Archive of Our Own ^beta

Ginnie hadn’t dared to turn on the television, the terror of it too big. She had never watched The Long Walk before; it was too humiliating, too brutal, exposing the depravity of the society they lived in. She hadn’t wanted to participate in the normalization of this spectacle.

This time, it was even more than that. What if she turned on the TV, and her boy wasn’t there anymore? Or what if, at exactly that moment, a soldier shot him in the head? She couldn’t bear it. As long as she didn’t watch, he was alive in her mind.

But of course, she came to the street in her town that was part of the Walk the day the boys would march along it. She had promised Raymond that she would. So she stood there and waited with baited breath. In the distance, she saw the tanks rolling, and the figures between them. She folded her shaking hands to still them, in the imitation of a prayer. There was no god, she knew that for sure, but still, she had found herself begging the past few days. The figures came closer. The first tank rolled by, and she stood up on her tiptoes to look beyond it. Where was he, where was her boy? She was about to panic when she spotted him – at the same moment that he spotted her. She could see his steps falter, and the relief at seeing him alive was immediately replaced by terror. Don’t slow down, she wanted to scream. Keep walking. Stay alive. Don’t look at me. He seemed to catch himself, returned to his speed, and waved at her. She waved back, trying to communicate all her love and all her pleading with a shared look.

When he had walked past her, she looked at his back and wondered if this was it. If this was the last time she had seen his face. Tears that had been building up since Raymond had gotten the confirmation that he would participate threatened to fall – when Raymond turned around. Ginnie thought that her heart might stop as her boy ran towards her, yelling that he was sorry. The soldiers started issuing warnings. Cold fear spilled through Ginnie’s body, and she screamed at Raymond to turn around, to stop. At the same time, her hands reached out to him. She was pleading so loudly that her voice was getting hoarse. She already saw a soldier aiming a rifle at her baby’s head – when the boy who had been walking next to Raymond started pulling at him. She hadn’t noticed him before now, so focused had she been on Ray and only Ray, but he hadn’t left her boy’s side. The other boy – or rather, the other man, just as her Raymond was a man now, forced to leave his youth behind – screamed at him and pulled him away, back on the path, back around, back to the Walk.

Never in her life had Ginnie been so grateful to see Raymond walk away from her. When Raymond kept walking, pulled along by his friend, and the soldier lowered his rifle, Ginnie’s heart started beating again. Who was this man who had risked his own safety in order to save her boy’s life? She didn’t know him; she probably never would, but she owed him a debt she could most likely never repay. He had just saved her heart. She loved him without even knowing him.

Ginnie stood on the street long after the Walkers had disappeared beyond the horizon. At some point, tears had started to fall, so she stood on the pavement and cried, unable to move. Would she ever see her baby again? Had it been a mistake to come here? It had almost cost Raymond his life. What she would give to hold him one last time. But she knew, if she had the chance, she would never let him go. She would rather die than let him go. She might still; she wasn’t sure.

The sun was setting when her neighbor Linda came by, a bag with rations on her shoulder. She stopped short.

“Ginnie?” she asked disbelievingly. Ginnie looked up, disoriented. Her face felt puffy, her hands were numb. She looked at her friend who carefully walked up to her, as if she was scared to spook her.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?”, she said softly, and gently took her arm. Ginnie let herself be guided home, into her empty house. Linda stayed and made her a cup of tea, put a blanket around her shoulders, and hovered. Ginnie was grateful, but mostly she felt vacant. Raymond had taken the last of her spirit along with him. Linda’s tea warmed her up, at least, and she eventually gathered enough strength to send the other woman home with a tired smile.

She lay awake for a long time that night, her mind replaying the moment on the street over and over again. She hadn’t known that people made friends on The Long Walk. She’d assumed it would be every man for himself. But this man had sounded as panicked as Ginnie had felt in the face of Raymond possibly losing his life. Finally, she fell asleep, seeing the unknown man’s arm wrapped around her Raymond’s shoulders. At least he wasn’t alone.

After that day, she tuned into the broadcast despite herself. Her need to see Ray and be reassured of him being alive outweighed her fear of seeing him die. She became obsessive about it – as if her eyes fixed on him through the television screen were keeping him alive; and if she looked away, he would slip away forever.

Seeing the Walk on the screen was worse than she could’ve imagined. The cameras were relentless, and so were the soldiers. No dignity was allowed these boys, no privacy, not a second of reprieve. William had been right about it; he had been right about everything. The system had to be destroyed, was the only lesson Ginnie could draw from her viewings.

Every shot that rang out made her heart miss a beat, and every time that it wasn’t her son’s body crumbling to the ground, it started back up again. At the same time, she felt a piece of herself left behind with every boy that fell. Their mothers would never see them again. Never again would their laughter ring through a house, would they squirm away from a kiss before yielding to it after all. The streets of this country were strengthened with blood and unlived potential, lost moments and unimaginable pain. Her sorrow was only surpassed by her fury.

In the midst of all this carnage, she couldn’t miss the man that never strayed from her Raymond’s side. A handsome, muscular fella, who smiled way more easily than the circumstances seemed to allow. So many times did he sling his arm around Ray’s waist, supporting him when he dozed off at night, when his leg cramped, when he stumbled. Pete, she heard Ray call him. Pete seemed to be Raymond’s guardian angel, his pillar of strength. She didn’t miss how fondly the man looked at her son – and her son’s affection for Pete, too, shined through the shitty screen with the strength of the sun. Her heart ached every time the boys looked at each other. What a gift, to find such a friendship in the darkest moments of your life. And what a waste, to know that only one of them, if at all, would survive the next few days. Ginnie didn’t know Pete, but she already grieved him like a second son.

It was the middle of the night when it ended. The second to last shot had rung out and had left Ginnie glued to the screen even more desperately than usual. Only Pete and her Raymond were left now, with the rain coming down on them like it tried to cleanse them for their last rites. It was almost too dark to make them out, especially once the crowd of greedy onlookers surrounded them. In all that noise, the boys looked only at each other, and Ginnie knew with a damning feeling that this was it. This was the end.

Without meaning to, she slides from the couch to the floor, landing on her knees. She folds her hands, begging into the void once more, without knowing for what. A miracle, maybe. Raymond couldn’t lose Pete, that much she knows from watching them.

So when Pete stops walking, Ginnie’s breath stops with him. She watches him go down on one knee like he is about to propose marriage, and tears start streaming down Ginnie’s numb face. She sees how Raymond hurries over to him in despair, pulling him back up, dragging him along, pleading. She has never before seen the look on her son’s face that he is now wearing. Before Raymond even stops walking, she knows what he is about to do.

Blood rushes loudly in her ears, and she knows that she should turn the television off. Through the noise in her mind, she hears the warning for number 47. How she despises that her son has been reduced to nothing more than a number. She sees a soldier aim and pull the trigger. She sees a bullet tear through her baby’s side, and she sees him fall to the ground. She knows, somewhere beneath the pain that has pierced every cell of her body, that she shouldn’t be seeing this. No parent should watch their child die. But this is the last time she is ever be able to see him alive. No force in the world could make her look away now, even though she knows that she will see these images every time she closes her eyes, for the rest of her life. They will join the picture of her husband, shot right in front of her eyes. She can still hear the sound resound in the night. A sickening sense of déja-vu fills her, paired with the same complete helplessness and utter despair that she felt back then. She couldn’t save William, and now she can’t save Raymond.

Pete’s face on her television screen is streaked with rain and possibly tears, and she sees him scream more than she hears him. He runs back over to her boy, and falls to his knees once more. The boys desperately grasp at each other, their hands slipping over rain, blood, tears, and sweat. Her boy is babbling, his forehead pressed to Pete’s. The camera zooms in mercilessly in order to catch every word.

“I love you. I love you, Pete” are the last words she sees her boy speak. The moment is so intimate, so tender, that she feels like an intruder. But still, she can’t turn away; hopelessly stares at the two men, their love splayed out on an inanimate, unfeeling screen.

Pete is wrenched away from Raymond. His face shows the same expression he had worn the day he’d pulled Ray away from her in order to save his life, only tenfold. The realization right now is crystal clear – it should’ve hit her the first time she had seen him: Pete loves her son, wholly, devotedly, pure. But still, he is torn away from him, from the man that he loves, and the major steps forth, a gun aimed at her son’s head. Ginnie can’t feel anything except for pain. She can’t feel her knees, too old to be knelt on for a prolonged period of time; she can’t feel her throat, which later would be sore – is she sobbing? Screaming? She doesn’t know. She can’t feel her face, streaked with tears, pulled into a grimace of pure despair; her eyes, leaking a seemingly endless supply of tears; her lips, splitting open. She doesn’t feel anything but a pain so overwhelming she is sure it’s going to kill her. But still, she can’t avert her eyes.

But then – a blur pushes the major, making him stumble, and a figure throws himself over Raymond’s body. It’s Pete, now once again clinging to her son, shielding him against harm. Soldiers step forth, pull at him so violently it has to hurt, but Pete doesn’t let go. He screams something that slowly seeps through the rushing noise in Ginnie’s ears.

“My wish! My wish! I wish for Ray to be left alive! You have to grant me my wish! You have to! He has to live! My wish! My wish!” He keeps yelling and yelling – until the transmission cuts out. Static fills the screen. Ginnie remains in front of the machine, frozen.

Every day, she waits. She waits for a letter proclaiming that her son is dead. She waits for a knock on the door and a soldier standing in front of it, holding Raymond’s belongings, telling her that her son had been perseverant and strong; that she should be proud. She waits, day in and out, but the knock doesn’t come. When she’s not waiting, she’s pleading. She goes up to patrolling soldiers in the street, asking them about her son, asking them to tell her who could know something. She continues doing it, no matter how often she gets ignored, shoved away, once even threatened. She writes letters to the major that will probably never reach him. She asks all of her neighbors and friends if they know how to get information, but nobody does. Nothing deters her, and her ideas get more daring. If anybody knew what she was considering, people would call her crazy. She might be crazy; she’s not sure. While she is trying to figure out how to get a gun and sneak into the major’s house, poring over maps that William had hidden in the attic, the knock finally comes. She stills, and so does her heart. It takes her a minute to start moving again, and a second knock rings out. With feet as heavy as lead, she crosses through the living room and puts her hand on the doorknob. If this is a soldier delivering the news, and if he wants to enter her house, he will see the state of her kitchen table, the treason she is planning on committing. If she is about to get the news that Raymond is gone, she doesn’t know if she cares about being shot for treason.

There is no amount of time that could brace her for the moment she is sure will follow, so she opens the door unceremoniously – and looks straight into her son’s eyes. For a minute, she just stares, speechless. Has she lost her mind? Or has she died, maybe starved, forgotten to eat in her obsession to get to her son? Her eyes are roaming over Raymond’s face, drinking him in. If this is death, she welcomes it. The hopeful look on her son’s face is soon replaced with a worried frown.

“Mom?” His voice shakes her out of her stupor. In death, he wouldn’t worry anymore. He wouldn’t sound so uncertain. He must be real. Ginnie reaches out a shaking hand to touch Ray’s face – and her knees give out when she touches him, confirms that he’s real, that he’s alive. Two strong pairs of hands catch her, and only now does she notice the man next to her son, stood so close to him that they are touching in several places. Pete.

Ginnie lets herself be held upright by the two boys and cries into Ray’s shoulder. Her relief is so overwhelming that she’s unable to speak. She didn’t think she still had so many tears left, but they keep falling, washing away the past few weeks of fear and terror.

When she straightens herself after several minutes of sobbing, she feels a smile break out on her face. In response, the worried lines on Ray’s sweet face smooth out, morphing into a bright smile. He looks a bit haggard and years older than the last time she’d seen him, but there is a hopeful glint in his eyes, a lovely blush on his face.

“Mom, this is Pete-”, Raymond starts, suddenly a bit shy. She can feel her heart bloom when Ray grabs Pete’s hand and holds it tenderly in his own. “He’s-”

“I know, honey”, she says gently. “I know.” She kisses Raymond’s cheek and then turns to Pete. His smile is even brighter in person, without the imminent threat of death looming over him, but he, too, looks shy and ducks his head a little. Ginnie puts her hands on his cheeks and looks him in the eyes. “You saved his life, more than once”, she tells him, trying to convey all the love that’s spilling over her heart. “You saved my heart. You’re a part of me, now, too.”

She leaves one hand on Pete’s face and puts her other hand on Ray’s cheek.

“My boys”, she says, in awe. “Welcome home.”