Chapter Text
Praetorian Jack was the steady type of lead that kept consternation wrapped up and out of his words. It was a trick that set him apart from the start, their first ride back from Gastown, with her halfway to madness in failure without a thought for his own. Furiosa curled like an animal under the dash at the first screech of Dementus’ mic, and he was worn out after the false confidence of a one-man guzzolene loader. He told her years later that he wanted to scream.
“I’ll take a guess you’re glad I’m not crazy enough to stay overnight in Gastown.”
“Used to have the better accommodations.”
“You can’t drive the rig. If I fall asleep, don’t hit me hard enough to knock me out.”
When she climbed into her seat again, they were riding through twilight, and wide eyes roamed over her without anger. He opened a compartment previously blocked by her head and pointed out bandages and other stuff for her injured leg, so she wiggled her boot off and rolled up her pants. Furiosa knew that was there. She helped build it.
“A rig will stop without its driver. That’s what every attack will try to do. You should always be aware of the state of your driver.”
He peeked at her exposed calf, slender enough for teasing whenever the black thumbs saw.
“Barely a scratch on me, so you did a good job.”
The Praetorian gave her a first lesson in road war with imagined convoy positioning. He looked out for danger instead of ordering her to speak. Words were good for him after the shock of the drive back through the wreck of the fight, and silence on her part was a matter of course and not a hint that she waited to pull a gun on him again. They didn’t know that about each other, back then. He just kept smooth talking until she looked where he did, then opposite of him, then climbed back to fetch a spyglass from a dead warboy’s bag and wondered what happened to the bobbyknocker kid when the rig was unloaded.
“I’m not lucky enough for you to have a hidden deformity the Immortan won’t like.”
“You ever had a kid? Twisted or not, it's important.”
He didn’t let a hint of trouble into his voice, but uncertainty passed between them when she looked at him in disgust. Only then did she consider whether he was actually able to provide the deal he offered. Praetorians guarded Immortan Joe and fetched women from the nooks and crannies of the Waste. They might be capable of a gentle trap, after all. It would be near impossible to get out of the vault again, and she might be looking at a man undecided after all, on what he would deliver to the Citadel.
“Don’t look at them like that when they ask you.”
It was pitch black when they returned, too late to run away. The House of Holy Motors didn’t sleep when their most epic rig disappeared without a flare, so every person Furiosa worked with learned her lie at once when the Praetorian wrenched her from the cab and walked her through the garage like a doll. He stopped them at the Steering Shrine to put his wheel back in its place of prominence.
“Praetorian Jack, where’s the crew?” asked someone in the crowd that followed.
“Valhalla, to the last man. They took the Mortiflyers with them.”
The cheers must’ve reached Immortan Joe up at the top as they chanted his name, but their faces were dark with their love of death and the Praetorian Jack who always brought back the booty. His arm snaked around her waist to hold her up, stiff as an iron shackle, and the black thumbs shouted for dogman or dogwoman, their share in the glory.
His tone was still empty of any frustration when he pushed her to her knees before Immortan Joe. There was no chance to slip his hold all the way upstairs. The Praetorian spoke of her scrawny, deprived womanhood that would need a healthy babe’s worth of nutrition care to rehabilitate, and he agreed with People Eater that a wiry dogman couldn’t fit a child in her belly. The primordial, savage fight of hers wasn’t worth the trouble. Organic didn’t even think she would make a good milker.
The argument for her use in war was quicker. Everything important about her was obvious and proven in battle. Praetorian Jack was in need of a partner to wrong the Wasteland as Immortan saw right, and who was he to deny anyone who climbed the chains of mediocrity to be of such service? Anything less would be a misuse of the gruel she already took. Furiosa was given as a reward to Praetorian Jack, as it turned out, for loyalty and resourcefulness and as an indulgence from a master that appreciated his judgement at high value. She was a thing he asked for.
“This won’t be enough to keep you out of scrutiny, but give me time.”
He didn’t touch her again on the way down, after she pushed him off to limp on her own. The swing of his words made her sick, and years with crude brakemen didn’t prepare her to guess which things he said were true. Their crew room was silent and empty, but full of gear. It made the loss bigger when she saw all the pallets laid out with spare clothes and trinkets, and it defined the way she would soon be surrounded by men instead of tucked into the wall of the garage.
“BlackThumb’s stuff is mine. Take what you want from the rest.”
Furiosa chose a bunk away from where the Praetorian settled in the center, against the wall with the exit in sight. She put a fist to her forehead and wished she could hold the seed, and she pleaded with her mother to forgive her for being caught here when they should be on their way home. The Green Place, she thought about when she would go home and not whether the man watching her in the dark would attack.
“What’s your name?”
Rolling over to get away, she waited, laced her fingers through her new Apache revolver, and he laid back with a sigh and said nothing else.