A/N - thank you for the review on the last chapter Guest! I've written a couple stories with Sasha and she pops up in a few chapters of Snapshots. I definitely am happy that she was able to find some of her family.

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Character: Carlton Burk

Setting: Wyoming - shortly after Seasons 2

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Carlton Burk opened his eyes as he felt the Jeep slow. The first thing he noticed was the sun streaming through the windshield, indicating that he had managed to get a few hours of sleep. He glanced to the backseat, confirming that Miller and Wolf were still out. Green had drawn the short straw and was stuck driving through the night.

"I never thought that I would start wishing for potholes," Danny Green muttered from the driver's seat.

"Why are we stopping?" Carlton asked as he sat up.

Danny glanced over. "I have to piss."

Carlton took the opportunity to do the same, setting up the solar kettle in the hopes of getting some half-decent coffee. He looked around until Danny returned, rubbing his hands together briskly to warm them. At least there wasn't too much snow yet, a situation that would likely change as they continued north. "Any idea where we are?"

"Wyoming," Danny replied, cracking his back. The long days of driving and worsening weather were getting on all of their nerves. "Captain Chandler set up a distribution drop about sixty miles west but I haven't seen so much as a house in hours. I'm wondering if we should cancel the stop."

Both men looked at the road ahead, which stretched straight as an arrow for as far as they could see, the mountains never seeming to get any closer no matter how long they drove. Carlton suspected that they were both thinking about their last stop, in what used to be Rapid City, South Dakota, and what was now a ghost town. A full day of driving to vaccinate less than twenty people. "What's after Gillette?"

Danny checked his map. "Billings, Montana."

"Looks like we have to go that way anyhow," Carlton pointed out. "Only one road."

Danny nodded, his reluctance obvious. But they both knew the drill. Notwithstanding Doctor Scott's efforts to get civilians to spearhead the effort to spread the contagious cure, too many roadblocks remained. Literal roadblocks, of course, set up during the days of the quarantine, but also practicalities such as lack of transportation and gas and food. The upshot being that the burden of spreading the cure remained on them.

"Water is boiling," Danny noted, picking up the kettle and pouring it over the coffee grounds. "Do you want to drive or make radio calls?"

It was a toss-up but, ultimately Carlton agreed to drive. Repeating the script every five minutes got old.

This is the United States Navy. We have the cure for the Red Flu. We are currently headed towards Gillette, Wyoming and will arrive at approximately noon local time. Anyone seeking the cure can meet us at the high school or respond on this frequency.

Another half hour passed before either Wolf or Erik stirred, as Carlton sipped his coffee and Danny snoozed between broadcasts. Danny had just switched places with Miller, planning to get some actual shut-eye, when the radio sprang to life.

This is Lieutenant Commander Cameron Burk of the United States Navy. We have received your broadcast and plan to make contact at Gillette.

Carlton wasn't aware of his foot hitting the brake until he realized that he was at a dead stop in the middle of a highway, the Jeep deathly silent. He grabbed the radio.

Please repeat last transmission.

The pause seemed to take a year, and then the radio crackled back to life.

Carlton? Is that you?

Tears pricked his eyelids, but Carlton ignored them.

Yeah, Cam, it's me.

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Several hours later, Carlton still wasn't sure that it was real. His eyes flickered to his brother, who was currently showing him and Danny around what looked vaguely like a training camp. As feared, the stop at Gillette had produced only a few dozen survivors looking for the cure. Rather than wait to see if more appeared, Danny and Carlton had left Rick and Wolf in charge of the distribution site and hitched a ride with Cameron to Facility A33.

"You have three hundred people here?" Danny asked as they followed Cameron into what looked like a greenhouse and turned out to be camp central, bustling with people who were moving from place to place doing, well, actually Carlton had no idea what they were doing. But other than a surprising number of civilians, the place looked no different from your typical base.

"Give or take," Cameron explained. "We started off with three hundred. Half Navy, half civilian dependents. We gained a few, mostly people we found while out scouting for food. We had a strict protocol in place to avoid infection, of course."

Carlton didn't ask for details. Either Cameron had gotten really, really lucky, or he had been forced to make some hard decisions about who was allowed in the door.

"How many of these places were built?" Danny asked.

"A couple dozen here in Wyoming, more planned for Texas and Arizona," Cameron replied. "The idea was to replicate a cruise ship, but on land. Plenty of space out here, as you can see. Each facility was created from prefab homes with wind and solar power. We got the well up and running almost immediately, thankfully. We ran out of fuel pretty quick but one of the guys converted a few of the SUVs to electric. They can make it almost sixty miles after a recharge. Food has been the biggest challenge, even with all of the cattle let loose when people started evacuating. Even with supplementing, we ran out of MREs within four months and had to start scavenging."

Cameron sounded proud of what they had accomplished here, something Carlton understood having seen stop after stop where a mere trickle of people appeared. At the same time, Cameron seemed to have no understanding of what was happening outside his camp. Carlton imagined it was no different from the day that the Nathan James hit Norfolk. Even with all that they had been through, seeing the devastation at the Naval base had shattered any remaining allusions that things would be okay, instead driving home just how bad things were. Stuck here in Wyoming, no means of contacting the outside world, Cameron had continued to hope for the best. That hope was now being shredded.

"Are you in touch with any of the other camps?" Danny continued.

"No. Not anymore." Cameron's face fell for just a minute. "So you really didn't know about these places?"

"Government's in shambles, man," Carlton replied without thinking. "Jeffrey Michener's now the president. He was tenth in the succession line."

"Although we're working to organize everything," Danny jumped in. "With your help, we could cover a lot more ground."

"We knew it was bad but..." Cameron shook his head. "I'll start organizing my guys into teams. Biggest issue is the lack of fuel. You have any extra?"

Danny grimaced at Carlton. Fuel was already a source of stress but there was no way they could leave these people here in temporary housing for the winter. "I'm assuming that you need more than a couple of canisters. Let me call St. Louis and see if I can get a tanker up here."

After dropping Danny off to coordinate with Cameron's second-in-command, Carlton followed him towards the make-shift cafeteria. "Have you heard anything from Mom and Dad?"

Cameron shook his head. "I was on the Milius when the outbreak first started. We swapped a few emails, but nobody was worried. Then I got busy coordinating the evacuation. By the time I realized how bad it was, it was too late. Lines were jammed."

"Yeah." Carlton's voice was quiet. "We were at EMCON. Didn't have a clue what was going on until we got attacked by the Russians."

"Russians?" Cameron seemed shocked. "Why?"

"Doctor Scott - the woman who developed the cure?" Carlton paused, waiting for his brother to nod. Apparently Cam had been listening during Danny's little speech. "They wanted her. We were in the Arctic trying to find the primordial strain of the virus. That's how Doctor Scott developed the cure."

"Damn." Cameron was silent for a long moment. "You hungry?"

"I could eat."

Cameron moved towards the counter, picking up two mugs and passing one to his brother. Looking down, Carlton recoiled at the sight of what looked like curdled, green milk. "What the hell is that?"

"A broccoli pineapple smoothie," Cameron replied.

Carlton started down at the sludge before him. "You're serious?"

"There was an old factory a couple hours away. They made and froze health foods. Luckily we found the place before the generators failed. It's been feeding us for months." Cameron managed to drink half of his smoothie with only the most minimal of shudders.

"You've been eating this crap for months?"

"Some of the earlier ones weren't too bad. Things with berries." Cameron chugged a glass of water, no doubt an effort to replace the taste of broccoli and pineapple. "This isn't the worst I've had. There was one with kale and mango that felt like you were swallowing string, no matter how much we pulverized the stuff."

Carlton sent up a prayer for small mercies. He might not have had water for two days, but at least there had been decent food. "You know, I have some MREs if you ... "

Cameron was on his feet before Carlton could finish the sentence. "That might just be the best news I heard all day."