Lilly, I hope you picture me in your dreams.
It had been simple. In the morning, Veronica woke up feeling like something was wrong. Something about the day was off already, with her eyes turned to the ceiling and her breathing steady as she fought to recall the details of the dream she'd just had. Usually they came easily, everything remembered so clearly, but she couldn't piece this one together. At first, she thought maybe that was all, the only thing that bothered her, but turning in bed she understood. Lilly wasn't there.
It wasn't usual for Lilly to wake up first. Still, that didn't have to mean anything. There were any number of reasons Lilly could have left already, even if Veronica couldn't think of them readily. Sliding from bed - quietly, so as not to disturb Mac - Veronica went to sit on Lilly's bed, lying a palm flat on the sheets. Cold. If she'd gone, it had been a while already, and that seemed even more out of the ordinary.
Their possessions were put away, and it would have been so easy to check Lilly's, to see what was there. Veronica had done it dozens of times before, paranoid if Lilly was gone an hour too long, always relieved to find the clothes she'd arrived with still there. She'd heard the stories, the tales of how everything disappeared, and she knew the signs to watch for. She just didn't want to. It wasn't even evidence, not really. Not when Lilly could have just decided to take the clothes with her wherever she'd gone. That didn't keep Veronica's heart from sinking when she looked to see nothing but the collection of clothes Lilly had amassed during her stay on the island -- no pep squad uniform.
The rec room, the basement, the kitchen, the trampoline -- Veronica searched. Scouring the compound and the surrounding area, she returned to the room again and again until, convinced Lilly wasn't there, she set out to search the beach. "Lilly!" she called, the name echoing above the noises of the jungle as she walked the path. She would call her stupid, Veronica knew, make fun of her for getting so worked up for nothing, but that didn't matter. She just needed to be sure. She needed to hear Lilly tell her she was being a dumbass. So she kept yelling.
To the lagoon and the waterfall, down the path, along the beach all the way out to Serenity and back again. If people looked at her strangely, that was there problem. She had a mission, and if there was a path to track, Veronica was still too untrained to pick up on the clues. Hours of looking, and she was tired out, too tired to take the stairs and face their room again, to look and see -- nothing. Absence. No Lilly. Nothing. And nowhere to go, nowhere she could tuck herself away, because she was too exhausted all of a sudden, the fatigue that swept over her draining her of the desire to move any further. Her stomach twisted, her hands clenched into tight fists, nails driving deep into skin with more energy than the rest of her body had left.
Lilly was gone.
It was settling in and repeating itself, over and over and over again. Gone.
She was gone, and all Veronica could do was walk a little further, just a little, until she was in among the trees under a fast darkening sky. She wasn't entirely sure where she was right now, and it didn't much matter. She sat without thinking about it, half-collapsing, and pulled her knees against herself. Lilly was gone.
With her head buried in her hands, she curled up and broke down.
"Don't forget about me, Veronica."
"I could never."
[Dated to the evening of the 21st. Locked to close friends and family.]