Chapter Text
She didn't know if she would ever trust him.
How she could ever trust anyone in the Citadel, or any of the other wasteland bastions. Not after what she had been through.
Furiosa's mind surged with adrenaline, but it made no difference right now; not sat, as she was, curled into the furthest corner of the war rig's passenger seat as the Praetorian Jack hurtled them down the Fury Road.
She steeled her gaze ahead, but her mind was racing.
He hadn't said anything to her yet, not after telling her to keep the gun. That in itself had wound her up, and she ground her teeth together. What was he gearing for?
When he had turned his back on her and strode over the ridge towards the rig, it had taken her a moment before she beat the hesitation out of herself and slunk after him.
No matter how close her dream of The Green Place had been to fruition, close enough to touch, to taste, to smell the scent of freshly picked peaches, she would not give it up. Even if what this man was saying was a trick, Furiosa was not an idiot.
Walking away from him then would have been a death sentence, left out on the scorched desert with nothing but her own skin and a maimed leg.
She had watched her feet pull her along as if in third person before hauling herself into the cab. A tear pricked at her eye angrily, but Furiosa shook it off, refusing to let that emotion wriggle its way deeper. Her grimy fingernails dug little bloodied moons into her palms as she allowed the emotion to morph into rage. The blinding, all-encompassing fury (grief? No, not grief, she shook her head) she had felt as the motorbike stowed under the rig had been ripped out of her bare hands.
The Praetorian had started the engines as soon as she had shut the passenger door, not sparing her another glance as he ran through the initiation sequence and pulled the rig back up to speed.
It had been a little over 10 minutes sat in the relative silence now. Furiosa pulled one of her knees closer to her chest, lifting her injured leg out of the rig's footwell to bring some relief from the throbbing ache. Chancing a glance towards the driver, she felt her breathing slow.
The Praetorian Jack. She knew him. Well, she had seen him before at least.
When the rig had been finally finished, he had come down to the engine room to inspect it himself. Furiosa had busied herself as she always did, burying herself in the anonymity of menial tasks and keeping her head down to avoid attention. Attention was bad, attention was dangerous, especially for her.
She'd been drawn to look up when the usual hubub of the House of Holy Motors had risen, piquing her interest. For a Praetorian, he was strange.
Quiet for one, yes, but as he had strode over to the rig, his walk was purposeful and strong. His dark marked forehead and slicked back hair were striking as he had sized up the vehicle, running light fingers along the polished metal sides.
He commanded attention to him even in his silence, and when Furiosa first let her eyes glance over him that day she thought he was just like all the other power-hungry Praetorians - his lip curled up in a cruel sneer as he looked in distaste at the maggots he commanded.
War boys and war pups scurried around, vying to serve him, the great 'Prae Jack'.
But now, as her eyes welled to extract some of the hazy dust making its way into the grumbling cab, she realised it wasn't quite that.
His lids were only half held up, the weight of exhaustion clearly present but held back in a way that left no doubt he would get the rig back to the Citadel, no matter what. And his mouth... oh.
A pale scar marred his cheek, stretching down to carve into his upper lip, pulling at it slightly. Not a sneer, then Furiosa mused.
Cautious of being caught looking, she ripped her eyes away from him, dragging them back to the horizon and the tiny black speck of the city coming into vision.
It didn't matter what kind of person he was, she realised. So what if his sneer wasn't a sneer, she didn't trust him further than she could shake a stick. There was no such thing as kindness out here; if it was too good to be true then you'd probably be dead before the day was out.
That was just how things worked. Furiosa had learned that the day her own mother had made the mistake of showing empathy.
Furiosa rapidly span through plans in her head. Judging by their speed, they would be back at the Citadel in less than two hours.
Automatically, her hands folded the weapon clutched in her fingers and span the chamber, spying two bullets left in it. A thin, burned strand of her hair caught on the weapon's edge, and Furiosa went to tuck it into her top by habit before stopping herself sharply.
The gig was up now, and there was no going back to it, to pretending to be a boy. Heat began to flood her chest again as the rage building in her threatened to seep through.
She would not go back to that vault.
She seethed, almost feeling her teeth bare themselves at the thought.
She would sooner put a bullet through Immortan Joe and then herself than let anyone in that godforsaken place touch her.
'You won't get that anywhere near him before you're taken down, you know.'
The voice came from the driver, calm and low, only just about loud enough to be heard over the roaring of the engine.
Furiosa startled, his voice dragging her out of her head and thrusting her back into the moment. When she made no response, he cleared his throat and spoke again, but made no attempts to turn and look at her. His eyes remained trained dead ahead.
'You have two bullets. The route to Immortan Joe's council is as long as it is well staffed. The guards will strip you of your weapons before you even step foot on the staircase up.' The words came out of him consistently, like facts laid out easy for anyone to see. Furiosa stiffened, the hairs on her arm bristling, but he continued.
'I am going to ask for you to be stationed on my crew. You shoot well, and now Black Thumb is gone I'll need a replacement for him as well. I'll train you for it, and you'll work with me until you're ready to go.'
This time he did turn and look at Furiosa, his pale eyes catching hers as she turned slightly to face him. He had a strange look, not as maddened as the war boys she had been surrounded by daily. He'd also said she would work 'with' him, not for him.
Furiosa wasn't stupid, she knew how the chain of command worked in the Citadel, and this man was a Praetorian. She was a Dogman... if that anymore.
Furiosa looked at him properly this time, trying to pierce through whatever he had going on to the truth underneath. He held her gaze, but the only thing she could see was unwavering dedication. Dedication to what, she wasn't sure. To the Immortan? She didn't know, hadn't studied the Praetorian enough yet to figure it out from his eyes alone... But somehow it didn't seem likely. So, what then?
He broke the eye contact first, as if sensing her stare becoming critical, and turned easily back to the horizon stretching ahead of them.
Furiosa stirred, her voice breaking slightly as she tried to speak at a normal volume, hoarse after years of disuse only to shout at him earlier. The question couldn't be avoided, however.
'What of the vault?'
He didn't respond immediately, but his eyes flickered at her with something like surprise, or maybe recognition, before it was quickly squashed and he squinted slightly in thought. Furiosa felt her stomach crawling, felt the knowing twangs of fear that she had managed to stifle and suffocate enough before grip her now.
'Have you bled?' The Praetorian's question wasn't necessarily unexpected, but Furiosa felt her chest heat in shame nonetheless as his words crossed the cab. She stayed silent, turning back to look angrily at the horizon.
She heard him sigh quietly. It irritated her greatly.
'I'll take that as a yes' he murmured, turning thoughtful. 'It'll be hard to convince Joe to put a full life woman on the war rig'
'How do you know I'm full life?' Furiosa heard herself snap, not intending to speak again but the words ripping from her anyway.
The Praetorian only turned to look at her, slowly raising one of his dark eyebrows as if to say 'Really?'.
His gaze never strayed anywhere other than her eyes before turning back to face the road again, but Furiosa's skin burned.
Hating herself for the feeling, she subtly pulled at her leathers. The rags at her shoulders that had previously covered her form were missing, but worse still was the long rip in the fabric of her neck revealing the smooth, albeit grimy skin of her collarbone underneath.
Before she could wrap herself tighter, he spoke again, a strange lilt to his tone.
'We will say you are barren.' he started, fingers gripping the wheel infinitesimally tighter than a second before. 'That your insides are twisted and no good for his purposes. We will take a trip to the Organic Mechanic before we report to Joe so that his silence can be assured. I will vouch for your skill and the necessity for a strong crew to be selected now that my original are all dead.'
Furiosa tensed, realising her life would be in his hands as soon as they set foot into the citadel. There was no way around it.
'Will it be enough?' Furiosa ground out, leaning forward in her seat slightly to slow the roiling of her stomach.
When the Praetorian didn't respond, she leaned forward properly and twisted her whole body towards him, slamming her fist onto the dashboard with force. Her eyes bored angrily into the side of his face, the question sitting heavily in the air as he remained stoically watching the road, not so much as flinching at her sudden violence.
The fingertips of her other hand dug into the knife that she had taken from him to kill the Mortifier; maybe she would end up taking her chances with the desert in the end anyway.
It might have only been a second, maybe it was minutes, Furiosa couldn't tell with the adrenaline pumping through her veins, but finally, he spoke.
'It will have to be'.
Furiosa slowly withdrew her hand from the dashboard and sat back into her seat, suddenly very weary.
////
The Citadel crept up on them before the sun set, no other trouble having hassled them on the last leg of their journey. The Praetorian had made a few other comments as they drove, filling out their arrival plan, but Furiosa only listened in silence.
As the rig swung with practiced ease onto the lifting platform, it was only then that the Praetorian turned to her again, his eyes having taken on a steely hardness.
'I will do the talking. Stay silent and follow me closely. Do not look at anyone, do not make eye contact unless the Immortan speaks to you directly.'
His words were firm, unyielding. Strong. They spoke to the gravity of their situation that Furiosa was only too aware of.
He didn't look away this time as he had when she had remained silent before, and his eyes felt like they were piercing her. She forced herself to nod once, the subservience of it all grinding at her insides as she tightened her hold of her mute persona.
The Praetorian turned back to the door, but he hesitated momentarily, and it made Furiosa glance towards him, watching the leather on his back ride up slightly.
'What is your name? What do I call you?' he asked, the tone somewhat softer than she had heard him speak up until now.
She didn't know what to do with that, and just stared at him, silent, the whites of her eyes flashing.
He didn't wait long this time before he sighed and turned back to reach the door handle. He spoke quietly, almost as if just to himself. 'Well, seems you won't have any problem with the 'silent' part'.
She clearly hadn't finished stuffing all of herself into her muted persona yet as her mouth opened and the word tumbled out.
'Furiosa'.
He stilled, one hand on the door handle but not having opened it yet.
'Furiosa' he repeated, rolling the name slowly along his tongue.
Goosebumps ran up her arm as her hairs stood on end, not having heard her name spoken aloud in years. She felt her back straighten subconsciously as she let her eyes rake over his darkened form in the shadows of the cab.
'Jack' came his own name, as free as water over stone as he pushed open the door and slipped from the cab. The expectation of her to follow him was left hanging over her.
Steeling her nerves with one sharp intake of breath, she flipped her own door handle and slid to the floor, putting her weight onto her good leg.
The Praetorian, Jack, stood there, having walked around the front of the rig to quietly appraise her. His eye flicked to her wounded ankle as she landed, assessing something in his brain.
Feeling herself bristle, Furiosa took a step forward, ignoring the pain. She would bear it for now, and slink away somewhere quiet and alone to wrap it later. The necessity to prove she wasn't vulnerable and weak was overwhelming, and her eyes drilled into him, goading him to say something.
He said nothing, however, which somehow made Furiosa angrier than if he had.
Before any further silent conversation had a chance to happen between them, war boys started piling into the chamber. They were loud and rowdy, distractedly chatting amongst themselves as they approached the rig to begin unloading the spoils.
Furiosa flinched slightly, suddenly all too aware again of her loose hair, her ripped clothing, her... Herself. Unhidden. Female.
She tensed, straightening up to stare directly at Jack. Only at him. He lifted his eyes and met her gaze, holding it still.
She hadn't made this much eye contact with anyone in a long time. His eyes were green, she realised. She felt her hand slide lower as she gripped her knife tighter.
The war boys chatter suddenly died away, and was replaced by quiet murmurings that began building up again, excited tones overlapping each other.
"Prae Jack, what have you got there?"
"Prae Jack, where did you find it?"
"Is it a girl?"
"Does it have a-"
The crowd cut each other off, drawing closer, the whitened skin of the war boys swirling and gathering in circles around them, pursuing closer like a pack of hungry dogs tightening on a kill. A single arm began to reach out closer to Furiosa, and her fingers slipped deeper into her pocket to secure her grip on the knife, preparing to draw it out, to fight, to shed blood, to ki-
Jack turned sharply towards the offending figure and the arm froze in space.
"Unload the rig." Jack's voice wasn't loud but it boomed across the room, and the command in it was undeniable.
The boys nearest to them scrambled to their feet again and rushed to their stations, eyes darting to Furiosa again but unable to ignore their Praetorian.
Jack continued to bark out commands, pointing out damage on the rig that need to be fixed and instructing the war boys and gearheads, but kept his body planted unmovingly next to her.
One war boy approached him directly to ask a question, stopping a meter away and fiddling with a mechanism in his hands. Although his hands were occupied, Furiosa could feel the war boy's eyes pulling at her skin, and could see in her peripheral vision his jaw hanging open as he finished his question and took the opportunity to gawp at her up close.
She kept her eyes trained on Jack, and because of that it was impossible to miss the way his stance widened, one foot sliding almost imperceptibly in her direction. His body positioned itself slightly more between them, not enough to be obvious but a clear enough sign to the boy in front of them.
The war boy gulped suddenly, his brow furrowing as he dropped his gaze to the floor and threw his hands up in the V8 formation, fingers linked above his head.
Having received his instructions, the boy quickly scurried off to where he had been sent.
Jack looked towards Furiosa once, before issuing her own command.
'Come.'
It was the same tone he had taken with the boys, controlling his authority with precision. Nothing like the way he had spoken in the cab. A display, Furiosa distantly thought.
She didn't need to be told twice. His eyes had looked weary when they had laid on her, and she masked her limp as best she could as she fell in line behind him.
Furiosa had been under no illusions of his rank before now, having seen various Praetorians lording their status and swaggering about, but seeing this man put it to its true purpose was... Something.
No, she didn't trust him. Not one bit. But the illusion of choice was shattered for her - he was the only way forward here, the only sliver of hope to find a way out.
To coast in the wake of his power until the moment he betrayed her, when she would make him beg for mercy at her feet.