Fracking Apocalypse - a ZNation 10K/Tommy Fanfiction

S7E06

"10K, you alright?" she asked and saw him take a deep breath though she heard him wince a little, obviously in pain. It was hard for her to tell if he was bleeding thanks to the dark shirt he had on, but she didn't see any rips or tears so that was a good sign.

"Yeah, fine." He said looking up at her and her heart fell into her stomach. 10K had a serious bruise on his cheekbone by the side of his head, it was purple and looked like it hurt even without anything touching it. He also had some bad looking cuts across his face, one running from the bridge of his nose down the side of his face ending at his jaw. It didn't look too deep but it was bleeding badly. There were a few more cuts, one about an inch long under his eyebrow running diagonally and just missing the outer corner of his eye. Another small one ran from his lower lip diagonally to his jaw, one more wound – it looked like he'd been hit with the handle of Eric's knife – had left a small bleeding spot on his temple in a little red circle but the long one over his nose and across his cheek one was the worst of them.

"Oh my God, 10K."

"I'm fine." He said again, "After losing a hand this is nothing."

Then he started coughing and again sounded like he was in a great deal of pain.

"Are you sure?" Addy asked, "You don't sound alright."

"Yeah. . . yeah." He replied taking deep breaths when the coughing had subsided. "I can take a few punches to the gut."

Then he looked away from her obviously trying to hide his pain before he gave up and looked back at her and asked, "What about you? Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She admitted feeling a bit guilty. The only thing that hurt on her was her head and she'd done that to herself when she'd heat butted Rita. Meanwhile while she'd been getting asked questions 10K had been getting beaten and cut up. "Just a bunch of the same questions again and again but they just think we're liars."

She heard 10K sigh again and heard another small wince. How bad of a beating had he taken that just breathing was painful? "Honestly, Addy, if we were lying I would have caved in by now."

She chuckled humorlessly, "We probably seem like a couple of tough as steel badasses to them huh?"

"I don't feel like a badass." He grumbled before he gave another cough. Then 10K looked around the room again. Addy knew him well enough to know that 10K avoided eye contact when he wanted to be alone but couldn't. So she gave him the next best thing: silence. He seemed to appreciate it and looked like he was deep in thought. She wondered if he was thinking of Bailey. . . and TJ. . . and the baby. She had promised him she'd get him out of here and back to his family, but she was starting to doubt if she could keep that promise. Then the quiet was broken by more of the transmission echoing and reaching their ears.

"Seven, three, four, six, three, six, seven, two, three, six, three, six, eight, seven. . . "

She rolled her eyes annoyed but then she noticed 10K's eyebrows crinkle together in thought before something caught his eye and his brows rose and his eyes widened like an idea had struck him.

"Addy." He said not looking at her, "What if it's not numbers?"

She followed his gaze to a stack of boxes in the corner. There was some metal piping leaning against the wall along with a broom and on one of the boxes was an old phone. She could barely see the keys but she still knew what was on each one.

"It's letters." She whispered in awe.

Murphy POV

The music was pumping so loud that he could hear the base even though the walls. He was back in his office in Limbo and was going over Dr. Sun's notes for the millionth time.