Begin Again

Day twenty-one

"Why am I like this?"

And there it was. The inevitable.

"J-Jem?"

He sensed her hesitance, the tensing of her shoulders and the nervous twisting of her fingers in her lap. Maybe he was closer than she realised.

"Tell me what I said."

"I can't."

"P-please, Jem."

"I'm sorry, Leo. I can't. Not yet."

His expression softened. "Is it hard for you to say?"

She closed her eyes, seeing the deep blue and feeling her throat close up.

"Oh. I just... thermo something."

She jerked out of her own world. "Thermodynamics? Fitz, tell me what you know."

"That's it. It just o-occ-ured to me. Why, was that rele-van-t?"

"Yes." She breathed. "Yes."

~*~

Because every bit of energy inside us, every particle, will go on to be a part of something else. Maybe live as a dragonfish, a microbe, maybe burn in a supernova ten billion years from now. And every part of us now was once a part of some other thing. I mean, a storm cloud, a mammoth, a monkey. Thousands of thousands of other beautiful things, and they're just as terrified to die as we are.

She had been trying to reassure herself that death just meant moving on, in those last moments with Fitz at the bottom of the ocean. But when he said thermo, she felt a different way about the ghosts of her words.

They were just a small thread in the fabric of existence, and at the time she felt like a small thread. But when he said thermo, she felt like a part of the fabric, a part of something bigger. A part of something that was bigger than it was possible to imagine. An important thread, a thread that if it was removed would upset the balance of the whole and change the world.

They were threads that were weaved together so tightly it was impossible to distinguish between the two of them. Threads that needed each other, relied on each other, loved each other.

She wasn't going to let them unravel.

~*~

She went back to his bunk that night, and picked up his phone and a pair of headphones.

She opened his music, scrolling through the songs. This was something she had done before, and she knew his taste in music.

She tapped on most played. The song at the top of the list was Weaver at the Loom - Without fear of their return. She hadn't heard that song before, so let it play.

A golden moment's come to pass,

And it made a swift goodbye,

Waved it's hand from left to right,

Saying bye, farewell, goodnight.

But it left me brave and bold

Like the knights of ages past,

Leaving courage like the dawn

Leaves dew upon the grass.

As morning glories bloom

So do some things in life this way.

Rising early but well past noon,

They weaken die and fade.

But there's many perspective buds

Still clinging to the vine,

Waiting in patience

To show their glory at later times.

Oh I got what

I wanted and I'll be afraid no more,

And face all these toxic things, 

'Cause I have finally found my bravery

Bravery.

It didn't sound like the type of song Fitz would listen to, but she could hear why he had.