What do you do when you find something horrible? Bury it.

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Today had seemed like just another day - one of those days that's pretty much like all the others. Violet woke up, stared out her window for a while and wondered why, exactly, the birds were so very loud and also exceedinly cheerful. She got out of bed. She brushed her hair (still damp from her shower the night before), and changed out of her

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[iwillresume]

Robbie was walking along the beach, hand in hand with the boys, when he noticed the girl digging a hole in the sand rather energetically. Will, of course, was eager to see what all the fuss was about and tried to run ahead, but Robbie kept a firm grip on his hand and kept him close. The last thing he needed was for one of his boys to fall into a hole.

"Everything all right down there?"

[morethentheend]

"Uhm, it's fine." Violet flashed a smile at the man who stood on the beach. Her eyes flicked to the helmet. "Don't- don't let them near that. Please?"

"It's dangerous." She'd paused in digging long enough to watch him, her brow creased with worry. "I'm Violet," she said, almost distracted.

[iwillresume]

Of course, when she said 'dangerous', Will thought it was an invitation, and Robbie had to scoop him up onto his hip to keep him from going further. Heath clung to his leg. "I'm Robbie," he said. "And Will, and Heath." He nodded to each boy in turn.

She looked as though she'd been digging for some time, and Robbie wondered why a girl so young would be doing such a task. "Do you need some help?"

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"No," Violet said quickly. "No, I-" She swallowed hard, and flashed another all-too-cheery smile. "Just something I have to do." Robbie seemed like a perfectly nice man, and she could remember all too well what it'd been like when Sunny had gotten infected. She'd only been- God, she'd been just a baby, it seemed like- a toddler, but she'd almost died.

"It's dangerous for them to be here. If something happened..."

[iwillresume]

Robbie's frown grew deeper. If it was dangerous, she didn't have any business doing it by herself. "If I come back without them, will you let me help you do whatever it is you're doing?" he asked. "You shouldn't be doing it alone."

[morethentheend]

"I just- I need to bury it. But-" She bit her lip. "I'll be here. Just-" She tried to figure out how to explain. "There's a- it's a fungus, inside, and if you inhale it, it kills you unless you can kill it. My sister- she inhaled some, when she was their age, and she almost died."

She hadn't stopped digging, yet. Didn't plan to.

[iwillresume]

"Keep digging," he told her, keeping a firm hold on Heath's hand, although he didn't seem to want to leave. "I'll be back to help." It was partly a desire to know that this dangerous thing would be buried deep enough that his boys would never come across it, and partly to ensure that Violet woudl not have to do it alone.

After finding someone to mind the boys for a short time, Robbie returned alone, a borrowed shovel in hand. "Let me take a turn at digging," he told her. "I've dug my share of trenches."

[morethentheend]

She didn't stop while he was gone, and managed another six inches before he came back with a shovel. She knew she should keep digging - to do it herself, to handle it, but her shoulders were fairly screaming for a reprieve and her hands... the less said about them the better.

She reached up for a hand up and out of the pit, on the side that the helmet wasn't. She knew how her luck worked, knew that she might stumble into it and have it open. "Thank you," she said, her brows knitting. "I appreciate the help, I've been out here for..." She trailed off, having no idea how long it had actually been.