The farmhouse did not, in fact, have doors that locked. Or enough rooms for each of us. Or even enough beds.

It was obviously a retired couple's home. Nev and Bailey claimed the master bedroom with its double bed and pink patchwork quilt. It made sense for Rueben and Misha to take the smaller room; the matching twin beds were clearly meant for visiting grandchildren, and Mischa cried out happily as she discovered a handmade dolls' house and a collection of ratty Barbies.

Simon and I were left with the couches in the lounge room. One folded out to a sofa bed, but I nominated to sleep on the leather rocker/recliner and gave the fold-out to my fellow pig warrior.

As everyone explored the house, I made my way into the kitchen. My stomach was making loud burbling noises as it digested the few bites of cucumber I'd eaten, and I wanted to see if the gas stovetop worked.

With hopeful fingers, I twisted the knob. The lighter cracked every second, the little spark working its hardest, but nothing happened. I could hear the gas hissing, but it didn't smell gassy.

"Not working?" asked Simon, wandering into the kitchen with an armful of lettuce.

"No."

"Didn't think so. I tried our gas cooker that first night, but it was a no-go." He sat at one of the heavy wooden chairs around the square kitchen table. "I reckon those nanobots didn't just go after car fuel, but natural gas too."

"Shit." Despair cascaded over me. Natural gas would have meant a much easier recovery for the human race; at a bare minimum, it meant heat and cooked food. I sighed and looked out the window, just as Mischa raced past.

She banged up the back steps and into the kitchen, hair flying and eyes wild. "They have, they have chookies!" she cried.

"Chookies?"

"Chickies! Chickens! Come and see!"

She dashed out again; Simon and I followed.

In the back garden, a small fenced compound held a dozen chickens, clucking and brooding. Mischa ran over to a large black hen, picked it up and hugged it. The hen looked somewhat disgruntled, but seemed to accept her cuddle as nothing out of the ordinary.

Simon smacked his lips. "Winner, winner, chicken dinner."

"Do you even know how to kill a chicken?" I asked, fascinated.

"We used to do it as kids back in Perth. I grew up around chickens. We can use the frypans in the house, and I'll make the Chicken Parma of your dreams."

"No!" Mischa's shout was loud enough to cause us both to jump. "You're not eating my chookies!"

"Sweetheart, they won't survive without people around to take care of them," said Simon gently. "The foxes will get them or they'll starve."

It made me wonder how many animals around the planet would perish as a result of the worldwide power and fuel loss. Horses stranded in stables without feed, zoo animals trapped forever inside cages with electric locks, cats who... actually cats would probably be fine.

Mischa wasn't buying it; she squeezed the chicken tighter and said, "You're. Not. Eating. My. Chookies!"

"Okay, okay," I said, crouching down to her level and trying to suppress a smile at her stubbornness. "How about we leave the chookies for now, and we'll collect their eggs instead? We can have scrambled eggs for dinner."

She nodded, and I patted the soft head of the chicken in her arms. "This chookie seems cool."

"Maybe she can come on the road with us? That way we'll have eggs all time!"

Before I could answer, Simon said, "Sounds good, little chook. Come on, lets see what's in the hen house for us."

"Yay!" Mischa ran off joyfully.

In a low voice, Simon said, "I'm coming back later and knocking off a few."

"Hells yes." I paused. "Leave the black one. Maybe it can come on the road with us. Bella can have a mate."

"That thing is big enough to swallow Bella whole," rumbled Simon, and we laughed as we walked off towards the chook house.

Later that night, after a meal of greens and eggs, the six of us sprawled on the couches in front of the fire. I'd eaten a few bites, justifying that eggs and zucchinis were low carb, and for the first time in days the world wasn't spinning as my body eagerly processed the food.

"Okay, this one's boiled," said Simon, pulling another saucepan out of the coals. "Who wants to go next?"

We'd been heating water and running shallow baths, our first hot water wash since Day Zero. "I had a swim this morning," I said, my skin warming at the memory, "but I'll take a sink of warm water to wash my face."

I reached for the pot and adjourned to the bathroom. Using a face washer with lace edges, I wiped my skin and washed out my underwear. My period was due soon, and I blanched at the thought of dealing with leaks and tampons on the road.

A soft knock at the door. "Hello?" I said, my face creasing in annoyance. I'd been less than five minutes; surely whoever it was could respect this sacred bathroom time and hold their load until I was done.

"It's me."

Rueben. In an instant, my mood flipped from mild irritation to wild anticipation. I unlocked the door and he slipped inside. The quiet way he moved and the fact that he locked the door behind him made me hopeful that our encounter would continue what we'd started that morning.

"Hi." I sidled closer, glad that I'd brushed my hair and my teeth.

"Hi." He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, and I was tempted to dig them out and lay them on my body again. Our morning kiss seemed like an eon ago, before boars and riding and vegetable harvesting. He licked his lips and said, "Mish is in bed. I wanted to talk to you about this morning."

"We can talk, but there are other things we could be doing with our time." I stepped forward until there was only a breath between us. I figured we could make out for at least five minutes before anyone missed us. Hell, we could get to second base in that time.

He shuddered as my hands skimmed up his arms, but stopped me gently. "Karla, I wanted to check in with you. You nearly fainted this morning, right before we kissed."

"I was just dizzy from getting out of the river." My brow pulled low and defensive.

"You were wobbling all over the road today."

"I'm tired, Rueben. We've been riding for a week!"

"You're barely eating."

"So?" I'd reverted to my sixteen year old self, belligerent and monosyllabic.

"So? Karla, you can't not eat."

I rolled my eyes and tried to move past him.

"Karla-"

"You're not my dad," I hissed, filled with righteous fury. "So don't tell me what I can and can't do."

"I'm not trying to tell you what to do! I'm trying to get you to see that your behaviour doesn't make sense. You're hurting yourself, and you might put everyone in danger if you pass out or get sick! And for what?"

"For what? You have no idea what it's like to be me!" Tears flooded my eyes, and I blinked them away, unwilling to be pitied. "What I eat is my choice – it has nothing to do with you or the rest of them or anyone!"

He raised his hands, hurt in his eyes. "I just wanted you to know... I'm not trying to... I think you're..." He couldn't find the right words and I didn't want to hear them anyway.

Bruised pride throbbed below my skin like a physical injury, and I pushed past him. "Whatever."

I hated him. I hated myself more. I hated that if I was skinnier, if I wasn't so weak-willed, if I was normal, none of this would even be an issue.

Back in the loungeroom, Nev was talking. I slipped into a chair, head down, and let her words wash over me. "I'm telling yewse – I mean you guys, I don't have a story!"

"Why do you do that?" said Bailey from their spot behind Nev, their long limbs laced around Nev's waist.

"Do what?"

"You go to say 'yewse' then you correct yourself."

She sighed. "Look, I didn't grow up like yewse. Dammit! You people!" She enunciated carefully, a touch of the Queen's English to her words, as if she was trying to offset her natural tone. "I'm a bogan, okay? I didn't grow up fancy – girls in my high school, they were lucky if they weren't pregnant by year 12, and the boys were all just obsessed with cars and footy and fights."

She twisted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable. "I wanted more, yeah? But I was pretty, so no one really expected more from me, and my school was totes ghetto. My teachers were flat out trying to stop students from throwing chairs and sexting in class, and I just flew under the radar."

"That must have been hard." Rueben's voice caused me to start. He stepped from the shadows and sat across me. His stare caused me to glance away into the fire, cheeks warm.

Nev nodded, her dark waterfall of hair shimmering in the low light. "It was. I was bored at school, so I started making social media accounts, and helping friends with theirs. I was good, like really good at it, but I didn't think it would ever lead to anything.

"Then I met you." Nev smiled at me with her perfect white teeth. "Karla, you were the first grownup outside of my family who ever believed in me."

"That's because you're a social media savant," I said, remembering. Someone on LinkedIn gave me the heads up about a girl that could make literally anything trend, and I tracked her down to offer her a job. "I couldn't believe someone as young as you could be so smart when it came to digital marketing."

"When you hired me, it was like a dream. But I wasn't fancy like the people in your office. I was just some bogan chick from a trashy suburb, and I felt like scum compared to everyone else. So I try. I try to speak good – speak well. But sometimes I mess up, okay?"

"Nev, you don't have to try and be anything around us," I said, horrified by the thought that she'd spent years pretending to be something she wasn't. "I've never cared how you talk or how much money you have."

"Oh, I have tons of money," she said lightly. "My family is loaded. We're upper middle-class bogans, not bogan-bogans."

Bailey hugged her tightly from behind. "Nev, I love you just the way you are. Yewse can't change that."

"You love me?" she said, grinning wickedly.

Bailey stammered. "Uh... Well, yeah, I mean, I... Um..."

She twisted and kissed them. "You're adorbs."

They kissed for a moment and my heart constricted, happy for them and pained for me.

Simon rumbled from the corner lounge. "You're on a roll now, Neveah. You should tell us more. Who's the one who hurt you?"

"But I said already! I don't really have anyone like that!"

"Everyone has someone like that," said Simon darkly.

"Well, I don't." She gestured with her long fingers.

"School bully?" said Bailey.

"Nope."

"Mean cousins?"

"My cousins are like my sisters!"

"What about your actual sisters? Are they mean?"

"No!" She laughed. "All the women in my family are goddesses – literally, if you believe my nonna's story about a great-great grandmother having it off in the Greek Islands with a descendant of Hermes."

"What about the men in your family?" asked Rueben quietly.

She paused. "They're fine. They're outnumbered and they know their place."

"What do you mean?"

"We're a family of strong women. The men, they either put up with it or they fuck off."

I rarely heard Nev swear, and I blinked in surprise. Bailey spoke next. "I thought you said your family didn't care who you brought home."

"They don't. But if you're a man, you better learn your place. The women in my family, they make the decisions, keep the money, control the men."

"Nev... That's kind of gendered."

"So what? In most families, it's the other way around, and women are the ones with no power."

"Yeah, but that doesn't make it right."

"Whose side are you on anyway?" she said, her voice rising.

Bailey wisely stayed silent. I spoke up. "Nev, what's your dad like?"

"No idea. He gave up, wussed out when I was only little."

"Do you ever hear from him?"

"No." She shook her head, but her lower lip stuck out like a pouting toddler.

"That must have been hard," said Rueben.

"It wasn't a big deal. So what if he left? We didn't need him. No one really needs a man. That's why I only ever date guys once, then move on. My dad taught me early that I couldn't trust any of them."

We all feel silent. Her words were defiant, but her tone was shaky and vulnerable. I said, "Nev, I'm sorry."

"I'm not. If he couldn't handle my mum at her worst, he didn't deserve her at her best. She remarried a few years back. My stepdad, he's the right kind of man, knows how lucky he is and stays out of her way." She nudged Bailey with her shoulder and said, "I can't wait for you to meet my mum and my nonna in Melbourne."

"Your family's in Melbourne?"

"Yeah, of course!"

I'd completely forgotten this fact. I'd met Nev when I was still living in Melbourne, but she'd followed me to Sydney to work for me and it felt like she'd always been there.

Clearly, this was news to Bailey. "So, will they miss you when you're in Tassie?"

"I'm not going to Tassie," she said, confused. "I'm only going as far as Melbs."

"What?" Bailey pulled backward, their face a mask of horror. "But I thought you were coming with us?"

"I never said that. My whole family is in Melbourne – why would I go to Tasmania?"

"Because I'm in Tasmania!" Bailey's voice was plaintive.

"Bailey..." Nev seemed to realise a few beats too late that Bailey's heart was cracking open in real time as we all watched on. "Babe, I thought you knew. I'm only with you guys to get to Melbourne safely. I'm not leaving my family. I'm sorry."

Bailey didn't reply. They stood and walked out of the house, while Nev turned to the rest of us. "I thought Bailey knew! I thought everyone knew!"

"I'll go check on Bailey," I said, slipping from the room.

Outside, the evening was pleasant, with tendrils of cool air curling around my ankles and neck. Bailey sat on the swing that dangled from the fig tree near the driveway, and I crunched over the gravel to join them.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm an idiot." Bailey wiped at their face. "It's my own stupid fault for getting up my hopes. I mean, the 'all men are stupid saps' thing wasn't great – like if I don't identify as a woman, do I count less in that family? But the fact that she let me fall this far, knowing it was only for a few weeks... It's cruel, Karla. It's fucking brutal."

"I know." I offered a hug, and Bailey cried into my shoulder in silence.

I cried as well. For Bailey, and for the simple fact that as long as we were breathing, there was still more we could lose.

Oh Bailey. Sometimes I break my own heart taking characters on a journey :( Leave me a vote if you're still happy reading - and let me know in the comments: have you been with someone you liked much more than they liked you? Or in other words - have you been a reacher, rather than a settler?

xx Kate