Tunnels 03, Freefall

few grey boulders.
    There was a ring of short-cropped grass which completely encircled the spring. It was such a peaceful and secluded spot that it was here that he decided to bury the phials. He put some of the grass inside one of the medicine bottles he had take from the submarine's sick bay, the carefully lowered the phials in, packing more grass on top of them. Having dug a hole in the rich soil, Will made sure the lid of the bottle was tightly screwed on before burying it. Then he placed a few rounded stones on top to mark the spot and to protect the phials from inquisitive animals.
    Following the discovery of the spring, he felt drawn to come back to it. Hardly a day passed when he didn't visit it. The fresh water seemed to attract the most exquisite butterflies and dragonflies, which alighted on the lichen-speckled stones to cool themselves and to drink. It was paradoxical because he knew the Dominion virus, a lethal biological weapon, was buried there and should have made it a place of death and destruction, but instead he found that the spring filled him with a tranquility -- it was somewhere he could lower his defenses and allow himself to remember the terrible events of the past. And begin to heal himself.
    On the other side of the spring from the Dominion virus and its small marker of stones, he made three larger piles of boulders. On each of these he erected a cross. Although their bodies weren't there, he carved Uncle Tam, Sarah Jerome, and Cal's names on these crosses. He found it a great comfort to sit in the grass by them, with the glorious display of colors from the butterflies flitting all around him. The Rebecca twins had finally been made to pay, and this felt like the end of a chapter to Will, a resolution. No longer was he living under their shadow, and no longer was he driven by the need for revenge. He felt liberated. He'd wiped the slate clean and it allowed him to remember the family members he had lost a the hands of the Styx.
    One day when he was there, deep in thought, somebody cleared their throat behind him and made him jump.
    "I hope you don't mind me coming here," Elliott said. "I wanted to see for myself where you'd put the phials."
    Will showed her, but she seemed more interested in the three memorials he'd erected for his family.
    "I didn't know you'd done all this," she said quietly. "I... er... it's a... a nice idea."
    Will nodded, and they didn't speak for several moments as, together, they gazed at the crosses. For once, Elliott seemed incredibly unsure of herself. In a nervous gesture she swept back her jet-black hair from her face -- since they'd left the Deeps, lice wee no longer a problem and she'd stopped cutting it. Now it was almost shoulder length, Will could barely recall what she'd looked like with closely cropped hair.
    "I've no idea if she's dead or alive, but would it be okay if I built one of those for my mother?" Elliott asked.
    "Of course," Will said, genuinely delighted. He suddenly thought of his own mother, his stepmother Mrs. Burrows, and hoped that she hadn't come to any harm. But, he reminded himself, at least Drake was there to look after her.
    And the next day when he arrived at the spring he found that Elliott had already set up a cross a little distance from his, and she came and sat next to him. As Bartleby basked in a patch of sun filtered by the trees and took lazy mouthfuls of grass, Elliott began to open up to Will. There had been a feeling of camaraderie between the two of them after the incident with the Styx, but this was different. She talked about her childhood in the Colony and how she had been forced to leave when her mother had been blackmailed. And then she mentioned her father -- the Limiter -- and how she know so little about him.
    All of a sudden, Elliott turned to Will. "Do you feel guilty about what we did to the Rebecca twins? Does it trouble you when you think about it?"
    The question was completely unexpected, and Will looked at her askance. "Yes, it does. I'm certain what we did was right, but it's not something that you can get out of your head, is it?"
    "No," she answered. "I never leaves you."
    Elliott chose two flat stones from beside the spring, which had been worn smooth by the water. Taking one in each hand, she weighed them in her palms as if she was working out which of the two was the heaviest.
    "Can I ask you something?" Will ventured.
    "Sure," Elliott shrugged.
    "That was a Limiter you shot, just like your dad," Will