Chapter Text
How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
I'll be in the desert just wishing on every star
They were a little more than four hours outside LA when it happened. The air was chokingly dusty, the afternoon heat burning hot, even through Joe’s shirt. He was slumped, shotgun, in Pete’s SUV trying to stay as still as possible to avoid generating any additional heat. The aircon was fucked - needed more fluid or something, he didn’t really know, but it was Pete’s fault for not maintaining his car before driving it across the desert ‘because it’ll be more fun than flying’. The result was that the only thing that stopped him stripping to his underwear was the fact he suspected the windshield would act like a magnifying glass and scorch him to death. Andy was in the restroom and Patrick and Pete were in the tiny gas station store, picking up snacks for the rest of the journey back to LA. Pete had insisted on taking a diversion through Death Valley National Park for the novelty, swearing he was doing it for Joe, even though Joe had repeatedly told him he just wanted to go home. It had been a long weekend of bonding in Vegas for Pete’s birthday and he was tired, hungover, two grand worse off and desperate for a flight back to New York.
He closed his eyes for a moment and hmmed comfortably at the feeling of the sun disappearing behind a cloud. Except, he remembered a second later, the sky was wide and blue and empty. There were no clouds today. His eyes blinked open, immediately casting their way up to the sky outside the window.
“What the fucking fuck…?” he whispered, staring at the huge, black shapes tearing into the atmosphere above him as he pushed open the door and climbed out of the car. He knew, instantly, what they were. He’d seen enough sci-fi apocalypse movies to know, without a shadow of doubt, what was happening. It filled him with dread. The heat didn’t matter anymore, nothing mattered in that moment, because ships, bigger than anything he’d ever conceived of, were passing overhead. He couldn’t even think about moving - running, screaming for help - he just stared up at the enormous, steel-grey craft, vaguely aware of Patrick stepping hesitantly out of the store, moving slowly closer, gaze fixed on them as they moved into the distance. They didn’t make a sound.
And then his phone began vibrating in his pocket, the tinny bell tone incongruous against the silence.
“Joe? Baby, where are you?” Marie’s voice sobbed on the line, shrill and hysterical. “I’m s-so scared - there - there’s - ”
“Ships,” he said, softly, and he knew. He knew he was never going to see her again. The knowledge was strangely numbing. “I know. I know, hon. I love you, don’t be afraid.”
“They’re - they’re so big - why are they - ?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know - but they’re here, too. Just - I love you, okay? Marie? Do you hear me?”
“Y-Yes - I - I love –”
Silence.
“Marie?”
No response.
“Marie?”
He looked at his phone as the screen blinked, ‘Call ended’. Frantically, he pressed her name to redial but the call was terminated instantly, without even going to voicemail. He sank to the dust beside the wheel of the car, his legs unable to hold him any longer.
Somewhere off to the side of him, Patrick was cursing - dialling and redialling a failing connection. "No - no, no, no - don't fucking do this, not now… don't fucking…" A second later the handset was skittering across the gritty road, small chips of plastic flying off of it. The cursing didn't stop, it just got more shrill, more panicked.
There were footsteps, too, light and deliberate - Andy's - and behind him, on the driver's side of the car, a door was opened and the radio was suddenly on. No music, just a voice - it sounded recorded - instructing them to remain calm.
Another, smaller shadow cast across him and he looked up to see Pete staring into the distance, the way the ships had been headed. Not saying anything, just frozen in a bizarre, rasping laugh, a confused frown pushing at his brow. They were so large and so high that Joe was sure he could still see one, a speck on the horizon, probably over Las Vegas, he thought.
They must have remained that way for several minutes, but he wasn't sure how long it was. He was vaguely aware of Patrick moving to where Andy was sitting, listening to the automated announcement, waiting for something real to happen.
Pete pulled out his phone suddenly, scrolling aggressively through an app. "Fuck."
Joe blinked up at him, half-silhouetted in the sun, but didn't ask.
"Nobody's tweeting."
"Huh?" Patrick's voice asked.
"Nobody. Is Fucking. Tweeting."
"Don't you think that maybe, y'know, they have bigger problems, right now?"
"What rock do you live under? The first thing people do is fucking tweet! But there's nothing - look!"
He held up the screen as if they could all read it from several feet away.
"Try CNN, if there's actually any signal," Andy instructed levelly, switching from station to station, finding only identical recorded messages.
Pete tapped at his screen fiercely, and in the distance Joe watched as little streaks of light shot up into the atmosphere, small flashes at the highest blue he could see.
He started to climb to his feet, pressing one hand against the hood and immediately drawing it back, burned by the desert sun on the metalwork. "Fuck!" He kicked at the rubber of the tyre in frustration, then again and again.
"Woah, Troh - calm down!" Pete started, reaching out to pull him away. "That's my car, dude."
"Do you seriously care about your fucking car when your girlfriend and your kid were just - ?" He trailed off, unable to say it. "You're a fucking asshole."
"You don't know what just happened - how can you possibly fucking know?"
"Because she called me! I was talking with her!"
Pete's face turned slightly ashen and his hand clamped around Joe's forearm. "Did she say what they were? What they were doing, or whatever?"
"No."
"Then how can you know?"
"I just do!" Joe replied, yanking his arm free.
"Right, and you're totally not assuming anything based on the shitty sci-fi you watch, kind of?"
"No, I'm assuming based on the fucking spaceships I just saw, and the sound of my wife's actual voice as it happened!"
Pete rolled his eyes, like Joe was the one acting deluded. "You really think any race smart enough to get their asses here would come just to fuck things up?"
"Did I say that?"
"Pretty much."
Joe thought about smacking him in the mouth, but he could hear Patrick still cursing and mumbling anxiously behind him, and he turned to watch him return to gather up the pieces of his iPhone, like collecting them in his hands would somehow make it work again. It was a sad, futile little scene and he found himself picking up a piece of his case, nonetheless, and moving over to press it into his palm. Patrick smiled at him gratefully, but there was a shake to it, a knowledge that it wouldn't help at all. His face was pale, in spite of the heat, eyes wide behind his glasses.
"Guys!" Andy was calling from the car, suddenly, cranking up the volume so they could hear.
"People of the United States of America, this is your President speaking. This morning, a little over ten minutes ago, and as many of you will have witnessed, vessels of unknown origin entered Earth's atmosphere and approached many of our major population centres. We do not know what their intentions were, nor whether the beings within them are friends or foe. What I can tell you, is that these ships are now departing and contact with our loved ones and colleagues in major cities from New York to Los Angeles has been lost. Ottawa, Moscow, London, Paris, Berlin, Pretoria, New Delhi, Tokyo, Beijing, Sydney… all have fallen silent. At this time of great uncertainty, I ask you all to remain calm. Do not attempt to get to loved ones who may be elsewhere, do not return to cities which have been targeted - a list of which will follow this message. Until we have a clearer understanding of who these visitors are and why they are here, it is in all our interests - as individuals and as a nation - to remain where you are, where you are safe. The military has been deployed to all areas affected and we will bring you more information as we have it confirmed.
"I know that right now, you may be scared. That perhaps some of your greatest questions about our universe may have been answered, while others may have been asked of your faith and your understanding of life as we know it. There will be time to work through these questions, to make sense of the new information that is becoming available to us. But now is a time for peace, to stand alongside each other as citizens of Earth. Embrace each other. Help each other. Support each other. Your government will be there to assist you.
"Keep your radios on and wait for further information."
The list of cities that followed was long; recited alphabetically, Chicago was one of the first.
"They were everywhere," Patrick said, softly.
"Yeah, but what I wanna know is why?" Andy replied, frowning at the dash. "If they'd destroyed them - if they wanted to take over or attack - we'd know. They'd have said so in the address. This is weird - really weird."
"Maybe they just came to check in," Pete shrugged, folding his arms. "Always figured it was only a matter of time."
"No. This is fucked up. They've done something, and it's fucking bad, and it's only, like, a matter of time before we hear about it."
"You don't know that, Joe…"
"Yes, I fucking do! I heard her voice, yeah? Do you understand that? I heard the fucking moment she -"
"Well, if that's the case, be fucking grateful you got to say goodbye," Pete snapped.
Andy pulled himself out of the car, half standing, to address them both like they were bickering kids. "Hey, you heard what Obama said: stay calm, support each other. No fighting."
"You know what, that's easy for you to say, you're the only one without a wife or a girlfriend who -"
"No, but I have a mom. And I have friends. People I care about. Right now, I just feel damn lucky that three of them are here."
That shut them both up, but Patrick seemed to suddenly remember that he too had a mother, and siblings, and a father, all of whom lived in or around Chicago.
"Oh, God…" he murmured, pressing his hands over his mouth.
"Listen, we can't just sit around here doing nothing at all. We need to do something. Safest bet, is to pick up basics - water, a little food - just so we can make it for a couple of days. I don't wanna be out here unprepared."
"I don't wanna be out here, period," Joe muttered. He hated the heat, he hated the dry air, he'd never wanted to come to Death Valley to fucking begin with. He didn't even want to come back to the fucking band, for that matter, and if he hadn't, he'd still have been in New York, or wherever Marie was, now.
"Well, you are, so you kind of need to deal with it, okay? Hopefully, by nightfall we'll have the all clear to get back to LA and you can get your flight home, alright?"
Beside him, Pete was nodding, arms wrapped across himself. "Maybe we ought to scope out a motel or something, in case we have to be out here over night."
"In the middle of the desert?" Joe snapped.
"I saw a resort a way back. There has to be something, kind of."
The gas station store was small. There wasn't even a coffee machine. They gathered bottles of water - and then more at Andy's instruction - along with enough protein bars to gag an elephant, whole display boxes pulled off the shelf and dropped on the counter with useless, nutritionless snacks that Andy looked at with disdain but Joe was buying anyway because the world was possibly ending so what did it fucking matter, anymore?
The old man, sitting at the register in a silence disturbed only by the whirring of the ceiling fan, looked at them like they were insane but took Joe's card without comment. At least banking systems still seemed to be working for now… It sat strangely with Joe that the man probably didn't know, and none of them made a move to tell him. Hey - just so you know, the apocalypse has started. You might wanna keep hold of this stuff.
It took them an hour to find the place, driving back down dusty desert roads, Andy at the wheel, Pete navigating. Joe sat in the back, next to Patrick, watching the pure blue sky for some kind of sign, but it was still and endless and it reminded him of the sea in Hawaii - clear and beautiful but full of unknown dangers. Beside him, Patrick carefully pressed pieces of plastic back into place, the screen of his iPhone too shattered to read, regardless. Neither of them said anything.
The resort Pete had seen was some kind of Old West pastiche, with rooms that cost more per night than his share of their first apartment did per month. The woman on the front desk looked shaken to her pearl necklace, but still gave them a doubtful look and advised them of the prices like she didn't think this bunch of scruffy ne'er do wells could afford a night there. Pete just smiled at her with a snide placidity and all of his teeth, and asked if they took his Platinum Amex.
"Just one room?" she asked, plucking the card from his fingertips.
"As long as it sleeps four adults."
It had been a long time since they'd shared rooms - they could afford not to, now, and often they'd have wives or partners along for the trip - but this time, Joe didn't challenge it. The idea of having the others close, tonight, was reassuring. What if he woke in the dark and went looking for them, to find the whole place deserted?
"We have a twin with two kings, but if you'd rather have two rooms with twins - "
"Ma'am, right now, I don't want to let the only people I know I have left out of my sight. So, we'll take the one twin."
Her expression changed at that, and she gave them a pitying smile and nodded. "Right this way."
Walking across the ranch, past an old-timey saloon-style restaurant and a museum devoted to a local mineral, was jarringly surreal. It reinforced the feeling that all of this was a horrible dream. The kind of anxiety dream he'd wake from in a cold sweat, startled by his own voice in the room.
The room was decked out in crisp, boutique bedding with exposed stonework on one wall and an attempt at a traditional ranch house-style. It looked like something Marie would laugh at in a magazine. Dropping his case, he sank down on the end of the first bed, getting his phone out to try her number again. Her beautiful, smiling face looked up at him from the handset as it tried to connect. For an instant - a momentary flash of hope - his heart jumped into his mouth as the line beeped and her voice answered, only for him to realise a fraction of a second later that it was her voicemail kicking in. That hadn't happened earlier - maybe the ships had killed the satellite signals, maybe she was fine after all, maybe he could get back to New York and find her! He stood up, pressing his fingers over his other ear, pacing as the others dropped their things.
"Marie - hon, it's me." He saw Patrick's eyes light up and turned away, not wanting to see the expression change on his friend's face as he realised. "I just wanted you to know I'm safe - I'm at some, like, novelty resort in Death Valley. Can you call me when you get this? I need to know you're all good, okay? I love you."
He hung up and turned to find Patrick pressing at the shattered screen on his iPhone.
"Do you want to try on mine?" he offered.
"Can I?"
"No dude, I'd totally joke about letting you call your wife in the middle of the fucking apocalypse."
Patrick laughed grimly and took the phone with a nod. "Thanks."
He waited, watching Patrick's face for the moment the call was answered, only to see it fall as Elisa's voicemail was activated, too.
Over by the french doors, Pete was going through a similar routine. Only Andy didn't have his phone in his hand; he was clutching the TV remote, scrolling to a rolling news channel, hunting for an update.
Joe sank back down on to the foot of the bed beside Patrick and they cast each other disheartened looks.
"Bunk buddies?" he offered, lifting an arm to allow Patrick to slide under it, because that was the only comfort he had to give, right now. That and the fact that he'd rather share with Patrick than the other two.
"Yeah," Patrick nodded, forcing a smile and tucking an arm around Joe for a squeeze. "Thanks."
CNN was showing shaky amateur footage of dark shapes passing high overhead. The narrative just voices speculating about what had happened, confirming that contact had been lost with all major cities and reiterating the instruction to remain wherever they were. There was nothing - nothing at all - to tell them what had happened, why they'd come and where they'd gone.
That was almost the worst part - not knowing why this was happening.
The room was air conditioned, at least, and Joe slumped back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, sucking on his e-cigarette. The voices - both real and televised - were half-drowned out by the pounding of his hangover reminding him that it existed. He was beginning to regret sampling all that scotch with Patrick, now, wondering when his tolerance had outstripped Joe's own. Patrick just remained perched beside him, legs crossed under himself, pressing the fractured screen on his phone hopefully.
They remained that way for hours, hardly moving, not saying anything - all slowly trying to process what was happening, in their own way.
The sun had begun its descent toward setting, when Pete finally asked a proper question. He'd sunk down on the floor against the door frame overlooking the patio, a long time ago, arms draped over his knees, a fixed scowl on his face.
"Does anyone wanna eat?"
Patrick shook his head firmly, still staring at his useless handset.
"How can you wanna eat, dude?" Joe snapped. "Your family might be dead."
"No, Pete's right," Andy cut in. "We have no idea what's gonna happen - while we have the option, we should make sure we all get a decent meal."
"I don't think I can," Patrick mumbled, rubbing under his glasses miserably.
"You should try, though, okay? Besides, getting out of these four walls for a little while's probably better for all of us."
Joe pressed his hands to his eyes. How could anyone fucking think food was even an issue, right now? "I'm not just gonna, like, sit around and chow down on chicken wings like this crap isn't happening. I can't fucking do that. Not until I know she's safe."
"What if she isn't safe, bro?" Pete asked, off-handedly. "You never gonna eat again?"
"Fucking maybe."
He felt Patrick's hand bump his knee gently, a small gesture of concern and reprimand at once.
"So, what're you gonna do, waste away? Don't be a dumbass."
"Oh, fuck off."
"Maybe we can just try?" Patrick suggested. "I don't know if I wanna get hungry later and have to walk across the desert to get food when I don't know what's out there, y'know?"
The restaurant was wood panelled and jaunty skiffle was playing over the speakers as they half-heartedly studied menus filled with cutesy western puns. Around them, middle class families with young children chatted stiltedly with tense smiles, trying to pretend nothing was wrong, so as not to frighten the children. It was absurd. It made him want to yell at everyone, demand to know if they realised that something awful had happened, something that had changed all of them forever. But he didn't. He sat between Andy and Patrick, staring at the menu blankly until a twitchy teenager in a western shirt and a ketchup holster approached with a notebook and asked for their orders. His hands were shaking.
At least he knew, Joe thought. Probably the only person on this ridiculous ranch with any concept that they were all fucked.
Even in the apocalypse, Andy insisted on sticking to stringent moral codes that probably didn't mean anything, anymore. There was an irrationality to it that told him Andy was either in deep denial or had lost his mind entirely, clutching on to the old rules for comfort.
The perfectly clear sky was turning a soft indigo with tiny sparks of white scattered across it, by the time they headed back to their room. Crickets hummed across the landscape, in the still, mild air. It was more like a soundstage than real life.
Joe sat on the step at the edge of the patio, when they got back, abandoning his e-cigarette for a good old fashioned one from his emergency stash for when he forgot to charge it. Somehow, vapour wasn't cutting it. It was getting dark and the worry was intensifying, like a parent waiting for a child to come home past curfew. He'd tried calling her again, hanging up after the voicemail message ended, and there was still no answer.
It was almost ten when Patrick came to the door, telling him that the president was going to make another address. Joe creaked to his feet, tossing the butt into the dirt, and followed him inside, feeling his heart pulsing at the base of his throat. He already knew what they were going to say, he just needed the confirmation. For everyone else to be told what he already knew.
Andy was perched on a chair, close to the TV, hunched forward over his knees, watching intently as Obama walked up to the podium, a dark, grim expression on his face. Joe wrapped his arms around himself to counteract the trembling.
"Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the United States of America, I appreciate your patience in waiting for our opportunity to visit the locations affected by today's visitation.
"We're now in a position to confirm that forces have entered around fifty of our major cities and urban areas, areas which, on a Monday morning, would ordinarily be hives of activity. What they found there was total desolation. No human beings - alive or deceased - were located in any of those communities.
"Early evidence suggests that between fifty and seventy percent of the population of this country - most heavily impacting the east and west coasts - may no longer be located on this planet.
"I cannot tell you, at this time, where those individuals have gone, and I cannot reassure you that they are safe. The assessment of our intelligence agencies is that they have been removed from their homes, workplaces and other areas, without consent. At this time, we have no clear indication of where they may now be held or why these abductions have happened. But, I assure you, every conceivable resource will be made available to assist us in answering those questions.
"In the meantime, the National Guard will be supervising all areas affected. Those who attempt to loot or vandalise others' property will face the fullest penalties.
"In the short-term, some areas may experience temporary energy blackouts as we work to distribute the resources available to us to areas of the greatest need. We are fortunate that many of our energy and communication distribution hubs are outside of the major population centres and therefore a proportion of our engineers remain in position. We will work with them to ensure that we can sustain power and telecommunications as consistently as possible.
"Where necessary, pre-planned emergency protocols will be activated. This nation will continue to operate. Notable exceptions will include commercial air traffic, which is suspended effective immediately, to avoid any potential interference with our investigations.
"There is no doubt that today's events took us, as a planet, by surprise. It is certain that for many, if not all of us, these events will be gravely upsetting. But we must stand together and maintain our hope and our confidence that we will receive answers and that every effort will be made to bring our people home."
They all remained in frozen silence as the address ended. Watched the screen switch back to relatively unknown news anchors in an unfamiliar studio, because all the usual ones had been in Washington. Their faces were pale, pauses longer than was natural, all trying to remain calm and professional in the face of the news that they, too, had probably lost loved ones.
There was nothing anyone could do. Nothing. It wasn't like they'd been abducted by terrorists in a foreign country - that they could make some kind of ill-advised rescue mission with a KLM flight and a briefcase of bribe money - they were powerless. All of them were powerless. Perhaps half the world's population had been taken and they didn't have anything like the technology to track them down. They were gone. Just gone.
Beside him, Patrick turned away a little to rub at his eye with the underside of his wrist.
"They've taken my kid," Pete announced flatly.
"They've taken everyone," Andy told him, as official military footage of a completely barren downtown New York ran on the screen. Vehicles stopped in the middle of the street, some with doors open, not a single soul except those in fatigues patrolling Times Square. Similar scenes when they cut to LA - it was like the Marie Celeste, a McDonald's smoldering, whatever had been being cooked clearly caught and charred in the kitchen. Helicopter footage of the Golden Gate Bridge, vehicles stranded across its length.
"Wait, what about home?" Patrick demanded of the TV, when they cut back to the studio without showing Chicago.
None of them answered. They all knew. Chicago was going to be the same as everywhere else, but none of them could vocalise it. Chicago meant family - parents - the people who were supposed to be there at times like this, always. The people they still turned to when they didn't know what to do.
Compelled by a sudden claustrophobia, Joe muttered, "Fucking told you so…" and pushed the patio door back open to stumble outside and look at the sky. It was dark now. Deepest navy blue, more stars than he'd ever seen, even in Chile. A great sweep of foggy white towards the centre of the galaxy. He turned and turned on the gritty lawn beyond the patio, gazing up into space, trying to see as far as he could, hoping for some hint, some sign that they were out there - where they were, how to get his wife home.
The tiny flecks of satellites crisscrossed above him, Venus sitting bright above the black silhouettes of mountains in the west, like he could almost touch it. He'd never felt so small and useless. A helpless, upright ape trying to imagine where an advanced civilisation might live, in the great expanse of nothing.
---
Patrick shut himself in the bathroom after the address, locking the door behind him and trying to control his breathing. Trying not to cry. But still a choked sob slipped out as he sat on the edge of the jacuzzi bath. His wife was gone and there was a sick feeling in his stomach, heavy and persistent. He didn't know what to do, where to begin. He'd always been waiting for something to go wrong, and now it had. Maybe it was his fault - there'd been so much going on and his head hadn't been where it ought to, not for a long time, he'd longed for a way out of a situation he couldn't fix. Even though logic said it was ridiculous, there was still a little voice telling him he'd done this - he'd wished for something to take away the aching tension he'd been carrying for months, but he'd never really meant it. Not like this.
A few hot, wet tracks slipped down his face, and he let them fall as he smothered a sob with his wedding ring pressed to his lips. He squeezed his eyes closed, imagining what she'd say if she could see him. She'd scold him for being dramatic, probably, tell him it wasn't helping.
He smiled a little at the thought.
By the time he opened the door, Pete was lying on the bed he'd share with Andy, frowning at the ceiling. The room was lit by the flickering blue of the TV screen and Joe was still outside.
Silently, Patrick wound his way through the furniture to look out of the french doors, resting a hand on Andy's shoulder for a moment as he went, comfort for both of them. He could just make out the familiar silhouette, standing a few feet from the patio, gazing into the black. The bed creaked as he crawled on beside Pete.
"You okay, Cookie?" Pete asked, his voice rough, like when he used to scream for hours while they recorded and it would be ragged for days after.
"I mean… no, but…" he shrugged. Hold it together, she'd hate it if you wussed out.
Pete nodded against the arm folded under his head, as if he knew. Patrick was thankful for it - he didn't have it in him to talk out his feelings, right now. They were too messed up, too full of guilt and shame.
"Is there anything new?"
"Not really," Andy told him. "Same footage, a couple of eye witness accounts of the ships coming over… Nothing worth getting your hopes up over."
"Oh. Did you try calling your mom? Or Matt, even?"
"No."
"Don't you wanna check in, or -?"
"I tried earlier. If they could call, they would have, so I guess they can't."
On the bed beside him, Pete rested a soothing hand on Patrick's back. Don't push the issue.
Not that he would, he just never understood Andy fully. Even after all these years. He'd never met a man as fiercely devoted to his mom, but he'd never known someone as able to shut down his feelings in order to get things done, either.
"You owe Joe an apology," Patrick told Pete, absently, trying to see him outside the door, through the reflections in the glass. "I guess he was right all along."
"He doesn't know anything. For all he knows, dude, what he heard could've been comms shutting down, or whatever."
"He heard enough, y'know? Whether it was comms shutting down, or them taking her or her last breath, he heard the moment it happened."
"We all saw it. It affects us all."
"No, but - I mean, it's Marie, y'know? I don't even know if he can function without her, anymore."
"More than you need Elisa? More than I need Meagan, or Bronx, even?"
Patrick huffed. He knew Pete knew what he meant. He'd been only too aware of how happy Joe was with her. The change in him, over the years, had been significant but when he'd moved to New York to be with her, she'd started to iron out all his foibles and the things that had made him hard to live with sometimes. He'd call her for a pep talk, on the bus, and she'd guide him away from the edge of a meltdown in a way few people had ever achieved. Patrick liked to think he was one of them, had been second only to Joe's mom, for a while. But he'd messed that up, and she'd filled the role, done better than he ever had - helped Joe resolve and manage his issues instead of just accommodating them and telling him they didn't make him strange.
"This isn't a competition over who's gonna be the most fucked up by what just happened," Andy said, without looking away from the TV. "Just give him all the slack you've got. He doesn't do change well, you know that."
"We're all gonna need each other," Patrick agreed, feeling a lump in his throat and swallowing it with a sniff. "I know I need you all, right now."
Sighing, Pete sat up and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, bumping his forehead above Patrick's ear. "I got you, Lunchbox."
"Thanks," Patrick smiled, strained. He wrapped his arm across Pete's back and patted before letting go. "I think I'm gonna check on him."
He slid off the bed and opened the door to step outside, tucking his arms around himself as the air hit - it was a clear, bleakly beautiful night, and the hair on his forearms stood on end, goose pimples prickling. Joe was only wearing a t-shirt, he had to be frozen.
"Can you see anything?" he asked, by way of announcing himself. It didn't seem like a good idea to creep up on him, today.
Joe just shook his head, the loose curls falling in his face as he looked down to glance at him, glinting white in the light of a waning moon. The little crescent didn't shine too brightly and the Milky Way cast a sweeping downturned smile across the sky.
"Do you know how many stars are in our galaxy, dude?" Joe asked quietly, eyes back to searching above them.
"Not really. More than I think my brain could take, probably?"
"The low estimate is 100 billion. The high estimate is 400 billion. That's, like, maybe 400 billion solar systems - and that's just in our galaxy… at least 400 billion places they could be, right now, and we don't even know where to start looking. We don't have a way to get there if we did. It'd take pretty much a year to get to fucking Mars..."
"Well… maybe the government knows more than they're admitting? Maybe there's experimental technology or something - maybe even some kind of signal we can trace - ?"
Joe just turned up his nose and shook his head. "Doubtful."
"Yeah, but they got here, didn't they? They can't be so far away…"
"We have no idea what technology they have. They could be on the other side of the universe, and it wouldn't matter because we can't get outside our own orbit, yet. And wherever they are, they've taken… like… they've taken the love of my life, and I can't even tell her how much I…" his voice faltered and he closed his eyes and dropped his head. "Fuck."
Trying not to grimace outwardly, Patrick shook his head and rubbed at Joe's back. "Dude, she knows. I heard you telling her when it happened, but she knew. Trust me - everyone does. From the moment you started dating, we all did."
"But, like, what am I gonna do, now? She was… she made me… I mean, you knew me before I met her. I was a fucking shambles, and, like..." He stopped and took a deep, juddering breath, but didn't finish.
"You're still a shambles, and we wouldn't want you any other way... But we're gonna take care of each other, right? All of us are a little messed up in our own way - I mean, I think Andy's in denial, and Pete… I'm pretty sure he's just jealous they didn't take him, because it's all he's ever wanted. But it's like I told them both, I need you all, right now, y'know? We might be all each other has, so don't fall apart on me, okay?"
Joe nodded, choked. "I'm sorry, man… I do get that everyone lost people, but… she's just…"
"I know." Patrick leaned a little closer, to rest his shoulder against Joe's and was grateful for the companionable arm that tucked over him and the feel of his body heat. They stood together watching the sky for a couple of long minutes, holding on to each other for dear life. It was grounding. For a little while he was a young, naive kid again, alone in a strange town on summer break, secure in the knowledge that Joe wouldn't abandon him like the others did. He'd be forever grateful for that, though he didn't always feel like he'd shown it enough. It wasn't so long ago that Joe was barely speaking to him, and he'd hardly noticed for two years. He'd just assumed things were alright, because it was Joe and Joe had always been there; Joe who rolled with the big punches until they knocked him cold but lost his shit about the minutiae. Ever since the moment he'd realised how badly wrong everything had gone, he'd been trying to make up lost ground and no matter how fine Joe insisted they were, Patrick could never quite believe him.
There had been a lot of long talks in the last year. A lot of sitting in studios after everyone had left, unpicking their mistakes and really getting to understand each other like they hadn't in a long time. They'd started hanging out together a lot more, until Elisa started joking that he went on more dates with Joe than he did with her. They were closer than they'd ever been - even more than when they were kids - back in a place where they shared more in common than they did with the other two, for the first time since they were eighteen or so.
And now there was something else - something sudden and devastating and too enormous to fully process, yet. It was selfish to be relieved that Joe had maybe lost the woman he loved, but to Patrick's shame, he was.
When they finally went back inside, Andy had moved to the bed, beside Pete. They were watching the TV in silence, the same footage on a different channel.
"We should sleep," he told them, kicking off his boots, already unlaced, at the bottom of the bed. "We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.
"Maybe they'll come back for the rest of us," Pete shrugged.
From behind the bathroom door, Joe called, "I hope so!"
"Because you're totally gonna find each other amongst seven billion people," Andy muttered back, absently, hopping channels.
"Do we have any kind of plan?"
"Obviously, we head back to LA," Pete shrugged. "It's the nearest place and we all have homes and stuff there."
Andy frowned at him. "No, we don't."
"Well… okay, but you can just live with me, kind of."
"Who said I want to live with you? I have my own home!"
"Yeah, but if you're not gonna want to go back there if all your Fuck City dudes are gone, right?"
Patrick climbed onto the other bed and sat looking at them with his legs folded. "Can we just go home?"
"Home like Chicago?" Pete asked.
"Yeah. Home like Chicago. I mean, that's where all our family is, right? Or, near enough. And I didn't see it on TV, yet…"
"Nobody's family's there, anymore. It's our second biggest city, if they wanted people, they wouldn't have skipped it."
"Maybe, but I just… I just really wanna go home, y'know?"
The bathroom door opened and Joe reappeared, still drying his hands. "I want to go home, too. From there I can get to New York, anyway. And Andy can, like, get up to Milwaukee."
"It seems like a good idea… I mean, if we're going back to figure things out, summer has to be the best time, right?"
"You say that like you think it's gonna take six months to get home! We could be there by Wednesday morning if we took shifts driving, or whatever."
Andy shrugged. "Patrick has a point - we need to check on everyone and then make a decision. Logically, Chicago's a good place to start. We can go there, go back to my mom's, maybe over to New York…"
"What about LA? Dude, I have a kid to think of, your parents can take care of themselves!"
"If Ashlee's been taken, so has he. If Ashlee hasn't, he'd be safe with her."
"But at least California isn't cold, ever!"
"It also has a drought. You can't survive on sand, Pete."
"Look, the dude just said they'll keep amenities running -"
"For how long? What do you think'll happen when shit starts to run out? The infrastructure isn't going to be there. All the world's banking systems are centred in major cities. There may as well have been a solar blowout that sent all our IT systems down, it's only a matter of time. Trust me, we should do what we need to now, when we at least stand a chance. My house is purposely prepared for this!"
By the time they'd argued through every option and woven their way back to 'Let's just go home', Patrick was exhausted. He'd kicked off his jeans and dumped his shirt as a pointed message to tell them he was ready for bed, but only Joe understood. Andy had ended the argument by turning the volume on the TV up and ignoring Pete until he stomped off to sit on a fence outside.
Patrick curled up on his side and wrapped his fingers around Joe's bicep while he gazed through the ceiling as if visualising the sky beyond it, just for the reassurance that he was there; glad to feel a momentary pat on the hip of acknowledgement before he slipped into a fitful sleep.
---
It wasn't that Pete was afraid of the dark, it was just that the dark was isolating. He felt it like a moth to flame - he couldn't put down his phone for long before he was picking it up again and staring into the blue light of the screen.
He wanted to know that someone was out there.
The others laughed about the fact he kept all notifications on his social media switched on, even once his followers passed a million. Meagan had found it infuriating at first, but she'd come round. She realised before he did that he needed to know that someone was thinking of him, always. That in the middle of the night the soft fwips and pings reminded him that someone was there. It didn't matter whether they were affectionate jibes from crew buddies on the other side of the planet, sending in jokes and insta shots of vaguely offensive street art, or twelve year olds with emojis, begging him to wish his own friends happy birthday, as if he hadn't already done so privately. They were still there; sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands in a day.
It seemed that Twitter was down for hours, nothing sending, nothing received. Maybe it was the government trying to avoid hysteria and disinformation, or maybe everyone outside this baked, barren valley was truly gone.
He drafted and re-wrote his message to the world a handful of times before pressing send, hoping against hope that he wasn't tweeting into a void, sickly afraid that they were all that was left.
Spinning out of control on this little rock. Give me a sign. 
There was nothing for a few minutes, an unearthly silence - and then the replies came, one after the other. His own face, or his friends', peering back at him from the userpics of accounts with names like
p3t3w3nt2
and
brend0nsleatherp4nts
.
OMG ur not dead!!
pETE?
Where are you? ILY. 
Pete my mom wont anser the phone she went to work yesterday
Fuck, Wentz, this better not be promo for the album. #overkill
IM CRYING I LOVE YOU 
Is Patrick ok??
I'm so happy you tweeted!!! iF they took u I'd kms. 
He had a general policy not to respond to tweets, but tonight he meticulously worked his way through and liked each one. A little WOW! signal from him to the kids, as he tried to ignore the fact that no one he knew had replied.
Afterwards, he pulled up his Snapchat and took a selfie across the room, listening to Joe grumble and sit up a little from behind Patrick.
"The fuck are you doing?" he asked, groggily, laying back down and falling asleep before Pete could respond.
Pete posted the photo of the side of his face pressed into the pillow, with three indistinct but recognisable forms in the background, and the caption: Are we the lucky ones or the lost souls?
It soothed him to know they weren't alone, in the same way it soothed the frightened kids around the world, seeing his name finally appear on their feeds like an old friend. A familiar face in the bleakness of the sudden silence.
Finally, he texted Ashlee, knowing there wouldn't be a response. He'd tried and tried all day; felt his forehead aching from the tension and the ceaseless frowning as he waited for the personalised notification tone that never came.
Kiss B goodnight from me. Tell him I'm looking at the same stars. x
When he finally fell asleep, it was with a picture of Bronx on the screen, resting in a hand that sank to his chest as he drifted off.