It's finally spring again. The winter was long and hard. Their camp of nearly eighty people has dropped to sixty due to lack of food and medicine because of it. But with the sun shining again there's new hope all around them. Everyone around camp seems happier, everyone except for Miles.

"Bass, I'm serious. Just a few of their cows and we would be set until next year," Miles says.

Shaking his head, Bass lowers his voice as they walk through camp. "Miles, we can just go around attacking other camps and stealing their stuff. We aren't savages."

But Miles shakes his head roughly. "We lost twenty people over the course of four months because we didn't have enough food. The camp on the other side of the river has plenty to spare, they won't even notice."

"Miles, just stop. It's springtime, we've got months before we need to worry about that again. You need to relax, man."

"How am I supposed to relax when we have to worry about all of these people?"

Bass stops in front of the tent that he and Shelly share which is of course right next to Miles and Charlie's. "We'll figure it out later. For now, let's just focus on the girls."

They enter the small space with its tiny cot and three legged table. There's a vanity that Bass found and drug all the way here for Shelly to use as well. It's her favorite piece of furniture. The woman herself is standing at the three legged table folding clothes that are fresh off the clothes line. The tiny, faded pink shirt is obviously Charlie's.

Shelly smiles as Bass comes right up to the table for a kiss and starts to help her fold the clothes. "Hey, how did it go out there?" She asks.

Miles ignores the laundry and plops himself down onto Bass and Shelly's bed with a groan. "It was terrible," he whines to Shelly. "Those idiots can't hit anything."

Bass shakes his head with a smile as he folds one of his and Miles' t-shirts. "They aren't that bad. Jeremy's actually pretty good and Collin just needs a little practice." He lays the shirt down onto a pile of clothes that he and Miles typically share. "But forget them, what did you and Charlie do?"

"Well, we finished Stuart Little and worked on some geography, and she even made her best time on her multiplication test today." Shelly tells them proudly.

Miles scoffs but says nothing, he's already had Shelly chew him out on more than one occasion for his disinterest in Charlie's education. She narrows her eyes in Miles' direction but keeps her mouth shut as well. Noting the tension in the room, Bass asks, "where is Charlie, anyway?"

Miles lifts his head interestedly, as if he's only just noticed that she isn't there. "Yeah, I told her we could go to the river and look for frogs today."

"YAY!" Charlie pops up from behind the bed that he's laying on excitedly, making him jump and tumble off the side onto the hard ground. She scrambles over the bed and sits heavily on her uncle's stomach. "Are we gonna go look for frogs now?"

Bass and Shelly are both trying to hide their laughter behind their hands as Miles stares up at his niece in confusion.

"What we're you doing behind the bed?"

"I was practicing my hiding," she says simply.

Miles shakes his head slowly, pushing her off of him so he can sit more comfortably on the ground. "What are you hiding from?"

Charlie rolls her eyes hugely, a move that she's learned straight from him. "The zombies. Duh."

Miles blinks down at her and then looks over to Bass and Shelly. Bass looks about as confused as he feels, though Shelly is bent over clutching her big pregnant belly and shaking with silent laughter.

Close to laughing himself, Miles ruffles his niece's hair. "What are you talking about Bug, there aren't any zombies."

She swats his hand away from her head and looks at him seriously. "Yeah there are. They're gonna come out of the ground and eat our brains."

His smile falters. "Charlie, there's no such thing as zombies."

"Yeah, huh! Jeremy said that all the dead people burried in the field are gonna come back to life and come get us 'cause they're mad that they died, so we have to practice hiding so they can't find us."

Miles stares at her anxious little face, torn between amusement and anger at Jeremy for putting this idea in her head. "Sweetheart, listen, zombies aren't real-"

She stands up and starts waving her arms around urgently. "Yes they are, and they're gonna come get us and we're all gonna die 'cause their gonna suck out brains out of our noses!" She stops flailing for a second and turns to look at Bass, whose face is brick red from the effort of not laughing. "But don't worry Bass, zombies don't eat pregnant ladies, so Shelly and Bass Junior are safe. I asked Jeremy and made sure."

Shelly stops laughing abruptly and turns to glare at her husband. "I told you, I am not naming my son Bass Junior. For all we know it could be a girl."

Charlie shakes her head at Shelly like she thinks the older woman is just being silly. "No, it's a boy. Jeremy said so."

Miles groans, wondering yet again if saving the other man's life had been a huge mistake. "Charlie, Jeremy isn't right about everything. The baby could be a girl and there's no such thing as zombies."

She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs at her uncle. "Jeremy said that the non-believers are always the first ones to go." And with that, she marches out of the tent, leaving Miles sitting confusedly in her wake.

He sighs and shakes his head. "I'm gonna kill him this time." Ignoring Bass and Shelly, he gets to his feet, still mumbling, "I'm really gonna kill him."

"Miles," Bass calls after him but gets ignored as he leaves the tent. "Miles, hang on a sec!" He moves to follow his best friend but is stopped by his wife's hand on his arm.

"Where do you think you're going? You just now got home."

Bass looks from the tent flap where Miles just disappeared and back to his very pregnant, and possibly about to be angry, wife. "I have to go make sure that Miles doesn't actually kill his other best friend."

Shelly narrows her eyes at him but then turns back to the laundry, deliberately not looking at him. "Fine, go. I'll just stay here and do all of the laundry and cook dinner, and grow another human all by myself!"

Bass stops and wraps his arms around her and their growing child, resolutely ignoring the yelling that he can hear from the other side of camp that sounds suspiciously like it's coming from Miles and Jeremy. "I'm sorry, OK? Let me go get him really quick and then I'll be right back and I will finish this laundry by myself and I'll even make dinner. OK?"

She turns her head a little to look at him out of the corner of her eye. The look she's giving says that she is not impressed.

"And how about I give you a foot rub, too." He adds quickly.

She tilts her head from side to side as if considering the offer. "Alright, fine. Go get your idiot, but then I want you right back here."

Kissing her swiftly on the cheek, Bass is already out the tent flap as he yells back to her. "I'll be five minutes, I promise." Though as he nears the site of Miles sitting on Jeremy's back with a frog in his hand and the clear intent to shove it down Jeremy's shirt, Bass thinks it might be a little longer than that.