Again with the delays! I'm so sorry, but I had a family issue that required a lot of time and effort. Hopefully within the next week or so, it'll be cleared up for good, and then I'll have more time to write.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'm still floored at how much response this has gotten. Thanks especially to Pretention by Calvin Klein for some inspiring conversations via PM!

I slipped a little Dollhouse action into this chapter, and I'm pretty sure I yanked a line from Doctor Who, but that was mostly unintentional (the Doctor Who, anyway. Dollhouse was completely on purpose in honor of the Joss Whedon Glee episode).

Chapter 10 - Epitaph Z

Brittany is dead. The information spreads like wildfire through the building at the sound of the gunshot. Everyone who isn't outside the door is down the hall, huddled together in one of the English rooms. When Matt ventures into the hallway long enough to confirm what they all suspect, Tina starts to cry. Artie looks around for guidance and wishes he could run away. Mercedes glances at her phone again, her mouth drawing into a tight line as she tries not to lose her cool. Kurt rubs Tina's back and closes his eyes, resting his head back against the wall. He's tired, and not just physically. He's tired of all the things that have happened today, of all the sacrifices that have already been made. He can't even begin to think about what's happening to people outside. He can't even imagine where he'd start. Focusing on the group, focusing on the here and the now is the only thing that's keeping him even remotely sane. If he starts thinking about his uncles, his aunts, his family, he's going to lose it. So he focuses on Brittany. On her smiling face and her positive attitude and, okay, so it wasn't like she was perfect (last year she spilled warm milk over his head because Santana told her to, and he's never quite gotten over that), but she was Brittany. And even if she was sometimes kind of mean, she was still sweet most of the time.

And she's dead.

She's the first of them to die, and Kurt hates to think that there will probably be more bodies to add to the pile soon enough. He can't imagine losing any of them. Mercedes, Artie, and Tina are his closest friends, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. He's still harboring his hopes for Finn, and even though Quinn is standing in the way of it, he doesn't exactly hate her either. He used to, back when she was the person who made everyone miserable, but she's changed. It's hard to hate her when you can tell she's been trying to be a nicer person ever since she learned she was going to have to grow up a lot sooner than everyone else so her kid didn't end up on the evening news as a juvenile delinquent. And even Rachel, who fought him for solos and made his life a daily exercise in restraint once upon a time, doesn't seem nearly so bad when she's killing zombies and not talking about her goals for the future. And Puck is probably still a douche, but he's so busy getting to live out his best sociopathic fantasies that he doesn't even register as a threat anymore. And where would they be without Mike and Matt, who have been the only ones capable of remaining stoic throughout this entire day? And even Mr. Schuester (who is usually far too wishy-washy for Kurt's taste) and Miss Pillsbury (her germaphobia is disconcerting) and Sue Sylvester, of all people, even they seem irreplaceable for the simple fact that they're older and they're capable of giving guidance even if they're so scared shitless that it means less than it should.

For that matter, where will they be without Brittany? Without Brittany to keep Santana grounded, to keep her fighting for something? Kurt knows that Santana cares about Brittany deeply. It's so obvious, and not just that they've been fooling around. No, it's more than that. It's that best friendship turning slowly into love kind of thing that few people ever really experience. It's like what he'd feel for Mercedes if he was straight, or she was a man. And how is everyone supposed to go on when they see something like that? Because everyone has someone they'd rather die than lose, and they have to watch it happen to Santana.

Kurt doesn't even want to imagine what she is feeling. So he just puts on his brave face and lies his ass off. He tells everyone that it's all going to be okay.

What Santana is feeling is nothing. Not right now, anyway. She stares down at Brittany's zombified and then redeaded body, and she feels nothing. She can't feel anything. Won't let herself feel anything. It's not going to work forever. She knows this already, but she's going to keep trying as long as she can. Because Santana has never broken down. Not in front of someone. Not when it was important. She's cried about losing tanning privileges. She's cried about not being able to eat her chocolate birthday cake thanks to her Cheerios diet. She's even cried about not making head Cheerio. But none of that was real. None of that was like this at all. She doesn't know how to do this. She's never lost anyone close to her before. Her grandparents are still alive, she's never had a dog get run over, and when her great-aunt died it was a relief because the woman was loaded and also a racist bitch who didn't take kindly to the Lopez that Santana's mom had married.

It just feels like crying wouldn't be enough. Like she could cry forever and it wouldn't measure up to what she's feeling. It's like there's a hole in her stomach. It's like she's been sucked dry of any substance. A great big black hole opened up inside her heart and took anything in there that it could find.

She stands there, and she tries to ignore the quiet murmurings of everyone behind her, and it's hard because none of them (especially not Coach and Rachel) understand the concept of quiet very well.

"We can't just keep the body here. There's a reason we've evolved past the dark ages," Coach Sylvester says, accompanied by a loud grinding of her teeth. "Maybe you don't understand, but you've never waded through crocodile-infested swamp waters with a rotting corpse on your back. It's like someone with gonorrhea relieving themselves on a fresh corpse lodged in a garbage chute and lighting the whole thing on fire. The fumes are exhaustingly vile."

Quinn says (with bonus points for at least attempting quiet) "Coach Sylvester is right, of course. I think. But how are we supposed to…do it? Should we risk trying to do a burial?" Santana hates that Quinn is so nice all the time now. It's like the fetus is sucking all of the bitch out of her. It's going to make that baby fierce as all hell, sure, but it's also annoying as fuck. And Santana really doesn't like being the only asshole in the group with a vagina (she has a theory that Coach Sylvester is an alien without a gender). Sometimes Quinn steps up and does her fair share of the snark, but it's lately been sort of weak and embarrassing. And Mercedes is too nice to be really mean, even though she fools herself into thinking she can dish it out without feeling bad afterwards. And whenever Rachel tries to be rude, it's about something no one cares about, like singing voices or ability to memorize dance steps. Everyone is too nice. Everyone is too soft. She doesn't need soft right now. She needs someone with steel guts to come storming over. She needs someone to be so heinously horrible to her that she'll forget how sad she is. She needs someone to just piss her off.

"Well, there aren't any zombies around here for the time being, but…I don't know. What do you think, Mr. Schue?" Rachel asks. He looks surprised that anyone is even asking him. Santana rolls her eyes.

"Look, why don't we all just cut the shit? Apparently you're all like, painfully determined to be the nicest survivor here, but enough. I don't need your sympathy, all right? I don't need you to tiptoe around me like I'm the hormonal pregnant one, or the mentally ill former Marine, or the Glenn Close wannabe. Let's get the body in a sheet and let's just get her downstairs and outside. We can burn her with the rest of the bodies."

"Burn?" Miss Pillsbury asks, obviously nauseated. And more than usual, too. Santana swallows her own rising bile and answers in a steely tone.

"Yeah. Burn. Is there a better way to get rid of them? I don't think so."

Santana stands with her arms across her chest, forcing herself not to cry. She can't handle this, being rational. She shouldn't have to be rational. But bury Brittany? Please. Brittany's ideal death ritual was to be put into fireworks and burst across the sky at Disney World. Since that's not exactly possible or at all a productive use of their time, burning is going to have to do. Plus, it's not like they're going to be treating the other bodies any differently. And those are people they cared about, too. Those are people who lived in their town. Their families and friends. Why should Brittany receive any different treatment?

Puck nods (because Puck's soullessness allows him to agree, and his sliver of conscience allows him to understand) and nudges Mr. Schue to spur him into action. Rachel follows soon after, although she looks like she wants to argue. Santana's glad that she doesn't, because she doesn't have any acidic barbs preplanned like she usually does. And she's already called Rachel "Barbara's Ugly Brother" twice today, so it's not like she can use that one again without looking totally lame.

Coach Sylvester leaves the room ahead of Mr. Schue, Puck, Rachel, and the bloody sheet containing Brittany's corpse. Mr. Schue and Puck are carrying the front corners while Rachel takes up the back. Miss Pillsbury reaches out like she wants to help, but retracts her hands quickly and mutters apologies as she follows them out of the room and rubs at invisible germs on her fingers. Only Quinn doesn't leave, and Santana hates her for it.

"I'm so sorry," Quinn says once the door has closed them off from the rest of the school.

"Right."

"I mean it."

"Of course you mean it. Look, Q. No offense, but I don't need you to apologize."

"I know, I'm just…you shouldn't be going through this."

"No, I should. Right? I deserve this." She laughs bitterly and ignores the way the sound twists her own stomach into knots. "That's what people would say. I'm a bitch. I'm a slut. But that's okay, you know? Because I love it. I own it. That's who I want to be, and I like myselfthe way I am. Fuck everyone else, right? Morally speaking, I sort of had this karma coming. But Brittany? She didn't. It should have been me, but it wasn't. It was her. It doesn't make sense. There is no plan, no saving grace in the clouds. And you know what? Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe now you can stop acting like this is the end of your world. Maybe it can stop being all about your stupid religion and your stupid Puck-baby."

"You know?" Quinn asks, and Santana wants to claw her face off, but she doesn't. She just sighs, swallows her emotion, and inwardly screams.

"Of course I know. Puck spilled the beans to Mercedes, and she told all of us. Whatever. Like I even care. So you actually slept with someone and stopped being an uptight prude. Big deal. Like Finn's never cheated on you emotionally."

"Well his mistakes don't have the same consequences," Quinn says with the barest amount of venom, rubbing her hand over her stomach. And for some reason, that pisses Santana off. Really fucking pisses her off.

"What is wrong with you?" she asks witheringly. "Do you know how lucky you are? Berry's all but laying spread-eagle in the hallway for him, and he hasn't done much more than kiss her, maybe fondle a boob if he's got more stones than I think he does. I mean, do you get how lucky that makes you? You found a fumbling naïve virgin just like you. You found someone who's going to stand by you, no matter how much shit you throw at him. You found someone who treats you like you're fucking royalty, and you treat her like shit because it makes you feel good about yourself to put someone down."

Quinn steps forward, reaching out a hand, and it's only then that Santana realizes she's crying. Black tears down her cheeks, mascara running, the whole nine yards. And she said she instead of he because, well, this isn't Quinn's time anyway. This is her time, and she'll be damned if she's going to give it up. It's all so fucking dramatic, and beyond lame, but she can't stop.

"San…" Quinn starts, but Santana pulls away from her.

"No. Stop. Just stop. She's dead. What the hell am I supposed to do now? She's dead, and I'm here. Here with all you pathetic losers. How is that fair? She's dead, and I'm alone. I'm all alone. I'm always alone."

And she keeps talking, but that's the last of the intelligible phrases. Everything from that point on is just garbled, broken anguish.

Puck knew that they had rocked the hell out of the zombie horde. He knew that they had decimated them. It was pretty safe to say that their little group of Wolverines were epic, all of them. But standing outside in the parking lot, knee deep in corpses, he has ascended to a whole new level of feeling awesome about himself. He's been a loser all his life. He knew it from the first time he set foot in kindergarten class and realized that these kids had their cool Spiderman shirts and their fruit roll-ups, and he was lucky if his mom remembered to pack him a snack. Hell, he was lucky if he even got to school. He missed so many days, they'd kept him back that first year. And then it was just a fact. 'Noah Puckerman, he got held back a year'. He'd hear people saying that. Like, 'oh, he's not supposed to be here 'or 'wonder why he didn't make it?' And it'd be said with this sarcasm, this attempt at humor that was probably funny to people who weren't him. There were two kinds of losers; the kind who got teased through high school and the kind who failed at life. Puck had always expected to be the kind that failed at life.

But now? Fuck. They're all dead.

"We should move the bodies into the street," Rachel is saying from behind him. "And wait for the wind to change before we burn them. Or at least close all the windows. It's going to smell…"

"Don't even pretend you know what it's going to smell like," Coach Sylvester growls from up front, and Rachel falls silent. There's something different about Coach Sylvester, now. And no one quite wants to mess with it, or try to understand it. She has always been difficult and frightening, but this is different. There is no more humor infused in her insults. They are pure hatred and fear, and Puck knows that's a pretty deadly combination. Especially considering the fact that her defense mechanism for any situation seems to be inflicting physical pain, and she's carrying around an AK-47 and a belt filled with grenades.

"There are too many bodies out here. How are we supposed to drag them all out?" Rachel whispers helplessly, quiet enough so that Coach Sylvester can't hear her. Puck and Mr. Schue shrug. Miss Pillsbury swallows deliberately and turns to them with a waveringly bright smile but no helpful suggestions. Rachel sighs.

She wants to do something. She wants to plan something. She wants to organize their supplies alphabetically or according to estimated frequency of usage or by color or anything. She wants to use her hands, she wants to use her brain, and she doesn't want to use her emotions ever again. Brittany is dead, and she doesn't know what to do about it. She has never met a problem she couldn't solve if she put her mind to it. That was her biggest pride and joy other than her voice. But now? Now, there's nothing to do. Just stillness and silence. And singing is hardly going to help that, she has to unfortunately admit.

They lay Brittany's body on the grass, far away from the other zombies. They want to treat her differently. Even though they know they're stepping over (and occasionally accidentally on) the bodies of their friends, families, and distant acquaintances, they want her to be special. They want her to stand out. But even Rachel has to reluctantly admit that a funeral pyre looming over the town is hardly economical.

Coach Sylvester is looking across the field at nothing, her gun hanging limply by her side. Somewhere in the distance, a car's brakes squeal, and there's a crash. Rachel swallows thickly and forces her best Zombie Killer smile onto her face. Like slipping into her most comfortable of flats, or like slipping into the role of Maria from West Side Story, this role has very quickly become melded to her form. Over the course of the day, she has managed to convince herself that this is the part she was born to play. And she's going to stick to that. No matter what happens, she has to stick to that.

"Let's start dragging," she says as cheerfully as she is able. Puck gives her a disturbed look, but she ignores it. They'll thank her later. One day.

When Finn walks into the building to grab a drink an hour later, Quinn is standing at the bottom of the stairs. Most of the kids are outside helping with the removal of the bodies, but after putting in a solid effort and throwing up twice, she was made exempt and sent back inside.

She is completely silent as he approaches, her eyes on him the whole way, and he starts to wonder if he has blood on his face from dragging the zombies or something. He looks down at his hands and sees that they're mostly clean (Miss Pillsbury keeps insisting that they need to sanitize after every zombie they drag into the road, so she's been making them use hand sanitizer a lot), and he doesn't feel like there's anything on his face, but he still slows down when he reaches her, because he feels like he's supposed to.

"How's Santana doing?" he asks, because it's the right thing to ask.

But Quinn doesn't answer. Quinn just kisses him. She kisses him like he's her sole reason for living, like how Rachel kissed him that one time at the bowling alley, like how he and Quinn have never kissed before, because she's always been so restrained.

Now she's not. Now she's all passion and fire and need, and when she pulls away her eyes are glistening with unshed tears that Finn notices but doesn't say anything about.

"Um," he says, but she just shakes her head and starts backing up the stairs slowly. He's afraid she's going to trip over a step and fall, but she doesn't. She's graceful. She won't.

"I love you," she says seriously. "I want you to always know that I love you. Always."

"I love you too," Finn replies, confused.

"I just didn't want to have never said it," Quinn says.

Finn's confused again, because she has told him that she loves him before. She says it all the time. She says it when he brings her ice cream for her cravings and makeup for her acne breakouts and his mom's old maternity clothes. She says it when they're just lying in bed and it's time to go to sleep and he asks if he can feel the baby kick yet. She says it at every ultrasound. She says it all the time.

But Quinn, walking back up the stairs to tend to her friend, Quinn knows that she's never quite said it like this before.

By the time the sun sets on the first day of the end of the world, the bodies of the zombies are ablaze. Everyone watches from the closed-and-fastened upstairs windows as the fire illuminates the blood-stained parking lot in front of them.

"We'll hose the whole thing down tomorrow," Coach Sylvester says darkly. "Once that fire goes out. Then I'm taking a trip to get some supplies to really fortify this place."

She turns and walks back into the hallway, probably to start first watch. No one really wants to go with her, but Mr. Schue and a very reluctant Miss Pillsbury eventually follow. The kids are left alone, standing at the window and watching the flames down below. Everyone is there, except for Santana. They can't get her to leave the room where Brittany died. And no one really even knows how to try.

Finally, the lure of the fire wanes, and they all move apart to get some sleep in their respective chosen rooms for the night. The sound of mattresses being dragged across the floor is eerily like the sound of zombies walking, but no one mentions it. They're all too afraid to say the word, as if admitting the existence of the things outside will draw them closer.

Only Rachel doesn't move, because Rachel is examining Miss Pillsbury's "Crazy Lists" – as they have been dubbed by the majority of the remaining student body – as if they're religious texts and not the scribblings of a very frightened woman.

"She's right," Rachel says to no one in particular. Since Finn is the only one still in the room, he wanders over looking like he knows he's probably going to regret his next words.

"What do you mean?" he asks. Rachel looks up, her eyes wide and frantic like they sometimes get when she's really on a roll with one of her more insanity-fueled ideas.

"I mean, this is about more than just survival. Noah's strategy is well and good. It keeps us alive. And yes, Noah and Mr. Schuester and I gathered an assortment of activities and tools to keep us in high spirits, but that's not going to be enough either. The things that we face every day without even thinking about it are staggering. Here, right here, Miss Pillsbury mentions the common cold. Simple enough on its own, but there's also the flu, and there's also pneumonia, and there's also new variations of flu, because if this plague turns people into walking hungry corpses, who knows what else it brings in the way of an airborne…?"

"Whoa, whoa," Finn says, holding his arms up as if to fend off the words that she's trying to pound into his brain. Because even though Finn has never been smart, he's not completely an idiot by accident. He likes to stay blissfully ignorant of some things. All the crap that Rachel's saying about disease and implied death? He'd like to stay ignorant of that for as long as he possibly can.

"This is important. This matters," Rachel insists, but Finn grips her arms in his hands and shakes his head.

"No. Puck's right. We have to focus on today, and that's it. I mean, yeah, maybe we should take a trip out to the hospital, see if we can get some supplies or something. Every little bit helps, definitely. But we can't go freaking out about every little thing because Miss Pillsbury came up with a list of Worst Case Scenarios. It's just going to freak us all out, and I think we're all freaked out enough already, don't you?"

"Admittedly, yes. I find it hard to believe I'm going to be able to sleep tonight, let alone survive another week of days like this."

"Exactly. So, and I know that you hate when people say this to you, but just chill out, all right? Just don't think about it."

Finn takes the papers and smiles tolerantly as Rachel looks ready to pounce on him and take them back by force. She opens her mouth to protest, but breaks off and shakes her head, finally nodding her consent.

"Fine. You're right. Of course you are. Take them. I'll be down in a little while. I just need to reflect for a moment. Recharge."

And it's only when Finn leaves the room, and it's only when she is truly and finally alone for the first time today, that she allows herself to break character for a moment to just sob.

Quinn stands in the doorway of the rehearsal room while Puck struggles to drag two mattresses towards her.

"You know, I appreciate the gesture but Finn will be down in a second."

"It's not a big deal. What, you think I can't handle it? Please. Look at me."

He flexes his arms and gives her a pointed look. She stifles a nervous (admiring?) giggle and finally nods.

"Okay. Fine." She pauses for a brief moment and forces herself to keep her tone steady when she asks, "How are you doing, anyway?"

"Me? I'm totally fine. No freaking out over here." He grows quiet and finally turns around to look at her for the first time in this current conversation. "Why? How are you doing?"

It's the quiet quality of his question that really pushes her over the edge. He's no more fine than she is. He's just better at hiding it. She steps into the room and closes the door.

"I'm not doing good," she admits.

"Well…do you want to talk about it or, uh, something?"

"I can't talk about it with Finn. That's the thing. Finn…well, you know. He's all supportive and positive but he doesn't really understand. He can't, because I won't tell him."

"You told Rachel, though."

"Yeah. I did. I couldn't deal with it anymore, you know? The secret. Carrying it around inside me. I had to let it out. I knew you weren't going to tell anyone, because it's not like you care, but I couldn't live with it."

"You think I don't care? Quinn, he's my best friend. And sure, that doesn't mean the same thing it means for chicks, but it still means a lot. I care about the guy more than I care about my own family. I don't ever want to hurt him. And if you make fun of me for saying this, I will never speak to you again, but I kind of love him, you know? Not in a gay way, just…"

"I get it, Puck. God. Why can't you just be honest for two seconds? Would it kill you to just say what you feel? There are zombies out there. They've already killed Brittany. They're probably going to kill another one of us soon. You can't just open up and say what you want, can you? You can't just get over this stupid notion you have that you have to be tough all the time…that you're what a real man is? Not even for me?"

"Why would I want to do shit for you?" Puck asks, even though he knows it's the wrong thing to say. He's angry. And when he gets angry, he lashes out in the least productive way so everyone will get frustrated and leave and he won't have to deal with the conversation anymore. But Quinn isn't getting angry, because apparently this is the one time that her hormones have decided to take a break and not overreact to every little thing.

"I know you, Puck, even though sometimes I wish I didn't. You're not as tough as you think you are. You're scared just like the rest of us, but you're so determined to keep it hidden that you're willing to alienate anyone who tries to help. Well don't. Because there are people here who care about you, despite the fact that you probably want to act like you don't care about them. And we all have to help each other, you know? Because it's not like we're going to be able to get help from anywhere else."

"You think you're this, like, social genius or whatever," Puck growls. "You think you understand everyone because you're on the outside of everything now. Like you're just this observer who watches people and figures out all their nasty insides that no one else sees. You're not that special, Quinn. You're not that smart, either."

Quinn just shakes her head and cups her hand under her stomach again. Puck's about to snap at her to stop doing that, stop reminding him that it's his fault she's pregnant, but she speaks before he has the chance.

"I know I'm not smart. Look at me. If I was smart, I never would have slept with you. I never would have let my insecurities turn my life into…well, I guess my life would have fallen apart whether or not I got pregnant, but still. I'm not smart, but that's the point. None of us are. We're all growing and changing and…everyone goes through that in high school. I remember my sister being really different when she was younger, and then she grew up. We just have to grow up a lot faster than she did. We have to grow up today, and tomorrow, and maybe the day after that. If we're not grown up enough by then to realize that we need each other, then I think we'll probably be lost causes."

Puck just shrugs his shoulders and turns his back, pulling the mattresses towards the door once again.

"Whatever," he says gruffly. "What room are you and Finn sleeping in, anyway?"

Quinn sighs and says, "Mrs. Allen's science room."

And she wishes for the thousandth time since sleeping with Puck that things could be simple. Because, watching the way his shoulders are slumping and his face is trying to stay impassive, she thinks she could love him if only the universe agreed.

Mercedes is pretty sure that killing zombies is like eating a lot of candy on Halloween night. There was that brief, amazing high. A high so epic that it didn't even have words. She felt like the strongest of strong women. She felt like a character played by Pam Grier or Gina Torres. She felt like someone who would be able to take on a zombie with a punch to the face or something equally as ridiculous. But now? That's gone. She has crashed so hard that she feels like even moving out of the way of a speeding truck wouldn't be worth it. Like even breathing takes more effort than she wants to spend.

As soon as she gets her mattress laid out between Kurt's and Tina's, she drags a blanket across her body and closes her eyes. Kurt is attaching sheets to his mattress like it's a real bed, organizing pillows and chattering happily to Mike as he does so, but Mercedes doesn't care. She just wants to sleep. She wants to sleep, and she wants to wake up in the morning to discover that this has all been a dream.

Failing that, she wants to find that her mother has left her a voicemail.

"We're going to be fine," is the last thing she hears before she drifts off. It's Kurt, reassuring a somewhat-panicky Matt. "With me guarding us, there's no way we could possibly fail."

And Mercedes falls asleep, against all odds, with a smile.

Emma has given a lot of thought to the sleeping arrangements. She has always been a fan of the method of coping where you just don't think about the present circumstances and instead focus all attentions on something else that is less horrendously awful. Thus, she spent most of the day fantasizing about sleeping next to Will. And that is all that it will be, too. Just sleeping. She is a realist, most staunchly, and she recognizes that Will has probably been very traumatized by his wife's death and won't be willing to indulge any of her more graphic fantasies (although admittedly her 'most' graphic fantasies are probably the sort of scenes that would be allowed even on network television, complete with cut-away scenes and fades to black). And, in addition, she is hardly ready to surmount her so-far insurmountable problems. The end of the world doesn't just erase prior trauma, even though you'd think that would be the case.

But when she walks into the science room and calculates that there are not nearly enough mattresses for Will to even try to weasel his way out of sharing, she starts to feel the old familiar hyperventilation coming on. What if she snores? What if she moves around in her sleep? What if he would rather sleep on the floor than sleep beside her? What if he tries to make a joke that falls flat and then causes the entire situation to transition until it's unbearably awkward? There are so many possibilities for failure, and Emma can picture all of them coming true. All of them.

She bites the inside of her cheek and fidgets with the hem of her shirt. Given that it's blood-stained and ripped in several places by now, making sure the hem is even hardly seems like an acceptable use of her time, but she does it anyway.

It's so strange what she does to feel normal.

Will finally looks up from his rigorous study of the off-gray flecks in the linoleum, and smiles brightly in her direction. His overcompensation is reminiscent of Rachel's, and Emma is very uncomfortable with that. She hates the idea that he feels the need to put on some sort of brave face for her. She wants to be the person to whom he is raw and real and without falseness. She wants to be his rock. She wants to be what Terri could not be.

"Hi," she says, putting on a brave front of her own and stepping into the room a little further. The sound of her heel hitting the floor is unexpectedly loud, and she falters. "I…um, I noticed that there aren't enough mattresses for everyone."

"No, but we'll be switching off for watch. People can trade off if they have to."

"Oh, right," Emma says, inwardly cursing her inability to see that one coming. But then she stops, because she remembers what she overheard Quinn saying to Kurt earlier in the day: there are zombies outside. And, yes, it's a statement of the obvious, but it was the way in which she said it that rendered it so effective. Quinn understood in that moment that nothing should be holding them back. Not conceptions of politeness, not conceptions of right or wrong, not conceptions of appropriateness. Certainly, that's bound to get messy eventually (she saw 28 Days Later due to her love of Christopher Eccleston, and was left utterly disillusioned by his character's rationale of rape in that movie, but it was certainly informative), but to at least some extent the principles are important.

Namely: if she wants to sleep beside Will, she's going to sleep beside Will.

Will asks, "Emma? You all right?"

"Yes. Of course. Listen, Will…I know that Terri just died, and before she died she betrayed you suddenly and unexpectedly and that was…messy. And I avoid messes. All messes, physical and emotional, but I don't want to avoid this one. I want to be with you in the mess because there's no way out of it anymore, and you shouldn't have to do it alone. There's no reason for me to avoid it. So tonight I want to sleep next to you on that mattress, and if you feel inclined to kiss me, I'll try my best not to flinch. Oh, and if I do flinch, please know ahead of time that it's not a comment on my feelings for you. It's unavoidable, and I'm sorry."

Will blinks several times and very rapidly, and Emma is beginning to rethink her End of the World strategy, but thankfully he speaks before she has to.

"Emma, of course. I'd be honored to sleep next to you."

He doesn't say anything about the kissing, Emma notices, but she sits primly on the mattress with the very proud decision to ignore that fact.

Rachel looks around the room and frowns.

"Remember how you said at the beginning of the day that you would have proven to Quinn that you were a good guy and I would be sleeping with Finn in this sleeping bag?"

"Yeah," Puck sighs from his place by the window. "I remember."

"I'm very dissatisfied with how this has turned out."

"On the plus side, we have a mattress instead of just a sleeping bag."

"True, but not very comforting. Although I have to admit, all of that sleeping…stuff hardly seems as important now as it did at the beginning of the day. Finn is as lovely as ever, but given my decision to become a strong and take charge woman with no room for patronizing males, he doesn't quite fit into my heart as much as he once did."

Puck looks genuinely surprised at that.

"What, so liking him was just because you thought it worked for your whole Broadway thing?"

"I didn't say that. I said that it's inconvenient, liking him now. Especially given the recent developments of my burgeoning and tentative friendship with Quinn, and my role as the keeper of the secret of the baby's patronage. And, honestly, what was once perceived by me as romantic concern for my wellbeing has suddenly become irritating patriarchal rhetoric. And anyway, I think we all knew that me and Finn was a pipe dream even back when I believed it was fated to happen. The kind of thing that only happens if you're in a movie."

"Yeah. Kind of like zombies."

"Again, a valid point."

"I don't really get what you're saying. And, dude? I kinda don't care. The only reason I'm even in here is because I don't feel like watching Finn and Quinn virgin snuggle with my baby bump between them, and Kurt loudly told Mercedes that something smelled like excess testosterone when I walked into the room, and I feel like that was a diss."

"That would depend on Kurt's feelings on excess testosterone. Although given his affections for Finn, I feel like you wouldn't really be his type."

"Right, because Finn's Mr. Perfect and I'm Mr. Douche."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Why don't you ever just say the things you mean? You're always like, making excuses and being like 'oh, not like that'. Just use words that make sense. It's not that fucking hard."

And of course, the irony of that statement isn't lost on him (he briefly hears Quinn's voice echoing the same sentiments in his head), but he ignores it.

"It is when you want people to like you," Rachel sighs with that self-depreciating laugh which always makes Puck feel bad for her (a little). "It's easy for you. You can say whatever you want to say, and people will love it, or be too afraid of you to think anything bad about it. Whatever I say is always wrong. Whether it comes from the heart or from hours of careful construction."

"That's because all you ever talk about is your stupid voice and your stupid future. Like anyone actually gives a shit about that."

"It's the only thing I know! I've been after this dream my whole life. I've never wanted anything else. I've never wanted friends, I just wanted applause. I wanted people to like me for my talent, not for what's inside. And then high school came, and everything I'd ever learned was useless. There is a surprising lack of respect for showtunes in our demographic. And suddenly people were saying hurtful things, and it was impossible to keep from caring."

"Yeah, so learn new shit. Not everything is super complicated, Rachel. Sometimes you just have to deal with things. Like this, today. You're doing all right."

"But it's all an act. It's not really me."

"So 'you' is the crazy chick who talks about Tonys on dates? "

"Yes."

"Shit."

"Precisely the problem I'm having. I'm capable of adopting facades, as I've demonstrated today, and I'm even capable of enjoying these facades. Killing zombies, for example, is far more enjoyable than I would have believed it to be. Also far more enjoyable than shooting tin cans of a fencepost while listening to Bible verses read by Charlton Heston on tape, most of which pertained to the lifestyle of my family. But when it comes to friendships…shouldn't I be myself? Shouldn't I talk about what I want to talk about? I've always been raised to believe that friends are people who like and accept you for who you are, not who you should be. I'm just…I'm confused. I'm torn. And this is far from my most pressing issue at the moment, and this is definitely not what I should be wasting my time thinking about. It's hardly as if this matters. I don't even know why I'm talking about this."

"Yeah, welcome to my head five minutes ago. I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation like, twelve times. And we barely ever talk. And, all right, I'm sort of pissed at myself for even sitting here and listening to you talk forever, but here goes. People don't get you because you're annoying, and you're weird, and you dress like you're a slut and a Catholic School girl at the same time. And not the slutty kind. The legit kind with nuns and stuff. But who cares about what people think? If you like yourself, fuck them. That's what my dad told me before he left, and that's what I do."

"Hardly encouraging, you have to admit."

"Yeah, okay, maybe he was an asshole. But he was right about this. Look at me. I'm a jackass, but Finn likes me anyway. And you sort of like me, sometimes, I think."

"You have moments. Like this one."

"Exactly. And Quinn likes me, even though she doesn't want to, and Mike and Matt like me, and even fucking Artie likes me, and I was a dick to him. So just be yourself, or whatever. And if you change a little and stop doing whatever your version of 'locking people in port-o-potties' would be, then good for you. We're in fucking high school. We were never supposed to stay this way forever."

Rachel doesn't feel any less confused by the prospect of personality and how much of a betrayal it is to oneself if one changes for the approval of other people, but she does feel reassured that at least she has finally said something aloud. And Puck has been surprisingly insightful and willing to listen without being too judgmental (his default stage is snidely disgusted by everything, so Rachel feels fairly confident about his responses to her complaints).

To express her gratitude for his patience and understanding, she leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek. Puck, of course, believes that she missed his lips by accident, and turns his head to meet hers. Rachel is at first horrified by the misunderstanding, and sure that it's somehow going to turn around and be blamed on her, but gradually (as in, over the span of the next one and a half seconds) changes her figurative tune.

Zombies be damned. If this is the end of the world, she's not going out without having reached at least second base.

And two doors down, Santana sleeps alone.