S6E01:
In the weeks that followed after the yes vote passed in Altura life seemed to become as simple and beautiful as it had been before Estes' plot had begun to unfold. There were several meetings discussing policies and various constitutions that of course they had elections for, along with Altura electing its first official leader though Bailey wasn't sure she'd really call it an election. George had been the prime candidate and no one had run against her but she refused to assume leadership over a people unless she won it fairly. One of her very first orders of business had been rebuilding the militia of Altura, she'd appointed Warren as her sheriff and Warren had turned to 10K when she'd been assembling the able bodied who'd volunteered to be guards. He wouldn't be leading the others but he and two other guards would be co-supervisors and would oversee things like training and scheduling. With Sun Mei gone George had appointed Red as head of the infirmary and the lab. Since she'd been training under Sun Mei the longest it made sense to turn the reins over to her. She had been both flattered and honored and spent much of her time in the lab just as Sun Mei had. Bailey was happy for her friend's position and visited her whenever she could to see if she needed any additional help but she seemed fully capable and was settling into her new job well. Doc, who had also offered to help Red whenever she needed it, had also found another job in Altura. In the days that followed Estes' arrest it was very clear that he left a wake of destruction and not just the physical kind. There were several citizens dealing with PTSD and other symptoms after living through such trauma and Red had given Doc an office in the infirmary wing where he would tend to the mentally injured in need of care. He became Altura's first psychiatrist and so far he'd been thoroughly enjoying it. Speaking of Estes, it was still to-be-determined what to do with him. Altura had no justice system yet and Bailey knew Warren and George were working hard to get that up and running as soon as possible. She'd even heard a rumor that George had called Ray into her office several times to get his opinion, given his experience.
Murphy, though he was now allowed in Altura along with the blends and Talkers, had gone back to Limbo and had taken Sun Mei's brain with him. Bailey wasn't the only one who worried what he'd cook up in the basement of his club but Addy, who had decided to return to Heartland and be with Finn, had promised Warren that since Heartland supplied the flour to the bakers –who were so conveniently living in Limbo now baking bizkits – that she'd check in on Murphy when she'd help Finn make deliveries. With the politics coming together so did other aspects of Newmerica like importing and exporting. Now that the other outposts weren't being bombed they were back to making and shipping their own supplies to other outposts which Bailey found comforting since that was her position in the community. It was very reassuring once shipments of fruit, veggies and honey from the High Plains and fish from the Islanders started pouring in and lining the shelves of the supply and storage building. It helped not only her but all the other citizens believe that Newmerica could really be within reach. However right now it was the textiles from the Inlanders and lumber from the Tree Dwellers that they were most thankful for. They were in Canada after all and winter was starting to show signs that it was on its way. CZ said they had plenty of time to prepare but he was still working on getting a weather satellite back under his control, Altura might be better off than a lot of the other outposts when it came to technology but it still was no NSA camp.
Citizen Z and Kaya, who were living here now with Nana and JZ while Pacifica was going through repairs, had begun working on getting more radio, computer and television systems in place. Altura was one of the few with so many technological advancements like security cameras, lights and radio. Working with Hackerville, Citizen Z hoped that once some of the more luxurious aspects were up and running smoothly he could travel to the other outposts and set them up just as nicely.
Right now Bailey was in her trailer going through the ration box she had for the week and was putting the food she'd gotten away in the cabinets of the small kitchen. Since 10K had moved in they now got a bigger supply since it had to feed two people but they still had been going to the mess hall pretty frequently to get meals with the others. If there was any food people thought they wouldn't use before it went bad they were free to trade it at the market of tents that nearly always lined Altura's courtyard. Bailey tried not to waste too much and had gotten better at cooking as she looked for new ways to use the food she was allotted. 10K hadn't complained so far, actually, he'd always scarf down every meal she'd cooked since he'd moved in and she got this fuzzy feeling in her chest at the thought that this was the kind of relationship people had Pre-Z and she was still wrapping her mind around the fact that this was her life and it wasn't all some great dream she was afraid of waking up from. She'd had the same fuzzy feeling the day 10K had moved in.
He didn't have much, like anyone else who'd been living out in the apocalypse and it hadn't taken a lot of effort to get his gun, his clothes, and one box of other miscellaneous stuff he had over to her trailer. Still in sweatpants and a top that fell off one shoulder, Bailey had sat on her double bed and started folding his clothes and moving them into the dresser drawers she'd cleared for him as he took off his jacket and started going through his box. He had a black backpack with the clothes he'd had originally when he'd gotten to Altura along with his bandana and goggles which seemed to bring a nostalgic smile to his face for a moment before he'd moved to the small closet and put them on the top shelf. He moved back to his box and rifled through a few more things. Bailey had gotten halfway done with his clothes when she'd heard him chuckle and walk over to her. He sat on the bed behind her and she turned to look at him over her shoulder, he had a wide smile on his face and his hand behind his back clearly hiding something from her view.
"What?" she asked with a smile, her eyes drifting to the hand behind his back.
He shrugged, "Present for you."
"What is it?"
"Turn around. Close your eyes." He said still grinning and she did what he asked. She felt him shift on the bed and felt his breath on her neck. "Open."
She felt like her heart stopped when she saw his arm around her holding her notebook over her lap. It looked a bit more beat up than she remembered but she was still amazed he had it. She reached out slowly and held it almost afraid like it would disintegrate in her fingers. She ran her hand across the cover before she opened it and started flipping through the pages, seeing the notes, stories and scribbles she'd made throughout the first five years of the apocalypse all to help keep her sanity.
"How did you find this?" she asked in a soft voice. The last she'd seen of it had been in her bag she'd left at Murphy's compound in Spokane back when he was making his blend army and had 10K under his control.
Tommy leaned on his left arm and looked over her shoulder at the notebook in her hands. She could see a touch of sadness in his eyes and didn't understand what had put it there. "When Murphy lied to me about your death. . . I didn't believe him. I didn't believe the body he was showing me in the moat was yours. So he had Will go in and he pulled your bag out from under the zombies, when he brought it in I started going through it and found that. I knew he couldn't fake that, when I got to that one story that you read me. . . " he trailed off and looked at the bed comforter.
She leaned over and lifted his chin and kissed him. It was short and sweet but it made him smile like she'd wanted. Then he nodded at the notebook, "Keep looking."
She turned back and continued flipping through the pages until she found the three photos Addy had taken of them back when they were bunking in the ruins of Disney. She picked up the one where he was tickling her and she was laughing. It was hard to believe that the two in the picture were them, they looked so much younger; 10K was in his bandana and goggles with that yellow and black shoulder pad he'd made from random debris. She looked over her shoulder at him now and smiled, he was still him, he was still Tommy, but he had changed; his hair was longer now and stuck up on one side of his head where his hand kept running through making the raven strands messy. Maybe it was everything they'd been through that contributed to why they looked older now and not just the years. She noticed 10K was looking at her shoulder and even though it was covered by her navy blue tee shirt she felt like he was still seeing the fresh torn open wound it had been back then. She held up the picture in her hand and drew his attention.
"I still need to get you back for this." She said referring to the tickling he'd started that day. He smiled and let out a small laugh.
"Yeah, maybe now you stand a chance." He said holding up his wrist. He wasn't wearing the antler, he usually didn't when they were relaxing at home alone. Instead he had his navy bandana tied covering the end of his stump while his prosthetic laid on top of the dresser. It was more elaborate than she'd originally thought and she had to give Ayalla credit for ingenuity. The antler was attached to a cap that went over Tommy's wrist and was reinforced by some duct tape and red cloth that Ayalla had tied on tight so the antler wouldn't turn. The cap itself was attached to leather straps that went up Tommy's forearm, they held together two leather circles, one in the middle of his arm and another right above his elbow. The buckles on each circle were simple enough that all Tommy had to do was slide his forearm into it and pull on the loose ends of the leather circles that went around his arm to tighten it when he put it on and loosen it when he took it off. Then he could pull his sleeve over it and hide everything but the useable antler.
Bailey faked offence at his comment and saw his eyes light up in amusement, "Hey, I could have taken you even when you had two hands!"
"Okay." He said getting up and kissing her temple, "Keep telling yourself that." He said smiling as he crossed the room going back to unpacking his things as she took a pillow from the bed and threw it at him playfully.
Bailey smiled fondly at the memory as she continued to put their food away. She left out a few things she thought about using for dinner, though it was only noon now. Tommy would be getting back from his shift at the gate soon and they'd have about an hour together before she had to go in for her shift at the supply building. They'd probably run to the mess hall for lunch and she could figure out dinner when she got back from work.
Right on time the door opened and 10K walked in, he put his gun in the corner where he usually left it and asked if she wanted to go grab something to eat. She smiled at his predictability and was grateful their lives had become so easy and simple.
"Sure, just let me change first." She answered before going to her dresser and pulling out some fresh clothes. Today she'd had the morning off and she was still in an old grey tee shirt and sweat pants. She knew Altura didn't have a dress code but she still wanted to put on something a bit better for going out. She grabbed one of her favorite pairs of jeans and a thicker dark green long sleeved top. 10K was taking off his prosthetic as she put on her pants but she started having trouble when it came to buttoning them.
"Wow the Newmerican lifestyle must be catching up with me." She said as she struggled and 10K turned to her. "Having real meals three times a day and not burning any of it off running from Z's is making me chubby."
She finally got her pants buttoned and looked at herself in the full length mirror nailed to the wall. She saw Tommy smile behind her as he walked over, his stump now covered by his usual navy bandana, and he rested his remaining hand on her stomach as his chin rested on her shoulder.
"Good, because if we ever end up living on the run again the extra layer will come in handy." He patted her stomach before moving to get his jacket and put it back on as she turned to him with a look between shock and partially amused.
"Is that your roundabout way of calling me fat?" she asked and his head snapped to her and he began to stutter as he tried to dig his way out of the sudden hole he found himself in. Her expression became more amused as she watched him struggle.
Then he licked his lip and shrugged giving her that puppy dog look that always melted her, "Bailey, even if you weighed three hundred pounds I'd still love you just as much as I do now."
She smirked and walked over to him cupping his face and kissing him. When she pulled back she moved her hands to his shoulders, "Nice save."
He chuckled and looked at the floor licking his lip again before looking back up at her, "So do you want to go grab lunch now or what?"
She chuckled and nodded finishing getting ready before they both left and walked across Altura hand in hand. However, her good mood took a sour turn when they passed the Memorial Wall that had been put up after the bombing and she started to think about Sun Mei. She had been trying not to think about her death too much knowing that she'd died knowing she'd succeeded in making the cure, or a start to it, but it still didn't seem to be enough to overshadow the pain she'd been fighting to keep out. Tommy seemed to notice her change as he tugged on their linked hands to get her attention.
"Hey, you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She said shaking her head trying to clear it but he'd already seen where she'd been looking.
"Yeah. . . it's hard passing it all the time." He said knowing they had the same feeling, "I know the point of it is so that we remember them but sometimes that reminder just, hurts."
"It's my fault." She muttered and his head snapped back to look at her. "I could tell something was off about Estes the moment I met him. He was too. . . fake. He'd smile but it never reached his eyes, his body always seemed stiff like he was nervous or tense. I should have seen it."
"Hey." He said as he tugged her over to sit under a tree with him. Actually, it was their tree, the tree she'd been sitting under after she'd cast her vote. The tree she'd broken down under as she mourned Sun Mei, the tree Tommy had comforted her under. Since then they'd sit here a lot when either one of them just needed to take a breather and get away from everything for a minute. "You can't blame yourself like that."
"My instincts are always spot on but I ignored them. This place it just. . . it looked so beautiful and safe and I wanted it to work out so badly that I ignored every sign, every feeling I had. I needed this place to be the haven everyone said it was so I ignored that feeling and look what happened. Look at all the people who are dead. Probably a hundred or more when you add up all the outpost attacks." She said feeling tears escape her eyes and run down her face as she looked down at the bandana secured around 10K's wrist, "All of that's my fault too. If I had done something or spoken up –"
"Estes and Pandora would have had you killed." He interrupted. "They would have shut you up before you could make anyone else question him." He said letting go of her hand and pulling a white bandana from his pocket handing it to her as she dabbed her face dry, "And you can't blame yourself –"
"But Sarge, your hand –"
"What happened, happened. And I spent a lot of time wishing I could change it but the fact is I can't. And you can't. Neither of us can go back in time and change things and regretting them won't help anything now. The guilt will only eat you alive and destroy you." She took a deep breath as he reached over and brushed a rogue tear from her cheek and she smiled at him.
"Sorry." She sniffled before looking down at her lap embarrassed, "I'm not sure where that came from." She said referring to her mood swing.
"You probably just bottled too much in." he said understandingly, "It's still the apocalypse, we're used to always trying to keep so much in because we're used to having to do that to survive, so we can focus and get things done. You probably just had to let it all out. It catches up with all of us at some point."
She nodded looking down at her lap as he continued, "Remember back when we first met? When you told me you still believed in something after this life?" she looked up at him surprised he remembered all that, "Well, when I thought you were dead, a lot of the time that's all I had to keep going. The idea that you weren't gone you were just somewhere I couldn't get to. Someplace where you were okay and weren't suffering. That's how I get through losing everyone else now too, that they're somewhere beautiful and zombie free." She smiled and passed him back his bandana that he put in his pocket again, "Feel better now?"
She nodded and kept smiling at him, "Can we go get lunch? I'm starving."
He chuckled and they got up from under the tree and headed to the mess hall. Now the only knotted feeling in her gut came from the fact that she'd been lying to him for weeks.
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When they got to the mess hall they found George and Warren already there having lunch and the pair waved them over when they saw them enter. There was the usual chatter of how everyone's morning had been before George started going on about the newest laws and procedures they were working on for Newmerica. Apparently she and Warren had been making great progress on building a court system for their criminals. They still had Estes locked up in custody and guarded and would need some sort of humane way of dealing with him and any future lawbreakers.
Also, since winter was on its way there were people who were still flooding into all the outposts registering as citizens. Bailey took it as news that her afternoon would probably be busy passing out care packages to the newest people coming for supplies. George went on that they would need to appoint a judge but she already had some candidates in mind. They were planning to start a resume system and interview applicants which was just too normal of a phrase for Bailey to fully wrap her mind around. But she found she was actually happy about that.
George was about to go on when they heard. "There you guys are."
They turned to see Citizen Z walk over to them at a brisk pace. He had a paper in his hand and looked like he had urgent news. "Sorry to interrupt lunch but I just got this transmission in from upstate New York. There's a camp there that was on its way to Newmerica but they've been having transpo problems along with usual zombie hold ups."
George turned from him to the others at the table, "Newmerica's first rescue mission. Who's in?" she asked and all their hands went into the air.
