a/n: Thanks so much to the reviewer from last chapter! Just an informal poll: do you guys prefer shorter chapters, like 2-3k, or longer ones, like 4-6k? I ask because I'm struggling a little with where to divide the chapters, and I'm just curious.

ATTN: Obviously this fic deals with a humanity-destroying flu, so I hope all of you are proceeding with caution. THIS CHAPTER in particular features descriptions of news coverage that might be triggering or upsetting. Once Nick turns on the TV, please go carefully. If you need to skip that lil section altogether you won't miss anything plot relevant. Please take care of yourselves!

I love comments, and I love my readers. Have fun!

some tragedies you know they have no explanation
and the word "everything" don't cover what you lose
The Avett Brothers "I Should've Spent the Day With my Family"

June 22 - Shoyo, AR
It was hard to believe that just twelve hours ago they'd thought Sheriff Baker might be on the mend. Edie had been up at four AM to bake muffins (mixed berry, banana oat, and zucchini walnut) and a couple loaves of bread. She could hear him coughing, but at six he shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen, and he looked decidedly better than he had yesterday afternoon. Jane got up a few minutes later and they all sat down to a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and muffins warm from the oven.

He took a bunch of them down to the station, Jane directed Edie to the nearest library (county seat, next town over), and she spent the day researching random topics that she'd never thought she might need to know, but for some reason seemed important now. How to lay a fire. How to splint a broken bone. How to purify water to make it safe to drink.

By five her eyes were crossing and her head swimming, so she checked out a few books about identifying edible plants and fungi and headed back to Shoyo. Jane called and asked if she could pick some supper up for the boys at Ma's Truck Stop out on the highway. She was too sick to cook anything, and Nick and "those good-for-nothin's" needed to eat.

She heard coughing in the background, and Jane told her the Sheriff had once again come home early, and he seemed worse off than he'd been the night before. "How was the library?" she said.

"Quiet. But it's a weekday, so I guess that's normal."

What hadn't (and still didn't) seemed normal was how quiet everything else was. There was hardly any traffic. She saw maybe two people in the entire downtown area. Ma's Truck Stop, she found when she got there, had a parking lot full but a nearly empty dining room. There was one waitress on duty, and she spoke in a foghorn honk through her congestion.

"Gonna take a while. Jus' me 'n' Bobby here, and we got about a million to go orders. You takin' it down to the Sheriff station?"

"That's right. For the new deputy and the prisoners there."

She gave a brief nod. "You go on, then. I'll have m'boy bring it down when it's ready. Might be an hour or more, but it's comin'. I promise."

"Sure, that sounds great. Thanks."

On her way out she passed a burly man bent nearly double with the force of his cough. A woman stood filling her car at the gas pump and sneezed hard enough to nearly topple her.

Edie shivered and started her car. She got the AC going and opened a text to Nick.

- On my way to you now. Heard sjb had to leave early? Sick again?

The typing dots appeared. Then, - Doc sent him home. Said he had a nasty respiratory infection. Hoping Doc'll come back bc these boys are sick, esp Childress

- How're you?

- Fine. Worried. Stop typing and drive. Could use the company.

She lifted a brow at her phone. - Aye aye, bossy. omw now

"Fucker," she said, but she was half grinning as she said it, and it was almost a term of endearment.

The boy who brought the food from Ma's Truck Stop stared wide-eyed at Nick, and then even wider-eyed at Edie when she signed something to him.

"Thank you," Nick signed as he took the box.

"That means thank you," Edie said.

"Oh. Yeah, I know. My girlfriend read in some book that you should teach babies sign language before they can talk, so we've been learnin' it. I just never seen anybody talk like that in real life."

She signed what he said to Nick and he gave her a questioning look.

"I've read that too," she said. "About babies and ASL."

"Neat," he signed, and it was all she could do not to snort at the heavy irony on his face and in the gesture.

"Thanks for bringing this stuff," she told the delivery guy. "I know it's slammed up there, so you better get back." She handed him a twenty from her purse, and she thought he might have a stroke.

"Thank you, ma'am! Y'all need anything else, just give us a holler. Ask for Danny."

"We will, Danny. You have a good night." She waited until the door shut behind him before she burst out laughing. "God that kid almost shit his pants. And you! Neat." She rolled her eyes. "You're such an asshole."

He lifted his hands in a shrug. "It is kinda neat, I guess. But also it must be nice to teach your kid a little bit of sign as some sorta lark, and not because without it he's completely incommunicado."

"Hearing privilege," she said with a wry tilt to her head.

"Exactly." He set each takeout container on the desk before unpacking the plasticware and cans of Coke. "I guess it's not a bad thing if it means more people learn to sign," he said, grudgingly.

"I was taught to sign before I could speak orally," she said.

"Your mom was deaf. ASL was your first language. That's different. You know that's completely different."

He turned away before she could reply, off to deliver food to his noisy prisoners. When he got back his expression was thoughtful, and he sat down across from her and watched her with penetrating dark eyes. She watched him back, unflinching, and part of him admired her steady frankness.

"I envy you in a lot of ways," he finally said. "I was five before I understood that a tree was called a tree. I didn't start learning to speak fluently until I was eight, after my mom died." He pulled one of the styrofoam boxes closer but didn't open it. "She did the best she could, but she had to work constantly just to keep a roof over our head and food on the table."

"Didn't you go to school?" she said.

"We moved around a lot. She always…seemed to forget. About school. Then before she could get things straightened out we'd take off again."

His expression turned inward, and now he seemed almost to talk to himself. His gestures became slower, more distracted. "I used to wonder what she was running from. Not back then of course; I was just a kid. But as I got older, looking back. But now…" He trailed off with a frown.

"Now?" she prompted, gently, when he didn't go on.

He blew out a breath. "Now I think about him. You've seen him, right? In the corn?"

She shivered as though from a sudden draft. "I—no. I haven't seen him. Sensed him, though. I…know who you mean."

A grim nod. "Him. I think about him, and I think…that's it. She was running from him."

"Nick, that's—come on. That's impossible!"

He looked up to meet her eyes, and her mouth fell open. She could read his thoughts plainly on his face, and part of her couldn't believe what she was seeing—even as another part of her thought it all made perfect sense. "You think—it's been him. All along. My parents and your dad and later your mom."

He ran a hand back through his hair in a rough, thoughtless motion. "You said your parents died in Katrina. How?"

She gave a quick, jerky shake of her head. "It was—just—the water. They drowned. They didn't evacuate because everyone said the storm would turn, and then it didn't. We were in the car and there was too much water. We were stuck, trapped. A man came and got me out, and he was going to go back for them, but it was too late."

"A man."

"Not him! Jesus, Nick, not—that guy! Just a random good Samaritan."

He seemed to deflate a little, some of the furious determination leaving him as his chin dipped toward his chest and his shoulders sagged. "Yeah. I know. I know you're right, I just…want to make sense of it. Somehow."

She sighed and tugged at the end of her braid. "Maybe I'm not right," she said. "Mother Abagail seems to think we were chosen for something." She hitched a shoulder. "Maybe her God isn't the only one doing the choosing."

He frowned. "I'd rather be chosen by an invisible old man in the sky than…that guy."

"Me too." She paused to study him a moment. He looked exhausted. Bruised and battered and much too thin for his tall frame. "These are deep philosophical questions to be wrestling with on an empty stomach."

He gave a sardonic snort. "Is that your way of telling me to shut up and eat?"

"It's my way of telling you that there's very little in the world that can't be made better by country fried steak, mashed potatoes, and collards. Eat, and after, if you still have questions about your place in the great cosmic chess match, we'll figure it out."

He answered that with a brief half-smile and opened his box of food. "Is this the sort of thing you served at your restaurant?" he said with one hand as he ate. "Southern food?"

She shook her head. "Sometimes, as a special, but not really. We did breakfast and lunch every day but Monday, when we were closed, then we expanded to supper hours on Friday and Saturday. Breakfast all day was our biggest thing. Remy made the best goddamn pancakes you've ever had in your life. Then we had homemade soups, sandwiches, quiche. Dinner was exclusively French."

He paused with a bite halfway to his mouth and fixed her with a questioning look.

"Remy trained in Paris. He liked to show it off."

"Like the rat from that movie."

"Ha. Yeah, you can believe we teased him about that." She went quiet as the humor left her eyes. Picked at her food and took a restless sip of her drink.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"No, you didn't. It's fine. I just—wonder how things are back there. I just took off. Didn't leave a note. That's not like me." She set her can down and flicked the pull tab. "Not anymore."

He let that lie, because he knew what she meant. She'd been a runner, like him, but unlike him she'd found a place for herself and settled down. Now an old woman from Nebraska, prophetic dreams, and a killer flu virus had sent her running again, and she'd lost the feel for it.

It was another thing he envied about her.

The ate in silence for a while, each wrapped in their own thoughts, until finally she dropped her fork, shut the box, and pushed it away. "Not as good as Mrs. Baker's pot roast, but I wouldn't kick it outta bed for eating crackers."

He grinned. "One of the counselors at the group home where I grew up used to say that."

"My Grandmère. My father's mom. I spent a lot of time with her after I went to live with him."

He didn't recognize the sign, but she'd used it yesterday too. "Who?"

"Sorry. Grandmother. She spoke a lot of Cajun French, and more out of curiosity I taught myself a little LSF, French Sign Language."

"Curiosity?" he said, brow furrowed.

"Well, yeah. My mom and stepfather were—gone, and my father was hearing. So was my grandmother. But ASL was my first language along with HSL—Hawai'i Sign Language—then spoken English and spoken Hawaiian. So learning some LSF seemed sort of…natural."

He leaned closer, eyes wide. "Hawai'i Sign Language? I didn't know that was a thing."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, neither did white people until 2013. It's dying, now. ASL is taking over and fewer people are learning it. That's why my mom taught me. I planned to teach my kids, but…" She trailed off with a shrug.

He tugged at his dark curls a moment. "You could teach me. If you wanted."

"Really?" she said, expression brightening. "You'd want to learn?"

"Yeah," he said. "I couldn't really communicate until I was eight; I figure I should make up for lost time by learning as many languages as I can."

Her mouth curved. "That's a fantastic goal. Sure, I'll teach you. It'll be fun."

He grinned. Fun maybe wasn't the word, but interesting for sure. "Is she who taught you to bake? Your…Grandmère?" he said, struggling to recreate the sign she used.

She showed him again, then said, "My mom first taught me, but Grandmère kept encouraging me. She taught me lots of other things: teas, simples, little remedies. She was a midwife and a kind of…witch woman, I guess, to the locals. That's how they thought of her anyway."

His brows rose, only half-mockingly. "Your grandmother was a witch? Does that make you a witch too?"

She threw a balled-up straw paper at him. "No! It goes through the mother's line, everyone knows that." She leaned forward. "She used to say the Lord burdened her with a good-for-nothing son because any daughter of hers would be too powerful and He was jealous."

"You know, that would've been funny before all this started. Now? Not quite as much."

Her mouth quirked in commiseration. "A little too much weird shit lately. Like today." She told him about how deserted everything was, and how it seemed like every single person she saw had some sort of cold. She tilted her head toward the cells. "Like those boys back there. Coughing," she said at his questioning look. "Sounds bad. Nick, what the fuck is going on?"

He blew out a long breath. "Have you watched the news at all the past few days?"

She shook her head. He frowned and motioned for her to join him in the Sheriff's office. "I was watching some earlier, but I had to turn it off because I got freaked out. It's…weird. I get the feeling they're not saying everything, either, and that just makes it worse."

He grabbed the remote off the Sheriff's desk and hit the power button. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the TV, and he felt her tense as images started to fill the screen.

Hospitals in major cities overflowing. Body bags starting to stack up outside morgues. A harried and exhausted-looking doctor who said the infection rate was something like 99%, and so far he hadn't seen anyone recover from it. His mic was cut as soon as he said that, and the screen went black for a few seconds before commercials started to play.

"Nick…"

He flipped the channel and a list of CDC guidelines was displayed on the screen: wash your hands, cover your cough, stay at home, wear a mask, stay six feet apart.

Nick felt her knuckles brush the back of his hand, and he flipped it over so that their palms met and fingers tangled.

On CNN they watched a reporter doing a standup outside a hospital get physically removed by men in uniforms carrying very large guns. Her cameraman was knocked to the ground and the camera fritzed out. The feed went back to Wolf Blitzer in the studio. He smothered a cough and called the reporter's name over and over, but she didn't answer. He stood, silent and clearly frightened, until they switched to commercial, too.

Kai squeezed Nick's hand, and he stroked his thumb across her knuckles.

MSNBC flashed between scenes from London, Tokyo, Paris, and Cairo. Russia and China had closed their borders and weren't saying much, but that was telling in and of itself. Australia and New Zealand were closed too, but they already had cases, which meant it was largely too late.

It seemed like it was too late pretty much everywhere.

"Holy shit," she breathed.

He turned the TV off and she tugged her hand free. Paced away, one arm wrapped around her middle and the fingers of her other hand tapping against her lips.

"It's a lot worse than it was yesterday," he said. "Even worse than this morning. Whatever the fuck this is, it moves fast, and it's pretty clear no one has any clue what's going on."

"Someone does," she said. "Someone absolutely does."

"What do you mean?"

She gestured toward the silent television. "That one guy said it has a ninety-nine percent infection rate and a one-hundred percent death rate. That means nearly everyone gets it, and everyone who gets it dies. So we're talking a ninety-nine percent overall death rate. Of the population. The Spanish Flu in 1918 only had a two percent death rate, and it decimated a generation. The Black Plague killed one-third of Europe's population and remade the Western world! Viruses that are this virulent and kill this thoroughly don't just happen, Nick. I mean, I'm just a baker, but I know enough about it to know that a virus's number one goal is to reproduce itself. How can it do that if it kills everyone it touches within forty-eight hours or so?!"

He absorbed that for a moment. "You're saying someone made this."

"That's what I'm saying, yeah. Because only human intervention creates a virus that does nothing but kill. Ebola has a ninety-nine percent death rate, but it spreads much more slowly and nowhere near as easily. This thing…it's pure scorched earth."

He gave her a long look, an ironic light in his dark eyes. "How does a baker know so much about viruses?" he said with a twist to his mouth.

She shot him a brief, toothless glare. "I watch a lot of documentaries, then I read a lot to fill in the blanks. No social life, remember? Also I spent the entire day at the library." She bit her lip, her eyes far away. "Remy went to Dallas to his food conference thing. He liked to fly out and then rent a car to drive back so he could stop along the way and eat. His own personal Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, he called it."

He blinked, his expression blank.

"Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives? Guy Fieri? Rollin' out to Flavortown?"

"Where the hell's Flavortown?" he said.

She grinned, a real one that lit up her eyes and showed a dimple in her chin. "It's a show on Food Network where this guy goes around the country eating at little local places. He calls a place like the crown jewel of Flavortown, or, I don't know, the number one sandwich in Flavortown. It's one of his catchphrases, I guess."

His mouth fell open in a silent ah. "I don't watch a lot of TV, but I do like food."

"Yeah, well, so did Remy. Obviously. Pretty sure he wanted us on the show, but Sarah was dead set against it. Apparently places he visits become hugely popular immediately after, and she didn't want to deal with all the extra traffic. We were already a bit of a tourist destination as it was."

She waved it away. "Whatever. My point is he could've picked it up anywhere between Dallas and Abilene. That's a long ass stretch of road."

"If it was in bumfuck East Texas earlier this week…"

"Then who knows where the hell it started, or by whom."

He raked a hand through his hair. "So…what do we do with this information?"

"Nothing," she said. She gave a distracted shake of her head and tore her gaze from the blank TV screen to finally look at him. She hadn't missed the irony in his tone. "I just like to know how rigged the game is before I sit down at the table."

"That's fair," he said. "I just figure it's the only game in town and do the best I can with the hand I'm dealt."

Her mouth curved. "Or move on to the next one."

"Or that," he agreed. "Doesn't seem to be an option this time."

They stood facing each other, much less than six feet apart, and they'd both turned wary after the intimacy of the last hour.

"I guess—we're sort of meant to be in this together," she said. "If you believe in that sort of thing."

"I don't," he signed, emphatically. His face scrunched. "But we both had the dreams, and here we are."

"For now," she said.

He acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. "Hemingford Home, Nebraska. Mother Abagail." He signed it as Mom A, and her lips quirked in the flash of a smile. He frowned; glanced away. "I can't leave yet, though."

"No," she said, quickly. "No. I walked out on Remy when he was dying. I can't do the same to the Sheriff and Mrs. Baker."

"It sounds like you didn't have much choice," he said. "If you'd stayed you'd probably be in some lab right now being poked and prodded while they tried to figure out why you're immune."

She chewed her lower lip. "I wasn't going to say the I-word."

He shrugged. "That's what we are, aren't we? The guy said ninety-nine percent infection rate. That still leaves one percent, right?"

"God!" She scraped both hands back through her hair and spun a slow circle. "What's one percent of seven billion?!"

"Well…one percent of seven hundred is seven, so…extrapolate."

That earned him another sour look. He just shrugged again, unfazed.

"Are you always this much of a smart ass?"

"Yeah, pretty much. There's a lot more to me than just puppy dog eyes, you know."

It surprised her into a laugh. "Yeah," she said, "that's kind of the impression that I'm getting."

Their eyes met, and for a moment the brief space between them was charged. He watched her, his expression mild, and she watched him back. She seemed to be searching for something in his face, but whether she found it or not he couldn't have said. All he knew was that she looked away first, and he missed the warmth of her regard.

"Choice or not, I'm not doing the same thing with the Bakers. They've been too kind to both of us."

He tapped the badge on his chest and she nodded.

"And you've got your prison boys to look after."

"What do we do? Just wait for everyone to die?"

She flinched and crossed her arms again. "That sounds so cold."

"But?"

"But…" She lifted her chin and her jaw hardened. "But that's exactly what we're doing. We stay here so they don't have to die alone, and once they're gone, so are we."

"To Nebraska."

"Right." She hesitated. "Right?"

"Right," he said. He tugged at his hair. "You're right, Kai. It's pretty clear that's what we have to do."

Something soft and bright flared in her eyes. "How did you know my name sign? When I told you, you knew. My mother gave it to me. She used to call me Little Water."

"That's how I was signing it in the dream. When I called you." His brow creased. "I don't have to use it if you don't want me to."

She considered a moment. Like Kai, no one had used that name sign for her in years. After her father died her parents' old friends in the Deaf community took her in, first in New Orleans and then in New York. They'd given her a new name sign, but for some reason she'd told him the old one—and that was the one he'd used in his dream. "No," she said at last, "it's okay. I like it."

"Good," he said. "I do too." When his hands moved again the signs were hesitant. "You can use mine. If you'd like."

"Thank you," she signed. "As long as it wasn't meant as an insult."

"It wasn't. I really will tell you sometime."

"Okay," she said. "No rush."

She fidgeted a moment, then turned away to head back to the other room. He frowned after her in surprise before he followed. She stood staring out the windows into the street, and something about the set of her shoulders made him hesitate to interrupt her. After several long moments she faced him again, and he felt awkward for staring.

"I guess…come find me. After. I'll be here," he said.

She let out a jagged sort of laugh, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "This really sucks ass, huh?"

His mouth quirked and he did that cute nervous-hand-through-his-hair thing again. "Not as much fun being a one percenter as I would've thought, that's for damn sure."

"No shit." She moved to the table to start packing their trash away. She left his box there, but stowed hers back in the delivery box. "You should finish your dinner," she said with a little frown. "It's too good to waste."

"I will," he said. He watched her as she worked: her movements were quick and tense. Jerky. He'd only known her a few hours, all told, but in that time he'd noticed the free and elegant way she moved. It was hard not to, the way they communicated.

He tapped a fingertip against the table to get her attention. When she didn't look his way he reached out to touch her forearm, gently, and she froze. Closed her eyes a moment before her gaze dropped to his hand, then back up to his face.

He let go and took a deliberate step back. "I'm sorry. I didn't meant to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted to tell you…I know this is all weird and crazy and scary as hell, but whatever happens, you're safe with me."

Her head tilted. "Safe with you, or safe from you?"

He frowned. "I meant the second one, I guess, but…both, I hope."

"I know that. If I thought any different I wouldn't be here right now."

"Okay, so…I know you're scared. I'm scared, too. But as your designated apocalypse buddy, it's my job to look after you, just like it's your job to look after me. And, look, together we've got two working ears, four working eyes, and at least one recipe for blueberry muffins."

"More like forty," she said.

"I said at least."

"So you did," she said with a little smile. "What's your point? Teamwork makes the dream work?"

"Something like that," he said, his mouth moving in that lazy grin.

She shook her head, but he could tell she was struggling not to laugh. "It's the end of the world, Nick. I can't handle that and corporate retreat clichés."

"There's no I in team, Kai!"

"Oh my god. How can I switch apocalypse buddies?"

"Too late. Pretty sure you're stuck with me."

An amused huff that feigned frustration even as her brilliant eyes sparkled. But, slowly and as he watched, the brightness drained away and the shadows returned.

"I am scared," she said.

"I know. I am too."

She swallowed hard and nodded. "Okay. Okay, somehow that makes me feel a little better."

"That was my goal." He ducked his head and flicked a wayward curl off his forehead. She watched, momentarily fascinated, and he looked up just in time to catch her at it.

"Um," she said. "I should get back."

"Yeah, of course. It's late for you." He took the box of trash from her and set it back on the table. "Sheriff's paying me to keep the place clean. Least I can do is earn my keep."

She gave a distracted nod and he walked with her to the door.

"I'll see you for breakfast if the Sheriff can't make it in," she said.

He nodded. "Bring more muffins. It's no wonder your restaurant was a tourist destination."

"Sarah and I used to joke that she knew she was going to marry me the first time she tasted my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins."

"I believe it," he said.

She didn't want to leave, walk out onto that empty, eerie street and drive to the Bakers' to sit a death watch. She wanted to stay here, with him, and learn more about his life at the group home or as a nomad wandering small town America. She wanted to know how he took his coffee and how he felt about cilantro and if he had any weird ideas about chem trails.

Instead she said goodnight and crossed quickly to her car. Gave him a wave as she started it and imagined she felt his steady, assessing eyes on her until the end of the block, where she turned and was out of his sight.

So anyway if you feel like answering the poll from the note at the top, or just saying hi, I'd love to hear from you. :)