Ah, you're gonna hate me by the end...
Some parts of the hospital were in good shape – not quite pristine condition but close enough, with only a few items stolen by survivors who had clearly felt guilty about raiding a hospital of all places and so had done their very best to leave the place relatively untouched. Ironically enough, these were the areas which held a greater sense of threat, as if clean tiles and unbroken windows were tempting disaster.
In a way, Scott preferred the derelict wings, where what you saw was what you got without any uncanny reminders of the past. Also, wards in good condition tended to be the ones which held dead bodies. Not infected, but patients. They laid in their beds as though they were merely sleeping and could have been mistaken as such if it weren't for the smell or the decomposition – sunken eyes and waxy skin, swollen and bulging with rot.
One ward was filled with bodies. Every bed held a corpse. Empty IV lines were still attached to paper-thin skin. The dividing curtains between beds flapped gently in the breeze from an open window. It was icily cold today. A fine drizzle of rain cloaked the city in low cloud so that the rest of world did not seem to exist beyond the outer wall of the parking lot.
A sudden explosion of dark wings startled them both. Scott lurched forwards to grab Gordon's arm, preparing to yank his brother back to a safe distance, while Gordon raised the gun instinctively. They both froze. Scott relinquished his tight grip before he could leave bruises.
"It's just crows," Gordon breathed, lowering the gun. He shivered, stepping away from the beds to stand at Scott's side. "Talk about a jump-scare."
The crows perched on the windowsill, studying them with beady eyes. Filthy water trickled off their feathers to splash over the floor, pooling red. Scott inched closer on light feet, trying to glimpse the full scene and immediately regretting it. The tiles were speckled with blood. A few mangled feathers were stuck to the bed sheets. The bed's occupant was unrecognisable as human. Crows had made a feast of the body. Eyes had been plucked from the skull and organs spilled over open ribs, pecked to pieces, bones glistening in the damp light. The floor was slippery with flesh. An old IV line swung back-and-forth as another crow balanced precariously on the bag.
Gordon gagged. "Oh, shit."
The crows plucked up their courage, no longer intimidated by Scott's proximity, and alighted on the bed again. One squawked at him. There came an awful squelch as beaks plunged back into exposed intestines. A lone feather twirled in the breeze. Blood dripped steadily off the edge of the mattress.
"Prometheus," Gordon whispered in a strangled voice. "But with crows, not vultures."
Scott forced himself to step back from the sight. Horrific as it was, some sick part of him couldn't look away. Maybe it was the reminder of just how brutal the world could be. This was the cycle of life. He led the way out into an empty corridor where dust had blown through the windows to create strange dunes which they had to step over.
There was a sense of isolation about this place which Scott had yet to discover anywhere else. He didn't know exactly why. It was hardly the most remote setting he'd come across so far in the apocalypse. The continual silence didn't help matters – Gordon and quiet didn't match and it put Scott on edge. Maybe it was all the deaths which had occurred within these walls, he considered, side-stepping the small body of a dead rat. Suffering tended to imprint on a place.
One floor had been completely excavated. Presumably survivors had looted the contents early on. With the exception of a few curtains and single plastic chair, it was empty. Previous footsteps had tracked blood into the floorboards. The only other colours were splashes of graffiti over support pillars.
Gordon trailed a hand over vivid blue and yellow letters. All sound was muted. The only noise was the mournful cries of the wind. His boots sunk into the dust, which was everywhere. There was an epidemic of the stuff. It covered the floor, walls, ceiling, hung in the air. It was so thick that Scott could sweep out a hand and have a palmful of it.
Breathing was a challenge when the dust was this thick. Scott tried not to cough because pain meds were great but jarring his bites to such an extent was a risk he wasn't willing to take. He took a small sip of water and grimaced at the taste. Dust coated the inside of his mouth.
Gordon crouched in a dune. He scooped up a fistful and let it trickle between his fingers. "Maybe it's partly ash."
"Maybe," Scott conceded, unable to find the capacity to care about whatever the hell the stuff was made up of, not when John's condition remained unknown. He paused by a pillar to observe weak sunbeams struggling through thick cloud to spill over the windowsill. Dust smothered the light before it could reach the floor. He inhaled sharply, trying to ignore the rough scratch of dust in his throat and lungs. The masks could do little to help when the air was so contaminated.
Gordon jogged to catch up with him, steps muted by the carpet of dust. "We've gotta be close now."
"I haven't heard Finch..." Scott cut himself off before he could finish the thought. "Did you hear something?"
Gordon twisted to glance over his shoulder. "Hear what?"
"I don't know exactly."
A crow pecked at one of the dunes. Rain splattered the circle of damp dust around a broken window. The wind wailed.
Scott forced himself to relax. "It was probably nothing. I'm just being paranoid."
"What else is new?" Gordon teased, shooting him a grin so that Scott knew he was only joking. He switched on a flashlight to pick a path through the windowless corridor ahead. The generator may have been back in action, but many of the bulbs had broken since Z-Day, leaving some sectors in complete darkness. "We're close now, I can tell."
Scott hid a smile. "Squid sense, huh?"
Gordon stepped into the darkness. "You know it."
The front lobby was empty. It had been a full twenty-four hours since they'd split up and Scott was about five seconds away from actually losing his mind. He upended the files on the desk, even checking the underside of the keyboard and back of the monitor in case there was a note left there.
"We're such idiots," Gordon was saying, stalking back-and-forth between the waiting-room chairs and the barricaded doors. "Why didn't we set a place to meet?"
Scott froze.
"We're idiots," he agreed, "But Virgil isn't. There's got to be a note somewhere." He ducked beneath the desk, raising his voice so that Gordon could still hear him. "Just not anywhere obvious in case the wrong person finds it."
"Bandits," Gordon translated darkly, finally slowing to a halt. There was reddish dust clinging to the heels of his boots, leaving strange bloody footprints across the lobby. "Hey, what if we're overthinking this?" He planted his hands on the desk. "How did we track each other on rescue if the comms broke?"
"John monitored the trackers in our suits from orbit. That's not much help right now."
"Technically," Gordon began, looking decidedly shifty, "technically we can trace any of our equipment, like a suit, from IR consoles too. It doesn't have to be from Five."
"Right, but we don't have a console…"
Gordon rocked onto his heels. "Uh, about that…" He set the same console Virgil had been using the previous day onto the desk and pushed it within Scott's view. "So. Let's start tracking."
"Why do you have Virgil's console? Doesn't he need it?" Scott snatched the console off the desk and stalked around to join him. "Isn't this literally one of the only pieces of tech we have which actually works? One of the only things we can use to help John?"
"Virgil knows I have it! Jeez, calm down. It's not like I stole it." Gordon dropped his gaze to the floor, avoiding all eye contact. "John's not the only one still at risk. I took it to keep an eye on you, particularly so I could check your temperature and hey, guess what - thank God I did because we really needed it last night. I didn't tell you because you get all weird when people try to take of you."
"I do not."
Gordon sent him a pointed look.
"Not intentionally," Scott amended.
Gordon held out a hand for the console. Scott passed it to him. The holograms seemed oddly out-of-place surrounded by barricaded doors and heaps of dust and bloody handprints over the desk. It took a moment to locate the tracking device in Alan's suit and even then the link was unstable without a connection to Five. The holographic map flickered in-and-out, dust clogging the tiny projector.
Gordon smacked it and the map brightened by a few fractions. "Good to know that Dad's old trick still works."
Scott shouldered past him. "We're wasting daylight. Let's go."
It didn't take too long to track the others down. They'd taken up residence in one of the private treatment rooms on the top floor – one of the only rooms without a broken window and boasting a lockable door too. The window overlooked the parking lot and the city beyond, offering the perfect vantage point from which to monitor infected activity. There was a horde milling between the burnt husks of cars and several were sheltering from the rain in a bus with battered paintwork and bullet-holes over the hood. They all looked hungry. A particularly gaunt infected was salivating over its own decomposing arm. The pouring rain appeared to confuse their senses. Many had their heads tipped back, sniffing, eyes wide and yellowed in the rushing water.
Finch greeted them, ploughing into Gordon's legs to jump up at him. Gordon just had chance to toss the console at Scott before Finch was scrambling into his arms, tail wagging furiously. Alan skidded to a halt and hauled Finch back onto all four paws by the bandana she was wearing as a makeshift collar before turning to launch himself at Scott.
"You took forever!"
Scott hugged him back just as fiercely. "Blame Gordon. He got us lost."
"Dude." Gordon shot him an affronted look, unable to keep up the pretence for long as Alan turned to him and pulled him into another one of those tight hugs which practically sang of desperate fear. He planted a hand on his brother's shoulder to keep Alan from bouncing, unable to keep still with all the anxious energy. "Jeez, Al, chill for a second. You're making me feel tired just watching you."
Alan rolled his eyes and threw an arm around Gordon's shoulders. "Next time don't vanish for twenty-five hours."
"Aw, you counted?" Gordon teased. "That's cute."
"Shut the fuck up." Alan elbowed him. "I will literally feed you to a zombie."
Scott observed the exchange, vaguely reassured by the sight because if Alan was joking around then clearly the situation was no longer as terrible as it had seemed yesterday. Only- He glimpsed Gordon's smile drop and his own heart sunk before Gordon had even spoken. Alan sensed the change of mood as if the temperature had plummeted and wriggled out from underneath Gordon's arm, backtracking until he hit the wall.
Gordon struggled to keep his voice level. "What's happened?"
"Nothing," Alan protested, sinking his hands into the pockets of a borrowed shirt. He shifted his weight between his feet, pale and uneasy. "Nothing's wrong."
"Bullshit," Gordon snapped. "You're overcompensating. I know because that's exactly what I do when I'm worried. Now, it might work if you're trying to convince Scott but it sure as hell won't work on me because I'm the one you learnt that lil trick from in the first place. So. Start talking. What happened? Is it John?"
"Gordon," Scott murmured. "Back off." Gordon opened his mouth to protest. "I'm serious. Back off."
Alan looked torn between taking a swing at him or bursting into tears. After a terse few seconds, he simply took a deep breath and leant heavily against the wall. Finch nuzzled the hem of his shirt until he put a hand on her head, tangling his fingers in the longer fur around her ears. Her tail swept the dust off his shoes. He closed his eyes against the faint sunlight and Scott could practically hear him mentally counting breathing patterns.
Gordon wiped the dust from his face with the back of his hand. There were still flecks of dried blood on his knuckles. It was impossible to tell whether his eyes were red rimmed from dust or with the threat of tears.
"I'm sorry." He stumbled over the words and tried again, stronger this time, more purposeful as if he intended the apology to cover more than just his snappy remarks in the past few minutes. "Really. I'm sorry. That was kinda shitty." He scuffed one shoe against the tiles. "But, uh… I'm also not wrong, am I? There is something going on."
Alan tightened his hand in Finch's fur subconsciously.
"Yeah," he confessed after a long beat of silence, sounding impossibly small. He forced himself to step away from the wall, deeper into the feeble sunrays. Light made it easier to see old tear tracks on his face. "But it's not John. Well, it is, but he's doing better, so, you know, yay, that's a win, right? We should celebrate that. Maybe find some more cookies. Have another campfire. On the roof, that could work. If it ever stops raining, I mean."
Gordon stared at him. "For the record, this is like the least convincing thing ever." He placed a hand on Alan's shoulder, gentle but Alan still flinched. Gordon looked as if he'd been slapped. "Alan." His voice wavered. "You're gonna have to tell us what's going on."
Scott half-wished Alan wouldn't say anything because nothing seemed real until it was actually out there. Once a fear was vocalised you couldn't deny it any longer. He wanted to sweep them both into hugs, but he couldn't get his feet to move, so all he could do was watch – watch as Gordon kept that firm hold on Alan's shoulders, watch Alan's expression crumple as he tried to keep his voice steady, watch Finch's concerned eyes grow impossibly wide.
"It's not John," Alan whispered. "It's me."
If skies grew too turbulent, you found solid ground to land on – unshakeable and sturdy. If seas were frothy with white waters and overbearing waves and you were at risk of losing your sense of direction, you dropped an anchor. If you were facing fear, you found safety in knowable moments – good memories, the presence of loved ones and so on.
Whatever. What did fancy words matter? The point was that there wasn't a point anymore – yet another tragic contradiction of life. Because at the end of the day, with all the best intentions in what was left of the world, there was a certain stage at which it was impossible to keep fighting. And right now, Scott was seriously questioning whether he'd hit that point. The only reason he wasn't completely falling apart was because Gordon had beaten him to it and consequently his protective instincts were managing to override the panic attack threatening to take him in its clutches.
They were currently holed up in the dusty remains of an en-suite bathroom adjoined to one of the private rooms along the top floor. The walls were covered in surprisingly tasteful graffiti. A lone string of fairy lights trailing along the rung of a shower curtain revealed that a long-gone survivor had once tried to call this room home – confirmed by the mangled sheets making a makeshift bed of a bathtub. There were a couple of empty tin cans and rat droppings in the corner. Droplets of old blood were a vivid rust against the tiles. Gordon's fingerprints smeared clean trails through the dust where he gripped the sides of the toilet and proceeded to bring up everything he'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours – which wasn't a lot, so the result was mostly pained retching, mixed with panicked sobs.
The tiles were icily cold. Scott flattened one palm against the floor to feel the chill creep up his wrist, bitter and undeniable, trying to ground himself in the moment because his family had never needed him more than they did right now, but also because he feared if he let go right now then he might never find the way back to his own mind again. Anxious fog was bad enough but the cocktail of meds he'd downed were also clouding his thoughts and as such he was clawing at every instance of reality, as if the jolts of pure, raw emotion were fraying ropes keeping him from falling off the cliff entirely.
The cold slithered beneath his skin. His own pulse was too loud. He couldn't hear past the blood roaring in his ears, couldn't think because Alan's voice – shaky but unmistakably convinced – was playing on repeat, it's me, over and over and over.
You can't keep running from the truth, everyone had told him over the years, only now it dawned on him that the phrase didn't merely apply to his own shitty mental health but to all the difficult truths in life. He'd convinced himself that Alan would be okay because any other outcome was inconceivable, unbearable, more painful than any zombie bite or human injury.
There were so many thoughts spinning through his head that he couldn't hold onto any one of them. He flexed his hand – ice in his veins and bloodied dust thick under his nails – and was suddenly very glad that there weren't any mirrors around because he didn't think he'd be able to bear the sight of his own reflection. He wanted to live, but that came with conditions and if this life involved losing Alan then please, please God, someone, anyone, let's make a deal, please, let me take his place…
"I can't do this," Gordon choked out, with a full-body shudder as he spat stringy bile into the pan. His knuckles were ghostly white were he gripped the porcelain. "I really c-can't." He wrapped an arm around his chest, curling his fingers over his ribs as if he could reach through bone to protect his own heart from further pain. "I don't know what to do." He slumped forwards on his knees, tucking his face against the crook of his elbow, voice small and broken as he whispered again, "I don't what to do. Make it stop. Tell me how to make it stop."
Scott caught himself tilting backwards into the fog, giving into the relentless numbness – because everything hurt so, so badly that he couldn't begin to comprehend how much he was truly feeling right now and only alternative was not feeling anything at all – and tried to fix himself in the moment, taking note of the details. He was sitting awkwardly, and his ankle ached as a consequence, the skin flushed from pressure against the tiles. His palms were chalky with dust, one hand braced on the floor but the other placed firmly on Gordon's upper back.
"I can't breathe," Gordon mumbled, muted by the fabric of his suit. He inhaled sharply and nearly choked on it.
Memories were a minefield, and every instant of recollection triggered another explosion. Even good moments were now tainted by the fear of losing someone. Listing the constellations under a seemingly limitless sky, sand underfoot – and under clothes too because seriously that stuff got everywhere, even into cereal boxes and trekked through the lounge on damp feet and really, sand had clearly been invented in a hell dimension – and laughter drowned by the distant surf. 'Hey, check this out, I'm really doing it this time', accompanied by a splash and Scott's own amused reply of, 'that's an interesting surfing technique, Al, but you're getting there, so uh, good job?' Bagels on Sunday mornings and nerdy conversations and everything familiar from family rituals over the years. Everything which would be lost.
Maybe the pain of losing someone is worth it because you got to love them for the short while you had them.
Respectfully, Scott thought as venomously as he could muster through the fog, fuck that. What kinda bullshit? It wasn't fair.
On so many levels it wasn't fair. Nothing about life was fair, but this, this was beyond comprehension. Because this was Alan. Alan, who still cried for the infected when he thought no one could hear him, because he believed whole-heartedly that there was still humanity hidden behind soulless eyes and so would mourn monsters even when everyone else had already condemned them. Alan, who had faced more terror and trauma in the past seven months than anyone could be expected to cope with let alone at such a young age, and yet he was still trying to keep it together, to be strong for everyone.
He's just a kid, Scott thought, trying to keep the hysteria out of his voice as he mumbled meaningless reassurances, and then, my kid, which led to the soul-crushing, unbearable consideration of maybe that's why – maybe I really do break everything I touch, maybe I ruin the people around me just by existing, because he started getting sick on my watch, before we got to the ranch, and I never noticed, how could I not have noticed?
This is my fault.
Gordon let out a broken sound. "I can't keep living like this."
"That's…" Scott wrapped his arms around his brother, tugging him away from that wounded, small position. Gordon didn't even try to fight him, just melted against his chest, hands screwed to fists as he tried to claw back more sobs. "You're okay. You're okay, Gords."
"I know." Gordon was about five seconds away from hyperventilating. "That's the problem. Why am I okay? Why not him? It's- None of this is fair. It's not fair that John's… But why Alan? He's the best of us. Why the fuck does it have to be him?"
"I don't know," Scott whispered, not bothering to hide the way his voice shattered on the final word. He tightened his hold until he could feel Gordon's heartbeat – frantic and panicked like an exhausted hummingbird, but still so strong – and drew a ragged breath as he tried to keep the tears from dripping off his chin. "I don't know why anything happens. It's a cruel world which doesn't care about anyone. Love exists because we create it. That's a miracle, right? We just need to make another miracle."
"Manmade miracles," Gordon breathed, damp and fractured. His heartrate seemed to spike alongside the words. He was still trembling, and he suddenly seemed very small and impossibly young in Scott's arms, as if no time at all had passed since the nights he'd come seeking comfort after a nightmare fuelled by horror movies.
Scott caught more tears behind gritted teeth and had to remember how to breathe.
"Manmade miracles," he confirmed, pressing a kiss to Gordon's hair. "We'll figure it out. We always do. Beating the odds is what we do best."
"We can't lose him."
He closed his eyes and willed his words to become truth, "Then we won't."
There was a protruding brick above the window, acting like an overhanging ledge under which a lone crow was nestled, feathers glossy with raindrops and eyes lidded so that only the sporadic shudder of wings proved that it still clung to life. Water dripped steadily from the brick. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat. In time with each new thought.
One. This can't be happening.
Two. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe it's all inside my head.
Three. Please let this be a nightmare.
Four. Let me wake up, please, I need to wake up.
Five. If this is real… What if I can't fix it? What then?
The crow took flight without warning. Scott startled and nearly smacked his head against the wall, tipping back precariously in the chair he'd pushed to John's bedside. The rain continued dripping without thought nor care. Mother Nature didn't acknowledge any of the terrible things happening in the world, because why would it? It was a cruel universe. The worst scenarios he could conjure from his subconscious – where they usually lurked uninterrupted until called to the forefront of some post-rescue nightmare – were all coming true.
It was exhausting just to be. He sort of wanted to stop existing for a while. The logical part of his brain recognised that this was the same feeling as when he'd ended up practically comatose on the couch back at the bunker and warned that he should struggle against it – because people needed him, come on, get it together, the fight's not over yet, there's still hope and there'll be hope until there's nothing else left – but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the window and those sorrowful raindrops, as if the sky were weeping too.
Maybe if he just stayed here, nothing had to change. Until he moved, time remained paused and nothing bad would come to pass. But by default, he reminded himself, nothing good would happen either and as much as he tried to protest that there wasn't any good left in the world anymore, he couldn't help but remember light-hearted instances, such as the campfire in the woods or whispered jokes in the early hours when distant howls woke them, but it was still too dark to set off for the day.
There was a sharp rap on the door, once, twice, thrice – their agreed code, just in case there were any survivors in the building with ill intentions. Alan scrambled off the bed where he'd made a nest of several worn blankets with Finch acting as a portable heater and hauled the chair away from where he'd jammed it beneath the handle. Virgil kicked the door fully open with one foot and tried not to stagger under the weight of various medical machinery.
"Okay." He spread the tech over the floor, yet to notice Scott's presence. "This is everything I could find. It's not much but it should be enough for-"
"-For you to figure out what the hell's wrong with me?" Alan finished for him, trying not to wince at the flash of fear that Virgil couldn't quite mask quickly enough. "Sorry." He nudged one of the hunks of metal, clearly dubious. "Are you sure you know how to get this stuff up and running again?"
Virgil gripped one of the display units and glanced up so that Alan could read the determination off his face.
"I'm an engineer." He forced a smile which didn't portray as much confidence as he'd probably intended. "How hard can it be?"
Alan swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah, that's…" He tugged his cuffs over his knuckles, knitting his fingers through the ragged fabric. "You'll figure it out," he agreed, voice laced with uncertainty. "You've got this. Do you want me to help?"
"No," Virgil said, far too quickly and immediately tried to retract the statement. "I mean, uh, no, because I need you to keep an eye on John's stats for me."
"Scott can do that."
Virgil looked up so sharply that he nearly gave himself whiplash. "Scott's back?"
Oh, right.
Scott cleared his throat and lifted a hand. "Hey, Virg. We've not been back long. Only about half an hour."
Virgil tilted his head imperceptibly towards Alan, a silent question. He read the answer off Scott's face without a need for words and stood for a long moment without saying anything. The tapping of rain against glass was the loudest thing for miles.
"Where's Gordon?" he asked at last.
"Gone for a walk," Alan mumbled, rocking back-and-forth on his heels as if the tension in the room were physically clogging the air. He hunched his shoulders. "He's freaking out again, isn't he?"
Yes, Scott thought privately, although didn't admit it aloud. He'd tried to follow his brother earlier only to be told in no uncertain terms that Gordon 'needed space to breathe' which loosely translated as having a breakdown in private only to hide all emotion afterwards so that he could effectively defend them against any infected.
Which sounded reasonable, only Scott was willing to bet that Gordon was playing the blame game in secret right now (finding himself as the culprit nine times outta ten) and so was only hiding away from everyone out of self-inflicted punishment. Because really, in what universe did Gordon not seek comfort in the presence of other people? He was the biggest extrovert after Scott himself. On any other day Scott would have gone after him regardless, but this day belonged to fear and so his instincts kept him as close to John and Alan as possible.
Alan sank onto the spare bed alongside Finch with a heavy sigh. "This is why I wasn't going to say anything."
"I don't think you'd have had much luck hiding it," Virgil remarked quietly. He sat on the floor, surrounded by a sea of equipment which looked as if it had been plucked out of the last century. Sections of wiring spilled from damaged screens. He delicately pulled a piece free and connected it to a different circuit.
Alan wrapped an arm around Finch and pulled her close. She rested her chin above his heart, ears pricked as he ran a hand down her spine, trying to stifle a cough in the crook of his elbow. It sounded far rawer than before; deeper, sort of scraping, as if the force were physically stripping his lungs. He pushed himself upright to catch his breath. Finch curled into a coil by his feet, eyes wide and mournful.
Virgil's efforts with the equipment ceased. Scott found himself holding his own breath and tightened his grip on John's hand to keep from instinctively bolting to Alan's side, something which he suspected wouldn't go down all too well given the kid seemed determined to pretend that nothing was wrong. But God - if it didn't hurt to hear those wheezes.
The coughing fit finally subsided. Alan tightened a hand in Finch's fur and flopped onto his back as his arms gave out under his weight.
"Well, shit," he quipped breathlessly, aiming for humour as if they couldn't hear the tremor in his voice. "That sucked." He rolled onto his side to watch Virgil slowly piece the tech together. "You might have a point – I don't think I could've hidden that. Although I did a pretty good job until now, right?" He drummed a hand against the bedsheet. "Maybe I should've been an actor instead of an astronaut. I might have missed my calling."
"You still have time," Virgil said, hushed, head bowed so that it was impossible to read his expression. His hands trembled above the circuit board. "We have to fix the world first, but then you can give Hollywood a shot."
Alan was silent for a long minute.
"Time," he repeated slowly. "Right. I have that."
"Alan," Virgil snapped, sharper than intended. He took a deliberately deep breath. "Don't talk like that." He set down the circuit board, eyes closed, visibly trying not to spiral. "I'll figure it out. Okay? I promise."
"You can't promise that," Alan whispered. He slithered forwards to tip off the bed and land in a superhero crouch – nerd, Scott thought fondly, taken aback by the strength of the grief which washed over him as if they'd already lost the kid – padding over to Virgil's side on socked feet, boots abandoned somewhere. His shadow fell across the precious equipment, vulnerable pieces cast in darkness. "Let me help."
Virgil stared at the strewn equipment in his hands, wires spread over his knees and a sharp knife held between his teeth which he was using in place of a screwdriver.
"Water got into the circuit board here, see? This section is rusted. I'm pilfering parts from compatible equipment to replace it. Think you can do the same with this?"
Alan shrugged. "I can fix a rocket. This should be a walk in the park."
Virgil looked to be questioning his own sanity. "That's not the same- You know what? It'll be fine. Everything is going to be fine."
"Uh…" Alan lowered his own circuit board. "Virg? You good?"
"Yep. Fine." There was a small thread of hysteria in his voice. "Al, can you keep working on this for a few minutes by yourself? Just leave it if you get stuck, I'll be back soon. Scott? Come with me."
"Um," Scott began eloquently, but didn't protest when Virgil gripped his good arm and hauled him out of the chair. He staggered, suddenly realising just how long he'd been sat motionless as a chorus of pins-and-needles sensations ignited in his feet. Virgil simply wrapped an arm carefully around his shoulders and guided him into the corridor, trusting Alan to barricade the door behind them just in case.
There was no sign of Gordon in the corridor. Not that Scott had really been expecting any, but it didn't help the anxiety coiled around his heart. He sucked in a gulp of dusty air and ignored the way his eyes were stinging.
Virgil inhaled deeply. What happened didn't begin to cover it. How much do you know also seemed pointless. He sunk his hands into the pockets of his jeans – once navy blue speckled with little pinpricks of dried crimson – and tried to keep his voice level.
"I need to check on those bites."
"Right," Scott agreed slowly, trying to assess his brother's mental state through body language alone and finding it a surprisingly difficult task when the meds were clouding his senses. "Gordon's probably a better person to speak to about that. I wasn't…"
He fished for the right phrasing, but every word seemed more concerning than the one before.
"…particularly coherent last night," he finished, trying not to cringe. "The fever got fairly high. But Gordon's got me on a cocktail of meds and he seems to know what he's talking about, so… Are we going to discuss the real problems now?"
Virgil ignored the final question. "Your fever came back?"
"Yeah, it was the real star of the show." Scott resisted the urge to bat his brother's hands away as Virgil yanked his shirt up to examine the stained bandages across his stomach. "Wow, okay. We need to talk about your bedside manner at some point."
"Scott," Virgil said, cutting himself off.
"Shut up?" Scott suggested, trying to lighten the mood whilst feeling as if he were standing in the path of a very large, unstoppable meteor. He bit back a curse as Virgil peeled the edge of a bandage away from his skin. Not even strong pain meds were enough to dull the lightning bolt. "Fuck, can you not- I am fine. Just stop."
"You are not fine. This isn't fine. We're in a worse position than we were before we got to the bunker and you're trying to tell me it's fine?"
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Then what are you saying?"
"That we have higher priorities we should be focussing on right now." He softened his voice as Virgil flinched. "Gordon sorted the meds I need. As long as I keep these clean and finish the antibiotic course, I'll be fine. Let's stop avoiding the problem." He gripped Virgil's shoulders until his brother finally looked up. "Talk to me, Virg."
The resounding silence seemed to last forever. Wind in the stairwell sounded like mournful cries to match a tearful sky and the oppressive sadness which clung to everything and everyone. The world seemed very broken in a way that it hadn't done before. The sense of purpose was gone.
Does it make me a bad person that I only want to save the world if my family gets to live in it? Scott wondered, absently watching dust twirl pirouettes in the light.
"John's stable," Virgil finally spoke, lined with so many layers of grief that it was impossible to tell where the sadness ended and the hopelessness began. Months of fighting, of surviving, and for what? They'd discussed it in that car after first escaping the bunker – the possibility that maybe this was it, that they wouldn't even make it as far as home, but Scott hadn't truly considered it the truth until now, until he heard that desolate note in Virgil's voice.
"He's stable," he echoed, because it was something to hold onto and he was slipping ever closer to that edge, so much so that his hold on Virgil's shoulders seemed to be the only thing anchoring him. He was struck by the urge to scream or hit something or anything to feel real. "That's one positive bit of news at least."
"Stable," Virgil said, "does not equate healthy."
For a brief second Scott was tempted to retort yeah, no shit, I kinda figured that much out for myself thanks, but then the implications of that statement dawned on him, and it felt as if he'd plunged over the drop of a never-ending rollercoaster – the sort of pit-in-the-stomach, engulfing fear usually reserved for overthinking in the early hours to leave him shaking from the effort of repressing a full-blown anxiety attack.
Maybe it was because he'd just seen John with his own eyes, held his brother's hand, been close enough to see the faint scar on the back of his left elbow from an unfortunate incident featuring a ladder and John being a stubborn idiot refusing help. When he had his brother in front of him, Scott found it difficult to imagine that stable could mean anything other than certain recovery. It was only now, separated by a barricaded door and a long hallway and reading the guarded panic in Virgil's eyes, that the same terror he'd felt upon first seeing John's condition back at the house once again reared its head to leave him breathless.
"Stable does not equate healthy," he repeated slowly, anxiety twisting into agitation which prickled like popping candy beneath his skin. "What the fuck does that mean?"
"Can you not do that?"
"Not snap at me." Virgil seemed oddly small, lifting his hands out of his pockets only to knit his fingers together, gaze fixed on the floor as if expecting angry criticism. He sounded small too, words a whisper in the gloomy light. Even the rain was louder. "I'm trying my best here. I've been awake for nearly forty-eight hours, bringing John back from the brink and then Alan- I get you're worried, but I can't handle you shouting at me. We're on the same side here. We need to act like it."
"I'm not shouting at you," Scott protested, loudly, and then checked his volume. "Shit. Sorry."
He took a step back to slump against the wall. Shadows folded around him like a blanket, only so much colder, and he recognised he was shivering when the ice crept up his throat to snare his words. He clawed a hand through his hair until his scalp stung.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realise. It's not intentional."
"I know," Virgil said softly, exhaustion making itself known. He moved to lean against the wall, close enough to touch but maintaining that line of distance because they had entered the fragile zone in which comfort could be just as deadly as being afraid alone. "It's all on me. I'm the medic, but I'm not a qualified doctor. I treated people on rescues until the professionals could arrive. But now- I could screw everything up so easily and it terrifies me. What if there's something I miss, something critical?"
"Surely any treatment is better than nothing?"
"Not necessarily."
Scott didn't have any reassuring responses to that. He was a trained first responder – all of them were, both an International Rescue requirement and a GDF regulation for anyone working in space – but this was so far beyond his skillset that he didn't know what to say. Virgil came the closest to a doctor out of any of them, that much was true, but they were wandering blindly into unknown territory here. Hell, Scott still didn't even know what had happened in the time he'd gone which had suddenly knocked Alan's cough up the list of concerns from simply worrying to a level one priority.
He tilted a little to the left to press their shoulders together. Virgil took a shuddering breath but didn't say anything, leaning into the contact. It was freezing again, temperatures plummeting. Dampness had wormed its way into everything, infecting clothes with an icy chill and clawing the heat from skin. Scott side-stepped slightly to move closer because Virgil was like a freaking space-heater whereas he currently had goose bumps over his forearms and his jacket seemed to keep the cold close rather than hold in warmth.
"He was fine," Virgil whispered, like a confession, holding the stare of the graffitied zombie on the wall opposite – clearly some survivor had a dark sense of humour, trying to jump-scare any other poor soul wandering these halls. "He was helping. I was completely focussed on John. And Alan was fine. He's had that cough, but it seemed like it was easing up a little over the past few days, and I was busy trying to keep you alive then, but maybe there were signs, symptoms I should have noticed, anything." He took a moment to steady his voice. "We stabilised John. And everything was okay for a couple of hours. But then Alan just crashed. Have you ever witnessed someone have a coughing fit so bad that they can't breathe? To the point of passing out? Because now I have. And it is terrifying."
Scott didn't want to imagine it. Somehow he suspected his mind would find some way to torture him with that image in his nightmares anyway.
"Are we sure he isn't asthmatic?" he suggested, trying to repress the deepening pit of dread in his stomach. "People can develop it, can't they? I know it's more common in young children, but I thought it could develop at any age. All this dust could be a trigger."
Virgil hesitated. "It could be," he ventured, unwilling to agree but not shooting the idea down in flames yet either. Until they got the testing equipment back up and running, all cards remained on the table. But it was difficult to ignore his doubtful tone. "There are other symptoms which don't match an asthma diagnosis."
Was Scott a stranger to bad news? Absolutely not. Did this mean he was prepared to hear it? Never. He was struck by the childish desire to crawl into bed and hide underneath the blanket. Anything to prevent hearing darker details of a nightmare he couldn't wake up from.
Reality was too much right now. He didn't want to be present in this moment. The urge to fly until all that existed was the sky and the sea and nothing else other than his own hands at the controls was overwhelming. Maybe that was the truth of it all – he missed being in control. Life nowadays was a raging torrent of water dragging them all along without any hope of breaking free and trying to fight the current was exhausting to a point where it was easier to give in.
The rain was rushing over the roof, spilling down the walls, seeping through cracks and smacking against windowpanes, trickling over bloodied concrete, forming faint waterfalls in the stairwells. It dripped from the grate above them where water had found its way into the ventilation system, dark with dust. It was a harsh reminder of blood steadily splashing from fingertips down in the archives, jolting him into the memory of wet sinew being torn apart as the infected consumed their victim.
Virgil placed a hand on his forearm gingerly, trying not to startle him. He jumped anyway. His heart was hammering. He tried to clear his throat, tasting dust, voice sounding strangled despite his best attempts to steady it.
"Sorry, what?"
The drumming rain grew louder, steady thunder wrapping the entire building in low cloud and gloomy grey. Water glistened on tiles and the tarmac outside, washing away blood in strange pink patterns. He closed his eyes and listened. The air was crisp and cold and drizzle infiltrated broken windows to leave his shirt damp and cloying.
"Scott," Virgil murmured, a cross between a question and a prompt. His shoes squeaked against wet tiles. The dust looked like mud. Traces of runaway crimson spread from old stains like tree roots as the water carried it away. "Hey. Hey."
The final words were a snap. Scott was uncertain of whether he'd flinched or recoiled. Virgil softened his voice, laced with worry and open affection – because Virgil had always worn his heart on his sleeve and sometimes that was cause for concern but right now it was a lifeline, a beacon in the darkness and Scott reached for it, taking a mental step back from the precipice.
"Hey," Virgil repeated, quietly this time, lifting his hand to Scott's shoulder to guide him away from cold concrete. Water tip-tapped to their left, a more reliable beat than the human heart. "We'll figure it out, okay? This isn't over yet."
"Okay."
The word sounded numb. He tested his voice silently, seeking some sort of emotion but finding only the frayed edges of that overwhelming ocean of grief, lurking between his ribs so that it could steal his breath and constrict his heart.
"Okay," he tried again, so softly that it was barely a word. His eyes were burning. He only registered the sensation after the thin cut on his right cheek started to sting and he lifted a hand to discover his face was wet. Shit. "Sorry." His chest ached. "I just need a minute. I'm sorry."
"No," Virgil whispered, expression crumpling like a collapsing house of cards, oh just look at all the luck go up in smoke. He stepped closer, touch gentle and cautious to avoid any injuries, drawing Scott into a hug. "No." The word was fractured. "Stop apologising. It's okay to feel."
"You have got so much on your plate already."
"You're right – I have. But this isn't a burden."
"Stop reading my mind."
"Then stop lying to yourself." Virgil held him tighter. "It's okay to cry," he murmured fiercely, coiling a hand in Scott's shirt. It was difficult to tell if he was shivering or shaking, but there was a difference between the two and it was an important distinction.
Even through the layers of damp clothing and sodden bandages, Virgil was so warm, and Scott gave in, because the world was cold and terrifying and full of unknowns, but he could still find safety in the familiarity of his brother's arms.
"I'm scared," he confessed in a tiny voice, tucking his face against Virgil's shoulder to muffle the words.
"I know," Virgil admitted, then, after a long minute, added, "So am I."
