part 2 of lost & found...
❝ He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead. ❞
- Oscar Wilde
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"JESUS CHRIST, JOEL...WHAT'D YOU DO?" Tommy asked, his eyes shifting from Joel, who couldn't even look Tommy in the eye as he pretended to be very preoccupied with the dirty guitar in his hands...He wanted to bring it back, to Jackson...To Ellie.
August sat beside him, elbows on her knees as she stared down at her intertwined fingers, ashamed. She'd forgotten about it, what happened in the hospital. From time to time, it seemed to never cross her mind but then, in the dead of night, when she couldn't sleep; it haunted her, the brutality her hands were capable of. It haunted her.
She gulped down the guilt and the pain and the tears as she looked into Tommy's eyes, knowing Joel couldn't find it in himself to answer, "We saved her."
Tommy stares at the two of them, in complete shock as the realization hits him, "Goddamn...That's...That's a lot."
August tried to silence the gunshots, the screams of men as she shot them with the gun in her hands, tried to block out the silence after all the violence they'd done, the silence that screamed of future guilt. At the time, they didn't know just how much the memories will eat at them, like crows. But here they are now, eyes looking at anything but at Tommy because this was the first soul to actually know what happened in that hospital. What really happened anyway.
"What does Ellie know?" Tommy asked further and Joel took in a breath through his chapped lips and August watched as he ran his fingers through his salt and pepper beard.
"We told her they just ran some tests. I told her that her immunity meant nothin'." He didn't want to blame August, he couldn't bring himself to. In his mind, it was all him. He'd take the blame any day, just to stop that look on August's face, that damned frown that made him want to burn the entire world for causing it.
"She believe you?"
"Didn't say otherwise."
Tommy scoffed, more in disbelief rather than disappointment and stood up, "We should head back."
August followed him straight away, needing nothing more than to just head back—Leave this room and everything that was said and leave it there. Right there and pray to God it doesn't follow them back to Jackson.
But for some reason, she knew. She knew that was the most foolish thought she'd ever had.
The second she'd look Ellie in the eyes, it'll all come back again. All of it.
Before August could walk away, Joel held her wrist and pulled her back.
"Hey..." He said it in that rough, comforting tone he used every time he knew August was seconds away from tears, "It's okay." August turned around to face him, lips quivering and eyes welling up with tears.
