My Only Sunshine

by speakingintothevoid

Five/Sam. Slow burn friends to lovers. No spoilers past S1.E7. fem!Five "Then, two minutes after entering Abel she had accidentally won the respect of the coolest boy in school, this earnest, wide-eyed, motor-mouth who was capable of causing small riots just to give them the cover for a quiet conversation and seemed to know exactly what to say to level out her breathing again."

She stayed in her flat for three days after the hordes hit London. Not a very heroic character introduction, but then, she was hardly a heroic character. She spent all three days curled on her bed, waiting to die, and scrolling through photos of her roommate on her phone. Her phone died on day two. The power finally went out on day three. And that was the worst of it. The worst night of the whole apocalypse was the third night, sobbing in her comforter in the darkness, listening to the rasping cries outside her window.

But there is always a morning. When the first ray of sunshine fell on her face she had one remaining life ambition. To make sure that, however few days she might have left, and however rough it might get, that last night would be the worst night of her life. She would never take it lying down again.

That was the morning she found the key.

One thing you'll find all apocalypse survivors have in common: they all at some point decided that nothing is worse than passively waiting for death. Not even dying.

Two hours after she found the key, she took her first step outside the flat – her first step as the Runner she would become. She was skinless, covered in two layers of thick fabric and leather, every overlap of fabric thickly duct-taped together. She had a baseball bat, one family photo, and the key. Everything else, she walked away from: another common survivor trait.

The zombs were quieter in the morning. Some things never change, even after undeath.

She made it out of the flat and then the complex, she made it to the street, she made it to the first street corner, and the second, and the third, she made it to the last street, and in the front door, and up the stairs to the door of the flat: she made it. There was an undignified, astronaut-esque struggle at the door to rip open the tape, peel back two layers of gloves, and remove the key from where it nested against her thumb, but it was all justified when the key snicked in the lock and the door fell open.

With her lungs surging against her ribcage, she took her first step into the set of rooms she would come to call home for the next three months. "Home" was not the only thing she would call it. "Shithole" and "Auschwitz" were also common terms she used for the spacious suite of rooms in the heart of downtown London, boasting granite countertops, a private gymnasium and a bathtub too easily confused with a Jacuzzi.

But everything is a prison when you can't leave, when you can't contact anyone, and when all of London is burning to death at your feet.

Every grand moment in life is made up of untraceably tiny moments that led up to it. There was a moment when she received the call of the big internship in London. There was a moment when she met her boss's boss for the first time. There was a moment when she was called into her boss's boss's office for the second time. That was the moment that the offer was made: 'come to my flat on every weekend when I am out of town, feed the cat, play with the cat, sleep by the cat'. There was a moment when she was handed the key to the flat, the militarized, hyper-secure fault of a flat that would save her life over and over.

Each of these moments led to the final one of the key falling into the lock and the tumblers clicking in place and the door sliding open in her hands. And each of these moments she cursed over and over in the cavernous solitude of the next three months.

Incidentally, she hated the cat. She gave him no credit for her eventual survival. She was, in fact, borderline allergic, but nothing could compel her to admit to this and sacrifice making a hundred extra pounds per weekend, pre-apocalypse. She was a survivor even then.

Giant, crystal flatscreens lined the walls of almost every room in the flat (with a particularly large one installed cleverly over the Jacuzzi-bath) but they were empty now. It was the windows by which she lived. The windows by which she traced the path of every zomb and horde, the windows which taught her their movements, their hunting patterns, their groups and swarms and hide-outs and weaknesses: the treed fox watching the hounds. It was the windows, also, which led her to the base.

The vehicles were mostly military-looking, making short little stabbing forays into the city, usually just at the edge of eyeshot, and at first they moved in unpredictable patterns. But after several months of having nothing else to do but stare at the only other sign of life now available, she had a rough origin point. Not a base, or GPS coordinates or anything set in stone, but a road, one road that they all seemed to originate from and disappear to at a certain point. There was nothing to assure her that they didn't all take a u-turn the moment they escaped her field of vision, but she was not going to wait to die. She would go and take it.

Prepping for the journey was her sanity during the last month. Building up her strength, collecting scraps from the building, piecing together the perfect, flexible, impenetrable gear that would let her run, fight, and sleep on her way to the base.

In the end, this outfit was much the same as the original: hot and clumsy, but with at least the suggestion of security.

A book could be written about the three months in the flat and another still about the three day journey to the military outpost. The impossibility of falling asleep with boots on, the sweat build up in the layers of clothes turning frigid at night, waking up to the sound of a vehicle passing by unheeding, at least four blatantly wrong turns.

But that is not the story of Runner Five. She showed up eventually, on the doorstep of the outpost, reeking with days old sweat and dragging a bloody bat and an empty ration bag. There was something about her desperate eyes and the set of her jaw that swung the door open before her and then there were hours of med testing, hygiene and interviews before she was allowed a small room with a narrow bed for a few hours of sleep.

She slept for an entire day.

- Mullins -

The outpost felt like heaven for about 24 hours. There was order, stability, companionship, a real bustling sense of life. But soon her verdict was made known. She must find a specialty to be allowed to stay. Within minutes of understanding this, she chose to be a Runner. For this, she had only one motive: Runners were allowed outside. Night three of the apocalypse would not happen to her again for any reason. She would smash herself up against her fears until they broke or she succumbed.

The training was brutal. Running was only a tiny part of it. There was fighting, scavenging, building and survival skills in any terrain. How to start a fire, how to put one out, how to repair a headset, how to respond to hundreds of call-signs and military codes. How to track a horde of zombs from just an outlier, how to kill, how to kill, and how to kill the living and the dead. How to make choices and prioritize for the sake of the community, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of the Greater Good. How to obey.

It should have been unpleasant, and it was not.

She would do what it took to survive.

Runners were rockstars. This didn't take long for her to figure out either. The runners trained, slept and ate separately from the others. They were given specialized equipment, nutrient-rich foods and well-fitting clothes. But primarily, they were unbound. Tied to the community by word only, the gates opened and shut for them, the guards shot and died for them, the community owed its life to them. She came and went as she pleased, ate when she must, and trained. She kept her head down and evaded promotion. She kept her mouth shut and evaded relationships.

She survived.

- Abel -

The Abel Township mission was not one she was forced into. With the pseudo-democracy of the base, she was one of three selected for an interview with their captain. None of them were highly-ranked, or the most skilled. All of them were new.

The questioning went on for several minutes, which was then followed by the question: 'who wants to leave?'

She did.

The helicopter was the most exciting thing she had seen in months. She had never thought that she might see the ruins of London from this height, even greater than that of her former flat. The pilot tried to make small-talk but she heard little of it, craning her neck to watch the ruinous desolation give way to wooded menace.

Her ears came back to working order, however, when a new voice joined the pilot's on the radio. It caught her attention immediately because it was so young and unsure and her eyes plunged back into the aircraft as she focused on the voice. It was strange… she had lived in silence for months, and then had spent the next few months listening to the clipped military jargon spoken by the runner's handlers at the base. She was struggling to remember the last time she heard a voice that sounded human. A tiny smile fluttered around her mouth as she listened and she glanced at the pilot to see if the voice was having the same effect on her.

That was when the thrumming boom rocked the helicopter. The whole machine seemed to swing on its own axis, two loud snapping noises cut through the general explosion and the helicopter began plunging to the ground. There was a brief moment of utter panic as the trees swelled up suddenly underneath her and her heart leaped to her throat and lodged there, and her last thought as the helicopter ripped into the forest beneath was that she had claimed she would rather die than be passive and that she would get her wish. And also, that it was nice to die with a human voice still singing in her ears.

"When you're out of options, get low, get still, and listen for your heartbeat. As long as you've got that, you've got something left to give."

The trainer at Mullins had given her those words. He had repeated them at the beginning and end of every day of training, until each of his runners knew them well enough to mutter them in their sleep.

Runner Five dropped her shoulders, slowed her breath, and listened for her pulse. She felt it instantly, thudding behind her ears, but it did nothing to guide her next move. She was stumbling through the gates of Abel Township, her torn bag wet and heavy around her neck. Blood oozed from innumerable tears in her skin, and her legs felt thick and stupid.

Two women had come to her immediately, propping her up, pulling her through the gates. The crisp chatter of gunfire still played behind her, cutting through the fog of the screams and moans of dead and undead alike.

"Fall back, fall back!" Someone yelled, high-pitched and just missing hysterical as more feet pounded through the gate behind Five. An alarm sounded and the gates pulled themselves closed as gunmen skidded through the gap. Five had twisted herself around as people seemed to close in around her, shouting questions and poking at her, and she saw the last swirl of zombies closed off as the gates slammed to. Everything swam and danced in one blurry swirl and then collapsed into silence.

Runner Five's timely unconsciousness did little to save her, for when she came to, she remained in a place of chaos. She seemed to be on some sort of makeshift gurney in an even more makeshift hospital. Most of her clothes had been torn off, and acid burned at the tears in her flesh as a dozen voices jabbed at her ears.

"What?" she asked, coughing.

"Do you remember anything biting you? Do you remember anything breaking your skin?" An older man in mismatched scrubs seemed to be shouting at her, and then his voice dipped and rose again. What was wrong with her ears?

"Nothing bit me," she whispered. "Nothing… when I was awake…" but she hadn't been, not the whole time. She lost consciousness after the copter went down. For how long? Seconds, moments? Hours even? She gazed down at herself in horror, at the spots of half-clotted blood. Was she bitten?

"That's a negative, none of these are bites!" The girl who said it couldn't have been more than fifteen, but she held herself like a medical professional. What the hell kind of place was this?

That was when she heard it, cutting through the crowd. That voice again, rising above the static in her mind, cutting through as calm and steady as her own pulse. "Hey, hey, hey!" The voice exclaimed. "No, I'm not gonna talk to her! I just want to see she's alright!"

Five twisted around as if magnetized, suddenly desperate and relieved at the first familiar sound she had heard since she arrived.

Another girl was pushing at his shoulder. "She's alright, Sam, just please step back, you know you're not supposed to be in here!"

"Sam? Sam Yao?" Runner Five asked, her voice cutting through a pause in the voices. Multiple hands were still on her, swabbing at wounds, taking her vital signs, bandaging and stitching. Several people stood crowded around the entrance of the hospital, gazing in at the battered newcomer, but only Sam had pushed through the barrier. His head came up at his name, and he locked anxious, darting eyes on hers.

"Are you alright?" He asked, mouthing the words and Five just shook her head in confusion.

"Is she alright?" He demanded, louder.

The beautiful woman kneeling in front of Five glanced up at him from where she was cleaning a large gash in the runner's leg. "She's going to be fine, Sam, please step out of the hospital!"

Five looked down in surprise, now recognizing her voice too. Dr. Meyers smiled up at her, her mouth as calm as her voice, but with strain behind her eyes. "This one will need stitches. I think we can get away with it with the other ones. Can you tell me if there's anything you're allergic to?"

- A Voice In The Dark -

Her first major battle occurred just weeks after her arrival at the Township. Panic and bullets and shouting in the dark. Plummeting injured through the blackness towards an unsteady red light at the top of the tower. Falling through the gates just before midnight. After a rushed sterilization and health screen, Maxine had finally allowed her to fall into a cot to sleep.

Just hours later, she lurched awake in the darkness. The cold closed around her bare shoulders like clammy fingers as she bent double, fighting to calm her breathing. Five pulled the scant blanket up around her shoulders and shuddered heavily, as if the motion could force warmth back under her skin. Slowly, as her frantic fingers rubbed up and down her arms her body temperature rose and immediately the pain in her feet and ankles increased. Deep wells of hot, sputtering pain lanced through her torn-up feet, skin butchered by hours of chafing from wet, heavy shoes.

She slid her hands down to the bandages around her feet and tried to lay down again, stringing the blanket over as much of her body as it would cover as hot tears squeezed out of her eyes: a waste of warmth and water.

She was so tired, just so tired all the time, and so cold. The night just wouldn't pass and sleep would intrude again pinning her down and stealing away her consciousness, but the sleep would bring dreams of horror and panic and silence. Mostly silence.

She lay in the cold darkness, listening to the silence of the township, and a sickness of fear grew and burned in her stomach. In just moments, she would pass out again and then she would be out in the wilderness, screaming for people, for voices, for life; unable to take a step, utterly abandoned and terrified.

Fumbling for the tiny emergency flashlight Dr. Meyers had put by her bedside, she flicked it on swiftly, rebelliously, and shone it on the clock. It was 5:30. No one else was in the Medical Bay that night, and the whole camp would be asleep. The whole camp except…

"Sam!" She was ripped awake again minutes later by the sound of her own voice screaming his name. Her throat felt ragged from the force of fear behind that scream, anything, anything to break the silence.

Her trembling hands clutching her shoulders, she pulled herself from the cot and stubbornly whispered, "Sam."

The walk was agony on her bandaged, bloody feet. The wind outside the medical bay whipped at her body and hair, still damp from the mandatory shower she had been given nearly six hours ago at her return to the township. But she set her jaw through the pain and cold and pushed on.

She slapped her palm up against the door of the comms shack and heard a rustling and shifting inside. "One moment!" Sam's voice called out, and her whole body slumped towards the sound, pressing against the wood of the door as if magnetized.

He pulled the door open seconds later and warmth pushed out, a small heater granted to those unlucky enough to be awake at such an hour. He was buried in a giant grey hoodie, his hair stuck up in an even more ragged way than usual, and his mouth looked wet and swollen from the hot coffee he was slurping from a Garfield mug clutched in one hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked no more awake than Five felt. He looked like nobody's hero, but 5 staggered towards him, the tears beading in her eyes again suddenly drowning her usual stoicism.

"Hey, now, easy," Sam exclaimed softly as he reached for her. "What are you doing here? I mean, I won't pretend I'm not glad to see you… I've had such dreams since you got in that I wasn't entirely sure that something terrible hadn't happened to you. Here, now, it's alright Five. Come sit on the couch."

"Couch" was an ambitious title for the tiny ragged futon towards which he gestured, and he quickly scrambled to sweep armloads of papers and trash off the rough brown surface to the floor. Five remained near the door way, swaying slightly and watching him.

"Here we are!" He exclaimed with forceful cheeriness, his usual sunny demeanor somewhat challenged by her unusual display of weakness. "Now it's fit for a princess." He glanced doubtfully at the unappealing surface and back to her. "I mean, it's probably worth a lie down anyway. I rather hope you weren't an actual princess you know, before. I never did keep much notice of that stuff, myself. But anyway, you're a runner now, and only the best for our runners!"

She looked at the futon and back to him. "Can I sleep here?"

"O-of course!" he said. "If-if you like. But Dr. Meyers may not be too pleased. I know she probably wants you where she can keep an eye on your feet. Open sores can lead to infection, you know. And it's not extremely quiet in here, neither."

She raised exhausted eyes to his. "I keep having nightmares where – I'm out there – and everything's gone quiet. I just – I want to be where I can hear your voice."

She stumbled slightly then, and he grabbed her shoulders, lowering her to the couch. "Easy now Five! Of course you can stay here. I'll fight off Dr. Meyers myself if I have to. Well… no I won't, I'm pretty sure she could take me in a fight. But you know Runner Eight will be heading out in a few moments on a supply run, so I can promise plenty of talking for a while as we get her briefed and out the gate."

Sam grinned encouragingly down at her, running his fingers over her hair and then generously shrugged off his hoodie. "You're so cold! Here – here put this on too. What? No, I'm fine! I'm tough as old nails, you know, and I have a heater. And coffee! Now you go to sleep or Dr. Meyers will staple my fingers together. That's what she threatened to do, you know. If any of us bothered you. I wanted to see you before bed to make sure you were alright, but she guarded the door like an Angel of Eden. Anyway… I need to call Runner Eight, so you get some sleep."

He turned again to pick up his microphone and begin run procedures and she noticed how much skinnier he had become even in the month or so she had known him. Like most survivors of the Grey Death, he seemed to be maturing much faster than was natural.

His voice swung liltingly on the warm air as he talked, pushing his fingers through his thick mat of hair as he ran through the gate protocol and got Runner Eight safely out into the morning. Five wrapped her arms snugly around herself again, now encompassed in the blanket and his sweater, and even her face grew warm in the half-lit of the little shack.

And for the first time in months, Runner Five genuinely smiled. And Sam's voice carried her out to warm, sun-drenched dreams.

- Fitting In -

Dr. Maxine Meyers pushed into the curtained-off room in the hospital, still drying her hands.

"What's the emergency?" She asked stiffly, already heavy-eyed from stress.

Five sighed. "I told Sam that it's not an emergency. I caught my arm on some glass, it's not infection."

"Well, it isn't yet," Dr. Meyers took the arm in gloved fingers, turning the wound in the light with swift professionalism. "Until we know more about this, any kind of open wound acquired out in the field has to be monitored. This will need stitches."

"It's hardly more than a paper cut," Five protested.

Dr. Meyers glanced up at her. "That's all it takes," she replied stiffly.

Moments later Five sat still, lips pinched between her teeth, watching the surreal image of a needle combing through her numbed flesh. "Seems like a waste of med supplies."

"Then next time you should be more careful," Dr. Meyers muttered. "I'm glad to have you here alone for a moment, though. How are you fitting in with the Township?"

Five raised one shoulder and then dropped it.

Dr. Meyers glanced up at her, prompting. "Was that an answer?"

"Fitting in's not my priority."

Maxine hummed, but let it go. "What about back at Mullins? Did you make friends there?"

"Not many. I wasn't there long."

"Nobody's been anywhere long. We're still just months into the outbreak. What about before that? What did you do?"

Five shifted uncomfortably on the little bench, and Dr. Meyers glanced up at her again. "You may not know this, Five, but I admire this whole stoic front you present. If that's been the way you've survived so far, I understand. But for the time being you have landed in this one spot. Mullins isn't sending another helicopter, not for a long time anyway. And no matter how hard Janine tries, Abel just isn't a military base. We're a community. Nobody likes to talk about their past, even if they don't have a needle in their arm, but you need to make friends. At least one." She clipped the thread and settled a cotton pad over the wound, starting to bind it up. "That's a doable goal for this week at least."

A sudden scuffling came from the doorway of the hospital, with a young man's voice pleading, "Please, Mr. Yao…"

"It's an emergency, okay?" Sam's exasperated voice called out.

Dr. Meyers rolled her eyes without looking up or speaking, and then, faster than would have seemed possible, Sam's hand was jerking the curtain back.

"How's my runner?" He demanded, glaring from the blood-soaked shirt on the table to the half-bandaged wound.

"I honestly don't know why anyone still holds the belief that this township needs a doctor." Maxine proclaimed, still refusing to look up. "I should think a broken record of my voice repeating 'this hospital is a place of quarantine' and then being systematically ignored should be sufficient."

"Is she alright, doctor?" Sam asked, suddenly leaning heavily against the small wooden table.

"You know perfectly well that we won't be able to answer that question for at least another twenty-four…"

Maxine was interrupted by a loud scraping as the table supporting Sam proved its unworthiness for the task and fell out from under him. Sam staggered ungracefully and his hand slammed down on the surface, centimeters from the bloody shirt. His face turned even whiter, and he pulled his hand back quickly.

"Why are you so eager to be in a hospital if you're afraid of blood?" Five asked curiously.

Sam looked shocked. "I'm not afraid of blood. I just have a healthy respect for… that is… I'm not entirely comfortable with all the…" and he sat down heavily on the floor. "It's been a very long day," he concluded, slumping back against the wall.

Five grinned at him, an expression that moved slowly over her face, spreading from her lips to her eyes, and Dr. Meyers, glancing up at her again, noted that it was the first time she had seen even a spark of warmth in that weary face.

"I hope you never get a paper cut when you're at your post or I'd have to find my own way home," Five told him, still smiling.

"Well, it's all very well when you're a badass runner," Sam muttered resentfully. "Most of us don't get to see that kind of carnage every day. Or, well… not that that's a good thing for you. I'm just saying…"

"It's hardly carnage," Dr. Meyers explained in a gentler tone. "I'm sure Runner Five will be alright now. You'll have to stay in the hospital for a twenty-four hour observation, but then everything should be fine."

Sam got up then, carefully keeping his eyes away from the bloody shirt. "Well, I've got to get back. Are you sure you're feeling alright, Five? Not feeling cold or anything, are you?"

She shook her head.

"Right then, back to work! Saving lives, plotting missions, all that. I'll see you around, then." He ducked out of the curtain and sauntered out the door.

Five followed his footsteps with her eyes as Dr. Meyers carefully recorded her vitals in a well-worn journal.

Maxine sighed. "I know he comes across kind of comical, but he's a smart guy. At any rate, he survived when most didn't. We're lucky to have him here. And he's incredibly popular with the people: young and old, they love our Sam. If you're looking to take my advice on making a friend, he would be a strong ally for you to have."

Five shook her head in bafflement. "He's a little overwhelming rushing in and out like that. I don't even think he noticed I'm only half dressed."

Dr. Meyers quirked a smile. "Oh, I wouldn't bet on that," she muttered.

- Trust -

Runner Five's feet pulsed a rhythmic staccato in the cool morning air. She and a couple other runners were steadily circling the training track near the center of Abel Township, just stretching their legs on their morning off. They called to each other on occasion, but mostly just pushed steadily on.

A small group of children was already clustered nearby the track, watching their favorites with wide eyes. These athletes had replaced all of the heroes of their past lives, becoming the new sports stars and superheroes. These were the only ones who voluntarily left the compounds, often unarmed, to face the undead alone. In the township their snug clothing and well-fitting shoes set them apart from the others. The children flocked to them as if magnetized, content to just watch in silence when they were training, and then quick to pounce on them when they left the track.

But the children weren't the only ones watching. Sam Yao stood to one side, opposite the children, his arms crossed and legs braced as he watched Five with the eye of one appraising a thoroughbred race horse.

Dr. Meyers came up behind him and watched him watching her for a moment before stepping forward. "Mr. Yao? What are you doing here so early?"

Sam practically jumped around. "Wait, why do you ask? Did they ask for me at Comms?"

She smiled. "Am I really the one responsible for that information?"

He relaxed. "Well. Eight is the only one out this morning, and she turned her headset off again. Janine is the only one who can get her to switch it back on, so I'm basically useless now. I left one of the interns in charge."

"'Interns?' Is that what we're calling the teenagers desperate to get their hands on your tech?"

Sam jutted his chin out and struggled to find a smart-ass retort, but ended up just pulling a face and looked back at the track.

Maxine followed his line of sight and sighed. "Well, there she is. The talk of the township. If I were you, I wouldn't get too attached to her, Sam.

"Are you serious? She's my superstar! Just a few months here and she's had more rescues and close calls than anyone else put together! No wonder everyone's talking!" He stood back, surveying her with possessive pride as the runner slowed and trotted over to get a drink. "I mean, look at her go! She looks like something out of a Nike ad! Well… back when… those were a thing."

Dr. Meyers grinned ruefully, glancing back over her shoulder at her hospital as if she would rather be anywhere else. "Sam… I know how you feel about your runners and they're a great group. But Five… we don't really know anything about her. She literally falls to the ground in flames, pulls herself from the wreckage and runs home to us, bloodied and injured. She fights off a pack of zombs, and gets out clean, even picking up that CDC packet with minimal effort…"

"And who was the one who asked her to do that, Doc? Checkmate!"

Maxine nodded. "I know, and I shouldn't have. I knew I shouldn't at the time. But we can't accept just anyone. She had to prove herself. To everyone but you, apparently."

Sam scowled, looking ruffled and grumpy, and Maxine felt as though she had just stolen Christmas from a toddler. "Are people really saying bad things? What has she done wrong?"

The doctor stepped forward and touched his arm softly. "It's not so much that. She's been a real asset. But all of the drama surrounding her runs… She'll fight off a pack with a baseball bat, rescue a baby, light a settlement up in flames and identify Patient Zero in the time it takes Four to pick up four batteries and be home for dinner. It's suspicious, you must admit. Or at least odd. She just seems to attract trouble."

Sam looked outraged. "But that's such a simple way to look at it! Sure, she's gotten mixed up in some bad stuff, but look at all the good she's done! She has truly rescued babies, reunited families, saved runners and townships! Not to mention Abel, more than once. Look, maybe she is attracting trouble, but you must admit, she attracts good things too."

Sam glared, wild-eyed, across the track at his favorite as Maxine observed him sadly from behind. "Yes, Sam," she murmured quietly. "I do believe she does."

- Movie Night -

Runner Five sat on her bunk, tying up her hair for bed. It was just after dinner, but she had managed to secure a book from Abel's unofficial rotating library and she was pleased to have something to do with her evening. Most nights she just sort of hung back at the outside of any activity until it was late enough to make a dignified exit to her bunk.

Abel was not a homelike place for her. Time kept passing, yet she had still made no friends. The runners she had gone on mission with were courteous, and Sam was even friendly, but most of the people still eyed her with caution or even open distrust. Only the children accepted her without question. But that's how it was: post-apocalypse life. She wasn't in it for fun or friendship. She sighed, not unhappily, and lowered herself carefully beneath the blankets.

"Five! Are you not coming then?" Little Jody stuck her head in the door, looking more annoyed than friendly.

Five raised her eyebrows.

"The movie night? Downstairs, for all the runners? Didn't anybody tell you? It's Friday!"

Five shook her head. "What movie?"

"Uh, I dunno, that's for us to fight over. We don't have a large selection, but it's our choice! Runners get the movie room on Friday nights! Come along then, Five!" She scooped her hand along widely and plunged down the stairs.

The runners all bunked together in Janine's farmhouse. It was a bit of an honor, technically, to live in an actual house. "Only the best for our runners" and all, but it made little enough difference. The lack of wind was more than made up for by the sheer noise and lack of space in the house. The small building was used for everything from community meetings to birthday parties and the noise levels often stayed high late into the night. Five had still not explored the whole house, but she followed Jody's din to a cozy room and hung shyly in the doorway. Bits of furniture were scattered around the small den, most people had brought down blankets or sheets from their bunks to bury under, and there was even a small amount of candy.

Sam was nestled in the middle of a pile of humans on an oversized and overstuffed couch in the middle of the room, but he sprang up, scattering limbs, when Five appeared in the doorway.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, charging towards her. "I didn't know you were coming! Here, you lot, clear out, give her some space on the couch!"

With a mutinous muttering, several runners were tipped unceremoniously off the couch by their fellows as Sam took Five's arm and dragged her down in their midst.

"You can pick the film tonight, if you like!" One of the girls now flopped on the floor grinned up at Five in a friendly way. "We've all seen them all several times over."

The eyes of the room all turned to her as silence fell, and Five twisted her hands together hard in her lap, her eyes darting nervously around the room. She looked at Sam helplessly and shook her head.

"That's alright," he exclaimed quickly, shooting back a sympathetic glance. "We won't force you into making enemies before you even get to make friends! So that's Jack's turn, I think, since Eugene went last week."

The attention of the room instantly spun towards the roguish American in the corner, peppering him with suggestions and appeals, much to his projected annoyance and obvious delight. Under the cover of this sound, Sam ducked his head toward Five and said, "Jack and Genie aren't runners, obviously, but they're in the comms shack like me so we're kind of included in everything. Most of the runners tune in to them when they can, so they're part of the team, I suppose. And sorry about earlier. Nobody yet knows what to expect with you, they wouldn't have asked you to speak if they'd known how uncomfortable it'd make you." He eyed her for a moment with an almost paternal concern as she remained silent, and he then continued in an undertone, "I know Jody dragged you down here, and I know you aren't much for crowds, but I promise you, if you stay, I'll answer every question thrown your way and no one will even notice you being quiet. I have a reputation of expressing myself more than is probably strictly necessary anyway, and I always appreciate a chance to… What the hell did you just say against Marlon Brando?" he suddenly demanded, whirling away to turn on Eugene.

The radio host threw his hands up defensively. "I would never say – how dare you? I merely pointed out that every single time Jack gets to choose the film he chooses On The Waterfront and I literally had a dream last week where I relived the whole film – no joke! And so I think my subconscious is starting to rebel against it!"

"How dare you?" Jack demanded, flushed and giddy with attention.

Sam turned calmly back to Five, "…so nobody would be at all surprised," he finished. "Please stay."

Five's eyes flicked across the room once more, still inwardly flinching away from the waves of sound and energy permeating the room. Mullins had been so easy. Keep quiet, keep your head down, don't make eye contact. It was like she wasn't even there. And then two minutes after entering Abel she had accidentally won the respect of the coolest boy in school, this earnest, wide-eyed, motor-mouth who was capable of causing small riots just to give them the cover for a quiet conversation and seemed to know exactly what to say to level out her breathing again. She glanced up at him, and nodded quickly, almost smiling.

A huge smile spread across his face and he clapped his hands fiercely, before turning to the task of keeping all eyes off of her for the rest of the evening.

- Wounded -

Runner Five's shoes slopped heavily in the mud as she trudged away from the training grounds. Her shoes were a treasure: like all runners she only had two pair that fit her snugly, but she dragged them slightly as she walked. Rain slapped down heavily on her thin jacket and reddened cheeks and she pushed a strand of hair off her forehead with a defeated sigh.

Even the comms shack was dark at two a.m.; usually the glowing little heart of Abel it seemed eerie and foreboding in the streetlight. The lights had been erected some time ago to prevent against any chaos of a midnight fence breach, but many of them were already dead or flickering.

Five didn't care. She didn't need her eyes to guide her home. She headed directly towards the heavy oak door of Janine's farmhouse, the oldest and sturdiest building in the Township.

Five shoved open the door with one shoulder and shivered into the kitchen, peeling off her soaked jacket and pulling out her stiff braid with trembling fingers. Propping one hand on the countertop, she pulled off her shoes and placed them, almost reverentially, on the shoe rack by the door. She dropped her mucky socks in a laundry bin in the adjoining mud room and peeled off her mud-encrusted leggings as well. Finally, she stood free in the kitchen with loose hair: the mark of a runner at rest.

Reaching for a water bottle, she collapsed in a chair by the small table, sipping slowly and scowling at the clock. She hadn't meant to stay out so late, but rehabilitation filled her with a frustration that leeched out all awareness of time.

She glanced down at her legs in tired irritation. Usually she could do this. This is what she did: literally her title. It was the first thing she had done well since the apocalypse, she could run. And now…

"It's two a.m." Sam's heavy voice came from the doorway and she jumped up, spinning around.

He eyed her up and down wearily. It hurt him a little bit every time he saw the way his runners responded to an unexpected sound or movement. The clenched jaw, the braced legs and wide eyes.

She reigned herself back in immediately, having the grace to look ashamed.

"Five…" He moved over to her, lumpy in mismatched grey sweatpants and hoodie. Mashing his hands in the hoodie pockets, he looked down at her with the same disappointed look she had just given her legs. "The doc said two weeks. And I know how you feel…" She flinched and he corrected himself swiftly. "I can imagine how you feel. Or I try to anyway. But damaging your leg long term… you know how devastating that would be to the Township. Or maybe you don't know. We rely on you, probably more than we should. And it's not just your speed and courage – it's for morale. You're a hero, you're good news, and we need that so badly. Please. Just please, take care of yourself. Just for a few more days."

"I wasn't running." Her voice was low and husky as it always was. He wondered sometimes what it must have sounded like before the grey death, back when she had a life, he wondered if she laughed or giggled or sang. Now she hardly spoke: never outside the walls and very rarely inside. Only sometimes, one on one with him or Sara or occasionally the doctor, would she speak. "I just needed to get back on the track. I went for a walk, to see how it felt."

"Cold and rainy, I'll bet." He said, giving her a smile as he sank into the chair across from her.

She looked down, working her jaw.

"What do they have you doing during the day now? Now you're not – well – running?" He asked.

She bit her lips for a moment, preparing herself for the longer answer. "Just filling in. Wherever they need help. Wherever I won't risk damaging my precious legs."

"None of this would be around if it weren't for those legs. We rely on them. You can't blame them for giving out once in a while. Most people…" he was watching her carefully under his eyelids as he spoke, "Most people would be pleased to have a break."

Five almost smiled, slitting her eyes to the side and watching the rain thrum heavily against the smeary window for several minutes. "Maxine says… she thinks I have a hero complex."

Sam laughed easily. "I can think of worse things to have. But yeah – yeah you're kind of a textbook case, I'd think."

Her voice was somewhat clearer when she spoke again. "I just keep thinking – I'm going to be so weak when I get back out there. What if something happens before I can get fully…?"

He was halfway across the table, leaning up intently towards her before she finished speaking. "Listen. Five. You're a hero, okay? We need you. But you're not the only thing propping us up here. You've got to stop beating yourself up. We will be fine. You need to focus on yourself for just a second – I can't believe this is actual advice I'm giving here, but you have to be selfish. Rest. Take a break! 'The world won't end because the Doctor dances'!"

She looked up, cocking her head slightly.

"Alright, okay, I'm a nerd, but the point is… get some rest, alright? We trust you to take care of yourself as well as all of us, okay?"

She frowned down at the floor, struggling for the will to speak her next words. "I can't sleep. My body won't let me rest now I'm stuck inside all day. If I'm not running, I can't sleep."

Sam pushed a fist into his cheek and frowned at her considerately for a moment. "Wanna watch a movie?" He whispered conspiratorially.

She looked up in surprise.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know I'm not supposed to know how to do it, but there's a way to rig up films in the comms shack. I mean, I have to steal the DVD player from the common room, but the screens I use for my cams – well not all of them – but a couple of them are still functioning televisions!"

He grinned at her look of scandal. "It wasn't me, Jack and Gene showed me how to do it, of course. They sneak in there sometimes for a bit of privacy. Don't like to think about that too much, but anyway, they figured out how to rig it. I've never done it myself, of course, but we could try. What do you say? You in?"

That slow smile spread across her face again and she nodded.

The tiny rebellion was easily to pull off and far less risky than it felt, and soon Sam was fiddling with various colored cords in the back of the television set while Five wrapped herself up in blankets in one corner of the couch. She had not considered it sufficiently urgent to go back upstairs and replace her pants, so she was extremely comfortable and suddenly very chilly. Sam had lent her his sweater for their drizzly jog across the township to the comms shack, so all she had to thaw out were her slightly stiff and cramping legs.

The quality of the television wasn't terrible, but the sound wasn't very clear and they didn't want to turn it too loud, since it would have shattered their pretense of sneaking around. Sam had returned to the couch to find Five tightly bundled in blankets in one corner and he sat down on the other end with a soft chuckle as his only comment. It took fifteen minutes into the movie for Five to notice him shivering. His t-shirt was somewhat thin and worn and his hands were clenched tightly under his armpits as he folded his arms snugly across his chest, clearly unwilling to admit to his cold. Grinning, she removed one blanket and flung it at him.

He lifted it up, bewildered and horrified. "Don't give me a blanket, I'm warm! You need to keep your leg wrapped up; if you need it, you keep it!"

"You're shivering!" she protested. "And you just told me not to worry about my leg!"

"Yes, I did," Sam agreed, testily, reaching over to wrap the blanket around her again. "But that doesn't mean I shouldn't worry about it! It's my job to take care of you, you know. And my life depends on that leg healing too, just like everyone else in the township! I'm fond of them and I'd like them to heal up as soon as possible."

She gestured to him impatiently, and he looked back, unsure.

"Come here!" she said. "We can share!"

He actually looked more bewildered at her words and suddenly awkward. It took her a minute to understand why. That in a pre-apocalypse world, inviting a co-worker to snuggle half-dressed under blankets alone in a dark room at 3 a.m. would have sent some kind of message. She gestured impatiently again. "Come on, Sam. The Major doesn't have cameras everywhere. If she did, you'd know about it."

In the end, he curled up uncertainly at her feet like a hesitant kitten, but that only further complicated the blanket situation, so she pulled him up on her legs – despite his half-hearted protests – and wrapped his upper body in the topmost blanket. They lay there for another hour, calm and content, and Five actually seemed to feel her anxiety spilling out of her. It was good to be back in the comms shack, good to be alone together in the darkness, momentarily escaped from the crushing energy of Abel, good to be back with Sam. She had missed him during her time off, their time together limited to a passing word in the dining hall since they were no longer working together.

She realized it was time to put some of this into words. Dr. Meyers had told her early on that Sam was a key friend to make and she had made little effort in that direction. Maybe it was time to tell him about her growing fondness, her appreciation for all that he did, and her mounting realization that his voice was often the only thing that kept her feet pounding the ground towards Abel. That lately, she had been running back to him.

"Sam – " she began and he responded with a gentle snore. She looked down to see him quietly drooling into the blanket. That same affectionate grin spread slowly over her face as she shifted to curl up protectively over him and finish watching the film.

Sam woke up abruptly in the grey light of a misty morning to see Five braced against the wall facing him with a curious expression on her face. Seeing her in just panties and a tank top seemed twice as scandalous in the cold morning dimness then it had felt the night before and he blinked in confusion for a moment, trying to piece together the scattered memories of what had happened.

"I'm going back to the house before anyone sees me and decides to spread a rumor," she told him bluntly.

Sam scrubbed at his eyes, struggling to match her wakefulness. "Yeah, yeah, good idea. The last thing we need is more of those."

"What?" she asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

Sam blinked up at her slowly. "Well… I mean... of course I just mean that people spread rumors pretty quickly around here. And such. You know?"

She nodded soberly. "Yes, I have noticed that. Not enough entertainment to keep people happy anymore. Well, good morning I guess. And thanks!"

She disappeared into the morning and Sam flopped over onto his back and groaned. Did she really not know about the rumors? Well. He certainly wasn't lining up to be the first to tell her.

- Not Like This -

A second before, everyone had been lit up with laughter. Smiling faces all glowing with firelight, scrabbling fingers and good-natured jostling…

And then silence. Everyone's faces had swung around to look at Runner Five, and the smiles were sliding off their mouths. Now their eyes opened wide in delightful curiosity and hungry anticipation.

Five's own smile had vanished a moment before, and she sat still, fingers and lips clenched.

Not like this.

It was a birthday party, Maxine's of course. Janine had broken out some older bottles of scotch from who knows where and they'd watered it down enough to pass around. Sugar and alcohol flowed freely in bodies which had long lost all familiarity with such drugs. Somehow, they'd ended up on the floor in the living room of Janine's farmhouse. It was late, nearly early. The children had long gone to bed and most of the adults as well. Twenty or so people, mostly runners, remained sprawled on the floor. Jack and Eugene, tumbled across each other in a corner, had suggested the games. Stupid party games. They had burned through several before finally landing on Spin the Bottle. Five had never even seen it played, but she smiled as wide as the rest as the runners entered the game with wild enthusiasm: chasing each other round the room, ducking under flurries of frantic kisses, flagrantly making out under the slightest provocation, grabbing the bottle to point at mortal enemies. Most of the room stayed well back from the game, Maxie and Paula smiled sleepily in their corner while Janine tried hard to look unamused from a doorway.

Five sat, as ever, slightly apart and silent, smiling sleepily as she leaned her head against the wall after a long day's slog. Her smile never wavered as she watched a new runner battling brazenly for the chance to kiss Sam whose tall, tipsy form always seemed to be in the center of these things. The girl thrust the bottle at him in a break in the action and as he leaned forward to spin it, she fumbled to grab it and aim it at herself, but the bottle tripped off her finger, skidded a moment, and then stopped dead, quivering tip pointed directly at Five.

Five's smile vanished and everyone else seemed to draw the same breath. Flushed, panting faces all swung up towards her in anticipation as silence fell hard.

For a moment, Five did not lift her eyes from the mouth of the bottle.

Not like this, she thought.

She wasn't in the game, of course. She didn't have to play. But that thought had not seemed to have occurred to anyone else, as the entertainment-starved group slowly swayed their faces back towards Sam. It had now been months of rumors across the township, bets made with chocolate and clean socks, tall tales of Sam and Five making out behind various buildings, Five spending wild nights in the comms shack… There was no way they were going to let this moment slide, Jack had actually emitted a small squeak of glee as the bottle shuddered to a stop.

It wasn't that she didn't want to kiss him. That was what most of them didn't know. It was something she had actually considered for a long time. The first time she heard his voice in the helicopter, the first friendly, unsure voice after months of military shouting. The first time she saw his face, flushed and anxious, flailing through a crowd of citizens flooding the gates at Abel the first time she had stumbled through them. The moment she had heard his voice cut through the static on that horrible night she had run through total darkness towards a light he had insisted on keeping shining. And then the rumors had spread to her, with Simon dubbing it "Sam's world-ending crush", Jody's earnest "he doesn't actually talk about anyone else anymore" and Jack's helpful "Put the boy out of his misery, if you have half a heart". They still hadn't convinced her, but the idea held more appeal than she would admit out loud.

And she had a plan, of sorts. There would be a night, tired and tipsy, probably months from now. A moment alone on the futon in the comms shack, or returning victorious after a hard night's run, or even bumping into each other unexpectedly in a dark corner of the farmhouse. There would be a moment when she wouldn't let herself think, wouldn't weigh the possibility that the literal fate of the world may rest on their professional relationship staying professional. A moment when her hero's complex would unbalance just enough, when her responsibility would unsettle and she would just be curious, leaning in and wide-eyed and wanting just a taste…

And for a moment, anger burned her lips. This was not the plan, this was not the story, or the moment. Her feelings, always so skillfully bundled away, were far too fragile to be exposed to the candle-lit laughter of this moment. This must not be their first kiss or it would be their last.

But one aspect of the rumors was already true. They did things together, they were partners, so she didn't speak, just looked up at him. To her surprise, he was also staring, flush faced and miserable, at the floor.

"Alright you two!" Eugene's voice chirped happily from the corner. "If one of you doesn't make a move soon I'm going to start to wonder who's being insulted."

"She doesn't have to, guys, she's not in the game." Sam muttered, still not looking at her. But his phrase rang through her head like a bell 'She doesn't have to'.

A rumble of rebellious voices started up again at this appeal to the rules. No, technically she was not playing, technically she had never voiced verbal consent to the rules, but also technically she sat within the circle where the game was being played and therefore she was technically, legally, actually…

Five's eyes flitted nervously across the room and landed once again on Sam, her friend, partner, handler. His response had gutted her. Is that what he thought? She doesn't have to… as though he was some raw deal he wanted to save her from. Had she been paying attention to the jealous mutterings around her, she would have become aware of her own status as a sort of sex symbol of the township. The full weight of her weird celebrity had not yet come home to her. She knew that on some level he idolized her, everyone knew that, but for him to think that he was some sort of consolation prize…

"Are you gonna move or do I have to?" She asked sharply, her voice cutting through the thicket of voices.

His eyes flew, shocked, to meet hers and she leaned her head against the wall, smirking at him. Surely he didn't think that she would let him be humiliated in front of everyone. How many battles had she fought for him? She would kiss the hell out of him, if only to shut them up.

The room fell silent again, except for Janine's audible sigh of annoyance as she leaned against the doorframe. But she didn't leave.

Sam looked up at her under his eyelashes, suddenly looking small. You sure? He mouthed at her silently. Alarm lanced through her again. How did he not know? This level of insecurity shocked her. She was completely unaware of her own level of celebrity and how often he was exposed to it.

She nodded back, quickly.

He lifted himself up and started to crawl towards her grinning, eliciting laughter and cheers of their audience. She was relieved he was going to try to make it into a game, just some kind of joke, to bury the awkwardness of his initial hesitation. She crossed her legs and sat up slightly as he moved towards her through the thicket of runner bodies sprawled across the floor. She tried to match his easy smile, but his slow approach had heightened her nerves and her heart was stammering hard, blood swelling in her cheeks at the attention they were garnering. She felt a sickening swoop of introversion, genuine misery at being the sudden center of the giggling, tangled mass.

Sam was being weird. He was crawling forward dramatically, swinging his body like a cat. He paused right before he reached her to laugh, hanging his head, and mutter audibly, "this game is so stupid." Then he swung his grinning face up to hers and she saw his eyes and recognized the act. He knew her, knew how much she was hating this, and once again he was doing everything he could to draw the spotlight off of her. She gazed at him, unsure of what to do next, overwhelmed by her realization. He gave her one more quick glance as though to give her a last chance to back out, and then pulled himself up on his knees and looked at her seriously, his face nearly as pink as hers. Then he reached out and very gently took her face in his hands, gazing at her with an expression so serious it was almost fierce. Then gently, very slowly, he leaned down and put his lips on hers. It was courteous, almost courtly, and there was a sort of tender intensity to it that drew wolf-whistles and soft exclamations from the room. His mouth was almost unbearably sweet and warm and as he drew back, Five sat bewildered, suddenly unaware of their audience, gazing up at him speechlessly.

There was another reality pushing at the back of her mind, a voice urging her to move forward. A reality in which she stood up, slow and calm and walked toward him, slid a finger under his chin and lifted him to his feet, and then pulled his face down again to kiss him very differently, dragging his body into hers by his belt loops and turning him around, backing him into the wall, kissing him fast and slow and hard and soft and every way she was suddenly imagining, showing the room how it was done, showing them how unashamed of him she was….

But of course, she stayed. Sitting flushed and breathless on the floor, and no less embarrassed then before. Sam tightened his mouth briefly, and then turned to the room to whip up the raucous game and keep the attention pinned on himself. The room was easily distracted and eager to get back to the game, and he continued laughing and teasing in the middle, kissing several other people as the game went on, but Five saw his jaw tightening and saw his fleeting, almost angry glances thrown her way, and the tension heavy in his shoulders. What had she done wrong?

It was already late and people were too tipsy to stay awake much longer. The older runners began drifting off to bed first, and then the couples. Five was usually pretty early to bed, given the nature of her job, but tonight she couldn't shake the idea that she had done something to bother her best friend. As frightened as she may be of the confrontation, she was more frightened to put it off, but had no idea how to subtly pull him aside, especially as he was now refusing to make eye contact. She felt suddenly overwhelmed and the need to run overcame all other thoughts. She slipped from the room as the crowd dispersed and made her way to the training track. The air had a chill, wet bite that pushed her forward and she ran steadily, waiting for the tension to ebb from her body, appreciating the rhythmic impact of her feet striking the ground. The camp was quiet and still, well-lit by a full moon and stars which no longer had to compete with London light pollution. Forty minutes later, she moved to stretch and then yawned cavernously.

There were feelings now, emotions desperately unwanted, things that would have to be sorted out through months of tension and anxiety. She wrapped up in her jacket and just lay down, staring up at the heavens, stretching out luxuriously on the grass as she considered. There was this whole other facet to Sam now that she would have to learn, and there was no way to un-taste him, to erase the mark he had made tonight. Maybe after a while…

"Hey," Sam was standing over her, chilly in an old ragged t-shirt and no jacket. He shifted his balance restlessly and seemed to have trouble looking at her. "I wanted to check on you."

"How long have you been out here?" she asked, sitting up to brush the grass off her arms.

"Since about… well probably five minutes after you started running. Which is something I am just now realizing the creepiness factor of…" He sat down facing her, bracing his elbows on his knees. "Yeah, I just wanted to say – just say I'm sorry again, I guess. I've thought of a hundred ways I could have saved you from that in the last forty-five minutes and I really – I just really didn't want you out here thinking that I was taking advantage of the moment…"

"Nobody was taking advantage." She shook her head hard, biting at her lips. "It just happened."

He nodded, still looking hard at the ground, ripping up sprigs of grass and shredding them.

She waited earnestly for his next words while his silence swarmed like gnats in her ears. Slowly she turned to look at him and saw misery and anger stamped on his face.

"Sam," she reached out, startled, to touch his knee. "Are you mad at me?"

He jerked slightly at her touch and shook his head. "Not at you. I'm a little disappointed in myself to tell the truth… I put you on the spot in a crowd of people and I never never would have wanted – I told myself I would never…"

"Why do you think I didn't want to kiss you?" The words came out blurred, launched against her better judgement by a sort of fury at seeing him condemn himself, belittle himself. "I signaled for you to do it. It wasn't your fault, that other girl, whats her name, she spun the bottle towards you and messed it up, none of this was your fault and I didn't have a problem with it, so please stop apologizing!"

His jaw was still tight though, and she sat with her stomach twisting in misery, shocked by her own pleading.

He coughed slightly. "Everyone thinks – I know everyone thinks I'll make the same mistakes with you that I made with the old runner Fi – that I made with Alice. Like I didn't learn from the first time. We have to trust each other you know? Completely. Or people die. And that's not something to take lightly."

She stared at him, dry-mouthed. No, but surely –

He cocked his head up to her and smiled sweetly. "Alright, good night Five. I am sorry if I embarrassed you. I promise I won't let it happen again."

- Fight For You -

Sam Yao's hollow breathing echoed off the walls of his tiny comms shack. He was pacing in tight circles, mashing his hands together as he muttered in rage until his foot caught a small stack of trash that had accumulated by his table and he stumbled heavily against the wall. With a yell of frustration he turned on the pile and violently kicked it back under the table. He collapsed quickly onto the ragged futon and buried his face in his hands.

The fight had been short and colorful, but it had a long history. Sam's patience had already been thoroughly strung out by the time the fight with Five had even begun.

It had all started that morning when Dr. Meyers first approached him about the run to the East. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It was a ridiculous project, one which neither Janine nor the Major would ever had approved of. So Dr. Meyers had waited until Sam was alone, after both leaders were out of township on other projects, when Sam had been so formally and carefully placed in charge of all of the missions until their return. That was the moment when the doctor had approached him to ask for… Ah - he didn't even know what it was. Some stupid, impossible drug nearly 20 kilometers to the East. Some tiny place she had remembered lately where some of the drug might be found.

It did not have the markings of a particularly dangerous mission but it was a long one and Sam was trying to keep his runners close to home until someone else returned to take over. But Dr. Meyers seemed hell-bent on making it as dangerous as possible. She insisted only one runner make the trip because "discretion in this is so important, Sam" as she had pleaded in her soft voice.

He knew that this was not a life-saving drug. Just something she needed for her experiments in her lab, which were hardly time sensitive.

Sam had told her about the horde. The massive horde, so far-reaching that it was actually uncountable, and had already turned three runners back home this week alone, one with a badly damaged leg. Who knew where it had come from? Some fire must have started in the city again and driven thousands of undead out before it. These things happened. But the result of it was that the runners were playing it safe. A

nd now Dr. Meyers was demanding a mission: a long mission, a secret mission, a stupid, moronic, waste of time mission.

And then she insisted on Runner Five.

To repeat: to run this mission Dr. Maxine Meyers had laid claim to Sam's best, strongest, toughest, cleverest, most valuable and most UNFATHOMABLY stubborn pet runner and insisted that it be no one else.

Of course Sam had protested and of course he had explained that he was in charge and that it was suicide, that surely Dr. Meyers was too humane to wish the death of Runner Five but had she listened?

After an hour long fight Dr. Meyers actually had the gall to contact the Major WITHOUT informing him and got private permission to send out Five, alone, into the biggest horde Sam had seen since the rise of the Grey Death.

So yes, Sam was already outraged that morning as he summoned Five to brief her about the mission but he had anticipated that the runner would take his side. With all of her usual stoicism, Five had listened calmly to her orders, nodded once, and said "I'll do it". The more Sam protested the more silent and determined she became and the more apparently amused Dr. Meyers was. Then his runner was gone, without even a goodbye.

Dr. Meyers sat in the comms station with him until Five reached the tiny pharmacy. The booth was tense, with a tension only achieved by two calm yet stubborn people driven to rage by each other's company. Little was spoken until Five, with her usual superhuman efficiency, retrieved the package and began her return home.

And that was when - THAT was when Dr. Meyers had the nerve to turn on Sam and begin to mock him for how he was handling the whole affair. She started asking all these penetrating questions about Five, raising her eyebrows and smirking, even beginning to imply that Sam was somehow acting TOO CONCERNED about the fate of his best runner, asking him if there was something she needed to know about their relationship, even going so far as to insinuate that his emotions might not even be stable enough for him to be placed in charge of her.

That battle had escalated to the point where Maxine had left the comms shack in a hurry, and it was only after all of this, as Sam sat stewing and alone at his microphone, that the fight with Five herself had begun.

It was stupid now, how it had started. Even if Five had been in range, Janine's cameras had been inactive since the night the horde had first appeared, but Sam didn't need visuals to know when she was beginning to enter the horde itself. The sounds were incredible. She got scared, for almost the first time since he'd known her, and she began talking about finding a place to wait out the night. Risking her life by trying to SLEEP outside the township! In the middle of a record horde, on a freezing cold night! No, it was unacceptable, he needed her home, and he told her so, and… oh, he didn't remember how it all went until the moment she snapped out that, yes, she would risk her own neck by coming straight home and pushing her already exhausted body while carting this massive box of drugs and fighting off Earth's largest zombie swarm with a bat, but she'd be hanged if she had to listen to his arguing while she did it, and then.

Then.

She turned off her headset.

Sam pushed his hands furiously through his hair and then mashed them together, trembling. His body was so full of rage and fear, helplessness and anxiety, that he was sure his muscles were aching worse than hers.

He had stayed in the comms shack, volume turned all the way up on his headset, desperately waiting for a sound, any sound, to come from her. He sprang up again and paced in narrow circles, feeling the cold settling in to his body more and more with every moment of empty static.

How would they even know? At this point, when would be the moment his anxiety would cease, the moment they could know for sure that she was dead, that she had been changed, that she was never again going to stumble through the gates, shooting him a weary smile…

His legs finally gave out on the futon again and he sat still, shocked at the way his throat was closing up, shocked at the burning dryness in his eyes, and for the first time, he wondered about himself.

There was something Five had told him once, a quote she had from her trainer back at Mullins. She said she used it when she got scared out in the field. "When you're out of options, get low, get still, and listen for your heartbeat. As long as you've got that, you've got something left to give."

Sam ducked his head down under his arms and sat very still on the futon. Opening his mouth, he breathed evenly, trying to slow his heartbeat, trying to beat his way out through the thick trudge of time itself. But time insisted. Hours crawled through him as the sun sank low and he told himself that she had changed her mind, that she had found a safe place to sleep, that she had gone to a neighboring township…

Someone came to summon him to dinner and he waved them off, feeling nauseated. Five wasn't just his best runner. She had become his best friend as well. How many times had they saved each other's lives? How many times had he heard her hoarsely whispering his name through the headset and jumped on to guide her through the swarms? How many times had she found and smuggled some small contraband item to him, slipping it in his fingers under the mess table with a smile?
He had become used to her creeping quietly into the shack in the early morning, eyes bruised by nightmares, to curl up on the futon and catch a few last hours of sleep protected by the hum of his voice. He had become used to lazily watching her on the training grounds during the duller parts of his day, smiling out the window as he watched her form and speed noticeably improve each week. He had become used to her intimacy, as the whole township now viewed her as some superheroic badass and only he was granted the image of her as she was: her messy hair when she woke up, her whispered conversations during township meetings, her secret gentleness with the kids who followed her everywhere she went.

Yet still he had treated her like a child, let his anger at the doctor spill over onto her, risked her life with his petulant rage. She trusted him, and he had abandoned her.

It was well dark, and Abel had quieted when he heard a shout from the wall. His breath had sunk low and shallow, but the sound went through him like an electric charge. He sprang up, cheeks flooded with red, and heart springing forward again in anger and hope renewed, and he flung off the buzzing headset and ran from the room. The soldiers were shouting and the gate was scraping open, floodlights pouring out on the lurching figures of zombs wandering outside the gate. Gunfire picked them off, but Sam saw nothing else as he staggered down from his shack, nothing in the blinding light but dark figures tumbling back under the wave of bullets.

She appeared almost supernaturally in their midst, still running, her pack in one hand, a bloody bat in the other. She kept her head down in the bullets, running sure and smooth towards the gates, and they started closing as she stumbled through them, shutting off the last of the trailing horde.

"Five…" Sam was rattling, shaking, empty with relief and he moved towards her, the camp deserted, the soldiers struggling with the gate, but she didn't stop running. She dropped her pack and then her weapon as she came up the hill to him, her face set and eyes blazing. He stumbled to a halt, suddenly worried, remembering everything he had said that day in his anger and grief. He wondered what she would say, how much she would hate him and he tried to steel himself, to remind himself that he deserved it, that he had lost control, but he wasn't sure if he was ready for her to walk away from him, to end the friendship over this, to go back to nothing more than coworkers…

"Five…" he fumbled out again, and then she was on him, her body crashing into his, smelling of musk and copper, and her dirty hands were in his hair, fierce, and her wet mouth was on his, gentle and slow. He stumbled back and caught at her, at the warm, beating life of her, and he gasped and kissed her back, hungry and desperate, his emptiness filling. She said nothing, just continued to kiss him, pushing up on her toes against the hill, her fiery breaths slowing and calming against his lips, her heartbeat slowing and stuttering on his chest. Then she stopped, burying her face abruptly in his shoulder. "Don't you ever," she gasped, struggling to control her lungs, "talk to me that way again."

Sam slid his face down to her shoulder and squeezed his arms as tightly around her as he could. "Five," he whispered. "I thought you were dead. I thought I killed you. I – I just about lost my mind."

Dr. Maxine Meyers began a slow walk from the hospital to the gate. Casually, she observed Five's fingers, still slick with zombie blood, pulling lightly at Sam's hair and neck. "Well," she hummed to herself. "I guess we'll have to sanitize both of them tonight."