Syl's cheek rested against the cool glass of her window. Next to her, Van's wrist rested lightly on the steering wheel of the sedan. Before them, the interstate stretched out long and straight and smooth. They were in Montana, just about to cross into northern Nebraska. Syl had slept most of the ride, waking up long enough to witness Wyoming, feeling strange driving through an area she hadn't set foot in for thirteen years. She knew they were just lines on a map, but still. It had meant something to Zack. They had never been this way before, having always avoided Wyoming and Nebraska, skirting them through surrounding areas, letting old memories rest. But Van was taking this part of the country head-on, fearing nothing. Syl liked to watch her drive. The expression on her face reminded Syl of how she looked like prepping herself for going into battle, but in a way that filled Syl with security, not the way that evoked memories of a place she wished she didn't have to call home.

Van had been living in Wyoming for years, ever since she infiltrated Manticore through an entry-level position, gradually rising higher, pulling strings when she could, doing her bsest to sabotage any leads Manticore had on her brothers and sisters. She saved Brin from getting the highest form of reindoctrination, but she couldn't save Ben, couldn't save Tinga. Syl closed her eyes. Nobody could save them. They'd been driving in silence for the better part of an hour, but that was how Van always drove. Syl had missed her. After the escape, the unit had been divided, and Syl had obviously been put under the heading of 'Zack's kids.' She hadn't seen a lot of Van, only when she and Zack had their sporadic in-person status report meetings. But most of the time, the two worked independently. Grix used to joke that if Zack and Van were ever in the same place at the same time for more than an hour, it meant all hell had just broken loose. And after Van took the job at Manticore without permission or even a mention of it to Zack until it was too late, everyone was surprised, her kids and Zack's. Syl saw even less of her for a while after that, until Zack recovered from the betrayal. But Syl had missed Van. She was so like Zack but so not like him as well, and her presence was soothing, comforting. Reassuring.

"I love you, Van."

Van's eyes slid sideways toward her passenger and she put on a token smile, not unkind, just like someone who didn't smile sincerely very much. "You too." There was a brief silence. "Are you going to miss Canada?" Van asked.

Syl shook her head. "Not really. It was just somewhere I went... seemed like a safe place where I could be sad for a while." She shrugged, cast her eyes out to the road again. "I was planning to move on sometime soon anyway." She waited for Van to ask where, but her sister said nothing more, as though she instinctively knew Syl had had no idea what she was doing or where she was going after that mission. She hadn't known what to do, where to go; she had been lost, wandering through her own grief without sight of any alternatives. She reminded herself that she hadn't committed suicide, but she knew that was a result of her weakness and not her strength. Before she had hated herself for it, but now, being with Van again, Syl felt relief that she had lacked that strength. She'd missed her sister and would have regretted not having the chance to see her again. Syl tried to remind herself that there were a lot of people who loved her.


"Syl," Krit grabbed her arm as he said her name, his voice almost a plea. "Don't go."

"I have to," she said softly, her eyes dry, her tears long since depleted after hours of crying. "I can barely get up in the morning, Krit."

"And leaving is going to help that how?" he asked, taking her hand in his.

"I need to be by myself," she answered, their eyes not meeting. "I need to sort out my thoughts."

"I know you're sad, Syl. I know you miss Zack. But-"

She was wrong. She did have tears left, and at the mention of Zack's name, they started again. She pulled her hand back from Krit and hugged her arms around her chest.

"I miss him so much," she whispered. Thinking of him back at Manticore made her sick.

"I'm afraid you're going to do something…" Krit trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. She gave him her eyes- it was all she could give him. They gazed at each other for a long moment.

"I love you," she said finally. "I just can't stay here."

"Please," he said. "I'll go. I just need to know you're safe."

"I need to move around," she insisted. She wanted to recapture the life that she and Zack had lived when she'd first been found as if, somehow, she could find him in the process. As if he'd be waiting for her at one of the lonely hotels that waited in her future. She opened the front door and stepped off the stoop and into the yard. Krit stood in the doorway staring at her, almost longingly. "I have to go," she said. "I love you, Krit."

"Where will I tell Van you've gone?" he asked- a final, desperate attempt.

Syl didn't say anything for a few moments. "Tell her I've gone on a trip," she said. "I don't know where I'm going."

"Aren't you going to check in?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. There was a long silence and then she said, "I'll try. Okay?"

"Okay," Krit answered, though it was obvious he said it only because there was nothing else he could say. Syl turned and walked out to her car, climbed in and started the engine. She pulled out of the driveway and paused for a moment to kiss the tips of her fingers and press them against her window. She got away before Krit could realize her cell phone was still on the kitchen counter.


"Krit called me every day for a while," Van spoke up, as though reading Syl's thoughts. Van was fixing her with a steady gaze and that's when Syl realized they were stopped. One of the state checkpoints along the South Dakota-Nebraska border. It felt like she'd fallen asleep, so jarring was her emergence into awareness of the car and the road and her sister here beside her.

"He did?" she asked, her voice nonchalant.

Van nodded. "Pissed the hell out of me. Always asking where you were. The first time he called it was three am and I told him I didn't have a fucking clue." She smirked a little. "Then I started looking for you myself and had your location pinned down within two weeks. Nobody would ever call Krit resourceful." She chuckled a little. Then there was a tap on the window and Van rolled it down dutifully.

"Sector passes," the cop asked, giving them a wide smile once he took the time to look at their faces. Syl couldn't see anything but the back of Van's head, but she was certain her older sister was glaring at the man behind her dark sunglasses. Sweetly, she held out their passes with a not-quite-definable smirk that only she could pull off. Then she turned to Syl and let out a long breath of air as the cop skirted the vehicle, then banged on the back window to indicate to Van he wanted the trunk popped. She did so and Syl waited, not at all nervous. She knew Van would have their guns locked away in a securely hidden area of the trunk, likely a false bottom.

The police officer came back to the window a moment later and fixed Van with a hard look. From behind him Syl frowned, her body tensing slightly for reasons she wasn't quite sure of. The officer waved his hand at Van in a beckoning motion. "Step out of the car please." There was a pause that the officer probably didn't even notice, but during which Syl read annoyance, anger, and confusion in her sister's movement as she reached to open the door. She stepped out of the sedan and the officer motioned for one of the other cops to cross to the other side of the car. He did, and opened Syl's door. She exited the car as well, and walked around to stand next to Van, who had affected an air of annoyed impatience. "What's this about?" she asked.

"There's a problem with your sector passes," the cop answered, lazily.

"What problem?" Van asked indignantly.

The officer gave her a long look then just said, "ID please."

Syl looked quickly to Van, who turned her head and said, "Grab our stuff from the backseat, Jenn."

"Here," Syl answered, forcing her voice to be friendly as she handed their passports and drivers' licenses to the cop. He compared them to each other and to Van and Syl's faces, then handed them to his buddy, not giving any indication whether he considered them valid or not.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to impound this vehicle for further investigation, and take you both in."

There was a pregnant pause. "Oh?" Van asked, lowering her sunglasses to the officer for the first time.

"Don't worry though," he continued. Syl watched his hand raise to brush Van's bare arm, trailing up toward the shoulder of her tank top. "I'll make sure you get a cozy cell." His fingers curled against the edge of her cheek. "You know," he added with meaning, dragging his eyes up and down Van's body, "I have the power to arrange for… special treatment."

Van smiled. She smiled in a way that, even though Syl loved and felt completely at east with Van, still made her feel very, very edgy. She could see the cop tensing slightly under the smile as well, though she doubted it was a conscious reaction on his part.

"There's something in the trunk I'm going to need," she said calmly. Too calm, Syl knew. The officer allowed her to walk to the back of the sedan. Syl saw his eyes watching Van walk away from him, but then the other officer stepped into her line of vision.

He nodded toward the front of the car. "Hands on the hood and spread 'em." Syl swallowed but did what she was told. The sector cop pressed himself into Syl's backside and his hands roved along her upper body, first checking for guns and then moving over her breasts and lingering. She stiffened, her head turning in Van's direction automatically. The trunk was open and Van had disappeared behind it. Syl stepped sideways, trying to escape the officer's increasingly deliberate hands.

"Hey!" he yelled, grabbing a fistful of her hair at the back of her neck, shoving her forward over the hood of the sedan. "Don't move unless I say so!" Syl's face stung from the impact, though she'd turned her head sideways to avoid a broken nose. She felt her hands shaking slightly as he resumed his lewd search of her body.P Syl heard the trunk slam closed as the cop's hands trailed down her stomach and over the edge of her jeans, pulling at the button. Now the shake was spreading across her body and she wasn't sure if it was a seizure yet or still just her own terror. Then the staccato sound of bullets broke the tense silence and his hands ripped away from her, his body crashing to the ground. His friend hit the pavement a split-second later and Syl reached her hand up in time to grab the shotgun Van had thrown to her. Syl caught the nearest sector cop in the shoulder as she heard the checkpoint booth's glass shatter under Van's fire. Syl slid into the driver's seat of the sedan and started the engine as Van crossed around to the other side, firing up at the towers as she moved. The instant she was in her seat Syl floored it, hearing Van drop the clip of her M-4 and reload.

"I hate this fucking state already," she said, turning in her seat to check for movement. Syl glanced in the rear-view mirror and relaxed; it looked like the sector cops were more intent on calming the hoards of civilians who had been lined up behind them and dealing with their casualties than launching a pursuit.

"We're going to have to get new ID," Syl said. Van held up their passports and sector passes, flecked with blood but otherwise intact. Syl grinned nervously at her, her body trembling more and more violently, though she tried to act causal about it. The car swerved in the road slightly.

"Here," Van said, digging into the glove compartment for their bottle of tryptophan. Syl downed a few pills and fought to steady the car. "I'll be fine."

Van nodded and after a few minutes Syl managed to get her body under control. Van leaned back in her seat, pushing her glasses up on her nose and letting her weapon relax in her grip.

"I'd hate to see what would have happened if they'd tried to take your sunglasses," Syl remarked with a smirk.

Van gave no indication that she was even awake, but then she answered, "Same thing that'll happen to you if you try to take them."

Syl looked back in her mind on the long history of her stealing Van's sunglasses and then, after a momentary pause, she chuckled. "What, nothing?"

Van made a face that was somewhere between a scowl and a smile, then said, "Fuck you." Syl's chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh and she nudged Van playfully.

"Hey, don't push it," Van said, her voice going completely serious. "We had our fun, now drive."

Syl rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. How far is it until Omaha anyway?" Her voice cracked slightly at the last syllable as fear rushed through her body again.

"Depends how fast you can drive. We should be there by nightfall. Make contact in the morning."

Syl nodded, swallowing hard. "Right." She paused, then glanced at her sister. "Look, maybe this is a big mistake."

Van shook her head. "Shut up and drive."

"No, seriously," Syl answered. "I don't think this is-"

"I said shut the fuck up. We're not going anywhere, so suck it up and deal."

Syl pulled the car onto the side of the road. "I changed my mind," she said firmly.

Van pulled her sunglasses off. "I don't give a fuck. We did not just go through that fucking checkpoint to get cold feet and turn back. You know you want to do this and I'm not going to let you give up."

Syl shook her head. "I don't know what I want," she muttered.

"We'll sleep on it tonight," Van relented slightly. "But we're sleeping in Omaha."

Syl glanced at her. "Deal," she agreed after a moment. Again Van laid her head back against the seat and affected an air of indifferent fatigue.

"Van?"

"What?"

"I love you."

Van sighed heavily. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she answered, and Syl couldn't help a smile as she drove the car faster toward Omaha.