It had been three years since the military had officially declared victory over the infection. Three years and not a peep from her. Of course, if you asked him, Francis would tell you that was just fine in his book - he always was a bit of a loner. So he spent those three years on the road, just him, a bottle of beer, a shotgun, a motorcycle and the open asphalt. He ranged from place to place, stopping in at bars and motels and making money by gambling, starting bar fights, and occasionally landing a normal job that lasted for all of a few days before he either quit or was fired. It wasn't much of a life, but it was one he was well used to, and it was one he enjoyed. And so, to say he was surprised when he got a letter from Zoey would be an understatement.

"Huh," Francis grunted as he read the return address, noting with some surprise Zoey's name and address. She lived in Philadelphia, which was slightly ironic, given how recently they had escaped from it when it was still thoroughly infected. The letter had been hand-delivered by the manager of the motel he was staying in - how it had reached him in his wanderings, he would never know - and Francis had spent several long seconds staring at it in disbelief. He thought she had forgotten about him.

The letter was short and hand-written, and Francis read it twice before the message finally sunk in.

Dear Francis,

I sincerely hope this letter finds you well. We've settled into our new community here in Philly, and Louis actually got a job! He's a shift manager at the local supermarket now.

As you may know, Louis and Rochelle are something of an item. As you almost certainly do not know, they're getting married in a few weeks. I would love it if you'd come attend - they're going to be having a dance afterwards. And it would be nice to see you again after all this time.

Love,

~Zoey

P.S: Wear something nice!

Francis slowly set the letter down on the bedside table, and sat on the edge of his bed for a long moment, stunned. Did she say Louis and Rochelle were getting married! Sure, he'd always known that they had a sweet spot for each other, but… married? Francis shook his head slowly, a smile starting to creep onto his lips. "What do you know," he said, chuckling. "Looks like the apocalypse wasn't the end of the world."

Then he frowned. Did Zoey seriously want him of all people to come to their wedding and… dance? He almost laughed aloud at the proposition, so he picked up the letter and read it for a third time. Yep. That's what she said. He scratched the back of his head in thought. 'Wear something nice,' she had said. Where the hell did she expect him to get a suit! Still shaking his head, he set down the letter, and picked up the phone.

-O-

The high, insistent wailing of the phone cut through the silence and stillness of the darkened apartment. The first ring was given no response, but on the second ring, a tall, lithe figure lying in the room's principle piece of furniture - a bed - grumbled, groaned, and flailed about for the phone.

His hand connected with the handset, knocking it off its cradle and, subsequently, off the desk. With a muttered, sleep-slurred curse, the figure in the bed reached over and flipped on the bedside lamp, revealing a toned but lean, light-skinned man with dark hair mussed from sleep and a two-day stubble, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. Wiping sleep from his eyes, he reached down, grabbed the phone, and said in a mostly intelligible voice "This better be damn good. You have any idea what time it is?"

-O-

Francis chuckled as the irritated and very groggy voice on the other end greeted him, and said "I'm doin' fine, Nick, thanks for askin'." There was a very, very long pause, and then the voice on the other end said, in a voice slightly more irritated and far less sleepy, "…Oh. Fantastic. Just the man I wanted to hear from." "Hell yeah, brother," Francis said, grinning. "Look, I need your help with something."

-O-

Nick struggled upright in bed, idly rubbing his fingers through his tangled hair. "You want what? A suit! What the hell for!" There was a pause, then he nodded and said "Yeah, yeah, I heard about that, and I'm just overflowing with happiness for the both of them. But if you don't give me a pretty damn convincing reason in the next ten seconds as to why you woke me up at three-goddamn-o'clock, I'm going to hang up this phone and go back to sleep!" Then he narrowed his eyes. "You're telling me you don't know where to buy a good suit? Why does that not surprise me?" He fell backwards, landing with a flop on his pillow, phone still held to his ear. After a long pause, he finally said "Alright, look, 'brother'… I can't believe I'm saying this, but why don't you come on over? If it will get you off this phone so I can go back to sleep, I'll show you a few good places."

-O-

"Thanks, Nick!" Francis said. "Yer a real pal!" Nick muttered something about 'sleep' and 'greaseball', then the line went dead. Still grinning, Francis placed the handset back in its cradle, and stood up, retrieving his shotgun from the dresser drawer he'd stashed it in and resting it on a shoulder. Fishing in his vest pocket for his motorcycle keys, he walked out of his motel room, whistling to himself.

-O-

It was past seven PM the next day when Francis finally arrived in Philly. With nothing more than a stop at a shitty roadside motel for a six-hour catnap, he had ridden nonstop through the night, morning and early afternoon on the mostly deserted roads, nothing but him, his big black vintage Harley, the open asphalt and the Sabaton blasting from his speakers. Twisting the key in the ignition and sliding it out, he flicked the kickstand down with the toe of his iron-shod boot, then hopped down onto the sidewalk as the motorcycle's baritone snarl died away.

Looking up at the big brick apartment building, more than half its windows still boarded up, Francis briefly wondered if he was in the right place - it seemed unlike Zoey to stay in a dump like this. Looking down at the letter she had sent him, he checked the return address, and grunted. Yeah, this was the place alright.

Stomping up to the front door, he reached up and pounded three times on the large oak portal. There was a long pause, so long that Francis idly wondered if anyone was even in there, and then the large door ground open to reveal a short, middle-aged woman wearing what looked suspiciously like SWAT body armor, with a shotgun resting on her shoulder.

"What do you want?" the woman asked in a tired, exasperated voice. Francis smiled to himself, looking down at the odd landlady. Sometimes he forgot that the infection had only been 'defeated' three years ago - and stray zombies turned up now and then even years later.

"I'm here to see someone. Young woman, name's Zoey?" Francis said, leaning against the doorframe. The woman frowned in thought for a moment, then nodded to herself. "Come on in," she said, stepping backwards reluctantly. "Elevator hasn't worked since the troubles, so take the stairs. She's in apartment 304."

"Thanks," Francis said, dipping his head in something approximating a bow before stepping across the threshold.

At some point, this place probably used to be fancy, he reflected idly, looking around at the column-lined foyer. Now, however, the wallpaper was cracked and peeling, the plush carpet was stained and fraying, and half the chandeliers were broken and twisted. Walking past the suspiciously open elevator door, blocked off by a wooden barrier that proclaimed 'CAUTION - ELEVATOR OUT', Francis pushed open the simple wooden door that lead to the stairwell.

Bounding up the steps two at a time, the big biker reached the third floor in no time, walking out into a long hallway lined on both sides with doors. He counted off room numbers as he walked: "300... 302... 304. There it is."

For a long time, he stood outside the door, unsure of what to do. How was somebody supposed to make an entrance after being gone for three years? What would he say to her? His stomach fluttered, and Francis glared at it. Damn it, he was supposed to be the big, badass biker boy. He could take on a pack of zombies with nothing but a baseball bat, but he was too nervous to talk to a girl that he may or may not have a little crush on?

Hell no.

Taking a deep breath, Francis walked up and rapped politely on the door. He heard movement from inside the apartment, and a few moments later the door opened. Zoey was revealed, standing in the doorway, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, her hair wet and dangling loose about her neck and shoulders. Francis's cheeks flushed crimson at the sight.

"Look, I've told you already, the rent is-…" The words died in Zoey's throat as her eyes traveled up the broad, leather-clad chest and came to rest on the rough-hewn, all-too-familiar features. Her eyes widened a little bit, and she made no effort to close her mouth, which was hanging open in mid-word.

Francis cleared his throat awkwardly, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her face. God damn it, why did she have to show up at the door with a bathrobe on and nothing under it? Wasn't this hard enough on him already?

It was Francis who finally broke the silence. "Uh… hi there," he said, reaching up and scratching at the back of his fuzzy head, a nervous tic that Zoey had become intimately familiar with during their time surviving the apocalypse together.

Now it was Zoey's turn to clear her throat, her face reddening to match Francis's. "Uh, yeah, sorry about the, um… lack of clothes… I just took a shower, and haven't had time to change, and I thought that it was just the landlady coming back to ask about her rent because I've been having issues with my job and… oh shit, I'm rambling." Turning away so that Francis couldn't see her face turning even redder than it had been before, she managed "Uh… can you wait five minutes for me to get dressed?"

Shaking himself, Francis said "Yes. Yeah, I can do that, sure." Zoey nodded hurriedly, and quickly closed the door.

Letting out his breath, Francis collapsed backwards against the wall, reaching a hand up and running it over his face. Okay, so that didn't go as well as it could have… but it didn't go as badly as it could have either. Closing his eyes for a moment, he leaned his head back against the wall. Why did this have to be so damn hard?

A scant few minutes later - although it seemed more like hours to Francis - the door opened to reveal Zoey at last properly attired in jeans and a white three-button polo, her hair pulled up in a ponytail but still damp, a few loose strands plastered to her forehead and cheeks. She wordlessly motioned Francis to come in, and the big man slipped past her into the apartment.

Much like the rest of the building, Zoey's apartment looked like it was fancy at some point. The girl had done some remodeling, trying to fix the place up, but the wear and tear caused by the infection still showed. There were still wear marks on the edges of the windows from where boards had been nailed over them, the wallpaper had been taped down in a few places where it was starting to peel, and there were a few stray bullet-holes in the partition wall between the main room and the bedroom.

"So, uh, welcome," Zoey said, shutting the door and walking into the center of the room. "To be honest, I wasn't sure if you'd come. I didn't know if my letter would even reach you."

"Well, it did," Francis said, leaning against a wall and doing his best to appear casual. "And I came."

"I… can see that," Zoey said, then fell silent and turned away, staring out the window. Francis blinked in surprise, pushing himself off of the wall and taking a few tentative steps towards the young woman.

"Uh… Zoey? You okay, girl?" he ventured after several long seconds of silence, and Zoey nodded quickly.

"Yeah," she said, and took a deep breath before continuing "Yeah. I'm fine."

Francis wasn't convinced, but simply shrugged and started inspecting her apartment. Struggling to think of something to say about it other than 'What a shithole', Francis finally came up with "Well… you've certainly done a lot to make this place look nicer."

"Huh?" Zoey asked, broken from her reverie. Turning to look, she finally got the meaning of what Francis had said, and smiled a little. "Oh! Yeah. It looked way worse when I first moved in."

Francis's curiosity got the better of him, and he picked up a little statuette sitting on a nearby bookshelf. It was a tiny horse, made from ceramic and apparently hand-painted. "What's this?" he asked, and Zoey walked over, taking the little horse from him and returning it to its proper place. "Oh, it's nothing… just something I scavenged from-…"

She trailed off as she turned back and found her face no more than twelve inches from Francis's powerful, sculpted chest. His vest and tank-top did nothing to hide his well-defined musculature, and her cheeks flushed crimson.

This close to her, Francis could smell her oh-so-familiar scent, and for a minute he lost himself in the emerald depths of her eyes. "Zoey, I…" I missed you, he thought, although his mouth seemed unable to function. I don't think I realized how much until I came back here.

Francis blinked, and suddenly his mind snapped back into focus. His eyes widening, he took an unsteady step backwards, away from temptation, away from the girl who he thought he had left behind. "I…" he stammered, heart racing. "I have to go. Nick is waiting to meet me." And with that, he turned on his heel and fled the apartment.

-O-