Author's Note: I loved Zach/Cammie, but I have always been and will always been a Joe/Cammie fan for reasons I have never been able to explain. However, keeping up with my series of excepts from the series, here is a little bit of angsty Rachel/Joe. I did not like their reunion that was told in the book and not just because of the aforementioned, but because it didn't seem quite right to be. But anyway…

Review, please! (:


Remnants

I awoke to nothing.

Blackness, darkness.

Silence.

I fell asleep to everything.

Color, blinding light.

Noise.


Machines beeped a constant tune.

"What is your name?"

Bright lights blinded his eyes.

"Solomon; Joe, Solomon."

His world consisted of a single, empty room.

"Do you know who you are?"

No.

"Yes."

The air was thin and cool.

"Where are you?"

He listened.

"Home."


She appeared at the entrance as if she was a specter of the tower. She stayed at the door, her feet rooted in her position. He stared at the ground, unable to meet her eye, knowing that he might have once been a good spy, but never had he been a good friend.

"Joe Solomon is dead."

And then, she disappeared.


He was never absent of company. Doctors and nurses hired at the infirmary, people who he did not notice, did not leave him alone. Trying to clear his face of his permanent frown, they would smile, they would laugh and joke, but he said nothing. He did not react, only speaking when a direct question was asked relating to his medical condition.

Six months, he was told. Six months. It was November. It was supposed to be May.


She visited every night, watching him as he pretended to sleep. She left before dawn without sleeping a wink, gone to hide the circles beneath her eyes.

He lived in remorse, constantly aware of those absent at his side, but he did not speak, did not ask about them, dying with the thought that maybe he was better not knowing.


His voice was rough from disuse, but he managed to choke out, "Cammie?" He grabbed her arm with a surprising quickness before she was able to leave one night. She did not flinch like he feared she would, only spinning around to face him. Her fingers wrapped around his hand and held it there, to her wrist. He panted, even though he had barely moved and her eyes were wide. For a moment, she remembered who he had been, and fear flashed across her eyes. Instantly, her hands fell to her sides and he was gone from her side, hovering on the farthest end of the bed from her.

"She's coming home. She's safe." There was an apology in her eyes that was out of place, and a hurt in his that was rightly deserved. "Abby and Zach are bringing her home."

He turned away from her then and listened to the sound of her feet as she walked away. For once, he slept.