AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Siphoning gas was the worst job to get, and Scully was secretly happy that Andrea was the best at doing it—at least of those available for the job, since everyone was occupied with something. Arguably the second worst job was scrubbing laundry. They got dirty and sweaty these days. They got covered in any type of bodily fluids and brain matter you could imagine when dealing with animals they needed for food and Walkers they needed to kill. The Walkers were all in varying states of decay and, though they'd gone nose-blind for the most part, they could still smell when something was particularly pungent or, in contrast, when it was clean. Carol never complained about opening the soured sacks of practically rancid clothes, dumping them into the hot water—if she was lucky enough to get to heat it—and scrubbing laundry all day long in a disgusting soup that she had to change out as often as her water supply would allow.
Clearing cars, picking around corpses and putting down the bodies still moving while trapped in vehicles, gathering up every available item, sorting things, and packing them into their vehicles was tiring, dirty, hot work, but Scully was happy to do it when it meant she was spared the jobs that others took in its place.
Scully didn't know how the new men—Rick and Shane—were doing. They were working moving cars and, really, Scully wasn't paying much attention to their work except for to stay out of the way of rolling vehicles and to move to the next vehicle available to her each time she finished clearing one.
What she did know was that it seemed to her that the new woman, Lori, was taking a break every time she turned around.
They weren't unreasonable with each other, and they didn't deny each other anything that someone might need, as long as they had it to offer. In fact, the very nature of their new lives together had turned them very much into pack animals. They cared for each other and nurtured each other until Scully felt a certain sense of comradery with the members of her group that she'd only ever felt with her family before. This went beyond water-cooler friendships in the office, and it even went beyond the friendships forged in training. They were becoming family, and that closeness was growing more and more with each passing day and each passing danger.
So, when Scully heard Andrea retching, for instance, she'd dropped everything to run over and help the woman induce vomiting. Then, while Scully had talked to Dale about other possible ways to help siphon the gas, and had gone on search of what they might need to create a seal to use a blowing method rather than a sucking one, she'd instructed Andrea to stay in the shade and drink water—throwing up any time she felt the need to do so. When they'd been ready to test a different method of siphoning—one that lessened Andrea's chances of swallowing gas but which Scully still found unpleasant because of the constant smell of gas—Andrea had returned to her job with the understanding that she could, and should, tell Scully if she began to feel unwell.
Their group took care of each other. They expected everyone to need time to rest, to eat, and to drink water. Nobody complained, even, when Daryl—having killed the deer that would feed them—had clearly taken a few minutes alone with Carol while, no doubt, she'd offered thanks on the part of everyone for a job well-done in a way that was more pleasant for the both of them than a few slaps on the back would have been for Daryl. Nobody would dare deny him that payment for the food that would keep them all going, or Carol the payment for her tireless hours of cooking, washing, and otherwise handling the dirty jobs that other didn't always relish having.
So, it wasn't that Scully felt that they should never take a break, or that everyone should be working without pause for each hour of sunlight, but she couldn't help but notice that almost every time she let her eyes scan over her group members for a quick check of her surroundings, she seemed to find Lori doing something other than the job that she'd been assigned to do.
Lori, Scully was almost certain, had only filled one bag in the time that they'd been working—and Scully had filled and emptied so many that most of the muscles in her back ached.
Scully finished the bag she was currently filling and lugged it over to the shaded spot where she would sit, unpack it, and sort it before putting the items into their various vehicles for later use—everyone got a little of each kind of supplies, and the bulk went into their large truck for when they needed it. Scully helped herself to some of the clean water from a water truck that, serendipitously, had broken down in and among the snare, relieved herself in the edge of the woods, and then she walked over to check on Carol who assured her that she was fine and Jacqui was bringing more water from the nearby creek.
The best thing about the new people, maybe, was that Sophia had a playmate that was just about her age. Scully walked over to check on them—sitting in the back of a clean car with the hatch raised, playing a game—and Sophia had stopped her playing long enough to give Scully a sincere hug, ignoring how sweaty she was, and to invite her to play. Scully declined the invitation, but she did smooth Sophia's hair as a show of appreciation for the fact that the little girl had a way of making Scully feel like nobody else ever had. Other people may have been proud of her throughout her life, but Sophia? Sophia saw her as someone so wonderful that she was practically magical. Carl, new to their group, was clearly not as impressed with Scully as Sophia was—and that was why Sophia would be the one to find the candy bar, later, that Scully had slipped into Sophia's new purple backpack that Scully had found for her earlier in the day.
When Scully circled back around to the cars they were currently cleaning out, she naturally expected to find that Lori was done with her water break, her bathroom break, and everything else. She was annoyed, then, to find the woman sitting in the back seat of a car, with the door open, sipping water and looking around.
"Everything OK?" Scully asked, picking up one of the extra empty bags that saved her from having to empty her bag every single time she filled it.
Lori looked at her like she hadn't expected to see her.
"Fine," she said, putting on a smile that didn't quite convince Scully.
"You know—I'm a doctor," Scully said. "If you're having some kind of problem…"
"No, I'm fine," Lori said quickly. "It's just hot in the sunlight, with the asphalt—and it's hotter in the cars. I'm trying to—catch my breath."
"You know—I don't mean to be offensive, but…it appears to me that you've spent most of the day catching your breath. In fact, I've hardly seen you doing anything to cause you to lose it."
Scully saw the initial anger flash in the woman's eyes. It didn't bother her. She was prepared for it. She was smart enough to know how people would react to things. That was, in actuality, part of her training as an FBI agent. She had to anticipate the often-erratic behavior of human beings in different circumstances. She was ready for conflict if that's what Lori needed—at least it might raise the woman's pulse a little.
Lori's face returned to the plastered-on smile quickly, though.
"I guess—all of this hasn't been easy for us," Lori said. "We haven't had a steady supply of food, and water, and…everything. I guess I'm just anemic."
Scully bristled at Lori's tone and insinuation, but she focused on drawing in a breath and keeping herself calm.
"It hasn't exactly been a luxury cruise for us," Scully said. "But part of what keeps us going as well as we are is that everyone pulls their weight. If we were trying to drag dead weight around, we might not have made it this far."
Lori stood up abruptly and stood facing Scully. She was thinner than Scully, but she was also significantly taller. Scully had spent a great deal of her life looking up to people, though, and it didn't bother her to have the woman towering over her.
Lori didn't threaten her, though, and she didn't stir up any kind of conflict. Her facial expression—despite the fake smile she was trying to plaster over her slightly clenched teeth—told Scully that she wasn't pleased with her.
"I guess I'll just get back to work," Lori said. "I wouldn't want needing a break to make me dead weight that brings down everyone."
Scully didn't fall for the bait. She put on her best smile, matching Lori, and tipped her head to the side.
"You can leave your filled bags in the shade over there. We can unpack them by firelight, later, if we have to, but the sun is useful for seeing everything that's possibly hidden in the cars. We don't want to waste it."
Challenge flashed in Lori's eyes, but she clearly thought better of it for the time being. Without another word, she walked off from the car and stormed toward the pile of empty bags where they tossed anything they came across that could be used—temporarily or permanently—for hauling items. Scully watched her snatch a bag from the pile and storm off. Then, Scully started clearing the car where Lori had been sitting—a car she had hardly even touched beyond clearing herself a place to sit.
Scully was rummaging through the trunk of the car when she tuned into Dale's voice hissing out a warning and shushing everyone. The fact that his warning couldn't be too loud made it all the more complicated to get everyone to be quiet and to take action.
By the time they all knew what was going on, the heavy flood of Walkers was streaming through the cars that hadn't yet been moved—most of the ones they'd weaved through to get to where they had to clear the traffic snare—and they were coming into sight, driven to moving as quickly as they could by the sounds that were still being produced by everyone as they scrambled to do something against the incoming flood of corpses.
In a camp where they were gathered together, they would have attempted to get into formation. They would have fought like a wheel of blades to end the threat as quickly as possible. Given the size of the wave of Walkers that was coming for them, Scully wasn't sure how well they would have fared. It was highly possible that they would have hit a level of fatigue that was too high to keep them effective before they managed to wipe out all the Walkers that could smell them, even if their cloudy vision wasn't aiding them in their hunt.
There was an absolute scramble. Everyone tried to find somewhere to go, but they were all spread out too far to be too effective in fighting the animate corpses. Scully's first instinct was to look for Mulder, but she couldn't find him among the cars that were being moved—the last one coming to a crashing halt since they hadn't been able to stop its momentum as soon as they became aware of the Walkers.
It wasn't until she realized that she couldn't see Mulder that her second instinct kicked in—the one that called for her to fight. She met the Walkers coming toward her by dropping one and then another with the knife she'd been wearing around all day. There were too many Walkers, though, and they were coming too fast. Even though the wave was divided—Carol was screaming somewhere to Scully's left and Dale was shouting from the to of the RV like he wanted to draw the attention of the creatures—there were still too many of them for anyone to handle what was coming for them.
Scully managed to get into the backseat of the car, kicking back a Walker that grabbed for her, and she managed to pull the car door shut. The vehicle shook and rocked as three Walkers seemed to have enough reason to figure out she was in there. They tried to break into the car, and she silently thanked God that they weren't able to recall how the door handles worked.
Scully's heart pounded in her chest, and the blood rushed by her ears. For a few moments, all she could hear were the sounds of the Walkers—which often emitted a type of growling sound as they struggled along mindlessly searching for food—and the sounds of her companions as they sought to save each other, when possible, and to find safety.
It felt like Scully stayed trapped in the backseat of the car for hours waiting for the Walkers to lose interest in her as prey and to move on. It felt like she might run out of air or die from the heat before she was able to crack open the door and escape. She was aware, though, that the stress of the moment changed her perception of everything that was happening around her.
And when she could finally hear silence beyond the sound of her pounding heart and heavy breathing, she started to feel relief. Carefully, she opened the door as quietly as she could. The mass of the wave had passed—but there were a few lingering bodies here and there that had gotten confused and were left behind. She put one down as it swiped for her upon emerging from the vehicle.
Her blood ran cold in her veins when she heard the scream.
She responded to it, her voice only managing to come out a moment after she heard Carol's. Like she imagined the others might be, her body was moving toward the source of the scream before her other senses had even fully processed what was taking place.
"Sophia!"