The temperature had dropped and I was relieved for long sleeves as we stepped outside. I paused to lock the door and we fell into a loose formation with R in between Nora and I. I found that I was studying the way R was walking, surprised by the ease of it - I remembered a far more lurching gait, the occasional stumble, rarely moving swiftly unless there was some direct threat to me. Funny, I'd only ever seen him move fast in my defense. For a Corpse it would usually be the opposite reason. Now, R strode along rapidly, matching pace with us, and standing up straight while he did so. As we threaded through the shacks and tents towards headquarters I guided him lightly around obstacles or around a corner, feeling the tightness of his back against my hand. His posture might have looked more relaxed than what was usual, but his expression and those taunt muscles betrayed tension. He wasn't happy about being here, though I couldn't figure out it was because he was in the middle of a human city or that we were under threat from murderous skeletons. (or maybe because we was doing it in makeup?) I wasn't exactly happy myself.

Happy about taking your Zombie boyfriend - dammit Nora! - to meet your father. This is not going to end well.

There was no other way but to get my Dad onside, I thought, peeking up at R's face. In profile and in the low light he looked... handsome. Human, and handsome. Thankfully, the first bunch of people we'd passed close by to didn't raise the alarm. Either because he was with us, or because we'd done the trick and disguised him successfully as a human (I had to actively remind myself now that he wasn't), R wasn't questioned.

Was my Dad going to question him? Damn Nora and her negative outlook. Now even I was getting nervous. I glanced up at R - solid and reassuring. We couldn't fail. I understood now that it wasn't just R who needed me, but I needed him just as much. If we had any sort of future, it lay this way.

"What?" He'd noticed me staring. "Nothing." I told him, too quickly. He returned my look, expectant. "It's just... you look nice." I explained, though R looked as if he was a long way from believing that.

"I don't know how my Dad's gonna be, he gets kinda crazy, this might not work." I admitted, a little surprised when R caught held of my hand and stopped us, while Nora drifted on ahead. "Hey." He was getting bolder, more sure of himself. Holding R's hand was somehow both soothing and electrifying at the same time - soothing because it set off the same reassurance as when I'd first held it back at the airport, but the opposite in the reaction it sparked all along my arm.

"No matter what, we stay together." I'd never seen him look so earnest. He ducked his head down towards me, speaking softly, meaningfully, just for me to hear. "We're changing everything."

"I know." I understood now. It was incredible, what we'd built together in less than a week, how much we needed each other. It scared me, robbed the words I thought about saying before they made it to my lips. If my feelings could be this strong in a matter of days, what would they be like in a month? Three months?

If, of course, you survive that long.

Thank you, for that optimism.

"Stay together." He said it way religious people named their deity. His eyes, troubled, never left mine. "Promise?"

"I promise." It was an easy answer for me. If there was danger coming, no matter what direction it sprung from, we would have one another when we stood before it.

R continued to stare down at me with an intensity that no longer bothered me. For just a few precious moments I relaxed, taking enough happiness at just standing there, holding R's hand and looking into his eyes, to last a lifetime. I only noticed Nora when she began gesturing vaguely, calling us back to the present, and I nodded with some reluctance towards my friend. "Come on."

"Hey. It's game time." Nora was ready - as always. She hardly looked threatening - hands in her jacket pockets, she all pretty blue eyes and feminine curves - but I had seen my best friend in action before. She could look after herself. In that way she reminded me of R. A lot more going on than commonplace appearance suggested. "All right. Let's do this." I agreed. We'd done everything we could. Time to see if our plan would work. We headed purposefully towards my father's headquarters.

"Excuse me!" Oh crap. This was the worse time in the world for Kevin to act like a dick. He strode towards us now with his dark eyes suspicious. "Where you guys headed?"

I wildly thought that Nora was going to say something off the planet, like 'we're going in to perfect the design of our hidden pipe bombs' so I hastily replied before she could. "To see my Dad, Kevin." I kept my chin high and I moved forward, but I only made it one step before Kevin moved in front of me. "Miss Grigio, I can't let you guys in." Kevin was two years older than me and had know me since he was eleven. I didn't appreciate the 'miss'. He's been even more of a dickhead than usual since he and Nora split up... again. "We're on high alert around here."

"Why?" I looked over my shoulder - Nora looked annoyed, R intently nervous as they both listened to our conversation. "What's going on?"

"It's classified." Kevin is not a bad guy, but there were definitely times when I wanted to put my elbow soundly into his ribcage. Nora must have picked up on my rising annoyance and decided it was time for her to step in. She might not want to be with Kevin right now, and that was a sentiment I understood, but she didn't want his nose broken, either. "Alright, well, we have our own classified business, so come ooon."

She pushed past Kevin impatiently and I followed quickly on her heels before we lost the opportunity. I hadn't realized R's hand was no longer holding mine.

"Hey." When I turned I found Kevin eyeballing R, who looked more nervous by the second. It was probably just that Kevin, having known both Nora and I for so long, was suspicious that we had a stranger in tow tonight. We couldn't afford to be caught up in a questioning session now. While Nora and I stood frozen, both searching for a way to get R out of Kevin's scrutiny, he managed an attempt at saving himself.

"How are you?" I was proud of how R had spoken, but at the same time I wanted to laugh at the look of triumph on his face. Nora hastily went back, snatched R's elbow and towed him in her wake past Kevin. "He's FINE!" She growled at him, her tense shoulders falling once we were inside the tent. "Sometimes I don't know what I see in that man..." She pushed R gently at me. He looked puzzled by the words. I took his arm. "This way - don't get her started on Kevin or we'll be here all night." I rolled my eyes. R looked confused but he followed willingly enough.

It was way too late for this much activity, even at headquarters, and I grew suspicious watching the armed troops march purposefully by and methodical loads of supplies being stacked into our few functional jeeps. Kevin had told as much, but now I could see for myself - something big was going down. Was Dad aware that there were Boneys looking for us? No, of course he wouldn't know they were looking for me and R specifically, but doubtless he had picked up on them, and if that was true, they weren't far away. The cage was growing ever higher around us.

Okay. Okay, a plan. A plan would be good.

Getting my father's support still like the best answer I could come up with. And we had to do so quickly.

"Okay, you guys wait here." I picked a corner with relatively little activity, in the shadow of a jeep aside for service. Scanning the room for my dad, I took a deep breath when I spotted him.

Now or never.

Never being the preferred option, but here we go anyway.

He spotted me and his face hardened under the line of his beanie. "What are you doing here?

I didn't answer that. Counter with a question, keep him talking. "What is going on? What is all this?"

"Not sure. But it's not good." He began to stride down the center of the warehouse and I kept pace with him. I surreptitiously watched Nora and R dodge around the backs of jeeps and supply shelves to stay level with us. "We've been getting reports that there are sizable packs of skeletons and Corpses coming toward us. We don't know why but if they're here to attack, there's nothing we can do about it. Too many of them, too few of us."

You did not inherit your optimism from your father.

"So I want you to get home, lock down the house, I have the gun there, the Rugur SR-"

"This?" I held up the pistol he was talking about, then took my father's wrist to draw him aside, out of the main flow of traffic. I did not want an audience for what I had to tell him. "I need to talk to you."

"Julie, not now!" He raised a hand with a clipboard I hadn't even noticed him carrying to wave at the mass of soldiers bracing for action around us.

"Dad, It's important." I stressed. Crap, this wasn't going to work! "This is going to going to sound really crazy, but- I think the Dead are coming back to life."

"That does sound crazy." He agreed dryly.

"They're changing, Dad. They're... they're somehow curing themselves."

"You think they're curing themselves? How's that?" He wasn't buying this even a little bit.

"I saw it." Why couldn't he understand what this might mean for everyone? Living and Dead alike, we all had a chance at a real life. "It is really happening."

"No - you know what is happening, Julie? What's happening is that every day there are more of them and less of us. They are not 'curing themselves'. We're their food source, they are not becoming vegan. They don't eat broccoli, they eat brains - your mother's and your boyfriend's included. So, I want you to wake up. Okay?"

He began to walk away from me. "Get yourself home, barricade yourself in the shelter. There is enough stuff there that you can hold out for-"

R was coming right towards him. My eyes widened in shock but there was no time for a warning, to either of them.

Dad bumped into R.

For a moment they both froze. I seized the opportunity to leap around Dad to stand beside R, grabbing his hand and locking my fingers around his. I could feel the tension in him, turning his whole body into a human-esque statue. He did manage to speak, though. "Huh- Hi."

Sort of...

"Who are you?" Dad sounded calm - too calm. That was the low voice he used when he was about to blow up in a major way. "This is R." I introduced him. R was struggling to keep his gaze up, nervously eying his feet under my father's wilting stare.

"I didn't ask you, I asked him." He leaned towards us, the full force of that glare now targeting R. "Who are you?"

R couldn't do it. He tried, I could hear him trying, but single syllables only escaped. I could see the understanding dawning in my father's face. "You're a Corpse?" Quieter, lower, twice as dangerous. He moved closer, studying R like he was under a microscope.

"He saved my life. He took care of me." Dad had to believe me. There wasn't any other way. "I triggered something in him, and that must have sparked something in all of them."

There was so little warning before he snapped. One second he was standing there nodding as if he were actually considering my words, and I had hope that we were getting to him, and the next he whipped out one of his guns and threw R against a wall.

DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING, DO ANYTHING!

"No! Dad!" I was frantic, barely able to think with the screaming inside my own head. Dad hadn't left enough room between the barrel of the gun and R for me to get between them, buy us some time. R found his voice. "We want to help."

"Please, they don't want to attack us. They want to help." I repeated desperately. "We're... we're getting better." R added.

"No. Things don't get better. Things get worse. People get bit, then they get infected, then I shoot them in the head." He gestured with his gun and the terror just swept me away. "No, Dad!"

"That's what happened to your mother, and that's what's going to happen to him." He raised the gun, cocking it as it pointed to the center of R's forehead. He closed his eyes, lashes impossibly dark against his skin.

It caught me by complete surprise, the outright terror I felt at that moment - believing that R was going to die right there, with me holding his arm.

Just like your mother. You couldn't save her, either.

No, NO!

"I'm really sorry, Mr Grigio." Nora sounded shaken - admittedly, not as shaken as I was - but very sure of what she was doing. And what she was doing was holding her gun against Dad's neck.

I'm ashamed to say I didn't feel, at that moment, any fear for my father. I only felt amazement. Nora had come through to protect me and R in a major way. She looked over at me, expression grim and set. "Go. Get out of here and be safe. No matter what, okay?" I knew what she was saying. You're going to leave me here and find a way to fight this. If it was anyone except Nora, I couldn't have left her to face my father alone.

"Julie." Dad sounded stunned. R was pulling away from him, and I kept my hand on his elbow, unable to really believe in our reprieve. "I have to go." Once the gun was pointing at empty air instead or R's head I grabbed him by the hand and ran for it. R's slightly uneven run at my side was the most welcome sight in the world. My heart continued to hammer and the panic hadn't fully subsided as we made it outside, only dulling once we'd made it around two corners without pursuit. "Okay. That could have gone better."

That's an understatement.

"I need to warn my friends." R told me, and I wondered who he'd brought with him in this insane quest to find me and prove himself to the city. So far we had done a great job with that.

"Where?"

"Stadium." R replied, right at the same time as a wailing siren and the external lights flaring to life. "Oh, shit!" Nora was busted. We were going to be next. Please please please be safe, Nora. I can't loose anybody else.

"Get onto the subway!" I gasped to R, and we took off running again. R helped me shift the board in front of the subway entrance and I pulled aside the netting and held it while he climbed through after me. The subways had long since been closed off to prevent unwanted entry into the city - or, I always thought, out of it.

I pulled out a small torch from my jeans to light the way along the tunnel, jumping at the sound of a scurrying rat. R followed on my heels through a flooded section, then we emerged from the subways into abandoned station and then through to the stadium. My brisk walk slowed only when we spotted the crowd. I thought at first it had to be people from my city, there were so many, but the stillness soon convinced me otherwise. "Whoa." I looked up at a smiling R, drawing close enough to him that our arms brushed. I let him take the lead but stayed close behind him. He was grinning a small grin as he looked out at the expectant crowd. I was wary, but even I could see that they didn't look dangerous. I was struck by the urge to paint the scene, wondering if I could ever get the purposefulness of the still crowd down on canvas.

"Excuse me." I heard a familiar raspy voice. The almost-bald head appeared between the other Corpses and R positively beamed. "R." He greeted him by name, then turned his grey eyes on me. "Ju-lie."

"Hi." I managed warily. He didn't look like he was about to kill me anymore, but it was hard to forget the ease with which he'd wrenched the hedge-trimmer away from me, snarled down on the verge of biting me.

"Ready for... a fight." He said it like he was trying to reassure me. I was suddenly thankful he was on our side. "Yeah. I can see that."

"S-Soldiers coming. Boneys, closing in." R warned. A metallic screen like rusty metal ripping apart split the air. All of us looked up. My heart stopped, than re-started twice as fast as normal.

An army of Boneys clung to the glass roof high overhead, like four-limbed spiders. Their snarls were clearly audible as they lifted their fists and began to smash then down, and cracking glass accompanied their sounds of anger.

"Uhh. They're here now." R's friend groaned. R looked into his face. Something passed between them, a flash of determination. I was surprised to hear R speak to this Corpse the way I'd talk to Nora. "Keep them out."

"We will." He looked up - cracks in the glass spread like veins, the screeching was growing in frequency.

"Run!"

Good idea!

We ran. I wasn't afraid of the Dead as we cut right through the middle of the group, my worries about them overrun in the wake of the monsters above us - Boneys began to fall from the roof behind us. We made it out into the playing field, but a couple avoided the Corpses and chased after us, gaining on us quickly, far faster than R and I could move. I shot a look over my shoulder, steadying my nerves, lining up my shot the way I'd practiced.

The recoil of the gun stung my palm, but the first of our pursuers crumpled at the sound of the gun. A second one neared us and I fired twice, both bullets hitting it in the chest. We hurtled into the opposite side of the stadium and up a dark ramp, no Boneys in sight, but more screams echoing behind us. How long could we outrun them? I was exhausted, forcing my body to keep going, keep running. My feet ached, my boots like torture devices, but there was no time to lament my choice of footwear. R and I both looked back as we picked up the sound of human voices. "This way, come on!" I called to R, detouring along a new walkway. I thought that he was right behind me, until I heard the inhuman scream.

When I turned, a Boney had R on the ground. "Ah!" I raised the gun - and was tacked around the waist before I could fire. I hit the ground, feeling the impact in my left hip and along backbone. Now I was screaming too, repulsed as the Boney flung itself down on me, raising both my arms to try and simultaneously fend it off and shoot it in the head. It flailed at me and I felt my grip loosen and the gun fly from my fingers, far out of my reach. Dimly I heard R struggling, then a sickening thud, bit the face of the monster looming over me was all I could see. I crossed my arms and shoved at its shoulders, the feel of the almost fleshless body under my hands making me shudder. Then, a swirl of motion and the flash of the colour red from the corner of my vision - and the Boney was knocked so viciously away from me it flew through the air and crashed down still.

"Thank you!" I gasped, as R helped me up. How many times had he saved me now? No time to dwell. We kept running, but we had run out of time.

Rounding a corner, we jerked to a stop to find a over a dozen Boneys, menacingly still and spread out in an expectant pattern. As if it were all a game, we'd been herded up here like lambs to slaughter. "Shit!"

R pulled me back, spotting an emergency exit, taking off for it at a run. He turned shoulder-on and threw himself at the boldly door to burst it open at the exact moment I remembered that the fire escapes on the stadium had been salvaged for the Wall.

There's nothing there! He doesn't know!

I made a wild, frantic grab at R and clung to his elbow and the back of his hoody so hard I lost the feeling in my fingertips, yanking him back towards me. The bright light of dawn flooded down on us, revealing the tiny platform we now stood on, no railing, nothing to stop us from falling. R twisted back to face me and my iron grip readjusted to sieze handfuls of shirt, staring like I'd handed him a year-long food supply. "R!" I'd nearly lost him, been half a foot away from watching him plummet. He was tough, but not that tough. It would have killed him, taken away the life he'd fought this hard to regain. It didn't matter that we were both about to die anyway, I couldn't let that happen to him.

Maybe you should have. It would have been quicker. Look what you saved him for.

The despair washed over me then, taking control of me in a moment of weakness. I looked to the stadium, to the small undead army marching towards us. All I could think was how it was so unfair. R might have a shot at life only to have it ripped away from him. He deserved a chance. He deserved to experience all the things a person should do before they died. I wanted to climb mountains with him, swim in the ocean with him... maybe teach him to swim first?... wanted to show him there was so much more to the world than a single airport and a ruined city had ever shown him. He would understand my impossible urge to travel, I knew he would. I wanted to hear him laugh, I wanted his eyes to be full of light and joy, and I wanted his arms warm around me last thing at night, both of us worn out after a long day.

"It's over." I whispered, but R shook his head sharply, animated, alive. "Keep you safe. Remember?" He looked down. There was a water feature, a shallow fountain, underneath us. I had never been afraid of heights, but as I understood just what R was planning the fright clawed at me like a beast from within. R read my expression, the way I could his now. I could see his resolution, felt the comfort in the way he reached to reassure me. "It'll be okay." His head was bent, staring intently into my eyes, and he was so close to my face we could have kissed.

Except that instead, he pulled me close against his body and stepped back with me, over the ledge and into empty space.


A/N - Okay guys, once you're finished stalking me with hedge-trimmers for leaving you at a cliffhanger (again!) - sound off now! Next to Me, the fanfic I'm writing set after the movie, isn't far off now. When I made the decision to expand Learn to Love Again, I began writing and planning some things - from R's perspective, so virtually everything I have at this point is a sequel to that. I won't be splitting Next to Me into two fics the way I did here, with one from R and one from Julie's POV, and I at first assumed it would be all R's perspective. But I am enjoying seeing the world through Julie's eyes, so, I want your opinions, because my Warm Bodies work never would have gotten as far as it has without all you guys urging me on. Next to Me - All R's perspective, or the occasional Julie chapter to mx it up? Probably not alternating one then the other, but maybe... every third or fourth from Julie's POV, or as the storyline permits, is what I'm feeling. Thoughts?