[fic: white collar] Hold With All You Have | 2/4
Hold With All You Have | 2/4
Please see part 1 for header information and warnings.
On LJ: Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4 | On DW | On AO3
- - -
The boat was old and, to Neal’s eyes, obviously unsafe. It had a motor, which June had warned them not to use unless they were at least a mile from shore because of the amount of noise it made, and a pair of oars which Peter lifted down from their hooks on the wall.
"Do you know how to row?" Neal asked.
"Of course," Peter said, like it was a perfectly ordinary skill that everyone picked up. "Why, don’t you?"
"Well, no," Neal admitted.
Diana raised an eyebrow. "I’d have assumed seducing women on romantic boating trips would be part of your skill set."
"There isn’t time for much seducing if you’re trying to make the boat go along at the same time," Neal pointed out. "That's why you hire someone else to do that part."
"You’ve never gone fishing?" Peter asked.
Neal sighed. "No, I’ve never had the slightest wish to go fishing. From everything I’ve heard, it sounds worse than death."
There was a short silence, the playful mood abruptly sinking like a stone. "Bad choice of words."
"Let’s just get going," Diana said. She pulled up the hood of her coat. They were all dressed in waterproofs, head to toe. "Neal, get into the front where you’re not in the way. You can take the compass and be the lookout."
Neal scrambled in, with a considerable lack of grace, and Peter and Diana stowed their packs next to him. Peter passed him the compass. "We’ll be going north up the coast, with the current," he said. "Since our main objective is just to get as far in that direction as possible, your job shouldn’t be too difficult."
"Tell us if you start freezing," Diana said. "Even if you’re a lousy rower, it’ll be better than you getting hypothermia."
Well, that was encouraging.
Peter made sure that the drum of gas was safely aboard next to the motor, and then untied the boat, giving it a shove to get it moving before leaping in at the last moment. Neal leaned out to unbolt the gate which was disguised to look like a storm-grille, and Diana slammed it shut behind them.
They were out into the river almost immediately, but much higher up Neal's list of immediate concerns was the downpour - the rain had slackened off during the day, but was now back in ferocious force. Which was good, Neal had to remind himself as cold fingers of it immediately began to slide down his neck. It meant that they were less likely to be spotted.
"Are we going the right way?" he called. The rain was drumming into the water loudly enough to drown him out.
"You’ve got the compass!" Peter shouted back. "We should be going east!"
Neal checked the faintly glowing dial. The boat did seem to be pointing in the right direction, and he gave a thumbs-up. Then he crouched down against the packs and tried to, as Diana had put it, stay out of the way.
He very quickly decided that no one could possibly see them from the shore. Even the lights of the city were barely visible in the lashing rain.
With a jolt, he realised that that was partly because a large part of the city lay in darkness. He’d never seen that before. It was immensely, viscerally wrong. Without the lights, it all looked different, and he couldn’t pick out any of the landmarks he was used to, however hard he stared.
It was also almost impossible to judge the passing of time. The darkness and the rain and the unfamiliar pattern of lights went on and on.
Eventually, Peter tapped him on the shoulder. Neal looked round. "We’re about to reach the sea!" he called.
"How can you tell?" Neal wanted to know, but Peter just laughed at him, and indicated that he wanted to see the compass. Neal showed it to him happily, and then hunkered back down into the bottom of the boat. A sizable puddle of water had developed there, but apparently it drained out on its own and was nothing to worry about. (That the boat had a hole in it had seemed to Neal to be something of a concern when June had mentioned it, but everyone else apparently considered it normal.)
His waterproofs weren’t working. The rain was getting in everywhere despite their protection, seeping in at his neck and wrists and ankles and soaking through his clothes. Leaving June’s had been a terrible idea.
A low growl joined the endless drumming of the rain, and it took Neal a while to realise that it was the sound of the ancient engine, working surprisingly well. A few moments later Diana shook him. "Your turn," she said.
"Huh?"
"Steering the boat. Your turn."
With difficulty, Neal managed to get himself to the stern as Diana wriggled forwards to take his place between the packs and Peter stayed on the rowing bench. "It’s easy," he said, and showed Neal what to do. It mostly amounted to keeping his hand on the tiller and watching the compass.
"How far north do we want to go?" Neal asked.
"Doesn’t really matter, as long as we’re clear of the quarantine zone. We’ll keep going until an hour or so before dawn, then make for the coast. Assuming we can find it again."
"Well, don’t blame me if we can’t," Neal said, and got the semblance of a smile in response.
Steering was mildly less monotonous than huddling up and staring at the rain, but only just. His fingers were very quickly frozen and painful and he switched from hand to hand on the tiller, taking turns to bunch the other into a fist inside his sleeve.
He had expected all the thoughts he had been keeping at bay to come rushing in once he settled to it, but the surface of his mind was managing to remain blissfully blank, as if the rain was washing away any attempt at encroachment. He kept glancing at the faint glow of the compass dial, making sure they were still heading up the coast.
The rain didn’t let up, striking the waves with a forceful hissing, so that it sounded oddly as if the sea was boiling. Neal began to doubt that they were actually moving forward at all. They seemed to be stuck in one tiny bubble, pitching up and down on the same wave in the dark.
But eventually Peter roused himself and kicked Neal back to the front of the boat again, relieving him of the compass. Neal curled into a tight ball, his face turned downwards to find shelter, and dozed, shivering.
He woke sharply as a jarring shudder ran through the hull, and jerked up expecting to find a new danger, but it seemed that they had intentionally run aground. The promise of dawn was grey in the sky, and they were on the silty bank of an inlet. "We’re here?" he asked, blearily.
"Well noticed, Caffrey," Diana said. She looked exhausted. She and Peter must have rowed them in while Neal had slept. "We’re somewhere, at any rate."
"Doesn’t really matter right now," Peter said, his voice gravelly with tiredness. "Let’s just see if we can find some sort of shelter."
They took the packs out, but all of them lingered for several moments, unwilling to leave the boat. "There’s nothing we can really do with it," Diana said, which was what Neal had also been thinking.
"Okay, let’s get moving," Peter ordered, and they did.
They had landed on the edge of what might have been farmland, once. Now it had run wild, choked with weeds and copses which had sprung up from hedgerows. There weren’t any paths, but eventually they came across the remains of some old storage shed, or livestock shelter. The beams of its walls and roof were rotting and half-fallen down, but it seemed as good as they were likely going to get. Neal, at any rate, had slept in worse.
They hung their waterproofs up to dry. Peter looked doubtfully at his sodden sleeves. "Do you think our clothes would dry on us while we sleep?"
"That’s the way to wake up with hypothermia," Neal said, and Peter looked at him with surprise. Neal shrugged. City boy he might be, but this was still something he knew about. He undid the top of his pack, and unrolled the blanket that was packed there to spread out on the floor, before turning his back to change briskly.
"You’re taking this better than I expected," Peter commented.
"Don’t judge all my outdoor skills by my dislike of boats," Neal returned. Although he was having to mentally work against associating sleeping outdoors with feelings of being chased. More than once already he had been wincing at how obvious their hung-up wet things would be to anyone who got close. Not to mention that this shed would be anyone’s first guess at where to find them.
He wondered what would actually happen if someone came across them. Would it count as treason, to have intentionally broken out of New York? "Do you think one of us should be on watch?" he asked, diffidently.
Diana frowned, considering it.
"I don’t think there’s any dangerous wildlife around this area," Peter said, doubtfully.
Neal shrugged, a little uneasily. "Just a thought." He expected he would sleep lightly anyway.
Now that they were all redressed and warm in dry clothes, Diana and Peter added their blankets to the pile. "We should try and find sleeping bags if we’re going to be doing this often," Diana said.
"I’ll put that on the shopping list," Neal muttered as they wrapped themselves up in their blankets, lying against each other for warmth.
- - -
The centre of the town was eerily empty. All of the shops were closed.
"I guess it spread beyond New York after all," Diana said. She knew she ought to be having some sort of reaction, some feeling of horror, but this was just too big to properly comprehend. A statistic.
"Everyone who lives here can’t be dead," Peter said. "We know that a lot of people didn’t get infected in New York, and it shouldn’t be different out here."
Neal stooped to uncrumple a couple of fliers which were lying in the gutter. "Mandatory Evacuation Notice," he read aloud. There were others, now that they looked, lying like fallen leaves.
"Makes sense," Diana said. "I guess the idea was to create something like a fire brake. No hosts stops the virus spreading."
"Think it worked?" Neal asked. He looked uneasy.
She shrugged. "I guess we’ll find out."
"At least we’ve lucked out on supplies," Neal said. He pointed. "Look, there’s an outdoors store down there. We can get sleeping bags and whatever else we need."
"It’s closed," Peter said, with the air of stating something obvious.
"I know," Neal said, in exactly the same way.
Peter and Diana exchanged a look. "We can’t just jump straight to stealing things, Caffrey," Diana said.
"But there’s no one here, and we need them." Neal looked faintly irritated. "They can claim it off their insurance if they don’t die first. It’s not like I’m suggesting we go on a bank robbing spree."
That was the problem. Neal really didn’t see why they couldn’t just break in since they were in need. To him, this probably seemed like a victimless crime, since the victims weren’t around.
"And are you planning on walking to Illinois?" Neal asked. "Because if not, we’re going to need a car too."
Peter frowned. "We take only what we need, then. We’ve got some money; we can leave that behind."
Neal snorted. "That’s ridiculous. We don’t know what we’ll need later, and we’ll probably need the money too."
Peter’s lips were tight. "I’m not about to start robbing the people I swore to protect."
"Peter, those people are probably dead!" Neal snapped. "I doubt very much that this epidemic isn’t world-wide by now. What’s important is that we’re still alive, and we need to stay that way. We don’t have time for you to be all moral and high-minded right now."
"So your answer is that we abandon morals entirely? Start shooting everyone we meet and taking the clothes off their backs?"
"As if that’s what I’m talking about." Neal made a derisive noise. "What were you planning on doing?"
They were both glaring at each other, tensed and taut.
"I think Neal’s right, Boss," Diana said unhappily. She didn’t at all like the idea of stealing, but she could also see no other real option. And she could see that Peter couldn’t either - it was what was making him so angry.
He turned his glare on her, and she returned it steadily. "Neal, you find us some transport," he said, eventually. "Diana and I will look for other things."
Neal raised an eyebrow. "Want me to see if I can find a Taurus?" he asked.
"Caffrey, don’t," Diana said, and Neal had enough sense to shut up.
He didn’t find a Taurus, but the dirty 4x4 had plenty of room for the gear and supplies which she and Peter collected. Peter didn’t actually raise any more protest at the looting, but they were careful and he made sure that they locked all of the doors behind them when they were done.
Most helpfully, they now finally knew where they were ("somewhere in Connecticut" had been their assumption, but it was good to have it confirmed), and had a map. The small town was a long way off the main roads, and farm equipment was abandoned in the middle of fields. It was a silent relief to Diana whenever there was a whirling flock of birds to break the stillness. Even so, it was beginning to feel uncannily as if they were the only people left. Anyone who might be still alive and who had disobeyed the evacuation order clearly had the good sense to stay out of sight.
She had half-expected another argument about driving, and Neal clearly had too, but Peter gave up the wheel to him after about three hours without even a comment about his lack of valid driving license. Somehow, that was... not reassuring.
She studied Peter closer in the mirror. His face was fixed in a faint frown, eyes staring towards and past the horizon. Wanting to fly faster towards Elizabeth, she guessed.
"Stop," he abruptly called, but Neal was already braking sharply into a side-road turnoff. Diana looked ahead to see a low pall of smoke, a darker grey hanging against the grey clouds.
She could guess what it meant. So could Peter, from the unhappy twist of his face.
But they had to get closer, to be sure. They could smell the smoke inside the car when they pulled up by the gate to the field, past the warning signs, and when Neal opened his door there was suddenly the strong scent of barbecues and grilled meat. Diana instinctively pressed her hands over her nose and mouth but she couldn’t block it out.
It took Neal another couple of seconds before realisation hit, and his face drained of colour. He stumbled out of the car and bent over with his hand against the frame to throw up onto the grass at the verge.
Peter went over to him, and put a hand on his back. "Hey," he said, gently.
Neal tried to speak, but just shook his head miserably.
Diana moved towards the gate as if drawn there, feeling strongly that she had to look. And there were the burnt remains of the piled-together corpses, with hay bales as kindling. Sixty, seventy people... Nausea swept through her and she turned away quickly, fighting the urge to retch herself.
"How bad?" Peter asked, quietly. He had found a bottle of water, and still had his hand on Neal’s back as Neal took slow sips.
She shook her head, wordlessly.
"We didn’t escape, then," Neal said.
"Guess not," she said. As Peter made a movement towards the gate she flung up a hand automatically. "No, you don’t need to -"
"I do," Peter said. "Neal, stay here."
For once, Neal looked more relieved than annoyed at being ordered to stay put. He was trying not to breathe too deeply.
Peter came back moments later, also pale. And yet, also... relieved. Diana understood. They hadn’t brought the virus out with them; it had escaped long before and gone roaring ahead. People were dead, and that eased their consciences. She shuddered.
"Can we get out of here?" Neal asked.
Peter gave him a critical look. "Are you going to start puking again if you get in a car now?"
"I’m more likely to if we stay," Neal said. "Besides, I don’t think there’s anything left in my stomach." He grimaced.
"I’ll drive," Diana said. She was also eager to be away, out of the smell.
It took a long time for it to fade away behind them. And even when finally out from underneath the smoke, the clouds seemed darker than they had before. She thought now that she could see many other patches of smoke in the sky, but she didn't want to look too closely.
- - -
"I think we should start looking for somewhere to spend the night," Neal said.
It was only just nearing twilight; Peter looked around in surprise. "We can keep going for at least another couple of hours, surely."
"Lights," Neal said, at the same time as Diana realised what he was getting at. "We’ll be visible for miles."
Peter nodded. "Good point." He peered out through the windscreen. "I think I see something up there."
They found a farm house, deserted like everywhere else. Peter didn’t protest at the lockpicking this time. "We should find something to cover the windows if we want light inside," he said. "Blankets or something."
The electricity wasn’t working, but Diana managed to find candles and matches while Neal and Peter worked together to black out the windows of the main room. She checked out the kitchen, and found that the fridge contained vegetables and cheese that looked okay, so she put it on plates along with some slightly dry bread.
"It would have gone off," she said, a little defensively, as she carried the meal into the other room.
"No, I know," Peter said. He looked tired, as he had since the field. Drained, even; of tension and of something else. She didn’t care to follow the thought, and turned instead to watch Neal light more candles, setting them carefully about the room to maximise the light.
In the middle of the night she woke. They had elected to sleep together, without needing to discuss it. It had been a quiet meal.
A tall candle was still burning, and when she raised herself onto her elbows it was to see Neal sitting against the wall, watching the flame.
Carefully, Diana shuffled over towards him. Peter was on the other side of the room, snuffling occasionally as he slept.
"Want some company?" she asked.
He half-shrugged, which she took as an invitation, and she settled against the wall next to him. "Can’t sleep?"
He shook his head. "You know about these things. Honestly, how far do you think the virus has spread?"
She shivered, immediately clamping down on her body’s reaction. She was trying very hard not to think about such things. "Neal, I’m from the FBI, not the CDC."
"Yes, but..." He half-shrugged again.
"You’re worried about Elizabeth and Mozzie?"
"Yes," he said, quietly. "I’m so afraid for them. And for June, god, and Sara. Do you think she’s safe in England?"
Diana wanted to offer him some comfort, but somehow the half-dark made it harder, not easier, to lie. "I don’t know."
Neal touched her arm, very lightly. "Di, what happened?"
"What do you mean?"
He met her eyes. His expression was concerned. "You’re... I don’t know. It’s like you’re on autopilot. Peter’s worried about you." He added, "I am, too," as if that wasn’t obvious.
Was she? She felt... numb, still. Keep going. Just keep going. Don't think about what's behind, or ahead.
But Neal was dragging it up out of her anyway. "Christie’s dead," she whispered.
"We don’t know that," Neal said, and he was trying to be kind, she knew that, but the gently-spoken words felt like knives twisting in her chest. "We survived, didn’t we? Maybe --"
She shook her head, cutting him off. "No. No. Neal, I watched her die."
Neal stared at her, appalled. "What?"
"In the hospital. It - she was coughing, and her lungs -" She was abruptly almost choking herself, and for a moment of panic was certain that she, too, couldn’t breathe, but then the painful tightness in her throat eased into the sting of unfamiliar tears. She tried to blink them back, but they were already spilling down her cheeks.
Neal put her arm around her, tentatively at first, and she leaned against his shoulder, not looking at him while she cried as quietly as she could so as to not wake Peter. And because she didn’t want to be crying. There wasn’t time, she had to be strong and keep going...
He didn’t ask why she hadn’t told them before, and she was absurdly grateful for that. The candle flame wavered and flickered through her watery sight, and eventually the tears dried up. "Sorry," she mumbled.
He squeezed his arm around her, and she hoped suddenly that someone had done this for him after Kate’s death, giving him space and safety to cry. June must have, she thought, and the tears threatened to well up again at the memory of June giving them a way out, and remaining behind herself.
"We’re going to be okay," he said, at last. She wriggled so that she could look at him, because he sounded uncharacteristically fierce. "We’ll get to Elizabeth and Mozzie and then... and then we’ll be okay."
Home for him was a small group of people, the ones you held tight to and defended against whatever storm arose. It was a definition which had no concern for the concept of society-wide nets and structures, except occasionally as something to be avoided. And those things... here, at least, they had been lost, and for Neal it might not really matter, but for her it was one of the things contributing to the unsteady, vertiginous feeling of the ground being stolen from under her feet.
"What will we do then?" she asked.
Neal shrugged. "We find a place, and set up in it. I don’t know. Maybe Peter would let me raid an art gallery for decoration."
She surprised herself with a soft laugh. "Yeah, right."
He nudged her with a shoulder. "Why, what were you thinking of doing?"
She shrugged. "We could try to join up with other people who've survived, see if we can help. You know Peter will want to."
"I don’t see what help we’d be."
Diana shrugged again, because she didn’t know how to say that in his concept of the future it was the structure she knew that she would miss; the sense of purpose. Right now they were all adrift.
- - -
They left at first light. It was becoming difficult now to avoid the main roads, even though it clearly made Peter uncomfortable to drive on them. Soon there was another reason for being glad they had kept off them the day before - every now and then they passed vehicles which the driver had managed to park on the hard shoulder before succumbing to the effects of the virus. Others hadn’t been as lucky, and had crashed. Not that it would have made much of a difference to the driver, but it would have for the passengers.
One of the things they had found in the small town was a supply of medical face-masks in a pharmacy. Diana rummaged in the back and handed them out.
They stopped for gas a few times, at stations which were abandoned and empty even though the electricity still worked. Diana stood watch while Neal filled the tank, and Peter remained in the driver’s seat so that they could leave as soon as possible. The lack of any people had become incredibly unsettling, and Neal felt the hairs on the back of his neck constantly prickling as he glanced around.
The trouble finally came as they cut around an outer suburb of Chicago. Neal had been dozing while Peter was again driving (Diana had taken a turn, but Peter was full of enough nervous energy as they got closer to Elizabeth to make him a terrible passenger). He heard a rattling sound, and a second later slammed into his seatbelt as Peter jammed on the breaks, swearing sharply.
Neal swore as well, looking round wildly to see what had happened. "Gunshots," Peter said, before he could ask. "Someone wants us to stop."
The someones emerged from the nearest house - the shots had been fired through the open window. Two people, both with automatic rifles and incongruous-looking surgical masks. They were also wearing flak jackets.
"Guess they found a military supply store," Diana said, quietly.
In obedience to sharp a hand-gesture, Peter rolled his window down. He didn't reach for his weapon, but Neal knew he could draw it in seconds if he needed to. "We don’t want any trouble," he said. "We’re just passing through."
"Road’s closed," the taller of the two masked figures said. A woman.
Peter raised his hands from the steering wheel. "Okay. We’ll turn around if you want us to."
Neal was very much in agreement with that strategy.
"Where are you from?" The second armed person was male.
"New York state," Peter said. "I’m looking for my wife."
"If she got sick and took off, she’ll have dropped dead by now," the woman said. Not maliciously, but flatly.
The man snorted. "He means she was here already."
The woman shrugged.
"She was visiting her parents in Lemont," Peter elaborated. "We’ve hardly seen anyone. How many people are alive?"
"Seriously?" the man demanded. "It’s war out here. How stupid do you think we are, asking for that sort of information?"
"We’re not trying to rob you," Diana said, trying to sound placating. "Look, never mind. We’ll just keep moving."
"Lemont doesn’t exist anymore," the woman said, bluntly. "Last I heard it was all on fire. No one to fight it."
"It’s true," the man said. "I talked to someone who used to live there. The chemical factory went up and everyone who wasn’t already dead got the hell out. You could see the smoke yesterday, when the sky was clear. Smell it, too."
"The virus has reached here?" Peter asked. His face had paled. Neal, who was skilled in the art of self-deception, sympathised with how desperately he had been hoping that not to be the case, and how much it hurt when you could no longer escape the knowledge that had been there all along.
The woman laughed hollowly. "It’s reached everywhere," she said. "My husband thought -" She cut herself off abruptly. "And where the hell are the authorities? Probably sheltering in an underground bunker somewhere, nice and safe."
Neal was sure that Peter disagreed, but he didn’t actually argue.
"Look, we could let them take a look at the list," the man said, quietly.
The visible portion of the woman’s face creased into a deep frown.
"Can we trade you anything for a look at it?" Neal asked. He had no idea what the list might be, but clearly something they considered to be valuable. And possibly helpful.
"Elsa, we let other people in."
Neal relaxed fractionally. If they had started using names, it meant they were on the verge of being convinced. "You’ll be able to watch us," he said. "However many people are in your group, I bet they’re well-armed, and outnumber the three of us."
Elsa made an annoyed sound. "Fine," she said, and opened the back door of the car. "Matt, you stay here. I’ll send someone back." She slid into the seat next to Diana, and nodded at Peter in the mirror. "Start driving, then."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Peter murmured to Neal.
Neal shrugged. "Got to be better than driving aimlessly around all of Illinois."
Elsa gave brusque directions, and Peter obeyed them, driving through more empty streets. Neal felt that the sight of them should be starting to become familiar, but it was still wrong and filled him with formless unease.
Before too long they were pulling up in front of a community centre. It had plenty of skylight windows, which was probably a good thing for the people inside since the ground-floor windows had all been boarded shut with heavy planks of wood.
"Out, then," Elsa said, once Peter had pulled up. "All of you."
"We’re supposed to just leave our car out here, unguarded?" Neal asked.
"I’m supposed to let you inside and gather information on us?" Elsa shot back.
Peter looked faintly amused. "Neal, I think we have to trust them."
Trust was over-rated, in Neal’s opinion, particularly when they had so few cards in their hand. But he got out of the car, and so did Diana and Peter.
"So what’s this list?" Diana asked.
"It’s a record," Elsa said, as she pulled open the door. "For people we know are alive, or dead. Everyone adds to it."
The list was across two walls. One wall for the living, and one for the dead. Names in a multitude of hands had been inked starkly onto the white paint, with details added sporadically next to them - last seen, intended headings, date of death. Even though it could only be days old, there were already far too many names on the wall for the living that had since been crossed out.
"What’s her name?" Elsa asked. She nodded to the hall’s occupants, some of whom had got to their feet as soon as the doors opened. There were maybe twenty people in that main room, with neat rows of bedding laid out on the floor for more than twice that number.
Peter had no eyes for them, already scouring the wall. "Elizabeth Burke," he said. "And -" He glanced at Neal.
Neal shook his head, unable to keep a smile from flitting across his face. "Mozzie actually signing his name to anything? Not a chance." Although he was already searching for an alias. The trouble was, there were so many possibilities...
Elsa pressed her hand fleetingly over a name, in what looked like an instinctive gesture. Elsa Chang, Neal read, above her fingers, and when she took her hand away, Liam Chang was below, crossed through. Feeling like an intruder, he looked away without reading the details.
"Peter!" Diana called, and Peter half-ran over, Neal following. It was the wrong wall, the wrong one...
But neither of the names were Elizabeth. They were both Mitchells, in her handwriting.
"Damn," Peter said, quietly, but he was already hurrying back, searching at a fevered pace. "She’s alive," he said. "Look!"
Elizabeth Burke, in well-known cursive, and below that, Dante Haversham. It was some of the most welcome artwork Neal had ever seen. "She wrote this two days ago," he said, looking at the date.
"Do you know if she’s still here?" Peter asked Elsa. There was a tinge of desperation in his voice - he was preparing for the answer even before she shook her head regretfully.
"There's just too many people coming through to keep track of," she said. "Not so many these last couple of days, now the gangs have got their teeth into everything, but..." She shook her head again.
"The gangs," Peter said, frowning. "What are they after?"
Elsa sighed wearily. "What do you think? Food, guns, medicine. This area used to be outside of the turf wars, but now they want everything we have. Hence the need for all the security." She didn't apologise for her suspicion of them, Neal noted.
Peter nodded. "Who’s in charge here?"
"No one, really." Elsa said.
"Elsa’s been organising things," a man piped up. He had been resting on top of one of the sleeping bags.
"Everyone’s been organising things," Elsa said, tiredly, like this was an argument she had had too many times.
"Yeah, but you wrote things down and made everyone stick to them."
Peter eyed her appraisingly. "Are you in law enforcement?"
"Right now, that’s as good a job title as any, I guess." She laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. "I was a journalist, if you can believe that. Not too relevant now."
"You’re doing good work here," Diana said, approvingly. She had probably picked up on more details than Neal had - his skills didn’t lie in how to fortify places, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that it was another area in which Diana was an expert. "We’re FBI agents," she said, including Peter with a gesture. "Would you like to walk us around your setup?"
Elsa blinked, and then sagged slightly in relief. "That would be great. I really have no idea what I’m doing."
"I suspect much better than you think," Peter said, with a kind smile.
"I’ll ask around," Neal offered. "Find out if anyone remembers El and, uh, Haversham."
Peter nodded appreciation.
As Neal had suspected, it was a description of Mozzie which finally got a result. "Oh, him," said a woman sorting food stores, whom Neal was temporarily lending a hand to. "I couldn't possibly forget him. He had some interesting theories about... you know. All of this."
"Did they involve secret government agencies?" Neal had to ask, albeit with a slight feeling of dread.
"Oh, definitely. They were awfully entertaining stories." She chuckled to herself, and Neal grinned wryly.
But she didn’t know where they might have gone, which left him no better off than before, no matter long they talked for. Elizabeth would want to find Peter, and Mozzie would make it a priority for them both to stay alive. Had they tried to find somewhere safe out here, or headed back towards New York in the same desperate hope that had driven the three of them out?
In any case, with no better clues being turned up by Peter or Diana, Elsa was fairly easily able to persuade them to spend the night.
- - -
"Neal, wake up!" Peter was shouting, but Neal had already woken with a jolt. There were people running, shouting - He lay very still for a second, trying to get a bearing.
Then someone screamed, very near, and he was on his feet immediately, still disorientated in the darkness, still trying to work out what was happening.
"Find flashlights!" Peter called, but he only added to the din.
Someone grabbed Neal’s arm, and he flinched instinctively. "It’s me," Diana's voice said, close to his ear. "What’s going on?"
"I don’t know."
Maybe there was another outbreak. Elsa had tried to set up protocols for that, but people were prone to panic -
Then there was the loud report of gunfire, unmistakable, coming from somewhere outside.
"I think we’re under attack," Diana said.
Neal turned to ask her what they should do, but then there was the smash of breaking glass and he glanced up to see one of the skylights shattering, the jagged fragments of the pane momentarily visible and then turning invisible and deadly as they fell. There were cries of pain and terror.
"Get down!" Diana yelled, and pulled him to the floor as there were more gunshots -- wild, unaimed, but that hardly mattered when they were being fired into such a crowded space by whoever was standing on the roof. More people were screaming now; almost everyone was.
He didn’t know what started the fire. But flames shot up against one wall with a loud woomph and suddenly there was the light everyone had been shouting for, illuminating terrified faces in flickering orange.
"Everyone out!" Elsa was shouting from somewhere, loudly enough to cut through the din.
"Out!" Peter echoed. "Neal, Diana, get them out!"
Stumbling, tripping over bedding and bags, Neal tried to shepherd panicking people toward the doors without knowing if they were paying any attention to him at all. The smoke was stinging at his eyes, and the heat of the flames was a too-close horror. The gunman couldn’t still be shooting, at least - the smoke’s only escape upwards was through the broken skylight, and it would choke anyone standing there.
It was choking him. He had paused to wipe tears from his eyes and now he couldn’t remember which direction the door was in. Struggling to breathe he stumbled along blindly. He nearly tripped over someone bent double, coughing, and he grabbed their arm to pull them roughly along.
No air. Searing heat. Suddenly something slapped his face and he blinked, Diana's face hazy through his watering eyes. She was half-dragging him along, and he kept a tight hold on the person he was supporting.
The three of them burst out into the night air wheezing for breath. Then new hands were pulling him to safety as his legs began to fold, as people shouted back and forth above his head. There was more screaming in the distance, and it was the last thing he registered before he passed out.
- - -
Diana fought to remain conscious even with a lungful of smoke. She had lost track of Neal; she had no idea where Peter was. More gunfire signalled that they were still under attack. She wanted to help defend the small group, but it was enough of a struggle to keep breathing and she couldn’t do more than that. People were dragging her along, and she was suddenly being hauled up some steps and bundled onto a narrow sort of bench. Voices around her were shouting, and coughing. The smell of smoke was still sharp; overwhelming.
She tried to get up, but a woman was pressing down on her shoulders. "No, no, don’t fight me."
Was she a prisoner? A sudden rumble starting from all around told her that she was in a vehicle. Not their car.
"Diana, calm down"
It was Elsa, abruptly appearing above her. Diana finally stopped struggling as that fact slowly penetrated her fogged brain. Less panicked, she found that she could at last begin to take proper breaths, which in turn started to clear the black spots dancing in her eyes.
"You’re safe," Elsa said. "Or as safe as any of us are right now. We’re running."
Diana struggled again to sit up. "Help me," she demanded, and Elsa moved in quickly. "Where’s - Peter?" She was having to pause after every couple of syllables to breathe. "Neal?"
They were in some kind of coach. A school bus, she realised, belatedly.
"Peter’s driving your car - we loaded the trunk with all we could grab. Lucky we never made you unpack and share, I guess." She smiled briefly; bitterly. "Neal’s being looked after, he’s a few rows down."
"You were... attacked?"
Another humorless smile crossed Elsa’s face. "We were attacked, you mean. Guess I was right to be paranoid about the gangs." Her mouth twisted. "You’d think, in a time like this, people would work together."
Diana shook her head slightly, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t, really, be surprised at how quickly people classed other people into us and them. Hell, even she and Neal had started down that road almost immediately.
"Where are we going?" she asked, after the silence had dragged for too long already.
Elsa shrugged. It was a non-expressive gesture, one which could mean anything from I have no idea to I don’t trust you enough to tell you.
But apparently they were all going along with her. Diana was relieved, really - she had no idea what they would have done next, with no further clues to guide them. They’d been lucky to get this far.
"How many people got away with us?" she asked.
"Maybe thirty," Elsa said. "We’ve got a small truck, too. There's a load of people travelling inside that."
"Elsa." The woman who had been looking after her before was standing in the aisle, looking anxious. She beckoned.
Elsa exchanged a quick, worried glance with Diana, and then she went along with the woman - Diana thought she really needed to learn everyone’s names, and fast. She followed.
In one of the front rows, a young man was slumped between the back of the seat and the window, his eyes glassy. He was coughing.
"How long’s he been sick, Julie?" Elsa asked, speaking quietly.
"He was fine before the fire," Julie murmured back.
The first symptom is fever. Diana had heard about it but hadn’t observed the early stages of the virus at all, only the end result. She glanced nervously between the two women.
"If he’s got.. that... then he can’t stay on the bus," Diana whispered, hoping no one else could hear her. Least of all that poor young man. "It’s spread through fluid contact, isn’t it?"
Julie nodded. "We worked that out pretty fast in my clinic."
"You’re a doctor?"
She shook her head. "Just a nurse. But Josh looks the same as the others did. The virus probably got a hold once his lungs had been damaged by smoke."
"Who would he have caught it off, though?" Diana asked. She was aware that although they were all whispering, most of the passengers who weren’t asleep had worked out that something was going on and were craning anxiously to look.
Julie shook her head. "I’ve seen some people get infected but not realise it. Then a couple of days later the virus sort of rips through their body all at once. Maybe that would have happened to him if not for the fire."
Diana swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. "I’ve - I’ve seen that too."
"Joshua," Elsa said, firmly. "Can you hear me?"
He jerked slightly, as if he’d thought he was alone, and sluggishly moved his eyes to focus on her. But instead of saying anything he just kept coughing, and now there were flecks of blood around his lips.
Elsa touched Diana’s arm. "Get the bus to stop," she said.
She slipped down the aisle. The driver was the guy who had been on guard with Elsa when they’d first met her. "Matt, can you pull over?" she asked.
He didn’t do it dramatically, which she was glad about, and he waited until they’d stopped to ask, "What’s going on?"
"A guy - called Joshua - he’s sick." She didn’t need to add with what.
"Josh," Julie was coaxing, behind her. "Come on, up you get. You can do it."
Joshua nodded vaguely as he swayed between the seats, but he followed Julie. Diana backed down the steps to give them room.
"Julie, wha’.." he mumbled.
"It’s okay, don’t worry."
He was beginning to shake by the time he made it onto the verge. Julie was almost crying. Diana glanced up at the bus. They had an audience, of course. Neal’s face was among those at the windows, and Diana felt a sharp pang of relief to see him up.
Joshua was coughing more blood now, his movements erratic.
"We can’t really leave him here," Julie whispered, not sounding like she believed it.
"We have to," Elsa said, her face miserable.
"Julie, he’s sick," Diana said, trying to be calming. "You know it’s too late. There’s nothing we can do."
"People get better!" Julie protested.
Diana flinched violently. "What?"
Elsa took hold of Julie’s arm. "Very few. After violent delirium and infecting who knows how many others. We have to leave him here, and you know it."
Julie didn't nod but she bit her lip, not protesting either.
Diana let herself be hustled back into the bus, ahead of the other two. People got better... No one in the field hospital had gotten better, but they hadn't had the chance. She and the others had tied them all down to die choking for breath. Some of them might have lived...
Joshua must have belatedly realised that they were abandoning him. He stumbled forward as Matt started the engine, slamming an unsteady hand against the closed door.
"Go," Elsa said, harshly. She was trying to keep looking at Joshua, but she couldn’t.
Matt gave her an agonised look, and she glared back. He pulled the bus out onto the road, picking up speed until they were rumbling along like they had never stopped.
"No one go near where Josh was sitting," Elsa said. She didn’t have to raise her voice. Everyone was watching her in silence, even the couple of children. She walked all the way down the aisle to the back, and squeezed herself down into a row mostly filled with bags of supplies, where she could be hidden.
Diana wanted to do the same. But she had already met Neal's eyes, so she went to join him.
"Are you okay?" he asked, quietly. When she didn’t answer, he continued, "From the smoke."
She nodded. The effects were down to just a sore rasping in her throat when she swallowed. "How about you?"
"I still feel a bit dizzy, but I’ve stopped coughing, at least." He broke into a small coughing fit as soon as the words had left his mouth, and smiled wryly when he was done. "Well, mostly."
"That’s good," she said. "I’d have to explain it to Peter otherwise."
"I’m glad my fate is such a high priority to you."
Diana found herself smiling more fondly than she’d meant to, and didn’t doubt that Neal had noticed. But he didn’t say anything about it.
Neither of them knew where they were going, and they didn't feel like talking. Neal dozed off with his head tipped to one side, still coughing occasionally, and Diana stared past him out of the window watching endless fields and low hills roll by.
She woke abruptly when the background drone of the engine cut out. It was another deeply overcast day, and when she checked her watch she was surprised to find it was already early afternoon. Then she looked out of the window.
They were nowhere she recognised. Farmland, surrounded by trees. There was a collection of buildings that looked like they’d been thrown together randomly with no plan or pattern.
At the front, Elsa stood up. "This is the place?" she asked a man beside her. He was the one Neal had pulled out of the hall.
"Yeah," he said. George, she remembered his name was. "Belongs to my uncle. If he’s still here..."
Everyone seemed to be waiting. After a second George led the way off the bus.
The truck (Elsa had qualified it as small, but it was really more of a van) and three cars were pulling up. Peter got out of one, head turning quickly as he flicked his eyes along everyone. His face lit up as he caught sight of Neal and Diana, and they pushed forwards to reach him.
"You’re okay?" he said, quickly. "You’re both okay?"
"We’re fine," Neal assured him, and was enveloped in a relieved hug. "Peter, we’re fine," he protested, but didn’t really struggle.
Diana hugged him back tightly when it was her turn. "So, we’re staying with these people?" she asked.
Peter half-shrugged, like he was embarrassed. "They’re trying to build up, keep themselves safe. We can help."
But he couldn't hold the smile, and his eyes were beginning to fill.
"We won't give up on them," Neal said, very quietly. "Peter -"
But he trailed off.
"I don't know how to find her," Peter said. He looked like he was shocked at his own words. "If we could have stayed in Chicago, but..."
"But we couldn't," Diana said, softly. She was aware that she was an interloper on this shared grief. She had lost, but lost with a brutal finality. More agonising than a dwindling uncertainty, but cleaner.
The doors at the rear of the truck were still shut. Matt slapped a hand against them. "Does this actually open from inside?" he asked, and pulled the handle.
"Wait!" Elsa said, sharply, but they were already swinging wide.
Everyone inside was dead. There were maybe ten people. Blood-flecked, bloody.
Elsa slammed the doors shut again, and leaned against them. "Fuck," she said. "Oh fuck, fuck."
The mood of holiday had been punctured. "Damn," Diana muttered, and wiped at her eyes. "Of course we're not safe here."
"We're as safe as anywhere," Peter said, soberly. "Here's better than a lot of places are bound to be. I think safety is going to be in remoteness for the next while, until things settle down." He looked around, but his eyes were distant. Diana knew that if there was anything, anything to go on then he would be off immediately to chase down Elizabeth's location.
But the country was too big, and too broken. And it seemed to physically contract around Diana at the realisation that this was it. This was where they were staying.
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
- - -
Please see part 1 for header information and warnings.
On LJ: Part 1 - Part 3 - Part 4 | On DW | On AO3
- - -
The boat was old and, to Neal’s eyes, obviously unsafe. It had a motor, which June had warned them not to use unless they were at least a mile from shore because of the amount of noise it made, and a pair of oars which Peter lifted down from their hooks on the wall.
"Do you know how to row?" Neal asked.
"Of course," Peter said, like it was a perfectly ordinary skill that everyone picked up. "Why, don’t you?"
"Well, no," Neal admitted.
Diana raised an eyebrow. "I’d have assumed seducing women on romantic boating trips would be part of your skill set."
"There isn’t time for much seducing if you’re trying to make the boat go along at the same time," Neal pointed out. "That's why you hire someone else to do that part."
"You’ve never gone fishing?" Peter asked.
Neal sighed. "No, I’ve never had the slightest wish to go fishing. From everything I’ve heard, it sounds worse than death."
There was a short silence, the playful mood abruptly sinking like a stone. "Bad choice of words."
"Let’s just get going," Diana said. She pulled up the hood of her coat. They were all dressed in waterproofs, head to toe. "Neal, get into the front where you’re not in the way. You can take the compass and be the lookout."
Neal scrambled in, with a considerable lack of grace, and Peter and Diana stowed their packs next to him. Peter passed him the compass. "We’ll be going north up the coast, with the current," he said. "Since our main objective is just to get as far in that direction as possible, your job shouldn’t be too difficult."
"Tell us if you start freezing," Diana said. "Even if you’re a lousy rower, it’ll be better than you getting hypothermia."
Well, that was encouraging.
Peter made sure that the drum of gas was safely aboard next to the motor, and then untied the boat, giving it a shove to get it moving before leaping in at the last moment. Neal leaned out to unbolt the gate which was disguised to look like a storm-grille, and Diana slammed it shut behind them.
They were out into the river almost immediately, but much higher up Neal's list of immediate concerns was the downpour - the rain had slackened off during the day, but was now back in ferocious force. Which was good, Neal had to remind himself as cold fingers of it immediately began to slide down his neck. It meant that they were less likely to be spotted.
"Are we going the right way?" he called. The rain was drumming into the water loudly enough to drown him out.
"You’ve got the compass!" Peter shouted back. "We should be going east!"
Neal checked the faintly glowing dial. The boat did seem to be pointing in the right direction, and he gave a thumbs-up. Then he crouched down against the packs and tried to, as Diana had put it, stay out of the way.
He very quickly decided that no one could possibly see them from the shore. Even the lights of the city were barely visible in the lashing rain.
With a jolt, he realised that that was partly because a large part of the city lay in darkness. He’d never seen that before. It was immensely, viscerally wrong. Without the lights, it all looked different, and he couldn’t pick out any of the landmarks he was used to, however hard he stared.
It was also almost impossible to judge the passing of time. The darkness and the rain and the unfamiliar pattern of lights went on and on.
Eventually, Peter tapped him on the shoulder. Neal looked round. "We’re about to reach the sea!" he called.
"How can you tell?" Neal wanted to know, but Peter just laughed at him, and indicated that he wanted to see the compass. Neal showed it to him happily, and then hunkered back down into the bottom of the boat. A sizable puddle of water had developed there, but apparently it drained out on its own and was nothing to worry about. (That the boat had a hole in it had seemed to Neal to be something of a concern when June had mentioned it, but everyone else apparently considered it normal.)
His waterproofs weren’t working. The rain was getting in everywhere despite their protection, seeping in at his neck and wrists and ankles and soaking through his clothes. Leaving June’s had been a terrible idea.
A low growl joined the endless drumming of the rain, and it took Neal a while to realise that it was the sound of the ancient engine, working surprisingly well. A few moments later Diana shook him. "Your turn," she said.
"Huh?"
"Steering the boat. Your turn."
With difficulty, Neal managed to get himself to the stern as Diana wriggled forwards to take his place between the packs and Peter stayed on the rowing bench. "It’s easy," he said, and showed Neal what to do. It mostly amounted to keeping his hand on the tiller and watching the compass.
"How far north do we want to go?" Neal asked.
"Doesn’t really matter, as long as we’re clear of the quarantine zone. We’ll keep going until an hour or so before dawn, then make for the coast. Assuming we can find it again."
"Well, don’t blame me if we can’t," Neal said, and got the semblance of a smile in response.
Steering was mildly less monotonous than huddling up and staring at the rain, but only just. His fingers were very quickly frozen and painful and he switched from hand to hand on the tiller, taking turns to bunch the other into a fist inside his sleeve.
He had expected all the thoughts he had been keeping at bay to come rushing in once he settled to it, but the surface of his mind was managing to remain blissfully blank, as if the rain was washing away any attempt at encroachment. He kept glancing at the faint glow of the compass dial, making sure they were still heading up the coast.
The rain didn’t let up, striking the waves with a forceful hissing, so that it sounded oddly as if the sea was boiling. Neal began to doubt that they were actually moving forward at all. They seemed to be stuck in one tiny bubble, pitching up and down on the same wave in the dark.
But eventually Peter roused himself and kicked Neal back to the front of the boat again, relieving him of the compass. Neal curled into a tight ball, his face turned downwards to find shelter, and dozed, shivering.
He woke sharply as a jarring shudder ran through the hull, and jerked up expecting to find a new danger, but it seemed that they had intentionally run aground. The promise of dawn was grey in the sky, and they were on the silty bank of an inlet. "We’re here?" he asked, blearily.
"Well noticed, Caffrey," Diana said. She looked exhausted. She and Peter must have rowed them in while Neal had slept. "We’re somewhere, at any rate."
"Doesn’t really matter right now," Peter said, his voice gravelly with tiredness. "Let’s just see if we can find some sort of shelter."
They took the packs out, but all of them lingered for several moments, unwilling to leave the boat. "There’s nothing we can really do with it," Diana said, which was what Neal had also been thinking.
"Okay, let’s get moving," Peter ordered, and they did.
They had landed on the edge of what might have been farmland, once. Now it had run wild, choked with weeds and copses which had sprung up from hedgerows. There weren’t any paths, but eventually they came across the remains of some old storage shed, or livestock shelter. The beams of its walls and roof were rotting and half-fallen down, but it seemed as good as they were likely going to get. Neal, at any rate, had slept in worse.
They hung their waterproofs up to dry. Peter looked doubtfully at his sodden sleeves. "Do you think our clothes would dry on us while we sleep?"
"That’s the way to wake up with hypothermia," Neal said, and Peter looked at him with surprise. Neal shrugged. City boy he might be, but this was still something he knew about. He undid the top of his pack, and unrolled the blanket that was packed there to spread out on the floor, before turning his back to change briskly.
"You’re taking this better than I expected," Peter commented.
"Don’t judge all my outdoor skills by my dislike of boats," Neal returned. Although he was having to mentally work against associating sleeping outdoors with feelings of being chased. More than once already he had been wincing at how obvious their hung-up wet things would be to anyone who got close. Not to mention that this shed would be anyone’s first guess at where to find them.
He wondered what would actually happen if someone came across them. Would it count as treason, to have intentionally broken out of New York? "Do you think one of us should be on watch?" he asked, diffidently.
Diana frowned, considering it.
"I don’t think there’s any dangerous wildlife around this area," Peter said, doubtfully.
Neal shrugged, a little uneasily. "Just a thought." He expected he would sleep lightly anyway.
Now that they were all redressed and warm in dry clothes, Diana and Peter added their blankets to the pile. "We should try and find sleeping bags if we’re going to be doing this often," Diana said.
"I’ll put that on the shopping list," Neal muttered as they wrapped themselves up in their blankets, lying against each other for warmth.
- - -
The centre of the town was eerily empty. All of the shops were closed.
"I guess it spread beyond New York after all," Diana said. She knew she ought to be having some sort of reaction, some feeling of horror, but this was just too big to properly comprehend. A statistic.
"Everyone who lives here can’t be dead," Peter said. "We know that a lot of people didn’t get infected in New York, and it shouldn’t be different out here."
Neal stooped to uncrumple a couple of fliers which were lying in the gutter. "Mandatory Evacuation Notice," he read aloud. There were others, now that they looked, lying like fallen leaves.
"Makes sense," Diana said. "I guess the idea was to create something like a fire brake. No hosts stops the virus spreading."
"Think it worked?" Neal asked. He looked uneasy.
She shrugged. "I guess we’ll find out."
"At least we’ve lucked out on supplies," Neal said. He pointed. "Look, there’s an outdoors store down there. We can get sleeping bags and whatever else we need."
"It’s closed," Peter said, with the air of stating something obvious.
"I know," Neal said, in exactly the same way.
Peter and Diana exchanged a look. "We can’t just jump straight to stealing things, Caffrey," Diana said.
"But there’s no one here, and we need them." Neal looked faintly irritated. "They can claim it off their insurance if they don’t die first. It’s not like I’m suggesting we go on a bank robbing spree."
That was the problem. Neal really didn’t see why they couldn’t just break in since they were in need. To him, this probably seemed like a victimless crime, since the victims weren’t around.
"And are you planning on walking to Illinois?" Neal asked. "Because if not, we’re going to need a car too."
Peter frowned. "We take only what we need, then. We’ve got some money; we can leave that behind."
Neal snorted. "That’s ridiculous. We don’t know what we’ll need later, and we’ll probably need the money too."
Peter’s lips were tight. "I’m not about to start robbing the people I swore to protect."
"Peter, those people are probably dead!" Neal snapped. "I doubt very much that this epidemic isn’t world-wide by now. What’s important is that we’re still alive, and we need to stay that way. We don’t have time for you to be all moral and high-minded right now."
"So your answer is that we abandon morals entirely? Start shooting everyone we meet and taking the clothes off their backs?"
"As if that’s what I’m talking about." Neal made a derisive noise. "What were you planning on doing?"
They were both glaring at each other, tensed and taut.
"I think Neal’s right, Boss," Diana said unhappily. She didn’t at all like the idea of stealing, but she could also see no other real option. And she could see that Peter couldn’t either - it was what was making him so angry.
He turned his glare on her, and she returned it steadily. "Neal, you find us some transport," he said, eventually. "Diana and I will look for other things."
Neal raised an eyebrow. "Want me to see if I can find a Taurus?" he asked.
"Caffrey, don’t," Diana said, and Neal had enough sense to shut up.
He didn’t find a Taurus, but the dirty 4x4 had plenty of room for the gear and supplies which she and Peter collected. Peter didn’t actually raise any more protest at the looting, but they were careful and he made sure that they locked all of the doors behind them when they were done.
Most helpfully, they now finally knew where they were ("somewhere in Connecticut" had been their assumption, but it was good to have it confirmed), and had a map. The small town was a long way off the main roads, and farm equipment was abandoned in the middle of fields. It was a silent relief to Diana whenever there was a whirling flock of birds to break the stillness. Even so, it was beginning to feel uncannily as if they were the only people left. Anyone who might be still alive and who had disobeyed the evacuation order clearly had the good sense to stay out of sight.
She had half-expected another argument about driving, and Neal clearly had too, but Peter gave up the wheel to him after about three hours without even a comment about his lack of valid driving license. Somehow, that was... not reassuring.
She studied Peter closer in the mirror. His face was fixed in a faint frown, eyes staring towards and past the horizon. Wanting to fly faster towards Elizabeth, she guessed.
"Stop," he abruptly called, but Neal was already braking sharply into a side-road turnoff. Diana looked ahead to see a low pall of smoke, a darker grey hanging against the grey clouds.
She could guess what it meant. So could Peter, from the unhappy twist of his face.
But they had to get closer, to be sure. They could smell the smoke inside the car when they pulled up by the gate to the field, past the warning signs, and when Neal opened his door there was suddenly the strong scent of barbecues and grilled meat. Diana instinctively pressed her hands over her nose and mouth but she couldn’t block it out.
It took Neal another couple of seconds before realisation hit, and his face drained of colour. He stumbled out of the car and bent over with his hand against the frame to throw up onto the grass at the verge.
Peter went over to him, and put a hand on his back. "Hey," he said, gently.
Neal tried to speak, but just shook his head miserably.
Diana moved towards the gate as if drawn there, feeling strongly that she had to look. And there were the burnt remains of the piled-together corpses, with hay bales as kindling. Sixty, seventy people... Nausea swept through her and she turned away quickly, fighting the urge to retch herself.
"How bad?" Peter asked, quietly. He had found a bottle of water, and still had his hand on Neal’s back as Neal took slow sips.
She shook her head, wordlessly.
"We didn’t escape, then," Neal said.
"Guess not," she said. As Peter made a movement towards the gate she flung up a hand automatically. "No, you don’t need to -"
"I do," Peter said. "Neal, stay here."
For once, Neal looked more relieved than annoyed at being ordered to stay put. He was trying not to breathe too deeply.
Peter came back moments later, also pale. And yet, also... relieved. Diana understood. They hadn’t brought the virus out with them; it had escaped long before and gone roaring ahead. People were dead, and that eased their consciences. She shuddered.
"Can we get out of here?" Neal asked.
Peter gave him a critical look. "Are you going to start puking again if you get in a car now?"
"I’m more likely to if we stay," Neal said. "Besides, I don’t think there’s anything left in my stomach." He grimaced.
"I’ll drive," Diana said. She was also eager to be away, out of the smell.
It took a long time for it to fade away behind them. And even when finally out from underneath the smoke, the clouds seemed darker than they had before. She thought now that she could see many other patches of smoke in the sky, but she didn't want to look too closely.
- - -
"I think we should start looking for somewhere to spend the night," Neal said.
It was only just nearing twilight; Peter looked around in surprise. "We can keep going for at least another couple of hours, surely."
"Lights," Neal said, at the same time as Diana realised what he was getting at. "We’ll be visible for miles."
Peter nodded. "Good point." He peered out through the windscreen. "I think I see something up there."
They found a farm house, deserted like everywhere else. Peter didn’t protest at the lockpicking this time. "We should find something to cover the windows if we want light inside," he said. "Blankets or something."
The electricity wasn’t working, but Diana managed to find candles and matches while Neal and Peter worked together to black out the windows of the main room. She checked out the kitchen, and found that the fridge contained vegetables and cheese that looked okay, so she put it on plates along with some slightly dry bread.
"It would have gone off," she said, a little defensively, as she carried the meal into the other room.
"No, I know," Peter said. He looked tired, as he had since the field. Drained, even; of tension and of something else. She didn’t care to follow the thought, and turned instead to watch Neal light more candles, setting them carefully about the room to maximise the light.
In the middle of the night she woke. They had elected to sleep together, without needing to discuss it. It had been a quiet meal.
A tall candle was still burning, and when she raised herself onto her elbows it was to see Neal sitting against the wall, watching the flame.
Carefully, Diana shuffled over towards him. Peter was on the other side of the room, snuffling occasionally as he slept.
"Want some company?" she asked.
He half-shrugged, which she took as an invitation, and she settled against the wall next to him. "Can’t sleep?"
He shook his head. "You know about these things. Honestly, how far do you think the virus has spread?"
She shivered, immediately clamping down on her body’s reaction. She was trying very hard not to think about such things. "Neal, I’m from the FBI, not the CDC."
"Yes, but..." He half-shrugged again.
"You’re worried about Elizabeth and Mozzie?"
"Yes," he said, quietly. "I’m so afraid for them. And for June, god, and Sara. Do you think she’s safe in England?"
Diana wanted to offer him some comfort, but somehow the half-dark made it harder, not easier, to lie. "I don’t know."
Neal touched her arm, very lightly. "Di, what happened?"
"What do you mean?"
He met her eyes. His expression was concerned. "You’re... I don’t know. It’s like you’re on autopilot. Peter’s worried about you." He added, "I am, too," as if that wasn’t obvious.
Was she? She felt... numb, still. Keep going. Just keep going. Don't think about what's behind, or ahead.
But Neal was dragging it up out of her anyway. "Christie’s dead," she whispered.
"We don’t know that," Neal said, and he was trying to be kind, she knew that, but the gently-spoken words felt like knives twisting in her chest. "We survived, didn’t we? Maybe --"
She shook her head, cutting him off. "No. No. Neal, I watched her die."
Neal stared at her, appalled. "What?"
"In the hospital. It - she was coughing, and her lungs -" She was abruptly almost choking herself, and for a moment of panic was certain that she, too, couldn’t breathe, but then the painful tightness in her throat eased into the sting of unfamiliar tears. She tried to blink them back, but they were already spilling down her cheeks.
Neal put her arm around her, tentatively at first, and she leaned against his shoulder, not looking at him while she cried as quietly as she could so as to not wake Peter. And because she didn’t want to be crying. There wasn’t time, she had to be strong and keep going...
He didn’t ask why she hadn’t told them before, and she was absurdly grateful for that. The candle flame wavered and flickered through her watery sight, and eventually the tears dried up. "Sorry," she mumbled.
He squeezed his arm around her, and she hoped suddenly that someone had done this for him after Kate’s death, giving him space and safety to cry. June must have, she thought, and the tears threatened to well up again at the memory of June giving them a way out, and remaining behind herself.
"We’re going to be okay," he said, at last. She wriggled so that she could look at him, because he sounded uncharacteristically fierce. "We’ll get to Elizabeth and Mozzie and then... and then we’ll be okay."
Home for him was a small group of people, the ones you held tight to and defended against whatever storm arose. It was a definition which had no concern for the concept of society-wide nets and structures, except occasionally as something to be avoided. And those things... here, at least, they had been lost, and for Neal it might not really matter, but for her it was one of the things contributing to the unsteady, vertiginous feeling of the ground being stolen from under her feet.
"What will we do then?" she asked.
Neal shrugged. "We find a place, and set up in it. I don’t know. Maybe Peter would let me raid an art gallery for decoration."
She surprised herself with a soft laugh. "Yeah, right."
He nudged her with a shoulder. "Why, what were you thinking of doing?"
She shrugged. "We could try to join up with other people who've survived, see if we can help. You know Peter will want to."
"I don’t see what help we’d be."
Diana shrugged again, because she didn’t know how to say that in his concept of the future it was the structure she knew that she would miss; the sense of purpose. Right now they were all adrift.
- - -
They left at first light. It was becoming difficult now to avoid the main roads, even though it clearly made Peter uncomfortable to drive on them. Soon there was another reason for being glad they had kept off them the day before - every now and then they passed vehicles which the driver had managed to park on the hard shoulder before succumbing to the effects of the virus. Others hadn’t been as lucky, and had crashed. Not that it would have made much of a difference to the driver, but it would have for the passengers.
One of the things they had found in the small town was a supply of medical face-masks in a pharmacy. Diana rummaged in the back and handed them out.
They stopped for gas a few times, at stations which were abandoned and empty even though the electricity still worked. Diana stood watch while Neal filled the tank, and Peter remained in the driver’s seat so that they could leave as soon as possible. The lack of any people had become incredibly unsettling, and Neal felt the hairs on the back of his neck constantly prickling as he glanced around.
The trouble finally came as they cut around an outer suburb of Chicago. Neal had been dozing while Peter was again driving (Diana had taken a turn, but Peter was full of enough nervous energy as they got closer to Elizabeth to make him a terrible passenger). He heard a rattling sound, and a second later slammed into his seatbelt as Peter jammed on the breaks, swearing sharply.
Neal swore as well, looking round wildly to see what had happened. "Gunshots," Peter said, before he could ask. "Someone wants us to stop."
The someones emerged from the nearest house - the shots had been fired through the open window. Two people, both with automatic rifles and incongruous-looking surgical masks. They were also wearing flak jackets.
"Guess they found a military supply store," Diana said, quietly.
In obedience to sharp a hand-gesture, Peter rolled his window down. He didn't reach for his weapon, but Neal knew he could draw it in seconds if he needed to. "We don’t want any trouble," he said. "We’re just passing through."
"Road’s closed," the taller of the two masked figures said. A woman.
Peter raised his hands from the steering wheel. "Okay. We’ll turn around if you want us to."
Neal was very much in agreement with that strategy.
"Where are you from?" The second armed person was male.
"New York state," Peter said. "I’m looking for my wife."
"If she got sick and took off, she’ll have dropped dead by now," the woman said. Not maliciously, but flatly.
The man snorted. "He means she was here already."
The woman shrugged.
"She was visiting her parents in Lemont," Peter elaborated. "We’ve hardly seen anyone. How many people are alive?"
"Seriously?" the man demanded. "It’s war out here. How stupid do you think we are, asking for that sort of information?"
"We’re not trying to rob you," Diana said, trying to sound placating. "Look, never mind. We’ll just keep moving."
"Lemont doesn’t exist anymore," the woman said, bluntly. "Last I heard it was all on fire. No one to fight it."
"It’s true," the man said. "I talked to someone who used to live there. The chemical factory went up and everyone who wasn’t already dead got the hell out. You could see the smoke yesterday, when the sky was clear. Smell it, too."
"The virus has reached here?" Peter asked. His face had paled. Neal, who was skilled in the art of self-deception, sympathised with how desperately he had been hoping that not to be the case, and how much it hurt when you could no longer escape the knowledge that had been there all along.
The woman laughed hollowly. "It’s reached everywhere," she said. "My husband thought -" She cut herself off abruptly. "And where the hell are the authorities? Probably sheltering in an underground bunker somewhere, nice and safe."
Neal was sure that Peter disagreed, but he didn’t actually argue.
"Look, we could let them take a look at the list," the man said, quietly.
The visible portion of the woman’s face creased into a deep frown.
"Can we trade you anything for a look at it?" Neal asked. He had no idea what the list might be, but clearly something they considered to be valuable. And possibly helpful.
"Elsa, we let other people in."
Neal relaxed fractionally. If they had started using names, it meant they were on the verge of being convinced. "You’ll be able to watch us," he said. "However many people are in your group, I bet they’re well-armed, and outnumber the three of us."
Elsa made an annoyed sound. "Fine," she said, and opened the back door of the car. "Matt, you stay here. I’ll send someone back." She slid into the seat next to Diana, and nodded at Peter in the mirror. "Start driving, then."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Peter murmured to Neal.
Neal shrugged. "Got to be better than driving aimlessly around all of Illinois."
Elsa gave brusque directions, and Peter obeyed them, driving through more empty streets. Neal felt that the sight of them should be starting to become familiar, but it was still wrong and filled him with formless unease.
Before too long they were pulling up in front of a community centre. It had plenty of skylight windows, which was probably a good thing for the people inside since the ground-floor windows had all been boarded shut with heavy planks of wood.
"Out, then," Elsa said, once Peter had pulled up. "All of you."
"We’re supposed to just leave our car out here, unguarded?" Neal asked.
"I’m supposed to let you inside and gather information on us?" Elsa shot back.
Peter looked faintly amused. "Neal, I think we have to trust them."
Trust was over-rated, in Neal’s opinion, particularly when they had so few cards in their hand. But he got out of the car, and so did Diana and Peter.
"So what’s this list?" Diana asked.
"It’s a record," Elsa said, as she pulled open the door. "For people we know are alive, or dead. Everyone adds to it."
The list was across two walls. One wall for the living, and one for the dead. Names in a multitude of hands had been inked starkly onto the white paint, with details added sporadically next to them - last seen, intended headings, date of death. Even though it could only be days old, there were already far too many names on the wall for the living that had since been crossed out.
"What’s her name?" Elsa asked. She nodded to the hall’s occupants, some of whom had got to their feet as soon as the doors opened. There were maybe twenty people in that main room, with neat rows of bedding laid out on the floor for more than twice that number.
Peter had no eyes for them, already scouring the wall. "Elizabeth Burke," he said. "And -" He glanced at Neal.
Neal shook his head, unable to keep a smile from flitting across his face. "Mozzie actually signing his name to anything? Not a chance." Although he was already searching for an alias. The trouble was, there were so many possibilities...
Elsa pressed her hand fleetingly over a name, in what looked like an instinctive gesture. Elsa Chang, Neal read, above her fingers, and when she took her hand away, Liam Chang was below, crossed through. Feeling like an intruder, he looked away without reading the details.
"Peter!" Diana called, and Peter half-ran over, Neal following. It was the wrong wall, the wrong one...
But neither of the names were Elizabeth. They were both Mitchells, in her handwriting.
"Damn," Peter said, quietly, but he was already hurrying back, searching at a fevered pace. "She’s alive," he said. "Look!"
Elizabeth Burke, in well-known cursive, and below that, Dante Haversham. It was some of the most welcome artwork Neal had ever seen. "She wrote this two days ago," he said, looking at the date.
"Do you know if she’s still here?" Peter asked Elsa. There was a tinge of desperation in his voice - he was preparing for the answer even before she shook her head regretfully.
"There's just too many people coming through to keep track of," she said. "Not so many these last couple of days, now the gangs have got their teeth into everything, but..." She shook her head again.
"The gangs," Peter said, frowning. "What are they after?"
Elsa sighed wearily. "What do you think? Food, guns, medicine. This area used to be outside of the turf wars, but now they want everything we have. Hence the need for all the security." She didn't apologise for her suspicion of them, Neal noted.
Peter nodded. "Who’s in charge here?"
"No one, really." Elsa said.
"Elsa’s been organising things," a man piped up. He had been resting on top of one of the sleeping bags.
"Everyone’s been organising things," Elsa said, tiredly, like this was an argument she had had too many times.
"Yeah, but you wrote things down and made everyone stick to them."
Peter eyed her appraisingly. "Are you in law enforcement?"
"Right now, that’s as good a job title as any, I guess." She laughed, a little self-deprecatingly. "I was a journalist, if you can believe that. Not too relevant now."
"You’re doing good work here," Diana said, approvingly. She had probably picked up on more details than Neal had - his skills didn’t lie in how to fortify places, but he wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that it was another area in which Diana was an expert. "We’re FBI agents," she said, including Peter with a gesture. "Would you like to walk us around your setup?"
Elsa blinked, and then sagged slightly in relief. "That would be great. I really have no idea what I’m doing."
"I suspect much better than you think," Peter said, with a kind smile.
"I’ll ask around," Neal offered. "Find out if anyone remembers El and, uh, Haversham."
Peter nodded appreciation.
As Neal had suspected, it was a description of Mozzie which finally got a result. "Oh, him," said a woman sorting food stores, whom Neal was temporarily lending a hand to. "I couldn't possibly forget him. He had some interesting theories about... you know. All of this."
"Did they involve secret government agencies?" Neal had to ask, albeit with a slight feeling of dread.
"Oh, definitely. They were awfully entertaining stories." She chuckled to herself, and Neal grinned wryly.
But she didn’t know where they might have gone, which left him no better off than before, no matter long they talked for. Elizabeth would want to find Peter, and Mozzie would make it a priority for them both to stay alive. Had they tried to find somewhere safe out here, or headed back towards New York in the same desperate hope that had driven the three of them out?
In any case, with no better clues being turned up by Peter or Diana, Elsa was fairly easily able to persuade them to spend the night.
- - -
"Neal, wake up!" Peter was shouting, but Neal had already woken with a jolt. There were people running, shouting - He lay very still for a second, trying to get a bearing.
Then someone screamed, very near, and he was on his feet immediately, still disorientated in the darkness, still trying to work out what was happening.
"Find flashlights!" Peter called, but he only added to the din.
Someone grabbed Neal’s arm, and he flinched instinctively. "It’s me," Diana's voice said, close to his ear. "What’s going on?"
"I don’t know."
Maybe there was another outbreak. Elsa had tried to set up protocols for that, but people were prone to panic -
Then there was the loud report of gunfire, unmistakable, coming from somewhere outside.
"I think we’re under attack," Diana said.
Neal turned to ask her what they should do, but then there was the smash of breaking glass and he glanced up to see one of the skylights shattering, the jagged fragments of the pane momentarily visible and then turning invisible and deadly as they fell. There were cries of pain and terror.
"Get down!" Diana yelled, and pulled him to the floor as there were more gunshots -- wild, unaimed, but that hardly mattered when they were being fired into such a crowded space by whoever was standing on the roof. More people were screaming now; almost everyone was.
He didn’t know what started the fire. But flames shot up against one wall with a loud woomph and suddenly there was the light everyone had been shouting for, illuminating terrified faces in flickering orange.
"Everyone out!" Elsa was shouting from somewhere, loudly enough to cut through the din.
"Out!" Peter echoed. "Neal, Diana, get them out!"
Stumbling, tripping over bedding and bags, Neal tried to shepherd panicking people toward the doors without knowing if they were paying any attention to him at all. The smoke was stinging at his eyes, and the heat of the flames was a too-close horror. The gunman couldn’t still be shooting, at least - the smoke’s only escape upwards was through the broken skylight, and it would choke anyone standing there.
It was choking him. He had paused to wipe tears from his eyes and now he couldn’t remember which direction the door was in. Struggling to breathe he stumbled along blindly. He nearly tripped over someone bent double, coughing, and he grabbed their arm to pull them roughly along.
No air. Searing heat. Suddenly something slapped his face and he blinked, Diana's face hazy through his watering eyes. She was half-dragging him along, and he kept a tight hold on the person he was supporting.
The three of them burst out into the night air wheezing for breath. Then new hands were pulling him to safety as his legs began to fold, as people shouted back and forth above his head. There was more screaming in the distance, and it was the last thing he registered before he passed out.
- - -
Diana fought to remain conscious even with a lungful of smoke. She had lost track of Neal; she had no idea where Peter was. More gunfire signalled that they were still under attack. She wanted to help defend the small group, but it was enough of a struggle to keep breathing and she couldn’t do more than that. People were dragging her along, and she was suddenly being hauled up some steps and bundled onto a narrow sort of bench. Voices around her were shouting, and coughing. The smell of smoke was still sharp; overwhelming.
She tried to get up, but a woman was pressing down on her shoulders. "No, no, don’t fight me."
Was she a prisoner? A sudden rumble starting from all around told her that she was in a vehicle. Not their car.
"Diana, calm down"
It was Elsa, abruptly appearing above her. Diana finally stopped struggling as that fact slowly penetrated her fogged brain. Less panicked, she found that she could at last begin to take proper breaths, which in turn started to clear the black spots dancing in her eyes.
"You’re safe," Elsa said. "Or as safe as any of us are right now. We’re running."
Diana struggled again to sit up. "Help me," she demanded, and Elsa moved in quickly. "Where’s - Peter?" She was having to pause after every couple of syllables to breathe. "Neal?"
They were in some kind of coach. A school bus, she realised, belatedly.
"Peter’s driving your car - we loaded the trunk with all we could grab. Lucky we never made you unpack and share, I guess." She smiled briefly; bitterly. "Neal’s being looked after, he’s a few rows down."
"You were... attacked?"
Another humorless smile crossed Elsa’s face. "We were attacked, you mean. Guess I was right to be paranoid about the gangs." Her mouth twisted. "You’d think, in a time like this, people would work together."
Diana shook her head slightly, but didn’t say anything. She couldn’t, really, be surprised at how quickly people classed other people into us and them. Hell, even she and Neal had started down that road almost immediately.
"Where are we going?" she asked, after the silence had dragged for too long already.
Elsa shrugged. It was a non-expressive gesture, one which could mean anything from I have no idea to I don’t trust you enough to tell you.
But apparently they were all going along with her. Diana was relieved, really - she had no idea what they would have done next, with no further clues to guide them. They’d been lucky to get this far.
"How many people got away with us?" she asked.
"Maybe thirty," Elsa said. "We’ve got a small truck, too. There's a load of people travelling inside that."
"Elsa." The woman who had been looking after her before was standing in the aisle, looking anxious. She beckoned.
Elsa exchanged a quick, worried glance with Diana, and then she went along with the woman - Diana thought she really needed to learn everyone’s names, and fast. She followed.
In one of the front rows, a young man was slumped between the back of the seat and the window, his eyes glassy. He was coughing.
"How long’s he been sick, Julie?" Elsa asked, speaking quietly.
"He was fine before the fire," Julie murmured back.
The first symptom is fever. Diana had heard about it but hadn’t observed the early stages of the virus at all, only the end result. She glanced nervously between the two women.
"If he’s got.. that... then he can’t stay on the bus," Diana whispered, hoping no one else could hear her. Least of all that poor young man. "It’s spread through fluid contact, isn’t it?"
Julie nodded. "We worked that out pretty fast in my clinic."
"You’re a doctor?"
She shook her head. "Just a nurse. But Josh looks the same as the others did. The virus probably got a hold once his lungs had been damaged by smoke."
"Who would he have caught it off, though?" Diana asked. She was aware that although they were all whispering, most of the passengers who weren’t asleep had worked out that something was going on and were craning anxiously to look.
Julie shook her head. "I’ve seen some people get infected but not realise it. Then a couple of days later the virus sort of rips through their body all at once. Maybe that would have happened to him if not for the fire."
Diana swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. "I’ve - I’ve seen that too."
"Joshua," Elsa said, firmly. "Can you hear me?"
He jerked slightly, as if he’d thought he was alone, and sluggishly moved his eyes to focus on her. But instead of saying anything he just kept coughing, and now there were flecks of blood around his lips.
Elsa touched Diana’s arm. "Get the bus to stop," she said.
She slipped down the aisle. The driver was the guy who had been on guard with Elsa when they’d first met her. "Matt, can you pull over?" she asked.
He didn’t do it dramatically, which she was glad about, and he waited until they’d stopped to ask, "What’s going on?"
"A guy - called Joshua - he’s sick." She didn’t need to add with what.
"Josh," Julie was coaxing, behind her. "Come on, up you get. You can do it."
Joshua nodded vaguely as he swayed between the seats, but he followed Julie. Diana backed down the steps to give them room.
"Julie, wha’.." he mumbled.
"It’s okay, don’t worry."
He was beginning to shake by the time he made it onto the verge. Julie was almost crying. Diana glanced up at the bus. They had an audience, of course. Neal’s face was among those at the windows, and Diana felt a sharp pang of relief to see him up.
Joshua was coughing more blood now, his movements erratic.
"We can’t really leave him here," Julie whispered, not sounding like she believed it.
"We have to," Elsa said, her face miserable.
"Julie, he’s sick," Diana said, trying to be calming. "You know it’s too late. There’s nothing we can do."
"People get better!" Julie protested.
Diana flinched violently. "What?"
Elsa took hold of Julie’s arm. "Very few. After violent delirium and infecting who knows how many others. We have to leave him here, and you know it."
Julie didn't nod but she bit her lip, not protesting either.
Diana let herself be hustled back into the bus, ahead of the other two. People got better... No one in the field hospital had gotten better, but they hadn't had the chance. She and the others had tied them all down to die choking for breath. Some of them might have lived...
Joshua must have belatedly realised that they were abandoning him. He stumbled forward as Matt started the engine, slamming an unsteady hand against the closed door.
"Go," Elsa said, harshly. She was trying to keep looking at Joshua, but she couldn’t.
Matt gave her an agonised look, and she glared back. He pulled the bus out onto the road, picking up speed until they were rumbling along like they had never stopped.
"No one go near where Josh was sitting," Elsa said. She didn’t have to raise her voice. Everyone was watching her in silence, even the couple of children. She walked all the way down the aisle to the back, and squeezed herself down into a row mostly filled with bags of supplies, where she could be hidden.
Diana wanted to do the same. But she had already met Neal's eyes, so she went to join him.
"Are you okay?" he asked, quietly. When she didn’t answer, he continued, "From the smoke."
She nodded. The effects were down to just a sore rasping in her throat when she swallowed. "How about you?"
"I still feel a bit dizzy, but I’ve stopped coughing, at least." He broke into a small coughing fit as soon as the words had left his mouth, and smiled wryly when he was done. "Well, mostly."
"That’s good," she said. "I’d have to explain it to Peter otherwise."
"I’m glad my fate is such a high priority to you."
Diana found herself smiling more fondly than she’d meant to, and didn’t doubt that Neal had noticed. But he didn’t say anything about it.
Neither of them knew where they were going, and they didn't feel like talking. Neal dozed off with his head tipped to one side, still coughing occasionally, and Diana stared past him out of the window watching endless fields and low hills roll by.
She woke abruptly when the background drone of the engine cut out. It was another deeply overcast day, and when she checked her watch she was surprised to find it was already early afternoon. Then she looked out of the window.
They were nowhere she recognised. Farmland, surrounded by trees. There was a collection of buildings that looked like they’d been thrown together randomly with no plan or pattern.
At the front, Elsa stood up. "This is the place?" she asked a man beside her. He was the one Neal had pulled out of the hall.
"Yeah," he said. George, she remembered his name was. "Belongs to my uncle. If he’s still here..."
Everyone seemed to be waiting. After a second George led the way off the bus.
The truck (Elsa had qualified it as small, but it was really more of a van) and three cars were pulling up. Peter got out of one, head turning quickly as he flicked his eyes along everyone. His face lit up as he caught sight of Neal and Diana, and they pushed forwards to reach him.
"You’re okay?" he said, quickly. "You’re both okay?"
"We’re fine," Neal assured him, and was enveloped in a relieved hug. "Peter, we’re fine," he protested, but didn’t really struggle.
Diana hugged him back tightly when it was her turn. "So, we’re staying with these people?" she asked.
Peter half-shrugged, like he was embarrassed. "They’re trying to build up, keep themselves safe. We can help."
But he couldn't hold the smile, and his eyes were beginning to fill.
"We won't give up on them," Neal said, very quietly. "Peter -"
But he trailed off.
"I don't know how to find her," Peter said. He looked like he was shocked at his own words. "If we could have stayed in Chicago, but..."
"But we couldn't," Diana said, softly. She was aware that she was an interloper on this shared grief. She had lost, but lost with a brutal finality. More agonising than a dwindling uncertainty, but cleaner.
The doors at the rear of the truck were still shut. Matt slapped a hand against them. "Does this actually open from inside?" he asked, and pulled the handle.
"Wait!" Elsa said, sharply, but they were already swinging wide.
Everyone inside was dead. There were maybe ten people. Blood-flecked, bloody.
Elsa slammed the doors shut again, and leaned against them. "Fuck," she said. "Oh fuck, fuck."
The mood of holiday had been punctured. "Damn," Diana muttered, and wiped at her eyes. "Of course we're not safe here."
"We're as safe as anywhere," Peter said, soberly. "Here's better than a lot of places are bound to be. I think safety is going to be in remoteness for the next while, until things settle down." He looked around, but his eyes were distant. Diana knew that if there was anything, anything to go on then he would be off immediately to chase down Elizabeth's location.
But the country was too big, and too broken. And it seemed to physically contract around Diana at the realisation that this was it. This was where they were staying.
Part 1
Part 3
Part 4
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