Week 5 (Prompt: Night)

It's been a week since they found anyone alive. They'll have to give up soon, at the end of today, or tomorrow, or the week. It isn't safe for them to keep coming out here like this. The few buildings left standing are unstable, and who knows what's in the dust and the air? Who knows if there's even a point? There's precious little fuel left for Archie, and there has been no word from Washington, no radio contact from anywhere at all. Maybe there isn't anybody left out there. Maybe they're just postponing death by weeks or months; maybe they'll be stuck here, permanently, eking out dwindling food and medical supplies until they fade away one by one.

The last guy wasn't long for this world, in any case. His eyes never focused in on anybody, not really. He never seemed to register that he'd been rescued, and he expired in the sickbay a couple of hours after they got him back to the shelter, coughing up something thick and grey.

Dan couldn't watch. Adrian stayed by the guy's side the whole time, though, talking to him in a voice just low enough to be inaudible to anybody else. It sounded soothing, except that Adrian's eyes were dull with exhaustion, and it was hours before Dan could persuade him to go and get some sleep.

"What did you say to him?" Dan asked, later.

Adrian just closed his eyes. "I lied."

It's beginning to get dark. Dan figures they probably ought to call it a day. He picks his way out of the mess of rubble that used to be the last house on this street, and towards the half-collapsed church over the road. He can just make out Adrian, standing in its shadow, pale and still. They should catch up with the others and get back to the shelter; there's little more they can do in this failing light.

There's a sound, then, a groaning that can feel in his breastbone, that's so profound and fathomless it could be coming right from the centre of the earth. Only it isn't. It's coming from above them, and oh fuck, oh fuck, it's a piece of balcony or stairway or something, and it's falling, and Dan tries to shout a warning but his voice is too slow and his stupid legs are too slow and there's no way he's going to get there quickly enough--

Adrian doesn't even step back. He just looks up. (And Dan is not quite sure whether or not he really did see it too late, and in the scant scraps of time that are suddenly all that is left to them he never can quite bring himself to ask.) He is standing with hands folded in front of him. He looks like he is praying.

*

It's hard to judge time in the shelter, but Dan is learning a new method now. He measures it in electronic beeps and shallow breaths, the steady click of Doctor Mayer's footsteps round the sickbay, the sidelong, sympathetic glance she shoots him, on the hour, every hour.

Adrian's hand feels reassuringly solid and warm in his own. That seems deeply unfair.

He does wake up, a couple of times. It's late -- past midnight -- and quiet, the first time, and it takes Dan a moment to realize he is being watched steadily.

"Any news?" he whispers.

Dan blinks, horrified -- because how is he supposed to say, they can't fix you? -- but a second later he realizes that isn't what Adrian's asking. He just wants to know whether they've had any contact, whether help is coming, like always. Typical. The guy's dying (oh God he's dying) and he still can't bear not to know what's going on. Dan shakes his head, mutely. They don't say anything else.

The next time, though, Dan swallows and forces a smile. "Guess what?" he says. "We heard something. There are some survivors on the West coast. With transport. Help's coming. It's gonna be okay." It comes out too bright and too strained, and once Adrian would have just given him one of his oh, please looks, but now he just smiles softly and closes his eyes.

And when Dan does hear a voice over the radio, three weeks later, all he can manage to feel is grateful. Not because they have a chance now, not because some of them might even survive-- but because at least he wasn't lying.