A/N: Happy new year! Sorry for the late chapter, I was sleeping over at a cousin's. It's a bit of a filler chapter, but there's a reason why at the end author's note and sort of in the story. But as soon as this is posted, I will start the next chapter to give it to you guys quicker! I promise!

Enjoy the chapter!


Kirsten, although partially awake in the slightest, enjoys her warm and cozy slumber. Nothing can wake her up at all, nuh-uh. Not Nick making cheeky remarks about how she can whip someone with her hair, not Pete asking her to fill the water canteens, not Alvin fussing with Sarah over juice boxes, nope. Not even Rebecca going into labour. Okay, that last one is a lie and she's over exaggerating. But she's so peaceful, nothing can wake her.

Not one, little, thing.

Maybe besides the droplets of water dripping on to her face.

Damn rain, she hisses in her head, wiping her face with the sheet covers. Wait, sheet covers? Kirsten springs up from her bed to see an angsty Sarah, biting her bottom lip in an attempt to hold back a grin while flicking her finger tips at Kirsten.

Kirsten grabs Sarah's hands and looks up at her groggily, "Sarah," She flatly says, "What are you doing?" She asks, slowly letting go of her hands as she looks down at Kirsten with startle.

Sarah wipes her hands on her blue jacket and looks back down at Kirsten, giving her a small grin. "There's water in the pipes. Pete said it was connected to the stream we passed." She exclaims, balling her fists under her chin and bouncing off her heels in excitement.

"Hey, that's neat." Kirsten gives the teenager a smile before pulling the sheets off herself, swinging her legs around the side as she stands up and yawns. "Is everyone else awake?" She asks, wiping her eyes as Sarah nods her head.

"Rebecca's still sleeping. Alvin said not to wake her because she'll be as "grumpy as a bear" if I do." Sarah confusedly say, tilting her head sideways as she looks to the floorboards.

"Yeah," Kirsten nods her head, "that wouldn't be a smart move."

"Anyway," Sarah muses, "breakfast is waiting! Race you there!" She childishly giggles, running straight to the doorway of Kirsten's room.

Kirsten quickly runs up to the teenage while calling her name, "Sarah, wait." She places her hand on the girls shoulder as she stops, slyly smirking at the confused girl. "If this is a race, then I'm totally going to kick your ass." And with that, she runs forward, leaving a determined Sarah trailing behind her. Her feet patter against the stairs as she rushes down them, almost slipping on the floorboards at the very bottom because of her socks. She briefly gasps, muttering curses before regaining her balance.

Sarah and Kirsten sprint across the lounge room and burst into the kitchen in a childish manner, giggling and laughing at themselves as the group stared at them surprisingly. Luke was just amazed that she was doing something other than be a sarcastic survivalist, she was genuinely having fun with Sarah. He doesn't really realize it, but he's smiling.

Kirsten sets her eyes on the group before giving an awkward grin, "Heh- uh- Sorry." She scratches the back of her head, "Good morning." She greets, watching Sarah stand up straight and smile at her Dad.

"Sarah, I told you not to run in the cabin." Carlos warns his daughter sterly, placing his spoon into his bowl as he gave her the slightest of daggering eyes.

"S-Sorry, Dad. I was just getting Kirsten to come and eat. I won't do it again." She frowns, looking up at her caretaker through her eyelashes as she walks over to the huge, wooden dining table. Kirsten adores the cozy feel to the cabin, it's welcoming. But her guard still isn't down and she's just as cautious in the cabin as she is in the woods.

Carlos encourages his daughter to sit down and finish her food, along with Kirsten who has the hapless position of sitting in between Luke and Nick. Just her luck.

"Now that we're all here, we've got to talk about what we're going to be doin' here." Pete advises, looking around at the group sternly as he takes a spoonful of what Kirsten finds out to be very watery oatmeal. Better than nothing, She shrugs.

"This can't be just a one night thing, right?" Alvin worries, "I'm not exactly sure how much Bec can go on with that baby."

Kirsten takes a spoonful of the watery oatmeal as she glances at Alvin, "Well, we can't stay here forever. But we don't exactly need to leave now. Carver could be following us or sending his guards after us. I'm not saying we haven't made distance from his camp, because we have, it's just that he could have been following us the entire way."

"But we were careful. We scoped around and made sure we didn't leave any obvious tracks." Luke responds.

"That could of slow him down." Alvin muses, tilting his head to the side with a pout of his bottom lip. "And even if he was following us, why wouldn't he have just caught us while we were on the move?"

"He might've not had the numbers." Carlos replies, "But he's smart. He wouldn't leave without numbers unless he had something up his sleeve."

Kirsten didn't doubt Carlos, but she definitely didn't think Carver is that smart. They escaped, didn't they? They got out of there alive. Breathing. Blood in their veins. Blood in their hearts. If Carver is as smart as he's intended to be, then she wouldn't be sitting in a cozy cabin with food in her bowl.

She doesn't realize it, but she zones out as she eats her food. Once she zones back in, she realizes they're talking about an escape plan.

"So we go North?" Nick asks, earning a determined nod from his uncle.

"North?" Kirsten muses, "Like Wellington?"

"The hell's that?" Rebecca asks, barging through the kitchen door as her tone is sharp but curious. And still full of sleep. Kirsten learnt to shrug off any hostility by the women due to the pregnancy, it's almost like a professional sport and she is its gold medalist.

"People say there's a sanctuary in Wellington, apparently the cold slows the biters down." She answers.

Luke's eyes widen in surprise, he never thought of that. With the cold slowing down the lurkers, they wouldn't be as much as a threat. And with the sanctuary, they'd finally be at peace with no worries... Besides the worry of there not being a sanctuary. But there'd be a place "And even if there isn't a sanctuary, we can find a place and not have to deal with the lurkers as much. Right?"

Although Kirsten really thinks it's just another pipedream, she really doesn't have anything to lose. Up in the cold, it slows the biters down. That's handy, and like this cabin, there's bound to be somewhere they can stay. It was a win-win situation. Not to mention possibly finding her father. "Uh- right. Yeah." She quickly nods, taking in another spoonful as the group continues to chat about the plan.


It was late afternoon and the sky illuminated a pink-orange color into cabin through the windows. Kirsten sat alone on the couch in the loungeroom, digging into a book that Sarah found for her in her room. It was a series collection of The Gurgles, a book about transdimensional body-somethings... something like that. It's all she can really do, nothing was happening around the cabin. She was just used to killing biters all the time.

And at least it took her mind off Luke and the whole 'feelings' nonsense she was debating with herself in her head. She feels like she needs to get away as soon as possible, but at the same time, she felt like embracing it. God, she felt so corny with all these dumb feelings while people-munching-corpses want to kill them all.

Kirsten shook the thoughts out of her head and closed the book. She stood up, placed the book on the table and let out a relaxing breath. She figured that if she wanted to pass time, she could go upstairs and look through the drawers for anything useful.


Kirsten swung her door open to the squirms and rattles coming from under her bed. She looks down at the familiar pair of wailing legs with a raised eyebrow, giving a little scoff at the humorous sight.

She walks over to the pair of legs and grabs them by the ankles, sliding them out, Sarah glides along the floor with a board game in her arms. Kirsten drops her legs and places her hand on her hip, "Okay, why are you under my bed?" She flatly asks.

Sarah looks over her shoulder and to the older woman before rearing up on her knees and grabbing the board game fully. "I got bored and tried to find something to do. I hope you don't mind me coming in here. I- I'm sorry if you do." She sadly looks towards the ground as Kirsten shakes her head.

"No, no. You're good. What'cha got there?" She asks, smiling.

"Rebecca asked me to find something that we could play with since she couldn't play hide and seek." She shrugs. Kirsten eyes the board game closer but thinks nothing of it.

Kirsten nods her head, "That's cool." She admits, as silence then swept in between the two. She always found herself wondering how Sarah had made it this long without killing anything. And why the hell Carlos chooses to keep her away from weapons, which brought her to the conclusion of grabbing the board game out of Sarah's hands and placing it down on the ground. "We're skipping the games for today. I need to show you something."

Sarah confusedly looks up at the older girl before she's grabbed by the wrist and pulled out of the room, the two make their way downstairs and to the kitchen where Rebecca and Alvin sit.

"What's the rush, Kirsten?" Alvin asks, a much more cheery smile on his face than the forced ones he pulled.

"Just showing Sarah something. You guys don't need to worry." She replies before pushing herself and Sarah out of the door.

"Um- M- My Dad doesn't like me being out here. Maybe we should go back inside?" Sarah frets, as Kirsten leads her to a close tree by the cabin.

Kirsten finally lets go of Sarah's hand and places her own on the knife in her holster, "Hey, relax. I'll keep you safe. I just want you to know how to use this so if you ever get in a jam, you can protect yourself." Kirsten grabs Sarah's hand and softly places it in there.

"A weapon? No, no, no. I- I can't, really. My Dad will get angry if I even look at one of these." Sarah shakes her head vigorously before thrusting it Kirsten's way, but she immediately denies.

"Well, your Dad isn't here and he told me to take care of you until he comes back." She says sternly, denying the knife and pushing it back Sarah's way. "Come on, it's not like he's going to find out. Even Luke would agree that you need to learn about this stuff."

Sarah's fearful look turns to curiosity when she mentions Luke, but immediately goes back when she looks down at the knife. "My Dad's not gonna like this..." She warns, as Kirsten grabs her shoulders and spins her to face the tree.

Kirsten points to a bare spot on the tree, like a piece of bark chipped off. "Alright, right here. That's the predators head, that's where we're aiming for." She says, moving closer to Sarah and rearranging the knife in her hand. "You just lift it up, place your hand on the tree, and dig into it."

Sarah nods her head uncertainly and insecurely, taking a step forward as Kirsten steps back. She places her hand on the tree lightly and pin-pricks the tree with the knife tip, looking back at Kirsten as if she was waiting further instruction.

"More power." She instructs.

Sarah takes the knife out of the tree and brings her arm back, pushing it back into tree to the point where it's loosely dug in. She glances back at Kirsten who shakes her head.

"Nope, more force."

Sarah mimics her movement earlier and uses more force, she looks back at Kirsten with a small frown. "Kirsten, I don't like this..." She whines, sloping her shoulders down.

Kirsten furrows her eyebrows as she folds her arms, "I don't like doing it as much as you do, Sarah. This isn't something I chose to do, it's something I need to do." She softly admits, "We need to grow up or we'll die, there aren't any other choices in this world. Doing this saves your life, it saves your Dad's life. And as much as we don't want to do it, we just need to play the cards we're dealt with."

Sarah pulls the knife out of the tree and looks over to Kirsten, "You say it like it's easy."

Kirsten left out a breath, "It's never easy now, all we get is hard. But that isn't going to stop me from letting you do this alone."

Sarah fiddles her thumbs with the knife in her hand, looking down quietly before glancing at Kirsten through her lashes. "Were you alone this whole time?" She meekly asks.

Kirsten clears her throat before unfolding her arms, "Well, no. I was with my sister, and uh- people came and went. But you just kinda get used to it." She shrugs, "Weren't you and your Dad with anyone?"

"Um- I'm not really sure. It's been such a long time, I've lost count of the days. I used to count them a lot." She confesses, shrugging. "Do we have to continue you this now? My Dad might be back soon." She worries, looking around at her surroundings before handing Kirsten her knife.

"Just a little more, Sarah." She grins, "We'll get ready to book when we see him."


A/N: IMPORTANT: I am going to make chapters longer after this one! And I want you to critique the hell out of them so I can make this fanfiction a whole lot better! Even address the bits you'd like to discuss! I'm also going to introduce small POV changes so nothing seems boring and there's no filler bits. Trust me! You'll like them. Hopefully.

Now that Kirsten is at the cabin, you guys need to definitely leave your suggestions on what should happen! I went over the original story and she doesn't really do anything that great other than the flirting with Luke, but that doesn't really fit in the new story nor with her character. So, go ahead and give me some ideas! I have literally nothing and I want to incorporate as much fan ideas that I can when I need them!

But now it's time! Drum roll, please? Kidding, drum rolls are gross.

It's our first honourable mentions!

woo

But anyway, onto the honourable mentions:

Reystro: So I went to check if this had been updated (after months from being away from FF), and I'm shocked to see you've started totally rewriting it! I'm honestly considering doing the same for my fanfic, because I'm so stuck from where I left myself at.

Anyway, not that I didn't love the original version - but this is just so awesome. Your writing has improved so dramatically. I love the riddance of one-liners, and I love how much more descriptive this is. This definitely gave me a better picture of the scene.

I wanted to leave a review of my first overall impression before I continued on :)

Well, to begin; Welcome back one of my favourite long time reviewers! Thank you so much for the support and criticism you've given me whenever you've come onto the site, you're a very fantastic writer and your story is great! You can rewrite it if you want to, I'll always read it either way. I'm glad you love the new and improved version (if I'm honest, I think I do too) and I'm so grateful that you can now get a better picture of everyone/thing. Thanks for the review!

XxClemClemxX: "You can collapse on me"? Lol good job, Luke. But anyways, nice filler chapter! I especially love the moment that Sarah and Kirsten had together, very humorous! This chapter brings out a little idea of how Kirsten and Luke are starting to form a closer bond, as much as Kirsten doesn't want to. Keep up the good work :)

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! And don't worry, we'll be seeing Vivian back at the camp again in later chapters. (Not sure if that was a spoiler for others, but I mean, it's pretty obvious since we go back to Carver's in Episode 3) Anyway, I'm glad I made you laugh or giggle even just a little bit. Thanks for the review!

Gingerman454: I think you're doing great. And I don't care if this chapter is five days due I'll wait a year for the next chapter of this (amazing) story ( but please be quicker than that ). Keep up the good work :)

Haha, thank you! I'm very grateful to see dedicated fans, it makes me so happy to see you're enjoying the story. And don't worry, I won't take a year to update, haha. Thanks for the review!

Great! Now with those out of the way, you can leave a review and have a chance to be honourably mentioned! Roll credits.

Thanks for reading!