Battle Scars

Chapter 61: Worth Fighting For

A/N: Mitch... ---->

Chapter sixty one: Worth Fighting For
If you travel a little way South of Perth City for perhaps 40 kilometres, there's a region filled with almost one hundred horse ranches. There is two ranches that we are particularly concerned with.
The first is known as Willow Ranch. Home to Mitch, Abby, and four kids who go by Josh, Caleb, Seth, and Tianah. Whilst Josh is the splitting image of his father, Caleb has inherited the look of Sam Hernandez. The startling blue eyes that he had passed onto his daughter and his nephew Lachlan now appeared in his grandson.
Just up the road at Blue Moon Ranch, Jerome and Emily live with their kids, Lexi, Ashley, Eden, and Rebekah. Every day after school, the four of them join their cousins from Willow Ranch out on the green hills, and don't return until bedtime. Occasionally, Josh and Lexi, the only two old enough to ride alone, take their horses and treat their cousins to pony rides. However, Tianah is the one who has inherited a true love of horses, and her cousins and siblings jokingly call her the pony whisperer out of her hearing.
Preston and Ivory live in a big house a little closer to the city, where Ivory has her own Jewellery line. Their daughter, Ebony, enjoys the making of the jewellery perhaps as much as her mother does, whilst their son Lionel enjoyed helping his father in setting up a complex system known as the Internet. Although it was a large, worldwide operation, it's been ten years since the rebellion, and the Internet v2 is almost due for it's first birthday. The new project these two tech heads are now working on is a website known as youtube.
Vikk and Hannah live five minutes away from Preston and Ivory. They have five boys named Simon, Ethan, Tobi, JJ, and Harry. Lachlan lives with his wife Lainey a few streets away, with their two kids named Jordan and Caitlin.
Every so often, Preston and Ivory, Vikk and Hannah, and Lachlan and Lainey take their families to visit Mitch, Abby, Jerome, and Emily, and all of their kids. The reunions are always happy ones.

~*~

It was a warm, sunny day. On days like these, I always knew where to find Mitch, because he'd be sitting under his favourite tree on one of the hills of the ranch, hard at work thinking. And once I'd seen Josh had safely escorted his three younger siblings down the road towards the bus stop and from thence, school, I quite often went to join him.
"You know what Seth announced yesterday?" I asked, looking at him. He smiled slightly, and shook his head.
"Why, was it funny?" He smiled. Seth was known to say a lot of strange things.
"Not really, they've apparently been learning a lot of Modern History recently in school."
"How modern are we talking?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Ten or so years," I replied. He sighed.
"What did Seth say about it?"
"He was telling the other three, and Jerome and Em's kids as well, that they were going to play a new game that he'd invented," I explained. "The game was called Soviets vs Rebels, and it involved splitting the players into two teams. The rebels had to try and escape a hole in the ground, I'm guessing he was thinking of the hole up on the hill that the younger kids were digging for imaginary treasure in. And the Soviets had to try and stop them."
"If only they knew what Soviets vs Rebels actually entailed," he remarked.
"I'm waiting for the day one of them asks us what we did during that time," I sighed. "And if they're not mature enough I'm not telling them."
"Wouldn't want them to have nightmares for a month," he agreed. He turned to look at me. I studied his features, until he brought my face up to meet his, and pressed our lips together. I felt his thumb running gingerly over the scar on my left cheek, the way he always did. To me, the scar felt at least a hundred years old, but I knew he was still reminded of that first day in the arena every time he looked at it.
Although I liked to think I was unbroken, even after everything The Soviet had put me through, I knew neither of us were. Both of us were still hurting, from loss, from guilt, and from fear.
I felt a solitary tear on my cheek, and pulling back gently, I realised it belonged to Mitch. I pulled him close to me, and hugged him tightly.
"Hey, it's ok," I said softly, as much to myself as to him. "And nothing like that can ever happen again, thanks to you."
"I know," he responded quietly. "It's just... We came so close to saving so many more people than we did. We might have escaped with our lives, but there's so many other people who didn't. And now they're gone forever." I was silent for a few moments, thinking.
"There's something that Savarna taught me when I told her the story of Ebony," I said. "Nobody is ever gone forever. You can remove their physical presence from the earth, but they'll always be present in the hearts and minds of the people who love them."
"She had wisdom beyond her years, that child," he smiled. "Even to the point where she'd trust Vikk when I couldn't." We both laughed a little. I pulled away from him, and rested my head on his shoulder.
"I finished writing my song," I said.
"Can I hear it?" He asked.
"Of course," I smiled.

This is an anthem for the homesick
For the beaten
The lost and broke, the defeated
A song for the heartsick
For the standbys
Living life in the shadow of a goodbye
Do you remember when we learned how to fly?
We'd play make believe, we were young
And had time on our side
You're stuck on the ground
Got lost, can't be found
Just remember that you're still alive

I'll carry you home
No, you're not alone
Keep marching on
This is worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
You've had enough
But just don't give up
Stick to your guns
You are worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
Keep marching on

This is a call to the soldiers,
The fighters,
The young, the innocent, and righteous
We've got a little room to grow
Better days are near
Hope is so much stronger than fear
So if you jump kid, don't be scared to fall
Coz we'll be kings and queens in this dream
All for one, one for all
You can light up the dark
There's a fire in your heart
Burning brighter than ever before

I'll carry you home
No, you're not alone
Keep marching on
This is worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
You've had enough
But just don't give up
Stick to your guns
You are worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
Keep marching on

On and on
Like we're living on a broken record
Hope is strong
But misery's a little quicker
Sit and we wait and we drown there
Thinking why bother play when it's unfair
They say life's a waste
I say they lack belief
They tell me luck will travel
I tell them that's why I got feet
Left, right, left, right,
Moving along to the pulse of a heartbeat
This could be the last chance you have to fly
Do you like the ground? Want it to pass you by?
When you had it all, when you were just a kid
Do you even remember who you were back then?
What do you want in life?
Would you be twice as strong?
What would you sacrifice?
What are you waiting on?
Don't stop, March on.

I'll carry you home
No, you're not alone
Keep marching on
This is worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
You've had enough
But just don't give up
Stick to your guns
You are worth fighting for
You know we've all got battle scars
Keep marching on
~*~
Keep marching on.

"It's beautiful," Mitch smiled.
"Thank you," I smiled, returning my head to it's place on his shoulder.
"I try to remind myself that whatever happened then, it was worth fighting for what we have now," He sighed. "I try to look at things the other way... The fact that none of our kids will have to go through that, or at the very least see other people go through it, all of that is because of what we did. You know those games they played were designed to break us beyond repair, so that we could never rise up against them and defeat them. We can't let that get to us, now that we're able to put the past behind us. Because despite everything they tried, they couldn't destroy the hope of a better future that we held."
"Now that we have the future, we have to make the most of it," I agreed.
"Well," he smiled, "I couldn't think of a better place to do it."

~*The End*~

'Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage.
But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.' -Tobias Eaton, Allegiant. (Veronica Roth)