The air stilled enough to halt the noise of the wailing winds outside in its tracks. Heavy droplets peeled off the window's surface to flee into the gloom beyond the glass, only for another wave of rain to fill in the gaps. Sally searched through the blur for the striking bottle green stripe of her father's fishing boat, then for the malicious cluster of sea rocks that had ensnared it. Soon, the snap of Damien's fingers called her attention back to the stand-off.

    Flick rolled her eyes and shuffled the camera bag behind her. "Judge me all you want, dude. I'm not giving you the bag, and I'm not giving a damn what you think about it either."

    "Then nobody's leaving," Damien said, folding his arms in the doorway. "I'll do whatever it takes to get Miranda's camera back, just like I promised the last time I spoke to her."

    "I get it. You got to hog Miranda's bedside all to yourself while she was sick, and you kept me out the whole time, just like you wanted. Great job." Clapping in Damien's direction, Flick quickened her pace until her hands turned red. "Read the room, dude. Nobody's impressed by your crazy possessiveness here."

    For the first time, Damien's anger subsided into vague confusion. "It wasn't me that banned you from seeing her, Scott," he answered, unclenching his fists into loose, shaking hands. "We told the staff to keep you away because Miranda didn't want you there."

    The yelp that erupted from Flick's lip resonated across the lantern room, its shrill notes shaking the space as blasts of thunder rocked the sea. Anger raged in Flick's eyes, twisting a darkness through her face that Sally had never thought she held. "Take. That. Back."

    Damien held his hands up and shrugged. "I'm serious! It was one of the first things she asked us to do when she was admitted, she even wrote it out on her notepad in case her heart defects left her too weak to speak."

    "No! Take it back right now, you lying sack of –" Biting her tongue, Flick shook her head and took several deep breaths. "There's no way she would ever cut me off like that. Stop messing with me!"

    "I'm not! I took a picture of the note and everything!" His phone shuffling into his grasp, Damien struggled with the wet screen until he flashed through to the right picture. He held the device up, and Sally stepped to Flick's side to study the photo. "See?"

    It was a hard photo to look at, but an even harder one to look away from. A note written in shaky, but still elegant, cursive handwriting stood in the forefront of the picture, the paper's light pink border flecked with starry specks. It was what lay behind the message, however, that commanded Sally's attention, and judging by the sharp breath beside her, Flick's eyes took her there too.

    Miranda lay in a hospital bed, yet the deep grooves across her face revealed she was anything but restful. Her warm red hair, a little shorter than Sally's, spread out like vines of ivy around her pillow. Freckles dotted over the plains of her pale skin, adding a touch of darkness for her sapphire-blue eyes to shimmer against. Yet even those shining gemstones could not distract from the raw red rivers cracking through her eyes, the exhaustion spinning shadows across her face, and the grey hue painted across her lips. Though suspended in a still image, Miranda still seemed to fade before their eyes as she had done when the picture was taken.

    Flick reached out to touch the phone, and to Sally's surprise, Damien did not protest. "Did Miri really write this?" she asked, her voice faltering at the end. "Is this what she looked like in there? But I saw her just a few days before she went in..."

    Pinching to zoom in on the note, Damien nodded. "And as she says herself there, 'Don't let Flick in if she comes. She shouldn't be here to see this.'" He locked the phone without warning and slipped it back into his dripping jacket. "That sounded pretty conclusive to me then, and it still does now."

    As Flick stared through the holes in the metal walkway, Sally fought back the urge to raise her voice. "Are you playing dumb, or are you really this stupid?" she asked, stepping up to Damien's feet. "I promise you, that isn't Miranda asking to keep Flick away because she hates her."

    Damien folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. "What do you mean?"

    "What I mean is, I think Miranda wrote that because she didn't want Flick to see her suffering!" Flitting her attention back to Flick, Sally slid along the handrail to the girl's side. "I know you said you didn't want to, but I think now might be the moment to open Miranda's locket."

    Flick held her locket out, running her thumb over its gold casing as Damien drifted towards them from the doorway. "What? Do you expect me to believe that my sister gave you that?"

    "I already told you, I don't give a damn what you believe, unless you start believing in leaving me the heck alone!" Hiding her locket behind her hand, Flick kept her eyes on Damien's motionless shape. "I'm not opening it for him, he'll never trust me. Miri herself could pop out of it to tell him about us, and this dude would still find some way to twist it out of whack."

    Sally sidled along the rail, coming to a pause with her hand next to Flick's waist. "So, don't open it for him, or me, or even yourself. Open it for her." As her slow breaths pushed her lips apart, Sally wrapped her fingers around Flick's wrist, unsure whether the quick beat beneath the girl's skin was her real pulse or pure imagination. "Whatever's in this, Miranda wanted you to see it before she entered the hospital."

    The locket's hinges clicked as Flick shifted it in her grasp. "I can't," she muttered, shutting her eyes. "This is all I have left of Miri. If I open it, that's it. I'll hear her last words, see her last face, and I won't have anything left of her. I can't do it, Sal. I can't take that she's gone."

    "She's not truly gone, and she never will be," Sally said as she worked her fingers up to Flick's hand. "Not while those she held dearest keep her close to their hearts. Not while you remember her, Flick."

    Out of words to answer, Flick hung her head low. As another round of rain patted against the glass, Sally moved to pull her hand away, only for Flick to squeeze at her departing fingers. "Not so fast," she muttered, and a red tint flared at the corners of her eyes as she looked up. "You can't expect me to make such a big move without my trusty navigator by my side, can you?"

    Sally smiled through the drops forming in her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, don't worry."

    With Sally's hand in hers, Flick looped the locket's chain over her head and held the pendant in front of her, tremors racking her body. The clasp snapped loose, sending a shiver along her arm. Flick shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and cracked the locket open.

    A single portrait photograph and an inscription adorned the inner plates of the locket. In the picture on the case's right-hand side, a version of the girl from Damien's photo met Sally's eye, her face much brighter than it had looked in the hospital bed. Keeping her eyes open seemed like a joy rather than a burden, colour coursed through healthy streams across her face, and her smile was warm enough to fill Sally's heart at a glance. Her sky-blue dress spread out in a vivid bloom from the wild grasses behind her.

    "She was so beautiful," Sally whispered, unsure if the past tense, the passionate compliment, or both would spark outrage from either of the people around her. No other fitting phrases came to her tongue, however. Miranda's image in the locket was just what Sally said it was – living, vibrant, and beautiful for it.

    Flick smiled through trails of tears. "Heck yeah she was. She was my gorgeous gal, my super-hot sidekick, my..." she answered, her eyes landing on the locket's other inner side. "My Miri."

    Following Flick's gaze, Sally scanned the exquisite cursive etched into the golden plate. The text was small, yet the dark strokes formed into words without any effort on her part: 'Wherever you go, I'm with you - Miri'.

    His alarm evident in his flashing eyes, Damien closed the remaining gap between them with stomping steps. "What's with this picture? I've never seen it before, why would Miranda give it to you?"

    "Get with it already, dude! Who do you think took the original?" As she pulled the locket out of Damien's sight, Flick pushed him back with her free hand. "Hint – you're looking at her. I took it when me and Miri were hanging out together. I drove us out somewhere quiet so we could be alone together. I focused on her over the big beautiful view behind her because I loved her, and she loved me right the heck back!"

    "Then why didn't she want you at her bedside?" Damien snapped back, yet what had burned as anger now smouldered as something closer to helplessness. His fist beat against his thigh, the pounding slowing to a limp flail as his body deflated. "She said having the people she loved around her kept her heart strong. Why would she keep you away?"

    Sally tugged at her spongy jumper and cleared her throat. "She might have seen all this hostility coming. Maybe she was trying to avoid moments like this, or at least keep them away from her bed." Placing a hand on the locket, she tapped Miranda's bright face in the image and smiled at Flick. "But part of me thinks she also wanted you to remember her as she was, and not what her condition made her become. She didn't want your last moments together to be spent in a hospital room."

    "That...that sounds like my loveable dummy, alright," Flick said, looking up from the locket. "She should've known I'd be fine with it. Miri could've had a thousand tubes hooked up to her, and I'd still have found some way to hold onto her."

    "I think she knew that, Flick." As she ran her hand up Flick's arm, Sally released a low sigh and wiped her eyes. "I think she was just scared."

    With a small laugh under her breath, Flick let her head drop. "She wouldn't have been the only one being a scaredy-cat," she whispered. Suddenly, she snapped the locket shut, looped the chain back around her neck, and snatched up the camera bag. A click of her tongue and fingers at once summoned Damien's attention. "Heads up, dude. Miri's camera isn't going to catch itself."