I was watching out the window at the zombies still shambling through the streets when Shane came up behind me. He put his hands on my waist and kissed the side of my neck. "Have you seen my shirt?"

Biting my lip to keep from smiling, I said, "Um... I think I might have thrown it over there?" I pointed over my shoulder, still looking at the zombies. It was kind of creeping me out, the way they just kind of... wandered. I didn't like that they didn't seem to have any sort of purpose or destination.

I still don't, if only because it makes the herds hard to predict. There seems to be very little that drives the zombies. If they aren't actively going after something alive, then they just sort of shamble around, and that makes it difficult to know when you're going to run into a large number of them.

They have no patterns. Yet another thing that separates them from the living.

Shane looked over to where I had pointed and asked, "Were you aiming for the top of the wardrobe?"

I laughed and turned to see him using the edge of the wardrobe to boost himself up and snag his shirt. He put it back on and smiled at me before asking, "How is it out there?"

"About the same. They're just kind of... walking." I watched him pick up the binoculars and look out the window. "Kind of crazy, isn't it?"

"Mm," he said. "World's always been crazy. Now it's just really in your face about it, you know?" Shane shifted in a way that seemed a little uncomfortable, but all he said was, "They're still heading north. Not really slowing down."

"What do we do if they decide to stop?" I asked. I stood next to him, and he shifted again.

Shane shrugged. "We'll get out of here one way or another. I'm not worried though since they're still moving. One crisis at a time right? Let's not borrow trouble thinking about a what if."

I sat on the bed with a sigh, playing with the edge of the red and blue checked quilt. Shane looked at me for a long moment, his face unreadable. He swallowed hard and rubbed the back of his neck.

With an only-kind-of-nervous smile, I asked, "What Shane?"

"Well, I, uh," Shane sat next to me. "I know it's um... it's a little late but are you, uh... are you on.." Shane cleared his throat, a flush creeping up the side of his neck.

I watched him struggle for a moment longer, completely confused, before something clicked into place.

"Oh!" I laughed and Shane looked up, toward the window.

"It's not funny, Raleigh," Shane said, his voice as strained as I'd ever heard it. "There are no doctors. No hospitals. There... there's no way that's even remotely safe!" Shane looked at me finally and for the first time since I'd known him, he actually looked panicked.

If he hadn't looked so scared and it wasn't so sweet, I would have laughed again. Instead, I turned to where I was facing him fully and placed a hand on either side of his face. He covered my hands with his, eyes very large and I said, "You don't have to worry about that."

His panic turned to confusion, then to anger, and he said, "Do I look like the kind of guy who would walk away? I wouldn't have done that before. Why would I now?"

That did make me laugh and I looked up at the ceiling, then back down at him. This was something I hadn't thought about in so long, I wasn't entirely sure how to explain it. I decided to keep it simple. "No. No, I mean..." I bit my lip and looked at him. "I... can't."

"Can't?" Shane echoed, his hands moving down to circle around my wrists.

"I can't get pregnant. I, um, when I was a kid I was in a car wreck. There was... substantial damage and, well..." I trailed off, looking down.

The last time I'd told someone this, it had ended one of my very few serious relationships. I didn't think it would with Shane, but can you blame me for being a little gun shy about it?

Shane was silent for a long time, and I finally looked up. He seemed to be battling with several different emotions and for once was at a loss about what to say. I decided to make it just a little easier for him.

"It's not something that upsets me. When I got older, everyone kind of acted like it should. I'm from a small town so... every other girl I knew talked about wanting that ideal small town life. You know, finish high school, maybe go to college if that's what they wanted, meet the perfect guy, get married, have three or four kids." My hands slid from his neck down to my lap. He kept his hold on them and I smiled a little. "The white picket fence and giving the kids to grandma and grandpa on the weekends you know?"

Shane gave me a small smile and said, "But not you?"

I shook my head with another laugh. "No. No way. I mean, I totally respect anyone who just wanted to be a mom you know? That's the hardest job there is. I just... I don't know. I just always wanted something different. Even from when I was a kid. I just always thought that if you have a baby, then you need to give one hundred percent of yourself to that child. You owe it to them. You can't just bring something so tiny and defenseless into the world and not put all you have into protecting it and loving it and teaching it. And I," I took a breath, "I always knew I wouldn't want to do that. It wouldn't be fair to me and it sure as hell wouldn't be fair to any kid."

I stopped then and laughed again. "Funny. Isn't it?"

"What?" Shane smoothed my hair back from my face.

"Well... something like that could have happened to anyone. But it happened to someone who didn't have their life completely ruined by it." I shook my head again.

That had always been something that fascinated me. How fate worked out that way.

Who knew it would really, really come in handy? Now, something that might have eventually been a curse, turned out to be a blessing.

I sighed and tilted my head, looking at him. I kind of wondered if Shane would look at me differently now. Before, whenever I'd told anyone that, they'd always looked at me differently. Like I was all the sudden something that needed to be handled with care. Or that I had some kind of disease instead of a surgery that had kept me from bleeding to death when I was eight.

"Kind of an intense conversation," I finally said, wanting to break the silence.

Shane laughed this time and the sound was pure relief, though I was sure he hadn't meant it to be. "It was completely, completely necessary. I thought about it getting dressed. That was the most scared I've ever been in my entire life. And I've been shot at. And blown up."

I shook my head, amused, then grinned, unable to resist messing with him just a little. "So what about you?"

Shane paused, confused. "What about me?"

"Well," I paused delicately, "you don't have anything I should be worried about, do you? Like the clap or anything?" I smiled playfully at him, then laughed outright when he actually blushed.

He shook his head vigorously and, feigning a great deal of scientific interest, I said, "Wow. I didn't know Marines blushed."

"Yeah, well." He pushed lightly at my shoulder. "You seem to have a talent for making me react in certain ways."

"Yeah." I grinned. "Funnily enough, I got that impression."

Shane shook his head silently and stood up, offering me a hand. He held me against him after helping me up and with his chin resting on my head, asked, "I would be a bad person if I said I was happy about this, wouldn't I?"

I was silent for a moment, just listening to his heart beat. It's the most comforting sound I can think of. It's my favorite sound.

"Raleigh?" he asked, worry in his voice now. I'd taken too long to answer.

"No," I said firmly. "No. You would just be honest." Looking up, I kissed him and let it draw out. Eventually I broke away and said, "I like honest. And besides. It's not like you're the only one who benefits from this arrangement."

Shane laughed, his breath pushing my hair around. Dryly, he said, "Funnily enough, I got that impression."

I rolled my eyes, then looked back out the window, my thoughts shifting toward a more serious problem. "Shane, what if we can't get out?"

He pulled back from me and said, "That's not going to happen. If nothing else, we'll just use the truck and plow through them. That seems to work well enough in the movies." He grinned, trying to lighten the situation.

"How do you always sound so confident?" I asked, still unsure. I was starting to feel trapped. Like a rabbit in a snare.

"It's my job. Fear is contagious. It's lethal and it's useless." Shane went over to the window then.

"Are you scared?" I asked, not really sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

Because, if Shane's scared, then you should be terrified.

Shane just shrugged. "It's not about being scared. It's about being able to deal with the fear and carry on anyway."

At this point, you're probably sensing a pattern. Yes, Shane did inspire quite a few of my rules.

Rule #10: Feel free to be scared. Just be able to keep going.

Shane kissed me again and said, "We should probably go downstairs."

I blushed when I thought of Kyle but nodded. I mean, we'd been quiet but, come on, Kyle's not an idiot. In fact, he's far from it.

I was kind of hungry anyway after not having eaten last night, then... Well, the point was I couldn't avoid it. I was going to have to deal with the awkwardness at some point. Might as well rip off the band-aid.

There are a couple major apocalypse life skills you pick up. The faster the better.

The one that applies to this particular situation was that you stop being shy pretty damn quick.

You're constantly with other people. Excluding groups like yours, who had the set up that you did, privacy is more or less a thing of the past. A luxury of the pre-zombie world.

Of course, that's not to say that we just did whatever we wanted when or wherever, but still, people aren't stupid. They can connect the dots.

Eventually it just doesn't bother you all that much.

I mean, you kind of have bigger problems than if everyone knows you're sleeping with someone else.

Like if you're all going to be alive tomorrow.