Chapter Text
Before Yuna Hollander was a mother, she was a wife. And before she was a wife, she was a woman. Before a woman, a girl. Before Hollander, Tanaka. Part of her resents that she changed it; even if it had belonged to another man, at least that man was her father. But David is good and beautiful in a world that is so often neither, and she wanted to be his family. Even after he knocked her up by accident in a blasted out, prewar apartment hallway. Even after he convinced her she wanted to keep it. Him. To keep Shane.
Convince sounds mean. It didn’t take much at all, really. But Yuna has been alone for most of her life. The father whose name she threw away and the mother who gave her her sharp edges have been gone for so long she can’t remember their faces. Marrying David was one thing. A son was another, entirely.
Shane is a good boy, though. A man, now. And so much more than good. He is smart, and strong, and handsome and funny in his understated way. He has enough of his father in him that he is not so full of poison as she is, but she did not raise a pushover, either. He knows his worth, sees worth in others. He knows the world is hard and believes it can be better.
When he was little, he was full of questions. The most curious little shit who ever lived. He wasn’t a typical curious little shit, either, rattling off questions without waiting for answers. She would come out into the yard to find him squatting in the dirt, concentrated frown on his face as he watched some insect crawling along or some plant in the garden he’d never seen before. He would ask her what kind of bug it was, or what kind of food the plant made, and when he looked to her for an answer his expression was wide open, silent and ready to receive her boundless knowledge.
Sometimes she thinks he is scared of her, and sometimes she is scared of him, too. Scared that now he is grown, when he looks at her with a question in his eyes, the answers are harder to come by.
It is a summer evening when the water purifier goes bad. Or something inside it, anyway. It’s hardly a surprise—the hot weather means more radiation storms and more natural muck to dirty the water—but it is certainly not a thrill. Yuna’s son-in-law—Ilya, a bitchy blond with a sharp face and a thick accent she has never heard before or since meeting him—returns home early from his guard shift looking haggard. He calls her mama, which used to make her laugh coming from a six-foot-something muscle bound man but now only fills her with fondness.
She is about to ask what brings him home early but he interrupts, breathlessly, “mama, the main purifier is smoking.”
Yuna frowns, on her feet at once. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I was on my patrol and I just saw smoke.”
She nods, grabbing her pistol off the table and sticking it in its holster before hurrying out of the house, Ilya on her heels. The purifier sits in the river that winds past their settlement, a hulking thing of meticulously sourced parts, mostly scrap metal and repurposed innards from old world machinery. They didn’t used to need one this big—after all, this settlement began as just herself, David, and their little house. Shane was still cooking while they hammered together the walls, pulled together people from surrounding, struggling communities with the promise of strength in numbers. They started with one small purifier, then a few as more joined them over the years. Their community is now a collection of six families, elderly and children and everyone in between. Lots of mouths to feed.
Lots of lives depending on this goddamn purifier that is, as Ilya had said, belching thick, black smoke.
Yuna approaches at a jog, nudging people aside that have gathered mostly to fuss. She pulls out her weapon and uses the butt of it to knock the service hatch open without having to touch it, just in case it’s hot. She turns her face away as more smoke billows out, coughing and waving it away. She is pleased, once it clears, to find that nothing is actively on fire inside. She is less pleased when she sees the cause of the trapped smoke.
“Mom!”
Shane comes running over, exchanging a look with Ilya before slowing to a stop beside her. He’s tall and suntanned, hair spiky with ambient sweat and freckles rampant across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. Her eyes. He scowls with them just like her, too, bending to try to see inside the purifier himself. Curious little shit.
“What happened?” he asks, blinking at her.
“Filter went bad,” she sighs, stepping away from the hatch and rubbing her face. “Fried a few other bits along with it.”
“Shit. Do we have a spare?”
“No,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “The other components are replaceable, and we have spares of those. But the filter was a hard get.”
Shane straightens, brow furrowing as he crosses his arms over his chest. Like his father. “So we get a new one.”
Yuna nods, passing her hand over her mouth as her mind works. “Yes. Like I said, filters are a hard get. That one came from a factory a few days from here, in the middle of an old world city.”
Shane wrinkles up his nose. “That’s probably been long picked over by now, mom.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she says, resisting the urge to pinch his ear for acting like she doesn’t already know that. Kids are just like that, she’s learned. Think just because it’s the first time they’ve figured something out, it’s your first time, too. “I know of a place that’s more remote. Really remote. It’ll be dangerous getting there. But it’s much less likely people will have picked it clean.”
“I’ll go with you,” Shane says firmly.
“Me, too,” says Ilya, and Yuna shakes her head.
“I need you to stay here with David, honey,” she says, patting his angular cheek. “You’re one of our only able bodied people who can handle a gun. Need you here to keep everyone safe.”
Ilya doesn’t refuse, but his brow does twitch, and his eyes flit briefly, uneasily to Shane. “I…okay. I will.”
Yuna nods, then looks to Shane. “Go find your father, let him know. I’ll start mapping us a route.”
“Okay, mom.”
Yuna heads back to the house with Ilya, while Shane jogs off in the other direction. Ilya is very quiet as they walk, opening the door to the house for her before following her inside. She returns to the kitchen table where she was, previously, giving herself a migraine over the monthly budget. She stacks all of her papers up, puts them in a neat little pile in the corner for David to tackle while she’s gone (she draws a little heart in the corner of the top page) before going to dig around in her desk for her regional map. She watches Ilya from the corner of her eye as he lays his rifle in its stand next to the others, shuffles into the kitchen to start making her tea.
Yuna gave up breaking his little habits like this ages ago. The poor kid’s mom died when he was young, and not even how most wasteland kids’ moms die. Suicide, swallowed a bunch of pills and passed away in bed where her son found her. None of them know what became of the rest of his family—Ilya was never very interested in finding out, once he’d gotten away—but he is essentially an orphan. So, Yuna lets him dote if he wants to.
She finally finds the map amongst the rest of her shit, which started out organized but was slowly overcome by her sharing a house with three men. She shoves the rest of the clutter back into the drawers, resolving to organize that when she gets back, as well, before flattening the map out on the table and getting out a pencil, paper, and a ruler and getting to work. She looks up briefly when Ilya places a steaming cup next to her, the scent of chamomile wafting into her nose.
“Thank you,” she says. She gives him a look when he just nods silently. “You mad at me, now? For making you stay home?”
Ilya shakes his head quickly, making a valiant effort to school his expression. It’s hopeless, though. His resting face looks like he just stubbed his toe and bit a lemon at the same time. “No. Not at you. I just don’t like it.”
She hums, going back to measuring distances and scribbling down notes. “It’ll be dangerous. But he’s capable. And I’m not bad, either.”
“You are better than either of us,” Ilya says, smirking a bit. “How far away are you going?”
“A few days there, a few days back,” Yuna says. “If weather doesn’t screw us over, anyway. You know how it is.”
“Right. And you don’t run into raiders. What will you do for water?”
“Ilya,” she says, giving him a look. “We will be okay.”
He sighs heavily through his nose, rubbing the back of his neck agitatedly. “Right. Right. Yes. I know.”
Yuna drinks the tea he made for her, though too slowly so it goes cold before she’s finished. When she has the bones of a route mapped out, Shane returns to the house with his father in tow. Yuna meets her husband’s eyes and already knows she’s going to have a very sad, nervous man on her hands the next morning.
“Where are you thinking?” he asks, coming to stand beside her. He rests his hand on the table and leans over her notes, squinting at the route she’s already drawn up. His wedding ring catches a beam of sunlight from the window.
“Here,” she says, pointing to a stretch of flat land on the western side of the map. “Cluster of old world factories. Dad and I heard about them once. Place where they made weapons and war machines, so I imagine there will be heavy duty filters there.”
“As long as it hasn’t been picked over,” Shane says, Ilya’s hand resting idly on his shoulder. David always says they hold each other like they’re going to be swept away by the wind. “I guess since it’s remote that’s less likely.”
“It’s also more dangerous,” David says unhappily. “You’re likely to run into raiders, Yuna. And if not that, bad weather with no cover.”
“We’ll bring emergency supplies,” she promises. “Don’t give me that face.”
“I’m not making a face,” David says, weaponizing his blue eyes to do the pouting for him. “God. Are you sure?”
Yuna smiles, patting his cheek. “It’s this or we have dirty water, honey. It’s not an option.”
“I’ll go let everyone know we’ll be leaving,” Shane says, glancing at Ilya. “Come with me?”
“Mm.”
The boys leave together, their murmured conversation fading away as the door closes behind them. Yuna takes her tea to the kitchen, downing the rest of it cold before putting the cup in the wash basin. She smiles wanly as arms wrap around her from behind, a mouth pressing into her shoulder.
“I can go with you.”
Yuna shakes her head, turning in David’s arms and pressing her palm flat over a spot just beneath his ribs, where she knows there is an ugly gunshot scar. There is a matching bloom on his back, as well, an exit wound which she thinks ultimately did him in—the bullet fractured part of his spine and, while he narrowly avoided paralysis, he’s not good on his feet for long. Nerve pain, too, the kind that keeps him up at night with tears in his eyes that only she has seen, that only she has wiped away with her sleeves or the heels of her palms.
“No,” she says quietly. “You can’t.”
He sighs, brow furrowing, and doesn’t argue that point. “Take both the boys, then.”
“I need Ilya here with you,” she says, letting him wind her hair around his fingers anxiously. Always so nervous, a trait that he, unfortunately, gave to their son. “And with just me and Shane, it’ll be easier for us to avoid trouble. It’s much harder to be agile with a group.”
“Stop making sense, I hate when you do that,” he huffs, the corner of his mouth twitching. “God, just be careful, alright? Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Excuse you. I do stupid things when they are necessary and not a moment before.”
“Sure,” he says, laughing weakly. “Of course.”
Fuck, it’s a lot of blood. Yuna’s had blood on her skin, soaking her clothes, plenty of times before. Sometimes it was hers, sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes it was even David’s, but never this much. Never this hot and thick and pouring out, not stopping no matter how much pressure she applied. Her mind races as David struggles for breath, the shock restricting his airflow. She needs to get him home, but Shane is there. Shane is little, hardly five years old, he’ll be frightened. More than he already is, hiding in the closet she stuck him in when the raiders hit their settlement.
She shakes her head, grits her teeth as she hauls her husband off of the dirty ground. She supports his weight, urging him into a brisk walk in the direction of the house.
Shane will not be little forever, and there will always be something to be frightened of.
When she kicks in the door she finds her son, not in his hiding place, but underneath the kitchen table, his wide, brown eyes filled with tears as he stares at the front door. He startles, first at the noise, and then bursts into tears when he sees his father covered in blood.
“You were supposed to stay in the closet, Shane,” Yuna snaps, hauling David more than she’s supporting him as he flags.
“I’m sorry,” Shane whimpers, following her into the bedroom. “What happened? Is daddy dead?”
“No, daddy isn’t dead,” Yuna says, groaning as he deposits David on the bed. He gets their blankets covered in blood, but she ignores them. Can always get more blankets, but there’s only one David. “Shane. Go to the bathroom, and get me the first aid kit. The big one. Right now.”
“Okay,” Shane gasps, turning and running. She hears him trip a little, over his clumsy feet and short little legs. She swallows thickly, closing her eyes as she counts up to ten and then back down to one. When she’s finished, Shane returns, holding a first aid box that’s bigger than his head. “Here, momma.”
“Good boy,” she says, taking it from him. “Now go get me some towels.”
When Shane runs off to complete his next task, tears no longer falling but his eyes still wide with fear, Yuna goes to boil some water over the fireplace. It takes too long, on the stove, never enough juice to really get something to a boil. She fidgets as she waits, looking up when she hears Shane run back into the bedroom and call for her.
“Leave them on the bed, honey,” she calls. “I’ll be right there.”
When the water has boiled she takes it off the heat to cool, and returns to the bedroom to get her supplies ready. She and David have patched each other up plenty of times, and she’d done quite a bit of stitching herself before she ever met him. It never gets easier, though, sewing him back together. Eyes glued to the pulse beating in his neck, scaring herself into thinking it’s stopped.
She stitches David shut with their baby watching, silent and wide-eyed and nervously twisting the hem of his t-shirt in his chubby fingers. As much as she wants to, something more primal in her forces her not to shield him. Shane will grow into this world, none of them have any choice in that. Yuna will not raise a coward.
The sky is still a murky grey when she wakes and finds Shane already up, his full and tidy backpack waiting near the door with his rifle resting up against it. He stands at the kitchen counter, pouring them both hydration packs full of purified water. Enough to last at least a week, which gives them a cushion of a couple of days for something disastrous to happen. In Yuna’s experience, it often does. She sees that he has also packed up their rations and the first aid kit, and smiles.
“When did you wake up?” she asks, nodding to the spread of supplies. “Did you even sleep?”
“Yes, I slept,” he says dutifully, twisting the cap onto her hydration pack and nudging it across the counter toward her with a slosh. “Kind of. Ilya was tossing and turning.”
Yuna hums in understanding. “I’ll go get our camping things ready.”
“Okay. Meet you outside in a minute.”
They will have to travel on foot; they were once lucky enough to have horses, but money has been tight with traders coming through less frequently. The sole work horse they had died, then both of the ones meant for long distance travel, and they haven’t been able to justify replacing any of them. If they aren’t able to find this filter, it’s quite likely that their settlement will need to relocate, or die. Or die on the road to relocating.
Yuna grits her teeth, tying her sleeping mat shut a bit more tightly, and hauls the gear back to the house.
Shane is already waiting outside, holds out a hand to help her secure the mats and tarps to the tops of their backpacks. They secure the water packs to the undersides, as well, and Shane waits patiently as Yuna triple checks that they haven’t forgotten anything. She starts, opening her mouth, and Shane silently holds out her map for her. She snorts, taking it from him with a grateful nod.
Before they can make their very quiet, tearless escape, David and Ilya appear in the doorway. They both look sleep rumpled, Ilya with circles under his eyes and his arms crossed and David with a deep frown and anxious fidgeting. Shane smiles apologetically as Ilya reaches for him and pulls him into a hug while scolding him tearfully, and they murmur silly things to each other that Yuna makes no effort to overhear.
She stands still as David approaches her, expecting him to throw his arms around her as well, ask her to make promises she can’t keep. Instead he takes her hand, pulling open her fingers and pressing something into her palm. She blinks, then laughs when she recognizes the rock, their carved initials encircled in a stupid, jagged heart now worn smooth with age and handling. David was maybe eighteen when he etched it for her, doing anything he could possibly think of to get the girl who never stayed anywhere for long to be his girlfriend, at the very least. This wasn’t his most creative, or demonstrative, attempt at wooing her, but it is still with her twenty years later, so it must have worked.
Yuna closes her fingers, the smooth oblong shape of it fitting perfectly in her palm. Then she sticks it in her pocket (the inside one, for safety) and stands up on her toes to kiss her husband. He cups her elbows, squeezing them gently, and she can tell he’s forcing a smile when she looks at him again.
“Be careful,” he says, turning to hug Shane tightly, as well. “Both of you.”
Shane closes his eyes, clinging to his father for as long as his pride will let him. “We will. You, too,” he adds, dropping his hands and occupying them with hauling his backpack onto his shoulders. “Both of you. Don’t forget your meds, dad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go on.”
Yuna claps Shane’s shoulder, squeezes and steers him down the walking path and to the road out of the settlement. He takes one look back, blinking rapidly and blowing a kiss to Ilya. Yuna’s mouth twitches and she doesn’t reprimand him, even though she does not look back, herself. It just makes it harder to do what needs to be done. Shane can learn that lesson later. Everyone does, eventually.