Aurora Lane

Hawkeye had been one of the first people I messaged when the chaos started, and then again when it ended – although I'm not sure it has, yet. It's been a handful of days but people are still recovering and recuperating, and some people simply aren't ever coming back again. When the Purge was announced, I'd known there would be casualties.

I just hadn't quite grasped the reality. Like a lot of things in Darrow, it had been easy to feel detached from until it happened. I'd started writing about it beforehand and come up with nothing. Now I'm still struggling to come up with anything. It feels too soon. It feels too close. People have lost loved ones, people are nursing injuries they'll carry with them for the rest of their lives. And Hawkeye is carrying the memories of a bloody nightmare that I was privileged enough to stay away from.

I'm worried about him, even though I know this is something he's used to. He'd been a surgeon in a war, and a surgeon in general before that, so he's used to the blood and the fear and the chaos. The Purge and the war surely have something in common, the systematic destruction of human beings for a political agenda. The victims – both dead and surviving.

My immediate want is to go straight to him when I know he's back, but I know it's not my place and it's not the time. He needs space. Sleep. Time. I think we all do. After a few days, though, I send through a message and agree to meet up at his place. I feel almost sick as I make my way over, wondering what to say – if there's anything. Wondering if I should bring something. But there's nothing, and when he opens his door to me I'm at a loss except for three words. "I'm so sorry."

It's my birthday apparently.

It's hard to treat it as such when I've only just arrived and it wasn't April according to the calendar on the Avalon. The last birthday I'd celebrated hadn't really been a birthday, either, but instead a celebration of my awakening on the ship which turned out to be anything but worth celebrating. It's hard not to think about that day today and how if Arthur hadn't let it slip, I could have spent a lifetime believing what happened to Jim and I was fate.

I don't know how I feel about fate and I don't know how I feel about birthdays. I don't feel any older and I certainly don't feel any wiser. At least I feel stronger. My hands have all but healed and the pain in my arm is gone. Soon, I think I'll start running. I've only bought a few supplies so far, some shirts and dresses. I still need something for exercise.

And a bathing suit. 

Maybe I'll treat myself to that today – even if it's an arbitrary date and I don't know how much impact it has on my biological age.

I'm thinking just that, about treating myself, when I pass a bakery and spot a cupcake. In my head, I can hear the robots singing.

Happy Birthday, dear Aurora...

I shake my head as if I can shake the memory away with it and go in.

[Dated 27/4, find her shopping, at the bakery or just eating a cupcake. Open.]