Louis didn't know why it was so cold. They were in the Florida Keys, after all. It shouldn't be this dark either…or this quiet. The crashing of the waves on the shoreline was always at least a little audible if he really sat and listened in moments of quiet. And this cold, metallic hallway was absolutely not a part of the tiny vacation house on an outcrop of rocks he, Zoey, and Francis had staked out in for the past week after finally arriving in the Keys.

He heard a faint, rhythmic banging a ways down the dimly lit hall. He knew, for some reason, he should follow it. A corner in the recess of his mind flickered with the very real possibility he was dreaming, but this unfamiliar hallway seemed entirely too vivid.

Cautiously, he began to make his way down the dimly lit corridor. He paused as a United States Army logo emblazoned on the wall became visible. He lifted his arm and placed a hand on the metallic wall. What the hell was this place?

A muted roar of rage and terror suddenly ripped through the hallway, and Louis nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of it. There was no mistaking that roar: it was Francis.

Despite all the crap he and Francis gave one another, Louis would never dream of abandoning the man in a time of need. And if he saved Francis's life, as he had done more time than he could count because of the man's stupidity, he couldn't miss a chance afterward to make fun of the biker for how quickly his roars of terror turned to feminine squeals.

Louis took off running down the hallway in what he thought (and hoped) was the direction of Francis's holler. It was eerily quiet again except for the rapid clang-clang-clang of his shoes on the metallic floor, which sounded with such intensity he thought his eardrums might blow.

He turned a corner, caught his foot on something and fell, hard, onto the floor. Very real pain shot through his shoulder blade as it absorbed most of the impact: pain so real he began to worry that maybe this wasn't a dream after all.

"Goddammit," he muttered, massaging his throbbing shoulder. He looked back to see what it was he tripped over. All he had to see was a heavily tattooed arm lying in a rapidly spreading pool of scarlet to know he was too late. He grabbed the biker's hand and squeezed it, hoping for some sign that Francis wasn't dead. He received nothing: the biker's hand lay limp and unmoving in his own.

"No, man, no, c'mon!" Louis got to his knees and gazed down at the horrifyingly pale face of the cockiest, most infuriating sonofabitch he'd ever known. There was still a slight flutter of movement behind Francis's closed eyes,

"Shit, who did this to you? Where the hell are we?" Louis was screaming by this point. The corner of Francis's mouth opened slightly, seemingly in recognition of Louis's voice. He mumbled something entirely incoherent.

"What?" Louis leaned down and placed his ear just above the biker's mouth. "C'mon, man, what'd you say?"

"Z….z…."

The effort of mumbling these last two consonants seemed to be too much, and Francis's hand fell out of Louis's with a sickeningly final thud. He did not need to say more though: Louis got the message.

He scrambled to his feet; all too aware that his hands were stained with the blood of a man he owed his life to, and bolted in the direction he was going before he'd fallen.

"Zoey! Zoey, please answer me!" His voice was increasing in pitch as he became more frantic in his pleas to her. They had lost Bill at that bridge and now Francis had been murdered. He was not going to lose her too.

She was suddenly there at the end of this hallway. His heart soared. She was beautifully alive!

However, she was not alone. A man, dressed in military garb, had her in a chokehold and was brandishing a knife with his free hand.

"NO!" Louis tried to run toward her, but suddenly he could not lift his feet. He glanced down to find them enlarged ten-fold and almost too heavy to move. Screaming, he inched toward the pair at the end of this hallway. As if in slow motion, he saw the worn and dirty Converse leave the floor entirely before a flash of silver followed by an anguished cry as Zoey dropped to the floor, and the soldier fled.

Time resumed its normal speed, and all at once Louis's feet were normal again. He practically slid on his knees to Zoey's side.

Her petite hands were wrapped around the blade in her abdomen, the rest of her body writhing in agony as dark blood seeped through her fingers.

"No, here, I've got it." His own hands were shaking more than hers as he pulled the knife out in one, swift stroke.

"Louis…" she managed to say before her body was seized with a violent cough that forced blood out of her mouth and both nostrils.

"Don't talk, " he pleaded. "I'm gonna get you out of here, okay? Do you think you can put your arm up around my shoulder here?"

"Don't…don't…"she begged. "Get yourself…out."

"I'm not goin' without you. No one left behind, right? That's what you used to say back in Pennsylvania."

"This isn't Penn…oh god!" she gasped as she began coughing again. This round spent almost completely, and most of her body went limp in his arms. She raised a scarlet, shaking hand and placed it on his face.

"Get…yourself…out…"

"No, no, no, I'm not leaving you!"

"WAKE UP!"

Startled back into consciousness, Louis nearly fell off the sofa pullout bed in a tangle of sheets.

"Wha-whajuhappened?" he gasped, unable to form a complete sentence. Zoey was standing over him with her hand on his shoulder and a very concerned look on her face.

"Hey, you okay? You were having a really bad nightmare there."

"Oh, God." He raised a shaky hand to his face and found it was wet, whether from sweat or tears he did not know.

"Everything's okay," she reassured him. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hand still on his shoulder. "Want to talk about it?"

"You…you and Francis…we were back at the army outpost in Pennsylvania…and they murdered both of you. I was…holding you and you were just bleeding.-".

She cut him off with a hug. Her body heat and her touch were overwhelmingly comforting. He sank into them both.

"I'm not going anywhere, you know," she told him. "And Francis sure as hell isn't. They could hit the guy with five shots, and he'd still be alive!" Her reference to The Godfather went unnoticed.

"I know," Louis said. "The dream was just really vivid. Usually I know I'm dreamin'. I couldn't tell this time."

"I hate those dreams," Zoey replied. "Especially when they're that awful."

"Yeah…why are you up?"

"Couldn't sleep. I was actually going to sit out on the rocks and just clear my head, but when I came through here you were freaking out so I thought I should wake you up."

"I'm glad you did." Was she still hugging him? He'd sank so low into the comfort of her body heat in a haze of semi-consciousness and lingering terror from the nightmare that he wasn't sure where she ended and he began.

"Want me to stay out here with you for a while?" He shrugged.

"I don't wanna keep you. If you wanna go sit out on the rocks or-".

"That's a yes," she proclaimed, letting go of him and flopping down onto the mattress. "Damn…this is way more comfortable than the bed I have in the back room. You want to trade?" Louis laughed, which surprised him. How had she made him go from struggling to speak out of terror to laughing in less than five minutes?

"Not after that recommendation." She grinned and rolled over onto her side to face him with her head propped up on her hand.

"Remember back in Pennsylvania I asked you to tell me how your future plans involved me?"

"Vaguely," he lied. Of course he remembered that watch they'd shared in the greenhouse together.

"You should tell me now, so you aren't thinking about your nightmare." Louis smiled and lay back down next to Zoey.

"I dunno now. Wasn't planning on comin' to the Keys…or bein' a Carrier…or losing Bill."

"Yeah…"

"I do know that I still need you," he admitted. "Uh…and Francis too," he added hastily to cover up the near-slip. Louis knew he would be lying to himself if he maintained he didn't have feelings for Zoey. He knew it was why Ellis's swooning bothered him; knew it was the reason he'd said her name individually when he'd admitted his love for the group in that one moment he was going to sacrifice himself back in Rayford. Fuck, he really loved this girl.

"Zoey, I should tell you-"

"I know," she interrupted. When had she gotten so close? "I've known for a while." Before he had a chance to stumble an apology and explain how, of course, he didn't want this to make things awkward between them, she had pressed her lips to his more aggressively than he would have expected.

Wait.

Zoey. Was. Kissing. Him.

Fuck. Yes.

He hardly had any time to reciprocate before she clambered up on top of him, and planted her hands firmly on his hipbones to bend deeper into the kiss. Louis could not believe this was happening. His hands snaked their way into her brown hair, tussled from sleep. It tangled amazingly between his fingers. Oh God, he was finally touching her. He thought he would never be able to let go.

He suddenly hated the space between them and sat up. As if she had read his mind, Zoey slid into his lap and wrapped her legs around him. He allowed himself to grab a handful of her smooth, outer thigh, grateful that the Florida Keys was so warm that she wore shorts to bed, and traced a trail of kisses from her mouth to her chin down to her neck. She gave a low, contented hum that vibrated pleasantly against his lower lip.

He became aware of an uneven taptaptap just underneath his collarbone. She was fumbling with the top button of his shirt, clearly unable to properly unfasten it because of the distraction of his mouth on her neck.

"Are…you shaking?" he muttered into the space where her shoulder and neck met.

"Yeah…" she admitted, sheepishly. "I'm not…I mean, I've never done much before…why'd you stop?...with anyone."

"Do you want to stop?" Pleasesayno, pleasesayno, pleasesayno.

"Not on your life." Grinning, he flipped her over onto her back and let his hands trace the contours of her torso from her hipbones up across her ribcage (carefully avoiding her breasts—he was a gentleman, after all) before cupping her cheeks in his hands and planting a deep kiss on her mouth. She made the same low, contented hum of before. He loved it.

He allowed himself a few seconds to admire the contrast of his skin against hers as she grabbed his free hand and slid her fingers in between his own. He had never been this intimately close to a woman of another race.

Zoey did not leave him much time to contemplate these subtle differences; she reached up, placed a hand on his cheek and gently prodded his face back toward her own.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but weren't we in the middle of something?" He wedged his knee between her legs and pressed their hips hard together. She gave a delicious little mewl of surprise as his hardness rubbed up against her.

"I think we were," he admitted coyly. She used the hand she placed on his face seconds ago to bring their lips crashing together as she assertively rolled her hips back against his. A sound escaped his lips at this motion that made her grin a bit smugly.

The tip of her tongue flicked briefly on his lower lip, testing his reaction. He opened his mouth, silently encouraging her to continue, as he rocked against her again. Her tongue darted desperately into his mouth seemingly in response to the sudden motion below her hips.

She tasted too wonderful for words…a thousand times more wonderful than he'd ever imagined in the few times he'd allowed his imagination to roam.

Louis's hand retraced the path it had taken upward before, trailing along her delicate curves and coming to rest just under her navel. Cautiously, he allowed it to trail lower; poised ready to stop if she made any noise of protest. He received none, so he deftly swept it just above his knee and between her legs. He traced in small, circular motions until her back arched suddenly and she breathed hotly into his mouth. He'd found it.

"Okay?" he mumbled into their kiss.

"Okayyyy," she sighed breathlessly.

He rocked gently against her, continuing the soft motions just above his knee. However, neither of them were able to keep their movements smooth and slow for long: he had not been with a woman for a very long time and she had never been with anyone at all. He felt his mind begin to go into a haze with pleasure.

She came first—something Louis had never experienced before—jerking almost violently against him. He opened his eyes for a moment to observe and adored the way her body convulsed against him as if hit with an electrical volt.

"Louis," she purred into his lips, which was more than enough to send him completely over the edge. He grasped her shoulder, digging his fingers into it, as his own orgasm wracked through his body. He could feel her heart thudding rapidly under his.

He managed to tear his lips from hers and delicately pressed their noses together. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him affectionately, and he wished he could simply dive into her hunter green pupils.

"How's that nightmare affecting you now?" she asked.

"What nightmare?" he sighed. She giggled.

"And was this in those plans you meant to tell me about?"

"Oh, yeah."

"What does this mean?" He brought his hand up from her shoulder and stroked her cheek.

"It means I've wanted to be with you since I met you back in Pennsylvania when you pointed a gun to my face and demanded I say something or you would shoot me." Zoey grimaced at the memory of their less than stellar introduction.

"I like the sound of together," she mused. "Can we do that? I mean, even with all that's happened?"

"I want to try," he said, planting a kiss on the tip of her nose. "And I know we can."

"HEY!" Louis and Zoey both started at the sudden, gruff intrusion. Louis glanced up to find Francis standing in the doorway from the back hallway, chuckling and shaking his head. Zoey scrambled out from underneath Louis and dove into the covers in shame.

"I come out here to get a fucking bottle of water, and this is what I find?" the biker laughed. "Real nice."

"Sorry," Zoey began. "We just forgot..."

"I was here? Figured it was only a matter of time before this happened." He crossed the room, making toward the stacks of canned goods they'd set up in the house's kitchen, before he suddenly diverted and grabbed Louis around the throat.

"Francis!" Zoey protested.

"I don't give a shit what the two of you do, but don't you knock her up or I will knock you into next year. I fucking hate kids."

"We're…not…"Louis gasped. "Besides…zombie apocalypse or not…I don't sleep with someone until…I've been with them…a while…unlike…you!" Francis burst into laughter at the insult and released his grip on Louis.

"Sometimes I like you, red tie. But then I remember I don't." Francis grabbed his desired bottle of water and retreated back to his bed, but not before muttering, "I'm watching you" to his companions.

Coughing, Louis laid back against his pile of pillows, amused but still highly annoyed at Francis's spectacular timing. With a nervous laugh, Zoey snuggled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. He threw an arm over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

"Good night, Louis," she said, sleepily. "No more nightmares, okay?"

"Not with you here."