the kids aren't alright

six days

July 2121

Erika had left her alone for the first few days, after Heidi insisted on staying behind to wait for Eithne. By the sixth day, though, she seemed to be done with leaving Heidi alone. She and Tom had shown back up with a handful of vegetable steam packs, which was a little insulting, like they thought Heidi couldn't feed herself. Heidi had even taken MREs from the tower, Erika had seen her do it.

But still, there they were, all sitting around Heidi's campfire, quietly eating MRE stir fry out of the foil packets. There was a conversation coming after the meal, and everyone seemed to know it. Heidi was pretty sure she wasn't the only person eating slower than normal.

Erika abruptly crumpled her packet up, tossing it into the fire, and Heidi looked up from pushing around her last three bites of rice with her fork to watch as the plastic coating on the outside peeled off and shrank, before burning away.

"He's not coming, Heidi," she said.

Heidi had known that since Day 3. But Erika didn't know Eithne like she did, and didn't have the right to say shit like that. Heidi knew he wasn't coming, but he had proven her wrong before. "You don't know that," she muttered, fixing her eyes back on the foil packet in her lap.

"If he was, don't you think he'd be here by now? It's Eithne, what exactly could be holding him up?"

There were a lot of things that could keep him from coming back in a timely manner. Maybe something had happened with Nathan, where Eithne felt like he was responsible for keeping him in line. Maybe he was ashamed to show his face after fighting with Tom. Maybe he just needed more time.

When Heidi didn't say anything, Erika sighed, sounding exhausted. When she actually spoke though, her tone was much gentler than Heidi had expected. "It's time to come home."

Home. She and Eithne had talked about home. Once the fighting was over, once everything was settled and done with, he had wanted to find a lake. He said he'd teach her and Simon how to fish. Maybe that was stupid or naive, but in her mind's eye, that was home. Erika and Ade and Tom were all there, if they wanted to be. Maybe they'd set up a little community. But no matter what, it was her, Eithne, and Simon. "But he promised," she said aloud, unable to keep her voice from cracking.

Erika had pity on her face. Tom was looking blankly into the fire. He'd barely said a word since they'd arrived, not that Heidi could blame him. She'd tearfully promised that she'd never, ever leave him again, but here she was, waiting around in the middle of nowhere for a guy that had beat the shit out of him and hadn't even bothered to say goodbye. She needed them to understand. She needed Tom to understand. "We promised to meet here– he, he, he said he would! What if he comes back and I'm not here? I promised too!"

Nobody seemed to have an answer for her, so she just kept going. Her throat caught on itself as she inhaled. "It was s'posed to be us! That was home, no matter what panned out with Utopia. He said so, he wouldn't just– just leave us!"

She cringed. Bad choice of words, not that Erika knew it. "I promised to meet him here," Heidi repeated weakly, like that would fix things, but the weight of the silence didn't get any lighter. She looked toward Tom, waiting for him to lash out at her, to tell her that of course he would've just left, because that was what people like Eithne (like her) did. They left. It was a taste of her own medicine, what she deserved.

"We can leave a note," he suggested instead, his voice raspy and unused.

"A note," Heidi echoed.

Tom nodded, a stone tablet rising up beside him. He paused for a second, thinking, before his face heated up a bit. "If you trace it on the rock, I'll carve it out."

"...Okay," she said, sniffling a bit and using the heel of her palms to scrub the tears off her face.

She got up, walking around the fire to sit next to Tom, in front of the tablet. He didn't have to do this. If the situation was somehow reversed, Heidi wasn't sure she would've done it. But he had offered anyway. He was good like that. Eithne: Gone ahead. 4 days travel east. Follow the train tracks. -Heidi

It was easy, packing up the camp. Wasn't like Heidi had much. Tom raised a platform out of the earth, and she tossed her backpack onto it, crammed full of extra food with her tent strapped to the back.

"All good to go?" he asked when Heidi and Erika climbed on board.

Heidi didn't say anything for a second, but then noticed that Erika was looking at her, waiting for her to answer. "All good," she confirmed, biting the inside of her cheek so she didn't start crying all over again.

Tom started moving the platform away from her little camp, toward and then following along the train tracks. Once they picked up a little speed, he raised some walls up from the platform, keeping them from being buffeted by the wind, though at the cost of the view. Tom himself was facing the front wall of the platform, like he was driving. Heidi knew his Flow well enough to know he didn't have to, so she let him be. Instead, she let Erika wrap an arm around her shoulders, tucking into her side as they watched the sky grow dark. They'd be home by the morning.