Pierce never would have thought he'd have to do something like this. It was never, never supposed to be like this. He hadn't planned these babies in the first place, but by the time he'd come to terms with the fact that he was having them, he had already grown to love the people they would grow up to be, even if they'd be painful reminders of Everett, even if he’d struggle while he was raising them, he knew they’d be wonderful, beautiful people, but that had all been stolen from them - he had stolen it from them. The should-be lovely Parker family would never be the same after this- at least, Pierce wouldn’t. He couldn't quite process it; his children were dead. His babies, the ones he had sworn to protect with his life, the ones he would have sacrificed himself for in a heartbeat if it meant they would have been able to breathe their first breaths, to see the beautiful world they’d been born into, to take their first steps, make friends, find love. He would give anything ror the darling children to be alive, to be with him, now, but there was nothing he could do. They were dead. Gone, just like everyone else, and he wasn’t getting them back. No matter how much he wept, how much he cursed himself and the hniverse for letting this happen, how much he positively begged to gods he knew didn’t exist to give him his babies back, it simply wasn’t going to happen.
The young feline was alone, save for the three corpses of his children and the sleeping form of his dearest Clementine that were swaddled up in blankets and cradled gently in the basket he carried. It had been around a day... two? He hadn’t been keeping track, but it’d been at least a while since he’d given birth, and he was finally forcing himself to say goodbye. The kittens had never had a chance, he told himself- keeping them around to remind him of what could have been only made everything worse. Still, tears ahd been shed as he packed his four babies into the basket, knowing he wasn’t truly ready to let the three of them go- he never would be.
It didn’t take long for them to reach their destination; the burial of his sister, where he and her other loved ones had tossed belongings that reminded them of her into a hole and covered them with dirt, in place of the body that hadn’t been able to find. “H-here we are,” he mumbled shakily to the four kittens, as if the one deaf and three dead children would even head. His paws shook, his glassy eyes empty as he forced a gentle smile onto his lips, features softening as if he were trying to comfort a small child. Clem stirred beside her siblings, a weak, halfhearted mewl escaping her jaws, though she quickly settled. As she stilled, her breaths returning to as normal as the sick little serval’s breaths could be, Pierce took the moment to observe the little Parker-Gardner children. He hadn’t had the heart to leave Everett’s name out of theirs, even if he was gone, even if most of them were dead.
They looked so peaceful, so much so that for a moment, he almost had himself convinced that they were all just napping together, taking comfort in each other’s warmth and smells as they rested. The moment was fleeting, and the bodies of his children soon came back into focus. He had given his daughter every chance she had with her siblings, but it was time to let them go now, wasn’t it? His lower lip trembled, tears that he didn’t bother to
hold back threatening to spill from his emerald eyes as he whispered a soft, “I’m s-sorry. I’m sorry you can’t b-be here.” He couldn’t allow himself to break down, not when he still had to be there for his Clementine, though a single tear did streak down his cheek as he took a shaky breath, trying to gather his strength before he started digging the holes. He was to place his children in the ground. Cover them in dirt, like objects. He was to leave them here to rot under the ground, forgotten by all but himself. How was anyone supposed to handle this?
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