Chapter Text
"It's been a month since we left Seattle, and I think about you every day. I think about all of them, but I can't get YOU out of my head. I guess you always had that effect on me, and I guess nothing's really changed, because I still want you out of my head each time. You were my I loved you. I still do. I think I always will. I bet you'd have that smug fucking smirk on your face if you ever read this, and as much as I remember that smirk making me want to punch you, I wish I could see it again. I wish I could see you again.
It's beautiful out here, on the ocean. Land to the east and the open ocean to the west... Lev is starting to open up to me more and more each day. He talks a lot about his mother, and his life on the island before it all went to shit. He gets really quiet whenever I bring up Yara. I can tell he's hurting... we both are, in our own ways. But because of you and because of Yara, we're still here. We'd all be dead if it wasn't for you. I have to keep telling myself that... this can't all be for nothing.
I've been telling Lev a lot about you, too, a little regrettably. He's witty and insists I'm some hopeless romantic, but the other night I cried I broke down when I talked about you, and I wish you could have heard what he said. You would have been proud, with your big soft heart and all. Turns out Lev can be a softie when he wants to be, too."
Movement stirs in the corner of Abigail's eye, and the woman looks up from the paper she’d been writing on to see Lev’s small form rolling over underneath the blankets amidst the dim lantern-light. She smiles, softly — a little thing; a hopeful thing. from where she’s perched upon the cushions just next to the bed, Abby reaches over to pull up the blankets a little more to tuck Lev in; he murmurs something incoherent in his sleep, and Abby only laughs to herself, shaking her head as she stares back down at her paper.
Although it was the first time she’d written to Owen since his passing, it wasn’t the first time she’d ever composed a letter for him — she still remembers fondly the countless lovesick letters her and Owen had written back and forth when they were much younger, before their love had ever gone astray and became something so complicated that neither of them could manage to unravel the mess they’d made.
"For a while, I was lulled into the false hope that we'd made it out alive, or that we were just lucky. We survived the fall of the Fireflies, the war with the Scars, Jackson. I've made a lot of shitty decisions in this life, Owen, and the one I regret the most is never telling you I loved you one last time. That last night we shared... I told you I didn't care, but I did. I cared too much, and that SCARED me.
You never knew this, but that night... when we were laying there in bed, you brushed the hair out of my face and told me you loved me. I pretended I was asleep so I didn't have to say it back, or make anything worse than I already had for you and Mel. But I love you too, Owen. I love you too, and I wish I could have told you that, just so you could have died knowing I never stopped. It eats away at me, that you died thinking I didn't care.
Or maybe you did know, because you always knew me better than I knew myself. I hope you knew. I don't care how selfish, or how callous that makes me — I hope you died knowing that when I said that night meant nothing to me, I wanted to say it meant everything."
"Fuck," The blonde murmurs the word just under her breath, a nigh-silent oath as she raises the back of her hand to frustratedly wipe at wet eyes — and with a trembling hand she carefully rests her paper down on the table, when everything inside her wishes to tear it up and throw it overboard. Vulnerability stabbed at her like a hot knife, and she soon leaves the boat’s cabin to go up on the deck, white-knuckled as she grips the railing and stares at the pitch black sea below. The only light from the moon and the lamp still inside; and on nights like these she wonders, after everything — losing her father, the fireflies, the WLF, her friends, OWEN — how hard would it be to just jump? To let the waves overtake her and to allow life to fall in with death? The thoughts consume her until she keels over the railing and wretches, dry-heaving on a silent sob and for a moment she feels deaf under the ringing in her ears brought on by sudden and overwhelming thoughts; until she hears his voice.
"Abby?"
It's Lev. "I'm fine — just… go back to bed, I'm fine."
"You don’t look-..."
"I said I'm fine, Lev. Come on, Let’s get you back to bed." Abby ushers the boy back inside, and he complies, though not without a look of concern appointing soft features. "Go on." The woman murmurs as she holds up the blanket for Lev to crawl into bed, to which he follows suit, allowing for Abigail to tuck him in once more.
"My mother used to kiss my tears, when I cried." Lev confides, and Abby just nods — wipes again at her eyes and curses the boy in her mind for reading her like an open book. She takes a seat at the foot of the bed, and Lev watches her from where he lays, understanding in his gaze.
"My father used to do that for me, too, when I was younger."