AN: Thanks for the reviews people!


III.

Captain Weaver waited for Ben outside of the tent by one of the camp fires. There were countless times when Ben felt he couldn't stand Weaver, almost came to hate the man. The captain could be hard and cold. He made decisions that were logical, rational even, but seemed to lack any humanity. He could make the call to sacrifice one fighter if it benefitted the group, something no one else, especially not Ben could ever do. Yet, Jimmy had had an almost reverent respect for the captain.

Admittedly, Ben was anxious at Weaver wanting to have a 'private word'. He hadn't the first clue what the gruff older man could possibly want. As far as Ben could recollect, he hadn't done anything that required reprimanding in recent times. Ben hadn't heard anything about the nightly hunts that stole Jimmy from him, but he assumed that was because the captain and his father decided Ben had been punished enough.

It was likely the 'word' could have something to do with Jimmy; it was a stretch but not by far. Weaver wasn't a man known for his empathetic nature or heartfelt talks; though Ben knew Weaver had shown a softer side to Jimmy. Weaver had taken Jimmy aside often in the short time Ben had known the two for brief pep talks. It was through Jimmy that Ben felt a strange, albeit distant, connection to the older man. They both lost Jimmy that night, and though it broke their hearts in different ways, the point was, it broke both of their hearts.

"You wanted to speak to me, captain?" Ben said, approaching tentatively.

Standing beside the fire, its eerie glow cast ominous shadows across Weaver's face. He barely glanced at Ben, nodding shortly in acknowledgement. He cleared his throat and tipped his chin down, obscuring his features under the brim of his cap. Jimmy used to read Weaver like a book, the two were so alike, he could've told Ben exactly what was on the old man's mind before the old man ever thought to open his mouth and share. But Jimmy was gone, and Weaver was written in a language Ben couldn't read, and somehow that made Jimmy's loss all the more poignant.

"You've been feeling restless, lately," Weaver noted.

For a moment, a panic struck Ben. He'd mentioned to Dr. Glass several weeks passed that he'd been feeling increasingly overwhelmed with energy. He couldn't help the fear that she passed the information on to Weaver. If she'd told him that, what else might she have mentioned?

"I know it's been difficult. So much has changed, and you can't take the same kinds of risks that you used to now," Weaver continued.

Ben made a face, wrinkled his brow. He wasn't sure how to interpret Weaver's words. 'Same kinds of risks', was he talking about the 'risks' that got people killed? Perhaps he was gearing up for the disciplinary speech about the nightly hunts after all. Ben ducked his head, braced himself for the torrential rage he knew the captain had bottled up inside and directed Ben's way. Some of the old man, Ben knew, had to blame Ben for Jimmy's death. Hell, everyone in camp blamed Ben. After all, it was his fault.

Again, Weaver cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"Jimmy," Weaver began, and that was about as far as he could get for several drawn out, painfully silent seconds, "He was a good fighter. He was a good kid, good man."

"I know. I'm sorry," Ben whispered, blinking away the tears beginning to form.

"Why are you sorry?" Weaver asked, sounding more curious than accusatory, tilting his head to the side to look up at Ben.

Ben sniffled, shrugged, "It's my fault he's dead."

"How do you figure that?"

"I was the one that wanted to go out hunting the Skitters. He tried to stop me; I wouldn't listen, so he went out there with me instead. He shouldn't have been out there, he never would've been out there, if it weren't for me," Ben rattled off, shaking as he spoke, every word stabbing into him, spiteful condemnation for his sins.

Weaver shook his head, turned his gaze back to the ground.

"We make our own choices. You made the choice to go out looking for danger, and he made the choice to follow you. If you want to find blame or fault in that, you share it, and you each suffered the consequences of your own choices. The choices you made Ben, no more or less determined Jimmy's fate than his own. He could've made the choice to leave you to your own devices, hell, he should've made the choice to alert me to your foolish actions so I could put a stop to them, but he made the choice to join you. We make our own choices, we determine our own fates. Do you understand?"

"Yes. But it doesn't make me feel any better or like it isn't my fault," Ben said.

"If it helps, knowing all that, everything I said, well it doesn't make me feel like his loss isn't my fault, either," Weaver admitted.

"Why would it be your fault?" Ben asked, winced at the bluntness of his question.

"By virtue of first sin; I was the one that put a gun in his hand. Thirteen years old, he asked me if he could be a fighter, I should've told him no and stuck to it. He was a child, an orphan, the last of his family," Weaver said, "I never should've given him that gun; I never should've given him a place in this war. If I had treated him like the child he was, instead of constantly putting him on the battlefield, he never would've gotten it in his head that he could be out there with you, both of you all alone, thinking that somehow just by being together, that would be enough to protect each of you from danger and harm."

"He would've found another way to be out there fighting," Ben pointed out.

"I know," Weaver exclaimed, eying Ben and asking quietly, "But knowing doesn't change how you feel, does it?"

"That why you called me out here, to tell me that it isn't my fault and I shouldn't feel like it is?" Ben wondered.

"No," Weaver said, straightening a bit, "I wanted to tell you that I know you're in a bad place right now. In a pretty dark hole that it doesn't look like you'll ever be able to pull yourself up out of. We've all lost someone that meant something to us in this war, and I know Jimmy meant a lot to you."

"You have no idea how much he meant to me," Ben whispered harshly. He got enough patronizing pats on the head from his father, trivializing the life of his lost lover likening Jimmy to some silly childhood toy; he didn't need it from the captain too.

"I've a pretty good idea," Weaver said sharply and Ben examined the older man curiously, his heart giving a small jump, but if Weaver really did know the full extent of Ben and Jimmy's relationship, it wasn't evident in his expression, "I know you meant a lot to him. You gave back to him a lot of things I think the war took from him, and you gave him a lot of things I don't think he ever really had before the aliens rained down on our head. You were good for him, and I won't stand to hear anyone – including you – say otherwise. As much as we can say we regret the choices we made, and as hard as it is for us to not be sad over the choices he made, I know he wouldn't have regretted for a minute following you out there and given the chance that stubborn fool would do it all over again."

Ben nodded, wiped at his cheeks. His heart slowed its race, giving way to a mellow ache. Weaver's words shuddered through him like some kind of strangely painful kindness. For a moment, he didn't feel as though stranded in a sea, drowning in other people's impressions of him, but instead standing firmly grounded in his own raw emotions.

"Damn it. He was a good fighter, Ben. It was a rough end that he got. A real piss poor ending for him," Weaver really did sound angry, as though he could spit in God's face, given the chance, "He deserved better, but you know, I know he wouldn't have gone gently. He wouldn't have left you like that if it were up to him, not easy, no. I don't doubt he fought like hell to get back to you."

"Yeah," Ben murmured, smirked and wryly commented, "He was probably just going the wrong way."

Weaver smirked, and Ben covered a smile, took the opportunity to wipe away a few tears.

"I don't know what to do right now. It hurts so much, and I'm scared that it won't ever stop hurting, but I think I'm more scared that it will; that I'll start to forget him. I don't want to forget him," Ben said.

"I can tell you it won't ever stop hurting. You just get used to the pain over time," Weaver said, "As for forgetting him, they're your memories. I can't say one way or another what will happen to them; it's up to you. Personal experience, I've held too tightly to things I should've forgotten, and let go of the things I should have remembered. I'm not all that good with memories; I do know that if you don't want to forget him, then you never have to. But I think it's okay, and I don't think he'll hold it against you, if a few things do slip your mind. Just try to hold on to those memories that remind you of the good things between you and him, let go of the bad."

"Then I wouldn't be able to let go of any of it," Ben noted, sighing, "Even when we were fighting, it was good."

"Then at least let go of what happened in those woods," Weaver recommended, "If nothing else, I think he would want you to forget that."

"Okay. Thank you, sir," Ben mumbled, he paused, and added, "You should know, sir, that you meant a lot to him, too."

"Really? Sometimes I think I put too much on his shoulders. I fear I burdened him," Weaver confessed.

"Your opinion meant the world to him, sir. Maybe he followed me out on those hunts to keep me out of trouble, but he would've gone to hell and back for you without question," Ben said.

"Here we are thinking how we did him wrong, how many ways we failed him, and when did he ever do us wrong, fail us? That's the thing about wars, they always take the best of us," Weaver commented, sagged a bit and said in a strange tone as though he weren't speaking to Ben anymore, "I've lost a lot of people in my life, friends, fighters under my order, fellow soldiers, but somehow, his loss hurts a little more than the rest. Why is that? I couldn't really say."

Ben remained silent and Weaver blinked away the emotions swirling in his features. He cleared his throat, resumed his authoritative persona.

"I think it's about time we sent you across that bridge," Weaver declared.

After spending so many days hiking around the same area, Jimmy knew the lay of the land pretty well. He also had a pretty good handle on where the enemy units were, and more importantly, where they might be coming from now that the alarm was raised and the hunt was on. He'd known he would need to do something drastic to get out of the fish barrel he'd swimming circles in, but this wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. He couldn't run for very long or very far, stopping intermittently panting for breath. He knew he was carrying too much; he had to make a decision. He felt like he was choosing his own death, starvation or hypothermia. He tossed the sleeping bag aside and bolted. He could replace it, he told himself, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of his head wondering where and when.

Racing through the trees, Jimmy could hear the Skitters at his back, thankful that, from the sounds of things, a Mech hadn't yet joined the chase. He darted and wove, dodged and ducked straight into the thickest parts of the forest. He was moving into areas he was less familiar with, but he knew the Skitters with their bulky mass and multiplicity of legs would have a harder time following his serpentine route.

Branches and bracken slapped against Jimmy's face, neck, and arms, biting into any bit of bare flesh and slapping hard against his body. His lungs burned, he was drowning on dry land. His muscles screamed, but he kept pumping his legs, barely missing one tree and smacking into the trunk of another. He scrambled round it, hiding behind its large roots jutting out from the ground and forming a small ledge, just as a group of three Skitters crashed into the area. He could hear them sniffing the air for his scent, picking their way through the landscape. They knew he'd stopped moving, were probably straining to find his pounding heartbeat, or the harsh putter of his breath, amidst the clattering symphony of the forest.

Jimmy curled his fingers round the handle of his pistol, slid it from his waistband and caressed the trigger. One of the Skitters crawled to the top of the ledge, and Jimmy pushed himself back as far as he could, looked up at the monstrosity scouring the far woods for him. He caught his breath, the Skitter dropped its gaze, and for a moment they stared at one another, a strange sense of familiarity passing between them. The Skitter seemed different than others of its kind that Jimmy had seen up close. There was something about its skin; it was flaking and peeling away, discolored – not that Jimmy was certain if there was any one normal skin color for a Skitter. One of its eyes was milky and clouded. The Skitter didn't look…well.

Moment over, Jimmy pulled the trigger of his pistol and a bullet exploded through one of the Skitters's eyes. It screamed, the others jerked round in alert, and Jimmy bolted. They were hot on his trail again. He pushed, but he couldn't get air, black splotches exploded across his vision. He was losing consciousness. Other Skitters had hear the gunshot, perhaps the silent call-to-arms of their comrades, and were barreling down on Jimmy. He burst through another thick of bushes, and nearly tumbled off the side of a cliff, wind milling his way back onto the ledge. He glanced over, it was nearly a twenty foot drop, but water churning furiously below, and there was no way to tell how deep the river was or what peril hid beneath its rapids.

Skitters approached. They knew he was trapped, peering at him over the bushes and around trees. In the distance, a Mech trumpeted victoriously. Slowly, eyes never leaving the Skitters gathering round him on all sides, Jimmy pulled out the gun's clip, stuffed them in his pack. Then he shouldered the pack once more, tightened its straps as best he could. One of the Skitters seemed to realize his intent then, it perked up and its brethren followed suit. As they rushed forward, Jimmy clasped onto the bullet at his neck, squeezed his closed and spun round, jumping from the ledge. He could feel the swipes of their claws brushing his fabric and ripping at his arms in attempt to grab hold of him, the air passed by him in a roar, tugging at his hair and clothes and skin, and then he hit the water with a shock of cold and knew no more.


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AN: Short, I know. Nothing too exciting yet. Heart to heart with Weaver, and Jimmy running for his life.

Let me know what you though.

Reviewers: cubelixa1, yeah, I know, things are hard at the moment, and they're only going to get worse before they get better. Hold on, because it might be a little while before they reunite, but they will, I promise, and they'll be together most of the story. They just have a lot of growing to do apart from each other, is all. LuckyDreamer91, yes, l know, a year to read and review. It took you long enough, I'm kind of miffed. Miffed, there's a word I don't get to use often. I'm glad you like where things are going. I'm never sure when I separate the boys how people are going to feel about it. Don't take my meaning of the word 'soon'! It's my meaning, you can't have it. I don't share well with others. Yeah, I guess I can understand the not having holidays thing. Time is money, and money is honey. Dee, well, I'm glad I reminded you to review. I would've been sad if you'd never dropped in and left your thoughts behind. You're just going to have to trust me that at some point - in the very distant future - Tom does redeem himself. He really is trying, but he's flailing. He didn't have much time to get used to the idea that his son was dating Jimmy, and now he's got to get used to it on top of trying to find the words to comfort his son's losing his first real love. I hope Weaver and Ben's exchange was good. I kind of didn't want it to come across the same as Weaver's interactions with Jimmy. More of a mutual respect conversation versus father-to-son type. Jimmy is in a bad place, and it just keeps getting worse. I won't be torturing him too much, though. Nevermind, yes, I will be. Also, as promised, updating Raising Skies today. I know, you have a lot of questions in that story, and you're probably only going to have more when I post the next chapter. As for the signal in this story, trust me, whatever you think or have thought it was, you're no where near close.

Thanks for stopping in, guys. See you next week!