Puck didn't wake up until three days later.

         After their first night in the van, Quinn had moved to sleep next to Puck, spending the three days watching him and holding his hand. She ignored any attempts Rachel, Sam, Brittany or Santana made to talk to her. She would check his breathing, his heartbeat and spend nights with her arm flung across his chest.

         Once, Blaine tried to talk to her about leaving the van, taking a patrol with him. Quinn just shook her head. "We're in this together," she said, holding Puck's hand. "He stayed with me when my family was gone. Not today." Blaine had just nodded, heart swelling from the intensity they felt for each other.

         Blaine and Kurt spent time together, holding hands and speaking quietly. Sam had helped them push their van and the teal Honda into the car village. Santana and Rachel had taken the supplies and stored them with the supplies they had already accumulated. It seemed that despite the hostility the two groups felt towards one another that they were simply one now. Survival does that to people. Santana had shells for their shotgun, Brittany had mysteriously examined the dead Walker in the trunk of the teal Honda, murmuring to Santana before the pair had lifted the Walker and the jars from the trunk and carried them to a van with tinted windows at the edge of the clearing.

         Sam explained to Blaine and Kurt that the group took patrols every two hours, and that they would be expected to participate. They were patrol partners, and they had to walk within a twenty-mile radius of the clearing, bringing weapons with them and reporting on any Walkers. It was boring work, but Kurt and Blaine liked to go together, walking through the forest, talking and laughing, learning each other in ways they had forgotten.

         It was on the third day, just as Blaine and Kurt were returning to the clearing from their patrol that they heard Puck's voice.

         "You want to explain to me how the fuck I got shot?" his voice rang across the clearing.

         Blaine and Kurt exchanged a quick glance and jogged over to the van where he had been resting. Puck was sitting up, supported by Quinn and in the middle of a heated exchange with Sam.

         "Your group was a threat to ours," Sam explained bitterly.

         Puck rolled his eyes. "Well, by all means, shoot me. That'll solve all your problems."

         "It's not worth it," Quinn told him. Puck turned to look at her. She raised her eyebrows, nodded. He sighed and nodded back before turning to look at Sam.

         "I don't like you," Puck told Sam. "I don't like your 'moral code.' I think it's as twisted as fuck. I don't like the girls you're with, I don't like that you suddenly have our supplies. But I'm willing to work with you as long as you get your head out of your ass and stop acting like a motherfucker. Does that sound good?" Puck extended his hand. Sam shook it, hard.

         "Fine," Sam agreed, and walked away.

         The first moment he got, Blaine threw his arms around Puck. Puck chuckled.

         "Missed you," Blaine whispered, and Puck squeezed Blaine tight.

         "Missed you too, little buddy," he whispered back.

         They pulled apart and Blaine reached for Kurt, pulling him into a group hug with Quinn and Puck.

         "You're my family now," Quinn murmured and they gripped each other so tightly Blaine thought he was going to explode. The connection that he felt with his three friends was unlike anything he had ever felt. Brought together out of desperation but still together because of desire. In the decaying landscape of his country, his planet, in their arms he found a kind of life that was scarce.

         As they pulled apart, Blaine noticed Quinn wince. "How's your stitches doing?" Blaine asked. Kurt turned to look at Blaine, studying his profile, a smile playing on his lips.

         Quinn's eyes flicked up to meet Blaine's and then flicked down. "I think they're fine," she said softly.

         "Bullshit," Puck said sharply. "Show me."

         Quinn glanced nervously around the small circle before lifting her shirt to reveal her wound.

         Blaine gasped. The wound was badly infected, bright red and swollen, pus weeping from the puncture holes in Quinn's flesh. Puck made a choking noise.

         "It's fine, really," Quinn said. "I've been wiping it down with iodine every night…"

         "Clearly that's not enough," Blaine said, sneaking a glance at Puck. He was devastated, not even trying to hide the look of horror on his face.

         "Well, we ran out of bandages and I just…" Quinn trailed off. "I didn't think it was that important."

         Blaine bit his lip and looked at Kurt. "Let's ask Santana what's she's got, since the supplies are communal now…"

         Kurt nodded and took his hand. They walked to the other side of the clearing where Santana was sitting in the trunk of a Ford and stitching a hole in a sweatshirt closed.

         "Hi," Kurt said.

         Santana looked up from her sewing, raised an eyebrow.

         "Quinn has  a pretty bad infection. We were wondering -"

         "If I had anything lying around to save your precious little blonde? Sorry, I don't." She went back to stitching.

         "What do you mean?" Blaine asked. "You've taken all our supplies. I thought we were supposed to be working together."

         "I don't have any antibiotics," Santana replied. "I can give you guys some clean bandages, some more iodine. Once she gets a fever she'll have three, four days tops."

         Santana's words hit Blaine like a brick. Quinn couldn't die, that was impossible. None of them were going to die, they were going to make it. They were going to get through this.

         "That's not an option," Blaine spat, and he felt Kurt squeeze her hand. "You need to do better."

         Santana laughed. "Look around, this is doing better. We're isolated from the Walkers, we've got supplies, food and water. People live and people die. I thought you'd have figured that out by now."

         Blaine stared at Santana, seething. He had never wanted to hit someone more in his entire life. After everything they had fought for, the way he'd struggled to survive, it was all going to end here. He was just supposed to resolve everything, accept death as an inevitability?

         Kurt led Blaine away gently back to Quinn. "There's no antibiotics," Blaine admitted sadly.

         Quinn smiled tightly. "It's alright," she said, taking Blaine's hand. "We'll make it work."

         Blaine clutched Quinn's hand tightly, and he didn't know if he believed Quinn one bit.

***

         When he was six years old, he played zombies in the yard with his older brother.

         "Come on, Blaine," he would call out. "We gotta find the humans and eat their brains."

         "Eeeew," Blaine would say, scrunching up his nose in disgust. "I don't wanna eat brains."

         "Yeah you do," Cooper would grin. "You're a zombie now, just like me."

         He would stick out his arm and cock his head to one side, moaning. "Braaaaaaaaiiiins, braaaaains…"        They would run around the yard, screaming and laughing until their mother called them in for lunch. They would sit at the table with a plateful of peanut butter and banana sandwiches and glasses of milk and talk and talk about zombies.

         "If the zombies come, we have to stick together," Cooper would rationalize, his mouth dry and sticky with peanut butter.

         "It's scary," Blaine said once, his hazel eyes wide.         

         "I won't let them get you, Blaine," Cooper smiled, grabbing Blaine's sticky hand in his own. "I'll protect you."

         Twelve years later, they sat at the same table, arguing about the vaccination.

         "Cooper, I can't believe you're being so stupid. Sharing a needle? That's a death sentence," Blaine spat. The plate of sandwiches lay untouched between them, their mother and father talking behind a locked door somewhere.

         "Mom and Dad are right, this is our best chance. All four of us are clean, we haven't left the designated area in over three months. The virus is moving closer." He was pleading with Blaine, Cooper knew as well as Blaine did that time was not a luxury any more.

         "Why don't we run away somewhere? Get in the car and go. We'll be safe out there."

         Cooper had laughed at him, the coldness behind it like a slap in the face. "You really think you'll get past the guards? No city officials want the people outside of here infected."

         Blaine sighed in frustration, tears stinging his eyes. He couldn't explain it, he just knew it was a bad idea. It felt so wrong to him. In every movie he'd watched, every novel he'd read, the only way to escape the virus was to leave and get out. Staying to fight it meant certain death.

         "I know you're going to die if you get vaccinated," Blaine told him. "I just know."

         Cooper looked Blaine dead in the eye. "I would rather be a liability of the government than be bitten by one of those fuckers."

         Cooper stood up and walked away. The next day his family was vaccinated. The day after that, they were dead. Blaine didn't know what happened next because he ran. He ran and ran until he couldn't cry anymore and his lungs burned and his legs ached.

***

         He was sitting in a van, looking out at the moon, big and round and full in the sky. He didn't hear Kurt come up beside him.

         "It's beautiful," Kurt said.

         Blaine didn't turn to look at him, instead keeping his gaze on the glowing orb above them. "It is," he agreed.

         Kurt shuffled closer to Blaine, slipping his arm around Blaine's waist. Blaine leaned into him.

         "What are you thinking about?" Kurt asked.

         "My brother," he answered.

         Kurt sighed.

         They were silent, the sounds of the sleeping camp consuming their space. There were crickets somewhere. There was a stream of water, probably infected with the blood of dead Walkers.

         "I like being with you," Blaine told him.

         "I like being with you, too."

         "I'm scared," Blaine admitted. The words hung in the air. It wasn't acceptable to be scared. There was only fight. There was only flight. There was no scared. Being scared was how you got infected. his quiet admission set the stillness on its edge.

         If he was being honest, he didn't know Kurt all that well. Tragedy had thrust them together closely. Sometimes their lips touched. They elected to be a pair. They were mates. They had each other. When they walked in the woods, they talked about the people that they used to be. Kurt knew how to fix cars thanks to working in his father's garage. He liked the smell of incense. Blaine had seen every Rocky movie and had a folder on his computer dedicated to pictures of abs. He liked the smell of fresh leather.

         "It's OK to be scared," Kurt told him, even though it wasn't.

         "I don't know how to help Quinn."

         "We'll find a way," Kurt assured him, even though he didn't know what way that would be.

         "I'm getting tired of hoping," Blaine confessed, breaking his vigil with the moon to look Kurt in the eye.

         "Hoping is all we can do," Kurt told him. "It makes us human."

         Blaine started to cry. "It's OK to hope," Kurt whispered, brushing tears off Blaine's cheeks.

         "I want to be smart about it," Blaine said. "Sometimes I catch myself praying to God and it doesn't make sense because this virus proves that there isn't any God."

         "I do that too. We all do that I think."

         "It makes me angry. I wish I could forget, I wish I could grow up, but I can't. I feel like I'm stuck, like Old Blaine won't go away. I try to push him back and he's nagging at me all the time. Life is never going to be the same."

         "Old Blaine and New Blaine are allowed to want the same things," Kurt said suddenly.

         "I want my family back," Blaine said, shutting his eyes and releasing a flood of tears.

         "You have a new family now. You have me." 

         They kissed, and it was desperate. Want, touch, taste, close.

         "I just want to feel something," Blaine whispered against Kurt's lips. "I want to feel alive."

         Kurt's breath hitched. "Now I'm scared," he murmured.

         It would have been stupid and foolish to make love when a virus was running rampant, but they did anyway. It was quiet and terrifying. It was dry and awkward and nothing like a movie or anything in a romance novel. It was what they needed. Adrenaline rushed through their veins, blood pulsed through their bodies in a way that was new and thrilling. There was no God, or hope, or antibiotics, but there was this. There was moving together under the moon and it was full and round and it lit up the night in a way a thousand stars never could.

***

         The next day around noon, Brittany pulled Blaine aside. "I have to talk to you," she said, her blue eyes piercing. Blaine blushed, worried that someone had heard the night before, but his worry was for nothing.

         "The blood that was in the trunk of that car," Brittany said. "I've been using it."

         Blaine raised his eyebrows expectantly.

         "I've been working on an antidote."

         Blaine froze. "Why are you telling me?"

         "I just thought you should know," Brittany said. "I've been working on it for so long, Santana doesn't think it's going to work. But I think I've got it."

         "For someone that claims to be your friend, Santana spends a lot of time not believing in you."

         "Don't talk about what you don't know," Brittany said simply. She wasn't being malicious or sharp, just stating a fact.

         "I'm glad you think you've found a solution," Blaine replied. "I hope you never have to use it."

         Brittany had to administer the antidote three hours later.