These Things: The world's gone to hell – there's just no other way to put it. A sickness spread across the US, infecting the young and the old alike. I'm a long way from home and I may never see my hometown again, but I have to keep fighting. It's them or us; the dead versus the living. Apocalypse: 1, Iva: 0. (OC/Shane)

Disclaimer:I don't own any of the characters from the famous comic book (turned television adaptation) The Walking Dead, but sometimes I wish I was a writer on the show's staff! I will be the first to admit that the characters are a mish mash of their comic book and television personalities. Some might even be horribly butchered, but I've done my best. Iva, Libby, and a few others are my creations, so please give them a bit of respect.

Rating: This story is rating M+ for Mature Audiences. Gore, violence, language, intense situations, sexual innuendo, and sexual scenes occur throughout the course of the story. Chapters containing sexually explicit materials will be properly labeled, but it is advised that children do not read this story.

Author's Note: This story takes place at the beginning of the second season (in the television show), right before the walker herd wreaks havoc and causes Sophia to run off in terror. The premise for this story brewed in my head for quite some time before I finally put it on paper. I have a certain fondness for this show and the many characters and the many layers to their personalities and abilities. TWD writers are talented, but very sneaky. When I started this story, I had one thought in mind: "What if Shane had some other facet in his life in season two that brought him back from the brink?" This is the growth of that particular idea.

"I'm not a bad man, I'm just overwhelmed. It's cause of these things, it's cause of these things." – She Wants Revenge, These Things

These Things

~Chapter One~

I took a deep breath and passed the canteen over to Libby distractedly, brown eyes trained on the three stiffs a couple dozen feet away. She snatched the canteen free from my grasp and I eased back on my haunches, squatting behind a car that offered us some semblance of protection from the group of shuffling stiffs that had yet to notice us.

Libby took a long draw from the canteen and then capped it and slung the strap over her neck lazily. "Let's just go 'round, Iva. I'm tired and the sun's beating down on us like hell."

My lips twitched at the whiny twang in her voice, and I spared her a quick glance before I focused my attention on the three stiffs yet again. "It's just the three of them, Libs. We can take them out easily and then we can check these cars to see if we can get one going." I heard Libby grumble under her breath, but she didn't make another sound when I slipped the hatchet on my hip from its sheath. "I'll get the two guys, you take down the woman."

She tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear and then palmed her knife in her right hand. There was a light in her hazel eyes I recognized all too well; the adrenaline rush crashed through me simultaneously.

We moved in tandem, side stepping around the truck we'd taken cover behind in order to flank the three stiffs. The sound of teeth gnashing made my skin crawl, but I deftly stalked forward and delivered a staggering blow to the temple of one of the male stiffs, putting my booted foot against his gory chest to get the leverage I needed to yank it free. Then I turned my attention to the second male stiff, hesitating only a second before I swung under its outstretched arm and slammed the blade of the hatchet into the right side of its head. Blood splattered and gore and brain debris rained out in an arc away from me, the stiff collapsed onto the ground when I retracted the hatchet.

Libby frowned at me when I turned to face her, but wiped the bloodied blade of her knife off on the unmoving stiff's clothes before she tucked it into the sheath on her waist. Some of her long blonde hair had pulled free of the tight ponytail she'd erected earlier that morning, but she didn't seem bothered by it as she pulled her faded green hat down lower on her head.

I used a stiff's soiled shirt to wipe off the hatchet and then secured it in the sheath clipped to my belt. I popped the clasp that kept my knife in place in its sheath near the hatchet, ready to draw it out of the worn leather at a moment's notice.

"Iva?"

"Yeah?" I asked distractedly as I yanked open the rusted door of an old sedan. When she didn't immediately answer, I glanced over my shoulder at her in alarm. But, the serene smile on her lips assured me that nothing was wrong. "What's up?"

"If you find a pack of cigarettes, I'll carry your pack for two days."

With a quiet chuckle, I checked the backseat and then slid into the driver's seat. When I found that the car wouldn't start due to a dead body caught up in the grill, I yanked open the glove box and searched its contents. I discovered a pack of gum and a pacifier. My stomach clenched tightly and I abruptly glanced in the rearview mirror and spied the empty car seat in the back.

Angry, I swung out of the car and yanked open the back door to check the floorboard before I used the keys still hanging in the ignition to pop the trunk.

"Eureka." I ignored the putrid smell of spoiled food and searched through the cardboard boxes in a determined manner, retrieving half a dozen cans of vegetables, a bottle of wine, and a slim medical kit. Unable to tolerate the smell any longer, I juggled my find in my left arm and turned to look for Libby.

She climbed down out of a pickup truck and shook her head, but smiled suddenly when she spied my loot. With a little shake of her rear, she jogged towards where we had dumped our packs and gathered them up in one hand, rushing towards me. "Nice find. Oh, God. Tell me those are some sweet peaches, oh yeah." Libby yanked open her pack and began shoveling the food inside, pausing when she spied the wine. "Looks like we're going to be able to celebrate. Sometime."

I ignored her playful banter and helped her secure the wine in her pack. If she was careful, it wouldn't bust unless she flopped onto her back unexpectedly. As she rearranged the things in her pack, I took a moment to gather my own thoughts and push away the guilt I felt whenever I saw how thin she'd gotten since the world had gone to hell.

If it hadn't been for me…

With a shake of my head, I pulled my pack up by its straps and slung it into place, motioning for her to do the same. We had been careful to stay off of the road in the recent weeks, but our dwindling supply stash had driven us from the wooded and sometimes swampy terrain to seek out supplies from the vehicles left trapped on the tiny highway. But, I didn't want to spend any more time than absolutely necessary out in the open, and I sensed that she felt the same way.

Best friends since childhood, Libby and I had an odd knack for anticipating the other in just about every situation. We had been there for one another through heartaches and breakups and happier times, like her first marriage to Clark. Oh, they hadn't lasted, but it had been one hell of a bash. When I'd moved away right after high school to go to college somewhere far, far away from the small town we'd always called home, we'd kept in touch. When she and Clark had divorced, she'd visited me in Chicago and had found her second husband, Steve, within days. When she and Steve moved back to our small hometown, I'd finished college and got a job at a busy hospital in Chicago.

Two years before the world had gone to shit I'd left my life and young career behind in Chicago and moved back home, right into my Granny's house, and started life all over again. Granny, in the early stages of Alzheimer's and frail from battling COPD for years, needed constant care. We couldn't survive unless I worked, so I worked sixteen hour shifts, forking over most of my check to pay for the in-house nursing care she needed while I was at work. Then my off time was spent caring for her. Libby, happy as a clam working at her daddy's mechanics shop answering phones and handling the paperwork, got another divorce and decided to give up men altogether. So, a few weeks before the world all went to shit, in desperate need of a break, I begged her to take off from work and go with me on vacation, a real vacation.

Then the reports of a strange strain of influenza creeping across the southwest had begun. We had ignored the reports on the television at first, even when the crackpots in and around the Keys began to board up their homes and businesses, claiming that the end was near. Just before the world ground to a halt, Libby and I decided it would be better to be home in case the flu was some sort of a weird biological terrorist attack – as some of the reporters were wildly speculating. So, we'd packed up and loaded into her old Jeep and headed north.

The busy interstate we'd been on looked a lot like the small highway we currently occupied – bumper to bumper, nowhere to go. We'd gotten about fifty miles past the state line when traffic stopped completely. So, we'd camped out overnight, expecting that the wreck or whatever had held up traffic would be cleared by morning.

But, the world at large had other plans in mind.

We barely escaped the chaos, the madness that overtook the people on the highway when groups of mindless stiffs began to tear flesh from former friends and loved ones without warning. Three older men in an old pickup truck had seen us scrambling out of the Jeep and had allowed us to climb into the bed of their truck. For the first few weeks, we'd all stuck together.

"Iva."

I tensed at the terror in her voice and looked over my shoulder in the direction that we'd originally come from, and immediately felt perspiration bead on my skin. My breathing ragged, I shot her a disturbed glance and felt my body lurch into motion. We ran side by side, each clutching a knife in one hand as we dodged around abandoned vehicles and leaped over debris.

Adrenaline and pure fear kept us going for almost a mile, but by then we were both breathless and unable to run any further. Gasping for breath, we took refuge in the shade created by a large moving truck and sipped from the canteen we shared.

Tanned face flushed from exertion, Libby studied me with a look I knew all too well. I hated that she'd come to rely on me to make the big moves, to make the decisions that a single person didn't want to be held responsible for making in the first place. But, I tilted my head slightly and tried to calculate how much time we'd bought by sprinting from the horde of stiffs.

Before I could make a decision, the sound of rusty doors opening and closing and soft chatter drew my attention to further ahead along the road. Motioning for Libby to stay where she was, I crept forward, hiding behind the side of a car, and watched as an African American male with espresso-colored skin and broad shoulders cursed to himself as he slammed the door angrily.

"Find anything worthwhile?" an older, sunburnt man with a floppy hat and a rifle slung over his shoulder approached the other man lazily. It was clear from their body language that they knew one another. "I found a couple bottles of water. Ain't much, but every little bit helps.

The other man shook his head. "I thought you were on watch, Dale."

"Just wanted to stretch my legs for a minute. Make sure you check the glove boxes, T-Dog."

I watched the man in the floppy gray hat stroll away and make his way through the lines of abandoned vehicles. When he began to climb the ladder at the rear of a small RV, I couldn't help but shake my head in surprise.

"Iva."

I waved Libby forward and we rounded the side of the car together, approaching the lone man cautiously. He was struggling with a rusty door when he heard our footfalls and looked up in alarm, abruptly dragging his forearm across a jagged piece of rusted metal at the same time. I heard Libby cry out in alarm and watched the man lift his hand and point a gun in our direction, but he lowered it instantly when the man atop the RV shouted, "Walkers!"

As the blood gushed from the deep cut on the man's arm, I hesitated for only a moment before sheathing my knife and taking a step forward. He jerked his arm away from me and pointed his gun yet again, but I silently yanked a t-shirt from the backseat of the car he'd been investigating and tore it into a thin strip. That gun was lowered slowly when I began to tourniquet his arm, but I felt his heated gaze on me all the while.

"There's a horde of the stiffs not far behind us," I explained as I tightened the knots. The cut was deep and probably needed stitches, but it would have to wait. "You and your people gotta hide."

His face was covered in a fine sheet of sweat and when he gritted his teeth, I half-expected him to fire that damn gun in his hand. Instead, he jerked his head back towards the RV. "Come on. Come on!"

There was a scramble, people climbing under vehicles or locking themselves inside of vehicles. I jumped on top of a sedan and shimmied up onto the large box truck just behind it, struggling to pull myself onto the flat surface of its roof. When I looked back, Libby reached one hand up and I pulled, yanking until she was lying flat on the roof of the box truck next to me.

Breathless, I pressed my stomach to the hot roof and closed my eyes as the sounds of the teeth gnashing and feet dragging drew ever closer. I reached across and felt Libby slip her hand into mine and squeeze it reassuringly.

All we could do was wait until they passed.