Archive of Our Own

"Make no mistake," he said, "the Minutemen will fight with you to the last man, but by carrying the musket you're making yourself a target to every scumbag in the Commonwealth who thinks might makes right." He told Preston stories about Minutemen who'd lost limbs or been horribly mutilated or killed outright or even worse. "There is every chance it will happen to you. So if you want to walk away, everyone here will understand. Nobody will judge you for that."

He barely comprehended that at the time, but now, trapped with eight civilians and the two remaining Minutemen in the ruins of Quincy, it is beginning to make sense.

"I don't want to die," one of the civilians whispers. "I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't..." He's young, younger than Preston, fifteen or sixteen, maybe, and he is very vocal at how unfair it is that he--that they--may not live to old age the way Mama Murphy has.

Preston takes the young man's hand and squeezes. He doesn't want him to die either. He's seen people die and he will never, ever be used to it. He doesn't tell him that it will be okay, because how can it be, but he's here and they're here together.

"What's your name?" he asks, as quietly as he can.

The young man sniffles. "I-it's Zephyr."

"Zephyr? Wow. That's a gorgeous name." He can feel something on his face--he thinks it's tears but he's afraid it's blood. "I'm Preston."

"I don't want to stay here. They'll kill us."

"Only if they know we're here. That's why we have to stay quiet, okay?"

The young man shakes his head. "They're going to trap us in. We have to run."

"Shh, shh." Preston takes a chance and pokes his head up over the windowsill. No Gunners nearby. He slides back down; his heart feels like it's going to bust out of his chest. "If they don't know we're here..."

"How could they not know we're here?" Zephyr's voice, high and reedy, seems to echo off the slab wood walls. "They're not raiders. They're not gonna get bored and wander off."

He pulls the kid in and puts his arms around him, exactly the kind of thing a teenager hates but Zephyr lets him do it. "I know you're scared. I am too." His legs ache from crouching here and he's not sure if he should sit down and give them a rest or stay like this so when the inevitable happens and a Gunner looks in and sees them he'll be ready to run. "If you weren't scared I'd be even more scared." Zephyr doesn't laugh. He can feel his heart pounding in his shoulders. "I think being scared just means you're alive."

"I told my dad we shouldn't go with the Minutemen. I told him it was painting a target on us. I warned him. If we just stayed in Salem..."

"I know. You're right."

"I wanna tell him I told him so but he's probably dead."

Preston doesn't say that's not true because frankly he has no idea. They've been cut off from the main group for so long, and there hasn't been any shooting in a while.

"I don't want to die, Preston."

Preston doesn't want him to die either. "I can't promise it's gonna be okay, but I'll do whatever I can to keep that from happening."

"Yeah, right." Zephyr does laugh at that.

He can't really blame him, Preston thinks. When things get really dire people start to rethink being selfless. Isn't that what the general told him? If he didn't think he could handle it he could walk away and nobody would think less of him for it. But he didn't walk away. He chose this, and whatever happens he's going to do whatever it takes to keep this young man safe.

"We're gonna die, Preston."

Maybe, he thinks, his reasons aren't so selfless after all. He really, really doesn't want to watch Zephyr die.

What he's not so worried about is what will happen to himself.

It was like noticing a birthmark on your wrist for the first time. It had been there all along but somehow you missed it. Suddenly he can feel this big, empty, apathetic hole open up inside him and he doesn't really care if he lives or dies. It sounds wrong, and it sounds fake, but he doesn't.

"We can't know that for sure," he says, barely aware of what he's saying. "Not unless we give up. And I'm not giving up."

Zephyr looks up at him. His eyes are a hazel that's more green than brown. His eyes are filled with tears.

"I'm gonna do whatever I can. I promise that much."

Both of them are crying silently, but Preston's trying to listen for danger. He's so sore and scared and he can't let this young man down. He can't let the Minutemen down.

He won't let the Minutemen down.

There's a rattle of gunfire down the street and they both jump. Zephyr looks up at him and he puts a finger to his lips. Quiet. They have to stay quiet.

A moment of silence. A single gunshot. Closer this time.

"I don't want to die." Zephyr is barely breathing the words. "I don't want to die, I don't..."

"Get behind me," Preston whispers. He gets Zephyr up, crouching, moving behind him. He reaches for his laser musket.

More gunfire. Close. So close. Alarmingly close.

Silence.

More gunfire. Farther.

It's moving away.

He holds the gun tight in both hands. It's moving away. They're moving away.

"I don't want to die," Zephyr says.

Preston turns toward him, starts to tell him that there's still a chance they can get through this, and he hears something else.

A very, very familiar whistle.

"Get down," he says to Zephyr but there's no time to wait for a response and he pushes him to the ground and throws his body over him and then the world flies apart.

"Preston?"

The air is burning. It's thick with radiation. He can't breathe.

"Preston? Christ, buddy, you gotta wake up..."

Radiation and dust and the smell of metal and his head feels split open. There's light behind it. It hurts.

"No, no, give him a minute, he's still..."

He opens his eyes and the light is tearing his head apart. He coughs and gasps and tries to sit up.

"Don't do that just yet." The mechanic is leaning over him, Sturges, and he's gently holding him down. "Let me get a look at those pupils first."

He looks up and Sturges leans in close. Eye contact. He's sick to his stomach from coughing or from fear or from something else, something he can't name. Sturges' eyes are blue.

His eyes are blue.

Zephyr.

He pushes Sturges back and drags himself to his hands and knees which only makes his head worse. He looks around and has no idea where he is, nothing looks familiar. He tries to stand and his legs go out from under him. Sturges catches him and he turns to ask, where, where are...

"Don't," Sturges says, but he remembers the explosion. He sees the crater where the house used to be, Mama Murphy standing to one side, hears crying, turns his head and sees the Longs farther down the street, Jun and Marcy but not the kid, and then he sees something else, too, not far away at all, and he knows now what he smells.

"Don't," Sturges says again but he claws his way through the rubble and pushed it out of the way, and tried to pull his shoulders, if he could just get him out from under. Sturges puts a hand on his shoulder and he shrugs it off because if he can wake him up, if he just opens up those hazel eyes and looks back...

"I'm sorry," Sturges said. "Preston, I'm so sorry but there's nothing you can do."

It's all wrong it's all wrong he can't breathe and he was just here, how can he be gone in an instant like that?

"I.. I think we're all that's left."

Part of him wishes he'd listened to the general all that time ago. He should have just walked away, but he didn't. And somehow he can't. Not even now.

"We have to go." He holds tight to Sturges' shirt. He can't get up alone. "Before they..." His voice breaks and he can't breathe.

"Go?" Marcy Long screams. She's come closer. "Where in the hell are we going to go? Everything we had is here!"

He can't answer, but someone else speaks.

"I know a place," Mama Murphy says. "A sanctuary. I seen it. West of here, near the ones from before."

"I told you to lay off the jet," Sturges snaps at her, and simultaneously Marcy says, "You expect us to walk out there toward Gunners on your... your hallucinations?"

"We can't stay," Mama Murphy says calmly.

"Maybe you haven't noticed but it's over! The Minutemen are done, and if you think we're gonna be able to fight off Gunners you're crazier than I thought."

But she's wrong. The Minutemen aren't done. Minutemen fight to the last man, and somehow Preston is still breathing.

He cries into Sturges' shoulder as he tries to pull it together.

How much can he really do alone? He doesn't know. Maybe they won't make it. Maybe this is all it was ever going to come to. Maybe the Minutemen were a mistake. But he can't know for sure unless he gives up, and even though it hurts... he isn't giving up.