Chapter Text
Yuugo arrived at the bunker, his breath heavy, mind frantic.
Everything ached after one day of rushing through demon infested grounds. The heavy weight on his back slipped off slowly, her breath became more shallow by the minute.
Do not stop. Keep going. Push through!
He lay Emma down on a table. All the kids came running exclaiming in different levels of distress. After a short moment of distrust and threat to blow up the bunker after all they finally got to treating Antenna. The girls, Gilda and Anna, fetched him everything he needed. Together they made the blood transfusion. Tested for internal damage and fixed it up as best as possible. Lay a drainage. Emma was definitely infected, so they hurried for the right medication, too. They stitched her up front and back.
Every bone in him ached. Every movement ached. He kept going.
Emma gave him something he had lost the last time he was at Goldy Pond. Something he thought died alongside all of his friends.
Hope.
There was no way he'd let her - it - this! - die again.
When everything they could do was done and Emma was as stable as she could be he just collapsed right at the spot. Relieve and exhaustion flooded him in equal measures.
*
He came to himself much later. Still lying where he collapsed in the infirmary, but someone had draped a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. Curry Chow and Pizza Topping where there too, next to Emma. There hadn't been time yet to learn all the names.
"You're awake?" Curry Chow asked.
Yuugo nodded.
Curry Chow went off, probably to fetch the others.
"How's Emma?"
"Same as yesterday." Pizza Topping said, he sounded detached. That was all he said and Yuugo kept quiet too. They just watched Emma's shallow breath.
After a while Curry Chow came back with Gilda, Don and Anna in tow. Gilda held a warm bowl of soup in hand, in a repetition of their last negotiation.
"Thank you for bringing Emma back and your help in saving her," she said.
Yuugo reflexively looked away and grunted as acknowledgment. Gilda offered him the bowl of soup with a smile. "Eat up. Then we'll talk." Her demeanor left no room for arguing, but she was kind about it. She didn't trust him yet, though after yesterdays change of his ways she probably gave him the benefit of the doubt. Where he only felt annoyance with her before, he now thought of her as reliable.
With another grunt he took the bowl off her. His and Emmas promise to live together in mind, there was no reason to resist any longer. The meal looked good, so he took the first sip. It was warm in every aspect. It tasted like a gentle embrace, a kindness he didn't deserve. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to stop the tears swelling in his eyes. There was no room yet. No way he could live it down if he had a breakdown in front of the kids.
Yet this - this meal, this kindness, people with and around him - yeah, that was a lot to adjust to.
Soon enough his bowl was emptied and the whole group assembled.
"What happened?" Gilda asked.
Yuugo took a deep steadying breath. He wasn't sure where to begin. He had to face his guilt, not the guilt that had festered over the last thirteen years, this new guilt that ultimately revoked hope in him, brought him Lucas back from the dead! In a twisted absurd ploy of luck and ironic timing.
It didn't feel real yet. A miracle stronger than anything he'd dared to wish for. There was a fist in his stomach, twisting at the thought this might not be real after all.
He took another breath. Important things first. "I don't want to kill ya anymore. I'm sorry for trying." Shame flooded him and a deep gratefulness for the sheer stubbornness of all of these kids for being so bad at letting themselves be killed, especially Emma. "Ray is alive and on his way, he'll be here in three weeks, together with 50 survivors. Seven are wounded."
The kids looked at him in varying expressions of confusion, disbelieve and surprise.
"What happened?" Gilda repeated and Yuugo realized he didn't make much sense now. He needed to start at the beginning.
"Goldy Pond is a trap. For whatever reason it's not the save place Minerva promised us. It's a hunting ground for demons."
The kids reacted with shock. "Poachers" Anna realized in a whisper.
The younger kids screamed over each other. "What do you mean?" "Hunting grounds?" "So Minerva did lie to us?"
Don hushed them and Gilda pinned Yuugo with an unforgiving look.
"You knew this already, didn't you? And you lead them there anyway?"
He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. "It's like Emma said, I didn't want to get my hands dirty by killin' ya myself.” There was a suffocating silence. Yuugo barged on. "You're just like we were, full of hope and spirit. But they're gone, and you're here! And seeing ya..." he gritted his teeth. It still hurt. "It hurt too much. So I wanted ya gone as well!"
He wanted them as broken as he was.
"My friends and I walked right into that trap thirteen years ago. Betrayed by Minerva." His hands trembled. There was so much anger and too much grief. "We made a plan to escape, we fought the demons." His breath became fast and shallow. It was the first time he told the story. First time there was someone there to listen.
"But it... didn't work out as planned. They... I..." there was a lump in his throat he tried to swallow. He couldn't say it. It hurt too much.
In front of him there was Dina lying lifeless, blood everywhere. Nicolas lay next to her, and Mikes screams echoed – he squeezed his eyes desperately and then they were right next to him, the ghosts of them watching him with sad, encouraging smiles. John watched up to him with a similar expression. The weight of his other friends pressed against his back.
It never stopped hurting. It never would. A sob escaped him.
"Nobody made it except for you." Anna concluded, sounding heartbroken and he finally broke.
The sobs came and he couldn't stop them. He trembled and hunched in on himself. He felt the hands of his lost friends come to his arms and back. The ghosts haunted him, shushed him, soothed him in a comforting embrace. It was cruel. It was all he got.
He opened his eyes, expecting to be alone and realized it were not the ghosts but real people and real hands touching him. His breath hitched at the sight. The whole group reached out to him, expressions sorrowful and compassionate. They tried to console him and now there was no stopping the tears either. They all huddled around him in a big chaotic embrace.
"I'm so sorry Mister."
"This is so sad."
"This is horrible."
Some of the younger started crying. They held onto him desperately and a humorless huff erupted from him.
This was so much worse.
This was so much better.
He hiccuped. These kids, these damn kids. Crying over people they didn't know. For his friends, for his sake. He didn't deserve this one bit. He still wanted them gone. He also wanted them to never leave.
Even Don and Gilda joined in the embrace. Yuugo didn't deserve this, but he was too exhausted to stop them. So he let them. He let himself be comforted by them, crying silently. Overwhelmed and taut tight. Swamped with emotions he couldn't name.
Ah, he had let them see his broken cracks after all.
Finally he sniffed and brushed his tears away.
"Yeah, okay, enough!" He said gruffly. The effect was damped by him still sniffling. Though the kids scrambled off him and he breathed deeply to regain his composure.
His voice still wobbled though. "Well, ya know Emma and her stubbornness. She saw right through me. I don't want ya to leave anymore. She promised me to live together."
They all looked over to Emma lying motionless on the bed.
"Yeah, that's Emma." Don said awestruck.
"So you gonna live with us, Mister?"
"Yeah." Yuugo grumbled, then sighed in relieve. The kids cheered and started giggling. Some came back for more hugs, not deterred by his grumbling, "no need to get all mushy about it."
"What's your name, then?" Tousle-head asked with huge eyes.
He hesitated. The trembling came back to his hands. The idea to form new attachments, the risk it involved when they could be ripped out of his hands again so easily, it made a cold shiver crawl over his skin. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and tested this new vulnerability. It was consuming him.
A wheezy breath escaped him but no sound came out. He couldn't. "I-I tell ya – uh – when Antenna wakes up."
The kids giggled happily nonetheless, while the older ones gave him a warm smile. Another swell of tears threatened to shed. Why was this horde of kids so cheerful about everything? It tucked at Yuugos broken, wounded heart.
"Okay" Gilda concluded. "So what about Ray and those 50 survivors?"
Right. Yuugo started, then faltered. He saw another ghost.
There was Lucas next to Gilda. He didn't look like the teen that had haunted him for thirteen years. This Lucas had three big scars on his face, a contoured jawline and his right arm was missing. He smiled proudly directly at him. Yuugo took a shaking breath.
Lucas lives!
"They're from Goldy Pond. While I was the only one who escaped thirteen years ago, apparently my best friend Lucas survived within the hunting grounds and made a new plan together with other kids from Goldy Pond."
The kids eyes grew huge.
"When Ray, Emma and I arrived at Goldy Pond the poachers took Emma. Ray and I went to get her back. We happened to stumble into the execution of Lucas plan and saw it through. Emma took the biggest part and got hurt in the process. But it's done! These kids killed five of the worst and most dangerous demons I ever saw and blew up the hunting grounds!"
Cheers and excitement erupted. Yuugo was breathless. He was there and yet it didn't feel real. This still could be just the most elaborate hallucination he ever had, after all. Lucas ghost was still smiling at him, scar taut over his face. Yuugo blinked slowly, expecting to suddenly be alone again. Only Lucas was gone, all the kids remained, still cheering over this victory for the cattle humans. It was disorienting. He went on regardless.
"But a lot of the kids got hurt. Emma was hit the worst, so I rushed with her on the shortest route. Ray, Lucas and around 40 kids and 7 wounded take the safest but longest route and will arrive in three weeks, probably even later. We need to prepare bedding, food and care for the injured for their arrival."
This got everyone into action. They discussed tasks and duties for the upcoming three weeks and set them into motion. They had to organize everything to be able to live with 63 people in the bunker.
***
Some hours later Yuugo stood in what used to be their room and had over time morphed into a manifest of his pain and suffering. He was unsure about what to do with it. During his time alone in the bunker there had been enough space to avoid this room and seek it out whenever the overwhelming grief demanded. It was all his fault. He had gotten all his friends killed. He was not deserving of anything but pain. The intrusive thoughts never left. Just like the ghosts. It was his curse. "Keep living." The greatest punishment he could have gotten.
He heard some kids laugh somewhere in the bunker. All his thoughts scattered suddenly.
This room couldn't stay like this. No one should be forced to live here. But shutting the door forever felt wrong and like a betrayal as well. He looked at the wall with his friends names. The name "Lucas" was burning in his eyes. Hastily he took the pen off the ground to draw a big circle around it. Lucas was alive! It became his new mantra, his new thread of sanity. Lucas name didn't belong at this wall. He came back from the dead.
Yuugo stopped when the pen touched the wall.
What was he doing here?
What if Lucas didn't make it? What if Lucas kids wouldn't make it?
A shudder ran through him, and the pen dropped as his grip faltered.
Three weeks! 19 days of those were left. Anything could happen in that time with a group so big.
There was no way Yuugo could stay calm for so long. The other kids injuries had been just as bad, and they had been running out of medications when Yuugo left.
Yuugo should go and get them! Bring them medication and stay with Lucas. He came back from the dead - just for Yuugo to leave him again?!
A sharp, twisting stab went right through his chest and left him breathless. Yuugos lungs were dry and empty, air wouldn't come back to him.
He left Lucas alone for thirteen years.
And now he did it again!
He desperately tried to breath.
Lucas lives, Lucas lives, Lucas lives. His new mantra. Ray is with him, Nigel and Violet are with him. He's protected. It will be okay.
It was not working. He was gulping in mouthfuls of air; he couldn't breath.
If only he'd known Lucas was still alive! All those years. So many times he went there, in the hopes to get killed without breaking his promise to his friends, but had faltered and went back to the bunker in time. While Lucas had been trapped there this whole time. So many years. He was so pathetic.
What was he doing here?!
There was a short moment of clarity. An epiphany and with it air came back to him in a painful rush when the resolution settled in his bones, clear as day. A new decision made within one heartbeat.
He hurried to get out of the room and to Gilda and Don. He had to discuss this change of plans with them.
No way was Yuugo going to stay here waiting with batted breath for 19 days.
Never would he leave Lucas alone again!