Page 80 of Stoker's Serenity

"I know that after today, it may not seem like it," I said with a heavy sigh, "but, hell, yeah. Citizens been letting her down for her whole life. We're something different. We understand loyalty, we get brotherhood and we don't give up. If I give up on her now, how am I any better than any of the people that have come before? Short answer is, I wouldn't be. So I'ma stay the course."

"My man." Cutter nodded and glowed with pride, and I gave him a nod.

"You got a good man, there," Dragon said, nodding in agreement.

I could see I’d passed whatever test. I didn’t much like being tested. I wasn’t a fuckin’ hang-around green recruit. I wasn’t a fuckin’ prospect. I’d earned my goddamned patch a long time ago. My indignation was tempered, though, by the fact that, clearly, my captain, and Dragon and his crew, had my lady’s best interests at heart.

"Thank you kindly, Dragon," Cutter replied and he looked back at me. "I surely do."

I threw my captain some chin and he inclined his head. I was about to say thanks, but Serenity’s melodic voice permeated the dark outside the ring of light thrown by the campfire.

“Stoker?”

“Oh, shit, hey, babe.” I handed my bass off to Marlin sitting nearby and he took it from me, no questions asked. I got up as she stepped slightly more into the light where she could be seen. She looked small in my oversized tee, wrapped in the throw from yesterday.

“You doing okay?” I asked, cupping her elbows.

“Can we talk?” she asked timidly, her dark eyes troubled, a storm of emotion behind them.

I nodded. “Yeah, come on.” I took her gently and steered her back in the direction of the lodge. When we were alone, walking back to our room, I asked her, “How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” she replied, and the way she held herself was stiff as we walked down the carpeted corridor.

“Can you expand on that a little?” I asked, and tried a gentle smile on her.

She looked up at me, a quick, solemn glance and said, “Head feels funny.”

“Doc put a sedative in you. He’s a real-life doctor and has helped Faith in the past, so I trusted him to do right by you, or I wouldn’t have let him,” I said.

“I-I-I don’t know what happened. One minute I was in the kitchen, and the next thing I knew I was back in the school, in the hallway, hearing the booms and running…” She trailed off and stopped outside our room’s door, gazing up the hallway helplessly.

I waited her out, waited to see what she would say or what she would do next and when nothing came for several strings of silent heartbeats, I broke first.

“Talk to me, baby,” I breathed quietly into the hallway.

Her dark eyes, so full of pain, flicked to mine.

“He was in the cafeteria… I watched him die. He killed himself because of me.”

Her face crumpled and she broke down. I pulled her tight against the shelter of my body and smoothed a hand over her back, crooning into her dark hair.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you, now.”

“It’s not okay,” she cried. “It will never be okay. It’s all my fault. I couldn’t pretend, I couldn’t keep the horror off my face and he saw it and he killed himself right in front of me. Turned the shotgun on himself and – oh, God! I loved him so much and I didn’t know! I should have known, but I didn’t know!”

What do you do when the person you love the most let’s out a piercing cry like that? When she lets out the sound of their heart disintegrating, right in front of you?

I didn’t know what to do, all I knew is that I hurt for her. I hurt with her, and I didn’t know what to do either, but I ran on pure instinct. I held her. I let her cry, and I let us both into the shelter of our room to keep her away from any curious onlookers coming to see what the noise was, or who might be heading for their own rooms.

I shut the door behind us and took her by the arms, taking a step back, making her look at me.

“Nothing he did was your fault,” I spoke clearly.

She shook her head violently. “He said he did it for me…”

“Be that as it may, just because somebody does something for you doesn’t mean that it’s your Huckleberry, Orchid. He did it for him, he did it in spite of you. If he’d asked if it was what you wanted, what would you have said?”

“No!” she cried.

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