4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
Left Holding
Beatrix searches for clean clothes, feeds a hungry dog, and tries to hold herself together with small tasks and stubborn forward motion. But when Charity delivers an ultimatum and Jamie makes an impossible choice, Beatrix finds herself holding more than a shrouded body. She's holding everyone else's grief—and the fury no one seems to notice building behind her eyes.
The camp is fracturing. Joel is missing. Duke is dead. And Beatrix is looking for clean clothes because it's the only thing she can control.
She finds Henri in Jamie's tent—hungry, oblivious, tail wagging like the world hasn't collapsed around him. She feeds him. She ignores Paul's careless remarks. She takes the bedsheet Glenda presses into her hands and walks it down to the river, where Jamie stands waist-deep in water that can't wash away what he's lost.
He asks to wrap Duke alone. She gives him that. She blows a quiet kiss to the dog who greeted her without judgement, and she waits—close enough to return, far enough to let him say goodbye.
But goodbye doesn't end there.
Charity arrives with certainty and cruelty in equal measure. Joel's been taken. They leave now—or Joel dies. Jamie must choose: the body in his arms or the friend who might still be breathing.
He chooses. He hands Duke to Beatrix. He walks away.
And Beatrix—scratched, exhausted, holding a shrouded dog and a rising scream—turns toward the Portal and says one word: Home.
