Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Did you pick a time yet?”

A match sparks to life, throwing off just enough light and heat to set the ends smoldering on a pair of cigarettes.

“New Year’s.”

The thin scent of smoke settles into the air.

“I like it. We’ll be crashin’ a party, huh?”

“No. The museum’ll be closed for two days straight and ain’t nobody coming in here to check on us. It’s our best chance.”

A polished helmet reflects the cigarettes’ light across its brow.

“Are you certain? I won’t stand for any interference.”

“Calm down, tin can. We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, relax. Lily’s a professional.”

“Oh, yes, a professional. And what does that make you, sir?”

An ember drifts to the concrete floor.

“What does it make me? What it makes me is the best fuckin’ demo guy in the West! I’ll get your goddamn fire started. Don’t you worry.”

“Good. I won’t—”

“Oh, tin can, I know you won’t stand for interference. You’ve said it a hundred times. But you shut up for once and listen to me, soldier. I don’t take no bullshit, either. Have you ever seen anyone else on my fuckin’ skin? No. I didn’t think so. See, these scars are all mine. I earned every last one of ‘em myself. So whatever you’re planning under that stupid little broomhead you call a helmet, drop it. I’ll kill your general for you, but I’ll just as soon come after you, too. So tell me, commander...”

Her cigarette survives its sudden drop, only to be crushed under the thick leather heel of a riding boot stepping forward.

“...do you want that?”

The whispered hiss dies out in the confined space, leaving only silence and the sound of breathing behind.

“I understand you perfectly well, Miss McBride. Good day.”

Three becomes two and the crevice becomes a little less crowded, though smoke still fills the air.

“Jesus Christ, Lil, you think you went a little hard on him?”

“No. And don’t call me that, dumbfuck, how many times do I need to tell you? No, he’s plannin’ something too, and I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it. If he wants to treat us like shit just ‘cause we’re willin’ to do his dirty work, I’m damn well gonna act like it.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that.”

The other cigarette drops its last glowing ember to the concrete.

“Alright. That’s enough yapping. I gotta go check the stash and talk with the other guys for a minute. And – Chuck?”

When she turns, her face is momentarily lit in profile by the light filtering through the crack in the wall.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got some kindling to gather, don’t you?”

Jedediah is dead.

Octavius stands at the edge of Rome, watches the Mayan army retreat, sees them drag Jedediah’s broken body with them, and Jedediah is dead. He waits for a sign of life, holds his breath until it feels like his chest will explode.

He waits.

The two gunshots still ring in his ears.

And Jedediah is still dead.

“Sir?”

He flinches involuntarily, but it’s just Varinius, the second-in-command of the Praetorian Guard. Nothing to worry about. He sighs – paranoia is not going to help – and raises a hand in greeting as the young man approaches. “You know him,” he mutters to himself, then raises his voice. “Is everything alright?”

No it’s not no it’s not no it’s not he’s dead he’s dead he’s DEAD—

“The commander sent me,” the soldier says, looking down into the chaos below. “He wants your orders, sir.”

“Orders,” Octavius repeats.

The floor has dissolved into a writhing mass of brutal combat. Jedediah’s blond hair is nowhere to be found.

“Yes, sir. For the Mayans. The first contingent is doing their best to hold them back, but the commander says they won’t be able to keep them forever.” The soldier keeps talking, rattling off battle tactics and courses of action, but Octavius isn’t listening.

“Horatius can do what he thinks is best. I…” He glances over at the West. “I should go.”

“How do you plan to get over there, sir?”

“I have armor.” His feet carry him toward the edge of the diorama. He finds the rope ladder, constructed years ago by a pair of enterprising soldiers, and makes quick work of the descent. He’s aware that he’ll be an obvious target, but with half the army attacking and the other half retreating, there should be enough chaos to keep attention off him long enough for him to make his way to the West. And if they do get him – well. He'll only be reunited with Jedediah.

Varinius keeps a dogged pace following him. “I must insist on joining you!” he calls down the ladder.

“Why?”

There’s nothing he can do Jed is dead he’s dead he’s dead—

“Forgive me for the intrusion, sir, but… I saw what happened.” His voice goes soft and full of pity, and Octavius could strangle him if his fingertips weren’t so numb.

“Did you,” is all he manages to say. His feet find the ground and he steps back from the ladder automatically.

Varinius lands on the floor with catlike grace and nods perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for the situation. “Yes, sir. And like I said, I am sorry for the intrusion, but I don’t think you should be alone right now. Sir.”

The soldier’s eyes are saucer-wide, a stark white contrast against his deep brown skin. It almost looks like he’s scared of Octavius, even though they’ve worked in the same army for decades. Even through the fog that’s taken hold of his mind – even now, while he himself feels like he’s drowning – Octavius feels a little bad about it.

Then again, I suppose if I were him, I wouldn’t want to get on my bad side right now either.

He sighs. “Fine. Come with me if you like. But if you’re going to get involved in my personal business, at least stop calling me that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Annie’s eyes flicker between them both as they stand on the saloon’s porch. “Who’s this?” she asks Octavius.

“This is Varinius, second-in-command of the Praetorian Guard and one of my most trusted officers,” he says, gesturing between them. “Varinius, this is Miss Annie Ogden, who I’m sure you’ve heard about.”

The young man may have looked afraid of Octavius earlier, but now, even though he stands at least a head taller than her petite frame, he looks entirely terrified of Annie.

“Please let us in,” Octavius adds. He can feel eyes on his armored back. It’s been a long time since he felt unsafe in the West, but on a day like today, who knows what they risk by standing here?

Annie considers it, then pulls one side of the swinging door open and lets them both into the bar. “Alright. Sorry for all the suspicion, but we’re all pretty damn spooked right now. I think you can understand why.” She nods at Octavius. “I’m sorry about that too, you know. I ain’t a total bitch.”

Octavius nods stoically. “Thank you.”

She catches one of his hands as he passes and folds it between both of hers. “Now, if you need anything, you just let me know. Anything at all, sugar.”

Her stare is intense, and even in his fugue state, he understands what she means. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

She nods silently and releases him.

“Good to see you,” Jane says from her usual spot at the bar. “Sorry it’s in these circumstances. Who’s this?”

He nudges the young man with his elbow. “You’ll have to introduce yourself. They don’t do manners here.”

“Yeah, shut it, asshole. Hi, new guy. I’m Jane.”

“Ah. Varinius,” he says, looking stricken. He takes her outstretched hand and shakes it. “Pleasure to meet you?”

Oh, right – Octavius has forgotten that most of Rome isn’t used to the way the Westerners casually bully him. If today wasn’t... today, he would have had the forethought to warn the poor soldier. But it doesn’t matter. He glances around the empty room and turns back to the woman of the house. “It feels emptier than usual. Where is everyone?”

“Well, Annie and I are here, of course, and Luke ‘n’ Micah are upstairs,” she says, counting on her fingers as she lists. “Neither of the boys are taking this too well – you can imagine why. Annie kicked the rest of everybody out a while ago.”

“Where did they go?”

“Wherever they all could, I guess. Just like us.” Jane’s eyes crease in the corners as she looks at him with pure pity. “How are you holding up?”

“I—”

His mind won’t stop replaying the scene. It’s less of a memory and more of a series of flashes:

An ear-splitting crack.

Jedediah, stumbling toward the front of his diorama.

Another crack.

He falls to his knees – he falls forward, and there’s not enough room on the ledge.

He falls.

He falls.

He falls.

“Octavius,” Annie says sharply, pressing an incongruously soft cloth into his hand.

His face is wet. He dabs at it blindly with the cloth, hardly able to meet Annie’s eye. It’s a strange thing, grief. It comes in waves - he’s fine one moment, then the next, it fills his chest with sand. It scratches at his throat and demands to be let out. It swells, forcing all the air out of his lungs, and the pressure makes tears appear in the very edge of his vision.

He takes a single hitched breath.

“Oh, God,” he hears her mutter. She turns away. “I can’t – God, I can’t. Not right now.”

He looks up, and Annie has been replaced with Jane, who takes the damp handkerchief from his hand and replaces it with a threadbare rag. She holds a glass in front of him.

“Polish,” she orders.

“What?”

“What?” Varinius echoes.

“Clean it. It’ll take your mind off. Don’t lock yourself out on us, now, because we need you. You hear me?”

He hears, but he doesn’t understand.

“Look,” Jane says softly. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you right now. Or ever, really, God knows, but especially right now. I can think about losin’ Annie, but thinking’s not the same as real life. And Jed’s my friend, sure, but he’s not my other half. But here’s the thing, General—” and where there used to be hatred when she said the word, there’s only the faintest tinge of respect now “—we’re a snake with no head. Sure, Annie’s steaming mad, and I’m ready to blow someone’s head off, but we can’t do it by ourselves. And I don’t know about your companion here, but I’d bet he’s the same way. So you’re gonna have to make like a cowboy for a while, toga boy.”

“Like a cowboy?” he asks, then, “Toga boy?”

She shrugs. “Jed’s nickname for you for a while, back in the day. I hate to say it stuck. Anyway, what I mean is, we’re all ignoring everything that isn’t anger right now. We gotta bottle it up so it can explode at the right time, and then later, we’ll all get really drunk and cry like normal people about it. But first, we have to figure out who killed him. Alright?”

Her voice doesn’t even shake when she says it. If he didn’t know better, he would think it was frighteningly impersonal.

But he just nods. “I understand. I… I can work with that. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a hell of a ways to go and none of it’s gonna be fun.”

Octavius makes it through half the glassware in the bar before he’s allowed to think again.

“Do you have any ideas yet?” he asks the women.

Annie shakes her head. “Nothing we can use.”

“Are you sure?”

“The only thing I can think of is getting my rifle and linin’ people up one by one until somebody talks.”

“Which we’re not gonna do,” Jane cuts in. “That won’t help nothing. Besides, one of us could be next, and we’d never know.”

That’s true. A bolt of fear passes through Octavius’s heart as he realizes how obvious of a target he’s making them all – not just to the other museum inhabitants, but to the giants. Discovery by the public would ruin everything; it could mean a return to the glass prisons, or even removal altogether. Fatalistic possibilities start running through his mind, each one worse than the last, and he won’t let anything else happen if he can prevent it. He is a general. He has a duty to protect – not just his own soldier, who still sits frozen next to him, but also the women and men who live here in Jedediah’s home. Because—

Because Jedediah isn’t here, so someone has to do it.

“I have to go back,” he says, rising, glancing wildly down at Varinius and out the window. “We can’t be seen here during the day.”

Annie catches him by the elbow as he tries to leave. “No, no— dammit, hold your horses! It’s New Year’s, remember? Museum’s closed. You can stay with us for the night, sugar.”

“Right. Yes.”

“Here.” Annie takes his cloak from his shoulders, folds it into a neat square, and sets it on the empty chair next to him. His helmet goes on top. “Just sit for a while and let us think. I’m sure your poor head’s got enough to worry over for right now.”

She’s right. He sits slowly and turns his attention to his forearm, where he knows a long silver scratch is still visible under the cuff. Jedediah never had told him what had happened, but that’s true for most of the scars on his body.

“I guess our question should be, who would want to kill Jed? Or any of us?”

Now, he realizes, these silver marks are all he has left of him. What a cruel world, to leave him alone with nothing but the evidence of Jedediah’s pain.

“We know anyone who’s got a grudge?”

So many years spent fighting, and for what? To be given not even an entire year together before being torn apart again? It isn’t fair.

“I’m sure there’s still some Roman that hates him, but that don’t explain it.”

He hasn’t looked for the final wounds - the ones that sent him to the floor so far below - but there’s no point. They won’t appear. Not when the other half of the connection has been severed.

“Yeah, those were definitely gunshots I heard. So it had to have been somebody from around here.”

He doesn’t take off the cuff. He used to use that scar as a comfort, a reassurance that not all was in vain, but he can’t even bear to look at the evidence of Jedediah right now.

“Well, ain’t that reassuring. You think you know your neighbors, honestly…”

If he ever finds out who is to blame, he won’t be able to contain himself. It isn’t a promise. It is a threat.

“I got it!” Jane exclaims – and just like that, the saloon’s front window explodes.

Chapter Text

Jedediah’s not dead.

This is a surprise to everyone, especially himself. He isn’t stupid – he knew what that sound and the fiery pain meant, and he had watched the floor come up to meet him as he fell. He knew he was dead before he hit the ground. There had been one floating moment, just enough for him to look over toward Rome and think “I’m sorry”, and then there had been nothing.

Then he wakes up in the soft embrace of blankets, with the cloying, sweet smell of medicine in the air, and he really doesn’t know what to think. There’s pain, sure, but it’s not the sharp stab that he’d expect. It’s dull – more of a slow throb – which ain’t bad, considering he’s pretty sure the aches in both his shoulder and his hip are coming from gunshot wounds. He’s no doctor, but he does know bullet holes are a bad thing.

He cracks a single eye open to get a look at his surroundings. He’s in a room, for once, but it’s not the rough wood paneling of the few rooms in the West, or even the stone blocks of a Roman house. Where they’re not covered in hanging tapestries, the walls here are a smooth brick-red, burnished mud reflecting the gentle flicker of torchlight from the walls. When he turns his attention to himself, there’s clean bandages wrapped around him, and his arm is secured to his bare chest so he can’t move the bad shoulder. He tries to sit up, but the bed – which turns out to be a hammock – begins to swing, and his poor head swims so violently that he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the nausea.

As it settles (and it takes a while), he doesn’t try to move again. Instead, his eyes trace over the hairline cracks that thread across the adobe ceiling. They’re real, not painted, so this place has clearly been here long enough that things have begun to wear. And he knows the signs of giant-made items, but doesn’t see any of them in any of the room’s textiles. They all look normal. Even the beads that decorate the outside of his hammock-bed, when he runs his ungloved fingers over them, have the telltale scratches of having been carved by hands his own size.

Where is he?

The inside of the bar is a chaotic mess. Chunks of glittering glass have been scattered across the ground, though they’re only partially visible through the cloud of dust that rises from the shattered floorboards.

Octavius coughs, one arm raised over his mouth. What’s going on? he thinks frantically. Where is the threat? Who’s in danger?

He scans the room until his eyes land on Annie, who’s fallen to her hands and knees and digging at the broken floor in front of Octavius’s table. “Are you alright?” he asks.

“Come on,” she mutters, “come on, you—oh, son of a bitch .”

“Sir?”

He rises hesitantly and looks up at Varinius, out of his chair and standing with his sword half-drawn in a position that’s all too familiar to Octavius. They’ve drilled it so many times in preparation for something – well, something like this.

The young soldier looks down at Annie with confusion written plainly on his expressive face. “Miss Ogden?”

“Get down.”

What?

Octavius’s mind doesn’t process it. It’s like he’s been frozen in place. His body is locked by some external force that seems to cut off the connection between his brain and each of his limbs. The events of the day have overwhelmed him completely. He doesn’t react. He can’t.

“Are you both idiots? Down!” Annie roars, grabbing both soldiers by their shiny metal cuffs and hauling them roughly to the dirty floor.

No sooner have they hit the wood than another deafening crack rocks the building. Chunks of wood ping against Octavius’s armor and rain down on his arms, which he’s instinctively raised above his head without even noticing. Something else might zip above his head, but it’s hard to tell through the ringing in his ears.

He looks up. They all seem fine, but he has to ask – “Is everyone alright? Anyone hurt?”

Everyone in the room ignores him, including his own soldier – rude – leaving him to stare blankly at the shattered wall. A Roman arrow still quivers in the center of the blast, but the damage isn’t right. An arrow wouldn’t have sounded like that, or fractured the wood like that... He cranes his neck, looking closer into the hole.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Annie mutters. Then, before he can respond, “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you’ve gotta be kidding me.” She crosses the room in long strides. The wooden planks are completely destroyed, but the splintered fragments don’t seem to scare her; looking determined, she sticks her fingers into the hole and starts digging around.

Octavius stares blankly at her. He must be hallucinating. That’s the only explanation for everything that’s happening. It’s all just too unlikely. The events of earlier have broken him – or they never happened at all. And if they never happened at all, then- then Jedediah is still alive!

Footsteps come pounding down the stairs, raising his hopes, but they’re squashed flat again when he realizes that it’s two sets of feet.

A pair of figures appear in the stairwell and Luke’s head pops out. “Hey, Janey, what the fuck – hi, Octavius – what the fuck was that?”

He doesn’t want to be rude, but what is he supposed to say? There’s no way to put a brave face on this situation. So he just waves ineffectually at the newcomer and Micah behind him. “Good evening. It would seem that we’ve been the victims of a murder attempt.”

“Oh,” Micah says faintly. “Alright.”

“Great, glad we’re all on the same page, lovely.” Jane gestures between Luke, Micah, and Varinius. “Boys, meet this other Roman whose name I’ve already forgotten. Roman, meet the boys. Great. Now, Annie, what the hell are you doing? You’re gonna tear yourself to shreds.”

She glares at the wall, where most of her hand is now buried in the shards. “Back in the day,” she grunts, “when I stopped shooting ‘cause we figured out we were running out of ammo, I had exactly four rounds left.”

“And where are they now?” Octavius asks. It’s beginning to dawn on him, and dawn is not his friend.

She plucks another bullet from the wall and holds it out. “You’re lookin’ at one of ‘em.”

Jed’s question is answered soon after he slips back into his drugged sleep. He startles awake to a face in the darkness, but whatever’s dulling the pain must also be deadening his reflexes, because he can only find the energy to blink.

“Oh,” the woman says. Her voice is soft, clipped, and accented, though Jed can’t place it. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah.”

“And not dead. Good.”

He looks warily at her. She has a round face and long, loose hair – not the look he’d expect from a fighter of any kind. Then again, living in the West as long as he has, he’s not about to judge that sort of thing by appearance. And it’s hard to make out details in the torchlight, of course, but her skin looks much more brown than his own, and he catches glimpses of red paint on her cheeks as the fire flickers.

“You’re a Mayan!” he blurts.

She nods. “I also have a name, but yes. I’m Fairuza. I’ve been helping to heal you since you arrived.”

He holds out his hand – he’s not so suspicious that he won’t introduce himself, but the hammock and the sling make it hard to shake properly. “Jedediah.”

She looks at his outstretched hand.

“Where are we?” he asks, withdrawing it.

She turns to the side and starts moving things on the floor that he can’t see. “Inside the pyramid. It’s the safest place in the box.”

The box? Oh, the diorama.

“You are extremely lucky, Jedediah,” she says quietly. “Your story could have ended yesterday.”

“I know.” His fingers hover over the wrapping at his shoulder.

“Don’t touch,” she scolds.

He doesn’t touch.

“You need more time to heal. It won’t close for two nights. After that, it won’t even begin to scar for another five.” She glances sidelong at him. “I don’t know if that was a worry, but now you know.”

Oh, shit. Octavius .

“I gotta go,” he says, fighting gravity and the hammock. “My partner, he’s – I think he saw me go down. He’s gotta be worried sick. I have to get back home!”

She pushes him back down into the bedding. “Only if you want to bleed to death before you make it ten steps! You have to heal.”

He goes. She has a point, and anyway, he’s in no shape to fight.

“So.”

She looks up. “Yes?”

“Not to be rude, or anything,” he begins awkwardly, “but how come you’re helping me? I kinda figured all y’all Mayans wanted to kill us.”

Fairuza rolls her eyes. “No. You just assume that because of what we did fifty years ago. When, I would remind you, you were also fighting Rome.”

Well. She’s not wrong.

The drugs must be getting to him, because it only strikes him then that he can understand her. “Wait, you speak English!”

“Observant.”

“I’ve been shot. Cut me some slack,” he whines. He figures he’s entitled to a little bit of complaining. “No, it’s just— shit, if I knew we spoke the same language, I would’ve tried harder to get peace talks goin’ or something.”

The woman glares sideways at him, then relaxes into a smile. “Thank you, Jedediah. I believe that is what we would call the bare minimum, but… thank you. To answer your question,” she says, dropping to the floor and crossing her legs, “we are helping you because it is the right thing to do.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“And because we have been tricked. Things can have two reasons.” She shrugs. “I don’t know all of the details. That would be my husband's problem. I was only told that there had been another battle and that my services were needed, so I found my supplies and came to help.” She gestures at something on the floor. Jed can’t see it without sitting up, and he’s sure as shit not trying that again this soon.

“Supplies?” he asks instead.

She waves an object in his face. His eyes cross as he tries to focus on its bright colors.

“Curare. Drugs. Darts ,” she says, and only then does the shape make sense.

“Hey, you shot me!” he accuses.

“Yes, for your own good! If we hadn’t used the dart, you would not have survived the removal of the bullets. So maybe don’t complain to the people who are helping you, eh?”

He has to admit she’s got a point.

She smiles slyly at him. “You know, lazy man, I liked you better when you were asleep.”

If he had been asked to guess what a Mayan doctor would be like, he wouldn’t have guessed this in a hundred years. They’d spent so long assuming they were all brutal fighters who weren’t interested in peace. But this woman is so kind, with a surprisingly dry wit, and she seems to be an expert. His arm doesn’t even really hurt, for God’s sake. He tests it experimentally - yeah, still sore, but he’ll take sore over dead any day.

“Ay, are you even listening to me?” she interrupts. “Do you want food or not?”

He perks up. “Food? Y’all have food?”

“Yes. Do you… not?”

He shakes his head, staring at the bowl that’s appeared in her hands. Holy shit, he thinks reverentially . Meat.

Fairuza rolls her eyes. “Savages,” she mutters.