what it means to be home. [trigger #36]

**continuation of trigger #1**

Thomas woke again, as the heat of the day continued to rise, and finally he realized it was too warm to consider trying to fall back to sleep. This would be the 12th day in a row that he and his new traveling companions would need to lay low. This time of year, it was far too hot during the day to consider traveling , and at night the raiders had been far too active to risk their attention by moving around. So, Thomas had been using this reality as an excuse to catch up on some much needed sleep. Finally it was time to get moving, even if moving extended only outside his tent to sit in the hot sun until dark.

He slipped from his tent and looked around the camp. It was exactly as it had been each of the other 11 days they’d been waiting for the chance to move.

Peter sat at the far edge of the camp, sharpening blades and watching for movement in the distance while taking great care to appear as if he weren’t watching. Thomas went and sat beside the large man. Conversation was impossible, as Peter had lost his tongue to raiders long ago, but there was still an ever building rapport between the two, and Thomas enjoyed his company. Peter handed Thomas a canteen of water and Thomas took a long, deep pull from it. He was terribly thirsty, and the water was fantastic. He handed back the canteen and Peter handed over another canteen, this one filled with whiskey. Thomas took an equally long pull, and it was equally as good.

Thomas felt a hand on his shoulder, and without turning he knew Carlos was behind him. The hand patted his back and Carlos slid down beside him in the sand.

It was so strange. Thomas had lived within the walls of Sanctuary his entire life, he’d known nothing else, but he’d felt like an alien there ever since Carlos had died, or at least since he thought Carlos had died. Now, out here in the constant danger of the wastes, with the chance a raiding party comes over the hill at any moment, in the brutal heat of the day and the frigid cold of the nights, he felt at ease, like he was home.

Thomas sat in silence with Carlos and Peter, one of whom wasn’t even capable of talking, the other a man with whom conversation had been difficult because of all the secrets Carlos still hadn’t been willing to reveal. Yet, even in this profound silence Thomas felt belonging he never felt back in Sanctuary. Part of it might be that at least with Carlos the secrets were front and center. Neither denied that there was a great deal to Carlos’ story that Thomas was ignorant of. Whereas, back at Sanctuary, there were secrets that Thomas had always felt dancing on the edges of his consciousness, as if all was not as it seemed. He wasn’t aware how true this was, and how deeply it had troubled him, until he had been able to rest with these motley travelers with whom he now threw in his lot.

photography. [trigger #1]

Thomas winces as he shifts his weight. His muscles are sore and tired. The dust is caked into every inch of his clothing. It makes the cloth stiff and heavy. All he can do is try to keep the discomfort out of his mind.

He turns and looks back the way he has come these past eight days. He sees nothing. This absence of any discernible shape on the horizon is far more troubling than dirt-matted clothes. By a long shot. He’s never been this far from his home within Sanctuary before. The massive dome of the Sanctuary towers far above the dunes of dirt and ash. When the winds are calm and the dust settles, you can see Sanctuary for miles and miles. No one ever travels into the wastes far enough that you can’t see the dome.

Yet, here he is.

He needs to get photographs and depth imaging of all the raider camps anywhere near Sanctuary. That’s objective #1. Resources are growing thin, and if there is going to be any hope of sending exploration caravans to look for other refuges like Sanctuary, they are going to need to know where the highest concentrations of raiders are. They are going to need to know where the camps are and how big a threat each poses.

These photographs could literally mean the difference between life and death.

He turns forward again, laying flat and low in the dirt. He lifts his binoculars back to his eyes and looks at the camp. He’s been watching for hours, trying to plan his best strategy for getting useful images without being seen.

Something is troubling him.

Only raiders live in the waste. The problem is, this doesn’t look like a raider camp. He isn’t sure what it is exactly. It isn’t that they aren’t formidable looking. These grunts are downright terrifying. Still, something about the way they carry themselves is odd. These men aren’t more alien than he would expect from a raider camp, instead they are more familiar. They are lacking something of the wildness of the raiders.

Then Thomas sees something that takes his breath away for a good ten seconds.

Carlos.

It can’t be. It’s impossible. Carlos had been declared dead two years earlier, killed by raiders when he led his party too far from Sanctuary. Still. Thomas knows beyond any doubt. He sees the way the old man moves from his tent; the way he walks between his companions; the way he crouches and stares off into the distance at the edge of camp. The man had been like a father to Thomas, and this is him.

Carlos moves back into his tent.

Before he knows what he is doing, Thomas is standing up and walking towards the camp. He moves slowly, trying to be as unthreatening as possible.

The man closest to Thomas sees him coming. Of this, Thomas is certain. Thomas’ approach doesn’t seem to bother the man much.

When he is close enough to be heard without shouting, he speaks.

“Um, excuse me.” His throat is dry and his voice shaky. He’d had no reason to speak over the last week. Alone in the wastes. “I was hoping you could let a friend of mine know I’m here.”

The man only raises an eyebrow. Two things are clear: not a single part of this man sees Thomas as impressive, but this situation is novel enough, absurd to the point that he is waiting before he decides what to do. Finally, he spits on the ground at Thomas’ feet and grunts, nodding his head in the direction Thomas had just come from.

Hm, eloquent.

“No, seriously. I know this sounds like a load of shit. I’m having trouble believing it myself. But, really, a friend of mine is in your camp. I could call him over if you’d like. I just don’t want you to show me the business end of whatever weapons you’re holding if I do.”

The man is still unimpressed. Thomas could see tension working its way through the man’s limbs. Patience is growing thin.

Then, Carlos came out of his tent again, Thomas decides it’s time to act. “Carlos! Carlos Rivera!”

Faster than he ever would have imagined possible the grunting man with the eloquent way of spitting has a knife to Thomas’ throat.

Fortunately, Carlos has heard him. He turns and looks, his face displays six or seven different forms of disbelief before he has enough sense to call to his camp-mate.

“Peter. Peter! He’s okay. I know him. You can let him go.”

The knife vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. The man, Peter, smacks Thomas on the back hard and smiles, a gruesome display of the ugliest teeth Thomas has ever seen.

Thomas walks toward Carlos, still having trouble understanding how the dead man could be standing in front of him. The two men stare for a moment, then embrace.

Carlos speaks first. “What in the seven hells are you doing here?”

“Me? You’re the one’s supposed to be dead.”

“Dead, eh? Is that what they told you? Interesting.”

“Interesting…” Thomas has no idea what to say. Rather than acclimating to the situation, it is only getting harder to process what is happening.

Carlos smiles, “I see you’ve met Peter. He’s a good man.”

“A good man? Am I wrong or is he wearing a necklace made of human ears?”

Carlos lets his smile widen. “Well, out here in the wastes, things work on a bit of a sliding scale as far as all that’s concerned. If a man can be trusted not to stab you in the back just to watch you bleed, he just may qualify for sainthood.”

Carlos chuckles to himself. Thomas finds himself marveling at the warmth of the old man’s smile, the humor in his breathy laugh, even here in the hellish wastes. They were things he thought he’d never know again. He’d missed this old man even more than he thought.