On Laying to Rest

[PoeticJustice]

Alice White had walked away from the field after Marner made his announcement. She had walked through the bloody field and picked up a particular body. The pipe was shoved in her belt; her bat pushed down the back of her tactical vest.

No matter how many times that you told me you wanted to leave
No matter how many breaths that you took, you still couldn't breathe
No matter how many nights that you lie wide awake to the sound of poison rain
Where did you go? Where did you go? Where did you go?
As days go by, the night's on fire

She carried the woman into the forest by the lake, setting it on the ground. She tromped up back the hill, fetching a shovel from a shed by shadegrove. And then back down the hill. Her eyes were red from crying, but her expression was focused. Her headphones were around her neck. They played loudly into the air around her.

Tell me would you kill to save a life?
Tell me would you kill to prove you're right?
Crash, crash, burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground

She began to dig, her arms shaking. She didn't notice the tears rolling down her cheeks, just worked with the single-minded focus that defined her. Her eyes stared at the ground, and shovel after shovel of dirt was moved.

No matter how many deaths that I die I will never forget
No matter how many lives that I live, I will never regret
There is a fire inside of this heart
And a riot about to explode into flames
Where is your God? Where is your God? Where is your God?

Her back ached. Her arms quivered. The tattoo of the candle on her forearm was smudged with dirt and blood. She pulled the blue rag out of her hair to wipe her face with it. She was still crying. She kept working. Blue collar to the end.

Do you really want...
Do you really want me?
Do you really want me dead,
Or alive to live a lie?
Tell me would you kill to save a life?
Tell me would you kill to prove you're right?
Crash, crash, burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground

Once it was deep enough, she hefted the body with a noise of effort, trying to ignore the screaming in her mind and the uncomfortable tightness in the air around her. She had screamed so much in the last few days. Her body shivered, drained and exhausted but needing to finish her work. She dragged the body into the makeshift grave.

The promises we made were not enough (Never play the game again)
The prayers that we have prayed were like a drug (Never gonna hit the air)
The secrets that we sold were never known (Never sing a song for you)
The love we had, the love we had, we had to let it go.
(Never giving in again, Never giving in again)

Then it was the process of covering it. Again, shovel after shovel of dirt. She was so tired. Tears streaked the mud on her cheeks.

Tell me would you kill to save a life?
Tell me would you kill to prove you're right?
Crash, crash, burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground

She slumped to the ground when it was done, dropping the shovel and leaning against a tree. She just stared, blankly staring at the mount of dirt as her headphones spewed music into the ether.

[Owle Isohos]

"Alice?"

Exhausted and beaten to within an inch of her life, Kelsey had trudged back into the diner, intending to collapse on a couch and not move for a month or until someone dragged her off it, whichever came first. She'd gotten a good start. Someone had patched up her wounds, sewn up the fresh bullet holes in her coat while she rested for the first time in what felt like days.

And then she'd noticed that Alice wasn't there. Alice, who'd dragged her off the battlefield when the Vigil was about to claim her life. Alice, who knew these people, who had fought and cried for them. Alice, who had first given her the faith to carry on in this place of whispers.

So she'd gotten off the couch and gone back to the bloody field, but found nothing. The wounded medic continued her search, eventually ending up by the lake. The uncomfortable tightness in the air told Kelsey she was getting close. It also told her she shouldn't get closer.

She did, anyway, after she'd given that tightness time to subside. After Alice had finished her grim task, Kelsey finally found her friend. She noted the blank stare, the shovel, the dirt. She stepped forward only cautiously, ready to back off and give Alice space if space was needed. Her voice was soft and concerned, her expression worried.

"Alice?"

[PoeticJustice]

It probably spoke to Alice's current state that Kelsey managed to sneak up on her. The word cutting through the quiet and the music made the psychic jump, spinning and reaching for the bat by her side. A sudden crackling in the energy around them as she whirled up into a crouch.

Kelsey. It was Kelsey. It visibly took her a few minutes to process that information. The bat was lowered. She blinked. She slumped. She looked back to the grave.

"I didn't think, you know? She asked me to kill her and I didn't hesitate. I just..." she blinked and her voice trailed off. She stared blankly.

"I've always been so good at following orders."

[Owle Isohos]

Kelsey froze when Alice jumped, standing stock still while the psychic processed. It wasn't until Alice lowered her bat that the medic dared move again.

She looked from Alice to the grave, and bit down on all her questions. Alice needed a friend right now, not an investigator.

"I'm sorry."

It wasn't enough, but what else could she say?

Kelsey was quiet for a long moment, remembering a cyborg that had curled up in agony beside her, begging for death.

"I...I would have hesitated, but I don't know if that would have been right. You honored her wishes. And it sucks, and it hurts, and it's not fair; none of this is. But..." She shook her head. "You did what she asked. And I think she'd have thanked you for that. For not hesitating."

[PoeticJustice]

"But would she have been right to thank me? What if I'd knocked her out and dragged her back here? Could I have talked to her? Made her see reason?" she stared dully forward, gazing at the grave.

She leaned back against a tree and pulled her knees to her chest.

"I failed them all. But I don't know what I could have done otherwise," she whispered, her voice cracking.

[Owle Isohos]

"I don't know."

She followed Alice's gaze, staring at the grave as if it could provide her with the answers. After a long moment, she sat down beside her friend, tentatively reaching out, offering to put an arm around her.

"They failed you," she said quietly. "They failed you when they wouldn't let you continue Ashmore's work. They failed you from the first moment they treated you like a weapon instead of like a person. They failed you when they refused to listen to any sort of reason." She shook her head. "They left you in a position where you couldn't do otherwise. Fuck them."

[PoeticJustice]

Alice leaned into her, just kind of slumping over. The mud of her face was streaked. She rubbed at it absently.

"No. See," she whispered hoarsely. "It wasn't... them that failed me. It was their organization. Large and faceless and inhuman. They were people, people like you and me who Believed in their Leaders. Believed they were doing Good and Right. And they're dead and we killed them..."

She stared in silence for a long few seconds. "That's why I think I failed them. Not the Vigil, but the people who make it up..." she finished.

[Owle Isohos]

Kelsey was silent for a long moment. She held Alice, trying to sort out comfort from all the things that weren't.

"...They were killing us..."

She shook her head. "That doesn't make it right, that we killed them. I wish we could have done this without anyone having to die. But...you tried, didn't you? I wasn't there, for the negotiations, but I know we tried to talk them out of all this. Up until the end, we tried to find a way that wasn't fighting. Didn't we?" Kelsey looked to Alice for confirmation.

"In the end, they made a choice. I don't think you failed them. You tried to talk them out of it; they didn't listen. You can say that it was the organization that chose to fight us, that it was the organization that did those things to you, but...that's like me saying it was the town that fought and killed them, like I wasn't there, swinging a bat at any that came close. Like I wasn't fixing people's arms so they could go kill more of them. I made my choice. The people who make up the Vigil, they made their choices, too."

Realizing that more anger than comfort had crept into her words, Kelsey sighed. "...You can't take responsibility for anyone else's choices. Just yours."

[PoeticJustice]

"They were killing us and we were killing them," she countered, shaking her head. "Everyone on that field was fighting for their life. We tried to convince Vanguard, one man. Vanguard took our request to their leader. But we did not sit down and debate the better judgement of every single person on that field. I don't think we debated it with any of them..."

She pulled away a little, sitting up and staring forward. "I do not blame myself for their chooses, but I blame myself for not changing their mind. For not... even trying. Because I didn't. I made a choose and I fell in line and I fought."

She put her face in her hands and shivered.

[Owle Isohos]

"So did they."

Kelsey let Alice go when she pulled away, let her take whatever space she needed.

"It's hard to sit down and debate with someone who's in the middle of shooting you. Hard to change someone's mind when they've beaten you down on the field and they're pressing a blade into your back. I have no doubt you'd have tried to convince them not to fight, if you could've. They didn't give you a chance. They didn't give any of us a chance."