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“The Snatchers,” Craw says. “Prae Jack’s gone to find the Snatchers.”
Furiosa is going to kill Jack for this, but first she needs to save his life. She turns back to Craw. “I need you to prep one of the convoy’s pursuit vehicles.”
Craw gives an apologetic grimace. “Prae Jack took them, sir.”
“Then get me one of the bikes,” she says. “A quiet one. Load it up with—”
“Praetorian Furiosa. Going somewhere?”
Shit. That’s the last voice she wants to hear right now. Furiosa grits her teeth as she turns to face Scrotus. “Going to catch up with Praetorian Jack’s scouting mission, sir.”
Scrotus frowns. “On whose orders? I don’t remember telling you to go anywhere.”
She does her best to keep her tone even. “We work as a team, sir. The Snatchers are a dangerous—”
“You don’t think Prae Jack can handle it on his own?” Scrotus snorts. “I’m not wasting two praetorians on another scout party. Jack wanted this job for himself. If he kills the bastards and gets the glory, great. If he gets himself killed, then you’re top dog on the War Rig. Either way, nothing for you to sulk about.”
Furiosa wonders how long she’d last if she punched Scrotus in his smug face right now. She could probably get a few good hits in before the War Boys pulled her off him. But she’s far too outnumbered to make a getaway, and then that means no chance of getting to Jack. Even if he does somehow survive, she’d be dead or locked in the Vault before he even made it back to the Citadel. Even so, her fist is still itching with the urge to swing for the Immortan’s son.
She must not be doing the best job of hiding her expression. “And don’t fucking look at me like that,” Scrotus says. “Know your place. If you’ve got nothing better to do, get down to the cells and take over for Geo. Stupid smeg claims he’s poisoned himself eating dodgy maggots again.”
Furiosa watches as Scrotus stalks away through the House of Holy Motors, her nails digging into her palms. She could wait until he’s gone, then try to steal the bike herself. But half the House has just heard him yelling at her, and given the speed that gossip travels in this place, the other half will find out before she can even get to the lift. She’s stuck.
Craw sidles up next to her, fidgeting with the wrench in his hands. “He’ll be fine, Prae Furiosa,” he whispers. “Prae Jack’ll come up shine, I know it.”
Once again, Furiosa curses Jack for making her feel like a damn fool. She’s spent years hiding every trace of emotion from the outside world. Now how she’s feeling is so obvious that even the War Boys are trying to cheer her up.
“He’d better,” she snarls, and then she storms off towards the cells.
As he drives back towards the Citadel, the stars bright in the sky above him, Jack feels an overwhelming sense of relief.
Every choice he made today was a massive risk, but somehow, it all seems to have paid off. He and the rest of his little party couldn’t have timed their assault on the Snatcher camp any better. Most of the scavs were out on some other business — harassing any stray biker gangs coming out of Gastown, maybe, or scouring the Wasteland for other targets — and the place was practically wide open. Runt blew a hole in the stockade with a well-thrown thunderstick, and then they were in.
The Snatchers fought them tooth and nail as they approached the cave, but at some point they decided it was a lost cause and detonated their own tunnels. Which means an end to the Snatcher labs and whoever was still inside them — Jack guesses Scrotus’s chances of interrogating the mysterious Pharmacyst are gone for good — but also hopefully means an end to the Snatcher threat.
And, even better, they’ve managed to do it without anyone going to Valhalla. Runt and Crank each took a few bullets, thankfully in non-fatal locations, and Cam’s got a nasty burn that’ll need treatment. But he and Furiosa have trained the War Boys well, and today they shone under pressure. Jack knows that some praetorians would have encouraged the injured men to spray their chrome and be witnessed, partly to amplify the supposed glory of the battle and partly so they didn’t have to deal with the hassle of treating the injuries later on. He’s glad that Runt, Crank and Cam chose to fight another day instead.
Now they’re heading back to the Citadel with a full crew and more vehicles than they set out with, each one loaded up with salvaged booty — guns, engine parts, tarps, batteries, and even a few stray bits of lab equipment Jack found in the back of an old station wagon. Enough to bring glory to the Immortan, but — more importantly — enough to get the Organic Mechanic off Furiosa’s back.
Jack doesn’t like that he had to lie to Furiosa. She’s going to be unhappy with him for tricking her like that. But he figured there was a good chance of the plan going sideways, and he decided he’d rather live with her being angry than live with her being dead.
Hopefully she’ll understand.
“Prae Furiosa!”
Furiosa hears Craw long before she sees him — the War Boy comes clattering down the stairs with all the subtlety of the Doof Wagon. He’s breathing heavily when he bursts into the cells. “Prae Furiosa! Prae Jack’s back!”
She’s had a full day of leaning against the stone walls and waiting, and her eyelids had been starting to slip ever so slightly. But now she’s up and ready, adrenaline pumping. “Is he…”
“He’s shine, Prae Furiosa!” Craw says breathlessly. “They’re saying he killed the Snatchers and blew up their camp. Brought back the booty and the whole scout party too.”
“Keep watch here, Craw,” she says, and the War Boy nods. “I’ll be back soon.”
Furiosa can hear the blood rushing in her ears as she hurries up towards the House of Holy Motors. Despite Craw’s words, she knows she won’t believe Jack’s actually fine until she sees him. If he’s not okay, she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
And if he is okay, well… she doesn’t know what she’s going to do then either.
She takes a moment to catch her breath and then walks into the House of Holy Motors. The place is buzzing with activity. The pursuit cars are back, along with several vehicles that still bear the white markings of the Snatchers. They’re swarming with excited War Boys and blackthumbs, all eager to see the booty or boast about their part in winning it. She spots a few of the crew helping Runt towards the Organic Mechanic. The War Boy’s arm is streaked with blood, but he still attempts to give her a wave before wincing.
And then, in the middle of the commotion, she finally sees Jack.
Furiosa’s first impulse is to look him over for injuries. Are his shoulders hunched in pain? How is he standing — is he favouring one leg over the other? He’s speaking to Scrotus, but when he takes a few steps to the side to point at one of the Snatcher vehicles, his gait is normal — no evidence of a limp. There’s some new grime on his face, but no sign of blood. His posture seems relaxed, and his arms are hanging easily at his sides. Nothing’s being clutched or held or pressed.
Jack looks over and meets her eyes, and the corner of his mouth ticks up. She knows that if they were alone right now, that little hint of a smile would be a full-on grin.
He’s fine. He’s absolutely fine.
And she’s absolutely fuming.
Scrotus heads off to look over the newly-acquired vehicles with the High Master Blackthumb. Furiosa watches Jack as he’s briefly mobbed by congratulations from War Boys not chosen for the mission. But eventually the crowd thins, and there’s nobody else standing between them.
Jack casually wanders over to her, that little smile still on his face. She stands there frozen, unable to take her eyes off him.
“I got some booty for the Organic Mechanic,” he says in a low voice. “Told him to leave you—”
Furiosa turns on her heel and walks away.
Jack watches Furiosa walk away from him and tells himself that he expected this. He knows he probably deserves her silence. But he’s also hopeful that it won’t last.
Scrotus decides against waking the Immortan to share the news of the fight with the Snatchers and tells Jack to report to him the next day instead. But there’s still plenty of work to be done. He has to make sure all the salvaged lab equipment gets up to the Organic Mechanic’s rooms, and then he has to check on his injured crew and make sure everyone’s getting the stitches and the bandages that they need. By the time he gets back to the dormitory, it’s almost morning.
Furiosa is lying on her bedroll, curled up on her side. Her back is turned to him. As Jack gets closer, he realises she’s not actually asleep — the breathing is all wrong — but he’s still as quiet as possible as he lies down next to her and pulls his blanket up over his shoulders.
When he wakes up a few hours later to report to the Immortan, Furiosa is already gone. Jack figures he’ll find her again soon — if not in the mess hall, then in the House of Holy Motors, or in the armoury.
But for the next few days, she’s like a ghost. Every room he walks into seems to be the one she’s just left. He ends up having to relay messages to her through the War Boys (“Craw, can you tell Prae Furiosa that the transmission on the rear pursuit vehicle has been fixed?”) and he knows the obvious rift between them must be the talk of the crew. He gets to the dormitory in the evening and finds her lying there with her back towards him again, and when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks she’s moved her bedroll a few inches away from his.
Again, Jack tells himself that he expected this. Furiosa’s got every right to be mad at him for tricking her. But at the same time, the Snatchers are dead and the Organic Mechanic’s backed off. Furiosa’s position at the Citadel is safe, or at least safer than it would have been otherwise. Maybe this is just the price he’ll have to pay for that.
That doesn’t mean he enjoys it.
By the third day, he’s really starting to doubt whether he made the right choice. They were already keeping their distance from each other before he left to fight the Snatchers — aside from that emotional moment up in the cliffs where she told him about her time in the biodome — but at least she was speaking to him then. At least he got to see her face and not just her hunched shoulders turned away from him at night, or the briefest flash of her hair as she slips out of the room.
But tomorrow they’re driving to Gastown. She’s not going to ditch him for that. And it’ll just be the two of them in the cab of the War Rig, all day long.
Maybe she’ll talk to him then.
As with the last few mornings, Jack wakes up to find Furiosa’s bedroll already packed up. When he gets to the House of Holy Motors, she’s already with the War Rig, waiting. He starts to walk towards her, but she turns her eyes away from him.
By this point, they’ve done so many runs together that they don’t really need to speak anyway. They go through the usual motions of starting the run — confirming that the cargo has been loaded and the weapons have all been checked, making sure the crew is in position, lowering the War Rig’s cab and then its tanker all the way down to the base of the Citadel. Jack stands on the running board and gives the requisite speech to the crew. He considers throwing in a few comments about the defeat of the Snatchers, just to get them even more enthusiastic, but then he thinks of Furiosa sitting in the cab next to him and decides against it.
It’s a Gastown day, which means Furiosa is driving. She’s silent as she flicks through the kill switch, revs the twin engines and starts the War Rig rolling down the Fury Road.
“Should be a quiet day,” he says, thinking of the Snatchers again, then immediately kicks himself. “Less scavs to worry about, I mean.”
She doesn’t even blink.
Jack watches the horizon all the way to Gastown. Before they got on the road, he was looking forward to actually getting to be in the same space as her again. But the silence soon becomes more and more difficult to bear. Jack endures it all the way to Gastown, where they manage a smooth enough handover for the guzzoline. He makes chit-chat with Mr Davidson and eavesdrops on Furiosa speaking with the War Boys about the pumps, and feels relieved that she is at least talking to someone. But on the way back, realising she’s got every intention of going through the entire run without speaking to him, he snaps.
“Furiosa,” he says quietly. “Can we talk about this?”
She doesn’t reply, but he sees her grip on the Rig’s steering wheel tighten ever so slightly, her knuckles whitening under the dirt.
“I’m sorry I snuck out you,” he says. “It was a mean trick. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Furiosa’s eyes are still locked on the horizon.
“Fury, I—”
“Don’t call me that,” she says suddenly. “Don’t — just don’t.”
Jack's heart lifts. Even harsh words are still better than none. “I understand if you’re angry.”
“You lied,” she says, still not looking at him. “I don’t trust people, Jack. You know I don’t. You looked me in the eyes and you told me to wait for you, and you made me feel like a fucking idiot.”
He imagines Furiosa standing on the cliffs, watching his car draw a line of dust from the Citadel out towards the Snatcher camp. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
“I would have come after you if Scrotus didn’t show up,” she hisses. “It looked like I was running away. If Craw didn’t talk me down…” She trails off into an exasperated grunt.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that!” she says, her voice growing louder. “I didn’t ask you to do any of it!”
Jack glances back through the window at the back of the cab. There’s no sign of Craw or the other War Boys on duty there, but the scuffling sound below the window tells him that their conversation may be attracting some attention.
But Furiosa’s still going. “You left me in the dark. And then I spent all day thinking you were going to fucking die out there and there was nothing I could do about it. Scrotus told me I should be happy if you died, because then I’d get to drive the Rig alone.”
“That does sound like him,” Jack mumbles.
“I don’t want—” She cuts herself off, frustrated, but then she turns and looks Jack in the eyes, and he’s entranced. Furiosa’s gaze has always had this effect on him, ever since that day on the road when they locked eyes through the windscreen. Something about it makes his heart skip a beat. Sends electricity running down his spine.
But he’s also thoroughly upset at himself, because now he realises what’s really going on. Furiosa’s angry, but she’s also hurt. And Jack can cope with the first, but he definitely can’t live with the second.
“I trusted you,” she says, and her voice drops.
What an absolute fool he’s been. He was so busy thinking about solving her problems that he didn’t realise he’d be blowing up one of the few things she could count on.
Craw appears in the window. “Er, Prae Jack…”
“You still can,” Jack says.
“Sorry, uh, Prae Furiosa…”
“Furiosa,” Jack says. “I mean that.”
Craw loudly clears his throat. “Raiders, on the right!”
Both Jack and Furiosa immediately turn and stare out the window. Sure enough, there’s a group of vehicles approaching from behind the hills. Furiosa glances at him, her cheeks slightly flushed, and then she sounds the horn.
The battle is short, but violent. The scavs are the easiest sort of opponents they face out on the Fury Road — the sort who attack out of pure desperation, without any real preparation — and the crew makes short work of them. But when the fighting’s done, Furiosa goes quiet again all the way back to the Citadel. And when the lift finally takes them up into the House of Holy Motors, she gets out of the cab and slams the door without a single look back.
When Jack’s even later to bed that night than usual, Furiosa wonders if he’s avoiding her. He wouldn’t be the only one — the War Boys have been giving both of them a wide berth after their squabble in the Rig. At dinner, she sat at one end of the table and the crew bunched up at the other, shooting her nervous glances over the potatoes. Jack didn’t even show up at all.
The anger she feels towards him has subsided slightly since the afternoon. Furiosa can handle being angry. In some ways, rage is neat and straightforward — it gives her purpose and focus, brushes everything else to the side. But as it fades, it leaves room for other, more complicated feelings. Relief that the Snatchers have been dealt with. Relief the Organic Mechanic does seem to be leaving her alone. Relief that Jack is still alive.
She’s less sure what to do with the relief.
The unfortunate fact is that sleep isn’t going to come without Jack being there. She’s waited for him to bed down next to her for every one of these last few wordless nights, even with her back turned and her eyes closed. If he doesn’t show up, she’s going to be awake all night. And chances are, so is he — keeping himself busy in the House of Holy Motors, doing some form of self-imposed penance.
Maybe she’d better go look for him.
Furiosa sighs and gets up, grabbing her jacket and belt as she rises. She shrugs the jacket on but leaves the belt in her hand — she can put it on in the hallway so the jingle of the chains doesn’t wake anyone.
But when she steps out of the dormitory, Jack is there, clearly about to walk in. Both of them freeze in the doorway.
She runs her eyes over him again. His shoulders are slumped. He hasn’t shaved for a few days. The greasepaint around his eyes is smudged slightly, like he’s been trying to rub the tiredness away.
He looks like hell.
Furiosa softens.
“Up top?” she says quietly.
Jack’s heart is pounding as he makes his way through the narrow tunnels to their hidden spot on the cliffs. He wandered aimlessly around for at least fifteen minutes after Furiosa left, just to make sure they wouldn’t be seen heading in the same direction together. It only gave him more time to think about what he’s going to say to her up there. What she might say to him.
When he arrives, Furiosa’s sitting on a rock next to the little pool of water. She bolts upright at the sight of him, but her feet are bare — which makes him think she’s not planning on leaving immediately. Jack hesitates, but when Furiosa slowly sits down again, he cautiously walks over to join her.
Neither of them speak while he removes his own boots and socks and lowers his feet into the water, but Jack’s still glad to be doing it. It’s not the same sort of silence that they used to share sitting up here together, but at least it’s something. A start.
He stares at his own feet while he turns over the options for what to say in his mind, settling on none of them. Eventually he looks up and finds Furiosa is already staring at him.
It’s not the glare he got when he got back from the Snatcher camp, or the look of hurt he saw earlier in the Rig. Now she’s waiting for something.
Jack opens his mouth and hopes for the best.
“Furiosa… I shouldn’t have lied to you like that. I’m sorry. You — your trust means a lot to me, and I know I broke it.”
She keeps staring at him.
“I hate thinking I’ve hurt you like this. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.”
Furiosa takes a deep breath. “I need to be able to trust you.” She bites her lip. “Jack, I don’t… have that with anyone else. The trust.”
“You can,” he says. “I swear. The next stupid idea I get, I’m telling you first. Promise.”
They both go quiet again. But this time, the silence feels less fraught. More peaceful.
“I almost punched Scrotus while you were gone,” Furiosa says. “Partly because he was in my way. But also I just didn’t like him talking about you dying.”
Jack huffs. “Thanks. But I’m glad you didn’t.”
She looks down at her lap. “I hated it. Not knowing if you’d make it back.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again.
“I know.” She drags her foot through the surface of the water, making lazy spirals in the current.
“I just…” Jack hesitates. “I wanted to make sure you’d have your chance to go home.”
Furiosa looks up at him again, something new in her eyes. She frowns slightly — not an angry frown, but the frown that means she’s thinking about something — and then she stands up and wades the few steps across the pond until she’s standing between his knees.
When her hand reaches out to brush the edge of his jaw, Jack stops breathing.
“I know,” she says quietly, before she leans down and presses her lips to his. “I know.”