inthewildwood | fanfiction: rise if you're sleeping

Title: rise if you’re sleeping
Fandom: Mad Max: Fury Road
Characters: Max Rockatansky, The Splendid Angharad, Miss Giddy
Summary: Where there’s life, there’s hope.
Rating: T
Notes: Flash fic inspired by the deleted scenes.

He finds them half a day's ride out from the Citadel.

There's a circular depression in the sand, and he thinks at first that some desert creature has tried to burrow in to escape the blistering heat, but then he sees them all draped in white: the golden girl, hair spread out across the sand, and the old woman hunched over her body like she still sees something she needs to protect. When Max pulls up, dust kicking in the air behind his bike tires, the woman bares her teeth at him. "Scavenger! Move on, there's nothing for you here!"

Max raises both hands as he climbs off the bike. "Easy," he says. "I don't mean you any harm." He wonders if this woman knows yet what's happened at the Citadel; news travels slowly in the wasteland, and there are no other tracks around for miles. "I'm a friend to Furiosa."

The woman relaxes slightly, but still eyes him suspiciously as he tries to approach. "What d'you want, then?"

As he draws closer, he realizes that her bravado is all for show: her leg is bent at an odd angle, and there's no way she could get up to fight him,even if he came at them with a knife. He ignores her warning hiss and kneels down next to the girl- Angharad, her name was Angharad- and looks over what's left. It's not a pretty sight. Her stomach is bloody all over where they cut her open, her skin a pallid grey, her face sinking in around her bones. He's thankful the others aren't here to see this: this way, they can remember her as she was, not as she is after Immortan Joe finished with her and tossed her away.

Then he notices she's moving.

It's almost impossible to see at first, the movement is so slight; but the longer he looks, the surer he is. Her chest is rising and falling rapidly, shallow breaths that shift the cloth lying over her. Somehow- incredibly- impossibly- she's still alive.

He looks back at the old woman, who returns his gaze defiantly. "Where there's life, there's hope." she says.

He looks back at Angharad, understanding now that the old woman isn't a half-crazed wanderer standing guard over a body long since bereft of life: somehow, she saw what he didn't, and had the strength to remain at attention, protecting what was left of her charge instead of lying down to die.

She went under the wheels.

Nausea rises in him. If he'd turned back when they told him to-

But that was three days ago, and this is now, and she's still breathing. And here he is, with a mototcycle and an old woman with a broken leg and a girl who's already half dead. She certainly can't sit on the back of the bike; he doesn't even know if the bike will hold all three of them. And even if they make it back to the Citadel with all three of them still alive, there's no way to be sure they'll be able to treat her there.

Where there's life there's hope.

"All right then," he says out loud. The old woman's eyes gleam. "Let's go."

A gaggle of War Pups run up to greet him when he pulls up to the Citadel, and while his face means nothing to them, they do seem to recognize the old woman. They cluster around her, little pale hands reaching up to tug at her dress, and she swats them away. "Go get Furiosa," she says. "And be quick about it."

They obey, scampering off, and return with Furiosa and Capable in tow within minutes. The girl lets out a cry when she sees the old woman, but when she sees Angharad- listing sideways, only held up by Max's grip- she goes bone-white. She wavers on her feet, and for a moment he thinks she's going to faint, but instead she rallies and begins snapping orders at the War Pups. A canvas stretcher is brought, anf Angharad loaded on to it, and Capable directs them to the infirmary before helping the old woman off the back of the bike and following in the Pups' wake. She takes the both of them to a little tent, where the woman's leg is put into a splint, and Max volunteers his veins again to give her the blood she needs. She winks at him when they insert the needle. "Bloodbag, are you?"

He doesn't answer that, but sits in silence while all the others rush around him. They've put Angharad into a little cot, and several women are moving around her, washing the dried blood from her wounds and injecting her with something clear. He wonders if she'll need more blood; probably, given how much she's already lost. But when he says as much to Furiosa, she just shakes her head at him. "Rest first. Then we'll see."

So that's what he does, curling up on a cot of his own without bothering to kick off his boots. He drifts in and out of sleep for several hours; whenever he wakes, he sees the old woman (Miss Giddy, as she'd introduced herself once time was no longer of the essence) on the bed to his left, and Angharad on his right. The other wives have arrived since she was brought in, and they're clustered around her bed. The white-haired one presses a thumb against Angharad's forehead and mutters something under her breath, while Capable holds her hand and the other two huddle in silence. She still hasn't woken, but she also hasn't stopped breathing. He supposes that's something.

At one point, Capable shakes him awake with an apologetic look and asks if they can take his blood again. He agrees with a jerk of his head, and drifts to sleep again as they put the needle in. When he wakes again, the needle's out, and Angharad's colour is better than it was. Still, she breathes. Still, she sleeps. There's nothing to be done about either of those things, so he and the others stay put and wait.

On the seventh day, she opens her eyes.

The smallest wife, the dark-haired one is the first to notice. She makes a choked noise, which draws Max's attention, and when he looks over, he catches Angharad's bright blue gaze. The other wives snap to attention almost immeditately: Capable comes running from the nurse's station, tears already springing to her eyes. The one with short hair draws in a breath, caught midway through like she's trying to hold back a sob. The white one clutches her hand and smiles.

"Welcome back," she says. "You've been wandering."

Angharad looks at her, then at the other women, then at Max. "What happened?"

Capable kneels down next to her, not bothering to disguise the damp tracks on her cheeks. She leans her forehead to Angharad's, taking a long, slow breath in. "It's done," she says. "He's dead. We're free."

Angharad's look is wondering. "We're not things."

"No," Capable answers. The others are crying openly now, laying hands on Angharad's shoulders, arms, face- everywhere they can reach. "Not anymore." Her face is shining. "Because of you."

Angharad smiles, and the world is bright again.