Chapter Text
Eight am rolled around faster than any of them expected it to be. A chorus of half-awake “morning” welcomed a very hungover Cleon accompanied by Swan. Mercy, Cochise and Cowgirl had stopped by Rembrandt and Ajax’s place to walk with them and arrived a few minutes after the warlord.
Everyone was dressed in all black except for the W logos on their back. The atmosphere was heavy even though the day was sunny without any clouds.
“They may not see us as friends out there and mourning can make you do stupid shit. So don’t be stupid. Whatever happens, we stick together, for Fox.”
A united “For Fox” followed Cleon’s speech as she smiled at her crew.
“Alright, let's go Warriors”
The closer they stepped toward the cemetery, the more they could feel Fox around them. Until they could even hear her voice, soft, full of sorrow, like she had just been crying, a little flatter than they remembered. Not far from them, Cowgirl spotted her space buns, relief filled her, it had just been a bad dream after all. She was there, Fox was just in front of her, she could touch her. Cowgirl put a hand on her shoulder. The girl in space buns turned around. Fox's eyes looked back at Cowgirl, but it wasn't hers, not really. These eyes didn’t hold the resolve and love that Fox's did.
Suddenly, Cowgirl remembered, Fox had a little sister. A little sister that was staring at the warriors confused and troubled, unmoving with Cowgirl’s hand still on her shoulder. At the same time an angry, broken voice resonated making Cowgirl drop her hand with a barely audible sorry. “Do not touch her!”
Every Warriors’ gaze turned to the owner of the voice, a middle aged woman sharing Fox’s traits, speed walking to put herself between the gang and her daughter. Mercy grabbed Cowgirl’s arm to bring her back closer to them, feeling Cowgirl faintly shaking. The newest member still held on to Cowgirl once they were back in place.
Cleon stepped in front of her crew, trying her best to look as non-threatening as possible, which was a feat with her imposing stature, a hang-over resting bitch face and about a hundred Warriors in colors behind her. Still she relaxed her shoulder as much as she could and tried a sympathetic look and a handshake, leaving her hand hanging for a second before realising Fox’s mom wouldn’t take it.
Both women looked into each other, one trying to look strong and furious through the unmistakable sadness she felt, the other looking for a way to make her understand they weren’t the enemy, that they loved Fox as family too.
“We're sorry for your loss.” were the first words that left Cleon’s mouth quickly interrupted by a muffled “As if we hadn’t lost her too” from Ajax which earned her dirty looks and a slap on the head by Cochise.
“Shut up Ajax” Swan snapped
“Just telling the truth”, Ajax muttered as Cleon kept her focus on Fox’s mother.
“We cannot begin to understand your pain” They could, they were living with that pain every day since that night, but Cleon knew it wasn’t what the woman in front of her wanted to hear. “Even though we miss her everyday.”
“No. No. No. You don’t deserve to be sad about her.” Fox’s mom interjected “You shouldn’t even be her. None of you have anything to do here. It's all your fault. It's all because of you!” her voice started breaking as she fixed an empty space “My little girl… she should have been home with us. With her family.” Her stare turned back to Cleon, who stood like a wall in front of her people. “Not out there lost with a bunch of gangsters incapable of keeping her safe.” Fox’s mom approached Cleon with rage, tears streaming down her face. Swan almost moved to stand by Cleon but the warlord stopped her with a hand gesture as she made a step forward. “You killed her! You killed my baby! You-” Her pointing finger was poking at Cleon who took the woman’s wrist, shutting her up.
“I understand you’re angry. I understand you’re sad.” Cleon talked slowly, even as she spotted two men coming their way. Her face was still impassive, but her tone was full of venom. “But we both know Fox chose to stay with us for a reason.” She let go of the woman’s wrist, watching her get back to her daughter. Fox’s mother was still too stunned to speak. “Fox's death wasn’t any of my warriors' fault. She was our family too, y’know. Any of us would have died for her.”
“Then why didn’t you.” A young man’s voice reached the Warriors. The man seemed to be around Fox’s age sharing her nose and thin frame. He looked more pissed off than sad, looking at the Warriors with a mix of disdain and hostility. “Why is my sister the only one who didn’t make it? Did you just watch her get hit by that train and did nothing? I knew you were-”
“You shut your fucking mouth.”
Cleon turned her head shocked “Rembrandt!”.
Rembrandt had stooped in the front of the pack, Ajax not far behind her, looking more alive than she had been since that night. She stared daggers at the man who was taken aback for a second before he recognised the tagger. Rembrandt had met Fox’s twin brother exactly one time when Fox had just started with the Warriors. They had gone to Fox’s family house to grab some of her stuff and ran into the twin just before they left. He had tried to convince Fox to stay, restraining her by her arm hard enough to leave a mark and almost pushed Rembrandt out the window. The girls had made it out after Rembrandt had smashed a wooden decoration on his head making him loosen his grip on Fox. The tagger swore to this day she should have also punched him in the face.
“You have nothing to say about Fox. You don’t even know us.”
Fox’s brother stood as tall as he could, trying to look down at Rembrandt “Sure do. You’re the bitch that stole from us.”
“Watch your mouth, asshole.” Ajax spit, cracking her knuckles.
“Enough!” An older man, at least twenty years older than Fox’s mother, had put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. He looked at his family that stood silent “These people are here for the same reason as us, to honor our girl. Please act like a decent family and stop picking fights. I raised you better than that.”
Fox’s brother kept staring at Rembrandt for a few seconds before looking down “I’m sorry yéye. I’ll do better.”
Swan poked Ajax letting her know it was time to go back in the ranks. Ajax looked at Cleon who gave her a subtle nod. Ajax almost dragged Rembrandt, who refused to look away, back to their places grumbling the whole time about those “goddamn rich people”.
The older man extended a hand to Cleon. “I believe you are the leader?”
Cleon took it, leading him in a firm hand shake “Sure am. Are we gonna have a problem here?”
The old man smiled sadly and let go of Cleon’s hand. “I am sorry about all this. This loss had been hard on the whole family and some of them seemed to have forgotten how to act. In all of their names I offer you my most sincere apologies.”
“Yea, like we’re gonna accept that.” Ajax mumbled from behind Swan and Cleon. Swan turned her hand around to shut up the enforcer with her eyes. Ajax mimicked her stare and threw up her hands but didn’t say anything else.
Cleon took a deep breath. “We accept your apology. Shall we enter now?”
The man's smile faded. “Oh… No, sorry for the misunderstanding. We cannot let all of you stand beside her grave. You see, we try to keep her… activities to ourselves. We wouldn’t want everyone to know she was in a gang now do we?”
Collective anger rose from all of the Warriors behind the Warlord, all of them trying to argue with the old man. Cleon’s head was pounding. Her younger self would have fought the man, shown him his place, but at this moment she needed to be a leader first, think of what would be better for all of them.
Cleon held her hand up over her shoulder, silencing her crew. “Fine.” A brouhaha started, but Cleon kept her focus on her interlocutor. “We’ll go away and stop bothering you.”
“Thank you.” the old man answered with a light bow.
Cleon turned her heels “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.”. She made her way through her warriors that were demanding answers as to why they would leave Fox funerals this way. Cleon ignored them as best as she could until Rembrandt took a hold on her sleeve, forcing her to look back.
“Why?” Rembrandt was looking at her with her big brown eyes full of confusion and betrayal, her early anger completely vanished.
They were far enough from Fox’s family that their voice would reach them, but close enough for them to see that Cleon didn’t have a strong hold on her crew at the moment. It was time for an explanation that Cleon gave with a sigh.
“I was wrong. These people aren’t mourning Fox. They’re mourning this fucked up idea of her that never really existed. Staying there would mean fighting with them the whole time, trying to make them see the person Fox was. They don’t deserve to know.”
“So what are we gonna do?” Cochise spoke up as everyone looked expectantly at Cleon.
“We hold our own funerals. Not for the person they thought she was, but for Fox. Our Fox.”
Once again a united “For Fox” rallied the troops as they walked farther away just enough to have some sort of intimity.
Rembrandt stayed behind, still as stone until she realised Ajax was right beside her.
“Ready to go watch Mercy being overly sad over someone she barely knew?” Ajax joked half-heartly, almost making Rembrandt smile.
“It still doesn’t feel real.” Rembrandt spoke softly, looking away at the place Fox will be buried at for eternity.
“I know, it doesn’t for me either.”
“I didn’t want to do this, y'know. Like being here. It makes it real, like we just accept it happened.”
Ajax stayed silent simply staying close to the tagger.
“I tried to make it not real. I thought if I just act normal she would still be there somewhere. But she isn’t, isn’t she? She’ll never be there again and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” At the last sentence something broke inside Rembrandt as tears started flowing down her cheeks.
Since that night, she had refused to mourn her best friend, refusing to acknowledge her passing. But reality had finally caught up to her. Ajax quickly wrapped her arms around the tagger as Rembrandt burrowed her face as deeply as she could in Ajax’s chest, gripping her shirt with all her strength. Ajax held her, her muscles flexing as she tried to contain everything she was feeling, all the pain of losing Fox, the rage of being useless to those around her, the sadness that threatened to consume her everyday since that night.
Before catching up to the others, Swan, who had slowed down and asked Cochise to stay with Cleon when she saw the two women hadn’t followed, made eye contact with Ajax. There was so much to say and yet neither of them needed to say anything. Ajax nodded towards the others, indicating to Swan they would be okay. Swan nodded, if there was one thing she could trust, it was that these two could take care of each other.
When Swan catched up, the rest of the Warriors had made a half circle with Cleon in the middle. As soon as she saw Swan give her a signal that Rembrandt and Ajax would catch up, Cleon spoke first, like she knew she had to. There was so much she wanted to say but some of it was still too hard. “I’m so glad to have all of you here. I know Fox meant a lot to all of us. She was not only one of the best recruits we ever had, but she also became one of my dearest friends. As some of you know, I felt responsible for Fox’s death, I still do in fact, but it’s unjust for her to think like that. Fox's last moment was spent trying to bring others home, by doing that she once more showed her love for her fellow warriors and her incredible courage in front of danger. At that moment, Fox made the decision to do anything to protect us, her family. So I wanna say thank you Fox for showing us what bravery looks like and thank you for having been with us.”
Some Warriors took their Warlord’s lead and spoke a little about Fox. Most of them recalled moments they had with her while others simply stated how they felt since she was gone. Some just stayed silent or were crying.
At Cochise’s turn, she shared about the night from hell “For those who weren’t there, you all know by now that the night we went to see Cyrus was a nightmarish night. We got separated and dropped in a shitty action movie where we could only run and hope we got home. And this night could have held only bad memories, but the one thing I remember more than anything else is how goddamn hungry Fox was and how happy the thought of simply eating a hot dog made her.” Some people in the audience laughed softly. “Now every time I eat a hot dog, I think of Fox and I see her smile, and whatever happens after can’t bother me, cause her smile makes everything better.”
Cowgirl tried to go in front of everyone and speak, for a moment she was able to, making stupid jokes about random things, until she stopped and looked at everyone reunited there to honor her friend. Her hands started shaking and she sobbed. Mercy was the first one up, they had spent some time together in the last few days, mostly drinking, but also talking a lot. Mercy passed an arm around Cowgirl’s midriff, helping her stand up. Seeing Cowgirl was in no shape to finish her speech, Mercy simply said “She misses you Fox. We all do. I hope you’re doing great wherever you are.” and brought the other girl back in the crowd.
Swan did speak other than whispering a silent thank you to Mercy when she came back with Cowgirl. She wasn’t ready yet, and wasn’t sure she would ever be.
Rembrandt and Ajax had joined everyone somewhere between Cochise and Cowgirl’s eulogy. When everyone else seemed done, they walked to the front, hand in hand. Neither being sure they could do this alone. Ajax took the lead, keeping things short in fear of breaking down in front of everyone. “Foxy, I just wanna say I’m sorry. Sorry I wasn’t there kicking cops ass with you like I should’ve. I hope you can forgive me like you so often did. Miss you.”
Rembrandt spoke, her voice hoarse from her crying earlier. “I really don’t know what to say, but I feel like I should be saying something. Some days, when I wake up in the same apartment I shared with Fox for years, I forget she’s not there. Maybe it’s my mind trying to protect itself from the pain or maybe I’m just dumb. I just forget and then I have to learn once again that she’s gone forever. That I will never wake up again to her talking about the latest issue of detective comics or watch her nose scrunch up when she laughs at Ajax’s stupid jokes.” Ajax squeezed her hand, encouraging her to go on. “I miss her, I miss things I didn’t even know I could miss, like not having hot showers cause she took forever to get out of there or trying out her barely edible cooking. Nothing and no one will ever replace you. I love you, Fox.”