Chapter Text
Their new hideout was much different than either Deckard or Sapper were used to. Deckard had grown accustomed to the perpetual twilight of Vegas. The muddied air and choked sky. Apparently, Freysa’s network stretched much further that it had when he first went into hiding. She and other rogue replicants had established more permanent safehouses and transport networks further west. Apparently, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no shortage of abandoned buildings on earth.
A few days after K had woken up, he was deemed stable enough to make the journey west. Freysa hadn’t wanted to delay his and Ana’s move to wait for K to recover, but they hadn’t budged, Ana especially. The way she had stood her ground against Freysa made her look every inch of her mother. At once he was filled with such love for his daughter and deep pain for having missed so much of her life. Freysa relented and with an exasperated air, went to work with Deckard on organizing their new route to accommodate the delay, and an extra body.
The journey out of LA was long and winding. They took a repurposed transport truck, first heading north out of California entirely. They kept the group as small as possible: Deckard, Ana, K, Sapper, and the dog. Ana delighted in watching the world fleet by her window, and Deckard, too, found himself more than a little enchanted by the muted, real colors of the world outside of Vegas. The dark blue-grey of the ocean gave way to rich golds of the steadily re-growing prairies when they began to cut west. It seemed that despite humanity's best efforts, the earth was clawing back some of itself.
K spent much of the journey asleep. The dog, having taken quite a liking to him, plastered himself to K’s side as he recovered. When he was awake, some of his more idiosyncratic behaviors became apparent. He would often space out, eye dilating and staring off into nothing. K was clearly trying to work the mess of his programming and baseline. Sapper had seen it before, the few times rogue replicants had used his protein farm as a stop between LA and wherever Fresya was sending them. The new models had layers and layers of programmed obedience and protocols. He himself had never seen a Blade Runner break that programming before, but he knew that theirs was different. More deeply ingrained. They were the only type of replicant on-world whose function necessitated violence. Wallace needed to make sure that the bladerunners would be both able to track down and kill their targets, but not raise a hand towards their commanding officers or other humans.
By the time they finally reached their hideout, an old hunters lodge tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, K had finally seemed to have reached a shaky new baseline. He was still very quiet, unsure of himself, but with a new shaky acceptance that the rest of their little crew cared for his wellbeing.
Their first night at the lodge finally allowed them all a moment to breathe. Deckard and Ana had spirited themselves away with the dog to do a cursory check of the lodge’s perimeter, leaving just Sapper and K to assess the lodge itself. It was a sprawling thing, well built and dusty. Sapper was careful to keep an eye on K as they made their way through the building. He was still favoring one side, but the rest had done him good and it was clear that K, much like him and Deckard, did not do well with stagnation. Even if all of them needed more time to recover.
“Have you ever been this far west?” K’s voice echoed through the empty building. They were standing in the living room, near floor to ceiling windows allowing for a hazy view into the valley.
Sapper thought for a moment, back to all the different skies he had seen. “No, actually.”
“Me neither,” K replied, “only ever been as far as Vegas.”
Sapper tore his gaze from the windows, they would need to be washed, to survey the rest of the room. He landed in the kitchen. Freysa’s scouts had come first to check the status of the building, to make sure it wouldn’t collapse on top of Ana while they were sleeping. They had said that the lodge had its own plumbing, that it drew water from a nearby spring. They also reported a set of solar panels on the roof. They would be able to hole up here, disconnected from everything, while Fresya and her people decided next steps.
“You check the rest of this floor, I’ll take the upstairs,” Sapper said, catching K’s nod on his way out of the room. Sapper really had never been further west than this. He had spent so much time on earth in hiding but never really left the greater Los Angeles area. After Ana was born and Rachel died and Deckard disappeared, the little seedling of hope he had for a better, different life went dormant. He remembered when K had shown up at his protein farm, he hadn’t felt dread or surprise. He felt like the inevitable had finally happened. Something he hadn’t even been aware he had been waiting for finally showed up.
Maybe that was just another trick of his nature as a replicant. Maybe there were wires crossed deep in his mind that made death seem natural in a way that organic born humans didn’t. But then he remembered how hard he had tried to live. How he had clawed his way off Kalantha to Earth. He remembered staring down K, back when still the Blade Runner sent to kill him, and refusing to die without a fight. The relief he felt when he opened his eye again. He thinks K must be dealing with a similar realization. That he wants to live.
Sapper had managed to survey the upper floor of the lodge. It was aged, just like him and Deckard, he thought, but suitable. He was considering whether or not to try opening the windows to let the mountain air begin to clear out the dust, when he heard the front door open. He froze for a moment, listening intently, and forced his body to relax when he heard Ana’s lilting voice followed by the clacking of the dog’s claws against the floor.
He made his way back to the ground floor. K was being pushed down onto one of the chairs that surrounded the kitchen table by Ana. The dog was next to Deckard, both surveying the forest through the windows.
“How does it look out there?” Sapper asked, the dog leaning against his legs as he bent down to scratch his head.
“Quiet,” Deckard said, “but secure.”
Sapper nodded “same here, plenty of space upstairs if we all want to sleep alone.”
Deckard hummed in response.
“It is going to be colder out here than it was in LA,” Sapper continued, “and in Vegas.” He looked over to the wall on their left, a large stone hearth front and center. “We can check the state of the fireplace, set up down here.”
Deckard hummed again, “keep everyone close. Keep an eye on K’s wounds.”
Sapper nodded in agreement, “I’m not convinced it's as healed as he is letting on.”
Deckard tore his eyes away from where Ana was checking K’s stitches at the kitchen table, gaze landing on the bandages still wrapping Sapper’s eye. “You’re one to talk,” he said.
Sapper just laughed, “all the more reason for all of us to stay together,” he smiled, “you’re not looking all that great either. We all need the rest.”
Deckard grumbled something Sapper didn’t care to decipher, but he was smiling. “I’m gonna make dinner,” he said, turning towards the kitchen.
Sapper followed, but stopped at the table with Ana and K, the dog trailing behind him and settling by K’s feet. Ana smiled at him as he approached. K had taken off his sweater, Ana was carefully inspecting his various cuts.
“What do you think, Mr. Morton,” Ana asked, “healing quite nicely.”
“Sapper,” he corrected with a smile, “and I agree. No signs of infection, but we should still wrap them up again. You know how to dress a wound?”
“Not really,” she said, “would you show me?”
“Of course,” he replied, “you ready, K?”
K nodded, flashing his blue eyes up at the two of them with a small smile. K, Sapper had noticed, was unused to kind touches. The same could be said for every member of their little group, save the dog. Yet another thing to take back from Tyrell and Wallace. But the time for revolution would come. For now, Sapper reveled in the fact that the only people he needed to worry about were safely tucked away with him in the Rockies. His world, just right now, was K’s neatly wrapped bandages affixed by Ana’s clever fingers, the dog’s soft snores from where it was curled up by K, and Deckard muttering to himself as he moved about the kitchen. Perhaps the rest wouldn’t be so bad.