"We should keep moving," he said looking up and then nervously out the window.

"Yeah." Sniper peeked to the back of the van and climbed back while the Doctor watched. "I'mma check if we got stuff to work with before we head to my camper."

"Camper?"

He chuckled as he searched the storage units in the van. A few guns, ammunition, a small flashlight, a 1st aid kit, a radio. Nothing for his rifle but that was fine. He took the flashlight, the pistol and the ammo. He exited through the back and motioned for Doc to follow. "Think I just walked to The Facility?"

He paused to think about it. "Perhaps...? I apologize, I'm not familiar with....contract killing."

A knee-jerk reaction of being annoyed at that quickly evaporated. Sniper sighed. "I'm parked a few miles out..."

"Do you know where you are?" asked Doc incredulously. 

The yellow eyed man looked around, taking a deep breath. "...maybe. Maybe not. But I'm fairly certain, being in this thing'll call them to us quicker than us going on foot."

The lilac eyed man frowned and exhaled. He began to button his shirt and coat and looked around as the other man started walking away from the road. "Forgive me...I'm not much of a hiker."

He chuckled. "I figured. Pale guy like you doesn't see real sun much et'all, hm?" He looked to the darkening woods, yet found he was able to see quite clearly. It was well past 6 pm by now, and the sight of the shadows and forest were clear to him as if he was looking through a set of night vision goggles. He rubbed his eyes.

Wait. He looked up and squinted, looked back at the road. The distinct low light look of everything, how the dim light had a ghostly hue of pale white, the contrast of shadows an inky black.

"....Doc, I can see in the dark," he said, and it sounded even more unbelievable now that he could say it out loud.

"Oh." The single syllable from Doc didn't seem shocked, just a little curious. He looked back at him, and could swear he could see eye shine. Surely it was his imagination. "You have night vision then?" He pulled out a small notebook from an inside pocket of his button down.

He stared at him. "Do I??"

Doc squinted into the woods, critically. "Well, I can't see more than a few meters ahead...how far do you see?"

Sniper swung his glance back to the woods and blinked a few times.

Doc finished writing a note in the notebook and tucked it into his shirt pocket. "It’s part of your abilities from the drug. Actually, it’s quite normal for most who take it. About 5% don't get it, so--"

"Got it," said Sniper waving at him as he incredulously began his trek away from the road, and into the woods. "Just explain it to me when we get back to the camper...or civilization...or...."

Doc nodded but then watched him freeze. "What's the matter??"

"Maybe I'm going crazy but...I think I hear car engines." He tipped his head and pulled his hat back slightly. He shut his eyes to concentrate and cupped his ears, turning back up the road they came.

Doc's eyes immediately grew concerned. "We'd best believe that to be possible. They're still going to be looking for us." He slid the strap of the sample case over one shoulder and tightened it a little. He figured it'd be best of his hands were free. 

Grimly, he nodded and started moving quicker, holding his hand out to the white haired Doctor. "Then we'd best hustle."

Gratefully taking his lead, he reached out and grasped his wrist and also increased his pace, though he stumbled a bit as the uneven ground challenged his inexperience. Sniper's pace kept increasing, as if in response to the approaching threat. They (or rather the Doctor) stumbled through the rapidly darkening woods, occasionally heading in a sharp angle from their original path, following the slope of hills almost randomly. They rushed in silence, occasionally pausing as he listened, for what seemed like an hour. It was too dark for Doc to check his watch, and Sniper didn't seem inclined to use the flashlight he'd taken from the abandoned van.

"S...Sniper," whispered Doc as he stumbled for what felt like the 100th time. He could feel bruises beginning to form where the case banged against his backside and backs of his thighs. "I need to rest...."

He didn't slow down. "Not yet. Just a lil farther, Doc. I didn't pull that van off very far, so--"

Doc's foot took a small dip in the forest floor and he didn't bother holding onto Sniper's arm as he collapsed to the ground. He didn't even bother try breaking his fall, just letting his body drop and rested his forehead on his arm. The case banged against him on the way down. The fall didn't hurt, but he ached. Ached from the running, the heavy briefcase holding the 7 samples, the rushes of adrenaline, the fear of being caught, the years of captivity and the weight of blood on his hands.

20 years of pain eroding him like sand in the rain.

Sniper was on the ground next to him, hand on his back. Quiet as he watched the body in the dark pant like a wounded animal. He felt the same pity as if it was wounded game, waiting for either help, or the inevitable last shot of mercy.

That ugly bank of thoughts about hunting and being hunted tugged at Sniper's mind but he chose to ignore it again. He gently grasped his shoulders and lifted him to his knees. Eased the strap of the case off of his shoulder and swung it onto himself, across the opposite shoulder of his rifle's strap. Dusted the twigs and dirt out of his hair, his clothes, as the Doctor's head was bent down, staring at hands he couldn't see in the dark. Did he see his hands? Or just the imagined blood of hundreds, or thousands, on them?

"For a lil while then," he said softly, as if talking to a crying child. 

Sniper let him sit motionless as he tipped his head up, held his hat in place, to look at the night sky. His eyes seemed to pick up the variations of the inky sky, as if it was painted with the deepest shades of black, blue and violet. The shimmer of the stars was almost too unreal, the way the light undulated from the earth's atmosphere. For a moment, he lost himself staring, knowing each point of light was some massive sun broiling in the darkness of space; was it his enhanced sight or the machinations of that drug altering his brain that made him almost see the countless surfaces of suns burning all at once?

He dropped his gaze and rubbed his eyes, catching his breath. It was all so beautiful...and yet seemed so taboo. Looking at something that others couldn't see. He loved the stars; loved sleeping beneath them, knowing they were a constant in his itinerant life.

Suddenly, they seemed so...forbidden. Truly alien. Did he really know those stars that used to watch over him?

He froze, then looked back up, squinting. Looking for celestial landmarks, remembering almost with photographic clarity what they looked like the night he left the camper for the hike to the Mansion. The night he unknowingly stepped away from mortality.

It was only 5 days since then. He recalled somehow the calculations of the movement of stars, the direction, as if his mind was doing it automatically. Another side effect? He turned a little, taking in the scope of the sky all around.

Northeast. Not far.

He marveled at the certainty his mind told him this. But it felt right, and he had to trust it.

"Sniper?"

The Doctor's voice snapped him back to reality. He'd nearly forgotten Doc was even with him. He looked down at him as he slowly got to his feet. In the darkness, his pale skin and luminous eyes looked ghostly to Sniper's night vision.

"Northeast. Maybe a few miles."

"Are you certain?"

"Can this drug help me navigate by stars?"

Doc's face screwed up in confusion, his hands automatically reaching for his notebook, but realizing it was far too dark to write. "You mean calculate geolocation by the position of stars?? I mean...theoretically, I think--"

"C'mon." He gently grasped Doc's arm and started leading him. He heard him sigh and hold on because he truly couldn't see any longer. He chuckled after a bit. 

"What's so funny?" he asked, crossly.

"Should I carry you?" he asked, smirking though he'd never see it.

"I should think NOT!"

----

They ended up traveling for nearly another hour, but in another zig zag pattern, with Sniper glancing up at the sky often. But this time, it was more exhausting for Doc to travel, holding onto Sniper, so after another few minute break, he asked for the flashlight. The gunman sighed, and gave it to him, turning away as he flicked it on.

"It seems...brighter than I expected," he said, rubbing his eyes. 

Doc held it towards the ground and frowned. Then he put it between his teeth and started scribbling in his notebook, the notes about geolocation by stars, how far the night vision seemed to be, his sensitivity to light in the dark.

"Anything else you've noticed?" he said with surprising clarity despite holding a flashlight in his mouth.

"Can this wait?" The exhaustion and impatience in Sniper's tone made him sigh and he put the notes away again.

"Fine. But if it's too bright, then I don't think I can use it. I don't want to blind you."

"I'll manage. We're not far off, I think." He stood and dusted himself off, starting back on the hike.

Doc followed but tried to keep the light on the immediate ground at his feet, occasionally glancing up to see where Sniper was to keep up. Eventually, they reached a sharply inclining hill. Sniper gazed upward again to try discerning where he was as Doc caught his breath. But his gaze eventually dropped from the heavens to the ground and he stared out towards the forest in the opposite direction of the light. It must have been a long time because Doc checked his watch.

"What's the matter?"

Sniper just listened to the sounds of the forest. Doc's face had a slight flutter of regret flit over it. "I'm...sorry. I know that with your new hearing abilities.... That all must have been a cacophony." The other man paused, still listening, his yellow eyes gained a long inward look.  "It must have been overwhelming. I'm sorry."

They stood in silence, or what Doc could hear was silence to him--it must be so much more to Sniper at this moment--until his voice broke it gently. A soft mournful musing with that melodic New Zealand accent.

"It’s never gonna be quiet for me ever again will it, Doc?" He lifted his gaze to the Doctor and the cold light of the flashlight only seemed to make him look more melancholy.

Doc dropped his head, and exhaled. "...I...I'm sorry," he whispered. The sounds of twigs and dirt sounded as he stepped forward, but he wouldn't raise his head. He then felt a soft pat on the top of his head. Once. He glanced up, perplexed.

Sniper gave him a very rueful smirk. "Don't let it eat ya up, Doc. At least we're alive, right? I'd say less quiet nights for the rest of my life is a pretty even price for getting outta that hellhole."

As if to save him from the situation, he turned and pointed up the steep hill. "One last hurdle before we get a break. I think I'm up here." He started up as Doc miserably looked at the incline. "Wait here, and let me check. Then I'll piggy back you."

"I'd rather die," snapped Doc. But he was smiling a bit as he did.

After a few minutes, the gunman came back down and Doc swung the light to the ground. He caught a grin on his face. 

"Luck be a camper tonight, mate," he said, and his voice was the most relaxed and excited Doc had heard....well, since ever. "C'mon up."

Doc swung the light up the incline and sighed. His journey up was probably the most exhausting part of the hike so far and a few times, he nearly tumbled back down if not for Sniper catching him. He was thankful he didn't have to carry the case up. Once up, Doc could see several yards ahead, the faintest outline of a larger vehicle parked. He bent over his knees, panting. His lungs and legs were burning. The constant moving was more than his body was used to, and despite his healing being good enough to outpace most exertion, the night's activity had finally caught up to him.

He cursed his lack of cardio with all his heart.

"Almost there," Sniper said, and it almost had a sing-song quality. Doc wanted it to be encouraging but in his exhaustion, it was 2 steps from vexatious.

After catching his breath, he snapped off the flashlight. The elevation gave them a small break in the trees for the full moon to give a dim enough light to see. Sniper opened the driver's side door and hopped in. There were the sounds of locks unlatching, and he opened the back doors, hopping back out. He gestured at the Doctor. 

Incredulously, Doc asked, "You leave it unlocked??"

"Sometimes. It's not like every job is a 5 day ordeal."

"And you scolded me on the unlocked van."

"Difference. Mine's out here. Yours was inna prison."

He started moving things around as Doc walked around it. Beat up and old, it looked abandoned from the outside. Dented white siding, fading blue border on the top and bottom. The cab had definitely seen better days, the headlights were foggy and yellowed. The curtains in the back windows were dingy and dusty. 

But somehow it felt so much like a home than his own room at the Mansion did.

As he watched Sniper tidy up like a college student, which mostly meant things weren't put back in proper places and shoved to the side, he took note of how the interior looked remarkably cleaner. A set of cabinets on either side of the walls of the interior. A small bedroll to one side atop a platform storage space that served as a bed. On the other side was a mini-fridge with an electric kettle on top, next to a locker, presumably for the rifle. It was across the bedroll; he'd opened the locker and was now rooting through in relief. 

"Wonderful. I left some here," he said as he began loading his rifle. He had put the sample case on top of the bedroll, but Doc pointed at the mini fridge. 

"Is that working?" he asked.

"That? Yeah, but it’s been off for a few days. Doubt it's cold enough at the mo. Once we're on the road, you can put those in. If...uh...all the banging didn't mess them up."

"I hope so too," Doc said, glumly.

He nodded at Doc to the front of the camper. "Hop in the passenger side. We're gonna leave."

He did as he was told and went to the other side to open it. The handle didn't give. Doc frowned as he tried again. It was locked.

Sniper heard him knock on the window so he scrambled to the passenger seat, nearly tangling in the curtained partition, and quickly fumbled the lock open.

"Sorry Doc. I don't get passengers often. Forgot."

That made sense. How many snipers have friends? Let alone friends that ride shotgun (ironically). The Doctor slid into the passenger seat and glanced at the side view mirror.

There was a movement that made his stomach sink in the reflection, but before he could say anything, he heard Sniper, quietly through the curtain.

"Do me a favor, Doc." His voice was both calm yet tinged with a tenseness. It sounded like he was loading another gun. "Lock your door. Lock mine."