Chapter Text
The roaring of the Wretched is deafening.
It rises up, swelling and spilling over the edge of the platform as their group climbs higher in the sky. Some have scrambled up with the help of the wives who don’t hesitate for a second to extend their shiny, perfect arms into the mire to grasp filthy hands and pull. Capable, the one with the hair like licks of flame, steadies an old woman beside her. The woman paws at her wonderingly, gazing with milky eyes into her face. Nux imagines that she must be thinking she’s in a dream, because what else could explain this sudden vision of beauty in the midst of so much ugliness?
The creaking of the chains is loud as they ascend. Max stands bracing Furiosa against his side and Nux stares at the blood and the swelling of her eye. She’s breathing heavy but she’ll be ok, he thinks. The Imperator is tough, tougher than Nux ever thought she was - ace enough to keep driving the War Rig with a knife embedded in her side. Chrome enough to kill the Immortan. He shakes his head, something in his brain short circuiting at this thought - The Immortan, dead. Done. Gone. Nux never thought a lowly half life would outlive a God.
Nux never thought a lot of things would happen, until today.
The platform shudders to a halt beneath their feet and stops. They’re at the top, safe. Nux sees throngs of war pups clambering about them, little white bodies shouting questions and exclamations. They all want to see the wives, these flawless shiny things before them. Some of the shy pups hang back while the brazen ones push forward and touch, stand on tip toes, grab with tiny hands at the white fabric. Nux watches The Dag make a mock biting motion at a pup who has overstepped and he shrieks playfully, only a little scared as he snatches his hand back with wide eyes.
“Nux.” he feels a hand on his arm.
It’s Capable. He would know her touch anywhere, now. Today has been a day full of touches, and he wonders if she realizes that she has put her hands on him more than almost anyone else in his half life. The only other pair of hands he knows as well as his own, the only other scent of skin that he could follow blind through the dark is gone, now. She wordlessly grips his hand and squeezes it, and he wonders if she knows that no amount of comforting can stop the dying feeling in his chest.
He knows she will try, though.
For the better part of an hour, Nux has been operating on cruise control. In only two days, his brain has been completely rewired. He is exhausted. He leans on Capable now as the group files off the platform, their feet shuffling onto the hard stone of Citadel. The wives move together as a unit, with Max and Furiosa behind them, but Capable walks with him. Her presence at his side has become such a constant that he doesn’t bat an eye when she slides her arm around his waist to support him. He feels foolish and weak about it, tries to straighten, to show her. She gives him a gentle shake and turns her face to his. “Hush.”
He hushes.
War pups and boys left behind follow them in a throng, some hesitant and hanging back in the shadows. The wives are peering around at the great room, the space, the sheer openness that has been denied them for so many years. Nux recognizes faces and looks through others, his eyes drifting over a sea of white bodies, their questioning voices sounding like gibberish to his ears. He is tired, so very tired. Just when he thinks he’s going to embarrass himself by passing out, he hears Furiosa’s voice ringing out over the crowd.
“Stop.” she is standing beside Max, a little straighter now. He still supports a good deal of her weight but Nux is glad to see the bleeding has stopped completely. She looks around at their rag tag group with her good eye and sighs.
“There is so much to be done.” she starts, having to catch her breath for a moment. Around them the people have fallen silent, eager to hear the words of the Imperator. “so many things to be said. We need to organize. Establish order. But for now…” and her eyes catch Nux’s and he sees something like understanding pass through them. “for now we all need to rest.”
Capable reaches a hand out toward her. “Furiosa, are you sure you’re going to be alright?”. The wives huddle around her, questions in their eyes.
“Where will we go?”
“Where do we sleep?”
“Are we safe?”
Nux waits to hear her answers. All his life he has waited for orders. His life was a set of rules and jobs, no questions asked, no defiance or doubt. He doesn’t know what to do with this sudden freedom, this lack of routine and order. He can feel the fear of uncertainty creeping up his neck, prickling his skin, hot and pressing. What is he supposed to do now? What is he good for? Where will he go? At his side, Capable senses his panic and she gives him a reassuring touch. It is like a wave of Aqua Cola and he relaxes inch by inch under her fingers.
“I don’t have all the answers for you right now.” Furiosa sounds on the verge of collapse. “but tomorrow is a new day. What I do know,” and she passes a meaningful look around the crowd. “is that you are safe. We are all safe. Nobody is hurting anyone.”
Wounded, bleeding, exhausted - she is still a warrior. Max is as imposing as ever beside her and he passes the same look of warning among them. Some of the faces in the crowd belong to those who would have shredded Furiosa alive two days ago. Faces still fiercely devoted to their Immortan, unaware of the lies and control, the manipulation. Unaware of the way that life could be better, that they did not have to be things.
Nux can understand their reservations. Little else in his life had been as unsettling as realizing that every day lived under Joe had been a lie. He can only imagine how the wives feel. Here they stand, together, a group of suddenly free people with rights and idle time on their hands to do with as they wish. All of them survivors of abuse, in some form or other.
They have never been as free, and yet have never been as scared.
The crowd is dispersing. Furiosa places her good hand on Toast’s shoulder and offers them all a shadow of a smile. “You can sleep wherever you like, now.” the wives shuffle uneasily and mutter among themselves quietly. “Citadel has many rooms.” she catches the look on Toast’s face, angry dark eyes glittering at the floor. “Many rooms.” she repeats softly. “Not that one.”
From beside him, Capable murmurs; “Where will you go, Nux?” as though there is any other place for him, any other answer. He doesn’t know what to say. All he can hear is the screaming metal of the Interceptor folding in on itself.
Sensing his hesitation, she makes a sad face at the ground and it makes Nux’s chest tighten. No, not sad. Not her. He swallows. “I don’t…” he stops, tries to find his answer. “Before, I would...we would...the bunks.”
Capable looks up at him. Capable, with her soft eyes that make him think of cool water and green things. “Where will you go?” he asks, and when she opens her mouth he answers for her.
“Yes. Come. Come with me?” and she does, without question.