An Impervious Few // KateLena Apocalypse AU

The Silent Winter

Vision spotty and lungs on fire, Kate followed the mysterious man with Yelena slung over her shoulder, the latter half conscious and shivering. The man had offered to carry Yelena himself, but Kate protectively declined. It was humiliating enough that she was forced to accept the help of this hooded stranger, what with Yelena dying in her arms, so the least she could do was carry Yelena to salvation herself.

Kate's thoughts moved as rapidly as her legs, manic and frantic. This was all her fault. She should have never let Yelena turn her back on her mother; Kate knew full well what atrocities Eleanor Bishop was capable of. How could she let this happen? How could she let her guard down? Finally, after several years, Kate trusts again, and with one cruel swing of a knife, she could lose everything. She could not go through this again, the guilt and the grief and the desolation that consumed her after Peter. She would not survive it.

Meanwhile, evening descended on the nation's old capital, snow falling in thick white blankets, flakes stark against black night. The flurries blended into monuments and administrative buildings, leaving Kate navigating through a black and white hell as her boots pounded the pavement, doing her best to simultaneously hold Yelena steady and keep up with the rugged man clad in thick pelts.

"How much farther?" Kate shouted from a few paces behind the man, his fur cape flowing in the wind.

The man looked back, only his eyes visible. "We're close."

He darted left into an alley, kneeling to jimmy open what seemed to be an old wine cellar. Flinging open the door, he nodded for Kate to enter first, then slammed the door behind them, bolting it shut.

The cellar was humble, just one large room with rotting wooden racks lining the walls. By the looks of it, the man had been holed up here for quite some time, as evidenced by the meticulous organization and homely, lived in feel of the bunker. A few bottles of wine remained, but most of the shelves were adorned with supplies- hundreds of canned goods, bandages, ammunition, weapons. Along with a few handcrafted chairs, a meager cot sat sadly in the far corner, and in the center was a large wooden counter, which the man ordered Kate to lay Yelena gently on top of.

Hesitant to release Yelena from her arms, Kate stepped to the counter, stooping down to transfer Yelena onto the grainy wood as delicately as possible. Eyes wet, Kate brushed her thumb over Yelena's cheek, shocked and terrified at the coldness of her usually warm skin. Distraught, Kate backed away to allow the frantic man space to operate, and as he removed the knife and took Yelena's jacket, the archer really lost it.

Despite Yelena's shirt being black, Kate could still see how much crimson soaked it. Haunting memories of Peter flashed in her mind, the rebar that punctured his stomach, his shirt drenched in blood as he cried. Oh God, Kate thought, sobbing, not again.

"You did well to leave the knife in, saved a lot of blood loss," the man said as he rigged a rudimentary IV, bringing Kate back to earth for a moment. "Alright, kid, I need you to keep her calm. This is going to hurt."

"What?" Kate asked, dazed. "What are you going to do?"

"With a wound like this, I have to stop the bleeding as quickly as possible. I'm going to cauterize it. Just keep her still as best you can."

Still not quite understanding, Kate came to Yelena's side, hand in bloodied hand. The blonde was barely coherent, feverish, mumbling something that Kate couldn't quite catch. Next to her, the rugged man worked intensely on preparing a silvery liquid, metallic in appearance and scent.

Deadly serious and concentrated, he took a broken yardstick, dipped it in the vat of strange liquid, and looked Kate in the eye. "You ready?"

"Just do it," Kate begged through tears, squeezing Yelena's hand. "Whatever you have to do to save her, just do it."