Bane

January 1, 1998

David clenched his eyes shut.

"You better not start crying, David. If you make me cry, I'll kick your ass."

"I'm not going to cry, you dope." His voice was hoarse. Strained. "I can't look you in the eyes, and not feel shame."

Karen all but giggled. Her laughter was grim. "Shame. There's no shame. You had a job to do, and you did it. Took longer than it would if a badass like me were charged with the task, sure... but you did it, all the same."

"All I ever wanted to be was someone like you."

"I couldn't fall in love with someone like me. I didn't fall for someone like you. I fell in love with you."

"Yeah. I don't always know why."

Karen rolled her eyes. "I don't know why the Griffords favor your line or let you Walker boys choose your mates, but historically speaking, baby? It never panned out. Julie Anne Wood, deceased. Nadjia Natalie Sharif..."

A cold wind passed over them, and Karen felt a deep chill creep up her back.

"Deceased."

"That's right. Jasmine. Deceased."

"Jasmine Melody Wood."

Karen shook her head, and heaved a heavy sigh. "Have you ever read any of your mother's diaries?"

"No."

"David, they're there so you could understand them better. Mom's diaries. Dad's journals. It's tradition in The Order."

"It's painful. I never really got to know either."

"Your mother spent her marriage watching your father do this, same as you, you know. He followed that same echo you do, but for him it lead every year to the crash site."

"Fifty-seven."

"...I wish I could have been a fly on the side of that bus. I wish I knew what it was the man expected to see."

"...maybe just to see her."

"Julie Wood is dead."

"It's raining, and I'm here."

"Jasmine Wood is dead." Karen kissed the tip of his nose. "David, honey. That's just a ghost story people tell around the campfire. Nobody comes when it rains. Fuck, take a look around. Everyone's at home. Warm. Out of the rain. Nobody comes when it rains."

David stared over the remains of the old park, and in that moment it felt like a graveyard. Perhaps not a place for the dead, those rotting remains that people left behind, but a grave for memory, then. A place where happiness went to die. "We both know that isn't true."

"David, let's go home. Let's put on a fire, and take off our clothes, and maybe you and I can figure out how babies are made."

David felt warmth flood his ears. "The birds and the bees, now? Here?"

Karen flicked her tongue out and licked the tip of his nose. "We both know that we both know how it works, you dip. I'm trying to seduce you."

"Stick to combat."

"I love it when you pretend you don't like it."

"Ugh." David shrugged and wrapped his arms around her. "I owe you so much."

"As long as you remember it's me, and not some witch, or some fallen angel..."

"...redeemed."