It took only a few short minutes for Lilly to have all of Eddie's supply boxes piled up inside the store's back room. The place was surprisingly untouched inside – or perhaps it had been cleaned up since the Outbreak began. Either way, it appeared secure and Eddie found himself marveling at just how strategic Lilly's choice of hideouts had been.

"It's the perfect spot, because it isn't." She'd said that to him as they dropped his boxes down onto the dusty stone floor of the backroom. "Nobody goes looking for anything here. Nobody tries to break into this place and loot it. I wouldn't have stayed here myself – but then I discovered this room. The perfect safehouse."

Eddie took a look around the backroom. Other than his boxes, now piled up in the corner of the room, the area was lined with metal shelves and clothing racks full of unsold merchandise. Some of the shelves were cleared, making room for the battery-operated lantern that kept the place from complete darkness, and a few half-eaten food scraps.

There wasn't much in the way of supplies, he noticed. She must have been running low on her own.

"The shelves are heavy, but movable." Lilly demonstrated by pushing one in front of the closed door. "And since the door's the same color on the outside as the wall around it, it's easy to miss in the first place. Even if someone did try to loot the store, very few would suspect anyone to be living in here."

The small lantern did little to light the dark room. It was cold and damp inside, and it smelled of musty clothing. Dusty coats and jackets hung on racks pushed to the edges of the room. Piles of sale signs and unused hangers cluttered up a far shelf. Like everywhere else, this place had been abandoned right in the middle of normal, everyday activities. These clothes were probably about to be put out on the floor for sale before everything happened.

Lilly shrugged off her leather jacket and fit it over a hanger. She set the hanger on the end of a rack, rather carefully, as if she didn't want it getting damaged. Underneath it she wore only a dingy gray tank top.

Without her leather layer, Lilly appeared even more pathetically malnourished. Her bare arms were nothing but taut flesh stretched over bone and muscle. Her collarbones were clearly visible above the neckline of her top, practically poking right out of her skin. He also noticed her belt was pulled to what looked like the tightest notch – and her jeans were still baggy on her.

She kicked off her boots and set them under her jacket. Her presumably-once-white socks were absolutely filthy.

"You can take your shoes off if you want." She breezed past him, headed for the door. He watched as she adjusted the shelving unit in front of the door, making certain it was completely blocking it. "Things don't get in here, and we're staying for the night."

"What if someone sees the RV outside?" he asked. "They might come try to rob us."

"That's why we're in the storeroom with the door blocked. And I have the keys to the RV, so they won't get anywhere that way."

She seemed pretty confident. "Has anyone ever tried to rob you before?"

"Not here."

"Somewhere else?"

She passed by him again and knelt down in front of his supply boxes. She opened the closest one and began rooting through it.

Noting her lack of response, Eddie decided that probably wasn't a good topic to pursue. Especially since she could have named him as someone who had tried to rob her.

Lilly's eyes widened at something in the box. She reached in and pulled out a half-eaten package of Oreos.

"Oh man, I forgot about those!" Eddie perked up a bit. They were stale as all hell, but stale cookies beat no cookies.

Lilly slid the plastic cookie tray out of the packaging. She began counting the cookies under her breath. Then she slid half of them to the other end of the package.

"Okay," she said, "So there are sixteen here, which means eight each. If we eat one a day, we can make them last a little over a week. Or, if we went with eating one every two days, they'll last over-"

"You're rationing the cookies?" His cookies, more specifically?

Lilly paused to glance over at him. "Of course. We can't just eat them all at once. That'd be stupid. Short-sighted."

Eating them all at once would be stupid. But still...

Lilly slipped the cookie tray into its blue foil sheath and then tucked it back into the box. "Well, this gives us something to look forward to, I guess. Small as it is."

"Yeah."

After a while, he decided to take his shoes off. He'd been wearing them pretty much non-stop for the last few weeks. Kicking them into the corner beside Lilly's boots, he realized her shoes were significantly larger than his. It looked funny and a bit weird.

He sat down on the cold stone floor and stretched his toes. It felt nice to be able to take his shoes off for once. Hell, being able to relax at all felt nice for a change.

Of course, he couldn't be completely relaxed in the company of this possibly-dangerous stranger. But she seemed to be planning for long term cooperation between the two of them, which he took as a good sign. If she was going to kill him she'd probably have done it already.

Eddie caught himself yawning as he stretched. His vision blurred a bit, until he blinked the tiredness away.

Lilly turned to him, watching him fight sleep. "You're tired." she noted.

"Yeah, a little." Lying would have been pointless. She could clearly see him fighting back another yawn.

Her eyes drifted from him to the opposite corner of the room. He followed her gaze to a flattened heap of clothing in said corner.

"That's where I sleep when I'm not on the road." she said. "If you're tired, you should rest here. Where it's safe."

"Oh, no, that's okay – I don't wanna take your bed." Truthfully, he was afraid of going to sleep around her. But he was also afraid of being sleep-deprived around her. All his senses would be dulled and his reaction time would suffer.

"I sleep in the daytime." She opened another box and started rummaging through it. "Rest now if you want to."

Eddie rubbed one eye. It had been a long fucking day and a long fucking night. Resting did sound pretty good after everything he'd been through.

Well, I guess the worst she can do is kill me. Then at least all the bullshit of trying to stay alive would be over.

"Okay. I'll just rest a little while."

He shrugged his jacket off and hung it beside Lilly's. Disgusting as it was, he decided to keep his white undershirt on. Lilly probably wouldn't appreciate him hanging around half-naked.

She studied him again as he sprawled himself out on the makeshift bed. He noticed her eyes drawn to the multitude of tattoos covering both his arms. She seemed embarrassed when he caught her staring. Quickly she averted her eyes, returning her attention to the supply boxes.

Girls always seemed to either love or hate his tattoos. Folding his arms behind his head, he cast a glance over at Lilly. She was very mysterious. It was hard to tell what she thought of him or his body modifications.

He waited for her to look over at him again. That time, when she did, he was ready. He decided to offer her a small smile. A gesture of goodwill between them, or so he hoped. With any luck it would help prevent her from coming to her senses and either throwing out or killing the strange man she'd invited into her safehouse.

His smile was met with an eye-roll as she looked away again.

"You got any ink?" He opted to broach the subject, rather than leave it hanging awkwardly between them. "You seem like the type."

Lilly continued pulling items out of the boxes. She was currently sorting through his memento box – a small assortment of things that held no meaning or usefulness to anyone but him.

"I seem like the type?" was all she said in response.

"I dunno. Kinda."

Her furious digging through the box slowed for a moment.

"I might," she said.

Her response piqued his interest. "What do you have?"

"I'm not going to show you." she replied, her voice muffled as she reached into the very bottom of the memento box. "But, it's a tiger. On my hip."

"I knew it." He chuckled to himself. "I can always tell."

After a bit more digging, Lilly settled on something that seemed to catch her interest. She drew back from the half-empty box, holding a beat-up CD case.

Stifling another yawn, Eddie raised his head just enough to see what exactly she had. The plastic case caught the lantern light just right as she turned it over in her hand. The cover was made clearly visible in that brief moment. It was Incubus' S.C.I.E.N.C.E.

One of his favorite albums of all time, and definitely his favorite for spicing up long car rides in the past. He'd thrown it into the box knowing he was going to be driving for quite a while to get out of Georgia. Of course, he never ended up actually listening to it during that car ride. Nor did he end up getting out of Georgia, for that matter.

"Great album." he murmured, lowering his head back down onto the crook of his arm.

Lilly opened the case and glanced and the disc inside. "I used to like some Incubus." she said. "I don't know this album, though."

"It's their early stuff. Really weird, but really good. Or at least, I always thought so."

She studied the back cover. "Idiot Box." she mumbled, reading one of the song titles. "Sounds like where I am right now."

"Aww, don't talk about yourself like that." The witty comeback was out of his mouth before he could stop and remember who was talking to. This wasn't a friend of his. He immediately tensed.

"Oh yeah?" Lilly raised an eyebrow at him. "You feeling bold because I let you in here?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't think about it before I said it." He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm – I'm still used to talking to my friend, I guess. I mean, he was the last person I used to talk to before you showed up. And he would probably think that was funny. I'm sorry."

Donning her familiar scowl, Lilly dropped the CD back into the box.

"No point looking at that, anyway." She folded the box flaps closed. "It's not like we can play music anymore."

The next twenty minutes or so consisted of Lilly sifting through the remaining boxes while Eddie watched from her bed. It took all his effort to keep his eyes open. The makeshift bedding was scratchy and lumpy in places, but compared to a car seat it was luxurious. He was still frightened of his new companion – terrified, in all honesty – but sleep was a constant and persuasive whisper in his ear. He laid his cheek on the sleeve of a soft white sweater and finally closed his eyes. The last thing he took note of before passing out was Lilly staring over at him, her expression vague as always.