The Apocalypse: Race For The Cure

The Right Combination

"How much more blood do you have to draw?" I ask the nurse as she sticks another needle in my arm. They've already drawn a pint.

"Just one more pint, sweetie." She says and smiles as the blood flows throw the tube connected to the needle and into a bag.

"And what exactly am I giving this blood for?" I ask and she looks at me.

"For test." She says simply.

"What kinda test?" I question.

"We're gonna test a bunch of different things on it before actually giving anything to you. We want to see how the antibodies in your blood react to them." She explains and I nod.

"Then what?" I ask and she gives me a puzzled look. "After you do all those tests on my blood, what happens next?" I ask her.

"I'll be right back." The short woman says before quickly shuffling off.

"Okaaaay." I mumble to myself.

"Francis isn't your enemy you know." I small voice comes up behind me and says.

"Huh?" I turn around and see the girl from yesterday, Rebecca.

"Francis, the nurse." She says pointing in the direction the older woman just disappeared to.

"I didn't say she-"

"She's just doing her job, I'm sure they don't tell her much." She says sitting down in the chair next to me.

"I was just asking some harmless questions."

"Questions that she probably doesn't have the answer to."

"So I shouldn't ask because there's a possibility that she doesn't know?" I question with a raised brow.

"Or you could try asking the right questions." She retorts.

"Which are?" I rebuttal.

She purses her lips and shrugs, "Figure it out." Is her reply before she gets up from the chair and walks out the way she came.

–

"How much research are we going to look through?" Spencer asks as we continue to go through files.

"I just wanna look over the files from every volunteer, you know, before the outbreak. I wanna see why it worked for me but killed everyone else." I tell her, never taking my eyes off the file in my hand.

"But..." She starts, lifting my head to look at her. "...you shouldn't over work yourself. We have time Ashley. You don't have to read two hundred files in one night." She finishes with a smile. I can't help but smile back.

"I know." I nod. "I just really want to." I don't how to tell her that I really need to this done now so I can find a cure for Rebecca. How do you tell your girlfriend something like that?

"Okay baby." She smiles and shakes her head. "I'm gonna get some shut-eye or I'll pass out. Come to bed soon?" She asks and I nod. "I love you." She leans in and kisses my lips quickly.

"I love you too." I reply. She walks off down the hall to the room we've taken as ours for the time being. We're not sharing a room with anyone, Kyla elected to share a room with Angel. She didn't want to listen to us make out all night, she said.

I sigh and drop the file I was holding on the ground. At this rate I won't have any time to even sleep tonight, let alone make out with my girlfriend.

I stare down at the files scattered around the floor.

You know what... fuck this.

I get up and run after Spencer.

"Oh hey." Spencer says looking out the tent when she hears the door open. She turns on the lantern as I get in the tent next to her. "I thought you were gonna pull an all niter?" She questions, but zips up the tent anyways.

"I just really needed to do this." I say, leaning in and kissing her.

"What was that for?" She asks once we pull back from the kiss.

I shrug. "For being you."

"You're different you know." She says as we lay down, facing each other.

"Different how?" I question.

"When we first met you were so...guarded and now you let me in on a lot of things instead of pulling away."

"Well you're my girlfriend now and I wouldn't want to lose you because of something stupid." I tell her and she smiles. You know except the whole, 'the zombie you're trying to save is my ex girlfriend thing.' "You're different too you know." I add after a moment.

"Nope." She shakes her head. "I'm the same Spencer you met in that house that you drew your gun on." She adds and smiles. I return the smile and giggle a little.

"You thought I was going to shoot you, didn't you?" I ask her and she nods.

"I really did." She chuckles. "You looked like you were pretty skilled with your gun, I didn't wanna take any chances."

"I wouldn't have shot you." I shake my head. "You're way to cute to shoot." I add and smile.

She lifts up her shirt to show me her gunshot wound. "Maybe someone should have told that asshole from Angel's group that." She says smiling.

"I did." I nod. "Right as I took my arrow out of his neck." I add and she laughs.

"My hero." She kisses me and pulls back quickly.

"What is it?" I ask, reading the worried look on her face.

"Do you think we'll be able to pull this off? Like find the right combination to make the cure, mass produce it, and then get it out to everyone...everywhere?" She asks. I stare at her for a moment, not really knowing the answer to her question. I don't know if we'll be able to make it, let alone distribute it.

"I don't know." I shrug and opt to tell the truth. "But I really hope so. We have the opportunity to save humanity, we would be like hero's." I add and chuckle.

"And you can be the president of our new country." She says and smiles.

"Nooooo." I shake my head. "Way too much responsibility, but Tim would make a great president, don't you think?"

"He would, wouldn't he?" She asks and I nod.

"He's like a born leader or something. It's hard to believe he was only military police before all this." I say.

"Yeah." Spencer agrees. We both get silent before I notice Spencer's eyes slowly closing.

"You should get some sleep baby, I'm gonna go back to-"

"No." She cuts me off. "Stay with me please." She begs, scooting her body closer to mine to snuggle. I wrap my arm around her stomach, my front to her back, and kiss the back of her neck.

"Okay, I'll stay." I tell her and she sighs contently. I lean over her to cut off the lantern and I'm surprised at how quickly we both fall into a deep sleep.