Dancing in the Shadows

Every time she looked up he was there. As if to protect her from the dangers that lay in wait outside, as if he had to stay near her even when she was inside and safe. At first she was shocked to always find him nearby. She needed time alone, time to cope with Louis's death. And she couldn't do it with people constantly around her, couldn't do it when he was there, staring at her as if he looked away and she just vanished. But now, she didn't want him to leave. It's not like he could anyway, what with all those things outside. But she didn't want him to not be there, she wanted him to stay. Stay watching him with those beautiful eyes and that handsome face.

Ana couldn't grieve for Louis forever, and she couldn't just survive forever. She needed comfort and reassurance and…love. Her only problem was that she couldn't ask for it. She didn't know for certain whether Michael loved her. But she would surely bet her money on it, if money still mattered in this changed world. She didn't know what would happen to her, what would happen to the others around her, and she almost didn't care. She still had to wrap her mind around the fact that she was living in a mall with a bunch of people she barely knew yet had to trust her life with. And she still had yet to admit to herself that she saw something in Michael, had found something in him, something like what she had felt with Louis. And that was love.

Forming a romance in a zombie infested world, in a mall, was quite difficult. It wasn't like they could go out on any dates, admiring the sights, and being left alone in one place for long enough. And she didn't know much about romance to begin with, didn't exactly expect too much from a guy in the first place. She had been with Louis for as long as she could remember, and she had gotten so used to seeing him, so used to being around him, that she never really thought of romance and true love and dates and whatever else there was to think about.

From the earliest days, they were dancing in the shadows

She knew she felt safe with Michael, knew that he would always be there to protect her. She knew that he was trying, trying to make a move on her, and she felt guilty because she wasn't making it any easier on him. They had good memories in this place, this mall. They had watched movies together, dined together (though not alone), and talked whenever they could manage to get time alone. She wondered how Andre and Luda did it. But then again she didn't really like what they had become. They had isolated themselves and lived in a baby store. One thing she couldn't do was isolate herself from the others. She liked them all in her own little way, she trusted them all. But she never saw any of them in the way that she saw Michael.

She loved it when he smiled. Which, let's just say, was rare. But now that everyone was beginning to settle into their new home and accept their new lives, there were more and more smiles. And she shared more and more of her own smiles with him. She grew to be more comfortable around him, feeling it okay to talk to him about her old life. She found out that he was a good listener, a good man. And then that one night at dinner, one of the last things about his life that he had told her. He had been married, he had been a father. And suddenly she felt uncomfortable. Suddenly she realized how much Michael needed someone too. He cared about her, wanted to start a life with her. And she found herself wanting to start a life with him too.

Ana wanted things between her and Michael to go a little faster. She and him had both silently agreed to take it slow, but now after months of living in one place for so long, she no longer wanted to deny herself the things that she wanted. She was safe, protected with the others, no longer needing to survive in a way that the people outside the comforts of the mall were probably having to do. While she missed Louis a part of her was also begging herself to let him go. She was living a new life, with new people, and new love interests. She loved Michael. And the more she woke up in the morning and went to sleep at night, the more she realized it.

Ana loves Michael…

She thought of it as something to be carved into the bathroom stalls, hoping he would notice and finally come to her and tell her what he thought of her.

She thought of it as something to mull over in her head, enough so that it drove her crazy and made her feet move to walk towards him and tell him what she thought of him.

She thought of it as something to be proud of, to declare to the world. Or at least the inhabitants of the mall. She wanted to make it real and genuine.

She wanted to tell him but for some reason she couldn't form the words.

That night when Andre and Luda and Norma were found dead she broke down completely. She cried. Cried for all the people they had lost, all the people they could still lose. She cried for the fact that she couldn't understand why she was still living, couldn't understand why people had to keep on dying around her. She felt cursed. People shouldn't be killed by people. If they had to be killed it should be by zombies. But her friends shouldn't have been killed by her other friends. It just made no sense to her. Nothing made much sense to her anymore.

Ana cried as Michael ran up to her in the bedding section of a department store, cried as he embraced her and whispered words in her ears. Words that everything would be alright and that he would always protect her. He wrapped his strong and warm arms around her, pulling out her hair tie to let her hair be free and cascade in waves down her face and shoulders. He was the one who brushed her hair away because she couldn't do much but cry for what seemed like hours that night. She cried so loud she wondered how the others didn't hear her. She convinced herself that night that Michael truly loved her. It was in the way that he held her, so gently but yet so strongly so as not to let her slip through his grasp.

She felt what she had felt the first time she had seen him. Standing there all bloodied with that certain look in his eye, the look that she had wanted to return but she couldn't because her head was still spinning with what happened not even an hour before. She stayed close to him, feeling strangely safe with him. He had looked back at her a few times, even smiling in reassurance once when she felt so exhausted and scared she thought she might collapse. When they reached the mall she wanted to scream at him to stop when he went off to go search the place. But the words died in her throat and she knew they would sound crazed and weird in her mouth anyway. He was protecting her, she knew, not wanting those creatures to sneak up on her. But, she thought, what about him? What if he died and she felt guilty towards a man she hardly knew because she couldn't protect him? She didn't even know his name, and he didn't even know hers.

Ana wanted to get out of the mall. She needed new scenery, more air to breathe in. But a part of her also knew she would miss the place. She thought she would never find this kind of safety again, this kind of peace of mind again. She could maybe, give it some more time, start a life with Michael here. She knew he wanted to because she could see it in his eyes. She had a bad feeling not all of them would make it. Ana had a bad feeling that Michael wouldn't make it. He would do whatever he could to protect her. Which meant that she would probably make it out. But him? She would do whatever it took to protect him too. But she wasn't sure how much she could do, or if it would make much of a difference. Yeah, they needed to get out of this damn mall. But they also needed to stay alive and together. She wanted Michael with her and safe more than anything in the world right now. More than anything.

During her time spent in the mall there were lots of constant roiling emotions, enough to make her feel like a bipolar freak. She got pissed off, a lot, sometimes even at Michael. But it never lasted that long because Michael was always there to say something that instantly made her feel better, or even leave her speechless. Michael was the guy who was there for her to turn to, the one who looked at her and seemingly could hold her gaze for hours on end. She stared and amazed herself at the sight of him across the dinner table, talked and walked around the mall with him in the evenings, drinking wine and holding hands. She didn't want to rush this love. Didn't want to waste this love. She liked it slow and sweet for the most part. No one could take away this love.

And it was in that damn truck that they first kissed. After all that time they had just done it. And it had felt good. Ana didn't want anything else in that moment, nothing else but him. Michael. She liked the way the letters rolled across her tongue, left her mouth like the only word that should leave her mouth. As soon as she leaned in closer and her lips were on his she could think of nothing else. She couldn't remember that they were in a truck in a mall in a zombie infested world. She couldn't remember that even if her and Michael became official that their romance was bound to last for a few weeks at most. She couldn't remember Louis, and she certainly could not remember how she had got here in the first place. Her life flashed before her eyes. Not her life before, but her life ever since she laid eyes on Michael. He was who she wanted to be with. He was the one who was kissing her frantically right now, as if the world didn't exist outside. As if his kiss could make everything else go away and never come back and never hurt her. She would forever be safe with him. She would forever be with him.

She loved him and that was all that would ever matter in a world like this…