A/N: Maybe this is a bit unorthodox, but this was just something I really wanted to do. This one-shot is coming from a personal place and is special to me; it's a dedication to where my mind has been these past few months. When I first started writing fanfiction, it was out of passion for writing, but these days, I'm finding it closer to therapy. So excuse my ramblings as my inspiration ebbs.

Based on an event of Jin's. And because Gill is a favorite. Thanks for reading!

Like a Bird

The smell of chamomile tea. Her soft chiffon dress. Sweet summer time before the leaves turned. She held out her hand.

I miss you.

Jin wasn't sure what the mayor was talking about – Gill had the brightest eyes he'd ever seen.

As the only practitioner in town, his age and less than adequate experience in his craft was overlooked in Hamilton's desperation to help his son. The young doctor had met up with the mayor ahead of time for a private discussion without the boy there. Jin's palms were clammy with his nerves at meeting this man he respected since his own childhood, very self-conscious as they shook hands. But the voice of authority was now looking to Jin for guidance, and the whole situation was utterly upside down to him.

Of course, he remembered little Gill. He was a baby when the doctor had left to pursue his graduate degree in medicine. They were a happy family in Jin's memory. He never thought his first real case as a doctor in his hometown would be to counsel that baby through his grief.

"Dr. Jin is going to spend some time with you today while Daddy's at work, okay? You remember Jin?" Hamilton leant down to his son to speak, their entwined hands falling apart with a trace of reluctance. Gill was unresponsive. His stoic mannerisms were impossible to read.

Jin squatted to his level, too, hoping he wasn't coming across demeaning as he offered his most reassuring smile. "It's been quite a few years since we last saw one another. I doubt you'd remember someone you met before you could walk, hm? Nice to properly meet you, Gill. My name's Dr. Jin."

He had been expecting the worst. Sallow skin, sunken cheeks. The familiar signs. The faces he had seen on his internships as he shadowed the professional trauma psychologists in the hospitals in the city. With the way Hamilton had described the past few arduous weeks as a single parent, these fresh steps into a foreign zone for the both of them, Jin thought Gill would look like the textbook case of a lost child. Confused. Hurt. Someone who didn't understand the consequences of death.

But when Gill's eyes alighted on Jin, he was taken aback. They were sparkling, alive. Perceptive. They said so much and yet so little as he made his appraisal of the young doctor in front of him. His lips remained unmoving.

"He hasn't… he hasn't said anything. Anything at all. He's so quiet – too quiet," Hamilton's hands were wringing tightly, almost painfully, as he pledged his fears in Jin's new office that smelled like wet paint. A broken father, just as lost, looked up at him. The beaming smile Jin was so used to seeing was completely gone from him. "It's feels like… she took his voice with her."

The house was empty. Spotless. The curtains were still tied back with bows for the daytime. Daisies left in a vase on the sill had only just begun to wilt. The stove was still warm with ashes. The faucet for the kitchen sink dripped.

I don't know what to do.

And so it began. Jin's mettle would be tested against the stubbornness of Gill's muteness. But how was he going to get through to a six year-old? The boy had lost his mother, his best friend. How was he supposed to crack someone so justifiably sad?

Jin tried various methods, quite unsure on which approach to take and willing to roll up his sleeves and experiment. He read story books, he gave Gill crayons, he offered him a teddy bear. Gill would obediently sit through playtime, but it would always degrade. The bear was swept to the floor from the table. The papers wrapping the crayons were meticulously shredded into strips. The picture books were folded page by page into the binding to create loops. Throughout it all, the child remained totally silent. Gill wasn't opening up – he was bored. Jin needed to change tactics.

The building blocks almost gave Jin hope he was on the right track. He could feel the eyes of his grandmother monitoring them from her unobtrusive post at the front desk with her magazine. Gill set the plain wooden cylinders down, capping them off with pyramids. The doctor watched the minutes tick by as the boy built himself a little palace before he introduced the alphabet blocks.

"You don't say very much, Gill," Jin ventured, taking a more direct path. Gill's eyes flickered to the doctor's momentarily, challenging, before back down to his blocks. Jin adjusted his glasses. "Maybe you could practice your spelling with these? Why don't you make some words for me?"

Gill silently studied the alphabet blocks, tentatively resting one of his little fingers atop an A. He shifted the block and hesitated. He seemed to be stuck. The problem wasn't his tongue at all – it was the verbiage in his brain. Something stalled. He couldn't form sentences, not even with his hands.

Jin helped him start. "Here, maybe I can give you an idea…"

He found the appropriate cubes as Gill watched. A green, a yellow, and a blue. D-O-G.

"Now why don't you try?" The doctor prompted, spreading his hands out to give the floor to Gill.

The blond boy quickly found the letters he was looking for, keeping the red A he initially touched. He spelled C-A-T below Jin's block word.

"There you go! What other words can you think of? Use as many blocks as you can," he instructed, setting aside the named animals and repositioning himself more comfortably on his chair. It was unnaturally small since it was made for children, but Jin still crammed himself into it to fit at the table with him.

In contrast, Gill swung his feet in his own chair, sat all of the way back and unable to touch the ground. His interest remained with the activity for a change, his hands separating the blocks between consonants and vowels as he organized them. He made the words T-A-L-L and B-O-A-T and B-R-I-D-G-E. But his eyes landed on an M, and he stopped. Gill picked up the block as if it was made of glass, turning it over in his palm. He slouched, holding the blue block in his lap and casting his eyes downward.

Her name… Jin realized.

He chose not to say anything when Hamilton arrived to pick him up. Every day he would arrive at the clinic, the smile not quite reaching his eyes as he greeted his boy and heard nothing in return. Jin wasn't a miracle worker who could get Gill talking just like that, but it was clear to see Hamilton was disappointed with every passing day of no change. Jin wished he was a miracle worker. That he could snap his fingers and have Gill laughing. But such wasn't the case for a doctor still learning his way through his own profession. He became a doctor for this very reason, but maybe he wasn't cut out for it after all. If he could only fix broken bones, what use was he? Could he really help people?

Irene asked him why he didn't tell Hamilton about the blocks. Jin picked up the letter M left alone on the table, frowning at it, and didn't give his grandmother an answer. His heart ached. He, too, found himself increasingly losing hope. Maybe he'd never hear Gill's voice.

She held up the book in her lap for him to see. He sat on the arm rest to look over her shoulder as she flipped through the pages. Pictures of dragons and knights intermingled with poetic verses in the storybook, her fingers gliding over the colorful images. She looked up, eyes smiling. "I can't wait to read it to them."

I think about you all of the time.

It was a Thursday when Hamilton insisted Jin come with them to visit her grave. It was a weekly ritual of the family's, and though Jin felt inwardly uncomfortable intruding on this important time for them, he was outwardly grateful. After all, he had to agree it was a good opportunity to learn more about Gill. Besides, the sunny skies were a welcome change of atmosphere for their afternoon session, contrasting with the clean white walls of the clinic.

"Any progress, doctor?" Hamilton whispered so as not to be overheard by his son.

Gill seemed quite preoccupied in the weed patch plucking dandelions, but children were deceptively very good at eavesdropping. Jin spoke low as well, hiding his hands in his coat pockets from the chilly spring air. "It's difficult to be certain. I can tell he wants to move forward, but he doesn't know how. It's going to take time."

"I know. I'm sorry," the boy's father sighed, not realizing how his voice was picking up. Gill's movement froze. "I just worry. I wish I knew what to say. I'm… I'm not like her."

Jin laid a comforting hand on the mayor's shoulder. Hamilton visibly drooped. He was at a loss. He was cornered. He lost more than his wife that day. He desperately needed hope that his son wasn't gone from him, too. Jin looked down at the grave they were standing before, the grass just beginning to patch over the still settling mound of dirt amongst the melting snow. These things were sensitive. Everyone dealt with it differently. His degree couldn't tell him how to make it easy.

The doctor turned, suspicious, and found that Gill had discarded his dandelions. He was by the tree near the cliff, squatting down and observing something. The doctor hurried over to see, and Hamilton was alarmed and followed suit, wondering what the problem was.

"What did you find, Gill?" Jin asked, stopping short as Gill slowly turned around. Cupped in his little palms was a heavily panting sparrow.

"Oh! Gill! Careful – those have germs!" Hamilton scolded, afraid of the possible diseases the bird could carry. It came out as a shout – more of surprise, but it grew in genuine anger stemming from betrayed protectiveness. "You shouldn't touch sick animals!"

Tears sprung to Gill's eyes at his father's tone, but his gaze remained fixated on the bird in his grasp. Jin got to one knee to examine it, ignoring Hamilton's worries for the moment. The bird was clearly immature; it had most likely been practicing how to fly and was unsuccessful. By the looks of it, it was nearly the prey of some other larger creature, as its feathers were quite ruffled. It was panicked, and it was exhausted. The fight had all but left it.

Jin smiled at Gill, nodding to him. He folded the boy's hands more carefully around the bird, allowing him to carry it. "Why don't we give him a checkup back at the clinic? Would you like to carry him?"

Gill was chewing the inside of his lip. He looked up and nodded. Hamilton had quieted as he watched, clearly still uneased but willing to bend with Gill's interest in the sparrow.

"Mr. Hamilton?" Jin stood and turned to him, as if to ask, 'if it's alright with you?' He didn't need to elaborate. Hamilton gave his permission with a stiff nod of his own, trusting the younger man's judgement. The doctor guided Gill by the shoulder out of the weed patch, letting him take the stairs into town first. The wind picked up from the rocky cliffs by the sea, spraying salt water into the air. "Alright, Gill, steady now. Don't drop him."

Irene was also aghast at the prospect of a less than clean animal entering their sterile work environment, but with one look to the boy, she needed about as much convincing as Hamilton. Jin washed up the muddy bird and looked it over, Gill ever present at his side for the study. When he determined it was uninjured and only needed some time and care, he acquired Maya's old hamster cage, and the baby bird was set up at the clinic.

Their sessions changed. Everything now revolved around care for the sparrow. And anyone could see how Gill was dramatically different sitting before the bird cage. His whole demeanor had changed. Though his words were still under lock and key, he became more expressive, more prone to shifts in mood. He wasn't so sluggish. He seemed less fragile somehow.

It could've just been a distraction from the inevitable. Maybe it was a form of escapism. Jin looked over his clipboard notating his time spent with Gill, feeling like… maybe it was worth the risk. Maybe this bird was the best thing that could have happened to him. The feeling he could protect another; regain the control. Jin's feet slowed to a stop as he rounded the corner, prepared to give Gill his usual, friendly greeting. But he stopped himself.

The doctor watched, intrigued, as Gill held his hand up to the colorful bars of the repurposed hamster cage. The bird was perched inside against the wall, its feet latched on at a sharp angle, staring with its beady eyes at his outstretched finger. It pecked him, and the boy winced, quickly pulling his hand away. He scooted his chair forward, unwilling to give up. His tongue protruded from his teeth as he took great care in opening the door and pushing one of the raspberries Irene gave him for snack time into the enclosure. Gill turned the lock fast and watched and waited, folding his thin arms on the table and resting his chin behind them.

The bird took the bait. It had grown bored and restless in the few days it had spent cooped up. But it had grown calm enough to readily investigate any possible food offered to it. It alighted on the cage floor on the newspaper, hopping towards the berry in curiosity. It poked it with its beak, and Gill softly smiled.

He couldn't remember what her laugh sounded like. He was sure it was beautiful – it always made him laugh, too. But it was gone. It had been too long since he had heard it. It was a sound he could not recreate with his memory. Left alone in the quiet, he often drove himself to tears of frustration trying to remember.

I don't know how to let go.

Gill was content caring for the bird, and he would often color on the pages Jin brought him as he sat before it. He would share his snacks Irene gave him with the sparrow, especially if it was toast. He liked to watch it pull at the bread and tear it from his pinched fingers. Crumbs would patter down to the newspaper, and the sparrow would painstakingly nibble up every last one it could find.

It was raining. The weather was getting steadily warmer. The frost was inching away little by little. Hamilton was in his office. Gill remained outside.

"You have to admit his case is… extreme? No?" Hamilton asked, leaning forward with both elbows on his knees. He fidgeted, twiddling his fingers and digging at his stress-chewed fingernails.

"We all handle grief in different ways," the doctor said. His professional mind had wandered, and he was staring out through the window panes at the rain coming down. It was difficult looking Hamilton in the eye anyway.

"I mean," he could hear him fussing with a candy wrapper in his pocket, crinkling the plastic under his thumb as he spoke, "I can only imagine what's going through his mind. Gill's never seen… death. I don't think he even knows what's happened."

Jin wanted to chastise him for underestimating his son, but he managed to swallow his criticisms with a disarming smile. "Gill's doing all he can to move forward. Our job is to make that path easier for him."

That night after Hamilton had taken Gill home, and he had prescribed some acetaminophen to ease Shelly's arthritis, Jin bid his grandmother goodnight and closed the door to his childhood bedroom.

Of course, things had changed since he had first left this room. The posters were long discarded, the toy chest had been donated, the desk was tidy and free of action figures, and the twin bed grew and was swathed in more practical hues – no longer the bright, primary colors of his adolescence but starchy grey and navy. The abacus was still on the shelf, and some of the classic novels he read in high school were lingering between his medical diagnostic manuals and horticultural encyclopedias… along with one storybook with pictures of dragons. But otherwise, the room was unrecognizable. A man lived here now.

His hand hovered over the light switch. He couldn't perform the simple action of flicking up the tiny lever. His fingertips twitched with hesitance. His eyes were glued to the shards of light coming through the half-closed blinds on the floor, casting long diagonals that warped onto his shoes.

It was like he never left. All of those years in between high school graduation when this room was his every day to the boat coming back from the empty apartment he left in the city across the sea. Nothing happened in those years. It all vanished as he came back to this place he never thought he'd return to. It was like that time didn't exist. He was rid of it.

But how could it be that easy…? To erase a person?

Jin caught the feeling of his heart pumping in his ears, and his hand went to his chest. He felt the rapid heartbeat behind the sweater, beneath the skin and tissue and bone. It was too fast. He was letting it get to him.

His shirt bunched in his clenched hand as he steadied his breath and closed his eyes. Thumpthumpthump, thump, thump… thump… thump… Rhythmic. Calm. Stable.

His fist unfurled, and he smoothed out the wrinkles he put in his clothes. This wasn't like him, but he didn't really know what he was supposed to feel like these days. It had been months, but Jin hadn't found his new normal.

He heard his own words from that afternoon echo in his mind; the attempt to console a father with nothing left to lose. "Gill's doing everything he can to move forward."

But how could Dr. Jin help Gill walk that path when he couldn't do it himself?

Jin left the light off, kicking off his shoes, tossing his glasses at the nightstand, and crawling into bed fully dressed.

The world felt colder, uglier, meaner. Unfair was an understatement, an insult. Everyone had only nice things to say, but what good was it now? But… they weren't all bad days. Sometimes the breeze carried fragrant pollen, and the sun was warm. The rain could feel like a blanket, and the snow was proof time didn't stop. He could feel her. Here. There. In all things…

I don't want to let go.

The sparrow had grown listless. Trapped in the square foot of space, it had no room to fly. It didn't bother to peck at the scraps of food offered to it, and it stuck to the one corner and barely moved. It was giving up.

Gill was watching the bird from his usual spot in the chair with a defeated look on his face. It was the most sorrowful expression he had worn in weeks as he gazed at the bird twitching its head at its surroundings. It used to flutter about when Gill would sit so close, but it didn't care enough to be scared of him. Gill's heart was breaking, and Jin was watching it happen.

The doctor had told the boy multiple times that they would have to release the sparrow when it got better, but each time, Gill dismissed his remarks or grew defensive and would sit by the bird if he wasn't already – as if he was guarding the cage. He would give Jin this look that said, 'not on my watch' and tend ever more carefully to his winged friend, keeping a vigilant patrol.

But spring was here. It was time.

Jin put a firm hand on Gill's shoulder, and the boy gasped in surprise. He looked up in fear of the words the doctor would say. His breath quickened, and his eyes were wide and watery.

"We'll go to the same place you found him. By the dandelions," he said. Gill didn't need further explanation. He hung his head, his skinny fingers curling on the table. But he robotically did as he was told. Despite his obstinacy on the matter, he was an obedient boy and wasn't the type to make a fuss. Especially as of late. He was well-mannered as Jin helped him into his coat and he picked up the cage all by himself.

"Shouldn't you wait for his father?" Irene asked, looking at her watch and rising from her seat. She stared curiously at her grandson. She couldn't help but feel it was her job to look after them both.

Jin didn't argue. He slid out of his lab coat and opted for a light jacket that he zipped up to his neck. He held open the door, and Gill stepped out ahead of him. "We'll be back before five."

Irene didn't protest further as the clinic closed behind them, and Jin put his hands in his pockets. He looked down at Gill fidgeting with the clunky cage. "Would you like me to carry him?"

Gill shook his head. He should've known. He'd want to be close for their last walk together. Gill looked proudly ahead past his gloom, and the bird chirped noisily about – excited to be out in the fresh air. They fell into step, Jin leading the way to the church.

Will I forget you? What if I want to?

The sun was blinking in and out between the clouds passing overhead. The wind was strong and cold, and blossoming leaves and flower buds whipped cruelly in the buffeting gales. Gill struggled to keep pace with his hair flying in his eyes, but Jin's strides were slow and never more than two steps ahead.

Gill's heart was in his throat. It was the longest walk of his life. Except for the one. Where he was dressed in his nicest black suit jacket, and his father was squeezing his hand so hard. He could still feel his fingers uncomfortably trapped in his father's warm palm. He squeezed and squeezed, and Gill never stopped watching him, but Hamilton hadn't looked down at him, not once. All day. He looked straight ahead. Ahead at nothing.

But Gill could see it now. It wasn't nothing, it was ahead. It was what he was doing. One foot in front of the other. The sparrow flapped against the bars, but Gill didn't look down at it. He could only watch the doctor's back ahead of him, the dark ponytail getting caught in the swirling winds but never knotting.

He had noticed it. Right from the start. A kindred spirit. Jin had lost someone, too.

Will you hate me?

They went down the stairs away from the plaza, and the sea smells of salt and fish were closer. Spray misted up high enough to tickle their skin on the outcropping. Their feet hit lush grass, and they were upon the graveyard. It felt impossibly silent.

Jin turned to him at last. He gestured to the ground. "This is a good spot. Would you like to do the honors?"

Gill placed the cage on the grass and sat down beside it. His hand went to the latch, but he stopped before touching it. Jin recognized the gesture. Thoughts were reeling through Gill's mind, and he was trying to process them as they came too fast and jumbled too much for him to make sense of them, let alone his feelings. The unmistakable loss. The goodbye. The sparrow twittered and retreated to its corner.

That's when it hit him. This was sad. Gill was sad. He had become attached to this little bird he had rescued under this same tree just a couple of weeks prior. He was going to miss it when it was gone. No more tuneless songs. No more crumbs on the newspaper.

Tears filled Gill's eyes as he forced himself to open the door to the cage. He jumped back like the bird would come out in a flurry of feathers, but nothing happened. Much like when they first met, the bird had worked itself up and was panicked. It didn't know freedom was within its grasp. It remained in the corner and panted, its beak open and eyes darting.

Jin gave them some room and faced the headstones. He polished his glasses on his jacket but couldn't quite smear away a smudge and only made circles of it.

Gill staggered. He hadn't expected to wait. He thought it would be done just like that. But the bird was still here. Stupidly staring at him, unblinking. Refusing to leave even though that's what it wanted most. What was wrong with it? Why was it so dumb? Didn't it want to leave? After all he had done for it, why was it staying there? It felt like mockery. Gill was angry.

The boy plopped into the grass behind the cage. He nudged the pan at the bottom with his foot, but the bird didn't react to him. Gill curled up into a ball, tucking his head down and wrapping his arms around his knees. He didn't care if he saw the bird fly away or not. He just wanted it to go.

Gill couldn't remember ever being so mad. Tears of rage dripped from his eyes down to the tip of his nose and itched. He shut his eyes as tight as he could, colors blooming in the darkness with how much he scrunched his lids. I want you to leave me alone… Go away and never come back! I don't care anymore – I hate you!

They leave. They'll all leave. And there wasn't anything he could do about it. People were going to walk in and out of Gill's life, and he was powerless to stop them. He hated it.

The smell of her perfume made him feel sick. The memory of her smile turned his stomach. His father never mentioned her, it was too painful, but Gill was grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was remember when he was so desperate to forget. Things couldn't hurt when they were forgotten.

He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't think about it. If he thought about it, he'd look like his dad. He'd cry all of the time and stare off into space and talk in circles and lose his train of thought and hang onto every last little thing. He had to be strong. He promised her.

His shoulders were cold, and he hunched lower. He could smell the earth below him. Cold dirt that hid the things he wasn't supposed to think about just feet away from him. He felt colder.

Gill grew up prematurely. He stopped believing in fairies. Because how could there be magic… if it couldn't save his mom?

I can't keep going like this.

Jin took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the sweet cherry blossom trees just days away from bursting with color, the thick clover at his feet that covered the graves, and the salt on the breeze. This was a peaceful place. Even though she had never known this town, he wished she could've been buried here. Where he could visit.

It was blood poisoning. The tests had warned them that the miscarriage was probable, but she was determined to carry out the baby to term. She wanted their baby more than anything. She did all she could for their pregnancy, and Jin could only watch as she lost the battle. He couldn't save her. He was a doctor, and he couldn't help. It was the one thing he should've been able to do, but the case was a loss. His colleagues told him no one could've done it. Doctors aren't miracle workers. And he was so young. But try telling that to the husband whose wife and stillborn daughter slipped through his fingers.

Fresh out of college and newlyweds, and it was all stripped away. With no one to turn to, he went back to his family, back to his hometown. Back to the terrarium time capsule where he could settle into the life he had before tragedy took his will away.

Gill was the last first case Jin wanted, but it was the case he needed the most. To look at a child and see him mirroring the same fractured glass façade. Need only press on the wrong, spider web-thin crack, and it'd all come shattering in. There was anger from betrayal, the promise of a future broken. Sadness so fragile the slightest memory could trigger cloud cover. And fear. Fear that he'd really get his way and forget her.

It's taking everything left in me…

"You want it to stop hurting."

The boy was startled at the sudden voice. It was so solemn and sad. There was a moment he thought someone else was in the graveyard with them. But no. It was the doctor.

Jin went on, letting the words take shape on their own. His voice was even and low. He had never talked about it either. "But it's not meant to stop; it'll always hurt. It's supposed to."

Gill remained quiet, but he shifted. He knew this wasn't about the sparrow. Jin turned around to face him, furrowing his brow. Gill was so, so small. For that little body to hold all of that grief… Jin couldn't imagine it. Maybe that's why it was easier to talk to him.

"You'll be happy again; you'll smile. And sometimes, you'll feel guilty about it. You'll wonder how things would be different. You'll keep drifting back. That doesn't make it wrong. Any of it."

There was recognition. Jin confessed – he was saying the things he wished someone had said to him. That it was okay to hate her sometimes and be mad that she left. Feel comfort that the world wasn't over and life would go on. Be so sad it ached… and so happy for the time together.

Jin managed to smile. "You can laugh, and you can cry. Your heart will keep her. That, I promise."

A rough gust of wind blew past them, rattling the light bars of the cage and whistling in their ears. The waves crashed below, and the sun shone down between a wisp of cloud, casting swaying shadows.

"Look."

Gill's head snapped up, the last of his tears leaking out of his puffy eyes as his vision cleared.

If I walk away… will you forgive me?

"But he had his mom, you know? She… she was everything…" Hamilton's voice trailed off, and he opened his mouth to continue and found he could not. He bit hard on his lips as his nose ran, and he involuntarily hiccupped. He muttered a strangled apology as he caught his tears in his hands, hiding his face and desperately trying to regain his composure.

Jin hadn't said anything. He could've been taken as the sympathetic doctor giving the grieving man a moment out of understanding and courtesy. But that hadn't crossed his mind. Sitting in his cramped little office during counseling, Jin was thinking about how he was unable to feel a thing. The mentor figure from his yesteryears was crying over the loss of his wife right in front of him, and Jin wasn't able to do the same for his own deceased family. Did people see him and think he didn't love her enough? Was he really just a robot on autopilot? Why couldn't he feel anything?

But he was learning. Still learning. Some people laughed. Some people reminisced. Some people lost their voice. There wasn't a cure or an end; he'd always be taking it one step at a time. And he hoped that one day, he'd forgive her, too.

Like lightning, the bird had found the open door and was through it in the blink of an eye. It swept up right over Jin's shoulder and past the headstones towards the ocean. Gill leapt up and ran in a clumsy stumble, straightening out and coming to a halt a second later just ahead of Jin by the edge of the cliff. He watched as the sparrow carved a large arc in the sunset sky.

Jin's eyes remained on the bird's rapidly beating wings, strong against the gale as it forged ahead and away. He didn't want to leave her behind, but the memories would fade. Off into the distance. He had to look. Never blinking. Or he'd lose what was so precious, so worth keeping, forever. "Moving forward… doesn't mean forgetting."

Gill tore his gaze away from the bird and looked up at the man standing beside him. Behind the glasses, though it was hard to see, there were cold tear tracks on his face. Gill clenched his fists. He didn't want to forget either. Maybe strength was remembering… even if it hurt.

"Hello! Helloooo! Gill? Dr. Jin?"

Both of them quickly turned to find the mayor hurrying down the steps two at a time. His greying hair was tousled, and the buttons on his jacket were lopsided down his front in his haste. He was out of breath from his run to meet them, but he didn't pause long; his chest heaving as he looked about and spotted the empty bird cage on the ground. "Oh, so you let him go? Did he fly away, Gill? Are you alright?"

Gill's throat let out a strange gurgle upon the appearance of his father, and he nodded. His head bobbed more vigorously as the hot tears came rolling out. He ran the short distance. "Dad!"

Hamilton was so flabbergasted that he was left without words as Gill crashed into him, and he held on tight. He stroked the boy's featherlight hair and a baffled smile melted the stress in his face as he reassured him. "Gill! It's okay, son! It's okay…! It's okay…"

Gulls and a whole flock of sparrows were coming up the coast to fill the trees with their noisy songs, the one they rescued long lost in the crowd. Jin turned back to watch them, thinking they really all might be okay. Someday. Sometimes.

There were always people left behind. There were always people who needed other people. It wasn't fair. Trapped. Living. He'd always have to go on, and it wasn't fair.

But he wasn't alone. On days when her memory wasn't enough, love would be. And though it would feel like so long, life was short. And she was already waiting.

Far away, they'll be together. One day, he'll see her again. He'll fly from here. Just like a bird.