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There is someone in her home.
Someone… or something.
There has been for quite a while now, in fact. She has been sufficiently fed to ignore it, but now she is bored. It is dark - very dark - and there are sounds on the floor near the ground.
She should investigate. Perhaps it is food. Perhaps - although less likely - it is a potential friend.
It is difficult to move quietly, but she manages it all the same. Slowness is the key. She shuffles down the stairs and into the space she knows is not empty.
And indeed - it is not. There is a human in the corner, a girl. Too small. Her garments are too big. This displeases her for some reason. The girl has brown hair and eyes, eyes which are looking right at her. And… and… and…
…This is strange. She knows this human. She knows this human in her home. This human in her home - with a gun in her pocket.
"Miranda?"
It comes to her in a flash. Oh, yes, that was her name. In the before. It was strange, because the only names she had retained were those of her daughters. It had never seemed terribly important to know her own. Caroline and Cassidy knew who she was, that she was their mother and they were her offspring, and that was all that really mattered in the world.
Somehow she knows that this woman is important. This woman who knows her name.
"Andrea," the human says, pointing at herself. "Andrea. Um, remember me?"
Miranda blinks. She takes a half-step towards the human - Andrea - and can't help but flinch when the girl takes a step of her own.
Back.
Away from Miranda.
That is another mistake the humans make. An error in understanding. Walkers - at least, the ones like her, the ones that feed regularly enough to retain a certain sentience, a certain coherence and consciousness - are not incapable of feeling.
And the feeling Andrea stepping away from her - in the classic fear of all her kind - causes in Miranda?
Hurt.
Miranda doesn't bite women. Not unless she is starving, truly starving, or her daughters are. And never, ever small ones. Small ones… children - yes, that's the word. It's inefficient. Although she would like to make a friend, and she doesn't want a human male for one. They're food. Not friends. Now, her daughters, they've made lots of friends, far too many to count (she doesn't know what counting is, anyway, so perhaps that's for the best), but Miranda? No. And Andrea might not want to be her friend.
She doesn't know how to express all this to Andrea.
And then an idea strikes her. Humans and the better kind of walkers, Miranda thinks, aren't really all that different in some respects. Humans like children, don't they? Andrea had met her children - hadn't she?
Miranda shakily clasps her hands in front of her, then clicks and growls the specific combination of sounds her daughters respond to best. And true to form, twin clumsy footsteps soon sound down the stairs.
There they are. Her beautiful girls, standing at the threshold of the room, staring curiously at the visitor. They, too, seem to realise that they had met her once upon a time. She opens her arms, then gathers them up. Turning to face Andrea once more, she kisses the top of Caroline's head and then Cassidy's, straightening up as best as she is able, proudly showing the human her children. There's a name for them. If only she could remember…
"Babies," she announces. "My… babies."
Showing Andrea her daughters seems to have the intended effect. The girl inclines her head and her shoulders drop.
"Bobbseys," she murmurs. "Your Bobbseys."
There it was again, that funny feeling of something just beyond her reach. The word, 'Bobbseys', like her and Andrea's names - it felt right. Better than 'babies'.
"Bobb-seys," she repeats, trying out the configuration of letters on her tongue, the muscle broadly uncooperative but controllable with enough effort. "Bobbseys. Yes."
Her girls look up at her, and she understands they feel it too. The backs against her torso press in just that little bit tighter in acknowledgement. Of the familiarity of it all.
"Pretty," she says, lifting one tremulous hand to point at Cassidy. "Pretty," at Caroline.
It seems only natural to turn the extended finger towards Andrea.
"Pretty."
That one - the last "pretty" - it feels a little different. She's not quite sure why.
"Not fat, huh?" Andrea murmurs. The words sound familiar, but Miranda isn't quite sure what she means.
When a gurgling sound comes that is not produced by Miranda or her girls, though, Miranda knows what that means. Andrea is hungry. Not hungry like they are. She dimly wonders if the garments situation has something to do with it.
In any case, Andrea has not used the gun. Which is unusual for humans. And that means Miranda might be able to make a friend. She strains to think - or her best approximation of thinking - and has an idea.
A foggy memory rises up, and she makes her way to a large nearby cupboard. Wrenching it open, the jars and cans fall out, clattering to the floor. Miranda points again, first down towards the containers, and then toward Andrea once more.
She nods jerkily. "Food. You."
And apparently she's said something wrong, for the brown eyes widen and she takes another step back.
"Oh, God. Oh, God, Miranda, no! I'm not food - look, I'm sorry! I just wanted - needed - shelter, and I didn't know you were here, but there's really not much of me and, shit, I know you won't understand me anyway, not fully," Andrea squeaks, one hand now clutching the handle of the weapon in her pocket.
She takes a moment to turn over the sentence in her mind, trying to make sense of it. Andrea is right. Miranda doesn't understand her fully. But she understands her enough.
It becomes abundantly clear that her daughters have been listening and absorbing, too, because Caroline grumbles impatiently and Cassidy kicks one of the cans towards Andrea.
"Food." Miranda repeats, pointing again at the can. Then she lifts her hand up. "You."
"For…me?" Andrea says.
Miranda feels a wave of irritation sweep over her. She harbors severe doubts about the humans' mental abilities. It is obvious. Is Andrea stupid? She knows walkers can be stupid, when they have not fed enough, when they lose their words altogether, but humans? Human women, more specifically? Andrea?
Beside her, Caroline's head bounces up and down.
"Oh."
And then, quietly:
"Thank you."
Miranda grunts, and tries to mimic the universal human gesture of appreciation, drawing one side of her lips up with considerable difficulty.
***
As far as humans go, Andrea's not a bad one. Not bad at all. The sun goes up and down in the sky, and the girls make more friends, and Andrea stays in the rooms below the ground. Miranda knows that she wants Andrea to want to be her friend, and so she does not bother her. She kicks more cans down the stairs instead, and eagerly awaits for their empty shells to be placed outside the door each time the light rises. This is success. This is Andrea accepting Miranda's food, and in accepting Miranda's food, it is a bit like accepting Miranda.
This is their routine. Until one day the twins look out of the window and refuse to leave home. Miranda follows them, and sees why.
There is a small horde gathered down the street. Not a good horde. Not a horde of friends. A horde of humans, mostly human men, and while normally Miranda would perceive an oasis of food, they are carrying guns.
She hisses. Then growls at her Bobbseys to move away from the window, move into the safety of the dark corners of the home.
The shouts of the men grow louder, and in a brief moment of silence, she hears the door to Andrea's space open. She hopes Andrea will not go with the men. Her home would feel too big again.
Andrea does not go with the men.
No, quite the opposite. When the window smashes, and shouts of 'zombies!' fill the air, Miranda wraps her arms around her daughters, all hiding behind the big couch. She closes her eyes and waits for whatever is going to happen, and hopes she will go first.
What is going to happen, it turns out, is above the rough tones of the men rises a sharper, higher one:
"Oh, fuck you!"
And then a series of deafening pops, of cracks and blasts exploding into the air in rapid succession.
When Miranda opens her eyes, it is to see much dead food on the floor and one very much not dead Andrea, gun still pointing at the window, staring at Miranda and the girls with an intense gaze.
"Food. You." Andrea points and rolls her eyes.
Cassidy squints, as if focusing all her powers on recalling something, and then lifts up one hand, fingers splayed. Andrea chuckles, and moves to slap her own hand over Cassidy's.
***
Andrea moves out of the space - 'base-ment', she calls it - after that. There is a room next to the one Miranda sits in when it is dark. After a while, Andrea begins to come in during some darknesses. Miranda likes that. Andrea brings a big heavy object - 'The Book', according to the young woman - with her, and speaks while looking at it. It is calming. Sometimes, she points to pictures, which over time Miranda recognises as Miranda from before. She hopes Andrea likes 'Miranda now' as much as she liked 'Miranda from before'.
Caroline and Cassidy start calling Andrea something different. A shorter version of her name. They seem to like it, and Andrea seems to like them calling her it too, so Miranda doesn't complain. That's not to say she likes it herself, though. Because she doesn't. Andrea is a perfect name. Why ruin it? Why chop bits off?
It pleases her to see how her girls take to her - no, Andrea. Because Andrea has not yet said that they are friends, or that they will be friends. She hopes they will. She - well, she doesn't live, not like that - but she lives on hope.
Andrea finds another book, a different one. She sits down with the girls and points and laughs. Her daughters seem transfixed. Miranda approaches the three, scrutinises the images on the pages. It takes her a moment to comprehend what she is seeing, but then Andrea says 'baby Bobbseys, Miranda!' and everything makes sense.
It takes longer to understand what Andrea is doing when she opens a door Miranda has not entered in… she doesn't know how long, and pulls out garment after garment. Miranda is drawn to them, to the range of colors and feelings under her fingers. Andrea helps her put the ones she likes best on her body, then takes a pronged implement to her head, and Miranda tries not to cling onto the human's fingers too much when she inevitably steps back again.
But then Andrea gestures for her to stand in front of the reflective surface - 'mirror', Andrea says - and Miranda sees herself, 'Miranda now', but also 'Miranda from before,' too.
She likes what she sees. She likes it very much, and this time, she finds it much easier to perk up not one but both sides of her lips.
Shortly after, she ventures into the garment-area alone, and finds a collection of chains and metal. A few items in particular catch her eye, and she leaves them outside of Andrea's door, in the same manner she had started leaving food. But unlike the food, no shells appear on the floor. No, the metal promptly decorates Andrea's fingers, and Miranda can't look away.
***
When it happens, the girls are playing with some friends in the green space behind the home, and Miranda is inside, finding new cans for Andrea to eat.
A scream. Miranda's body is stiff as it is, but it immediately grows far stiffer. She moves as fast as she is able from the room, down towards the door. She wrenches it open, noting with alarm that it is partially off the hinges.
She has no blood circulation. Her blood freezes anyway.
A scruffy human man, attacking her Andrea. He is on top of her, and she is fighting back.
(Miranda doesn't understand why humans attack each other. Must be why their numbers are going down. Walkers don't attack each other. Ever. Why would you attack your friends?)
And the gun - the gun Andrea carries with her at all times when venturing around the perimeter of the home - is on the floor by Andrea's head. The girl shrieks and reaches up to grip his hair, managing to stick a thumb in one eye.
The man roars, and redoubles his efforts. Miranda scrambles down the steps - and pounces. For if there is one thing Miranda does well, it is mauling. Unfortunately, this one is difficult. She grabs one hand, but as she shoots out her free arm to pull the other away from Andrea, the man seizes the weapon lying on the ground.
A bang.
Miranda blinks, thrown for a moment, trying to determine where exactly on her body he has shot her.
The sky seems to grow dark as it dawns on her that she is unharmed. She is unharmed, and Andrea is not. The smell of fresh blood - alive blood - fills the air, and it is not that of the man's.
At least, not in that moment. For in the next, Miranda wrenches the gun from the man's grip, focuses with all her might on gripping the trigger, and directs it at his head. Her aim is not nearly as true as his, coordination being a capacity long diminished, but that doesn't matter. It fires squarely into his skull.
A fresh corpse such as his would typically occupy the totality of her attention, but she could not be less interested in it. She shoves the body away and focuses on Andrea. The young woman blinks up hazily at her, the gushing wound in her chest blossoming crimson.
It's a bad wound. A bad, bad wound, and Miranda knows what it means. She knows what it means, and she knows that she can't just let Andrea… go. A rapidly whitening hand reaches out and Miranda grabs it, bends down.
"Friend?" she asks breathlessly.
Andrea squints through the pain. "Yes, friend," she whispers back.
Miranda's heart no longer beats, but she feels it leap. She lowers her head and gently bites over where Andrea’s stuttering heart lies.
Miranda isn't very good with time on an ordinary day. It is an occupational hazard of being as she is. But she sits by Andrea’s side, petting her hair, for a long, long while, she knows that much. The twins do too, having been attracted by the commotion, and they each clutch one of the dying girl's hands in their own.
Miranda twitches, that phantom heart hammering away a rapid tune, if only in her head.
But then (slowly, gradually) she notices. The pale skin growing not more pale from the blood loss, but rather the fervently desired gray. She's seen this happen before, when her Bobbseys make friends.
It's working. Miranda has made a friend. She smiles, properly smiles, smiles the widest she can remember pulling, not minding the stretch of muscles in the slightest. She wonders what Andrea's first words will be. Proper words, not just the general groaning vocalisations of the newly reanimated. She wonders if she'll have to teach Andrea who she is again, as Andrea had done for her. Above all, she hopes Andrea will remember who Miranda is. Who she is, and who she is to her.
Then the girl jolts. Opens her eyes.
Andrea - even more beautiful now, now they match in all ways, now she is properly part of Miranda's horde, now she is well and truly Miranda's friend - cups her face, strokes it tenderly.
"Pretty," she whispers. "Pretty Miranda."
Miranda didn’t know friends kissed each other, but neither does she care. Andrea is a special friend, after all.
FIN