Thank you so much, once again, for all of your support on this story. I'm sorry for the late update but I work as a bartender so that does include late nights, meaning very limited time for writing.

I love that you all seem to be liking Nikki, I hope to continue with your expectations of her and that she'll be good enough for Mr. Dixon.

Once again, tell me what you think of the story so far as I love hearing from you guys!

Happy reading!


"Everyone with weapons surround those without." Although Shanes order came as a whisper it seemed to crash through the silence surrounding us.

I gravitated towards where Mom was stood with her arms around Carl, her mouth slightly open as she stared at the light that flooded us.

"We have to move now." Dads command was also a whisper. I watched as he stepped forwards, the rest of us following slowly as we filed into the building, weapons raised. "Close the doors and watch out for walkers."

I searched the huge interior of the building for any sign of a threat or approaching walkers. Being back in a pristine government building was clearly disorientating all of us. I looked around at my group and saw the same sense of bewilderment on each face as I'm sure was mirrored on my own.

The sound of a gun cocking snapped us all out of our trance as we spun towards the noise. A man with sandy blonde hair was walking towards us, his gun raised.

"Is anyone infected?" He asked, squinting at us.

"One of our group was," Came Dads reply. "He didn't make it."

"Why are you here, what do you want?" The man asked in all one breath.

"A chance."

"That's asking an awful lot these days." The man shrugged. I noticed Dad inching in front of Mom, Carl and I. I stepped out from his shadow so that I could get a clear shot of the guy with my gun.

"You all submit to a blood test, that's the price of admission." I felt a slight sense of relief at these words, does this mean he was going to let us stay?

"We can do that." Dad nodded, almost sounding desperate.

"You got stuff to bring in, you do it now." The man lowered his weapon as he explained. Dad also lowered his as he rushed to follow the orders. I however kept my gun raised, we didn't know if we were in the clear yet.

I saw the mans gaze flicker in my direction before stopping on the gun still pointed at his head.

"Nikki, lower it." Dad ordered, I glanced at him quickly but I saw the look of pleading in his eyes. Battling with my instincts I decided it was better trust Dad than get thrown out to the walkers for the night. I lowered my gun but kept a glare on the man.

After our bags were collected from the vehicles and the man had introduced himself as Dr. Jenner, we all made our way into a small elevator.

I found myself being squeezed in between Glenn and T-Dog, no one was speaking.

"Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" Daryl asked from the other side of the elevator. I didn't like how Jenner was stood with his back to the rest of us.

"There were plenty left lying around so I familiarized myself with them." He shrugged, turning his head slightly to address Daryl.

"Well, you look harmless enough." He shrugged after looking to each of our faces. "Except you, I'll have to keep my eye on you." Carl smirked along at the Doctors words.

"Are we underground?" Carols timid voice asked as we walked through a narrow hallway.

"You claustrophobic?" Jenner asked.

"A little."

"Try not to think about it."

"It's better than being above ground and walker food." I smiled reassuringly to Carol as we walked, a smirk tugged at the corner of her lips as she looked around the walls.

"Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Jenner ordered as we entered what appeared to be a circular room. When the lights turned on I couldn't help my jaw from dropping, it looked like something you'd see in a NASA documentary. Computers at semi-circle desks all facing one bigger screen. Railing ran around the platform that held the desks and we were currently standing on a small bridge that sloped downwards to the office-like space.

"Where is everybody?" Dad asked, the quickest to snap out of awe.

"I'm it," Jenner said, turning to face us. "It's just me here."

"What about the person you were speaking with?" Mom asked form the back of the group.

"Vi, say hello to our guests." Jenner commanded once again. "Tell them welcome." I looked sideways to Shane who met my gaze with the same expression. Should we be wary or not?

"Hello guests, welcome." The voice spoke, making us all frown deeply.

"No way, I thought they only had stuff like this in the movies." I muttered towards Glenn. My voice carried in the large open room, causing Jenner to smile sadly.

"I'm all that's left."

Jenner turned to lead us through the main room, after walking another narrow corridor we turned into it, what looked like a classroom. Complete with white board. He announced that this is where he'd be taking blood samples from us.

I rolled up the sleeve on my left arm roughly, noticing, for the first time, the small cuts and bruises that scattered along my skin.

"What's the point?" I heard Andrea asked, she was now sitting opposite Jenner as a vile filled with the blood from her arm. "If any of us were infected we'd have a fever."

"Needles make you queasy, Andrea?" I joked as she rolled her eyes in my direction.

"I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here." Jenner explained. "Let me just at least be thorough."

After I had my blood taken I felt myself waver on the spot after standing up. Needles didn't bother me but taking a blood sample on an empty stomach would weaken anyone.

Jenner looked to us all thoughtfully as he realized it had been a number of days since any of us had eaten.

Without saying another word he led us all to a room with a large table in the middle. After we had gotten over the shock of all of the food and wine that Jenner had laid out in front of us we began digging in straight away.

"Y'know in Italy," Dale was explaining over laughter. "Children have a little bit of wine with dinner."

"And when Carl is in Italy he can have some then." Mom laughed along with Dale.

"What's it gonna hurt? C'mon?" Dad laughed, eventually making Mom roll her eyes and pour a small glass for Carl.

Everyone waited in silence as Carl took a sip of the red wine. He quickly grimaced making us all laugh as he pushed the wine away.

"That's my boy." Mom ruffled his hair as Carl tried to get the taste out of his mouth. "And what do you think you're doing?"

I looked up to see Mom looking to me pointedly as I accepted a glass of wine from Dale.

"You are joking, right?" I laughed.

"You're not twenty-one last time I checked, and you're not in Italy either."

I looked to Dad, raising my eyebrows as everyone around the table watched in amusement.

"Lori, if you were gonna let Carl try some?" Dad reasoned, placing his hand on the back of my chair. Mom shrugged before rolling her eyes. I grinned widely before taking a large gulp of the wine, sighing in content as I put the glass down as I heard everyone breaking out in laughter again.

"Well that's most definitely not someones first time." Shane grinned from beside me.

"That's my girl." Dad laughed as he patted my head.

"Glenn," Daryl called from the other side of the table. "Drink it little man, I wanna see how red your face can get."

A small tinkling of a knife against glass made us all sober up and quieten down as Dad stood from his seat.

"It seems to me that we haven't thanked our host properly."

"He is more than just our host." T-Dog chimed in, raising his glass. We all nodded in agreement, clinking our glasses together.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?" Shane spoke up, intensity seeping its way back into the group as we all turned our attention to Jenner. "All the other doctors, who were supposed to be figuring out what happened. Where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane," Dad spoke up. "No need to do this now."

"Woah wait a second, this is why we're here right? This was your move, supposed to find all the answers and instead we found him." Shane smirked humorlessly as he pointed to the doctor.

"You sure know how kill a mood, Shane." I sighed, holding his eye contact from across the table.

"I want to know why there's only one doctor left in the whole CDC, Nikki," Shane jeered, tilting his head to the side. "It's just one question."

"Well when everything started getting really bad," Jenner began to explain. "A lot of people just left. Went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?" Shane smirked disbelievingly.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door," Jenner pressed on. "They opted out. There was a rash of suicides."

"Why didn't you leave?" Andrea asked.

"I just kept working, hoping to do some good."

"Dude you are such a buzzkill, man." Glenn groaned to Shane as I nodded my head in agreement.

After Shane pretty much killed the mood at dinner we all decided it was time to go to sleep. When this was suggested to Jenner he heaved himself out of his seat to direct us down another narrow hallway.

"Most of the facilities powered down," He explained as we followed him past a series of doors. "Including housing so you'll have to make do here. Couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. If you shower, go easy on the hot water."

I stopped in my tracks, feeling T-Dog bump into me from behind but I didn't care, Jenners words had caused a wide grin to spread across my face. I turned to look at Glenn who was mirroring my expression.

"Hot water?" He grinned in my direction.

"That's what the man said." T-Dog smiled back, clapping his hands onto my shoulders.

After I had chosen a room I stepped carefully into the bathroom, the shower almost seemed like a mirage. There's no way a hot shower still existed.

I turned the dial on the shower towards the red mark and pressed the power button. Feeling like I was in a trance I carefully places my hand underneath the falling jets. The smile returned to my face as I realized this was, in fact, real.

Quickly I shed my clothing and stepped into the shower, laughing to myself as I watched the water around my feet turn a light shade of brown from the grime leaving my body.

After spending much too long washing my hair I shut the shower off and stepped out of the cubicle. Pulling my bathrobe on as I did so.

A knock came on my door just as I closed the bathroom door, I opened it to see Glenn standing there, his face alight with a smile as he held up a bottle of wine.

"Have you been robbing the store room, Korea?" I grinned, standing aside to let him in.

After fifteen minutes I was lying across the couch while Glenn sat on the floor by my head, the two of us in hysterics over nothing. My cheeks were sore from laughing but it felt so good.

"I can't believe you're little brother walked in on your first kiss." He laughed harder, as I took a swig from the bottle we were sharing.

"The little asshole ran and told Mom and Dad, I was so angry." I chuckled along with him at the memory. "I got grounded for a week and Dad threatened to have the boy arrested if he saw us together again."

"That must have been the worst thing about having a Sheriff for a Dad." Glenn chuckled, shaking his head.

"It was one flaw in something that was actually pretty cool to be fair." I smiled, closing my eyes as I felt them droop. "He taught me how to shoot, he taught me how to fight back, he taught me some really weird facts about the law in this state that some people don't know."

"He seems like a cool guy." Glenn nodded.

When I woke up the next morning I felt like I'd tried to take on a fourteen wheeler, head on. Groaning as I stood up I noticed Glenn wasn't here anymore.

After I had pulled on my clothes carefully I made my way down to the canteen area we'd had dinner in the night before.

"How's the head?" Dad voice came from behind me, I turned to see him making his way to the canteen too.

"Feeling like it's hanging on by a thread." I groaned as he put his arm around me, giving me a one armed squeeze as he chuckled to himself.

We walked into the canteen just like that, Dads arm around my shoulders and my head leaning towards his shoulder.

"Are you hungover?" Carl asked us both, smirking. "Mom said you'd be."

I smiled at my brother as Mom looked up at us sheepishly.

"Mom is right." Dad sighed as we sat down. I quickly pulled a plate of bacon towards me, my mouth watering at the smell of the meat.

"Mom has that annoying habit." Mom smirked in our direction as she chewed on her own strip of bacon.

"How're you holding up, Korea?" I asked Glenn who was sat on my other side, his head in his hands as he focused on the table.

"Ever have the worlds worst hangover and a crick in your neck?" He sighed, blinking slowly.

"Do not tell me you slept on the floor by my couch for the entire night?" My laugh increased as he looked to me witheringly.

"Don't ever ever ever let me drink again." Glenn muttered towards the table.

"The hell happened to you?" T-Dog asked Shane who had just walked in. My eyes narrowed at the long, red scratches running along Shanes neck and jaw bone.

"Must have done it in my sleep." He shrugged, sitting down at the table.

"Never seen you do that before." Dad spoke up as he studied the scratches.

I looked over to Mom who was focusing hard on the plate of bacon in front of her. My jaw clenched as I realized there was more to the story than Shane was letting on.

I came to the conclusion that if Mom hadn't told Dad about her and Shane by the end of the day then I would.