Disclaimer: None of these NBC characters belong to me, nor do I profit in any way from fanfiction. I do want to note that the flashbacks follow a story arc joint-concocted by Dareyoutoread and moi, while some other aspects of DYTR's canon have indelibly merged with mine to form SUPERCANON!
Rated T for sailorly swearing and sexiness.
Gray tendrils of smoke ascended through the hole of the tepee in languid, unpredictable paths. Nora enjoyed the smoke's peculiar combination of curious exploration and inevitability, as it always escaped to the sky in the end. She lounged in Miles' arms as he sat against their backpacks, and she could tell from the rise and fall of his chest against her back that he was not quite asleep. Miles smelled like smoke, firewater, and river, in that order, an alluring potpourri that divulged the tale of a most improbable adventure.
Nora was glad Miles was resting, as she'd honestly been a bit worried about him – more because he'd been through a lot rather than him exhibiting any outward sign of distress. Miles betrayed little in the way of emotions, and Nora knew him well enough by now to understand that this was not because he didn't trust her, but because he didn't trust himself. Miles had so many ancient wounds with which he'd never found a way to deal that it was safest to keep feelings locked down. And yet, he'd just abandoned his best friend of nearly forty years, the only long-term relationship he'd ever had to Nora's knowledge. He'd never breathed a single word about his blood family to her, and as far as Nora knew, a stork had simply dropped Miles out of the big blue directly at Monroe's doorstep.
That Miles had abandoned Bass was putting it delicately. In fact, Miles and Nora had recently executed a show-stopping escape from Philadelphia, which involved bombing militia headquarters, a failed attempt to assassinate Sebastian Monroe (by Miles), and the botched rescue of some woman named Rachel, whom Miles had failed to mention to Nora until said escape. Whoever Rachel had been, she was dead now. When Miles had informed Nora that they'd no longer need to recover Rachel, Nora saw a change in Miles' eyes. As little as she wanted to admit it, it looked remarkably like heartbreak to her. But it was pointless to be jealous of a corpse. Nora had spent her entire adult life in the Black and what she had learned was this: people you loved died all the time and a little piece of you died with them. Only thing to do was to bury both together and move on. Miles would have to let Rachel go, but Bass, well, he was still alive, because Miles hadn't been able to pull the trigger.
How Miles and Nora had come to reside in this tepee was a whole other story that even Nora didn't quite understand. On the way out of the capital city, they'd ditched their horses and fled on foot, scarcely pausing to rest for weeks. Miles had led them straight into what appeared to be former South Dakota in the Plains Nation.
Miles had been acting very peculiar for days, hardly saying a word to Nora – not that that was the strange part. He and Nora had developed such a symbiosis on the run that they shared a private, wordless lexicon of eye movements, subtle gestures, and nods that meant 'you take the left - I'll take the right,' 'don't move,' and 'I'm on point.' No, the oddness had begun once they crossed into the Plains, and Miles starting behaving like a bloodhound stuck on a scent. At one point, he actually put his nose into the grass to sniff, picking up what looked like an arrowhead between two fingers and squinting at it for a solid minute. And finally one afternoon, Miles stopped dead in his tracks - the hunter becoming the hunted - undid his sword belt, letting his only weapons clatter to the ground, and then got on his knees like he was praying to God. Slowly he interlocked his fingers on top of his head and closed his eyes. The hell? Nora panicked. What wasn't she seeing – a sniper rifle honed in on them?
At once, they were surrounded by horses, intimidatingly towering but outfitted with such dainty legs that Nora wondered how they didn't snap like twigs. The height and fragility of horses was what she hated most about riding; the legs simply portended the possibility of being thrown. The riders of the horses – and this was really fucking weird – were honest-to-God Indians, like Nora had seen in wild western movies as a kid. They wore hides and feathers and were armed to the teeth with tomahawks, bows, and arrows. It was like Miles had managed to find a wormhole into the pre-European contact days of America. One glowering Indian leveled his bow at Nora and prepared a glistening arrow for her heart. She found it oddly hilarious that this was how she would die after all they'd just been through.
"Taŋyáŋ yahípi, Ohiti ke Ceta," boomed an exceptionally stony-faced man on a great, red horse.
Miles gazed up, cordially receiving the gibberish directed toward him. "Don't shoot, Shappa. We need your help."
Nora's head snapped toward Miles to search his face. Miles understood him?
"Théhaŋ waŋčhíŋyaŋke šni," Shappa answered Miles, his expression unmoved.
Then to Nora's utter astonishment, Shappa dismounted, approached the former general, and helped him to his feet. The equally tall men embraced like brothers.
"It hasn't been all that long, Red Thunder," Miles commented after pulling away. "This is Nora."
"Your tawicu?" Shappa/Red Thunder asked.
Miles shrugged, and with the vaguest hint of a side grin, replied, "Not quite."
"Your what?" Nora tried to ask Miles as Shappa took her dark, slender hand in both of his. His face, however, was not exactly friendly.
"Wife," Miles translated for Nora out of the side of his mouth.
The word alarmed Nora. A beat later when she had processed Miles' amused response to Shappa's question, Nora's unease was replaced by another sensation: pleasure. Then, just as swiftly, followed irritation for acting the silly, lovesick girl. Marriage was a useless institution in the Black. Still, even Nora had dreamed of putting on a white dress as a little girl. And a blue garter. She wasn't sure why, but the childhood fantasy had always included a blue-ribboned garter with preposterously delicate lace.
After this initial greeting, Shappa and his warriors provided Nora and Miles with horses and led them down a winding canyon path to their village - an expanse of tepees, frolicking children, and women cleaning hides and cooking juicy buffalo meat. A small river ran through the camp, which had engendered a swath of green vegetation in the otherwise bleak landscape. There was something so warm about the scene that Nora almost forgot she was on horseback. As soon as she remembered, she was eager to dismount and set her feet upon solid ground again.
And that was how Miles and Nora had come to spend this night, relaxed, clean, and well fed in the tepee.
"So tired," Nora murmured, feeling deliciously drunk from firewater and wondering without real concern if she'd go blind from it. She got the sense that the Indians used the term 'firewater' ironically to make fun of their former white colonizers. In fact, she got the sense that they hated outsiders and there was a very specific reason why they tolerated Miles (whom several at dinner had referred to as 'The White Devil,' while others opted for the more flattering 'Brave Hawk').
Nora felt Miles kiss the top of her head and press his left cheek against her scalp. "Go to sleep," he suggested gently, though they were both still sitting up.
"Not yet. So rare that we get to be alone together somewhere comfortable," said Nora beguilingly.
She felt Miles smile against her head. "Let it never be said that woman are the weaker sex."
"Too tired?" she challenged.
Miles laughed hoarsely, a testament to his exhaustion. "I'm always happy to oblige you, babe."
Nora got up and led Miles over to where they had stretched out animal furs for their bed. Their rank bedrolls, which they'd finally had the opportunity to wash, were drying down by the river, and she found these skins had a not quite unpleasant feral smell. Nora watched Miles lie down but remained standing, studying him from the aerial view. He questioned her with a raised eyebrow.
"You are going to explain to me who the hell these Indians are that we've taken up with, why they welcomed you with open arms, and oh yeah, why in God's name you speak…whatever it is they're speaking," Nora said matter-of-factly.
"They're Sioux Indians, they're speaking their tribal language, Lakota, and I only know a few words of it. But I do know these people, and they owe me, in a way. They're solid, Nora. You'll like them if you give them a chance, despite their unpalatable horse culture." Miles added this last part with a smile.
"And you know these people how?"
"I'll explain later," Miles yawned, his eyelids sagging.
In a swift movement, Nora was lying flat on top of Miles, and his arms encircled her.
She spoke just inches from his unshorn face, "Always so mysterious, Matheson. Frankly, I'm astonished that there are people who, well, like you."
"You like me." Miles said with a brief frown. "'Sides, that's why we left the Monroe Republic. To find people who don't - for the most part - want me dead." He was smirking now.
"For the most part?"
"I'm not universally loved among the Sioux."
"Now why does that not surprise me, White Devil?" Nora grinned back at him, before covering his lips with her own.
Afterward, Nora slept on Miles' chest, and now that he finally had the opportunity to sleep, he found he couldn't. But Miles did allow himself to indulge in feeling good for once, tucking a black curl behind Nora's ear, and feeling suddenly overwhelmed by an incredible fondness for her. He was grateful as hell for the fact that she'd helped him escape the militia and for the considerable skills she brought to their duo. And yet, he didn't feel the same passion for Nora as he'd had for Rachel – the kind that scraped out your insides and served them up for breakfast. But maybe that was a good thing. He and Rachel had never had a shot at something healthy. But what was the point in thinking about Rachel now?
Instead, Miles' mind wandered to an unexpected corner of his universe.
Miles clutched a handful of medals by their ribbons; they clattered together in the wind like discordant wind chimes. He felt the breeze on the back of his neck and looked up at the sky, a milky shade of blue with whispered clouds. Miles was alive after taking a bullet in the abdomen – a terrible wound in the Black that most didn't come back from. The Trenton Campaign was a success, no thanks to Miles. Like the mythological egoist Icarus, Miles had soared too close to the sun with wax wings only to have them melt, plunging him and the soldiers he loved into a abysmal sea of death. One hundred and fourteen casualties later, Kip and Neville had rallied the troops to victory, while their general faced surgery in a medical tent.
Miles pinned his men with the medals, starting with Kip and Tom, thanking each for their bravery with his eyes. No words could possibly convey his gratefulness. Besides, his chest was too constricted by something he hadn't felt since Afghanistan. Miles felt…defeated.
Underneath Nora's soft cheek that feeling was spreading again, sour-tasting and painful. Miles wrapped his arms around his girlfriend like a talisman. Eventually, he slept.
The translation of what Shappa (Red Thunder) says to Miles is as follows:
"Welcome, Brave Hawk."
"Long time no see."