Disclaimer: I don't own Left 4 Dead 1 or 2.

Christopher hadn't had a good feeling since they entered the town, so he was less surprised when their situation had turned into an outright disaster.

The infected had rushed by him as a blur, its clamorous movement ruffling his clothes and hair as it passed. Christopher raised the shotgun and looked around to ask Nick what it was, but then he realized that Nick wasn't there anymore.

He heard the man yell, tone sharp and high with panic, and whirled to see what had happened.

The infected was hulking, and bent over. One arm flapped useless at its side and the other was about the size of a small car. In that hand it held Nick, who was squirming and fighting even as it lifted him up and used him as a hammer upon the concrete and a nearby newspaper vendor.

Christopher moved, lifting the shotgun. Amanda was shrieking in terror behind him, a noise he fought to ignore as he fired. The gun's stock cracked back hard on his collarbone.

He pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened and he thought it had jammed, but then he realized he still had to pump it again. By the time he was letting off another round, Nick had stopped making noises, and stopped flailing against the infected.

The mutated creature, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by two rounds of point-blank buckshot. Christopher pumped the shotgun and fired again, and then again. After the fifth shot it finally went down, flopping over with a rattling grunt of pain.

"Nick," Amanda cried, jolting ahead. "Are you okay?"

He was unresponsive, face turned away from them and into the cracked sidewalk where he'd been pummeled. Christopher put the shotgun down and went to pry the monster's still-clenched fist from around the survivor's abdomen. It was a lot like wrenching a dog's mouth open.

After he got him free, he leaned forward, shouting the man's name. There was no reply.

"Is he dead?" Amanda queued with a whisper.

"No. He's breathing." Christopher was running his hands over the man's body, checking for obvious breaks. At the ridge of Nick's shoulder there was a gash, likely caused by being smashed into the newspaper vendor. He pressed his hands into the wound to stem the blood flow and turned to Amanda.

"Look in his bag. See if he's got any gauze, something like that."

The duffel's strap had been snapped in the scuffle. It was laying on the curb of the sidewalk. Amanda pulled it to her as she knelt down across from her husband. She pushed aside the empty magazines and water bottles and found a first aid kit, next to an old-looking pistol. Hands shaking, she yanked the kit open.

"Hurry, hurry," Christopher snapped.

"I'm looking!"

Impatiently, she turned the whole thing upside down and dumped all its contents out onto the ground. A few paper-wrapped gauze pads landed amongst the ointments and bandages; Christopher snatched one up and ripped it open, pressing it to the wound. His hands were already slick with blood.

"It's not too deep," he said, glancing at his wife.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Christopher grabbed a second pad, tossing the old one aside. "I think so." As he pressed the new one down, he looked over the pile Amanda had dumped out of the kit. "Styptic," he muttered. "I need a styptic, something, come on."

"What's a styptic?"

"It's a... it stops bleeding," Christopher said.

Amanda sifted through the pile, shaking her head. At the bottom of the pile she found a foil-wrapped pad, which Christopher promptly ripped from her hands.

"This is it," he cried. "Perfect, perfect."

He pushed the ragged edges of Nick's jacket aside and placed the pad onto the wound as neatly as he could. Underneath him, the survivor jerked, coughing once and mumbling something he couldn't understand.

Amanda sidled closer. "He's waking up."

"Good. Get him to talk." Christopher grabbed up a roll of tape from the pile.

Nick was twisting his head, trying to see with his functional eye. He tried to say something but it came out as a jumbled mess of syllables.

"It's okay," Amanda said, "we're here."

"Rochelle?" He was blinking rapidly. "Is'sat you?"

"No. No. It's Amanda and Chris."

"What the fuck happened?" he was asking, but his words strung together and it sounded more like, "whaddafuchappen."

"A... a big... infected thing came and... and crushed you on the sidewalk."

"Fuck." Clarity was returning to him now, and he looked up at her. "How bad?"

Christopher answered from where he was taping the pad down. "You've got a cut on your back and you hit your head, but I think you'll be okay."

Amanda looked at her husband, who gave her a thumbs-up.

"Can you stand?"

"Gimme a minute." Nick was trying to get his hands under himself. "Fucking zombies, Jesus Christ."

Christopher tugged him to his feet, where he rocked unsteadily for a moment before regaining his bearings.

Amanda was replacing the contents of the first aid kit. When she stuffed everything back into the duffel she handed it to Christopher to carry, who tucked it under one arm.

"Where's my gun?" Nick asked, eyes bleary as he looked around for it.

It was laying at the other end of the square. The old black rifle was still intact, and Amanda grabbed it up with both hands, turning it over. "I think it's okay," she called, jogging back to them.

"All right," Nick sighed, taking the gun from her. "Let's get going."

Christopher gaped. "What? We- you can't be moving around, Nick."

"I've lost too much time already," the survivor bit out, pushing forward. "I have to keep moving."

Amanda stepped in front of him. "Can't we just rest a while?"

Nick shook his head, then grimaced at the pain it caused. "No. Can't lose any more ground."

"For a minute. Just for a minute," Amanda begged.

"You have a concussion," Christopher stated from behind them. "Nick, you need to wait a while. Your brain could hemorrhage if you don't."

Nick scoffed. "What are you, a doctor now?"

"I fixed your shoulder, didn't I?"

The survivor stopped walking, rubbing his forehead. "All right. All right, fine. Just for a bit."

They crossed the square and broke into a boarded-up ice cream shoppe, barricading a table against the door. Nick took his duffel back from Christopher and dug around in the first aid kit for a minute before pulling out a bottle of pills; he twisted the cap open and swallowed some of them.

Then he sat with his back against a wall and his head in his hands and didn't talk.

Christopher wandered into the back of the shoppe. He found a faucet that was trickling intermittent spurts and rinsed his hands clean of blood, hissing as the cold water touched the scrapes on his palms. He'd almost forgot about them until now. They seemed to be healing, but he couldn't tell much past the dried blood caked on his hands.

On a shelf he found a roll of paper towels. He dried off with these and brought the roll back with him to the front of the store.

Nick lifted his head as the husband entered.

"What are you doing?"

"There's a working tap back there. I was washing my hands."

Amanda seemed excited at the prospect of cleaning herself. She brushed past her husband and into the back as quickly as she could, taking the paper towels from him.

Christopher stood for a long time without saying anything before he went to Nick and sat next to him, against the wall.

"What pills did you take?" he asked, trying to sound nonthreatening.

"Hydrocodone."

"Where'd you find those?"

"A pharmacy. Back in that city."

"Are they working?"

Nick shut his eyes and sighed. "I wouldn't be talking to you if they weren't."

Christopher felt himself smile. He stretched out his legs in front of him. "What was that thing, anyway? That infected?"

"Charger," Nick muttered, tugging his gun into his lap. "Well, that's what we called 'em, at least." He glanced over the rifle, pulling the slide back, checking to see if it still functioned. "'Cause, you know. They charge."

"Clever," Christopher said, raising an eyebrow. "Are there going to be many more?"

Nick, satisfied that his gun was unharmed, leaned it against the wall next to him. "Haven't seen one for a while. Others have been through here before us. Must've been a straggler."

"Yeah, it seems pretty empty right now."

"Count your blessings, sailor," Nick mumbled, folding his hands on his knees. The drugs had made him more complacent, less snappish.

Christopher certainly counted that as one of his blessings.

Amanda re-entered the front room to see Nick cross-legged, torso bare, with his clothes bundled in his lap. Christopher was leaning over behind him, applying some sort of cream to the ragged gash. With easy movements, he began wrapping it. There was no complaints of pain from the survivor, either because of the pills or a high pain threshold. Or a combination of both.

"At least you aren't bleeding anymore," Christopher was saying, his tone light.

"I have that much going for me," came the grunted reply.

Amanda smiled. "You're pretty good at that, Chris." She sat down next to them. "Bet you thought you wouldn't be using your veterinary knowledge on a person, huh?"

Nick lifted his head a bit. "You're a veterinarian?"

"No, no. I'm not a doctor. I just own the drug company."

"How'd you get to know all this, then?"

"I worked at a vet's office for a few years. Picked up a couple things." Christopher tightened the bandage down and taped it tightly, smiling at his handiwork. "There we go. Good as new, buddy."

Nick was already pulling on his undershirt. Both it and the jacket were ripped from the earlier encounter. He didn't pay it much notice. "Uh... thanks. Christopher."

The husband and wife shared a smile. "See, we aren't so bad," the latter said.

"I guess not."

Christopher stood and grabbed up the old dressings. "I'm gonna go wash up. Got blood on me again."

Nick was leaning back against the wall again, more carefully this time. "Good thing we're immune, huh?" he joked.

Amanda and Christopher shared a look.

"What?"

Nick paused in stuffing his first aid kit back into the duffel. "Immune. You know, to the infection?"

Christopher screwed up his face. "I... I hadn't thought of that."

"Well, we'd have to be, wouldn't we?" Amanda said, her voice tremulous. "We've been going for days. You'd think... you'd think we'd have..."

"I'm not sure how it works," Nick's voice was quiet. "Bites or scratches or whatever. Pretty sure you need to get bit."

"Are you immune?" Christopher asked.

"What do you think?" Nick waved at the ruined part of his face. "I've been tested," he added on, tone sardonic.

"There's a test?"

Nick looked pained. "Yeah, a blood test. The military tested me."

Amanda heard the irritation in his voice and sighed. "Well, Chris? Do you think we're immune?"

Christopher just shrugged. "No, I think you're right, Amanda. We'd have to be to still be alive after this long."

There was a hint of doubt apparent in Nick's good eye for just a moment, then it was gone. "All right," he said, after a moment. "We'll stay a few more hours. Then head out again."

It was four hours later, and they were almost out of the town, when Christopher began to feel ill. He spiked a fever and stumbled about. Nick brought them to the barren loading bay of a grocery store and barricaded themselves inside, pushing a table against the back door.

Amanda settled Christopher down on the concrete, pillowing his head on her backpack.

"He scraped his hands back in the city. Do you think they got infected?" Amanda asked.

Nick was staring out of a back window, clicking some mechanism on his rifle. He said nothing.

Amanda brushed Christopher's hair out of his eyes as he shivered.

"It's chilly," he said.

"I know," his wife replied, scooting closer to him. "How do you feel?"

"Like I caught a cold," Christopher told her, a smile coming over his face. "I'll be okay. Just wanna sleep for a bit." He coughed for a while, and then rested quietly. Amanda pulled her jacket off and put it over him.

"Yeah, it's just a cold," she said. Her insides churned. "Let's just get you some rest."

Two hours later and Christopher had to be dragged to a bucket to throw up into. It wasn't food- not that they'd eaten much in the past days- but instead a foamy green substance. He slipped into a delirious fever while Amanda's anxiety turned into panic.

"Nick, he's so cold," she said.

He was sitting on an upturned trash can. "I know," he murmured. He was holding a pistol, slipping the magazine in and out slowly with one hand. It was the gun she'd seen earlier, in his duffel bag.

"What do we do?" Amanda asked, looking back at her husband. His face was pale and damp with sweat, and he tossed his head from side to side, mumbling incomprehensible words.

"Amanda," Nick started. His voice was uncharacteristically soft. "Come over here."

Confused, she stood up and walked closer to the survivor, who pushed the magazine into the pistol with a click. He regarded the gun, then looked up at her, some sort of quiet sadness lurking on his face.

Amanda looked at the gun and then his face. Her blood turned cold and her stomach seemed to have dropped to her knees. "No. No." She looked back at Christopher. "That's not what this is. That's not what it is! He didn't even get bitten!"

Nick looked away. "It'll be easier on him if I do it now," he said, words quiet. Amanda wished she'd misheard him.

"No. Nick. No. You can't. What if- what if it's just-"

Behind them, Christopher groaned something that might have once been a sentence. Now it had become a strained, animalistic grunt. Amanda turned to go to him.

Nick's hand was on her shoulder. "Don't," he said. She hadn't even been aware of him getting up from the trash can. "He's not your husband anymore."

Amanda felt tears on her face- when had she started crying?- and stared at Christopher. His skin had gone pallid. His muscles twitched with strange tremors. "Nick," she said, because she had nothing else to say.

"Wait outside," he told her.

"I can't leave him."

"You have to."

Nick took her arm- the most gentle she'd ever been touched by this man- and he guided her to a side door. "I'm sorry," he said. He left her out in the fogged, empty parking lot and shut the door behind him.

A moment passed, filled with a tepid silence.

Then, a single gunshot that echoed hollowly within the walls of the store.

Amanda sank down to her knees on the concrete and stared out at the parking lot. Time passed that felt like a lifetime. Nick's warm hand was on her shoulder. She hadn't even heard his approach.

He picked her up, pulled her to her feet. Amanda couldn't look at him.

Nick took her hand and they walked away from the grocery store into the mid-afternoon light.

They'd walked in silence, neither saying a word to the other. Not a zombie in sight. Nick found a safe house tucked away into some trees on the outskirts of town; an old one bedroom flat.

Amanda curled into a corner and watched with a weary eye as Nick cooked something over a stove he'd cobbled together from a truck grille and a bunsen burner. He hadn't said a word to her since the grocery store. Whenever she'd caught his eye he'd turned his face away.

Time passed in the little safe house. Nick crept up to her with a plastic bowl in his hand.

"You need to eat," he said. Unspoken apologies filled his voice.

Amanda took it and ate it. She didn't know what it was. Some sort of watery soup, yellow and pale. It was warm, and it felt good in her empty stomach.

Nick crouched down across from her and ate his own.

Hours passed and Amanda had gone from quiet to just empty and tired. She stared at the blank off-white walls of the safehouse, eyes dry. There were no more tears; there was nothing left inside of her to let out.

The sound of shuffling began- Nick was disassembling his rifle, cleaning it.

Amanda looked over and watched him. The quiet unnerved her. There was no more Christopher to hold onto, to share a conversation with, to keep her head above the water. Just Nick, her own personal angel of Death.

She struggled to her feet and went over, sitting across from him.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her voice cracked from the strain of her raw throat.

Nick looked up at her, and Amanda realized she had never noticed how green his good eye was. Or how the other looked like someone had stirred milk into a clear decanter. "Gotta keep my rifle taken care of," he spoke. Amanda kept staring at him, taking in details she hadn't noticed before. Lines of pain and worry that creased his face. She'd never asked how old he was.

He was fiddling with the slide now, shifting it in and out. There was something mechanically cathartic to his movements. His dark brown hair had fallen partially into his face; he didn't brush it back, only kept his head slightly tilted to keep it out of his serviceable eye.

Nick had taken the gun completely apart. Pieces laid out everywhere, like a puzzle. She watched as he started to put it all back together with learned, deft movements. Something she'd never be able to figure out. He did it like he'd been doing it all his life. Perhaps he had.

"Where did you come from?" Amanda asked suddenly, her voice just above a whisper.

Nick glanced up at her. "Hm?"

"I guess I never wondered. We... I'm from Minnesota."

"Never been there." His words were quiet. The rifle was beginning to look like a rifle again.

Amanda reached down and lifted a part of the stock. It had his name scratched into it. She hadn't noticed it before, but then again she hadn't paid much attention until now. "Who did this?" she inquired, holding it for him to see.

He plucked the piece from her hand. "A friend of mine." His eyes did not meet hers.

Amanda thought back to all those notes on the safe house walls. "He was a good friend of yours, wasn't he?"

"Is." Nick's voice held no uncertainty. "Is."

"And you're looking for him, up north."

"Yes."

"What is his name?"

Nick looked at her, then. Underneath his usual, impassive exterior, she thought she could see sadness. "Ellis. His name is Ellis."

"Ellis," Amanda repeated, letting it come off of her tongue. "That's right. That was the name on those safe house walls. There are others, aren't there?"

"Rochelle and Coach," he muttered, looking back down at the gun. He was putting the scope back on.

"How did you get separated?"

Nick's hands on the gun stilled. His jaw worked beneath the stubble. "We were on a ship. For a while. I guess the government's trying to make a vaccine or something. Then... the zombies came. Overran us." There was a quiet sorrow in his words. "We tried to stay together. The ship was flooding. Sinking."

Amanda watched him try again for the rifle, then stop.

"The ship ran aground, somewhere. I couldn't find the others. Combed the places I could find. It was a big ship." Nick let out a soft laugh, without humor or merit. "Should have gotten off as soon as we hit. I think that's what they did."

"They left without you."

"They didn't have a choice," Nick said, sounding like he was trying to convince more than just her. "Where we landed- so many of those fuckin' monsters. So I snuck up the coast. Kept to the docks. Back alleys, you know." He sighed. "Thought those guys had forgotten about me 'till I found that care package, back at the city." Another empty laugh. "Man, I'd never been so happy to see their names."

Amanda smiled. "Christopher and I- we saw that package."

"Did you?"

"He wanted to take it all. I convinced him not to."

Something like appreciation flickered in Nick's good eye. "Well... thank you, for that."

Amanda nodded and watched him pick up the rifle again. He worked at it in silence and she watched, until every piece was put back in its original place. Nick ran his hand over the stock, smiled distantly. A quiet memory lurked on his face.

Outside the safe house, a gust of wind picked up, rattling at the boards over the windows.

"You ought to get some sleep," Nick said suddenly, glancing over at the darkness outside.

Amanda shifted, sitting next to him against the wall. "Yeah, probably." She scooted a little closer to him. So close she could hear him breathing, feel the warmth of his body near to hers.

He settled his rifle next to him. "Are you going to sleep there?"

"I..." she pulled her knees up to her chest, hugged them. "I just want to sit here a while. With you."

"Um, all right," Nick said.

Amanda stared at the opposite wall for a long time, mind a whirl with thoughts. The hollowness in her had turned into something else, something desperate. She turned her head and looked at her companion. The ruined eye was the only one she could see, and it was hooded.

With a little outward breath, Amanda reached out and touched his arm.

He started, turning his head to catch sight of her. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Amanda got up and shifted around, placing one of her knees on either side of his legs.

"What are you-"

She bent down and went to place her lips onto his, but he twisted away. With a scoff, Amanda leaned closer, breathing in the smell of him, of gunpowder and blood, of something wild and lonesome. She ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his head.

"Nick," she murmured.

"Amanda." It was the second time he'd used her name. His hands were on her shoulders, keeping a firm distance between them. "Don't."

"I need this. I need to feel like a person again." she breathed. "Please, Nick. Please..." tried to kiss him once more, but he again turned away, and, deflected, she brushed her cheek against the stubble on his face. "For me. Do this for me. Please."

"I can't. Do you understand? I can't."

"Why not?"

She watched the muscle work in his jaw before he fixed her with his good eye and said, "I'm a carrier."

"A c-... what... what is that? What does that mean, Nick?"

"For the infection. It's..." he looked away, forcing the words out slowly and carefully. "I can infect others, but not myself."

Amanda stilled above him. A slow understanding began to spread over her mind. An awareness. His reason for survival. Why he never got sick. And also why Christopher had.

"Your shoulder," she breathed. He looked pained. "You infected him."

Nick didn't speak.

Amanda felt sick. Not even aware of the disgust on her face, she stumbled away from him. He continued to stare at the wall, silent.

"Why didn't you tell us?" her voice was a whisper, but she may as well have been yelling. "You said it was blood-borne. And you were... and you were bleeding...! Why didn't you-"

"I thought you were immune," he ground out, catching her eye with his. "I thought-"

"We told you," Amanda's voice had increased in volume, "we had never encountered them before now."

Nick, again, looked away.

Amanda glared down at him, breathing harsh air through her nose. Without thinking, she moved and grabbed up his rifle, swinging the barrel down at his face. He flinched visibly, shrinking back against the wall.

"Amanda-"

"Don't talk to me," she barked. "You goddamn liar. I've been reading those safe house walls just like you have. The military's been killing your kind for a reason."

He lifted his hands. "We're not-"

Amanda grabbed the slide and cocked the rifle. Moving forward, she pressed the barrel to his neck. "I'll make it quick. Like you did with my husband."

Nick gazed up at her, swallowing against the gun at his adam's apple. "If you're gonna do it, just fucking do it. But shoot me in the skull. I don't want to get back up again."

Amanda narrowed her eyes at the venom in his tone, then nodded.

She lifted the gun, and Nick took his chance. He moved faster than she'd ever seen him move, grabbing the barrel of the rifle and yanking it up and away from his face. She fired on reflex and it went into the wall, peppering them both with plaster. With a strong yank, he pulled the gun from her hands, and even as he was springing to his feet he was pointing the gun right back at her.

"Get back," he snarled. "Get right the fuck back."

Amanda now lifted her own hands, stumbling away from him.

He took a few steps backward, shouldered his duffel with one hand.

"Do not follow me," Nick said even as he was backing up to the exit.

Amanda watched him slip out and become lost to the nighttime.

She sank to the floor, her hands shaking. Outside, the wind was picking up in the dark. She stared at the closed door in silence.

She never went after him. Instead, she turned back, went in the opposite direction. Slipped into the loading bay of that grocery store and stood over her husband's body. The single bullet hole in his temple. A sort of silence crawling up her, eating away at her.

Amanda Nielson knew only this:

She was alone.

The wife stayed in the loading bay of that grocery store until she, too, became part of the world that was deep and howling and angry.

(A/N: So there's the end of that arc. Thanks to Yggi, my after-hours morale booster, and Kit, my beta-reader/spider caretaker. Next installment: The Drifter. See you next week. Thank you for reading!)