Work Text:
July 2034
“Ready... set... Go!”
The camp fam split off into the supermarket, their mismatched kids in tow, and Yaz doesn’t sprint ahead like she usually does. Grocery shopping — or, more accurately, Who Can Finish Their Food List The Fastest — is supposed to be fun, but from the way Yaz’s face scrunches on every step, Ben can tell she’s hurting. He knows the signs of pain, he sees them on his own face every day.
But Ben waits until they stop along the vegetable aisle, pushing himself closer to Yaz to ask, “Hey... Yaz?”
“Yeah?” Yaz bounces from one foot to the other, like a runner stuck in perpetual motion.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Why’d you ask?”
“Well, you just seem a little—”
“Oh! Cucumbers. That’s one off the list.” Yaz taps her phone screen, and it rewards her with a little beep.
“Come on!” Yaz beckons with her head, already heading for the next aisle. She sways on her feet, bracing herself against the shelf, and a stray lettuce falls loose.
Ben frowns after her, trying to push out the words that never seem to come: “are you really okay?”
“Yaz...” Ben approaches behind her, holding his daughter Katie securely on her lap as they pick up speed. “Is your ankle hurting?”
“No... only a little,” Yaz concedes, the sound slurring together.
“You can sit on my lap.”
“What about Katie?”
Ben tilts his head down to his Katie’s head. “Could you sit on Yaz’s lap, hun?”
“Yeah!” Katie nods happily.
Ben gives Yaz a look. One that says I know you’re in pain.
Yaz sees his face, scanning it with almost mathematical precision. She chooses to ignore it.
“What about Julieta?”
“She can... sit in the shopping cart.”
When she doesn’t reply, he says, firmer now, “Yaz, I really think you need to rest your ankle. Set a good example to your kids!”
“Ben, we just have to get through this. We’ll be, like, ten minutes and then I’ll sit down.” She brushes it off, like she’s good at. Like Ben knows she’s good at. “Now come on! Dairy aisle next!”
“I’m worried,” Ben says, no longer sugarcoating it. “And it’s bad for my heart.”
“Don’t pull that card, Ben.”
“I’m serious.” Ben reaches for her hand, and she snatches it away. “Sorry.”
“‘S fine.” Yaz shakes her head like a wet dog. “Dairy aisle.” She goes off, mumbling it to herself over and over, like she’s at risk of forgetting if she falters for even a second.
As Yaz sprints off, Julietta's little hand clutched in hers, Katie asks, “Is auntie Yaz okay?”
“That... is a good question, Kit-kat,” Ben says slowly. “And I’m not sure. She says she’s fine, but people don’t always say what they mean.”
Katie thinks for a while, her little face scrunched in confusion. “That isn’t good.” And after a moment, “Where’s my brother?”
“Xi is with daddy, Darius and Estrella. And your cousin Zara is with Sammy and Brooklynn.”
“Mkay. Are we gonna win?”
“If we hurry, we will!” Yaz says, appearing behind him and dumping a block of cheese in the shopping trolley attached to Ben’s wheelchair. “Julie’s gonna help me get some snacks, okay?”
“Oh, look after—” Ben almost says to Julieta, before biting his tongue. He can’t put that responsibility on a six year old. “Yourself,” he pathetically finishes.
“‘M fine,” Yaz says, but her smile falters.
Ben hasn’t spent nearly two decades of his life with Yaz for nothing. He knows she isn’t okay, that she must be in miles more pain — because it takes a mountain of it for Yaz to even let slip she’s in any pain at all.
“We’re just gonna wait here for a second,” Ben says, pulling over to the side so he isn’t in peoples’ way. “Gonna let the others know Yaz isn’t feeling her best.”
CAMP FAM ⛺🫶❤️6️⃣
Ben: Yaz is having a pain flare and being stubborn about it
Ben: She should be in the snacks aisle
Ben: Keep an eye out
He doesn’t expect any of them to reply — they are racing after all — but in five seconds, Sammy replies: i knew it!! she’s been limping all morning
Kenji adds: she always charges off before we say go, and she didn’t today
We’ll keep an eye out, Darius says, and Ben smiles and turns off his phone, shoving it into his dork pouch.
“Whaddya say we go get some burger buns for the barbeque, huh, Kay?”
“Yeah!” Katie squeals, overjoyed, as she zooms around on her dada’s lap. They get the burger buns, the lemonade, and burger relish — almost finishing their list.
They’re approaching the last item — the pickles — when a voice behind him yells, “Oi, Pincus!”
He stops, waiting for Yaz and Julieta to catch up.
“You ratted me out? To my wife?”
“I was worried!” Ben exclaims. “Can you really blame me?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Yaz’s face is too tired to be stormy. “We’re almost at the finish line.”
And now that Ben can see her, he realises she’s properly limping now, one foot dragging behind her.
They’re off Nublar, they have been for years. Adrenaline doesn’t need to constrict their throat and burn their veins like it does — but it’s there like a hammer that hit them too suddenly and deeply for them to spring back into shape. The thirty four year old Yaz could be fifteen, her ponytail swinging fiercely, a stubborn grit in her eyes, and Ben wouldn’t know the difference.
They make it to the checkout, and wait for the others. Yaz almost collapses against the till, and Ben can’t decide whether or not to be relieved or even more worried. She’s stopped hiding the pain now, and that means she’s either listening to her body, or her pain is much worse.
“Hey guys!” Darius calls, him and Kenji waving, little Xi riding on Kenji’s shoulders.
“Looks like you win,” Kenji says, teasingly flicking the rim of Ben’s baseball cap.
“Aw, last place?” Sammy exclaims.
“To be fair, they do have an advantage,” Brooklynn points out, motioning to Ben’s wheelchair. Zara sits calmly on her hip.
“Oh come on, we’re the only two people with mobility disabilities!”
“Speakin’ of, babe,” Sammy says, approaching her wife, “Do you wanna sit down while the others pay?”
“Hm?” Yaz looks up, blinking through heavy eyelashes.
“I said, do you need to sit down?”
“Huh? Oh, no, I’m just a little sick, that’s all, don’t worry.”
The other four exchange worried looks. Make her sit down! Brooklynn says with her eyes, jerking her head in Yaz’s direction, and Ben whisper-shouts, “I tried to.”
Just when Kenji is about to intervene, Yaz says, in one long breath, “Did we win?”
“Yeah,” Ben says in something of a daze. “We did.”
“Oh. Nice... job, Ben,” Yaz says breathily, and promptly collapses.