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Mia is still, abruptly, blinking as she glances around their little campsite.
Sean pauses with her, waiting for a cue — waiting for her to gesture to them, put them on the spot. See, this is the game.
"…Where's Moon?" She asks, again. It is the fourth time she's asked in the past week, like she refuses to believe it. "And Dowden? Sean, I know you two had an argument, but.." She toys with a hairtie on her wrist, frowning at her hands.
"I'm worried." Is the conclusion she reaches. It is a very simple conclusion, and yet, each time she speaks it into this frigid air, Sean knows what they have to do.
They're pretty sure they've lost the capability to feel as bad.
"I don't know." Sean insists. Like he hadn't watched them die, like a liar. It is all he can do, because — what really matters, now, is keeping Mia safe. And if she didn't want to remember the worst they'd ever had to experience, if she wanted to live in a world like that…
Who was he to deny her that? A useless nobody, that's who. So. That was easy.
"They'll…" But you can never utter the rest of the sentence, because Mia's hands are shaking. She tries to speak, but all that comes out now is sobs that wrack her whole body.
A part of you yearns, now more than ever, to lash out, make her painfully aware, because why is it you who has to know this alone? But of course, you deserve it, you've always deserved it, Sean. That's why…
Mia cries like there's something to cry about, like somehow, it's all come back to her. Of course it hasn't, Sean isn't stupid enough to think she can just remember. Their own memory was already trying to distort in on itself.
Mia sobs like she knows.
"…It'll be fine." Sean mutters, hesitating now to offer Mia any comfort. "They're fine." He breathes in and out, almost believes it.
"No," Mia begs, they must have said the wrong thing. "Sean, I don't get it! Sean—" She sobs into her hands.
"Sean, where's your eye?" Her voice cracks. "You… I don't… it was right there!!"
Oh. Sean had kind of assumed she'd just absorbed the fact they'd lost an eye and had at least that to remember.
That happened to you sometimes. You knew one thing, but that which surrounded it was foggy at best, completely erased at worst.
It's just— You don't want her to know.
Ignorant bliss.. that's better than this, isn't it? Of course it is. You want to keep Mia safe.
So, then, why are the next words out of your mouth…
"They're dead." You snap. "Gone! Moon's gone, Dowden's gone, they're all gone! You watched them die, you know," A shaky excuse for a laugh escapes. "Can't even give them the grace of remembering?"
The way Mia steps back, the way she falls apart, it's the worst thing you'll ever have to see.
"That's funny, y'know, 'cause… why do I have to remember it but you get to just… walk on like it's fiiiine?" You're shaking. Stop that. I don't really want to fight with you. "I hate you." Like a curse, a smear.
I think that's enough, though.
"I'm sorry, that—" My voice is nothing at all. "It's… I'm not…" Breathe in, and out.
Breathe.
"..I'm sorry." Repeat it. Repeat it again. Repeat it again and again until she knows just how sorry you are.
"They're fine. I— I lied." Lying, and lying, and lying… it's all you're good for, isn't it, Sean?
"…no, you didn't." Mia mumbles. "But… it's okay.. it's— gonna be okay." She has much better control over herself than you. Isn't that funny? "They'll be back." She says it like it's something possible.
Mia has always lived with her head adorned by the clouds, so, then, can you even be surprised?
Part of you wants to believe it.
Really.
That'd be something out of a wonderland, huh… everything as it was before…
Yearning, and yearning, you never knew how to stop that habit. Then, today, I will rip it out of you with force. Letting yourself be talked into a fool's dreams, really?
"Sure."
"They will." Mia insists. "I can tell."
You need to tear off the band-aid.