As she'd been removed from her family's apartment in The Barracks, she'd been allowed, even encouraged, to bring everything she owned with her so that she would be comfortable in her new place.  And also because she would never be going back, so there was no need to leave anything behind.

She had left her home...her real home, the home she'd lived in before the world had fallen apart...with only a knap sack filled with some clothes and odds and bits that she'd thought might be important at that time. If only she'd known, she would have left her cell phone charger and her laptop in favor of bathroom tissue and all the shampoo and soap she could carry. And tampons. She'd have stocked up on those things by the gross.

However, over the past few years, she'd managed to amass quite a collection of items she'd pilfered from here and there. She hadn't kiped anything big, just little things that she had taken for granted before, but actually missed having after a couple of years without. Pretty pictures to hang on her wall, books to read, little knick knacks to fill her space up, even ink pens and paper to write on, which were items that were hard to come by after an apocalyptic event. She had been going out with her dad for a while, following along on his rounds as he cleared the different buildings across the city and since the people who had inhabited those places were gone, she had been given permission to take anything she fancied. And so she had. Her mother had actually dubbed her a hoarder because she'd brought so many things back from her outings. And though that might be true, she much preferred to think of herself as more of a collector.

She had collected so many things, in fact, that her new sleeping space was fairly well filled, without even counting the things she'd salvaged from the room that day. Standing in the doorway, she surveyed what hours of work had accomplished. The walls were covered in the pictures and paintings and wall hangings she'd collected—not hoarded—her books were all stacked neatly on the little wooden bookshelf she'd found in another bedroom, and her collection of turkeys was sitting on top of the dresser. Yes, turkeys. She had accumulated a sizeable stable of turkey shaped items while out and about with her father. She had ceramic turkey figurines, turkey shaped salt and pepper shakers, turkey shaped candle sticks, brass bells shaped like turkeys, little silver spoons and forks with turkeys carved into the handles, nearly any small turkey shaped item that she'd gotten her hands on, she had kept and given a new home to.

Her mom and dad thought she was nuts, collecting turkeys of all things, but she did have a reason for her turkey fetish. It was a very simple and cheesy reason. She missed celebrating Thanksgiving. All her figures and spoons and candle sticks reminded her of all the Thanksgivings she'd spent with her family...before the world had fallen apart. She had always loved that holiday. She loved helping her mom cook for days leading up to The Big Day. She loved getting dressed up in her nicest clothes and helping her mom decorate the table with their nicest dishes and the cloth napkins with little turkeys embroidered on them.  She loved that her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents always flew in, no matter where her dad was stationed, filling their house to bursting. And of course, she loved stuffing herself with all that wonderful food. 

But, those days were long gone.  After the panic and hysteria of the outbreak had set in, all travel had ceased, even the interstates and highways had been closed down to try and halt the spread---which hadn't worked in the slightest---so families hadn't been able to reach each other. And then, once the bodies had started rising...well, she had been tucked safely away behind the gates of a military base shortly thereafter, so she hadn't seen much of what was happening, but things had gone to hell fairly quickly...and none of her family had been heard from since.

No one had celebrated Thanksgiving, or any other holiday, in a very long time. And it seemed likely those celebrations would never happen again. She might not be able to sit down to another meal with her entire family, but she could at least surround herself with the things that reminded her of those days. Her friends thought it was morbid, keeping around things that made her sad, and there were times when remembering did make her hurt, but there were times when those memories made her smile, too.

"Rainee? Are you okay?" a deep voice sounded out, making her jump with a start.

Rainee whipped her head around to find Elias standing at the end of the hallway, her bed mattress leaning against the wall next to him. "Yeah.  I'm okay," she croaked out, willfully ignoring the flutter in her stomach as she set her gaze on him. Why bother to admire him when he would probably be gone very soon. And if she had to stay with him, then why bother admiring a man who thought she wasn't good enough to mate with?

"You sure? You've been staring off into space for five minutes," Elias pointed out.

He'd been watching her for five minutes? Why? Staring at her wouldn't make the freckles go away nor would it fill out her figure. "I'm good," she answered, trying not to sound too curt as she pushed away from the door frame she'd been leaning against and walked into the bedroom, kind of liking the way the light was coming in through the colorful sun and moon tapestry she'd nailed up over the window as a makeshift curtain.

"It's looking good in here," Elias stated as he came in behind her, pulling the mattress along with him.

She opened her mouth to tell him she'd go ahead and get started on his room, but then changed her mind. She didn't want to put a lot of effort into someone who might not be hanging around for very long.

"But, you know you have an entire house to live in now. You don't have to cram everything you own into one room," he said, moving across the space and flopping the mattress over onto the box springs.

Rainee felt surprise shoot through her. He was right. She had an entire house, not just one room. She wasn't living in her parents' space in the military barracks anymore, which was filled with the things they needed and wanted to have around.

"I-I hadn't even thought of that," she confessed, realizing that her turkey collection might make more sense downstairs in the dining room or the kitchen rather than up here in her bedroom.

Elias gave her a crooked grin as he shimmied the mattress around so that it sat right on the box spring. "It's kind of strange to think about having a whole house instead of just a little space to live in. But, we'll get used to it. It might actually be nice to spread out."

"Where did you live before you came here?" she asked, walking over to the pile of bed linens and pillows she'd brought with her and pulling out a clean bed sheet, which she realized was a size too small. Damn.

"I had a place over in the West Sector. Me and my bunch set up in one of the office buildings over there," came the answer. 

"How long have you been over here?" Rainee wondered, unfurling her sheet and laying it over the bed. It was too short on all sides, but it'd have to do.

"I'm not sure.  A few weeks.  I've kind of lost track of time," Elias told her, helping her with the sheet from over on his side.

"Do you miss your friends?" she wondered, going for the quilt that her granny had made for her. She'd kept it on every bed she'd slept in over the past few years.

Elias gave a shrug. "I miss seeing my little brother. I would have brought him over here if they would have allowed it."

A sharp pang went through Rainee. "Is he all by himself now? Does he have someone to take care of him?"

"He'll be alright. He's got a good head on his shoulders. And he's...he's with people who'll look out for him," Elias stated, but he sounded as if he wasn't quite convinced.

"How old is your brother?" Rainee wondered as they straightened the quilt out and she began tossing her pillows onto the bed.

"He's twenty one, but I've been looking out for him our whole lives.  Its just...a little hard to leave him behind."

She nodded her understanding. However, she did have a little bit of pull...  Then again, she would not be wasting it on a man who wasn't even willing to carry out his moral duty with her just because she wasn't as pretty as he might like.

"Where did you come from?" Elias asked, reaching for the scratchy grey blanket that was standard army issue and folding it neatly before laying it over the foot of the bed.

"The Barracks," she answered, figuring he'd know what she meant.

Elias' brows shot upwards. "Your family is military?"

She nodded, not sure whether she should tell him any of the details.

"McCord? Any relation to Major General McCord?"

Damn. She thought about denying it for a brief instant, but she really didn't have a reason to do that. "He's my father," she admitted, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

That revelation caused his brows to lift even higher. "You're Major General Levi McCord's daughter?"

She nodded, trying not to allow the heat beginning to build in her cheeks.

"And he was okay with you being brought here?" wondered Elias.

"I couldn't shirk my duty. It wouldn't be a good example if other families were losing people and Major General McCord was allowed to keep his family together. It would cause unrest, dissention, and mistrust." She repeated her dad's words and though they hadn't come from her, she agreed with them.

Everyone who could help in the endeavor to turn around the fate of humanity should step up and do their part, no matter the sacrifice. It was going to be a long hard road, especially for the women having to bear the children that would hopefully take back the earth at some point in the future, but if the end outcome was that life would be better than it was now, then it would be worth enduring what needed to be endured.

And Elias Stone could take a lesson from that line of reasoning.

"So, you've lived at The Barracks since you've been in the city?" Elias asked, skipping right over commenting on the topic of civic duty.

"I have," she responded, fluffing up her pillows and then going over to where the last of her boxes were stacked by the window.

"Do you ever go out into the city?" Elias questioned, sauntering over to join her.

"I go out with my father on some of his rounds and to work in the gardens. Why?" she asked, opening a box that was filled with her clothes.

"Just wondering," Elias replied with an easy shrug. "Do you need me to help with anything else?"

"No, thanks. I've got it," she said, shooting him only a quick glance. He had certainly avoided talking about shirking his duty quite slickly and frankly, it was kind of irritating. And whether he meant it to be or not, it was personally insulting.

"I'll run down and grab us some dinner, then," he said and started for the door. "We can eat up here where it's clean."

"Alright," she said agreeably.

She wasn't one to try and make trouble if she didn't have to. Elias Stone might not want to procreate with her, but she could civil for as long as they were together. Yes, it stung on a personal level, but the more she ruminated on the matter, the more she became convinced that she would eventually be given a more willing partner. And on the up-side of things, at least she would have a little more time before she had to give up something she'd never be able to get back. So, maybe she should just relax and enjoy the fact that she'd dodged a bullet, even if only temporarily.

While Elias was gone, she unpacked her clothes and put them away in the closet and drawers, making sure everything was in its place. She had quite a vast collection of clothing, despite the fact that she hadn't gone shopping in so many years that it was sad. She almost had to agree with her mom when it came to her clothing habit. She might have been a borderline hoarder, but times were hard and if a girl only had a couple of outfits and those pieces started to wear out, it wasn't like she could go to the mall and buy something else. So, when she found some useful item of clothing, even if it was a size too big or wasn't her particular style, she held onto it, thinking she might be able to use it at some point in the future.

She had to laugh at all those apocalypse inspired movies and books from her childhood. All the characters had been draped in cool, steampunk inspired clothing, the men wearing high boots and long coats and the women tied into leather corsets that held their impressive array of weapons and gadgets. In reality, after a few years of living through an end of the world situation, people certainly didn't walk around look like leather clad, steampunk fashion plates. Mostly, they walked around looking like hobos, wearing second hand clothing that never seemed to fit properly, yet it had to do.

Once the closet was filled and the drawers were all organized, she turned her focus to the small wooden chest that was the last thing to be emptied. The chest was something she'd found in one of the houses in the city and inside it, she kept all the things a girl needed to keep herself safe in case the city walls were breeched and they found themselves facing a horde of infected, ravenous Nefers. Growing up with a father in the Armed Forces, not to mention spending the past four years living in a military barracks, her supply of self-defense weapons was not scanty, nor was her knowledge of how to use each and every one of the things she kept with her.

She was as good a shot as nearly any of the soldiers under her father's command and hand to hand combat was practically second nature to her, thanks to all the training she'd been forced to take over the years. Her father had ensured that if the worst were to happen and she was ever separated from the safety and security of The Barracks, she would stand a chance of fighting her way back.

She couldn't say that she would actually be capable of fighting off a small horde of frothing Nefers, or even a single Nefer, as far as that went, owing to the fact that she'd never even seen one, but she knew for a fact that she wouldn't wind up like one of those screeching girls that tripped, fell down, and then laid there waiting to have her flesh devoured by the undead thing chasing after her.  In the very least, she could try and protect herself.  

All those scenarios lay off in the fog of the future, though.  

Over in The Barracks, there were fifteen hundred soldiers, fifty medical personnel, plus the family members that came along with most of them, so she was always surrounded by people and noise and work. The possibility of having to fight for her life was not even an afterthought. But, here in The Sanctuary, the silence surrounding her home was profound and other than one of the jeeps rumbling through the neighborhood as it made the rounds, she felt as if she and her new partner were completely cut off from what civilization was left.  In fact, they hadn't seen another living being that entire day...

That eerie feeling of being utterly isolated was made worse by the scent of decay that was wafting through the house as the wind blew in, reminding her of what was lurking beyond the city walls, reminding her that those walls were now only a short distance away from her home, bringing her closer than she ever had been to the threat of what was out there.  

The Barracks had been set up in a centralized location in the city, so that if the walls were breeched in any of the sectors, The Barracks could be independently locked down and the equipment and supplies, along with the soldiers and their families, would remain safe. That meant she didn't really come into close contact with the walls, which suddenly seemed a very thin barrier between the people in the city and the things roaming around just outside.

Ordinarily, she would keep her weapons in the trunk at the foot of her bed, but in this case, she would feel safer taking some of her munitions out and keeping them close by. So, she put her .9mm under her pillow, positioned her Bowie knife between the mattress and box spring so that the handle protruded just enough to allow her to grab it in a second flat, and laid her .44 Magnum inside the drawer of the bedside table. There were plenty of other things she could have stashed around, but she didn't want to go into overkill. A fully loaded .9mm would suffice in case she found herself facing some kind of situation. 

Given, there would be no situation. She would be behind locked doors and there were patrols going through at all hours. Not to mention that she was now living in the second most secure area of the city, which could also be independently locked down to keep the carriers safe, so she would be fine. There was no need to fall into fear simply because she had to be away from the confines of The Barracks.

"Knock, knock," a deep voice filled the room, bringing Rainee's attention around toward the doorway. Elias was standing there, his tall and broad frame filling it up, an almost shy grin on his face as he held up a wooden tray he'd scrounged up from someplace. "Are you ready to eat?"

"Sure," Rainee nodded. Now that she knew she didn't have to give herself to a strange man that very night, her nerves were practically gone. "I'm actually starving."

Elias entered the room, sauntering over to the bed—she was beginning to wonder if the man ever just walked—where he set the tray down and then let his large green eyes fall on the trunk sitting there at the foot. Wordlessly, he set about pulling it out into the center of the room, unfurling the scratchy grey blanket to use as a table cloth, dropped two bed pillows down onto the floor, and then proceeded to set up their dinner.

"There are still dishes in the kitchen, so I thought we should make our first meal in our new home as nice as possible," Elias stated as he placed silverware next to the fancy China plates that were filled with steaming hot food.

A bit of confusion wafted through Rainee as she watched him, but she pushed it aside. Surely, Elias Stone was just trying to make the best out of an uncomfortable situation. He had to know, as well as she did, that he would probably be taken away from her when no pregnancy was produced between them. But, she was glad that he was being adult about it instead of acting like an ass.

"So, we wound up with herbed pork in wine sauce and cheese tortellini in tomato sauce. You can have your favorite," Elias offered, standing back to eye his handiwork.

"You can have first dibs. You're the one who did all the work," Rainee told him, walking over and waiting for him to choose.

"It doesn't matter to me. They can call it herbed pork and tortellini if they want, but to me, most of it tastes like vomit and shoe leather," Elias said, dropping down onto the pillow in front of the plate of tortellini.

She couldn't agree more. The rations they were given kept them alive, and they were lucky the countries that were still functioning were kind enough to send aide to them, but the MREs were not the most palatable things a person could eat. She was always thankful when they were given rice, dried beans, and canned goods along with the MREs. If she had to survive only eating those, she'd probably have ended it all a long time ago.

Rainee dropped down onto her own pillow in front of the herbed pork, steeling herself for it. She'd had every single MRE that was in production over the past years, some from Canada, some from Great Brittan, France, Italy, even Russia. And they were all pretty much the same. Gross. Well, except for the chocolate bars from Germany. Those things were bliss. She always saved hers, when she was lucky enough to get one, so she could have it later, when she needed a little morale boost.

"Do you want to say grace?" Elias asked, lifting his frank gaze up to meet hers.

For a second, Rainee stalled, not sure if he was being completely serious. Only, it appeared that he was, which brought a flush to her cheeks. "Uh, you go ahead. It's your table," she told him, feeling unbelievably awkward.

She had no idea that anyone still said grace. Frankly, she had no idea that anyone still believed that God was listening. Personally, given the state of the world, she was inclined to believe that he'd never existed at all.

Elias bowed his head and placed his clasped hands on their makeshift table. "Father, I thank you for providing my family with enough food to fill our bellies. I thank you for this day we've been given and for the hope that better days are coming. I praise your name, Father. Amen." As he finished, he lifted his face and gave her a crooked smile. "Dig in. And let's hope we can keep it down."

Rainee tried to smile back, but couldn't. Poor Elias. He was wasting his time and energy giving thanks. There was no God, so he was praying to nothing more than a delusion developed by people who needed to have hope that someone out there might be able to come along and fix their problems. But, that wasn't going to happen. No one was coming to save them. They were on their own.

"I've had a couple of buckets of water heating up outside, so we can have a shower before we turn in for the night," Elias told her, taking up a forkful of food and letting out a deep sigh before shoving it into his mouth. He reached for the salt packet that came with each meal, but it was useless. There was no amount of salt that could make most MREs taste better. "I'll rig up something for privacy if I can."

"Thank you. I could use a shower," she admitted, taking a forkful of her herbed pork, which tasted fairly tolerable.  Her meal was actually pretty...decent...if a girl liked the texture of mushy "meat" that could be cut with a plastic spoon and a side dish of rice that tasted like a combination of slightly bland vitamins and sour tomatoes. Yum.

"We're able to have a pretty good set up here," Elias stated, taking another bite and letting out another sigh. "Back over at my place, I have to shower in the parking lot."

"Our setup at The Barracks wasn't too bad.  It was just hard to grab a turn," she responded, trying not to grimace as she kept eating...and the "meat" just kept getting weirder.

There were seventy three women and girls in her apartment complex and only ten shower stalls rigged up in the back courtyard, so finding a moment when one of them wasn't in use was difficult. To ensure the privacy of the female residents of the complex, like Elias, the men had been relegated to showering in a far off corner of the parking lot. 

Each apartment did still have its own bathtub and shower, but with the city utilities long since shut down, it was unwise to use the drainage systems at all, otherwise the sewers would flood and a lot of people would probably become very sick, very fast and that was the last thing anyone needed.

"Well, you'll have the shower all to yourself here. But, until I get the fence repaired, I'll be out there making sure you're safe and secure," said Elias, reaching for his glass of water, which was colored with orange flavored beverage powder.

He thought she would feel safe and secure taking a shower with nothing shielding her but a few pieces of fabric or plastic that could easily be blown aside by a gust of a wind, leaving her exposed to his judgmental eyes? On the contrary. But, she did need a shower, so she'd have to risk it. Besides, if it wasn't Elias Stone hovering around, it was going to be another man, so she'd better get used to the idea of someone catching a glimpse of her. After all, she couldn't produce a child unless her mate, no matter who it was, saw her unclothed. This could be her attempt at getting her feet wet, so to speak.

"You're blushing," Elias pointed out, making her flinch. "Are you worried about taking a shower with me close by?"

Damn. Why couldn't she simply control the blood flow to her cheeks? Was that such an extraordinary feat? "I don't know. I mean...a little, I guess," she confessed, unable to deny it because her discomfiture was apparently burning bright right there on her face.

Elias actually looked stricken. "Rainee, I'm...I'm not going to do anything to make you hate me. I'm here to take care of you and keep you safe, not to hurt you or take advantage of you."

Rainee nodded, thinking that Elias Stone talked a really big game. But, when it came right down to it, he wasn't about to step up to the plate unless his teammate was as pretty as he was.  So, all those gallant declarations really didn't mean much at all.

"Its alright.  You'll learn that you can trust me. We have plenty of time," he told her firmly, going back to eating and sighing and Rainee could have sworn by the tone of his voice that he actually believed that he would be staying with her, which made no sense if he was refusing to copulate with her.

But, if believing that he wasn't a shirker was what he needed to get him through, then she'd leave him to it. As for her, she would enjoy owning her own body for at least the next few weeks. After that, if she was given a different partner, she would face her duty like a woman and do what was best for humanity instead of what was comfortable for herself.