He's in and out as the vehicle makes it way down the road, he wonders to himself how long it must have taken to clear it, every time he and Rachel thought about stealing a car the years of old traffic jams pushed the thought straight out of their minds. He wishes he knew what they were doing to Rachel, he looks over at her as he holds her hand tightly in his, he sees them cut her bloody shirt open and help her breath with some sort of plastic apparatus, and bark orders to each other in big words he can't understand. They work on him too, apparently the bullet did more than graze him, but he didn't think about that much at the time, now he considers words like severe blood loss and ruptured veins and he feels his body getting tired and weak . He tries to keep his eyes open, focused on Rachel, but they feel heavy and he knows he's not going to last long before passing out.

"Rachel, I… Rachel," he says incoherently before everything fades to black.

The room is bright, and white and sterile and he sees what he thinks is a light fixture overhead, a light fixture, he hasn't seen one of those in years, not a working one, he wonders where they got the electricity from, or if he's simply dreaming it. If he was dreaming he wouldn't be able to feel pain right? But he's never known pain so intense in all his life, he feels like his body was pushed through a meat grinder and haphazardly molded back together in a shape resembling something somewhat human. But he tries not to focus on it, Rachel must feel so much worse.

"Rachel!" he says, shooting up in bed even as his muscles scream for him to remain still. "Rachel! Sweetheart?"

"She's going to be fine, she's alright," and suddenly a young Asian man dressed in all white is beside him, trying to coax him back into bed. "I'm Dr. Chang, I know this must be confusing for you-

"Where is she?" Finn interrupts.

"She's in the next room," Dr. Chang says, his voice calm.

"I have to see her," Finn says, still struggling against him, trying to get out of bed. Finn's a big man, much bigger than the short, lithe young man at his bedside, and in healthier days he probably could have taken him easily, but in this state he's apprehended without much effort. "I need to see my wife," Finn repeats.

"You can barely stand," Dr. Chang insists. And he's right, after everything he's been through his body is pretty much useless, at least for now.

"I'll crawl if I have to," Finn says, once again ineffectually struggling against the smaller man.

"There's no need for that," the Dr. Chang says calmly. "We have a wheelchair."

Finn waits impatiently for him to bring in the wheelchair and push him into Rachel's room, and the sight of her so small in the bed, tubes protruding from her nose, hooked up to steadily beeping machines as she sleeps does little to put his mind at ease, but she's alive, and the young doctor said she was going to be okay so he allows himself to breath a quiet sigh of relief.

"She's heavily sedated," Dr. Chang says. "She was in bad shape, but we got her to the facility in time. She'll survive this, but it's not going to be an overnight recovery" He's relieved, even more so by the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, and he reaches out for her hand, feeling warmth there for the first time in as long as he can remember.

"What exactly is the facility?" Finn says, curious in spite of himself, after five years of struggling to survive in the most unforgiving conditions, waking up in a warm bed in a place with electricity and medical care almost seems to good to be true.

"It's a community for survivors of the outbreak," Dr. Chang explains. "After the disaster it's believed that no more than 2 million people were left alive, an estimated 500,000 of those survivors are thought to be living across America, including the 21,000 who live here, what we do here is seek people out, give them a place to feel safe again."

"Just like that? No questions asked?"

"Hardly," Dr. Chang says. "We've learned over time what to look for, who might be a danger to us, but we found it doesn't come up as often as you think, most people are just grateful to have a place here, but we're always on the lookout for usurpers, sometimes when you live without order for so long it's easy to feel like you can run things better than the people in charge. There've been more than a few exiles since we began taking people in."

"That must be hard, kicking people out," Finn says.

"Sometimes it's necessary to keep our residents safe, but you are right, it never gets any easier. After about a year here my girlfriend was attacked in our home while I was on night duty, she'd gotten complacent, left the window open while she slept. Luckily Lopez was keeping watch and she stopped him before it was too late. Ever since then we've made new refugees undergo intensive psychological screenings."

"You have therapists here?"

"We have three, Dr. Pillsbury, Dr. Jones and Dr. Anderson were all therapists before the outbreak, actually Dr. Jones was a counselor at her Church, but she's had training since she arrived here," Dr. Chang explains. "Which reminds me, if you're going to stay here you'll be assigned a job, I know that your wife was a movie star before the outbreak, we never would have thought we'd get one of those any time soon, but what did you do?"

"I was a musician," he says sheepishly, knowing that's not exactly helpful to them. "But I worked my way through college as a mechanic."

"That's great, we could definitely use more mechanics, do you know anything about aircrafts?"

"A little," Finn says, shrugging. "This guy with a crop duster used to have an account with the garage I worked at."

"Well I'm sure whatever you don't know Burt Hummel can teach you," Dr. Chang says.

"Burt Hummel the congressman?" Finn says.

"Actually that would be Burt Hummel the president, but he doesn't really care for that label. after the outbreak he was the highest ranking Washington politician left alive. But this is no dictatorship, all of our residents have voting rights, Hummel, Schuester and Sylvester just keep order around here, you'll meet them all later."

"Wait a minute, you said something about aircrafts?" Finn says.

"Yes, our helicopter is one of our greatest assets," Dr. Chang explains, it allows us to gather supplies from all over the country if we need to, with our farm up and running we haven't needed it as much, but it's still a good thing to have. Why do you ask?"

"There's a couple in New York, they're waiting out the winter there and they have a baby an-

"Wait," Dr. Chang says, cutting him off. "Did you say a baby?"

"Yeah, a couple of months old I'm guessing."

"Where? Where are they?" Dr. Chang says, and he can tell by the urgency in his voice that babies are incredibly hard to come by around here.

"The Gershwin Theatre, they live in the attic," Finn explains.

"Listen Finn," do you think you'll be okay by yourself for a moment?"

"Yeah, I'm fine bu-

Dr. Chang doesn't let him finish before he's out of the room like lightning. At that Finn looks once again at Rachel. They had a farm, and Rachel always loved to garden, or maybe she could be a cook, and entertain refugees on the off hours, this could work, they could have a home here. And maybe he was just being overly optimistic, but they saved Rachel's life, they've already earned his trust, whether they'll keep it is another story, but for now he couldn't be more grateful to them. He grimaces in pain as he carefully gets up from his wheelchair, he wonders how long he was out, it feels like days, it's a struggle to get into the bed next to Rachel, but once he does he feels more at home than he has in years. He wants to take her into his arms but he doesn't want to hurt her, so he holds onto her hand instead.

"You were right princess," he says, not sure if she can hear him at all. "You were right about everything. We made it, we're going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." He shuts his eyes then, somehow still exhausted after what felt like days of sleep.

He wakes up to the feeling of small fingers combing through his hair and a big smile reaches his face at the sight of her eyes, big and alert and alive, she's alive, he was so sure that he had lost her, so sure that it was hopeless, now hope fills his heart as they look at each other so tenderly.

"Hello sweetheart," she says, her voice weak, and his eyes overflow at that point, he's not sure why he's crying, he didn't think it was possible to be this happy.

"Hey princess," he says, and he brings her hand up to his mouth, kissing it firmly. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay, they gave me the good drugs," she says dreamily. "How about you? Are you alright?" she continues as her soft hand strokes the bristly hair on his jaw.

"I'm great thanks to you," he says. "You took a bullet for me Rachel."

"You would have done the same for me."

"Every time," he insists. "But I don't ever want to see you hurt like that again, not ever okay? Even if it means letting me die."

"You can't ask me to do that Finn," Rachel says. "I love you too much."

"But-

"Listen," she says, placing her finger to his lips. "Let's just hope that neither of us have to worry about that kind of thing anymore." And reluctantly he nods, and moves in to kiss her softly.

"I love you," he says in almost a whisper.

"I know, I love you too."

"Oh my god, I can't believe this, I owe Santana 12 credits."

At that they turn their heads toward the voice in front of the room, where two young men are now standing, one a fair skinned brunette with piercing blue eyes and an enthusiastic smile, the other a shorter, vaguely Eurasian looking man with curly black hair.

"It's Rachel freaking Berry," the fair skinned man says. "In the flesh."

"Um, hi," Rachel says weakly.

"We're sorry to bother you but I'm here to schedule your psychological screening and once I let it slip who I was analyzing Kurt over here insisted on coming along," The curly haired man says. "I'm Dr. Anderson but you can call me Blaine."

"Don't worry I won't be here for the actual screening, I just had to meet you, I'm a huge fan."

"I know you, you're Burt Hummel's son," Rachel says. "I can't believe you both survived."

"Oh my god Rachel Berry knows who I am," Kurt says excitedly. "And yeah, you'd be hard pressed to find more than one person in the same family to survive the virus, the immunity gene is so rare that two parents can have it and not pass it along to their offspring, that's why it's so difficult to procreate," Kurt's gleeful tone becomes somber at that point and a pang reaches Finn's chest at his words, confirming what they had always feared about their child. "But two family members both having the gene does happen, I mean, just look at you guys. Of course you're not related by blood but considering that you occupied the same household it would be like both of you winning the lottery."

"Yeah, we were really lucky," Finn says, squeezing Rachel's hand a little. "So, are you a scientist?"

"No, that would be doctor Abrams, although doctor is a little generous, he was a biology teacher but everyone likes to call themselves doctor around here, no offense Blaine."

"I actually am a doctor," Blaine argues.

"You're a therapist that doesn't count," Kurt says snarkily. "And I'm a community organizer, it doesn't sound important but it is, I pretty much help keep things from going to hell around here."

"So Rachel, do you think you'll be good to go for tomorrow?" Blaine says.

"Sure," she answers, and Blaine begins to jot something down in his notepad.

"And Finn you'll be meeting with Dr. Jones, she should be by later."

"Now Mercedes definitely isn't a doctor," Kurt quips.

"Would you let it go?" Blaine shoots back. "She may as well be."

"Yeah but still…"

"I can assure you we're both perfectly sane," Rachel says. Well, sane is debatable but Finn certainly isn't interested in attacking anyone.

"That's pretty amazing considering what you've been through, did you really walk all the way here from the Adirondacks?" Blaine asks.

"Well, not all at once, " Finn says.

"That's the kind of stamina we can use around here," Kurt says. "We don't have an economy because there just isn't much use for one, but we're all expected to pull our own weight, it's how we keep this place running."

"We understand," Finn says.

"Okay, we know you've been through a lot so we're going to give you some space," Blaine says, and Kurt pouts a little but he follows Blaine out of the room.

"Okay, I like those two," Finn says.

"Yeah, me too," Rachel agrees. "I think we might actually be okay here."

He moves in closer and closes his eyes again, needing all of the sleep he can get before it's time to start their lives over. "I think you're right."

Stay tuned for the epilogue folks!