(I haven't checked yet, but I'm willing to believe this is the 1100th fanfic about this subject uploaded yet. All the same, I needed to write something to vent those Chapter 6 feels.)
Getting out into sunlight—he barely remembered it. Randall's face, and the hot vice-grip of his hand in that final moment, was all Hershel could see and feel no matter how far he walked. The mouth of the ruins yawned behind him. He had to escape it.
He walked for hours, just trying to get away. Every time he looked behind him he still thought he saw it. Every time he looked ahead, he saw Randall. That face, disappearing as he dropped into the abyss.
He felt nothing. It was like that part of him had fallen in too.
By sunset he reached Stansbury, feet aching, hoping he could just slip home and sleep and not have to think too much, but the others were waiting for him.
Angela and Henry's faces fell as they saw that he was alone. He tried to explain, but nothing like a coherent statement would come out of his mouth; and when he tried to form excuses or explanations, they were lost in Angela's endless sobs. She shed enough tears for all three of them. Hershel had a handkerchief somewhere in his bag, he knew, but somehow it would feel rude to hand it to her, to the victim of what he had done. Better to hate every minute of her tears than stop her and hate the silence. Instead he glanced at Henry, who was quiet, just processing it.
"I think you should go see your parents," he murmured, and knelt beside Angela without a word more.
"Yeah," Hershel said, his own voice loud in his ears.
He knew the way home even with his eyes fixed on the ground. The town around him was in an uproar, a frenzy of action like he had never seen it before. Every corner he turned, someone else took up the cry:
"Hershel Layton!"
"Hershel, you're back!"
"Where did you get off to?"
"Are you alright?"
Hands grabbed at him and footsteps followed him, but he was in a daze and couldn't acknowledge them. He moved on. His body was pulled as if by strings through the streets and the crowds.
The crowds seemed thickest at his house. He pushed them aside with dirty hands. "Excuse me…excuse me…I'm sorry…" he muttered and struggled to get to his front door. The crowds wanted to know what had happened, and what would he tell them? Randall's father, Henry, Angela—they would blame him. A town the size of Stansbury would remember this forever.
He pushed open the front door and nearly fell into his mother, who was standing there, and the flood of people followed him in. It seemed like more people were in his tiny house than he had ever thought had lived in town. Or maybe it was just strange to see people again.
"Hershel! How could you ever go anywhere without telling us?" his mother babbled. "You know how dangerous it is to go out—how could you worry us like this—tell us where you're going before you—not that this will happen again—oh Hershel—I was worried sick!" She swung between anger and relief, on the verge of tears.
Hershel's father put a hand on her shoulder and glared around at the pressing crowds. "This is a private home. Out, all of you. Out!" he roared, and Hershel braced for the scolding that was coming. It was worse because he knew he would deserve it, all of it.
The door slammed behind the last intruder. Hershel's father crossed his arms. "The desert?" he shouted. "You went into the desert?"
Angela and Henry must've told, Hershel thought. He swallowed. "I'm really sorry, father. I wasn't thinking, and Randall said—"
"Oh, Randall said! I see! So this was Randall's brilliant idea!" His father's face grew pink. "Why, every time you do something stupid, turns out it was Randall's fault all along! Of course!"
"Father, don't say that, please! I—"
"You ought to know better than to blindly go along with everything he says—and I ought to have a word with him, taking my son out into the desert—"
Hershel's face burned under this barrage of accusations, meant for someone who couldn't defend against them. "Father, you can't."
"Oh, I can! Listen, you poor mother has been crying her eyes out for hours, she was up all night! The whole of Stansbury got worried for you two dolts when you didn't come home yesterday—you could have been dead at the bottom of the river for all we knew! When Angela speaks up about you two going on some daft expedition—"
The force of his father's booming voice and the accusing finger pointed at him pushed Hershel backwards and down, onto the couch. Berating words beat down on him like the sunlight had in the desert. He looked at his feet and sat up as straight as he could and took it, though his eyes were burning and his hands were tightening in his lap. His knuckles were white.
He had known his return would have scolding. But he had at least expected triumph to accompany it. For all his griping, he had never really thought it would end up like this. That the worst would really happen.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Hershel?" his mother said, trembling.
"I'm sorry," he squeaked.
"And you better be. Your arse won't be going on any more of these 'expeditions' anytime soon…" his father said.
Hershel nodded. "I'm really, really sorry. I shouldn't have ever let him go." As he spoke, he drew his knees up to his chest like a barrier.
"Oh, dear, Randall's not your responsibility," his mother said tenderly. "You're the one we're…"
"No, he was! He was and I let him go!" Hershel saw his parents' uncertain faces through a hot mist that refused to resolve into tears. "I—it was—I let him go. Into a hole."
He held out the same hand that had held Randall's wrist, and then let it feebly drop.
"He fell a really long way," he said, still not believing his own words. "I couldn't even see to the bottom."
"Then—" his mother said cautiously. "Then we've got to let his father know. A search party can go and—"
Hershel shook his head furiously. "No, mother, you don't understand! You can't find him. It's too dangerous and—" his father tried to speak over him—"and it won't do him any good anyway! Why bother? He's already dead!"
With the awful finality of that statement, he felt as if he should break down and cry. But he didn't. The tears refused to come.