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Frannie wasn't sure how long she stood in her bedroom with the door handle in her hand. All she knew was that her jaw ached from holding it open for so long.

She also knew that she was standing in her bedroom. Her old one, in Ogunquit, with the same posters and trophies it had held since she left for college years ago. A lifetime ago. Before the end of the world.

Eventually, when her brain processed what she was seeing, she started thinking. As much as she wanted to rush out into the house, and into...into the garden...she was afraid of what she'd see there, too. Afraid she'd see her father, alive but sick. Afraid she'd see his grave.

Afraid she'd see that it had been disturbed somehow.

Afraid that if the door she still held closed, she'd be stuck here in her old house alone again. Alone in Maine with everyone she knew on the other side of the country. Alone in the world.

Once the first tremors of fear passed her, she realized something else. She was standing in a world that had been toxic to 99% of it's residents....and she held the door open, spilling that air into the hotel.

Before that thought even finished forming, Frannie stepped back into Nexus and slammed the door as hard as she could and pressed her back against it.

"Anyone got a hammer? Some nails maybe?" she called out to anyone that could hear her voice.

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"I think that happens anywhere there's a sudden shift in power," Raleigh agrees. "But just because it's human nature doesn't make it right or fair. I'm sorry that happened."

He is genuinely sorry. It's not something he thinks the military should do, especially not when people depend on them.

"Thank you," Frannie replied with a nod and a smile. It went a long way towards healing that particular nightmare. She'd never been a "sins of the fathers" type anyway, and the guy had dropped everything to help a semi-hysterical pregnant woman. That counted for a lot.

"Now that I'm not freaking out about the door, I'm starting to freak a little about my lack of manners. I haven't introduced myself. I'm Fran. Fran Goldsmith."

"Raleigh Becket," he says, offering a hand for her to shake if she wants. "I'm in the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. But here, I'm maintenance, so I can fix up your door nice and tight so that nobody can come in or out. Maybe I can get a tarp or something to seal it up. Or some caulk might do it, just to make it air tight?"

"The Pan-Pacific...?" Frannie's mind scrambled a little, trying to remember if she'd heard of anything like that before. She hadn't. "I'm sorry, I don't really know what that is, but it sounds like something that had a not-so-fun reason behind it. Like whatever you were defending against," she clarified, "probably wasn't puppies and kittens."

"Ever seen a Godzilla movie? Put Godzilla on steroids and that's what I dealt with," Raleigh explains, running a hand through his hair.

"It's not kid stuff."

"That sounds terrifying," Frannie said, eyes widening as her mind put up a few mental images. Then her mouth quirked a little. "So we're sort of alike, then, just from opposite ends off the spectrum. You found something huge, I fought something microscopic. I can only hope you had better luck at it."

"Yes and no. At first we did really well but they got smarter," Raleigh admits.

"Anything we throw at it, they learn how to beat it. You having the same problem?"

Frannie nodded once, slowly. "I don't really know how much they ended up trying to do to fight the virus. They had...they had at least one immune in quarantine but all they did was observe him, he said. Took enough blood to see if he was contracting it, but not to use it for any actual treatment. In the end, it didn't matter because nothing worked. You were immune or you died from it."

She gave a shiver and wrapped her arms around the mound of her stomach, the flat, dead tone of her voice scaring her just a little.

"Shit," Raleigh says softly. "I'm sorry. That's not good for anyone, really, and I'm glad you wound up here instead of there."

It seems like a stupid thing to say but he doesn't know what covers hey, I'm glad you survived the apocalypse.

Life hadn't exactly been a lazy walk on the beach after the virus had burned its way out, but she didn't want to dwell on that part of it too much. She survived. She was still surviving. And she was getting this stupid door barricaded off so everyone else here would, too.

"I'm glad I am, too. I feel safe here, in a way I never did in my world. Even after the virus did its damage. I sleep better anyway," she smiled.

"It does seem like a safe place. Nothing bad ever seems to happen short of the occasional maintenance mishap."

It's the kind of danger Raleigh is willing to live with, especially if it means he can still go back home and fight the kaiju once he's rested up and eaten well. He thinks it will give him an edge in battle.

"Have to wonder, though, if anyone else from your world tries to get in. Will they be blocked?"

Frannie thought about that before shaking her head. "No, I don't think so. Where I was...behind that door, it wasn't where I came here from. That door lead to my bedroom in Maine. When I came here, it was from our apartment in Colorado. I just don't think its as linear as that, the doors I mean."

"So if there's other survivors, you think maybe they can get in?"

Raleigh isn't really looking to block off a safe haven for people who might need it, though the idea of needing to set up a quarantine isn't an appealing one.

"There are two other survivors here, people I knew in Colorado after the plague burned itself out."

A thought occurred to her then, one that sent a violent shiver over her skin. She came from one point in time, a time when Nick was....a time after the explosion. Did that mean people could come here from before her? From the first two weeks of June? Her arms wrapped around herself, holding tight.

"But if anyone shows up with a severe case of the flu...," she broke off, shivering again.

"Maybe we should warn the front desk," Raleigh says. He's not sure how much good it will do but it's definitely worth a shot.

"And have them call me, or Larry or Nick since we're immune to it and can at least try to make the person comfortable." Fran heard her voice break at the end so she knew he probably did, too. It was understandable. She'd just been in her bedroom, just been that close to where her father had died after her futile attempts to alter or stop the flu from killing him.

That close to where she'd stitched him into his shroud before carrying him down to bury him in his garden.

"And maybe try to keep the rest of us safe too," Raleigh says. It's grim but it sounds like it's necessary.

"Some first meeting, right?"

Frannie was taking slow breaths, remembering what Doc Richardson had said about stress levels. She nodded once and looked to the man instead of the door. "Hope you don't start referring to me as the crazy pregnant lady fond of nailing doors shut because of it," she said with a ghost of a smile.

"It's my understanding that pregnant ladies are crazy for a reason and you're supposed to respect that," Raleigh teases, flashing her a smile.

"So I'm not gonna refer to you as anything but your name."

"Wise man," Frannie smiled, a real one that made it all the way to her eyes this time. "Thank you for your help, Raleigh, seriously. I know...I know I'm probably spinning out for nothing, but the last few months have left me a little raw."

"I understand. Nobody has a set way of handling the end of the world," he says. Maybe he doesn't know anything about plagues but he knows a lot about the apocalypse and people handle it all differently.

"Why don't I handle this door and then we go get something to eat? Sound like a plan?"

At the mention of food, there was an almost inhuman snarl. Frannie's cheeks pinkened and she laughed a little. "So, clearly, the other stereotype about pregnant women is true, too. Eternally hungry."

She looked down at the shirt and top. "Let me go change out of this? I don't think the virus can live on clothes, but after everything else, I'd really rather not try a stint as typhoid Mary."

What could she say? Gallows humor had been all the humor the'd had for a long time.

"Sure thing. By the time you're done, I'll have the door sealed up and blocked off so we don't have any problems," Raleigh assures her.

He wants to make sure everyone in the hotel is safe, if he can, and he suspects that's a holdover from being a jaeger pilot. Sure, the attention had been nice and he'd gotten cocky about it but deep down it'd been because he liked helping people and liked making people feel safe. That's what it'd all been about.

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