The Deus Ex Machina graveyard was a small one, considering it held no actual bodies; at least none that were fully intact. Instead, small white grave markers stood up from the ground at close intervals, each with a single name emblazoned on the marble; a small emblem of remembrance, a token to remind those who still lived of those who had moved on. There were dozens of these, but they were confined to a specific plot, a place for mourning, crammed together so as to be able to fit all of them.

There was nothing else written on these markers. No words of wisdom, no little notes of reassurance or sayings pulled from favorite movies, books, poems, or other such things. No "beloved brother," or "loved sister," or "dearly departed cousin." There wasn't even a date. Just a name, one name among dozens, perhaps hundreds by now; a number, not a face.

On one particular of these the name Benjamin Summers was etched. The early morning haze was thick; fog swirled around the island in droves most of the time, but a small splinter of sunlight had broken through the clouds to cast blurry streaks of gold onto the ground. The grave marker of Benjamin Summers had a tiny crescent of sunlight on the edge of it, a blip in the white, spilling onto the marker beside it, which read Harley Jackson, an unfamiliar name, clearly older, the marker overtaken with too-long grass and weeds.

Benjamin Summers was not new, but recent or not, it was still there, and there was no erasing it.

Approximately three rows in front of the markers of Benjamin Summers, Harley Jackson, and several others, there had been a row finished, two shining white markers added at the end to complete it. These were extremely recent; not even a week old just yet, the white marble still pristine, untouched by time or wearing from age or from the stains of weather and erosion. One marker read Ferdinand Wilkins, Jr., and the other beside it Ceres Kentley.

Neither of these looked as though they belonged just yet. The first name sounded stiff, awkward, unfamiliar on the tongue, as though the person it belonged to was some fussy individual with a lack of proper social skills. The other sounded calmer, sweeter, somehow, as though the person it had come from owned it and wore it well.

Ferdinand did not fit, Gale thought, as he stood in front of these two markers, looking down at them with scrutinizing eyes. Ferdinand was not Bix; it was as though he were looking down at the grave of a stranger, someone with whom he had not shared a multitude of things with, years, conversations, laughter, jokes, missions. Sadness. Bitterness. Anger. Ferdinand did not sound like the person he had come to regard as his best mate, and sometimes, secretly, as his role model to whom he looked for inspiration, for guidance; the person he sometimes wished, though he told no one, not even the person in question, was his real older brother.

But he had locked these things away, deep in his heart. They were not spoken of; Gale was not even certain that Bix would have taken him seriously, had he said so, and besides, they were too embarrassing to even consider telling him.

His eyes flickered to the marker that read Ceres Kentley. He wished, not for the first time, that he had taken the time to get to know her better. Bix had not been nearly as subtle as he had thought he had been when he had spoken of her before. It was not as if Gale could not tell by the gentle look of affection in his eyes when he said her name, the pink that dotted his pale cheeks, though he had obviously been trying to be casual about it.

Strange that they should both be the ones lying here (metaphorically speaking) in the end. Or was it bittersweet? Gale had long since given up attempting to decipher what the mysteries of life were anymore. He felt tired, drained of all energy, and with Jinhai still gone, the silence in his head filled every crevice of his heart, his life, the world that kept moving around him.

"Idiot," he said to the grave marker of Ferdinand Wilkins, Jr. "Prat. Maybe if you weren't such a git all the time you wouldn't have died."

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel better or worse, or whether he was calling Ferdinand names or Bix. Either way, he felt as though his world had already caved in around him.

"And you, Ceres - why didn't you stop him from being stupid? Come on, if you're going to be his girlfriend, you've gotta step up a bit."

But his expression had softened, and there was no real irritation in his voice, no real malice. It was almost as though he were joking, teasing the both of them; telling them that he wished they were well without saying the words, though there was no smile on his face and a bittersweet pain had filled his eyes.

He twisted the object in his hands around, eyes tracing the letters of the names on the two grave markers again. Being at the cemetery made him feel tense, as though his body were being pressed into a place that he didn't belong, the air in his lungs constricted, his throat and mouth dry.

He wished for Jinhai again, and got only silence.

Taking a step to the end of the row, after Ceres Kentley, the last marker, Gale crouched down low in the ground, smoothing a hand over the dew damp grass briefly, his bare fingers sliding through the small wisps of green. He looked down at the object he carried and ran a thumb over the words written across it. He did not know what had made him decide to do this, why he had chosen this particular day to finally visit the graveyard. It had been, he supposed, a long time coming - after all it had been almost two years - but although his heart had known that eventually it would happen, a part of him was slowly dying inside, had been dying for almost two years.

He knew he would have to let go eventually, but it did not make it any easier.

He lifted the object and set it carefully down about half a foot from Ceres Kentley; a small, crudely constructed marker of his own, made of a piece of wood he had found from one of the broken houses in town. It had probably been from a chair or from the slat of a bed or something, but Gale had not been picky. Carefully he had sanded down the top as much as he could without an actual sander or sandpaper. The edges were rough, hardly as smooth as the marble grave markers, but the name printed neatly across the front was painstakingly done, each letter so carefully written. Pushing it down into the ground so that it stood up straight, Gale gently brushed aside some of the dirt from the wood, his fingers lingering on the familiar, etched so deeply into his heart.

Leslie Gentry.

She would not ever wake up; he knew it, had known it for quite some time, though he had tried to deny it, had tried to tell himself that it was just a matter of time, that she would eventually push herself free, sit up, and leave the pod that she had been confined to. But the techs had already told him, had already made it clear to him.

Leslie Gentry would never wake up again.

It hurt, like a part of his soul had been cut out of his body that could never be replaced. It had been one thing to lose Ben, to lose Bix, to lose Ceres, and perhaps a sad thing that it had taken those last two deaths for Gale to really accept that his twin sister's eyes would stay closed forever. The pain would never fully leave him; he did not expect it to, and now there were four graves within the Deus Ex Machina yard that held significant meaning to Gale Gentry.

He wished there were none.

He stood up, straightened, and absently brushed off his pants, which were slightly damp from kneeling in the wet grass. Looking down at the now three little grave markers, he felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of loneliness, the grief that sunk deep into his heart and mind overtaken by this new, unhappy feeling. He still had friends, of course; he had Eva, Wilson, Candace, Before, others that he cared for, that he wished for safety.

But the loneliness ate at him, like a raw nerve exposed, fraying at the edges. He closed his eyes, inhaling slowly, tasting crisp, cool morning air in his lungs.

Then he opened them, gave the little graves one last, unreadable look, turned, and walked away, his hands in his pockets, his hair falling into his eyes once more.