maybe if you weren't so quick to judge based off of his actions rather than the reason behind them, you wouldn't be pacing back and forth on the docks of the old boathouse, a part of the cameron estate you knew he used frequent just to be alone, to hide while the world burns around him. you were hoping he'd turn up. hoping you could apologize.

you wanted to apologize for the way you turned him in to the pogues. to jj, actually, of all people, as rafe despised him for the sweet way he treated you.

why'd you do it? well, when you overheard rafe and barry talking about intercepting and ambushing the pogues at a port before they could leave with the gold, you knew it was wrong. and you started to believe what everyone was saying about him, that maybe he killed peterkin, or maybe he tried to drown his own sister. so of course you ran to jj and told him of the plan, allowing the pogues to avoid the trap and escape. and of course rafe traced it back to you, the only person who knew he was ever meeting barry that day.

so, naturally, you parted ways. and it was gnawing you alive.

then, one afternoon, while you had went to the cameron estate to retrieve a digital camera you had left in his room, you found an unfamiliar phone. you unlocked it with sarah's birthday (lucky guess), and it opened into the voice memo app. you pressed play on the most recent recording, only to be shocked in hearing ward's voice. wasn't he dead?

the message was short. he was speaking to rose, telling her not to worry. but then he spoke, "rafe is loyal, but he’s reckless. he’ll keep them distracted long enough. if things go wrong... well, he’s always been the disposable one.”

you felt your heart drop to the pit of your stomach. because suddenly it all made sense. the way rafe always complained to you about how ward favored sarah, about how he felt invisible. so of course he was trying to please his father, allowing ward to weaponize his son's instability. rafe was a monster, yes -- but he was fed into that role.

so from then on, all you ever wanted to do was encounter him, tell him you're sorry, and hope he would take you back. because deep down, you knew he was the only person who ever listened to you, truly listened. you understood each other too, an unspoken connection. because you were raised in a kook town, but your parents sent you to public school with pogues to ground you, leaving you with a sense of dislocation that he mirrored, to the extreme. he was never the most smooth, or the most polite, but he saw you clearly. and that was what mattered the most.

and that's why it hurt so bad that you didn't see him clearly enough to understand his motives before betraying him.

your eyes traced the horizon, watching the sunset. vivid streaks of orange and red painted the sky, connecting the sea to the sky. you imagined him as the sky, and you as the sea. and during times of the day like these, you were burning alive to reach him, to touch him.

you spotted a small landmass in the distance, right on the horizon, distant from the mainland. you pictured you living on a house there with him, the space being so alone and desolate, that you two would be isolated from the mess around you. you knew deep down that you would build that house with your own bare hands.

he appeared behind you, and froze when he spotted your figure, seated cross-legged on the dock and staring into the distance. anger initially came over him, but the longer he watched your face, and way the moonlight reflected onto it, the anger stilled. your face was pale, your cheeks hollow, your eyes ghostly. a ghost of a person he used to love. you were beautiful. tragically so.

your hands trembled slightly as a breeze kicks in. you check your watch. it was late. and as you get up to leave, you turn and spot his figure in the shadows. body still, hood up. he was thinner than you remembered, his eyes haunted.

he breaks the silence then, his voice dry.

"you following me now?"

you take a breath. not defensively, but just to prove you're present. here. for him.