Jed Bailey (jokerandthief) wrote in the_colony, @ 2011-03-09 22:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 34, alice munroe, jed bailey, | alice and jed |
Week 34: Thursday
Characters: Alice Munroe and Jed Bailey
Location: Jed and Greg’s room.
Summary: Alice makes her rounds for assigning raid duty, and the first on her list is Jed. Jed is a little distracted by what isn’t said.
Rating: PG-13 for some mild profanity.
Alice’s spirits had infinitely risen in the course of the day’s work. She’d gone on a successful scouting trip, convinced Tom to see her side regarding the extra pair of bodies for the raid the next day, and then Leo had not only remembered her birthday but had made it probably the most memorable day in her life. It was hard to even concentrate on doing anything remotely close to work.
But there was still work to be done. Routes needed to be run through, and she needed to talk to the man she’d chosen to be in charge of group two. Honestly, Mike was probably better suited for the job seeing as he was the one who knew what needed to be gathered, but Alice also knew that Jed had more experience raiding and what needed to be done in case hell broke out. Despite everything that had happened between them, she still trusted him more than nearly everyone who lived with them, with the exception of Tom and maybe Bridget.
She didn’t know if he was out working the fields or not, but just to be safe Alice stopped by the room he shared with Greg, knocking lightly on the frame.
Jed had been sitting on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking something over. He almost missed the knock, doubting his own hearing, but to be safe he said, “Come in?”
Alice stuck her head in through the crack, looking in before her eyes finally settled on Jed. The bulk of her remained outside the room, hanging from the door frame. “Got a sec? I wanna run over the route for tomorrow’s raid.”
“Hey, sure.” He quickly got up, then hesitated. “In here or...?”
“Here’s fine.” She nudged the rest of the door open, pulling the map out from beneath her arm and holding it up with a smile. “Brought it with me just in case I had to go hunting you down. Unless you’d rather work in the parlor?”
“Naw, here works,” he said, his hesitancy melting away at her cheer. It’d been a while since she’d been so chipper with him. He sat back down, waving a hand at Greg’s bed.
Alice left the door cracked as she slid in, finding the nearby free-standing chair and bringing it over. She felt strange sitting on someone else’s bed, but she didn’t mind using it as a makeshift table. “We’re doing two teams. You’ll be heading the group going to Solar Man Company, and Mike’ll be your second since he knows what you’re all going for.” She opened the map and spread it out, then pointed at the highlighted blue line with her left hand. “I thought this would be the best route. It might be a bit confusing because I think the guy who ran the business worked out of home, that’d explain why it’s in a residential district, but he bought up the two plots next to his house it looks like and stretched everything out. The door to the garage actually works.”
It was a couple seconds before Jed responded. “Well, hey, that’s-- great,” he said, holding a smile just so long as she looked at him. “Where’ll y’all be, juss so I know?” Hell, he didn’t care. He just needed Alice to look at the map, to point so he knew he wasn’t seeing things. There, something small, shiny, and silver, looking like a beacon on her wedding finger. There was no doubting what it was. Alice wouldn’t wear a ring there lightly. He mind spun, trying to remember the last time he’d seen her finger; maybe this was old news by now. He swore he hadn’t heard a thing. If he had, his stomach wouldn’t be clenching so hard.
“We’re going southeast about 30 minutes, down Murphy-Williams Highway. It’s called Pro-Electric,” she answered, then pointed at the pink line. “Both trucks have CBs, so if you guys need us, you know the codes.”
Jed did his best to bring his brain back around. “Alright, yeah. Got it. Sounds good.”
“Your guys’ location is a bit closer, so if you wanna take the extra hour of sleep, it’s fine by me,” she said, turning to look at him again. “Just try not to stay out any longer than five hours, or Tom’ll chew my head off. It was hard enough convincing him that we split into two groups and do it all one day.”
“Yeah, makes sense to me,” he said, his eyes quickly flicking back to the map. Leo’s gone and done everything textbook. He’s giving her juss what she wanted. I ain’t got room to complain.
“So you’ve got Holly, Drew, and Mike. And whoever Evie feels like letting come along, I guess. I gotta go talk to her next and fill ‘er in.” She paused, seeing color in his face for the first time. Her brow furrowed a little. “You all right?”
“Oh, yeah, fine,” Jed said quickly, managing to look at her. “Juss ate somethin’ that my stomach don’t agree with. No problem. So Evie’s comin’? Ain’t that a bit much for her?”
Alice shook her head. “Nah, she’s not, but some of her people are. It was part of the agreement.” She tried not to roll her eyes. “Bridget would kill me if Evie was allowed to go and she wasn’t, even if Evie’s the leader of her own group.”
“Yeah, don’t want that.” After a thought, he asked, “Who’s goin’ with you?”
“Greg, Leo, and Ana,” she replied. “Should be even manpower that way.”
Of course Leo would be with her. No reason to expect anything different. Still made his insides go wonky. Better than Leo being on his team, at least. He could deal with-- “Wait, Holly’s coming?”
“‘Course Holly’s coming, he’s gone to the last two raids,” Alice answered, brows arching slightly. “What’s wrong with Holly?”
“But this is diff’rent. This is real heavy lifting, and we can’t afford any of ‘em breaking. This is it for that solar stuff, so it’s stupid riskin’ it on someone like Holly,” he said, a little more heat behind his words than was warranted.
“Then have him lift the wires and stuff. He’s not gonna get any better at raidin’ if he doesn’t actually raid,” she replied evenly, surprise showing on her face at the sudden turn in their conversation. “Tom and I already talked about this and decided, so it’s not up for discussion. If you don’t wanna raid with him, I’ll get someone else, but I really want you leadin’ on this.”
The hurt in Jed’s expression was stark. “Yer gonna stand by Holly instead of me? Why’m I even leading this thing if that little shit’s all it takes to get me booted?”
“I’m not--” she started, completely thrown off by his words and his expression. “I said if you didn’t want to I’d find someone else; I’m not booting you. Jesus, what’s the big deal? We’re grown-ups here, this is a job, sometimes we gotta work with people we might not like.”
Gritting his teeth, Jed ran his hands through his hair. “Fine, I’ll do it. But he breaks anything, don’t come cryin’ to me.”
“If he breaks something, you can give him all the shit you want about it, I don’t care. Just make sure he does his job and doesn’t sit around like a lazy fuck and do nothing.” She mimicked him without meaning to and put her hands through her hair, frustration buzzing under her skin like an annoying bug. “Be nice to me, Christ; it’s my birthday.”
Jed looked up from where his eyes had settled on the map again, eyes wide. “Jesus, it is?” he said, a ribbon of guilt settling in his stomach.
“No, I’m lying just to make you feel bad,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him before giving him a humoring look. “Yeah. I’m 26. Happy birthday to me. I’ll leave you alone now. Lots of shit left to do today before the day’s done.”
He twitched back the urge to reach out to her as she started to leave. “Hey, look, I’m sorry,” he said, ducking his head. “I dunno, stomach makin’ me cranky or something. But I got no problem with Holly bein’ along.” That was a lie, but it was her birthday after all.
God, you’re weird, she thought, rolling her shoulders into a shrug. “I’ll write you out some directions and give it to you by dinner, okay?”
“Alright. Sounds good.” He got up as she reached the door, quickly adding, “Happy birthday. And...” Congrats almost made it past his lips, but he couldn’t force it. “And have a good one.”
Alice paused at the door, the scowl on her face relaxing into a smile. “Thanks,” she said softly. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment and she licked her lips as though to speak, then appeared to think better of it and headed out the door.
Jed sat down hard. Alice was engaged to Leo. She seemed happy, too, at least before he started talking. And she didn’t tell him. Did she think he wouldn’t notice? Did she want him pointing it out? Was she just trying to rub it in? He ran his hands over his face, not really sure what to think, much less do.
And he still had to go on a raid with Holly tomorrow. It was turning out to be a hell of a week.