This Broken City Sky

The night was a still one; no howling, chilling winds outside the hotel or no snowflakes falling. It was still unreasonably cold, but they had gotten enough sunlight the day before to keep the generators running all night. However, they knew not to press their luck and kept the heaters down at the bare minimum they could afford to. The eight that remained in the hotel, thankfully, hadn’t had to build a fire in a week or so and they appreciated the fact they could keep wrapped up in their comfortable beds and not have to try and sleep on the cool, pool floor.

Gerard slowly opened his eyes, the strong smell of vanilla and coffee pulling him from a light sleep. The room was nearly pitch black, spare an orange-yellow glow that just barely highlighted the only thing that Gerard could see; Mikey sleeping on his back with an arm tossed over his eyes and his mouth wide open, a snore occasionally escaping him. Still, there was no explanation that Gerard could see for the overwhelming smell of coffee and French vanilla.

Slowly, he turned over and yawned loudly, feeling the cool places on the bed where his body heat hadn’t warmed. His eyes met the pulled back, rumpled blankets on the other bed first then they darted over to the few small flames flickering in the windowsill. The light barely illuminated the side of the blonde woman’s worried looking face as she stared intensely out the window into the night and balanced a smoldering cigarette between her fingertips. Gerard could also see the red light of the coffee burner turned on, letting him know that the woman had no intentions of returning to bed. The window was completely dark, yet he could see the tiny pinpoints of light, the stars, from where he sat.

He sat up and pulled the blankets off of him, immediately met with the cool air of the room. Despite the layer of clothes that he wore, his body gave a shiver as he stood and slowly walked over to the chair just beside the woman. She had pushed the table off to the side of the room and moved the chairs just in front of the window. Her back faced him as she hunched over in the chair, her bare legs curled up to her chest, since she only wore a loose t-shirt and black underwear. Just as he walked in front of the end of the other bed, Kat turned and looked at him over her shoulder.

“You should go back to bed,” she said in a near-silent whisper before she turned her eyes back to the window and took a drag of her cigarette. By now, Gerard could see the candles that had been lit on the windowsill and that they were all vanilla-scented by the labels on their glass jars. He lowered himself down in the seat beside her, watching her closely.

“I can’t sleep,” he said softly and simply, “I haven’t been able to sleep well the past couple of nights.” Kat let out a heavy sigh, exhaling the smoke along with it, and turned her eyes to his for a few moments. She stared at him in silence, her tired eyes slowly looking over his face. Bringing her cigarette to her lips, she turned her eyes back to the nighttime sky, propping her bare feet up against the windowsill. Gerard’s eyes roamed her bare, pale legs despite telling himself he shouldn’t. Before, he had paid no mind to the naked skin she showed when she slept. Now, it caused his heart to beat a little faster and his mouth to go dry. He cleared his throat and reluctantly pulled his eyes away from her, keeping them focused on a rather bright star in the sky.

“You’re going to freeze over here if you don’t put something on your legs,” he said in a thin voice, biting his bottom lip hard after he spoke. Kat gave him a sidelong look, a smirk curling her lips as she looked over at him, as if she could read the thoughts that were swimming through his mind.

“I don’t mind the cold,” she said, lifting her New Jersey coffee mug to her lips and taking a sip of the warm liquid. Gerard glanced over to her and smirked when he saw the expression she wore.

“Oh, that’s right, you’re from Sweden,” he joked quietly, causing Kat’s shoulders to shake with silent laughter, “anything that’s above 32 degrees must feel sweltering to you.” Kat merely shook her head at him, looking back out the window. As the silence settled into the room again, Kat’s expression slowly dropped and she let out a heavy sigh as she rested her forehead against her knees.

“Sometimes I wonder,” Kat started after a few moments of silence, causing Gerard to look over at her curiously, “if they ever regret giving me up…or if…if they thought about me at all even.” She drew in a deep breath of air and pulled her head up from her knees as she looked out the window, taking a drag of her cigarette as Gerard pondered what exactly he should say to that. “I don’t even know if they were alive before all this…shit started, but I‘d like to think they at least thought of the little girl they gave up.” She shook her head, exhaling smoke to the side before looking over at Gerard. “I used to get so angry at them for giving me up,” she whispered, cutting her eyes slightly, “but…now I know it was all for some sort of good reason that I’m here.” Gerard’s brow furrowed slightly, but he didn’t say a word. Kat nodded over to the sleeping form that was Johnny. “However bright that kid may be…he wouldn’t have survived without me. He’s too young to.”

“You do a good job at protecting him and keeping him safe,” Gerard said softly, giving Kat a small reassuring smile. She returned the smile briefly before letting out a heavy sigh.

“You know, I used to hate the fact that I was stuck here with you guys. I thought that we, me and Johnny, would be better off on our own,” she said, watching Gerard’s expression change in the dim candlelight. “But I doubt we would have made it far without you guys.” Kat paused and reached out, gently brushing Gerard’s hair back and out of his eyes as she bit her bottom lip. “It’s not so bad now.”

“You used to hate me though,” he said honestly, looking into her eyes. She gave him a smirk and looked over at him from the corner of her eyes.

“I never said that,” she said softly, shaking her head.

“You didn’t need to,” Gerard said through laughter, “I think all the names you called me summed up that hate. Let’s see you’ve called me a bitch, prick, jerk off, asshole-”

“Alright, alright,” Kat said, waving her hand at him and cutting him off, “I’ve called you some horrible names, but that never meant I hated you.”

“Then you yelled at me all those times because you liked me?” Gerard asked incredulously. Kat merely answered with a wide, shit-eating grin and giggled a bit. From Gerard’s expression, Kat could tell that he was thinking hard about it.

“Don’t worry about trying to figure it out,” she said, watching Gerard closely. “Many men have tried to figure out Kat Barrington. None of them have succeeded.” With that she leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose before standing and fixing him a cup of coffee.

“Barrington? That’s your last name?” Kat turned from the cup of black coffee she was putting sugar into and nodded, wearing a small smile. “It’s not Swedish, but it’s a nice last name.” Kat didn’t say a word, she merely handed Gerard the coffee mug with the same smile. He took it from her gratefully as she sat back down beside him, curling her legs to her chest as she stared back out the window. The room fell silent again as Gerard sipped his coffee and Kat stubbed out her cigarette in an ashtray.

“Gerard?” She asked him quietly, pulling in her lips as she looked over at him. He raised a brow and looked over at her. “What do you think will happen with us?” Her voice had fallen to a whisper and her eyes had gone oddly vulnerable looking for such a strong-willed woman.

“What do you mean?” He asked softly, looking earnestly into her eyes.

“Well…I mean…there’s something between us,” she said nervously, turning her eyes away from him. “But our circumstances aren’t exactly normal ones. We could either choose to ignore this…us…or we could do something about us.” Kat turned her eyes to him again as she bit her bottom lip.

“As stupid and as cheesy as this sounds, I honestly don’t think I could ignore you,” Gerard said, grinning when he saw Kat smile widely. His grin quickly turned to a smirk as he added, “Especially not when you walk around not wearing any pants.”

The next morning, one everyone had woken up, the majority of the refugees went out to scavenge a bit for fresh clothes. They didn’t have much lucky finding clothes their size, or even clothes that they liked. However, they had to bear with they what they had to work with. It didn’t matter what they liked or what their style was anymore. They just had to deal with what they had. By the time they got back to the hotel room, they were all a bit irritable from picking through everything.

When the pushed open the door, their ears were met with the sound of a crackling male voice. They all sent each other looks as they didn’t realize the voice. They quickly walked into the room to see Johnny, Mikey, and Lily gathered around the radio that Kat had worked on for the past few days.

“Guys,” Johnny said softly, as not to interfere with the sound of the man’s calm voice coming over, “we got the radio working and…they’ve kept repeating the same thing over and over, so they must have it on a loop. There’s a place in New York City that the army’s set up for survivors.”