Let's face the dawn together.
-The Sweetlings, Hold Me

Phil

Earlier

Wirrow pushes me down as if I were nothing. I register the impact, a split second after the knife hits before I'm on the concrete and my body convulses.

Surely, nothing could hurt as much as this. Fire explodes in my side and I don't even feel it draw back out, just the hit and the sudden force of the pain that doubles me over into myself.

He pulls the knife back and I curl into around the wound. Almost immediately, blood begins to spread outward beneath my hand. My palm pushes hard against the wound and I press against my side, begging for more pressure to make it stop, to end the impossible amount of pain but it only returns in rippling waves whenever I gasp in a breath.

He turns the stained blade over in his fingers for a moment, looking at the light reflected off my blood before dropping the knife carelessly at my level. The sound clangs and I go limp, squeezing my eyes shut at the sharp sound.

He stabbed me, my mind manages to think dully. My vision is swimming.

And then he's laughing. It's low and satisfied and he turns the way he had before without sparing me a second glance, the thought registering in my mind that he must assume I'm going to die here.

I open my mouth to scream and it comes out as a moan, choked off and so weak he just looks pleased.

I can't let him leave this room. If he leaves the room, he'll go to Dan.

"Stop me." Wirrow says quietly. "I dare you."

My breath shudders out and I feel tears trickle down my cheeks, limbs and body shaking mostly out of shock. If the wound doesn't kill me the shock might, I feel simultaneously hot and cold at once.

A shout sounds down the hall and Wirrow's gaze jerks away from me, he looks alarmed and shoots me a satisfied look as I try to lift my head. Then he's gone- heading straight ahead in the direction that I know must be Dan's.

It hits me then, how alone I am. My head sinks against the cold concrete of the floor and I see the knife in my immediate vision, breaths heaving at the sight of my blood staining the metal.

I want to scream, to do something. My body is shaking but I'm terrified of what it could mean for me to give up. But what can I do?

I try to stand, and find that even sitting up causes rippling pain in my sides. I can't fight with just my hands, though Harley's gun sits against my skin. I can't break out of here or escape alone like Dan wants. There's no obvious way outside.

But the door- it's open.

Fear washes over me and a determined fire surges in my heart. I reach out desperately and grab the knife that may have cut my life short, still trembling slightly at the sight of it, gripping the doorknob hard and heaving myself to my feet.

It takes a tremendous amount of effort. Standing sends waves of pain and I fall to my knees on the first try. I press my hand hard against the wound and grit my teeth as I put weight on shaking legs, forcing myself up and letting my racing heart drive me forward. With each fall my heart drops, knowing I have almost no time. Anything could happen in this space and I need to move fast before it's too late.

The hallway is empty. It's clear that Wirrow wants neither witnesses nor help for this. This is his moment, his night to find the cure and destroy it. I can hear his threatening words even from here. This is his home, he doesn't need security.

He thinks I'm dead. I nearly am.

When I finally manage to stay on my feet I clutch my knife, letting go of the doorknob. Almost immediately, I nearly fall.

I take a deep breath, my balance returns. If Wirrow thinks I'm dead then he won't see this coming, I don't feel fear anymore and the pain suddenly seems meaningless. He's taken what I loved most in the world and this may be the last chance I ever have to do something, anything about it. The Confederation thinks it has power over our lives but I won't let them take his, even if he's made me promise it. This is one promise I'll break, because I won't let it end like this.

As my hand finds the wall of the hallway and I make my way towards the door I somehow know they are behind, it burns in me like a fire. Words that shatter the silence like glass, perhaps the thought I'll think with my dying breath. I won't let it end like this. I won't go quietly and let this happen.

I won't let Dan die.

~~~

Memory and reality merge in this moment. Blood runs hot in my veins, soaks my side, stains grey concrete red. I shut my eyes and it eases just a little, the nightmares easing slightly. Whatever it is, this can't be reality.

Maybe this is heaven. Maybe it's hell.

For a moment, I'm not alive and I'm not dead. I don't know who I am or where I am, my arms are clutching something- a body? A person? Clutching them like they're my last tie in this jaded hallucination. My vision is dark, vaguely I hear the rapid-fire sound of gunshots and fighting down a distant corridor, but it means nothing. If I'm dead, I shouldn't care. Nothing matters anymore. The rebels are here but I don't feel joy, they're too late now.

I must be sick because my grip on reality is slipping and something worse than pain is crushing me from the inside out, because I'm holding my entire world in my arms, and there's no waking up from this. My eyes open, and the image doesn't change.

My heart stops in my chest as I feel Dan go still.

"Dan." I choke out immediately, my breaths shuddering out at the blank look in his eyes and the words I was saying to him cut off midsentence. "Dan."

As soon as I sit up stars explode across my vision and a white-hot stinging pain tears across my side but I blink hard, gasping in a sharp breath and heaving with the pain of it. My trepidation only grows when I reach down to cup his face and find it cool to the touch, his eyes falling closed and a trickle of blood in the corner of his mouth.

"No." I gasp.

No. It's reeling in my mind in an endless loop, spiralling and pounding in my heartbeat because it can't be possible. No. No.

His face is slack and pale. Blue veins crisscross his skin and he's so cold, so impossibly cold that a sick feeling rises in my throat. I realize that he's more zombie than human now, it crashes into me in an instant, sheer panic as he slumps against me and my brain loses all form of rationality. Dan can't die. I've lost track of how many times I've choked out his name, pleading for something else.

I feel my heart collapse in my chest. His cheeks beneath my fingers are fragile and devoid of the warmth they've always held, stained by the blood on my hand and the moment I pull back and see it, left behind by my fingers, I lose my mind.

I scream then. It tears out of me and rips through my being as I clutch his limp body against my chest, arms coming up to hold him and fingers twisting into his hair because I'm going mad, surely. Tears burn in my eyes and surge down my cheeks, constrict my throat and make each gasp an ordeal. I clutch him against my body like I can give my warmth to him, his last words to me still playing over and over in my mind.

I love you. He'd breathed.

The virus is still. His blood is probably stagnant. But I still draw back, trembling arms trying to uselessly to wake him up.

I'll marry you one day.

"Dan!" I scream. I press my face into his neck and my breaths shudder over his skin. It's still doesn't feel real- it can't be.

Behind us Wirrow is still, lying crumpled. I don't feel anything towards him, not victory or remorse or lingering fear. I don't fear the other Confederation soldiers in this building. The rebels are attacking right now somewhere, the fighting sounds are closer than they had been before but I don't care. Humanity means nothing to me now, because I'm losing Dan.

I pull back from him and my hand skims over his chest, pressing down frantically right over his heart. His head hangs heavy as I splay my fingers, desperate for something, anything.

My hand has grown used to a steady beat there. That gentle thrum when we'd fall asleep together, the frantic pace when we were in danger. The breathless racing when he'd arched against me last night under the stars, a feeling as loving and passionate as the one that came from looking into his dark eyes. With his skin colourless now and his wounds deeply prominent, it feels a million years away.

I wait for agonizing seconds, feeling nothing but stillness. No heartbeat. There's nothing beneath my shaking palm, no air in my lungs.

Until something flutters beneath my skin.

A pulse.

But it's not a strong pulse. It's barely there at all. It flutters weakly, then stops for so long my world crashes down all over, thinking I've lost him. I've gone from hopeless to terrified to both at once.

I gasp, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him.

"No." I snap. I shudder out a breath, tears choking out my words and rolling down my cheeks. "Dan. Dan, stay with me. You can't die. Stay with me."

His eyes are half-shut, glazed over and unfocused.

I lift my hands, hitting his cheeks and trying to lift his head. The weakest sound leaves him at that, the faintest huff of air- a pained groan, and the heartbeat picks up again.

Please. I plead silently. Please.

My own heart surges and my eyes widen because he's alive, some fierce and stubborn part of him is still holding on and fighting like he depends on it, and he does. His body has lost consciousness but it isn't giving up. I hold him tighter, trying to keep that part afloat.

But what can I do? He can't hold on forever.

A faint breath leaves him and deliriously I pull him close and press my lips into his hair, tears falling far too heavily now to try and stop them.

"It's okay, Dan." I whisper into his curls. "I've got you. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I've got you."

I try to sit up and immediately a burning sting shoots through my abdomen, doubling me over. I cry out as my hand presses to my stomach, feeling dizzy as soon as the blood rushes to my knife wound. It's on my fingers and staining his cheeks from my touch, my immune blood so close to his contaminated. It's not fair.

There's an awful, deadly silence where I don't do anything. My arms wrap around him, pressing him to me protectively. I don't know what to do. The only sounds are my shuddering breaths and gunshots far off. All I can feel is the wet warmth at my side.

We're dying, the both of us. If I shut my eyes right now, who knows if I'd ever wake up?

I'm in pain. I'm in so much pain that my body aches to scream, my side pulsing with surges of burning heat and my heart aching because I'm losing the love of my life.

I'm not going to let him die. My arms give him warmth and my heartbeat gives him something steady, nothing will touch him ever again. I can see the skin around his wrists that's been rubbed raw from being bound and I have to look away, tears burning in my eyes.

My hand goes back to his chest, gentler now. The faint heartbeat flutters against my palm, alive but not living. That's when I start to cry, face pressing into the crook of his neck, sobs muffled into his skin. I cry into his chilly shoulder with a feeling of being utterly alone and helpless, trapped here in this heartless place with the body of the man who killed him and blood staining us all.

He shudders as a drop hits his skin, breathing in a painful breath and twitching against me for a moment before he goes still. It's not in response to what I said this time. It's just another part of him being lost to the virus, taking over his limbs.

Helpless. Useless. We're both going to die here and I didn't save him in time. How can I ever live with that?

I don't know if it's worse than before. I got a chance to say goodbye but now there's so much pain, both in my wounds and in my heart.

He'd told me I sounded just like him as his eyes began to flutter shut. It's as if suddenly, sharply, I can see us in the junkyard, Dan's eyes going wide and his hands going out to catch me as the monster bit me and my vision went dark. It's as if I'm him, watching through his eyes, holding the person I loved more than anything as they die.

This is what Dan saw in the junkyard.

This is what he felt.

I hold him until my head starts to swim and I don't feel the pain, barely registering the sounds of frantic voices echoing down the halls.

It takes me a moment to realize how defenceless I am, one gun against whatever comes next.

I clutch Dan tighter, fear striking my heart as they get closer. If it's Confederation soldiers there's no way they'll let us live for this. I curl my fingers at his back and lift up the gun once again, determined that no matter how this ends, they'll never take Dan away from me again. I can't drag him away, I'm rooted here by the weight of his body. We can't get out.

When Dan lost me that night in the junkyard, he'd refused to let me go. I know that much just for the fact that I'm alive. He had the gun that could have killed me but instead of pointing it at me, he turned it on himself. It used to terrify me to imagine something so dark and horrible, hurt beyond belief to imagine Dan- loving, beautiful Dan ever feeling that way but now with his body in my arms and the gun of another held in my hand it all suddenly makes sense.

I try to imagine a world with that doesn't have Dan and the scariest thing is I can't. I don't know how I could ever do this without him, I don't even know how to be myself without him. He was the one that made my best parts my best parts, I felt infinite when he met my eyes. The trouble is, when life hands you the opposite of that, you realize life is fragile as glass. Ten thousand thoughts and feelings, millions of people in the world, and we are alone.

I wonder if we're both going to die here. If he dies, there's nothing left for me. I'm not afraid to die by the Confederation like I used to be but I also feel so detached from myself. I'm nothing but pain and a broken, faintly beating heart, clinging onto the most primal of urges to live. I don't know why I'm trying, but giving up when he hasn't would be betraying him when it's my only chance.

Dan moans in pain, the sound a knifeblade in my heart.

I'd told him it was okay to let go, to die, but that doesn't mean it's what I wanted. I don't want to condemn him to a death of pain and suffering, to an existence where his body isn't his and his memories erased by sickness. He should have lived long and gone quietly, not a star that burnt out too soon. He's changed the world but he won't get to see it. Not if I do nothing.

"Shh." I soothe in a faint voice, brushing back his hair because I don't know what to do. I know my comforting is useless but I can't control my natural impulses. At one time, comforting him had felt just as natural a reflex as breathing.

I can't take the notion that he's gone. I'm forcing his heart to keep beating. My mind is blank, my thoughts focused on him and my stomach feeling sick at the lack of colour in his skin. It's almost bluish. I'm prolonging his pain and I hate myself for it but I can't let him go. I can't.

The air feels electric and tangible in a way that is painful. I'm aware of every nerve ending in his body, each beat of his dying heart. I don't even hear the sound of someone else entering the room until a voice startles me.

"Phil." I hear suddenly. It pierces the buzzing nothing that had filled the air before and my delirious heart stops thinking it's Dan, but it isn't.

We aren't alone. Someone's found us.

I forget where I am. All I can think is how someone has arrived to finally end this for good, to kill Dan and take me away from him and use my blood before I'm inevitably killed too. It would be convenient, at this point. Life has reduced itself to a darkened room and the compression of my loss and terror, I'm probably too weak to even fight.

My eyes widen and my head snaps to the side to see someone stood in the doorway, a slight, pale little boy with a mop of brown curls and silver eyes, a hollowed but childish face that had nearly vanished from my memory.

At first I think I'm hallucinating.

I must be sick. There no way that this world can be real anymore. Any moment now confederation soldiers will rush in. My heart is pounding, pain still thrumming in my side.

I shudder and hold onto Dan, staring at the figure as if he might disappear. I shut my eyes and clench my fists in Dan's shirt.

After all the things that have happened, the hundreds of miles we've travelled, how could he be here? Because I definitely know this boy. Maybe it's awful that I'd nearly forgotten about him but it's only because I'd let him go the same way I'd forced myself to let go of all of the dead, sure there was no way we'd never see him again. Dan himself had broken under the guilt of thinking he'd let him be killed.

Yet here he is.

I wait for my vision to waver and for the boy to vanish.

He doesn't.

He's a half-life, smaller than a normal child his age and expression just as stunned as mine. He gapes, sounding nothing short of shocked at what he's walked into. He stands still, as if wary as to whether or not he should approach.

"You're here." He says quietly. "You're actually here."

"D-" my voice is hoarse and I feel my chest constrict, mind flashed back to weeks ago with visions of blazing fires and a bone-strewn camp, snarling wolves and emaciated faces with silver eyes. I'm thinking of Marzia and the confessions I made to her on the hill while Dan and Mark scoped below, of their capture and a boy, a little boy risking himself to find us and tell us something was wrong-

"Dil." I gasp.

Confusion rushes forward at blinding speed. The world has turned upside-down.

Moments and terrors and memories surge in out of nowhere and it feels like the collision of an entirely different universe, who I was and who I am overlapping bizarrely as past and present merge because it should be impossible.

This little boy was torn away from us after the half-life camp, not a chance in hell of seeing him again. My heart begins to beat out of my chest and his eyes widen in recognition, his feet carrying him forward before he can stop himself.

He makes it about two steps in before freezing at the sight of Wirrow, eyes going wide with disbelief. He looks at the body and he looks at the blood.

"Holy shit." He exclaims. "Phil-"

My head is spinning and I don't know if it's because I'm dying or because Dil is alive. My sick mind is full of scenarios. His life for Dan's, reality twisting itself to revive the parts of my past I'd tried to let go of and my present that I cannot be without.

"How-" My voice shudders out and the rest comes out a cracked gasp, how can you be here replaced with pain.

He seems to understand though, barely giving me time to comprehend that of all people the Confederation has brought him to us and he's miraculously still alive.

"I snuck out of the lab when I heard about the rebels-"

He turns on the spot and that's when his gaze finds the both of us on the ground and his eyes land on the lifeless form in my arms, a gasp leaving him.

"Wait- what's wrong with Dan?!"

I see his eyes going wide and remember Dan saw so much more of that little boy than I did. None of us had been very kind to him, but Dan had wished to save his life after we lost him. They'd escaped that camp together.

"Dil." I say blankly. I'm trembling and nothing makes sense anymore, I just don't understand how he could be alive. He looks at me worriedly, my lack of response and Dan's condition settling over the room more heavily than shadow.

"You have to get out of here." He says. I flinch and shake my head, panicking when Dan's head lolls against my chest.

"How-"

"They brought me here the night after you guys escaped so my camp wouldn't kill me. They wanted information but that's not important, Phil you have to go-"

I clutch Dan against me and lurch to sit up, only to collapse as my limbs seemingly refuse to follow the commands of my brain.

"I-I can't-" I try to sit up again and end up falling as my elbow buckles under the weight of propping me up, catching Dil's attention.

"Hold on." He gasps. He turns towards the door and keeps us in the corner of his vision, picking up on the urgency of the moment only now. "Holy shit. Hang in there, Phil. I just need to- guys! Guys, I found them! I found them they're here-!"

Shouts answer him and he turns back to me, eyes wide. His gaze skims over the ruined fabric of my sweater and the dark red coating my hands.

"You're covered in blood." He mumbles. "The rebels were afraid it would be too late, I tried to track you and Wirrow by blood and when you were together I thought-"

"Dan?" Someone else exclaims from the hall. The familiarity of the voice hits me and it's only moments later that Mr. Howell bursts in, eyes frantic and nearly half a dozen people behind him, all armed and looking around wildly. His face drains of colour the moment he sees his son.

"They're here!" A rebel man barks. "Come quick! They're hurt!"

It's odd, but I feel the weird and totally inappropriate urge to laugh as another wave of pain rolls through me, making me shudder.

Hurt. Our state is being reduced to a small form of injury, when ironically enough it's almost like we're probably dying in a romantic twist of fate. Dan and Phil, damned to the end, the lovers who died together. It must be the blood loss, I can feel my grip on reality slipping.

My head begins to spin and instantly two guys are surging in and kneeling by us, reaching for Dan and reaching for my hands to pry them away from where Wirrow stabbed me. Blinding panic hits me, a gasp leaving me.

I forget where I am, don't see allies before me. All I see are strangers trying to separate me from Dan.

I shake my head, pressing Dan against my chest and crying out. I can't let them touch him. Their hands go back immediately, eyes widening at the choked sound that leaves me when they try to pull him away.

I've been stabbed and I can barely walk, can barely keep my eyes open let alone separate from Dan. If I let him go he's out of my hands and into the hands of others. If I leave, I'm letting him die.

Mr. Howell seems to understand this, reaching out and pushing past them to get over to us. Before I can focus, he's reached forward and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't touch him." He snaps at the men. His hands are shaking but the command and the touch calms me, reducing my racing heartbeat enough to comprehend that someone understands how I feel. I still see Dil watching us warily, unable to look away from Dan.

"Did they infect him?" Mr. Howell asks frantically. His eyes are fixed on his son, unable to look away.

I look up at him through my tears and watch transfixed as his hand reaches forward to smooth back Dan's hair, his fingers trembling as he looks down at his son's form with same pain I feel at the vacant expression. My heart twists in my chest. I can't imagine what it must feel like to see your child like that.

"He thought Dan was immune." I get out. "He tried to find the cure a-and inject him with the virus."

The room goes silent and it's like everything has suddenly fitted together, horror and realization on everyone's faces. My heart beats hard in my chest and familiar and unfamiliar faces alike exchange glances, the truth of the matter sinking in.

There's silence for a moment, then chaos.

"We have to get him to camp!" A man barks. He reaches for Dan again and I do scream this time, making him stumble back.

"No!"

"That's an hour away! There's no time!" Mr. Howell shouts. "We have to find Jack, he's the only one that can help him."

"Jack could be anywhere in the building." The man responds. "The kid'll be long gone by the time we find him."

Desperation crackles through the air like electricity. Dan is shuddering now and my heart drops as the others catch sight of it.

"Phil, get away from him." Dil exclaims.

Several people raise their guns and even Mr. Howell takes a step back, but I'm frozen in place.

He can't be turning, not yet. Not now. Wirrow had told him the cure, there's a way to save him. They have to know that. They have to help him-

"He needs immune blood to bond with his!" I gasp, staring wildly at the soldiers holding guns until my words register. "That's the cure. That's what it is. You have to help him."

"You're the only one that's immune." Mr. Howell reminds me.

I'm not leaving Dan. There's no way in hell they'll ever separate me and him again. I'm not letting him die. He can't become a zombie.

I feel frustration building, angry that nothing is happening when I'm literally losing Dan. The responses are too slow.

"So use me!" I snap. "I have a fucking stab wound in my side. Take the blood and do something, I-"

Only then do I look to Dan, to where my fingers had stained his cheeks earlier, only to see the blood is gone. It takes a second to register, my words cutting off midsentence.

The sight is surreal, the clean, flushed span of his skin staring out at me. There's bruises and scrapes on his face but the blood from my hands, the evidence of Wirrow's attack on me when I'd cupped Dan's face in my hand...

"Phil?" Mr. Howell asks worriedly, clearly unsettled by my sudden silence.

The blood is gone. There's colour in his cheeks where it has touched his skin though the rest of him is pale, almost as if he were alive in some parts of his body but not others. As if the virus had been driven back, the immunity in my blood seeking out the virus and-

The immunity, I realize instantly. My immunity absorbed into his blood.

It's keeping him alive temporarily, driving the virus back with the insufficient dose. There isn't enough of it to bind with the infection and save him but it's prolonging his life, the conclusion slamming into me with sheer disbelief.

"My blood." I blurt.

"It is doing something." Mr. Howell realizes aloud.

My breath catches and I freeze, processing the meaning for a moment.

"But he's still unconscious." The soldier speaks up, eyes flicking back to the door nervously. "It probably needs to be properly administered to stop the transition. We need a way to get the immunity into his bloodstream or at the very least reverse the effects or this will only be temporary."

It's clear that we have nothing, not a needle or any other medical instrument. The syringe Wirrow used on him is tainted with the virus and making a cut in his skin wouldn't keep the blood internal. I stare hard at the circle of people and see the hopelessness I feel reflected right back in their expressions, a shiver running through me because I'm still losing blood and the room is so cold.

My mind races, having never pleaded so much for an idea to come. My mind feels blank and I want to scream, pain ripping through me at the knowledge that I'm letting him die.

Then, suddenly, Dil speaks up.

"I'm a half-life." He exclaims. "I could... turn him. Or- or un-turn him."

For a second his words make no sense and I feel frustrated. Then, the notion registers.

My eyes widen, having never considered the possibility. I wonder if it's ever happened before, a half-life consenting to turn a person about to become a zombie. Assuming Dil is more alive than a zombie is, it could be entirely possible that being a half-life is equivalent to having partial immunity. The realization knocks me near-breathless.

I gape at him, seeing him meet my gaze right back. He's not really informing or asking the others what they think of this. He's asking me.

"It's the last chance to do anything, maybe. There's not enough time to get to the lab."

My heart begins to pound. I close my warm hand around Dan's cold one and feel him shudder as more immunity absorbs in that part of his body, driving back the virus temporarily.

"Do you think that could actually work?" Some other soldier speaks up, stepping out from behind the others. Harley.

She looks into my eyes and somehow seeing her, seeing the indirect reason that either of us might be alive at all right now grounds me enough to think clearly. She must have come here with them on purpose, joined in on this rescue mission of sorts because clearly they've found Mr. Howell and now they've saved us. If she's okay, they must all be.

"I have at least a small amount of immunity." Dil answers. "If I infect his blood it might keep him alive long enough to get back. It's our only chance."

"But how will you-?" I don't even finish the question as he looks to me seriously, his expression uncomfortable but full of intent.

We all know how it has to happen. For a half life to infect a human they have to bite them, something Dil has probably never done. Dan will probably have the scar forever.

But he could live.

I nod without really feeling it and I can feel the eyes of the entire room on us as the reality sinks in. My hand is still clutched in Dan's but his other hand lies vulnerable, pale wrist exposed to the air.

Dil doesn't hesitate to step forward even though a couple soldiers look alarmed, reaching for Dan's wrist with an apprehensive but determined expression.

I'm shaking. My head feels dizzy and Mr. Howell meets my eyes, staring at me sadly, steeling himself.

"Remember why I'm doing this." Dil tells me quietly. He watches as I slowly let go of Dan's hand and let his father shift him so that his head rests in my lap, the colour fading from his skin again and his expression still. He looks for all the world like he could be asleep. I steady my hands and I steady him, watching Dil lift his arm gently and turn his hand.

My arms feel like cotton. My one hand is still in Dan's and I clutch it even as I sink back against the wall because my head is swimming. I squeeze his limp fingers gently and silently pray to entities I don't even believe in, not sure if I can take this.

It has to happen, I remind myself. It's happening to save his life. Even still, I'm so afraid for him.

I have to close my eyes as it happens. As it is I still hear him cry out in agony, one long, unbroken scream that makes my blood run cold and a million different emotions to slice through me. I gasp and pitch forward and I feel hands- I don't even know whose, steady me.

Reassuring voices urge me to calm down. All I can think is how he can't be dead but now he's been bitten too.

He must be alive if he's screaming like that.

And then Mr. Howell has stepped forward with his face pale. He reaches for Dan and Harley helps him, lifting him up with only brief glances at me as another soldier I don't know steps in to handle most of the weight. His weight leaves me and quite suddenly his hand is tugged out of mine and I can't see him, just a flash of broken bloody skin and a tuft of curls.

And then they're taking Dan, my Dan, carrying him over their shoulders as time runs out. Dil has sunk to the floor with his head in his hands and Harley is comforting him, I can't see the blood if there is any.

It takes a few seconds to register they're taking him away from me.

"No!" I scream. I panic. I try to grab an arm, pushing right past the man keeping me steady to stop them, but my legs give out. "No! Dan!"

My heart drops. They can't take Dan. They have to take me too. He could die and it would be all my fault because I left him alone. I'm hyperventilating and I can't calm it even though it's dizzying with no air in my lungs and I'm dangerously close to blacking out.

They'll never bring him back. I'll never see him again. They're taking Dan away from me forever and he's never going to see the world he's saved.

Then more people are running into the room, guns pointed behind them in case of attack. Several of them stop dead and cry out in surprise when they see me. Others point their guns, but it's Mark that my eyes go to when he bursts in through the door, his eyes going wide the second they land on me.

Mark. Mark. Mark.

"Phil!" He rushes forward just as they take Dan out, his arm looping around my chest. It's like the moment he holds me back all my strength gives out, rebel soldiers both familiar and unfamiliar rushing in.

I sink against his arm, the room swooping and spinning in front of me. I'm still repeating Dan's name uselessly, reaching out my arms.

"Hey. Hey, calm down, buddy." Mark says hurriedly.

"Dan."

"It's ok, they're gonna look after him. We've got you."

He steadies me and guides me over to the other side of the room so we're not in the way, rebel soldiers surrounding Wirrow's body and obscuring it from view.

It's like Mark can't take his eyes off me, his fingers at my shirt just keeping me upright as I finally give up.

"You idiot." He gasps. "Phil you absolute fucking idiot."

My knees give out and I sink into the corner, blinking weakly up at his wide-eyed stare as he kneels next to me and Felix sprints up behind him, his eyes going from Wirrow to me and connecting the dots instantly. They're both wounded- clearly they had to fight to get in here, but someone obviously had information on where they were holding us. How else would we have been found?

He's next to me, yanking off his hoodie and immediately pressing the fabric against my side, a gasp leaving me as he staunches the blood, steadying himself with a hand on my arm.

It hurts at first but then the pain eases as he holds the fabric against the gash, dimming to a low throbbing that causes my breaths to leave in sharp gasps. He barks out orders to some of the people to keep an eye on the doors, but doesn't take his gaze away from me, looking scared for the first time since I've really known him. It's as if he hadn't found us in time. Oddly enough I almost want to hug him, I'm weirdly lightheaded.

Blood soaks through the shirt fabric and the room begins to spin, a weak sound leaving me as my head starts to feel funny, almost like it's floating.

"Stay with me, Phil." He urges. My eyes are drooping shut, heavy like I'm falling asleep. "How the hell did you do this?"

"I didn't plan it." I mumble.

He keeps the shirt pressed to my side and I lift a shaky hand to touch it, wondering how he got here.

"We have to leave now." Felix says worriedly. "The building isn't going to hold up too long once the others get here."

I don't know what he means, accepting the shaking hand that reaches for me and flinching when Mark and Felix try to help my to my feet.

"Can you walk?" Felix asks.

I have to put all my weight on one leg and my arms around their shoulders. "I think so."

If it gets me closer to Dan, I can bear the pain.

Mark looks at me worriedly and when he sees my stressed expression he gestures to Dil, who stares back solemnly, half-hidden eyes on me. We both know what he's done, just a child. I wonder if he's ever bitten anyone ever.

"The Confederation wasn't the only one who had a spy." Mark mutters. "He heard you were at the rebel camp before anyone else did, Wirrow's kept him around for a while trying to get information. Dilly's been behind the scenes for a while apparently."

I sway and someone, Felix maybe, grips my arm.

"You've lost so much blood." Mark's gripping my arm just under my shoulder and his friend moves to help him, letting me sink against them both while I try to keep upright on trembling legs. Now that I'm upright it's very, very clear that I can't walk.

"We have to get you out of here." Felix urges, trying to help me as much as he can without actually putting pressure on my legs. "Harley told us everything on that night you guys ran off. Phil, what were you thinking?"

I can tell he's not actually looking for an answer though. He grips my wrist reassuringly and shoulders most of the burden, the men around us raising their guns.

"I need Dan." I say deliriously. "I need Dan."

Mark shushes me, dark eyes concerned.

"Think about yourself right now. We won't let anything happen to Dan, you know that."

So Mark is here. Felix, Harley and Mr. Howell are here. At some point the rebels communicated with Dil and stormed the place. I notice one member of our group is missing, leaving them and some strangers in this room.

"Chris?" I ask faintly. He was the only other person I knew besides Dan who had someone that mattered to him imprisoned by the Confederation.

"He's going to PJ right now." Felix answers. "Dan's father and PJ were in the building along with some several dozen prisoners. This is the main headquarters. The rebels want to bring down the building."

It washes over me as a whole lot of nothing, confusion muddling my mind and making a headache build in my skull.

"It doesn't matter right now." Mark interjects. "Right now we just have to get you away from the Confederation. We only have a few minutes before this all goes to shit."

I make a weak sound that must sound vaguely like approval because they hoist my arms over both their shoulders and start out of the room, leaving the cold and the blood and Wirrow behind.

Soldiers immediately surround them to protect us and for the first time I fully take in the appearance of the Confed building's halls, gazing blearily over armed gunmen's shoulders to see what looks like any old unassuming office building with stark white walls, save for the fact that it's been very recently under attack. There's bullet holes in the walls and the bodies of Confederation men, passing by in a blur as I try to stay on my feet.

As difficult as it must be, Felix and Mark really do try to keep me from falling. The dull pulsing in my side has turned into a sharp, jarring pain and the shirt pressed against the wound is beginning to soak through.

We make it down two halls before I begin to feel nauseous. It starts with a violently ill feeling and then I just feel dizzy, the both of them crying out in alarm as I collapse and all my weight is passed to them, my breaths coming out gasps.

I can feel sweat on my forehead, staying conscious feeling like an ordeal.

"Stop!" Mark shouts to our guard and the moment they do my friends are kneeling in either side of me, exclaiming things I can't even hear in fearful voices.

One of the guards shouts for backup and I wonder if this is where I'm going to die, Mark's scared dark eyes and Felix's sad blue ones meeting mine just as my body sinks onto the cold hall tile.

"Phil!" Mark shouts. "No!"

"Help Dan." I get out. "Please, just help Dan."

I don't care about anything else. I don't care if I wake up or not. I don't want to wake up without him.

There's a pause, I force myself to keep my eyes open as I stare them down. I'm sinking down because they're right, I've lost far too much blood. Not that there's much I could do about it anyway.

Stay awake. I urge myself. I need to know. I can't go on not knowing.

Mark is the one to break the silence.

"They're trying something." He blurts abruptly, stopping my thoughts in place. "Something they've never tried before. We'll save him."

"But you'll try." I gasp.

Felix shoots him a reproachful look but then resigns to a nod all the same, looking unnerved.

"Yes Phil, but it might not even work." He admits.

"But it could?" My vision is fading and I fight it harder than anything I've ever fought before, desperate to know.

Mark looks at me solemnly, but then nods his head as I sink against his hands.

"It could."

Something still seems strange about the whole thing. How quickly they got here, how they managed to find Dan and I. I don't know how it's possible. It strikes me suddenly as I begin to feel loopy and an odd feeling like amusement washes over me, realizing how convenient it is that they all finally breached the confeds just in the moment it became too late for us both.

"You knew." I croak, reflecting on it all. "You knew where we were. How did you know?"

I need to know how he found us. It's all that really matters at this point.

"I had a guess." He replies with a faint smile.

I nod, and it's the last thing I do before my vision goes dark. My legs give out and I feel voices begin to shout, hands going out to catch me.

A ringing courses through my ears. My vision goes red, black. Empty.

Just as always, I think of Dan. I wonder if he's seeing darkness right now, if he feels afraid or just numb. I wonder if he knows I'm gone at all. I feel calmed that he probably isn't still in pain.

Then I blink my eyes, and all I feel is numb.

~~~

My dreams are dark and more drifting than anything.

It's hours, maybe days later that I awaken, for the first time since before the apocalypse, in the sterile room of a sort of hospital.

I'm surrounded by strangers and at first I can't move. I don't see Dan and all I can think is how the Confederation has taken us again, that this time he's gone for good.

Nurses surround me, surging forward as soon as I gasp in a breath, mumbling something that sounds like gibberish to my barely awake ears.

I scream and fight them, hearing frantic voices urging me to calm down and someone shouting to ask if they should sedate me. This just makes me panic, lurching up and sending pain surging through my head before I'm pushed back down again.

It takes several hands holding me down and soothing voices all around me explaining that it's okay, that this is a rebel hospital and I'm in safe hands before it actually registers and the adrenaline eases. I feel a needle in my shoulder and the fear blurs, confusion riddling my mind instead.

I sink back against the pillows as memories of the headquarters and the escape return and then feel myself relent. A younger attendant tries to touch me and I flinch, making an empty feeling strike me when she yanks her hand away, looking horrified like she's hurt me.

It doesn't take me long to figure out I'm being handled like I'm feral, my maddened awakening frightening everyone.

They answer my questions, give me medication to calm down, a strong dose of morphine that runs sweet and syrupy in my veins and makes my limbs feel like happy, painless clouds.

Drugs to numb the pain, to ease the loss. The advantage of taking down the Confederation is the rebels have much better medicines to work with now, high-tech liquid calm to quiet the madness of my mind. I know now before I'm even fully conscious that some piece of me is gone, who I was before feeling like a hollow shell.

You've lost so much blood, but you will live. One of my attendants tells me. My heart is still going so fast, convinced it's a lie and they're planning to kill me. My mind is a confused mess, torn between the fragile logic that knows the danger is over and the part that is all paranoia, convinced I can't trust anyone ever again.

I'm not used to not being able to trust my own mind. It's indecisive, sending me jolts of panic and then bursts of frustrating logic.

They think I'm traumatized. Now that the fight has gone out of me I just feel numb, taking the pills they give me and sitting by numbly as they prod my sides and check my wounds. I take in the words people say but don't register them, eyes fixed on the window which is covered by a white curtain.

The cure is found. They tell me this like I should be delighted, it was with my blood that they managed it at all. I nod and no one questions the stoic expression, the whole place switches between an air of urgency and an environment of serious, silent thought.

The wound in my side has been stitched up and wrapped in a clean white cotton badge. They want to get my body back to stable before they attempt to use my blood anywhere. They say the world has waited long enough to use immune blood for the cure, that it will be okay to just wait a little longer.

The next bit of information I get is that Dan and I's last feat led to a full-blown attack when they heard we'd been captured, rebels storming the the base and bioexperiment lab. With no one to lead them the organization was in chaos, disorganized and panicked and much more vulnerable once the initial wave of zombies was mowed down. Many surrendered without so much as a fight, some had even been kept there against their will for the last year by the Confederation so they went willingly and even exposed secrets and strategies. The main building was destroyed, enemy survivors taken prisoner.

I'm dehydrated and healing still. My head begins to hurt and they tell me to lie down, to stay still and not disturb my wounds. I do so numbly, only able to think of Dan.

People come to visit me periodically, breaking up my days. The first to visit me is Mark, who tells me I'm in the rebel hospital, an old abandoned apartment building whose upper floors were refurbished and fiercely protected. The lower floors are empty, both to keep patients away from the reach of zombies and to make the building look unassuming to intruders. He tells me a couple stories about the day that Harley had rushed back to the camp with Micheal and announced what had happened, from the panicked confusion to the call of action, to the early and unanticipated invasion that the confeds obviously weren't aware of.

He returns another day with Felix, who has learned that both Beard and Earring are missing. James is okay, he was also captured by the Confederation and was terrified when the rebels found him. The Confederation was going to interrogate him, but he was rescued in time and is now with his brother in the building. I want to see him, but they say it's probably not a good idea yet. Nothing has been said to either boy about their father or uncle. The outlook isn't good.

I see Emily from the abandoned house the one day, she brings me food and asks if I want company. I say I don't, staring up at the cracked ceiling as the sun sinks in the sky again, unable to shut my thoughts off. She says she understands but still brings me a tea one time in the middle of the night, leaving it at my bedside without so much as a word. After that, she checks up on me. She tells me I'm not alone, and even though I don't answer her it keeps me from shutting my eyes and wishing to never open them again.

More people come in and out, some stay longer than others. The days drag on and I stop answering at all, stop asking questions because nobody knows anything about Dan so it's pointless to ask. All of them leave eventually once I don't answer. None of them are Dan.

Two days. Three.

Dan is here. You can see him soon. One nurse finally tells me, a younger man in a hoodie whose sterile gloves are the only indication of what he is.

"When?" It's the only words I've spoken in nearly twenty four hours.

"Between you and me." He confides, "No plans have been made yet. I've been talking to your friend Mark, trying to arrange something for as soon as you can walk. I don't think your recovery will be helped at all if you don't get to see him."

It's the closet thing I get to feeling anything compelling, this small relief that at least someone understands.

It takes days before actual plans are made, hours into the last day before I finally get an answer. Once I'm allowed to sit up I stare out the window sitting in the wall next to my bed to pass the time, fogging up the glass and wiping it away when it gets cold. Sometimes I draw shapes, but they're quickly blurred into nothing.

The nights are the worst. With darkness comes exhaustion and with exhaustion comes dreams, cloudy and grey and disjointed. They're unsettling and I wake feeling barely rested, my early hours spent staring at the ceiling. It feels endless but goes by in a blink, everything hazy and grey.

I've developed a routinely internal voice, reminding me to live and do basic life functions so I don't have strangers checking up on me all the time. It keeps me sane when looking out at grey walls and grey sky and grey city just aren't enough.

Now you have to take a nap, Phil. Remember to take your medications, Phil. It's a dull, quiet voice in my head that's no more alive than me. The nurses approve though. They praise me for my efforts because they didn't see what I was like before. They don't realize how lifeless I am in comparison to Phil Lester.

I drink water. I eat, barely. I get up only to use the washroom and to have my bandages checked when I can finally stand. I keep breathing for some reason. Time drags on and on and I stop speaking. The nurse in the hoodie turns out to be kind and sympathetic, he sits next to my bed each evening and tells me what he's heard, easing the troubles of my mind.

I stare out the window most of the time even when people are talking to me, ignoring them all, until they seem to realize I'm not going to reply.

Selective mutism. A doctor calls it. I feel angry that they're using the one of the limited number of doctors left in this apocalypse on me when so many people are in dire need. I'm not a hero. I have the honour of a blood type that destroyed the world.

The city is turning to autumn by now, vibrant greens, oranges and reds colouring the red and brown brick buildings further as trees turn their leaves. The sky goes from vibrant blue to warm caramel every night.

I heal slowly, my wounds smaller and the days passing, and eventually my kind nurse who talked about Dan is the only person of interest besides Mark that I even bother to turn my head towards. I let my internal voice nudge me, try to muster the energy to lift my heavy shoulders.

Someone wants to talk to you, Phil. It says. Ask him questions.

He has news. I listen to him and learn that the bite from Dil on Dan worked they think, but it's never been tried before.

Never has a half-life bitten a zombie, at least not with the intention to heal. The partial immunity in their cells is not always strong enough to transfer he tells me, but Dil is young and children's immune systems at this age are stronger than older ones. The intent with the bite had been to try and halt Dan's transition, to reverse it back to life. Fighting fire with fire, they're calling it. Like Dan's life is just some medical practice.

"It's worked they think, but the transition is very, very slow."

As it is, rebel scientists still know very little about half-lifes in general, let alone the concentration in immune cells that may or may not be present in them. I am the only fully immune person, the one instrument to the true cure, and there's no way a zombie that had been turned for a while could even have the temporary cure attempted on them. It's a shot in the dark and no one knows anything, the only reason they think it's worked on Dan is because he's neither died nor turned.

"He was so close to turning but his body put up a fight, I'm told." The nurse man says softly. "You can go see him eventually, but we have to be sure he'll live."

I take this in and all I hear is the word 'eventually', which is too long. That's too much time and I can't stand to wait any longer. I don't want his life balanced on the cusp of when and if. It makes me avert my eyes, ready to block him out if anything more awful is said.

I should be grateful that this person is telling me so much. He's come in nearly every day, is offering to do so much behind the scenes when I haven't even asked his name yet. He finishes his explanation and settles into silence, patiently giving me time to think. Everyone else just treats me like I'm sick, making me wonder if this may be my only chance to cut back that time by a bit.

I haven't spoken since the day I woke up but for the first time in days, I say something.

"Please, just let me see him." I croak. I'm almost a bit alarmed by the the flatness of my voice, I'm just so sad and empty. I feel an ache in my chest and try to push it down, holding my gaze on his eyes.

I see the surprise on his face when I speak and realize it's the first time he's heard more than one word in my voice.

He's not supposed to allow us together. He's been put under explicit orders. Not even Mr. Howell and Mark, who are both sound of mind and uninjured have been allowed to see him.

I know that and I'm fully expecting an exasperated no since we are essentially strangers and he owes me nothing but I need to take out my frustrations somewhere. I know it's unfair that I'm asking for things I can't have from a person who's only trying to help me, but I don't care.

Despite the fact that we both know this, he only shakes his head for a moment before looking at me quietly.

"I'll see what I can do." He tells me.

That night when I'm in the bathroom adjacent to my room, I look up for the first time into the mirror as I run a warm towel over my skin, still too exhausted to bathe.

A broken, hollow form stares back at me in the reflective surface. My eyes are dull and dark purple circles ring my them, my hair is limp over my pale skin. Someone has washed it for me once or twice but I haven't bothered to comb it, my fingers coming up to tug the uneven ends of my fringe that Dan had cut himself, clinging to them like the touch could transfer to him. I see the bones at my collar and remember him pressing gentles kisses to the spot, the need for him like a physical ache.

I press my fingers to the spot, trying to replicate that gentle touch. It's the loneliest motion I've ever seen.

He isn't even awake yet. It's been days and he hasn't woken up. That thought doesn't escape me.

I know I shouldn't do it, but when I'm alone and the stark white light shines on me overhead it's like a sudden urge, my fingers finding them hem of my shirt and pulling it up over my head. The shirt is blue, washed out after months of apocalypse life and lent to me by someone I don't even know, brushing my hair off my head as I tug it off, balling it in my hand.

Cold air seeps in. I feel it leaching away the little warmth left in my body, my pale fingers holding the fabric close to my body.

My eyes go back to the mirror and I look at the bandage wrapping my knife wound. It's clean and the pain is minimal now that it's been stitched and I'm not exerting myself, the gash itself concealed from my view. My chest is pale and I can see my ribs, see the bruises new and old on both. I look underfed and I am, I'm underfed and wounded and empty. I feel disgusting, crossing my arms and pulling the shirt back on.

I try to ignore the ache in my heart and my mind that has nothing to do with the wounds, wandering back into the room and back to my bed and slipping under the covers. Once I'm certain I'm alone I just lie there and look out at the city, unable to place exactly what I feel. The grey sheets offer no answer, surrounding my form less like protection and more like a shield from the entire world.

It's an exhaustion that sits deep down, right to my bones where some childlike part of me, despite being the one who allegedly saved the world, just feels vulnerable and small.

Tired tears slide down my cheeks just as begin to drift, ghosts on my skin and in my mind. I haven't really slept in a while and it's almost scary how numb I feel. There's no emotion, I can't feel anything.

One day later, the nurse is back in my room. He wakes me up even though I've finally managed to sleep, at first not acting any way out of the ordinary.

He checks my bandages, hands me a cup of tea and asks if I want to talk. I don't, but he doesn't leave. It's barely dawn, the sun has only begun to rise but I can see fiery orange and burnished pink on the horizon line. The city itself is blue and he's quiet as I watch the sun rise, the heat of the drink bringing some feeling back into my chilled fingers, still pale because despite how they've tried to keep the truth from me I know I almost died too.

I'm wasting away anyways, but the blood loss and internal damage from Wirrow's attack could have been the end.

"I've lied to a doctor." The man announces suddenly. I look over at him confusedly and he stares back as if he's speaking to someone fragile, but for once it doesn't feel detached. He's not analyzing me, he's trying to show he understands.

I lift my head to show I'm listening, raising my eyebrows.

"I told him I was doing errands. Shift change happens in ten minutes, I wanted to wake you up before that and then sneak you down to see him."

His words don't really register. I blink slowly and the tea burns into my hands. He lowers his voice.

"To see Dan."

My heart jumps and my eyes widen, liquid feeling suddenly flowing into my limbs and my words lost. He nods hurriedly and fumbles with a bag I hadn't seen him place on my bedside before as my heart begins to pound, tugging out a clean grey sweater and a pair of jeans that I immediately recognize to be mine, pressing them into my shaking hands.

"You're going to need to put these on so you don't look like a patient. I've told Dan's father and the half-life boy that found you what's happening so they're waiting below, it's only the next floor down."

I nod hurriedly and pull the garment over my head, feeling much warmer and registering the softness of the cotton before my emotions catch up to me and it suddenly makes sense why I'm shaking.

I feel a burn in the pit of my stomach and realize I'm angry, not at this nurse but at all the others that have forced me to live in the dark so long. All this time I've been told I need to get better and I can't see Dan when those things- recovery and Dan, have to come together to ever let that happen.

All this time I've been sat here, feeling useless and depressed, increasingly hopeless as blank walls cage me in and a window centres my entire life while all this time he's been merely a floor down from me.

"Why aren't they telling me anything about him?" I blurt, yanking the neckline past my head and pushing my sheets aside, seeing his expression shift only slightly.

He reaches out a tentative hand and when I don't jerk back, places it on my shoulder and to my surprise places the other hand on my arm to steady me, leaning forward to help me stand on slightly weak legs.

He glances at the empty hallway as I find my feet, everything about his posture encouraging me to be calm.

"Let's get you two together." He urges me softly, still conscious that we could be heard. He's being gentle and I appreciate it but for all the urgency of both our movements, he seems hesitant.

"I feel like you're not telling me something." I protest, tripping when I first step forward because between the nerves and lingering illness I feel slightly dizzy.

"Look, Phil. You can't tell anyone how you got there." He says suddenly, "or for that matter that you are Phil. Unless they already know who you are don't say anything, just walk in there when they open the door like you're supposed to be at the place and don't let any of them say no to you."

My heart begins to pound and I wonder terrifyingly if he knows what I'm thinking, his look understanding as we make it to the door and he double-checks the way to make sure shift change is happening and we aren't being seen.

"You know something, don't you?" I say weakly, noting that he doesn't meet my eyes but keeps staring ahead, standing on the opposite side of the doorframe. "You don't even know me and I know you know who we are, what are you doing?"

He stares at some point on the wall and smiles faintly, almost companionably like we're sharing a secret. I shouldn't, but for whatever reason I feel a weird bubble of comfort surrounding me and this stranger, his eyes kind.

"Let's just say it's more than just Mark putting me up to this." He says quietly.

My eyes widen and he just shakes his head at me, smile going secretive.

"You're getting better, Phil, and I know it doesn't feel like it right now but millions of people like us owe our lives to you. If this is what I can do for you then I'm glad to be doing it."

My breath catches and I look at him in shock, not entirely sure what he's telling me yet but still not missing the emotion in any way.

"What are you doing?"

He just shakes his head and guides me forward, walking quickly at first but then slowing our pace to a more casual one once we're out in the open. My legs are steady as I walk out into the hallway with him, mind racing and anticipation setting in.

People pass us by and don't even spare a second glance, my wounds covered and this man's presence explanation enough for why I'm up should someone recognize me. My heart is beating out of my chest even if I don't really know why this is happening, focusing only on getting forward, getting away from that room and closer to what matters.

One foot in front of the other, Phil. Keep moving forward.

The walls are shadowy and a bit more worn down than the walls of the Confederation building had been. It's clear now that someone has put time and effort into making the floors into this building a sort of pseudo-hospital, gathering resources and transporting furniture to create this place several floors up into the air, a safe haven hidden from view and far from the ground. As we pass by door after door, I see some open with people fast asleep, some with families and some without.

Through one doorway I pass I see two young adults, a boy and a girl. The girl has a slightly stained bandage on her head and the boy is bruised but they're entwined together beneath the sheets, the girl's head settled against his chest. They're hurt but they're getting better together, looking for all the world like they were meant to fit that way. His hand is in hers, her head nestled into the curve of his neck.

It gives me a pang and I have to look away, too many emotions surging in at once. My heart begins to beat far too fast for a whole other reason. It should be sweet but under circumstances, it feels like a massive hole in my heart.

People shout hellos at my nurse as we pass and he waves distractedly back, his hand prodding me forward the moment the second group of people to do so have moved on.

We reach a staircase at the end of the hall and I hold my breath in anticipation, the prospect suddenly much more real as the nurse holds the door open for me and I step into a completely unfamiliar part of the building with thoughts of only one thing.

Dan. My mind whispers, blood running in my veins and tremors no longer limited to my fingers. Dan, Dan, Dan.

The door is near the stairs. The lower floor looks almost exactly like the one above it and there's cobwebs in the corners but I don't care, I just care about the door.

When we get there, there's a makeshift bench in the hallway. Only one other person is sitting on it, and that's Mr. Howell.

I know nothing. Not whether Dan is conscious, nothing concrete to his state. The man's eyes widen when he sees me and he hastily moves over to let me over, his tight expression and the shut door making dread set in again.

I know I need to wait here. I know which door it is and what to do if it opens.

As to Dan living, there has been no promises. Have I asked? I can't remember anymore. The nurse must not know, he hasn't told me anything. I'm not even supposed to be here yet, he leaves almost immediately after we make it and tells me to go back to my room afterwards. He doesn't know what's happening at all. But I'm here.

I meet his eyes as he turns away and nod silently, unable to muster the strength to speak. Thank you.

He nods back.

"Good luck." He whispers. "Hug him extra tight for all of us, all right? We're all behind you."

My stomach flutters but I nod tightly and avoid his eyes, staring at a crack in the floor tiles instead.

I watch him walk away and disappear up the stairs and see the red glow of an emergency exit light, noting abruptly that the floors must all have power. I wonder if this building used to be Confederation.

Mr. Howell is quiet when I sit down. He looks thinner than the last time I saw him and there's dark circles under his eyes. There's also bruises on his face, evidence of all that he's been through while with the confeds. The cool wall behind my back provides the only semblance of feeling and so I press my thinly clothed back against it, trying to feel the chill. I'm aching to feel something.

With the nurse gone I realize how other than waiting for the door to open, I have no purpose, no idea as to what I should do next. The notion that Dan is just behind this shut door has my entire focus, my nerves on a wire because there's no possible way for me to stand still. I keep shifting, waiting to see motion.

We sit for the longest time without talking. He's been waiting for hours apparently, according to one of the nurses.

My mind is full of fears, of worry for Dan. I can tell his is too, I can tell by the way he's sitting and the way he looks just as defeated as I do. We take solace in one another's  fears, our feelings justified without even having to breathe a word.

We meet eyes and I know there's a million things he wants to say just as I have things I want to say to him, but neither of us can get the words out.

It's bizarre, really. This man knew me before the apocalypse began. I couldn't even talk to him back when things were normal, he was afraid of me knowing with his son and I was afraid of him, yet now here we are, united for the same reason after surviving the government attempting to kill us. I don't fear him anymore. We are the same.

I don't know what to say. I fiddle with my hands and he fiddles with his, waiting behind this door for we aren't sure what. It's impossible to imagine what could come next, I'd thought I'd seen Dan die in my arms all those days ago and now no one has told me whether or not he's okay because nobody knows. How can fear not take over?

"I want to reassure you, Phil." He says suddenly. "But I'm his father, and I can't help but be afraid that the worst possible outcome is the one that will happen."

I look at him and he meets my eyes, expression serious and doubling my fears because if something was going right, then surely that would have told his father first?

He doesn't seem to mind my lack of response. He takes a deep breath and I realize suddenly that his eyes are heavy with tears, and when he speaks again his voice is weaker and he's no longer acting calm.

"I thought he was dead for a year." He chokes out. "And yet the moment I realized he was alive it was like in an instant I was terrified to lose him again. It was immediate."

The words strike me in the heart like an axe.

"If they don't let you in, I'll fight them for you. It's you he holds on to over everything. I know for a fact he'd want you there."

That hits hard. I think back on all of it then and realize that's how it's always felt between us. I always held on to Dan when it felt like there was everything to gain or nothing left at all. Yes, I was in love with him. I was- am- still in love with him, so in love with him to the point of painful. It always outweighed the looming terror that he could one day be gone, that one day I would have to live without my person because there was the possibility of having him, in all the physical and emotional ways that I held close like something precious.

How impossible that the worst fear became the real one and yet I'm still not afraid to love him. I'd do any drastic thing to be able to press him to my chest and hold him there in my arms for just a few more hours, to shut my eyes and focus on nothing but his warmth and his heartbeat.

I wonder to myself if that's what love is then. Romantic and physical attraction mixed in with desire and a terrible, horrible fear of losing your person. A bit twisted if that's the case, but so sickeningly wonderful to have.

My hand goes to my mouth before I can think or stop it and I bite down on my lip hard to push back the surge of pain, breath shuddering out because suddenly I feel too overwhelmed to answer. Still I keep eye contact, stubbornly trying to be strong.

"You don't have to talk." He assures me.

It's those words that unexpectedly calm me down, reassuring me beyond anything else that had been said to me so far.

"They all think I'm crazy." I get out. "They don't want me to see him. It's like they think I'd hurt him."

Would I hurt him? I'm not sure I know. It feels ridiculous, impossible even. I could never lay a hand on him intentionally. If I could have Dan completely fine right now I'd feel the overwhelming urge to hold him tight and never let go, protect him from everyone.

Mr. Howell meets my eyes and his expression is solemn, his hands clasped. He meets my eyes and I see the warm brown that matches Dan's exactly, the faint hint of a dimple that would probably be more present if he smiled.

"Somehow, I doubt that." He tells me, sounding almost irritated on my behalf.

It surprises me, the immediate response. To hear Dan's father telling me he doubts I could ever hurt Dan, it's like the whole world has flipped on its side even more than it already has.

"I'm traumatized." I persist.

"Well I'd fucking imagine so." He exclaims unexpectedly.

At first, I'm taken aback.

Then suddenly I gasp out laugh, the sound foreign and surprising even me when it happens. A faint smile appears on the man's face and he suddenly looks much calmer.

It's reassuring, I hadn't realized just how much I'd needed to hear that until I did. He raises his eyebrows, the feeling in the air still tense and sad but suddenly feeling like a more level ground.

I remember what the nurse had told me, advising me not to announce who I actually was when I go to see him.

"Y-yeah." I stammer. "People keep saying it though."

Mr. Howell looks at me, really looks at me. I see a deeper look in his eyes when his expression goes serious and I realize we're not talking about the doctors anymore.

"People make mistakes."

I look over at him with wide eyes and he shifts to stare absently at the door ahead, made of steel and painted grey like any other generic office building door ever, Dan hidden behind it. It feels like I'm really speaking to him for the first time in my life, his words now open because we finally understand each other.

"Phil." He says quietly. "I was wrong about you. Trying to stop you from helping Dan in the old days didn't help anyone then and it isn't going to be any different now. You're the best thing that's ever happened to him."

I feel my breath catch and my mind races, trying to fathom what I've heard.

"You were just trying to protect him." I blurt, remembering that night where the Skype call had been cut off, the lid of Dan's laptop slammed shut by the same man who now sits next to me, bandaged and wounded by the same battle I nearly lost my life in. He was afraid of things going wrong, of losing his son.

He shakes his head. "It doesn't mean anything. I didn't cut him from you because I wanted him safe. It was selfish, I thought he was just hiding things from me and you were a person, an entire dangerous person that I knew nothing about. But I didn't... I didn't ask him about you. I just accused him of lying and he got defensive. I feel like I don't even know you."

I look down at my hands, suddenly far too conscious of where I stand. Things are definitely different now but even when he's speaking to me normally I'm all to conscious of who he was and how things used to be. If I feel like that about him, I can only imagine how he feels about me. What must it be like to know I'm the one his son loves?

"I'm not even the same person now." I reply after a pause. "I just want him to live."

"You're here for him now when you aren't technically supposed to be."  He says with a shrug. "He couldn't die if he tried this last year, could he?"

"I really did- do, love him. More than anything." I blurt. "I promised him I wouldn't let anything happen."

"That's what he needs more than anything."

We don't comment on my voice almost lilting into the past tense. He just moves right past it.

"I've never seen anyone care about someone the way you care about Dan." He murmurs, seeming to forget I'm staring at all. "He had a hard time growing up. When he was a baby he was always smiling, he was probably the happiest child to ever exist. We never saw anything besides that until he started school and just, year by year it slowly got worse."

It's comforting somehow, realizing that he noticed. He cared about Dan and worried about him even if he clearly didn't know what to do about it. I try to imagine little Dan with chubby cheeks and curls, just trying to bring joy to the others around him. I wish I'd known him sooner.

"By the time he was a teenager I hardly saw him leave his room." He remembers softly. "He stopped having friends over, he brought home a girlfriend and of course all I chose to comment on was how he'd obviously figured out who he really liked. He was happier for a few years but then she left him. That's when he went from room-dwelling reclusive to sullen and silent and seemingly permanently unhappy. And I never fucking did anything. You were the first person in months to get through to him, and I made him feel like that was wrong."

"I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be." He snaps then backtracks, realizing how harsh he sounds. "I mean, I remember that night when I fought with him. His mother- Jackie and I, we'd been fighting over a stupid money thing and then somehow it went to Dan because she was angry at me for blaming him but I was bitter about my own child. I felt like Dan hated me and looking back I realize maybe he should have, but he didn't. Dan can't hate anybody, really. Under all that face he just wants to understand everyone, to stop them from feeling what he did. He's still that child that just wants to be happy."

This part of Dan's life is personal to him. It's a side I've heard little to nothing about, the one thing I was sure I could support him in without needing to know everything. It's surreal to hear Mr. Howell confess this to me, this whole conversation is personal but stunningly honest. I feel like I can try to understand him now.

I wonder how many regrets he has about his ex-wife, his sons. Dan's mother and brother could be anywhere in the world right now, gone or not. None of us know and probably never will.

"You don't need to apologize to me." I say softly. "It's the past."

He shakes his head, not angry but just worn out.

"When I saw him again at the camp it was like seeing a ghost." He mutters. "I almost wouldn't have known it was Dan except for his eyes and the expression on his face, the way he immediately stepped back. I recognized my son in an instant, and he thought I was going to attack him."

I remember going after Dan to find him, pulling him into my arms and coaxing him out of a panic as his past and present collided. He held onto my hand until the absolute last second before he met his dad again. We were so undeniably in love then and just as always we gravitated to each other to make things better.

I nod. "He was scared."

"I know he was." He answers. "And he shouldn't have had to be. There's so much I wish I'd said to him and just... watching you go to him, protecting him when none of the rest of us could. You're what he needed all those years."

The approval, the underlying acceptance in his words is near overwhelming. I shift in my seat, heart racing.

"I'm just Phil." I protest before I can think twice, remembering saying these exact same words to Dan. "I'm terrified of losing him. All I can think about is how I let the Confederation do this to him."

He raises his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

My voice is tight and I have to take a deep breath to steel myself, hands shaking all over again.

Thinking about the night in the headquarters is like pressing a barely-healed wound. Tendrils of darkness surround it and threaten to surround me, painful memory builds in my chest.

"They thought he was immune. He made me promise not to tell them it was me when they had us in there." I croak out. I realize it's the first time I've talked about what happened in there to anyone. "So they took him away. Wirrow came to me first and in the end I told him anyway, but he still went to him. I don't know if he didn't believe me or if he just... I don't know. By the time I made it to him he was dying."

Mr. Howell flinches, but doesn't let the expression stay for long.

His hand raises tentatively and he places it on my arm, meeting my eyes in a way that's so overwhelmingly Dan like that I have to bite my tongue, refusing to to cry because this is for Dan. I have to be okay for what comes next. I'm like him, stubbornly pretending my emotions don't exist.

"You saved him, Phil. He's here right now because of you killing the Confederation leader. I'm here because of that. He would have done the same for you."

"I didn't want to shoot Wirrow." I say bitterly. "Not then. But I didn't feel anything when I shot him either."

"You had no choice, really." Mr. Howell reminds me. "You were bleeding out and you still went to Dan. That means everything."

Dan. Suddenly this sitting around is overwhelming, it's useless. I can't stand being so close yet so far.

"I need to see him." I gasp. "They won't tell me anything."

"Well then good thing you're here." Another voice says suddenly.

I jump, looking up to see Dil standing in the doorway to Dan's room, wandering out solemnly with a subdued expression. Industrial white light backlights him and I catch a glimpse of grey walls similar to the ones in my room, his eyes fixed intently on me.

I've just felt my heart jolt at seeing the door open when someone else steps out of it, his face one I haven't seen since camp. Dil notices and steps out of the way, standing a space behind the man as he walks out.

It's Jack, the camp medic who'd healed Dan when we'd first arrived, who took the leadership role after the attack. He sees me and unlike Dil does a double take, stepping forward hurriedly and shutting the door so that I only get a glimpse of the room behind it.

"What are you doing?" He exclaims, not looking surprised to see me exactly but still confused. He doesn't seem to have noticed Mr. Howell's presence yet.

I stand up and all thoughts of asserting myself or keeping my identity on the down low vanish in an instant. Just seeing him reminds me that I don't owe anyone an explanation, my feet carrying me forward slowly and deliberately.

"I'm here to see Dan."

His expression goes solemn.

I wonder if he'll tell me to leave. I refuse to let anyone get in the way of me now, preparing to hold Mr. Howell true to his promise about fighting to get me in.

"You shouldn't be here." Jack says coldly. "But I'm not going to stop you."

I stop. He gazes back at me and it takes me a moment to realize he isn't arguing. He looks irritated but so am I, so I don't care.

I stare him down, seeing him shut the door gently as if he doesn't want to make too much sound.

Dil shoots me a look but I just shake my head, looking right back at Jack with the awareness that he's wearing gloves and looks more like a doctor than he did even at camp. He knows as well as I do that Dan was in there, maybe he was even the doctor assigned to him.

"I've been treating him since they brought him in." He says suddenly, answering my question for me before I ask. "They brought me over here from the camp because I've worked with bite victims before. I told them not to let you down here, yet here you are."

"You can't stop me." I say angrily.

He looks at me and I see a twitch in his composure, but he doesn't relent.

"You realize we kept you apart for a reason, I hope?" He asks pointedly, though I take it for the warning that it is.

I shake my head. Truthfully, I don't really. I try to keep my voice low, mostly just looking to keep myself close enough to reach Dan's door.

"Why didn't you tell me anything?" I ask.

"Truthfully, I didn't think your mind was in any sort of state to handle things when he was so fragile." He replies. From behind me, barely audible, I hear Mr. Howell scoff.

The sound catches Jack's attention and he looks away from me briefly to address the sound, now slightly uncomfortable.

"Phil woke up and didn't know where he was." He says more loudly, looking to Dan's father now. "He panicked and tried to fight his caretakers when they approached him and had to be sedated. Now obviously he's conscious now but their recoveries would have been much less successful if one was worried about the other."

"I'm fine now." I snap. He turns back to me and I feel some satisfaction at holding his attention.

"I never said you couldn't see him." His voice is a lot less controlled now. "I just need you to understand that you're with the rebels now and both of you are about as safe as you can be in the tail end of a war. I need to know I can trust you to go past this door. We've done everything we can to save him and all we ask is that you stop fighting us. The Confederation is over."

"Right."

"So this is the part where you tell us how Dan is, right?" Mr. Howell challenges suddenly, standing up and stepping forward a few paces so that he's slightly behind me.

Jack blinks. "Sorry?"

"The rebels may be helping him, but they don't own Phil or my son. How is he? I might not be entirely healthy, but I'm not sick either."

I forget for a moment that Jack and Mr. Howell are friends, that they'd been allies in the same camp where Jack did medic work and Dan's father helped with raids. We met them both a day apart, and oddly enough probably know each other better than I know either of them considering how much they've worked together.

Mr. Howell is helping me. Jack can argue with me but he can't talk down to him, bringing me one step closer to the only thing that really matters.

I see Jack hesitate at the information he's about to give but then visibly relent, tired probably of trying to act authoritative over someone so stubborn.

He sighs, glancing at the door and then back at us.

"He's awake."

It takes a moment for that to sink in. Up until this point I hadn't been sure if Dan was even going to live, let alone wake up. It sets a spark alight in my chest that burns a wave of feeling into the numbness that had held me before, my heart beginning to pound.

Mr. Howell's eyes widen and his gaze flicks to mine in shock.

"Then let Phil see him." He says instantly. "He's the reason the boy's alive at all, it was his idea to use blood to save him."

Dil nods, staring up at Jack. "I was there. Dan's so anxious right now, we should help him."

"You were just in there." I gasp, remembering where Dil had emerged from only now. "Is he okay?"

"Don't-" Jack exclaims, but Dil just interrupts him.

"Like I said, he needs you. I don't think he even realized who I was, he won't even open his eyes to look at us because he-"

"There. He needs Phil." Mr. Howell says flatly.

"Do you think it's a wise idea bring in Phil when he's only just become conscious?" Jack asks pointedly. "He's already aggressive."

I want to shake my head at the notion that me being near Dan would be in any way harmful right now. I'm desperate to see him and it feels like a physical pain at this point, our separation. I don't know how to argue that though, my exhaustion rendering me useless. I feel useless.

"On my authority." Mr. Howell says darkly. "I'm his father. I can decide who sees him or not."

I look at him appreciatively, but he's so distracted that I only end up managing to make eye contact with Dil.

"It could be harmful." Jack snaps.

"Out of everyone I think the man that he's in love with who's also hosting the only existing case of blood immunity in this world is probably the least harmful person to Dan at the moment."

Mr. Howell's sarcasm is evident and I see Jack frown irritably, but he doesn't argue. 

"If either of them are hurt, it'll be on you, then. We can't help the world if we let emotions get in the way."

"We can't help the world without emotions either." He replies coldly. "Isolating Dan won't make him any less aggressive. You'd be stressed beyond belief too."

"Besides." Dil chimes in, reminding us all of his presence. "Phil will find a way in if you don't let him. He's gotten past the confeds before."

"All right, all right." Jack snaps, throwing up his hands. "I'm not here to tell you what to do."

It's clear that he's frustrated, stepping out of the way and very clearly letting me forward, a massive knot in my chest unwinding as the way becomes clear. It's not that I wouldn't have gone in anyway even if he'd tried to stop me, it just feels much less of a weight on my mind to know I won't be met with resistance. Dan and I are not bartering tools, we're just two people who've lost everything but each other.

I make to step in, apprehension in ever step, when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn to see stoic eyes meeting mine, the resistance leader's expression cautious.

He looks like he wants to say something else but isn't sure how. I steel my nerves for whatever attempt he has to hold me back, but it turns out t be something else entirely.

I raise my eyebrows. "What?"

"I should warn you." Jack says quietly. "He's... his mind is in a fragile state. He was terrified when he first came to and the virus almost manifested in his mind entirely. Don't be scared if he doesn't..."

He falters at the look in my eyes but I can tell by the way he's said it what he means to say.

The virus was in his mind a long time. It had to be administered along with the immunity to save him and there's still so much confusion surrounding the science of it all.

When I go in there I need to be ready, he's saying. I can't be hurt by what he says.

Because it's entirely possible that, when I walk in, Dan might not remember me.

I feel my throat constrict suddenly, but I swallow it down.

Every fibre of my being wants to deny it and I feel my mind shut down, nodding automatically and turning in an almost robotic way away from him. My hand slips from the doorknob and the door falls shut on it's own weight, leaving Jack behind.

And then I'm alone.

The moment I turn I see Dan, small in the cot that's been set up for him with a grey blanket draped over him. His eyes are closed, his expression serene. I don't see anything immediately wrong save for the cut on his cheek and a few bruises, not sure whether to be afraid or assured as Jack's words still ring in my mind.

Everything I've been trying to hold back crashes down in an instant and though I'm frozen in place the urge to run to him, to scream and cry and hold him close.

He doesn't open his eyes, but he does turn towards me at the sound of my footsteps as I enter the room. His chest is rising and falling slowly, cautious, measured breaths. The white light has his skin looking uneven and sick, the redness just under his eye much more prominent than it should be.

I wonder if he's asleep. Jack had said he'd been conscious just earlier. His skin is paler than it normally is and he's propped up slightly, his hands draped at his sides.

I approach him with a slow fascination, apprehensive but filled with the urge to just lurch forward and wake him. There's a curtain next to his bed but it's been pushed aside. The room they have him in is slightly smaller than mine and the bed accommodates much of it, nothing else filling the space but a table containing a slightly messily arranged first aid kit.

He looks so calm right now, I'd expected wounds and rage-filled screams, still terrified that he doesn't remember who he is. He looks tired but no less bruised than me, not even reacting when I've walked right up next to him.

It isn't until my foot scuffs on the floor that he jumps and seems to notice I'm here, my heart lurching when he sits up straight, hearing me for the first time. Up until now, I hadn't been sure.

There's a deafening silence as he curls his hands into fists, breathing in deeply and then releasing the air shakily. I do the same, just trying to calm my pulse.

It's him that shatters the silence.

"I feel so numb." He mumbles. "Why do I feel numb?"

He's speaking. Speaking. Speaking. I freeze and try to calm my racing heartbeat, sensing no recognition from him at the sound of my footsteps. He looks sick and fearful, his face pale.

His hand lies vulnerable at his side, I reach out and take it before I can stop myself. His fingers are pale but just as soft as I remember, the ache surging back because surely he must know I'm here now, no one else would reassure him like this.

I've just closed my hand when he frowns in confusion, closing his own fingers briefly but then letting go.

"Wha-?" He gasps. My hand feels empty. Dread weighs my chest.

It's like he doesn't even recognize me. And how could he? He can't see. He draws his hand to his chest and closes his palm like he's trying to remember the touch, to capture the feeling and ground himself, but then drops it like he's done something wrong.

"Who are you?" He croaks. "Nobody's answering my questions. I'm fucking scared, okay? I can't feel anything."

The words strike something deep, a lump forming in my throat because they're so weak.

What does he mean, who am I? I want to yank him into my arms and tell him he'll be okay. I want to tell him it's me, that he doesn't have to worry.

But I can't get the words out. I want to cry.

"I can't feel anything." He says again. This time, his words sound angrier. "Why can't I feel anything? What's wrong with me? It's been days here. Days. I don't care if I'm alive so if you're to tell me that you can fuck off. I-I need the truth and nobody cares."

He's biting his lip and I see the pain in his face when he squeezes his closed eyes even more tightly shut, breaths becoming frantic.

My silence terrifies him, he reaches out like he's trying to find me by touch. Is he blind?

He's changed his mind but I flinch away from his reach, heart shattered.

No. I hadn't prepared for this. I wasn't expecting him to forget. How could this happen?

This world is an awful one. I've witnessed power plays and manipulation like nothing anyone in the old world could have scarcely believed, seen the lines between life and death blur. I've seen and felt things I never should hav had to but this... for something to make Dan forget that he loved me... how could anything ever do that?

His hand comes up empty but I'm scared to touch him again when the first had terrified him so much. I step back and stifle a sob with my hand, suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to run, to get far away and break down where no one can see me. I can't do this, the stress is building in his face and there's nothing I can do about it.

"Who are you?!" He chokes. "Why don't you talk to me? If you're another doctor who's going to ask me to look at you then go away. I don't want to talk to you. I'm supposed to be dead."

No. This is all wrong. He's not okay. They've scared him and he doesn't know anything and he's terrified.

I can't calm the pounding of my heart. He's conscious and speaking and he knows who he is. He remembers what happened and all this time I'd thought he was gone because I'd heard little to nothing. Maybe he's been conscious for days. He's broken but he's okay. He just doesn't remember me.

"Say something." He pleads, voice so weak and vulnerable I nearly lose my breath.

It doesn't feel like a worthy trade. Maybe it's selfish to feel like that, I should be grateful he's alive, not devastated.

But I am. I want to collapse and break down.

I want to touch his hand again. I want to rush forward and pull him into my arms, stroke his hair and say it's me, it's me. I'm the one that comforts him. I always still the nightmares and chase the fears But the words are lodged in my throat. My thoughts are tangled and I can't think straight.

"I know you're there-"

Fuck it. I grip his hand and he tries to pull away, his breaths heaving and sounding not entirely sane. I don't let go and he begins to tremble, face creasing.

"I need Phil." He blurts.

My heart damn near stops. He gasps in confusion when I let out a pained squeak, disbelief hitting me at the three simple words.

"What?" I stammer.

"Is he dead?" He croaks out this time. It takes me a moment to realize what he's asking before a choked sound leaves me. "Please tell me where Phil is, fuck. I just- I told him to get away. I promised him he would live. I don't deserve to be alive and he was supposed to make it out. Don't tell me he's dead, if he's dead you can kill me right along with him and not try to comfort me. I'm too fucked up to live."

Pain builds in my chest and I don't know what words to say but now it doesn't matter. I can't keep it in anymore, tears bursting free and dripping down my cheeks.

"Hey." He exclaims, his voice gone from sharp to soft instantly at the sound. "Uh, don't cry. Please. I'm sorry, I just- you're just trying to help me but I've been getting so angry. I love Phil more than anything in the whole world and he could be anywhere right now. I'm not crazy, I swear I'm not crazy. Please just let me see him-"

"Dan." I get out, unable to even leadup when he's speaking brokenly. Broken but alive.

He freezes.

I bite my lip and give in to the urge, reaching out and gripping his hand again. This time, his fingers relax and he takes it. His eyelids flutter but he keeps them shut, taking a deep, shuddering breath before he holds tighter, pulling me towards him ever so slightly and his other hand coming up, fumbling.

"Phil?" He croaks out. His breaths are far too fast but so are mine and maybe we're panicking but I've already begun to cry, pressing our woven fingers to my lips and shaking hard as I cling to him, my next shuddering gasp all the answer he needs.

"Phil." He chokes roughly. The recognition is instant, hitting me so hard it nearly bowls me over. The anger and fear vanishes from his face and something much deeper crosses it, his expression vulnerable all over again.

I take in a breath and he turns towards me. His fingers are tight around mine.

"Please." He stammers. "Tell me you're Phil."

"D-Dan." My free hand reaches out and presses to his face and his expression crumples immediately. His fingers close and he pulls me with much more strength than my frail body has, I'm already stumbling forward as he opens up his arms.

I gasp, fingers grasping hungrily for the boy who is my entire life. I'm weak on my feet but I don't let it stop me, crashing through space just to bridge that last little gap, taking his other hand and letting him yank me down.

I take it far too fast and crash hard into him, tangling our limbs together and pulling us together. I yank him into my arms, holding him so tight I can feel every curve and dip in his body and pressing my face into his neck as we fall together.

We tumble against the bed and I ignore the pain completely, face buried in his shoulder as I give up and just cry. Our legs are splayed strangely and in terms of our arms it's hard to tell where one body starts and the other one ends. His arms are wrapped at my back, we just lay there on our sides, two inseparable beings who may never be able to let go of each other. And he just pulls me closer, reducing any empty space between us into nothing.

It's a medic-style bed. Practically a cot. It's not built for two people, nevermind us, but I don't feel a thing. I'm drawn to him, his limbs squeezing me so tightly there's not a chance of falling or separation. His chest hits mine, his hold crushes the air out of my lungs and I feel his breaths surging out over my skin.

Love burns in my chest, surging up violently and blindingly. A cry leaves me, broken but exhilarated and I gasp again him without caring for air. One of my hands has found his hair and I twist it between my fingers, breathing him in and clutching him so he can never be torn away, can never disappear again.

"Fuck." He breathes. He mumbles incoherently and leans back enough to brush our noses, lips trembling.

I pull back and press my forehead to his, cupping his cheeks, raking my fingers through his hair and feeling his hands brace on either side of my face.

"Dan." I get out. "Dan. Dan."

He bites his lip. His eyes are squeezed shut for a different reason now, tears leaking from his eyes and streaking his cheeks with wet trails. It doesn't matter to him, he just leans towards me.

For a moment I just look at him. I lift a shaky hand and cradle his cheek, feeling the tears and feeling him close. He doesn't seem able to speak but he reaches up blindly and cups my face, letting our breaths ghost over each other as I try to breathe.

"I'm alive." He jokes weakly, brushing our noses and choking out a laugh.

My heart is pounding, my hands trembling so hard I'm sure he can feel it.

"You're alive." I repeat.

My chest surges with emotion so strong I'm afraid it might burst out of me at any given moment. I just have time to choke out a sob and laugh deliriously before I pull him forward.

And then, I'm kissing him.

He lurches forward and presses his lips to mine at the exact same moment I do to his and I kiss him desperately, my breathing coming out in horrible gasps as my fingers clutch onto him. He kisses me until we can't anymore, until we're both trembling and weak and I'm crying, crying probably harder than I have in my entire life. Our legs tangle together and we lie back on the mattress, holding each other for an impossibly long time and kissing like we never want to stop again.

"Dan." I manage to get out, my voice muffled further by the fabric of his shirt as I fall forward. My head thuds against his chest and I squeeze my eyes shut, half-delirious. "Dan. Dan."

He chokes out a sound but I can't tell he can't handle speaking. His hand buries itself in the hair on the back of my head and he presses me to his chest, letting tears fall somewhere in between though I can't see them.

His lips press into my hair. His words ghost my skin.

"I l-love you." He finally whispers, breath hitching shortly after that sentence.

I feel my heart stutter in my chest as his hands come back up to my face. His eyes are closed but his expression isn't strained anymore, he rests against me and his arms keep me held close.

There's millions of things I need to do- to say. Things left unspoken that I need to tell him, words left to say that I just can't get out. I'm feeling too many emotions and all I can do is look at him,

"You remember me." I blurt.

He squeezes my hands hands tighter. "Of course I do."

"Please tell me that you're real." I mumble. My hands can feel his clothes and his body and my mouth has just kissed his lips but all my life there have been moments where dreams cloud reality. I can't stand to be dying and to wake up and know that this is only just a dream, the fear is dissipating and I so desperately want it to be true.

He presses his forehead into my hair. "I'm real, Phil." He tells me firmly, shakily. "I'm here, I swear."

And then he's kissing me again, fingers shaking with the brokenness of this moment even as they hold my face and draw me in. I try to pull back and look at him but he just leans forward, bringing our lips back together. And I know why, I understand.

He kisses me longer this time, pulling me closer until there isn't any space left between us and he's sunken back against the pillow. I comb a hand through his hair and try to calm my shaking, swearing I can hear my blood rushing in my ears. His kisses are slow and deep and speak greater volumes than words, because we made it. I close my eyes and forget everything until the shaking stops and love takes over, sinking in blissfully.

I don't care about being seen now. I don't care about the others. Dan is alive and in all universes parallel the world is righted, unstoppable even by death.

"How?" He croaks. His lips are still hovering so close to mine I could purse my lips and touch his again, afraid to separate further. "How are we alive?"

I shake my head and stroke my thumb over his cheek, seeing his eyes still firmly shut in what I can't differentiate between pain and fear.

"It doesn't matter." I tell him. "It doesn't fucking matter."

We don't have to care about the how or the why. We don't have to think about where the guilt is or whether someone will separate us because they won't. I'm never letting anyone tell me I can't see him, because nobody else is in charge of our lives.

"You really are here, aren't you?" He whispers. The words breeze out over my chest and still he hasn't opened his eyes, first out of fear and now out of contentment. I so desperately want to look into his eyes, to see the warmth and steadiness that always comes from those irises. Brown eyes are beautiful, but even more so when you fall in love with them.

"Look at me." I plead, instantly making myself flash back to the last time one of us said this, just before he kissed me for the first time. This is not the same thing.

He holds me tighter for a second, taking care to avoid the gash on my side. He remembers that too.

"Phil." He whispers.

"What?"

He shakes his head. I try to guide his chin up but he hides his face in my shoulder, making confusion twist in my chest.

"Please." I plead. "I need to see you."

He shakes his head. I feel him hug me tighter and all I can feel is how cold his hands are. I can't make him look at me.

"I'm here." He mumbles.

I hesitate. "I know?"

He shakes his head. "I don't want to look at you."

"Why can't you look at me?" I protest.

He's silent, and the silence is a touch too heavy. It lasts for a beat too long. I don't even feel nervous until it lingers, and just by his expression I know he can tell.

"I-" he blurts. "I... can't."

And my heart starts racing. It's the way he's said it.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't."

It's the way he's said it.

With all that I'd been feeling upon seeing him again and reuniting the fact that his eyes are shut hadn't really meant much up until this moment, not until now when I'm realizing it's because he doesn't want to open his eyes.

"Please, Dan." I plead, knowing he doesn't want to see the pain on my face, but I'm so desperately needing to see his. My heart is pounding because I think I know what's wrong. The terrifying thing is, he looks like he'd be devastated if I were right.

He draws back immediately, I pull my hands off from around his back and we both rest an arm on the mattress, the other going up to tilt each other's faces into view. He's shaking now but I don't let go of him, brushing my thumb over his hand to calm him.

He's still facing me, hesitating, and I wait for him to look up.

"No." He chokes, bursting into tears suddenly and collapsing against me. "I can't. Please don't make me look at you. I can't."

I think about how he'd told not to tell him to look up when he'd thought I was a doctor, my breath faltering at the realization.

"I'm not going anywhere." I say harshly. "I love you."

"You won't." He sobs deliriously.

"I will."

I take his other hand and squeeze it and he stills in shock, his eyes shooting open. He hides his face in his elbow so I can't see them and I relent and just hug him against me instead, feeling his arms moving to wrap around my back.

"What's wrong, Dan?" I ask more gently. I hope he can't feel the rapid beat of my heart. I don't want to scare him. I don't want him to feel like I'm not being genuine.

Because I let him get bitten by a half-life. I watched him turn as a zombie and fall unconscious, I let Dil step in to save him.

There's a feeling, a roiling, building fear that stems from Dan's reaction, from him not being able to look at me, from Jack thinking seeing him would be 'dangerous' and that his actions were 'aggressive.'

He shakes his head, breathing shakily into my sweater.

"You know no matter what happens I'm going to stay with you." I say quietly. "I'm here right now, aren't I? I'm not even supposed to come downstairs. I snuck in here."

He nods feebly and traces his finger over my lip, steeling himself.

"I told a nurse to find you." He whispers. "He told me he found Dad and Dil, that I wasn't allowed to hear about what happened to you yet. I assumed the worst."

So it had been Dan that had been the other mystery person behind the nurse' motive. I sigh as the confusion all begins to make sense.

"It's okay, I felt the same." I assure him. I press my lips to the top of his head and feel his tense muscles relax, the fear forgotten for a moment.

I reach out a little and pull the grey blanket over both of us, cradling his chilly form and revelling in the lack of injuries he has. He's alive, he's okay. He remembers me. The rest can wait. The situation was nowhere near as dire as we thought it was, not once Dan woke up.

We hold each other for a beat of silence and Dan presses a tentative kiss to the side of my neck, just under my chin.

"So Dil's alive, then." He mumbles, settling his head back down.

"Yeah."

"I thought he was dead you know." He mumbles, still weak and shaky with his hesitant words. "Thought the half lifes would've killed him for letting us get away."

There's a heavy silence in which I don't know what to say.

"Dan." I say firmly, taking his hand and squeezing his tightly in the hopes that it'll make him feel a bit braver.

He falls silent and his face falls, shoulders shrugging weakly in reply.

"Look at me." I whisper again. "It's okay."

He stiffens and straightens up slightly, his familiar serious expression crossing his face and a conflicted look rendering it indecisive.

He turns his head towards me and grips my hand.

"You have to promise." He says shakily. "You aren't going to leave me."

My heart is in my throat and I don't want to believe I know why, but I think I do.

"I do promise."

He's shaking so I reach out to cup his chin, seeing his tense expression waver slightly.

"I want to see you." He breathes.

"You can. Open your eyes." I whisper. "Don't be scared."

He shifts indecisively and squeezes my hands in his cool ones. "Tell me you love me."

"I love you." I breathe instantly. "Open your eyes, Dan."

He breathes in deeply and does just that, eyelids fluttering and hesitant as I draw him towards me. His head lifts but he stays cradled in my hand, craving the touch. It might just be the moment, but right now time feels slower.

He blinks a few times when the light makes him flinch. After being in the dark so long it's like it's almost a bit painful for him to see, but I wait patiently. No matter what this is, I know in the pit of my chest, the forefront of my mind that we want to see each other for real. I take a couple seconds to prepare myself and to try hopelessly not to overthink his fears before my eyes find his, lifting up carefully.

I'm not prepared for what I see. I see Dan.

Tears stain his face, dark circles ring his eyes and they're rimmed with red. Bruises cloud his cheek on one side and his brow on the other, a cut on his forehead the arch of his cheek. His lips are cracked and we're both thin and our skin pale, but that's not my focus when I suddenly look into his eyes.

His eyes are round and familiar. Shrouded in long lashes and focused entirely on me, the expression is something I could recognize if I was seeing nothing more than just that in the dark.

But they aren't just familiar. They're different.

His face is the same. Perhaps a bit bloodied, a bit paler, but it could be dismissed for sickness. He still has faint freckles and pale pink lips. But his eyes...

They're not brown.

"Phil." He pleads even as my mind seizes up, my heart pounding so hard my hands are beginning to tremble. His voice is dulled with denial, like he wants me to tell him otherwise but it's right there in front of me, Dan's face with Dan's eyes, the caramel warmth replaced by something metallic, pale like morning fog.

Oh.

"Your eyes-" I choke quietly. It hits me then and I can't stop the broken sound in my throat, heart pounding in my chest when I feel his hands still. "Your eyes are silver."

What's real anymore?

I force myself to stay staring straight at him. His eyes don't leave me for a moment, anxiously scrutinizing my reaction. I try to keep any expression betraying the sinking feeling that's dropping in my chest clear of my face, but it's useless. He knows me too well to hide this.

Real. Dan was dying of the virus and Dil bit him to save his life. He turned him in the only other way possible.

Real. He was unconscious for days. They wouldn't even tell his father anything, his life in the hands of what was likely some of the rebels' best scientists.

Dan. My best friend. My boyfriend. The person who means everything to me. The person who has my heart cupped in the palms of his hands.

Dan is a half-life.

At first it doesn't really register. His gaze is stricken like I'm about to leave him at any moment. He's leaning back from me like he wants to escape, his breaths are already far too fast and his silvery irises are wide and terrified. They're unnatural to look at, the same kind of metallic that Cat's were.

But I don't care. I don't care.

He lurches back and it snaps me back to reality, my hand shooting out and yanking him back before he can go too far.

"It's okay." I croak as he gasps, shuddering out a broken sound into my shoulder as he gives in, falling against me immediately. I feel his cool hand over my skin fisting the material of my sweater, desperately trying to stop me letting go.

So that's why he felt numb. He falls limp and my heart wrenches as he cries, because this is something I can't just whisper away. He breaks down right there in our tiny cot with his face pressed into my borrowed shirt and I press him against me even though his skin is chilly, because he's still Dan and a broken heart won't change that, especially if I make sure we'll be able to put it back together.

"I still love you." I whisper. "I still love you. It's okay, you haven't changed."

And I do. It doesn't matter.

He curls into my chest, I hug him tightly and he screams brokenly, pressing his face into my chest and letting himself go limp as I hug him tight, trying to protect him from the world.

I push my nose into his hair, breathe in deeply and try to keep my own tears at bay. I need to be strong for him, I can't let anything happen.

"Shh." I whisper. I run my fingers absently over his back, stroke my thumb over his hip. "Hey. It's okay."

"You don't want me anymore." He shudders out, clinging to me tightly as if pleading for me not to let go.

"Of course I do." I protest. I hold him even tighter to counter his own thoughts, but he just frowns.

"I'm not saying it's what you want." He says flatly. "I'm telling you."

"I don't believe that that's what you want."

He shudders at that, crying harder and clutching me like I might run away.

"I don't." He gasps.

"Then don't say it."

He lifts his fingers to swipe at his eyes and scrubs them over his face several times, shuddering with emotion and avoiding looking at his own pale fingers. I try to imagine living in a body that you're afraid to look at and I can't, feeling him wind his arms around my middle and bury his face into my chest, pulling me against him.

"Please don't leave me." He whispers.

It's just a whisper. So quiet and broken, so scared of anything else. I turn his head to face me and look right into his silvery eyes, reddened and swollen because despite what's been done he still has tears to cry. I make sure he knows I can see him before I pull him forward and and kiss him, pressing my lips to his over and over as if in steady reminder and pulling back only to whisper against his mouth.

"I won't."

He breathes in sharply and only takes a moment to gulp in a breath before he's lurching forward and capturing my lips again, pulling me closer against him and trembling slightly.

It doesn't matter to me, I realize suddenly. It doesn't matter now, it won't matter later, it'll never matter. Chris is a half-life and so was Cat, Dil is a half life and they all played a significant part in our lives. What matters is that Dan is alive. Nothing matters as Dan sinks against the bed and I climb over him to kiss him properly, a single thought in my mind that eventually I'm breathing to him, my own words shaking with a new kind of emotion now.

"We made it." I whisper against his lips deliriously, curling deeper under the blankets and closer against him. I lift his arm and dry his tears on his sleeve, feel him slide an arm between us to bring us close.

"We made it." He mumbles back. It's said quietly but I can feel the emotion when he looks up into my eyes and our gazes lock.

I press my lips to his one last time, leaning forward before he can think. It catches him by surprise but only for a moment before he looks back up and his hand comes up to my cheek as I draw away, unfathomable emotion there. My heart is beating quickly and his eyes are wet but he doesn't look away, just gently strokes my cheek in a way that's so calming I nearly drift off to sleep.

He doesn't say anything but we hold the look and hold each other closer. For a while there's just silence and then I take his hand, pressing it to my mouth. He looks up and for the first time in days I feel like I have my Dan again, feeling the comfort of home just by looking in his eyes. For the first time we're not afraid but hopeful, determined for a future that has us both.

And for the first time in days, he looks up at me and as he leans back down to nestle our foreheads together on the pillow, I see him smile.

I don't go back to my room that night. The next time I'm awoken, it's in Dan's arms as he curls into my chest, my body wrapped protectively around him.

Someone enters the room and asks to speak to us but I'm sleeping for the first time in days, burrowing into Dan's chest and tuning them out. Dan is the one to lift his head and I remember that he may never sleep again now. He's just spent the last few hours holding me.

It's not a familiar voice but they don't sound surprised to see me there, speaking to Dan who replies to them with a low voice. They converse quickly and I'm passing out before I can register the words, winding my arms around Dan's waist.

He talks to them until they leave. After not sleeping properly in nearly a week I'm bone-tired and exhausted and, consequently, hear nothing but blurred murmurs before Dan sends them off and they go.

After our visitor has left he pulls me into his arms more tightly and nuzzles his nose into the hair just above my ear, whispering into the black mop on top of my head.

"Phil." He whispers to the darkness.

"Mm."

"Did you hear any of that just now?"

I'm so tired and the hazy darkness wraps around me, soothing my mind like sleep syrup. I shake my head and groan, hugging him closer.

He giggles lightly, cautious like he still isn't sure whether he remembers laughter or not. Nevertheless it's a bemused and fond sound, he press a kiss to the side of my head, finding my shoulder and rubbing light circles into it.

I don't really know or care what some nurse has to say. I just try to fit myself into Dan's space, so deliriously content I wonder if I could die happily without moving from this place ever again.

"Mmh." I get out to assure him I'm listening.

"They found the cure." He says into my chest. "They want to try it tomorrow."

I feel a little more awake then, hope flaring in me like fire in the dark.

"Really?" I whisper back. "How?"

"With you." He runs his hands lower, finding my wrist blindly and closing his hand around it. Half-life vision is bad compared to normal human vision. "She said they just need some of your blood and now that you're stable enough after the attack they can try it. They're going to try the first attempt at a cure."

I'm so sleepy that the news doesn't hit me as forcefully as it could. It does still hit me, I don't miss the meaning, but I'm just so exhausted and content. I don't want to worry myself about it working or not because truthfully I don't entirely care if it does. Dan's here now, that's all that matters. I don't care if he's a half life or not, not as long as we're together.

"On you." I guess. I find his face in the dark, feeling him lean into my touch.

"On me." He replies, and I can tell he feels the same. There's little else to be said and so he just adjusts his hold and brings me closer, encircling my back. We settle down and he lets go only to reach out lazily, brushing his hand over my cheek for no reason other than the touch. It's comforting, having someone to be like this without needing a reason again. Just Dan and I. Phil and Phil's Dan. Alive.

"So that's it." I say softly. My hands move down to his wrist, gently unwinding the
bandage there because I'm still afraid of hurting him, he's so fragile. As my eyes adjust and the cloth falls away I see the wound is deep and uniform, a blunt, dark crescent shape that proves Dil bit him. Like my arm, he'll have that wound forever.

"We found it Phil." He says, fiddling with his sleeve. "We've found the cure."

"We have." I breathe. I think of my own bite wound slowly healing under another bandage on my own arm, of this piece of our shared history that we'll always share.

He smiles and even thought it's dark I see it and feel it mirrored on my own face, a look so fond and genuine it makes the pain and terrors melt away here in the darkness.

It hardly comes as a surprise next when I surge forward to pull him close, aiming to kiss him clumsily in the dark. I love him so much words and embraces can't express it quickly enough and so I convey it in the only way I know how, a laugh tumbling out of me when it becomes too much to do again this sweet, giddy feeling.

I end up missing and finding his nose instead and he sputters in shock before laughing and redirecting me gently, his lips cool and soft and lulling me to sleep as he presses them to mine once, twice, three times.

One, two, three. Dawn, dusk, and night.

Like light and dark. Life and death. We live in the hour between all of them and for once, I fall asleep with only the thoughts of the time we have left, and not the aspects that will cut it short. We exist to exist together and for now and always that's what we will be. All we have and all we are is us.

Together.

~~~

The next morning we're woken by unfamiliar nurses, gently asking us to sit up so they can explain the situation.

It's early and my mind still feels groggy and worn from new and old ordeals alike. An hour passes with murmured instructions, moving about and checkups on both mine and Dan's physical health. My wound is prodded and Dan's bandaged changed. Our arms are disinfected with Confederation-nicked peroxide.

My hand never leaves Dan's and one nurse even smiles when she sees us, asking us how long we've been together. The atmosphere of this dawning morning is calm and full of hope, the watery light signifying the start of something new. I settle into Dan's side with my legs draped over the side of the cot and we recount our story to her, the short version. She has a sweet face and there's an air of excitement at the prospect of finding a cure to the virus, we all have a bit of a spring in our step.

Mr. Howell appears at some point while we're waiting and doesn't say much, just takes a moment to talk to Dan alone while I'm carted off to get a blood sample taken.

Now that I'm awake and fully aware of what is going on the prospect feels so much more real all of a sudden. My time alone passes in a blur and before I know it I'm back in the room and visitors are shooed out, only Jack and a few other attendants staying behind for the procedure. I take one last look around our room with the giddy notion that soon we'll be able to leave here, to start our life come what may and simply be together.

"Close your eyes, Dan." I whisper as he settles against me, excitement and nerves evident in his expression. They've brought in a second pillow for me to settle against and he lays his head on my shoulder, doing just that. Silver iris is replaced by dark lashes, resting softly against his cheeks and tickling his faint freckles.

We'd decided that I'd stay with him through the whole thing. It's not even a question really. If it all works out he could be himself again.

If not, he tells me, it'll be like nothing's changed.

Jack leaves the room to get the sample and for a brief moment in time I let myself imagine without limits what a life with Dan could be like. We'd talked all about it once, we both have the same dreams and fears and we both want so much from our aspirations.

Maybe I will ask him to marry me one day.  There's so much life before us, so much left to do and so much world to save. I know we're going to help people but beyond that possibilities are infinite. For now and forever and the rest of time, my life will always be about him.

"I love you." He murmurs into my collar, so quiet that even the nearby nurse doesn't hear. I can already hear Jack coming back but I still lean down my head to kiss him, smiling softly and drawing him close. It's only quick but it says everything, reminding us both that we do have time to do it again.

Jack doesn't say anything when he steps up to our side. He just gazes at us approvingly and hands the object in his hand to the attendant next to him, the thrill not escaping his expression to be a part of this. For all the anger I'd felt toward him yesterday I don't in any way feel bitter. We have the same goal now, the same success. He cares about Dan and I being okay and I can tell he's being gentle in the way he moves, both of us sharing gazes or unspoken forgiveness.

"Ready?" He asks quietly.

I nod, and so does Dan. This is the moment, the first time blood infection will be used to cure rather than to turn.

It's a fairly gentle process, and much less complex than I'd imagined. They have a sample of my blood from when they'd taken me in that they ready to use and then they step over to Dan, transferring to him.

Dan looks calm as it happens, his expression serene and focused on me, not on what's happening around us. I shut my eyes and feel him squeeze my hand, and by the time it's all over he's shut his too. A small sigh escapes him and even though I know it won't be instant I swear I feel him relax, sinking against the pillows because he's suddenly tired. Half-life's don't get tired, after all. No matter what time it takes, my blood is doing its work.

Unlike turning to become a zombie, turning back to human takes about an hour. Jack predicts that they can advance the anti-virus the same way the confeds advanced their disease with a bit of research, but for now he advises us to just relax and that he'll be back in an hour. He's fairly sure that we won't see results right away and that it'll take time and I hardly mind. We have wished for more time many times before, Dan and I. I know without him saying it aloud that we can wait a little longer.

Jack crosses the room to shut the curtains and then bids us good night, assuring us he'll return to check how things are but he won't disturb us without a knock. It's like he can sense our need for aloneness, not even correcting himself on the timing comment when it's morning. He just leaves with a soft click of the door, leaving Dan and alone in our cot.

We lie back on the mattress in mostly silence, my hand in his and his head tucked into my neck. I keep my eyes on him and trace my fingers over his shoulders, he breathes softly out and in. It seems almost too profound of a moment to be talking, and eventually he falls asleep.

I drift off after the calm and the dark wrap me up, dreaming aimlessly with no nightmares for the first time in months. The hour passes slowly and yet it isn't a burden at all, I revel in the dragging minutes and the blissful feel of this dark room with Dan close, nothing left between us but to be in love and to be still.

I drift in and out, surfacing briefly to catch sight of a sliver of light through the curtain or to register the brush of our blanket on my cheek. I wait but I don't worry, just dream of my future with him.

When I wake up it's to the feeling of warmth, a familiar hand in mine and a body pressed up close, holding me against him and soft breaths fanning in and out over my skin.

I revel in it, trying not to let my heart beat too fast for fear of waking him abruptly. Instead I push my fingers through the fringe of sideswept curls in his hair and bury my nose into the fluffy mass it creates, whispering words dripping with affection.

"Dan." I say gently. "Dan."

I trace my hand over his pale arms and play with his pale fingers, warmth radiating from them and blue veins less prominent. I can tell even before he wakes that it's worked, a low, contented hum leaving his lips when he shifts at the sounds and feelings.

"Wake up." I whisper. "Hey."

He huffs out sleepily and presses himself into my chest, groggy and half-conscious.

I push down the fear that the cure isn't a cure at all and has only just ruined his body or shocked his system, channeling my urgency by saying his name again.

"Dan."

He blinks, breathing in deeply and sounding slurred. "Yeeeah?"

His hand comes up absently to touch my face and I bite back a smile when I feel his warm palm and take in the definite feeling of a thrumming pulse.

A pulse. A pulse.

I don't want to get ahead of myself. I don't want to let either of us down, but I can feel the excitement building in my chest.

"Wake up, idiot." I giggle.

"M' I dead?" He mumbles.

I scoff and hug him close, feeling him flop against me with little to no resistance.

"I most certainly hope not." I blurt out. He just groans, lifting his head like it's an ordeal.

"I feel like shit." He complains.

"In what way?"

"Well the good news is I think I'm just nauseous." He mutters, before blurting, "I can feel your hands again, Phil."

Reflexively I squeeze his hand more tightly and he grips back, my heart beating out of my chest before he seems to fully realize what he's said.

"Wait." He gasps. "No. Fuck. Holy shit."

He sits up, awake in an instant, his eyes level with mine.

When he opens his eyes, colour floods his cheeks. He takes a breath in and I see familiar eyes staring back at me, opening slowly as he quite suddenly awakens and I grin, hands flying up to cup his cheeks.

Before my eyes I see the silver in his irises fade and the brown pour in until the metallic shimmer only rings the edges, a souvenir of his survival and a symbol of his life. I look at him, and I see home. Never have brown eyes looked so beautiful in our entire life. We don't even have to say any words before we're both bursting into tears and laughing like idiots, yanking the other forward and just shouting joyfully, bodies coming together clumsily and arms wrapped tight.

We just laugh and sob and hold each other for a while, in disbelief that it worked and running finger in awe over his skin.

It isn't until Jack reopens the door after finally returning to us, joy in his eyes when he sees Dan healthy and announces that someone's here to see us that we find ourselves leaving the room for the first time in days, not sure what we're expecting.

We get up and immediately I'm confused when I hear the mass amount of voices. At first Dan looks at me and and I think we're both wondering if this is some kind of joke, at least until I remember that the rebels would have no reason to joke with us.

We pause for a moment before Jack nods us out, moving past the door without really knowing what we're walking into.

When we step out into the hallway, we find it suddenly packed full of people.

Everyone is here, all the people we've met who have made some kind of impact or who I thought I'd never see again.

I see Emily and Harley, opening my arms to let the latter hug me and telling her disbelievingly that I'd saved us with her gun. She grabs my arms and leads us to go over and meet her dad, who introduces himself and tells us he's proud of what we've done.

I see Mark and Felix, dodging a bear hug as I release Harley and learning from both of them that Chris and PJ are also alive and that Chris is in hospital with PJ right now. Mark grins at Dan and tells him without going too into detail how he had saved my life, exchanging grins before there are suddenly others, people we've never seen all celebrating Dan's survival.

I see even more unfamiliar faces than familiar. The length of the hall is filled with people who have come to witness Dan's recovery, to see if in fact the cure has worked for the first time in history. I realize the world has held its breath until now and me, I'd held my breath with it.

It's like someone's thrown an impromptu party. People are rushing forward to greet us, many of whom we don't even know who thank us or hug us or congratulate us with teary eyes. One woman tells us she's grateful to meet us, that she'd joined the fight after hearing about all we'd done. People are laughing, they're crying, the energy in the room is tangible and I find myself clinging to Dan's hand, rushing around and getting caught up in the fray.

Jamie is sitting with his brother and Dil, who seems to be teaching them how to play some kind of card game. As soon as we reach him he launches into our arms, fully sobbing and laughing wetly as we clutch him tight between us and Dan even presses a kiss to his cheek. He hugs us tightly and just as I've let go of him I suddenly find myself hugging Michael, nearly missing it as the boy jumps up and falls against us too. He tells us that we saved his brother, grinning for the first time and revealing a soft, beautiful smile.

Another person walks over with Beard, who tells me quietly as Dan is distracted by the boys that Earring was killed by the Confederation. He betrayed them shortly after we were captured because they had threatened to kill his brother, ultimately saving Beard's life. My heart sinks as I realize the boys probably still don't know, promising to help look after James and Mike but understanding why it happened, knowing we can choose to remember him for his final sacrifice even if I can never forgive him for betraying us.

I've barely had time to process this bit of darkness in the height of the celebration before Dan's grabbing my arm and I'm being tugged into the crowd, a mischievous smile on his face as I hear survivors cheering our names, people still shouting out at us and diminishing and fear if felt before into nothing.

This isn't just our victory. Dan's survival is the people's victory, one cure of the virus symbolizing and meaning so much more. As person after person reminds us that because of us the world will finally see a positive change, that the city now knows that the virus is reversible and can be defeated I can see the euphoria grow on Dan's expression and feel the giddiness in the air, like the days of sickness have been erased from him magically and replaced it with Dan, my Dan.

When he's finally dragged me to the front of the crowd, I realize that Mark and Jack are standing on the bench I'd sat on with Mr. Howell, the both of them hurriedly gesturing for us to come forward.

They extend their hands, helping us to clumsily climb up, and I stand above everyone else with a dizzying feeling like no other, barely able to compute that's Mark's raising my hand before my arm is lifted, Dan's to my left getting the same.

"To Dan and Phil!" Mark shouts suddenly.

"To the cure!" Jack chimes in. "And freedom!"

The crowd erupts into cheers and I wonder if they can hear it in the other floors of the building, the shouts and rumbling applause working its way into my blood and my heart and making me feel like I'm flying a million miles above the city.

My eyes find Dan's and I see my exact feelings mirrored perfectly, disbelief and amazement and something much deeper, much more profound than that. It feels like the end of a long journey, like I've just climbed a mountain and have finally found home.

The adrenaline and euphoria is getting to my head, working its way into my bloodstream and setting every nerve alive, my heart pounding in my chest.

I feel so much, adoration for him and for all these people building like a crescendo, raising my arms and grinning wildly before his expression suddenly changes and he surges forwards, reaching for me before I can process it.

In seconds I feel the air knocked out my lungs as he lurches forward and kisses me, slamming right into my chest and sending fire searing through my being as the crowd goes ballistic, screaming and cheering and laughing as I let myself be kissed, feeling his hands come up to hold either side of my face in place as he seals his lips to mine, wrapping his arms around my neck and pulling me closer. He kisses me passionately the actual fervour of it rocking us both and reminding me how very, very real this is.

Dan kisses me, and I realize how much time we have. We are infinite and we have the power to change the world, we aren't alone and there's millions of people behind us. We don't have to fix this world alone, we don't have to live in fear of losing each other. We can be here in front of everybody and we can let ourselves be in love, so much emotion building it nearly brings tears to my eyes.

I'm near breathless by the time he pulls back. And then he just kisses me again, a quick peck before he's grinning at me brilliantly and yelling back into the crowd like he's the most carefree person in the world, Mark chucking next to me and Jack bemusedly shaking his head.

My head feels like it's swimming and I know my cheeks are bright red but all I know is I feel so happy, so strong and powerful like the worst is behind us. Maybe it is.

It's only a few minutes later in the height of the celebration that we strep back down and Dan throws his arms around me, meeting my smile and staring at me with so much affection I swear I might burst from the feeling of it.

I pull him closer and for a moment the sounds of the others dims a little as our eyes meet and we feel that heady rush together, our foreheads meeting as he laughs joyously and leans down to speak more lowly, his impulsive words fuelled by his high.

"Let's do something crazy." He whispers. "I don't care what. Let's do something."

I laugh and hug him tightly, full of feeling and full of nerves as I look down at him with an expression that's nothing short of obsession.

"Like what?" I ask.

He grins at me mischievously and I shake my head in bemusement, already hearing another person calling our names. We'll have to get back to the others shortly, but the victory carries on. I know in this moment that Dan and I will be okay, that I don't have to worry about losing him again for a long time.

"Anything." He replies, taking my hand pointedly. "We've survived it all, it's time to think big. We can do anything, as long as it's crazy."

~~~

"What's your opinion on this plant?"

"Very dead."

"This one?"

"Alive-ish. Not dead."

It had taken several days to arrange this, to convince friends and rebel leaders alike that we needed to take this venture. The room around us looks like it's been hit by a small tornado, books and knickknacks scattered on the floor or knocked over on shelves. Just off to our right there's a sliding glass door leading to a balcony and off that balcony a brilliant sunset lights the horizon and casts blazing golden light into the room, casting shadows on Dan's face while we fixate on the same thing, a little leafy plant left to sit on the kitchen windowsill.

"I named that one Barry." I inform him. I'm too busy staring around the room in amazement, looking at the other flowerpots that have nothing left in them but dirt.

Dan is holding the duvet from the bedroom, the ends of it clutched tightly in his hands because now he never wants to let go. It's in good shape, looking limp and a bit dusty but otherwise no different even after two seasons of heat and humidity followed by cold. The same blue and green squares patterning the fabric, a bit worse for wear. The same pair of hands that had held my attention time and time again for nearly two years of my life, the same grip on it that he'd had nearly two years ago.

It was the first thing he looked for upon revisiting my old apartment, both because he's always cold now and because it reminded him of the nights we spent here just being happy.

Because that's where we are. After nearly two years, two car accidents and more trouble and near death-experiences than what either of us could count on our hands we've finally found the time and resources to get back, with only minimal persuasion needed on the behalf of people like Jack.

"Look at that." Dan whispers. He lifts a slender finger and touches it to the little leaf, lifting it up so that the colour glows in the sunlight. It's such a small sprout of a plant, the baby leaves barely peeking out of the pot, but it's here."There's a bit of green there, still. I bet the rain got in and that meant his survival."

My heart warms at seeing his genuine happiness at my plant being alive, at the fact that I remember its name because I used to name everything back in the day, the realization that it survived.

"If Barry can survive, so can we." I tell him. "That's the moral of this story."

He chuckles and lifts the plant up one last time, balancing the leaves on his fingertips before turning and looking back at me.

I can hear footsteps in the other room and I'm surrounded by what should be home but for a moment I just look at him, meeting his eyes and feeling a silence settle over us.

I can't pretend it doesn't feel strange to be here. It looks different and yet virtually untouched since the last time we saw it, nearly two years before when we'd left at little to no notice. It was an effort to get up by foot, nineteen flights of stairs to get to our floor with our weakened bodies. Mark had cursed us more than once for the climb, but I know that he supports us. We all know why it's so important to be here, so no real arguments are being made.

Dan and I had wanted to do something crazy. It's nothing short of surreal to be back here after so much time, not just staring at it from the broken street down below but actually standing in the lounge with Dan sat on the breakfast bar, feeling almost like strangers.

I feel his hand find mine and slide our fingers together, staring around once again while Dan tugs the duvet around his shoulders. Ever since he'd turned he's been unnaturally cold most of the time, double layering his jumpers and wandering around wrapped in blankets more often than not, dignity be damned. It's a souvenir of his brief but very real time as a half-life, something that neither of us will be quick to forget.

For me, it doesn't really matter. He's definitely human now, the first in the world to have been not only turned, but turned from zombie to half life to human. His body has seen a hell of a lot, and it's very evident that he'll never be the same again.

I try to see the positive in it, taking every excuse I can to wrap him in my arms and hold him until I feel his body heat being radiated back at me. I'm thinking about this now because his hand in mine at the moment is warm, his expression serene as I gaze about the room and at the evening sun turning even the darkened walls golden. It's not really a bad thing to have an excuse to cuddle, a sentiment that I'm pretty sure Dan agrees.

The fire that devastated the city on the day we evacuated never did reach my building, but I can tell by the state of the open window and the blackened opposite wall of both the kitchen and the lounge that the smoke managed to do something. The wind and rain has stained the walls further and knocked a lot of my old possessions onto the floor, anime figurines and Nintendo merchandise staring up at me as brightly coloured as everything else.

I look back to Dan and see that expression on his face, the one that's hesitant and on the cusp of vulnerability that for the first year of the apocalypse he would have never let me see. I can see the silver flecks in his warm eyes and oddly enough it just makes me feel a surge of love, a half smile breaking over my face that catches him by surprise.

"Yeah." He agrees. "The moral is we ain't dead yet. My boyfriend's going to cure everybody and maybe one day we'll find that forever home with the glass."

I know that he's joking but I feel fondness at his talk of the future, knowing that he wants one together just like me.

It's still so far away. The future isn't yet obtainable in any visible way but again it's not necessarily out of reach. I want to look him in the eye cheekily and say you are my future, but sometimes things like that are better left unsaid. He knows that, we made that promise a long time ago.

I can't stop staring at him when he's here in my home. It was our home in a way, back in the day. I remember Dan staying here more than he'd stayed in his dorms for the entire year he spent studying for his degree in law, a past that feels as far away as what is to come. We've already walked around it substantially and even grabbed a few things, mostly just clothes and things like silverware that should help with survival.

Once we leave here, we'll probably never come back. That thought doesn't escape me but I push it down in favour of living in the moment, pretending for a moment that I'm that younger, carefree Phil. He was so in love with Dan and so safe in comparison, he had a destination in life and a place to call his.

And Dan, he looks more stunned than I feel. Now that I'm here it feels like a kind of closure, that ache in my chest from missing my old life finally sated, gone for the most part. Home isn't a nineteenth floor apartment in London anymore, it's a person. My person. As long as I have Dan it doesn't really matter that we don't have things, we've gone so long without that stuff mostly feels meaningless.

I want to say so, to tell him overwhelmingly what it means to me that we're still together. The sun slants over his face and my duvet frames him adorably and it's all too much at once, my heart skipping a beat even though he's distracted by something in the other side of the room right now.

His hair has fallen into his face and his features look soft. Overwhelmed with affection I reach out and brush it aside and he just smiles, picking up one my blue sofa cushions and looking around.

"I can't believe we're here." I say honestly. "The dishes are still in the sink from when we made those pancakes at four in the afternoon. Literally an hour before we ran. What the hell."

We both look to the sink at the aforementioned dishes, that last three hour breakfast feeling like a story told by a stranger.

"It's surreal." He agrees. "It feels like it's not even the same place. I feel so disconnected."

I want to ask him why but I feel the exact same way. The place is a mess now, taken by the wind, rain and elements. Dan and I have been through so much, the people we were before might as well be strangers for all the similarity we share, leaving an otherworldly feeling about the place I used to live and Dan remembers.

I sigh and hoist myself up to sit next to him on the bar, staring out at my lounge and hearing Mark and Chris conversing quietly. They're in the other room with PJ, who was rescued from the confeds on the same night we were. Chris went to him before anyone else, apparently even fighting some guards who recognized him from his days working with Wirrow. I've barely seen either of them save for today, he both of them just as inseparable as Dan and I now.

"Is it bad that I don't even feel sad?" I ask guiltily. "I just feel weird. Like I have you and that's all that really matters. I don't even care that my home is gone."

It's weird to say when I'm standing right in it but it's true that I don't feel a sense of belonging in this place anymore. It's bittersweet and maybe even a bit sad but I'm kind of just numb to it, holding onto something that grounds me and thinking mostly just of how weird it is.

He laughs quietly and it's not that the moment is funny but more that he's just making a sound, an expression of understanding before he leans in and kisses my cheek.

"It's not bad at all." He replies softly. "It feels like that for me too."

I catch him before he pulls back and and press my lips to his, quick and chaste but still loving. I don't know if it couldn't be anymore, not when he's getting better with every day and we've finally left the hospital. It catches him by surprise but he still relaxes into it a moment later, kissing back and then resting his forehead against mine, my fingers still wrapped loosely around his arm.

We stay like that, just leaning lightly together, looking at the other and just saturating in us, in life.

The numb feeling that had overcome me upon entering the apartment has left me. Up until now it had felt unreal, shutting my brain down and wandering around robotically because it was easier to shut my brain off, to detach. I'd let go of the past a long time ago and it doesn't really hurt anymore, this is a reminder of that.

We aren't alone. We came here with Mark and Felix, plus Chris and PJ just for the sake of getting them out of the hospital. As it turns out the hospital had been situated not far from the rebel camp itself, organized by the rebel camp and several other homesteads existing in other pockets of the city. It had originally been a commercial building of some kind, but the rebels have begun to take it over using what supplies they've collected and the help of the remaining doctors they can find.

We get up and walk across the floor into the lounge, stepping past the tv and the glass coffee table. I go to stand by the balcony door and look out over the spread of the city, watching the way the sun going down casts shadows on some of the taller buildings. Behind me Dan is looking at my furniture like he's observing an artefact, still with the duvet wrapped around him.

"Phil." He observes. "The sofa still has a crease from my spine. Look at that- I bet my laptop's dead as hell by n-"

"You're beautiful." I blurt, looking away from him quickly and pretending to be engrossed by the opposite wall. Even still, I don't miss his surprised sound.

He blushes and his rant about his laptop has long since faded, almost making me want to giggle with how quickly I've distracted him. Maybe it's just how weird my emotions are right now but I feel so much for him right now, every cell in my body aching to yank him against me and never let go. I don't say it to him but he fills nearly every waking thought I have now, just so grateful that he's alive.

"Oh." He chokes out after a few seconds, laughing and squeezing my hand. "Yeah?"

He looks flustered and I just shake my head, tugging him away from the sofa to just pull him close. I wrap him in a hug and watch as the city darkens and distant fires flicker in the distance. Camps are coming out of hiding and working to become more communal, sharing food and resources and driving out remaining zombies. Just within the last few weeks the world is seeing change, working to spread the cure.

"You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen." I say quietly. I run my fingers gently up and down his back the way I know he loves and I feel rather than see it when he shuts his eyes. "I'm so glad you're okay."

He's quiet for a moment. He just sighs and smiles to himself, then lifts his head and cups my face gently.

"I love you so much." He reminds me, the feelings the same though we've said it a dozen times by now. "You've saved my life more than once, you're amazing."

I sigh at the feeling of his plan against my skin. The warmth beneath his hand is a reminder that there's living blood in his veins, the we both survived the worst the apocalypse had for us and managed to get here to where we are today together. Love isn't a strong enough word for what I feel for him. I could say it once and still not be able to convey how much I mean it, not if I said it a thousand times.

"Things will, be better from here, won't they?" I breathe. "We can do anything we want to."

He nods, stroking his thumb over my cheekbone. "We can."

I hug him tighter and close my eyes, a humming warmth flowing golden in my veins.

"God, we're such saps." I groan. "Everything we do always turns sentimental. I'm too damn obsessed with you, it's a problem."

"Well I hope we never solve it." He whispers. He leans into my space and I hold him as we sway a little in place, just letting the sunset wash over us and the sights of a home past blur into background. He's smiling and it's beautiful and it's no surprise when I find myself shutting my eyes, wanting to bring him even closer and remind him how much he's loved.

I've just tilted my head down to kiss him again, his breath ghosting my lips before another voice breaks the silence.

"Hey, Phil!" Mark calls out suddenly, his voice slightly muffled by the walls but the direction of his voice telling me he's in my bedroom, shaking us out of our stupor. "Dan! Come see what we found."

Dan looks at me, perplexed, but we don't question it. We just stand up and I keep ahold of his hand even though he's not expecting it, starting forward and tugging me along with him. I don't know what I'm expecting as I walk that short distance down the hall with the feeling of soft carpet under my feet, just crossing that narrow space and turning the familiar right-hand direction into the room that has millions of memories attached to it all at once.

Again it hits me that I'm home. I'm walking down the hall of my own home before the apocalypse, smoke-darkened but real nonetheless with Dan's hand in mine and matching bite scars on our wrists, almost like ghosts haunting the darkened ruin. It's oddly beautiful in its decay, familiar and yet nothing like it at all.

I step into my room to find our friends gathered in it, Felix sitting on my bed and Mark standing in the corner.

I see Chris turn around when we walk in. He's holding hands with his boyfriend for the first time in weeks, looking about as willing to let go of him as I am of Dan after being separated from him so long. PJ's looking at my plushie collection in the corner of my room, whispering something to Chris, and they all nod in acknowledgment when we step in too, Mark immediately starting forward.

It's strange to see these people in my room too. All of them are people I hadn't even known when the apocalypse began. PJ is quieter now, a lot more serious than he was before he was captured by the Confederation. I haven't spoken to him much but the gratitude that he saved Dan that night in the underground remains. Just like us, he's healing.

"What's up?" Dan asks as he glances around my room, millions of memories drowning the both of us from the days we spent together.

Mark strides over to us in moments and he looks secretive, holding what looks like a piece of paper and smiling.

"Check out what I found." He enthuses, holding the flimsy thing out to us and watching as I reach out my free hand to take it, Dan settling into my side to look too. I've no idea what he's found or how he's found it, having let him snoop around my room with no real qualms about anything personal at this point.

It's small, paper-thin, and it's the face printed onto it that grabs my attention. I hear Dan hold his breath and Mark chuckles warmly, from somewhere behind us I hear Felix saying "it was just lying on the floor, look at it."

I do, and when I register what I'm seeing, my calm mind and composure waver into a blur.

Dan. It's a picture of Dan. I'm in frame too but half my body and face are cropped out, it's imperfect and blurry because I'm the one who took the picture and I'd never been good at holding cameras. We both look so young it's like looking at another lifetime, another person I don't know nearly as well.

I sink to my knees as if in a daze, lifting it up gently by a slightly crinkled corner. My hand slips out of Dan's but he still stays pressed close to me, whispering breathlessly when he casts his gaze down.

"Oh, wow." He breathes. "No way."

Dan's smiling in the photo. It's a closed-mouth, shy smile that's all eyes to convey emotion, my one arm around his shoulder and the other jutting awkwardly out to hold the camera. Dan had always been one to smile with his eyes, it used to be one of my favourite things about him whenever I took his picture.

I see the timestamp in the corner reading 11-02-2009, the plaid t-shirt hugging my skinny frame and black hair all a mess. I see his grey sweater, the way he looks hesitant but still leant into me even then because secretly he'd wanted to be close too.

And me. I look in love, I look so in love. My eyes are fixed on Dan, not the camera, probably half the reason the shot's not centred at all.

"I remember that day." Dan voices, taking the picture from me and holding it so he can see better, expression stunned. "That was the second time we ever saw each other in person, back when Phil still lived with his parents."

My heart does a strange thing then, the change in my expression unnoticed because everyone's distracted. That was the visit where I realized exactly how I felt for him. The one where I'd literally had to get up and leave the room, to sort out my feelings because I'd thought I was totally alone.

I look at it, taking in the floppy straightened hair we both had and the innocence in our expression, no lines or scars but just the standard sleepy darkness under our eyes from being university students. I had no idea then who I'd become, what was in store for me. I had no idea that one day Dan and I would become us, that one day I would tell him and suddenly everything I feared would cease to matter. Because now we have each other.

"You look like actual babies." Felix teases.

Dan shoots me a fond look and then begins to comment on his hair, scoffing at Mark who claims he barley recognized him at first because he hadn't seen a single curl. I only hear about half of it, a strange feeling rising in my chest as the realization strikes me of just how different life is now.

"I would've asked you to move in, you know." I blurt to Dan before I can think. "I really wanted to back then."

His eyes widen and he giggles when he sees the emotion in my eyes, looking so overwhelmingly healthy and okay that for a moment I truly do believe that we'll all be okay, that he will get better for real.

"And I would have." He quips right back. "Next time just ask me, you spork."

I shake my head, knowing he'll never feel the way I do about this because there's no way he could. Being here is a reminder of the days when I was lonely and received a hesitant DM from a boy who would one day become my whole world, not knowing that one day our presence in the world would change it in ways past Phil could never believe. I have dreams and love and a feeling of fearlessness that I've never had before, because now I realize that life is limitless.

Life is too short to hold back from the things that matter just because you're afraid. I think of Cat, of Marzia and Earring and the others whose lives were cut short. Never again will I hold back from doing the things that people told me could never be done, because I have Dan and I have my immunity and I am instrumental in something that could reverse the destruction these last two years have caused. It all hits me profoundly in this moment and I have to step back, and this time people notice.

"You all right, Phil?" Chris asks abruptly, right at the exact moment emotion overwhelms me and I feel a lump rise in my throat.

Tears spurt in my eyes, hand flying to my mouth. I try to turn away because I'm embarrassed but immediately Dan and Mark are descending on me, laughing fondly and offering words of comfort.

"Home." I manage to croak. My eyes are red and watery; my breaths deep and halting. "I-I'm home."

Dan looks at me with a gentle expression, reaching out and taking my hand. He settles his head on my shoulder and makes a low soothing sound, pressing his lips to the space just above it.

"Yeah." He says softly.

"Look at it." I gesture with my hand in the direction of the smoke-blackened living room wall, at the mess on the floor and the air of neglect. Mark, who's silently witnessing this without even knowing the full depth of the emotion and yet somehow understanding me all the same reaches out and settles a hand on my other shoulder, gazing around.

"It's really nice." He says honestly. "This is without a doubt your apartment. This whole decorating scheme is so you."

I'm overwhelmed suddenly by the fact that all of us are here and okay, having lost some friends and gained some together. We might never come back here again but in a way I'm grateful for the ruin of my past, it means I can finally let go of what's weighing me down and believe that we all can survive this.

I can focus on my friends and help take down the rest of the Confederation that remains, I don't have to let anybody take control of my life. It's liberation and it's freedom and I shake my head as I stare down at that old 2009 picture, looking around at all of them and suddenly feeling so calm.

"I don't think I ever need to come back." I say honestly. "Life is so different now it's like looking at a whole other pair of people."

"We are different people." Dan argues. "But I'm pretty sure some things will never change."

He lifts his sleeve and wipes under my eyes and from beneath his sleeve I see the now stitched bite on his left arm, healing slowly as another reminder that we've survived. The pain fades away and I let a faint smile take over my expression, thinking suddenly of what could possibly be ahead.

"Would you have ever seen this coming?" I ask, looking not only at Dan but at everyone else. "Two years ago I didn't even believe in zombies. I didn't know any of you and now we've taken down a government. We shut down the people who started it."

"I lived in America then." March chuckles. "I had no idea who either of you were. Didn't think I'd invest such a huge chunk of my life into trying not to die and also trying to convince you to kiss each other. You nerds."

"I'm going to raise my voice now and say that was very satisfying." Felix comments. "I wanna dive into that picture and tell those two fetuses to sort it out, save us all a lot of griping."

"Hey!" Dan shouts as Chris and PJ laugh. "Phil's trying to be profound and you're talking about us kissing. This is supposed to be a moment. We're all supposed to join hands and reminisce on how we held tight to the binds of morality and found courage in a seemingly dead world that allowed us to once again spark hope, and reverse things and all that shit."

It's all a part of our story, from the outbreak to the friends and the romance. From an outsider's perspective it should seem unrealistic almost. The universe aligned itself one day with a cold summer morning and a single played piano, the ripple setting in motion things that tied all of us inexplicably together by fate.

Maybe fate isn't even real. I blink and dry my own eyes and crack a smile as I listen to the bickering of my friends and feel the comfort and familiarity of past and present both. If nothing else things have all come together, standing here in this room has brought everything full circle.

Mark pats my back and laughs quietly, slinging an arm over mine and Dan's shoulders so that we have to crouch down a bit to accommodate his height.

"Way to bring in the sentiment, Danny." He teases. Dan scoffs and Felix chuckles behind us, standing up to head out into the other room, and I feel calm.

After the first photo it turns out that Mark has found many more, some of them still with the tape that had once held them stuck to my wardrobe doors. I look at them and am reminded of friends and family, I show them to Dan and the others and tell the stories of my home. We de die to spend the night and leave tomorrow, and after some more talking and jokes, our friends leave to go make dinner and Dan and I hang behind.

Once everyone has settled onto my sofa in the other room and begun to chat about with voices barely discernible from one to the other and the smell of cooking fills the air I finally allow myself to relax, flopping down next to Dan who is still sifting through photos on my bedspread with his chin cupped in palm, setting them aside when I reach out and pull us together.

The darkness has fully enveloped the room and I can see the silhouette of buildings through my bedroom window, shuffling closer to Dan and letting him pull the blanket over us both for the first time since the night we left this place so long ago.

I can hear the others making dinner, can see the orange glow of a lantern down the hall that they've placed in the kitchen most likely. I'm a bit hungry but I let myself wait to sink into the sheets, head on my own pillow and happy memories on my mind.

We lie on our backs and his hand finds mine. It's hardly a surprise when his head finds my chest when I throw the blanket around us both, when we both start to feel sleepy and settle into each other.

This is the last night of our old life. Tomorrow the sun will rise and we'll be heading back to the east end, settling into a homestead of shelters built by the rebels for survivors like us. Tomorrow we'll make new memories and hug James and meet new people in a place that is safe. Tomorrow we'll start anew, make plans to chase out the supporters of the virus and to save others in need. Tonight is the night for just me and Dan, and I hold him the way I know I can, the way I'll hold onto him forever.

I know our friends are out there, but they can wait for now.

There are things to do, people to save and tasks to overcome. There's still zombies out there and what's left of the Confederation is fighting back as best it can but there is also hope. We've survived another day and we'll survive many more, we'll try to make things better with whatever time we have left.

I shut my eyes for a moment, letting myself just sink into the sheets. They're soft and comforting and they smell like us, the bed still creaks a bit with every movement like it did when I was younger. Outside, the world is fast asleep. Night falls soft and gentle, we let ourselves fall into it without any kind of fear.

It's warm in the darkness. As Dan turns towards me and my hand finds his this time I do lean down and make good on the wish I'd had earlier. Our bodies intertwine and heartbeats merge softly in this silence, my arms find his form and I know we're thinking the same thoughts. I press my lips to his forehead and then to his nose and cheeks, forgetting everything just to be here for a while.

The world goes quiet and I see him when he smiles and then kisses me, and for the first time in a long time, I realize I'm just happy. There's nothing to worry about and nothing to hide, no fear that I might lose him but endless optimism for a world where it'll be him and I together.

I sink into him and pull us both down into the pillows and as he wraps his arms around me I just kiss him back and realize it's dark tonight. There's no moon, no stars visible because the sky is full of clouds. Even still, all in the world is right.

I am here, Dan is here, we have love and we have each other and nothing can ever change that again. We are the night, we hold a universe between us and as the last tendrils of sunset disappear he lays his head on my chest, shutting his eyes and falling still.

Maybe I'll marry him one day. The beauty of it all is that the choice is mine and I have him here to figure it out. I love him and he loves me and there's no limits to how cliche or romantic we want it.

Nothing but love and completion, but soft lines and twilight. Nothing but the sky above and the entire world below in a way one can't scarcely imagine is what I am as of now. That's what we are.

All is well, I think sleepily. After all, there's no need for stars if you aren't afraid of the night.

We don't end up staying awake for dinner. We just stay wrapped in each other, whispering softly and basking in the silence and gentle murmurs. No one disturbs us and I know they understand, peace blanketing me calm and serene.

We fall asleep in the early evening to dreams of a better future. With all of life ahead it seems impossible now to imagine that who we are in a year might be nothing like the people we are in the present, perhaps strangers in the same way we now see the last. As it stands, the world is in no way perfect. There is so much left to do and so much left to say but the good thing is that for once time is kind. We have time, and one day, I believe that though I can't save the world Dan and I will be able to change it.

It's a mess that will take effort and devotion. Life is fragile and the cure is still being developed, people are behind together and no longer is anyone alone.

It's an effort that will take millions. An endeavour unlike anyone the world has ever seen. The Confederation decimated everything years ago, and only now is it all being reversed.

The change is slow but it's happening. People are scared but they're fighting. Dan and I are caught in the heart of it and we wouldn't change a thing, because all of this is what got us here today.

We may be scared, we may be tired, but we're alive. We may have nightmares, but with time and each other I know there will be a day where I wake up, and realize everything once again is right.

It's a huge task- a massive and dangerous one.

We're going to rebuild the world.

Please don't hate it please don't hate it ahhh

who's fuckin ready for the epilogue?? ;D

Oops did I say only one chapter left? What a quirky chap I am, secretly having a secret epilogue in there too secretly. How secretly secret of me. Think there's nothing left that could surprise you, what with the happy resolution and all that?

Well. My hint to you is that it will not at all be what you're expecting. This might very well be the biggest surprise yet, but don't quote me on that. I'll let you see for yourself what's in store and you can decide for yourself if this may not be the biggest twist yet. Night isn't going out quietly.

Thank you so much for reading this story, I cannot believe we've reached the end. I never thought I could complete a novel length story, but I stand corrected. I'm so incredibly in disbelief of where it's gotten and I hope both this ending and the epilogue do the same for you. I already have new fics in the works and hopefully some of you stick around to see them, after the final instalment on this one. Are you prepared? ;)

Vote/comment/sacrifice me to Satan to spread the love my soul died to write this utter madness <3

much love, ~Aly🌙.