"Ok, where do we begin?" a girl's voice asked, startling him from the restless sleep he was in. He wearily sat up and tried to tame his maddening black bed head before giving up and looking for the voice he had heard, his girlfriend, Laura.

"Laura? Where are you?!" he demanded, still getting dressed. Just as he finished pulling on his jeans to go with the shirt he had been wearing since he almost drowned that one time, she walked in, a cheerful look on her face. Oh, darn those early morning people.

"I'm here. You're still sleeping?" she asked, a grin on her face.

He just groaned. Yes, darn those early morning people indeed. "I was."

"Well, get ready," she said, "We have a busy day ahead of us. We're gonna look for supplies to build new houses and stuff, remember?"

"Oh yeah," he remembered as she said it, grabbing some of his stuff off of a chair nearby. "Where are we starting?"

"Well we need to look first," she said, smiling as he stumbled around, still half asleep.

"Oh, ok." He grinned sheepishly at her and followed her outside of the tent.

"Ahh, Sam!" his dad exclaimed, running up to them. "Good, you're awake. We need you to help try finding a fresh drinkable water source, ok? This team is going to do that and my team is going to look for places to build new houses or rebuild old ones that only suffered slight damage."

"Ok, Dad," Sam agreed easily, looking at Laura. "What team are you on?"

"The water team," she said, smiling at him.

He grinned. "That's good."

"You two are to work," his dad cut in sternly. "No slacking off."

Sam made a face and Laura just giggled. "Yes, Dad."

As the two joined their group, a new girl turned and looked at Sam. "Oh, hi. Can you help me here? This is the water search group, right?"

Sam turned reluctantly away from Laura just long enough to say "Yes." and then turned back.

The girl looked a bit put off and turned to find someone a bit friendlier to help her when she bumped into a tall, muscular guy. "Oops. Sorry."

"Hey, you were talking to Sam earlier, right?" the guy asked, immediately worrying the girl.

"Yeah, why?"

"Are you interested in him?"

She glanced over at the brown haired teen and blinked. "Um. Maybe. Why?"

"Because Laura is who I have my sights on. If I can distract her from Sam, you can make your move."

"But he seems really into her and I haven't really even talked to him that much so what chance do I have?" she asked, worried about what he would think of her if she tried anything.

J.D. waved that off. "No matter, when I distract Laura, you two will have plenty of time to know each other. He grinned at her. "So what do you say?"

The girl examined him hesitantly. "I don't know. . . he's never noticed me and we've gone to school together for years. Why would he notice me now?"

"If you talked to him, sure he would." J.D. smirked at her and went over to talk to Laura.

April cleared her throat and looked over at Sam nervously. Sighing, she walked over to him. "Uh, hi again."

"Oh. Hi." Sam blinked at her and then turned to check a map that marked where possible water was at.

"How long do you think this job'll take?" she asked, feeling lame.

"Maybe a few days, I don't know," he muttered, tracing an outline with his finger.

She leaned over to look at the map too and saw that it showed every body of water that used to flow nearby. "Wow. . ." It was weird to think that the lakes and oceans were now iced over.

He looked over at her. "Huh?"

"I dunno, it's just weird to think this all was normal like a week ago and now it's. . ." she paused and waved her arms at the iced over area.

He sighed. "Yeah."

She looked around and sighed too. "Kinda depressing."

"It'll get better," he muttered, walking past her and joining the others.

"I hope," she said, tagging along.

He turned and looked at her. "No offense but why are you following me?"

"Well, y-- you're the only person I kinda know here," she stammered.

"Oh. Well I could introduce you to people, I guess. Er. . ." He looked blankly at her as though urging her to tell him something.

"Um." She looked back just as blankly.

"What's your name?"

"Oh! Um. April." She blushed a bit at the stupidity of it all and for how embarrassed she was.

"I'm Sam."

"I know, we go to school together. I'm in your lit class."

"Oh. . . Sorry, I didn't recognize you."

She sighed. "Yeah I guessed as much." Laughing embarrassedly, she waved it off. "It's ok."

Uncomfortable silence passed between them as they joined the others. "Hey," Sam said, catching the eyes of a couple of the guys he knew.

"Hey, Sam, what's up?" a teenager with wild red hair that seemed to cover his whole head in different directions greeted him.

"Not much, we getting ready to go?"

"Yeah, just as soon as everyone is here," Tad nodded. "It shouldn't be too long."

"Melissa and John needs to show up and then we can go," a Chinese boy said, looking up from some maps.

"Ok," Sam grinned and sat down to wait for the trip to begin.

Soon, two teens walked up to them, their arms wrapped around each other. "We're here!" the girl said, her long brown hair blowing into their eyes.

Her boyfriend coughed and brushed it away, looking slightly annoyed. "Yo."

"You all ready?" Tad asked, standing up as the others grouped around him.

"Yup," the people chorused, ready and willing to get their homes back as soon as possible.

"Ok, let's go, we're going to have to march through some of this trip so get ready." Tad walked in front of them, looking back every once in awhile at the people walking behind him.

Sam smiled as Laura walked up next to him and wrapped her thin hand in his. "Hey."

"Hi," she grinned, not noticing April standing behind him.

"ready for a lot of walking?"

"Sure!" She grinned at him.

As they walked off hand in hand, J.D. motioned to April, who just looked back helplessly and shrugged confusedly at him.

As she followed the crowd obediently, he growled and walked up behind her. "April!" he hissed.

She turned to him, a guilty look on her face. "What?"

"You need to talk to him if you want to even get his interest!"

April sighed. "He's not interested. He has a girlfriend. I'm not going to get in their way."

J.D. stared at her. "So what?! I don't care if he's not interested, go over there, distract them, I want to talk to Laura!"

April shook her head. "No, I can't. . . It'd do no good." She continued walking but then he grabbed her by the arm and looked into her eyes.

"It'd do us good; we'd both have what we want. Now go!" he ordered, pushing her towards the two.

April stumbled and almost fell on top of Sam.

"Whoa there," he said, steadying her. "you ok?"

"Uh, yeah. . . I tripped," she said, glaring at JD.

Sam followed her glance and blinked. "Is he bugging you?" he whispered.

"N-no, not really. It's, uh, nothing."

As he blinked at her, she laughed nervously and stumbled away, her face turning red. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm good, it's fine." She hid behind some other girls who were talking and gossiping.

Sam shrugged and turned back to Laura. "That's weird."

"Yeah it is. . ." She watched as April walked in line without looking at anyone.

Sam's sight was on JD, however. "Hmm."

"Well we're almost there, everyone. Pair up and we'll go find some water!" Tad said, speaking up so those in the back could hear him.

As Sam and Laura held hands and joined Tad and his partner, an oriental woman, as others began choosing partners.

April looked around, desperate not to get teamed up with J.D., but she was too late and he came to her and grabbed her arm, forcing her to join the others. "Let go of me," she hissed, trying to ignore the pain shooting up her elbow.

"No, you're my partner now, so be quiet," he ordered, shaking her slightly.

She sighed and looked around but no one was watching now so she followed him reluctantly to the maps to see where they should look. 'I should've never got involved in this. . .'

To be continued