It’s around seven in the morning when she’s brought to consciousness by a cereal bar to the face. She grumbles and squints up at Eden, who looks mildly satisfied at the look on her face.
“Rise and shine, pretty girl,” she says, and Robin kind of hates her. (But not really; mostly she feels guilty.)
The others get better treatment than Robin; Eden nudges them awake and presents them with food—like, actual food. Spam sizzling over the stove and an actual, functioning toaster. Robin hates her less.
“Yeah, I rebuilt this,” Eden says offhandedly when Nancy asks. “Sometimes it just needs a little—” she hits it hard with the flat of her hand “—kick.”
Robin eats very little. She wants to get a move on, away from this girl with her cruel mouth and upturned nose, toward her little sister. She suspects she wouldn’t feel this badly about Billy if it weren’t for Eden's dark circles under her oddly doe-like eyes. She must of been searching for months trying to kill him herself. When Robin looks at her, she finds herself wondering who Eden was before this shitstorm ruined the world; she’s pretty in a goth vampire queen kind of way, the type of girl she might have gone for before. She gives off a Nancy Downs type of vibe from The Craft.
But of course, Robin thinks with a glance at Nancy, this is after, and things change. But apparently her attraction to women named Nancy has always stayed the same.
*****
The rain persists, monsoon-like, as though to personally affront her. She is seeing Max everywhere she looks—more than usual. It’s because she’s getting close, she knows. She dreams about Max, about her first day of middle school, about the red hoodie she used to wear, about the Mayfield glare she used to give Robin when she ruffled Max's hair. About the first skateboard Robin had bought Max and the way her eyes lit up and about her laughter they shared when Max tried to teach Robin on said skateboard, failing miserably and landing on her ass a number of times she'll never reveal.
She’s wearing her worry on her sleeve, biting her nails, pacing, staring glumly at the door, but she doesn’t care that the others can tell (Lucas’s eyes track Robin as she wears a path in the carpet, Eden gazes at her, Nancy puts a hand on her arm to get her to stop). They don’t matter. Max matters. She keeps imagining the worst, especially about her new friends. They can’t protect her. Nobody can, except her. Well okay Steve can but not as well as her. She doesn't know about El or Will but they're strangers to her. She doesn't even know if they're all still together. That thought is even more frightening.
“It’ll stop soon,” Nancy keeps saying. “We’ll get going soon.” But the time ticks by and Robin's mood worsens.
“She was okay,” Eden tells Robin finally. They’re the only ones in the room; Nancy had herded Thing One and Thing Two into the kitchen to scrounge up food. Eden’s not looking at her pointedly, tinkering with something in her lap, a mess of metal and bolts and screws that Robin couldn’t possibly understand.
“What?” Robin says, and it comes out sounding hoarse.
“Your sister,” Eden says testily. Robin wonders why she hasn’t tried to kill Robin yet. Bum leg or not, she’s fast and she’s certain and she could maybe take Robin. “When I saw her, she was okay. Armed and dangerous.” She shrugs. “She seemed like a survivor.”
Duh, Robin wants to say. Of course she is. She’s been that way since the day she was born. A fighter, a scrapper, just like her. A horrible possibility occurs to her: would she hate Robin for leaving her behind? Would she resent Robin? Robin can remember the exact date of the last time Max hated her, or very nearly did. She had left for college leaving Max with their alcoholic mother. Robin hated herself for it. (She deserved it and she deserved Max hating her) and she wouldn't speak to Robin when she came back after a year away.
Robin is strong; she’s lived through neglectful parents and schoolyard bullies and muggers and asshole homophobic cops without breaking once, but she is not strong enough to withstand her little sister.
*****
She’s not surprised in the slightest when the others get attached to Eden. She supposes Eden’s kind of endearing in a way, even though her humor is annoying as fuck and her mouth is sharper than the knife at her hip. Nancy, that sap, asks her to join them. Robin gets about three seconds of freedom to be irritated before Nancy sees the pointed look she’s giving her and says, “Shut up.” (Robin doesn’t bother pointing out she didn’t say anything.)
Eden thinks it over for about a minute, her sneering mouth tight. She’s probably thinking she’s better off alone, she can fend for herself, doesn’t need anybody’s help—least of all from them.
But she shrugs and says, “I got nowhere else to go, anyways.”
I don’t have time for this, Robin thinks.
But she can’t argue. When she pulls onto the road, even breakneck speed, Eden is seated between the Wonder Boys with all her belongings stuffed into a backpack nestled between her feet, looking only slightly less unhappy than before. She is wearing Billy’s watch. A sign like a trophy of the fallen shithead.
*****
They end up alone together only once, when the others beg Robin to stop her crazed driving for a bathroom break. Robin checks other cars for food or gas, and Eden keeps guard. Silence hangs heavy between them. Robin senses a general dislike radiating off of her, but nothing like anger or hatred. She doesn’t understand. Those are the emotions she runs on. Those are the emotions she’d be feeling—and feeling hard—if she were hanging around the person who killed someone she wanted to kill (mercy killing or not).
They find a couple of biters loitering around the line of abandoned cars, a little too close for comfort. She’s just finished breaking through the skull of the first one when she realizes she left Eden to fend for herself. Robin's quick to notice she doesn’t need help. She’s fast and able, completely effortless in braining a biter with her single crutch. She arches an eyebrow at Robin.
They’re at the back of the car when she says, “You’re kind of an asshole, you know.”
That catches Robin off-guard. “Yeah,” she says after a second. “Yeah, I know.” she guesses this is the most appropriate time she’s ever going to get to apologize, so she plows on into, “Look, I’m sorry about Billy. By the looks of it he deserved everything that happened to him even if in the end we made it a mercy kill.”
Eden looks at Robin with narrowed eyes, sizing her up. The top of her head reaches the bridge of Robins nose. Robin has a wild thought: if Eden punched her, Robin would let her. “It’s okay,” she says at last, surprising Robin further. “You’re not all asshole. You did what you had to do.” She shrugs and hops past Robin to reach for the car door. “People die.”
Author note: how are you liking this one so far, it's less gory than my last zombie ronance fic but I hope it's still a good read. I'll probably end up doing another zombie fic before moving onto ronance fluff one shots.
With that in mind, please take the time to read my other ronance fics, there's one based off a Taylor Swift song, one based robin being immortal and one set in canon Hawkins. :)
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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...
