Chapter Text
The alarm clock was loud and annoying but useful for the end of the world. It told him when it was morning and separated his dreams from the real world even though it was hard to believe that the current world was the real world. Anakin rolled over and dragged his heavy hand up before flopping it on the alarm clock. The irritating beeping stopped. He stared at the bright red numbers telling him it was 6am. The sun still had a good half an hour to rise before the day truly started. The lucky bastard. Anakin was not so lucky; he had a day of dirty work to do with Rex.
He stood up groggily and made his way to the shower. The water was cold and probably dirty; hot, clean water was a luxury these days, one he could not afford. He ran his hand over his body with the harsh bar of soap the military provided for the QZ residents the first of every month. It stung over the fresh cuts that had yet to scab over. The water turned off on its own. Ten minutes was all he got. The military did it to conserve water, but no one knew if it was true. If your water was cut mid-washing your hair, you would have to rinse it out under the rusty kitchen faucet.
Anakin dried himself off with an old towel and slipped into a pair of trousers and a flannel shirt. It was the end of summer, and the sun was still blazing, but no matter how hot the temperature was outside, it couldn’t help the chill that had permanently settled under his skin. A loud bang from his door being opened and hitting the wall awoke him from his morning trance. He reached for his gun and peeked outside the bathroom door to see who the intruder was.
“Skywalker?!” A familiar voice shouted. Anakin let out a small sigh and slipped the gun back in its holster.
“Scared the shit out of me, Rex.” That’s when he noticed the giant gash on Rex’s cheek.
“Force, what happened?” It looked painful. Another area on his face was already purple and started to turn yellow. He opened his cabinet and grabbed a bottle of whisky and a washcloth, pouring enough of the drink on the cloth to make an antiseptic. He handed the rag to Rex, who nodded in appreciation but winced when it touched the wound.
“Don betrayed us. Stole our shit and ran off.”
“Couldn’t have gone far; we can go after him.”
Rex started to stand from where he was seated, but Anakin placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. “After you tell me who beat the shit out of you.”
Rex rolled his eyes. “No one—you should see the other guy. I won the fight, but he didn’t go down easy.” He glanced at the red letters on Anakin's alarm clock. “C’mon, we need to hurry; we can get him before midday.”
Anakin grabbed his spare gun off the table and handed it to Rex. Don was going to have to answer them.
The streets were to be avoided; guard shifts were changing, and it wasn’t safe to be out. They stuck to back alleys, weaving through emptied buildings and secret rooms before going to what had been known as the courtyard. Everyone who has done anything sketchy in the QZ has stepped foot in the courtyard, and if you deal with dangerous illegal things on the regular, the courtyard would be your second home. Don spent most of his time by the docks, but one of his goons had to be out here. Rex led the way to an old bus that was abandoned in the middle of the street. He entered through the back before stopping to talk to the guy in the driver's seat.
“You looking for someone in particular?” The man asked, his voice deep and gravelly.
“Don, he stole from us; we’re just looking to talk.”
“You and about half of these assholes. He messed with a lot of people.”
“And his men?”
The man took a long drag of his cigarette. Force knows where he found it. They're illegal in the QZ. The military doesn’t want to deal with addicts. Not only are they illegal but also incredibly difficult to find anywhere in what’s left of the world. “Now why would I tell you?”
Anakin quickly swiped at his hand, taking his cigarette and holding it just out of reach. The man tried to jump out of his chair, but Rex held him down. “You want this; yeah, you tell us what we want to know.”
“Fuck fine.” He rolled his eyes, flopping down defeated. “They’re in the old buildings where the fireflies used to be before Fedra wiped them out.”
“What’s Don doing hanging with the fireflies?”
“I don’t know.”
Anakin tossed him back the cigarette, satisfied they got their information. “Let’s go.” He directed at Rex.
The fireflies were mostly dead, at least the ones in this QZ. Anywhere else is anybody’s guess; maybe far off out there they’re making real progress, but not here. They switch around between empty buildings, moving before the military can catch them every time except for the last. They were too slow, and most of them were wiped out; the only ones left in this QZ were Maul and the few lucky ones who managed to escape.
The trek wasn't difficult, minus a few of Don’s guys that were taken out with ease. If you asked Anakin a decade ago if he ever thought his kill count would be as high as it is, he never would've believed you. Even if you brought up the once impossible situation of a zombie outbreak, he still wouldn't have believed you. Something died that day all those years ago that made him regret taking another person's life. He didn't enjoy it. He wasn't that sadistic, but the amount of gasps and pleas and cries to an unknown power right as the light left that person's eyes certainly didn't keep him up at night.
The goons increased in number the closer they got to Don; Rex managed to knock out most of them while Anakin searched the building's rooms for where Don could be hiding. Eventually they found him; the sleemo was underground in a basement of an old building. Rex and Anakin pressed themselves against the wall while Don counted paper ration cards. Rex pulled his gun out of his holster before looking to Anakin for the go-ahead. Anakin nodded and pulled out his own gun just in case.
“Don, do you owe us something?” "Rex," he said, stepping into the doorframe, his gun pointed at Don.
“Shit,” Don cursed, holding his hands in the air.
“Shit indeed, now we can have a conversation about this—” Rex was cut off by Don running out of the room.
Now it was their turn to curse. Rex and Anakin started chasing after him as he wove through doorways and jumped over his dead men. Rex followed closely behind, never letting him get too far to escape or hide, not that he would have anywhere to hide. If they didn't catch him this time, they would keep going after him in the QZ. Unless he wanted to leave and try the rest of the world or find another QZ that wasn't full and starving, he would have to slow down.
“You’re delaying the inevitable!” Anakin shouted ahead. Don didn't have too many places to go, especially not after screwing over half of the QZ; it was only a matter of time.
Eventually, Don did slow down; he ran into a room with only one entrance and exit. There was nowhere left for him to turn to. He slowly raised his hands in the air.
“Guys, we can talk about this; let's have a conversation. What do you want? Food stamps?” He pleaded.
“Our guns, the guns you owe us.”
“I wish I could give them to you, but I handed them to the fireflies.”
Rex raised his gun again, aiming for his head.
“Please, I'll give you double the amount of ration cards!”
BANG! The gun went off, and Don fell to the floor; there would be no more schemes or tricks to pull; he would join the rest of his men exactly where they belonged. Still better than ending up infected.
“What do we do now?” Rex asked.
“Talk to Maul and figure something out.”
“Where would we even find him? The fireflies have moved locations; they're not going to be pulling anything until Fedra gets off their backs.”
“You won't have to look far.” Maul stepped out from behind a couple boxes. “I saw you chase Don across the city, while I don't particularly like him. He owed me a job.”
“Listen, Maul, those guns he gave you belonged to us. I’m sure we can work something out,” Anakin offered.
“You’ll get your guns, but it’ll cost you.”
Rex and Anakin exchanged a glance again. The guns were already theirs in the first place; if not for Don messing it up, they would already have them.
“How much?”
“I’m not talking about food stamps; follow me.”
Anakin shrugged and followed him out the door while Rex grumbled about how it might not be worth it. Maul led them through the city again; they traveled through empty buildings until they got to an old Firefly base camp. Unfortunately, Fedra beat them there. Surrounding them were up to twenty soldiers waiting to shoot.
Anakin glared at Maul; the guns might not be worth it after all.
“Your guns plus extra,” he assured.
None of them had enough ammo to take out all of the guards plus the reinforcement they would call; their only option was to sneak around them and pray to whatever sick god was watching to succeed.
Slowly but surely the trio managed to sneak past the guards; it helped that the sun was starting to set. Their last obstacle would be climbing a set of rusty metal stairs that was sure to creak as soon as one of them dared to step on it. Regardless, it was something they had to do.
Rex and Anakin stood guard as Maul tried his best to avoid the loud parts of the stairs, staying close to the wall where the majority of support was.
Every now and then the stairs would creak, and the three of them would pause and hold their breath, waiting for one of the guards to turn around and notice them, but none of them did. One of them was sleeping, and the other two were entranced by idle
conversation. They must've been nearing the end of their shift or have had an uneventful past few days to be feeling this safe and secure. Or they were new; a lot of Fedra orphans were starting to graduate as young as seventeen, and they were put on guard duty too naive to truly understand the horrors of the infected they've never had to see and too inexperienced to realize everything that went down in the QZ in the backdrops behind the pile of shit that Fedra makes for them to clean up to earn food and soap and water.
Once Maul was safely upstairs, he held his gun pointed at the door. Anakin signaled to Rex to go out of the three of them. Anakin had the most muscle mass and height, so it would be safer for Rex to go second.
This time it was a lot noisier. Rex didn't have the advantages that Maul had; he was taller and bulkier and wasn't able to avoid all the pressure points that made the stairs scream.
After a fateful few moments, he was up safely with the guards none the wiser except for an occasional glance to the door, but by then Rex was too far up to be in their eyeline. Anakin followed, mimicking where Rex stepped, and made it up successfully.
“Alright, Maul, what job is so important you needed Don to do?” Anakin asked.
“You’ll see in a moment.” Maul motioned to the door down the hallway. Right before he entered, he pointed his finger to his lips.
He opened the door, and inside a girl jumped out trying to stab him.
“You piece of shit!” She screamed as she was tossed off.
“Calm down, Ahsoka!” Maul yelled, taking the knife that had clattered away from her on the floor and putting it in his boot.
Ahsoka had dark skin with light splotches of vitiligo and the bluest eyes he's ever seen. Her hair was split in two Dutch braids to keep it out of her face.
“Does she have anything to do with this job?” Anakin scowled. The girl didn't look older than twelve.
“I need you to smuggle her out of the QZ.” Maul said as Ahsoka sulked in the corner after being tossed into a wall by Maul.
“We don't smuggle kids.” Rex said flatly.
“She's different alright; she's special. I need you to take her and get her to the capital building. There will be other fireflies there.” He explained.
“We don’t smuggle kids; I don’t care whose big shot kid she is!” Rex enforced again.
“I’m not a kid!” She shouted back.
Maul rolled his eyes. “Look at this.” He grabbed her arm and yanked it towards them before rolling up her sleeve despite her protests.
Rex and Anakin curiously leaned in to get a closer look before backing away.
“Do you see that bite? It’s three weeks old.”
“That’s not possible; no one’s lasted over forty-eight hours.”
“Get another look then, but you can't deny there is something wrong with her.”
Ahsoka scrunched up her nose and pulled her arm out of his harsh grip.
Rex raised his eyebrows. “You’re saying she’s immune?”
“I’m saying she could be the cure.”
Anakin grabbed Rex by the arm and took him to a different corner of the room to talk.
“You can't seriously be thinking about it!”
“Anakin, come on, if she's the cure, life can go back to normal. No more QZs or rations or doing dirty work for a bunch of men that ultimately leads nowhere.”
“Smuggling a kid, though?”
“He was about to give her to Don—hell, what if someone else came by before we got to Don? He would've asked someone else, someone worse. If we say no, he’ll ask someone else; it might as well be someone who can keep her safe.”
Anakin groaned, knowing he lost the battle. “Fine, we’ll take the job, but you owe us big time, Maul.”
Maul grinned. “Great, take her back to yours and leave the QZ at curfew.”
“I don't want to go with them.” Ahsoka protested. Her arms were crossed, and despite how she barely reached Anakin's shoulders, she looked like she was ready to fight him.
“Tough luck, kid!” Maul growled.
“You’ll just trust my safety with any asshole, huh?”
“You remember your little friend Ahsoka; if you go with them, what happened to her will never happen to anyone else. Don’t you owe her at least that?”
That struck a nerve. Ahsoka winced at his cruel words but brushed it off and started moving towards the door. “Fine.”
Anakin and Rex led her back to their apartment, exchanging silent words with each other. The kid had so far kept her mouth shut, which was fine with Anakin. He had a lot to think about. A cure! It was difficult to finally let himself hope; for so long he had assumed humanity would be stuck the way it was at least until it died. He tried not to think of the future, but if he had to, he would've assumed he would live out the rest of his days in the dirty QZ smuggling until he couldn't, then being put to work on sewer duty by Fedra. If there was a cure, things could be better; he could rest and maybe get a productive job. It wouldn't be about survival anymore; it could be about living. He could find his brother.
When he finally got back into the apartment, the first thing he did was flop on the couch.
“What are we supposed to do now?” The girl asked.
“Sleep.” Anakin goggled from the couch. The day had worn him down, and the scratchy cushions of the couch were lulling him to sleep.
“What am I supposed to do?” If only.
Anakin had dealt with children before; he just needed to give her something to do to keep her occupied. The problem was there was nothing for a kid to do in the apartment. He lifted his head and spotted the radio. “Listen to the radio for important things.”
“Like what?”
“Any secret messages you hear, write them down.” His brain really wanted to go to sleep now.
“What kind of secret messages?”
“Any kind—if you hear a song, write it down!”
“Geez, okay then!” She snapped.
Anakin might've lectured her about the snapping, but it was time to go to sleep. Right as he lost consciousness, a prayer his mom sang to him when he was young popped into his mind. Right before I fall asleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake… The rest was lost to time. Where was the lord now? He missed Obi-Wan.