Chapter 28 #3
I cover my mouth, trying to hold in this fear that I’ll never speak to Jorn again, wondering how I’m going to help Fin through the loss of his friend, when a gurgling sound breaks the silence.
Jorn moves, his body expelling the water. His coughs and gasps eliciting startled reactions among everyone on the beach.
The tension breaks, and my tears fall as relief floods my body.
He’s alive. He wasn’t, and now he is.
Coughing, gasping for air, burning.
Nothing.
Is that what happened to me, back when Weston saved me?
Sig throws her arms around him as he tries to sit up, tackling him back to the ground.
He wraps an arm around her weakly, still coughing.
“I knew you’d save me, babe,” he says, his voice creaking with a small chuckle.
Sig’s body stiffens, and she leans back. “You’re an idiot, Jorn Whitehollow!” she screams as she slaps his shoulder and chest repeatedly.
“Never argued with that,” he says. He captures her lips in a quick kiss before she pushes him off her. He erupts in a fit of laughter mixed with more coughing, and the terrifying moment of losing one of the crew has disappeared.
Everyone disperses, heading back to different places in the Oasis, but the mood is less jovial.
Sig leads him up the beach, away from the crowd. She is already looking him over and probably scolding him some more.
Fin still clutches my leg, and I bend down and peel his arms off. He still looks stricken, and I wonder if, like me, he also hasn’t seen death, despite enduring his sister’s illness.
“Hey,” I say, crouching down to his level. “Jorn is alright, see?”
He looks past me to where Jorn and Sig sit, and nods.
“I know that was very scary. I was scared too. But it’s alright now. We don’t have to be scared anymore. We just need to make sure we stay safe in the future, alright?”
He nods solemnly. “Can I go back and play now?”
“Of course. Come find me if you need me, alright?”
“Thanks, Lennox.” He throws his arms around my neck and squeezes me tightly before running back toward the rock slides.
I watch as he climbs the stairs to the top, tracking him until he’s with someone else. The last thing we all need is another incident.
My eyes snag on someone still on the beach, and I look over to find Weston sitting alone, staring out over the Oasis, watching everyone get back into the activities from before the interruption. His forearms rest on his bent knees, and I can see how tight his shoulders are from here.
Without thinking, I traipse through the sand and sink down next to him, crossing my legs under me. I don’t speak. No words feel right, so I just sit and watch everyone as he does.
Finally, I say the only feeling that I can put into words. “I’m glad Jorn is alright.”
He doesn’t answer. The only acknowledgment that he’s heard me is the tick of a muscle in his jaw.
“Does that happen often? Not with Jorn, specifically, just in general?”
“No.”
His gaze stays trained ahead, his body still wound tight as he sits with whatever is going on in his mind. Heavy breaths heave through his nose, and I feel like his teeth might crack under the tension of his jaw.
“It doesn’t happen often,” he finally murmurs, “but it isn’t easy when it does.”
Vulnerable Weston is not a side of him I’ve seen. The closest instance may be the first moment we met, but other circumstances kept me from noticing it any more than in hindsight. I don’t think he shows it often, and even when he feels it, it still seems like he tries to hide it from the crew.
I lean to the side slightly, enough that our shoulders barely touch.
I don’t really know what it is like to be there for someone when they need it, but it feels like Weston needs it.
Our skin barely brushes and I feel him let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing a bit before pressing a little more firmly into mine.
I feel a pang in my chest, and a lump forms in my throat. Weston is constantly putting up a show of strength and leadership for the crew. He’s there when everyone needs him, but who is there when he needs it? From the way I found him sitting alone on the beach, it doesn’t seem like anyone.
I clear my throat. “Where did Sig learn to do that?”
“She’s from Berrendahr. Spending so much time on the water, it’s something they all learn to do.”
“Did she teach you?”
He nods, eyes still trained straight ahead.
I glance down at my fingers in my lap, nervously winding them together. I want to know, but I’m afraid to ask, so I keep my eyes trained on my fidgeting fingers so I don’t have to look at him.
“Is that what you did for me?”
My lips start to tingle, thinking back to how Sig saved Jorn, pressing into his chest, breathing breath into his mouth and I remember back to that day.
Teal eyes searching mine, water dripping off his soaked face and hair as he hovered over me.
You’re alive. Just breathe.
Weston was just as worried about keeping me alive then as he was with Jorn today, and he didn’t even know me then.
“I did what I had to do, princess.”
I’m starting to feel like these are the words Weston lives by.
Everything he does is for everyone around him.
Maybe he truly doesn’t have an ulterior motive, some hidden plan that he’s coercing everyone to be part of.
Every decision, every action is what he believes he has to do as the captain, to keep everyone safe.
“You don’t have to take responsibility for everyone, you know,” I say.
“If I don’t, who will?”
I glance back up at him then. His face is still drawn, not as harshly as it was before, but it’s clear he doesn’t see any option other than him bearing the responsibility.
“And what would happen to them?” he continues, nodding toward the crew all around the Oasis. “Every single one of them is my responsibility, even if they don’t necessarily want to be. I can’t count on someone else to do what is best for them.”
Words escape me. He doesn’t know I understand that responsibility more than anyone here, the kind that is thrust upon you, and you don’t know if you are capable of it.
The responsibility for the well-being of everyone, even if it is at the detriment of yourself.
The selfless responsibility, to put everyone else’s needs before your own.
Maybe Weston and I understand each other a little more than I thought.
Now that I’ve seen what happened with Jorn, what was so close to being my fate, and knowing he threw himself into danger to make sure I survived, I can’t keep the words in any longer.
“Thank you for saving me.”
He finally looks over at me, a small smirk turning up his lips. “I thought you said you were never going to thank me for that.”
I roll my eyes. “Will you just accept it and stop being an ass about it? I’m trying to be nice.”
He chuckles softly, then turns back toward the pool. “You don’t need to thank me, princess.”
“I am anyway.”
We stay sitting in companionable silence, bare shoulders pressed together, watching everyone around us enjoy the rest of the day, until Fin comes running back over, begging me to watch him try to flip into the pool.
It feels like an excuse to leave Weston’s side, and I know it has been long enough to confuse all my thoughts all over again.
Fin drags me by the hand off the beach, and I perch on a rock with my feet dangling into the cool water.
Maybe eternity won’t be so bad if this is what it looks like, surrounded by a bunch of people who watch out for each other, and generally want to be with one another.
I thought my time as a Voyager was everything I ever wanted in life, but looking around now, I realize how different it is.
Their time on Dawnlin is full of fear and purpose, but so much of it is solitary.
The Castaways try to make the best of their time, living the stagnant life as best they can, while still having hope that they can return home, despite being empty-handed.
I’ve listened to everything Dane says, heard his stories and arguments, and I believed them.
But after living among them, being brought into their crew, treated as an equal and trusted, I just don’t know if I believe it anymore.
I’m getting the impression that the monster Dane painted Weston to be is the exact opposite, and instead he’s a man who truly cares about the well-being of every single Castaway, and wants to make sure that their time here is enjoyable and safe.
Because none of us really knows how long forever will be.