Author: @justadram
Collaborating Artist: @alice-in-neverneverland
Ship: Jon x Sansa
Trigger Warnings: gun violence, blood
Summary: Mexico had no choice but to close the border, but getting across it is Jon and Sansa’s only chance. The final part of the USOIO series. Previous parts here.
Passing through quadrant B into C, there were no pop up check-points along the highway. It’s been good for Jon and Sansa, but a bad sign for those they leave behind. Things aren’t going well at the front if they’ve pulled all personnel from C quad. Sector headquarters right off the highway looked deserted, though Jon didn’t slow down to investigate. No guards meant no one to scan Jon’s SN or ask nosy questioned about an uninked girl riding with an officer across quadrant lines. No one to kill either. Jon would rather not add shooting some guard point blank in front of her to what Sansa’s had to endure.
All she’s done is sleep. Despite the Jeep’s bad shocks and the heater refusing to kick on no matter how many times he hits the dash with his fist. He waited until she nodded off, her head tipped back and mouth hanging slightly open, to drape his jacket over her. He couldn’t stand to see how pale her hands looked tucked in around her chest, but couldn’t bring himself to touch her the way he wanted to when she was awake either. Even if it was just to cover her up. Doesn’t feel right. Feels more wrong than it ever did in her RV.
They weren’t two blocks from the camp, when she asked whether they could get his number tattooed on her arm.
I’m AWOL. My number is a death warrant.
If they can get across the border, she won’t need a tattoo.
South of the border, there’s a different kind of invasion taking place. Southern propaganda found its way into the barracks on occasion, identifiable by the red Asian dragon that curls along the edges of all their material. Most of the men took no interest in the Targaryen promises—gender, social, and economic equality based on sharing resources and responsible consumption—since the soldiers benefit the most from the existing regime. They don’t understand that their regime will be the death of all of them. No telling whether the propaganda’s claims are 100 percent true, but if they are, everyone in this godforsaken country better pray the so-called Targaryen Cartel is successful in their liberation efforts.
Without any blocked roads or a blown out tire sacrificed to highways devastated by years of slashed maintenance budgets, it’s a 19 hour drive to the Mexican border. By the time they’re in Texas, he wonders if she’ll sleep the whole way. He keeps looking sideways at Sansa, convinced she’s been shaken awake by a last second attempt to miss being swallowed by a nasty gash in the road, but not even the harsh swings of the vehicle disturb her.
Guys coming off the front sometimes sleep like this. Like the dead.
He’d let her sleep forever if he could safely leave her in the Jeep. But he can’t. They’re not far from Laredo, and she needs to know the plan and he needs to relieve himself. He takes an exit where there’s a sign for a Walmart. There’s a chance, a slim one, that there could be something worthwhile in the wreck of that store. Most of the big box stores were picked clean years back, as corporation after corporation folded and people smashed windows and broke down doors before CEOs could move in teams to liquidate the remaining goods.
There are guides, Mexican citizens, who help people cross the well guarded border at a steep price. With the dollar worth more as kindling than currency, it’s the trade of flesh and goods that greases palms. If he didn’t have the back of the Jeep packed with rations and gas—there should be some left, when they get to Laredo, especially since he’s been able to take the Jeep out of four wheel drive as they travelled farther south—he’d chance digging through the Walmart for something that could give them more bargaining power. But it isn’t worth it.
He pulls over the overpass and a little beyond, close enough to the highway that he can get back on quick, but mostly tucked out of sight. Quad C might seem deserted, but there are bound to be people this close to the Mexican border. Men mostly. Sometimes hanging out in gangs. Pulling over could mean getting discovered by unregistereds or a military patrol. Jon banks on the fact that no one will spot them behind the windbreak of scrubby brush.
He needs to show her how to protect herself. In case they’re so unlucky as to be found by someone or something happens to him.
He watches her for a minute, letting the engine hum, wasting precious fuel, while he works up the nerve to touch her. She jerks and blinks twice, as he pulls his hand back from her shoulder and switches off the engine, giving her a moment to find her bearings.
“I gotta step outside for a minute,” he tells her. He makes her choose which one he wants before he opens the door—knife or gun.
“I don’t want anyone to get close enough to use a knife,” she says, taking the gun from him with steadier hands than Jon expected.
When he’s zipped himself back up, he walks around to her side of the Jeep, pops the door, and motions for her to step down. She’s put the gun he gave her on the dash and he grabs it for her, putting it back in her hand. He makes sure she knows how to use it, though she insists it isn’t necessary, since she used to watch her brothers shoot clay pigeons at their place in the country.
“It’s different shooting someone,” he says, his hand at her elbow, straightening her arm. It’s the closest they’ve been since he held her in the camp director’s office, but the fact that he’s showing her how to kill someone only leaves him feeling detached.
This isn’t what he wants for her.
Her effect is completely flat, when she asks, “Who am I going to shoot?”
“No one once we get across the border.”
“Mexico?” She lowers the gun. “They closed their border.”
They had to. The stream of refugees from California when the water ran out was enough to overwhelm Mexican authorities at a time when every nation was struggling to provide for its people.
“I’ve got an illegals map. There are people who can get us across.”
“Both of us?”
“Both of us,” he promises. No more separations.
Sansa offers to drive, but she doesn’t drive shift. It’s for the best. He doesn’t want to run the risk of coming across a check-point with Sansa at the wheel. It would look suspicious. No soldier would let a girl get behind the wheel of a government vehicle.
Approaching Laredo, his eyes feel like they’ve got road grit in them, they’re so dry from staring too long at the endless highway, and if it wasn’t for Sansa’s humming, he probably would have fallen asleep at the wheel about an hour back. Adrenaline is the only thing keeping him upright. It would be impossible to stop and rest now, knowing how close they are to crossing.
The old map Jon has messily folded on the console is marked with a black X in the southern portion of what used to be Laredo. Sam gave it to him. Even if Jon wasn’t AWOL, having this map on him would be enough to get him executed. The spot marks an illegal crossing point, a place to secure crossing with a Mexican guide. Jon doesn’t know how up to date it is. Whoever ran this illegal crossing could be long dead or serving time in a Mexican prison.
At least there are signs as they drive south along US 83 that this route is better traveled than the others they’ve been on. Despite the condition of the city itself, which suffered the same lawlessness and economic turmoil other southwestern cities experienced once cut off from trade to the south, the road is patched. Someone has maintained this stretch of road. Maybe the people run the crossing. Although most people crossing the border would be coming on foot and wouldn’t require a well paved highway.
It sets them apart. It should be enough—a back seat packed with supplies and a fueled up Jeep—but the blond bearded, hulk of a man looking over their supplies and kicking the tires of the Jeep acts like they’re trying to sell him a bill of goods. He keeps looking sideways at Sansa too, as if she might be part of the package.
“You’re a Mexican citizen?” Jon asks, pulling Sansa in close to his hip.
“Si, amigo.”
Jon knows better than to believe him, but what matters isn’t the man’s citizenship. All that counts is whether he can deliver them into Mexico, and the guy’s got the false papers they need and the metal boat to get them across the river. It’s more than they had prior to meeting him.
They’ve already shaken on it and left their Jeep and all their supplies a couple of blocks back by a trailer, where it’s probably being divided up among the crew behind this operation, but Jon pauses, when they emerge from the dry brush along the bank of the river, wondering whether he’s done the right thing. The papers could be worthless and from what he can make out in the dwindling light of dusk, the Rio Grande doesn’t seem terribly deep or fast. It’s not cold enough this far south that a swim would absolutely kill them. High 50s maybe. Jon could still pull his weapon and tell the guy the deal’s off, peace out and cross a little further south on their own without this guy leering at Sansa every time Jon lets his arm drop from around her.
The guy looks up from the boat, where he’s arranging the paddles. “I can hear you thinking, amigo. Like a squeaky wheel. Let me warn you though. A swim in this river will kill ya.”
“That right?”
“Raw sewage. Tons of it.”
Sansa wrinkles her nose. It explains the smell and the dead fish that dot the river’s edge in various states of decomposition.
The guy pats the wooden bench in front of him. “Time’s a wasting. You in or out?”
There are no bridges, pedestrian, rail, or otherwise. The Mexican government took them out, cutting off all international entryways from the US and up went the guard towers, spaced evenly across the length of the border. Dusk is a good time, their guide assured them: low light and at the end of the shift, guaranteeing worn out guards, who won’t be as eagle eyed as at the start of their shift. He swears he knows the sweet spot between the towers, far enough away that they’ll be no more than a bit of flotsam on the chocolate brown water.
Sansa looks up at Jon and bobs her head yes.
“One in front, one in back,” their guide instructs, having situated himself in the middle, where the paddles rest.
Jon holds on to Sansa’s arm, balancing her as she climbs into the back and settles gingerly with her legs twisted to the side to avoid the guy’s bulk in front of her.
“You good?” Jon asks her, his eyes flicking to her middle. Her gun is tucked in her waistband, hidden by the heavy knit of her shirt and the men’s jacket she wears over it.
“Little lady is fine. Give us a shove, amigo.”
Her hand shifts against her thigh, moving higher towards the gun. She understands. They both have to be on guard, even though this guy wants to play tour guide, as Jon toes the boat with his boot and clambers in before the boat bobs too far out of reach.
“Didn’t use to be so deep,” the man says, as the bottom of the boat catches in the current and he dips the paddles into the water. “’bout dried up there at the end.”
The boat rocks and Sansa’s left hand darts out to grab the edge, her knuckles going white as her fingers wrap around it.
“Flows like God intended,” he continues, unbothered by the roll of the boat, “ever since they blew the dams up north. Nothing holding back the water now.”
It happened all over the southwest. One dam after another was blown by hooded terrorists. Reservoirs were sabotaged too. The work of Dooms Day cults that sprang up as the global situation began to deteriorate, who were trying to hasten the End of Days through acts of destruction. That’s what the state told them. That was the nightly news story for months. Jon believed it at the time.
Now he suspects it was the US government. With a water shortage crippling the west, it was easier to destroy the containment systems and force people east, where they could be gathered into a smaller territory and be more closely monitored. For a safer tomorrow.
Something thumps against the boat, vibrating through Jon, and their guide chuckles. “Dog,” he announces, peering over. “River is chock full of ’em. Sometimes gringos too. Folks who weren’t as smart as you two.”
Jon doesn’t feel particularly smart. The guy has huge muscles and a wide back, plenty of heft to get them across the river, and yet, they’re barely moving. He’s isn’t exactly working to get them there with any speed.
“Or as well fixed, huh? You must be an important oficial, amigo.”
Jon turned his jacket inside out before they got out of the Jeep, so his name doesn’t show. “I’m nobody.”
The man’s mouth pulls up on one side. “A good thief then.”
Sansa’s been squinting, tilting her head to see around their guide, searching for the other shore, while he babbles. Jon can tell before she ever speaks up that she wants to be finished with this ride. “Have they ever stopped you on the Mexican side?”
“Me?” The guy stops pulling and they float, drifting along with the current in the deepest part of the river. The dirty, stinking water ripples where the paddles trail, slowing them down rather than speeding them towards the other side. “I got an arrangement. The goods are delivered right into my hands and I pass them along. Don’t ever have to worry about the border.”
Something is off about the way they continue to drift, while the man stares blandly at Jon. Regardless of good timing and distance from the closest guard tower, the less time they spend on this river exposed the better. This guy is stupid or he has no reason to hurry. Doesn’t bode well either way.
Jon raises his brows, indicating the paddles with a nod. “You need help with those?”
“You deaf, oficial?” the man says, lowering his voice as he leans forward. “I don’t worry about the border.”
He smiles at Jon, all gap-toothed and threatening, and the world tilts. The boat lurches to the left. Sansa screams sharp and quick. The downward swing of the boat nearly throws Jon from the boat, and he tenses, waiting for the rush of cold water. They don’t tip quite far enough to make it a reality and his hand slams into the side at the nadir of their arc. His fingers slide down the damp metal surface. They rock violently, the left side already rocking back out of the water before he can find a handhold. Jon’s leg shoots out to stop him from sliding off the bench into the slap of the water that rushes up on his right. A spray of water makes Jon’s eyes snap shut, but he opens them again, as his boot jams into the side of the boat, preventing his body from being carried over the side by his own momentum.
It’s dark and the world feels upside down, but he catches sight of Sansa’s hand, still holding on, as something hard hits him under the chin, knocking him back. This time he gets both hands to close around the rim of the boat, and he avoids toppling backwards over the prow.
He blinks hard, clearing his woozy vision. All he can make out is the dark outline of the guy he’s given all his worldly goods to, looming between him and Sansa. Their guide is trying to kill him. Jon grabs for the gun on his hip, but the boat is still rocking and he goes to his elbow on the bench as soon as he lets go. The guy hits him again, a jab to the throat with something hard enough to bruise. The paddle, Jon realizes, as he arches his back, trying to gain an inch from its rough, wet edge.
“Over you go, amigo. I only need your little lady.”
Sansa’s the goods.
Jon opens his mouth to bargain or threaten or tell him to go straight to hell, but he’s jabbed once more and he sputters uncontrollably.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky. Just don’t swallow…”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his warning. A crack cuts through the night and red blooms on their guide’s throat, bubbling and bright. The paddle dips, and Jon grabs it, as the guide slumps forward, gurgling.
He can finally see her. The gun is extended, held out straight in front of her like he showed her. With the man flopped over, the gun is pointed right at Jon, quivering with the force of her shaking arms. He reaches across the noisily dying man, his hand held palm out. “Sansa,” he says, as his hand closes around her wrist. He feels the fight go out of her and he forces her arm down.
“Push him over, push him over,” Sansa says so quickly the words slur together in a hiss.
He told her she wouldn’t have to shoot anyone.
“Push him over,” she repeats, her eyes fixed on the back of the man’s head, as he takes the gun and puts the safety back on.
A dog barks on the US side of the border and a flicker of light illuminates the shore. The gunshot has drawn attention.
He tucks her gun alongside his own.
“No time,” he grunts.
The other paddle is trapped between the man’s chest and thighs, and Jon nearly sends them into the water as he grapples to free it. Eyes wide and arms wrapped around herself, Sansa doesn’t move to help, but she’s the only reason they still have a shot at escape.
“Will the guards have heard?”
“No,” he lies.
Hopefully border patrol is accustomed to hearing gunshots from the US side. Hopefully that’s business as usual and they’re not about to be lit up by a searchlight.
Jon doesn’t have any practicing rowing and for the first few pulls they don’t do anything but float ever closer to the guard tower Jon knows is there but can’t make out in the darkness, when he glances over his shoulder. Finally he gets the angle right on the paddles and they make progress towards the Mexican shore.
Twice s0he asks, “Is he dead?” before the boat hits bottom with a thud, but he isn’t sure enough to give her an answer.
She flinches, when he forces the guy onto his side, so he can dig in the man’s pockets for the papers they need. They luck out that they’re not stained in blood. There’s blood everywhere, puddling around the guy’s feet, soaking his white tennis shoes.
“He bled out,” Jon says, tucking the papers into his jacket and holding a hand out to Sansa. “We got to hurry.”
By the time they’ve pushed through the scrub that leads down to the river and found a dirt road to follow under the moonless sky, Jon’s muscles burn, cramped by exhaustion and panic. Despite Sansa’ breath coming so fast that it sounds like each step she takes will be her last, she’s quick and he doesn’t have to slow his stride to match hers. Hand in hand, they skirt a highway, keeping out of sight. Twice Jon tugs her behind a building, pressing his brow to hers until a truck has passed, but other than silhouetted figures moving behind drawn curtains, they don’t see anyone along the mostly deserted roads.
The last Jon heard, General Targaryen had established a beachhead along the coastline to the south, a base of operations to launch her full scale invasion of the Americas. That’s where they’ve got to head, but after an hour of racing over uneven roads in the dark, Sansa sags against his side, tripping over her own feet. He’ll have to carry her soon, and he doesn’t have it in him. There’s no way they can go any further tonight.
At the edge of a trash littered rail line, they happen upon a tumbled down stone building. It looks like it could have been owned by the railroad at some point, but it’s useless to anyone but vagrants now. Only three walls are left, all blackened at the top from a fire that must have happened years ago, and the roof is burned away, but it’ll provide some shelter and shield them from prying eyes. Weapon drawn, he inspects it with Sansa clinging to his waist. It’s empty. It’ll do.
They sprawl over the dusty concrete floor, letting one of the remaining walls hold them up. Both guns laid out to his right within reach, loaded and ready, he stretches his legs out, wincing.
“Sleep.” It’s a command as much for his whirring brain as an invitation for her to relax against him.
She accepts without hesitation, curling into his side, pressing into him with her head pillowed against his shoulder. Her breath puffs against the exposed skin of his neck and he loops an arm around her waist, scooting her in close.
“I almost lost you.”
Almost. He doesn’t know how she got her gun out much less aimed it. “You’re a good shot.” With the roll of the boat, it’s a wonder she didn’t shoot him instead. He clears his throat and immediately regrets it. The blow to his windpipe and the dust he inhaled on the road did a number on his throat. “You weren’t kidding about not needing practice.”
Her hand snakes under his shirt, where it’s come untucked, sliding over the flat of his stomach and around his ribs. Her fingers are cool and his skin pebbles. His whole body twitches awake in spite of his near terminal level of exhaustion. She has that effect. Even on the worst days, he felt better, when he visited her RV, sipping on a glass of water and watching her eat his rations.
Jon laces his fingers in her hair, palming the base of her head. Fuck, she feels good. He forgot what it felt like to hold her, to feel her chest expand against his.
“I was aiming for his head.”
He smiles into her hair. The last time he smiled must have been in her RV months ago. “Close enough.”
He can’t hold onto the feeling of relief, as regret creeps in. They’re not dead, but he still managed to let Sansa down. “It should have been the other way around. I wanted to protect you from that.” The faces of the men he’s shot already flicker before his eyes in his dreams. One more wouldn’t have weighed him down much more. He didn’t want that stain on her soul. “You okay?”
It’s a stupid question. She’s not okay. She shot someone. They about took an unplanned dip in the Rio Grande, which apparently would have killed them. He’s not okay either. Their so called guide tried to kill him and take Sansa. His best friend is dead, most of his friends are dead, Sansa lost her parents, and there’s a good chance all her brothers and her little sister are dead. If he stops to think about how not okay the last few years have been, he’ll go crazy. He’ll fucking lose it.
She pulls her hand out from underneath his shirt and drapes it around his neck. “Jon, I need you.”
“I’m here. Sleep, honey.”
“No, I need you,” she repeats, hauling herself into his lap in a huff that brings her squarely against him, one long leg bent on either side of his body. He breathes in through his nose at the heat of her pressed against him.
He’s not a saint. He thought of the time she suggested they fuck—in more euphemistic, sweetly outdated terms—and sometimes in his head he responds differently to the offer. When he lets his mind wander, he does more than kiss her. He’s careful. Makes her gentle words seem only fitting for what they do. He maps every inch of her, places he’s never seen on her, with reverent hands.
Even if he never gets to touch her like that, he’s seen enough to know she’s the loveliest thing in this world. He brushes her hair back to get a better look at her in the shadow of this building’s shell. She’s beautiful even with circles under her eyes and dry cracked lips. And so damn brave.
“Jon, I trust you.”
A lot of good that did her. That guide was going to sell her. Jon almost delivered her right into the hands of someone trading in flesh at the border, feeding on people’s desperation to get across.
“You don’t owe me anything.” His hand slides down her back, pulling her firmly against him to increase the tempting weight of her, his body and his words working at cross purposes.
“An exchange,” she says, giving his shoulders a shove that jars his bones against the stone. “Does it have to be about debt?” Her nails dig in through the stiff fabric of his jacket. “Doesn’t anybody love anybody anymore?”
He kisses her. Bites her. Too hard. Carries her down to the hard floor with a hand beneath her head and works her pants off with one hand. The night air is crisp, but she’s warm and wet and he curses as many times as he tells her he loves her as their hips meet and she arches up into him.
He loves her and he’s going to keep her safe and make her come a million times before their last day on this planet. It feels possible. She tastes of blood and salt and her skin is softer than it has any reason to be, but she feels strong moving against him, her hands grasping his side, and he feels stronger for her. They’ll find the Targaryen Cartel. He’ll see her to safety. He’ll fight to save what’s left of their world. He makes a half dozen panted promises against her ear, as she gasps and shudders underneath him, and he has one stray thought left that reminds him to pull out of her before he comes.
This shitty world is short on condoms. He should have checked that Walmart.
They lie back, staring up at the cloudy sky overhead. In his drowsy, drained state, he doesn’t register for God knows how long the play of her fingers over his hand, twisting his service ring around and around.
Married to the military. Property of the state. It takes some tugging, but he gets the thing off. Looks through it, the empty space inside. It’s too big for her. Scuffed from wear. No one would mistake it for anything but an ugly service ring. “It’s all I got,” he says, rubbing its edge over the ridge of her knuckles. No point in promising something better, when there’s nothing better out there.
She twists, angling her head to look at him. “Your service ring? You want me to wear it?”
Jon swallows. “You don’t have to.”
She slips it on her thumb, the only finger it will stay on. It looks different on her, bulky and starkly masculine on her slim finger, but he doesn’t hate it, the way he did on himself. Not when it means something different. He feels the sharp edge of it, when she lifts her hand to his face and asks, “What does that make me?”
“It makes me yours.”