Chapter Text
She finds Dylan exactly where she expected to, in the darkest corner of the least-used room of their makeshift emergency shelter far from both the new and old HQs and tucked into the shadow of what used to be the United Nations, dozing sitting up. He looks younger asleep, more vulnerable, his appearance finally matching the skittish childishness she sees in his eyes when someone moves towards him too fast and he flinches.
It tells her more about his last 24 years than words ever could.
Zoe approaches cautiously, knowing that trying not to wake him is useless. As expected, his eyes open within seconds of her first steps into the room. He moves to get up and she shakes her head and holds up a hand in that universal gesture of "stop."
"They don’t need you or anything," she assures you. "I just..." Her courage falters for a moment. She just what? Keeps hearing the empty static of his radio in her head? So soon after hearing the same from her team? Keeps replaying how she excused herself to the bathroom to vomit when they reassigned her, forced her to abandon him with too many deaths already on her conscience, certain there was more she could do? Hates herself for the resignation that had settled on her in the end, hates herself more for it now that she knows he had to have heard it in her voice? "Have to make sure you're not going to disappear on me again."
It's a weak joke and the look he gives her is sharper, more assessing, than she'd like. She doesn't know what he reads on her, doesn't even want to know what he sees, but she still offers, as neutrally as possible, "You scared the shit out of me."
"I'll be sure to consider your feelings on it the next time I get trapped in a Dimensional Fault," he tells her dryly and she has to press her lips together to hold back a smile. Asshole.
"Good. I'm holding you to that," she says lightly and approaches, carrying her jacket draped over her arm despite the chill. His brow furrows a little, gaze tracing her form as she gets closer. Skittish. "And since I figure you owe me one for scaring the shit out of me, you get to do me a favor: run cover for me to actually get some fucking sleep. If I'm in here with you, no one is going to wake me up unless they absolutely have to." She would worry it would offend him but she knows that he knows how the rest of the FBC sees him. There's no point in pretending.
"You're using me as a deterrent?" he asks dubiously, eyeing her as she settles down on the slick concrete next to him.
"Problem?"
"You actually gonna be able to sleep with me in the room?"
There is something underneath the words, a question he isn't asking. You trust me?
"Are you planning on killing me?"
He jerks away, stung. "No."
"Then why shouldn't I?"
She looks away then, not wanting to see his face, to bunch up and arrange her jacket as a pillow and lays down on her side. The floor is cold in a way that seeps through the thin fabric of her shirt but she doesn't care because it's the first time she's been horizontal in almost 48 hours, or as close as they can approximate to the regular movement of time. She can feel the shift in the muscles and vertebrae of her spine, realizing just how badly her back has been hurting as it eases. The weight of Dylan's gaze is on her as she settles; she feels it even with her eyes closed.
"Parautilitarianism mean you don't have to sleep?" she asks without opening them.
"No," he repeats, a little defensive.
"Then you should probably try it. Who knows when we'll get another chance."
He doesn't answer for a long time and she has started to fade, the heavy fingers of exhaustion ready to pull her under, when she hears him shift and slide and then she can tell he's laying next to her. Not too close but not terribly far either. In reach, should he want it. Should she want it.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "For scaring you. Thank you for not giving up on me."
He thinks she's asleep, she can tell, and she doesn't know whether she wants to shatter that illusion. Zoe shifts with what she hopes is subtlety, palm flat on the ground sliding closer to him.
She's half-asleep when she feels the brush of a single curled finger over hers, touch tentative and quick to end. Instinctively, she captures it between two of her own as he moves to pull away. Dylan goes very still and she releases him, realizing even through her sleepy haze what she's done. Shit. Now I scared him.
She's still kicking herself, willing herself back to sleep, when his loose fist comes to rest against the side of her hand. All told, there's maybe an inch of skin against skin but it's enough to feel that his hands are preternaturally warm and rough and that he's there, he came back, he's not another body they'll never get to bury, not another casualty of this godforsaken nightmare. Proof that this isn't all worthless helpless flailing in the dark.
She doesn't remember falling asleep but she does wake what feels like seconds later when Dylan's touch disappears. Forcing her aching eyes open when she hears voices, she finds Arish knelt on one knee next to Dylan, voice hard, expression unhappy. But then weren't they all unhappy?
Dylan's sitting up and she follows, catching both of their attentions. "What's going on?"
"Distress call in Zone 4," Dylan tells her succinctly. There are three red lines indented on his cheek; marks from his fingers when he'd pillowed his head on his hand. "Rangers can't get in or out, even with the A-Rs. If I can't get them out, at least I can reclaim the injectors."
"If you wanted to get more sleep, agent-" Arish begins but she cuts him off, aware of his rank but too tired to muster much of an ability to give a fuck.
"Fuck that. You need him, you need me." She pulls on her jacket awkwardly, still sitting on the floor and grateful for the immediate flush of warmth, and realizes both men are watching her. "Well?" she asks as she stands. "Let's go."
Zoe knows that there was no way she could have saved her team, knows objectively that it wasn't her fault. They didn't know, they weren't prepared, and it had just been wrong place, wrong time. But they know now. They're prepared now. There are no excuses to lose anyone else.