Author's note: I must apologize, however, my test period is over so now I can get back to writing again. This one is quite short for my standards (I usually want to do 3000-4000 words per chapter) but I think I should post it separately since I introduce the character of Emily. Also, Inbredraindeer, you shouldn't worry about shipping/ more OC's/ anything else since I was planning on introducing more characters, but decided against it for danger of the fic becoming too "crowded"

Further, I decided to post this apart from the next chapter since the next one is well…important, and deserves to stand on it's own. I'm going to try and work on it, and deliver it within 2-3 weeks…hopefully. And if I go crazy I may just deliver it this week. Don't know yet, depends on how much time I can reserve for writing.

As soon as Günther noticed the state she was in, he immediately offered, or rather, demanded that he sit in the back , monitoring her situation. There wasn't exactly time for arguing, so this time, Dell rode alone (Ludvig's size made it very uncomfortable to sit in his truck).

"She has not eaten in at least two weeks. I estimate her body weight to be…45 kilograms, at ze best. She must have had a source of water, else she wouldn't have lasted zis long. Vhat's her name?"

"I don't know, didn't ask…" Patrick kept his eyes locked on the road. "Spur of the moment, eh. Besides, we couldn't stick around for long."

Günther put his hand on the girls' chest, running it along the bones that were sticking out of her.

"Are you fucking touching me?" The girl opened her eyes, looking both upset and disgusting. "Get your fucking hands off me!"

"Derhg, I am a medic, I was examining you. You seem to be chronically underfed and most likely you would have perished within one or two days."

"Don't touchme." She wanted to sound strong and defiant, but the more she spoke the weaker and frail she sounded.

"Oakay. I vill not. But stay down, you are very veak. I vill get you somezing to eat." Günther opened up one of the military rations and put it on top of pyro's flamethrower (put into a makeshift cooking setup). He put it on its lowest setting, and stood next to it until the soup-like mixture started bubbeling. He poured it into a half-cleaned bowl, and handed it to her. Immediately she snatched it out of his hands, and drunk it all in one big gulp. She let her head fell back onto the pillow and let out a deep sigh

"That was delicious…"

"You should get some rest. Your digestive system has been out of commission for a vhile, you may feel terrible, but you will have to get through it if you want to live. I do assume that zat zat is ze case?"

She nodded, slowly.

"Güten Abend." Günther turned the lights off. "I vant you to know zat I am a doctor, with many years of experience in ze..healing of ozzers. You could not have been in safer hands.

He leaned back in his chair, quickly slipping into a deep sleep.

The next day was reasonably uneventful. Time passed by quickly, as did the countryside. But Australia is big, real big, and the roads were sometimes filled with empty cars (and zombies), so Patrick estimated that it would still take them two days to get to Yarrawin.

Every small city, every little village slowed them down. There were sometimes way around the town, yet they ran the risk of getting stuck, close to a zombie infested area. So in general, they simply did their best. "Smashing through the town". Not at extremely high speeds, but at 40 kilometers per hour. This speed gave them enough time to maneuver in-between buildings and wrecks, yet was fast enough to leave zombies in the dust.

With this new tactic they made it through the small towns of Broken Hill, Wilcannia and Cobar, and were now en route to Bourke. From there, it would be one more day of driving until he was home.

All day, he had been communicating with Dell via walkie-talkie, barking orders every few minutes.

Eventually, around 15:00 they started another argument. Dell was finally getting fed up with Patrick's authority (once again) and they were flinging insults and arguments back and forth for fifteen minutes.

"Dell, stop being such a stick-faced cunt, and just go with it!"

"Do you always yell at each other like that?"

In his rage, Patrick had completely missed that the DJ was sitting next to him. He felt quite embarrassed, yet suppressed the emotion and kept staring straight ahead.

"Sometimes. Usually it's better."

"Mmhmm. Sound like you don't really get along, but just sticking together 'cause of the whole apocalypse thing."

"Neeh, not really. We've been working together for…about 10 years now."

"Like an old married couple." The girl smiled.

Patrick glanced at her, and held out his right hand, his other hand still firmly grasping the wheel. She quickly shook it. Now, for the first time, he had some time to properly observe the chaos of yesterday, and Günther's obsessive care and protection he simply had not been able to properly check what she looked like. From his memory he could only pull three details. Girl, young, long brown hair.

She was wearing a sloppy t-shirt that must have fit her a lot better when she wasn't starving. On front he could see the words "DJ DJ MIX" stamped on it in bright blue colours. She was wearing a short skirt with a pair of long jeans with pants oddly stuffed underneath. Her hair was quite long, stretching below her shoulders into one big brown mess of hair. The only thing that looked normal were the staring light brown eyes and the genuine smile on her face.

"Patrick Mundy."

"Emily Phillips."

"You're not from Australia, are you?"

"Nope, I'm from America." She leaned back in the seat and folded her arms behind her head. She was one of the people who could enjoy the sight of bare Australia rolling across the window. Then again, she had most likely been sitting in the same room for a while now. She'd probably enjoy watching paint dry, in her current state.

"If I may ask, what's a young girl like you doing in Port Augusta? America isn't exactly around the corner."

"That's exactly why I'm here. I clashed with my family, and couldn't stick around. I went to the middle of nowhere, basically."

"Neeh, we're going towards the middle of nowhere right now. Augusta is a city, pretty big one for Australian standards."

Patrick couldn't see any visual improvement from yesterday; however, she seemed to recover well mentally. She was far from healthy; however, it was steadily improving. He was quite happy that all their effort and time had not been in vain. Things were looking up. One more night, and he'd finally be home.

"Could you hand me one of the soda's in the back, they're in the cooler on the right."

"Sure."

Patrick opened the can with only one hand and placed it in the cup holder. He did all that while keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Suddenly he could hear a low, creaking sound coming from the right of him. She had fallen asleep, with her hand still weakly grasping her own, unopened can.

"Ppssst. Doc, she's fallen asleep, could you get her back to bed?"

"Ja." He herd from the back.