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On trembling thighs Runner 5 rushed through the gates and only slowed down once she heard their reassuring clank behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure there were no more Zombies behind her and clamped a hand over her mouth when she realised, she had truly made it back to Abel Township.
The other hand resting on her stinging sides, Five limped further into Abel Township. The muscles and tendons in her shins felt so tight, she was sure they would snap if she took even one more step. Massive amounts of sweat streamed down her forehead, lower back and chest and had her shirt cling to her skin. The runner wiped her forehead with her arm to keep the sweat out of her eyes, but only made matters worse as she smeared mud all over her face.
She looked around, noticing people coming towards her, but the world around her seemed to move in slow motion. and swam before her eyes She was dizzy and her breathing heavy, but the sound seemed so far away, like it reached her through a tunnel. Finally, she made out a glint of orange in the distance. The one person, she really, really needed to see right now. The corners of her mouth turned up into a distorted smile between each gasp and she stumbled towards him as fast as she could. Maybe 8 steps left. 7 steps. Only 6 more. Then her legs gave in and the world around her spun.
Mentally, she was prepared to hit the ground. Prepared to feel the gravel against her face and the sharp pain that would probably follow the fall. It might also be damp and cool if her face hit a patch of grass. Huh, that sounded quite nice, actually. She didn’t get to find out though. Before her upper body could go through the entire 90 degrees, it hit something a lot softer and warmer with a low thump.
“I’ve got you, Runner Five. I’ve got you.” Sam had knelt down in front of her to support her weight. “I knew you would make it”, he whispered against the top of her head.
Curled up in his arms, the world began to come back into shape and Runner Five remembered something she had wanted to tell him, ever since she got his signal back.
“It used to be on the inside…”, she brought out in a rough voice.
“What?”, Sam looked at you in confusion. “I don’t understand - are you alright?!” His voice was a pitch higher than it usually was and turned around, shouting to someone: “Hey, get her some water! And wake-up Maxine asap! Tell her Runner Five is back!”
Five rested her head against his shoulder, collecting herself enough to form a full sentence. Had her throat been this dry the entire time? She swallowed heavily and lifted her head. Sam was looking in the direction of the makeshift hospital, probably waiting for Dr. Myers. Five reached up and lightly tucked on his hoody to get his attention. “The ice in an ice cream role. It used to be on the inside!”
His eyebrows, that were furrowed with worry, relaxed and he began to laugh. “I know! I went to ask Janine – not one of my brightest ideas. Waking her up in the middle of the night to ask whether she remembered ice cream rolls – try it if you have a death wish!”
She joined his laughter, holding onto him tightly. She felt the gravel prick her legs, the muddy ground cooling against her skin. There were so many different voices around her. Did Abel even have this many people? They were loud, so loud, some cheerful, some wary but first and foremost loud. Her breathing sped up and all the impressions of the day came rushing back at her, threatening to overwhelm her. Her fingers clawed into the thick cotton blend of Sam's sweater, burying her face in his shoulder as her brain went into overdrive. She noticed the faint scent of soap, mixed with earthy notes and the stinging of sweat. Well, after an entire day of running that soapy smell certainly didn’t come from her. And her clothes - the cold and wet fabric made her shiver uncontrollably. She tried to breathe deeply in and out, focusing only on Sam. The way his chest rose and fell evenly, his smell, the heat radiating from his body, even the smallest movements. He mirrored Five's move, holding her as tightly as he could without crushing her.
His hug was both too much and yet not enough, all at the same time and a loud sob rippled through her chest. Sam held her for as long as she needed it, carefully rocking her in his arms as her shoulders jerked in time with her sobs, whispering that everything was okay. “Well, maybe not everything everything. There are a lot of things that are very much not okay right now. But considering the circumstances, things here don’t seem quite so bad. Okay-ish, if you’d like”
A few chuckles mixed itself in between her whimpers, sounding more like hiccups. Slowly, she let go of him, wiping the remaining tears with the palm of her hand. Sam's eyes were glassy as well despite his seemingly lighthearted demeanour.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime”, for a second his smile betrayed him. The corners of his mouth dropped and he seemed on the verge of crying as well. He lowered his gaze and cleared his throat.
“Honestly, I’d prefer to not repeat something like this any time soon.”, she replied, as she let herself fall back, leaning on her hands. Sam’s hands rested on her upper thighs, still kneeling in front of her when the glare of two flashlights found them. Janine and Maxine had arrived.
“That was one hell of a run, Runner Five. Good to have you back with us.”, Janine greeted her.
Maxine bent down to get a better look at Five and asked how she was feeling while she was checking the runner's pulse. Sam shuffled to the side, to give her space. His hand felt sticky. He didn’t think too much of it at first until he noticed a red tinge to it. “What's with your leg?!”, he asked, panic in his voice.
“It’s nothing. My foot got trapped in a rabbit hole or something. I fell and slid down the flank of a hill. I think my arm is a bit banged up as well.”, Five tried to calm him down.
“Did you get in contact with zombies?” Janine’s voice just moments ago so full of appraisal, turned stern and a chill ran down Five's spine from the implication of Janine's question.
“No”, she replied as calmly as possible. Was that the right move though? Wouldn’t a confident tone make her sound suspicious?! She was able to avoid the zombs, but if push came to shove, how was she going to prove that? Janine mustered her and she was fairly certain the major read her mind. The seconds ticked by painfully slow.
“Dr. Myers will take care of your wounds in the hospital tent. We wouldn’t want you to get an infection. Should you have been bitten, we will have to-“
“There’s no reason for her to turn though, right?! Right?!”, Sam interrupted her, moving closer to Five. It felt like a scene from a movie in which a child tries to convince its parent to keep an injured puppy. Five reached out for him and squeezed his arm. Then she pushed herself up to standing to be on eye-level with Janine. She was sore, exhausted and bleeding, hadn’t it been for Sam by her side she was certain she would have fainted.
“I understand", she told the major with a firm voice. And the major seemed to approve of her answer.
“Very well then. Step away from her, Mr. Yao. It's time you get some rest. We will need you for a mission in the morning and I can’t have an exhausted comms operator guide our runners.”
He followed her order reluctantly and turned with a stricken look on his face. Maxine had swapped places with him to guide the runner towards the hospital tent. Before he was completely out of reach, Five stretched and grabbed hold of his sleeve, making him turn back around. “Hey, look at me. Look at me. I’ll be fine, okay? No one is turning here, especially not me. Do you understand?”
She knew how hard this night had been for him as well and her heart felt heavy. Everyone at Abel Township probably knew about his break down a few weeks ago. Finally, he lifted his head and nodded before he turned to leave with Janine.
“Hey, Maxine?” He stopped turning back around one last time.
“Sam?”
“Please take care of her for me, will you?”, he sighed loudly, “I’d like to keep my 4th runner 5 a bit longer…” And he wandered off in the direction of his room.
Maxine’s examination went over fairly quickly. The open wounds on Five's leg, arm and hand were only superficial and looked a lot worse than they were.
"Since you had to roll around in the dirt though, they have to be cleaned thoroughly to avoid complications", Maxine explained. Dread filled the runner when Maxine placed a bowl of water, some cloth, disinfectant and tweezers next to her. As the doctor progressed to clean the wounds, she admitted that she was surprised to hear the runner curse the way she did.
“Careful, who you kiss with that mouth.”
Five gave her a disconcerted look, but was too exhausted to investigate as to what Maxine was implying. Or rather whom. Maxine also checked for any possible fractures as her right ankle and knee were swollen from the fall. As far as she could tell despite the lack of medical equipment they would heal without problems. The doctor did make it very clear though that she wouldn’t let her run for at least a week to avoid any kind of stress injuries.
Luckily for the runner, Maxine had her rest in the hospital tent. That came with the advantage of being able to sleep for as long as she needed. So, when she woke up the next day, it was already well past noon. Maxine had kept her some food and made sure the Five hydrated properly. She also offered her some pain meds, which she refused – they were desperately needed at the Township and she didn’t want to waste them on something seemingly minor. A decision she slightly regretted the moment she was roughly 50 meters away from the tent. Man, she never thought it possible to feel so many different kinds of pain at the same time: There was the dull pain of her bruises, the burning pain from the grazed skin and of course the soreness that now reached basically from her calves right up into her lower abs.
Not being fully recovered and back among Abel Township’s inhabitants was the one thing the runner had feared though. The one good thing about the Apocalypse was, that there was always something to do, find out or figure out. Being all alone with your thoughts on the other hand, was a free pass to dwell on things and oh-so-many what-if scenarios. She offered to help with preparing food, checking up on supplies and smaller repairs but was shooed out almost immediately to get some rest.
Her room was empty, the three other runners either out on a mission or training for the next one. She plopped down on her bed, not sure what to do next. Then she noticed a piece of paper on her pillow. Sam had written her a letter, inviting her to visit him in the comms shack. A smile formed on her lips as she read and re-read the note several times.
She liked Sam. She liked Sam a lot. But she was also afraid for him. He had healed so well since Alice had died. The closer Five got to him, the more it would hurt him should something happen to her on a run. Considering the way the last couple of months went, there wasn’t a small chance that one of them would end badly. But then again, you were already kind of the last stand. With fewer people around, it was hard not to get attached to the ones that were left. If she dared to be honest with herself for even one second, she'd have to admit that the point of no return had probably been crossed the moment she had heard his voice for the first time. After jumping out of that bloody, burning helicopter. Five reached for a sweater she had brought from home and folded it absentmindedly. Her old home. The sweater was one of the few things she had managed to pack and keep since the army had cleared the hotel she was staying in on Z-Day. One of the few things that kept her sane when things got too much. She was playing with one of the sweater's drawstrings as she realised with a sigh that she was smack in the middle of dwelling on things and decided that the best course of action was to follow Sam’s invitation.
Runner Five let herself in after a soft knock and saw Sam hunched over in front of his monitors, headphones on. He turned towards her, patted on the seat next to him and gave her a pair of headphones as well as he announced her presence to the two runners he was watching over.
They were out on what looked like a fairly simple supply run - but were they ever, really? She watched in silence, most of the time observing Sam. From her own runs she had a slight idea, of what Sam was doing while you were out, but the number of screens, the scanners the different keyboards and makeshift mixing consoles with their flashing buttons and sliders baffled her - he had to have an eye on all of this and managed to chat away nonchalantly. A strange feeling was forming in her stomach. She was proud of him and how well he was doing, especially after the stuff he had told her about his family. Sam caught her gaze when he turned around and gave her one of his signature bright smile and a thumbs up. God, he had a beautiful smile. Five smiled back at him, placed her palm on his shoulder blade and watched as her fellow runners made it through the gates and back to safety.
“I had no idea, how much tech we had here. You handle all of this…?” she began, wildly gesticulating at everything.
“I’m quite the impressive guy, aren’t I?” he laughed, rolling back his chair to get a better look at her. “So.. what about you? You’re okay?”
“Yep, out of commission for a bit, but no need to put a bullet through my head just yet.”
“You did hear that, huh? Sorry for getting so dark back then”, he placed his hands in the pockets of his hoody, obviously uncomfortable.
“No worries. It’s not like I would care, had I turned grey. Or would I? Well, I don’t intend to find that out any time soon.” Runner Five let her eyes trail over the monitors as she spoke. One of the surveillance cameras had caught some zombies who were shambling along the fence. Sam followed her gaze and got up to radio the guards about them. Better safe than sorry. A stain on the side of his sleeve caught her attention. Without thinking she got up as well and reached for him.
“Sorry about that”, she said, absentmindedly rubbing over it. He turned to see what she meant.
“It’s no big deal. I’m just glad, you’re back”, he said quietly. She held on to his sleeve for a moment, then -on a whim- wrapped her arms around his waist.
The hug was clumsy and awkward at first – not nearly as smooth as the other night. The two of them needed to figure out who put their head on which shoulder to avoid smashing their heads together. They were also at least a step too far away from each other. Once they had figured out their upper body positions, Five stepped closer to him and they finally got comfortable with each other. Sam's arms were wrapped around her shoulders, one of his hands tangled in her hair, as he confessed: "I thought I had lost you, too", and how he had feared the thought of having her come back to haunt him as well.
Five's throat tightened and she felt her stomach sink at his words. She rested her hands on his chest, looking up at him.
“I have no reason to do that, do I? I’m fine, I swear. And even when I’m send out there again, I’ll be fine. Because you’ll have an eye on me.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”, he said in a hesitant tone.
“I mean it, Sam. When the mission went south…” she paused with a sigh, “I haven’t been this scared in a while. Not since coming to Abel at least. I mean, every day has that underlying sense of dread. You know, when you just want to yell “Oh, what is it now?!”at the entire world?! That sort of way. But I know that I’m faster than the Zombies and as long as nothing really stupid happens, I will get through this because I have a great team on my side”, she said, poking his chest with her index finger, "And then New Canton brings out fucking machine guns… Talk about something really stupid. I mean, what the hell?! You’d think the nation that has spent every autumn for the past 10 years watching nice people bake nice cakes would handle this whole thing a bit more gracefully!”
“That was your thing before the Apocalypse? That's unexpected...”
“You bet it was! Nice people and cakes - what's not to like about that?! Oh god, I miss cake..." She felt the the breath from his chuckles against her ear which wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
"Even after I got away from New Canton, I thought I was done for.", she continued in a quiet tone, "It was getting dark, I had lost our signal, had only a rough idea where I was and all the noise had the area swarming with zombies. It was horrifying. But the signal came back and there you were, talking me through it.”
“It’s the least I can do”, his voice was weak and throaty. He nuzzled Five's hairline with his cheek, his hands had moved to rest loosely around her hips. She let her thumb trail along his spine, down from his hairline to the collar of his hoody and slowly back up again. Holding him, like he had held her. Telling him, that the two of you were okay. Well, maybe it was more okay-ish but considering the circumstances even being okay-ish had to account for something.
It felt like he had placed the softest of kisses on the crown of your head and smiled down at her. A smile, that made her heart race with the realisation of how intimate this moment was. She felt incredibly vulnerable.
“Is this the moment where we kiss?”, he whispered. And with those few words, all of her tension was gone. Runner Five let her forehead fall against his collarbone.
“Would you like to?”, the sound of her voice muffled.
He swallowed hard. “Very much.”
Her heart skipped a beat - this sweet and silly boy was going to be the death of her.
She placed her hands on his cheeks, meeting his gaze for a second before closing the last few centimetres between them. Kissing Sam felt unreal. The world around them was harsh, uncertain and ever changing – seldom for the better these days. But this moment was full of warmth and calm. A faint memory of a life almost forgotten. It was the smell of the cheap soap that reminded her, where she was and what was happening around them. When they separated, she felt hazy like she had just awoken from a dream and opened her eyes reluctantly.
“Hey”, he whispered, resting his forehead against hers.
“Hi”, she said in response, closing her eyes again. Maybe, if she kept her eyes closed for long enough this moment would never end.
“Still sure you’re not going to turn into a Zombie after getting a taste of this scrummy human being?”, Sam asked with a smirk that was bordering on smug – if he was even capable of being smug.
“Pretty sure”, she replied before his lips found hers again. Then a thought crossed her mind and she was barely able to contain the huge grin that came with it. Five let the tip of her tongue trail over his upper lip and caught his lower lip between her teeth and gently bit down.
Sam exhaled sharply, snapping his head back and whined “Not funny, Five!”
“It was a little bit funny….”, placing a kiss on his cheek. “Wait, did I hurt you?!”, she added when she noticed that he was inspecting his lip carefully.
“Not in an entirely uncomfortable way.”, he said, pulling her back into a kiss, that was deeper and more passionate than she had expected from him. In response she buried her hand in his fluffy and smooth hair.
His tongue slid into her mouth, his thumb and index finger lightly caressing the skin that had been exposed when her shirt rode up ever so slightly in the back. Her knees became weak and her legs began to quiver the longer the kiss lasted - whether it came from exhaustion or the way Sam made her feel, Five wasn't able to tell. She wanted to be so much closer to him, melt into his touch. He sensed that her stance was getting unstable and turned her towards his desk. When he had brought her close enough, he lifted her to sit on it and placed gentle kisses from the corner of her mouth, along her jawline, wandering up to the tiny spot right beneath her earlobe. It felt like a jolt of electricity ran through her spine. Her visible shudder startled him. “Did I do something wrong?!”
“What?”, she opened her eyes, still completely mesmerised, but snapped back to reality after seeing his concerned expression. “No! Oh, no, no, no! Absolutely not! It’s just…”, she struggled to put her feelings into words and stared at the wall across from her, “The last time I’ve been with someone was before all of this happened. I just didn’t expect to still be able to feel… like this”, Five ended intertwining her fingers with his.
"I know what you mean”, he responded in a hushed voice, “When you say ‘Like this’, you mean like what exactly?”
“I don’t know? It's weird – not this right now”, she quickly added after he raised an eyebrow, “The kiss was good. Like, really good. So good that I don't want to do anything else for the foreseeable future.” She couldn't quite wrap her head around the thought yet. Was it okay to fall in love in the midst of all this? “I’m just wondering - are there rules for this in the Apocalypse? I mean, should we talk to someone about this? Because this-" she pointed back and forward between them rapidly, "whatever it is- might be awkward?”
“And going up to Janine to tell her about it wouldn’t be?!” Both, Sam and Five were quiet for a bit, imagining how a heart to heart with Janine would go.
“Point taken. I guess we do have some time to figure things out.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him in for another kiss.
The door to the comms shack opened, letting in only a sliver of sunshine that turned wider and wider and basked them in the last rays of the afternoon sun. Just a heartbeat later the light was blocked again by a large shadow. They looked up and spotted its source. Janine evaluated the situation, then closed the door and left without a word. In the comms shack, it had become dead quiet. Neither of them dared to move.
“Don’t you love it when things take care of themselves?”, Sam finally said, biting back his laughter.
Runner Five gave him a dumbfounded look, her mouth opened into a soundless scream. In response, he placed a kiss on her eyebrow.
“I might need one of those chocolate digestives now…”