Archive of Our Own ^beta

Rating: PG for language, probably
Pairing: Hints of Hunter/Smoker I guess

She couldn't say that she'd grown accustomed to the sound of gunshots, exactly. A sudden sharp noise near her would always catch her attention, put her on her guard for danger. It was more like she'd learned how to ignore the faint faraway gunshots she heard every now and then. She had to be able to ignore them to get to sleep at night, after all; ignore the gunshots and the restless sighing of the infected nearby and what it all meant.

Somewhere out there, there were other survivors fighting, trying to keep moving just as they were, and that thought was almost comforting, in a way. They weren't alone in their struggle... if other survivors were the source of the gunshots. From how spectacularly badly CEDA and the army had handled things ("Vindicated!" Smoker had said), there was no guarantee that that was the case.

And if it was the army after all, she wasn't sure she wanted them to get any closer. They'd seen the bodies of civilians after all, uninfected (and usually unarmed) people that had been shot down, and they saw them too often for it to be an isolated incident.

It was too risky to follow those sounds. There was no telling who would be at the other end. But they were always there, faintly in the distance. A reminder that they weren't alone, for better or for worse.

Usually the gunshots didn't bother her. Tonight, they were closer than usual, louder and her wounded arm had made it difficult for her to sleep anyway, so for once the sharp echoes managed to wake her up. Hunter sat up with a faint groan, looked around blearily, saw that Smoker and Jockey were still asleep on either side of her.

No sign of Charger. Hmm.

She rubbed at her eyes with her good hand, scratched her head roughly, rolled her shoulders and there was another gunshot. Not as far away as the others... but still not loud enough to wake her companions, apparently.

They'd had a rough day anyway. She wasn't surprised they were out cold.

She ran her fingers through her short, greasy hair, yawned and pulled up her hood, and she stood up, extricating herself as quietly as she could from the pile of blankets and clothing that constituted their bed for the night. It wasn't the most comfortable bed in the world, but the building had been long abandoned after all, and there wasn't much left to scavenge.

They made do with what they had. They didn't really have much of a choice.

Another gunshot. Smoker and Jockey slept on. Hunter tilted her head, tracked the sound to a door that led up to the roof, and she put on her shoes and made her way up the stairs and outside. The night was clear and cold, the air a bit sharp and she was glad she was wearing her sweatshirt. She looked up, letting out a huff of air as she stared up at the moon and stars and held onto her arms. Some buildings still had electricity but others weren't so lucky, and the fewer lights in the city made the stars more visible than usual.

Sometimes when she looked up, it was easy to forget just how fucked up everything was.

Hunter eventually looked down, surveyed the roof and noted quick exits, potential vault points, possible routes of escape if a horde was after her without even thinking about it, something that was becoming second nature to her. Her eyes stopped on a figure standing near the edge of the roof.

A few cautious steps closer, and she was able to make them out more clearly. Charger was kneeling with Smoker's sniper rifle in hand, staring down at the streets below. There were a few discarded ammo cartridges near her feet. Hunter watched as she lifted the gun up, peered through the scope, squeezed off a shot, and lowered it again.

"Charger?" She didn't want to sneak up on her, not when she was armed. That could end badly very quickly. Charger glanced back at her, acknowledged her presence, but didn't turn around. That taken care of, Hunter walked over to join her, not entirely expecting a sunny welcome, and as she thought, Charger kept her eyes determinedly fixed on the streets below. She knew Hunter was there, but she had something more important to deal with.

Charger was always telling them that they needed to learn how to prioritize, and more specifically, that they needed to prioritize staying alive instead of goofing around so much (this was, after all, serious business). Obviously, watching the street was priority number one for her at the moment.

"You should be asleep," Charger said, eventually, when Hunter had been standing beside her for some time and apparently wasn't going anywhere. "We have a long way to go tomorrow."

Hunter's eyes, despite her best efforts, were constantly drawn to the scar marking its way across Charger's face. She didn't mean to stare at it, and never intended to do it, but it was hard to keep her eyes away from it. She'd never seen anyone with a scar like that before. A circle of deep marks against brown skin, tracing a line around her eye and across her cheek. A crocodile had bitten her once, she'd said, and Hunter was willing to bet that it was the croc that got off worse for the experience.

She'd told them that the man she'd saved had nearly paid the price for being careless, and that they would too if they weren't more careful. She liked trying to turn experiences into lessons for them, although they all seemed to have the same basic message (Start taking this seriously!) and apparently it never sank in to Charger's satisfaction.

It wasn't like Hunter wanted to make things difficult for her (or everybody), but she'd never really been good at the whole impulse control thing. Or making carefully thought out decisions, for that matter. Taking things seriously just wasn't in her nature.

"Whatcha doin' up here?" Hunter sat on the roof's edge, kept her arms close to her body to try and cut the chill down. Charger was still wearing her short sleeved shirt, although she didn't seem very bothered by the cold. No doubt all the animals she'd tracked down had given her super-endurance, or something. Hunter couldn't really think of any better explanation, and Charger having super powers didn't really seem that outrageous to her. She did save them constantly from danger (although, to be fair, they did return the favor).

Charger didn't look at Hunter, still focused on her work. She raised the gun up again, looked through the scope and Hunter tried to see if she could find what she was aiming at. Smoker asked her to spot for her sometimes, after all, and it was a natural reaction.

Charger fired, revealing her target as an infected who was stumbling too close to their chosen building for the night. Just one shot, and the infected slumped down and did not move again. She lowered the gun.

"Keeping watch," Charger said. "You should be asleep."

"What about you then, huh? You need sleep too. Unless you're a robot or something." Hunter kicked her legs a little, smiling even though she knew Charger wouldn't rise to that bait like Smoker would. Charger had her sense of humor surgically removed at birth or something (such a tragedy, Hunter couldn't even imagine living like that), but Hunter wouldn't let that stop her from teasing her. Maybe if she kept up her efforts, she could get through to Charger and get her to lighten up a little, you never knew. Hunter was nothing if not stubborn and determined, and she liked getting people to smile, particularly if they weren't the kind of person to do it very often. "Beep beep boop."

"You were injured worse than I was today. You need the rest." Not acknowledging her accusations of being a cyborg, not that Hunter expected her to. "All three of you."

"Beep boop, does not compute," Hunter said, still smiling and she tilted her head to look at her. Charger was still focused on the street below, and her serious expression hadn't changed. "You got to sleep too, you know."

"I will." Charger raised the gun. "Eventually."

"Recharge your batteries, or whatever." Hunter kicked her legs again, and she looked up at the sky. A gunshot from beside her, another potential threat disposed of. There was silence between them for a while, but Hunter couldn't stay quiet for long. "Where we goin' tomorrow, anyway?"

"We're going to cut through the movie theater," Charger said. "There should be a short cut to the museum from there."

"Maybe this time the evac won't be overrun with zombies before we get there." Hunter leaned back on her hands, staring up again at the sky. She raised her eyebrows, although she wasn't looking at anyone. "With our luck though, probably not."

Charger didn't say anything, apparently content to leave it at that and continue what she was doing. Hunter sat beside her, thinking about what she'd said, staring at the sky above and all the stars and her arm still felt kind of sore from where that guy had bit it earlier that day. She heard some grunting and shouts from below -- two zombies maybe getting into a fight.

It was weird how used to this she had gotten, and in such a short time.

"Do you think we'll make it out of this?" Hunter said, when the silence had gone on too long and she had to say something, and that was the first thing that came to mind. "I mean, survive the whole zombie thing?"

Charger pulled the now-spent magazine out of the rifle. Her voice was neutral and even. "Realistically? No." She jammed the new one into place. "We're outnumbered, and the infected are changing every day. Eventually there'll be some new strain of it we won't be able to counter, something we won't be able to stop until it's too late. And they don't need sleep or food like we do. Eventually we'll run out of ammo and supplies, and we'll be overwhelmed." She returned to her work, staring through the scope of the rifle, the same somber expression as when Hunter had first sat by her.

Hunter hadn't really been expecting that as a response, particularly from the leader of their little group, and she was a bit taken aback. Charger had always been painfully realistic about things at times, kind of a killjoy really and mostly because she was often right, and even though some logical part of her thought that Charger maybe had a point, the rest of her just could not accept it. There was no way she wouldn't survive the zombie apocalypse.

That they all wouldn't survive it, somehow. Maybe other people would die, other people that didn't try as hard, that weren't as special or as awesome as they were, but not them. They'd make it, she was sure of it. Somehow things would work out for them.

But there was a grim reality to Charger's words that was hard to ignore. The fact that it was Charger saying it, and she didn't say stuff like that lightly, didn't help, and neither did the sinking feeling in the pit of Hunter's stomach at her words. Realistically, realistically they probably didn't stand much of a chance. Four people against thousands upon thousands of zombies constantly out for their blood, and some of the zombies even had special murder-powers and everything. What kind of odds were those, really? They were constantly cheating death every day as it was... shit, just today Smoker had nearly been killed when a Tank cornered her in a small room. How long would their luck hold out? Charger was probably right, realistically, but still...

"So why keep going?" Hunter asked, and there was an antagonistic tinge to her voice because she didn't want Charger to be right, wanted to find a way to prove that that wasn't going to happen, that Charger didn't really believe that they weren't going to make it. "If we're just gonna die anyway."

There was a pause as Charger scanned the streets below, her brown eyes narrowed as they had been for the majority of their conversation. "You three don't seem like the type to easily give up." Stated as fact, just as her analysis of their situation before, and Hunter nodded almost subconsciously at that. "Neither am I. We don't have to die just yet. We'll see how far we can get."

That was more like it, fierce resolve in the face of overwhelming odds that Hunter could agree with, draw strength from and that made her feel a little better. "Fight on until the end, huh? That's more like it." Hunter rubbed at her sore arm for a few seconds to try and stop it from aching, which didn't help as much as she'd hoped. Not that it was a big deal, or anything. She'd be fine by the morning. She'd always be fine, in the end. "Not gonna let those zombies beat me."

"As long as we can," Charger said, and even though she was agreeing with her, it wasn't a rousing affirmation meant to bolster her spirits. Just a statement of fact. Hunter felt better when she said it anyway. She still had faith in them, in her, even if she thought they'd all be killed eventually. Hunter decided to focus on the first part of that rather than the last. "We've come this far."

"That's true, and we did a lot of really cool shit on the way." Hunter kicked her legs a little. Saying that out loud was helping a little bit, although not as much as she would have liked. She still felt kind of uneasy, and she kept returning to what Charger had said, her grim assessment of their situation. "So that counts for something, huh?"

Charger didn't say anything, taking down another zombie down below, and then she set her gun down. She rubbed at her hands, her knuckles and it might have been because they were cold, but Hunter noticed that her fingers lingered over her wedding ring.

She'd noticed Charger touching it before, when she didn't think anyone was watching.

"You said your husband died, right?" Hunter said, quietly. She'd always been curious, but had never really found a good time to ask her, and now that they had some time alone...

"Yes," Charger said, neutrally again, although she was staring off into the distance. She was twisting her ring slowly around her finger.

"What happened?" Hunter said, quieter still.

"He was killed after the infection broke out." Charger's expression as serious as always, but her eyes were slightly unfocused. Her voice was carefully, obviously controlled.

"Zombies got 'em, huh." Hunter looked down.

"I'm not sure."

"Zombies got my friends too," Hunter said, feeling like she should say something, and there was that heavy pang of sadness that always came with memories of her old friends. If anyone should have survived this, it should have been them. They'd gone through so much together, and it didn't seem fair that out of all of them, she was the only one to make it. They should have been here with her, and it was easy to get sucked into a downwards spiral when she thought of them, but she reminded herself to keep talking. She could at least get it out quickly. Dwelling on the details never helped. "They got infected... we had to shoot 'em."

A pause, and Charger kept staring into the distance, and she was still toying with her ring. "I just found him dead."

This felt awkward and heavy and sad, and she didn't know what to say, and Hunter wasn't sure why she'd even brought this up now that she thought about it because she hated conversations like this, feeling bad and she didn't want to feel like this, or make Charger feel like this. Why did she even ask her that? This was a terrible idea. Something else she probably should have thought through before she said it.

Just found him dead... she'd noticed that Charger was always the first one awake, and the last to fall asleep. Was that why? She wanted to keep watch over them for as long as possible, make sure she wouldn't find them dead the same way? The ugly sadness of that thought made her shiver, and she shoved it away as hard as she could.

"What was he like?" Hunter said, a little thinly, hoping to change the topic but she quickly realized that she hadn't exactly succeeded. It was too late now, though. "Was he nice?"

Charger looked down, focusing again, and she looked at the golden band around her finger. She didn't say anything for a few seconds.

Hunter watched her carefully, unable to take her eyes away, and she saw her expression soften. Not a lot, by any means, but enough that she could notice, and it wasn't an expression she'd seen on Charger a lot. Or at all. She was always serious all the time, always focused on getting them from one place to another, on keeping them all alive.

She stared at her ring, the tension in her face easing a little, eyes downcast and her brow unfurrowing, her frown now something less severe.

"He was," she said softly, and that was all.

Hunter would have been lying if she said she wasn't curious, didn't want to know everything about Charger's husband: what he was like, what he did, how old he was, if they were the same race, why they'd gotten married, how they'd met, countless questions circling in her head... and yet, the look on Charger's face, how she'd said that, somehow Hunter couldn't bring herself to ask. She might have been curious, nosy and persistent as Smoker had complained to her a few times before, but she hated being sad more than that, and making other people sad even more so. And there was probably nothing but sadness down this route.

"I miss my friends too." Hunter felt like she had to say something, try and lighten the mood or something, and she tried her best to smile at Charger even though she didn't really feel like it. "But we got each other now, so it isn't all bad, right? 'Cause we make a pretty awesome team, I think."

Charger didn't say anything for a time, still toying with her ring, staring down, and then she took in a deep breath. Finally she turned and looked at Hunter directly.

"Listen." Charger stopped rubbing at her hands, and she set one on Hunter's knee. "There's no way of knowing what will happen tomorrow, or how long I'll be here. How long any of us will be here. We could all die tomorrow."

Hunter stared at her, not wanting to hear this, but she didn't move or look away. Charger tilted her head at her slightly, and she didn't look as severe as she had before, as grim and focused as when she'd first told her their fate. This was closer to sadness, pain and exhaustion.

"Appreciate what you have while you have it." And she glanced back down at her ring, almost too quickly to see. "You don't know how much time you have left together. Don't waste it."

She knew, somewhere, who she was talking about, and she'd suspected that Charger had always known but never said anything about it because they had more important things to worry about. And Hunter likewise wasn't about to bring it up, what with their lives constantly in the balance. Not the time or place for it, and she was content to just leave it at that, mostly. And it was... complicated, anyway.

Hearing that, hearing her say that, though, was still strange. Like it made the whole thing real, in a way, and it felt... weird. Awkward. Hunter didn't know what to say to that, feeling uncomfortably exposed, and Charger turned back to the edge of the roof, picked up her gun.

"You should go back to sleep." Quietly, and she was back to scanning the streets below.

"You're not going to stay up here all night, are you?" Hunter said, eventually, and more weakly than she would have liked.

"I'll be down eventually."

"You better be." Hunter stood up, her hands in the pouch of her sweater, and she struggled to force her normally light tone back into her voice. "You gotta sleep too sometimes, you know? You robot."

Charger just fired another shot off, another zombie gone.

Hunter thought maybe that she should stay, keep her company, give Charger some likewise advice about her husband or something, but the thought of feeling like this anymore, dealing with unpleasant and uncomfortable emotions, seemed completely and utterly unappealing. She didn't want to think about this or feel like this, think hard about her situation and what was going to happen to them all, be serious about it and feel sad because there was really probably no way out, and she just had to get away from her for a while, recharge or something. Talk to her when things were lighter and more normal, and she could joke like usual, and things were fine.

She was sure that Charger probably wouldn't mind some time to herself as well.

Hunter made her way back downstairs, and she could hear Charger still shooting from above. Their safe room was much as she'd left it; their guns by the wall, remains of the dinner they'd scraped together by the door, and Smoker and Jockey still asleep in the pile of blankets in the center. Smoker had shifted a little, lying on her back with her mouth slightly open, a white bandage on her cheek and gauze around the arm above the covers. Jockey was near her, curled up into a ball, blankets pulled up close to her chin, bruises across her forehead and face.

Hunter pulled down her hood, took off her shoes, picked her way across the blankets, sat down between them. She looked at Jockey, breathing deep and she could make out her eyes moving beneath her eyelids. Dreaming about something, no doubt, and she mumbled quietly to herself every now and then. She looked at Smoker, still sleeping heavily beside her, breath rasping through her cigarette-damaged lungs, and she thought about what Charger had said.

Appreciate what you have while you have it. After all, who could say they would all make it through tomorrow?

She moved Jockey's braid a little, untwisted it from around her neck, and Jockey mumbled something and curled up a little tighter, still dreaming. She turned and touched Smoker's forehead, brushed some hair away from her face, and Smoker took in a deep breath but didn't wake.

Hunter inched her way beneath the covers, trying not to disturb either of them too much, and she shifted closer to Smoker, resting her head on her chest and wrapping her arm around her. Smoker mumbled something, loosely returned the gesture with her other arm, then went on sleeping.

She squeezed Smoker a little, not enough to wake her up, and tried her hardest to focus on memorizing everything about this moment. She'd lost her old friends, but she hadn't lost her yet, and that made her luckier than most people. To be in Charger's place, to just find Smoker dead one day and never know exactly why...

Never have a chance to say goodbye, or tell her how much she mattered to her...

Never be able to do something about it...

She held onto her tighter. Maybe realistically, they didn't have much of a chance. They were four women against almost the entire world, and they probably couldn't fight forever. Realistically, they probably would eventually die out there.

But she'd fight as hard as she could until that moment, and she'd fight as hard as she could to make sure that Smoker and Jockey and Charger would also make it to that moment, and she knew they'd do the same for her, and that was all that anyone could ask for. And maybe that was all that they'd need, maybe that'd be enough to get them through this after all.

They were survivors, after all. For how long, no one could say, but Hunter was going to make every moment count.