Yay! You've made it this far! I hope you enjoy! :)

Aubrey adjusted in the midst of her sleep and ended up leaning against Kai. He jumped, a little drowsy himself, unsure of what to do. Should he push her off? Or just leave her and let her sleep?

He pushed her hair out of her face. The two of them had been through a lot together. She has proven herself many times to him that she is a lot stronger than he initially thought.

When he first found out that he was smuggling a woman across the country, the first thing he thought was, what the hell did this person do, and what makes her so special? But he learned long ago not to question what he was hired to smuggle. At least out loud.

She certainly was different from the typical smuggling jobs he took on. What amazed him more than anything was how he genuinely wants to protect her. With other jobs, he was always heartless and could care less if people died along the way, as long as he survived. That 'need' to protect her, scared him. It was a sign of weakness and Kenny was right. He would die because of it.

He took one last look at her sleeping face before waking her up. "Hey, we're almost to the gas station. If we're lucky there still might be some fuel in the underground pumps."

Her eyes flutter open. It takes a moment for her to realize that she is leaning on Kai and she jumps up. "Oh sorry. I hope I didn't get an slobber on you." He snickers and shook his head. She stretches her arms out as much as she can in the truck and yawns. "Why not get gas from all these abandoned cars? You'd be amazed at how much gas is still left in them."

"True." He raised his brow. "Guess I underestimates you. You know more than I thought you would."

She huffed at his partially rude comment. "I've survived this long without you haven't I? I have been taking care of myself my entire life. Especially since I was left an orphan just like many others when the outbreak happened." She looks out the window to view the city. "Some would say that they were the lucky ones… wha about you?" She looks back over at him. "How did Kai survive this long and be this good in the open wide infected, bandit covered world?"

Kai got real quite. More quiet than usual. Aubrey watched as his eyes glazed over with memories of his past. She sighed. "It's okay, Kai. You don't have to tell me."

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. "I had a wife… with a kid on the way. They were my reason to survive…"

Since they weren't here with him, she guessed that the same thing happened to them as what happens to everyone's family now. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"I am too…" Kai slammed hard on the breaks. Aubrey barely had enough time brace herself.

"Guess the whole not trying to get me killed is out the window." She watches as he leaves the car not saying anything. She sighs. "I shouldn't have said anything." She gets out of the car and stretches her legs. "Oh my god!" She squeels.

Kai ran over to her side of the truck with his gun ready to shoot anything. "What?"

She laughs at him. "It feels good to stand. Sorry. I didn't mean to worry you." He glares at her and goes to the gas pump to siphon out the fuel. She goes into the gas station to see if there is any supplies or food that they can use. She ends up stopping at an old magazine shelf, looking at the models. "Jeez, I thought there was plenty of food back then. They all look like skin and bone. Huh?" She spots something in the corner of her eye and has her gun trained on it, thinking it's infected.

What comes out of the shadows is a man holding his gut that is covered in blood. He holds out his hand to her. "H…help me… please. I've been shot…" the man grunts in pain.

"K….Kai…" Aubrey slowly backs up till she is outside. The guy slowly follows her, begging for help. Kai runs over and stands in front of her aiming his gun at the wounded man.

"Don't move! Or I won't hesitate to blow your fucking head off!" He looks at the guy who is seriously pleading with them at this point.

"Are we gonna help him?"

"He ain't hurt. Get in the truck…" He says quietly.

"What?"

He snaps at her. "I said get in the truck! Now!"

Aubrey jumps at his order but runs over and jumps in the truck.

"Shouldn't have done that." The bandit shakes his head and before he can pull out his gun, Kai blows his head off.

"Shit." Kai sees some other bandits coming out of the wood works and makes a run for the truck. He grunts when he feels a sharp pain go through his chest.

"Kai!" Aubrey yells. He jumps in the truck and screeches off at full speed. "Kai, your bleeding. Really bad." She takes off her sweater to try and help stop the bleeding.

"I'll be fine, let's just get the hell out of here." His eyes start to get woozy. "God dammit." Everything goes black.

Aubrey sees him nod off. "Kai?" Tears are running down her face as she tries to keep him awake. "Kai! Look out!" His head hits the steering wheel and Aubrey covers her face as they slam straight into a cement wall.

"Uuugh." Aubrey grunts. Her whole body ached. She put her hand on her head, feeling the slick yet sticking feeling of blood…."blood…" She looks at her head and everything that happened suddenly rushes back. "Kai!" She looks over at him through the smoke of the engine pouring in from the broken windows. She reaches over to him but is stuck by the locked seat belt. "Dammit… it's stuck." She pulls out her knife and cuts it off. The first thing she does is check for a pulse and almost bursts out crying when there is one. It's faint but Kai still has a pulse.

Aubrey climbs out of the car window since her door is jammed and runs over to his side to help him out. She tries to be as gentle as she can with him being wounded but, damn he's heavy. She manages to get him on her back while she carries his pack on her front. She would just have to come back for hers pack later.

He grunts from the pain. "Hang in there Kai. We will make it out of this." She hears voices approaching the truck. "Shit." She starts dragging him as fast as she can away from the bandits.

After walking non stop, finally reached the outskirts of the town they stopped in. Wherever that was. "Okay Kai. I'm gonna put you down. But I'll be right back. I'm just checking for infected." She waits for his labored breathing to calm down before she leaves him to check the house.

Once it's cleared she drags him into the house and hoists him up onto the couch. "Okay. Now to work on that wound." She rummages through his pack and pulls out the medical kit he had. She takes a deep breath before removing her blood drenched sweater and lifting up his shirt. Luckily for her the bullet did not need to be fished out since it went right through him. She went to work with cleaning the wound, stitching it up and applying disinfectant.

"Just one final touch Kai, and then you will get to feeling better." She wipes off the sweat the was accumulating on his forehead. She filled the syringe from his medical kit with antibiotic and stuck it in next to his wound on his chest then wrapped his chest up with clean bandages. "There."

She sighs in relief and looks down at her blood covered hands, grabbing a bottle of water to try and get some of it off. She leaned back on the couch next to Kai, listening carefully to the sound and rhythm of his breathing. "It's funny. Now the tables have turned and I'm saving your ass." She starts playing with pieces of hair as she lays her head down next to him, holding his hand with the other. "I can tell that you are glaring at me, telling me that I'm dumb. Out of everyone I have gotten to know, you are definitely the meanest."

The tears at this point won't stop running and her breath hitches. She squeezes his hand. "Please… please don't leave me. Not you… Not you too." She cries herself to sleep.

See! I made it longer! To make up for the super short last chapter.