Warning: Mentions of blood and illness
Caesar
Caesar woke with a start, his eyes opening wide as he suddenly found himself staring up into the ceiling of his hut. His heart was thundering on in his chest like he was back on the Golden Gate Bridge, running towards his freedom all over again, and he quickly jerked his head to the side to check on his family. Beside him, his wife and son were sleeping peacefully still.
He was relieved that he hadn't woken either of them. This time, at least.
It was still dark outside, the Ape King noted as he looked through the balcony of his home. The annoyed grumble that left his throat made Cornelia stir in her sleep, but he quickly caught himself before it would wake her. It was the third time in two weeks that he'd woken up like this, in the middle of the night, startled awake from faded memories that still clung to his mind.
He got up from the nest, so soft and inviting, yet unable to provide the comfort he needed to fall back into his slumber. The logs that made out the floor of the hut creaked in meek protest at his weight as he moved towards the entrance to their home, where an animal skin made for a make-shift door to shield them from the crisp air of the night.
He needed this air tonight. To think. To rid himself of the images that woke him.
He trudged down the spiralling ramp leading up to the hut, his expression set, as ever, in a stern frown.
The torches and fires around the village, tended to by the sentries assigned to stand guard that particular night, provided him with enough light to survey the village as he made his way through it. There were no lights in any of the huts and the only sound at this hour was the chirping and buzzing of bugs, accompanied by the soft calling of birds and bats in the sky, as well as squirrels darting around in the trees.
It was so peaceful compared to how the village was during the day that Caesar barely recognised it. Had he not known the infrastructure of the place by heart, every nook and cranny, every piece of bark and every dangerous stub sticking out of the ground, he would have thought he was in another place entirely. Another world, even.
He made his way, as he did most nights this happened almost subconsciously, to the Law-Stone. The dirt was moist from dew and stuck to the rough soles of his feet.
The Law-Stone. It was a good place to think. To regain composure.
To talk, he thought, as he spotted Lydia sitting there already, her blue gaze turned upward, towards the stars that twinkled above. At the sound of the Ape King's approach, she whipped her head towards his direction in mild alarm, only to have her features fall into a kind smile as their eyes met. She scooted over slightly on the smoothened, worn platform to make room for him to sit, her legs crossed and her posture relaxed.
His movement were slow and calculated as he sat down by her, feeling as if a careless movement might wake the whole village, ruining the quiet sanctity that veiled it at night.
"Couldn't sleep?" She asked in a low, pleasant voice. A sympathetic look was etched onto her features and Caesar couldn't help but sigh in a hopeless manner. He closed his eyes and shook his head dejectedly, his lips forming a thin line as he frowned.
"Me neither… again." She said with a slight slump of her shoulders. It was a common thing for them to meet each other at night, as they each woke from uneasy sleep with frequent intervals. She had yet to divulge exactly what it was that kept her awake on these nights, though Caesar was fairly sure he could guess at least one or two of the causes. She had experienced much horror, seeing her family die, one by one, turning her back on her own species after having witnessed the selfishness, greed and tyrannical tendencies surfacing when humans grew desperate.
Yes, she had seen a lot. She had as good a reason as any to be up at this hour, sleepless.
An easy silence grew between them as they took in the low lights of the fires dotting the village, like fireflies in a field, dancing tantalisingly over the shiny blades of grass.
Suddenly, her voice sounded, cutting through the silence like a white-hot blade through soft butter. What surprised Caesar, however, was not the fact that she had spoken. It was what she said that caught him off-guard.
"I dreamt I was alone again." She didn't look at him. As he turned towards her, he noticed she was staring ahead with a calm expression, almost like she had merely told him how nice the weather was. Her hands were fiddling in her lap, her long fingers twisting around each other, pinching, rubbing, scratching.
Uneasy.
"Alone again?" Caesar questioned, dumbfounded for once. He had trouble keeping his deep, baritone voice down to a whisper. It was already a strain to speak, even if he was better at it than any other ape was. It came out too loud, yet it didn't seem to bother Lydia, who nodded briefly.
"Like right after my dad and brother died. Before I found Roy and Orion…" She clarified. If it hadn't already been so quiet all around them, Caesar doubted he would have even heard her at all.
The Ape King gave in to the sudden urge to pat her shoulder comfortingly, which made her look at him with a sad smile.
"You never. Spoke. Of this. Time." Caesar said. He was still trying to mimic her quiet tone. And failing miserably.
"I try not to think about it most days." She said, then shook her head as if to rid herself of an unpleasant thought. "It was… agony."
Caesar's eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Agony? How so?"
The question slipped out before he had a chance to contain it. Luckily, she didn't seem to mind explaining what she meant. She looked more relieved than anything else, really.
"I was all alone, no family, no friends, no company at all except my own…" She paused as she looked down in thought, picking at a piece of dirt stuck to her boot. "One thing humans and apes have in common is that we are not made to be alone… It's not in our nature. We're social creatures… But I turned my back on that when there was no one left I trusted. Nothing left to tie me to the last of humanity…"
Caesar tried to imagine what that must have been like. Living without the social life together with his apes. The apes communicated with each other through most of the day and had many occasions to touch as well, for example when grooming. Imagining life without any interactions, without his friends, wife and child, Caesar could understand why Lydia used the term agony.
"How. Did you. Survive?" He asked tentatively. He remembered her saying that she had been on her own for… what was it? Five months? After she left the human colony she had resided in. Almost half a year on her own. With nothing but her own mind to keep her occupied, be it day or night.
He shuddered at the thought.
"Mostly stubbornness, I guess." She leaned back against the Law-Stone, still not meeting Caesar's eye. "I wasn't going to let my dad and brother's sacrifice go to waste by just dying off from hunger or some idiot robbing me. But I didn't know where to go. What to do with myself."
Her gaze turned to him, finally, yet the look in her eyes was unreadable to Caesar.
"I didn't know how to hunt either. I had never held a bow in my life. I went to sleep hungry many times during those months. The only reason I survived was because I scavenged houses and shops for canned food. After three years, most had already been found by others, but I did occasionally catch a lucky break."
Caesar was surprised by this revelation. She was a skilled hunter for as long as he'd known her.
"You. Learned to. Hunt. Then?" He asked while trying to contain his bewilderment. Her sheepish look told him all he needed to know.
"It took a loooooong time. I came across a shop that had sold equipment for extreme sports. I had originally just come to see if I could find some clothes I could hoard, but the bow caught my eye. I figured that I needed to learn how to hunt if I was going to be on my own, so I grabbed it."
She chuckled for the first time that night and shook her head in disbelief at herself.
"It was so hard on my arms to even string it that I almost gave up as soon as I had begun. A pistol would have been much easier to handle, but I reasoned that a bow would be better because I could make the arrows myself later on. With a gun, I'd have to look for ammo all the time. Even then, I didn't hit anything at all until a few weeks before I met Roy and Orion. I basically lived off scraps."
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest and Caesar noted how well-toned her arms were. They were still slim and feminine, fitting the rest of her body, but it was clear she had trained hard to be able to pull back the string on her bow.
"Seems. To me. That it. Worked. Fine." He said with a playful glint in his eyes, catching up with the changing mood of the conversation. He was happy she didn't seem so gloomy anymore.
She chuckled lightly and leaned her head back to look up at the stars. "Yeah. It did."
He too leaned his back against the cool surface of the Law-Stone, and they fell into another bout of silence. Caesar was glad that she confided this in him. The talks they usually shared on such nights were rarely personal. In the beginning, he had inquired about humans. How they were doing, how wide the virus had spread, how the humans that were left managed to survive.
His thoughts turned to his own reason for being awake as he recalled their earlier conversations.
Will… Caesar thought sadly, his adoptive father's face flashing before his eyes.
As if she had read his mind, Lydia gave him a sideways glance and a worried expression soon found its way onto her face again.
"What… What about you?" She asked hesitantly, almost as if she expected him to recoil at the question, before she grew braver and elaborated. "What keeps you awake?"
Some part of him didn't want to tell her. It was a matter that only his wife, Rocket and Maurice had been told about. Koba had probably figured it out too. The bonobo was observant like that. To tell something so personal, so well-hidden to someone, and a human at that, seemed wrong.
And yet, another part of him, a bigger part, told him that it was alright. That he owed it to her, for sharing her pain so readily with him. They were in the same boat, as she would sometimes say. Also, she had proved on more than one occasion that she could be trusted.
She was a good human… Like Will had been.
So, Caesar told her.
"I dreamt. About my. Father." He said in his gravelly voice. "My… human father." He clarified when she turned to face him fully.
"He was. The one who made. The drug. Making apes. Smart… And humans. Sick…"
Her look of surprise told him that Cornelia hadn't shared that little piece of knowledge with the human woman, and he half-expected Lydia to frown and start talking badly about Will. It was, after all, the drug that Will created that was the cause of her current situation. In a way, Will was responsible for the deaths of her mother, sister and brother… Though Caesar would still try to defend his adoptive father against such accusations, the Ape King wouldn't blame Lydia if that was what she thought.
She didn't seem resentful, though. Instead, a thoughtful expression graced her features as the torches' light bathed them yellow and orange hues.
"Why did he make it? The drug?" She asked curiously.
"His father. Was sick. Forgot things. Like how to. Use forks… Got into trouble." Caesar said in a simple manner. He didn't know the name of the sickness that plagued his adoptive grandfather, Charles, but he knew it made him do illogical things. Dangerous things, at times.
"Sounds like Alzheimer's… or dementia." Lydia replied. Caesar faintly remembered the label on the vials he stole from Will's lab. ALZ-113. He reasoned that it must be the first option, then. The letters fit, after all.
"He was. A good man." Caesar said solemnly, to which she nodded in understanding and, daringly, grabbed his hand in a comforting gesture. They rarely touched, which made the move all the more surprising.
Yet Caesar was happy for it. It was a small gesture of comfort from a creature that reminded him of Will in many ways. If he closed his eyes, Caesar was almost certain he could pretend it was Will's hand covering his, if he tried to focus hard enough on his memories of his adoptive father's scent.
The Ape King sighed as she removed her hand from his.
"I remember. The last time. I saw him." He said, voice almost breaking from the continued strain. "He was. Sick… Dying."
She nodded for him to continue, her willingness to listen, her understanding, apparent in her eyes.
And Caesar lifted his hands to sign, the torches' fire making the shadows dance across the Law-Stone as Lydia followed his movements intently.
Caesar noted how beautiful the trees were on this bright day in late autumn. The colours of the leaves ranged from green, to yellow, orange, red and brown, and they swirled in the air on their way down from the branches. It seemed so tranquil, as Caesar made his way down the street to the house where he had once lived.
It had been roughly six months since he and his apes had escaped into Muir Wood forest, and the humans had been relentless in their pursuit of them ever since. He had been wary of leaving his apes for this very reason, though their current location seemed to be relatively safe. For now.
He just had to check on Will. Something was wrong, Caesar could just feel it. The humans chasing them had dwindles steadily in numbers, and when he had stealthily made his way to the edge of the forest, he had noticed several improvised graves scattered across the roadside.
They couldn't be the results of clashes with the apes, who had spent most of their time just trying to escape.
It had to be something else.
The bridge had been largely unguarded when he'd snuck across it, as were the streets as he made his way towards Will's house. Sirens howled in the distance, though, and Caesar could make out the distressed calling of humans from somewhere within the city. He paid it no mind, though.
He had one goal. One destination.
Will.
Finally, the house was within sight and Caesar sped up as he swung through the trees.
Most of the houses had yellow plastic tape stretched out in front of them, blocking people from entering the unkept front yards. Windows were broken and most of the houses seemed empty. Caesar only spied a few, scattered inhabitants moving within their homes, white masks covering their mouths.
He thought he saw some of them being stained with a dark substance, but shrugged it off as he pressed on.
He landed with a dull thump in front of the house he used to call his home. The yellow plastic also flapped in the soft breeze in front of this house and Caesar felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Making his way through the front gate, slipping under the plastic blocking his way, a lump started to form in his throat.
Two of the tyres on Will's car had been punctured, seemingly long ago, if the dry dirt covering the vehicle was anything to go by, and the bushes around the house had not been trimmed. Usually, the place was tidy and well-kept, testament to Will's orderly nature.
Perhaps he wasn't there anymore, Caesar reasoned. And yet, he pushed on and went around the back, careful not to be seen. Even now, so long after it had happened, he was still subconsciously looking out for Will's neighbour, who Caesar had attacked when he'd harassed his grandfather.
The backyard was even worse-looking than the front, grass reaching up to Caesar's knees and bushes growing their branches out in natural, twisting angles, almost as if to mock the tidy condition they had previously been kept in.
Caesar approached the backdoor warily, at any moment expecting someone to jump out and attack him, even if no one seemed to be around. He reached forward hesitantly, softly grabbing the handle and wiggling it, only to find it locked.
He weighed his options as he stepped back from the door and examined the windows. They all seemed to be shut, though Caesar's eyes soon rested on Will and Caroline's bedroom window, hope finding its way into his chest. They had always kept it open to let in air, since it often became clammy in there.
Poor ventilation, Will had called it.
Caesar climbed up using the drain on the edge of the building, swinging swiftly over to grab hold of the windowsill and hauling himself up to open the window wider. His feet hit the carpeted floor silently and as Caesar stood up to his full height, eyeing the room, he was immediately alarmed by the state of the houses' interior. Brown dust covered every surface except the bed, which seemed to have been used recently, the covers rumpled and unkept. Books were scattered across the floor in a careless manner. Will would never treat his books like that.
The scent of the house was even more worrying to Caesar. The air was stale and the iron-like smell of blood made the evolved chimpanzee crinkle his nose in distaste.
He moved into the hallway, where things weren't much different from how they were in the bedroom. Caesar could, however, make out the faint sound of the television down below, the news, he thought. It sounded like the news programme to Caesar, a reporter speaking indistinctly.
As he made his way down the stairs, the steps creaked under his weight. He had forgotten about these noisy floorboards.
It seemed to have alerted the occupant of the house, as a faint "who's there?" could be heard from the living room. Caesar recognised the voice, even if it sounded raspy and raw from disuse.
Soon, the ape reached the bottom of the stairs and went to stand in the open doorway leading into the living room. He spotted his father immediately, though the sight was like getting slapped across the face.
Or stung with the electric stick Landon used back at San Bruno, Caesar thought.
There, lying on the couch, propped up weakly on one elbow and holding on to the back of the couch with his other hand, was Will. He was covered in an old blanket, both that and the old t-shirt he was wearing stained with dried blood.
His red eyes widened in shock as he spotted Caesar, perhaps expecting some other human to have entered his home through force, coming to either rob him or kill him while he lies there, weak and helpless.
The mere thought made Caesar's blood boil.
"Caesar." Will called weakly, a soft, paternal smile gracing his features as he recognised the ape he had cared for since infancy. "Is it really you?" He asked, sitting up straighter on the couch.
The ape nodded, the lump in his throat blocking him from answering with his newly developed verbal language. He made his way over to Will and bent down in front of him so they were at eye-level with each other. Then he reached forward with his hand and grabbed the back of Will's neck, pulling him forward until their foreheads touched. Both exhaled, Caesar evenly so, while Will's breath was raspy and laboured.
When they pulled back, Caesar signed questioningly. "What happened? Why are you sick?"
Will's eyes saddened, his happiness at seeing Caesar again fading as guilt clouded his features.
"It's the drug, Caesar… The one that made the apes smart. The one to help dad. It's killing people. Humans are dying everywhere…" Will's voice broke when Caesar's head shot up to regard him with widened eyes, realisation dawning on the ape.
"Caroline?" Caesar signed with trembling hands.
Will only shook his head regretfully, his eyes downcast.
The ape felt his heart clench tightly together in his chest. Caroline was gone? His adoptive mother, with her kind voice and calming scent, gone? He had a hard time wrapping his head around it.
He had known when Charles had died, while he was still in San Bruno. Will hadn't said anything, but his demeanour when he had visited told Caesar all he needed to know, and the ape had mourned the loss, alone in his cold cell.
But Caroline had died without his knowledge. Died from something Will had created. Something Caesar had turned loose.
And it wasn't just her. It was everywhere, Will had said. Humans getting sick and dying. Suddenly the state of the city, the graves on the roadside, the people hiding in their houses, wearing masks… it all made sense to Caesar then.
So, this was the price for the apes' freedom. The price for Will's determination to help his father.
"Caesar. Sorry." The ape managed to grind out, squeezing his green eyes shut to prevent tears from falling. He felt Will's hands land gently on his hairy shoulders, pulling the chimpanzee into a comforting embrace. Caesar laid his arms around his father, clenching Will's dirty shirt as guilt and shame crept its way into his heart.
"It's not your fault, Caesar." Will insisted gently, his voice still hoarse as it sounded beside Caesar's ear. "It was never your fault."
They sat like that for a while, Will's raspy breathing mingling with the sounds of the tv, until the human fell victim to a sudden coughing fit that made Caesar recoil backwards in alarm.
Blood spilled from Will's mouth as he reached up to limit the crimson spray with the blanket lying across his lap. The sight made Caesar hoot nervously. When the coughing finally stopped, Will wiped his mouth with the blanket before looking back up at Caesar with glossy, reddened eyes.
"You are… dying too." The ape signed hesitantly. It was not a question, but an observation.
"Yeah… I am." Will confirmed shakily. "It's taking longer than with Caroline. Some die very fast, while others live with the symptoms for months… Getting worse and worse until the body shuts down. Gives up." Despite the severity of the situation, Will's tone remained clinical and matter-of-factly. Caesar appreciated that his father spoke to him as an equal right now. Recognising him as an adult, capable of accepting the cruel situation revealed to him.
Yet there was a part of Caesar who wished he hadn't. Wished that he'd spoken to him in softer, simpler terms. Like he was still the sensitive toddler Will had raised.
Like things could still be fixed.
Caesar's eyes searched the room, then. Noticing scattered plastic trays and dirty forks lying on the coffee table.
"How do you get food?" He asked, curious as to how Will could not already have died from starvation. He knew food came from the shop, but in Will's condition, he wouldn't even have been able to drive there, even with the car's tyres intact. Besides, the shop was probably not open anymore, the ape reasoned.
Will smiled at him, which would have been comforting if his teeth and lips weren't smeared in blood.
"They come with food once a week for the people who are quarantined. Impressive, actually, since it would seem most of human society is slowly coming apart." He gestured to the tv, where images showed hooded figures breaking shop windows to steal whatever they could from inside. The screen then flashed to a group of heavily-clad men with shields on their arms and visors covering their faces, beating people with clubs. Caesar turned his gaze away when the screen showed a sidewalk filled with white body bags.
Will sighed dejectedly as he grabbed the tray he had been eating from earlier, its contents still mostly intact, if a bit jostled from being picked at with a fork.
"It tastes horrible, but I guess I shouldn't be picky." He smiled again and Caesar understood what he was hinting at. He had often reprimanded Caesar when the ape had tried to avoid eating certain things, telling him it wasn't good to be a picky eater. The ape huffed out a meek laugh as Will set the tray back on the table, distaste clear in his eyes.
Caesar moved to sit beside Will on the couch and the human turned off the tv.
"Missed. You." Caesar said, his baritone voice echoing in the now silent room. "Much." He added when Will didn't say anything at first.
"… I missed you too. It's very quiet here now." The human fiddled with the remote in his hands for a while before setting it down on the coffee table, looking at Caesar apologetically.
"I would offer you a cookie from the jar in the kitchen, but I'm afraid they've gone bad long ago." He scratched his stubbled chin. Caesar hadn't noticed that before. Will had always been clean-shaven, but now his jaw was covered in stiff hairs, most of it stained with dried blood. As the ape studied his father more closely, he also noticed that Will's hair had grown longer and hung in greasy ringlets. He was also considerably thinner, to the point where Caesar was sure that his ribs would be showing if the human shed his t-shirt.
And he was paler now, the healthy colour his skin previously held now all but a distant memory.
"That is ok." Caesar signed, "Not hungry."
He reached over to lay a rough, hairy hand on Will's shoulder and the human slumped back into the couch, his breathing laboured.
"I'm glad you came, Caesar. I really am…" Will said, "But I wish your last time seeing me wouldn't be like… this…" He gestured towards his face in an uncaring manner.
He knew Will was right. It was most likely the last time he'd see his human father alive. He didn't look like he could continue like this for much longer. Besides, no matter how much he wanted to, there was no way Caesar could bring Will with him to his apes. They wouldn't understand and the journey alone could kill the human, of that Caesar was certain. Still, the words stung and the ape did his best not to whimper. He hadn't done that since he'd first arrived at San Bruno, and he wasn't going to start now.
He had to be the strongest branch.
Another coughing-fit struck Will, this one longer than the last, and Caesar gently patted his back to help clear the human's airways.
"How long… left?" He signed at Will when the coughing had subsided. He had to know. Will only shrugged, his eyelids looking heavy.
"Anything from a few days to a few more months…" He replied, still in that clinical manner of his.
"Caesar. Stay." The ape said, though he knew it would never work out. He had his apes to lead, and there wasn't much more he could do for Will. Still, it seemed heartless and wrong to just leave the man who had raised him. To let him just waste away, alone and forgotten in an empty, dirty house. It made bile rise into the back of Caesar's throat to just think of it. "To. Help. Father."
Will's head whipped towards Caesar, much faster than the ape had deemed him capable of in his current state, his eyes wide and glossy with unshed tears.
"You know you can't. The apes need you." He said in a shaky voice. Then he smiled and reached forward to pull Caesar in, their foreheads touching once again. Will had never initiated this gesture before and just by that fact alone, Caesar knew that this was Will's way of saying thank you. His way of showing, one final time, that he loved Caesar.
His way of saying goodbye.
"I'm proud of you, son." His voice sounded, exhaling shakily.
And tears started falling from Caesar's eyes.
They had said their goodbyes not long after, Caesar leaving the house with a solemn expression across his face. He didn't regret that he'd come, but he wished with all his heart that things could've been different. As he swung through the trees in the last rays of the evening sun, he observed his surroundings with much more clarity than before. He spotted a van in front of one of the houses down the street, two figures in yellow plastic suits carrying a heavy-looking body bag. So, this is what would happen to Will when his body, too, would give up.
The ape hurried on as the heavy load was shoved into the back of the van.
There were many bad humans in the world, he pondered as he reached the bridge. People who had treated his species with cruelty and carelessness. People who wouldn't hesitate to shoot him and all his kind. But that didn't mean that all humans deserved the fate that had been handed to them by the virus. Especially not people like Will or Caroline.
He visited again a couple of weeks later to check up on Will.
The house was empty. The trays removed. The grass around the building taller than ever.
And Caesar knew, he just knew.
His father was gone. And with him went the last remnants of Caesar's carefree childhood.
The Ape King sighed deeply as he finished his story. It was harrowing for him to talk about, but strangely, he felt better for having done it. Lydia had listened intently, hanging on to every word, unshed tears glinting in the light from the torches around them. She hadn't uttered a single word the whole time, hadn't even lifted her hands to attempt signing a question or comment.
She grabbed his hand again, stronger this time, and stared into his eyes.
"He was a good man." She said simply, agreeing with Caesar's statement from before he started telling his story. The Ape King only nodded.
When she let go, he felt oddly cold. It was rare for anyone besides Cornelia to hold his hand, but it was a comfort he hadn't realised he'd craved.
"I'm glad you told me…" Lydia spoke softly, a comforting smile gracing her lips.
"Just. Don't tell. Anyone." Caesar said, trying hard to keep the after-effects the memory had on him out of his voice. "Few apes. Know this."
"I promise." She replied with no hesitation, only sincerity.
As Caesar laid down in his nest some time later, his wife and son still sleeping soundly, he calculated that he had about two to three hours of sleep before another day would begin. Normally, it would annoy him to have had so little sleep, but tonight, he felt oddly relaxed. At peace, even.
It was nice to have someone to confide in. Someone who knew the world of humans. Cornelia had been captured from the wild, and Rocket and Maurice had only ever experienced their bad side, so none of them could truly understand Caesar's predicament, no matter how hard they tried. And then there was Koba. While being like a brother to Caesar, the bonobo still nurtured a burning hatred for humans and would never understand the connection his king had had with Will. Also, Koba had never been one for deep talks and comforting words to begin with.
Lydia had understood, though. She knew that humans could be caring and loving. She was such a human herself, after all. Through her quiet listening, Caesar had sensed her mourning his loss and felt comforted by the fact that she truly recognised what kind of man Will had been. She didn't judge him for what he'd caused, even though she had lost so much because of it.
No. she understood the desperation. The anguish. The love.
With that thought going through his mind, Caesar closed his eyes to finally let sleep claim him. The padding of the nest was softer than it'd ever seemed before and the calming, familiar scent of his family enveloped him. Caesar is home, his words from when he and Will had parted ways in the forest swam through his mind.
Another deep exhale and Caesar finally slept.