We Were Birds

She was happy to die.

Fern understands that now. She did not die in some melodramatic pool of tears or blood, she didn't waste away and strangely enough, she wasn't giving up. She was doing what she had done to those birds so long ago on the day she left her father for good. She was opening the cage and she was freeing herself. She was shedding all of life's insecurities and obligations and the emotions that weighed her down. And when she'd opened her eyes on that train so long ago, she'd felt a sublime happiness that she would now be able to find Quinn...but she'd also just wished she could have cut all the strings. Now she understands. She forgot the reason she came here in the first place.

But that is Life - or Death - Fern supposes. You start out on one path and sometimes you find yourself willingly moving towards another road and then sometimes you just get lost. And she did. She was lost, but she found herself. Without Father. Without Quinn. Fern realized that she was going the wrong way, stopped herself and continued the right way. Without anyone's help but her own. It is a satisfying feeling. Fern understands now. Like she said to Astrid, Death means something different to different people. And she understands that more than it being about finding Quinn, it was about finding herself.

Death is beautiful, but like Life, it no longer holds the same charm or wonder. She is eager to move on. Fern is ready to see what is beyond the Final Stop, ready to answer the last question anyone's ever asked.

Fern leans her head on the glass of the train. One eye is on the horizon, but most of the time she watches the people. At each stop few get on, few get off. The scene is ever-changing; sometimes they stop near a sandy beach, sometimes in the middle of a small town, sometimes at the edge of a bright field. Other times they are in what feels like a vast forest where the trees grow up and out in what feels like forever, other times they are near a river where trees laden with Spanish Moss laze at the water's edge, and once, just once, they passed through a sparse, rocky desert where everything was still and silent and no one got on or off. Mostly the passengers are quiet and keep to themselves, but sometimes Fern overhears animated conversations, heated exchanges or heartfelt feelings of joy at being reuinted with a loved one.

The train moves on and on through the night, but Fern does not close her eyes. She keeps them open no matter how tired she feels - she wants to stay awake for this, she must. She wants to see everything, she must. She no longer awes at her surroundings but still keeps careful watch of them.

Sometime through the night, a warm hush falls over the compartment. The old woman knitting in the corner sets her needles down and watches the outside world, the young child stops pacing up and down the aisle looking at everyone and sits down beside an older man who looks at him fondly, the teenage girl with red curls and brilliant blue eyes stops crying - her tears dwindling from hot, noisy sobs to little hiccups to deep breaths to peace. Peace. Quiet. Calm.

Then there is the pitter-patter of rain on the windows. Like tiny stones thrown at the window, they start, an awkward rythm with no rhyme or reason. Then it's like buckets of pebbles are being thrown down repeatedly on the train and even through the darkness, Fern watches as fat raindrops assault the windows, soon making it impossible to see anything but the occassional light beyond the dark. This is renewal, but this is also feeling safe and comforted while the outside is pounded and distorted. When the train stops and the doors open, drops of rain chased in by wind follow drenched people. Some have a wild look in their eye, but then there are those who come onto the train, their laughing eyes, bright. They feel the rain the same way Fern felt the rain, those long years ago standing in the parking lot of a gas station with Quinn.

They are all moving towards some great infinite place, some great big unknown feeling. Fern feels, no, no, is connected to these people in ways she never before thought possible. The warm lull breaks over the train as the rain pounds down, down, down. It is like someone pulled the plug from out of the drain and everything melts and everyone feels it. Fern sits up and looks around. She makes eye contact with everyone on the train, and it feels like the first time she's made eye contact with anyone in so long.

The little boy, the pacing one, begins to laugh. And like the rain, which began awkwardly and without any real pattern, the people in the train start to laugh. Fern is swept up by this strange joy and wonder and lets herself laugh even though she wants to cry. She blinks and in that moment, it's like she's really awake. Like all this time she's been asleep and she's suddenly awake. Because the laughter and the rain are filling the train with so much noise, and it is connecting these people in more ways, tying strings to each other, a bond that will never be broken because it is a memory and memories are never really ever forgotten.

Slowly, the rain dies away and the laughter is long gone. The laughing, pacing boy is now sitting with the older man, a smile painted forever on his face. Fern watches him for a moment. What is your story? she wants to ask, but doesn't. What does it really matter? Whatever his story was, what does it matter now?

Who ever really knows where their journey is going to end when they first start?

Or maybe Fern knew all along. Her story started with birds. It'll end with them, too. Her story started with Quinn. It'll end with them, too.

She can feel him under her fingertips as they buzz and itch and tingle for him. He is in her breath as she exhales, he her heart, her lungs, her ribs, her toes, her head, her soul. He is the reason she didn't leave, the reason she didn't ever give up. She left to follow him and she won't stop until she finds him. He is the path she lost, and he is the path she is finding once again. Will he forgive her losing herself on the path to him? Will he understand that she had to get lost to be found? Will he know that she had to cry in order to laugh?

Fern has so many things she wants to tell him. I love you, is first. I've missed you, second. And then she will tell him about Henry and Jane, how they needed each other even though they were afraid to admit it...she will tell him about Astrid, who gave her fear but also give her courage...she will tell him about the woman who helped her, that mysterious woman in the woods who gave her an answer she immedietley understood...she will tell him about seeing her mother, realizing that she didn't want to be like her, she will tell him about falling asleep in the stars and waking up on the train, and then after all of that, she will tell him again that she loves him.

She is running, even though her legs aren't moving. Fern can feel herself aching with the repetitive motion, the back of her throat is burning, her muscles strain against her skin. She has been running towards him and she can see the end now, she knows it, she feels him the future ahead. And maybe, maybe, maybe he is running towards her. And maybe they will meet somewhere in the middle.

Because despite all that longing, all that love, there is still uncertainty. So much Will he? Won't he? going on and on inside of her head. She tries to shut it out, she wishes she had a flower so she could pick of its petals, sing-songing 'He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not...' Those days were so much easier. Closing her eyes, Fern tries to think about where she will look for him. The city must be big, if people find each other there. It doesn't matter. She'll find him and she'll tell him all that has happened to her and ask him if he still loves her, despite everything that has happened to her, despite that person she has become. She is changed. Will he still love her, despite that?

And he is different, too, Fern knows that. She also knows that she will still love him, no matter who he is. Because no matter what he has become, he will always be her Quinn. The way she will always be his Fern. It is a fact of life - one she accepts easily.

Somewhere after the laughing and before the city, Fern does fall asleep. When she wakes up, she wakes to the calm blue dawn. The city is right on the horizon. It sits against blue-green waters and it sparkles like a diamond in the sun. There are tall glass buildings (where did they come from?) that pierce the sky, arms reaching upwards to grasp the sun. It glitters and those on the train all clamor to see what they can. No one watches the rolling green hills that mark before the city, everyone's eyes turn to the skyscrapers of mysterious origin.

Those minutes to the city, Fern feels as if she is standing before a glass wall, hammer in hand. She is waiting, everything is calm, but she also know when she finally makes that first move, everything will crash and clammer into a fast electric blur. The train rushes forward, moving faster than Fern's sure it's gone before. Her stomach turns with anticipation. He is here. He is here. Her heart pounds to that one thought. Nothing else is important besides that fact.

The city gets closer and closer until it hits them and they are swallowed beneath it. The train continues to move underground but gets slower. This is where she's getting off. Fern's heart is in her throat. She is going to find him. He is here. She can feel him in every inch she travels. She stands up on unsteady legs.

When the train comes to a stop at the station, steam billows out and masks the platform ahead. It doesn't matter, Fern doesn't need to see where she's going, she just has to feel. The doors open and she is one of the many people who get off here. The train is almost empty, save for the old man and the laughing kid. Looking back once, Fern catches the young boy's eye. He grins - a gap filled grin that reminds Fern exactly where she's been, where she is now and where she is going. Then she steps off, letting the warm steam tickle her skin.

The platform is silent and still. Everyone has disappeared into the steam. Fern takes a step and touches the hem of her mother's dress with uncertainty.

She sees his shoes first.

They were always hideous, always worn out and Quinn always wore them. Old workboots his father had gotten him for his eighteenth birthday, just before he'd died. Through the years they'd never grown on Fern and she'd always dragged him into shoe stores, making him try on different pairs. After every shoe he'd try on, Fern would give him a hopeful look and Quinn would just smile and laugh. "They're real nice, honey," he'd say. "But I don't need a new pair of shoes." Every night she'd see them at the edge of the table or beside the mattress or at the door where she put her own shoes. They were huge and dark and grew shabbier and shabbier with use. Fern saw these shoes first. And she was convinced she'd never loved any pair of shoes more.

Quinn stepped into the steam, or Fern stepped out of it, or maybe they started from their own sides and met in the middle. They didn't do anything at first, just regarded each other with something like shy curiousity full of questions like, Should I? Shouldn't I? What will happen if I do? And in those moments that seemed to stretch on forever, Fern noticed those changes in Quinn's face. Lines that hadn't been there when he'd died. Even though no one really changed in Death, Fern realized tiny differences in Quinn that hadn't been there before. The sort of youthful arrogance was gone. He was composed, calm, elegant. He was beautiful in his tragic grace. He stood in front of her, a young man who had lost everything, he stood before her so difference but still. Still my Quinn, Fern thought and wanted to say, but couldn't. You're still my Quinn, I know that.

It wasn't Quinn that moved first, but it wasn't Fern either. They moved at the same time, bringing up their hands just the tiniest way, pushing them towards each other, letting their fingertips touch. The feel of his skin against hers sort of shocked Fern. When he'd died, when the lights had come back on at the hospital, she thought she'd never hear his voice, see his eyes smile or really ever touch him again. Now here she is, against all odds.

And this all was worth it. Her Life. Her Death. Her everything. If only to feel his hand against her hand one last time, it was worth it.

But it isn't enough for Quinn - for Quinn who had spent those two long years without her waiting and wondering and wishing...thinking that she'd just move on, have a happy life and he'd be here for years and years waiting for her to come back and when she finally died he would never find her because she would just get on that train and let it take her to places in her life that he'd never seen, take her to somewhere that he couldn't follow, not really. So the hand that touches hers reaches up and finds its way to her shoulder and then suddenly, so suddenly that the world moves and falls beneath Fern's feet, he has her in his arms and they are tumbling to the ground and she feels like she is flying.

They are a mess, a tangle of limbs and hair and tears - mostly Fern's, but to her everlasting surprise, sometimes Quinn's. There, she can see now that he really has changed but he would not be holding her the way that he is if he did not still love her.

It seems miraculous that they could be wandering lost and alone, trying to figure themselves out and still come back to each other at the very end of it all. No, wait. Not the end. The very beginning of it all.

And finally: "How did you know I was here?" A whisper, from Fern.

Quinn's hand goes to the back of Fern's head and he presses her towards his head, burying his face in her hair, kissing it, smelling it, letting its familiar scent wash over him. "Neroli." It's his only answer and Fern doesn't understand but she doesn't matter. Because after two years, Quinn still remembers the smell of Fern's perfume. On the days where he can't remember the face of his father or his favorite class in school, he can still remember the scent of Fern - the scent that was always home to him, because she was always home to him.

They pull back from each other and Fern studies Quinn's face. His embrace feels in parts running into the arms of an old friend and meeting someone new. The combination of not knowing these new things about Quinn and remembering them so vividly is frightening, but his eyes...his eyes are the same as they always were. They were eyes like the sea, eyes as wise as his father and as carefree as his gait in France, they are eyes in part loving and honest, cocky and arrogant and then humble and understanding. "I know you," Fern feels herself say. "I know you." And it's so silly because the feelings of not knowing him are all self-made.

Quinn's face breaks out into a smile. This is the woman he's waited for and would have waited for forever. All the tiny things about her that he'd forgotten over the two years come rushing back, and he nods his head to Fern's words. I know you, like it was ridiculous to ever think they might have been different. Like Fern could be anything different than everything to him.

Once again they meet in the middle, but this time it is their heads. First at the forehead, then at the nose and finally at the lips. In that moment, every question they've ever asked themselves become clear. This is the answer to their questions, the end of the journey. The beginning, middle, end and next beginning of their journeys.

This is it.

This is it.