A/N: This is what happens when I'm told too many times "omg this is so fluffy!" xD Counter-reaction! Thank you for your support everybody, only a few days left before we get our show back :'D
TULIP
It happens too fast, the way it always does.
In the months that have passed since the Purge, a few months that feel more like several lifetimes spent in hell to them all, almost everything has changed, the familiar like the unfamiliar. Even the most significant places, the ones you should never forget, suddenly look foreign.
That is probably why neither Peter nor Olivia recognize the alley, that haunted place so close to the now long deserted Massive Dynamic. The graffiti, that once covered the entirety of the walls all these years ago, are gone too, painted and drawn over times and times again. The newest drawings that can now be seen are to be expected. Like a growing field, they have bloomed all over the city, all over the country, and rumors say they're already starting to spread worldwide as well.
The Tulips, symbol of Resistance.
To the husband and wife currently hiding in the shadows, it is nothing but a detail to them, especially now, when they are forced to be helpless witnesses of what the Observers are doing to one of their own kind, something they've never done before. It's not exactly a surprise; September had it coming.
It is, however, unbearable. All they can do is watch, as the brain of the only person who could help them find their daughter is turned into mush, the way so many Natives' are on a daily basis.
He's still 'alive' when the Observers are finished with him. The fact that they disappear quickly after that is proof enough that it won't be for long, though.
The moment they're gone, Olivia is on the ground, grabbing September's head in her hands; blood is seeping out of his ears and nose in a very slow, thick flow that soon covers her fingers too. His eyes are half-opened, but it is clear that he's already gone, the rise and fall of his chest a treachery.
Olivia doesn't care.
"Where is she?"
She's not asking, she's demanding him.
True to the feral behavior she has been adopting ever since the Purge, having long ago gone back to channeling all of her pain into anger, her voice is guttural, low and menacing. Her fury radiates out of her, causing her body to shake slightly; her face, only inches away from September's, constricts as she stares into the glassy eyes of the brain-dead Observer.
"Please, tell me where she is."
Already,her wrath is changing, morphing into a desperation she cannot hold back anymore, not when it is dawning on her that their last hope of ever finding Etta is dying right there in her hands, and there is nothing she can do but beg him.
"Please, tell me where my baby is!"
But the only answer she gets is in the sudden yet expected stillness of his chest, and in the vacant look in his eyes that follows, as his body finally gives up. He lies there on the pavement, where a Shapeshifter flaunting Charlie's face had once laid before.
There is silence, then, a long, long stretch of silence, until her intakes of breath become progressively louder and more erratic. She lets go of his head, and it hits the ground with a muffled, nauseating thump.
Her bloody fingers disappear into her hair, and she fists it in her hands, curling into herself. A low hum can be heard, now, an agonizing lament that escapes her throat with increasing volume, until it's a full-blown yell of despair that echoes through the alley. A rising, broken sob is what eventually makes it stop.
And just like it had before, the rain begins to fall.
On the walls, the tulips are crying, too.