Chapter Summary: Drift and Wing try to help the two newest members of their group adjust to their new lives.

"It's time to be a big girl now, and big girls don't cry." –Big Girls by Fergie

Iron Town was a small town, nestled in a rare fertile area in the No Man's Land that kept her citizens alive. Painstaking effort from every villager created the river they had diverted from a water source further away, providing everyone and everything with the life-giving substance. Here in their little corner of heaven, the threat of the civil war happening further to the west was far removed from their thoughts. They wanted nothing to do with the war; that was the problems of the city folk, not them.

It lulled them into a false sense of security, leaving them unprepared when the war did come to their paradise.

Like most attacks, it came swift and suddenly, with no warning. Not that either side would have bothered to warn the villagers. There wasn't time for that. They weren't important enough. They were just a small town staking out an existence. They had no provisions to spare, no weapons to offer or soldiers to enlist. They were insignificant in the eyes of the superiors.

It was horrifying how easy the town and her people had been to level, how only in the space of a few hours, a smoking crater remained where a community had once been. The soldiers left as quickly as they had come, the thundering of their vehicles and feet and weaponry fading into the red horizon as the fighting continued elsewhere. Behind them, they left the smoldering ruins of buildings and the bodies of their comrades, enemies and innocents. The empty gun casings, the broken weaponry, the bombs and landmines lodged deep in the earth.

And they left two survivors, in a town that had housed almost seventy. Two girls, left to die with the rest of their friends and family.

It was only by divine intervention that they were found by people who could help take care of them, people who through gentle coaxing and several promises pulled them out of their hiding places and into the open air. People who didn't wear the purple or red sigils of the soldiers that attacked them. People who were safe. They wouldn't have survived long on their own, but with these two mysterious women, maybe they had a chance.

Slipstream thought they were angels sent by Primus. Jetstorm didn't quite know what to think of them.

"Are you warm enough?" Wing asked. The two young girls sat close to the fire, using its heat to keep their bodies warm against the cool night. Her voice was soothing, melodious and warm, like the voice of their mothers. The fire danced in her gold eyes, turning them into luminous circles in the night. Drift watched them quietly as she placed more wood on the fire, her expression unreadable.

"Yes, thank you." Slipstream said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the crackling of the fire. Jetstorm didn't bother to answer, her eyes fixed on the fire and a million miles away from their campsite. The two women glanced at each other as silence blanketed the campsite, understanding each other without words.

Only the noise of the fire and the occasional wildlife broke the quiet. Slipstream tried to ignore the sounds of the fire, tried to ignore the memories that threatened to rise of fires burning all through Iron Town and had continued to burn long after the armies left. Her hands clenched on her forearms hard enough to hurt. They could shut their eyes to the carnage, hide in the rubble of their used-to-be homes, but they couldn't shut their ears to it.

There was a commotion going on outside. People shouting, moving, running…it sounded like the town on market day, only louder and market day was still far away. Why was everyone running? Why were they scared?

"Slipstream!"

"Mom? Mom, what's wrong?"

"Slipstream, I need you to stay in the house. Something's happened and you need to stay in here, no matter what. Do you understand?"

"Mom, what's going on? Why are people shouting?"

"Stay in the house, Slipstream!"

That was the last memory she had of her mother, dark auburn hair coiling down her shoulders, sapphire eyes flashing with fear and love, a soft smile on her face and the last hug and kiss she gave Slipstream before leaving the house.

She stood in her house, fidgeting and waiting for…whatever had Mom frightened to leave. The commotion was only getting louder, leaving her worried and confused about what was going on.

Slipstream got her answer a moment later, when the ground shook with amazing force and throwing her into the nearby table. A distant, dull boom accompanied it, overlaid with the panicked screams of people and crack of gunfire. Then came another earth-shaking boom, and another, and another, until there were too many to count. Slipstream ran to the furthest corner of her home, trembling in fear and tucking herself into the corner as far as she could, screaming in terror when the walls of her home were blown in…

"Slipstream?"

Slipstream jerked, suddenly wrenched from her memories as a warm hand was gently laid against her arm. Wing was much closer now, watching them worriedly, with Drift close behind her.

She was shaking, and not from the cold. She stared at Wing, fighting with her mind as it superimposed memories of Mom over Wing's face, mixing the same gentle smiles with the same warm eyes. Mom wasn't here anymore, she was gone, her burned body alongside everyone else…

Gone.

A sob burst out of her throat and she dove at Wing, clutching the woman's midriff with surprising strength. "Mom, Mom!" She cried, her thin body shaking with the force of her sobs.

It was only moments later that warm arms enveloped her, wrapping her in a cocoon of safety and protection. "It's okay, it's okay." Wing murmured near her ear. "You're safe now. I promise."

Jetstorm watched Slipstream, attentive of her every movement and wary at having Wing so near the only friend she had left. These strangers hadn't hurt them, and had helped them after everyone they knew and loved had been killed by those…monsters, but they were still strangers. Strangers who weren't their parents, who had no reason to care.

A similar urge to hurtle herself into Wing's arms warred with those thoughts, the grief of losing their village nearly drowning her. Blinking furiously, she stared into the fire, willing the bright image to burn away the memories of dead bodies and soldiers with guns.

"She's right, you know. You're safe now."

Her head snapped around to face Drift, who kept her distance but watched her carefully. She wasn't as touchy or as open as Wing was, but she acted like she understood. She knew what it was like to have your world ripped out from under you, when circumstances beyond your control ripped everything you held dear and gave you nothing in return. Her eyes held no judgment or pity; only sadness and that understanding.

She stubbornly returned her gaze back to the fire, willing Drift to go away and leave her alone. She was fine; she was a big girl. Big girls don't cry.

Primus didn't hear her wishes; she was acutely aware of Drift settling near her. Not too close, but close enough she could reach out and touch her easily. Her eyes flicked towards her, but the older woman was facing the fire, the light dancing in her blue eye.

"It's okay to not be okay, kid."

Jetstorm refused to give any indication of hearing, trying to focus on the fire. Go, big woman. Shoo. Leave her alone.

"What happened there…never should've happened. They should've never been anywhere near your town, and they damn well never should've involved any of you in that war." She sighed heavily, reaching for a stick nearby to poke the fire. Embers shot out into the night sky, flickering and vanishing in the inky blackness.

Two blue eyes flickered back and forth between her and the fire. "You and Slip should've never seen any of that crap. Stuff like that…it can mess with you. Trust me, I know."

I know. The words lodged in her throat. It's messed with you. I've seen you when you cry and talk in your sleep. She had listened to Drift in the darkness late at night, listened to the string of nonsense coming from her until Wing awoke and calmed her down.

"And it's gonna take time to deal with it. But that's okay. It's okay to cry, to yell, to…I don't know, do whatever you gotta do to get it out of you. It's okay."

Jetstorm squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from leaking out even as she began to tremble. Drift's words were letting her emotions out, giving them an escape route. Part of her desperately wanted to let them go, but another part was terrified of letting them go. They would sweep her away, carrying her away in their grief, like a leaf in a river.

"I can't promise much; there's not a lot in this screwed-over world I can promise, even to myself. But I promise you, Wing and I will take care of you. We won't abandon you."

Jetstorm opened her eyes, staring directly into Drift's eyes as she stared at the girl before her. They were dark with the shadow of broken innocence over them, yet in their depths she could see utter and complete trust that only a child could have.

"Promise?" Her voice was scratchy and rough from disuse; this was the first time she had spoken since the attack days ago.

"I promise." Drift repeated.

And like that, a dam broke in Jetstorm. The girl had been stubbornly holding in everything, trying to help Slipstream even as she drowned herself, but it was finally too much.

Drift curled an arm around the crying girl, stroking her hair and meeting Wing's gaze over the girls' heads. She smiled sadly as she held Slipstream close to her, her heart aching for the two children in their arms. The red-head's tears had subsided as both she and Wing watched Jetsorm and Drift, exhaustion wearing down on every inch of her twelve-year old features. In the harsh shadows of the fire, she looked much older than she really was.

It wasn't long before exhaustion wore Jetstorm out as well, her crying dwindling down into the occasional shuddering sob as she began to drift off to sleep, her emotions and energy spent.

"I think," Wing said after a moment. "That it's time for you two to get some sleep." Neither girl protested as they were pulled into strong arms and laid to rest on blankets, eyelids drooping heavily.

"Don't leave." Slipstream pleaded as Wing pulled another blanket over them. Wing smiled at her, stretching over them to place a kiss on both their heads.

"We'll be right here." She assured the girl, smoothing her hair back as her eyes finally fell shut, clasping hands with Jetstorm and snuggling closer to her as she slipped off into sleep. "Sweet dreams, you two."

So the story behind this fic is that OniGil has an absolutely fantastic AU that I fell completely in love with and I ended up writing some stories and posting them on my old blog. They were lost when I deleted them and I reposted them here so that she could enjoy them.

You will be super lost about what's going on unless you go read her fic, No Man's Land, or check out the story on Tumblr. I completely recommend it; I mean, a post-apocalypse story about BA and PoC women taking on the world? What more could someone want?

As always, I'm on Tumblr if you'd like to come by and say hi and I hope you're having a great day!