Work Text:
Xavier
Xavier came to with a cough, the movement sending a jagged spike of agony through his ribs. Groaning, he fumbled with his seatbelt and managed to slide himself out of the chair, dragging himself out of the burning fuselage of the tiny plane, his fingernails digging into the hard-packed Earth.
He skuttled away, making sure the tiny bag that he had grabbed was still firmly in his grip, keeping an eye on the ever-growing fire that had engulfed the flame.
Fuck.
He was stranded, god-knew where, and in god-knew what kind of world.
All he knew was that, just like the so-called Paradise he had been living in, everyone pretending that the world hadn’t ended beyond the mountain they’d built a ‘home’ in, the new world too, was nothing like the one he remembered before Cal Bradford invoked the Versailles protocol and, with that, tore his family apart.
Your wife is alive, Agent Collins.
Samantha Redmond’s voice echoed in his head as he let out a shaky breath, the wind pushing the smoke in his direction.
He rolled away, taking in the purple and orange of the sunset sky as his head throbbed in time to his racing heartrate.
The actual sky, not a projection that was designed to keep those lucky – ha, lucky – to have been chosen for Paradise from being distressed at the end of the world as they knew it.
You’ve got to move, Xavier. It could blow at any time.
He forced himself to stand, his left leg buckling almost immediately – broken, or perhaps close to it. He cried out, but managed to keep himself from toppling face-first into the… concrete?
Last he remembered, he was flying over a newly formed body of water, the world truly nothing like it was before.
Something terrible happened.
And he had been shielded from it only because he had been working as part of the late President’s security detail.
He turned away from his plane, walking a couple of steps until he realised he was standing on a ledge of sorts, looking over a ruined city, sprawling as far as his eye could see.
He tried to recall roughly what cities would have been in his path, but his mind was drawing nothing but a blank.
He decided it would be best to head away from the plane, still burning, smoke spiralling upwards, and Xavier slowly made his way down towards the city, each step sending a jolt of pain up his leg and through his chest.
Nightfall was approaching quicker than he thought it would, and he needed to find shelter. Who knew what kind of dangers lurked outside the sheltered Paradise?
It took an hour or so before he finally made it down, and he began to just walk, further and further away from the plane. Xavier had just made it to the first building that looked somewhat intact, and he froze, taking it in.
It looked just like the first apartment building he lived in when he first found out he had gotten a job in the Secret Service.
Except that he surely was nowhere near Washington City or state.
This was not his home.
But seeing it brought up memories of before. Before he was handpicked by the President to work for him. Before he was let into the secret that the world was going to end, and that he would be safe with his family. Before he realised the new world was just as bad, if not worse, than the one they had left.
He shook off the memory, but flickers of his life before kept coming to him with every step further into the remnants of what was a lively city before it all ended.
Step. He was cooking dinner with Teri at the new apartment, laughing at his terrible chopping skills.
Step. He was holding her hand as their eldest took her first steps in that apartment, too.
Step. He was hearing her voice as he rushed Bradford into Air Force One, not realising that was the final time he would hear it outside a recording.
Well, unless Sinatra hadn’t been lying to him.
Not like he could exactly ask, what with her dead, probably, and him somewhere in continental USA, stranded.
He wasn’t going to survive the night, was he?
Was he?
He tumbled, leaning against what used to be the wall of someone’s home. The pain in his leg vanished, replaced by a cold, floating numbness.
The sky was darker now, but still so beautiful.
At least he could die looking up at something Paradise couldn’t give him.
He was about to close his eyes, but a figure hovered above him, her features hidden to him, but there was a feeling… like he knew her.
He squinted, meeting the figure’s eyes, and he could have sworn the eyes that looked back at him were…
“Teri?” he managed to get out, as the figure knelt beside him, their hands on his face.
Warm. Full of life.
“I missed you,” he mumbled out, graceful that as he left the world, his mind let him bow out with Teri’s face being the last thing he saw, even though he knew it wasn’t Teri.
“Sorry,” he whispered, letting the darkness wash over him.
Teri
The woman remained kneeling as Agent Collins closed his eyes, letting death take him into her embrace.
Except… Teri wasn’t ready for that.
Because it was him.
The man that they had stumbled across after noting the smoke on the hilltop, following the droplets of blood down the street, was her husband.
What were the chances?
And then…
Wasn’t he supposed to be safe with the President? With Presley and James?
What was her husband doing in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas?
“Miller, I need your med pack.”
“Teri, we…”
“Miller, you’ve got to trust me. I need to help him,” she said, unbuttoning Xavier’s shirt, taking note of the nasty seatbelt burn across his chest, and then the laceration across his scalp, followed by the twist of his leg.
“Teri… we don’t know why he’s here. We don’t know if we can…”
“This is my husband, Miller. I’m not losing him again…”