FIC: Safe Zone
Title: Safe Zone
Pairing: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, zombies, fantasy science
Word Count: ~4300
Summary: Kurt, Blaine, Forest, and Saffire reach the safe zone, but at a price.
AN: Mpreg cheers my weary soul. Even this part does.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts -> Water Break -> Unsafe -> Only Us -> Meanwhile, Back at the Shelter -> Consumerism is Dead -> Camping -> Night Terrors -> No Use for Wind Chimes in the Land of the Dead -> Meanwhile, Back at the Refugee Center -> Hiccup -> The Fight to Remain -> Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple -> Breaking Point
And now...
The first thought Blaine was able to properly form since they’d gotten into the car was that there was an army of walkers closing in on both sides.
“No, no, no!” Blaine pulled out his gun.
Saffire squeaked and ducked down in her seat, and Kurt jolted awake.
“Boy, what’re you doin’?” Forest turned his head, then quickly looked back on the road when the car swerved. “Put that thang away!”
“There’s walkers everywhere!” he cried.
“No, baby.” Kurt reached up and calmly took the gun from him. “There’s nothing there.”
“I-I thought I saw...” Blaine closed his eyes and felt Kurt’s hand on his cheek. “I saw... Kurt, babe... There are gonna be so many of them... They’re not... They’re like animals. People are heading that way because of the broadcasts... and they’re making noise... like... wolves anticipating scared deer all running to the same place...”
“You could be right,” Forest said. “But hold off on the gun, would’ja? We don’t need the extra noise right this minute.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Blaine blinked again and bowed over Kurt, who was looking up at him strangely. “I’m... I’m sorry...”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing.” Kurt’s voice had taken on that gentle quality again. The one he used when he was trying to bring Blaine back from...
From wherever he’d gone. He hardly remembered anything from the past few hours, and he couldn’t put the events as they were happening into order. It was obvious that he’d been slipping over the past few weeks, and now he didn’t know where he was. It was disorienting, being so uncertain of what had happened and what he was doing. He shook his head and wrapped his arms around Kurt.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” His voice was a soothing mantra. “I’m here. We’re fine.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. I’m barely here,” Blaine admitted quietly.
“That’s okay. As long as you come back to us eventually.”
Kurt gave him a little smile. It was forced, but cute and hopeful, and he kissed Blaine tenderly as he made him feel the baby moving, kicking around, probably a little riled up from how fast Kurt’s heart was beating. Pulling the gun had startled him. Blaine closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against Kurt’s.
This baby didn’t need a daddy who was out of his mind. Kurt didn’t need a partner who couldn’t be there for him when he went into labor again, who wouldn’t be able to support him and their little peanut.
His hand petted the side of Kurt’s belly in slow even strokes, then leaned over close to sing “Hey, Jude” softly to the baby. It had been a while since he’d done that, but it had also been a little while since they didn’t have to be afraid to make noise. Kurt’s fingers stroked the back of his neck, and he joined his voice with Blaine’s.
After they’d finished the song and the baby had settled, Saffire peeked her head back over the seat. “You’re really good singers.”
“We-we used to be in the same acapella group at my private school,” Blaine muttered. Small talk felt funny in his mouth. Unfamiliar words. “Until he had to go back to his group at the public school. Dalton Academy was too expensive. It was even kind of too expensive for my family, and we were sort of bougie.”
“I liked singing with both groups, in different ways,” Kurt added. “Actually, I just liked being able to try new things, and being challenged. Public schools aren’t very challenging, most of the time. They’re mostly just busywork until you go off to college, have a baby, or die.”
Forest let out a deep bark of a laugh. Saffire turned around and put a CD into the DVD player.
“Saff, do you have to listen to that again?” Forest complained.
“Do you guys like Beyoncé?” she asked.
“Oh, honey.” Kurt laughed. “We’re gay. It’ll be a miracle if we don’t name the baby Beyoncé.”
***
“I can- I can do it,” Kurt argued, trying to push himself up out of the seat. Blaine knelt in front of him and took one of his hands firmly, waiting as though he was sure Kurt would just fall to the ground again.
He didn’t and managed to get to his feet and lean against the car. He could stand on his own, but he didn’t want to push it. “I’m a good shot, Blaine. I can stay here and cover you, just like before.”
“He won’t be alone,” Saffire said. “I’m here.”
“Let’s make this quick. I don’t got any desire to be approachin’ Buffalo any later in the day then we’re already gonna be,” Forest said. He turned to Blaine and handed him his pick-axe. “C’n I count on you, kiddo?”
Blaine bowed his head in shame, then nodded.
“Good. Let’s both keep our wits about us.” Forest smacked him on the back and the two of them approached the gas station. Blaine swung his axe around and laid into a walker eagerly when it peered out the door.
Kurt let out a long sigh and checked his crossbow, looking up every few seconds in case some walkers came their way or decided to try to trap Forest and Blaine inside the building. He could feel Saffire’s eyes on him from behind. After a moment, she crawled out of the driver’s seat and stood beside him.
“Do you feel okay?”
Never mind that her father and Blaine had already asked him about six times. Not that he could fault them, when he’d been practically a fainting damsel that morning.
“I feel better. I’m not having any pains, and my head isn’t dizzy,” Kurt answered honestly. He was still tired, but he’d gotten a little sleep in the backseat, and their benefactors had been generous with their food and water supplies.
Saffire dug in her pocket and handed him a hair band. “You keep pushing your hair out of your eyes. I can cut it, when we get there. Um, unless you want it that way.”
“Hm.” Kurt tucked the bow under his arm and pulled his hair back. “No, I used to keep it relatively short. And full of product. Blaine, too. His curls are free now, but he used to keep it short and gel it down into a hairmet.”
Saffire giggled. “Are you... Are you scared about having the baby?
“Not too much.” Kurt licked his lips, realizing how true that was. “I mean, I’m not exactly looking forward to that part. I’m more scared of other things, though... I don’t really want to have the baby alone, if you know what I mean. I’d really prefer someone be there in case walkers... smelled the blood or something.”
“Ew.”
“Birth is gross. Blood is everywhere. Like a slasher flick. That’s what I learned in health class.” Kurt rolled his shoulders and sighed. “And anyway, I don’t know that I’d be able to protect the baby, if I were alone.”
Especially if there are complications.
“Um. I mean, babies cry. They’re noisy. I’d need help,” he added quietly.
“But you’re not alone,” Saffire said. “We’re here, and Dad won’t just leave you. And Blaine’s... here.”
“He wasn’t always this way, you know. He’s really the sweetest, most generous person on the planet. He was just impossibly sincere. And he believed in people. He gave with all of his heart.”
A familiar odor hit Kurt’s nostrils, and in one motion he raised his bow, aimed, and shot a walker coming up from behind them.
“Oh, gosh!” Saffire’s eyes bulged and she leaned over into the car and grabbed a gun.
“Get the shovel. We don’t want to bring more of them,” Kurt advised. He rechecked the crossbow and held it aloft and ready as he reached back for a baseball bat.
Saffire did as she was told and came up wielding the shovel. “You’re like a pregnant superhero.”
“Maybe in some weird Japanese fetish comic.” Kurt rolled his eyes, then turned sharply and shot down another walker. “You should go get your dad. They know we’re here. Probably heard the car drive up.”
“I can’t leave you alone,” she protested.
“Yes, you can.” Kurt swept his crossbow around and narrowed his eyes. “Go. Now.”
She darted for the door with her shovel and Kurt picked off another walker that started to come for her. It wasn’t easy for him to move quickly anymore, but he hurried to the other side of the car by the driver’s side and turned the key.
A moment later, five walkers came lurching out of the bushes just as Blaine, Forest, and Saffire ran out of the building.
“Run!” He lowered himself into the driver’s seat and unlocked the doors. It was an awkward fit behind the wheel, but the second they were inside, he peeled away. “Did you get the fuel?”
“Got enough,” Forest answered. “In a bit, pull over and let me back up there.”
“No problem. I don’t think the peanut likes the wheel encroaching on her personal space.”
***
All fueled up, they headed onto 219 North and sped toward Buffalo. Their options at this point were to brave another night when there were more and more walkers around or to bee-line for Buffalo and hope for the best.
Blaine was bent over Kurt’s belly, giving it a kiss, when Forest said, “Good mother of God.”
The car started to slow, and they all looked up. There was a large barricade running as far as the eye could see around the perimeter of Buffalo, and there were soldiers on top, all wearing riot gear and picking off the walkers that were pushing against the walls. The buildings of the city were visible, but the wall was so tall, at least fifty feet high, that only the tops could be made out.
“How did they put that together?” Kurt wondered.
“How are we gonna get in?” Saffire asked.
“They’s gotta be a door, somewheres,” Forest said. He jerked back in his seat when a walker flung itself onto the hood. “Get the hell off, freak!”
Kurt drew in a sharp breath as it continued to pound its fists against the windshield, undeterred by Forest swerving the car. He grabbed his crossbow and started to push himself up.
“What are you doing?” Blaine grabbed his arm.
“I’m going to poke my head through the sunroof and kill it. Just support me, okay? I’ll come down if any of them get too close, but we can’t drive with them swarming the car.”
Blaine frowned dubiously, but he put his arms around Kurt’s hips, below the belly (which wouldn’t fit through the small opening anyway), and lifted him with as much strength as he had.
Kurt nailed the walker as soon as he had a clear shot, then started to pick off whichever ones were in their way. “I can see a gate!” he called down to the others. “On the far side over there, to the right! We can probably get in, but there are a lot of ‘em over there!”
“Son, you get down the moment they get too close! Understand?” Forest ordered.
“Promise.” Kurt leaned on one arm and reached down into the car. “Hand me a gun, Blaine. I don’t think subtlety is going to win us any good will, here.”
A gun found its way into his hand, and rolling his tongue around in his cheek, he used the crossbow and the gun to clear off the walkers that kept rushing their car. Fat ones. Skinny ones. A tall, rangy desiccated man with a scraggly beard and a little girl of about seven, dragging a bloody stuffed bunny behind her as though it were now a part of her body.
As they grew closer, more and more walkers approached them. When Kurt ran out of ammo, he handed the gun and the bow back to them, and Saffire and Blaine got him two more guns. That would be all they had on them, he figured, and he didn’t intend to waste a single shot. The soldiers on top of the barricade were doing their part to clear off the walkers coming at them. They ran back and forth and motioned between one another. They’d noticed the car.
“I’m coming down!” Kurt yelled. He was going to have to shut the sunroof and hope for the best.
A whistling sound to his right caught his attention. He looked.
At once, there was a bright light and a loud sound and the car shook, and then walker viscera splattered all over the car.
***
Blaine tugged on Kurt’s cardigan when they felt the explosion. The men defending the Buffalo boarder were throwing bombs out there to clear out the walkers, and Kurt could be seriously hurt if he stayed up there any longer.
Without any complaint, Kurt descended into the car, head down, and let out a sob.
“Babe?” Blaine touched Kurt’s arms, felt over his belly. “Where does it hurt? Kurt?”
Kurt lifted his head, wincing and crying. Blood was splattered across his face. In his eyes.
In his eyes!
“No... No, no, no,” Blaine chanted, as though he could make what he was seeing not true. He grabbed a discarded shirt and reached over to wipe Kurt’s face off. “You’re fine. You’re fine. You’ll be fine!”
“What happened now?” Forest asked. He kept his eyes straight in front of him. Another explosion happened to their left, and then another. The sound started to draw some of the walkers away from them. Enough for him to put his foot down on the gas and plow through the rest.
“Maybe you could just cut the baby out,” Kurt said quietly, still blinking over and over. “Before it gets to him-”
“No.” Blaine let his hands drop into his lap. “No, Kurt. No!”
Kurt’s voice was tight and stubborn. “I want her to live!”
The gate to the wall opened, and they sped through. A few walkers followed them, only to be taken out immediately by more people in riot gear, and the gate closed behind them.
Forest turned around, his lips stretched into a near mad grin, which faded the moment he saw the blood still smeared on Kurt’s face. Saffire let out a high-pitched gasp. Before anyone could speak, the people outside began trying to open the doors.
“Open up!” a man barked.
Forest unlocked the doors. “We’re-”
All four doors opened, and they were dragged out of their seats.
“If you are infected, identify yourselves now,” the man ordered. “I repeat, identify yourself now. Are you infected?”
Blaine tried to pull away from the man holding him, probably a soldier or a really strong civilian volunteer, but the man held him fast. “We’re not infected! We’re fine!”
Kurt’s eyes, filled with both blood and tears, met Blaine’s gaze over the top of the car before he spoke, “I am. It happened just outside the gate.”
When one of the soldiers lifted up his gun, Blaine let out a shriek. “No! No, don’t kill him!”
But the man aimed behind the car to plug a stray walker. A white van arrived, and the soldiers in riot gear pulled Kurt toward it.
A woman in a white coat jumped out of the van, and when the leader pointed to Kurt, they held him down roughly as she injected something into his neck. He went limp in their arms, and they carried him to the van, while the others were being forced in the other direction and Blaine begged the men, their saviors or captors, to let him go with Kurt.
***
“Keep her still.”
“Skinny little thing...”
Kurt could feel his body jerking, and the hands on him, holding so tightly that it hurt.
“Be careful with her...”
“-third trimester, definitely. We need to get her to the hospital, now.”
“We have to get those eyes clean-”
“We should have done this before we injected the serum. She’s too strung out...”
“Well, don’t puncture it! That’s not going to help!”
Images of walkers coming at him.
“-not much resistance to the serum.”
“Be careful with that!”
He cried out as pain exploded in his right eye. He tried to reach for his crossbow, but the images had already disappeared, and he couldn’t get free.
“Hold her still!”
“I can’t tell which blood is hers-”
“-need more gauze-”
“-burning a fever already-”
He tried to ask them.
“Get her some fluids. And clean up that eye before she gets another infection. She shouldn’t be reacting this badly.”
“-defenses after so much exposure-”
Would the baby be...?
“Mike, is this a boy or a girl we’re treating?”
Was the baby okay?
“What kind of question is that? She’s pregnant.”
He looked around in horror at the walkers holding him down and screamed screamed screamed as he struggled to get away from their tight grip. Then he stopped, when he realized they were human. He still looked at them suspiciously, unable to remember how he’d gotten here. What did they want from him?
“Hold her down!”
“Mike, I’m pretty sure he’s pregnant.”
More hands moving over him, cool against his burning skin.
“Oh, my God. I’ve never... God, I half-thought that was an urban legend they used to fuck with med students. Step on it, Avery!”
***
Kurt opened one eye to bright lights. A walker lunged toward him, and he weakly brought up his hands to push it away.
It disappeared.
The room was cold. There was something shoved up his nose, and into his arm, and gauze covered his right eye, and when he looked down some kind of white device was strapped over his belly. He could hear beeping. He looked toward the monitor.
Bloody snarling teeth!
And gone.
Tears began to run down his left cheek, and he shivered, both cold and frightened.
A doctor in a quarantine suit came in and looked over his chart.
“What’s... what...” he managed. His throat was sore, for some reason.
The doctor didn’t even look at him. He just moved around him, checked his IV and the monitor, then headed out the door.
“Please...”
Kurt lay there, trying not to panic. Images of walkers flickered in and out of the corners of his vision. And there were voices. Blaine singing Sinatra. Finn laughing. His dad telling him something... something important.
Then his body started to burn again, and the beeping on the monitor sped up until another person in a suit rushed in and put something in his IV.
His eyes closed, and he slept fitfully for a time. When he woke again, two doctors were talking over him, one prodding his belly and making the baby kick and squirm.
“Fetal heartbeat looks good. This little baby, she’s a fighter!”
The baby jerked.
She doesn’t like that. He blinked. Then he realized he hadn’t spoken. He tried again, “She... She...”
“She’s small, though. As soon as he’s able to take more nourishment-”
“I know. Poor little thing.”
Is she going to be okay? Kurt’s heart began to race again. The doctor looked at his monitor.
“Is she... Will the baby be a walker?” he asked them.
“The hallucinations must be getting bad again,” the woman muttered. She pulled out a syringe and put something in his IV.
“Please. Please, tell me. Will the baby be a walker?” he tried again.
The woman looked at him sympathetically. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but try to sleep. They’ll be giving you more of the serum soon, and it won’t be very comfortable for you.”
“I don’t know why you bother, Mable. It’s not like they can understand you when they’re like this,” the man said.
“I understand!” Kurt protested as the man left the room
“Then understand that your baby needs you to rest,” Mable said. “You remember the baby? You know that you’re having a baby?”
What, am I an idiot? Kurt just stared at her. “Will the baby be a walker? Please, just tell me.”
“Get some sleep. Rest will help both you and the baby right now.”
As she turned to leave, he yelled at her. She looked back in surprise, then disappeared.
The next several hours were the same, until they came in again and pressed something to his neck. Then it began again. The fever, the hallucinations. His body shook, but this time he was strapped to the bed. He lost consciousness and awoke to realize he’d thrown up on himself.
Through it all, though, his baby was still kicking. She was alive and fighting. He wished he could sing to her, or pet over her so she would know, even if he was distressed, that it would be okay. He wished one of the doctors, or someone, would think about her. If only they’d let Blaine come with him, he would have kept her calm. He would have sung to her while Kurt fought the virus. But they wouldn’t answer his questions about where Blaine was; they mostly ignored him and did their work, moving about in their suits through his frustrated and frightened screams.
***
Blaine sat alone in a cell by himself. He’d stopped struggling hours ago. There was no point. He couldn’t get out of the straight jacket, and they weren’t going to tell him where Kurt was while they thought he was crazy.
He didn’t know if he could convince them otherwise. He kept trying, but...
After they’d pulled Kurt into the van, the soldiers had begun to take them somewhere, but Blaine had pulled away and tried to run after the van. When the big guy who had been holding him grabbed for him once again, he kicked the man in the face.
Kurt would have been proud of that high kick.
They’d cuffed him, thrown them all in a van together, and driven them for an hour to a large facility where they were separated, interrogated, filled with antibiotics and other shots and then taken into another room for several hours, where they all grew hot and agitated. Half-images of walkers, gun-toting cannibal rednecks, and Kurt writhing in pain and just out of his reach sprung out at him only to disappear, so sneaky in their schemes to make him appear insane.
Blaine remembered the critical moment clearly. A man had entered the room and Blaine had rushed him. Forest had tried to get him to calm down, but when the man didn’t seem to care about the questions Blaine was asking, he began to scream at him, shoved him to the ground.
Then he was taken away from the others. Once or twice they’d brought someone in to talk to him, but he hadn’t been able to tell them anything coherent. The pressing need to find Kurt before it was too late, before Kurt wasn’t Kurt anymore, before their baby was dead and cold never having had the opportunity to take his first breath-- It overwhelmed him. Events started to happen out of order again, he lost track of what he was saying, he alternatively burst into tears and then raged.
Every person who came into the room left with their heads shaking. A woman had come in to give him a sedative, then talked to him for a little bit, telling him that many people who had come over the boarder more than a month after the outbreak had needed counseling, and he didn’t need to be ashamed.
“I need Kurt. I need my boyfriend. He’s having a baby! I can’t let him do that alone! And he got sick... I need to see him!” he’d pleaded. “I need to see Kurt while he’s still Kurt! He’d want me to take care of our baby, if he’s... if... Oh...”
Again his cheeks were drenched with tears.
“He... He what?” She tilted her head to the side. “You said that he’s having... a baby?”
“Probably soon. He was having contractions last night... However long ago it was... I can’t remember.”
“I see.” She nodded and touched his shoulder gently. “Blaine, you know that men can’t have babies, right?”
That was when Blaine lost it. He didn’t even remember what he’d said, only that she’d backed away like he was a rabid dog.
Maybe he was a rabid dog, he thought to himself in the calm quiet of his cell. He hadn’t been himself for weeks. Maybe he had another virus. Maybe he was mad.
Blaine closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his knees. Kurt wasn’t there to bring him back this time.
Next Part: Means of Survival
Pairing: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, zombies, fantasy science
Word Count: ~4300
Summary: Kurt, Blaine, Forest, and Saffire reach the safe zone, but at a price.
AN: Mpreg cheers my weary soul. Even this part does.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts -> Water Break -> Unsafe -> Only Us -> Meanwhile, Back at the Shelter -> Consumerism is Dead -> Camping -> Night Terrors -> No Use for Wind Chimes in the Land of the Dead -> Meanwhile, Back at the Refugee Center -> Hiccup -> The Fight to Remain -> Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple -> Breaking Point
And now...
The first thought Blaine was able to properly form since they’d gotten into the car was that there was an army of walkers closing in on both sides.
“No, no, no!” Blaine pulled out his gun.
Saffire squeaked and ducked down in her seat, and Kurt jolted awake.
“Boy, what’re you doin’?” Forest turned his head, then quickly looked back on the road when the car swerved. “Put that thang away!”
“There’s walkers everywhere!” he cried.
“No, baby.” Kurt reached up and calmly took the gun from him. “There’s nothing there.”
“I-I thought I saw...” Blaine closed his eyes and felt Kurt’s hand on his cheek. “I saw... Kurt, babe... There are gonna be so many of them... They’re not... They’re like animals. People are heading that way because of the broadcasts... and they’re making noise... like... wolves anticipating scared deer all running to the same place...”
“You could be right,” Forest said. “But hold off on the gun, would’ja? We don’t need the extra noise right this minute.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Blaine blinked again and bowed over Kurt, who was looking up at him strangely. “I’m... I’m sorry...”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing.” Kurt’s voice had taken on that gentle quality again. The one he used when he was trying to bring Blaine back from...
From wherever he’d gone. He hardly remembered anything from the past few hours, and he couldn’t put the events as they were happening into order. It was obvious that he’d been slipping over the past few weeks, and now he didn’t know where he was. It was disorienting, being so uncertain of what had happened and what he was doing. He shook his head and wrapped his arms around Kurt.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” His voice was a soothing mantra. “I’m here. We’re fine.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. I’m barely here,” Blaine admitted quietly.
“That’s okay. As long as you come back to us eventually.”
Kurt gave him a little smile. It was forced, but cute and hopeful, and he kissed Blaine tenderly as he made him feel the baby moving, kicking around, probably a little riled up from how fast Kurt’s heart was beating. Pulling the gun had startled him. Blaine closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against Kurt’s.
This baby didn’t need a daddy who was out of his mind. Kurt didn’t need a partner who couldn’t be there for him when he went into labor again, who wouldn’t be able to support him and their little peanut.
His hand petted the side of Kurt’s belly in slow even strokes, then leaned over close to sing “Hey, Jude” softly to the baby. It had been a while since he’d done that, but it had also been a little while since they didn’t have to be afraid to make noise. Kurt’s fingers stroked the back of his neck, and he joined his voice with Blaine’s.
After they’d finished the song and the baby had settled, Saffire peeked her head back over the seat. “You’re really good singers.”
“We-we used to be in the same acapella group at my private school,” Blaine muttered. Small talk felt funny in his mouth. Unfamiliar words. “Until he had to go back to his group at the public school. Dalton Academy was too expensive. It was even kind of too expensive for my family, and we were sort of bougie.”
“I liked singing with both groups, in different ways,” Kurt added. “Actually, I just liked being able to try new things, and being challenged. Public schools aren’t very challenging, most of the time. They’re mostly just busywork until you go off to college, have a baby, or die.”
Forest let out a deep bark of a laugh. Saffire turned around and put a CD into the DVD player.
“Saff, do you have to listen to that again?” Forest complained.
“Do you guys like Beyoncé?” she asked.
“Oh, honey.” Kurt laughed. “We’re gay. It’ll be a miracle if we don’t name the baby Beyoncé.”
***
“I can- I can do it,” Kurt argued, trying to push himself up out of the seat. Blaine knelt in front of him and took one of his hands firmly, waiting as though he was sure Kurt would just fall to the ground again.
He didn’t and managed to get to his feet and lean against the car. He could stand on his own, but he didn’t want to push it. “I’m a good shot, Blaine. I can stay here and cover you, just like before.”
“He won’t be alone,” Saffire said. “I’m here.”
“Let’s make this quick. I don’t got any desire to be approachin’ Buffalo any later in the day then we’re already gonna be,” Forest said. He turned to Blaine and handed him his pick-axe. “C’n I count on you, kiddo?”
Blaine bowed his head in shame, then nodded.
“Good. Let’s both keep our wits about us.” Forest smacked him on the back and the two of them approached the gas station. Blaine swung his axe around and laid into a walker eagerly when it peered out the door.
Kurt let out a long sigh and checked his crossbow, looking up every few seconds in case some walkers came their way or decided to try to trap Forest and Blaine inside the building. He could feel Saffire’s eyes on him from behind. After a moment, she crawled out of the driver’s seat and stood beside him.
“Do you feel okay?”
Never mind that her father and Blaine had already asked him about six times. Not that he could fault them, when he’d been practically a fainting damsel that morning.
“I feel better. I’m not having any pains, and my head isn’t dizzy,” Kurt answered honestly. He was still tired, but he’d gotten a little sleep in the backseat, and their benefactors had been generous with their food and water supplies.
Saffire dug in her pocket and handed him a hair band. “You keep pushing your hair out of your eyes. I can cut it, when we get there. Um, unless you want it that way.”
“Hm.” Kurt tucked the bow under his arm and pulled his hair back. “No, I used to keep it relatively short. And full of product. Blaine, too. His curls are free now, but he used to keep it short and gel it down into a hairmet.”
Saffire giggled. “Are you... Are you scared about having the baby?
“Not too much.” Kurt licked his lips, realizing how true that was. “I mean, I’m not exactly looking forward to that part. I’m more scared of other things, though... I don’t really want to have the baby alone, if you know what I mean. I’d really prefer someone be there in case walkers... smelled the blood or something.”
“Ew.”
“Birth is gross. Blood is everywhere. Like a slasher flick. That’s what I learned in health class.” Kurt rolled his shoulders and sighed. “And anyway, I don’t know that I’d be able to protect the baby, if I were alone.”
Especially if there are complications.
“Um. I mean, babies cry. They’re noisy. I’d need help,” he added quietly.
“But you’re not alone,” Saffire said. “We’re here, and Dad won’t just leave you. And Blaine’s... here.”
“He wasn’t always this way, you know. He’s really the sweetest, most generous person on the planet. He was just impossibly sincere. And he believed in people. He gave with all of his heart.”
A familiar odor hit Kurt’s nostrils, and in one motion he raised his bow, aimed, and shot a walker coming up from behind them.
“Oh, gosh!” Saffire’s eyes bulged and she leaned over into the car and grabbed a gun.
“Get the shovel. We don’t want to bring more of them,” Kurt advised. He rechecked the crossbow and held it aloft and ready as he reached back for a baseball bat.
Saffire did as she was told and came up wielding the shovel. “You’re like a pregnant superhero.”
“Maybe in some weird Japanese fetish comic.” Kurt rolled his eyes, then turned sharply and shot down another walker. “You should go get your dad. They know we’re here. Probably heard the car drive up.”
“I can’t leave you alone,” she protested.
“Yes, you can.” Kurt swept his crossbow around and narrowed his eyes. “Go. Now.”
She darted for the door with her shovel and Kurt picked off another walker that started to come for her. It wasn’t easy for him to move quickly anymore, but he hurried to the other side of the car by the driver’s side and turned the key.
A moment later, five walkers came lurching out of the bushes just as Blaine, Forest, and Saffire ran out of the building.
“Run!” He lowered himself into the driver’s seat and unlocked the doors. It was an awkward fit behind the wheel, but the second they were inside, he peeled away. “Did you get the fuel?”
“Got enough,” Forest answered. “In a bit, pull over and let me back up there.”
“No problem. I don’t think the peanut likes the wheel encroaching on her personal space.”
***
All fueled up, they headed onto 219 North and sped toward Buffalo. Their options at this point were to brave another night when there were more and more walkers around or to bee-line for Buffalo and hope for the best.
Blaine was bent over Kurt’s belly, giving it a kiss, when Forest said, “Good mother of God.”
The car started to slow, and they all looked up. There was a large barricade running as far as the eye could see around the perimeter of Buffalo, and there were soldiers on top, all wearing riot gear and picking off the walkers that were pushing against the walls. The buildings of the city were visible, but the wall was so tall, at least fifty feet high, that only the tops could be made out.
“How did they put that together?” Kurt wondered.
“How are we gonna get in?” Saffire asked.
“They’s gotta be a door, somewheres,” Forest said. He jerked back in his seat when a walker flung itself onto the hood. “Get the hell off, freak!”
Kurt drew in a sharp breath as it continued to pound its fists against the windshield, undeterred by Forest swerving the car. He grabbed his crossbow and started to push himself up.
“What are you doing?” Blaine grabbed his arm.
“I’m going to poke my head through the sunroof and kill it. Just support me, okay? I’ll come down if any of them get too close, but we can’t drive with them swarming the car.”
Blaine frowned dubiously, but he put his arms around Kurt’s hips, below the belly (which wouldn’t fit through the small opening anyway), and lifted him with as much strength as he had.
Kurt nailed the walker as soon as he had a clear shot, then started to pick off whichever ones were in their way. “I can see a gate!” he called down to the others. “On the far side over there, to the right! We can probably get in, but there are a lot of ‘em over there!”
“Son, you get down the moment they get too close! Understand?” Forest ordered.
“Promise.” Kurt leaned on one arm and reached down into the car. “Hand me a gun, Blaine. I don’t think subtlety is going to win us any good will, here.”
A gun found its way into his hand, and rolling his tongue around in his cheek, he used the crossbow and the gun to clear off the walkers that kept rushing their car. Fat ones. Skinny ones. A tall, rangy desiccated man with a scraggly beard and a little girl of about seven, dragging a bloody stuffed bunny behind her as though it were now a part of her body.
As they grew closer, more and more walkers approached them. When Kurt ran out of ammo, he handed the gun and the bow back to them, and Saffire and Blaine got him two more guns. That would be all they had on them, he figured, and he didn’t intend to waste a single shot. The soldiers on top of the barricade were doing their part to clear off the walkers coming at them. They ran back and forth and motioned between one another. They’d noticed the car.
“I’m coming down!” Kurt yelled. He was going to have to shut the sunroof and hope for the best.
A whistling sound to his right caught his attention. He looked.
At once, there was a bright light and a loud sound and the car shook, and then walker viscera splattered all over the car.
***
Blaine tugged on Kurt’s cardigan when they felt the explosion. The men defending the Buffalo boarder were throwing bombs out there to clear out the walkers, and Kurt could be seriously hurt if he stayed up there any longer.
Without any complaint, Kurt descended into the car, head down, and let out a sob.
“Babe?” Blaine touched Kurt’s arms, felt over his belly. “Where does it hurt? Kurt?”
Kurt lifted his head, wincing and crying. Blood was splattered across his face. In his eyes.
In his eyes!
“No... No, no, no,” Blaine chanted, as though he could make what he was seeing not true. He grabbed a discarded shirt and reached over to wipe Kurt’s face off. “You’re fine. You’re fine. You’ll be fine!”
“What happened now?” Forest asked. He kept his eyes straight in front of him. Another explosion happened to their left, and then another. The sound started to draw some of the walkers away from them. Enough for him to put his foot down on the gas and plow through the rest.
“Maybe you could just cut the baby out,” Kurt said quietly, still blinking over and over. “Before it gets to him-”
“No.” Blaine let his hands drop into his lap. “No, Kurt. No!”
Kurt’s voice was tight and stubborn. “I want her to live!”
The gate to the wall opened, and they sped through. A few walkers followed them, only to be taken out immediately by more people in riot gear, and the gate closed behind them.
Forest turned around, his lips stretched into a near mad grin, which faded the moment he saw the blood still smeared on Kurt’s face. Saffire let out a high-pitched gasp. Before anyone could speak, the people outside began trying to open the doors.
“Open up!” a man barked.
Forest unlocked the doors. “We’re-”
All four doors opened, and they were dragged out of their seats.
“If you are infected, identify yourselves now,” the man ordered. “I repeat, identify yourself now. Are you infected?”
Blaine tried to pull away from the man holding him, probably a soldier or a really strong civilian volunteer, but the man held him fast. “We’re not infected! We’re fine!”
Kurt’s eyes, filled with both blood and tears, met Blaine’s gaze over the top of the car before he spoke, “I am. It happened just outside the gate.”
When one of the soldiers lifted up his gun, Blaine let out a shriek. “No! No, don’t kill him!”
But the man aimed behind the car to plug a stray walker. A white van arrived, and the soldiers in riot gear pulled Kurt toward it.
A woman in a white coat jumped out of the van, and when the leader pointed to Kurt, they held him down roughly as she injected something into his neck. He went limp in their arms, and they carried him to the van, while the others were being forced in the other direction and Blaine begged the men, their saviors or captors, to let him go with Kurt.
***
“Keep her still.”
“Skinny little thing...”
Kurt could feel his body jerking, and the hands on him, holding so tightly that it hurt.
“Be careful with her...”
“-third trimester, definitely. We need to get her to the hospital, now.”
“We have to get those eyes clean-”
“We should have done this before we injected the serum. She’s too strung out...”
“Well, don’t puncture it! That’s not going to help!”
Images of walkers coming at him.
“-not much resistance to the serum.”
“Be careful with that!”
He cried out as pain exploded in his right eye. He tried to reach for his crossbow, but the images had already disappeared, and he couldn’t get free.
“Hold her still!”
“I can’t tell which blood is hers-”
“-need more gauze-”
“-burning a fever already-”
He tried to ask them.
“Get her some fluids. And clean up that eye before she gets another infection. She shouldn’t be reacting this badly.”
“-defenses after so much exposure-”
Would the baby be...?
“Mike, is this a boy or a girl we’re treating?”
Was the baby okay?
“What kind of question is that? She’s pregnant.”
He looked around in horror at the walkers holding him down and screamed screamed screamed as he struggled to get away from their tight grip. Then he stopped, when he realized they were human. He still looked at them suspiciously, unable to remember how he’d gotten here. What did they want from him?
“Hold her down!”
“Mike, I’m pretty sure he’s pregnant.”
More hands moving over him, cool against his burning skin.
“Oh, my God. I’ve never... God, I half-thought that was an urban legend they used to fuck with med students. Step on it, Avery!”
***
Kurt opened one eye to bright lights. A walker lunged toward him, and he weakly brought up his hands to push it away.
It disappeared.
The room was cold. There was something shoved up his nose, and into his arm, and gauze covered his right eye, and when he looked down some kind of white device was strapped over his belly. He could hear beeping. He looked toward the monitor.
Bloody snarling teeth!
And gone.
Tears began to run down his left cheek, and he shivered, both cold and frightened.
A doctor in a quarantine suit came in and looked over his chart.
“What’s... what...” he managed. His throat was sore, for some reason.
The doctor didn’t even look at him. He just moved around him, checked his IV and the monitor, then headed out the door.
“Please...”
Kurt lay there, trying not to panic. Images of walkers flickered in and out of the corners of his vision. And there were voices. Blaine singing Sinatra. Finn laughing. His dad telling him something... something important.
Then his body started to burn again, and the beeping on the monitor sped up until another person in a suit rushed in and put something in his IV.
His eyes closed, and he slept fitfully for a time. When he woke again, two doctors were talking over him, one prodding his belly and making the baby kick and squirm.
“Fetal heartbeat looks good. This little baby, she’s a fighter!”
The baby jerked.
She doesn’t like that. He blinked. Then he realized he hadn’t spoken. He tried again, “She... She...”
“She’s small, though. As soon as he’s able to take more nourishment-”
“I know. Poor little thing.”
Is she going to be okay? Kurt’s heart began to race again. The doctor looked at his monitor.
“Is she... Will the baby be a walker?” he asked them.
“The hallucinations must be getting bad again,” the woman muttered. She pulled out a syringe and put something in his IV.
“Please. Please, tell me. Will the baby be a walker?” he tried again.
The woman looked at him sympathetically. “I don’t know if you can understand me, but try to sleep. They’ll be giving you more of the serum soon, and it won’t be very comfortable for you.”
“I don’t know why you bother, Mable. It’s not like they can understand you when they’re like this,” the man said.
“I understand!” Kurt protested as the man left the room
“Then understand that your baby needs you to rest,” Mable said. “You remember the baby? You know that you’re having a baby?”
What, am I an idiot? Kurt just stared at her. “Will the baby be a walker? Please, just tell me.”
“Get some sleep. Rest will help both you and the baby right now.”
As she turned to leave, he yelled at her. She looked back in surprise, then disappeared.
The next several hours were the same, until they came in again and pressed something to his neck. Then it began again. The fever, the hallucinations. His body shook, but this time he was strapped to the bed. He lost consciousness and awoke to realize he’d thrown up on himself.
Through it all, though, his baby was still kicking. She was alive and fighting. He wished he could sing to her, or pet over her so she would know, even if he was distressed, that it would be okay. He wished one of the doctors, or someone, would think about her. If only they’d let Blaine come with him, he would have kept her calm. He would have sung to her while Kurt fought the virus. But they wouldn’t answer his questions about where Blaine was; they mostly ignored him and did their work, moving about in their suits through his frustrated and frightened screams.
***
Blaine sat alone in a cell by himself. He’d stopped struggling hours ago. There was no point. He couldn’t get out of the straight jacket, and they weren’t going to tell him where Kurt was while they thought he was crazy.
He didn’t know if he could convince them otherwise. He kept trying, but...
After they’d pulled Kurt into the van, the soldiers had begun to take them somewhere, but Blaine had pulled away and tried to run after the van. When the big guy who had been holding him grabbed for him once again, he kicked the man in the face.
Kurt would have been proud of that high kick.
They’d cuffed him, thrown them all in a van together, and driven them for an hour to a large facility where they were separated, interrogated, filled with antibiotics and other shots and then taken into another room for several hours, where they all grew hot and agitated. Half-images of walkers, gun-toting cannibal rednecks, and Kurt writhing in pain and just out of his reach sprung out at him only to disappear, so sneaky in their schemes to make him appear insane.
Blaine remembered the critical moment clearly. A man had entered the room and Blaine had rushed him. Forest had tried to get him to calm down, but when the man didn’t seem to care about the questions Blaine was asking, he began to scream at him, shoved him to the ground.
Then he was taken away from the others. Once or twice they’d brought someone in to talk to him, but he hadn’t been able to tell them anything coherent. The pressing need to find Kurt before it was too late, before Kurt wasn’t Kurt anymore, before their baby was dead and cold never having had the opportunity to take his first breath-- It overwhelmed him. Events started to happen out of order again, he lost track of what he was saying, he alternatively burst into tears and then raged.
Every person who came into the room left with their heads shaking. A woman had come in to give him a sedative, then talked to him for a little bit, telling him that many people who had come over the boarder more than a month after the outbreak had needed counseling, and he didn’t need to be ashamed.
“I need Kurt. I need my boyfriend. He’s having a baby! I can’t let him do that alone! And he got sick... I need to see him!” he’d pleaded. “I need to see Kurt while he’s still Kurt! He’d want me to take care of our baby, if he’s... if... Oh...”
Again his cheeks were drenched with tears.
“He... He what?” She tilted her head to the side. “You said that he’s having... a baby?”
“Probably soon. He was having contractions last night... However long ago it was... I can’t remember.”
“I see.” She nodded and touched his shoulder gently. “Blaine, you know that men can’t have babies, right?”
That was when Blaine lost it. He didn’t even remember what he’d said, only that she’d backed away like he was a rabid dog.
Maybe he was a rabid dog, he thought to himself in the calm quiet of his cell. He hadn’t been himself for weeks. Maybe he had another virus. Maybe he was mad.
Blaine closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his knees. Kurt wasn’t there to bring him back this time.
Next Part: Means of Survival