A\N: Oops. I thought I'd updated this! Sorry, guys. *grins sheepishly* Also: If you can figure out what the horn is playing, you win an internet cookie! :)


They'd left hoping for a new life.

Corinth was the miracle city. Food and water were abundant there. They had clean clothes, they had TV, they had computers and internet and fast food.

But when Tommy woke the next morning, neither he or Kim had said a single word.

So the days fell into some sort of pattern.

They would wake. They would get up, clean as best they could. Tommy would heft Kim on his back, and they would walk. Then, when the sun was long gone and Kimberly was asleep on Tommy's shoulders, they would stop, roll out the two blankets they still had on the ground, eat whatever they'd rationed out, and then fall asleep in each other's arms.

The world blurred into it. Rise, walk, stop, rest. No thought. No emotion. Simple movement was the only thing either of them felt. It was almost as if, Tommy thought in a slow, vague way that seemed to transcend the time he thought it and be above the Universe itself, some force that they had never met and could never see were propelling them forward, like pawns in a chess game with no notion of who moved them or why, only that they must, always, move.

And then something changed.

Tommy wasn't aware of what, or why, but he stopped, and Kim's head lifted. Slowly the world came back into focus as Tommy floated into himself, returning from whatever distant place he'd been.

They were in front of a sign.

Tommy frowned, tilting his head at it. His eyes were blurry. How long had it been since he'd blinked? The sign was blue and had white letters and...

Welcome To Carson City, Nevada! Enjoy Your Stay!

...Carson?

Wait, they weren't near Carson. Carson should be behind them. Right?

Tommy silently shifted Kim, moving so she could climb down off his back. The air felt cold against Tommy's skin. Nuclear autumn again, he thought, then a second thought said, wait, are those clouds radioactive? He turned to ask Billy...

Oh. Right.

Kim was already looking at the map. Tommy sat beside her, staring at it.

They were quiet for another minute.

From what Tommy saw, Jason apparently had gone blind at some point and everyone had missed it. That, or their camp had covered half of their mountains and ended somewhere in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

Tommy was gonna kill him. Even if he was dead. Tommy would resurrect the bastard and kill him again. Painfully.

"Shit!"

Tommy nearly jumped out of his skin.

Kim sighed viciously and began rummaging through her backpack. The precious food and water were tossed out like they were worthless, and Kim tried to heft herself to her knees before hitting her stump on the ground and hissing in agony.

Tommy reached out, taking her into his arms.

"There's other maps." Kim said. "He was trying to do it like a hologram, you zoom in when..."

And suddenly she began to cry.

Tommy just held her. Her tears fell on his shirt, getting his shoulder wet.

He couldn't really care.

Slowly Kimberly's tears drained away. She lay against Tommy's chest, listening to his heartbeat as the world fell back into place. She could see the desert around her again, the overcast clouds that Tommy always mistook for nuclear autumn. She could feel the wind around her, cold and frozen. She could feel thirst, hunger, the pain from her leg, and as the last one hit her she nearly gasped.

Tommy carefully moved away from her.

Silently he pulled out the bandages and began dressing the stump again. Kimberly looked away as he did. She couldn't stand the sight of blood, it disgusted her.

But then she glanced back.

Tommy's eyes were...dead. It was the best way to describe it. Kimberly knew hers had been ten minutes ago, but she still reached out, her fingertips brushing her husband's cheek.

Tommy ignored it.

He finished wrapping her wound, then mechanically began to pack the things Kimberly had tossed away in her quest for the other maps.

"Tommy?" Kimberly said, her voice coming out far more small and scared than she ever wanted it to. She reached out, grabbing her husband's wrist. "Tommy. It's me. Your Beautiful. Look at me. Please."

He did.

His eyes were like looking into a living corpse's. Kimberly flinched, turning her face away.

Something reached out.

There was no emotion, but Tommy pulled Kimberly into his arms, stroking her hair absently. A blessing, Kimberly thought wildly, from wherever he was...she nearly laughed at that, hysterical, before sobering, the sorrow and pain catching up with her.

Tommy was gone. And he might never come back.

"WE! DIG! GIANT ROBOTS!"

Kimberly and Tommy both nearly jumped out of their skins, and then both stared.

A van was coming. Or rather, not a van, but a monstrosity-hideously painted, covered in bumper stickers, and playing a theme song from an old cartoon for the horn.

It stopped beside them.

"Hey, guys!" The driver said, jumping out. He looked, Kimberly thought from somewhere in her shock, exactly like the type of guy who would have been a surfer a while back. He knelt next to Kimberly, checking her leg expertly. "Ooh, ouch. That sucks."

An African girl with a gun in her hand followed a bit more calmly. "Brad, calm." She ordered, glancing at Tommy and Kim. "Anyone follow you two?"

"...Um." Kimberly said, finding her voice somewhere in the surprise. "No." She paused. "I think."

"Good." The girl said, pulling out a scanner. "Move over, Brad."

The boy jumped up, watching as the girl scanned both of them. "They're clean. Let's go." The girl said, gazing out at the landscape with the eye of a hardened soldier.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that." Brad apologized, hefting Kim onto his back. "Allison's got some issues."

"And I really wanted total strangers knowing that." Allison snapped back, rolling her eyes. "Just get 'em in the damn truck and wake Emily up already."

Kimberly just stared.

Brad set her carefully down in what looked like a cross between the Command Center and a room full of pillows, then turned to a girl sleeping quietly in a corner. "Yo! Em! Up and at 'em!"

Emily blinked and yawned. "Sup?" She asked sleepily. "Where are we? Oh." She glanced at Kimberly, shyly, then saw her leg. "You're hurt."

"Um." Kimberly said. Managing more would require a mental balance she didn't quite have at the moment.

Tommy clambered into the van, helped by Allison, who also threw Kimberly's pack in a bit roughly. "Okay, let's go. Em can explain while we drive."

As the van doors closed and they rattled off, Kimberly had the distinct feeling someone was laughing at her.