Fic: The Waiting Job

[sunspot]

Title: The Waiting Job
Fandom: Leverage
Pairing: none specifically but hints of Nate/Sophie and Eliot/Hardison/Parker
Rating: 13+
Word Count: ~11,700
Warnings: some violence, some swearing.

Summary: They're out of food, and someone's going to have to go out to get more before they die. They have no choice at this point. Hopefully the zombies will see it that way and not give them a hard time.

Author's Notes: A hundred thousand shambling, hungry thank yous to maskedfangirl for the amazing beta. Thanks to Katie, who was my darling alpha reader and helped with title woes. Y'all can check out the mix that accompanies this story and half inspired it/half was inspired by it, over here. Leverage and its characters are property of their respective owners and no infringement is intended.


It seemed like the first month in the apartment had passed in the blink of an eye. Parker pointed it out one night during dinner. "Your calendar is wrong," she said to Nate, motioning over his shoulder at the calendar on the wall. "It's July now."

They all took a second to think about it, Nate even counting the days backwards under his breath.

Sophie set her fork on the counter and got up the change over the page, flipping from June's cocker spaniel puppies to July's boxer in a fruit basket. "You're right, Parker."

"A whole month," Hardison whistled. "Wow."

They finished dinner in silence.

--

The first month passed in the blink of an eye, which made it all the stranger when by the end of the thirty-third day, they were at each other's throats.

"All I'm saying is that there are ladies in the house now and we'd appreciate it if you put the seat down when you're done!" Sophie shouted, coming down the stairs.

Eliot was right behind her, tossing a damp towel over the railing. "I forgot once, Sophie, can you just stop bitchin' about it already and dammit, Hardison, that's like, the fifth time this week you didn't hang your freakin' towel up!

"Are you sure?" Parker asked, poking Alec in the shoulder. "I didn't think he showered that often."

He rolled his eyes and wheeled around to glare at her. "Oh, for the love of--"

"Stop!" Nate was standing in the middle of the room with his hands in his hair. He looked vaguely like a cartoon. "Stop, all of you, just stop. Now."

Everyone shut up and turned to look at him.

"I can't handle the bickering. I could barely handle it when I had a cupboard full of scotch, but I've been out of scotch for four days now. You need to do something to keep from killing each other."

Eliot scoffed, and was about to say something but Sophie elbowed him. "What should we do, Nate?"

Nate sighed. "Just... Everyone come down here. Let's sit down and I want to talk to you all."

They gathered in the living room. It was getting late and the little light that managed to worm its way through the boarded up windows was fading fast.

"We're running out of pretty much everything," Nate told them. "Food, toilet paper, bullets... Not to mention liquor, which is the most horrifying part. How is your..." he tried to think of the right word, but it was evident it wasn't coming to him. "'Thing' coming along, Hardison?"

Alec sighed, and looked at his feet, then the ceiling, then he picked a stray thread from the hem of Parker's shirt and then he looked at his feet again.

"That well?" Eliot said drily.

Alec leaned forward in his seat to point an accusing finger. "Look man, I don't see you--"

"Damn right you don't, because I--"

"Boys!" Sophie smacked them both on the arms with surprising strength. They both sat back, but didn't stop glaring. It never helped when Sophie called them 'boys'; it just made them feel more like petulant children.

"It's coming along exactly like I told you it would, " Alec said, shooting a dark look at Eliot, who managed not to snark at him. "Everything is down, man, the entire electrical grid got wiped out in the first explosions and it's quiet out there. I've been working with the parts we got, but I'm not picking up on anything down the entire east coast. It's just real quiet."

They all looked around, avoiding each other's eyes. No one wanted to confront the idea that they might be the last ones left besides the reanimated dead outside, because that was beyond a freaky idea, but the way Hardison said 'quiet' made them all think about it.

"So supplies then," Eliot said, gruff as ever, as if nothing Alec had said bothered him in the slightest.

"Yes, we've got another three days maybe, if we stretch it." Nate's voice was muffled behind his hands.

"Looks like I'm going out then," Eliot said. "Swell."

"Did you just say -- ? Did he just say -- ?"

Parker nodded. "Hardison's right, you can't. We don't know what's out there."

"No," Hardison said, shaking his head. "I can't believe he just said 'swell'."

Nate breezed right by that remark and poked Eliot in the shoulder. "Parker is right, we don't know what is out there. But you're right too and we can't stay here without food, so someone is going to have to go out there." He rubbed his temples. No one said anything while Nate was thinking.

"In the morning, Eliot and Parker are going to go out. There's a Walmart six blocks north and two blocks east."

"We can pull the boards off of that window," Alec said, jerking his head to the window in question. "And watch you almost the whole way. Yeah," he added, almost to himself. "That won't be so bad."

Eliot nodded slowly, mapping it in his mind. "We can be back in under an hour, if everything goes right."

"Parker?" Nate asked.

Parker nodded too. She didn't trust herself to speak. It was the best plan, but it was still a little terrifying.

"Then it's settled. It's getting dark. I'll take care of the watch tonight, so you all get some sleep."

"I'll stay up with you," Sophie said, standing up. "Might as well, because I'm sure I won't sleep tonight anyways."

Nate couldn't argue with that.

--

Upstairs in the bathroom, Parker undressed quickly and changed into one of Nate's old button down dress shirts that she'd been using as pajamas. She peeked her head into the guest room where she, Alec and Eliot had been sleeping since it all started. Eliot was sitting at the foot of the bed, eyes closed and legs folded up underneath himself. Alec stood at the window, half dressed and peering out between the slats over the window.

"I don't like it, man" Alec said to Eliot.

Eliot didn't open his eyes, but nodded along. "It's going to be interesting."

"Not the word I would have picked."

"Relax," Eliot snapped, still maintaining his posture. "We'll be fine."

Alec was almost pacing. "You're going to look after Parker, right?"

Parker rolled her eyes, but ducked out of sight when he wheeled around to fix Eliot with a stare. Eliot finally opened his eyes and stared back.

"Yeah, man. I will."

Alec rolled his shoulders and flopped onto the bed. "And take care of yourself too."

Eliot let his eyes close again and didn't say anything. From the hall, Parker watched him touch Alec's knee. Just a brush of his fingers, but enough.

Parker had never claimed to be an expert in human relations, but there was something in that touch that seemed more human than she ever expected between the two of them. "Bedtime!" she called, extra loudly and with as much cheerfulness as she could find. It sounded fake, even to her.

"Hmm," Alec sighed. "You're right, Parker. Big day tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah." Parker hopped onto the bed besides Alec and took the pillow from under his head. "I want to sleep in the bed tonight."

He groaned. "You had the bed last night."

"And every other night this week," Eliot reminded them.

Parker shrugged. "And every night since we got here, if you want to argue about it. But you're not going to make me sleep on the air mattress, though."

"Oh yeah?" Eliot traded his black shirt for a grey shirt, which -- in the complicated language of Eliot -- meant that he was done with the talking and was ready for the sleeping.

She smiled sweetly at him, and then turned to Alec. "Exactly. If you were going to make me sleep on the floor, you would have done it ages ago. We might as well stop calling it the bed and just start calling it Parker's bed."

Eliot and Alec traded a look of shared resignation. No one was going to argue with her. Not tonight. Eliot turned off the bedside lamp but before he could claim the better half of the air mattress, Parker stopped him.

"We can share the bed," she said.

Eliot closed the door, cutting off the half-light still spilling in from the hall. He glanced at Alec again, who sort of shrugged with one shoulder. Parker had already wrapped his other arm around her waist and was nesting under the sheet like it wasn't ninety degrees outside. Eliot opened his mouth to argue, but stopped at the last second. Instead he just found a place on the bed next to Parker in the dark.

--

Sophie sighed and shut the cupboard door for the third time. She kept opening them and peering in, but she never found anything she wanted.

Probably because what Sophie wanted was to go beyond the confines of the apartment without worrying about dying one of a thousand different ways at the slimy, decaying hands of one of a thousand monstrous undead creatures.

She also wanted a cup of tea but there wasn't anything even resembling tea left anywhere in the apartment. Sophie flipped open the electric kettle and peeked inside. Empty, of course. She set it down on the counter, maybe a little harder than she should have, and opened the pantry again.

When she found that the contents of the cupboard had not changed in the last twenty seconds, she was annoyed, but not surprised. Sophie gritted her teeth and closed the door very quietly. It wasn't just the tea, she knew, it was everything about the insane situation they were in, the loss of power, that was getting her so worked up. The tea was just the hot beverage that broke the camel's back.

"You're making me nervous doing that, Sophie," Nate said to her from his spot in the living room. "Can you relax?"

"Not in a very relaxed mood," she replied dryly. "Believe it or not."

"Why don't you make yourself a cup of tea?" Nate was honestly just trying to be helpful, so Sophie didn't pull one of his arms off and hit him with it. She just flung herself over him, face down onto the couch and balled her fists in the cushions. It took a few moments for her to realize Nate was talking.

"So if you look at it that way, I don't think it's anything we need to worry about, right?"

She half-lifted her head and agreed with him because it seemed like the polite thing to do, even though she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Good." Nate smiled. "I'm glad." He patted her leg that was stretched out over him. "I'm sorry about this, Sophie, sorry for getting you tied up in it. I mean, I'm sorry for anyone getting tied up in it, but I'm especially sorry for you," he said, looking her in the eye even though it was evident he wanted to look away.

Sophie wasn't happy. She was miserable and terrified and every day her world got a little bleaker, but when Nate called her 'Sophie' and looked right at her, she couldn't feel anything but comfortable.

--

Morning came too early, Alec thought. He kicked the tangled sheet off his legs and realized he was alone in the room. He practically flew down the stairs, cursing himself under his breath for sleeping so heavily. If they were already gone...

But they weren't. Nate was talking quietly to Parker over the last of the dry cereal and Eliot was in the living room, doing some tai chi or whatever it was that he did. Sophie was asleep under one of Nate's jackets on the couch. Everyone was alive -- nervous and tense -- but alive.

"Morning, Hardison," Nate said, making sure not to notice how visibly upset Alec was at the prospect of having missed what might be the last chance he would ever have to see Parker or Eliot alive.

Alec was grateful for Nate's coolness sometimes.

Eliot leaned over Nate's shoulder and scooped up a handful of corn flakes. "Ready when you are."

Parker's eyes went wide. "But you're not even armed!"

"Okay, one -- of course I am, I'm Eliot Spencer. Two -- today I'm also carrying weapons." He showed Parker the three guns at his waist and he hefted a baseball bat from somewhere.

She nodded, but she didn't look happy. "So, do I get weapons?"

Now normally, the thought of Parker with a gun or a crossbow or even a heavy stick was not a thought anyone wanted to dwell on, but today, the thought of Parker without a weapon was a lot more awful, so Eliot shrugged. "Remember how to use that shotgun?"

Parker made a noise like an excited guinea pig and hopped off the counter to go find herself a gun.

"I made a list of stuff you should grab if you see it," Alec said, pressing a folded sheet of paper into Eliot's hand. "There's a copy for Parker too."

"Alright."

They didn't say anything else.

"Rock and roll!" Parker chirped, waving her (thankfully unloaded) shotgun and startling Sophie awake.

Sophie was about to grumble, but she took one look at Parker and just smiled sadly instead. "Ready?" she asked. Eliot and Parker traded quick looks and then nodded.

Parker checked down the barrel of her gun and snapped in a loaded clip. "Not getting any readier, anyways."

Sophie held out her arms and Parker went readily to them. "Good luck," she said, voice choked. She barely managed to hug Eliot around the neck before she fled the room, slamming the office door behind her.

"You have ninety minutes," Alec warned, waving his finger in Eliot's face in the exact way he knew pissed Eliot off the most. "And I swear if I gotta stop the very important work I'm doing to come save your asses from the legions of the undead bent on murdering us all, I'mma be all kinds of disgruntled."

Despite the wagging finger and the huffy computer geek attached to it, Eliot's reply was more than mild. "Noted." He turned to the blonde with the semi-automatic shotgun. "Let's go."

"We'll see you when you get back," Nate said, raising his mug in salute.

--

The trip from the third floor to the parking garage was quiet and uneventful which was nice, of course, but did nothing for their nerves.

The truck they picked was an ancient rusted Dodge pick-up that somehow still had three quarters of a tank of gas."Fuck," Parker breathed, sliding into the passenger seat and setting the shotgun across her lap. "No, that wasn't stressful. I wish every day could be like this."

Eliot laughed.

"You think it's funny?"

"I think it's the closest thing to funny I've heard a long time, Parker. We sort of have to find our own funny these days. You're really starting to get the hang of sarcasm, too."

"Spending too much time with you and Hardison."

They both held their breath while Eliot touched the ignition wire to the power and the truck jumped to life.

"Now the fun really starts," Eliot told Parker. The noise of the engine would have alerted everything in the area that there were people about.

They roared out of the underground parking garage and took off in the direction Nate had pointed them. They were four blocks up before Parker nudged at Eliot. "Look!"

The streets were empty. Nothing, no one, was around. There were smashed windows all up both sides of the street, people's belongings exactly where they'd been dropped when the first explosions went off the month before, cars abandoned in the streets; Boston was a ghost town. What Alec had said the night before echoed in her head. Maybe the entire country was like this now. Maybe they really were the last people left.

But they weren't, of course, but Parker tried to not to look at the bodies in the gutters or on the sidewalks or the buildings she could see into. She also tried not to see them in her mind's eye. All those dead people, all over the country... She shivered in the sticky July heat.

"I don't like it," Eliot said flatly, speeding up the truck.

They found the store and drove around the block while they hashed out their plan. "We're not getting out of the truck until we absolutely have to." Eliot was adamant. They approached the wide glass doors of the shopping centre.

Parker sighed and reached behind her to find her seat belt. "This is going to make one hell of an interesting story one day."

Eliot looked at her sideways. "What do you mean?"

"You're going to drive the truck through the front doors, aren't you?"

He hadn't planned on it. "The noise --"

"Doesn't matter at this point," Parker reminded him. "We're already making enough noise, Eliot. They would have heard the truck already. Might as well get in there as fast as we can so we can get back out as fast as we can, right?"

Eliot let out a low whistle when he considered it. "This will make one hell of a story," he agreed. He shifted the truck into third and motioned for Parker to hold on. She flicked the safety on her shotgun and gripped the dashboard.

He floored the truck and they sailed towards the doors.

Parker imagined that time would slow around them and she would be able to see shards of glass flying and maybe even the curve of the doors buckling inwards, but in reality, it was very quick and very noisy. The sound of metal on metal made her shudder involuntarily.

"Shit! Dammit! You okay, Parker?"

With the sound of glass still falling behind them, Eliot stopped the truck and looked around.

"I'm fine. Are you – Oh god."

"Yeah."

"Eliot, I think --"

"Yeah. Let's go, come on."

She didn't mention it again, but the shattered driver's side window and blood trickling down the side of Eliot's face didn't really need to be talked about. It was doing a fine job making itself known without any help.

"We'd be faster if we split up," Parker started, leaning her shotgun over her shoulder and reaching into the pocket of her sweater for the list Nate had given them.

"No." The tone brooked no argument. Not that Parker wanted to argue the point anyways.

"Bullets," she read from the list. "First aid kit, canned food, bottled water, alcohol, batteries, tea. I think Sophie added the last one. And we need gasoline from some cars in the parking lot or something."

"Right, okay. This way. Oh, and Hardison gave us a list too." He pulled it from his back pocket and tossed it to her.

"'Things You Need To Bring Back For Me,'" she read and they started up the first aisle. "Man, his handwriting is not easy to read. 'Laptop, cell phones -- anything you can find -- duct tape, screw driver set -- yeah he's not asking for much, is he? – tin foil, and oh."

"Oh?" Eliot tossed four boxes of orange pekoe in the cart they'd grabbed and looked over his shoulder again. That would keep Sophie happy for the foreseeable future. Happy in terms of tea, anyways.

"Just the last two things on Hardison's list."

Eliot snorted. "A downed satellite? A case of orange soda?"

"'Parker and Eliot, safe and sound'."

As if on cue, something heavy hit the floor and smashed a few aisles over. Parker swung her gun down and whirled to face the end of the aisle. Eliot took three quick steps to make sure he and Parker were back to back. They listened.

There was something else moving in the store.

"Damn," Eliot hissed. He unholstered his gun. "If you can hit the head, don't waste the shot," he reminded her. "And don't let them get within fifteen feet."

And then they waited there, back to back, for the zombies to find them.

After a full two minutes, when nothing had come around the corner towards them, Parker nudged Eliot in the back. "Eliot?"

"I don't know," he told her. "Let's keep going. Just. Quiet, okay?"

They reached the end of the aisle and still didn't run into whatever else was moving around the store. "Electronics, I guess," Eliot whispered, nudging Parker in the right direction.

They grabbed all the dusty, floor-model cell phones they could find, cutting through the security strings with one of Eliot's wicked looking knives.

Parker didn't hear anything or see anything or smell anything, but something told her to duck and she did. It was like before, when they used to work jobs or before that even when she used to be a thief for her own reasons, when she tripped a silent alarm or woke up a security guard sleeping floors below. Something had suddenly noticed her presence, even if she hadn't consciously noticed theirs.

Skidding along the floor on her knees, she bumped into Eliot's knees. "What the hell!" he yelped, turning. He squeezed off two shots, hitting the creature right in the head and dropping it before Parker had even fully realized it was there at all. Eliot lifted her to her feet with one arm, not even looking down.

A second and third creature appeared around a display of Miley Cyrus cds. They shuffled over the body on the floor and glanced around. They had been drawn by the noise, obviously, because they didn't notice Parker and Eliot right away. In the time it took them to notice the humans and start shuffling again, Parker blew one of them in half and Eliot killed the second one with a bullet right between its desiccated eyes.

Parker laughed softly, adrenaline coursing through her. "You always said you didn't like guns."

"I don't. But necessity is the mother of killing things any way you can, I guess."

"You know I don't think that's what Plato meant, Eliot."

Eliot stared at her for a very long moment trying to think of the best way to phrase his incredulity. "Right," was all he could manage before moving on. They found a few laptops for Alec and tossed them in the cart with the cans of Zoodles and Sophie's freaking tea.

--

Alec was muttering something to himself with his headphones on and Nate had vanished upstairs somewhere. Sophie sat on the couch and leafed through an old edition of Vogue. She'd read it at least forty times since they'd barricaded themselves into Nate's apartment.

Usually, Sophie found the familiarity of it comforting. Everything around them was strange and uncomfortable, but at least nothing ever changed in Vogue.

Everything except that magazine was different. It was quiet at night, for example. Sophie had been a big city girl all her life, traveling around the world, grifting here and there and drinking in culture and the colour that every city provided surrounding herself with the unstoppable noise of other people. Boston was never what Sophie thought of as a big flashy metropolis, but there was always white noise. Now there was nothing. No cars, no noisy neighbours or sirens in the distance, just the quiet of a ghost town.

Near the beginning, there had been too much noise. Breaking glass, splintering wood and small explosions every minute of the day and night, all overlaid with people screaming.

The worst had been when the building across the street caught fire. People, real people, had been in that building, Sophie had seen them across the way, moving behind their double glazed windows. Eliot had pointed out the burning smell in the early evening, and by dinner, smoke was pouring out of the top of the building and some of the top floor windows.

Parker hid in the bathroom right after the screaming started, and Alec followed, running to comfort her or maybe escape the sound himself. Eliot didn't move from his book, but Sophie saw his eyes were shut tight.

She stood at the window with Nate, peeking through a gap in the drapes, unable to tear her eyes away as two women jumped from a second floor balcony and started running up the street. Sophie wanted to shout to them, to warn them about the monsters waiting behind the empty cars, but the monsters were on them before she could form the words.

Nate turned away from the window then, tugging the heavy fabric over the windows and draining his glass in one long drink.

The next morning, when they came downstairs, Nate was sitting in the kitchen, munching on a handful of crackers and every window was boarded up. He had such a look in his eyes that no one asked him where he'd gotten the wood or the nails.

Sophie threw the magazine on the table in disgust. It skittered right off the edge, taking a stack of papers, one of Eliot's paperbacks and some bits of a broken microwave Alec had been fitting together with it. Alec looked up from what he was doing.

"Soph?" he asked, taking off his headphones. "Everything alright?"

"No," she hissed, sinking back into the couch cushions and putting her hands over her eyes. "No, it's not alright, Hardison. We're sitting here, pretending that everything is fine and normal and that we didn't just send Parker and Eliot away to die!"

Alec held up his hands. "Whoa, Sophie, whoa. Don't say stuff like that."

But she had already started and couldn't stop. "It's not alright because what if we're the only five people left alive on Earth? What if this is it? The entire city is gone, Alec, and we're the only ones left. You said it yourself: there's no one left on the entire eastern seaboard! Maybe even in the whole country. It's only a matter of time before we're all dead too, but no, we had to speed up the process!"

Alec disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few seconds later with a scrap of paper. He handed it to Sophie. It had some math calculations and a little doodle of a checkered elephant on it. "Couldn't find a napkin," he shrugged.

Sophie chuckled dryly and dabbed her eyes on the paper. "Better than nothing, I suppose," she murmured.

He slid over the back of the couch to sit beside her. "I'm not going to try and tell you everything is sunshine and roses when we all know it ain't. But we're here. And we're alive. Parker and Eliot are out there right now, trying to make sure that we keep on living. And so help me, if you say they're not coming back one more time, I might seriously lose my mind. You wouldn't want that, Sophie, it's very unattractive." Alec pulled her into a big hug, patting her arm consolingly. "It's going to be fine because... Because it has to be."

She held onto him for a very long moment. He didn't mind.

One she had composed herself, she sat back up and smoothed out the wrinkles in her shirt.

"Come with me." Alec stood and stretched. "I'll show you what I've been working on."

--

Another zombie surprised them as they were rounding the next aisle towards the pharmacy. It had probably once been a fancy business man, if the tatters of navy sport jacket were any indication. It smelled worse than anything Parker had smelled before and she tried not to gag. It tilted its head when it saw them, almost like it was confused as to what they were doing. One of its eyes dropped out of its socket and hung somewhere in the vicinity of its mouth. Eliot smashed it in the face with the edge of an $1800 Macbook and he didn't even try pulling the computer from where it stuck in the dissolving creature's head. They moved on quickly.

Parker vaulted neatly over the high pharmacy counter and started filling a plastic basket with various prescription drugs, occasionally rattling the bottles to make sure they were full.

"Parker?"

"Can't hurt," she shrugged. "Do you think Nate would like some Normodyne? What does that even do?"

"Parker!" The baseball bat went sailing past her head.

Parker turned to see about thirty of the creatures pressing in on them. "Here!" she reached out and helped Eliot over the counter. They each grabbed a side and slammed the heavy metal security grate down and locked it.

"Quick!" Eliot called, pulling one of the huge shelving units away from the wall and trying to haul it in front of the door. Parker ran to help him, but stopped short when a couple of decomposing fingers wiggled through the grate at her. She hit the hand with the stock of the shotgun and jerked back when the fingers snapped off and landed on the floor.

Lining the muzzle of the gun up with one of the holes of the grate so she wouldn't shoot their only defence, she pulled the trigger on the fingerless zombie. Nothing happened.

"Oh shit, I'm out of bullets!"

Eliot swore under his breath and spun back around to her. "Trade," he commanded, pushing the baseball bat into her hands.

He had managed to pull the shelf half in front of the door, which opened inwards. So if the monsters did find the door and open it, they would only have about four inches to work with. Until they pushed the shelf over. It was an imperfect plan, but that was really the only kind of plan they were working with these days.

The noise from the gunshots was starting to make Parker very twitchy because she couldn't see what was going on, but she guessed as long as Eliot was still firing, he was still alive. She fixed her grip on the baseball bat. "Eliot?"

"I'm okay!" he called back. He was breathing steadily and not taking his eyes off his targets, just like he'd been taught at age seven, back when his father still talked to him. Don't look at your gun, boy. You know it's a gun, it's in your damn hands. And breathe quieter, everything in the woods can hear you. Look where you want your shot to go. And never, ever point a gun at something you don't want to kill.

Right now, he wanted to kill all of them. Problem was, he was running out of bullets, too. Eliot could make almost every shot if he focused, but he was worried about running out of ammunition before he ran out of enemies. And he was worried about more showing up, or some finding the door and breaking in and eating Parker. He was even a little worried of fire raining down from the fucking sky and burning the entire store to cinders before he could get back to the apartment and give Sophie her damn tea. Much like with punching bad guys or bickering with Hardison, once Eliot started worrying, he found it very difficult to stop again.

"How're you doing, Parker?"

"Good over here," she called. "And I wasn't out of bullets, it's just the damn thing didn't chamber right."

"Wonderful! Coulda used that news five minutes ago!" She appeared at his elbow and presented him with the shotgun.

"He's got three more in him, so make them count."

"Get back there," he hissed, trying not to draw any undue attention to what amounted to a giant hole for anything to walk straight through to chew on their flesh.

Eliot finished with the gun in his hand and shouldered the shotgun instead. In a bit of luck he would secretly thank Parker for, his first shot almost liquefied the head of one zombie before taking out the one behind it too. Two more shots and two more dead zombies. He dropped the shotgun at his feet and switched to a fresh pistol.

The pile of dead undead bodies in front of the pharmacy was getting a little ridiculous, but only three of the creatures were still standing.

Eliot swore under his breath when he heard the click of the empty chamber. "Need a reload," he called to Parker.

"Okay, then reload!"

He took his eyes off his targets for long enough to glare. "Parker. You had the spare magazines. I gave them to you before we got in the truck."

"Pretty sure you didn't."

"You're pretty sure I didn't?" he tried to keep his voice even and low so as to not attract anything else. Especially not if Parker was now telling him they were out of bullets.

"Pretty sure, yeah." Parker had her eyes fixed on the door in front of her like it was about to explode. Her stance was all wrong and she was holding the bat way out in front of her like it was a lit roman candle.

"It's not a baby, Parker, you don't have to hold it so far away from you." He jammed the useless gun back into its holster and came up behind her, correcting her grip and kicking her feet apart.

Parker twitched at the feeling of his breath on her neck, feeling goose bumps raise on her arms, but studiously ignoring them. Eliot guided her in a few practice swings. “That’s good. Bend your knees a little. You’re better already.” If Parker wasn’t mistaken, that might have been the sound of pride in Eliot’s voice.

"Thanks. But is this the best time to be critiquing me?"

Eliot grunted. "Out of bullets. We got to go out swinging." He had meant 'go out to the truck' or 'go out of this corner we've backed ourselves into' , but the double meaning was obvious to both of them. Just a little awkward.

Parker nodded. "Let me get a few things. And you never answered me about the pills for Nate." She stuck her tongue out at the zombies still picking their way over the slippery pile towards the pharmacy and pulled a shopping bag from under the cash register.

It was a testament to their fucked up lives that the decomposing people lumbering towards them with the sole intention of eating him freaked Eliot out less than watching Parker turn her back on the register full of cash and start stealing little bottles of pills she couldn't pronounce the name of instead.

"Get him some Viagra or something," Eliot said, realizing Parker was tapping her foot impatiently.

"And here," she said, pushing something into his hands. "I found something under the counter. We're idiots," she said, brandishing the almost forgotten shotgun. "Out of bullets, but it's good for hitting."

Eliot grinned. "Smart."

They shouldered the shelf away from the door. Nothing was making noise on the other side of the door, but that didn't comfort either of them all that much.

"Ready?"

"Wait," Parker hissed. "Eliot..."

When she didn't say anything else, he quirked an eyebrow at her. "Just 'wait'? We can't wait any longer here, Parker; we agreed on ninety minutes."

"Just wanted to say thank you." When she said it, it was barely a whisper. Eliot pretended he didn't hear it. It was easier that way.

"Open the door quickly," he told her. "On three. One, two... three."

Parker flung the door open and ducked behind it so Eliot could spring into the next room and knock down all the bad guys, just like old times. Except the little hallway was empty.

They swung around to the front of the pharmacy and took out the three creatures in a dazzling display of teamwork. Eliot went high, Parker went low, taking out heads and legs before the stumbling monsters had realized they were even there.

Parker dumped her bag of drugs and supplies into the cart, grimacing when she saw the stray bits of monster that had dripped in. She made a mental note to make Alec wash everything twice when they got back.

"We need bullets," Eliot reminded her, heading back in the direction of the truck.

"We're going?"

"Can't get them here. There's a military surplus store on the other side of Nate's place, about four blocks up. Won't take long."

Parker groaned quietly and followed him. "Why the hell would Nate put something on the list that he knew we couldn't get here?"

Eliot shrugged.

They stopped once more for impromptu monster killing before they got to the truck. As they walked away from the last body, Eliot rolled his shoulders and felt the tension crackle through his body. He huffed a curse word under his breath.

"What?" Parker asked.

"Nothing," he said quickly, glancing around the corner of the aisle before motioning for her to follow.

"No, I heard you make a disapprove-y noise. What did I do?"

"Nothing, Parker, jeez." He spotted the truck up ahead, exactly as they had left it.

She frowned. "Fine."

Eliot shrugged out of his jacket and started to brush the broken glass off the passenger seat of the truck while Parker threw their spoils of war into the pickup bed. There was almost a tense moment when they realized the driver's side door was not going to close properly after its run in with all the metal and shatter resistant glass of the Walmart entrance, but Eliot decided it didn't matter.

"You mean you're not worried that you might fall out while we're driving?" Parker asked.

"No."

"There is something wrong with you." After almost four years, she was so glad she finally got a chance to parrot that back at him.

Parker snickered at the stunned, vaguely amazed look on his face.

--

"See, and then I set this up to automatically switch output frequencies every two minutes. If there's anyone out there, Sophie, they're going to hear it." Alec rolled his shoulders and smiled at her.

Sophie understood most of what he was telling her. "But what if the other people don't have their own computer genius to take care of this kind of stuff?"

He laughed. "You guys are just so lucky to have me, that what you're saying?" He tapped a few things on the laptop keyboard. When nothing happened, he grimaced and jumped to his feet. Sophie tried to track the maze of wires running around the table, but she was out of her element. Alec disappeared from view for a moment, crouching to wiggle a loose wire.

The computer made a long beeping sound. "Ah-hah, cool." Sophie watched him hit a few more buttons and the screen went dark when the program opened, with lines across it like a heart monitor. "I figure that the people left out there, they're going to be kinda like us – you know, super-skilled and whatnot; military or survivalists or something. They're going to know to use basic radios, so they'll be able to pick up all of my transmissions."

A little orange squiggle flew across the screen. "What was that?"

Alec wrinkled his nose. "I'm not sure. Some small electric reading. Not a radio or a cell or something, but..." his voice trailed off as the monitor blipped again. "Huh."

"'Huh'?"

"Wait," he said, making a shushing motion with his fingers. "See if it does it again."

It did. Sophie and Alec watched as every five seconds another sharp spike of orange appeared on the computer. For two minutes the stood side by side, silently watching until Alec sat back down and started typing furiously.

Sophie ran for the stairs. "Nate! Nate!"

He appeared at the top of the stairs. "What is it? Parker? Eliot?"

"No, they're not back, but it's Hardison. Come down here, I think he found something!"

So Nate and Sophie stood on either side of the table, watching the screen while Alec typed, and clicked and huffed at his equipment.

"What are we looking at, Hardison?" Nate asked finally.

"Still not a hundred percent sure, but it's probably not a person, if that's what you're hoping." He frowned. "Sorry. It's too... automated. Every five seconds on the same frequency. Maybe it's an old cell tower acting up or a satellite or something."

Sophie waved her hands at him. "No no no! No. You said. You said ours changed automatically, what if they set theirs up to be automatic as well?"

Nate put his hands on her shoulder and forced her to look at him. "Sophie, calm down. We absolutely can't get our hopes up. Hardison is going to keep working on it and once he figures it out, we'll come up with a way to use whatever it is. If it's people, if it's hardware we can salvage, whatever. We're all going to keep going. Together. But we need to trust each other, right? Just like old times, like on a job."

Sophie buried her face in Nate's shoulder and he held her while she cried.

--

Eliot didn't fall out of the truck on the drive to the military surplus store, possibly thanks to Parker's frequent warnings to be careful. Back on streets, they were the same quiet, eerie empty they had been before. Parker didn't want to look. She kept fighting the urge to find patterns in the broken glass on the floor or count the wisps of hair that were escaping from Eliot's ponytail. She forced herself to keep her eyes outside, watching for trouble.

The surplus store had all its front windows smashed in, which made Eliot more anxious than he was willing to admit. It was way too open, too vulnerable to a swarm of monsters. "Hurry," he urged Parker. "We promised Hardison ninety minutes. We're running out of time."

When she climbed through the broken window, Eliot was pretty sure her feet didn't even touch the ground. As clumsy as Parker could be in conversation sometimes, she moved her body like a ghost. He realized belatedly that he really did not like that comparison and mentally amended it to 'cat'.

After a quick search of the store without finding any lurking danger, Parker turned to Eliot. "So they keep all the bullets locked up then?"

"Check behind the counter, I guess."

Resting her shotgun on the closest shelf, she flipped up onto the desk in front of the locked case of weapons. "I know you're mad at me," she said, peering at him through a sheaf of blonde hair.

Eliot glanced at her balancing on her hands on top of the counter. "What? No I'm not."

"You made that noise before. That was an unhappy Eliot noise."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Parker. You're insane. Get the damn bullets and let's go."

She flipped right ways up and fiddled with the lock on the glass case for all of a second and half before the door swung open. "All of it?" Parker shoved a few boxes into his hands without turning around.

"Shotgun shells, definitely, and any 9mm they have... .45s if you see them," he started to trail off.

"Eliot?" Parker was holding out a handful of boxes, but Eliot wasn't taking them from her.

There was a yowling sound from behind her that set her teeth on edge worse than any finger nails on a chalkboard, worse than any silverware scraping across a plate or the squeak-squeal of new shoes on linoleum. Parker gasped and dropped the bullets she was holding, reaching to cover her ears. She turned, but didn't have enough time to move before Eliot swept her legs out from under her with his forearm. Parker dropped off the counter, landing hard on her elbows.

She heard the loud crack of the bat and another painful screech, then two more cracks and Eliot grunting. When Parker crept around the corner of the desk, Eliot was wiping blood off his bat.

"Did you kill it?"

"Yeah," he said.

"What was it?" she made to stand to get a better look, but Eliot turned her, hands firmly on her shoulders.

"Don't look," he warned her, using his best command voice. "Finish packing those bullets. I'm going to get rid of this. I won't be far."

Eliot pushed the body with his boots, unwilling to risk any contamination. He tried to keep himself between Parker and the body. He saw no sense in making her any more rattled than she already was.

Once he got behind a fallen display where Parker wouldn't be able to see it, he crouched down to get a better look at the dog. It had been someone's pet before things went to hell, he thought, if the bright blue collar was anything to judge by. Before the explosions and the monsters and the screaming in the night, this was a family dog. All its ribs were showing, and its coat was matted and dirty, but the animal was still recognizable. Cassie, the bright coloured tag on the collar said. Eliot pried the metal ring open slipped the little enamelled tag into his pocket.

He jogged back to Parker. "Ready?"

"Hell yes," she said, dropping boxes into his hands. "I need a hundred showers."

Eliot pushed the twisted, broken door open with his knee and turned to call Parker, but she was already outside, putting their stash of bullets in the truck. "I will never understand how you do that," he said to her. "So sneaky..."

Parker was looking at the truck suspiciously.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and then "oh. You left your door open, didn't you?"

She nodded.

The passenger side of the truck was facing them, but the door was closed.

Eliot thought for a second. This was going to be difficult.

--

Alec was still working on figuring out what his equipment was picking up when Nate quietly pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

"What?" Alec was a very laid back guy, but he couldn't handle Nate just sitting quietly and watching him work. He knew Nate wanted to talk, Nate knew that he knew that Nate wanted to talk and by not talking, Nate was irritating the hell out of him. And Nate knew that.

"Sophie's pretty upset." Nate's voice had never sounded milder.

Alec made a noncommittal noise. "Mmm."

"What are the odds that whatever that is," Nate motioned to the screen "it's actually other living people?"

He sighed. "Look, Nate, I know how desperate things are. If we don't figure out something soon, or get some good news, I know we're not going to hold out here forever. But I gotta tell you, this isn't like retasking a NASA satellite or skimming funds from an account in the Caymans. I'm working with stuff that I invented here, Nate. I'm not even sure if it works."

Nate nodded along as Alec talked. He opened his mouth to reply or to ask another question, but was interrupted by the trill of the kitchen timer sitting next to Alec's laptop.

"What's that for?" Nate asked.

Alec glowered but it kept ringing. He smacked the timer into silence a lot harder than he ought to have and it flew through the air, breaking into pieces when it hit a cupboard door. "Means ninety minutes are up."

Nate pressed his hands to his eyes.

"Bet you wishing you had a drink right about now, hmm?"

Nate nodded. "So how much longer until you get a read on whatever that is?" He motioned to the computer again.

"Don't know," Alec said, turning away from Nate to stare at the screen. "Few hours probably, depends on what this thing digs up while I'm gone."

"Gone? No. No, Hardison, you're not going anywhere."

Alec was on his feet instantly. "The hell I'm not. I told them they had ninety minutes and ninety minutes are up, so I'm going to see what's taking them so long." In a drastic change from ninety minutes before, Nate's coolness was making Alec want to punch him in the throat.

"You're not leaving. We'll give them a little longer."

"How much longer we gonna give them?" he snapped. "Until nightfall? They'll be dead by nightfall, Nate, and you know it. If it gets dark... " he trailed off dangerously.

Nate stood so quickly, his chair tipped over backwards. "We don't know that, Hardison. But I know if you go out there --"

They had had disagreements in the past, but standing literally toe to toe with Nate was surreal. "What? Nate, what's going to happen? I'll get killed? I'll get turned into a monster? Or maybe I'll save my friends?"

Sophie had been drawn into the kitchen by the yelling and she stepped in between them. "Stop! Nate... Hardison... Stop shouting. You're going to attract attention." Her inflection on the word attention seemed to snap both men back to the very real situation at hand. Nate righted his chair.

"Just listen to me for a second," Sophie went on. "Nate's right, Hardison." She pressed her finger to her lips when Alec started to argue. "Listen, I said. He's right. You can't go out there alone to look for Parker and Eliot. We don't know what's out there, not really. Going anywhere alone would be tantamount to suicide at this point."

Alec gritted his teeth to stop from saying anything he wouldn't be able to take back later.

"But Nate, Alec is right too. We can't leave them out there. It's Parker and Eliot. We can't not go after them, we just... can't. And what did you just say to me?" she asked. "'We have to keep going together but we have to be able to trust each other?' We're a team, remember? And what kind of team leaves people behind?"

Nate and Alec looked at each other, neither really wanting to be the first to speak. Finally, Alec spoke up.

"So what's the plan, Nate?"

"How about the plan is 'open the goddamn door'?" came Eliot's voice from the other side of the barricaded door.

It took Alec, Sophie and Nate a few moments to move the makeshift barrier, but they got the door open before Eliot talked sternly to them again.

"Oh thank god," Parker groaned, handing a stack of things off to Sophie. "Shower," she said, holding her hand up before anyone could say anything to her. "Shower shower shower!" She disappeared up the stairs faster than she'd come in the door.

"Dammit! Parker!" Eliot shouted after her, still trying to balance the majority of the things they'd brought back. "I won rock, paper, scissors," he said, jamming a small stack of laptops at Alec and dumping the rest unceremoniously on the floor. "First shower was supposed to be mine."

After all the things had been set down, it was evident that Eliot was caked in a tacky layer of something.

"What the hell is all that?" Alec said, wrinkling his nose and poking at Eliot's leg.

"Don't, Hardison," Eliot grunted, smacking Alec's hand away. "It's... never mind. Trust me, you don't want to touch it."

Nate was going through the bundles of loot they'd brought back, nodding and sorting through things. "You did good," he said, smiling and clapping Eliot on the shoulder. "Oh." He glanced mournfully at his hand. "You're right, this is gross."

"There were some things we couldn't get. But we got whatever we could."

"Run into any trouble?" Nate wanted to know.

Eliot shrugged, unable to hide his proud grin. "Yeah. Nothing we couldn't handle though. Parker was--" he chuckled again, like he was remembering. "She was pretty awesome."

"Oh, Eliot, you're hurt!" Sophie exclaimed, suddenly noticing the blood on his face. She took a half step forward and then drew back. "Oh god."

"It was the glass in the truck," he assured them. "Ask Parker. Nothing you know..." he made a vague chopping motion, "bit me or anything. I swear."

Sophie eyed him suspiciously for a second. "Alright, then let me clean that up. I'll get the first aid kit."

Eliot started unclipping his guns from his belt. "Clean these up, will you?" he asked, handing them off to Alec.

Alec grimaced. "Come on, man, you know I don't do slime and shit!"

"Tough," Eliot said, shrugging. "I've been 'doing slime and shit' all morning. It's your turn."

"Oh this is all kinds of wrong," Alec grumbled, retreating into the kitchen.

"So how bad was it?" Nate asked, lowering his voice and moving closer to Eliot.

Eliot frowned. "Better than I expected, but worse, if that makes sense." Nate nodded. "Nothing until we got to the store, then about five monsters, on their own or small groups and then nothing again. We got caught up in the pharmacy, behind the metal security grate thing. They swarmed us." Nate's face was impassive while he listened.

"About thirty of them." Eliot thought for a second. Nate could almost see him counting bodies. "Thirty six, actually."

"You made it out."

"Yeah, ran out of bullets, took the rest out with the bat and the butt of the shotgun. Got to the military surplus store, and uh," Eliot paused while he tried to think of what to say next. "Didn't have any trouble until we went to leave." He figured Nate didn't want to hear about the dog. "One of them got in the truck. Hence the, uh... splatter." Eliot motioned to his jeans.

"What happened?"

"Didn't want to risk it biting if we tried to pull it out, didn't want to bring it back here to be friends with Hardison. And the window was broken already, so Parker shot it."

"Through the window. While it was in your truck."

Eliot nodded.

Nate thought about it for a second. "And she hit it?"

Eliot nodded again. "She's not half bad with a gun. Good aim, not too excitable. Not like Hardison."

"I can hear you!" Alec called from the kitchen. "And don't think I won't show you how excitable I am with all your guns, boy." He continued muttering under his breath, but not loud enough for Nate or Eliot to make out the words.

"Here, sit," Sophie ordered, coming up behind Eliot and nudging his shoulder with the first aid kit. He sat obediently and let her fuss with her gauze and rubbing alcohol. "There are bits of glass stuck in your head, Eliot!" she tutted.

He shrugged like it was something people told him every day. "Yeah, so pull it out then."

"Don't do that," Alec cautioned. "What if he starts bleeding everywhere? I already cleaned all the zombie soup off all these guns, I ain't scrubbing his blood off the walls too." He laid the guns in question on the table next to his computer. "They need to be oiled up and stuff," he told Eliot. "But that's really more your department than mine."

Parker sauntered into the kitchen wearing her bra and a pair of Alec's loose fitting track pants. "I can do it," she offered. "I'd like to learn. Oh, shower is all yours, Eliot. Don't know how much hot water is left though."

He grumbled something not very flattering under his breath. Sophie smacked him on the arm. "Don't say that to a lady," she warned, and then "oh, disgusting!" when she realized her hand was coated in the same unidentifiable grime as Eliot's shirt.

Parker grinned at Alec. "I'm a lady!" she laughed, poking him gleefully.

"I heard," he said. Alec blinked few times, watching Parker closely. "Damn, I'm glad you made it back," he said, pulling her into a hug. She stood motionless for a few seconds before hugging him back, face pressed into his chest.

Everyone watched them for a few seconds, expressions ranging from amusement to annoyance.

"Oh, Eliot," Eliot said, mockingly. "I'm glad you're here too, you magnificent bastard." He rolled his eyes. "It was just some zombies, Hardison, not the end of the world."

"I think that's the actual definition of 'end of the world', man," Alec said, letting go of Parker to wave his hands dismissively at Eliot. "You know, if you want to get technical."

"Whatever, man, I'm taking a shower. Thanks Sophie."

The last thing Eliot heard before he shut the bathroom door was Alec asking Parker for more details about their adventure. "Was it terrible? Did he shout?"

Nate patted Parker on the shoulder. "You did really well," he told her, beaming like a proud parent. "You guys might have saved our lives a little bit today." He brushed her damp bangs off her forehead. "I think this calls for a celebration of some sort."

Parker grinned. "With cake?"

"I'll see what we have."

Sophie hugged Parker too. "I'm glad you're safe," she said.

"I should fight monsters more often," Parker mused. "Everyone is so nice to you after."

--

They didn't have any cake mix and there weren't any eggs so Eliot threw up his hands and declared cake an impossibility, but he did manage to produce a passable batch of spice cookies. They talked about what other time period they would have liked to be born in, Sophie touting the richness and splendour of seventeenth century France, while Parker claimed only the wild west would do.

Dinner was happy and bright with laughter. No one ever wanted to think about tomorrow, despite how fast tomorrow always seemed to be coming.

"So," Parker said, shaking off the laughter from whatever joke Alec had just made. She reached for another cookie. "You guys should have seen Eliot today, it was so badass."

Eliot shook his head. "You were not bad yourself."

"We were trapped in the pharmacy, right, and I so thought we were going to be lunch for some gross zombies, but there's Eliot, just hitting each one in the head like he didn't even have to think about it." Alec nodded appreciatively. The way Parker told the story, he was imagining River Tam, and that was still pretty cool even once he got past the obvious differences between Eliot and a tiny girl.

"You should have seen Parker's flip over the counter. I don't think she even touched the top."

Parker chuckled. "Well, I am pretty awesome. And so are these cookies."

Eliot glanced at the crumbs on the plate. "Ehh. Not the best I've ever made."

Parker started to reply but was interrupted by a yawn. "Hmm," she sighed. "Maybe it's time to turn in. Is it even dark yet?"

Sophie promised to take care of the dishes, and Alec didn't protest when Parker clung to his back and ordered him to carry her upstairs. Eliot followed close behind, jabbing his finger at Parker and making her giggle and squirm. Alec threatened them both with death and dismemberment, but he couldn’t even fake the anger necessary to get them to stop. He was too happy to have them both alive.

"Isn't it incredible?" Sophie asked, looking at Nate. "I don't know how they do it."

"Short sightedness, I think," Nate sighed. "But let them have it for now. If something doesn't change soon, their world is going to get very dark in the next few weeks."

--

Alec dropped Parker onto the bed. She bounced once and grinned up at him. "Fun!"

He chuckled. "Yeah, don't get used to it. You're everyone's hero today, but it'll wear off by morning."

"I've been your hero for ages," she argued. "You just wish you could trade your Spiderman lunchbox for a Parker lunchbox."

"I don't even have a Spiderman lunchbox," Alec said with a huff.

"Well then, no way is anyone going to trade you." She smiled serenely.

"Eliot?" Sophie called, coming up the stairs. "You left your clothes hanging in the bathroom downstairs." She stuck her head in the door, holding Eliot's clothes in a neatly folded stack. They looked cleaner than they had, but Alec was pretty sure most of those stains were never coming out. Gross.

Parker took the clothes from Sophie. "He's brushing his teeth. Night, Sophie."

"Goodnight, sweethearts."

Once Sophie headed back downstairs, Parker made to set the clothes on the dresser. She instinctively checked the pockets. Call it a thief reflex or maybe just plain curiosity.

"Trying to get in my pants, are you?" Eliot asked, leaning on the door-frame and trying his best to look mild-mannered.

"Eliot, what is this?" she asked, holding up the metal heart shaped tag. "Who's Cassie?" When she caught sight of his expression, her tone went from light-hearted to tense and concerned. "...Eliot?"

"Not talking about it," he said tightly, taking his things from Parker and moving away from her. "Good night."

Alec and Parker traded concerned glances. "Hey, man --" Alec started.

"Good night, Hardison."

Parker dug her fingers into Alec's elbow, pulling him towards the bed. He let himself be pulled and when he laid down, Parker buried her face in his shoulder. Alec wasn't sure if she was upset or just fed up, but he didn't like it either way.

"Hey now," he whispered to the top of her head. "Whatever it is, it's not your fault." Alec sent a withering glare in the direction of the floor. Eliot couldn't see him, but Alec felt better for having done it.

"He's mad at me, but he won't tell me why."

Sounds of frustrated thrashing came from the vicinity of the air mattress, like there was an angry cat trapped under the blankets. Eliot's head appeared at the foot of the bed.

"For the last goddamned time, Parker, I am not mad at you! If you say it again, then I really will be mad at you. But right now? I. Am. Not. Mad." He growled every word. It was not a very convincing display of his non-anger at all and they were all pretty receptive to that.

Alec rolled his eyes in the dark. "Yeah, because you sound like bubblegum and rainbows right now."

Eliot disappeared and there was a brief continued sound of thrashing before he was on the bed, looking stonily between the two of them.

"I'm not mad at you Parker. When we killed the last zombie there, I realized how frustrated I was; that's all that was. It had nothing to do with you, I promise." He had made the effort to soften his voice this time, showing a lot more patience than he usually did.

"Frustrated with what?" Alec asked, cocking his head.

Eliot sighed. "It's hard to explain."

"I get it," Parker told him, touching his arm reassuringly. "I so get it."

"Yeah?" It was hard to sound anything but sceptical.

"You used to be the best at something. You were the best hitter. You had pride in your work, you did it because you were good at it and everyone knew it. Now it doesn't really matter, does it?" Parker was looking at something on the other side of the room, avoiding their eyes. "There's not anything to it because we don't get a choice."

"Yeah..." Eliot sighed.

"Like me and all the stuff we took today."

Hardison made a little noise that almost sounded like a sigh. "And all the work I've been doing. It's like... We're doing all the same things we used to, but we don't have a choice."

"Okay, so you do get it."

There was the soft clink of dishes from downstairs and the low murmur of voices. They sat for a long time, in the quiet dark, with just a little light seeping under the door. Parker studied the mens' silhouettes. Alec looked thoughtful, eyes fixed on a point past Eliot's shoulder, while Eliot had his eyes closed. Parker thought 'forlorn' is the word she wanted to use to describe him, even if she wasn't one hundred percent sure on the meaning -- it just felt right.

"Life is kind of weird, huh?" Parker blurted out. The loudness of her own voice visibly startled her and Alec laughed. She laughed with him. After a moment, they even pulled a smile from Eliot.

"We can all sleep here again, right?" Parker asked, plucking at Eliot's sleeve. "Please?"

"Yeah, Parker."

Eliot turned away from whatever it was in Alec's voice that made his stomach clench. The tone he had when he talked to Parker was something unlike Eliot could recall hearing before. It was beyond sweetness or indulgence or adoration and instead somewhere in neighbourhood of worship. He was pretty sure neither Alec nor Parker ever noticed it, but he could always identify it from fifty paces.

"Yeah," Eliot echoed, wondering what his voice sounded like to them. "Sure." After all of them having lost so much, he wasn't prepared to deny Parker anything he could give her.

Parker stretched out on the bed, kicking Eliot in the process. "Are you going to tell us about Cassie now?" she asked him.

He made a noncommittal noise.

"I think that means no, Parker," Alec said lightly. He took one of the pillows from where Parker is hoarding them and laid down, yawning.

Eliot awkwardly tried to fit himself on the bed next to Parker without hitting anyone with a stray knee or elbow. He mostly succeeded, but with Parker sprawled across the bed like she owned it, and Alec's ridiculously long limbs draped in almost every available nook or cranny, Eliot didn't have a lot of options. He nudged Parker with his shoulder until she finally relented and tried to take up a little less space.

Alec figured he'd be awake long after the others had fallen asleep by merit that they had had a very exciting day, but just about the time his eyes started to drift close, he heard Eliot's voice.

"Cassie was a dog," he said. It was quiet, like he was talking just to himself and he hoped Parker and Alec were already sleeping. "When we were in the gun shop. That noise, that snarl? That was the dog. She was so thin... I can only imagine what she'd been eating. She came at us, I thought she was going to..." he trailed off.

Parker shifted under the sheet, palm resting against the hollow in Eliot's back, just enough pressure to assure him she was there.

"It was going to attack us. I did what I had to." Eliot said it like he was trying to convince himself. "That was someone's dog, before this started," he told them, still whispering, but his voice stronger. "Just a regular dog with owners and a family and stuff. And just like all the people in this damn city, it died. Terrified, in pain and alone."

"You took the tags though? After?" Alec said slowly. He was trying to wrap words around the thought in his head, but he was tired and they weren't coming to him. "That means you cared enough. You cared enough to feel shitty about it. That's not really alone, because you're going to remember that dog, right?" With his arms stretched out and hand resting against Eliot's shoulder, Alec felt him tense for a few seconds before relaxing again. Alec guessed that was as close to agreement he would be getting.

"Everyone is alone," she said, half muffled. "Because no one else can be inside you and know exactly what you are. But then we're not alone because we can be together in the dark. Even when it's really, really dark, I can still feel you guys."

Alec pressed his lips to the top of her head, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. He either ignored the prickling feeling behind his eyes or he didn't feel it, but either way he was asleep before Parker whispered 'I love you' to the room.

--

Eliot was jolted awake by someone shouting close by. He was instantly on alert, sitting up on the bed and getting ready to kick someone or something in the face.

"Calm down," Parker grumbled at him, peeling herself from his side and rubbing her hands over her eyes. "That's happy yelling."

He was about to ask her how she knew, but then Alec was yelling at them to get downstairs and they ran.

Parker stopped dead at the foot of the stairs and Eliot almost ran her over, managing at the last second to change direction and jump the last four feet over the side of the railing. "Parker, what the hell -- oh."

Nate and Sophie were kissing, which was interesting and new and Parker was staring with a little too much interest, which was not very new, but still a little creepy.

"What the hell's going on, man?" Eliot asked Alec, who was doing a strange little shimmying dance and grinning like the unholy child of a jack 'o' lantern and the Cheshire cat.

"I found them!" he crowed.

"Found? Found who?"

"People, Eliot! Real live actual people who are not zombies. There are other people out there."

Parker was on them in a flash, eyes wide and begging to hear more. "People? In Boston? Are they coming here? Are we leaving?"

Eliot rubbed the back of his neck, taking in the all the information as Alec explained. There were people in Indiana, and the zombie outbreak had been contained to the Northeastern states, and yes, someone was coming for them.

"Just a few more days," Alec said, still smiling. "We found the emergency broadcast signal yesterday and I woke up early and I was looking at it and it just sort of came to me, like a -- " Parker grabbed him by the shirt and interrupted him with a firm kiss.

Eliot glanced between the two kissing couples in the living room and then looked away again, feeling a little awkward. And then Parker grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him too. Alec's hands were on his shoulders and Sophie was laughing. Everything was warm and a little fuzzy and then Eliot was laughing too.

"It's so bright out," Parker said, peeking through the window. "I bet it's a nice day." She looked out the window a moment longer, then turned back to them frowning. "Do you think they'll let me fly the helicopter?"

Comments

[elinox]

Well done! And I loved the Firefly shout out!

[sunspot]

Thanks so much! (And I know there's a Firefly reference in there somewhere because that so sounds like me, but I can't for the love of me remember what or where. Point it out for me?)

[elinox]

"The way Parker told the story, he was imagining River Tam, and that was still pretty cool even once he got past the obvious differences between Eliot and a tiny girl."

[sunspot]

Oh that's only a little obvious. *facepalm* Thanks.