Sassy Velma

Nate wasn’t thinking, just moving. Dialing memorized numbers that he had called several times over the past month, but for very different reasons. “CJ,” he said in a rougher voice than he normally used. “I need a favor.” His eyes kept darting back to Alyssa and Ryder, likely still in shock. He looked back, balancing the phone against his shoulder so she could grab the medical supplies they needed and shove them into the duffel that he’d grabbed on the way out of the house. “I need a plane...Twenty minutes...No, not at the commercial airstrip, dumbass. If I wanted a commercial flight I wouldn’t be calling you. I need a plane at the old private airstrip outside of Banksmeadow.” It had taken some practice, and a few misses with other shadier contacts before he figured out the persona that he needed to adopt in order to address these particular contacts. “Obviously I know it’s short notice,” he deadpanned. “It’s an emergency, and you’re good at making people disappear. Just name your price...Yes, five fake identities. Whatever you need, government ID’s, passports, social security cards, anything. Just get me the fucking plane.” He zipped the duffel bag and pulled it over his shoulder, motioning for Ryder and Alyssa to follow him. “I need three seats...I’d rather tell the destination to the pilot when we get there...I know it’s a secure line, I’ve just had the misfortune of believing a lot of things were more secure than they were lately.” He handed the duffel bag to Ryder in favor of pulling his gun from the back of his jeans, and scanning the outside of the building to make sure they were cleared before waving Ryder and Alyssa towards the car. “I owe you one, CJ,” Nate said. “Just send me the names and photos, I’ll start working on the ID’s as soon as I know we’re safe.” Nate ended the call and dropped the phone to the ground, crushing it under his heel before getting into the car. “We’ve got a plane, I’m going to get you guys out of here,” he said, eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror to watch Ryder and Alyssa holding onto each other in the backseat. It was actually only a fifteen minute drive to the old airstrip, but Nate knew this wasn’t the time to try and beat the clock, so he gave them a few extra minutes until they were supposed to meet the plane. The last thing they needed was to get pulled over for speeding, and for TC to see the cops run one of his aliases. He had no doubt they had all of their aliases flagged. He’d probably grabbed more at their faux pharmacy than he’d been able to grab from the house. He actually hadn’t grabbed anything, just told Alyssa and Ryder to take a few minutes to throw some things in a bag, and rushed them outside. There would be time to get food when they landed. Wherever they landed. He still wasn’t exactly sure where. All he knew was that Casey was going East, so he had to go West. He kept glancing back in the rearview mirror. He knew that more socially conscious people would ask if they were alright, but he always thought that was stupid thing to ask. They weren’t. He wasn’t. But they were alive. And that was good enough at the moment.

This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. Those were the only three words that made sense whirling through his brain again and again. This wasn’t happening. ‘This’ had all happened so fast -- he had to be wrong. That was the only possible scenario, right? And yet, here he was standing in some disgusting never-been-cleaned-before excuse for a bathroom trying to scrub drying blood from violently shaking hands. His, Max’s, Keaton’s, Kalen’s -- it was impossible to tell at this point -- but it felt like it was everywhere. And despite Alyssa having somehow managed to get him into fresh clothes, the smell seemed to follow him. It took a few seconds to realize the water’d been turned off and another to register what that sound in the bathroom was. Nate was on the phone. And then Alyssa was nudging and somehow he got his feet unstuck and his legs supported him back to the car. His eyes stayed trained on his feet, curious how they were doing that. Lifting up, swinging forward, step, repeat. Who was telling them to do that? Confusion drew his brows closer as he blinked, but didn’t argue as he was led to a car and wrapped up in Alyssa’s arms. There was probably something he was supposed to say here. An “I’m sorry” or “Oh, my God.” anything. But it felt like someone’d taken an ice cream scooper to the parts that made him him. He couldn’t smile, or talk, or joke, or breathe. Keaton was such an important part of his life -- there was no way he was facing the rest of his days alone. That wasn’t possible. They were gonna grow old together. Like 45. Weren’t they? “Lys?” he mumbled. “I don’t understand. We should...I was wrong. We should go back. He’s alive. Right? He’s alive. I need him to be...please. Please tell me we were wrong. We left him there and we should go back for him!”

Alyssa couldn’t stop crying. She had given up wiping the tears away a while ago. She wasn’t sure how long ago. She was shaking, everything was blurry, and all she knew how to do was cling to Ryder. None of it made sense. There was Max-- and sure, she knew everyone hated him, but he’d been nice to her. But then he was-- and Keaton. She couldn’t get it out of her head, watching him collapse to the ground. As she watched and tried to help Ryder wash the blood from his hands, she wasn’t even sure which was worse for him, or if either had hit him yet, that Keaton was killed or that he himself had killed the man responsible. She leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek, pretty sure she’d left more tears behind on his skin than the kiss, but he wasn’t moving unless she guided him, and that scared her more than anything. She took a moment to wash the blood from her own hands, and change into a spare set of clothes she’d managed to grab. Her hands were shaking when she dropped the bloody clothes on the ground. Keaton’s blood. It had to be, because she didn’t even go over to Kalen after he was shot. One of her best friends, and she hadn’t even ran to him. Or, not her best friend. Fake best friend. She wasn’t even sure. She still saw it in her mind, watching him raise his gun, looking at her only long enough to give her an amused smirk that hadn’t even looked like her Kalen, and aimed to gun at Ryder. Her throat still ached with her sharp scream when she heard the gunshot, but Kalen had just collapsed there to the floor, and Nate was there behind him, reaching for them, rushing them out. Nate was saying a lot of things, and she didn’t catch most of it. Of what she did hear, she didn’t understand more. “Compromised,” he’d said. “Code black,” he’d called over his shoulder at Casey as they ran out. Then rushing them into a car without a pause to breathe, and rambling about a pharmacy. Not a real one, a fake one. He only gave them a minute to try and grab things to take with them, and Ryder had been in such shock, Alyssa grabbed things for him too. Standing in the dirty bathroom, Alyssa took a few paper towels and wiped at her face, not daring to look in the mirror. She’d glanced at her reflection and Ryder’s when they first walked in, and the pure horror reflected back at her made her want to break down in tears again, but Nate was saying they needed to leave, and something about a plane. “How’d this happen? Nate, what’s it mean? Where are we going? Why’d they do this? Nate, please,” she mumbled, trying and failing to hold back the tears. She looked up at Ryder when he started talking again, and fresh tears started falling again. She opened her mouth, but a lump formed in her throat, choking back the words and she just pressed her lips closed and shook her head, wrapping her arms tighter around him and burying her face against his shoulder.

‘Grieve on the plane,’ was what Nate wanted to snap, but he could already hear Coral’s voice in the back of his mind, reprimanding him for being insensitive. They didn’t have time for it, though. At least they were in the car. He’d worry about dragging them from the car to the plane when they reached the airstrip. His eyes flicked up to the mirror at Alyssa’s tear-filled questions, but he couldn’t answer her. What did she expect him to say? If he’d known this was going to happen, he and Casey would have snuck everyone out of the house months ago. It wasn’t like he could give some play-by-play of how their guards had turned on them. Though, he thought morbidly, he probably should be able to write a play-by-play by now. He should be able to write an entire goddamn book. “I don’t know, Alyssa. I’m sorry,” he said. Where Alyssa had moved into full-blown bawling though, Ryder was still clearly in shock, and moving into denial. “You weren’t wrong, Ryder,” he said as gently as he could. “He’s gone. I’m sorry. There’s nothing you can do now, except stay safe. We’re here.” He parked the car a bit out of the way, behind a shed that wouldn’t completely conceal the car, but at least wouldn’t be as obvious as sitting in the middle of the airstrip. The plane was in place, as promised, and it looked like the pilot was rushing around checking the engines and making sure everything was ready for a quick takeoff. “Let’s just get onboard, and we’ll figure it out from there, alright?” It was strange actually, going to the underground to find contacts when they were trying to escape from TC. The thing he’d learned though, since he’d started easing his way into shadier circles in his search to find information on Marty, was that one underground circle could be counted on to be in strict and deadly competition with another. It had come to this, with him trusting an international drug dealer’s transporter more than he trusted the agency. “So you must be Fisher,” the pilot said, echoing off the alias Nate had given to CJ. “That’s right. I’m told you can get us where we need to go.” “So long as it’s this side of the Atlantic, yeah I can do that.” “It is. South Africa,” he said. He hadn’t seen any agency or TC bases in the country when he was working with Harrison, Casey and Agent Klein to pinpoint where they intersected. And as far as he knew, they mostly spoke English and French, so with Alyssa along, he was hoping they’d be able to manage alright. At this point, just getting away was good enough, and South Africa seemed as good an escape as any.

Panic gripped hard onto his heart but they weren’t moving. Alyssa wasn’t even speaking, just crying harder and holding onto him, so he turned pleading eyes onto the reflection of Nate in the mirror. Please, please, please, turn the car around, he tried to silently will Nate but the man just unapologetically told him no. Keaton was gone. Without permission, his bottom lip started to wobble, but that was easy enough to bite down on as he turned his gaze out the window. No. His mind wouldn’t fathom a world without Keaton in it. They were two peas in a pod. Soul mates. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It wasn’t ending like this. So he focused on what was around them, the shed, the sketchy guys, the plane. They were flying somewhere. Was this how the New Yorkers had felt? Ripped out of their homes and shuttled off without ever knowing if or when they’d be able to set foot on their home soil ever again. Ryder loved Australia. He loved New Zealand. Somehow, he doubted they were heading towards Auckland. A wild flash of irrational desire made him want to run, kidnap the plane, and go back home. To their home. The flat the four of them had shared inbetween tours. It seemed like a dream that their life had been like that once. Fun, parties, movie nights, weekly family dinners, and a whole lot of music. Had that even happened? Dazed, he looked back at Alyssa when he registered the soft pushing and eventually managed to untangle his limbs and follow Nate from the car towards the plane and all the shady people. Most of it flew by him unnoticed until he caught wind of a country name and reached out to curl fingers around Nate’s arm -- uncertain if he was trying to ground himself or prohibit Nate from leaving. “We can’t go to South Africa.” he whispered, eyes wide like that was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. It was second after Keaton being dead. “We can’t leave him there like that.” If by some improbable chance Nate was right and he was dead -- then he was lying amongst Max and Kalen’s bodies and he deserved better than that. Who fucking knew what TC or the Agency or who-the-fuck-ever would do with him. No. They had to -- they had to properly deal with that. Why were they bolting anyway? Max showed up but assumingly he was empty handed. Nate and Casey hadn’t turned on them and neither did the other New Yorkers so -- why couldn’t they have taken the time to deal with Keaton properly? “He deserves more.”

Alyssa was shaking, and couldn’t find it in her to make it stop. She had cried to the point that her breaths were coming in soft hiccups, and her cheek were starting to feel tingly, but still the tears refused to relent. It just didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. She couldn’t shake that face, Kalen’s face, laughing, almost maniacally, staring down at his own brother bleeding out. At Ryder, shaking as he instinctively pointed the gun at whoever happened to walk through the door next. And it was Kalen. There. Just laughing. A sobbed ripped from her throat, and she was leaning heavily on Nathan when he opened the door and helped her out of the car. He was mumbling something, she wasn’t sure what. She just followed where he guided her, the vague thought crossing her mind that, oh right, he was a guard too. Just like Kalen. She reached behind her, grasping at empty space until she found Ryder’s arm. “Please, can we just- Ry, please. I’m scared. I just wanna go. I wanna go.” She stayed put when Nathan motioned for them to stop, clutching desperately onto Ryder’s arm as Nathan disappeared into the plane for a minute. He called out a minute later, and she walked up the steps first, keeping a tight grip on Ryder’s hand. She constantly wiped her eyes, trying to keep the tears away, but they kept coming back. “It’s not right,” she mumbled, looking at plush looking seat for a moment before slowly sinking into it. None of it made sense. Not a single moment of it made sense. “Nate, why’s it happening?” She turned desperate eyes on the American. “We didn’t do anything- did we? Why then? And where’s everyone else? Where’s Luna? And Jer and Coral?” Another sob made her double over. “They were gonna- Were Kalen and Max- Were they gonna take us- Take us like someone took Harris? And Justin?”

Nathan didn’t have any solid way to calm either of their fears. At the moment, it wasn’t his concern. They were aware of the agency, of TC, of the risks- So why didn’t they understand that? Why didn’t they understand that hurt feelings and confusion could not take priority right now? All Nathan knew how to offer was harsh honesty, and it wasn’t something either of them likely wanted to hear, but it was what they needed to hear. “Yes, Keaton does deserve more than that. But he also deserves more than his death being in vain,” Nathan said, looking over Alyssa’s shoulder to address Ryder. “And if you go back, and get yourself killed, that’s exactly what his death will have been: meaningless. We don’t know if it was the entire agency, or only them that were compromised. What we do know is that they’re trained agents. And trained agents don’t do anything without a contingency plan. And I’d bet a hell of a lot that that contingency plan is currently searching the house and everywhere around it for us. I’m sorry that we have to leave him like that, but I’m not letting you go back and end up the same way. Now both of you wait here.” He made sure Alyssa was leaning at least enough on Ryder and the handrails to keep herself upright before he made his way into the plane first. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his contacts. More than he didn’t trust anyone. “It’s safe, you can come on,” he called out, stowing his gun away and waiting for them to join him on board. He made sure they were both settled and ready for take off before he went back to speak with the pilots. He introduced himself to the co-pilot, and clarified exactly where they were going, before ducking back into the main cabin and taking his seat. “You didn’t do anything, Alyssa,” he sighed. “None of this is because of you. I don’t know why, but I know that. I’m sorry, I should’ve picked up on it. Noticed the signs. Not the first time guards have turned on us,” he finished quietly, speaking more to himself than to them. “No, I don’t think they were going to take us like they took Harrison and Justin,” Nathan said, watching her uneasily. He didn’t quite know how to handle the emotional part of this, and now that they were just waiting for take-off, all he had to focus on was the emotional part of it. It was easier when he had something to focus on, getting them to the plane. But now he didn’t have that to focus on. “Jeremy, Coral and Luna are safe. They’re with Casey. I don’t know where they’re going, but they’ll be safe.” Granted, he did have a guess. TC weren’t the only ones with a contingency plan in place, especially after their guards had turned on them the first time. No, they had a plan too. Code Black, and he, Casey and Justin all knew what to do. Take the protected and go dark. Disappear. Casey would go East, Japan if Nate had to guess; his father was stationed there. Justin would have gone north, likely Russia. And Nate would go West. He didn’t have any family or connections except his family in New York, so he’d have to be more creative, but he liked that better anyway. No one could guess where he’d go, even himself, and that gave him, Alyssa and Ryder an advantage. “You should both rest. Try and get some sleep. We might not get much chance to slow down once we land. We’ll have to move quickly to find everything we need, and a safe place to hide out.”

There had to be a way to fix this. His mind just couldn’t comprehend actually losing Keaton. Like, that was going to be the last time outside of his memories that he’d ever see, smell, or feel Keaton ever again. And he’d been too busy shooting bullies and staring horrified at what he thought was their lifelong brother from another mother trying to kill them to you know, really take that in. So how was his death not in vain? According to Max and then Kalen, there’d been no chance that he was going to walk out of that cabin alive so was it still in vain if it was inevitable? Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t get the chance to form a response before Nate was up and out of the car so he hugged his knee closer while resting his head against the glass. Did he care? Honestly? What was the fucking point now? His family was gone. Alyssa hadn’t yet stopped crying and he had no words to make the tears stop. The stray’s nightmare had become theirs and despite knowing how their story went and watching it happen to them -- it hadn’t prepared him to know how to deal with this. Before he could think of some stupid thing to offer her -- Nate’s voice was telling them to get on the plane. That it was safe. And he wanted to laugh suddenly. This was all just fucking hilarious. For a long moment, he stayed where he was, feet firmly planted on Australian soil and thought about it. Thought about bolting back for the car, for tearing it back to their city, their home, but … but what good would that do? To chase ghosts down memory lane all alone? Alyssa was all he had left and more importantly, he was all Alyssa had left and she was begging him so he gathered what little strength still remained and drug himself up and into the plane, and even somehow managed to get his harness buckled up. But he found he couldn’t look at anyone. Not the strangers, not Nate, and not even Alyssa. Not yet. Everything was too much. Too raw, too uncontrollable, too impossible -- he felt like the smallest sneeze was going to shatter him and he very much did not want that to happen. So he stared at the runway and tried not to listen to Nate reassuring Alyssa about it not being their fault while simultaneously blaming himself. Technically, they’d all been told the stories. The strays came with a warning none of them heeded and now Harrison, Justin, and soon if not already Jer and Luna would be dead. Coral’d probably be the only one to survive beside Casey and they’d never hear from her again. So many people. Just...gone. This time he pulled both his legs up, not caring about shoes on the seat, as he watched the asphalt under them start to roll, before Nate’s words pierced through the haze and started drawing out a harsh laugh. “You think it’s possible to sleep? I’m not entirely sure I’m still breathing and you think I can close my eyes? Relax? Jesus fucking Christ. Have you loved anyone? Ever? You couldn’t have. There’s no fucking way you’d be saying that to us right now if you had and could empathize with what it’d feel like to --” his words shut off there, equal parts too traumatized and too superstitious to say it out loud. If he didn’t say it, maybe it wasn’t real. “Unless you grabbed bendaryl or ambien from the pharmacy, don’t get your hopes up on sleep. In fact, it’s probably better if you just don’t talk until we get there.”

Alyssa pulled her knees against her chest and leaned against the wall of the cabin, staring through blurry eyes out the window. There were voices, familiar voices, but ones she didn’t care much to try and listen to. Comforting but hollow words from Nathan, and gentle suggestions of rest that she didn’t really understand, but didn’t want to comment on. Then angry words. Demanding questions, and frustration lashing out at the nearest and easiest target. Alyssa closed her eyes tight, trying to block it all out, but they shot open again almost immediately when it was Kalen’s laughing face that greeted her in the darkness. “I don’t want to sleep,” she mumbled against her knees, certain neither of them heard her, as words were shot back across the cabin. How long would the flight be? How long would they be arguing? None of it was right. She just wanted it to end. To just wake up and be told that it was a horrific dream. For Kalen to wake her, shaking her shoulder as she thrashed from a nightmare, and comforted her that something like that could never happen. That he would protect her like he always had, and that Keaton was safe, and that Max wasn’t coming back. Maybe even that Harrison and Justin were back, and safe. But it was that thought more than the others that caused a sharp pain in her chest. Because they weren’t coming back. It wasn’t a dream. None of it was. It was all real.

The anger came quickly enough. Nathan scrolled through the stages of grief in his mind. At this rate, maybe they could be at a productive place mentally where they could find a safe place to hide without emotional baggage pulling them backwards by the time they landed. That wasn’t what made Nathan clench his own fists though. Anger he could deal with. Anger was an acceptable reaction. Attacking him though, accusing him of being unable to understand love was what made him turn a hard glare to the Australian. “I’ve given my life, dedicated my life, to protecting people, protecting lives, yours included in case you’d forgotten. Don’t question my ability to love, or whether I have loved anyone. Only a sadist would continue this job after everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve been through. Only a sadist, or a person who honestly does love people, loves humanity as a whole. Sees the value in people’s lives, not just for life itself but for a life’s potential. But if you think you understand love so much better than I do, what would you rather do? Go back? They would kill you before you even reached his body to try and give him a proper funeral. Do you think Keaton would want that for you? If you truly believe that he would want you to die by his side in a fruitless effort to bury his lifeless body, then that’s an insult to his memory and an insult to any form of love that you shared with him.” Nate dug through the bag of medications that he’d pulled from the pharmacy and held out the requested Benadryl to Ryder. “I didn’t say rest would come easily. I said it’s what you should do,” he said evenly. “Grieve when we’re safe.”

Considering guards left and right on both sides of the pond went homicidal, forgive him if he found the whole dedicating his life in an effort to protect other life a little fucking hard to believe right now. Half of him was convinced he was a pig being led to the slaughter and he couldn’t find a fuck anywhere in him to do something about it. But all he could do was watch Nate form words and still feel like he was missing the point entirely. Seeing value in a life was not the same as holding your entire world in your arms as they let out the last breath they’d ever take and then being told to get some sleep. Sleep. “I don’t think bolting blindly into the dark to country hop with essentially a stranger was exactly spelled out in Keaton’s will either.” he pointed out drly. But he caught Alyssa’s soft words and shifted a little so he could get an arm around her and press a kiss to her hair, fighting the urge to dissolve into helpless endless tears himself. Like that’d help. What he wanted was to go home. But he could already hear Nate tell him to go ahead but he’d be letting Keaton down because the whole country was overrun apparently. Who knew you could have a ninja problem? For a long moment, he looked at the drugs being held out to them before reaching a shaking hand over to take them and look at them for awhile. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d tell if they were tampered with or not, but ultimately had to look up and shrug. “I’m sorry for snapping. I owe you a thank you for ...for um, for doing what you did and for helping us get out. If you point us in the right direction, we’ll get out of your hair and you can head back home with the rest of your group. Or wherever they’re going.”