[sub][h3][center]Archie[/center][/h3][/sub][center][sub][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9sTgQ_GYJY]♫ ♫ ♫[/url][/sub][/center][hr]
[i]Archie could feel her bristling, "Need any help?! What a joke… that liar. Ugh!"
 
She was fuming and it was cute. He tried not to think about the fact that his arm was still around her waist as he held out a beer for her.
 
"Thanks," she said with a smile, taking a long drink.
 
The lead had stopped talking and started up another play – it was one of their biggest hits and the crowd responded enthusiastically, herself included. She yelled and pumped her fist in the air with the other viewers; his arm dropped after her sudden movement. It was a great show, he had to admit. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
 
She was a vision.
 
Humming along with the music, eyes closed, smile on her face, hand raised in the air. She reminded him of something free and wild and completely untamable. She'd go where the wind blew her, flowing with the tides, but she'd always come back to what she loved. She was beautiful and funny and smart and dazzling and everything a guy would look for in a girl so why the hell was it taking him so long to say something? Because that's what he wanted, right? He wanted this free and wild and untamable girl. Yes, more than anything, he wanted her. All of her. With him. He wanted all of her – all of her perfections and imperfections, her flaws and her strengths.
 
And before he even knew what he was doing, Archie was reaching towards her. Cupping his hands around her face, turning her towards him. He briefly saw her eyes open in surprise before he pulled her forward, meeting her in the middle. Her eyes shot wide and they both let go. The people around them were singing and the song played on in the background and it couldn't have been more perfect because he was kissing her and she was kissing him and it just seemed like time stood still. The song ended, the band playing its last few notes, as he slowed the kiss, pulled away, and stared down at her. She looked up at him, eyes still wide. He couldn't decipher her gaze.
 
"Bye, Archie."
 
No hesitation.[/i]

The quiet but firm statement snapped a pair of murky blue eyes open faster than the sound of aggressive shouting. The subject of the dismissal was well used to such sudden interruptions to his sleep cycle, and thus was no longer fazed much by the quick retreat of slumber into the far corners of his mind on waking. Indeed, a mere two seconds after being jolted awake, he had both feet planted firmly on the ground and was in the process of rising when he the palm of his hand wrapped around the bed frame, anchoring him with such firmness that his knuckles turned white.

Archie hated falling asleep these days. Not because he couldn't- he could sleep anywhere if he really wanted but therein lied the issue. He didn't want to sleep, because every time he did the visions of [i]them[/i] plagued his minds eye and dragged his heart so low that he oftentimes couldn't bring himself to roll out of bed. They always felt so vivid and crisp, as if his mind was playing back some sort of recording for him. It always started out in a place or time that he recognized, but it would warp at the end. She hadn't said goodbye then. Why was she saying goodbye now? He could taste her on his lips, and he released breath that he didn't know he was holding. Instinctively Archie twisted around, his hand reaching out to touch what had once been her pillow. Firm, square hands with weathered olive skin traced the contours with reverence, hesitating at the shallow dips and curves where it had compressed from frequent use. [i]I love your hands—they are what made me.[/i]

It had been a long time since he had washed that particular pillow, because even now six months later, he could catch the faintest trace of [i]her[/i] that was as fleeting as anything he had ever known. It helped Archie remember her- remember [i]them[/i]. But what he remembers most is the silence of each early morning, when the sun rises one ribbon at a time and the whole world was at peace. He remembers staring at her youthful face and marveling (just like that first day), marveling at how these girls, these silly, beautiful women, had changed his life so much. He remembers sighing, he remembers his daughter smiling. The candy pink clouds making no complaint to her authenticity and absorbing all the sound around her like cotton—all except for the beating of her heart, because the heart is never silent. Now well, now the world is quiet. As if it had yet to wake up with him. There is no bubbly laughter a few doors over from a little girl playing pretend or staying up to read at an uncivilized hour, and as his hand reaches the base of the pillow's downwards curve there was no raven hair to tuck behind an ear or stormy grey eyes to meet his.

He pulled his hand away from the pillow and turned around, simply sitting on the edge of the bed. It was early, the exact time he didn't know. His eyes shifted to the phone on his nightstand, sitting surprisingly illuminated next to the steely silver gunmetal of a model 642 revolver. His stomach turned at the sight of the weapon, and returned to the phone. No one messaged him at this hour. No one really messaged him at all, at least not with anything of substance to say, so this was particularly abnormal. He released the bed frame that had anchored him so, and read over the text. It read like a young person sent it, with contractions and abbreviations. But it was the final line that stuck with him. [i]You're all ghosts now. Act like it.[/i]

Archie finds himself drawn to the sentence, and the address. He knew himself well enough to know that he [i]should[/i] write it off. But he [i]did[/i] feel like a ghost, didn't he? He found himself placing a hand on his chest and truly missing that familiar sound [i]thump, thump, thump[/i]—it had always been a sort of constant in his life, a steady reminder of who he was and why he was and what he was meant to be.

[i]Where have you gone?[/i]

Archie doesn't know, and that scares him. He doesn't know what he is anymore. He knew what he was supposed to be before: a husband, a father, a provider and protector but that 'him' was gone and had died with his family. His life now; eat, drink, sleep, fix, repeat. It's become such a routine that sometimes Archie fears that he's lost herself, that he has no idea what he's doing it all [i]for[/i], but at the same time he doesn't know where to begin finding his way back so he just moves forward with his arms outstretched and uncaring as to what happens to him; the blind leadeth the blind. After careful consideration, he takes a shaky breath and reaches deep into his heart, searching the dark crevices left and right— but he comes up with nothing. [i]As expected[/i], he thinks. Nevertheless, he retracts and stares at his hands, his skin dark and heavy in the low light of dawn. Maybe, if he just thinks hard enough, he can pretend that the emptiness between her fingers is really a heart— his heart.

And so he does just that; he imagines, he pretends— fingers curled in, he cups the air between his hands and just watches it—beating there. [i]Everything's gone silent.[/i]

The day passes slowly. The sunlight creeping in lazily and chasing away the dark. As day breaks, so too does he. It's January in Pennsylvania, and the bite of the cold relinquishes its hold only somewhat as the sun reaches its apex at a cool 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The snow and ice melting into slush and wetting the greenery and muddying the dirt- but never disappearing completely as it crunches softly with the leaf litter beneath his feet. He had tossed on a brown leather jacket and red flannel, some blue jeans and boots. A casual working man’s outfit. Functional by design, and it warded off the cold.

Archie faintly remembered when the Five Springs Church was built over twenty five years ago, all clean walls and stucco. He remembered going with his mother as a child and being creeped out by the stained glass window of St. Joseph, whose eyes always seemed to follow him around the building. His eyes trailed up the building to where it had stood, and a part of him sighed when he saw that the window had long since been broken and reclaimed by nature- only the edges of the frame retained shards of colored glass hinting at what had once been. The church had been well constructed, and it really was a shame that it had been abandoned. The Preacher who headed the services had been a tall, lanky man with spindly fingers that seemed to reach up to the very top of the bible whenever he held it. Archie couldn't place the man's eyes, no matter how much he searched his memory. As a child he had been raised to take note of peoples recognizably features, to the point where his mother would take him into another room when they had guests over and test his memory of those that he had met. Ms. Kane had wide brown eyes, Officer Blackmore's were similar in color to his own but were harder- like ice rather than water. Mr. Connell had dark green eyes that harbored a look he identified with more and more these days, his daughter had his wife's stormy grey irises and-

He tripped over his own feet as he stepped over a bush. [i]Somewhere else, baby girl, I promise.[/i]

He met Amanda Blackmore's aforementioned hardened gaze when he recovered himself, his eyes flashing to her hands as they reached for something on her hip. A gun, almost certainly. He knew he should probably be carrying his own these days for protection, but he never did. He wasn't sure if he cared if 'The Horde' found him.

Archie didn't raise his hands in surrender, instead allowing them to rest at his sides. He didn't approach further though, not until she moved her hands away from her gun. "Officer." he greeted easily, breathing out a puff of air that froze in front of his face. He blinked as it dissipated, briefly enthused, and returned his attention to the alarmed woman. "I got a text telling me to be here. That wasn't you, was it?"