Daniel Fan Omg I'm so glad I had no idea what you were talking about until I saw the episode because HOLY FUUUCK DANIEL YOU BETTER NOT BE DEAD DUDE. I do think Ofelia can develop a whole bunch.

Chen I actually love you. I have been thinking about this, and certainly with the show, and where it's going now, Quinn and Chris' friendship is about to take a freaking weird turn anyway, and so I'm super excited to see where this goes. Ugh, thank you! I'm glad you enjoy them!

Quinn had fallen asleep last night on the deck and woke up early, a sleeping bag around them, to the sound of Nick throwing up overboard. He accidentally kicked Quinn in the head in his struggle. Quinn yelped and sat back and waited for him to finish. Withdrawal was still being an ass to him, they guessed.

Finally, he leant back into the Abigail. He didn't say anything. He just looked very disturbed, then went inside for a glass of water, and when he came back out he smiled away the nausea, and the two sat together; Nick on the stern and Quinn out on the dock; the dock felt a little more grounding to Quinn's stomach.

Nick tossed a pair of sunglasses over to them. Quinn caught them, grinned. They were Strand's. They put them over their original glasses so their face felt heavy.

Just then, Travis came out. Quinn squinted up at him, silhouetted against the sky and the overhang balcony.

"Hey, you seen Chris?" he asked.

"No," Nick answered, pulling his head up from between his knees.

"No," Quinn said, too.

"Can't have got far, though, right?" Nick said. Travis looked to the Geary house but Nick said. "He didn't go that way. He's on the boat. Or on land."

"I looked over the boat," Travis said. Quinn knew why he was so uptight. If the recent loss of Eliza wasn't answer enough, everybody knew that Chris was going to be in a bad space for a long time over it, so, despite nobody saying so aloud, they all wanted to keep an eye on him.

"Then he's onshore," Nick reassured. "You want me to help you find him?"

"Me, too," Quinn offered.

Travis stared at the shore and murmured, "No. I'll go."

"Okay," Nick said. Travis marched off of the Abigail to start his search. Quinn wanted to follow but knew it was best not to. "Hey, Travis," Nick called after him. "I can help if you want, though. I know at-risk youths... I am at-risk youths."

As Travis walked away, Hye stepped outside. She squinted and held her arm up over her eyes. She looked tired and sweaty.

"Mom?"

Hye perked up at their voice, smiled. Her voice was difficult to come by this morning, so when she took too long to get the words out, she gave up and used her hands (charades style) to motion out if either of them had eaten breakfast.

"Not yet," Quinn replied. "Figured we'd wait until lunch or supper. Rationing and all."

Hye nodded uncomfortably.

"You okay, Ms. Chŏn?" She nodded to Nick. Quinn got up and stepped onto the boat.

"Mom, you taken your meds?"

Again, Hye nodded. Quinn felt uneasy—blamed it on the Abigail because a large wave had made it sway a little.

"You taken your meds?"

Hye smiled and nodded.

"You should eat a candy bar or something," Quinn said. "I'll go up to the house now and ask Melissa if she has anything sugary."

Hye smiled and took a few seconds to speak. "... .. . . ...No urgency."

"Okay."

Quinn had found herbal bilberry tea for their mother, and they made it for her and watched her drink and smile and stutter about how tasty the eel was the day before last, and after a while Quinn decided to go find Chris, since Travis wasn't back yet either. It hadn't been long, really. Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen. It was hard to tell.

They found Seth.

He was coming up from shore and told Quinn –when they asked– that Chris was down finishing chores. Quinn didn't know Chris had chores. Before Seth left, Quinn asked, "So, this whole island. It's safe?"

"Our part of it, sure," he said. He looked oddly cheerful this morning. His hair was puffy and reddish brown, and his skin was tanned and his jaw was square and his eyes were narrow. Quinn thought he looked like a jock, to be honest, the kind who stuck notes to their back reading 'freako' or 'pull my hair', but then again, Seth probably had no idea what a jock was since he'd been home-schooled all his life.

Quinn frowned, put their cap on backwards, and adjusted their glasses (both pairs, since they were still wearing Strand's shades). "Your part?"

"On the other side. The marina for the tourists," Seth explained. "Wouldn't wanna go over there anytime soon."

"There's infected?"

He nodded. Quinn didn't like this news. It made invisible hands wrap around their spine like a frightened child.

"They got caught on land when the ferries went down," Seth told them. "Figure there's a couple of hundred. The ones who wash up on the beach we can manage. But if they knew we were here we'd be served up with salt and pepper."

Quinn shivered.

Seth smirked.

"Why would you stay here?" Quinn asked.

"This is home," he answered. "This is it. We all die. It's surrender or survive. You accept it or deny it. It's not right or wrong, good or bad. It just is; that's what my dad says."

Quinn stared at him.

"Right."

Quinn thought he was crazy.

Quinn thought they all were.

"It is," Seth insisted. "It all is. It's right."

Seth walked away. Quinn spent a second listening to the wind and closing their eyes and waiting for the breeze to put everything back where it was supposed to be.

Quinn had spent a little while drawing with Willa and Harry in the living room. They'd gone up to the house with Nick to wait for Chris and Travis to come back from what they were doing. While Nick wondered off to the bathroom, Quinn taught the children to make their own tags, (though, on paper and with crayons rather than on walls with spray cans) and then said that maybe soon they all could go outside and paint some on the mess hall. Quinn only figured this was them being a bad influence when Willa and Harry were already hyper on the idea of it. But they looked happy –not worrying about the sick or the scary monsters– so Quinn figured it was a good thing.

"Quinn?" Willa asked at one point.

"Yeah."

"Are you missing your parts?"

Quinn laughed and shook their head. "No. No, I have parts."

"Then how come Nick says to call you them?"

"Well, um, my parts are one thing, but, up here—" They pointed to the space between their eyebrows, then got a little distracted trying to remember what that part of their body was called... Glabella, right? "Um, yeah, up here, I'm just Quinn. Not a boy or a girl. Not all the time, at least."

Both children looked confused.

Quinn tried a different strategy: "Sometimes I feel like a girl. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like a boy. Sometimes I don't. Does that make sense?"

Willa and Harry nodded.

"What do you feel like today?" Harry asked curiously.

Quinn shrugged. "I haven't thought about it yet."

"I feel like a boy," Harry said.

Quinn smiled.

Willa had a very serious look on her face, and when Quinn asked if she was okay, the little girl said, "I... think I feel like a girl."

Quinn laughed.

A little while later, Quinn found Chris. Him and Travis were walking back up from shore. Travis looked horrified, and Quinn saw the spray of blood on Chris' shirt but didn't say a word about it until they were both inside the Abigail's spare room together.

"What were you doing?" Quinn demanded.

"Maintenance," Chris said. He sat on the bed and changed his shirt.

"You were killing them?"

"It's his chores," Chris said... and grinned. "Seth told me to help so I did." He actually thought this was cool? "The infected come from the mainland. Ships gone down between here and the coast. The current drops them off here. George says it's a tidal anomaly. You have to do it quietly because gunfire brings more."

"How many are there?" Quinn asked, and worked hard at not grimacing. They couldn't tell if they could smell the rot or if it was all just in their head.

"Seth said new ones every day," Chris replied. "I used the pickaxe. Seth says you gotta get them at their temple, socket, or the base of their skulls if their backs are to you." He made a few hand demonstrations against Quinn's face and throat and they smacked him away. "Dude, what?"

They glared at him. What the hell is your problem? they wanted to ask, but it came out like, "How does he know how to... to kill?"

"His dad. Taught him. They've been preparing for this kind of thing forever. Self-reliant."

"More like bat-crud-crazy."

"It's deliberate living."

"It's sick."

"It's being of use."

Quinn stared then, and felt their cheeks turn hot. Neither said anything for a few seconds but Chris' frown didn't go away. Quinn knew it was personal this time.

"If you've got something to say to me, say it to my face," they said.

He hissed through his teeth and waved them away. Quinn told him to knock it off when his hand flapped too close to their nose, but he didn't, so Quinn grabbed it –his hand– but Chris yanked it back and pushed Quinn away. Quinn was so angry that they shoved him.

Chris staggered into the door. He looked so furious that Quinn was afraid he would hit them. But he didn't. He just stepped aside and shook his head.

"Go back to your bucket, Quinn."

Quinn hated to admit it, but they were sulking.

Chris was doing more chores with Seth. Nick was playing with the kids. Travis and Madison were helping George and Melissa with the fences or the garden. Daniel and Ofelia were looking after each other, and Strand was doing God knows what God knows were. Hye was sleeping downstairs, because in the whole time since leaving Lost Angeles, Quinn realised they hadn't seen her sleep once. Even their mom had been more 'of use' than they had.

It was embarrassing.

Quinn went for a walk.

It was windy and cold even though the sun was bright. Quinn lost them-self winding through footpaths and tiptoeing across water stones. They eventually came out on the camp ground and crossed it to the mess hall, then circled all the way around it until the first heart swirl sketch was found on the bulletin board outside the souvenir shop next door. It was drawn with the hanging pen across the paper sign-up sheet for bird watching, scheduled three weeks ago. The ink was still wet when they ran their thumb over it; it left a little stripy mark. The second heart swirl was on a bench nearer the outskirts of the camp, carved in with a small sharp rock left on the seat. Quinn knew who had drawn them all, so they followed the next two heart swirls, one carved on the side of a payphone and the other scratched into a run-down old car with flower beds in the hood and seats, all the way to the girl with the same heart swirl symbol self-tattooed on her inner forearm.

Alicia was in the picnic area.

She was sitting on a picnic bench, her feet on the long chairs you can't pull out. It was near the edge of the cliff and the tide crashed below against the hard wind. The sun was above her. She looked down at her arm and stroked her tattoo gently, following its spiral into its centre. Her ear-buds were in, music loud, and when she saw Quinn in the corner of her eye she shuffled quickly to pull down her sleeve.

"Hey."

"Hey, you."

Alicia smiled. She hadn't been crying but Quinn saw how sad she was.

"How's the weather up there?" they asked, one knee on the bench seat as they pointed to Alicia's head. She chuckled miserably.

"Pretty clear, actually, once you look past all the cloud."

"Can I join? I have a blanket." They did have one. It was wrapped around their shoulders because the cardigan, the jeans, the shirt, and the cap still weren't enough to keep the cold away. Alicia nodded. Quinn climbed up onto the bench and sat beside her. They shared the blanket and she shared the music, and once the ear-bud was in, Quinn looked out over the ocean and the abandoned marina on the other side of the island and rested their head on Alicia's shoulder.

'I wanted that heat so bad
I could taste the fire on your breath
And I wanted in your storm so bad
I could taste the lightning on your breath

I watched you hold the son in your arms
While he bled to death

Every love is your best love
And every love is your last love
And every kiss is a good-bye
Every kiss is a good-bye

I watched you hold the son in your arms
While he bled to death

He grew so pale next to you
The world is so pale next to you
Your hair is coxcomb red
your eyes are viper black...'

So, curled up inside their blanket, surrounded by their music, huddled on their corner of the world together, Quinn accepted that the wind wasn't going to put anything back together anymore, and that maybe that was okay, that maybe that was enough, that maybe the fact that just the wind being here, real, like how everybody else was, would make it okay in a new way, that maybe it would make it enough.

"Come on," Alicia said. She spoke into the top of Quinn's head and they felt her breath warm through their hair. "We should go back to the boat."

The wind sent the ocean crashing against the bottom of the cliff.

"Okay."

Quinn wasn't sure why, but Alicia kissed their forehead. It was strange. Quinn looked up at her. They looked and they looked and they looked. Until they kissed. And they felt their breaths and their lips and their other kisses that followed, and they were all strange and warm and neat and smooth, and when they pulled away from each other, they both kept very close, with their eyes still closed and their foreheads pressed softly.

"Why?" one asked, and the other just smiled...

"Why anything at all?"

Notes

I really like writing kissing without pronouns and I have no idea why but ouch my feelings.

I think Alicia is still getting over Matt (plus the whole Jack thing soon) and I think Quinn is doing that whole ignoring it thing so much that they aren't really thinking about this, but rather using it like another way to ignore everything. But I mean, neither of them are hurting anybody, so it's not a bad thing.

As always,
Happy reading.