No Fearsome Tide: After 1/5
For warnings and notes see masterpost here
no fearsome tide: part one
after
Time is a companion that goes with us on the journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will not come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Jean Luc Picard
The world they live in now doesn’t even vaguely resemble the one that came before.
Steel and glass has been replaced with canvas and wood. Suits and fancy clothes have been discarded, through wear and tear, replaced by practical cotton shirts and denim trousers. Make-up and contact lenses are things of the past, and glasses are a rare luxury.
There are mornings when Penelope Garcia almost feels naked, without the make-up and the colourful clothes she used to wear every day, but most of the time it’s a relief. There’s less expectation now, all they care about is staying alive, keeping going and stealing what happiness they can, in whatever time they have left. They don’t judge each other, not on appearances, nor on their choice of company. It’s something close to freedom.
There are things she misses, like her flat and the kitchen she used to bake in. She can’t bake on an open fire, or in the strange clay built ovens that they’ve managed to create, so she’s had to find new ways to show her continued love. For the most part, she knits.
The winters are cold now, always, so she knits scarves, gloves, hats and jumpers. She has a stash of balls of wool and yarn, collected from numerous towns and cities that the others have travelled to for supplies. There’s more colour in her tent than there is almost anywhere else in the tent city they call home and she can’t help but feel that her tent has become a substitute for her old office in the BAU albeit with less knick knacks.
She knits with the same love she had always baked, more so when she’s knitting clothes for the babies. She’d never seen herself as a mother, not once she’d given herself over to her work with the FBI, but now, despite how much darker the world is, the swell of her belly makes her smile more often, and Rossi jokes that she smiles more often than the sun comes out.
No one has asked her who the father is, she doubts anyone will, and she doesn’t know herself. It’ll be a happy surprise when the sprog is born, and she’s sure there will be an exchange of chores between members of their community.
-
Alec Hardison has two kinds of morning. There are the ones when he wakes up under canvass, his face buried in sweet smelling blonde hair and a warm hand covering his hip, and then there are the mornings when he wakes cocooned in blankets, sunlight shining on his face. The latter type seems to be occurring less and less these days, as their little community becomes more and more self-sufficient.
He hates the sheep. Where exactly they’d managed to find sheep, he’s not quite sure, but they have a growing herd of small, grumpy, fluffy sheep that live alongside their cattle. Randomly, when he has a moment and misses hacking, he’ll hack the old farmer’s websites that still exist and read the various debates on whether sheep and cattle should be kept together. They’re more entertaining now, because their mass of livestock seems happy enough to cohabitate, despite the rather vehement arguments of certain farmers. It’s nothing like the stuff he used to read, like the eternal debates over who was the best Doctor or who was the best Star Trek captain, though Hardison had spent a week refusing to be anywhere near Spencer Reid after they’d started those debates around the camp fire one evening.
Hardison thinks he’s more in touch with reality now than he used to be, though it’s a much darker, less forgiving reality than the one that existed before.
He’s seen people die, actual real living people, he’s lost friends, he’s killed people himself. He isn’t the genius hacker with authority issues anymore, or at least he isn’t just the genius hacker with authority issues anymore.
He spends odd afternoons working with Amita and Garcia to build something resembling the MMORPHs they used to play, and they all enjoy it more for the opportunity to use their skills for something, to keep them fresh, even though it’s unlikely they’ll ever need them for anything. Maybe he’ll teach some of the kids how to hack; it would be a way to keep it alive, even if it’s a semi useless skill now.
There are good days, and there are bad days. Days when he had to wash blood off his hands and days that he spends watching kids charge around the tents, chasing renegade chickens. It’s not the life he would have chosen, but it’s the life he has, for however long he has it.
-
Amita Ramanujan’s mornings have a tendency to start earlier than she wants them to; such is the life of a parent with a young child. When she’d imagined her life as a child it hadn’t involved the end of the world, and she had never seen herself as a mother, raising a child in a small tent village with the help of people she’d never expected to meet. There’s a part of her that wonders at how she can be happy, when she can’t even begin to imagine what the future will hold, be it good or bad. The truth is, they have all learned to live in the moment. To stop worrying about the what ifs.
She spends her days out in the sun as much as she can, determined to enjoy it while she can, and to chase away the memories of constant darkness that still haunt her from time to time. Garcia joins her sometimes, Larry spends time with her from time to time, idly drawing equations in the mud at their feet. Summer is shorter now, barely lasting a full month, and she’s never been one to withstand the cold too well.
It’s funny to think, on days when she can see her breath, even inside a heated tent, that they’ve settled in a place closer to the equator than LA, close to beaches that used to be populated by scantily clad men and women for half of the year. Her children will grow up in a world entirely different from the one she knew. They’ll know more about survival than she had ever wanted to learn, and they’ll be raised among a group that includes some of the brightest minds of their generation.
Only Jack and Henry are old enough to remember what life was like before, and Jack understands the need to tell stories of those that they’ve lost. The others all listen in awed silence as they are told stories of brave FBI agents and smart insurance investigators who stole from the rich to help the poor. None of them are quite old enough to enjoy the stories about the profilers and the academics yet, but they will be one day.
All of the children appreciate the stories about the normal people though. The heroic mothers who won, even in death, the valiant fathers who died to keep their families safe and all of the rest, the sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
It doesn’t matter which of the adults is telling the stories, those are the stories that they ask for more often than not. She’s not sure if it’s because those are the stories that include all of the mundane little details about the world that was, or if it’s because they can relate better to them.
They have, after all, done their very best to keep the children sheltered from what happened. One day, when they’re old enough, they’ll be told what happened, to bring this world into being. But none of them are ready for that just yet.
-
-
part two: Amita
-
no fearsome tide: part one
after
Time is a companion that goes with us on the journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will not come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. Jean Luc Picard
The world they live in now doesn’t even vaguely resemble the one that came before.
Steel and glass has been replaced with canvas and wood. Suits and fancy clothes have been discarded, through wear and tear, replaced by practical cotton shirts and denim trousers. Make-up and contact lenses are things of the past, and glasses are a rare luxury.
There are mornings when Penelope Garcia almost feels naked, without the make-up and the colourful clothes she used to wear every day, but most of the time it’s a relief. There’s less expectation now, all they care about is staying alive, keeping going and stealing what happiness they can, in whatever time they have left. They don’t judge each other, not on appearances, nor on their choice of company. It’s something close to freedom.
There are things she misses, like her flat and the kitchen she used to bake in. She can’t bake on an open fire, or in the strange clay built ovens that they’ve managed to create, so she’s had to find new ways to show her continued love. For the most part, she knits.
The winters are cold now, always, so she knits scarves, gloves, hats and jumpers. She has a stash of balls of wool and yarn, collected from numerous towns and cities that the others have travelled to for supplies. There’s more colour in her tent than there is almost anywhere else in the tent city they call home and she can’t help but feel that her tent has become a substitute for her old office in the BAU albeit with less knick knacks.
She knits with the same love she had always baked, more so when she’s knitting clothes for the babies. She’d never seen herself as a mother, not once she’d given herself over to her work with the FBI, but now, despite how much darker the world is, the swell of her belly makes her smile more often, and Rossi jokes that she smiles more often than the sun comes out.
No one has asked her who the father is, she doubts anyone will, and she doesn’t know herself. It’ll be a happy surprise when the sprog is born, and she’s sure there will be an exchange of chores between members of their community.
-
Alec Hardison has two kinds of morning. There are the ones when he wakes up under canvass, his face buried in sweet smelling blonde hair and a warm hand covering his hip, and then there are the mornings when he wakes cocooned in blankets, sunlight shining on his face. The latter type seems to be occurring less and less these days, as their little community becomes more and more self-sufficient.
He hates the sheep. Where exactly they’d managed to find sheep, he’s not quite sure, but they have a growing herd of small, grumpy, fluffy sheep that live alongside their cattle. Randomly, when he has a moment and misses hacking, he’ll hack the old farmer’s websites that still exist and read the various debates on whether sheep and cattle should be kept together. They’re more entertaining now, because their mass of livestock seems happy enough to cohabitate, despite the rather vehement arguments of certain farmers. It’s nothing like the stuff he used to read, like the eternal debates over who was the best Doctor or who was the best Star Trek captain, though Hardison had spent a week refusing to be anywhere near Spencer Reid after they’d started those debates around the camp fire one evening.
Hardison thinks he’s more in touch with reality now than he used to be, though it’s a much darker, less forgiving reality than the one that existed before.
He’s seen people die, actual real living people, he’s lost friends, he’s killed people himself. He isn’t the genius hacker with authority issues anymore, or at least he isn’t just the genius hacker with authority issues anymore.
He spends odd afternoons working with Amita and Garcia to build something resembling the MMORPHs they used to play, and they all enjoy it more for the opportunity to use their skills for something, to keep them fresh, even though it’s unlikely they’ll ever need them for anything. Maybe he’ll teach some of the kids how to hack; it would be a way to keep it alive, even if it’s a semi useless skill now.
There are good days, and there are bad days. Days when he had to wash blood off his hands and days that he spends watching kids charge around the tents, chasing renegade chickens. It’s not the life he would have chosen, but it’s the life he has, for however long he has it.
-
Amita Ramanujan’s mornings have a tendency to start earlier than she wants them to; such is the life of a parent with a young child. When she’d imagined her life as a child it hadn’t involved the end of the world, and she had never seen herself as a mother, raising a child in a small tent village with the help of people she’d never expected to meet. There’s a part of her that wonders at how she can be happy, when she can’t even begin to imagine what the future will hold, be it good or bad. The truth is, they have all learned to live in the moment. To stop worrying about the what ifs.
She spends her days out in the sun as much as she can, determined to enjoy it while she can, and to chase away the memories of constant darkness that still haunt her from time to time. Garcia joins her sometimes, Larry spends time with her from time to time, idly drawing equations in the mud at their feet. Summer is shorter now, barely lasting a full month, and she’s never been one to withstand the cold too well.
It’s funny to think, on days when she can see her breath, even inside a heated tent, that they’ve settled in a place closer to the equator than LA, close to beaches that used to be populated by scantily clad men and women for half of the year. Her children will grow up in a world entirely different from the one she knew. They’ll know more about survival than she had ever wanted to learn, and they’ll be raised among a group that includes some of the brightest minds of their generation.
Only Jack and Henry are old enough to remember what life was like before, and Jack understands the need to tell stories of those that they’ve lost. The others all listen in awed silence as they are told stories of brave FBI agents and smart insurance investigators who stole from the rich to help the poor. None of them are quite old enough to enjoy the stories about the profilers and the academics yet, but they will be one day.
All of the children appreciate the stories about the normal people though. The heroic mothers who won, even in death, the valiant fathers who died to keep their families safe and all of the rest, the sons, daughters, aunts, uncles and grandparents.
It doesn’t matter which of the adults is telling the stories, those are the stories that they ask for more often than not. She’s not sure if it’s because those are the stories that include all of the mundane little details about the world that was, or if it’s because they can relate better to them.
They have, after all, done their very best to keep the children sheltered from what happened. One day, when they’re old enough, they’ll be told what happened, to bring this world into being. But none of them are ready for that just yet.
-
-
part two: Amita
-