Ashes to Ashes (BDTW #3)

Chapter 11

I went to visit the infirmary before I even knew where my feet were taking me. There were no nurses, no doctors, only a thin sheet of plastic separating me from the people I loved the most. There they all were: Lauren, Michael, Alexander, Miles, Clarke...

I passed by each other their beds. Lauren's face was pale and her cheeks sunken, as though she hadn't eaten a meal in days, and I clued in once I saw a black plastic bucket beside her emitting a pungent, awful smell. I decided to start breathing through my mouth instead. But I still went up to her, trailing my fingers down her arm, squeezing her hand. I remembered how cold and aggressive she was towards me when I'd first met her and smiled, remembering how she finally softened up to me when I lost my friends and had nobody else to go to. Though it may not have been obvious, I think she had that piece of Abnegation laced within her. But when I saw that fire in her eyes, I could tell immediately that Abnegation would always try to squash it, to dull her, but Dauntless would only feed it, make it grow stronger. In every way, she belonged here. Her tenacity and courage were outstanding. 

I choked on a sob and covered my mouth, trying to stifle the sound so I wouldn't wake anybody. It was eerily quiet, all the occupants of these beds in a deep, lulling sleep. I continued on, whispering a goodbye under my breath for Lauren and Michael, to her right, who looked just as bad, if not worse, beside her. 

Next were Clarke and Miles, and I almost couldn't bear to even look at them, with all those warm memories that we shared coming back to mind: capture the flag, drinking, exploring daring jumps over the Abnegation houses, getting tattoos in the pit. Clarke's smile was always infectious, and Miles' easy humour consistently managed to make me laugh. So I cried: I cried for the fact that they absolutely did not deserve this, and that if anything were to happen to them, I would carry that guilt on my shoulders forever. For the first time in a long time, I thought about Patch: how I'd stolen him away from them, that although Alex was an evil man, he was still their best friend. There would probably be a part of them that never forgave me, that would always feel that sense of betrayal. Then, I couldn't stop thinking it, when I spun around this room, looking at everyone, and every bed occupied just seemed like another death toll to add to my expense, all the bodies that would be laid to the dirt by my hand because I wasn't brave enough to face my enemies and save my people. 

I would kill all these people if I did nothing. If I stayed where I was, like everyone else wanted me to, if I was a coward, a trembling fool. 

And though I made up my mind already, it was in that moment, staring at a room full of my potentially dying friends, that I fully accepted my fate. 

I would die for them to live. No matter the torture, the pain, the cost or the cost. Nothing outweighed the thought of standing idly by while they withered away to ash. If they all got to live, then it wouldn't be a burden, but a sacrifice, one that I would give gratefully. 

I wasn't afraid of death. Not my death, anyways. 

It took everything within me, though, to walk up to that last bed, the one that I knew would completely destroy me, over and over again. He seemed to be in the worst shape: his eyes were completely dull, his cheeks sunken, and blood trailed from both his nose and his mouth, probably from coughing and dryness. For a moment, I remembered when I saw him with blood trailing down his eyes in the middle of the entrance to the merciless mart. Was that some sort of premonition? Had I seen what was going to happen? Or was the disease already within him, and would only take a week or two to become fully effective? So many unanswered questions, but I tossed them aside and focused only on the boy before me. 

I knew, deep within me, that every part of me wanted to be with him. To love him. I knew that if we'd met under different circumstances, we would have been happy together. That we wouldn't have to be separated by the threat of war. That our lives would've been a new adventure every day, that we would've built a future in Dauntless. That we would be happy. Because that's all that really mattered, right? It wasn't always about the love. It was how that love made us feel. And when I was with him, everything else seemed to completely disappear. I felt nothing besides that joy, radiating to every fibre of my being.