Driving the Fury Road wasn't always fire, blood, and yells for witness.

Most times, the cars just race alongside the War Rig while the Boys waste time harassing each other, the initial adrenaline of the journey running on empty after an hour of quiet. Some would stretch over the tops of their cars and soak in the heat like lizards sunning themselves, while others poke their heads through the windows and sunroofs to converse with their drivers, topics of discussion varied and lighthearted.

A few shake their shoulders to rid the nervous energy, keeping limber and loose in case of an attack. Malt, one of the newest boys, is glued to his post, hands tight, curled fists around the steel handles of the harpoon gun. The longer they're on road, the more he breaks his stone shell, twisting his head slowly from side to side to watch the others. Ace notices the rookie staring at something, and then sees Morsov hoist his weight over his perch at the back of the tanker and carefully descend the ladder; pausing just a moment before he spring jumps onto the bed of the '39 Plymouth they call Reliant. His weight threw the car's balance and it fishtails to the right, kicking up sand as the driver, newly promoted Matches, tries to shake back into formation.

Sprocket claps Morsov on the back in welcoming and makes room for him on the back ledge, passing his lunch pail over so they can share a small meal of dried snake meat and handfuls of sticky rice. For a while they eat in silence, passing a few sentences back and forth about upgrades for the explosive lances they'll finish when they get back.

Ace returns his attention to the other boys who, unlike Morsov, aren't brave enough or ranked high enough to flit between vehicles. He finds them tracing their bodies with steady fingertips, describing where they're going to put their new tattoos, talks of flames, car parts, and the V8 symbol itself. Others are ripping their pockets open to show what they want to try and trade with during the negotiations at Bartertown. Between them, there isn't much, just trinkets and junk they've scavenged, anything they think might be worth something to someone else. War Boys are taught to be pack rats and some have made quite a living out of salvaging shiny stuffs. He pats his own, full pockets and traces the shapes of what he's brought, but he isn't going to show the others. Ace had seen a few things he wouldn't mind having during the last supply run and he hopes some man will understand the value of his treasures.

The sun glares against his paint and as the mountain ridges level out, sand flat and sugar smooth around them for as far as the eye can see, he lets a small amount of relief settle between his ribs. An attack is near impossible in these parts during high noon and the Boys seem to sense his ease because a few press back to back to doze.

Most Imperators wouldn't tolerate laziness at any level, for good reason, but Furiosa trusts Ace and, while he's there keeping watch, she doesn't mind the Boys relaxing a little. He scans the horizon in two sweeping glances, watching the rocks jut up out of the sand dunes, daring movement. The Rig has a crew of ten and three assist vehicles with a Driver-Lancer pair each, more than enough protection, but Ace still feels tense as they drive the long road. He's been on too many trips that end in a slaughter due to carelessness and he doesn't want another.

Sprocket, his belly full and bare shoulders sun prickled, is snoozing against the back window while Morsov slides onto the hood. He braces his hands on the windshield wipers, throwing a glance to make sure he isn't obstructing the driver's view, and lets his legs swing loose, watching the clear sky pass above him. Ace looks up and does the same, calmed as the cloudless blue mass takes over his vision, filling his eyes as he focuses until all there is sky. He licks his chapped lips as he remembers faintly the taste of liquid blue, the vast reservoirs of water in the before times. So much of it that you could drown. The boys are much too young to have memories like that and Ace wonders what Morsov thinks about when he vacantly loses himself in the sky.

After a while, there's a lull as the winding path turns straight and everyone locks into place for the long haul. There's nothing to see and nothing to do so, as a joke, Matches taps the brakes, jerking Morsov from his day dreaming. Everyone laughs at his tight muscles and the sharp cussing he barks, eyes wild and aware as he sees there's no threat. It's all in good fun but Morsov lives a life as the underdog and takes it personally as he crawls back to the perch, refusing Sprockets' offered hand and waits until the Rig swings close enough to dare a jump. He climbs aboard without help and sits in his basket.

From there, the respite only grows, the crew pitching with the swaying movements of the sands and Ace takes the time to count each of the bald heads, just to make sure they're all where they're supposed to be. He's off by one and sees that Sam wasn't in his perch, but then saw an extra body in Trix's car.

Sam had crawled into the Phoenix's passenger seat and was fiddling with the wiring under the dash, him and Trix bantering back and forth, about what was anyone's guess. He must have crossed a wrong wire because the swerved suddenly off track, her arms braced on the wheel as they pitched in the loose sands. The rest of the crew rouses to watch, trying to judge if they would need to help as she veered and passed wildly in front of the War Rig. Furiosa dodges and slows to give her space and it's not much longer until Trix wrestles control or Sam fixes the mistake, the car falling smoothly back into place.

Inside, Trix is a flurry of anger as she throws a hand at Sam and keeps hitting him until he pulled himself out the back window, curling his knees to his chest sulking on his lancer's perch. Spats between teams weren't uncommon in the slightest but those two were constantly at each other's throats since they paired. Trix hadn't wanted another Lancer since her first, Chev, took a bullet between the eyes from a failed siege on the Motor Rats. She'd driven back to the Citadel with his brains sprayed across the windshield then spent a week scrubbing the Firebird, eyes swollen with her anger and unshed tears.

'You should go down to the Pits tonight.' Ace had suggested once he thought she mourned long enough. Trix, who wasn't violent unless in the heat of Fury Road, had thrown her wrench down, shoved her crew out of her way to the exit, and avoided most everyone the rest of the week. But Ace knew she couldn't go without a Lancer for long.

It was Furiosa who had taken her aside and told her the truth.

'Drivers without Lancers don't get assignments. Which means you won't be on the War Rig crew; you'll be left to the rest of the War Boys.' Trix wouldn't look Furiosa in the eye but she listened and understood. They'd rather bring in a new Lancer than have to cast her out. 'Don't waste your talent because you don't want to replace Chev. You might watch the next one go, and the one after that. You're next Lancer might outlive you.' Trix felt the slick weight in her stomach grow heavier but she nodded and accepted Sam as crew two days later.

Sam was soft by War Boy standards and it was one of the reasons Trix chose him. He was still growing into his gangly legs and weighed maybe one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, but his shining achievement was how nonthreatening he was, how he shrunk away from other boys and agreed with almost everything Trix said. Sam was an average Lancer, a very clever Revhead, and was well liked amongst the rest of the crew yet he couldn't understand that his problem with his Driver was that she couldn't let go of his predecessor. So every time he did something different than Chev would, when he misread her commands or overstepped her invisible boundaries, Trix would get inconsolably angry with him. Usually Sam took it in stride and shouldered the reprimands as if he was completely incompetent but Ace could tell he was beginning to push back at Trix when he felt like she was being unfair. Furiosa swears they'll work out the kinks one way or another and she's never been wrong before.

Ace moved up to the cab of the Rig and rapped thrice before his driver opened the hatch.

"Yes?" Furiosa asked, eyes never leaving the endless ribbon of road before them. Bartertown still wasn't in view.

"Trix might kill Sam." He deadpanned but she recognized his humor and her mouth twitched with a half-smile. She usually steered clear of her crew's personal lives but the more missions she took as an Imperator the further she was dragged into this knitted family. Like it or not, these were her pups to look after.

"He'll grow on her." She said after a pause, eyes flashing playfully to him through the rearview window.

"Like a tumor." Ace agreed and her scoff was enough to make him smile. He huffed a short laugh and raised his head to cast a precursory glance at the horizon just as a rogue shadow sizzled in the afternoon heat, like a mirage rising from the sand. Only its distant rev and grind of the engine gave it away and instantly Ace was on his feet, signaling to the rest of the crew. They sprang up like they'd been electrocuted, instantly ready for the war, no matter how small.

The Reliant matched speeds with the Phoenix, both merging side by side in front of the War Rig so Matches and Trix could brush fingers in a good luck sign before they raced to cut the danger before it reached the convoy.

"Must be a Road Warrior! He's alone!" Morsov shouted from behind his binoculars as Ace kept searching the landscape around them, frantic for any other sign of movement. Lone Warriors were hardly an unthinkable concept, but too often in their world there was bait and then the hook. The rest of the boys watched, poised to strike, as Sam held onto the roof handles, and crouched low, molding himself as if to melt into the vehicle. His goggles were suctioned to his face so hard they made his eyes feel dry, achy, and the air was gritty with sand but he felt more alive now than he ever remembers being. So alive that he isn't afraid when he raises himself up, a lance tight in his grip, and hits his head once, hard, on the sunroof. Trix responds by banking to the right quickly, hiding the Reliant from view as they close in, head on to what Ace thinks is a souped up Fairlane. Unless the driver has nothing short of a rocket launcher, they don't stand a chance.

Furiosa pulls the chord hanging from her left and the diesel roars once, deep and low, and the signal is answered as Trix and Matches flank the foreign car, Lancers braced for the final maneuver. The other driver pulls a long muzzled gun and shoots at Trix, the windshield eating the bullet, and she wrenches the wheel to knock him into the Reliant's path. The spiked hubcaps pop the front tire and the Fairlane flips, hood flying apart as the driver spills out the door. Sprocket jumps from the back of the Reliant and pulls his knife out, eyes wild from beneath the shiny black oil of his forehead. But the driver doesn't move, arms twisted behind him like faulty wiring, his head buried in the sand. Trix pulls alongside his ride and Sam jumps out to inspect the remains. One tire blow, the rest patched shoddily. The engine looks fried but surely someone back home can do something with it.

"Looks salvageable." Ace tells Furiosa after Morsov gave him a thumbs up, eyes still trained behind the binoculars, and she slows the Rig, watching in her rearview as the boys climbs down to inspect the damage.

Morsov tugs on the body until it rolls over and finds it's a woman. Her jaw is dislocated, making her face gaunt and teeth bared, only the whites of her eyes showing with the way her bodies lies in the sand. She's wrapped in rags, her hair tangled in knots, and the boys leave her corpse alone once they see she doesn't have anything on her worth taking. Instead, they all crowd around her car, hands smoothing along the side panels and talking about what they'd use its spare parts for if they got the chance.

The insides aren't much to look at, it seemed like she believed in traveling light. Or, Ace thought, like she hadn't thought to be out long. He again turned his head to check their surroundings. A woman alone in a car with no supplies was out of the ordinary. But the boys stripped what they could and hauled some of the goods back to the cars while the rest was stacked in the Rig. Ace gave orders about what should go where and told Morsov to start siphoning the Fairlane's gas for the pursuit vehicles.

"Whatever is left, put in gas cans."

"Heard."

As everyone scurried like ants between cars, Ace counted the boys and recounted again just to be sure.

"Look at this!" A voice, must have been Malik from the sound of his accent, said and all the boys dropped their assignment to crowd around.

And there, wrapped in canvas and swinging from a tight knit hammock in the back of the car, was a squirming baby.

"Well glory me." Ace whispered when he saw, more surprised than he ever remembers being. It isn't crying, just waving its fists weakly, face scrunched and red, as the boys crowd around its little nest.

"How?"

"Fuckin' miracle, that is." Morsov points out and Ace nods, taking in its tiny fingers, the dark curls of its hair. "Can we keep it?"

"No." Everyone turns at the answer and looks at Furiosa as if she had appeared from thin air. She doesn't say another word on the subject, just hooks her thumb back at the Rig and the boys get the message, all but Ace, who keeps looking at the bundle as if it was the last water on Earth.

"Ace." The warning only half as effective since she's never had to single him out before. "We're running late." Furiosa reminds, this time to appealing to his sensible nature, and tries not to let surprise show on her face when Ace tucks his hands underneath the squirming child and picks it up from the hammock.

"She survived." Is all he says, his fingers touching at her slight eye eyebrows and ears. There's something in the baby's face, the plump cheeks, the rounded eyes, the little pink bow tied in its hair that tells Ace that this is a girl, and she is the most innocent thing he had ever held, after the world had fallen.

He stands with her and then she begins to cry, the sun bright and hot on her pale skin as he dusts off his memory and vaguely tries to fit her in his arms like how he was once taught. Ace looks from her to Furiosa, who is glaring at him from beneath her goggles, and he finds himself saying, "We can't leave her here."

"She can't go back to the Citadel." Furiosa answers, the steel in her voice blistering, nonnegotiable. Ace just presses the crying baby into his shoulder, lets the little hands grab at him, and nods to his Imperator as if making a deal.

The entire walk back to the rig, he feels her eyes on him, cold and angry at being overruled but not sure how to challenge him on it, and he's careful as he climbs into the cabin of the Rig, settling the bundle to lie in his lap.

Furiosa's unasked questions make the air thick but Ace feels light as he holds the child and stops her crying by dipping his finger into a canteen of Mother's Milk and letting her suckle.

"Unbelievable." Furiosa sighs as she wrenches the stick shift into gear and presses the gas, the Rig lurching forward like a beast biting at the reins.

"Isn't it though?" Ace answers in awe, smiling more than Furiosa has ever seen him, and if it wasn't for the ache acidly boiling in her chest, she'd have found it pleasant. But looking at the baby and remembering her own girl child, a few years ago, taken from her, the cries still fresh in her mind, arms empty and cold, Furiosa feels sick and focuses instead on the road before her and the awful way Ace will feel when he too has to give this baby up.

(End Chapter One)

This started out as just a drabble to get some War Boy culture and have a deeper look into the V8 culture and then BOOM, there was a baby and I can't wait to tell this story. :)
Its a work in progress, so please tell me anything that you'd like to see in this story. I'd love more ideas to put in.