A/N Thanks for the reviews .Dawn and Allen Pitt. Hey Allen I hope you got my pm. If not check your inbox.

Chapter 1

Where Do We Go From Here

It had taken Jesse and Kendra longer then they had originally thought to check all of the cars for supplies, but the reward was greater then they had expected. They had scavenged a small baskets worth of antibiotics and other medications, as-well as a few med-kits, a baseball bat, a couple of shotguns, three handguns, and a small, very small cache of ammo.

After siphoning out all the gas from the long abandoned cars and fully filling up the truck, they still had at-least another two gallons of gas left. As soon as they cleared out the bodies from the store and set them on fire, the day quickly left them and night descended.

Deciding that they would spend the night in the small station, even before it had started to rain, they gathered some sleeping gear from their truck and gathered up a big metal barrel and made a fire in it.

The place was big enough to move freely in but still seemed tiny. Mixed in with the fact that there was no power and the knowledge of what could be lurking outside created a eerie backdraft of things to come.

"Our beans should be ready in a couple of minutes." Kendra said as she handed him a can of Vienna sausages.

"Thank you." he replied, accepting the food. It wasn't an ideal meal of beans and Vienna but it would have to do. They had only found about five cans of food, some animal crackers and a long expired bag of chips, when they ransacked the store. They had found every thing they had needed for the moment except water.

As the smell of the beans floated in the air, Kendra gave him his portion before sitting down cross legged on the floor with her own. As the two started to dig in they both sat in a comfortable silence as they ate. A silence that was surprisingly broken by Kendra.

"So where do you tink we should go next?"

As she asked the simple question it seemed to catch him off guard. It was funny that she was the warrior, but she leaned on him heavily as if he were the leader of the two. Or was he... Ever since they had found each other in Sunnydale his guidance was a deciding factor in keeping them alive.

Seeing that she was expecting an answer he simply said. "I don't know."

"According to Romero we should stay out of major cities." she went on. "So we can't go to Los Angeles."

"So we're gonna follow George Romero's movies now?" Jesse asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. Honestly there wasn't much to laugh about these days. Especially after what had happened to them no less then twenty four hours ago when they were in Sunnydale.

"Why not?" she asked as she stood to her feet to stretch her legs. "It seemed to have worked for us so far."

'She has a point.' Jesse thought as he gave her a shrug. After what happened in Sunnydale there was no way they could go back there. Taking a map out of his backpack he started to look over their options.

"The way I see it we only have two options right now." Jesse said after a few minutes of pouring over the census map. "There's a town called Frazier Park about another thirty five minutes from where we are now. It says here that it's a mountain community and it only has a population of around five thousand."

"What's our otter option?" she asked as she sat on the floor and started to clean and then sharpen her ax.

"Our other option is... a place called Acton. It's about an hour from where we are now and is on the outskirts of L.A."

"Then we must go to Frazier Park."

"Why?" Jesse asked as he folded the map and put it away. "Wouldn't it make more sense to be at-least somewhat close to the big city to go on supply runs?"

"Under normal circumstances yes..." she paused as she stopped sharpening her weapon. "but tink about it. After the geeks have gotten done feeding where do you tink they're going to go."

"To the smaller cities." he said catching on. "We'll leave first thing in the mor..."

Before he could complete his sentence a loud crack of lightning boomed through the sky. The loud noise had merely startled Jesse, but Kendra had looked like she was about to have a full on panic attack. Allowing himself to drop his guard, which in times like these was usually unwise to do, Jesse started to snicker.

Her heart calming down to a normal pace, she looked over and saw her partner chuckling at her.

"You tink that's funny do you?" she asked, sending a death glare his way.

"I'm... I'm sorry Ken." he managed to say through his bout of chuckles. "It's just that you told me you fought demons for years and I saw you kill zombies without breaking a sweat. Now you freak out when you hear a little thunder."

"Dat's not funny." she said to him as she lightly threw her empty bean can at his head. Nimbly dodging the can he continued to laugh as she scowled at him.

Thunder clapped again, this time much louder, making the both of them jump. Mostly so Jesse this time, of whom knocked over a few glass beer bottles and a clean five gallon bucket that was behind him. Seeing an almost smug look on Kendra's face, he was just about to say something when she suddenly stood up and grabbed the bucket and one of the bottles of beer.

"I know alot of people say drinking helps but it really doesn't." Jesse said as she gave him a look.

"I wasn't planning on drinking dis." she replied as she proved it by pouring it out.

"Hey we could have drank that." Jesse told her in mock anger.

"In dese circumstances it's not good for us." she said as she opened the store door, bent the gutter pipe and placed the bucket outside to collect rain water. "Alcohol is a diuretic." she said as he stared at her dumbly.

"It will make us...urinate frequently." still with the blank stares from him. Seeing that he wasn't getting it she stared back at him incredulously before changing her tactics. "Beer bad... rain water better."

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?" he asked as his eyes started to droop.

Shaking her head, she laid down beside him on the small pallet they had made up. She had to admit herself that she was exhausted.

"Hey Ken." Jesse started sleepily. "Tell me a little about yourself."

"Dare's not much to tell." she said, her back against his.

"Well... tell me when you started to be afraid of thunder?"

She was about to tell him that she was a Slayer and was afraid of nothing. Not even death. But just admitting to herself that she was afraid of something made her feel ... more human. And she had to admit that she felt incredibly human around her new friend.

"Every since I was a little girl." she admitted. "Dat noise has always unnerved me."

"Oh well... that makes sense."

"Why do you say dat?"

"Because your whole life has been about control. The Watcher's telling you to do this and do that. But something as simple as lightning and thunder is something they have no control over... not even you."

As he said that Kendra sat up and stared at her friends back. It was so weird that a minute ago he acted as if he had no formal education, but now he was totally intuitive. And now that she thought about it maybe he was right. Maybe it was more then just a normal childhood fear.

"So why do you call the zombies, geeks?" he asked breaking her train of thought. "I mean they aren't exactly math wiz's."

'And here we go again.' she thought ruefully to herself.

"Oh um... the day before me Watcher Mr. Zabuto took me away, me parents took me to a Carnival. When we got there dey had these people dat would eat anything. Even glass... Jesse... Jesse."

Hearing him snoring she rolled over and couldn't help but put a grin on her face. For weeks this was the first time she had seen him with a peaceful look on his face. Taking their blanket she put it over him, before getting comfortable herself and drifting off to another dreamless slumber.

Please review it helps me get the chapters out faster and lets me know that you like the story so far.

A/N Sorry for the lack of action in this chapter but I wanted people to get a range on the personalities of Kendra and Jesse and to get a sense of direction of where they want to go. The next chapter is going to give a little, not all, of the backstory on how they met.

Also here's a fun fact. This is actually the third draft of this story. The original story was supposed to be called I Am Willow. It was going to be a sort of I am legend story where a plague hit earth and Willow was one of the only people to survive. Alot of people were going to turn into monsters and her and Spike were trying to survive in what was left of Sunnydale. I couldn't get the story to turn out right, but don't ask me how that story turned into this one, lol.