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because it had only been two days since they last spoke. Just the two days since their escape from her old city, since her father was injured and her mother killed.
     
                  She didn't even get to bury her, didn't get a wake or a funeral or any of the traditional methods for laying to rest someone who had meant so much to her. She couldn't tell her father, not now and maybe not ever. Because the only reason he agreed to leave their home in the first place was because he was convinced that Emma being immune was the answer to a cure, a cure for the infection and salvation for his wife. If she took that away from him now, he may not be able to hold himself together, even for his girls.
     
                  Kaylee took her eyes from Jack and watched Anna settle her father into his sleeping bag.  She had already checked his bandages and was nodding reassuringly. It was still strange to see him so weak, but even as she thought it, Anna was feeding him pills and urging him to sleep. She hoped he'd be different once he didn't have to take them anymore.
     
                  Her eyes flit back to Jack and she squirmed when she found his staring straight back at her. There was a question in those dark eyes.
     
                  "I'll take first watch," he said, still staring at Kaylee. Quinton nodded his approval.
     
                  And because Kaylee didn't know what to say to him, or how to say it, and she didn't think she could sleep if he were to continue staring at her expectantly, she spoke aloud to the rest if the group instead. "I'll take second watch."
     
                  "That's fine," Quinton said just as Nick said, "No!"
     
                  "She can't even shoot," Nick argued. His voice was groggy, laced with fear. Kaylee knew it was hard for him, allowing his daughters to be in harms way. But it was different now. Without the safety net of the firehouse, protection couldn't come in the same form. Kaylee and Emma couldn't be sheltered from the dangers of the world. Out here, protection came in the form of fast running or fast shooting or both. Kaylee couldn't allow her father to shield her as he once had.
     
                  "I can shoot. I'll sit with her," came Emma's grumbled voice, her head already tucked in her sleeping bag.
     
                  "No, I can-" Nick started but Quinton cut him off.
     
                  "You just took pain medicine, and they've had more sleep than the rest of us. They'll be fine."
     
                  Kaylee heard the rustle of a sleeping bag and when she turned, her father's back was to them. It was his good side, and she knew that, but guilt spiraled through her regardless. She shut her eyes and lay back, letting the darkness of sleep take her and succumbing to a swirl of red dots, Jack's piercing gaze, and her father's turned back.
     
    ~
     
                  It felt like only moments that she was asleep before someone was shaking her awake.
     
                  "Jack?" She murmured, pushing her blonde hair out of her eyes and looking up.
     
                  "No, it's me," came Emma's voice. Kaylee nodded and sat up. She could see movement in the corner of the barn in which Jack had put his sleeping bag. She had given him no reason to wake her up himself, she knew that, but it stung that he didn't.
     
                  Emma sat in the open loft door, her feet already swinging over the side through the darkness.
     
                  "Don't do anything stupid. Like fall," Kaylee whispered, coming to sit beside her sister. Emma pulled a face, but moments later the blanket she had over her lap was thrown over Kaylee's legs too.
     
                  The night sky was smudged with clouds, dimming the stars. It was cold, but not horribly uncomfortable. The air was fresh and crisp and Kaylee