The dining room floor was covered in splatters that reminded Zaria of a Rorschach test. "Ignore the dead bodies. What does this pattern make you think of?" She mumbled aloud, smiling politely when the elderly man standing by his former friend's feet looked at her inquisitively. With an Ichi, Ni, San, they lifted the body together and placed it on top of a sheet placed to the side. The blood still seeped from its head, or more accurately, the whole punched through its head with a chair leg, immediately beginning to soak through the fabric. They quickly wrapped it up, and with another three counts, they lifted the sheet ends and began to carry it out of the dining room and toward the front entrance as quickly as they could.

The sun was bright, making their little area of the world feel warmer than it should with winter approaching. Zaria was glad that she had her sleeves buttoned at the wrist to keep more blood from getting directly on her, but it quickly began to feel too warm as she let the other man guide them down toward the gate. The sound of running footsteps alerted her just a moment before she was knocked to the side, the sheet ripped from her hands.

Warm arms held her tight to a firm chest that was rising and falling rapidly. She recognized the cool smell of the mountains and did not fight back. Someone was talking on the other side of the man-wall she was pressed against, and she assumed that Yamashita or someone else had taken over her end of the sheet stretcher.

"Gu Cheng? Are you alright?" The words came out muffled, her mouth and nose squished. When the man did not answer with words, his arms tightening more as his response, Zaria raised her arms and wrapped them around his waist. She wiggled her face so that her cheek would be pressed against him, and she could breathe better. Warm lips pressed against her curls and a voice so quiet she thought she was imagining it first chanted against her.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry"

Zaria let him hold her and gently rubbed his back for a few minutes, hearing the others moving around them like water parting for a boulder in a stream. When his breathing slowed enough that she thought he was okay, she pushed against his chest gently. "Gu Cheng, I need to breathe..."

Gu Cheng loosened his arms, but did not let go completely. His hands moved up to cup her cheeks, turning her face upward. Zaria sucked in a breath before his lips were on hers. There was nothing sexual in the kiss. His lips moved against hers with a frantic desperation, pressing almost violently but not so much that it would hurt her. Slowly, the intensity eased. Soft, feather-like touches moved along her lips.

"I was just -"

"trying to -"

"keep you safe"

He spoke in a voice as quiet and light as air, sealing each word with another soft touch to her lips, his movements beginning to become more frantic again.

"Hey," Zaria reached up to cup his cheeks in return, pushing his face gently away. Her warm brown eyes met his, and she kept his gaze without blinking. "It's alright. You are alright." His arms moved around her body once more and tried to pull her in tightly again, but she tapped his cheeks with her forefingers. "I am alright, Gu Cheng," she whispered.

His arms were less constricting, so she let him hold her and pulled his head down to rest his forehead against her own. "It's okay," she whispered to him, feeling the tension slowly ease from his shoulders and back.

Something twisted inside of her. All the defenses that she had built to keep him away vanished as though they had never existed. Without her realizing it, the affection that she felt for him back in the safety of City C had changed into something more, something deeper. Feeling his arms wrapped around her and the worry and fear still leaking from his body, she decided to stop fighting it and accept that she had linked herself to the impossible man and she didn't really want to leave him.

A polite cough sounded next to them, and Zaria craned her neck back to see who it was. Saito-san was looking at them with a sad smile, her normally pristine shirt wrinkled and stained in several areas from her work carrying bodies out and to the street. While making plans on how to proceed while sitting on the stair case, they had decided to move the bodies outside and onto the street. They did not have the ability to dig holes to bury them properly, and the smell and sight of them in the lawn would do worse for moral than passing them outside the wall. At least until they could get a hold of shovels to do the job right.

"I'm sorry, Saito-san. I will help clean up -"

"No, Joseph-chan," She bowed quickly to apologize for interrupting. "You have done the hard and dangerous part. We can do the cleaning. I wanted to tell you that you two could go and clean up. You are covered... your clothes are dirty and I am sure Gu-san's are as well. We will take care of this."

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Gu Cheng pulled away abruptly, his eyes narrowing when he finally noticed the gore and blood covering her shirt. "Are you injured? Why didn't you tell me? Where-"

"I am not hurt, Gu Cheng." She said quickly. "I would like to go and clean up, would you? It will be nicer if we aren't both covered in this...if we aren't both dirty. Why don't we do as Saito-san suggested and go clean up?"

He did not respond, his eyes still stuck on the dark fabric clinging to her front. She tried to turn and walk toward the house, but his arms were still holding her in place. She sighed, trying to speak as calmly as she could, as though nothing had happened. "Let's go upstairs now. You can help me, I am a little tired right now."

As though a switch flipped, his arms dropped from her sides, and he let himself be led by the hand toward the door. They passed two of the gathering boys, who were standing just outside the entrance looking lost. Zaria walked past them, bowing briefly, a habit that she was slowly getting used to. They did not acknowledge her, and she did not stop for them, guiding Gu Cheng up the stairs by pinching his sleeve and trailing him behind her like a little toy on wheels.

She stopped briefly in her own room to grab the cleaning wipes and her bag, then pushed Gu Cheng toward his room. The broad shouldered man showed no intention of leaving her alone, and she figured that his room would have more space for them to both take care of cleaning up. A firm hand on his lower back kept him moving, and he opened his door and moved inside without more prompts needed. As soon as the door was closed, he turned swiftly and took her things from her hands, tossing them on the bed and pulling her into his arms once more.

"I am sorry I made you angry. I just wanted you to be safe. Seeing that man," he said the word like it was poisonous, spitting it out to the side, "Seeing that man hurt you, knowing I could not help you because I got there too late, I have never felt so angry or helpless in my life."

Zaria tried to interject, but Gu Cheng lowered his forehead to hers and asked her to let him finish. "I need to say all of this. You have been pushing me away, and I have tried to give you space, but I need you to hear me now. I am not angry at you. Even when you left me behind, I was not angry at you. I know that I should be angry at that person for pushing you out of your world. But, hate me if you will, I am glad that he pushed you to me because I needed you. Even before I met you, I was waiting for something, and it didn't take me long to realize it was you. I followed you to another universe because I needed you."

The words flowed out, more words and more emotion than she had suspected the cold man of ever having. Zaria squirmed a little in his arms, but he just pulled her tighter against him. "I just wanted you to be safe, as safe as I could make you. I thought if I made you stay here, behind sturdy walls, then you would be alright. After losing Ando-kun, all I could think of was getting back here to you. And then when I finally got here, I saw a small body being carried out under a sheet..."

His voice broke off, and he squeezed tighter, burying his face in the mop of curls below him. Zaria wrapped her arms around his waist again,squeezing him quickly and then bringing her hands around to pat on his chest. "I want to hear you more, and I am okay with you holding me, but I would like to change and clean. If I stay here, would it be alright?"

Gu Cheng let go and took a step back. His arms dropped to his side, fingers twitching nervously. Zaria waited for him to go and get his wipes, but he stood still, watching her. She smiled sadly and took his hand. "Gu Cheng, where are your wipes? I won't leave."

The promise was enough to get him moving. They turned away from each other, removing their clothes and cleaning the drying blood off of their skin that had seeped through. Gu Cheng was finished quickly, the few spots left behind by zombie spray no competition for the struggle that left Zaria's lightly patterened shirt covered in bits of brain matter and soaked like someone dumped an entire bottle of wine down the front of her top. She was still turned away when he finished pulling on his sweatsuit, and she could hear his sharp intake of breath when he realized that she was still wiping down. "I'm almost done. Can you give me just another minute?"

He murmured "Yes," and she heard the sound of his body sitting down on the far edge of the bed. Trusting that he was not watching, she removed everything remaining, wiping quickly the areas she was not ready to show him so that she could put clothing back on. She sighed as she pulled on clean underwear and bra. Having a shirt and pants covered with the mess had been bad enough, but seeing that it soaked through and covered everything beneath, underwear, and skin. The headache that she had been ignoring was still pounding away behind her eyes. She squinted at the underwear laying on top of the pile in the little clothes basket,picking them back up and looking them over closely. "Shit," she whispered. What a time to start. She had almost missed it, with everything covered in blood already. It was only noticing that there was some in an area that shouldn't have had any...

"What's the matter?" The voice did not move, and Zaria took a quick glance back to assure herself that he was turned away.

"I started my period, it seems. Because my luck is amazing." He did not respond, and she pulled out a pad from her bag, noting that the supply was getting low. She was just happy that she had noticed before sitting down next to him.

Fully dressed, Zaria walked over to stand in front of Gu Cheng. He sat with his hands in front of him, clenched in his lap, his unflappable face creased with worry. "I'm okay, Gu Cheng. See? All in one piece." He did not respond, his fingers twitching on top of his legs. Zaria placed a hand on his face, tracing his eyebrows, pushing through his short cropped hair before circling around to the back of his head, pulling it forward to rest against her stomach and wrapping her arm around him to hold him in place. She made calming noises as she smoothed his hair flat against his scalp, feeling a short moment of peace as his shaky breath warmed her skin through her shirt.