A/N: After that epic fight against Issacs, Alice and Katie returned to the camp and gave the simple explanation that Ryan had been swarmed by Infected and killed before they could save him... Which was partially true.

Two weeks after Ryan's death, Katie was now driving their uncle's truck in his place, and was designated the convoy's new scout in his place. Together with Alice, they kept the convoy safe from over a dozen bandit attacks, at least double that in hordes that attacked the camps at night, and, due to her Pyrokinesis, was given the unfortunate task of burning the bodies of any survivors that were bitten.

Alice kept a careful eye over Katie during that time, just to gauge how badly she took to Ryan dying. Even within herself, she felt that his death was a hard one. She especially missed his cocky smile, and his oozing confidence and loyalty. She had taken his fedora in his honor, constantly wearing it and the wrist blade as a reminder of his sacrifice against Issacs. Thankfully though, the blast hadn't damaged her kukris, and she still carried those. She had also begun to use the crossbow more often, while Katie almost exclusively used the MP7, but if she ever had to, she also used her wrist blade instead of her katana or K-BAR, which were gathering dust in the backseat of her truck.

So, one night, Claire approached Alice, who was sharpening her wrist blade at one of the bonfires. "Can you go hunting for some game for dinner?" She asked, watching the rhythmic stroking that Alice was doing along the length of the retractable blade. She had actually known about the wrist blades ever since Ryan had joined the convoy, since his first kill when they had met was with his wrist blade to kill an infected dog that jumped onto K-Mart in a warehouse.

"Sure. I'll take Katie. We'll be back in a few hours." Alice replied, smoothly sliding her blade back into the protective sheath on her arm. She grabbed her nearby crossbow and followed her T-Virus compass to find Katie sitting in the pickup truck.

"Come on, let's go hunting." Alice said after Katie lowered the window to talk. "Come on, Claire's orders."

Katie sighed and hopped out of the truck, which had recently been reinforced with a chainlink fence over the windows and a reinforced brush guard added to the front. "Fine. Are we using bows?" She had taken ownership of Alice's old bow after hers was lost the week before during an attack by bandits that quickly attracted over a hundred Infected due to the gunfire. Needless to say, the bandits didn't escape fast enough...

"Yeah, let's get going." Alice replied, pulling the string back on her crossbow and nocking a bolt in place.

About an hour later, Alice was perched high up in a tree, waiting for Katie to direct a nearby herd of deer into view. She kept focused on her task until a lone doe came wandering into view, chewing on some leaves from a nearby bush.

Raising the crossbow and peering through the scope she'd attached back at Ryan and Katie's uncle's house, she let out a slow breath and prepared to squeeze the trigger when the doe suddenly gave a startled cry and dashed forward, but didn't make it more than a few feet when a dark mass jumped onto its back and twisted its neck to the side with a loud grinding of bones.

Alice caught a quick glimpse of yellow from the mass, so she lowered her crossbow and thought that it was Katie snapping the doe's neck to take it down. She dropped down from the tree in complete silence, but then quickly realized that it wasn't Katie. She raised the crossbow and stalked towards the figure, who had their back turned.

As Alice approached, she noticed that the person had a tanned complexion, but wore heavy leather bracers on both arms and a hood over their head, plus body armour. Their attire was all black otherwise, and they carried an assault rifle, shotgun, and bow on their back, plus a pair of pistols strapped to their thighs.

"That was my kill, thank you." Alice stated in a matter-of-fact tone, which made the figure spin around and draw both pistols, aiming them at her.

The figure's face was covered by a tight fitting black mask, and their yellow eyes shone brightly from under their hood as they stared Alice down menacingly.

"Relax, I'm not going to attack you." Alice said as she lowered her crossbow and slowly held up her hands. "You alone?"

The figure didn't lower their pistols, but nodded in response to her question. Their eyes narrowed as Katie suddenly appeared nearby, all of them momentarily freezing.

Suddenly the figure redirected one of their pistols towards Katie, who aimed her bow at them and drew back an arrow.

"Whoa! Katie! Relax! They got to this deer first, it's theirs." Alice held up one hand towards Katie, who was glaring at the figure dangerously, her mismatched eyes beginning to glow with red light.

"Who are you?" Katie demanded in a low voice, the tip of her arrow igniting with fire. She kept the flaming arrow directly aimed at the figure's chest, just waiting for them to make a mistake.

The figure remained entirely motionless for an entire minute before letting go of their pistols, letting them fall to the ground as they dashed forward, easily dodging both Alice's crossbow bolt, and Katie's flaming arrow. Thankfully Katie extinguished it before it caused a forest fire, but she suddenly found herself with a blade at her throat, as was Alice.

The figure looked looked at her face, then over to Alice's, then took the blades away from their necks. Katie glanced down to see the blade smoothly disappear into their bracers before Alice suddenly tackled them to the ground and extended her own blade, pointing it a few inches away from their masked face with a snarl.

The figure began to chuckle, which made Alice's livid glare turn to one of confusion. She stared at the laughing figure for several seconds before she suddenly found herself on her back with the figure holding her wrists on either side of her head in an astonishingly strong grip that was equal or possibly even stronger than her T-Virus enhanced strength.

Continuing to chuckle, the figure suddenly released her arms and stood up. They took a step back and reached up to their hood, pulling it back to reveal jet black hair. Alice and Katie watched as the figure pulled down their mask with excruciating slowness, until both of their jaws dropped...

It was Ryan.

"Ryan!?" Alice exclaimed, her arms falling to her sides as she realized that it was indeed Ryan, his cocky grin firmly in place as he looked between them.

"Yup." Ryan replied, then turned to Katie. "So... is the dipshit that failed to kill me dead? How epic was the explosion from those sticky bombs?"

Katie suddenly dove towards him and gave him a flying hug, which he returned with equal gusto. He smiled as Alice nodded in response to his questions. "Good. And for the record, the Anti-Virus revived me according to the White Queen. Sadly though, it took more than the three hours she had calculated, but according to her sensors, the T-Virus bonded with my DNA, just like the two of you. I'm not infected anymore. I'm... alive."

Alice felt tears stinging her eyes, and she suddenly stepped forward to hug him, only to suddenly receive a passionate kiss from him, which without thinking, she returned with equal vigor. She wrapped her arms around his neck until they separated. She quickly wiped away the tears in her eyes, which earned her a laugh from Ryan.

"Have you gone soft on me?" He teased, for which Alice swatted him in the chest with the back of her hand.

"Have you gotten taller since I last saw you?" She countered, easily noticing that before he'd died, the top of his head had barely reached her chin. But now he was a good seven or eight inches taller, and was now almost at perfect eye level with her. He was also no longer scrawny, but had much more developed muscle tone and size.

"Yeah, I have. And that's my hat!" Ryan quickly swiped the fedora from her head and put it on, finally returning it to its long awaited perch atop his head.

"What happened after you got out of the facility?" Katie asked, handing him his dropped pistols, which they now realized were the exact same M1911a1's that he took from his uncle's house, not to mention that it was his M3 and his G36K on his back. The only thing that was new was the bow and the quiver of arrows he had slung to his lower back.

"I followed your tracks until I got back to the ranch. After that, I used this to track your progress." Ryan said as he held up a radio... the one that Katie had used to speak to Corporal Miller before fighting Issacs. "I only managed to get here because of my new strength and stamina. I ran a lot, but I did manage to retrieve this for you." He indicated the bow on his back. "This was yours, but I see you took Alice's old one." He added with a smile to the familiar bow in her hands.

Katie glanced to the dead doe behind them, then smiled. "Looks like you finally got revenge on both of us for the stolen hunting kills when we each met you." She laughed, then slung her bow onto her back. "So... What's your T-Virus power? That electricity you used against Issacs?"

Ryan nodded as he easily lifted the doe over his shoulder. "Yup, and a side effect of it is that I don't need to sleep. At all. I also have a lot of energy."

Alice slung her crossbow onto her back and gave him another long kiss. Once they separated, she whispered to him. "I can tell that's not all you can do... Sparky." She gave him a knowing wink before speaking at full volume. "Claire's gonna flip her shit when she sees that you're still alive after all. We told her that you were swarmed by Infected."

Ryan began to follow behind them, pulling his mask and hood back up to hide his face. "Well then... time for you to come back with a third newcomer after going hunting... Let's see how long it takes for Claire to realize that it's really me this time." Ryan smiled devilishly behind his mask.

Closing Remarks: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA TROLOLOLOLOL RYAN WASN'T REALLY DEAD! XD

Anyway, that is the official end of this fanfic, big thanks to you the readers for reading my story!

Signed, Acidika, (A.K.A Ryan)