Thanks again to Leyshla Gisel and LicoriceEchidna for their lovely reviews! Sorry it's taken me so long to update!

Chapter Three

X

The watery sunlight was creeping over the top of the buildings in the city and Anna glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes left until the end of her shift. She yawned and began to clear up the bloodied bandages from the patient who had arrived with what he insisted was a kitchen injury but was clearly a stab wound. She hated nights.

"Anna?" Helen called over the top of the curtain "Have you got time for one more?"

Anna felt her heart sink as thought of a cup of tea and a warm bed flickered and moved just beyond her grasp. She took a deep breath and drew back the curtain with a bright smile "Why not?"

Helen was a tiny but severe looking Sister. Nobody crossed her, not even the roughest, meanest patients. She ran the Accident and Emergency like it was a military operation. Her thin lips gave Anna a brief smile as she jerked her head toward the waiting room "Bloke in the suit. Says he needs to be cleaned up before going home to his wife if you catch my drift. Triage think he might have broken a rib or two and he definitely needs stitches in his arm."

Trudging out into the waiting room, Anna spotted him almost immediately. He definitely didn't belong in this A&E - or even this part of London. His suit wasn't made of paper, for a start.

"Mr Smith?" He looked up when she called his name (Right. HIS name). A handsome face that Anna guessed looked worn out normally, but was now also sporting a black eye and split lip. He smiled as politely as the pain in his ribs would let him "That's me, nurse."

"Follow me." She led him into the cubicle "So the bondage got a bit out of hand did it?" he nodded "Any other injuries I should know about?"

"No." He squinted as she shone a torch in his eyes to check his pupil reactions "Apart from the bump on your head indicating that you've been hit with something heavy enough to knock you out?" He blanched at this, staring at her with wide eyes.

Anna ignored his discomfort and turned away to set up her instruments "That's not standard practise for Bondage. I'm not saying I'm familiar with the scene, but you get to learn the process working here. I'm guessing that you wanted to say you were mugged but that would mean getting the police involved. This brings me to the conclusion that you were either committing a crime when you got hurt or – much more likely – you were tied up and beaten for some reason that you can't divulge."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." He was cool. Cool enough to be lying.

"I mean, I'm not actually interested in why you got hurt. Really, I'm more concerned as to whether we should give you a tetanus jab for that cut on your arm. The brothels around here are kept super clean to avoid any unwanted attention. So if that's where you've been, you probably won't need one." She turned back with a cheerful smile and a syringe full of local anaesthetic "Shall we stitch up that arm of yours?"

He offered the injured limb silently. In fact, he didn't say a word until she was nearly finished.

"Can I have that tetanus jab please?"

X

It was almost a fortnight since they had arrived back at the compound and they were already slipping into a pattern. Having been shown every inch of the place, Joe had insisted they set up a watch despite Anna's protests that the walls were safe. She agreed without much of a fight though; it seemed churlish to argue given that she knew less about surviving outside the compound than they did. She reasoned inwardly that eventually they would come to feel safe enough to realise a watch was unnecessary. Between the three of them, they arranged for one to be on watch one night in three, sitting on the roof with a pair of binoculars and a silenced sniper rifle. So far, none of them had had cause to use it.

It felt weird having other people around again. Anna had to stop herself from crying out in surprise whenever she rounded a corner and nearly collided with Joe or Neha. She had gotten too used to being alone.

Upon arrival, she had led the tired threesome into the main foyer and flicked on the main lights, illuminating the majority of the building. Neha had given her a look of abject horror "Aren't you worried about your generator running out?"

Anna had smiled and tapped her nose "Solar power, darling. There are panels all over the compound. Don't tell me the US government didn't plan ahead." She watched as their eyes lit up at the prospect of being able to use as much hot water and electricity as they needed to, and at once became glad that she had taken to the decision to search out other survivors.

There were no bedrooms, but almost all of the private offices were equipped with sofas and en-suite bathrooms. Joe and Neha chose quarters near to Anna and it was decided that while Ella was still waking up in the night, they would share the responsibility between them.

Having a baby in the close vicinity had been somewhat of a culture shock. Ella was for the most part, a very happy and contented baby, but even the most contented baby requires constant attention. Joe and Neha had said that she had been born just as things were descending into chaos – Anna suspected the stress had sent her mother into labour. It wasn't unusual. Earthquakes tended to do the same thing. It had been a long time since Anna had looked after an infant – in fact, when she had been a nurse she had only worked in the baby unit for a couple of weeks covering someone's sick leave. It had actually been a relief to get back to the A&E. However, between the three of them, they somehow managed to cope.

One morning in the third week, Anna enlisted Joe's help to start clearing out the offices. It was unnerving to have to keep walking past desks adorned with open files and family photographs – almost as though the occupant had just gotten up to get a cup of coffee and would be back any second.

The main body of the office was large and open plan. There seemed little point in keeping so many desks, so together Joe and Anna set out clearing them of clutter. Joe picked up a framed photograph from the desk nearest to him "What should we do with these? We can't just dump them. They're personal property."

Anna pursed her lips. Joe was right of course, but she doubted family photographs were on the minds of their owners at the present moment "We'll box up the personal stuff and put it in the basement." She said finally "The desks we can chop up and use for fire wood." She gestured around herself "It's unlikely, but if the solar panels go bust we'll need something to burn."

"What about the case files?" Joe held up a folder with a green tag on it and for a second Anna felt sick. Any file with a green tag on it was one that she had bought with her from MI5. It held information regarding the outbreak. Reaching her hands out, she tried not to snatch it from him. Her breath caught in her throat as she spoke "Anything you find like that you can put in a separate box. I'll sort through it and put it back in the archives."

"Why don't we just burn those as well?"

"Paper creates a ton of smokes and burns too easily – what would be the point? We could just as easily keep them." Carefully, without Joe noticing, she placed any files she could see with a green tag in a separate box.

They worked in silence a long while then, systematically de-cluttering the desks and shifting them toward the door so they could be taken outside and chopped up. Eventually Joe spoke "So what were you doing out here before the outbreak?"

Anna almost automatically went into evasive mode, before realising that it probably didn't matter if she went up to the roof and painted her job title in forty foot letters. She took a deep breath "I worked for Her Majesty's government."

Joe raised an eyebrow "Well that much is obvious – but doing what?"

Anna smiled slightly abashedly "I catch spies and terrorists."

"Jesus. So you're like, a female James Bond?"

"He does a lot more running about than I do."

Joe laughed "But seriously, is that what you do – all that espionage shit? Playing poker with Al Qaeda?"

Now it was Anna's turn to laugh "No, that's not me. The technical term for what I do is Interrogator, but I don't like to use it. I interview people. Figure out whether they're lying, whether what they say can be trusted or not."

"Did you always want to be a spy?"

"Not a spy," she corrected "And no. I trained as a nurse out of school and worked in an Emergency Department for five years before I signed the Official Secrets Act."

"That's a hell of a U-turn. Florence Nightingale to Spook. What made you choose to do that?"

"I didn't choose it. It sort of... chose me."

Joe shook his head in amused disbelief "That's crazy." They continued working in silence as Anna allowed him to assimilate this information and allowed herself to recover from openly admitting her job to a civilian for the first time.

In the end, she spoke first "What about you? What did you do back on dry land?" Joe smiled a little at her attempt to insinuate that they were drifting at sea.

"Life insurance." They stared at one another for a moment while the irony sank in before bursting into hysterical laughter.

X

"I'm thinking of going back out there to look for more survivors." Anna broached the topic the only way she could think of – bluntly. Joe and Neha stared at her across the table. Up until that moment, they'd been eating dinner and talking casually about how much firewood the desks had created for them. The late evening sun cast an orange glow over the dining area colouring the food, the walls, their faces. Anna continued.

"I think that if I drive in another direction – go west maybe – I might be able to find more people." She was met with uncomfortable silence.

"Anna," Neha started gently "It's not just the dead you have to worry about – You know from our experience that the living can be just as dangerous."

Anna smiled sadly "Don't take this the wrong way, but I knew that before I found the pair of you. Look, I'm not taking about going out and putting up posters advertising our whereabouts. Our meeting was a fortunate accident, but my plan had originally been to try and scope people from a distance, maybe infiltrate them for a while to get a feel for whether they'd be a threat or not. I know this sounds like madness, but don't you think it's worth it if there are people out there who need saving? People who are in just as much danger as you were?"

She had spoken well, but Neha didn't look convinced. Anna sighed "I know that you don't want to risk bringing anybody in who could hurt us – and for good reason – but you have to trust that out of anybody, the one person who can tell whether someone is planning something sinister or not is me."

Neha nodded silently, absently rocking Ella in her carry cot. Joe shifted uncomfortably in his chair "How long will you be gone for?"

"I can take enough spare fuel and supplies to drive for three days there and back non-stop. You know how I feel about sleeping out in the open – anymore than six days, I wouldn't trust myself not to crash."

"And what about weapons? A gun should really be your last resort. What else did they keep here?"

"Nothing really," an idea struck Anna and she smiled "At least not in the secure weapons unit."

And so the next day Anna clambered into the armoured truck once more, armed with several knives (and one machete) that they had dug out of the evidence room the night before. She had spent a few hours instructing both Joe and Neha in how to work the gate controls and the comms radio which she would use to alert them of her presence when she returned.

"Wish me luck." She winked at them, sounding braver than she felt. The morning air was cool and there was a thin layer of dew on the grass outside. Neha reached out to squeeze her arm through the truck window "Please come back."

Anna lay a hand over hers "I'll do my best."

X

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