at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
Laura had been in the memorial garden before the ceremony, rooting plants in the soil, coaxing blossoms open by the markers and around the stage; when the last speech was finished and everyone had filed out, leaving a pile of cut flowers by the base where Kevin's statue would sit, she stayed behind. The garden almost felt like home to her these days, which might just have been a sign that she had made remembering the dead too much her own personal responsibility. She spent too much time there, too much time remembering names and faces, too much time tending flowers on graves that few people visited. Awful as it was, she just didn't trust anyone else to remember - if she forgot, if she let those details slip away, they might be lost forever. People who'd mattered once, who'd had lives and families and friends, might just disappear as if they'd never existed. There were people buried here who'd been forgotten by the rest of the world - if they were forgotten here as well, then they might as well have never been born, and preventing that was something she took personally. She couldn't protect the school, she couldn't stop the terrible things that happened there, but at least she could do this. Remembering, that was Laura's job.

Delicate roots already trailing from her wrist, she made her way to the oldest markers, the ones from before death had become such a familiar thing at Xavier's. Holly Lajoie, bold and teasing, killed in a freak accident on the grounds; Lucy Diamond, who'd seemed like such a natural optimist until the day she took her own life. She hadn't known them, but she could see their faces now, could almost hear an echo of Lucy's laughter if she tried. That was the best she could do for them. Kneeling in the dirt, she let the roots flow from her skin into the soil, stems and blossoms pushing up. Sea lavender, for remembrance.

Not bothering to brush the dirt from her knees - she was far from done, it was hardly worth it - she moved on. Those who'd died on the island were next, those whose families had been made to forget them; these were the memories she kept most closely, and most feared losing. These were the people who'd be lost forever if the school forgot them. Layla Grace, Havana Baker, Mary Jean Calhoun, Megan Gwynn, Chester Gellar - she wished she'd known them better, she had so little to remember them by now. Just flashes of memory, like a snapshot in her mind; Megan's beautiful smile, Havana cooking for anyone who stopped by, Mary Jean listening raptly to a lamp or a coffee maker. Emma Frost, icy and terrifying, tapping a stiletto heel from behind her desk. Brian Braddock, whose own sister couldn't even know what she'd lost now; she rooted a flower in the empty soil for him, and she wondered when they would be allowed to put his stone back where it belonged. Tai Mu Heng, just a quiet face in the halls and a body on the island ground - he'd only been at the school three days when he'd been killed, not long enough to make an impression, and now the only thing anybody would ever know about him was the way he'd died. That was the one that truly broke her heart, but all she could do was plant a flower and remember his face again.

She moved on, pulling sea lavender free of her skin as she went, on to even more recent losses. Lucy Swain, sweet to the point of seeming almost unreal, crucified and left to die - her family had been allowed to remember her, to bury her, at least there was that. The concentration camp deaths still felt like her fault, though she understood intellectually that they weren't; even if she hadn't appointed herself the school's memory keeper, Laura would have felt obliged to remember those three. Roberto DaCosta, more exhausted than frightened as he stared down the barrel of a gun. Gus Maguire, who'd seemed like such a fun teacher, who she'd been somewhat sorry not to ever take a class with. Jason Kinsey, skinny and awkward, bantering with Kate Prosser like that somehow didn't scare him. Another flower for Cherry Jolivette, who probably would have laughed at the stupidity of her own death. And then she'd reached the new stones, Alex Summers and Jeremiah Charonzec, and the idea that those two men were dead still didn't even feel real. Sea lavender for each, stiff stems and rough purple blossoms, but they hadn't been gone long enough to really feel like memories yet. She knew they would, eventually. Everybody else had.

Finally, tamping down the dirt around the last new plant, she could follow the others back inside. It wasn't enough, that short and simple ritual of flowers and memories, but it was all she had.

( NARRATIVE )