Heather Lisinski was in good spirits as she heaved the door open to the tiny storefront. The good spirits had everything to do with the bundle of firewood she held in her arms. She brushed past the counter, under the curtain, and through the tiny vestibule that separated their private lives from their public dealings with customers.

She piled the wood beside the tiny stove, smiling as the curly-haired man on the bed stirred. She had lost track now when he had become a 'man'. Certainly he hadn't been one yet on that day so long ago, when they had left Jericho for Black Jack, making up a half of the strangest expedition party in the town's history since the bombs. He'd been a kid then, scared and determined.

Now he was nearly peaceful as he rolled onto his side, opening one eye to squint at her lazily. “You're up early,” he said, his voice cracking as he struggled to wake up.

“I got firewood!” she exclaimed. “Shipley let me have it. Said he owed us, after his heater broke last year.”

 “We won't freeze for another few days. That is good news,” he said, flashing her a grin and continuing to look at her as she stacked the wood in a more orderly pile. As usual, the sight of her, her breathless pink cheeks, her determined cool touch as she worked, soothed something in him. This was a constant, even though looking at her had changed in every other way. When they'd first left town, she'd been a teacher, a grown up, an alien other who couldn't possibly understand the depth of his soul. Then he'd seen the other parts of her—worker, how she could use her brain to solve problems, woman, how it made her vulnerable and strong at the same time, orphan, with a soul as deep as his. Now she was just Heather. He couldn't remember when she'd become so, but it was the only name he had to sum up all he knew of her.

 "Well, we wouldn't freeze to death, I'm sure, but we'll be a lot less uncomfortable now,” she said with that peculiar chuckle she had.

 They had once banded together to avoid freezing. Those early days, running from Black Jack and the disaster they left behind there, it seemed all they did was huddle and freeze. In the refugee camp, the trading town, and the abandoned cabin, they'd always needed to share warmth. Even after having established themselves at the trading post in Memphis, they'd never thought of furnishing their tiny living quarters with another bed. Long before they'd entwined their bodies in the dark, they'd huddled under the same blanket to sleep.

 “Sounds good,” he said. She nodded, taking a breath of the warmer air inside. He held out his hands, loosening the blankets around him. “Want to warm up?”

 Silently, she crossed the small living space and held out her own hands. He grabbed them in his, and pulled her towards him. She laughed and half-sat on the edge of the bed, letting her hands slide along his wrists to rest on his upper arms. She was still wearing her coat and hat. It was a different coat than the one she'd worn that fateful day when they'd been separated from Jake and Johnston Green. A different hat. A different smile, sound to her voice. It was hard for him to tell the exact differences from the person she'd once been and the one she was now, because she'd been the only constant in his world the entire time they'd been surviving on their own. He seldom thought back to the woman who'd left Jericho in a red coat. That was a superficial image, a picture printed on a tin of crackers, an A.S.A. flyer flapping around in the breeze.

 “You are freezing,” he said, but he didn't flinch under the touch of her hands. He had been through a lot worse shocks than Heather's palms on his bare skin.

 “And you are crazy,” she said, reaching for a sweatshirt he'd draped over the small desk beside the bed. “I always-”

 “You always tell me,” he said, half sitting up as he accepted the sweatshirt from her. He didn't put it on right away, playing with one of the sleeves in his hand.

 She rolled her eyes playfully. Keeping warm was one of the only things she tried to convince him to do on a regular basis. Most of their decisions were mutual agreements made after hushed conversations with their heads together, sitting by their tiny wood stove, leaning over their counter between customers, or curled beneath the blankets on their bed. She didn't complain at his decision to meet with Lester Phillips, despite the things she'd heard about him, and he didn't question her when she repaired radios for Donnie Defoe or the Housemans for less than he would have charged. She was far beyond the days where she set rules for others, but she wished he would remember to stay warm when it was this cold.

 “You're not going to put it on?” she asked, a reprimanding expression on her face. “Look, you have goose bumps.”

 He grinned slyly. “I can think of a better way to warm up.”

 She swatted him. “Dale, it's not even eight o'clock in the morning.”

 “So, you're not going to join me?” he asked innocently.

 She shook her head, pretending to disapprove, but as he shifted over and lifted the covers for her, she kicked off her shoes and pulled off her coat. She snuggled in beside him quickly, glad to be back under the warm sheets, and back in his warm embrace. Six-thirty really was early to have to go out and bargain for fuel.

 “Mmm,” she breathed in quietly, closing her eyes as she laid her head against his neck. “You're right, this is a good way to warm up.”

 “Told ya,” he said, propping his head up with one arm and keeping the other wrapped around her. He prided himself on being unsentimental, so he often didn't think about life and love and raindrops on roses, but if he had to pick something he loved most in life, it was these warm, safe moments with her that he had come to depend on. He didn't often think about how they had come into his life, seemingly out of nowhere. If he had stopped to ponder it, he would trace it back to dangerous, harrowing moments that came before. The holding cells at Black Jack. The truck they'd both ended up on. Things they'd seen there that would leave them silent for days afterward. What had happened when she pulled the headrest loose and hit the man who held them captive over the head. How he'd smashed a window, how she'd climbed through stealthily. Miles and miles they'd covered together, unable to speak a word. Huddled in a tent at the refugee camp, they'd shivered at the sounds they'd heard in the night. They'd made an escape from there too, during another food riot. She'd moved as quickly and steadily as he had, dodging desperate survivors who sprang up in their path. As they'd left behind the burning camp, he'd reached out and held her hand. It was warm then, moist from the action of running, and he felt safety in that one connection.

 And then the slow but sure way they'd built themselves up again. The year they spent in the cabin. Two years here in Memphis. Her inventiveness at the trading post, finding odd jobs for them to do, keeping them alive and building connections with people they could trust. The way she smiled when he talked about finding their own place to set up shop, and the enthusiasm with which she greeted each new task as they built their repairs and machine parts trade in that little storefront they rented from a grateful contact. He'd started noticing other things too. The way something in his throat caught when he recognized her figure approaching in a crowd, the protective monster that roared his disapproval from within when her retreating form was met with even the most innocent of gazes from a stranger. How drawn he felt to sit close to her in the day, drape his arm across her at night, even in the summer.

 These were the steps that had led to this happy part of his day, but as usual, he didn't dwell on them. His life was what it was, and he didn't question the good in it.

 Somehow his chest was warm, despite the fact he was still in only a t-shirt. She pressed her nose against his shoulder, stifling a giggle as he pretended the cold hadn't affected him. He liked to imagine, she knew, that he was complicated, and difficult to read, but so often she knew exactly what he was thinking just from looking at him. He could play all he wanted with the rest of the world, and she knew he was as cunning as the next survivor, but she'd seen every part of him. The Dale she knew was simple, steady, and always bare before her. She'd known his vulnerable side, for sure, before she'd known his strong side, so perhaps this was why she was so good at recognizing it beneath his tough exterior. That part of him didn't surprise her, and he didn't bother to hide it from her. His strength wasn't surprising either, though he had changed so much since he was that kid who left home. He had grown so much and she had seen him grow, but it had happened so slowly, and he had grown so close to her, she didn't really notice it happening.

 She didn't notice herself growing towards him either. It had never been a conscious decision. When she'd finally realized it, one day, it hadn't been unsettling as one might expect. Somehow, she wasn't sure how, he'd become a man, become someone she could depend on, an equal, but it was the most natural thing in the world. That's what had really surprised her, how easy it was. The sickly feeling she'd once felt at the sight of a man, rocks bouncing in her stomach, hadn't been like this. Her feelings for Dale were complex and varied – protective, burning, exhilarating, but never sickly. It was probably not that Dale was different from the others about whom she'd doodled in notebooks, imagined as she fell asleep at night, or professed her love to in front of her old truck. She was different.

 She was strong, and she had grown, and she was content and sure of where she was.

 She opened her eyes and slipped one hand out from under the blankets to touch her fingers to his cheek. She kissed him softly, slowly; lingering. She opened her eyes again to smile at him as she whispered, “Thank you for warming me up.”

 “Thank you,” he said. “For keeping us warm another few days.” He tried to nuzzle her cheek but she was already sliding out from under the blankets. “You're going?” he asked.

 “It's after eight!” she exclaimed, brushing back her hair and glancing in the small mirror they kept on the dresser.

 “It's so cold!” he moaned.

 She reached for the sweatshirt he'd once again flung to the foot of the bed and tossed it at him.

 “Come on, we've got to open the store!” she said with a giggle.

 “The freezing store,” he grumbled as he swung his legs to the side and prepared to get out of bed.

 “Well, maybe I'll keep you warm out there too,” she said mischievously. With a grin, she spun around and walked out the door.

 He dressed quickly. The room was not really that cold, but it had been nicer under the covers. He stood and pulled on his sweatshirt, running a hand quickly through his curls as he glanced in the mirror.

 As he passed through the curtain to the outside world, the beginning of his day, and the small but sure promise of happiness waiting for him, Dale Turner was in a good mood.