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Vernon is regretting directing his boss to buy this hunk of junk ostensibly known as a vehicle. Not very much, but a little. Mostly because she then made him drive it, and this is a finicky and temperamental beast that keeps listing to the left, but in amounts that change a bit on every single bump. They are driving through what is colloquially called 'the wasteland,' which is a desert about half as hospitable and twice as rocky as it sounds. He is having to adjust often. It's annoying. Not very, and honestly, having a functioning vehicle that is not potentially going to explode is a bit of a novelty for him, but enough that he will think fondly of that other vehicle boss-lady had been eyeing before he steered her this way. That sure would have been nice to drive. It would have been painting a gigantic target on their backs, but still. He can dream.
Hug.
Then a deep breath.
"Okay. I. I have four functioning limbs and no injuries, let's. Go. Help."
"Yeah."
Not that there's much to help with. Some people are alive, some are dead, the city has been destroyed, and the plants have been stolen. But yeah.
There are injuries to tend to, and resources to dig out, and, and bodies to bury, and.
So he definitely gets buried, and Melissa, and Elliott, and she doesn't even know who else, really, she. Didn't learn all of their names. She was too busy with the plant. But they can have graves, and she can even manage to dig out the damned water purifier, because fuck if the folks here don't need it now.
Zash nods. Stands up. Looks her in the eye, because she deserves it; doesn't apologise, because he doesn't deserve it.
"There's still -- we can probably use my car to get people to the nearest town near here for medical help, and, there's..."
"Jeneora Rock had a failed plant before, did you know? And we did the thing we were supposed to do. Gave it a Last Run, got out all we could from it, got another one. It worked for another fifty years. Instead of doing that, we took a chance on you. While the money and water dried up, while people left for better towns, accepting your promises of it all working out and being better and. Now we're here. Now we lost so much we couldn't defend ourselves at all, really. We're tired. We're not your damn ethical experiment playground. So get out, before someone else shows up for your bounties or your smarts. You have. Done enough."
Zash has lost the right to apologise.
He still bows, bending at the hip ninety degrees, and he stays there for a bit.
Then he straightens up, and he turns around to go.
Someone seems to assume they will be going together.
"Right, um. There's another, lead, that I know about, but we'll need to be in the right spot in a couple weeks..."
"You're not coming with me," he says, without turning to look at her.
"I'm the one with the car, genius, were you just going to walk to wherever it is you want to go?"
She stares at him.
"Nope. Nope. Absolutely not. You. Car." She points at it.
He stops walking and then turns to look at her. "Go home. Go back to December, or somewhere safer. There's nothing for you here, there's nothing for you with me. This," and he doesn't look at the skeleton of Jeneora Rock, he doesn't gesture at it, because he doesn't need to, "is what my life has been for the past hundred and fifty years. You don't want it to be your life, too."
"You're right, I don't. But you know what? I don't want it to be yours, either. Or theirs. Or anyone's. And the only way that will ever change is if some of us suck it up and go and fix it."
"Nothing ever changes. There's no point in trying to improve anything because every single time you try this happens. Every single time I try, this happens. Nothing ever gets better. So go home and have a nice, happy life, and maybe someday your brilliant work will improve things. Maybe even fast enough that you'll see it.
"But you're not coming with me."
And without waiting for a response, he turns around again and resumes walking, this time in a direction that goes away from her car.
Uh huh. Fine then. They can play it that way. If he thinks she will let a mythical hundred year old immortal plant speaker out of her life and go back to something more ordinary, well. He has another thing coming.
She goes and she gets in her car, and she turns around, and at the painstakingly slow walking speed he's going at, she follows him. Occasionally, she pokes her head out of the window to yell about the many ways the world has improved over the past hundred and fifty years. Just to mix it up. She doesn't want him to forget her or anything.