Chapter Text
As you carefully walked through abandoned Seraphite territory, you silently pleaded to whatever entity could be listening out there to please, please, please let Abby be alive.
Back in Seattle, the air was thick with humidity and smelled of dampness, and the grass erupting out of cracks in the concrete was lush and green. It was pouring rain, and your head was bowed to it, face downturned in an attempt to stay dry, to avoid the deep puddles filling the holes along what used to be a road. The group was quiet, tired after only sleeping in shifts for a couple hours. Everyone was wet, cold, and hungry.
The buildings around you were falling apart, some of their exteriors looking scorched like they had caught on fire. It was eerily quiet, no whistling, no crackling fires, no maintained altars to honour the Prophet. There didn’t seem to be Scars living here anymore. The only bodies inhabiting the stretch of land were strung up by rope, their rotting limbs tied as they swung in the wind. Dangling by their necks, you could see that they were Scars themselves, the deep, grooved lines extending from the corners of their mouths still identifiable. You had never understood how they hung up their own people, cutting into them to prove a point.
But being back on their turf, or at least what used to be their turf, meant you were almost home. And despite being weak with hunger and exhaustion, it was taking everything in you to not break into a run to get to Abby faster.
Your heart was beating fast in your chest from exhaustion, excitement, hope, fear.
What if something had happened to her while you were gone?
It had been nearly a year, but you still vividly remembered the day that your group had left for Jackson. You remembered the rain pouring down your long, forest green jacket and the air being cold that morning. You remembered the desperate struggle to not erupt into an inconsolable sobbing mess as Abby buried her face into the space between the hood of your jacket and your neck, whispering that she loved you.
She had been wearing her navy bomber jacket and her favourite toque, and it was wet and cold against your skin as you leaned your cheek against hers, holding her. You only had a couple more minutes before the group was scheduled to leave.
Isaac had tasked seven of you to travel to Wyoming to find a cordyceps specialist that was supposedly living in a settlement in Jackson. The assigned group was you, Nora, Leah, and four soldiers you barely knew. Whispers of a cure had been percolating the past six months, and travellers were saying that Jackson seemed to be the biggest sight of research. According to the cartographer, the trip from Seattle to Jackson and then back again could take anywhere from two to three months if you were lucky, and then adding research time on top of it had put you at the expected timeline of a year.
You had been picked because of your knowledge on all things that grew from the Earth, fungi and cordyceps included. Nora had been chosen for her medical expertise, Leah for her lab experience, and four of Isaac’s fiercest soldiers had been chosen to protect the three of you. Eventually, you’d learn that they were named Sarah, Raul, Harvey, and Marianne. All of you had been tasked to bring home information, the beginnings of what could lead to a cure.
Abby’s breath was hot against your skin as she silently cried into your neck that awful day. Whispering into her ear, you were trying to comfort her, promising her that you would do everything possible to get back to her as soon as possible. Your head ached from crying so much in the past 24 hours, and your eyes felt sore and puffy.
Around you, others were saying their goodbyes.
“Please be careful,” Abby murmured into your ear.
You had nodded, eyes shut tight, trying to memorize her voice, the way she felt pressed up against you, and how warm she always was.
You tried to commit to memory how she looked in the mornings when she had just woken up, and what her fingers felt like interlocked between yours. You tried to absorb as much of her as you possibly could before it was goodbye – just for now.
Distantly, you had heard engines rumbling to life, the Jeep and the pick-up truck parked further up the road. Abby’s strong arms wrapped tighter around you, and she pulled her face out of your neck to kiss you within the privacy of your jacket’s hood.
She smelt like pine and dew, the smell of her skin always stronger in the rain, and you breathed her in as she kissed you hard enough to bruise. You remembered how your heart leapt when she slid her tongue along your bottom lip, but then simultaneously ached in your chest when she groaned into your mouth. Trembling hands gripping into her raincoat, you felt more tears welling into your eyes as she kissed you like she was going to devour you, like this was her last chance to do so. And you parted your lips and let her, invited her in to do so, kissing her back with enough ferocity that she was flushed and breathing hard when she pulled away.
A sad smile was carved into her mouth.
Even exhausted and drenched, Abby was still so beautiful, framed by the endless overgrown trees and the beginnings of a sun rise behind her. Her honey-blonde braid, darkened by the rain, was pulled over her shoulder as she let go of you to hold your hands. Even with red, swollen eyelids, her blue-grey eyes were striking and her full lips were flushed pink from being kissed.
It had felt like your heart was breaking as you looked up at her, trying to make the tears stop rolling down your face. You knew what you had to do, and why it had to be you, but that didn’t make it any easier to let go of Abby’s hands. To leave her standing motionless in front of where you called home with Manny’s hand resting on her shoulder.
It was like taking a knife to the chest.
As you stared at her through the dirty passenger window of the Jeep taking you away, it wasn’t lost on you that if something were to go wrong on this trip, she would lose three very important people in her life. By sending the three of you, Isaac had split up the tight knit remains of the Salt Lake crew, leaving behind Abby, Manny, Owen, Mel, and Jordan.
As one of the soldiers, Marianne, drove stoically, you cried – quietly enough that it couldn’t be heard over the rumble of the engine, but Nora still reached from the backseat to place her hand on your arm. You placed your hand over top of hers, ducking your head to stare down at your wet jeans. All you could think about as you bumped along that muddy, rocky road was how Abby couldn’t afford to lose more people. None of you could.
You were hellbent to not only make it back to her alive, but with valuable information that the WLF could use.
And, somehow, together, your group had done just that and more.
Along the way, you had found somebody – somebody that none of you had been prepared to find in that lab in Jackson. He had been standing at the far side of the lab, fussing with some papers busily as he leaned over a broad, metallic desk. At the sound of you all entering the room, he had been so occupied that he hadn’t even looked up.
Nora had been the first to recognize him.
“Jerry?”
The way she said it had startled you, and you snapped your head in her direction, hand reflexively going toward the knife in your belt. It had sounded like a sob, like she was choking, and she had her hands covering her mouth, standing like she was frozen to the ground.
She looked like she was seeing a ghost.
Quickly, you looked over at the man. Also startled at her cry, he looked up from the stack of papers with a jerk, and you nearly fell to your knees. Leah began to sob, and you saw her grip at the edge of the table she was close to.
He was significantly older than the last time you had seen him, approximately eight years since you had been part of the Fireflies as a teenager, and his face was weathered from the elements. Silver haired, bearded, he looked at your group quizzically before shock also broke across his face. His deep blue eyes flitted across all of you, and he brought his hand over his mouth, tears springing to his eyes.
The way he moved, rushing over to all of you was hauntingly familiar, and part of you thought that maybe you were dreaming, that you hadn’t actually woken up yet this morning. Distantly, you were aware of the confused looks the four soldiers were giving one another.
They didn’t recognize Abby’s dad because they had never met him.
“Oh my god! Nora, Y/N, Leah – where’s Abby? Oh my god, please –”
It felt like you were drowning as his voice rang out clearly in your ears, exactly the same as it had been years ago. You broke into tears in response, smiling.
Jerry had asked the question specifically to you, like he already knew you were Abby’s. You supposed that from witnessing years of friendship back when the two of you were teenagers, that he knew you would never have split permanently from Abby’s side if you had any choice. Even back then, you had been hers, and she had been yours.
“Abby’s alive, she’s in Seattle. Oh my god, Jerry. We all thought you were dead, I’m –” you choked out.
He pulled you into a hard hug as the lump in your throat took away your voice, and you felt Leah and Nora coming closer, wrapping their arms tightly around the two of you. His hand held the back of your head, the gesture sweet and familiar, like it hadn’t been bordering on ten years since the last time you had seen the man.
You would later find out that the Fireflies intentionally had packed up and moved on from Salt Lake City while he had been unconscious in their makeshift hospital, hovering the line of living and dying from his near-deadly injury.
They took his 16-year-old daughter with them, and the rest of the motley crew, days after the incident.
As you had stood there in that sobbing group hug, suddenly, there was nothing more important than getting Jerry back to his now 24-year-old daughter.
He had proven himself to be quick on his feet during the journey back to Seattle, and he never complained on long stretches of walking. He was a good shot, just like he had taught his daughter to be, and he was kind and gentle, tending to any sustained injuries with his brow furrowed in concentration. He had warmed to all of you immediately, even the soldiers that he didn’t know. It was soothing to travel alongside him, listening to him telling stories about teenage you, Abby, Nora, and Leah.
In a way, Jerry had been most of the Salt Lake crew’s stand-in father role. It appeared that he was still taking that duty seriously, trying his best to make up for all the years he had lost as he asked endless amounts of questions about each of you.
You had caught how his bottom lip quivered when you told him that Abby was one of the WLF’s top soldiers, a trained medic, and that these days, she closely resembled a superhero in stature. That she was strong, and kind, and beautiful. And that she was yours.
“You know, I’m not surprised you and Abby are partners now,” he had said gruffly, early into the trip back home.
His voice had startled you after a long stretch of silently walking along some torn-up highway in Wyoming. It had been days since the topic had come up, but clearly, he had been mulling it over.
You looked over to him, a little confused as to what had prompted him to say that. Autumn leaves littering the pavement crunched under your boots as you both stayed silent for a few beats. He was grinning, staring straight ahead at the sun steadily rising, the sky different shades of pink and gold. From his profile, you could recognize the way he held his jaw and the strong line of his nose – both features mirrored in Abby.
“Why do you say that?” you asked.
His grin spread wider.
“She just never would shut up about you,” he chuckled, meeting your eyes. “Even when she was with Owen – the poor guy. She never talked about him the way she talked about you.”
You felt a blush threatening at your cheeks at that. Laughing, you looked down at your feet.
You remembered back to teenage Abby - her braid short, her frame tall and lanky.
“What did she say?”
“I remember, at one point, she was worried that Jordan may have had a thing for you. She really didn’t like that,” he chuckled.
The sound of Leah snorting, off to the left of you, made you smirk.
Abby had always been protective of you, been willing to fight anybody who threatened your honour, even when you two had just been friends. There had been several instances where you’d made her promise that she wouldn’t fight whatever errant boy had made a lewd comment toward you. Oh, if looks could kill, though.
You liked the way she wrapped her strong arm around your shoulders when you walked together, and how she would pull you in for a kiss amidst a crowd of people. Everyone knew you were her girl.
When Isaac had named you as one of the people going to Jackson, and not Abby, everyone in his office had gone quiet, seemingly bracing themselves for impact. You were silent along with them, confused.
Why hadn’t she been selected as one of the soldiers to protect the group?
She was known around the stadium for being one of his top soldiers, close to being his right-hand man alongside Manny. But they weren’t planning to send him either.
Abby was immediately angry. It was rolling off her in waves as she stood beside you, her back ramrod straight. The room was eerily quiet like everyone was holding their breath.
“Y/N is not going out there,” she said, her words so thick with venom that your throat jumped. “Definitely not without me.”
Your cheeks flushed scarlet.
You hated a scene, but it was inevitable that this was going to turn into one. Isaac bristled at her tone, and he stood up straight, crossing his arms over his chest. Abby glared back at him, eyes narrowed dangerously.
She was good at being scary, you had to give that to her.
Carefully, you placed your hand on her arm, hoping it would anchor her down. You could see the wheels spinning in her head, her jaw clenched and her hands in fists at her sides. Her bare skin was burning under your fingertips.
“What did you say, Abigail?”
The whole room was silent, everyone looking between Abby, Isaac, and you.
“You heard me.”
“Abby. You’re not going. Do not fight me on this,” he warned.
“Or what?” she growled back, taking a step forward, closer to the opposite side of his desk.
She was now standing in front of you, forcing you to let go of her, and your arm fell awkwardly to your side. When she stood up tall like this, like she was ready to fight, she was easily a whole head taller than you.
“You are not taking her from me,” she hissed.
She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.
Your heart felt like it was trying to climb up your throat, and it was pounding in your ears.
“Why isn’t Abby coming with us?” you asked, your voice somehow coming out steady.
“We can’t send all of our most valuable people out there. And you know that, Abby. Some of you need to stay here. Particularly if the Scars keep getting closer and closer,” he said.
Abby scoffed and crossed her arms, biceps bulging. You could tell that she had rolled her eyes by the way her braid whipped across the expanse of her back. The hair on the back of your neck stood up reflexively at her posture, the fury that she was filling the room with.
She was dangerous like this – angry, scared, and hurt. It seemed like everyone had instinctively taken a step back from her, nervous about what was about to happen. You, too, were nervous, but it made you want to step closer to her, to tuck yourself under her arm.
When pushed, Abby was like a cornered animal, and you could see the edges of that part of her beginning to peek out.
“Everyone out! Abby, you stay. Y/N, too,” Isaac said firmly.
It seemed that he had sensed it, too, and didn’t want an audience.
Suddenly pulled back into your body, you remembered there were about ten of you in the room, all watching with bated breath. With some murmuring, people filed out of the room, Nora squeezing your shoulder as she passed by you. Manny clapped Abby on the back, and she turned to nod at him as he walked out with a sigh.
When the door finally shut, you strode forward, right up to the edge of Isaac’s desk, hands shaking at your sides. He stared at you evenly for a few beats then sat down in the chair behind him.
He was tough on Abby, tough on his soldiers, but you knew he didn’t have the heart to be like that with you.
You opened your mouth to say something, but then could feel your throat squeezing closed and your eyes burning with tears.
“How do you expect me to let her go?” Abby’s hand fell onto your shoulder as she spoke.
Her voice was still quavering.
The urge to bury your face in her chest and cry almost overcame you, and you dropped your gaze from Isaac’s face.
“I’m sending our most ruthless soldiers, Abby. They aren’t going to let something happen to Y/N, or to your friends. Please, you need to be here. The Scars are sure to come knocking any day now, and we need you. If you don’t stay, there might not be a stadium for Y/N to come home to.”
His eyes were pleading as they flickered between yours and the blazing pair over your shoulder.
Abby’s grip on your shoulder was firm, grounding, her arm across your back. Her thumb was running along the back of your neck, trying to soothe you. You made the mistake of blinking, and the tears that had been welling up spilled over.
Hastily, you wiped at them, keeping your face turned down to the floor.
“I’m so sorry. It has to be you, Y/N. You’re our expert. I wouldn’t send you if you weren’t our best bet.”
So, you had gone. And now, after nearly a year of being away from home, you were about five minutes away from the gates.