TITLE: The Fourth Horseman

AUTHOR: The She Devil

EMAIL: thranowski at gmail

CATEGORY: Drama

RATING: M for language, violence, sexuality.

SPOILERS: None. Unless everyone dies in season 15.

ARCHIVE: Please ask first.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything, including all the periodicals mentioned throughout (not even the ones I made up).

SUMMARY: As a deadly virus spreads through the human population, Nick fights to survive and keep those he loves safe. N/G slash, Sara friendship, Grissom makes an appearance (so GSR, I guess, briefly).

NOTES: As usual, this started out as a short story and turned into a monster. It's a slow burn, but hopefully you like it. It's three parts, separated into small parts, because that's how it wrote itself. I don't know how many chapters it is because it's all broken up into tiny parts and I don't feel like counting. Anyway, enjoy my latest efforts at apocalypse fanfiction.

WARNINGS: I usually don't put warnings, because it ruins everything, but there is non-con (not graphic). Oh, and multiple character deaths. It's the apocalypse, people.

ONE

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

- Winston Churchill

Sometime in the year 2016…

I stopped keeping track of the days a long time ago; now the only semblance I have of time is when the seasons change. After a while, it really didn't seem that important to know what day it was, or how much time had passed. Not when I didn't have a purpose anymore. No job, no home, no family, no…you.

I'm pretty sure it's been two winters since they took you. Long after the world had gone to shit, right when mine did. Because as long as we had each other, there was nothing we couldn't do together. I tried to save you. I swear I did. I hope if you remember anything about me, it's that. Not the fights, or the way that I never really let you in, or that I never went to any of those bars with you and your friends and how I pretended not to notice the disappointment in your eyes when I said I had to stay home and catch up on paperwork.

I would give anything to go back and spend that time with you instead.

Chances are that you're dead, along with 99% of the rest of the population. And when I grip my service pistol with white knuckles in the middle of the night, pressing the cool metal into the soft skin beneath my chin, my finger on the trigger, the fact that I'm not sure is the only thing that stops me.

Well, that, and the baby. I can't just leave her like that.

I just hope that if you're out there somewhere, you aren't suffering. I've seen now what men will do in times of desperation; what men will do when there is no one there to stop them, to stand up to them. When there are no more morals, no more rules.

When I think about what they could be doing to someone like you, I almost hope you're dead.

To be continued...