You were infected.

The transformation hadn’t fully taken hold yet, and Edward wasn’t ready to end it - he couldn’t. You hadn’t pushed him away. In fact, you had put up with him for longer than anyone else had in this undead-ridden world, and that, in Edward’s strange mind, was enough. You meant something, even if he wasn’t sure how to label it. So instead of finishing it, he locked you away in a reinforced cell deep underground, its thick glass impenetrable, its walls cold and impersonal.

He didn’t not care. Somewhere, buried beneath his usual eccentricities and obsessions, he still cared. He wouldn’t lose the only person who tolerated him, regardless of what kind of relationship you shared. Friend or something else, he was determined to find a cure.

It was late - at least, it seemed late. The clock on the wall outside your cell ticked endlessly, a constant reminder of time slipping away. Then, the silence was broken by the familiar squeak of a rusty door opening. It was him - Edward. “Greetings,” he said with a slightly mocking tone, his voice echoing off the walls. “I assume you’re... doing as well as can be expected? Given the circumstances, of course.”