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“That’s seventy boomsticks, ninety grenades, and five hundred bullets. Just as ordered.”
Furiosa watches the People Eater close his ledger with a snap and smug nod. As if he’s the one who drove the haul back to the Citadel, shaking off buzzards and scavengers the whole way.
She’d taken a piece of shrapnel to the arm – can still feel fresh blood trickling down her wrist. Jack stands straight and solid as ever beside her, but she knows his right leg was grazed by a flamethrower. If only she’d landed a bullet in the buzzard’s head sooner, the bastard would’ve gone under the wheels before the flames reached the cab.
Her wound stings something fierce, her wrist tacky with drying blood. She takes a deep breath, steadying her shoulders beneath the weight of her exhaustion. Just a few minutes longer, she tells herself. Then the Immortan will dismiss them.
Then, their oasis awaits. She’ll insist on tending to his burn first. She won’t let Jack tell her it wasn’t her fault.
She waits. Focuses on one breath at a time, grits her teeth against the sting in her arm. She tells herself: the day will be over soon.
“That’s twenty runs, now, since you took the paint.”
Furiosa looks up. To her surprise, she finds Immortan Joe’s eyes fixed on her. At her side, she senses Jack stiffen.
“You two have proven to be quite the formidable team.” She watches his eyes drift towards Jack, as his tone turns musing. “A wise investment, indeed.”
She sneaks a glance at Jack, notices the tension in his frame, the frown he’s fighting from his lips. She has the distinct sense she’s missing something.
Immortan Joe looks back at her, some manner of decision in his bearing. When he next speaks, his voice rings with command. “You bear the paint well. Now it’s time you bear the brand.”
A raw noise bursts from Jack’s chest, like he’s the one with shrapnel lodged in his skin.
“It’s too soon,” he says, an uncharacteristic edge to his voice. “Her training isn’t finished.”
Furiosa turns puzzled eyes on him. Jack rarely speaks during these debrief meetings; never has she heard him question the Immortan.
Joe ignores the outburst. He signals to the Praetorians flanked around him, giving silent orders. The room is suddenly a flurry of motion. The People Eater, Scrotus, and Rictus file out, while two of the Praetorians stationed as guards approach her and Jack.
Furiosa forgets the pain in her arm as Jack takes a distinct half-step in front of her. At his sides, his hands are trembling fists.
“We had a deal.” This time, his words bristle with anger, with something dangerously near defiance. Only after a long, tense moment does he add a belated, “My lord.”
Joe turns back, fixing his gaze on the pair of them again. Furiosa can see his displeasure, presumably at Jack’s insubordination as much as the way the other two Praetorians have halted in their advance. They watch Jack, their brother in arms, with uncertainty and no small amount of respect.
“And now I’m breaking the deal,” Joe replies, his impatience clear. “I agreed to your request when she was unproven, before she was barely worth half of you. But you should be glad, Jack. Your little protégé has proven herself. She will be full Praetorian, and you’ll have your full rations again.”
Full rations? What in hell?
She has no time to parse the exchange. One of the Praetorian guards resumes his approach, reaching out to seize her arm. She doesn’t intend to resist. She knows the brand is inevitable, known it ever since she first spotted the mark on the back of Jack’s neck.
But Jack’s hand claps down hard on the other Praetorian’s shoulder, stopping his advance. Jack’s eyes are wilder now than she’s ever seen them, even in the face of a whole horde of attackers each armed to the teeth.
“Come on, Jack,” the guard says under his breath. “Don’t be stupid. We all wear it.”
Jack grits his jaw, shakes his head slightly. He shows no sign of moving out of the way or releasing his hold. “She doesn’t.”
Neither man backs down, neither of them breaking the standoff. Across the room, Immortan Joe growls his frustration. A wave of his hand, and two more Praetorians bear down to carry out his will.
They’ll hurt him, she realizes, sudden and sharp. His burn will be nothing in comparison.
Furiosa steps forward. She hardly feels her wound anymore, even as she leaves a trail of blood on the floor behind her.
“Jack,” she murmurs, laying a hand at his elbow. She speaks for his ears alone. “Stop. It’s alright.”
His jaw remains tense, his eyes quietly furious. It seems to take forever for him to soften enough to look at her.
“You’ll belong to the Citadel,” he warns, whisper-soft.
She knows what he means; what he fears. That this wasn’t part of their deal – no matter whatever Jack apparently negotiated with the Immortan on her behalf.
But Furiosa isn’t afraid. To her, this is just another scar. It will define her no more than the countless others. It’s just another step on her inexorable path home. Immortan Joe can sear his mark into her skin, but he’ll never touch her soul.
She strokes her thumb across the leather of his jacket. Just once. “It’s alright,” she repeats.
They can’t speak freely here. Later, in the peace of their oasis, she’ll explain. A mark only bears the meaning and power one chooses to give it.
Besides, what’s a bit more pain? Here, then gone. The physical pain, at least. It’s the easiest kind to bear.
Finally, Jack releases the other Praetorian. Furiosa swallows, struck by the deep well of sadness she finds in Jack’s eyes.
She schools herself to impassivity as she turns to meet the Immortan’s gaze. She forces her voice steady, loud enough to reach him clearly. “I’ll take the brand. I’ll take it willingly.”
In the Immortan’s eyes: a brief, begrudging spark of something like respect.
*
Two of the other Praetorians walk her down to the boiler room. Jack keeps so close, she can see the small, aborted motions of his hands. Reaching for her, then falling back to his side.
His usual cool demeanor is cracked, barely holding together. The line of his mouth may appear firm, his eyes guarded, but she can read between his lines. She sees the ruptures beneath. She can feel how he’s riddled with guilt, with a violent self-loathing replete with what-ifs. She’s attuned to him as clearly as if they were still mid-battle; as if a shot aimed at him is one and the same as a shot aimed at her.
She looks straight at him until he meets her gaze. In their unspoken way, she reassures him again. She’s ready for this.
Jack breathes in deep. And just like that, she feels his anguish shrink into the distance, feels him tuck it away somewhere deep and buried. Just like when he takes a wound during a firefight, and he packages the pain away somewhere small and remote. Somewhere it can’t hinder him from covering her back.
In the boiler room, one of the guards motions her towards a chair. She takes the seat quickly, sitting in reverse with her arms folded over the chair’s back. Resolutely, she keeps her head turned away from the sound of the guards stoking the coals in the boiler, from the clang of the brand being set upon the grate over the flames.
She hears one of the guards approach, until a sharp look from Jack pauses his steps. Then, a minute shake of his head, eyes narrowed and flashing something fierce. Furiosa senses some silent exchange, and then the steps retreat again.
Jack looks down to meet her gaze. Then, his expression bolted down tight, he lays a hand on her shoulder, his thumb landing just over the nape of her neck. Her head tipped upward, Furiosa looks back at him as she nods.
She unzips her jacket. She unclasps the front of her shoulder pauldron. Jack’s hands are instantly there to help unclasp the pauldron from the back, to lift it off and lay it aside. She shrugs her leathers off her shoulders, feels Jack help slide them down off her arms. As he lays her jacket aside, Furiosa draws her hair forward over one shoulder, giving him clear access.
She hears the scrape of a stool across the floor, then Jack’s presence at her back.
For the first time, she’s aware of her own pounding pulse, how her chest seems to compress inward around the beating rhythm. She feels it pounding in her fingertips, in her very toes. Yet she keeps her head up, back straight, and remains still where she sits.
Jack’s hands come to her shoulders, just resting there for a long moment. They remain in place until she feels some small bit of trepidation unwind and slink away; until her shoulders rise and fall with a deep, purging breath.
Vaguely, she questions whether she shouldn’t be annoyed with him – for making so much of nothing. For making her feel vulnerable. Yet the frustration fails to take shape. She’s glad he’s here. She’s ready, yet she’s grateful for his ever-steadying presence all the same.
One of his hands moves. She feels his thumb trace the slope of her neck, just once. Just once, he skims a finger across the skin of her nape, unmarred for the last time. She can’t see him, but she can feel his reverence. And his mourning.
How strange it is. All the things he does, all the risks he takes, just to keep her bruised, battered body safe.
Gently, he eases the fabric of her white undershirt down off her shoulders. Only far enough so he can fold the fabric down away from her nape. His hands check the fabric once more, making sure the front of her undershirt remains firmly in place, only the backs of her shoulders exposed.
She has to bite her lip against the wave of relief that suddenly engulfs her. Relief that no one’s hands but his did this preparation work.
“It’s ready,” says one of the other Praetorians. It’s a question, rather than a declaration. A courtesy to one of their own, to proceed at her pace.
Furiosa turns her head just enough so Jack can see her face. She nods.
She hears Jack stand from the stool, hears him rasp out “One moment” as he rifles through a drawer of supplies. When he returns to her side, he holds out a strip of tough, untreated leather.
Furiosa takes it with a deep, quiet breath. She looks up at Jack, nodding her confirmation a second time. Nothing but resolve in her face. She’s ready.
Jack drags the stool around to her side and retakes his place there.
Movement and noise behind her. Metal lifted out from the grate. Approaching steps. She’s probably imagining it, but she swears she hears the brand’s heat sizzling in the dank air.
Jack draws closer at her side. Just before she’s about to slip the strip of leather between her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut, she sees him hold out a hand. He’s taken off his driving gloves – his palm bare and open. Furiosa doesn’t think. She fits the leather between her teeth and bites down hard. Then with equal force, she seizes his offered hand and grips it tight.
She closes her eyes. She feels the guard’s hand grip her shoulder – more a warning than a necessity.
Then Jack is there. She feels him, behind the dark of her eyelids. His hand gripping hers with equal force. His body leaned close, his head resting against hers. She tilts her head against his, focuses on the soft, rough rasp of his voice as he murmurs: “Furiosa. Furiosa.”
The brand sears into her skin. Her scream is brief. Unlike the red half-moons she spots on the back of Jack’s hand the next day, where he’d taken what he could of her pain.
*
The two other Praetorians take their leave once the deed is done, leaving Furiosa and Jack to their solitude. It is only when they’re alone, once the room has fallen completely quiet but for the hum of the boiler, but for the soft, steady brush of Jack’s breath against her neck, where his forehead remains tilted to her temple – only then does Furiosa let the scorching pain rush past the strained walls of her control.
Her body can’t contain it any longer. The agony courses through her as a shuddering sob, then another. She can’t stop the violent tremor, the way her whole body quakes and heaves with shock. The strip of leather falls from her mouth, dislodged by another sob of pain.
Jack murmurs her name again, only broken this time.
He releases her hand, only to gather both of hers together and guide them up to his chest, pressing her hands into himself until she seizes fistfuls of his jacket, clinging tight. He guides the rest of her into him, his other arm reaching carefully, carefully around her shoulders to draw her against him, her forehead pressed tight to his cheek.
Furiosa goes without thought. She curls into him, imagines herself small and one with him. Imagines the pain no longer trapped within her body alone. She grits her teeth and grips him tight, her fingers clawed into the leather of his jacket and her fists pressing in hard against his chest. He keeps a hand over both of hers, containing her, welcoming her.
And somehow, the pain seems to shrink, even if just a little bit. Its cutting heat recedes just enough to leave space in her body to breathe, to clear a single quiet corner of her mind, where she exists beyond the pain – untouched, unchanged by it.
Jack says nothing for a long while, only turns his head to press trembling lips to her forehead, her hairline.
Once, she thinks she hears a muffled, tormented ‘I’m sorry,’ hidden in her hair like a seed. Fragile, sacred - not long for this world.
*
Time passes in a hazy blur. Jack never moves except to stroke her hair, smoothing it back from her sweat-slicked face. It could be minutes or hours later, when the pain at last clears enough for Furiosa to seize control of her body again.
As she slowly sits up, she realizes she’s torn one of the zippers of his jacket loose. Jack doesn’t even seem to notice.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs. His voice sounds as raw as her back feels. His hand lingers over hers for one last moment before he stands and moves to the door. When he opens it and steps into the corridor, she spots one of the other Praetorians, standing unofficial guard outside the door.
Experimentally, Furiosa rolls her shoulders once. She winces, hissing a curse at the blaze of pain. The healing process will be a torment. She knows the work won’t stop, knows she’ll have no reprieve from clothing and gun straps rubbing against the site of the brand.
True to his word, Jack returns in a matter of minutes. She sees him exchange a nod with the other Praetorian before the door shuts again behind him. He carries a steel pail with liquid sloshing within, a bundle of fabric and bandages in his other hand. When he sits beside her again, the first thing he does is submerge a cup into the pail of water and hand it to her.
Furiosa drinks ravenously, the touch of cold water on her tongue nearly sweet enough to bring tears to her eyes. As she lowers the empty cup from her lips, she watches Jack shake out a rag and drop it into the pail of water. He withdraws it, rings it out, then presses the wet fabric gently to her brow.
Furiosa nearly whimpers with relief at the soothing touch of cold water. Jack submerges the cloth again, then brings it back to her face, dabbing away the sweat and dirt. He at last presses the cloth to the side of her neck, careful not to let any stray drops slip down the back of her neck to the brand site. She hums in appreciation, stretching her neck towards the cool press of the water. Jack dunks the rag into the cold water one last time, then places it in her hand, letting her hold it where she wills.
Then, she watches him unwind a length of gauze and bandages.
“One good thing about a wound like this: little risk of infection,” he says, moving to position himself behind her so he can dress the burn.
Furiosa squeezes her eyes shut, ready for a fresh wave of pain. She shifts the cool rag to the other side of her neck and tries to distract herself.
“How long did yours take to heal?”
“A few weeks, give or take,” he answers. “Bastard kept getting enflamed during runs.”
Her fingers tighten around the rag as she feels Jack place a layer of gauze over the brand. She holds her breath as his steady hands tape down the edges of the dressing, as he adds a second layer, then a third, to protect the raw skin from chafing.
As he affixes the final bandage, he says, “I have a feeling you won’t sit out the next few runs, even if I try to talk you into it.”
“Your feeling’s right,” she responds quickly, biting back a brief, miraculous breath of levity.
She feels his thumb taking its time to smooth out the final corner, the final strip of bandage. Feels his touch linger where the bandages give way to bare skin.
“Just… we’ll play it careful, alright? We’ll take extra war boys for defense. You’ll drive, so you won’t have to move around so much.”
“You got through it just fine.”
“I never said the healing process was a joy. And besides… I had no other choice.”
His touch still hasn’t left her skin. His fingertips skim along her right shoulder blade – a tiny traveler cresting a great dune.
He was alone, then – Furiosa completes the thought in her head. Now we’re not.
To him, that seems to mean she shouldn’t push herself. To her, that means the very opposite. It means there’s no better place in the world to heal than at his side.
“Jack?”
He seems jolted from a reverie, his hands at last leaving her skin. She tries (and fails) not to mourn their absence. “Hm?”
“You mentioned a deal before. What was it?”
He sighs, keeps quiet for a moment. After a beat, he drags his stool around to her side again so she can see his face. Wordlessly, he takes the cloth from her hands and slips it into the water, returning it to her hands when it’s cool again. He glances at the door, confirming it’s still sealed. Confirming they’re well and truly alone.
“I know you have your own reasons for taking this on. Just like I know the Citadel isn’t where you’re meant to stay. For you, ‘Praetorian’ isn’t meant to be permanent.”
Why does it feel so strange, when he speaks of their own bargain? Their own deal struck in secret – their shared, private understanding that she doesn’t work for Immortan Joe; she works in service to herself and the day she’ll have the skills and supplies she needs to leave the Citadel behind.
What is this ache that grows in her, whenever they speak of it?
“What did you bargain with?” she asks, apprehensive.
Jack sighs again, crosses his arms over his chest. “When I took you on, I made a deal with the Immortan. Two Praetorians for the price of one. One brand, one Praetorian’s rations between the two of us.”
Furiosa breathes in, low and sharp. “Jack. No.”
She’d noticed, of course. All the mornings he told her he’d already eaten, all the evenings when he’d been absent from the mess hall. But she’d never suspected this was the reason.
Jack shrugs, looking away. “It’s far more than one person needs anyway.”
“But it sure as hell isn’t enough for two.”
“It was just for now. For as long as I keep training you. But that brand…” Jack shakes his head, heaves a quiet, aborted curse. “That brand is forever.”
Furiosa huffs, straightens where she sits. “The brand is just a mark. It’s no different than the clothes we wear, the guns we carry, the grease paint on our fucking skin. It’s no different. But this… How could you think I’d want something if it was stolen from you?”
“Nothing was ‘stolen,’ Fury. I gave it. I traded it freely, for you. For your skill keeping the engines humming, for your sharp eye covering my back. I never regretted it for a second. All this time, I thought I’d cheated the deal, really.”
There’s a deeper sense of confusion, of awe buzzing within her. She can hardly fit the confounding force of it into words.
You told me yourself the day we met: this is the Wasteland. And yet you did something like this, before you even knew me. You fed me with the food meant for you. The food most people would kill for.
You accepted hunger in a place of plenty, just to spare me from pain.
And all this time, I never would have known.
For a moment, it’s hard for her to swallow. Hard to breathe. There’s a great pressure building within her chest. That ache again – the one she has no idea what to do with.
She sniffs, plucking at her pantleg for a moment. “So what now?”
“Now?” Jack echoes.
Furiosa tries to meet his gaze, but finds she can’t. Her eyes land on his hands instead, folded against his chest. The place where he held her through the worst of it.
“I have the brand. Does that mean my training’s complete?”
Jack takes a great, heaving breath. She watches his chest rise and fall with it.
“I suppose that’s up to us, isn’t it? Like you said, it’s just a mark.”
Her mouth quirks before she can stop it. “Do you still have things to teach me?”
He breathes out a soft, half-formed hint of a laugh. He uncrosses his arms and leans towards her, elbows bracketed against his knees. “Let’s be honest with each other. I ran out of things to teach you a long time ago.”
That’s the moment when Furiosa has to look into his eyes. When she couldn’t do anything but. They’re exceptionally warm, his gaze the soft blue-green of a clear morning full of promise. Traces of a smile tug at the edges of his mouth. Not for the first time, Furiosa’s fingers itch to trace the soft lines beneath his eyes.
Oh, how she’s come to cherish their rare appearances.
“I guess it wouldn’t make sense to set out on any great journeys before I’m healed.” She tries to keep her tone casual, but she can hear the hint of a matching smile in her own voice, too. “Besides, why leave before I even have a chance to enjoy the perks?” She gestures vaguely towards the brand.
“Well, it’ll certainly help you access the supplies you’ll need. I can help you store up some of our daily water rations, the non-perishable foodstuff too.”
“Just mine, Jack. No more taking what’s yours.”
“I don’t see a lot of difference between the two,” he says with a shrug. “Besides, how do you know I haven’t started stockpiling what I could for whenever you eventually need it?”
She falls quiet again. How easily he offers help beyond price. How effortlessly he turns everything she thought she understood about the world utterly upside down.
Somehow, because of him, even this day of her branding will hold something sweet to build a memory upon - a balm to soothe and counteract the scorching press of the iron.
He shifts in his seat, moving to stand. She reaches out quickly, stilling him with a hand on his arm. He immediately goes still, watching her with attentive patience.
Furiosa’s cresting understanding nearly strikes her speechless. She’s suspected for some time already, but only now is the truth at last clear to her. Undeniable and so bittersweet in her chest.
There’s isn’t a single thing in this world she couldn’t ask of him. Nothing would ever be too much, too difficult, too arduous.
Her hand skims up his arm and over his shoulder, coming to rest at the side of his neck. His startled eyes flutter, his lips parting on a hitched breath as she briefly cups his face, her thumb stroking the stubble along his jaw.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
Such small, unassuming words. Woefully deficient, even as the very act of speaking them seems to ring with danger. As if she’s tempting fate, in this meager effort to name something intangible and so very, very precious.
Jack’s mouth quirks around a brief, true smile. He reaches up to take her hand in his own, holds it still as he presses his lips firmly to the back. His gaze holds hers, and Furiosa briefly forgets the very idea of danger, of any manner of pain at all. For what could touch the two of them? What could ever vanquish this?
“What do you say we go find supper?” he says. “It was a hard run today.”
She nods. She doesn’t let herself question how it could be that she feels so light, so invincible, even as the brand keeps throbbing a steady reminder of its presence. In this life, she’s learned to keep every tender sprout of joy close to her heart, and never to doubt its power.
When he offers her a steadying hand, she takes it. She holds on for a moment, making sure her legs remain stable beneath her as she stands. Even once she’s sure of her balance, she holds onto him for a moment more. Just one moment more.
Yes, it only makes sense to stay in the Citadel for a while longer. Until her neck has healed and she’s built up a cache of supplies to keep her going for a solid three days’ travel east.
And after that… who is to say? She wonders, for the first time, whether she and Jack’s partnership isn’t wholly independent of this place. Whether the way they fight together, the way Jack makes sacrifices for her in a way she can hardly comprehend, isn’t the single brightest guiding star in her sky.
As they sit down to their meals, she sneaks a thick slice of carrot from her plate onto his when he isn’t looking. He casts her a look of suspicion when her single piece of meat free of fat and gristle mysteriously migrates onto his plate. He simply sighs, his mouth a small, resigned smile, and pops it into his mouth.
“We’re not making a habit of this,” he insists, all mock sternness.
Furiosa shrugs. Yet deep down within, she can’t help wondering:
Oh, but what if we could?