Ashen Heart

Old Frenemies

We should've never let Lafayette drive. For starters he had trouble working the van to begin with and would often jerk to a stop, throwing everyone around in the back and secondly, there was a tiny little issue that we forgot about when we let Lafayette take the wheel. He had trouble reading English quickly which was what you need to do when y'know, driving and looking for signs and street names. Hercules had done his best to dress the burns I'd received from blowing up the gasoline in the Lobster camp, but it still hurt to move much, though luckily the burns were really only on parts of my chest and a little bit on my cheek, so my hands were still good to go which was all that really mattered to me. When the car ran out of gas, the sun still hadn't come up which meant it must've been somewhere around 5 in the morning and most of us had fallen asleep. When the car sputtered to a stop we checked through everything we had only to find we'd already used up all of our gas. Turns out one of the containers someone had grabbed wasn't completely full, so we were running on less gas than we'd calculated and now we were stranded with no clue where we were

"We have to be somewhere in Virginia, we've been driving all night" George reasoned as we unpacked the van and got everyone geared up "Yeah but where, it would've been nice to have our driver know how to read English" I grumbled and Lafayette glared at me "I am the only other person that can drive!! Hercules was busy patching you up and Aaron never learned to drive" he said and Aaron huffed "You don't need to drive when you live in New York, and I never expected to be thrust into a situation like this" he snapped and Lafayette turned to glare at him "Gentlemen it's all of our faults. Someone should've been up with Marquis to help him read the signs" George said and sighed before rubbing his face

"There's gotta be something that tells us where we are" Hercules said and looked around "I'd rather not have to trek in the woods with this fucking thing for too long" he grumbled before kicking his wheelchair with his leg. "Spread out and look for a sign" George instructed after a moment of thinking "Anything that could be useful, and Marquis you stay by the van" he added and Lafayette sighed softly before getting in the back with his gun. "Pops what exactly are we looking for??" Phillip asked as he took my hand and I led him in a direction to look for road markers "Any sort of sign" I said "A road sign or street name" I added and Phillip nodded "We're going on a scavenger hunt" he said and giggled and I couldn't help but chuckle "Yes Phillip exactly that" I said before turning my attention back on our surroundings "I've got a highway number!!" Aaron called "Same over here, but where the hell is this highway?!" Hercules called before Phillip tugged at my shirt "Papa look, I think that's a city name" he said and pointed to where a fallen tree had covered a large sign

"Over here!! Phillip spotted a sign!!" I called while my son and I went to see if we could read the sign with the tree in the way. A moment later George, Hercules, and Georges were there and Hercules was able to spot a small opening where someone could crawl through. "I'll do it since Georges and I are the only ones that can fit down there and he can't read English" Phillip offered and Georges nodded sheepishly "Oui.. he is.. right" he said and Phillip giggled softly before getting on his hands and knees and crawling under the tree "What does it say bud??" I called and a moment later we heard Phillip call back to us "I think it says Charlottesville!!" "Charlottesville..." George repeated before he turned away and cursed "We went too far" he said and we all groaned. "Sow what now?? Do we have to walk back to Mount Vernon??" Aaron asked as he and Theo joined us and George nodded solemnly "I'm afraid so" he said and sighed

"Then you better get walking and get the hell off of my property" a new voice called followed by the sound of a gun cocking. Hercules and George immediately had their guns trained on where the voice had come from while Aaron and I hid our kids and Georges behind us, but it was Aaron who recognized the voice first "Thomas?? Is that you??" He called and it took all of my willpower not to groan. "Jefferson??" George called as he lowered his gun but Hercules kept his up. "Took you long enough" Thomas called as he stepped out of the shadows "But I meant what I said, you need to leave now" he said, gun still raised. "Thomas please, we need some help here" George tried to reason as he held his hands up "We're two hours away from where we're meant to be and we're all exhausted" he added