So I realized something. While I was planning out the scenes for later in this story, there is a very good chance that I may have to change the story rating from T to M. So just keep a look out for that, don't want you to think that this story is gone when you can't find it under the Rated T section.

Joel, Ellie and Tess sat in the interior of the ruined skyscraper, waiting for Naomi. They began to worry, she hadn't met up with them in almost an hour. They heard the shooting, but still hoped she was alive.

Joel stood up and glared at Ellie. "This is all your fault." He growled.

"My fault?! Why the fuck is this my fault?!" Ellie shot up from where she was sitting. "You're the fucking one who wasn't careful enough! If you hadn't gotten yourself fuckin' caught she'd still be here with us!" Ellie yelled, getting ready to attack Joel.

"Hey, hey!" Tess stopped Ellie from tackling him. "We're all at fault here! Alright?" She huffed out a sigh and looked at Joel. "Do you want to continue without Naomi?" She asked.

"No," he said, not hesitating. "We wait for her."

"Joel, there is no possible way she could have survived. She was being chased by a whole squad, armed with a machine gun." Tess pointed out.

"We owe it to her to wait!" Joel growled. "How many times has she saved our asses? I know she's still alive, let's just wait a little longer." He huffed, pacing the floor with his arms crossed. Not even Ellie could argue with him about waiting, but she was still pissed that Joel blames her.

Joel really liked Naomi. Ever since she joined him and Tess, they bonded really well. He almost considered her as another daughter...

"I shouldn't have let her do that.." Joel said.

"If she didn't, we all would be dead." Tess said, not wanting to finish the next part. But Joel knew what she meant.

"So it's better that she die than all of us?" He growled at her.

Tess had enough of Joel, "you need to stop. I'm just as fuckin' worried about her as much as you are." She snapped back. After a glaring contest with him, she sighed. "Look, we'll wait a few more minutes. If she's alive and she doesn't show up, she knows where to meet us... and if she isn't-"

"She's alive, dammit!" Joel yelled.

"That's enough from you!" Tess finally lost it. "Do I have to keep repeating myself?" She snarled. "I'm just as worried about her, alright?"

Joel huffed a sigh, "right. Sorry.."

Ten Minutes Later...

Naomi went back the way she ran from. There were still guards, but not as much. She could easily sneak by them with the cover of the darkness from the rain clouds. The rain also made visibility really bad, which was a good thing and a bad thing for her. They couldn't see or hear her, but it applied to her as well. If there was a Runner or a Clicker or even a guard around a corner, she wouldn't know until it was too late.

God damn it!

She ducked behind a wall to get an idea of her surroundings. It was where the others hid when she was about to lure the previous guards away from them. There should be a drainage pipe close to her.

Hopefully it isn't flooded...

She kept her sword out the entire time along with her gun. She nearly fell over the edge of a small cliff and decided that it was probably better that she kept her sword sheathed. She wouldn't want it to stab her in case she fell. She found the drainage pipe that was half-filled. She managed to find dry ground again inside an abandoned building.

She sneezed, realizing that she was probably catching a cold. She sighed, realizing that she would have to stay put until the rain lightened up. She took out a handful of dry lint from her backpack that she kept in a plastic zip-lock bag. Now those bags were hard to come by nowadays. She grabbed anything wooden she could find in the vicinity and piled them up on the small dirt hole in the concrete.

She looked around, making sure no one was in there with her. After finding nothing, she unsheathed her sword and picked up a smooth stone. She soaked her sword in the rain and began to sharpen it near the pile of wood and lint, creating sparks. After about the hundredth time, the sparks created an ember in the lint and she blew into the pile and the embers began to intensify eventually into a small fire.

She gathered up more wood in the vicinity, mainly from a molded bookshelf which she broke down into smaller pieces, and fed it to the fire. She hovered her hands over the fire and tried to warm herself up. She didn't even notice that she was shivering until the warmth finally hit her.

She fed more wood into the fire and laid her wet clothes beside the fire to dry them off. She heard the distinct sound of footsteps and faded into the shadows with her sword and backpack, leaving her clothes by the fire.

"Hello? Anyone here?" A deep voice called out. Naomi peeked around the wall she was hiding behind. To her shock, a man that looked like he was in her age range was standing near the fire. "I know someone's here," he said again, not as a threat, but for clarification.

Naomi looked down at herself, she only had panties on. Disobeying her survival instincts, she spoke to him from behind the wall. "Who are you?"

The man immediately turned to where she was hiding. "I don't want any trouble, just trying to get out of the rain." She caught a glimpse of a pistol holstered on the side of his leg and a rifle slung behind him.

"If you don't mean any harm, toss your guns to the side." She said.

"Alright," he obeyed.

"Turn around, I won't hurt you." She said.

He hesitated. "Why? Are you shy?" He chuckled, despite how serious the situation was. He had no clue who was behind that wall and she didn't know who he was.

"No. Those are my clothes by the fire... I'm... half-naked..." She said, reluctantly.

He glanced at the clothes, "Oh... Um, here." He picked them up and approached her.

"Don't come any closer." She threatened, making him come to a halt.

"Alright, alright, what do you want me to do?" He asked.

"Toss it."

He threw the clothes at the opening and she plucked them out of the air. After putting them on, despite them being half-dried, she stepped out into the open, her gun still pointing at him.

"I thought you weren't going to hurt me." He said.

"I'm not, but if you try anything I will kill you." She snarled.

"I know, I know... Can I at least get some of the warmth from that fire of yours?" He asked, hands raised in the air.

Naomi tried to hide her blush. The guy before her was actually the most handsome man she'd ever seen. He was about half a foot taller than her. One name came to her mind that she remembered clearly from an old pop magazine she read when she was eighteen. Drew Seeley. This guy looked like an exact copy of that actor.

"Fine," she said, keeping the gun trained on him.

"Look, I really mean no harm." He said, sitting down and hovering his hands over the fire. "I'm just passing through, trying to regroup with other people that I'm with."

"Who are you?" she asked.

"You know, it's usually more polite to introduce yourself before asking someone else for their name." He winked.

She sighed, "Naomi."

"Now that wasn't so hard was it?" He chuckled. "Name's Michael."

"What are you doing out here? How'd you get separated from your group?" She asked.

"It's a long story..." he began.

She looked out the hole where they came from, the rain was still pouring down like a waterfall. "I've got time." She said.

"Well, first thing you gotta know about me is this." He reached into his shirt and pulled out a pendant. It had the engraving of the Fireflies symbol on it.

"You're a Firefly." She said.

"Yep. I was with a group that traveled all the way here from Salt Lake City, Utah. You know where that is?"

She shook her head. "Never heard of it."

He faked a frowned, "that sucks. It's a beautiful place. you should check it out sometime. Anyways, I was part of the guard detail for a group of doctors that wanted to come all the way out here. They kept talking about this cure that would be here."

"No way, a cure? For the infection?" She asked, intrigued.

"Yeah, it sounds too good to be true, right? But when we got here-we were stationed in a nearby subway not far from here-we were ambushed by a bunch of soldiers." Pain washed over his expression. "I fled like a coward..." He shook his head. "That's how I got here." He finished.

Despite everything that happened, she lowered her guard. Putting away the gun. "Don't beat yourself up." She said. "I probably would have done the same if I were you."

"Leave your buddies to die?" He asked, scoffing.

"No. Survive." She pointed out.

Michael stiffened. It had been a long time since he heard that word. In the Fireflies, there was no real need for that instinct. Everyone in the Fireflies treated each other like good friends and looked out for each other. Food and water was never scarce, it was the good life. Now here he was, receiving a hard truth from a beautiful girl in a run down piece of shit place.

"How old are you?" He asked.

She arched an eyebrow, "why does that matter?"

"I'm twenty-three years old and I haven't really accepted that yet. But you look younger than I do and here you are." He pointed out.

She sighed, "I'm nineteen. I learned that survival comes first when I was just seventeen. Some friends taught me that, they're actually waiting for me right now."

"But you can't go because of the storm."

She nodded. "So where are you headed off to? I mean..." She looked at him. "Your Firefly friends are all probably gone right? Why go back?"

He sighed, face-palming. "Two reasons. One, there might still be some of them left at the capitol building. Two, I left something back there that's important to me." He looked at her, "don't laugh, but I left this toy back there. It belonged to my little brother..." He couldn't finish.

"I understand." She said, digging through her backpack. She pulled out the family photo that she always kept with her and showed it to him. "I would charge through a pack of Runners to try and get this back."

He nodded, "finally. Someone who understands sentimentality."

They were quiet for a while, just focusing on trying to warm up and constantly feed the fire.

"So why are you out here?" Michael asked her.

"I... I'm a smuggler. I was with two others, my friends, and we were smuggling a girl to the same capitol building you were talking about. I got separated from them and I'm trying to get to them, but this storm is in my way."

"Well..." he began. "For their sake, I hope they don't encounter the soldiers."

"Same here..." she sighed. She was exhausted and her leg muscles were aching like hell. But she didn't trust Michael enough to fall asleep in front of him.

He saw her eyes drooping close. "I could stay up on watch if you want." He offered. When she glared at him he held his hands up, "I'm not that kind of person, I swear. You can trust me."

"Why should I?"

"Because you aren't dead." He bluntly said, startling her. "If I knew you were a threat from the start, I would've killed you."

She scoffed, "you couldn't kill me even if you tried," laying down on the floor.

"I think I could, Crimson Blade. That is your nickname right?" He was amused by her reaction. "You're a legend back in Utah, I'm actually honored to meet you in person."

"Usually people who say that aim to kill me in a fight." She giggled.

"Like I said, I don't want any trouble." He said, leaning against the nearest wall and holstering his gun that he threw aside. He had his rifle laid across his lap.

"Fine, I'll-"

"Kill me if I try anything." He finished for her, winking. That earned a smile from her.

Naomi closed her eyes and sleep overtook her quickly.

"Naomi!"

Her eyes snapped open, Michael was trying to shake her awake. "We gotta go, now," He whispered.

She immediately sat up and looked outside the hole. The rain had stopped, but the moon was still high in the sky. She probably wasn't asleep for longer than half-an-hour.

"Search the area!" Her blood ran cold. There were soldiers nearby. The fire had been put out, probably by Michael.

"We gotta go," he whispered as he helped her on her feet. "I'll take point." He said.

They dodged flash lights as they proceeded to the skyscrapers. Michael held his rifle as they ran. She stopped when he stopped, slowed when he slowed, followed when he gave to O.K. When they finally reached the skyscrapers and avoided the patrols, they took a moment to breathe behind a wall.

"You sure you're nineteen?" Michael joked, panting.

"What's that suppose to mean?" She smirked.

"Well, you're tougher than you look." He winked.

They continued on their way.

"Joel! We've waited for too fucking long! We have to leave, now!"

Naomi recognized that voice, it was Tess.

"Just a little bit longer-"

"Hey!" Naomi shouted after they soon came to view. They were taking shelter in an office room not far off the ground.

"Naomi!" Joel exclaimed and jumped down. Relief flooded his face as he ran to her, but it quickly went away when he saw Michael and pulled out his pistol. "Who the fuck are you?!" Joel growled.

"Whoa, whoa, easy." Michael said, putting a hand in front of him.

"Joel, put your gun down!" Naomi hissed, pushing his gun down. "This is Michael, he's a Firefly."

That caught Tess and Ellie's attention as they came closer. "You're a Firefly?" Tess asked.

"Yeah," Michael replied. "Corporal Michael. I'm with the team that was sent to the capitol building."

"What the hell are you doing all the way out here?" She asked.

"The team was ambushed by soldiers in a subway nearby... some of them might still be alive, but I fled the area." Michael said.

"Dead?" Joel breathed. "But, what the hell do we do then?" He asked.

"One of my buddies said that if anything went wrong, I was to head to Colorado. You know where that is?"

"Yeah, one of my friends went to college there." Joel muttered.

"Yeah, my buddy said that they would help me if anything happened." Michael said.

"Shit... That's pretty far, ya know." Tess muttered.

"It is, but there's a lab there that the Fireflies owned." He looked at Ellie. "Is this the girl? The cure?"

She nodded.

"So she says," Joel shook his head.

"If we take her to Colorado, they'll handle everything from there. That is if my buddies are dead.."

"Well let's go find out then. To the capitol building it is." Naomi said.

"Sure thing, just gotta get around that giant bomb crater there." Joel pointed to the giant hole. "The only way through is the skyscraper."

They entered the Goldstone building and navigated through a series of halls and rooms. Naomi went around and scavenged for anything they could use from tape to cloth and alcohol.

"Damn it.. Tess help me open this." Joel said to her. The door before him was sealed close. They rammed it open and Joel stepped out into the hallway.

"Joel!" Tess yelled. A Clicker tackled Joel and went to bite him. That fast, Naomi was there, sword out and decapitated the Clicker's head with an upward swing.

"Thanks, kiddo.." Joel breathes as they continue through the groaning building. It had begun raining again and the storm shook the building.

"Now what?" Ellie said. They came to a staircase that was blocked off by debris.

"Ahh.. this is crazy." They looked at Tess who jumped out of the window onto a platform. "Just don't look down."

"Wha- Are you serious?!" Ellie exclaimed.

"That woman's got guts," Michael said, following her lead.

Naomi was the last one to jump on after Joel. Despite Tess's warning, she looked down and immediately felt dizzy. They had to be a hundred stories above the ground. She looked away, shaking her head into focus. Relief immediately overwhelmed her as she set her feet on ground once again inside the building.

"Runners." Tess said as they ducked behind a wall. Below them were four Runners and one Clicker.

"Let me check it out." Naomi said.

"No," Joel stopped her. "You've done enough suicidal things for one day. I'll check it out."

"I'll cover you," Michael said, following Joel down. He slung his rifle behind him and pulled out the 12-inch KA-BAR knife that he had sheathed on the side of his left leg.

They crept up to a lone Runner and Joel let Michael quietly kill it. He crept up to it and with lightning speed, grabbed the Runner by the left shoulder from behind and drove the knife into its throat, silencing any screeches that it wanted to let out.

Joel picked up an empty glass bottle and tossed it far to a secluded and tight area. After most of the infected ran to the source of the noise, Joel strangled another lone Runner to death. After hearing the windpipe and the neck snap, he set the body down quietly.

After dispatching the remaining infected, "Alright, come on down." Joel called to the girls.

"I'm impressed." Tess said.

"Pssh. Let's just get outta here." Joel muttered.

Michael cleaned his knife before sheathing it. He followed behind Naomi, "so what'd ya think of my performance?" He asked playfully.

"You were sloppy," She winked.

"Like you could've done any better," he said, teasing her.

"I could." She said.

"Maybe next time I'll let you have some action then." He winked.

"I'm looking forward to it." She smiled.

Joel was eying them as they proceeded. They were a bit too comfortable with each other.

They descended a part of the building where the floors have caved in. At the bottom, they reach a subway.

"This is where I was ambushed, be cautious." Michael warned.

There was a corpse leaning against the wall. "Look at his sleeve," Tess said. "Firefly."

Michael cursed. "Dammit!" he hissed.

Naomi rubbed his back, like how her mother would to her. "Sorry for your loss.."

"What're you apologizing for?" He chuckled. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Well.." She really didn't know why she said that. It was just something her mother used to say whenever something bad happened to a friend of her's. It just felt like the right thing to say, but apparently not.

"It's alright." Tess said, holding up a map she picked from the dead Firefly. "This guy is from the Quarantine zone, not from out of state."

"Let's keep moving." Joel said, stuffing a Molotov into his pack.

Deeper in the subway, they encountered more Clickers. A LOT more Clickers than last time.

"Hate to break it to you, boy." Joel whispered. "But I doubt your buddies are alive if they had to get through this mess."

Naomi glared at Joel who just shrugged her off.

"Whatever." Michael said, blankly.

"How do you want to handle this?" Tess asked.

"Quietly," Naomi answered, already creeping up to the nearest clicker with her sword out.

"I swear, that girl is a bad-ass." Ellie commented quietly.

"Agreed." Michael whispered.

Naomi decapitated the Clicker and moved on to the others. She was like a ninja in the dark area. The only indication of her immediate location to the others was when the body of a Clicker suddenly fell. When the others couldn't hear any Clickers, they crept out of their spot and met with Naomi at the exit of the subway. She had already climbed on top of the ledge and let down the ladder.

"Holy shit. We actually made it." Ellie said as they stepped out of the abandoned subway.

"Everyone okay?" Joel asked.

After a simultaneous "yes," they continued on their journey to the capitol building.

"Naomi, where'd you learn to fight like that?" Ellie asked.

"Just experience and constant practice." She replied.

"You could give Marlene a run for her money." Michael laughed.

She cringed at hearing Marlene's name, suddenly remembering the time she kicked Naomi's ass. "I doubt it." She muttered.

"Climb on up," Joel had fetched a dumpster and placed it against a totaled big rig truck's trailer. They followed Joel over the truck and Joel begins to pull on the chain into a garage.

(A/N: It's sort of getting a bit boring writing about what happens. I'm just gonna skip to the part where they enter the capitol building. I'm sure you all know what happens prior. Sorry, I just want to focus on Naomi.)

"No, no, no!" Tess said.

Corpses of the Fireflies laid on the floor of the building, blood pooled around the bodies. Michael immediately ran over to the nearest corpse and placed two fingers on the neck. No pulse.

"Dammit!" He said, tossing his rifle on the ground. He sighed in frustration.

Naomi went over to him.

"So what happens now?" Ellie asked, lost.

"What are you doing Tess?" Joel asks her. She was frantically searching the pockets of the dead Fireflies.

"There's gotta be a map to their lab in Colorado." She said, desperately.

"How far are we gonna take this?" Joel asked, frustrated. He wanted to go home.

"As far as we need to go!" Tess snapped. She sighed, "I'm... I'm not going anywhere. This is my last stop.."

"What?"

"Our luck had to run out sooner or later...

"What the hell are you going on about-" Joel said.

"No. Don't- don't touch me." She slapped Joel's hand away.

Naomi's eyes widened in shock as she realized what happened. She recalled the scream Tess made back at the museum when a Runner tackled her. "No." She breathed.

"Holy shit. She's infected." Ellie said.

Michael reached for his rifle and pointed it at Tess. "This whole time you were infected?!" He growled, he was still pissed that his friends were all dead.

"Put your goddamn gun down!" Joel said, pointing his pistol at Michael.

"Stop!" Naomi said standing in between them, then turned to Michael. "That lab you were talking about, in Colorado. Do you know where it is?" She asked.

He shook his head, lowering his gun. "Even if I did, there's no way we could get her there in time to find a cure for the infection. I'm sorry." He said. Naomi noticed that he was not his usual flirtatious and fun self. The deaths of his friend must have hit him harder than she thought.

"You've got to get this girl to Tommy," Tess said to Joel. "He use to be a Firefly too, he'll know where the lab is in Colorado."

"No, this crusade ends here." Joel growls.

They all heard the noise of a vehicle outside.

"Oh shit, it's the soldiers." Ellie said.

"Go." Tess began. "I'll hold them off and buy you some time, but you all have to run."

"No!" Naomi shouted. "We can't just leave you here!" She said.

"I'm as good as dead already! Now go!"

"Dammit!" Joel cursed. "Come on, let's go!" He said to the others.

Naomi had to pull Michael back, he wanted revenge for his friends. When they were behind locked doors, he began to try to get back into the room.

"Stop!" Naomi said to him.

"Let me go!" Joel was holding him back. "I'll fucking kill every last one of them! I will avenge my friends!"

"You're going to die!" Joel yelled, tossing him to the ground. When he tried to get back up, Naomi was there, pinning him to the ground.

"Stop and think for a moment!" She said, not wanting him to die for a vain cause.

"Get off of me." He snarled.

"Would your friends want you to die here? What happened to wanting to survive?" She said, irritated.

He stopped for a moment, huffing out angry breaths.

"We have to go!" Ellie said, following Joel up the stairs.

Naomi looked at Michael, "if you stay, I'm staying."

His eyes widened. "You wouldn't"

"I fucking would.." She said.

After a moment of hearing gun shots in the other room, he finally calmed down and followed Naomi to meet with Joel and Ellie. The sound of Tess crying out in pain filled the air.

I'm going to stop it here, otherwise you're going to be reading a ten thousand word chapter.

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