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“What do you miss most, Five? From before?” Sam’s voice managed to cut through her groggy thoughts as she lay half asleep on his arm. The two of them had made their way to the Rec Hall after all of the other runners had returned and Five had managed to clean herself up with a bucket of water and a bar of soap.
They had talked for a minute before they began a game of Super Mario Brothers on the old, battered Super Nintendo that Five had picked up on a run a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, Five could barely hold her head up and ended up falling asleep relatively quickly after the first boss.
“Wha-? What are you talking about, Sam?” she grumbled, unintentionally snuggling herself closer to his warmth and nuzzling his neck. For someone so quiet when she’s concentrating, Runner Five was surprisingly affectionate – especially when she was sleepy. Sam smiled down at her, torn between letting her sleep and waking her up so she would be able to appreciate the surprise he had for her.
“I was just thinking… like, there’s a lot I miss from before, but most of it we get along fine without. But, if you could have just one thing back from before, what would it be?” Five was slowly waking up; he could feel her rolling her neck and stretching next to him. His eyes were focused on the old, battered television, but his mind was focusing on the movements of the woman next to him.
“What do I miss the most?” she repeated his question through a yawn and moved to the other side of the small couch. Twisting her torso until it popped, she let out a long groan that forced Sam to pause the game and turn to look at her. With a satisfied sigh, she leaned back against the arm and began to fiddle with one of the many loose strings on the couch. “Well, the obvious would be running water,” she finally answered after a moment of contemplation. “And I mean, like real running water. The kind that practically bruises your back in the show and is so hot that you get out looking like a boiled lobster. Not the mist that we call a shower here.”
He grinned - he knew that would be her answer. They had had similar conversations before, mainly consisting of her complaining that she couldn’t really get all of the zombie guts off herself without a real shower. She continued to mindlessly fiddle with the loose string as she watched him finish a battle with Bowser. He loved times like this – when they could just be in each other’s presence. No need to talk. Unfortunately, if he didn’t hurry up his surprise wouldn’t work. Silently, he saved his game and stood up. “Come on, Five. I’ve got something to show you.”
She followed him, confused. “What’s going on, Sam? It’s almost curfew,” she whispered, linking her fingers through his.
“Well, I… I spoke with Janine earlier today,” he told her, pulling her toward the old farmhouse that marked the center of the township. He glanced back at her, smiling. “I don’t know if you realize it, but ran your 500th mission the other day. That’s… that’s kind of a big deal, so we wanted to celebrate. Well, sort of. It’s more like we wanted to thank you.”
They reached the farmhouse door, where he knocked sharply three times before opening the door and walking in. The entryway had been stripped to the bone, all of the materials were more useful elsewhere in Abel. Sam led her through the hallway and up a flight of stairs to what would have been the master bedroom if it wasn’t doubling as file room.
Someone had managed to get their hands on multiple filing cabinets, but the majority of paperwork was sorted into several different milk crates around the room. Sam urged her forward until they reached the bathroom.
“Sam? This… what’s going on?”
“Well… alright, I know this is kind of strange, but you’ve just been saying that you want a real shower for so long and obviously we haven’t been able to get anything close to what you want. But about a week ago, Runner Seven managed to bring back a compact water heater when they were raiding a home repair shop. I… uh…” his hand went to the back of his neck and he looked away form her. “Well, before we scrap it and use it for parts, I convinced Janine to hook it up to her shower. I’ve been using my allotted shower time to bring water up here for you-“
“So that’s why you’ve smelled worse this week,“ she interrupted, a wide grin spreading across her face. She turned to examine the water heater – how on earth did Runner Seven carry that this far? - then moved over to Janine’s shower. Once it would have been considered plain or just normal, but after three years of the zombie apocalypse it looked almost luxury.
“Hey! I’ve done this great thing to celebrate your 500th mission and you- well you-“
“Thank you, Sam,” she interrupted again, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s see if this works…” Silently, she turned a few knobs and pressed a few buttons until she heard the once familiar hiss of the shower head. Her eyes lit up as she looked at Sam.
Suddenly, he was acutely aware of the situation. “I… ah… I’ll just leave you to it then,” he grumbled, backing toward the door before Runner Five’s light laugh stopped him in his tracks.
“Don’t be silly, Sam,” she told him, coming closer and fingering the hem of his shirt. “I would never have made it to 500 missions without you. This is your celebration, too.”