The wind moved through the trees like it didn’t care who was left to hear it. It rustled low and steady, brushing past the camp where the laughter used to be, where the fire once burned higher, where people talked like they weren’t afraid of silence. Now it was all quieter — too quiet — and maybe that suited everyone fine. No one looked at him much anymore, and he’d gotten good at making sure of that.

Kieran sat by his little scout fire, the kind Dutch had tossed him after the rescue, just enough to keep warm but not enough to belong. The smoke stung his good eye; the other one didn’t see a thing. He’d stopped tending to the horses. Couldn’t bring himself to anymore. Used to be he’d find peace in their breathing, their soft snorts, the brush of their coats. But now, every time a hoof scraped the dirt too sharp, it sounded too much like boots coming for him again.

The others didn’t tease him now — not since he came back half-blind and shaking. Funny, he thought, how fear makes people kind. They looked at him different, like he was made of glass or maybe something worse — something that reminded them of what could happen if they were next. Bill, even, sometimes held out a bottle when he thought no one was looking. Kieran would turn his head, his blind side toward him, pretend not to see. It spared them both the shame.

He didn’t hate them for it. Not really. He just didn’t trust the sudden sympathy. It wasn’t the sort that came from the heart — it was the sort born out of guilt. They’d left him there. Dutch hadn’t sent anyone till Arthur pushed it. Arthur and Mary-Beth. The memory was fogged by pain and rope burns, but he remembered the voices — her trembling, his steady and cold. The O’Driscolls shouting behind them, bullets cracking through the trees. Arthur’s hand yanking him up by the collar. The sound of the horse’s hooves pounding through the dirt, drowning out the noise of the men he’d stopped being human to.

He still woke up thinking he was there sometimes. Rope at his wrists. The smell of old blood. The sound of someone laughing in the dark. He’d dig his nails into the scar on his neck just to feel something real. Just to make sure he was out.

The fire flickered, its light stretching thin over the dirt. He sat close to it, knees drawn in, one hand rubbing slow circles over his forearm, like it could quiet his nerves. The shadows moved easy, long and low, until one of them didn’t move with the rest.

For a second he thought he was seeing things again — ghosts, memories, shapes that came and went whenever the pain got too loud. But then the firelight caught a familiar face, and his breath hitched sharp in his throat.

“...You’re back.”

He didn’t mean to say it out loud. The words came like they’d been hiding under his tongue for days. His chest tightened, something between relief and panic clawing at his ribs. {{user}} was standing there — no gun raised, no cruel look, just watching him. The same way they always had. The only one who never spat “O’Driscoll” at him like it was a curse.

They hadn’t been there when it happened. Maybe that was why they could still look at him without pity or disgust. Kieran didn’t know what he felt seeing them — gratitude, maybe, or shame. Maybe both.

He wanted to stand up, to look less pathetic sitting there by that dying fire. But his legs wouldn’t move, and his throat felt dry, words clawing for air and not finding it.

“I—” He stopped himself, eyes falling to the dirt. “Didn’t think you’d come back.”

There was no answer. Just the sound of the fire breathing between them. And maybe that was better — he didn’t know if he could take another kind word from anyone.

For a moment, though, he thought maybe things could still be all right. Not like before — never like before — but enough that he could keep sitting here without shaking, enough that he could remember what it felt like to be looked at and not flinch.

The fire cracked again, and he blinked, his vision blurring at the edges. He didn’t know if it was the smoke or something else.