The cabin is a quiet, dim collection of warm, woody earth tones and threadbare, well-loved furniture. A fire burns inside a stone hearth.
Quilt draped over a chair.
Woven rug on the floor.
Coffee, cold and forgotten, on the table in front of the couch.
The creak of the front door. An amorphous figure, dusted in snow, lumbers through, into the dense warmth within the cabin walls. She shakes the cold off right there in the doorway. The snow melts and pools on the floorboards around her dark boots.
She pulls back a hood, then a scarf. Nose and cheeks tinged red from the cold. Hair shorn short and swept back, away from her temples. Might have been blonde once, if you were guessing, but now it's the color of metal and undriven snow. Doesn't match the remaining vestiges of youth in her face-but those, too, are beginning to wear a little thin.
She drops heavy into a seat at a table near the kitchen window, where the last rays of sunlight fall like shafts of burnt gold on the scattered sheets of paper there. Graphs and charts and readings. Images of skeletons and infections, gaping mouths and oozing wounds and wild, wild eyes.
A man, at the other side of the table, stares at her with a quiet, grim tension. In his fist, a tape recorder. His foot taps out a staccato story of deep thought and anxiety, but otherwise, he is still as death.
The silence stretches between them, waiting to be filled.
"Well?" She says at last, and her voice is hoarse from disuse.
"I looked over what you gave me," He says, eyes shifting down toward the table top, "Then I looked it over again. And again."
"And?"
"And-I don't know what you're asking of me, here-"
"Can it be done?"
He twitches, rubs his neck, frazzled by some combination of nerves and sleep deprivation.
"In my opinion?" He hesitates, lets the words hang between them for a long moment, " Yes. But-"
"Can you do it?"
"I don't-I mean, hypothetically, sure, with a big enough team and a lab and the right equipment and-"
"Then you start tomorrow," She says in that concrete way of hers, that way that invites no argument or contestation, "Make a list of what you need. No holds barred. I'll get whatever you need."
"But-we need more than equipment," He barks, shaking his head, "We need-someone who's immune ," He gives a dry, broken laugh, "That person doesn't exist. All the authority and resources and people in the world can't get you a person that doesn't exist. Who isn't real. It's a fantasy, it won't happen-"
"She's real," She says absently, eyes raking over the mass of papers, but maybe not seeing them at all, "She's real, and I can get her."
He stares across the table at her, moving only to blink slowly in shock.
"You know...someone who's immune?"
She reaches into the chaos of the research papers and pulls loose an x-ray sheet, lays it there on top. She taps the name at the top of the sheet, all square, official letters in a neat row:
Williams, E.
He gapes across the table at her.
"She's still alive?"
She shrugs.
"How are you possibly going to find her?"
"I'll do what Fireflies do best…" She stands from the table, lifts the x-ray and carries it to the kitchen window, holds it up to the fading evening sun, "... look for the light. "
...
ELLIE.
Dina is beautiful when she sleeps.
Don't get her wrong, Ellie thinks Dina is beautiful all the time. When she laughs, when she's making dinner, when she's reading. Even when she's annoyed. Maybe especially when she's annoyed.
Does she say it enough? She assumes Dina knows that she's thinking it. After all, if she said it every time it hit her brain, she'd never have time to say anything else.
But it's a strange thing, making a life with someone.
She thought she loved Dina, back when they were dumb teenagers; she thought she loved Dina that first night they danced, the night she whispered, "They should be terrified of you."
And yet, whatever she thought she felt then, it's a thin, pitiable fraction of what she feels now.
There was always a part of her that was afraid she couldn't do this. Couldn't sustain this. That she wasn't a person who could feel big things. Who could be anything but alone, in the long run.
For a while, she believed, entirely, that she was never going to be able to let go of her ghosts. That in the end, the ghosts would be as much as she could ever have.
But this morning, this quiet, still morning, is proof that she was wrong.
She rolls over, away from the sunlight, folds herself in against Dina's back. Dina stirs, shifts, grabs Ellie's hand and pulls it over her middle-pulls Ellie in closer.
"Why are you awake already," Dina mumbles sleepily.
"'M'not…" Ellie answers, " They are though."
Dina groans.
"They still think we don't know, don't they?" Dina sighs.
"Yeah."
"They're not good at keeping secrets."
"Really terrible at it, honestly."
"They've been working really hard on it."
"I'd be prouder of them if they weren't, y'know... lying about it because they think we'll take it away."
They lie there, still and comfortable, neither one ready to move. That is, until there's a crash from the garage.
"Please go help them before they kill themselves," Dina pleads, "I'm right behind you."
Ellie sighs, pushes back the blankets.
...
TALIA.
"Shit!" Talia whispers in a rush, " Shit, shit, shit-"
She bursts into the garage, slams the door behind her.
"What?" JJ asks, "What is it?" He freezes where he is, gripping the handlebars of the motorcycle.
" Mom's coming," Talia hisses.
" Shit," JJ breathes, " Which one?"
"I don't know!" Talia says, "I heard the bedroom door. If it's Dina she's for sure gonna lose her shit-"
"And if it's Ellie, she's probably gonna lose her shit, too."
"What the fuck do we do?" Talia asks.
"Don't say fuck-"
" You say fuck all the time-"
"Yeah, but I'm older-"
"I'm fourteen, I can say whatever the fuck I want-"
"Fine, whatever, just-stall her, so I can get this out-"
"So you can get what out?" Ellie asks as she comes around the open garage door, where the motorcycle is poised to be wheeled into the driveway.
Talia and JJ freeze.
"You guys suck at breaking rules," Ellie tells them with a sigh, "It's like you're not even trying."
"It was JJ's idea," Talia says instantly.
"Talia helped fix it!" JJ says defensively, "It's her fault, too!"
"Neither of you even thought to ask if you could just ride the thing?" Ellie says.
JJ and Talia exchange a look.
"Uh...no,"JJ confesses.
"God...they must think we're super boring, won't even let them ride a two-wheeled death trap, " Dina shakes her head as she meets Ellie there at the garage door, "Are we boring parents, do you think, Ellie?"
Ellie shrugs, "Probably."
Dina swats her shoulder.
"You're supposed to say no " Dina whispers at her.
Ellie, arms folded over her chest, just shrugs, "You called it a death trap, I'm just trying to follow your lead here…"
"Don't blame me-"
"I'm not blaming you, there's nothing wrong with being the boring mom-"
"I'm sorry…" Dina gives a dry, sardonic laugh, "Did you just call me the boring mom?"
"Er- safe mom-" Ellie supplies quickly.
"How do you know you're not the boring mom?"
Ellie tilts her head, narrows her eyes, as if to say, really?
"I'm definitely not the boring mom," Ellie says, "I let Talia drive the pick up last week-"
"Yeah? I let them jump out of the tall tree at the lake-"
"Well, I showed Talia how to fix the exhaust on the motorcycle-"
Dina fixes her with a withering glare.
Talia starts to laugh, "You're in trouble , oooooh…."
"I mean, I didn't help that much," Ellie says. "Just-only a little bit-"
Talia continues to laugh, "You just told her, just came right out and told on yourself…ah. That's gold."
"You're not helping," Ellie hisses at Talia, "You owe me."
"Can we ride the motorcycle or not?" JJ interjects forcefully.
Ellie looks at Dina, putting on her best puppy eyes.
"Can we?" She asks.
Dina sighs, rolls her eyes.
"I guess-"
The rest of them give assorted sounds of celebration and victory.
JJ starts to jump on the bike.
"Hey, I'm the one who fixed it-" Talia says.
" I found all the parts-" JJ counters.
Ellie takes the handlebars, "Can we just at least get it in the driveway, good god…"
She pushes, and the bike rolls forward, crunches against the pavement.
Talia bounds out, close to her side.
But, then...someone steps off the street, into the end of the driveway. Someone Talia doesn't recognize. A tall woman, maybe about her moms' age, Talia thinks, with short, light hair and a serious, kinda sad look about her.
Ellie drops the bike. It falls sideways with a clatter.
"What the hell, I worked hard on that-" Talia balks.
But Ellie puts a hand on Talia, pushes her protectively behind her back, and Talia has seen this enough to know that look on her mom's face, that stiff, focused stare. Something is wrong.
"Abby…" Ellie says, and Talia is surprised to hear a wavering note of fear there-Ellie is never scared.
This Abby woman holds her hands up, palms out.
"I'm just here to talk."