A/N Are we gonna settle on working on a singular story? Who fucking knows man. But I had the urge to fiddle with this one and it went even better than I'd anticipated since I published chapter one. If you're here, thanks for indulging my experimentations :)

A couple years prior you wouldn't have caught her dead in an Appalachian cave. She'd seen too many youtube videos and listened to too many spooky podcasts not to be at least a little wary of going into the dark underbelly of the ancient mountains. Now the thing damn near looked like heaven as sleet rained down on them, working its way through their coats.

At the edge of the darkness, Stu and June raised their rifles and Carl began to scan the walls methodically with his flashlight. It was shallow enough that the light bounced off of the back wall, making it clear that nothing was hanging around except for rocks and dirt and some dubious mushrooms.

"Never thought I'd say this but I think I miss the Georgia heat right now." She joked, reaching for Carl's hat and shaking the water off of it as the sleet melted. "Get that jacket off."

"I'm not cold." He argued, despite the fact that the shoulders of his coat were plastered down on his shoulders.

"You're real cold, off with it." She held out her hand and waited for him to pass it off to her.

Stu threw his pack on the ground and leaned his gun against the wall. "You two hang tight, I'll go try and find somethin' dry to burn." His coat joined his pack and then his hat, then finally his flannel leaving him in just a t-shirt. "Least I'll have somethin' halfway dry when I get back."

June handed Carl her gun in exchange for his jacket and shed hers. "It's almost dark with all these clouds, you need a second set of eyes. We'll be back in half the time."

Stu didn't argue but his face did, even though she was right. The storm was coming in quick, they didn't have a lot of time to find wood to burn through the night. Even Carl had an argument to go with them, though he wasn't going to win it.

"Alright, let's get going." Stu said with a twitch of his chin.

She nodded, following him out. "Stay within eyesight of each other and the cave. If we've gotta go further out we go together. Carl, you're on watch."

They split, her to the left and him to the right. They were looking for bushes, deadfall, thick roofs of pine needles to block the dampness. The trouble was it seemed like everything was always damp even without the bad weather.

Sleet fell against her neck, beading off the fibers of her sweater at first, and then finally finding their way in as she hunched over her bundle of wood to protect it.

Further down they went, she could just see him through the brush when she heard a different sound. Her hair stood on end and she eased herself down to the ground to drop the firewood so she could reach for her knife.

A gurgle mixed with the telltale hiss, but it wasn't moving around. Her ears strained, trying to make it out through the sounds of the storm. Eyes adjusting to the lowering light she caught sight of a flash of yellow, an arm twitching in a hiking jacket.

At the base of a continuation of the rocky outcropping they'd found their cave in, was a walker, twitching on top of a large fallen tree, impaled through the abdomen by one of its broken branches. Bone showed through it in several places and it was clearly wasting. Given enough time the elements would tear its body apart to the point where it wouldn't be much more than a head.

Eyes glued on it just in case, she gave a whistle to get Stu's attention. If it wasn't going anywhere, she'd make sure she had backup watching. Things were too tenuous to be even remotely blase about it. Besides, he could help her get the thing's pack off.

He had his knife in hand as he got to her, ears pricked for any more. "Thru hiker you think?"

"If we're lucky, they carry a lot of lightweight gear. I'd kill for a jet boil and some dehydrated food right about now."

Checking her grip on her knife she circled around to its head and jammed the blade into its eye, silencing the gurgling. She gave it another jab in the other eye for good measure.

"You like to be thorough." He commented.

"Double-tap. Didn't you ever watch zombie movies?"

He smirked and grabbed the walker by the coat to pull it off the tree. "No wonder you're still alive. You've been preppin' for this."

She gave a wry chuckle and started unbuckling the hiking pack. "Yeah, too bad those always scared the shit outta me."

They stripped it of the pack, though they left the coat, the whole thing had been soaked by decomposition and neither of them wanted to try and clean out the boots.

"Take this back to Carl, see what we scored. I'll finish gettin' the firewood."

June stuck her arms through the straps and grabbed onto his outstretched arms to help her stand. The thing was fucking heavy, not the right size for her, and felt like it had been packed full of rocks to boot.

"You good?"

She shuffled her shoulders as he tentatively let go. "Yeah, think so."

To keep it stable enough for the short walk he tightened the straps with cold fingers and before she could stop him he was pulling the hip pads around, securing the buckle in front. His knuckles brushed against her belly and she froze, watching and waiting to see if he noticed anything.

But they were both chilled, hands frozen, and her sweater was thick. He didn't seem to notice anything.

Or if he did, he was keeping it to himself.

"That should do it, get movin' before you freeze. I'll be there in five."

Leaning forward slightly she stepped heavily, making marks in the dirt as deep as she could so as not to slip. She was winded by the time she reached Carl and flopped onto her ass as soon as she was under the rock.

"We scored big tonight, kid." She said breathlessly, unbuckling. "Not so lucky for the hiker who lost it but pretty lucky for us."

He could see the stain on the bag, smell the telltale smell. "You saw a walker?"

She could tell he'd gotten used to the lack of them, he was more unsettled about it than she was. "Not much of a walker by now. Thru hiker that got trapped a long time ago, we took care of it. No friends either."

Hoping to distract him she pulled open the rain flap on the back and loosened the draw string. Methodically packed, she unloaded the bag laying out a bear can, water filter, and in the very bottom a down sleeping bag.

She grinned with Carl. "We're sleeping warm tonight."

Stu's voice quipped from the cave entrance and he dropped an armful of wood in the dry dirt. "Please tell me that's a sleeping bag I see."

She stood and shook it out and Carl got to work on the fire. "A nice one too, must've cost a pretty penny."

Being first a boy scout and then an apocalypse survivor had made Carl quick at building a fire near the back wall and it started crackling as Stu peeled his shirt off and reached for his flannel. June couldn't help herself, her eyes scanned over the firm plane of his shoulderblades and back before she realized what she was doing, snapping her eyes away right as he turned back around.

"Here, lemme see that." He finished the last button on his shirt and reached for the sleeping bag, which left her hands limply. "You should get out of that sweater." He unzipped the bag until it was one flat sheet and held it up between her and them like a screen.

Shaking from either the cold or nerves or both, she turned her back, glancing over her shoulder quickly to make sure his head was blocked by the sleeping bag. Twice as heavy as when she put it on, the sweater came off, and her thermal underneath. The layers had done her a favor in disguising things for sure, but if they saw her without them they'd know something was up. Soon that wouldn't even matter, but she'd think about that tomorrow…or maybe the day after.

When her thermal hit the ground he draped the sleeping bag around her, waiting until he was sure she had it tight in her fists before letting go.

The lightweight fabric stuck to her damp skin but she could immediately feel heat collecting around her

With a hot fire, a rationed bag of dehydrated food to share between them, and a small bite of a coveted Snickers bar each, their spirits were up even as the sleet turned to a wet snow.

Slowly they were able to dry their clothes, layering back up and then she and Carl huddled under the sleeping bag. It was the warmest she'd been in weeks, and Carl fell asleep as soon as she unzipped her coat and pulled it around them both.

Stu stoked the fire and added more wood, sitting back on his heels as he did.

"Think we've got enough for the night?" She asked in a whisper, so as not to disturb Carl.

He didn't think so, and neither did she, but he nodded convincingly. "I'll keep an eye on it." His cap was set low over his eyes, tight to preserve as much heat as possible and his blanket was folded high around his neck.

They didn't say anything, in case Carl could hear, but they did share a look that said they both knew they'd run out. As if to punctuate the issue, a gust of wind caught the cave entrance just right and ruffled the flames.

She pointedly flicked her eyes from him to the sleeping bag. He hadn't gutted either of them yet, she was starting to believe more concretely that the cold was going to prove far more dangerous than Stu ever would, so she wasn't going to let him hunch by the fire half the night.

He didn't come across as eager to follow her suggestion, but he was definitely relieved to some degree. Bunching up his blanket he tucked half its length around her head and crawled in under the sleeping bag on the other side of Carl where Stu then tucked the rest of it around his.

After the quick gust of cold air as he got under it, the added heat wasn't easy to mistake. They locked eyes as they laid there with Carl between them, both scared, both grasping for something. She didn't know what that was, for him or for her, but something about the connection made a knot build in her throat. He must've had his own to contend with as she thought she caught the shine of a tear rolling from the corner of his eye onto the blanket.

Lonely, maybe. She supposed she was too. It had been long weeks since the prison and she had plenty to be scared about.

June felt her own tear fall, keeping still as Stu shifted, waiting to see what he was doing. She was a little afraid, but curious enough to let him do it. His hand slipped out from the warmth and ever so slowly, his thumb brushed the tear away. His skin was rough and he moved so gently it was almost like he was asking permission for each millimeter.

Then he retreated, careful not to jostle Carl. He gave a hint of a nod to her, a silent suggestion of sleep. He'd keep an ear out, watch the fire, and June believed him enough to listen.