Archive of Our Own ^beta

Before they left California, Lily had already settled into a tentative truce with Nao. She hadn’t forgotten the various things he had done in an attempt to be rid of her; sometimes, while she slept, she dreamt of being alone in the supermarket with starving corpses reaching for her. The girl that she once was before the world fell apart wouldn’t have thought of running right after the man who left her to die, crying and begging him to stay with her anyways even knowing he’d leave her again in a heartbeat. But, then again, she had long since ceased to be that girl the moment she plunged her scalpel in the eye socket of the receptionist.

They had been planning their route on the map for days—Lily spouted some inane lie about keeping it safe for him since he kept all those sharp weapons in his bag, and he had given her an aside glance before he passed the map to her. He knew she needed the map as collateral for him to stay, and she knew he was certain by now she’d never think of leaving him. The map was loaned to her under this uneasy truce.

“I think we just crossed the state border…” Lily murmured, eyes darting to and fro across the thankfully sparse road. Nao had been particularly careful to select the one least likely to be populated, and his efforts meant there were few undead to be found shambling around besides the one or two that had somehow made it this far.

Nao didn’t speak, eyes focused on the road. She had since grown used to his silence and lost the nerve to fill it up with chatter, so she fixed her gaze out the passenger window—only to catch a glimpse of buildings. Her silent driver slowed down, surveying the area just as she was. 

He then parallel parked admirably well and stepped out of the driver’s side. Lily scrambled to unbuckle herself and chase after him, stumbling in the shadow of his footsteps before she crashed into his back. Surprised, she poked her head out from his side and found herself face to face with a shotgun barrel.

“Nice of you Californians to stop by,” drawled the man who held the shotgun, “but I’m not exactly taking houseguests right now.”

“With that run-down house of yours, no wonder,” Nao said. Lily yanked his arm so hard he broke his rigid, stoic pose to glare at her for a moment. 

Ignoring the annoyance he projected, she hissed, “He’s got a gun!”

The man snorted, angling his gun towards her for a heart-stopping moment. “You better listen to your girlfriend here. I’m not too good at telling apart coyotes and humans.”

“Do you think you scare me? Get me some gas and I’ll be out of here.”

“What he means to say,” Lily quickly interjected, voice rising in pitch as she clutched onto Nao’s arm and nervously looked between the man and his gun, “is that we’ll trade! We’ll trade for some gas! And then we’ll be out of here!”

Nao didn’t make a smart comment which meant he was in assent. The man didn’t shoot, which also meant he was in assent. Lily added, “We have some antibiotics from Walgreens…”

“Eh, why the hell not. Go grab that while I look around for a tank or two. I can spare a little if you get me something for infections and pain.”

“Yes, sir!” Lily all but hauled Nao back to the car with her, popping the trunk open as she sorted through their cache. Amoxicillin for certain, tylenol for the pain, and a box of cold medicine that wasn’t exactly the most effective—but he didn’t need to know that. Nao crossed his arms and watched her disapprovingly.

Lily ran back with her armful of medication, placing each into the man’s open hands as she recounted the uses of each. “And remember, you have to finish the full course of—”

“Yes, yes, I’ve been to the doctor’s,” the man said dismissively, gesturing at the tank of gasoline. “You need help getting that up there?”

Lily looked between the gasoline and Nao, who was still watching her while leaning against the car with his arms crossed. “I got it,” she assured him. “And…thank you, for not shooting us.”

“Never occurred to me,” the man said. “Would give me more work anyways. Listen, I don’t usually butt in on the personal lives of other people but my conscience would sting a whole lot if I said nothing. You be careful of that man of yours, alright? Types like his, they don’t settle down for anyone.”

Across a stretch of grass was Nao, still watching. Mountains of rock rose into the sky above him. The wind was starting to pick up, a pleasant balm for cheeks beginning to warm. It wasn’t a lovely flush, but rather the mottled pink of embarrassment. 

She hated being seen through like this. It made her feel more like this foolish new self of hers, beholden to someone one year her junior. 

She hated that these words wouldn’t even leave a dent on her. She couldn’t leave him because where else would that leave her? Alone in a world full of zombies, too scared to do anything on her own—he was a sociopath but he moved with such purpose it almost felt like she had one too.

“Thank you,” she told him, but the both of them knew his words had gone in one ear and out the other. 

“You stay safe, alright?” he told her, giving her a slight wave. He watched her walk all the way back to the car, lugging the gasoline with her. He watched as Nao ungratefully took the gas from her, filled up his car, and stored the tank in the trunk. And he watched as Lily took a seat in the passenger side, buckled up, and watched him turn into a small speck in the distance.

She didn’t tell Nao this like she would have a week ago, but this was her first time in Nevada.

---

“Wow!” Lily gasped, darting forward. “Is that Salt Lake City? That lake is massive! You could fit, like, a hundred Stow Lakes in there!”

“Are you trying to trip and die?” Nao hissed, grabbing her jacket by the collar. She pinwheeled her arms as she stumbled backwards. With the sort of manner that did not befit a lady, Nao steadied her by the shoulders and kept a firm grip. From beside them, Jackie chuckled. 

“That’s just Utah Lake, love—the Great Salt Lake is a little above, but it’s best we stay away for now. I’m afraid to say all the tourist destinations are likely to be overrun at this point…”

Nao added, “And quit shouting all the time, unless you want the rest of the tourists to join us.”

“Yes, yes,” Lily acceded to both, the image of dutiful obedience. “Yes, Nao. Yes, Jackie. This humble one will listen to you both…” Nao pinched his eyebrows in the same expression that showed how he found her most annoying and Jackie smiled good naturedly. Their tour guide had found them most fortuitously—Nao was fighting off a zombie, she was desperately beating it over the head with a baseball bat. Jackie ran onto the scene, tackled the thing, grabbed Lily’s bat, beat its head in, and then turned and introduced herself. As far as Lily was concerned, she was now indispensable to their team.

They stopped for supplies, as they often had to do when they spent most of their time driving around. One of these days they’d run out of luck siphoning gas from abandoned cars, but their luck hadn’t run dry yet and Jackie was the best mechanic still alive. Even Nao would begrudgingly seek her out to learn a little more every night, prideful as he was.

Together, they crept into a nearby pharmacy to see if there was still anything left. These days, not so much. But their lucky finds once in a while was still worth its weight in gold, especially since Nao had fed her half the ibuprofen during her period because, and this she was quoting, the whining was grating on his nerves.

Was she imagining it, or did he somehow seem a little more…lenient towards her? More forgiving, more accepting? She had even been protesting against taking their precious few painkillers—he practically shoved them in her mouth and poured the water for her, and if she hadn’t swallowed he might’ve started rubbing her throat like a stubborn cat.

So maybe he hadn’t learned to be gentle, but wasn’t it a little bit of a start?

Lily, so caught up in her thoughts, hadn’t noticed the zombies until Nao stuck his arm out and stopped her. “They’re ambling around the corner,” he whispered, so quiet she had to practically press herself into him to hear. 

Jackie jerked her head in its direction. “I can handle it,” she said. “You two know more about medicine than me, so get behind the counter and take everything we need.” She waited for a moment, and when there were no objections she took the bat Lily gifted her and crept over, ready to swing.

Together with Nao, Lily shuffled behind the counter and began flipping through the prescriptions as fast as she could. It was all menial things like blood thinners and statins, things that weren’t exactly a priority. She pocketed someone’s ibuprofen when there was a crash, and she whipped her head around to see Jackie fending off twice the zombies she thought there were. 

Through the broken window, countless more were pouring in. “Jackie!” she screamed, dropping the bag in her hands as she scrambled to get over there—only to have Nao grab her arm. 

“Are you crazy?” he hissed. “You don’t even have a weapon on you!” 

Jackie swung again. “Get out of here!” she shouted across the hands that grabbed for her mouth. “I’ll be fine—this is nothing!”

It was a flurry of footsteps as Nao hauled her out the backdoor. Lily snatched up a fire hydrant from the next building over and she ran back to the pharmacy with her breath held tight. She saw a pile of corpses, Jackie leaning on the baseball bat as she stood a little off to the side.

“You really did it!” Lily exclaimed, tossing the fire hydrant aside. “Jackie, you’re—”

The mechanic raised her hand, palm facing Lily. “Don’t come here,” she said calmly. “Look at my arm.”

Lily’s eyes trailed down to a bite mark, pulsing as it oozed blood. Her veins were already turning dark.

“I don’t have long,” Jackie continued quietly, “so listen to me. I’m so happy I got to meet you, Lily. You’re awfully kind, but there are people in the world that’ll take advantage of that.” She swore, for a moment, Jackie’s eyes darted to meet Nao’s behind her. “Never let anyone take advantage of that.”

“I-I won’t!” Lily insisted, even as her heart lurched.

“Good,” Jackie said. “Good,” she repeated, her lips almost stretching into a smile before it dropped as her limbs spasmed and twitched, her eyes rolling up into her head—

Before she knew it, Nao had already marched over and bashed her head in with the fire extinguisher. Lily staggered over, looking down at a corpse bleeding black who had only a moment ago been talking to her.

Nao stood beside her for a moment, before he turned. “Let’s go,” he said. Lily could only spare a last glance at Jackie, before she turned in his direction and chased his footsteps.

---

“Lily, why don’t you scavenge with me?” Evelyn ushered her closer, beckoning with her hand. Even in the apocalypse she smelled like something tropical and summery, and coconut and mango wafted towards her against all odds. Nao somehow always smelled like antiseptic even though they had run out—or maybe he had a secret store he kept on hand. Either way, she couldn’t help but to lean closer.

Someone’s arm wrapped across her shoulders, pulling her back. She peered up to see Nao’s eyes trained on Evelyn, narrow and furrowed. 

“Hey, no need to lay claim to your territory,” Evelyn commented offhandedly, easygoing as usual. “I was just hoping we could go get some feminine products. You know, between us girls?”

Nao scoffed. “There’s no such thing as gender essentialism in the apocalypse.”

“Well, mister med student, I think you just lack a sensitive heart,” Evelyn added, tapping on her cheek with a deliberately innocent look to the side. “Modesty is a big part of cultures like ours.”

Noah, who had been tinkering around with one of his inventions, piped up from the side without sparing them a glance. “Hey, muscle-brain, I need some more wiring if you’re so busy.”

“Ah, what a shame that the only place you can reliably source circuitry is…oh…on the opposite side of the town.” Evelyn rose to her feet, smiling as she walked over to set a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her.”

Lily looked up again, just as Nao looked down.

“If anything happens—” he began, but Noah with his ever-sharp tongue cut him off.

“You’ll leave us behind like you did with Lily? Yeah, good luck with that.”

Nao bristled. “That was—”

“Okay, okay, let’s just agree to split up today and we’ll reconvene in two hours. Okay? Great! Nao, you go grab whatever Noah needs. Noah, keep an eye on base. And Lily—we’ve got a girl’s night!”

Before he left, Nao had grabbed her hand. “Don’t do something reckless,” he said, and then he was gone. Evelyn already had grabbed her arm, all tropical and sunny as she pulled her down the street together. 

When they were a good distance away from camp, when they had found a corner store to sneak into and ransack, when they were side to side perusing what few tampons and pads remained, Evelyn spoke up. “To tell you the truth, Lily, this wasn’t really a girl’s night.”

“I kind of figured,” Lily replied, picking up a dusty thing of wingless pads. She put it back after a moment of deliberation. 

“You should really be careful with Nao,” Evelyn continued, shuffling through more tampons without applicators. It really was the worst of the lot they had to pick from. “Noah thinks so too, but there’s not a good chance to say this when he’s hovering over you the whole time.”

“He’s just protective,” Lily protested.

“Excessively so.”

“We’re in dangerous circumstances…”

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” Evelyn pressed on. “Remember, you told us yourself the first thing he did was leave you behind.”

Of course she remembered. Of course she couldn’t forget. “Well, it’s a bit of a formative memory, but people change and—”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that he’s changed,” Evelyn continued, “but into what? I don’t think you understand the way he looks at us. I care about you, Lily, I do, but I can’t spend every night worried he’ll kill me off just because he thinks we’re dangerous to you.”

Lily’s hand dropped to her side. “Are you…going to leave?”

Their silence hovered, thick and palpable, for a moment. “No,” Evelyn finally said, “not now. We’re too far from New York, and Noah and I don’t know the first thing about first aid. But I know people, and I know someone like Nao is just waiting for us to run out of use.”

Lily’s hand, now, traveled up her arm. Her fingernails dug into the flesh, prodding deep into her skin as it dug crescents. “He’s…he’s not like that. He just needs to warm up to you guys. I don’t…”

“He did for you,” Evelyn gently told her. “I doubt he’s got room for another charity case in his heart. We care about you, Lily, I wouldn’t lie about that. I just wanted to let you know now ahead of time. You’ll always have a place with me and Noah, okay?”

Blood rushed to her ears. She couldn’t keep her thoughts straight on her head, couldn’t spare a single glance to the pads and tampons she came here for. Evelyn watched her carefully, warm brown eyes peering into hers. 

She swallowed. “Okay,” she said. “I got it.”

“Good.” Evelyn smiled. “That’s good.” For a moment, Lily was struck by deja vu, but it was over just like that. “Now let’s find something to bring back before Nao gets all huffy about you being missing.”

---

They ran through the forest, footsteps trampling over foliage and sticks. Noah’s hand was warm in hers. She felt strange—unsteady, uncertain. But even as she wavered Noah remained steadfast, pulling her along his path as he ducked between the trees.

Evelyn. She wasn’t there. Last she remembered Evelyn was holding her hand, and she was pulling and pulling, trying to get her back over the ledge as she dangled above a horde of zombies, and her foothold was slipping as she was being pulled over the side but Lily would have rather died than let go—

There was a gunshot. She didn’t remember much after, only that Nao had pulled her back onto the rooftop, arms wrapped tight around her waist as someone screamed, as a body hit the ground, as countless decayed arms reached for a singular target. 

Noah tugged her along, his words spilling from his mouth. “Northwest, northwest,” he repeated, “from our position we’ll run northwest—”

“Noah,” Lily gasped, “I can’t keep—”

“Keep running!” he shouted back, and for a second she saw a flash of his eyes—dark, hurried, frantic. “I knew we should’ve left earlier! Who would’ve thought that bastard would’ve—”

He cursed under his breath. That slow, quiet, unreasonable piece of her that still retained memories of the world before wanted to chastise him for being too young to curse, but she couldn’t get her mouth around the admonishment. Her mouth was too dry for words, too dry to speak. 

“Someone like him you can’t trust,” Noah was saying, words coming in pants and gasps as he still ran even as he staggered and tilted from exhaustion. “What’s his deal? How can he care so little? Evelyn was nothing but nice, and yet—”

Something lodged in her throat.

“And yet—” Noah continued, voice cracking. For a moment he slowed, almost as if he was trying to gather his thoughts, but then there was the sound of thunder and he pitched forward, collapsing onto the ground as Lily fell with him. She tumbled atop him, scrambling to pick herself up.

“Noah? Noah!” She shook him, only to gasp and fall backwards when her hands came away with blood. He remained unmoving, eyes wide open and staring right at the dirt. She crawled backwards, shoulders shaking, until she backed into a pair of legs.

He reached out, pulled her up by the arms with surprising gentleness. “Are you hurt?” he asked, voice gruff but not completely without emotion. She shook a little, eyes darting between him and Noah facedown in the dirt. 

“Noah, he—”

“You’ve got dirt all over you,” he said disapprovingly, picking up her hand and dusting off her palms. “Be more careful next time. We don’t have anything for tetanus right now.”

“N-Nao, Noah’s—”

“Save your breath for now,” he continued, ignoring her. “Or do I need to carry you, since you ran so much?” His arm was around her shoulder. Her breath hitched, as it did by habit when she was with Nao. He held her, these days, with the sort of tenderness she could almost mistake for love. But it was ridiculous to think of them that way, even if he had nursed her back to health and patched up all her injuries, even if he had spent countless nights watching over her as she slept, because in the end she was that girl he left behind and she needed him to stay.

Evelyn, Noah. They weren’t here now. It was just Nao, and if he turned away she wouldn’t know what to do.

Maybe it was the wrong decision. Maybe it was the worst thing she could have done. Even so, she let him take her by the hand and let him lead her out of the forest, into the city, back to their new base where he made her dinner and tucked her in.

At night she couldn’t sleep, and she stayed up until sunrise with her eyes fixed at some point in the ceiling, unthinking and unblinking.

---

And yet, despite all of this—it was ridiculous to think that there was ever a time without Nao. She couldn’t fathom that. Could you imagine?

---

Why did she want to go to New York so bad in the first place? What moved her limbs when Nao wasn’t there to drag her along the road, picking up supplies and buckling her seatbelt in the car for her?

Oh, that’s right. At the very, very beginning of the apocalypse, back in the hospital, the residents had fought to the last few sparks of their lives just to guarantee she could make it. Even when she had been separated from them, they had given her something to look forward to. We’ll find you in New York, they said, where the military base is. Find us in New York.

Did it always have to be Nao? She had ingrained herself into his life—she couldn’t deny it now. She hadn’t moved a muscle for their sake in days, but he was still going through the motions and procuring everything she could need, pushing rations in her mouth and watching over her during the night. He could’ve left at any time, but he didn’t.

She could’ve left at any time, but she didn’t.

They stayed with her, each person who had in earnest spoke from the heart. In Nevada, she brushed him off. In Utah, she forgot about her. Evelyn, who slipped from her fingers—Noah, who fell before her. 

Nao, who promised her long before they left California that she didn’t mean a thing to him. Only across their tour of the states he cared for her when she was delirious from a fever, tended to all the wounds she accumulated across the months, carried her on his back when he had to.

Each death, she wore it on the inside of her sleeve. This was no way to live. This was no way to hold on. When they got to New York, what could she even say? This is all that I gave up to get here. Will you forgive me?

They settled in for the night. Nao, as usual, combed through her hair and wiped her cheek with a damp cloth. He cared for her in that stiff, clinical method he had no doubt tempered through medical school. In another world, where he moved onto residency, he’d have been the darling of the department. His professionalism was wasted on her, as she breathed in and lifted her head, for once meeting his eyes.

“What are you going to do first when we get to New York?” she asked him, with a hoarse voice that had been quiet for the last stretch of their journey. Her words crackled under the strain of speaking. Nao, eyes wide, leaned in closer as if to catch every last crack.

Their foreheads nearly touched. “I—we’ll have to get something to eat,” he said. “You need iron supplements. Iodine too.”

Was it wrong that she could still smile at him? “You really do sound like a doctor.”

He held onto her hand tightly, fingers wound around hers. “I would’ve been.”

She wanted to ask, all of a sudden, why her. Why her of all people. They crossed paths with men and women stronger than her, smarter than her, more beautiful and more talented, and yet the only one who remained at his side was her. But when the words touched her tongue, she held it tight in her mouth and clamped her lips down. 

For once, Lily didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to be curious. She was in a state of suspended animation, and for once she felt light and at peace. She could accept this much, and she could accept knowing only this much, and she could accept leaving things at this point.

She leaned forward, touching her forehead to the back of his palm. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Could you tell me something?”

Before Evelyn and Noah had become a semi-permanent fixture in their travels, she had rounded out their nights camping out with stories plucked from her past. He knew everything about her, and she knew next to nothing about him.

She knew what she was going to do tomorrow. There was only thing left in her repertoire, powerless as she was, to get back at him for the sake of everyone who he had died to keep her at his side. She was scared—but more than that, she was burdened with responsibility. 

Nao could never feel remorse for someone else’s behalf. But she could, and she was the only one who could pry remorse from him.

She would get their revenge tomorrow, but tonight—tonight, she wanted to love him.