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There were few things about Five Sara had yet to figure out. Sure there were little details, like what she did before Abel, before the apocalypse, that sort of thing. Things that were insignificant now.
No, what Sara knew was the important things. What buttons she needed to push to get Five pissed, when to ease off, her limits, her boundaries, which boundaries that weren’t really boundaries but were just her being stubborn.
Sara was pretty sure she could manipulate Five into doing a large number of things, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Sometimes it was for the better, she got Five to admit to blaming herself for Archie’s death to Sam and Maxine when she stubbornly refused to speak on the matter, something that led to her actually processing the grief.
Figuring this stuff out had been her job…once. She had done it to people far more noble and moral than Five and didn’t blink, but here, now, with this stupid kid, Sara was pretty certain she’d feel just a little guilty for forcing her hand. Even if it did help.
She already had, and already did.
Sara took the axe from Five’s hand and flipped in the air. “It’s not going to kill you,” Sara said.
“It might,” Five signed. “It’s an axe.”
“Yeah, and you’ll be bloody stupid if you kill yourself with one,” Sara kicked the sides of Five’s feet to readjust her stance. “Right, it’s not like knives, axe’s have to spin, you can’t cheat it with brute force.”
“All I have is brute force.”
Sara tutted, handing the axe back. “Try again.”
Five took the shot and the axe hit handle side, clunking to the floor.
She gave Sara a childish shrug that made her want to throttle the girl just a little.
“Well pick it up,” Sara said.
Five dragged her feet across the field.
Sara knew Five was playing up the petulance, really she was just in a bad mood because Sam wasn’t paying attention to her this evening whilst they played that DnD game, and when Five was in a bad mood she annoyed Sara to reassert some control by pissing off an authority figure. Of course she would never admit that, or actually, wasn’t even aware of it, but Sara knew, and Sara was starting to not like that she knew.
It was her job, it always had been, intelligence and information leant itself to figuring out the bare bones of people, pulling them apart and ripping out the useful bits.
Five skipped back, setting the axe down against her feet and rubbing the scars on her wrists from Van Arks torture a few times before signing.
“It’s too far,” Five signed. “No one can make that shot, show me again.”
“Getting me to show off is not going to work.”
Five groaned and stomped her foot. “Come on, you always look so good when you demonstrate.”
Flirting, that was a knew annoyance tactic, she was getting desperate.
Sara smirked, picked up the axe flipping it and handing her the handle.
“Fine.”
Five’s stance was correct, her technique was good, but for some reason she just wasn’t getting the hit.
She jogged back and grabbed the axe, trying a few more times and failing on each, but despite the complaining and insolence she never gave up.
She stopped again to rub the scars on her wrist.
“Do they hurt?”
Five looked down, blinking in surprise. “No.” Her expression shut down.
Right then. It had to be that Five was nervous, not much time had passed since the torture, maybe she was feeling a little beaten down.
If anyone had the right it would be Five.
“Did I ever tell you about when one of my boys learned how to ride a bike?”
Five threw the axe and missed again. “No…because you rarely talk about them.”
“Well, not like you are one to talk.”
“I don’t talk, that’s the point,” she ran and got the axe again.
Sara chuckled, assessing Five’s stance. There had to be something wrong with the way she was throwing it. Sara just couldn’t figure out what.
She walked around to look at Five on the other side.
“Well anyway, my eldest, he was about…seven or eight, terrified of anything that moved faster than a slow shamble.”
“I bet car rides were fun,” she took the shot and missed again.
What was she doing wrong?
“They were…avoided as often as possible, we walked him to school, walked him home, trips to the supermarket were a state, I ended up staying home with him whilst my husband did the food shopping with my youngest.”
Five missed.
“Try it with your left hand.”
She adjusted her grip and missed wildly again.
“So what did you do?” she signed over her head as she ran to collect it.
“At first I thought he was just being naughty, we hoped it would go away, that after a few car trips he’d get over it, but it went on for weeks,” she tapped Five’s foot to shift it. “So we thought, let’s try with something lighter. Let’s buy him a bike.”
She threw and missed. “How did that go?”
“Well, he threw up the first time my husband did that trick where you push the bike, tell them you won’t let go and you let go.”
“I hated that trick.”
“But it works,”
“Not with your boy,”
“Nope, it made it worse, he was scared shitless.”
“Language.”
Sara focussed on Five’s stance again, maybe it was in the wrist she was failing, if her wrists still hurt it could be that. She missed again. And no, it wasn’t in the wrists.
“We didn’t do anything,” Sara said. “Woke up one morning to the sounds of crying and pedalling in the back garden. He’d decided to wake up early and practice alone, even despite the tears, and falling off each time.”
“Now that sounds like your kid, though you don’t cry as much,” Five signed.
“I don’t cry at all, thank you very much.”
“My mistake.”
She returned with the axe. “Did he get it, figure out how to ride?”
“Not that morning, no instead he dragged that bike to a hill near the house, and decided the only way to beat his fear would to be ride down the hill at top speed.”
“Please tell me you discouraged it?”
“Why on earth would I do that, if anything I should have suggested a bigger hill,” Sara leaned back and folded her arms. “He broke his nose, but, he wasn’t scared of riding a bike anymore.”
“Bet he was scared of hills now.”
“No,” Sara smiled, thinking of his face, the way he had stubbornly balled his tiny fists as he set down the bike at the top of the hill, the insistence that no mummy I can do this alone.
He’d been so proud of himself that day, because yes he fell off but mummy did you see that I rode the bike nearly halfway and he got so fast and it was so fun and can he do it again, he promises he won’t fall off this time.
Sara blinked, Five staring at her strangely. “You okay there?”
Sara grit her teeth. “Well throw it?” It clunked to the floor. “Bloody hell girl what are you doing wrong.”
Five smiled her smug little grin and collected the axe.
“I’m assuming there’s a moral to this story.”
Sara frowned. “Moral?”
“You usually coat lessons into fun anecdotes, like the time you decided to hide a snake skin in the coat of your neighbours wife because she told your youngest off for kicking the ball over the fence.”
“Moral of the story being don’t yell at my boys,” Sara said.
“And this one?”
Sara sighed. “I can add a moral if you like?” Truthfully, it was just the way Five was determined to keep trying reminded Sara of her eldest, and given the day, she just wanted to talk about him.
Five shrugged. “Your choice. Moral or not it was a fun story.”
“Okay, moral is, keep trying, break your nose, and you may succeed.”
Five stared at her face for a very long time, her way of attempting to work out something about someone. Five seemed to think that if you looked hard enough at someone’s face, then magically she could understand them.
It never worked. Not with Sara at least.
Five readjusted her grip on the axe, lined up the shot and threw it. It stuck hard in the wood, not in the centre, but close that it wasn’t an accident.
The realisation hit Sara a little harder than she would ever care to admit.
“Holy Mary mother of god, you were faking it?”
“That’s what he said.”
Sara whacked the side of Five’s head. “Why on earth were you pretending you couldn’t throw it.”
There was another slow moment, Five’s hands tensing whilst she considered her next words. “You never talk about your boys unless you think it has a reason behind it,” she signed. “I know what day it is.”
Sara grimaced. “And how would you know that?”
“You mentioned before that your boy got really excited learning about the battle of Hastings because it was his birthday when we went to that museum in May.”
Sara wasn’t sure if she wanted to hit Five or hug her.
The silence was too much for Five so she shifted awkwardly. “I wanted you to be able to talk about him, and well, usually when I annoy you you talk about them.”
Sara scowled, not happy how well Five manipulated her, but feeling a little taken aback that Five was trying to give Sara an outlet, and proud that Five had tried to hard to do so in a way that Sara didn’t notice, and also a little guilty. Five hadn’t been this manipulative before, Sara was left with the question she’d asked herself a few times.
Was she a bad or good influence on Five?
“I could throttle you,”
“I know, I should have just talked to you about it but…well you never talk about it.”
Sara sighed. “I appreciate it Five but…I’d rather not.”
Five nodded. “Okay…well,” she looked at the axe in the target. “I’m actually really shocked it stuck the hit, I wasn’t trying that hard to be bad at it.”
“Well go and pick it up and see if it was just dumb luck.”
She did as she was told, and yeah, it was definitely dumb luck.