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December, 2016
Maria’s second new life starts, ironically, on Christmas Eve.
She’s not even aware it’s Christmas Eve or anywhere around the holidays, at the time—all she knows is that she is constantly, ruthlessly cold. Winter in Wyoming had come hard and fast, covering the state in a matter of weeks only two months after they’d settled in Jackson. She figured she’d get used to it considering the harsh winters she had endured growing up Before, in New York—but Wyoming, of course, was always a surprise for her. When the snowfall first began, she’d been shivering and for a week straight. Her father had even traded some of his stashed medicine for warmer women’s wear, practically forcing them onto her when she tried to refuse.
It was for both of their benefits, she knew—the cold made her miserable and cranky, unable to keep herself from missing the comforts of Before: the fireplace in the middle of her living room back in Harlem, cuddles from the neighborhood strays, hot chocolate, scarves. She hadn’t seen a proper scarf in years; though she hadn’t particularly even liked them before, she would kill for one now. Even through her gloves and thick black coat, zipped up all the way to her chin, she can feel Wyoming’s biting breeze whipping past her neck and ears. Her fingers, even insulated in her gloves, are sore and crampy.
So, this is Christmas Eve in Wyoming: She is fucking freezing her ass off, unable to even focus on the marked trail ahead of her. Her company wasn’t really helping.
She was out patrolling with Talia, a pleasant but talkative newer member of the Jackson community. Her and her little sister had happened upon Jackson’s walls after escaping a hoard coming up from the South, the pair from a fallen QZ in New Mexico. Talia was bright-spirited and optimistic, hope for the world held strong through her dedication to her faith. Although she wasn’t necessarily the type of person Maria felt familiar with, she appreciated her and her sister’s presence around Jackson—the two were clearly happy and grateful to be together somewhere safe, and their attitudes were contagious. Dina, the youngest, was funny and smart as a whip. She reminded Maria of her friends growing up in Harlem: kind but tough, hardened by responsibilities she shouldn’t have to handle at her age. Talia, too, was lively and objectively pretty fun—she was also an exceptionally skilled woman, her strong knowledge base on plant life instantly useful to Jackson’s foraging efforts.
Most importantly to Maria, she clearly cares for her little sister the way a mother should; it has earned Talia her immediate respect. Usually, Maria very much enjoys her company.
Usually.
“Oh, man!” Talia starts up again, and Maria has to hold back a groan. “I just love the cold! Nowadays, though, it really makes me miss skiing—you ever been skiing, Maria?”
“No,” she responds, trying honestly not to sound as grumpy as she’s feeling. She fails pretty miserably, but Talia is unbothered and undeterred.
“It’s amazing,” she goes on, stopping to bend down and inspect a nearby bush with a quick, “wait, hold on, I think this might be Uva Ursi.”
Maria watches out for her carefully, hyper aware of the handgun tucked into the side pocket of her pack. She’s not expecting anyone, really, but she can’t shake the paranoia of being outside Jackson for anything. It feels like every time a patrol goes out these days, something goes awry. It’s already a risk, sending people out two at a time, but they don’t have enough people yet to afford losing more than two people at once.
For the most part they remain unscathed, only having lost six people so far—but since about a month ago, things have just been fucking weird: some of the traps they’d set around Jackson were found completely emptied out despite clear evidence that they’d trapped game at some point. It kept happening over the next couple of weeks, only enough small game stolen to be noticed but not especially missed.
Whoever this thief was, they’re too skilled to catch, which both pisses off and impresses her. From what she’s gathered from patrolling reports, the undeniable genius and experience is evident in their tactics. The traps in question are emptied completely but not broken—sometimes, they’re even cleanly reset. They leave no tracks or traces of how to find them, and no matter how many people are sent out on patrol at a time, nobody ever reports seeing anyone they don’t recognize. Besides the occasional steal, they made no offensive moves against Jackson, so most people didn’t much mind the loss. Even her father, ever so gracious and generous, had shrugged it off: There’s a hungry person out there, Maria, and they need to eat. You might need to do the same, one day. So can we really blame them?
Now it’s been about a week since anything has been stolen: long enough for most people in Jackson to move on, grateful for the thief’s disappearance. Still, Maria finds herself wondering where they went; she lets her mind drift back to the mystery from time to time, like right now—because as much as she likes Talia, she doesn’t know the first thing about skiing. The woman has been pulling branches from the bush in front of her, happily going on.
“It was so fun doing stuff like that growing up—such a thrill! God, I miss the feeling of going down those slopes. It was like your own personal rollercoaster or something. I swear, there’s nothing else like it.” Talia pauses for a second, considering her words, then laughs to herself. “Or there was nothing like it, you know, Before. I guess every day is sort of a thriller now.”
Her laugh is bittersweet, and when she goes quiet Maria turns to see that her expression has gone thoughtful and a bit sad. She picks more berry-donned branches and drops them in the aluminum briefcase laid open in front of her, repurposed to serve as a foraging basket.
Maria chooses to indulge her—it’s the least she can do, really, for a woman quite literally on her knees for their well-being. “I’m not into rollercoasters much, either. I can’t do heights,” she admits. “Like, at all.”
“Really?” Talia asks, clearly surprised. She glances up at Maria as she begins breaking down bigger branches.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Always has been, always will be.” Heights had always been the bane of Maria’s existence—her one and only true phobia. The one plane ride she’d ever managed to take in her life had been from Harlem to Omaha with Jack, and she’d only agreed because neither of them had owned a car then—otherwise, she would have surely driven them across the country herself. She continues, “The one time I’ve been on a plane, I freaked out—ended up locking myself in the bathroom so that I couldn’t see out of any of the windows.” (It had also taken a full hour for a stewardess to coax her out, but she leaves this out. Talia doesn’t need to know everything.)
At the story, Talia looked up at her again, so stunned that she nearly falls over. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Maria says. Talia looks at her like she’s crazy, and she tries not to be offended. “What? You’ve never met anyone who’s afraid of heights?”
“No, I have!” Talia smiles and shrugs, breaking her stare to turn quickly back to her final inspection of the bush. Once satisfied, she closes the case and stands, continuing to walk alongside Maria. “I just wouldn’t have expected that from you, I guess.”
Maria takes the briefcase for her politely—It’s pretty impressively filled with berries, branches, nuts and the like. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Talia blushes suddenly, looking more pointedly at the foliage around them, Maria can tell pretty instantly that she is avoiding looking at her. “You just seem kind of fearless, I guess, you know?”
“Fearless?” The word stuns her so much that she stops walking, and now she’s looking at Talia like she’s crazy. “I am not anything remotely close to fearless, Talia.”
Talia laughs at her and shrugs, oblivious to the baffling impact her words have just had on her partner. “You could’ve fooled me, Buffy.”
Maria blinked again, stunned, before she managed to get her legs moving and catch up. “Who?”
“Buffy,” Talia says again. “You know, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It was my absolute favorite show, right before—you know. I’m lucky as fuck that they got to finish it, I guess. Have you seen it?”
What the fuck are we talking about right now is what she wants to say, but she simply responds, “I haven’t.”
“Well, she’s really fucking cool and brave, is the point. Always really determined to help people. You remind me of her, sometimes—she was just a really good leader, you know? People could always come to her for help, and that’s basically your whole thing in Jackson, right?”
Talia’s words are emphatic and firm, their sincerity stunning to Maria. She honestly hasn’t thought much about how she comes off to the people of Jackson; she didn’t have much time too anyway, considering how much had to be done for them to simply survive. She is careful not to be disliked, of course—but she also knows that she’s not necessarily the friendliest person. She assumes most of the town speaks to her kindly out of courtesy for her father, who is beloved by everyone, and next because she’s become a quasi-administrator for Jackson’s development efforts. Every repair, remodel, and renovation so far has been run by her—not because she’d made it so, but just because that’s how things had happened since they settled.
When they’d first set up their house, her father had found notebooks and pens in his room leftover from whoever—instantly, Maria had the idea to document everything to do with the Jackson from that point on: inventory, population, patrol logs, day-to-day reports. Anything that could be written down about Jackson was done so faithfully by Maria. Not only was it practical to do so, but a large part of her felt it was important to have a recorded history—though she had absolutely no idea who would read it, or when. She just couldn’t imagine putting all this work into Jackson for it to one day be forgotten.
And the work, though exhausting, is more fulfilling than anything she’d ever done in her professional life. It has taken seemingly endless days and nights to make the town livable, but now—now, she could see the potential of Jackson growing stronger day by day, right in front of her. It was, dare she even think it, thriving and full of hope.
Still, she doesn’t ever stop to attribute its success to herself: Jackson is only as strong as its people, and she knows more than most that its people have been exceptionally strong. It warms her to know that Talia sees that strength in her, too.
“Thank you,” Maria says finally. She walks close to Talia and puts her free hand on the woman’s shoulder, a rare show of affection for her these days. “Seriously, Talia, that means a lot to me. You do a lot for this community, too, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Talia responds, mock lamenting. It makes Maria laugh, surprised. “I’m more busy now than I ever was before.”
“What did you do before?”
“Well, I would’ve gotten into college and studied botany. You won’t believe how pissed I was once I realized I spent hours on those acceptance essays for noth—oh look, chicory!” She stops suddenly and bends down, beginning to pull up some grass-looking leaves patches by the root. “We can make fake coffee out of this!”
“Nice,” Maria says absently. She looks ahead and sees a flash of something big and brown—what looked to be some sort of larger animal—on the ground, some ways away from where they were standing. She squinted to see more clearly; she needed fucking glasses now, probably. “Talia, do you see that? Is that—is that a deer carcass?”
“Is it!?” Talia is instantly up, a bunch of roots clenched tightly in her hand by their foliage. She follows Maria’s point and her eyebrows go up, a good sign. She’s significantly taller and younger, so Maria guesses she can likely see more clearly. “Holy shit! Holy shit, it is. Should we—,”
“Probably not,” Maria answers instantly. “Someone likely shot it and let it run away. They might be looking for it.” She knows she certainly would be, if she could ever manage to shoot a deer. She’s tense, the possibility of running into anyone with that kind of aim putting her on edge.
“They might be,” Talia agrees by her side. She has a sly tone, though, and it makes Maria glance over to see her smirking. “But they won’t find much if I do the field dressing now and hide the body in the snow. We can come later with a larger group to bring it back.”
The ingenuity and genius of her quick idea makes Maria raise her eyebrows in surprise. She doesn’t know shit about dressing an animal yet, but she knows Talia has a good handle on it. The idea thrills her, overriding her usual caution. It’s been a long, long time since she’s been around a woman like this one; she forgot how fun it was. “Do you have the supplies for that?”
Talia nods confidently. “I can make due with what’s in my pack, and it wouldn’t take too long.” She looks between Maria and the direction of the carcass, clearly thinking of all the meat they could pull from it; still, she leaves the decision up to her partner. “What do you think?”
Maria appreciates the trust and consideration Talia extends her, once again grateful for such a woman. She supposes that if Talia, only a stranger a few months ago, could put such faith in her, then she should at least try to return the favor. “Okay,” she agrees, “I trust you.”
Maria can tell the words mean a lot to Talia by the way she smiles, but she doesn't really know what to do with the softness of the moment. Instead of dwelling, she tries to swiftly move on. She steps towards the carcass with a rushed “come on, let’s do this before it gets too—,”
She has absolutely no fucking idea how to handle what happens next. Not a single fucking clue.
All she knows is that the briefcase is out of her hand, her pack has slid straight off her shoulders, Talia is screaming, her survival instincts are screaming, and she is screaming—because she is not on the ground anymore, not at all. In one second, she’s flipped up into the air by her ankles; in the next she’s even higher, screaming louder as she is heaved a concerning amount of feet into the air. Screeching now, survival be damned, Maria distantly feels the burn of rope around her legs. She glances up through her handing locs to see a long line of it going from her ankles into the tree above, too high and too covered by foliage for her to see an end. What the fuck, she thinks, so that’s what she starts screaming:
“Whatthefuckwhatthefuck whatthefuckingfuck?!”
“Maria!” Talia is somewhere below her as the swinging slows, but Maria can’t look down at her. She can’t see Talia or the trees or anything around her, her world having gone completely black with panic—she doesn’t stop to realize that her eyes are closed. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
“No,” Maria responds emphatically. “No, no, no!” She cannot tell if she’s still yelling, blood rushing to her ears—likely, though, she is. She feels her body swing slightly back and forces bile down, willing herself not to puke. When she opens her eyes, her vision is swimming and blurry. I’m going to die, she thinks miserably. I’m going to die here, hanging from a tree in fucking Wyoming.
“Right, shit, dumb question.” Talia moves so that Maria can see her, coming around to her front and backing up. “Just try to stay calm, okay? I’m gonna get you down!”
“How,” she asks now, and as it turns out, her terror will only let her manage one word at a time; repetition is all she can manage. “How, how, how?” How is this happening, she wants to scream. How the fuck is this happening? Did I even get here? How the fuck did I survive this long, only to die like this? Fucking how?
“I can’t find the other end of the goddamn rope!” Talia sounds panicked now, running around below her from tree to tree. She tries to climb the one Maria seems to be hanging from, but from what Maria can hear, she’s not too successful. “Shit, fuck—How the fuck did anybody set this?”
“How,” Maria is still muttering helplessly. She can’t tell if she’s calming down or getting worse, really, but she knows she doesn’t sound okay. “How, how, how.”
“Just stay conscious, Maria, you’ll be fine! It’s alright, okay? I can try to—!” Talia stops suddenly at the sound of twigs snapping behind her, and in an instant she pulls her pistol from the side of her pack. She turns quickly, pointing it straight at the chest of the man approaching a few meters away from them.
He approached with his hands up, already pleading a steady stream of, “don’t shoot, okay, don’t shoot me! I just heard the screamin’ and—,”
Shoot him, Maria is thinking through her terrified haze. The last fucking thing she wants to deal with right now is another stranger, let alone a fucking man. Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him.
“Stay back!” Talia demands. Maria can tell she tries to sound intimidating from the lowering of her voice. Plenty of the men of Jackson cower in the face of Maria with that trick, so she hopes Talia is having the same effect now. “Stay back and keep your hands up, or I’ll blow your fucking brains out right now!”
“As threatening as that sounds, uh—,” the man responds, voice cautious but maybe shockingly a little amused, “you might need to turn the safety off for that, ma’am.”
And if Maria were on the ground, she would’ve throttled Talia right then. How many times has she reminded her about the fucking safety?
“Oh, shit,” Talia mutters. Clearly newer to the motion, she brings her pistol all the way down to click the safety off. She sounds far less sure of herself when she raises it back, which Maria closes her eyes at. They seriously need to work on her tone. “Keep your hands where I can fucking see them!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Maria manages. The fear combined with exasperation is just making her angry, at this point. She tries to bring her hand up to cover her eyes before she realizes what it would do, and her body sways slightly forward at the movement, which— God, this was bad. This was very fucking bad. She flinches and shrieks in terror at the jerking sway it causes, her panicked movements making the swinging worse.
With the swaying and her panic, she blindly starts up screaming again, caution and self-respect be damned: “Getmedowngetmedowngetmefuckingdownrightthefucknow—!” Her stomach, fully in her throat at this point, goes rock solid and cold. I am going to die, she thinks again, through her own pleading— I am going to fall straight down and break my neck and die in the woods of Middle of Nowhere, Fucking Wyoming, ten years into a zombie apocalypse.
“Hey, hey!” The man yelled up at her, attempting and failing to soothe her. He took a step towards where she was dangling, hands still up, but stopped in the face of Talia shaking her pistol at him with a pointed stay back, motherfucker! He sighed but continued, speaking towards her. “It’s gonna be okay! Look, I’m real sorry I startled you, but I heard screaming and— I set this up, alright? I was tryin’ to trap coyotes.”
“I am not a fuckingcayotesogetmethefuckdown—!”
“Well thanks to you, she’s fucking stuck up there—!”
“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He tries to desperately placate both of them at once, yelling apologetically up at Maria before turning to Talia. “I know it looks bad, but she’s not stuck—,”
“Not stuck myfuckingass, getmedowngetmedowngetme—!”
“It’s pretty simple,” He continues explaining. Talia is listening while glancing up at Maria, wincing at her steady stream of curses. “I just hid the other end of the rope a little too good, I guess. But we can get her down no problem.”
The words calm Maria only slightly, her panicked shrill pleas fading into soft mutterings of “just get me down, get me down, get me fucking down,” as her body turns excruciatingly slow.
Talia lowers her gun slightly, eyeing the man with caution but undeniable consideration. Don’t trust him, a large part of Maria wants to scream. Don’t ever trust any man you meet in the goddamn woods. Unfortunately, she was a bit too busy twirling like a rotisserie chicken to express her discontent with the situation. She doubted it would’ve mattered, anyway; Talia was far too desperate to turn away the help.
“Seriously? No bullshit?” she asks him, trying not to sound too hopeful. He nods, hands kept up. Maria can’t really see his face from here, but she can see Talia’s shoulders drop in wary acceptance. Her partner lowers the gun, holding it towards the man’s legs instead of his head—and that’s just so unsafe that it makes Maria want to start screaming her lungs out again. “Then you show me where the other end is, and I’ll do it myself. Any funny business, and I fucking pop you, you got it?”
Pop you, Maria takes a second to repeat mentally, even in the air, because how fucking ridiculous is that.
She thinks Talia amuses the man, too, because when he speaks, it’s clear he’s holding back a laugh. “No funny business,” he assures. “Got it.”
“Good,” Talia nods, unaware or undeterred by their amusement. To Maria’s satisfaction, she then raises her pistol back to the general direction of the man’s face. “Now, show me where to cut her down.” Atta girl, Maria thinks, even through her panic.
The man tenses visibly, likely not comfortable with someone clearly lacking firearm experience aiming a gun straight at his face. He points across a nearby clearing to something Maria can’t see, but hopes is a tree with the rope she’s hung from tied to it. “There’s a tree over there marked with three vertical lines. Untying the knot over there’ll loosen the whole thing, but—“
“Untiethefuckingknotthen, God, justgetmethefuckdownnow—!”
“But she’ll drop a good fifteen feet onto the ground without a spot, so I really suggest you let me give you ladies a hand,” He continues, eyes moving between the two of them as he explains. Maria’s eyes snap over at the suggestion, already ahead of and offended at his unspoken idea. He must see it in her face, because his hands go back up quickly in a clear gesture of harmlessness. “I swear on my life, I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t think it was necessary. You’d break your goddamn neck, otherwise.”
The mere suggestion of the possibility makes her fear flare back up to the max, and she snaps at him before she can help herself: “Fuck you, you fucking fuck! You get me down, and I’ll break your goddamn neck!” which, wow. She didn’t necessarily mean to say all of that.
He blinks at the response, clearly startled. Still, she sees his mustache twitch up now that she can focus on him—again, she suspects, he’s holding back a laugh. At her. Who the hell does this guy think he is?
“As you wish, ma’am,” he says. There’s a hint of a tease there, and it makes her want to fucking kill him. He turns to Talia, and the hint of playfulness melts off his face to make room for something more serious. “I’ll move under her and let you know when to untie the knot, alright? Soon as it’s loose, she’ll be comin’ down pretty fast.”
Talia nods, giving him one last once-over that Maria’s sure is her best attempt at an unspoken threat. She passes right under Maria and moves behind her, giving her a sorry look and nod of good luck.
The man moves closer to her, finally within good enough range for her to get a good look at his features: dark long hair, strong nose, and big, dark eyes. His skin was littered with freckles and tanned, even for the winter. He has a mustache that’s surprisingly well-kept, hair also framing the lower part of his chin. He’s buttoned his worn, dirtied-up denim jacket all the way up to his chin, and his cargo pants are tucked into sturdy-looking leather workbooks. He has some type of rifle strapped across his chest, holding tight to his back, and an impressively full-looking camping pack.
He’s definitely tall and strong enough to catch her, she’s sure. Even upside down and swaying, she can’t deny the intimidating bulk of his form—an observation made in the name of practicality, of course. When he walked up to be almost right under her, she could look straight down into his eyes—and they were big, she noticed straight away. Big and brown and undeniably soft, even from up here.
When he spoke directly to her, his voice was gentle in a clear attempt to be calming. “M’not gonna lie to you, ma’am,” he starts, “this probably won’t feel too good.”
No fucking shit, she wants to bite out. Judging from his slight grimace, he can probably read the sentiment in her expression. The immediate prospect of falling towards the ground soon keeps her quiet, though; she feels entirely paralyzed with fear. I don’t want to die this way, she can’t help but think again. She’s a practical woman and knows the likelihood is slim, but her fear is real and pressing as ever. She can’t help her mind from spiraling as she hears Talia call out “ready!” from somewhere behind her.
She watches from her suspension as the man takes her terror in, letting out a sorry sigh in response. She can tell, somehow without words, that he is actually very sorry for getting her into this. As much as she wants to, she can’t even bring herself to appreciate it—in her anger and despair, it feels too much like he is pitying her. This, coupled with the fear, just makes her want to start screaming again.
Instead, Maria forces herself to focus on the man and simply trust him to catch her. He’s gone from looking at her to examining the distance between them, likely planning where to stand. “Just don’t let me die,” she pleads, desperate and quiet enough that Talia can’t hear.
At the soft words, he goes from calculating the space between them to searching her face in an instant. When his eyes meet hers again, they are burning and determined; he nods at her once. “You’ll be just fine,” he promises.
The words are reassuring and genuine enough that she feels her twisted stomach relax, even just for a second. She’s surprised at how much she believes him, but she really does. He takes a second to do a quick scan of her, head to toe—and she knows pragmatically that he’s only sizing her up in preparation to catch her, but the careful focus of his gaze is surprisingly warm. She’s suddenly hyper aware that her top layers have ridden up to her stomach, showing off her skin and C-section scar. Her ample cleavage is pushed up towards her chin, likely heaving and obvious even through her jacket.
He’s either too gentlemanly to notice any of this or polite enough to pretend he doesn’t, because his eyes are quick to return to her face with sure confidence. “I should be able to catch you no problem, okay? Just try to keep tucked in when you drop.”
The verbiage makes her wince, stomach tensing once again at the reminder of how high up she is. “Can we try to avoid the use of words like drop or neck right now, please?”
“Shit, uh, right—Sorry.” He moves straight under her now, and she refuses to look directly down at him on account of keeping herself from puking on his head. She hears him toss his backpack a few feet away, as well as some metal clattering that sounds like he’s dropped some guns. Lots of guns, she realizes after a second. She’d only noticed the rifle strapped across his back, but clearly he had more. Who the fuck needs to set traps like this with that many guns?
“Alrighty,” He interrupts her wonderings, yelling out over to Talia, “I think we’re ready to go, are you ready?”
“Ready!” Talia returns quickly. “If you drop her, you fucking die, asshole!”
“Understood! Ma’am, are you ready?”
Maria responds with an unamused and terrified, “uh-huh,” which comes out as more of a tortured groan.
“Sounds good. On three, alright?”
“Alright!”
“One,” he starts, and she sends a quick prayer up to Jack and Kev. If I die like this, I am so fucking sorry. “ Two! Thre—!“
She can’t tell if she screams. In less than a second, she goes from suspended in the air to craddled the strange man's arms, terror phasing into invigoration in an instant. He catches her perfectly, arms secure under her knees and around her torso, bouncing her up to his chest with soft grunt. Her own arms come up and wrap around his neck upon impact, which she guesses from the painlessless that he’s cushioned with his knees. She can feel his hands, large and bare, pressing into her thigh and side, just below her breast. Their faces are mere inches away, brought closer when he’d heaved her up towards his chest.
Maria doesn’t remember the last time she’d been this close to someone’s face. She finds it surprisingly pleasurable.
The steadiness of being in his arms after dangling for so long brings on sweet relief, so fast and hot that she doesn’t know what to do with herself. It feels so fucking good and so fucking warm to be held by this man, alive and safe as the day she was born. She can’t help but let out a delighted, disbelieving cackle straight into her savior’s face.
“Holy shit!” Maria exclaims, voice bright and emphatic. “Holy shit, you actually caught me!” She smacks his chest and starts to laugh, practically kicking her feet. She makes no move to get down; he makes no attempt to cease holding her.
Her delight must be contagious, because he answers her smile with his own—and, oh wow. Geez, does he have a nice smile. She suddenly can’t even remember the last time she’d been smiled at, especially like this. Had Talia smiled at her anytime today?
When he speaks, she can feel his voice against her whole body. “You sure you’re alright, ma’am?”
“Ma’am,” Maria mocks, accent and all, instead of answering him, delighted. “Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am. What are you, a cowboy?” She laughs at her own joke, giddy for the first time in what feels like years. “God, you sound straight out of a Clint Eastwood mov—,”
“Uh, excuse me?” Talia interrupts, suddenly right smack in front of them. Maria hadn’t even noticed her walking up. She’s looking at the two like they’re absolutely deranged—which, upon consideration, Maria supposes is pretty fair. What the fuck were they doing? What the fuck was she doing?
She remembers where she is, suddenly, and loosens her arms from around the man’s neck. He lets her down instantly at the movement, stepping politely away and shaking out his arms. As she bends down to untie the rope from her ankles and pick up her discarded pack, she hears him clear his throat.
“My name’s Tommy,” he says, surprisingly formal for what they’d just been through. “Tommy Miller. And again, I’m mighty sorry you got pulled up there. Wasn’t expectin’ anyone out here, not this far into winter.” He directs the words towards her, looking straight at her face again, but she can’t quite bring herself to look back at him now—she focuses on checking the contents of her pack, instead.
“Clearly,” Talia interjects. She marches over to her aluminum briefcase, left where Maria dropped it, and checks it carefully in clear offense. “How the fuck did you even manage to set a trap like that? You could’ve killed her!”
“I’m sorry!” He says again, genuine and firm. He has the courtesy to at least seem embarrassed, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his reddening neck. “I was hoping to catch some bigger game. I would’ve marked it, but—you know, that’s not so smart out here. As for how: guess it took a pretty long while, but it wasn’t too hard. I’m good with rigs like this.” He shrugs, walking over to his own dropped pack. He avoids picking up his guns in a rare and mindful show of civility—still, there’s something about his words that suddenly off-puts her. I’m good with rigs like this. “I saw some coyotes out this way, and—“
“When?” Maria asks immediately, demanding and sure. She’s not shy about looking at him anymore—now, she pins him with a suspecting glare. The man’s clearly startled at the change in tone, blinking at her once. He must see something less than pleasant in her eyes, because he doesn’t answer her right away—this only makes the unsettled feeling in her gut grow worse. She asks again. “Just how long have you been out here, exactly?”
Talia notices her change in tone, too, Maria can tell. She’s looking between her and Tommy like they’re in a tennis match, tense to match her partner but unsure of why. Tommy remains silent, looking pinned.
Maria doesn’t voice it, but she already knows the answer to her question. Instead, she redirects, pressing him even more: “How long have you been stealing from us, Tommy?”
A beat passes.
For a few seconds they hold there, eye-to-eye in a makeshift Western standoff. She doesn’t back down from him, doesn’t even consider it for a second—Maria, after years living in Harlem and working in law, has a stare colder than any winter out there. She’s pretty sure that Tommy, whoever the fuck he is, is no fucking match for her.
He proves her right quickly; he relents, dropping his shoulder shamefully. “Just over a month,” he answers quietly. Maria is still staring him down, but she sees Talia’s head reel back at the revelation out of the corner of her eye. (How the fuck did you know that? Maria can already hear her asking later, and maybe she’s gotten closer to this woman than she thought.) Her attention turns back to Tommy as he continues. “I am sorry, but I didn’t exactly have much of a choice. I was injured and stranded, and I couldn’t hunt for myse—“
“You have four guns,” Maria interrupts, head tilted pointedly towards his gear. She crosses her arms and continues staring, observing him carefully. “One of them is a long range rifle with a scope, but you can’t hunt?”
“Ran out of ammo a while ago,” Tommy says quickly. He even leans down to pick up his handgun, tossing it to her. She catches it warily, trying not to let her surprise show on her face, and checks to be sure. He’s telling them the truth—the magazine is void of any cartridges.
Still, Maria’s frown does not relent. His defense is still too weak for her to accept, even with this truth—this man has been taking from them, watching them, and she finds herself almost unreasonably desperate in her need to know why—so she continues with her interrogation. “You don’t need guns to hunt. Clearly, you’re entirely capable of setting your own traps, yet you’ve been choosing to steal from ours. Care to explain that to me?”
Tommy’s frowning now too, thick eyebrows furrowed and jaw working as he looks down at his feet. Maria can tell he’s trying to be careful with his words; a strong part of her wants to challenge that restraint, so she does. “Don’t think about it too hard, cowboy,” she goads, a little bit on the cruel side of teasing. His eyes snap back up to her face, narrowing slightly at her tone.
Get angry, she taunts, in her head and through her eyes. Get angry and prove to me what a thieving fuck you are, I dare you.
Tommy looks back at her, bristling at the piercing nature of her stare. This time, however, he does not back relent; he instead purposefully continues to meet her gaze, letting her see every and anything he holds in his eyes—And he’s clearly holding so, so much, it almost takes her breath away. There is anger there, she sees clear as day, but there’s also an insurmountable amount of grief and exhaustion, so raw and deep that it strikes her. I’m not going to fight you, he seems to be telling her. She feels rather than hears him say it. I’m not going to fight you, ‘cause I’ve got no fight left in me.
Additionally, he gives her a verbal answer: “I was with the Fireflies until six weeks ago,” he starts, and this admittedly throws her. She hasn’t heard of the Fireflies since they’d fucked with FEDRA in the Omaha QZ a few years ago, their reputation poor and short-lived. Ten of them had been horribly and publicly executed that summer for blowing up a FEDRA school, purposefully targeting children of wealthy hire-ups to protest corruption. The winter before had been especially rough, and most people had been left starving while wealthy FEDRA families had thrived—eventually, though, they’d surely pay the price for it.
Maria hadn’t felt particularly tolerant of anyone serving FEDRA, nor the goddamn Fireflies, since then.
Keeping this in mind, turns her attention back to Tommy as he continues: “I’ve been with them for some years now, but things got—things got pretty bad, working with them. I couldn’t—they had me—“ He shakes his head and looks up at the sky for a second, sighing. Maria finds herself wondering, briefly and against her will, if he prays. “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of,” he finally admits, looking back to look her in the eyes. “And I wanted to start changing things, maybe make it less…—I don’t even fuckin’ know, at this point. I just wanted things to change. But the Fireflies weren’t much interested in changin’, and then there was a run-in with some hunters nearby. I got hurt, and then I got left.”
Maria blinks, stopping him briefly to clarify, “What, they just kept going without you?”
“Well,” Tommy starts, annoyed, and for the first time he does actually look pissed off. “Not before stealing most of my food and all of my ammo, but basically—yeah. Like I said, we ran into some hunters on the way. We handled ‘em pretty quick, but I got it bad, I guess. Woke up, and—well. They were gone, and my ankle was pretty fucked.”
He tries to shrug it off, but Maria can tell by his poorly-concealed frustration and rushing that he’s likely ashamed of what's happened. She can understand that, not one to fully admit to her own weaknesses, so she excuses the lack of detail. She can tell he isn’t lying, at the very least. Tommy goes on: “Noticed traps set around this area ‘bout a month back—I figured y’all wouldn’t mind if I didn’t take too much to miss. But still, I really am sorry. I just needed enough meat and supplies to get back on my feet. I stopped as soon as I could manage to run and climb well enough on my own.”
Talia is nodding along, looking satisfied with him as he finishes. Maria, of course, is not quite there yet. It sounds reasonable enough, and true enough, but—hold on, had said meat and— “Supplies?” Maria realizes suddenly, incensed. “You’ve been stealing supplies, too?” It was certainly possible; they’d stashed a couple emergency cases around these woods a while ago, a back up for any members of Jackson fleeing or stranded.
Emphasis on members of Jackson.
“Oh shit, uh, you hadn’t—you hadn’t noticed that?” Tommy’s eyes go wide and back down to his shoes; he somehow looks even more caught-out and embarrassed. He looks especially young and boyish like that—it almost makes her want to laugh. “I took, uh, a few things. Just some rope for traps, two cans of peaches, one can of greens, and some antiseptic bandages from the infirmary.”
“The infirmary?” Maria can’t fucking believe it; she can’t fucking believe this man and his fucking audacity. “You’ve been inside?”
“Well, yeah,” Tommy answers. His shame and embarrassment fades a little; he almost seems offended at her disbelief of what he’s been capable of. “It’s not exactly difficult, what with the walls bein’ so weak.”
“Hey!” Talia exclaims, sudden and defensive. Tommy genuinely jumps a bit at the interruption—Maria can guess he’d forgotten she was there for a second, because she did, too. But Talia wouldn’t stay quiet at Tommy’s observation; she was quite defensive of her work, and she put time in on Jackson’s borders frequently. Case in point, she objects to his observation: “We've been working hard on those walls, jackoff! Don’t insult the walls! You have no chance of joining Jackson without respecting the walls.”
Maria blinks at Talia, stunned enough to finally turn her attention away from Tommy. “What do you mean, joining Jackson? He’s been stealing our shit!”
“He said he was sorry!”
“Talia! Are you fucking—“ Maria halts suddenly, turning back to Tommy to regard him. “Can you excuse us, for a second?”
“Um,” Tommy stammers, stunned. He’s looking between the two women like he has no clue what to do with this conversation, a feeling Maria can relate to. “I mean, I guess—I guess I can go over there?”
“I would appreciate that, thank you,” She responds. Her mock-pleasant tone makes Tommy huff out a laugh through his nose, and Maria watches carefully as he turns and walks away from them, leaving his guns and fully giving them his back. He goes across the clearing to the tree he’d rigged with the coyote trap, then sits comfortably against it. Just to be safe, Maria pulls Talia in the other direction a few more yards away, then turns back to glare at her. “Are you fucking crazy?” She hisses.
“No, you’re crazy,” her partner retorts, and Maria is bowled over at the audacity of her tone. Talia continues in an combative whisper, “You’re crazy if you think we can leave a guy like this behind! He could be a huge help to Jackson!”
“Help to Jackson? He’s been stealing from Jackson!”
“Only because he had too! And because he clearly can, which is the whole point. He’s competent and he’s clearly trained—It’s smart to keep someone like that around!”
“No, it very much is not—it’s risky! He’s an admitted thief!”
“Well, at least he admitted it!”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Maria says, too exasperated to even lower to her voice. She brings it back down to a whisper. “Stealing from Jackson aside, he was a fucking Firefly. We have no idea what a person like that is capable of.” She glances over at Tommy again, watching as he begins to—honest to fucking god—tie and untie the laces of his left boot. The harmless, mindless innocence of the action isn’t exactly helping to prove her case.
“Oh, come on. You know that’s not fair,” Talia says more seriously. “We’ve all done things we wished we hadn’t at this point, right? We’ve all done things.” She tries to stay lighthearted in expressing this, but Maria can tell from how she repeats the words that the sentiment holds serious weight for her; suddenly, they’re speaking far beyond Tommy. She knows it’s important how she responds.
“We’ve all done things,” Maria readily agrees. It’s become somewhat of a saying in Jackson, necessary and true. We’ve all done things, but there’s still hope. We’ve all done things, but we’re still here. We’ve all done things, so we can’t judge. She supposes, after a second to think, that she can try to extend the belief to the ex-Firefly.
“Plus,” Talia whispers, unaware Maria’s already convinced, “He pretty much just saved your life. Kind of makes up for the stealing.”
Is she kidding? “Are you kidding me right now? He’s the reason I was trapped up there in the first place!”
“He had an explanation for it,” Talia shrugs her off, and part of Maria wants to just get put back in the tree to die now, because, was she fucking kidding her right now. “Then he saved your life! Maria, the man practically swept you off your feet!”
“Swept me off—he caught my fall, Talia, he didn’t propose!”
“Could’ve fooled me,” She muttered, just low enough for Maria to nearly miss.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing! Nothing.”
“No, Talia, what did you just—“
“We should at least let him meet the council so they can have an official vote, don’t you think?” Talia finally asks, smirking because she likely knows that’ll be the end of it.
And damn her, Maria knows she’s got her there. Eight weeks ago, Jackson established its official, freshly-appointed council: a group of seven representing the twenty-one community members Jackson had thus far. For now, it consists of skilled residents that the rest of Jackson had voted to manage different aspects of Jackson—Maria and her father were both members, her as the town’s unofficial archivist and him as the unspoken head of Jackson. Week after week, the community has grown increasingly confident in the direction of the council; it was slowly and surely solidifying its importance.
There was no way she and Talia could decide on Tommy regarding Jackson without the council—especially if he could be considered an asset to Jackson. If it concerned the community, it was up to the community; that has become Jackson’s most absolute law thus far.
Maria sighs, long and slow. She watches as Tommy re-ties the shoelaces of his left boot one last time before starting on his right. Hoping and praying she doesn’t regret this, she calls him over.
“Yo, Eastwood!” She shouts to him, then beckons him over with a nod. He, bless his heart, has to take a few seconds to retie the laces of his right boot.
“Who the fuck is Eastwood?” Talia mutters beside her, leaning close. She watches too as Tommy gets up, making his way over to where he’d left his things a few yards away.
“Eastwood, like Clint Eastwood? From those old Western movies?” Talia gives her a baffled, pointed look.
“What?”
“You gave him a nickname?”
“Oh, you can shut right up.”
“I assume you ladies have made some sorta decision?” Tommy interrupts, now fully packed and loaded. The extra bulk of three guns and his gear makes him look especially big and dangerous—Maria has to try a little too hard to not to notice.
“Ye—“ Talia starts.
“No.” She interrupts. She makes a mental note to apologize later to her partner later for the attitude, but she needs to make it clear to Tommy that she’s not fucking around here. Maria pushes aside any positive feelings she’s had about this day and this man, meeting his eyes coldly. She tries not to think about how not even ten minutes earlier, Tommy was watching her scream for her life, dangling from a goddamn tree.
“This isn’t an invitation,” she starts, voice unyielding and stern. “We’re talking you to somewhere where our people can make a decision on you. So you’re officially on probation, Tommy Miller. You steal anything, you’re out. You fuck with anyone, you’re out. We find out you’re still with the Fireflies, and you’re dead. You do anything at all to put my people in danger, and I will make sure to shoot you myself. Am I understood?”
Shockingly enough, Tommy just smiles—it’s a small, soft grin, boyish aimed straight at her. Either he was left deranged from his injuries or a tried-and-true adrenaline junkie, because her threats only seem to intrigue him. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, voice deep and charming. “I understand you clear as day.”
And onward began the rest of her life.