A/N: I'm sorry this was a bit delayed. Lots of time at work, compounded with holiday nonsense and illness, made for a busy schedule. But it's here right before the New Year! I'm not sure that I'm completely satisfied with it, as it's a little HARRY POTTER Epilogue-y, but I think these boys deserve some happiness.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, Valve does (but Daisy is mine). Playing with them, though, is okay in my book.

It would be written in the history books as The Year Of The Green Flu, though recovery was ongoing and not finished within a year. The most affected parts of the country, the East Coast, the South, and the Southwest, with parts of Southern California and Nevada, were being rebuilt, slowly and surely. The other parts of the nation, those that had been affected but not ravaged, had become home to those who had survived the 'Great National Nightmare', as the President had referred to it in his speech that had dismantled CEDA as a Government Agency. There was still no confirmation as to what had caused the illness in the first place. Rumors spread and whispered, but few dared pursue them. With a little more than a third of the U.S. population dead (and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere also touched), one would think that answers would be tirelessly sought, but that didn't seem to be the case. Perhaps the country would rather forget.

Many refugees, referred to as Survivors (Carriers was now a slur of sorts and Immunes weren't prevalent enough to be categorized), went to the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, the West, and the Midwest. The evacuations had been more efficient in these places due to prior warning (or in some cases, smaller populations), and so the death tolls were lower, the cities less desiccated and mostly recovered. They began to arrive after a year of testing and holding in quarantine centers, after the Cure had been discovered. That discovery was also under suspicious circumstances, and much quicker than one would think had the illness been out of the blue and unpredicted, but no one asked questions when they were given the defense against becoming a mindlessly violent zombie. Green Flu vaccines became a part of the MMR booster regimen, required and regulated.

Those who had gone through the worst of it had been given government sanctioned settlements. It didn't seem like too much to ask, since those who had actually survived under the strict definition of qualification (lost family, wounded, without food and shelter for an extended period of time, not evacuated until after the original evacuations, horrendous stories, spent a certain amount of time in quarantine camps, etc) were so few and far between. It was the only apology the Government would offer, and in return it was expected that the Survivors not bring forth any sort of lawsuit. So in a way, it was an admission of culpability, even if it was never explicitly said.

Cannon Falls, Minnesota had been evacuated, like all cities had been, but the residents were back in their homes and to their lives in less than a month. If there were no Infected left in the area (and the Military saw to it that there weren't), the Government felt they could wait for the vaccination safely at home. And while some returned to their city to find that the especially stubborn citizens who refused to leave with the initial evacuations were no longer around, questions weren't asked.

They were, however, surprised when they found out that, a little more than a year after the Infection first broke, some Survivors were going to make settlement in their community. Many of the refugees that did choose Minnesota went to Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MAYBE Duluth or Rochester. While those cities were hit harder than the small towns in the state, they still stood, a little quieter, but a little more resilient as well.

Surprise turned to curiosity when they moved to a house outside of town, and curiosity turned to wariness when they saw how…. unconventional the family was. But they kept to themselves mainly; true, the younger man was one of the more skilled mechanics in town, and the girl became one of the track stars at the high school, but the older man worked in the Cities, doing what, no one really knew. There were rumors, of course, but no one wanted confirmation. And when people did have the guts to ask why it was that they decided to live in a country house despite the fact they didn't farm, the answer, from all three, would be 'It's better outside large populations'. Few tried to understand.

But one Mrs. Abby Lindstrom decided that perhaps it was time to try and understand. She had made such a decision because in February her sixteen year old daughter Amanda had brought home a new friend. Amanda had never really fit in very well with her classmates, so Abby had been surprised when she got home from work to find her daughter sitting in the kitchen with a girl she'd never seen before. Turned out the girl was a Survivor, had just moved to Cannon Falls in January and had tested into Amanda's tenth grade class, after being in quarantine for a little longer than a year. And while Abby had been a little apprehensive at first, she soon realized that Daisy wasn't like what the fear mongers would have her believe; she realized that these Survivors weren't something to be feared, that she wasn't spreading disease or incredibly 'unstable' as he husband Tim had suggested.

Many an argument had been waged between her and Tim over Daisy, and Daisy's family. Abby had tried to point out that everyone in the country had been vaccinated, and even if Daisy was a 'carrier' before she was nothing to be afraid of now. And he would just stamp off and work in his tool shed, and she would momentarily wonder whom she might have ended up with had she not been knocked up on Prom night. Certainly someone less pigheaded.

So that humid August day she baked up a hotdish and drove out to the country home that the Survivor family had taken up in.

She stopped her car near the farmhouse, and exited it, carrying the crock pot filled with food onto the porch and knocking on the front door. There was a small delay, but soon she was face to face with Daisy, who was armed with a hammer that was held up and ready to strike.

"Daisy, it's me!" Abby exclaimed, holding the crock-pot up as defense, and Daisy gasped, and shook her head in relief.

"I am SO sorry, Mrs. Lindstrom," she said, stepping onto the porch and tossing the hammer to the side. "Old habits… I mean, you never know, and I wasn't expecting anyone, but I'm still really sorry. My therapist says-."

"It's alright, Daisy, really," Abby replied, though her heart was racing so badly she had to lean on the railing. She wondered if those sick with Green Flu would have knocked as politely as she had. She also wondered what the stains on the hammer's head were… "Is your family home?"

"Uh, yeah, they're around," Daisy replied, suspiciously. "Why?"

"Well, I finally got around to making that welcome hotdish that I mentioned to you earlier this summer," Abby answered, a bit sheepish that it was seven months after they had moved into the two floor farm house. And she was especially ashamed that she didn't know much, if anything, about Daisy's family. She'd certainly seen them all around town, and had heard rumors from her book club, and her husband. But Amanda wouldn't take any bait that Abby laid out for her, so there was no true confirmation on their…. Status, as it were.

"Oh, okay. I thought I'd pissed-er…, made you upset or something."

"No, no, not at all, I just wanted to meet them finally," Abby smiled.

"Well sure, I'll get them," Daisy replied, and stuck her head back into the foyer. "DAD! ELLIS! SOMEONE'S HERE TO SEE YOU!" She removed her head from the house, and smiled at the older woman. "They'll be here in a bit."

"Is Ellis your… uncle?" Abby asked, thinking that it was time to set the record straight, and Daisy quirked her lips a bit, knowingly.

"You don't actually think that, do you?"

Nick hadn't wanted to come to the door, not particularly interested in 'getting to know the locals' as he referred to it. He didn't like the looks he and Ellis would get when they went into town together, and he wasn't sure if the looks were because they were Survivors or because they would hold hands in public, caress too. They'd become notorious, and whoever was at the door had most likely heard of them. He certainly wasn't ashamed, he just had no time for idiots.

"We should go say hi," Ellis suggested, raising his eyebrows.

"YOU can go say hi."

"Aw come on, Nick," the mechanic said, patiently. "It's not gonna kill ya. If quarantine didn't kill ya, chit chat won't either." Nick sighed, defeated (though he hadn't fought too hard), and nodded.

"Fine," he snipped, and they walked towards the door, him with a slight limp that would serve as a constant reminder of that awful year. "But YOU'RE going to do most of the talking."

"That's fine by me, I like talkin'," Ellis said, as if this was huge news to his beau. Nick smirked to himself, and opened the door to see a thirty-something woman holding a crock-pot, standing on the porch with his daughter.

"Hey guys," the teenager said. "She comes bearing food."

"Daisy, who's this?" he asked gruffly, while Ellis grinned and extended a hand towards her, pulling Nick onto the porch with his other hand.

"Hi, I'm Abby Lindstrom," the woman said, smiling and shaking Ellis' hand. "I'm one of your neighbors down the road, and thought that it was about time that I brought over some tuna hotdish to welcome you to Cannon Falls."

"Well hi there, Abby," Ellis stated. "I'm Ellis, this here's Nick."

"We moved in seven months ago, it's a little late for the welcome wagon, don't you think?" Nick said, uncaring that he was coming off as uncouth. After all, he was an uncouth guy.

"Dad," Daisy hissed, "this is Amanda's mother. You know, the girl on Track at school?" You know, one of my only fucking friends, she thought, and tried to convey with a look.

"Oh yeah! Amanda is REAL nice, an' she gives Daze here a run for her money on the Track team!" Ellis said chipperly, patting Daisy on the back.

"I know that it's been a long time coming," Abby stated, shamefacedly. "But I've gotten to know Daisy these past few months, and thought that it was time that I came over and met her parents…." She looked from Nick, to Ellis, and then at Daisy, who shrugged, and smiled politely. "And I… guess I've found them, haven't I?"

"Tuna hotdish? Is that the same thing as tuna casserole? Cuz I LOVE tuna casserole," Ellis said, accepting the crock pot from Abby happily. "My Mom used to make it all the time, I haven't had it since Savannah. One time, my buddy Keith, he tried to make his own version of tuna casserole, an' he thought that if mayonnaise was good on tuna sandwiches, it would be good on casserole, and he poured it ALL over the-."

"Ellis," Nick said gently, and the mechanic nodded, understanding the cue.

"Well, anyway, thanks," he ended with. "Would you like to come in? We got lemonade, an' water, an'-."

"That sounds nice," Abby said, utterly charmed by the younger man but still not quite sure of Nick. "… And again, I'm sorry it took me so long to stop by with this hotdish. But Amanda had so many nice things to say about your family, and I thought that, well, it must be hard being new here, after all you've been through."

Nick was going to make some snarky comment, one involving delayed hospitality out of fear of Infection, or The Gays, or both, but when he saw that both Daisy and Ellis were giving him their versions of The Look, he grit his teeth, and shrugged.

"Well…. If you want to shoot the shit with this family, that's up to you," he said, walking back inside. "I just hope that you like the term 'fag hag', because that's what you're going to be labeled."

"Aw JEEZE Nick, you say that like it's a BAD thing!" Ellis called, following him into the house like a puppy, like he usually did with Nick.

Abby turned to look at Daisy, who was smirking and shaking her head.

"So, this is your family, Daisy?" she asked, trying her hardest to not look too surprised. "Your Dad and his… You need to help me, what does your Dad call Ellis?" She flushed, embarrassed that she was coming off so ignorant. One of her favorite TV shows was QUEER AS FOLK for God's sake!

"Boyfriend. And yeah, they're pretty crazy," Daisy said, smiling kindly. "But it's the best fuc-, er, freaking family unit I've ever been a part of. And I have no one to thank but the godda-, ER, gosh darned zombies." She always tried to hold onto that foul fucking mouth when Abby was around.

"Well I hope they like hotdish," the older woman stated, genuinely, and followed her into the house.

While the two ladies sat in the dining room talking, the two guys were arguing in the kitchen.

"She hates us," Nick muttered as he grudgingly removed glasses from the cupboard. Why did Ellis always have to be so damn courteous? "You can just tell that she's going to go back and tell all her friends about how she finally went to the Survivor Circus and it was a freak show." Ellis shook his head, turning up the Beach Boys on the radio a little bit in case she could hear them bickering.

"You got a persecution complex or somethin', she seems real nice," he chided, pouring lemonade into the cups and tapping his foot along with 'God Only Knows' as it played through the speakers. "Just cuz other people in town've been a bit uncomfortable it doesn't mean SHE'LL be. She's havin' lemonade, ain't she?" Nick shrugged, and wrinkled his nose as Ellis began to scoop sugar into the glasses.

"Yeah, I guess. But we'll see how long that lasts when her quilting circle starts to-…Hey, Overalls, I don't want any more sugar in mine," Nick grumbled, trying to snatch the glass from the younger man, but Ellis stubbornly swiped it away.

"It tastes like shit right now, Nick, let me fix it!"

"I LIKE it sour!"

"I'm just addin' a coupla spoonfuls-."

"I don't want to drink it with an insulin chaser, give it back!" Nick demanded, and Ellis snorted, and added one more spoonful of sugar, staring at Nick the whole time in a defiant manner. "… I swear to God, I should have left you with the Infected." Ellis smiled smugly, leaning on the table and putting his face inches from Nick's.

"If I recall right, it was ME who saved YOUR ass a buncha times," he said, haughtily. He pushed the glass towards the older man, and Nick accepted it, holding Ellis' gaze.

"Do we have to make conversation with this woman? Can't we just go upstairs and-."

"Thought you said you wanted to be a better person."

"Some things never change, El."

"Well, jus' grin an bear it for a half hour, then we'll make an excuse for her to go, send Daze to the movies, an' THEN we can go upstairs, an' you can do whatever ya want. Kay?"

"… Did we ever send what's left of CEDA that thank you fruit basket you suggested?"

"Nope. You didn't send that letter either."

"Well remind me to do it this Christmas." With that sly quip, he took Ellis' chin in his hands and drew him into a kiss. Yeah, there would be a letter, a letter woven with profanity and anger.

But the fruit basket? It would have to be the largest fruit basket he could find. And as they got carried away with the kisses in the kitchen, the Beach Boys serenaded them with the exact emotions they had. Because God only knew what they'd be without each other, and if zombies couldn't take that away, they sure as shit weren't going to let anything else do it either.

THE END

A/N: So while they can't all end in domestic bliss, this one does. Once more, thanks so much to everyone who read this and stuck with it. I really appreciate it, and all of you. Happy Freakin' New Year!