A/N: So this chapter went up and then vanished. Sorry guys - I wrote it and posted it after back-to-back 12 hour shifts at the hospital, after a shift on which two patients had died, and I'd slept about six hours in that 36 hour period, and had been awake for about 16 hours straight. Loopy on caffeine and emotional drama (after panicking over nursing school grades and the possibility of failing out in my final semester) well, I shouldn't have posted it without letting it sit and proofreading it later. (No, I'm not flunking out, just so ya'll know - I misread my grade.)

So! After some edits and general tidying, it's back. Sorry for the inconvenience. I will try to do better in the future.

I do not own any of these characters, they were created and are owned by Rob Thurman!

Alternate title: Why Niko is a Vegetarian. Not as funny as it sounds. Traumatizing, really.

And yes. Burnt human does smell exactly like barbecue - sweet and meaty and tantalizing. It's not something you're likely to forget, either. Oh, the things you learn in the ER...do not smoke in bed, my friends, you'll drop your cigarette and end up with third-degree burns over half your body, and end up burning your penis right off. True story.

So lock all your doors, put your child to rest
There's fire in streets now, but it's quiet in your head
We're passing the time, we're breaking apart
We're damned at the end, and we're damned at the start
Blame it on the roses, blame it on the red
We're running out of time, and we're running out of breath
-"Hey Now," Augustana

The trailer burned long, long into the night.

Niko shivered despite the heat, lying in the dewy grass. He couldn't hear the roar of the flames, only the echo of screams inside his head. Cal's terrified screams, Sophia's howls as she burned alive. He rolled on his side and wretched miserably, sick from the smoke and the memories, the smell of barbecue. The smell of Sophia burnt to a crisp. Burns were patched along his own arms, one ear blistered, cuts scattered all over his body from breaking the back window in a wild desperation and scrabbling scrambling out.

And Cal, oh Cal.

Gone. He'd gotten free just in time to see the Grendels take Cal away and seal up the world behind them.

Niko had run after them, stared at the empty space. A single dragging footmark showed where they'd been...and where they were not.

Niko had gone to his knees, and sat there for nearly an hour before the grief began to break through the shock.

He'd cried, and been sick, and now he lay cold and still in the grass and watched the sky turn grey, then pink, then shade to lavender and finally blue. He was stiff and cold and could smell only smoke and ash. The sun had climbed into the sky for an hour before he could even sit up, numbed out, afraid to look at the trailer.

There was practically nothing left. A few charred posts, metal fixtures drooping and melted. And then his eyes landed on the blacked shriveled thing that had been Sophia. For a few wild moments Niko didn't think he could even breathe, struck by the panicking urge to bolt. It was human-shaped, after a fashion, with limbs stiff and curled towards the sky, throes of agony and death. All her hair was gone. For some reason Niko hit that thought and snagged. Her hair. Her long black beautiful hair that she brushed and brushed - gone and turned to ash.

God, oh merciful God that Sophia had always petitioned when Niko had done something exasperating...

Niko sat shaking under the sunshine and stared at the charred corpse.

Her hair was gone. She was gone.

No-one in the world deserved to die like that, Niko thought, finding tears on his face only when one dripped off his nose. No-one in the world...and not Sophia, not even her. (Especially not her.)

The sun had risen higher. It was almost midday before Niko could get up, his legs wobbly and uncertain. The trailer was gone, the devastation complete. There wasn't anything but rubble left. Their whole lives, reduced to ash and grit. Cal, gone beyond all reach. Sophia, charred and dead. Niko gagged as the thought socked him hard in the gut and he swayed on his feet. He tried not to look at her as he made his way around the burnt remains of the trailer. Was there anything, anything at all left? The ash was too hot to touch - white and gently smoking, deceptively smooth. Niko, barefoot on the grass, stepped on a hot coal and blistered the arch of his foot in instant agony. He sat right down on the grass, felt the pain, stared at what was left of Sophia, and began to cry as he hadn't for many, many years.

Sophia was dead and Cal was gone and Niko had a single garbage sack of clothes and books in the beaten-down car that was his, two of the windows blown out from the fire.

Niko put his face in his ashy gritty hands and there was no-one to hear the great, whooping sobs that shook through him, a single voice raised in grieving.

Time was irrelevant when everything you knew was dead, Niko thought, surprising himself with the clarity of the thought. He sat up from the grass. It was late afternoon, the sun slanted and strong. He took in the tragedy of what had been home, and got slowly to his feet. He felt numb again, but it was a helpful numb, not the stunned shock that had left him utterly senseless in the immediate wake of everything.

Niko walked to the car, tongue thick and dry in his mouth, limping on his burned foot. He methodically searched for food or water, something purely physical to do that didn't require him to think about how he was standing with his back to Sophia's corpse. He found a bottled of water, warm, and a box of stale saltine crackers. He sat in the hot car and ate a handful, pulling greedily at the water, staring down at his bare feet on the grass, the right with a huge fat blister on the arch. Did he have another pair of shoes? Maybe. In the trunk, maybe. He couldn't remember.

He finished off the water and moved to the trunk. His fingers were streaked with black ash as he fumbled the keys to open the trunk. It made his breath catch in his throat, and he had to stop and close his eyes before he could breathe again. The trunk had more books, a small first-aid kit, and...yes, shoes. A pair of old sneakers that were ratty with knotty laces. They were lying on top of a blanket. Niko took the shoes, and stood staring at the blanket. He picked it up, reverently, and sat down in the grass to pull his shoes on. The right one was uncomfortable, pressing on the blister. The blanket cradled in his arms, Niko limped across the grass.

He almost couldn't do it. His hands shook so he nearly dropped the blanket as he unfolded it. With a sharp snap of his wrists, the fabric spread through the evening air and settled over what was left of Sophia. Niko tried hard not to look at it, the streaks of charred bone and muscle and lips peeled back from skull-bared teeth and the sensation of the blanket catching across the stiff unforgiving corpse sent him staggering back in revulsion. The sweet-sour waft of charred meat that stirred up from under the blanket was too much and Niko went to his knees and vomited. He couldn't look at the blanket-covered remains, shivering again, arms wrapped tightly around himself.

Where was God Almighty and his sweet archangels, as Sophia had cried to in her younger days?

Maybe He wasn't listening, and maybe He'd never been there and Niko just hadn't known enough to see it.

For a long time Niko didn't think he even wanted to move, didn't know if he could. Cal was gone, and with him all of Niko's purpose in life. But then it occurred to him that it was going to be dark in less than an hour and he was kneeling not two feet away from a dead body. With a shudder he got to his feet, and found himself dizzy and lightheaded. He stumbled his way back to the car and closed the door. He didn't know if he slept or if he simply stared at the dark ceiling the whole time; all he knew was he could not stop hearing the screams in the dark. He wasn't sure it mattered either way, really. Cal was gone. Sophia was dead. What else in this world did he have? Nothing, and no-one. No-one had even seen the fire. No-one had come to help, and no-one would.

He couldn't even dig either Cal or Sophia a grave.

That started him crying again.

He rose with the dawn, dry-eyed and feeling like a shadow. Thin and empty and without purpose or definition. He moved past Sophia's corpse and used a long stick to stir through the rubble and ash, just to have something to do. It had rained in the night, and the live coals were out now. Niko found nothing of real value. A melted lump of gold and silver - Sophia's jewelry. And then, under a pile of mushy jump, he found her strong-box. It was warped and filthy with ash, but he dug it out and took it and the jewelry back to the car. He pried the lid open with a knife, ruining the blade, and found the papers - and photographs - in it were undamaged. Numbly, Niko sorted through it, ashy fingers leaving smudged prints. A collection of Polaroids, of Sophia's abandoned family. Two of Sophia herself, one young and gay and dancing, the other young and wearing an expectant expression of annoyance. Niko's heart ached - he'd taken that picture, from a child's height and a child's crooked angle, and that was the expression he remembered best from her: 'well, what, kid?'

There was a picture of himself, the date neatly lettered. Three years old, smiling brightly, blonde hair nearly white, grey eyes laughing.

His birth certificate. He hadn't known he'd been born in Kentucky.

Sophia's Social Security card. A collection of handwritten letters, faded and dim. A small posy of dried flowers that crumbled when he touched them, damaged by the heat and time. That was it. Niko shook his head, and started to put everything back. It was mostly useless, really.

He turned the birth certificate over, and blinked. Written on the back, in a corner, in Sophia's best calligraphy, was a note. Niko read it, and tears filled his eyes.

'I didn't always hate you. -Sophie'

He was crying again, and found it in him to whisper, "I didn't always hate you, either, Sophie." Short and soft, he hadn't said her name like that for longer than he could remember; a child's lisp of a once-beloved name.

He put the papers away and spent a long time staring at the trailer, trying not to look at the blanket on the ground.

As the light slanted to evening again, it occurred to Niko that he was alive.

He was alive, and he was thirsty, and Sophia was dead and Cal was gone.

What else did he have left to live for?

Everything he had once loved was gone.

Niko got to his feet and limped to the trailing, long foot-drag in the grass. Cal had done that, fighting to get away. Fighting to get back to him. Niko swallowed against the taste of tears and stared at it.

Cal was gone, and with him everything good in Niko's life. Niko had nothing left, not even a corpse to mourn over. Cal was gone.

And the gate opened, and Cal came back.