The Everlasting, Chapter 1
Title: The Everlasting
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
A/N: Doh! I thought I'd posted this, like, DAYS ago. *headdesk* Oh well...
Chapter 1
It happened on a Tuesday morning.
Alec woke up to find that the power had gone out, all down the block, and then his computer wouldn't turn on. Or the laptop. Or the other laptops, but it wasn't until his cell wouldn't turn on that he started to panic.
It was bad enough that it took him half an hour to remember the battery operated walkman he still had in the back of his closet. He had to scrounge batteries from a flashlight, but he got it working, relieved when he heard the static between stations.
The relief only lasted for half a second after managing to tune into one of the stations.
"...confirmed, a nuclear explosion, several hundred miles over the continental United States, has resulted in an electromagnetic pulse, wiping out electronic devices across the country. People are advised to stay in their homes, and to take precautions when venturing outside, as riots are already underway. Already looking for a solution, the President is working with congress to enact martial law, and as it has been declared a public emergency, National Guard units are currently being deployed…"
That had been three months ago, and not much had improved since. The cars that had been running, and the emergency generators that people had rushed to buy or steal, had mostly run out of fuel. Fighting had broken out at the gas station when it was revealed that the pumps were all digital, that first week. That second week, the station a few blocks down had taken down half the block when it burned to the ground after someone had tried to create a manual line to the fuel. Nobody knew about it in time, and there really hadn't been anything anyone could've done, anyway. The smell hung over the city for weeks, afterward.
People had been saying that EMPs were nonfatal, and they hadn't been wrong, not entirely. Alec didn't know until later, but Mr. Varner, down on the corner, had worn a pacemaker, and he'd only been part of the first wave. It got worse. Water treatment was a problem. The hospitals had been set back a hundred years without any training for the new conditions, and food supplies were running low. Everywhere, as far as he knew.
Nobody, not the military, not the police, and not the citizens, had been ready to face off against each other, but it hadn't taken anyone very long to adjust. The guns were the one piece of technology still working, and that portion of the black market had become one of the more profitable areas of the new economy. Nobody, on any side, could keep up with demand.
It had started as an uncoordinated attack, one among thousands, but it just never stopped. The attacks grew into a series of border skirmishes for the military to police, but the gangs were winning, block by block.
The warring had become just something to take into account, like the weather, or the constant debates about how the hell anyone was supposed to survive into the next week, where people were supposed to go. One night, around four in the morning, Alec had managed to dial into a report about seriously high levels of radiation poisoning the hell out of Nebraska.
A day or two late, the signal was lost for good. People didn't talk much about trying to escape the city, any more, after that.
None of it mattered. If there was anywhere to go, there was no way to get there.
---
The worst of it, Alec thought bitterly as he glared across the overcast street, was that on the other side of the ocean, it was business as usual. The US was in purgatory, and the rest of the world was watching it on TV with the same attention that he'd watched every major disaster in the past ten years. Tsunamis and earthquakes and too many deaths. Better to change the channel, find something more entertaining.
The new season of Doctor Who was probably continuing on, regardless. Maybe Sophie was watching it, if she was still in London. But it had been months since he'd heard from her. She could be anywhere by now. Hopefully far, far away.
He finished re-welding the last bar to the doorframe and wondered if he'd pulled enough power through the roof's solar cells to cook dinner. The canned soup was too salty to start with, but cold it was worse. The family who'd lived on the corner had been well stocked, apparently expecting to survive all this for a while longer than they had. Maybe he'd eat the canned pears tonight, too, if he had the appetite.
Passing Nate's door on the way up the stairs, he thought about going inside, the way he sonetimes did. Decided against it. It was depressing, in there, sitting empty dark, with too may windows facing the street. At least up in his own apartment, he'd managed to black out the windows to the living room and kitchen. He could turn a light on, for a while, and none of the packs roaming the streets would know he was there.
On the third floor landing, he thought he heard a noise. It was just the power, shutting off, but it sent the same chill down his spine as a ghost or a stranger staring back at him would have done.
He shook it off. He was the closest thing to a ghost this building had probably ever seen.
---
Alec did what he could to stay sane. There was no information. No news, no nothing. No pizza delivery and no groceries, and for about eighteen hours a day, no power, and he was slowly going insane. It wasn't the internet or the phones that he missed, not really. Just the connection they provided. The ability to communicate with someone without wondering if they were going to try and steal whatever you had on hand.
He holed up in his apartment and tried to think of a thousand different plans. He reread all of his comics and used up his paints when the lights were on, and when they weren't, he sat in darkened windows and watched the streets below for signs of life. He rebuilt two computers and got one of them running again, but there was no way to get online, even via satellite. The EMPs had made sure of that, the radio had said, and there wasn't anything to connect to, anyway.
He tried to ignore the guns he had stashed in every room, ignored the chafing of the underarm holster that had looked cool at the army surplus, and tried not to think what he'd have to do with it if anyone made it up the stairs, or what it meant that he'd come to this.
Most nights, he listened to fights and shouts and screams in the streets, and in the mornings, he'd help move the bodies off the street and get them down to the park and wonder how many others, in the city, in the country, had died. How many were moldering behind closed doors.
He'd started visiting Mrs. Reese, the retired elementary school teacher across the alley, about two months ago. When the street below was quiet, he'd bring her some food, eat with her, talk about books or shows she'd liked. She'd seen her husband get shot down that first weekend, and as the weeks passed, he realized he was mostly going over there to bear witness as she ate less and less, watching her practice becoming nothing, and try to make arguments that fell on deaf ears.
She never talked religion, just about her grandkids, towards the end, when she'd been too weak to feed herself if she'd wanted to, but it hadn't mattered. There was a bible by her bed, but he didn't know her denomination. The church down at the end of the block was taking everyone in, regardless.
Parker came around sometimes, slipping in silently through the window. Brought supplies in, sometimes, but usually, she just asked for news that he didn't have. The people in her neighborhood needed the same things as anyone, and they needed her to get them. As far as Alec could tell, she didn't mind doing it, but she didn't like the attention it garnered, either.
She came, mostly, to hide, and never stayed very long. Sometimes she'd go to Nate's apartment and sit there, in the dark, for a while. Sometimes she'd eat with him, and sometimes she wouldn't. Sometimes she'd just sit there and stare into space.
Once, she asked if he knew where Eliot was, and when he'd said no, she'd asked why not, and he'd had to explain the entire thing. That with the crew falling apart, there wasn't really anything keeping the two of them together. That it just sort of happened, that it wasn't anyone's fault. She'd hastened to agree with him so quickly that he believed it just a little bit less, afterwards.
But Parker hadn't been around in a while. He was starting to worry. Not because he needed to, but because there was no one else worth worrying about, any more.
He refused to think about Eliot.
---
Halfway through the second month, he'd walked down to the post office to find the woman behind the counter shot dead on the floor. The packages in back had been rifled through and emptied, someone scavenging for food, and there were thousands of letters piled on the floor, with postage stuck to them that meant nothing, anymore. Dead letters, dead information going nowhere. He'd known it was wrong, that the sight depressed him more than the bodies in the streets every morning did, but it had given him the first idea he'd had in weeks.
Alec Hardison showed up the next day, and the next, and fairly soon, he realized that this was what having a job must feel like. He'd collect the mail and whatever people brought in as postage, and sort through it, redistributing everything among the neighborhood kids who'd started hanging around.
Mica was the best of his mailmen. He'd been a drug runner, before, moving product between neighborhoods on the east side, but he had connections enough to get the letters through to the post office downtown within a few hours. Mica carried a gun on him and waxed sentimental about how much safer dealing drugs had been, but he brought in his crew to deliver to the local blocks and kept them in line. He was a good kid, and wasn't picky about being paid in food or batteries or whatever else was on hand.
---
Alec had been sorting mail for three hours when he noticed the envelope addressed to him, from a prison in upstate New York. It was from Nate. Who was still alive. Writing to check up on him, asking about the others. Saying that Sophie was in England and doing fine. Joking about how apparently, prison is the safest place to be when the world goes to shit. Telling him to raid the stash in his apartment if he needed any cash or anything to trade, about a month and a half after Alec had already done so.
Alec meant to drop him a quick line to say he was alive. It was seventeen and a half pages long by the time he was done, and in Mica's waiting hands first thing the next morning, and Alec set to waiting for a response the moment Mica was out the door.
He never got one. His fingers itched for days, wanting to find out what happened. If Nate was okay, if the madness had crept in through the prison's walls to take Nate down as well.
He's fine, he'd tell himself at night. They all are. Nate, Sophie, Parker. No problems.
Eliot, though? Who the fuck knew?
---
Chapter 2
Rating: PG-13 for now
Spoilers: Up through end of season 2
Pairing: Alec Hardison/ Eliot Spencer
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, don't take this too seriously.
A/N: Doh! I thought I'd posted this, like, DAYS ago. *headdesk* Oh well...
Chapter 1
It happened on a Tuesday morning.
Alec woke up to find that the power had gone out, all down the block, and then his computer wouldn't turn on. Or the laptop. Or the other laptops, but it wasn't until his cell wouldn't turn on that he started to panic.
It was bad enough that it took him half an hour to remember the battery operated walkman he still had in the back of his closet. He had to scrounge batteries from a flashlight, but he got it working, relieved when he heard the static between stations.
The relief only lasted for half a second after managing to tune into one of the stations.
"...confirmed, a nuclear explosion, several hundred miles over the continental United States, has resulted in an electromagnetic pulse, wiping out electronic devices across the country. People are advised to stay in their homes, and to take precautions when venturing outside, as riots are already underway. Already looking for a solution, the President is working with congress to enact martial law, and as it has been declared a public emergency, National Guard units are currently being deployed…"
That had been three months ago, and not much had improved since. The cars that had been running, and the emergency generators that people had rushed to buy or steal, had mostly run out of fuel. Fighting had broken out at the gas station when it was revealed that the pumps were all digital, that first week. That second week, the station a few blocks down had taken down half the block when it burned to the ground after someone had tried to create a manual line to the fuel. Nobody knew about it in time, and there really hadn't been anything anyone could've done, anyway. The smell hung over the city for weeks, afterward.
People had been saying that EMPs were nonfatal, and they hadn't been wrong, not entirely. Alec didn't know until later, but Mr. Varner, down on the corner, had worn a pacemaker, and he'd only been part of the first wave. It got worse. Water treatment was a problem. The hospitals had been set back a hundred years without any training for the new conditions, and food supplies were running low. Everywhere, as far as he knew.
Nobody, not the military, not the police, and not the citizens, had been ready to face off against each other, but it hadn't taken anyone very long to adjust. The guns were the one piece of technology still working, and that portion of the black market had become one of the more profitable areas of the new economy. Nobody, on any side, could keep up with demand.
It had started as an uncoordinated attack, one among thousands, but it just never stopped. The attacks grew into a series of border skirmishes for the military to police, but the gangs were winning, block by block.
The warring had become just something to take into account, like the weather, or the constant debates about how the hell anyone was supposed to survive into the next week, where people were supposed to go. One night, around four in the morning, Alec had managed to dial into a report about seriously high levels of radiation poisoning the hell out of Nebraska.
A day or two late, the signal was lost for good. People didn't talk much about trying to escape the city, any more, after that.
None of it mattered. If there was anywhere to go, there was no way to get there.
---
The worst of it, Alec thought bitterly as he glared across the overcast street, was that on the other side of the ocean, it was business as usual. The US was in purgatory, and the rest of the world was watching it on TV with the same attention that he'd watched every major disaster in the past ten years. Tsunamis and earthquakes and too many deaths. Better to change the channel, find something more entertaining.
The new season of Doctor Who was probably continuing on, regardless. Maybe Sophie was watching it, if she was still in London. But it had been months since he'd heard from her. She could be anywhere by now. Hopefully far, far away.
He finished re-welding the last bar to the doorframe and wondered if he'd pulled enough power through the roof's solar cells to cook dinner. The canned soup was too salty to start with, but cold it was worse. The family who'd lived on the corner had been well stocked, apparently expecting to survive all this for a while longer than they had. Maybe he'd eat the canned pears tonight, too, if he had the appetite.
Passing Nate's door on the way up the stairs, he thought about going inside, the way he sonetimes did. Decided against it. It was depressing, in there, sitting empty dark, with too may windows facing the street. At least up in his own apartment, he'd managed to black out the windows to the living room and kitchen. He could turn a light on, for a while, and none of the packs roaming the streets would know he was there.
On the third floor landing, he thought he heard a noise. It was just the power, shutting off, but it sent the same chill down his spine as a ghost or a stranger staring back at him would have done.
He shook it off. He was the closest thing to a ghost this building had probably ever seen.
---
Alec did what he could to stay sane. There was no information. No news, no nothing. No pizza delivery and no groceries, and for about eighteen hours a day, no power, and he was slowly going insane. It wasn't the internet or the phones that he missed, not really. Just the connection they provided. The ability to communicate with someone without wondering if they were going to try and steal whatever you had on hand.
He holed up in his apartment and tried to think of a thousand different plans. He reread all of his comics and used up his paints when the lights were on, and when they weren't, he sat in darkened windows and watched the streets below for signs of life. He rebuilt two computers and got one of them running again, but there was no way to get online, even via satellite. The EMPs had made sure of that, the radio had said, and there wasn't anything to connect to, anyway.
He tried to ignore the guns he had stashed in every room, ignored the chafing of the underarm holster that had looked cool at the army surplus, and tried not to think what he'd have to do with it if anyone made it up the stairs, or what it meant that he'd come to this.
Most nights, he listened to fights and shouts and screams in the streets, and in the mornings, he'd help move the bodies off the street and get them down to the park and wonder how many others, in the city, in the country, had died. How many were moldering behind closed doors.
He'd started visiting Mrs. Reese, the retired elementary school teacher across the alley, about two months ago. When the street below was quiet, he'd bring her some food, eat with her, talk about books or shows she'd liked. She'd seen her husband get shot down that first weekend, and as the weeks passed, he realized he was mostly going over there to bear witness as she ate less and less, watching her practice becoming nothing, and try to make arguments that fell on deaf ears.
She never talked religion, just about her grandkids, towards the end, when she'd been too weak to feed herself if she'd wanted to, but it hadn't mattered. There was a bible by her bed, but he didn't know her denomination. The church down at the end of the block was taking everyone in, regardless.
Parker came around sometimes, slipping in silently through the window. Brought supplies in, sometimes, but usually, she just asked for news that he didn't have. The people in her neighborhood needed the same things as anyone, and they needed her to get them. As far as Alec could tell, she didn't mind doing it, but she didn't like the attention it garnered, either.
She came, mostly, to hide, and never stayed very long. Sometimes she'd go to Nate's apartment and sit there, in the dark, for a while. Sometimes she'd eat with him, and sometimes she wouldn't. Sometimes she'd just sit there and stare into space.
Once, she asked if he knew where Eliot was, and when he'd said no, she'd asked why not, and he'd had to explain the entire thing. That with the crew falling apart, there wasn't really anything keeping the two of them together. That it just sort of happened, that it wasn't anyone's fault. She'd hastened to agree with him so quickly that he believed it just a little bit less, afterwards.
But Parker hadn't been around in a while. He was starting to worry. Not because he needed to, but because there was no one else worth worrying about, any more.
He refused to think about Eliot.
---
Halfway through the second month, he'd walked down to the post office to find the woman behind the counter shot dead on the floor. The packages in back had been rifled through and emptied, someone scavenging for food, and there were thousands of letters piled on the floor, with postage stuck to them that meant nothing, anymore. Dead letters, dead information going nowhere. He'd known it was wrong, that the sight depressed him more than the bodies in the streets every morning did, but it had given him the first idea he'd had in weeks.
Alec Hardison showed up the next day, and the next, and fairly soon, he realized that this was what having a job must feel like. He'd collect the mail and whatever people brought in as postage, and sort through it, redistributing everything among the neighborhood kids who'd started hanging around.
Mica was the best of his mailmen. He'd been a drug runner, before, moving product between neighborhoods on the east side, but he had connections enough to get the letters through to the post office downtown within a few hours. Mica carried a gun on him and waxed sentimental about how much safer dealing drugs had been, but he brought in his crew to deliver to the local blocks and kept them in line. He was a good kid, and wasn't picky about being paid in food or batteries or whatever else was on hand.
---
Alec had been sorting mail for three hours when he noticed the envelope addressed to him, from a prison in upstate New York. It was from Nate. Who was still alive. Writing to check up on him, asking about the others. Saying that Sophie was in England and doing fine. Joking about how apparently, prison is the safest place to be when the world goes to shit. Telling him to raid the stash in his apartment if he needed any cash or anything to trade, about a month and a half after Alec had already done so.
Alec meant to drop him a quick line to say he was alive. It was seventeen and a half pages long by the time he was done, and in Mica's waiting hands first thing the next morning, and Alec set to waiting for a response the moment Mica was out the door.
He never got one. His fingers itched for days, wanting to find out what happened. If Nate was okay, if the madness had crept in through the prison's walls to take Nate down as well.
He's fine, he'd tell himself at night. They all are. Nate, Sophie, Parker. No problems.
Eliot, though? Who the fuck knew?
---
Chapter 2