Chapter 1: One: Kara
Chapter Text
Kara didn’t know the world from Before the way her adoptive parents did. All she’d ever known was the After—the abandoned suburbs and cities, the raiders lying in wait to catch unprepared travelers, the infected. No one ever left the safety of the old college campus that served as the Fireflies’ base of operations, unless they were trained soldiers or stupid.
Today, Kara was the latter.
She was freshly sixteen, feeling high on life, and had convinced her sister, Alex, to take her to a safe area beyond the fortified perimeter of the school just after dawn when the guard rotation left a brief blind spot on the north side. She knew this because Alex was training to be a soldier one day, despite their parents’ wishes for her to pursue medicine like them, and Kara had exploited that information with her biggest puppy eyes and the most intense pout she could manage. She wanted to see what the world was like beyond the looming walls of the university.
Alex led the way with quick, silent steps that Kara tried to mimic, but she knew she was failing when the older girl periodically shot a glare over her shoulder to silently tell her to shut up. They were both dressed in light, waterproof jackets—Alex's dark forest green, Kara’s faded navy—jeans, hiking boots, and thin long-sleeved shirts that could unbutton to reveal their tank tops if the weather got warm later in the day. They each had a backpack over their shoulders with clip-on flashlights on the left strap, stuffed with food, water, first-aid supplies, fire starters, and a gas mask. Alex had insisted they needed all of these things in case something went wrong and they couldn’t come home quickly, but her grave tone hadn’t deterred Kara; she was ready to explore a little.
Ahead, the perimeter wall towered over what was once a parking lot for students and faculty, but was now studded with concrete barriers, barbed wire, and floodlights. There was a pillbox on the wall, vacant as Alex said it would be, and two guards on the ground by a ladder that led up to the box swapping gear and notes from the overnight watch. She said it had to be like that because the space the lookout sits or stands in all shift isn’t big enough to comfortably fit two grown adults while they hand off weapons and gear. Hence, their opportunity to escape unnoticed through an old storm drain that opened on the other side of the wall, further down from the pillbox.
Kara darted after her sister as the auburn-haired ninja snuck noiselessly and gracefully around the barriers, sticking to the shadows the floodlights created in the pre-dawn. Kara was less graceful, but adrenaline kept her just as silent. She was desperate at this point to get a taste of the real Colorado.
Alex peeked over a nearby barrier one last time to ensure they weren’t noticed, then shrugged off her bag and threw it down into the drain before sliding in feet-first on her back. Kara followed suit, and after a few moments of squeezing and slight claustrophobia, she was standing triumphantly beside Alex with a wide grin on her face as she straightened up her messy ponytail.
“This is fun!” she whisper-shouted.
Alex rolled her eyes. “Come on, stupid. We’re not out yet.”
They flicked on their flashlights and made quick work of the storm drain system. Alex had boasted she’d been down this path several times to fool around with a girl from the agriculture section of campus and had never run into spores or infected, so Kara felt safe, if not mildly disgusted at the thought of her sister’s burgeoning sex life at eighteen.
Eventually, they came to a rusty ladder that was missing a rung about midway up. Alex stopped Kara with a hand and produced a pistol from the back of her waistband she hadn’t known was there and ascended to the surface first. She hefted the lid one-armed with a quiet grunt, held her pistol up in her other hand, and did a quick scan of their surroundings before nodding to herself and emerging fully from the tunnel. Kara heard the lid thumping as it hit the ground beside the opening and she felt herself buzzing with excitement as her sister poked her head back down to gesture for her to climb up as well.
She clambered out of the tunnel maybe too eagerly, and she definitely created mud stains on her knees, but the sight before her took her breath away. Miles away, the Rockies, dusted with fresh snow and gleaming gloriously in the morning light, greeted her anew. She'd seen them, obviously, since she lived so nearby, but having nothing before her except nature and a smattering of abandoned farmhouses was a fresh experience. Then, she noticed something moving in the midground of the image her brain was busy memorizing and she gasped all over again.
“Are those--?”
“Yep,” Alex said with a smile. “Wanna get closer?”
Kara whipped her head around hopefully and peered up at her sister, who was slightly taller than her now since she’d hit a late growth spurt at seventeen. “Can we?”
“Of course. I didn’t bring you all the way out here to kick rocks.”
Kara took off at a brisk pace with her giggling chaperone behind her, ignoring the rapidly-disappearing walls of the university as she navigated the small hills separating her from her destination.
“Not too close; you’ll scare them,” Alex murmured as they crested a hill that put them about fifty yards from the spectacle that had captured Kara’s attention. They laid on their bellies to make themselves more invisible and Kara made sure her arm was pressed up against Alex’s like an appreciative hug as she gaped at the giraffes moving in a lazy herd across an open field.
“I’ve never seen them this close,” Kara whispered.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“Definitely.”
“Happy birthday, Kar.”
They laid there for a long time observing the giraffes go about their daily business while also quietly gushing over the two babies in the group. Kara wasn’t sure what a baby giraffe was called, or if it even had a name separate from an adult like most other animals did. She assumed foal or calf was the answer, but Alex couldn’t confirm her thoughts when she’d said them aloud. After a while, when the orange glow of dawn had faded to a brighter gold to signal the morning proper had come, Kara grew restless and asked what their next destination was, to which Alex smirked and pulled herself off the ground.
“I think you’ll like this,” she said before bounding down the hill towards the university.
“I don’t want to go back yet!” Kara lamented.
“Relax, we’re going to the ski resort. It’s a long walk, so I hid a couple bikes in that farmhouse out there,” she said as she pointed to a small ranch house in the distance.
“When did you have time to do that?”
“Two nights ago when everyone thought I was studying late.”
“Alex! What if something had happened to you? We wouldn’t have known where to look.”
“Would you stop? I did a nice thing for your birthday, and I’m pretty capable of defending myself by now. They’re letting me start supply runs next month to Salt Lake.”
“Really? That’s huge! Do Eliza and Jeremiah know?”
“Not yet. Don’t tell them, either. I know you have a big mouth.”
Kara scoffed, affronted. “I do not!”
“You literally caved in ten seconds when they asked where you got that weed last month.”
“I didn’t want to get grounded! It wasn’t even my weed; I was stashing it for you while you were cleaning out your old clothes with Eliza, remember?”
Alex sighed. “Yeah, I didn’t think she’d have the energy to go through your old stuff the same day.”
“See? Not my fault.”
The older girl grumbled and they walked in silence for a while before Kara got bored and started a game of twenty questions to pass the time.
“Oh my god, is it a bison?” Alex asked with realization and incredulity entering her voice.
“Yeah, good job,” Kara said with a smile. It only took nineteen questions.
“That was dumb.”
“You’re the one who couldn’t guess bison in less than ten questions.”
“Who thinks of that? When’s the last time you saw a bison, anyway?”
“Last year, on the roof of the science building with Markos Loper. He had binoculars.”
“What were you doing up there with Markos Loper?”
Kara’s grin turned smug. “You don’t wanna know.”
Alex’s face blanched and she mimed gagging. “You’re right. I don’t.”
Kara laughed until they were walking up the overgrown driveway leading to the farmhouse. Alex stashed the bikes just inside the front door, but she knocked on the wood and held her gun aloft to check for squatters or infected anyway. When nothing jumped out at them or moaned the way Kara had seen infected do in educational videos, they rolled the pair of bikes out onto the front yard and began pedaling towards the mountains.
It was late morning by the time they reached the little town at the base of the mountain range, far from the university and blocked from sight by tall foothills that had winding, crumbling roads leading up to the mouth of the resort town. Ski lifts were at the far end of the main road going up higher and higher into the Rockies until they disappeared in wispy, low-hanging clouds. It seemed like people used to be able to just ski right into town.
Kara was huffing and had stripped off her jacket over an hour ago, even as the weather got colder the higher they cycled. Alex was faring a bit better, but she was also red in the face with exertion when she dismounted and began steering her bike with her hands towards a craftsman style building with chipped green paint and faded wood varnish on its pillars and porch. Kara followed dutifully, relieved to be giving her legs a break after such a long ride. She’d never done so much cardio in her life. They leaned the bikes against the railing on the outside of the porch and Alex did a sweep of the empty, almost eerie, street around them with all its cabin-themed buildings and condos sprawling out beyond them. When she was apparently satisfied they were secluded enough, she walked up the porch steps and gently opened the front door with her pistol out again before throwing a nearby aluminum can against something Kara couldn’t see from her spot on the porch. Her gut twisted nervously as they waited for any signs of life or infected. When nothing happened, Alex ventured forth bravely and motioned for Kara to stick close while she did a quick sweep of the dusty interior. Kara was too nervous to look around much, feeling the anxiety roil inside her as she waited for danger, scared for the first time since leaving the university that morning.
“Okay, I think we’re good,” Alex sighed as she emerged from a back room that appeared to be the only other space in the building. Then she gestured with her hands with a goofy grin on her face and said, “Ta-da! Birthday gift part two!”
Kara finally took a breath and let go the fear she’d been clinging to for the last few minutes before turning to face her surroundings. When she realized where they were, she nearly squealed with excitement.
“An art store? How did you know this was here?” she asked animatedly as she began perusing the supplies from a time long gone. There were different sized brushes, sponges, palettes, and canvases. Stacks of sketchbooks were piled on a shelf by the front window with containers of charcoal pencils and graphite pencils beneath them. Colored pencils, paint markers, oil paints, watercolors, everything Kara had ever dreamed of, all in one spot, seemingly untouched since the cordyceps outbreak twenty years ago.
At the center of it all was her sister, looking awfully proud of herself. Kara hugged her fiercely.
“Thank you,” she said, suddenly choked up. “I love it. And I love you.”
“You’re welcome, dork. Now pick some stuff; we have to be back by dark.”
Kara’s lips tucked into her teeth as she eyed the supplies around her. She took her time picking up different tubes, brushes, and pencils. She tested them on canvases and sketchpads, making Alex giggle with the silly cartoons she drew or painted in a hasty scribble. She’d always loved drawing. It had been an escape for her as much as reading or watching movies or playing video games, but more somehow, too. She could create images conjured from her imagination or recreate memories on paper. There was a framed drawing of her birth father in her bedroom back at the university, from a time before his life was claimed in the Fireflies’ war with the remnants of the old US government called FEDRA. She had drawn Eliza, Jeremiah, and Alex, too, and hung that portrait in the living room only after she’d added herself to the image at Eliza’s insistence. The ones in her room besides the picture of her dad were of landscapes she wished she could see someday; idyllic homesteads with sweeping sunset views, a horse majestically drinking from a creek in the woods, Kara herself dressed as an astronaut on the moon. Everyone told her she had a real talent, and she traded her skills for making cards and decorations for people in exchange for more supplies if there were any lying around. Jeremiah was encouraging her to become a bookkeeper so she could copy medical and technical texts for future use as the originals degraded over time. She’d made a face when he first suggested it, but he reminded her it would be a noble profession, ensuring knowledge continued to be passed down to future generations. Ever since, she’d taken a keen interest in honing her skills.
Eventually, after Kara had decided what she wanted to take and what she would come back for someday, she turned to Alex with a satisfied smile and a heavy backpack.
“Ready to go?” her sister asked from her perch on the old check-out counter. She’d been entertaining herself by asking Kara tons of questions about what she was looking at, what she thought of the items in her hands, and what she’d draw with them. It was sweet. Kara knew she didn’t really care for arts and crafts, but the interest for her sake was endearing.
“I think so.”
“I’ll bring you back here when you start to run low again. Promise.”
They turned to the front door and began moseying toward it when a distinctly unpleasant, croaking moan echoed from the street and into the building. The pair stopped dead in their tracks and traded horrified glances before Alex’s training and protective instincts took over and she drew her gun in the same moment she zipped to the front window. Kara crouched at her silent instruction and pressed herself into the shelving lining the side of the store where the canvases were, doing her best not to knock one over. Her heart was beating in her throat and she could feel the blood rushing in her ears, except her hearing was laser-focused on the sounds outside. Her body was ready for flight, be she knew it would likely come down to a fight. And she didn’t have a weapon.
Alex was peering over the windowsill with serious eyes. Her hands shook slightly. It was her first time encountering an infected, too, Kara remembered. Her dry runs with the patrol groups to show her the ropes were controlled and meant to instill confidence in her survival skills. They hadn’t graduated her to the real thing yet. Kara hoped she was ready.
After a tense moment of silence, Alex sighed quietly and turned to Kara. “I think we’re in the clear. It was probably by a window in one of the other buildings. If we get the bikes, we can make a break for it and leave it in the dust.”
“You’re sure?” Kara’s voice shook when she spoke, but she didn’t feel embarrassed.
A nod. “I’ll keep you safe. Come on.”
They tiptoed out onto the porch and stayed as silent as they could manage in their clunky boots. Kara caught movement in her peripheral vision and snapped her head that way, gripping Alex’s sleeve with urgency.
“What?” she whispered.
“There,” Kara said with a slight gesture at the corner of the building where the barest hint of a cordyceps growth was peeking out. A stalker, her mind supplied. Stage 2 infected, partially blind, sneaky, and prone to attacking from behind. There also tended to be more than one around at a time. Her stomach dropped at the thought.
Alex noticed what she was pointing at and shifted slowly so that Kara was behind her. She raised her gun and swallowed harshly as the sounds of the stalker’s harsh breathing reached them.
“When I say, run for the bikes. It’ll jump out, see me, then stop while it thinks of what to do next. They don’t like head-on confrontation unless they have to. I’ll shoot it while it hesitates.”
Kara could only nod, unsure of what else they could do in this moment, blinded by fear as she was.
A beat. Two.
“Go!”
Kara bolted. The stalker shrieked horribly and began scrambling around the building, until it noticed Alex. She shot it three times, but Kara didn’t turn around to see if she got it because another stalker chose that moment to emerge from the other side of the house, much closer to Kara than the other one had been. She screamed in alarm and tried to use the bike as a shield, the frame feeling light as air with all the adrenaline in her veins, but the stalker bodied her so hard, she fell back onto the cold ground. She was yelling, crying out for her sister, and Alex was firing her gun, but Kara couldn’t keep track of how many shots were ringing through the air because she felt teeth in her arm and she knew. Just a second after the bite, the stalker’s head whipped back as blood and fungal plates sprayed from its skull. The sudden silence was permeated with their panting breaths, almost as alarming as the onset of the ambush now that it was the only thing to focus on.
“Oh shit, Kara,” Alex gasped, terror dripping from her voice and facial expression as she pulled the bike off and looked her over from where she sat on the ground.
She looked down at her own arm numbly and inspected the perfect impression of teeth in a ring of blood midway up her right forearm, on the fleshy inside part. They stared at it before Alex started weeping, prompting Kara’s own existential dread.
Oh god. I’m dead. This is it. I’m sixteen, and I’m dead. Everything I ever wanted to do is gone. I’ll never see the ocean, or visit a museum, or have sex, or fall in love. What if there’s nothing after death? What if this is all there is and I’m about to die and then there’s nothing--
“I’m so sorry,” Alex sobbed as Kara began to cry. “I’m so fucking sorry. I should never have brought you out here. It was dumb.”
“I’m sorry I’m so useless,” Kara told her sister. “I should have been able to defend myself better.”
“No, no—Kara, I’m actually trained for this and I fucked it up! I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Alex, please--”
“I’ll stay with you,” the older girl said resolutely, cutting her off. “I’ll stay until you’re... not yourself. And then...”
They cried as they embraced then, careful to keep Kara’s bloodied wound away from Alex as they clutched each other close for one of the last times, ever.
Kara sniffled as she forced herself to be strong for Alex. “You don’t have to stay,” she said into her shoulder. “You can leave the gun and...”
“No, Kara. I’m not leaving you. We got into this together, and we’ll see it through together.”
“I’m scared,” Kara admitted shakily, not ten full seconds after her resolution to be brave.
“Me too. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
They cried for a while longer, ignoring the bodies nearby with their tattered clothes and frostbitten skin overgrown with fungus. Kara tried to focus solely on the sensations of the hug as she calmed herself. Eventually, when they both began to take deep breaths to slow their heart rates, Alex kissed her hair firmly and stood. “Come on, then. Let’s go back inside in case there’s more somewhere. Draw me something.”
The intention behind her words went unsaid, but Kara heard it as though she’d shouted. Draw me one last thing so I can always remember.
Everything they were taught in school growing up about the infected involved meticulous memorization of the different stages, their characteristics, and how long it took to develop symptoms depending on where the bite was. Kara was in Stage 1, when she would turn into a frenzied madwoman who could resist the call to bite and infect others if she tried, but only until the fungus finished growing over her brain. Once that happened, she would be wailing and moaning as she sought out prey. Runners, the soldiers called them. They were more likely to charge headfirst towards a target while their eyes still worked. Over the next few hours, her body would start to react to the fungus, spiking a fever, causing dizziness, shakiness, and hallucinations. Increased irritability and aggression would follow. Then Alex would have to put her down before she could lash out.
Kara wrapped her arm with bandages from her bag to distract herself from her new reality, then got to work drawing a picture for Alex. Her sister sat beside her on the ground, their knees touching. Neither of them spoke, but their emotional sniveling pierced the silence every now and then. When Alex realized what she’d been drawing, she laughed wetly.
“The giraffes,” she said as Kara continued to swipe the colored pencils across the fancy paper in the sketchbook she’d picked out earlier.
“And us,” Kara told her as she began an outline of their bodies in the foreground, sitting up next to each other rather than lying on their bellies. She drew Alex’s shorter hair in streaks of burnt orange and deep maroon, then her own in swirls of golden yellow and light brown. She took her time putting the little details into things while she could, expecting her fine motor function to start failing her any time now.
By the time she was satisfied with what she’d drawn, though, over an hour had passed and she didn’t feel any different.
“I thought I would at least be feverish by now,” Kara almost griped as she closed the sketchbook and handed it off to her sister. Her last ever drawing.
“Honestly, I did too. Let me feel.” Her hand pressed to Kara’s forehead the way their parents did when they were sick. Not the most reliable measure of body temperature, but it would have to do in the field, they always said. When Alex pulled her hand back, she was frowning. “You don’t feel any different at all? Not even a little bit?”
“I mean the bite kind of burns, but I feel fine otherwise.”
“Hold your hand straight out.” Kara did as she was told. “Hold it steady and count down from ten, slowly and clearly.” Again, she did as she was told. When she reached the end, she dropped her steady hand back to her lap and leaned against the checkout counter behind her.
“Maybe we have it wrong and arm bites take longer than an hour to show symptoms?” she floated.
“No, we’ve always been taught arms take no more than an hour,” Alex reiterated. “Torsos take half an hour to two hours, depending on how high or low they are, or if they’re in the front or back. Legs take two or three hours, depending on how high or low they are.”
“Let’s just wait and see,” Kara said. She was beginning to become okay with her fate. A strange calmness had overcome her as she drew the giraffes for Alex, and now she was almost annoyed that her death wasn’t approaching faster. Couldn't they just get it over with? She didn’t want the dread to have time to cycle back around.
After another hour, Alex shifted to the shelf opposite the checkout counter and observed Kara almost scientifically as the sun began to descend below the mountain peaks outside. They would be missed soon. Someone would sound an alert to look around the school and when that search turned up empty, they would send scouts to investigate beyond the walls. It wasn’t entirely unheard of for teens to sneak out, but it didn’t happen very often, so it was never anyone’s first assumption when kids didn’t come home on time. Nobody knew where they were now, though. No scouts would find them.
Four hours after being bitten, they decided to unravel the bandage on Kara’s arm. The sun had almost fully set and they had to use their flashlights to see, but they had grown morbidly curious in their wait for the infection to take hold. Kara held her arm out once the cloth had come off and they both balked at what they saw.
“It’s not even black,” Alex almost accused. “There aren’t any growths crawling up your veins and arteries, either.”
“Let me clean it,” Kara said. “I wanna see the bite better.”
By now, she should have had thick ropes of cordyceps snaking up her arm towards her heart via her blood vessels to further propagate the infection to the rest of her system. Now, they only saw a slight bumpiness around the bite, like cysts just beneath the skin. Kara cleaned it the way she’d been shown by their parents and when the dried blood was clear, they inspected the wound closer.
“It’s congealed, but there’s nothing growing out of it,” Kara observed. “Shouldn’t there be fungus by now?”
“Definitely, yes.” Alex looked up at her then and stared intensely into Kara’s eyes. “What if you’re immune?”
She couldn’t stop the laugh that erupted from her. Kara clapped a hand over her mouth quickly and leaned back once more to her original position against the counter.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alex.”
“I’m being serious, Kara. It’s been almost five hours now and you don’t even have a fever.”
“No one’s immune to cordyceps.”
“That we know of. It’s a disease like everything else that’s ever tried to wipe humanity out. Some people just have a natural immunity to things. What if that’s what’s happening here?”
“I’d say you’re reaching.”
“Okay, fine. How about this: we stay up all night. We don’t worry about me getting back to the university, and I stay here with you. If, by morning, you don’t have a fever, we’re sneaking back into town and going home, and acting like this never happened. Deal?”
“What if I turn in another day or two? And then I’m in town around everyone else and I bite someone?”
“I won’t let it come to that. We’ll keep you locked up at home.”
“How would we even hide the fact that I’m bitten? Eliza and Jeremiah are gonna want to look at my arm if it’s bandaged.”
Alex looked down in thought for a moment before she began rummaging through her bag. She pulled out her fire starter kit and her bowie knife from the sheath tied to her belt loop and looked back up at Kara’s questioning gaze.
“In the morning, we get this knife good and hot, and then we burn the bite. When it scars, the skin will be too damaged to see any teeth marks.”
Kara blinked. “That’s going to hurt.”
“For sure. But it’s better than being shot because some soldier finds us sneaking in and sees your arm like it is now.”
With a heaving sigh, Kara closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sixteen sucks so far.”
Neither of them slept that night. By the time the watery light of early dawn began bleeding into the art shop, Kara was still as healthy as ever and Alex’s hypothesis seemed to have some credibility to it. She refused to let herself hope, though. There was a chance she was just experiencing a delayed onset for some reason.
She watched with a skeptical frown on her face as Alex heated the blade of her knife over a small fire she’d made in a metal trashcan from the back room of the shop. They cracked a window to help ventilate the smoke out, but it still had them coughing a little as they sat near the flames. When the blade was glowing orange, Kara grimaced and stuck out her arm.
After, when Kara had cried herself out from the pain and Alex had finished apologizing profusely, her sister delicately wrapped the burnt skin in an antibiotic salve made from natural ingredients she’d brought along and then went out to grab some snow off the hills. She packed it tight into another cloth, tied the ends until it made a little ball, then wrapped a third cloth around the snow pack so it was sitting snugly against her bandaged burn to take some of the heat off.
They started the long ride home shortly after with Kara cradling her injured arm close to her body and steering mostly with one hand unless she needed the extra control provided with two hands. They didn’t speak the entire journey.
Sneaking in during the middle of the day was dumb and a sure way to get caught, so they holed up in the same farmhouse they’d gotten the bikes from the day before and waited until the day shift began to switch over to night shift. When it was time, they retraced their steps from yesterday morning and jogged through the tunnels until they reached the drain they’d crawled through originally. Wordlessly, Alex gave her a boost and then Kara laid prone to pull her up behind her. They snuck through the shadows back to the apartment complex where their parents had been assigned a dwelling once Alex had been born. Nobody saw them, despite the patrols and people getting off work late. It was kind of miraculous, but Kara guessed nothing should be so surprising anymore if she was really turning out to be immune to the bane of human existence.
When they quietly climbed the steps to their second-story unit, they each took a fortifying breath before Alex unlocked the front door and led them inside. There, on the couch, was Eliza with her graying blonde hair tied back into a messy bun, still in her work scrubs. She had a file on the coffee table, tea in a mug beside it, judging by the smell, and the lights were fully on. She must have just gotten in. When she registered the door opening, she looked up and her whole body sagged with relief before she stood up.
“Where have you girls been?” she demanded as she stormed over and wrapped them both in a tight hug that had Kara tearing up. She didn’t think she’d get to experience this again. Even if she turned tomorrow, experiencing her mother’s love one last time was a gift, despite it all. She hugged her back just as tightly, even as she kept her injured arm pressed between their bodies. “We’ve had the patrols looking for you since last night.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Alex said. Kara could hear the emotion in her voice. She was affected by this, too. “I thought it would be fun to take Kara outside to see the giraffes for her birthday and we got carried away exploring the area around the old zoo.”
Their mother pulled away to glare at them. “What? Why would you do that? She’s not been training like you to be out there, and you’ve not even been promoted past cadet, yet. That is so irresponsible of you both. Your father and I are very upset with you.” Then, Eliza seemed to notice the bandage on Kara’s arm. “What happened there?”
Kara fidgeted. Alex frowned. “I, uh... we had to make a fire to stay warm last night. And I fell asleep too close to it and I guess I slept funny, because I woke up when it started hurting. It’s burned pretty badly.”
“Oh, sweetheart. Let me take a look at it. Then you’ll go clean up in the bathroom and I’ll re-dress it for you, okay?” Kara nodded and allowed herself to be led to the kitchen table. The bandage stuck to her painfully when it was unraveled and she hissed as the antiseptic ointment pulled away. She immediately zeroed in on the place where she knew the bite was and scoured her damaged skin for any signs of teeth marks. When she didn’t find any, she turned to Alex who looked relieved at having come to the same conclusion. “Ouch,” Eliza hissed in sympathy. “Oh, Kara. This will leave a scar. It’s a bad one.”
“Yeah. It hurts,” she admitted in a warbly voice. A warm hand cupped her face and she let a few tears fall down her cheeks at the tender gesture. In trouble or not, she was just so glad to be here when just yesterday, she thought she was dead.
Eliza was quick with her assessment and shooed her off to the bathroom to get washed up and dressed for bed while she made Alex report to the guards what she and Kara did so they could call off the search. It made the blonde nervous to have her sister gone from the apartment after their pact to keep her confined in case she began showing symptoms, but she assured herself it was only for a short time. It was a fair punishment to face the chief of security and tell her, shamefaced, that she could call off the search for the Danvers girls. But before Alex could even step out the front door with her head bowed, Jeremiah entered the apartment in his work scrubs and nearly ran into her. Everyone paused while the surprise of his arrival washed over Kara and Alex, just as he was probably feeling surprised at seeing his children home so suddenly. Then he hugged his daughter the way Eliza had a few minutes earlier, tucking his nose into her dirty hair.
“Where the hell have you two been?” he asked as he released Alex and beckoned Kara forward with an outstretched arm. She went hastily, craving his familiar smell and warmth. The safety in his looming frame.
When the girls had hugged him and explained again what they’d been up to, Jeremiah was predictably upset but ended his rant by sighing heavily and telling them he was just glad they were okay. Alex and Kara glanced at each other after the blonde told him she’d burned her arm. He took a look the same way Eliza had, but ultimately turned her loose to go bathe and change into her pajamas while he and Alex went to find the security chief.
In the bathroom, alone for the first time since she’d left with Alex yesterday morning, she met her own eyes in the mirror and stared at her dirty reflection until she started quietly sobbing. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the occasional whimpering breath she was able to suck into her lungs, but she allowed herself to feel for several long minutes. She had genuinely thought she was going to die. The all-encompassing dread from the moment she’d processed the bite was crippling at the time until she forced herself to shove it way down. To go out brave and strong, for Alex’s sake. Now that she was standing in her family bathroom, surrounded by her home and her people again, the realization of what she would have lost and who she would have broken came crashing back down on her until she was suffocating with it. This was her family. She loved them, and they loved her. And she almost didn’t come home.
She still might break their hearts in the coming days. She wasn’t sure yet. Stepping under the hot spray of the shower after she’d finished crying felt better than usual, in any case.
Chapter 2: Two: Kara
Notes:
A small time jump, folks. Also, it's a little shorter because I couldn't think of more filler content lolol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It was a chilly early morning when Alex came home from her first assignment with the supply team. Kara was standing at the gate with Lucy, Alex’s unofficial girlfriend, as they watched the convoy rumble towards the school from the main road that led back into town. The shorter girl had her gloved hands wrapped around Kara’s upper left arm and began bouncing on the balls of her feet when the trucks drew closer.
They were big, bulky, obviously re-purposed from old US Army equipment, and painted black with the Firefly insignia emblazoned on the sides in white. Some had canvas tops stretched over their beds while others were flatbeds that had supplies ratchet-strapped to them for the university residents to make use of. An exchange of goods between the university and the hospital compound in Salt Lake City. Kara hoped they brought back some more tea from their hydroponic farm. The stuff her community grew wasn’t her favorite.
When the convoy had pulled through the gates and the large, metal doors closed behind the last truck, they rolled slowly toward the nearby depot where crews would take stock and deliver the goods to the appropriate places. Kara and Lucy ambled over, trying to stay out of everyone’s way like some of the other waiting families, until they spotted a familiar flash of auburn hair cut to jaw-length. Alex spotted them through the commotion and grinned before jogging over.
She pulled them both into a hug as they all laughed and shared excited words of greeting. Relief ran through Kara at having her sister back. Three months was a long time to go without her.
“Tell us everything,” Lucy demanded with a smile. “How was Salt Lake? I hear the head doctor there is a quack.”
Alex laughed and slipped her arms through theirs before leading them on a stroll towards the science building where Jeremiah and Eliza would be waiting for her to check in with them. The sky was gray with the promise of the year’s first snow flurries later on, and the air smelled like gasoline and gunpowder so close to the depot, but Kara thought it was a beautiful day anyway.
“I didn’t meet anyone besides the other soldiers. I barely saw the hospital itself, actually. They had us set up in these huge canvas tents that had about a dozen cots lined up in each one. We showered with fire-heated water from a reservoir they specifically saved for the outdoor showers, and we ate in the cafeteria on the first floor of the hospital. It was pretty weird, honestly. Not at all like it is here. You can tell, out there, it’s an actual facility with a few jobs that serve the rest of the Fireflies. It’s not a town like we are. Hardly any kids younger than fifteen or sixteen.”
Kara made a face. “Isn’t it supposed to be a huge building? Why’d they make you sleep in tents outside?”
Alex shrugged. “Don’t know. Top secret research, maybe? I get the impression the boss doesn’t want people knowing more than they need to.”
“Weird,” said Lucy. “But, I don’t care. I’m just glad you’re back.”
“Same here,” Kara agreed.
In the months since being bitten, Kara’s arm had healed and she and Alex had grown closer through the shared trauma of the whole experience. She was approaching five months now, since that day. It almost felt like that was another time, another Kara. When she looked back on it, she almost felt nothing at all, because it was as though she were observing someone else’s life. That was probably a trauma response, but she didn’t bother looking further into it. She was doing great! Minus the anxiety and random panic attacks that had Alex and her parents worried for her when she cried herself awake some nights. Now that Alex was back, though, she could breathe a little easier and bask in her comforting, strong presence.
It was obvious the run-in with the stalkers had shaken the older girl more than she let on, too. She had started hitting the gym more, had gotten bulkier and more adept with firearms and hand-to-hand combat. When Kara asked several months ago why she was training so intensely, she’d only frowned and said, “You know why.” Now, the redhead was a certified unit, and the top of her cohort of recently promoted cadets-turned-privates.
Their parents still didn’t know what happened, and they probably would never know. Alex argued it was for Kara’s safety that they take it to their graves, and the blonde didn’t really see a reason to disagree. It was unheard of, to be immune to cordyceps. She had once thought about coming clean with it, only for Alex to shut her down and remind her the fungus grows on the brain. If she had it in her system and it was, in fact, in her brain, the doctors and scientists might want to take samples from there, which would be deadly to Kara. Best not to take a chance like that, she’d said. A vaccine wouldn’t do anything but start a power struggle and humanity was getting along fine without it, anyway. Towns were popping up independently of FEDRA all over the place. Society was learning to adapt and move on.
But still, she wondered sometimes what her life would be like moving forward. Could she kiss somebody, or was her saliva infected now? What if she received a cut somewhere and a fungal growth emerged from the wound and somebody saw? She hadn’t tested that idea, yet, but sometimes she was nearly driven to slice some part of herself, just to see what would happen. Her parents could help determine what she could and couldn’t do in her altered state. But she couldn’t risk it. At least Alex could carry on as usual with her new girlfriend, and Kara could learn to be happy just seeing her sister happy. She didn’t need romance. Soaking in the joy others around her felt was good enough, and Lucy had brought plenty of joy into the Danvers girls’ lives over the years.
Lucy Lane, a farmer’s daughter with the lean physique that came with manual labor, and the attitude of a tired healthcare worker she no doubt inherited from her sarcastic, funny mother. She was about the same height as Kara, maybe half an inch taller, with dark brown hair she usually kept braided, and she almost always wore overalls or coveralls. She was very pretty by literally everyone’s standards, and Kara teased Alex endlessly about how she somehow managed to reel in someone so out of her league.
The trio walked to the science center together, arm-in-arm the whole way, and moseyed through the clean hallways of the large building to the second-floor medical wing. Jeremiah was at a nurse’s station in the center of a wide hallway, his scrub cap on and his faded scrubs a bit wrinkled. He looked up when he caught their movement and smiled wide when Alex broke off from the other girls and lurched toward him for a bear hug. Lucy’s mother, a nurse that helped Jeremiah in the operating room, smiled and patted Alex’s back as she acknowledged Lucy and Kara before disappearing into another room. A moment later, Eliza emerged from that same doorway and joined the hug with tears in her eyes.
“Come on, Kara,” Lucy said with a gentle tug at her arm. “Let’s go round up some candy from the nurses while Alex tells them about her trip.”
Kara smiled and eagerly followed the other girl towards where they both knew from experience the nurses kept candied honey for children. They were a bit old for the gimmick of receiving a treat after being good for their medical exams, but Lucy’s mom always humored them with fondly rolled eyes and an exasperated smile. Kara had always loved hanging out with Lucy. She was glad Alex had gotten up the nerve to make a move shortly after the stalker incident with Kara in her ear reminding her she’s had feelings for a while, maybe even since childhood. With their parents working so closely together every day for years, the two were bound to spend some time together here and there, and Alex had long ago admitted she had a major crush on the brunette. She and Kara had been sipping wine and passing bits of candy back and forth on a rooftop one night a couple years ago when the shy words had left her normally confident sister’s mouth. Kara had grinned and teased her about it, but they agreed not to say anything in front of the other girl. Now, it was almost like having two sisters.
After a while, the three girls left the science building with promises to clean up and be ready for dinner later, but they really went to another girl’s dormitory where the single young adults lived. They were having a little party to commemorate Alex's badass status as an official soldier, complete with confiscated wine and hard liquor, music, and snacks. There were probably two dozen young people being way too loud and obvious, but Kara couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever danced or laughed so much.
That night, they went to the communal cookout area and grilled elk burgers from the animals Lucy’s dad had hunted the other day and the two families celebrated Alex’s safe return from her first mission. Someone even gave Kara a beer, which she hated after one sip. She sat it down on the picnic table beside her plate and tuned back into the stories her sister was telling to everyone else. There was music playing softly from an old portable stereo, and the dim lamps were casting a cozy glow over the whole affair that had Kara feeling comfortable and sated.
The feeling died in her stomach when Jeremiah plucked her beer from its spot and quickly drank from the bottle Kara’s mouth had touched. He was sitting beside her. The angle was nearly the same as the one she’d used to sip from it. His mouth would be touching the same place hers had, oh god, he’s been in contact with my saliva, how much is enough to infect someone--
“Kara?” Lucy asked when she caught the horrified look her face. Alex seemed to realize in that moment what had happened also and went still. Everyone had seen her drink from that bottle and teased her when she spluttered around her mouthful of bitter, amber beer.
“I, uh, I need to go to the bathroom,” Kara stuttered as she stood from the table so unsteadily, Jeremiah had to reach a hand out to keep her from tipping over.
“You okay, kiddo?” he asked. The concern in his voice made her teary eyed.
“Fine! I’m fine! Be right back!”
She scampered away as quickly as she could and took the stairs up to their home two-at-a-time, bursting through the front door and charging straight to the bathroom. When she’d locked herself in, she began to panic. Her breaths came hard and fast, her eyes were overflowing with tears, and there was a ringing in her ears that seemed to drown out all other noise. She curled up on the ground, her back to the wall under the towel rack, her knees drawn up to her chest and hugged tightly by her shaking arms. She'd killed him. She'd started an outbreak in their town and people might die and it would be all her fault, and then they’d kill her--
“Kara, I’m coming in, honey,” Eliza’s muffled voice warned before a pin was inserted into the lock in the door and her mother was crowding into the small room. She dropped down beside Kara slowly and placed a warm hand on Kara’s scarred arm, causing her to flinch away before settling into the contact. She forced herself to focus on her senses, the way she’d been taught when the panic attacks had first started shortly after her biological father died. She breathed in the familiar scent on Eliza: plain ivory soap, antiseptic, and the smoke from the grill outside. Her mind zeroed in on the warmth radiating from the palm on her arm, the sound of Eliza’s soft cadence counting her breaths and encouraging Kara to follow along. When she’d calmed her breathing to a more reasonable rhythm, she finally opened her wet, itchy eyes and peered up through her blonde hair at the kind face looking down at her.
“There you are,” the woman said with a smile. “Want to tell me what happened just now?”
Kara swallowed the lump in her throat and opened her mouth a few times, like a fish searching for water and only getting air. She shouldn’t tell Eliza what really happened the day she and Alex snuck out—they'd made a pact as sisters to keep it a secret until they died. But, Jeremiah had drank from her bottle, and she didn’t know how exactly the infection took hold, how much her bodily fluids would have to interact with another’s to cause symptoms. He could be unknowingly sick right now, and Kara was sitting on that vital information. And it was contact on his face, which meant he only had about half an hour until he started noticing problems where there had previously been none. He was a surgeon; his hands were normally steady. They'd start to shake soon, and he wouldn’t know why. He’d turn, and no one would know how. There were no bites on his body and no samples of cordyceps, nor any of its spores floating around, in any of the buildings. It would cause a wider panic. She had to tell. She had to.
“The burn,” she whispered finally. Eliza’s brows crinkled inward and she frowned in confusion, not understanding where Kara was going with this just yet. “I burned my arm on purpose.”
“Why?”
“I... Alex and I lied to you. We didn’t sneak out to the woods on my birthday. We went to the ski resort in the foothills. Some stalkers got the jump on us, and I was bitten.” Here, the hand on her arm jerked back, as though shocked. She tried not to feel it as a physical pain. “We thought I was dying, and Alex told me she’d stay with me until... and then she’d take care of things. Only, we stayed up all night, and I didn’t turn. I didn’t even have a fever, and I drew a picture for her without shaking at all. So, we decided to cover the teeth marks with a burn from a hot knife and came home. And now it’s been almost five months, and I’m still me, but I don’t know if I’m a carrier somehow, and Jeremiah, he drank--”
“--from the same bottle as you,” Eliza said with dawning horror. “Oh, my god. Wait here. I’ll go get him and Alex.” She rose swiftly and ran a hand through her hair, clearly frazzled. Kara reached for her hand in a comforting gesture, but was surprised and immensely hurt when the contact was rebuffed with a flap of Eliza’s hand and a sharp command of, “Don’t!”
“Eliza?” Kara asked tremulously.
“Stay here. Do not leave this apartment.”
And then she was gone, leaving Kara with her guilt and shame and hurt feelings. She'd never been dismissed by Eliza like that before, and it stung more than she was anticipating.
She waited only a few minutes before the sounds of her family began floating back into the apartment, distant but agitated. Alex slipped hastily into the bathroom and shut the door with a firm hand before crouching down beside Kara, who watched on with wide, curious eyes.
“So, they’re wanting to tell the scientists,” Alex rushed. Jeremiah’s voice was coming nearer, Eliza behind him, judging by the sounds of their voices conversing in hushed, clipped tones. “They know something about when you were born and they think maybe that could be why the bite never affected you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know; they won’t tell me.” Then, Jeremiah was banging his large hand against the door.
“Girls, come on,” he pleaded through the wood. “You’re not in trouble. Let’s go run some tests and make sure Kara and I are okay.”
Kara snapped her gaze back to her sister, who was chewing her lower lip. “I’ll be there with you the whole time,” she whispered. Their hands clasped together between them as she stood and pulled Kara with her. “If it turns dangerous, I will get you out. I promise.”
The blonde shook her head as her eyes filled with tears. “No, Alex. You said they’d want my brain! They’ll kill me if everyone finds out what happened.”
The older girl’s face darkened and she drew herself to her full height, her muscles rigid with tension. “I won’t let them do that.”
Before Kara could say anything else, the door opened the way it had before, with a pin unlatching the lock in the knob from the outside. Jeremiah gently but firmly pulled Alex out of the confined space and reached for Kara the same way, except he pulled her into a hug.
“You should’ve told me,” he chided. “We could have helped you.”
“I’m sorry. I was scared.”
“It’s going to be okay, sweetie. Come on. Let’s go run some tests.”
As they left the apartment, Eliza trailed after them silently with a look on her face Kara hadn’t ever seen before. She wondered what it meant.
Claustrophobia had always been something Kara had to deal with. It had started when she was a little girl, still living in the National City QZ in California with her biological father. She’d been exploring the crawlspace the Fireflies had made in the empty unit down the hall from where she and her dad had been living when the hatch that covered the tunnel fell over and blocked her in. The cover on the other end was too heavy for her to move on her own, and she’d been trapped on her hands and knees in total darkness the entire day until someone opened the far end of the tunnel to enter the QZ. The woman had startled and pointed her gun at Kara, until she realized she was only a frightened seven-year-old, and helped her get home. Her dad was so upset with her. He'd been looking everywhere, fearing the FEDRA guards snatched her up after he’d dropped her off in their living room while he ran out quickly to get them some food. The streets weren’t safe at the time, and leaving children at home for short periods had been the norm. Kara had learned her lesson, from the crippling fear of the walls closing in on her in the dark, and from her biblical ass chewing, and hadn’t left their apartment without him or another trusted adult ever again. Since then, she’d always had a fear of confined spaces.
She tried not to think about that now as the MRI scan was underway.
“You’re doing great, kiddo,” Jeremiah said from the control room beyond a glass wall. His voice echoed through the PA system, making him sound tinny.
As soon as they’d gotten to the labs, Lucy’s mom was there with Eliza’s assistant and they’d gotten to work immediately drawing blood samples from Kara and Jeremiah and depositing them in makeshift quarantine rooms with plexiglass observation windows. The results came back a short time later, and Alex had nodded at Kara through the window that everything was good. Not long after that, Jeremiah was entering the room in a set of scrubs he must keep at work and reaching out his hand to her. They'd gone together to get some X-rays of Kara’s entire body after she’d been given a hospital gown to change into, and then she was instructed to lie on the bench that would feed her into the MRI machine she was currently idling in. It had all happened so fast.
“Just a few more minutes,” the weird version of Jeremiah’s voice chimed.
After the scan, she was led into a hospital room where Alex was waiting for her looking dour and on-guard. Lucy’s mom brought in her clothes with a warm smile and promised to let Lucy know everything was okay. When she’d left and closed the door behind her, Kara began to change back into her jeans and shirt.
“Mom’s being weird,” Alex said immediately.
“How so?”
“She’s been locked in her office since they drew your blood, doing something. I think she called someone at Salt Lake. Before you came in here, there were others showing up that shouldn’t be here because I know they’re day shift, and this isn’t the part of the hospital wing they keep overnight patients in. Something’s up.”
Dressed in her original clothes, Kara hauled herself up on the exam table and crossed her ankles while her feet swayed back and forth. “Well, yeah, something’s up. She told them I’m immune and they’re coming to see for themselves.”
“She wouldn’t out you like that.”
“Alex, you should have seen her when I told her the truth. I’ve never seen Eliza look at me or speak to me that way. Something was off. It's like she didn’t see me anymore. Just a person who’d been bitten.”
“She was probably scared for you and dad.”
“I don’t think that was it.”
Alex sighed and sat on the rolling stool by the vanity in the corner that had wooden sticks and medical swabs neatly stacked in jars beside a generic metal sink. On the wall behind her was a faded poster about staying physically active. A clock on another wall told her the time was well past midnight.
“If she told those other scientists about you, they could be coming up with a way to utilize you somehow. You’re the only person anyone’s ever seen who hasn’t turned after a bite or exposure to spores. They’ll want to see if they can make a vaccine with whatever they find in your chart that isn’t in a non-exposed person.”
Anxiety clenched Kara’s stomach into a tight knot. “How do you know that?”
“Because I grew up around these things. I know how Mom and Dad think, and their primary job is to keep everyone healthy. The number one cause of death for humanity right now is cordyceps. If they could change that, they would.”
“So, what do we do? We can’t just leave.”
“No. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. If it starts to get too fanatical, or if I feel like their next step is to... to get into your brain—we're gone.”
It was a little chilly in the exam room, but Kara felt a nervous sweat breaking out all over her body at the same moment a wave of nausea started climbing up her throat. Then, she remembered something.
“You said they knew something about my birth, at the house. Something they thought might have contributed to me not getting infected.”
Alex nodded and folded her thick arms across her chest. “Yeah. I don’t know what, though.”
“Could you find out? They’re keeping us in the dark, here.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Her sister seemed to contemplate for a few long moments with furrowed brows and her lips sucked into her mouth, before she nodded and rose from the stool. She kissed Kara’s forehead and walked to the door, pulling the handle down before turning back to level Kara with a serious expression.
“Yell if they try to take you anywhere without me. I won’t be far.”
“Okay.”
And then she was gone, and Kara was alone with her nerves and her thoughts.
So, she couldn’t get anyone else infected, according to what Jeremiah had said during the X-rays. Her blood work was mostly normal, with a slightly elevated white blood cell count and increased neutrophils, both within normal limits. They’d done some other tests she didn’t understand, and Jeremiah had glossed over those, saying only that they were consistent with what they would expect to see in a healthy young woman. Her brain had a small fungal growth, which sounded worrisome to Kara, but she had been assured that it wasn’t affecting her.
“Think of it like a small, benign tumor,” Jeremiah told her. “It’s not going anywhere, and it’s not doing anything. You’re okay.”
Her saliva swabs had also come back negative for traces of cordyceps, which explained why Jeremiah hadn’t gotten sick when they’d shared a beer bottle. Nobody seemed to know why she wasn’t infected or infectious.
After a while, Kara began to wonder about Alex. She shouldn’t have been gone so long, and a quick glance at the clock to reaffirm her belief showed her it was nearly three in the morning. Eliza’s office wasn’t that far away. If they were going to have a simple chat, her sister should have come back by now. The mystery kept her awake, despite her body lobbying for sleep.
It was at four AM that two guards entered the room with guns on their hips and stern expressions on their faces. Behind them, Eliza stood with a syringe in her shaking hand.
“Eliza, what--”
The guards grabbed Kara by the shoulders and pushed her on her back until one had her by the upper body, and one was pinning her legs. A primal, animal fear overtook her.
“Eliza! Stop—what are you—Alex! Alex, help!”
The only mother she’d ever known was advancing towards her with a syringe loaded with some clear liquid and a sorrowful look on her face. There were tears in her eyes and her lips trembled. Kara didn’t stop thrashing against the burly men constricting her movement even as the needle’s tip pricked the skin on her neck, flooding her with the cool rush of sedatives.
“I’m sorry,” the woman gasped as she removed the needle. A tear tracked down her face as Kara’s vision started to blur and her muscles relaxed.
“Mom...” was all she could muster before she was out.
Notes:
Youch. I wonder what happened to Alex? Next chapter is a POV switch! Good noodle star for whomstever guesses the character we'll be following.
Chapter 3: Three: Lena
Summary:
A look into Lena's life in Jackson.
Notes:
Howdy
There's a little bit of skipping around in this chapter since I imagine the days in Jackson kind of bleed together, and there's no need to keep fleshing that out imo. I'd say the whole chapter takes place over the course of eight-ish months.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Lena grabbed the clicker around its neck and stabbed into its brain with her knife before it could bite her. The croaking shriek coming from its overgrown mouth abruptly ceased, and the body went limp. She let it drop before any more blood could get on her clothes and extend her upcoming laundry day efforts. A few paces away, Jack was finishing off his own kill. He straightened from where he’d lowered the clicker’s body to the ground, and they sized each other up through their gas masks in the hazy darkness until they both began to chuckle.
“You totally almost shit yourself,” he accused as they turned to face the rest of the warehouse they were clearing. His flashlight illuminated the swirling fungal spores in the air.
“Project your insecurities all you want; I’m an island of serenity,” she said primly as she took point and led them through the remainder of the building. Her old friend laughed again and followed along dutifully.
“You know, I talked to Cat. She said she’ll promote us to real patrols soon. No more training wheels.”
Lena hummed as she inspected an old sign emphasizing proper use of PPE, whatever that was. “We should be on our own patrols already. We’re almost nineteen.”
“We joined junior patrols later than most,” he reminded her as he shimmied past her and through a gap in the broken drywall that led to a dusty, spore-filled office. A body that was once a person was on the floor against the far wall, so overgrown with fungus that it was impossible to tell if they once were a man or a woman. Lena could only see the vague outlines of what had to be a torso and limbs. What a horrific way to go out, she thought.
“But we’ve also been more competent than most,” she eventually remembered to reply.
“And while I agree with you, there are rules, and they very clearly state junior patrol members have to complete a whole year of guided patrols before being considered for the real thing.”
“Dumb rule.”
“It’s not, really, you’re just impatient.”
Lena bounced her eyebrows in acquiescence, even though Jack couldn’t see the gesture through her mask. “True.”
To their right, Jack’s flashlight shone on a door with a cracked exit sign over it. The window was boarded up with plywood, even though it was no bigger than a sheet of paper. Jack nodded towards it and tried to open it, only to discover it was jammed. Lena waited—patiently, might she add—for him to drive his shoulder into it with enough force to eventually create a space for them to slide through. Outside, in the late spring air, they kicked the door shut behind them and tore off their masks to take deep, indulgent breaths. They were probably confined to their masks for at least half an hour. She'd gone longer in one, but it was always unpleasant, having her face covered like that. Taking the thing off was always a treat.
“Guys?” a familiar baritone called from the far corner of the warehouse. “You there?”
“Here,” Jack hollered. “We’re good.”
James Olsen appeared atop his chestnut mare, wearing a t-shirt that was too tight and showed off his muscles, along with his usual jeans and boots. His clean-shaven head was sweating in the late-afternoon sun. Behind him trailed Lena’s blue roan mare, Ada, with her smoky gray body and black legs and face. It made Lena smile a little, just to see her companion.
“We were starting to get worried,” Clark Kent piped up as he also came into view on his horse while towing Jack’s black gelding, Watson. Unlike his best friend James, Clark had a thick head of curly dark hair that all the girls found boyishly charming—except for Lena. Clark was nice, even objectively attractive with his muscular, rugged cowboy thing he had going, but she always kind of thought he was a tool. A nice, patronizing tool.
“All good,” Lena told her babysitters. “One runner, two clickers.”
“Place is absolutely covered in spores and fungus, though,” Jack said with a disgusted face. “I’ll have to mark the doors to warn people off.”
James nodded and reached into his backpack hooked on the side of his saddle. He fished out a jar of paint and a brush and tossed both to Jack, who scurried off to make the Jackson symbols for “do not enter—spores inside” that the community had all been trained to recognize. Hopefully a passing traveler would see the ominous symbols and assume their meaning, as well.
While he went to take care of the signs, Lena approached Ada and accepted her reins back from where they’d been tied to James’s saddle before stroking the dark face of her horse. Ada snorted and nodded her head with her ears facing fully forward, making Lena chuckle. With a final pat to her thick neck, she climbed into the saddle and situated herself to wait for Jack to return. Once they were all mounted up, James kicked his horse into a light trot and the rest fell in line behind him as they made their way towards the checkpoint.
They were on an actual patrol route, not one of the junior ones the older patrol members took the teens on to show them the ropes. Today, it was the Signal Mountain overnight route, which required them to camp out in the old ranger station nestled midway up said mountain. Lena had never been this way, but it was the last of the unfamiliar routes to her. The past dozen or so times she’d gone out, she’d been taken on trails she would be expected to know as a full-fledged patrol member. It was exciting, being on the precipice of independence. She wasn’t a kid anymore. Trusting her to watch someone else’s back when things went sideways was a big step up, and she didn’t plan on squandering her chance like some others had. Patrol wasn’t meant for everyone; the pressure and the violence got to people sometimes. But not Lena.
The lake they passed in the early evening was beautiful and clear as a mirror. The group stopped for a minute to admire the view at Jack’s insistence. Beyond the water was the mountain range they were headed for, and somewhere up there was their checkpoint. They definitely had a long way to go, and daylight would be running out in a few more hours, so Clark didn’t let them linger for long.
“We’ll have a good view from the station,” he promised as they followed the trail back down into some trees that obscured the tranquil landscape.
By the time the sun was fully setting and the sky was gradually turning from fiery orange to deep indigo, they’d reached the ranger station. It was more of a house, Lena thought, with a porch, a gravel driveway, and a storage shed out back next to an old satellite dish. James told them the shed was the outhouse. Inside, there was a small kitchen with a woodburning stove and cast-iron cookware, a plastic table with four folding chairs just beside the kitchen, and a fridge with the doors ripped off to reveal a storage area for jars and cans. So, no electricity. Lena expected as much, way out here. The living area comprised of a lumpy green couch, a cracked leathery armchair, a coffee table, and a fireplace. To the left of the main area was where the bunkrooms were, two spaces with a set of bunk beds in each. Between them was a bathroom where a bucket and some cleaning supplies served as the bathing method, should someone require the tub. The toilet was obviously just for show at this point. The entire house had vinyl flooring meant to look and feel like wood planks but was peeling and bubbling in some areas. The walls were a uniform forest green, and they were adorned with random pictures of national parks and wildlife observed nearby, judging by the lake in the background of most of the pictures featuring animals. Even minus the comforts Jackson afforded to its inhabitants, it was actually not a bad place to hole up. Cozy, Lena would call it.
“I’ll get to work on dinner,” Clark told everyone as James and Jack volunteered to get the horses settled behind the house. Lena decided to go find the patrol log and fill it out, just to give herself something to do. The radio that could reach Jackson would also be in one of the rooms, and someone needed to update HQ they’d made it safely.
“Take whichever room you want, Lena,” Clark called from the kitchen as he spied her walking away. “You’ll have to share with Jack, unless you kick him to the couch. Totally fine.”
“He can stay in the same room as me,” she assured him. She’d bunked down with her friend more times than she could count, platonically. There was never anything remotely resembling attraction and desire between the two of them in all the time they’d known each other, but they did on several occasions find themselves having to share a room or a tent, depending on the situation. He wasn’t a creep, and she knew for a fact he’d defend her from a creep if she were incapable of it herself for some reason, so he was a safe roommate.
She picked the room on the left side of the short hallway once she noticed the radio and log were in there, too, and she flung her bag on the top bunk before sitting at the desk on the opposite wall. The book was flipped open to its most recent entries, the last one marked for just two weeks ago by SA and JH. Lena’s roommate and best friend, Sam Arias, and her patrol partner, an older girl named Jess. Lena sort of knew Jess, but they weren’t close like she and Sam were. They got along whenever their paths crossed, but they hung out with different crowds in Jackson for the most part. Lena looked past their initials and read their report in the comments section.
3 runners, 1 clicker, all in roadside gas station, mile marker 22.
Lena took the pen sitting in the spine of the book and recorded the date, the infected they encountered during the day, and each of their initials. She then connected the radio to its battery pack, flipped on the power, and tuned it to the frequency they were using this week to communicate. They kept a rolling frequency schedule to help keep raiders off their tails when they moved from place to place. One of the first things the new patrol prospects had to learn was the schedule and which frequencies were associated with which codename. This week was Teton, and she turned the tuning knob accordingly.
“Jackson, this is Lena reporting from route 6, over,” she said calmly into the mic.
There was a moment of silence, then a burst of static, and a grainy woman’s voice responded. “Lena, we read you. How’s it lookin’ out there? Over.”
“All clear besides a few infected in a warehouse. No injuries. How’s the weather looking for our return trip? Over.”
“You might get a light shower at some point coming back, but it won’t last long, according to the weather team. Be advised, there was a brief encounter with raiders in east sector, route four. Hostiles neutralized, but there could be more lurking. Over.”
Lena sighed and nodded along, even though there was no one around to see it. She hated raiders. Why not join a community that wanted humanity to pull back from the brink of extinction? Why steal from those hardworking people? She’d only ever run into them once, and the ensuing firefight had been her first human kill on patrol. Not her first ever, but she didn’t like to think about the first time she pulled the trigger on someone.
“Copy on the raiders. I’ll let the guys know. Over and out.”
“Stay safe out there. We’ll be waiting for you all tomorrow. Over.”
After putting everything away and making sure the radio stayed on with the volume loud enough to rouse her or Jack during the night if Jackson called, Lena meandered back into the main part of the house and was greeted by the smell of spices in the kitchen. Clark was stripped down to his socks, jeans, and the tank top he wore under his shirt, stirring beans and vegetables in a pot. Beside him on the counter were glass jars labeled with different spice names and filled with dried herbs. Onions and garlic hung on hooks hanging from the ceiling, and he’d clearly taken from that stock to incorporate into their dinner, judging by the aromas wafting out of the pot. Her stomach growled just imagining the taste.
“Hey,” Clark said amiably as Lena wandered closer. “Whiskey in the cabinet up there if you want some. I’ll get it myself in a little bit if you don’t drink any, but if you do, would mind pouring me a glass, too, please?”
“Sure.”
She found the half-empty bottle and four tumblers, but only grabbed two. After she gave them both a generous pour, she plugged the stopper back into the opening and lifted her glass in a silent toast. Clark stopped stirring and lifted his own glass, clinking it against Lena’s, and they gulped some down. Lena felt the burning warmth all the way down to her stomach and she grimaced.
“Fuck.”
Clark laughed and put a lid on the pot before taking another sip of his whiskey. “Yeah, it’s not that great.”
“It tastes like poison.”
“In a way, I guess it is. But we won’t go blind, I’ve been assured.”
Lena took another swig and sighed after it went down, only slightly less disgusted by it. “Good to know.”
Then, Jack and James entered the house smelling like horses and dirt. Jack spied the whiskey and made grabby hands at the bottle on the counter before pouring himself and James a glass and insisting they all toast again. Not long after, dinner was ready and they ate around the small table with their solar powered lanterns illuminating the space for them as they made friendly conversation. Jack cleaned the dishes afterwards while the rest of them set up a game of cards around the coffee table, and the night was capped off with several spirited rounds of poker using an old set of poker chips that had apparently always been in the house. It was fun, even if they were all mildly sweaty and smelled like the outdoors.
Before bed, they took turns going to the outhouse, and then it was lights out at Clark’s prompting so they could get an early start on the day tomorrow morning.
Lena stared at the cracked ceiling above her bunk as she listened to Jack’s deep, even breathing in the bed below her, and found herself drifting off not long after.
They made it home the next evening without a hitch, despite the threat of raiders somewhere nearby, and Lena breathed a sigh of relief as the gates closed behind their little posse. It was never a guarantee that everyone would come home from patrol, and it made returning safe and sound that much sweeter each time.
The road immediately beyond the gate was paved from a time long gone, symbolizing the bastion of humanity that Jackson was, in Lena’s mind. They had paved roads in most areas of town, electricity, plumbing, schools, merchants. Traders from all over passed through periodically, swapping goods with the locals and bringing news from the places they’d been, keeping the hope that one day, maybe generations from now, life would be closer to what it was pre-outbreak. Not that Lena knew what that was like. She’d seen movies and played video games, but the concept of living in excess was beyond her grasp. She and her neighbors were constantly battling the forces of nature and using everything available to them to its fullest potential. Waste not.
“Hey, Lena,” one of the stable workers said, pulling Lena out of her mind’s musings. Around her, the road was bustling with guards getting on and off shift for the night to walk the top of the huge wall that surrounded Jackson, and the stable workers were in the middle of greeting all the arriving patrol teams. The man who’d spoken to Lena was kind and middle-aged with a balding head of gray hair and a thick mustache. His hand was on Ada’s neck, patting her absently as he waited for Lena to hand over the reins, which she did once her brain caught up.
She slid from the saddle and groaned when her knees popped after hitting the ground. Her backpack was already on her shoulders, and the rifle sitting in the saddle’s holster wasn’t hers, so the armory guys would come collect it in the morning. Her pistol was sitting snugly in her thigh holster; her knife’s sheath was strapped to her belt loop. She had everything she needed, then.
“Hey,” she greeted the older man with a tired smile. Then, she gave Ada some love by stroking her long nose and sweaty neck. “Thanks, girl,” she murmured before turning back to the stable man. “She did great out there; she deserves a little treat.”
He smiled at her and began walking backwards towards the stable where several other horses were being cleaned up and fed. It looked like Lena’s group made it in around the same time as most other long-haulers. “Don’t worry, she’ll get the good stuff,” he promised. And then he was turning around, chattering away in a sweet voice to the horse as he led her to her stall further inside.
“Good work out there, guys,” James said from behind Lena. She turned and realized they were all standing together while their horses were walked away by other workers. “Clark and I agree that we’ll vouch for you when we talk to Cat about promoting you to paired patrols.”
The pleasant burn of accomplishment swept through Lena’s gut and she smiled. “Thanks.”
“You’re both very competent and level-headed under pressure,” Clark added. “We think you’ll make great additions to the team.”
They stood around talking for a few more minutes, with Jack gushing about finally being in the big leagues and making them all chuckle at his dramatics, until Lena yawned so hard her jaw popped.
“Well, boys, I think I’m heading home,” she sighed.
“Yeah, I’m worn out,” James agreed with a nod. “We’ll talk to Cat in the morning. Get some rest.”
Then, the two older men split off from Lena and Jack and headed straight down the road towards the center of town, while Lena began strolling to a side street towards her neighborhood. Jack followed, still going on about how he knew they were ready and he couldn’t wait to go out, just the two of them, and Lena had to keep that energy up until they reached the house he shared with his parents. She was overjoyed with her impending promotion, but she’d also been riding hard for two straight days and would like to shower and sleep until tomorrow afternoon. Celebrating could wait until tomorrow night. She hugged him tightly and bid him farewell before continuing on towards her own house.
The street Lena lived on was quiet enough, as most places in Jackson tended to be. It was mostly filled with craftsman style houses that were nearly identical in shape, differing only in color scheme, and their occupants were largely young adults starting families together or single adults sharing a living space. Lena lived in the second house from the corner with gray paint and brown wood all around, and a big front porch that had three steps leading to a narrow concrete walkway that connected to the sidewalk. The names Luthor, Arias, and Rojas were painted on the mailbox out front, though that was mostly to denote who lived in the house, since mail wasn’t actually a thing anymore. The windows were glowing with the soft light inside, beckoning Lena like a warm blanket.
When she walked through the front door, she heard music and the sounds and smells of cooking meat in the kitchen. Andrea was singing along to whatever preppy song was playing as she seared meat in a skillet across the main living space. When she heard the door click shut, she turned, stopped singing, and grinned.
“You’re back! Go get cleaned up; I can smell you from here. Dinner will be ready after.”
“Glad to see you, too,” Lena said with mock offense. She was aware that she actually smelled terrible. “Where’s Sam?”
“Doing something down at quarantine. She picked up a couple newbies today on patrol. She should be back soon, though. I saw her on my way home.”
Lena hummed and went down the hall adjacent to the living room to the third door on the right—her bedroom. Inside, she flipped the light on, not bothering to take in her rumpled bed, the pile of laundry in the basket in the corner, or her messy desk. All stuff she could work on tomorrow. Instead, she dropped her backpack and gun on top of her dresser, kicked off her boots, and made a beeline for the bathroom one door over. Here, the space was tidier and well-kept. Generally, the ladies maintained a clean house, but sometimes Lena got lazy and didn’t pick up her room for a week or two at a time. Communal spaces, though, she liked to keep clutter-free as a courtesy to her roommates.
When she was undressed, she checked herself for ticks while the water warmed up. After her search resulted in zero lingering insects, she stepped under the hot stream and breathed deeply at the feeling of grime and dirt sluicing off her skin. Her dark hair was washed thoroughly, her skin scrubbed with a washcloth and a bar of soap one of the town merchants produced, and her body hair was trimmed with a pair of scissors she kept in her toiletry bag.
After her shower, Lena dressed in a pair of soft cotton pants and a loose shirt before joining her friend in the kitchen. On the stove, ground meat was browned, seasoned, and mixed with different vegetables while a large bowl full of potatoes was being mashed. Andrea was still singing along to her music when she saw Lena inspecting the food.
“Ground deer,” she said in response to the question in Lena’s eyes.
“Need help?”
“Nah. I’m pretty much done. Grab the plates?”
They flitted around each other smoothly in the way that roommates who’d lived together for a while could. Once everything was set, the two women sat at the bar that divided the kitchen from the living room and dug in. None of them were very good cooks, but of their trio, Andrea was definitely the best. The flavors exploding in Lena’s mouth were delicious and the potatoes were the right consistency of creamy and thick. There was wine from a local place that used different fruits from traders to make alcohol, and they washed everything down with that. Lena took her first sip of the burgundy liquid and made a pleased noise in her throat.
“What’s this?” she asked as she held the glass aloft.
“Raspberry.”
Before Lena could comment on how she liked it, the front door swung open to reveal Sam still in her patrol gear, looking no worse for wear. She’d been on a single day patrol this time. Her long brown hair was swept up into a messy bun and her tan face was streaked with dirt, but she seemed alright at first glance. Her tall frame was a little slumped, though.
“How’s it going, super trooper?” Andrea asked.
“Fine, just tired. That smells good.”
“There’s some waiting for you.”
Sam nodded and went to drop off her stuff in her room before loping back into the kitchen in her socks, underwear, and the t-shirt she’d been wearing when she came in. Lena chuckled to herself at the sight and went back to her meal.
“Those two girls we picked up are kind of feisty,” Sam said around a mouthful of food. “Older one’s hot.”
Lena raised a brow. “Your dead relationship with Jack isn’t even cold yet,” she teased.
“What can I say? I like to get over people by getting under other people.”
“Respectable,” Andrea said with a sage nod.
“What else do you know about them?” Lena asked.
“They’re from Colorado, but they won’t say where. Probably traumatic or something. Older one’s got some combat training, younger one’s getting there. They don’t look much alike, but they say they’re sisters. Eighteen and twenty. Found ‘em running from a bloater that had been trapped in a basement for who knows how long. Jess and I had to help kill it. Took just about all our bullets, and Jess has a burn on her arm from a molotov exploding too close to her, but it’s minor. They’ll be in quarantine until morning after next.”
Standard Jackson protocol for all new arrivals was a screening for bites, since some people tried to conceal their infections in hopes they’d see some sort of miracle outcome. If they planned on sticking around for more than a day or two, they’d need to quarantine for 36 hours at least.
“Good thing you two found them,” Lena said. “Probably would have died if it was just the two of them versus a bloater.”
Lena had only ever seen a bloater once, a few weeks ago in an old strip mall. They were hulking beasts, fully overgrown with fungus and no longer even resembling a person. It took many years of infection to even become one, usually after being locked in some area away from things that might kill it. A few times since the encounter at the strip mall, Lena had woken in a sweat to the sense memory of its horrible, deep shriek while its footsteps rattled the earth it walked across. Sam would likely be having similar dreams in the coming nights.
“Well, if they end up staying, I’m sure I’ll see them at the clinic tomorrow,” Andrea said with a sigh. She worked as a nurse of sorts. Doctors and nurses didn’t technically exist in the traditional sense anymore, but their few resident healthcare workers from Before were doing their best to pass on their knowledge and methods to people like Andrea.
From there, the conversation veered into how Lena’s overnight journey went, what she saw, how Jack did, and how Clark and James said they’d recommend them to Cat for real patrols. At that news, they refilled their wine glasses and clinked the rims together with a ridiculous chorus of whooping and whistling while Lena fondly rolled her eyes.
It wasn’t long after dinner when they each decided to turn in for the night. Sam still had to shower, but Lena and Andrea cleaned the dishes and padded into their bedrooms like zombies after brushing their teeth. Sam tried to distract them with a round of shower karaoke, but Lena was too exhausted to do more than provide dumb adlibs here and there. By the time she was drifting off to sleep, it was nearly ten at night—early by her standards most times, but she felt like it was much later.
Lena didn’t meet the newcomers until almost five days after she learned of their existence. She was returning from her first real patrol with Sam (a seasoned vet paired with the newbie, she’d been told that morning) when she caught a flash of curly blonde hair bobbing through the crowd by the gate. When the person drew closer with one of the stable workers, Lena realized she hadn’t ever seen this girl and the pieces fell together quickly. Sam was the first to react as she dismounted her brown horse.
“Kara! Glad to see you’re settling in.”
The blonde—Kara—looked up at the call of her name and smiled charmingly. She had a strikingly handsome face with rounded cheeks and a sharp jawline. She was a bit taller than Lena, with broad shoulders and lean muscles that bulged beneath tan skin. Lena felt herself mentally stumble a bit as she slid from Ada’s saddle.
“Hi, Sam. And yeah, thanks; I think I’m doing stable work for a week, then moving on to farm rotation? They’ve got me and Alex doing lots of different things until we find a good fit.” Here, she slid her bright blue eyes from Sam to Lena, as though noticing her for the first time. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Kara.”
Lena took the hand that was extended towards her, noting the way it was slightly larger than hers and just as calloused, and tried not to swallow her tongue. Pretty girls always made her brain malfunction. “Good to meet you, Kara. I’m Lena.”
Good job. No stuttering.
“So, you’re a patrol member, too?” Kara asked as she took in Lena’s gear and Ada’s reins in her hand. It almost looked like those bright eyes were... checking her out? No. She’s probably just curious. God, Lena was lonely.
Focus, her inner voice commanded.
“Yep. Um, here you go, by the way.” Lena held out the reins to Kara, who seemed to also remember she was there for a reason, and it wasn’t making small talk with Lena and Sam. The blonde chuckled and took the leather out of Lena’s grasp, brushing their fingers together in the exchange. It was so subtle and natural that it could have just been incidental contact; Lena did that with the other stable workers all the time. But she definitely didn’t find any of them as attractive as she found this girl. It had her buzzing and fighting a blush. She knew she failed miserably when Kara’s eyes caught hers again and she honest-to-god smirked.
“Thanks. Sam, I can take yours, too.”
“Sure. Appreciate it, Kara. Hey, where’s your sister?”
“The maintenance building, I think. They’ve got us set up in a temporary place over off the main square, so she could be there, too.”
“The overflow apartments, yeah,” Sam said with a nod. “Thanks. Have a good evening! Take good care of these girls—they worked hard.”
Kara graced them with her stupidly charming smile again and flashed her straight, white teeth. “Of course. It was nice to meet you, Lena.”
“You, too.”
And then Sam was pulling Lena by the elbow away from the commotion at the stables and back down the bustling street towards the square. When Kara was out of earshot, Sam started laughing from deep within her belly and clutched at Lena’s upper arm like she might fall over. Lena knew instantly what she was going on about and felt her ears turn pink as heat flushed up her chest.
“Holy shit, dude, you have almost no game,” her friend guffawed as they walked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Shut up—you were totally into Kara! Don’t blame you, though; she’s cute, but a little young for my tastes. Her sister, however...”
“Too young? You’re twenty-one. That’s three years between you and her, if she was honest about being eighteen.”
“Fine, I can make a pass at her if you want.”
Lena knew she was kidding just to get a rise out of her, but dammit, it worked. “No, you already called the older sister,” she grumbled.
Sam burst out laughing again and steered them towards the only bar in town, called The Tipsy Bison. It was a large building meant to look like a log cabin and it was apparently a restaurant before the world ended. At this hour, with all the day shift workers going off duty, it was busy, loud, and warm with all the body heat. The windows were open and the fans mounted high up in the tall ceiling were spinning at a decent pace, but the heat inside the bar would be a little oppressive until Lena was able to acclimate.
In one of the corner booths, Jack, Jess, Andrea, and Winn, who was their friend in the maintenance department, all waited for Sam and Lena. When they were spotted by Winn, the table cheered and glass pints were thrust at them as they took their seats on the edges of the booth. Jess had been Jack’s patrol partner for the day and likely would be for the foreseeable future, the same way Sam would be Lena’s. That she had decided to come celebrate their first official patrol was touching, considering she had her own group of friends elsewhere. She poured amber beer into the empty cups and punched her knuckles against Lena’s in a friendly manner before leaning back in her spot and raising her pint.
“To the rookies surviving their first real day at work,” Jess declared.
Everyone laughed and toasted Lena and Jack before taking long drags of beer, and then the evening was on in earnest.
In the following months, Lena saw Kara and Alex around Jackson more frequently. Alex, she’d met a few days after meeting Kara, and the older sister was absolutely Sam’s type when it came to women. She was tall, muscular, and had an air of experience and nonchalance that made her seem capable of many things without trying very hard. Where Kara had a softer, kinder demeanor, Alex was snarky and arrogant. Sam was convinced she was half in love with her after speaking with the redhead only a handful of times.
When about six months had passed since the Danvers girls’ arrival, Andrea and Lena were woken in the night by the sounds of some rather vigorous lovemaking coming from Sam’s room. They stood in their doorways, making eye contact and pulling disgusted faces while Alex and Sam decided to take their relationship to the next level in a house with thin walls. Shamelessly. In the morning, they decided to ignore it, even if Alex’s appearance at breakfast was a little uncomfortable, now that Lena and Andrea involuntarily knew what she sounded like between the sheets. When it kept happening, though, the girls decided enough was enough and sat Sam down to have a stern talk about the noise interrupting their sleep. She had been apologetic, if entirely too smug, but had agreed to keep the noise down. It wasn’t like Andrea and Lena had never brought anyone home, but they had manners.
Also, it had been a long time for Lena, but that was beside the point.
Beyond keeping Lena up at night with how apparently great in bed she was, Alex was working on being a patrol member. She had the experience from wherever she grew up—which she and Kara still kept under wraps—and had insisted she could be an asset in the field. James and Clark had taken her out a few times recently, and they were reporting good things. It wasn’t surprising, given her overall demeanor. Her aura screamed ‘badass’.
Kara, on the other hand, was an enigma to Lena. The blonde was perky and happy and devastatingly smooth most of the time, rendering Lena a stuttering, blushing mess whenever their paths crossed in the beginning. They had developed a sort of intense, flirtatious friendship that had Lena wondering if there was more between them if she would only be brave enough to go for it. But despite her seemingly gentle, tactile nature, Kara had informed Lena recently that she’d signed up for junior patrols. She’d been shocked, wondering why the blonde wouldn’t continue with her work in the stables.
“I feel like I can do more than brush horses and shovel their shit, you know?” her friend had told her. After doing several job rotations around Jackson, she’d ended up defaulting back to horse duty. She had said at the time that she liked horses, and getting to interact with them at work was a treat, even if it wasn’t glamorous. It seemed like she’d lost her patience with it, though.
“Do you have any experience with combat?” Lena asked.
Kara’s face had turned dark, then, and the usual sunshine that surrounded her dimmed slightly. “More than you think. I know my way around a sticky situation.”
It was hard for Lena to imagine her new friend, who once cried over a litter of puppies, killing infected and possibly raiders with her bare hands, but what did she know? Kara was still relatively new to her, and they hadn’t shared all their past experiences yet. Lena certainly had things she didn’t like to talk about. If Kara believed she could do patrol, then Lena had no reason not to also share that sentiment.
It was a crisp autumn morning just a few months after Lena turned nineteen when she had a run-in with some raiders on patrol. There had been three of them, and one got off a lucky shot, grazing Lena in the thigh. Alex was her patrol partner that day, and the two of them dispatched the shitheads with relative ease after realizing where they were hiding and taking pot shots.
Lena looked down at her thigh and grimaced as blood steadily poured out of the long gash left behind by the bullet.
“Shit,” Alex drawled with a whistle. “Lucky that didn’t go any deeper.”
“No kidding.”
The older girl slid from her horse and retrieved her first-aid supplies from her bag while Lena used their walkie-talkie to inform Jackson of their short skirmish. She tried to keep the pain out of her voice as the bandage was wrapped tightly around her wound.
“Copy. Sending the nearest team to your location to assist on the ride home in case there are more. Give it about half an hour and they’ll meet you at the trailhead. Over,” the disembodied voice of James said. They all rotated HQ radio duty, and this week was his turn.
“Nearest team should be the junior patrol with Kara,” Alex told her as they headed towards their new rendezvous point. There was a hint of a tease in there, if Lena bothered to look close enough.
Fuck it, her leg hurt. A distraction might help. She took the bait.
“As if she needed anything else to worry about.”
Alex shrugged. “She cares about you. She’s a worrier by nature, and they’ll be receiving word by now that you’ve been hit. I’m sure she’s kicking all their asses to get over here ASAP.”
“I’m fine.”
“She’ll still hover. It’s annoying.”
Lena sighed and tested how fast she could get Ada moving before her leg screamed at her to stop. After a few minutes of trial and error, she decided a light trot was enough, and her partner matched pace accordingly.
They’d been out here together a few times now, and Lena was pleasantly surprised to find Alex a comfortable companion. They could talk about lots of things when they weren’t keeping an eye out for dangers, and their senses of humor meshed well. They had taken down several infected together, but this was the first firefight they’d been in as a team, and it was almost effortless, the way they killed the raiders. Steady. That was the word Lena would use to describe Alex. Steady as a stone in a river, taking life as it came and not panicking when it got hairy. A good person to have at one’s side when expecting trouble.
“Sam might be worried about you once she gets back and hears we had a gunfight,” Lena said, turning the tables back on her friend.
“Nah, she’s seen me in the field. It’ll be a cold day in hell when someone manages to take me down.”
Lena huffed with a grin and guided Ada down a steep, rocky patch of the trail they were riding along. They continued on in silence for a while after that, with Alex occasionally checking in about the leg wound. Then, they made it to the trailhead where Route 2 and Route 3 merged, and almost instantly, they heard hoofbeats in the distance.
“Right on time,” Alex murmured when three riders emerged through the trees. Clark, Kara, and a guy named Hal fanned out on their horses and caught their breath as they gave Alex and Lena a once-over.
“You guys okay?” Hal asked.
“We heard Lena was hit,” Kara blurted.
Lena waved them off and made herself as blase as she could manage with the throbbing pain in her thigh. “I’m fine. Just a graze. The raiders are dead, and I don’t think we were followed.”
“Alright, well let’s get moving back to town. Get a doctor to look at that leg,” Clark said with a firm nod. Then he turned his horse towards the path that would lead down into the valley where Jackson was and the rest of the group filed in behind him.
Lena could hear Hal on the walkie informing James they made contact and were headed home, but that was quickly muffled by the heavy clopping of Kara’s designated horse trotting up beside Lena and Ada. She glanced over at her friend and snorted at the blatant concern on handsome features, complete with her signature pout and forehead crinkle.
“Are you really okay? That looks like it hurts.”
“I’m fine, Kara. Promise. It does hurt a little, but it’ll heal.”
Kara seemed unconvinced, but chose to take Lena at her word and faced forward again. The group made quick work of covering the distance to Jackson, going at a pace that Lena could handle with her torn muscles and faded adrenaline, and before long, the looming walls and reinforced gate welcomed them home. It was early for a patrol day—only about three in the afternoon—but the town was still abuzz near the stables as the group turned their horses in.
“Heard there was trouble with raiders,” a stern female voice chimed through the commotion.
Lena turned and found Cat Grant, Jackson’s leader, prowling towards them. She was an intimidating woman, for someone so petite. Her frame was short and lithe, but her attitude and personality were far larger, often reducing burly working men to obedient church mice when problems arose. She normally worked different jobs around Jackson to stay up to date on handy skills and the gossip mill that was constantly churning out drama, and it seemed today she was caring for the horses. Her short blonde hair was tucked under a dark purple bandana, and she wore overalls and a plaid shirt, rolled at the sleeves, beneath the denim. Her muck boots were knee-high and crusted with dirt and—presumably—horse shit. She looked imposing even while sweaty and smelling like a barn.
“Three of them, setting a trap in the trees,” Alex replied. “Lena and I took care of ‘em, but she got grazed in the leg.”
Cat swiveled her attention to Lena and narrowed her eyes at the bloody bandage on her thigh before pursing her lips. “Go get that cleaned up. If they say no patrols for a few weeks while it heals, I don’t want you to come crying to me about it. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lena said with a nod.
“Come on, I’ll help you,” Kara said. She handed their reins off to Cat and another stable worker and then started off towards the clinic with a hand on Lena’s upper arm, as though guiding her in case she were to stumble.
“Kara, I can walk without help,” Lena tried to tell her indignantly. Then, Alex appeared at her other side with a smirk and patted her gamely on the shoulder.
“Remember how I said she’s a hoverer?”
Lena sighed and accepted her fate as the Danvers sisters escorted her to the clinic, where Andrea greeted them with a concerned frown.
“I’m fine,” Lena said for what felt like the thousandth time.
In the end, it needed stitches, which Andrea did herself under supervision. The bullet left just enough skin on one side to create a disgusting flap that could be tied to the skin on the other side of the gash, dashing Lena’s hopes of just bandaging it and sending her on her way. Kara and Alex stayed with her the whole time, bickering and distracting Lena from her discomfort. Kara also kept a firm grip on Lena’s hand, but no one mentioned it.
That night, after Sam had returned from her overnight patrol trip and Andrea had clocked out at the clinic, the three of them plus the Danvers crowded into the living room with food and movies and tried to cheer Lena up after she was told to take it easy for at least three weeks. She hated being cooped up, and she knew she’d be hard-pressed to take on any activity around town beyond working the patrol radio. As though sensing her bad mood, Kara sidled closer on the couch and grabbed Lena’s hand again, resting them both on a muscular thigh. Lena felt her heart speed up in her chest but tried to play it cool. Her touchy friend was just comforting her.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Kara whispered near Lena’s ear as the movie hit a climactic scene. Her breath tickled and sent goosebumps up Lena’s neck.
“Your sister had my back. She’s steady.”
“She is. I’d have your back, too, if we ever go on patrol together.”
“I know.”
Then, Kara tried to actually send Lena into cardiac arrest by pressing the briefest, softest kiss to her temple and pulling away so fast, it was almost like she’d imagined it. She was shocked for a moment, then confused and simultaneously elated. Friends didn’t kiss friends like that, she was sure. She’d known Andrea and Sam almost all her life, and they’d never kissed each other in any way other than to make a joke about something. As she settled back into the couch with Kara’s hand still in hers, Lena felt a bloom of hope inside her chest.
Maybe she had a shot with the blonde after all.
Notes:
Thanks for reading :)
Next time, we'll get things rolling with more action after a time jump. We'll also get more info on what happened back in Colorado with Alex and Kara and where they've been in the time since everything went down.
I'll try to keep updating every week or two, but my free time comes and goes, depending on what kind of day I'm having at work. Also, I'm traveling overseas in a couple weeks, so that'll disrupt me a bit.
Chapter 4: Four: Kara
Summary:
Three years later
Notes:
Meowdy, partners
Double posting today since I'll be traveling for a little bit. These are very lightly edited :)
Also I realized I made a rookie mistake and posted everything in the default formatting for this site, so none of my intended italicized text was actually in italics. But I'm not changing it because I'm lazy.
Chapter Text
The stalker was on top of her, gnashing its teeth at her until they sunk into the flesh of her arm. Suddenly, the bike she’d been using to shield herself vanished, and a group of infected swarmed her with their rabid wailing and snapping jaws until all she could feel were bites, scratches, and abject terror. She was screaming, crying for help over the terrible noise of the infected until a lone figure materialized in the distance, fuzzy around the edges until proximity brought them into sharp relief.
“Kara,” the melodic, deep voice called much too calmly.
“Please!” she tried to say, “please--”
“Kara, wake up!”
She sat up straight, sweating profusely with tears streaming down her cheeks as she desperately tried to suck air into her lungs. Lena was beside her, perched on the edge of Kara’s bed with a hand on her shoulder and a worried look on her angelic face.
“You were crying and flailing around,” Lena told her quietly. “Are you okay?”
Kara took a deep, steadying breath and wiped her face with her comforter. When she was sure she could speak again, she gave Lena a watery smile and nodded. “I’m good. Just a bad dream.”
The brunette nodded empathetically—Kara knew she also suffered from nightmares occasionally—and tucked a lock of sweaty blonde hair behind Kara’s ear before rising from the bed. In the dim morning light, Kara could see her friend was fully dressed for work with her jeans, boots, coat, and scarf. Her hair was tied back in a neat bun with a beanie over her ears, and her 1911 model pistol was tucked into its thigh holster on her right leg. With dawning horror, Kara realized she’d slept through her alarm.
“Crap! Are we late?”
“ So late. The others have probably already left. I came to find you.”
With a groan, Kara flung the covers off her legs and began rifling through her clothes to quickly pull together something weather appropriate. Then she jogged in her socks towards the bathroom out in the hall and finished her abridged morning routine while Lena laughed at her and went to wait in the living room.
Once she was ready, she hastily laced her boots and grabbed her backpack and pistol, stuffing it in her hip holster after making sure it had bullets. Her hair was thrown up in a messy ponytail, and then she was snagging her coat and beanie off the hook by the door and following Lena out into the morning.
“Geez, it got colder overnight,” Kara noted as she shoved her hands into her coat pockets. Lena handed over the pair of gloves Kara knew she’d forgotten to grab out of her room, looking pleased with herself. The awkward smile Kara shot her was her way of saying thanks for saving her hands from frostbite.
“And we’re on the Signal Mountain trail today. It’ll just get colder the higher in altitude we go.”
“Great.”
“Cheer up, buttercup; we get to spend the next couple of days together.”
That did, in fact, cheer Kara up. She smiled and looked over at her gorgeous best friend that she may or may not be harboring the world’s biggest crush on and laughed when Lena caught her eye and playfully shoved her shoulder.
Three years she’s been in Jackson, and all three of them were the happiest she’s ever been, recent quarrels with her sister aside. She had great friends, a cozy house, and a friendly community that looked out for each other. Her job was rewarding, if a little harrowing at times, and she truly felt as though she were keeping the people of Jackson safe so that they didn’t have to endure the horrors of the world beyond the walls.
The only thing that could make her life even better (besides the thing she was choosing to ignore with her sister) was Lena miraculously revealing her requited romantic feelings for Kara. She had a nice daydream about that, actually. It played on repeat in her brain whenever she got bored or when she was having trouble sleeping at night and thought an orgasm would do her some good. But it was only that: a dream. Lena was her untouchable best friend who had been sleeping on and off again with a woman named Veronica Sinclair, who’d moved to town about a year and a half ago. She worked in the clinic with Andrea, but did tattoos on the side, and Kara kind of hated her.
Veronica (Ronnie, she insisted on being called) was pretty in a femme fatale kind of way and had tasteful ink all over her body. When Lena had confided in Kara one night last year that she’d slept with the other woman, Kara had nearly died of an aneurism. She had, of course, known her best friend was gay, and that she’d been with a couple others before Veronica, but the knowledge that she was choosing to be intimate with someone besides Kara had stung so much she’d avoided the brunette for two weeks after their talk. She knew she was being ridiculous, that Lena wasn’t even aware Kara had feelings for her like that, but she couldn’t help disappearing for a while to nurse her wounded ego and bruised heart. It had taken Sam coming to verbally kick her ass for her to slink back to Lena and beg for forgiveness for her behavior.
Since then, they had an unspoken agreement to never mention Lena’s sometimes-thing with Veronica and Kara pretended it wasn’t happening, even when she occasionally saw the tattoo artist leaving Lena’s house. It was childish, but it was what needed to happen for her sanity.
“There you are,” Cat said as Kara and Lena approached the stables. Her voice was dripping with disapproval. Her cocked hip and crossed arms were aimed directly at Kara.
“Sorry, I overslept.”
“I thought as much. Well, you’re a little behind schedule, but you should be able to make it to the ranger station by nightfall if you work efficiently. I’ll be on the radio today, so I’ll be waiting to hear from you two.”
Kara nodded and noticed from the corner of her eye that Lena was bringing their horses over with a set of reins in each gloved hand.
“We’d better get going,” Lena said. Cat nodded and moved out of the way as the two of them mounted up and signaled for the gates to open.
“Be safe. There’s supposed to be a storm in a few days, the weather team thinks. If it looks like it’s coming early, I’ll call you home on the walkie before you’re out of range.”
“Got it. Talk soon.”
Then, Lena was spurring Ada on with a snap of her boots and a quiet vocal prompt, leading the way through the gate and out into the snowy landscape beyond Jackson’s walls. Kara kicked her buckskin gelding, Ranger, into action to catch up to Ada’s brisk pace, and the workday began.
“So, are you gonna tell me what’s going on between you and Alex, or?”
Kara stiffened in her saddle and cleared her throat. Ranger crossed a small stream and began a gradual climb up a snow-covered hill. She used the dense tree branches as an excuse to not answer for a minute or two as she ducked and pushed icy foliage out of the way, but she knew Lena would expect a response.
“Um, we’re good. Just a little spat.”
Lena scoffed behind her. “A spat that’s lasted almost four months?”
“Why are you asking about it now?” Kara asked defensively, despite her desire to be sweet to Lena, always.
“Because she showed up to my house last night nearly in tears and went straight to Sam’s room and never came back out. I know for a fact she and Sam have been on one of their ‘breaks’, so it had to be something pretty upsetting. Alex hasn’t cried in front of me in all the time I’ve known her, so I figured you two finally had some kind of blow-up over your secret fight.”
Guilt settled heavily on Kara’s shoulders and she frowned. It was true, they’d had a fight, and it had turned ugly to the point her sister had clammed up and stormed out, leaving Kara with her own anger and tears. She didn’t really know what to say, honestly. She was hurt, but she still loved her sister with everything she had. Talking her feelings over with Lena might do her some good before she faced Alex again the next night to clear the air. With a heaving sigh, Kara allowed Lena and Ada to pull up beside her and Ranger and she began speaking.
“She did something I didn’t agree with a long time ago, and I just now confronted her about it. I should have before last night, but I was scared to know the truth, I guess. Scared of what that meant for us. I’d always suspected that she was keeping something from me, and I was mostly right when she came out with the truth, but that almost makes it worse. I’m gonna talk to her when we get back tomorrow; I just needed some time to be mad.”
The trail opened out onto a paved road covered in a blanket of snow so thick they couldn’t distinguish it from the rest of the terrain, but they tried to stay centered where they thought the street should be. After doing a quick pass around the buildings here, they’d head down towards the lake before making their final ascent into the mountains towards their destination. Lena had Ada match pace with Ranger and they looked in opposite directions for signs of activity, human or otherwise. After several minutes of peaceful silence, Lena spoke again.
“What did she do that has you so upset?”
Kara looked over at her friend, finding only kindness and concern in her features. She could tell Lena. They've been close for years now, after all. If she couldn’t confide in her best friend, who could she trust? She almost just blurted the whole story out right there but felt the familiar spike of anxiety surrounding the memory of those final months in Colorado and snapped her mouth shut. After a few false starts, she settled for a version of the truth.
“I’ve told you we’re from a town in Colorado,” she said, earning a nod from Lena. “We had to escape one day when I was sixteen. Things went bad, I was unconscious, and Alex got me out, but our parents— her parents—were killed. Apparently, Alex had to do some things to make sure we got away, and they weren’t good. People we’d known for a long time got hurt. I felt guilty about it, and told her I wished she had just left me behind instead of doing those things, but you know Alex: she’s loyal almost to a fault. I said something I shouldn’t have last night, and that’s when she left. I regret it. Hell, I didn’t even really mean it; I just wanted to hurt her feelings because I was angry and lashing out like a child. She’s done so much to keep me safe. She deserves better than that. She deserves better than me.”
“Hey, don’t say that. You’re a great sister. Alex is a hard nut to crack, but she’s soft and mushy when it comes to you. I’m sure she’s also just feeling hurt and will come back around to sort this thing out with you when we get home.”
“You don’t know what I said,” Kara scoffed around the lump in her throat. The tears in her eyes were threatening to freeze in the frigid winter air.
“It can’t be anything you couldn’t apologize f—do you smell that?”
Kara wiped her eyes and sniffed, getting a hint of flesh and blood. “Yeah, I do. What is that?”
Lena pulled her pistol from its holster and steered Ada towards where it seemed the smell was wafting from. “Dunno. Let’s go find out.”
Kara gripped her own pistol—a hefty 9mm in a desert brown finish—and followed her friend’s lead. The horses plodded along with their ears bent back, showing their discomfort as the smell and the weird vibes grew stronger. When they found the culprit, Kara grimaced.
“Yikes,” she said as Lena hopped from her saddle to get a closer look. An elk with an impressive set of antlers was laid out on the ground, bloody and torn up beside a grocery store. “Wolves or infected, you think?”
“Infected. Wolves wouldn’t have left anything behind.”
Then, the elk suddenly moved , flailing its limbs and antlers around while it made a horrible screaming sound as it tried to stand. Lena shot it twice in the head, killing it for good, and only after the jumpscare was over did they realize they were both screaming. In the silence that followed the craziness of the last few seconds, they stared wide-eyed at each other as they panted for breath—and then began laughing so hard they were bent double.
“Let’s never speak of this to anybody,” Lena said as she wiped happy tears from her eyes.
“Agreed. God, that was weird. Why wasn’t it dead already from that kind of damage?”
“Fuck if I know, but it scared me half to death.”
“Same.”
Lena blew out a dramatic breath that puffed her cheeks and turned to face the grocery store’s boarded windows. “They’re probably in there. See that broken wood down there?”
There was indeed a hole in the plywood over one section of a destroyed window, big enough for a body to crawl through.
“We are on patrol,” Kara drawled. Already, Lena was reaching for her backpack on her saddle and moving towards the opening. Kara swung off Ranger’s back and did the same, preparing to engage in a lethal dance she and Lena had performed a thousand times by now.
“Masks on, just in case,” Lena said just before Kara bent down to maneuver through the crawl space. She wished she could tell Lena she didn’t actually need a mask, that spores couldn’t infect her, but a stranger wouldn’t believe her if she and Lena were discovered. It was safer to play along. “Wouldn’t want to have to shoot you in the face,” the brunette added as a teasing afterthought.
“You’re hilarious,” Kara deadpanned as she tightened the mask’s straps around her head and moved into the store.
Inside, the store was dark and dusty, only slightly warmer than the air outside simply because the walls blocked the wind and snow. The familiar yellowy haze of fungal spores didn’t pop out in Kara’s flashlight beam, but she kept the mask on anyway as a precaution. When Lena crawled through the hole in the wood, she stood beside Kara and took a quick glance around. Then, she picked up the remnants of an old glass bottle of wine that had already been shattered in one place and threw it across the store. When it crashed against something, four different voices shrieked and cried in that awful way infected did. The pair made eye contact and moved forward silently.
The ransacked shelves demarcating the aisles of the store provided good cover as they moved towards their targets, who had already moved on and started shuffling around again judging by the sounds coming from that way. Their flashlights finally shone on a pair of stage one infected—runners—that were prowling with their heads down and their hands clawing at their hairlines as though they could feel the cordyceps taking over their brains. Kara considered them more dangerous than clickers, who were blind to your position so long as you stayed quiet and out of the way. The fact the runners could spot someone without using echolocation made them a larger threat. They would need to be dealt with first.
Lena silently got Kara’s attention, signaling she’d take the one on the right if Kara would go for the left. She nodded, then waited for Lena to advance, and they moved as one.
There was a split second where the infected man Kara was about to take down spotted her, and she tensed as she kicked herself into a higher gear before he could scream and give her location away. She lurched forward with a quiet grunt, locked his neck in the V of her elbow, and stabbed him in the brain with her hunting knife. Quietly, she lowered the body to the ground and shot a look over to Lena to make sure she was alright. The other runner was down, too. With a nod to each other, they slowly picked their way towards another part of the store, keeping an eye on each other’s sixes in case there were stalkers lurking about. When their sweep of the main shopping area turned up empty, Lena spotted an office area in the back behind what used to be a deli counter. She threw another random item in that direction, and two answering shrieks echoed through the silence, but nothing visibly moved.
“Fuck,” Lena whispered. “Stalkers, then.”
Kara took a fortifying breath to help quell the nerves she felt whenever she was faced with stalkers and took point. Ever since the bite incident, she’d been nearly petrified of the things. Runners and clickers? Fine. Stalkers? Anxiety-inducing nightmare fuel.
The back office was an open space with a few desks and broken office appliances strewn about. Behind one desk, Kara spotted the growths coming off a stalker’s head, and to her right, she could see the outline of another just beyond the beam of her flashlight, hiding beside an old file cabinet. Her brain did its best to shut down the part of her that felt fear, to just live in the moment as a trained exterminator. When she was ready, she indicated with her off-hand to Lena which direction the brunette needed to go once they entered the room and started shooting. An answering double tap on her shoulder gave her the affirmative, and then she stepped forward and kicked an old pencil cup, agitating the infected and rousing them from their hiding spots. Kara fired off three rounds at the one coming at her from the file cabinet, downing it with the latter two bullets, while Lena rushed in and sunk a headshot into the other infected. The whole encounter lasted maybe five seconds, but it left them each a little breathless when the gun smoke cleared and the bodies stopped moving.
Lena took off her gas mask, apparently sure there were no spores around, and smiled at Kara. “Nice.”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”
They exited the office area and began the trek back towards their little crawlspace when a third stalker they hadn’t noticed before ambushed them from behind the deli counter. It tackled Lena, who cried out in surprise, and Kara’s mind took over in a haze of fear and anger and pure adrenaline as she reached down. She took hold of the stalker’s shoulders, yanked its entire body off Lena, and used her boot as an anchor to its chest while she fired a solitary bullet into its face. Its arms and legs stopped swinging, and its head smacked back against the cracked tile floor, dead. Then she whirled around and shoved her gun into its holster before reaching out to her friend, who was catching her breath on the floor.
“Are you okay?” she asked frantically as she patted Lena’s arms all over and scanned her for visible bites, hoping to all divine powers that her search would come up fruitless. “Did it get you?”
“I’m good,” Lena breathlessly told her as she inspected herself. “I’m good.”
“God, that scared the crap out of me! I thought for sure it bit you, and I was about to start crying, and--”
“Kara,” Lena said firmly with a hand covering her still-roaming one. “I’m okay. Healthy as a horse and bite-free. Let’s just get out of here.”
The blonde nodded and helped her up. They quickly made their way back to the horses and left the grocery store, and shortly after, the town. There was a lot of ground to cover before the sun set, and their little detour had cost them precious minutes. Being stuck outside at night in the winter wasn’t exactly how Kara would like to spend the evening, so they kicked Ada and Ranger into top gear and sped towards the mountains.
At the ranger station a while later, Kara volunteered to get the horses set up for the night while Lena went inside to fill out the log and update Jackson on their arrival. The blonde took a bit longer than necessary so she could have a chance to get her emotions under control, using the routine of removing the tack from the horses and setting up their feed bags on the posts they were tethered to as a grounding exercise. She let her still-trembling fingers run over the leather of the saddles, the sweat on the animals’ backs, felt the grainy texture of the feed bags as she opened them. She breathed in the crisp mountain air, freezing this high up and with the sun almost fully set, and let the chill sting her lungs. Around her, the forest rustled with the breeze, alive with the sounds of critters burrowing into their dens for the night as they tried to stay warm.
Kara felt herself settle back into her bones as she took all these things in. As a patrol member, she was expected to handle infected without flinching—which she did, most of the time—but those damn stalkers always sparked a chain reaction within her brain that left her mercilessly back in that ski resort when she was a stupid teenager. When she was bitten. Seeing Lena on the ground with that infected person atop her had scared Kara down to her core. She knew she’d been quiet on the rest of the long ride up here, but Lena didn’t pry. That was something Kara loved about her: she always knew when to leave something alone for a while.
And that was the center of the whole problem, wasn’t it? She loved her best friend. Romantically. In the big, scary, hopelessly done-for way. Her brain couldn’t function correctly when she was around the brunette under normal circumstances, but seeing her in harm’s way, seeing her potentially being bitten and knowing she’d have to be the one to kill the woman she loved if the worst happened, had left Kara a mute, shivering mess the rest of their patrol. But Lena didn’t know she felt this way about her. She must be thinking something else was going on in her brain—and she was certainly dealing with some PTSD, but that wasn’t the issue here, not entirely. Knowing Lena could have died in that moment and Kara would have to go on with life without ever having worked up the courage to say anything about her big, romantic feelings would have wrecked her. Her own cowardice over the fear of rejection was almost eclipsed by the immense pain of loss and what could have been, had she only broached the subject of her love sooner.
Kara needed to tell her. It had been three years, dammit. She was an adult; she could handle it and move on if Lena didn’t feel the same way. They were close enough and had been through enough out on patrol and elsewhere that their platonic relationship could survive unrequited feelings.
Mind made up, Kara nodded to herself and fastened the jackets around the horses’ bodies before covering their double stall shelter with a tarp and marching inside.
Lena was at the woodstove in the kitchen stirring rice around in a Dutch oven. A fire was already blazing in the fireplace, the fear of raiders seeing the smoke non-existent this high up in the mountains and with so much snow on the ground. They would be aware of their surroundings, always, but no one ever saw raiders anywhere higher than the foothills of the Tetons.
“Whatcha making?” Kara asked as she shrugged off her coat and knelt to unlace her boots.
“Rice and beans are all there was. We’ll have to remind the next team up here to bring more food. But I’m adding crushed tomatoes and onions to the rice to make it more palatable than plain white.”
“Sounds delicious. I’m so hungry, I’d eat beets.”
Her joke landed as intended, Lena laughing heartily at the notion of Kara eating a food she’d normally go to war to avoid.
“Well, lucky for me then; I’m not the greatest cook, but I can make rice and beans.”
“A feat Andrea would be proud of,” Kara teased.
“Who do you think taught me how to cook everything in my arsenal?”
“You’ve gotten a lot better, though. You don’t burn things anymore.”
Lena shot a smirk at Kara and added water to the rice. Kara retrieved the whiskey from the cabinet that was always there and poured them each a decent tumbler. They drank in silence while the water came to a boil, and then Lena put a lid on the Dutch oven and they moved to the couch for a bit. The beans were already warming in a pot off to the side, so there wasn’t anything else to do but wait.
In the glow of the fire and the lone lantern in the kitchen, Lena’s profile as she reclined on the couch was shrouded in shadows that accentuated her sharp jawline and high cheekbones. Her nearly black hair was messy from a day of hard riding and exertion as she took it down from its bun. Kara watched her lithe fingers comb through the dark strands with envy—for the missed opportunity to run her own fingers through that hair, or for the crime of not knowing how Lena’s fingers felt on her skin, she wasn’t sure. Green eyes caught her staring and Lena smirked knowingly as Kara blushed and took another sip of whiskey.
“Something on my face?” Lena asked innocently (flirtatiously?).
Kara gulped and chuckled awkwardly. “Nope. All good.”
“You were quiet after the grocery store,” her friend pointed out, throwing Kara off. “What’s going on in there?”
They stared at each other quietly for a few beats while Kara gathered her thoughts. Her pulse was racing suddenly, aware of the momentous truth bomb she was about to drop. Her hands were sweaty. She put the whiskey glass on the coffee table and decided to be brave before she slid close enough to Lena that their knees touched. The brunette watched her movements carefully, but let Kara slightly invade her space. With a final mental push, Kara lightly laid her hand across Lena’s bent leg and tenderly grasped the pale fingers that were resting there. She raised her eyes back up to Lena’s and smiled nervously at the curious—dare she say hopeful—expression on the other woman’s face.
“At the store, when that stalker jumped you, I was so scared,” Kara started quietly. “Yes, it was scary because it was an infected person and you were in real danger, but it was also scary because... because I haven’t told you how I feel about you. I—Lena, you have to know that I love you. Like, in a more-than-friends way. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I was afraid in that moment that I’d waited too long and lost you before I ever had the chance to see if you felt the same way. And—and it’s okay, you know, if you don’t feel the same; I can manage. We’re both adults. We can be friends and ignore my stupid feelings, so don’t feel like you have to--”
Kara was abruptly cut off in her increasingly-teary-eyed ramble by plump, chapped lips pressing firmly into hers. Lena's hands were framing Kara’s face, thumbs stroking her cheekbones delicately, and they were kissing with a muted intensity that spoke of pent-up desire. It was Lena who pulled away first, just long enough to take in a shuddering breath before diving back in and deepening the angle. A hint of tongue against her lips was all Kara needed to open her mouth, and then they were tipping back so that Lena was lying on the couch with Kara hovering over her with her hands on hips wider than her own.
After that, it all began to spiral for a few minutes. Lena’s legs squeezed around Kara’s waist, her fingernails were digging deliciously into her shoulder blades, and their pelvises were grinding, seeking friction as they panted against each other’s mouths while they traded sloppy, sucking kisses. Kara straddled Lena’s thigh, pushing her own against the apex of Lena’s legs, and they moaned together as they each felt the pressure against their centers. Her hands slipped beneath Lena’s base layer shirt and raked up the flat plane of her pale belly, causing ripples and goosebumps to erupt where her short nails dragged. Lena’s breath caught and she allowed the wandering hands to get as far as her bra before she began to slow their movements. When their lips separated, Kara whined and tried to follow Lena, but the brunette placed a gentle hand against her sternum, causing Kara to open her eyes as she stopped moving. She almost couldn’t see the green of Lena’s irises with how blown-out her pupils were. The sound and feeling of their harsh breathing against each other sent a hot zing down Kara’s body and she had to do her best not to grind down again.
“I love you, too,” Lena sighed against her lips, sending a euphoric wave of giddy relief through her. She couldn’t help the dorky smile that erupted on her face.
“Yeah?”
Lena’s answering smile was sweet, seductive. Her hands gripped Kara’s shoulders a little tighter. “Yeah. But we have to get the rice off the stove before we do anything else.”
Kara frowned and dropped her head into Lena’s neck with a groan. Lena only laughed and patted her back consolingly before using her hips to get enough leverage to push Kara off.
“We can have fun after we make sure we aren’t burning our food to an inedible crisp. There’s only so much of it. And if a snowstorm hits overnight, we’ll wish we hadn’t wasted a meal.” She rose elegantly from the couch and went to check on the rice, leaving Kara pouting in her wake.
“I hate it when you’re right.”
“Well, get used to that happening.”
Kara smiled and moved to meet the other woman in the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around her waist and nuzzled into her neck from behind. Lena hummed and leaned back into her as she fluffed the rice with a wooden spoon.
“Can I ask you something?” Lena murmured.
Kara pressed a kiss to her nape and squeezed her arms with an affirmative hum.
“Would you have said all that if I hadn’t been almost bitten today?”
The blonde grimaced. “Maybe not? I don’t know; I’ve been working up the nerve for years . If it’s any consolation, I was getting close to my tipping point. I think I would have told you sooner rather than later.”
Lena tensed in Kara’s arms and sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, well... I’ve wanted you since we met. It wasn’t love in the beginning—I don’t believe in the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing. But, there was definitely attraction from the start. And then, somewhere over the course of our friendship, I realized I love you, and I was okay with you not reciprocating. I wasn’t sure, but I thought sometimes you might have been flirting with me. But it could have been the kind of flirting I do with Sam and Andrea—just joking around—so I didn’t examine it too closely. And in any case, you never seemed to notice when I was checking you out or anything. So, I guess, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t just doing this impulsively, because of the scare today.” Lena stopped here, began to sound a bit choked up. “I don’t want to know what it’s like to have you for one night and not any of the nights after that just because you wake up in the morning feeling regret. I want you to want this the way I do. I want you to be in this, see where it goes. Please.”
Kara’s sad frown was set firmly in place as she gently turned Lena in her arms and pulled her into a proper hug. She tried to imbue the moment with all the love and affection she had for the brunette, an apology without words for the insecurity she’d caused in Lena. The last thing she wanted was to upset her.
They swayed together for a while as Lena composed herself, only parting when Kara’s stomach grumbled loudly. They giggled at the noise and Kara took the moment of brevity to softly hold Lena’s jaws in her hands and press a sweet kiss to her lips.
“I’m sorry I was an idiot,” she said sincerely. “But I promise I’m here now. I want you. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but I’m so happy and relieved you feel the same as me.”
Lena was gazing up at her with such tenderness, such devotion, that her next words took Kara’s breath away. “How could I not?”
Their dinner and Kara’s hunger were forgotten, then. Mouths connected, hands clutched, and legs started the long shuffle towards the bunkroom. Somewhere by the couch, Kara’s two shirts came off, leaving her in just her bra. Lena’s hands greedily cupped her breasts over the thin material, homing in on the hard points of her nipples and causing them both to moan. Lena’s shirts were stripped in the little hallway that separated the bunkrooms and bathroom, and then their pants came off as they tumbled onto the bottom bunk—Kara on top.
Here, they slowed down a bit as their underwear and socks came off, and Kara felt the need to be honest as a sudden stab of anxiety caused her to start trembling. Lena noticed the shift and waited patiently for her to gather herself.
“Uh--I haven’t actually...”
Lena’s brow furrowed from where she was gazing up at Kara. Her hands stroking the bare skin of Kara’s back were distracting and sending sparks of hot electricity through her core.
“With anyone, or with a woman?” she asked, her tone free of judgment.
“Anyone.”
Her response was immediate and patient. “We don’t have to do this, then. We can wait if you want to.”
“No, no—I want to! I just, I figured, if we’re doing this, then you should know I probably won’t outshine the others you’ve been with.”
Even saying that had Kara nearly turning green with jealousy, but she tried to ignore it. Lena still picked up on it, though, and smiled affectionately.
“They don’t matter,” Lena told her. “I love you , not them. They’re old news. Ancient. You’re already the best I’ve ever had.”
Kara chuckled and settled more comfortably against her new lover. They were both naked, pressed together from chests to feet, and it was already becoming intoxicating. She wanted to feel more, see what made Lena writhe and sigh, wanted to feel Lena draw pleasure out of her in turn. She let the playful mood of the last moment slide away and leaned down to kiss the brunette with all the slow-burning passion she could manage.
They kissed and explored each other for several minutes, slow and reverent. Hands caressed breasts, squeezed, pinched, slid downward. Kara got the briefest hint of the sensation of pubic hair against her fingertips when Lena shifted. Before she knew what was happening, Kara was on her back and staring doe-eyed at Lena as the other woman settled against her lower abdomen, rubbing herself wetly against hard muscle as her hands raked down Kara’s torso.
“Let me show you,” she said in a low, gravelly voice Kara hadn’t ever heard before. It made her whole body flush. All she could do was nod.
When a hot mouth enveloped her nipple and a calloused hand reached between her legs, Kara swore she transcended to a higher plane of existence.
Chapter 5: Five: Lena
Summary:
After a passionate night together, Lena and Kara are called upon to rescue a fellow patrol team.
Notes:
Sooo... this got a little dark towards the end. It's not *super* graphic I think, but there's still a major death incoming. If you know the game/show, you know what's up. If you don't, well--sorry in advance.
It's on the shorter side, so, sorry about that as well.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Early morning met Lena with a pleasant soreness in her muscles and a warm weight at her back. She smiled at the sensation of Kara’s naked skin against hers, of her small breasts pressed tightly to her shoulder blades, and luxuriated in the intimacy for a while longer. She found Kara’s hand tucked up by her chest, tan skin a stark contrast to Lena’s pale complexion, and rubbed her knuckles with her thumb.
Last night, she’d been surprised to learn Kara hadn’t ever slept with anyone before. Looking back on their friendship, she realized she’d never heard the blonde mention any romantic interests or anything of the sort, but she could have also been actively filtering out that information for her own sanity. Kara wasn’t the only jealous one, it seemed. After the Ronnie incident of last year, they had never mentioned romantic endeavors in front of each other again, and Lena was grateful for the boundary, even if she didn’t fully understand why it existed.
They’d gone three rounds with a break somewhere between earth-shattering orgasms to eat the abandoned rice and beans when their stomachs grew impatient. Kara had proven a quick study after overcoming her initial shyness and had made Lena come so hard she blacked out at one point, just for a second. In every movement, every sigh and breathy moan, Lena could feel Kara’s love for her, and it was rapturous. Everything she’d imagined and more. She’d honestly never been happier than in that little bed in the chilly air of the ranger station.
“G’morning,” Kara grumbled behind Lena before nuzzling her face further into her hair. “Time’s it?”
“Good morning,” Lena whispered as she turned over and hugged Kara to her chest. The blonde made a contented sound as her face pressed against cleavage, and Lena huffed a quiet, exasperated laugh to herself. “It’s still early. You can sleep a little longer.”
“M’kay.”
Eventually, they would have to rise and finish the job they’d been sent to do in order to go home. The ride down the mountain would be rough with all the snow, and then the valley always posed the threat of raiders or opportunistic wanderers. They'd need to be on their A-game once they left the house. But for now, they could enjoy the peace and quiet and each other’s company.
When the sunlight didn’t seem any brighter after what had to have been an hour, Lena braved the brisk air on her nude form and peeked out the window to find heavy gray clouds. They were absolutely getting snowed on going home. She sighed and started pulling on her change of clothes stowed in her backpack.
“Noooo, no clothes,” Kara whined from where she was still nestled beneath the blanket.
“We have to go before these clouds dump snow on us,” Lena chided lightly. “You can see my tits again in Jackson.”
“Promise?”
The brunette snorted. “Promise. Let’s go, horny.”
“You made me this way.”
“And I would love nothing more than to encourage you in your endeavor to keep us naked in bed all day, but we’re still technically working.”
She watched unashamedly as Kara rose from the bed in all her naked glory with mussed hair and sleep-warm skin. Her body was lean and strong, the definition in her muscles visible even without flexing. She had a few scars here and there, much like Lena herself did, but the rest of her was wonderfully different. Her breasts were small and perky, where Lena’s were fuller and heavier; her nipples were a darker shade of pink than Lena’s, and they stood out more. The hair under her arms, on her legs, between her thighs, was blonde and less close-trimmed than Lena’s body hair. She had a birthmark on the back of her left hip, just over the swell of her ass, that Lena had taken to kissing and biting last night when she realized it made her lover jolt and giggle.
“Now who’s horny?” the subject of Lena’s leering sassed.
“I’m going to ration out our breakfast and get the horses ready to go.”
Kara laughed at her abrupt exit and presumably continued dressing in her own spare clothes.
The rest of their morning routine was a bit rushed, but Kara was also doing her best to impede them at every turn with lingering kisses and sneaky hands. It made Lena eventually press the blonde up against a wall with their fronts plastered together while she hovered her lips just out of reach of Kara’s with a devious smirk.
“Be good and stop sabotaging our packing, and I’ll do all kinds of filthy things to you as soon as we’re alone at home,” she whispered seductively. Kara swallowed thickly and nodded, earning a chaste kiss as a reward before Lena relented and moved away to continue working.
After they’d eaten and saddled up the horses, they shared a deep, toe-curling kiss full of the promise of more once they were safely within Jackson's walls. Lena pecked Kara’s lips one last time, then again, before forcing herself away to climb into her saddle. Their smiles were ridiculously giddy. When they were both settled, they set off.
The snow began to fall as they were descending the mountain, coming down harder with each passing minute until they were both shivering and cursing the weather. Even the horses were starting to grumble as the wind picked up. Overhead, the thick clouds were starting to move quicker and the snowflakes flying around were becoming thick and fat. The temperature down in the foothills as they entered the valley was still well below freezing, barely warmer than what it had been at a higher altitude. Lena could feel her eyelashes crusting when the howling wind made her eyes burn and water. With a glance to her left, she could see Kara wasn’t faring much better.
“All teams, this is Jackson,” Clark’s voice suddenly said over the walkie. “We’re calling everyone home. It’s looking like a blizzard is rolling in. Shelter in place if you need to, but let us know so we don’t send a search party. I’ll repeat this message every five minutes. Please respond. Over.”
“Great,” Kara grumpily mumbled while Lena unclipped the radio from her belt and brought it to her face.
“This is Lena and Kara. We’re heading home, but we’ll be a while. Will update if we end up having to seek shelter. Over.”
They listened idly as the other teams checked in, counting off five other groups before the reports ceased. Lena frowned and looked over at Kara again through the heavy snowflakes. They each wore beanies and scarves, but she could still see the confusion on the other woman’s face when the last team didn’t check in.
“Where’s the seventh?” Kara wondered aloud.
There were always seven patrol teams. Seven routes, seven pairs. She and Kara were one, then five more radioed Jackson with their heading, leaving one unaccounted for. Eventually, five minutes ticked by and no one else said anything, so Clark repeated the recall message.
“Please respond. Over.”
After a long silence, an answer came, strained and rough. “This is Sam and Alex. We’re seeing emergency weather conditions here. Sheltering in place. Over.”
Lena’s heart skipped a dreadful beat and she felt the blood wash out of her face as she looked back over at Kara, who was staring at the walkie with wide, fearful eyes. Clark, to his credit, responded calmly, not giving away that Sam had just said their distress word.
“Copy. Sit tight. Over.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Lena hissed as she switched the radio to the emergency frequency. Already, Clark had tuned in and was coordinating a search and rescue.
“Jack, James, head north and get a vantage point from the ski lifts. Kara and Lena, continue south until you hit the trailhead for route four and then scope out any buildings for anything out of the ordinary.” He kept going, telling others where to go and what to do, but Lena and Kara were already spurring their horses into the hardest run they could manage in the snow without falling over from exhaustion.
The air had shifted, turned more sinister and volatile as they rode hard for the route four tailhead. In their training, every patrol member is taught to never say the word ‘emergency’ unless they were in dire need of assistance while an outsider listened, usually by holding a gun to one’s head. Sam saying she and Alex were in an emergency weather situation was like a warning bell telling everyone listening that they were facing imminent danger and potential loss of life. It was a cry for help. And if Sam and Alex were calling for assistance, the outlook was grim indeed.
Kara was silent as they rode. Neither of them said a word beyond what Lena was shouting into her radio over the snowstorm that continued to swell around them. Lena didn’t even feel cold anymore, just numb with dread.
At the trailhead a small eon later, Jack and James met them as they came down from the ski lift, their horses huffing as hard as Ada and Ranger were. Their faces were clouded with worry.
“We saw a light in one of the mini mansions to the east,” Jack hollered over the storm. “Could be them. Let’s go, yeah?”
“Lead the way,” Lena said.
They ran the horses east as the snow grew so thick they could barely see anything ten yards ahead. The radio was starting to get staticky with interference from the storm. The last update Lena heard was that no other team was nearby, but they were on their way to assist anyway, elements be damned. No Jacksonian left behind.
When they reached a neighborhood that would lead up to the street with the mini mansions, they were riding fanned out with Kara and Lena between Jack and James. The tension was palpable. Every second they weren’t with Sam and Alex was a second they could be murdered.
“Infected!” James shouted.
Ahead, through the swirling mess of snowflakes, a group of runners and clickers had spotted them and were in a dead sprint towards them. Lena and Jack instinctively peeled right to flank the group while James and Kara swung left. They lost sight of each other as they broke up the infected into two more manageable groups while they decided who to chase. Lena and Jack earned themselves a bit of a cushion by running the horses a few blocks over towards a cul-de-sac and bottlenecking their pursuers in the mouth of the rounded street. They had enough time to light up a couple molotov cocktails they kept in their packs and they threw them simultaneously into the oncoming group of wailing infected. The flames erupted from the bottles on impact, dousing most of the group and rendering them immobile as they shrieked and burned. There were a few stragglers left that Jack and Lena easily finished off with their pistols, and then their rescue mission was back on track. They lost precious minutes, though.
“Do we regroup or keep going?” Jack shouted.
“Keep going! They know where we’re headed.”
He nodded under his hat and scarf and steered Watson back towards the mini mansions, choosing to bypass the road and simply hike the hill behind the houses. Above them, the sky was dark with swirling storm clouds that continued to absolutely dump snow on them. Visibility was now the few feet in front of their horses’ heads and they almost needed their flashlights to see through the dimness.
By the time they made it to the house Jack and James identified from the ski lift, at least ten minutes had passed since the group split up to fight the infected. They were being woefully slow. It made Lena’s heart clench with anxiety.
“Let’s put the horses in the neighbor’s yard and go in from the back door,” Lena suggested. Jack nodded again and they moved to enact her plan.
With a silent apology for leaving Ada in the blizzard, Lena grabbed her backpack and muscled through the thigh-high snow towards the house she needed to be in. She hoped with everything she had that Sam and Alex were in this house and not somewhere else. She hoped they were still alright. It had been nearly an hour and a half since the call first went out. There was a nauseating feeling in her gut that they were too late, but she tried to push that thought aside.
The back deck of the house was expansive, but empty of hostiles. There was a sliding door that led into a den area, and she and Jack entered the house with the professionalism of two people who’d cleared rooms and buildings routinely for years. Their guns were up, flashlights on to illuminate the dark space. Lena panned over to the left and spotted an array of sleeping bags on the floor. She tapped Jack’s arm silently to get him to look and he paused a moment while he counted in his head what Lena had already seen: six bedrolls. Six hostiles. They nodded to each other and continued with their search.
When they reached the expansive kitchen on the other side of the den and past a dining room, Lena heard it.
“Please stop! Alex, get the fuck up!”
“Kara,” Lena breathed, and then she was running towards the stairs off the kitchen that must lead to a basement.
She powered down the stairs and burst through the open door when she spotted a woman she didn’t recognize standing over a bloodied and beaten Alex who was lying prone on the ground. She fired one shot, hitting the glass just beside the woman’s head, missing her by mere centimeters , when she felt the unmistakable impact of a rifle smashing into her head. She dropped like a deadweight, her vision going hazy as her gun fell from her hands. She was vaguely aware of more voices shouting, a few more shots being fired, then a brief pause as the woman she almost killed and some strange man conversed. She couldn’t hear it over the ringing in her ears. She was facing Kara, who was being held down to the ground with her hands behind her back, a man kneeling on her lower half. She had a broken nose, judging by the blood and bruising, and she was sobbing as she looked from Lena to Alex. Was that blood dripping down Lena’s face or was it melting snow? It was probably blood. Her blurry eyes swiveled back to Alex and she tried to reach out for her, say something, but her brain wouldn’t make anything work. The mystery woman stalked to a nearby golf bag and snatched a club with a slim metal head in her bloody hands. She stood over Alex once more, paused, and then decisively brought the club down on her skull, spreading a dramatic pool of blood and brain matter on the ground. Distantly, as if through a tank of water, Lena could hear Kara screaming.
She faded out then, without even catching a glimpse of Sam to see if she was alive. She knew, as the blackness of her concussion overtook her, that Alex was dead. When she woke up— if she woke up-- the redhead would be gone, and Kara would be without her sister. Lena would be without her friend. Sam would be without her lover.
Notes:
Sorry if the chapter titles look weird in the chapter index. They look to me like they're mislabeled, but when I scroll through individually, they're correctly titled. Idk :)
Chapter 6: Six: Kara
Summary:
Kara and co. recover after a brutal attack
Notes:
OMG I've been so busy since I came back from vacation. This has been half-written for like a week but I haven't had time to finish it. It's lightly edited.
Chapter Text
Four years ago
Kara woke sprawled in the backseat of a musty sedan wearing a hospital gown and saddled with a foggy brain. In the front seat, Alex was at the wheel with a white-knuckle ten-and-two grip while her jaw looked so clenched her teeth had to be hurting. With a groan, Kara pulled herself onto her elbows.
“Hey, take it easy for a while,” Alex gently instructed as she glanced over her shoulder. “You were sedated. It’s gonna take some time to feel normal.”
“What happened?” the blonde asked around the heavy sensation of her own tongue.
Alex didn’t respond immediately. She continued driving in silence for so long, Kara thought she might’ve spoken too quietly for her sister to hear. She was just about to repeat herself when Alex spoke up.
“Some decisions were made about your immunity. Mom and Dad helped me get you out before it was too late.”
Images of Eliza advancing tearfully on Kara with a needle while two men held her down sprang forth through the haze in her brain and the younger girl shuddered. Bile rose at the back of her throat and tears burned her eyes as the betrayal of her mother sunk in.
“Eliza’s the one who sedated me,” Kara eventually said in a shaky voice. “She had two men hold me down and she put a needle in my neck. That’s the last thing I remember before waking up.”
Alex sighed and adjusted her tight grip on the steering wheel. “She did what she had to do so she could keep you safe. I found you and she and Dad helped us escape.”
“How did we get out?”
“Luck.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“Mom and Dad didn’t make it.”
Kara sucked in a sharp breath and clutched a hand to her chest as a stabbing pain shot through her heart. The tears fell then, and she wept in the backseat as her sister stoically drove them further away from home.
“I’m sorry,” she eventually sobbed with her hands over her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is, though! I shouldn’t have convinced you to take me out on my sixteenth birthday; I shouldn’t have been so helpless when those stalkers found us--”
“Kara!”
The blonde stopped her blubbering at the harsh tone in Alex’s voice. She removed her hands from her eyes and noticed the car had stopped and Alex was turned around in her seat to level a stern look at her teary face.
“Stop apologizing. What’s done is done. All we can do is move forward. I love you, and I’m gonna look out for you, okay?”
“Okay,” Kara whispered. Her sister nodded and shifted the car into gear again. Neither of them spoke for a long stretch, absorbed in their own grieving minds, until Kara suddenly remembered who they’d been with that night before everything went down. “What about Lucy?”
Alex stiffened all over again and scratched her chin absently with her thumb. “What about her?”
Kara’s brow furrowed and she sat up a little more. “She’s your girlfriend and we’re not home anymore after a major incident? Won’t she be looking for you?”
“I’m sure she is,” her sister muttered darkly.
“Shouldn’t we try to get a message back to her, tell her we’re okay?”
“No. We need to stay hidden. She’s in the past now.”
“But--”
“Leave it, Kara.”
Faced with the hardness in her voice, Kara could do nothing but relent.
Waking up felt like being pulled out of a thick mud Kara had nearly drowned in. She felt the ache in her body and nose first, then the splitting headache, then the breathless rush of grief. Without opening her eyes to her new reality, Kara knew her sister was gone. She wouldn’t be dutifully sitting by her side, waiting for her to wake up. She wouldn’t be anywhere ever again. Lucy had brought that golf club down decisively, sending brain matter and bits of bone and hair across the floor as she exacted revenge. Kara had seen the whole thing, including the way the light in her sister’s hazel eyes slowly drained out, leaving nothing but a blank, dead stare aimed Kara’s direction. She had begged and pleaded with Lucy to spare her former flame, to maim Alex and move on—to kill Kara herself if she really wanted Alex to suffer. Her cries had gone unanswered, and then Lena and Jack barged in and everything became a sickening blur up until Kara saw her sister’s brain spill out onto the dusty floor. There had been a piece of the golf club broken off in her skull, Lucy had swung so hard. The other people in the room had huddled together—possibly discussing the fates of Kara and her friends, but she couldn’t tell through the ringing in her ears—until someone came forward and slammed his boot so hard into Kara’s face, she’d passed out.
When the image of Alex’s mangled head became too much for Kara to bear, she blinked open her eyes to find herself in a dim room wearing a hospital gown and tucked beneath a quilted blanket on a cot. The room was empty, save for the generic decor the Jackson clinic used to spruce up the place, and the only light that filtered in came from the frosted glass window in the door across from the foot of the bed. Shadows moved left and right past the door, but no one stopped in to check on Kara. When it became apparent no one would be around to interrupt her, Kara allowed herself to cry. Thick, hot tears poured from her eyes—which were definitely bruised and swollen—until her chest was heaving painfully and hyperventilation became a serious possibility. She allowed herself to feel the visceral pain of losing her sister, the one person she could always count on to have her back, even when they were fighting. Nothing would ease this pain. She would carry the burden of grief around with her for the rest of her days whenever she encountered something that reminded her of Alex, she was sure of it. So, she let herself weep.
Someone must have heard her ugly crying, because the door to her room opened a crack, and then soft, hurried footsteps were coming towards her before a familiar warmth and a comforting pair of arms wrapped around Kara’s shoulders, cradling her head against a sturdy chest. She leaned into Andrea and clutched at one of her upper arms with both trembling hands as her friend hushed her and stroked her hands through Kara’s tangled blonde curls.
“I’m so sorry, Kara,” Andrea whispered. “You’re safe now. Shh...”
The older woman held her like that for a small eternity until Kara cried herself out and managed to take deep, shaky breaths. When she finally exhausted herself, Kara sagged bonelessly into Andrea’s frame and sniffled.
“Is there anything I can get you?” her friend quietly asked. Her hands kept up the soothing motion of petting her hair.
“Are the others okay?” she croaked. “Not--I know Alex is... but are the others alive?”
“Yes. A little banged up, but they’ll pull through. Jack was shot, but it wasn’t serious. He’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
“What about the attackers?”
The petting stuttered for a brief second, then resumed. “No sign of them. James found you all in that house after they’d already gone. He said you two got separated in the storm, and then with the low visibility, he got turned around. He stabilized everyone and waited for the other patrol teams to show up to help with evacuating back to Jackson.”
Disappointment and anger roiled in Kara’s gut, but she kept silent. The relief that her friends were okay, that Lena was okay, felt like a Band-Aid over a gaping gunshot wound.
“What happened to Alex’s body?” she asked, her voice quivering as a few more tears spilled out of her eyes.
“Cleaned up and burned with most of the town present. The attack was a shock for everyone. She had a big turnout.”
Kara nodded, ignoring the spike of pain the motion brought on. Pyres were typical for funerals in her experience both in Jackson and in Colorado since digging graves would eat up crucial farming space. It was a shame Kara couldn’t be there for her own sister’s funeral, but she didn’t think she would be able to stomach the sendoff anyway. Not with the final image of Alex in her mind’s eye, broken and bloodied. It was too raw.
“How long has it been?”
“Four days. The others are awake and home already. Lena’s been by every day. I sent her home earlier to eat and shower. I'm sure she’ll be back soon.”
Kara sighed and leaned back in her cot, propped up by a mountain of pillows likely meant to keep her face from swelling much more than it already had. Andrea helped her recline before putting her hands on her hips and pursing her lips. Her dark hair was tied back in a messy bun and her eyes had bags under them. She looked worn out.
“As for you and your healthcare, you’ve got a broken nose that’s been set, so don’t mess with it. The bruising and soreness on your face will go down over the next week, and the headache you probably have is from a concussion. It looks like someone kicked you in the head pretty hard. We were actually worried you might have some brain damage, so the doctor will be in soon to do an eval. Three of your ribs are bruised, probably also from being kicked. Other than that, you’re physically fine. You'll have to take it easy for a few weeks while your ribs heal, but I think your cognitive tests will go well. I'd say you’ll be home in a couple weeks.”
“A couple weeks? Why the long wait?”
“Your head wound was pretty nasty and you were in a non-medically-induced coma for four days. Like, a real coma. We want to monitor you for a bit. Also, your wounds are horrific and I know you won’t take care of them properly.”
Kara sighed, resigned to her fate. “Thanks, Andrea. Sorry I got snot on your shirt.”
Her friend cracked a smile and gently reached out to squeeze Kara’s shoulder. “Anytime. Want me to sit with you until Lena gets back?”
“I think I’d like to be alone, actually.”
“Sure. Just holler if you need anything. I’ll be just down the hall.”
Kara nodded and closed her eyes as the other woman took her leave, shutting the door quietly behind her. In the silence that followed, she let herself process what Andrea had told her about that day. James said they’d gotten separated, which was true, but it was Kara who decided to leave him behind to get to her sister. She'd seen him briefly through the haze of snow and smoke from their molotovs, but getting to him would have meant sacrificing precious time and there weren’t any infected left to be a danger to him. It had been an easy choice to turn Ranger and run him hard in the direction she thought the house with the lights was in. She should have brought him with her. Maybe she could have overpowered Lucy and her people if she and James had gone in strategically. But at the time, Kara hadn’t known how many hostiles she was going up against. She expected one or two, maybe three, people. Finding five strangers standing around watching while Lucy beat a mostly-dead Alex with a golf club hadn’t been the scene she was prepared to walk in on. Her hesitation got her disarmed and forced to watch the final moments of the person she loved most in the world. Once again, her helplessness and inaction put her loved ones in danger.
She must have dozed off while her bad mood began brewing like a nasty tempest, because one moment she was thinking about Lucy holding a golf club, and the next, the doctor was entering her room with a muted smile and a soft apology on his lips. Andrea was right behind him. They did the cognitive tests, including a few where she had to be standing. She tried not to feel embarrassed as her bare ass was exposed by the back of the gown while Andrea stood behind her to catch her if she fell during the little motions Dr. Hanson put her through. Eventually, he’d been satisfied with her reactions and answers to things and had left to allow Andrea some space in helping Kara back into bed. After her friend had disappeared again, it wasn’t long before Lena was bustling through the door with a wild, harried look in her eyes. She had a gnarly bruise on the entire right side of her face, and her right eye was a bit swollen, but she seemed otherwise fine as she rushed to Kara’s side and pulled her into her arms.
“Kara, I’m so sorry, baby. I should’ve been quicker; I’m so sorry.”
They were both crying, then, even though Kara had felt like she’d lost every drop of moisture in her body during her breakdown earlier with Andrea. The condolences and tender touches from her lover brought the emotions she’d been working through back to the surface all over again and she allowed herself to sag into Lena’s body and curl her fists into the back of Lena’s shirt as she shook with the power of her anguish. Lena sat on the cot beside Kara, and they embraced tightly as they wept together.
When they eventually calmed enough to pull back and look each other in the eyes, Kara delicately traced her fingers over the injured side of Lena’s face with a frown.
“Are you okay?” she whispered. Her voice sounded nasally and clogged with mucus.
Lena scoffed and wiped at her eyes. “Not really, but I’d rather fuss over you, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t want to talk about me. I think I’m still in shock, honestly. I can’t believe she’s gone, I--”
Her words choked off with a resurgence of grief and Lena hugged her close again, but this time less desperately. It was soothing, the pressure around her torso, rather than frenzied and scared and mournful.
“Whatever you need,” Lena murmured against her hair. “Whatever you need, Kara. I’m here. What can I do?”
“Will you just hold me?” she cried into Lena’s shoulder.
“Of course.”
By the end of her first week in the clinic, Kara had gotten a clearer idea of what happened the day Alex was... the day of the attack. Everyone had come to see her—even Sam, who was morose and filled with a vengeful rage Kara found bubbling in her own soul as she began to feel healthier.
It went like this:
Alex and Sam were having a normal patrol when they noticed a large mass of infected converging on an old livestock yard. They moved to investigate at a safe distance and discovered a person trying to escape the infected while being rapidly cornered. Alex went first, and the pair began to clear a path through the infected with molotovs and well-placed rounds from their pistols. The person they ended up narrowly rescuing was young, probably mid-twenties, male, and generally kind. As the storm that had only just started began to intensify, obscuring their vision at safe distances from threats, the man revealed he’d been in the area with some friends—a mix of men and women—and that they were holed up in one of the fancy houses nearby. With the remnants of the hoard gaining on them and their limited ammo running low, Alex and Sam had warily agreed to return him to his friends before finding their own shelter. However, as they rode towards the neighborhood he’d told them about, more infected began emerging from the trees and other buildings in response to the hoard chasing them. By the time they reached the house, the man’s friends were waiting for them at the front gate and let them through before barricading the gate and throwing their own incendiary supplies at the infected. Once they were cleared, Alex and Sam dismounted with their ward and he led them into the garage where a few other horses had been stowed. The rest of the group followed them curiously, but kept up a friendly appearance as they made small talk about the infected, the storm, and Jackson. There had been brief talk of the newcomers stopping by the town to trade and rest. When they were inside the house, the guy they’d rescued introduced himself as Mike. Sam noticed then that Alex had gone still beside her before quickly drawing her gun. In the same moment, before Sam could say or do anything, a woman Sam didn’t recognize stepped forward from the back of the group and shot Alex in the legs with a shotgun. Sam yelled and pulled her own gun, firing off one round that grazed Mike, before two others rushed her from the sides and disarmed her. They forced her at gunpoint to radio back to Jackson and tell them everything was okay, that they were just going to ride out the storm so nobody missed them and went searching. Then they knocked her unconscious, and that was the last time she saw Alex: bleeding and groaning through gritted teeth as her mangled legs splayed out behind her.
Jack and Lena found the house just minutes after Kara had, judging by the state Alex was in according to their memories. Lena had heard Kara crying out for her sister and had barreled down into the basement before being incapacitated. Jack swiftly followed and fired a few shots at the group, hitting one in the leg and another in the shoulder before he was struck twice—one in the side and one in the thigh. The person waiting by the door—presumably Lena’s attacker—slammed him in the head with the butt of a rifle, putting him out.
James found them less than thirty minutes later, he estimated. Jack hadn’t lost so much blood he couldn’t be saved, and James couldn’t go after the attackers because of the state the rest of his own people were in. By the time reinforcements showed up, the storm had covered all tracks leading to and from the house, and the horses in the garage—even Alex’s and Sam’s--were gone. A hunt for them had ensued in the following days, but nothing turned up. The snow was too off-and-on, covering the footprints of anything moving around in the wilderness with too much frequency to allow for good tracking.
Kara had listened to all their accounts of that day with a stone face and cold heart. The tears were gone. She felt nothing except burning hatred for Lucy, and a helplessness that gnawed at her bones. She hated with her whole being and thirsted for the blood of a girl she once called her friend. Every day for the two weeks she sat in that clinic without her sister was a day she spent stewing in her grief and anger. Even Lena wasn’t immune to her moodiness. Kara had snapped at her just this morning for asking if she needed anything before Lena reported to her shift on the wall. She didn’t even know why she did it. It had just felt good to vent some of her frustration, even if it was misplaced. If she wanted to keep the other most important person in her life, she’d need to do better.
With that in mind, Kara hauled herself out of bed, now wearing sweatpants and a sweater with thick wool socks, and shuffled to the door of her room. Andrea was leaning against the nurses’ station outside scribbling something in a medical chart when Kara approached her. She looked up when she noticed Kara and grinned.
“Hey. You okay?”
“Can I go home?”
“Probably, yeah. Let me go ask the boss.”
An hour later, Kara found herself at Lena’s place. She couldn’t bring herself to go back to her own apartment. Not with all of Al—not with all of her stuff there. She showered, changed into some of Lena’s comfy clothes, and found a seat on the couch in the living room. By the end of the first movie she’d put on just to have something to fill the silence, Sam returned from wherever she’d been. Probably a bar, by the smell of her. The older woman stalked over to the couch and flopped gracelessly on the other end with a dramatic huff. Kara observed her curiously, feeding off her bad mood and letting it pull her further into her own frustration.
“I know where they might be,” Sam finally said. Her words were slurred.
The blonde perked up at that and leaned forward, only barely wincing at the lingering soreness in her ribs. “How?”
“The patches on all their shit. Like a big sign. Asked around about it, and Billy, the old war vet who used to run with the Fireflies, told me what that logo meant.”
“What logo?” She was hanging on every word now, feeding the hate fire in her gut with each clue that could take her closer to justice.
“W-L-F, with a wolf head under the letters, all inside a triangle pointed downwards. Stands for Washington Liberation Front. Billy said they’re based out of Seattle. Took over after they managed to kick FEDRA’s ass a long time ago. West coast Fireflies did some trading with them back in the day before the fuckers killed a convoy bringing supplies into the city. That put an end to their working relationship.”
“When did you find this out?”
“Earlier, at the bar. Someone told me last week to ask Billy about it, but he’s been on dam duty for two weeks. Just got back. I’m going after them. What they did to her... I can’t forgive and forget. I don’t even care what she did to that bitch for her to shoot and torture her to death like that. Who treats another human that way? It’s fucked up. I’ll find them all and kill them like rabid dogs, I swear to fucking Christ.”
“Not without me,” Kara told her resolutely.
“You’re still healing.”
“I’m fine. You had a concussion.”
“So did you, but worse. I’ve been cleared to work. You haven’t. And you’re unfit to travel on horseback with all your shit.”
“My nose will be fine as long as I don’t hit it on something for a few more weeks and my ribs are only a little sore. My head feels okay.”
Sam sighed harshly and leaned her head back against the couch cushions, directing her dark gaze at the ceiling. “You can’t go, Kara. She wouldn’t want you to.”
Kara felt herself bristle. “You don’t know that.”
“I know she loved you more than anything and she’d do anything to protect you. Getting yourself killed on a revenge quest isn’t something she’d want for you.”
“She’d do the same for me. And for you. She loved you, too.”
Sam heaved another world-weary sigh and rubbed at her eyes like they were gritty from lack of sleep. They probably were. Kara hadn’t been sleeping much either. “Fine. Give me a week to get supplies and a new horse assignment.”
“Deal.”
That night, when Lena came home to find Kara in her bed, they’d carefully made love. Kara was still sore and her nose had to be treated gently, but sex was something she decided she wanted, if only to feel connected to her body again. In her anger and hatred, she’d lost sight of the good things she still had. Lena was the main bringer of goodness, the provider of comfort and love, and physically expressing her appreciation was an outlet she hadn’t realized she’d needed until their clothes were off and their bodies were writhing together. At the end, when Lena had already come twice and Kara was basking in her turn, she’d cried at the emotional release that accompanied her physical one. Lena held her, shushed her with little kisses at her hairline, and shielded her from the world for a while.
“Sam thinks she knows where they are,” Kara whispered sometime later, as she laid with her head on Lena’s chest. Long, nimble fingers were carding through her hair, almost lulling her to sleep.
“Where?” her lover asked curiously.
“Seattle. We’re leaving in a week.”
“You haven’t been cleared to--”
“I know, I know. But I don’t care. Lucy’s out there, just living after what she did. It’s not fair. I need justice. Closure. I want to kill her.”
Lena was quiet for a few moments as she continued to stroke Kara’s hair. She took a deep breath in, held it, then slowly released it. “I’m going, too.”
Gratitude surged up in Kara and she hugged the lean, pale body beneath hers closer. She pressed a kiss against Lena’s sternum. “It’ll be dangerous,” she warned.
“We both know I can handle myself. Who would look out for you better than me, anyway?” The ‘besides Alex’ went unsaid, but it was there, hanging like a ghost over them, haunting and hurting. Kara swallowed and squeezed Lena in acknowledgement.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Lena kissed the top of her head and stopped petting her to hold her tightly for a while. “I love you, too. I’d follow you anywhere, as long as you’ll have me.”
“I’ll always want you,” she admitted, hoping the other woman would hear her words for the promise they were.
“So will I.”
“I’m so angry. I hate Lucy so much. I don’t know what to do with all this rage.”
“We’ll find her,” Lena said darkly. “She’ll pay.”
The next morning, after they’d showered and dressed and had breakfast, Cat showed up on the front porch.
“Sam’s gone,” she said by way of greeting as she pushed into the house. “She stole a horse and left in the night. You two know anything about that?”
Kara blinked, stunned and feeling slightly betrayed. “She said to give her a week, and then we’d all leave.”
Cat pinched the bridge of her nose and cursed. “You’re all idiots. For all we know, they’re not headed back to Seattle. Maybe they went AWOL and came out here on their own, at the expense of being exiled from their group. Maybe something else killed them already. Billy’s an old drunk anyway when he’s not working—who knows if his memory is even reliable! He hasn’t been in the Fireflies for years!”
Lena had crossed her arms and was watching Cat raise her voice with the face of a surly teenager being chastised by a parent.
“We both want Lucy dead,” Kara told the older woman, her voice turning low and dangerous.
“We all want her dead,” Lena corrected. Kara glanced over to her and nodded.
Cat looked between the two of them before groaning and raking a hand through her short hair. “I can’t stop you from going if that’s what you really want. You’re adults. However, I can give you my honest opinion: this is a terrible idea. If that woman and her friends are part of some militia group controlling an entire QZ, they’re well-armed, well-organized, and well-trained. Nobody leading a group like that has a grip on that much real estate without being intelligent and ruthless. Overthrowing FEDRA years ago, in the height of their power over the QZs, is no small feat. It’ll be the three of you—assuming you find Sam—against an actual small army. Do you think you’re up for that, in your state?”
Kara and Lena glanced at each other again and turned back to Cat. “I’ll do anything to get to Lucy,” Kara said. “Anything.”
Cat sucked her lips into her teeth and nodded. “Alright then. You can take one of your horses and your usual supplies from the armory. I’ll see you out.”
Within two hours, they’d packed everything they could think to bring, gotten Ranger out of the stables, and were trotting away from Jackson without a word to any of their friends. Cat watched them go with a hard frown, but with her apparent blessing. Lena tightened her arms around Kara’s waist, and they urged Ranger faster across the melting snow as they oriented themselves northwest. Kara felt the fire in her chest burn hotter at the idea of tracking her prey through whatever was left of Seattle.
Lucy was as good as dead.
Chapter 7: Seven: Lena
Summary:
Lena and Kara travel to Seattle and form a plan to track down Sam and Lucy.
Notes:
Yeehaw
There's some light depictions of sex in this, and we're totally ignoring the fact that they'd be smelling like old sweat and horse while they're traveling.
It's short bc I was busy this week with an inspection at the lab, but I wanted to get back on my Friday posting schedule I set for myself.
Chapter Text
Kara’s mood swings were starting to become a problem.
The blonde would be almost her usual self, happy and smiling and joking, and then she’d go quiet and turn surly and sour for a few hours, only to practically jump Lena’s bones as soon as their tent was set up and Ranger was taken care of. Not that she minded the frantic, enthusiastic sex, it was just—it seemed like Kara was using the physical aspect of their new dynamic to avoid thinking about Alex and what happened that night in the big house.
Once, a couple nights ago when they had set up camp in what was probably western Idaho, Lena had tried to inquire about Kara’s mental health after a round of rather vigorous lovemaking, only for the other woman to clam up and abruptly say she was ready for bed. It had been the answer Lena was expecting, but it still bothered her that her best friend-turned-girlfriend was keeping her thoughts and feelings from her. She was worried about Kara, but she didn’t know how to help her besides sticking by her side throughout their journey. Just yesterday, Lena had watched as the blonde viciously hacked an infected man’s head in two with a machete she’d found. Brutality wasn’t something that ever came naturally to Kara. She killed, yes, but she did so efficiently and with as little flair as possible. Watching her swing again and again at someone who was already dead after the first hit had been jarring, to say the least.
“You okay back there?” Kara suddenly asked, snapping Lena out of her thoughts. She looked up at Kara, who was peering at her over her shoulder with a concerned frown.
“I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
Lena smiled, despite her worry, and smacked Kara’s arm. “Shut up.”
“You need a break?”
They had been riding almost non-stop since the sun rose and it was late afternoon. All around them were fields dotted with the remnants of snow as early spring crept in. In the distance, mountains with their white caps loomed. It was beautiful. If only they could stop and enjoy the scenery.
“I’m good. Let’s keep going.”
Ranger dutifully carried them along at a brisk walk. In the mornings when the air was particularly chilly, steam would rise off his dark coat as he sweated and worked to transport them closer to their destination. He had a different feel from Ada; his stride was longer and heavier, but the power behind his movements was palpable. Ada was elegant and slender where Ranger was bulky with muscle. Lena missed her horse, truthfully, but she was grateful for the brute she sat astride now. He was calm and followed directions without being stubborn about it. Ada had a flair for the dramatic from time to time, but always pulled through when Lena needed her to.
When the sun began to set, they found a barn that seemed structurally sound enough to stay in for the night. The house a stone’s throw away was burnt to a crisp decades ago by the look of it, but the wooden two-tier barn was sturdy and kept the wind from slicing through their jackets as they scoped out the interior. When they were satisfied, Lena went about making a cozy corner for them in the loft area that would also provide a good vantage point in case they had visitors in the night. Down in the main level, Kara was removing the saddle from Ranger’s back to give him a break and providing him with food and water. She spoke to him in hushed tones, stroking his broad neck and sides as she moved about. Lena smiled to herself, glad Kara had a connection with her horse to help center her mind and lift her spirit. She'd been quiet for the last two hours.
After their dinner of dried deer meat and a handful of dried fruit each, Kara predictably ended up practically in Lena’s lap. Insistent lips were working their way down Lena’s neck, biting and sucking enough to surely leave marks, while chilly hands skittered over the planes of Lena’s abdomen beneath her double layer of shirts. As much as she wanted to halt the proceedings long enough to ask Kara why she insisted on sex every night when it seemed like she had a lot on her mind, the sensations of an eager mouth and hands left her breathless and willing to give in to Kara’s desire. They were both insatiable in a sense; it was just for different reasons, apparently.
Lena was the one to tilt them backwards this time, though, and she relished the sights, smells, and sounds of Kara as she used her mouth to bring her higher and higher to the peak of pleasure. When the blonde finally came, it was with a hoarse cry and a tight hand in Lena’s dark hair that had her groaning at the delicious tug on her scalp. She rose from her spot smugly and wiped her face on the inside of Kara’s thigh before gliding up her body to kiss her soundly. When she felt tan fingers slipping down and into the waistband of her underwear, though, she stopped and remembered her burning question. Gently, she grabbed Kara’s wandering hand and kissed the palm before pressing it to her chest and staring into curious blue eyes.
“Something wrong?” asked Kara.
“Are you fucking me every night because you want me, or because you don’t want to think about what we’re heading off to do?”
So. That was more direct than she’d intended, but it was too late now to take it back.
Kara seemed to recoil a bit, but she didn’t remove herself from their intimate position. After a few false starts, she spoke up. “Can’t it be both? I love you, and I want you in this way, but I’m also scared I’m leading you into a suicide mission and I’m angry at the world, and all I know for sure is that you make me feel good. Whether I’m getting you off, or you’re getting me off, it feels good , and I want to keep that with me. Is that okay?”
Lena softened and laid more of her weight on Kara. Her heart ached at the earnestness and worry in the other woman’s voice. She decided to placate, to soothe. “That’s okay. I’m sorry you’re so hurt. I wish I could take it away.”
Kara leaned up and kissed her softly. “You do.”
“For what it’s worth: I don’t consider this to be a suicide mission. We're linking up with Sam, getting justice for your sister, and then we’re going home. I won’t let anybody on our side die.”
She knew she couldn’t guarantee what she was saying, but if it made Kara feel even a little better about what they were doing, she would repeat it ad nauseum.
“Let me touch you?” the blonde asked quietly, hopefully.
Lena smiled and kissed her deeply, languidly sliding her tongue into a waiting mouth before undoing the button of her own jeans and guiding Kara’s hand back down.
Sam must not be sleeping, or else she’d taken an entirely different route to Seattle. They’d been on the move for over two weeks and had seen no sign of their friend. In fact, they hadn’t seen anyone at all until yesterday when they’d passed a man and his young daughter, both with strange scars on their faces and wearing clothes that appeared handmade. The man had been peaceful, if a little standoffish, and they traded information about which roads were clear for travel. The little girl clutched at his coat the whole time and Lena felt her chest squeeze at the innocence in her face. She couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be a child.
After the two pairs went their separate ways, Kara and Lena had a better idea of where they were. If the man was right, they were nearing the outskirts of Seattle. He had cautioned them away, but they told him they were looking for someone and he’d let it go. At their current pace, they would make it to the city by evening.
“Do we go in today, or wait until tomorrow and start fresh, first thing?” Kara asked as they crested a slope on an old highway and peered out at the distant remnants of Seattle. The sky was clear blue, with fluffy white clouds and a mild breeze. It was a beautiful day, all in all, but they couldn’t dwell on things like that when they finally had real work to do.
“I say we have about three hours left of good daylight,” Lena surmised as she squinted up at the sky. “We could probably get just inside the city and find a place to hole up. At least we’d be in when we wake up tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. Keep an eye out for snipers.”
“Yep.”
From there, it was all business. Ranger picked his way through rusted-out cars and debris while they used the vehicles as barriers between themselves and any potential threats watching them approach. Lena scanned the horizon, the trees, the dense foliage below and around the highway. Kara studied the trail ahead closely, monitoring for any signs of traps. They were in kill-or-be-killed mode, now that they were in unfamiliar territory with at least one hostile faction somewhere nearby. Lena intended to kill if it came to that. Her hand rested heavily on the pistol strapped to her thigh.
As the sky began to streak with the orange and pink of an imminent sunset, they reached the old triage area of what used to be the Seattle Quarantine Zone. There were military tents with empty cots, empty crates that used to hold medical supplies, and a few rusty FEMA trailers with shattered windows. Looming over the whole area was a large concrete wall and a heavy gate as big as one of the FEMA trailers. It was cracked open enough to let a horse through, so they steered Ranger inside and found more tents and trailers. It was eerily quiet.
“What do you think?” asked Lena as she hopped off the horse and produced her pistol. She took a few tentative steps towards the nearest trailer and peered inside. Nothing but scattered old papers and office supplies.
“I think we should go a little further and find somewhere we can hide a horse. I’d rather not leave any sign of us being here.”
“I agree. I’ll scout ahead.”
Before Kara could argue about who should be leading in case of conflict, Lena was marching briskly through the triage area towards Seattle proper. Around them, the streets were deserted and overgrown with flora. Small critters went about their business until they noticed Lena, and then they scurried away to hide. She kept her eyes on the upper floors of the squat brick buildings and strained her ears for any sound beyond the whistling wind and wildlife. When she heard the croaking of a clicker, she stopped and oriented towards where she thought it was coming from.
Down the road, in an old coffee shop, the infected woman jerked around in that disconcerting gait clickers had—its arms were bent at the elbow in a strange manner, and its back was arched slightly forward as its fungus-covered head whipped side to side in search of anything reflecting its own groans back at it, like a bat in search of prey. Lena signaled for Kara to stop the horse and she pointed silently at the hostile.
Kara nodded sharply and slid down from her saddle as Lena approached the coffee shop with her knife in her off-hand. She gave the shop a quick once-over as she neared the doorway and found no other sign of infected. With a breath to steel herself, she deftly crept into the store and stalked noiselessly behind the clicker until it was within arm’s reach. Then, she pounced and held it in a chokehold while it shrieked and clawed at her, snapping its jaws even though there was no way it could reach Lena’s flesh in this position. She quickly drove her knife into its head, crunching past the fungal plates on the outside and sinking into the spongey, contaminated brain beneath. As the body went limp, Lena let it fall without going to the ground with it. She listened closely for anything that might respond to the loud thud of dead weight hitting the floor, but when nothing jumped out or shrieked, she sighed and wiped her knife on the tattered clothes of the infected before exiting back onto the street.
Kara was waiting for her with her own gun drawn and Ranger standing just behind her. She nodded again, and they continued down the street, now without the fear of being attacked from the rear by a clicker if something were to happen that set it off.
They went on foot for a while to stretch their legs and to give Ranger a break, but the sun was setting quickly now and they needed to make a decision about camp. The streets were empty and quiet and growing darker by the minute. They turned down a random street that looked the same as all the others and found an old convenience store that had a loading bay in the alley behind the building. Kara went first to make sure everything was clear, and then she returned with the okay to head inside. Lena guided Ranger by his reins into the loading bay and went about shutting the hatch and getting him situated while Kara set up camp in the little office just beyond the dock where a truck would have parked in a world long gone. She had already shut and barricaded the door that led into the back of the store.
After a quiet dinner, Kara surprised Lena by not immediately initiating sex. Instead, she began to hash out their plan for the next day.
“I don’t even know where to start looking for Sam,” the blonde lamented. She was sitting on the floor against a wall with her knees drawn up to her chest.
“I think our first move should be finding high ground to get an idea of where we are,” Lena suggested. “A rooftop. We can do that in the morning and work from there.”
“But how? I’ve never tracked someone through a city, have you?”
“No, but we don’t really have anything to go on right now, do we? Sam could be anywhere. If we get a feel for our current location and create landmarks for ourselves, we can start combing the city in a more methodical way instead of just blindly going through a maze.”
Kara sighed and raked a hand through her messy hair. “You’re right. We’ll find a building with roof access first thing tomorrow.”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll catch wind of either her or the WLF.”
The blonde’s face was forlorn and her gaze was empty as she looked down at the toes of her boots. Lena grimaced, unsure of what to say or do to ease Kara’s mind as she surely dwelled on her sister and the woman who killed her. Now that they were in the same city as Lucy—hopefully—there had been a change in Kara. She seemed more focused, more intense. Lena felt the attitude seeping into her by osmosis and decided to let the silence between them prevail as she laid out her bedroll and got ready to sleep for the evening. After a few minutes, Kara followed her lead and laid out her own bedding behind Lena before slotting their bodies together in a tight spooning position. A tan, calloused hand reached around Lena to grasp at her own hand and lace their fingers together before tucking them against Lena’s chest. Warm lips pressed against her shoulder before the blonde nuzzled into her neck.
“I love you,” she whispered against Lena’s skin. “Thank you for being here with me.”
“I love you, too,” Lena whispered back. In her mind, she said to herself: We’ll find them both. I promise.
Chapter 8: Eight: Kara
Summary:
Seattle Day One
Notes:
sooo I took a spontaneous trip with the homies over the weekend and missed my self-imposed deadline because of it.
Be warned: there's some graphic violence/aftermath of violence throughout this chapter
Chapter Text
Three Years Ago
“Come on, Kara, don’t be such a scaredy cat,” Lena teased. The brunette was standing in the doorway of the apartment Kara shared with Alex, dressed in khaki shorts that stopped mid-thigh and a tank-top that accentuated her curves. Her hair was braided loosely at the back of her head and she wore a faded baseball cap with a picture of a cartoonish duck on it. Kara tried not to blush as she met Lena’s mirthful green eyes. Busted for staring—again.
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to sneak out,” Kara reasoned with her palms in the air. Her stomach turned uncomfortably as she thought of the last time she snuck out of a fortified perimeter just to have fun.
“We do this all the time, trust me. I’ll keep you safe if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Kara chuckled, despite herself. “Oh, yeah? How you gonna do that? Did Cat let you have a gun?”
“I’ve had a gun since I was eleven, and I’ve used it more than once. Plus, I’m on patrols now. I’ve killed infected. So have Sam and Jack. We’ll be fine!”
The blonde gnawed on her lower lip and crossed her arms over her chest. She'd known Lena was trained in combat, as were two of her three closest friends, meaning they were well-equipped to handle any trouble they may encounter. It was just... Alex had told her not to take any unnecessary risks and to stay in Jackson. She wasn’t supposed to leave without her, ever. But on the other hand, Lena’s legs and arms looked good in her outfit and she could only imagine what her friend might look like in her swimwear. If only to torture herself, she’d like to see Lena at the lake all their friends were heading to. Screw it. She was old enough now, had seen enough, that she could go out with some friends without Alex hovering nearby.
“Is that your convinced face?” Lena asked with a wry grin.
Kara sighed dramatically and started pulling on her shoes. “Yes, you’ve convinced me. If we die, I’ll haunt you, though.”
“How would you haunt me if we’re both dead?”
“I don’t know, but I could also just follow your ghost around for eternity, saying all the things I know annoy you.”
The brunette laughed and tossed a towel at Kara when she met her at the front door. “It’ll be fun. Come on!”
The trail to the lake was relatively easy and shared in part by the road towards the dam that powered Jackson, so their group passed plenty of workers and security patrols for the first leg of their journey. It made Kara feel better about sneaking out, even if they weren’t exactly sneaking. It was more like shirking work duties for the day to go have some fun before making it up to their superiors tomorrow. Kara would have to shovel extra horse crap for sure, but she shoved that thought away as Jack gleefully passed around a bottle of something that tasted like poison.
Once they reached the lake about thirty minutes after diverging from the dam road, Kara’s breath caught in her throat and she took a moment to marvel at the scene before her. The water was crystal blue, clear as glass, and nestled in a small valley with lush, green trees that climbed up the hills beyond. The puffy white clouds in the summer sky reflected almost perfectly on the water’s surface. At the end of the trail where the trees opened up, a small dirt bank just big enough for a group of rowdy teens awaited. Jack whooped and jogged towards the bank with his backpack already slung off his shoulders with Andrea, Sam, and Jack’s friend Tim close behind. Lena came to a stop beside Kara and smiled as she took in the view with her.
“Not bad, huh?” her friend said.
“Not bad at all, Luthor.”
A toned, pale shoulder bumped hers, making their sweaty skin stick together noticeably before pulling away. A simple gesture shouldn’t have left Kara feeling electrified, but it did. She glanced over at Lena and instinctively smiled at the soft expression that greeted her.
“Come on, then,” Lena finally said, breaking the spell. “Let’s go win the chicken tournament.”
Kara frowned. “What’s chicken?”
“You’ll see. You want top or bottom?”
Kara choked on her saliva as she set down her things and began to strip off her outer layer. She shot a look to the other girl, who was already shirtless and displaying her flat, muscular abdomen. Kara tried not to stare again—really, she tried—but the pink scars that blemished the otherwise smooth, pale skin drew Kara’s attention like a fly to honey. Lena, predictably, noticed her gawking and smirked before stripping off her shorts and dashing into the water to meet their friends. Kara grumbled to herself about getting a grip and hurried to join them.
That evening, they returned home as the sun was just beginning to set. Kara knew Alex would be at the apartment already, but she didn’t let their impending confrontation dampen her euphoric mood. They were all a little tipsy from the alcohol Jack had brought, but not so much that they couldn’t defend themselves if they needed to. Lena had walked close to Kara the whole hike back, bumping their arms and knuckles together every now and then and causing the blonde to blush with indecision. She felt as though she should have taken a chance and grabbed Lena’s fingers with her own, but she couldn’t find the courage to actually follow through. What if it was all coincidental contact? No, best not to rock the boat. She hadn’t known Lena long enough to tell what she was like drunk; maybe she was touchier than usual and it didn’t mean anything.
Eventually, their group had dwindled and it was just Kara and Lena standing in front of the house Lena shared with Andrea and Sam. The latter girls had gone inside already after hugging Kara and bidding her a good night. Lena stood on the path leading up to the little home smiling softly at her.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“I did. Thanks for convincing me to go out.”
“Anytime. You, um, hungry? We’re probably about to go down to the market and see what meat is left. If there’s nothing we want, we’re headed to the bar.”
Kara sighed apologetically and grimaced. “I should get home. I’m sure Alex isn’t happy with the note I left her.”
Lena hummed and nodded like she understood. “Alright, well—goodnight, Kara.”
They smiled at each other again and Kara decided to be bold. She lurched forward and engulfed Lena in a hug that obviously took her friend by surprise, judging by the little squeak that came out of her. It was the first time they’d ever hugged like this, front pressed tightly to front, and Kara relished in the contact. Lena smelled like sweat, dirt, and the faint remnants of her soap after a long day outdoors. It was the best physical contact Kara had experienced in a long, long time. When she pulled away, she did so regretfully, but she was afraid of making it weird if she held on for too long.
“O-okay, um,” Kara stuttered. She could feel her face heating up. “Goodnight, Lena.”
Lena’s face was a little pink, but Kara couldn’t tell if it was a sunburn or a reaction from their embrace. She hoped it was because Lena was blushing. “Goodnight, Kara.”
She floated the whole way home after that.
And then she found Alex waiting for her on the couch in their living room.
“Are you fucking serious, Kara?” her sister snapped as the front door closed. She stood swiftly from her spot on the couch and held her hands on her hips in that condescending way Kara hated. She bristled immediately.
“What, I can’t go out with my friends?” she shot back as she stalked past the living room towards her bedroom. Alex followed her in and crowded the doorway with her bulky frame, brown eyes burning with what she surely felt was righteous anger. Kara only thought it was misplaced anger, which helped to crank her own bad mood to the next level.
“You shouldn’t leave Jackson without me—it's dangerous!”
“I was perfectly safe. Over half the hike there is on the dam road, which is well-guarded; you know this. Lena, Sam, and Jack are all combat trained, you trained me--”
“Did you have your gun?”
“Yes.”
“Did it have bullets?”
“Three.”
“What about the others? Did they have weapons?”
“Yes, everyone had a gun with at least a few bullets in them. We were fine, Alex, oh my god.”
“That was dangerous. And stupid. Someone could’ve gotten hurt or killed.”
Kara huffed and tossed her untied boots across the room towards her closet before perching on her bed. “I’m not apologizing, because I’m eighteen and can take care of myself. In fact, I’m thinking of applying for junior patrol.”
Alex blinked and frowned down at her. “No.”
She’d said it impulsively, just to get a rise out of her sister, but now that the words were out there, she meant them. She would talk with Cat about setting her up with the patrol lead next week to get the ball rolling. This delicate handling of her person was becoming old and tiring; she needed a change, to show she was good enough and strong enough and competent enough. She didn’t always need Alex guarding her like an overprotective jailer.
“Yes. And you can’t stop me.”
“Why are you doing this? I just want you to be safe, Kara!”
“Because you won’t let me live my life, Alex! I don’t want to be living in fear and hiding until I die. So what if the Fireflies are looking for us? I don’t even know why they’d bother. You said my blood samples were enough to work with.”
Here, Alex tensed in a different sort of way. Like she was hiding something. Kara noticed it every time she brought up their old life in Colorado, but she’d never pressed her sister on it for fear of setting her off or triggering a panic attack. But now, with her good mood from the day destroyed entirely, she didn’t care. She stood from her bed and mirrored Alex’s hands-on-hips pose.
“Was that not true?” she pressed.
“Of course it’s true,” Alex insisted.
“Then why would they be after us?”
“Because what if they want more? What if they want to harvest your brain, like we talked about? We have to stay low-profile, Kara, and that means staying here where there are tons of people who would help conceal you. If you were seen by one of them by chance in the woods, they could report back to other Fireflies. And then what? A posse of them roll up to Jackson’s gate and demand the town hands you over because you’re immune? Think about it.”
“They don’t even know where we are or if we’re still alive! We left over a year ago. The elements or the infected or-or bears could have gotten us by now, for all they know. You’re being paranoid.”
“I’m keeping you safe.”
“You can keep me safe by having my back on patrol.”
“Kara--”
“No,” the blonde interrupted sternly. “I had fun today. I wasn’t thinking about who could be watching me and reporting back to their Firefly overlords. I was having fun with my friends and being an eighteen-year-old at the lake. And I want to do patrols. I’m ready. You can’t stop me.”
They squared off like that for a long, tense moment until all at once, the fight drained out of her sister and her broad shoulders deflated. She sighed and let her arms hang limp by her sides as her head bowed forward. When she looked back up at Kara, her face was resigned.
“Okay. You’re right. I’ve been too overbearing, and I’m sorry. But it’s only because I love you, and you’re the only family I’ve got left. I would die if it meant you’d be okay.”
Kara smiled and shuffled forward to take Alex’s hand in hers. “So would I. But I hope it never comes to that. And I seriously doubt the Fireflies would be the reason, if so.”
“Just be careful, please,” her sister pleaded.
“I promise.”
Seattle Day One
On the roof of the nearest, tallest building they could find, Lena and Kara surveyed their surroundings. They were five storeys off the ground with Ranger waiting obediently on the overgrown street for them, and Lena was panning across the city with her binoculars while Kara drew a rough map in her notepad. She was using unique buildings as landmarks and spacing them out in what she thought was a decent enough approximation of distance when considering the scale of the paper versus the real city. When Lena hummed thoughtfully, Kara looked up from her sketch.
“Find something?” she prompted when the other woman stayed silent.
“Maybe. There’s a hotel off that way,” she said with a finger pointing to the northeast. “It has a big banner on it with a wolf’s head. Maybe a base?”
“It couldn’t be the base, could it?”
Another thoughtful hum. “No, too small. I bet their real headquarters is also a community of other survivors and their kids.”
“I’d bet that, too. If they took over FEDRA’s sphere of influence, there are definitely hungry mouths to feed that rely on them. Still, that building with the banner sounds like a good start. Maybe Sam saw it, too. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll be done with this drawing.”
“Take your time. I’m still looking.”
When they were satisfied with their orienting task, they returned to the street and mounted Ranger. It was still relatively early; the grass was dewy and the air was slightly chilly, but they wanted to get a jump on the day ahead. Kara was feeling invigorated by the nearness of their goal—finding Lucy—and had been so restless that she’d woken up even before the sun rose and began preparing her gear for the day. Lena was roused by the noise and the two packed their stuff before eating a modest breakfast and heading out to find a good vantage point. Kara felt renewed in her righteous quest for vengeance and justice, alive and alert in a way she hadn’t really felt since before that terrible day. Her mood, for once, was somewhat positive.
They rode for a while in relative silence, listening to the sounds of nature overtaking a once-bustling urban area and making quiet small talk whenever the mood struck one of them. Lena had just started a conversation about the time she and Kara had gotten caught stealing hooch from Mr. Tillis’s shed, making the blonde giggle at her rebellious younger self.
“And it was so bad , too,” Kara laughed, feeling relaxed and warm.
Lena, chuckling along with her, hugged Kara’s waist where she was holding herself on Ranger’s back and said, “God, I know; I almost threw up. I can’t believe we got in trouble for--”
BOOM
An explosion erupted the ground they had once been plodding along, throwing Ranger, Kara, and Lena violently into the air. Kara’s ears were ringing from the blast and she watched as Ranger’s mangled body writhed for a moment until his eyes glazed over in death. He was missing his two front legs, she dully noted. Before she could properly get her wits about her again and realize it was an IED that was rigged to catch trespassers that got them, someone was rushing at her. She reached for her gun, but her movements were sluggish and the attacker had the drop on her. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the butt of his rifle speeding towards her face.
“--telling you, I know this girl,” a man’s hushed, angry voice was saying when Kara came to. “I saw her in Wyoming.”
“Why didn’t you kill her?” another man asked.
“Because Imra convinced me not to!”
“Could kill her now.”
“Not until she tells us if she’s here alone. There could be more. And we still haven’t found the other one she was with.”
That got Kara’s heart beating faster and her brain fog clearing out. These guys hadn’t found Lena, which could be good or very bad. Kara desperately hoped her girlfriend was alright and not bleeding out from a blown-off limb somewhere all alone. She blinked her eyes open and grimaced at the brightness of the sun shining into the room through the skylight. They were in an abandoned office building, it seemed, with mildewy carpet and rotted desks.
Her captors heard her grunt when she stretched her neck to peer up at the ceiling again and they advanced on her like predators knowing their next meal was a sure thing. When Kara looked up at them, she realized with a jolt that one of the men was there with Lucy that night in the house. His brown hair was a little shaggier, his beard a little fuller, but it was him. She'd seen all their faces as they witnessed the torture and execution of her sister. She would never forget them for as long as she lived.
“Welcome back,” her sister’s co-murderer sneered. Kara lurched towards him, only then realizing her hands were zip-tied behind her back, around the leg of a heavy table. He drew nearer and crouched just beyond the reach of Kara’s outstretched legs. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Where’s Lucy?” Kara growled.
“Oh, no. I’m the one who gets to know things, here. I’ll ask again before I get nasty: what the hell are you doing here?”
Above the man’s head, on the skylight, the shadow of a person floated into view before darting back down. The glass was dirty enough that the shadow was mostly invisible on the ground, but if the person on the roof moved forward some more, the men might notice. Kara's stomach twisted.
Lena.
She turned to the man and spat at him, hitting his chin with a glob of saliva that he hurriedly wiped off. When he looked back up at her, his eyes were livid and he reached forward to throttle Kara with both hands around her neck.
“You fucking bitch!” he snarled.
Then the glass overhead shattered as the sound of a gunshot rang out. The guy behind Kara’s would-be killer dropped dead with a bullet through the head, forcing the man choking her to let go and draw his own weapon. He fired a few shots at the now-open hole in the ceiling before turning his aim back on Kara.
“I’ll shoot her!” he called with fear in his voice. “If you want her to live, show yourself!”
Then another shot echoed through the room and the man was lying dead before Kara, his skull blown apart on one side. Blood was slowly leaking towards her shoes and she scrunched herself as far back as she could while Lena dropped into view and hurried over with her knife. She cut Kara’s hands loose, and then took her face in her own shaking, pale hands and appraised her with worried eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Kara nodded, relief pouring over her features. “I’m good. You?” Her voice sounded a little raspy from the brief choking she’d been subjected to, and her throat might be sore tomorrow, but she was overall just fine. She took the hand Lena offered and stood up before giving the brunette a once-over. She also looked mostly unscathed, minus a few small cuts on her face and neck where she’d been thrown in the blast earlier.
“Yeah. Let’s go,” Lena said with finality.
“Wait! He was one of them.”
Lena stopped trying to herd Kara from the room and instead turned to inspect the body before them. “This asshole?” she asked with a gesture of her gun.
“Yeah. He was definitely there. Let’s go through his stuff, see if he has anything useful.”
They pilfered his pockets and both backpacks the men had left nearby, coming up with bullets, the rifles the men had with them, and some extra food and water. When Kara was giving the office space they were in a final glance, she noticed bedding off to the side and she went to investigate. There, beneath the little pillow on one of the sleeping bags, was a polaroid photo. She pulled it free and found herself staring at a very naked woman posing in a way that definitely meant someone else took her picture. Below the image, love Imra was scrawled in blue ink. Lena moseyed over and whistled lowly.
“Nice tits.”
Kara would laugh at the crude language under ordinary circumstances, but she only felt a simmering anger at the subject of the photo. “She’s one of them, too.”
Lena balked. “Oh. Well, fuck her, then.”
On the back of the polaroid was a note:
Mike,
I miss you, babe. Sorrento is boring and there are infected and Scars all over the area at night. Tomorrow, we move to KOMO. I’ll see you there!
“KOMO?” Lena asked aloud after reading the note. “What’s that, I wonder? And what are scars?”
Kara shrugged and pocketed the photo in the back of her jeans. “Dunno. Let’s keep moving. That was a lot of noise; I’m surprised no one’s shown up yet to check it out.”
They started out of the office and down a long hall where other brightly decorated mossy rooms were scattered on both sides, but there were no other people milling about. When they made it to the street beyond, they saw the carnage of the IED down the road about two blocks away and Kara cringed as she identified Ranger’s dismembered legs. Lena sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry about Ranger. He was a good horse.”
Kara nodded and forced herself not to dwell on it now while they were in a potentially unsafe area. She could be devastated later. “He was. Come on.”
They hustled to a nearby intersection where they could have a clear view of the sun in the sky. To Kara’s disappointment, she realized she’d been unconscious for a few hours, but her head didn’t hurt like the last time she’d had a concussion. After reorienting themselves towards the hotel they’d seen that morning, they jogged over to Ranger’s body to retrieve Kara’s backpack (Lena had been wearing hers during the blast) and the rifle she’d brought with her from Jackson. Lena’s was already slung over her shoulder while she held her new military-grade rifle in her hands. Once their gear was collected, they began the trek to the hotel.
“I got two clickers, four runners,” Lena murmured as she looked down her scope at the Hotel Sorrento’s entrance. Scattered before it were rusted-out cars, old suitcases that had been thoroughly picked through and remnants of what looked like WLF gear. “I think they’re probably not here if there are infected inside the perimeter wall.”
“You’re probably right,” Kara sighed. “Shit. Now what?”
They were sitting inside an old pillbox lookout that used to be a QZ checkpoint. Kara’s legs were a little achy from walking across the city and her mood was souring with each minute that brought the sun lower in the sky. They’d lost so much time because of the IED; sunset would be upon them in a couple hours and they had almost nothing to show for an entire day of traveling and trouble.
“Now I guess we head to KOMO, wherever that is. Maybe a rooftop will give us an idea of where to go.”
“I bet there’s a good view inside the hotel,” Kara countered. “Once we get up high enough. There aren’t that many infected.”
“Down here, maybe not. Who knows what’s on the inside?”
“Come on; let’s find a service door in the back and work our way up.”
“There might not even be a back door, Kara.”
“Ye of little faith.”
Lena grunted like she wasn’t happy with this idea, but she didn’t offer an alternative, either. Kara gathered her things and marched towards the hotel, scanning the ground as she went. Lena was behind her, watching the windows above them on all sides. They moved with their rifles up and ready, their knees slightly bent to help them get moving quickly if they needed to.
The service door at the back of the hotel was miraculously unlocked and Kara smirked at her companion as she gestured for her to go first.
“Don’t be an ass about it,” Lena snarked as she squeezed by.
“I’m not being anything.”
“Shut up.”
They made their way slowly up the many levels as quietly as they could. There didn’t seem to be any infected or spores anywhere, but Kara swore she heard a stalker on level 6 as they ascended the building’s indoor fire escape stairs. On the top floor, they found there was no readily available roof access and they had to exit onto the main hall. There were only two suites here, and they seemed to be the penthouses. One of the penthouse doors was already cracked open, letting sunlight spill into the dark hall. Kara crept toward it with her pistol raised, Lena hot on her heels.
“Smell that?” Kara whispered so quietly she almost didn’t hear herself.
“Blood,” Lena affirmed.
Kara reached the doorway and counted to three before swiftly pushing through and sweeping her half of the scene while Lena zipped in behind her and scanned the other half. When they were satisfied it was all clear, they both turned to gawk at the two bloody messes that used to be people tied to chairs in the center of the living area, back to back. Lena moved closer before Kara did and nudged one with the barrel of her rifle to make sure the person she was looking at was dead. When nothing happened, she repeated the motion with the other body.
“This looks... brutal,” Lena said as she examined the wounds decorating the corpses. Kara came closer and noticed a series of numbers written in blood on the ground. Her eyes traced back up the man in the chair and she noticed a dark stain on his knee.
“Sam did this,” she stated with surprise.
Lena furrowed her brows. “How do you know?”
“See these numbers? It’s a code to something. And he’s got a blood stain on his knee. She had them facing away from each other and made this guy give her the numbers she needed, but she didn’t make him say it. Then the other guy, he had to tell her out loud what the numbers were, and if they didn’t match up, one of them was lying. She probably stabbed this guy to get him to talk.”
“That doesn’t sound like Sam.”
Kara chewed her lip for a moment before saying quietly, “No, but it sounds like Alex. She did this once when we were on the run from my old home. I bet she taught Sam how to get people to talk.”
“Jesus. What did you and Alex get into that required torturing people for information?”
The bite on Kara’s arm tingled at the possibility of telling Lena the truth. For all the two women had been through together, as much as Kara trusted her, the fact of her immunity was still her most closely guarded secret. There had never been a good time to bring it up, and what would she say, anyway? Hey, I know we’ve been best friends for years and now we’re girlfriends, but you should know: I might be the only the person on the planet immune to cordyceps and I know this because I was bitten at sixteen and never turned. God, that sounded dumb. And crazy. Lena wouldn’t believe her and would think she was having a laugh.
“We were running from the Fireflies,” Kara eventually said. As she began speaking, she produced her notepad and pen from her bag and wrote down the numbers on the floor beneath her sketch of the city. “We made them mad, and they came after us.”
“What did you do?” Lena asked without judgment.
The truth was right at the tip of her tongue; she almost let it fly. But at the last moment, she chickened out and listened to her elevated heartrate and clammy skin instead. “We broke some pretty serious rules and had to leave. They hunted us down to bring us back to answer for our crimes, but we got away again and haven’t seen them since. That was a few months before we got to Jackson.”
Lena nodded slowly, seeming to take Kara at face value before she turned to the open balcony door across the expansive room. They went outside for the fresh air and the good vantage point and remained silent while Kara updated her sketch with a little more detail.
“Look,” Lena said almost excitedly. “KOMO.”
Kara’s head snapped up and she followed Lena’s pointing finger to find a strange, round building with the letters K-O-M-O in large print on the side. There was what appeared to be a giant satellite dish on the roof, and the whole thing was overgrown with vines. There was a WLF banner hanging from the top windows and it fluttered in the slight breeze. From where they were standing, it didn’t seem that far away; maybe a mile or two. Kara felt a second wind stir inside her and she nodded to herself resolutely.
“Gotcha, Imra. Let’s go; we can make it before nightfall.”
Lena followed without a word and they exited the building the same way they came in.
At the KOMO building, they found tripwires scattered about. Kara had almost stepped right into one when Lena yanked her back and showed her the wire hiding in the tall, dense grass. It was a dangerous area they were in now, but Kara could only feel annoyance at the impediment to their progress. She was so close to Imra’s last known location, and here were these stupid traps. Lena had to focus a little more for both of them, which the blonde felt a bit guilty about, but not enough to pull herself out of her head. She simply walked where Lena walked until they made it to the entrance of the building. Overhead, the sky was turning fiery pink and deep indigo. They would have to do this fast and find shelter for the night.
“Oh, it’s a news station,” Lena said as she read the mossy plaque on the wall by the doors. “I’ve never seen one of these before.”
“Here’s to new experiences,” Kara deadpanned as she headed to the entrance.
As soon as they pushed into the lobby through a barricaded door, the smell of rot and blood hit them, making Kara gag.
“Fuck, what is that?” Lena asked from behind her arm as it pressed against her face.
Kara shook her head and drew her pistol as she crept along the curved corridor towards a wide set of double doors labeled “bullpen”. The smell was stronger here, and she knew they were about to enter a killing ground. What she wasn’t prepared for was how the bodies were arranged when she finally worked up the nerve to go inside.
She gasped as she took in the seven or eight bodies strung up by their necks hanging in the middle of the room. They were suspended from the metal rafters way up in the tall, tall ceiling, leaving them dangling a good ten or twelve feet off the ground. But the most disturbing part of it all was their intestines hanging out. Each of the bodies had been eviscerated, leaving thick ropes of innards swinging idly between still legs. Kara promptly turned and threw up.
“Holy shit,” Lena muttered. “This place is bad. We have to find Imra and go.”
Kara finished retching and looked at Lena as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and saw her companion staring at the far wall. She turned to get a look and frowned at what she found. Painted in blood that had now turned brownish red was a weird symbol, almost like the fish icon Alex said Christians once used for their God back before the fungus, except it was turned upright and had a line slashed horizontally through its midsection. Beneath that, the words “feel her love” were scrawled in more blood.
“What the hell?” Kara asked aloud. Her spine tickled with unpleasant chills. This place was eerie.
“Come on,” Lena insisted as she started up the nearby stairs. “Let’s see if any of these bodies is Imra.”
They didn’t find the face they were looking for, but they assumed all the WLF working at this base had been wiped out, judging by the bloodstains all over the floors. Some of them appeared to be drag marks from taking bodies to and fro. It took them until the sun actually set to find the office spaces just beyond the circular murder chamber, and in this part of the building, they found more dead WLF. At the end of the hall, there was another office with a radio blaring a staticky voice. Kara went to it quickly, only to find it clamped to the belt of Imra’s dead body. She sighed as genuine disappointment went through her at not being the one to kill her while she examined the many arrows sticking out of her.
“Twelve, come in, this is two, over,” the radio voice said. “Twelve, please respond; this is two, over.”
Lena plucked the radio from Imra’s belt and turned the volume down until it was almost silenced and began combing the room while Kara stayed rooted to her spot.
Shit. She was too late to get this one. What if the others were already dead, too? That’s two now, Mike and Imra. How many more were there still out there? Was Lucy even still alive? No, she’d definitely be alive. There was no way a girl as smart and resourceful as her got swept up in whatever crazy shit was going on here. She still had time to get her.
“Kara, look at this.”
Lena was holding a stack of polaroids much like the one showing off Imra’s nude form. Except these were all more family-friendly and featured the smiling faces of the group of people who chose to torture and kill someone she loved dearly. With a quick motion, she snatched the photos out of Lena’s hands and flipped through them, noting names and faces until she came to Lucy posing with a man named Jason, according to the caption written in a messy, girly scrawl below the image. She stared for a long time at the familiar faces as her breathing grew quicker and her ears started ringing with white noise. She noticed she was shaking as Lena gently pried the polaroids out of her hands again and perused them herself.
“You know them?”
“Lucy is who killed Alex. We knew her from Colorado. Jason—I think his name is Jason Todd—he used to work the farm rotation with her. I recognize him, but he looks different. He has a beard now. But he was there that night, too.”
Lena put her hand on Kara’s trembling shoulder and squeezed as the blonde got herself—her grief and her anger—under control once more. When she was ready, and the ringing in her ears stopped, she took a deep breath and straightened her spine.
“Let’s find a place to sleep tonight,” she sighed. “It’s gonna be hard getting out of here with all those tripwires out front.”
“We didn’t check the back yet. Surely they left some way up here clear so they could come and go without worrying about blowing themselves up.”
Just then, voices floated across the empty space beyond the office and flashlight beams crisscrossed the dark walls. Kara tensed at the same moment as Lena and they went back into their combat stances to check out the intrusion.
There was a general commotion as what appeared to be WLF soldiers flooded into the news station and took notice of the bodies of their comrades hanging overhead. In the hallway where Kara and Lena were observing them through large windows that looked out onto the bullpen, a man walked right past them with his gun and flashlight raised. He didn’t notice their shadowy figures huddled in the corner of the hall by the door he’d just swung open. Kara felt her pulse quicken as adrenaline coursed through her. They were wildly outnumbered, she realized as she did a quick headcount. Twelve to two.
Lena tapped Kara’s arm silently and nodded at the guy that had just stalked past them. The blonde understood what was about to happen and she nodded in the affirmative before the other woman pulled out her knife and darted over to the man. She grabbed him by his mouth to muffle his voice in the same instant she slashed through his jugular veins and carotid arteries. He made garbled choking sounds as Lena lowered him to the ground and then he died as she stood upright again. She had blood on her forearms and hands, as well as a smear across her chin. Kara thought she looked kind of feral.
“Let’s go,” Lena whispered.
They exited through a nearby window that overlooked the side of the building where two trucks were parked with their headlights on while two guards stood watch. There wasn’t an apparent way down besides jumping for it, which was not ideal considering the height of the drop, but they also only had a few more seconds before another patrolling WLF soldier discovered their kill, so they had to act fast. Kara went first, just as the beam of a flashlight shone through the window immediately to her right, and she landed with a roll that made her shoulder twinge and her guns rattle together. She pressed herself against the wall of the station and used the shadows and tall grass to conceal herself as she examined the guards by the trucks. They didn’t seem to notice her. She looked back up at Lena, who was in the act of dropping to the ground herself when a voice shouted “hey!” and took a few shots, shattering the glass behind the brunette and clipping her shoulder. The impact threw Lena off balance, and she toppled somewhat gracelessly to the ground with a sickening crunch that made her groan in obvious pain. Kara panicked as she lurched forward to grab Lena and pulled her into her body. Her pistol was up and ready and the guards by the trucks were taking notice of their hazy figures in the darkness. She fired a few shots of her own and managed to kill one and wound the other before dragging Lena with her across the grass.
“Come on, we have to go!” she hissed as more voices and shots rang out behind them. Soil was bursting up from the ground nearby as bullets meant for the women narrowly missed.
“My ankle,” Lena gasped as she hobbled along. Her arm was around Kara’s shoulder and she was leaning a significant amount of her weight on the blonde. “I think it’s broken.”
“I know, baby, I’ve got you,” Kara panted as she practically carried Lena away from their pursuers. The voices were getting closer. She scanned the ground around them for something—anything—to give them some leeway when she spotted a stairway that seemed to go underground. She steered them towards it and hauled Lena down the concrete steps into the darkness before flicking on her flashlight.
It was a subway, she dimly realized as she pulled them deeper into its depths. The voices above them were still advancing, but she could her them faltering as they neared the mouth of the stairs.
“They’ve gone down,” one of them hollered back to his friends. “Let the infected get ‘em.”
So, that wasn’t great. There were apparently so many infected down here that these heavily-armed militia dudes didn’t want to even set foot beyond the first step, and Lena had a broken ankle, plus a graze wound in her left shoulder. Kara would have to get them out of here by herself. She stopped in a nearby alcove and pulled their masks out of their bags in case they ran into spores. This far underground, it was likely to happen. First, she tied a quick bandage around Lena’s shoulder to keep the moderate bleeding under control. Then, she paused and pressed her forehead to Lena’s, breathing in and out through her nose as she settled her nerves.
“I’ll get us out of here,” she whispered before pressing a firm kiss to Lena’s lips, uncaring of the fact she’d vomited not an hour before. “Stay with me.”
Lena could only nod and breathe deeply as what was surely a nasty break ravaged her nervous system with pain. Lena Luthor was no wimp; to be reacting to an injury at all meant the damage was severe.
“Okay,” was all the other woman could muster before she was fitting her own mask over her face and latching onto Kara’s shoulders again.
Now equipped for spores, they set off at a slow pace down the tunnel, past old subway trains and moldy tracks. A few minutes into their trek, they ran into spores, which meant there were likely infected nearby. Then, not ten seconds after Kara had that revelation, she heard the first rumblings of clickers in the distance.
“Shit,” she hissed under her breath. Beside her, Lena was trying to gasp quietly.
They kept going at a slow and steady pace towards the sounds of the infected, but they still couldn’t see them. Kara was thankful their eyes were affected in such a way that they didn’t respond to light stimuli, meaning she could shine her flashlight straight into the face of a runner and it wouldn’t see her as long as she was behind cover. Without her light, it would be pitch black in the tunnel and they’d be royally fucked.
Eventually, they came upon a train pileup that was obviously a wreck from the original outbreak days. The train cars were mangled together and toppled over in some areas, and the track itself was completely blocked off. She cursed again and led them closer to the rear door of one of the train cars when a clicker emerged from the side. She froze and waited for it to walk in its strange gait past her, creaking and croaking as it went with its arms bent at weird angles. When it was firmly pointed away from her and its screeches wouldn’t send soundwaves bouncing directly off her body, she gently propped Lena against the train car and grabbed the clicker round the neck before plunging her knife into its brain. It died without a sound and she returned to her girlfriend to help her through the door leading into the subway car. She closed the door silently and took point as she scanned the different compartments for infected while Lena did her best to keep up on one leg. The aisles were too narrow for her to lean on Kara here.
“I think I see the way out--,” Kara started to say when the whole fucking train began to teeter forward and sent the women crashing through its already shattered windshield. They fell a short way, Kara face-down and Lena on her ass as the subway cars above them scraped deafeningly against the ruined tracks and the neighboring train. Kara looked up in time to notice the entire thing about to fall directly on top of them and she sprang into action by snatching Lena and rolling them both out of the way at the last second. They laid on their sides for a moment to gape at the wreckage that nearly killed them until they heard the cries of what had to be dozens of infected coming at them from the other end of this new level in the subway system.
Quickly, Kara stood and pulled Lena with her before she scanned their surroundings.
There! A staircase leading up. She turned to face the sounds of the oncoming infected, then looked back at Lena.
“Kara!” Lena gasped. “Your mask!”
“What?” she asked as she felt around on her gas mask. To her horror, she found the faceplate had shattered and she was being exposed to the swirling spores all around them. Shit. This was it. She was going to have to come clean.
“Here, take mine; we can share--”
Panic seized Kara as Lena began to actually undo her own mask and she reached out to stop flailing pale hands.
“No, don’t take this off!”
“What--Kara--”
“I’m not infected!”
Frenzied, scared eyes stared into Kara’s own and Lena shook her head as tears began to slide down her cheeks. In a moment of boldness as the screeches of the infected grew closer, Kara ripped off her own mask and threw it down.
“Kara, no!”
She caught Lena’s hands as they scrambled to get the mask from the ground and she used her body weight to send Lena smashing into the wall behind her. “I’m not infected, see? I’m not coughing.”
Lena shook her head again as tears rolled down her face behind the mask. She looked heartbroken and utterly destroyed, but there was no time; the infected were now within view. She grabbed Lena’s arm and pulled her into her side once more.
“We’re gonna have to move fast.”
Then they were off, Lena hopping as quickly as she could while Kara supported her weight. The infected were on them now, chasing like hounds after their prey, and Kara had to stop a couple times as they climbed the stairs towards the exit so she could take a few shots to down the nearest ones. At the top of the stairs was a wide, straight corridor with a series of turnstile cages at the far end, and beyond that, the exit to the subway system itself. Kara found a burst of strength within her and bodily lifted Lena off the ground in a bridal carry and ran with all she had for the turnstiles. She set Lena back on her feet once they reached them and ushered her through while she turned to take out a few more infected who had gotten alarmingly close. She blew the face off one runner that was so near, she felt its blood hit her clothes. Behind it, a wave of infected was racing towards her. She felt her throat tighten in fear as she glanced over her shoulder to find Lena had successfully pushed her way through the gate.
She followed suit, and then they were running as quickly as possible towards the exit where chilly night air greeted them. Kara turned and jammed the door to the station shut with a piece of pipe lying nearby. Then she took a moment to just breathe as the light drizzle coming down washed some of the grime off her skin. As she composed herself and settled her breathing, she felt her stomach drop. Lena would need an explanation. She had concealed her immunity for so long, it was going to seem impossible to get the brunette to believe her now, but she had to try. When she turned around to face the music, she was met with Lena’s tear-streaked face and her pistol pointed directly at Kara’s chest.
“Lena?”
“I s-saw you b-breathe spores,” her girlfriend accused with chattering teeth. “Y-you breathed th-them in—and-and-and you didn’t have a mask on! Why would you do that, Kara? I love you, but I don’t know if I c-can—if I can shoot you,” Lena wailed as the hand holding her gun trembled with the force of her devastation.
“Lena, you don’t have to shoot me; I’m immune, I swear!”
Lena scoffed. “What does that even mean , Kara?”
“I got bitten when I was sixteen! The burn on my arm—that's how I concealed it. That’s why the Fireflies were after me and Alex! It’s why Lucy killed her. I swear to you: I am immune. I wouldn’t lie to you about this, baby, please--”
“Stop,” Lena demanded. Her voice sounded steadier. Around them, the rain grew heavier.
“Lena...”
The brunette had stopped actively crying and was now scanning the street around them. When she noticed the theater behind her, she jerked her gun towards it.
“In there.”
Kara stayed silent but obeyed. They found a way in as Lena hopped slowly behind her with her gun fixed on Kara’s torso the whole time. She understood, but it still stung that the woman she loved was aiming a loaded weapon at her. Her stomach was twisting itself in knots as she thought of what she could say to prove herself in the moment, but all she could offer was a quarantine of herself.
Inside, the theater was dark and Kara made quick work of finding the box with all the switches in it that turned the lights on and off. Alex knew what these were called, but she couldn’t remember now what her sister had said. She used her flashlight to find the one labeled “lobby” and flipped it, hearing a mechanical whirring sound as the dim lighting in the foyer kicked on. She walked back out to find Lena standing on one leg as she leaned against the back of a couch. Kara slowly made her way over before barricading the door they’d entered through. Then she doubled back and barricaded the two sets of doors leading into the theater itself, ensuring they were in a closed-off area safe from prying eyes or infected. When securing their perimeter was done, Kara returned to Lena, who still had that heartbroken look on her pretty face.
“I can prove it to you—that I’m immune,” Kara told her resolutely. “I’ll sit here all night, tied up, and if I’m not sick by morning, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
“I don’t know if I can shoot you,” Lena repeated her earlier words.
“You won’t have to. I promise.”
After a horrible pause, Lena nodded and gestured to an armchair nearby. Kara stood before it and turned her back to Lena, letting her girlfriend tie her hands together with rope from her bag, and then her feet. It was hard, considering her broken ankle, Kara was certain. But if anyone was headstrong to the point of ignoring immense pain, it was Lena. When Kara was properly restrained, she sat in the chair and got as comfortable as she could with her arms behind her back while Lena limped pitifully to the couch across the wide lobby and sat sideways on it so she could elevate her foot.
“You should take a look at that,” Kara suggested after half an hour of painful silence.
Lena only grunted and continued staring at Kara.
This went on until Kara finally drifted off to sleep, unable to ignore the exhaustion the day had brought on. The last things she remembered seeing before she was out were Lena's sad eyes and downturned mouth.
Chapter 9: Nine: Kara
Summary:
Lena learns about Kara's immunity and then the search for Sam resumes
Notes:
Meowdy
I did not edit this at all hehe
Chapter Text
Two years ago
Kara knew Alex was lying about their escape from the Firefly compound. What she didn’t know was why, and what she was covering up. On her feistier days when she felt like picking a fight, she’d rile her sister up to the point of shouting at each other until Alex clamped her mouth shut and stomped off to her room. The door would slam and Kara would cry frustrated tears in the living room while she wondered what actually happened that day. Then, because she loved her sister, she would choose to drop it for a while and make small peace offerings to soothe their shaky relationship.
Now, though, they were on patrol together—Kara's last chaperoned patrol before she joined the real paired ones—and they had just had a spat the night before while packing. She hadn’t said more than ten words to Alex the whole time they’d been out riding the late autumn trails with their horses and when they reached their camp for the night, Sam had volunteered to go with Kara to check out their surroundings while Alex hung back to set up shop.
“So, you and your hot sister having another fight?” Sam asked casually as she led them on foot up a ridgeline that overlooked the valley below the ski lodge they were to sleep in tonight.
Kara made a face. “Don’t be gross. And maybe, yeah. She just—she makes me so mad sometimes.”
“It’s been happening more and more lately, it seems like.”
“Yeah, well.” Kara didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t tell Sam why she and Alex were fighting off and on. The fear of what-if had been instilled deep within her for three years now. It was a part of her as much as her burn scar and the freckles on her cheeks were.
The older woman stopped at a bluff devoid of trees and pulled her rifle up so she could peer out of the scope. There were a few infected at an abandoned gas station some distance away and Sam took a couple shots before handing the gun over to Kara.
“Try this out. Kicks like a bitch, though, so be careful not to put your face too close to the scope.”
Kara got in the proper stance and looked out at the remaining two infected. They were aggravated by the noise of the other bullets hitting home and were sporadically running around with their arms flailing. It was almost funny if Kara put aside the fact that they were ravenous fungal-infected humans that would kill her if given the chance. She leaned into the stock of the rifle to compensate for what was surely about to be a bruising recoil, took a deep breath in, held it, and fired on her first mark.
And missed.
“Shit,” she sighed as she brought the gun down.
“No worries. It’s a tough shot. This far away, you have to account for bullet drop and which direction the wind is blowing. It’s pretty calm right now, though, so there’s not much to adjust for. Just aim a little higher and try again.”
Kara did as instructed and hit her target in the neck in such a way that its head nearly blew clean off. She watched in morbid fascination as blood spurted out of the ruined arteries while the body fell down with its head hanging on a hinge of mangled flesh.
“Got it!” she gasped.
“Good job. Now get the other one.”
She easily lined up her shot for the final infected person and took it down smoothly in one shot. When she was done, she felt proud of herself and grinned as she handed Sam her prized rifle back. Her babysitter was grinning, too, and she clapped Kara’s shoulder before taking a deep breath of the crisp mountain air. Overhead, the sky was turning orange with the approaching evening and she tipped her head back to get a good look at it.
“Well, we should head back before your sister starts to worry,” Sam sighed.
“That’s her middle name,” Kara grumbled as she followed the other woman back down the path they’d just climbed.
“She loves you. Cut her some slack.”
“It’s hard to when she won’t be honest with me.”
Sam hummed and allowed herself to slide down a steep switchback before righting herself and continuing along a rocky stretch of ground. Kara copied her actions and carefully picked her way across the rugged terrain.
By the time the sun was nearly finished setting and the sky was turning dark, the pair were entering the lodge to the welcomed smell of cooking meat and fresh veggies. Alex was flipping some chunks of the rabbit they’d caught that morning on a cast iron skillet suspended on a grill over the open flames of the massive hearth across the lobby. She looked up when Sam dropped her backpack on the long bar top that took up a third of the left wall. The two walls facing the valley below were made of glass and they had a spectacular view from here of the final wisps of the sunset. Kara admired the scenery silently as Alex tried to catch her eye.
“Was that you guys shooting?” her sister asked after an awkward silence.
“Yeah,” Sam said at the same moment Kara sassed, “No, it was the infected.”
Sam shot her a look before going to see what Alex was cooking on the fire. Just then, the sounds of two more horses galloping into the clearing before the lodge reached them and Kara turned in time to see Clark and James pulling their mounts to a stop.
The lodge they were staying in was a rendezvous point for two separate patrols. The valley below was so large that it made more sense for two teams to clear it and camp in the same halfway point before turning around and going home the next day. She knew they were coming, but it was still annoying that she had to be around yet more people who would witness her feud with Alex and ask probing questions about it.
“Hey, guys!” Clark greeted in his usual chipper manner. Behind him, James nodded amicably.
“Hey,” Sam said. “Food’s done soon. Catch anything extra you want to throw on?”
“We’ve got a couple fish we just caught, actually. Passed a stream on the way up and saw them swimming close to the bank, and we said ‘why not?’” James told them as he held two hefty trout aloft on a thin rope.
“Well, clean ‘em up and get ‘em on the grill,” Alex told them with a grin. She was obviously ignoring Kara’s mood and was putting on a brave face for the others.
The guys settled in and then Clark went to fill out their patrol log while James got to work de-boning and de-scaling the fish on a nearby table. Everyone made small talk while the food cooked and then less small talk as they ate. Eventually, the table they were eating at was cleared and a deck of cards was brought out to pass the time before everyone felt tired enough to sleep. A few rounds of blackjack went well enough, and then Clark told them something that set Kara’s nerves on fire and doused her skin in ice.
“So we ran into a couple of people this afternoon. They were looking for a place to stay for a while and we sent them on the trail back to Jackson. Said they used to be Fireflies.”
Alex froze and looked up from her cards at him, then Kara. “Did they say where they used to be stationed?”
“Was it Salt Lake, James?”
“I think so. One of the bigger installations that we know of.”
“How long ago were they there?” Alex asked. Her face had turned pale, but grim.
Clark, oblivious to the change in the mood of the Danvers girls, shrugged and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Dunno. They looked older, though. Maybe fifties. So, could’ve been a long time, maybe.”
Kara’s heart was racing and she thought about what she would say or do when confronted with these people—because Jackson was not that large. She would eventually cross paths with the newcomers. What if they recognized her? Would they out her to the town, to Cat? Would anybody even believe them? She was so lost in thought, she missed her cue to take her turn at the card game and Sam had to nudge her with an elbow to get her attention. She startled and looked up with wide eyes only to find everyone watching her curiously.
“You okay, Kara?” James asked.
“Fine. I’m fine. Uh—I fold.” She didn’t even care that she had a pair of Kings in her hand while there was another King on the table already.
Later, after the others had gone to bed, Kara met Alex by the farthest corner away from the others.
“We need to leave,” Alex said lowly, urgently.
Kara frowned. “What do you mean, like go back home? It’s dark.”
“No, I mean leave , as in get far away from here and don’t look back.”
Kara balked. “Alex, no. We don’t know who these people are. They might not even know about Colorado!”
“We can’t take that chance, Kara. They could just as easily recognize you or me and get word back to their old Firefly buddies that you’re around. They could be undercover operating on a tip that you were spotted out here. They’re not just gonna let you go now that they know you’re immune.”
Kara narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. She could feel the familiar argument rising up within her. Again. “Why wouldn’t they let me go? You said they have all they need.”
“Oh, stop with the third degree! We’ve been over this so many times--”
“And yet every time, my questions seem to get brushed off and you always shut down before telling me anything real. I know you’re lying Alex, so just tell me the truth! Tell me the truth right now, and I’ll go with you away from here. I’ll leave the life I’ve made for myself and the friends I love all because you’re a coward , if you just tell me --”
The smack came quickly and stung Kara’s face more than it actually hurt. She stared at her sister, stunned into silence and gaping like a fish as she took in Alex’s clouded expression.
“I am not a coward. If you knew the things I had to do to get us out there, you wouldn’t say that to me, ever .”
Kara’s eyes were burning with embarrassed, betrayed tears. She couldn’t believe Alex had just hit her. They had their problems, but they had never gotten physical with each other because of them. Before she could even try to form a response to all this, a quiet voice called out in the darkness.
“Guys? Everything okay?” Clark asked cautiously. James had turned on his flashlight and was shining it in their direction.
Kara recovered quickly, then, and sniffed loudly before wiping her face with her sleeve. “We’re fine. Just talking about tomorrow.”
Then she left her sister’s side and crawled into her sleeping bag on the opposite end of the half-circle they’d all made in front of the fireplace. She could feel the others watching her, but then their attention shifted as Alex’s muffled footsteps came closer. When everyone was lying down again and the sounds of deep, sleepy breathing reached Kara’s ears, she let herself cry silently until she fell asleep.
The next morning, she woke before the others and prepared breakfast. As everyone was eating, she declared she would be riding back to Jackson with Clark and James. After the obvious confrontation last night, no one said anything—not even Alex.
Once she made it back to town and had gone straight to Lena’s house, she’d asked about the newcomers who claimed to be former Fireflies. Andrea, who had done their intake exams with the doctor, had learned only the man—Billy—used to be a Firefly, and he hadn’t been active with them for nearly twenty years. He'd only brought it up to Clark and James because his leather saddlebag had their logo carved into it.
Fucking Alex, always being so paranoid , Kara stewed that night as she got a little drunk with her friends. Lena was sitting beside her and laughing so hard at something Jack said that she’d snorted and Kara felt a rush of affection go through her despite her lingering moodiness. She'd almost left this goofy girl and her weird sense of humor behind, all because her sister was afraid of their past. Well, screw that, Kara decided. She wouldn’t be scared and she wouldn’t let her sister’s faults drag her down anymore. From now on, she was her own person.
Seattle Day Two
When Kara woke, her neck was stiff from sleeping in an armchair and her throat ached from being choked out by that asshole, Mike. She took a deep breath and sat up, feeling her shoulders twinge with pain after being tied behind her back for hours. Across from her, Lena was sleeping fitfully with her pistol still in her hands. Since she’d rather not get shot in a startled rude awakening on Lena’s end, Kara decided to stay quiet and wait for her girlfriend to wake up.
If she was still her girlfriend. After last night, Kara wasn’t so sure.
After about an hour of watching Lena twitch and mumble in her sleep, the other woman finally jolted awake and sat up with her feet still splayed across the couch. She jerked her head towards Kara and remembered she had the gun in her lap and scrambled to get a grip on it before focusing on scanning the blonde for signs of infection.
“Goodmorning...” Kara tried awkwardly as the silence dragged on.
“How do you feel?” Lena asked suspiciously. Her voice was warbly, like she might burst into tears at any moment.
“Like myself?”
“Is that a question or an answer?”
Kara scoffed, growing annoyed. “An answer . Now can you please untie me? My arms hurt.”
Lena stood shakily on her one good leg and winced as she had to lower her broken ankle. It was still confined to her boot, but the laces were undone, Kara noted. She watched her companion wobble over with her knife and a wary expression on her otherwise pained features before she came to a stop behind Kara and began sawing through the rope around her wrists. When they were free, Kara brought them around to her lap and sighed as she twisted them in circles to pop and stretch them. Lena gave Kara the knife when she was done and moved to return to her seat on the couch while Kara freed her feet from their binds. When she stood, she stretched luxuriously with a satisfied groan before moving over to Lena and sitting gingerly beside her elevated foot.
“Can I?” she asked quietly with her hands hovering over the shoe. Lena nodded and she carefully removed the boot while Lena tried not to squirm in pain. When it thumped to the floor, Kara hissed in sympathy at the visually swollen ankle beneath a wool sock stretched to its limit. She looked back up at the watery green eyes observing her. “Let me take the sock off, too.”
She ended up having to slowly cut the garment off with her own knife while Lena clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the whimpers each mild, brief touch caused her to let out. When it was finally gone, Kara blanched and stared at the mangled foot before her. There was definitely a break, judging by the piece of bone jutting out from the normal planes of Lena’s leg, but it was concealed by skin, so they didn’t have to deal with a compound fracture on top of everything else. Still, it looked painfully horrific with how bruised and swollen the entire foot was. Honestly, it turned her stomach a little, and she’d seen more gore than she imagined most people in Jackson ever had.
“This needs to be set,” Kara warned.
Lena nodded and lifted a musty throw pillow to her face. “Do it.”
With a few steeling breaths, Kara got herself in what she thought was a good position to literally shove a bone back where it belonged. She turned off the part of her brain that thought of Lena as her girlfriend who deserved every tender gesture imaginable and instead focused on the task at hand. If she didn’t set this bone, Lena wouldn’t heal right and complications might arise that could affect her for the rest of her life, not to mention make getting home even harder than getting to this theater was. She had to do this.
In a quick motion, she sucked in a deep breath and pushed with all her strength until she felt the bone beneath her hands crunch back into a position more in line with the rest of Lena’s anatomy. The brunette was crying and swearing loudly into the pillow she was holding to her face, making Kara cringe in sympathy as she evaluated her own work. It looked... okay, she thought. She wasn’t a doctor or a healer. How was she supposed to know when a bone was properly set?
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kara apologized over and over as she gently stroked Lena’s thigh nearest her. “I’s over. It’s done. I’ll go find you something to splint it.”
As she moved to stand, Lena’s hand shot out and grabbed Kara’s wrist, holding her to the couch. When she looked over, a pained face was watching her as tears rolled down dirt-streaked cheeks.
“Don’t go. Not yet,” Lena pleaded. The blonde had a feeling the agony on Lena’s face wasn’t just from the broken bone.
Kara nodded and sat down again, holding Lena’s hand more firmly until it seemed like she had calmed down. After a long silence in which Lena had taken several calming deep breaths, she spoke again.
“How are you not infected, Kara? I saw you breathe enough spores to kill twenty people, at least.”
With a heaving sigh, Kara fixed her gaze on the chair she’d slept in and told the story of her sixteenth birthday. Her idea to sneak out, goading Alex into playing along, seeing the giraffes up close for the first time, going to the ski resort where they encountered the stalkers—all of it. By the end, Lena was crying softly again—for reasons other than the pain in her foot—and Kara found herself joining the display of emotion as she reflected on the good times with her sister before she’d been bitten.
“I can’t believe I almost didn’t get to meet you,” Lena eventually said around a thick lump in her throat. “You’re so perfect for me, even if we just stayed friends. I can’t even imagine a world where we never met.”
“I can’t believe I’m immune to a disease that’s nearly wiped out all of humanity,” Kara laughed without humor. “Of all the people left alive, it’s me . And I don’t even want to die for it. How selfish is that?”
“You don’t have to. You said the Fireflies took plenty of blood samples from you.”
“Well, that’s what I was told for years. Alex finally gave me the real version of events last year.”
“And that’s when you two really stopped talking,” Lena said with dawning realization. “I remember that. You dropped off the face of the earth for like two weeks and I was ready to turn over every rock looking for you when you randomly showed up at my doorstep.”
“Yep. I went back to Colorado just to see for myself what I could, and then she caught up to me and we had it out right there.”
“What did she say?”
Before Kara could answer, the radio they’d taken off Imra’s body the night before burst to life and a man’s voice was calling out to different WLF teams about a ‘trespasser’ near the hospital. The women looked at each other before Lena snatched the radio off the floor and turned the volume up.
“Units six, nine, and ten, be aware: trespasser is armed and dangerous. She’s already gotten four of our guys.”
“Is she pinned down?” a woman asked. In the background was the rumble of a truck.
“Negative. Last confirmed visual at the parking garage.”
Lena turned the radio back down and turned to Kara. “Sam. That’s got to be her, right?”
“Sharpshooter lone female,” Kara said thoughtfully as she rose to gather her things. “Sounds like it could be. I’ll go find the hospital and check it out. Can you get up to barricade the door behind me?”
“Yeah.”
Kara helped Lena stand and assisted her in hopping to the entrance. After the various chairs that had been slid into the bars to prevent the doors from opening had been removed, Kara spun around and held Lena close by the waist.
“I can’t get people infected, if that wasn’t obvious already,” Kara said lightly. “Considering how often we’ve swapped spit.”
“So romantic with the words,” teased Lena. Then, she pressed forward and kissed her passionately before roughly pulling away. “You better be careful out there. I can’t come save you if you get into trouble.”
“I’ll be safe,” Kara promised. “I’ll find Sam and we’ll come back here to regroup. And I’ll get some things to splint your ankle.” Then, a thought occurred to her and she pulled away a bit more to look at Lena’s bandaged shoulder. “How’s your graze wound? I totally forgot.”
“It’s fine, but if you find some strong alcohol, you should bring it back to help me avoid an infection.”
The radio announced another encounter with a sniper by the hospital and Kara felt herself getting antsy.
“Go,” Lena said with one final, firm kiss. “I’ll be alright.”
“I love you,” Kara told her as she grabbed the bar that opened the door.
“I love you, too.”
And then Kara swiftly exited the theater and jogged out into the street where it was drizzling steadily. The sky was cloudy and dark, promising a rainy day ahead, and Kara sighed as she thought about the wet socks feeling she would have the entire time she was searching for Sam. With a glance at the buildings around her, she noted the tallest one on this street and headed for it to give herself a better view that would hopefully reveal the hospital Sam was closing in on.
Kara looked up at the conference center before her and cursed it for blocking her path to the hospital. To her right, the road was covered in old FEDRA barbed wire and barricades, sealing off the street as a permanent quarantine site. To the left, the rest of the road had collapsed and a rushing river had taken its place. The current looked strong enough to sweep Kara away, so she had no choice but to cut through the conference building. It made her tired just looking at it. She'd been trekking across the city for nearly three hours already in a steady downpour that had her feeling chilled to the bone and paranoid she’d miss a sound beneath the white noise of the rain. In short: she was not having fun. Plus, she was worried about Lena. Plus, plus: she was alone in unfamiliar territory where two factions seemed to be fighting with each other, except she had yet to run into the mysterious enemy of the WLF. It all had her on edge and grumpy.
“Well, let’s find a way in,” she whispered to herself as she started for the conference center.
The doors were locked, naturally, and she didn’t want to break a window if she didn’t have to. The noise could agitate infected in the area that she hadn’t seen yet. Already on the way here, she had had to kill about six different runners and three clickers as she maneuvered the crumbling streets of Seattle.
After a quick scan, she discovered a fire escape that led to a broken window on the third floor. She carefully made her way up the rusted stairs, cringing with each wobble in the flimsy structure, and then slid onto a ledge just beyond the window’s frame to finally get out of the rain for a few minutes. Then, she had to shimmy across the ledge to the convenient scaffolding a stone’s throw away before using that to descend to the ground level. The whole place was open, the hallways facing the lobby, creating a lofty space where anyone in the main square of the building could look down and see the ground level. It made getting her bearings easier, but she didn’t like the vantage points people could get on her from the five floors that comprised the building.
When she reached the ground, she looked around for a way out and for any supplies. There was nothing of use to her in the front office and the doors to every possible exit and conference room were locked with chains. When her search turned up no bolt cutters, she cursed and climbed back up the scaffolding to the second floor since even the stairway was locked up tight.
Once she was up where she needed to be, she noticed a green cross over one of the rooms and went to investigate. It was a longshot after nearly thirty years of living in the post-modern world, but maybe someone had overlooked the first-aid kit. She turned on her flashlight and found it easily in the space that was very obviously an old nurse’s station and flipped the box open.
“Yes!” she hissed excitedly as she found a pressure bandage roll and some unopened gauze. There were also several smaller band-aids, so she dumped those into her backpack as well, but everything else—the long-expired triple antibiotic cream, the small scissors, and the weird popsicle sticks--could stay.
Kara turned to continue her search for a way out, only to freeze in place immediately as a stalker watched her from its crouched position just beyond the doorway. It was backlit by the dim glow of the overcast sky seeping in through the grungy windows beyond, making it appear solid black and sinister to Kara’s eyes. She had her hand on the pistol strapped to her thigh and was ready to draw it lightning fast when the stalker screeched and scurried away on its own.
“Fuuuuuck,” Kara groaned. “Fuck me all the way. Fuck .”
Slowly, she approached the doorway and then quickly turned out, ready to shoot the brains out of anything that moved—but there was nothing. Ahead of her, down the hallway where the stalker had to have gone, the light from the outside was completely blocked, leaving Kara’s flashlight as her sole light source. She could already see the swirling spores further down the hall. Since she was alone, she didn’t bother with her mask and prowled ahead with her gun raised, ready to get rid of the stalker at a moment’s notice. Her heart was hammering and her skin was sweating despite being cold from the rain. If she didn’t clench her jaw, her teeth would be chattering.
Get a grip, Danvers , she berated herself.
In one of the offices down this hall, she noticed an old pencil cup on one of the desks. She took it and threw it down the hall where the spores were floating and heard the stalker cry out like a wounded animal before emerging from behind a file cabinet and running towards the back wall. Incidentally, the place it disappeared to also happened to have an old exit sign over it. Sighing to herself, Kara forced the fear down as far as she could and powered through. She hoped the infected she’d seen was the same one that had been watching her from the nurse’s office. If not, and there were at least two of them working in tandem to flank Kara, she would be fucked.
At the end of the hall, there was a door with a heavy desk pushed in front of it with a busted window directly over the doorframe. It was, unfortunately, big enough to fit an adult human through, and the blood trails leading up the wall and through the hole were evidence of that. So, this was where it went.
Kara climbed up the desk and stood on her toes to reach the edge of the window frame. When she got a good grip, she jumped and pulled herself through, twisting as she fell on the other side so that she could land more softly. When she straightened up, she found herself squaring off with a group of six or seven stalkers who seemed to be startled by her presence. They were huddled together in low stances and simultaneously turned to her when she caught their attention like they were sharing a brain. It made her skin itch.
“Shit!” she gasped as she pulled her gun back up. The stalkers shrieked and scattered quickly, leaving Kara alone again and totally surrounded. “ Goddammit . Lena, please don’t hate me if I get torn apart here.”
After a few deep breaths, the blonde evaluated her surroundings: she was in an open office space with several cubicles in the center and a few other rooms lining the area. The exit sign was pointing to the left, so she had to go that way. She couldn’t just run for it, because that would set off the stalkers and they’d pounce on her like a pack of hungry coyotes. Not to mention, it was dark as shit, and visibility was poor because of the thick clouds of spores.
Yeah, she was screwed.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she said to herself anyway as she crept forward to snag a knickknack off a nearby cubicle desk. Before she threw it, she produced a molotov cocktail she’d made during her journey over to the conference center and prepared to ignite it with her trusty lighter.
With a heave, she threw the random object to the corner farthest from where she was trying to go and watched as the stalkers screamed and ran towards the noise. When they were in close proximity to each other—about four in total, she thought—she lit the cloth on the end of the molotov and threw the bottle. It shattered, erupting in flames that engulfed the infected, and that’s when Kara ran. She knew there were still a few left, but she had better odds of killing three than killing seven, and the exit was somewhere nearby, surely. Behind her, she could hear the screeching of more stalkers scrambling to catch her and she sprinted for everything she was worth, following the exit signs down an L-shaped intersection. To her dismay, she saw the exit blocked by a fungal plate so huge, she couldn’t even see the door behind it anymore. The hesitation in her movements as she registered this caused a stalker to be close enough to wrap its gnarled hands around Kara’s arm. She jerked away with a shout and shot it in the face quickly before clocking two more splitting off in the distance to try to flush her out now that she’d stopped moving. With a glance to her right, she noticed large windows in the small meeting room beside her and—miraculously—a rusty window cleaning platform. She rushed for it, shooting the window out with one bullet in the upper corner of the glass, and pulled her arms in front of her face and neck to shield herself from the falling shards as she leaped through the window onto the platform. The stalkers had followed her and both jumped out, but Kara was anticipating this. She shot and killed one of them, but the second one tackled her off the platform and into the rushing water below where the street used to be.
It was a blurry few moments as Kara spluttered and tried to fight the current while also keeping a stalker from biting her or ripping her apart, but she managed to wrangle the infected to a point where she could shoot its head. When it went limp, she let it sail away from her with the current. She coughed up some of the water she’d inhaled on her initial plunge and tried to collect her wits through the haze of her most recent near-death experience.
Right as she was beginning to orient herself and find something to grab onto as she floated past, the water dropped out like a waterfall and Kara splashed down into a calmer area.
When she surfaced, she was coughing and cursing as she paddled her way to a nearby service ladder painted bright yellow and covered in patchy moss. She must have resembled an angry, wet cat as she pulled herself out of the water and sat on her ass to catch a breather. Her heart was still going a mile a minute, but it was settling now that she was out of immediate danger. She only let herself rest for five or so minutes, though, before she was pulling herself to her feet. Lena needed medical supplies, and Sam needed backup. There was no time to waste, even if she did almost die just now.
“Fuck Seattle,” she griped as she climbed the service ladder and emerged next to what appeared to be a park.
There were tall, flourishing ferns blanketing the land just beyond the sidewalk Kara was standing on, and towering trees with thick trunks that created a small forest in the middle of the city. She couldn’t see the ends of the park on either side, so her only option was to go through it, she supposed. Overhead, the clouds had thickened and the late afternoon sun was completely hidden to create a sky that mimicked the evening. The rain was still steadily falling, and Kara sighed as she resigned herself to being soaking wet for the rest of the day after her little swim.
With what she called her best guess, she headed in what she thought was the general direction of the hospital and entered the park.
Naturally, ten minutes into her trek, she encountered trouble.
There was the faint orange glow of fire ahead, as well as voices bouncing off the trees. Someone was crying, begging for mercy, while a woman’s voice was speaking with a cadence similar to the way Mr. Dugan preached during his church services in Jackson. Cautiously, Kara crept closer through the ferns and stopped behind a tree to observe the scene just thirty yards away.
A man was standing—barely—on an overturned bucket dressed in a WLF uniform, but with his shirt torn open. Around him, four men and three women wearing what appeared to be handmade clothes in earthy tones and carrying torches formed a semi-circle as they watched him squirm and cry. He had a noose around his neck, and the rest of the rope was thrown over the sturdy tree branch above him. The woman who was speaking in a strange way stepped forward with her torch held aloft, illuminating scars that ran from the corners of her mouth up to her cheekbones.
Scars , Kara thought. The enemy of the WLF. Makes sense now .
“For they are nested with sin,” the woman declared darkly. In her free hand, she produced a large knife. The man began to beg more urgently. “Heretics, all. With this kill, we cleanse the world of darkness a bit more, so that we may return it to Her Light.”
“In darkness, may She guide us,” the others droned.
Then, the woman plunged her blade into the man’s belly and carved a quick opening that had his internal organs spilling out just like the bodies hanging in the news station. The man spluttered as the bucket was simultaneously kicked out from beneath him, and he swung by his neck while he bled out onto the mud.
“It is done,” the woman said as she cleaned her knife.
“It is done,” the others repeated.
“What the hell?” Kara whispered to herself. Her heartrate was spiking again. If these people caught her, they’d subject her to the same fate, she was sure.
Just as Kara was evaluating her options for sneaking away undetected, the distant echo of a stick breaking reached the clearing. The cultists (Kara had quickly decided they were a cult) turned quickly towards the noise and began to fan out with bows and rifles drawn up. Then, oddly enough, they began to whistle to each other through the foliage. Each sound was sharp and obviously had a meaning, and every time a whistle went out, resounding responses floated up, all nearly identical in tone. They were communicating without words, which was a very bad thing for outsiders. Kara had to get out of here.
Before she could take a step from behind her tree, a hand clamped down over her mouth and an arm squeezed around her midsection, locking her own arms in place. She fought feverishly, but silently, until her captor spoke in her ear in a familiar voice.
“It’s me, calm down,” the man said urgently. He let Kara go and she spun with wide eyes to face him.
“Jack?!” she hissed.
He was wearing a rain Jacket with the hood down to reveal his tan face and dark hair. His beard was a little bushier than she was used to seeing it, and his clothes were dirty, but it was him. She hugged him tightly and breathed in his familiar smell while his arms wrapped securely around her. But they were in a danger zone, and they were potentially the prey. She quickly pulled away and looked up at his dark eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered incredulously.
“Later. We have to move. Where’s Lena?”
“We found a place to hide out until we find Sam. She's there.”
He nodded and gestured to his right, away from the direction the Scars went. “Let’s go. I’ve been exploring this area all day. My horse is in an old barber shop not far from here.”
They exited the park quickly, navigating through the trees and brush with relative ease as Jack guided Kara along. Behind them, the Scars were still whistling to each other, but the sounds were becoming more and more distant. When they finally emerged from the park and onto an urban street with tall buildings and shops all around, Kara felt a little better. She wasn’t alone anymore, and Jack was solid in a tense situation.
A few blocks down from the park, they entered the barber shop where Jack had stowed his sleek black horse, Watson. She checked the street for curious eyes and barricaded the door behind her after Jack entered the shop first. When they were locked in and relatively safe, Kara dumped her backpack and rifle off her shoulders and sighed in relief as their weight disappeared. Then, she looked over at Jack, who was just finishing checking on his horse. He looked lighter, like he’d lost weight, and his jeans were stained all over. His boots were caked in mud, as were Kara’s. They both looked as though they had been dragged through the wilderness by their hair, kicking and screaming, but she still found herself immensely relieved to see another familiar face in this godforsaken city.
“Okay, so spill,” she finally demanded. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He shrugged and unzipped his rain jacket before hanging it on a nearby chair. It dripped noisily as he sat in one of the other barber’s chairs. Kara took a page out of his book and followed suit, though she didn’t bother with removing her jacket since she was already wet down to her bones.
“I heard Sam had snuck out and that you and Lena went after her. I couldn’t let you do it alone, so I stole my own horse from the stables that night and followed you. Only, I wasn’t sure which route you took, so I did my best to just head towards Seattle according to a road map I have and told myself I’d catch up with you in the city. It’s sheer dumb luck that I found you out there just now. I was trying to sneak by those freaks in the woods when I noticed you.”
“Yeah, we saw some of their handiwork yesterday,” Kara said darkly. “They’re insane.”
“So what happened to Lena? You said her ankle was broken.”
Kara regaled her friend with their eventful day yesterday, leaving out the part about inhaling spores and revealing her immunity to Lena. When she finished describing the way Lena’s leg looked after they were settled in the theater and how Kara had pushed the bone back into place, Jack was cringing in sympathy.
“Then we heard on a radio we’d taken off a WLF guy about a woman causing trouble near the hospital, and we figured it could be Sam, so I decided to try to come get her while also bringing back supplies for Lena’s foot and graze wound. I’ve been having a hell of a day so far.”
“Well, I was up by that hospital not long ago and it seemed quiet,” Jack revealed. “And I forgot to mention: I found Sam’s horse dead by a creek yesterday morning on the outskirts of the city. It had been decomposing for a while already, by the looks of it. So, she’s on foot, which means if she was at the hospital earlier today, she can’t be that far from it now.”
Kara nodded as she soaked in this new information and ignored the possibility that the WLF may have killed the older woman already. She glanced back up at Jack’s thoughtful face and sagged into her chair a little more.
“Well, we won’t know anything else until we check in with Lena and the radio. If they got Sam, Lena would’ve heard about it.”
Jack hummed in agreement and rose to prepare Watson for travel. “How far is your camp, you think?”
“I’m not sure where we are anymore, but the road was washed out two ways at one point, like a big, intersecting river system. We can’t get a horse across that.”
“I think I saw that part of town this morning, actually. There’s a way around it. I’ll get us past it, and you can guide us home.”
By the time they made it back to the theater, it was early evening and the rain had picked up. Thunder rumbled through the sky with flashes of lightning, making every shadow seem darker and more ominous with each strobe.
Kara slid from Watson’s back and knocked heavily against the wooden entrance doors. “Lena, open up! It’s Kara.”
The sounds of furniture scraping and the door rattling as the barricade was torn down reached her ears and then the door swung open to reveal a haggard Lena standing mostly on one leg. She sagged in her bones a bit when she laid eyes on Kara and she lurched forward to wrap the blonde in a tight hug, heedless of the water running down her entire body. She breathed in Lena’s scent and felt herself relax at having her lover in her line of sight once more in this hell hole of a city.
Kara knew when Lena realized they weren’t alone by the jolt that went through her body as she jerked away defensively. Then, the brunette seemed to recognize Jack’s figure looming in the shadows with his horse behind him and she gasped.
“Jack? What--?”
Their friend strolled forward and embraced Lena. When he let go, he smiled down at her and gestured to her foot. “I heard you broke your ankle. That’s embarrassing.”
“You’re embarrassing. Come in, come in! Get out of this storm. I was getting worried.”
While Jack was getting Watson settled in the back of the theater lobby where his lead could be tied to an iron coat rack, Kara was emptying her bag and praying the pressure bandage’s sealed package was still intact. When she held it up with a triumphant noise, she tore the plastic open and turned to Lena, who was already settling back into the couch with her bad foot propped on a couple pillows. The bruising looked even worse than before, and the swelling had increased noticeably. Kara frowned as she inspected it.
“How bad is the pain?” she asked Lena.
“Maybe a nine. What’s that?”
“I found a pressure bandage. Maybe we could wrap it around your foot and ankle and help keep the swelling down while also immobilizing your ankle better.”
“By all means,” her girlfriend said with a sigh. “I’m ready whenever.”
Jack had moseyed over to get a look at the injury, and he hissed through his teeth after one glance. “Yikes. Want me to hold your hand while she does that?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay, here goes...,” Kara muttered as she unrolled the material and bent over Lena’s leg.
When it was all finished, Lena was crying softly despite obviously trying not to, and Jack was holding her hand in one of his while the other rubbed her back soothingly. He was shushing her like someone might try to calm a startled animal, but she didn’t seem to notice through the pain as she took deep breaths in and out. Kara inspected her work for a few more moments before nodding to herself and then joined Jack in his effort to comfort Lena.
After she had calmed enough and the pain had subsided back to its apparently constant dull ache rather than the sharp pains Kara had just subjected it to, Lena was ready to get back to business. Jack explained how he got to Seattle and relayed all the info he told Kara regarding Sam. When he’d gotten to the part about the Scars in the woods and how close he and Kara had been to them, she’d turned a shade paler than usual and held onto Kara’s hand tighter, but otherwise remained stoic.
“So, did you hear anything on the radio about Sam?” Kara asked after the recap.
Lena shook her head. “Just that she got away. They’re not sure where she is now.”
“Shit,” Kara said as the frustrations of the day suddenly boiled over. “We were so close! We should have found a way to the hospital anyway, Jack.”
“We wouldn’t have found her if she’d already slipped out,” he reminded her calmly from his spot in the armchair Kara had slept in the night before. “Look, it’s raining and dark outside, we don’t know where she is, and we don’t know the city well enough to be poking around at night while there are two groups of people trying to kill each other. I say, we sleep it off, then start fresh in the morning.”
“We’ve said that the past three mornings,” Kara snapped. “Maybe Sam is on Lucy’s trail and I’ll miss my chance to get closure by killing her myself.” Her face was heating up with the force of her anger. She knew she was lashing out, that her mood had come on suddenly when before, she’d been calm and trying to be there for Lena in her time of pain, but she couldn’t rein herself in. Two whole days she’d been looking for Sam in this city, and she wasn’t any closer to finding her, or to learning the whereabouts of Lucy and her other friends. It was maddening.
“Kara, calm down,” Lena pleaded softly as she reached for her hand again. The blonde had let go of it and stood beside the couch in her outburst.
“No, I don’t think I will,” she told her. “I could be out there, right now, looking for both of them. But instead, I got pulled away from the place I spent all day trying to get to—after nearly dying a few times to get there—and now you two want me to stay put? Over some rain? ”
“It’s the smart move, Kara,” Jack tried to reason. “You’ll only get yourself killed if you go out there right now. Especially if you’re upset.”
“I can take care of myself,” the blonde insisted as her old insecurity reared its head. “I don’t need anyone watching my back. If I want to go back out there, I can, and I will.”
“Kara, stop it!” Lena shouted.
They all paused in the ensuing silence, Jack and Kara staring at Lena in shock as the brunette glared sternly. It was rare that she ever raised her voice, and even rarer still that she’d raise it at Kara. In fact, she can’t recall a time in which Lena had ever yelled at her. It was enough to make her stop and examine her own behavior and her mood, but her girlfriend was ready to fight.
“I may have a broken ankle, but if you think for one second that I’d seriously let you walk out that door right now, you’re deranged. Look at you! You’re covered in bruises when you didn’t have any this morning, your clothes are drenched through, and you look exhausted. You probably haven’t eaten all day, have you?” Kara shook her head obediently, stupefied by Lena’s strict tone. “That’s what I thought. You’re staying here, and tomorrow morning, you and Jack can go back out there and try again. In the daylight, with two sets of eyes that have been well-rested. Do you understand me?”
Abashed, Kara looked down at her boots and nodded. “Yeah.”
Another silence fell upon them again, this time more awkwardly, and Jack slapped his hands against his thighs to break the tension.
“Okay, well, now that that’s settled: have you explored the rest of the theater yet, Kara?”
“No,” she murmured.
“I’ll go with you then and we can cover the whole place in half the time if we split up. After that, I’ll get dinner ready.”
“Okay,” she agreed morosely as she shuffled away from Lena’s hard gaze.
She moped while she searched the building, at once ashamed of her behavior and embarrassed that Lena had scolded her in front of Jack. She knew she shouldn’t have lashed out the way she did, but it had been difficult for her to control her anger ever since she woke up in the clinic at Jackson. She'd be happy one minute, and pissed off the next for no apparent reason. She could be enjoying herself, having fun with Lena on the road to Seattle, and then she’d see something that reminded her of her sister and her entire day would be ruined. It was something she needed to work on, but she didn’t know how. In her mind, finding Lucy was a start. Getting justice was the steppingstone. After that, she could maybe begin to process her enormous loss and the immense grief it’s caused her. But until she actually had Lucy at her mercy, she would have to try harder not to be an asshole to the people risking their lives to help her.
Eventually, she found a roof access stairwell. Jack was somewhere else on the top floor of the theater digging through band merchandise after they’d found musical equipment backstage. She didn’t feel like talking to him, so she went alone and found a utility shed in the center of the roof. She jogged over to the open doorway and found the breaker box for the whole building on one of the walls. The big lever on the side was in the ‘off’ position, giving Kara a smidge of hope. With a deep breath, she grabbed the handle and shoved it upward until it clicked into the ‘on’ position. She heard the mechanical whirs and groans of machinery waking up and a small thrill shot through her, chasing away some of her foul mood.
With a little pep in her step, she hustled back inside to find the emergency lights glowing.
“Hell yeah,” she said to herself.
“Kara?” Jack called from down the hall. “Was that you turning the lights on?”
“Yeah, I found the breaker box outside.”
He emerged from one of the offices carrying a bottle of alcohol in one of his hands while he grinned from ear to ear.
“Look what I found,” he said excitedly as he brandished the bottle for Kara’s inspection. “Unopened bourbon. We have to try it.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“Maybe, but we won’t know until we try.”
Kara sighed and ran a hand through her greasy, damp hair. “Did you finish looking for other house guests?”
“Yep, we’re all alone. All other exits are sealed, no signs of any recent squatters. Safe as can be. Let’s go back and get some food going so we can enjoy our liquid treasure.”
Predictably, Kara found the bourbon to be absolutely horrific on the tastebuds and nearly gagged when she knocked a good mouthful back. Jack guffawed so loud he startled Watson and Lena chuckled fondly at her before taking the bottle herself and effortlessly taking a few pulls. Her free hand was resting sedately on Kara’s shoulder where the blonde was seated on the ground beside her. An olive branch, Kara supposed. She leaned into the contact and glanced up to find her apologetic eyes mirrored in Lena’s gaze.
The lighting in the theater was dim enough to be able to sleep comfortably, but they still decided to retire to the dressing rooms in the corridor behind the stage to get some rest since there were better couches and a few blankets strewn about. Jack took one room and bid them goodnight after he helped Kara carry Lena to the next room over. The brunette was settled on the wide futon with one of the pillows from the lobby tucked under her broken foot and she looked a little queasy in Kara’s opinion. Probably just uncomfortable from her foot being jostled as she was carried on both sides backstage, Kara thought. She unfolded a blanket and made sure there were no bugs in it before gently draping it over Lena with a small smile.
“There you go,” she said quietly as she fidgeted with the edges of the blanket. When she moved to stand again, Lena frowned and reached out her hand.
“Where are you going?” the note of fear in her voice made Kara feel guilty all over again. She'd made Lena think she would leave in the night, surely, after her little tantrum earlier.
The blonde pointed to the loveseat across the room. “I was gonna sleep on that so I don’t accidentally hit your foot.”
“That’s ridiculous. Come here.”
“Lena--”
“Kara, I won’t be able to sleep if you’re way over there. Come on, just lie down.”
With an uncertain sigh, she stripped off her damp clothes and dressed in an extra set of Lena’s while she laid her own spares out to dry on the long vanity. She could feel green eyes scrutinizing the various blemishes she’d no doubt collected on her skin during her tumultuous day, and she braced herself for the eventuality of giving Lena the full rundown of her misadventure since she left her girlfriend’s side. Sure enough, because Kara knew Lena, and she knew the other woman was curious by nature, she wasted no time in probing for information the moment Kara curled up at her side.
“Are you gonna tell me how today went, or are we pretending it’s fine?”
Kara grunted and pressed her forehead into Lena’s shoulder while the arm she had slung across Lena’s stomach squeezed gently. “It wasn’t the greatest.”
As she gave her version of events leading up to the run-in with Jack, Lena listened intently. Kara could feel her pulse speed up when she mentioned the creepy conference building full of stalkers and how she barely made it out and Lena held her to her chest tighter. When she was done, they laid there quietly for a while as the information sank in.
“I still can’t wrap my head around the immunity thing, but I’m glad you at least have that protection out there. If I can’t be with you watching your back, at least I know one bite or a room full of spores won’t kill you.”
“Honestly, it kind of sucks,” Kara admitted. “I wish I never found out. I feel like I’m supposed to sacrifice myself or something, to give people a hope for a cure... but I was only seventeen when the Fireflies learned about me and I was scared to die. I still don’t want to, honestly. I tried like hell today to make it back here and I almost didn’t pull through with those stalkers.”
Warm lips pressed to her temple in a lingering kiss. “You don’t owe anyone anything—especially not the Fireflies. It’s okay to be afraid of dying. I am, too, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“I hate that Alex died because of me,” Kara blurted as tears began to slip past her lashes. “She got me out, and Lucy killed her for it.”
Lena hugged her close and kissed her hairline again as Kara began to cry in earnest. “Hey, no. What she did to your sister is on her. You are not responsible for the actions of others. What happened was a tragedy and inhumane, and we’re here to make it right. Nobody like Alex deserved a death like that. She was loyal, protective, and she loved everyone she was close to, even if she didn’t show it all the time. We'll find Sam, and then you can get Lucy and avenge your sister. We aren’t leaving until then. Right?”
Kara sniffled loudly and wiped her face on the inside of her (Lena’s) shirt. “Right.” She felt a rush of appreciation go through her, then, as the sudden onslaught of sadness passed. She leaned up on her elbows after making sure she didn’t have a runny nose from crying and gazed down at Lena seriously. “I really love you. I was worried about you today.”
The brunette smiled and caressed Kara’s cheek with her palm. “So was I. And, I love you, too. Now kiss me, and let’s sleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 10: Ten: Kara, Eleven Months Ago
Summary:
The truth about what happened in Colorado
Notes:
This is a lonnnng flashback, so I decided to make it its own chapter. After this, we'll get Seattle Day Three and then maybe two chapters after that. Maybe three? Idk. I have a plan, but idk how I want to execute it. It won't follow the game because I want to wrap things up. If you've played or seen The Last of Us Part 2, you know there's a ton of content after the initial three days in Seattle (*ahem, the wild POV switch-up*), but I don't want to dive into all that and what comes after, because that would turn this into like a thirty-chapters-long story.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Eleven Months Ago
The old college campus looked almost the same as it had the last time Kara had seen it. Almost. The differences, she noted, were mainly in the obvious signs of struggle and violence scattered about: blood stains on walls, bodies decomposing in the streets, long-spoiled supplies strewn across the main market area. Something bad had happened here at one point, rendering the once-lively community to a ghostly husk of its old self, devoid of inhabitants. If she had to guess, she’d say it was Alex’s actions that caused this. Kara’s decisions, ultimately, that led to this catastrophe. She looked down at the sunken face of a child’s corpse lying next to an adult body in the main square and felt bile rise in her throat. They were torn to shreds by something, it seemed, and it was almost guaranteed that something was infected people. Her fault. She continued wandering.
In the apartment where the Danvers family used to live, Kara found some of her old things and she selected a few to take back with her. Among the collection was a photo of them all smiling when Alex looked about sixteen, making Kara around thirteen or fourteen, depending on the month it was taken. She also carefully folded the drawing of her biological dad she’d made from memory years ago and placed it securely within the center compartment of her bag. She looked up at the walls, at all the pictures she’d painted and drawn, and sighed, disturbing the layer of dust on everything near her. Lying open on her desk were the medical textbook she’d been making a copy of and the sketchbook she’d been using to make the actual copy. Her drawing of a detailed view of the branches of the aorta was only partially complete, and it would stay that way.
Alex's room was its usual neat self, even after she’d gone to live in the recruit dormitories. The bed was made, the desk free of clutter, and the walls were sparsely decorated. Where Kara had a bubbly and bright room filled with the colors of her imagination and optimism, Alex’s dwelling was minimalist. She'd always been that way—orderly, toeing the line, doing what the good eldest child should, always striving to meet expectations. It made Kara sad to think her sister never really did anything for herself except in her romantic life, and even then, she’d had to sacrifice her first love for Kara’s wellbeing.
Which brought her back to why she’d come here in the first place.
The medical building was covered in the aftermath of gruesome fighting, even worse than outside was. Blood stains arced across the walls where some bodies remained slumped against the floors, soldiers and medical staff and civilians alike. There were trails where people had been dragged, dismembered body parts in certain areas that Kara glanced at briefly before focusing on anything else. Her flashlight beam was her only source of light in the eerie darkness filled with horrors. It made sweat drip down her back.
Despite all the evidence of infected, Kara never actually found any. She went through the entire building, floor to floor, wing to wing with her gun raised, but nothing ever jumped out at her or made any of the telltale noises. Stalkers would have even made themselves known by now as they excited themselves with her presence. When she was sure she was alone—or, sure enough—she finally went to the place that kept her up many nights the past few years.
The laboratory floor was a disaster. It looked like whatever had afflicted the community had started here, judging by the amount of dried blood and bodies everywhere. The room where they’d isolated Kara when Jeremiah and Eliza first brought her in was empty, as was the exam room where Eliza had ordered two men to hold her down while she sedated Kara. The guards who’d done her bidding were dead by the nurses’ station. She recognized their nametags as she carefully stepped past them. One of them had been shot in the neck and head, she noted curiously as she continued towards the surgical wing.
All this time, Kara had suspected Alex was covering up the truth of what really went down the day they fled their home. The secrets and lies had all but ruined their relationship, and so with nothing left to lose on that front, Kara had packed a bag one night while Alex was on an overnight patrol and slipped out of Jackson the back way with Ranger under a moonless sky. The guards on the wall didn’t notice her easing the smaller gate open, and she’d shot off in the dark once Ranger was through it. By the time her sister would be home to discover her gone, she’d be halfway to her destination. She wanted answers so desperately, she’d left without even telling Lena. The brunette would have insisted on joining, which would have alerted Sam—who was not on an overnight patrol—and the older woman would rat them out to Alex instantly, thwarting Kara’s plans. It had to be this way. She had to know.
In the surgical wing, bullet holes in the walls became more noticeable, causing Kara to take a few steps back the way she’d come to examine the plaster for more. Sure enough, she’d missed the evidence of a shootout while she was looking at her boots to avoid the bodies in her path. With a grim determination, she steeled herself and advanced to the OR where she highly suspected she’d been taken to. There was dried blood on the push bar that opened the door. Kara used her hip to press on it and held her breath as she tiptoed inside.
As she took in the scene before her, she felt tears stinging her eyes.
Medical instruments were laid out beside the gurney in the center of the room while sedation equipment was hanging from the machines at the head of the gurney, including a facemask that would have gone over Kara’s nose and mouth. IV bags hung from poles, emptied, with the needles that must have been in Kara’s arm hanging towards the floor. On the wall at the back of the OR was a series of x-ray films and MRI print-outs, and Kara already knew they were of her head. The small anomalous spots on the MRI must have been the cordyceps in her brain that never took hold.
There were two medical personnel dead on the floor. When Kara got closer to see if she recognized the faces, she reeled back, dropping her gun and bringing her hands to her face as she gasped at the same time tears ran down her cheeks. She huddled against the door she’d just entered through and slid down to the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest while she tried to make sense of what she’d seen. Her breaths were coming faster and faster as a panic attack she hadn’t experienced in two or three years overcame her.
One of the bodies was Eliza. Her face was decaying and her features were nearly unrecognizable, but it was her. She was wearing the scrubs Kara remembered seeing right before she’d been sedated, except now there was a massive blood stain in her midsection, like she’d been stabbed with a large knife. Her hands were folded almost neatly in her lap, as though she’d laid down on the ground and gotten comfortable while she died. Kara knew her mother was dead already; she wasn’t sure why this was affecting her so viciously, but it was.
The sorrow and guilt and panic clouded her mind for a stretch of time. She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat on the floor hyperventilating while she cried, but she knew it was long enough to make her butt numb from sitting on a hard surface. When she felt like she could marginally function again, she scrambled to her knees and reached for her pistol before shakily standing upright. Then, she took one last look at the woman who raised her only to apparently choose to sacrifice her, and left the OR through the back door.
A set of bloody footprints had caught Kara’s eye and she followed them diligently. She compared her own shoes to the prints and realized with a sinking feeling that it was a man who had come this way. She went with the trail all the way to the stairs at the rear of the science building, realizing on the way that there were fewer bodies here. Maybe only three or four guards in total, and one medical staff member. At the door to the stairway, the trail disappeared, but the push bar had blood on it like the one at the OR, so Kara opened the door to find the trail picked up again, this time going down towards the ground floor.
At the bottom of the steps, the footprints led towards a back exit where the door only opened halfway when Kara pushed on it. She shimmied through, back into the fading light of early evening, and looked down at the body of Lucy Lane’s mother. She had a bullet hole in what was left of her skull after the birds and scavengers had finished picking her apart. It was unmistakably a bullet wound, Kara thought, as she leaned closer to inspect the body. She knew it was Lucy’s mom by the name badge she wore, faded but still visible behind the plastic coating. She had a hunch who shot and killed this woman, and it wasn’t what she wanted to believe. She would’ve cried again, if it hadn’t been for the body she could see in the distance, next to the gate Alex must have driven herself and Kara through during their escape. She took a deep breath and marched to where Jeremiah’s corpse was surely waiting for her.
She was a little drunk. She knew she shouldn’t be, considering she was all alone in a place where Fireflies could be lurking around any corner, but Kara couldn’t bring herself to care. All this carnage, all this death—for her sake. Because she chose to be a reckless, stupid child years ago and got herself bitten.
The fire she stoked earlier was warming her on the outside while the moonshine she’d brought with her was warming her on the inside. It was early autumn, and the first snow would be coming soon to this region, judging by the feeling in the air. Nothing about the familiar weather patterns had changed, but the place she spent a very formative period of her life in had been irreparably destroyed. Everyone here had either died or moved on to somewhere else. Entire families were dead in their homes or in the streets, telling Kara the story of an emergency so sudden and so dire that not even the Fireflies had opted to stay to clean up the mess. They'd just abandoned the whole town.
She was wrong in her initial assessment of there being no infected, though. As she was looking for a spot to have a pity party for the night, she’d passed the basketball arena where they used to hold town hall meetings and dances and other community events and could hear them clicking and groaning inside. Considering it’s been years since those people were likely infected, it was probably an arena full of clickers. She decided to steer clear of that part of campus and instead set up camp on the education center’s rooftop where she used to sneak off to with her peers. Where she’d had her first kiss, done some other things for the first time. Where she first spotted the giraffes Alex had shown her up close on her fateful birthday. It was as good a place as any, she decided, and then she’d gotten to work setting up her tent with weighty objects she found on the climb through the building to hold the corners down. Once her shelter was ready, she made a fire and proceeded to get a little tipsy as she felt the guilt and responsibility for all this mess come crashing down on her.
It was about an hour later when Alex caught up to her.
Kara looked up at her sister from her cross-legged position on the ground through bleary eyes. Alex’s short hair was windswept and dirty and she panted harshly as she stared wildly back at Kara. She swallowed thickly a few times, opening and closing her mouth as she began to find her words before ultimately deciding to stay quiet. In the end, it was Kara who got the ball rolling.
“Sit. Have some hooch.”
Her sister did as instructed, taking a seat opposite the fire before reaching around it to take the bottle from Kara’s outstretched hand. She took a couple long pulls without even grimacing before placing it on the ground beside her. Still, she stayed silent.
After their spat in ski resort during their patrol last year, when Alex had struck Kara across the face, their relationship had turned icy. They still lived together, but they almost never spoke and Alex spent about half her nights at Sam’s. When this had gone on for six months or so, Alex had started to reach out again, to offer olive branches and words of affection as she watched Kara go about her business with wide, pleading eyes. The blonde ignored her most times, only ever speaking to her when it was necessary—like for job-related purposes or to give her a heads-up that she’d be out for a day or two. It was hurtful and mean, but Kara couldn’t bring herself to stop feeling so bitter about the devolution of her only remaining familial relationship. They'd always argued, sparred, and thrown verbal jabs at each other. Never, not once, had her sister ever hit her out of anger like that night on patrol. It crossed a line, and Kara wasn’t eager to forgive and forget while Alex still clung to her lies about Colorado. All she wanted was honesty.
As Kara regarded the older woman now, she could sense that this was all coming to a head. They would have the truth laid bare tonight, whether Alex wanted to tell it or not. Whether Kara could handle it or not.
“This is your last chance, Alex,” Kara began quietly, calmly. She felt a bit more sober. “Tell me the truth about what really happened here, and I’ll go back with you to Jackson. Lie to me again, and you will never see me again. I swear to god, I’ll make sure of that.”
Alex’s eyes filled with tears that stubbornly refused to fall. She clenched her jaw, looked down at her trembling, scarred hands, and took a deep breath. When she spoke, it was with a firm, muted voice. “Dad realized Mom had already alerted Salt Lake about your condition. They told her to get all that she could—including your brain—and that they’d be there by the end of the day to get to work. Dad, he—he couldn’t believe that she would willingly give you up like that. You were their kid. They had a fight. When I tried to get back into your wing of the building, guards blocked me out. I demanded to see my parents, and Dad came. We walked to a private area, and he told me everything he knew so far about what was happening and how much time we had to get you away from there. We both knew they wouldn’t just let you go. It would have to be a fight. He also... told me about the more secretive work going on there, and how to cause a disturbance large enough to stretch security too thin.
“I wasn’t thrilled about the plan he laid out, but I also didn’t want you to be sacrificed for nothing , so... I snuck into the armory. I got the things I needed, and then I went back to the science building. In the restricted wing, I... I opened fire on the guards and any staff who got in my way. Then I just—I let the infected out. They had animals they were experimenting on, and they were agitated and scared, so they were violent. There were also a handful of infected people at different stages, including a massive stage four. I opened the manual locks first, then went into the control room where it was more secure and I shut off the magnetic safety locks. They started rampaging and I fought my way back to Dad again, and we opened fire on the soldiers and any staff who tried to stop our push to the surgical wing.
“They had already sedated you and were prepping you for surgery. For the procedure that would kill you, just on the slim chance they could engineer a vaccine from you. The odds were so slim , Kara. It was more likely that we’d find another immune person, the way Dad saw it, than make a cure from you. When we got to you, he had me go around back to clear a way out. He didn’t want me in there, in case... in case they’d already started.” Alex stopped here and scoffed, a sad, watery noise that made Kara’s chest clench. “I’d already caused so much death at that point; what was the big deal if I saw my little sister’s exposed brain? But I did what he said, and I killed a few more people.
“I didn’t know for sure at the time that he had killed Mom, but I went to the science building just before coming up here to find you, and I saw her. It had to have been Dad that did it. He was covered in blood when he carried you out of there, but I didn’t want to believe that he was capable of killing someone he loved, even if she was making a huge mistake.
“We left the building while the infected tore through the place and spread around outside. The back way was mostly empty, so none of them were drawn there. It was the people running and screaming as they tried to get to the front doors that caught most of their attention. I knew as we were leaving that I had just destroyed our whole community, but I just—I just couldn’t think about it. Not while you were unconscious and everyone was trying to kill us. It was easier to ignore to the role I played in all that death and just focus on your safety. I think—I think that’s why I turned out the way I did afterwards. Controlling and anxious when you weren’t around. I sacrificed so much for you. Destroyed my life and everyone else’s--for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Kara snapped as tears ran down her face. “You didn’t have to kill all those people just to save me. It’s not my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” Alex agreed morosely. “It was my decision, ultimately. I just let it affect every part of my life after. Including our relationship. Speaking of... Lucy.” The older woman sucked in a sharp breath as she said her former lover’s name, like the mere mention of the feisty girl hurt terribly. “I killed her mom. She caught up to us at the exit of the hospital and tried to convince us to hand you over to her so she could get security to evacuate you from the campus. I knew by the way she was talking that she wouldn’t stop looking for you. She'd already become a true believer in the vaccine narrative, like Mom. I shot her in the head. A woman I’ve known since I was a kid, whose daughter I loved. I didn’t even flinch when I did it. Her face was kind of surprised, too, like she couldn’t believe I just killed her, even though it happened before she could blink. I’ll never forget it. Dad was even looking at me like couldn’t believe...”
Alex shook her head as if to banish the rest of that thought. “Anyway, we had to leave since shit was seriously hitting the fan. We found a car at the closest gate, got you situated, and then right before we got in to leave, a team of soldiers showed up. All Dad said was ‘go,’ and then he was shoving me towards the car while he grabbed the assault rifle I took out of the armory for him and opened fire behind some cover. The last time I saw him was in the rearview mirror while he took on a five-man squad alone. I knew he was done. He died for us, and then it was all on me to keep us safe. And now, here we are, because I fucked it all up.”
They looked into each other’s heartbroken eyes as they wept, the fire between them a fitting metaphor for their angry, broken relationship. Kara hated her sister in that moment. Hated her for causing so much harm for Kara’s sake, for letting loose nightmarish monsters on people just going about their usual business—just because her sister was on the chopping block to possibly save humanity. Kara hadn’t wanted to die then and she still didn’t want to die now, but her life versus the near one-thousand that lived on the campus was just... it was too much. Too great a price. She wasn’t worth all that pain and suffering.
Kara also hated Alex for lying about this for so many years. Her pain was deep and visceral and would probably always be there after tonight’s revelations.
Through her tears and around the lump in her throat, Kara asked one last question. “Why did you lie for so long about this?”
Alex shook her head slowly and took another drink of the moonshine. She shrugged helplessly and laughed without humor. “I guess I was just afraid you wouldn’t be able to cope with my actions. That you’d blame yourself for all this somehow, even though it was me who started it. I didn’t want you to think of me as... a monster. I did horrible things, Kara. But I did them for you, because you’re my sister, and I lo--”
“No,” Kara interrupted sharply. “Don’t put me at the center of your choices. That's not fair to me. If I had the choice between giving myself up to maybe create a vaccine, or living while a thousand innocent people were slaughtered in their homes, I might have chosen the former, even if I was afraid. One life against an entire town? Alex.”
Her sister was crying silently with a pained grimace. “You’re worth more to me than all of them combined.”
“I shouldn’t be. I was a stupid kid when I was bitten. Facing the consequences of my actions might have been the right thing, especially if some good might have come out of it on a larger scale.”
Brown eyes snapped up to hers. “It wouldn’t have worked. There weren’t vaccines for fungal infections before the Outbreak, and the Fireflies weren’t about to make one with even more limited resources when they got you. I know that for a fact. Your death would have been pointless. And I would have been destroyed, because my baby sister who drives me crazy and annoys the shit out me would have been gone. I would have always carried your death around with me, knowing you were probably scared and alone in your last waking moments. I didn’t think things would get so messy and carried away during our escape, but I’m still thankful you’re alive—even if you hate me.”
Kara worked her jaw and kept her eyes locked with Alex’s for a long moment. Her heart felt cold and leaden with the weight of all those poor souls she used to see every day as a kid.
“I’ll go back to Jackson with you,” she finally choked out. “But I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you unless I have to. As soon as a place opens up, I’m moving out.”
Alex broke their eye contact and stared down at her boots while she nodded, shoulders slumped. “Understood. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care right now.”
Survivor’s guilt, Kara thought on the long ride home. That’s what she was feeling now, she figured. All her neighbors and their kids died, but she didn’t. Maybe if she were dead, they’d all be immune to cordyceps by now. She was still certain she wanted to live, but...
She didn’t know what else to think. It was a complicated problem, and she cried periodically as she pondered the different scenarios of what could have been while Alex pretended not to notice.
When the pair eventually made it back to Jackson, Kara went straight to Lena’s house and knocked on the front door with a shaky, exhausted fist. She hadn’t even said goodbye to her sister at the stables.
Lena’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head when she opened the door to find Kara’s pitiful figure slumping on her porch. She went from surprised to angry in an instant and was obviously rearing up to let Kara have a piece of her mind when the blonde burst into tears. Arms encircled her, then, and hands rubbed up and down her heaving back while gently guiding her into the house. All the while, a voice she’d fallen in love with was whispering assurances in her ear.
She stayed in Lena’s bed for ten days after that. Her friend was obviously still angry at not having been included in Kara’s decision to suddenly leave town for an indefinite amount of time, but she was willing to put her feelings on the back burner while Kara was having her breakdown that she refused to elaborate on. All Lena knew was that the Danvers girls were on the outs in a more official capacity than before. She was a stalwart figure at Kara’s side during those days and nights, coaxing food and water into her system and encouraging her to bathe regularly between bouts of fitful sleeping. The blonde’s night terrors had started plaguing her again, and each night, she’d wake gasping and weeping while Lena—always the light sleeper—would sit up beside her and shush her back to sleep with soft hands and softer words. Kara had decided during one of those nights, while her head was pillowed on Lena’s chest and the brunette’s fingers were carding gently through her hair after yet another nightmare, that she’d make her move and tell Lena about her feelings once her mind was less jumbled and angry.
Even with the bubbly joy Lena brought into her life, though, Kara couldn’t ignore the pain she felt every time she saw Alex after their journey back from Colorado.
If she had known her sister would be dead before they could set things right, she might have tried harder to make amends.
Notes:
SPOILERS FOR THE GAMES/SHOW
I think it's interesting that in the game, Ellie never knows why Abby killed Joel. She goes on this wild revenge quest and destroys her life basically, and she never even knew why Abby did what she did. She definitely knew Joel killed someone Abby cared about, but she didn't know who it was, or if that was the main reason behind her actions. At this point in our story, it's pretty obvious Lucy was getting revenge for her family, I think. And her community, I guess.
If you don't feel like playing the games (which I highly recommend over the show, because I'm a glutton for that dark shit), I'd suggest going to YouTube and searching "tlou2 Ellie confronts Joel at hospital" or something like that to get a feel for the inspo behind this flashback. Gut-punched me the first time I played it.
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