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Scott had almost (finally) drifted off to sleep when he hears it.
The shot of a cannon.
Loud, echoing, as if it had come from right beyond the little bunker where they're spending the night.
Fear steals into Scott's heart, taking his breath with it. That could be it. That could be the signal that starts the war.
All four of them stir—Scar sits up in the cramped bed, and the chair where Grian is curled up creaks as he shifts, and Jimmy slips out of the makeshift cot to creep over to one of the thin window slats, the moon just slightly illuminating his face as he glances from side to side, crouched slightly against the low ceiling.
They hear a couple of shouts in the distance, but nothing more. After several minutes, Scar lies back down, and the tense line of Grian's shoulders eases as his chair creaks again, and Scott lets his head lie back on the folded blanket that he's using for a pillow.
Jimmy stays at the window, though, waiting. Silent, but on high-alert.
Scott doesn't exactly relax—if Jimmy's watching something, keeping track of a spy, it could mean battle in moments and he needs to be ready.
He is ready, honestly, body poised to shoot up. His bow is leaning against the wall by the door, his sword in its belt beside it. He can strap that on in a matter of seconds, load an arrow to the bowstring just as quickly.
But Jimmy doesn't say anything. And after several minutes, he's still standing there, just looking.
Then, as Scott's still watching him (though blackness creeps quicker and quicker over Scott's eyes every time he blinks), Jimmy turns away from the window.
Instead of heading back to his cot, though, Jimmy stops by Scott's patch of floor.
He lies down there, next to Scott, back popping just the slightest bit as he settles.
Scott glances over at him. Jimmy's lying beside him on his back, hands clasped over his chest, staring at the ceiling.
"Scott," he says quietly, voice low enough that it doesn’t disturb Grian and Scar. "Are you afraid to die?"
Scott turns his own gaze to the rough ceiling of the bunker.
Is he?
He doesn't think so.
"If we die," he says eventually, sensing the sober mood hanging over the night, "I don't think we need to be scared. There's something . . . something after this."
He believes it. He doesn’t know what exactly he believes, but he cannot accept that this is the end.
Jimmy doesn't respond.
"Something . . . kind," Scott eventually settles on. "I don't think I have much reason to be afraid."
Scott doesn't say that whatever comes has to be better than this. He's sure Jimmy knows.
"Do you think this is it?" Scott asks after another quiet moment.
He waits—not necessarily for an answer, and not necessarily for acknowledgement.
He waits the same way he's been waiting all night.
"You'll go home," Jimmy whispers, breaking his silence without warning. "You'll see our hobbit holes again."
Another pause.
"Scott?"
"Hm?"
"We never built anything on that hill."
"Hm."
"Build something, yeah?"
Scott nods, just a shifting of his head against the gritty, sandstone floor.
Jimmy doesn't go back up to his cot. He stays there, on the floor beside Scott, and eventually his breaths even out into the slow draws of sleep.
And Scott waits.
Scott is the only one who attends Jimmy's funeral.
He and Grian had narrowly escaped the fight alive—he with a wound to the leg that twists his step and causes him to walk with a crutch, and Grian had caught an arrow in the fleshy part of his upper arm—painful, but not difficult to recover from. Scar had emerged unscathed.
And Jimmy had lain dead on the bunker floor, an arrow in his throat and several others piercing his body.
Scott had brought him all the way home.
And once he had returned (their beautiful stone walls, that he'd built up to protect them both and now are all but abandoned), he'd climbed that hill where they’d never built anything and dug a grave.
It's rough, hewn by tired hands, the fresh grass torn and overturned and many roots of the nearby tree chipped and cut off by his clumsy shovel. Still, Scott supposes, Jimmy certainly won't mind how ugly his grave is.
It's been one full day since Jimmy died. Twenty-four hours, almost twenty-five. Scott's been working on the grave since sometime before the sun rose, and now they've circled back around to mid-afternoon.
A full day alone. Waiting for the enemy to fall on him, take him by surprise as he is, laboring and wounded; or maybe waiting for friends to stop by, words of sorrow on their lips and help in their hands.
No one comes, though, for better or for worse. On the one hand, Scott gets the dignity of caring for his husband’s body without distraction.
On the other hand, he has to carry this weight alone.
And heavy it feels, especially when it comes time to part.
Jimmy is heavy in his aching arms, even with all his armor stripped from him, but Scott doesn’t mutter a word of complaint (not when this is the last time that he gets to hold him). He gently lays Jimmy's body in the hole, his fingernails crusted in dirt and his clothes soaked with sweat from the hard labor (and from the pain in his leg that hasn't stopped pulsing through his body).
Jimmy's eyes are closed. They had been when Scott found his body, the vestiges of a pained expression still painting his face.
He probably died as soon as the arrow entered his throat, but it's little comfort when his body is littered with so many other wounds.
Scott had cleaned the blood and dirt from his body before beginning work on the grave, but he hadn't been able to take the time to change Jimmy's torn clothes or brush his hair, or anything of the sort.
A war started yesterday, and there's already been far too many casualties for Scott to take his time.
Still, Scott takes a moment now, lying prone on the ground, leaning down into the grave.
He tucks Jimmy's hair behind his ear.
He rubs his thumb over Jimmy's lifeless knuckle.
He wipes a smudge of dirt off Jimmy's cheek.
Which won't change anything, because he's about to bury him in dirt, but it makes him feel more normal.
Scott had cried last night. Wedged into a corner of the Crastle, face buried in his hands, not able to bear the sight of the blanket-covered body laid on the floor near the door. He'd ignored Impulse when he offered to help Scott disinfect his leg, and then he'd ignored Impulse as the man knelt beside him and dressed Scott's wound without permission.
"Sorry," Impulse had whispered.
And Scott could only think that he clearly wasn't sorry enough. After all, Impulse had been one of the attackers. The arrow through Jimmy's throat had been Skizz (he'd declared his victory for all to hear), but any of the other three in Jimmy's body could have been from Impulse's bow.
He didn't stop crying, then.
Not until he had run out of tears.
Then he got up, and found a small pull-cart in the yard, and laid Jimmy's body there.
And even though he felt dry of tears, and still does, there's a lump in his throat and a burning in his eyes.
Scott doesn't want to cry again, but he doesn't seem to have a choice.
He lets the tears fall.
He lets his chest shudder.
And he waits.
It's not that he's waiting for Jimmy to suddenly wake up. He isn't waiting for anyone else to pay respects. He isn't waiting for help.
After a moment, Scott casts the first handful of dirt in—and it falls on Jimmy's chest, which doesn’t rise the way it ought to—and then he picks up the shovel and starts tossing heaps of dirt in, not even trying to suppress his tears.
And when all is finished, and the dirt is packed in nicely, and Scott's hands are washed and his clothes changed and his hair brushed, he waits.