DUKE CROCKER
MENTIONS OF DEATH | COMPLETE NARRATIVE/OPEN
He’d had to see her to believe it was true. After the rubble was cleared and everyone was accounted for, she was the only one who hadn’t walked or been carried out alive. Duke didn’t want to believe it, that she was gone. Again. Even in this city, Claire didn’t have the second chance she deserved. Two violent deaths, one there and one here, and he’d felt sick after the shock had worn off and the realization hit him in the gut that she was truly gone.
The recovery of those trapped in the club had taken hours, and by the time everyone was out one way or another, the sun had nearly started to come up. At that point, he didn’t want to go home. Hah, home. The place he and Sabrina were staying wasn’t even their home but some version of temporary housing in a place that didn’t feel quite right. He couldn’t go to the bar because there was no bar anymore. Dobler’s had been leveled during the Village attack, and that had left him out of a day job.
Tired from lack of sleep and his face still covered in grit from the dust of what used to be the Trocution, Duke ended up wandering through town instead of going home. He didn’t want Sabrina to see him on the verge of a breakdown or outburst, and truth be told, he really wasn’t sure which it would be at this point..
He found himself missing the Cape Rogue something terrible, wanting nothing more than to sit on the deck of his boat and look out over the water to watch the sunrise. It wasn’t the same as his boat, but Duke ended up at Atlantis Harbour after passing by a store that happened to be open and picked up a six pack. Breakfast of champions. He eventually ended up sitting on one of the docks with his legs hanging over the side, a beer in one hand, and another opened and sitting on the dock next to him.
The sun’s warmth cast down on his face as he closed his eyes for a moment and raised his beer to the other bottle there by itself on the dock. Claire was really gone, and there hadn’t been anything he was able to do to stop it. She’d deserved more in her life in Haven, and she deserved more in this life here. They’d both been given second chances, but hers had been cut off far too short. So, as the sun somehow managed to rise yet again over Atlantis, he was just going to sit right here and drink a beer.