40; NATURE TO CONQUER (original episode, post season nine)
[TRIGGER WARNING animal death]
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SHE COULD STILL remember the distant rumble of gunfire back at Hilltop all those years ago. Screams of anguish had echoed through the dark hallways, and when morning washed over them, they'd lost almost half their numbers. It was the silence at breakfast the following morning that had stuck with her all these years. The resigned acceptance of how much more they still had to lose.
Being only five then, Brodie wasn't capable of interpreting what their sunken faces meant, but almost eight years on ── still much too soon ── she was intimately familiar with the submission to resigned fate.
She'd sat back and watched as Freya pushed through the grief looming over Alexandria, carried on without retribution, decided that preserving those they still had was worth the deprivation of justice for their dead.
Brodie didn't necessarily disagree ── not with preserving lives, at least. There were many people she loved still clinging to life, more than she was comfortable with. The possibilities of loss were endless and it terrified her.
But in spite of that, with the utmost love in her heart, she couldn't let go of what Alpha had done.
Tariq was the only father she'd ever known, the sole person who had stepped up to that role despite the weight of the world on his shoulders. He loved her more than she'd deserved, on her good days and her bad, unconditionally and he made sure she knew it too. He'd seen what everyone else failed to ── her fragile self-worth ── and compensated whenever he was given the opportunity to.
She'd gotten seven good years from him, time that she would treasure in her heart forever, but it wasn't enough. It was supposed to be longer. He wouldn't ever see her as a teenager or an adult, nor a mother if she decided to become one. Any children she had would never know him. Seven years of stories would become repetitive after a while, and then what?
He'd just become a distant memory.
Alpha did that. She stole him. She robbed Brodie and Lori of one of the two people they would always need, and letting her walk freely, giving her the opportunity to one day set eyes on her own kin again ── it wasn't right.
Dirt puffed up in a cloud when two boots slammed down into the ravine.
Brodie whirled around in an instant, machete raised to eye level, ready to strike. Her aggressive demeanour fizzled out with an incredulous scoff. She lowered her blade, lip curling with irritation. "Why did you follow me?"
Coughing harshly as a result of inhaling dirt, Caleb doubled over and slapped his hands against his knees. "Because you're twelve."
"And you're──" Brodie clicked her tongue impatiently, struck with the realisation that she knew next to nothing about her unwanted companion. The three months spent with him hadn't been very telling. "I don't know what you are, but you have to go back."
