forbidden (illicitus) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-08-28 12:12:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ^ week 19, alice munroe, holland sharpe, meghan callahan, michael callahan, thomas galloway, | alice and tom, | holly and meg, ~ series: raids |
Week Nineteen - Saturday
Characters: Tom, Alice, Quinn, Mike, Meg, Holly.
Location: On the outskirts of town.
Summary: Tom and Alice go raiding and then stumble across Mike and Quinn, ending in reunion.
Rating: E for Epic
It wasn’t a very long car ride, to be sure. The farm was only about 6 miles outside of the city limits. Redwood was even closer, although the river separated them and there wasn’t a nearby bridge until going farther into Grants Pass. It was worth knowing, at least. There was a lot of ground to cover for future raiding, assuming the city was still ripe for pickings. Today’s raid would be the first peek into that. The scouts who had first found the farm had said it looked promising enough; that had been one of the reasons to come this far north, after all. Smaller, more rural cities tended to have more to offer.
Alice couldn’t deny worrying that they’d find remains, though. The desert heat had done in most of the bodies she’d found quite quickly; there was no telling what Grants Pass would be like.
There’d been a few houses spotting the roadside as they all drove, but the first really good area they hit up was a mobile home park two miles up. Alice stuck her arm out the window and flagged them, not wanting to break radio silence or make any other noise unless she had to. Two trucks followed them down the first street, but she saw Holly and Bridget’s truck pull into the driveway of a little two-story building on the opposite end. Alice bit back a frown, but ignored the urge to nitpick them for not following directly. They were still within shouting distance, if need.
Tom eyed the surroundings for any signs of recent activity, still a bit anxious at such a large foray into the city. So far it didn’t seem any different from when he’d scouted the area out during his patrol a few days before. The only signs of life were the birds and occasional deer bed in the overgrown lawns lining the streets.
He noticed Holly and Bridget get out of their truck down the street and shook his head slightly. He’d held his tongue when the former history professor had volunteered and Alice hadn’t put sense into her, but it had been hard. In his opinion a woman as heavily pregnant as she was had no business going out raiding, but it wasn’t his place to say no. She was a grown woman, after all.
The veteran shook his head again and looked over at Alice. “I’ll get the door, watch my back?”
Alice gave a sharp nod, already pocketing the keys and pulling out her mare’s leg. She hoped that the door was unlocked because if not, they were going to have to break in through a window.
Tom nodded in reply and moved toward the door as quietly as possible. It was more out of habit than any belief that they’d approached unseen if anyone was in the house. Just the sound of cars driving up the street would have been unnatural enough after such a long absence.
The door was unlocked, and Tom pushed it clear of the latch before kicking it the rest of the way in and charging after it, desperately wishing for a flash-bang and a fire team along for the ride. It wasn’t a very large house, which was the only consolation for that brief tense moment.
After they properly swept the length of it Alice finally allowed herself to relax just a little, sticking the firearm back in its side holster. “I’ll check the bedrooms.”
“Guess I’ll check the kitchen then.” Tom nodded. “Shout if you need me.”
****
A few hours and several mobile homes later, the duo sat relaxing at a kitchen table as they finished off their lunch. It had been a productive day so far, with several bags and boxes worth of materials they’d looted from the various houses.
“We should try makin’ a brick oven,” Alice said suddenly. “Outside, I mean. Obviously. It’ll be bigger than the stove inside, and maybe we could incorporate a smoker.”
Tom scratched his cheek idly as he thought over the idea. “Building a smokehouse is easy enough to do, even in winter. A brick oven’ll be harder. Wonder if we’ve got any reference material in our library that we can check about laying brick?”
Alice gave a little shrug, though she frowned slightly at the idea of it being difficult. “Can’t be that hard.” She chewed her lip thoughtfully. “We could probably find a bookstore or library in the town if we ventured in a bit farther on the next trip. I wish I’d thought about it while you guys were in California.”
Tom shrugged. “Can’t change the past. I’ll look around the next patrol and see what I can spot in the way of bookstores or libraries. Brickwork means mortar, mortar has to have time to cure and needs to have a certain temperature range to work with. If we’re baking then that means whatever we build has to withstand that kind of heat. Like I said, harder. Not impossible though once we’ve got a little more information.”
The younger woman hummed in response and nodded, taking a swig from her canteen and sticking the empty tupperware she’d been eating from back into the lunch bag. She pulled out another little container, this one filled with trailmix. Her thoughts drifted absently to the little God’s Eyes hanging from the ceiling in the living room, products of Meg and Molly’s boredom. “How many more raids d’you think we could get away with before there’s ice on the roads?”
Tom finished up the last of his food and drummed his fingers on the table as he mulled it over. “I’m not sure. We’re down in a valley so we might not get a hard freeze like we would if we were out on the plains or up higher in the mountains. It’s mid-December already. If it’s gonna happen I’d say it’ll happen by mid January latest. Could be that we just get freeze-thaw all winter.”
“Dunno if that sounds better or worse,” Alice replied around a mouthful of trailmix. She chewed it thoroughly before swallowing, then decided on closing it up altogether and returning it to the lunch bag also. He was done; she was putting them behind schedule. “I ask because I keep hearin’ snatches of conversations about Christmas.” Not that there was any real reason to celebrate holidays anymore, outside of maybe a little bit of morale boosting. There were other, better ways, in Alice’s opinion.
“Christmas?” He’d been so focused on the day-to-day and all the tasks that needed doing that he’d forgotten all about holidays. There hadn’t been any sort of Thanksgiving celebration when that holiday had rolled around, but would they do something for Christmas? “I could see the younger set wanting to celebrate,” he said at last, as he stood up and slung his carbine over his shoulder. “I don’t really care one way or the other, but it wouldn’t take much extra effort to have a little party that day. Jed and I could go out hunting, try and bring back a feral pig or a deer, put on a feast.”
Alice nodded, though she didn’t share her thoughts about how she felt about the whole thing. It felt frivolous to have a ‘feast’ when they were preparing for winter, and to go looking for ‘presents’ when they were trying to find enough supplies to stay warm and survive. Their first year was proving to really suck; didn’t people realize that they needed to get prioritized first before being excessive?
The expression on Alice’s face was enough to give Tom an idea of her thoughts on the matter. “It’s only natural for people to want to celebrate.” He shrugged. “Winter Solstice is coming up right around Christmas, that’s as good a reason to celebrate as any. Three more months and it’ll be time to start thinking about spring planting. There’s no reason it has to be that much better than a regular meal, just needs spicing up a bit, maybe some entertainment afterward. Maybe some presents for the kids.” Though what those presents would be he had no idea. What did you get a kid for Christmas after the end of the world?
Alice gave Tom a wry smile, tapping her temple and then pulling a small face at him. “Get out of my head, you,” she told him. “Right, then. Next house down? We can probably get through two or three more before we lose daylight.”
“Didn’t have to be a mind reader,” Tom smirked at her then moved to head out the door, indicating his agreement to move on. “It was written all over your face.”
“I just don’t see the point of it all,” she admitted feeling a lot more relaxed than when they first arrived. There’d been no sign of people. It gave her some semblance of security. “Religion seems like a waste of time, and being secular just seems like a waste of effort. But I know not everyone shares my opinions.”
“People don’t need an excuse to party.” Tom shrugged and stepped out the door, wary eyes scanning the horizon as he exited. “And humans like to cling to the familiar, learned that a long time ago.”
“Sure enough,” came the younger woman’s reply. They entered the house the same way they had the numerous others, giving it a sweep first.
***
The call that Bridget and Holly were heading back early came two houses later, and Tom shook his head again at the news. It had definitely been a mistake to let the expectant mother to come along. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” He told Alice when the conversation ended, looking through the kitchen cabinets as he spoke. Alice scowled as she returned the walkie-talkie to her clip, though not at Tom.
What was there to say? She was annoyed. Bridget had made a big stink about coming, but couldn’t even make it all the way through. Alice expected everyone to pull their weight 100% when they committed to something; there was no such thing as “it’s the thought that counts” anymore. It’s just one pair. We’ve got at least two more hours of daylight left. It’ll be fine. It’s our first big raid since we left Vegas, she told herself.
“We’ll just have to pick up the pace,” she said at last.
“They hit some bigger places, maybe it’ll equal out.” Tom checked the expiration dates on the canned food he found in the cabinet and dumped them into his bag. “She isn’t the first pregnant woman who didn’t realize her own limitations and needed to be sat on.” Memories of Debbie when she’d been pregnant with their son came to mind.
“Well, she’s one of the first in a world where doctors and nurses aren’t in the goddamn phonebook in case something bad happens,” Alice answered, her voice on edge. She gave an agitated sigh, running a hand over her face as she picked her way through the cupboard she was working through. They were back to back, which prevent him from seeing her face. “The only thing keeping us from being in the damn Stone Age is a generator. We can’t just keep tryin’ to act like we’re livin’ Y2K. It’s bullshit ignorant.”
The Stone Age crack was a little much, but she still had a valid point. Aside from the generator they’d regressed to how things were done before electrification or the internal combustion engine, and doctors were in scarce supply. “It takes time to get that through to people so that they really feel it. We’ve only been out of Vegas a few months.”
But Bridget knew what it was like before Vegas, Alice thought angrily. Somehow she managed from saying those words aloud. It was pointless to argue the logistics. He was at least partly right. The next cabinet had candles and batteries, and Tom dumped those into his bag as well. “These folks were prepared for everything but the flu.”
That actually pulled a small laugh from Alice. “That seems to be the trend so far. Wonder why they left it all then, if they were so well-equipped.”
“Might not have had a choice,” Tom mused out loud. “That or they got scared and stopped thinking. Things got crazy toward the end, from what the radio and TV showed.” He’d put himself up in his cabin in the mountains by then, well away from civilization and infection.
Yeah, how could I forget, she thought in answer, frowning a little. She’d locked herself away in her apartment, though she had remembered the television broadcasts. She’d worked hard to block them out of her mind, but they were somewhat unavoidable. “I really hope they just left,” she said quietly, closing the door to the cabinet.
“Me too,” Tom echoed the sentiment and cinched up his bag. It wasn’t very likely, given how well stocked the place was, but one could hope.
****
Mike made quick work of going through the bedside tables and dresser drawers, suppressing his distaste at rummaging through the belongings of strangers. It really didn’t help much to remind himself that the former occupants of the house were, in all probability, dead, and therefore had no further use for their Tom Clancy novels and reading glasses and socks.
They needed to find weapons. There were too many armed and potentially dangerous groups of survivors--like the slavers they’d so recently escaped from--for Mike to feel safe. Not until he and Quinn were armed.
“Find anything?” he called out softly to the other man. Abandoning the master bedroom, he stepped into the hallway to check on Quinn’s progress.
The sound of the British man’s sneakers on the crappy tile floor answered Mike’s call, his eyes on the objects in his hands rather than on the steps. Which probably wasn’t the smartest idea he’d ever have given the fact that he was carrying a large, sharp butcher’s knife and a black, iron poker, obviously mock and for decoration as this house wasn’t the type to have something as grand as a fireplace.
“There’s a bag of golf clubs in the cupboard in the corridor,” Quinn murmured, distractedly again, and he offered both objects in his hands to the blond man.
“That’d be great if we wanted to play eighteen holes,” Mike fired back, but the sarcasm was muted, no real heat behind the words.
“I thought all Americans had guns in their homes nowadays? There was this thing on BBC One about America having the most guns per capita, or something... ninety per every one hundred people?”
The past few days had been emotional and frustrating. Much as Mike enjoyed griping about Quinn’s insistence on keeping to a schedule--a very rigid schedule that included mandatory bathroom breaks--the truth was, the younger man’s company was a comfort. He could easily see himself going stir-crazy, wandering aimlessly around southern Oregon.
“Yeah, yeah, the rest of the world thinks Americans are a bunch of gun-toting maniacs,” he went on, taking the knife and the poker and eyeing them both dubiously. “I seriously doubt the ratio was nine out of ten, though, even at the height of the crack-cocaine era.”
A faint sound made Mike lift his head, instantly alert, though he couldn’t quite place where the noise had come from. Close, that was for sure. Too close. His eyes shot to Quinn, eyebrows arching in obvious query. Slowly, Mike passed Quinn the poker. At least they were both ‘armed’. Somehow, the thought was not comforting.
Every time they got ready to go into another building Tom tensed up a little. Even if they always ended being empty of people, that didn’t mean the next one would be too, and you never knew what kind you might run into if the building was occupied. But he and Alice had been at this all day and had established a well-practiced routine: he would get the door open and make the first entry, and she would be right behind him covering his back.
As he approached the door, he noticed that it wasn’t entirely closed. That could mean that someone was there, or it could mean nothing. Either way it made the veteran more alert and brought his carbine up into a ready position. He gestured to Alice, then pointed at the door and mimed kicking it open. As soon as she was ready he’d kick it open.
The two of them were inside the door almost immediately, Alice’s gun raised. A rush of panic hit her like a wave when she saw the two men inside. Shit, she thought emphatically, reaching for her walkie-talkie and bringing it up to her lips: “Fall back. I repeat, fall back.”
There wasn’t so much panic as surprise when Tom saw the two men, one with a butcher knife and the other with what looked like a fireplace poker. The knife was deemed the more immediate threat and the carbine was immediately pointed at the bearer, with Tom trusting Alice to keep an eye on the one with the poker. Neither man looked to be in the best of shape, half starved would be a charitable description. “Easy boys, we don’t want any trouble. You put down that pig sticker and we’ll all relax, nice and easy.” His finger rested lightly on the trigger. Don’t make me waste a round on your scrawny ass wasn’t actually said, but his expression was clear enough.
Quinn was frozen in place in the cross-hairs of Alice’s weapon. His hand shook, sweaty calloused grip on the piece of pointed black iron tightening, but other than that he was completely still, staring with round blue eyes like a deer in headlights.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit... It would have come out of his mouth had his lips and tongue been able to move, but for now it just repeated in his head. His eyes were glued to the weapon, and although his common sense told him not to, he kept the weapon raised. The last time he had been discovered by armed strangers, he had been violently removed from the place he had been occupying and tethered to another man for God knew how many months, and forced to perform hard labor at absolutely no benefit to himself. He didn’t see a hard concrete floor to sleep on and the same food everyday to eat as a benefit, personally. And although these... strangers weren’t exactly acting the same way the slavers had done when they had found him, panic was rising very quickly in his chest.
Mike had had a half-formed plan, something to do with retreating to one of the bedrooms at the back of the house and from there, maybe, out a window. Any hope of avoiding the newcomers vanished with a sick lurch of his stomach as the door slammed open.
“Shit.” Unlike Quinn, his mouth was still capable of forming words. It was coherent thought he was having trouble with, memories of his capture by the slavers clear as a film playing in his mind on endless loop. Obeying was the only option with the two strangers aiming guns at them. Mike let the knife drop from his hand.
“Quinn? Might want to do as they say,” he murmured. They’d escaped once... He couldn’t complete the pep talk, even in his own mind.
For a few moments, it was like the younger man hadn’t heard him. Then his head quirked a little and his face twisted into a look of desperation and agony, even as he was lowering the poker, and he shook his head firmly.
“Mike, don’t... please... I don’t wanna do this again, please...” he managed to croak out of the corner of his mouth, still shaking his head repeatedly. It was obvious to the man who knew him after three months of being chained to him that he was close to freaking out.
Once the knife was dropped and the poker lowered, Tom visibly relaxed and lowered his carbine from a firing position to point toward the floor. He still had both hands on it, and his finger resting on the trigger guard, but still clearly in a defensive posture now that the threat was reduced. “That’s more like it.”
The vet recognized PTSD when he saw it, and these two had it in spades. Not surprising given what most survivors had been through. “Easy son, nobody’s gonna make you do anything you don’t want.”
“We’re leavin’, in fact,” Alice added, not lowering her weapon. She wasn’t nearly as relaxed as Tom was. “But not before we know how many more of you are waitin’ outside.” She just hoped that Jed and Drew had listened and fell back; she didn’t want the other two men to come find them or do something stupid.
“It’s just us. We’re alone.” Mike couldn’t see any reason not to cooperate. Bluffing wouldn’t get them anywhere, except to make the woman even more hostile.
“It’s okay,” he muttered, trying to reassure Quinn. It was clear the Brit was close to losing it. Mike could only trust him to hold himself together. The pair looked more than willing to just shoot them if things didn’t go their way.
“We don’t want any trouble.” He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing... “Actually, we’re looking for my wife.” Instantly, Mike felt like berating himself. Like these two were in the business of reuniting missing persons.
Alice frowned deeply in response. She thought briefly of Bridget, now at home, but she knew Bridget’s husband’s name. It wasn’t Mike. But Meg’s is, she suddenly remembered. No. There’s no way that’s even possible. There’ve been thousands of Mikes in the country.
“What’s her name?” she asked, though she didn’t bother making any promises about asking or keeping on the lookout. For all she knew, these two men were an elaborate diversion. She wasn’t going to take any chances.
Mike’s expression mirrored the woman’s, though he was making an effort to look non-threatening. It was just that the conversation was taking a turn for the surreal.
“We heard a broadcast, is why I asked.” The explanation seemed to add a little normalcy, making him seem like less of a loon, at least in his own mind.
“Her name is Meg. Maddy Meg.” Mike found himself holding his breath, anticipating the brunette’s answer.
Alice kept her expression surprisingly even, though she did turn her gaze sideways to Tom.
Tom raised an eyebrow at the entire conversation. The likelihood that this was really Meg’s husband was extremely low, but it was an interesting coincidence. “We’ve heard the broadcast too,” he said at last. “Maybe we’ve met this Maddy Meg and maybe we haven’t. Describe her.” If the man was really her husband than he’d be able to give a physical description, and if he passed that then maybe it was time to get her on the radio.
Quinn wanted to look over at Mike for a reaction, but his eyes were still locked on Alice's gun, unable to pull away. One trembling hand lifted slowly, just a touch, enough to grip the hem of the taller man's jacket tightly, as if to convince himself that he wasn't going to leave him there to deal with the armed strangers alone. He swallowed very thickly, face still twisted in panic and pain, before closing his eyes. Focusing on his breathing. He couldn't freak out, not now, he... he had to stay calm. His heart palpitated in his chest in an uneven rhythm, senses screaming at him in reaction to the stress they were under. But he was calm. He stayed that way, readjusting his grip on Mike's jacket and keeping his eyes shut.
The slight tug had a grounding effect on Mike. The familiar, often exasperating presence of Quinn by his side was, in this instance, reassuring, reminding him of their long-standing, unspoken rule: only one at a time was allowed to freak out. He shifted his attention to the man, keeping his voice even as he answered him.
“She’s about five-foot-six, early thirties, brunette, blue eyes,” he stated, matter-of-fact. The male seemed marginally more sympathetic than the female, but neither of them were exactly filling him with warm and fuzzy feelings.
“Always wears these mirrored sunglasses, or, well, she always used to,” he amended with a pang of loss added to the slow, anxious roiling of his gut. Mike lifted his chin a fraction, a hint of defiance though his overall posture remained as non-threatening as he could make it. But he’d never been able to keep his big mouth shut.
“What else, what else...? Oh, yeah, right, she’s blind.”
Quinn opened his eyes at that, looking up at Mike in mild confusion. She was blind? He’d certainly never mentioned that.
Tom nodded, his expression unchanged. The odds that this was Meg’s husband had increased dramatically, given how he’d described her pretty well. He didn’t want to get Meg’s hopes up only to have the man turn out to be some kind of impostor, though. The veteran fixed Mike with a measuring gaze, trying to judge whether he was on the level or this was some kind of elaborate plot. “Alice, why don’t you step outside and give home base a call? Maybe somebody there will know what he’s talking about.” He hoped his raiding partner got the message. “I’ll stay here with our two friends until you come back.”
“I won’t be long,” Alice replied, though it was mostly for the sake of the two men standing across from Tom than for himself. She didn’t want to give them the impression that she was going far. Without another word she stepped backwards and out through the door.
Home base? Mike thought to himself. Just how big was this group, anyway? A split second later it occurred to him that it was probably a bluff, though what reason the two might have for bluffing, he couldn’t have said. It was difficult to think clearly in the midst of a confrontation with armed strangers. Adding Meghan into the mix didn’t help clear the confusion in his mind or the churning of his stomach.
“At least they’re talking,” he murmured to Quinn, suppressing the quick, half-conscious urge to reach out and grip the other man’s shoulder.
“So where’d you boys come from?” Tom watched the two men, curious as to what they’d been through. It was clear they’d had a harder time than anyone in their existing group as far as he knew, given the body language. The one with the British accent seemed practically in despair at being found by strangers, which set off all kinds of alarm bells in the veteran’s mind as to what they’d been through in the past year.
Quinn was back to shaking when the man questioned them as to where they had come from. He slipped Mike a sideways glance, only to catch a glimpse of the blond man looking at him, as if expecting him to answer. He wrinkled his forehead a bit, and Mike gave the tiniest of shrugs. Quinn had never been overly good at reading body language, but being tethered to Mike for months on end had certainly given him a crash course in the subject. If anything else, he knew that the other man was careless as to what he said.
"We, uh..." He swallowed, trying to coax his lips, throat and tongue into remembering how to speak. His mouth itself fell slack on the lesson, and he found himself mumbling rather than outright speaking.
"There were these guys... Mike called 'em slavers... I, I guess that's kinda what they were..." He chewed his lip almost viciously, tears of frustration in his eyes as he continued to toy with the hem of Mike's jacket almost rhythmically between his thumb and fingers. He didn't see any point in lying.
“Yeah, you know, you guys haven’t exactly been a fountain of information,” Mike interjected. His own frustration was mounting, the tension of the confrontation and his concern about Quinn--about Meg scraping along his nerves. “So let’s just leave it at that.”
Tom’s expression darkened at the mention of slavers. He’d heard rumors from the traders when the group had swung through Vegas a few months back, but hearing it from escapees from such people was something else. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that here.” He said after a moment. “Worse case scenario is we go our separate ways and never see each other again.”
At Mike’s outburst he shook his head. “To quote the Gipper: ‘Trust, but verify’. All I asked was where you guys had come from, wasn’t asking for deep dark secrets. Once my partner gets back we’ll figure out where we go from here.”
Almost as if summoned, Alice returned, this time with her gun lowered. “We’re meeting at the mile marker,” she informed Tom. “Base wants to hear them repeat the message to make sure it’s accurate.” It was the closest thing to code she could speak in, and she hoped that Tom understood.
Tom nodded and turned toward the two newcomers. “Well boys, you heard the lady. If you want an answer to your question you’ll come with us out to the mile marker and repeat it on the air. If not, then we go our separate ways.”
Mike watched the man, still suspicious and far from feeling that trust he’d mentioned, but quiet for now. At least the guy sounded reasonable. Then the woman returned and Mike listened with narrowed eyes, trying not to show the way his guts started churning, heart rate speeding up until he could swear the others could hear it.
This time his hand did rise and grip the shoulder of Quinn’s jacket. Why would they want them to repeat the ‘message’--he could only assume the woman meant his question about Meg--if they didn’t know Meg? Or at least have some information about her, he told himself, trying to scale back the rush of excitement. He couldn’t get his hopes up too high, not now.
He’d been telling himself that ever since they’d heard Meg’s voice broadcast over the CB in the old Fairlane they’d managed to hotwire. A new thought occurred to Mike and he turned his head to glance at Quinn before addressing the pair.
“Come with you,” he repeated cautiously. “In your vehicle? Or separately?” Another swift glance at Quinn. Things would go a lot easier if the strangers agreed to let them keep their car.
“Separately,” Alice answered, her voice firm. Not only was there no room in their truck for two more people, but she sure as hell did not want strangers riding with her. She was almost tempted to say yes to bringing them along if only because it would’ve been a lot harder for the two of them to follow her and Tom back home that way, but even she was not that unkind. The looked dirty and tired, like they hadn’t washed or eaten well enough in days.
“But don’t try anything,” she added as an afterthought.
With that everyone ended up leaving the house and going to their respective vehicles. It didn’t take long to reach the mile marker, but Tom filled Alice in on what little he’d learned about the two men while they drove. He hoped for Meg’s sake that this Mike was telling the truth and he really was her husband, not only would it be fantastic news for her but it would be a big morale boost for the entire group.
They pulled up to the mile marker and Tom got out to make sure the place was still deserted except for those who were supposed to be there.
Mike was feeling far better about the whole situation, enough that he was willing, even eager, to follow the pair. If there was any sign of an ambush or other trouble, they could drive off. He knew that in reality it wouldn’t be that easy, but the growing hope of getting some answer about Meg’s whereabouts was making him uncharacteristically optimistic. Quinn was obviously not sharing that hope, but that was just Quinn. When the other vehicle pulled to a stop, Mike followed suit, and after a few seconds of hesitation, he got out of the car, fidgeting awkwardly by the driver’s side door.
Quinn remained in the car for around half a minute longer than his friend, the shade flipped down so that he could use the small, oblong mirror attached to the underside. The panic and upset hadn’t held on any longer than the instant he hit the bench seat of the little rusted Ford, and he had had his little freak out on the short drive to the mile marker. He had cried because he was frustrated and the fear and rage and adrenaline had built up inside him, and then he had cried even harder because his eyes were red and it would be obvious that he had been crying. The almost child-like temper tantrum had gone deliberately ignored by Mike, who had allowed the younger man his privacy; it was embarrassing for Quinn, but Mike had learned that he couldn’t help what triggered his meltdowns, and had left him to curl up in the corner of the seat and just deal with it, as he always did.
Eventually, when he was ready, he weakly opened the door and stepped out onto the asphalt. His hands were trembling, chest light, emotions jittery, and he hung half-hidden behind the bonnet of the car, watching the two strangers that were parked fifteen or so feet away from the small Ford. The majority of his fear that these people were slavers was gone... but he couldn’t shake the fear of people that was now ingrained in his mind even more than it had been before the apocalypse.
*******
Meg was not quite sure how to react when she learned that Alice and Tom had ‘run into’ someone who claimed to know her from before the Panic. The fact that the raiding team wouldn’t clue her into who it was definitely threw her off, even though she understood the logic in it. As little talk on the radios as possible. Right. Got it. It did nothing to settle her nerves, though. As long as she’d been with the group, they hadn’t ‘run into’ anyone on raids (that she knew of--she never went on them), so the whole situation was throwing everyone for a loop.
But this person claimed to know her.
The whole ride to the mile marker, she sat in a stunned sort of quiet beside Holly, Sarge lumbering his mass in the back seat, trying to maintain an awkward composure with the movement of the vehicle. The former radio host fingered the collapsible cane in her lap--a measure of thoughtless comfort as her brain scoured possibilities. Her station could be heard all over the world, thanks to internet streaming, but she never considered the thing would connect her to someone half-way across the country, in the middle of the damn end-of-the-world. She couldn’t even answer Holly’s questions on who she thought it was with anything more committal than a tight shrug and a murmured ‘no idea’ aimed into the space in front of her. She was spacey, and excited, and nervous...
The blind woman could feel the car shift and slide into the shoulder of the road--slow and finally stop. She was half-tempted to ask Holly what she saw, but she was cut off abruptly by a sudden assault from behind. Sarge had lurched into the front seat, pawing, bellowing and whining at the door while half-crushing the two front-seat occupants.
“Sarge!” Holly groaned.
“Sarge! What the hell--” The guide dog yipped and shook in her lap with more energy and enthusiasm than she’d seen in a long, long time...
Meg clamored for the door handle, if anything to escape the Mastiff’s weight on her chest and thighs. “Jesus, Mutt!” Simultaneously, she got the thing open and curled a tight grip in his lead as he lumbered out into the cold. Half-dragging Meg behind him.
Mike's legs started to tremble as the other vehicle came into view. His stomach was doing flip-flops, his brain unable to decide between hope or fear. And then the car was close enough for him to see the occupants, and the butterflies in his gut happily morphed into rhinos. Sarge began to bark, a deep, belling, demanding bark, and seconds later the dog and Meg were launched out of the car.
He’d anticipated his reunion with Meghan many times during the long weeks spent reaching the cabin in Colorado, and even afterward, never quite giving up hope. Never in any version of these most cherished fantasies had Mike expected to hear his wife cursing and complaining. It was so unromantic, so comical, and oh god, she was just normal and unharmed and--
He wanted to speak, to shout, to let his obviously baffled wife know he was right here, but the words stuck in his throat.
She struggled with the leather lead, the tubed piece of plastic and her own feet, pulling to balance against a four-legged force that outweighed her by at least thirty pounds. Nerves suddenly gripped her stomach hard, seizing in a diamond hard knot at the fact that she was out in the open with no bearings on where anything or anyone was just yet. Finally instinct gave out and Sarge streamed ahead of her, released when she stumbled on her own footing and went down on the gravel--one knee and one palm dug into the road-ash and dirt.
Mike couldn’t help it; he shot an almost panicked look at the woman and man who’d arranged this meeting, the thought half-formed in some dark recess of his mind that they might have trained their weapons on Sarge-- But no. He started forward, stumbling as if he was the one being pulled by a massive, misbehaving guide dog. Sarge barreled out to meet him halfway, the sight of the dog loosening the painfully tight knot in Mike’s chest.
“Sarge! There’s Papa’s good boy,” he crooned, bracing for impact. Mike stooped, burying his fingers in the soft fur at Sarge’s neck, letting the big dog lick his face enthusiastically as he petted his massive shoulders and broad head with equal, joyous abandon.
Meghan’s heart practically stopped.
“...Michael?” She wasn’t sure if she actually said his name or thought it: everything had ground to a complete standstill, but his voice cooing and wibbling and so close...
“MICHAEL!?” Her voice finally found breath--Meg scrambled to her feet with a blind reach for nothingness, then dragged herself to her feet on jello-boned legs somehow managed to get her moving, half-running toward her husband’s voice..
Meg’s voice yanked Mike out of his idiotic dog-daze. Oh god, here he was, seeing his wife for the first time in a year, and he was talking baby-talk to the goddamn dog. He sidestepped Sarge, moving to intercept Meg’s frantic half-run. Mike let her blunder right into him, keeping his wits about him just long enough to catch hold of her shoulders and cushion her impact against him so she wouldn’t accidentally hurt herself. Then he was crushing her to him, arms wrapped around her, burying his face in her hair.
“Meg--” he blurted, but seemed to have lost the capacity for speech after that single syllable.
OhgodOhgod Her thoughts were one tracked and set on repeat. The arms around her, his voice, his height and strength--all of it a familiar comfort that she hadn’t felt in so long: it forced her heart into the column of her throat, choking off whatever words might’ve made it to her lips.
None came--only a choked sob that went buried into his shoulder, just above where her fingers tightly twisted into the material of his shirt. She was shaking, sure that her knees were going to give out at any second. Finally seizing enough composure to do something other than melt into a puddle of emotion, Meg put both hands on the prickly, unmistakably strong-jawed lines of his face, tracing shaken fingertips along so-familiar lines and resting her brow against his. That’s when the tears finally came.
“...what the hell took you so long?” Her voice was weak and tight in her throat, but ended with half an ironic laugh that was strangled by the tears of joy.
Mike’s hand came up to stroke the side of her face, pushing back a few strands of hair from her temple, turning his wrist to wipe her tears with the back of his hand. And there it was, the question he’d worried about her asking, every day since he’d shown up at her parents’ cabin only to find it vacant.
“Babe. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get through the toll plaza on 294 nowadays?”
Quinn was still hiding half behind the Ford as a woman and dog had appeared from within the new car that had driven up. He was still feeling a little jittery, especially given the fact that they were now considerably outnumbered, but any fear he was feeling soon dissipated when Mike grabbed the large canine in a loving, rough embrace, before taking the woman into his arms too. That was obviously Meg... and he assumed the dog was theirs before The Panic. He had to grin a bit to himself, lopsidedly, arms folded over his chest as he pinched and pulled at the sleeve of his jacket with restless fingers, before casting a ginger look in the direction of the two strangers who had found them in the house.
“Jesus,” Holly muttered, upon getting the answer to all of the questions Meghan couldn’t answer for him in the car. The sight was almost dizzying - and definitely surreal. He felt just as bemused as he did emotional, a mixture of joy and jealousy spreading from his chest outwards. He, too, had experienced a reunion with someone from his past, but Penny had been killed shortly afterward.
The sudden, inexplicable ache in her chest at seeing the two lovers reunited very nearly rendered Alice to nothing. She hadn’t had lingering thoughts about her husband since Vegas, and now all she wanted was to have the moment mirrored but with his and her faces in the starring roles. Alice ducked her head, eyes screwed shut in an attempt to stave off the tears as images of embracing Peter once he came through the gate off his plane flashed behind her eyelids: Peter in his uniform, eyes glued ahead and hungry to find hers; the feeling of her heart flying as she raced down the narrow strip of carpet and threw herself into his arms; the feeling of their lips crashing into each other, of finding home again in the body of her best friend and someone she’d considered to be her soulmate. It was just too much all at once.
Without explaining herself she turned back into the truck, shutting the door once she’d crawled into the bucket seat. Hardly caring that Tom or anyone else would see her, she put her head into her hands low her knees and cried.
Tom didn’t know what exactly was on Alice’s mind when she fled the scene for the truck, but he could guess. The veteran felt the tug of emotion himself at the embrace of the couple, remembering his own returns from deployment back when he’d been married. Even if his marriages were long since dead, the memories of those times were anything but, and there were also memories of reunions with his son as well.
He didn’t cry, but if anyone had watched him closely they might have seen a sniffle before he pulled himself back together and put his mind to the problem at hand. It was doubtful that Meg and her husband were going anywhere other than back to the farmhouse, and that likely meant that Michael’s companion would be joining them as well. Proper introductions were needed and the haul from the raid had to get back to the farmhouse and put away before the daylight was completely gone.
Tom checked his watch and decided that he could give the couple a few more moments before intruding on their reunion.
Meg choked back a sob-filled laugh and sniffed, switching back and forth between kissing him and grinning against his mouth. “You didn’t use the I-pass?” Another frantic kiss. “What’s wrong with you?!” Their lips sealed again, her hands moved from his face to his shoulders and arms squeezing randomly... so completely lost in this most surreal moment: she clung to him like she’d wake up any second, alone save for Sarge in the small bedroom she shared with a boy named Holly.
Quinn seemed completely oblivious to Tom and Alice’s reactions, watching the happy couple in their reunion with that lopsided grin on his face and his arms crossed over his chest, forming a barrier against the cold bite of the December air. It was as if watching the two of them had completely dissolved any previous fears or irritations he may have had, and he turned to Tom as if he’d known him for years, not meeting his eyes and focusing on his chest, shoulders and hair instead as he spoke.
“It’s good, innit?” he asked, before looking back at Meg and Mike. Although he was probably the only one not putting himself in Meg and Mike’s shoes at that moment, somewhat unable to empathize with the married pair, he was still happy for them, and it showed in the over-exaggerated smile that hadn’t properly graced his lips in well over a year.
“Definitely.” Tom couldn’t help the small smile that was on his lips as he nodded at the other man. Another couple had beaten the odds, and that was cause for celebration just by itself.