herself say this out loud, or even form the words in her head, but she senses her thoughts hovering around it.

She sits in the back of the car, her window rolled down, and leans her head into the breeze that is just outside her door. The heat inside is oppressive, and she tries not to imagine walking out in that breeze. The sun in her hair, the sky stretching out in front of her in a way she worried it might never again. She could have walked like that, if it had been any day.

Her hand brushing against the heated metal of the outside of the car as she leans further, she fans herself, as though it were any day, but she knows it isn't. This is the day where everything changes, where everything is hanging, as if on a broken spider's web, about to fall into the wind. The air and the sun are just as they hoped it would be, as they sat shivering, hoping for another tomorrow, all those days in the months that led up to this day. And yet, knowing that they got through each of those months doesn't matter, on this day.

She breathes slowly, evenly, and reaches for the cross that hangs around her neck. She doesn't touch it for luck, or for remnants of the religion her parents passed on but barely seemed to understand themselves. It's not for reassurance from a dead mother who never reassured when she was alive. There is not much else to hold onto, but the hot metal of the car. She wants to hold on. She knows she looks calm, to the man sitting in the front seat, looked calm, to the people who glanced back as they drove the rest of the way across the fields, to the meeting place that was set. And though she will not admit that she wishes this were a different day, she admits it to herself, as she holds the necklace, that she is afraid.

Afraid of too many things to name, but she holds them all. The things that are happening now, in her hometown, things happening to the people she cares about. And in the midst of it all, she's afraid for him. He has gone, and while he promised to be back, with a light smile as he kissed her, she knows, and she saw that he knew it, the danger of what he was about to face.

She was afraid she'd lost him once. He had come back. She had been overjoyed. And she had learned, over time, that it was not so simple. She didn't have him back, the way he had been. Part of him was still at war. Part of him held in something else's grip. And today he faces that something, head on.

New Bern. That dreaded name they had come to repeat so carefully to each other. She would laugh to herself sometimes when she thought about how they had once driven there to satisfy a late night craving for waffles. Back then, leaning her elbow on the metal counter top at Uncle George's diner, swirling a spoon in ice cream, laughing and brushing a hand along his arm, she had never imagined it would be the place where he would be so damaged, where she would worry he had disappeared to forever.

The stone in her stomach now reminds her of the feeling she had that first day he didn't come back with the other men. She had smiled and nodded, tried to agree that he was still coping with his grief and guilt and everything else that had sent him away, and unable to face her, or them, or anyone in their town. But she had a stony feeling weighing on her, though she told herself she just missed him, and wished she could throw her arms around him, and not just Stanley. That was all.

Part of her had known, though. It wasn't all. Despite everything that had happened, the hard looks she felt from some people she passed, the hard words from his mother, from him even, she knew he loved her. Knew he wouldn't stay away forever, no matter the things that drove him away in the first place. She couldn't imagine him giving up on that, unless something else had gotten in his way. And so she had tried not to imagine all the horrible things that could be happening to him. She had held onto the one thing she knew for certain - she loved him. And she would trust it.

She tries to trust it now. Remembering that day, and that night she sat up trying not to picture him there, she feels as though she knows the fear - understands it - much better than she knew it that night, as it wracked her body. Then, her fears were simple and her hopes too. If he could just make it home. If he could just survive long enough to make it home. They would be alright.

He had come home. She had seen he was hurt, but her heart had leapt, because he was there, in front of her, close enough to touch his face. She threw her arms around him, and laughed, and cried, and pressed against every inch of him that she could, breathing in, and sighing at the relief that he was there, and in her arms, and safe. New Bern couldn't have him, he was hers, and she was his, and they would be alright.

She sits still, her arm leaning out of the car, and wonders how much she really understood at the time. Did she know it, that his battle with New Bern wasn't over, that he wasn't just hers? She knew, of course, that their town was still at war. She knew everything, every moment, was still precarious. But had she known, the hold those events in New Bern would still have? That it would be so deeply etched in him, in them, in everything for so long? She must have known some of it, she thinks now, but she hadn't let herself think on it then. She had committed herself to the moment. And held onto that one certain thing. Him, with her, a hope that they would be alright.

She held onto it in the days that followed, as the panic descended upon the town. As she boarded up her bar, as he rode off on horseback, as they listened to the cold, certain words on Main Street at night, and said goodbye again by day. As she crouched in the room in Town Hall, holding the unfamiliar rifle in her hands, as he stood over his dying father miles away. When she ran to his arms again, as the town bustled with chaotic life and death and an army they didn't recognize. When she took him home, supporting him the best she could, and they lay, crying in each other's arms. The world was as terrifying as it had ever seemed, and as tragic as it had ever been, but she was still certain of them, together, wordless and anguished and safe.

They aren't safe today. No one is. It has always been this way, really. Always, the world around them has loomed threateningly, at their doorstep, but they feel it more some days than others. Today is the worst. Once, she nailed boards to the tavern's windows to keep out invaders. Once, they barricaded the doors at Town Hall, their last refuge from their enemies. Today, she is barred from the tavern, and they are all barred from Town Hall. Today, their street is a centre of insurrection. So are many others. They are fugitives, and any step outdoors comes with a risk of being shot at.

Her mind strays to her friends, out in the open, in danger. She shakes her head. They're always in danger, of course, but today they're just able to be honest about it. Certainly, Mimi is in as much danger today as she was four days ago. But four days later, it is a danger they feel with a strange calm. Perhaps because they are faced with it, as such a plain truth. No more pretending things are alright, with this new country. So, while she watched her friends go with resignation, while she knows they are facing their task as full on as she faces this wait, she still worries for them.

She could have gone with them, but she stayed with him. And she could have stayed at the hideout, with the remaining rangers. He certainly wanted her to. She wanted to go as far as she could with him. It means waiting in this stifling car, knowing someone could spot them, take them away. So close by, she'll know sooner if something happens. But she'd rather be close.

Karl Walberg paces by the car, his rifle at his side, and Terry Pace, who has gotten out of the car, leans against the hood, folding and unfolding his hands. They probably should have stayed at the hideout too, but they are backup, in case someone needs to bring the message back to the hideout that something has happened to their temporary leader, meeting New Bern on the other side of the bend in the road. Karl and Terry are rangers, but she can tell they are nervous. She is the only one to sit still, and probably seems the least nervous. She's already done what she can. There is nothing else to do now. She sits still.

He has to do this. There is nothing more she can do until he does. All this time, she has done what she can, but she has known it is a battle he has to fight for himself. There were nights he let her help, sat face to face with her on the seat by the window, or curled against her under the sheets, and talked to her about all the things he'd seen, the things he'd done, the things someone had done to him. There were nights he needed to do it alone, where he sat rigid on the edge of the bed, in silence, or paced the rug in the living room. And she knew she couldn't do anything, but let him face it in his own time.

She is proud of him now, as she sits, thinking of how he is facing it. One of the many things she feels, but it is the one she tries to hold onto. Not the worry she will lose him to this again, for good. That she will lose him to something inside himself. This is her biggest fear, beyond all the others she's trying to keep at bay. It took them so long, and so much struggle, to reach the place they are now. She remembers those early nights, after she got him back, as she imagines him face to face with Constantino now. She remembers him flinching at her hand between his bare shoulder blades. Remembers holding his head in her lap the first night he told her everything. The one night she felt hot tears sting her eyes as she traced her fingers along all the scars, and then her lips, kissing the marks they had made on him. Taking him back from them. They had both cried that night, in the dark, but as they breathed together, it was in relief, that his body was his, and theirs, and not someone else's to torture and mistreat.

She shared with him, that night and many others, what she could. Her own stories, pains endured, for whatever they were worth. Her own touch, her skin against his, hoping its familiarity was a comfort. Her silence, as she waited for him, to be ready, when he needed time. Her laugh. She knew, had been through enough herself, to remember that sometimes you needed to laugh amidst tears and silences.

She smiles faintly now, amidst the fears and worries of this bright, breezy day, and leans back in her seat, her hand still against the small metal emblem at her neck. Her mind is wandering to one specific night that doesn't seem to fit into all these other worries. A night that seems insignificant in this bigger story of his life and her life and their friends and their town.

She had seen his ongoing battle with his demons earlier in the night. He had come home with a dark look on his face, and she'd known, it was about New Bern. Ever since his attempts to get justice for his father had been thwarted earlier in the week, he had been carrying a heavy look on his face, even more pronounced than it had been since the ASA had first intervened in the battle between the towns. He'd been angry at her, a little bit, and she'd been angry at him, a little, but they'd both been glad he had come home and the worst had not happened, so they had let it rest until that night, several days later.

She doesn't remember much about their conversation that night. She remembers him shouting, and apologizing, and remembers that she didn't apologize. The conversation must have centred on New Bern but seemed to journey through some of the other things they talked about in relation to the new government layering new worries upon their still painful scars. They probably sat on the bed, leaned in as their voices grew softer, his hand gripping her knee, her arm across his back. It ended, as it often did, with their arms wrapped around each other, whispering other words and then breathing, with no words at all. This is not what she remembers now. It is a moment, hours later.

She'd woken slowly, aware of a faint sound, besides his breathing against her ear. She'd listened a moment, her eyes closed, until she understood. Rain. On the roof. It had been silly, but she'd been excited. She turned, gently shaking his shoulder, whispering his name. His eyes had opened quickly, with the startled look they often had now, but she didn't pay attention this night. Propping up an elbow, he surveyed her expression, smiling himself. He'd raised his eyebrows in the faint light.

"Rain," she'd whispered, looking up at the ceiling. He'd looked too, smiling again as he looked back at her. Without saying anything else, they both got up and went to the window. The bedroom window looked out on Main Street, lit now with newly powered lights. They could see the rain, hitting the window, and hear it, against the panes, and the roof.

They had shared another glance, and without words, he had gone to put on sweat pants and a t-shirt. She'd thrown a jacket over pyjamas, and they'd gone down the stairs, through the hall and the front of the bar, and out the front door.

She hadn't been sure he would understand, without her explaining, but he had, and they stood together in the first rain of the year. She turned her head to the skies, feeling the cold water hitting her face and seeping into her clothes, and she could see him doing the same thing, out of the corner of her eye. She shivered, and laughed, and held her arms out, and he reached for her hand.

She laughed again, and he laughed, and neither needed to explain why they were laughing, two grown adults standing in the rain, under the lights of a deserted Main Street as the town of Jericho slept. It was the first rainfall of the season, and there had been times for both of them when they had wondered if they would see it together.

As they both began to shiver, they stood closer, and he reached both hands to the sides of her head, entangling his fingers in her hair, weighed down by an increasing amount of rain. She put her hands to his waist, holding on, their hips touching, as they leaned in. As they had first done that night so many months before, on a crowded Main Street with newly lit lights and a fall breeze, they kissed.

Everything seemed easy then, in that moment. Despite all the pain and frustration and fear she knew was bound to surface again and again, as they both tried to cope with the strange world their town was being forced to join, with the changes in their lives, the demons he'd battle and the things she would have to let go, it all seemed easy, in the rain, alone with him. Along with all of those, she still had one she could be certain of.

She closes her eyes for a moment, feeling the heat in the car that is so removed from that cold rain, and keeps herself from wishing she could go back. She knows that you can never go back and it does no good to wish otherwise. And they are moving forward today. She doesn't know the direction, she doesn't know how it will end, how things will look in twenty four hours, but she knows she can't stop it. She can only hope it is alright. That she still has him, by the end. She knows there's a distinct possibility she won't. Her mind will inevitably run through the threats she knows are looming overhead, the man he stands face to face with at this very moment, who caused him so much anguish, the choice he'll have to make, and the larger enemy waiting to swoop in and take him away forever. These are all there in her mind, but she holds onto something else too. She trusts him, who he is, and what they have. That's all she can do, but it's enough.

She doesn't know how long it is that she stares at the field outside. The sun seems just as bright overhead when she finally sees the truck returning, approaching over the same hill from which she watched it vanish earlier . She sits up, and leans her head to see the occupants of the truck as they come closer. He sits in the front, a sombre look on his face. She opens her door, and steps out into the breeze. She wants to smile, that he has come back again, is not lost or maimed, but she meets his solemn look with one of her own as he steps out of the vehicle and comes towards her.

He stands in front of her, and though the others, Karl and Terry, come around them, he looks at her as he speaks. He tells them that no deal was made, that they're going back to the hideout until they can make another plan. The others step back, towards the car, their heads hung in the heat. She stands, staring up at him still, not saying anything, and he says nothing back. They both sense the weight of the silence but she doesn't know how to begin.

She reaches a hand instead, brushing it down the sleeve covering his arm, until she finds his hand. "Eric," she says. She raises her eyebrows.

He squeezes her hand in his. His mind is heavy with everything he's seen and everything he knows they will have to do, but he wants to smile when he looks at her face, and when he tells her. "I couldn't do it."

She nods, and gives him a small smile, though her eyes have become bright as she continues to look questioningly at him.

"Not because I felt so angry looking at him, or because I hate him so much. It...it wasn't really about that stuff."

She nods again, and he continues.

"You know, I saw all the things I was expecting to see when I looked at him. The man who tortured me, killed my father, did God knows what else to how many people." He sighs, closing his eyes briefly, and continues. "But I saw something else. When I looked, on a different level. Something I never want to become. There are some things I think you've got to hold onto, no matter what. Or what else do you have?"

She nods, with conviction this time, and smiles, though her face is a mixture of emotions. She can see on his face, despite everything else, the triumph that he walked away from that meeting as he did. "I think you're right," she says quietly.

They share a brief, bracing smile. They know little of what is ahead but have some idea that it will be precarious. But they are certain again, of what they have, in this moment.

"I'm glad," she adds.

He nods in acknowledgement and then gives an ironic chuckle as he takes both her hands in his. "I have no idea what we're going to do next, but at least we've got our integrity huh? That, and each other."

She smirks. "Yeah, what more do we need?"

He holds a hand to her forehead and quickly brushes it through her curls. Not the slow, lingering way he so often does when they are alone somewhere, in her back room or their living room or a deserted Main Street, but it seems to carry as much meaning in this moment. "Whatever happens, you know..." he starts.

"Yeah," she nods, reaching for his hand as it drops from her hair. "You too."

They stand in silence a moment, staring into each other's eyes, ignoring the summer sky they didn't know they would see together.

"Should we go, then?" he asks.

She catches what he is asking, but raises her eyebrows anyway. He takes a breath, seeming to become more sure as he breathes out, and gives her a nod.

She doesn't need a moment more, as she gives a nod of her own. "They need us."

"Sure?" he asks. He knows her well enough to know the answer, but wants to give them both this small moment. A still before the storm.

She closes her eyes briefly, opens them, and smiles resolutely. "I'm sure."

He glances over at the others, who are waiting, now sitting or standing as still as she was earlier.

"Karl can drop us off," he says, motioning to the car.

Squeezing his hand one last time, she steps towards the car and opens the door. She climbs in and he follows her. She leans so his shoulder is pressed against hers, and Karl, eager to get out of the sun and back to the safe shadows of the garage, starts the car. As they begin to drive towards their next task, they don't say anything, but feel the certainty in that one connection, that one thing they still have.

 

 


 

 

They reach the edge of the property and he tells them to pull over. She says that they can walk from here. The men in the front seat are relieved, though they pretend not to be, and drive away quickly as soon as the couple have clambered out of the backseat.

They stand for a moment in silence, staring across a field dotted with yellow. They can see the house, and he knows their destination is not far past it. He feels as though it lasts a long time, but it must only be a few seconds in reality. He feels her hand on his wrist, and reaches his arm around her shoulders. They are looking straight ahead, and not at each other, for as long as they can, but she turns all too soon, and he turns to look at her.

"Ready?" she asks softly, slowly bringing her gaze up to his.

He nods, swallowing, looking down at the ground between them and back into her eyes. She smiles, shakily, and he nods again. She blinks a few times and he lets out a breath. They reach for each other, embracing one more time, in a kiss that seems, like the moment of watching the field, to last longer than it must have in real life. They step apart, she looks down, and he keeps his eyes on her as they turn towards the field. They begin walking.

They follow the fence along the fields, and he can't help but remark on how beautiful a day it is. It's the first time he's noticed the sky, since going into hiding four days ago. He couldn't bring himself to think of the weather earlier, as he prepared himself to stare his father's killer in the eye, but now, having walked away from his meeting, walking towards his friends and with her beside him, he can't help but breathe in the sunlit day.

They walk in silence. He wishes he could tell her, all the things running through his mind, but it seems like it's too late for that now. The only really important thing is where they are going, and that they are going together. Only a small part of him wishes he could have asked her to go back to safety. Much as he wishes she were somewhere away from this, he knows this is something she has to do, and wants to do, as much as he does. He could never ask her, and never try to stop her, and he would never want to. She looks determined, as she steps through the grass, and those are her friends on the hill too. He can't help but smile, seeing her carefully brave expression every time he glances over at her. The wind is tousling her hair, which is catching the midday light, and he wishes he could stare at her for longer. But this walk will end soon.

He tries not to think about all the things that will end soon. This does not seem like the day it should all be over, this beautiful sky above him and this woman he loves beside him. But he knows life happens the way it does, and not the way it seems like it should. The only things he can hold onto are the small, real moments like this, and hope they're enough.

This past year has been like this. A slow, sad march towards an unknown, terrifying future, punctuated with some things that make it worth moving forward. For him, it was her. He knows she's the only one who would understand, why this year was terrible and not, at the same time. It's not that they didn't feel the cold, the fear, the pain that everyone else felt, and the guilt and confusion that was all their own. It was there underneath everything. But along with it came a different feeling, a kind of exhilaration. The world ended, and they began their life together.

He can feel the sweat starting to bead along his neck, can see the wind sweeping her hair and clothes, but he can almost imagine being back in the apartment, one of those winter nights, letting his exhilaration take over and banishing everything else that plagued them those days. Before, her apartment had been a hiding place, a place he found himself returning to again and again, against all better judgements, including hers. And then a place he couldn't stay away from. Hearing her laugh, mid-detailed-explanation of his day, smiling over her own stories of another day at the bar as they chopped and sautéed another one of their experiments in the kitchen, or reading a ridiculous news item out loud, curled in the arm chair in the living room. Holding her against him, dancing, barefoot, to her music collection, hearing her sing the words she knew, and hum the ones she didn't, and he'd join in on nights they opened a bottle of wine. It was like he was discovering something he'd never looked for. Though he had known, they had both known, it was wrong in every reasonable way, and dangerous, it had been home too. A refuge. And he couldn't ignore it.

After the bombs, after he made the choice to give up everything else he'd gathered around him and stand with her out in the open, it became a real refuge. It was their refuge from the world. Not from the awkward acceptance or outright disdain they faced outside, but the world itself, with all its dangers and heartaches. Though many nights they talked about serious matters, what he'd seen in Rogue River, what she'd thought when Gracie Leigh was murdered across the street, what to do when they ran out of food and fuel or what to do if she had to close the bar, it was also one of the only places he laughed. They still experimented in the kitchen, trying to stretch what they had to keep them going. They still told stories, going further back into their lives than ever before. They still danced, sometimes, and now and then she'd sing something, quietly, as they huddled under a camping blanket, staring into the tiny fireplace.

He wishes he hadn't been thinking about the apartment. He watches her instead, trying to focus on the moment at hand, memorizing every line, shape, and colour of her hair, her face, her body as she walks, squinting her eyes in the sun, smiling now and then as she glances over at him.

He guesses he always knew she was beautiful, but he isn't sure when he started to see something else, in her eyes, her smile, the way she moves. He isn't even sure when he realized he loved her. He doesn't remember a moment of clarity. Just a time he felt he needed to be near her, and that it was growing. And, as he imagined her when he woke up in the morning, caught himself wanting to call her to hear her voice while he sat at his desk at work, pictured her reaction to a story he overheard, it only seemed natural to remark to himself he loved her. It was like a flame, powerful and unpredictable and unstoppable, building up before he'd realized, when he was helpless to stop it. Though it was dangerous, he held onto it, because it was something he'd never felt, he realized, the same way in his life.

He'd made mistakes. Lots of them. Done things that hurt people, including her. He carried the guilt, but held onto her too. Held on because while everything else got confusing, impossible, she was still clear to him. He loved her, and as he'd told his father once, he had to trust that. Despite everything else that happened, she held onto him too. This year, his world was rocked to its core in every way. He saw horrors in a hospital in Rogue River, watched his father hold his head up against a crushing defeat by a newcomer. Watched his town grow darker, colder, barer.

The changes happened outside town, inside town, and in them too. He didn't look at himself in the mirror as much anymore, but he saw it all on her, and he was sure she saw it on him. They grew wearier, slimmer, as the food supplies dwindled. Many nights they were too exhausted to do anything but lay, their weary, sharp edged bodies together in the dark. Their lips chapped and bled, and it sometimes hurt to smile. Their kisses were softer, their laughs quieter. Her hair, that he had ached to touch so many times when he saw her across a room, grew duller, but he still ran his hands through it. And she was still beautiful. He told her she always would be, and she laughed, though kept from saying that nothing lasts for always, as he knew she was thinking.

He wishes he could stop and stand here and make it stretch into always. He's trying, like usual, to keep the future out of his head. Not question whether they'll arrest her too, make a clean sweep of them all, or just take him. Where she'll go, where he'll be, trying to imagine her alive and not think anymore about her future in a town in ruins, or wherever they both end up. How often will he picture her face, when he's far away from here? In New Bern, he tried not to. It had been too painful, picturing anything and anyone he loved. But she had forced her way into his mind every now and then, in painful, bright flashes that left him feeling both heavier than he had felt before the flash, and warmer, in a strange way.

She stops walking, bends down at the edge of the fencepost. He watches her touch the ground with amusement at first, a mild moment detached from the life and death struggles around them. She is picking some of the yellow and white wildflowers that grow there, gathering stems in her hand and balancing on one knee. She turns and looks up at him. He doesn't raise his eyebrows, merely smiles, knowing full well what they are for, but he nods as she says "For Bonnie."

She ventures farther into the field, adding different flowers to her bouquet, at home crouching in the high grasses in her jeans. Her errand is serious but he feels he almost wants to chuckle. He will think of her, he realizes. Often. His penance in New Bern was to turn in on himself, away from all those he loved. It seemed the only choice at the time, but after seeing just how far away he could go in that jail cell, and seeing what it took to come back, he knows he will never keep her, or any of them, from his mind again. He will try not to imagine her in a place like that cell, but he'll see her as he sees her today, walking forward to their friends and their fate with a resolute smile as the sun and wind touch her face.

They are nearing the yellow house now, and beyond it, he can see the Richmond family graveyard, their friends specs against the horizon. He doesn't look at the house too clearly. He aches for his friends, and what he has seen happening to them over the past four days. He knows, his sacrifice, and hers, don't seem as much compared to what happened in the Richmonds' living room four nights ago. There were imaginings of a future once, on that porch, in those rooms, that have scattered in the winds now.

She leans again, to add to her bouquet, and he sighs. His plans with her had never been grandiose. They'd seemed so far off and hazy in their early days, when he'd held a vague sense of failure at first, and then, after the bombs, they had involved survival. But some mornings, they'd sit looking out at the snow, some nights they'd lean propped up with pillows, and they'd play a game, things they might do if life ever calmed down again. Some were simple. Take the horses out on a weekday and not tell anyone where they are going. Go swimming in the lake, by moonlight, at the dock overgrown with plants that the teenagers avoid. Some were whimsical, and they laughed. Putting their feet in the ocean. Standing amidst skyscrapers in a city. If there were any left. Some were more long term, and they threw them out casually, smiled, and said nothing more except to chuckle cautiously.

She's looking away from the house too, keeping her eyes on her friends, growing closer. He's proud of her, this moment. He always has been, despite everything else. He hasn't been proud of himself. But now, he can only think that for all the heartache it will be to lose, when Beck's men finally catch up to them, he will be proud, to have stood with her, and with them, once they reach their destination. He breathes in, and out, and feels a strange sense of calm. The building they live in is closed to them, the rooms in which they once whispered hazy futures is under the control of their enemies, but it was never really the house that gave them refuge, he realizes.

She holds the flowers up to her face, breathing in, and though he knows, he will have to tell his friends what he has seen in a few minutes, and make his stand, that he has no time left to tell her everything he thinks as he stares back at her, he wants to say her name, suddenly.

"Mary."

She raises her eyebrows, a small smile on her face. She's steeling herself, and the weight of everything is held between them.

He stops walking for a moment, long enough to stand facing her but never enough to say all that he wants. "They're beautiful," he motions, towards the flowers in her hands.

Her smile grows. She understands what he means. She gives a small half nod. Her eyes have become bright again, as he suspects his own have too, and she reaches her hand to rest on his arm.

"We're okay," she says. Nothing about what they will be, but that hardly matters now. He nods.

With one last, bracing smile between them, she squeezes his arm and lets go. They begin the climb, the last few steps to their destination, their faces turned to the wind and the sun and their friends. The direction they always moved, sooner or later, in a crisis. It isn't the end, or the beginning. It could be any day.

 

 



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