Groggy and confused, Red roused from a deep sleep when her bedding jerked up and down, then back and forth. She rubbed the fuzz from her eyes, trying to orient herself in the darkness. What time was it? Not that she could ever really tell anymore. Nobody owned a watch.

It was only a crescent moon tonight, so the tent was almost pitch black with only a dim haze of light shining through the mesh windows. The nightly chorus of frogs "brripped" together alongside the rhythmic burbling of the creek.

None of the alarm cans or bells strung around their camp perimeter were jangling. There seemed to be no threats nearby.

"Tommy?" she whispered. He was Tommy in private, but always 10k when any of his friends were around. Never, ever Thomas. He was very insistent about that.

Fully awake now, Red could feel that he was thrashing slowly inside the two sleeping bags they had zipped together to form their bed. He pushed against the plaid flannel lining with both hands as if warding off an attacker.

"No…no, Murphy, no…" he muttered into the darkness, his eyes still screwed shut. When Red grasped his bare shoulder she could feel a light sheen of cool sweat.

Another nightmare.

She spooned closer to him, embracing him from behind as she carefully pulled his left arm back to his side. He startled from her grasp.

"Lemme go!"

"Shh. You're free now. He's gone," she whispered into his shoulder, and he relaxed, easing into the arc of her body curved against his. Red dotted his lean back with gentle kisses. She felt the raised scars of the bite mark against her lips, a permanent reminder of what frightened Tommy even after all these months.

He squeezed her hand and kissed the tender crook of her thumb. "Sorry," he murmured so quietly that she almost couldn't hear him. She felt tears on his cheek when she cupped his face before drawing her hand back to his hip.

"It's okay. You're safe. Go back to sleep." She pressed her face against his back.

There was no need for Tommy to apologize. Red thought of all the times he had soothed her in their sleeping bag when the dark memories had come back to haunt her in the middle of the night.

Black Summer. The roving gangs in Minneapolis. Her brother vanishing. He'd helped her deal with them all.

But he was the silent one. Over the past year Red had relayed her horror stories, and yet she'd only heard bits and pieces of what had happened to Tommy. That was mostly because he talked in his sleep, and the few things Doc had told her.

"It might drive you crazy that 10k doesn't like to talk," Doc had said to her before he left on his journey. "But that's just the way he is. Take good care of him for me and promise me you'll listen when he does."

She would keep that promise. She liked having someone to protect. If she was being honest with herself, she needed that in her life to feel like she was somehow making a difference. It was like in some small way she was helping mankind survive, one apocalypse survivor at a time. Especially now that her brother was gone she was grateful to have Tommy in her life. They watched over one another and kept each other's nightmares at bay.

She could now hear Tommy's thudding heartbeat slow. He stopped stroking her arm draped on his hip as his form slackened into their sleeping bag cocoon. His breathing finally slipped into a soft snore.

She inhaled his earthy, masculine scent while she nuzzled him. Tommy always smelled like he had cloaked himself in the trees and the streams he loved so much. His father had raised him in the wild. Had taught him how to hunt and fish there. He never wanted to leave the woods again, he'd told her once.

He said it was why he stayed behind when Doc got the wandering spirit. Tommy said he was done with crazy road trips. He wanted the two of them to live here for the rest of their lives, however long or short they may be.

That sounded just fine to Red. She hadn't had a real home since pre-Z. This tree house they had constructed together was the sanctuary she'd craved for years and years. She felt safe here.

She let her head slide back down to her pillow. Tommy was the man who showed Red that even in the apocalypse, not everyone was a predator. People could still be gentle and kind. There was still room for trust in this world filled with so much cruelty.

And there was still space for love. Maybe it could only exist in their safe little tree house while the rest of the world raged around them, but it was real and it was theirs and she would hold onto it…hold onto HIM for as long as she could.

While clutching Tommy's hand at his side, Red closed her eyes and listened to the frogs, and the creek until she succumbed to sleep again.

- tbc -