(no subject)

She should have known.

That was what it came down to, really, what it always fucking came down to. Lucy had gotten better at it, these last few years, not letting herself put too much stock in attachments, always bearing in mind that people could disappear at a moment's notice. The moment she let her guard down was usually when something went wrong, and she knew that. She knew, too, that things had been too peaceful for too long, and that it was therefore only a matter of time before it all got turned on its head again, the way it always wound up being. If four years and some months on the island had taught her anything, it was that that was inevitable, and anyone who tried to convince themselves otherwise was a fool.

Somehow, though, despite everything, despite all her own history and every reason she had to be wary, Lucy hadn't thought it would be this. Now, in retrospect, that seemed like one more reason why it was always going to have been.

Not having seen Pete in a few days wasn't all that unusual. She had a life of her own, had, in fact, always made sure to keep it that way, and though there was still a wedding to plan, it wasn't as if there was much point in pressing forward with that until the island had returned to normal. It wasn't like him to stand her up, however, and it was only after waiting nearly an hour for him to show up for the lunch they'd planned to have together that she thought to check his place. Really, though, she'd known then, the initial sinking feeling in her stomach only settling in, as if growing more certain, as time passed. He wasn't in the house his hut had turned into, and he wasn't anywhere else, either, and though it wasn't possible to tell if anything was missing when it all looked different, by the time she returned to her and Mathias' place, there wasn't a doubt in her mind. Pete was gone, like so many others before him — Ryan, Max, Gert — and she'd been left alone yet again.

Calm, if only for the moment, she slid the ring from her finger and set it on the table beside her bed. There wasn't any point in keeping it on, not now; others might have done that for sentimental value, but she didn't see any fucking reason why she should have to do so. Without anything to hold onto, that was useless, marking her as something she wasn't. When it finally really hit her, it was a minute or two later, after she'd taken a seat on the end of her bed with a heap of white fabric in her arms. The dress had shown up the day before, the way things customarily did when January came around, big and white and the sort of thing it would be perfect to get married in, the absence of which was one of the reasons she'd decided to wait to set a date; now, though its very presence seemed to be taunting her, she held it to her chest. Only then did she become aware of the way her chest had grown tight and her eyes begun to burn. She didn't want to fall apart, not now, not again, but she didn't know how to do this, either. Accustomed though she was to being the one left behind, it didn't get any easier.

Of course, that was when she heard the front door open, too, and before she could help herself, she huffed out a breath somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Fuck," she said, hoping a moment too late that Sam was with Karen or someone else, that it would only be Mathias coming home. With her own door left wide open, there wasn't going to be any missing this, and she didn't need Sam to see her this way.

(no subject)

Lucy didn't have the first idea what she was doing, but she also didn't care. Growing restless easily on the best of days, this was already one of her worst, and while she had done alright sitting around the house for a while, there was only so long she could manage that. This time, she wasn't going to go punching any walls or anything and she wasn't going to go setting anything on fire, but doing nothing had never been a skill of hers, and with Pete several hours gone (or maybe even more. God, she didn't even fucking know, and what did that say about her?), one more disappearance to add to a list that had grown entirely too long, she neither had it in her nor saw any reason to keep those impulses as bay. They were there for a reason, after all. When one person went, it somehow always seemed all the more likely that others would follow, and knowing that Mathias and Sam were still around, she wasn't going to just sit around and wait while everyone else she cared about left, the way everyone inevitably did. There were a lot of things she'd learned on the island, but not to waste what time they were given was one of the most prominent ones, something that so often managed to slip away from her but that she had no intention of forgetting this time.

Though the island still looked different, the setting still largely unfamiliar even after a month, it was instinct more than anything else that led her to Chase's after she'd set out. She hadn't had a particular destination in mind, but here now, it made perfect sense. He was the person left here she'd known the longest, the one with whom she had been through the most, who was practically guaranteed to know what she was dealing with. (At the end of the day, it wasn't really even about Pete himself, though that was difficult in itself. Mostly, it was just the sense of being left behind again, of wondering how long it would be before there was no one.) If there was anyone's presence she most needed to be assured of at a time like this, it was his.

There were probably wiser things to do, like knocking, for example, but while she'd bundled up before coming over, it was late and it was cold out, and she didn't have it in her to stand around and wait and potentially not have anyone be there. She let herself in, instead, heading back to the bedroom and letting out a sigh of relief when she found Chase there in bed. Though that should have been enough, in the moment, it wasn't even close, and without stopping to talk herself out of it, she crawled into the bed beside him, reaching over to rest a hand on his arm, wanting to make sure he'd be awake. She'd taken off her ring. "Hey."