A/N: Hello, lovely people! Thanks for checking this out, I hope you'll be entertained. This is movie-verse. Prior to this story, things have proceeded exactly as we saw on-screen: R falls hard for Julie, saves her & takes her home, she gets to know him, they start changing the world. I love the movie scene with Julie's Dad, but then this alternate version popped into my head… hope you like it.

[Side note to the people who follow me as an author in other fandoms… give this one a try, you won't get lost. I think it's self-explanatory, and Warm Bodies is simply the most awesome movie ever, so I want everyone to know about it! J]

I confess, I copied a little bit of the early description from my previous fanfic Take A Chance (Julie's Story) because, efficiency. But it's not plagiarism 'cause I wrote the original. Lazy, maybe, but not plagiarism J A fair amount of the dialog, however, is straight from the movie, so I can't claim credit for those lines.

The Situation Has Changed

by ChiefPam

R, Nora and I enter Dad's headquarters. The offices at the front of the building are deserted, so we move on to the cavernous warehouse space behind. There are military vehicles, piles of supplies, and soldiers moving around purposefully. We slow, and I look around for my dad.

"Okay, you guys wait here," I direct Nora and R. I spot Dad across the way and start walking over to him.

He sees me coming and sighs. "What are you doing here?" He leaves his companions behind and meets me in the middle of the warehouse.

That's too complicated to answer. "What is going on? What is all this?"

"Not sure," he says, walking. "But it's not good. We've been getting reports that there are sizeable packs of skeletons and corpses coming toward us. We don't know why…but if they're here to attack, there's nothing we can do about it. Too many of them, too few of us." Wow. That's unusually grim, even for Dad. I look towards the side of the cavernous space to spot a red hoodie. Nora and R are keeping up with us, that's good.

"Dad, listen," I say, tugging on his elbow. "I know why the corpses are coming this way, and they're not coming to attack us. The skeletons – they call them bonies, by the way, not that it matters – they're coming to attack. The corpses are coming to help us out."

He slows to a halt next to a Jeep, looking at me like I'm crazy. "Julie, what are you talking about?"

I grab the chance to keep talking; once he gets started it's hard to interrupt him. "I lied to you, Dad."

His eyebrows go up, but I have his full attention.

"When I said I escaped? I didn't. Not really." Leaving without saying goodbye is not the same thing as escaping. "I was hiding out – well, no, I was being hidden. And protected." I'm still not going to tell him exactly where, though, just in case. I take a deep breath. "I spent the last three days hanging out with a corpse."

His mouth falls open slightly, and his eyes narrow.

I put my hands up an instictive defensive gesterue. "I'm not infected, Dad, remember? Kevin did the eye scan thing, this morning. Nothing bit me, honestly. R protected me, took care of me. He's different, Dad. And the others are changing, now, too." He's just staring at me. "I think the dead… are coming back to life."

Behind Dad, I can see R watching us hopefully. I meet his eyes and shake my head just a little. Dad's not quite ready for him to come out yet, I don't think. Not when Dad's spent the last five years single-mindedly focusing on killing zombies of all kinds.

He's shaking his head, impatient. "Julie, we're not their friends, we are their food. They don't eat broccoli, they eat brains, and they are not becoming vegan, okay?"

"Yes, they are!" I have to raise my voice to get a word in edgewise. I shoot a quick look around, no one seems alarmed. "They're, I don't know, somehow curing themselves. The corpses, I mean. But the bonies don't like it, and they're coming after me, Dad. Me and R, both, because we started something, the two of us."

"How do you think you know this?"

"R told me." I lift my chin a little, gathering my courage. "When he came to the house, a few hours ago."

That stuns him into speechlessness. Astonishment mixed with disgust, anger and fear. Very slowly, controlling himself tightly, he asks, "There's a corpse inside the city?"

"He's my friend, Dad." I resist the urge to look at R, standing behind Dad across the room. "He hasn't hurt anyone, he isn't going to hurt anyone. And he's the only one who came in; the others are waiting outside."

"If one can get in," he says, still in that overly controlled voice, "the others can get in. Where is this breach, Julie?"

In my rush to defend the corpses, I'd momentarily forgotten about the bonies. Maybe I need to tell him, after all. I just don't want to, because that's where… right. I take a deep breath. "It's being guarded," I tell him. "By R's friends." I wish I felt a little more confident about that, but, well, I have to trust R here.

"Dad, you have to trust me." Yeah, I can see by his face that that's not happening. "Listen, I will introduce you to R if you promise not to shoot him."

"It's here?" His head snaps up and he starts looking around. I can't see R and Nora, anymore, so that's good. "How did it get here?"

"We walked, Dad. We put some makeup on his face, so he wouldn't be so obvious, and nobody noticed."

Dad turns back to me with a skeptical expression. One corner of his mouth twitches up. "Makeup?"

I smile, just a little, in response. "Yeah, he didn't really like that idea, but he cooperated anyway. Poor guy. We had some new music for him to listen to, so that helped. He hadn't heard new music in a long time."

"Who's we? Never mind, I know - it's Nora. And… music?" Dad's starting to look a little less angry and a little more confused. I'll take that as a good sign.

I shrug. "He likes music. All kinds, really. He's got a record player and a *ton* of old records. He spent hours playing them for me. Which is how I know he's a good sport, but not a good dancer." Gah, I know I'm talking too much, must be nerves. This is the most important thing I've ever tried to do, and the stakes… I can't think about that.

A look of enlightenment crosses Dad's face. "Okay. Julie, we're going to go over to the medical tent, and see if they can help you…"

I cross my arms and plant my feet. "I was not hallucinating, Dad. It really happened. I know, it's bizarre, but it really happened. R was different when I met him, and since then… He's changing, and he feels, and he's learning to be human again. And that has spread to the others, Dad. They're dreaming!"

He frowns. "Corpses don't dream. They don't sleep."

"I know!" I wave my hands around a little for emphasis. "But R does, now! He was asleep this morning. And dreaming, and he said some of the others were dreaming, too, and remembering."

One eyebrow goes up. "You saw him sleeping?"

"Yeah, I did. I got out of bed and left the house without waking him up, too, and…"

"You were sleeping with him?" Now his voice is getting loud, and I flush with embarrassment.

"No, Dad, it wasn't like that." Although now that he mentions it... "He was on the floor. The previous nights, he'd like, pretend to sleep, just to make me feel more comfortable – no playing records or anything to disturb me – but last night… well, this morning he was turned on one side, and his eyes were closed. I've barely ever seen him with his eyes closed, he doesn't even blink, which was really creepy at first but then I got used to it." I stop to suck in a big breath. "But we're getting off topic, which is the bonies coming after him and me."

"Hi," a voice says off to the side, and I blink, turning to see R standing there.

Dad just looks at him. "Who are you?"

"This is R," I inform him, stepping to R's side and holding his hand for the second time. "He saved my life, a lot."

"Well, I didn't ask you," Dad says mildly. "I asked him." Turning to study R's face, he repeats himself. "Who are you?"

I look back and forth between them, nerves churning as I realize that the next moment could either save or destroy the world.

to be continued…

Too short, right? Don't hate me! I'll get part 2 up tomorrow. And it's not that bad of a cliffhanger, really.

Reviews are love, if you'd care to leave one. Also, crack for writers. Authors who get reviews tend to write more. J Scientific fact!