Work Text:
Red Revolution
By the time Jane trailed Barnes to the outbuilding he was already dead. As dead as anyone got without a little help to send them all the way past the gates of Hades. He was working himself up to doing just that when a soft step caused him to spin around in a panic. The steel spike slid from his nerveless fingers as a large figure stepped into the room.
Teddy Wallace was dishevelled, bloody and very frightened. His clothing was torn and his arm was bleeding heavily. That couldn’t be good. Not in a world where any wound could get you spiked to preserve the safety of the group.
Human screams still pierced the darkness and just on the edge of hearing, the hungry moans of the walking dead.
Teddy was gasping for air, eyes darting everywhere, searching for any threat. His gaze fell on Barnes, on his torn throat gleaming pale in the murderous moonlight. Jane tried not to look at the large bloody knife in Teddy’s hand. The knife trembled a little as it pointed accusingly at Jane. “You! You got us into this mess. You got him killed.”
He took a menacing step towards Jane. “ I told him it was all bullshit but Barnes wouldn’t listen. You got into his ear. Filth. Worm. Scavenger.” A step accompanied each word, a jab of the knife accompanied each step.
Jane very badly didn’t want to die like this. Knifed and left to become one of them, a mindless parody of life. Sometimes it seemed as if this apocalypse had been called up as antithesis of all he was, all he stood for. He fell back before Teddy and wished Lisbon was there. She’d protect him, or at the very least spare him that final indignity with a clean bullet to the head.
Jane retreated until his back was pressed against a crumbling wall. His breath was as short as Wallace’s, two men gasping, a dirty knife all that stood between them. Jane cast around for something that might buy him a little time. There was nothing. Shreds of trash, old excrement in the corner, a broken toy lightsabre. The random detritus of a broken world.
Beyond all hope a shotgun barrel poked around the corner, followed by the protruding belly of a heavily pregnant Teresa Lisbon. Jane nearly collapsed in relief. “Lisbonnnn!”
Teddy spun around and lunged without thinking. Lisbon shot coolly from the hip, a blasting him to the ground before he moved a step.
Jane began babbling in relief as Lisbon stalked forward and plunged a knife into Teddy’s thick skull. She moved over to Barnes’s body and the knife hesitated for a long second, then rose and fell again. Two efficient sweeps wiped the knife clean and another sheathed it. Job done, the shotgun swung back up to sweep the room before being slung over her shoulder.
They stared at each other, breathing audibly in the darkness as screams sounded all around them. Eyes darting across each other’s bodies, checking for wounds, for possible bites… Lisbon moved her head subtly; could this have been done in a less bloody way? Jane’s shoulders gave an infinitesimal shrug. He’d done the best he could. It wasn’t pretty, but then nothing was anymore.
They took the time to really look at each other, to trace the mark of many months of hardship on each other’s faces. They’d been effectively apart for a long time and much was unsaid; would remain unsaid. Lisbon understood why Jane had engineered the death of Barnes, flawed leader of Sanctuary and father of her child.
Likewise Jane understood why Lisbon had entered into alliance with Barnes in the first place. An arrangement that brought a measure of safety for their small group after Hightower and her faction split. Lisbon bought it with her own body as pledge of unity, a union of convenience. As society collapsed the old feudal ways returned.
Long hard months for both of them. Lisbon sharing the bed of a man too pig headed to listen to sensible advice. Jane banished to the outer circle for lesser men can stand no rivals. Only the mentalist’s talent for scavenging gave him some standing in the group.
They became aware of the noises outside. Lisbon motioned towards the door. It was time to return to the safety of the enclave. Jane placed a hand on her arm. “You’ll make a much better leader than Barnes.” Part affirmation, part apology.
Lisbon nodded. There was no place left for false modesty. “I’ll need your help…” Her hand drifted protectively down to her belly, “with raising my child.”
Jane looked at her with a mixture of affection and regret. “He’ll be our child”.
Lisbon’s jaw tightened with emotion. It was not in Jane to father a child with her or anyone; yet he he would give her anything else she needed. The apocalypse had failed to change him; cowardice and courage, and just a hint of greatness. He’d hated Barnes yet would raise his child as his own.
In an ideal world she would have told him how much she loved him as a friend. How much it meant to have him by her side as she struggled to keep her tiny spark of new life alive. Instead she drew her dagger and plunged it into the skull of the zombie that tried to reach Jane through a broken window. Because this wasn’t a perfect world, and the dead walked and sooner or later they'd most likely join them.
Lisbon took a deep steadying breathe as Jane looked his thanks. She took his hand firmly in her own and led him back towards Sanctuary. It’s what she’d always done and not even the end of the world would stop her.