Small Mercies

Posted on Wed Aug 6th, 2025 @ 10:58am by Maeve MacKenna

1,544 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: X-Mansion
Timeline: March 4, 1992

Maeve couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t, really, in months — not properly. Nights had a way of stretching too long when her head was full, and lately there was too much in there she couldn’t set down. She’d tried lying still, staring at the ceiling until the shadows began to crawl, but the quiet only made her mind louder. Eventually, she’d pulled on her jacket and scarf, boots thudding softly against the floorboards as she slipped out into the cold.

She told herself she was looking for something to tire her out, something to wear her down enough to make sleep possible. But if she was honest, she just needed to do something. Anything that wasn’t lying in the dark replaying the last year. She thought of Desmond, like she had more often than she’d admit, and the way he carried the weight of things without letting it crush him. There was comfort in that. Maybe even envy. She’d never say as much — pride wouldn’t let her — but the thought had its own kind of warmth on a night like this.

The ground was soft underfoot, early thaw creeping into the soil. She crouched by the treeline, pulling off one glove to lay her hand against the earth. Slowly, she coaxed the meltwater away from the mud-churned path and toward the roots of the trees, letting it sink deep where it would do some good. Just beyond the tent, a boy sat bundled in a blanket, shoulders hunched against the chill. His eyes were fever-bright, fixed on nothing, and the sight of him pulled at her in a way she didn’t want to name. She stayed where she was, working the earth beneath her hand. Firm paths. Dry footing. Something she could fix, when so much else couldn’t be.

Maeve glanced up from her work and caught the boy’s gaze for just a second before he looked away. Couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. He sat huddled on a rickety folding chair outside the tent, a blanket pulled so tight around his small frame it looked like it might swallow him whole. His bare toes peeked from the bottom, red from the cold, and the way his knees were tucked up made him look even smaller.

Something in her chest twisted — sharp and uninvited. Her mind flashed to her younger sisters on Achill, bundled in mismatched jumpers by the fire, hair still damp from the rain, their skinny legs curled up on the old couch. The same look in their eyes whenever storms rattled the windows.

She brushed the dirt from her gloves and walked over, crouching so her face was level with his. “You’re up late,” she said softly, keeping her tone warm but steady. “Can’t sleep?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “It’s cold,” he whispered, his voice rough in a way that had nothing to do with the wind.

Maeve didn’t call him out on it, but she knew. The cold he meant wasn’t just on his skin. “Aye, I know that one,” she murmured. “C’mere, then.” She pulled the blanket aside just enough to slip in beside him, draping an arm over his narrow shoulders. He hesitated for a moment before leaning in, small and tense against her side, until the warmth between them began to build. She tugged her scarf loose and tucked it over both of them, sealing out the wind.

“Better?” she asked.

He gave the smallest nod, his head dropping against her shoulder. She kept her voice low and steady, telling him little things — about the snow, about the way the moonlight caught on the trees, about how the ground here always seemed to hold more warmth if you knew how to coax it out. His breathing slowed, his body growing heavier as exhaustion finally began to win.

When his head lolled against her, she stayed there for a long moment, letting him sleep against her warmth. Then, careful not to wake him, she shifted and gathered him up in her arms. He was so light it made her throat ache.

She carried him into the tent, weaving between beds until she reached the one she knew was his. She laid him down gently, pulling the blanket up under his chin and tucking her scarf around him like a second layer. Standing over him, she watched his small chest rise and fall, his face soft now in sleep.

The sting in her eyes came before she could stop it, a single tear slipping down her cheek before she brushed it away. She leaned down just a little, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Rest now, love. You’re warm, and you’re safe.”
Maeve lingered a moment longer, brushing a curl of hair from the boy’s forehead. His breathing had already evened out, his small frame tucked under the blankets with her woollen scarf still looped loosely around his neck. She let herself smile — soft, private — before the weight of it all pressed back in.

Stepping out into the cold without it, the March air bit sharper against her skin, stealing her warmth in quick nips. She welcomed it. The sting kept her from drifting too far into the thoughts waiting in the quiet. Overhead, ice creaked in the trees, and the heaters from the tent hummed their low, steady note. She drew a long breath, exhaling a pale plume into the dark, and let her shoulders square.

There was always work to be done. If she couldn’t sleep, she’d keep the paths clear, draw meltwater into the trees, and make sure the ground would hold when morning came. Keep moving. Keep doing. Anything to stay ahead of the things she couldn’t fix.

Maeve knelt at the edge of the path again, pressing her bare fingers into the cold, damp soil. The ground’s pulse was there if you listened for it — slow and patient — and it answered her touch with a faint shift beneath her palm. She coaxed the water pooling near the tent’s entrance toward the treeline, narrow rivulets threading between roots and vanishing into the thirsty dark.

The earth firmed in its wake, the mud retreating enough that boots and wheels would pass without sinking. It was nothing grand, nothing anyone would notice in the daylight, but it mattered. It meant fewer cold feet, fewer soaked blankets, fewer trips slowed by a cart stuck in the muck.

She straightened, brushing dirt from her hands onto her trousers, and looked toward the faint glow of the tent’s canvas walls. Inside was warmth — but also fever, coughs, and the sharp tang of bleach she couldn’t quite bear tonight. Out here, the air was clean, and the stars cut sharp and cold above the treetops.

Her gaze lingered on the tent a moment longer, her thoughts drifting to the boy curled beneath his blankets, her scarf wrapped clumsily but snug around his neck. Safe. Warm. Breathing steady. That image was enough to settle something restless in her chest.

She thought briefly of Desmond — how he’d handle a night like this. Probably with that easy steadiness of his, carrying the weight without showing the cracks. She envied that, in her own quiet way. Maybe even drew a little strength from it.

Maeve tugged her jacket tighter and turned toward the treeline, letting the shadows swallow her up. The air was colder here, sharper, but cleaner too. The woods felt steady in a way the tent never could — roots deep, branches high, the kind of place where she could breathe without the press of sickness in the air. She found a familiar spot between two old oaks, leaned her back against the rough bark, and let the silence settle around her like another blanket.

Her thoughts wandered as they always did when she was alone — to home, to the sisters she hadn’t seen in too long, to the people here she’d come to care about more than she’d expected. The year had changed her; she’d learned to carry herself differently, to keep her head down when the hurt got too loud. But nights like this reminded her that some part of her still needed quiet places and steady ground.

The cold nipped at her cheeks, but it was almost pleasant, the sort of sting that reminded her she was still here, still breathing. Her eyelids grew heavier with each slow breath, the forest’s rhythm pulling her in. Before she realised it, she’d curled her knees up, tucking her hands into her sleeves, the rough oak steady at her back.

It wasn’t a deep sleep — just a thin, fragile doze that came and went in shallow waves, broken by the snap of a twig or the wind shifting in the branches. Once or twice, her head lifted at the sound of movement, her mind half-hoping it might be heavy, deliberate footsteps rather than the shuffle of an animal. But the woods stayed empty, and she let her eyes close again, carried through the rest of the night by the quiet and the cold.

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