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"He doesn't hate you, he just can't stand the thought of losing you," Anders said more sharply. "Any more than I can."

Not that starting up that fight again was going to help. He sighed and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Anyhow. You're coming home now, right? So it doesn't matter."

"Anders..." Kathy pulled away, wrapping her arms around herself. "What are the odds that if I go home, I'll be able to come back?"

There were any number of people on the island willing to tie her down and throw her into a closet to keep her safe on the island.

"I'm not sure how much will be left for me to come back to."

Something shut off in Anders' face when he heard that. If a daughter, a man who she said she loved who loved her too, and the knowledge that this was a losing fight weren't enough to convince her to come back to safety, nothing would be.

In that moment, some part of Anders said goodbye to her.

"Fine," he said, and resumed the business of pulling on socks and pinning back hair. "I'm done fighting about it."

Edited 2016-04-17 20:30 (UTC)

Kathy would have liked to argue that Carys wasn't real; she was a future possibility brought to the present because the island had a weird sense of humor. But that wasn't an argument that carried much weight--for the weekend, she was real enough.

Looking at Anders' shuttered expression, she asked herself if this was all worth it. If being a hero was worth the damage--possibly irreparable--she was doing to the relationships that mattered most.

She didn't have time to figure out her answer. Someone was screaming in the hallway outside of their room and Kathy was dashing out to offer assistance before she a chance to think.

Or maybe that was the answer.

It seemed like a clear enough answer to Anders, yes. And as an answer, it made him furious. (And even if Carys was only a projection, she was still a little girl who wanted her mother.)

But the person who was screaming in the hall hadn't done anything wrong. He picked up his staff and followed her into the hall, uncertain he'd be able to catch up.

Turned out that Anders didn't need to worry about catching up, Kathy was bounding back, half-dragging a hysterical woman in a maid uniform with her. Of course, considering the amount of blood liberally soaking the woman, she probably had cause to be screaming. Kathy was trying very hard to ignore that the woman kept screaming a single name; she had a pretty decent idea where all the blood had come from.

"She's not bitten!" she called to Anders, "but we're about to have company!"

From the direction Kathy had come from, they could hear the dull clack-clack-clack of jaws being snapped shut over and over again. "I counted at least twelve--looks like they made their way here from somewhere else as a group and spotted the day shift arriving. Most of them are in the lobby right now." The clacking noise continued. "Or coming this way," she amended. "But that means any other staff or guests trying to get out are going to run smack into the bulk of them."

From now on, Kathy was only staying in hotel rooms above ground level.

Anders bit his lip. He might be angry, but it didn't have to matter when they had something bigger to fight. "If I go to the lobby and take down as many zombies as I can, can you protect the people trying to leave?"

The clacking kept getting louder.

Kathy bit her lip. If Anders was going out to fight, she wanted to be there by his side and at his back. But they had a job to do and she knew she could trust him. She knew she had to trust him. Because otherwise how could she ask that he do the same, however grudgingly he might be doing it.

"Yes," she said, swallowing any hint of protest. "Let's clean out this hallway together, then you head to the lobby and I'll check for survivors and clear a route to safety."

Anders didn't like letting Kathy go, but as he saw it he didn't have much choice in the matter. She was going no matter what he said or did: The best he could do right then was help other people by taking down as many zombies as he could. He nodded firmly and stepped a few paces back from Kathy, staff at the ready to cover her.

A lone zombie turned a corner, shambling toward them. From the clacking, he wouldn't be alone for long.

"Well," he said tone still cool, "at least we aren't having a boring prom."

"I vastly preferred the events of last night, truth be told," Kathy said, trying to ignore that tone. It hurt to hear it, but it's not like she could blame him. Fewer zombies, still not bored."

Her foot lashed out, slamming into the zombie's head. It staggered backwards, off=balance, and Kathy advanced, bokken out. The zombie clacked and reached for her and she literally writhed out of its grasp, swinging her weapon directly into its skull. She turned away to avoid getting a facefull of blood and brain, and slammed her hand into the face of a second zombie, breaking its nose and shoving it up into the brain.

From the way her face felt, she was grinning.

Well, someone had certainly gotten over her reservations about killing. Under other circumstances Anders might have found the grin on her face weirdly charming.

Under the current circumstances, he was mainly happy to have an excuse not to talk about the night before. The thought of leaving Kathy again so soon added a sour tang to what should have been a sweet memory.

"So that's them," he said, and aimed a fireball over Kathy's head at an angle that sent it crashing into a cluster of three approaching zombies. He wasn't sure whether burning zombies would do much good, but he considered it his scientific duty to find out.

It wasn't killing if they were already dead. 'Genny couldn't bring them back to life, there were no signs of higher thought processes (or general life functions), and Stealth said they showed no evidence of feeling pain, which she had discovered in ways Kathy was happier not knowing. That put them at the same level as the skeletons at Cyseal--lower, actually, because the skeletons had at least been smart enough to use weapons and basic tactics.

No, all these thngs did was shamble, kill, and eat, endangering people that were still alive and keeping her in LA when she'd really rather be back home on the island. Also, they were ruining her last few minutes of prom, dammit. (She still couldn't bring herself to kill the few child zombies she'd seen. That was still just a step too far.)

The zombies' clothing and hair caught fire readily, save for the one in the middle whose shirt was still sodden with blood. The flames themselves didn't seem to deter the zombies, though; it wasn't hot enough to start melting skin and they lacked the pain receptors to care. "Try electricity!" Kathy called. "It won't hurt them but it might disrupt the body's signals!"

If Anders could read her narration, he would have agreed that zombies were already dead but argued that Kathy wouldn't rather be home on the island. If she would, she could have been there a week and a half ago.

It was perhaps for the best that they weren't reading each other's narration.

"Good idea," he called instead, and sent out a cracking blow of lightning. His staff twirled and his face distorted with focus.

Edited 2016-04-18 17:41 (UTC)

He would be right, up to a point. But she wasn't just here because she liked fighting zombies. She was staying because she felt responsible. That she could make a real and present difference in the survival of the city. That abandoning LA before she absolutely had to reflected on her not just as a hero, but as a person. That her value was inextricably bound with saving as many lives as possible.

It was complicated. And hard for Kathy to articulate, since they were vague feelings at best. Maybe they would have swayed Anders if she could explain them.

Maybe not. In the end, the maybes didn't matter. She couldn't explain, so he had no way to fully understand.

The zombies he hit with the lightning went down, twitching, as the lightning caused muscles to seize. They didn't register pain the way a living human would after getting zapped that way, but they couldn't control their bodies, either. Kathy danced into their midst and finished them off before the effects could wear off. "...That's pretty damn effective," she said, blinking at how quickly the zombies had ceased to be a thread. "You spark, I stab?"

They still made a hell of a team.

Whether Anders understood, or could understand, or not, was ultimately beside the point to him. He wouldn't have even thought of staying, and Kathy couldn't imagine not. There was no more to say.

"I'll spark, you stab," he agreed. "We'll have this place cleared out in no time."

And then he let out a battle cry as he unleashed his anger and confusion at the next zombie to lumber into view.

Kathy was everywhere at once--kick in a zombie's skull as it lunged at Anders, dancing away from a thread of lightning that had gotten too close because she'd been paying more attention to a zombie than to where Anders had released his magic, pushing a frightened man back into his room with instructions to come out only when he heard the fire alarm. Once even pausing in the middle of the fight to press an exuberant kiss to Anders' cheek before bouncing away again. He just looked so good wreathed in lightning and magic, raining destruction down.

They moved slowly towards the lobby, making enough noise to draw the remaining zombies to them, rather than to continue to pursue other prey. "How you doing?" she called. "Do you need to take a magic break? I can cover you!"

"I can keep going," Anders shouted back as he aimed stonefist at the head of the nearest zombie. It exploded into red goo, and he realized he felt a lot better than he had ten minutes before. Destruction made things easy that way.

A note of mischief entered his tone. "What about you, do you need me to cover you?"

"I know you can keep going, but is this really the time or place to brag about it?" Kathy teased, hammer kicking a zombie into Anders' sightline. "I thought I was very clear in my appreciation for that trait last night!"

Anders shocked the zombie into stillness, then hopped over its body to get closer to Kathy.

"You were, but you haven't mentioned it in a few hours," he teased back. "Thought you might have forgotten -- Kathy, to your left!"

How rude of that zombie to interrupt his flirting like that. Anders was going to shock it extra hard.

Kathy didn't even look, just dropped to the ground and snapped her foot out. There was a dull noise as she popped a zombie's kneecap out of its socket, and then it was on the floor, twitching, as Anders' magic coursed through it.

She made sure it didn't get up, then regained her feet. "Consider it mentioned now," she said, looking at him. "With gratitude."

It hadn't been a close call, but working with him brought home just how good it was to have a partner that you could rely on. With Anders at her six, she could be confident that nothing was sneaking up on her.

It wasn't close, but it was close enough that Anders was grateful to have been there. It seemed as though they both fought better together than alone. And in a different world, he would have loved to stay and help her fight. But this was the world they had, and in this world a little girl was waiting.

It didn't take much longer before the last few zombies had been put down and the hotel lobby was clear. Anders had sat down in an overstuffed armchair, spreading gore over what had no doubt once been expensive upholstery.

"I should shower before I catch my portal," he observed dully. "I don't need to give Carys nightmares by showing up covered in zombie goo."

Hey, it wasn't like he was going to be charged for damages. Or even the room, really. Nothing like the zombie apocalypse to save money.

"You're probably right," she said quietly. "Shower big enough for two?"

It wasn't even that her usual post-fight adrenaline rush asking. She was trying to figure out where the boundaries between them were. They'd been shifted and moved around so much since last night that it was impossible to keep track. But there was no question that she'd hurt him. Deeply.

Anders involuntarily winced. He didn't want to shut Kathy out forever, but he wasn't ready to do anything physical with her right then either. And a shower for two was never just a shower.

"Not this time," he said apologetically, and was grateful the circumstances gave him a ready-made excuse. "I'm going to have to hurry to catch my portal. I'll just rinse off and go."

"Right," Kathy said, taking an involuntary step backwards. It was the answer she'd been expecting but it still hurt to hear. "I'll make sure you have a portal waiting for you, then," she said. Had he already called for one? Honestly, Kathy couldn't remember and it made for a handy excuse. "And get our stuff together."

Keep busy. She'd just keep busy to keep herself from falling apart.

"My hero," Anders said, with a tiny, embarrassed smile. He'd forgotten to call in all the excitement. "Thank you."

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