Dustin and Lucas leave on one of those gray days where the sun doesn’t really seem to be out and the air is frigid and wet.
Robin’s been expecting this. They’ve been unusually quiet except when together, heads bent close and frowns matching. They look at Robin differently now— she can’t quite place the emotion clouding their vision, but she suspects it’s something like fear or distrust. (To them, she’s a killer now. Maybe she always was.) She can't blame them they're young, they've been dealt a bad hand with the apocalypse and they are probably ready to move on anyway.
Nancy, though, is caught off-guard and looks visibly pained when they break the news to her.
“We’re heading straight for Lucas' aunt’s farm,” Dustin says. “Not that we don’t want to help—”
“We just can’t—” Lucas starts, and then stops. Robin can feel the tension: Billy, Billy, Billy. They stare at each other mournfully, two wide-eyed puppies. They’re clearly searching for Nancy's approval, and she can guess why.
“It’s okay,” Nancy tells them. She puts on a smile. “Just—be careful, okay?” They hug her at the same time, an odd jumble of limbs and bodies. Nancy is now talking into Dustin’s shoulder. “If you’re ever in Oregon, look up my brother. Mike Wheeler, got it?”
They hug Eden next, and despite only knowing her for a few days, they look upset. Robin feels inclined to shake their hands, albeit awkwardly. Both look surprised, but grateful.
Eden helps them hotwire a car. “Don’t travel at night,” Robin finds herself telling them as she hauls their stuff into the backseat. “Don’t stop at supermarkets. Check every damn closet. And for the love of God, don’t try to start fires in the middle of the night ever again.”
They blink at her owlishly, childlike and small in the little sedan despite Lucas’s knees nearly touching the steering wheel and Dustin struggling to shove his seat back. “Thanks, Robin,” says Lucas, and it’s genuine and Robin kind of feels like she’s sending kids off to preschool.
“They’ll be okay,” she tells Nancy after their car fades into the distance, because her eyebrows are shoved together and she’s frowning her mouth off.
“Yeah,” she mutters, but the frown persists. She taps a few fingers on the window of the car. “Let’s go.”
Robin doesn’t push. “You know where that hellfire camp is?” she directs this question to Eden, who looks a little startled that she’s talking to her.
“You can’t miss it,” she says. “Head west.”
Robin steps on the gas, levels into the low eighties and screeches a little every time she zigzags around an abandoned car. Neither of the other girls tries to get Robin to slow down.
*****
A day later they hit a bump in the road. Literally.
It’s not that she’s not paying attention—she definitely sees the pile of corpses blocking their path—but her reaction time is slow. Nancy and Eden are in the middle of swapping seats when the car jolts, sending Eden into the dashboard and Nancy into the back of the passenger seat. Robin hits the brakes hard, cursing.
“Robin,” Eden snarls. She looks murderous, and Robin instinctively leans away from her. (The last time she brake-checked her she punched Robin so hard that she now has a dark bruise peeking out from under her sleeve.)
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All That's Left Behind - ronance
FanfictionShe spots a girl who is definitely not Max on the side of the road, surrounded by the walking dead. She could keep going, she doesn't have to help this stranger. But she stops. She supposes in Max's absence she needs someone to protect. Robin is on...
