Chapter Text
They bury them before dawn.
It feels so very wrong to heap mounds of sand and soil on a body that was full of life mere hours ago—a face so animated in emotion.
It isn't easy to bury Kit. There's no comfort to be found in her peaceful expression and no relief that her pain has finally ceased. If there are those things, the Baudelaires don't find them, instead being lost to swaths of shock and guilt.
The two eldest orphans alternate between shoveling and attending to the newborn baby. Neither task offers much of a reprieve. Sunny diligently helps shovel too, scooping up sand with a small bucket she'd found washed ashore. Beatrice wails in Klaus's arms, and at one point, Violet thinks as she fills the grave, she may have been crying too.
It feels silly to cry now, childish almost. They hadn't even really known Kit—though, it could be debated that they don't truly know anyone outside of each other. Small tastes of safety and companionship were occasionally afforded to them, but they often only made the pangs of starvation that much more intolerable.
—But Kit had been so alive. She had been meant to break their terrible cycle when she took them away from Briny Beach. Her eyes had sparkled with responsibility and care, yet youth, mischief, and even a little grief. She knew. She had known. She understood—
Kit was hope—perhaps their very last. Violet knew that from the moment she first saw Kit on the beach and she knew that as Kit's bloody hand grew limp in her own.
Kit was meant to leave VFD and raise a family with her husband. And maybe, just maybe, she could've been what Violet and her siblings so desperately needed. Kit and Dewey were meant to be alive and maybe, potentially, possibly fall in love with her and her siblings and take them in, and protect them, and care for them—
The Baudelaires weren't meant to be raising her child. No, they were supposed to be with Justice Strauss, a lonely woman who would adore them with all the love and attention they'd been robbed of. They'd complete her home, and spend their days cooking, and reading, and laughing together. They'd gather around a dining table, eat a warm meal, then play board games and stay up late talking about their aspirations and passions. Life would be simple. Life would be safe.
They were meant to be with Uncle Monty, a man who had proven he really, truly loved them. They'd watch movies and Monty would explain their meanings when they didn't quite make sense. He would teach them all he knew about herpetology and reptiles, and then they'd travel the world together and discover new species, giving them funny, counterintuitive names. He would wishfully tell them about his adventures with their parents and then tuck them into bed, leaving a small nightlight on in the corner.
They were meant to be with Aunt Josephine or Jerome who, though having their flaws, cared deeply for their safety and happiness. Life might not be perfect but it didn't have to be.
They were meant to be with Hector and the Quagmires, safe above all the hurt where the wind would card through their hair and they'd be among friends who understood everything they'd been through. They could confide in and get to know one another. They could learn to trust and love one another with all of themselves.
They were meant to be with their parents—
They were meant to be cared for, and protected, and cherished.
But that doesn't matter; Violet knows that too. If it were meant to be it would, and as long as it is not they will go on.
(Kit Snicket is her last hope for a suitable, loving guardian and then Kit Snicket gives her a sad smile, breaths out a promise, and then suddenly doesn't anymore. It's in that moment Violet realizes she was Kit's last hope too.
It isn't a pretty thought, Violet is ashamed of it the moment is pops into her head, but there's a small part of her that is almost upset with Kit.
No, she couldn't blame Kit. She knew what it was like to lose family and Kit had lost everyone: her parents, her brothers (Violet can't imagine and doesn't intend to), and her husband—
Almost everyone.
"Your baby needs you." Her brother had pleaded.
Violet knows it isn't easy. Oh, how she knows! No, Violet could never blame Kit, but sometimes, the slightest flame flickers in her chest and a wish dances on the tip of her tongue. She'll chide herself the moment it crosses her mind—because she knows it isn't easy—
—But sometimes she wishes Kit, or anybody, had thought they were worth it.
In the dimming torch light, Violet finally tears her eyes away from Kit's lifeless face and looks around the tent at baby Beatrice—fragile, helpless and innocent—and then her siblings, Sunny and Klaus, studying their facets and features, creases and scars. She looks at them and forgets injustice because there is no amount of torment or tragedy that could convince her that they are not incontestably and unequivocally worth it. Worth fighting for. Worth dying for. Worth hoping for.
Hoping is hard but it only takes one look at her siblings for Violet to remember just why she does it. They deserve better. They're worth the world and Violet certainly doesn't have the world to offer them, not yet, but she will do everything she can to be everything they need.
She isn't sure if she knows how to properly care for, protect, and cherish someone. She isn't sure she is proud of the person she's become, or if she agrees with the decisions she's had to make. No, she doesn't knows how to be a guardian, but she definitely knows what not to be.)
She covers Kit's face last.
Burying Kit is hard but the task still before them is equally, if not more, frightening. None of the Baudelaires are exactly eager to move Count Olaf's body—because moving implies contact, and contact implies being near the very man that the last few months had been dedicated to evading—yet the prospect of sleeping is as daunting as it is implausible.
Klaus grabs under the arms, Violet grips the ankles, and Sunny offers a small hand to support the torso. The corpse is figuratively scalding. Every second spent in contact with it burns the orphan's bare hands and churns what little is in their stomachs. The entire situation is grotesque and grim, and they choose not to dwell on it.
(They'd been making that decision a lot lately. There's a lot they could be thinking about, a lot they could shed a tear for: like the fact their parents never got a funeral, or that Beatrice will never know her mother, or that nearly every person to be involved in their lives since the death of their parents is also, most likely, dead.
They choose not to dwell on it. Instead, the Baudelaires wipe their eyes and consider themselves lucky to find a shovel in one of the abandoned tents.)
They handle the body with an uncertainty that all of their practicality and good sense can't nullify. The Baudelaires wait, almost submissively, for a hard slap, swift kick, or bone crunching grasp.
It feels wrong to lower Olaf's body into its grave with a gentleness he neither deserves nor has never known. It feels so wrong to be near him and not have to fear. It feels wrong to be safe, perhaps because it doesn't feel quite the way the Baudelaires had thought it to.
(It's a misconception that safety equals closure. It's an unfortunate work of fate that the Baudelaire orphans are never spared either.)
Sunny drifts off after they lower the body but not before filling her older siblings with a pride and inexplicably sorrow that can only come from having one's barely-walking baby sister assist them in burying the body of a man who's relentlessly tortured and tormented what's left of their family.
The night is cool—surprisingly so. Violet tucks Sunny in against her side, holds Kit's somber baby a little closer to her chest, and wraps a quilt she'd found earlier around the three of them. She can't help the way she lingers on Olaf's face—resting in a peace she'd never once seen him indulge in during his time alive. It doesn't quite seem fair, for two morally opposed people to rest in the same calm. Granted, she isn't really sure if she knows anything about what is just or fair. Not anymore.
Klaus's rampant shoveling is what catches her attention. Her brother's movements, while furious and sloppy, are laced with fatigue. She pushes herself up, making an effort not to jostle the baby, and gently catches his shoulder.
"Switch?" She asks quietly. It really isn't much of a question but rather an insistence. She worries about him perhaps the most.
Klaus turns and, though he tries, does not quite manage a smile. But, as she pries the shovel from his trembling hands and transfers Beatrice to his arms, his eyes soften. "Thank you." He releases a shaky breath.
Violet takes the shovel and covers Olaf's face first thing.
"Violet?"
"Yeah?"
"...Do you think we'll be safe here?"
"I...I don't know."
It feels wrong to rest—to finally let their guard down after months of constantly being hunted—so they don't. The Baudelaire orphans busy themselves with tasks and chores to improve the island and their stay there.
The island is much larger than they’d first thought it to be. Really only a small portion had been inhabited by Ishmael's colonists, pitching their tents on the shore.
The Baudelaires try to avoid stealing from them even though they are, with all respects, probably not coming back but it feels almost pointless to try and find some moral standpoint after everything, so eventually they decide to take what they need, or what would otherwise spoil.
Lurking behind this settlement though is the sparse beginnings of a treeline, giving way to the thick tropical forest which occupies most of the island. The forest is dark and thick, yet vibrant and freckled with exotic colors. A glance into its eyes is enough to both entrance and terrify an individual. By merely walking along its edge, Klaus spots multiple species he doesn’t recognize. The curse of curiosity is a hard one to refuse but the Baudelaires decide to wait on conducting a forest expedition, choosing instead to search the collection of books in the tree’s library for any wisdom or observations on the island's wildlife that their parents might have left.
While their lives might not immediately be threatened by that of starvation, it's certainly a relief to curb that problem before getting there. And a relief it is when the Baudelaire’s find the many fish traps left by the islanders, floating on the water inside the coastal shelf. Additionally, they find coconuts and a few other fruits and berries all growing on the island.
The continuation of the children’s unprecedented and long overdue lucky streak comes in the form of the island sheep, which, upon inspection, produce milk. With some tinkering and research, the Baudelaires are able to make it more palatable for baby Beatrice.
And when it finally comes down to where to live, the Baudelaire’s don’t have much of a choice. Given all its technological advances and benefits, to live anywhere other than the horseradish-apple-tree-arboretum would simply be illogical. Technically, it was theirs to inherit in the first place, but perhaps that in and of itself is what makes them reluctant to do so.
It'd be the closest they'd ever again get to being near to their parents.
—But it's safe. They're safe and they're still together and they'll all be safe here, together, and at this point that's all they could possibly dare ask for.
(Being surrounded by the memory of departed loved ones can be like an embrace, one so tight that you can't tell whether it's comforting or constricting.
Sometimes, solace can be found in the tightness. Other times, the arms around you, once secure and warm, suddenly seem more distant, cool. They don't relinquish, and squeeze until the air in your lungs is expelled.
It's in the machines and their creative engineering, complete with small, familiar details that make the embrace too tight to bare; it's in the notes, folded corners, and doodles scribbled on pages and the insides of book covers; it's in the recipes and various spices still scattered throughout the kitchen cabinets and hidden in drawers.
The legacy of their parents haunts the tree. It surrounds them just a little too tightly, a little too soon.)
Hand in hand, the Baudelaire orphans stand before the colossal tree.
There's no guardian to greet them, not this time. There's nobody behind the door to provide for them, and cherish them, and keep them safe—to harm them, and to betray them, and let them down.
There's no one left. There’s no one else this time. Just them.
—And that's ok. Perhaps it's the only way it could ever be.
They'll just have to hold each other all the tighter.