Awakenings

            Davon swallowed hard, looking perhaps a little unsettled.  “How many do we think are dead?”
            “Probably better to ask how many are still alive.”  Marin’s voice was quiet.  She didn’t look up from Thom, who was still dozing—almost sleeping, now, it seemed, given that he hadn’t joined the conversation yet.  “Probably not that many.  Probably enough.  But not that many.  And not all of them will come here.  Some will come here.  Not everyone, though.”  She licked her lips, repeating quietly, “Not nearly everyone.”
            Matt frowned to himself.  I’m not even sure I want to know what she saw.  If she saw.  Did she see anything?  He bit his tongue.  It wasn’t worth asking, really.  Wasn’t worth freaking out over it—very little was, apparently.  Marin’s crap had never really been worth panicking over, though now he was starting to wonder if that hadn’t been a false assumption on his part.  If that thing she’d talked about years ago had actually been referring to this…
            I’m as crazy as she is, he shook his head at himself, taking another slow sip of coffee, savoring it.  There might not be more soon enough.
            They were all quiet for a moment, some staring at Marin and some absolutely refusing to make eye contact with her.  She didn’t seem to care; she was focused on Thom.  Matt struggled not to shake his head.
            Don’t you dare hurt her, Thomas.  Don’t you dare.
            The rain came down harder, lightning struck near enough that the accompanying thunderclap sent shudders through the tent poles, through those clustered around the fire – even the flames trembled.
            “Food, shelter.  What if she’s right and people come, but not friendly-like?”  Tala flicked brown hair out of her face, brow furrowed, expression almost pinched.  “We’ll need to defend ourselves.”
            She’s right about that.  And whatever ammunition we can round up for any guns we can round up aren’t going to last us forever, either.  Matt blew a breath out slowly through his teeth.  “We’ll need weapons.”  But what kind?  Sabers?  Yeah right.  Guns to start.  Hunting bows and arrows.  “Something to defend ourselves with.  After shelter, we’ll need…well.  Walls.  Something.”
            “We’re not going to become sort of uncivilized rabble.”  Kellin’s voice was quiet, but very firm.  “That’s not why we’ve survived this, not at all.”
            Then do tell us why, Kellin.  Why have we survived?  Why didn’t we die with almost everyone else?  Matt bit his tongue, hard, saying nothing—not yet.  Marin gave him a sharp look and frowned, shaking her head slightly at him before shifting her position slightly, wincing.  He looked away, exhaling a sigh, staring into the fire.
            “Food, shelter, and defenses are a priority, though,” Kellin continued quietly.  “There’s no question of that.  We’re no good to anyone dead.”  She leaned forward, warming her hands near the licking flames.  “We’ll have to find a way to make sure we have a steady supply of clean water, too.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I only trust the water in the Grand so far.”
            Smart girl.  Matt found himself nodding in agreement.  “Maybe we can find a way to get some of the water from the ravine, from the creeks, before they hit the river.  That stuff’s usually pretty clean.”  Clean as rainwater gets these days, anyway.  He rubbed at his eyes.
            Drew got up, picked up some smaller bits of wood and fed them into the fire.  “We’ll need more wood tomorrow.”
            “We’ll have to dry it out,” Matt grimaced.  “We’ll find a way.  Carolyn and I’ll go out in the morning to see what we can find.  Figure it out one way or another.”  Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some deadwood that’s not soaked through.  Not sure I really think we’re that lucky, though.  He glanced out toward the wind and rain, wind that seemed to be picking up, now.  That’s also assuming that this storm lets up anytime soon.  The sound of the rain changed, harder.  Hail?  Maybe.
            “Temperature must be dropping fast,” Drew said softly, following Matt’s gaze.  “Sounds like hail.”
            “Looks like, it, too.”  J.T. pushed himself to his feet, wandering quietly toward the edge of the tent.  He extended his hand, standing for a few minutes, then withdrew it, staring at his palm.  A pea-sized ball of ice slowly melted there.  He dropped it and wiped his hand on his jeans.  “Yeah.  It’s hail.”
            Great.  Matt took one last sip of coffee before settling his mug on the stones surrounding the fire.  “Better get some more of those walls rigged up, Davon, and staked down in case the wind starts shifting things sideways.”
            The other young man nodded in agreement, pushing to his feet.  “Right.  Where’d we leave the hammers?”
            “Over there.”  Matt gestured vaguely.  He knew where they were.  He glanced toward Marin and Thom.  “Do you want to lay down before we go get this done?”
            She shook her head slightly.  “No.  We’re all right.  Company’s better than quiet right now.  Go on.  We’ll still be here when you get back.”  She smiled up at him.
            Matt nodded slowly, turning and moving off to scoop up one of the hammers while Davon was wrestling with the tent walls, huge swaths of plasticized canvas with grommets at the bottom and clips at the top to secure them to the lines that ran along the edges of the tent roof.  J.T. joined them, getting the heavy stakes to secure the bottom edge of the walls.
            The three men picked their way carefully amongst the sleepers, starting to rig up the walls as quickly as they could.  More often than not, J.T. and Matt found themselves on the outside of the tent rather than the inside.
            Matt spat a curse the fourth time he caught a quarter-sized hailstone in the head.  “Got to be a better way to do this.”
            J.T., crouched on the ground and holding the stake in place for Matt to hammer down, snorted.  “Yeah.  Get the walls up before the storm starts.  Just get them up.  Sooner they’re up, sooner we’re back by the fire, getting warm and dry.”
            Matt mumbled a few choice words.  Yeah.  That would have been the smart way to go about this.  Shame we had other things to be worrying about.  Like fires and food.  He mopped his brow with a soaking wet sleeve.  “We need to add lanterns to our list of things to go loot,” he mumbled.  “Waterproof ones.  And candles, too, with matches.  Make life a little easier, at least for a little while.”
            J.T. was barely visible against the stormy sky, but he nodded in the dark and they resumed their work.  It took perhaps half an hour to get things together, and by the time they were finished both Matt and J.T. were soaked to the skin.  Matt’s teeth were chattering and he could barely feel his fingers as they made their way back to the fire, but at least the tent was enclosed as much as would be safe with the fires still going.
            “Go put on something dry, Matt,” Marin said quietly after looking him up and down slowly.  “You too, J.T.”
            J.T. waved her off and sat down by the fire, shrugging out of his shirt, moisture glistening on his bare flesh even with the shirt off.  “Let me get warm for a few minutes, Mar, then I’ll listen.”  He stretched his hands out toward the fire, red and raw from the frigid rain.
            My bruises have bruises from that hail, Matt thought sullenly to himself as he took a knee, easing close to the fire to warm his own hands.  “Next time, we get the walls up before the hail starts,” he mumbled.
            Davon watched them both for a moment before announcing quietly, “I’m going to go get you two some clothes and towels,” and disappeared into the dim.
            “He could have taken a turn out in the wet,” Matt grumbled, shaking his head.
            J.T. just rolled his eyes.  “Davon?  Not him, not so soon after some sort of major disaster.”
            “That’s just mean,” Marin chided.
            Sure it is.  It’s also true, and you know it.  Matt smiled wryly at the dirty look his sister threw in his direction after she tossed one at J.T.  He started working his shirt off, grimacing as the wet fabric caught and bound.  God, was it cold.
            Kellin studied the pair as they inched closer to the fire unconsciously, each trying to get warm again.  “It’s that bad out there?”
            “I lost count of how many times I got hit in the head by hail after five,” Matt mumbled in response.  “I’d say it’s pretty bad out there, Kel.”  This is insane.  We’re insane.  Completely and totally, irrevocably insane.  How the hell are we going to survive this?  How?
            Kellin was staring at him.  “Because we have to, Matt,” she said softly.  “We don’t have any other choice.”
            He stared at her for a long moment and finally sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.  “Right,” he mumbled.  “No choices left.”
            She nodded.  “We make do with what’s left to us, my friend.”
            My friend.  First time any of them have said that to me.  Matt nodded slightly.  “Right.”
            Kellin smiled.  “Right.”

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            Two big tents got set up before the first fat raindrops splashed down on the terrain—they’d had more time than any of them suspected.  Matthew and Carolyn, between the two of them, had managed to get enough wood for at least three fires, with some extra.  Current head-count of survivors stood at forty-seven.  Not many—probably not enough—but almost too many at the same time.  Dinner had been a cobbled-together stew that had been surprisingly edible, crafted by Matt from food scavenged from refrigerators—food that wasn’t going to keep for more than a day or two.  In the morning—at least that was the talk—Davon and another survivor, an engineering student, were going to try to rig generators up to some of the refrigeration units in some of the buildings, so they could keep some of the stored food cold so long as the fuel held out and the buildings stayed standing.  How long that would be was anyone’s guess.
            Most bedded down on mattresses under the tents, with blankets and pillows salvaged from the camp stores.  A few lingered awake, staring at each other over the light and warmth of a fire, as the rain pounded down onto the tent’s roof above.  It was getting colder.  They could all feel it.  The earthquakes had subsided—for now.  Matt didn’t seem to think they’d felt the real end of them, though.
            Ten huddled by the cooking fire, in a half-circle around it, avoiding the way air currents took the smoke out of the tent.  Thom lay with his head in Marin’s lap, dozing as she stroked his hair.  J.T. had rewrapped his fractured ankle after Jacqueline had done it, double-checking the work already done.  Thom seemed all right, except for sore, maybe bruised ribs and lots of black and blue marks, including the nasty knot on his head, and the broken ankle.  Most of the injured weren’t hurt that badly, mercifully enough.  More of the ones rescued from the Mac complex were more shaken than hurt.
            Matt frowned to himself, pulling a blanket tighter around his shoulders and taking a slow sip of coffee from his salvaged mug.  They’d raided the machines in the coffee shop for the beans that were already ground and made at least some coffee.  He wasn’t sure how long the stuff was going to last—they’d have to see.  They’d have to see a lot of things.
            We’re all talking like it’s the end of the world.  He glanced toward his sister, then stared at the fire.  “This is it, isn’t it?”
            Marin looked up, brow furrowing.  “Huh?”
            He shook his head slightly, sighing and looking at the others.  “This is the end.  We’re what’s left.  The unlucky few.”
            J.T. snorted at the reference—they’d all always said, Marin the most often and the loudest, that they weren’t lucky enough to die at the end of the world.  He caught a sharp elbow from Carolyn for it, who grimaced and inched closer to the fire.  J.T. rubbed at his side, giving her a dirty look before leaning back on his hands and sighing.  “Looks that way.”
            “Looks that way,” Matt echoed.  Kellin toed him gently.
            “Not as bad as it sounds, Matt.  Staring over?  We’ll be okay.”  She pushed some hair out of her face, eyes bright as she stared not into the fire, but through it.  Matt grimaced, watching her.
            Wish I understood all this shit better.  He rubbed his eye, casting a quick glance toward his sister, who was quiet, not looking at anything or anyone but Thom.  He sighed silently, trying to hide it.  At least they’re not fighting again yet.  Worse than Tess and I toward the end sometimes.  He smiled to himself.  Almost a relief to know I’m never going to have to deal with that again.  It hadn’t been a pretty break-up, but he hadn’t been able to take it anymore.  If Marin was right, there was someone else out in the world for him—somewhere.  Provided she was still alive after this mess.
            He had his own strong theories on what had happened, and a few shaky ones on why other things were happening.  When various governments had launched their missiles into space in order to take out an errant asteroid on an unswerving course for the planet—one large enough to take a nice chunk out of the Pacific, if they were lucky—they had anticipated that there would be some debris leftover, but nothing all that substantial.  Every estimate they’d made, all the computer models they’d designed, had what was left after the asteroid was hit by multiple missiles burning up in the atmosphere on the way down.  Earth would pass through the debris field and the debris field would pass through Earth with nothing more than a spectacular meteor shower.  No harm done.
            To the best of Matt’s estimates, they’d been dead wrong.  He didn’t think anything all that huge had survived, but even the smaller array of good-sized chunks were bad enough.  Matt was fairly confident that those good-sized chunks had chewed up a good portion of the landscape—and probably not just in their immediate area.  What the others knew by gut feeling and intuition, he knew from childhood research, a morbid fascination with end-of-the-world scenarios, and a solid grounding in science.
            He watched the fire crackle and pop.  The rain continued, drumming on the roof of the tent.  Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, he finally said quietly, “These tents aren’t going to do for shelter for long.  And we can only live for so long on the food we can scavenge out of the campus stores.  What are we going to do?”
            “Tomorrow, a couple of us are going to hike out to the strip mall up M-45 and see what we can scavenge out of there.  Send a few more out to the orchard, see what there is there.”  Drew chewed the inside of his lip.  “Professor Doyle may have some ideas about how to put together some sustainable food sources, wouldn’t he?”
            “Maybe,” Matt shifted his weight, settling on the ground and taking another slow sip of coffee before setting the mug down near to the flames.  Wonder if the greenhouse off Padnos is intact.  If it is, we might be able to use it.  For as long as stuff there stays stable, anyway.  He frowned to himself.  “What about shelter?”
            “Something you and I can work on.  When Thom’s better, he can help,” J.T. mumbled, pouring himself a little coffee from the pot precariously perched over the fire.  “Maybe when the rain lets up in the morning.”  He looked toward Davon, flicking a woodchip at him.  “He can help, too, assuming that he’s finished with those generators and shit.”
            Davon snapped out of his daze; he’d been staring out at the rain, at the lightning that lanced through the clouds, at the play of the smoke from the fire against the rain and wind.  “I can help with what?”
            “Shelters, Davon, shelters.”  Jacqueline rolled her eyes at him and shook her head.  “What were you looking at?”
            He shook his head slightly.  “Nothing.  Thinking.”  He shrugged a little, glancing toward J.T.  “I’ll do some sketches, but that’s not my strong point.”
            J.T. rolled his eyes.  “Do some thinking and some mental engineering.  We’ve got tools, right?”
            “Plenty of them, now, I think.”  Davon scratched the back of his neck.  “What we don’t have, I’m sure we can find someplace.”
            “Acquire somehow,” Rory snorted.  “Shouldn’t be that hard.  Most people are already dead.”
            Carolyn shivered and Jacqueline glared.  “Rory!”
            Carolyn shook her head.  “Let him talk.  He’s probably right.”
            Jacqueline stared at her for a moment, then shook her head and stood up.  “I’m going to bed.”
            A chorus of quiet good-nights at counterpoint to each other echoed as she turned and made her way to the mattress she’d claimed, not far away, but far enough away that she wouldn’t hear the rest of their conversation if they kept their voices down, as they’d been trying to.  If their current line of discussion had been enough to banish her to bed, she probably didn’t want to hear what the conversation would progress into quickly enough.

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            “What’s that?”  Thom tried to push himself up on an elbow, stopping short and gasping for breath as he fell back.  He squeezed his eyes shut, tears welling up.  I gave him a dirty look that he didn’t see and pushed slowly to my feet, limping into the waning daylight to see.
            The source of the sound had been the Mackinac complex, which slowly crumbled as I watched.  I exhaled a breath weakly, watching it come down.  Some of the others were shouting.  Figures were stumbling clear—Kellin, J.T., the others that had been searching the rubble.  I shivered.  Thank god.  Lightning crackled in the sky.  We were almost out of time.
            “What was that?”  The sound of wood against wood coupled with Carolyn’s shout heralded her return with my brother.  “Oh.  God…”
            I withdrew, limping back to Thom.
            “What happened?”  He hadn’t tried to get up again, but he was craning his neck to see as much as he could.  I thanked whatever powers that were for small favors.  Trying to get up before must have really hurt, if he was staying down now.
            “Mac came down,” I said quietly.  “And a storm’s coming in.  Looks bad.”  Knew the storm was coming.  Probably will be bad, though not sure how bad.  We can hope it’s not as nasty as it looks…
            “Running out of time.”
            I nodded mutely.  It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.  Much, much worse.  I closed my eyes a moment, sinking down next to Thom and hugging my knees against my chest under my blanket, opening my eyes to stare at my bare, dirty toes.  They were cold.  “I should find some socks,” I mumbled to myself.
            Thom reached up, drawing a fingertip across my toes.  I winced slightly at the touch, shivering a little.  God, did they hurt.  His brow furrowed slightly, but he didn’t stop running his fingers along my toes, the top of my foot; the touch was gentle, tender, even.  After a few long moments, he pulled my blanket down across my toes, shaking his head slightly.
            “Where did you lose your shoes?”
            “One’s in the river, somewhere, I think.  Other one’s here, somewhere.  Matt found a different pair for me.”  I grimaced.  “Thinking I should maybe wash them before I put socks on.”
            “If they’re cold now, put socks on, Marin,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly.  “Not sure how they’re cold.  Ninety degrees today…”
            I looked at him.  “Does it feel ninety degrees, Thom?”
            He was quiet for a long moment.  The temperature had been falling since the sky had turned red—I was pretty willing to lay odds that it was maybe, potentially somewhere well south of seventy degrees now, probably closer to sixty at the high end.  And my feet were cold, but they throbbed.  I suppose I should have been glad that they were cold, rather than feeling as if they were a more comfortable temperature.
            “No,” he said quietly, “it doesn’t feel like ninety degrees.  I thought it was because I was in shock, though.”  He looked up at me and grimaced, looking away again, something seeming to die inside of him in that moment.  “They were really wrong,” he mumbled, almost to himself.
            Oh, Thom.  I struggled not to sigh, reaching down and gently stroking his brow.  He didn’t look at me, just lay there, letting me run my fingers through his short hair, still full of masonry dust, the dark of the strands shrouded by the whitish gray of it, making it looked frosted.
            Whump.  I startled, looking up to see Jack maneuvering the extra mattress into the shelter, starting to arrange it at a perpendicular angle to Thom’s.  I smiled weakly.  “Thanks, Jack.  Rain started yet?”
            He shook his head.  “Not yet.  But we’re trying to work quick so we’re not caught in it.  One of the guys—one of your friends, I think, that Davon guy?—found one of the big tents that they use for events; they’re trying to pitch it so it’ll give the shelters some extra cover.  Hopefully they’ll get it up before the rain gets going.”
            “Hopefully,” I echoed, then shook my head.  “Find Jacqueline, if you can. She wanted to look at Thom after he woke up.”
            He nodded.  “I’ll get on that ASAP.”  He jogged off.  I was aware of the sound of metal against metal—the sound of pounding pegs into the ground to pitch that tent.
            Thom found my hand as I stared off in Jack’s wake, squeezed my fingers gently.  “You look like hell, Marin,” he murmured.  “Sure you’re all right?”
            You’re one to talk.  I tried to smile.  “Best that can be expected.  No one’s really ‘all right,’ Thom.  We’re just doing acceptable jobs of faking it.”  I pushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear.  I’m really glad you didn’t go, though.  I’m not sure any of us would make it through this hell if you weren’t here.  Leastwise, not from what I’m feeling, not from the impressions I’m getting.  My stomach flip-flopped once, then settled.  I took a steadying breath.  It’s what I saw years ago, but different.  All of that makes more sense now, though.  A lot more sense.  People…surviving things they shouldn’t have survived—radiation sickness kills.  People don’t live through that shit.  This…this is survivable.  Somehow.  We’re going to make it.  I bit my lip, resting my chin on my knees.
            “Marin?”  He was worried.  It was in his voice, a tone rarely heard.  He usually hid it, buried it.  Worry was weakness in his family, and an Ambrose never showed weakness.  That’s what his father had always said, and no matter how much bitterness I’d heard in Thom’s voice when he talked about it, some lessons of boyhood had never left him.  It was just the way things were.  I took his hand again and squeezed.
            At least I know he still gives a damn.  I smiled down at him.

            “You said you loved me.”
            He flinched.  “I do love you.”
            “But you can’t accept what I am, my gifts.”
            “Those I accept and you know it.  You just can’t accept the fact that I don’t have the same, Marin.”
            “Bullshit, Thom, bullshit,” I spat.  “You and I both know that you can feel and see and sense it all too.”
            He turned away, didn’t say anything.  I sighed, my ire cooling.
            “We fight like we’re married.”
            His voice was a mumble.  “Stupid shit to fight over.”
            I bit my lip, quiet for a long moment before I came up behind him, slid my arms around his waist, pressed my face into his shoulder, sighing.  It’s not stupid when it’s a matter of survival.  I didn’t say it, though.  Not then.  Would I ever be able to?  Would I be able to say it before it was too late?

            “You look like you’re a thousand miles away,” he murmured, eyes half-lidded.  I shook myself.
            “Maybe I was for a minute.”  I looked away, out the opening in our shelter.  Davon and one of the camp staffers were bracing the center pole for one of the huge event tents, the tarps for it dangling limply from its tip, like some big piece of wet tissue paper on a Popsicle stick.  They might actually get it up in time.  Thunder growled, closer now.  I hope they get it up in time.
            He didn’t say anything, just followed my gaze.  What was going through his head?  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.  Thinking I was crazy again?  Maybe.  It wouldn’t have surprised me at all.  Not anymore.
            Why was it so hard?  Why couldn’t he just…admit it to himself?  Why couldn’t he just accept it?
            What had caused him to run so hard and so fast away from the things we both knew he could see, the things we both knew he could do?  Eight months, now.  Eight months since he’d started to deny it.  We hadn’t slept together in almost two.  Maybe it was over.  I didn’t want that, but it was going to be what it was going to be.  All I could do was try to make sure he stayed alive.  We were going to need him.
            I found myself staring at him, reached down and ran my fingers through his short-cropped hair, cursing myself for the sudden stinging tears in my eyes.  “I love you, Thom,” I whispered softly, barely able to say the words but at the same time unable to stop them.
            Thom looked up at me.  The ghost of a smile flitted across his features as he reached up to stroke my cheek gently with a cold thumb.  “Always, Marin,” he said softly.  “Always.”

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            “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” I murmured to myself, trying not to think about how we’d handle things when the others—more than just Carolyn—started to Awaken.  “Don’t be borrowing trouble you don’t need, Marin.”  There really wasn’t much I could do until we started to sort out what the nature of everyone’s attunement was, what they were sensitive to, what they could do if they could do anything more than just sense the things that went on beyond most of humanity’s sight.
            I glanced toward the open wall of the shelter we were in, watching what little activity was going on out there, watching the clouds continue to roll in, watching the wind lash the trees.  The ground trembled for a moment, then stopped.  Thom groaned.
            “Stop shaking the bed, J.T., it stopped being funny last time.”
            Hallucinating.  Great.  “Thom?”
            One eye struggled open, then the other.  His right eye, the one nearest to the knot on his head, was bloodshot—that wasn’t surprising, though, not wholly, since the bruise from the knot did extend down past his eyebrow, not quite surrounding his eye fully, but coming close.  His brow furrowed slightly and he hissed, wincing.  He mouthed my name before coughing, then tried again.  “Marin?”
            I managed to smile, swallowing against the sudden lump in my throat, trying to force levity into my voice.  “Hurt much, Thom?”  Soften the blow if I can.  But I think he probably already realizes how bad it is.  Probably.  He’s not stupid, and there are just some things you can’t deny.
            “Like a bitch,” he rasped, starting to shift on the mattress and stopping abruptly with a groan.  “Ungh.  Where am I?”
            I picked up the cold pack from where it had fallen alongside his head when he’d started to move, turning it over in my hands.  His brow furrowed and he hissed again in pain.  I just shook my head.  “On a mattress near Robinson and Copeland.  Why the hell didn’t you drive to Chicago, Thom?”
            He frowned up at me.  “…what?”
            “Not that it matters now, but that interview was important to you.  Why didn’t you go?”
            Turning his head away, he mumbled something vaguely at me before starting to struggle to roll onto his side, cursing and hissing in pain.  I shook my head, sighing.
            “Hold still, damn you,” I mumbled, putting my hand on his shoulder and holding him firmly but gently against the mattress.  “They didn’t drag you out of that stairwell at Mac so you could kill yourself trying to sit up.  Wait until Jacqueline gets here so she can tape up what hurts the worst.”
            Thom glared at me, that trademark Ambrose glare—I’d seen it once, from his father, aimed at him.  God, was that family a strange dynamic.  All I could do was smile weakly at him, brush the thumb of my free hand along his brow.
            “Please, Thom?”
            He sighed, sagging back, staring up at me.  His lips barely moved as he spoke.  “You’re talking about Jacqueline taping me up.  This isn’t a sprained ankle.  Mackinac collapsed on me.  I should be at a hospital.  What happened?”
            I bit my lip.  “You know what happened.  Probably better than I do.”  Maybe better than I do.  Probably.  Your sensations were always sharper.  Is that why you keep trying to ignore them?  What was it that you felt that made you think it was better to imagine it all away?  “I walked all the way here from the mall, Thom.  There’s…there’s not much left.”  Never mind that I can’t remember most of the walk.  I don’t have to be able to remember it.  I know what I did see wasn’t good.
            He swallowed, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again, staring up at me.  “Maybe it’s just these couple of counties.  Maybe it’s not…”  His voice trailed away as he watched my face.
            Thunder rumbled in the distance.  The ground trembled again, though not from the thunder.  It stopped again.  Thom grimaced.
            “Guess they were wrong,” he whispered softly, sighing.  His hand found mine, squeezed it.  “It really looks that bad?  How many?”
            “Lived or died?” I murmured softly.  He just looked at me and I sighed.  “A lot of dead.  I don’t have a number on how many survived here.  Looking like maybe forty, maybe fifty.  Not really sure.  That’s what’s left here.”  Not that I’ve even seen most of the survivors.  Scattered all over, doing…doing whatever they’re doing.  How many left before I ever made it here, tried to go home—to go back to homes that probably aren’t there anymore?
            “Not many,” he murmured softly, closing his eyes.  “Food?  Water?”
            “What, you’re hungry?”  He’d better not be worrying about logistics when he had half a building come down on him.
            He opened his eyes, glaring at me again.  I smothered a rueful smile, leaned in to kiss his forehead gently.
            “Worry about yourself for more than a few minutes, would you?”
            Thom managed a smile.  “I know how to do that?”
            Annoyingly so, sometimes.  “At least the sense of humor’s survived intact.”
            A loud crack echoed off the buildings.  It sounded like gunfire but deeper and was followed by rumbling that wasn’t born from the sky or the ground.  The sound left my ears ringing a little, so loud and so close.  The rumbling hadn’t stopped and the ground shivered a little, far more shallow than any of the earthquakes we’d been feeling.
            My hand tightened around Thom’s hand.  What was that?

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            “How’s he doing?”  Carolyn approached quietly, a makeshift ice pack in her hand, which she wrapped in the towel left for that purpose before crouching and settling it gently on Thom’s forehead.  He flinched, hissing, before the tenseness it caused by the sudden shock of the cold pack subsided and he sagged again.  She winced herself, looking away from him and toward me.
            I winced along with both of them, exhaling slowly.  “Jacqueline said touch and go.  Might be more wrong than she can figure.  We can hope otherwise, but…”  I exhaled.  “We can hope.”  I fidgeted, chewing on my lower lip and staring at him.  She knelt next to me, hugged me briefly.
            “He’s too stubborn to die today, anyway.”  She smiled gently and hugged me again, settling down on the ground with me.  “How’re your legs?”
            “Hurt like hell.  Calves burning.  I’d rather not be feeling my feet, but I don’t get a vote there.”  I rubbed my eyes.  There was another good reason I wasn’t leaving Thom—my body just hurt too much for me to get very far.  I looked at her, shifting my own position slightly.  “Don’t have anything to do now, huh?”
            She shrugged a little.  “Not until someone gives me something to do other than play runner.  I don’t mind it too much.  Time to think a little.”  She rubbed her fingers, grimacing.  “It’s cold.”
            “I have a feeling it’s going to get colder.”  I squeezed her hand, looking down at Thom.  I rearranged his blanket.  “You want something to do?”
            A wry smile twisted her lips.  “If you send me to do something, they’re not going to tell me not to do it.  What do you need?”
            “Not something I need—something we’re all going to need.  Firewood.  Before the rain comes. We’ll need firewood.  If you go out along the edge of the ravine, you’ll probably find some deadwood dry enough for us to get burning later.  If Matt’s done, he can help.  He knows what to look for.”  He’ll probably be putting together the pile—hell, the piles—anyway.  God.  He’s going to have to teach everyone how to cook on a fire, too.  Thank god for Eagle Scouts!  I looked down at Thom.  He was one, too.  Wonder how many of the staffers are.  Davon and Drew?  Does Rory know how to cook on a fire?  I know he knows how to build one.  J.T. knows how.  Brandon?  I know how to cook on a fire, just not well.  Can’t build one to save my life, though.
            “I’ll get started, then.”  She stood, squeezing my shoulder.  “He’ll be all right.”
            I smiled up at her wryly.  “Hope you’re right.”  Think maybe you’re right.  Doesn’t help the dread, or the fear.  “If Matt’s done, have him bring my shit over here?  I’m going to stay with him.”|
            Carolyn smiled faintly, nodding.  “Sure thing, Marin.”
            I smiled back as she departed, waving a little over her shoulder at me.  “Thanks, Carolyn.”
            And so I was alone again with Thom.  I found his hand under his blankets, squeezed his fingers gently.  I pulled up the cold pack, to check the knot on his head.  It didn’t seem any less tender, but the swelling seemed to have gone down maybe a little.  He stirred slightly as I eased it back down again, but settled quickly, sighing softly.
            “God, Thom.  You certainly know how to push my buttons. Every last one of them.”  He had his finger down hard on the worry button right now.  I’d almost have been happier fighting with him.

            …“Push, Marin!  One more, that’s all.”
            I was in agony, but pushed anyway, gasping for breath.  The pain eased a moment later; whatever was coming out was out.
            And started crying.
            Oh…oh…
            Jacqueline grinned at me as she worked to clean up the squalling newborn.  “It’s a boy, Marin.”
            I blinked back tears.  A son.  We have a son…

            “You okay, Marin?”
            I swallowed hard, struggling to steady myself as I looked up toward my little brother.  He dropped my backpack and another bag nearby and threw a blanket at me, which I caught, wrapping it around myself.  The blanket from my bed, in my room.  From our parents, before they died.  I smiled weakly at him.  “I’ll be okay.”
            “You sure?”  He looked from me, down toward Thom, and then to me again.  “Going to take some time to haul those last couple boxes out of your place.”
            I snorted softly.  “They’re packed up.  We’ve got bigger things to worry about.  Find my duffle?”
            “Yeah, it’s in a pile under a tarp to worry about later.  Carolyn needs my help with firewood.”
            I grinned at him.  “I know.  Told her to find you if you were done with what you were doing in the buildings.  Firewood’s more important right now, I think, as long as we have clothes and blankets, which I think we’ve got right now, right?”
            He nodded.  “Yeah.  Terry and I hauled that stuff down and into one of the shelters first.  Getting your keys helped expedite that process, I’ll tell you that.”  He crossed his arms, leaning slightly against one of the ‘walls’ of the shelter.  “Are you seeing things again?”
            If anyone deserves to know, he does.  After a brief hesitation, I nodded.  “Snippets and fragments.  Nothing huge.”
            “You’d tell me if it was something huge?”
            I smiled lopsidedly.  “If it would make a difference, yes.”  Otherwise, little brother, no reason to freak you or anyone else out.
            Matt snorted at me.  “Right.”
            “Yeah, right,” I kept grinning.  “Carolyn?  Firewood?”
            He rolled his eyes.  “Right.  Don’t let that one get you too riled up before he’s well enough for me to slug, okay?”
            God, little brother.  So protective.  I shook my head.  “Firewood, Matt.”
            He waved vaguely and left me, jogging out of my range of vision a few moments later.  For the moment, it was quiet.  I wasn’t sure how long that would last.  The smell of rain on the wind was getting stronger.  It was coming, sure as the sunrise.  They wouldn’t have much time with that firewood.  Hopefully they’d find a good cache, and quickly.
            I glanced down toward Thom.  “Hope you heard that, Thom.  No making me upset until Matt can make you pay for it.”  I gently ran my fingers across his forehead.  He stirred once again, as if he was struggling to wake up, but something wasn’t letting him.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what, exactly.  I probably wouldn’t even ask when he woke up.  It wasn’t worth the fight it would spark—and it would inevitably spark a fight.
            I wish we didn’t fight all the time.  I hugged my knees against my chest, staring down at him.  Wish he and I didn’t feel so right when we aren’t fighting.  Hell.  Even feels right when we are.  Why the hell do you have to keep denying it, Thom?  Why?  I shook my head at myself, at him.  Well.  He won’t be able to deny it much longer.  Not when everyone else’s abilities begin to manifest. 

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            I was hovering, I knew it, and I also knew that it was pissing Jacqueline off to at least some degree.  But I didn’t care.  It was Thom, for Christ’s sake.  I wasn’t letting him out of my sight again—at least not anytime soon.
            “Marin, will you please at least give me a little room to work?”
            But I don’t want to get too far away from him.  I grimaced, edging back slightly, sprawling in an odd sitting position near one corner of the mattress but staying within arm’s reach of his shoulder.  “Is he going to be okay?”  He has to be.  He has to be okay.  This isn’t how his story’s supposed to end.  She wasn’t answering fast enough.  “Well?”
            “Marin!  Relax.  Give me a minute and I can answer you.”  She looked bewildered as she stared at me for a long moment, then shook her head.  “Toss me that roll of ace bandage.”
            I fished it out of the kit and watched her start splinting Thom’s ankle, which she’d set properly—or so we hoped.  She was working by touch and instinct and a lot of preliminary medical training.  J.T. would double check everything later, and so would my brother—the EMT and the Eagle Scout.  By that point, I was pretty sure most of us had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were more than certainly on our own.  It was almost a no-brainer at this point.  Carolyn was right.  If someone—anyone—was coming to help us, they would have arrived by now, and since no one had, what other conclusion were we supposed to reach?
            I reached down and gently ran my fingers along Thom’s hairline, careful to avoid the purple knot that dominated part of his forehead.  It just looked angry to me, that mark.  Jacqueline had sent Carolyn to go scavenge some ice from Kleiner so she could hopefully get some of the swelling down.  The weather was turning quickly—the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees within the last few hours, and the angry clouds I’d been watching since I woke up were moving in, gathering strength in the strange sky.  Rain would come soon.  I could smell it on the wind.  We had maybe another hour, maybe two if we were lucky.  Almost everyone was working on shelters, or food, or other essentials, and working quickly.  I think they knew that we were running short of time to get those together.  Some of the anthro students had gone back to the storage areas beneath Lake Michigan hall to raid it for supplies—tarps, shovels, other tools.  A few people, like Kellin, J.T., and Drew, were still out looking for survivors, though hope was rapidly dwindling that we’d find many more.  We were running out of time.  Night would come quickly after the rains.  We all knew that.  It was just a question of when, and how ready we’d be to face it.
            My brother had apparently had the presence of mind to start raiding our rooms in the dorms while he was investigating them for survivors with the others.  He and one other person had been gathering up personal items and extra clothing as quickly as possible, bringing it to the shelters—just in case we wouldn’t have another chance to get into the unstable buildings—I was thinking that we were all fairly certain that they were going to become even more unstable rapidly, since the earthquakes had only become a little less frequent in number and the intensity hadn’t eased by that much, either.  There was also inclement weather blowing in—literally blowing in, since the winds had picked up a bit.
            “You wanted the big box from the office, Jacqueline?”  Jack had a huge green plastic tote in his hands.  Jacqueline barely glanced up before nodding.
            “Put it in the corner, there.  That’s fine.”  She continued to wrap Thom’s ankle.  He didn’t stir at all, just kept breathing.
            Jack nodded, stowing the tote, then looking at me.  “I’ll haul that other mattress in here, Marin.”
            I smiled weakly at him.  “Thanks, Jack.”  Is it that obvious I’m not going to leave him?
            Jacqueline snorted, fastening off the end of the ace bandage.  “Guess I don’t have to worry about staying here to watch him, huh?  You’re not leaving him at all.”
            “Not until I know, no, I’m not leaving him.”  I bit my lip, staring at his dirty, ashen face a moment.  “Brandon said they had to lever a slab of the ceiling sheetrock off of him.”
            “If that’s the case, he’s really lucky he’s not worse off.  I don’t think his ribs are broken, but we’ll figure that out later.  He’s bruised up real nice.”  She shrugged a little.  “I can only do so much, Marin.  This is really…really touch-and-go, if you know what I mean.  I’m not sure everything that I’m doing is actually going to do him any good.  I’m not even sure that I’ve found everything that’s wrong.  All we can do is wait and hope.”  She stood up carefully and scooped up a blanket, tossing it to me.  “Keep him warm and get that ice on his head when Carolyn gets back with it.  Wrap it in the towel.”
            I nodded.  “I know.  Better not to shock the system that way.”
            She nodded back.  “I’m going to go check on everyone else.”
            I nodded again, edging closer to Thom as she left, unfolding the blanket and spreading it across his prone form.  He seemed to react a little, but not enough for me to even dare to hope he was waking up.  I leaned down and kissed his forehead gently.  “Stay with me,” I murmured softly.  “Rather spend the rest of my life fighting with you than having buried you today.”  Hope you feel the same way.  Hope that’s what’s in store for us—if half of what I’ve seen is right…it is.

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            “Shit,” Davon mumbled, straightening from his examination of the rear corner of the building.  Matt grimaced, knowing Davon’s pronouncement could mean nothing good.
            “Not stable, is it?”
            “Not by a long shot.  These quakes keep coming, it’s not going to stand,” Davon scratched the back of his head and peered upward.  “ ‘fraid it’s going to be the same story across the board.  They didn’t build these things with earthquakes in mind, just the standard Midwest crap.”
            “We kind of suspected that,” Matt said, glancing toward Jack, who looked unhappy at the prospect of living outdoors at least for the time being.  “Better hurry and get anything personal or terribly useful on out, right?”
            “Remind me why we’re not hiking out to find someplace with buildings we can use?”  Jack mumbled as the three used Marin’s keys to enter the dormitory.  He let Davon enter first, trailing him a few steps behind with Matt bringing up the rear.
            Matt shook his head.  “Here we have the high ground, know the lay of the land and even if the buildings are going to come down, they still have resources we’ll be able to snag from the wreckage.  Ravine gives us a natural wall on a couple sides.”
            “Sounds like you’re thinking some kind of end-of-the-world Mad Max shit,” Jack muttered, then paused, looking at Matt and Davon.  “…oh, shit, don’t tell me that.”
            “You seen the National Guard yet?”  Matt grimaced.  “Heard any sirens?  Seen anything in the sky other than those damn meteorites coming down?  One way or another, we’re on our own for a while.  City’s a mess, from what Marin hiked through.  We’ll gather up what we can, sit tight, and see what happens.  Work on surviving for the long haul in the meantime.  Just in case.”
            “Fuck,” Jack mumbled under his breath, keys jangling in his hand as they moved into the dorm’s hallways, unlocking doors.  Windows on the back side of the building were blown out, offering a grand view of the trees clinging to the walls of the ravine behind the dorm.  The plaster on the interior was cracking, showing more damage on the interior than the exterior was showing yet.  Davon grimaced.
            “Not good at all,” he grumbled.
            “Sounds like the last three buildings, Davon,” Matt said as he ducked into the first room.  Nothing but bare furniture.
            “I know, I know,” he said as he joined the other two in checking rooms.  “There’s no way we’re staying in any buildings.  Not tonight, anyway.  None of the ones we’ve found are safe.”
            “What’re we going to do, then?”  Jack asked, coming out of one of the rooms with a few pillows in one hand.  “Those tarps they’re pulling from underneath Michigan or wherever aren’t going to give us much of a shelter, are they?”
            “No, but I know where to find something that might.”
            What about those big blue and white monstrosities they trot out for tailgaters and Greek rush and the renaissance festival every year?  Matt glanced at Davon.  “The blue and white tents?”
            “Yeah.  I know where they are.  It’ll be rough hauling them out here without a truck or something, but I think I can swing it.”  Davon scratched the back of his neck and looked up and down the hallway.  “I’m going to go back and round up a few people to help me move those.  You guys can handle hauling stuff down and out of buildings we’ve already checked, right?”
            Matt nodded, glancing at Jack, who nodded as well.
            “We’ll round up some of the other staffers,” Jack said.  “Haul some more furniture and crap down from Robinson and Copeland.”
            “It’s not a bad idea, Jack.”
            He sighed.  “I know.  I just wish that you two had something reassuring to say about all this shit.”
            Davon shook his head.  “We could be dead.  If we try to sleep in these buildings, that’s probably how we’ll end up.  Maybe not tonight and maybe not tomorrow night, but a few days or weeks down the line, these things are going to come down.  Either way, probably before the cavalry arrives.  Going to have to work fast to salvage stuff before they come down.”
            “And after they come down?”  Jack asked, brow creasing.  “What then?”
            Matt shook his head.  “Then we salvage what we can from the rubble.”  Could use the brick and crap to start building new shelters, smaller ones, timber frames with the brick and cinderblock and concrete to supplement.  An idea, anyway.  Might be more stable in a quake than these monstrositites.
            “Long haul, right?”
            “Exactly.”  Matt blew out a breath.  “Come on.  Let’s get this stuff out and we’ll go grab your staffers and get to work.”
            Jack grimaced but nodded.  He glanced toward Davon as they emerged into the open air, air that smelled vaguely of smoke, brimstone, and death.  “There should be some staffers that can help you with those tents.”
            Davon nodded.  “Was hoping you’d say that.  I’ll round up a few and leave the rest to you.”  He squinted up toward the sky.  “I’m thinking the lower to the ground we are, the better.  What about you two?”
            They both followed his gaze to the sky, darkening in the west with some kind of storm building out over the lake, a couple dozen miles away.  Matt grimaced.  “Better be quick with those tents, Davon.  Better run.”
            “Something tells me you’re right.  How far out do you think that is?”
            Matt winced as the ground bucked again beneath his feet, then settled.  “Don’t know.  We won’t have more than another couple hours, though.  Three, tops.”
            Davon clapped him on the shoulder and set off at a jog toward the cluster of furniture and people that represented the surviving community.  Matt watched him go for a moment before looking at Jack.
            “C’mon.  Let’s get back to work.”

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            “What the hell came down on you guys?”
            “My guess would be about two and a half floors.”  J.T. hauled himself out of the hole, watching critically as the camps staffers carried Thom’s limp body clear of the rubble they’d just been dug out of.  Almost as an afterthought, he reached back to drag Brandon up and out of the hole by the back of his collar.  The younger man growled slightly, then dusted himself off as soon as he’d clambered clear of the hole, glaring at J.T.
            The glare wore away as he looked at who their rescuers were.  Brandon blinked a moment, staring at them, shocked.  “You…you guys don’t look like rescuer workers.”
            Kellin gave him a level look.  “We’re what you’ve got, Brandon.  Don’t knock it.”  She glanced toward J.T., then toward Thom, then back toward J.T.  “What came down on him?”
            J.T. grimaced.  “Like I said.  About two and a half, three floors.”  He worked his arm up and around in a wide loop, his shoulder popping as he did.  “We have anyone who can do much of anything for him?  Someone not me, I mean.”
            “We’ll sort that out quickly enough, I think.  Jacqueline and Leah are in one piece.  Maybe a couple PT/OT students or a couple nursing students.  We’ll do what we can with what we’ve got. Don’t have another choice.”  She turned toward the camp staffers.  “Get a mattress or something so we can carry him back on it.”  A pair of them nodded and jogged off, presumably to get the required implements.
            J.T. rubbed his head.  “Bad, right?”
            Kellin nodded.  “Bad enough, anyway.  Marin made it back to campus, god only knows how.”  She dropped her pendulum to dangle between her fingers again.  J.T. attempted to rake the dust from his hair.
            “We were coming up from the basement of the building,” he admitted.  “Thom…said all of a sudden that we needed to come up.  Guess we weren’t fast enough.”  Either that or he felt it, decided it was nothing, and didn’t mention it until it was too late.  That’d fit with Marin’s consistent complaints.  He looked around.  “Is she here?”
            Kellin tilted her head toward the corner of the courtyard.  J.T. could just see Marin perched on a wreck of a bench, looking like she was half asleep, just barely visible over the debris that littered the courtyard.  He grimaced.
            “She…you probably don’t want to let her see him like this.”
            “You act like we’re going to get a choice.”  Kellin grimaced.  “She won’t give us one, Jay.  You know her.  She…ugh.  She told me to use this to find survivors.”  She held up the pendulum a moment, which started swinging in another direction as if on its own accord.  Kellin sighed.
            J.T. patted her shoulder.  “I’ll come with you.  Rather not see her reaction to Thom.”
            Kellin smiled wryly.  “Don’t blame you.  Come on.  Pointing us this way.”
            They crunched quietly together through the rubble and remains.  J.T. tried to rub some more of the dust out of his hair.  “Who lived?”
            “So far?  Not enough,” Kellin sighed and shook her head.  “But with finding you and Thom and Brandon…we’re pretty much all accounted for, maybe, I think.  I was working at the library.  Tala was in the lab.  Drew and Davon and Carolyn and Rory and Jac were at the library.  You saw Marin.  There wasn’t anyone else still kicking around, right?”
            He shook his head.  “No.  Everyone else was gone.”  Gone for good, now, probably.  He felt strangely hollow.  The full shock of it probably wouldn’t hit until later, he guessed.  There were a lot of friends that were gone now, if this was the end, if the world was in a shambles, never mind the amount of family that was gone.  He felt a dull ache at the idea of never seeing his mother or his brother again.  Brother…oh shit.  What about Marin’s baby brother?  He looked at Kellin.  “What about her brother?”
            Kellin nodded.  “He’s here.  Safe.  He was hiking down in the ravine when everything happened, working on some geology project or something.  Thank god for small favors, right?”
            J.T. grunted, glancing back over his shoulder again.  Rubble obscured his view of where Marin had been sitting, of where he and Thom and Brandon had been pulled from the ruins of the building.  “Do you really think we’re going to find that many more survivors?”
            “No,” she admitted softly.  “But we have to keep looking until we can’t.”
            He nodded firmly in agreement.  More living bodies meant more safety when the chips were down, and it was only a matter of time before that happened.  It might not be for weeks or months, but at some point, someone was going to show up and try to take whatever they’d manage to scrounge to survive on.  Somehow, in his dysfunctional brain, more people meant a greater chance of survival.  Intellectually, he knew that probably wasn’t the case, but if he’d learned anything since starting to hang out with Kellin, Marin, Thom, and all the rest, he’d learned to listen to his gut.
            This time, his gut was telling him that they were in this for the long haul, one way or another.

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            He kept his eyes closed and tried not to move, tried not to even breathe too deeply.  His ribs ached, like he’d run for miles without stopping.  His ankle throbbed, waves of pain rippling up his leg with every heartbeat, throbbing bone-deep.  Everything hurt.  Moving hurt, breathing hurt.  He was dimly aware of voices speaking nearby, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.  Thom drifted somewhere between waking and sleeping, lost in visions he tried to convince himself were nothing more than strange dreams.
            She was always there.  She was the one he’d stayed here for, to say good-bye to her.  He’d been thinking about the words all day, even when he’d been running up the stairs with…who had he been with?…to get out of the building before it collapsed.  How had he known that they should get out?  That was hazy, either from a blow to the head or simply not wanting to remember.  She would have said he’d had a premonition.  He would have told her he didn’t believe in that.
            Not anymore.
            Not since the nightmare.
            It was why they fought, why their relationship was on the rocks, if it still existed at all.  It was why he was saying good-bye instead of finding a way to go with her, why he had been trying to run away to Chicago—to forget her.  To forget the woman he loved, to leave and never see her again, only in his dreams and memories.  Those he could never be rid of, and if he was really honest with himself, he didn’t want to lose them.  He didn’t want to lose her, either, but it was getting too hard.  Much too hard to love her but not be able to talk without fighting, to be together without an argument.  He would keep his memories but run from the temptation to make more.  It was the only way he was going to stay sane.

            “Marin.”  He reached for her tentatively, wincing as she flinched away from his touch.  What did I do now? He pushed himself upright, touching her shoulder, tugging gently.
            She turned toward him, head bowed, tears glistening on her cheeks.  His mouth went dry.
            “You’re crying.”  Why is she crying?  What did I do?  God, what did I do now?
            She sniffled, wiping her eyes.  “I’m fine.”
            But she wasn’t.  I know you too well, Marin.  Don’t lie to me.  “You’re not.  What’s wrong?”
            She was suddenly curled against his chest, her arms around him, clinging like a drowning man clings to anything that might keep him afloat.  He put his arms around her, burying his nose in her hair, inhaling deeply.  I’m such a fool.
            “Just so afraid,” she whispered as her tears soaked through his threadbare sleeping shirt.  “So afraid I’m going to lose you, Thom.  I don’t want to lose you.”
            He shivered, holding her tighter.  I don’t want to lose you, either, Mar.  That’s why…  He swallowed hard, struggling for words, holding her tightly.  How can we take the risk?  I can’t justify the risk…  “Don’t cry,” he finally fumbled, struggling to breathe past a lump in his throat.  “Don’t cry, Marin.  Please don’t cry.”  He buried his nose in her hair, drawing a deep, unsteady breath.  Why?  Why?  Why does she hurt so much and why does it hurt me so much to see her hurting so deeply?  He squeezed his eyes shut.  What in god’s name did I do?
            She just clung tighter and continued to weep.

            He was dimly aware of voices, familiar voices, talking around him.  He was likewise dimly aware of pain, though he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from, only knew that it was there, that he hurt, his body hurt—he was hurt, and probably badly.  He didn’t dare try to move.  His mouth was dry, almost gritty.
            “Don’t cry, Marin,” he whispered, too quiet to be heard.  “Don’t cry…”
            “Hang in there, Thom,” someone murmured, close to his face.  It wasn’t her.  Someone else.  He squeezed his eyes more tightly closed.  He wanted her.  Not someone else.  Needed her.
            Where was she?  Gone?  Maybe…

            Her fingers gently stroked his cheek and he opened his eyes, feeling as weary as she looked.  She smiled at him, one corner of her mouth upturned, curling wryly.  “Welcome back,” she murmured softly.  “Gave me a scare.”
            “What happened?”
            “We beat them off, that’s what happened.”  She wrapped both her hands around one of his.  “You shouldn’t have worried so much about me.  But thank you anyway.”
            He started to sit up, hissing at pain in his ribs and falling back down again against the mattress.  “Ow.”
            Her fingers tightened.  “Don’t.  Jacqueline hasn’t done much for your ribs yet.  She just stitched you up so you wouldn’t bleed to death.”
            His fingers felt stiff and cold as he squeezed her hands gently, trying to relax, to calm himself.  “They didn’t get too close, did they?  Food’s safe?  Water supply?”  Are you all right?  They better not have…couldn’t bear it if you were…
            “Everything’s fine.”  She freed one hand from his and stroked his brow gently.  “Some wounded.  You’re one of the worst.  Otherwise, everything’s fine.  We’re safe, for now.”
            Good.  Couldn’t live if something happened to you…  “Good.  Hate to think what would happen if all of us got taken out at once.  What would happen to the world…”
            She laughed.  “As if we’re all that important to the world.”
            You are.  He managed a tired smile.  “Some of us think so.”

            His eyes fluttered open for a moment and he could see light somewhere above his head, saw dust glittering in the shaft of weak sunlight streaming down into the hole.  He twitched.  Pain lanced through him and he gasped despite himself.  What was left of his vision became tinged in red as waves of pain washed over him, like storm surge over breakers.  He gasped again, coughed, then subsided, unable to think—unable to even breathe.  Black washed over him, and even the visions, for a time, abated.

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            “I hear something.”
            “Hopefully it’s not something else coming down.”
            Yeah.  Hopefully.  J.T. looked upwards grimly, up into the twisted remains of supports and walls.  “Thom still breathing?”
            Brandon nodded.  “Still breathing.  Looks bad, though.  Hope it’s some kind of rescue crew.”
            Rescue crew.  Yeah, right.  Rescue crew.  Guess he missed the memo that when we picked teams for the end of the world, it wasn’t some joke.  J.T. took a slow, deep breath, exhaling through his mouth before taking a step back from the edge of the stairway they were sheltered in, drawing back to crouch next to Thom’s prone form. They’d dragged him out from under some of the rubble not long before, gotten him to this relatively stable platform.  He’d been conscious then, joking even, about their long-ago decision to pick teams for the apocalypse, back when things looked bleak when they were freshman, back when Marin had seen what she’d seen—the end, they all thought.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  The end wasn’t supposed to come like this.  But somehow, J.T. had always suspected it might.  Marin seeing whatever she’d actually seen back then had changed something, though he wasn’t sure what.  So now things had found a different end.
            But it was still an end.
            Thom hadn’t stayed conscious for very long, though, after they’d pulled him out from under the pile of debris.  He had mumbled something unintelligible in J.T.’s direction and then closed his eyes.  But he was still breathing.  For how long, though?
            Stay with me, man.  We can’t handle this shit without you, you asshole.  The purplish knot on Thom’s head didn’t look any worse, at least.  Brandon was frowning.
            “He needs a hospital.”
            “We can keep our fingers crossed that that’ll be an option, Brandon.”  J.T. bit down on his tongue, regretting saying it as soon as it had slipped out.  Great.  Now my nerves are frayed.  Fucking fantastic.  “We should’ve gotten it in gear when we heard the first explosion.”
            “What do you think it was?”
            He shrugged.  “Damned if I know.  Bombs, maybe.  Something worse.  Wasn’t firecrackers.”
            “Not funny, Jay.”
            “Not supposed to be funny, Brandon.”  J.T. shrugged out of his tattered black hoodie and threw it over Thom, frowning.  Got to stay with me, Thom.  How the hell are you supposed to try to patch it up with Marin if you’re dead?
            “Did you hear that?”  Brandon squinted upwards.
            J.T. shook himself.  “Hear what?”
            “Sounds like someone starting to dig.”
            J.T. knelt, sliding a meaty hand under Thom’s shoulders and gently easing his friend closer to the wall, more out of range of the drifting bits of debris that would inevitably be coming down as whoever was above dug them out.  Thom’s eyelids fluttered and he groaned quietly as he was moved.  J.T. winced despite himself.  Not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.  He looked at Brandon.  “So start yelling.”
            Brandon looked bewildered.  “What am I supposed to yell?”
            “I don’t know.  Think of something.”  J.T. leaned down, close to Thom’s faintly moving lips, trying to hear whatever the other man was trying to say.
            “So sorry,” Thom whispered, almost too quiet for him to hear.  “Love her…so sorry…”
            “Fuck, Thom,” J.T. muttered.  “Now’s not the time to be being sorry for shit that happened between the two of you.”  I don’t even understand half that crap, just that some things you’ll talk about and there’s some things she’ll talk about and they’re never the same problems.  Thom kept whispering another few minutes before he exhaled, went quiet again, just breathing, unconscious again.  Brandon had begun yelling.
            “Down here!  Help!  We’re down here!”
            J.T. leaned against the wall, stable for now, the pylons for this particular wall driven deep, down into the bedrock.  He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.  We’ll be lucky if they have a way to get us out of here.
            Dust started to fall from above.  J.T. mumbled a quiet curse, scrubbing his hand over his own face.  He tugged his sweatshirt up over Thom’s mouth and nose so his friend wouldn’t inhale too much of whatever masonry dust—or otherwise—came down as whoever it was above them dug them out.
            A distorted voice drifted down to them with the dust.  “How many?”
            “Three,” Brandon shouted up.
            “Anyone hurt?”
            “Yeah!”  Brandon glanced at J.T. and Thom.  “Just one, but bad.  Gonna need some attention real quick!”
            Silence answered them.  Brandon frowned; J.T. grimaced.  That’s what I thought.  J.T. glanced down toward Thom again.  Hope her visions of a future with you true, man.  We need fate on our side.
            Rubble shifted above them.  Dust showered down, peppered with bits of drywall and masonry.  J.T. braced himself, trying to shield Thom from any debris coming down.  “Wish they could be a little more careful,” he grumbled, glancing toward Brandon briefly.
            Brandon shrugged, throwing an arm over his own head to shield himself from some more small debris coming down.  “As long as it gets out of out here, I’ll take it.”  He risked a glance up.  “I can see a little more light.”
            “Good,” J.T. muttered.  “The sooner we see more, the better.  Need to get Thom somewhere stable.”
            “Like a hospital.”
            “Like somewhere more stable.”  J.T. stared at the nineteen year old, grimacing.  How do you tell a kid that there probably isn’t a functioning hospital in a four hundred mile radius?  “I don’t think there’s much world left up there, Brandon.  Don’t ask me how I know.  That’s just what I feel.”
            “You’re crazy, Jay.”
            J.T. shook his head.  “Hope so, Brandon.  Don’t think so, though.  Not about this crap, not this time.  Don’t think so at all.”

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