Chapter Text
The land was blessedly empty as Robby climbed the ladder to the watchtower. It was a precarious climb that Robby was not ready to admit was getting more and more difficult as the years went on.
“Good morning, brother,” he said softly as he crested the top, finding Abbot just where he expected to find him, standing on the wrong side of the railing and staring down at the distance before him.
They had all considered it, on more than one occasion. Hell, some of them considered it daily. It would be one step. A quick freefall. And then blissful, gentle nothingness.
But they stayed. They had to.
Things used to be better. They had certainly been worse than this, but there was a time when they were better.
“Brother,” Abbot greeted, his voice gravelly from disuse, having spent the entire night before in the tower, watching, protecting.
“I’m on to take over,” Robby said, approaching his friend from behind and giving his shoulder a squeeze, “come on back over and go get some rest.”
They both knew he wouldn’t. The circles below his eyes were a near permanent fixture at this point. He hadn’t been a good sleeper before. Not during. And certainly not now, when his dreams were filled with hellish scenarios that were indistinguishable from his waking moments.
He went anyway, slapping Robby on the back before grabbing his backpack and his rifle, slinging both over his shoulder, and making his way down the ladder.
Abbot made his way though the dewy, morning grass, breath visible in front of him as he lamented the loss of fall, quickly turning into winter.
They had a good summer this year. Should be more prepared for the cooler months than ever before, but it never made the bite of the cold any easier.
As Abbot walked in, he saw Frank, Mel, Perlah, and Donnie jogging the perimeter fence. Frank’s rifle bumped into his back with every step in a way that was almost certainly uncomfortable, but their morning jog served a greater purpose than keeping them in shape, it was a check of their perimeter fencing, and finding a hole without a weapon or two? Not a good place to be.
Abbot continued walking as he scanned around him. Everyone was moving, doing something, while he was assigned to be resting, going to bed. It felt odd, but he didn’t mind being the one who was bathed in the darkness, most of the time.
Whitaker and Trinity were tending the chickens, a coop built from an old greenhouse that was once behind the school. Trinity was frowning sourly, but still diligently following Whitaker and helping tend the livestock.
As Abbot entered the school, he felt the nominal rise in temperature that the insulation and shelter from the gentle breeze provided. Abbot had always run warm, so the cool didn’t bother him, but he lamented at the thought of seeing Victoria shiver as she traversed the halls of their school-turned-compound.
Abbot’s room was decently secluded, an old classroom that was well down one of the wings.
He had his own room. One of the privileges that came with fighting for his life to rid this place of the undead. He had been here before. Before they had the small communities of survivors that they had built, it was just him, Robby, and Dana.
The school had been a random find. The trio were attempting to travel south, get somewhere warmer before the first winter after everything had truly gone to shit.
They didn’t get far enough before the first blizzard started, and Robby was going to be hypothermic soon if they didn’t find shelter. They were all ready to find an abandoned home to hunker down in, but instead, they found Greene County High School.
The place had been cold, but warmer than the outside, and absolutely crawling with the undead.
They cleared a wing, then the next one, and the next. Winter turned into spring, and they added a perimeter fence, using some pre-existing fence and building their own. It was a painfully slow task. Three people with growling bellies weren’t the best fence builders. Then they met Princess and Perlah, who were honestly useless at building fences, but they were resourceful. Perlah was able to identify plants that were safe to eat, and Princess was handy with a knife.
They had a fence when they met Mel and Becca. Becca was only with them for a few weeks and it nearly killed Mel to have lost her sister, but it didn’t.
Mel and Robby had been on a supply run when they found Whitaker. The poor kid was starving and trapped by a horde of the undead. Mel and Robby had left him there and returned with the calvary, clearing the undead and saving the man.
Over the six years that they had lived in the school, they had amassed quite a little community. They were family, and all each other had anymore, and any one of them would do anything for the rest.
Abbot walked into his room, dropping his black backpack and weapon next to the door and toeing off his shoes. He should go to breakfast, see what Ellis had prepared, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he walked over to his mattress and laid down, taking off his prosthetic, pulling a threadbare blanket over his body and stared up at the off fluorescent lights.
Sleep didn’t come. Or if it did, it came in short, nearly unnoticeable fits and bursts.
Abbot finally threw in the towel when the sun had just passed its crest in the sky, making it afternoon. He had given sleep an appropriate amount of time to take him, and it hadn’t, so he may as well spend his time doing something more useful.
He sat up once more, slipped on his prosthetic, and got up, running his fingers through his curls, catching them on the knots and snags in his hair. He probably should shower soon. Maybe.
Abbot made his way through the school, nearly relaxed as he passed by all of his people. It was still hard for him to believe that, at this point in their journey, the work was no longer never ending. They had down time. It was a luxury they didn’t have for years and years, but now? Especially as they head out of the harvest season, once the work was done, most of them spent their time indoors, playing cards, watching movies, talking and enjoying each other's company, reading, the list goes on.
Abbot made a beeline for the library, which was one of the places that they tended to congregate, but definitely not the favorite, in hopes of some quiet company.
He passed the others, Trinity and Victoria loud and boisterous. Whitaker slinking around like he still didn’t belong. Shen, Ellis, and Crus discussing something that seemed important, pointing up at the wet spots on the false ceiling tiles.
When he got to the library, he pushed open the heavy doors to find the curtains open, light streaming into the room. Langdon and Mel were in one of the corners, sitting on a ratty couch. Mel had her nose buried in a book, and Langdon was fiddling with something in his hands, tongue pressed into his cheek.
They looked up briefly when Abbot came in, and he gave them a wave and something resembling a smile as he made his way over to the shelves, looking for a book to read.
His eyes skimmed the covers.
Frank Langdon had not been Abbot’s first choice. Hell, he hadn’t been any of their first choices. Mel had shown up with him about a year and a half ago. He was this scrawny man who never stopped moving.
When they had met to decide if he could stay, Abbot had voted no. The man clutched a sobriety chip in his fist like it would save him. Less than one year sober before everything happened? To Abbot, the kid was a liability.
They wouldn’t tell him, but majority rules here, and he had gotten barely over half of their votes on his side. He got to stay.
Abbot wasn’t often wrong.
He had been wrong about Frank Langdon.
Langdon had assimilated well enough. Abbot didn’t see him often, the man followed Mel around like a lost puppy. When he wasn’t with Mel, he was always messing with something, and it irked Abbot to no end. He simply didn’t stop moving. Fingers fiddled with loose screws, frayed fabric, the clocks that were on the walls of the classroom that had long since stopped working. He bounced on the balls of his feet with his hands clenched behind his head. It was infuriating.
Abbot had grown up in a time where movement was rewarded with more work. He was in the army. He couldn’t stand the way Frank fidgeted.
Then one day - just after the sun reached its highest point in the sky - the lights turned on. It was brief, only for a few seconds, but in the rooms where the switches had been abandoned in the “on” position, the fluorescents hummed to life before quickly flicking back off.
Everyone who saw it immediately began to gather, just to see what had happened. There hadn’t been electricity anywhere for years at this point. The powerlines were beyond repair.
And there was Frank, an incredibly crude battery in hand, standing at the fuze box, wires stripped and going in every direction with the most pleased, dopey smile on his face.
“Look!” He had said with a smile, quickly reconnecting the wires and making the lights come up again for the briefest second before they clicked back off.
Frank had found his place following that. And no one questioned the constant movement and the fiddling. Abbot, Robby, and Dana supported him, getting him out on supply runs to gather things he found useful, and soon enough, the building was coming to life with different solar panels that he was collecting off livestock fences and the few houses that had them, and they had things they hadn’t had for years.
Things got better, then. They still didn't use the heat, though that was something Langdon had been fiddling with recently, but they had hot water, an oven, a couple fans, a working television that they used for DVDs. The school was better than ever before.
Frank suddenly became one of the most important people there. Not that he cared. All Frank really cared about was Mel.
That was okay, Abbot supposed.
Abbot plucked a book off of the shelf before him, infinitely grateful that they found themselves in a high school for the sole reason of some of the literature being applicable, and took a seat on another ratty couch by the door, cracking the book open and attempting to read.
It didn’t last long. He was quickly startled out of his reprieve by a calico cat that began winding though his feet (meat and aftermarket).
Ugh.
All Frank cared about was Mel.
And up until a few months ago, all that he cared about was the one who brought this damn cat back to their home.
-
She had shown up, inky hair wild and soaking wet. He was immediately concerned, it wasn’t warm enough for her to have been out in the elements. She was supposed to have been in the watchtower.
“Sam-”
“Look!” She grinned, both dimples coming out (it was such a treat, she rarely gave both dimples).
That drew his attention away from her wide smile and to her hands where she held a scrawny cat.
“It’s a cat!!” She was exhuberant.
“I see that.” Jack deadpanned, but he couldn’t help the warmth that flooded her chest at seeing her so happy.
“I would like to keep my cat.” Her voice was matter of fact.
There was something about Samira Mohan.
There was something about Jack Abbot and Samira Mohan.
There was something about Jack Abbot and Samira Mohan and his inability to tell her no.
Before, Jack had a therapist. He often wondered what his therapist would say about his attachment to Samira Mohan.
There was no chance that he would have thought about denying her the right to keep the cat.
“What are you going to name her?”
“Magnolia.”
-
Abbot didn't know how long he sat with Samira’s cat dozing in his lap, purring softly as he tried to focus on the book in his hands. Finding that he couldn’t. He couldn’t think of anything but her.
Abbot felt a bit like he was wading through jello for the rest of the day. More often than not, Magnolia stayed close to the girls room. And her being in his presence had him feeling a bit like his head was stuffed full of cotton.
The raw ache of her not being here - the ache of not knowing what happened to her, was ever pervasive.
Nevertheless, he joined everyone for dinner, where Cassie had prepared them a hearty meal. It wasn’t anything special, but it was warm and smelled good and kept them full.
The table was full of chatter. Trinity, Victoria, and Emma were fussing over something that Abbot didn’t care to try to decode.
Up until a few months ago, they only had adults living here. Having 3 teenage girls proved to be a bit more of a learning curve than he had expected.
When everything started, the government opened institutions for children. It was promised that the children would be fed and educated. All three of their girls came from these institutions.
Slowly but surely, things were getting more difficult for the institutions, and the age of children that they would care for got lower and lower. And eventually, they began turning out the older children. Dana had come in with Emma first.
Emma was a dream. Wide eyed and sweet, following Dana around like a little duckling.
Robby found Trinity. Trinity was a bit older, and came from an institute that was hours away. She had been on her own for a long while, and often fought against authority. Trinity was rough around the edges, but she loved fiercely and fought tooth and nail for “her” people.
Victoria found them. She walked right up to the fence while Jack was on watch.
There was no way Victoria was even old enough for them to have turned out. She was bright, incredibly so, but also standoffish. She preferred to keep to herself.
The three girls could not be more different, but they got along well enough, and they were good girls. They kept things bright and interesting in a way that they hadn’t been before.
Shen and Cruz were on his left, arguing about some bet that they had placed. Abbot had no idea. He didn’t want to know.
On his right, Mel sat, silent. She was barely awake, chin resting in her palm.
That? That Abbot could handle.
“Mel?” Abbot questioned, voice raspy but low, tugging gently at the end of her flaxen braid.
“Hmm?” she hummed, raising her eyebrows without opening her eyes.
“Come on.” Abbot said softly, pushing his chair out from the table and tugging her to her feet. If the rest of the table noticed, they didn’t draw attention to the pair. Well, maybe except for Frank. Abbot could feel his twitchy, icy gaze following them out of the room.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked softly, his hand at Mel’s elbow, guiding her through the halls. She was much more awake now that she was standing. His guidance wasn’t necessary, but the contact was appreciated nonetheless.
Mel shrugged, “just been a long couple of weeks, hasn’t it?”
Abbot couldn’t help but agree, and his agreement only became more concrete as they neared their room.
The room that Mel, Samira, and Parker had all shared.
His feet dragged, just a little bit, as they approached the room.
Mel stopped short and turned to him with a contemplative look on her face. Mel, despite being a bit unusual, was incredibly insightful. Abbot knew it was coming, and still didn’t have time to brace for the impact.
“I know that we don’t know what happened to her,” Mel paused, taking a long moment to think over her words, “but I don’t think she would want you to be sad.”
Abbot fought back the tears, tipping his head up to the ceiling and letting out a slow breath.
“I know. I don’t know how not to be.”