Chapter 34: Tears

October 21, 2014

It was supposed to be easy to leave. After the excitement of the morning before and spending the day hiking through the mountains, the kids (and the adults) were exhausted. Winter helped set up basecamp, made sure the perimeter was set with alarms, and volunteered to stay awake again as the sun dipped below the horizon. Summer went to sleep without question, which was the first sign that something was amiss. The excuse was weak: she would relieve Winter of his post when the moon reached its highest peak, so she needed to rest early. But everyone, including Cero, was too tired to question it. After a year of planning, she had the kids (those that were left) and she was across the line. Sure, she could never leave Bulgaria again, and the kids would be confined to these borders, but it was better than being confined to the cages and the restraint chairs and the shadow organization that dealt in death.

Winter woke Summer at the predetermined time, nodding towards the best vantage point. What little gear they had was carefully packed and organized, as if they were prepared to flee at any moment. They were of course, but that was beside the point. Summer's grip on her rifle was so tight that her hands threatened to cramp, and she could only relax them enough so that the handle stopped biting into her skin. She still sat erect, the area between her shoulders tense, and her eyes flicked at random over the landscape while her ears strained for any sign of approaching combatants. Despite the lightness of their conversation in the tunnel, reality set in with the setting of the sun. Hydra was on their tail, and now knew exactly where they were.

There had been no time for discussion yet, but that didn't bother Summer. She knew that Winter had multiple plans at this point, and that if anything needed altering, they would do it on the fly. That was the only thing keeping her from panicking: the assumption that Hydra did not think that they could make decisions on their own. They'd been used as assets, machines that took in orders and spat out results. But now, the hold of the words was wearing off with every day that passed, meaning they could take all the skills and intel that Hydra had forced into them and use them to get away. They were no longer limited by the confines of their capture.

It was not close enough to dawn when Summer moved to wake Winter, his eyes snapping open almost at the same time she touched his shoulder. He looked to her and she barely twitched her eyebrows in question; he thought for a moment before giving a nearly imperceptible nod. With nearly no sound he pushed himself up, the clicking of his metal arm dampened by a jacket that he'd put on before going to sleep. They gathered their supplies, checked their weapons, and made to move.

They didn't even make it to the tree line before they heard the sounds of someone stirring behind them. In their heads they knew they shouldn't stop, knew that they needed to walk away before anyone could question it. But they both remembered the placement of the kids as they went to sleep, and recognized how light the footsteps were as the child followed them.

"Somme?" the littlest girl whispered, fear evident in her tiny voice. "Vinta?"

They both paused, looking at each other, trying to speak without saying anything. Summer widened her eyes, and Winter narrowed his. She tilted her head to the side, and he pinched his eyebrows together. She gave him one long, dramatic blink, and he clenched his jaw and let out a sigh, turning back to the girl. The girl - Summer still did not dare to learn her name - stood a few feet away from them, clutching her blanket and staring at them with wide eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Perhaps they were actually glowing, Summer wasn't going to look close enough to tell. Winter knelt in front of her, putting his large hand on her small shoulder.

"Go back to sleep, little one." he said in German. The girl's lower lip pouted, then began to tremble. He tried to not feel anxiety at the thought of a crying child. He tried in vain to look through his memories, but comforting techniques evaded him.

"Are you leaving?" she asked, squeaking slightly as she spoke. She was trying to keep her emotions in check, but her feelings were big and her body was small, and it was proving difficult. Summer looked away, swallowing the lump in her throat and instead focusing on the shadows in front of her while Winter dealt with this.

"We must. To protect you." he responded. His voice was low and to the point, but he slowed his words down because that was the only way he could think of to make it sound more gentle. The little girl's face scrunched up, but before she could cry Winter pulled her close. To anyone else, it looked like a hug, but Summer knew that he was simply muffling her sobs with his shoulder, trying to prevent anyone else from waking and stopping their escape. She cried and cried, and Summer found her posture wavering, as if she could curl herself away from the girl's sorrow and not be forced to hear it. Winter was right, them staying wasn't safe - for anyone. But how could they make the child see that?

The seconds dragged until the girl's sobs turned to hiccups, and then finally to sniffles. Winter continued to hold her tight until it all stopped, and Summer was finally able to stand up straight again. She didn't dare turn around, not trusting whatever instinct was deep inside of her. Though she currently felt nothing but confusion when it came to children, she knew that she adored them in the past, and now was not the time to take the chance of her past self resurfacing. They needed to go. Now.

"Winter." she said, her voice low and as commanding as she dared. He shifted behind her, putting some space between himself and the girl.

"Be safe, little one." he said and, not knowing the right way to part from her, awkwardly patted her on the head. Later, he would just be glad he used his flesh hand instead of his metal one. The girl clutched at her blanket, her big eyes staring at them as Winter turned away, fully intending to walk away with Summer into the night.

Of course, one stops walking when one hears a gun cock behind them.

"We had a deal." Cero said, her voice tight and dangerous. Winter and Summer glanced at each other before he turned around, his face blank.

"We got you to Bulgaria. The children are safe." he stated. Cero stood, the gun still trained on them.

"And how do you expect to get across the border without my help?" she said, her voice raising and causing more of the children to wake. They could hear the plastic of the gun squeak as she gripped it tightly, giving away her compromised emotions. They didn't know if she feared for herself or for the children, but either way the answer was the same.

"We'll find our own way." Winter replied. He didn't tell her that they weren't planning to go straight to the border; in fact, going so close to it with the children was the worst thing they could do. Hydra assumed they would find a mission and stick to it, so now they had to change the mission. Cero's breathing was shallow, her eyes flipping rapidly between the two of them as her mind struggled to find an answer to her problem.

"I'm not sure we can make it without your help." she said, finally settling on the truth. Her words were heavy, but they did not weigh Winter down. He had carried much heavier things before.

"Call your contact. Arrange for transport." he said in the same infuriatingly stoic voice. Even in the dim light, they could see Cero's jaw clench.

"You're making a mistake." she said.

"We're keeping you safe." Summer cut in. Winter tried being cool and professional, but the heat of Summer's fear and anger overcame it. "Hydra was on that helicopter. You want us as far away as possible now."

That gave Cero pause. "I hadn't realized that." she said quietly. She looked around to the kids, all of them sitting up and watching the exchange though most of them couldn't understand it. Silence hung between them as the soldiers waited for her next comment, but it never came.

"Good luck." Summer finally said, the words sounding harsher than she meant. Cero flinched at the tone and Summer thought about apologizing, but decided that an apology would open too many cracks. Instead she gave one last look at the smallest girl, gave her an encouraging nod, and turned on her heel to walk away. Behind her, Winter followed, his steps sure and nearly silent as they found the faint mountain trail. Neither one of them looked back.

Without the hindrance of the children their travel was much faster, which was the most soothing thing at that moment. They went east, towards the rising sun, and decidedly away from their original target destination. It felt wrong, to be going against the set mission, but they both understood the necessity, and their fear of recapture poured energy into their blood.

"We'll go to Turkey." Winter said, once the sun was up and the path was clear. "From there, we can take a ship. Get to Romania that way."

"What if they're watching the ports?" Summer asked. She stopped thinking about the children, instead looking forward. There was nothing she could do now. Their choice was the right one.

"Then we keep walking." he said. "We'll walk the entire Black Sea if we have to."

"I'd walk the entire world at this point." she muttered, tightening the straps on her backpack if only to give her hands something to do. He didn't say anything, only nodding in agreement. The path started sloping downwards, and in the distance they could see as the mountains turned into hills, and as a road snaked between them. She felt exposed though the rocks provided ample cover, so she pulled a knife from its holster just to give herself something to fidget with as they walked. Flip it open, turn it over her fingers, snap it closed. Flip it open, turn it over her fingers, snap it closed. Flip it open-

"Stop." Winter said, reaching out and grabbing the blade with his metal hand. He snapped it closed and stuck it in his own pocket, making her glare.

"I was using that." she said.

"You were annoying me with that." he replied. She felt herself stand a little straighter, her own annoyance bubbling up in her chest. He reached out his hand again, this time to take hers. "We're going to make it. Save your energy for when we'll need it, because we're going to need it again."

There was no probably, no maybe. They knew when they walked away that it was going to be a fight. "Fine." she said through gritted teeth, not quite ready to admit that he was right. She made to keep walking, but he held her in place, causing her to throw another glare his way. She wanted to snap at him, to pull her hand back and keep going, but her protests died in her throat when she saw his face.

"We're going to make it." he said, and she wanted so badly to believe him. But she also remembered the gaze of the man in the helicopter, looking at her without any shred of worry or surprise.

"Just remember the promise we made." she said. His lips parted slightly as his mind whirred, conjuring up the memory of that day in London. She didn't let him say any more, tugging her hand away from him and continuing down the path. It took a few moments for him to start again, catching up to her in a few long strides. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to think that they'd held each other through the panic the night before and that they had a great plan to set them free. But in the back of her mind she knew that the risk was high, and the chance of failure even higher. They walked in silence after that.

It was midday when they reached the road, sticking to the shelter of the trees as they followed it east. Eventually they would come across a car they could steal, or if all else failed they could obtain one as it passed. They didn't stop for lunch, didn't stop at all in fact, until their water bottles were empty and the mid-afternoon sun was beating down on their backs.

"We need resources." Winter pointed out. There were a few houses spaced around, surrounded by large patches of rolling green hills that were dotted with sheep. One of them was bound to have an unguarded well or spigot.

"We can keep going." Summer replied, her pace not changing. Every time she blinked, she saw the red octopus pin staring at her, mocking her. They were officially on borrowed time.

"Summer." he said sharply, stopping.

"What?!" she asked, whirling around to face him. How was he so calm about this? How could he worry about resources when their enemy was just one step behind them? And how could she sleep last night, not realizing all of this?

"Why are you acting like this?" he asked. Direct. To the point. One of the things that made it so easy to work with him. And one of the things that made her feel so exposed when around him.

"Because I'm scared." she finally admitted. Weapons didn't show fear. Assets were not afraid of anything. Hell, even when she was just a normal human, she probably would not have confessed that to him. But there were no secrets between them now, and hadn't been in a long time.

"I know. So am I." he said after a moment, still in that damn calm voice that he'd used with Cero.

"Lie." she snapped, regretting the word as soon as it left her lips. He took one quick step, grabbing her by her arms. She thought about trying to wrestle, trying to fight him, but it wasn't really him that she was upset at, and she was beginning to understand that. He'd been using his mission voice, she realized. The one he used when shit was hitting the fan and they needed to act. The one where they might not make it out alive, so he shut off the rest of his brain.

"Can't afford to act on fear." he said, his tone quiet despite the fact that he was gripping her so tightly that he might leave bruises. She didn't mind the pain - it almost helped her focus her mind. Running without a plan? She didn't understand that. But pain? She always understood pain.

"Sorry." she whispered. He shook his head.

"No apologies." he whispered back. "The list is too long."

He was right again, which almost made her angry. If they started apologizing to each other now for all the things Hydra made them do to each other, they'd die here in the middle of nowhere, mouths still forming around the words. If they stopped to worry about the past, they'd be frozen here, sitting ducks waiting for Hydra to come collect them again. Eventually she nodded.

"Yes, sir." she said, making him shake his head again.

"No 'sir' anymore." he said, making her take in a sharp breath. "You'll never answer to another 'sir'."

"You can't promise that." the words barely made it out of her mouth, her chest felt so tight.

"I can damn well try." he replied. He gazed at her so intensely, so deeply, that she felt like he was looking at her very soul. Perhaps he was the only one that could see it.

A motorcycle kick started, interrupting the moment and causing them both to draw weapons and point them in the direction of the sound. Five hundred yards away, a middle aged gentleman had started up his bike, gently rolling it to the front of the driveway. They holstered their weapons, watching as he turned his head back to the door, where a woman with greying hair was standing, gesturing towards him. He put down the kickstand, going back towards her. The bike was still running.

They didn't even have to communicate. A single glance, lasting no longer than half a second, and they took off sprinting through the trees. They flew like bats out of hell, as if the hounds of Hydra were at their heels, breaking through the tree line right at the point where the man was furthest from his bike. When they were thirty yards away, the woman pointed at them, recognizing what was happening. By the time the man had turned and started towards them, they were only fifteen yards away. Winter jumped on first, slamming his boot into the kickstand so hard the metal partially tore away from the bike. The back wheel was spinning in the gravel when Summer leapt onto it, taking a fistful of Winter's shirt and holding onto the bike with her thighs as he tore out of the driveway and down the road. In the rearview mirror, they could see the man waving his arms, and even with their advanced hearing they couldn't hear the curses he was screaming over the wind. This wasn't assured freedom, but it sure as hell beat walking.

They were a hundred miles east when they saw the helicopter, so small in the distance that it was barely perceptible. Winter slowed the bike down, stopping in the middle of the street to watch it. It was circling the mountains, the matte black making it look like a raven looking for a landing point. They were searching for them, and both Summer and Winter waited for signs that they saw Cero or the kids.

"She got them to cover." Winter said as the helicopter kept moving in a slow pattern, trying to find a target. Summer swallowed.

"It was right of us to leave." she said, trying to convince herself as much as she was him. He didn't nod, but she knew that he agreed.

"They're well beyond the mountains now. Like us." he said. His back was stiff under her fingers, his muscles trembling as he turned the bike away. Both of them wondered if they should turn back.

But in the end, they kept moving.

These poor idiots can't catch a break. But at least they live to see another day!

I'm so sorry the chapters are so short, y'all. I want them to be longer, but when I reach a natural end...idk, I just don't wanna force it. I'm trying though!

Thank you so much for the reviews on the previous chapter. I love love love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and theories. Please let me know what you thought of this one!

-XM