The End Is The Beginning

"How could we ever have guessed this would happen to us?" Shay asked, sitting on the grass in Central Park and staring out at the blank windows of the mall. As she leaned against an old oak, one leg tucked against her body and the other extended, she almost looked younger than twenty-two, but the lines around her eyes and the white that touched her hair more than countered that initial impression.

"We couldn't," Erin replied simply, pacing back and forth next to the empty ground that screamed the presence of a body. Between her hands, an abandoned plaque flipped back and forth, a few brief words flickering in and out of sight so that even the fastest of readers would need several repetition of the loop to recognize the song lyric.

"Everything's different now," Shay continued, her voice flat, almost as if she were searching for the proper words. She raked ragged nails along her left arm, scraping off a couple of scabs, some dry skin, and even now, flakes of dried blood. Somehow, the blood never washed off.

Erin snorted. "Tell me something we don't know."

"We're still alive. Sometimes I wonder if you do know that."

"We survived. There's a difference between surviving and living." The words were brittle, coming out with sharp, sarcastic edges.

"If you're not living, I still have my Glock."

"Fuck you." Somehow, even after the long months, the bodies stacked like wood, the steady loss, the flare of tempers in too small a space, the twist and warp of personalities, the blood and gore, even with the world turned upside down, it still sounded unnatural for Erin to curse so easily and harshly.

Shay patted the space next to her. "You're making me nervous. Nauseous. One of those. Sit down or I'll puke on you."

Erin came to a halt, but she did not take Shay's offer. Her body stiffened and she bit the inside of her lip so hard she drew blood. Shay watched her pattern of breathing change, shallow and quick, and marveled. When had Erin ever looked so terrified? Erin, who had twice been the only being to walk out of a room full of the dead, covered in other people's blood but never her own? Erin, who had held together the biggest group of survivors Shay had seen off the island? And Erin's voice was small and weak when she finally said, "Don't joke about that. Don't fucking joke about that- don't you ever joke about that."

"I…" No thunder or lightning from a clear blue sky, but Shay was still as stunned into silence as if she'd been struck from the heavens.

As if awakening from a nightmare, Erin shook herself and made as if to settle at the base of the oak. "Don't step on Barbara," Shay reminded her. Erin rolled her eyes. Their shoulders almost touched as Erin sat down, but Erin was distant and Shay held herself apart.

For New York in the throes of summer, it really was quite pleasant, although both of them were trying not to think of the reasons why it was less smoggy, less oppressive, less hot, less everything. The bright sun paled Erin into near invisibility and lightened the shadows that shrouded Shay, but it was warm, and warmth was good.

"What'll you do when it's over?" Erin inquired.

"I think I'll go home. I can't stay here any longer, not with what I have seen. I didn't expect to start my time in the defense force so soon, but at least the last few months have gotten me used to that kind of life. It might even be relaxing, compared to this life." Shay darted a glance at Erin, who wasn't looking at her. "And you?"

"Home, if I can get there. If they'll take me back in. If not…" Erin spread her hands, clearly at her wit's end.

"If not, you can tour the world. Say hi to your old teammates. I'd be sure to make up an extra bed for you if you needed it."

"Don't think I won't take you up on that." She tried to make it sound like a threat, but there was no force behind the words. Shay swallowed a laugh, and Erin looked momentarily sheepish.

Time passed. "I should not have left," Shay said into the quiet.

"You came back, didn't you? You're forgiven," Erin replied.

"I could have made a difference. Saved a life." Regret weighed Shay's words down, and it seemed as if they were fighting their way past a lump in her throat to get out.

Erin shook her head and said, "Or you'd be dead. I wouldn't make that trade. You survived. That's what counts in this world." Something in Erin's voice caused Shay to tilt her head and get a better look at Erin. Though the sun's glare wasn't that harsh and the angle wasn't that direct, Erin's eyes were lightly closed in self-defense and some of the strain had eased from her face. As if she could sense Shay's regard, she murmured, "Been a while since I could… just like this, nothing to immediately worry about, no imminent death or worse, no monsters… not even practice in the morning. No obligations, no promises, no demands. Just…"

"Don't you sleep?" Shay asked half-jokingly. She shifted, stretching and switching legs, since they were both starting to cramp in different ways, and somehow she ended up pressed gently against Erin's side. Erin didn't push her away; if anything, she seemed to heighten the contact.

"Doesn't mean I rest." She tried to hide the flinch, but Shay felt it. "I've had to do a lot of killing. It haunts me. Even in my dreams I'm running and chasing and killing, and if I'm really lucky I get to hide for a while. Those are the nights I get a little bit of a break and I actually feel like I've slept. My head hurts."

"Who do you keep seeing?" When Erin didn't say anything, Shay pushed a little further. "For weeks, I dreamed that if I just moved, even moved a little faster, I could have saved Tiffany. She showed up for so many nights, the blood running from her everywhere, blaming me for what she became, and there was only one way to silence her, and it was a way I could not bring myself to take."

Erin reached out and put a hand on Shay's knee, then pulled away. "For a long time it was Loree. Didn't stay that way, though. I don't think it could have, if only because I know I did the only thing that kept her from becoming one of them. Maybe there've been just too many. I remember faces too well."

Her voice started shaking again, and Shay edged a hand closer until skin touched skin. "What do you see now?"

"I'm not totally sure. She's always in shadow. She looks tired, like she's been through hell. The first few times I saw her, I thought she had red gloves on, but that's not true. Her hands are covered in blood. She's carrying Becky's old rifle."

"Your rifle," Shay corrected.

"I know!" Erin snapped. "That's why I think- that's how I know- I've never seen her face, but she's got my build and she's got my gun. I think she's me, or what I'll become if I have to keep fighting this fight. And she's… she's almost evil. I don't want to become that. I don't even know if I haven't already."

"The fact that you worry means you have not. If you were as evil as this figure you say you see, then you wouldn't care what you had become. You would do what you thought you had to do and not think more about it. We both know it would be easier, and we both know why you'll never become what you fear."

"You have faith in me?"

"I have faith," Shay affirmed. "Somehow, still, forever."

"I'm flattered."

Shay laughed, a strange sound caught between bitterness and joy. They fell into companionable silence, contemplating the day and the future. The puffy white clouds shifted, changing the quality of the light so that it reflected less directly and more feebly off the glass façade of the mall.

It was easy to lose track of time with no clocks and no responsibilities. By the position of the sun, it was late afternoon when Shay's stomach started growling, and she realized that she had gotten stiff from staying in one place too long. She started to stretch, but stopped the movement before it could get too far, because if she moved too much, she would jostle Erin. Strange that after everything, Erin looked almost normal once her anguished eyes were closed, once most of the tension had gone out of her face, once she was no longer on constant guard. But even as Shay pondered this, Erin's face tightened. Shay reached across to rub gentle circles on Erin's temple until Erin made a small noise in the back of her throat and leaned all the more against Shay's left shoulder as the pain left her face again.

Stifling a little sigh of frustration, Shay adjusted position as much as she could to make herself a little more comfortable, since she was clearly going to be there for a while. There wasn't much she could do about the pebbles digging into her butt, and she was going to be stiff as a board for the next couple of days, but there was something strangely rewarding about Erin at peace next to her, finally enjoying some of the rest she'd earned for protecting her adopted city all these months. She might as well let Erin sleep, at least until sundown, when the undead still preferred to walk around.

Someone had to stay on guard, though. Someone had to be awake, so Shay pulled her gun and made sure she could shoot in any direction at a moment's notice. For now, while it was safe, she took Erin's hand with her free hand, resting her thumb against Erin's wrist to feel the slow, steady throb of the other woman's pulse.

Unable to do anything else, she stayed.