To Heal All Wounds

Homecoming

Who was crying?

Billy looked around for another soul around him but found no one.

Oh.

He touched his face and wondered when he'd begun crying. Why he'd begun. Was it relief that Max might be safe or fear that she still might not be? Both? Why was he suddenly so concerned with her? A choked, absolutely wrecked sob cut off his thinking and wiped his mind clean again. And then another. And another. Wail after wretched wail ripped itself from Billy's body as a lifetime of pain and fear and anger made itself known to him, rendering him powerless to their thrall. He wanted to scream forever. He wanted to beat the pillar before him until his knuckles were bloody and broken. He wanted to slit his wrists in shame and go back to sleep forever.

He didn't deserve to live.

He didn't deserve anything.

How long did he lie there, silent and shaking in the dust and the debris from a battle from... so long ago? Was he laying there for an hour? Two? More? Long enough that the early afternoon sun could be seen from the skylight above. When he finally rose, he wondered if he was lying in long-dried blood or mud. It didn't matter, he supposed.

Nothing mattered.

All sensation, so new to his resurrected body, was gone again as he walked... somewhere.

Outside, evidently.

The sunlight burned his eyes. It took him a long moment before he was able to open them again. Hadn't that been a sign that he had been overtaken? Panic raced through him for a moment before he realized that he was not burning. He'd just been inside for so long.

Before him sprawled an empty, broken, overgrown parking lot. So different than the pristine asphalt that he'd seen before he... blipped.

More than a second had passed, that much was becoming increasingly clear.

What had happened? Had he been overtaken that whole time? No. He was aware when whatever had control of him was in power. He saw it all. He screamed through it all. Maybe something stronger had taken him once he'd broken free? He strained his brain to try and remember something... anything... but failed.

He remembered his life before the mall, sure enough. He remembered it all. Painfully. He remembered his mother, how she left. The terrible pain left inside of him that he always tried so hard to fill and then later ignore. He remembered his own comings and goings.

He remembered Max. He remembered how he'd treated her. He remembered why she flinched when he looked at her.

Why did he now feel so badly about that? He'd never felt shame about his actions before. Only irritation when she flinched or scrambled away from him. Now, looking back... all he felt was crippling guilt. His eyes felt hot again and he took several long slow breaths to cool them back down. Falling apart wouldn't get him anywhere.

He had to act if he wanted to keep himself together.

Billy was no boy scout, but he guessed from the sun that it was still about an hour before noon. He would have checked his watch, but when he glanced down, the glass was cracked and the hands were still. The mall was across town from his house, and without a car to get him there, he knew it would take him several hours to get there. Better start now.

He had only been walking an hour or so when a squad car pulled up beside him, the officer's mouth hanging open in shock.

"Billy," he asked. "Billy Hargrove?"

"Yes," was Billy's only answer.

"You'd better get in, son."

Billy began to open the back door, but was quickly corrected.