The room was quite light by the time that Marissa came out of her room blinking sleepily. I turned my head slightly as she entered the room, letting her know that I was awake. With my sunglasses, they really had no way to tell.

She yawned, "How did we sleep so late?"

I spoke quietly, "Our mystery guest managed to drug the soup water with melatonin in an attempt to steal our supplies. He didn't realize that there were two zombies present who were immune to such sleep aids."

Nicky grumbled as she sat up, "Is that what that ruckus was about last night?"

It looked like our non-morning bird was ready to rise. I didn't have any coffee ready either. Nicky looked around with a scowl as she realized the same thing. She stood up as she wrapped her sleeping bag around her. She stomped off toward the kitchen.

I sighed and glanced toward Daniel, "This is going to be an interesting day. It looks like Nicky is about to take another trip to the dark side. You may want to shake Nina awake."

He gave me a confused look, "Why?"

A large bang resounded from the kitchen as Nicky dropped a huge metal pot upside down on the useless stove. She grabbed a metal spatula and a large whisk before she started beating on the pot like a deranged drummer.

Nina jumped as she propped herself up on her elbow at the sudden racket, "What the..." She blinked drowsily at the world around her while trying to figure out if the noise was an emergency alarm or something more mundane.

I sighed from my corner, "It is just Nicky, you can go back to sleep."

She sent a look of sleepy disbelief in my direction, "I don't think that is even remotely possible."

Considering that everyone else had sat upright in alarm, her observation was valid. I stood up with another sigh. I headed toward a still drumming Nicky and glanced at a surprised looking Marissa as I passed her, "I will distract her for as long as I can, but try to get the coffee going before she returns."

She nodded her understanding. With one swift move, I disarmed Nicky and threw her over my shoulder before heading for the door. She struggled in my strong grasp. "Hey! If you want to join the band, you can be the soloist or play the guitar! I call the drums!"

I managed to get her out of the doorway despite her trying to use her feet to stop my progress. I finally came to a pond in the forest that I had found yesterday and put her down, "Here, why don't we grab a bath before the boys get here and dirty up all the water? Look how warm it is."

The water was quite warm in comparison to the chilly morning air and bits of steam drifted above it. Nicky was successfully distracted as she paused to examine the water, "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? I haven't been able to really clean up since the Stronghold got overrun. Did you bring the towels?"

Thankfully I had put two in my backpack earlier just in case she bought my odd excuse. "I didn't mention it because the boys would have tried to beat us here. Yes, I brought towels. Here they are."

"Ohhh... I call the green one. I can't believe we got here first. Those guys would have hogged all of the hot water for themselves and our shower would be cold by the time we got in. They did it all the time at the old Stronghold."

She was really off her rocker if she was comparing a shower to a small pond. She tested the water before unceremoniously stripping to her birthday suit and diving in, "The water is great! Come on in!"

I guess I had to pay the piper too. With a grumble I took off my pants and shirt to enter the warm water in my undergarments. I wasn't about to go skinny dipping, so my undergarments acted like an impromptu bikini. I had clean underwear in my backpack so it didn't matter if I got these wet. It had been a while since I had a bath, so being clean managed to improve my mood.

In the end, I had to literally pull Nicky out of the pond because she didn't want to get out of the warm water. She was in a better frame of mind as we returned to the house. The entire group was outside with a big pot of coffee and another batch of soup.

Ben looked up at our approach, "There you are. We were beginning to wonder if you decided to murder her after all."

Nicky skipped over to gracefully collapse into an empty chair with a grin, "Nah. She likes me too much. She even took me to the spa."

I took the other empty seat as I rolled my eyes. The fact that I had shampoo, conditioner, fingernail clippers and a set of scissors to trim hair in my backpack had sent her over the moon in joy. Her faintly damp hair was neatly trimmed and all the split ends were gone.

Nicky eyed up the coffee pot and my Nightstalker instincts once more sounded the alarm. The absolute last thing that Nicky needed in her current state of mind was caffeine. I thought fast, "You know Nicky, it might be best if neither of us drank coffee today. That way the boys can't blame us if we need to stop for a bathroom break every half an hour."

I never drank coffee, but that was beside the point. I wasn't sure I wanted to know how Nicky would act if she ended up on a caffeine high today. Ben had nowhere to run and the back of that truck was crowded enough as it was. I had been more patient during the last hour than I had been any other day put together. My patience and tolerance had limits and she was likely to find them before too much longer.

Nicky frowned, "I don't know... I really need my morning cup of coffee."

I heard Ben inhale in surprise as he finally connected the dots. I smirked at Nicky, "I bet I can go without drinking coffee longer than you can."

Her eyes flashed over to me at that challenge, "You're on!"

I grinned smugly at her. I never made bets unless I was very sure that I was going to win them, but I wasn't about to tell her that anytime soon. Ben snorted, "Nicky is so going to lose that bet."

I sent Ben an irritated look and wondered how long it would take him to get duct tape off his mouth if I wrapped it around his head a couple of times. Nicky jumped to her feet, "What did you just say?!"

The crazy lady had just turned into a little spitfire again. She could pull a mood swing at the drop of a hat. I think she may actually be more temperamental than a Nightstalker when she is like this.

Ben realized it as well and took off running. "Hey! Get back here!" Nicky took off in hot pursuit after him.

Ben did a lap around the house in record time and looked at me desperately as he ran by the group again, "Trinity, help me!"

I snorted, why did he think I was going to bail him out when his problems were caused by his own words? "I am not her babysitter. You riled her up, you deal with her."

Nicky rounded the house with a branch the size of a baseball bat and a demented grin on her face. Ben kept running around the other side of the house trying to get away from our armed lunatic. Nina was watching with a slightly incredulous expression while Daniel had a faint look of confusion. Hank ignored the two as he dished up the first bowl of soup and passed it to Marissa.

Two high laps later, everyone else had a bowl of soup. Hank eyed up our two immature companions who were doing a lovely job of wearing themselves out for the truck ride ahead. He obviously didn't want to get into the middle of this. I held out my hand, "If you pass me a bowl of soup, I think I can get her sitting and eating as long as Ben keeps his mouth shut."

He immediately took me up on my offer and passed me a big bowl of soup. I waited until Nicky rounded the corner to come into view once more, "Hey Nicky, breakfast is ready. Come eat before it gets cold."

She slowed as she made a face at me, "But I am having so much fun!"

Nicky had more in common with a four year old when she was like this, but she had the quirks of a mischievous teenager mixed in... I smirked, "If you leave the stick there for now, I will show you a few tricks with it later on."

A grin split across her face, "Deal!" She dropped the stick and swiftly came over to take the offered bowl of soup as she sat down beside me to eat. Ben realized that he was finally off the hook. He swiftly took advantage of her distraction and quickly claimed her stick before putting it in the fire.

She protested around her mouthful of soup, "That was mine! I wasn't done with it yet!"

I sighed gustily as my quota of patience was rapidly running out, "Nicky there is an entire forest behind us. I am sure that there are other branches somewhere in there."

She grumbled incoherently and kept eating her soup. She finished the huge bowl with a big sigh, "Wow. What a morning..."

I think that was the understatement of the year. I examined Nicky, her mood had settled closer to normal. I made a mental note to try to get her to eat a big bowl of soup as soon as she woke up if it made that much of a difference. She noticed me looking at her, "Do I have soup on my face or something?" She wiped her face, but came up empty.

For the first time since I turned, I attempted a light teasing tone. Even more miraculously, it actually came out that way, "Did you ever take medication for your mood swings other than coffee?"

She grinned at me, "Oh yeah, the doctors did a bunch of tests and gave me some pills, but I stopped taking them. They made the voices in my head actually get along. It is much more fun when they are fighting with each other."

I nodded slowly and took a drink of my water to save myself from having to reply. I wasn't overly surprised, but it did reinforce the fact that traveling with this bunch was going to cause more than a few headaches.

In theory, I could easily tie up or forcefully restrain Nicky if she went too far off the deep end, but it wasn't really her presence that concerned me. I was used to being the strongest and being able to strong-arm my way through arguments if I had to. I couldn't get away with such stunts with Daniel. He was strong enough to force me to do something I didn't want to do if he chose to. That fact was a constant thorn in my side.

We managed to cram ourselves in the truck again. I pulled my hood over my head and stared at the scenery. Nicky was once more tormenting the shoelace as she unraveled the braiding in it strand by strand. Oddly enough, Nina didn't have her notepad out. She seemed deep in thought and didn't even attempt to speak. Daniel was a tiny bit more relaxed than yesterday, but that wasn't saying much.

The other five men talked quietly amongst themselves. Nicky eventually got bored and gazed at the road behind the truck, "What does that yellow sign by the road say?"

I glanced back to see two signs in different shades of orange. The red tint in my vision made it impossible for me to truly see a bright yellow color, or any really light color for that matter, they always had a slight red tinge to them.

Nicky nudged my foot with hers, "Well? Your vision is better than mine."

I sighed gustily in annoyance, "I can read the words on the signs easily enough, but I can't see the color yellow. I see two orange signs."

I noticed that Nina's eyes opened in curiosity and Daniel looked surprised. Nicky blinked at me, "Well that sucks. I never heard of a color blind zombie before."

I growled lightly at her tone. Nina pulled out a brand new notebook and a pen, once more full of curiosity, "What exactly can you see?"

The interrogator was back. I didn't dare growl in annoyance at her either with Daniel so close. Some days pretending to be polite sucked, "I can see details fine, it is just the color. There is always a slight red tint in my vision, like looking through faintly red colored glass. I have a pretty good guess as to which sign is yellow, but if she hadn't said it was yellow, I wouldn't have known."

Nina was scribbling as fast as she could, "Is the tint always present? Does it ever change?"

"It has been present since the day I turned. It has never gone away. The red tint does get worse if I start to get fairly irritated or mad."

Nicky tilted her head, "Are you sure it isn't just your sunglasses?"

I shook my head, "No, I take my sunglasses off when I go out at night. They make no difference, they just dim the amount of light that gets through to something I can handle." I glanced over at Daniel, "The other Nightstalkers I spoke to all see this tint, do you see it?"

He shook his head slowly, "I only see that tint if I get really mad, otherwise every color seems brighter and crisper than when I had been human."

I could barely remember what bright yellow and white looked like after all of this time. Nina kept scribbling and I resumed my scenery gazing. Nicky had started rebraiding the shoelace threads.