don't know why.

    Lydia snorted and looked over to the bonfire, grabbing Marley’s arms and started to drag them over. “Nope—” The woman chuckled, steaming hot coffee still in hand. “The cold doesn’t stop just because a boat has gone missing,” She pointed out, trying to keep a positive attitude about the evening ahead. “The difference? We can fix you being cold.” Lydia mused as her feet came to a halt a few meters from the fire, eyes finding a log for them to sit on. “Your first one is always the worst…” Lowering herself down, Lydia offered her friend a soft smile and looked up at the flames dancing beneath the sky. “But they get easier once you know what to expect.” She shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee as she pointed her legs out to warm them a little, “This shit happens a lot here. We do this every time, it’s a good way to process things that have happened.”

Marley laughed along with her friend, allowing Lydia to tug her along towards the flames, grateful for the heat radiating both from it and the coffee’s in their hands. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’.” She murmured back, knocking her hip gently against the other’s, hearing her musing and hearing the silent implication of it. They could fix Marley being cold, but there was little they could do about the missing crew, other than light the lanterns that served only those who lit them and sent them up towards the sky. She joined Lydia on the log, meeting the other’s smile with one of her own. Though, as she began to speak, Marley was quick to shake her head. “S’not my first.” She informed, shoulders lifting in a shrug. “...been a lot of places. Things happen.” Disappearing boat or not, this would not be the first tragedy to ever hit a space that Marley occupied. “But this is nice. Comfortin’.” Her tongue burned with her sip of coffee, or perhaps the lie that this brought her anything resembling comfort. “Lights to guide them home.” She murmured.

“Don’t thank me, I didn’t make it.” He grinned a goofy smile, taking a bite from the sandwich he had left. To have something in his system made his entire body feel good almost instantly. He knew why he was doing this – why all of them were doing this. But it was easy to forget to look after one’s self when one was so busy. It felt good to work together with the whole community. He had just wished that the circumstances hadn’t been so dire. He could’ve done with less tragedy, for certain. Blue hues shifted to the blonde when she asked him if he knew them, the fishermen. He didn’t need to ask who she meant, as everyone who hadn’t grown up on the island asked him that question. “I didn’t know Connor and Miles very well, more in passing. Donald actually helped out when my father went missing. That gave our family connections to the McIvy family, I always liked Hannah growing up, for instance, but I can’t say I was friends with her brother Alexander. Lad is only nineteen..” A breath, eyes moving back towards the sea, hoping that they were around there somewhere, safe and sound. They still had their lives to live. “Bet you didn’t expect this when you moved here, huh? Not so much of an idyllic island life.” 

"Neither did I.” The grin offered back was equally as goofy, and just as quickly stuffed with half of the sandwich, the wrapping having succeeded in keeping in the warmth of it. Marley was grateful, body not made for the low temperatures the proximity to the water brought along. Silence fell between the two, the one sound being their slow chewing, the crinkle of tinfoil. As he turned to look at her, however, Marley looked back, nodding along at the explanation offered. She tried not to visibly react to the information--namely, how easily he’d said when my father went missing. Was it funny, or sad, that they’d kept up with this game of theirs long enough for her to know that key detail surrounding his life, but still not his name? She almost laughed, lips twitching upwards, though she was quick to clear her throat, shake her head and avert her eyes back to the ocean, not wanting him to think she was mocking. She liked to think that her mother had been so emotionally missing from her life that becoming so physically would hardly have made a difference, but she remembered those mornings when she would awake to an empty house. No calls or text. Skipping school in order to search for the woman, wondering if that day was the day it would happen. The day she didn’t come back, couldn’t be found. “I try not to expect much of anythin’, anywhere, actually.” She admitted, after a moment, gaze returning to his once more. “But no.” A small, sad smile tugged at her lips. “I don’t think I could’ve seen this one comin’.” Curiosity getting the better of her, Marley slowly began to shake her head. “...don’t suppose they found your father, now, did they?”

     The chirpiness in her voice brought about some calm within, settling the adrenaline and flatlining it to a good level. Matt took the sandwich with a thankful nod and found himself a chair, rewarding himself by sitting down for the first time in hours. “Thanks—” He dropped the plastic in her hand and looked up with another grateful smile, “That might wake me up.” The male chuckled, guilt filling his chest as he did so. “I’m Matt,” He introduced himself for a distraction as he unwrapped the sandwich. “Thanks for being out here, doing this. It’s a real help. We’re all real grateful.”

She could practically hear the way his bones creaked as he found himself an empty seat, watching the way that he melted into it, surely the first chance he’d had to do so in hours. “Here’s to hopin’.” She murmured with a smile, knowing that, if he were like any of the other’s out there right then, he’d not want her to waste that hope on him. Yet, she turned to duck back behind the flimsy tent that’d been sent up, dropping the crushed plastic in the appropriate bin and returning to him with a styrofoam cup of coffee, it’s steam rising off the top, warming Marley’s fingers for the brief moment she held it in her grip. “S’nice to meet you, Matt. I’m Marley.” She introduced herself, extending the makeshift mug between them. It was nice to put a name to such a handsome, if not exhausted, face. “Just happy to do my part.” Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug, finding that she meant it, too. Something struck her, then, in the moment--something that’d been nagging at her since she’d arrived at the dock, had seen the organization of everything. “...this kinda thing happen ‘round here often, Matt?”

he didn’t want to get marley’s hopes up, but he loved seeing the expression on her face when he gave her the tickets. the spice girls; how much better could it get? the motel wasn’t much to look at, but it’s all he could afford after borrowing his grandmother’s car to drive them there. surprisingly, she was all for the weekend getaway, even though he and marley weren’t married.

he wrapped his arms around her and smiled, kissing the crown of her head. “only the least gross motel room for my girl,” he said with a laugh. “what do you want to do before the concert, birthday girl?”

One more year, and this could be their life. Shitty motel rooms. Long stretches of highway. Nowhere to go, nowhere to be, just the two of them and wherever they decided, the adventures that followed. She’d been alone most of her life--had never known any different to desire anything different, but the last year she’d spent with Freddie had only served to show her that it was okay to want more. To want to see the world, but to have someone to see it with. 

               Nathan was hardly influenced by matters of grief, a bout of nugatory regard stemming from him when it came to matters of the heart. All the same, he couldn’t sit around when a community was in crisis, even one he had thus alienated himself from, finding himself holed up at the Sizzling Griddle in recuperation from a nightly search and rescue that came up as another hopeless feat. Nathan had the free time to devote and yet he found himself picking up haphazard shifts, never fully committing to the cause, tired eyes peering up at a familiar voice, dulcet resonance barely registering in his ears. It had been a myriad of years since he ran into Marley, one who should have been another face in the crowd for Nathan, though he had far more a committed memory than he could ever dare admit to, offering a mild grin of familiarity in case the notion of memory was not returned. 

               His stomach rumbled, betraying lexicon that left him, grin falling into a weaker sentiment, “I need a cigarette, and if you suddenly found a way to turn water into whiskey that’d be next best, too.” No matter extempore, Nathan held out a hand of acceptance, a mild shrug falling from his shoulders, “Thanks, Marley.” 

It seemed like all kinds of blasts from the pasts were making themselves known to Marley. Admittedly, Nathan was a less devastating surprise, though just as big of one, her lips pulling into a grin at the emphasis on her name, as if he were testing the waters on how well her memory served her. Admittedly, names and faces were quick to become a blur Marley, whose last ten years had guaranteed that she’d met, and forgotten her fair share of them. But staring at the smug face of one Mr. Nathan Monroe, she almost doubted she’d ever be able to forget it.

“Cigarette, I can do. M’afraid I’m still workin’ on that whiskey bit.” She informed with a scrunched nose, feigning apologetic. She was quick to grin, however, reaching into her jacket pocket for her pack of cigarettes, and producing one for the other. “Didn’t know Hell’s Saints had a show in town.” Her eyebrows raised curiously, having a feeling that this wasn’t the case. “Or are you here to lure the ship back to shore with your guitar playin’?”

     “Thanks—” Matt had been out most of the night, an achingly painful exhibition to return with very little. “Can I take a sandwich too? I haven’t eaten since…” The man thought about it for a moment and realised his last meal was lunch, the day before. He took the water bottle and unscrewed the cap, chugging from it until the thing was empty. “Is there a recycling bin back there?” He asked, crushing the bottle into an almost flat piece of plastic. 

“Well, it certainly ain’t for me.” She further extended the sandwich in his direction, not needing the statement to complete itself to know that it’d been far too long since his last meal. Even if it hadn’t been, she figured he’d have taken it anyways, if the way he consumed the water was anything to go by. As the bottle was crushed in his grip, Marley couldn’t help but smile at his concern. “’Course.” She reached a hand for the plastic. “While I’m back there, let’s get you a coffee, too.” He looked dead on his feet. “Or else a good gust of wind’s gonna send you overboard.”

Nora wasn’t much one for prayers. Her parents had raised her catholic, she attended church on every Sunday, bible study groups too, she even sung in the choir, sometimes they allowed her to have some solos, she loved it, but she didn’t really believe in God. She didn’t understand the appeal of asking if she wasn’t going to be answered, of talking if no one would talk back to her, of believing if there wasn’t any evidence. She was a scientist, a doctor— she believed in empirical evidence, not in some higher being… yet, still, she found herself in the church more often since the news broke. She didn’t know any of them, nor did she grew up in Fremont to feel close, but helplessness and hopeless were feelings she was quite well accustomed with and she didn’t believe anyone deserved them.

She didn’t deal well with water, though— nor could she cook. Her ways of helping were limited when it came to finding the family or feeding people who were putting themselves in the middle of the ocean to do so. A small incident when she was a kid made her relationship with open waters stifle, she absolutely hated the feeling of being so small in something so big. Thankfully they were accepting volunteers to hand out waters and the already made sandwiches and other types of food, she didn’t have work that Sunday so she could make most of her time. Some people showed their desperation more than others, she had been relatively contained until she caught sight of Mrs. McIvy and then her brain went into overload. She asked to be excused for a few minutes and pushed herself away from the craziness and wrapped her arms around herself, mind going a million miles per second.

Raising her eyes as she took sight of Marley a few minutes later, a small smile flashed across her lips, nodding and taking a hold of her offers, she didn’t even know how long it had been since her last meal. “You’re a life saver,” her stomach rumbled in agreement as she patted the spot next to her as an invitation. “Did you see the look on Mrs. McIvy’s face? I don’t know why I thought I could see that and still feel apt to do anything.”

She’d been seventeen the first time she’d seen the ocean. Funny, how the person who’d taken her to it had been the one who’s appearance had surprised her just hours before the news had broken across the diner’s TV screen. She found it hard to believe that just hours before, her thoughts had been on flight information, whether or not to give the Griddle any notice of her departure, if there was anybody worth saying goodbye to. A selfish part of her kept these thoughts in the back of her mind, unwilling to let them go as she remembered how strongly the urge in her had risen the moment her eyes had met his own. They may not have been the color of the ocean, but they had been just as deep, and vast, and if the search mission going on around them was anything to go by, just as easy to get lost in.

You’re a life saver. Marley almost laughed at the irony of the statement, though contained it to a smile instead, accepting the invitation for the seat next to Nora. Her question, however, wiped the smile clear from Marley’s face, eyes drifting to the woman in question. How Mrs. McIvy could stand to be there, she didn’t know. Then again, Marley didn’t imagine that she’d find much comfort anywhere.

“You’re here.” Marley offered, shifting her gaze back to Nora. “That’s somethin’.” She assured the other, smile managing to pick back up at one corner of her mouth. “It’s...amazin’, actually. Everyone comin’ together like this. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anythin’ like it.” Her head shook, almost in disbelief.

Mason had sat himself on the edge of a wall, exhaustion of some sort setting in, as he watched the commotion in front of him, people spilling from docks to boats and boats to docks, one boat coming in while another started to head out. There was a nauseating familiarity to it all. He hadn’t spoken to his siblings since he heard the news. Justin had texted, Conrad had responded, but Mason just couldn’t put anything to words. He was struggling, to say the least. There was too much familiarity to the scene. Hearing a voice nearby he snapped out of his daze, however, looking over in the direction of its source, finding a familiar face offering a kind smile and gesture. “Thanks,” the word came out without much enthusiasm as he reached out, taking the water bottle. “I’m just trying to stay out of everyone’s way.” It was a half-truth. He was trying to stay out of everyone’s way… but he also had no idea how to go about trying to help.

The look on his face gave him away--or perhaps the lack of one. The emptiness in his gaze, the blankness, how it took a moment for his attention to shift to Marley. Did he know the missing members of the crew? Or did he just have loved ones out there looking for them? Marley couldn’t tell, found herself wanting to know, but didn’t push, in the moment. Instead, she let him take the water bottle with a small smile, the sandwich in her other hand extended as well. “Hungry?” She couldn’t imagine that anyone that had accepted the offerings from the Sizzling Griddle had been, only eating out of necessity. Whatever got the job done, she supposed. “I’m sorry I don’t got a drink to buy you.” A reference to their initial meeting in the grocery store. Her hand reached for her jacket pocket, however, producing a small silver flask from the inside. “Maybe this’ll make up for it.”

where: the sizzling griddle when: a month and a half ago, on a late friday afternoon who: @marleyrcallahan

    So he had fucked up.

    Not his first time, and, inevitably, despite his best intentions, he knows it won’t be his last either. But last night, after he had tucked Nathan into bed and stood alone in his kitchen, drinking whiskey straight out of the bottle, Samuel found himself the victim of a pang of — oh God, what a nightmare — guilt. So the next day, he carries on his business as usual, waiting for the midday sun to set before he dresses his nephew in a coat, in anticipation of the evening chill. He brings the two of them right back to the place that he had sworn, with a huff and a look of disdain the previous night, that he would never return to: the Sizzling Griddle.

    He takes a seat, not because he actually wants to eat something — his stomach churns in protestation at the very idea  — but because he’s searching for one particular person that he knows he owes an apology to. When she rounds the corner and heads to his table, he clears his throat and nudges his nephew, who bounces and fidgets on the booth seat. “Sit up straight, Nathan,” Samuel chides, not unkindly as he lays a firm and comforting hand on his nephew’s shoulder. He’s got a whole apology rehearsed in his mind, the words ready to fall from his lips with the practiced ease and fluency of a career lawyer. And yet, when she comes up to their table, he can’t help the words of impulse that fall from his lips. “Did you miss me, darling?”

Shitty customers came with the territory.

It didn’t matter where it was, high end charter yacht or small truck stop diner, everywhere in between. Every one came with the good customers, but with the good customers came the bad. She liked to think that they were outweighed by the good, that people were the reason she genuinely loved to do what she did, and the best way to see who somebody was, deep down. How they treated waitstaff said more about a person than they realized, and she was more than fine being the only one between them who was privy to the information. It hardly got to her, anyways--the poor treatment. She was human, of course, with skin that was only so thick. Last night had been nowhere near the worst she’d ever received though (nothing had been purposely spilled on her, after all), and the pronounced lack of tip that man had left before collecting his son in a huff had earned her more than generous ones from the surrounding patrons. It’d all worked out. If his declaration to never return was anything to go by, Marley imagined that she’d never even have to see him again.

Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. She’d been fixing her ponytail in the bathroom mirror when Sarah popped her head in to let her know that the man from the night before was currently sat in her section. She couldn’t help but laugh, head shaking in disbelief. “So much for that promise.” Marley informed her coworker, though her attention remained on the mirror and her hair. Do you want me to take him? Sarah offered. Satisfied with her hair, her hands dropped from her head and to the sink to wash. “Oh, no, baby. You ain’t gettin’ my sympathy tips.” Drying her hands, she offered Sarah a smile and a wink, met with a roll of the other’s eyes as they exited the bathroom.

Sarah hadn’t been lying. As Marley rounded the corner, there the man sat, eyes roaming the dining room floor, as if searching for something. His latest victim? Marley thought to herself, steeling herself for the interaction to come. Deep breath taken, she made her way over to the table, reaching into her apron pocket for her notepad, if only to give her hands something to do.

And so it begins. “Oh, like a thorn in my side, darlin’.” Her attention shifted to the boy she presumed to be his son. Even if he’d been his own kind of trouble the night before, Marley offered him a smile. “S’nice to see you’re in a better mood today, handsome.” She returned her gaze to Samuel, eyebrows raised curiously, as if to see if the same could be said for him.