The fight was bloody and horrible. I hate them, I always will, but they are inevitable in this world, in the same way that stab wounds are. Both Alex and Jake ended up with them, Alex because he was doing his best to protect Jake, who didn’t have any idea how to use a knife or a gun. The city dweller was out of his depth. Getting into such a fight early on in his time into the wastelands showed him how hard it was going to be for him to survive, especially when it was just the two of them, even though Mare was quick on her feet and brilliant with her borrowed knife. While I cleaned Alex up Mare cleaned up Jake, following the steps that I did in cleaning and dressing the wound, including using a mix of herbs to help it heal quicker. Hopefully someone in Hamilton would know how to make it as we were running low or they’d have the supplies that meant I could.
Once night fell I snuggled closer to Alex, on the side that he hadn’t been stabbed, needing to feel his warmth and his heart beat. We both knew how close I’d come to losing him, again, for someone who might not deserve saving, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to be angry with him for that. He made the decision in a split second because he knew that Mare needed Jake. Maybe he was an idiot - that didn’t mean he was worthless and, after having time to think, I realized I was proud of Alex for jumping in the way he had. As he wrapped his arm around me I gently kissed his cheek.
“That was close,” he said. “If I hadn’t moved…”
“I know, love.”
“Maybe we shouldn't travel around as much as we do.”
I smiled. “Alex, we both know that you’d go insane if you stayed in one place for too long. That’s why we left Fifth City in the first place.”
He sighed. “You didn’t have to come with me. Sometimes I hate that I took you away from that life.”
“You didn’t take me away from anything. It was my choice to come with you. If I’d wanted to I could have stayed, but you mean more to me than any life I could have had there.” I shrugged. “Life there would have been different, yes, and safer, but I don’t regret the choice that I made to come with you and I never have.”
“Sometimes I do.”
“Why?”
“You deserve better than this.”
“Deserve better than what?”
“A life where you travel around the wastelands getting stabbed, seeing the man you love get stabbed, dealing with mutants and ghouls and…”
Shaking my head I pressed a finger to his lips. “Stop it. We’ve had this conversation before and I don’t doubt we’re going to have it again, but this isn’t something we needed to talk about. Not now, not in the future. I made the decision to come to the wastelands. I made the decision to follow you when you traveled from one place to the next. You haven’t forced me to make them and if the time does come when something changes, either between us or in general, I promise I will tell you. Right now, though, I’m happy to be traveling the wastelands with you.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like this, Alex. It wouldn’t help matters in the slightest, so all you will get from me is the truth, because you are the man I love. I loved you in Fifth City and I love you out here.”
“My feelings for you changed when we came out here.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t make you angry.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Finding the words to explain wasn’t easy, but I knew I needed to, somehow. “How you felt about me never really mattered that much when we were down in the city. I don’t know why. Maybe I always knew that things would change when we found ourselves in the wastelands. I knew that you would find yourself, Alex, because in the city you were never going to be whole. Now you are, so now you can know for certain how you feel about me.”
“Kat…” He shook his head. “I love you, sweetheart, and I think I always will, but if that changes I promise I will tell you.”
“I appreciate that.” Carefully I moved so I could kiss him and he deepened the kiss, our mouths melding together the way our bodies couldn’t. “Promise me you’ll tell me if the wound feels weird. We still have some of the antibiotics I took from Fifth City if you need them.”
“I will, love. Now let’s get some sleep. After everything that’s happened it’s still a three day journey to Hamilton and I want to get there as soon as we can, so we can get rid of the freeloaders.”
Even though it might have been better for me to say something I kept my mouth shut when it came to Jake and Mare, because I had a feeling we’d be spending much more time with them than Alex wanted us to. I’m not certain why I felt that way, but when I looked at them I realized that they had a quest that would begin to tug at his urge to explore and going out to the deep wastes was much safer with a larger group, although you didn’t want it to be too large. Sighing, I snuggled closer to him, knowing that I needed sleep before dawn. Unfortunately sleep took longer than I wanted it to and I found myself counting sheep as I tried not to listen to Jake and Mare’s conversation, because I really didn’t want to know what they were talking about. If they had something they wanted to talk to me about they could do it in the morning when we were all awake.