rats and ravens

[bossymarmalade]

Oliver comes out of the longhouse and sees the ruckus happening near the pool. “What the hell’s happening here?" He watches Roy, his hand fisted up in the back of Billy’s shirt as he moves towards the kitchen, where one of the first aid kits is. “ZACH PLEASE DON’T KILL THEM! IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT!" Billy wails as he’s taken to be cleaned, red arm still dripping, trying to fight back tears, “You don’t know that for sure!"

Mia answers. “Nothing Ollie. There are rats Billy… I don’t even know he was looking for them and there was a bunch of red stuff in a hole and he was bit by one of the rats. And me and Zach. Oh! Oh Ollie… Uh. We were in the warehouse and we found this little cabinet that had rat poison in it. But there was also arsenic in it… and metal polish too. I don’t know…"

The colour drains from his face when Mia relates what’s going on. “Where are the rats. Are they still alive?"

"I don’t know didn’t you see my sign on the door? Zach was heading over to the pool with the rat poison probably to kill them."

Oliver doesn’t say anything more. He strides away to the garden laundry and comes past Mia again after a minute, carrying a heavy shovel. Ollie goes down into the pool and all Mia hears is a SLAM and a sick squelch, a tiny squeal. One more SLAM and then no more squeals. Then she hears the long, jarring sound of the shovel scraping along the broken tiles of the pool bottom, and a sick slippery flesh noise.



Zach stops at the top of the pool when Ollie passes and stares in disgust and horror. “That’s disgusting…" He holds out the box with the other baby rat in it and the dead one. “Here."

Oliver dumps his shovelful of mangled, destroyed baby rat bodies in the box that Zach’s holding, on top of the still-living and the similarly gelatinous baby rats. “Ew," Mia says. When Ollie takes the box and heads off, Zach follows back and puts the box of rat poison back in Mia’s bag giving her a look. “Come on. Lets go see what’s going on with Billy…"

Roy Harper applies a thick coat of antiseptic to the wound, then wraps it in a bandage, stating: “You need to keep this dry, okay, kid?"

There’s a faint scraping sound from the direction of the pool, and in the dark room where Mar’i holds Bruce close as she seizes, she looks up towards the window, shuddering at it. She looks back down. “Bruce? Bruce, can you hear me?"

Bruce ‘s spine relaxes after a moment, his eyes rolling back into place and he looks at Mar’i. Through the fog of his fever—it is the highest it has been in the last four days, a terrible sign, Bruce’s skin is almost painful to touch—he narrows his eyes against the sunlight streaming in. He lifts his hand to her arm, closing around her wrist, and his eyes trace the curve of her cheek, the softness of her eyes at the corner. Despite the feeling that every cell in his body is onboard with the same mutiny, Bruce’s mouth cracks into a smile, lip splitting. The sound is a whisper, cradled tenderly in his mouth, filtering up on an exhalation he pushes out. "..Damian."

Mia nods, “Oh yeah one of the rat babies bit Billy." I didn’t mean to forgot to add that to the rundown of w hat happenedup there sorry. Quickly makes her way to the Longhouse with Zach.

Billy nods, tears dripping down his chin. He hated everything right now. He couldn’t take any more of this. He wanted his Mom or Dad. He’d tried to save the babies….and they killed them. They killed the babies, just like… “I w-want to to h-home…"

Roy Harper sighs, and lifts his hand to rub at the kid’s head, smoothing back his hair. He looks off, in the direction of the pool and nods, pulling Billy to his side for a quick, hard hug. “I know, kid."

Oliver takes the box and heads out into the hilly area beyond the garden laundry to bury it, deep down in the crumbly soil. He finishes with the rats and leaves the bloodied, gore-streaked shovel there for a while so none of the kids can touch it. He looks back at the camp, then heads back to Bungalow 2 at a brisk trot, then a jog, then a run, face set in a grim focus. When he gets there he finds Mar’i cradling her grandfather and leaves them for a moment, going to scrub his hands and forearms with hot water and soap in the sink before coming back to the room. “What’s happening, Mar’i…"

Zach arrives to the longhouse staying quiet for a moment looking between Roy and Billy. “Is he ok?"

Billy is fighting back sobs the instant Zach enters, because Zach would probably laugh at him for crying over a bunch of stupid rats that he’d just poisoned. He’s resisting so hard, he starts hiccoughing. Roy Harper thumps Billy’s back a little, before he separates, bending at the waist to pick up the wrapper for the antiseptic wipe, and bandages. He stands up and moves towards the rubbish bin, nodding to Zach. He doesn’t reach out to grab the kid’s shoulder—because he’s more in the way of a teen than Billy is, and Roy gets that prickly age, maybe a bit more than any of his peers—but looks back at Mia when she approaches Billy. He smiles at her, and moves towards the Bungalow he’d seen Mar’i go into. He enters, and stops to stare at her shoes, at the doorway.

Mia goes to the kitchen and gets Billy a glass of water to try and help him calm down. “Here, kiddo."

Mari stares down at him for a moment, lips parting in shock. She doesn’t realize at first when her tears slip down her cheeks or splash on his face, but when she finally does she leans down, turning her head to press her cheeks against his forehead. “Bruce…" she murmurs, eyes raising up when Ollie enters, but head staying against his face, enduring his heat for this moment. “He’s seizing. His fever is bad. Help me."

Bruce ‘s body lifts up off the ground, his spine curling up, heels slamming into the floor as if he had been possessed by something, a force greater than him were lifting him from an invisible rope, snaked around his middle. He doesn’t make a sound, and again, it’s as if he had learned to do this in silence, throat working over and over as if he were trying to speak, the wetness of the noise amplified in the hollowness of his throat as his tongue bobs, flaps in his mouth, uncontrolled. Without warning, blood—crimson and almost boiling hot—floods the front of his face, both nostrils gushing it as it stains his teeth, trickles into his pressure-white lips. He jerks, as if a live current had been set, upon the tip of his toe.

Oliver rushes to the side of the bed where the other two are, dropping hard to his knees to angle himself behind Bruce and lever him up, wrapping his arms around Bruce’s broad torso. The force of Bruce’s convulsions slams both him and Ollie back against the wall — there’s not that much space for the three of them down here, on the floor — but Ollie wants the stability anyway and drags Bruce against him harder, so they’re sitting up, Bruce’s body between his splayed- out legs as Mar’i moves to hold them down, stop any kicking. And then the explosion of blood comes down Bruce’s face, splattering Mar’i and Ollie’s wrists as Bruce jerks and shudders. “Fucking christ," Ollie says, and presses his head to Bruce’s, hard, desperate to do anything to keep him still. It’s not easy, given the sheer girth and strength of the man.

Billy rubs his sleeve over his eyes and takes the water. “They’re all dead…aren’t they."

Mia nods her head sadly, “Yeah, they are. But Ollie made sure that it was quick and painless…" Sort of. “I— If you want we could have a funeral for them? That probably sounds stupid… I don’t know."

Billy looks up at her, surprised, and then grateful. “I’d like that…yeah," he says with a sniffle.

Mia smiles slightly, “Alright. There’s a place over by the forest with some nice flowers we could have it. We don’t have bodies or anything though… but we could still mark a grave for them. Y’know it’s the thought…" Glances over at Zach.

Zach stays sitting silently at the table and gives a small shrug when Mia looks his way.

"So…you didn’t poison them then?" Billy asks Zach.

Zach “No."

Mari grips Bruce’s legs fiercely since his body has been ripped away—there’s something there that she should probably notice, probably has noticed, but she’s got five million other things going on, including a very big Thing currently locked up inside her closet, and all she can think about is the fever and the blood and how Bruce is more injured, more sick than she or Kyle. That makes her head hurt, too, and it feels for a moment like she’s the one on the ground. “We need to lower his fever, not break it. He’s trying to burn out the infection, so at least his body’s still fighting," she mutters, before letting out a yelp as Bruce’s knee jerks and catches her shoulder.

Oliver feels relief wash over him, unexpected and amethyst, when Mar’i talks about the fever. “Okay," he says. “I’ll move him wherever you want him, if that’s what you need. Should we try to cool him down? You got any of your plant decoctions?" He spreads his hands out wide over Bruce’s chest, snagging the hem of the man’s shirt to wipe most of the blood from his face, and brings his knees up to press into Bruce’s sides, trying to immobilize him more. The ribs are still an issue, and any more seizing wouldn’t do them any good.

Billy goes with Mia to have their rat-funeral. “How were they killed?" he asks softly, as they walk to the edge of the woods.

Mia quickly writes down an epitaph on the same cardboard she used to warn people about the rats, to mark their grave and follows Billy. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t there. It doesn’t really matter, you should remember them as they were."

"…Were they…cut in half?"

"I really don’t know. But I don’t think he used the shovel to cut them in half."

"They were cute," Billy says. “Innocent. Mia? Why do babies have to die? What’s the point of them being made or being born if they don’t even get to live some first?"

Steph hears the commotion from Bruce’s room and sees Ollie and Mar’i struggling with him. “What’s wrong? Did something happen to him again?"

Bruce comes down off off his last seizure, his mouth opening with a slack, slick pant and he growls out, Batman’s timbre, even here, rumbling and thick: “Cyanuric acid—nnhnn." Bruce looks as if he might seize again, his body lifting, and he turns over, away from both of them—diseased, diseased, outbreak in 1907, cell structure intact—and vomits. It is a mixture of old and new blood, black bits of bile, slippery slick pieces of what look like tissue.

Bruce doesn’t—or can’t—hold back the next noise, pained and as slick as what he had just vomited up: the noise is like a gunshot, like he had been shot, but Oliver and Stephanie know, even when the man had been shot, the noise of pain had never been this bright. This loud.

Mari nods and allows Ollie to take the brunt of Bruce’s weight as she rushes to the end table on the opposite side of the room where there’s still a steaming cup of willow tea and several mixtures, dry and wet. She’s been having Steph leave them there, at Bruce’s request. “Cyanuric acid," she repeats after him, looking up at Steph and back down to Bruce, “cyanuric acid." She brings the tea over, trying to remember her organic chemistry from college. “Cyanuric acid, pool treatment chemical, toxic in heavy doses," she breathes, carefully, putting the nearby wet rag on his forehead. “Leads to…." she frowns, “leads to….dammit, I know this…"

Steph eyes widen and she rushes to his side, lifting Bruce’s head to wipe the black sludge from his face with the towel on his bedside table. “Shitshitshitshitshit​-! " She looks between Ollie and Mar’i, not sure what to do without actual medicine to give Bruce to counteract the toxins. “Damn it!" she huffs frustratedly. She’s forcing him to swish water and spit it back into the towel, clearing the debris from his throat. “We need antibiotics!"

Roy Harper moves in when he sees Steph go in, witnessing Bruce’s evacuation and grimacing from the smell of it. God, that wasn’t a good sign, why were they so close to it. His stomach drops and he moves to Mar’i, dropping down to grab at one of Bruce’s legs, in case he starts to convulse again. He looks over to Ollie, his brow knit.

Mia takes a breath thinking about her answer, “I don’t really know if anyone knows the answer to that, hon." Frowns over at him furrowing her eyebrows. “Sometime life really sucks. And I’m sorry about that."

"It’s okay. It’s not your fault. People like you make it suck a lot less." He turns his face up to her, his eyes glistening, “Thank you." Billy gives a respectful silence with his hands folded in front of him, like he’d seen in funerals on TV. “Goodbye, rat family. I hope wherever you are now, there are no owls, or poison, or shovels. I hope there’s a mountain of cheese in rat heaven. And Rao, and God, and all the Ancients, please look after them …um…amen?" he finishes awkwardly. He looks at Mia, “Was that okay?" he whispers.

Oliver has been still for a while, watching and listening as Bruce vomited; watching and listening as Mar’i muttered chemistry; watching and listening as Stephanie dived right in to care for him. He meets Roy’s eyes and his own are hard, clear, glittering. “Come back here and hold him up," Ollie orders Roy. “Stephanie, you take over cooling him down, use what Mar’i tells you to. Mar’i, I need you to come with me."10:56

Bruce , on his side, rasps out: “Damian." Another flood of blood, stinking of metal, iron, copper, rushes out from between his teeth and Bruce stares at the color of it, uncomprehendingly. Cyanuric acid in the pool, the charts had been cascading over the edges of the windows.. The pressure at the back of his head, and the flash of the green travelling cloak, Talia’s mouth at his throat, her teeth sinking into the press of his jugular and he—

Mari is biting her lip so hard there’s a taste of blood in her mouth. She’s trying to collide biology and organic chemistry in her mind, chemical compounds and floating atomic structures trying to interconnect with human physiology. The problem is that her understanding of chemistry is fairly strong, but human biology is much weaker. She’s a botanist, not a nurse. “I think—" she gasps, as Ollie is calling for her, “guys, do you know if there’s cranberry juice in the warehouse?" She looks up at Ollie. “Kidneys? I don’t know, I’m better with….with fucking trees and flowers, not humans, but I think cyanuric acid fucks up kidneys?"

Roy Harper moves when Ollie tells hims to move, there isn’t an ounce of fight in him. It’s ingrained in him, at that point, something deep-rooted. And he settles on his haunches next to Ollie, ready to take Bruce from him.

Steph closes her eyes and lets out and angry breath. She was angry she was useless right now. She was angry she might know how to fix Bruce but didn’t have a means to. She was angry Kyle was still sick and missing and that any of this was happening in the first place and son of a bitch she just felt stuck. “Okay," she said to Ollie curtly and left to go fill up the small cooler they’d found with ice. “There’s only canned cranberry sauce, I think. I’ll grab it," she calls back to Mar’i, sprinting to the longhouse.

"Ayna anta ibn, anta walahi." Bruce’s lashes flick, eyes his eyes narrowing as he speaks, mouth caked in blood, his countenance sheet-white. “Ibn."11:03

Oliver tightens his hold on Bruce briefly, murmuring something in his ear. If any of the other three are watching, it’s not hard to see the depth of feeling there, the feverish intimacy, especially when Ollie closes his eyes and presses his nose into Bruce’s hair. He moves, then, sliding his own legs out to the opposite side away from Roy, so his son can move in to the space he’s left, make a transfer of the bulk of Bruce’s weight. Ollie uses the wall to brace himself as he stands and them moves over to Mar’i. “We have to go," he tells her in a low undertone, cinching her elbow. “You and me, we have to go right fucking now if he’s gonna have any chance."

Roy Harper looks down at Bruce, swallowing audibly, looking over at Steph as she gets up to spring. Bruce’s head is hot, his hair damp, and Roy isn’t exactly sure how the hell the guy’s still alive, because he looks like death—mouth caked with black and red blood, half of his guts on the floor— and then Ollie goes and he— Roy blinks, turning his eyes away from his father and the other man, swallowing again as he looks to the window. The sun was out. It was bright. That had been a bike, he’d seen, outside, right? Maybe he could teach Lian to ride it, after..

Mari moves over as Steph runs off, taking her place cooling Bruce until she comes back. “Cranberry is…" she swallows thickly, “cranberry’s a natural antibiotic, so even if I’m wrong—X’Hal I know I’m wrong—but maybe it’ll help whatever it is," she says in a soft stream, not really sure who she’s talking to anymore. Her head snaps to Bruce as that name slips out of her mouth, and suddenly Ollie’s behind her, helping her up. She looks up at Roy for a moment, as Ollie navigates them both out of the room, eyes locking onto him, trying to be reminded that it’s okay if he’s okay, even if she’s scared and angry and confused and there’s a FUCKING PERSON IN THEIR CLOSET. She swallows, and nods. “Where are we going?" she asks Ollie, trying to keep her eyes on Roy until the last possible second.

Oliver goes into the second room of the bungalow, and Mar’i can see that the sheets on the empty bed are rumpled up, kicked into a pile. He re-emerges with a bow and a bunch of arrows in a makeshift quiver, shutting the door again. “Get anything you think you’ll need for a trek and meet me behind the warehouse. I’m getting Mia and the three of us need to go, now." Ollie pauses for a second, then hugs and kisses Mar’i swiftly before loping towards the woods. “MIA!" he booms at top volume. “GET YOUR BOW AND COME WITH ME!"

Roy Harper takes a shaky breath in, keeping his eyes on Mar’i’s own until the very last moment, until Ollie tears her away from where he can see her. Then, he’s alone. With the dying guy. On the floor. Surrounded by vomit. Great.

Steph returns, arms full, and passes Ollie and Mar’i on their way out, leaving her with the ailing Bruce. Wherever they were going, she had to believe they had a good reason or at least an idea of how to help Bruce. “Okay, big guy. Stay with me. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand," she said as calmly as she could, setting her slightly shaking hand in Bruce’s bigger one and uses the other to start washing his mouth and face intensely, not leaving a trace of blood or sludge.

Bruce doesn’t do anything but breathe, the noise wet and rattling inside his chest in shallow, too-quick pulls. Then, a long exhale. Another quick-long pull. Exhale.

"Hey," Steph says lamely to Roy. “Can you take that open can of cranberry sauce and mash it up with that spoon? It’ll be easier for him to swallow," she explained, finishing the clean up and not letting go of Bruce’s hand. She wasn’t sure if that was more for him or for her. “How are you holding up?" she asked Roy.

Mia smiles and nods her head, “Yeah. That was great, sweetie." Looks around when she hears Oliver and gives Billy a look. “Life of a sidekick kid. I’ll see you later, alright?" Runs and grabs a bow following the sound of Ollie’s voice. “I’m coming! Here I’m here."

Mari pauses in the doorway of the bungalow, Bruce’s feet still visible from her vantage point. “We’re going into the woods?" she asks, but he’s already gone, and she digs through the nearby closet for a pair of hiking boots, too large, of course, but they’ll do. She then runs to the longhouse, grabs one of the nasty camping backpacks, empties most of its superficial contents, and fills it with a few water bottles, the pocket-knife she’s been carrying, a flashlight, and a first aid kit. She races back out the door, after Ollie, into the woods. “What are we looking for?" she yells at his still-moving figure.

Oliver is moving through the outskirts of the wooded area, trusting that Mia and Mar’i are falling into step behind, alongside him. He isn’t running but his long legs are eating up the distance, heedless of underbrush. “Both of you need to be on guard," he calls back to them. He doesn’t have his bow unslung, but it’s only because he knows he could do it in a second if he needs to. “If you see anything moving, kill it."

Mia looks over at Mar’i when Ollie doesn’t give her an answer she’s happy with. “What the hell is happening?"

Mari is limping just to keep up with Ollie’s wide steps, and her face is pulling more and more into anger. “Bruce is seizing, and he’s muttering about a pool chemical, and I don’t fucking know what we’re doing, but we’re out here and—" she moves double-time, “if I’m supposed to be looking for a plant or something, you have to tell me, Ollie, I can’t look for it unless I know."

Roy Harper looks up at Stephanie, nodding as she does what she says: he settles Bruce’s head down, onto the floor, and goes for the can. “Me? I’m totally fine," he says, quickly, shaking his head. He looks over at Bruce, at Stephanie, before he adds, the unease obvious in his voice: “He’s not like.. contagious, is he?"

Steph the edge of her mouth quirks in a weak smile at Roy. “No, but I still wouldn’t advise frenching him any time soon," she joked half heartedly. She settles a fresh damp rag on Bruce’s head and takes the empty glass beside his bed. Setting two aspirin for the fever on the table, she crushed the pills into a sort of powder and scooped it into her hand and into the can Roy was working on. “We’re a regular Grey’s Anatomy, huh?"

The terrain Oliver, Mia and Mar’i are tromping along goes west, past the air raid siren tower. They are heading towards the mountains and the incline is getting very obvious to those with shorter legs and/or limps. It is rocky and stony shale layered atop hard baked clay, the underbrush getting coarser and sparser as they travel. It is fairly obvious to anyone who is a hiker that very soon it will become a scramble up loose shale to get beyond the first ridge.

Oliver slows down just enough for the two women to flank him; he’s looking pale and high-strung, hyperaware, almost twitchy. “This is the direction we need to go in," Ollie says, determination in his voice, like he’s trying to convince himself he’s doing the right thing. “We need to — don’t ask me how. How I know. But we need to go this way, all right? If we don’t want anybody to fucking die." Despite the cursing, he doesn’t sound angry — although he does curse again when they reach the shale and their pace drops, dramatically.

Mia is really glad when Oliver slows down because not everyone is ten feet tall and she’s wearing horrible platformed sandals anyway. Frowns and looks around her bow out, “Why are you being so cryptic?" Still has really no idea what is going on and is trying not to let that frustrate her.

Mari looks at Mia, clearly distressed. Maybe it’s because she’s not running on much sleep, but Ollie is sounding a helluva lot like Kyle did last night. Not that they know about that yet—shit. She moves as best she can given the situation. “How far out do we have to go?" she asks.

Oliver scrambles up the sliding, crumbly shale and turns to help haul Mia up. He’s half-tempted to just carry her, but she wouldn’t care for that much, he knows. Besides, the ridge isn’t that wide, they’ll make it in good time if they just keep up the pace, keep moving, don’t let anything slow them down. “I know," he tells them, giving them a weak smile. “It’s not much to go on. But we have to keep pressing on. There’s something we need to find, she told me that we need to find it." Ollie looks out, squinting, as they crest over the first ridge. “It’s there and we need to find it."

Mari raises an eyebrow, feet nimbly navigating the sliding rock with the only abilities she has left—her father’s. “She?" she repeats, and looks at Mia, but doesn’t say anything else, as they come over the ridge.

Mia takes Ollie’s hand being helped up and looks over her shoulder to make sure Mar’i is getting up easily, then looks towards where Ollie is looking and shakes her head. “Yeah. Who’s she? Who told you? Kate or something?"

Roy Harper snorts, despite himself. “God, I hate that show," he admits, shaking his head as he watches what Stephanie is doing, like he might need to remember how, for himself. He goes quiet again, and states: “It’s not that I’m bad with blood or anything.. I just.." He trails off. Watching. "..are you gonna try to feed him this?"

Steph doesn’t respond at first and takes the can and spoon from him, leaning over Bruce. “I know, it’s kind of freaky," she agreed, mixing in the pills with the cranberry (which was now more like a cold soup). “Can you, um, hold his head up for me while I feed him? He needs to replace his electrolytes anyway, so even if this doesn’t work … " she trailed off, not wanting to go there. “Talk about something normal. Anything. How’s Lian? I heard she found some pretty feathers?"

Roy Harper follows her direction, obediently, and when she starts to ask about Lian, he understands her. It’s almost immediate, the way he starts to talk about her, his little girl, knowing that Stephanie needs something to think on. In the last few seconds, right before she’d asked, Roy had been thinking to himself how much it must suck for her, right now, to be here, tending to one of her own. If Roy were here, and Bruce were Ollie, or.. Connor, or oh, god, Mia, Roy is about five thousand percent positive he wouldn’t be as calm and collected as his friend was. Goddamn Bats. “Yeah, she’s.." He exhales, grinning. “She’s been keeping herself busy. Punishing me by drawin’ on the walls, but she doesn’t get that I’m not gonna clean it off, see.. So she can just.. Keep drawin’.." He chuckles, as if this is super genius thinking on his part. “And, I was out in the piece of land behind the fourth bungalow yesterday, looking for the best place to bring up the soil, maybe we can plant something there.. Dig up the rest of the rocks."

Steph starts to spoon feed Bruce the bitter concoction and presses her thumb gently into his throat to trigger an automatic swallow reflex so he wouldn’t choke. Okay, okay, at least he was taking it in alright, it would only take two or three hours to get a full effect on his system. If only he could keep it down that long. She laughed a little, looking up at Roy. “Lucky you. You get to live with a little Picaso. Maybe we can make her and Mar’i a flower garden, plant some veggies, too," she said a little fondly, a quarter of the can eaten now. “I’ll give you a hand with those rocks, if you want."

"Kate." Ollie’s foot skids and he throws out his arms to keep his balance. “Yeah. Kate."

As they reach the top of the ridge, there is noise to their left, behind a large outcropping of craggy rock. Then there is a roar, and the sleek slide of an animal camouflaged by rock and shadow. Standing up over them at a high vantage point is a mountain lion, staring hungrily at them.

Mari narrows her eyes up at the cougar, her movements freezing momentarily. For that moment, she doesn’t even realize she’s powerless, and she’s staring up at that mountain lion as if she somehow wants to preserve it. Tamaraneans are descended from felines like humans from primates, and there might be a kindred understanding somewhere between them. Just protecting territory, just surviving the best it can. Then she remembers the way Lian and Ramsey swing on the swingset near the bungalow and how Helen and Billy are always nearby laughing, sometimes pushing them, and that’s what she has to protect. Her eyes narrow. “Shoot it if it comes closer," she says, her canine teeth snapping sharply.

Oliver unslings his bow the moment he hears the first shift of the animal to their left, has an arrow nocked and ready when the mountain lion appears. He could take it down easily. He could shoot it right between the eyes and then one through each eyeball to make sure. “Got it," he says in response to Mar’i’s command, as the big cat leaps down from its rocky vantage point and starts prowling towards them, picking up speed. Its powerful muscles move under its tawny coat, and Ollie’s fingers draw the arrow back until he’s at full draw, and the lion opens its cavernous, stinking mouth to show its teeth — and the bow jolts, his fingers shaking hard and then going nerveless, both bow and arrow clattering to the ground. A long, drawn-out sound of anguish tears itself from Ollie’s throat, a dreadful counterpart to the lion’s roar, and the animal is still advancing on them, teeth flashing as it gathers itself to pounce.

Mari is reaching back into the small knapsack for the pocketknife. She knows she’d have to get close to use it, too close without her powers, but she also knows her big cat kin and she’s fully aware of how quickly she could give Ollie and Mia a perfect shot AND escape, if need be. It’s coming closer now, sliding like a snake in a catskin coat, and she pulls the knife down to her side, slowly carefully. It’s shoulderblades twist and rub, and it’s going to pounce and—WZZZT THHK—an arrow flies by Mar’i’s face, from behind her, and Mia already has another knocked by the time it slams into the space between the cougar’s neck, shoulder, and chest. A tendon-tearing shot, but not a fatal one—Mia’s kind to the bone.

The lion welps pathetically as it’s struck with the arrow, appetite forgotten. It tucks its tail between its legs and leaps away forever.

Mari momentarily wraps Mia’s shoulders in a hug, then moves over to Ollie, picking up the bow and holding it out to him. “Come on, we don’t have much time."

Oliver swallows hard, staring at Mar’i and Mia, and accepts his bow back. “Sorry," he mumbles thickly, drawing an arm across his sweating face as they start to scramble and shimmy down the ridge, down into where the terrain gradually turns back into greenery. “I didn’t — you’re right. We’ve got to hurry." Once they reach inside the treeline, though, Ollie stops and puts his hands to his knees, hunched over, breathing heavily. “Water?" he croaks.

There is a valley beyond the ridge and then even higher mountains beyond that. The valley is more like a crater of lush verdent forest, completely unlike the desert dryness they’d left behind, where Cachement resides. To their direct right, down the hill, there is a somewhat cleared out area with what looks to be a manmade structure embedded into the rocky rise of the tall hill.

Mari wants to take a moment to calm and comfort Ollie, but she knows they don’t have that moment. She makes a mental resolution to do it later when there’s time and they’re back with their loved ones. Mia’s also not commenting on what happened, instead still watching their surroundings for any further problems. Mar’i retrieves one of the water bottles, unscrews the cap because, X’Hal Ollie’s hands are still trembling, and points towards the manmade structure. “That’s what we’re looking for?" She looks out at the valley, thinking. “I’ll need to come back here and see what’s growing here when there’s time. But is that it?"

Oliver is drinking the water faster than he should when Mar’i points down into the valley, and some of it spills from his mouth as he looks down in that direction. “Yes," he says, then gives a short, slightly off-kilter laugh. “Yeah, that’s what Kate told me to find. Fuck, it’s actually /here/…"

Mari looks at Ollie, one eyebrow gently raised in concern at the tone of his voice, but she keeps moving to the right, down the hill in careful, precise movements, finding a path they can walk on safely without sliding all the way down the hill. She’s suddenly thankful for all those times her father insisted she practice her poise of movement, even when she complained and sabotaged the equipment. She can’t tell exactly what she’s looking at—nor how Kate would’ve known of it, but as it gets closer and closer she prays it has something they can use.

Oliver As they approach the structure, they see that it’s a bunker set into the side of a hill. Trees sway up around it, and there’s soft moss and — incongruously — graffiti in the concrete walls of the entrance. “It should be open," Ollie says, and with each step he’s gaining back more of his usual confidence and purpose of movement. “Mia, run back to the camp and get some help making a stretcher, or a litter, or something to carry people with. We’re gonna need it and I dunno if we’ll find any in here." Mia takes off with only one short protest, because she almost feels she has to, and then Ollie turns to Mar’i, expression close to elated. “Let’s see what’s in here," he whispers, conspiratorially, and wrenches open the big gray-green bunker doors. Fluorescent lights snap on inside the building the moment the seal is cracked, and Mar’i has been inside enough of these types of facilities to know, immediately, what it is, especially when the pale green walls reveal the Cache symbol with a caduceus set in the middle.

Mari watches Mia race back to follow Ollie’s orders, and then leans into the large bunker when he opens the doors wide. There’s a medicinal smell, like a hospital, and instantly she runs inside, searching around. “We have to take as much back as we can," she says firmly, more to herself than Ollie, “and then we can bring Bruce here if we have to. But we have to get what we can now."

Oliver lets Mar’i take the lead, since she seems to know what she’s doing. “Dump out your backpack, and I’ll find a bag here that we can fill too," he agrees. “Get everything you think we’ll need. I can carry shit like a fucking packhorse if I need to, Mar’i, grab ANYTHING you want us to have." He throws open doors as he goes, taking brief note of storage rooms full of equipment and drugs and supplies, hospital rooms with gurneys and beds both, an operating room, a room full of scrubs and linens. The last room Ollie opens is filled with little cribs, and he stands there staring for a moment, heart thumping for no reason he can think of, before moving back out and picking up a Cache-logo duffel bag from one of the supply rooms. In machined embroidery under the caduceus logo, it reads: RAVEN TERMINAL

Mari didn’t put too many things in the backpack, thankfully, so there’s plenty of space to shove whatever she can into it. Which she does, amply. There’s a large glass medicine cabinet, locked, and she breaks it open with a nearby fire extinguisher. She tucks the fire extinguisher in first, because X’Hal only knows, then examines the pills. Lots of bottles, almost too many. But she recognizes chemical names, and key ingredients, and she’s able to pinpoint out the antibiotics, grabbing several different bottles of different types and Z-packs galore, then several vials of penicillin that she wraps carefully in a nearby bedsheet, then an entire box of hypodermic needles, antibacterial handsoap, gloves latex and non-, surgical masks and manual oxygen pumps, vaccines and poison antidotes, Ipecac and diuretics, laxatives and blood pressure pills, so many bottles she has to get a second bag, one of the Cache duffels. She even finds a defibrillator, and it’s heavy as fuck but she loads it in too, along with several boxes of bandages, burn cream, and antibiotic ointment. “Okay!" she yells, not able to see Ollie anymore. “I think I’ve got enough for right now!"

Oliver follows Mar’i’s voice to the supply room she’s in, having filled his own bag with items much along the lines of hers — his is more first aid, not so much medication and equipment. But he’s also got a long wooden spineboard slung onto his back by its carrying straps. Picking up the heavier duffel bag, he grins at Mar’i, exhilarated, cheeks flushed with the promise of their success. “He’s got a chance now," Ollie says, voice almost cracking with the sheer emotion of the sentiment. “Jesus fucking christ, Mar’i. I just wish Kate—" Ollie stops there as if his tongue’s been caught.

Mari follows him back out of the bunker, her bag making steady rattling noises as she adjusts the straps and closes the heavy metal doors. “Kate what? Is she sick, too?" she doesn’t make eye contact with him, but she links her hand in his as she guides them both back up the hill. Careful, slow steps, deliberate. “When we get back there are a lot of things we have to talk about. All of us."

Oliver stops. As they head back to the hill, from this angle they can see a less steep, more level and slightly overgrown gravel road, winding in a less dramatic way around the hill they’d scrabbled over. He stares down it, then looks at Mar’i. “Kate’s gone," he says. “She’s been gone since … before I talked to you, under the willow. She’s vanished." Oliver tightens his hand around hers, as if she might bolt, like a startled deer.

Kyle Rayner has woken up again, half-feverish and almost shivering from being so damn overheated. He is laying flat on his stomach now, unmoving, trying expend any energy or expel any more heat to add to the humidity hanging about him. Fractious. If he could describe himself in one word right now, maybe that would be it. Fractious. Fracture. Fraction. He is sure thinking this much is just adding to the heat, so he tries to stop that, too.

Bruce cracks open an eye and stares at the window.

Mari freezes at his words, eyes going wide. “Wha—" she begins, “why doesn’t everyone know? Why haven’t you told anyone?" She’s moving again, just to keep her head clear, leading him down the newfound path, their feet making matching rapid scraping sounds against the gravel.

Oliver trots along beside her, almost docile now. “She told me things," he says simply. “She said I needed to know them, and I’d understand when they happened, and she wouldn’t let us die here. I was so goddamn worried that I’d fuck it up somehow, Mar’i, miss one of the clues or the steps, but I didn’t, and now Bruce will be fine, he’ll be fucking /fine/." He squeezes her hand with a wild laugh, jogging a few paces and then going back to their brisk trot. “I love him." A tiny pause. “We both do. Kate and me. It’s why she needed to tell me, before she went." It’s such a relief to say this, for all of this to have happened, and although Ollie knows that it won’t be easy to tell Ramsey that his mama isn’t just resting and not feeling well, the way he’s been gently fending the child off the past day and a half, he has the strange feeling that Ramsey already knows it, somewhere in his sweet little soul.

Mari is still making a bewildered face at Ollie because now he just sounds batshit and, X’Hal, that’s a good pun, she’ll have to remember it later for a laugh, but right now she’s just staring at him, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. “I love him, too," she begins, since that’s about the only place to begin, but she knows he’s not talking about camaraderie or familial love. This is white-hot love, she can feel it emanating from his hand as he leads her back to camp, and it reminds her of…she looks up at Ollie, his shoulders bouncing like he’s not carrying bags of medical supplies. “I never told you who the last voice I remember hearing was."

Oliver looks at her, that comment piercing through the haze of his well-nigh manic spirits as Cachement comes into view (and who would have thought he’d feel such elation at seeing the damn place?). This is important stuff, what Mar’i’s saying, and he hasn’t forgotten the HSR stunt that may have gotten them all into this. He won’t let go of her hand, clasping it tight as he asks, “Who was it, posy? Who did you hear?"

Mari experimentally tries to get her hand out of Ollie’s, but fails in his tight grip. “It was," she flushes, as they come closer to the camp, then enter it, both of them making haste towards the bungalow where Bruce’s still laid up, Steph still feeding him from the cranberry can, standing up to see them and the bounty on their backs. She unloads her backpack, and shows Steph all the things she’s gathered, but Ollie’s still gripping her hand tightly, so when Steph starts paying more attention to the bags and not them, she nods her head towards the other figure in the room, still holding Bruce’s head, lopsided fox-smile hitting his eyes and dark rust hair. “It was him," she murmurs softly.

Oliver turns his head to push his face against Mar’i’s hair, a burst of wild joy in his heart at her words. He doesn’t know why it affects him so much, hits him this hard, but right at this moment he doesn’t care to think about it too much. All he knows is that Mar’i saying that, the implications of that, it adds to the sense of hope and promise opening up before them, all of them, family and love and ties and connections all over the damn map in a beautiful big inextricable scribble. “Mar’i," Ollie murmurs into her dark violet-shadowed hair, finally letting go of her hand to put his arm around her waist and squeeze. “You’re already part of us, sweetheart, yes. Thank you for letting me tell you. About Bruce."

Mari doesn’t know how to tell Ollie that it couldn’t have been Roy because Roy wasn’t there, and that it means that either she was dreaming it up or something else sounded like him. But his face is so lightened by this simple detail that her own has to reflect it. She can’t tell him right now that it might not mean anything, and that he might just be getting hopes up. She can’t tell him that because she can’t quite tell herself that, either. So instead she smiles so hard her eyes are sparkling up at him, and lets him stay pressed against her hair for a moment, sharing this fleeting moment of hope and love. “Thank you for trusting me with it," she finally says.

He smiles at her when they separate, and Ollie takes a long, long look at Bruce before leaving the bungalow to find Ramsey. It’s time to tell him, that his mama is gone. But how do those Blue nightlights put it? All will be well.