"Barry, have you noticed anything a little...off about Aaron?" Emily asked quietly. She'd finally managed to steal a moment alone with him, Tara having disappeared into the breakroom for a snack.

"Oh I know there's something off about him," her friend replied surprisingly.

"What do you mean 'you know'?"

"Let me show you something I found last night," he told her, tapping away at the keyboard.

"This isn't the time to be trying to push guys who are most likely dead at me," she hissed back.

"Oh ye of little faith," he smirked. "I'm trying to show you why our little soldier boy wanna be is lying through his teeth with all that crap about being recalled from leave."

"Okay girlfriend, dish, now," Emily demanded, glancing about the office to see if they were still alone.

"Remember the other night when I found Mr. Dream Cop for you? Well this was one of the files me and Tara found that we declared unworthy of you," he said, fingers finally halting as the file began to display on the screen. "She's got really great taste by the way, phenomenal instincts."

"Sonuvabitch," she whispered.

"Don't be like that, I didn't say I was ditching you for her..."

"I was talking about the file, Barry."

"Oh."

"That's definitely Aaron all right," she told him, peering at the screen.

"Well duh, Sherlock, that's why I showed it to you."

"According to this, it looks like the only thing he didn't lie to us about is his name," she replied, ignoring his other comment.

"Unless he lied on the profile."

"Please. I run the background checks myself, remember? I think I would have caught something this blatant as being a lie. Read this, Occupation, apprentice taxidermist. What he's looking for in a woman, someone who puts out a lot. Likes to spend long romantic evenings skinning and stuffing animals. There is no way I could have missed this."

"Right. Because you've never screwed up on a background check before, half-assing it after a late night at the bar."

"Fuck you, I never half-ass anything. Except for maybe cleaning my apartment, but that's it. And who in their right mind would make up answers like that on a dating profile either? I mean, the whole idea is to make women think you're a good catch, it's not supposed to scream 'girl repellent' like this does."

"Wow, so you really do have the ability to discern between winners, and the kind of guys you usually date?"

"Once again, this is not the time for that."

"For what?" he asked, playing dumb just for the fun of pushing her buttons.

"Stop being such an asshole, and stop pretending to be dumb, you don't have the poker face to pull it off."

"I was just saying..."

"Well stop. I know I'm a disaster in the relationship department, believe me, I know it better than anyone. And you know as well as I do, most of those guys in this damn computer are probably dead by now," she said quietly. "I don't think you'll need to worry about my relationship abilities any more."

"Oh come on Em, they can't all be dead."

"Fine, except for Aaron they're all deadish."

"You're such a fatalist."

"Have ya looked outside lately Barry? I think I have a pretty damn good reason to be."

"She does have a point Barry, but then, so do you. Sorta," Tara said, having suddenly materialized in cubicle land once again.

"And just how long have you been listening?" Emily asked the teen pointedly.

"Long enough to put two and two together and figure out that you've been looking at that profile of Aaron's, and I'm not talking about checking out that sexy jawline either."

"Sexy? Oh honey, don't start disappointing me now," Barry said in a mock pout.

"Yeah, he's kinda sexy, in a old dude sort of way. I like his jawline, nice and strong. And he's got great cheek bones," the girl babbled.

"She's young, you'll have to forgive her," Barry whispered to Emily, who just rolled her eyes at him.

"Maybe we should just ask Aaron about the profile," suggested Tara.

"Oh, we're absolutely going to ask him about it," Emily told her. "And then, if and when I catch him in another lie, I'm gonna nail his balls to the floor."

"Um, that sounds kind of painful," Aaron said from the main office door. "Do I dare hope that ya'll are talking about Jonathan?"

"Speak of the Cheeto," Tara whispered and Barry snorted with laughter.

"No such luck," Emily said, flashing him the smile that had sent shivers of fear down the backs of each and every one of her brothers on more than one occasion. Aaron felt the same cold chill.

"So, what's up then?" he asked, gamely walking forward to join the trio.

"Well Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do," Emily said in her best Ricky Ricardo imitation.

"Okay, I'll bite. Just what am I supposed to explain?" he asked, smiling, only the rigid stiffness in his shoulders giving away his tension.

"For starters, you can tell us why you lied about being in the Army," she replied.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, genuinely stunned.

"Oh come on Aaron, the profile's right here," she said, pointing at the monitor. Aaron stepped in for a closer look, carefully reading the information on the screen. The others were amused by his growing anger, apparent only by the throbbing vein that appeared at his temple.

"And you guys seriously believe this bullshit is true?" he gritted out between angrily clenched teeth, pivoting slightly so that he could look at each of them in the eyes.

"Is there a reason we should doubt it? Computers don't typically lie my friend."

"No, but the people who use them do. See that username? Shadowlght. That's my ex-girlfriend Brandi's IM name."

"Oh, let me guess. You're going to tell us that she was so pissed off that you dumped her she did this elaborate little profile for revenge."

"No, this looks more like the work of Larry."

"Larry. Who's he? Your ex-boyfriend?" Barry asked with a smile.

"No. Larry would be Brandi's husband. I would imagine that this was the best revenge he could think of since she wouldn't let him turn me in to our CO."

"Okay, so call me slow here, but you're saying that you were in the same unit as you're married girlfriend's husband?" Emily asked.

"That's right."

"And she somehow managed to convince him not to rat you out to the CO?" she prodded.

"No, he more or less did everything she told him to do. He even called and bitched me out when I asked for a transfer to a different unit."

"Why would he do that?" Tara asked.

"Because I hadn't been calling her. I cut off all contact, figured it was in everyone's best interests. Obviously she didn't feel that way so she sent him after me."

"That's what I call pussy whipped," Barry said.

Tara giggled. "This is almost better than my soap operas. All we need is a pregnancy and this would be a goldmine!"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

"Oh my God! She was knocked up too!" the teen squealed.

"You've got to be kidding me," Emily muttered. "His or yours?"

"I'm not quite sure, the timings kind of close. And she would never say. I think she got off on knowing that she could use the kid to play us off of one another."

"Jesus, this is a soap opera," Barry said gleefully.

"So do you have any kind of proof to back this up?" Emily asked cautiously. "I mean, this is a premium account, that means you would have to pay for at least three months worth in advance, credit card only." She sat down at the desk and started typing. "According to this, this was paid with a card in the name of one Aaron G. Forrest. So if this was someone else's handiwork, tell me how they got your credit card?"

"I lived with Brandi and Larry for almost eight months, easy enough for him to get his hands on my credit card. In fact I'm sure that's what happened, 'cause it'd also go a long way in explaining the other weird shit that kept getting sent to me, subscriptions to Playgirl and stuff like that. Oh, and here," he said pulling a battered leather wallet from his back pocket. Reaching inside he pulled out a card and handed it to her. "My military ID card, in case you were still in doubt."

"Okay. So maybe you are legit," Emily said reluctantly.

He nodded. "So can we get on to the reason why I came down here?"

"Do we have to? I want to hear more about this whole ex-girlfriend thing," pled Tara. "I'm totally going through soap opera withdrawals."

"Girl, I totally hear you on that one," Barry said. "By the time I finally get home, my TiVo is going to be out of recording time, and it's all gonna be fucking newscasts and shit."

"We just picked up some more chatter over the scanner," Aaron said, focusing on Emily, and ignoring the others entirely.

"Good or bad," she asked, unable to read the expression on his face.

"Bad I'm afraid. It sounds like Fort Pastor's about to fall to the dead."

"What!" demanded Jonathan, having walked into the room just in time to hear the soldier's words.

"What about the radio? Have you managed to contact anyone on it yet?"

"The Fort's been just a little bit busy to answer the phone," he answered sarcastically.

"Yeah, but what about the search and rescue teams? There's got to be some of them still out searching, right?"

"There's a very remote chance that some of the airborne teams might be out yet," he conceded. "But I really can't say for sure, not until I've actually talked to one of them."

"We may as well just go ahead and put a fucking bullet in each of our heads right now," moaned Jonathan. "No help is going to come. There isn't going to be any rescue. Those things are either gonna come bursting in here and kill us, or we're going to run out of food and starve to death," he cried, growing louder with every statement.

"My vote's for the latter, especially with the way you've been eating," commented Tara.

"Would you people stop making fun of my eating! I can't help it I have a glandular problem!"

"Glandular my ass," muttered Barry. "Every time I see you you're shoving your face full of something."

"Here we go again," huffed Emily. "You, come with me," she said, pointing at Aaron. "The rest of you, try not to kill each other, we don't know if it's just the bites that bring the dead back or what and I'm not in the mood to find out."

"Just remember that he's in the reject pile!" Barry called after Emily's retreating back.

"I'm talking to him Barry, not fucking him!" she yelled back, the subject of their impromptu discussion going bright red in the face at their words.

"Too bad," Barry told Tara quietly. "She could really use a good fuck, might loosen her up. And he looks like he might be worth a quickie anyway."

"That's gross Barry, you said it yourself that he was in the reject pile," his new best friend replied.

"Relationship reject, he's a relationship reject. I never said nothin' about booty call reject," sighed Barry dramatically.

"You both are sick and I'm not going to waste my time with you any more," Jonathan said, stomping away.

While Tara and Barry continued to argue, Emily worked on prying more information out of Aaron. After leaving the main cubicle section of the office, the pair had made their way up to the roof where they stood looking out over the city.

"So if you're really Army, and you've been down in the streets on foot during all this, then level with me. What are our chances of getting out of here alive?"

"I can't even begin to guess that Emily, nothing they were doing at the Fort while I was there made any sense to me. I mean, with all the news reports about the bites spreading the infection they were still continuing to bring the bite victims back into the Fort. It was insane."

"They were scared, injured people. Most of them probably had what was left of their friends or families with them, it's not like you could just shoot them dead in the streets. It would have been cold blooded murder."

"Battlefield doctors would've called it triage, deciding who lived and who died."

"Bullshit. Battlefield doctors have to make the choice between who they know they can save and who they know they can't."

"It's all the same Emily. They still would make the choice of who lived and died."

"But this isn't a battlefield."

"Sure it is. If you listen real carefully, you can still hear the gunfire out there on the streets. And whether you want to admit it or not, somewhere, somebody right now is probably making the choice to bring an uninjured person back to safety and shoot the infected injured one where he stands, because he's already dead."

"But the injured people that were brought to the Fort weren't dead when they arrived."

"Sure they were, we just weren't ready to acknowledge it at the time."

"So what do we do now Aaron? The way you talk it's hopeless. We may as well do what Jonathan says and fucking shoot ourselves now."

"It's not that bad yet," he tried to soothe her. "The best thing we can do is keep trying to make contact using the radio, take shifts, keep someone on it 24-7. Someone's got to hear us eventually."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we start looking for the chance to get out of here on foot."

"Either way, it's suicide."

"So can I ask you a question now?"

"Shoot."

"What the hell is wrong with your friend in there?"

"Barry? He just takes his matchmaking job a little too seriously."

"It's like a bad movie cliche, trying to match people up or something. Like sex would be the big cure all," he said. They both laughed, until they made the mistake of looking at each others face. "So anyway, I guess I'll just keep my distance from him for awhile," he told her nervously, taking a few steps away from her.

"That's probably a good call."

"Although...you know what they say about crises bringing people together..." he drawled off, semi-hopeful looking.

"Momentary insanity that they regret for the rest of their lives, no matter how short that may be,"she replied without hesitation. They spent another uncomfortable moment of silence before Matthew arrived to break the news that they were sure Fort Pastor had fallen to the dead.

A/N: Okay, believe it or not I'm actually going somewhere with this story, even though it may not seem that way now.Basically, I'm just kind of getting a better feel for my characters, seeing who ticks me off and will be the first to be eaten, er, written out of the story. I'm sure you're all thinking 'okay, fat Jonathan will be the first to go' but who knows. Reviews are always appreciated, so focusing your attention on that pretty blue box at the bottom is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

D.S.