my heart breaks, but i don't. jacinta & saffron.

Ment had made her choice.

("I volunteer.")

She still feels the bruise that blossomed underneath her cheekbone one year ago. Clementa, furious, encompassed in grief and the lack of Emberly-

("I volunteer."

She'd just stood there, on that stage, trembling. Terrified.)

She'd swung back, carving up a ghost with her fists, swung her own fury at Teddy-

Saffron places her glass carefully down on the coffee table, stares at a television screen screaming of Clementa Lowe's death, remembering how she'd flung the last vessel at the wall and sobbed for Emberly's death.

Clementa sobbed too, on her porch steps, yelling words only meant for the devil's lips. Saffron had thought she'd had every right, let her swing her fists until something in her cracked and she flung her fist back - fight or flight, instinct, a crack in time - she stood in the arena again and lunged.

And she sighs,

They're all so angry. They're all so angry they've forgotten why they're furious in the first place. Chaos.

And then there is Quinn, just over a year old and babbling names:

"Mama. Dada. Pay. Keer. Ki-ki."

She doesn't want to think about Kiara now, all she has left of what once was. All that's left of her disastrous ways.

So she thinks of Quinn, so alight, so full of joy, so blinded by her fresh youth because she doesn't realise how angry everyone is and nobody could be angry at her, anyway, one year old and rosy cheeks and tufts of dark hair.

"'Menta?' she gargles at the television screen. It flickers, changes scene, a second too late for the victor's eyes to see what her daughter had seen, show hosts beaming like nothing was wrong - but Saffron knew. 

Her daughter sits in Kieran's arms - safe - and Saffron lets her go, carried away by her brother. She shuts the door behind them - safe, for now - thinks about calling Mace, thinks about what she'll say, thinks about what he'll think hearing her voice hollow, hearing nothing down the end of the line.

("Why don't you just take your stupid baby and leave!"

So she did. But Ment followed.)

She's tired. Tired of crying, tired of caring, tired of being a selfish piece of shit-

Clementa's fist strikes her jaw.

"Fuck off," she whispers to ghosts. "Leave me the fuck alone."

The ghosts don't talk back anymore - good. Silver tongue, firey words. Good. Maybe she's glad Clementa's gone, fucking bitch--

She catches herself there, stops in her tracks, rests her palm on the dining room walls and breathes. In, out, selfish, not selfish. 

Clementa hated her when she was alive and Clementa hated her when she died and Saffron will never be sure if it was all hate or grief or teenage rebellion but she's got to accept that, now, because Myara and Emerly and Clementa are gone. And maybe it's her fault - but you can't hold on to ghosts for a reason.

Transparent, she looks right through them and spies the newest of the damned - alone, deadpan expression, dead eyes. She looks like a mirror image.

"Jacinta?" she asks, sliding herself into the opposite chair without an invitation. 

Dead eyes meet dead eyes - there's no need for formalities here.

"I'm Saffron."

and,

"I'm sorry."
 

this wasn't a crash landing

each other, we can't abandon

lost at sea in the same boat

my heart breaks, but i don't