Scattered Ashes: Windblown
by Timesprite
I spot him standing alone on the dock, a silhouette in the noon-day sun, smoke from his cigarette rising skyward in a plume. It's probably not my place to pry, but I don't like seeing people in pain. I'm torn for a moment before I step off the back porch and wade out through the grass, in need of a cutting, and stop beside him. I vaguely wonder what I'm doing. I don't even know the man. "Enjoyin' the view, sugah?"
He turns to face me, blue eyes locking on my green ones, and for a moment there's a world of pain and grief in his face. I have to glance away. "Yeah." He takes a drag on his cigarette. "Look, if y' came here to try and make me feel better, don't."
"Figured the others already tried that. Ah just wanted ya t' know you're not alone here."
He gazes back out over the lake. "Heard the 'family' speech too, luv."
"Well," I reply hotly, slightly annoyed at his stand-offish manner. "Ya didn't *have* t' come here. No one forced ya. You could have stayed on Muir, or gone back t' London..."
He looks back at me. "An' do what? Go back t' working for the government? Been there, done that. Rather not." He flips the cigarette into the lake and light another. "At least here I can feel like I'm doin' some good, anyway."
We stand there silent a moment and a cloud scuttles over the sun, muting its light and casting a shadow over the lake. The cool breeze blows my hair around my face and the whole world seems haunted with the ghosts of yesterday, as if this place, the lake, the trees, even the mansion itself remember the battles and the lives that have played out here.
I glance at Pete. There are miles between us. He's lost the dearest thing he had, and I--I was given a second chance. It makes me feel guilty all of the sudden. How could I come here and expect to comfort him when I've got every reason in the world to be happy, and he has nothing?
"Ah'm sorry." I mean it. Not just in the sense I regret ever coming out here, thinking I could fix things for him. I'm sorry for all of us, sorry for what this place has seen.
"So am I," he replies, and I realize he hears it too, the din of battle and the sound of laughter drifting on the breeze, like time has somehow splintered open, giving us glimpses of what has been.
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