Note: This is the 2nd part of this story. Part one is called A Girl, An Apocalypse and A Dixon: The Beginning. Much of this story won't make sense without reading part one first.


It had been six months since the outbreak began and Alex and Jake brought all the survivors to stay at the Lazy H. They had settled into a routine fairly quickly after the first group meeting laying out the rules of the colony. For the most part, people were happy to contribute, happy to be relatively safe and have a place to live, not just survive.

Winter had arrived about a month after they established the colony. They had plenty of time to round up and slaughter enough livestock to provide enough meat for everyone through the winter, on the off chance that it snowed a lot that year. They were lucky; while it did snow it was not much, and not enough to do any damage by bringing down trees and branches.

The area did receive an abnormal amount of rain though. At one point in January the creek overflowed, flooding a portion of the meadow where they finally settled the trailers. It had been a long day, but they had managed to move all but one of the affected trailers.

Alex and Jake had also settled into a comfortable routine. They had shared a room since the night Alex was attacked by Aaron. The moving in was gradual; Alex started putting Jake's clean clothes into drawers that she cleared out for him in her dresser and he slowly started leaving toiletries and other personal effects in her bathroom and bedroom.

They still hadn't seen each other naked in the next context of their relationship. In fact, they had hardly done anything other than innocent, fully-clothed cuddling and chaste kissing, even though they shared a bed each night. Neither of them was in a hurry, they were both perfectly happy with things just as they were.

They both ran retrieval crews, so they rarely went on runs together. This made it easier for Jake to give Alex the space to grow that she both needed and deserved. Jake found that it was much easier for him to treat Alex as an equal and an adult once they embraced their relationship. It was like a switch flipped in his brain.

When Alex wasn't on runs she was out hunting or training with Sally. Sally had turned twelve just after the New Year and along with her new age she had been given new responsibilities. The council had put Sally in charge of the riding horses that they used for perimeter patrols and runs. Sally herded them from pasture to pasture each week and cycled the horses being ridden through the stalls in the barn, making sure that no single animal was over worked. Sally groomed them, fed them and mucked out the stalls daily, and Doc had even started showing her how to check their hooves for splits and check forelegs for less obvious injuries. Sally was a natural with horses, which should have been apparent to Alex from the way Honey had protected her the day she'd found Sally and her poor brother.

Sally even had the opportunity to deliver a foal. The Lazy H had been gathering various livestock that was running around free, mainly animals they could eat like cattle, goats and pigs, but they had also gathered horses that were of good quality and in good shape for riding. One of those horses they brought in was very close to delivery when she arrived and Doc took the opportunity to teach Sally everything he could about the equine birthing process.

Sally worked really hard at every task she was given and she was constantly volunteering for jobs that no one else wanted to do, especially things that would help her build her upper body strength. She occasionally lost control of her temper and had little outbursts, much like Alex was wont to do, but Sally was much better at keeping her cool long enough to remove herself from the situation.

Sally adored Alex and Jake. The three of them still stayed separately in the main house from everyone else, allowing them to settle into their own routine as an odd, post-apocalyptic family unit. Jake taught Sally anything she was willing to learn, though he had to admit that Alex had done a really thorough job teaching the girl everything that she knew. More often than not, Jake found himself repeating something that Alex had already told her. It made him both happy and annoyed at the same time.

Sally and Alex shared a special bond. They spent much of the winter out on the mountain in the rain; Alex taught Sally everything she knew about surviving off the land. Sally spent the little spare time that she had weight training and lifting anything she could find repeatedly. Her arms had finally become strong enough for her to carry the AR on her own.

Alex started taking the girl on the occasional run, much to the dismay of Kathy. While the woman no longer openly voiced her opposition to Alex's training of Sally, the look on her face when they arrived or left made Kathy's feelings crystal clear. Alex had managed to keep her cool with Kathy at all times but there were a few close calls that resulted in either Sally or Jake making excuses to drag Alex off.

Kara had continued to flirt with Jake, but she avoided Alex, almost comically. If Alex showed up unexpectedly in a room or around the barn, Kara would literally drop whatever she was doing and leave the area. She was failing miserably at ignoring Alex's existence. Kara's behavior hadn't escalated to the point that they could take any sort of official action against her, but she was really starting to frustrate a number of people around the ranch. Shelly had finally had enough and moved herself, Mary and Tommy out of the bunkhouse and into their own trailer not long after the first group meeting. She wouldn't tell anyone the specifics, but it was assumed she got tired of listening to Kara plot how she was going to win Jake back.

Shelly and Maggie Horton had been tasked with creating a school. While there were only seven kids that would benefit from it at the moment, the group felt it was important to continue to teach at least some of the things that they had been learning before the world went to shit. Alex, not surprisingly, felt that it was a waste of time for Sally to attend school and a long discussion had followed. Alex stood her ground.

"I just don't see what good it is for her to have her head filled with civil war battle dates and Shakespeare sonnets. She would be better served using that time to work on her hunting and fighting skills," Alex argued with Kathy, Maggie and the other members of the council. "And really, all the kids should be learning how to fight and hunt, not memorize shit that isn't important to surviving now."

Jake nodded in support, Kathy and Maggie looked aghast.

"What about Math? Geography? Science? Aren't there useful things to be gained from each of those subjects? Things Sally might use," Ellie asked.

Billy smiled at the group and held up his hand before Alex could respond. "Ellie's right, there's stuff she needs to learn, stuff that's just as important as huntin' and fightin'," he quickly added when he saw Alex starting to get wound up. Billy pushed on, "Maggie, what's the teachin' schedule going to be? You're not teachin' everythin' everyday, right?"

Maggie shook her head. "No. We thought we'd split it into two subjects a day since we only have the kids for four hours a day. We could easily split the subjects into blocks so Sally attends just a couple of days a week," Maggie offered.

"That work for you two," Billy asked Alex and Jake. They nodded in agreement.

"What about my suggestion of teaching the kids about weapons, hunting and fighting," Alex asked the group.

Kathy grimaced, but said nothing.

"Maggie, can you get me a schedule by tomorrow so we can figure out the best time for weapons training," Billy asked.

"Of course," Maggie said, nodding. "Who is going to teach these classes?"

"There's only seven kids, won't take much ta teach 'em tha basics," Jake said. "Al's done a good job teachin' Sally, why don't she teach it," he asked the group.

Alex lit up at the suggestion. "I'd be happy too! Sally can help me," she offered.

Kathy and Maggie shared a nervous glance.

"Let's look at the schedule and then we'll see how it works with everyone's assignments, okay," Billy suggested.

Of course, once the schedule was all worked out, it was easiest for Alex to teach the kids. Her runs usually were the most reliable, meaning her group returned around the same time every day. Defense lessons were scheduled after classes on the two days a week that Sally attended school. After lunch, Alex and Sally would teach the kids how to wrestle, handle a knife, throw a proper punch and how to aim and fire a gun. They also taught the kids some basic outdoors skills like how to start a fire, how to make water safe for drinking and edible plant identification.

It had been five months since they started the school and teaching the kids how to fight and survive. Alex was pleased with most of the children's progress, but Tommy just seemed uninterested in anything that Alex or Sally tried to teach him. He spent most of the lessons antagonizing Sally and trying to get a reaction out of her. Alex finally made him work with her and the little kids instead.

Through the winter they had classes in the barn, but now that is was April and spring had arrived, Alex was working with the kids down by the creek, alternating wrestling matches in the grass with identifying which plants were okay to eat and which weren't.

Alex was preoccupied during today's lesson, however. Jake and Tim had left early that morning to go scouting to the east, towards Empire Valley, the closest thing to the big city for fifty miles. Alex and Sally had seen smoke across a ridge to the east one morning just after sunrise when they were camping overnight on the mountain. That was sometime in February. Since then, the Lazy H had been sending out scouts in ones and twos, a couple miles at a time, looking for other survivors. So far they'd brought in about twenty people, from families and small groups that had been making it on other ranches.

One recent scouting group came across some unfriendlies and Zach had gotten grazed with a bullet in the arm. Zach and Ellie managed to escape, but the group ended up following them back. The attack was not a surprise, they'd detected the intruders with their "main road" watch, backup had arrived in plenty of time to defeat the attackers, but there were two deaths and several injuries. Jake and Alex had followed the group's back trail and created a fake trail to lead any others that might follow away from the area surrounding the Lazy H and the bodies had been deposited into the mass graves for the undead, leaving no trace of them behind.

After that, scouting groups were limited to only those with serious fighting and tracking skills, meaning Jake, Billy, Tim, Alex and a handful of others were handling most of the scouting runs. They'd pulled out the map that Jake had taken from the permit office goons at the beginning of everything and used it to plot out the places they'd already been, places they thought there might be larger groups of people and places they knew there were groups but had not yet made contact with.

It was a smaller group that had been identified as possibly unfriendly that Jake and Tim were going to observe that day. The first scouts hadn't seen any children and only a couple of disheveled women. One of the things that they had been looking for when encountering and sizing up a group was whether or not there were women and children present. They considered it a good sign to see people taking care of kids, while camps without children and women were more likely to be violent and dangerous.

This group was between the Lazy H and an oil company that had a huge supply of oil and gas just sitting in tankers waiting to be driven away. They didn't need the gas right now, but they would eventually and they didn't want to lose it to someone else, someone that might not be as good of people as they had at the Lazy H. They hadn't been able to scout the oil company property, just what they could see through binoculars from a distance. The group they were observing had scouts that covered the road that they would need to use in order to retrieve the tankers, which meant they would have to either make friends with this group or eliminate them before they could move on the tankers.

The council had spent hours trying to decide what to do. Ultimately they decided that they needed more information before they could decide to kill a whole group of people without making an attempt at friendly contact. Alex was the only one that wanted to go in guns blazing, but she quickly realized she was alone in that opinion and backed down, letting everyone else appease their consciences.

When Jake had volunteered to go on this scouting mission two days ago, he and Alex had argued, their first argument since their relationship had changed.

"I just don't understand why you have to go, though," Alex said as they got ready for bed that night. "There's others that volunteered."

"Ya want me ta let Tim go out there with jus' anyone," Jake replied before ducking into the bathroom to change into his pajamas behind the door.

"Of course not. I just hate that you're running towards the danger," Alex said as they traded places so she could change. When she emerged from the bathroom Jake stopped her and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her forehead and tilted her chin up to look her in the eyes.

"Now ya know how I feel," he said with an impish grin. "Ya gotta trust me, Al. Like I trust ya ta always come back ta me. Worked too hard ta get ya ta lose ya now. We'll be back in two days, just like the plan," he said kissing her on the nose and her cheeks before gently and briefly kissing her lips. Alex sighed and rested her forehead on Jake's chest.

"I know. I'm just scared… two days is too long," she whispered into his chest.

"We been over this. We gotta go on foot and it'll take too much time to get there. I wanna make sure we got enough time ta really see who they are. There's a lot riding on this decision," Jake said, nuzzling his nose into her neck as he hugged her close to his body.

"How're the fightin' midgets comin'," Billy asked Alex, bringing her back to the present. Billy had wandered over from the barn where he and Ellie were doing basic maintenance on a couple of the trucks.

"They're all doing really well, except for Tommy. That boy won't do anything I say. He just antagonizes Sally to no end. They used to be such good friends, I don't know what happened," Alex said.

"You serious? He's a thirteen year old boy - he's givin' her shit cuz he likes her," Billy said with a laugh.

"Yeah, well, Sally's just about had enough. He's gonna end up getting his ass kicked if he doesn't knock it off," Alex said.

"And that'll probably make him like her even more," Billy said with a huge grin. He nodded to Alex to follow him; she nodded to Sally who took over the entire class. Alex followed Billy a little ways away from the group so they were out of earshot.

"So what's up," Alex asked Billy when he stopped walking.

"Just wanted to check with you about your plans for the rest of the day. I figured with Jake leavin' you would want to take Sally out for some trainin'," Billy said, offering Alex a cigarette and a light. They had gotten lucky and come across a delivery truck behind the general store that apparently had been there to deliver cigarettes when everything went down. The guy must have been at the beginning of his route because the truck was practically full, with a variety of cigarettes. Zach had earned major points for the discovery.

Alex took the cigarette and smiled at Billy. "It's like you're a mind reader or something," she said. "Am I really that predictable?"

"Just to those of us payin' attention," Billy replied. "Ain't much goin' on here, Sally's chores can be handled by Zach for one day, even though the horses don't like him nearly as much as they like Sal. You weren't scheduled for a run tomorrow anyway and since we don't have to have a burial/disposal team everyday anymore I got plenty of people to cover you two being gone. Any idea where you're goin'?"

Before Alex could respond, a shrill scream pierced the air, coming from where the kids were practicing. Alex took off running with Billy on her heels and a few others that had been within earshot.

"GET OFF ME," Tommy yelled from the ground where he was pinned under Sally with his face down in the dirt and his arm wrenched behind his back painfully.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON," Alex bellowed as she came upon the scene.

"She punched me in the face and threw me on the ground," Tommy cried from the ground.

"Sally, let him up," Alex said as she pulled the girl off. "What happened?"

"He tried to grab my knives," Sally said calmly.

"Is that true," Billy asked Tommy who was slowly getting to his feet.

"She wouldn't let me see them when I told her to give them to me," Tommy whined.

"She doesn't have to," Alex said stiffly. "Serves you right."

Tommy looked from Alex to Billy. "You mean she's not gonna get in trouble for hitting me," Tommy cried.

"What's going on? Tommy, why are you bleeding," Shelly asked as she pushed through the growing crowd to her little brother's side.

Billy quickly explained the situation to Shelly who took one look at her brother and knew that Billy was telling the truth.

"What in god's name is wrong with you, boy," she exclaimed, smacking him over the back of the head. "You've got no business playing with knives. Can I take him back to the trailer Billy or do you want to add something else," Shelly asked.

"You can take him," Billy said. "This happens again, boy, and you and I are gonna have an unpleasant conversation, you understand," Billy threatened, leaning down into Tommy's face. Tommy tried to shrink back without getting too close to his sister and nodded his head.

The crowd began to disperse and Alex dismissed the children before she and Sally followed Billy back to the barn.

"So where you two off to then," Billy asked as Ellie handed him a wrench and he got back to work.

"I was thinking we could work on knife throwing if we could find some live targets. I thought we might press west, to the furthest places we cleared. See if there are any strays," Alex said.

"We're going out," Sally asked excitedly. "What about the horses?"

"Don't worry about it, Zach is gonna cover you for the day," Alex said.

"West sounds good. Haven't had anyone check out that way for a while. I take it you'll be going on horseback since there's no road that way," Billy asked.

Alex nodded. They finished planning, Alex deciding that they would be back by dinner the following evening. She and Sally hurried back to the house to pack a few items and returned to the barn to saddle the horses and then headed out.