The air is damp and clear, the kind of grey october atmosphere that cleanses your lungs as you inhale, staring out over grass that still holds its green under an ever growing blanket of leaves.

Or that would be the case if Harding were breathing. Her canvas trainers tap on the sidewalk, rubber soles making small squeaking sounds as she jiggles her leg. Chase sits next to her on the bench, hand on his chin, mouth still slightly agape as he stares out over the park between buildings.

"I just-" he begins finally. "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me to begin with. Did you not trust me? Did you not think I could handle it? I-"

"I didn't want you to have to handle it. You were in a good place, you had your job and shit, and…well I wasn't sure where we were, and I didn't want you to feel obligated to stay with me or anything because of it."

"So instead of the possibility of fucking us both up, you went and fucked up your own life?"

She shrugs, still shaking her leg. "We both know I needed to grow the fuck up."

"Did you?"

She laughs. "Don't drink, do pick fights, have an actual job, take care of a toddler, yeah I'd say I did."

He stares at the braids curving over the back of her head. "So…can I meet her?"

She looks at him for the first time since the conversation began, all the anxiety in her eyes replaced by seriousness. "Think about it for a while first. I don't want you feeling obligated to do anything, that's not why I told you. But even more than that I won't have you coming into her life then leaving; both of us know how hard that one is."

Leaves drift down in the silence. His hand finds the back of her head almost absentmindedly, and pulls her down to rest her forehead on his shoulder. A small sigh of contentment escapes Harding's mouth. Chase frowns into the distance, playing with her bun.

"She cute, then?"

Harding pulls back, eyebrows raised. "Is she cute? Look at us: she's fucking adorable, a downright beaut."

He smiles, and they hold each other's gaze a little too long. Harding blushes and looks away.

"So what now?" Chase asks.

"Well, now you try not to hate me, and we try to be friends."

"Couldn't hate you if I tried." There's something soft and sincere in his voice, but its gone just as quickly. "Well, I did when I realised my jacket was gone."

"Yeah, well you can't have it back now. Winnie wears it on the bike."

"Bike?" He asks surprised. "Gage's bike?"

"Yeah."

"Even after…all that?"

"Even after all that."

He returns to work shaky handed.

"You okay?" Cameron asks after he nearly drops one of the vials and proceeds to swear violently.

"Yeah just…distracted."

"Harding?"

"Yeah, kind of."

She prods a little more. "Was it bad between you two?"

Chase shrugs and leans over the microscope. "I didn't think it was, but I came back from work one day and she was gone."

"Gone? Has she told you why?"

He sighs in exasperation. "Look, I'm really not in the mood to talk about it, alright?" Slamming away from the table he says, "It's not a cyst."

Wally stares at the sky, knock-off Raybands acting as a barrier between her eyes and the sun.

"Isn't it, like, mad that the sun is up there?" she asks. "And like, the stars we see at night are so cold, but burn so much hotter, yeah? Like, science is crazy, mate."

"Gage would be so proud of that statement," the other girl says. She's smaller than Wally, a blonde with a perpetually red nose. "He'd be so proud of us right now."

"Best way to honor his memory."

Their voices hold the lazy smoke of the joint burnt to ashes between them. They're lying on a large beach blanket, gazing at the burning blue 'Gong summer. Lyssa is trying to not cry again, she's been crying for the past week. Wally on the other hand ran out of tears what feels like several funerals ago; the weed just makes the numbness seem a little more interesting.

It had seemed like the best way to honour her little brother, smoking the last of his stash, but now she's not so sure, now she just feels sick. She thinks of him: all bright and cheerful. There was nothing aggressive about Gage, nothing to merit the knife stuck in his side, or the resultant motorcycle accident as he tried to drive himself to the ER.

His girlfriend turns to Wally as she flips over. They've sobered up in the same moment. "Why was he stabbed? Did Jason ever tell you?"

Wally speaks into the blanket, her voice muffled. "Drunk fuckwit called him a faggot."

He was effeminate, with the same rosy, heart-shaped face as Wally, and an innocent look in his eyes.

Lyssa watches, red eyes wide under her glasses, as Wally lies crying into the blanket. There's no pain like the guilt of being the final survivor.