You Will Resent Its Absence

Furiosa remembers the desert.

She remembers months spent, running the convoy, heading out in the lead tank through a sea of sand, red and orange and yellow underneath a sun that pierced heat down to the bone. She remembers the weight of her battle armor, the padding and the helmet, the slap of pouches against her side while jogging, the declining thickness of her boots, worn further down each day. She remembers the automatic move of pulling a sidearm, bracing a rifle, holding a k-bar, the instinctive knowledge that everything was life or death. She remembers her SiC, Donald Iles, callsign "Ace", jokingly naming their line of battle vehicles The War Rig. She remembers her team, each man and woman strong, careful, ready.

She remembers the explosion, waking up screaming, still beneath that endless blue sky. She remembers fire and yells of "Imperator down! Medic! Medic!" She remembers asking, begging them to tell her what happened. She remembers Anahera Gale, callsign "Valkyrie", their sniper, at her side, holding her down while someone else held something against- against a stump that used to be a full arm.

It's been three years, and the war should have been behind her. She had turned over in bed last week, woken by her own memories, and mumbled that out. "It should be in my rear view."

Max had rolled closer, ran a hand down her good arm to touch the bracelet she wore. There was a matching one on his own wrist. And he huffed, still half-asleep, "It was there, love. Still is. Always will be."

She'd glared. "You ended that with a preposition."

And he chuckled, slipped his fingers through hers and tugged. "Too tired. Go t'sleep, love."

Furiosa had sighed, let her body go loose, and let the present take her.

This place was their home now.

…

The next day, she was ready before anyone else. It was the way the world worked. Her body didn't know how to wake later than 6 AM. The military had trained that out of her long ago.

Max slept late. He always appreciated the chance. After so many years on the frontline, sending back report after report from one war zone to the next, one atrocity to the next, feeling secure enough to sleep soundly and well was welcome.

It was almost always Furiosa who crept into the rooms of their sleeping daughters and woke them. Always with a gruff word, accompanied by this woman they had learned to call "mother" bouncing on top of the sheets, dropping a kiss that they knew meant they were loved on their forehead, then demanding they get up and dressed.

Angharad was the eldest. Blond, beautiful, fearless, graceful. While she was self-conscious of the scars she bore from her time in captivity, the others all worshipped her endlessly. Angharad tended to be awake prior to Furiosa opening the door, but would remain in bed, smiling, cheek turned and waiting until she had received her morning kiss.

She shared a room with Tabitha, who preferred to be called "Toast". Toast was a fierce, small girl, her black hair chopped short. She didn't know what she would be when she grew up, but whatever it was, she was determined to be the very best. Toast hated waking up and cursed her way out of bed each morning, glaring at everyone who crossed her path until after breakfast.

In the next room was Cathy. She had been nicknamed "Capable" several years earlier, when she had managed to cook breakfast successfully in the new house, while the parents had despaired that neither had ever learned how not to burn eggs. The redhead had covered the walls of her room with maps. She'd insisted that, one day, she would visit all the place there was a pin. Of them all, it was she who was excited to wake and head to school.

Dagmar ("just Dag!") and Cheedo were the youngest pair, and their room was a contrast in colors. Dag was pale and had hair almost white, and her half of the space was a mishmash of dark colors and posters. Cheedo, tiny, with long dark hair and huge eyes that had won many a hug from Max, had chosen to decorate hers in a riot of colors. The two shared a tiny, indoor garden they kept in pots beneath the window and were rarely seen without one another. Dag was heavy scowls and angry yelling, while Cheedo was crying and tantrums - when the pair weren't giggling together over their latest joke. They weren't sisters by birth, but in every way that mattered, they thought of themselves as twins. Furiosa learned to wake up Dag first, so the blond could tiptoe across the room and whisper to her best friend that it was time to get up.

Furiosa and Max had shocked those who knew them when they had declared their intention four years previously to adopt five girls, all at once. They had been thinking about it for a long time, but things had been hectic. Max had only just started a new job, one where he would not be asked to travel outside of the U.S., and Furiosa was still on active duty. They had been considering their options, while Furiosa was on leave for a month. Max had been following a story, that ended with him calling his wife and telling her to bring a gun. She'd dropped a wrench and pulled the cell phone closer to her ear, frowning, "What?"

"Please, love."

It was enough. Next thing she knew, she was helping her husband break down a door to a house, no explanation needed, clearing the place room by room, before finally arriving at one that was double bolted from the outside. She broke that one down, too, and found herself staring around at five young girls. They were wearing scraps, sitting on stained mattresses without sheets. They had been chained together, the end bolted into a wall. Angharad had been the one to stand, to glare. "Who are you?"

When Max started to step in behind her, Furiosa waved backward, motioning him to hold his ground. Then she holstered her gun and held up her hands. "My name is Furiosa, and I'm here to get you the hell out. Can I come closer? I need to see how the bolt holds to work it free."

It had been a sensational story, one which Max wrote most of to keep the girls out of the press. Apparently their captor, who had insisted at his trial that he was a reincarnation of God and would only respond when addressed as "Immortal Joe", had been kidnapping young women who had no family. He would find them, follow them and grab them. He had called them his wives, said they were breeding stock for repopulating the earth after the "coming destruction". Cheedo, the youngest, he'd had for less than a week. What he had done to the others was a matter of public record, thanks to the media-saturated trial, but Max had left most of the specifics out of the original article. As soon as they'd seen the girls, Furiosa and Max were in agreement: these five were theirs to protect.

Social services had hemmed and hawed when the couple filed for adoption. They spoke of foster homes and therapy, pointed out Furiosa's job keeping her away from home, said that Max was too close to the story. In the end, both of the pair had called in old favors, and within a year, the girls were officially Rockatanskys.

There had been problems. None of the girls had had good experiences with the system, and Joe had caused further harm. Pulling their family together, getting each girl the help they needed, offering them love and protection and support that they would accept, had taken time. Eventually, though, they had found balance. They had begun to trust one another to help, to care.

Now, Angharad was 15, starting high school, equally nervous and determined. Toast was 13, and had punched a local boy in the nose the previous week when he mentioned Angharad's scars. Capable's 11th birthday party earlier in the month had consisted of her sisters, and the boy from next door, Nux, who had a sense-destroying crush on her. Dag was 9, although she insisted the birth certificate was wrong, because Cheedo was only 8, and the pair were livid when Max had suggested they might have different teachers this school year.

Max was working from home, finding stories through friends and informants, only going out to check on the details when it was crucial. He was happier to spend time with his family than chasing a lead, happier to put his words in writing then speak. (Although he could convey a lot with a look.)

And Furiosa was bored of inactivity. Max's job, and their combined savings, kept them steady when it came to money. She didn't need to do anything, which had been a blessing through several years of therapy for her injuries and PTSD. Except she had reached her limit. The local police department wouldn't accept someone with a prosthetic arm, The gun range wasn't hiring, and when she tried looking for a job as a mechanic (something she was well qualified to do, and had the license to prove it), the owner had simply pointed to her arm and shrugged.

Furiosa was happy. She loved her family, was grateful for them every day, grateful for how steady their lives were. But there were only so many damn times she could rip apart and put back together Max's old Ford Falcon. She simply didn't know what to do instead.

Then she saw the flyer…

…

… …

…

a/n: I don't know where this is going. I just had an idea, based on a tumblr post by onceuponaprime which involved an awesome headcanon for a modern, AU MMFR, and my brain went, "hell yeah, let's do that!" So, modern, AU version of this. I am planning to keep adding to it, but I'm still trying to decide what the damn flyer *said*, so I have no idea how long this fic will be, or when I'll update. Enjoy, I guess?