DEFEATISM

23

Maverick was right. The air was good.

They ate a cold pasta lunch, and now they are doing pancakes for dinner. No one seems to mind. Their mouths are bitter, no matter how many times the two that puked gargle mouthwash and brush their teeth. Darlington grabs the batteries for the walkie. One is supposed to stay in the office so anyone can access it. The other, they agreed, should go to Galilee. Both she and Jerry weren't exposed to the fumes at all, and unlike Jerry, she could not sleep through the sounds of an apocalypse.

He's in the office though, holding the one Galilee is going to take in his hand. The other is up on the shelf with the dry erase markers. Elodie peeks inside the doorway. He looks at her, flush rising in his cheeks.

"Take it," she tells her. "I won't say anything. Galilee won't either."

Darlington nods and sneaks out of the room.

Inside the office, Elodie goes to the whiteboard. She stares at every F. For some strange reason, be it that she tries to avoid the office as much as she can, or something else, she hasn't written her own F. There are nine, but Jerry wrote the first sentence. She can tell which one belongs to everyone. It becomes a sort of game. The bubble letter is Moonie, the music note is Benedict, the one that is barely legible is Marcellus. Only one even gives her pause. The morse code. By process of elimination, it's Maverick. Her hands hover over it, not wanting to smudge it.

What would she even write? How would people know it is her? Most days, she doesn't know who she is.

Unlike the others, Elodie doesn't feel like she can pay respects. How Ro manages it is confusing. She has been angry for so long, even if she hadn't realized it. Her family's coffin is buried in a shallow grave. There isn't enough room to hold the depths of her sorrow, so she has held it inside her all this time. How could she pay respects to anything when it has been taken so unfairly?

Maybe paying respects wouldn't lower you into a state of defeatism. Maybe a refusal to pay respects is what keeps you there.

Elodie writes an F. It is unremarkable. It is remarkable to her.

The door opens and she puts the marker down hastily, barely even capping it. Maverick turns and looks at her. He doesn't say anything to her. There are too many questions whose answers he doesn't want to know.

If it was a galaxy between him and Moonie when they hadn't spoken to each other for a few days, this is all of time itself and the expanding universe which separates Maverick and Elodie.

She looks at him, at the Maverick she misses, and the one it looks like he's become.

"I'm so sorry," she says. "You were right, Mav. I've been a bad friend."

Maverick drops his first aid kit. He runs up and barrels into Elodie, hugging her so tightly against his chest. She feels his squeeze and returns it, holding on to him as tightly as she can manage. Elodie breathes in, deeply. She hadn't realized how good a breath could feel, even one in this basement, restricted in his arms.

He lets go, smiling at her.

"I was more upset because I thought you didn't realize," Maverick admits. He shakes his head, "well, even if you didn't then, now you do."

She nods. She puts an arm around him, herding them out of the office, "so, you're going to have to tell me all about the past few days. You've clearly been over the Moon."

Maverick laughs.

~~~