Title: Archimedes Am I
Character/Pairing/Group: Rex and Martha
Prompt: #22 - Don't Worry
Rating: PG
Genre: General
Pairing: Rex/Martha
Summary: You can't get out of Satellite. Right?
Notes: So because I'm fucking insane, I decided to do the 5Ds 100 for NaNoWriMo. Wish me luck.
He comes home late.
Martha doesn't ask where he's been, for which he's grateful; instead she asks if he's hungry, and when he tells her it can keep, she tells him to stop being foolish and slides her feet out of bed and into her slippers.
"There's only soup from yesterday left," she tells him. "But it's still good. The power hasn't been out since that thirty minutes last night."
He doesn't comment, just follows her to the kitchen. He's tired – so tired – and her hand in the small of his back is only enough to keep him going. She seats him at the plain wooden table he put up in the dining room to accommodate the large number of children and refugees who pour in and out like the water traveling new channels and crevasses all across this forsaken island, brings him tea, heats soup on the stove, sets a bowl in front of him. She runs her hands down his arms, then seats herself across from him, reaching for the hand he's not using to eat with.
"Was there trouble?" she asks, softly, and he shakes his head. There hasn't been trouble since – he tenses, and her fingers tighten around his. He looks down at the bowl, no longer hungry.
"I spent the day in B.A.D."
She gasps, eyes wide, staring as though he's gone mad, and perhaps he has. But one thing he knows: if he does nothing, there will be no "perhaps."
"Rex – "
"I'm getting us out of here. You. Me. Yuusei." The little boy has almost started calling him "papa," and it never fails to make his heart ache. The toddler nearly, but can never quite really, make up for –
"It won't happen, Rex," she says, and now her eyes reflect the pain he knows must be in his own. "I've already made my peace with that."
"Save your peace," he answers. "I drove a set of pylons today. I'm calling it the Daedalus Bridge. And when it's done, you and I are taking a walk. We're getting out of here. It's absolutely unconscionable that we're trapped here. I'm surprised the United Nations didn't come down on the city like a bag of bricks."
"And when Security catches up with you?" she asks, her eyes betraying just a hint of pique. "What then?"
"I'll deal with that when I get to it. I have more important things to do in the meantime." He goes back to his soup. She is the one who breaks the silence, several minutes later.
"I'm worried for you, Rex."
"I have a plan. If all else fails I can get to the city and come back on the boat to smuggle you out. I'd have to get a job for maybe six months . . . passage back and forth isn't cheap. And I wouldn't leave you with no money just so I could make the trip. Only the gods know how long it could take me to get back over here."
"How exactly do you think you're going to get out? Nobody's gotten out, Rex. Nobody. Not since that first airlift out." She doesn't look angry – just frightened. And so finally he reaches out, puts his hand on hers.
"Let's just say I have a backup plan it's better for you not to know about."
She says nothing as she retrieves his empty bowl. He finishes the rest of his tea, goes upstairs to wash off a layer of dust and grease and sweat and smog and grime. She comes up to bed, dishes washed and cleaned, and sits down next to him. He touches her hand again, and she sighs. "Rex – "
"Don't worry," he tells her. "I think the American term is 'the fix is in,' Martha. We're going."
Status: 2/100