Chapter Text
When Jackie opened her eyes, her first thought was that it was hot. Really hot.
It took her a few minutes to realize she was underneath a car.
And a couple more minutes to remember it was a pickup truck up, specifically.
And add another several minutes for Jackie to remember how she got here.
She tried looking around her surroundings, keeping a close ear at any possible sound of movement nearby. If only the aggressive thumping in her heart was less distracting.
She carefully crawled from underneath the truck and stood up when she felt like the coast was clear, only for the scene around her to make her heart drop to her stomach.
There was Jackie Taylor in the middle of a highway on a bright spring day, with nothing but rows and rows and rows of empty cars parked eerily for what looks like miles ahead and behind her.
She remembers that she was in her dad’s car with her parents after her father called her a week before spring break and demanded her to drive back home instantly, the urgency and panic in his voice made her not even question him and she immediately packed her bags and drove home that night.
That was three days ago. Maybe.
She’s not sure; she can’t be certain how long she spent underneath that pickup truck. Could be hours, a day, or two.
She knew what her father was referring to; she’d heard some talk and rumors around campus about this virus that’s been spreading between people across the globe, they said it made people wild, almost like animals. Jackie obviously brushed it off, this doomsday talk doesn’t faze her.
They followed the evacuation mandate, but it looks like it went very wrong.
She recalls the traffic stopping for hours, people leaving their cars when they were restless and antsy.
She was stretching her legs outside the car, her father leaning in the hood, smoking a cigarette and her mother still in the passenger seat when it all turned to shit; sudden shouting, screaming, and sounds of gunshots were heard from all directions, her instincts just told her to run and hide. It was all very chaotic and her memory is a blur.
She’s trying to look for her dad’s car and walks forward to peek into the other cars’ windows, just to find anything or anyone.
But there’s nothing. The place looks forsaken.
This has to be some sort of dream.
Jackie keeps on walking and fear is settling in the pit of her stomach when a familiar black BMW meets her eye line. She dreads the walk there but she goes regardless.
The air is stolen from her lungs when she sees it. Or, she sees her.
Her mother.
Still trapped in the passenger seat with the seat belt, looking directly at Jackie with lifeless, colorless eyes, she tilts her head towards Jackie and a quiet animalistic growl comes out of her mouth.
Jackie’s eyes are open so wide that they might fall, she’s trying to properly breath but the air can’t seem to get in. This creature looks like a moving corpse of her mother; her skin looks so pale and pasty, only green-blue veins coloring her face. She notices a bullet wound near her mother’s left collarbone with dried up blood on her blouse and the windshield glass partially shattered.
She moves closer to the car window, tears already spilling from her eyes and she whispers out, “mom?”
Her ‘mother’ reacts to her voice by only growling louder and more aggressively, reaching out her arm to claw at her daughter as if she was bait.
Jackie flinches as she trips and falls back, unable to look away from her mother. What the fuck is going on?
“Mommy?” Jackie tries again, she knows it’s fruitless but she can’t help herself.
That only makes what’s left of her mother react harshly, fully attempting to make her way out of the car, with no regards to her surroundings.
So, Jackie does the only logical thing left.
She runs.
She runs back to a familiar place, the only place she really knows; Wiskoyak.
When Jackie notices a few of these creatures aimlessly wandering by the edge of the road, she takes a mental note to fully avoid them, and softens her steps so she doesn’t attract them to her. She, also, picks up a small red hatchet that she found on one of the car’s open trunks to keep her safe. Not that she can actually really use it.
Two hours in, She can feel the adrenaline running out and the dehydration taking over. She knows that she is near town but she doesn’t have it in her to run, so she walks, or more precisely, drags her feet.
She keeps the hood from her navy blue pullovers on to avoid the few biters she had seen wandering around, otherwise, it does look like a ghost town.
Jackie had hoped to reach her house but it was on the other side of town which would probably take another hour or maybe even more with her exhausted state. But, school was just a few blocks away and maybe she should try that first, just to rest or even, eat or drink.
It’s the closest place she knows of.
She’s glad when she sees the school building because black dots start to appear in her eyes whenever she blinks and it’s so hot that she takes off her pullover to tie around her waist.
C’mon. Just a little bit more.
Jackie’s heaving by the time she’s close to the entrance when she suddenly hears it,
“Jackie?”
A voice calls out from behind her. She could be hallucinating at this point, but she swears she heard a voice call her name, a familiar one, too.
She turns around so quickly to see the source of the sound that she loses her footing and her body hits the ground.
The last thing she sees is a figure obstructed by the brightness of the sun, rushing towards her before her vision darkens.
—
Natalie isn’t feeling very hopeful, she knew that the moment she noticed the door wide open and a few windows shattered in the gas station’s convenience store, but she has learned from experience that there’s some good stuff hidden out in the open.
The rest of the windows were covered with newspapers and the place was emptied out and trashed. She stands by the door, her nail bat held firmly in her right hand and the hunting knife handle that’s hanging in her belt held with her left hand.
She bangs on the shelves next to her to test the waters. No biter comes at her but she hears that ugly familiar growling inside which she follows to see.
The biter is trapped underneath a shelving unit that fell on top of it, only its head and arms are awkwardly flailing out. Nat considers following the main rule that goes “only exert energy when necessary, otherwise ignore.” and let it be, but it looks so pathetic and she doesn’t want it possibly sneaking up on her so, she takes out her knife and expertly, aims at the center of its forehead, piercing the soft bones, finally out of its misery. At least, that’s how Nat thinks of it.
She looks around the mostly empty store and goes to the hygiene department to find what she was initially looking for. And, bingo.
Tampons.
They weren’t the hardest to find nowadays but you’re more likely to not get your period when you’re chronically stressed and constantly lacking nutrients.
And yet, here she is, getting tampons.
She stuffs the box in her backpack and carries on looking for anything that could be useful. She jumps behind the counter and searches for anything, trying to see whatever the sunlight reveals; she forgot to bring a flashlight. Rookie mistake.
Then, a bright orange paper-like thing under the counter catches her eyes, and she prays that it’s what she thinks it is, so she pulls it out.
The first smile of the day stretches on her face when it’s in her hands and it feels like a rare, valuable gem. Months old, probably-stale Reece’s peanut butter cups.
This is her win of the day.
She puts it in her bag and considers a quick sweep before leaving. She only finds a travel-sized listerine bottle which can be good as disinfectant.
When she exits the door, a biter comes at her out of nowhere. It grabs her arms, causing her bat to drop from her hand and it’s so close to her face that she can see details of the biter’s face and the rotten stench reaches her nose, making her wince. As she tries to push it off, it has enough strength on her to push her into the store and they both fall back, she acts quickly and maneuvers her way from underneath it, giving her enough time to pull the knife that’s hoisted on her belt and stick it in it temple when she grabbed it by the neck as it attacked her again.
His rotten body falls limps on top of her, ruining her sweatshirt with whatever fluid these gross biters always leak from them.
She gets up, catches her breath, grabs her nail bat, walks to the exit and peeks around for any more biters, and then, she bolts.
She reaches the house or the current “home-base”, where finds her in front steps just as she predicted, which makes her smile. The red hatchet on one hand and the other hand on her hips with the most disappointed look she can give.
“Really, Nat?” Jackie scolds, “you think a post-it note in my head is sufficient for you to just go on some quest alone?”
“Well, I got you this.” She walks up the steps and throws the tampon box for Jackie to catch as she enters the house.
“I would've been just fine without,” Jackie whines, following her inside and closing the door behind, “It’s barely even a period.”
She’s been pretending to be okay with using cut up bed sheets but Nat knew that she hated it.
“Jack, it’s fine.” She’s trying to ease the situation, Jackie's probably feeling guilty.
“Oh, sure it was.” Jackie sarcastically remarks.
Natalie knows that Jackie is referring to her messed up sweatshirt, making it obvious that she had an up close altercation with a biter.
They go inside the room where they set their little camp in, Natalie throws her bag aside, tosses the dirty sweatshirt out the window which sends a shiver down her spine; the temperatures are getting lower by the day, sweatshirt and pullovers won’t be enough for long.
When she turns back, Jackie already has a black hoodie, which they found in the house, held out for her.
“Thanks.” she puts it on.
“‘Course,” Jackie seems to have let it go, “just don’t leave like that— all alone.”
Natalie nods and they sit on the floor surrounded by blankets they gathered from all the other rooms to make a warm blanket nest.
“Lemme show you what else I found.” Natalie moves to grab her bag and sits in front of Jackie, crossed legged, while Jackie’s on her knees.
She takes out the small listerine bottle, and Jackie enthusiastically claps for it, as she does for everything whenever they show off their hauls from sweeps.
“Okay, I have a surprise for you now,” Nat announces and Jackie perks up at that, “close your eyes and hold your hands out.”
“Really?” Jackie excitedly asks, doing as Nat asked. Natalie didn’t bother checking if Jackie was peeking or not, that girl is way too sincere to cheat her way out of it.
Nat takes the Reece’s peanut butter cups from her bag and into Jackie’s palms, she goes by Jackie’s ear and whispers, “Happy maybe 19th birthday, Jackie Taylor.”
Jackie looks back and forth at the Reece’s and Nat’s face with absolute awe, like she can’t believe it. She can’t believe that someone would care about her birthday in the damned apocalypse (even she didn’t care about it, herself), she can’t believe that someone went to get them for her knowing the risks, she can’t believe that that someone is Natalie Scatorrcio for her.
She puts the Reece’s in her lap and leans forward to loop her arms around Nat’s neck and draw her in for a kiss, which Nat reciprocates as she puts a hand in Jackie’s cheek to bring her in closer.
“Thank you.” Jackie quietly says when she pulls away and puts her foreheads in Nat’s. They just look at one another for a few seconds and Nat just nods instead of saying anything.
The kissing was a slightly recent development; towards the end of summer, they went to scavenge for some supplies and food, the town was seemingly empty so they made a plan to sweep a few blocks each and then, meet back up at one of the empty houses they crashed at a certain hour.
It wasn’t supposed to take long and they both were skilled at killing biters.
Jackie made it back just in time, but Natalie didn’t.
It was getting late and dark, and Jackie was getting increasingly worried by the minute.
She waited 45 minutes post-agreement time before running to find Nat.
She sprinted in the block, calling out Nat’s name and using her whistle; hoping she’d hear Nat’s whistle somewhere close by. (it was Jackie’s idea to wear the whistles they stole from their school before leaving around their necks at all times, as a means of communication in case of an emergency.)
But she couldn’t hear anything back. She was, however, attracting biters because of the noise, which added to Jackie’s current fear and stress.
She saw biters coming near her but she kept on jogging and dodging them.
only exert energy when necessary, otherwise ignore.
That's when she noticed a commotion by an abandoned apartment building door ahead of her, there were sounds of movement and things falling or breaking.
As unwise as it looked, she followed the sound inside the building.
That’s where she locked eyes with Nat. who looked panicked, hurt, and cornered at the top of the stairs with only her hunting knife, as biters clumsily tried to reach her.
“Hey!” Jackie screamed still at the door, grabbing the attention of all ten or eleven biters to her. She has an advantage that Nat doesn’t right now, it’s time to be smart.
She bangs at the door to let them come at her, away from Nat and out the door. One of them comes close enough for her to bash her hatchet into its head and push the dead body onto the biter walking behind it.
The other biters are walking towards her and Jackie knows better than to try to take them out all by herself, she keeps banging on the door so that they keep their focus on her and not on Nat who was still up the stairs and shaking her head as she’s looking at Jackie.
Don’t be fucking stupid, Jackie.
Jackie’s managed to drag all of them by the door, her plan seems to be working.
“I’ll be back in a minute, okay?” Jackie yells out for Nat to hear.
All the biters are out of the building but she needs to take them far enough so they won’t come back. She hears another coming closer from behind and she swings her hatchet into its head, successfully killing it.
She reaches the end of the block, kills two of the biters when they get too close and she’s noticing more of them coming from behind her and the side, too.
The building is still in her eye line, she measures her time and distance, looks around one last time at the biters who seem to add up by the second, almost surrounding her and she makes a run for it from the back.
She runs so fast that the biters didn’t even notice her way of departure and she circles around the block and successfully finds the door without having to deal with any more biters.
Jackie went inside and killed the biter that was stuck underneath the one she killed earlier. She found Natalie where she left her 20 minutes ago, up the stairwell.
She went up to her and actually took a good look at her state which made her pretty emotional.
“Awh, Nat.” her voice cracked and eyes were getting teary. Nat had avoided looking at Jackie, there was a hint of embarrassment there.
Her sleeve was torn off and left arm was scratched up and bloody, hair all messed up, and a prominent scowl on her face.
“No bites, right?” Jackie asked with a shaky voice, as she sat in front of Nat.
Nat shook her head, “they didn’t get me. I’m fine.”
Jackie let out the biggest sigh of relief and immediately pulled Nat into a hug. Nat tried to hug her back but let out a groan from the pain.
“Oh, sorry.” Jackie pulls away, her hand on Nat’s right shoulder, their faces are so close to each other and Jackie takes her other hand to place Nat’s hair strands behind her ears and rubs away the blood and sweat from her face.
Then, they look at each other, Jackie’s sad eyes and Nat’s exhausted ones. And there’s a moment.
Jackie, almost in a trance, leans in and kisses her lips. But, it hardly lasts a second because she pulls away, looking panicked and says, “wait— I’m sorry— I shouldn’t ha—”
But, Nat feels it, too; this pull for Jackie and how soft and warm her lips were when everything else is so rough and cold.
She interrupts her miserable, panicked speech with another kiss, a deeper one that definitely lasts longer, and she has an arm around Jackie's waist to bring her closer which Jackie seems to welcome. It feels freeing and intoxicating and like second nature.
Natalie doesn’t want this moment to end, she doesn’t want this to stop and have her come back to reality where her arm is hurting, and she’s always hungry and thirsty, and they’re surrounded by rotten corpses.
But moments are fleeting and unfortunately to Nat (and Jackie), this one ends, too,
When they catch their breath, they look at each other and Nat asks for good measure, “was that okay?”
Jackie just nods, mouth slightly hanging, she’s a little dumbfounded.
Then, Nat’s pain feels noticeable again and she hates it.
While she takes pride in her pain tolerance, she just wants comfort right now more than anything and lets go of her ego.
She drops her head into Jackie’s lap because she knows that she will start playing with her hair, just how she likes it.
“Can we just stay here for a bit?” Nat asks, her voice comes out as a whisper, “Just until the biters are far enough?”
Jackie doesn’t respond but she does start running her hand down Nat’s hair, which feels like a sleeping spell.
They’ve been tiptoeing the line of physical closeness, this kiss was the most intimate they’ve been but it would be a lie to think that either Nat or Jackie didn’t see this coming.
They’ve both opened up to each other about their sexualities. Jackie had an easier time confessing about it, considering there was no one else in the world to hear, other than Nat whose own relationships with guys and girls were somewhat of an open secret to the Yellowjackets.
And maybe, this was the loneliness taking over, or it was just convenience, or they just wanted comfort, or maybe, it was because they were probably the last two people left on earth,
She wonders if it could ever be more.
Does it matter? When the world has gone to shit, does it matter to define these things?
A wave of coldness rushes into Nat’s body, but when Jackie leans down to give her a kiss on her head, she can feel the warmth flooding in.
So, with that, Natalie stops thinking and falls asleep in Jackie’s lap in an abandoned apartment building, with two dead bodies downstairs and nothing but danger waiting outside the door.
Jackie opens up her Reece’s after they’re finished with their dinner which was a shared can of mixed veggies and beans. It doesn’t taste good and they’re almost out of half-decent food, but that’s how they’ve been living; just move forward, finding empty towns and houses, and hope for supplies and food. They’ve been lucky so far, they understand that.
Jackie takes out both peanut butter cups in her hands, offering one of them to Nat.
“Nah, Jax,” Natalie declines, “it’s your birthday present. All yours.”
“All mine?”
Nat nods.
“Then, I get to do whatever I want,” Jackie insists on her offer, “C’mon, Nat, I won’t even enjoy it by myself.”
“Okay,” Nat sighs out and takes the cup reluctantly.
They both eat it at the same time. Savoring the taste of chocolate mixed with peanut butter, who knows when they’ll ever eat something like this again.
It tastes aged and stale, it’s so bad that it’s so good, it makes Jackie giggle which in turn has Nat laughing.
“Best birthday present ever.” Jackie announces with a wide smile on her face.
“That’s a really low bar you’re setting.” Nat smirks.
“Hmmm. I don’t know about that.” She smiles.
A moment of quiet passes between them, Jackie’s playing with the wrapper paper and Natalie notices the sky outside darkening.
“We should probably get ready for bed.” Nat says as she stands and closes the curtains.
“Yeah.” Jackie agrees.
It’s dark out and they’ve been sleeping in early so they can take full advantage of the daylight hours to keep moving. Their camping bags are all packed; it’s part of their nightly routine to pack their bags, just in case something goes wrong and they have to make a quick escape. Another one of Jackie’s rules.
Same as sleeping with their shoes on if they weren’t able to seal the doors safely.
They haven’t been putting a lot of effort into their appearances for obvious reasons, but they try to keep clean and okay-looking as much as they can.
That’s why Nat’s brushing her hair right now to untangle all the knots and gargling her mouth with water that has a bit of salt they found in the kitchen.
Just to feel more like a person. A human being.
Jackie’s in the living room changing into her pajamas and does her nightly routine, same thing as Nat.
She comes back into their room to see Natalie already under the pile of blankets, her right arm beneath her head as it rests in the pillow, holding a copy of The Fellowship Of The Ring that she’s been reading for a while. She lays down right next to Nat, placing her head in Nat’s arm.
“We’re leaving at sunrise tomorrow, right?” Jackie asks through a yawn.
“Yeah. There's nothing left for us here.”
Like clockwork, both girls pressed close to each other in a room illuminated by a few scented candles they found in the house, Nat softly reads the novel loud enough for a sleepy Jackie to hear; she says Nat’s voice helps fall asleep, she tried getting invested in the story but a solid 10 minutes in, she clocks out and sleeps next to Natalie.
Not that Natalie minds at all, she just likes having Jackie there with her.
When Natalie notices that Jackie’s breathing has evened out, she quickly reads through the chapter, and then, moves around the room to blow out the scented candles they found upstairs..
She comes back into their blanket nest, takes Jackie’s frame into her embrace, Natalie’s front pressed against Jackie’s back, Jackie responds by going further into the embrace and tightening Nat’s arms around her.
“‘Night, Jackie.” Natalie whispers softly and presses a kiss on Jackie’s shoulder.
Jackie lets out a content hum.
When they wake up the next morning, they can hear their bones cracking as they move around. It'd be funny if it wasn’t so uncomfortable and annoying to deal with.
Jackie goes to the window and opens the curtain, revealing an orange-red glow coloring the skies. She puts on her pullover, wears her shoes and goes outside to the front door.
Not taking the knife or hatchet with her. Unlike her usual, careful self.
Natalie follows her out and just sees her standing by the porch, facing the sky, eyes closed and calmly, soaking up the rising sun. The cold air is already coloring her cheeks and nose rosy. Nat stands next to her and looks at how the light makes her hair glow and how her shoulders slowly go up and down when she takes deep breaths.
She tries mimicking her, hoping she’d invite in the same serenity and it does kind of work, she can tell why Jackie has to do this every now and then.
The silent moment is interrupted when Jackie says “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”, her eyes fixated on the sky.
Nat opens her eyes, turns to Jackie and breathes out, “yeah.”
They’re all ready to leave. The bags are packed and on their backs, shoes laced up, Jackie has an oversized denim jacket on top of her pullover, red bandana tied around her neck to cover her face from the smell when she needs to and Nat has her black leather jacket zipped up and a maroon cap on her head.
Just as they’re about to leave, they stand in front of the mirror by the door to look at their reflection. They look so different now; their cheeks a bit more hollow, eyes sunken and exhausted, Nat’s hair dye is mostly gone but there’s still some bleached blonde in the bottom which she needs to remember asking Jackie to cut for her later. Still though, they’re Jackie and Nat. as long as their hearts are beating, they’re Jackie and Nat.
Jackie takes out a marker from her pocket and draws an angel’s halo on her reflection and devil’s horns on Nat’s, and she chuckles at that.
“Oh, gimme that.” Nat takes the marker from Jackie’s hand and draws a mustache on Jackie’s reflection as a joke.
They both find this very amusing, they spend a couple minutes drawing some more in the mirror until Nat says, “okay, I think it’s time to go.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jackie leads them to the door and before they leave she takes out her marker again and writes on the wall,
Jackie T. & Nat S. were here
They finally make their way out and walk on the road, their weapon fastened at their sides. They share dried peaches for breakfast and walk aimlessly to a new place.
“Do you have to write that everytime we leave?” Nat asks out of curiosity.
“Yes.” Jackie nods like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “If anyone sees it, I want them to know that we survived, and we tried, and we’re still alive.”
Nat hums. It doesn’t make total sense to her why it matters, but Jackie probably understands something in it that she doesn't.
Jackie reaches out a hand to hold Nat’s, to which she takes and they move ahead.
Come what may.