Dollhouse Fic: "Every Exit an Entrance Somewhere Else" (Dominic, R)
Title: Every Exit an Entrance Somewhere Else
Characters/Pairings: Dominic, DeWitt, Echo/Caroline, Ballard, Priya, Topher, Anthony/Victor, Alpha, T, mention of others and some OCs, Dominic/DeWitt with some minor Priya/Anthony
Rating: light R for language, sex, implied violence, requisite Thoughtpocalypse-era bleakness
Length: 8,775 words
Spoilers: whole damn canon
Summary: Laurence Dominic is alive.
“Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.”
“And what's that, in this case?”
“It never varies - we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.”
“Marked?”
“Between ‘just desserts’ and ‘tragic irony’ we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.”
“Who decides?”
“Decides? It is written.”
THE PLAYER and GUILDENSTERN, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
_____
It takes him almost a year to find Echo and the others.
Technically a good sign it was that difficult - wouldn’t be a very secure hiding place if it were easy. There’s some irony in that, he thinks.
But at least she’s done the job right. Not that with her he’d expect anything less.
She may go by Caroline now, but he still knows it’s Echo. He knows that look. Those eyes.
Right away Echo pulls him into a hug. He goes tense inside the embrace, muscles stiffening. He has to fight the urge to strike at her, shove her off violently.
She realizes, lets him go quick.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to breach your comfort zone. It’s just nice to run into another familiar face.” She smiles faintly. “Glad to see they finally got you out.”
He’s glad she brought them up first, because he’s not sure how he would’ve broached the subject. Who sent him. Why he’s here. Even though he’s pretty sure she must know already.
“They’re still back there,” he tells her. “Most of the staff, almost all the Actives. They’re stuck in LA, holed up below ground in what’s left of the House. Anthony and Priya are there, too.” He spares a glance at where Ballard’s hanging back by the edge of the room.
He refuses to look at Alpha at all.
“They’re waiting for you,” he finishes, at Echo again. “Hoping you’ll come and rescue them. Waiting for you to lead them to a way out.”
She nods. “We’d already thought as much.” She turns her head, exchanging a look with Ballard. “Now that we know for sure they’re there we’ll go back for them. But it won’t be easy. Not with everything that’s going on. Setting it up’s gonna take time.”
“Good luck with that.”
“You’re not staying?” Her face falls. “We could use the extra help.”
“No.” He’s done his part: he’s delivered the message.
Echo takes him in. Begins, with sympathy, “I know you’ve had a rough time-”
“You don’t know a damn thing,” he interrupts her, short.
A few days in the Attic are nothing like a whole year. And she can’t begin to imagine what it’s like, to finally get that breath of freedom - only to be sent straight back into Hell.
There’s a pause. Echo doesn’t say anything, for a moment.
“So you’re taking off. Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
“It’s safer here, Dominic, than it is out there. You know that.”
“Yeah, well. You’ve clearly got a thing going on here.” He tugs the strap of his pack as he turns to leave. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”
Ballard steps forward, speaks for the first time.
“Dominic, wait.” He raises a hand, signaling he should stop: “The vaccine. Against being imprinted.”
He isn’t sure how he feels that Ballard reminded him. Maybe he’d be better off if he just kept walking regardless. But if there’s one thing he’s never been, it’s flat-out suicidal.
Even if sometimes there are days he wishes he was.
And it’s almost funny, sitting there with his sleeve rolled up, Echo reassuring him as Alpha sticks a needle in his arm. There was a time once when no power on earth could’ve gotten him to hold still for this.
He clenches his hand tight in a fist.
After the injection is finished Alpha opens his mouth, smirking, so Echo shoves him out of the way and takes the cotton and antiseptic from his hands. Alpha leaves, silent, but doesn’t stop grinning.
“This place will still be here,” Echo says as she wraps gauze around his arm. “If you ever change your mind.” He doesn’t respond.
In the morning, he’s gone.
_____
He doesn’t count the days. He could, but he thinks that’d be pointless. Unless he finds some way to write them down eventually he’d lose track.
And writing them down would mean carrying something around with him, scribbling lines on little pieces of paper like a madman. All the same, he’d rather not.
He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Survivors from the NSA? From the government? Anyone who’d have authority over him, where he could pretend he felt comfortable with them telling him what to do next?
If he’s looking for a place where things aren’t so bad, where it hasn’t gotten as messed up yet one thing’s for sure: he’s shit out of luck.
Everywhere he goes, it’s all the same. Chaos. Fire. Blood. Refugees and corpses.
Strangers, monsters, and mindless zombies. Most looking to take a piece out of him, one way or another.
It can be rough finding food, water, but no matter how many times he runs out he always seems to find more bullets. Another gun, when he loses his. A knife or, hell, a blunt object will do in a pinch.
He doesn’t count the days, so he’s not sure how many it’s been, when he finally circles back to Echo’s hideaway
The place has become even more secure and fortified than last he saw. More hands mean more ways to accomplish things.
Adelle, her people from the House, they’re there. Most of them made the journey all right. He really isn’t surprised.
They’re settling in, adding new housing and stockpiling weapons and talking about things like gardens. Echo and Ballard are still doing their strike-team thing but the others, they’re looking at something else entirely. A place to try and have something like a life in, for the long haul.
They’re pairing off, like Noah’s ark. Some kids have already been born. Priya is pregnant. Anthony seems glad to see him; they talk for a little while before it becomes clear he won’t be staying long. He could call him on it, but he doesn’t - it’s his life.
Echo is happy to see him again but gives him a wide berth; she’s occupied with plans with Ballard anyway. Something weird is going on with Alpha, but he really doesn’t give a damn.
He’s there for three days before he winds up alone with Adelle.
It’s late and the whole place is silent. He’s standing in the kitchen, at the sink, looking out the window at - at nothing, he supposes.
He hears the soft footsteps behind him and without turning around, he knows it’s her.
“Hello, Mr. Dominic.”
“Ms. DeWitt.” He turns just enough to catch a glimpse of her in profile. “So you made it out alive after all.”
“Evidently.” She’s leaning against the doorframe, an empty mug in her hands. She’s wearing loose pajamas, a sweatshirt that hangs on her like drapery. There’s been a halfhearted attempt to pin up her hair.
He’d comment, except for the fact that he’s wearing khakis he stole off a dead man. Except for the fact that his boots are caked with mud. Except for the fact that he hasn’t shaved in weeks.
“I see that you’ve survived your self-imposed sojourn as well.”
He smirks at her, and it makes something in his face tighten in a way that’s almost painful. “Surprised?”
“Yes, and no.” She moves past him, and he takes a few steps out of her way as she rinses her mug. “From a purely analytical perspective, I certainly knew if anyone had the capability to survive all this it’s you.”
She turns around, frowning grimly as she doesn’t meet his eyes. Recollecting. “But I know better now than to entirely rule out random, unfortunate chance. And there are people who should by all rights still be here with us who are not.”
“Right.”
She tilts her head at him for a moment, silent.
“Waiting for something?” he asks her.
“It’s just that as I recall, the last time we spoke you had plenty of recriminations for me.” Sounding matter-of-fact, she brushes a loose curl from her face. “I was wondering whether you intended to continue off from where you’d started.”
“I’m not going to kill you.” He’s getting tired of shooting people. Of spilling blood.
She has the nerve to almost roll her eyes at him. “If you were, you would’ve done it then.”
For an instant something tightens in his chest, livid to think she would dare to act so confident about him, like she knows him so well. But he realizes she’s right, and then he just feels weary. The moment passes.
“Yeah.” He meets her eyes. “So then what are you so afraid of?”
Her mouth twitches. “Not…‘afraid’, exactly. Merely anticipating. The fact that I was justified in my actions doesn’t change the fact that I wronged you.”
He nearly laughs. “You’re waiting for me to chew you out.”
“Yes. I suppose that I am.”
She sounds incredibly resigned. He thinks on how many versions of this she’s probably endured already, and from who. Echo, most definitely - especially if she was feeling a little more Caroline at the time.
Guilt sits heavy on her, but he’s not going to lift a hand to lighten it. It belongs there.
“Well?” she snaps, impatient. “What’s it to be, Mr. Dominic? What do you want from me? What pound of flesh would you like to take your turn carving out from me now?”
He should hate her. God, he should hate her so much. But there’s been a war inside of him over which emotion to have for her almost as long as he’s known her, and he felt too much relief the moment he realized she was still alive to pretend he doesn’t know which has won out.
His voice sounds exhausted even to his own ears when he speaks. “Couldn’t you just call me ‘Laurence’, Adelle?”
Her eyes widen for a moment. And then they grow watery. “Yes. I suppose that I could,” she says. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
He reaches out, touching the side of her cheek. She draws in a breath, eyes closing tightly, and rests her hand atop his.
He kisses her, and then he kisses her so hard she ends up pressed up against the wall. And then finally, still kissing her, he decides enough is enough and lifts her up in his arms and carries her off to his cot in the basement.
If he ever wasted time thinking about it, he wouldn’t have figured Adelle DeWitt for the kind to allow herself to be metaphorically dragged off by the hair. But, the way she barely waits until they’re lying down to start ripping his clothes off indicates no objections.
Her breasts are soft in his hands, the spread of her collarbone white beneath his outstretched fingers, and she catches his bottom lip between her teeth and nips as he starts thrusting into her, her hips a maddening curve against his. He groans. He wants to make her say his name; he gets his wish, several times over.
Civilization is crumbling, society is on its knees. There’s nothing left. The whole world’s gone insane and the only thing that makes any sense anymore is the one thing that never should have: he wants her.
And there are no more excuses. He’s spent too much time wondering and regretting already.
After they’re both spent, he can feel her start to shift in his arms. He tightens his hold on her. “Don’t go,” he whispers in the dark.
She lies back down on top of him. He wraps the blanket around them both. They fall asleep together.
And that’s where dawn still finds them, when the morning comes.
_____
“I can’t stay here, you know.”
It’s been almost a month and he’s gotten used to not sleeping alone, which will be unfortunate once he’s back on the trail. But it’s unavoidable.
“I can’t do this.” He rests his elbows on the porch, squinting as he looks up at the sky. “Lying around playing house, planting tomatoes and installing plumbing? It’s not me.”
Adelle doesn’t say anything, resting her head against his shoulder.
If he moves his fingers he can feel the layer of grit built up against the wood.
“I can’t just sit around growing soft, not when there’s still a battle out there I could be fighting. Not when there are still lives to be saved. That’s not the kind of guy I am.”
“I know,” Adelle agrees. She smiles softly as she looks up to meet his eyes, then tilts her head to brush her nose against the underside of his throat. “I know better than to expect any different.”
She doesn’t waste her time or his begging him to stay.
She doesn’t say she’ll miss him, either.
But neither does he promise that he’ll come back.
_____
He heads back into Los Angeles. Seems no matter what else happens he’s destined to be trapped in this city.
He starts gathering survivors. Whoever’s left, whoever is still themselves and not a helpless sack of meat or a maniac waving a lead pipe and growling from behind bloodstained teeth. Whoever was capable enough, or smart enough, or just plain lucky enough to avoid the tech and the crazies and the looters and whatever the hell else is crawling in the rubble of this former metropolis that used to gleam in the sun like a polished Porsche.
Now it’s all ruins and gutted buildings and cracked pavement on garbage-strewn streets that are no longer safe to walk.
Before long he’s got a handful under his wing; a pitiful band really, with him stuck playing leader. But he’s not about to start making choices outside of the practical ones. Whoever he can find, who’s got the sense to listen and follow orders and isn’t afraid to fight. He’ll take them all.
He keeps them moving, teaching them to survive. How to tell if a place can make a good shelter for the night, how to set up tripwire traps to make sure it stays that way, how to move fast but quiet but safe.
Just about no one’s ever fired a gun before. He breaks them of that weakness fast.
He explains what he can, what they need to know. Avoid technology because just about everything can carry a signal. Once someone is gone, imprinted or wiped, they’re gone and that’s that. No one ends up as an imprint accidentally: a person that winds up in somebody else is a body thief and a murderer and should be treated accordingly.
Shoot to kill. Always.
The plan is not to lead them back to the hideout in the mountains. He wishes it was, but he’s not optimistic like Echo or even ruthlessly determined like Adelle. He knows trying to get this group through the long journey, the difficult terrain and bringing them within spitting distance of Neuropolis would only end up losing almost all of them.
The plan is to teach them to fight, to hide and run. And hopefully they’ll spread out, teach others how to do the same. Until there’s enough people left with their right minds and the ability to keep them.
That’s the plan. It’s not great, but that’s the plan.
He’s got about half a dozen former urbanites crawling around behind him, shaking and quaking and laughing hysterically at just about every other point.
Until they get harder, more capable. He watches it happen in front of his eyes.
They’re from all walks of life, all sizes and shapes. The youngest he finds is Be, only sixteen - which means she was fourteen when the world ended, and god he’d feel sorry for her, if not for the fact he doesn’t feel sorry for anyone. It’s not his thing.
The second youngest is Barker, nineteen, and something is seriously wrong with this kid. He can never remember what it is, but Barker is twitchy as hell and prone to manic babbling fits and basically, has a screw loose he can’t really keep under control. There are pills he’s supposed to be on that are clearly no longer in supply, so all they can do is rely on the guy’s own ability to keep himself calm, which is kind of a crapshoot at times.
But for the most part he tries goddamn hard and holds his own better than some of these others, so he’s not about to cut the kid loose because of something that’s obviously not his fault. Barker wants to live. He’s not about to tell him that he can’t.
It’s about three months in when they find themselves pinned down, a whole mess of crazed butchers and their equally crazed victims blocking the path to safety.
“If only we had a distraction,” he says aloud. “Something big and noisy.” He thinks he can usher them through if they move fast. All he needs is to make sure the psychos are looking the other way.
He feels a tap on his shoulder. Turning his head, he finds himself looking Barker straight in the slightly unfocused eyes.
“Um. I can do it.” Barker gives a nervous chuckle. “I mean, I think we all know? Noisy’s kind of my thing.”
He blinks, startled, but makes up his mind fast. “Okay. Do it. Take the high ground, just like I taught you - once we’re all out of harm’s way you come right after us, do you understand? I’ll cover you, but there’s nothing I can do if you let yourself get too far behind.”
“Uh huh. Yeah. Got it. Right.”
“Lisa, I want you to bring up the rear, right next to me. I’ll be too busy watching Barker to keep an eye on everyone, so I’m depending on you to keep headcount.”
“Play Mama Bear for the group. Okay, can do.”
“Everyone clear with the plan?” He gets a lot of nods, some of them more frightened than others. “Alright, let’s move.”
It’s Barker that saves their lives that day. Barker standing astride a pile of trash, cutting loose all his bottled-up energy, screaming his head off and firing his gun into the sky. He’s proud of the kid.
And mentally, he makes a note to remember this tactic for the next time.
_____
In the middle of month four Leo and CJ go out scavenging for food.
Only one of them comes back.
CJ reaches their camp first, practically on the verge of tears.
“It’s Leo! I told him not to touch it, but he was curious, he did it anyway and the next thing I knew-”
“Would you calm the fuck down?” he demands. “What happened? Slow down and tell me!”
CJ takes a shaky breath. “There was this boom box, buried in the dumpster. It…it was still getting static-”
He swears violently, understanding what CJ’s trying to tell him. He checks his gun. “Where did you last see him?”
But CJ doesn’t have to say anything. Because just then Leo walks in.
There’s a big smile on his face that vanishes as soon as he sees all the wary and horrified looks pointed his way. Also, no less than three guns. That probably doesn’t help either.
“Whoa, guys, what’s up?”
“CJ said you got ‘printed, Leo!” Rickie blurts before he can signal to the guy to shut the hell up.
“What? That’s crazy! I’m fine. Come on, put the guns down. I’m cool.”
“Since when do you say ‘cool’?” Be notes flatly.
Leo swallows. “This is nuts,” he protests.
He stares at the other man unflinchingly from across the barrel of his gun. “What’s your name?”
The guy gives him a look that reads as ‘duh’.
“Leo,” he says.
“What’s your last name?”
‘Leo’ hesitates. That’s all the proof he needs. He pulls the trigger, shoots him right between the eyes.
Lisa screams. Rickie goes to calm her down. Barker mumbles to himself as he and Be clean the body of anything they can use. Leo would understand; not like he’s using it anymore.
CJ sidles up to him, biting his nails. “I didn’t know Leo’s last name. Did you?”
“No.”
“So if that…guy…had been just a little faster on his feet, come up with a fake name, we’d never have known.”
“He didn’t.”
“But if he did. Man. That’s messed up.”
Outwardly he ignores CJ. But unfortunately, he knows he’s got a point. The problem with transient groups like this is that people don’t bother learning too much information, not planning on getting attached.
And then he remembers Priya’s ‘birthmark’.
_____
Barker makes it all the way to month fourteen before he takes it.
It’s his fault, really. There were just too damn many of them - the group kept getting larger, but he kept dragging his feet before sending some of them off. He wanted to make sure they were ready. That they could handle it.
You know who could handle it? Barker. Fat lot of good that’s gonna do the kid now.
Nothing to do but learn from his mistake. After this, he makes sure the groups stay small. There’s a set number they take in before they split up and go their separate ways.
Speed is the key: tell them what they need, put them in the hands of one of his people that he trusts and get them going. They teach the newcomers all the important tricks and give them their birthmarks and then that’s it. And if that’s not enough to keep them safe, well, that’s too bad.
This is a war for survival they’re fighting. There’s gonna be casualties.
Sometimes knowing how to survive, how to keep your head down and fight back, that’s just not enough. Sometimes it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes the best ones die.
Barker isn’t the first one he’s lost.
He wishes he could say it was the first he’s really felt.
And it’s almost funny, to the point where he feels like laughing, that less than twenty-four hours later they find themselves pinned down in the exact kind of situation Barker was so good at getting them out of.
He lingers, crouched at the wall. Be comes over and lightly touches his arm.
“You all right, Big Daddy?”
He meets her eyes, his mouth twitching in a smirk. She must understand, surely: she’s the only one of his original team left.
“We need a new Barker,” he quips, in the kind of voice where it’s not funny at all.
Be nods. Oh, she gets it. But she also gets that they need to keep going.
He taught her that.
“I’ll do it,” she states quietly. He nods, forcefully, and snaps himself out of it.
“Okay. Okay.” He speaks up. “Be’s gonna be our Barker for now. Who’s our Mother? Zig, you got this?”
“Roger that.”
They keep on moving. The end of the world leaves no time to bury your dead.
_____
It’s month seventeen.
He’s lost count of how many they’ve saved, how many they’ve taught how to fight and sent on their way. But he’s also lost count of how many casualties they’ve had, how many he’s watched die - most of them kids, it seems, for reasons he chalks up to being the nature of how it goes when everything gets fucked up.
Sometimes it seems like it’s beyond futile. The city is getting worse, uglier every day. Every time he turns around there are more Butchers, more Dumbshows. Less and less actual human beings left.
It’s harder to find food. It’s harder to find ammo. It’s harder to find water, and shelter - hell, it’s harder to find enough safe clear spaces in which to move.
He got them out of the city proper a long time ago. They’re way into the suburbs now.
Not that it makes any difference. Everywhere they go it’s more of the same. Besides, he knows they just end up sending more people back into central LA every time they split off another group: he warns them about the big city, but not all of them listen.
‘Optimistic’ and ‘stupid’ look the same in the dark.
And there are times when he feels like - he reaches back across his shoulder and touches his birthmark (‘LAURENCE DOMINIC’ in simple big, bold letters, no ‘I am’ or any of the stuff they add sometimes, nothing else, and he can’t even remember who he got to do it now) and he thinks he should cross it out and write all the names he’s collected over this past year instead, all the dead and lost that no one else will ever remember.
But he hasn’t forgotten. Not a single name.
Not that anyone would know that from looking at him. Oh no. He’s the leader, because he’s the one they count on to keep a level head no matter what. The one who has to say and do what no one else wants to. The one that keeps them on track.
The one that has be coldblooded at times, and hardhearted, because if somebody doesn’t then they’re all screwed.
They trust him, because of that. They depend on him, because of that.
In month eighteen when Drina gets wiped and her boyfriend won’t let go of her, won’t stop holding her hand and begging her to come back, he’s the one that waits until the guy falls asleep and then walks her outside and shoots her in head.
“You don’t understand,” the sobbing boyfriend says, later. “I know it doesn’t mean anything anymore, but I found a ring, I was gonna ask her…I was gonna ask her to-”
“It doesn’t matter what you were planning,” he cuts him off, cold. “She was gone the instant the tech got to her brain.”
Then he walks off.
And he adds Drina to his list of names.
_____
Month twenty-three. Two years. He decides enough is enough.
He splits up the group for the last time. Breaks them all apart, no one traveling with more than six or seven. Sends them off in separate directions.
Everyone except for him.
“…now remember what you’ve all been told. Keep your full names close to the vest. Go by nicknames or codenames if you can. That way, if one of you ever gets printed, it’ll be hard for the newcomer to just guess what their name is supposed to be from conversation. You meet any other Actuals, ones who haven’t heard about the birthmarks yet, you spread the word. Right now it’s the best way to tell us, from them.”
He stands a short distance back, arms folded, watching as final instructions are given to the assembly.
“Everyone’s going to pack up now. The groups will spread out in a circle and make camp for the night, close enough that we can still see each other’s lights. Then come morning, that’s it. Every group goes their separate ways. Good luck, everybody. And Godspeed.”
There’s a responding murmur from the crowd, and then they all turn to start gathering their things. Chuck jumps down from the barrel he was using as his podium.
“I do okay, boss?”
“You did great. Think you covered everything.” Gripping Chuck’s hand in one of his he smacks him on the shoulder with the other. “Take care of yourself out there, all right?”
“Yeah, okay, you too.”
He gets stopped by an older woman. “Oh, Dominic! I just wanted to thank you again for all the help you’ve given us. You know that Griffin and I really appreciate it. We never would’ve made it this far without you.”
“Just doing what I can, Deb, but thank you.”
He manages a smile for her before looking to meet her son in the eye. Tall, kind of quiet, thinking about the army before everything happened. He’s got a good feeling about this one.
He shakes the young man’s hand. “You take care of your mom, okay, Griff?”
“Yes sir,” he promises. “I will.”
He finishes making his goodbyes and then he heads over to where Be is waiting for him.
“Where to now?” she asks.
Originally he was planning on going it alone. He tried his hardest to convince her to go with one of the groups. But she wouldn’t do it.
But in the end, he supposes he can’t blame her. Two years and he’s been looking out for her the entire time. He’s probably one of the few people who knows ‘Be’ isn’t short for ‘Beebe’ or ‘Beatrice’ or anything else like that - it’s short for ‘Bumblebee’, her online moniker, and her real name is Candice Rowley.
He’s the only thing resembling family that she’s got.
He lifts his pack.
“To the mountains,” he says. “Come on.”
_____
Two years is a long time. Things aren’t exactly how he remembers them.
But for once he finds that’s not a bad thing.
“So this is it, huh?” Be asks, gazing at the compound of little buildings. “This is the ‘safe haven’ you’d talk about sometimes?”
“Uh huh.”
“Doesn’t look like much.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
They’re surprised to see him, but not unhappy. Anthony and some of the other former Actives are missing, just like he’d anticipated - with an aside glance at Priya, Echo quietly promises to tell him about it later. Alpha has also gone AWOL; apparently he does this at times, and he’s damn glad to hear that.
Adelle is out helping with chores, but he sees her at dinner. For a moment she goes still and he starts to feel resignation he might have to deal with her anger, but then she surprises them both by rushing to embrace him.
“Two years,” she whispers furiously into his ear. “Two bloody years.”
“Did you think I was dead?” he murmurs back as he holds her tight. She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face in his neck.
“I tried not to think of it at all.”
It’s much later when they’re both in bed and he’s tracing his hand lightly down her back along her spine, that she turns to look at him and asks, “You’re not staying this time, either. Are you?”
And for a moment he wishes he could tell her that no, this time he’s going to stay right here and help keep them safe, and who knows, maybe he’d eventually get used to settling in and mining the earth and whatever the hell else it is they’re doing out here that makes them all feel so cozy.
But he knows better than that.
“I…can’t.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. “I know.” She rests the side of her face on her folded arms.
“Look at me. Adelle, I’m sorry.”
She turns her head so she meets his eyes.
“There’s no need to apologize, Laurence. Truly,” she says softly. “As frustrating as it is, I suspect I wouldn’t care for you as much were it any different. After all, it’s part of the man you are.”
He lets his head drop against the mattress.
“I’m not going back to the city anymore. There’s not enough left there. It isn’t worth the trouble.”
“So, what? Where will you go instead?”
“Not sure yet. Guess I’ll just wander. Who knows how many people made it out into the countryside with no idea where they’re going.”
She’s quiet for a moment, before at last she leans over and kisses him and says, “Be careful. Please.”
He’s so surprised that he can’t think of what to say. But he smiles at her, and she smiles back, so he guesses that’s enough.
He stays for about two weeks. Part of him wants to stay longer, but he doesn’t want them to get used to him, afraid that he’ll be missed.
Besides this time (he privately promises himself) he’ll come back a lot sooner.
Be is not happy about him ‘dumping’ her here and leaving, but she’s eighteen. She’s used to disappointment.
And, he tries to explain, he thinks it’s time she actually had a chance to, you know, be a kid.
“Don’t worry,” Adelle says to him. “I’ll look after her.”
“She sort of looks after herself.”
“I know. But, certainly, an extra pair of eyes never hurt.”
_____
Time passes differently out in the wild.
It’s not that he’s losing focus exactly. It’s just that it all blends together until he realizes, oh, a month has passed; oh, it’s been a whole year.
He travels. Looking for survivors he can help, supplies he can scavenge, monsters he can kill. Anything.
There are gangs out here, some as savage as Butchers, gone a little crazy with the need to survive. He avoids them when he can, fights them when he can’t. Some of them are former Actives, techheads like Victor and his posse. Most of them are just normal people who couldn’t hack the apocalypse.
Not everyone can.
He always comes back to the compound, a couple times a year. He never comes empty-handed: always he has supplies he’s found, something he thinks they might need, or he’s leading a handful of refugees. Always he has a reason to have come back again.
He’s not sure who the excuse is for: them, or him.
Adelle is always glad to see him, just like he’s glad to see her. She always ends up in his arms when he greets her, and even if he’s too tired or injured to fuck they always end up sharing a bed.
He gets a little afraid at times one day he might show up and she won’t be here, waiting. (It’s safe - but no place in the world is safe completely, not anymore.) But he’s sure she worries too, that one day he’ll leave and never come back. Suppose that’s only fair.
Priya and Echo welcome him warmly. Alpha, if he’s around, has the sense to leave him space. A lot of the others, from the Dollhouse and otherwise, are becoming familiar faces.
Ballard, he’s decided, is okay. But sometimes he pushes too hard.
He’s heading out again one day, having just hugged Echo goodbye and gone out the door, when Ballard catches up and tries to have a private chat with him.
“You know, I’ve noticed,” Ballard begins quietly, “every time you come here, you never have anything to do with Topher.”
He stills. His grip tightens on the strap of his pack where it rests across his shoulder.
“I’ve gathered the two of you weren’t exactly best friends back in the day. But even you have to see that it’s not right to alienate him like that. Not after what he’s been through,” Ballard says intensely. “Dominic, you can’t just ignore him.”
He thinks of the huddled babbling lump everyone in the compound takes turns taking care of, sitting in the corner with close-shorn hair and permanently unfocused eyes.
“That’s not Topher,” he says, terse.
He leaves before Ballard can gather his wits to say another word.
_____
One day he finds an old wooden guitar.
He carries it strapped to his back for over a month, fixing the holes that have started rotting in its sides and restringing and tuning it up.
He crosses paths with Victor’s people on the way in. Kilo laughs at him and calls him ‘El Kabong’. Romeo asks if he knows any Jimmy Buffet.
He makes camp with them that night because there’s safety in numbers. He’d stick around longer if they weren’t going the opposite direction.
Whatever discomfort he might feel about riding in a tank with a bunch of former Dolls with microchips sticking out of their skulls is outweighed by the comfort of not getting shot.
He entertains them with what he can remember of “Margaritaville”.
“Who you gonna give that to anyway, man?” Victor asks him when they go their separate ways.
“Be, probably. Kid needs a hobby. Right?”
“Yeah.” Victor gives a lopsided smile, his eyes distant. “Right.”
It turns out it’s close to Christmas (he had no idea - he’d long stopped keeping track), so he uses that as his excuse. He teaches Be how to play “Hotel California” and “Hey Jude” and “Bad Moon Rising” and “American Pie”. And then, because she asks, he begrudgingly figures out a likely chord progression for Britney Spears’ “If U Seek Amy” and teaches that to her too.
The next time he visits, he finds T toddling around singing “Love me, hate me, say what you want about me…”
“Glad to know I’m doing my part to keep our culture intact,” he says. Adelle laughs.
_____
At one point he decides to cross the desert.
When he gets to the other side he meets a small encampment. He trades his motorcycle, which they can scrap for parts, for their pickup truck, which is almost out of gas. That’s just fine; it’ll get him where he needs to go.
“Which way did you come from?” one of them asks him, curious, as they’re good enough to fill up his canteen.
He takes a gulp of water, which is warm and tastes distinctly of rust, but at this point might as well be the sweetest drink he’s ever had. “East,” he says once the sandpaper’s out of his mouth.
“We were thinking of heading that way ourselves. Anything out there?”
He looks back. All that anyone can see from here is rolling hills and wasteland. But he knows hiding in there is the towers and bunkers of Neuropolis.
He turns to put the direction at his back.
“Nothing out there but cockroaches,” he says as he jams the stopper back in his canteen.
_____
“Dominic!” Priya looks up from where she’s peeling potatoes and wipes off her hands. “Finally decided to grace us again with your presence, I see.”
“Well, I figured it was about time.” He grins, hand running across his head. “I could use a trim.”
“So I see.” She considers him a moment before pulling a cloth from the counter and spreading it on the floor. She drags a chair atop of it. “Sit. I’ll get my shears.”
He does as told. Priya’s gotten pretty good at the haircut thing.
“Want me to trim up your beard while I’m at it?” she asks him as she goes to work.
“Nah. I always do that part myself,” he reminds her.
He never shaves completely, not anymore. Not any point.
Her upper body presses against his shoulders as she leans forward to work on the sides, and for some reason he’s struck by thoughts of how Tony Jr. grew in that belly of hers, and how big that kid’s getting now.
He almost asks her if she’s seen Anthony lately. But he doesn’t. He knows better than that.
_____
After all the bullets he has and hasn’t taken, all the psycho Butchers he’s fought off and cut down, he would have to have a close call eventually.
It only figures.
He’s running from a mob of them, out there alone. Gets off a few shots. Gets away successfully but then he trips, falls down an incline and he actually hears his leg break before he feels it.
He lands the wrong way and he’s flat on his back staring at the hot sun high up there in the sky, hurting all over. Possibly concussed.
His ribs ache. He already feels dehydrated. He tries to get up.
He can’t.
It’s just a goddamn miracle he just happens to be carrying a walkie-talkie on him, that he found a couple of days ago and kept because he thought it could be used for spare parts.
It takes him the better part of the afternoon to pry the casing apart with bleeding fingertips and twist the wires together to get a signal, and then a lot of twisting and cussing before he manages to locate Victor’s channel.
He’s in the ditch almost another two days before they come find him.
They jabber at him in Mandarin, help him drink some water and then Romeo sticks him with a needle full of morphine and he passes out.
He’s been in the hot sun and his leg fucking hurts, so all he can think is ‘Yeah, whatever, that’s cool’.
He comes to in a bed upstairs at Safe Haven, and Alpha’s wrapping plaster around his leg. The morphine hasn’t really worn off yet (and possibly he’s been given some more, by this point) so he doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes and wishes he could take a nap.
After he’s finished, Alpha sits on the bed and waits until he’s got his attention before he speaks.
“It’s not too bad a break. But you’ll be here a few months yet while it heals.” Alpha taps a hand on top of the cast, not enough to hurt but definitely enough to count as teasing. “Looks like we finally found a way to make you stay put for a bit. Adelle will be pleased.”
He looks at Alpha blearily. “You are so lucky I don’t have my gun.”
Alpha’s smile turns into a frown before quickly reversing itself again. “Pleasant dreams, Laurence.” He turns the light out when he goes.
_____
Forget ‘a few months’. A few weeks is a long time to be stuck in a bed, waiting for his bones to knit.
At first he has plenty of visitors. But eventually they return to their routines, chores and the endless stream of things that apparently need doing to keep everybody living.
Ballard brings up a tiny cardboard box containing exactly five books. Two of them are romance novels. One is a cookbook. The fourth is the Bible. The last one is Watership Down.
“Sorry. Not a lot of choices. We haven’t exactly been concerned with building a library.”
“So I see.”
“Most of the others we got are picture books, for T. And we used to have a self-help book - but Alpha read that so many times until the binding fell apart.”
He picks up Watership Down. He fucking hates Watership Down; he had to read it once before, for school. But it’s either Watership Down or staring at the paint on the ceiling so, hey, he’ll go with the rabbits.
The next day Be comes by with some markers and covers his cast with smiley faces, butterflies and ladybugs until she gets bored.
She leaves the markers.
Echo draws a picture of a tree on the underside.
Ballard, ever the original, signs his name and writes ‘Get well soon!’
Adelle writes ‘love’ in her elegant, looping script near the edge where it’ll easily be missed.
Alpha comes in while he’s sleeping and leaves a small, loopy symbol most might mistake for a fish.
T signs his name proudly in childish letters. Then he draws a couple pictures around it. A dinosaur. A bat and baseball. A cartoon image of a broken bone.
Priya, at last, selects green, purple and blue markers and spends the better part of an afternoon filling up what blank space is left with an ornate ivy design.
“Topher didn’t get to sign your cast,” T protests.
With all the innocence and determination of a seven year old, and without consulting anyone, he somehow manages to lead Topher into the room by the hand.
“Topher, won’t you like to sign Dominic’s cast?”
Topher makes eye contact for a record-breaking five seconds, before slumping back against the wall, head shaking and wringing his hands.
It’s impossible to tell if there’s any recognition.
“No, no, no,” he mutters. “I don’t write things down, I never write anything down. When I write my ideas down, bad things happen. It’s just…it’s a series of patterned behavior. Patterns, repeating…repeating patterns, again and again and again. The definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment and expecting different results.”
“That’s okay, T.” He swallows, addressing the boy rather than the other individual. “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”
T is disappointed, but leads Topher away again. Then he comes back with a deck of cards and they spend about three hours playing Go Fish.
T is his one of his two regular daily visitors. He likes the kid, but he’s getting pretty sick of Go Fish. He wonders if Priya would be mad if he taught him how to play poker.
His other regular visitor comes at night.
“Easy, easy,” he says to Adelle warningly, as she climbs over him to lay down by his side.
“Honestly.” She smirks as she rests her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. He slips his arm around her. “You don’t think I have any ability to be gentle?”
“I know you have the ability to be the opposite. Which can be great, at times. Just not really what I’m hoping for right now.”
Adelle pulls open his nightshirt, kissing his chest.
“I can be gentle,” she murmurs. “I promise.” He threads his fingers through her hair. “Would you like me to show you?”
“Maybe later,” he says softly. Right now, he just wants to look at her. He just wants her near.
_____
He finds that he almost feels regretful, or something, when he gets healthy enough to travel again.
But that doesn’t stop him from leaving. No more than anything else has over all these past years.
_____
He’s miles away when it happens.
But he sees the aftermath of the explosion, just like everyone else does - hears a sonic boom, looks up, sees a ripple in the sky.
He’s unsettled, and his first instinct is to reach for his gun. But it’s not until days later he gets the full weight of what’s just occurred.
There a couple settlements (that word’s almost a kindness really; they’re talking about a few huts) he visits regularly. Semi-secure locations, too many people to move easily, too weak to be taken to Safe Haven for one reason or another. He comes and goes over the years, gathering intel and helping with supplies when he can.
He reaches this one about half a week after the weird thing in the sky.
He gets there mid-afternoon, to find them in the midst of some kind of fucking fiesta. Dancing in the streets, music playing, kids running and yelling, food being passed around in open dishes. Basically, party central everywhere he looks.
A little girl runs up to him. “Mr. Dominic! You here to celebrate with us?”
He has to yell to be heard. “What the hell’s going on?”
“It’s the mind rain! Didn’t you hear?”
“The what?”
“That big noise in the sky! After it happened, people starting coming back home all over! Momma finally woke up.”
He stops at that, wide-eyed. He knows this kid’s mother: her pitiable family’s been taking care of her ever since she was wiped almost two back.
“What do you mean, ‘she woke up’?”
“She’s back. Maybe now Daddy will finally come home, too.”
She twirls off into the crowd before he can get any more explanation. He stands there watching her dumbly as she goes.
It takes him awhile, but he finally manages to find some partiers still calm enough to explain it to him: ever since a few days ago, individuals who were wiped or printed - some of them years ago - are all going back to normal. No more Butchers or Dumbshows, just confused people.
And it sounds like it’s happening everywhere.
Could it be over? he thinks. After ten years, could it really finally be over?
He turns around and heads for Safe Haven, fast as he can.
_____
“They would’ve called you - you know, if they could have. And it’s not like there was any time to wait.”
“Yeah.”
(Doesn’t it just figure - battle to bring back the world, and he misses out on it. Too busy walking the earth.)
“So they all left?”
“Caroline, Paul, Adelle…they even took Topher, and Priya and her boy with them. They hooked up with Tony’s people. Who knows, maybe they picked up Alpha. Haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“And they all went to LA?”
“Said if this worked, they wouldn’t be coming back: so far, none of them have - and, as far as anyone can tell, it did. So, what about you, Dominic? You gonna stick around for awhile?”
“No.”
He has somewhere else he needs to be.
_____
Los Angeles is no longer in a state of chaos. It’s a state of rebuilding.
Everywhere he looks there are people moving: carrying things, picking up trash, fixing broken things and removing others, washing up the blood. Most of the activity’s centered around the former downtown.
No, he realizes. Not former. Not anymore. Not if there are going to be people living here.
It hits him that this is a city again - not a deathtrap, not a ruin.
He never thought he’d be so happy to see LA.
“Hey, buddy. Excuse me.” He intercepts the nearest guy, grabbing his shoulder. “Do you know somebody named Adelle DeWitt?”
“What, you mean the woman in charge?”
He almost laughs.
“Yeah. That’d be her.”
Of course it would. Like there was any doubt.
He finds Adelle on the bottom story of a high-rise, overseeing the reconstruction of its interior. Her back is to the door and she’s obviously preoccupied.
He grabs a board and joins a line of workers.
“And where would you like this one, ma’am?”
She spins around so fast he’s afraid she might end up pulling something.
“Laurence?”
He just stands there, smiling at her.
“I…oh, put it…put it anywhere.” She manages to tear her eyes away and looks around at their surroundings, dazed. “There are over a dozen things I have to do today-” She sounds regretful.
“It can wait.” He’s not going anywhere.
“No.” She steps toward him, and he quickly sets the board down as she cups his face in both of her hands. “No, it really can’t.”
He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her for all he’s worth.
Back at Safe Haven, he used to make a point of kissing her, touching her, fucking her like they had all the time in the world.
Now they really do.
She leads him away to the penthouse apartment she’s claimed as her base of operations, shooing away all those that have attached themselves to her as her various assistants and followers, so they can be completely alone.
They sit down on the edge of the bed. He holds her hand. She reaches up again to touch his face, tracing it slowly. Like she’s forgotten its shape, or just marveling its still there like she remembers.
“God, I missed you,” she breathes.
“I missed you too,” he returns.
He’s pretty sure this is the first time they’ve ever actually said this to one another. Interesting, considering how many times they must’ve felt it over the years.
“I was…I hoped you’d come and find us, find me, after. But I…” She trembles as she draws a breath. “Alpha’s gone. Caroline and the others, the other former Actives, they’ll be holed up underground for at least another year, and I just…I’ve felt so…”
“Where’s Topher?” he asks, because someone’s clearly absent from that little narrative of hers. He has to admit, it’s been a puzzle at the back of his mind ever since he saw her, expecting to find the former genius clinging to her skirt.
He understands all too well, all at once, when her face breaks.
He holds her close to him. Face buried in his shoulder and fabric of his coat clutched in her fists, she sobs heavily, body wracked.
And somehow he knows, instinctively, that this is the first she’s cried over this - that she’s been holding it all in until now.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, when she finally stops to breath and starts to speak. “Tell me later. It’s fine.”
She dabs her eyes with the back of her hand, nodding. One hand still gripping his coat, as if she can’t bear to let go of him, she draws back enough to be able to meet his eyes.
“There’s time. There’s time, isn’t there?” she asks him, voice faint but intense. “You’re staying now, aren’t you?”
He brushes a thumb against the skin beneath her eye, lightly touching her wet eyelashes.
“Where else could I possibly be?”
It’s the most goddamned clichéd thing in the world, but the only way he can think to describe her smile: is that it’s like a brilliant, warm beam of sunshine coming out from behind clouds after it rains.
“There’s so much to do,” she remarks, caressing him. He puts his hand on top of hers.
“Well. I’m here to help.”
They can get this done. It won’t be easy - it’ll be anything but easy - but he knows they can get this done.
Together. The way it was meant to be.
Characters/Pairings: Dominic, DeWitt, Echo/Caroline, Ballard, Priya, Topher, Anthony/Victor, Alpha, T, mention of others and some OCs, Dominic/DeWitt with some minor Priya/Anthony
Rating: light R for language, sex, implied violence, requisite Thoughtpocalypse-era bleakness
Length: 8,775 words
Spoilers: whole damn canon
Summary: Laurence Dominic is alive.
“Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion.”
“And what's that, in this case?”
“It never varies - we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies.”
“Marked?”
“Between ‘just desserts’ and ‘tragic irony’ we are given quite a large scope for our particular talent. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have gotten about as bad as they can reasonably get.”
“Who decides?”
“Decides? It is written.”
THE PLAYER and GUILDENSTERN, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
_____
It takes him almost a year to find Echo and the others.
Technically a good sign it was that difficult - wouldn’t be a very secure hiding place if it were easy. There’s some irony in that, he thinks.
But at least she’s done the job right. Not that with her he’d expect anything less.
She may go by Caroline now, but he still knows it’s Echo. He knows that look. Those eyes.
Right away Echo pulls him into a hug. He goes tense inside the embrace, muscles stiffening. He has to fight the urge to strike at her, shove her off violently.
She realizes, lets him go quick.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to breach your comfort zone. It’s just nice to run into another familiar face.” She smiles faintly. “Glad to see they finally got you out.”
He’s glad she brought them up first, because he’s not sure how he would’ve broached the subject. Who sent him. Why he’s here. Even though he’s pretty sure she must know already.
“They’re still back there,” he tells her. “Most of the staff, almost all the Actives. They’re stuck in LA, holed up below ground in what’s left of the House. Anthony and Priya are there, too.” He spares a glance at where Ballard’s hanging back by the edge of the room.
He refuses to look at Alpha at all.
“They’re waiting for you,” he finishes, at Echo again. “Hoping you’ll come and rescue them. Waiting for you to lead them to a way out.”
She nods. “We’d already thought as much.” She turns her head, exchanging a look with Ballard. “Now that we know for sure they’re there we’ll go back for them. But it won’t be easy. Not with everything that’s going on. Setting it up’s gonna take time.”
“Good luck with that.”
“You’re not staying?” Her face falls. “We could use the extra help.”
“No.” He’s done his part: he’s delivered the message.
Echo takes him in. Begins, with sympathy, “I know you’ve had a rough time-”
“You don’t know a damn thing,” he interrupts her, short.
A few days in the Attic are nothing like a whole year. And she can’t begin to imagine what it’s like, to finally get that breath of freedom - only to be sent straight back into Hell.
There’s a pause. Echo doesn’t say anything, for a moment.
“So you’re taking off. Just like that.”
“Just like that.”
“It’s safer here, Dominic, than it is out there. You know that.”
“Yeah, well. You’ve clearly got a thing going on here.” He tugs the strap of his pack as he turns to leave. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”
Ballard steps forward, speaks for the first time.
“Dominic, wait.” He raises a hand, signaling he should stop: “The vaccine. Against being imprinted.”
He isn’t sure how he feels that Ballard reminded him. Maybe he’d be better off if he just kept walking regardless. But if there’s one thing he’s never been, it’s flat-out suicidal.
Even if sometimes there are days he wishes he was.
And it’s almost funny, sitting there with his sleeve rolled up, Echo reassuring him as Alpha sticks a needle in his arm. There was a time once when no power on earth could’ve gotten him to hold still for this.
He clenches his hand tight in a fist.
After the injection is finished Alpha opens his mouth, smirking, so Echo shoves him out of the way and takes the cotton and antiseptic from his hands. Alpha leaves, silent, but doesn’t stop grinning.
“This place will still be here,” Echo says as she wraps gauze around his arm. “If you ever change your mind.” He doesn’t respond.
In the morning, he’s gone.
_____
He doesn’t count the days. He could, but he thinks that’d be pointless. Unless he finds some way to write them down eventually he’d lose track.
And writing them down would mean carrying something around with him, scribbling lines on little pieces of paper like a madman. All the same, he’d rather not.
He doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Survivors from the NSA? From the government? Anyone who’d have authority over him, where he could pretend he felt comfortable with them telling him what to do next?
If he’s looking for a place where things aren’t so bad, where it hasn’t gotten as messed up yet one thing’s for sure: he’s shit out of luck.
Everywhere he goes, it’s all the same. Chaos. Fire. Blood. Refugees and corpses.
Strangers, monsters, and mindless zombies. Most looking to take a piece out of him, one way or another.
It can be rough finding food, water, but no matter how many times he runs out he always seems to find more bullets. Another gun, when he loses his. A knife or, hell, a blunt object will do in a pinch.
He doesn’t count the days, so he’s not sure how many it’s been, when he finally circles back to Echo’s hideaway
The place has become even more secure and fortified than last he saw. More hands mean more ways to accomplish things.
Adelle, her people from the House, they’re there. Most of them made the journey all right. He really isn’t surprised.
They’re settling in, adding new housing and stockpiling weapons and talking about things like gardens. Echo and Ballard are still doing their strike-team thing but the others, they’re looking at something else entirely. A place to try and have something like a life in, for the long haul.
They’re pairing off, like Noah’s ark. Some kids have already been born. Priya is pregnant. Anthony seems glad to see him; they talk for a little while before it becomes clear he won’t be staying long. He could call him on it, but he doesn’t - it’s his life.
Echo is happy to see him again but gives him a wide berth; she’s occupied with plans with Ballard anyway. Something weird is going on with Alpha, but he really doesn’t give a damn.
He’s there for three days before he winds up alone with Adelle.
It’s late and the whole place is silent. He’s standing in the kitchen, at the sink, looking out the window at - at nothing, he supposes.
He hears the soft footsteps behind him and without turning around, he knows it’s her.
“Hello, Mr. Dominic.”
“Ms. DeWitt.” He turns just enough to catch a glimpse of her in profile. “So you made it out alive after all.”
“Evidently.” She’s leaning against the doorframe, an empty mug in her hands. She’s wearing loose pajamas, a sweatshirt that hangs on her like drapery. There’s been a halfhearted attempt to pin up her hair.
He’d comment, except for the fact that he’s wearing khakis he stole off a dead man. Except for the fact that his boots are caked with mud. Except for the fact that he hasn’t shaved in weeks.
“I see that you’ve survived your self-imposed sojourn as well.”
He smirks at her, and it makes something in his face tighten in a way that’s almost painful. “Surprised?”
“Yes, and no.” She moves past him, and he takes a few steps out of her way as she rinses her mug. “From a purely analytical perspective, I certainly knew if anyone had the capability to survive all this it’s you.”
She turns around, frowning grimly as she doesn’t meet his eyes. Recollecting. “But I know better now than to entirely rule out random, unfortunate chance. And there are people who should by all rights still be here with us who are not.”
“Right.”
She tilts her head at him for a moment, silent.
“Waiting for something?” he asks her.
“It’s just that as I recall, the last time we spoke you had plenty of recriminations for me.” Sounding matter-of-fact, she brushes a loose curl from her face. “I was wondering whether you intended to continue off from where you’d started.”
“I’m not going to kill you.” He’s getting tired of shooting people. Of spilling blood.
She has the nerve to almost roll her eyes at him. “If you were, you would’ve done it then.”
For an instant something tightens in his chest, livid to think she would dare to act so confident about him, like she knows him so well. But he realizes she’s right, and then he just feels weary. The moment passes.
“Yeah.” He meets her eyes. “So then what are you so afraid of?”
Her mouth twitches. “Not…‘afraid’, exactly. Merely anticipating. The fact that I was justified in my actions doesn’t change the fact that I wronged you.”
He nearly laughs. “You’re waiting for me to chew you out.”
“Yes. I suppose that I am.”
She sounds incredibly resigned. He thinks on how many versions of this she’s probably endured already, and from who. Echo, most definitely - especially if she was feeling a little more Caroline at the time.
Guilt sits heavy on her, but he’s not going to lift a hand to lighten it. It belongs there.
“Well?” she snaps, impatient. “What’s it to be, Mr. Dominic? What do you want from me? What pound of flesh would you like to take your turn carving out from me now?”
He should hate her. God, he should hate her so much. But there’s been a war inside of him over which emotion to have for her almost as long as he’s known her, and he felt too much relief the moment he realized she was still alive to pretend he doesn’t know which has won out.
His voice sounds exhausted even to his own ears when he speaks. “Couldn’t you just call me ‘Laurence’, Adelle?”
Her eyes widen for a moment. And then they grow watery. “Yes. I suppose that I could,” she says. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
He reaches out, touching the side of her cheek. She draws in a breath, eyes closing tightly, and rests her hand atop his.
He kisses her, and then he kisses her so hard she ends up pressed up against the wall. And then finally, still kissing her, he decides enough is enough and lifts her up in his arms and carries her off to his cot in the basement.
If he ever wasted time thinking about it, he wouldn’t have figured Adelle DeWitt for the kind to allow herself to be metaphorically dragged off by the hair. But, the way she barely waits until they’re lying down to start ripping his clothes off indicates no objections.
Her breasts are soft in his hands, the spread of her collarbone white beneath his outstretched fingers, and she catches his bottom lip between her teeth and nips as he starts thrusting into her, her hips a maddening curve against his. He groans. He wants to make her say his name; he gets his wish, several times over.
Civilization is crumbling, society is on its knees. There’s nothing left. The whole world’s gone insane and the only thing that makes any sense anymore is the one thing that never should have: he wants her.
And there are no more excuses. He’s spent too much time wondering and regretting already.
After they’re both spent, he can feel her start to shift in his arms. He tightens his hold on her. “Don’t go,” he whispers in the dark.
She lies back down on top of him. He wraps the blanket around them both. They fall asleep together.
And that’s where dawn still finds them, when the morning comes.
_____
“I can’t stay here, you know.”
It’s been almost a month and he’s gotten used to not sleeping alone, which will be unfortunate once he’s back on the trail. But it’s unavoidable.
“I can’t do this.” He rests his elbows on the porch, squinting as he looks up at the sky. “Lying around playing house, planting tomatoes and installing plumbing? It’s not me.”
Adelle doesn’t say anything, resting her head against his shoulder.
If he moves his fingers he can feel the layer of grit built up against the wood.
“I can’t just sit around growing soft, not when there’s still a battle out there I could be fighting. Not when there are still lives to be saved. That’s not the kind of guy I am.”
“I know,” Adelle agrees. She smiles softly as she looks up to meet his eyes, then tilts her head to brush her nose against the underside of his throat. “I know better than to expect any different.”
She doesn’t waste her time or his begging him to stay.
She doesn’t say she’ll miss him, either.
But neither does he promise that he’ll come back.
_____
He heads back into Los Angeles. Seems no matter what else happens he’s destined to be trapped in this city.
He starts gathering survivors. Whoever’s left, whoever is still themselves and not a helpless sack of meat or a maniac waving a lead pipe and growling from behind bloodstained teeth. Whoever was capable enough, or smart enough, or just plain lucky enough to avoid the tech and the crazies and the looters and whatever the hell else is crawling in the rubble of this former metropolis that used to gleam in the sun like a polished Porsche.
Now it’s all ruins and gutted buildings and cracked pavement on garbage-strewn streets that are no longer safe to walk.
Before long he’s got a handful under his wing; a pitiful band really, with him stuck playing leader. But he’s not about to start making choices outside of the practical ones. Whoever he can find, who’s got the sense to listen and follow orders and isn’t afraid to fight. He’ll take them all.
He keeps them moving, teaching them to survive. How to tell if a place can make a good shelter for the night, how to set up tripwire traps to make sure it stays that way, how to move fast but quiet but safe.
Just about no one’s ever fired a gun before. He breaks them of that weakness fast.
He explains what he can, what they need to know. Avoid technology because just about everything can carry a signal. Once someone is gone, imprinted or wiped, they’re gone and that’s that. No one ends up as an imprint accidentally: a person that winds up in somebody else is a body thief and a murderer and should be treated accordingly.
Shoot to kill. Always.
The plan is not to lead them back to the hideout in the mountains. He wishes it was, but he’s not optimistic like Echo or even ruthlessly determined like Adelle. He knows trying to get this group through the long journey, the difficult terrain and bringing them within spitting distance of Neuropolis would only end up losing almost all of them.
The plan is to teach them to fight, to hide and run. And hopefully they’ll spread out, teach others how to do the same. Until there’s enough people left with their right minds and the ability to keep them.
That’s the plan. It’s not great, but that’s the plan.
He’s got about half a dozen former urbanites crawling around behind him, shaking and quaking and laughing hysterically at just about every other point.
Until they get harder, more capable. He watches it happen in front of his eyes.
They’re from all walks of life, all sizes and shapes. The youngest he finds is Be, only sixteen - which means she was fourteen when the world ended, and god he’d feel sorry for her, if not for the fact he doesn’t feel sorry for anyone. It’s not his thing.
The second youngest is Barker, nineteen, and something is seriously wrong with this kid. He can never remember what it is, but Barker is twitchy as hell and prone to manic babbling fits and basically, has a screw loose he can’t really keep under control. There are pills he’s supposed to be on that are clearly no longer in supply, so all they can do is rely on the guy’s own ability to keep himself calm, which is kind of a crapshoot at times.
But for the most part he tries goddamn hard and holds his own better than some of these others, so he’s not about to cut the kid loose because of something that’s obviously not his fault. Barker wants to live. He’s not about to tell him that he can’t.
It’s about three months in when they find themselves pinned down, a whole mess of crazed butchers and their equally crazed victims blocking the path to safety.
“If only we had a distraction,” he says aloud. “Something big and noisy.” He thinks he can usher them through if they move fast. All he needs is to make sure the psychos are looking the other way.
He feels a tap on his shoulder. Turning his head, he finds himself looking Barker straight in the slightly unfocused eyes.
“Um. I can do it.” Barker gives a nervous chuckle. “I mean, I think we all know? Noisy’s kind of my thing.”
He blinks, startled, but makes up his mind fast. “Okay. Do it. Take the high ground, just like I taught you - once we’re all out of harm’s way you come right after us, do you understand? I’ll cover you, but there’s nothing I can do if you let yourself get too far behind.”
“Uh huh. Yeah. Got it. Right.”
“Lisa, I want you to bring up the rear, right next to me. I’ll be too busy watching Barker to keep an eye on everyone, so I’m depending on you to keep headcount.”
“Play Mama Bear for the group. Okay, can do.”
“Everyone clear with the plan?” He gets a lot of nods, some of them more frightened than others. “Alright, let’s move.”
It’s Barker that saves their lives that day. Barker standing astride a pile of trash, cutting loose all his bottled-up energy, screaming his head off and firing his gun into the sky. He’s proud of the kid.
And mentally, he makes a note to remember this tactic for the next time.
_____
In the middle of month four Leo and CJ go out scavenging for food.
Only one of them comes back.
CJ reaches their camp first, practically on the verge of tears.
“It’s Leo! I told him not to touch it, but he was curious, he did it anyway and the next thing I knew-”
“Would you calm the fuck down?” he demands. “What happened? Slow down and tell me!”
CJ takes a shaky breath. “There was this boom box, buried in the dumpster. It…it was still getting static-”
He swears violently, understanding what CJ’s trying to tell him. He checks his gun. “Where did you last see him?”
But CJ doesn’t have to say anything. Because just then Leo walks in.
There’s a big smile on his face that vanishes as soon as he sees all the wary and horrified looks pointed his way. Also, no less than three guns. That probably doesn’t help either.
“Whoa, guys, what’s up?”
“CJ said you got ‘printed, Leo!” Rickie blurts before he can signal to the guy to shut the hell up.
“What? That’s crazy! I’m fine. Come on, put the guns down. I’m cool.”
“Since when do you say ‘cool’?” Be notes flatly.
Leo swallows. “This is nuts,” he protests.
He stares at the other man unflinchingly from across the barrel of his gun. “What’s your name?”
The guy gives him a look that reads as ‘duh’.
“Leo,” he says.
“What’s your last name?”
‘Leo’ hesitates. That’s all the proof he needs. He pulls the trigger, shoots him right between the eyes.
Lisa screams. Rickie goes to calm her down. Barker mumbles to himself as he and Be clean the body of anything they can use. Leo would understand; not like he’s using it anymore.
CJ sidles up to him, biting his nails. “I didn’t know Leo’s last name. Did you?”
“No.”
“So if that…guy…had been just a little faster on his feet, come up with a fake name, we’d never have known.”
“He didn’t.”
“But if he did. Man. That’s messed up.”
Outwardly he ignores CJ. But unfortunately, he knows he’s got a point. The problem with transient groups like this is that people don’t bother learning too much information, not planning on getting attached.
And then he remembers Priya’s ‘birthmark’.
_____
Barker makes it all the way to month fourteen before he takes it.
It’s his fault, really. There were just too damn many of them - the group kept getting larger, but he kept dragging his feet before sending some of them off. He wanted to make sure they were ready. That they could handle it.
You know who could handle it? Barker. Fat lot of good that’s gonna do the kid now.
Nothing to do but learn from his mistake. After this, he makes sure the groups stay small. There’s a set number they take in before they split up and go their separate ways.
Speed is the key: tell them what they need, put them in the hands of one of his people that he trusts and get them going. They teach the newcomers all the important tricks and give them their birthmarks and then that’s it. And if that’s not enough to keep them safe, well, that’s too bad.
This is a war for survival they’re fighting. There’s gonna be casualties.
Sometimes knowing how to survive, how to keep your head down and fight back, that’s just not enough. Sometimes it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes the best ones die.
Barker isn’t the first one he’s lost.
He wishes he could say it was the first he’s really felt.
And it’s almost funny, to the point where he feels like laughing, that less than twenty-four hours later they find themselves pinned down in the exact kind of situation Barker was so good at getting them out of.
He lingers, crouched at the wall. Be comes over and lightly touches his arm.
“You all right, Big Daddy?”
He meets her eyes, his mouth twitching in a smirk. She must understand, surely: she’s the only one of his original team left.
“We need a new Barker,” he quips, in the kind of voice where it’s not funny at all.
Be nods. Oh, she gets it. But she also gets that they need to keep going.
He taught her that.
“I’ll do it,” she states quietly. He nods, forcefully, and snaps himself out of it.
“Okay. Okay.” He speaks up. “Be’s gonna be our Barker for now. Who’s our Mother? Zig, you got this?”
“Roger that.”
They keep on moving. The end of the world leaves no time to bury your dead.
_____
It’s month seventeen.
He’s lost count of how many they’ve saved, how many they’ve taught how to fight and sent on their way. But he’s also lost count of how many casualties they’ve had, how many he’s watched die - most of them kids, it seems, for reasons he chalks up to being the nature of how it goes when everything gets fucked up.
Sometimes it seems like it’s beyond futile. The city is getting worse, uglier every day. Every time he turns around there are more Butchers, more Dumbshows. Less and less actual human beings left.
It’s harder to find food. It’s harder to find ammo. It’s harder to find water, and shelter - hell, it’s harder to find enough safe clear spaces in which to move.
He got them out of the city proper a long time ago. They’re way into the suburbs now.
Not that it makes any difference. Everywhere they go it’s more of the same. Besides, he knows they just end up sending more people back into central LA every time they split off another group: he warns them about the big city, but not all of them listen.
‘Optimistic’ and ‘stupid’ look the same in the dark.
And there are times when he feels like - he reaches back across his shoulder and touches his birthmark (‘LAURENCE DOMINIC’ in simple big, bold letters, no ‘I am’ or any of the stuff they add sometimes, nothing else, and he can’t even remember who he got to do it now) and he thinks he should cross it out and write all the names he’s collected over this past year instead, all the dead and lost that no one else will ever remember.
But he hasn’t forgotten. Not a single name.
Not that anyone would know that from looking at him. Oh no. He’s the leader, because he’s the one they count on to keep a level head no matter what. The one who has to say and do what no one else wants to. The one that keeps them on track.
The one that has be coldblooded at times, and hardhearted, because if somebody doesn’t then they’re all screwed.
They trust him, because of that. They depend on him, because of that.
In month eighteen when Drina gets wiped and her boyfriend won’t let go of her, won’t stop holding her hand and begging her to come back, he’s the one that waits until the guy falls asleep and then walks her outside and shoots her in head.
“You don’t understand,” the sobbing boyfriend says, later. “I know it doesn’t mean anything anymore, but I found a ring, I was gonna ask her…I was gonna ask her to-”
“It doesn’t matter what you were planning,” he cuts him off, cold. “She was gone the instant the tech got to her brain.”
Then he walks off.
And he adds Drina to his list of names.
_____
Month twenty-three. Two years. He decides enough is enough.
He splits up the group for the last time. Breaks them all apart, no one traveling with more than six or seven. Sends them off in separate directions.
Everyone except for him.
“…now remember what you’ve all been told. Keep your full names close to the vest. Go by nicknames or codenames if you can. That way, if one of you ever gets printed, it’ll be hard for the newcomer to just guess what their name is supposed to be from conversation. You meet any other Actuals, ones who haven’t heard about the birthmarks yet, you spread the word. Right now it’s the best way to tell us, from them.”
He stands a short distance back, arms folded, watching as final instructions are given to the assembly.
“Everyone’s going to pack up now. The groups will spread out in a circle and make camp for the night, close enough that we can still see each other’s lights. Then come morning, that’s it. Every group goes their separate ways. Good luck, everybody. And Godspeed.”
There’s a responding murmur from the crowd, and then they all turn to start gathering their things. Chuck jumps down from the barrel he was using as his podium.
“I do okay, boss?”
“You did great. Think you covered everything.” Gripping Chuck’s hand in one of his he smacks him on the shoulder with the other. “Take care of yourself out there, all right?”
“Yeah, okay, you too.”
He gets stopped by an older woman. “Oh, Dominic! I just wanted to thank you again for all the help you’ve given us. You know that Griffin and I really appreciate it. We never would’ve made it this far without you.”
“Just doing what I can, Deb, but thank you.”
He manages a smile for her before looking to meet her son in the eye. Tall, kind of quiet, thinking about the army before everything happened. He’s got a good feeling about this one.
He shakes the young man’s hand. “You take care of your mom, okay, Griff?”
“Yes sir,” he promises. “I will.”
He finishes making his goodbyes and then he heads over to where Be is waiting for him.
“Where to now?” she asks.
Originally he was planning on going it alone. He tried his hardest to convince her to go with one of the groups. But she wouldn’t do it.
But in the end, he supposes he can’t blame her. Two years and he’s been looking out for her the entire time. He’s probably one of the few people who knows ‘Be’ isn’t short for ‘Beebe’ or ‘Beatrice’ or anything else like that - it’s short for ‘Bumblebee’, her online moniker, and her real name is Candice Rowley.
He’s the only thing resembling family that she’s got.
He lifts his pack.
“To the mountains,” he says. “Come on.”
_____
Two years is a long time. Things aren’t exactly how he remembers them.
But for once he finds that’s not a bad thing.
“So this is it, huh?” Be asks, gazing at the compound of little buildings. “This is the ‘safe haven’ you’d talk about sometimes?”
“Uh huh.”
“Doesn’t look like much.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
They’re surprised to see him, but not unhappy. Anthony and some of the other former Actives are missing, just like he’d anticipated - with an aside glance at Priya, Echo quietly promises to tell him about it later. Alpha has also gone AWOL; apparently he does this at times, and he’s damn glad to hear that.
Adelle is out helping with chores, but he sees her at dinner. For a moment she goes still and he starts to feel resignation he might have to deal with her anger, but then she surprises them both by rushing to embrace him.
“Two years,” she whispers furiously into his ear. “Two bloody years.”
“Did you think I was dead?” he murmurs back as he holds her tight. She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her face in his neck.
“I tried not to think of it at all.”
It’s much later when they’re both in bed and he’s tracing his hand lightly down her back along her spine, that she turns to look at him and asks, “You’re not staying this time, either. Are you?”
And for a moment he wishes he could tell her that no, this time he’s going to stay right here and help keep them safe, and who knows, maybe he’d eventually get used to settling in and mining the earth and whatever the hell else it is they’re doing out here that makes them all feel so cozy.
But he knows better than that.
“I…can’t.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. “I know.” She rests the side of her face on her folded arms.
“Look at me. Adelle, I’m sorry.”
She turns her head so she meets his eyes.
“There’s no need to apologize, Laurence. Truly,” she says softly. “As frustrating as it is, I suspect I wouldn’t care for you as much were it any different. After all, it’s part of the man you are.”
He lets his head drop against the mattress.
“I’m not going back to the city anymore. There’s not enough left there. It isn’t worth the trouble.”
“So, what? Where will you go instead?”
“Not sure yet. Guess I’ll just wander. Who knows how many people made it out into the countryside with no idea where they’re going.”
She’s quiet for a moment, before at last she leans over and kisses him and says, “Be careful. Please.”
He’s so surprised that he can’t think of what to say. But he smiles at her, and she smiles back, so he guesses that’s enough.
He stays for about two weeks. Part of him wants to stay longer, but he doesn’t want them to get used to him, afraid that he’ll be missed.
Besides this time (he privately promises himself) he’ll come back a lot sooner.
Be is not happy about him ‘dumping’ her here and leaving, but she’s eighteen. She’s used to disappointment.
And, he tries to explain, he thinks it’s time she actually had a chance to, you know, be a kid.
“Don’t worry,” Adelle says to him. “I’ll look after her.”
“She sort of looks after herself.”
“I know. But, certainly, an extra pair of eyes never hurt.”
_____
Time passes differently out in the wild.
It’s not that he’s losing focus exactly. It’s just that it all blends together until he realizes, oh, a month has passed; oh, it’s been a whole year.
He travels. Looking for survivors he can help, supplies he can scavenge, monsters he can kill. Anything.
There are gangs out here, some as savage as Butchers, gone a little crazy with the need to survive. He avoids them when he can, fights them when he can’t. Some of them are former Actives, techheads like Victor and his posse. Most of them are just normal people who couldn’t hack the apocalypse.
Not everyone can.
He always comes back to the compound, a couple times a year. He never comes empty-handed: always he has supplies he’s found, something he thinks they might need, or he’s leading a handful of refugees. Always he has a reason to have come back again.
He’s not sure who the excuse is for: them, or him.
Adelle is always glad to see him, just like he’s glad to see her. She always ends up in his arms when he greets her, and even if he’s too tired or injured to fuck they always end up sharing a bed.
He gets a little afraid at times one day he might show up and she won’t be here, waiting. (It’s safe - but no place in the world is safe completely, not anymore.) But he’s sure she worries too, that one day he’ll leave and never come back. Suppose that’s only fair.
Priya and Echo welcome him warmly. Alpha, if he’s around, has the sense to leave him space. A lot of the others, from the Dollhouse and otherwise, are becoming familiar faces.
Ballard, he’s decided, is okay. But sometimes he pushes too hard.
He’s heading out again one day, having just hugged Echo goodbye and gone out the door, when Ballard catches up and tries to have a private chat with him.
“You know, I’ve noticed,” Ballard begins quietly, “every time you come here, you never have anything to do with Topher.”
He stills. His grip tightens on the strap of his pack where it rests across his shoulder.
“I’ve gathered the two of you weren’t exactly best friends back in the day. But even you have to see that it’s not right to alienate him like that. Not after what he’s been through,” Ballard says intensely. “Dominic, you can’t just ignore him.”
He thinks of the huddled babbling lump everyone in the compound takes turns taking care of, sitting in the corner with close-shorn hair and permanently unfocused eyes.
“That’s not Topher,” he says, terse.
He leaves before Ballard can gather his wits to say another word.
_____
One day he finds an old wooden guitar.
He carries it strapped to his back for over a month, fixing the holes that have started rotting in its sides and restringing and tuning it up.
He crosses paths with Victor’s people on the way in. Kilo laughs at him and calls him ‘El Kabong’. Romeo asks if he knows any Jimmy Buffet.
He makes camp with them that night because there’s safety in numbers. He’d stick around longer if they weren’t going the opposite direction.
Whatever discomfort he might feel about riding in a tank with a bunch of former Dolls with microchips sticking out of their skulls is outweighed by the comfort of not getting shot.
He entertains them with what he can remember of “Margaritaville”.
“Who you gonna give that to anyway, man?” Victor asks him when they go their separate ways.
“Be, probably. Kid needs a hobby. Right?”
“Yeah.” Victor gives a lopsided smile, his eyes distant. “Right.”
It turns out it’s close to Christmas (he had no idea - he’d long stopped keeping track), so he uses that as his excuse. He teaches Be how to play “Hotel California” and “Hey Jude” and “Bad Moon Rising” and “American Pie”. And then, because she asks, he begrudgingly figures out a likely chord progression for Britney Spears’ “If U Seek Amy” and teaches that to her too.
The next time he visits, he finds T toddling around singing “Love me, hate me, say what you want about me…”
“Glad to know I’m doing my part to keep our culture intact,” he says. Adelle laughs.
_____
At one point he decides to cross the desert.
When he gets to the other side he meets a small encampment. He trades his motorcycle, which they can scrap for parts, for their pickup truck, which is almost out of gas. That’s just fine; it’ll get him where he needs to go.
“Which way did you come from?” one of them asks him, curious, as they’re good enough to fill up his canteen.
He takes a gulp of water, which is warm and tastes distinctly of rust, but at this point might as well be the sweetest drink he’s ever had. “East,” he says once the sandpaper’s out of his mouth.
“We were thinking of heading that way ourselves. Anything out there?”
He looks back. All that anyone can see from here is rolling hills and wasteland. But he knows hiding in there is the towers and bunkers of Neuropolis.
He turns to put the direction at his back.
“Nothing out there but cockroaches,” he says as he jams the stopper back in his canteen.
_____
“Dominic!” Priya looks up from where she’s peeling potatoes and wipes off her hands. “Finally decided to grace us again with your presence, I see.”
“Well, I figured it was about time.” He grins, hand running across his head. “I could use a trim.”
“So I see.” She considers him a moment before pulling a cloth from the counter and spreading it on the floor. She drags a chair atop of it. “Sit. I’ll get my shears.”
He does as told. Priya’s gotten pretty good at the haircut thing.
“Want me to trim up your beard while I’m at it?” she asks him as she goes to work.
“Nah. I always do that part myself,” he reminds her.
He never shaves completely, not anymore. Not any point.
Her upper body presses against his shoulders as she leans forward to work on the sides, and for some reason he’s struck by thoughts of how Tony Jr. grew in that belly of hers, and how big that kid’s getting now.
He almost asks her if she’s seen Anthony lately. But he doesn’t. He knows better than that.
_____
After all the bullets he has and hasn’t taken, all the psycho Butchers he’s fought off and cut down, he would have to have a close call eventually.
It only figures.
He’s running from a mob of them, out there alone. Gets off a few shots. Gets away successfully but then he trips, falls down an incline and he actually hears his leg break before he feels it.
He lands the wrong way and he’s flat on his back staring at the hot sun high up there in the sky, hurting all over. Possibly concussed.
His ribs ache. He already feels dehydrated. He tries to get up.
He can’t.
It’s just a goddamn miracle he just happens to be carrying a walkie-talkie on him, that he found a couple of days ago and kept because he thought it could be used for spare parts.
It takes him the better part of the afternoon to pry the casing apart with bleeding fingertips and twist the wires together to get a signal, and then a lot of twisting and cussing before he manages to locate Victor’s channel.
He’s in the ditch almost another two days before they come find him.
They jabber at him in Mandarin, help him drink some water and then Romeo sticks him with a needle full of morphine and he passes out.
He’s been in the hot sun and his leg fucking hurts, so all he can think is ‘Yeah, whatever, that’s cool’.
He comes to in a bed upstairs at Safe Haven, and Alpha’s wrapping plaster around his leg. The morphine hasn’t really worn off yet (and possibly he’s been given some more, by this point) so he doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes and wishes he could take a nap.
After he’s finished, Alpha sits on the bed and waits until he’s got his attention before he speaks.
“It’s not too bad a break. But you’ll be here a few months yet while it heals.” Alpha taps a hand on top of the cast, not enough to hurt but definitely enough to count as teasing. “Looks like we finally found a way to make you stay put for a bit. Adelle will be pleased.”
He looks at Alpha blearily. “You are so lucky I don’t have my gun.”
Alpha’s smile turns into a frown before quickly reversing itself again. “Pleasant dreams, Laurence.” He turns the light out when he goes.
_____
Forget ‘a few months’. A few weeks is a long time to be stuck in a bed, waiting for his bones to knit.
At first he has plenty of visitors. But eventually they return to their routines, chores and the endless stream of things that apparently need doing to keep everybody living.
Ballard brings up a tiny cardboard box containing exactly five books. Two of them are romance novels. One is a cookbook. The fourth is the Bible. The last one is Watership Down.
“Sorry. Not a lot of choices. We haven’t exactly been concerned with building a library.”
“So I see.”
“Most of the others we got are picture books, for T. And we used to have a self-help book - but Alpha read that so many times until the binding fell apart.”
He picks up Watership Down. He fucking hates Watership Down; he had to read it once before, for school. But it’s either Watership Down or staring at the paint on the ceiling so, hey, he’ll go with the rabbits.
The next day Be comes by with some markers and covers his cast with smiley faces, butterflies and ladybugs until she gets bored.
She leaves the markers.
Echo draws a picture of a tree on the underside.
Ballard, ever the original, signs his name and writes ‘Get well soon!’
Adelle writes ‘love’ in her elegant, looping script near the edge where it’ll easily be missed.
Alpha comes in while he’s sleeping and leaves a small, loopy symbol most might mistake for a fish.
T signs his name proudly in childish letters. Then he draws a couple pictures around it. A dinosaur. A bat and baseball. A cartoon image of a broken bone.
Priya, at last, selects green, purple and blue markers and spends the better part of an afternoon filling up what blank space is left with an ornate ivy design.
“Topher didn’t get to sign your cast,” T protests.
With all the innocence and determination of a seven year old, and without consulting anyone, he somehow manages to lead Topher into the room by the hand.
“Topher, won’t you like to sign Dominic’s cast?”
Topher makes eye contact for a record-breaking five seconds, before slumping back against the wall, head shaking and wringing his hands.
It’s impossible to tell if there’s any recognition.
“No, no, no,” he mutters. “I don’t write things down, I never write anything down. When I write my ideas down, bad things happen. It’s just…it’s a series of patterned behavior. Patterns, repeating…repeating patterns, again and again and again. The definition of insanity is repeating the same experiment and expecting different results.”
“That’s okay, T.” He swallows, addressing the boy rather than the other individual. “He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.”
T is disappointed, but leads Topher away again. Then he comes back with a deck of cards and they spend about three hours playing Go Fish.
T is his one of his two regular daily visitors. He likes the kid, but he’s getting pretty sick of Go Fish. He wonders if Priya would be mad if he taught him how to play poker.
His other regular visitor comes at night.
“Easy, easy,” he says to Adelle warningly, as she climbs over him to lay down by his side.
“Honestly.” She smirks as she rests her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest. He slips his arm around her. “You don’t think I have any ability to be gentle?”
“I know you have the ability to be the opposite. Which can be great, at times. Just not really what I’m hoping for right now.”
Adelle pulls open his nightshirt, kissing his chest.
“I can be gentle,” she murmurs. “I promise.” He threads his fingers through her hair. “Would you like me to show you?”
“Maybe later,” he says softly. Right now, he just wants to look at her. He just wants her near.
_____
He finds that he almost feels regretful, or something, when he gets healthy enough to travel again.
But that doesn’t stop him from leaving. No more than anything else has over all these past years.
_____
He’s miles away when it happens.
But he sees the aftermath of the explosion, just like everyone else does - hears a sonic boom, looks up, sees a ripple in the sky.
He’s unsettled, and his first instinct is to reach for his gun. But it’s not until days later he gets the full weight of what’s just occurred.
There a couple settlements (that word’s almost a kindness really; they’re talking about a few huts) he visits regularly. Semi-secure locations, too many people to move easily, too weak to be taken to Safe Haven for one reason or another. He comes and goes over the years, gathering intel and helping with supplies when he can.
He reaches this one about half a week after the weird thing in the sky.
He gets there mid-afternoon, to find them in the midst of some kind of fucking fiesta. Dancing in the streets, music playing, kids running and yelling, food being passed around in open dishes. Basically, party central everywhere he looks.
A little girl runs up to him. “Mr. Dominic! You here to celebrate with us?”
He has to yell to be heard. “What the hell’s going on?”
“It’s the mind rain! Didn’t you hear?”
“The what?”
“That big noise in the sky! After it happened, people starting coming back home all over! Momma finally woke up.”
He stops at that, wide-eyed. He knows this kid’s mother: her pitiable family’s been taking care of her ever since she was wiped almost two back.
“What do you mean, ‘she woke up’?”
“She’s back. Maybe now Daddy will finally come home, too.”
She twirls off into the crowd before he can get any more explanation. He stands there watching her dumbly as she goes.
It takes him awhile, but he finally manages to find some partiers still calm enough to explain it to him: ever since a few days ago, individuals who were wiped or printed - some of them years ago - are all going back to normal. No more Butchers or Dumbshows, just confused people.
And it sounds like it’s happening everywhere.
Could it be over? he thinks. After ten years, could it really finally be over?
He turns around and heads for Safe Haven, fast as he can.
_____
“They would’ve called you - you know, if they could have. And it’s not like there was any time to wait.”
“Yeah.”
(Doesn’t it just figure - battle to bring back the world, and he misses out on it. Too busy walking the earth.)
“So they all left?”
“Caroline, Paul, Adelle…they even took Topher, and Priya and her boy with them. They hooked up with Tony’s people. Who knows, maybe they picked up Alpha. Haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“And they all went to LA?”
“Said if this worked, they wouldn’t be coming back: so far, none of them have - and, as far as anyone can tell, it did. So, what about you, Dominic? You gonna stick around for awhile?”
“No.”
He has somewhere else he needs to be.
_____
Los Angeles is no longer in a state of chaos. It’s a state of rebuilding.
Everywhere he looks there are people moving: carrying things, picking up trash, fixing broken things and removing others, washing up the blood. Most of the activity’s centered around the former downtown.
No, he realizes. Not former. Not anymore. Not if there are going to be people living here.
It hits him that this is a city again - not a deathtrap, not a ruin.
He never thought he’d be so happy to see LA.
“Hey, buddy. Excuse me.” He intercepts the nearest guy, grabbing his shoulder. “Do you know somebody named Adelle DeWitt?”
“What, you mean the woman in charge?”
He almost laughs.
“Yeah. That’d be her.”
Of course it would. Like there was any doubt.
He finds Adelle on the bottom story of a high-rise, overseeing the reconstruction of its interior. Her back is to the door and she’s obviously preoccupied.
He grabs a board and joins a line of workers.
“And where would you like this one, ma’am?”
She spins around so fast he’s afraid she might end up pulling something.
“Laurence?”
He just stands there, smiling at her.
“I…oh, put it…put it anywhere.” She manages to tear her eyes away and looks around at their surroundings, dazed. “There are over a dozen things I have to do today-” She sounds regretful.
“It can wait.” He’s not going anywhere.
“No.” She steps toward him, and he quickly sets the board down as she cups his face in both of her hands. “No, it really can’t.”
He wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her for all he’s worth.
Back at Safe Haven, he used to make a point of kissing her, touching her, fucking her like they had all the time in the world.
Now they really do.
She leads him away to the penthouse apartment she’s claimed as her base of operations, shooing away all those that have attached themselves to her as her various assistants and followers, so they can be completely alone.
They sit down on the edge of the bed. He holds her hand. She reaches up again to touch his face, tracing it slowly. Like she’s forgotten its shape, or just marveling its still there like she remembers.
“God, I missed you,” she breathes.
“I missed you too,” he returns.
He’s pretty sure this is the first time they’ve ever actually said this to one another. Interesting, considering how many times they must’ve felt it over the years.
“I was…I hoped you’d come and find us, find me, after. But I…” She trembles as she draws a breath. “Alpha’s gone. Caroline and the others, the other former Actives, they’ll be holed up underground for at least another year, and I just…I’ve felt so…”
“Where’s Topher?” he asks, because someone’s clearly absent from that little narrative of hers. He has to admit, it’s been a puzzle at the back of his mind ever since he saw her, expecting to find the former genius clinging to her skirt.
He understands all too well, all at once, when her face breaks.
He holds her close to him. Face buried in his shoulder and fabric of his coat clutched in her fists, she sobs heavily, body wracked.
And somehow he knows, instinctively, that this is the first she’s cried over this - that she’s been holding it all in until now.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, when she finally stops to breath and starts to speak. “Tell me later. It’s fine.”
She dabs her eyes with the back of her hand, nodding. One hand still gripping his coat, as if she can’t bear to let go of him, she draws back enough to be able to meet his eyes.
“There’s time. There’s time, isn’t there?” she asks him, voice faint but intense. “You’re staying now, aren’t you?”
He brushes a thumb against the skin beneath her eye, lightly touching her wet eyelashes.
“Where else could I possibly be?”
It’s the most goddamned clichéd thing in the world, but the only way he can think to describe her smile: is that it’s like a brilliant, warm beam of sunshine coming out from behind clouds after it rains.
“There’s so much to do,” she remarks, caressing him. He puts his hand on top of hers.
“Well. I’m here to help.”
They can get this done. It won’t be easy - it’ll be anything but easy - but he knows they can get this done.
Together. The way it was meant to be.