The Everlasting, Chapter 2
Title: The Everlasting
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None for *this* chapter...
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
"I'm taking off tomorrow," Eliot said one night, not looking Hardison's way, but watching for his reaction in the window's reflection. "Got a gig out in Switzerland. Might take a while, but I'm just going to get rusty, sitting here."
"Yeah," Alec nodded, not asking when he'd be back, never even looking up from his screen. He probably knew as well as Eliot did what this really was and wasn't about. He had to know that it had been coming for a while, now, ever since Sophie left for Belfast and Parker went to Mars, or wherever it was that she went. Ever since Nate refused to come back.
Granted, it wasn't like transporting seven stolen paintings across Europe was likely to be relaxing, but it beat sitting around waiting for Hardison to make sense of the Nate's scrawled notes as he looked for a client, a case, a cause. Something to bring everyone back.
It hurt to watch, Alec wanted it so bad, but Eliot had used up all his arguments three days ago.
It was just sex, that night. Good, but nothing more, and they didn't talk much over breakfast the next morning. Alec probably had his reasons, and Eliot didn't want any words to make anything permanent.
No definitions, no promises, and it was just as well. A few days later, there'd been no way to live up to them.
---
Once the job was done, Eliot left Zurich for Caracas. It was a good a place to figure out what came next as any. He was lonely, though. Mostly, it just felt like delaying the inevitable.
The job had been easy, if boring, and though the money was unimpressive, it was enough to buy the most top of the line laptop he could find. He didn't even realize, until he was checking his cell on the way to the register, that he was waiting for a call. That he was buying a peace offering, and that he hadn't even meant to set foot in the store in the first place.
It was probably worth it, though.
Alec had been clutching at straws to get the crew back together, and Eliot had bailed, simple as that. He had a lot to make up for.
When the phone eventually rang, though, it wasn't Alec, but Sophie, hysteric, and she was telling him to turn on the news.
Eliot didn't leave his hotel room for three days. He stared at the television until the glare burned his eyes, cursing the networks that were too stupid to tell him what he wanted to know. The reports said that the American border was closed, there was no getting in or out. With expected death tolls expected to roll up into the millions, it seemed that the main purpose of the news was to engage in finger-pointing. The usual suspects' greatest hits. Al Quaeda, the Taliban, everyone was trying to take credit.
None of the reports told him who still lived, or gave him anything useful.
For three days, he tried to call his sister, Hardison, even Parker, but all the lines were confused, not knowing whether to be busy or dead. It changed, every time. He refreshed the browser on Alec's brand new laptop every five minutes, but his inbox remained empty.
It was bright and sunny outside when he managed to find out that his sister and nephew, out in Nebraska, probably hadn't made it. It hadn't merely been the EMP that had struck. A warhead, somewhere in the atmosphere. Most of the deadly radiation was spreading from the Midwest, mostly to the west and north, into Canada. There was no way he wanted to see that. For the time being, the coasts were powerless but alive.
Unless they killed themselves off, first. Wars were breaking out, fires and shootings and bodies were lining the streets of most cities, the news said.
Parker was still there. She was probably alive. But Alec?
Alec was gone. Had to be. Even he couldn't be that lucky. Or maybe lucky meant something entirely different, now, Eliot didn't know. But some information was getting out, slowly.
Somewhere, there were phones and emails and all that, and Hardison would be the one person in all the world who would know how to get it together to get a message out.
Four days later, Eliot still hadn't heard anything, and the not knowing was starting to drive him insane. But there wasn't a flight in the world that would go to North America right then.
---
It took a week to make it through Panama and Guatemala and up into Cancun, and another week before he could get to Cuba.
It took him five weeks, all the cash he had, and Alec's peace offering, to get a space on a too-small boat headed for Miami via the Bahamas, and it wasn't a pleasant trip. Not only was the navigation equipment functioning erratically, something about the satellites being down, but the crew was insane, the seventeen other passengers mostly mad.
It took him days, and a good long look at his reflection in the window to realize that they weren't the only ones.
The trip, once upon a time, should have taken a few hundred dollars and less than a day. Nobody should have died en route, and he was pretty sure he should have recognized Miami when they arrived.
He heard seven rounds of gunfire before he'd even gotten off the boat, and wondered who it was that was shooting, and who they were shooting at. This, in all honesty, he'd been ready for.
He hadn't been ready to imagine Alec's bloodied skull crashing against the pavement with every crack echoing off the buildings. It was bad enough that it had probably happened, but it was worse to focus on, now, when he was far too late to do anything. All he could do now was try and decide where to go next.
Parker, and all her street smarts, might still be in Boston. Maybe she'd been there, when Alec went down. Maybe she'd kept him alive.
But Eliot's farm was where any chance at living would be.
He had hundreds of miles to go, yet, before he'd have to decide. Maybe he'd get a line through, hear something that would tell him where he was supposed to go, what he should do.
Maybe Hardison will send that fucking email.
Then again, maybe he wouldn't.
---
The nightmares didn't start until he was stateside, but they came with a vengeance. He dreamt about Hardison, fighting for the last of the food, about blood flowing, or that he was locked inside his apartment as some small infection slowly killed him. Saw him curled up on his kitchen floor, fading away into nothing, listening to the riot outside his door. In another dream, he just stared back at Eliot, reproach in his eyes, the words we could have stopped this hanging in the air somewhere.
It was stupid, unfair, and Eliot knew it.
Alec wasn't much of a fighter, but he wasn't a wimp. And he could charm the pants off anyone, as long as he wasn't playing a role. And he was smart. And he probably had Parker, nearby.
Those two could take over the world, if they wanted, or at least what was left of it.
They were fine. They had to be.
---
Miami was a hellhole. Some things never changed.
He'd been through some shit, but not enough that he could bring himself to use the relief lines. They were too dangerous, a stupid risk. Getting crushed on the way in seemed to be directly followed by getting beaten half to death on the way out. He stayed for a few hours and tried to help out, made sure a few kids got back to their folks, but he was only one among many. There were just too many bodies milling about to even make a dent.
In the crowd, he got caught up though. Heard that some electricity had returned, intermittently, that some people had started stringing wires out and getting some basic lights and refrigeration working. And there was shortwave radio. There was communication, mostly set up by the National Guard. Several of the older-model cars still worked, though it was expensive as hell to get a ride, anymore, and it didn't really matter. There were too many vehicles already abandoned on the highway to get very far. It would have been comical that people were still trying, but for the bloodied dead bodies fallen on every main street, rotting in the hot sun.
The foot traffic was denser than he'd ever seen it, and most of the gaps in the crowd proved to be the wide berths people were still trying to give the corpses. He was at the edge of the crowd when he watched one boy shove another one into the body of a mustached man lying in the gutter. Everyone heard the sound it made, and everyone tried not to look.
He started heading north, and kept his eyes open.
It took a day or so, but it paid off when he found a bar that was still more or less functioning, even if the beer was warm. After that, it was just a matter of waiting, watching the drunks who actually had to talk to each other, instead of watching the television above the bar, for entertainment. There was a man in the corner with a guitar, he could almost even play it. And there were the usual games. Darts, pool. Cards were making a resurgence, and he edged in on a game. Played more carefully than he'd ever played, and left with no fuss, the proud owner of a crappy scraped up motorcycle with gas in the tank.
After two days walking, it was the best thing he'd ever ridden.
He stayed off the highways as much as possible, but passed people. Sometimes, they'd run, sometimes they'd stare back shell-shocked or dead-eyed. Sometimes, though, they'd actually talk. The usual things. People still talked about the weather. Or about how the cities to the north were dead and dying, overzealous deputies guarding county lines up the road, or another cult that had popped up in Tennessee, rumors of human sacrifice or suicide pacts. He'd tell them what he could, but it was never enough, on either side.
A month ago, they'd probably been receptionists, or mechanics, or factory workers, and now they were carrying guns and pointing them at anything that moved. Sometimes they were women shepherding children that might have been theirs, and these were the most dangerous.
Eliot knew how to move through hostile territory, though. Even when the exhaustion from sleeping around nightmares got to the point where his head was swimming.
---
Andrew, the last doctor still working in the neighborhood, came in to the post office to see if anyone had tried paying for postage in medical supplies. He looked tired, and Alec said so.
"It's Cornelius," he said. "You know about him?"
"Heard the name. Rhonda and that guy she's with all the time. They were sayin' something about him the other day. Something about a play on the last relief shipment, right?"
"He didn't just make a play, he won. Big time. All of it, available for a price. Got the food, again, and the medical supplies, too, this time. Guys can owe him, and I bet you can imagine how that turns out. Women can pay his crew a little more directly."
"Directly meaning?"
"They're not calling it rape. They're coming in with- Well. A lot of things, saying they're fine because their kids are eating. Some of them are so used to it that you'd think they were coming in for a basic checkup, not..." Andrew sighed, shook his head. "Anyway, have you heard any rumors that the blockade over on Morrissey's fallen?"
"Yeah, but I haven't tried going through. You thinking about it?"
"I'm hoping the campus health center might have some stocks that nobody's found. Antibiotics, Plan B, painkillers, vitamins. Any prescription drugs that might keep another few heart attacks at bay for another month." Andrew looked over his shoulder as he reached for the door. "You need anything?"
---
A few days later, Alec heard that Andrew had died, trying to cross over. There was a funeral and everything, which was surreal. There'd been so many deaths that it was impressive that anyone had actually taken notice. Andrew's death had actually rated, at least.
It was probably about as much as you could hope for, these days.
Alec wrote Nate again, that night. Told him all about it, about everything, like how if the team were here, they could take out Cornelius, fix some shit. He sorted it in the pile for upstate New York, shoved the packet in the bag for Mica, and only later wondered why he'd bothered writing at all.
About a week after the funeral, Andrew's clinic closed down. There weren't enough people to keep it running.
Nate never wrote back.
---
Alec sat up on the roof and wondered if Mica would be returning that night with the mail from downtown. His neck was getting sore from stretching to look down the street, trying to see if he could spot him.
After the second or third hour, he realized he wasn't watching for Mica. He was trying to catch sight of somebody else stalking the pavement, with long brown hair.
Mica didn't show up until the next afternoon, setting the bags on the table and explaining that there'd been a shootout downtown. He'd been grazed, but had managed to bail out into an office building, where he'd fallen asleep. He seemed a little surprised that he was paid with two bags of food instead of one.
"For your trouble," Alec said, when Mica commented that usually, running deliveries, back in the day, twelve hours late meant some serious shit. "You've met your quota for gunshots already."
Mica had made it through okay, and he was good, but he didn't have half the game Eliot did. So where the hell was he?
---
The motorcycle ran out of gas for good in South Carolina, and with no fuel in sight, he was going to have to leave it and look for a new one when he could. In the meantime, he went on foot.
He'd been walking for three hours, warily skirting the highway, when he realized that he was being followed. Two girls, both in their mid-twenties, by the looks of it. They never came closer than the length of a football field, but he could feel their eyes on him, constantly, for the rest of the day.
Around nightfall, he'd had enough. He stopped in the middle of the road. Sat down and drank some water, and waited for them to decide for them to scatter, or continue. Towards him.
He was a little surprised at how long it took, but then again, he hadn't managed to bathe in a few days, and the stubble had already turned to beard. He looked a mess, exactly the thing your mother thought of when she warned you not to talk to strangers.
Eventually, though, the girls came closer. Leah was the younger of the two, and blonde, and did all the talking. Susie, her friend, was dead eyed, with bruises on her face and neck that Eliot didn't want to think about.
"Where you headed?"
"Boston," Eliot replied, because he hadn't changed his mind yet, not in the past half hour or so. "What about you two?"
"Georgetown," Leah said, glancing sideways at Susie. "Hey, look. If you want, we could join forces for a while. Safety in numbers and all that."
"That's fine, but I'm planning on getting off this highway, real soon. You're welcome to come with me, but I'm heading up through the forest, along the edge. Rougher walking, but fewer people."
"Fewer resources, too," Leah shot anther look at her friend, worried.
"I can hunt, if it comes down to it, but we can get supplies on the way. Had some basic survival training when I was in the military, and have no problems with stealing from stores and empty houses."
The girls stepped away, to the side of the road, and had a heated conversation in hushed tones. When they returned, Leah only had one question.
"Why Boston? Is that home?"
"Might be," Eliot answered, and only then realized what she was fishing for. "I've got family there. A boyfriend." At least, I might, he didn't add, because he didn't need to, and right then, it wasn't important. Not as important as getting them to trust him, because Susie looked like she was ready to go her own way, and didn't look like she cared what came next.
"Good enough for us," Leah said, and that settled it, more or less.
---
"It's your birthday," Parker was waiting for him at the counter when he out down from the back office he'd turned into his home. As if to prove her point, she brandished a familiar looking wall calendar. It had been Nate's. "So happy birthday. Oh!" Shaking her head, she stooped down to pick up his present. A cooler, with two cans of orange soda inside. Not his favorite brand, but they was cold when he touched it. "Where did you-"
"There's actually a whole case, but they're in the refrigerator I scored. Found it in a corner at the thrift shop when I was out looting. Tried it on the off chance."
"How'd you move it?"
"In a wagon. It's one of those really small ones, like for hotel rooms."
"You still living at the school?"
"Yeah. Made a deal with the Kings, I procure some things for them, they've included the school in their turf." Parker pulled herself up to sit on the counter. Her hair was almost as short as Alec's now, but chunkier, like she'd hacked it off with dull scissors. "Even pushed out their border to give us a three block buffer on each side. They're cool. Well. You know. Few of them are talking about making a run on Cornelius, but they don't know anything about coordination, so we'll see what happens to the buffer when they start getting picked off..." Realizing she was rambling, she broke off and looked around. "What's going on around here?"
"Yeah," Alec said, because he was still thinking about what she'd said. Blinking back into awareness, he shook himself. "Nothing much. Hey, uh. Just how bad are the Kings at coordination? I mean, they got it enough to expand their turf, right?"
"Against other gangs, but there's nobody that's got their numbers in the area. They're all even more disorganized. Cornelius isn't."
"No shit. He's been getting in deeper, here, every week. So. You in?"
"What?"
"You, me, and a small army against Cornelius. What do you say?"
"I don't know," she said, but she was smiling, breaking out into a grin. "Wait. I do. Like, let's go steal us a black market, or something. Right?"
"Damn right."
---
Even with two others, the interstate still felt like a hunting ground, and the sooner they got off the main drag, the better.
It was a few miles up trafficless roads that he realized Leah was keeping herself between Eliot and Susie at all times. At first, he thought she was trying to pull, but as the miles wore on, it soon became apparent that she was trying to protect Susie.
There was no good way to ask what happened. Eliot wasn't sure he really wanted to know, anyhow. He had his suspicions. But in the end, he didn't have to. Leah, bolstered by half a bottle of wine from her pack, one night, checked that Susie was asleep, and told him.
"We met up about a week back at a truck stop. There were two guys, it was a bad scene. I had to shoot one of them to get them off of her. It's how we met. Because the world is fucked and we couldn't have met at the same high school. But she was a senior when I was a freshman. It took all this messed up shit, you know?"
"Yeah."
"I think the guy died. I don't know. I probably killed a man. That's fucked, right?"
"Yeah," Eliot shrugged, and raised the bottle in a toast before passing it back.
---
They'd managed to hitch a ride on an overcrowded church bus that had probably been stolen, and managed four hours before the dead cars grew too dense to move around.
It was only another day later that they reached Georgetown. Leah was nearly giddy at the sight of it, and even Susie looked relieved. She invited him to her mom's house, saying that he was welcome to stay, maybe eat something, and sleep with a roof over his head for a bit, if he wanted.
It was a nice idea, though equally likely was the chance that he'd just be an awkward third wheel when they discovered that they had nobody left in the world.
Or he could keep going. So he did.
---
It was easier to think when he was alone, but it was harder to not think, and that was becoming the problem.
He knew that by all rights, he should avoid Boston. He should go out to his farm, make sure it was still standing.
Maybe it was because he'd been living off oatmeal and bouillon and roadside weeds for the better part of a week, but he didn't even care, any more. Besides, if things were as bad as he thought they were, it would honestly be easier to finagle a route out to Europe. Get his cash, set up somewhere where money still had any value at all.
But that could take some time. It would be safer to head to the farm, get some things planted. Maybe get his dad's bike rebuilt. If he was really lucky, he'd be able to find enough fuel to run it.
And maybe if the crew's alive, they'll have enough wits to come looking. Hell, maybe they're already there.
In another day or so, he would have to decide if he wanted to start veering northwest, or keep towards Boston. He wished it was an easier choice to make.
---
There were eight people, gathered at the bridge up ahead. They didn't look like one of the unofficial toll ways that had opened since the world went to hell, which was lucky, since he didn't have anything to buy passage with, hadn't eaten in a day, and didn't feel particularly like fighting them off.
He did slow down, though. There was only one guy standing guard, but he was holding the gun like he knew how to use it, and Eliot had already been spotted. The sentry gestured to the others, and Eliot suddenly found himself in the strange situation of having to accept a dinner invitation.
"I can't pay you," he said.
"Today's main ingredients are tuna and mayo," a woman said, brandishing an institutional sized tub. "We scored them off the loading dock at a high school the other day. Neither of these are gonna keep real well and there's no sense wasting food. And it beats whatever dried stuff you've got to be carrying. Let me guess. You've been living on rice and dried beans?"
"Oatmeal and bouillon cubes, mostly." Eliot grinned and sat down on the curb as introductions were made. He didn't relax, though, until he'd heard enough to confirm that there was no religious talk, just two families, sick of waiting to be saved.
"Heading to Florida," Edward said, and Miranda, his wife, explained, "We're hoping to find some land and get some things planted and grown before winter hits."
"You know plants?" Eliot asked, out of politeness, more than anything. It wasn't the first time he'd heard this.
Miranda shrugged. "Grew up on a farm. Mostly corn, but I've always kept a garden. Until the gangs decided they wanted to try out our garden for themselves," she grimaced. "But there's a longer growing season down south, if it comes down to it, and worst case scenario, it's the same messed up situation, but we won't freeze to death."
The lone teenager in the group, a kid by the name of Rory, rolled his eyes, and one of the younger girls kicked him and ratted him out. Siblings, then.
"What?" He rolled his eyes again. "Yeah. Like there's no chance that everyone else in New York's having the same idea."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. It wasn't the first time anyone had thought it, and as much as they were all deliberately optimistic, it was already cracking a little at the seams.
"Are y'all at all flexible on your destination?"
"You know someplace better?"
"Got a farm about three days northwest, and no plans to go there," Eliot shrugged. "It's yours if you want it."
"What?" Miranda asked, as Rory chimed in with "What's wrong with it?"
"Weeds've probably taken over the yard, but other than that? It's out in the middle of nowhere. There's no finding it by accident."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I spent the first eighteen years of my life there," he said, because I was on the market for an isolated, secure hideout in case the heat got too much sounded about as dubious as it actually was. "Anyhow, the pantry's stocked with non-perishables, and there's plenty of seed in the garage. Don't know if you got anything better down in Florida, but you can have it if you want."
"If it's so great, why aren't you there?"
"It's a lot of work for one guy, and I've got to find out if my family's up the road."
"What's the catch?"
Eliot gave it some thought, realizing dimly that this was probably not the most well thought out plan he'd ever conceived. It wasn't the kind he would've even considered, back when he'd bought the place.
"There's an Indian motorcycle in the garage, almost completely rebuilt. I'll come get it when I can. Other than that? I don't need anything there. Soon as I find my family, I'm leaving the country again."
Eliot took the keys off his ring and tossed them over to Edward.
"Seriously?" Edward asked, in a tone so reminiscent of Hardison that it almost hurt to hear. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I've been living on oatmeal for a week straight now, and the protein's going to my head," Eliot joked. "Look. For everything I just said, you'd still be taking a chance, going out there, same as Florida or anywhere else. But it's not as far."
Miranda glanced wearily at the trailer she had attached to the back of her bicycle, and even before she pulled Edward aside, Eliot knew they were going to accept the offer. He scrounged up a pen and borrowed some paper, and set to writing out the directions.
---
He figured he'd done the right thing, giving away the keys to the farm. It forced his hand, for one. One less choice to make. He was going to Boston. There were no other options.
And there were eight of them, including the kids, and only one of him. They needed it more, and could probably make it work if they had to.
On the whole, it felt like the right thing to do. Almost like doing a job with the team.
But it didn't stop him from wishing that it had earned him some karma points, later that night, as he broke the leg of the man who'd woken him up by holding a gun to his head.
Sometimes, you just break even, he thought at the top of the hill, looking back towards the sound of the third whimpering man he'd left in his wake since Miami.
---
New York was the worst. Out on the road, you could get some distance. Here, though, even with so many already dead or fled, the crowds were unbearable. The subway tunnels were the best way to get around, but they were the most dangerous. There were stretches unlit by the fires where darkness was nearly complete, unless you had a torch. And if you did, if you turned it on, it was only to see eight or nine other people waiting to take it from you.
Up above, there was at least sometimes enough wind to move the stench of bodies away. Down here, there was no wind, and the smell stuck to his clothes and hair when he emerged.
New York was still crowded, and the subway still smelled funny. Apparently, though, there were still shows on Broadway. Actors and actresses still trying to feed themselves. He wondered how many people, these days, actually went. How many were actually willing to part with food in order to watch Cats or The Sound of Music, any more.
He missed Sophie, but didn't wish she was here. She'd never earn enough to stay alive, working the musical circuit.
Up at the fork ahead, it looked like the fire was about to burn out, so Eliot started looking for garbage to pile on when he passed, but it had been picked through, already burned. Apart from the bodies, the tunnels were probably the cleanest they'd ever been.
But the fire was sputtering, making a slow strobe of light flashing out over the three people up ahead. They'd been moving cautiously, but now they appeared even slower, like zombies.
He'd gone to Hardison's place to pick up some gear once, a few months before going over to Hardison's place had started becoming a regular thing, and had found him covered in ashy makeup and fake blood, wearing one cataract contact lens.
"If you're getting set up to run game on somebody, you've totally overdone the blood, he said, giving him a wide berth and heading for the case of pamphlets that Alec had gotten printed. "It's too red, for as drained as you're done up,"
"What? Nah. Zombie pub crawl."
"What?"
"Zombies, drinking. It's gonna be awesome."
"So what, like, you're just going to go to a bar dressed like an idiot?"
"Nah, man, I got a date, and there's probably going to be a few hundred people on this thing," he said, heading back into the bathroom to put in the other lens.
"I gotta ask. Is it true love with this girl, or necrophilia?"
"Shut up man," Hardison called out, just as his cell rang from the hall table.
Eliot glanced down to read the caller ID as he passed towards the closet. Some guy named Mike. "Your phone's going off," he shouted. "Where did you put the cameras?"
"Back office," Hardison said, emerging to grab the phone as Eliot headed back through the apartment.
At first glance, the office was a disaster zone, with boxes and wires everywhere, so it was going to be easier to wait for Hardison to get off the phone. He hadn't actually meant to listen in.
"...yeah, I know. Looking forward to it. I'll meet you there at nine."
So Hardison was going out on a date with a guy named Mike, and Eliot was standing in the doorway of Hardison's office, feeling like he'd missed something, and yelling again for Hardison to tell him where the damned cameras were, because he didn't have all night to sit around and watch him put on makeup.
---
Probably because the end was finally in sight, the guards at the edge of Boston had to ask him a hundred questions about why he was coming into Boston, what he'd been doing in New York, the route he'd taken, and where, exactly, he was going. One of them gave him a hundred warnings about how many people had already fled to Boston, while the other went into the back room with Eliot's ID. They wanted to know if he had any guns, and neither of the guards believed him when he said he didn't.
Eliot was surprised when he heard a voice behind him. "You want one?"
He turned and accepted his license from the guard, and caught sight of the sealed envelope he held in his other hand. "I don't need one."
"I'm supposed to give you everything you need, upon your arrival. Looks like you're being called back to duty."
"No." Eliot couldn't believe it. "Look, I've pretty much walked all the way from freakin' Florida, and I'm finally almost-"
"Just following orders," the older guard said, handing over the envelope. His name and serial number were printed on it, nothing more.
Tearing it open, with a groan, Eliot was surprised to find a handwritten note, until he remembered that printers were probably not the preferred technology, any more. Immediately turning to the bottom of the page, he read the signature.
Love, Sophie
---
Chapter 3
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None for *this* chapter...
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
"I'm taking off tomorrow," Eliot said one night, not looking Hardison's way, but watching for his reaction in the window's reflection. "Got a gig out in Switzerland. Might take a while, but I'm just going to get rusty, sitting here."
"Yeah," Alec nodded, not asking when he'd be back, never even looking up from his screen. He probably knew as well as Eliot did what this really was and wasn't about. He had to know that it had been coming for a while, now, ever since Sophie left for Belfast and Parker went to Mars, or wherever it was that she went. Ever since Nate refused to come back.
Granted, it wasn't like transporting seven stolen paintings across Europe was likely to be relaxing, but it beat sitting around waiting for Hardison to make sense of the Nate's scrawled notes as he looked for a client, a case, a cause. Something to bring everyone back.
It hurt to watch, Alec wanted it so bad, but Eliot had used up all his arguments three days ago.
It was just sex, that night. Good, but nothing more, and they didn't talk much over breakfast the next morning. Alec probably had his reasons, and Eliot didn't want any words to make anything permanent.
No definitions, no promises, and it was just as well. A few days later, there'd been no way to live up to them.
---
Once the job was done, Eliot left Zurich for Caracas. It was a good a place to figure out what came next as any. He was lonely, though. Mostly, it just felt like delaying the inevitable.
The job had been easy, if boring, and though the money was unimpressive, it was enough to buy the most top of the line laptop he could find. He didn't even realize, until he was checking his cell on the way to the register, that he was waiting for a call. That he was buying a peace offering, and that he hadn't even meant to set foot in the store in the first place.
It was probably worth it, though.
Alec had been clutching at straws to get the crew back together, and Eliot had bailed, simple as that. He had a lot to make up for.
When the phone eventually rang, though, it wasn't Alec, but Sophie, hysteric, and she was telling him to turn on the news.
Eliot didn't leave his hotel room for three days. He stared at the television until the glare burned his eyes, cursing the networks that were too stupid to tell him what he wanted to know. The reports said that the American border was closed, there was no getting in or out. With expected death tolls expected to roll up into the millions, it seemed that the main purpose of the news was to engage in finger-pointing. The usual suspects' greatest hits. Al Quaeda, the Taliban, everyone was trying to take credit.
None of the reports told him who still lived, or gave him anything useful.
For three days, he tried to call his sister, Hardison, even Parker, but all the lines were confused, not knowing whether to be busy or dead. It changed, every time. He refreshed the browser on Alec's brand new laptop every five minutes, but his inbox remained empty.
It was bright and sunny outside when he managed to find out that his sister and nephew, out in Nebraska, probably hadn't made it. It hadn't merely been the EMP that had struck. A warhead, somewhere in the atmosphere. Most of the deadly radiation was spreading from the Midwest, mostly to the west and north, into Canada. There was no way he wanted to see that. For the time being, the coasts were powerless but alive.
Unless they killed themselves off, first. Wars were breaking out, fires and shootings and bodies were lining the streets of most cities, the news said.
Parker was still there. She was probably alive. But Alec?
Alec was gone. Had to be. Even he couldn't be that lucky. Or maybe lucky meant something entirely different, now, Eliot didn't know. But some information was getting out, slowly.
Somewhere, there were phones and emails and all that, and Hardison would be the one person in all the world who would know how to get it together to get a message out.
Four days later, Eliot still hadn't heard anything, and the not knowing was starting to drive him insane. But there wasn't a flight in the world that would go to North America right then.
---
It took a week to make it through Panama and Guatemala and up into Cancun, and another week before he could get to Cuba.
It took him five weeks, all the cash he had, and Alec's peace offering, to get a space on a too-small boat headed for Miami via the Bahamas, and it wasn't a pleasant trip. Not only was the navigation equipment functioning erratically, something about the satellites being down, but the crew was insane, the seventeen other passengers mostly mad.
It took him days, and a good long look at his reflection in the window to realize that they weren't the only ones.
The trip, once upon a time, should have taken a few hundred dollars and less than a day. Nobody should have died en route, and he was pretty sure he should have recognized Miami when they arrived.
He heard seven rounds of gunfire before he'd even gotten off the boat, and wondered who it was that was shooting, and who they were shooting at. This, in all honesty, he'd been ready for.
He hadn't been ready to imagine Alec's bloodied skull crashing against the pavement with every crack echoing off the buildings. It was bad enough that it had probably happened, but it was worse to focus on, now, when he was far too late to do anything. All he could do now was try and decide where to go next.
Parker, and all her street smarts, might still be in Boston. Maybe she'd been there, when Alec went down. Maybe she'd kept him alive.
But Eliot's farm was where any chance at living would be.
He had hundreds of miles to go, yet, before he'd have to decide. Maybe he'd get a line through, hear something that would tell him where he was supposed to go, what he should do.
Maybe Hardison will send that fucking email.
Then again, maybe he wouldn't.
---
The nightmares didn't start until he was stateside, but they came with a vengeance. He dreamt about Hardison, fighting for the last of the food, about blood flowing, or that he was locked inside his apartment as some small infection slowly killed him. Saw him curled up on his kitchen floor, fading away into nothing, listening to the riot outside his door. In another dream, he just stared back at Eliot, reproach in his eyes, the words we could have stopped this hanging in the air somewhere.
It was stupid, unfair, and Eliot knew it.
Alec wasn't much of a fighter, but he wasn't a wimp. And he could charm the pants off anyone, as long as he wasn't playing a role. And he was smart. And he probably had Parker, nearby.
Those two could take over the world, if they wanted, or at least what was left of it.
They were fine. They had to be.
---
Miami was a hellhole. Some things never changed.
He'd been through some shit, but not enough that he could bring himself to use the relief lines. They were too dangerous, a stupid risk. Getting crushed on the way in seemed to be directly followed by getting beaten half to death on the way out. He stayed for a few hours and tried to help out, made sure a few kids got back to their folks, but he was only one among many. There were just too many bodies milling about to even make a dent.
In the crowd, he got caught up though. Heard that some electricity had returned, intermittently, that some people had started stringing wires out and getting some basic lights and refrigeration working. And there was shortwave radio. There was communication, mostly set up by the National Guard. Several of the older-model cars still worked, though it was expensive as hell to get a ride, anymore, and it didn't really matter. There were too many vehicles already abandoned on the highway to get very far. It would have been comical that people were still trying, but for the bloodied dead bodies fallen on every main street, rotting in the hot sun.
The foot traffic was denser than he'd ever seen it, and most of the gaps in the crowd proved to be the wide berths people were still trying to give the corpses. He was at the edge of the crowd when he watched one boy shove another one into the body of a mustached man lying in the gutter. Everyone heard the sound it made, and everyone tried not to look.
He started heading north, and kept his eyes open.
It took a day or so, but it paid off when he found a bar that was still more or less functioning, even if the beer was warm. After that, it was just a matter of waiting, watching the drunks who actually had to talk to each other, instead of watching the television above the bar, for entertainment. There was a man in the corner with a guitar, he could almost even play it. And there were the usual games. Darts, pool. Cards were making a resurgence, and he edged in on a game. Played more carefully than he'd ever played, and left with no fuss, the proud owner of a crappy scraped up motorcycle with gas in the tank.
After two days walking, it was the best thing he'd ever ridden.
He stayed off the highways as much as possible, but passed people. Sometimes, they'd run, sometimes they'd stare back shell-shocked or dead-eyed. Sometimes, though, they'd actually talk. The usual things. People still talked about the weather. Or about how the cities to the north were dead and dying, overzealous deputies guarding county lines up the road, or another cult that had popped up in Tennessee, rumors of human sacrifice or suicide pacts. He'd tell them what he could, but it was never enough, on either side.
A month ago, they'd probably been receptionists, or mechanics, or factory workers, and now they were carrying guns and pointing them at anything that moved. Sometimes they were women shepherding children that might have been theirs, and these were the most dangerous.
Eliot knew how to move through hostile territory, though. Even when the exhaustion from sleeping around nightmares got to the point where his head was swimming.
---
Andrew, the last doctor still working in the neighborhood, came in to the post office to see if anyone had tried paying for postage in medical supplies. He looked tired, and Alec said so.
"It's Cornelius," he said. "You know about him?"
"Heard the name. Rhonda and that guy she's with all the time. They were sayin' something about him the other day. Something about a play on the last relief shipment, right?"
"He didn't just make a play, he won. Big time. All of it, available for a price. Got the food, again, and the medical supplies, too, this time. Guys can owe him, and I bet you can imagine how that turns out. Women can pay his crew a little more directly."
"Directly meaning?"
"They're not calling it rape. They're coming in with- Well. A lot of things, saying they're fine because their kids are eating. Some of them are so used to it that you'd think they were coming in for a basic checkup, not..." Andrew sighed, shook his head. "Anyway, have you heard any rumors that the blockade over on Morrissey's fallen?"
"Yeah, but I haven't tried going through. You thinking about it?"
"I'm hoping the campus health center might have some stocks that nobody's found. Antibiotics, Plan B, painkillers, vitamins. Any prescription drugs that might keep another few heart attacks at bay for another month." Andrew looked over his shoulder as he reached for the door. "You need anything?"
---
A few days later, Alec heard that Andrew had died, trying to cross over. There was a funeral and everything, which was surreal. There'd been so many deaths that it was impressive that anyone had actually taken notice. Andrew's death had actually rated, at least.
It was probably about as much as you could hope for, these days.
Alec wrote Nate again, that night. Told him all about it, about everything, like how if the team were here, they could take out Cornelius, fix some shit. He sorted it in the pile for upstate New York, shoved the packet in the bag for Mica, and only later wondered why he'd bothered writing at all.
About a week after the funeral, Andrew's clinic closed down. There weren't enough people to keep it running.
Nate never wrote back.
---
Alec sat up on the roof and wondered if Mica would be returning that night with the mail from downtown. His neck was getting sore from stretching to look down the street, trying to see if he could spot him.
After the second or third hour, he realized he wasn't watching for Mica. He was trying to catch sight of somebody else stalking the pavement, with long brown hair.
Mica didn't show up until the next afternoon, setting the bags on the table and explaining that there'd been a shootout downtown. He'd been grazed, but had managed to bail out into an office building, where he'd fallen asleep. He seemed a little surprised that he was paid with two bags of food instead of one.
"For your trouble," Alec said, when Mica commented that usually, running deliveries, back in the day, twelve hours late meant some serious shit. "You've met your quota for gunshots already."
Mica had made it through okay, and he was good, but he didn't have half the game Eliot did. So where the hell was he?
---
The motorcycle ran out of gas for good in South Carolina, and with no fuel in sight, he was going to have to leave it and look for a new one when he could. In the meantime, he went on foot.
He'd been walking for three hours, warily skirting the highway, when he realized that he was being followed. Two girls, both in their mid-twenties, by the looks of it. They never came closer than the length of a football field, but he could feel their eyes on him, constantly, for the rest of the day.
Around nightfall, he'd had enough. He stopped in the middle of the road. Sat down and drank some water, and waited for them to decide for them to scatter, or continue. Towards him.
He was a little surprised at how long it took, but then again, he hadn't managed to bathe in a few days, and the stubble had already turned to beard. He looked a mess, exactly the thing your mother thought of when she warned you not to talk to strangers.
Eventually, though, the girls came closer. Leah was the younger of the two, and blonde, and did all the talking. Susie, her friend, was dead eyed, with bruises on her face and neck that Eliot didn't want to think about.
"Where you headed?"
"Boston," Eliot replied, because he hadn't changed his mind yet, not in the past half hour or so. "What about you two?"
"Georgetown," Leah said, glancing sideways at Susie. "Hey, look. If you want, we could join forces for a while. Safety in numbers and all that."
"That's fine, but I'm planning on getting off this highway, real soon. You're welcome to come with me, but I'm heading up through the forest, along the edge. Rougher walking, but fewer people."
"Fewer resources, too," Leah shot anther look at her friend, worried.
"I can hunt, if it comes down to it, but we can get supplies on the way. Had some basic survival training when I was in the military, and have no problems with stealing from stores and empty houses."
The girls stepped away, to the side of the road, and had a heated conversation in hushed tones. When they returned, Leah only had one question.
"Why Boston? Is that home?"
"Might be," Eliot answered, and only then realized what she was fishing for. "I've got family there. A boyfriend." At least, I might, he didn't add, because he didn't need to, and right then, it wasn't important. Not as important as getting them to trust him, because Susie looked like she was ready to go her own way, and didn't look like she cared what came next.
"Good enough for us," Leah said, and that settled it, more or less.
---
"It's your birthday," Parker was waiting for him at the counter when he out down from the back office he'd turned into his home. As if to prove her point, she brandished a familiar looking wall calendar. It had been Nate's. "So happy birthday. Oh!" Shaking her head, she stooped down to pick up his present. A cooler, with two cans of orange soda inside. Not his favorite brand, but they was cold when he touched it. "Where did you-"
"There's actually a whole case, but they're in the refrigerator I scored. Found it in a corner at the thrift shop when I was out looting. Tried it on the off chance."
"How'd you move it?"
"In a wagon. It's one of those really small ones, like for hotel rooms."
"You still living at the school?"
"Yeah. Made a deal with the Kings, I procure some things for them, they've included the school in their turf." Parker pulled herself up to sit on the counter. Her hair was almost as short as Alec's now, but chunkier, like she'd hacked it off with dull scissors. "Even pushed out their border to give us a three block buffer on each side. They're cool. Well. You know. Few of them are talking about making a run on Cornelius, but they don't know anything about coordination, so we'll see what happens to the buffer when they start getting picked off..." Realizing she was rambling, she broke off and looked around. "What's going on around here?"
"Yeah," Alec said, because he was still thinking about what she'd said. Blinking back into awareness, he shook himself. "Nothing much. Hey, uh. Just how bad are the Kings at coordination? I mean, they got it enough to expand their turf, right?"
"Against other gangs, but there's nobody that's got their numbers in the area. They're all even more disorganized. Cornelius isn't."
"No shit. He's been getting in deeper, here, every week. So. You in?"
"What?"
"You, me, and a small army against Cornelius. What do you say?"
"I don't know," she said, but she was smiling, breaking out into a grin. "Wait. I do. Like, let's go steal us a black market, or something. Right?"
"Damn right."
---
Even with two others, the interstate still felt like a hunting ground, and the sooner they got off the main drag, the better.
It was a few miles up trafficless roads that he realized Leah was keeping herself between Eliot and Susie at all times. At first, he thought she was trying to pull, but as the miles wore on, it soon became apparent that she was trying to protect Susie.
There was no good way to ask what happened. Eliot wasn't sure he really wanted to know, anyhow. He had his suspicions. But in the end, he didn't have to. Leah, bolstered by half a bottle of wine from her pack, one night, checked that Susie was asleep, and told him.
"We met up about a week back at a truck stop. There were two guys, it was a bad scene. I had to shoot one of them to get them off of her. It's how we met. Because the world is fucked and we couldn't have met at the same high school. But she was a senior when I was a freshman. It took all this messed up shit, you know?"
"Yeah."
"I think the guy died. I don't know. I probably killed a man. That's fucked, right?"
"Yeah," Eliot shrugged, and raised the bottle in a toast before passing it back.
---
They'd managed to hitch a ride on an overcrowded church bus that had probably been stolen, and managed four hours before the dead cars grew too dense to move around.
It was only another day later that they reached Georgetown. Leah was nearly giddy at the sight of it, and even Susie looked relieved. She invited him to her mom's house, saying that he was welcome to stay, maybe eat something, and sleep with a roof over his head for a bit, if he wanted.
It was a nice idea, though equally likely was the chance that he'd just be an awkward third wheel when they discovered that they had nobody left in the world.
Or he could keep going. So he did.
---
It was easier to think when he was alone, but it was harder to not think, and that was becoming the problem.
He knew that by all rights, he should avoid Boston. He should go out to his farm, make sure it was still standing.
Maybe it was because he'd been living off oatmeal and bouillon and roadside weeds for the better part of a week, but he didn't even care, any more. Besides, if things were as bad as he thought they were, it would honestly be easier to finagle a route out to Europe. Get his cash, set up somewhere where money still had any value at all.
But that could take some time. It would be safer to head to the farm, get some things planted. Maybe get his dad's bike rebuilt. If he was really lucky, he'd be able to find enough fuel to run it.
And maybe if the crew's alive, they'll have enough wits to come looking. Hell, maybe they're already there.
In another day or so, he would have to decide if he wanted to start veering northwest, or keep towards Boston. He wished it was an easier choice to make.
---
There were eight people, gathered at the bridge up ahead. They didn't look like one of the unofficial toll ways that had opened since the world went to hell, which was lucky, since he didn't have anything to buy passage with, hadn't eaten in a day, and didn't feel particularly like fighting them off.
He did slow down, though. There was only one guy standing guard, but he was holding the gun like he knew how to use it, and Eliot had already been spotted. The sentry gestured to the others, and Eliot suddenly found himself in the strange situation of having to accept a dinner invitation.
"I can't pay you," he said.
"Today's main ingredients are tuna and mayo," a woman said, brandishing an institutional sized tub. "We scored them off the loading dock at a high school the other day. Neither of these are gonna keep real well and there's no sense wasting food. And it beats whatever dried stuff you've got to be carrying. Let me guess. You've been living on rice and dried beans?"
"Oatmeal and bouillon cubes, mostly." Eliot grinned and sat down on the curb as introductions were made. He didn't relax, though, until he'd heard enough to confirm that there was no religious talk, just two families, sick of waiting to be saved.
"Heading to Florida," Edward said, and Miranda, his wife, explained, "We're hoping to find some land and get some things planted and grown before winter hits."
"You know plants?" Eliot asked, out of politeness, more than anything. It wasn't the first time he'd heard this.
Miranda shrugged. "Grew up on a farm. Mostly corn, but I've always kept a garden. Until the gangs decided they wanted to try out our garden for themselves," she grimaced. "But there's a longer growing season down south, if it comes down to it, and worst case scenario, it's the same messed up situation, but we won't freeze to death."
The lone teenager in the group, a kid by the name of Rory, rolled his eyes, and one of the younger girls kicked him and ratted him out. Siblings, then.
"What?" He rolled his eyes again. "Yeah. Like there's no chance that everyone else in New York's having the same idea."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group. It wasn't the first time anyone had thought it, and as much as they were all deliberately optimistic, it was already cracking a little at the seams.
"Are y'all at all flexible on your destination?"
"You know someplace better?"
"Got a farm about three days northwest, and no plans to go there," Eliot shrugged. "It's yours if you want it."
"What?" Miranda asked, as Rory chimed in with "What's wrong with it?"
"Weeds've probably taken over the yard, but other than that? It's out in the middle of nowhere. There's no finding it by accident."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I spent the first eighteen years of my life there," he said, because I was on the market for an isolated, secure hideout in case the heat got too much sounded about as dubious as it actually was. "Anyhow, the pantry's stocked with non-perishables, and there's plenty of seed in the garage. Don't know if you got anything better down in Florida, but you can have it if you want."
"If it's so great, why aren't you there?"
"It's a lot of work for one guy, and I've got to find out if my family's up the road."
"What's the catch?"
Eliot gave it some thought, realizing dimly that this was probably not the most well thought out plan he'd ever conceived. It wasn't the kind he would've even considered, back when he'd bought the place.
"There's an Indian motorcycle in the garage, almost completely rebuilt. I'll come get it when I can. Other than that? I don't need anything there. Soon as I find my family, I'm leaving the country again."
Eliot took the keys off his ring and tossed them over to Edward.
"Seriously?" Edward asked, in a tone so reminiscent of Hardison that it almost hurt to hear. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I've been living on oatmeal for a week straight now, and the protein's going to my head," Eliot joked. "Look. For everything I just said, you'd still be taking a chance, going out there, same as Florida or anywhere else. But it's not as far."
Miranda glanced wearily at the trailer she had attached to the back of her bicycle, and even before she pulled Edward aside, Eliot knew they were going to accept the offer. He scrounged up a pen and borrowed some paper, and set to writing out the directions.
---
He figured he'd done the right thing, giving away the keys to the farm. It forced his hand, for one. One less choice to make. He was going to Boston. There were no other options.
And there were eight of them, including the kids, and only one of him. They needed it more, and could probably make it work if they had to.
On the whole, it felt like the right thing to do. Almost like doing a job with the team.
But it didn't stop him from wishing that it had earned him some karma points, later that night, as he broke the leg of the man who'd woken him up by holding a gun to his head.
Sometimes, you just break even, he thought at the top of the hill, looking back towards the sound of the third whimpering man he'd left in his wake since Miami.
---
New York was the worst. Out on the road, you could get some distance. Here, though, even with so many already dead or fled, the crowds were unbearable. The subway tunnels were the best way to get around, but they were the most dangerous. There were stretches unlit by the fires where darkness was nearly complete, unless you had a torch. And if you did, if you turned it on, it was only to see eight or nine other people waiting to take it from you.
Up above, there was at least sometimes enough wind to move the stench of bodies away. Down here, there was no wind, and the smell stuck to his clothes and hair when he emerged.
New York was still crowded, and the subway still smelled funny. Apparently, though, there were still shows on Broadway. Actors and actresses still trying to feed themselves. He wondered how many people, these days, actually went. How many were actually willing to part with food in order to watch Cats or The Sound of Music, any more.
He missed Sophie, but didn't wish she was here. She'd never earn enough to stay alive, working the musical circuit.
Up at the fork ahead, it looked like the fire was about to burn out, so Eliot started looking for garbage to pile on when he passed, but it had been picked through, already burned. Apart from the bodies, the tunnels were probably the cleanest they'd ever been.
But the fire was sputtering, making a slow strobe of light flashing out over the three people up ahead. They'd been moving cautiously, but now they appeared even slower, like zombies.
He'd gone to Hardison's place to pick up some gear once, a few months before going over to Hardison's place had started becoming a regular thing, and had found him covered in ashy makeup and fake blood, wearing one cataract contact lens.
"If you're getting set up to run game on somebody, you've totally overdone the blood, he said, giving him a wide berth and heading for the case of pamphlets that Alec had gotten printed. "It's too red, for as drained as you're done up,"
"What? Nah. Zombie pub crawl."
"What?"
"Zombies, drinking. It's gonna be awesome."
"So what, like, you're just going to go to a bar dressed like an idiot?"
"Nah, man, I got a date, and there's probably going to be a few hundred people on this thing," he said, heading back into the bathroom to put in the other lens.
"I gotta ask. Is it true love with this girl, or necrophilia?"
"Shut up man," Hardison called out, just as his cell rang from the hall table.
Eliot glanced down to read the caller ID as he passed towards the closet. Some guy named Mike. "Your phone's going off," he shouted. "Where did you put the cameras?"
"Back office," Hardison said, emerging to grab the phone as Eliot headed back through the apartment.
At first glance, the office was a disaster zone, with boxes and wires everywhere, so it was going to be easier to wait for Hardison to get off the phone. He hadn't actually meant to listen in.
"...yeah, I know. Looking forward to it. I'll meet you there at nine."
So Hardison was going out on a date with a guy named Mike, and Eliot was standing in the doorway of Hardison's office, feeling like he'd missed something, and yelling again for Hardison to tell him where the damned cameras were, because he didn't have all night to sit around and watch him put on makeup.
---
Probably because the end was finally in sight, the guards at the edge of Boston had to ask him a hundred questions about why he was coming into Boston, what he'd been doing in New York, the route he'd taken, and where, exactly, he was going. One of them gave him a hundred warnings about how many people had already fled to Boston, while the other went into the back room with Eliot's ID. They wanted to know if he had any guns, and neither of the guards believed him when he said he didn't.
Eliot was surprised when he heard a voice behind him. "You want one?"
He turned and accepted his license from the guard, and caught sight of the sealed envelope he held in his other hand. "I don't need one."
"I'm supposed to give you everything you need, upon your arrival. Looks like you're being called back to duty."
"No." Eliot couldn't believe it. "Look, I've pretty much walked all the way from freakin' Florida, and I'm finally almost-"
"Just following orders," the older guard said, handing over the envelope. His name and serial number were printed on it, nothing more.
Tearing it open, with a groan, Eliot was surprised to find a handwritten note, until he remembered that printers were probably not the preferred technology, any more. Immediately turning to the bottom of the page, he read the signature.
Love, Sophie
---
Chapter 3