Thanks for reviewing: SoFlaComet, cameronsadrock1, TrustInFaith, xtreme, amazinglife18, beaner008, Cyssi, General Mac, twistarwanabe, ShadowCub
This chapter is for TrustInFaith as she did ask me when I was going to update; so here we go
Posted: 27/05/12
Infected
It had been about a week since they left Lima and they weren't even halfway to their destination. Rachel had sat down and carefully planned all their routes, with Santana and occasionally Quinn's assistance; the others seemed to just be sitting around waiting for instructions or something to happen.
The current plan was to avoid as many major cities and built up areas as possible and so far they hadn't found any other human life, well no uninfected human life. That was one reason their journey was taking impossibly long
Another reason was they didn't know roads would get blocked when Rachel had first planned the routes. They would drive down a highway and five miles since the last exit they would find a wall of cars. There was no way to move them out of the way, the mass of abandoned vehicles was too messy for them to find a way to pass. They ended up turning around and driving back. This was happening too often and was adding tension to the silent group.
They had had a few run-ins with those things; but mostly drove through thin crowds during the day and on two occasions had, had to fight their way through a crowd to their bunker for the night.
It wasn't until last night that things went wrong, for the first time since Will and Emma's nasty end in Lima.
Last night
"Puck" Finn whined as he knocked on the bathroom door in this strange house again
The door was yanked open by the boy with the Mohawk "What!" he snapped irritated by his old best friend. But like them all he'd been distracted lately, and being stuck with the same people for a week was starting to grate on all of them
"I need to pee can you hurry up in there?"
"Can't you go somewhere else?" he asked in the same irritated tone
"This is the only bathroom" he explained lowly
"Well you're gonna have to wait; me and Quinn are giving Beth a bath"
"But Puck-"
"Just- Just go outside or something" he said trying to keep his voice low and clam so he didn't upset his daughter behind him
Finn sighed but with a threatening glare from his old friend he reluctantly turned away and headed through the kitchen to the back door.
Puck turned back to his little broken family "Sorry, Finn" he explained, Quinn just nodded not taking her eyes off of their little girl in the shallow warm water.
They had taken an indication paper from Rachel so they could test the water was safe. Then they were able to take care of their daughter.
Puck and Quinn watched over Beth as she slashed in the water
"Quinn? You know that time, us; it was more than just-"
"Don't Puck" Quinn couldn't take it if Puck was going to try something
"No, Quinn, I meant; I cared about you then, I even loved you at one point"
"Are you sure you didn't just say that at the hospital because of everything that happened"
"No, I did... I'm sure of it... my point is, I do still care about you" he admitted "But maybe more like a close friend"
"You're my friend too Puck, I'm not going to take Beth away from you if that's what you're worried about" she smiled as Beth looked up at her joyful.
"No, it's just... if you and Britt ever need some alone time, I'm cool taking Beth out of the way for you two. And for once I won't ask for a threesome" he smirked getting a slap on the arm from the blonde girl
"How did you know? About Britt and me"
"Well the rest of them are kinda distracted but I see it, you two always look at each other, when the other isn't looking" he almost confused himself with that sentence
"Wait, she does?" Quinn was actually surprised
"Please don't tell me you didn't know that she's into you"
"No I know" she ducked her head
"So what are you waiting for?" he looked to her while she just kept her head down and her eyes on Beth
"I don't know"
...
Later that night and Santana, Rachel, Artie and Brittany were all trying to get some sleep in the front room of the house they had picked to make their sanctuary for the night.
Santana had given up knowing she felt too uneasy to sleep. She sat leaning against the wall her shotgun on her lap, her knees bent and her forehead pressed against her knees.
Artie sat in his chair, his head hung as he slept; he'd have some neck ache in the morning
Rachel and Brittany had each taken a sofa, after Santana insisted. Brittany was snoring softly, Rachel was silent, pretending to sleep; but her ears were far too alert in the darkness around them for her to actually sleep
All of a sudden Rachel was sure she heard something from the kitchen, she turned over quickly at the same time Santana looked up over to the door too.
"Did you hear that?" Rachel whispered chancing a glance away from the kitchen door and over to Santana.
Rachel climbed off the sofa, grabbing 'thumper' from the floor before tentatively stalking towards the door. Santana turned on the lights within the room they were currently in waking the boy in the wheel chair and the blonde snoozing on the sofa
"What's going on?" Brittany groaned at the harshness of light now shining in her eyes
"It's okay Britt just be quiet a second"
The blonde looked towards Artie who just shrugged
Rachel and Santana nodded to each other before shoving the door open with one of their feet at the same time.
The 5 or more infected stumbling towards them sent chills down their spine in fright
"Get the others out of here" Rachel told Santana
Santana was frozen for a second but nodded quickly before running over to the foot of the stairs "Everyone out!" Santana yelled up the stairs. And if her voice hadn't woken everyone then the gunshots Rachel was firing would.
Brittany jumped up off the sofa, grabbing her own guns from where she left them against the wall before running over to help Rachel fend off the zombies
"We gotta get out of here" Santana yelled again as she heard only a few sets of feet scrambling around above her
They seemed to come downstairs in their pairs, Mike and Tina, then Sam and Mercedes. These four grabbed Artie in his chair and ran out to the cars. Santana heard more gun shots from out front so she ran out to join them so she could help clear the way and protect her friends as they got in the cars.
The whole thing was a mess as they quickly evacuated the building. Rachel and Brittany were out last, as soon as they were in their seats as driver and front passenger seat of separate cars, they took off getting away from the quickly infested house.
They had half their equipment now missing; half their guns were left behind in the panic. Rachel had remembered to pick up all of hers on the way out of the house; well they were like family to her. But some of them hadn't picked up everything.
The important thing was that they were all out and alive.
"I Just don't get how they got in" Rachel muttered to herself "We checked the whole house"
No one saw the tall boy sitting behind her bow his head to hide his guilt... he might have forgotten to lock the door after he went out to pee... he may have even forgotten to shut the door properly at all after he got spooked out there.
Back to the present
This night they just wanted to sleep; again there was no safe house and again Rachel and Santana chose to sleep downstairs in the house they'd broken into. They had barracked all exits and blacked out all windows after checking every inch of the house and getting everyone inside. They'd also 'borrowed' some clothes from the closets in the house.
Santana had let Rachel take the sofa, the Latina herself would have slept in one of the two arm chairs in the front living room of this house but she told Rachel she was more uncomfortable on the floor. And it was just by coincidence the best piece of floor was right next to the sofa; parallel to Rachel.
They hadn't had another night so close like the night they quickly lost their two teachers, and though neither would admit it, they wanted another night like that.
But here they were; one on the floor one on the sofa; both wide awake and staring at the ceiling; feeling uneasy after what happened last night.
"Santana?" Rachel said into the quiet. A small lamp sat on a side table against a wall was on giving a warm and comforting glow to the room
"Yeah Rach?" Santana answered in the same soft tone
"If... If I get infected-"
"You won't" she cut the smaller girl off in reassurance
"But if I do. Will you be the one to take the shot?" Rachel asked timidly
"What?" Santana sat up and looked at the girl lying next to her. Even in the dark Rachel could see the Latina's eyebrows were threatening to reach her hair line
Rachel shuffled to lay on her side so her eyes were looking straight into Santana's as she repeated her request "If I get infected I want you to be the one to end it for me, before the infection takes over I don't want to become that"
"How can you ask me to do that!" she wanted to yell louder but she didn't want the hopefully sleeping residence upstairs to hear them
Rachel was tearful as she spoke but she still meant every word she said "You're the only one I trust to do it, you're the best shot and-"
"No Rachel! I won't do it, never, y-you'll have to find another way because I just won't" she turned away and quickly stood up so she could move away from the shorter brunette. She hid her face so she could gather herself and not cry in front of the girl she loved
"But I need you to Santana I need it to be you, I can't trust anyone else to get the shot right and-" Rachel was desperate for Santana to hear her out. She understood it was a big ask but she felt Santana would be the sensible choice... even if she felt terrible for asking someone she loved to do it, she was the best choice.
"So it's just a statistic for you; you don't care how that will affect me, having you stand there in front of me looking into your eyes as I squeeze the trigger" she choked back a sob keeping her back to Rachel. She really couldn't let herself cry in front of the shorter girl.
"I'm sorry Santana, I j-just"
"Well you should be sorry" she snapped, turning round putting on an angry and fierce facade to hide her fear "that's ridiculous Rachel; you won't get infected so don't even put that nightmare in my head so I obviously won't be the one to end it all for you"
"But we have to be reasonable" Rachel stressed, taking a few brave steps closer.
"No we don't, we need to focus on the brightest future we can have" Santana let some of that fear through, hating herself for it. She quickly backed up and returned to angry
"I'm sorry; I didn't think it would affect you like this"
"Yeah?" she folded her arms but that fear continued to weaken her "Well it does" she admitted
"I'm sorry, I guess with Brittany pre-occupied we've become close friends and I didn't think about it like that"
"Sure" she tried to scoff subtly "let's just try and get some sleep" she said before Rachel could try and question anything
"I'm sorry" she said again, her shiny eyes looking up into Santana's
"Let's just" she waved towards where they'd been trying to sleep. They quickly settled down again before Santana spoke again "I'm sorry too... for lashing out"
"It's fine... it wasn't exactly something any of us want to talk about"
"... Goodnight Rachel" she replied after a thought; Santana didn't want to dwell on this much longer
"Goodnight Santana" Rachel sighed
It wasn't long before Rachel was slipping off the sofa and down into the tiny gap between the piece of furniture and the Latina. She cuddled into the taller girls side, Santana was quick to put an arm round Rachel too
"It's more comfortable on the floor" Rachel muttered in explanation as she tucked her head under Santana's and let her eyes drift shut
"Yeah" Santana muttered back letting her own eyes drift closed "It is"
What do you think?
Sorry it's kinda short :/