AN: The character of Grace Mason belongs to my friend Jemmz, you can read all about Grace in:

Heartbeat Away From Death

story ID: 10691430/

Chapter 26: Sleep Now

Casey's feet followed behind Lyle as he carried Pope into a room at the end of the hall. She hovered in the doorway and watched Lyle set Pope out flat on a gurney. Anne leant over Pope and gently turned his head from side to side, trying to rouse him while inspecting the cuts on his face.

"Is he alive?" Lyle asked.

Anne checked Pope for a couple more moments and then nodded. "He's breathing," she said. "Casey?" Anne gestured for her to come closer. "His shirt is soaked, help me take it off before he gets pneumonia."

Casey took three steps towards the gurney but she was clueless as to how she could undress Pope in his current state. He looked so knocked about she was afraid one wrong move of his arm and she would cause him permanent damage. So she just copied Anne and gently held up his arm while Anne pulled the shirt over his head. Anne set the shirt on the tray beside the bed and that's when Casey noticed the full IV bag and some tubing set out on the tray. It didn't take Anne long to have an IV hooked up to Pope's wrist and the bag hanging on the IV pole beside the bed.

"I'm okay," Anthony was saying from beside Casey. "I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Lourdes scolded him. "Sit down."

Casey looked over and saw Dai and Tom helping Anthony sit down on a gurney opposite Pope. Lourdes stood in front of Anthony using a penlight to check his pupils.

"What happened?" Tom asked Anthony.

"Me and Pope went looking for a new set of wheels outside of Durham," Anthony patiently let Lourdes roll up his sleeve and strap a blood pressure cuff to his bicep. "So we split up. I heard gunfire. And by the time I got back to him, he was being chased by a mess of skitters. We ran like hell but a Mech got a shot off and the blast landed near us. Pope went down. And I just picked him up. And I kept running until I couldn't run anymore."

"He needs to rest now." Lourdes instructed Tom.

Tom nodded. "Sure," he set a hand on Anthony's shoulder. "It's good to have you back." Tom turned to Anne and nodded at Pope. "What about him?"

"He's dehydrated," Anne said. "Looks like a pretty good concussion, but I don't see any critical wounds, which is a good thing."

"So, he's gonna be okay?" Casey asked.

"We'll give him some fluids," Anne said. "If he wakes up in the next few hours, he should be fine."

"Call me when he wakes up," Tom started to leave. "But I don't have to remind you—"

"I know," Anne nodded. "Weaver's a priority."

Tom gave Pope one final look and then exited the room.

"Did I smell something cooking on the way in here?" Anthony asked as Lourdes loosened the cuff from his bicep.

"It's pasta night," Dai said with a grin. "And there's a hell of a lot of it."

"First you need to rest," Lourdes said. "Lyle, can you help me get Anthony to a bed down the hall? Then I'll bring you something to eat."

Lyle effortlessly looped Anthony's arm across his shoulder and got him to his feet.

"I'll take your gear to the armoury," Dai slung Anthony and Pope's rifles over his back.

Anthony chuckled tiredly. "This place has an armoury?"

"Wait 'til you see it," Dai gave him a nudge as Lyle and Lourdes helped him out of the room.

Casey watched the four of them leave out of the corner of her eye, and then Anne, who had been silently checking Pope's IV, suddenly spoke up. "I have to check Weaver," she said. "His condition's so unstable, if-"

"It's okay," Casey cut her off. She'd been in that room; it wasn't like she needed a reminder of how fragile Weaver was.

So then Anne left as well, and the room became very quiet. Casey stood a good step away from Pope's bed and realised her hands were balled into firm fists at her side. She forced her fingers to stretch out, then folded her arms and stuffed her hands under her armpits. Slowly she circled the gurney and noticed Pope's shirt had fallen off the tray and crumpled on the floor. She knelt down and grabbed it. The shirt fabric was soaked through and so thin Casey thought it might disintegrate in her hands. Was it the same black shirt he'd been wearing when he left? She pulled over a chair that was leaning against the wall and laid the shirt out on the back of it so it would dry.

Casey leant against the back of the chair and chewed her lip as she looked Pope again. Anne had sort of tucked him in up to his ribs but his left arm was dangling out of the blanket. If his arm was injured, Casey couldn't see it underneath the huge tattoo of Jesus Christ on his bicep. Weird thing for him to have, she didn't think he was all that religious, but she guessed he was being funny what with his name being Pope and all. Slashed between the two skull tattoos on his left forearm were three thin lacerations that Casey had a feeling came from a skitter claw. Another to hunt down and add to his skitter claw necklace. He still wore it, the necklace. It was resting almost directly on top of his chest tattoo of a thick Celtic cross. Casey didn't realise he had so many tattoos. Then again, she'd never seen him shirtless before so he could have a couple of dozen more under that blanket. When he woke up, she'd have to ask him where he got them.

A light knocking on the door brought Casey out of her daydreaming. She looked up and saw Grace standing in the doorway. The girl had some bags on her shoulder and the carseat – with Etta strapped in – in her hand. "Things are getting loud down there with everyone shifting stuff around."

"Thanks," Casey crossed the room and took the carseat from Grace. Etta made a little a noise of recognition when she was passed from hand to hand. "I meant to come get her," Casey she set the carseat on the chair with Pope's shirt on it. "But Weaver was-"

Grace waved a dismissive hand at her. "Don't stress. I gave her a bottle, but she wouldn't take a nap," Grace set Etta's diaper bag at Casey's feet. "Her bag," she held out Casey's slate grey shoulder bag. "Your bag. Lee told me to bring it to you."

"Oh, thanks," Casey tried to hide her surprise; she hadn't realised Lee noticed her attachment to the shoulder bag. She'd noticed enough to send it up with Etta and not leave it to be kicked around or jumbled up with the other bags. "So we're ready to go when Weaver wakes up?"

Grace nodded. "We're getting there. It's kinda hard to convince people to leave; they finally feel safe."

"We always knew we couldn't stay here forever."

"So, how's he?" Grace flicked her eyes towards Pope. "I guess he's not a priority, huh?"

"He'll wake up in time to go," Casey said, and suddenly she really didn't want to talk about Pope with Grace. "Hey, what's going on with Karen? Is she alright? Your dad said Hal found her in the middle of a bunch of dead harnessed kids?"

"She's awake and seems okay, physically." Grace said. "But she says she doesn't know anything about anything. Doesn't know where she was before, doesn't know where all the other harnessed kids came from, doesn't know how her harness was removed. Oh, and Hal and Ben are fighting again," she gave a weary roll of her eyes. "Ben thinks she's still connected to the aliens, Hal thinks she's normal Karen and it's all very nice and tense."

"Well," Casey tried to give her an assuring smile. "We do good with tense."

Grace sighed. "It's just kinda crazy, right? Hal's old girlfriend shows up a click from the hospital just as Weaver's sick as a dog and then Pope comes back?"

Casey scrunched her brow. "You think it's all connected?"

Grace nodded. "It'd be weird if it wasn't. And I think my Dad thinks so, too. He's got guards watching Karen in the psych ward, and Ben hasn't left her door since she got here." Grace pulled up her sleeve and checked her watch. "I gotta run, I said I'd help Hal with the bikes." She started to leave but paused in the doorway for a moment. "You three be okay?"

"We're fine," Casey said. "Thank you. Again."

Grace smiled and left the room pulling the door almost closed behind her.

Alone, again, Casey pulled another chair up to Pope's bedside and sat next to Etta. Etta was fiddling with her fingers like she'd just discovered a brand new toy. Casey lifted her shoulder bag into her lap and rummaged through it until she found the purple alien cliptoy squashed underneath the photo box. Her hand lingered on the box for a couple of seconds before she set the bag aside and clipped the toy to the carseat close enough for Etta to reach it. The baby bounced a little in her seat when she saw the toy and then grabbed it in one hand.

"He'll be awake soon," Casey said to Etta. "He looks worse than he is."

Pope looked just about as crappy as Weaver except Pope had about a months' worth of overgrowth on his stubbly beard. His clothes were filthy and torn and he had patches of dried blood across his neck and chest. He had little bleeding cuts across his neck, too. They'd get infected with all that muck on him. Casey went into the bathroom and wet a washcloth in the sink. She then stood by Pope's bedside and gently dabbed at the marks on his face. She could see the lump on his forehead, it was a hell of a good whack. No wonder he was out of it.

His nose seemed to have healed from his scuffle with Tom. She doubted the extra punch she'd struck across his face had done any permanent damage. It had made his nose bleed, and Casey recalled how satisfying it had felt to hit him like that. After everything with Maggie, he deserved a hell of a lot more a punch or ten in the face. Any by the looks of him unconscious and bruised on this gurney, he was starting to get it.

It was a confusing bundle of emotions for Casey to try and process. The fact that Pope might have died out there, but now he was back and Casey was struck with the realisation that she really didn't want him to die out there. In spite the way she felt about what he did to Maggie, the reasons that he definitely had to leave the 2nd Mass, she was glad he was still alive. Some part of her was happy to see this arrogant, immoral asshole survive a minor injury. What did that make her? Stupid. Stupid is what it made her.

Casey had successfully deleted that fiery horizon dream from her mind; but seeing Pope had somehow restored it from the recycle bin. "I had a dream that you weren't coming back." Casey muttered to him. She noticed a mark on his shoulder that she'd missed with the washcloth. She rubbed it away with her finger and realised it was grit from smoke. "Anthony said a Mech blast knocked you off your feet," she said. And then for some reason she thought of her mother. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw a Mech?"

One year ago

Even a week after the EMP, Casey still flicked her light switches on and off when she entered rooms. She'd been doing it at her mother's house and now she was doing it at her own. She had a mini-flashlight on a rope around her neck, but she couldn't seem to shake the habit of flicking the switch. As Casey entered her study, she tried the switch again even though the sun hadn't fully set yet and there was enough sunlight to help her see. She swore to herself, flicked the switch to "off" and tried to concentrate. The study, the study, what did she need from the study? Files, documents, identifiable crap. This was the last time she'd be in her house for a while; and she didn't know what, if anything, she would return to. She had to take what she could while she had the time.

Casey rushed to her filing cabinet but couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd stashed her birth certificate and passport. Were they together? Yes…yes, she was sure she'd filed them away at the same time. They were in these drawers somewhere, but she didn't have time to rifle through them. She'd told her mother she'd only be gone an hour.

Casey had wanted to run the second the alien ships soared into the skies, but her mother was too stubborn to leave. But after the electromagnetic pulse cut all the power and explosions started eradicating cities, her mother finally agreed it was time to go. So Casey had told her mother to pack up, and then drove home to gather up her own things. Then she and her mother were headed out of Massachusetts.

From her desk Casey snatched up the box she'd been hoarding old copies of DéjàNew in and poured them all out onto the floor. It wasn't like she'd be heading back to copy edit the next edition and needed to flip through old issues to remind herself of what they had already published. Then she lifted out each filing cabinet drawer and dumped the contents into the box. Better to take them all then pick and choose and leave something important behind. The box was too heavy to lift, so Casey started dragging it towards the living room. Damn, that thing felt like it was full of books - books! She'd need books wherever they were going because… well, because. That copy of Anne Frank's diary; where was it? She'd always meant to read that, that's why she'd bought that copy at the second hand book store. It had to be on the bookshelf in the living room. Or the one in the study. Or in that pile of books she kept in a corner of her bedroom.

Casey dragged her box of papers through the living room out to the garage to her car. Her station wagon was already crammed with her clothes, non-perishable food, medicine, tools, bottled water, and even her bedding. She wasn't sure why she grabbed the bedding, but it just seemed better to take then leave it behind.

Casey heaved the box of documents onto the backseat of her station wagon and then ran back to her linen cupboard. She grabbed a couple of old pillow cases and did two laps of her home grabbing up books. By the time Casey got back to her car, she was sweating. She crammed two full pillowcases of books behind the passenger's seat and went back to do one more walkthrough her home.

In each room she stopped and turned slowly on the spot hoping that if something obvious had been left behind it would jump out at her. The only thing she kept noticing was her computer. At first, Casey had thought it would be hard to leave her computer behind, but the EMP had successfully killed every electronic in Casey's house so even if looters came through as they had in other parts of the city, they weren't going to get much joy out of her two year old MacBook.

Satisfied she had taken everything she might need, or just hoping she wouldn't remember something vital she'd forgotten, Casey locked up her house and jogged back to her garage. Quickly she started the engine and reversed out of her driveway, she knew if she hesitated she would run back into the house and start grabbing couch cushions or something. Casey took the back streets and her own shortcut passed the library to her mother's home. The aliens were destroying high-traffic areas; skyscrapers, factories, hospitals, apartment buildings, bridges. They were hit first, so people stayed away. Casey didn't want to chance taking a highway, she'd heard one of her mother's neighbours saying the highways were a deathtrap. Casey didn't intend to test the theory. Besides, Casey knew her way around the backroads.

Crap, she realised when she pulled into her mother's driveway. Where the hell am I going to put Mum's stuff?

But it turned out she needn't have worried. Thea Taylor was waiting patiently on her couch with nothing but box about half the size of a shoebox in her lap. She had the lid off and was rifling through a handful of photos.

Casey burst into the living room with her arms out wide. "Where's the rest of your stuff?"

"This is all I need," Thea packed the photos away in the box and replaced the lid.

"That's it? Your photo box?" Casey's family were pretty much like everyone else when it came to keeping family photos, but Thea insisted on keeping her own box full of random photos, Polaroids and photobooth strips. Thea had a knack for keeping the really good pictures. Her very own Kodak moments. They were special to her, even if they didn't seem special to other people. Like Casey.

Thea grinned as she rose to her feet and shrugged on her black leather jacket. "I have a feeling you've packed enough for both of us."

"Well, come on, then," Casey shrugged up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. "Let's go."

"Calm down, love," Thea lifted her slate grey shoulder bag off the floor and looped it around her neck.

"Yes, aliens in the sky blowing everything to hell? Great time to stay calm."

"Panicking won't fix anything," Thea carefully put her photo box into her bag and then took her daughter's hand. "Come on."

Casey and her mother walked briskly out of the home with Thea making sure she locked the front door. Thea stuffed her keys in her shoulder bag and nudged Casey down the stairs and then stopped in her tracks. "Oh, good Lord." She stared at Casey's overstuffed car. "Casey, I told you not to go mental with packing."

"Come on!" Casey snatched up her mother's arm and dragged her around the passenger's side of her car. "Anyway, this is me not going mental with packing."

Casey got her mother into the car then jogged around to the driver's side and climbed in. The sun had completely set; which was good. Casey was planning on driving with the lights off attempting to go a little incognito through the dark streets. "Which way should we head?" She asked as she started the engine.

"South," Thea said. "Remember that strawberry farm we went to last summer? We'll head out that way. There's nothing out there but farmlands."

"Okay," Casey put the car into gear and then felt the comforting warmth of her mother's soft hand over her own.

"Don't worry, love," Thea said gently. "Everything's gonna work out."

Casey smiled and gave her mother's hand a squeeze; then she reversed out of the driveway and onto the empty street. Most of her mother's neighbours had cleared out in the first couple of days after the alien ships showed up. There were still a couple of homes with cars in the driveway though; maybe people were actually going to try to ride it out. That was Thea's original plan; stay put and see what happened next. For some reason Casey thought her mother thought maybe the aliens would just go away. And then everyone would sure look foolish for running off, wouldn't they? But now that Thea had finally decided to go, Casey wasn't going anywhere without her. It had just so happened that Casey was helping her mother with a computer problem the day the aliens arrived, so they had been together. And aside from today's rush to pack up her home, they had been together all week.

"We won't take the highways, of course," Thea said as they rounded the corner. "Take the back roads to that gallery I used to take you to for art class."

Casey had no clue what she was talking about. "Gallery?"

"Silverite Studio?" Thea raised her eyebrows. "Oh, I know you didn't like it but you could at least have remembered the name."

The memory flashed in Casey's mind of her ten-year-old self being scolded by a very thin woman wearing a lot of layers of clothing. "Oh, is that the place where they did not like me painting on my jeans?" She slowed down as she came to an intersection.

Thea smiled. "Yes, you didn't want them stifling your creativity," she reached over and pinched Casey's cheek.

Casey smiled and ducked away from her mother's hand. "Do I go right or left here?"

"Left," Thea said. "It's a one way street, but I don't think that matters anymore."

Casey swung left, and then it was there. A ten foot tall hunk of metal on two legs with guns for arms. Casey flattened her foot on the brake pedal and her station wagon skidded to an awkward stop. The whole world went still and quiet for a few moments. The metal thing seemed to power up when it saw the car. It extended even higher into the air and it took two solid steps forward that were so heavy Casey felt the vibration underneath her.

"Casey, love!" Thea's voice rattled as she screamed and grabbed Casey's arm. "Go!"

Casey cranked the car into reverse and spun the steering wheel. Just as she floored the pedal, the arms of the metal thing bulked out at the sides and violent white-blue lights seemed to train in on the station wagon. The light blinded Casey and then she heard a noise that reminded her of laser gun out of a children's cartoon.

Pew-pew-pew! Pew-pew-pew!

Casey had the car mid-reverse-spin when the blasts slammed the front left side of her station wagon. Her vision was still spotty from the lights and she could smell burning fuel. She heard the crash of shattering glass a second before her upper body was showered in what she assumed were shards from the windshield. The steering wheel seized in place but Casey clung to it as the car smashed to a stop against something solid. Then just as Casey started to see clearly, she heard the noise again.

Pew-pew-pew!

She actually saw the metal thing firing beams of light at her car and watched each rapid shot rip through the hood like a rock through paper. The front of the station wagon ignited in flames, and with the windscreen long gone smoke was not only billowing into the air but filling the car and Casey's lungs. The metal thing stomped closer, its footsteps making an unforgettable sound that Casey felt thrum throughout her body.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Breathless, Casey reached over to the passenger's seat for her mother, but her hands only grabbed at air. She tried to call her mother, but no sound came out of her tight throat. Through the smoke, Casey squinted and realised she was alone in the car. And the passenger's door was dented inwards rendering it completely inoperable. Whatever she had smashed into had destroyed that whole side of the car, there was no way Thea could have gotten out on that side. "Mum?!" Casey tried her own door but it was jammed in place, the handle wouldn't even move. She couldn't go out the back door because of all the useless boxes and pillow cases full of crap she'd decided were so important; so Casey's only way out was forwards.

Casey unhooked her seatbelt which thankfully didn't jam and gingerly climbed through the shattered windscreen. The hood of her car was burning hot and had huge holes in it like it had been hit with missiles and the metal seemed to be melting right under Casey's hands. She skidded off the side of the hood and landed on her knees. "Mum?" She coughed, the smoke constricted her throat and she thought she might pass out. "Mum!" Her voice was already raw. She crawled forwards away from the smoke and tried to inhale fresh air. Then she noticed a lump lying on the asphalt not even a foot ahead of her. A lump wearing her mother's leather jacket.

Thea was sprawled on the road, eyes wide open and blood pooling around her head. Her legs were sort of folded in on each other and one of her arms was bent behind her. Her other arm was stretched out across the asphalt and tangled around her wrist was the strap of her slate grey shoulder bag.

"Mum?" Casey crawled to her mother's side and turned her face towards her. Thea's hazel eyes were fixed on something Casey would never be able to see. "Ma?" Casey shook her a little but she didn't move. "Mum!" Her blood was spreading underneath her so fast it had already soaked through the knees of Casey's jeans. "Come on, Ma, come on, I need you here. Please!" Casey cried out and then collapsed forwards onto her mother's body.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

The ground shook with the footsteps of that metal thing coming closer.

"GO AWAY!" Casey roared at it.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Casey rested her head against her mother's and kissed her temple. "I love you, Mama." She kissed her again, then grabbed the strap of the slate grey shoulder bag, sprang to her feet and took off running. She ducked behind the smoking wreck of her car and realised I was smashed through someone's front fence. Casey awkwardly climbed over it, limped as fast as she could through the backyard and crashed through a gate behind the house that lead into an alleyway.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Her leg was on fire and she didn't know why. Her head was pounding, the skin on her face stung and her throat felt like she'd swallowed sandpaper, but she didn't stop moving. She just kept on heading away from that metal thing until she was so out of breath she could barely stand. She fell sideways against a dumpster, flipped up the lid and rolled over the edge onto a soft cushion of garbage bags.

thunk! Thunk! THUNK!

Her mother's shoulder bag landed on top of her and she held it to her body waiting for that pew-pew-pew noise to hit the dumpster and end her. But instead, all Casey heard were more steps.

THUNK! Thunk! Thunk… thunk… thunk…

It was leaving. Casey became aware of something poking in the shoulder bag against her abdomen. Casey opened the bag to shift what was sticking at her and then realised it was the corner of her mother's photo box. Casey pulled the box out of the bag and clutched it to her body as though it was a much-loved teddy bear. And then she passed out.

"I guess she died there, on the road," Casey mumbled to Pope. "I grabbed her bag and I ran. I had to—I left her there." She traced her hands around the edges of the box. There was nothing particularly special about it, design wise, it was just a cheap gift box sort of thing her mother had found at the market. Casey lifted the lid and pulled out the thick stack of photos. She looked through them all the time, it wasn't as though she kept this depressing totem as a shrine to her mother and never dared open it. Casey had gone through the pictures plenty of times since the invasion, and she'd shown them to Etta, too.

"There are a bunch of photos in here that I don't get why she kept," Casey flicked through to the really blurred photo of her ten-year-old self laughing half, obscured by her father's thumb over the lens. And the selfie from only two years ago of Casey and Thea waiting in line to get sushi at the mall. Thea had transferred it from her phone to her computer and printed it out to keep. "But then there are some I do." Casey paused at one of her favourite photos, a Polaroid her mother had taken in the eighties before she and Mike had gotten married. It was a shot of Casey's father standing ramrod straight in the basement staring intently at his coaching chalkboard. Mike didn't even seem to know that Thea was there taking his picture. It was just a perfect shot of him working on some play for some upcoming football game. The intensity on his face was so vivid, he was enthralled. It was one of Casey's favourite pictures of her father because it was exactly the way she thought of him. Focused. Devoted. She had a knack for catching the moment, Thea Taylor, a very observant and intelligent mind. A mother's mind. A leader's mind.

"Sometimes I think about how things would have been if she was still here." Casey mumbled. To Pope or Etta, or herself or no one. "She would have been good." Casey flipped to the next photo in the bunch. "For the 2nd Mass. For Etta." She tapped her thumb against the black and white photo of her mother squeezing a young, very chubby and goofy-smiling Casey. "She would have been good."

xxx