At the End of the Road

Chapter 5

Ulysses picked his way across the canyon floor, Old Glory in hand, stepping carefully over irradiated puddles and bits of rubble. Jane followed close behind him, keeping a tight grip on her rifle as she scanned the high ground for signs of Marked Men. The two of them traced a rambling path through the bottom of the Divide. Ulysses hated to spend too long out in the open, so they stuck close to the boulders and the debris; anything that would serve as cover in a pinch. The sun hung low on the horizon, the sky above burning a furious crimson.

Jane frowned at the rocks and ruins around them. Some of the terrain looked familiar.

"We headed to the Temple?" she asked Ulysses. He nodded, not turning his head.

"No mistake there."

"Didn't think there was much left, after the whole 'aborted nuclear launch' thing."

Ulysses glanced back at her, shook his head, locks swaying with the motion.

"No. Not all of it. Spears of the Old World are buried now, put back to their rest. Other parts of it survive; old storerooms, quarters."

"Reckon we can make it back before nightfall?" Jane nodded at the angry sun, a touch of unease in her voice. Tunnelers grew bolder once the sun went down, straying from their caves and hollows without the sun's glare to ward them off. Back at their usual spot above Hopeville, it didn't matter – if you stuck to the high ground, you'd be safe – but down here, there was a real risk of getting swarmed.

Ulysses gave a half-shrug. The eagle-tip of his staff reflected the glow of the sky, looking more like a burning phoenix than a bird of prey.

"Might be other shelters closer, true enough. Can rest easier in the Temple. Spent a long time there, waiting for you. Put up some defences of my own."

Waiting for you. The words sent a perverse thrill through her. Waiting for her, yes, but not in the way she wanted him to wait for her, wanted him to long for her as she did for him...

She shook her head, clearing the thought away. Something had changed, in their relationship, since that day in the strange silo; something subtle, but definitely there. She'd brushed his face (albeit by accident) and told him she felt at home with him; she'd expected him to press her on the issue, question what she meant by that, but he never did, never even brought it up. Perhaps he already knew.

Whatever the reason, ever since then, every time she came to the Divide she felt like he was watching her, studying her. At first, she had feared she'd made him uncomfortable, but... maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed as if he stood just a touch closer to her, these days, than he had before; faced her more, when they talked. At night, too, he sat closer to her when it was his turn to take watch, and she rested easier knowing that he was near. Last night, when they bunked down up in the Crow's Nest, he was there right next to her, so close that she could have reached over and embraced him, pulled him into her arms – and god, she had wanted to do just that, wanted to hold him to her, to feel him reciprocate, to feel his scarred arms around her and know that this wasn't just some mad pipedream of hers, that he felt the same.

That, she thought bitterly, as she felt the crunch of rocks beneath her boots, was not goddamn likely. Well, she would settle, at least, for him growing a proper sense of self-preservation and getting the hell out of here, to stop saying that this was the end of his road, to stop showing so little apparent concern for whether or not he died here, because even if his life didn't matter to him, god damn it mattered to her.