AN/ *Throws up hands* No excuses! I probably shouldn't make promises, given my track record, but I really do mean to finish this thing! Yeah, I did a random tense and style change, what of it? It'll go back to normal next chapter, which will totally exist.
There's a flag burning.
It was once white, but now the bright orange flames lick at the fabric, and it quickly darkens, turning to ash.
There's a woman, watching it burn with wide eyes, knowing what it means but barely daring to believe it.
There's a part of the woman that is still a small girl, afraid, but holding on to a glimmer of hope. She had lost everything, but still believed she would find her special people, the people who would stop her from being alone.
But the rest of the woman is worldweary. The hope she had harbored has been crushed, and she had been beaten down, left behind and betrayed so very many times. And she cannot accept what has happened right before her eyes.
Her friends stand across from her, far enough away that they look small despite how much they mean to her. She would have done anything, sold herself, done hideous acts, burned the world to the ground, for them. She had given herself to her oldest enemies - those standing behind her, those who would destroy anything for their idea of justice - so she could know they would be safe, and so she would not have to live to see them leave her.
She had underestimated them. She hadn't considered that the insanity, the illogical attachments that she had felt during the time she had with them would be returned. They came for her. They will die for her. They love her. It's almost too much to bear.
And she loves them all so much - the thought that she and her past are dangerous to them hurts her. The taciturn, loyal swordsman, the fierce, gruffly nurturing navigator, the animated, passionate sniper, the chivalrous, ridiculous cook and the timid, sweet doctor and her brave, wonderful captain. She wants to protect them; she fears for them. But she understands now that they feel the same way, and they will always come for her.
There are feelings coursing through her and she feels wild. She feels on the brink of something, like she is about to plunge over. She feels all the dark things, all the niggling doubts, begin to recede. When she looks at her friends, her family, the brave people who are, in return, willing to do anything for her, she feels love and belonging, and at the moment, overwhelming belief.
She believes now, in her dream, in Nakama, in companionship, in her captain.
And so she understands what she must do.
There's a flag burning, juxtaposed with a blue sky and a free ocean wind, and carried on it there is a voice, ringing clear and open for the first time in years.
"I want to live! Take me with you, to the ocean!"