AN: Testing the waters with this one...not something I'd usually write (don't even know if there's an audience for this), so I'm experimenting. Let me know whether you'd like to see this continue.


It's been twenty-three years since anyone has seen a zombie.

Emily knows this because Alex keeps track, even though time is less critical now that the world they'd once known was essentially gone. But it helps Alex to keep track, so Emily doesn't complain.

Besides, it's how they know their granddaughter was turning one that day. The first of what Alex had dubbed the 'Aquene Generation', using the Native American word for peace – the first generation born who would (hopefully) never know the fear that had been everyone else's normal since the outbreak that had changed everything.

It's been twenty-three years, but Emily still wakes up every day and checks the trail cams she'd rigged at the fence. Every day, she prays to a God she can't help but hope exists that their granddaughter will never know anything but happiness and gentleness, that she would never be hardened by war.

She was flipping through the screens, looking for any sigh of movement when she felt Alex slip her arms around her neck and drop a kiss beneath her ear. "Come back to bed," Alex husked, lips brushing along the back of her neck.

"You and I both know that if I go back to bed know, I'll be at least forty-five minutes late to town hall," Emily pointed out.

"So?" Alex challenged. "You've been late to every town hall since Hotch turned. I think it would be more surprising if you weren't late..."

When Emily failed to react, Alex huffed, muttered something about her being stubborn, then sat on her lap and snuggled into her chest.

"Jesus Christ..." Emily nearly growled, suddenly very distracted from the screens, "You're early this month."

You could have set your watch by Alex's heats which, thankfully, allowed Emily to quite effectively schedule the town's many needs. The town, though, was going to have to wait because Alex too had needs and now that Emily had smelled that she was ovulating, she had needs as well...

When Emily stood from the chair, Alex wrapped her legs around her waist, continuing her quest to mark Emily with as many bites and hickies as possibly. Dropping her on the bed, Emily toed off her boots, unzipped her jeans, all while wearing an almost predatory grin.

"Ass up, Princess," she coaxed, shucking off her jeans, then strapping on Alex's favourite cock, stroking it a few times as she watched Alex wiggle her ass tantalizingly.

Kneeling on the edge of the bed, Emily leaned in to trail her tongue along her soaked cunt. "God, you taste so sweet when you're in heat..." She spent several long moments making out with her pussy, until Alex was nearly sobbing. Only then did she give in and thrust into her.


"What's your excuse this time?" Derek asked during the chaos of the town hall meeting letting out. Every month, when Emily was inevitably late, he was forced to cover for her, as her second in command.

Emily glanced about to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then shot him a mischievous smirk.

He rolled his eyes. "Nope, no way," he refused, "You already pulled your one free 'I was getting laid' pass this year."

"Okay, but in my defence, Alex is in heat," she said, holding up her hands as if to say she had no choice in the matter. Derek chuckled, though it wasn't really all that funny. "So, what'd I miss?" Emily asked.

He shrugged. "The usual."

The usual, in this case meant at least two people squabbling over resources, someone not happy with the chore rotation, someone unhappy that the previous person wasn't pulling their weight in the chore rotation, and on one particularly memorable occasion, someone accusing someone else of being a witch. Emily had come to expect irritations of the sort, given the close proximity in which everyone lived...it was only natural that tempers would flare on occasion. (Which was also the reason they held a monthly airsoft game...it got some of the aggression out while also giving people tactical training – their town might have been free of zombies, but the world as a whole surely wasn't.)

"How's Reid's hybridized nut tree research coming?" she asked. Reid, surprising no one, had spent the past twenty-three years developing an agriculture program that would provide a diet as nutritionally dense and complete as possible, given their limited resources. Now, he was just showing off, in Emily's opinion, having successfully hybridized kale and broccoli (which failed to earn him any fans in the under ten category).

He shrugged again.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Let me guess: you weren't paying attention."

"What do you want from me?" he whined, "He talked for like twenty straight minutes without taking a breath."

Much as she would have liked to fault him for that, she too had been known to zone out during Reid's rambling. That didn't mean she was any less grateful for his genius brain, though. Reid was one of the major reasons their settlement was as developed as it was and everyone knew it.

Changing the subject when it became clear to her that she wasn't going to get any information of use from him, she asked, "Are you coming to Jenna's birthday party?"

"Did Alex bake the cake?" he answered her question with a much more pressing question.

"Double chocolate with caramel icing," Emily answered. She might've been annoyed that his first motivation was the cake, rather than celebrating her granddaughter's first year of life...but Alex was a spectacular baker and cake was a rare delicacy these days, so she couldn't exactly blame him.

He licked his lips in anticipation. "I'll be there."

In the next moment, Hank came up behind Derek, clapping him on the shoulder and asking, "Ready to go, Dad?"

He nodded, then turned back to Emily and, with a salute, said, "See ya later, Sheriff."

"What's happening later?" Hank asked, glancing from his father to Emily and back.

"It's Jenna's first birthday," Emily replied. "You should come."

"Alex baked a cake," Derek supplied with enough enthusiasm that he missed the laden glance Emily and his son shared...