Moving On

A few minutes passed by as Axel comforted Rae, holding her close to his chest. A weight lifted off his heart knowing that his little sister was alive and well. The touching moment for the siblings was interrupted by Angela's shocked cry.

"You have a kid?!"

Axel shook his head and discretely wiped his eyes as Rae finally noticed the three behind her brother.

"Axel, who are they?" She whispered.

"They're some kind people I met. Say hi, Rae." Axel said. He turned around, still holding Rae in his arms. At the same time, the others were surprised that he spoke well of them considering his attitude throughout their trip.

"Hi. I'm Rachel, but you can call me Rae," she said with a wide smile on her face.

"And I'm his sister, not his daughter," Rae corrected.

Elena and Angela were dumbstruck at how alike the two seemed. It really wasn't Angela's fault for mistaking Axel as her father. Axel's maturity and stoic demeanor throughout their time together belied his true age. He was only a twenty-one year old man, although the others had believed him to be in his late twenties. Coupled with the similar features the two siblings shared, especially now that both of them had smiles on their faces, made it easy to mistake the two as father and daughter.

While Axel was a handsome guy, Rae was also an adorable child with baby fat still covering her cheeks. She had Axel's chocolate brown hair and eyes. Her eyes were as deep as Axel's with an added layer of innocence that the apocalypse hadn't been able to take away from her.

"Hey Rae." Elena was the first one to speak up. "How old are you, sweetheart?"

"I'm ten years old." The younger Zapata sibling responded proudly.

It took all of a few minutes before Rae captured the hearts of the three. Even Dylan would fail to deny that the little girl didn't mellow him out significantly. When Angela first reached out her arms to hug Rae, Axel's whole body tensed as he stood at the entrance to the living room connected to the kitchen.

A few months of distrusting others didn't allow him to completely relax when the other three could pose a possible danger to Rae. Only at the sight of Rae smiling happily at having new people to talk to and her ease in Angela's arms did Axel relax.

The homely setting in the living room where they all relocated to almost brought tears to his eyes once more. Although he's not what he would consider an emotional person, the pressure that has been mounted on his shoulders since the first few days of chaos led him to succumb to his emotions at times.

Every close shave with danger, every fatal possibility that arose, just added onto the stress he felt with having to be able and strong enough to protect his family. It has barely been a full day since Axel and Rae lost their parents and no one knew of the guilty and despair hidden in Axel's heart.

Axel was so distracted by his thoughts that he didn't notice someone coming up beside him until they tapped him on the shoulder. Conditioned to respond to any hint of danger, his body moved before he could think. Swiftly and silently, he roughly grabbed the body beside him and pressed them up to the wall inside the kitchen, unconsciously away from the eyes of the other three.

He was half a second away from pushing up his forearm to the other's neck when he stared at the hazel eyes widened in shock before him. Slowly, he lowered his forearm and rested his hand beside her head. Time seemed to slow once again as they gazed at each other's eyes. Their bodies remained in close proximity and they could feel each others warm breath with only a few centimeters separating the two.

It was only a few seconds later when Angela called out for Elena that Axel slowly disentangled himself.

"I'm in the kitchen!" Elena yelled out. Her eyes were still staring at Axel, subconsciously lowering every once in a while.

Axel coughed on purpose and cleared his throat as he restrained himself.

"Sorry about that. I'm not used to spacing out like that and you caught me by surprise."

"It's no problem," Elena said with a smile. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"Yeah? I'm guessing you're wondering why I brought you all here." Axel said, expecting the question.

"Actually, I was wondering where the bathroom was," Elena grinned at the sight of Axel dumbstruck and slightly embarrassed. "But yeah, that would be nice to know, too."

"Bathroom is down the hall and to your right. And I brought you guys here because I wanted you guys to complete your end of the deal. I want you guys to bring me and Rae to your coalition." Axel responded, calming down as he spoke.

Elena let out a small gasp of surprise.

"You want us to bring you back? You know that's gonna be hard to do. People in the coalitions don't exactly trust outsiders. In the beginning, people would stumble in and we would accept them. That changed when newcomers began to steal or later show signs of infection. Our coalition has suffered and has had major casualties because of this." Elena said. Her tone grew more concerned as she thought of the pushback they would receive.

"I assure you that it won't be a problem. I just want to keep Rae safe." Axel said.

Seeing Elena's unconvinced face, he grinned and added, "Remember, you don't really have much of a choice. We made a deal and I expect you to honor it. I doubt you could leave us behind, anyways, just seeing how you all reacted to Rae."

"Fine. We'll take you guys back. Just expect a lot of screening and interviews and stuff when you guys get there. You were right before that it's a few days walk away. It'll be a long journey, so I hope you two are ready for that." Elena said. Seeing Axel's boyish grin and mentally comparing it to that of the little girl's in the other room, she could not bring herself to say no.

"No worries." Axel smiled. Soon afterwards, Elena excused herself as she went to look for the bathroom. Axel stayed in the entrance to the living room as he saw Rae play with Angela and even Dylan, whose smile exposed his feigned hesitance, with one of the brightest smiles he had seen on her face in weeks.

"A few days," he thought. "I should be able to make it."

Axel shook his head. "No. I have to. I'll make sure all four of them make it there safe."

Seeing the sight of Rae enjoying herself with these new companions of theirs, with Elena soon after joining in, he made a promise to himself to bring them all back to that coalition safely and give his little sister the opportunity to live a happy life.