After clearing the house of the infected and ridding it of their corpses, Chris and Tony stashed their rucksacks with their gifted clothes. Chris took Tony's bag and slid both of them underneath the bed she had been assigned; she wanted to be packed and ready to go should they need to make a quick exit. The moment she stopped moving, she all but passed out. Tony caught her as she wavered and guided her to her bed. By the time he had her lying down, she was fast asleep. She slept through the first day of their stay at the farm.

Tony spent the first day at Mathew's Farm tidying the house. The survivors had cleared it of the dead and reinforced the fence keeping the grounds safe, but little had been done about the old, empty house itself. It was the very least he could do to repay Lloyd's kindness. He found a broom in the kitchen and set about sweeping the floors and removing cobwebs from out-of-reach places. He glided around the house with a preoccupied look on his face, regularly checking on Christina. 

Every few hours she would change positions and groan in pain or scrunch up her face, and he would wait until she relaxed again, then slip out of their shared room to finish what he started. The farmhouse was surprisingly well stocked, but it had clearly been empty for a short while. Tony worked long into the evening hours making the house seem like a home again, and smiled at everyone he saw. He desperately wanted to get along with them all.

As the sun rose on the second day, Christina awoke. The piercing pains in her legs receded to a dull ache, the kind felt after a good workout. For the first time in weeks she felt well rested, and the realisation of where she was and who she had met settled in quickly. Sitting up, she watched Tony sleep for as long as it took to know he was alive and well, then looked at the third bed. Empty.

In the time it took to clear the house two days ago, she only briefly engaged with her roommate. That was all she needed to figure the girl was a dancer, and that might explain where she had gone so early.

The room had been cleaned, she soon realised; Tony's work, no doubt. Quietly, she slid out of bed and pulled one of the rucksacks from beneath it. She took spare clothes from her bag – she wasn't yet comfortable wearing the new ones, so she produced her own; the fire department logo printed on the left breast of the navy shirt and in the label of her combats – and slipped into the bathroom. 

If the shower was a person, she would have hugged it. She washed away dirt and pain of days spent constantly moving, wasting not a second of the luxury. Once dressed, she marched through the house to the outside.

Christina soaked in the morning air. Even knowing the fence was reinforced and seeing no signs of the dead, she remained a little tense. It had become habit, now. She felt strange at having a distance between herself and Tony... and yet she could not decide whether the feeling was negative or not. She leaned on the well and braided her dark hair, watching the grounds. How long had she slept?