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Five hurt all over. Her head pounded. The images of the racing track and the mental facility were etched into her mind like scratches against stone. She kept trying to convince herself the hallucination did not seem so real, but the brightly lit faces of all her loved ones-- and many hated ones-- had presented themselves so clearly, so articulately, Five knew she had believed every word. She was quiet as Amelia and Simon bickered on the way to Abel and, for the first time, she wished she did not have to go back.
When they were close enough, Five unwillingly hopped out of the vehicle just out of sight of Abel and turned back to Amelia and Simon. Amelia revved the engine, but Simon stayed her hand for a moment.
“Tell Janine…” he was saying. He shook his head. “You know what? Don’t tell her anything. Amelia’s more my league anyway.”
Five watched the two drive off, her stomach roiling in nervousness. As she jogged the rest of the way back to Abel, she only let her mind stray a minute or two on the terrifyingly vivid images of Archie and Sarah. Van Ark. Sam.
“It doesn’t change how I feel about you,” his voice echoed in her mind, and she shivered. Now in view, Abel’s walls seemed ominous—not welcoming, as they had been hundreds of times before. Simon had reassured her that they all knew she had been under mind control, but how much could she trust Simon, really? How much could she trust herself?
Five took a deep breath and stepped out into the clearing, arms raised above her head. If they wanted to shoot her, now was the time. The sentry at the corner of Abel closest to the main gates began yelling, and Five stopped. She was so, so tired.
As she was ushered into Abel, Five couldn’t help but remember the last times she had gone missing from her township. When Van Ark had captured her. When she had been a resident of New Canton. This was just another addition to the list. Except, this time, the list included murder.
Guns pointed at her from all sides—a horrifying echo of the first time she had ever stumbled into Abel after the helicopter crash. Back when Sarah had been alive. When Evan, Runner Seven, had been her mentor. When Janine—well. Janine had always been Janine. That much Five could trust.
Five was immediately taken to the med bay. That was a step up from what she expected; last time she had stumbled into Abel suspected a traitor, she had been thrown unceremoniously into the cells of Janine’s basement with Sarah. Five wanted to protest being taken to the hospital. She had so many people to find. So many people with which to make amends.
Five was shut and locked in one of the hospital rooms, left with her own thoughts. She didn’t want to, but the absolute stillness of the room forced her mind to think on the explosion.
Five had done it. Five had obeyed Moonchild’s orders. Five had destroyed the ships and ended hundreds of lives. Five, Five, Five. How many innocent lives had she ruined?
Just as her own mind seemed to become an unbearably hostile haze of memory, the door swung open. Maxine walked in, and, at seeing her face lined with concern, Five couldn’t hold her composure anymore. She sobbed into her hands, her entire body shaking.
“Oh, Five…” Maxine murmured, sitting beside her on the bed. She placed a hand gently on Five’s back. The doctor said nothing for a moment, allowing Five to spill her agony in howls that echoed through the hospital’s hallway. She was a murderer. She had killed. She had liked it.
When Five’s tears had subsided into pained, rattling breaths and hiccups, Maxine stood and kneeled before her on the ground.
“Runner Five,” Maxine said slowly. Five winced and closed her eyes. She didn’t deserve her title. She didn’t deserve a name. “Look at me.”
Five felt as if she took hours to get the nerve to look into Maxine’s eyes, but she finally lifted her head. Maxine’s eyes were gentle, pitying. They made Five’s guilt swell in her chest.
“We don’t blame you for what happened,” she said quietly. Tears streamed down Five’s cheeks, and she made no attempt to stop them save for ugly sniffles. “Anyone could have been in your position. Anyone would have done the same thing. But you’re back now, in body and mind. And I just need to make sure that you won’t turn on us again.”
Hours of psychological probing passed. Five submitted to every possible test that Maxine conducted. She answered questions, suffered pokes, tolerated injections, and donated blood for testing. She told Maxine what Simon had done, and how she didn’t have to worry about the mind control anymore. Only after hours and hours did Maxine finally sit back and agree with Five.
Five was terrified to return to the relative normalcy that was Abel. It seemed as if everyone already knew about Five’s condition, and that she had committed unwitting but undeniable manslaughter. As she made her way timidly through the township, some citizens came and spoke to her; others were clearly not ready. Five didn’t blame them.
Jody was much faster to forgive Five than she would have been herself. She found Runner Four near the mess hall cooking oatmeal. As soon as she saw Five, Jody dropped her bowl and rushed over to her. Only a few words were exchanged—mostly from an emotional Five—but the conversation ended in a hug and more tears. Five touched Jody’s bruised jaw gently. Jody accepted her repeated apologies, and even gave her a small smile at the end of it all.
Over the course of the evening, Five spoke to dozens of Abel residents, and her head was spinning with exhaustion by the end of the day. Some had demanded a better explanation than the truth, and Five was left with the echoes of their rage ringing in her ears. Others tearfully admitted that they had known people who had drowned on the ships, and Five cried with them. Still others simply sat with her and hugged her and told her they understood-- and these were the Abel citizens that made Five able to bear the rest of the day.
When the last trickle of Abel residents had trudged to bed, Five looked around, willing herself not to tear up again. One very specific Abel resident had not approached her.
Five considered going to the comms tower in the morning. She could bathe, change, and actually look presentable as she made her apology to him. But when it came down to it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go the night without speaking to him. Besides, Sam had seen her at her very worst.
He must have heard her coming up the stairs; she didn’t even have to knock before he opened the door. He stared at her for a moment, his hair messy, dark circles under his eyes.
“Hi, Sam.” Five felt her voice shrivel and squeak.
“Five.” Sam almost breathed the word. “Come in.”
Five walked in and sat cross-legged on the swiveling chair next to Sam’s. He sat down as well. His headset was abandoned, scattered halfway across the table. He hadn’t been working.
“I’m sorry,” Five said immediately. There was no use sugar-coating the issue. “I’m just… I’m sorry.”
“I know,” Sam replied quietly.
Five felt mortified tears springing to her eyes, so she continued talking. “Simon and Amelia saved me.”
“Janine and the others wouldn’t let anyone from Abel come after you.” Sam’s voice dripped with regret. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t you apologize!” Five gasped. “I’m the one who just murdered a ship of innocent people! I hurt Jody, and you! You were right not to come after me.”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
Five stopped. “Wait… what?”
“Look at me. Not a scratch.” Sam lifted his arms, and Five took a good look at him for the first time. She remembered delivering the fatal blow. She remembered driving the weapon into his skull.
Was it possible that she had not in fact even hurt him? Yes, Simon had told her Sam was alive, but Five had assumed that he had at least been seriously injured. “When you were advancing on me, well, I could feel you slipping in and out of mind control. You were fighting it. Just as you were about to take me out, you just keeled over.” Sam paused. “You stopped yourself from hurting me.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He smiled crookedly. “Got a soft spot for your radio operator?”
Five’s face burned and she changed the subject quickly. “Simon told me about how you wanted to come after me. Called you a big softie. Apparently you were dying to get yourself killed.”
“Can’t let my runners go off without me,” Sam responded, fiddling with the Marmite bottle’s top.
Five was quiet. She was unsure how to bring up the next topic. “The serum that Simon injected into me made me hallucinate.”
“Hallucinate? What about?”
“Sarah. Archie.” Five looked away, allowing the vivid images to float through her mind again. “They were alive. Van Ark, too. I was in a mental hospital, and he was my doctor, and they all kept telling me that none of this world was real. That I had imagined the apocalypse.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Simon kept bringing me in and out of all that. I didn’t know what was real anymore. In the hallucinations, all the people kept telling me that Simon was a liar, and you…”
“What?”
Five swallowed hard. “Van Ark allowed me one visitor. And it was you.”
Sam blinked. “Me?”
Five nodded. “You just… hugged me and told me everything was all right. That I hadn’t killed or hurt you. That what I did didn’t change—” she stopped. No. She couldn’t say that. “That everything was okay.”
“Well your dreams were right about that, at least. You didn’t hurt me. And what you did doesn’t change anything.” Sam swallowed. “It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
Five froze. She stared at Sam, daring him to laugh or say he was joking. He did not. He stared back, and suddenly their arms were around one another in a deep, shaking hug. It would take time, but she could get through this. They could get back to normal. They could. She had Sam on her side, and that’s all she needed.
-
Five was temporarily relieved from running missions-- and relieved from duty as Head of Runners. It stung, but Maxine insisted that the the mental strain of being mind-controlled was enough reason to take a break. However, Janine’s careful watchfulness told a different story. Five had been excused from running duty a small number of times in the past for physical injuries-- sprained ankles, torn ligaments, a tricky laceration or two. But never had Five been given mental leave.
It was obvious. They were afraid Five might turn on them again. They were afraid she might slip away from them again.
It was suffocating. Many Abel residents didn’t trust her, so she was forced to go about her daily chores with eyes and ears on her every movement. They flinched when she raised her hand, expecting a damaging blow. They stared when she gazed off into the distance, tightening their hands around their daggers and waiting for her to snap. No doctor but time would be able to prove her innocence and freedom from Moonchild’s power.
Her close friends at Abel remained steadfast. Maxine, the ever-patient Maxine, talked to her and reassured her that everything would be fine. Jody sat with her near the nighttime campfires and knit quietly, providing the comfortable silence Five so craved. Jack and Eugene invited her to help with their radio show. Rajit asked Five to teach him some particular axe-swinging techniques.
And Sam. If any good had come out of this ordeal, it had been Sam.
Five sat in the comms shack on an old couch, reading and watching Sam work. Runners Nine, Twelve and Fourteen were off on a semi-normal supply run, and Sam chatted animatedly into his headset. Five held a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice that she had snagged on a run, but she was more interested in watching Sam herd his runners than bother with Mr. Darcy’s hypocrisy.
“Raise the gates!” Sam called, and Five perked up. From the window, they could see the sturdy Abel doors rise as the three runners stumbled into the township, panting heavily. They seemed tired, but unscathed.
“Right,” Sam continued, chucking his headset to the side after ensuring that the gates were properly closed. “Guess there was nothing at the old pharmacy after all. Shame.”
Sam exited his rolling chair and plopped down next to Five on the couch. Their knees touched.
“Next time, then,” Five shrugged, dropping her book to the floor. “Any more runs scheduled for the day?”
Sam shook his head. “Normally we’d schedule another run-- and when I say ‘we’ obviously I mean ‘you’ as Head of Runners-- but I think people are wary about having too many missions in a day, just in case another mind-control case pops up. Can never be too careful.”
“No,” Five murmured, looking away with another pang of guilt. She was causing so many problems.
“Hey.” Sam turned Five’s face toward his with a finger. “I know it’s hard, but we’ll get through this. You’ll see.”
He ran his fingers through her hair, and Five closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. She leaned forward so their foreheads touched.
Three years. Three years had passed since the beginning of the apocalypse. Five could still remember the first time Sam had called out to her amid the wreckage of the crashed helicopter. The first time Sam had guided her home, and the first time she had felt pangs of an emotion she couldn’t quite place as he greeted her at Abel’s gates.
As time passed, Five was quick to realize exactly what those emotions were-- and they terrified her. She couldn’t afford to have feelings like this in the apocalypse. There was no place for love in a world rife with suffering. But as she made her way at Abel, Sam always by her side, Sam always in her ear, Sam always around for a hug and a laugh-- she could not quash those emotions.
Three years ago, Five would have never dreamed that she would be sitting on a couch in the comms shack with a radio operator gazing at her the way he did now, trailing his fingertips along her collarbone.
It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.
Now that their feelings had been admitted, there was no secrecy. No subversion, and no hiding from the others. Life was too short to play games like this anymore. In another life, Five might have wished to keep her relationship with Sam professional at least on the surface, but no one cared anymore. Was it a surprise to anyone that she and Sam had feelings for one another anyway?
Five wrapped her arms around Sam again, bringing their bodies close. She shivered, reveling in how many times she had imagined this scene, but couldn’t quite believe that she was here, with him, right now. Their lips met.
Five was ready to make up for lost time, and Sam seemed to feel much the same way. He gently pushed Five back as they kissed, lying her down on the comms shack couch. His lips brushed along her jawline, down her neck, and he nipped playfully at the chain of Abel Township dog tags lying on her chest.
“I hope Jack and Eugene don’t decide to start early,” Five teased, and felt the warm breath of Sam’s laughter against her skin.
“They’ll get a good show if they do,” he muttered, bringing his lips back to hers.
Five and Sam wiggled around and switched positions. He laid back, sticking his orange hoodie beneath his head as a makeshift pillow. Five laid on his chest and cuddled into him, and he wrapped his arms around her.
Five closed her eyes. This. This is what they should have been doing for the past three years. Not coy flirty banter. Not restraint for the sake of professionalism. They should have been succumbing to their desires a long time ago.
Well, better late than never. Five listened to Sam’s steady heartbeat, and his comfortable breathing. His fingers trailed lightly across her back as they lay there, just the two of them, listening to the silence of the comms shack and watching the sun slowly set through its large windows.
When the sun was gone, Sam’s heartbeats became jerky and irregular. Five lifted her head and looked up at him. His face was turned towards the windows, stress lining the corners of his mouth, thrown into sharp relief by the emerging moonlight.
“What is it?” Five asked.
Sam shook his head slightly. “I was just… thinking.”
“About?”
“About how I left you outside Abel after dark that first year.”
Five propped herself up on her elbows and looked up at him. “You didn’t leave me--”
“No, no, of course it was New Canton’s fault,” Sam amended hastily. “But think about it. We’ve been through so much at this point-- and I still think about how you were stranded out there not too long after you joined us. How long had it been, just a few weeks?”
“Not long at all.”
“No,” Sam continued. “And even then I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”
He kissed Five’s forehead, and her face burned, but not unpleasantly.
“You were the first person I wanted to see when I made it back,” Five added, laying her head back down on his chest. “Even when I’d been let back into Abel, I didn’t stop running until I saw you.”
Sam squeezed her. “I remember.”
“I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you either. From the very beginning, that’s how it was.”
“Remember how I helped take you to the med bay when you came back?” Sam asked, playing with Five’s hair. “And how I spent the night sleeping in that chair beside the hospital bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Did I ever tell you that Maxine sat me down and gave me a box of condoms?”
Five burst out laughing. “What?”
“I dunno, she just assumed something was going on-- or was about to go on-- and told me to be very careful-- be communicative, get consent, use protection, et cetera et cetera. I mean, she didn’t explicitly say she was giving me the condoms to use with you-- but she was bloody well implying it. I was so embarrassed! I hid the box and vowed no one would ever know.”
Five shook with giggles. “And now, years later, you decide to tell me.”
Sam shrugged and smiled. “Couldn’t stay a secret forever.”
“Do you still have the condoms?”
“You would be surprised who comes up to you when word gets out you’ve got a supply of condoms you haven’t had the opportunity to use. I think most of them ended up going to Jack and Eugene, though I know I did give some to Simon, Cameo, and Ed…” Sam chuckled again. “I always kept a couple just in case I had the, er, opportunity to use them.”
“And did you?” Five asked with real curiosity lining her question.
“No,” Sam responded simply, adding with a sideways glance, “Though I-- I may have use for them in the near future…”
“Is that so?” Five responded, running her fingers along his chest.
“Maybe,” Sam said, stuttering, his ears pink. “Provided I am communicative, get consent, use protection, et cetera, et cetera…”
“They’re not too old?”
“Shelf life of three years or so...”
“Then it looks like you’re running out of time to get laid,” Five murmured cheekily. “Might want to jump at any opportunity that comes up…”
Five felt Sam’s heart sputter again, and she reached back up to kiss him with a grin. They rolled off the couch to the floor, and, as their shirts were thrown across the room, Five hoped indeed that Jack and Eugene would delay their programming for just a bit longer.