Nate Danger (provenate) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-08-13 13:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [08] august, nathaniel quinn, willa davidson |
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WHO Willa and Nate
WHERE Capitol Building, Cafeteria
WHEN Dinnertime or lunchtime
WHAT Nate faces Willa since he was bitten.
At one time, Nate had expected Willa to be his unofficial sister-in-law. Bode meant so much to him and his unofficial brother definitely had his eye on WIlla. It made sense in their little circle. Her brother, Cal, was good friends with Bode and by proxy Nate and so when Bode and Willa started with each other it was good news. Everyone thought they were a great match, made for the other. There was no question how one felt about the other.
Back then, Bode had wanted to make a break from the family business and turn legit and Nate had tried to help him. All that time, all that way, the Scotsman had been doing whatever he could so that his best friend could build a happy life. It wasn’t to be. The family business was so ingrained in Bode. The Coldiron clan basically had moonshine for blood and it wasn’t long before his legit life turned on its head and Bode was trying to keep Willa from knowing that he couldn’t leave that life behind.
For months he offered gentle advice to that Coldiron boy. “Just tell her.” but his friend could never do it and when it all came to a crash and Willa and Bode went their separate ways, Nate had felt he’d lost a friend in Willa, someone he loved and he grieved, he did. Even after he’d found out that Willa had taken up with another man soon after he felt a sense of regret.
Unlike Cal, who he saw regularly, he didn’t see Willa until that fateful day. When the world was falling to shit and everyone was screaming, packing, trying to get to the mountains before the town was run in with infected and he’d made a play as a hero.
That was the day he was bitten, trying to help Willa get out from under a precarious situation. Maybe he shouldn’t have faulted her for leaving him because in the beginning no one knew someone could be immune. No one knew anything other than when you were bit? You were as good as dead.
He’s made his way to the cafeteria, a place he’d hoped he’d find her at dinner time. He stared at the back of her blond head and was brought back to that day, that moment, the worst moment in his life. He can’t help but have a little bitterness lingering there. “Willa.” is all he manages to get out, from right behind where she sat.
She jumped a bit at the sound of her name so near, and turned to look over her shoulder on instinct, before the sound of the voice could register as too familiar to be missed.
Nate was surprised by how much she looked the same. Willa looked good. Healthy. Even after finding Cal he hadn’t expected to see her but when Cal messaged him, told her she was ‘visiting’ he felt compelled to come down and face her, to look her in the eye, maybe put any hard feelings they had between them to bed.
It was like looking at someone who'd risen from the dead, like a ghost inside a body altogether too healthy and pink to seem real, which was saying something in a day when humans truly had become monsters on a non-stop hunt for brains. The last time she'd seen him, the monsters had been after them both, each doing their best to survive, to keep the other alive, but Willa had been the only one to get away clean; or so she had thought. For years, she'd struggled with what had happened, if she had done the right thing, leaving him to turn rather than giving him a quick exit via a round from her .45.
Pushing out of her chair to stand, Willa still kept the distance between them. It was well before she'd left him with a bloody bite mark that she'd had to feel unsure of herself around Nate Quinn. He was Bode's, never hers, even if they'd once been part of the same sprawling family, and Willa never knew what to say to him, even before the virus had come, even before she'd left Harlan for Dallas. It wasn't my fault, but then, she hadn't been willing to try to work things out with Bode either, not when the both of them had always been strong enough to be called stubborn.
"You're immune," Willa finally croaked, with a weak attempt at a smile. "Good." Fucking Cal. Why hadn't he warned her? Had this all just fallen together in the time since his last trip to the ranch, a perfect storm of prodigious coincidence, building up to blindside her? It had been bad enough to have Bode's name plucked from her history and thrust into her lap by Olinger and Lansing; now it was fucking old home week, here in the middle of hell.
“I am” he said, knowing that elaboration on this was probably not welcome or wanted. It wasn’t her fault he had been bitten and looking back on that anxious evil time he was glad she hadn’t shot him in the head.
“Cal should have told ye he let me ken you were here.” he could see from her white expression that he hadn’t. Willa had no idea that she’d be having an old friend stop by.
"Yeah," Willa said with a light bubble of a laugh. "Or let me know you were here at all." She balked again, unaccustomed to reunions that didn't involve someone returning from a cattle drive or her own trips to Waco, and then bottled her concerns for long enough to step up and embrace him. Her touch was hesitant to start, waiting to relax until Willa knew how he'd respond. "Hi," she murmured, her chin pressed against his shoulder.
A breath of relief when she came at him and wrapped her arms around him in a hug, he froze for a second (maybe three) and then he warmly reciprocated. It felt silly to hold a grudge. It felt miraculous that after that day, they both could meet again in an entirely different city.
“Have ye seen Bode?” he asked her, pulling away, uncertain if Cal had left out that small punch of news too. Nate didn’t feel he was sparing anyone, anything by not revealing it. As far as he was concerned it was important to rip that band aid off and maybe Bode could find closure when they, if they, met face to face. “Bunny’s here too.” he gave her a big old smile. “That’s most of Harlan here in Austin”.
"What?" Willa asked, her smile falling slack in astonishment. She glanced around the room as though Bode would suddenly come into sight from behind a column, and then back at Nate. Nerves prickled in her belly at the thought of drawing Bode close to her the way she'd hugged Nate, and Willa didn't have to feign her apprehension. "Where?"
“Don’t worry. He’s not here.” He watches her look over the room, trying to find the big outlaw and he can’t help but laugh, at her, at the situation, at everything. Her cheeks pink a bit when he does, in the way he knows she hates, for Willa is often embarrassed to be embarrassed.
There are so many thoughts that strike him all at once in this moment and he realizes that she’s still as stuck on Bode as he is on her. A sigh spills and he shrugs, hands at his side, palms up. The truth is, he hated to be in the middle of it then and he’s determined not to get in the middle of it now.
“I am going to tell him you’re around. Maybe you should leave him alone. He’s…” the words trail off and he’s quiet. Nate knows that no matter his opinion, not even zombies or a chasm opening up, splitting here and there are going to keep the two of them from finishing this.
"He's what?" she asked, just as quickly as Nate had cut himself off. Whether it was on orders or on her own, Willa couldn't do what Nate asked; she couldn't simply leave Bode Coldiron alone. It was a divide that Willa couldn't make clear in her own mind, between the things that she wanted as far as Bode was concerned, and the things that were now going to be required of her in a professional capacity. A hunger to know the rest of Nate's sentence belonged to Willa from Harlan, rather than Willa the Ranger, searching for truth and protecting the law. If she couldn't find a way to distinguish between the two, this was going to get messy.
“He’s in Austin.” he finishes, but of course she’d know that wasn’t what he was going to say. What he wanted to say was none of his business either. It wasn’t his call to make. It was better in the end that Willa and Bode find each other and smooth out all of the bubbles that kept boiling up to the surface. “He’s not with any “official” shelter.” oh yeah, there were definitely air quotes that had happened. His hooked little fingers even remained up for so long she couldn’t miss the point he was making.
“What are you doing in Austin?” he asks, trying to change the subject.
"He's running shine again," Willa deduced, more of a statement than a question, though she left room for the chance possibility that Nate would correct her. "Maggie here too?" There had been no mention of her in the files Willa had been able to look through, but Maggie had stared down death once before, and Willa would be willing to bet that she could beat this virus too.
It wasn't the act of making liquor that Willa had objected to so many years ago; it was the way the risks had stacked up one after the other, like dominos weaving across a tabletop, and the way it had felt like the last one in line would be her. If it was just the same now, Bode and a few friends making home brew to fill the void left by Jim and Johnny, Willa wouldn't even give a shit. Hell, she'd buy from him, and gladly. But she knew what else was happening out at that unofficial shelter, and it was that knowledge which kept her from letting Nate move on, as he so clearly was hoping for.
“It’s a commodity now, mair than ever.” he’s sniffing after the words, not wanting to lie but not wanting to divulge too much. What she guessed at he would reveal. All of the other unfinished between them was theirs to deal with all by their lonely.
“Ye’ll need to gab at him, get him to bleed all the details. I don’t want to get into his business. I came down to see you, to see how you were.” That was pure truth. How’d he know that Cal didn’t give her the full hit. If he’d known, maybe he wouldn’t have said anything. Surely he would have told Bode first.
Too late.
“Mag’s not here. She’s with the girls last I knew, back in Harlan.” He scratched at the back of his neck, suddenly feeling unsure about her, about this, about what the fuck he was doing down here. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said since he said the word Bode.
Willa nodded, stepping back. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to-" her hands gestured; the derailment of the conversation, her fixation on Bode. "It's just… weird. I came to see Cal, to bring him a start for a herd, and it's -" she interrupted herself with a laugh of pleasant surprise, gesturing at Nate standing in front of her, "it's like I fucking traveled back in time, seeing you." Her hand extended to the table she'd been sitting at, an invitation for if he really did want to join her, to catch up.
It’s an invitation he accepts with grace. He sits and as soon as his ass hits the chair he’s taken out a flask. It’s filled with Whisky. Once the flask is unscrewed he takes a nip and then offers some from across the table. “Whisky?” he asks.
She wondered immediately if he'd joined the family business but kept the thought to herself in case it was one of the details Nate didn't want to share. Instead Willa's hand reached out to accept, sniffing and then taking a tentative swallow, unsure of the proof inside. Strong enough for her to pull a bit of a face as she passed it back, but not the spluttering cough of white lightning.
“I followed Bode when I thought Bunny was dead.” his mouth twists into something as regrettable as he felt. “I found him nearly two years later. Bunny was hot on my heels. Found me a few days ago.”
Willa's smile was slightly strained, and she held in her wonder at the vortex that seemed to be funneling most of her former social circle into one zombie-riddled city, along with her jealousy of having someone love you so much that they searched for you for years, rather than leaving on a cattle drive and never coming home. Willa had done her fair share of searching, the last six months, but even with the skills she had acquired from the state patrol and Rangers, there had been no sign of her own husband. "It must be good to have her back," she offered, unwilling to rival his happy moment with her own unhappy one. "You're living here, or at one of the other shelters?"
“Here. For now.” He knows that she’ll think it’s funny that he’s not with his Brother, his friend, the person he’s probably more attached to than anyone else in this world, besides his Bunny. “Things are...complicated.” Willa will get that, get that it’s not all black and white, especially when Bode’s concerned. There’s no way in hell that Bode Coldiron would ever stay at a Shelter, with police, with anyone that sets the rules in a way he doesn’t agree to. His friend never cared for authority too much.
“Cal said you were visiting. Are you going back to wherever you came from?”
"Damn," Willa laughed as her eyebrows jumped up in amused surprise, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. "That's nice and welcoming." Clearly, none of the reunions from the Harlan crowd had been quite so warm as might be desired, with likely exceptions for her and Cal, and Nate and Bunny. "I came from near Richland," she supplied. "We got a ranch we're holding out there, so yeah, I'll fuck off back home eventually."
Nate had to laugh in return. It hadn’t been what he meant and she should know that. “He said you were visiting Willa. That’s about as detailed as he got. I didn’t know if you had a home elsewhere… with that man of yours? Maybe kids by now?” he’s looking her over at that, as if he could tell if she’s become a mother just by the look of her. Unfortunately, not even he, had a gift of observation that was as powerful as that.
Her lips pressed together, and Willa shook her head before she spoke, "No." For all that she had once imagined herself a willing, loving mother, the idea now made her recoil. Despite the conditions, babies were still being born all the time -- without the ease of picking up birth control or condoms from the pharmacy, stopping them coming required effort, one way or the other. Even before the outbreak, Willa's reluctance to reproduce had begun to be a bone of contention between her and J, but dropping the issue had been one of the few blessings, when survival was forced to become the first priority in everyone's lives.
Willa pushed some of the food left on her plate around with a fork. It wasn't the same as the compound, with all of the survivalist supplies coming from cans or having to be rehydrated, rather than fresh meat and vegetables from the hydroponic greenhouse. "J's dead," she said, voice hollow and stony as she spoke the words aloud for the first time. "Went out on a cattle drive in the winter and vanished."
“I’m sorry.” and he was. No matter what happened between Bode and Willa, he never wanted her unhappy. He never would have wished that this would be the outcome of their separation. “I’m so sorry.” he repeated, because what else could one say.
This was the cue for another sip of his whiskey. He needed it. Itched for it. Especially when the bad news hit hard from a friend. This was two sip news. The warmth of the whiskey didn’t make this cold news any better.
Her shoulders shrugged and she didn't meet his eyes, toying still with her fork. Willa didn't want to talk with Nate about her marriage, about her husband, or his disappearance. "Are you going to stay here, now that Bunny's found you? Or go back to Harlan?" Willa didn't mention moving out to Bode, or extend an invitation to her own home; not yet, not when they still seemed to be circling each other while the elephant sat in the corner, waiting to see if they would address how things had last been left between them.
This is a good question and one he doesn’t necessarily want to answer. Bode’s here. He searched for his friend for so long that leaving him now seems unspeakable but what kind of man is he, what kind of husband would he be if he didn’t think of what would be best for Bunny. She wants a family, he knows she does and Austin is a shithole - even compared to the rest. Sure, they have some semblance of a society patched together but internet service does not a great life make. Harlan wasn’t bombed. Other places are growing, sustaining life from outside of cans. “We’re going to get married, first. Then we’ll have to decide together.” Willa nodded, and Nate was unsure she didn't press further. At the very best it was strained between them too. There was distance here that had nothing to do with time or miles.
This brings him to that perception that Austin isn’t doing as well as everyone claims here. “So, how many cows do you have? You can sustain them all?”
"Well we're not King Ranch or anything," she teased. "We run a hundred eighty-two, but that included the ones I brought here for Cal." Willa wasn't sure after seeing Austin how there was any hope of starting a herd in the city, so these six seemed destined to be dinner before the year was out, though she didn't want to say as much, sitting in the Capitol cafeteria. "It's a mixed herd; my uncle had a hundred head of Hereford on his land before the virus, but then we took in Black Angus and Longhorn after we found a couple dozen of each that must've made it out after their owners turned on 'em. Most of the land out there is…" she shrugged, looking for the words for it, "Lawless, I guess. We just range them wherever we know the grass is good, since we're the last real surviving compound for miles." Blister gas storms were so few and far between, considering most of the targets had been bigger cities, but the barn had to be big enough to hold the herd when they came, and they were pushing full capacity with fall calving due by the end of September, hence Cal's gift of a young bull and five heifers. "It's pretty fucking isolated, and it's hard work, but we've got food that doesn't come out of cans." She grimaced a bit, gesturing at the plate. "I dunno why they're not trying for hydroponic here, or why no one's raising rabbits and chickens."
Nate doesn’t know either, why no one has put more of an effort into nursing the land back to health. He’s heard rumors that this is a tactic, a way to keep the people from overcoming too quickly. Of course, these *rumors come from biased sources and aren’t necessarily true. Nate’s of the mind to find out information for himself.
“Do you have much trouble with raiders out there?” he asks, knowing that the gangs in Austin aren’t the only lawless set out there. There is much more bad than this city holds on to.He won’t deny it but people are desperate and desperation leads to tatters of morality.
Willa shook her head. "We had a lot at the start, before the perimeter fence and guard posts were finished; then they started to taper off over the next year or so. Haven't seen any since just before Christmas," she noted. The rest of the story stayed locked inside of her, where it was likely to remain. Willa hated to remember the night, and what they had been forced to do in order to survive. "You gonna turn yourself into a rancher?" she asked, eager for an escape from the memories that threatened to creep in at the edges of her mind. "Nate the Cowhand?"
“It depends.” He says sheepishly with a creeping grin, “How good an interview do you think your cows give?”