Chapter Text
There were a few moments of quiet after the door closed. Nobody said anything. Astrid just looked at Jeremiah–or was it John—whose hand was still on the lever. It was possible she’d intended to say something, but if she had, it wasn’t there. There was just a gap, like all of her thoughts had still been outside with Mackenzie and those bastards when the doors had shut.
To his credit, Jeremiah looked unhappy. Certain of the necessity of what he did, but not at all pleased that he’d had to do it. When he made eye contact with Astrid, his brows pulled together, sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Then there was a hand on her shoulder. “He’s made it this far.” Molly’s voice, the most familiar of the bunch, was a slight balm on the live wires of Astrid’s nervous system, and she felt some of the tension leave her. She was still tense, but her body was no longer wound like a spring ready to try to leap out of the doors.
Jace, Mackenzie’s new friend, walked a few steps to be standing directly in front of her. She took Astrid’s hands, which Astrid realized with a start were still extended, reaching out for the love of her life, and brought them down. She didn’t let go afterwards, keeping her fingers wrapped around Astrid’s wrists. “He’s going to be okay. If anyone can give those bastards the slip, it’s Mackenzie.” She looked like she believed it, a smile on her face that went all the way up to her eyes. But her voice was shaky, like she needed to convince herself too. And hell, she probably knew the Mackenzie of right now better than Astrid did. They’d been apart for so long, and from the brief conversation Astrid had had with Jace, she’d sounded like they’d had time to become friends out here.
“Yeah,” Astrid said, wincing at how breathless her own voice sounded. “Yeah. Mackenzie’s strong. He’ll make it.” She couldn’t– she had to think of something else. She looked over at Jeremiah again. “How long did you set the timer for?”
“The minimum it would go for. Five hundred.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Five hundred of what unit of measurement?”
“Five hundred hours. A little over twenty days,” said Dr. Atwood, from her chair next to the console. “This was a Cold War bunker, meant to shelter the staff here in the event of nuclear war. Radiation would have been expected to reach suitably safe levels for humans to go outside again after about two weeks, but because of the sensitivity of the equipment and the remoteness of the location, my best guess is that they figured three weeks was better. Either that, or, since they were still not completely sure about their calculations with regards to the fallout, since this is an old facility, and nuclear weapons were still something of an unknown, they left a buffer. It was fully stocked for twenty four people for up to–”
Dr. Atwood’s voice faded from Astrid’s attention. Twenty days. In comparison to all the time they’d spent apart before this, twenty days was nothing. In her life after Jack, but before Great Bear, she could’ve blinked and twenty days would have passed. So why did it feel so monumental now? Those twenty days may well have been millennia, for all she could feel herself grieving.
The hand on her shoulder squeezed again. “Why don’t we get you to a bed? You seem tired.” Molly said it quietly, enough so that only Astrid could hear, maybe Jace if she was listening closely. Based on how she was looking towards Dr. Atwood, it was clear that she wasn’t.
Astrid pulled her wrists from Jace’s hands, and untucked her shoulder from Molly’s grasp as she turned to face the woman, and the rest of the bunker. Away from Mackenzie, and the thick, bunker doors between them. “It’s fine, I– I have to administer the cure. Freya. The others.”
Molly grabbed her by both shoulders this time, grip firmer. Her hands were strong, and between her broad stance and her lowered brows, Astrid wasn’t going to be able to shrug her off this time. “You’re no good as a doctor if you’re distracted and exhausted. We’re shielded from the shit outside, so they shouldn’t get worse, and Jerry just locked the one door out of here, so they can’t wander off.”
“But–”
Molly’s expression said she wasn’t going to be taking arguments on this. “Doctor. Bed.”
In spite of the exhaustion weighing on her bones, the last seventy two hours of minimal sleep demanding she pay their toll, Astrid wasn’t sure she would be able to sleep. Not with so much work to do, not with everything she had going on. Not knowing that Mackenzie was going to have to spend the next twenty days with those bastards. But she relented.
Dr. Atwood stood, creakily, from her chair. “I can show you to the barracks.” If Astrid wasn’t mistaken, there was a regret to her voice. She didn’t know the doctor, but she could read the look on her face as she glanced, over her shoulder, back at the door as they started making their way back into the facility.
They were silent as they went back in. Though it felt fitting in the cold, unforgiving concrete and corrugated metal of the entry hall, past the decommissioned decontamination station, and the ancient medical wing, as they descended to the floor with the living quarters, it became awkward. Because it was lively in here, the sound of general chatter coming from the common space that was the mess hall. The crew that Molly and Jeremiah had brought from the plane crash, from Thomson’s crossing, were getting to know the residents of Perseverance Mills. It was hesitant, the unfamiliarity of the situation, the people, the surroundings, making people wary. But at this point, all of them had been through confusing and scary times, quarantined in bars or recuperating on the floors of community centers.
Through the doorway, Cooper noticed them, and made to approach, but when he made eye contact with her, and looked over the three of them, Astrid, Molly, and Dr. Atwood, he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he just gave a sad smile.
The door to the mess hall passed, and then they were at the barracks. The beds were tiny, hardly wider than a person, and bolted into the wall.
“Sorry about the poor selection,” Dr. Atwood said. “I wasn’t expecting guests.” Her attempt at a joke fell a little flat, and none of them really responded to it. “I’d best be checking in on the equipment. Have a good rest, Dr. Greenwood.” She left before Astrid could respond, though with Astrid’s current reaction time, that wasn’t anything particularly impressive.
As they stood in the doorway to the bunk room, Molly looked at Astrid again, making intense eye contact. Though, there wasn’t much Molly did without intensity. “You gonna be okay?” she asked.
Astrid nodded, absently. “I’ll be fine.”
Molly let out a derisive snort. “Wow,” she said, sarcastically. “Color me convinced.”
Astrid pulled herself back with it, gave as much of a smile as she could muster. “Really, Molly. I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Based on the shifting of her mouth, Molly still didn’t fully believe Astrid, but Molly also wasn’t the type to push someone to share their secrets. So she just sighed. “Just know that you have people. If you’re not okay. I’m not good at the whole ‘talking’ thing. But if there’s one thing hunting teaches you, it’s how to listen.”
“Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”
Molly clapped her on the back. “I’ll let you get some shut-eye. I can clean up the medical facilities for you. Don’t know much about the equipment, but I can make sure everything’s clean.”
“Molly, you don’t–.”
“I know. But, I’m gonna be bored out of my skull locked in a bunker for three weeks. Might as well make myself useful.”
It felt redundant to keep thanking Molly, but Astrid couldn’t think of anything else to say. “Thank you.”
“That’s enough of that. Go to sleep, Astrid.”
So Astrid picked a bunk. Only top bunks were available by this point, so she chose one right next to the door, in case she was needed. Then, she climbed up, pulled out her sleeping bag, and settled in.
Thankfully, she was out before she could start to even think about what came next.