Separate Entities//Miss Peregrine AU

Chapter Fifteen

NOTE: This is it! The final chapter! I highly suggest playing the song above as you read, though it doesn't really matter. I feel like it adds just an extra little push to the final chapter. Thank you!

Over the past week and a half, I'd taken to considering the house my home. I'd spent more time there than at the Priest Hole, and already I considered myself to be close with all of the children - well, except for Enoch. He was either downstairs all the time or complaining, but I suppose we had a mutual respect - after all, both our peculiarities had to do with the dead. Even the occasional ghosts I would see on my way to and from the loops were beginning to feel like family - implying that without them there, it would feel... empty.

Yes, Miss Peregrine's little, secluded home was my home, too. Which was exactly why I sank to my knees at the sight of it, tears welling up in my eyes. In our absence, the house had been half destroyed - one corner was completely blown to smithereens. Several small fires burned on, adding to the smoke and ash that already filled the air. Where Fiona's Adam topiary had been was a deep, wide crater - large enough that if Claire and Olive had got in and one stood on the other's shoulders, they still wouldn't be able to get out. 

Worst of all was the way Miss Peregrine leaped from her perch on Fiona's head and began rushing toward the house, squawking forlornly as she went. I looked at Fiona, wondering how she was reacting to the destruction of her handiwork. She was crying, no doubt, but not because of Adam's destruction - though, then again, I wasn't crying about that either. The house we had all come to know as our home was gone for good. Looking at it then, in that state, it was easy to see how it grew to become the devastation Jacob and I first saw it as.

I was glad I wasn't the only one crying, to say the least. While most of the other children were shocked to silence, Claire, Olive, and - as I previously mentioned - Fiona were also shedding tears, though the former two were doing so much louder than me and Fiona. I turned away from the house, not caring if anyone else saw my obvious display of emotion, just because I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. I instead focused on Bronwyn, who set Millard next to a tree. Upon being set down, he finally woke up. I was flattered that I was the first person he saw when he did, but upon seeing my tears, he turned his head toward the house, his face letting off so much emotion, yet not at all. He was just as shocked as the rest of us.

As I made my way over to him, Bronwyn retightened his tourniquet, making sure he would last until we could salvage the house for the supplies I would need to fix him up. He'd finally stopped bleeding - mostly, anyway - but I was still just as worried as before, as there was still the chance that he could pass out but never wake up again. Millard finally tore his gaze away from the house when he felt me sit next to him, then immediately proceeded to wrap his good arm around my shoulders, providing the silent comfort we both knew I needed. In turn, I wrapped my arms around his waist, knowing that he would feel worse, probably - he had, after all, lived there for the past seventy years. We sat there for a while, curled toward each other, thinking.

It didn't bother me as much now, the age difference between us. He was still visually and mentally a teen - though, after doing the math, I came to realize that he was eighteen when the loop was formed and could have left legally. That, of course, was an impossibility, due to his invisibility. It was still hard to imagine nobody else seeing him because he was so real to me. I then remembered something and bolted upright, startling Millard as I did - the painting!

I quickly rose and rushed toward the house, hoping to god that my painting of Millard hadn't been destroyed. I ran straight through the front doorway, as the door had been blown fresh off its hinges, only to see the painting hanging on the wall; the only damage done was a few streaks of ash that would never come off. I took it down from where it hung and clutched it to my chest, paying no mind to the frame pressing into my arms. I turned to leave, then remembered that Millard still needed real medical attention. I set the painting down and turned back around, then set off into the house, pulling my shirt over my nose to block out the smoke.