A/N -MizBizSav (also known as the Chlerek tumblr) is a perfect human being without whom this chapter would never have been finished.
Chloe yanked desperately on the handle of the locked door. "Aunt Lauren?! Aunt Lauren, open the door! Let me in!"
"Chloe, honey, I'm sorry, I-" through the almost transparent window on the door to the research lab Chloe could see her Aunt choking up, firmly holding the door closed though it was already locked. "The lights went off and one of the petri dishes broke… I'm running a blood test. I need you to leave, honey."
"Aunt Lauren, no. You didn't leave me when you thought I was infected."
"You have to leave," she said, "if the blood test comes back positive I'll need to leave the town. I've cleaned everything up and once I'm gone it should be safe, go around the town and try and ask for doctors or scientists. You know where all the research is, now honey I need you to leave."
Chloe took a long hard look at her aunt, thinking about how much harder it had been when her aunt hovered during her own blood test. "Ok… ok," she slowly started backing away. "I'll go look for a scientist."
"Chloe," when Lauren spoke again her voice was small, like she was about to break. She took a moment and when she continued to speak her voice was once again strong, with an odd sort of edge to it. "Tell your Dad that if he doesn't take care of you he'll have to answer to me. I'll make sure of it."
But how? Chloe thought, regardless, she swallowed back tears and took a few steps backwards anyway before turning and running through the city.
She should look for a scientist. They needed one immediately – Aunt Lauren might still have some time before it completely took her over. Even Liz might still have a chance.
The streets were a haze of sameness; Chloe had no idea where she was going. She passed several people but couldn't find it within herself to ask them about continuing the research. A clawing, desperate need for someone to come and fix this struggled with a blind belief that Aunt Lauren would be alright. She couldn't just die, right? It would all be ok.
When she had noticed the smashed petri dish she must've put on some sort of mouth cover and cleaned it up. She was probably exposed for an even smaller amount of time than Chloe herself had been! Besides, they didn't even know what made the virus infect some people but not others. Chloe had been fine – Aunt Lauren would be too, she decided. Everything would be ok. Everything would be-
"Chloe? Chloe!"
Who was that? She knew that voice…
"Hello? Earth to Chloe!"
Someone was standing next to her. Someone she knew.
"… Is everything alright?"
Someone she was friends with… but her brain wasn't working. There was just an overwhelming sense of wrongness with the world. It was like waking up one morning and suddenly left is right and right is left and up is down, something that confused every moment. Just like when her mother died, but Chloe had been small then and Aunt Lauren had helped her through it. Aunt Lauren.
"Simon," oh, it was Simon. "Let's go." Simon and Derek. They just got to town. Derek was jerking his head in the direction they had been walking, gesturing to Simon.
Simon took a long look at Chloe and seemed to decide that Derek was right and maybe she was better off alone. But wasn't she supposed to be helping them with something? Making sure they didn't get lost in the stupid cluttered little underground town?
"Yeah, ok. We'll see you later."
That's right, she was. Aunt Lauren had told her to show them around.
They walked off.
They hadn't even abandoned her for others yet – usually that only took a few days. Even less time with an adult or a family.
"Wait," she croaked, but they were already gone. She probably wouldn't have been much help anyways; she couldn't for the life of her remember what went in that direction. She thought that maybe someone they knew lived down there. Or maybe it was Derek and Simon who lived there, in which case they could probably find their own way.
So she turned and started staggering on again, except that had been enough of a distraction for Chloe to regain some of her bearings. She turned and started walking in the direction of her house. She wouldn't try to replace her aunt until she knew she was infected. She just wouldn't.
Chloe's new resolve failed to show outwardly, she collapsed down on the couch in the small living room, staring vacantly at the wall. Two hours – she would wait two hours and then she would check the lab again.
If Aunt Lauren was gone what would she do? Who was left? Hadn't her aunt been her entire family?
No. No her father was alive. Her sad, purposeless father.
She got up unsteadily and walked to his room, taking a step inside and finding she didn't know how to say it, and even if she did the lump on the bed didn't seem very receptive. Then slowly, a full three seconds after the click of the door opening, the lump on the bed started to sit up.
"Chloe?"
"Dad," Chloe didn't know whether it came out as a croak, a sniff, or a broken whisper.
Steve Saunders pulled himself out of bed, lurching to the side slightly precariously. He walked towards his daughter but stopped a couple steps away. Chloe wasn't sure if she was crying but everything was blurry and her dad had no idea how to go about comforting someone. She just sort of collapsed against him and he caught her and she sobbed. She knew he had to be uncomfortable but luckily he didn't let it show.
The next two hours passed in a blur, Chloe was pretty sure she explained to her dad what happened to Aunt Lauren, and then she thought he walked off for a moment but that couldn't be right; he hadn't been able to pull himself out of bed in months. He thought he had lost all meaning in life. And yet a cup of hot chocolate – one of the only hot foods they had on hand – was placed in front of her, and she picked it up as she sat on the couch with her dad next to her.
When the two hour mark came around Chloe was feeling, not better, but much more focused. She gave her dad a small sad smile, put down her half empty cup of hot chocolate, and headed out the door. She must have explained to him what was happening at some point because he seemed unsurprised and gave her his own awkward, almost encouraging, smile back.
As Chloe walked through the town she was still feeling out of sorts, but she walked towards the lab and tried to prepare in case her Aunt wasn't there anymore. Prepare for the worst case scenario, right? Right.
She turned into the hallway that lead out of the town, as well as to her Aunt's lab and immediately knew. She forced herself to keep walking towards the door, left vacantly hanging half open. She entered the lab and was unsurprised, and yet completely unprepared, to see it abandoned. The hazardous materials bin had been emptied; Chloe would have bet her Aunt took it with her to make absolutely certain no one in the lab got infected. The counters looked unnaturally clean and white, same with the walls. All the instruments shone, even her Aunts papers had been neatly organized.
Not a single thing out of place.
Except her Aunt. She belonged there too, and the papers should be piled on the counter so Aunt Lauren could make notes as she went. She sat down at her Aunt's desk, filing through her drawers absently. It took a minute before she noticed the envelopes sitting on the desk, one labeled Chloe, the one next to it Steve, and the last one Current Research.
She opened hers.
Chloe,
I'm sorry I couldn't stay. I guess you already know that the test came back positive. The lab is safe; I made sure everything was sterile before I left.
You need to find someone else to take over the research. There are other doctors and scientists and researchers in town. You know some of them; they used to work with me at the beginning. Ask them to make an announcement at the next town news meeting. If no one comes forward, talk to them directly, you need to get someone to keep up the research. There's still a chance we can get things back to normal, I was closer than you think. Don't give up hope. Ever.
Chloe, honey, you've been through so much. You can get through this, you'll get out of this alive.
I will always love you,
Aunt Lauren
Chloe picked up the envelope along with her father's letter and stood. As she did, something gleamed in the corner of her eye. It was picture frame on Aunt Lauren's desk. Chloe waved to the camera from the background, on the back of a pony at the fair. Near the border of the pony pen stood Chloe's mom and Aunt Lauren, smiling with an arm slung over each other's shoulders.
She picked it up and walked home; she met no one on the way there.
To her immense surprise she opened the door to find her father shoddily attempting to clean. He was wiping down the counters when Chloe walked in, looking more alert than he had since they had come to town. While she was gone her father seemed to have showered, started supper, swept the living room, and had now moved on to the kitchen.
Chloe walked over and wordlessly handed him his letter, fumbling slightly with her own as she did.
Once a week, on Thursdays, the town got together to go over the news. This included anything they could find out about the outside world, usually from running into someone on trips into town, and any news the residents felt the need to share with the town at large. Sometimes they reported a crack in a wall or an arch, sometimes a broken television that needed help fixing.
Everyone had gone to bed for the night so it was too late to track someone down and report her 'news', it would have to wait for tomorrow. Tori had come out of her room at the smell of food and Chloe, having nothing else to do, sat down beside her restlessly and took out the framed picture.
A timer went off and Chloe's dad placed two plates of some sort of stir fry in front of her and Tori. "I ate before the movie," Chloe said. She had had some sort of rations, like usual. No one ever actually made a meal in their house. Aunt Lauren was always too busy, Chloe didn't cook, and everyone else was too depressed.
Her dad gave her an uncertain nod, he was really trying, Chloe realized. She pulled the plate towards her with a muttered 'thanks'. Tori looked like she was in heaven, with an actual cooked meal for the first time in recent memory. Chloe tried to make herself eat but ended up just pushing food around her plate until she could go to bed.
She had no idea how she made it through the night, but eventually it was the next morning and she went out to find the town news announcer.
A/N - So, not actually a lot of action in this chapter but I hope I've managed to convincingly portray Chloe's shock and sadness. I feel like after her Aunt left she just wouldn't know what to do with herself.
I thought for a bit about having Derek or Simon be the ones to comfort her, but it just seemed more right to have it be her father. They did get a cameo though. Probably on their way back from the movie (let's just pretend Kit stayed behind to make sure everyone was ok and not because I blatantly forgot about him, oops).