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All he wanted back then was to lift even the smallest amount of her sadness for a single moment. Give her something else to think about that wasn’t hopelessly depressing and when she granted him that half smile at his gift, he hadn’t been prepared for how easily it boosted him, too.

Hope unfurls in him again like the petals of this flower, blooming bright and heavy in his chest. For a moment, he wonders if he’s been wrong this whole time and it really is her. Has he just been too afraid to see it?

Who else would bring him a flower as a token meant to cheer him?

Then, a house-shaking rumble of thunder crashes outside and instinct overrides logic.

Go! Wade go, what are you waiting for? she scolds him. You’ll never see me again if you don’t get your ass in gear and run!

He’s off the bed and opening the window a moment later, climbing out to fall a few feet to the ground with a grunt, then stumbling at a half run through darkening woods.

Or so he thinks before he runs chest-first into the back fence and it knocks the wind out of him.

He lies there gasping until adrenaline forces him forward and over the barrier to leave another prison behind.

He inhales another bite of bread as he runs, head swiveling every few seconds to check if anyone’s chasing him.

Doesn’t have a clue where he’s going. Only knows that he’s finally made it.

He won’t die in that place like he always feared, and the only way to find her now is to keep moving.

When it starts to rain, his feet slip and slide in the mud.

A wrong step, coupled with a frantic search for any threat, lands him tumbling over an embankment.

He slides to a stop shoulder-deep in the river.

It’s the first bath he’s had in forever, he thinks sadly, almost laughing at the ridiculous thought.

Something shifts while he lies dazed by the fall.

Can’t explain why he goes from the relentless pursuit of freedom to utterly void of the motivation to even stand, but that’s exactly what happens.

He is just done. Exhausted in every way that counts.

The very hope that’s kept him alive and gotten him this far is now paralyzing, and the will to fight slowly dissipates.

That’s when his other ghosts come to him.

You gonna lay there like a sack of shit and give up? We had this conversation once before, didn’t we? Looked a lot like this. Your ass in the mud after trying to run. Ain’t learned your lesson the first time?

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he groans, giving Silas, his captor, the finger.

Guess this is it, huh? After all this time, those fuckers never broke you, but a little tumble got you all bothered? Cole, his other childhood friend, shakes his head in dismay.

“Not like that. The hell’s the point anymore?”

What the hell’s the point anymore? Cole mimics as if he’s a toddler throwing a tantrum. You know what the point is. Been seeing her every day.

He’s not sure if he’s crying or if it’s the steady rain cascading down his cheeks, but at this point, it could go either way. “Don’t want her seeing me like this. Gonna fuck up her life if I show up in it again.”

Think real high of yourself there, don’t you? Who says she cares enough that you could fuck anything up even if you tried? If you found her, you’d only lose her again, anyway. That’s what happens. You lose people, and she’d be next all over again.

The thing about Cole is that the real version would never speak to him like this.

Their roles were often reversed when they were kids growing up in the system together, with Wade poking and snarking at him like an obnoxious big brother.

Strange then, that in his delirium, his brain flips it all around and shows him one of the few people who ever truly cared about him as an antagonist.

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Oh yeah? Prove it.

“Maybe it’s better if—”

It’s not. Don’t say that. The phantom image of Kara kneels in the muck beside him.

“I miss you so much.”

You’ll see me again, you will. But you have to get up first.

“You don’t deserve this. You’ve moved on by now. I hope to god that you did.”

He imagines the shame that would overtake him if his dreams came true and she showed up here, while he’s covered in filth and quaking like a miserable dog. How could he ever face her as a shadow of himself? How could she see anything except what he’s become?

“Just go,” he pleads.

There’s one coming. It’s slow, though. You can still make it.

“Go,” he says again, ignoring the rotter heading for him on mangled legs.

What a sorry asshole, Cole scowls. Going out like this after how hard you fought. Disgraceful. Guess you don’t love her much as you thought you did…

“I do.”

You’ve already escaped, you just have to keep going.

“Leave me alone!” he yells, doing his best to chase away his own delusions. After a lingering moment, he is blissfully and tragically alone.

What has he done? He can’t do this without her.

“No…come back. I’m sorry. Come back,” he whispers, as the rotter ambles closer, promising an end he didn’t ask for but may as well accept.

For the first time, he thinks letting nature take its course might be the best option. It would be on his own terms now. That has to be worth something in itself.

What does he think will happen, anyway? That he’ll show up at some random community covered in mud after having been isolated for years, unable to do much more than sob in a corner? If she found him then, it would completely ruin whatever semblance of a normal life she’s managed to build.

He can’t do that to her, and he can’t live without her. That leaves the most obvious option, and he’s so damn tired straight down to his bones that if he just lays here and lets it happen, he knows it’ll be quick. He’s weak. He’ll bleed out easily after a few bites in the right spot.

Wade isn’t suicidal enough to do it himself, but he is indifferent if it comes for him.

Until someone screams loud enough that even he hears it.

It pierces through the air, sounding so much like his name and in such a familiar voice that before he realizes what he’s done, he’s already on his feet and climbing back up the embankment.

Leaves the slow rotter down below and runs toward the sound that’s only gotten more desperate and terrified by the second.

It sounds like Kara. At the core of everything that matters to him is the unrelenting need to protect her. That’s what drives him forward, even when the voices tell him it’s a trick.

He’s willing to risk it, but only for her.

When he finds the source, she’s struggling with two rotters, backed up against a tree as she kicks one away and stabs the other in the head, her knife getting stuck.

She looks more real in this moment than anything he could conjure up in his own head. Maybe hope is dangerous, he thinks, rushing forward. Or maybe it’s the only light worth following in a storm.