Beccas Island, Part II
Later that evening, the others returned from the lab. They couldn't do much more work without more of Lunas blood and she hadn't emerged yet from the bedroom she choosed earlier that day. There were almost enough room for everybody. Murphy and Emori shared a bed of course, Miller and Jackson had to share a room too, but it had two single beds and they were both guys and totally on board with it, while Paul, the other guard, choose to take the couch instead of sharing. Strangely it was a quiet evening, nice even. Nobody, not even Miller, argued over the food Murphy cooked. Instead most of them sat around the big table in the middle of the living room. They ate, more than they were used to and drank age-old wine Emori scavenged in the pantry. It was way better than Montys moonshine.
"I'm drunk", Miller said and leaned back in his chair. "And I'm fuller than I have been in ages."
"John is on kitchen duty from now on", Jackson chimed in, his plate empty in front of him. Murphy stopped himself short of arguing. Kitchen duty sounded quite alright in a kitchen like this, with music and Emori to keep him company.
"Whatever", he grumbled, just because he could.
"It was really good", Abby said, a small smile on her face, it was almost motherly, "Thank you, John. You too, Emori, for bringing us here."
"We should get back to the lab", Raven said. She hadn't touched the wine and seemed restless to get back to work her brain magic.
"We won't go back tonight."
"Jackson is right, Raven. You need to rest. We all should." Abby drank the last sip of wine in her glass. Then she stood up. "I certainly will. Goodnight."
Jackson and Miller followed her upstairs, Paul went to guard the front entrance for the first watch. He would wake Miller later that night for the changing of the guard.
Murphy took hold of Emoris hand.
"Come on, I want to show you something", he said quietly, after filling his glass with the last remaining wine in the bottle. Together they went to the back door. It led onto a paved patio. On the right side of the backyard was a swimming pool. The water shimmered in the moonlight. It was a soothing blue light. Murphy took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trouser legs. He sat down on the side of the pool with his feet in the water. It was cold, but thanks to Emori who sat next to him, her feet and calves bare, and due to the alcohol and his full belly he felt warm all over. And he felt content, as he once again took hold of her hand. He took another sip of the wine and held the glass out for Emori.
"Thank you", she said, drank a small sip and laid her head on his shoulder. Murphy wasn't sure what she was thanking him for. Certainly not for passing over the wine. He wasn't sure if Emori really understood the danger they were in. That they wouldn't survive without nightblood and maybe not even then, but what use would it be to talk it over with her. Murphy wanted to live, now more than ever, because with her in his future life could be really great. He also knew that Emori was a survivor, the most badass he'd ever knew, but they couldn't con themselves out of a death wave. Two month, at the most, Abby told them, probably way less before earth became their enemy. He wanted the day's they'd still left to mean something.
"I never had an evening like this", Emori whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"Dinner at a table", she said and he got her. She had him, but she was still lonely. Emori had only told him fractions about her life prior to meeting him, but as far as he put the pieces together, she and Otan were on their own since pretty much the day she was born. They never had a home base, they were nomads, not liked to be seen or heard by other grounders. Emori might have never had friends or familiy, other than her brother, to share the evenings with. Murphy thoughts went back to his parents. They always ate their rations together and even if food had to be rationed sometimes and a lot of it was bland and very much tasteless, they always made dinner a fun experience. His mother liked to play music over the little speaker in their quarters, his dad liked to talk about his day in med bay and he always asked about school. For all it's faults and quarries life on the ark prior to the sickness that got his father floated, was good. Dinner at a table had been normal for him. It was strange how much time had passed.
"You know what, 'Mori?" he said and watched how the wind moved the water is tiny little waves. He knew that Raven was watching them from back by the door. Maybe she could even hear their words, but he didn't care a bit, while he promised: "One day we will have dinner every evening and a bed to sleep in."
"That would be nice", Emori said and put her arm around the small of his back.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
They went to bed late that night and got up well into the day. The others, except for Paul who was still sleeping in the living room, after guarding the house half of the night, where gone. Likely to the lab. Murphy grabbed two apples out of the pantry and some shrink-wrapped dry crackers to go with it for breakfast. They ate in bed, not caring about crumbs. Since they could lock the door from inside, Emori was just in a small shorts she wore under her trousers and a thin shirt. Both her hands were exposed and she smiled, munching on her last cracker.
"I like it here", she said.
Murphy, already finished with his ration, laid back into the pillows. He had never slept in a bed as soft as this. Never stayed in a room like this, the bunker didn't count. There had been art on the wall and shiny lights too, even motorbikes and a billiard table, but Emori hadn't been there and three months of continuedly playing videos of Becca Franco and how she destroyed the earth weren't his kind of recreation plans. This here was different. They were able to dim the lights and had quiet music playing over a record player. They had sat on the floor last night and went through the cabinet full of records. Emori might be more fascinated by how the turntable worked than by the music itself but Murphy really enjoyed to listen to it. He missed music in the skybox and when he went to the ground he wasn't sure he would ever be able to listen to it again.
After their late breakfast and a not-that-quick make-out session in the biggest bed they'd ever made out in, they went to the bathroom. Fortunately the water worked just as well as every other appliances on this island. Murphy supposed that as long as the solar panels in the desert were active, electronic and water would work flawlessly.
Showering together under warm water was a new sensation in and on itself. There had been showers on the ark, private showers in their quarters even for Alpha Station and enough communal showers in the other ones. Even in the skybox they had shower stalls, but warm water was rationed for everyone.
On a small shelf inside the shower wall stood some hard plastic bottles, labeled with shower foam, conditioner and shampoo. Murphy grabbed at one of them and opened the lid. It smelled good, sweet and a little bit like grass. Murphy held it under Emoris nose.
"It smells like flowers", she said.
"Really?" Murphy never smelled flowers, real or artificial. On the ark their liquid soap smelled bland, it's purpose only to get their bodies clean.
"Sha", Emori laughed. "You didn't had flowers in space or what?"
"No", Murphy said. She stilled and looked sad, as if she just realized that she wasn't the only one to not know about certain things. Murphy didn't want her to look like this, apologetic, so he leaned down and kissed her, opened bottle still in his hand. The water was flowing over their heads and down their bodies to the drain, dark with accumulated specks of dirt and blood. Murphy took some of the shower foam and started to spread it over Emoris shoulders and down over her breasts. They took time and a lot of soap and shampoo to clean their bodies. In the end the foam was white even. Murphy had never felt this clean before. The whole room smelled like flowers, the mirror over the sink was steamy from the warm water and their bodies where flushed from being under the hot stream for that long.
They lay down naked on the soft cloths on the bed, Emori cuddled into Murphys side, her badass hand on his belly. He felt good, clean and sated from their breakfast, warm all over and sleepy. The music was still playing softly in the background and Emori was caressing his naked chest. While he closed his eyes and slipped into a dreamless slumber, he wondered, if life would ever be this good again.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
They woke up a few hours later, the record on the turntable had stopped playing somewhere in between. Murphy and Emori got dressed in their old and dirty clothes, before they got the idea to raid the closets. Maybe later, maybe tomorrow. They went downstairs and while Murphy looked for food to combine for dinner, Emori hopped up on the counter and looked through the cook book they found yesterday.
"Look", Murphy said triumphantly, "I found noodles and canned tomatoes."
"What are noodles?" Murphy grabbed at the cookbook, but gave it back after flipping over some pages. Emori looked at the picture and started to read the text slowly. There were a lot of words she didn't knew and it had been a long time since she read anything at all.
"Pasta with tomato sugo", she said unsure of the pronunciation, "and Shrimps."
"Yeah, we don't have those, whatever that is. But we have canned tuna or more dried meat. What do you think?"
"Sounds good", she said. "I like tomatoes."
Murphy rummaged in the cabinets to get some pots, while Emori opened up the canned goods.
"Can you turn the music on, Emori?"
"You like it", she said, while she went to the stereo.
"What?"
"Music." Emori pushed the power button and turned the volume up by a few notches. As an afterthought she added: "Cooking."
"Yeah, course", Murphy answered with a small huff. Emori went back to the kitchen island and opened up a random drawer. She rummaged through it and before she knew, what she was doing, she had a row of things that sparked her interest on the kitchen counter. There was a rectangular piece of metal with a flap on top. Emori opened it and suddenly there was a little flame inside.
"It's a Lighter." Murphy nodded to the small table in front of the couch. "Use it on the candles."
Emori did as told and held the small flame to the candles. When they were flickering, Emori turned the flap down and pocketed the lighter in the back pocket of her trousers. She went back to her findings and took hold of the next item. It was a piece of paper , the writing on it was faded but Emori looked closely and read out load: "Panettone, Water, Flour, Sugar, Raisins …"
"It's a cake", Murphy guessed.
"A cake?"
"People made it for birthdays, back when", he stopped just for a moment, "you know, the world wasn't fucked up yet."
"I don't know when my birthday is. Otan found me in the summer, when the days where hot."
"Where did he find you?" Murphy ignored, that only now she told him, in a roundabout way, that Otan wasn't even her brother by blood.
"At a creek. He was looking for junk, some get's washed up. But he only found me that day. Different kind of junk."
"Hey, hey, hey", Murphy said soothingly. "Don't talk like that."
"Sha, Otan was even happy about. He said, I was a strik munsta. But he wasn't alone anymore."
"Strik?"
"Little. Little beast."
"He loved you", Murphy said suddenly but with insistence. He needed her to believe that she was loved, just like he had been by his parents.
"Sha", Emori confirmed, while she grabbed another one of her findings. "I did too."
Murphy put salt and noodles into the boiling water, before he looked at Emoris little collection of junk. He grabbed at a small elastic, played around with it for a bit and then nodded at Emori.
"Want something to put you hair together?" She took it, but put it into her pocket, a stoic expression on her face. Murphy held up his hands in surrender.
"Got it", he said, laughing quietly, "Your haul. I won't touch it."
"She's got you wrapped around her little finger", Raven said, suddenly standing by the door. How in the world could he have not hear her coming with her brace and all? Murphy shook his head at himself, but turned back around to the simmering tomato sauce. Raven wasn't a threat.
"What are you cooking?"
"Pasta", Emori said as if she'd known the word her whole life. Raven risked a glance into the pots on the stove and nodded approvingly. "Everyone wanted to come back for dinner. Better be good."
"You know it will be, Reyes", he retorted, while Emori put the rest of the junk into her pocket, not comfortable at discovering anymore, now that they weren't alone.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
After dinner, Murphy was told he had to go back to the lab with Raven, Luna and Abby. Paul would guard them, but they always wanted to have another man with a gun with them, for the off chance some that the raiders Emori told them about would attack the lab. Jackson and Miller were dead on their feet, having spent the whole day in the lab, either guarding or doing some science magic. Abby was tired too, but she insisted on coming with them. Emori wanted to come too, but the others told them, they needed someone who was well rested back in the house. She would take first watch, so really, none of them could argue, even if they weren't at all comfortable at being split up for any second. Murphy kissed her flat on the mouth, before shouldering his shot gun and trekking after Paul and the woman.
In the lab Abby and Raven went right back to work. Luna gave some more of her blood, but then she was off in one of the other rooms. God knew, what she was doing there. Murphy didn't care much. He was bored easily and on edge, since Emori wasn't with him, so he went off to explore the lab for a bit. There was an small office right next to the entrance of the lab. It wasn't as tidy in there as in the house or the other parts of the lab. On the table lay clutter, pens, some batteries, a few wires and some small black ball. Murphy took the soft ball and pocketed the rest for Emori. She liked when he brought her presents. Back in the woods he always looked for little leaves or oddly shaped sticks or stones to bring them as bearings. She still had a small collection of the ones she liked the most in that shoulder bag of hers. Murphy was just about to leave the office, when he spotted a little toy car next to one of the cubicles. He crouched down and took hold of it. It was white, wires connected the wheels to the body of the car. His father often talked about cars and motorbikes. He said his grandfather, the one who wasn't born on the ark, had been a mechanic before he became part of the space crew, that went up to the sky. He told him old tales of endless roads and garages full of cars. The only real car Murphy had ever seen was the rover, briefly when they were staying at Arkadia. He wondered how it would feel to drive it himself, his dad always said that would be the dream, if he could just live long enough to reach the ground, when he thought Murphy was already asleep from the more child-friendly things he told him as a bedtime story. Murphy knew his dad was fascinated by the ground and life before the catastrophe, while his mother was content to live and die on the Ark. As a kid, Murphy had always known, that his generation wouldn't be the one to get to go to the ground. What a freaking coincidence it was, that they were all wrong. His mom would have been furious, if she knew about the dangers he got himself into, while his dad would be more than anxious of the adventures the ground contained. Murphy grinned to himself while picking up the remote control next to the toy car. Would have been nice to be here with his dad. Miller and Clarke were the lucky they still got their mom or dad.
oo oo oo oo oo oo
It was hours later, Abby and Luna were fast asleep in different rooms in the lab and Murphy was on Raven duty. He just found out through Abby earlier that evening that Raven was not allowed to be alone in the lab anymore. Something was off with her brain. And she found a freaking rocket, she sat in since he started his Raven-Watch mere hours ago. Murphy was lucky that the batteries of the to car he found hadn't died yet, so he wasn't that bored while he listened to Raven fail every single simulation she did in the insides of the rocket. What a freaking world this was, that they found a still functioning rocket ship inside an underground lab nearly a hundred years after the apocalypses. Murphy wondered what would be left of this earth after the second one. Would they?
"Mission fail", the artificial voice of the rockets board computer toned up, while Raven was screaming a series of angy No's into the mic in his ear, "Exterior damage 100 %. Cargo destruction 100 %. Fatality 100%."
"Way to go, Raven. Nuclear death wave 42 and mankind zero." Not that he was counting.
"You want to get in here and try for it?"
"Nah, kinda busy, actually", Murphy drove a small circle with his toy car. "Anyway, wouldn't want to be responsible for everyone in the world dying."
"Abby said you had to watch. No one said you had to weigh in." Yeah, Murphy thought, thanks for remembering. He would rather lie in bed with Emori either way, but instead he was on babysitting duty for Raven, after her brain nearly blew up. She really was a strange one. Murphy wondered, if she had always been this angry or if the ground made her that way. Much as he heard and saw, she had her fair share of torture and destruction. Alone the thing with Finn. Back when it happened, Murphy didn't know that kind of love. By now he understood how broke she had felt and how ready she had been to offer him up in exchange for the one boy she loved with all her heart. He would gladly do the same for Emori. And he got Raven, he really did. In her pain and her angriness. He got it, maybe better than anyone else. But he would never say that out loud. Instead he put his walls up and answered with his usual kind of mean wittiness.
"Oh, that's me: always going above and beyond the call of duty. Speaking of, you keep starting with you fuel gauge at 75%. Maybe that's your problem."
"Pay attention. 10 barrels of hydrazine is all we had left at Arkadia. If there was more, I wouldn't have a problem landing. Oh damn it!"
"You okay in there?" Murphy asked. Wouldn't want her brain to blow up under his watch.
"I'm fine. Shut up." Nah, he couldn't.
"You want me to wake up the doc?"
"No! No. No, I'm good. I'm running it again."
"Sure. 28th time's the charm, right?", Murhy answered sarcastically, driving his remote-controlled toy car against the podium he was sitting on. He was done playing with it, Murphy was bored as hell and he just wanted to go back to the mansion and be with Emori. She was way more fun than babysitting Raven Reyes.