Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had only been a few days since Sandra and Barney had been buried and standing in that graveyard and seeing the headstones stretch for miles and miles had made Michael realize something.

He'd never asked about his cousins grave.

He'd know even before they'd recruited him that she was dead, although at the time it was simply the line they fed all family members. So... It wasn't like he was newly grieving. He'd had a long time when he'd simply not know what happened with her body and he'd gotten used to it.

But now, when she was one of his main reasons for joining, for fighting, and he knew what had killed her. It seemed silly that he'd never asked.

So he checked a map, found that dead candidates had a separate spot and cleared the time to make his way there. He'd even got Nuucha to be quiet and let him do this without words about wasted time and how he should be fighting for once.

The only thing was... he was kind of lost.

The map and the actual path didn't look that similar ok?

He sighed, fiddling absentmindedly with the picture in his hands as he tried to figure out which way to go.

Michael startled slightly, not having noticed Jude approaching.

"Oh! Uh..." he had been slightly hoping someone would come along so he could get some directions but now that they had... it was awkward.

I mean what did he say, 'oh yeah could you point me to the nearest graveyard?'. That sounded kind of creepy. And then maybe they'd ask why and he didn't really feel like talking about. It was... personal.

So instead he hesitated before waving his hand around vaguely, "Im just looking for the... ah...."

Commincation was clearly Michaels strong point.

He flapped his hand a little more in a pathetic attempt to avoid saying anything, in the process probably flashing the photo in his hand at Jude. In it a very young sheepish looking Michael in a cast stood with an older girl, who could be mistaken for his sister, scolding him.

Michael may have let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, that'd be great." he was going to leave it at that, already stepping towards the other Hunter for them to lead the way, but after another second hesitation he added "I'm Michael."

He he didn't hold out his hand to shake, both of them having gone back to fiddling with the picture.

Michael was silent throughout the walk, there wasn’t exactly much you could say when you met someone like this. Especially since now they were walking it was clear the other Hunter had just been coming back from the cemetery, somehow he didn’t think Oh Hey who was yours? would go over well.

When they reached the summit though his silence switched from awkward to awed.

It was beautiful, the sunshine, the flowers, the peacefulness. This was a hell of a lot nicer than the Hunter graveyard below. She would have loved it up here.

Slowly Michael stepped through the rows of white grave markers looking for one name in particular.

Joslin Parker

He sighed, kneeling in front of it as he fished a stone out of his pocket, placing it on top of the picture in front of the marker.

His eyes briefly flashed over to Jude before he began to softly speak under his breath, "Hey cuz, bet you never expected to see me here." he gently stroked a hand over the gravestone, "You were crazy you know, crazy but right."

He leaned away, starting to stand up before pausing again, "I don't know really why you chose this... but you wouldn’t have said yes if you didn’t think it was right." his hand clenched at his side, "I wish you could have woken up instead."

Nuucha made a rumble of protest in the back of Michaels mind. Mentally he waved him off.

"But you’re at peace now and that's good yeah, you never got it at home and this gig sure aint it. So... I'll do my best for you instead. I'll try to look before I leap this time ok."

Now he stood, closing his eyes as he leaned back his head to soak in the rare sunshine.

I'll do my best to stop anyone else from joining them, you.

The moment passed and Michael opened his eyes, calling out to Jude, "Thank you."

"Yeah." Michael looked at the grave Jude was standing in front of, it looked so well-tended to compared to some of the others up there.

In that moment a question that refused to be denied came to him, "How did your-" his jaw snapped shut snapped as what he was about to say consciously registered with him, causing him to flush in embarrassment.

He didn’t want to drag up any painful memories when Jude had been so nice about bringing him up here and not intruding.