John doesn’t even take a water bottle with him, because he’s confident it won’t take him long to find his teleporting friend. Clarice can only go to places she’s seen, and he’s in a truck. He’ll catch up in a few hours, tops.
What he has forgotten is that teleportation leaves no trace of direction. He can tack where she was based on leftover cans, empty water bottles, shoeprints that are around her size in places sketchy enough to make him wish she had never left. Where Clarice was is easy. Where she is is harder. His normally tack-sharp tracking skills are hazy suggestions at best now. It’s infuriating. It’s terrifying. The first person John has ever met that he can’t track.
He can’t ask around; these people would sell both of them to Sentinel Services for half of the reward offered. He wishes either of them had a cell phone, and he could just call her, ask her if she’s okay, ask her where she is, ask her to come back.
There’s something hiding under the guilt in his throat.
He searches every warehouse he finds, every decrepit building. There’s more of those in Georgia than he had previously given the state credit for.
He sleeps in his car the first night, hungry and frustrated and tired and lonely.
The next day, his body insists on breakfast, so he begrudgingly and hastily obliges before continuing the search. He’s never had to look so long for someone who hasn’t even left the state. John is really hoping she hasn’t left the state. Which brings the question to mind: where is Clarice even going? So far there has been no pattern except for occasional newspaper clippings left behind of strange, mutant occurrences in small towns. He supposes that narrows his search slightly, but how many small towns are there in Georgia? Oh, right, a fuckton.
If her pattern of movement indicates anything, Clarice is lost. First she goes North, then South, then East, then North again. There’s no rhyme or reason. Clarice has about as much direction getting where she’s going as John does looking for her.
It’s around ten am when he finally gives up his pride and uses his foresight. He doesn’t usually use it, if only because what he sees is typically something he shouldn’t or doesn’t want to, and he’s never had a situation where it was a necessity as opposed to an option. If John is being honest with himself, he could have used it the day before and already been back home with his good friend (presumably– because who wants to live on the run?) in tow.
Within minutes he knows which small town she’s in, even which room of which building. He wastes no time getting his ass in the car and hauling it ten miles South.
There’s something hiding under the regret on his shoulders.
The clattering of a can, a curse word, and he knows Clarice is there. He doesn’t bother hiding his footfalls as he jogs to the room, and she’s got a portal open that he barely stops her from going through. Words come out clumsily as relief permeates his muscles. Somehow, he can’t say what he wants to, but he manages to apologize and offer to help her search for her mystery road.
Jade eyes hold wary anxiety. Everyone knows something happened to Clarice, and this is that something rearing its ugly head: she can’t trust him, and that hurts some.
On the road, there’s dead end after dead end after dead end. Even a few hours of search yields exhausted dark circles under both of their eyes. Neither of them have slept well the past few days.
They bicker, mildly. They laugh, quietly. They contemplate why they are sitting in a car with a person they barely know but feel so close to searching for something that they aren’t sure is relevant or significant at all, tacitly.
And then John recognizes what Clarice is looking for.
The farmhouse reeks of blood, but Clarice either can’t smell it or doesn’t care as she commands that John open the door with a desperation John hasn’t seen from her in the few weeks he’s known her.
Kids toys litter the floor with broken glass and blood. There’s heights marked on various doorposts and a chore chart in the kitchen. How do you kill someone with a chore chart hanging on the wall right next to you?
The dam breaks and Clarice just sobs. John doesn’t know how to comfort her other than to just hold her, he’s never been good with comfort. Under any other circumstances, Clarice would never let him this close, but John supposes that trauma is one hell of a trust-builder. He would have preferred her keeping him at arm’s length for eternity if it meant she didn’t have to do this.
There’s something hiding under the rage in his chest.
They both wait until she’s ready to leave, and she insists on picking up the place, so John handles the glass and blood and Clarice handles the toys.
No one says anything on the ride home, and the radio stays pointedly silent. Just as the car shuts off with a shudder, Clarice takes a deep, startling, stuttering breath and gives John the same half-smile she’d give him any other day of the week. “Thanks,” is all she says before heading back inside to re-establish herself on the cot in the corner of the upper floor.
With no idea how to respond to that, John just grabs the keys and follows her inside.
They don’t talk about that day, but they both notice that Clarice has gained something to fight for, and they’ve both gained something a little more than an ally.
Eventually, the thing hiding under the guilt and regret and rage bubbles to the surface and there’s a smile, a laugh, a hand kept warm, a blanket shared, and a million other of the tiniest things with which to face the pessimistic world outside their home in the bank-headquarters of a refugee revolution.