Chapter 7: You Finally Feel Like Strangers

"What was she doing here, poised between the plains and the mountains that broke the country in two? It wasn't her place. She didn't belong here."
- Stephen King
'The Stand'

1

Kieran and Javier stopped once they reached the abandoned shack where the latter hitched Boaz inside.

"I-I think we're in the clear." Kieran slowed down to a halt, and so did the masked man. His legs were shaking just as bad as his hands were, and for a moment he questioned whether or not he would be able to stand up fine on his own once he dismounted, but he managed to keep his balance. He bent over, leaning against his thighs and tried to catch his breath, more out of anxiety than from the physical exertion.

"Listen," Kieran started, and the masked man dismounted his horse and shooed it off with his arms, freeing it back into the wild. "I just wanna say thank you. I don't know who you are, or why you did what you did, but I really appreciate—"

Kieran was cut off when he felt something cold, hard, and sharp get pressed against his neck. He couldn't see what the man was holding, but it was clear enough that it was a knife. His eyes widened, and tried to reach for the man's hand, but his wrist was grabbed mid-air, and he was shoved against the nearest tree.

He was reminded of Colm. Being immobilised, unable to defend himself, shoved against a wall and not knowing if he would ever be free. It terrified him. But this man wasn't Colm.

The question was, who was he?

For the first time, Kieran was close and still enough to really get a good look at the man. And he would have eventually realised who it was before he even removed his mask, but the man did it anyway. He pulled down his mask, and Kieran's wrist grew weak in the man's hold.

It was Javier.

"What…" Kieran whispered. His voice was shaking, and he hated it. "Javier, w-why are you… What?" Kieran tried to wrap his mind around the situation, but to get an answer he needed a question. But he didn't even know what the question was in the first place.

"Shocked, huh?" Javier said.

"What are you doing?" Kieran's eyes motioned down to the knife still pushed firmly against his neck.

"Letting you know what's gonna happen." Javier informed. "Now listen to me, all right? 'Cause I'm only gonna say this once. Are you listenin'?"

Kieran hesitated for a moment, but he started to nod his head. "I'm listenin'."

"I saw what happened in Rhodes. I was there. I watched it all happen through a scope."

"That was you? With the sniper?" Kieran asked, and Javier hummed.

"I know you didn't kill Sean, and I know you didn't leave on your own accord. For that reason, I saved you from Colm, but that's the only favour you're getting from me, because I also know what you told him. I know that you're a coward. I know that you will never understand what it takes to be one of us. So you will leave, now, and you will not show your face around here again, because if you do? I will be cleaning this knife of your blood for weeks, entiendes?"

"I-I…" Kieran tried to form a coherent sentence, but Javier shoved the knife further against his throat, on the verge of breaking the skin.

"Do you understand?"

Kieran closed his eyes tight, not wanting the man to see him turn to a quivering mess.

"Yes." He managed to say. "Yes, I understand."

"Good." Javier said, pulling the knife away from his throat, though his gaze was just as sharp and twice as deadly. He started to walk away from the shaken man.

"The gang." Kieran called out, and Javier stopped midstep, but still didn't turn to look at him. "Are they okay? I mean… other than…"

"They all made it fine." Javier considered telling Kieran about Jack, but decided otherwise. Kieran wasn't a welcome member of the gang anymore, therefore it was none of his business.

"What do they think? About me? Do they think I did it?"

"That's what Micah said. And Dutch. He believes it, too. Everyone else? They either don't know what to think, or… honestly, I don't think you mattered that much to them to even care what to think."

"And Arthur?" Kieran's voice was much lighter, and it almost made Javier pity him. Almost.

"Arthur's moved on." Javier said. He didn't know why he said it. He didn't know if it was to make the situation worse or better for Kieran. He either felt bad about it, knowing that the one person he truly cared about didn't care about him at all, or he thought that he wouldn't need to worry that Arthur was looking for him, and Kieran himself could actually move on. Javier hoped more for the latter to be true, but he still couldn't subside the small drop in his stomach at the lie he told, because he knew Arthur cared for Kieran. He cared a lot. What Kieran needed to know was that he couldn't come back, it just wouldn't work out, so he needed to make sure he wouldn't. The only way to be sure of that was to take away the one thing — or person — that he would go back for.

Kieran watched as Javier walked into the shack and came out with Boaz. Javier mounted him and rode further and further down the path until he was out of view. In that moment, Kieran slumped against the tree and released a breath that he had been holding for much longer than he thought.

He hadn't been here in a while. This place in his mind and in the world where he had nowhere else to go. Everyone that he had ever known was unavailable to him. Every relationship he had made over the course of his life was over. He had nothing. Nothing and no one.

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to fight. He wanted to run after Javier and tell him that he didn't get to put all the blame on him, and that he could threaten him all he wanted but he was still going home with him. But he couldn't, and he didn't. This was just how things were. He had learned to accept that fact years ago when his parents died, and he was made to fend for himself. This may not always be life, but this was his life, and he had to settle for that because it was his only option.

He mounted Branwen once more and set off, riding in a direction that doesn't lead to the Van der Linde camp, and doesn't lead back to the O'Driscoll camp either. He didn't know where he was going, but he sure knew where he wasn't. He just let the path guide him. He trusted it to take him where he needed him to be and to where he belonged. Wherever that was.

2

Arthur sat away from the group, much like Kieran always did. Not because he felt cast out from them, but because he just wanted to be alone.

He sat by his own fire, smaller than the one in the centre of camp. He was holding onto a framed picture of the couple of raiders that he saw hiding amongst the trees, which was also one of the men that looked up to him before he died. He found it hidden in a safe box that was under the bed in the room Abigail allocated to him. It must have been theirs; or at least one of theirs. The picture showed the blonde man, turning and kissing the cheek of the other. The man was looking into the camera, with the same eyes that bore into Arthur's before he was shot for the second time. On the back, it read 'Jasper & Oscar. 1988'.

He can't imagine that the two were exactly showing of their relationship. Lemoyne Raiders weren't exactly known for being accepting of anyone that was different in that way. They were confederate freaks who murdered anyone who wasn't their own and discriminative on pretty much every subject. He just couldn't see how they would be accepting of homosexuals in their group, it just wasn't in their taste. The men must have kept themselves a secret. He just can't understand why they would run with people like the Lemoyne Raiders if they didn't share the same views. But then again, Kieran was nothing like the O'Driscolls. Sometimes things happened that were beyond your control.

Arthur didn't want to look to far into it. He doesn't want to be kept up at night wondering if he shouldn't have let them die in case they were just some innocent folk being dragged into a bad situation. He had enough nightmares as it was.

"How you holdin' up?" Arthur was pulled from his thoughts by Hosea, holding two coffees and offering one to him. He put the picture frame under his leg, not wanting to be questioned on it.

"As much as everyone else. Thinkin' bout Jack and Kieran, missin' Sean, is all. Doesn't get any easier, losing someone, no matter how many times you go through it."

"Mournin' ain't supposed to be easy." He took a seat on the log next to Arthur, close enough to comfort him. He knew that he couldn't fix Arthur's worries with any words of reassurance, but if there was one thing he did need, it was a friend.

"I keep tryna think of what we coulda all done differently, you know? I shoulda seen that guy comin' at Javier back at the O'Driscoll camp. Just like I shoulda seen what happened with Sean and Kieran. Now Jack's gone and I can't help but think how I coulda been there to stop that, too. One man injured, another dead, and two missin', all 'cause I'm not lookin' out for 'em."

"You were doing what you could. There ain't nothin' wrong about that. If you hadn't, Javier coulda had a shot to the head instead of the arm, and Kieran might be dead, too."

"Hell, he might be."

"Well we don't know what happened to him."

"What do you think happened?" Arthur turned to look at Hosea, like whatever answer he gave him was the right one. It was all he had to go on right now.

"I don't believe he would've just run off, that doesn't seem like him."

"Even after everything? After us pushing him to nearly getting himself killed? Everyone givin' him a hard time over Javier gettin' shot? Blamin' him for everything that goes wrong, even if he wasn't within a mile of it? He probably thinks we're blamin' him for Sean gettin' killed. Terrified that we were gonna kill him if the O'Driscolls hadn't already, and maybe he really did high tail it. It'd be the smart thing to do, I guess." He shook his head with a humourless laugh. "I hate that I'm startin' to agree with Dutch. I hate even more that that means I'm agreein' with Micah, too, the goddamn idiot."

"Kieran loves this gang. Sometimes it treated him like dirt, but it's all he had. He wouldn't leave. Not like that."

"Don't try and be all sentimental on me, Hosea, you know I'm right. He's a nervous kid. I would never have expected you, myself, or anyone else to have gone into that camp alone. We knew it was too dangerous to do on his own, but we were all looking at Kieran like he was… expendable. Like it wouldn't be blood on our hands just because he wasn't completely one of us. Jesus, if I even know what makes any of us anymore."

"You didn't mean to make him do anything like that. Dutch… has his ideas. He wanted Kieran to go into that camp because there was a chance we could have gotten back at the O'Driscolls. But he knew the risks. If this is on anyone, it's on him."

"But Dutch listens to me. I should have said somethin'. Instead I just…" Arthur took a deep breath, filled with defeat. "I just let him. I didn't stop to think whether it was a good idea. I just trusted Dutch's judgement, and it didn't take me until now to figure out that it wasn't smart. Makes me think how many other times I've gone through with a plan I wouldn't dare think of myself."

"Well there's no changin' anythin' now. What's done is done. And don't you dwell on it, neither."

"No, I won't." Arthur put on a more upbeat tone of voice, but Hosea knew better. He turned back to the fire, rubbing his face in his hands, like it was still covered in muck and blood. That feeling lasted for days sometimes.

Not too far from where Arthur was sat, Javier laid in his tent, trying to focus on reading his book, but he couldn't help but catch onto the conversation. He knew that Arthur worried about Kieran, but he didn't know that it was hurting him this much.

Javier tried to take his mind off of Arthur, but every time his eyes caught him he got caught in his waves of misery. His guilt hurt worse than his bullet wound. Arthur was worrying about Kieran all the damn time. He was conflicted on what he thought happened with the kid and he needed answers. Answers that Javier had. Answers he had no reason to hold back other than his own selfish greed. Javier took the day to go back on forth as to whether or not he should tell Arthur what happened, but he knew that he had no place to hold information like that. Arthur was a grown man and could make his own decisions. It wasn't up to Javier to choose whether or not Kieran was part of the group, and if he could go back in time, he would have taken him back to camp when he saved him. But he let his anger get the better of him. He still saw Kieran as the O'Driscoll that let him get shot. Arthur saw something else. Something beyond that. He saw the real Kieran.

"You've got too much weight on your shoulders, friend." Javier said, sounding exhausted and impatient waiting for his arm to heal already. He went to stand by Arthur who was looking over Kieran's map in house's dining room. He was crossing off O'Driscoll camps that they had already raided in search for Jack, and Javier eyed the camp where he found Kieran. He had to tell Arthur otherwise he would sure be confused as to why all the O'Driscolls there were already dead.

"I ain't got much else to do right now but worry. I can't look in any more camps until the others get back, in case they've already got 'im. The waitin' is the worst part of it."

"Rest with me. Have a smoke." Javier handed him a cigarette from his pack and lit it with a match.

"Thanks." Arthur said, and after the first breath he realised just how much he needed it. It was easy for them to forget how distracted they become, and needed a moment to themselves. "How's your arm?"

"It's beginning to close up. It's the muscle that's the worst of it. Like you said, the waitin' is the worst of it." Javier smiled, but the joy was short-lived.

"I know you blame Kieran for it, and I suppose you have a right to in a way, but I just wish you'd understand he never wanted it to happen."

"You're defending a man who's not even here, like he needs it."

"That's exactly why, because someone has to." Arthur took another smoke, much longer this time, and Javier felt that familiar guilt once more. "With Jack gone… old friends not being around no more, seems like we're losin' people quicker than we're gainin' 'em."

By the look on Arthur's face, Javier knew he was thinking about Sean. He really missed that kid. Javier himself felt a little piece of him missing not hearing that Irish accent booming around the camp, and Molly's couldn't even begin to compare. Javier looked into the fire crackling in the night, feeling Arthur's pain pool in his own gut.

"We'll get Jack back, Arthur." He said, voice significantly lower, though more stern. "I don't know a lot of things, but that I do know. No one would wanna hurt that boy."

"I sure hope you're right about that." Arthur took in a deep breath, trying to not let himself get too depressed over the thought. "I don't know what John would do if he lost that kid. He doesn't act like much of a father, sometimes I think he pretends he isn't… but I know that he would give his life for him."

"I'm sure he would."

"Yeah, I know he would. Man is just like the rest of us, hidin' behind somethin'. But should the time come to save any of us, we'll all be there, even if it cost us ourselves." Arthur drifted off into his own thoughts, and Javier could tell by the look on his face that he was still talking to himself in his mind.

"Yeah." Javier said, not wanting to start this conversation. "About that." When he didn't continue, Arthur gave him a questioning look.

"What?"

"I know that you'd do anything to save Jack, and so would I, and I know that you'd do anything to save Kieran, too. And I wouldn't think that I'd agree with that, at least not at first, but… I did."

"Whad'ya mean?" Arthur was beginning to change the way he looked at Javier, and it made him nervous. The man was going to be upset with him, and he was going to have to accept that.

"I… I went out to look for Jack after you guys had left."

"Your arm, Javier." Arthur stressed.

"I know." Javier admitted. "But you saw how Abigail looked. I couldn't just sit around and wait for you guys to come back just to say you hadn't found him. I wanted to help."

"All right, well… what about Kieran?" Arthur was beginning to get agitated.

"I got into one of Colm's camps and… I found him."

"Kieran was with them?" Arthur moved to the edge of his seat, staring at Javier.

"Yes, but… he wasn't working. He wasn't with them, he was… a prisoner."

"He what?" Arthur was ready to leave should he need to.

"He was in one of their cells. He was beaten pretty bad, but… I let him go."

"Why did you do that? Why didn't you leave him?" It wasn't a question as to why he would think about saving Kieran, but rather as to why Javier would save Kieran.

"Because I was there in Rhodes." It took Arthur a moment to remember, and to piece together what Javier meant.

"You were the one with the sniper?" Arthur recalled.

"That's right. Kieran didn't kill Sean, Arthur. Sean was trying to save him. It was the O'Driscolls that shot him."

"Why the hell are you only telling me this now?"

"I…" Javier struggled to find an answer. Was it because he didn't trust Kieran? He wasn't sure about that.

"Well, where is he?"

"Arthur, don't be angry." Javier tried to calm him down.

"I'm not! I just want to know where he is!" He was clearly angry. Javier had said enough to get the ball rolling, no point in stopping now.

"I told him to go." Javier muttered. Arthur's eyes changed from wonder to betrayal pretty damn quick. "I let him go, he's safe from what I know, but… I told him not to come back to camp. I told him… I told him that we've moved on. That you moved on."

"Why the hell did you do that?"

"Because he is the reason Jack got kidnapped, Arthur! He is the one that told Colm that we were moving to Shady Belle! If he hadn't've told them, Jack would be here right now."

"But Kieran would be dead."

"Maybe, but—" Javier stopped when Arthur jumped up and stormed up to his room. He followed him and watched as he started packing for ammo and some food. "What are you doing?"

"I'm goin' to get Kieran."

"Arthur, listen to me, I—"

"I appreciate you helpin' him outta there, but now it's my turn, don'tcha think?" Javier realised that he had no right to fight Arthur on this.

"How will you know where he is?"

"I've got an idea."