“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.”

She touches his face like it's holy. The ghost of her fingers make lines on his jaw, the bridge of his nose, the line of his cheekbones. She touches his face and she asks him, how do you lie so easily?

Michael wants to be sad. He wants to be angry. He wants to feel something that isn't the steady, fast beat of his heart. He wants to think no and how dare you and I couldn't but he knows it's not him, knows he could be bent at the feet of God and Moira would not believe him. It is one of those thing, he knows--that she is broken, and angry, and scared, just like him, and truth has no meaning to Moira. Time has no meaning to Moira. Everything is a black haze with no way out.

"I wouldn't lie to you." Michael says. "And I won't hold my tongue, either. You will have all of it."
So he stands, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, and he swears to her and to him that he will stand with her as long as it takes to prove-- it is not all bleak looks and dark waters. Some things are solid, and bright, and comfortable.

He will be solid.
And bright.
And comfortable.

'Come with me,' Moira breathes into the dark. The space between them is cold, and his skin where he touched her still rattles like old bones. Come with me, she says, and Michael nods like it's easy, like his heart is not beating hard enough to break his ribs, like he does not feel like a boy set on fire.

Come with me, she says, and he does, taking her plate with him.