Ch. 13 - The Other Barrack

How long has it been, anyway? 10 years?

At least 14, since you had to leave it.

I don't remember everything about it.

You remember enough, though. The warmth, mostly.

It feels like how it does when I'm with the fe'rots, and the Paiute.

Yeah.

"Bran?"

Joshua's question brought Bran back to reality. The fake houses, the tight alleyway they were still going through... Joshua standing in front of Bran, waiting for a response.

"Yeah?" Bran responded, quietly. He didn't need to be, but... being here again, it didn't feel right being any louder.

"I know... you don't like talking about it..." he began, his eyes wandering, "...but why did you leave the place?"

Oh, god...

Bran stared at the ground, hating that question. Especially right now, after all the fighting Josh and he have been going through recently. No time ever really felt good enough for talking about this before, but now... this was probably worse, with so many emotions going through his head, and Joshua seeming so much less like the man he thought he knew.

Not 'probably'. It is.

...Well, fair enough. It's not an easy position to be in.

"Why do you think I left?" Bran replied sincerely, looking back at Joshua's face.

Joshua's eyes didn't move much this time, but Bran could tell he was really thinking. He opened his mouth a few times before finally saying "I-- I really don't know," and focusing back on Bran's eyes.

Bran sighed. "Neither do I."

Bran scooted past Joshua and walked further down the path, trying to look for any buildings that seemed even vaguely familiar.

"Are you being serious with me?" Joshua asked, his voice only slightly faded from the distance. Bran stopped and turned his face over to him.

"Why would I lie about that?" He was trying to be calm, but Bran's irritation was showing, and he could tell.

"I-I don't think you're lying," Joshua replied, "I just..." Then he fell silent, and stepped closer, about five feet away now. "The way you talked about it, it seemed like you would."

Bran's whole body turned back to face Josh.

"Everything I told you two is everything I can remember. I'm not trying to leave things out."

At least, not about this other barrack.

"And besides, I was really young at the time. You don't remember everything from your earliest years, do you?"

Joshua's eyes moved down, and he gently shook his head.

"Okay then." He turned back to the winding alleys ahead. "Now come over, we shouldn't stay for too long."

And Joshua did come over, his footsteps on the loose sand briefly echoing around the buildings.

It didn't take long for the paths to all blend together visually for Bran. Every house looks exactly the same as every other one, with nobody to see and no signs of life inside. The alleys don't even always have the same color gravel, either because of the sun getting lower, or there actually being different kinds of gravel in them.

And yet... every step Bran takes feels... right. A left at this intersection, then go straight for two more. A right, another right, and then the second nearest left up ahead...

"You sure we're going the right way?" Josh asked, having a bit of a hard time keeping with Bran's pace.

"Pretty sure," Bran said aloud, not looking back to reply. He was just too focused on getting there, seeing the place again.

Finding out what happened to it, after being away for so long.

Down another alley, and...

A brief flash of a memory sticks into his mind.

Running, it feels like. Running in the dark, down this path. Running... away from the barrack.

...from home...?

...

...I was there when it happened.

...how did I forget?

"Is something wrong?"

Bran snaps back to where he was. The alley. He turns to Joshua this time to respond.

"I came this way from the place. I was running..." he trails off, thinking as hard as he can to get that memory back to his eyes.

...come on, what else?

Another flash.

Joshua. As a child.

"I ran into you further ahead, close to that garage, remember?"

Joshua's head moves around a bit, looking through his own memories.

"Oh, yeah!" he exclaims, pointing back to his left. "That one, where John was?"

...

What?

"John?"

"The fucker who attacked 'Ichael."

"Oh, yeah, that one."

...

"Is his name really 'John'?"

"It probably is."

Bran couldn't help but laugh a little, in spite of everything. "I guess."

"Even that night, you had a hard time telling us all about that place you'd been sneaking off to."

"Yeah, and--"

Suddenly, memories come back to Bran again.

But not as flashes. Full memories. Short, but full.

'Why would you want to do that?' a much younger Joshua asks a much younger Bran, with a really young 'Ichael watching them talk.

'Cause this place sucks, man!' Bran replied. 'Over there, I felt something that wasn't bad! Something nice! And everybody was like that!'

The memory turns from Josh to 'Ichael, and then back, looking for understanding. He doesn't know what that looks like yet.

"You guys would've liked it too,' he continues, a bit of confidence mixed with sadness for the truth Bran now intuits. 'But it's gone now! Those assholes found it, and everything's going away!' A tear is in his eye, and slowly rolls down his face. 'We could've had a new home...' the sentence weakly leaves his mouth, and all he can do right now is look down at the ground.

'...a new home?' Joshua asks, making kid Bran's head come back up.

'We can't have a new home, we have this one.'

...Josh's face feels so... blank. In the memory.

'We... we can't just... run away from our home. It's our home! You know?'

...

Bran can't make himself do anything as another memory comes to him.

'Don't you think it's a bit unrealistic to think things would just go that well if we tried living a different life?'

'But I've wanted to be happy all my life! And it's never happened!'

'Maybe I just want this. Maybe I want to be a soldier for the rest of my life.'

...

...

...that ever familiar weight of the world is back on Bran. The weight he thought had left him when he was on that ship.

...

It was always like this, wasn't it?

...

Can we get out?

"Bran? Are you crying?"

...

The question cuts. It's sincere, it's concerned... but it cuts. Bran wipes the tear that was on his face and in his eye.

"It's nothing."

He looks at Joshua. Joshua looks at him.

...

He turns back to the path he was walking down, now seeming longer to his eyes. "Let's find this place already, yeah?"

For a bunch of alleys that aren't much longer than any other roads or paths in 'Galvana', this feels like it's taking forever. To Bran, at least. Don't really know if Joshua is feeling the time in the same way. Granted, it's not taking them long to get there at all; should just be a few more turns.

I'm not sure if I wanna see what they did to the place.

A left followed by another left...

What will I even get out of this? Why did I want to come here again? Closure?

And then straight through here...

Would anybody still be here?

...

The path led out to another opening, closed off from any wider dirt streets. Save for the relative deserted vibes, it looked and felt just like the outside of the barrack Josh, 'Ichael and Bran already sleep in.

But there was no barrack there. Not anymore.

All that was left was a few metal walls left standing. In between them were metal rafters, some small collections of broken glass and one really worn backpack just a few feet away, on the dirt. Aside from the pack... everything had signs of rust, and charring from a fire.

I knew it.

Bran started walking towards the pack--

"No!"

Joshua ran past Bran, to the ruins. He was bobbing his head in every direction, looking for something in the mess. Or somebody, more like.

Nobody in this place can help us. The Fe'rots and the Southern Paiute are all we have left.

But Josh kept looking anyway, trying to keep his voice down as he looked for anyone around - or in - the place.

Bran focused back on the pack at his feet, knelt down and opened up a few of the biggest pockets.

Nothing. Probably had something all those years ago, and then it got stolen by the assholes who tore this place down.

Not even the rest of the main pockets had anything in them.

Bran debated opening the smaller pockets to himself.

But then Joshua kicked a sheet of metal down, scaring Bran into standing up straight.

"Why did they destroy it?" he said, looking ahead at a city wall in thought.

"Why do you think?"

The words came out of Bran's mouth automatically, bringing Joshua's full attention back to him. It was all so obvious to him, so glaringly, painfully obvious that he couldn't even bring himself to be upset that the barrack itself or the people who lived in it were gone. He was more upset that Joshua didn't seem to understand this right now.

Joshua lifted his right hand almost to his head, walking towards Bran. "I don't know," he finally said, shaking his head as he stopped just at the back end of the backpack.

Bran turned his own head, silently sighing.

How am I supposed to explain this to him?

...

...

Yelling at him doesn't make him listen harder.

As much as I don't want to, I need to calm down. As frustrating as this is...

As much as it hurts to do, again and again...

Bran took a deep breath.

"Joshua."

Keeping his voice low and soft, he took small steps over the pack and forwards.

"Neither of us really knew the state of things here. I assumed, because of what happened, but that was still a guess."

Starting small, yeah.

"But when 'Ichael found us the way he was... I wasn't willing to rely on a guess to help him."

Joshua took a turn walking towards Bran, now only a few feet away.

"It's not like you knew they'd help him either," he said, gesturing to the ship behind Bran.

Actually I do, man. You already know--

I know, but you can't say that. It won't help. Soft.

...

"It was a better chance than this," Bran replied.

No reply back. Joshua's eyes flicked around, but he didn't say anything.

Good. Keep going.

"You know this place isn't good for him," Bran continued. "Or us. For all the years we've been here, that's one of the most consistent things about this place. Had we stayed here and try to help him ourselves... To be honest, J, he would've died. And We shouldn't take a chance like that on him. It's the least we owe him."

Joshua's eyes locked onto him, and he seemed ready to say something back.

"I know, I know," Bran said quickly but softly, trying to keep the momentum. "You're worried about what'll happen after. I don't know what the future looks like, here or back up there. But the future this place offers all of us has never sounded all that good. You've told me you feel the same, in a sense, just a few days ago."

Joshua hesitated. "I said I wanted to be happy. I didn't forget." His voice is also low and soft, if a bit agitated, maybe.

"Well, regardless of what the future holds, getting 'Ichael out of this place was the best damn thing we've ever done for him."

Joshua's face and eyes relax, in a sense. He's looking down at Bran's feet now.

"But that means we can get out too," Bran continues. He's right in front of Josh now, and he puts his hands on his shoulders to keep appealing to him. "We can leave."

Joshua looks at Bran's eyes. Bran looks back.

"We can all be happy. Everything else, we can figure out later."

...Did you mean to make a promise out of that?

No, but why not? We can give it a shot.

...

There.

There's that light again. In his eyes.

It's been so long since I've seen that in you.

Joshua quietly sighs.

"I'm sorry, honey. I've been a bit of an ass, haven't I?"

"Yes," Bran chuckles. "I'm glad you realized."

Josh chuckles back, and steps away from Bran's hold.

"I..." he starts, and then gathers himself, inhaling at the same time, like what he's about to say will take all the effort he can muster. "I will try to... give 'this' a chance."

That's all I was asking for, man.

"Okay," Bran said. He looked right, over the wall, and the sky was now a much darker shade of red. The day's almost over. "Well, we can't stay out here forever." He looks back towards their barrack, the one where all the other 'soldiers' disappeared to.

"I don't know what to do about that," Joshua said, stepping up to Bran's side.

Me neither.