A/N: A repost of an old tale.
Chapter 1: Broken City Nothing Left
The water was coming again...rushing, pounding, surging. In the distance black, then brown, frothing white, then red. Crushing. Screams resonating sounding like wounded animals. Hands gripped at legs, arms, trees, telephone poles, anything; threatening to pull her under. Howls broke through the darkness...
Gus shot up from the couch, sheets twisted and soaked with sweat. Head pounding in confusion, not knowing where she was, only the lights of the buildings shining across the way gave any clue. Safe, or safe as anyone could be in New York. Her nightly routine the same as it had been since her arrival: stumble to the kitchen, pour a shot of whiskey, light a cigarette, sit in a chair and wait for daybreak.
The inevitable conversation the next morning, posed in concern but tinged with something else. "You were up again last night. Did you sleep at all?"
"I'm fine." A curt response, hiding her true state.
"Not what I asked." His concern turning to annoyance, her anxiety to petulance.
"I am fine, Mac, drop it."
A heavy sigh, "I don't think you should go back."
A sneer followed by a hollow laugh, "what about Semper Fi"?
"You aren't a Marine, Gus." His hand covering hers for a moment before she brushes it away, refusing to be consoled.
"I have to go back, they need my help," her voice slicing through the air like a knife.
"You don't have to save them all, think about what happened last time you tried to save the world." Mac's tone growing weary, the distance between them showing.
"That was different, I was younger then, reckless. This is different...I just have to go back." Her message not one of pleading, but of resolution.
Mac cleared his throat, "listen, I know you won't agree, but I am sure they could use you here." He had been formulating a plan since he first saw the angry red swirl on the news.
A bark of anger, "they can use me more there!"
"You been gone less than a week," he retorted without a pause.
A sidelong glance at the bottle, wondering how early was too early for a drink when your city was sinking. "A week even is too long, I can't even believe I am having this conversation with you. You, of all people always talking about team and fidelity and all the rest. You want me to turn my back after years of listening to your war stories?"
Mac shook his head, "but you don't have to, you didn't sign up for this, you didn't volunteer for this, and they..."
She rose, her cheeks flushing with her emotions, "what? They deserve what they got, did Claire deserve it?"
Mac's face went stony, a line crossed.
She crumbled inwardly, knowing she shouldn't have pushed back, at least not with that low blow. "Shit, I'm sorry. I just can't abandon ship now, I promise if I get over my head, I'll come back, but today I need to go back. Thanks, Uncle Mac."
As the aircraft descended, Gus attempted to count blue tarps on the few houses still standing. Chunks of bridges still bobbed in the water, surreal islands of concrete, their pilings snapped like toothpicks.
The fatigued man beside her asked "So you volunteered to come back, you crazy or something?"
"Something like that," she murmured.
"You know they are not letting many civilians back in."
"Not a problem," she said, fingering the all access pass Mac had secured for her, "I've seen worse."
Just like before it wasn't anything like what you saw on TV, stars in boats taking off their shirts, rescuing cute animals and babies. No, it was a war zone. People still huddled on their rooftops, the water still there. She hadn't wanted to leave, but the National Guard didn't really give her much of a choice, their machine guns pointed at her. Mac didn't help things either. At least she hadn't been routed to Utah or Oregon or some other god forsaken place. Now here, in the dark and the unyielding heat she was remembering four years ago, the day she lost the last person in the world that was hers.
Her satellite phone chirped, "Broussard!" she barked.
"Maybe you are a Marine," came the weary reply, "I was just checking in on you, kid."
She softened the smallest bit, "I'm hanging in there. They instituted zero access."
"I know," Mac replied, a trace of smile in his voice.
"Of course you do. It is only recovery now, if you can even call it that," she rolled her eyes as she pulled herself to sitting position, pouring a drink since no one was there to judge.
"Come back." It was a command, not a question.
"Not yet," her reply unyielding.
Mac took a sharp intake of breath, "you can't punish yourself for her, Gussie, you can't."
"You looked in a mirror lately?" the smallest of smiles crossing her face.
"Do as I say, not as I do."
"Good Lord, it has been a while since you pulled that one out, what the summer I was 15 and you gave me the drinking speech and Aunt Claire just cracked up because she knew down here you bring babies into bars and I knew how to make a sazerac better than you..." Gus trailed off, desperate to change the subject, "how about you, how are you doing?"
Mac's voice came from seemingly far away. "I'm just fine, listen the connection is going bad, I'll ah, I'll talk to you soon, OK, take care and don't let a gator get you."
And like that her connection to the outside world was gone…
The days melted into one another, heat so oppressive you couldn't breathe, sun baking you until your skin almost cracked. Music still played, though the notes were heavy, mournful and few and far between. The few stalwarts or those that had been brave enough to come back grilled out whatever they could steal before it went bad. The National Guardsman had come to an uneasy peace with the natives. Her house was fine for the most part, falling water had caused mold and some roof damage, but she didn't have that nasty brown waterline around her home, only her heart.
She didn't bother cleaning up the mess, most likely it would just wash away, there were still two full months of hurricane season left. Besides, there weren't any doctors in town to mend the wounds she would inevitably inflict on her oh so graceful self. Nothing left but a mess anyway.
There was no sign of Gage, not that she expected there would be. He high-tailed it out-of-town days before the storm saying he was leaving with or without her. She had made her bed, and now she had to lie in it. Alone. No one understood her, she was foolish to think Gage Fontenot had.
There wasn't much left here for her now, she didn't have the heart for recovery work, all her training was with people who were very much alive, suffering yes, but alive. They sent the prisoners off to Houston or Angola, so most her mandated clients were no longer in her jurisdiction. The NOPD was too busy trying to stave off complete mutiny, so no one was going to have come talk to her if they fired their weapon. More likely they should come talk to her if they hadn't. Mostly it was just waiting to see what was going to happen, if the city was going to survive.
Her radio squawked and crackled, "Broussard, come in Broussard."
"Copy, Broussard here."
"Brooks here," came the lilting reply.
Lord only knew what her SWAT team friend wanted, but maybe it would get her out of the house, out of her head, "go ahead."
"Hey, you know that fancy uncle you don't like to admit you have up there in New York City, the decorated one?" Billy Brooks always talked like this, in truncated riddles that drove you crazy if you didn't know him and love him.
Amazing how he had ever made it up the ranks of SWAT. It probably had to do with his social, financial and political connections; like everything else in this banana republic.
"Yeah, retired Marine, the few the strong the proud?"
"In the flesh."
It took a couple of clicks, must have been the heat."What do you mean in the flesh, Billy?"
"He's here, looking like a fine hunka granite if I may say so myself."
"No you may not, and what do you mean here, New Orleans here, or did you sneak off to New York without telling me?"
"Here at the Audubon Camp. Apparently he was looking for you on campus, and someone said you might be over here, I recognized him from that photo in your office."
The one from her Aunt's memorial service, the last time she had really spoken to him at length."What's he doing here?" she all but hissed through the radio.
"Down killer, he's here to get you, said he wasn't going to watch your body float by on CNN, and honey, I would follow him if I were you."
"I will be there in a few minutes," Gus growled.
Gus thew her jeep in gear, tossed her pass on the dash and bounced over the tree limbs still covering most of her driveway, she hadn't cleared anything but the catch basins yet, because four blocks away the streets were still flooded and trees kept floating her way. Thankfully her fridge had been empty, so she had nothing to contribute to the white metallic gravestones that kept popping up around town. She had been subsisting off MRE's and the kindness of neighbors. This was heavily supplemented by her own brand of comfort, Southern.
Gus reached the park quickly, as there was no tourist traffic these days to clog up St. Charles Avenue. She saw Mac as soon as she threw the jeep in park, Billy was practically drooling over him, as he talked to a young marine in combat fatigues.
"Aren't you a little out of your jurisdiction, sir?" she demanded as soon as she got within earshot. The effect was ruined when she went sailing over a tree branch, landing in an undignified heap.
The young marine stiffened, taken aback at such disregard for such a decorated soldier.
"Whoops, sorry, respect the uniform," she said, mock saluting in their direction, even while hoping the young jar head wouldn't shoot her.
"Augusta Marie, glad to see you are safe," Mac replied with a smirk.
She heard Billy snicker, at her 'real' name, whirling toward him and barking out, "shut it T-B." He turned red and shuffled away. "What. Are. You. Doing. Here." she breathed each word calmly as possible, trying tomaintain composure at his invasion of her turf, her life. He had made it clear when her Aunt died that he did not want any reminders of her, it took every ounce of her pride to call him after the storm when they threatened to take her to Utah.
Mac looked down at Gus, her green eyes flashing, her jaw set, her blond hair curling in the humidity like a lion's mane, her voice was very different from Claire's. Her mix of Cajun drawl and New Orleans uppity was deeper, not the sweet lightness of Claire's, something he attributed to the damn cigarettes she had started smoking after her parents were killed.
Claire had ignored so many of Gus' vices in those days, the girl barely in her teenage years, choosing boarding school over leaving her home. Despite her wild tendencies, Gus had maintained an A average and had the nuns of the Sacred Heart praying for her, not to mention graduating her early so she was no longer their problem.
Now here she was, a woman; still so unlike Claire, who looked liked she might blow away in a good wind. Gus stood tall, her curvy figure hiding a pent-up rage usually not found in someone of her profession.
The psychologist had seen and experienced a lot, Mac thought too much, some of it self-inflicted.
After finishing high school at 16, Claire begged her to join them in Chicago but Gus stayed in her beloved New Orleans. Her wild child days ended as many of her peers were just starting. Gus had ended up with a doctorate in counseling psychology focusing on criminal justice, something Mac thought might have something to do with her own unresolved traumas and her parents unsolved murder. Gus had chosen to do research that sent her to war-torn areas to interview orphans and the worst public housing projects in her crime ravaged city. Mac often wondered if Gus found comfort in those whose lives were more disastrous than her own or if she was seeking some sort of salvation in helping others.
Gus and Claire had been close, not that far apart in age, but Claire had left New Orleans, craving the anonymity of a big city, so their relationship was relegated to Gus' school breaks.
Mac had accepted Gus as part of the package when he started dating Claire, as she often talked of Gus moving closer. It never came to pass, though and while Mac respected the bond Gus and Claire shared, he never had more than a peripheral relationship with the girl who became his niece. They had grown further distance after 9/11, he just couldn't talk to her after Claire died, the weight of the reminder of his dead wife too difficult to bear.
Gus was the only family he had left, but Mac couldn't deal with loosing anyone else, it was why he remained so guarded. He had called her before the storm, but wasn't shocked when she wouldn't take his calls. He found himself profoundly relieved to get her call after the flood, and was equally destroyed when she insisted on going back.
Now another storm was out there, just as big and pulsating, and Mac had decided he was dragging her back to New York, in cuffs if he had to. It was time to find some semblance of family again.
"There's another one coming, Gussie, I think you need to leave," Mac said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Mayor hasn't called it yet," Gus said, shaking him off and ignoring the hurt look that briefly flitted across his face.
"Mayor ain't in charge, honey," the young jar head scoffed.
Mac shot him a look and he took off, saluting as he went. "I'm not asking. I will arrest you if I have to."
"On what grounds?" Gus yelled sarcastically.
"Look around Gus, it's anarchy, I don't need a warrant."
Gus started to protest, but the hell of the past weeks, no months, no years she realized crushed down on her. Reality was too much for her to ignore. "Fine, let me pack a bag," she agreed, slinking off toward her jeep.
Mac climbed in, "are you sure?" He had expected more of an argument, considering he or Claire had tried to get her to move away from New Orleans for over eleven years.
"I've got nothing left, Mac," Gus finally admitted.
"Here, you have nothing left here," Mac retorted, his face as grim as hers.
Mac stared in wonder at the listing shotgun house, "I thought you said you had no damage."
"Just a little, and it's still standing isn't it?"
"Barely, you have no roof!" Mac exclaimed, taking in the blue tarp fluttering in the wind before the inevitable afternoon thunderstorm.
"Only in the back, front's fine and it didn't flood," Gus said fighting with the swollen front door and ushering them in.
Mac looked around, trying to not make a face. "Your walls are covered in mold," he remarked.
Gus shrugged, "what else is new? Everything here is covered in mold."
"Have you been sick?" Mac asked, looking at her with concern.
"I have been vaccinated for Africa, mold's not going to kill me!"
He pointed at the empty whiskey bottle, a pit growing in his stomach, "and that?"
"Helps me sleep," Gus retorted nonchalantly.
"Pass out it more like it," he muttered.
"I don't have anything for New York, isn't it cold up there?" Gus said, surveying her closet.
"Not now, but it will be. You can shop there, they have stores that haven't been looted." Mac continued to stare at the blue tarp showing through in the living room, while Gus crammed stuff into a duffel in the bedroom.
She pondered about whether to bring the snapshot of her and Gage from the Policeman's Ball but he hated that night, hated her having anything to do with the NOPD or criminals, or any 'brown people'. Called her Mother Theresa and Florence just to piss her off. Didn't like having to explain her to his Tulane friends or his uptown parents.
"Basically, another asshole" she murmured, letting the photograph fall to the floor and listening to the glass crack.
"Let's roll, she said, hauling the duffel over her shoulder, wincing as she stepped on the broken glass on the way out of her home.