Disclaimer: At least, I'm hoping that this AU is too improbable to be considered owned by the show. The characters are not mine, nor is the song, "Hard Way Home" by Brandi Carlile, at the end of this chapter.
A/N: Ah, yes, a new fic to replace the fact that I haven't updated in two months. I'm sorry. After starting to watch The 100 and reading On the Beach, this was a little imagining of mine, and though I hadn't intended on publishing it anywhere, I had too much fun writing it not to. This chapter is a whopping 10,000 words, so I'm sorry if I don't update again for a while. Though I do plan on writing more of this, I may or may not depending on the response it receives, if any. We'll see.
I'll warn that there are minor character deaths in this chapter. Also, if you've read my work before, you know that I like to incorporate film scores or classical music to my chapters, so this piece's theme for me was "Year of the Horse" by Osso.
"'It's not the end of the world at all,' he said. 'It's only the end of us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.'"
- Nevil Shute, On the Beach
Chapter 1: The Beginning or the End
He was in the Hamptons for the weekend when it happened.
He'd gone out to write and to swim. Though he'd invited his daughter and his mother, Martha had gone off to who-knows-where, and Alexis had told him about a new boy in her chemistry class at college; he'd been momentarily insulted that she'd ditched him for a teenage boy, yes, but he'd enjoyed the quiet time nonetheless. With the house to himself, he'd written plenty, had penned off page after page. Finally, the writer's block was gone! After weeks and weeks of it, he'd finally been able to move on with his book.
The first sign that something was wrong was a loud, resounding sound that had made his ears ring. Hesitantly, he'd looked out his window, had seen strange ripples across the pool at his home; however, he'd shaken off any concern quickly, had gone to tweet about it. Why not? he'd wondered. Maybe someone else had heard the noise and could explain it. However, his internet connection was gone, and when he checked his cell phone, he saw that he no longer had service. Though he rebooted his electronics and tried to figure out what was wrong with them, he couldn't understand what was going on; the clocks on the microwave and oven, the automatic lights, the pool jets, all of it had simply stopped working. Now, his concern was evident, so he left his home, went over to the neighbors' in hope that they would understand what was going on.
When he'd walked through the half-circle driveway of his neighbors' home, he'd seen their car sitting in the driveway, a last bit of exhaust coming out of the tailpipe. He'd knocked twice on the back window, and when he'd received no response, he'd gone around to the front, had looked through the windows only to see that the couple from next door was dead in their car, their heads lolled back in their seats, their bodies slack and unmoving.
The next neighbors were the same way; the ones after that matched suit. Once he'd gone throughout the local homes, every place he came to filled with the dead or emptied, his morale decreased and his fear increased. He spent his life in the loop, but now, he couldn't figure out what was going on, couldn't just Google it or hope that it would eventually make sense. When he returned to his own home, his mind distraught, he paced his bedroom, prayed that this was all a dream, but then, he looked out at the ocean view, and somehow, the waters had changed color ever-so-slightly. Venturing out, he walked to the shore, hoped to figure out what was going on. He stepped into the ocean, couldn't care about how his pants got wet, but a few strides out, he stopped, his jaw slack, his mind filled with fear.
The shore was lined with dead fish, dead animals, dead...he couldn't identify it all, and because he felt as though he was going to be sick, he raced off, went back into the house before he could feel anything else. While his mind raced, he went back into the house, needed to get in contact with someone, anyone. First, he would drive downtown, try to find someone there. Surely, there would be someone there, wouldn't there be? When he headed out to the driveway, he opened up his car's door, sat down in the driver's seat. Turning the key in the ignition, he tried to start the car, but alas, the engine wouldn't start. He tried again, again, again, but it was no use; the car wouldn't start, and it wasn't as though he could ask someone to help him jump it. Begrudgingly, he went back into the house, put on comfortable shoes and packed a backpack for his trek into town.
Surely, someone could explain this. Surely.
Many years earlier, she had watched the Twin Towers collapse on the news. Two years before that, she'd been asked to identify her mother's body with her father in a morgue that she didn't want to remember. There was something incredibly strange to her when it came to watching the tall and mighty crumble; sometimes, people and things seemed immortal, but at the depths of it, everything eventually ended. However, she'd hoped that eventually could have been a long way off for her.
The buildings had started to collapse when she was outside of Central Park, she and her partner heading to interview a possible witness. Stupid luck, it had been; she'd been making small talk about how she had a date the next week when a skyscraper looming in the distance began to fall to dust. Though others in Manhattan looked unaffected and occupied, she'd lost her breath, had stopped in her tracks.
And then other buildings had started to fall.
Though she'd grabbed her partner's hand and had tried to rush him into the street, he'd resisted, had stood back, and suddenly, the building behind him began to come down, the cement turning to dust, the metal foundations collapsing over him. However, she hadn't had time to fret, so she'd raced into the traffic-filled Manhattan streets, had dodged taxis and cars and busses so that she could be away from the buildings. Racing through red lights, she heard screams coming from New Yorkers as buildings collapsed and as cars caught fire and as hydrants burst, but suddenly, it all went quiet in her head; the one resounding sound she heard was that of her heartbeat as she sprinted into Central Park, one of few places that seemed to be safe. She went toward the middle of the park in hope that she would be far enough away from the collapse, and there, she found a patch of grass to sit upon, and sitting there, she stopped, breathed deeply, but it was no use. While people screamed, the sound of destruction filled her city, so instead, she lay down on her back, looked up at the sky. She was far enough into the park that she could hardly see the buildings around her. Covering her ears with her hands, she looked up at the sky, the endless sky, and, damn it all, that was one beautiful blue sky.
And then she waited until she felt numb to her surroundings.
"Honey?" Kevin Ryan called out through his SoHo apartment.
He and his wife had been lucky; she'd begun her maternity leave in late April, and now that it was late May, she would have all of the summer to stay at home with the baby, little Sarah Grace. To him, the best part of her job as a teacher was that their child - or children - would always have the same schedule as her mother. Though he himself had wanted to take time off as well because of the baby, he'd only managed two weeks of leave; his job was demanding, and though he sometimes loved it for that, he hated it for that as well.
"Jenny?" he called out once more.
She had to be home; if she had planned on going anywhere else, she likely would've called him first, especially if she needed someone to watch the baby. Though he wasn't a hovering husband, he was rather open to taking a late lunch break so that he could spend time with her or so that he could rid her of baby-related cabin fever. He was always there, and she always knew that, so she had to be somewhere in the apartment. Though he hadn't grown up financially well-to-do, he'd become so through his job, so they lived in understated luxury, enough around to be financially comfortable but not enough around to purchase high-end cars for no reason. Their apartment was wide, a two-bedroom with an expansive living room. Most commonly, he found his wife in the living room, but today, she wasn't there.
"Jenny? Are you here?" he called out once more, leaving his keys by the door.
Walking toward the kitchen - newly renovated, and he loved the stainless look of it - he searched around for his wife, found half the makings of a sandwich and an empty bottle on the counter. Maybe she'd been eating lunch and had simply gone off to the bathroom, he thought. Heading into their bedroom, he looked around for her. When his eyes stared down at the carpet, his mind shuddered.
His wife, his beautiful wife, was lying unmoving on the carpet, her body slack, as though she'd been taken off her feet.
"Jenny!" he shouted as he crouched down next to her, as he reached out to touch her, but he retreated his hand quickly; her body was cold. Maybe she's in shock, he thought as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, but he hadn't any service. Cursing aloud, he touched her again, caressed her face, tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.
When they'd married, he'd watched as throughout their marriage day her hair fell from a tightly-wound bun to a loose, tousled mane. At the beginning of their service, she had been coiffed, absolutely beautiful as she was done up, but when she came with him into their suite for the first night of their marriage, her bobby pins had all fallen out, and her face had been filled with the brightest of smiles, he swore that he could never love anyone more than he'd loved her right then.
Now, her hair had fallen, but he doubted that she'd been happy to let it fall.
With the starts of tears in his eyes, he thought of one thing more: his daughter. Forcing himself up, he looked into her bassinet, expected the worst, but she was still moving. However, her breaths were shallow; whatever had taken her mother was slowly but surely taking her as well. Though he didn't want to cry, he stopped holding back as he lifted his daughter into his arms, cradled her there. From his time holding her, he knew that she was most calm by the window in the bedroom, so he walked quickly over to the window, stood there with her against his chest. He ran his fingers over her tiny head, held her tufts of hair, blonde like her mother's. Kissing her forehead, he watched as one of his tears dropped upon the top of her head, his only way to offer her last rites. He looked out the window, watched the city around him, held Sarah Grace toward it.
"See that, baby?" he said quietly, trying to school his voice. "That's the greatest city in the world, and you're a part of it. You'll always be a part of it. And we love you very, very much."
Her breaths became shallower and shallower; he tried to keep himself together, but he couldn't. Looking down at his daughter, he held her closer, watched as she took her final breath, and then, his tears came too fast for him to control, his mind stuck in a constant prayer for his baby. He couldn't let her die. He couldn't let her die. He simply couldn't.
Looking out on the city, he blinked through his tears, searched for some sign of why this had happened, and sadly, he found his answer as a skyscraper in the distance began to collapse.
Rick had never been in the camping store downtown, but now, he knew that they had remarkably clean bathrooms. To his discontent, that wouldn't be the case in a matter of moments.
While he was violently sick, his head buried against the toilet, he couldn't shake the pictures from his mind. A man dead as he crossed the street. A woman working checkout at the grocery store dead as she rang up a box of Ring-Dings. A little girl dead at the end of a playground slide. Of course, his imagination had gotten away from him upon seeing such sights, and because this wasn't merely a horrid dream, he began to picture that little girl as his daughter.
And then he vomited again.
He needed to call her, needed to hear her voice, needed assurance that she was okay. If he'd survived whatever that sound had been, couldn't she? Whatever had happened, he had survived, and she was biologically half-him, so maybe what had helped him survive would help her survive as well. He prayed on that thought as he tried flushing the toilet, but the toilet wouldn't flush. Great. Then, he checked the running water, but that didn't work either. Ashamed, he left the bathroom in disarray, but now, he had newfound incentive.
If he couldn't call his daughter, then he would go to the city to find her. Yes, it was ninety-four miles, but he needed to travel it, for the city was the place where he could get answers. Here, everyone was either dead or gone, so he needed to leave, and he needed to leave now. If he traveled at a nonstop pace, he could walk to the city in two days. Cursing himself, he wondered how he'd started to think such things. Walking that many miles? Searching for answers while everyone else was dead?
He wished this were one of his books because if it were, he would have taken his typed document, put it into his laptop's trash, and emptied the trash before the tale could see the light of day.
If such a trip was even possible, he would need supplies, so he went into the main sections of the camping store - luckily, he couldn't find any dead bodies there - and began to take things from the shelfs. Is it looting? he wondered, as everyone else in town had no use for these things. He found a hiking pack, one fit to his height, and began to pack it with what seemed best. Of course, he was attracted to the astronaut ice cream in a bag, but he forced himself to take freeze-dried meals that could last him a long time if need be. An atlas sat on a shelf, so he stuffed it in the pack, hoped that he still knew how to read a paper map. A pup tent, a sleeping back, some rope, a Swiss Army knife, he stuck them all into his bag until the bag grew heavy. To top it off, he grabbed weather-resistant clothing and a guidebook to outdoor survival. He'd never been one for camping, but now, he needed to make an exception.
Though the bag was heavy, he kept it on his back as he left to go to the grocery store. He needed enough water to last him until he got to New York, and he figured that carrying extra food was hardly a bad idea. However, he stopped in front of another store, one advertising a different kind of equipment. Slowly, a smile spread across his face.
Harvey's Bicycles
He went inside.
The sky that day was wide, blue, bright. With few puffy clouds and with the bright light of early summer, the day was ideal for a lounge in the park. Somehow, she found that funny, how buildings could collapse and how her partner could die all on such a beautiful day.
No, no, no. Her partner wasn't dead. This was all just some bad dream that she would wake up from in a few hours. For now, she could look at the sky, her partner alive and well, the buildings all still intact. Slowly, she took her hands from her ears, and as she slipped out of her jacket, she relaxed her shoulders, kicked off her shoes. Though she was still in this hell of a dream, she could relax here. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in, let it out slowly.
"You're alive!"
Her eyes reopened quickly; looking to her side, she saw a man of average height and build racing toward her. This meant she was awake, didn't it? The dream was over. A slow smile bloomed across her lips. Sitting up, she went to look at him, to see who exactly was so excited for her to be alive. What a joke, she thought. Of course she was alive!
"Oh, thank God," the man said as he fell to his knees alongside her, reached out with one hand to touch her face.
She retreated, looked at him questioningly.
"Do I know you?" she asked him as she focused on his face.
No, he wasn't familiar; he had big blue eyes and dark, well-groomed hair, and she was fairly sure that they'd never met before. For someone who seemed a little crazy, he was dressed well, wearing a proper suit. Though she didn't recognize him, she figured that there was a reason why he was looking at her as though she were salvation. She'd never had a man look at her that way before.
"Oh," the man said, his face calming. "No. I'm sorry. We don't know each other."
He laughed dryly.
"It's just that..."
He trailed off there, but she looked at him attentively.
"That what?" she questioned. "What's going on?"
He looked at her questioningly, asked, "Haven't you seen what's been happening?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I had a bad dream."
He laughed again, this time a bit louder.
"Have you ever seen a dead body before?" he asked as he stood back up, reached down a hand to her.
Nodding, she said, "Yes. I'm a homicide detective."
"You're going to need to start using the past-tense pretty soon," he insisted. "Stand up."
She doubtfully stared up.
"Why should I trust you?" she asked.
He took a deep breath in, let it out slowly.
"Because you're the first living person I've found since SoHo."
Her face blanked. Though this man was not among the most trustworthy she'd met, she wanted to know what he meant. Taking his hand, she stood up, began to follow where he walked.
"Don't you want your jacket?" he asked.
Glancing down, she saw the garment, an expensive one. She shook her head.
"If everyone's dead, it's not like someone will steal it."
Her voice was lighthearted, joking, unbelieving. For now, she would play into this man's delusion. Of course, he hardly seemed pleased with the joke, but he led her on anyway.
Once they had left the park, she checked the horizons, let her face fade. The buildings around there were supposed to be taller than that. Instead, these buildings looked dated, aged. Though she didn't understand why, the streets were alarmingly quiet, all of the traffic stopped in its tracks. There were no honking cars, no subway sounds, no chats from New Yorkers as they walked through Manhattan. Since that first collapse, where had her city gone? Now, it was a mess of dust, of stalled cars, of broken buildings.
But one thing piqued her interest; there was someone sitting in the driver's seat of a nearby taxi. However, the driver wasn't moving, so she went over, tried to investigate. Before she could move too far, the man with her grasped at her arm, held her back.
"He's dead," the man said. "Don't go any closer."
"He's not dead," she insisted. "How could he be dead?"
The man with her let out a breath.
"I don't know."
"What do you do for a living?" she asked. "Are you an accountant? Someone on Wall Street or something, you in that fancy suit?"
"No," he said, shaking his head.
"Then what are you?"
He sighed, said, "I was a lawyer."
"Am. I am a lawyer," she forced. "I know the details of death. Back off."
Reluctantly, the man let go of her arm.
"Fine," he said. "See for yourself."
She went to the taxi, opened up the passenger door.
"Sir," she insisted to the driver, "please step out of the car."
The driver's eyes were open; rolling her eyes at her lack of response, she took her badge from her waist, flashed it toward him.
"Sir, my name is Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. I need you to step out of the car."
The man still didn't move, so reaching out, she grabbed his wrist, but to her surprise, his body was cold, unmoving. Dead, his body was dead. Her face falling, she retreated back, stumbled into the man behind her. While he supported her, she tried to breathe, tried to force air in. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be happening. It simply couldn't be happening.
When she began to support herself again, she stood up, looked him in the eyes, tried to school her features. She put on the face she used when she told the families of murder victims of their loss.
"How did he die?" she asked, her tone even.
"I don't know," he admitted, "but whatever it is, it took my family as well."
Looking at the man and showing him new eyes, she saw a different side of him, one that wasn't excited to find her living; she saw someone wounded, someone who had found salvation only for her to be stubborn as hell. Her features softened, her voice quieting.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
The man nodded twice, kept his gaze down. A lawyer from SoHo, one would think this man was untouchable, but wealth and prosperity didn't matter when the world started to fall apart. When the man looked back up at her, she saw in his blue eyes what she figured to be a new understanding, a brotherhood of sorts.
Holding his hand out to shake hers, he introduced, "Kevin Ryan."
Taking his hand, she said, "Kate Beckett."
And then they shook.
Though Lanie Parish could acknowledge with ease that Grey's Anatomy and House, M.D. were works of fiction, the shows had nonetheless instilled certain fears in her. What if a plane crashed into her hospital? What if a flesh-eating disease spread before they could contain it? What if the bubonic plague returned? These were all tragedies she'd begun to fear in her day-to-day life. Why she feared them, she knew not, but nonetheless, she feared a mass tragedy.
When the hospital began to collapse, she hadn't been surprised, and overall, she was level-headed enough to know what to do; she needed to save herself. Going to the stairwell, she'd raced down, had gone from the tenth floor to the first as quickly as she possibly could. When she'd escaped to the streets, she'd seen the bodies, and somehow, she still hadn't become alarmed. Instead, she went to the place she figured was safest from falling buildings.
She found a park in Prospect Heights that seemed safe enough, so she went there, found shelter under a large tree. Right there, she found a park bench, sat down on it as she checked her phone. No signal. It figured.
When the buildings had begun to hold themselves up on their own, she left the park, tried to find a way to get to Times Square. Though she typically avoided Times Square at all costs, she knew that news would come first to that area; maybe this was a terrorist attack, or maybe this was some strain of disease. Whatever it was, someone had to know, so she began to walk, tried to ignore the dead bodies that laced the streets.
No matter what had happened, she had survived, and she wasn't about to take surviving lightly.
"Terrorism? Warfare?"
"No clue," Ryan repeated with exhaustion.
Though he himself was trying to take his mind off of the predicament, Beckett was insistent; she needed to know what was going on, a drastic twist from the denial she'd been in earlier. In Brooklyn, they'd found a rustic, new-Brooklyn kind of outdoors store, and because they hadn't found anyone else alive, they'd figured that looting wouldn't be too terrible an idea. In fact, Kate had insisted upon it.
"I don't care that you're a cop," Ryan had said when they'd first gone in. "This still somehow feels wrong."
However, the wrongness had dwindled as they'd both swapped their work attire for something more durable. She'd put on athletic shorts - ones that he didn't approve of, being that they showed off too much leg - and as she shed her dress shirt, Ryan glanced over, noticed one thing first: her stomach. Of course, he knew that cops were supposed to be in shape, but her abs were evident and rock-hard. Though she had muscular legs, he hadn't expected her stomach to be as strong as it was.
"Eyes down, buddy," she commented as she turned away from him, slipped out of her bra.
"You have such a strong stomach," he commented. "You must really work hard at the gym."
"Yes, I do, and I'd prefer if you kept your eyes to yourself."
He nodded twice.
"Got it."
Searching around, he came across some good basics: a woolen base layer for colder nights, a few clean athletic tees, some shorts and pants. As he dressed, she, now clothed, wandered around the store.
"We'll need shelter, won't we?" she asked as he put on a new shirt.
"Yeah, and I doubt that staying in any of the buildings is a good idea," he said while he put on a pair of shorts.
"Two-person or four-person tent?" she called over to him.
"Are you expecting company?"
"No, but I don't like to snuggle."
"Oh. Four-person, then."
"We'll stay in Central Park," she said. "If anyone goes looking for others, that's probably where they'll end up, so we'll stay there."
He nodded slowly.
After he tugged on a tee shirt, he paused; sure, they were both alive, and they seemed to realize that sticking together was their best plan, but what exactly were they finding supplies for? If most everyone in the city was dead, then why were they still there? Were there survivors in surrounding areas, and should they go looking for them?
"Hey, Beckett," he called out to her as he looked around the store for her.
In an aisle with backpacking packs, she stood, a large boxed tent at her feet. Though he wasn't attracted to her, appearance or personality or otherwise, he nonetheless understood how one would find her aesthetically pleasing; she, in tight athletic garb and with her long curls pulled back into a ponytail, mixed Jackie Kennedy finesse with an Ellen Ripley swagger. He'd watched The Walking Dead once or twice beforehand, and if he'd been able to pick and choose a team for a zombie apocalypse in the way that teams for whiffeball were picked in elementary school gym class, then she would've been the one he chose first. Though it was slightly morbid, he needed to admit to himself that he'd lucked out in finding her alive. If he had any chance or surviving whatever this was, then someone with her intelligence, strength, and experience was the kind of partner he needed most.
Turning toward him, she asked, "What is it?"
He tried and failed to find words, but eventually, he managed, "Why exactly are we gathering supplies?"
"Well, we need a way to keep living, don't we?"
But he didn't answer that. Honestly, did they need a way to keep living? Everyone - or hopefully just a large population - in the city was dead, his wife and daughter among them. Oh, and he couldn't think of his family, not now, for if he did, then he would cry, and he wouldn't want to see the light of day ever again. Though he'd never been one for dramatic displays of affection, he figured that now was the time to use them; why should he go on living when his home was destroyed, his family was dead, and no hope for life seemed to be on the horizon?
Her face fell as if she could hear his thoughts.
"You can't quit on me," she said, shaking her head.
"What?"
"You can't quit on me," she repeated as she took two packaged sleeping bags from the aisle, pulled them out of their boxes.
"Why not?"
"Because then I'll be out here all alone. I don't give a damn if that's a selfish thing to say."
He nodded slowly. After all, she did have a point, and the one thing worse than this event was the idea of facing it alone. Walking up to her, he took the other sleeping bag from her hands and began to remove its packaging. Her lips quirked up.
"But," he continued while she began to pack a bag for herself, "are we just going to stay in tents forever? What's our plan?"
Momentarily, she abandoned her bag, led him over to a section of books in the shop. Taking out a book in which a map of New York City sat, she unfolded the map, presented it to him.
"Currently, we're right here," she said, pointing to the center of Williamsburg. "Though Brooklyn is larger than Manhattan, we might as well cover this neighborhood before we go back to Central Park. We can canvas for any other survivors, and if we find anyone, we can lead them along as well."
"And after this neighborhood?"
"We'll keep to the edge as we head to East Brooklyn," she explained, tracing her finger across the map, "and then, we'll go toward Coney Island, then Greenwood and New Utrecht, but before we head to Gowanus, we'll head through Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush. After that, we'll go into Downtown and leave on the Brooklyn Bridge."
"Carrying this stuff with us the entire time?" he asked.
Grimacing, she nodded.
"If the sun goes down around eight, then we should have enough time, given that we travel quickly enough," she said. "Once we get back to the park, we can set up camp, eat something, and try to figure out how tomorrow will go. If we don't make it through everything today, we'll start up where we left off tomorrow."
He nodded quickly. Taking the book of maps with her, she went back to the packs, stuffed the book into her bag. She went back to packing, and matching what she put in her bag, he packed his own, but one question nagged his mind.
"Beckett?" he asked.
She glanced to him.
"Yeah?"
"Why are you so determined?" he asked.
She furrowed her brow, said, "I don't understand what you're asking."
"You know my story already," he said. "I don't have any family left here, and presumably, I don't have any family left at all. If you're this determined to find others, then there must be a reason. Are you married? Looking for your kids?"
She laughed without humor, shook her head.
"Unmarried," she clarified. "No kids."
"So, who - or what - are you looking for?"
She met his glance, her face softening.
"My father," she said, not offering any further explanation.
He nodded slowly. With the uncomfortable pause that came, she stilled, so he stilled as well. Now, he knew it for sure; she wasn't intent of sharing personal details, and quite frankly, he was content with that.
"Let's get moving," she prompted. "No more conversation. We need to get through this neighborhood."
Maybe he'd struck a nerve, or maybe he was making her sad, but either way, he stopped talking, went back to packing. Sure, she was a good person when it came to survival, but when it came to the emotional tactics of all of this, he feared for their companionship.
There was something cosmically strange about riding a bike on the highway.
At the shop, Rick had found a hybrid bike, one intended for terrain between mountain and road, so he'd made sure that the gears were in working order, had found a trailer intended for children that he could tow behind the bike. With his pack in tow, and with a half-empty water bottle in the bike's front basket, he pedaled on in the early Spring heat.
According to his basic mileage calculations off of the atlas, he figured that biking from the Hamptons to the city would take eight hours in total, maybe a little bit more, so he decided to do at least four hours that day and to camp alongside the highway. Every few miles, he would find a few cars stopped in the highway, the passengers all dead; he always did a momentary check, and if the car was rich enough, he looted it. Though he doubted it would have any value anymore, he had two thousand dollars with him now. Pedaling on, he tried to beat the distance.
Checking his watch - battery-operated devices still seemed to work though wired electricity failed - he saw that only three hours had passed. He wiped sweat off of his brow. Because he hadn't biked in a long time, this was beginning to truly hurt; his legs were sore, his body exhausted. However, the thought of Alexis forced him on through the desolate highway.
He was going to find his daughter no matter how much his muscles hurt.
Javier Esposito felt most in control when he had two things: Venlafaxine and his glock. However, his doctor had said that for the time being, now that he was adjusting to going back on his medication, he shouldn't be using or carrying a gun - just in case, his doctor had insisted - so by law, he couldn't have the two at the same time. A pity, he knew, and though the drugs made him feel as though he could leave his home without the constant fear of crosshairs on his back, he wasn't one to trust drugs; no, he preferred to be comforted by the fact that he was armed than by the fact that studies had shown that this drug was promising for treating post traumatic stress disorder. In short, he liked control in the form of something he could look at, something he could touch and feel.
When he'd heard the sound, he'd been in his apartment, a studio with one big window looking out at the city. He'd been alone eating a late lunch when the first building had begun to fall. Intrigued by the picture, he'd stood up cautiously and had walked toward the window, and as he'd looked out, he'd watched the chaos begin. He'd watched as a woman was crushed by falling building beams. With stoic features, he'd watched fifty floors of a building come down in seconds. While cars had caught fire, and while people had screamed, he'd looked on, the feeling of being unable to save them all too familiar.
Turning toward his bathroom, he'd gone into his medicine cabinet, had taken out his prescription bottle, and had pocketed the pills. Next, he had gone to his bed and had unlocked the safe beneath it; taking out his glock, he had made sure it was loaded, had grabbed extra bullets just to be safe. Taking his keys just in case, he had walked out of his apartment, had locked it behind himself. Then, he had gone down the stairs and into the streets, where people were gasping and shouting and crying and...
Dying. People in the streets were collapsing and dying.
Javier Esposito had spent time with death. During his time in the war, he'd watched the strongest of comrades die. When he was younger, he'd gone to the funerals of some of his relatives, had known that life was not forever as that everyone eventually perishes. He could look at dead, torn-apart bodies and respect that death had taken them. However, he couldn't respect watching a too-thin woman in the street simply falter and then fall to her death. That, he could not understand.
People were dying, and though some died with a cause, others collapsed in death, and despite how he knew that shock could possibly kill, shock couldn't kill this many people. Whatever was happening, he couldn't respect it. He simply couldn't.
Though Castle had expected the city to be devastated, the idea of the devastation was nothing in comparison to the hundreds of stopped cars and to the bodies lying in the streets. And the buildings, many of the skyscrapers had cascaded down, so now, piles of dust last in wake of heavy destruction; the Hamptons had looked terrible, but the city looked ever worse. He needed to force his eyes up as he biked through the streets; he couldn't bear to look down at the dead who seemed to be everywhere. From time to time, the thought entered his mind: what if he was the only survivor? However, he hushed that thought, for if there was anything he could not bear, it was the idea that he would eventually succumb to dthis fate alone.
He'd crossed the Williamsburg Bridge and had headed north through Manhattan, and thankfully, Central Park was coming up. Though his body hurt, he knew that biking through the park would be easier than biking through the crowded streets, so he turned into the park, pedaled onward. Now that all of his water had been depleted, he was desperately thirsty, but he couldn't stop, not until he found his daughter, so he pressed onward.
That is, he pressed onward until he saw movement far ahead of him.
In the distance - he squinted to try to make the image out better - he saw something pale green under a few trees, maybe a playground. No matter what it was, there was something moving in front of it. An animal? Another person? Maybe a flag? Cautiously, he mounted his bike once more, kept moving though every muscle in his body begged him not to. As he came closer, he saw that it was some kind of a shelter; a hole-filled tarp hung amongst the trees, and on the ground, a shelter sat.
When he focused his eyes more, he saw it; there were two people standing in front of the shelter, and as he focused further, he saw that one of them was armed.
Panicking, he tried to stop pedaling, but the armed one was raising their gun, and then, he...he didn't know what to do. He froze, and then, he did all he knew how to do.
"Don't shoot!" he shouted out in vain. "Please don't shoot!"
Then, the armed one lowered their weapon, but he dared not move. Though he stayed put, the two people in front of the shelter began to run over to him, and then, he began to make out their faces, a blue-eyed man of decent build and a fit woman who was two inches taller than he would've expected. As they approached, he dismounted, began to thank lucky stars that he no longer was alone.
"You're alive!" the man called as he went from a walk to a jog.
Stopping, the woman rolled her eyes, and somehow, Rick knew in that moment that if he wanted to find his daughter, she was the kind of person who wouldn't give him nonsense about it; instead, she would be methodical in a search while the man who was now embracing him in the world's tightest hug would let emotions steer his path.
"Don't worry," the woman called out as she started walking again. "He did that to me too."
"Have you been in Manhattan this whole time?" the man asked as he let go of Castle, his eyes wide with excitement. "Are there any more survivors? Have you-"
"I wasn't in Manhattan," was all Castle could manage, and though the man was directly in front of him, his gaze still followed the woman, her gait shortening as she reached the two of them.
With sunburn on her cheeks and with a dark purple tank top over her front, she was...he couldn't exactly put a label to it. She had the remnants of black mascara smeared below her left eye; she had brunette stubble on her long, lithe legs; her eyes were like opals, the way the green of them was accented in different ways depending on how the light hit her and the way that they seemed to grace him with an undeniable light. And then, she smiled, her lips curling upward in a way that made him remind himself that he needed to breathe. Though he was a man of words, he couldn't put a word to her, not one and not any. She was...he couldn't figure out what she was, but whatever she was, she sure was something.
"So we've got an out-of-towner?" she asked, her voice almost joking. "If you're from Montreal, then I'll be damned."
Rick paused.
"I'm not from Montreal."
Her face faded. He wished he could take back his words.
"Then where did you come from?" she asked.
Explaining, Rick said, "I live here in New York, but I have a house in the Hamptons, and I was staying there for the weekend."
"And you traveled all the way back here?" she asked with partial surprise and partial discomfort.
"Yeah," he said, nodding. "It took me two days, but I made it."
"Were you staying with anyone in the Hamptons?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"I was alone," he explained, "but I checked all of my neighbors homes, and I checked downtown."
"No survivors?" she questioned.
His face fading, he shook his head.
"And you came back in hope that the city would have news," she finished for him.
"That, and for one other reason," he explained.
"Which is?" the man with the woman asked.
"My daughter," he said, "she goes to Columbia and was in the city for the weekend."
"And you want to find her," the woman completed.
Rick nodded twice. As the woman met his gaze, he watched the harsh solar glare shift on her face; now, little gold flecks in her eyes were accented. Gold-flaked, like a painting in Versailles. He still couldn't find a word for her. Slowly, she snaked a hand out from her side, where she stored a gun in the waistband of her shorts, and as she held her hand out, she beckoned for a handshake.
"Kate Beckett," she introduced.
He gave his hand to her.
"Richard Castle."
And they shook. She had thin but steady fingers. A stranger part of him wanted to write that down, to record it somewhere so that he'd always remember it about her.
"Richard Castle, the author?" she asked as she took her hand back.
"On my better days," he tried to joke, but it was no use.
"Oh," she said, nodding. "My mother used to love those books."
"Did she perish with the others?" he asked but regretted it; that could've been insensitive, but he hadn't a clue, not when he was one of three known survivors.
"No."
She seemed to close off then, so he quieted momentarily. Turning toward the man with her, Rick looked at him as he held out a hand to shake his.
"Kevin Ryan," the man said.
"Nice to meet you," Castle said.
"Oh, you have no idea," Ryan said, unabashed.
Castle tensed, and then, Kate laughed, and without Rick's consent, his muscles relaxed.
"Come on," Kate said, beckoning Rick over. "Set up camp with us. We can't let you look for your daughter alone."
Of course, he complied.
To say the least, their camp was intelligently built. Beneath the cover of trees, they'd set up a four-person tent on top of a tarp, and in the trees, they'd taken an army-issue shade and hung it over where they slept, the space beneath the shade alarmingly cool in comparison to the heightened temperatures of the late spring. He hadn't asked much about either of his two new comrades, but he knew that he could trust them, for they'd been organized with their survival. Closed up and seated behind their tent, they had four five-gallon water jugs; they had created a fire pit the night beforehand, and because they didn't want to use up the batteries they'd looted for lanterns, they mostly stayed by the lit fire once the sun had gone down, the moon full in the sky. Beckett and Ryan had shared canned food with him for dinner, so the three of them sat on a tarp situated around the fire pit that night, their spoons deep in cans of cold, concentrated chicken stew. Though Castle had been with them for hours at that point, he'd barely spoken to these two people; after he'd pitched his tent and had leaned his bike up against a tree, he'd seen them both lying down in the sun and reading books - his with a bookstore tag, hers with a library's jacket - so he'd kept to himself, but nonetheless, there were so many things he wanted to know about these two people.
As Kevin spooned at his soup, he adeptly picked out each and every piece of celery; his hair showed the remnants of gel, and though Castle didn't know what the man's previous profession was, Ryan carried himself with an elevated and understated class, so he must've been someone a bit affluent, someone with poise and meaning. Kate, on the other hand, could call Ryan out when it came to certain things. For example, she'd been the one to light the tinder, and she'd been the one to open their cans, and though Ryan had confidence, Beckett had the skills he lacked. While Ryan could create brash plans, Beckett could carry the plans out, and for that, Rick valued their comradeship.
For Castle, the city was a place to find his daughter, but what was the city for these two? Were they also looking for family members? Spouses, maybe? It was strange, thinking about them both having spouses; though Rick wrote for a living, he was nonetheless amazed at the spectrums of stories that a single person held. To his discontent, he hoped that Beckett didn't have a spouse.
Quietly, he finished off his soup, the taste of it somehow unparalleled after he'd spent days eating uncooked dehydrated spaghetti because he hadn't bothered to bring a lighter or a pot with him for his travels. The two didn't seem concerned about bears, so he left the can by his feet while they both finished up their dinners in the darkness. After the sun had started to set, Kate had donned a sweatshirt, and Ryan had put on a wool long-sleeve; though Ryan had offered Castle a sweatshirt, Castle had been warm enough, hadn't feared that mosquitos could come and get him after all that had happened. The silence was deafening as Kate swallowed a final spoonful; Castle needed to break it, absolutely needed to.
"I need to know more about you both."
His words were far too loud in comparison to the silence. Glancing over to him, Kate looked somber, a little lost in what had piqued her thoughts; Ryan kept his gaze down.
"Well," Kate began, obviously not intent on talking about the past, "I was an NYPD homicide detective, and Ryan was a partner at his law firm."
Looking to her, Castle said, "That's not enough."
"We don't like to talk about the past," Kate said.
"Talking about the past is healthy," Rick said.
"Things aren't the same anymore, Castle, and if you're in denial of that, then you'll need more help than basic psychological knowledge can provide."
And that, as she'd likely hoped it would, quieted him. The silence that came was uncomfortable this time; he could sense that his two partners were now thinking too much and too little.
His discomfort apparent, Ryan offered up, "My family was very Irish."
His statement was similar to those Rick had given at summer camp when prompted to tell a fun fact about himself; Ryan gave a certain disconnect to the topic, as though the statement mattered to him but only mattered to a point. Of course, such a statement wasn't exactly what Castle was looking for, but he embraced the statement nonetheless.
"I ran the New York City Marathon two years ago," Beckett offered, following suit.
"I have more than twenty best-sellers," Rick tried.
Beckett rolled her eyes. Oddly, he wanted to see her do that again.
"My favorite color is blue," Ryan tried.
Staring directly at Castle, Kate said, "I speak fluent Russian."
That...no, she hadn't been intending to make him feel that way, but the competitive edge she'd given the statement, as though she'd meant the statement as an invitation to battle, had made him feel things that he knew he shouldn't feel, especially not toward her. Momentarily, he silenced, but when she quirked an eyebrow at him, challenging him, he needed a new fact, and he needed one immediately.
"There are only twenty countries in this world that I haven't been to," Rick countered.
"I was pre-law at Stanford," she forced.
"I play poker with James Patterson and Stephen Cannell. And I beat them."
"I made out with more women than men in college."
His breath hitched. Now, that was doing something to him.
"Really?" he asked, almost in awe.
And at that, she lost her facade, broke into a full-hearted laugh that Ryan partially followed. However, Ryan looked more confused than enthused while Beckett cackled.
"God, you're easy," she said to Castle, the biggest of smiles upon her face.
He gave a half-assed laugh without humor, unsure as to whether or not he should ask if she were telling the truth. Though Ryan wanted to say something, he couldn't figure out how to fill the new silence, not when there was such tension between the two people who sat on either side of him. Swallowing, Ryan tried to start a conversation.
"Beckett and I may have found other survivors through the radio," he said to Castle, figuring Castle should know the progress they'd made.
With astonishment, Castle asked once more, "Really?"
Ryan nodded quickly.
"I was toying around with a radio we took, and by accident, I came across this station where a song Beckett knew was playing, and, God, Castle, it came in so weak, so very weak," Ryan explained. "You could hardly tell that there was music at all, especially from such a long distance. Now, I don't know a thing about radios, so maybe the transmission bounced off a tower here or something, but anyway, Beckett told me to stop playing with it because of the song, and after the song had finished, someone was speaking French on the broadcast. I don't speak French, but Beckett recognized the sound of the language and picked up that they were broadcasting from Montreal."
Of course, Ryan looked ever-so-excited with this news, and Beckett grinned as well. Somehow, the comfort of knowing that they weren't alone made him relax from stress he hadn't realized he'd had. Montreal was a distance away, but it wasn't terribly far. If there were survivors, then eventually, all of them would find each other. Rick trusted the universe with that.
"Can you still connect to the station?" Rick asked.
Beckett shook her head while Ryan went to explain.
"The connection was thready at best, so we lost it quickly," Ryan said. "But we had a connection. Plus, Beckett got a song out of it."
"Really?" Rick asked, glancing over to Beckett, whose face faded in discomfort.
"Yeah, she loved that song," Ryan explained gleefully. "She couldn't stop singing it today while we searched Gowanus. Then, she taught me the chorus, and she started to clap along."
As Castle glanced over to Beckett, he saw her look down, her cheeks blushing. Though she had an iron exterior, he figured that she would have a part of her that liked to sing along to songs while she walked; there was something so predictable in that way about her, but at the same time, she was entirely unpredictable. He could've seen personality traits of hers from miles away, but somehow, he didn't notice them until he saw the glimpses of her that she allowed him. Still, he couldn't put a word to that, could only search tirelessly without any progress.
"Hey," Ryan said, looking to her, "we should sing it again!"
"God, no," Beckett said as she shook her head.
Grasping her knee and shaking his hand there, Ryan said, "Come on, Beckett. We've got the largest audience we'll probably ever have."
Beckett laughed dryly, rolled her eyes.
"No, Ryan."
"What, are you embarrassed?" Ryan joked. "You weren't embarrassed this morning."
Apparently, that statement struck one of her nerves, for now, she had a certain look on her face, one of needing to prove herself no matter what the cost was. Of course she wasn't embarrassed! Why would Ryan have even thought that? Castle's lips quirked up.
"Fine," Beckett complied, looking to Ryan. "You still know the chorus, right?"
"Of course," Ryan said. "You repeated it too many times for me not to."
She blushed again, but now, they meant business; she and Ryan sat cross-legged, and while they kept their glances locked for the moment, they began a clapping pattern simultaneously. Simply, the pattern was a clap followed by patting their knees once. The pace was like a brisk walk, a clap and a pat. As the two nodded to each other, she came in on a cue, and then, Castle let himself fully listen
I sometimes lose my faith in luck
I don't know what I want to be when I grow up
I just count the rain
Wearing the floor to the boards again
She sounded the way he imagined she would if her favorite song came on the radio while she was on a long drive; though she started out quiet, gauging her voice, she crescendoed with the word rain. For the moment, Rick couldn't decide if her voice was beautiful because it was beautiful or because she gave it a certain life, an aspect of spirit. No matter what, he was entranced, and though he could feel himself staring, he almost didn't mind any embarrassment that staring would bring him, for she glanced up at him from time to time, her eyes more timid than they usually seemed to be, and with each of those glances, he graciously saw a new part of her.
He didn't want the song to end.
I wish I could find a soul to steal
I could be the engine; you could be wheel
And we could drive it home
And never have to worry 'bout being alone
With an ooh, Ryan joined her, their rhythm in perfect time while the rest of the world's attention seemed rapt in these two people, two castaways that Castle had only just met.
I follow my tracks
See all the times I should've turned back
Ooh, I wept alone
I know what it means to be on my own
Ooh, the things I've known
Looks like I'm takin' the hard way home
Ooh, the seeds I've sown
Takin' the hard way home
Takin' the hard way home
They finished off on that note, stopped clapping as the two looked at each other with childlike smirks, as though they shared an inside joke that Castle didn't understand. However, Castle focused on Beckett more than on Ryan, for she was beaming in a way he hadn't expected to see. Would he ever be certain as to what he expected from her? No, he figured; he wouldn't.
And then he scoffed himself; sure, she was an attractive woman, and sure, he was intrigued, but she wasn't the kind of person who would dare jeopardize comradeship for a chance to kiss her mother's favorite author. She knew for sure that she didn't need a man to save her, to complete her, or to make her happy, so he figured that he shouldn't act on his thoughts, shouldn't let himself even think them, especially not the thoughts about how she was looking over at him with a sly grin, a teasing one.
No. No, no, no. In other circumstances, this would surely be a yes, but things were different now. These thoughts would be pushed to the back of his mind, the space where his fears for his family members' lives went. No matter what, he wouldn't act on those thoughts. However, he could still look at the way her eyes lit up when she laughed at something that Ryan had said, and he could still see how her eyes crinkled whenever she smiled, and he could still watch how she twisted her ponytail into a bun and then let her hair fall back down along the line of her neck.
While the two of them began to clean up dinner, Rick joined but drifted; he was consumed in his own thoughts, ones of her and now ones of Ryan as well. Though he knew very little about these two people, he knew one thing for sure; they were good company. They could laugh in adversity, could cope with tragedy, could adapt when things were tough. Despite how they'd been rather different people in the past, they now were a team, one with the intention of grand survival. Hell, they didn't just want to survive; they wanted to live, so Castle knew that these people were the best possible company he could have after these events. Sure, he would've preferred his family, but Beckett and Ryan were smart, resourceful, passionate people, the kind of people who would save themselves no matter how hard such a task was.
While Castle tried to sleep that night in his tent, his mind was filled with thoughts of the two of them, of how they'd grown so close in so little time. The world had changed, but one thing hadn't changed; at the depths of themselves, people were still good at heart. These two were hardly exceptions. Using his pack as a pillow, he listened as the two exchanged goodnights in the tent next to his own, and then, they were silent, their bodies lulling off while he remained awake.
For the remainder of the night, he thought of how lucky he was to survive with two people who were so fundamentally good, and he most definitely didn't think of how she snored ever-so-softly when she slept. No matter what had happened, he would be okay, and they would be okay. He focused on that until he managed to fall asleep.