Chapter Text
Ian Archer is wavering. He stares up at the woman—a holographic projection, he supposes.
“Ian?” CJ asks. He ignores her for a moment, trying to think. “Ian!”
“I know!” he all but snaps. Instantly, he’s guilty, shooting her an apologetic look. “I just—“
“This changes everything,” Gabe murmurs uneasily.
“We can’t just turn back,” Suki counters. “We’ll be hunted!”
“I know,” Ian repeats. Truth is, he does not know. Anything. Everything he thought he knew has been scrambled by this revelation. Headmaster, who they thought to be the greatest threat keeping them within the borders of Tower Prep, is somehow on their side. Maybe he's trying to restore Cornelius Tower's original vision of the school, or maybe he's just working his own agenda. Either way, they've escaped because of him, but Ian doesn't know if it's in the best interests of them and the other students, or just Headmaster's.
“So, what do we do?” CJ asks, a note of urgency ringing in her voice. “Do we turn back, or do we keep going?”
“What do you want to do, CJ?” Ian asks her, voice hard. She sets her jaw, looking him right in the eye.
“I’m following you,” she says. “I’m loyal to you.” Ian backs down, shaking his head to clear it. He can’t question the loyalty of his friends, not now.
“Uh, in case I haven’t said it,” Gabe chimes in. “I am too. Just wondering what the plan is, oh captain.”
Ian bites his lip, looking back the way they came. Everything seems calm, but it won’t be long before news of their escape spreads. Gnomes will be out here in droves. He can’t help but think back to what that man said in the tunnels, about escape. He turns back to the projection.
“What about the wall?” Ian asks.
“You are outside its perimeter,” she says. He sighs, relieved that Connor’s plan would have worked.
“Can you hold it steady, give us some time?” Whisper nods her head, glitching out. Ian turns back to his friends.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
With that, the group takes off, putting as much space as they can between them and the gnomes. He has no idea if they can leave the perimeter of the campus, but that’s not a chance he’s willing to take. They run for a while—even Gabe—fear pushing them past their limits. Ian slows as the light begins to fade.
“We need a hiding spot,” Suki points. “Somewhere away from animals. I think we’re safe from gnomes for now.”
“We need a fire, too,” Gabe says, shivering a little. “It’s freezing.”
“Probably not the best idea,” CJ says, looking around nervously. “We shouldn’t do anything to attract any attention to ourselves.”
“Okay,” Ian says, getting their attention. “I’m going to climb a tree, look around and see where we are. No fires, CJ’s right.”
“Come on, Gabe, help me look around,” Suki says. “We’ll stay in a radius of a couple hundred feet.” Ian nods at them, looking for the tallest tree to climb. CJ braces herself against the trunk of it, wincing.
“You okay?” Ian calls as he climbs. Gabe’s right, the air is icy up here.
“Just rolled my ankle,” CJ answers. “I’ll be fine.”
Once he gets to the top of the tree, Ian fights his way through thin branches and leaves for a proper look. It’s mostly just trees as far as the eye can see, but there’s what he thinks is a lake, and then what look like mountain peaks.
When he makes his way down, Suki and Gabe are back.
“I didn’t see many animals,” Suki says. “And it was mostly flat.”
“I saw a lake and some mountains,” Ian fills them in. “Maybe there’s an outpost there, or a ranger’s station.”
“Depending on what country we’re in,” CJ says.
“Well, it’s April,” Suki says slowly. “We’re probably pretty far north. Maybe Canada?”
“Or Russia,” Gabe adds in.
“Let’s hope for Canada,” Ian says. “We might as well light a fire. It’s too cold and I don’t think we were followed.”
“I’ll go get wood,” Suki offers.
“I’ll go too,” CJ says, clambering to her feet.
“What about your ankle?” Ian asks with a frown. CJ gives him a weary look, stretching it out.
“I’ll be careful,” she says. “Lead the way, Suki.”
Ian and Gabe watch the two of them go in silence. This is his fault. He’s the one who pushed her away, and now she regrets following him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gabe says. “And you can cut that crap out.”
“Gabe—”
“Nope,” he says succinctly. “You didn’t screw up, Ian, this isn’t on you.”
“Okay, then who is it on?” Ian asks, a little too curt. Thankfully, Gabe just ignores his tone.
“Tower Prep,” he says, then amends, “Or the bad guys. Or whatever the equivalent is in this scenario. The people Headmaster’s working against.”
“You trust Headmaster?” Ian asks.
“Not really,” Gabe admits. “But we got away pretty easily.”
“You call that easy?” Ian teases, though he knows Gabe’s right. Gabe snorts, shaking his head.
“Okay, easy for me,” he corrects. “I didn’t have to take on a hundred gnomes today.”
“Do you think I made the right call?” Ian asks quietly, thankful that it’s only he and Gabe. As much as he loves Suki and CJ, this isn’t exactly a conversation he wants their input on, at least not right away.
“I don’t know,” Gabe answers, blunt. “But this was always the plan. Either way, Ian, I’m with you.” It’s not a real answer, and it doesn’t even provide any hope, but it does ease Ian’s anxiety a little. Gabe’s loyalty, something that Ian knew ran bone deep, is enough to keep him going.
*
Suki leads CJ in silence. It’s not that she doesn’t want to talk, it’s just that Suki can’t think of a single thing to say. She is still reeling from the revelations of today, and her faith is a little shaken.
“So, now what?” CJ asks quietly, stooping to pick up a couple pieces of dry twigs.
“I think I saw some wild blackberries,” Suki says, keeping her eyes forward. “Weird, right?”
“Suki,” CJ says, voice pleading.
“I don’t know,” she says, much softer. “I think step one would be figuring out where we are.”
“Are you mad at me?” CJ asks. It’s a little childish, and they certainly don’t have time to hash out everything they learned. Still, Suki’s immediate answer is yes. She grits her teeth, keeps her mouth shut. “I know it’s hard to understand—”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“It’s why I called my dad,” Suki admits. “Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much a person has hurt you. You still love them. It’s something you have to learn to stop doing.”
“It’s not just that,” CJ admits.
“So explain it to me,” Suki says, frustration coloring her voice despite her best attempts at staying cool. CJ is her best friend, the one person Suki thought she knew in and out, but now, it’s like she doesn’t even recognize the girl in front of her.
“It’s so hard to explain,” CJ says, looking at the trees.
“I just don’t have the words right now, and I promise you I’ll tell you, I just—”
“Okay,” Suki interrupts. “CJ, you have to promise me to explain. No more secrets, but I understand. Take your time, but trust us enough to tell us.” CJ nods, turning back to Suki with a rueful smile.
“And I get why you’re mad.” CJ says, voice thick. “About everything, the—what I did.”
Suki bites her lip hard, tears springing up to her own eyes. They don’t have time for this, but something in Suki is pulling apart. She wants to drop to the ground, huddle in CJ’s arms and cry. She’s scared, cold, and so beyond lost.
“It doesn’t matter,” Suki chokes out. “What matters is that you’re here now. That you left with us.”
“Are you… are you scared?”
“Terrified,” Suki admits, thankful for the waning light. Conversations like these are always easier in the dark.
“Me too,” CJ says. “I can’t say anything, not really, because—”
“You think you’ll disappoint Ian?” Suki guesses.
“He already doesn’t trust me,” CJ says. “I don’t want him to think I don’t want to be here.”
“It doesn’t matter what Ian thinks,” Suki says, turning to CJ. She grabs her hand, squeezing it tight. “You’re here. And, okay, yeah, it did hurt to know that you betrayed us, and it’ll take time to get over that, but the fact is, you chose us.”
“I’ll always choose you,” CJ admits tearfully. “You guys are my family.”
“Come here, crybaby,” Suki says gently, folding CJ into her arms. “We’re going to be okay.” They stay like that, cling to each other until CJ’s breathing goes even again. She pulls away slow, swiping the tears off her face.
“We don’t need to worry them,” CJ says, shaking out her hair. It falls in stringy clumps, loose around her neck. Suki is thankful for her tight braids, still holding after hours of running. “Come on.”
When they get back to their make-shift camp, the boys already have a fire going.
“Ian used to be a boy scout,” Gabe snickers when he sees them. “God, I wish I had pictures. I want to see you in the sash and ascot.”
“If we get back to my parents’ house unscathed, I’ll let you,” Ian says, smiling lightly. “Thanks guys.” Suki smiles at him as she presses a couple twigs to the low flames.
“So, you’ll never guess what I have in my pocket,” Gabe says, once everyone is situated around the fire.
“Señor Guapo?” CJ guesses.
“Well, obviously, but in my other pocket,” Gabe says. He doesn’t wait for anyone to guess before he pulls out an apple with flourish. “I grabbed it right before they dragged me off to west campus.”
“Gabe, you rock!” Ian says. “I can snap this into pieces.”
“Wait, wait,” Gabe says, patting down his pockets. His face goes ashen. “Señor Guapo’s gone!”
“Gabe, you probably dropped him when we were running,” Suki rationalizes. “I’m sorry.”
“Maybe you can get another one,” CJ suggests. Suki winces a little at the suggestion. Remnants from home were just another thing CJ didn’t understand.
“My dad gave it me when I was a kid,” Gabe says miserably. “It was the only thing I had from home.”
“Oh, Gabe,” Suki says. She reaches over to stroke his hand.
“Doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “I was probably too old for it anyways.”
“It was from home,” Ian says softly. “It doesn’t matter how old you are.”
Suki thinks of her own home, of the house they’d moved into when they’d opened a branch of SatoSystems in New York. She’d loved the city, despite its many differences from home, so much that she never minded the constant hopping between the New York apartment and the Tokyo one. America was nothing like the shows she used to watch, but she loved it anyways. Also, the move had brought Shinji and her much closer, especially with all the added business trips their parents had to take.
Ian gets to work, snapping the apple into pieces and passing them around. Suki nibbles on her piece, savoring it. She hadn’t realized how hungry and thirsty she’d been. They probably wouldn’t have an opportunity to drink anything now, but maybe they could head toward the lake Ian had found.
“We should get some rest,” Ian says. “I’ll take the first watch.”
“I don’t think anything’s coming to get us, bud,” Gabe says. “You should rest too.” Ian shakes his head at that.
“We should do watches, just in case,” Ian says. Suki doesn’t need super-perception to know he just wants a quiet minute to think. Gabe and CJ scrutinize him for a moment, before acquiescing.
Suki and CJ huddle together at the base of a tree, using the fallen leaves to pillow their heads. The ground is icy and hard, but Suki’s eyes are too heavy, and she falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.