New Beginnings
It wasn’t often that Jo got ‘ready’ anymore, in any semblance of the word. It just wasn’t the way things worked these days; there weren’t anymore dinner parties or clubs or bars or anywhere to go that didn’t have the potential to be totally infested with croats. And the people? That was almost laughable. Out of the entirety of the camp, the amount of people she wanted to impress she could count on three fingers of one hand. Nowadays, she went through the motions in whatever was clean (sometimes) and functional (always).
Except for the days that the expedition group found new survivors. Those days were a small, shining light in the shit world they lived in. And during those days, Jo actually took a moment to get ready. She wore her hair down, bathed, made sure her shirt was washed and sometimes, depending on the occasion, dipped into the very small fragrance collection she kept stashed in her cabin.
The group had rescued 13 people this time. The number wasn’t huge, but it was definitely bigger than what they were used to. Jo had helped all morning in the mess hall, setting the families and individuals up with food and water and clothing, sending them off to Chuck and his team to find places to stay until more cabins could be built.
The day itself was surprisingly pleasant; sunny, but not hot, as Jo sat in her best jeans and a flowy shirt that had a surprising lack of plaid print, at one of the common areas in camp at a table, faded and worn blueprints spread out in front of her. She’d told Chuck that she’d help decide what layouts they needed and what they could build with the resources they had.
So far it was looking good; they’d collected a fair amount of stuff and the things they didn’t have could be found easily.
This day, unlike almost every other day, seemed to be going – Jo found herself knocking on the wood of her table even as she thought the word.
Well.
[[ @grasshoppersam ]]
