A/N: so this chapter is dedicated to nadiahilkerfan whose comments I appreciate so much. She wanted to know what Yumiko was thinking and feeling throughout this so I expanded a little on her POV in this chapter (by about 1,000 words) to try and touch on that. Cos I realized that whilst I know what Yumiko is thinking and feeling throughout this, that doesn't mean that you guys do oops.

There's humor and softness towards the end of this chap cos I think you all need it

"They have already fooled you when they introduce the world to you through classifications of people, manners and behaviors to whether they are good or bad. But good and bad are only perceptions. So what's good and bad is totally different from one person to another; which makes it so damn clear that there is no such a thing that is completely good or bad about anything in the world ..."

― Samiha Totanji

Twenty minutes later found them still sitting on the deck of the safe house the group had hauled up in, watching as Eugene and Ezekiel went about preparing for their trip into the unknown. In the past, Magna might have suggested that they go with them. Being on the road, away from the cloying mass of Hilltop and Alexandria's residents was tempting. But she'd recently resolved to find a way to be at peace with that mass, to finally let herself settle.

To embrace the home that she'd been so wary of. Even if it had recently burnt to the ground.

Besides, she could never leave with Connie still unaccounted for. She couldn't walk away from not knowing her fate and, once some of the danger that the Whisperers currently posed died down, she was determined to search for her.

Magna just hoped she wouldn't be searching for a body.

To distract from that thought, not willing to let the darkness have a foothold again, she occupied herself with toying with Miko's hand. She focused on the warmth, the textural changes that she'd noticed over the years - how calluses had formed in places that had once been smooth, evidence of the way their lives had been altered a decade ago.

Faint dark splotches were starting to appear on the knuckles and she frowned, remembering the startling force of Miko's anger.

She couldn't help but feel responsible for it. This bruise wouldn't exist without Magna.

A lot of Miko's wounds wouldn't exist without her.

Past

They'd camped out in Magna's apartment for two nights before the risk had grown too much. They could hear the commotion going on in the surrounding rooms, the crashes and screams as the outbreak worked its way up, floor by floor. She'd predicted - and Miko had agreed - that if they didn't leave soon, they might not be able to leave at all.

So on that last night they packed up what supplies they could - which wasn't much, almost a year into owning it and her apartment was still pretty spartan, she'd never had the money for more than the bare essentials, and that included food (though she'd tried to keep a tub of ice-cream on hand for Miko's benefit) - and worked their way down to the ground from the fire escape.

Luckily, Magna lived in a relatively deserted area that consisted of little more than her apartment block, a rusty old playground that was falling to pieces by the day, a motel that only saw guests every once in a blue moon, and a Chinese restaurant whose customers mostly consisted of said apartment block. Farms stretched out for miles in every direction, the closest sign of real civilization being the truck stop Magna worked at a good distance away. This meant that they only had to dodge a few of the sickly looking creatures on the way to Miko's car, the majority of the monstrosities seemingly trapped inside the building - at least, until they figured out how to open doors.

Please, don't let them figure out how to open doors.

They drove to the truck stop first. It was a risk but they'd wagered that they were going to need as many containers of fuel as they could get their hands on if Miko's car was going to remain of any use to them. They got a little banged up in the attempt - bruises and cuts, plus a sprained ankle for Miko that she pretended didn't hurt as much it obviously did - and quickly drove out of there with four containers of fuel, not keen to overstay their welcome. They'd avoided going into the shop or diner, even though the promise of food had been tempting. For the first time since Magna had first stepped foot in that truck stop, it had been eerily quiet - her manager's passion for Robbie Williams rendered silent at last. Through the glass, there'd been a visible mass of silhouettes lumbering around inside and, armed with little more than two blunted kitchen knives, Miko's necklace and her buckle knife the odds hadn't been encouraging.

That temptation wasn't worth either of their lives.

They camped out in the car for several more nights, using up their poor supply of food and water. That was when Miko raised the topic of the veterinary clinic. She'd suggested it a few times before but they hadn't been desperate enough then for the idea to hold much appeal. The practice, located about an hour from the city, was owned by a middle-aged couple who operated it out of their farm. They'd been giving Miko discounted services ever since she'd won a case for them two years ago.

"They're entirely self-sufficient. They grow all their own food and have a water tank half the size of your apartment. Plus, they have a micro hydropower plant operating out of their dam. They finished installing it just last year." Magna didn't know what a hydropower plant was, let alone a micro one, but Miko certainly seemed excited about it. "And there'll be medicine, more first aid supplies - all of which we're going to need eventually."

Still, she suspected the lawyer was less interested in the food, medicine and hydowhatever and more desperate to discover whether anyone else she knew had survived the outbreak. And, if they hadn't, whether their pets had.

That was another sore spot that Magna had resisted the urge to poke at. Along with abandoning her mother, Miko hadn't been able to return home. Hadn't been able to return to her pets.

Although she hadn't mentioned it, Magna knew her well enough to guess that it had to weigh heavily on her. They were as much a part of Miko's family as her own mother and her Facebook page was little more than a gallery of dogs, cats and various bird species.

All of which were currently trapped inside her home, waiting for her return.

If a walking corpse hadn't gotten to them, dehydration surely would have.

It was this thought more than anything else that garnered Magna's agreement. She couldn't rescue Miko's mum or her pets, but there was a chance these old clients of hers were still alive. If Miko could help them, she knew it would ease some of the guilt the other woman had been carrying around ever since Magna convinced her to stay that first night.

It had been the right decision. The smart decision.

But that was little comfort to Miko.

Maybe this would be.

Not to mention, if there were food and medical supplies there, well. . . it would certainly be less risky than a Wallmart - an idea that she'd already vetoed countless times.

Sooner or later, they had to get more supplies. That was inevitable if they were to stand any chance of surviving this thing.

Magna just wished she didn't have to put Miko in harm's way in order to get those supplies.

"Okay. We'll go."

Present

For a long time, the argument they'd had that day had become a source of confusion - and concern - for Yumiko, but ultimately she'd dismissed it as just another one of Magna's insecurities.

She'd learnt very quickly into their relationship that there were things - sometimes small, sometimes big - that Magna expected to be judged for, often because such judgment had been swift and brutal in the past. But, by and large, those things weren't deserving of judgment, or at least not the unfavorable kind Magna seemed to predict.

The other woman had a tendency to make vast and terrifying mountains out of a plethora of tiny molehills. At times, it was distressing to watch but, for the most part, Yumiko accepted it as a routine element of having a relationship - any kind of relationship - with Magna.

On that day, Yumiko had been much more concerned with her injury. It had been more distressing to witness than she'd let on and, multiple times, she'd had to fight back the urge to burst into tears as she'd forced herself through the process of stitching it up. The stress of the past week had taken a toll and her mind had fallen back into the catastrophizing habits she thought she'd ditched with her youth. A part of her had feared - irrationally - that Magna was going to die.

Just like her father. Just like her mother. Just like all of her friends and family.

She'd imagined the other woman bleeding to death or succumbing to infection in a matter of days and had grown increasingly nauseous with worry.

Magna resisting all attempts at aid had only escalated that fear and she may have lost her patience a few times as a result.

It wasn't until she'd almost completely finished stitching up her hand, that some of the terror had started to fade and her rational mind made a reappearance. It was then she was more able to analyze the situation and Magna's behavior.

Her aversion to touch wasn't new. Yumiko had been made tentatively aware of that back when she was still visiting the other woman in prison, but once Magna had been freed it had only become more obvious. Prison had been a different arena where touch was all but prohibited. On the outside, though, Magna maintained that same level of distance. She'd shied away from casual glances of contact and panicked at the instigation of anything more prolonged. Yumiko had made the mistake of moving to hug her once and Magna had pushed her away so violently that she'd hit a wall. The resulting bruise had faded in a matter of days but the horror and shame she'd seen on Magna's face in the minute before she'd fled the scene survived in her memory to this day.

Magna had avoided her for a long time after that incident. Yumiko had taken this as a sign of anger for the liberty she'd taken in daring to hug her and had given her space. But if it was anger that kept Magna away, it wasn't directed at her. Years later the other woman told her that she'd been afraid of something like that happening again, of hurting her. Alongside that, she hadn't expected Yumiko to want to have her around after what had happened. She'd considered their friendship rendered null and void in that moment - destroyed - and had been nothing short of bewildered when the lawyer had shown up on her doorstep two weeks later with a hopeful invitation to dinner.

Communication. It had never really been their strong suit.

So whilst there'd been rather monumental progress made when it came to touch in the handful of days since the world ended, Yumiko hadn't been surprised by the fact that Magna still wasn't entirely comfortable with it. It had only been when she'd started the process of bandaging her hand that her eyes landed on the tattoo and a suspicion arose that it was something more than that.

Much more.

Subsequently, she'd attempted to counter those suspicions, to alleviate Magna's worries and insecurities.

But all she'd succeeded in doing was triggering a fight.

Much to her frustration.

At the time of the argument, and the years that followed, she hadn't been able to think of anything that could earn the hatred Magna seemed so certain would come. There'd been nothing that could make her hate Magna back then, she'd been certain of that, and a decade hadn't changed her mind. Nor had finally learning the truth.

She knew Magna too well to ever hate her.

Discovering that she'd been lied to for thirteen years by the person she'd trusted most had shaken her, made her feel for a time that she didn't know Magna. That she might never have known her. Not really.

But that was a fragile doubt that hadn't survived the length of the other woman's absence, the all-consuming fear that she might never see her again.

Because she did know Magna. She'd spent thirteen years building up a treasure trove of knowledge that dwarfed one lie. It didn't make that lie insignificant, didn't make it hurt any less - and Yumiko suspected that that hurt would last for a while longer yet - but it did throw it into perspective.

It was because she knew Magna so well that she could understand why she had lied to her in the first place and, slowly, learn to forgive her.

All she had to do was remember the abject terror in the other woman's eyes when she'd taken her hand that day in the clinic. How the urgency to get away from Yumiko's touch had overpowered any sense of pain or self-preservation.

All because of a simple tattoo.

A tattoo that had never meant anything to Yumiko but was a creature of insurmountable significance to Magna.

(sometimes she hated that tattoo for the power it seemed to hold over the other woman)

If Magna had thought that several dots of ink were enough to earn Yumiko's judgment, then it wasn't hard to see how she'd concluded that the truth about her crime would be far worse. That it would break their friendship forever, erecting between them an impossible barrier to overcome.

Yumiko didn't believe that herself. She felt confident that, whilst she would have experienced anger and hurt at Magna's revelation that day, it would in no way have been enough to sever their friendship or ruin the love she felt for the other woman.

It certainly would have hurt a lot less than finding out after ten more years of established trust.

Especially, given the events that preceded it. Magna mutilating her hand in an effort to save Yumiko's life - without hesitation - would have told her far more about who the other woman really was than something she'd done at just seventeen.

But even that proof wouldn't have been necessary to convince her of the fact that, at her core, Magna was a good person. She'd seen more than enough evidence of that throughout their friendship.

As much as she disagreed with her decision to kill Lawson, that was, in its way, it's own piece of evidence.

Yumiko didn't know very many people who would sacrifice their future - and their innocence - in such a drastic way out of love for another, especially when they were barely more than a child themselves.

She could judge the results of that all she wanted but the motivation itself was another point in Magna's favor, at least to her mind.

It was hard to divide people into good or bad, black and white, and she'd tried to discard the habit of doing so as she'd gotten older - though, the simplicity of such clear distinctions was certainly tempting.

But she had never wavered in her belief that, on the whole, Magna was a good person.

She truly believed that.

But she couldn't convince Magna of that belief.

Just like she couldn't convince her that Yumiko wouldn't have discarded that belief herself if Magna had told her the truth all those years ago.

It seemed that those were both things she was just going to have to realize on her own. Someday.

Yumiko couldn't take that journey for her.

No matter how much she wanted to.

She sighed, hugging the other woman a little tighter to her chest. The closeness was a relief more than anything else and she suspected that it would take many more days - perhaps even weeks - before the desperate urge to touch, to hold was satisfied. So many times last night, she'd awoken to the fear that the other woman would no longer be beside her. That it had all been little more than a fever dream and Magna was still lost to her. Trapped in a cave, or at the mercy of walkers and Whisperers.

Dead.

It was going to take a long time to fully believe that those nightmares had been averted, that she really was back.

Right now, physical contact was the most reassuring proof she had, so she endeavored to get as much of it as she could.

Thankfully, Magna was no longer as resistant to touch as she had been and seemed to be as much in need of that contact as Yumiko right now.

That was one obstacle that no longer lay between them, at least.

It had been something of a revelation to discover in the last decade just how addicted to touch Magna could in fact be. How, once the anxiety and reservations wore off, she seemed to search out and soak up every ounce of physical contact Yumiko could provide. She'd always assumed that the other woman simply disliked touch - a predilection born out of obvious fear and negative past experience - but Magna had turned that theory on its head.

She couldn't imagine what it was like to be so terrified of something you desperately craved. To be hurt by the very thing you needed most.

Yumiko had experienced a lot in her life. But not that.

At some point whilst they were sitting there, Magna had started playing with Yumiko's hand, something she allowed all too willingly - still not immune to the knowledge of just how close she'd come to losing this; a part of her never wanted to let go of Magna's hand again. But the other woman's gaze had dropped now to that hand in a worrying way, turning it over with a discerning frown.

She knew immediately where her thoughts had gone.

"Magna."

"Hmm?"

Yumiko sighed, watching as the other woman examined her hand with a dedication more fitting of an archaeologist handling their latest discovery. "It's fine."

"It's bruised."

That was an overstatement. "Barely." She was sure Carol's face was worse and couldn't quite find it in herself to care. Connie was gone, she might never be found again, and it was a miracle that Magna was sitting here with her now, in her arms, instead of buried in some forgotten cave or walking among the dead.

No, Yumiko couldn't feel bad for that. Especially not when she'd had to rouse Magna from sleep three times last night because her nightmares had grown too distressing. "Believe it or not, I do actually know how to throw a punch."

Magna smirked, finally releasing her hand as she worked her way out of Yumiko's hold. She tried not to grimace at the action, at how reluctant her arms were to let her go.

"That wasn't always the case."

She narrowed her eyes. "You promised to never speak of that again."

The other woman looked very much like she wanted to laugh. Asshole. "You broke two fingers, Miko."

She huffed, leaning back against the post. "It was my first time."

"Yeah, and your technique was awful."

Yumiko rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "Yeah, well, not all of us come out of the womb ready to start a fight."

Despite her show of irritation, inwardly she was relieved by the conversation, by the lighthearted current within it.

She could tell that recent events were weighing on Magna. They were weighing on her, too. This was a much needed respite from that.

Magna scowled and pointed a finger at her. "Don't exaggerate." Her face cracked a second later in a grin. "I was at least six-months-old before I began starting shit. Had to wait for my teeth to grow in so I could bite people. I was like Sunny from A Series of Unfortunate Events for a while there." She looked a little too smug about the fact and Yumiko could easily picture it. A little Magna stumbling around biting all the annoying adults that dared to piss her off, God knew there had probably been a lot of them.

Not to mention, there'd been more than a few times over the years when they'd been fighting sickos and one had gone to take a chunk out of Magna that the other woman looked like she was strongly considering returning the favor.

Yumiko was forever grateful for her restraint in choosing not to.

She shook her head with a smile. "You're a menace."

"Hey, my first victim was my aunt and I don't know what she did exactly but I do know that she deserved it."

Yumiko laughed. "Right."

"She did!"

"Mm-hmm."

Inwardly, though, she agreed. She'd never met the woman but what few stories Magna had decided to share with her had painted her in a less than flattering light. And that was putting it kindly.

Magna persisted. "The woman was a nightmare - she was probably trying to put me in a dress with frills or something."

"Utterly unforgivable."

"I know." The two shared a smile, Yumiko still shaking her head in a mix of exasperation and amusement, wondering what she was going to do with this hilarious terror of a woman sitting beside her.

Magna had always meant trouble, from the moment they'd met, but it was the kind of trouble that she'd grown to love. "What am I going to do with you?" Yumiko watched her fondly, smile easy as she realized she was feeling the most relaxed she had in weeks.

Magna shrugged, stretching out so her shoe nudged her thigh. "Thirteen years and you're still asking that question? I would've thought you'd have figured it out by now."

Yumiko resisted the urge to bring that foot into her lap, she wasn't keen to find out just what they'd been stepping in since departing Hilltop. She knew she'd trampled over more than one pile of sicko intestines along the way and she doubted Magna had faired any better.

Later, when they were settled somewhere, and finally able to kick off their shoes, she could give into that desire. And more.

"Well, I know to keep you well and far away from any caves in the future," she sighed. "Might find a bunch of bubble wrap and roll you up in it."

Magna rolled her eyes. "Considering you're the one who's been injured the most out of the two of us, maybe you should keep the bubble wrap for yourself."

She opened her mouth to argue but found that she didn't actually have enough evidence to form a rejoinder. Irritatingly enough, she really had been the most injury-prone of the two of them, not to mention the one who caught every stray bug and attack of food poisoning that came their way whilst Magna continued on infuriatingly unscathed.

Not that she wanted Magna to get hurt - the thought of that actually made her nearly lose her mind - but a cold or two wouldn't have been totally amiss. In the interest of fairness.

It wasn't right that she'd been the only one in this relationship to appear in all their snotty-nosed glory, or to have vomit picked out of their hair. That embarrassment needed to be shared. Couples shared things. It was only healthy.

Really, Magna was just being selfish.

Or she could at least share some of that superhuman immune system with her. Having to fight off the flu and sickos at the same time was not something she ever wanted to relive.

Thankfully, she hadn't experienced that for almost two years now. Hopefully, her luck continued.

Though, Magna having to once again hold her hair back as she puked her guts out might be an adequate punishment for lying to her for thirteen years. She could allow herself that small form of pettiness.

Magna narrowed her eyes suspiciously, as if sensing the direction of her thoughts. "What are you thinking about?"

Yumiko smiled. "Just that time I threw up on your favorite shirt. I think that was the first time I ever saw you come close to crying." It wasn't but she'd long since decided to stay silent about that one night Magna had gotten drunk before the Apocalypse and turned into a human wreck.

Still, the other woman really had looked like she was going to cry when, after hours of scrubbing the shirt in a nearby river, the stench had refused to come out.

Magna's eyes widened. "I wasn't going to cry! I was just angry."

Magna's default setting was anger and Yumiko was familiar with it enough by now to know when it was in play. She hadn't been angry. "You held a funeral for it, Magna."

She blushed slightly. "That shirt survived nights at a truck stop and almost two years of fighting sickos. It deserved a good send-off."

Yumiko's smile was growing. "You put flowers on its grave."

Magna turned away, crossing her arms as the red grew darker in her cheeks. "They were just lying around. It's not like I went out of my way to pick them."

"You're allergic to pollen."

Magna scoffed. "I'm not allergic to flowers."

She actually looked offended by the mere suggestion and Yumiko had to bite her lip on a laugh. "You couldn't stop sneezing for the next three days. And you kept complaining about your eyes itching." It had been the closest she'd come to ever seeing Magna sick and it had been like watching a child battle their way through their first cold. A record number of pouts had been reached in those three days and when her blurry, watery eyes had caused her to miss the mark when throwing a knife at a walker on the second day, she'd actually looked to be fighting back tears.

"Remember when you missed that sicko with your-"

The other woman sprang to her feet. "I'm going to go see if Daryl is finally back from wherever the hell he fucked off to."

Yumiko stared after her, laughter building in her chest. "You hate Daryl."

Her only response was a very rude gesture that got a gasp from Gracie who'd been sitting nearby.

A/N: whenever there's an apocalyptic scenario, my first thoughts are always 'what about the pets?'

also you can't tell me Magna wouldn't have liked a series about kids constantly being let down by the adults around them and outsmarting them and some weird guy at every turn

so I struggled a lot with the past tenses in this chapter and I know that I've probably gotten some bits wrong. Hope it's not too obvious.

the bit about the cave is inspired by a conversation me and my friend had after Nadia posted a photo on instagram about her staying in a cave during her holiday. My friend and I were just like 'No! No more caves! Did you learn nothing from the walking dead?'

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