December 21, 2012.

She leans against a jagged moss-covered boulder on the side of the mountain. It is quiet here. There are no birds, no sounds of animals of any kind. There is only the wind whistling through the needles of evergreens and the tall, uncut grass. This quiet place used to be called, without any trace of irony: America, the land of the free.

There is no more America. It died long ago.

The cool breeze plays with the girl's hair, winding it around the crown of her head and across her face. She waits a moment, just to catalog the strange sensation of something natural, before brushing the hair off her forehead.

Her hair is short, cropped for safety and not for beauty. Her clothes are old and worn, many sizes too large. The olive green jacket with its many pockets is warm enough, though; a gift to herself, taken from a still-warm body of a soldier.

They are all soldiers now, she thinks. Fighters without a country.

She bends to grab a dried leaf from the dirt at her booted feet, peeling away its veins with delicate fingers. She doesn't remember much of the old world. (She was just a child then.) But she does know the ultimate twist of fate that changed the order of things.

America, which had always hoarded itself away, doling out its strength like a hunch-backed miser, had started to crumble. And before She could even open her mouth to form the words to the rest of the world, America couldn't ask. She was beyond help.

There was nothing left to do but close the borders. Every single country in the world, from the impoverished colonies to the industrial giants, came together to accomplish the most impressive task in the history of global politics, to bury the old United States.

Canada and Mexico, overwhelmed by refugees in the first year of the outbreak, didn't have the capacity for anymore goodwill. They lined their borders with armed guards, one every few yards, with orders to shoot on sight, whether the trespasser was human or otherwise.

As for the remainder of the nation's coastline, floating patrols from around the globe took turns gazing at the empty stretches of beaches, on alert for things that didn't need air to breathe. Alaska, now called the Inuit Nation, did their part too, along with the newly formed Kingdom of Hawai'i.

It was a different world now. The girl knew that much.

The noise of shuffling feet rose up from the path below, and she dropped the leaf she had torn apart to reach inside her jacket, feeling the steel rod in her hidden pocket.

The figure appeared from behind a tree and she sighed in relief. "Don't go sneaking up on me like that, J."

J smiled in return and shrugged. "I was making a racket. When I'm sneaking, you won't be able to tell." He took a deep breath and looked out from the outcropping, down into the mist-laden valley below. "What do you think, L?" he asked, jutting his chin to include the entire picturesque scene.

L snorted. "It's like a freakin' postcard," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

J came over to her side and leaned against the rock as well. He stuffed his callused hands into his black coat, another military remnant stolen from some shelled-out base.

"Watch your language," he said fondly, nudging her thin shoulder with his own.

She looked up at him with a scowl. "I'm going to be fourteen soon," she growled. "And I've heard H say worse things than that."

J tipped his head in agreement. "Doesn't mean you have to follow his less-than-ideal example," he chided. He pushed off the rock and jerked his head in the direction from which he'd come. "We found some canned stuff in the kitchens. We're lucky this old ski resort was locked up when the outbreaks began to spread."

With one last look down the snow-patched mountain, L turned to follow. "What was this place called?" she asked.

"Maine," J said, his voice a little strained. "Do you like it here?"

The girl jogged a few steps down the steep path to reach J's side, her breath appearing as puffs of smokein the cold air . "I still don't understand why we're stopping in Postcard Land," she said, her tone bordering on a whine. It made the man smile, remembering her as the small child she still sometimes was. "Shouldn't we head back down to the Swamp? E might need us."

J shook his head; it was hard for him to imagine that the Swamp was all that was left of that capital city, glowing with marble monuments and museums in white.

"E has things under control there," he said gently. "And if anything major happens, he knows how to get a hold of us." He kept walking down the sloping hill and fought the urge to reach over and ruffle the girl's dark hair between his fingers. She wouldn't appreciate that. As much as she was still his little girl, she was growing to be more like H in many ways.

As if reading his mind, H's lanky form came into view at the bottom of the path, a bright spark still resting in his bright eyes.

"Hey kid." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "Guess what I found in the pantry?"

L blinked. "Don't joke about that," she warned, her widening smile betraying her cynicism.

H shrugged and rested both hands on the top of his cane. "Unlike you, I went to school," he said with a raised eyebrow. "And I can sure as hell read a label that says sweetened condensed milk."

The girl gave a whoop of joy and was off like a shot, running down the hill at breakneck speed past both men. "I'm going to crack one open right now!" she called back to them over her shoulder.

J waved her off with a grin before redirecting his gaze to the other man. "She'll get sick if she drinks the whole thing," he scolded, the smile still in place.

H limped the two steps that separated them and wrapped an arm around J's waist, giving it a clinical squeeze. "She could use the calories," he murmured. "We all could."

J sighed and allowed H to run a hand through his brown hair, lightly brushing the silver streaks at his temples. It was true; they had both skipped many meals in the last five years to save food for their young charge.

He lifted his own hand to H's cheek, tracing the deep, curved scar there, a reminder of the danger they had lived through for the past five years. "Is everything taken care of?" he asked, changing the subject.

H nodded. "I called Foreman on the SAT phone. He said the chopper should be here tonight. Apparently, the South Africans are very antsy."

J rested his forehead on H's shoulder and closed his eyes. "She's going to hate us for doing this," he whispered.

"She's going to be safe," H stressed, combing his hand through the hair on the back of his lover's head. "As long as they need her blood as an insurance policy, they'll keep her in Cape Town, away from all of this."

"She's…" J swallowed thickly. "I'm going to miss her."

Dry lips brushed against his ear. "I know. But we're old men now. We can't keep her here with us. She'd be all alone when we're gone."

A wry smile twisted J's lips. "Who are you calling old, House?"

House tipped back the other man's chin and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. "The guy I love, Wilson."

It felt nice to hear it said aloud: the truth, and their old names. That sort of thing had stopped being practical since the fighting had begun. Better to not know whose body you had just seen get torn apart, or who you'd have to decapitate to save your own life. People went by letters now, code for the names they'd once had. It was a coping mechanism, a way to turn a human life into something less.

The thudding of booted feet returned, and L held the punctured can of milk aloft in triumph. "J! H! Are you going to help me drink this or not?" she said with a laugh.

The two men slowly broke apart. Wilson smiled at her indulgently, trying to memorize the sight of her glowing face. It was going to be their last night together, the last time their little messed-up family would be whole.

"Yeah, sweetheart," he said. "Let's go sit in the old lodge. I'll build a fire in the fireplace."

L rolled her shining green eyes. "I told you, I'm a big girl now. You can stop calling me sweetheart."

"Okay, Lindsey," Wilson said, his voice cracking on the last syllable. He bit his lip, but the girl hadn't noticed. She was already running across the lot, daring them to follow.

"Last one there's probably a cripple!" she shouted.

When she was out of earshot, Wilson did cry then, burying his face in the crook of House's neck, breathing in the comforting scent of his salty skin. But his sobs stopped when he felt House's chest rattle with a sniff.

He looked up. House was looking away at Lindsey's retreating back, and his blue eyes were red with unshed tears.

"That's my girl," House whispered, wiping at his face.

Wilson leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the scar on House's face. "That's our girl," he agreed.

Fin.