Max woke suddenly from vague nightmares. As he blinked his protesting puffy eyes, all memory of the troublesome dreams slipped away. All was black and quiet, and he couldn't remember where he was. He lay still while he forced himself to full consciousness. He wanted to succumb to his need of sleep but something wasn't right; he was too uncomfortable. He slowly sat up and felt the aching pains on his back. He reached his hands out, sliding them across plush pillows and soft blankets. This was very strange to him. The materials under his fingertips brought back a haunting nostalgia of a world that was still living.

He found the edge of the bed and the soft netting surrounding it. Then he finally remembered where he was. He had found a girl, got her to remove the painful barbs out of his back, and for some reason afterwards she decided to shower him with care and concern. Part of him was grateful, another part of him was paranoid that this would be another one of those situations where something good and innocent, that something being this girl named Ake, would be crushed before his eyes while he couldn't do anything to save it, making another ghost to haunt his already-crowded conscience.

Right now, he couldn't worry about that. Right now, he needed sleep and there was no way he would be able to anymore in the bed; he was too used to sleeping in his car or on hard dirt with a threadbare blanket. But the motorbike gang in the larger mountains had his car and his blanket, as well as the rest of his belongings he had held onto for so long and was overly attached to. The large stone chamber was cool during the day but in the night it had cooled down further. Max pulled a blanket with him from the bed and laid down on the floor on his stomach. He tried to relax and fall back asleep before the dead started getting louder and before the pain from his wounds increased.

Ake woke up with an aweful crick in her neck and shoulder from sleeping in a funny position on the carseat couch. She groaned and stretched, wondering for a split-second why she chose to sleep there instead of in her comfy bed. But it came back to her quickly and her eyes popped open wide. Getting up, she flipped a switch, turning on a nearby lightbulb. Then she could see Max sprawled on the floor next to the bed, snuggled up in a blanket, fast asleep. Ake figured he must have rolled out of bed, but there was no way she would be able lift him back into it, so she let him be and cracked open the hatch so look outside.

It was dawn, the faint light of the purple and yellow horizon gently bathing the rock walls above the entrance to Ake's cavern. She listened with utmost care, hearing only the faint sound of a large dirtdevil swirling across the flat desert to the north. After briefy checking on Max once more, she stepped outside to inspect her mountain. Once she was sure that everyone from the searching gang were camped elsewhere, she went back into the cavern and, pulling a lever, opened a set of shutters on the ceiling, letting the morning light in. She then hurried off to the bath chamber to wash Max's clothes.

The growing light stirred Max from his slumber. He woke up more rested than he could ever remember, even with a terrribly sore back. He sat up and was about to stand before he realized he was naked. He didn't care so much about modesty but more about vulnerbility; he prefered being covered, feeling a sense of security in the same clothes he had worn for years. He couldn't see Ake but he still wrapped the blanket around his waist and headed to the bath chamber.

He entered just as Ake was climbing down the ladders from her hidden gardens. She jumped in surprise when she saw him, but he only stood silently watching her. She held a basket of produce but her start had jossled the basket, making some fruits fall out and roll to Max's feet. He picked one up, turning it over in his hand while trying to remember what kind of fruit it was and what it tasted like.

"Where are my clothes?" he asked, "Thought I left them in here."

"I uh washed them," Ake explained, "I hung them to dry next to the greenhouse. I can repair your jacket too."

"No," he snapped a little more harshly than he meant to. He just didn't like not being in control of what was his, other people handling what he viewed as his most intimate belongings. He sighed,

"You don't have to."

"So? I want to," Ake replied stubbornly.

Max glared at her, "I don't deserve all of this. All I wanted was the hooks out of my back and some water."

"Too bad. Letting me take care of you is the price you pay."

Max frowned.

"Got a toilet among your many clever projects?" he asked.

"Yes, that way."

Max bite into the fruit he was holding and walked around her and through the narrow gap between boulders leading to a tiny chamber where a makeshift toilet was situated. He was surprised to find that the toilet was connected to pressurized plumbing. There was even handmade toilet paper unevenly wound around a stick wedged into a crack in a boulder. He later asked where the plumbing went. She told him how it connected to a septic field of a homestead that used to stand nearby between the mountains.

Ake served up flat bread, jam, and scrambled eggs. Max looked at her incredulously.

"Oh. Yes, I have a few chickens in a pen next to my garden above," she explained.

"Is there nothing you don't have here?"

Ake's face grew sad, "I don't have other people here. No friends. No children. As much I want that, I've never let myself hope," Her face brightened up a bit, "But along comes you of all people. I do not take that for granted."

"I'm not staying," Max warned sternly, expecting Ake to be saddened by this. But instead she said,

"Oh, I know. I know that. Deep down, you are the same as you were when I first met you, and even back then, when you were offered a place among my people, you refused. You are and always be a lone road warrior, like your tatoo says."

Silence set in as Ake picked at the food on her plate and Max slowly finished drinking his cup of water.

"When are you going to leave?" Ake asked.

"Hopefully tonight."

Ake nodded solemnly.

"I have to get my car back," Max continued.

"Where is it?"

"The gang trying to find me has it. I don't know which mountain they're camping at yet, but I'll find it."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Mm," he grunted.

"Wish I could help but I'm not going anywhere near other peoples' camps."

"You've done plenty for me."

"I suppose I'll get your clothes to you as soon as they're dry."

Max shifted uncomfortably in the blanket still wrapped around him. Ake noticed Max's face momentarely scrunch up in pain. "And I should check your back; I have more ointment to help with the pain."

"I'll be fine."

"Wanna know what my people often called me?"

"Was it Motherly?" Max said, "I remember a kid called Motherly."

"You do remember me? Well then, you know how strong my maternal insticts are. I will check your back and I will fix your jacket. I have some leather; I can make a new sleeve for it. It will be something you can remember me by. You will look at your sleeve and think about how you helped preserve a bit of goodness in this broken world."

"Goodness?" he questioned.

"Well, I like to think that despite everything, I'm still a human being with a heart and soul. You can't find that very often anymore. Most people aren't human anymore; they're animals, reduced to the most basic insticts of anything living: survive, no matter the cost." As Ake said this, she wasn't really looking at him but could feel tension rise from him and then sadness. She didn't understand at first but realized she must have struck a cord.

"And what do you think I am?" Max asked her.

She looked him in the eyes and saw them change from sadness to hurt. "I'm sorry, Max. I'm not blaming you for...whatever you've become, whatever you have done to survive. I'm just trying to express my gratitude to you, and maybe you can take some comfort in it."

"I don't want comfort."

Ake heaved a sigh, "Of course you don't. For you to accept comfort would mean accepting your past. The past that you seem to be running from but are still haunted by."

Silence fell between them again. Ake prepared herself for the likely possiblity that Max would get himself killed tonight trying to take back his vehicle from the motorbike gang.