A/N Simply because, though I love Daryl, there aren't enough Rick/OC stories out there… (story was taken down and re-posted to allow for changes in plot and certain scenes)
Story Rated T for graphic violence, swearing and mild sexual situations.
CHAPTER 1
'It's amazing how fast the world can go from bad to total shit storm'.
-Zombieland (2009)
Day 1
"Okay, so the date is the….2nd April 2010 and the time is 5:03 P.M, and, well, my name is Sarah Hannigan. I'm a vaccine scientist. I have a BS in microbiology and public health and an MS and a PhD in immunology, I –" the young woman broke off, glancing at the webcam in front of her and then at the computer that it was hooked up to. She looked at the screen and the video of herself on it, watching as her features were pulled into a frown.
"Hey! Ed? What am I supposed to be doing here?" She asked, pushing her chair away from her desk – a remarkable feet in itself considering how cluttered the room was.
Dr Sarah Hannigan's office was small and cramped, a room given to her in haste so that she could begin with her tasks as quickly as possible. The lab she was head of was considerably more organized and efficient, but as it was, her office only consisted of a large, plain desk, a computer, a heap of files and a few co-workers.
Edwin Jenner, who had been otherwise preoccupied by the latest documents of lab test results, glanced up. "I'm sorry, what was that?"
Sarah rolled her eyes, waving her hand behind her in the general vicinity of the computer and webcam. "What am I supposed to be saying here, exactly? I've only been at the CDC, what? A day?"
"Just your observations and experiences so far. We need to document everything."
"Is it really that important?" she asked exasperatedly, aware that a few of her other colleagues had momentarily stopped their own work to hear the verdict on the situation from a higher-up. For his part, Jenner seemed incredibly blasé.
"No idea." He shrugged. "Best to be on the safe side though."
Sarah nodded, the crease between her eyebrows smoothing as her frown lifted. "Well, okay then."
"Is there anything else? Blood tests haven't come through yet, have they?"
"No, not yet. I'll let you know when Adam gives me the data."
Jenner nodded, rubbing the stubble on his chin with a hand. Sarah thought that he looked tired, but in her family they had a long and tortured history of not saying what they ought to and not meaning what they do, so instead of sounding vaguely worried, she managed to blurt out: "You look like shit."
He rolled his eyes. "And you arrived for this job two days late – so I wouldn't go insulting your seniors."
"Oi! My plane was delayed. And did the world end in my absence?"
"Could well have done. When we get those blood test results back, I'll let you know."
Sarah's heart pinched and she felt the blood in her veins jolt. "I thought you said this wasn't serious."
"Sarah, if this wasn't serious why did they make one of the most qualified vaccine scientists fly all the way to Atlanta from Boston."
"But…there have only been two cases!"
"That we know of," Jenner corrected. He glanced around him to make sure everyone was working before grabbing a chair and positioning it in front of Sarah. He sat down, resting his forearms on his legs and leaning in close to look her in the eye. "This thing could spread like wildfire, Hannigan." He said, in a serious under-tone. "I haven't got all the information right now, but I know from the autopsy's performed on the two bodies we have access to that this isn't good. Now, what I need right now is for you to finish this video log and then – maybe when we can run data from more blood samples – figure out how serious a situation we have on our hands. Okay?"
All short-comings and failings considered, the one thing you couldn't fault Sarah Hannigan for, was her remarkable ability to keep level-headed considering the circumstances and the weight of the information that she'd just become privy to. She stood up quickly, brushing her short blond hair out of her eyes and shook her head at Jenner. "Priorities. If this thing is as bad as your saying – we're going to need those blood test results a hell of a lot faster than by tomorrow morning. I'm going to find Adam."
Before she could walk away, however, the older man grabbed her arm quickly. "You can't say anything. I don't want anyone to panic. Not yet. Not until we find out how bad this actually is."
Sarah nodded mutely in agreement before glancing at the webcam. "The camera's still running."
"I'll delete the file. You go get that report."
Day 2
Barely two days later, and it had quickly become apparent how serious of a problem the CDC based in Atlanta had on its hands. The two cases that Jenner had been aware of multiplied to twenty in under an hour and then to roughly two hundred by that time the next day. Sarah was over-whelmed with data – autopsy's on suicide victims, autopsy's on failed suicide victims that had somehow managed to come back to life, blood analysis's…
"Sarah!"
Sarah was pulled from the perpetual rain cloud of uncharacteristic indecision that had plagued her mind since that morning by a soft-featured, fiery-haired woman.
Dr Candace Jenner.
Unlike her husband – who was more concerned with the how and the why of the unknown virus, Candace Jenner's field of interest lay very much more in that of Sarah's – in the treating, the healing, of the virus.
Candace appeared at Sarah's side, grabbing her arm and re-directing her from the corridor she'd been hurrying down, turning her in the opposite direction.
"I've been looking for you everywhere," said the older woman.
"What's going on? Has Browning got back to us?"
Jason Browning – Sarah's immunology professor from college – had been called in from New York when it became increasingly apparent that – though Candace and Sarah, and the small team they were head of had all the data they needed - they had no where near the man power or technology required to process it all. It was a last-ditch attempt to call in more help from leading scientists that hadn't already volunteered their services to the cause.
"He can't get to Atlanta. All flights coming in or going out of the city have been grounded," said Candace, looking harassed as she pulled Sarah through some more corridors. "I wish I had better news for you, Sarah. I'm sorry. But it looks like we're going to have to figure how to create a vaccine for this thing before it spreads any further."
"Brilliant." Muttered Sarah, rolling the sleeves of her white lab coat up to her elbows. "Where are we going exactly?"
"The vaccine's about to be tested." Candace explained, not glancing at her co-worker as she determinedly marched down the corridor. "We've got to be there."
Sarah stopped in her tracks, and Candace, whose hand was still around Sarah's forearm, was jerked to a halt. "Now?" asked Sarah, aghast. "Candace, that's impossible! We haven't finished developing it yet!"
"We don't have time!" Candace said, attempting to pull Sarah back into a walk. "Someone just volunteered to go through the trail phase. We don't have the time to be perfecting the vaccine when it could work now."
Sarah could feel her heart rate pick up; her pulse was crashing through her body like a drum beat. Or a clock – ticking down the precious moments they had until there was no time left. She knew Candace was right. It wasn't ideal, but there was no time. The primitive, basic form of the vaccine would have to do – there was no time to perform pre-testings on animals or other humans, there was no time to get it cleared by the government. It was now or never.
Sarah looked at Candace. "Okay. Take me there."
The pair took off at a hurried jog – other scientists making their way against them in the corridor stood to the side to make way for the two more senior doctors.
"The volunteer's male," Candace filled her in, as they dived down yet another passageway. "Around twenty – healthy immune system, no other health issues. It's ideal."
Sarah nodded, panting as they came to some double doors, which Candace quickly threw open.
The room that the pair stepped into was of one of those white, overly-clean and sterile types. Glaring white light shone from the ceiling onto a basic operating table, on which a young man was lying. Next to him was another, smaller table, at which two intern doctors in scrubs and masks were prepping the vaccine ready for either Candace or Sarah to administer.
One wall of the room was made almost entirely out of glass, and on the other side of that window, Sarah thought she could make out the shadowy silhouette of Edwin Jenner. She watched as Candace – who almost instinctively seemed to know of her husband's presence – glanced up towards the glass and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. It was now or never.
The two woman made their way over to the operating table and Sarah found that she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of the young man lying upon it.
His eyes were firmly closed, his cheeks pale and his brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He was nervous.
"I make an adorable lab-rat, huh Doc?" he croaked, a trace of a weak smile gracing his lips when his eyes flickered open.
Sarah could hear Candace moving around behind her, readying the vaccine and moved herself slightly so that she'd strategically placed herself in the man's line of vision of the foreboding looking needle.
"What's your name?"
"Jace Shephard,"
"You're a scientist here?"
"I'm a chef at the cafeteria, actually," he said, and when Sarah looked at him questioningly, as if to ask 'so why are you here?' he shrugged. "If there's a chance of a cure, I want to help: the news came through this morning that my fiancé got bit."
Sarah blinked. "I'm sorry to hear that."
The man ignored her, adjusting his head so it rested more comfortably against the operating table. He squinted up into the glare of the lights from the ceiling above, not looking at Sarah. "You know, this whole thing is new to me."
She felt the corner of her mouth lift, almost despite herself. "What? Being a lab-rat?"
He chuckled, then glanced at Candace - who had appeared at Sarah's side - and at the vaccine she was holding. "No." he said. "Hoping."
"Sarah, if you could step back now, please. Okay, Mr. Shephard – this is going to hurt a bit." Candace glanced up at the window again – at the people who stood on the other side who would be documenting and recording the whole scene. Her voice became louder as she addressed the room – clearer and more authorative. "Patient's name is Mr. Jace Shephard. The time is now 11.59 A.M. This is the test run of vaccine R5 01. Vaccine being administered in 3…2…1..."
Sarah watched as the needle was inserted into the crook of Jace Shephard's arm. He was out cold in less than four seconds.
Come on she whispered. Please work. This has to work. Please work.
There was a flurry of movement. The two intern doctors – who had stood back whilst the vaccine was being administered – rushed forwards to check the monitors that Jace was hooked up to the moment Candace stepped away from the operating table.
"Vitals are good," reported one intern, glancing at the monitor before ripping off his gloves and placing two fingers to the pulse point on Jace's throat. "Pulse is strong."
Sarah closed her eyes.
Vaccine R5 01 had to work. If it worked on the individual, it could work on entire communities. If herd-immunity was achieved it decreased the number of susceptible individuals and if the number of susceptible people dropped low enough – the disease would be wiped out because there wouldn't be enough people to carry out the catch-and-infect cycle. The remaining walkers could be killed and this whole thing would be a thing of the past. Sarah could feel her palms begin to sweat – theoretically it could work. It depended on how easily the disease could mutate and how fast it could spread.
She opened her eyes again. Candace was now hovering at her side, the two women both tense as they observed the medical interns rush around the body in front of them.
"If this works…" Sarah said, her hands clenching into fists, nails biting into the palm of her hand.
"…then our names go down in history," Candace murmured. She turned to look at Sarah. "If this works we've prevented what could potentially be the most dangerous out-break of disease in America. We save this mans fiancé, along with the rest of Atlanta and other Southern States."
Sarah swallowed. "If this works," she repeated, the words taking on a whole different meaning to what they had before.
And really, for minutes, it looked like it could. Jace Shephard's heart beat – though he still remained unconscious – was marked stoically by the beep of the heart monitor at regular intervals. Sarah allowed herself to think that maybe – maybe – it could be that easy. That when Jace woke up, a blood analysis would prove that his body had developed immunity to the pathogen, and that then the vaccine could be mass produced and distributed to the communities.
But the monitor flat-lined and for all the world, Sarah had not heard a worse noise than that God-awful, drawn out screeching.
"Oh, shit! No. No no no no no n- NO!" she screamed, beginning to race over to the operation table before she realized that she wasn't a doctor.
She was a scientist.
She could tell you exactly what immunoglobulin was, where it was found and how it effected the body. She could tell you how immunity had developed over time and could practically quote the text book on microbiology.
For the life of her, however, she could not tell you how to re-start the human heart.
"Shit!" she yelled tugging at her blonde hair in frustration. What could she do?
Candace rushed past her, towards Jace and the two interns. Sarah couldn't help but admire the calmness and skill with which Candace mastered the situation – she somehow exuded an air of authority which seemed to only have been achieved from years of experience on the field.
"Step back," Candace ordered the two interns, before turning to Sarah. "Go and find a defribulator, Sarah."
"We don't have time!"
"Do you want him to die? Go and find a defribulator – now!"
Sarah felt her mind begin to seize up in shock as she whirled round and made for the double doors.
Despite the panic she was feeling, there was still the small section of her brain that was moving methodically through the possible errors of the vaccine like it was a simple experiment. The vaccine shouldn't be deadly. They didn't use any toxic chemicals. This shouldn't be happening.
She threw open the doors, almost running into Edwin Jenner, who was standing on the other side.
"Sarah!" he said, grabbing her by the elbows to stop her. "What the fuck is going on in there?"
"I don't know. One moment he was fine, then the monitor flat-lined and –"
Sarah was abruptly cut off by a sound some people called a scream, but really the noise didn't come anywhere close. If Jenner hadn't been gripping her arm – thereby physically restraining her – Sarah would have been back in the operating room in seconds.
She struggled against his grip, knowing that his brain hadn't quite processed what he had heard. "That was Candace, Ed! Candace! Let. Me. Go! ED! Listen! That was Candace!"
She could see his expression clear from its previous blank one. His eyes widened.
With a feral cry, Jenner ripped open the doors with all the bodily force that a tall, strong man like him normally kept in check and pulled Sarah back into the room after him.
If she twisted her head a certain way, she could see past Ed's form to look at the operating table – stained red with blood. The glass window that took up the wall to her right was spider-web shattered from something, and just as Sarah processed that, she realized that what she was seeing: Jace Shephard, alive – or, at least, walking – was impossible. Because Jace was biting into someone's arm – and that someone, who was looking directly into the eyes of her husband with tears of pain blinding her vision – was Candace Jenner.
Ed moved forward in one easy motion, his right fist connecting with the face of what had once been Jace Shephard, knocking it back. Supporting his wife, whose arm was bleeding out freely down the front of his shirt, Jenner turned to Sarah.
"Kill it!" he yelled. "Sarah, kill it!"
And Sarah just stood.
The smell of fresh blood was sending the walker into a frenzy. But it didn't look like a walker. It didn't bare the grotesque, ashen skin or the missing limbs like other walkers that Sarah Hannigan had seen. This walker looked exactly like Jace Shephard had minutes ago, sans the disturbing white in its eyes, the broken nose from Jenner's punch and Candace's blood that was smeared across its face.
Quite easily, it could have been human.
It sure as fuck looked human – and that was the hardest part of the whole situation.
That, and the knowledge that – in some way – it was Sarah's vaccine that had somehow caused all this.
"Kill it!" Jenner screamed again.
Guilt coursing through her veins, panic and fear and adrenaline and a million other feelings and emotions that Sarah couldn't quite name sparking in her body; she lunged forward for a medical scalpel that sat on the smaller table in the room.
The sudden movement catching its eye, the walker turned its attention from Candace to Sarah – running towards her.
In a motion not quite as fluid or as coldly precise as that of Jenner's punch, Sarah stepped forward. For one, horrible second, she was staring into its eyes. For another she had her hand firmly gripping the back of its neck, preventing its snapping teeth from getting any closer to her and holding its head in place. And in the last moment, she was plunging the scalpel through the forehead and into the brain.
The walker gave a sickening jerk, but continued to struggle against Sarah's grip, reaching for her.
You look like a human, she thought. It feels like I'm murdering a person.
Stifling her gagging reflex, she removed the scalpel, plunging it into a different part of the head. Blood was gushing from the walker's wounds and onto her forearms and hands, staining them red.
Once the walker had dropped to the ground, and she'd kicked it with her foot to ensure it was definitely dead, she turned to Jenner and Candace.
It was the strangest thing, watching a grown man fall to pieces. Sarah could barely speak, barely move – unable to disturb the moment that almost seemed sacred as she watched a man mourn his wife, who, though was not dead yet, might as well have been.
From where she stood, it looked more like Candace was holding Jenner up. His head was bowed, resting on her collar-bone. Her free arm – the one that wasn't bleeding profusely – was resting on his shoulder, her hand playing with the hair on the nape of his neck.
"You'll be fine with out me," she whispered. "You and Sarah. You can do it – you can find the cure. With out me."
"But you weren't supposed to," he choked out. "Not you."
"I know," she murmured soothingly. "I know. But it'll help research. You can use my body for research."
"No!"
"Ed, listen to me. You can do this."
Jenner straightened, gripping his wife's shoulders as he seemed to visibly attempt to collect himself. "Why did this happen to you? What happened to make him turn?"
Candace shrugged, looking towards Sarah for the first time. "Sarah?"
"I don't know," Sarah said, frustrated. She looked down at her hands, at the blood that caked them. "The vaccine uses a weakened live form of the virus. I aged it – altered its growth conditions. The organism in the vaccine shouldn't have been enough to turn him into a walker…it should have been successful. The virus should have multiplied in the blood stream - the - the body would be able to produce the right antibodies and create a large enough immune response to destroy the pathogen." She looked up at Jenner, trying desperately to justify the vaccine. "The organism in the vaccine was too weak to have been enough to turn him into a walker – at least, not that quickly."
Something in Candace's eyes sparked. "Unless –"
"-unless there was some of the disease in the blood stream already that the weakened organism in the vaccine only added to." Jenner said for her, his eyes widening. "The vaccine would have acted like a walker bite – just adding enough more of the organism into the body to trigger the change…and…and because we injected the vaccine directly into the blood stream, it happened more quickly than if it had just been a normal bite."
Sarah froze. "But that means…" she was quiet for a second, before lashing out – kicking the smaller table so that it smashed into the wall. "Son of a bitch!" she screamed. "A vaccine's impossible – if we're all already infected it'll never work! We'll never find a cure!"
"Sarah, we might," said Candace, trying to calm her down – though Jenner looked equally dubious. "We just need more time."
"Time?!" Sarah yelled. "Time? We don't have time, Candace. Look at you! You're going to –"
"Hanngian," Jenner interrupted, sharply.
Sarah stopped as abruptly as she had started, and passed a shaking hand over her eyes – unknowingly smearing the skin her fingers came into contact with with blood. Then her gaze landed on Candace, who was gripping her husband's arm tightly. "I…I'm sorry, Candace, I didn't…"
"Mean it?" the other woman asked, somewhat bitterly. "Honey, you can't give up at the first sign of things going bad. You wouldn't give up if this were any other experiment."
"But you're not an experiment," Sarah snapped, disgust evident in her voice. "You're a person."
Candace shook her head. "I'm collateral damage."
Day 5
In the nightmarish hours that followed the angel who saved Dr. Edwin Jenner wore a white lab coat and had her blonde hair secured in a knot at the back of her head by a pencil. Sarah was forced to take over in situations where Jenner simply broke down. She was the one who set up a quarantine room for Candace to be temporarily locked in until she died, hooked up the camera and video equipment so that it was wired to the computer in her office. She was also the one who set up brain scans and was the one who took the blood, brain matter and bone marrow samples, analysed them, and then returned minutes later to extract more from Candace's ailing body.
After a while, when Sarah had done all she could, she returned to her office to see Jenner staring at the computer screen – at the CCT V footage of his wife lying in a cell.
Not sure whether to leave him be or not, she hovered in the doorway, torn. As it was, Jenner addressed her with out glancing away from the screen. In fact, Sarah wasn't sure whether he was really talking to her at all – or just reminding himself of better times.
"When it was my twenty-eighth birthday, we'd been dating for two years." He said. "I ruined it. She'd been planning a surprise party for me and I came home from work early because I wanted to take her out for dinner. And there she was – letting all my old friends and family into the house. Christ, that was amazing. She actually convinced people I hadn't seen in years – college buddies who lived in California to come half way across the county."
He looked up at Sarah. She was surprised that there weren't any tears – his face just seemed strangely blank. "I think it was half way through the party that I realized how in love with her I was. I came into the kitchen to get another beer and she was stirring this big log of chop meat into a pot – I think she was attempting to make chilli, she'd never really been good at cooking. She smiled at me with all the steam curling her hair round her face." Jenner laughed, hoarsely. "She was a vegetarian, but here she was grinning over this pot of meat like it was the greatest thing in the world because she wanted to make my favorite meal for my birthday."
Sarah felt tears harden the lining of her throat painfully. "I'm so, so sorry, Ed. If we'd just held the vaccine back-"
He waved her off. "S'not your fault."
"But it feels like it is," she whispered, shivering as she leant heavily on the door-frame. "People died. Candace is dieing because of the vaccine that I created, and I know that I was just trying to make things right, but every time I think about it, I think about how I could have done better, and how I could have fixed it better –"
"You may have developed the cure, Hannigan, but you didn't make that call to test it-"
"- I know that, but –"
"But nothing." Jenner interrupted, somewhat aggressively. "Your hand was forced – people were scared and wanted a solution then and there, they wanted that vaccine now. I sure as hell don't know you well, but I do know you enough to know that - had you had it your way - you would have tested that thing a thousand times over. Double and triple checked to make sure it was totally safe."
Sarah knew he was right. By nature she was precise and over-analytical, but Jenner's words did little to alleviate the guilt she was feeling. "But there was no time to run the tests," she murmured.
"Right. And now we're going to have all the time that this world has left to make that cure." He glanced back at the computer and took a long look at the image of his wife on there. "You're not going to die in vain," he promised, quietly.
Sarah left the office a little while later, leaving Ed with strict instructions to call for her if Candace's condition dipped.
Making her way down the corridors of the CDC, she was haunted by how deserted they seemed. The once bustling rooms filled with people and activity were now empty, and the hairs on the back of her neck began to rise. Where was everyone?
She stopped walking, and – for the first time since she'd arrived at the CDC in Atlanta – began to feel truly claustrophobic. The corridor stretched out before her in a blur of white tiles and glaring, artificial light, and she began to feel dizzy.
"Hello?" she yelled, her voice echoing. "Is anyone there?"
Sarah's heart began to beat faster when there was no answer. She started to walk again. Fear moved a person like nothing else could, and every now and then she'd seem to be on the verge of breaking into a run, before seemingly changing her mind and stumbling back into a hurried lope. "Hello?" she called again. "Can anyone hear me? Hello?"
And this time, when the echoes of her own voice died down, she could hear something: yells and shouts that seemed to be emitting from the cafeteria. Sarah realized that she hadn't seen anyone since that morning and her and Jenner had been confined to a small section of the CDC as they carried out tests on Candice.
There was every possibility that the walkers had infiltrated the complex, and she hadn't known a thing.
Mind racing, she slammed her elbow into the case that was mounted on the wall next to her, breaking the glass front. Inside it were the basic fire-emergency tools: a fire-extinguisher, hose and an ax.
She grabbed the latter – swearing when her arms almost popped out of their sockets at its weight – and started towards the room the noise seemed to be coming from.
It was not like in the movies, a slam dunk – a scene for the hero to go win their Oscar. If Sarah got in there, and there were walkers…if her life was threatened…if people were dying and the dead outnumbered the living…she would back away. She would go and find Jenner in their secluded corner of the CDC – figure out a way to escape. There were always safer, more practical options than the ones you chose, and if things went bad, the knowledge that she had a back-up escape plan was comforting.
Sarah took a deep breath, readjusted her grip on the ax, and shouldered open the door slowly. Peering through the tiny sliver of space she could see people crowding around a table in the centre of the room, and – though the general atmosphere was that of panic and confusion – there wasn't the same presence of fear that would have been had walkers also stood in the room.
She wilted slightly, the ax hanging limply from her fingers. She was still safe.
Standing on the table that everyone seemed to be crowding around was a harassed looking army official, who was addressing the crowd of CDC scientists and doctors that had gathered round him.
Only half listening, Sarah made her way over to the only person she knew in the room.
Alex Ramm stood at the back of the group, leaning against the wall with a frown on his face. He was tall, with curly black hair and grey eyes and stood out because he was just about the only person in the room who wasn't wearing a white lab coat. Ramm was some kind of computer genius – a defense co-ordinator for the CDC – and, appearance aside (he was wearing a black t shirt with the words 'there are 10 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and those that don't' emblazoned across the front and a pair of ratty, faded jeans) he took his job seriously.
When he glanced up to see Sarah approaching him, Alex had wondered if she knew that she had blood smeared across part of her face, of that she looked like she'd been through hell and back since he'd last spoken to her the night before.
"What's going on?" Sarah said, as she approached Ramm. "I heard the noise…thought there were walkers."
So you brought an ax, Alex thought, but didn't say it aloud. When Sarah glanced up at him, silently prodding for an explanation, he shook his head and scoffed. "I built you a better defense system than that, Hannigan. No walkers are getting in here." He folded his arms and jutted his chin in the direction of the soldier and the group surrounding him. "He wants us to evacuate the CDC. Top-side's not looking too good. Apparently it's not the holiday destination we all thought it was."
"Evacuate?" Sarah echoed, eyes widening. The tone to her voice was incredulous, and Alex's head snapped towards her.
"You don't want to?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Sarah responded with something, but her voice was dwarfed by the officer who stood on the table suddenly roaring over the crowd: "This is your only chance to evacuate, people! Once we're gone, I assure you that we're sure as hell not gonna be coming back to save your asses. The situation above ground's only getting worse - Atlanta's lost and so are other cities in the Southern States. From here we go North."
"What about if we want to stay?" shouted one woman.
"That's up to you. 'Reckon we can spare some ammo and guns for those who wanna remain behind – but that's it."
The crowd – for the first time – quietened completely as everyone swallowed the information.
"We're leaving in ten minutes," yelled the soldier, his voice echoing ominously through-out the suddenly silent room. "We've got vehicles at the entrance and men watching the main road out of the city. Gather your belongings if you want to come. If not…well…good luck."
Sarah exhaled, rubbing a hand across her forehead as the soldier jumped down from the table.
"What are you thinking?" asked Alex.
"Honestly," she murmured, lifting her face to his. "I'm not sure what the hell I'm thinking right now…but…maybe it wouldn't be so bad to remain here."
"You wanna stay?" Ramm asked, his voice so tight it might snap, his expression one of disbelief. "Seriously, Sarah?"
"What?" she replied, frustrated. "I want to find a cure – you're acting like that's a bad thing?"
"No. I'm acting like it's a stupid thing." He grabbed her arm, leading her out of the cafeteria and further down the corridor. "I heard about what happened with the vaccine trials this morning. Jenner's wife got bit. It was a disaster."
"That doesn't mean it isn't going to work every time! We just…we just keep on developing until we get it right!"
"And you think you have all the time in the world to do this, huh? How much time do you reckon the world has left, Sarah? Years? Months? Weeks?"
"I don't know!" she yelled in frustration, throwing her hands up into the air. "We have food, right? The guy says he's going to give us guns. You said yourself that walkers couldn't get in -"
Alex closed his eyes. "Dammit, Sarah, shut up." He turned away for a second, running a hand through his hair before spinning to face her again, speaking low and rapidly. "Listen to me, I programmed the CDC's defensive system. There's a ton of stuff in here that we don't want to get out – you know that. Diseases and shit that'll fuck humanity over even more than it already is. The generators have got to run out of power at some point, and when that happens a facility wide decontamination has to occur in order to stop those diseases here from getting out. You can't stay here – its suicide."
Sarah looked at him for several seconds before she blinked rapidly, her mouth dropping open. "Facility wide decontamination? You mean the CDC'll blow up?!"
Alex's jaw locked as he nodded. "You've got to come with me. We've got to evacuate. I know there's no chance in hell that Jenner's going to leave his wife, but you…"
The desperation in his voice made Sarah bite her lip. She was so tired. She was exhausted, and didn't have the energy to justify her actions to Ramm, to explain why she just couldn't. "Alex, I can't…"
He grabbed her by the shoulders. "For Gods sake, you're going to die if you stay, Sarah!"
"I know. I'm not giving up though –"
"It sure as fuck sounds like you are."
"-no, I'm not. I'm fighting. I'm going to find this cure. I can keep in touch with you through the computers, feed information through."
"That's not good enough." Alex said, stubbornly.
Sarah never took her eyes off of him as she said, quietly: "Isn't it, though? Staying and trying to find a cure for this thing is good enough for me, Alex. And when it comes down to it, that's what counts." When he attempted to butt in, she held up a hand. "You're not going to convince me otherwise," she said in a business-like tone of voice as she untwisted her hair out of its bun and let it fall in loose waves round her face. "and you're running out of time. Go and get your stuff and I'll come top-side with you to say goodbye."
The determined set of her jaw told him not to argue.
As it turned out thirty of the thirty eight people who occupied and worked at the CDC had chosen to leave. The number shouldn't have surprised Sarah – the decision to leave wasn't exactly a selfish one – but it did. Had she thought that more people would be dedicated to the cause? That a few files of research and a lab that ran on rapidly failing power would be more of a draw than a worry for families and friends who lived in other parts of the country? She didn't know what she had expected, but the number of evacuees suddenly seemed to make the situation more real.
They were all crammed into a lift, the confined space so quiet that Sarah could hear her own pulse. She could feel herself rising through the meters of ground that she'd been underneath for almost two weeks. The fact that she hadn't been outside at all in that time shouldn't have bothered her as much as it did, and Sarah found herself wandering just how much the world she was about to see had changed from the world she once knew.
She didn't look up at Alex who stood beside her as the lift doors opened, just toted one of his bags that she had offered to carry over her shoulder and stepped out into the foyer.
The army seemed to be everywhere, swarming round the open area with deadly looking guns and worn expressions on their faces. Several crates of supplies were stacked against one wall of the room, and the opposite wall was completely taken up by a large, open door.
Upon approaching it, Sarah stopped in her tracks, suddenly too apprehensive to take the next step forward. Alex carried on walking a little way before he realized that she wasn't walking with him and turned to look at the blonde scientist. Sarah was standing with a hand in front of her eyes to ward off the light that was seeping in through the open door. When Alex raised an eyebrow questioningly, she said in a small voice: "I haven't been outside in a really, really long time. I don't know if my eyes can adjust to natural light."
"Control made us go above ground for at least and hour every three days to make sure that that wouldn't happen."
"I skipped," she said, dryly. "Candace and I thought we'd had a break-through with the vaccine."
Alex rolled his eyes, and muttered something that sounded like of course you did, before walking back to her. "Just stand in my shadow, okay? It's not that bad."
She sighed, squinting against the feeble sunlight before taking a hesitant step forward. "Am I even going to want to see what's out there?"
"Probably not," he acquiesced, "But I was kind of thinking you at least owed it to me to come out and say goodbye."
Taking slow steps, the two made it out the door and into the open world. For a second, Sarah was able to appreciate the air on her skin – not recycled air – but a real, crisp, fresh breeze. It played with her hair, blowing it out of her face before her eyes registered what they were seeing.
Atlanta sprawled out, utterly barren before her – a far cry from the busy, bustling city her plane had landed in weeks ago. There was the low hum of the engines of army jeeps pulled up close to the CDC, strategically parked to avoid the bodies of fallen walkers. And the 'dead' walkers were everywhere – the bodies sprawled on the sidewalk, piled in heeps, caught in the barbed wire that ran along one length of the courtyard, and – if you looked closely – the live ones were moving slowly around in the distance, just out of range of the soldiers' snipers.
A man in military uniform, who stood a little off to Sarah's right, caught the look of shock on her face. He exhaled a pillar of smoke and folded his arms, carefully keeping the lit cigarette that he was smoking away from his body. "Fucking depressing, isn't it?" he said to her, before he too glanced at the deserted buildings in the distance.
Sarah started, looking round for the speaker quickly and – upon spotting them - shook her head. "I guess I didn't realize things had gotten so bad."
The man rolled his eyes, taking another drag of his cigarette. "'Course you didn't – you were all tucked up safely underground, weren't you? Didn't see a thing of the panic of the first out-break."
"We were 'tucked up underground' searching for a cure to save you," she replied, stung - disliking the bitterness evident in his voice.
"Yeah, I heard that's not going so great." He dropped his cigarette on the floor and stepped on it before turning to face her fully. "I heard about Jace Shephard," he said, flatly. "I'm David Shephard. His brother."
The full meaning of David Shephard's words hit Sarah like a slap to the face and she stumbled backwards slightly.
"Oh God," she said.
Bile rose in her throat. If she looked closely, she saw that David's eyes were the same shape as Jace's - maybe the look in them less kind - his hardened by anger - but still definitely the same shape. There was a certain similarity in the mouth too, and in the shade of brown of his hair.
"Oh God," she repeated.
…
"I make an adorable lab-rat, huh Doc?
….
"What's your name?"
"Jace Shephard,"
….
"Kill it! Sarah, kill it!"
…
And for the first time, staring into his brother's accusing eyes, Sarah didn't think about Jace as a volunteer for a vaccine trial, or a patient, or a walker; she suddenly realized that he had been a person, with a family like anyone else.
And she had driven a scalpel through his head.
Twice.
She struggled to keep the contents of her stomach down.
"You're the brilliant Dr. Sarah Hannigan, right?" David asked, still talking. "I seriously hope you find that cure. I really do. Because there's going to be hell to pay if your vaccine trial murdered my little brother for no point."
And with that, David turned on his heel and stalked away over towards a few of the soldiers who were guarding the CDC's furthest perimeter.
Sarah watched him go, relieved. She'd killed a man, and didn't have the strength to face the consequences of his brother's anger – what did that say about her?
"The sun still hurting your eyes?" asked a voice. When she glanced behind her, she saw Alex walking from a jeep towards the spot she stood at.
"What?"
"Your eyes are watering," he frowned. "Maybe you should go back inside where it's darker."
Sarah quietly thanked God that Alex Ramm was perhaps one of the most unobservant males to walk the planet and nodded her head. "Maybe I should."
With a final glance at David, she let her friend guide her back into the foyer.
There was an unexpected comfort to being back inside the CDC. The foyer was almost empty of soldiers – a sure sign that Alex had minutes until he was due to leave – and the harshness and pain of seeing Atlanta so dead before her was muted standing safely within the walls of the complex.
Maybe it was a defense mechanism, but the moment Alex opened his mouth to say goodbye, Sarah threw her arms round his neck and hugged him (difficult, considering he was so damn tall.)
Alex stumbled backwards slightly from the force of her hug before recuperating it just as powerfully. "You're going to find that cure," he muttered into her hair. "If anyone can do it, it's you Sarah."
Sarah didn't reply. She felt like her throat had been paved with straw. "Thank you," she croaked, finally.
"For what?"
"For not asking me to leave with you again." Because she was so emotionally weak, that if he'd asked, she would have probably accepted. She would have left Jenner, and Candace and the whole exhausting situation. Just left it for someone else to sort out.
"Leaving in TWO MINUTES!" a voice yelled from outside.
Alex stepped out of the hug, and to Sarah's surprise, he was grinning. "It's not all that bad, Sar. I left you a present."
She frowned. "What?"
"Go to the control room – open the file marked artificial intelligence. The password's 54357. After that, just type in ACTIVATE."
At the confused look on Sarah's face, he just shook his head, still smiling. "Trust me. You'll love it."
Day 6
"Where the hell are you taking me Hannigan?" asked Jenner, as Sarah dragged him down another corridor. She ignored him.
"The Control Room is level two, right?"
"Yes, but –"
She pulled him into a lift quickly, ramming her fist against the button for number 2 and effectively silencing Jenner.
"Stop asking questions," she said. "It's a surprise."
"Do you even know what Ramm was developing whilst he was here?"
"No idea," said Sarah, distractedly. Hope, for the first time, was pushing through her veins like a heart beat. Hope that Alex had left them something that would help in their journey to find a cure. Hope that she'd made the right decision in staying. "But I trust Alex."
Jenner muttered something under his breath that Sarah didn't quite catch and then the lift doors slid open with a metallic scraping sound and the pair stepped out.
When Sarah hesitated, Jenner rolled his eyes, turning right. "The Control Room's this way."
Control, as it turned out, was a large open space – much like the Foyer. A dozen computer workstations faced the thirty-foot by forty-foot video wall at the far end of the room. The eight other remaining scientists and doctors were nowhere to be seen. The control room was located 200 feet below ground, where it would be totally impervious to flux bombs and nuclear blasts – another one of the many safety precautions to ensure that the dangerous diseases and viruses did not get out of the CDC.
Sarah rushed over to one of the computers, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she did so.
"Sarah, why did Ramm want you to come to the Control Room? How the hell is that going to help us find a cure?" demanded Jenner as he watched the blonde scientist boot up the computer.
"Shut up, Ed," Sarah snapped, as she squinted at the screen. "Artificial intelligence," she whispered to herself, as she moved the cursor around the screen. "Artificial intelligence – there." She clicked on the file and instantly a error message appeared.
CLASSIFIED. PASSWORD VERIFICATION REQUIRED.
"Jesus," whispered Jenner, crouching down next to Sarah to look at the screen. "What was Ramm doing here that was classified?"
"Programming the CDC's defensive system," Sarah replied, her palms sweating.
"You got the password?"
She glanced at Jenner out of the corner of her eye for a second before nodding. Hands shaking slightly, Sarah's fingers moved over the keyboard in front of her.
54357.
They held their breath as another message box appeared.
ACTIVATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIFENCE SYSTEM?
"Listen, Hannigan, I really don't think this is a good –"
But Sarah's fingers were already flying over the keyboard. Underneath the message she'd typed in the words ACTIVATE, and – mind strangely blank with the blind faith she was now placing in Alex Ramm, and completely disregarding the voice of Jenner in her ear – Sarah pressed the enter key like it was the trigger to a bomb.
The room was suddenly filled with a computerized female voice, and Jenner and Sarah scrambled to their feet in shock.
"Artificial intelligence system, activated," said the voice. "Backing-up data."
"What is this thing," Sarah said, her eyes wide.
"Vi is an artificial intelligence computer," the system replied. "It has been programmed to aid the CDC. It can gather and store data on all diseases, experiments and research through out the building. It is in charge of all defensive systems and power."
The pair were quiet for a second, before a grin split Sarah's face. "Alex you genius," she whispered.
A/N. I hope this did a good job at explaining how Jenner's wife turned, Vi and how Jenner knew (or at least, first guessed that) everybody was infected. Sarah should meet Rick and the others next chapter, so…
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