LONG TIME NO SEE!

A/N: Okay, so it's been forever since I've updated this story (or any story). I had so much writer's block from all the stories that I finally caved. And maybe died a little. And although it's been finished for awhile, I always let my readers know when I've put out new art pertaining to the fic. I finished (more or less; I might touch it up more later on) a drawing of Aster and posted it to DA, but there's a link on my profile as well. And if that doesn't work, I'm still Noon30ish on DA and you can look it all up there. I also have drawings of Tooth and Baby Tooth in case you need a refresher. I don't have a drawing of Sandy or Jack done yet, but they'll be coming soon. :)

I'm taking a break from one of my longer stories to revive this one (and another one) so hopefully updates will be more regular now. I'm sorry if it's a boring or relatively short chapter, but at least I came back, right?

Please read, review, and enjoy! :)

Pretty Little Secrets

Jack left North outside of his office area to follow Toothiana and Sanderson─ Sandy, as they all called him─ back to the room he'd awoken in. The corridor was just as hollow and foreboding as before. The others didn't seem to mind, but Jack was still unnerved. How was it they weren't scared by anything in this place? Sure, North seemed jolly enough, but the place exuded a far more... eerie atmosphere. Sanderson walked ahead of them, signing furiously over his shoulder to Toothiana. She swayed in her graceful walk, her sash and skirt flowing as effortlessly as her waist-length raven black hair. From what Jack could see walking behind them, she didn't fear a single detail of this place. Perhaps it came with time. Nevertheless, Jack paused in the moment before turning right down the smaller hallway. The darkened corner with the single door at the end still beckoned to him. He wanted to ask Toothiana about it, considering North had said that she liked to talk a lot, but he wasn't sure if Sanderson would appreciate the prying. As nice as the short man looked, Jack got this sense that he could put Jack into the ground quick.

Realizing they'd gotten to his door without him, Jack hobbled to catch up with his staff in tow. Tooth waved a hand to the bed and Jack didn't think twice before plopping down and nearly falling asleep on the spot.

"I wouldn't do that just yet," the violet-eyed beauty warned softly. "We still need to check your wounds. Shirt off, please," Toothiana motioned.

Jack sat up too quickly and winced, instantly catching his side and cursing himself for showing weakness again. Had she just asked him to take off his shirt? Unaccustomed to the attention, Jack shrunk back toward the wall. He stopped when he felt a hand on his bad ankle. Darting his eyes to the left, he saw Sanderson holding his injured leg over the side of the bed. The golden-haired man just smiled and held his hands out to show that he meant no harm. Jack relaxed his leg again so that he wouldn't accidentally hurt him, but he was still wary of Toothiana standing over him. Did this girl understand personal space? Toothiana was looking at him curiously and decided to try and help him. Jack glanced down to see that she was already trying to take off his sweatshirt. An instant later he realized she had been speaking the entire time.

"─ ankle is the main purpose but we've got to check your bruises because you might have broken a rib or two and I would feel just awful if I─"

"I can do it!" Jack ripped the hem of his sweatshirt out of Toothiana's grasp and she stared blankly. Panicking, Jack muttered an apology as he pulled the garment off of his skin. His chest heaved with the effort and Jack knew there was going to be something wrong. "I'm just not used to people around me."

Toothiana tilted her head and softened her expression toward him. There was an unnatural air between them and Jack couldn't interpret it. Before all of this had started, before so many people had died, Jack would have known what to do in this situation. But this girl was being so difficult to read without even trying and it was borderline infuriating. At the same time, Jack was in awe─ she must have come from somewhere faraway. No one he'd ever known had had features like she did. Especially those frighteningly gorgeous purple eyes. She could either kill or smother affection with them. Right now, Jack couldn't be sure which she was intending. Without leaving his gaze, she took his sweatshirt and set it on the nightstand on top of his backpack. She hooked a small hand around his bicep and lifted it suddenly. Jack hissed from the sudden movement more than the actual pain and he tried to shrink away again. That was when he realized the gauze and plywood had come off of his ankle. Jack broke eye contact to glare at his foot in wonder.

When had Sanderson taken off the splint? Jack would have known if anyone had touched him, and yet this man had unwrapped an injured appendage without his knowledge. Jack was wide-eyed as he brought his foot closer to him. The feeling of dragging the skin across the sheets was alien and numbing. Jack slowly took his foot in his free hand and grimaced when he realized it hurt a lot more than he'd thought. Biting his tongue to focus the pain elsewhere, Jack traced and pressed on certain points to check where it was injured. Much to his chagrin, the center of his pain was right where it should never be. Jack's mind went into overdrive. If his ankle was more than sprained, if it was broken, there was no way it was going to get put back into place after being like this for so long. Or maybe Sanderson had already set it? But that didn't make sense unless Jack really had been out cold the entire time. Speaking of which...

Time to change the subject. "How long was I out?" Jack picked his foot up and carefully slid it back to Sanderson, who had already begun to prepare another dressing.

Toothiana, with her hand still holding his arm upward, was prodding his ribcage. She continued to do so as she answered Jack's question. "Only a day or two," she spoke calmly as she hit a sore nerve that caused Jack to yelp embarrassingly. An odd, heated sensation crossed his cheeks and it took him a moment to recognize that he was blushing. What the hell was that?

"Or two?" Jack caught the detail and narrowed his eyes. How could she not know how much time had passed? Sure, it was really dark in this bunker and there were very few windows and it was impossibly dreary, but there must be clocks somewhere! Jack tried to look around, but Toothiana's hand pulled hard on Jack's arm and he was stuck in place.

"We've all been pulling double duty since the last horde came through," she explained quietly. Sanderson didn't seem to hear her as he began to tape the bandages to Jack's skin. It wasn't until then that he realized Sanderson was almost done with his dressing. "It's hard to judge the time when you seem to have none of it," she offered soothingly, although Jack could tell that she was exhausted. Exactly how much work did North put them through regularly? Of course, it could be their lack of staff.

Jack recalled the solemn words North had said to him on the tour. The horde that had taken many of their numbers, or at least that's what Jack was left to insinuate. He knew exactly what hordes could do. One had swept around the walls of Burgess around the second year, a little after Jack had given up trying to get their help. It was a swirling, seemingly alive mass of putrid animosity and grotesque animation. Limbs were hanging by bare ligaments, bones would glisten and shine against muddy, patchwork skin of blues and purples, and almost everything was bent at an awkward angle. But perhaps the worst had been their eyes. If their corpse was older than a few months, then the eyes still held their original color, although varying degrees of red or yellow rims could be seen. That was primarily how one could tell that they were infected. Or jaundiced. One or the other, really. But in this world, no one asked questions. They saw a hint, they shot. But with a horde, there seemed to be this unsettling sense of this is never going to work we are all going to die there are too many and some are more alive than others and look there's my family...

Jack felt the bile rise up in his throat at the thought of his family and his eyes closed under the strenuous effort to keep the memories at bay. Nevertheless, his mother's eyes─ the beautiful brown that he had inherited─ were still full of a life that wasn't hers. Once infection starts, the delirium takes its toll. After the first year of obsessing over his choices and their consequences, Jack learned to accept that a person was gone the moment the bite occurred. He held that belief less than steadfast, but it was all that he had. Jack's sister floated into his consciousness and Jack bit his tongue to keep his focus on Toothiana's assessment of his ribs and Sanderson's adjustments to his ankle. It didn't help that Jack's sister hadn't immediately fallen to the effects of the virus, but Jack had sensed her fever. That's what happened when people got infected in the movies, right? If they were strong, they could stave off the implications for hours. But although Jack believed his sister to be the strongest and the bravest, he had an inkling of doubt that she could have held onto her humanity in those twilight hours. And yet, if that were true, why hadn't she turned earlier? Her brown eyes had been closed in sleep, and Jack hadn't known what he knew currently. His mind swam with the automatic reassurance that he had done what he could for her, and that he had taken that knife from the kitchen to protect her from the horrors of the new world. It repeated itself until Jack was dizzy and about to heave.

It took the release of pressure from his arm and ribs to snap him back to the present. Jack instantly glanced down to see that Toothiana had let go of him, although his ribcage looked just as bruised as before. Perhaps more so, judging from the way that she had been prodding at him. Looking up, Jack saw that he and Toothiana were alone in the room. Sanderson was gone. Jack then took his ankle into both of his hands and looked it over. There was no longer plywood ensnared around his flesh, and for that he was eternally grateful. Instead, it was tightly bound with a clean set of gauze and cloth wrapped and clasped with two metal closures. Jack was thoroughly surprised─ how on earth did they get these types of supplies? They'd been gone within the first couple weeks.

The question seemed obvious in the room, and Toothiana answered his silence. "I brought them here when I joined. I was studying to become a doctor. Well, a dentist, but I took a bunch of medical courses as well so I had access to some of the stuff when it hit."

"So, you're in─ well, you used to be in─ college?" Jack's brown eyes saw the glint in her violet ones. "And doctor translated to... dual scalpels?"

Toothiana's brows were furrowed for a moment before she recognized that she was still wearing her weapons at her hips, barely visible beneath her thin skirts. Ordinarily, North had weapons stored unless someone was heading out on a raid, scout, or hunt. No one was allowed to have weapons in the Workshop, and for good reason. What reason that could have been, Jack could only guess.

Toothiana looked back to Jack and smiled. "They're dirks, actually. It's just a fancy name for longer daggers, shorter swords. And yeah, I was in my third year, but I was studying abroad─" but instead of continuing, the petite girl spread her lips in a thin line and nervously peered to the opposite side of the room away from Jack. At first, Jack thought she might have been embarrassed about revealing her age─ although Jack thought she had no worry about appearing old. If anything, she appeared a little younger than him. He wasn't going to ask, but he saw that she wasn't blushing and therefore probably not upset about her age. Then what was i─

Oh. Best not to push that subject further.

In that case, Jack decided to ask something else. "Then, how old are you?"

Toothiana returned her attention to him and was relieved to answer his questions. "I'm twenty. But I don't look it, do I?" There was the blush. Her tanned skin yielded a darker pink tone across the highlights of her cheeks. Jack found it incredibly cute and, after not talking to another human being in three years, forgot that he had been staring.

Toothiana was about to break the moment when small, quick steps came pattering down the hallway toward the room. Without warning, a miniature replica of Toothiana came sprinting into the room and collided into Toothiana, hugging her and jumping up and down excitedly. Jack had to do a double take and rub his eyes because he felt truly disoriented at the sight. The smaller girl─ yes, even smaller than Toothiana─ had the same long jet black hair and similar dress as Toothiana. Although it was by no means appropriate for many standards, she still retained a sense of innocence. She had an identical yellow sash like Toothiana, but it was haphazardly thrown around her neck and one arm as if she'd rushed to get dressed. In all honesty, this girl looked like she was rushed in everything she did. She wore a loose, cropped blue shirt made with the same material as Toothiana's ethnic clothing but wore baggy green shorts instead.

But if Jack thought that made the girl stand out, he hadn't seen her eyes yet. She was talking a thousand miles a minute, glancing from Toothiana to Jack so fast that Jack was unsure it had actually happened. But he still saw it all the same. Her eyes were even rarer than the older girl beside him. One eye was purple, like Toothiana's, but the other was a crystalline blue that shone with unburdened mirth. It wasn't until she stopped talking that Jack realized she'd been targeting him.

"I'm sorry?" Jack blinked.

"Oh, this is the boy Aster and I found on our scouting mission yesterday. His name is Jack," Toothiana butt in to take some of the pressure off of Jack. The girl beamed at him with a toothy grin and she shot her hand out way too eagerly, a faint color spreading on her cheeks, but much unlike Toothiana's blush. This blush was more out of childish excitement than anything. Jack stared dumbly─ so many more people were hard to comprehend. But this girl looked so young. Was she one of the few that survived the attack? Was she there for the attack? She didn't appear to be hollowed out with fatigue or shell-shocked in the least. Were there other kids? The idea that there were more kids both relieved and worried Jack. Could he face human children and not see his sister at every single turn? Even now, this little girl─ though bearing no resemblance─ was sending shivers down Jack's already cold spine.

When he still hadn't answered, the girl decided to speak again. "Hi, Jack. You're a little weird. You don't talk much, do you? Did Toothiana already look at your teeth? I'm sure she has. She probably did it while you were asleep. She can't just not look at someone's teeth. No wonder she chose to be a dentist. It's kinda cool, though. She knows soooooo much and she's really smart and I wanna be just like her! So, do you have nice teeth? Lemme see!"

The girl launched herself toward Jack and he was about to let instinct take over and grab his staff when Toothiana shoved the girl back hastily. Jack remained, muscles taut and eyes wide in primal fear, with his back to the wall and his limbs pulled up defensively. Toothiana shot an apologetic and─ was that pity? ─ put her hands on the girl's shoulders. She began talking rapid fire in a tongue that Jack didn't recognized. In his mini-frenzy, Jack was worried that his mind was somehow infected and that he was slowly losing the capability to function. It took a moment, but when it finally clicked, Jack still was unsure of the language she was using. The little girl seemed to understand however, and eased her excited tremors with some resignation. Her eyes were expressive as she took in more of Toothiana's words. The girl turned to Jack and immediately cast her eyes downwards, muttering something. Jack stayed stock still until she repeated her words and it was then that he registered that she was apologizing. The frightened boy lessened his grip on the bed sheets and the staff, reeling from the rapid, stressful mood swings he had had to endure for the past hour or two.

Sensing his distress, Toothiana aided once again. "Jack," she started slowly, softly, "this is my sister, Brianna. She can be a little─ well─ much to handle. Sorry she ran in so suddenly and spooked you. You are sorry, right?" Toothiana raised an eyebrow to her younger counterpart.

The little girl named Brianna nodded. "But you can call me Bri, Jack. Sorry I nearly jumped on you," she repeated her apology and reached her hand out once again.

Jack stared at her blankly, but at least he had relaxed. This little girl was nothing like his sister. Absolutely nothing and he shouldn't feel any connection to her or to any other person in this place. But the smallest of sparks lit up the back of his mind and these two siblings in front of him were showing him the world. Bleak as it may be, there was still some color to stand out amongst the gray. But was that small bit of color worth not being colorblind? Was it worth going through the dense foliage of grays and fog just to find that little something? Jack wasn't even sure if it was a true pull or if he was just unaccustomed to not being invisible. "It's... it's fine," Jack stuttered at last.

Toothiana appeared to sigh in relief as she whispered a thank-you toward Jack and ordered her sister to go back to the barracks; something about she was leaving her post. Did this little girl have a position of power in this place? The idea was insane to Jack. Things must certainly have taken a turn for the worst if they're recruiting little girls to help. Weren't they supposed to be preserving childhood? Why would this little girl be different, other than been Toothiana's sister?

"Actually," Bri spoke up and looked pleadingly to Jack, "would it be okay if I kept you company? The kids are okay for now and Pippa has everything under control. Please? Just for a little while?"

Toothiana was about to object. "I don't know if that's─"

"She can stay," Jack's words surprised himself more than anyone else in the room, and that was saying something. Toothiana was dubious but she didn't say anything for a moment. Then, some telling sign shone in her eyes and she lit up.

"You heard him, Baby Tooth," she clapped her sister on the back, "you have to watch over him while I go find Aster and set up our trails for the next mission. If he does anything suspicious, you make sure to come find me," Toothiana then winked and waved goodbye as she walked out of the room. A terrifying moment for Jack later and she reappeared. "I was joking, Jack. Just send her away if you get overwhelmed. She knows better. Now, Bri: don't disgrace the uniform!" Her voice chimed and echoed down the hallway as she left the room. It made Jack smile absently. Their sense of uniform was much more lax than North would have made it seem. Even Sanderson had had a sense of uniform, although it was casual in nature. Of course, Toothiana and Bri offset the uniform-mindset in a balanced way. And from what Jack remembered of his only encounter with the other member, Aster, he had no uniform to speak of. North had said that he was a native person, and what Jack had seen agreed with that.

But Bri had mentioned another person. Well, and other kids. Were there actually some survivors? Jack had no idea of knowing since there were no details on the original attack. But there was also something about a... a Pippa? It was an odd name, sure, but so was Toothiana. Jack wondered if any of these people were actually citizens of the old country. North had an accent, Toothiana and Bri spoke another language, and Aster was a wild native (because surely most native people at least wore modern clothing, right?). Jack had no way of knowing anything about Sanderson, since the guy didn't talk, but he had a guess that the man was probably from elsewhere as well. How the hell did these people all come together to an abandoned World War II bunker? And why did they all have weird eyes? It was a silly detail, but Jack couldn't help in mulling it over in silence.

The silence itself was a surprising blessing. Brianna, though exuberant and chatty just moments ago, had resigned to sitting up on the bed a respectable distance form Jack. She crossed her legs at the ankles and twiddled her thumbs, as if she were content to sit and stare at nothing with him. The girl didn't even make a sound, apart from her small, deep breaths. Jack was pleasantly grateful until he looked down and saw his pale and bruised skin staring back at him. Damn, Toothiana really could kick hard, couldn't she? As if in answer, Bri had crawled across the bed to the table and picked up Jack's sweatshirt. Bri's hand was held in front of his face and his eyes focused on the article of clothing as he took it thankfully. He could have easily reached for it himself because he was closer, but Bri was at least being considerate. She smiled warmly at Jack and sat back in her place, resuming her fidgeting. It wasn't annoying at all, but it was a small quirk about her. Jack wondered─ not for the first time─ if Toothiana was at all similar to this girl beside him. The quiet companionship that Bri offered was something that Jack needed, and perhaps that was why he had allowed her to stay. Toothiana's company would have been equally as nice, but Jack knew that she had work to be done.

The light pooling into the room from the window shifted suddenly and the colors changed. The yellows became bright oranges and purples that splayed across the boring concrete walls. It was the first time Jack realized he could look out over the grounds and get a sense of where he was. Instead of standing up and walking over to the window─ he didn't trust his ankle yet─ Jack angled his neck upward and peered outside. Just above the window sill, splotches and scratches of bare trees were visible, tickling the borders of his limited vision. They were far, far below and he was way, way up here. It felt ethereal, in a sense, despite the very human concrete surrounding him on all sides. The closer to the heavens he believed that he was, Jack sensed something nearest to closure than he'd had in awhile. If his sister was watching him from some afterlife, he prayed that she would talk to him. For Jack was lost and he didn't know what to do. This new place was foreboding and eerie, but it was also the closest to home than he'd had since before the world changed.

Except the world didn't change. Only Jack's and every other human's perceptions of the world changed. The natural state of the world itself, although momentarily diseased, was left relatively undisturbed. The Unconsecrated did not prey on animals, eat plants, nor did they cut down the trees and burn the oils of the earth. In a steep pit of realization, Jack wondered if the dead were truly such a disaster as humanity made it out to be. Were they really so separate from the earth that it was thought a cure to cut back on the very existence of humans? And yet, how were humans so different from these animals? The paradox made Jack's brain ache and he leaned his head onto one palm, still staring out the window in a mix of contentment and perplexity. The inner workings of the paradox worked like slow-turning cogs in some ancient machine for the good part of who knows how long before a distinct voice halted its progress.

"Did you like the apples?"

Jack finally glanced at the girl sitting beside him. It took him a moment, but he was able to answer her this time on his own. "I did."

"Toothiana said that she'd seen you trying to reach for them over a pit of a thousand dead walkers!" Bri's face was lit with utter amazement, although Jack wasn't sure if she actually believed such a ridiculous story. He figured Toothiana had exaggerated it to get a kick out of the little girl. Or maybe...

"I don't know if it was really that─"

"Well, I know it didn't really happen like that, but Toothiana loves to get into the tiny details and explodes them out of proportion so that when she writes them down in the archives she'll remember the parts that really matter. It's a little weird, but that's how she's studied. I should know; I helped from time to time. I might even know more than she does!" Bri seemed to either talk very little or a whole lot. "Anyway, she said she picked the apples for you. Well, she didn't say it directly, but I know her better than anyone. She must've spent half the scouting mission on picking the best ones! Of course, I can see why. You're cute and she probably likes you or something. That's the one part of my sister I don't understand, since there are bigger things to be concerned about, but─"

Jack was trying so hard to pay attention to every word that the little girl─ was she actually little? Toothiana seemed little and she was older than Jack. Either way, the slight accent was making it difficult to comprehend her. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be ignorant, but... where are you and your sister from?"

Bri was cut off and she stared at Jack as if he had three heads. Her eyes dulled and it seemed like she had become an empty shell, void of emotions. "We're not allowed to talk about that."

We? We as in Toothiana and Brianna? For some reason, Jack thought she was talking about more than just her sister and self. "Oh─ oh, sorry. I─"

"No."

Brianna abruptly stood up and left the room, leaving Jack all alone once again.

A/N: Well! What was that all about? Also, I got Baby Tooth's human name, Brianna, by combining "Toothiana" with "Baby Tooth" and adding an r, basically. Do you like it?

Also, there has been a distinct lack of zombies and Aster. Hmm... I think I can remedy that. ;) Next chapter shouldn't take two months this time!

Have a great day/night! :)