Prompt: Taylor/Wash - Caravan
Fill for: crystalkei
Word Count: 741
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Friendship/Romance (tiny blip of BAMF kids)
Summary: What could have happened if Taylor and Wash were the only two who made it through the portal in 2142.
Author's Note: Written for the prompt Caravan in the Friday's One Word Fic Challenge - Week 1. No spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own neither the show nor the characters. I don't earn any money with this piece. I just do it for fun.
No one is coming after them and no one ever will. The portal collapses, closes forever, and it is just them, Commander and Lieutenant, a pilgrimage of two. They have nothing but the packs on their backs and two guns though they soon learn that bullets are useless in this new (old) world.
They decide to scout the area around the gate for anything valuable before moving onto higher ground. The picture that presents them is breathtaking, a lush, with life overflowing valley, surrounded by hills and waterfalls, a perfect place to build Terra Nova.
Alicia sighs as she realizes that except for them, the others will never see this, they are going to be stuck forever in the future. A hand gently clasps her shoulder and as she tilts her head to look at Taylor, he gives her a small but sad smile.
"C'mon, Wash, let's go."
And so their journey begins.
They wander through the valley until they reach one of the waterfalls, stay there for a few days before moving towards the hills and forest, spend their days walking and their nights high up in the trees. Soon the jungle gives way to a desert, the badlands as Taylor jokes, but it's not far from the truth. A few times they nearly don't make it and once it takes sixty-seven stitches to patch him up. The coastline is much friendlier, open and less hostile, a good place to restock their supplies and when they find out that those ugly red fish actually taste delicious and even better dried, their food problem is no longer an issue.
For months they travel through different territories, taking their time, no one's there to tell them otherwise, exploring and enjoying what this new world has to offer and even if the local wildlife is a pain in the ass sometimes, neither of them wants to go back to 2142.
It's in the middle of their sixth month when Taylor asks her what she thinks about settling down. It's a warm evening, even for what in this time counts as autumn, and they haven't had an encounter with any dinosaurs in a week, so they are quite relaxed and even though his questions surprises her, Alicia can see his point. Trekking through this world forever is not a way to live and some day (sooner if her Commander's question is any indication) they will have to find a place to set up home.
"To be honest, sir, I wouldn't mind it." She looks out across the high plain, the last rays of sunlight bathing it in shades of orange and gold. "Weird as it may sound, the last few months have been the best of my life but I think you're right."
"They were mine too."
She turns back to him, clearly confused by his words. "Sir?"
"'Best of my life'. They were the best months of my life too, Wash." He slowly reaches out and takes her hand in his, calloused skin gliding against soft one, and at the contact her mind flashes back to all those moments he has done something like this since they've been stranded here, running his hands frantically over her body after she had been attacked by a Nyko, brushing her sweat-soaked hair out of her face when she had been struck by high fever, holding her close after they jumped off that waterfall to avoid becoming a Carnotaurus dessert.
He's been touching her more frequently in recent weeks, all innocent touches of course, and yet they have made her heart beat faster. Just like now. Alicia knows what the regulations say about this kind of behavior but there is no army, no court martial waiting around the next tree, and so she does what her heart tells her, gently squeezing his hand in return, and that's all Taylor needs.
The next morning they go back to the valley the discovered the first day and start building theirTerra Nova. It takes time and hard work, sometimes they want to give up but then the other is there and pulls them out of their misery with a simple touch or kiss, sometimes they think about what could have been, think about the people they've left behind, but then their own people, their children, demand their attention and they forget about the future.
They have their own future to think about now.