Work Text:
John slowly shut the door, setting his gear bag on the kitchen table before looking at the clock. It was 4:30 AM, meaning his daughter was sound asleep and his wife should be home, but considering the car was gone and the front door was left unlocked John had a feeling Tonya had left again.
Still, he checked the master bedroom, the sight of which confirmed his suspicion that Tonya had left, and then he snuck into his daughter's room.
The six-year-old had her head laying on an open book, long brown hair in a messy braid. John couldn’t help but smile at her and climb in bed next to her.
Karlee stirred, lifting her head off her book and smiling sleepily, “Daddy!”
“Hey sweetheart, I didn’t mean to wake you up, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“You been having fun at school?”
“A little. Mrs. Hoffman usually picks me up and helps me with homework after, but I still don’t have many friends.”
“I’m sorry sweetie.”
Karlee shrugged, “I’ve got my books.”
“And your mama.”
“Mama’s never home. And when she is she just drinks, she wouldn’t even help me set up the christmas tree. I had to ask Mrs. Hoffman for help.”
“I’m sorry Karlee, I’ll talk to mama.”
“Don’t bother, she just starts yelling at you,” Karlee closed her book, moving it under the pillow, and snuggled close, “Merry Christmas daddy.”
“Merry Christmas Karlee.”
“Did Santa come?”
“He did, but let's sleep a little longer before we go open presents, okay? It’s early.”
“But I’m not tired.”
The words were punctuated by a big yawn right after she said it, so John had to stifle a laugh, instead kissing his daughters head and saying, “I know, but I’m a little tired and I want to cuddle. Can we cuddle for a little bit?”
“Okay,” Karlee mumbled, already halfway to the land of sleep. John smiled a little, closing his eyes as he planned his day.
First was opening presents with Karlee and going out to breakfast with her. Then he had to get everything ready for his call with a lawyer…
Some things had to change.
—-------------------
“Rover-2, come in damnit!” John snapped, anxiety crawling in his gut. His team was capable he knew that, they’d killed the abomination pretty much on their own, but this was different. They were across a river and he couldn’t help them.
The radio crackled, “ Sorry I forgot to check in dad !” Karlee’s voice snapped, “ We’re at the arena. ”
It stung when he heard Karlee’s tone, but John forced himself to ignore it, “Affirmative. Find out what the cult is doing and take them out.”
“ And Derek! We can’t forget about Derek, you owe him. And you damn well know that you owe me. ” Tala’s voice sounded panicked, as if she truly believed that they would leave her brother.
“10-4 Tala. Take out the cult and find Derek.”
There was no response after that, and the anxiety began crawling in his gut again. It wasn’t just the fact Rover-2 was so far away he couldn’t help in an emergency, it was also who was on that team. Who he would lose if this went sideways.
“General,” Coach walked into the command tent, crossing her arms when she saw his face, “General, they’ll be okay. They have Doc with them for medical emergancies and you know Walker and Jim together can figure out some sort of plan.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean I like the situation.”
Coach nodded, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Go eat. I’ll sit by the radio and wait to see if they get back in contact.”
“I can’t-”
“John, go eat. You’re no use if you pass out.”
He knew she was right, and the look in her eyes told John that he didn’t really have an option. So John nodded and turned away from the radio, making his way to the cafeteria to try and eat something before coming back to wait.
—---------------------
Karlee helped Tala onto the boat, pursing her lips as the girl winced, “What did you do?”
“I don’t know. My leg didn’t hurt until a little bit ago,” Tala took a shaky breath, looking to where Mom and Doc were helping Derek into the main cabin of the main ship, “Derek…”
“He’s okay. Take a deep breath and lean on me Tala, you’re not okay.”
“But Derek-” tears began to run down Tala’s face, her body tensing, “I need to get to him.”
“He’s safe with Mom and Doc,” Karlee kept an arm around Tala as the girl tried to run to the cabin, “But you won’t be much use to him if you collapse on the floor the moment you get in there.”
“I need to be there.”
“Tala, look at me,” Karlee gripped Tala’s shoulders, waiting until brown eyes met blue, “I know okay, I know you feel like you have to be right there and control the situation, but there is no way in hell you can handle that right now.”
“He’s hurt.”
“Yes he is, and that’s why you can’t be there right now.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Tala shouted, winching as the boast lurched and started.
Out of the corner of her eye, Karlee could see Jim and Walker look over, ready to step in at a moment's notice. But Karlee just took a deep breath, trying to be as soft as she could in that moment.
“Tala, you are barely standing right now. You are running on pure adrenaline and you have been for the past few days. There is a very good chance that you will go in there, see Derek wince from Doc disinfecting a wound, and proceed to try and shoot Doc. Not to mention you look like you're about to pass out.
“I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would.”
“How the fuck do you know that?”
“Because I did it, I’ve done this before,” Tala seemed to deflate a little and Karlee sighed, “Sit down, I need to look at your leg.”
“Karlee, what do you mean you’ve done this before?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
Tala sat and leaned against the edge of the boat, still crying while Karlee tried to locate the problem, “What happened?”
“I got into drugs when I was fourteen, my parents were divorced and the dumbass judge gave my mom sole custody. Couldn’t even see my dad without her permission, so I spent the majority of my childhood in drug houses. Got hooked quick.”
“That doesn’t sound fun.”
“It wasn’t,” Karlee found the problem, a gash on Tala’s leg that hadn’t been noticed, “But it’s what I had to live with, and it’s also how I met my boyfriend. We would hide in his room and get high while our parents threw parties all night. But one night a few of the guests got… violent. The cops were called by neighbors and the cops took us to the hospital.”
“He was hurt.”
“Yes, he’d stepped in the way when one of the guests tried to stab me and ended up getting hurt himself. Which resulted in the two of us in an ambulance, him for the stab wound and me because I was very high risk for being on the way to an OD at the moment. But when I saw the nurses try to stitch him up and make sure he was okay, I ended up knocking one of them out and almost knocked out another one.”
“But they were trying to help.”
“Yes, and logically I knew that. But I hadn't slept in two days and was high off heroin so I couldn’t tell. I just saw him wince and lost it.”
Tala sniffed, looking down, “And you think I’d do that to Doc or Mom?”
“I know you would. You haven't slept, you’ve lost a lot of blood, and it’s not like you guys have been in a safe space in a while. You’re in survival mode,” Karlee rustled through her first aid kit, cursing, “Hey Walker?”
“Yeah?”
“You have any tape? Mines out.”
“Yeah,” Walker dug it out of his pack and handed it to Karlee, giving Tala a soft smile, “Hey Tals, how you doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to know.”
The tears came faster now, and Karlee stepped away to let Walker handle it, Tala’s leg was bandaged and Karlee knew she wasn’t going to be able to calm the teen down.
Jim beckoned her over, handing her a cigarette, and stood in silence with her, letting her try to gather her thoughts. It was an old ritual they had established.
Karlee couldn’t help but think about what she told Tala. It was all true, her mother had somehow managed to get custody of her(despite all the evidence her father had shown that her mom was a drug addict and neglectful) and so she’d ended up a drug addict as well, spending a month in jail before finally being allowed to live with her father.
Though her dad had never said it, Karlee knew he pulled some strings with the judge to keep her out of massive trouble, there was no way nearly killing a nurse and doing hard drugs would only land her a month. But that had been the deal, a month in jail due to the nurse and a shit ton of rehab due to the drug use.
Somehow she’d made it out, gone to art school out of state to get away for a bit before coming home to try and settle down. Her dad was almost out of the military, her boyfriend had gotten a good construction job, and there was a real chance for them.
Then the collapse.
Karlee had considered giving up then, not even bothering to fight back or survive the first few days.
Then her boyfriend found her, and reminded her of the promise they had made her father just a few weeks prior.
They would try, they had to try.
—-------------------
Ren blew out the smoke from his cigarette, rubbing his face, looking at the general, “Any word from her?”
“No.”
“Do the others know she’s yours yet?”
“No, you know I wouldn’t say anything.”
“Wonder why she doesn’t.”
The general chuckled, “What did she say when you asked why Fort Hope wasn’t allowed to know she’s your girl?”
“That she hated other people knowing our business and didn’t want to waste the energy telling them to fuck off.”
“Well, there’s your answer.”
Ren laughed, eyes scanning around Fort Hope. Currently, he and the general stood just outside the command tent to wait, from what Garner had timed, Rover-2 should be back within ten minutes.
Chenda smiled when Ren showed up, winking at him and the general. She knew everything, having walked in on one of John and Karlee’s fights one day, so she was the only one who wasn’t surprised that Ren could still show up at the fort without being shot.
Everyone else had looked shocked, all of them assuming that there was no chance of reconcile between them.
A fair assumption given the massive fight they had gone through before Ren left, but it was still funny to see everyone freeze at the sight of him and the general standing next to each other.
The gates opened, and Ren held his breath. He knew how bad this could go, had seen it with Jason, had seen it at Meadows and his heart stopped beating when he couldn’t catch sight of her-
And then Jim moved, revealing Karlee rolling her eyes at the sight of Ren visibly relaxing. She made her way over, grinning just slightly, “Couldn’t wait?”
“I had no contact with you for almost two days, Karlee,” Ren grinned back, heart still beating furiously, “Can’t blame me for worrying.”
“Fair,” Karlee bit her lip, straightening her back, giving the general a nervous look before taking a deep breath, “We cleared out a good majority of ridden by the radio station and the dam, might be able to take that over and restore power to some of the important buildings.”
“It’s a good idea, just need to find out how many people we need to do it. If we even have that many people.”
“Ask the KSC. This is something we could say is a common area, it benefits both groups, and they’d probably agree.”
The general nodded, turning to go back in the tent, “Have everyone go see Doc, then see if Jim or Walker are willing to brief.”
“Okay.”
Ren could see his girlfriend shake just a little, so he took her hand, “C’mon, let me get you to Doc and then we’ll go sit with Chenda and gossip about all the stupid shit she pulled today.”
Karlee laughed, gripping his hand, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
—--------------------
All the cleaners sat around the fire, the general talking with Mom while Ren debated something with Walker. Karlee stood at the edge of the circle, picking at her nails as she tried to speak.
“Hey dad.”
Silence fell over the group, John looked up with surprise in his eyes, “What is it, Karlee?”
“You want to know the one good thing about the collapse?”
“What?”
“You didn’t have to fix mine and Ren’s sink.”
Ren groaned while John laughed, Holly looked between the two, “Why is that a good thing?”
Karlee crossed the small distance to sit at John’s feet, leaning against her father, “Because that sink broke three times in one month. We couldn’t figure it out for the longest time and dad was on deployment, so when he came back we asked him to look at it.”
“I did offer to fix it,” John chuckled, “I’d fixed everything in the base housing and I’d done it before.”
“But then the fucking collapse happened,” Ren was still groaning, covering his face with his hands, “Took me three hours after finding all the parts while scavenging, and due to the pressure switch on our tank burning out and I can’t find a new one, our water pressure is shit. The fact I managed to jerry-rig a water tank to one of our bathrooms is a miracle, but I doubt I’m ever gonna be able to fix that water pressure.”
“We have running water and I’m happy about that,” Karlee put her hands up, “Not having running water in the bathroom was horrible, in the kitchen it’s fine ‘cause we have a bucket system set up, but the bathroom sucked.”
“Want me to look at the pressure tank?” John offered.
Ren sighed, “Please.”
They all laughed, and Karlee leaned her head back on John’s knees, smiling slightly. Her father smiled back, brushing her hair out of her face.
She was terrified, she knew Ren was as well, there was so much going on that it seemed impossible for them to get to where they wanted to be. They both wanted to escape the fear of having no food or shelter, but now they almost couldn’t.
But when her dad smiled at them and talked them through everything, sometimes things seemed to look up.
They could try, they would try. Didn’t really have a choice but they were gonna do it.