Warm Bodies: Awakening

Don't Give Up

Julie woke slowly, blinking through eyes gummy with drying tears, and stared up at the ceiling. Her body felt leaden, and for a moment, she just laid there, aware she was back in bed, at home, but thinking and feeling nothing. Peaceful.

It reminded her a little of falling with R, wrapped up so completely in him that she felt no fear, even as they dropped like stones from that platform. She'd been right where she'd needed to be, safe.

The memory made her curl in on herself and she groaned, the shock of what happened afterwards running over and over in her mind - looking into his bluer than blue eyes, the deafening crack of the gunshot, R falling back, the blood... so much damn blood. We were swimming in it, how did we not understand?

Because it was a miracle, it was proof that he had changed, it was a sign that the world could CHANGE. And things were going to get better.

It was, as bizarre as it seemed now, something to feel joyful about, and she wasn't going to beat herself up about it anymore. It served no purpose and didn't help anything, just paralyzed her with guilt. The knife thing was something else, and she couldn't deal with that right now. She had to find R, had to be with him, had to know if he was... dead.

Would he turn back into a zombie? Or would he just be... gone? The yawning hole of grief welled up in her chest again and she fought to choke it down, then quickly twisted off the bed to stand, desperate to move, to do something, to get to him. Her feet were bare, where were her boots? She spied them in the corner next to her desk and scrambled to put them on while hopping towards the door.

"Julie?" It was Nora's voice, and she turned back.

Nora had been sprawled next to her on the bed and she'd never even noticed. Her best friend sat up, rubbing her eyes as she turned to get out of the bed.

"Nora!" Julie cried, and ran to give her a hug, squeezing her hard. "You okay? God, we just left you there with Dad, we shouldn't have done that, I'm so sorry, I..." she was starting to babble again, close to tears. Was this shock?

"Hey, hey, no, it's okay Jules. Geez, what else were we going to do? Your dad was going to shoot R-"

"He DID shoot R!" Julie interrupted, anger flaring up at her dad. If he'd just, for one moment, not been a pig-headed idiot, everything would be fine now...

"Okay, yeah, he did, but not in the head, right?" Nora's attempt at humor just made it worse.

"He's going to die Nora! It's my fault, I did it, I stabbed him and he's dying... I don't..." Crap. Another waterfall. She leaned against her friend and cried, hating it, but needing so badly to let go. She'd had weeks of seeing Perry just fade away, saw her friends slaughtered around her, was dragged through a corpse hive, attacked over and over, and now the man she'd fallen in love with was losing the one thing that had changed everything - his life. Everything she'd pent up and stuffed away was desperately seeking an out.

"You stabbed him? What?!"

Julie tried to collect herself, wiping her face roughly, "Back at the lab, the attack - I thought he was going to... I had a knife, threw it at him."

Nora blinked, "And?" She obviously didn't get it. It'd been a week ago after all.

"Nora, his heart has started to pump blood again. Zombies don't heal, they just are. Wounds we give them just sit there, they don't close. Do you see what I'm talking about now?" This was exasperating, she didn't have time for it. She headed towards the door.

Nora followed, reaching out to brush her arm. "Oh my god. Where did you hit him?"

Where did she hit him? Julie turned to glare back at Nora, hurt. "Where do you think I hit him? I mean, really, I should have aimed for his head, but where's the next best place, Nora?! Where would I throw a knife at a guy who was attacking me? You know how good a shot I am - WHERE DO YOU FREAKING THINK!?"