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It was a relatively quiet morning in the safehouse. The runners were laying low after a close scrape with the Minister’s people, so everyone had drifted apart after breakfast to occupy themselves with chores while the operators and tacticians planned the next moves of the Abel Resurgence.
Five padded down the hallway, making no effort to mask her footsteps. For once, she wanted to provide plenty of warning of her approach
“Hey, Tom,” she called softly before sauntering into the kitchen with a baking tray balanced with the breakfast dishes. “This is the last of it for this morning.”
“Thanks,” Tom answered genially, nodding towards the sink full of soapy water in front of him.
Five gently slid sections of the dishes into the water one at a time, to avoid a clatter. She set the last tray down next to the full sink then paused, watching Tom’s industrious scrubbing. She noticed a long, jagged scar down the side of one forearm that was at odds with the domesticity of the scene. It had obviously always been there. Odd she was noticing it now.
“Want some help?” Five asked at last.
Tom glanced over, then nodded with a small smile. “Sure. I haven’t started drying yet.”
Five moved around behind Tom, popping momentarily on tiptoes to pull down a rag from the shelf over the sink before taking up a spot to his left. Tom handed over a skillet, and the pair set to quiet work.
Tom scrubbed carefully at spots she couldn’t see. Five rushed to swipe up as many beads of water as she could from the rough iron surface, tilting it this way and that to catch the light. But the steady rhythm of scrub, pass, dry, set down did nothing to soothe the buzzing in her brain.
“So. I’ve been thinking,” Five began after she couldn’t bear to wait anymore.
“I thought as much,” Tom smirked. Five couldn’t do anything but barrel forward.
“Do you think…Are we sure we’re focused on the right things? Strategically, I mean?”
Tom glances sideways at Five, looking quizzical. “You disagree with the efforts to retake Abel?”
“No!” she protested, nearly putting her hands up defensively. “I mean…Yes, that’s obviously the main priority. It’s, like, basically most of my job these days. I just mean…Are we sure we’re not ignoring defending our vital strategic asset?”
“I don’t follow. Sharp,” Tom warned, passing Five a well-worn chef’s knife by the handle.
Five took the knife and carefully slid the rag along the edge. “I mean…Knowing what we know about Baby Sara…and Sam’s immunity…” She looked at Tom significantly, but no aid was forthcoming.
“Oh, come on, Tom!” she burst out. “I know you must have done all the same survival logic exercises as I did. ‘You’ve got twenty survivors but only room for ten in the escape pod, do you take the priest or the physicist?’”
Tom chuckled. “Of course. What’s best for survival, or culture, or a specific mission. It’s always fun to see civilians’ reactions to brutal utilitarianism. Hypothetically, of course.”
Five snatched the next dish from Tom, scrubbing at it roughly as the thoughts spilled out all at once. “I just…We’ve been trying to get Abel back for, what, almost a year now?” She shook her head in frustration. “I’m not saying that we won’t be able to, but shouldn’t we think about keeping something in reserve, for…long-term solutions? A little more…protecting what we have instead of leaving Sam behind by himself half the time while you and I run around getting shot at? Shouldn’t we be building up supplies in case we establish…things here? We don’t know if a cure is even possible!”
Tom put down the plate he was holding to turn to Five, eyes narrowing incredulously. “Long-term solutions? Are you thinking in a repopulation framework?”
Five quickly turned away to clatter a stack of plates onto a shelf. She could practically feel Tom’s devilish grin behind her.
“Miss Fletcher,” he said in mock shock, a gleam in his eye. “Are you suggesting we should use Mister Yao as—“
“You literally just gave me a knife, Tom,” Five warned through gritted teeth, facing him again against her better judgment.
Tom laughed. It was a rare enough sound to be notable, even through her humiliation. So instead of snapping, Five just sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, riding out the teasing until Tom stopped laughing abruptly, eyes widening.
“Wait, you’re not—?”
Now Five looked properly alarmed. “No! No, definitely not, that’s not—I mean not that I—I mean that couldn’t be further from—that’s not the point right now!”
Tom burst out laughing again, and Five groaned in misery.
“You’re so far gone for him!” Tom said once he could mostly bring himself back under control. “What is the term you’d use? ‘Whipped?’”
Five dropped the rag on the counter to more emphatically point at Tom. “This whole conversation is top secret, you understand? You can’t go around twisting my words, giving people the impression that — especially not Sam—“
“Ah, yes,” Tom said coolly. “What a disaster it would be if someone let slip to your boyfriend that you like him.”
“Knife, Tom. Besides, you’re one to talk.”
Tom threw his hands up in mock innocence. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Five rolled her eyes at him, then picked up the drying rag again with a decisive motion, turning back to the next pot. Her voice grew serious. “But you know what I mean, right? If we had to stay…it’s not all that terrible here.”
Tom returned to washing with a thoughtful expression. “I suppose nobody could blame anyone for wanting to settle down for a bit. Our own kind of family, rather than a settlement, I suppose.”
Five didn’t appear to have an answer to that. Silence stretched between them, and they had almost finished with the cookware before Five spoke again. “If…blood-immunity, whatever, is heritable…Do you think…other things could be too? Like. More…mental things? We know there’s at least a genetic influence to…some of the things you and I have anyway.”
When Tom turned to look at her, Five didn’t look back.
Tom felt like he was looking at an entirely different person than the fearless runner he was used to. Usually, he could predict her movements, which enemy she’d target so he could take the next. But right now, Abel’s most famous runner was so still, and she looked so very small.
“I won’t lie. If you’re talking about what I think you are…we can’t say whether it’s inheritable,” he said softly. “Or even if we can get rid of it.”
Five bit her lip hard, holding her breath, holding back.
“Hey,” Tom said, putting down the last plate in front of her with a soft clink, turning fully to her and waiting until she glanced up to speak. “Listen to me. That’s not all that you are. Even when it takes over, even though we can’t know it’ll ever go away…it doesn’t lessen anything about what you’ve done or who you are. Trust me,” he said with a sad chuckle. “I forget it often enough, too.”
Five looked up at him for just a moment, eyes glistening, brows drawn hard together. She nodded hard and swiped mechanically at the last dish, mechanically going through the motions. Tom knew if he reached out to touch her – if he tried to give her a reassuring shoulder squeeze or a hug of mutual commiseration – she would shatter.
So he followed her lead, and kept on.
Silently, Tom drained the sink and started putting away the dishes stored too high for Five to reach, until suddenly the task was done. He took the rag from Five, too, dropping it onto the shelf and determinedly ignoring the slight dampness under her eyes.
“You can’t keep helping everyone all the time, Five,” he said, turned away as if occupied with sorting the silverware. “You’ve got your own portion of the chore wheel you’re so fond of, as I recall.”
When Tom turned back, Five shrugged and offered a watery eye roll and a smile. “I haven’t run a mission in three days. I’ll do Janine’s whole stupid chore manifest at this rate.”
They both laughed half-heartedly and headed out of the kitchen before turning separate ways down the corridor.
“Tom?” Five asked, hesitating.
“Mm?”
“I’ll remind you. If you ever need it. And…I know the others would too.”
The two shared the small, sad smile of mutual understanding before going to find the place in the small outpost that was their temporary home.
They say that a burden shared is a burden halved, but maybe that’s not always true. Sometimes a burden shared is just one that is understood. Two Atlases nodding at one another, powerless to take each others’ load or drop their own.
But in its own way, Five thought as she wandered towards the radio room, maybe that’s better than nothing.