Characters: Bex, Zach; mentioned Cammie
Pairing: Cammie/Zach, maybe some Bex/Zach if you squint.
Rating: K+
Summary: I was nothing to him, but all he had.
Lost
There was a boy who stood in front of me. He was not the guy that was willingly to give his life for my best friend, nor was he the spy with the cool indifference who held all the answers in the palm of his hand. He was neither and yet both, paired with sadness, exhaustion, and anguish.
He was just like me.
His eyes searched mine, looking for hope and for reassurances, but I could give him neither. He reached out to me, looking as if he was going to pull me into his arms, but just before his fingers grazed my arm, he snatched them back. He blinked and stepped away from me. It didn't hurt. I was not the girl he was looking for. I was not the girl with the dishwater hair who had run away from us all.
I was nothing to him, but all he had.
"Do you think that we will find her?" One of us asked, and I blinked when I realized that it was me. The question that my roommates had asked me for the weeks (Four weeks, three days, two hours, and five minutes) that she had been gone had gone unanswered for so long. Just like them, I wasn't searching for an answer, a truthful one, at least. I was searching for hope and reassurance.
But he could give me neither.
"Yes," he breathed finally. His dark eyes hypnotized me. "But," he sagged a little with every word, "the real question is: will we be too late?"
Again, my mind added the word before I realized the truth of it.
"Bex," Zach avoided my eyes. His voice sounded weak and sad, and I hated it. I even hated her for making it that way, for changing us all. "Why didn't she take me with her?"
I remained silent as his voice cracked, because I truly didn't know. I did not know my best friend anymore, didn't understand her. I didn't know, and it was killing me. "Why didn't she take me?" I asked so softly that I wasn't sure he heard, but it wasn't meant for his ears anyway.
Silence filled the space in between us, but it was not that which kept us apart. It was the memory of her, the girl who couldn't stop running away.
The two of us had been hurt time and time again in our lives, especially throughout this year, but I was suddenly once again reminded how sometimes what hurts the most is what we cannot see. Sometimes what hurts the most is the loss of those who we thought we knew the most, but did not know at all, those people who we believed in the most, that failed to live up to the expectations set forth.
Darkness threatened to overtake me, and I could see it in his eyes that he was fighting the same battle. I reached out to him, to break the spell, to rescue him for the girl who might never get the chance again. I grasped his hand in mine, and together we stood, united against the wrong.
Or maybe against the right.
"Come with me," I whispered to him without thinking.
He looked up, his eyes clouded. "We're not going to find her."
Fear pulsed through my veins and possibilities flashed before my eyes. I couldn't think. My breath was coming in gasps.
Then, I felt pressure on my palm and I blinked the world away. "No. We won't find her."
He nodded, his eyes clearing. "She'll find us."