September 28, 2003

For the first night in ages my dreams are not filled with memories of my dead parents and the traumatic experience from my childhood. Instead I awake with my head full of dreamy memories of a normal, happy, world. I attribute this to the fact that I was able to spend the entire night sleeping with Nick. I was shocked to see Luke turn a blind eye to Nick slipping under the covers of the pull-out couch I was sleeping in last night. Luke had looked directly at us; I know he saw, but he didn't bat an eye. It was odd, but maybe Luke was changing his mind about his opinions on my relationship with Nick. Or maybe Luke was just in an elated mood last night because we got to watch a Star Wars movie before bed.

I can tell by their absence that I awoke long after Pete, Martha, and Luke. Nick is still at my side, fast asleep. I try to get up without waking him, but my movement causes him to stir.

"Let's go back to sleep," he says in a groggy morning voice. He pulls me closer, hugging my back to his chest and snaking his arm around my bare waist. I was actually only wearing my underwear and one of Nick's t-shirts, which was much too big for me. I was out of comfortable clothes to sleep in last night because mine were all in the wash. Again, Luke knew about this but said nothing.

"We can't. It's so late," I say, although I don't know the actual time.

He groans and pulls the thin comforter tighter around us. I let him win and relax against him for a few minutes. I feel a tinge against my butt, which grows more and more solid as the seconds tick by. When I realize what is going on, I elbow him in the ribs and awaken him from his light slumber. "Pervert."

He's unaware of the situation for a moment as he awakes, but he realizes quickly. "Sorry, babe. Morning wood. Can't help it."

I laugh at him as he tries to pull me closer again. This time I succeed in getting out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I shower again, brush my teeth for longer than necessary, and get dressed in a pair of clean clothes. When I exit the bathroom, Nick is sitting upright on the pull-out couch in nothing but his boxers. I give him a wink as I go upstairs. "See you later, sleepyhead."

Upstairs I find only Jenny still in the house. She's in the kitchen, putting away clean dishes from the night before. Her smile shines brightly when she sees me. "Goodmorning!" She sings.

"Goodmorning," I say. "Sorry for sleeping so late. It was amazing sleeping inside an actual house for once."

"Don't you worry sweetheart. The others told me that you all have been through a lot lately so I completely understand. Bethany, Dustin, and I have been taking our amenities for granted lately. Speaking of the others, they all went down to the stream to get some fish for today."

She hands me a plate with a few pieces of toast smothered in delicious apple butter. I didn't think I'd ever be able to eat toast or apple butter again. I'm ecstatic. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Bea. The bread isn't the best because we don't have milk, but we make do. The idea was to eventually get a few goats for milk. Guess the apocalypse interrupted those plans."

"No, this is perfect," I say, my mouth already full of food.

Jenny continues her chores in the kitchen, while I scarf down my food. When I finish, I clean my own plate in the sink. Jenny takes the piece of dining ware and dries it with the towel in her hands.

As Jenny carefully places dishes into the hardwood cabinets, she breaks the silence. "I'm so glad Dustin stumbled across you folks. Dustin has been awfully lonely these past couple months."

Because she is an extremely kind person who let me and my family into her home in the middle of an apocalypse, I choose to ignore the odd comment. I say, "I'm so glad he found us too. Thank you all so much for welcoming us into your home. For all we've been through recently, you don't understand how much we appreciate this."

My gratuity leaves Jenny absolutely blushing and beaming. At that moment, Nick makes his way upstairs, and the others enter the kitchen through the backdoor.

"There you are, boy. Finally decided to get your ass up. Come help me clean these fish." Pete stands in the doorway, holding a sopping wet bucket which I assume is full of fish by the smell.

Everyone disperses again; Nick, Pete, and Luke go outside to clean the fish and ready them for our meals, while Martha and Bethany continue working on our heaping mound of dirty laundry. Jenny heads off to take a bath. I attempt to provide assistance to the others, but everyone declines my offer. I feel useless and bored so I just relax on the couch and aimlessly flip through a random magazine that I have no actual interest in.

I'm nearly dozing off when Jenny comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder. Half asleep, I startledly jump into the air.

"Oh, so sorry to scare you!" Jenny says. "I guess we shouldn't sneak up on anyone anymore, with what has been going on."

"It's okay," I tell her, but I don't disagree with her statement.

"The others won't let you help them, huh?"

I shake my head no.

"Well I got somethin' for ya' to help curb that boredom!" Jenny says, taking my hand in hers and leading me away from the couch. She leads me near her bedroom to a beautiful door with intricate designs carved into the dark wood. She twists the brass doorknob and flips the lightswitch to reveal what's beyond the door. Inside the large room, the walls are lined with built-in bookshelves packed with books. On the outside wall is a gorgeous bay window, which looks out onto the property. I stare around the room in awe.

"Before my mom passed away in '97 she owned a used book store for thirty years. When she died she left it to me in her will. Unfortunately we had to sell the place because we couldn't keep up with the upkeep. We donated or sold most of the books, but we kept all of these ones. Feel free to read any of them that you'd like. You a reader?"

"I'm not an avid reader, but I enjoy a good book," I say.

Jenny stares at her reflection in the window. "Sheesh, after this all started Bethany and I were forced to stop dying our hair. The grey is coming back in so quickly. Makes me look so old. For years I tricked myself and others into thinking I was younger than I actually am. This grey is starting to really show that I'm fifty-eight."

She anxiously tries to smooth out her hair and hide the grey, but I stop her. "Really, Jenny, you don't look a day over forty-five."

She blushes and taps my hand. "Oh, you stop it!"

"I mean it," I tell her, and I'm being honest. She looks great.

She hugs me and then leaves me be amongst the books. I pick out a novel and settle into the nook by the window and start reading while overlooking Nick, Pete, and Luke below.

After reading for a while and eating lunch, I join my family outside. They just finished cleaning up the barn, without my help of course.

I stand beside Martha as they finish cleaning up. She says, "Farm boys back in their natural habitat."

Pete comes to my side as well. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm good," I say. I assume he means in terms of the pregnancy. "I haven't been as nauseous since we've been here and the food is good so I can't complain."

"I've been talking to Nick about the baby and how to raise a kid. I never actually had a kid, but I had plenty of practice raising Nick," he says.

I smile brightly at Pete in thanks as Nick comes up next to me. He puts his arm around my shoulder while we stare at Luke who is still inside the barn petting one of the ponies. "I'm glad to actually see you two getting along. I haven't seen you two fight like you have recently since we were kids and you guys broke those Star Wars action figures that we shared."

Nick feigns being offended. "Hey, I swear Luke broke them, not me!" Anyway, yeah, maybe Luke is lightening up. He actually mentioned earlier that he was excited to be an uncle."

My eyebrows raise in shock. It's surprising, but I'm incredibly happy to see Luke starting to change his mind on the current events. It may take a while for him to actually be accepting, but progress is progress.

"What gender are you hoping for?" Martha asks us.

"I don't care," Nick says. "But I think it's a girl."

"Oh I know it's a girl," I say as Luke makes his way toward us, carefully stepping over a pile of pony poop.

"You know?" Luke asks. "How do you know?"

"I can just sense it."

"Oh, so you're a psychic now?" Luke teases.

"Hey, you jerk!" I try to elbow him in the ribs, but I'm so short that I hit his lower abdomen. "I just feel like I can tell."

I look around at the group of us and it's all smiles. Things are how they used to be; No one is fighting or mad at each other.

Groans and gurgles fill the crisp autumn air and disturb our moment of light-heartedness. Shuffling down the driveway is a small herd of lurkers. There's five of them, and they drag their feet over the gravel.

"One for each of us," Pete says with a sigh while everyone pulls out their weapons.

We don't have to communicate which one each of us will take. We just move toward the one that is closest to us. The one that I take is taller than me, but still considerably shorter than the others. I stab through her eye socket with ease. I look around the rest of the group. They perform the same as me, easily taking down their respective lurkers. As the others begin to drag the corpses away I remain frozen. There were five lurkers and five of us. If you squint, the dead lurkers that each of us took down slightly resemble ourselves. I don't know if the others noticed, but if they did they don't say anything. I know it means nothing, but the lurkers have brought me back to reality. I let myself get too comfortable and relaxed. These lurkers caused me to remember that this could happen to any of us at any given moment.

"You okay?" Nick interrupts my dead-locked gaze on the corpse at my feet by grabbing its arms in preparation to drag it away.

I shake my head, my previous thoughts disappearing. I reassure him, or maybe I'm reassuring myself. "I'm great."

The day passes by much quicker than our days in the RV did. Here we have so many different things to keep us occupied that sometimes I can't choose what to do. I'm definitely not complaining, though; back in the RV we spent most of our time in boredom with little to keep us entertained except for each others' company.

After eating a delicious dinner of farm fresh scrambled eggs I head downstairs hoping to take a shower. I turn the corner to enter the bathroom and nearly run face first into Nick's side. He's standing in front of the mirror tugging at his hair, his hat abandoned on the bathroom vanity.

"Hey, sorry. You need the bathroom?" He asks, turning away from the mirror and reaching to replace his hat back on his head. I place my hand over his mid-air and slowly lower his hat back onto the countertop.

"I was just going to take a quick shower, but I can wait. What's up with you?"

"Just looking at my hair. It's getting too long for my liking," he says, turning to the side and back again to look at his dark hair.

I reach up and take a piece of his hair in between my fingers. "I think it looks nice, but I could trim it for you if you want."

"You could do that for me?" He asks incredulously.

"Of course. It might not be the prettiest, but I trimmed my own hair in the bathroom of the RV a couple weeks ago. It doesn't look too bad, does it?" I twirl a bit to show him my hair.

"It looks amazing, as usual."

I take Nick's hand and lead him into the main area of the basement. I place the trash bag I found on the floor to protect the carpet from falling hair, while he pulls one of the chairs away from the table and places it on top of the trash bag. He takes a seat and I carefully start cutting away at pieces of his hair. Hopefully I don't butcher his haircut.

I stay quiet at first, carefully focusing on snipping his hair. After I get more comfortable with the scissors I start talking. "I never would have thought that we would be here."

Nick smirks. "Do you mean in an apocalypse or me getting you pregnant?"

"Both I guess, but more the pregnant thing." I snip a piece of hair over his ear.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he says, lowering his head and refusing to meet my gaze.

I take his head in my hands and force him to look at me. "Don't be sorry."

"You're really not mad at me for knocking you up?"

"Of course not," I say. "Have to say though… that pull out game is so weak!"

"Well what did you expect from a first-timer?"

I laugh at him while I cut the final piece of hair. "You're such a dork."

I hand him a handheld mirror and he takes in his new haircut. I hold my breath, expecting disappointment from him. Instead he praises me, "It looks much better than it did before. You did a great job."

I stand in front of him blushing. We remain like this for a few moments, just staring at each other, until Nick slowly takes my hands in his. He lowers me onto himself, letting go of my hands so that he can cradle my face with his left hand. He brings me into a passionate and loving kiss, which soon progresses to a kiss that is needy and full of fervor. His hands slip under my shirt and ignite flames of passion over the skin on the small of my back.

We are pulled away from our preoccupations by a disgruntled cough. I crane my head around to see a very displeased Luke standing at the base of the stairs. I try to jump off of Nick, but he holds my hips to keep me in place.

"I was coming to get you two so that you could join me in taking care of the animals for the evening," Luke says with a scowl and crossed arms.

"Well, Luke, it appears that we seem to be busy at the moment," Nick says.

I turn back to Nick with wide eyes. What the fuck is he doing? I can't believe he'd say something that bold to my brother.

"Well when you two are finished please meet me outside so that we can tend to the animals. Don't take too long; it'll be dark soon." Luke turns and leaves the basement without another word on the matter.

Nick and I sit in an incredulous silence trying to process what just happened. I ask, "What the hell has gotten into him?"

"Guess he's lightening up," Nick says while running his hands up and down my sides. "You know that shower is pretty spacious if you wanna…"

I get up and lead him into the bathroom. The shower is indeed spacious, and it shelters us, holding in the steam and moans.

We exit the shower probably forty-five minutes later, the steam from the shower spilling into the rest of the bathroom when we finally open the door. We try to hurry to dress ourselves knowing that Luke is probably outside pissed at how long we're taking. After continuously bumping into each other and struggling to get dresses, we finally succeed. Right before I reach for the doorknob I notice Nick reaching for his hat.

"Hey, leave it off for a bit." I pout.

"Are you really telling me not to wear the hat that you bought for me?"

I scoff. "The hat I bought you two years ago!"

He chuckles at me. "All right, I'll leave it off for tonight."

I give him a satisfied smile and we finally make our way outside.

Helping Luke with the animals was incredibly awkward. He kept glancing at Nick and I with an unreadable look. Was he mad? Grossed out? Weirded out? I couldn't tell, and neither could Nick.

Thankfully our chores were over and done with before too long. We finished right before dark and as we get inside, the others are sitting around the table.

"Wanna play a game with us?" Dustin asks us, but he directs the question at me.

Nick, Luke, and I take our seats at the table and Dustin pulls out the game Boggle. It's a fun game where one must find as many words as possible from the letters in the grid. I used to play it a lot in middle school with my parents.

We play for awhile, with me winning nearly every round. At the end of the game, I've won by a landslide and Nick finished in last place.

"Bea's the smartest one here by far. Of course she'd win!" Dustin says after tallying up everyone's scores.

"I got second to last place, but at least I beat Nicholas," Luke teases, clapping a hand on Nick's shoulder.

Nick shakes Luke's hand off, but I answer for him, "Well, Lucas, if you would've spent more time playing this game with Mom, Dad, and I when we were younger instead of up in your room playing video games, maybe you would've done better." I finish my statement by trying to hold in my laughs at their names.

"Oh, you think our names are funny do you, Beatrix?" Nick says with a knowing smirk, causing him to receive a playful smack on his arm from me.

"Aww, your name is Beatrix?" Jenny asks.

I shrink into my seat a bit in embarrassment. I never liked to be called by my full name. "Yes," I tell her. "My parents loved to read Luke Peter Rabbit books as a baby, which is by the author Beatrix Potter. When I came along they thought it would be cute to name me 'Beatrix Porter.'"

"That's just so sweet!" Jenny exclaims, though it doesn't make me feel any less embarrassed about my full name.

We clean up for the night and part ways to our respective sleeping quarters. Once in the basement Nick whispers to me, "Dustin is right you know-about you being the smartest one out of all of us. No idea what interest you'd have in an idiot loser like myself."

My face falls and I whisper yell at him in anger, "Don't say that! You aren't an idiot or a loser! I'm not the smartest one here, and it doesn't matter who is!"

He starts to open his mouth again to counter my argument but I cut him off with a short kiss. We both pull away wide-eyed at my action. I surprised myself by kissing him in front of everyone, but it was just a reflex to shut down his self-deprecating behavior. The both of us look around to see if anyone noticed. Pete is in the bathroom, Luke is already asleep, and Martha is nonchalantly reading a magazine and paying no attention to us. Although the small smile on her face makes me question if she saw it. Nick and I crawl under the covers and as I try to fall asleep, I can't shake the thought of how happy it made me feel to kiss Nick without explicitly hiding it.