Reid yawned and stretched, then winced. He'd collapsed from exhaustion without healing himself. His body and head ached, and all he had to show for it was three dead salamanders.

He stumbled to his feet, thankful for the clean bandages that had been wrapped around his wounds. Some stung - probably a lingering effect of an antibacterial cream - but it was manageable. He used his sword as a walking stick and made his way over to where Louis was sitting. The boy had his back to Reid, and turned as he spoke.

"Louis - thanks for patching me up! How's everyone else doing?"

His eyes were wet. Lines ran down his cheeks where tears had carried away dirt and dust. His shirt was stained where the dirty tears had landed.

He was holding Oscar's head in his lap. The man's limbs were twisted and broken. His face was pale. His chest was still.

Reid focused on Oscar's blackened, broken arm and he was overwhelmed with the memory of his own recent brush with death. How close had he come to being a cold body in the woods? He pushed the thought aside and knelt down next to Louis.

This was out of his depth. Reid was always bad with somber events. He hated funerals, and grief. The only time he'd ever handled death right was helping Sara through the loss of a hamster. He looked around. Marlene would be better at this, right? She seemed like the kind of person that woul-

"Marlene's unconscious. She has been since she took that blow to the head. But she's alive. Lucky. She was lucky." The boy's words came in a distant, robotic tone. "You were lucky, too. They didn't cut you too deep, even where they hit you." He stared down at the lifeless man in his lap. "I had a dog named Ollie. When I was little, I mean. He stayed with me all the time. Would bark at my dad to keep him out of my room at night. He was a good dog. He'd follow me to school sometimes. That's how he got hit by the car."

Reid listened as the boy rambled on.

"I carried him home. Told my mom he needed help. He was still licking my arm, even though he couldn't move his legs. He kept licking me until he was gone. That's when I decided to be a vet, you know. To save dogs." Louis was stroking the side of Oscar's face. "I couldn't save Oscar. I tried. But maybe I could have, you know? If I went to med school instead."

Silence hung in the air between them. Reid knelt down and grabbed Louis by the shoulder to get his attention. He said the only thing that came to mind.

"Let's let Oscar rest for a while."

Louis took a few moments to process the words before he nodded. He pulled a piece of fabric out of a nearby backpack, and placed it between Oscar's head and the ground. He looked at the man for another long moment before walking over to a tree by Marlene. He slumped down on it and stared into the woods.

Reid didn't know how to console him - what to say, or what to do. Death had never been so immediate for him. So real.

He walked over to Louis anyway, and sat himself against a tree so that he faced the boy. He considered the situation. Oscar was gone. He hadn't even learned the man's last name. Reid met him, and soon after he had just... died. They would need to bring his body back to Sanctuary. Maybe wrap it in something. Louis was half catatonic and Marlene was out cold. There was a good chance she may not be awake or mobile for a long while. Her bandages were soaked through with blood, and her skin had a bit less color than before.

That meant he wouldn't be getting any updates about their current quest anytime soon. Reid had killed three salamanders, all above level 10. So her quest to take down three of them would've finished partway through the recent fight. It also meant a new quest had probably been auto-assigned. With no idea what the objective was, their only real option would be going to Sanctuary. They could help defend it from attack if they needed. Or at least Reid could.

He surveyed the dead and broken people around him. Maybe he couldn't defend anything. Reid was one man, and in a fight against three beasts he couldn't even protect three people. He couldn't control the flow of battle - he could only hit the thing in front of him until it stayed down.

But that was better than nothing, right?

Monsters would attack the settlement. It would happen whether Reid made it to Sanctuary or not - and Sara and Susan would both be in danger. Even if he couldn't protect everyone, what did that matter? He only really needed to make sure the two of them were safe. Anything else would be a bonus, right? Surely, with more people fighting, a battle would be easier and more would live.

And - he would see his family again. If he was lucky, he'd get there quickly enough to spend a day with them before Sanctuary was attacked. Maybe he'd even have time to get answers on whether his cancer was still waiting in the wings to end him... or maybe it would be better to put that one off for another day.

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Reid shook his head. Right this moment, he was a mess. If he wanted to be of any use to anyone, he needed to heal himself. Then, he could carry Marlene and Oscar to Sanctuary. Hopefully, Louis would be okay to walk. He leveled his gaze at Louis.

"Hey, bud. I have to fix myself up a bit. Once I'm done, we're going to Sanctuary. Can you wake me up if anything happens?"

Louis nodded. His eyes hadn't moved.

Reid wanted to say something else to him. A dozen comforting lines flashed through his mind, but none seemed right. He closed his eyes instead, and focused in on healing.

#

The sun was high overhead when he woke up again. His wounds were gone, and for the first time in a while, he hadn't found any room to further increase his stats. A glance at his status told him he would need another 1200 experience points before he would gain another level. But that was fine - he could already kill the high leveled salamanders. It wasn't like anything stronger than that would be thrown at a pre-tutorial settlement.

A series of grunts from nearby caught Reid's attention. Louis was cinching a cloth bag to the same wooden sled they'd used to transport him earlier. A single zipper ran down its length. Marlene was a few feet away, her breathing rhythmic, but a bit faint. Reid wasn't expecting to see Louis up and about, much less getting things ready for transport. He tentatively approached.

"Hey, Louis - need a hand?"

The boy turned to him. His face still showed pain, but he was lucid. He gave a halfhearted smile and shook his head.

"Not right now. I'm adding another crossbar to this thing so we can put Marlene on, too. I might need your help getting her on it - and pulling it. It'll be a bit heavy for me, I think."

Reid cocked his head a bit. Louis seemed entirely different. "You sure that you're - ah, okay? You can rest a bit and I can take over."

Louis stopped what he was doing and smiled again. It didn't reach his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I wasn't doing okay. Can we just... not talk about that?"

"Sure," Reid said eagerly, "Whatever you want, bud."

#

It took another hour to get the sled - or travois, as Louis called it - finished and loaded. It carried Oscar's body, everyone's backpacks, the remains of their weapons, Reid's sword, and Marlene - who was still unconscious.

They hiked for nearly three hours. Reid pulled the sled, and Louis kept lookout. The pair chatted intermittently about trivial things - the weather, where they were from, whether or not Sanctuary had working showers. Long silences stretched between each lukewarm conversation. Feet crunched over leaves, wind blew through the trees, and tools and supplies rattled behind Reid on the sled.

It was in one of those long silences that Louis leapt straight into the topic he'd wanted to avoid.

"I'm not - over it, you know? I mean, everything. Oscar. I'm not just... better."

Reid turned a few responses in his head before he answered. "I know. But I'm glad you're doing better than you were."

Leaves crunched under their feet.

"I don't think I am, though. I didn't really get through anything, Reid. It's still all just... there. But..." He paused. Reid counted out twenty-three footsteps before Louis continued.

"A while after you fell asleep, I got hungry. My pack was only a few steps away, but I didn't want to get up. My skill - it's called Ease Affliction. I figured it would make me less hungry, so I just used that so I didn't have to move. And it worked for the hunger, right? Like, I know I'll have to eat eventually, but I don't feel hungry anymore. And it did that to what I was feeling, too. It was like everything got shoved into a corner of my brain and locked up there. Like there's this weight, this darkness just waiting to be let back out. And I'll still have to deal with it. And I don't know what that's going to do to me. I feel... okay right now. But I'm not okay about feeling okay."

Reid counted out another twenty five footsteps before answering.

"I think I know that feeling, Louis."

The boy stopped walking to look at Reid. "I'm dying, Louis. Or at least I think I still am. I'm not really sure what's going on with me now. I might get answers when we get to Sanctuary, and I might not. But I'm not even sure if I want answers right now. I don't want to deal with it, even though it's literally right there, in my brain. I'd rather just focus on getting to your camp, and seeing my wife and my daughter. And I think that's okay for right now - I could spend every moment between now and then worrying about it, but I don't have to. Instead, I can just keep moving forward until I'm ready, or until it doesn't give me any other choice. But even if that happens, and everything just rushes out from where I've got it contained, I'll do what I can to keep ignoring it until I'm ready. I'll keep choosing to feel okay, even though things aren't okay."

Louis's mouth twitched a few times before he spoke. "I don't think that's healthy."

Reid shrugged, shifting the sled still slung over his shoulders. "I don't think it matters. Doing the healthy thing - or the right thing - it really is a luxury. Sometimes, you just can't afford luxuries, Louis." More thoughts flitted through Reid's mind. He looked down at his boots. "Sometimes you just have to keep moving forward on shaky ground."

Louis wore a contemplative expression, and eventually turned to keep hiking. Reid almost missed the "thanks" he whispered as he stomped ahead.

#

The next hours were a better experience. They hiked on, Reid shared stories about Sara and Susan - and more than a few disparaging tales about himself as he tried to keep Louis's mind off the darkness gnawing at him.

"...and the next time it rained... bubbles everywhere. They were three feet high in some spots, I swear. You couldn't get into the school without walking through them. Ahhh, but yeah, that's why they banned powdered detergents."

Louis was swiveling his head from side to side. He hadn't laughed at this story - which was odd, because he'd been a really good sport about pretending to be amused by the rest. He turned to Reid, a grin split his face and for the first time that day, he seemed like he was actually happy.

"I recognize where we are. I think once we get to the top of this hill, we'll be able to see Sanctuary through the trees. We're almost there, Reid!"

He ran hard up the incline, panting by the time he reached the top. When Reid caught up to him, he was silently staring ahead. In the distance, Reid could just make out the figures of humans and beasts. They fought against a backdrop of dancing light and billowing smoke.

Sanctuary was on fire.