Rachel sighed and used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she scanned out over the rest of the village. From the porch of the rundown cabin she watched as people moved about and swarmed over other cabins and the lodge like ants, still hard at work to make Afognak function as more than a past hunting destination.
Like most of the world, without human maintenance nature had risen up to take back what had originally belonged to it, and Afognak now existed as a run-down and half-eaten-by-the-elements former hunting destination turned settlement.
The rasp of saws on wood and crack of hammers filled the air, punctuated by the occasional shout. No injuries yet but orders had to be yelled to be heard over the din of work.
After a week they were much better off than they had been. The lodge was the most functional building on the island and that meant they had a roof over their heads while they scrambled to pick up the pieces and create something of a civilization. They had decided to leave Luz and Kevin in charge of the lodge and the gaggle of orphans who would stay there with them, leaving the rest of them to remodel and fix the cabins if they didn't want to live like the Brady Bunch.
She turned and smiled fondly at the old cabin she'd staked her claim on the first day. The wood was rough, biting at her hands when she ran her palm along the wall, but there was an odd sort of charm to the place. It didn't remind her of anything she'd had Before and for once she appreciated that.
New beginnings.
"Hey, your majesty!"
With a roll of her eyes she whipped around, aiming a glare at Chevy where he stood on the other side of the broken porch railing. Well out of reach of her hands, of course. Smart man. "How many times have I asked you to stop calling me that?"
He shrugged his beefy shoulders and grinned up at her. "Don't look at me Madam Mayor, I didn't start it. You gotta cut that new nickname off at the source."
She growled and put her hands on her hips. "I tried that. Luz laughed in my face."
"Sucks to be Mayor."
"I could still shoot you, you know."
He raised his hands off his rifle like a hostage. "Oh no! Mercy, my Queen! Mercy!"
Nothing to throw at him either. She huffed and shook her head. "You're all children."
"Careful," he said, pointing a finger at her. "You'll add mother to the list. Madam Mayor, Evil Queen Mother? Yeah, that could work."
"Did you need something or did you come over here just to annoy me?"
"We're about ready for the ceremony. Where's Q?"
She smiled again, unable to help herself at the thought of not just the ceremony, which felt delightfully pedestrian and human, but of Quinn. "She's in the shed. I'll get her."
"Tell her to hurry her fine ass up. We want to do this thing so we can go back to work."
Possessiveness reared its head, heat racing up her neck and down to settle in her stomach. She smothered it quickly, now well practiced at defeating her jealous flare ups. While she continued to think of Quinn's fine everything as hers the reality was it wasn't that way. Still. And Quinn was still Quinn. Hollywood glamorous even when sweaty, covered in dirt, and wearing men's clothing. People flirted with Quinn constantly; she couldn't blame them for it. But that didn't stop her from thinking murderous thoughts.
Clearing her throat and hardening her "evil eye" expression, Chevy got the hint. Or, at least, she thought he did. He bowed - actually bowed - in a completely goofy way and doffed an imaginary hat. "My lady."
"I'll kill you, Chevy."
She watched him saunter off, yelling and waving at those still working to follow him down to the beach.
"Going to have to start calling him Charming," she muttered and headed for the front door. Inside the cabin she paused, drinking in the now familiar sight of the threadbare couch, pot bellied stove, and worn recliner. Contentment swelled. It wasn't perfect by any stretch of her imagination but considering where she'd lived and struggled since Z-Day… A smile snuck back across her lips. She padded through the cabin towards the back door, trailing her fingers over whatever she could reach as she passed by the kitchen and into the short hall. The cabin had two bedrooms; she stepped past the one they didn't use and peeked her head into the other.
Their room, where the magic didn't happen.
It looked like it might be happening, though. The bed was a disaster. They'd hardly known what to do with themselves the first night with a queen size bed that was more than big enough for the two of them, an actual comforter that smelled of dust and disuse, and pillows so flat they had to fold them in half to get any use out of them.
But it was theirs. Their bed.
She chewed on her bottom lip and shut the door to the room. It would make it colder when they went to bed later, but looking at the crumpled blankets and tangled sheets would only cause her brain to leap ahead when it shouldn't.
They hadn't talked about it. She sometimes wondered if she should bring it up. Sharing space had started in the desert and progressed on the Skylark, yet they hadn't said anything. Then on Afognak, again, neither of them mentioned it. Quinn had simply walked into the cabin behind her and set her stuff on the couch.
It didn't feel like survival any longer. Like how they had needed to share the Bronco because they were concerned about time and how little they could have. It wasn't simply a matter of comfort in the dark unknown as it had been on the Skylark, where they'd needed to be near because it everything was new and still so dangerous.
True, the island was new and it had its own set of challenges and worries. But that driving need to keep an eye on each other? Rachel didn't feel it like that anymore. She doubted Quinn did either. It was different now.
They weren't apocalyptically assigned roommates. They lived together, sharing a fixer-upper home and a bed. Because they wanted to; that's what it really came down to.
Because they wanted to and they could.
Rachel sucked in a harsh breath and leaned against the hallway wall. Out the four-panel back door window she could see Quinn's shed. Her claimed space. The one space Rachel has never even tried to invade because she wanted Quinn to have all the space she needed when she needed it.
They were so close now; sometimes it was hard to breathe in the thickness between them. An escape was necessary, for both of them. Rachel had the porch to run to when she needed to be alone with her thoughts, dark or otherwise. Sometimes she just needed to be able to breathe, to take a moment and resettle - re-center - before she did something impulsive that could ruin everything. It got hard to focus at times, lost in what felt too much like a fantasy. The porch offered a view of their town, still in shambles, and of the forest beyond that felt wild and dangerous and untamed. She could sit out there wrapped in a blanket with a mug of pine needle tea and drop herself back into reality. As nice as everything was - as much as she could pretend that things were different – the real world was still challenging and deadly. She needed to focus on that.
Soon, she promised herself and straightened back up. Soon she would get her answers and ask her questions. Just not right then. Not right now. They had other things to fix first. Only once the dust had truly settled could they even attempt to start on fixing themselves or the mess that bound them together.
Quinn wiped some sweat off her forehead and leaned in closer to her work. She'd hoped to have it finished earlier, but learning a new trade by trial and error took time.
She had it down now. Not perfectly by any means or well enough that she'd have been able to sell for good profit Before, but for their purposes it would work.
Rachel would love it.
She heard the backdoor of the cabin snap closed and immediately felt the prick of anxiety sweeping along her nerves. She forced her hand to slowly unclench from the stock of her new shotgun, remembering that she'd left the shed door open a crack to let the cold air in and keep her from passing out from heat exhaustion.
There were no zombies on Afognak for her to worry about. No matter how often she reminded herself of that she couldn't ever turn off her senses. She'd spent years training herself to be on the alert for the walking dead and now she couldn't undo it. Not all that simply, anyway. On the Skylark she'd felt more isolated from that kind of danger; back on land and she returned to fighting form, ready to attack or run at the slightest provocation.
The only comfort she could find was that she wasn't the only one having troubles adjusting. All of the others seemed to be suffering the same ill effects of their time on the mainland.
Rachel had almost bashed her head in with a baseball bat the second day on land. Fortunately Quinn's reflexes were quick enough that she could duck out of the way. Sneaking up on anyone, even accidentally, who had survived the harsh reality of Z-Day was almost as dangerous as the damn zombies.
It was also strangely reassuring that when she jerked awake in the middle of the night with a pistol in hand, Rachel was right beside her doing the same thing.
They were all fucked up. That made them all normal, right? The ones who weren't twitchy and irritable - they were the weird ones. They were the people to watch out for because they hadn't snapped yet. Ticking time bombs waiting to go off right in their midst.
Nobody named it, but she had an inkling they'd all self-diagnosed long before disembarking from the Skylark. Post traumatic stress disorder. They were all soldiers in a war they hadn't signed up for or been trained to act in. An island full of traumatized people without a professional around to treat them. She often wondered who would snap next. Andrew had been the first she'd seen lose his grip and it terrified her to think she could be next, or maybe one of her friends. The idea of having to do the same to them as they had to Andrew…
"Hey, Hollywood," Rachel called and rapped her knuckles twice on the outside of the shed.
Quinn jerked, eyes snapping back to the present in time to watch the heated metal in her hands touch her left wrist.
"Mother shitfuck!" she hissed and nearly threw the metal rod across the room.
They'd tried to work out a way for Rachel to approach the shed without scaring Quinn out of her skin; so far nothing really worked, but the double warning at least gave her enough time to calm back down before she did something awful like blast a warning shot through the wall.
"Broadway," she replied, once her heart rate had slowed back down. Her wrist stung and a bright pink burn stood out against her pale skin. Rachel would kill her if she saw it. "It's almost done."
"Permission to enter?"
Quinn looked around the small filthy space, then back to her wrist, and winced. "Uh, how about I come out there?"
She saw a sliver of Rachel's face in the crack of the door. A brown eye narrowed at her. "Please tell me you didn't injure yourself."
"No, I'm good. It's just messy in here." She shook her head, wrapping a rag around her wrist and picking up the sign she'd been working tirelessly on with a sigh. She'd gotten the name burned in straight this time, at least. It was still kind of shallow, but readable, and she could work on it some more even after they'd put it up.
Rachel smiled as Quinn stepped outside, awkwardly clasping the sign to her chest so Rachel couldn't read it. Most surprises after Z-Day had been bad; she wanted to bring back fun surprises. "See, I'm whole and unharmed."
"For now," Rachel said and quirked an eyebrow. She pursed her lips and pulled at the top of the sign.
"No peeking," Quinn teased, gently pulling it back and shaking her head. "I take it everybody's ready?"
"I'd like to say it's because they're excited about this idea you cooked up, but I think they just want to see what you've been working on and then go back to work."
"I suppose I can't be mad at them for wanting to make their homes livable." Quinn smiled and gestured at the shed door with her head. "Can you close that for me?"
"I could carry the sign…"
"Nice try." She side stepped Rachel and started towards the cabin. They could walk around, seeing as there wasn't any sort of fence, but she liked being in the cabin. It might be old but it was new to her and she still felt a thrill when she was inside it. Like she had a home and it was hers and being in it brought that feeling back all over again. "Are we late?"
"Seeing as you're bringing the main event, I'd say the rest of them are early."
Rachel bounded ahead of her and opened the door, growling as Quinn hunched over in a sort of bow and grinned. That new nickname was kind of fun. "Why thank you, Your Highness."
"Don't you start."
She stepped inside the cabin and took a nice, deep lungful of stale cabin air. Home. "You ready to give your speech?"
"I still don't see why I have to do it. It was your idea." Rachel shot her a look and Quinn knew it was meant to be stern. The small, pleased smile that was fighting her expression, however, ruined it.
Quinn bumped her lightly with her elbow. "Come on, Broadway. We both know you're the one that gives speeches."
"I do not!"
The laugh Quinn had been barely keeping hold of burst out. Rachel groaned and pushed her.
"Stop that."
"You gave a speech when we got here, remember? God, I wish I had a phone so I could have recorded it. You know that's the moment you earned your new nickname, right?" Quinn grinned, loving the way Rachel wrinkled her nose as if in distaste. She knew better.
"I was rallying the troops."
"You were being a leader. It's too late to not want that hat now. You're the leader, Madam Mayor."
"Keep it up and see where it gets you," Rachel threatened unconvincingly.
"I would be afraid of sleeping on the couch," Quinn said with a glance at the mentioned furniture. "But we both know you'd be out here in an hour to drag me back to bed because you're cold."
"Maybe I should sleep on the couch then." Rachel replied, glaring up at her. "The fireplace would keep me toasty and leave you in time out."
Quinn snorted. "Great idea. You can burn down the cabin; that'll teach me not to tease you."
"I know how to work the fireplace!"
But it wasn't the same. Quinn sobered and held her tongue, watching Rachel for several moments and waiting for her to "read her mind". A known body in bed sharing warmth in the cold of night with a hand to reach for when the memories struck could never be replicated by the heat of the fireplace.
Rachel stared at her and Quinn saw the moment when Rachel got it. Brown eyes flicked away, focusing on the wall, while her mouth turned down at the corners. "Right."
Quinn nodded. "Yup."
There was something else there. Something more Rachel wanted to say, or ask. Quinn could see it in the way she flexed her jaw. She tensed, waiting for it.
For that question she knew shouted in Rachel's mind.
The question.
Quinn knew, she just didn't know how it would be worded. Rachel could always surprise with that, still. She'd always spoken her mind, generally without filter, but the wording could still knock Quinn off her feet on occasion. Direct and to the point or coy and dodgy. She didn't know which it would be this time around.
She shifted, rocking from her toes to her heels and back. "We should probably get moving. If we don't show up soon Chevy's going to come looking for us."
"He was already here," Rachel said after clearing her throat. "I'm thinking about calling him Charming."
A grin sneaked across her face and Quinn let it go. "Oh really? I don't know that he'll get the reference."
"He's calling me Mayor and Your Majesty." Rachel rolled her eyes. "And Luz started it. I'm pretty sure they all know what they're referencing."
"Hm, well now we're going to have to sit around and figure out who everyone else could be in this game."
"I'm nothing like her," Rachel mumbled, wincing a little. "Other than being a brunette."
"A feisty brunette." Quinn smiled more fully and tilted her head thoughtfully. "I don't know, I think it's a compliment."
"I'm not evil."
She said it in a way that Quinn could almost hear the question mark at the end. Then she followed it up with an actual question and Quinn's chest tightened.
"Am I?"
"No," Quinn said quickly and with a firm shake of her head. Rachel was looking at her now with a guarded expression, but the hope in her eyes hurt. "No, Rachel. How could you possibly think you're evil? And you know what, I don't think the comparison has anything to do with that. You are so good that – that I can't actually stand to hear you question it, okay? You've saved a lot of us. Hell, I'll say it. You saved all of us."
"Not all," Rachel reminded darkly. "Not all."
Damn you, Andrew, Quinn thought and tightened her grip on the sign. She should have killed him when she had the chance and taken that from Rachel, just like she had with Ethan. She could have handled it, could have taken the extra weight off of Rachel's overburdened shoulders.
Rachel remained silent as Quinn inched over towards her, lowering her head enough to peer directly at Rachel. "You are good. You're strong and caring and so good. Even dealing with all of this shit, you're still good."
And you make me better.
"We should go, they'll all be waiting," Rachel said, stepping away.
Quinn's chest ached as she watched her go. Slow steps gained strength and speed and a natural swagger took hold as Rachel pushed aside her troubles. Quinn used to find the swagger mesmerizing, the amount of charisma and power displayed from such a small body, but now it just hurt to see.
Afterall, she knew a mask when she saw one.
The salty breeze tussled her hair, throwing it right across her face. Quinn sighed and tried to move it away from her mouth and out of her eyes, knowing just as soon as she could see again the wind would pick it up and toss it back.
She huffed, exasperated, and turned to Rachel who had somehow tamed her own long locks. Rachel had a hand over her mouth, but Quinn could see that she was smiling just by the way the corner of her eyes crinkled with mirth.
"It's not funny."
Rachel shook her head. "No, of course not. I was thinking that in your movies – when the wind tossed your hair – it always looked so pretty. Reality isn't quite as glamorous, is it?"
"I feel like Cousin It," Quinn mumbled, squinting to try and see through wind-whipped blonde hair. She tried not to jolt in surprise as calloused hands moved through her hair, working from her forehead back.
Rachel shook her head, still smiling, and secured Quinn's hair with a hair tie. "Do not lose that. I don't have very many."
"How would I lose it?"
"Don't know, but it's you."
At least her hair was out of her face. Quinn smiled her thanks and then looked out over the crowd before them. They'd all gathered on the beach, near the Skylark and everyone's attention was on them. Quinn tried to stifle an unfamiliar rush of nervousness, gripping the sides of her sign a bit tighter and swallowing hard. "So, let's get this done, yeah?"
Rachel shrugged one shoulder and then cleared her throat. "Today isn't the day where all our dreams come true," she called loudly, not quite bellowing but speaking with that sure tone that let others know it was time to pay attention. "Our new home isn't finished and it will never be what we had Before."
She paused and smiled again at Quinn. "What it is though, is ours. This place will be home; it will be safe and warm. This is where we start over. Where we build newness. Where we re-build ourselves and do more than survive."
Quinn took a deep breath and then turned around the sign in her arms, showing off the name she'd painstakingly burned.
Humanity.
She heard Rachel choke, just for a second, then clear her throat again. When Quinn looked she saw a wet sheen to Rachel's eyes.
"Today is the day we christen this place as our home. This sign will hopefully someday be the first thing several others see as they step onto land. It will represent who we are, what we are, and where we are. It will welcome all the weary and damaged with open arms."
"Welcome to Humanity," Quinn said, beaming with pride as she jammed the stake that held the sign into the ground. It didn't quite sit straight, but she thought that just added some more charm to the whole thing. "Current population: 23."
She flicked her finger against the small wooden tags that had the numbers on them.
Rachel's hand found hers and curled around her palm. "Hopefully someday that number will increase as we find more survivors. For now, let's get back to work. Together we'll rebuild Humanity!"
A cheer went up and several people raised fists in the air.
Quinn smiled down at Rachel and squeezed her hand. "Told you so, speech giver."
Brown eyes rolled. "Oh yeah, I'm going to take all the blame for the cheers, sign maker."
Chevy, perhaps sensing a lull in enthusiasm, jumped up on a nearby stump and pointed towards the cabins. "Come on men! Charge!"
The entire crowd followed after him, cheering and grinning as if they were suddenly re-energized and ready to break their backs doing hard labor.
Rachel shook her head and pulled Quinn along behind her at the back of the pack. She moved at more sedate a pace and Quinn was more than happy to follow along.
"So, your highness, what job would you like me to do now?" she asked, thrilled with Rachel's groan. The teasing felt good. Normal.
Rachel shot her a look out of the corner of her eye."You don't knock that off you're going to end up being Sheriff of Humanity."
"Do I get a badge?"
Rachel groaned again, letting go of Quinn's hand to stomp away.
Quinn grinned to herself and put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the little town of Humanity and took in a deep sea flavored breath. "Sheriff of Humanity. I could do worse."
TBC...