Chapter Text
Maxine had warned him Five wasn’t up for visitors.
Sam brushed that off. Surely she hadn’t meant him. He was Five’s radio operator. Her friend. Best friend, even. And sure, maybe she wasn’t secretly desperately in love with him too, but she cared about him, in a friend way. Best friend way. That had to count for something. Right?
Sam paused and smoothed his sweaty hands on his jeans. The sun had just risen but the spring morning was already proving to be unseasonably hot, or was it just his nerves making him feel like he could sweat straight through his hoodie?
He stood outside the rickety repurposed shed that was Five’s current home. Five had been deemed well enough to leave the med tent, but not ready to go back to the dorms, especially not with half of Abel still uncertain if she’d kill them while they slept. They didn’t know her like he did. She was Five again, he’d seen it in her eyes as she stumbled through the gate. She’d worn no headset, no chiming tones blasting out from it at near deafening levels. The manic smile was gone, the one that looked more like she was baring her teeth than a true smile, and so was the glassiness sheening her irises and making them seem a brighter gray, almost silver. Instead, her eyes were dim, the gray flat, and the hollow look in them had scared Sam almost more than the mind-controlled glaze. She’d looked… empty.
They’d run a barrage of tests on her, declared her truly free of Moonchild’s influence, and then, after a few days in the med tent, shuffled her off here for some privacy. And she wasn’t up for visitors.
Sam knocked, a quick three raps, and when there was no answer he pushed open the door. “Five?” he called tentatively. “It’s me. Sam. Just… checking up on you. Can I come in?”
There was no answer. It was dark inside, curtains pulled over the small windows. He stepped in, giving his eyes a moment to adjust, and then he saw her on the cot.
She lay on top of the covers, back to him, knees to her chest. For a moment he worried she was asleep, but then he saw her breath twitch and stutter and realized that she was awake. He drew closer.
“Five? I didn’t wake you, did I?”
She didn’t move, just hugged her knees tighter to her chest. She still wore her running shoes.
Maybe this had been a bad idea.
“Do you mind if I sit?” He waited a beat, but when there was no response he sat tentatively at the edge of the cot. “I don’t mean to intrude, I just, well I haven’t seen you since you got back, and they told me you were okay, not okay, but, I mean, you were you again, and I just thought you might be, um, feeling badly about things. About what she made you do. And I thought I’d come and tell you, well, that it’s not your fault.”
He felt suddenly, immensely stupid. “I mean, of course it wasn’t your fault, that’s the most obvious thing in the world. You were mind-controlled, for god’s sake. But I know you, and I was pretty sure you were beating yourself up about it, so I thought I’d… come check up on you.”
Five said nothing.
What he really wanted to say was “You see, Five, the truth is that you pretty much make the sun rise in the sky for me, really I can’t stop thinking about you, haven’t been able to for months, and when you were taken it was like nothing really mattered anymore, not the apocalypse or Moonchild’s plans or anything, really, and all I could think was that it was my fault, I left you alone with Isabel and you… well I let the person I love get mind-controlled and that’s just shit, isn’t it?”
What he said instead, was: “You cut your hair.”
He could see it in the dim light, short and butchered, as if it had been hacked off with a dull knife to right below her earlobes. He’d always loved her hair, as naturally shiny and blonde as anything in a bottle; she’d worn it up in high ponytails on her runs, and with her blunt bangs she’d reminded him of the thimble-sized doll his sister used to play with as a kid, what was her name? Polly Something… Something… Pocket. Right, Polly Pocket. Smiling bright Five, Polly Pocket Five, freckles, ponytail, running shoes laced tight and triple knotted. She was a breath of fresh air in the rotten stink of the apocalypse.
He’d often found himself captivated by the flick of the end of her ponytail keeping time as she ran, the way her hair frizzed out of its captivity the more she exercised, until it was a halo around her sweaty face by the end. She loved her hair, salvaged products on her runs to keep it healthy and long. This strange, sad chop felt as wrong as if she’d lost a limb. “It… looks good.”
Five didn’t answer.
“Look, I’ll go, if you don’t want me here,” he said awkwardly. He was used to one-sided conversations with her but this was different. Her body was so tightly curled around itself he could see her arms shake from the strain of it. “I just wanted to say we’re good, you and I. I’m okay, no harm done. I know you didn’t want to hurt me. Jody knows too. Everyone does. You’re still our Five, and we want you back. So… whenever you want to come out, just… come and find me, yeah?”
She said nothing, so he stood, feeling almost as lost as he had when she was standing before him with a wide grin and an axe. “Okay, well, I’ll… leave you to it.”
He turned and left the room. Five never moved.
He ran into a glaring Janine just outside the door, and he didn’t protest when she took him by the arm and bodily bore him toward the med tent.
“Maxine told you she wasn’t up for visitors!” she hissed once they were inside. Maxine looked up at the intrusion, then hurried over.
“You saw Five?” she asked. “Tell me everything.”
He shrugged weakly. “There’s nothing to tell. She’s not, like, catatonic, is she? She wouldn’t move, or speak to me. And who did that to her hair?”
The two women shared a glance. “She hasn’t moved from that position in over a day,” Maxine admitted. “And she cut her hair herself. Grabbed a scissors when I wasn’t looking and hacked it off.”
“What? Why?” Sam asked, aghast.
“She said Moonchild loved her hair,” Janine said bitterly.
“So she talked to you?” Sam asked, looking between them. “She told you? About what happened to her?”
Again the two women glanced meaningfully at each other. “She did,” Maxine said tentatively. “But it’s not for you to know, Sam. She’s been through a lot. I think she’s having a hard time accepting what’s real.”
“You have to tell me a little more than that,” Sam protested. “I don’t need to know everything, but… how did she go from telling you her story to not speaking at all?”
Maxine seemed to pick her words carefully. “She seemed fine at first. Almost herself. But it was like the more she talked the more she began to doubt her reality. And then she just… shut down.”
Sam digested this for a moment. “Maybe I could…”
“No!” Both women snapped.
“Mr. Yao, we told you not to visit and you broke that rule. You saw the state she’s in. She needs time to come to terms with her situation, and you won’t help by barging in and prattling at her. I know you… care about Runner Five but the best thing you can do right now is stay away,” Janine said. She said it oddly, and seemed tense, as if there was some subtext he wasn’t understanding. Sam hated being left out of the loop, especially about Five.
“She’s right, Sam,” Maxine said. She sounded exhausted, and sad. “You’re the worst person for Five to see right now.”
Sam bristled. “Oh come on, now you’re just being mean. The worst person? I’m her comms operator, her friend!”
“Consider this an order,” Janine said. “You are not to visit Runner Five again until we give you the all-clear. Do you understand?”
“I—” he started to protest.
“Do you understand, Mr. Yao?”
Sam hung his head. “Yeah. Yes.”
“Good,” Janine said primly. “Then we’re done here.”
Sam left the med tent meekly. He glanced at the dark shape of Five’s little shed, and stopped. This wasn’t… this wasn’t right! They couldn’t just ban him from Five, at least not without an explanation. He was her comms operator, he’d saved her more times than he could count. He deserved to know, he had to…
He had to do something.
He waited until Janine exited and watched Paula enter, then squared his shoulders and started back into the med tent. Without Janine’s influence, Maxine would surely crumble and tell him something.
He paused at the flap, hand hovering outstretched to push past the canvas.
“How is she?” he heard Paula ask.
“I’m worried, darling,” Maxine murmured. “She’s not eating. I don’t want to have to force feed her, but…”
“We’re not there yet,” Paula said firmly. “We have time.”
“Not much,” Maxine said. “If we can’t get her to eat…”
“We will,” Paula insisted. “Maxie, she’ll be okay.”
Maxine’s voice sounded muffled, as if it was buried in Paula’s shoulder. “You’re right, you’re right,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced. “She’s going to be fine. She has to be.”
Sam backed away, his heart in his throat. Five wasn’t even eating? She could… what if she…
No. He could fix this. He seized upon an idea, and headed for the kitchens.
So he wasn’t supposed to visit her. What did they know? He could help. He was… well at times he wasn’t sure what he was to her. A friend? More? He only knew that his feelings were so big they were leaking out of him and he needed to do something.
It was late afternoon. He’d bribed one of the cooks to make pie, but it had taken most of the day; first the bribing, then the actual baking. It was proper rhubarb pie, with the wild rhubarb some of the runners had foraged in the nearby woods. It cost a lot of his Curly Wurlys, but now he held one of the first slices of rhubarb pie he’d seen in, well, since the world ended. It was her favorite.
If anything could get Five to eat, it was this.
Sam was surprised to see Jody pacing back and forth in front of the small converted shed. Her left eye was still puffy and purple from Five’s right hook, but she was otherwise fine. Just like Sam, the physical scars of what Five had done while mind-controlled would take time to heal.
“Jody,” he said, smiling tentatively. She’d been cagey every since Five had arrived back in Abel, and he wasn’t sure how she felt about the situation. “Are you here to see Five?”
“Yeah, no, I dunno,” Jody said, still pacing. “I was gonna go in and now I… I’m not sure I can. What do I say to her? ‘No hard feelings about the time you tried to kill me? Water under the bridge?’”
“You know Five wasn’t herself when she did that,” he said, cautious. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.
Jody finally stopped and hung her head. “Yeah, I know,” she admitted. “And I’m worried about her. Word gets around, can’t keep a secret around here. I want to tell her it’s okay, that I forgive her. Or that she doesn’t need forgiving. But…”
“But what?” Sam prompted after she trailed off.
“It’s not that I don’t get that she was mind-controlled,” Jody finally said. “I’m not blind, I saw all our people march out of Abel like they were puppets. It’s just… I find myself kind of… disappointed. I thought, if any of us would be immune it would be Five. She seemed, I dunno, stronger than that. Like she should have been able to break it. Like she shouldn’t have been able to look me in the eye and hurt me like that.”
“Five’s only human, Jody,” Sam said softly. “No one beats Moonchild’s mind-control, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jody said, her voice glum. Her shoulders slumped. “Can’t help how I feel though.”
Sam glanced behind her, and his eyes widened. Jody turned, and her face paled when she saw that the shed door had been left open a crack. “Oh god,” Jody said, suddenly whispering. “You don’t think she heard that, do you?”
“I think you should go,” Sam said. He felt fury come on so strongly it was like a lash, burning a line of fire across his heart. It surprised him; he’d never been angry at Jody before. He didn’t think he’d been this angry since Nadia nearly killed Five.
Jody’s face fell. “I can apologize…”
“Jody, just… just go.” She left, and as quickly as it had come Sam’s fury dissipated, and he felt suddenly so, so tired. It wasn’t her fault she had overestimated Five. Most people did. Five had become something of a legend around Abel. Most didn’t know her like he did; they hadn’t seen her when she fell asleep at his desk and drooled, or when she had food between her teeth, or told really, terribly, embarrassingly bad jokes, or did that weird baby talk whenever she saw a dog.
He shook his head and sighed, clutching his piece of pie. This was going to work. He’d get his Five back.
He pushed open the door. “Five? I’m coming in.”
The room looked the same. Five looked the same, huddled in the fetal position with her back to him. She must have moved at some point; her clothes were clean, though her hair was just as greasy as before. He hovered by the door, which he made sure to firmly close behind him.
“I brought pie,” he said, moving to place it on the small table by her head. It smelled amazing, still warm from the oven. He found himself salivating just smelling it. “It’s rhubarb, your favorite. Runners have been finding wild patches of it everywhere this spring, and I got the kitchens to… well, it doesn’t matter. It’s still warm.”
He waited, hoping that the enticing smell of fresh pie would coax her to sit up and eat, but she didn’t move. He sighed, shuffling awkwardly.
“Look, I know you probably heard what Jody said. It’s not… she’s just… she’s just trying to make sense of things. She didn’t mean it. And I mean, you never liked when people had a hero complex about you. Maybe it’s a good thing, that they’ll see you as… normal, now. I don’t know. That could be good, couldn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. Sam found himself growing frustrated, a kernel of near-hysteria bubbling up in his chest. This couldn’t be the end, it couldn’t. She had to get better. She’d come back to him, goddamnit. That had to count for something. She’d come back to him, and she was supposed to fall into his arms and hug him and turn that freckled face to his with her absolutely bloody beautiful smile and it would be enough even if she didn’t love him back because she’d be there, with him, not like this, frozen in a dark room not even eating her pie, not even eating pie!
“Five, you need to eat,” he said, in as stern a voice as he could muster. “And drink. You can’t just waste away. We need you.” He swallowed hard. “I need you.”
She twitched. Had something gotten through to her? He wet his lips, somewhat emboldened.
“Five, when you were gone, it was like… like the sun had gone out. Because that’s what you are to… us, here at Abel. You make us believe that we can be better than we are. You make us… no, sod it, you make me believe I can be better. Do you know how much harder I work when you’re around? Like I’m afraid of letting you down. And not because you’re like Janine or anything but because you make me want to be better so that I could be… I could be worthy of you.”
She twitched again. He could see the white of the corner of her eye, wide in the darkness, a spooked horse.
He kept going, trembling. He felt like he was stretching out a hand for a rare bird to land on, hoping it wouldn’t fly away forever. Was this what she wanted to hear? Did she… could she feel the same way about him?
“You can’t just fade away, Five, because I need you. I need you. I have for a long time now. And I don’t blame you for anything, or hold anything against you, at all, because how could I when I’m in love with you?”
He finally stopped speaking, almost unable to believe the words had left his mouth. Words that he’d been wanting to say for months, words that at times he felt himself holding back so tightly it was like they were fighting to get out of his throat. I love you, I love you, I love you.
“I love you, Five,” he repeated softly. “I don’t know if it’s welcome or not, but it’s true. And I’m starting to be afraid that if I don’t tell you now I won’t get the chance.”
For a long moment there was silence. Then, slowly, Five began to move. Her legs uncurled. Her back straightened.
She sat up, facing away from him. Sam could see the curve of her spine, the movement of her back as she inhaled and exhaled. He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Five?”
Slowly, she stood. Sam watched, bemused, as she turned and walked briskly to the door. She opened it, and closed it behind her with a soft thump.
“Well,” he muttered sadly, alone in the dark room. “I guess that’s that.”
It wasn’t until the alarm began to blare that he had any inkling he had just made a terrible mistake.
“Runners… doesn’t matter who, every runner head to the eastern barricade as fast as you can, go!”
Sam heard Janine’s emergency announcement blare over the loudspeakers as he raced to the comms shack. What was happening? And where was Five?
He burst into it a few seconds later, nerves spiking his pulse as if he’d just ran a mile. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Janine ignored him, instead talking through her headset to her runners. “If you climb over the farm equipment you can get through the gap,” she said, referencing a still-unfixed hole the zombies had torn in their eastern defenses when Five let them in. They’d barricaded it with old farm equipment and kept a watch on it ever since. “Five’s moving slow, she hasn’t eaten in days. You’ll catch up with her before she’s a mile out if you keep up the pace.”
“Five?” Sam asked frantically, grabbing a headset of his own and crouching next to Janine. “But I just saw her. What happened?”
“What if she’s mind-controlled?” Jody’s voice asked through the headset. “What if she attacks us?”
“It is our belief that she isn’t mind controlled,” Janine said curtly. “Just confused.”
“Isn’t this how it started last time?” Jody asked, her voice ratcheting up a notch. “With her running away from Abel? Should I have a gun?”
“Do you intend to shoot Runner Five, Runner Four?” Janine said, her voice ice cold. Jody faltered.
“No, I mean, of course not, I’m just…”
“Then let there be no more talk of guns. Runner Five needs help, not a bullet. Catch up to her. Stall her until Dr. Myers can get there with a sedative. Run!”
The line went quiet. Sam reached out and hit the mute button. “Janine, what—”
Janine spun on him, her eyes alight with barely contained fury. “Mr. Yao, did you say you were with Runner Five? Just now?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“After we’d expressly forbidden you from visiting her?”
He raised his hands, feeling defensive. “I thought I could help! I just talked! And then she… got up and walked away.” He glanced at the monitors. Through Jody’s headcam he could just see Five’s back, running at a limping pace in the distance. “Well, ran away, I suppose.”
“What did you say to her?” Janine demanded. “What exactly did you say to her? Wait.” She pressed a button and unmuted Maxine’s headset. “Maxine? Mr. Yao is about to tell us what he said to make Five run.”
“I didn’t say anything to make her run!” he protested. “I just brought her pie, and told her we were worried about her, and I, well I might have, but it’s nothing, just—”
“Spit it out, Sam,” Maxine said, breathing heavily as she ran.
“I might have told her… that I love her. I know, not the best time, but I thought that maybe knowing someone really cared might help. But… that can’t be it, right? Someone doesn’t sprint into zombie infested territory because someone says they love them.”
Janine and Maxine were both silent, the only sound Maxine’s slightly labored breathing as she sprinted. Then, she said: “Janine, I think you should show him.”
“I will,” Janine said curtly. “When Runner Five is home safe.”
Sam furrowed his brow. “Show me what?”
“Approaching Five now,” Jody said, and Sam saw it through the headcam. There were four runners all together, and they sprinted up and circled Five even as she ran, slow and weak but determined. Her short, greasy hair stuck up at all angles and there were dark rings around her wide, wild eyes. She looked nothing like the Five Sam remembered, her hair bouncing as she ran, arms and legs tan from all the time in the sun, freckles like little stars across her face and down her arms. What had Moonchild done to her?
“Hey there Five,” Jody said cautiously. “It’s me, Jody. You know me. We’re here to help. You have to go back to Abel. Let’s go home, together, okay Five?”
Sam watched Five look around and register the other runners hemming her in on all sides. She slowed to a stop, her hands held out to warn them off. She had no weapons, nothing that could conceivably keep away four determined runners, but she swung out anyway.
“I’m not going back,” she wept, and he could see the tears on her cheeks. “You can’t make me hurt them again, I won’t!”
“It’s us, Five, we’re not going to make you hurt anyone,” Jody said, and Five shook her head like a dog shaking off water.
“You’re not real, you’re not real,” she muttered. “None of this is real. Just another… just another hallucination. Just like all the others.”
“Five,” Jody said tentatively, but then Runner Eighteen tackled her from behind.
He was tall, and strong, and Five went down like a sack of potatoes. The rest of them piled on, some sitting on her just to make sure she wouldn’t thrash out.
“Just until Dr. Myers comes,” Jody said soothingly. Five stared at her from under a mass of runners, her eyes cold.
“It’s not really Dr. Myers,” she said dispassionately. “I know now. I know, I know.” She closed her eyes, sounding very tired. “Please don’t make me hurt them again.”
Just then Maxine arrived, and a moment later Five was limp from the needle the doctor slid into her neck.
Once Five was securely locked back into her shed, Maxine, Paula and Janine joined Sam in the comms shack. Maxine slid a USB drive into the computer.
“I want you to know that nothing you see ever goes beyond this room,” Maxine said sternly. “Ever. I’m not even supposed to show you this, but…”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Paula said encouragingly. “He needs to know.”
“I agree,” Janine said. “Play it.”
Maxine sighed, and hit play.
The security camera footage was grainy, but Sam could see Five clear enough, sitting with her hands clenched over her knees in the med tent. Her hair was still long, hanging around her face and damp from the shower.
Paula, Maxine, and Janine sat in a loose circle around her. “It’s okay,” Maxine said soothingly. “This is a safe place.”
“I’m sorry to have to do this, but we have to know what happened while you were with Moonchild,” Paula said. “Everything you can remember. We wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important, Five, you know that.”
Five looked queasy. “Everything?” she asked softly. “You don’t need everything.”
“Yes, we do,” Janine said. “You don’t know what kind of information could be hidden in a seemingly innocent interaction. You have to tell us everything, Five, and you have to tell us now.”
“Please,” Maxine added, shooting Janine a look. Janine huffed.
“Yes, of course. Please, Five. You must want to stop her more than anyone.”
Five sucked in a breath, suddenly angry. “You want to know about Moonchild? What is it you want to know? Do you want to know she’s still vegan, even now? How she only eats with chopsticks? Carries them around with her everywhere in a little plastic case? How about how she has minions who weave her flower crowns so she has fresh ones daily? Or that she likes being the big spoon? You want to know about that?”
She broke off, breathing heavily, her shoulders so tight it was like a turtle pulling its shell up. For a moment there was brutal silence. Then Janine spoke.
“Yes. That. Everything, Five.”
Her words seemed to surprise Five. She looked around at the pitying faces of her friends and her sudden anger went out, a fire doused by a cold shock.
“It won’t leave this room?” Her voice dropped, sounding almost ashamed. “I couldn’t bare…”
“It’s just between us,” Paula confirmed.
“I’ve been there, Five,” Maxine said, putting a comforting hand on her knee. “I know what it’s like.”
Five shook her off. She looked like a trapped animal. Sam found himself wanting to reach through the screen to save her from their interrogation and whatever it did to make her retreat into herself.
“No,” Five said, her voice very thin, a wire about to snap. “You don’t know what it’s like. You were… a drone. She didn’t care about you.”
“And what were you?” Paula asked carefully.
Five closed her eyes. “Her pet.”