I do not own Mad Max: Fury Road.

Rented it on Amazon Prime tho. And watched it over and over and . . .

Continuing On

He looked so innocent, so young and innocent. His electric blue eyes full of wonder and curiosity.

Capable gazed at him for a long moment, seeing, feeling him drink her in like he always did whenever there was a still moment between them. And she felt her own pleased smile spreading over her usually serious face.

"What's all this then?" The War Boy Nux inquired, sounding interested only as a Revhead usually did about automotive matters.

Instead of what lay carefully arranged on the humble metal table before them.

"It's a surprise for you," she replied lightly.

His thin face broke into a delighted, albeit somewhat embarrassed, grin.

"For me? What for?"

She shrugged.

There was absolutely no reason for this effort. None at all. Except she simply felt like treating him. Opening his eyes, figuratively, to something he had never experienced before.

They were standing in the sitting room she shared with the other remaining former Wives. It was light and airy, with an open ceiling that offered a view of the dry, empty, washed-out expanse stretching endlessly overhead.

Such dryness, such complete aridity.

That didn't seem so bad anymore, what with the spindly table and the items upon it.

And the war boy standing next to her.

She rewrapped her shawl and gestured him toward what she had brought.

He obeyed, stretching out his neck, curiously gazing at them. Put his pale, thin face with its slightly discolored flesh down close and sniffed them.

"What are they?" he asked in wonder, reaching out a finger but not quite daring to touch.

She smiled fondly at his hesitancy.

"Fruit."

His lack of understanding pulled at her heart.

As a cherished Wife, she had always been provided fresh vegetables and fruit from the Immortan's coveted crops.

The expendable War Boys scrounged and ate and fought for the tiniest crumbs to sustain their famished, malnourished, parched bodies.

It had been many days since they had fought their way back to the Citadel and taken charge of the remaining War Pups and others sheltered within the walls of the fortress as well as the masses of Wretched groveling outside in the dirt and sand.

Imperator Furiosa had her hands full with her crushing duties in the absence of an Immortan. Max had gone his own way out into the wasteland, why, Capable did not know.

The surviving Wives had each sought to find their own niches in this new changling society.

And Nux, whom she had believed dead, had wandered in many days after the takeover, skeletal and wraithlike, from the unforgiving desert, collapsing at the base of the citadel, her name barely a breath upon his wasted silver stained lips.

The pups had summoned her and she had cried tears of joy and had him brought to her.

She had cleaned his dusty wounds with precious clean water and nursed him back to life for days in her own room. Often lying next to him with her hand upon his emaciated chest, listening to his rattling heartbeat.

His body had chosen to live and the gates of Valhalla had closed to him once more.

And he had never seemed more gladly accepting of that fact upon awakening to her renewed tears and gentle caress.

So now, here they were.

And before them, a fresh discovery, something even more interesting and foreign to Nux than the tree thing.

"Fruit," he parroted, nodding. A beat of silence as he tried to figure the word out. "What do you do with it? Throw it?"

The Keeper of the Seeds, formerly The Dag, had protected the bag of treasures after its former Keeper had died in the race to the Citadel.

She had revealed them to the Growers to add to their crops and now their stores of food and green things grew abundantly by the turn for as many as they could feed.

And now Capable had brought some of these delicacies to share with her war boy.

His mates, Barry and Larry, still wrapped their cancerous tendrils around his windpipe and night fevers still visited him in his sleep.

So he would still, in time, die.

But for now, he was alive.

And staring at the table of never before seen sustenance.

"No, it's food," she educated with a gentle smile. "You eat it."

He nodded, seeming impressed by all the colors and aromas but still uncomprehending.

Though not doubtful, never doubtful. He never seemed to doubt anything she ever said or did.

He just simply believed, with an absoluteness so complete she knew it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Such as an Immortan's perhaps.

And so she was always careful and aware of his faith and belief in her, her actions, and her words.

When she had first seen him, he had been a screaming, fanatical, fume-filled, misguided thing.

And now he was clear-eyed and reasonable, even in the most trying of situations, even when faced with his own demise on several occasions.

She wanted him to remain strong in his newfound humanity and so she carefully and diligently cultivated it.

Now she gestured again for them to sit upon the floor cushions and he did so with the still new wonder and enjoyment of one never before accommodated any simple pleasure in life.

"Here," she offered eagerly. "Try this."

And handed him a small, red, slightly irregularly shaped orb.

"What is it?"

He held it gingerly in his ghost white hand.

"A strawberry. Take a bite."

He did and his reaction was complete stunned perfection.

"Glory me, woman, it's wet!" he exclaimed, blue eyes surprised and wide as a drip of juice ran down his narrow chin.

She giggled.

"Yes, all fruit is comprised of mostly water."

She remembered Miss Giddy's story of a long ago war in which victorious soldiers had freed starving prisoners and in their desire to alieviate their suffering, fed them from their own rations. But the starving creatures' bodies had not been able to process the food and many had died even as they were being saved.

Capable hoped the war boy's body would not react in a similar fashion. But with every lived day a stroke of victory for Nux, she did not want him to leave this plane of existence without experiencing some of the simpler joys to be had.

Truth be told it was her ration he was imbibing, but she didn't concern herself with that technicality. She was glad to give it and watch him discover each new water-filled morsel.

There seemed to be not one he disiked.

Orange, cantaloupe, watermelon, raspberry.

A bite of peach.

He did cough a little at the grapefruit but still proclaimed it brilliant.

She observed his wonder and enjoyments at the fruits and thought to herself if she had ever appreciated anything so much.

And realized that she did.

Her freedom.

Freedom from being nothing more than an Immortan's breeder.

"Which do you like best?" she asked him after a time trying each one.

He raised an eyebrow as if surprised to be asked his opinion. She waited, a playful , questioning smile on her lovely face. Then he looked down again at the moisture filled fruits in contemplation.

"The stra . . . strandberries . . ."

"Strawberries," she corrected gently.

He nodded amicably.

"Yeah, strawberries. For your hair. And the bl . . . blue . . ."

He glanced at her and she nodded encouragingly.

"Blueberries for your eyes. "

She chuckled and observed his own eyes light further at the sound and his face brighten at her apparent joy which he had caused.

"No, I mean which fruit did you enjoy the taste of the best?" she reiterated.

He licked his no longer dry, wasted lips as his eyes once more perused the remaining offerings.

"Oh, well, all of them then," he amended with enthusiasm, nodding his bare head satisfactorily. "Hmmm, yeah."

And looked up at her amused expression. She reached out a gentle hand and stroked his scarred face gently.

He responded by leaning forward and lightly kissing her cheek much as he had done when she had cut his chain to help wrap around the tree many days ago.

At the time, she had barely processed the action, what with their deadly pursuers fast closing in.

Then it had come back to her in the quiet stillness of the desert morning as she reclined against him in rest . A war boy, capable of such violence and rash insanity, also capable of such innocence and appreciation. Where had he gotten the inclination to respond so gently?

Surely no one had ever shown him any such care or kind touch.

So her only remaining answer was that it had come from within himself.

Which returned her now to the thought she had been having for the past several days.

A private thought.

A thought that she had never been given a choice of before.

A thought she had complete control over now.

And had come to a decision.

One that made her smile with secret knowing.

There was one more thing she wanted Nux to experience with whatever time remained for him in this world.

She rose and offered him her hand in silence. He took it in his larger pale one, now cleaned of the dust powder the Immortan had once insisted all his war boys be covered in.

Then she led him into her sleeping quarters and shut the door behind them.

The woman Capable, former Breeder and Wife of Immortan Joe and current History Keeper of the Citadel, awoke from her dream and opened her deep blue eyes.

It was dark and quiet.

She lay still in her soft bed.

And she was alone.

Nux, the war boy, her war boy, did not lay beside her. He did not reside elsewhere in the Citadel with the other war boys.

Nux was dead, dead these many days.

He had sacrificed himself for her, for the other Wives, for freedom, for hope.

And she, she had continued on .

Because she had to, because she must.

Because she was still alive.

But sometimes, in light or darkness, she thought of him.

Nux.

The war boy.

She had not loved him, no. There had not been time for such frivolous emotions as all that. But she had cared. From the moment she looked down and glimpsed his crumpled, shrunken figure, she had cared. As crazy and wild before with war lust and chrome glory delusions, only a short time later he had huddled equally as lost and destitute with the crushing abandonment of his false god.

And she had cared.

They had no one to care for them, the legions of half-life war boys, no one to properly guide them. Only an ill-formed network of older, more brainwashed war boys, most of them sick with cancers and misdirected, fume filled visions of chrome worship and Valhalla .

At least she and the other Wives had Ms. Giddy, the History Keeper, to care and teach them. She was wasn't supposed to. Care for them, that was. She had told them so herself. That was their little secret, that and her teaching that they were not possessions , not things.

So they, the sheltered, coveted Wives of Immortan Joe'd had Ms. Giddy.

And this war boy Nux, like all the others, had had nobody.

So she had swallowed her fear and distaste, gathered up her courage and compassion, and reached out to him.

And touched him.

She had given him the simplest yet most important thing she could. Her presence. Her faith.

He, in turn, of his own burgeoning free will, had turned all his newly reformed energies toward protecting her, protecting them, and getting them all as far as he could.

She knew that she, and not the Immortan, had become his beacon. His Valhalla.

She knew the power she held over him, that it gave him the strength to survive awhile longer.

That it gave him hope.

And so they had continued on, all of them. Together.

Toward freedom, toward hope.

And then, in the midst of desperate pursuit and battle, he had sacrificed himself.

And died.

Asking her to witness him.

As if she could ever forget.

So now her war boy was gone.

And she was alone.

Capable's body curled in on itself as she released her silent tears.

Alone and in renewed grief, let them flow.

Eventually she slept. Dreamless and deep.

And in the morning, she rose from her empty bed deep within the Citadel and gathered herself up and continued on.

Toward freedom, toward hope.

Because she had to.

Because she must.

Hello, readers!

Haven't written or posted in months. And I must say it feels good!

Was my husband's idea, really. Said I needed a hobby during these months I'm choosing to stay home with our new baby (second child, second son). I thought to myself, didn't I used to do something fun and awesome? Oh yeah, create stories!

Thanks to AllLovableObjects, brigid1318, DinahRay, and ChiefPam for your encouraging reviews! What a great welcome back! :D

So to dear wonderful hubby (who doesn't read my stuff) for getting me writing again and thanks to any choosing to read this.

Everybody appreciates feedback. Leave a review if you like. :)