note: it's been a long time since I've written for this fandom, but here I am. This is set after iParty with Victorious and pre-season two for plot reasons and because I like characterization at that point the best. Bade, Cade/Candre friendship, and gradual Pucketine ahead (although I've never watched Sam & Cat). some Tandre if you squint. please enjoy!

May 29th, 2011: the first outbreak

June 2nd, 2011: Maine, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are lost + president holds a speech

June 7th, 2011: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are lost

June 9th, 2011: Virus arrives in Europe + Florida and Alabama are lost

June 20th, 2011: No contact to other continents + second outbreak

June 24th, 2011: Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan are lost + president holds a speech

June 28th, 2011: Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin are lost

July 1st, 2011: Third outbreak + Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska are lost

July 4th, 2011: South Dakota, North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah are lost

July 8th, 2011: California, Wyoming, Montana and Nevada are lost

July 9th, 2011: President commits suicide

NO MORE NEWS.

When Los Angeles fell, it fell quickly.

It started with a couple weird stories on the news; people were getting sick with an impenetrable fever and death tolls were steadily rising. Strange videos were popping up on the internet left and right - police officers repeatedly shooting at a man who had attacked a cashier and he just wouldn't die. Cat had peered over Jade's shoulder as she played the video on her cellphone during Sikowitz's class and remembered Tori leaning back with an indifferent laugh.

"That has to be fake," she had said, shaking her head and waving a hand, "that's impossible."

"Your dad's a cop, Vega, why don't you ask him about it?" Jade had replied sharply, but before Tori could comment Sikowitz, who had been acting strangely serious all morning, ordered Jade to put her cellphone away before he confiscated it.

No one mentioned it again after that. After all, it couldn't have been real; the internet was full of strange things made to fool people.

Eventually, more and more students stopped showing up to school. The hallways of Hollywood Arts lacked it's flare of originality - there was no music, no dance groups, and no more outdoor lunches were permitted for the safety of the students. Their principal maximized security and the days were cut shorter. Sikowitz and a few select teachers, eventually stopped coming themselves. There were rumors that the virus was going around and other rumors that parents were taking their children out of school and away from the city to go to the desert. Cat wondered where Sikowitz had gone and hoped he wasn't sick.

Riots broke out in downtown LA, patriotic citizens believing they were fighting police brutality, and the garage that Beck's father, a mechanic, owned, was broken into and set on fire. People were being told to stay in their houses unless it was absolutely necessary, and to avoid the downtown areas and even Sunset at all costs. Cat remembered everyone volunteering to help the Oliver's clean it up after the riots were over but they never ended and then the military came and they never got the chance.

The day the world ended, Cat's own mother put a hand on her shoulder just as she was about to walk out the front door to go to school, and the worried look in her eyes sent shivers down the ridges of her spine. Don't, she had said, you need to stay home today. Cat had frowned but obliged; she had slid her backpack off her shoulder and left it leaning against the wall beside the door. Her brother hovered in the hallway, scratching at the tracemarks covering his forearms, and said nothing. She didn't ask any questions, though she had a million. Cat knew better.

She sent a group text to her friends just as the power went out and it never delivered.

Cat's father was a Lieutenant in the military.

When she was young, the Valentine's moved around a lot whenever he was stationed. Cat was born in Virginia, and lived in Florida, Chicago, Hawaii and Washington all before she turned thirteen years old. In California, her father was deployed to Pakistan and her mother guided Cat up the stairs to their new house in the suburbs of Hollywood, Los Angeles and told her: this is our forever home.

So when the army comes to California, their guns strapped around their torsos and held tight in their hands, securing neighborhoods outside the city with high fenced walls, soldiers came in and out of Cat's house like clockwork.

She and her brother tried to figure out what was going on, what was really going on, by listening in to their conversations on the stairwell - but her father knew them, knew they'd be eavesdropping, and trying to shelter his children from whatever this was, left the house often for days at a time without telling them much of anything at all.

"Just carry on as normal, baby girl," he'd said, bumping his knuckles on the side of Cat's cheek affectionately before walking out the front door.

But what was normal when you had no idea what was going on with your friends, and when there were armed soldiers at every corner? What was normal when they shut the power off at timed intervals? What was normal when her brother seized on their living room floor twice a week because he couldn't get what he needed to detox him from the drugs in his system?

What was normal when the dead came back?

Cat didn't really understand it, what was happening. Not really. No one did, as far as she was concerned. All of her neighbors seemed just as clueless, and the military was keeping secrets from them, including her own father.

By some miracle, two weeks later, the power switched on early in the morning and Cat finally was able to land a solid signal on her cellphone. She wasted no time calling Jade, so desperate to hear some kind of news about her best friend and the others that her knuckles turned white around her phone and her stomach curled with hope.

Jade picked up immediately.

She was with the others in Hollywood Hills about ten minutes away from her suburb and they had all been worried sick about her. With the military gating off neighborhoods, there was no way to contact each other. "We're at Vega's house," Jade said, sounding annoyed. "We're here most of the time. Not like I want to be, but there's nothing better to do."

Cat's lips tipped up into a smile. She was sat on the roof of her house, just outside her bedroom window, and soldiers were stationed just somewhere beneath her, hands at their guns and cigarettes hanging from their lips, making easy conversation with one another. Their laughs echoed, loud and dripping with superiority. The remark was so typical of Jade and her heart longed to see them all and Cat had never felt more lonely in her life. "I miss you guys! I'm so bored here without you!"

"You're on speaker, Kitten," Jade announced, and her friends bombarded her with exclamations of joy and relief and Cat thought she could cry.

After hours of talking nonsense for some sort of familiarity, Cat tucked her knees to her chest and stared out at the barren hills of her city, the sun beating down on her shoulders. "Do you think there's anyone still out there?"

There's a crackle on the other line, the reception faltering. "I don't know, Lil Red," André said, and his voice was quiet. He paused, and then;

"God help them if they are."

"Cat! Cat, wake up!"

A hand curled round her arm and shook, rousing her from sleep. Cat's groan was muffled by her pillow; she felt drowsy and not at all rested. How long had she slept for? Her eyes fluttered open and she squinted - through the cracks of her bedroom window, it was still dark out. "What?" She asked, her voice mumbled with sleep.

Her brother stopped shaking her, but he rushed to flick on his flashlight. "Dad told me to wake you up. Come on, pack some stuff. We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Cat asked, shielding her eyes from the flashlight and squinting over at him. He was rushing around her room, mumbling to himself, dumping the untouched contents of her school bag onto the floor unceremoniously and pulling open drawers. "What do you mean, leaving? Andy?"

Andrew tossed her bag at her. Cat flinched when she caught it; her thoughts were racing, question after question after question. Confusion and a building fear. "Come on, Cat!" He said hurriedly. "Pack!"

It was as she was hopping out of bed that she had finally noticed the commotion downstairs. It sounded like her father, his voice loud and booming and authoritative. Her mother's quieter responses, calmer. From outside her bedroom window, she could hear the purr of the military truck engines, could hear the base's gate opening and the soldier's loud voices, but couldn't make out anything of what they were saying. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and Cat saw her father rush passed her bedroom door to his own, shouting down to his wife.

"We need to leave in ten minutes," Her father called out sternly. He was using his 'army' voice that sort of scared her. "Cat, get dressed. Be downstairs in five."

After promptly pushing Andrew out of her bedroom and slipping on a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top, Cat heeded her father's commands and packed her bag full of clothes and other important, and not-so-important, possessions. She shoved her feet into her sneakers, grabbed her cellphone, and bounded down the stairs where her family was waiting.

"Mom?" She called, her stomach churning with anxiety. Her mother was in the kitchen, shaking hands shoving pill bottles into a small bag. "What's going on?"

Her mother turned to look at Cat, standing at the bottom of the stairs with her bag slung over one arm and her red velvet hair tumbling down her shoulders in waves. There were tears in her mom's eyes, but she looked the picture of calm otherwise. "Kitty," she whispered, "baby, we have to leave the city, alright?"

"Yeah, but why?" Cat asked, her voice rising with fear. "I thought we were safe from the monsters here. Aren't we?"

"Not anymore," her father interrupted. He was in his uniform, boots heavy against the wooden floor. He turned to rest a hand on Cat's shoulder, bending slightly. Her father, like everyone in the family and nearly everyone she knew, towered over her and stood tall at six feet. "It's - complicated, Caterina. We need to get inland, to the deserts, before they start firebombing the coastal cities."

"Richard!"

"We can't afford to sugarcoat it. They need to know."

"Fire-firebombing?" Cat stuttered, her stomach dropping with a sudden lurch of panic.

Her father reached to grab the keys to his truck and they dangled from his fingers. He paused, his voice looming in their kitchen. "The president is dead. We're on our own now," he said. There was another beat of silence, and Cat saw Andrew biting uncertainly at his fingernails somewhere behind her father, quiet and looking lost. Her older brother has always been lost. Cat never knew where he was, even when he was standing right in front of her. "Let's go. We're wasting time."

Cat [2:46 AM]: JADE!

Cat [2:46 AM]: you all need to get out of the city right now! my dad says that the army is planning on abandoning everyone!

Cat [2:47 AM]: they want to firebomb major cities!

Jade [2:59 AM]: What? Are you kidding me?

Cat [3:00 AM]: no! you need to leave NOW

Jade [3:05 AM]: We are. Where are we supposed to go, the desert?

Jade [3:10 AM]: They army is already fucking leaving, what the fuck? Where are you going, kitten?

Jade [3:11 AM]: CAT! WHERE!

.

.

Tori [3:15 AM]: Cat! Where are you? Are u ok?

Tori [3:15 AM, voicemail]: Please, Cat, call me as soon as you get this. I'm really worried.

.

.

Cat [3:20 AM], group message: I don't know. I don't know. just please, please get as far away as you can.

Cat [3:20 AM], group message: I love you guys.

ALERT: Message failed to deliver.

[three months later]

Cat's fingers drummed noiselessly against the edge of an old radio dusted with dirt, the others working at the dials. There was nothing but static, static, and more crackling static. It had been the same for days on end; any hope that she had of finding some semblance of life out there - a refugee camp, maybe, or another group of survivors - was diminishing fast. After Los Angeles burned, it seemed to Cat like the rest of the world had suddenly gone quiet.

"God, that noise pisses me off," said the body across from her, knelt at the engine of a black motorcycle. They had been holed up in an old garage for days trying to make it work, and they had a breakthrough earlier that morning.

"You told me to keep trying," Cat frowned, and her fingers stopped their tapping.

Sam Puckett straightened up, her back creaking and cracking as she stretched. Her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders in messy curls, and when she turned to look at Cat there was oil smudged over one of her cheeks. "Yeah, still pisses me off. You'd think we'd hear something by now."

Cat had found Sam the night she was separated from her parents in the chaos of the bombing. They'd met before, briefly, at Keenan's party weeks before the virus hit; apparently her and her friends were still in the city when it happened and weren't permitted to leave the state. Sam had lost Carly and Freddie in a similar way Cat had lost her mother and father. Not dead, but just...gone. She'd lurked in the shadows when Andrew turned, frothing at the mouth. She handed Cat the knife - and after that, the two found comfort in each other, and stuck together ever since.

Cat thought it nothing short of a miracle.

If Sam hadn't been there, Andrew - or the thing that was Andrew but wasn't him - would have killed her. If Sam hadn't been there, Cat would have never had the strength to take the knife and drive it through his head. And she did: over and over and over again, blood smeared over her hands so dark it almost matched the color of her hair, until Sam yanked her from him and Cat collapsed onto her back, wails ripping from her throat.

And if Sam hadn't come, Cat would have been alone. She would have never had made it this far on her own.

A tiny giggle bubbled from her throat and Cat ducked her head, avoiding Sam's perplexed stare. "What's so funny, kid?" She asked, wrench in her hand.

The dial turned beneath Cat's fingers and garbled static filled the garage. She let it go and hopped off of the wooden desk, dirty sneakers scuffing against the concrete ground. "You have oil on your face," Cat said as she approached her friend, her lower lip between her teeth. She reached to grab the cloth over Sam's shoulder and wiped gingerly at the smudge on her cheek, "here, I got it."

Sam, surprisingly, did not try to move away. "You know not everyone has the luxury to be squeaky clean anymore. You're hardly princess perfect yourself-"

A crackle in the static interrupted her. Cat's hand paused, and she turned quickly over her shoulder to stare at the radio in shock.

"Testing, testing," Came an uncertain, broken and unmistakably male voice. "Does this thing work? Is someone there?"

"Oh my god," Cat whispered, dropping the rag to the floor and near launching herself at the radio. Her hand curled around it, her fingers hovering over the talk button but not pressing down. There was something in the back of her head, a rush of paranoia, maybe, that was stopping her from saying anything. Sam joined her at her side, and her face mirrored Cat's skepticism.

"Hello?" The stranger tried again. The reception wasn't good and distorted his voice, so Cat figured they must have been far.

Sam took the radio from Cat's hands and pressed the talk button down, bringing it to her mouth. "Who is this?"

There was a pause, and then the radio crackled again. "Holy- guys! There's someone here!" The voice said excitedly. "I've been trying for hours to find somebody else out there!"

"Yeah yeah, I asked who you were."

"My name's Robbie," they said. "Robbie Shapiro."

Cat's heart leapt. The feeling that had washed over her was unexplainable; it had consumed her entire being, a sense of relief so powerful she felt lightheaded. Cat had spent months mourning the loss of her parents, her brother, and she had mourned her friends too, believing that she would never see them again. Cat did not know if they made it out of the city alive, or if they had survived this long.

Her knees felt weak as she leaned against the wooden table and grabbed the radio hastily from Sam's hands. Her eyes glistened with tears, her lips pulling into a watery smile. "Robbie!" She cried, ignoring the way Sam's eyebrows furrowed. "Robbie, it's Cat!"

"Cat?" Robbie said, and though his voice was distorted his disbelief was clear. "You made it? We - we didn't hear back from you! We thought something happened to you!" He was talking faster now, and Cat could hear him laughing with relief. "Jade! Everyone! You won't believe this!"

Sam's hand grabbed at Cat's elbow, and her fingers eased off the talk button briefly. "These are people that you know?"

"My friends from Hollywood Arts," Cat breathed, and her face hurt from smiling. She didn't think she had smiled this much since before California fell apart. "Robbie - you met him at Keenan's party - he's the cute guy with the puppet, Rex!"

"Oh, the nerd," Sam observed. Her grip on Cat's elbow loosened, and Sam smirked at her.

"Cat, you there?"

"I'm here, Robbie," Cat said, closing her eyes. "I'm here."

"Everyone is with me," he said. "The Vega's, André, Beck and Jade. How - how are you? Where are you? We missed you so much, we tried looking for you, but no luck."

"I'm okay," Cat said, "it's just me, and my friend Sam. We're in Barstow, at some old garage. What about you, where are you guys? How far away?"

"We're headed to Fresno," said Robbie, "we're in Bakersfield now. We found a place - it's safe, it's secure."

"That's like, two hours from here off 58, right?" Cat asked Sam, and repeated it into the device when the blonde nodded. "If we head out now, we could get to you all with no problem, and before sunset. How can we find you?"

"Just head down the interstate. Beck and Jade will meet you," Robbie said. Cat could hear him sigh. "I'm so relieved you're okay, Cat. Stay safe, we'll see you soon."

"Bye, Robbie."

Cat put the radio down onto the table gingerly, her disbelief overwhelmed by a sudden rush of bubbling happiness. She turned to Sam, who was smirking over at her, dirty cloth between her hands and oil still smudged on a pale cheek. "I can't believe this," Cat laughed, and she couldn't stop the tears. "My friends are okay. They've been okay this whole time."

Sam's boots clicked against the ground as she walked over, placing a hand over Cat's shoulder and smiling. "It'll be dark soon," she said. "We should leave, kid. Let's go find your friends."

so that's it, the first chapter! the next few won't be as choppy as this one is, I promise. feedback is always appreciated (and will encourage me to update, so please tell me what you think)!