#and then I’m on off watching bones and republic of Doyle

[readingwriter92]

Not me scrolling whump blogs constantly bc I’m desperate for a new brainrot show with whump

[anneapocalypse]

I haven’t been posting much in the way of writing updates here lately, so in honor of finishing the first draft, here’s a long-ish sneak preview of the Kimbalina longfic.

*

Kimball spots that aqua armor, motionless in the snow, and her heart does not stop, not quite.

After the disaster at Crash Site Alpha, it almost feels like it should.

*

Grif brings the bird down between the trees as best he can, as best anyone could really—there’s no clearing in the dense pines and they can hear branches snapping against the hull on the final descent. Steam billows up before the windshield, obscures the tiny window in the back hatch, where the heat of the Pelican’s engines meets the snow. 

There is still something about a winter-white landscape that puts Kimball on high alert. Snow means north, means high altitudes, means Federal strongholds in the mountains, Fed soldiers in their camouflaged white armor, the bright glare of danger every rebel in desert drab well knows.

Even now, with the truce, it gets her blood up. And the mountains are no less dangerous now—just from a different foe.

*

Tucker, Caboose, and Dr. Grey are clustered around Carolina, along with Donut, and someone else, someone in… purple armor? She’s too exhausted to figure out if she’s seen them before. Tucker seems to be focused on keeping Caboose from interfering, while Grey is focused on Carolina. Epsilon’s blue hologram glows above her still form. It is him—his distress beacon—that has brought them here, broadcast over Aqua Squad’s TEAMCOM, the Red and Blue TEAMCOMs, and Kimball and Wash’s private channels. 

Tucker, Caboose, and Dr. Grey have been on the ground searching for well over an hour—that she learned by radio—but the distress beacon only came active twenty minutes ago. Kimball’s team was already in the air, with Grif at the helm, making their retreat, when the call came.

Carolina missing. The Key in the hands of the mercenaries. 

If Kimball wasn’t so bone-tired to the point of numbness, she thinks she’d probably be sick.

Wash has been at her side since they got the call, peering through the hatch window, both of them sort of self-consciously keeping just enough distance not to block the other’s view. A strained courtesy that Kimball nonetheless appreciates from Wash. He’s a hard one to read—always in armor, rarely unhelmeted in public, even less than Carolina, though Kimball has seen him in the mess enough to know him by his face. His presence here at her side is a terse silence.

But when the hatch drops, Wash lurches forward before it touches the snow.

*

Wash makes all of Blue Team gathered around Carolina, and even Sarge and Simmons quickly follow.

“Stand back, please!” Dr. Grey chirps, in the deceptively cheerful tone Kimball has come to recognize as nothing less than a medical Command voice, and learned to obey quickly, because whatever else Emily Grey may be, she is no fool when it comes to medicine. “Gentlemen, I’m going to need a team lift here.”

“Is it safe to move her?” Wash asks, hovering. His posture now radiates anxiety.

“Would I have said it if it wasn’t?” Grey retorts, a bit shortly. 

“Right,” Wash says, and without another word moves into position by Carolina’s head. 

“Caboose, you take her legs,” Tucker says, “but don’t move until Dr. Grey says.”

“No moving,” says Caboose.

“Until Dr. Grey says.”

“Until Dr. Grey says… what?”

“Caboose, go get in the back of the Pelican and wait for us there.”

“Okay!” says Caboose and trots off.

“Is she going to be all right?” Kimball asks desperately, unable to restrain herself any longer.

“Oh, sweetie,” Dr. Grey says, eyes never leaving her medical scanner. “I’m a genius, not a psychic! That depends on a whole variety of factors outside my knowledge or control! Why, any of us might die tomorrow!”

She will not take a swing at the Fed doctor. Today is not the day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Kimball isn’t psychic either.

“Her vitals are strong,” Grey continues blithely, “and I don’t see any signs of spinal injury. That’s about as much as I can tell you without more equipment, which is why we need to get her back to base as quickly as possible!”

“Watch her head,” Epsilon says tensely. “Be careful.”

“I’ve got her,” Wash says.

Kimball’s hands flail helplessly. “Can I—”

But she isn’t needed. The Reds, Tucker, and Wash have Carolina up and shuttled in the back hatch and laid flat on the floor, at which point Grey cheerfully orders everyone out of her way. Donut hops into the copilot spot and the rest of them grab crash seats—Kimball remains standing—and with a roar of thrusters they lift off again through the trees.

There’s something strange and terrible about being surrounded by the Reds and Blues in near total silence.

*

It’s a long flight back to Armonia. Too long. Long enough for Kimball to tie herself in knots.

Nothing good waits for her back in Armonia. The survivors of Crash Site Alpha, with no time to mourn their losses, because they have to re-mobilize immediately, because things are only going to get worse from here, because Doyle—

Doyle.

The thought of another strategy meeting, now, after all of this—it just makes her want to start screaming.

*

Grif lands them on the roof of Armonia General, and Grey sends Tucker inside for a gurney. At least the elevators are running.

She should be following her. Should be at Carolina’s side while Grey wheels her off, Epsilon’s agitated light still hovering over her silent form. Should be there when Carolina wakes up.

But she has to be there for her people, first. And Carolina…

Carolina might not want her there anyway.

Kimball feels a nudge at her shoulder, and realizes she’s blocking the hatch.

“She’s going to be okay,” Wash says.

Kimball feels frozen. She feels too exhausted to move, too exhausted to even form the words she should be saying.

“Kimball,” Wash says, looking her square in the eyes—well, in the visor, but even that’s rare enough for him. “She will be. It’s Carolina. She’ll be all right. Grey will take care of her.”

She can’t even force out a “Thank you,” as Grif lifts off the roof and pilots back to base. Kimball feels utterly drained, like her body might just collapse. When she thinks of Carolina’s body, fallen motionless in the snow, her stomach feels hollow. When she thinks of the dead at Alpha, all the bodies they had to leave behind—

she feels about to cave in, the hollowness become a sucking vacuum, trying to collapse her in on herself like a dying star.

*

The walk to the war room isn’t long enough. She can’t remember the last time she felt this heavy. Not even downtown with Doyle in her sights, when Felix’s voice came over the radio, broadcast to everyone on the planet.

Times like this, it’d really be nice to be able to collapse in an uncontrollable sobbing heap on the floor. Be nice to have a place to do that. But she cannot do that. She is Vanessa Kimball, General of the New Republic and… whatever she and Doyle are, of the United Chorus. She doesn’t think they’ve earned the title of co-leaders. That implies a level of cooperation they’ve yet to reach.

Maybe she could’ve done better. Offered more compromise. Damned if she can figure out where.

*

She veers off to the nearest restroom, mumbling something to Wash about getting some water. The clip Wash is keeping at her side on the way to the war room, she’s genuinely nervous he’s not going to let her out of his sight, and she understands why. Time is of the essence now, and she’s clearly a mess. But after an appraising look, Wash nods, and goes on without her.

Kimball ducks into the washroom and takes off her helmet, avoiding her own haggard reflection to bend over the sink and splash cold water on her face. The smell of it is sharp, mineral, metallic when she licks her lips.

Her stomach heaves, once, but she hasn’t eaten anything in many hours.

Kimball cups her hands under the faucet and takes a long, slow drink. 

She straightens up again, shakes off her hands. Puts her back to the wall and leans for a moment, letting just a bit of the weight off.

What do you fight for, Vanessa Kimball?

For a better tomorrow.

That’s worth it, even if—

She bites off the rest in her mind. No negative mantras today. She can’t afford it. She’s on the edge of collapse already.

What do you fight for?

Sometimes she goes through names of the dead. There are too many for one sitting, have been for years, but she whispers through them anyway when she sits, passing them like beads on a string. For Mom, for Sayuri, for Lene, for Olive, for Carter, for Jasmine, for Deidre, for…

This is not a day to name the dead. Not with so many more lost at Alpha. She can hope there will be time for that later. Maybe even time to visit the ruins of the temple and offer prayers.

That in itself is something to fight for. For a future moment to honor the dead.

To honor the dead. For a moment of peace.

She controls her breathing. She doesn’t count, not in numbers, but feels the rhythm of it behind her ribcage, filling her body, saying life.

What do you fight for?

For Matthews, Ganoush, Rivas, Velasquez, Turner, Cody, Mukerjea, Dawes, Liu, Bitters, Jensen, Palomo, Andersmith, Marri, and the names march on.

For her people. For Chorus.

And for Carolina, too. For Wash, Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Donut.

Because this is, inexorably now, their fight. Because they’ve chosen to stay and fight too, to make it theirs, and there is no more escaping for them than for anyone else. So Chorus's fate is now their fate, too.

She breathes.

For a better tomorrow.

She steels herself, pushes off the wall and heads for the war room.

*

It all happened because they split up. In hindsight, Vanessa can see that. In hindsight, she can see a lot of things.

What she can’t see is how she could’ve stopped it, all of it, from happening.

*