A/N:I should just label this excuses box instead. Long time no see, right? I really would like to thank anyone who's stuck around this long. I really would have liked to have uploaded this sooner, but long story short, my computer died on me and wouldn't let me access any of the files (wouldn't even show any files there). Since I hadn't backed stuff up, I lost everything up to a certain point, including this story. So that kind of killed any sort of motivation/muses for a while. I can't promise that I'm back and uploading regularly, but I'll try. Sorry for the wait, but here's the next part. Enjoy.
Melissa looked at Alicia in surprise. If she had been in Alicia's place, she might have decided to not pry further, feeling safer in the ignorance. Then again, perhaps not knowing created more fear than the known.
"How much do you know?" Seth questioned, oblivious to Melissa's thoughts.
Alicia appeared to be thinking back. "I saw a person get bitten on TV, back in San Jose before we left. I remember how a lot of the news was reporting a pandemic, though no one really said how bad it was—everyone seemed to think it would work itself out, like the swine flu or bird flu. Damien and Cody both told me that we were going to LA, that it had a cure there, and that we'd be fine. We did get stopped at a military checkpoint though… and they killed Tamina there." Alicia paused, clearly caught back up in that moment before she refocused on the conversation. "After that I got sick and Cody and Damien haven't let me out of the car except for bathroom breaks. They've been telling me that most businesses shut down for a while so curing people would be a main priority."
Melissa winced. Alicia definitely had been shielded from the worst of it, and what she'd missed had been filled in with lies. It wouldn't be easy for her to hear.
Seth took the honor of attempting it. "Cody and Damien lied to you, even if they didn't mean to."
"How badly did they lie?" From the look on her face Melissa could tell she was thinking back on what Dean, Roman, and Melissa herself had said—"collapse of society bad."
"Pretty bad." Melissa thought she spotted an apologetic look on Seth's face. "There is no cure, as far as we're aware."
"Except for head trauma," Melissa added in.
"Except for head wounds," Seth agreed. "It's the only way the zombies can be taken down."
"So it is zombies then?" Alicia questioned, her voice tremulous.
"Did they not even tell you it was zombies?" Seth sounded incredulous. "And the people on TV trying to eat other people didn't give it away?"
"We originally thought it might be like rabies," Alicia said defensively.
Seth was silent for a moment. "I guess that makes sense," he conceded. "But it's zombies, or that's what it seems to be. There's not really a better explanation for the dead walking around."
Melissa looked away from Seth and Alicia, staring out into the darkness that was slowly becoming brighter by the light of the moon. She sincerely hoped that there were no zombies nearby; she'd had enough of moonlit fields full of zombies.
"So… zombies and no cure. How much has it spread?" Alicia queried.
"How bad was it?" Melissa blinked in surprise when she realized Seth was asking her. "You had the TV and news longer, right?"
Melissa nodded. "Yeah. Um… I think the UK was just about gone," she recalled. "They'd been infected for weeks before it even reached the US. I don't really know about elsewhere in the world, but the US… I think they said all of the east coast was infected…" she paused, thinking. "If I remember right, the radio guy said the dead to living population was estimated at like 1,000 to 1 or something like that. And they said the south and the west coast were headed there. They didn't really say anything about the Midwest, like Nebraska and Montana and stuff like that. I would think that they went down too, or at least the big cities. Most of the big cities were what were lost first. Places like LA." She whispered the last bit, not wanting Alicia and Seth to hear her as she scanned the area around them, trying to listen for anything.
"So there's no chance of people rallying and fighting back?" Alicia guessed. "No help from anywhere?"
Melissa saw Seth nod in the silvery light. "They would have done it a long time ago if it was going to happen," Seth ventured.
"Knowing our luck all the places that survived are places that don't like the US," Alicia muttered bitterly, coughing slightly.
"Probably," Seth agreed.
"So why are we going to LA, if all the big cities fell?" Alicia questioned.
Melissa tensed, wondering how Seth was going to answer. They'd of course given her the answer that they didn't like to remain in one place, but she had to question if the same answer would work with Alicia. Seth seemed to sense what she was thinking, looking over once before answering Alicia. "It was the last place everyone was told to go. They did report that they were working on a cure, before the radio broadcasts stopped."
So they were looking for the cure after all. It made sense; they were set regarding supplies, but there was nothing that could protect against the actual zombies getting them sick. So they wanted that last bit of security. Melissa had to wonder if it was worth it; she'd rather take the supplies and run in the other direction, toward somewhere she knew was safe.
"That doesn't seem like a foolproof plan, if the broadcasts stopped," Alicia pointed out perceptively. "But I guess I really don't have a choice."
"It would be a better idea to stick with a group," Melissa spoke up, agreeing with Alicia's words. "It's difficult to try and survive by yourself."
Alicia nodded, sighing before she coughed, making sure to cough away from Seth and Melissa. "Thank you for telling me all of this," she told both of them.
"If you have any more questions just ask any of us—Dean, Roman, me, or Melissa," Seth told her.
"Not Damien or Cody?" Alicia questioned.
Melissa spoke up now, shaking her head. "They still want to try and keep you safe. They'd probably lie to you again." She wasn't attempting to drive a wedge between the two men and Alicia, but Alicia deserved the truth if she was going to attempt to survive.
"Alright," Alicia said wearily. "Good night."
"Good night Alicia," Seth told her, and Melissa murmured it quietly as well, watching as the woman walked away, back toward the tents and the campfire.
Seth and Melissa remained silent after that, and so it startled Melissa when Seth finally spoke. "Why don't you back and finish eating? I'll finish my part of watch by myself."
Seth's words were a clear dismissal, and so Melissa nodded, murmuring good night before heading back toward the camp, where the fire was barely an orange speck; the others had kept it low, which wasn't a bad idea, if the Walking Dead was any indication.
Melissa spotted Dean and Roman still sitting by the campfire when she drew nearer, and both of them looked up warily as they heard her approach. They both relaxed a bit when they realized it was her, though they still looked tense, and Melissa didn't blame them. Being on edge was exhausting. Melissa sat down where she'd been sitting before, where her food still was. She looked around, not finding Cody or Damien. "What happened to Cody and Damien?" she questioned.
"They decided to go to their tent for the night," Roman told her. "Didn't want to stay up any longer." He set the can he'd been eating from on the ground, apparently done with it, at least for the moment.
"Um… thank you both for sticking up for me," Melissa managed to say, her tone quiet as she resumed eating.
Dean spoke this time, leading off with a shrug. "You did what you had to. They shouldn't fault you for that. I doubt the…" he paused, and Melissa figured he was looking for a politer word than the one he'd originally decided on. "I doubt the cowards would just lie down and die because someone threatened them."
"I certainly wouldn't." Roman spoke this time, looking at the fire with avid interest, as if it was a temporary distraction from their situation. "Especially if someone else was at risk."
His words partly soothed Melissa's conscience, but some part of her debated whether or not Roman really had a say; he hadn't been put in the situation of killing another person. Zombies, sure. But as far as she knew, only Seth and she had a say about what they'd really do in a situation like the one she'd been in with David. Thinking of what Seth had told her only made her feel worse as she continued to eat in silence. It made her feel like a little girl; here she was fussing over what two people like Damien and Cody had to say about her, and needing Dean and Roman to defend her. Maybe Dean had been right, back at the church—maybe all she wanted or needed was to have the big strong men protect her.
But that in itself wasn't true—she'd taken care of herself, and Punk when he'd been there. She had been the one to get them out of that situation. Not Punk, not Dean, not Roman, not Seth. Her. The conundrum was a difficult one to try and work her head around. On one hand she was capable of defending herself and she shouldn't care what people said. On the other hand though, she didn't want to end up seeming like, well, a bitch, by acting like killing someone didn't matter, because to her, it did.
"You okay?" Dean questioned, looking at her shrewdly; it was almost as if he knew what she was thinking. And if the out-of-character interviews had anything true, it was probably that Dean was observant. "You look like you're giving yourself a headache."
Melissa shrugged. "That's because I am."
"Anything you want to talk about?" Dean asked her.
Melissa shook her head. "Not really."
"Alright." Melissa was relieved when Dean didn't push, and Roman remained silent. Dean stood up now, stretching and wincing when it pulled on his wounds. "I'm going to go get some sleep before my turn at watch."
Roman nodded, still gazing at the embers of the fire. Melissa murmured a good night, and Dean left, heading for the tent the Shield and Melissa were sharing, which was facing opposite the one Damien, Cody, and Alicia were sharing.
Melissa finished her beans after a while, and she and Roman still hadn't said a word. It was peaceful though, and Melissa decided to enjoy it for what it was worth; moments like this probably weren't going to come along very often.
"So how big is your family?" Roman's words interrupted Melissa's thoughts.
"What? Oh." It took Melissa a moment to gather her thoughts. "It was just me, my brother, and my parents. Most of my family lives across the states, so I wasn't very close with any of them. What about you?"
"Like you don't already know," Roman said with a soft laugh. "That stuff is usually just all over the internet."
"True," Melissa conceded. "But how do you know I'm a fan who spent a lot of time on the internet?"
Roman shrugged. "We've come across a lot of different fans. And you have the original Shield shirt, which says a lot right there." He pointed at the shirt she'd changed into earlier in the day. "A large majority of those shirts are owned by the hardcore fans, because that shirt is from when we were working with Punk to help him retain his title. Most casual fans hated us for cheating Ryback out of the title."
"That's really shaky logic," Melissa accused.
"You're not denying it though, are you?" Roman pointed out, a smug smirk on his face as he sat back.
"Alright, you got me," Melissa said, rolling her eyes. "Internet fan over here." She yawned, reminding her that she hadn't slept much lately. Then again, that had been true since the beginning of the zombie apocalypse or whatever this was. It just felt like less sleep than usual.
"Why don't you go get some sleep?" Roman suggested. "You're not on watch tonight but it wouldn't hurt to be well rested."
Melissa nodded, slipping her eating utensils back into her backpack before picking that up. "Good night."
"Good night Melissa," Roman replied, his gaze once again fastened on the fire in front of him.
Melissa left him to it, heading for the tent Dean had gone to earlier. Opening the tent flap, she nearly tripped over Dean, who had settled into the sleeping bag nearest the door. He already appeared to be asleep, so she quietly edged around him, heading to where she'd placed her sleeping bag in the back. Setting her backpack down next to the top of the sleeping bag, she sat down before sliding into the sleeping bag, another yawn escaping her.
Low, sleep-distorted muttering came from Dean, and Melissa looked up, startled. It only served to remind her that she was actually sharing a tent with the three men, which caused her heart to flutter a bit in panic. She knew it was obvious that they would have tried something long ago if they wanted to attempt anything, but her fears were immune against reason, as most of her fears were. Reaching down, she made sure she still had the knife strapped to her leg, along with the pistol. Both were still there, and she lowered her head to rest on her arms, falling into an uneasy sleep.