Left For Dead [malec fanfiction] [complete]

Twenty Three: Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

Magnus stood in Warehouse 2 the next day wearing a green jumpsuit to signify that he was working in the agriculture section. Though green wasn't his color and he wanted to complain that it didn't match his eyes, he had to keep quiet if he wanted his grand plan to work and be set in motion.

No one knew about his plan. Not even Alec. If he told anyone what he wanted to do he knew they would try and stop him. So for the sake of secrecy, he chose to keep quiet about what was going on in his head. Nobody would understand anyway. If he wanted to get any information out of anyone about the secret warehouses, this was one plan he couldn't discuss with anyone else. Not even Alec.

"Magnus Bane?" A whispery voice said from behind him. As Magnus turned, he saw a small woman with wisps of gray hair standing in curls on her head breeze towards him. She was the living embodiment of air itself when she walked.

"That's me," said Magnus. "Are you Ethel?"

"Indeed I am. Overseer of Warehouse 2. Good to have you here." She shook his hand and sighed. "I'm so sorry about the mess. We just had a harvest recently. The cleaning crew didn't come in to sweep the dirt yet."

Magnus waved a hand. "It's no problem. I wouldn't be working here if I was afraid of a little dirt."

Ethel chuckled at this. "You got jokes! It's about time Lydia gave me one with a little humor. All the workers that walked through these doors are all serious. Not a drop of humor in their bones."

She beckoned him to follow so that's what Magnus did. As she led him through the large warehouse (it was actually a large greenhouse with retractable steel walls) and up the stairs to the second floor, he got a bird's eye view of the ground floor where some of the vegetables were growing.

"As you already saw, the walls are retractable. We open them on sunny days so the food can get some rays and then we close them at night. Simple but effective," Ethel explained.

"What about rainy days?"

"Depends on the amount of rainfall. We opened the ceiling once years ago during a shower and we damn near drowned the food. Lydia went ballistic." Ethel shook her head at this. "Now we don't open the ceiling unless she gives the order. So bossy, that woman."

Magnus tilted his head to look at the third floor. "Why three floors? Wouldn't the sun only reach the top one?"

"Ah," Ethel smirked. "We have a very talented engineer who designed the floors to retract as well. We let the food on the top floor bathe for a few hours and then pull them back so the ones on the bottom floor can get some sun."

It was amazing to see something so simple yet work so effectively. As far as Magnus could tell, the fruits and vegetables were growing really nicely; potatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, to name a few. He'd never seen so much growing in one place in years.

"You're speechless," Ethel laughed. "First time being around so much fresh produce?"

"It's been years," Magnus breathed. "My uncle owned a farm in California. We'd go there every summer to visit and help out on the farm. It was my favourite thing to do during the school holidays."

Ethel nodded. "Yeah, we all have one memory or another of the farm life. My husband was the farmer. Not me. I'd stay home and knit and cook and clean. Stereotypical housewife, you know? My sons would go and help their father in the barn and in the fields."

"Are they still alive? Your family, I mean."

Ethel shook her head. "John died trying to help a neighbor escape one of those dead ones. Always trying to be a hero, that one. My boys were killed a few months later by a group who robbed us on the road. Why they left me alive is beyond me. I'll never understand it. I should've died that night too."