a/n - Keep in mind each chapter is a new one shot, and none have any connection the next (unless otherwise stated). So this is a zombie apocalypse au, so this totally is unrelated to the new years kiss one before it. Only things you should be aware of before going in are that Kol and Davina are human in this, also Kol is his lovely Nate Buzolic self.

Time is one of the only things that Davina Claire has left once the virus swept through the world. So she kept track of time after the power went out, and after her batteries were drained. It was because of her wonderful time keeping skills that she knew exactly how many days it was since the beginning of it all when she ran out of canned sweet potatoes and was left with two meager cans of corn.

It had been 243 days since, in the blink of an eye, a tropical flu turned into something out a horror film. Thanks to the proximity of Tulane University's School of Tropical Medicine the city of New Orleans was one of the first to be hit with the mutated version of the virus, which was the one that no one saw coming.

A zombie apocalypse isn't exactly something you see coming, well, maybe unless you're one of those doomsday prepper types.

But where is reminiscing about the beginning of the end going to get you when you're running out of food. This is the exact thought that ran through Davina's mind as she set down the can of sweet potatoes she had just eaten. It also reminded her that it had been nineteen days since her friend Marcel had left for a scavenging trip. At day fifteen, when optimism was getting hard to keep up, Davina told herself that after twenty days she would try to go on a scavenging trip of her own.

If she was being honest with herself she wasn't sure where to begin with fighting off zombies. The first few weeks of the outbreak has been a daze. Her mother and her spent the first few days locked in their neighbor's home watching the national news and waiting for the first horde to hit their street. Then one day they had gone into their own house to get flashlights because the news had warned against power outages, and that's when they faced their first zombies. Well Davina faced them, her mother ran out the door with the two flashlights never to be seen again.

Davina also ran, but in her defense she tried throwing a kitchen knife at one of them first.

Then she kept running, from convenience store to friend's house until somewhere along the line she met Marcel. In the beginning there was civility but once all power and technology goes something changes. That's why when she met Marcel, or rather when she was saved by Marcel, she was confused as why he would help her live.

But almost seven months later she was sitting in the attic of St. Anne's Church, and she was happy she took the risk and followed Marcel back to his hideout. It was also seven months later and she was close to having to venture back out again because his fate was uncertain.

There were no clocks in the attic, maybe that was something she would want to find, but with a look out the window she guessed it was six or seven o'clock. Just a little longer until day twenty.

She wasn't sure whether she should take the handgun or the knife, or she took both. She had a backpack that in a kinder life would've been used for camping, and she had filled it the basics, but that had just been food and water. If Davina could choose she wouldn't want to get close to anyone infected, that's why she grabbed the gun. Her insecurities in her ability to shoot a gun and her fear of close calls were what drove her to get the knife as well.

She hoped she wouldn't have to use either of them all that often, but she grabbed some extra bullets just in case.

Then she finally walked out of attic, and then out of the church.

When the sunlight first hit her it felt surreal. She couldn't see any infected so she took just a moment to enjoy the feeling of sun, not just through glass in her attic. She got the real thing for once.

Then the sun felt a little too warm on her cheeks and she moved closer to the side of the building. Hiding in plain sight felt a little too advanced of a concept for people who had turned into zombies, so she tried to keep a high alert. She wasn't sure what the infected had going on inside of their heads, but they had a survival instinct at least.

She dug the knife out of her backpack when she heard a noise to her left. It wasn't much, maybe just a rustle in the wind, but it was enough to put her further on edge. So she walked in the shadows with a knife in her hand for a few more blocks until she saw a convenience store that looked promising enough. Maybe she could find a pack of peanuts if she was lucky enough.

At first the door didn't budge, which Davina almost took as a sign that that it was infested with zombies, but with a little effort she was able to get in. Once she got in she saw someone had tried to jam the door with a chair. Yet she also saw they didn't really try all that hard considering how easily she had gotten in.

One look at the flash told her it a lost cause. Another look also told her there weren't any zombies. It was a nice little hole in the wall to figure out what to do next, but there was the issue of who put the chair in front of the door. Davina was pretty sure that a backdoors is necessary under the a building code of some sort, so she was pretty certain she was alone in her ransacked store, but never hurts to be certain.

"I have a knife," she decided to say, on the off chance. She was surprised her voice didn't crack, she hadn't spoken much in the past few days. The few times she began to talk to herself she stopped and told herself that thinking to herself was a much more sane idea. There was a beat of a silence before she was about to add that she also had a gun, but then there was a rustle that could not be mistaken for wind by even a zombie.

"I do hope you aren't looking for food, because I am afraid this shop's all out," a voice said, revealing itself to be a boy unaffected by the virus. She tightened her grip on the knife and raised it up a little, to make sure that he knew she wasn't lying. Although, maybe boy wasn't the right word to describe him, he could've been twenty. In a zombie apocalypse a human is a human though.

"Well I was hoping, but not too hard once I saw the inside of the store," she admitted, glancing at the empty shelves and a slushie machine smashed onto the floor. He made a move towards her, she thrust her knife out.

"I see that, you know" he said with a small laugh, which she did not appreciate. He did step back though, so at least she got the point across. "And if you wanted to scare someone twice your size you might want to have a better grip on that knife," he informed her, and Davina looked down at her apparently bad form.

"How would I get a better grip?" she asked, not trying to keep the edge from her voice.

"Move your hand up the hilt, you'll have better control," he answered. She tried it, and it did admittingly give her a better grasp.

"You're okay giving away tricks to someone you don't even know?" she asked, lowering the knife to her side.

"Well the name's Kol, and how to hold a knife is common knowledge, love," he informed, and he gestured to his own backpack, maybe used for hiking in a kinder life, "and I can defend myself."

"I have a gun too," she added, with the mentality of better late than never.

"Is it incredibly rude of me to ask how you've survived in New Orleans for the past eight months?" he asked in an incredibly rude tone.

"I was in an attic, it was the height of the luxury," she said, and the teasing tone was easy to see through. Her eyes skimmed the room for any sign of nonperishables. Maybe there was a twinkie box left. "Now I'm out of the attic, and I'm scavenging," she said in a very headstrong way.

"I think you came to the wrong place for that," he told her, eyes watching her with an inquisitive look. "If you're looking for food though, you can't really go to places that are obvious," he continued, "people will already gone in places like this."

"Well, you're still giving away tricks to someone you don't know," she informed him, with a wary look, "even if I know your name."

"You could change that," he told her, and she raised a brow, "all I need is name."

"Davina," she said.

"Quite a name."

Davina didn't realize how out of shape she was, but after just four days of being thrust out into the real world the truth was becoming painfully apparent.

"Why are zombies so fast?" she asked Kol after she caught her breath. At that point the knife had not been used, but the gun had. It was a handy thing, and she was pretty good with it. Kol gave her a quick lesson, and though she hadn't asked yet how he had gotten so fluent in the language of the zombie apocalypse she did admit it did help.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Davina Claire?" he replied with a smirk, and she gave him a glare accompanied with a tight lipped smile. After running from a small horde they had found an abandoned apartment to duck in for the moment.

"So do we just keep running around?" she asked him, reaching for her water bottle. "I mean is there an endgame to this, or is it really just the apocalypse of zombies?"

"And you expect me to know the answer?" he asked her response, getting up from his seat on the ratty couch to look around the kitchen.

"Well I've been in an attic, I expect you've at least gotten heard other point of views on the matter," she said, watching as he rummaged through the cupboards, which appeared to be filled with empty bowls. "Is there talk of a cure? Or anything more than lose or hope?" she questioned.

"You were the first human I had seen in two weeks," he said, looking back at her "that could mean a lot of things, but not many of them good." Davina nodded, and her gaze drifted over to the picture frames next to the couch she had sat down on. Convenience stores may have been overused, but being in someone's abandoned home was simply depressing. A true sign of civility lost.

The whole situation was just odd, if Davina was being entirely honest. One moment she was questioning Kol on why he was in such a barren place in the first place, and the next he was offering to show her where to find some real food. Davina had no reason to trust him, no reason not to. Yet she exited the little convenience store with him, and he took her to a string of random places that filled up half of her backpack.

Davina told herself that after she got enough supplies that she would go back to her attic, but she wasn't so certain anymore.

"I've hit the jackpot, cheerios and guess what the sell by date is?" Kol asked.

She just looked at him with a smile and shrugged.

"Last week," he said, showing her the box for proof.

"I think this is a miracle," she told him. She grabbed for the box but he promptly pulled it away which resulted in a pout that Davina reserved for very little occasions, and had not used in a very long time. He tsked and returned her pout with a grin.

"I'm positive this place has bowls somewhere," he declared, looking around a little hotel, really more of a bed and breakfast, they had wandered into.

"We are in a kitchen," she reminded him, gesturing to the remaining cutlery surrounding them. Though she was aware that despite this the items weren't in the nicest condition. He was fumbling around the cabinets looking for something usable.

Davina was about to get up from her seat to help in the quest for dishware but at that moment Kol placed two paper bowls down on the table along with the Cheerios box.

"Well, we'll have to eat with our hands like savages but there is no milk so I think all will be fine," he assured her.

"I think that's the least of our problems," she reminded him, as if the state of the kitchen wasn't reminder enough of the state of the world. This time when she reached for the cheerios it was allowed, and she poured just enough to be indulgent but did have some restraint. "Good eye with the sell by date, by the way," she told him, nibbling on the cheerios.

"Good eye with that shot the other day," he remarked, and she wasn't sure how to reply. She had gotten used to the everyday life of outrunning the infected and finding food that hadn't spoiled, but killing was still an uneasy subject.

"You know, these cheerios aren't nearly as good as I remembered," she admitted to him with an uneasy that was due more to the previous subject.

"You told me you loved cheerios two weeks ago, Davina Claire" he teased, though somewhat accusingly.

"More than canned tomatoes," she explained. He continued in giving her his accusatory look. "Though two weeks ago I thought they were as good as I remembered," she told him, and this did prompt him stopping is look. "So basically we just stumbled upon a food I happen to love, and it's thanks to you," she told him, "so thank you."

"I think we should take these cheerios as a sign then," he told her and Davina gave him a confused look.

"A sign?" Davina asked.

"Indeed, you see, you once asked me if we were just going to keep running around, and we're taking the cheerios as a sign to stop and savor the moment," he explained, and before she could ask what exactly he meant he took action.

That was the moment that Kol Mikaelson kissed Davina Claire.