Blake squinted at him. “What?”
“You know, about what happened to the animals when the aliens came. Did they escape? Did a keeper let them loose to try and survive? Or did they starve in their enclosure?”
“If I see a polar bear walking down the street, I’m done.”
Tommy smiled sadly, looking out over the water with his face screwed up. Blake sighed, stretching his legs out. “I’m sure the keepers figured it out.”
It was bullshit. Blake knew it, and so did Tommy. But it helped to think that those dedicated zookeepers had formed anunderground resistance where they continued to care for the rare and exotic animals. It was one of those thoughts. The kind that was too big and too painful to handle, so you lied. To yourself. To everyone else. Denial at its finest.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence. There was no noise save the periodic splashing of a fish on the surface of the river. Not even aliens could keep the birds from flying south, and Blake missed their chirping. He wasn’t used to this kind of silence. It was thick with meaning he was too tired to understand.
“Gabriel slept in the lobby last night,” Tommy said, still staring at the river.
“He’s a big boy. He can decide where he wants to sleep.”
Tommy snorted, hearing the deflection for what it was. “What happened?”
Making a face, Blake turned back to the water and contemplated lying. He could come up with any number of things—but he was so tired. And maybe, just a little, he wanted to talk about it to someone outside the self-projection of his mother.
“I yelled at him,” Blake huffed. “Well, more like whispered angrily, I guess. I don’t even really know why. It’s not his fault I can’t seem to do anything right. It’s just that after Graves I was…angry.”
“You were sad.” Tommy reached out and forcibly pried Blake’s hand from around his leg, squeezing it with his cold fingers. “You’re allowed to grieve.”
“That’s—” Blake began, staring down at their hands. Suddenly, his throat was dry, and he worried that if he tried to speak, his voice would crack. He tried several times before he found his voice. “I’m just…I can’t save them, Tofu. I can’t. And I’ve been trying, but I—I’m not a doctor. I can’t do the things I need to do, and even if I could, I don’t have the—” he cut himselfoff. He was tired of saying it. It felt like a well-worn tread he’d paced in the floor. A constant loop of all the things he couldn’t do, and he didn’t want to say it again. Didn’t want to voice it aloud and give it even more power.
His vision blurred. “We’ve lost people before, but this was…I did this. I killed him, and I don’t know how to be okay with that.”
Tommy was quiet for a long moment. “You don’t.”
Blake yanked his hand free from Tommy’s grip so he could wipe his eyes. “What?”
“Do you remember what you told me when we lost our first patient?”
Scoffing, Blake tried to remember that far back. It seemed like another life. “Probably something stupid.”
Smiling, Tommy scooched closer so he could bump Blake’s shoulder with his. “You told me to cry. To feel the loss. Because saving a life didn’t mean a damn thing if it didn’t hurt when we lost one.”
Blake didn’t remember saying that, but he’d probably burned off a few brain cells with all the caffeine. Sounded good, though.
“I know you won’t hear me when I tell you Graves’ death wasn’t your fault, but that doesn’t make it any less true. You didn’t kill him. Maybe it was his time to go, or maybe life just isn’t fair.” He paused, waiting for Blake to look at him. “You are doing an impossible job, in horrible conditions, with nothing but your sheer stubbornness and weirdly comprehensive knowledge of movie trivia. No one blames you but yourself. You can’t work miracles, Blake. You’re not that special.”
That made Blake laugh. It was wet and sounded a little bit like a sob, but Tommy didn’t call him on it. Blake looked over at Tommy. His cheeks were red from the wind, his lips chapped, and his face a little gaunter than it should be, but there was a light in Tommy’s eyes. One that even a fucking alien invasion couldn’t dim.
“How did you get so smart?”
Tommy grinned. “It’s the Tofurkey Jerky.”
Blake hummed and dropped his head to rest on Tommy’s shoulder. He was a little taller, and it was awkward, but he didn’t want to move. Even when the chill from the grass ate through his pants, and it became uncomfortable, he didn’t move. When he got up, he’d have to go back to the Med Bay and do his job. Figure out how to survive another day.
Blake just needed a few more minutes.
“What are you going to do about Gabriel?” Tommy asked.
“I should apologize. It wasn’t right to dump all that on him when he just got back. But I’m still angry. We need someone going out there who knows what to look for, not just Judd guessing.”
“You want to go out on missions?” Tommy sounded a little surprised.
“No? I don’t know,” Blake admitted. “I don’t really miss the whole running around terrified thing.” He thought back to their dwindling supplies and the look on the soldiers’ faces when he asked if they’d even considered looking for something besides bandages and weapons.
