FOUR

"This is all actually quite impressive." Rick commented as he surveyed the two fires and field of water-filled pots before him.

From her position crouched beside on fire, stoking it with a long stick, Kate glanced up at him. "It's not…"

He smiled at her. "I completely disagree."

It was impressive. She was impressive. And he'd never been more thankful that she'd rescued him two weeks prior.

By the end of their first week together Rick believed they had found a rhythm. In the mornings they would get up and take turns making breakfast. After doing a perimeter sweep to make sure nothing human or non-human had invaded their clearing overnight, they would typically start on that day's main task, whether it was scavenging for their food or the water collection project they'd been working on in the prior few days. When the mid-day heat set in, they would take a break, eat lunch, and read for a few hours in the shade to avoid the oppressive sun. Every now and then a zombie would wander through, but they were largely alone. The late afternoon and early evening hours were saved for more food collection, checking on the chickens, and securing their fortress for nightfall.

Months earlier, when musing about what might happen if the world really did fall into an apocalyptic state, Rick had once feared he would be bored living in a world without ample electronic devices for entertainment. At the time, he failed to take into consideration that such a world also came without grocery stores, food delivery, or any other modern convenience, so previously simple tasks like acquiring food and preparing a meal took significantly longer.

The prior few days almost all of their time had been consumed with what Kate was referring to as The Water Project. Having fresh water to drink was imperative to their survival. While the two and a half cases they'd stockpiled seemed like a lot, it actually was not. Given the summer heat, they were both drinking multiple bottles a day, which meant they had barely two weeks' supply remaining. Seeing as they had three more houses to go through, finding more water was not unlikely, but eventually they would run out of water—and other things to drink—within walking distance of the treehouse. Thus, Kate's plan was born.

By far, their best bet for potable water was collecting rain water. Granted, in the summer it didn't rain that much, but without a weather forecast they also did not know when it would be raining, thus their water collection design needed to be semi-permanent. Kate explained that her method of lining the balcony with Tupperware and other containers when it rained was functional, but certainly not the most efficient. In order to collect more rain water they needed to collect from a large surface area.

During their exploration of one of the houses in the cul-de-sac further from the treehouse, they discovered that the homeowners had been in the middle of painting their upstairs hallway and adjoining bedrooms. Among paint, brushes, and trays that were not useful to them, they found several unopened packages of plastic drop cloths. Evidently, these would become integral in Kate's design.

Rick had to admit that as soon as she sketched out her idea on a pad of paper they found he immediately saw the crazy brilliance of the set up. By using patio furniture, a porch roof, and no small amount of rope, she designed a large area from which to collect water and then funnel it into a storage container or bucket for easy transportation. When putting the plan into action, they had run into a few snags, such as durability during a storm with high winds, but in the end their three days of work had yielded an ingenious device.

As Kate put it, the only downside (other than potential wind damage, as they had no way of doing intense testing on its sturdiness) was that it made it very clear that a human had designed the contraption for some use and that human was most likely nearby. If anyone happened to pass by the house, they might be inclined to seek out said human. While Rick saw her point, he countered that those passersby would assume the human was staying at the house the collection system was set up at, and when they realized that house was vacant they'd probably move on and not discover the treehouse at all.

Much to their luck—though Rick was claiming the rain dance he performed upon the completion of their collection system was the cause—it had rained for an hour the night before. The tarp work beautifully and when combined with the two dozen other pots, pans, and containers sitting around various locations, they had managed to collect several gallons of water, which meant that day was dedicated to collecting, organizing, and storing.

"I'm not sure I would have even thought about boiling all this rainwater." Rick commented as Kate moved to the second fire to make sure the water had not yet begun to boil. She shoved a few more sticks onto the flames and sat back on her haunches.

"Well, I suppose we could drink it as it is, but I'd rather not risk it especially since boiling it isn't that big of a deal. Don't know about you, but I'm not in the mood to get violently ill right now."

He almost laughed. "Is anyone ever in the mood to get violently ill?"

She nodded. "Fair enough."

Wandering over to the other fire, he gazed in the pot and noted, "This one's boiling."

"Thanks."

"So, um, I have to ask: you seem to know a lot about this stuff. Did you go camping a lot as a kid?" He'd been curious ever since she detailed the elaborate plans. Sure, he spent a great deal of time thinking about the apocalypse, but his focus had mainly been on weaponry and defense, which made it ironic that he'd been robbed of almost all his weapons within the first few days of leaving the city. Kate did not exactly seem the type to sit around and fantasize about a future world that, up until six months earlier, no one would have ever thought would come to fruition. Thus, being outdoorsy was Rick's next best guess to explain her knowledge.

She chuckled. "Camping? No. Never was much of a sleep-under-the-stars type girl. My family does have a cabin in northern Pennsylvania though it's far from rustic—no different than a regular house other than it being secluded. My dad always talked about what could happen if I got lost in the woods and how I could drink from flowing water, not stagnant, but boiling water was always the best way to limit the possibility of getting sick. He always said it didn't matter how murky the water looked, boiling the water would make it okay to drink...but I think I'll stick to the rainwater we collected for as long as possible."

"Really." He commented, agreeing wholeheartedly. "On the bright side, with no electricity and limited cars traveling for the past few months, the air is probably much less smoggy so the rain probably isn't that bad."

"True." She agreed before removing the boiling pot from the fire and placing it onto a patch of bare earth to let it cool. Then, she picked up one of their waiting pots and repeated the process. According to her, boiling smaller pots would make the task go quicker instead of waiting for a large soup pot worth of liquid to rise to two hundred and twelve degrees. Besides, with all the houses they were surrounded by, it wasn't as though they were short on pots; they had found at least twenty. After that, they stopped looking, but there were sure to be more if more became a requirement.

Watching her tend to the other pot, Rick could not help but wonder more about her backstory; he knew so little about her. She was thirty, a homicide detective from Manhattan, and read his books. Other than the little tidbit she'd just revealed about her family's cabin that was about all he knew about her, but he wanted to know so much more. She had said to him on their very first day that who they were before all this didn't matter. He completely disagreed, but with that kind of comment he guessed she would not be keen on revealing too much about her past. Still, suppressing his curiosity for too much longer would be too difficult, so Rick decided to stick to a subject she might be more willing to speak about.

"So, um, is that how you got here?"

"Hmm?"

"Is that how you found this place? Were you on your way to your family's cabin?"

"Oh. Yes and no," she said without looking at him.

When she said no more and their silence extended past thirty seconds, Rick decided she was not interested in explaining any further so he rounded his shoulders and took a step back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to pry…"

"It's not that." She pushed herself up from the ground and stood facing him, her arms tucked around her waist. "I'm just not sure there's all that much to tell. As a cop I was required to stay behind, even as more people became sick, the streets became unsafe, Marshall Law was put into place… There were no homicides to investigate—I mean, everything was a homicide, but us finding who killed whom wasn't stopping the attacks or the violence, so we were all reassigned to crowd control. Hadn't put on riot gear since my days at the academy, but there I was, guarding a hospital," she said with a mirthless laugh.

"By March—well, you were in the city; you saw how it was I'm sure." She looked over at him and he nodded; he saw many things he wished to never see again. "The time for organized law enforcement had long since passed. Our precinct captain told those of us who remained alive to get out and save ourselves. There were five of us in total. We loaded up weapons, ammo, and the other supplies we could carry and started walking. Only two of us made it past Jersey City."

Rick cringed at her statement. That percentage was less than the group he left with and he imagined her group was significantly better armed and trained.

"Esposito and I stayed together for a few weeks, but then we ran into a hoard and were separated. I tried to find him again but never did." She paused to kneel down to take the second pot of boiling water off the fire. "We could have been walking circles around each other for days for all I knew. Eventually, though, I realized I wasn't going to find him and I needed supplies, so I set off on my own, thinking maybe my parent's cabin would be a good place to hide out."

"Were you going to try and meet up with them?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Neither was living by the time I left the city."

With his mother's death so fresh in his mind, Rick winced at her response. "I'm sorry."

"'s okay. Anyway, that's about it. Didn't take me too much longer to find this place and with the well-stocked neighborhood and the chickens it seemed as good a place as any to hide out. Being out there on the road alone certainly wasn't safe."

He almost chuckled. "Trust me; I know."

She offered a small smile. "Right. Of course." With a sigh, she turned and gazed up at the treehouse for several moments before looking back at him. "It's not a bad place to live, is it?"

"Not at all," he added hastily. In fact, all things considered, it was rather prefect. Yes, they could have stayed in any one of a dozen expansive homes. Had he not had first-hand experience, he probably would have argued that one of those homes would have been better, but that simply wasn't true.

For starters, homes that size would have been difficult to secure overnight. If he and Kate slept up in a bedroom, who was to say someone wasn't breaking in on the first floor? They wouldn't hear it and could end up dead without ever waking up. With the trap door secured on the treehouse, it was virtually impossible for anyone to break in, thus giving them peace of mind.

Additionally, the treehouse afforded them the opportunity of shade and a healthy breeze. Yes, it was still oppressively hot during the daytime, but at night, if they left the balcony door open, the interior of the main rooms became an almost reasonable temperature. In fact, one night it had almost become too chilly and Rick had shut the door sometime in the early hours. Including the fact that it had the solar panels and a semi-functional bathroom, it really was ideal.

Thinking about the treehouse caused Rick's mind to jump back two days earlier when he'd finally resigned himself to ask Kate what her intentions were insofar as letting him stay on the couch. Right from the start, her invitation to him had been that he would stay on and aid her in completing projects in exchange for room and board. Given her wording, Rick could only assume that her invitation thusly had an undetermined end date. The way he saw it, though, the water collection system had to be one of her main goals and as it was nearing completion he could not help but wonder if his time with her would be as well.

If he was honest with himself he would be forced to admit that the prospect of leaving the treehouse made him very sad. Of course he appreciated it from the standpoint that it was a safe, worry-free place to rest his head every night and the consistent food and water certainly didn't hurt, but it was more than that. Rick liked being in the treehouse because he liked being with Kate.

Ever since the death of his mother and daughter Rick was simply going through the motions of life. Surviving, yes, but not living. Though he'd never thought it was possible for him, he'd actually felt the will to continue on slipping away. Had she not found him that day, he was certain he would not be alive presently, but that was not the reason he wanted to stay with her.

The simple fact was: he liked Kate. She was beautiful, kind, and fascinating, but it was more than that. Though they didn't talk much about themselves or their past, they did talk about things. They'd chatted plenty about the books they liked to read and he spoke about the stories he was interested in telling through his writing. When going through one of the houses he'd found one of his favorite Stephen King novels and upon discovering she had not read it, he insisted she do so, and they had a nice discussion about it as she progressed. Talking to Kate was unexpectedly easy; it felt natural and in their new bizarre reality, that was not something he wanted to take lightly.

Rick did not want to leave Kate or the treehouse, but he also did not want to be unwelcome or come off as rude or pushy. He wanted to be prepared for the time that she no longer needed his assistance, so as much as he didn't want to, he had forced himself to bring the topic up over dinner. Much to his surprise, his inquiry had flustered Kate; she appeared nervous and stammered out that she just assumed that he would remain in the treehouse with her seeing as he had nowhere else to go.

His response has been to tell her that the treehouse was hers seeing as she found it and inhabited it first and he would never presume to move in permanently without her expressly asking him to. To this, she said simply, "Then this is me asking you to stay."

When he thanked her, she laughed and called him silly for thinking she was going to throw him out after all he'd done to help her. Then, she'd retrieved two bottles of beer they'd stashed in the refrigerator, cracked them both open and handed him one so they could toast to their agreement.

As they laughed and drank, Rick felt a peculiar fluttering sensation in his heart; one he thought he might never feel again. He was falling for her—and not just because of the hilariously limited dating field of post-apocalyptic society. He would have fallen for her if they'd met back in the city, back before any of this started. He would have fallen for her anywhere, any place, because she was amazing.

Given how recent that revelation had been, Rick had not yet fully processed what it meant, so for the time being he was taking the only course of action he could: ignoring it. Still, no matter how their story ended, one fact would never change.

"I'm really glad I met you, Kate."

She glanced up at him from her position putting out one of the fires. "Yeah? Because without me you would have been a zombie dinner?"

"No," he said, though her statement was completely valid. "That's not what I meant. I'm just…I'm glad I met you. I would have been glad I met you back in New York before all of this started."

Her brow rose for a moment, but then her face relaxed into a smile. "I'm glad I met you, too. Now, are you ready to start moving some of these cooled pots up into the treehouse?"

"Okay. That's it. Careful; just take it nice and slow."

Rick stopped pulling on the rope and gazed down at her pointedly. "I don't think there's any way for me to do this much faster."

Kate gave a conceding head bob and watched the basket of water on its ascent. This was by far the part she was the most nervous about. As she had many experiences of dropping the container when she did this herself, she hoped Rick would have more success. It wasn't so much the fact that they would have wasted the prior few hours, but the fact that they had no water with which to start the process over.

Though Rick's continued praises embarrassed her slightly, she had to admit to being impressed at just how well the water catching system had worked. Given how short the prior night's storm had been, she had not expected much of a yield, but the amount of water they obtained delighted her. It meant more than just being able to wash some dishes instead of using every pre-cleaned plate and utensil the neighboring houses had to offer, but an even more precious commodity: taking a bath and being clean. For a day, anyway.

Kate's eyes continued to follow the basket on its ascent. Right when it reached the bottom edge of the balcony, her breath caught in her chest; this was by far the trickiest part. At first, it seemed to be going smoothly as the basket's ascent continued, but then the top edge snagged on one of the sticks camouflaging the balcony from the ground and the basket began to tilt. "Rick! Watch ou-"

But her warning was stolen from her lips as the pots inside the basket shifted with a metal clink and water began seeping towards the ground.

"Shit! Shit! Sorry! Oh shit I'm sorry!" Rick groaned as he quickly lowered the basket to the ground. He rested his forearms on the balcony edge and cursed again.

"It's okay." Kate said, walking over to examine the basket. A good portion of the water had spilled, but not all of it, so it wasn't a total loss. Plus she couldn't blame him in the least as she had done the exact same thing several times before.

"I'm sorry Kate."

"Really—its fine. Why don't you try standing with your legs against the railing and holding your arms straight out as you pull so the basket is actually a bit further away from the treehouse?" In her experience, this was the best way to keep the basket from getting caught. Unfortunately, it was also a much more difficult way to pull the basket up, because it depended entirely on muscle strength to hoist the weight; there was no way to distribute it against the railing of the balcony.

Doing as she instructed, Rick was able to pull the basket up safely, though he did mention it was more difficult, as she'd anticipated. When he pulled the basket up and over the railing, she heard him curse again and asked what happened.

"I spilled a little more water," he confessed apologetically. "I'm sorry; I'm really trying not to be terrible at this."

A breathy chuckle escaped her lips. "You're not terrible; don't worry about it."

Even if he had spilled the whole pot of water, she still would not have been mad at him; his assistance had been too instrumental in the prior two weeks. Without him, she knew she would never have been able to complete the water collection system. Even with the two of them they sometimes struggled. Without a second pair of hands, it would have been impossible, not to mention his height was an advantage on more than one occasion.

Though she had not thought about it specifically until he'd mentioned it, Kate was glad she had met Rick—more than glad, actually. As she had spent well over two months completely isolated from other (living) humans, she had forgotten how nice it was to have someone to talk with, who could talk back, unlike her black and white feline who would only yowl or purr in response to her comments. She had not realized how important human interaction was until she no longer had it. With Rick around, the days seemed to pass a little quicker and doing the difficult tasks seemed a little easier.

With the final pan of water hoisted up into the treehouse, Rick returned to the ground level and approached the second, still burning fire. Suspecting he was about to stamp it out she stopped him with, "No wait; I'm going to make dinner before we put it out; we'll have to eat a little early tonight."

"Fine by me—lugging that water was hard work!"

After retrieving supplies from the kitchen, Kate set to work making that evening's meal: Rice-a-Roni's Spanish Rice with a side of mashed potatoes from a box. With no possible way to add milk, butter or any other dairy product, the meals could be disappointing; however, thanks to an ample spice rack in one of the homes, they still tasted decent enough. Sadly, the end of civilized society had meant concessions insofar as food texture and flavor, but any food was better than starving to death.

"Oh god…I don't think I can eat another bite." Rick groaned and rubbed his stomach while peering into the pot of Rice-a-Roni where half a serving remained.

Kate laughed. "Things not often heard during the apocalypse…"

"Right?!" he proclaimed, laughing as well. "I hate to waste it…you think you can finish it?"

"I finished the potatoes!"

"Right… you know, this whole lack of refrigeration thing is getting quite frustrating."

She hummed and took a sip of water. On a cloudy day like that one, their tiny refrigerator failed to keep its interior below fifty degrees. While that was quite impressive compared to the eighty-five-plus atmosphere, it was certainly too warm to safely store food for any duration of time. She understood his point, though. When the prospect of them running out of food completely was not out of the realm of possibility, any wasting of perfectly good food was anxiety-inducing.

After dumping out the unused food under a tree far away from their camp so as not to draw in animals or any other creatures with a sense of smell, Kate helped Rick carry their used dishes and utensils back into the treehouse and set them in the sink to wash. "Man I can't wait until winter." He commented as he hoisted up the rope ladder.

Kate stopped in her tracks and gazed at him as though he'd grown a second head. "Um, why?"

"Because even if there's no sun we can make our own refrigerator with ice and snow and stuff; no more waste."

Kate shook her head at him. While this logic was correct, his vision was too narrow. "Um, yeah, except it'll be freezing and we might not have appropriate clothing and shelter to keep us from getting frostbite."

He clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed. "Well I was trying not to think about that. Anyway, I'm going to get started on the dishes…"

"Perfect. I'm going to take a bath—you probably should too."

He laughed as he crossed the room. "Is that your way of telling me that I smell, Kate?"

She answered honestly. "We both do." In the summer heat, without daily showers—proper showers, not just using a damp washcloth to wipe down certain areas—body odor was a given and there was only so much deodorant could do. Modern deodorants simply had not been designed for apocalyptic style living in July heat. More than just the smell, however, was the dirt from continually existing in nature. It had been a tough transition for Kate to get used to, and she was sad to say she finally had, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to bathe as regularly as she could. A lack of hygiene could only lead to any number of conditions she did not wish to experience.

As Kate gathered a pot of water and a cloth to take with her into the bedroom, she noticed Rick gazing at her curiously so she asked him what was wrong. He responded with, "I honestly do not mean to sound like a creepy voyeur when I ask this but: how are you going to use that pot to bathe?"

"Well I'm not going to be able to sit in it, if that's what you're asking." She teased. He gave her an unappreciative look and she laughed. "If you don't know how I'm going to do this, dare I ask how you've been bathing?"

"I haven't."

"Yuck." She responded with her nose scrunched in disgust.

"I'm kidding—kind of. My mother said the apocalypse was no excuse for not looking fabulous and somewhere along the way she found one of those giant tubs of baby wipes and insisted on lugging it along with her. And, by that, I mean she made me carry it." They exchanged smiles before he continued. "Anyway, we used those to kind of bathe for a while, but they ran out and it's probably been a month since I had anything resembling a makeshift bath."

"Then you're definitely next."

Rick glanced at the pot she held, back at her, back at the pot, and then down at himself with a frown. "If you thought I spilled water just trying to haul those over the balcony railing I got news for you…"

She laughed. "Well, I can't exactly blame you there. I do have to wash my hair on the balcony because water just gets everywhere."

"Why don't you use the tub in the house?"

She nodded her head. That would be a hundred times easier and a more controlled mess. Unfortunately, she did not feel it was a viable option. "I did a few times, but I wasn't sure where the water was going when it drained and I was afraid of it backing up."

"Gotcha."

Though she wished to enjoy the luxurious feeling of soaping up her skin and rinsing it clean for hours, Kate bathed as efficiently as she could before stepping out onto the balcony in just her underwear. Normally, she washed her hair fully nude so as not to dampen her undergarments, but with Rick in the next room that felt inappropriate.

With her hair washed and wrapped in a towel and the now dirty water poured over the balcony edge, Kate relinquished the bedroom to her companion so he could take his turn. While he bathed, she busied herself putting away the now-dry dishes and distracting Tux, who was suddenly hell bent on getting through the closed bedroom door even if it meant scaling the wall.

"Okay—I stand corrected." Rick called out through the bedroom door. "This actually feels amazing."

She chuckled and shoved the yelling feline away from the door. "Ah, yes, the benefits of de-gross-ify-ing."

"Oooh now there's a great word!"

She laughed and continued to clean up the kitchen for several more minutes before she heard, "I think I'm going to need your help."

Kate immediately felt her face flush at the prospect of what he could mean by that considering his current state. "What? Why?"

"I can't figure out the hair thing."

She rolled her eyes. "Honestly it's not…that…" But her voice drifted off when Rick emerged from the bedroom wearing nothing but white boxer-briefs, his chest and arms glistening with the remnants of water. Kate swallowed hard as she observed his strong arms, broad chest and, oh, the fact that the water running down into his bottoms had made them nearly see-through. Clearing her throat, Kate raised her line of vision to his face and laughed at how peculiar he looked with his hair clumped at odd angles and coated in suds.

"What?" He responded as though his appearance were entirely normal.

"Nothing," she said a bit too quickly, fighting to keep her gaze trained on his face. Though she really, really wanted to, she would not allow herself to look any further south. "You just look funny with your hair half soapy, that's all."

He smiled cheekily at her. "Then maybe you can help me get the soap out."

Kate led the way out onto the balcony and took the pot of water Rick handed her. Unfortunately, he was far too tall for her to effectively rinse his hair while he stood, so he dragged one of the kitchen table chairs out for him to sit on. She forced him to hold the pot of water on his lap, which was both practical and prevented her from staring, while she used her hands to cup the water and transfer it to his scalp.

A minute in to the process, Rick groaned. "Okay that feels amazing. Can you do my back next?"

She stopped with her hands fully entangled in his hair. "Excuse me?"

"My back—its killing me from hoisting up all that water."

Her brow wrinkled as she tried to grasp what he was saying. "So you're asking me for a massage?"

"Sure—this is a spa isn't it? Hey! Kate!" He spluttered and whined when her handful of water landed on his nose not in his hair."

"That's what you get for calling me a spa service."

Using the remaining water in the pot, she finished rinsing his hair and he thanked her for her assistance.

"No problem," she said, turning away quickly as he stood from his seat. "I'm just going to, ah, finish up in the kitchen."

"Can I do anything?"

Without even looking over her shoulder she said, "Yeah. Put some pants on."

"Oh god. Yep. My back is officially killing me." Rick groaned as he stood from his kitchen chair after it had become too dark to read by the ambient light coming through the balcony door. He arched his spine and moaned as he rolled his shoulders forwards and backwards. "I think I hurt muscles I didn't know I had."

Kate let out a breathy laugh, a teasing comment poised on her lips, but then she thought better of it. Watching him roll his neck to the left and the right, she began to feel a little guilty about their situation. He had done so much to help her that day, just saying thank you didn't seem like enough. "You should take the bed tonight."

Flustered he shook his head and spoke quickly. "What? Oh no—no. Sorry, no. That's not why I was complaining."

She smiled at his reaction. "It's okay, Rick; I don't mind. I see how cramped you are on that couch."

"But, I shouldn't take it from you."

She tilted her head, curious. "Why?" Then, as he lowered his eyes and gazed up at her under his brow, she guessed the reason why. "Rick I think the time for chivalry has passed…"

"I disagree."

She shook her head. While his sentiments were sweet, they were also completely unnecessary. "Please take the bed. I insist, but be fair warned: Tux likes to snuggle and he doesn't care that it's hot and he's like a space heater."

Rick laughed, but then gave her a genuine nod of appreciation. "Thanks Kate. Really."

She nodded back. "Any time."

A/N: FYI the next update will be later on Sunday, because I'm going away for the weekend. Thanks!