Blink (Billy Hargrove x OC)

Epilogue

You were my first true friend, and the only real chance I've had at a father figure.

The books and the movies and the TV always make fatherless kids seem so messed up. I don't think I'm messed up, not really. Then again, what do I have to compare it to? Billy? Tom, I think you'd like him.

Tom, on that day, I wish I could've gotten back sooner. I wish I could've saved you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect you.

But you always wanted to protect me.

And maybe in your last moments, you felt sorry you wouldn't be around to do it anymore. Tom, I survived though. I lived. Because of what you taught me. And I'm done running away, that's why I'm here today. I'm done running. I'm done being afraid.

And that all started with what you taught me.

I don't care that Billy and Gus are next to me, and how they both get awkward when people cry. I just let it all out. I start bawling over my father's grave because I should've come here many, many years ago. I feel a gentle hand running my back, a rough hand.

Billy.

We stay for a while, as I let all the tears I haven't let myself cry over the past five years fall to the ground.

Finally, I stop crying, I sniffle and get up. I look to Billy and Gus, their expressions somber.

I slowly and carefully shuffle over to Billy, and bury my face in his chest. He wraps his arms around me and I reach up to the back of his head to play with his soft curls.

"I've got you." He says protectively.

"I know." I reply.

"Seraphina, there's something else to see." Gustav's gentle fingers brush my back, and I turn my head towards him.

"Come." He whispers, moving towards the back of the grave.

Billy and I follow him gingerly, and what I see starts me crying again.

A single quote is on the back of the grave.

It reads:

"People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take."

I can't help but laugh out loud, despite my tears. Billy and Gus both give me a concerned look.

"It's so...it's so Tom." I smile.

It's an Emma Goldman quote, what he would tell anyone who doubted the ways of the anarchist group we used to run in.

It's what he told me before our first big heist.

Together, we had limitless intelligence and boundless courage. And we took what we needed, took the liberty by the hand and ran with it. Together, we escaped the system, and if only for a few years, we set ourselves free.

***

We're back to my Hawkins home, freshly blinked.

"Are you sure you're okay to do this?" Billy asks me, leaning on the kitchen counter as I root through the fridge. "You've blinked to London already today and you're still healing and..."

I look out at him from the fridge, apple in hand.

"Are you sure you're okay to do this?" I ask him.

He stops talking.

"Billy, I'll be fine. All these places I've been blinking to, I've been there before. Sure, I'm a little drained but it's not solely because of the blinking." I take a bite of my apple.