Mary always seemed to be the one finding Caleb now. He lurked on the edge of camp and so did she so it was inevitable really. She certainly saw him more than any of the others and from the way he spoke sometimes she wondered if he was seeing her more often than the others too. It worried her, and made her angry as it fell to her to help him. Mary had come to know Ben, Anna, and Caleb better than she’d ever wanted to and every day she only got more certain that they’d never get Abe back without Caleb.

Caleb was on the edge of camp now, hidden from both camp and the camp followers by a few bushes, but Mary had caught sight of him when he’d first hidden over an hour ago and she hadn’t seen him leave. She feared he was drinking himself stupid again and went to check on him, just to make sure that he hadn’t passed out somewhere he shouldn’t.

She came through and saw him sitting on the ground and sure enough there was a bottle next to him. He winced when he saw her and she couldn’t be sure if it was her or if he’d wince at anyone who had found him. They’d certainly done enough damage to each other to warrant a flinch away at the approach of one another but Mary thought that they’d evened out in the grand scheme of things. Words and actions still burned bright in their memories but it was tempered by their own sins and so Mary knelt next to him. She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. “I’m sorry.”

For a moment she stared at him. “I appreciate that. What for this time?”

“For giving up Abe,” Caleb said. His eyes were red and there were tear tracks on his cheeks.

Mary sighed and moved to bottle away from him as she sat next to him. The fact that he let her was more surprising than what he’d said. They’d been over this before. This being the apology that was heartfelt but that Mary couldn’t accept because she didn’t trust that he was guilty. Caleb was loyal to a fault and a part of her knew that he’d never have given them up. And she’s seen the wounds Simcoe had inflicted, even if Caleb had said something she couldn’t think with any amount of reason that Caleb was at fault. The emotion of it was a different story, some days she still hated him, but neither of them needed any more emotions that day, he was having more than enough for both of them.

“Caleb-“

“I don’t even know what I said but he /thanked/ me, Mary,” Caleb said with another hiccuping sob. “When they stopped him he thanked me and it’s all I can hear and see and I just want to take it back. I’m sorry.”

In a flash Mary smacked the back of Caleb‘s head sharply, starling him out of his spiral to stare at her. “You say they stopped him, correct? He didn’t stop of his own volition?” Caleb nodded once. “Simcoe has been trying to kill Abe for years. Do you honestly believe that if you had given him up, if you had confirmed anything, if you had given him something worth thanking you over, that he would have kept going? He would have left that moment and Abe would have been dead before we could do anything about it. You are not the key here.”

Caleb started to shake his head and reached for the bottle but she moved it further away. “He thought it was Rogers at the start and at the end he knew it was Abe.”

“Yes, but the fact that it wasn’t Rogers was bound to come out as soon as they knew about you. Which was Arnold’s fault and Ben’s for trusting him, not yours. Simcoe must know about what his own men, the ones he got from Rogers, did to Ben’s unit and what Ben did to Rogers’ men. The moment they knew about you it was only a matter of time before they knew it wasn’t Rogers. And Simcoe /wants/ it to be Abe.”

Caleb was quiet but his face was closed off and she could tell he wasn’t actually absorbing anything she had said. She started to stand up and straighten her skirts. “If you drink yourself into oblivion you won’t be able to help anyone, least of all Abe. You can’t do both.”

With that she left him to his drinking and his crying and his hiding.