A/N: Sorry about the update time. I've been busy because of Christmas, and my dog died on the 23rd. =/ I tallied up the codewords in your reviews, and it was overwhelmingly "ANDROMEDA" that won. So it was the rest of the missing Covenant that showed up. If this sucks, I'm really sorry. I just feel bad for leaving you guys hanging and with all that's happened recently, if I didn't start and post this now, it would never go up. =/

waywarddaughter: Yes, I did want to make Tyler seem changed by all that happened, and what better way than to make him bitter?

julliette: Tada! Andromeda.

Pola: Glad you like it.

0EMMA BLACK0: I apologize for the error and hope it didn't detract from the story too much...

MizuRyuu77: It would have been easier to make it Chase, yes. But I'm trying to see how much I can bend a character's personality using AU background information and keep it all believable, if that makes sense. :D

beginningxofxthexend: It's good to see you again too, lol. As for the videogames... I've only recently started getting into gaming really heavily (I personally blame Ubisoft and their Assassin's Creed franchise for a good majority of it), but I've had a facination with zomibes since I was in grade school. o.o I chose the codewords very carefully, though a few of your assumptions were off... I chose Gypsy because survivors are unlikely to stay put. Zack was a codeword for "zombie" used in the book "World War Z", Mage was a very vague WoW reference ("Mages" in a "Horde". XD) and Andromeda is a star, like the penagram used to symbolize the Covenant. :D Sorry you were out-voted though. =/

Dark Angel's Blue Fire: I had a feeling at least one person would be upset, lol.

LadyV.2102: I'm sorry it was confusing. =/ And I'm glad you and your friend liked it. Unfortunately, ANDROMEDA received more votes than GYPSY did. =/

the great one: Your vote was counted. :D

LawleyPop024: Wow. I'm glad you like it so much. :D


Previously on Isolation...

"Don't be stupid. It's virally based, moron. No heartbeat, no way for the blood to circulate, no way for the infection to spread. Really, Reid. I knew you were slow, but this just tops it." There was a hint of a smile on Tyler's face.

Before Reid could comment, Kairah yelled, "We have motion in the southeast vector, unable to get a clear visual. Appeared to be humanoid in shape and motion."

"Second that. RADAR shows it to be roughly the size of a human... There are two of them! Three... Three humanoids approaching the bunker." Sampson agreed.

"Kairah, bring up the cameras close to the enterances, see if you can get a good view of what's going on out there." Tyler said, the hint of a smile long gone.

"Nothing showing up on the nightvision..." Kairah said, moving the cameras and looking around.

"Switch to thermal." Tyler ordered.

"Boss..." Kairah started.

"Switch to thermal. If they're alive, they'll show up." Tyler murmured.

Reid held his breath and hoped for the best...

Continuing...

"Got it! Three hot spots! Blazing fucking orange!" Kairah whooped.

Tyler released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He approached his desk and pressed a button near a microphone once the hotspots reached one of the enterances.

"Halt. This is a government regulated bunker. Please identify yourself before proceeding." Tyler said into the microphone. He waited for an answer.

"My name's Chase. I'm here with my brothers, Caleb and Pogue. We're just looking for a safe place to crash until the sun comes up."

"Open the door." Reid said softly.

"Kairah, open the medbay up. Set up the quarantine locks. Find Shawn have him get ready to check them out." Tyler ordered.

"The three of you need to turn to your left. Follow the edge of the base around. The next door you come to will open when you reach it. Enter quickly and wait for our medic to check you out." Kairah ordered gently.

"Just let them the fuck in! They're our brothers, for fuck's sake!" Reid hissed.

"I can't do that, Reid."

"It's pitch fucking black out there, Tyler. The longer they stay out there, the more danger they're in. Just let them in through the front fucking door!"

"Reid!" The whole room stiffened and jumped. Tyler was never one to raise his voice at anything.

"I cannot let them in that way. Not only is it completely against protocol, but it puts all of us in danger."

"They would never let themselves get hurt by one of those things." Reid said, pointing at Tyler and walking towards the younger boy.

"You need to step back, Reid." Tyler warned gently, stepping back, trying to keep their distance even.

"They're our goddamned brothers, Tyler." Reid hissed.

Tyler grabbed the front of Reid's shirt and threw him against the desk, the blond's back pushing maps aside.

"I've lost a lot more brothers to those things than you could imagine. It starts off with just letting one person past the quarantine protocols and it fucking ends with half the goddamned compound either dead or infected." Tyler growled.

"You really have fucking lost it, haven't you?" Reid asked, feeling sorry for the younger man.

Tyler's eyes turned sad and he released Reid, stepping away from the desk, straightening his olive-colored shirt and walking away. Reid followed close after him.

"Where are you going?" Reid asked.

"To look in on the med wing, see what Shawn's found about our old friends."

Reid followed his friend through the maze of corridors and to a room with a wall of windows. Their brothers sat on four tables, waiting patiently while a man with light brown hair and dark eyes looked them over.

"What have we got, Shawn?" Tyler asked into a speaker.

"So far, all of them clean. A few minor infected scratches, nothing a little Neosporin won't fix. Aside from that... A few bruised bones and a torn muscle or two. They're clear to enter." Shawn said, hardly glancing up from a form he was examining.

Tyler walked to one of the doors, pressed a few buttons, and the panel slid open. He stepped into the room and his three old friends froze.

"No fucking way." Pogue said.

"Tyler? What the fuck are you doing here?" Caleb demanded.

"We thought you were in Canada!" Chase agreed.

"I was requested a transfer here. There were a few project ideas that were floating around the Agency. I decided I wanted to oversee the work going on here." Tyler shrugged. He walked over to Shawn and looked over a folder with him.

"You guys are clean enough to be admitted... Reid, I trust you can show the others to the tech room." Tyler said, glancing up at the blond.

"We aren't done talking." Reid pointed at Tyler and walked away.

"Get over yourself and kiss him already." Shawn muttered once Reid and the others were gone.

"Watch it. Don't forget you're talking to a superior officer."

"Not really. I'm still technically a civilian." Shawn smiled. He closed up the medical file he was reviewing and walked over to a desk.

"How are things coming?" Tyler asked.

"Slow going. Two of them are possible prospects, but only one shows any serious potential."

"Good, good. Nice to see Project: Sirius on track... I'd like to see all of our progress finally pay off."

"I don't know that you'll live to see the progress pay off." Shawn sighed.

"What?"

"I looked over your medical records again, Tyler. I recrunched the numbers. I talked to Kent and Kairah and Sampson and James... You've been lying on all of your medical forms."

"I will not lose my command position here."

"You don't have to. All you have to do is what you're told."

"You damn well I can't do that, Shawn."

"Look Tyler, no amount of meditation before coming in here can hide the fact that your blood pressure readings are high. If it weren't for all the calming stuff, I imagine your readings would be through the roof. At the rate you're going, expect a heart attack within the next two years or so. Maybe less."

"Destressing is impossible around here. In case you haven't noticed, the world is coming to a fucking end."

"The least you could do is sleep."

"As much as I trust--"

"Our training as much as your own, blahblahblah. I've heard it several hundered times before. We all have." Shawn huffed.

"There's too much to be done." Tyler sighed.

"Then let someone else do it. It's not like we're currently short-handed. We're perfectly secure in here, Tyler. And in the off-chance that something goes slightly wrong, we could always recruit one of them to help out." Shawn put the folder away and Tyler rested on the edge of one of the tables.

"Go out there, talk to your friends, have a beer or a shot or something. Go fuck the blond one. Do something that doesn't include worrying that something is going to happen to anyone inside this compound." Shawn ordered.

Tyler rolled his eyes and walked away. He ignored Shawn's advice and sat down behind his desk. He looked over a few papers and looked up with a scowl as someone seated themselves on the corner of his desk. Chase wasn't phased by the glare.

"Can I help you?" Tyler asked.

"You just seem stressed." Chase shrugged, toying with a blueish dogtag that hung from his neck.

"You're a scout." Tyler said, ignoring Chase's observation.

"Yeah. I've been collecting survivors and taking them to clean zones for the past year now. Me and Caleb. We found Pogue a few days ago, didn't find anyone else. We're taking him up to Buffalo."

"I see." Tyler murmured.

"How long has Reid been here?"

"About two hours, give or take."

"Have you kissed him yet?"

Tyler sputtered on the mouthful of the energy drink he'd been trying to enjoy.

"What?" Tyler demanded.

"We all knew that you two were close during high school. I was just wondering if you'd rekindled that old flame is all." Chase shrugged.

"There's nothing to rekindle. I was a different person then."

"So was he. All I'm saying is that you look like you need to get laid." Chase shrugged. He removed his posterior from Tyler's desk and made his way to Kairah's desk where Caleb, Pogue and Reid were talking about some old television show that was just getting good when the outbreaks started and everything was cancelled.

Tyler rested his head on his desk and wondered just what it was that made everyone think he needed Reid. He had made it this far and seen things the general populous would instantly reject as theories and nightmares. And he had made it through all of that alone. His eyes opened when he felt himself falling. He was on his bed and Reid was hunched over him. From their position and the typical mess all over the floor, Tyler concluded that he'd fallen asleep at his desk and Reid had tried carrying him to bed, only to slip on what appeared to be a file dating back to the Cold War, dropping both of them on the bed.

"Good morning, sunshine." Reid smiled gently.

Tyler was, for once in his entire military career, unsure of what to do or how to react. He scrambled desperately for a protocol that would tell him how to deal with this sort of situation. Protocol was all he had to rely on, the only thing he'd had to keep himself sane through everything he had seen, had experienced. Reid could see Tyler's racing thoughts and was taken back to their senior year, when Reid had begged Tyler to not run off to the Air Force. He'd seen that same racing, calculating look.

"Why do you always have to resort to things you know? Would it kill you to do things you feel?" Reid demanded softly.

"Because I'm not sure what to feel right now." Tyler admitted after several long minutes.

"Stop being so logical."

"Easy for you to say. My entire life the past six years has been one train of logic after the other. It never ends for me." Tyler murmured, looking away from Reid's pale blue eyes and looking to the papers scattered over the floor.

"So stop it. You're the only one who can."

"Just drop it, Reid. Just let me get some damn sleep." Tyler sighed.

"I'll make a deal with you. Give me fifteen minutes of you not being a Vulcan(1), and I'll go away and let you sleep."

"Fine. Where should we start?"

"Don't think about it." Reid shrugged.

Tyler took a deep breath and kissed Reid's lips, savoring the sensation he'd been denied for over half a decade. Reid, as much as he wanted to, didn't rush the kiss. He kept his hands firmly planted on the mattress instead of roming Tyler's planed chest and stomach. He knew that if he pushed things, Tyler would use it as another distraction.

The kiss didn't last nearly as long as either of them would have liked, but Tyler had opened the proverbial box of Pandora. He no longer felt like kissing Reid. He felt like yelling for all of the horrors he'd seen. Then he felt like crying for all of the people he'd watched die... He cried until he was so emotionally exhausted, his body slowly shut down and he fell asleep still clinging to Reid's shirt.

Reid was still holding him when he woke up.

"Sorry about that whole uncalled-for display of emotion." Tyler murmured, embarrassed and trying to extricate himself from Reid's arms.

"It wasn't uncalled-for. It was necessary. But I do have one question to ask you."

"What's that?" Tyler asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Would you happen to have any vodka lying around? See, I bet Chase that it would take more than carrying you to bed and demanding you talk to me for you to open up..."

"You made a wager on my emotions?" Tyler yelled.

"No. We made a wager on how stubborn you are. Looks like you've changed quite a bit." Reid smiled, kissing Tyler again. The brunette didn't put up much of a fight. He recognized a pointless venture when he saw one.

"Are you going to Buffalo with Chase and Caleb and Pogue tomorrow morning?" Tyler asked later.

"Do you have room for a civilian?" Reid teased.

"Well, with Kent out with the flu and no signs of an early recovery in sight... I suppose we could keep you, see how you handle things..."

Chase and the others were ready to go shortly after sunrise. Chase insisted they get an early start to maximize their amout of daylight.

"As much as I wish I could tell you to stop by any time, I can't really let you guys in unless it's an 'emergency', so try to be within at least three miles of one of those gravewalkers next time you pass by this place, yeah?" Tyler asked, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Maybe we will." Caleb smiled.

"You sure you don't want to come to Buffalo, Reid? I hear they haven't had a serious sighting in four monts." Pogue pointed out.

"The base is shorthanded. And besides, I don't like the cold here, in Massachusetts. Why would I want to put up with it a few miles north? You guys go without me." Reid shrugged.

The three travellers hugged their brothers and exited through the bunker doors. A few minutes later, Kairah announced that they were out of range of the cameras and all sensors. Tyler turned to Reid then and asked, "How long do you think you'll stay here?"

"Personally, I don't much like the smell of the undead. Or even the sight of them. Or that obnoxious moaning noise they make. And their horrible biting habit... Probably when things clear up enough for me to wander about with no worries." Reid smiled.

"Well, it just so happens that a bed may have opened up... Assuming you can earn your keep, of course."

"Of course. Where should I start?" Reid asked.

"Kairah! You and Haven take Reid here outside and work on cleaning up those camera motors." Tyler ordered.

Reid rolled his eyes and groaned. Looks like Tyler wasn't "emotionally healed" enough to avoid making his life miserable... But, Reid thought, if the sex was anything like the kissing, things could work out...