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Sam’s voice crackles in your headset. “I’m not leaving you in New Canton, not after that. You need to come back to Abel. We’ll find space, even if it means you’ve got to sleep with Janine. Well, not “sleep” sleep… You know what, it doesn’t matter. Just come home, Runner Five.”
“Well, good-bye, Runner Five. I’m sorry about Nadia. I’m sure she didn’t mean it? It’s snows of yesteryear now, right? Or, did it snow much, last year? I can’t quite remember…”
Archie keeps babbling for a while. You understand Sam’s worry, but there’s no way she’s in on it. Archie’s always been nice to you, and you don’t even mind how much she talks. It bothers a lot of the other runners, but not you. You like to listen.
“Just come home, Runner Five.” The memory of Sam’s voice echoes in your ears, along with a terrible ringing. You’d better get home - before your body realizes you’re out of danger and allows the aftereffects to set in. You wave goodbye to Archie.
“Yes, yes, you’d better get going. Bye-bye, Runner Five.” She hesitates “I hope I see you again sometime.” Her voice wavers, like she’s really not sure if she will. It’s a weird sort of camaraderie between runners. The constant life-or-death situations force fast friendships. But you understand her uncertainty. Even these forged-in-fire bonds are no match for the New Canton permanent committee board, or whatever they call themselves, and they’re no match for Major de Santa, either.
Now that you think of it, they may be no match for the righteous anger of Sam Yao.
You squint at the sky - there’s probably a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes of daylight left. You start running - after everything today, the last thing you’re after is a twilight encounter with the undead.
Luckily for you, the run home is uneventful. So uneventful that the setting sun even seems beautiful, as opposed to a harbinger of your imminent zombification. But it’s not as beautiful as the Abel gate, even though this new gate is obviously, well, kind of DIY. “A makeshift stopgap until we can rebuild,” Janine had said. Makeshift. What a strange word. The “make” you understand, but “shift”? Like shifty? You stop your thoughts in their tracks. Oh no, you think. Archie’s wearing off on me.
“Raise the gates!” Sam calls out. His voice sounds broken - has he been crying? You’re running through what could have happened when the gate sirens start up. You suddenly realize that you have a pounding headache. You slip under the gate as soon as you can fit - you tell yourself it’s because you want the sirens to stop, but you know it’s because you’re relieved to be home.
“Runner Five!” Sam’s voice sounds like it’s echoing. Were the gunshots really that close? Sam’s body collides with yours, and you realize that the echo was because he didn’t even take his headset off before running out here. You stumble to hold your balance as Sam wraps you in a bear hug. You put your arms around him and feel tears well up in your eyes. It’s not until you remember how alive you are that you realize how close you were to death. Oh, G-d, oh G-d. You really almost died out there.
“I - I thought I’d lost you.” Sam rasps. He sounds awful. He’s definitely been crying.
You grip him by the shoulders and pull away so you can see him. “Are you okay? You sound terrible.”
“You should have heard him screaming when he saw you heading towards that factory, Five.” Simon’s smirking, as usual, but you think he sounds relieved. You smirk a little yourself. Simon, worry about you? Aw, shucks.
“Hey!” Sam starts to reprimand Simon, as if that wouldn’t make him more inclined to keep talking.
“‘Runner Five, what are you doing? Stop, stop! For the love of G-d don’t run for once in your life!” Simon’s impression of Sam is shrill, but not quite as mean as usual. So he was worried.
“Well I didn’t know if Five could hear me!” Sam responds with indignation. “I didn’t want it to … to be like …”
You shudder. Everyone remembers that night - when you almost got locked out of Abel. You definitely would have been zom-meat if not for Sam. That was undoubtedly one of the worst days of your life. But, if you’re being honest, today was right up there with it.
“- Not like you would know anything about that!” Oh, right. Sam and Simon are still bickering.
“Alright, cut it out.”
“Yeah, alright. See you later, Five.” Simon pauses. “It’s good to have you home.” You smile and raise your eyebrows. Simon Lauchlan, express affection for you? “Well, only because it means I won’t have to do as much work! Don’t go reading into it.” He wanders off, but not without casting a glance over his shoulder. You know that glance - the check-that-they’re-really-here type of glance everyone gives anyone who’s narrowly escaped death. Yeesh. It’s awful how worried everyone must have been… especially with there being so much else to worry about.
Sam starts walking away from the gate. “Okay, so the good news is you don’t have to sleep with Janine. Yaaay!” He drags out that last syllable - trying to emphasize the good stuff before he gets to the bad, you guess. “But … unfortunately, the runners’ quarters aren’t rebuilt yet, so you’ll be stuck in the comms shack with me and, uh, Eugene. He’s got his own little room but he’s in a bad sort since … well, you know.”
You grimace. You haven’t seen much of Eugene since, well, since Abel was destroyed. But you know that no one’s seen anything of Jack, and you know Jack and Eugene were practically joined at the hip. Suddenly, Sam stops walking. Oh. You forgot how close everything was in Abel, after your stint in the comparatively sprawling New Canton. He reaches past you and opens the door to the comms shack.
“Eugene?” he asks, softly. For a moment, nothing. You hold your breath; honestly, you’re not even sure why. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Sam is answered by a soft snore. “Oh good, he’s asleep. Bloody needs it.”
You step over the threshold. Sam closes the door behind you as you breathe in the comms shack - it has a distinctive atmosphere. Sure, it’s cramped and smells weird and is dimly lit this time of day, but the low hum of the electronics, and Eugene’s snores, and the sound of Sam’s voice help you forget the apocalypse a little bit; remind you what it should feel like to be young and alive.
“Okay, so,” Sam stands akimbo, casting his eyes about the comms shack as one might’ve cast eyes about a messy bedroom, before day zero. “The thing is -“ You put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from speaking.
“You never answered me earlier. Are you okay?”
Sam blinks at you. “What?”
“Oh, uh, you sounded like you’d be crying.”
“Yeah, of course I bloody had! I thought … I mean, Nadia tried to kill you!” He pauses. When he starts speaking again, his voice is much softer, barely even a whisper. “You’re … you’re my closest friend here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Oh.
You aren’t quite sure how to comfort a friend about your own near death experience. You pause for a moment before deciding on a hug - a far more real reminder of the fact that you’re alive than any words you could muster.
You think you need the reminder, too.
Sam mumbles, his face caught up in your embrace. “There’s something wrong with you, Five. Nearly get blown to bits by Dedlocks and you’re still worried about me.” He chokes out a noise - you can’t tell if it’s a dry laugh or a tired sob.
He pulls away. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too.”
You suddenly feel weak on your feet - as if your body just remembered how long it’s been since you ate breakfast at New Canton, how much has happened since then.
“Whoa there, you okay?” Sam reaches out to steady you.
“Don’t worry; I’m okay.” You smile weakly. “Just had a long day, is all.”
Sam does his best to seem unimpressed with your joke, but you see the corners of his mouth turn upwards.
“Yeah, bollocks. So, like I was saying before,” he puts his hand to the back of his neck, almost embarrassed. “We really don’t have a bed for you, and the Major said that since I was the one who insisted on bringing you back, I had to figure it out. But I’ve been pulling double duty sending communiques over to New Canton at night and transcribing all their responses, so i’ve mostly just been napping in my chair.”
You look at him. He does look tired. But with Jack gone and Eugene a wreck, he’s really the only one who can work all this stuff, except the Major herself.
“So anyway, you can sleep in my bed until we get the runners’ quarters fixed back up.”
You want to protest. You couldn’t possibly take Sam’s bed from him, not with him looking so tired. But as you look over to the little cot, barely fifteen centimeters off the floor, every muscle in your body yearns to lie down and sleep.
Sam must see the conflict on your face. “Now, look, I won’t hear any arguments. You need to rest and the Major’s right, I did bring you back here, so I’ve got to take care of you.”
You feel very weak. Too weak to put up a fight against the indomitably stubborn Sam Yao.
“Okay, if you’re sure. Kick me out whenever, though.”
“Of course I’m bloody sure! And I won’t be kicking you out. There’s some snacks in that filing cabinet; you must be hungry, seeing as you missed dinner…”
You’re appreciative, but you’re hardly listening. You’re barely able to kick off your running shoes before collapsing onto Sam’s bed - the weight of the day suddenly hits you like a train, and sleep is the only thing you can think about.
“Whoa. You’re worse than I thought. You’d better get some rest … you’ll be lucky if the Major gives you even a day to recover.” He stands up straight and puffs his chest out. “It’s all hands on deck, Mr. Yao, Runner Five!”
You crack a smile. “That’s a pretty good impersonation.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on it. Get some rest. I’ll try to keep as quiet as I can, but I gotta keep working.”
“Hey, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. You saved my life.”
“Huh? No, I didn’t. I mean, I helped, but I’m sure you would have gotten out of there on you’re own! You are the great Runner Five, after all…”
Sam keeps talking, but you aren’t listening. You smile, and let the sounds of the comms shack carry you off to sleep.