Lincoln sneaks through the trees, looking back at the flickering lights of the camp behind him, thinking of the girl he had left behind. With a turn he faces back to the comforting forest. Something jumps from the branches behind him and lands with a thud on the thickly forested ground. He turns and from the flickering lights of the camp he sees the outline of a person. The girl, as it would seem, swishes her long brown hair out of her face.
Lincoln just sighs and examines her closely, looking for injuries.
"Octavia, what are you doing?"
Octavia simply saunters over to him and smiles, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. She whispers in his ear.
"Following you silly. Now, what are you doing out here."
Walking forward through the ever growing forest with Octavia following closely behind, Lincoln mutters.
"I can't stay there any longer."
Octavia merely looks on at him, keeping the expression on her face unreadable.
With silence hanging in the air, he continues.
"I just I can't now after what I did, what I was"
His voice cracks on the last part and he walks faster. She takes a moment to comprehend his words but then chases after him.
"Lincoln wait!"
She catches up to him and grabs his arm desperately. She pleads with him.
"Lincoln, listen to me, what you did, what you were, none of that was your fault, none of it."
She's cradling his face in her hands and Lincoln marvels at how her hands are still so soft. After months on the ground, how she is still so pure and sweet. How someone like that could ever love him. Love him enough to fiercely fight for him, to plead with the gods to breathe life back into him, to cry for him as his life was returned to him, to love him- him, of all people. After what he did, the crimes he committed, he didn't deserve it- the love she so freely gave to him. He knows that something wet is making its way down his face and dimly realizes that he's crying. Crying for the people lost, the people he so brutally tore apart, crying for the love she gives, crying for her. Who is he to accept a love this pure and who is she to have to put up with him. She's staring as though he's spoken out loud. She smiles through her own tears.
"Lincoln, if there's anybody putting up with anybody, it's you putting up with me."
They've migrated to the ground and they sit in the dimness of the forest, lights flickering behind them, and clutch to each other. One clutching to the man she almost lost the other to the girl he loves. And he realizes something that maybe his love isn't pure and maybe their love doesn't makes sense. But it's theirs. Theirs to cherish and hold and protect and love. Theirs to love. No matter the demons they each face.