Chapter Text
When you stand far enough at the shore, you convince yourself you can see it - the rise of smoke, off in the distance. There are cities out there, places you can’t reach, but you still maintain the illusion of them being the slightest bit accessible. There are things out there that you sometimes fool yourself into believing that you can simply hold onto, draw close and keep safe.
It’s only unfortunate that that, precisely, is what it is not - believable.
You can do nothing. And you are left alone...
~*~
There are years added onto him as he leans forward, sinking to sit in the sand. He wants to be alone - you allow him that privilege. For now. But for the purposes of safety, you keep where you are, your quietly unseen vantage point. You survey the other - you survey the horizon.
It’s been anywhere from several days to a few weeks. You’re not sure which - internal tracking has gone a bit off-kilter. But your guess lands on ‘several days’ from the estimates you’ve made, marking scores on the sides of trees, on the sides of your housings, anywhere you can make them. You’ve re-found a few, though they may have been added to by the fauna that might still be wandering within the area.
There is a minute connection , somewhere across the seas - it fades, nearly instantaneous. Just as you go to reach for it again, Jake stands, having either sat there for a few minutes, or a few hours. Hours, you estimate, processing the atmosphere, the slow darkening of everything around you and him both.
You rise as well. And suddenly, he is your only focus, as it should be.
He’s not saying a thing - which is comforting, considering your own ‘vocal’ range is limited and strained. He barely reacts to your presence, minus a slight cast of gaze to your presence. Emotions: irritability. Slight patterns of comfort masked beneath, if at nothing else than the fact that he still had another presence on this island.
You escort him to his room, and linger for a few minutes, before retreating to the foot of the stairs. You listen to echoes of breath, of pacing and clattering, of rustling and crashing. He picks up a computer and hurls it at a wall in frustration.
... you remain. As you always will, so long as you can help it, ever-faithful.
But he so wanted the same from the others - and it is there that you disappoint, in simply not being as he wants.
You wait until he settles, resting the night, moving a little further upward, sitting sentry just below the threshold to his room.
The earth spins eternally quiet round the sun, for there has been not a noise since then. And together, you and he make the exception.