wildflowers/marcus abbott/on hiatus

iii.

FLO SAT ON EMMETT'S BED, waiting for marcus to get out of the vault. he was getting his foot cleaned and wrapped.

she sat on the bed, and watched as emmett handed evelyn a bottle of whiskey and closing the door afterwards.

he set his timer and looked over at regan, who was looking at the papers on his desk. he approached her and grabbed a paper, glancing at it quickly. he then folded it up and placed it in his pocket.

he then turned to flo, "it may have been a long time," flo looked up at the man, "but i don't remember this family having another girl."

"i'm not..." flo sharply inhaled, "i'm florence."

"emmett." he replied, and then looked at her bag by her feet, "softball player?"

"y-yeah." she nodded.

"our team would've beat you." he sighed.

"i'm sure they would've." flo smiled up at him.

"what did you play?" he asked, approaching the vault door.

"first base." she said, as the timer went off, and he went to pull the door.

••••

FLO WAS SAT ON THE GROUND BY MARCUS, as she gently grazed her thumb over his knuckles. her hand was now wrapped with a clean bandage, which felt much better, but was already leaking through a bit.

regan was sitting in a chair by marcus, who adjusted some knobs on the radio she had. she then grabbed some headphones she had and placed them over his head, and continued adjusting the knobs.

flo used her other hand to look through and clean out her bag. she had two piles on the ground, keep and throw away. in the throw away, it mainly consisted of scraps and broken plates she had. in the keep, it was her old jersey and winter hats.

searching around in her bag, her hand grazed over something soft, and she knew exactly what it was. and it made her stomach drop.

it was rose's bunny rabbit.

deciding not to get it out of the bag, she went around it instead. but she felt something way worse.

the wildflowers rose had given her.

deciding she was done cleaning her bag, she tapped marcus's hand twice and let go of it, putting the things she wanted back into the bag and the things she didn't want into the bucket placed behind her.

grasping onto his hand again, she grazed her thumb over his knuckles, and he squeezed her hand in response.

about a minute of silence went by, before marcus' eyes shot open. the headphones were working, and they were playing a song. flo hear it too, and looked over at him.

he sat up, and evelyn rushed over to his side by flo.

"what is it?" she whispered.

"mus-music." marcus breathed out, as evelyn took off the headphones and placed them on her head.

"it's..."

"beyond the sea." emmett interrupted.

"have you heard this?" evelyn asked.

"yes."

marcus grabbed the headphones from his mom's hands and placed them on flo's head.

"if i could fly like birds on high,
then straight to her arms, i'd go sailing."

flo gently held the headphones as they played into her ears. she could almost cry. she had been wanting to hear music for so long.

"it's far beyond the stars
it's near beyond the moon
i know beyond a doubt
my heart will lead me there soon"