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“This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.” ~Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
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“Stories,” he begins, “are light.”
They’re silent before him, sentinels standing guard over the coffin carved from a tree they chopped down by the base. Sarge put it together painstakingly, sweeping his hands over and over and over the finish until it was as finely polished as anything you could find professionally. Church appreciates that, appreciates the time and the effort and the care he put into this – this final resting place, even if it is a damned box for a body they don’t want and a grave they shouldn’t have had to dig.
“That’s what he’d tell me every damned day for a week after we finished that stupid book. ‘Stories are light, Church. Especially happy stories. When you tell them, you give light to the world. You make it a better place. Then it’s good for everyone.” Church’s voice cracks and he scowls and clears his throat viciously. They’re all looking at him. They’re all looking at him. Way in the back, Tucker shifts like he’s going to force his way forward, like he’s going to come stand beside him, and Church shakes his head until he stops, hand curled into a fist, shaking, shaking. Wash’s palm lands on Tucker’s shoulder, gentle, careful, so unlike the asshole that dragged them all over creation and told him he was the Alpha and then came back broken and rage-ridden and ready to kill to rise. Wash pulled him aside earlier, before all of this, and said that what he had done was undoable, that he had deserved no forgiveness, had deserved no love, that maybe he still didn’t, and Caboose – Caboose had given both in full measure.
You are our friend, after all.
He’s buried too many friends.
“And you know, I called bullshit. I said the world is dark and it’s cruel and it’s fucked up. There are people out there – people who’ll torture you and tear you apart from the inside out to get what they want.” His voice lifts, lifts, rising to a bark, a hoarse cry. “I told him there’s no good, okay? There’s no light.”
Tucker twitches forward again, restrained only by Wash’s unyielding grip. Church swallows thickly, pauses – pauses. His breath shudders. “Or at least, that’s what I used to think.”
Tucker’s trembling, trembling, and Church catches his eyes and wills him not to cry, damn it, because if Tucker’s crying back there then he’s going to start bawling like an idiot up here in front of everyone and damn, after everything he doesn’t need that. He can only imagine what Tex would say. She’s gone, too.
He’s buried too many friends.
“The first time I met Caboose, I thought he was a dumbass. The rookie. Then he just – I don’t know. He grows on you in a way you can’t really explain. Maybe it was the smile and the way he got excited over normal stuff like a butterfly or the sun shining or the grass being green or how he’d just…he’d just know when something was off. When you were…sad. Some weird Caboose-sense, I guess.”
“He had – damn, he could look at someone and see light. When all I said was – when all I wanted was for it to stop, Caboose said…tomorrow was another adventure. For him, there was always a way forward.”
“So I’m standing here today in front of all of you, and I’m telling you a story. I’m telling you Caboose’s story because if there’s one story in the galaxy that can shine a light, it’s his. He deserved better than this. He deserved so much better than this. He stood by us and he gave us everything and he never asked for anything in return. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend. I couldn’t….”
His voice croaks, cracks, and a tear slips, slips, falls. “I couldn’t have asked for a better brother,” he forces, though his tone is trembling, trembling, torn. “He was proof that there’s good. He was…”
Sarge, standing in the front, between his team and the grave, between his team and the pain, reaches out a hand and pats his arm. Church drops his gaze, grimaces, swallows back the shudder. “He was our light,” he says to the ground, so loud, so soft. “He was everyone’s light.”
When he looks back up, Tucker’s eyes scream. Church holds that shattered gaze. “He knew we loved him,” he presses and Tucker blinks, blinks, chokes. “He knew we loved him even if we didn’t say it. You guys came to get me and the first thing he said to me was ‘If you love someone, they always come back.’”
The man who killed him is dead. It won’t bring him home.
He’s buried too many friends.
“We can’t undo what’s been done. But for Caboose, we have to go on. He deserves that. His favorite line in the whole book was the one I started with. ‘Stories…are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Make some light.’”
Tucker dips his chin to his chest, drives his teeth into his lip and Church knows without having to see that he’s lost the fight. Grif’s arm winds around his shoulders, clasps tightly. Wash is a pillar beside Carolina, strength and poise and control, and Church looks to it and wills the same.
He’s buried too many friends.
“So begin at a new beginning,” Church repeats, and it rings in his chest. “Begin at a new beginning, and make some light.”
The sun is crimson, the sun is low. Caboose called this place home.
“Just make some light.”
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