AN: Happy Saint Patrick's day, people. I will be getting drunk and eating Shepherd's Pie tonight...after I take my midterm.
Thank you for the reviews, everyone. You guys rock.
And a thank you to Greg for beta-ing. He's rocks too.
XXXIX.
Rick listened at the door for the enemy as Roman and Douglas removed the barricade, Ben going over the route they'd be taking once they left the freezer.
"How's your leg?" Roman quietly questioned Jimmy, receiving a puzzled look from Ben.
"It's fine," Jimmy answered stiffly, darting a small, reassuring smile Ben's direction.
"There are three Skitters inside of the restaurant that we'll need to take care of first," Rick announced, "But most of our route is clear to that building. Skitters have spread themselves out through the area."
"Almost like they've forgotten about us," Roman remarked hopefully.
"Or they're looking for us," Jimmy returned, tone sharp, a reminder that they weren't out of danger yet and to stay alert.
"You've noticed the signal is getting stronger," Rick whispered to Ben, and Ben darted a warning look at him as Jimmy glanced to them in confusion.
"What signal…?"
"It's nothing," Ben hastily excused, "I'll tell you about it later."
Jimmy furrowed his brow, 'later' was becoming his least favorite word for Ben to say, but he let it drop for the time being. There were far more pressing concerns at that moment, like the scores of Skitters waiting outside that freezer door to rip the seven teenagers apart, or the fact he could not for the life of him remember how to convert volumes to liters to ounces and something told him those might be important things to know when mixing ingredients for explosives.
"Now is the best time to move," Ben said, positioning himself by the door with knife pulled, "You five wait here while Rick and I take care of the Skitters inside. We'll let you know when to follow."
Jimmy squirmed, gave a short nod. Roman rolled his eyes, but the four teenagers remained stoically silent. Rick cracked the freezer door open, Ben slipped out first and he hastily followed. They were gone a few minutes, and there wasn't much noise. Jimmy gripped his rifle to himself and listened at the door, while the other four hovered at his back, then Ben returned, peeked inside, and gestured them out.
Outside, Ben took the lead and Rick trailed at their rear. They paused every so often and took cover when they needed to, but tried to keep moving as much as possible. Somewhere in the distance, a Mech's cry could be heard on wind, and thick black smoke rose like a phantom silhouette against the horizon, grim reaper standing guard over a distant battlefield. Jimmy found Ben's eyes once, passing concern and reassurance to one another, and they moved into the next alleyway.
It was along the way that Jimmy first noticed the grates. He faltered in their trot to another alley, eyeing a manhole cover in the middle of the street, then shielding his eyes from the rising sun, trailed his gaze down the block and up to where the alien mass could be seen glinting off the sky.
Ben doubled back, grabbing hold of Jimmy's shoulders and dragging him into the alley just as a Mech crunched onto the scene. The seven ducked around the side of a few large green dumpsters that reeked of decomposing organic materials, urine, waste byproduct, and who-the-fuck knew what else. As they pressed against the dumpster and prayed the Mech walk by without noticing them, Jimmy took hold of Ben's hand and traced into Ben's palm question of how much farther to the office building. Ben responded, signing with his hand, two more alleyways.
The Mech moved on and Ben led them onward, through another alley. They encountered a Skitter, but together Ben and Rick took it down easy, and then they raced across the backend of a building, flipped round a corner into another alley that ran sidelong their target. They tried the first door they came across but it was locked, so they tried the next door. It swung open easy and they all hastened inside.
There was no light inside of the building. Gia fumbled in her knapsack for a flashlight, and Ben removed a tiny Maglite from his pocket. The first thing Gia shined her light on was the half-decomposed face of an elderly woman, yellowing skeleton evident through liquidized skin slipping and melting away, a feast of red bodied maggots and flies wriggling inside of and buzzing over the remains.
Ben and Jimmy scrambled to clamp Gia's mouth shut before she could scream, a small, high-pitched squeak escaping her throat. Roman had to turn away, covering his own mouth and Douglas made a face, but his concerned attentions were instantly on Gia. She swallowed back her fear, taking Douglas's offered hand, and they all shimmied around the slushy remains.
"Looks like this was an apartment complex or something," Jimmy noted quietly, falling in the back of the line with Rick, as Ben led the way through the small corridor.
"Hotel maybe," Douglas responded, tapping the keypad lock on one of the doors they passed.
"Doesn't matter what it was," Gia murmured, tightening her grip on Douglas's hand, and squeezing her eyes shut as they passed by an open room, a dead couple half-charred in the doorway, "It isn't anything anymore."
They all fell silent at that, lost in their own musings and attempting to be alert to any sounds or movement. They climbed the first flight of stairs, and then Ben signaled they stop, Jimmy and Rick joined him at the front of the line.
"There are Skitters higher up," Ben told them in a low voice, Jimmy frowned and Rick didn't look surprised, he'd probably already known, the other four were listening intently, "It doesn't seem like they've noticed us yet but we need to back out now before they do."
Carefully, silently, the group doubled back down the stairs. On the first floor again, Roman growled frustration.
"What are we supposed to do now? Can't we just go up there and wipe the floor with those spiders?" he hissed.
"There are too many for Rick and me to take by hand," Ben answered harshly, "And if we open fire, we'll just attract more."
"Shit," Jimmy muttered, "This is hopeless."
"There are other buildings," Rick pointed out.
"And we just keep wandering around until we find one not infested with Skitters?" Roman challenged, "There aren't that many Skitters upstairs, and we can help. You razorbacks aren't the only ones with abnormal strength or reflexes…we're more than capable…"
"I don't know, Rome," Gia mumbled, "Skitters move a lot faster than…"
"Are you scared now, sis?" Roman grit out, reeling on her, "You used to talk about what you would do if you had the chance on the battlefield and now here's your chance and you're backing down?"
"Lay off, Rome," Douglas growled warning, stepping beside Gia to stare down the other boy, "Bullshitting at camp was just that, bullshitting. We're in over our heads right now and you know it."
"Maybe you two are but Kelsey and I are doing fine," Roman returned sharply, darting a look to the aforementioned girl, but her eyes were fixed on Jimmy.
"What were you looking at earlier?" she wondered.
"What are you talking about earlier? I wasn't looking at anything," Jimmy replied, shifting uncomfortably as the group's focus turned on him.
"Wait, no, she's right…back in the street, you stopped…something caught your attention," Ben recalled, straightening and taking a step closer to Jimmy, "What were you looking at?"
"Nothing…" Jimmy shrugged, "The sewers is all…I just was thinking…that it probably ran through the whole city…probably all the way back to the community center…but it was just that...no big deal."
"The sewers, of course," Ben exclaimed, grinning, "Jimmy, that's brilliant. Why didn't you say anything?"
"The sewers? What about it?" Roman wondered, and the other four looked just as confused.
"We could use the sewers to hide out in, to get to the stores, maybe even get to that structure, and get back to the community center," Ben rambled excitedly.
"Ben…I don't know if…" Jimmy stammered.
"That's insane," Douglas complained, "Sewer systems are incredibly complex, and it's dangerous down there, we wouldn't know how to get around."
"Jimmy would," Ben stated firmly and Jimmy locked eyes with him, dangerous threat and anxious fear playing beneath their clear blue surface, "He spent two months surviving on his own using the sewer system in Dorchester."
"How did you…?" Jimmy started, features screwing into some unreadable emotion.
"Weaver told me," Ben answered apologetically, "I didn't ask…he just did, while we were waiting for news from the warehouse…"
"It doesn't matter," Jimmy murmured, dropping his eyes and shaking his head distractedly, "Doug is right. Sewer system is complicated. I knew Dorchester, I don't know this area. I thought it might be a good last resort option, at best."
"There is a Mech standing ten feet outside of that wall over there, we literally have Skitters on top of us, we have nowhere else to go, the 2nd Mass is under attack as we speak, you don't get anymore last resort than this," Ben argued, emphasizing his points with furious hand gestures.
Jimmy frowned at the ground, gripping his rifle closer to his body, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. When he'd joined the 2nd Mass he'd sworn to himself he wouldn't look back, he wouldn't take that route again.
"Going in the sewers sounds like a bad idea to me," Roman spoke up, "If the Skitters follow us down, we're trapped…"
"Skitters don't go in the sewers," Jimmy said quietly, "I don't know why. They just don't like it." He rolled his eyes and relented, "Okay. Fine. You're right. We have no other choice. Let's do it. Let's take the sewers."
They had to squat in the alley behind the dumpster for several minutes as a Mech thundered by with roughly ten Skitters scurrying along in its wake. Then Ben, Rick, and Roman pried the manhole off the ground. Jimmy scowled into the darkness below, and glanced warily at the super powered teens standing semi-circle around him.
"If your sense of smell is anything like your hearing, you might want to cover that up," Jimmy recommended.
"Actually, we don't smell very well," Rick responded.
Jimmy perked a brow at Ben, a silent challenge: 'if they really ever wanted to compare lists of things they never told one another', and Ben shrugged reply. Jimmy stepped forward, sitting on the edge of the open manhole and expertly swinging himself onto the ladder downward. He took a deep breath before descending.
"Never thought I'd ever have to do this again…" he grumbled, leading the way down into the underground, for once being able to do something with more grace than the six clambering after him. He stepped onto the pathway against the nearest wall, and shuffled uneasily along the tiny cement ledge meant for the use of maintenance workers.
There was a wide canal in the center of the corridor, spanning nearly the girth of the street above, where runoff water collected through drains along the streets and eventually let out into a random lake somewhere. Up along the ceiling, and across the walls, a series of pipes ran through the corridors, racing down the hall as far as the eye could see, and splitting off, turning round corners out of sight. There were towers, sort of like bridges that arched over the canal, with ladders up to them so that maintenance workers could access the pipes.
The old familiar scent, sulfur, mildew and rotting dead things, stung the nose and burned the eyes. Ben, last one to enter the hole, slid the cover back overhead, effectively shutting out all light from above. Jimmy took Gia's flashlight, shined it onto the compass Weaver lent him, attempting to get his bearings straight. The sewer system in Dorchester, all of Boston for that matter, ran on a grid, with manhole openings every fifty square feet. It was an efficient system, especially for traveling, and Jimmy assumed, hoped, most sewers were set up the same way.
For several tens of seconds, Jimmy stood frozen, glaring at the compass in his hands, the past rushing unbidden to the forefront of his mind. In an instant, he was back in Dorchester, and dark things he'd thought long burned from his memory now shuddered through him, screams of terror and blood on his hands. He didn't realize he was shaking, until Ben's hand clasped over his own, the one holding the light, stilling it.
"You okay?" Ben whispered, eyes studying Jimmy concernedly.
"Fine," Jimmy snapped, "Why?"
"Your heart is racing," Ben explained sheepishly. He leaned close, his breath brushing warm against Jimmy's ear, questioning in a voice barely audible, "I know you don't want to talk about it…but…right now…if it's going to be a problem, I need to know, did something bad happen in Dorchester?"
"A lot of bad things happened in Dorchester," Jimmy muttered, squirming away from Ben and striding forward, bitterly remarking, "A lot of bad things happened all over the entire world…that's what happens when the world ends: bad things. Everyone stay close."
Moving at first was slow going, as Jimmy attempted to reacquaint himself with the underground and the others adjusted to the lack of light, the smells, the echoing sounds, and the awkward movement along the small ledge – Doug nearly fell into the canal once, his foot dunking below its surface, and though there wasn't much in it, there was still enough to make everyone cringe. Ben and Rick hovered in the back, exchanging a few words, as the others trekked ahead.
"I remember hearing someone say you were from Dorchester once, didn't think much of it at the time," Roman commented lightly, traveling at Jimmy's heel, quietly musing, "I grew up near there…who knows? Maybe we were neighbors before the invasion."
Jimmy frowned, tersely returned, "I'm not from Dorchester. I just ended up there after the aliens."
Roman fell quiet a moment.
"Oh. I see. What part of Boston were you from then?" he wondered, running a hand across his jaw and noting, "Must have been a tough neighborhood, having to learn to fight the way you do."
"I wasn't much of a fighter before the invasion," Jimmy muttered off-hand, agitatedly instructing, "Quiet, I need to think."
Jimmy paused to dart a look over his shoulder at Ben, the other boy still engrossed in his conversation with Rick. They seemed to be arguing.
"Talking about the signal again," Roman provided.
Jimmy scowled, and turned his attention forward.
"He didn't tell you about it, did he?" Roman continued.
Jimmy faltered again, looking curiously up at Roman, considering the older boy a moment, as his heart rattled around in his ribcage.
"What do you know about it?" he demanded.
"Rome," Kelsey hissed, and Roman made a face, falling back a few paces to walk with the small girl.
Alone at the head of the group, Jimmy felt more than a little out of place being trailed by Kelsey beside Roman, Douglas beside Gia, and Ben with Rick in the back. Sort of like a fifth, or perhaps more appropriately, a seventh wheel. He was just an average, scrawny teenager leading a pack of super soldiers through the sewers. Maybe 'out of place' was an understatement.
Then Ben maneuvered his way to the front, brushing a hand across Jimmy's to gain his attention.
"The hardware store was three blocks west of where we came down into here," Ben remarked, then furrowed his brow and tentatively asked, "Do you know how to get us there?"
"Sure, now you ask me that," Jimmy snapped, growing increasingly irritated by the whole situation, and why the fuck did everyone insist on bothering their reluctant guide – making it clear none of them had any faith in him when they were the ones who forced him down that ladder in the first fucking place – while he was trying to guide them? "You don't think it might've been smarter to find out if I knew how to get us there before we climbed down into this shit hole?"
"I'm…sorry?" Ben murmured uncertainly, examining the other boy, "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I said I'm fine. Stop asking," Jimmy griped, "Look, okay, we just walked our first block. We'll go around the second corner up ahead, and hopefully find an exit down it, should put us on the street where the hardware store is at."
"How do you know how many blocks we've gone?" Ben wondered, tone more curious than interrogative, which put Jimmy a bit more at ease. At least he didn't sound doubtful anymore, that was sort of nice.
"I count my steps," Jimmy answered, "Gives me a rough estimate of distance traveled."
"You count your steps," Ben gaped, amazed, though a little taken aback.
"Also, some of the pipes are marked," Jimmy gestured overhead with a slight smirk, "I'm not sure what they mean, but I think it has to do with what buildings they feed into."
Ben gave a precursory glance at the pipes overhead, and then smiled at him, "You're amazing."
"Says the guy who knows what month it is just by looking at the stars," Jimmy returned lightly, then he faltered and questioned bleakly, "What did Rick have to say about the signal?"
Ben slowed, falling back a few steps, his head hung low and gaze fixated on the ground. It was an uneasy look and Jimmy didn't like it one bit.
"That's not important right now," Ben mumbled, "I was going to tell you about it…"
"The list of things you were going to tell me about just gets longer and longer," Jimmy muttered.
"Kind of like the list of things you're never going to tell me about?" Ben retorted, darting his eyes up, burning intensity, then challenged, "Tell you what; I'll give you more information about the signal when you tell me about Dorchester."
"Thought you wanted to help me forget my terrible past," Jimmy murmured response and Ben faltered, dropping his eyes again.
"I do. I'm sorry," he admitted, shaking his head, "I just…"
"We'll talk about it later," Jimmy bit out, he sighed, pausing momentarily and waited for the other boy to recover and fall in step beside him once again, surmising, "Worried about your brothers?"
"What do you think?" Ben returned, frowning and musing glibly, "I wonder who'll die to protect Matt this time."
Jimmy turned the corner and shined his flashlight down the new corridor. There was a ladder about forty feet down, and he vaguely wondered how close it would put them to the hardware store. He tried to recall where a manhole cover had been on that street, but couldn't picture it. At the ladder, Ben wrapped a hand around Jimmy's to halt him. The others came to a stop behind them, waiting impatiently for the next direction.
"I and Rick will go up, you five stay down here," Ben whispered to Jimmy, "We'll grab the supplies and come back."
Jimmy glanced warily at Rick approaching from behind the group, then he trailed his eyes up to Ben's face, examining every blood stain, laceration, bruise and rip in his shirt along the way. He knew there was no talking Ben out of round two with the Skitters, and that Ben could take the second beating, but Jimmy didn't think he could handle seeing any more damage to that already severely battered body.
"Actually, I need to go, and Doug should probably come too," Jimmy returned carefully, clarifying, "We'll know what to grab, and how much, you and Rick won't. It'll be faster than us trying to explain to you."
"We can't trust leaving the other three here alone," Rick said, not bothering to lower his voice, and ignoring the dark looks the four teenagers darted him. He wasn't keen on discretion or tact, and Jimmy couldn't help wondering if that was because of what the Skitters did to him or if he'd always been so cold and mechanical. Ben had worn the harness for nearly as long as Rick, at least, that's how it seemed, yet Ben's personality remained, for all intents and purposes, human. Anyone at camp inclined to speak to Ben would readily admit he was by far more personable than Jimmy.
Ben glared at the ground at Rick's admission, weighing the option most likely, and Jimmy darted looks at the disgruntled teens standing at their backs. Rick had a point, the four had followed Ben and Rick of their own volition and against Weaver's orders, they'd already proven themselves to be complete idiots, it couldn't be put past any one of them to head off on their own for whatever ridiculous reason.
"We wouldn't take off," Roman jeered, and then added half-jokingly, "Without Dougie, anyway."
"I'll stay behind," Ben decided, eyes still fixed on the ground.
Jimmy glanced nervously between Ben and Roman; the two didn't exactly have a good enough track record for getting along that would make leaving them alone together seem at all appealing. Not to mention, it felt uncharacteristically charitable of Ben to volunteer staying behind, usually he was eager and outright emphatic that he be the one to run headlong into danger, especially if Jimmy was already headed there. The image of a caged tiger came to mind, and Ben already being in an enclosed area like the sewers made it all the more vivid.
"You sure?" Jimmy pressed.
"No, but Rick can get you to the store faster," Ben said, "And I took more of a beating than him during that first ambush," he regarded the other teenagers darkly and added tartly, "And it'll give us all a chance to chat."
"Ben, that's not a good idea," Jimmy muttered, darting another glance to Roman and then back up at Ben.
"That's the theme of the day, not good ideas, in case you haven't noticed," Ben returned cheekily, then raised his eyes to Jimmy's, he gingerly placed his fingertips on Jimmy's wrist, touched their foreheads together briefly, expression light but edged with a hint of severity, "Be careful."
"Play nice," Jimmy returned quietly, slightly flustered as he slowly pulled away and ascended the ladder after Rick and Douglas.
The manhole cover scraped noisily across the ground and light cascaded into the sewer corridor. Ben locked eyes with Kelsey and a humorless smirk flitted across his lip.
"Actually, now that you mention it…" Ben said beneath his breath, as the light cut away once more and the manhole clattered into place, "I'm done playing."
.
.
.
AN: So, if you guys are wondering, this is moving more towards the events of Battle at Fitchburg, or whatever it was called, per WhisperMaw's request, which just so happened to fit nicely into the things I'd already had planned. I never read the web-comic, for personal reasons, which is fortuitous because I didn't want to (and I couldn't) follow the material exactly, I'm just getting some of the major events in there as described to me by various readers.
Right. Let me know what you guys think please!
Reviewers: SassySavanna190, ah...dear, it's not your suffering that amuses me, but your excitement and anxiousness and overwhelm of dramatic emotion that amuses me, and in that way, it's the best "payment" I think I can ever receive on my writing. I'm glad you liked the chapter. Yes, mean people suck, but they probably don't deserve to die for it. And the Skitters are acting a bit...off...but all explanations will come in due time. Yup, it's always good when the boys are together. WhisperMaw, lol, I'm glad you liked that line. Jimmy's got some zingers, I guess, and he's multifaceted. Personally, my favorite is Badass!Jimmy, which we'll get to see more of soon I hope. Good to hear Doug piqued your interest, why ever would you think any character in my story is just a one-dimensional furnishing? Also, what makes you think Ryan and Roman are getting together? I promise Ryan will be in the story...eventually...I think he'll enter rather unexpectedly. Maybe not as substantial as past ones, but it still always makes my day. Typhoonboom08, three for three...hm...I believe that's a turkey in bowling! I don't know, I don't actually know bowling terms but it certainly makes me feel charmed! Glad to hear that the chapter was cool, especially because I haven't seen that word in awhile and it's always nice to shake things up I think, and it's especially high praise that you felt everything was good as is! Maybe we'll go four in row? We'll see then. Caswiee, lol! Yup, um...thank you for the compliments. I guess it is only "Kinda" filling the gap between season 1&2, more like "flooding" the gap between season 1&2. fighter, I'm glad you thought so! I worry it's paced too slow, to be honest, but oh well, that's my MO, really. Thanks for stopping in again! Cookie97, glad to hear from you! Yup, Ben and Rick do make a super awesome team, and I really like writing their action-y parts. That's a lie, what am I saying, I hate writing action. I'm glad to hear Jimmy's final line made you happy, though, it seemed very Jimmy, I thought.
Right. I have a test to take (essay to write...blech, avoid college children...no wait, what am I saying? Go to college, get a degree! Or you know, whatever suits you, you don't have to college if its not for you...oi vey...I quit). See you guys Sunday!