#devon scout-hale

"What's going on? I mean -?" Okay, maybe it's not terrible that Ricken is here, because he can hear Devon's hysteria perhaps better than Mark himself can, and knows how to keep his little sister on this side of a breakdown. Ricken's hands settle on her shoulders and something about them makes Devon release him, turn into Ricken's broad chest, and Ricken holds her head tight against him. She burrows into him, clutches his coat, and her sobs are muffled by the wool.

Thank God for small mercies and all that.

"I just need you to take me home." Shit, it sounds like he's been screaming himself hoarse. Maybe he has. He swallows down the acid still lingering in his throat.

"Can I - Mark - can we - would they let us - see her?"

He's sitting again. "I don't see why not." He's not sure if he says it or thinks it, but Ricken and Devon flicker from view until he finds himself handed a hot coffee. It burns his mouth when he sips automatically. He's staring at the linoleum again. He looks up in time to make eye contact with the secretary who hands him the drink, and nods his thanks. Devon and Ricken now stand at his side, his hand so tightly clutched in hers that Mark winces in sympathy.

"I am…so sorry, Mark." Ricken's right hand is like lead on his shoulder. Gemma's burned grimace is behind his eyes again. The Vick's grows stronger and for a moment he wishes he had denied the ME's offer.

"I'm tellin' you," he had said, an unexpected amount of compassion in his eyes as he held out the jar, "you would never get that smell out of your nose."

He had believed him - of course he had believed him - and had rubbed a generous helping under his nose and signed the Waiver of Autopsy form and the Cremation Authorization Request form and shook the hands of the men who had found her. And then he had breathed in menthol when he should've breathed in her charred skin and he had nodded confirmation to the ME and he had thrown up in the restroom and he had called his sister.

And still he wonders what she smelled like. Maybe he'll throw up again.

He decides to look at Devon instead, who isn't fully there. He watches her sway a little, studies the emptiness of her eyes for a moment.

Beside her, Ricken is heavy and Mark thinks it's the most sincere he's ever looked, like he's stripped bare.

Fuck, where's Gemma? is the natural first thought. He has to tell her to come see this. Because he can see it now, what she can see in their brother-in-law. For just a moment, that's the man his sister fell in love with. Of course.

They don't say another word to each other. The secretary returns with two more coffees, and they all have the wherewithal to verbally thank her, and then the cops who found her, and the cops who brought Mark in, and the chief sitting in for the night shift and the medical examiner who drove all the way out to Ganz at 12:30 in the morning just to help smooth out the paperwork.

"She was a pillar of the community," and as scripted as that statement is out of the chief's mouth, Mark has to clear his throat. Because she was, actually. Ganz is small enough for such a trite statement to be true. It was her favorite part about the town. It was his favorite, too. Mark shakes his hand before they leave.

They're halfway back to his home when Devon asks, "Do you need me to find the number for the home we used for Mom?"

"It's all settled," he says, staring at the back of Ricken's headrest so single-mindedly that his eyes begin to cross. He closes his eyes and sucks in a breath. It feels like his lungs won't open. Maybe he's having his first ever asthma attack at 40. Because why not tonight? Why not now?

"What…do you mean it's settled?" It's a question that grows on her, develops as the syllables fall out of her mouth. Ricken hums in agreement.

"The ME - the cops - whatever, they work with a home in Kier. They'll cremate her tomorrow."

"Hang - hang on - Ricken, pull over." He does, and Devon rips off her seatbelt before storming around the front of the car and ripping his door open. It's so fucking cold. He wonders if the explosion of the engine felt nice, for just a second.

"The fuck do you mean 'they'll cremate her tomorrow'?"

"I mean what I said. They'll cremate -"

"She died four hours ago!" It is the loudest he has ever heard his sister scream. It seems to be louder than she herself thought she could scream. "You fucker -!" And she's on him, thrashing against his chest as he wrestles with his seatbelt to get out of her reach. Ricken fights with his own as he yells, "Devon? My babe!?"

Devon doesn't resist when Ricken finally pulls her away. Mark pants, surprised by the bruising he feels across his hip and chest and jaw.

"Did you even tell her parents?" Devon's so quiet he has to focus to understand her question.

"She hasn't talked to them in six years, Dev."

Devon is so pale, even under the orange streetlight. "Did you even tell her parents?"

"I'll figure out how to tell them in the morning!" He's embarrassed that she's got him yelling, too.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Mark!" Her hands are on her hips and she bends at the waist like she might throw up. Ricken rubs her back absently and holds up his free hand in a gesture of peace.

"This is a terrible, terrible night for all of us," he begins. "What we all need is to just take a deep breath -."

"Just drive me the fuck home!" It's sharp enough to freeze the two of them, and he's grateful when they finally look at him. "I was in that station for three fucking hours before they let me see her, and then I saw her and I called you and I just need to go home!" His voice cracks and he takes his face in his hands and maybe he'll vomit again. Now that Devon's off him, he could easily unbuckle himself and run to the highway and throw himself in front of a semi and then this could all be someone else's problem, it doesn't matter whose. It just wouldn't be his anymore.

"Okay." He hears Ricken climb back into the driver's seat, say Devon's name softly until she returns to the passenger seat. When they murmur he's certain Devon's trying to convince Ricken to drive to their place. He's weirdly touched when he removes his hands from his eyes and finds they've pulled up to his house after all.

Gemma should be smirking beside him. See? Ricken's not so bad. Maybe not.

"Mark, you've got to call off the cremation." Devon's begging the second Ricken puts the car in park. "You're still in shock - we're all still in shock - just get a full night's sleep and we can figure out what to do in the morning -."

"It's settled, Devon." He's tired, he's never been this tired in his life, and he still can't pull in a full breath. He forces himself to pause, to meet her eyes over the armrest. "I'm…Look, I'm sorry I did that all without you. But the cops and the ME had everything set up, there's a process they have to go through, it was just easier this way."

"Easier?" She's about to break again; Ricken reaches for her hand as Mark continues, "Yes, easier! Christ, Dev. What does it matter? You saw her - she's not here anymore. She barely even looked like herself. What does it matter what happens to her now? Who cares?"

"I care!"

It stuns the three of them into silence. Mark recovers first, unbuckling his seatbelt. "Thanks for the ride, Ricken."

"Any time, Mark."

Devon's sobs follow him across the driveway, and they echo in his ears even as Ricken backs out. He drops his keys, cusses, and his hands tremble so hard that it takes two minutes to find the correct key and work it into the lock.

He eases the door open slowly, careful of its tendency to screech and Gemma's need for a full night of sleep before her 8AM class. By the time he's tiptoed across the threshold and silently shut the door, it occurs to him that that's another call he'll need to make in the morning.

He should start writing all this down. Instead, he finds the whiskey he'd been nursing on and off in the library and carries it to the couch. It burns against the old acid in his throat but he keeps drinking.

He keeps drinking.

He does not sleep.

---

The ringtone registers slowly as he resurfaces. He fumbles for his phone, squinting in the late morning sunlight. An unknown number, and he has forty-six missed calls. Shit.

"Hello?" His voice is thick; he clears it twice. His throat still burns. The Vick's still lingers in his nose.

"Dr. Scout?" A woman's voice. "This is Cara Bellwether, with Bellwether Memorials and Cremations in Kier? First, let me tell you how sorry I am for your loss."

"Oh." It takes all of his effort to sit up. "Uh, yeah. Thanks."

"I wanted to let you know we coordinated with the medical examiner's office. Gemma is in our care now, and because Kier is some ways out from you, we wanted to let you know we can ship her to you free of charge, unless you would like to drive out and bring her home yourself. We would just need to confirm your address and collect your payment information. Do you plan to hold a funeral as well? That is something we can help you with."

Jesus H. Christ. Why did he finish the bottle last night? He should've known he'd need some when he woke up. He rubs his eyes and tries to ignore the headache building in his temples. He glances at his watch again and counts backwards: it's been thirteen hours since the police showed up at his door.

"Oh, no. Yeah. Uh, we're still figuring that all out. Yeah." The nausea builds in his belly. "Mailing - that would be great, sure. You need my address?" He gives it, and reads his credit card number over the phone after he requests a few additional death certificates beyond the five free ones and she tells him the total will be $849.99.

He thinks about the sabbatical they had been saving up for. "A good old fashioned European Tour," Gemma had grinned, color-coding their itinerary for Verdun and Ypres and Berlin and Moscow and St. Petersburg. What a waste that would've been.

—

He does not call Devon and Ricken when the package shows up four days later. Gemma Scout, Ph.D., in a ten-by-ten box labeled CREMATED REMAINS.

He holds it for several minutes. He thinks about opening it, wonders if he really wants to see her. He's Googled pictures of cremains (although God forbid you actually call them cremains) so he knows what they'll look like, but still. He wants to tear open the box and tear open the plastic bag or whatever urn the funeral home chose for her and shove his hand inside her, feel the pulverized remnants of her bones. He wants to know what she smells like, now that everything he knew and loved about her has been burned away.

The label on the box says she weighs five pounds and three ounces.

What the fuck, he thinks suddenly, does he do with this?

---

"Shouldn't she be laid to rest?"

After five weeks, he's finally eating dinner with Devon and Ricken. Their paperwork for a house on the edge of Kier has finally gone through and the space around their dining room table is crowded with half-filled boxes as they prepare for the move. Mark's home looks about the same as he fights with Ganz College for a few more weeks in the house. He's losing the battle but the thought of leaving the house forever hurts too much to think about for long.

Devon's poured the entirety of a bottle of red wine into the comically large glass Gemma bought her for her 35th birthday. Mark is on his third Old Fashioned and Ricken continues to slowly nurse his PBR as Mark's driver for the evening. He still hasn't replaced their car.

"Where?" he counters, picking at the remains of his lasagna. "Do I bury her near the college that fired me and is evicting me from our home? Do I take her out to her parents in Wisconsin? If I do bury her here, do you know how much plots are?" He doesn't wait for Devon's response before he says, "Fifteen hundred dollars."

She sputters. "But you're burying an urn."

"What about spreading her ashes?" Ricken offers. "I think Gemma would love to return to nature. We could take her to LeForge."

"They won't give me a permit."

"So? We just do it at night. What are they gonna do, arrest us?" Devon scoffs, takes another long sip.

"I don't know, Dev!" He slams the glass down harder than he means to, and the cocktail sloshes onto his plate. "It's five pounds! Five pounds of ashes and I just, what? Dump it on the ground? Like that's respectful to her. Or the wind blows her away - then where is she? Where does she go? And if we split her up - what if we want to pay our respects? Where do we go? Her left leg goes into the Dieter Eagan National Forest and her skull goes into the campus gardens and her right hand goes under her first dorm room at UWM and her spine -."

"Mark!" Devon's been calling his name but he only just hears it. He stops. She puts her hand on his arm. "Mark."

He sucks in a breath. "Or maybe I keep her on a mantle or some shit. Do I buy the fancy marble urn or a handcrafted mahogany urn with the Ganz logo on it or do I buy a plastic urn that's bad for the environment because it's the only one I can fucking afford but how is that 'honoring her memory?' And then I have to pass her every time I leave the house, I have to look at her and -."

Holy shit, he's crying. He's crying and Ricken's arm is around his shoulder and Devon's arm is around his waist and he has to fight his way out of their embrace to get up from the table.

"Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm - I should get going. I've taken up enough of your evening."

Ricken stands as Devon says, "Mark, we can help -."

He cuts her off with a look. "I know what that down payment was, Dev. It's fine. She's - Gemma's fine where she is. It's fine." He runs his hand through his hair, scratches the back of his scalp as Ricken shrugs into a light coat. "Maybe when I find a new job or something, I'll - I'll think of something else."

He sits on the edge of his bed, staring at the closed closet door. He lets himself relax into the whiskey before he reaches for her pillow, presses it against his face. The eucalyptus of her conditioner is fading even though he can't bring himself to wash the sheets.