Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love, the first fluttering of its silken wings - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Halfway back to their rooms with the kids, Carol realizes the book she has is the second in a series. While beggars can’t be choosers in the world they live in now, there are way too many books in the recreation room for her to bother confusing herself. The CDC is a godsend to all of them after weeks in tents with the constant threat of walkers. Ed being dead? That’s even better for Carol and her kids.

With Ed living, remembering life before him was hard, despite thirty years of not having him around versus fifteen with him. He hasn’t been dead two full days yet, but already she can feel the old Carol flickering around the edges of who she was. She wonders if Andrea would even believe they weren’t so different, once, before Carol fell for a bold smile and sly charisma that hid Ed’s narcissistic personality far too well when he wanted to do so.

“Sophia, make sure your brothers get to bed. I’ll be there in a minute,” she tells her daughter, who nods from where she’s walking beside Carl in the hallway. Benjamin and Henry are ahead of the older two kids, already almost to the room they claimed as sleeping quarters for the night.

Her daughter agrees easily, as responsible as she’s always been where her younger brothers are concerned, so Carol reverses course back up the hallway. She can hear a raised male voice before she reaches the rec room, and a shiver of concern crawls up her spine. Reminding herself that not every man who gets temperamental is going to follow that up by hitting someone, she heads for the open doorway.

It’s Shane and Lori inside, and while Carol can barely hear her, Lori’s words are bitter and chastising. Shane is insisting that he didn’t lie to Lori, so Carol thinks they must be arguing about Rick’s miraculous resurrection. The door slams before she can reach it, which makes her startle and jump. The cowardly part of her considers leaving them to the fight, but she doesn’t want to be that woman again, so she steps close to the door and listens.

Shane pleading with Lori in a way that makes Carol’s stomach feel sour, grief coloring his voice as he tells Lori he couldn’t hear Rick’s heartbeat. She’s seen the way the once happy couple’s behavior has twisted since Rick reappeared in their lives. It makes her heart ache for them both, because Carol’s old enough to know just how damn fleeting happiness is, and there’s no easy solution to the tangled relationship.

Both of them have been kind to Carol and her kids, but Shane especially so by always inviting Sophia and the twins along with anything he does with Carl under the guise of Carl needing company. Whereas Carol always worried that Ed’s temper might turn on her boys, trying to toughen them up in some asshole fashion, she never hesitated to send them anywhere with the former deputy. Benjamin and Henry have thrived under the positive attention, and Sophia’s admitted to openly envying Carl for having Shane around.

It’s just a matter of time before everything boils over. She doesn’t want that to be tonight for either of her friends, so taking a deep breath after she hears a thump on the door, she calls Lori’s name.

Both of them go quiet at the sound of Carol’s voice, and she breathes a sigh of relief and tries to open the door and can’t. Shane must be leaning against the door, which makes sense on how clearly Carol could hear him.

“Lori? Everything okay?”

Movement shuffles behind the door, and Carol hears a different door slam. When she tries again, the door moves and she steps into the room.

To her surprise, it’s not Lori who stayed behind in the room, but Shane. A part of her expects him to brush by her, to chase after Lori or at least go lick his wounds in his own room, but he gives her a heartbroken look and collapses on the couch. He doesn’t say a word to her, so she crosses to the bookshelf and completes half of her errand by replacing the book.

Glancing at Shane out of the corner of her eye, he’s got his head leaned back and one arm thrown across his eyes. He looks lost in a way she never expected to see from the normally confident man, so she ignores the books and goes to sit on the coffee table opposite him.

“It will take her a while to forgive you.”

Lowering his arm, Shane stares at her through narrowed eyes. “You seem certain she will.”

“She will. Right now she’s angry and scared and feeling guilty. She can’t show that to Rick or Carl, but you’re the easy target, her whipping boy.”

It’s easy sometimes to see Shane the cop and forget that the man is a decade younger than Carol and only recently took on the responsibility of a family. Lori’s mentioned enough of their past lives for Carol to form an image of Shane as a bit of a Peter Pan type, a perpetual bachelor who could never quite settle down. The long friendship between Lori and Shane makes it even easier for Lori to target Shane’s vulnerable spots, and as much as Carol likes Lori, the woman is cornered now, and just like animals, cornered humans fight viciously.

At the quarry, whatever Lori said to Shane ignited his temper so much that when the other ladies agitated Ed into striking Carol in public, he nearly beat Ed to death. Maybe Carol doesn’t know what was said, and she certainly isn’t going to ask Shane, but it flipped the man’s mood from the happy noise he was making with Carl to a towering rage that offset Ed being several inches taller and probably fifty pounds heavier.

Dark eyes study her as Shane sits up straight. What he’s looking for, she isn’t entirely certain, but then his mouth twists in what she thinks is an attempt at a smile. “Don’t think she could hurt me enough for you to have to worry, Carol.”

Twisting her hands in the fabric of her robe, she sighs. “Worst part of me and Ed was never when he beat the shit out of me, you know. He did that a lot less than everyone seemed to think. It was the way he spoke to me, like I was less than human, and that? He did that all the time.”

Shane is too smart not to assemble the pieces of his own disintegrating relationship with Lori in the manner Carol meant for him to consider. She waits patiently, just watching him think it over. When he sighs, it’s a deep, shuddering movement that wracks his torso.

“I feel like I’m losing everything. My whole family. When Rick finds out…”

Carol can’t help the disbelieving noise she makes at the idea that anything between Rick’s best friend and wife is hidden from the one person who knows them both best in the entire world. Years of being wary of the man in charge of her and her children means she’s paid far more attention to Rick and the changes he heralds than most people would.

“Rick knows. He’s just pretending he doesn’t so that maybe it’ll just go away. If he shows that he’s angry at you, it means he’s ungrateful that you saved them. If he’s angry at her, he could force her to make a choice he isn’t ready for her to make yet.”

The Grimes’ marriage had been so far on the rocks when Rick was shot that Carol’s impressed they hadn’t separated. There’s a lot to be said for the social pressures of small towns and family expectations, she supposes. Lori hadn’t tried to hide it, not in the few quiet conversations she’d had with Carol and Miranda when the single ladies were busy elsewhere. Even as content as Miranda was in her marriage, they’d both understood Lori’s dilemma.

“She won’t even let me spend time with Carl.”

Shane’s voice breaks on that statement, and Carol can’t blame him. Her kids have envied the loving bond between Shane and Carl from the day they met, but it was amplified when they found out Shane wasn’t actually Carl’s father. Maybe because it was socially acceptable to show his affection for Carl and not Lori, Shane’s love for the boy could have been seen from the damn moon, she thinks.

“Maybe you should stop chasing her. If she thinks you’ve let her return to the illusion that she’s got a happy marriage with Rick, she’s going to stop feeling like she needs to be on red alert to keep you from being the one that deals it a death blow.”

“I love her, and you tell me I should just let her walk away?”

Carol shrugs, trying for a gentle smile in the face of Shane’s intense stare. “She’s not a possession, Shane. You aren’t Ed.”

Horror rolls across his features at the comparison. She wonders just how tangled his emotions got tonight trying to find a way to convince Lori that they’re still compatible as a couple. As hard as he hit the bottle tonight, she suspects she doesn’t want the answer to how dark that path was getting.

When he doesn’t speak, she sighs. “Are you in love with her or the idea of finally having a family of your own? That’s the thing you need to figure out, and maybe best considered when you aren’t drunk as a skunk.”

When the quarry was attacked, Carol hasn’t forgotten that Shane gathered her and Sophia protectively behind him, just like Lori and Carl. They may have been his first concern, as they rightfully should have been, but his mind had gone to the other vulnerable members of his group as well. He kept calling for Benjamin and Henry, too, and helped Carol check them over once Rick was in camp to assume the spot of protector for Lori and Carl. Repaying his ongoing kindness towards her children is the least Carol can do for Shane tonight when he seems so close to losing his grasp of who he is.

Standing up, she wraps her robe closer around her thin frame and drifts back to the bookshelves, leaving him to think.

~*~*~*~

If it had been anyone other than Carol coming into the room after overhearing him with Lori, Shane would have fled as fast as Lori did. Out of the two not caught in the strangely powerful web of charisma Rick has always been able to generate, Carol is the one he can handle. The serenity she’s always carried with her, even while under Ed’s hulking, violent shadow is appealing, too, while his emotions are ripped and raw.

Her coming to sit and talk isn’t surprising. Compassion seems to be her defining trait, although it’s a bit eerie just how fast she dug into the depths of what he’s wrestling with. He’d been so close to snapping tonight, desperate to get Lori to listen to him, to remember how good things had been between them. If Carol hadn’t interrupted when she did, what would he have done?

The stern reprimand Carol delivered sits like an elephant in the room. Shane supposes years of Ed have taught her to recognize a man on the cusp of doing something abhorrent. The cowardly part of him wants to blame the alcohol he’s had far too much of. The part of him that wants to be a good man can’t stop feeling her intent gaze when she stated Lori wasn’t something to be owned knows it’s an excuse he can’t afford.

“I don’t like who I am becoming.”

Admitting it hurts like hell, but tonight with Lori isn’t the first time he’s slipped. While he genuinely didn’t realize it was Rick at first in the woods, he held that shotgun on his best friend for too many heartbeats after recognition did dawn to not admit to himself what he considered at that moment. Just like tonight, someone interrupted him in time. One day, there might not be an interruption, and he’ll become the monster that is lurking in the back of his mind.

Carol stops browsing the books and comes back over, sitting on the couch beside him this time instead of perching on the edge of the coffee table. “Then change it.”

The way she states it feels like it’s the simplest solution in the world. His initial reaction is to deny it’s possible, but sitting there with her watching him as calmly as if they’re discussing a haircut or new outfit, something shifts in his mind. She’s right. How many times in his life has he put his innate stubbornness to becoming something other than what he was expected to be, something better?

This is just yet another of those challenges. Lori expects him to fail, to be the monster under the bed that destroys her house of cards out of spite. Spiraling out of control is only proving her angry insults to be correct, and it certainly won’t get him more time with Carl. How many times has he arrested men for acting out violently because they didn’t get to see their kids on whatever timeline they felt they were entitled to?

Jesus Christ, he doesn’t want to become something like Ed. He can still feel the ache in his right hand from where he pulverized the bastard for slapping Carol, and his only regret is that he didn’t do it the first time he realized that Ed was a wife-beating bastard.

He isn’t sure how to express it, because he doesn’t want to bring up his mental comparison to her unlamented husband, so what comes out is, “God, I need to sober up.”

“What? You don’t want to find another bottle?” Carol teases.

The unexpected humor and her mischievous expression do more for his sobriety than anything else, because he laughs, genuinely laughs, for the first time since Rick returned. Her little half-smile broadens into a full-scale Cheshire cat grin before she pats him lightly on the knee.

“C’mon. I know coffee won’t actually sober you up, but I’m sure I can scrounge something up. Maybe put a bit more food in you to offset all that liquor, too, so you aren’t starving for calories tomorrow.”

Something about being touched gently and casually works like a balm on his wounded psyche, so he gets up and follows her to the darkened kitchen, taking a seat at the table while she bustles around the kitchen. When she plops a pitcher of water and a cup in front of him, he fills the cup and drinks obediently, not a stranger to how much dehydration will kick his ass come morning if he doesn’t. At least he had eaten with the first round of drinking because the volume he’s taken in might have killed him after weeks of iffy nutrition.

She returns to the table with two plates and a bowl of fruit salad and sets one plate in front of him before sitting down herself. He peeks at the sandwich, which is neatly cut in half diagonally, and laughs again. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

“Protein, starch, and sugar, all in one. It’d be better as peanut butter and bananas, but I think our days of fresh bananas are long gone.” Smiling, Carol takes a bite of her own sandwich half, arching a brow when he doesn’t reach for his.

He’s always lived by the greasy foods while drinking motto, but what the hell, he hasn’t had a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich in years. After the scraped together meals of the quarry, the simple childhood favorite tastes like heaven, even with the slightly stale taste of previously frozen bread. It’s gone before he realizes, while the second half of Carol’s sandwich is slipped onto his plate. She’s plucking pieces of pineapple out of the bowl of fruit, so he accepts the extra without protest.

It ought to be uncomfortable, sitting at the table quietly and eating, but maybe Carol’s natural serenity is contagious. Shane is used to longer periods of quiet with Rick in the patrol car, and even in the solitude of his old house, but sitting with a woman who isn’t his grandmother and just being content is almost a foreign experience since Jean passed away. His brain is still sluggish from the influence of alcohol, but slowly, he’s starting to see a future for himself beyond the one so recently snatched away. With Rick gone, he’d focused so hard on Lori and Carl to get past the overwhelming sense of loss that he developed tunnel vision and lost a good part of his sense of self.

The quiet lasts until he’s eaten the lion’s share of the fruit, too, taking note that Carol left him all the guava and papaya, favoring the pineapple. She’s tidying away their dishes, as consumed by the need to be busy and tidy here as in the quarry. Watching her efficient movements, he remembers the horde of walkers flooding into their camp and how it wasn’t just Lori and Carl he had to protect that night.

Carol and Sophia had been sheltering behind him, and Shane is almost certain Carol doesn’t have any of Lori’s skills with a gun or self-defense. He can still hear the echoes of Carol crying, trying to figure out where her boys were in the chaos while comforting Sophia. It had been a damned miracle afterward, seeing the two nine-year-olds huddled with Miranda Morales and her kids. Even if Ed hadn’t been sulking and injured, he doubts the man would have bothered to defend his own kids, even the matched pair of sons he liked to brag about like Sophia didn’t exist.

Miracles only happen so many times.

“Carol? If I offered to teach you and the kids, would you want to learn how to shoot and defend yourselves?” It’s an impulsive offer, entwined with the memory of the terrified children in the quarry and Carol’s kindness to him tonight.

Her expression is so openly hopeful that he feels ashamed he didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe Ed would have kept him from anything at the quarry, but the thought that their group now contained a widow and three orphans hadn’t really registered with him before tonight. He had lost sight of the people he was responsible for in his obsession with losing Lori and Carl. No wonder everyone is flocking to Rick, since they can probably sense it and Dale’s outright witnessed it.

“I’d like that. This place may seem safe enough, but every bit of knowledge is helpful, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll ask Jenner in the morning what might be around. I’m betting there’s a gym somewhere, something with soft mats. And we don’t have to fire guns for you and the kids to learn.” Dry firing might not be the best option, but if cops used live rounds for all their practice, the cost would be prohibited to the amount of practice needed.

“I’ll gather the kids after breakfast.” Carol looks worried for a minute. “I know it feels like a safe haven here, but something’s wrong with Jenner.”

Shane feels a sense of relief that he’s not the only one who thinks the scientist is missing more than half his marbles. “We’ll keep an eye on him. Maybe it’s a good idea to stay prepared to leave in a hurry if we need to.”

“Jenner doesn’t need all these supplies, you know.”

Carol’s matter-of-fact statement makes Shane consider her more seriously than he ever has before. There’s a pragmatic streak to the woman in front of him, and he finds he’s curious how it will play out as she finds her footing without Ed haunting her life.

“You just might be right about that. Could pack up some of the dried stuff in a couple of bags. Stash them in the stairwell, maybe. Grab ‘em if we have to leave in a hurry.” He thinks about the extras a place like this might have, and how Jenner gave them mostly free reign. “Bet there’s some good stuff that’s not food, too.”

How bad his hangover might have been by morning if he’d gone back to his room and drank himself unconscious, Shane will never know. Instead, he ends up as Carol’s pack mule as she efficiently selects from the supplies of a place meant to house hundreds more than it has, offering input on the things that aren’t food. By three in the morning, there are seven neatly packed duffels tucked just out of the way on the main staircase up, close enough to both stairs and elevator for an easy exit.

“We ought to get a little sleep,” he suggests, looking at the bounty. “Kids don’t need to wake up with you gone, either, I bet.”

The concern earns him another of those graceful smiles. “With all the drinking, at least it won’t be odd if we sleep in, right?”

Shane snorts, remembering just how plastered some of the others was, and how much he would be if Carol hadn’t distracted him. “Breakfast should be entertaining, right?”

Walking her back to her room ought to feel strange, but somehow, their shared meal and pilfering has settled something between them that feels like friendship. She surprises him at her door when she turns and presses a feather-light kiss to his cheek.

“What’s that for?” he asks gruffly, uncertain about the kindness in the gesture.

“For remembering you’re a good man, even when the world is making you think otherwise.” Carol slips into her room, shutting the door behind her, not giving him time to reply.

Shane touches his cheek, and all he can think is that the wrong person is being thanked, because Carol is the one who reminded him of who he used to be and who he wants to be. He doesn’t know how he can do that, not yet, but he’ll figure it out. They have the time and safety here to do so here, after all.

Chapter Text

Too many years of being up before Ed to make sure his breakfast was ready at the correct time means that Carol dozes but doesn’t really sleep after her late-night pilfering with Shane. Giving up on any real sleep, she gets dressed and makes her way to the kitchen after leaving a note for the kids. T-Dog is already up and getting breakfast underway.

“Need any help?” she asks, taking in the heavenly smell of fresh coffee and going to get a cup from the big cafeteria-style dispenser.

“Nah, not yet. Jenner left some aspirin if you need it.” T-Dog motions toward the table with a cheery smile. There’s an economy-sized bottle just like a few Carol appropriated last night on the table next to a platter of bacon.

“I’m guessing you’ve already helped yourself to be so bright-eyed.” Carol’s head is just fine, but the late-night meal with Shane, combined with limiting herself to two glasses of wine, is key to the lack of hangover.

T-Dog shrugs, smile turning sheepish. “Got used to being in a tent with noises all around. Was too quiet here last night. Figured I’d do something useful.”

Carol understands that all too well, but since breakfast is well in hand, she remembers something else she was meaning to do this morning. “Where is Jenner?”

“Wandered down that hall with his coffee,” T-Dog points with a spatula. “Said something about checking on his test results.”

Filling a second cup and taking hers along, Carol heads in the direction indicated. It’s not hard to find the office he’s using, not with most of the interior lighting shut down to conserve power. She stops in the opening of the only lit doorway and clears her throat.

It doesn’t look like Jenner slept at all. While he didn’t look his best yesterday, this morning he looks completely haggard. He probably is about her age, but stress and despair have aged him prematurely to seem a decade older. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he does offer a quiet thanks for the coffee, dropping the empty cup on his desk in the nearly overflowing trash can. He uncaps a bottle of vodka and pours a liberal amount into the new coffee cup, tilting the bottle her way but recapping it when she shakes her head.

On his desk, two monitors are displaying data, a different one for each screen. One is obviously a spreadsheet type list, but the other looks like the sort of lab report Carol’s seen in doctor’s offices and hospitals. “Did you spend all night checking our blood?”

“Yes. The good news is that you’re all reasonably healthy for people living without the benefit of civilization for weeks. I’d recommend vitamins for everyone, but especially the kids.” He sounds so absentminded as he speaks, delivering the health report routinely. Glancing up at her, he gives her a ghost of a smile. “Hopefully, you collected some up last night.”

There hadn’t been anyone in this office during their scavenging, but he’d probably been in a lab somewhere. She’s not surprised that he noticed movement in the building. He probably kept an eye on all of them via whatever security system still exists.

“So I’m right that this is a temporary safe haven for us?” Carol is so used to being disappointed that it shouldn’t feel like such a blow.

“Temporary, yes. When I said no one could exit the building, I wasn’t lying. There’s not enough power to open those doors upstairs again. Once the twelve-hour mark passed, only this floor has power, and that will slowly cycle down to the barest essentials as time runs out. The elevators won’t work now, either.”

“Sounds like a terribly inefficient way to safeguard a government building. What if you needed to evacuate?” Fear tingles along her nerves at the combination of him agreeing to temporary and then referring to the lack of power again. The long-familiar sense of impending danger that was honed under Ed’s dominion is rearing its head, and her claustrophobia claws at her before she fights it down again.

Jenner straightens in his chair and taps the desk with his fingers, thinking something over and glancing to a timer counting down on the office wall. It’s a smaller version of the big one in the main work area, and it reads just under two hours. “Two offices down on the right was our head of security. You’re welcome to go looking for a solution.”

“What does that timer mean, Dr. Jenner?”

“It’s how long we have until the fuel runs out to power the facility.” Mournful eyes meet hers. “I shouldn’t have let you in, knowing there were just under sixteen hours left for the building to remain standing. When the generators fail, the self-destruct system will ensure that nothing escapes the labs here.”

A shudder runs through Carol at the thought. They’re trapped in a building that is effectively one massive bomb, complete with a timer like some Hollywood movie. She turns to leave, but Jenner calls her name to stop her. When she looks back at him, he’s got an expression of such earnest entreaty that she stays to listen despite everything telling her to get to her kids, to deliver this news to Shane so he can help figure a way out.

“It might be kinder to just not tell them. I understand that the destruction will happen so swiftly there should be no pain…” He trails off and takes a drink of his liquored coffee. “No more grief. No more suffering. What lives can your children lead out there among the dead?”

Carol squares her shoulders, remembering her thoughts of finally being free of a man’s tyranny last night. Shane reminded her she isn’t alone in keeping them safe, and his offer to teach them all? That’ll help keep them alive.

“They’ll have good lives for however long it is granted to them, Dr. Jenner. It is not your place or mine to end them. As long as they’re alive, there’s always hope.”

He looks wistful, reaching for a photo on the desk. “We never had children, my wife and I. It was always something we put off, a thing we’d do once her brilliant research concluded. When she died after being bitten, I thought maybe it was a blessing, that she only left me behind.”

Placing the frame back on the desk gently, Jenner reaches for the vodka bottle, unscrewing the cap and tossing it to the trash can before taking a deep swig from the bottle. “I wish you all the luck if you can get your people back outside.”

“You could come with us.” Suicidally depressed or not, the man’s a doctor, and those certainly are in short supply.

“I could, but I’m too tired to keep delaying my inevitable end. I would just like to finally find some rest at last.” He closes his eyes, resting his head back against his office chair as if he’s in extensive pain. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

Carol always has clung to the tenuous faith she was raised in. She hopes it’s true because Ed deserves to burn in hell for what he was. “Yes, I do.”

“Then don’t deny me being able to see my wife again.”

Glancing at the timer, she decides to leave the man to his solitude. Either he’ll find the will to live and follow them out of the building, or he won’t. But he’s not a child, and she can’t dictate his choices for him. Slipping out into the darkened hallway, she goes to wake Shane to tell him their paranoia last night has a basis in truth.

~~~

Shane grips the steering wheel hard, knuckles white as he dodges obstacles and walkers as he can. Meaty thuds signal he isn’t missing all the walkers, and he hears one of the kids whimper in the backseat. Glancing up to the rearview mirror, he thinks it was Henry, who has his face buried in Sophia’s thin little shoulder. Benjamin is stoically staring out the window.

“They just don’t stop coming,” Carol hisses out, reaching between the seats to grip Henry’s knee to reassure him, before speaking louder for the kids’ benefit. “Hang in there, kiddos. Shane’s gonna get us out of this.”

He wishes he had her confidence, but there’s nothing else to do but keep up as much speed as he dares. They’re on their own, separated from the rest of their little caravan by a massive herd that was drawn to the explosion at the CDC. He doesn’t have the first clue where to try to meet up with Rick again, and the masses of dead are pushing him to go further and further north out of the city.

Whatever instinct drove Carol to go talk to Jenner probably saved all their lives. She doubled down on her lucky streak when Glenn was unable to bypass the CDC security in the time he had, not without the long-dead security chief’s biometrics. Jenner had never been important enough in the ranks to have the same clearance, although he’d at least come to the surface level and tried.

Only a woman would put a grenade in her purse and forget about it, Shane thinks. It’s like one of the crazy sermons he used to deliver to Rick in their patrol car. He will never complain about Carol pack ratting anything, ever, or say something as stupid as what he did about the nail file in the CDC lobby.

While Glenn tried to hack the system with the manual Carol found, the rest of them had gone through the supplies, adding to the cache he and Carol began the night before. When desperation led them to blow out the glass with the grenade, they’d had thirty-six minutes to spare. That had been enough time to siphon gas from Shane’s Jeep and T-Dog’s van and abandon both vehicles just to have enough fuel to even consider escape. The bags of pilfered supplies had been divided between all three vehicles, with the lion’s share going into the RV’s bedroom just due to space available.

Putting half a mile of distance between them and the CDC before the actual explosion still meant being rocked by the force of it. From the tell-tale flicker of fire Shane glimpsed when they stopped to regroup and decide on where to hole up for the night, he’s not sure anywhere in the city near the CDC will be safe. The destruction of one of the most dangerous buildings in America is far more deadly and efficient than the haphazard military napalming, and there are no fire departments to stop the spread of the fire if it finds the right tinder.

“I should’ve gotten one of them to draw me a damn map to that nursing home,” Shane says, feeling completely unprepared.

It had seemed practical for Shane to drive Carol and the kids while Glenn and Andrea joined Daryl in his truck and the rest went into the RV with Dale. But now, the foolishness is made apparent, because they’re the only vehicle who had no guide to their destination.

Carol flinches as a walker rolls off her side mirror with a squelching sound. “For today, maybe we just get out of the city. The walkers will keep going to the fire, right?”

“If we can get far enough away that they aren’t hearing us, yeah.” He’s able to pick up speed, just a little, giving him hope. “I don’t know the area north of the city that well. We need to find somewhere we can secure.”

Sophia leans forward enough that her blonde hair brushes Shane’s shoulder. “LIke a school with a fence?”

“Yeah. You got one in mind, sweetheart?” he asks her.

She nods. “My friend went to a private school that was on the river. I remember how to get there from the freeway because I went with her to her brother’s football games a couple of times last year. They’ve got a bunch of areas fenced off.”

It’s better than any idea he has, so he prays the school was evacuated and not used for any sort of refugee center like some of the Atlanta high schools were intended to be. Their luck holds when they make it to the sprawling campus, which has a fairly new football field complete with the type of pretty, yet sturdy black iron fencing no public school could afford. He parks the Cherokee near the ticket and concession area and exchanges a look with Carol in the day’s fading light.

“We have supplies, but out of all the buildings on campus, this one and the cafeteria are the two that might be worth checking. Definitely safer to start with the smaller facility.” He can’t imagine anyone being out here by the football field, but he’s seen a few random walkers on the campus in the distance. “If I secure the building, we can park inside the fence and have somewhere to sleep for the night.”

“You shouldn’t do it alone.”

The protest is expected, but Shane shakes his head. “You move to the driver’s seat. Anything happens to me, you get the kids out of here.”

Gun at ready in his holster and tire iron in hand, he breaks into the building and clears it. It’s an echoing space, meant just to sell tickets on one side of the building and food on the other. He’d been right about some supplies, although there’s not as many as there would be if the place had shut down during football season. He’ll check the baseball field’s concession before they leave. The food supplies from the CDC would last them a little over a week, he thinks, but they need to be constantly gathering.

The most important part is that all three kids can get out of the car in a reasonably safe place. Once everyone’s visited the bathroom, the kids settle down to eat on the bleachers because the building is too cramped and hot, even with Shane opening the service windows. Carol had unpacked a little camp stove to heat up some of the canned nacho cheese, and the kids are in better spirits as they assemble their own little nacho platters and collect their choice of snacks from the bagged chips left behind.

“The chocolate is a damn tease,” Carol says, smiling and passing him a heavily laden tray of nachos and a bottle of water. She leans on the counter, looking like it could be any game night and her the band mother helping out at concessions. “All these melted candy bars.”

“Could try it melted.” It’s a joke because milk chocolate that’s been in this heat? No way it’s safe after all these weeks.

“I don’t think I’ve ever craved chocolate that bad. There are some hot chocolate packets in the storeroom, but it’s too damn hot.” She’s got her food now, fewer toppings than he or the kids have, but it seems to be a preference, not going without. There’s plenty that will spoil if not eaten once they opened the restaurant-sized cans for this picnic supper.

Glancing over to where the kids are happily sipping warm sodas, Shane agrees. They deserve the treat of the syrupy drinks, but he can’t imagine trying it himself. He finds it’s easy to fall into quiet companionship while eating, just like their late-night meal had been.

Food eaten, they take the sleeping bags from the car and spread them out near the bleachers where the kids ate their food. It’s too damn hot to sleep inside the stuffy little building, and the overgrown grass of the football field adds extra padding. The bugs aren’t bad, so he bypasses setting up his tent for the night for them to sleep in.

Carol joins Shane where he’s sitting on the bleachers in the moonlight keeping the first watch, brushing her shoulder against his.

“Sophia wants to help keep watch.”

While his first instinct is to say no, he knows that with just him and Carol, they’re going to end up exhausted if it takes a while to reunite with the others. “You think she’s up for it?”

“Somewhere like this, where all she’s got to do is stay awake and listen? Yeah. She’s good at being on guard.”

Neither of them comments on why Sophia has that skill. She’s almost thirteen, Shane remembers, and much less sheltered than Carl. “Alright. You can wake her around four. Let her do a dawn watch.”

He knows damn well Carol won’t sleep once she’s woken Sophia, not with things so uncertain and Sophia standing her first watch, but building confidence has to start somewhere.

“I will. Thank you for trusting she can do it.” Carol sighs, and he thinks she’s going to get up to go get some sleep herself, but then she speaks again. “What do we do if we don’t find Rick and the others?”

“Might try to circle the city to head back home. Rick seemed to think there weren’t any big herds there, and he left his friend with the kid down there. I figure Rick might go looking for him and hope I had the good sense to head for familiar territory, too.”

“Alright. Best to be somewhere you’re familiar with.” She shivers, and it can’t be that the night air is cold, because Shane is sweating in the humid July heat.

“You okay?”

Carol nods, even as she wraps her arms around her legs and rests her chin on her knees. “This is too close to home,” she admits finally.

Oh. It makes sense, with Sophia having a friend who went to the school, that Carol had lived somewhere in the area. Shane hadn’t thought much about where anyone was from before, because it didn’t matter beyond Glenn knowing Atlanta well enough for supply runs. The fact that none of the Peletiers offered to go to their former home makes him angry and sad at the same time.

He reaches out to squeeze her shoulder, remembering how her simple contact reassured him the night before. “We’ll do our best not to stay long, then. Is there anything the kids might need while we’re close, though?”

It earns him a grateful smile. “No, what few keepsakes they couldn’t live without they already have with them. But thank you.”

Tomorrow, they’ll scavenge more fuel for the Cherokee to see if he can top off the tank and get them away from an area with such ugly memories. That’ll be more than enough to make it to King County even with detours. Wherever Rick is, Shane certainly hopes the others are as safe as he and Carol and the kids are tonight.

The alternative, that they got swallowed up by that herd, just doesn’t bear considering.

~~~

Rick had been right that the Vatos would let his people stay the night. Guillermo hadn’t even asked for any payment, but they still had Felipe go through the medical supplies from the CDC to see if anything was more useful for the elderly than Rick’s people. There’s no sign of Shane, Carol, and the kids, and he’s still cursing himself for not noticing they’d disappeared from the rear of the caravan during the herd.

Even Daryl and his passengers aren’t sure when they stopped seeing the Cherokee. All Rick can do is trust in Shane’s ability to adapt and hope the same determination that kept Lori and Carl safe is something that endures to keep their missing people safe. Rick will just have to have the same faith he’ll find Shane and the others the same as he believed he would find Lori and Carl before. Tomorrow, they’ll find somewhere to stay that isn’t a drain on the Vatos’ resources and start the search.

Until then, Rick is just grateful for a safe place to stay after the chaos of the CDC escape and hopes Shane is somewhere just as safe for the night.

Chapter Text

Two weeks of searching around Atlanta yields nothing. Shane’s worked their way down the western side of the city, even rechecking the quarry, but there’s no sign that Rick or the others returned there. Only the weathering note for Rick’s friend remains, so they add a note of their own, just in case, and put distance between themselves and the quarry.

Once he can find an isolated place to park, he pulls the Cherokee into a fenced yard and takes Sophia with him to clear the yard. It’s not the first time he’s let the now teenager take out a walker, and Carol both hates the necessity and appreciates that should Sophia be separated from them, she’s far safer now than she was before. The boys haven’t yet, but they’ll have to learn soon.

When they return, the boys and Sophia explore the big backyard while Shane opens the big road atlas on the hood to show Carol the routes to King County. “I’ve checked everywhere around the city, and there’s no sign of the Vatos or Rick and the others, so this is really the only option left. I don’t want to keep the kids on the move like this.”

Carol doesn’t either, so she’s glad she doesn’t have to wheedle the idea past him. Shane listens to her in ways Ed never would have, but it’s hard to forget that instinct to just let him lead where they need to go.

“Is there a safe place down there to stay? Yours or Rick’s or something?”

Shane taps an area outside of the county seat. “Mine. Got it cheap for a place on the water because it was falling apart and just meant to be a boathouse. But it’s fenced in, so…” he trails off, studying the town instead. “Rick’s place isn’t fenced at all, not even the backyard. Can’t remember what house that friend he met was in.”

“Hopefully it will be obvious.” Even if they can’t find the others, adding even one more adult to their number will help, and Carol imagines someone who has been living with just himself and a kid would be pretty damn skilled for this world by now.

“We can keep looking. Maybe even head over toward Fort Benning. It’s always possible they decided to go with my idea thinking I might go that way.”

Shaking her head, Carol glances at the kids. “We need a safe place to stay. With just us, if the Cherokee breaks down, we’re in a hell of a mess.”

They’ve gleaned supplies where they find them, to the point Shane liberated an enclosed trailer to tow behind the Cherokee for the extras. But staying on the move, they’re always looking for places to sleep, and the fuel requirements of switching to an RV make them both wary for now.

Shane follows her line of sight and sighs. “Staying put would be safer. We could be circling each other now and never know it.”

“That radio Rick’s friend has would help, right?”

The nonplussed look Shane gets is enough to make Carol laugh, and he grins sheepishly. “Yeah, if Rick’s remembering to check his. Not sure if he had a way to charge it. And if we can’t find his friend, there’s bound to be more radios at the sheriff’s station that I can take. Couldn’t hurt us to have them for our own use, although the damn things are older than dirt.”

The sun is starting to set, sending the summer sky into a kaleidoscope of yellow, orange, and red. Carol eyes the house warily. It’s probably hot as hell, even if they open all the windows. “Do we try indoors or set up the tent again?”

More often than not, their pattern has been to set up the tent and let the boys sleep while Carol and Shane take turns on watch. Sophia’s set her own watch, but only overlapping an adult’s. It’s wearing on both Shane and Carol, so finding a permanent place to stay would help them both out.

“Tent.” Shane flinches just a little, dropping his voice low despite the kids being across the yard, the boys swinging idly pair of swings while Sophia flops in the grass nearby, watching them. “Got a glimpse inside. Someone opted out.”

“Oh, god.”

Before she can ask, he nudges her elbow before gripping it lightly, and when she meets his gaze, he’s as serious as she’s ever seen him. “Didn’t let Sophia see. It’s not the same as walkers, and I know she’s gonna come across it eventually, but for now, I can spare her that.”

Carol nods, patting his hand as a sort of wordless thank you before going to open the back hatch of the SUV and slinging the bag with the tent out. As soon as the kids see her with it in hand, they come jogging over, gathering their own things from the back. By the time she’s got the tent set up with Benjamin and Henry’s help, Shane and Sophia have something warmed up for everyone to eat.

As they all sit on the grass, Shane tells the kids the confirmed plan to leave Atlanta, with no fuss at all from anyone, as expected. Sophia looks thoughtful as she finishes a bite of beef stew, though, prompting Carol to remind her to speak up.

“Away from the city, we might find gardens and orchards and stuff, right? Maybe like those you-pick farms?”

“Berries are starting to get out of season,” Shane says, mulling it over. “But I’m betting the gardens people put in have some things we can use, if the critters haven’t gotten them all.”

“Be nice if we could get the fresh stuff. Save the canned goods.”

As much as Carol loves Sophia’s logic, she also feels guilty that her daughter comes to the plan so easily, thinking ahead about food in ways most girls her age wouldn’t. It corners her into one of those painfully introspective moments that she hopes the kids just write off as being tired, especially as Shane keeps up conversation with enough ease they aren’t exactly missing out. The kids go to bed with ease, so she figures she’s succeeded until Shane calls her name softly before she can enter the tent herself.

“You okay? I know we’re giving up the active search, but we won’t give up in general. It’ll be easier with more adults, but we’ll be alright.”

Carol thinks about the fact that she and Sophia can both take down walkers, something they couldn’t do two weeks ago, and how the boys are included in everything their age and abilities allow. She gives Shane a bittersweet smile and comes to sit beside him where he’s sitting his watch on the hood of the Cherokee.

“How many kids her age would start thinking about food like she did? Would Carl?”

Shane laughs quietly and rubs a hand over his hair. “Now? Yeah. Before? No, I doubt he ever considered where food came from or that he might go without. I think the kids have it easier than us, actually, because this world is more of an adventure for them than it can ever be for us.”

“You really think we can scavenge from gardens?” It’s a reassuring thought, being reminded that some foods are self-replenishing. Right now they’ve got maybe a week’s worth of food, but the quarry camp’s always precarious supplies taught her that it’s a constant search.

“Yeah. Getting outside the city where more people at least put in a few things, we should get some decent pickings. Animals will have gotten into many things, but they won’t eat it all.” He turns to study her, brows furrowed. “The kids won’t go hungry, Carol. We’ll make sure of that, and honestly, it’s easier with just the five of us. No one complaining or eating more than their fair share.”

Guilt trickles through her that Ed was one of those types, but she reminds herself that he wasn’t the only one at the camp who whined. Shane bumps her shoulder with his.

“Go get some sleep. We’ll head toward King County come dawn.”

She agrees, bidding him goodnight, but sleep eludes her. The light doze that seems her best effort does eventually set in, so she resolves to let the problems sort themselves out as they appear. As long as the kids are content, they’ll all be just fine.

~~~

Initially, Shane had been genuinely concerned about his ability to keep Carol and the kids safe with everyone so inexperienced, but one thing he’s learned is that they all four adapt quickly and easily. Being on the move is hard, but nowhere close to Atlanta is safe for a long-term camp, so suggesting they finally move outside the city had been the only option he could consider. Fort Benning is still a possibility in his mind, but it’s not as viable with such a small group.

They’re halfway to King County by noon, and the kids have been alert and watching for signs of anything like Sophia suggested. The further they get from Atlanta’s sprawl, the less the shops have been looted as well, and Carol makes careful notes of where they might come back for supplies. Today is about getting somewhere he can set up a home base.

As much as he reassured Carol that they aren’t giving up the search, it’s been too long. If Rick’s not headed back home, thinking Shane would go there or at least to find his friend, he really has no idea what to keep trying. The search eats up time that is needed to make sure the kids survive the next few months.

“Shane, look!” It’s Henry who alerts him. “That’s a really big garden, right?”

Sure enough, the side yard of a rural house alongside the state highway is one very large fenced-in garden. It’s even netted over the top by a crafty gardener obviously determined to keep birds off their tomatoes. Shane makes the turn into the driveway, thanking Henry for the alert.

“Don’t see any signs of anyone still living here,” Shane tells them as he studies the domestic plants gone wild without a human gardener for weeding and culling. “There’s too much left in the garden that a resident would be trying to eat or store.”

There are no vehicles, either, so he’s guessing the people living here evacuated like the government told everyone to do. Still, they’re cautious as they ease out of the car. Carol takes the boys into the garden, unlocking the gate, while Shane and Sophia circle the house, checking for any signs people have come and gone, or that there are walkers inside. They find nothing except a locked-up house that shows signs of hasty packing through the patio door where the blinds were left open.

Sophia snags a couple of bushel baskets from under the overhang of a small metal shed that houses the lawnmower and a few outdoor implements, carrying them off to her mother and brothers. The only place left unsearched is the treehouse out back, but just when Shane starts that way, Carol calls his name.

“Maybe no one’s living here,” she tells him when he gets to the garden. “But someone has scavenged here. Fairly recently, too.”

Nudging a mostly-eaten tomato rolled against a fence with the toe of her boot, she draws Shane’s attention to the fact that there are three of the discarded little cores from where the big tomatoes are planted. He studies them for a minute, knowing they could still be animal related, but how would something get inside a secured garden like this? Then he spots the peach pit, and there aren’t any peach trees on the property.

“What else did you find?”

“A few things picked. Mostly tomatoes, but there’s a cabbage missing from the row and at least two watermelons. Things that can be eaten raw.”

Carol looks worried, and Shane can’t blame her. “Fill the baskets Sophia brought and get back in the car. Could be someone passing through, and maybe they don’t know how to cook the other things or didn’t have access to make a fire.”

He stays on guard, gaze sweeping the property with his gun drawn. Not everyone out there will be friendlies. Rick’s group in Atlanta had gotten damn lucky that the Vatos weren’t the sort to actually hurt Glenn, but for Shane, it’s a strong reminder that this isn’t a world for the sweeter natured. The Vatos had needed guns and ammunition for a reason, and it wasn’t the walkers.

Heading back to the Cherokee behind them with their overflowing baskets of fresh food, Shane hesitates as he opens the driver’s door. Something about the unsearched treehouse bothers him.

“Sophia, that treehouse had the rope ladder down earlier, didn’t it?”

Poised to get into the back seat, Sophia turns and looks, frowning. “Yeah, it did. I remember because it was blowing in the wind, and I was thinking it would be weird to climb if it could move when you did.”

They’d been close to the treehouse, within easy range for anyone dangerous to attack him and Sophia both. The house probably has supplies, and the propane tank around the side tells Shane it would allow someone to cook or heat water, yet their watcher is in the treehouse.

“Oh, goddammit.”

“What?” Carol asks, alarm creeping into her voice. But it’s not the panic he would have expected back at the quarry. There’s some fight to it now, not all flight.

“I think it’s a kid.”

This is where the debate begins. If there’s genuinely a kid in that treehouse, one who didn’t call out to Shane and Sophia, will they respond to Shane trying to get them to come down? He can’t ask Carol to go alone, and venturing that far toward an unknown person with just the two of them makes him nervous. But there’s no way in hell he can leave a kid on their own.

Neither can Carol, because he sees her square her thin shoulders. “Let’s go help them.”

“I can drive if need to,” Sophia says, tipping her chin out boldly. “You showed me how it works.”

They don’t take the heavier precautions as much now, like that first night when he’d made Carol take the driver’s seat to clear the concession stand himself, but if this goes badly, the kids being able to flee is important. When he looks to Carol for permission, she nods.

“You taught her back at the ballfield for a reason, right?”

It hadn’t been a long lesson, just enough to prove to Sophia that she could drive the Cherokee around the track. There haven’t been a lot of safe places to let her practice since then. But it should work, for this.

“Alright. You get in the driver’s seat. Boys in the back.” He reaches for the Mossberg, chambering a shell and laying it in Carol’s seat. Sophia’s never shot live ammunition, even though he’s gleaned several boxes now while scavenging, but the shotgun is simple enough and she knows the basics. Hopefully, she won’t need it.

Sophia starts the engine, and Shane nods approvingly when she puts it in gear and carefully maneuvers so that the Cherokee is facing toward the driveway. Both boys turn to act as lookouts.

“Stay behind me.” Shane’s found a small revolver for Carol, but just like with the shotgun, he hasn’t risked letting them fire them yet. Guns are too noisy and their ammo stocks are currently too small. Once he gets back to King County, he knows what houses will be best to find extra.

Carol slips along behind his bulk, one hand gently against his back. When they reach the treehouse he sidesteps behind the shed before calling out a greeting.

“Hey, kid? You don’t need to be out here by yourself.”

There’s a part of him that prays it’s just one kid, if it’s a kid. He knows it could also be an adult that’s reasonably wary of other survivors, but for some reason, all his instincts are screaming that it’s a child. There’s no answer, so Carol tugs on his shirt. Glancing over his shoulder, he sees her mouth, “let me try.”

When he nods, Carol calls out, “Sweetheart? If you’re lost, it’s safe to come out now. You saw the other kids, right? I’m their mom.”

From the treehouse, Shane realizes its occupant might not have seen the boys or Carol. The garden entrance isn’t clearly seen from here. Sophia’s obviously young, but with the ballcap she’s been wearing in imitation of Shane’s, she also might have appeared to be a boy or young man.

His concerns are confirmed when there’s movement at the treehouse door. He glimpses a flash of blond before the door is adjusted so he can’t see inside. “I didn’t see kids.”

Female. Young. But hopefully not as young as the boys, Shane prays, if she’s been on her own.

“They were in the garden with me. You didn’t see me, either, did you?” Before he can stop her, Carol steps out away from the shed and Shane both. Holding her hands out, she smiles that soft smile she gave Shane back at the CDC. He can only hope it soothes wary lost children the same way it soothed an overwrought adult.

“There’s five of us. Me and Shane here. You saw my daughter Sophia with him earlier, I’ll bet, when they checked the house. The boys are nine years old. Twins. I’m Carol.”

The door swings open to reveal a bedraggled girl who looks older than Sophia, but not by a lot.

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Beth.”

“Why don’t we get you down here with us? We’ve got a place we’re heading, and you can come with us.”

“Somewhere safe?” The hope in the girl’s voice nearly breaks Shane’s heart.

“As safe as we can make it,” he says, stepping out to stand beside Carol.

The ladder drops with a hurried motion, and Beth scrambles down as if they’ll somehow change their minds if she doesn’t rush. Shane’s not surprised one bit when the girl allows Carol to wrap her arms around her and begin leading her to the waiting SUV. Beth is trembling as the tears start, big sobs that he imagines are relief as much as anything else.

Their little group of five is now six.

Chapter Text

The Cherokee really isn’t meant for six passengers, but they make it work. Since Beth is still clinging to Carol, Sophia takes the front passenger seat while the boys crowd themselves against one side of the back seat to let Carol sit with Beth held close. Carol ought to question the girl, but she cries herself to sleep. Depending on how long she’s been on her own, she might not have slept properly for days, so they let her rest even as Shane keeps up a quiet commentary to Sophia and the boys about their surroundings as they reach King County.

Shane’s place is on a backwater of the river, which requires a turn from paved road to county-maintained gravel to dirt road. The area is remote enough that the road is already becoming overgrown. They pass by an old house foundation, with nothing but crumbling, soot-stained brick supports and a barely standing brick fireplace before making a final turn down toward the small boathouse Shane mentioned.

“The house burned about ten years back,” Shane explains as he stops the Jeep outside a locked gate. “The family decided not to rebuild out here because of the cost of flood insurance, but kept the property for a while to have a place to camp and use the boathouse.”

“If you’re this far out, why did you fence it in?” Sophia asks when Shane is back in the driver’s seat after unlocking the gate.

“Had the idea that I was going to get a dog. Maybe two, so the first wouldn’t get lonely. With my work schedule, they needed a lot of space to play and roam when I wasn’t home.”

The fencing all looks quite new, so Carol assumes it was something Shane had recently finished. It’s not as tall as she would prefer, but the five-foot-high agricultural grade fencing looks sturdy enough. Unlike many other fences put up to keep pets in, it isn’t a long line of metal t-posts either. The fence posts are solid wooden posts reinforced periodically. Carol thinks that Shane could probably have kept actual farm animals behind this fencing.

Once the gate is locked behind them, it isn’t far to the little boathouse, and Carol shakes Beth awake. Beth startles, looking around frantically, but relaxes when Carol reminds her where she is. They all exit the vehicle, and the breeze off the river makes the summer heat feel far more bearable.

“There’s not a lot of space up here,” Shane cautions as he leads the way up to the elevated deck. “I’d figured on eventually building a house, but this was all I really needed.”

The almost embarrassed tone makes Carol expect something bare bones when Shane opens the door. She knows enough now to know he’d lived alone as a confirmed bachelor. But the large, open room is bright and airy, thanks to the far wall being a bank of windows overlooking the water. A neatly made king-sized bed is centered under the windows, with a kitchenette to the right of the entry and a couch and television just beyond a small enclosed room she guesses is the bathroom.

“I’ve got camping cots down in storage that I can bring up for the boys. You ladies take the bed, and I’ll take the couch.” His expression is concerned as he glances at Beth. “Let me check the pilot light, but there should be hot water. The storage tank should have enough water for a couple of showers.”

Carol takes the hint for Beth’s sake. They all need some time with more water than a basin or brief solar shower, but they’ve had an easier time than their new foundling. “Alright. Sophia and the boys will go down and unload the Cherokee. Beth can get cleaned up first.”

The kids head outside even as Shane disappears into the bathroom before reappearing. “All good. Pilot stayed on, so the water’s still hot. I’m going to go see if the generator will start up, because we’ll need it to refill the water storage from the river and run the refrigerator.”

As soon as Shane goes outside, Carol coaxes Beth into the bathroom. It’s a tiny space, just big enough for a shower stall, toilet, and sink. A shelf over the toilet holds towels and washcloths, and instead of a mirror or medicine cabinet, there’s a window over the sink. Carol manages to get the window open to allow some sort of air circulation.

While Beth hasn’t said a word since she woke up, she does move to turn on the water and adjust it, standing with her fingers under the water and looking as if the existence of the shower is a miracle. Considering how rough the world is outside and not knowing how long Beth has been on her own, Carol suspects hot water just might feel like an actual miracle.

“Get cleaned up. I’ll get some of my clothes and bring them in for you to wear after your shower.”

“Thank you,” Beth says softly, surprising Carol by turning to hug her tightly. “I’ll make it a quick shower.”

Smoothing her hand over Beth’s tangled hair, Carol shakes her head. “No, you take as long as you need. We’ll all be fine waiting a bit. With the river available, we might even have fish for supper, so I’m sure it’ll be better for the others to shower after they’ve done that. Leave the door ajar, and I’ll open the rest of the windows so you get a breeze.”

Giving Beth privacy for her shower, Carol opens the windows before she goes to suggest the fishing trip. She’d seen the boat moored below the raised living quarters, floating peacefully in the water as if it were a regular day for its owner to come home. Shane thinks it over and agrees, showing Carol how to operate the pump to draw up more water now that he’s got the generator running.

A month ago, having any of her kids out of her sight would have terrified Carol. Instead, she stands on the bank and watches Shane pilot the boat away, Henry sitting beside him as Shane teaches him how to run the boat as well. Benjamin and Sophia are on other seats, but they’re obviously listening intently. Content that they’re as safe as they’ve been since they were separated from the others, Carol goes back upstairs and turns on the ceiling fans now that basic electricity is restored. It’ll never replace air conditioning, but it’s cooler than being indoors would be otherwise.

Unsurprisingly, Beth is still in the bathroom, although the water has shut off. Carol busies herself by cleaning out the refrigerator, which is in better shape than she expected for being without power for two months. There’s a chest freezer in a downstairs closet that Shane warned her not to open, though, so she figures that’s where the bulk of what would have spoiled is. Hauling the bag of discarded food and condiments outside, she leaves it on the deck.

Beth is standing just outside the bathroom door, looking lost. “I didn’t know what to do with my dirty clothes.”

“We’ll get Shane to rig up a clothesline of some sort outside tomorrow and get everything washed up. Just put them in the hamper by the bathroom door.” He’d taken his clothes into town to a laundromat that offered full service, so there aren’t any appliances here. She can’t complain, because it’ll be far easier than the quarry, not to mention safer.

While Beth drops her clothes into the hamper, which is really a specially designed rack to hold a large laundry bag, Carol fills the kettle and sets it on the stove. The advantage of this place is that everything was set up to run without the convenience of unlimited electricity. They need to be cautious of the propane, but Shane seems confident that they can obtain more.

“I know it seems weird for summertime, but some hot chocolate seems in order,” Carol says. “Why don’t you take a seat while the water boils?”

Beth doesn’t argue, sitting quietly on the couch with her arms curled around her knees until Carol brings her a large mug. The warm drink will soothe the traumatized girl, and hopefully Beth will finally feel up to sharing what led her to hiding in that abandoned treehouse without a bunch of people staring at her. She doesn’t hover, though, choosing to sort through the baskets of vegetables the kids brought up and using the small two-seater table as a prep area. If the fishing trip brings back anything worthwhile, they’ll still need something to go with it.

“If this is his house, why were you traveling?”

That wasn’t the first thing Carol expected to hear from Beth, but any curiosity is good. As casually as she can, Carol explains about the quarry and getting separated from their group. When she finishes, Beth looks a little stunned.

“I know those people,” she says, setting her mug down on the coffee table. “They were at my family’s farm.”

The news makes Carol freeze in her work. “All of them?”

Beth nods vigorously. “I think so. They were on their way to Fort Benning, and they were looking for all of you. Mr. Grimes was very insistent that you’d be alive out here somewhere.”

It’s an unsettlingly happy feeling for Carol to hear they hadn’t been given up for dead, but the pessimistic side of her says that it’s because Shane is with them. Rick barely knows Carol and her kids, and the rest of their group just pities her. Either way, the others were alive very recently.

“What happened for you to get separated from everyone?” Carol asks, hoping it wasn’t a disaster at the level of the quarry or the CDC.

The question makes Beth shiver and reach for her drink. She sips a bit before she answers. “Have you seen the sick gather up into herds?”

“Once.” It had been a horrifying sight to see hundreds of the dead treading slowly toward the west. That had been one of the reasons they decided to put a time limit on how long they stayed close to Atlanta. The fact that the herd hadn’t noticed them had been luck they didn’t want to rely on.

“They hid from a herd at a highway traffic jam, but one of the men got injured. He was really sick when they ran into my sister in town at the pharmacy, but my daddy was able to help him even though he’s a veterinarian and not a people doctor. They were staying for a couple of days until he was well enough to travel.” Beth makes a soft sobbing sound, which draws Carol to sit beside her and slip an arm around her.

“What happened? The herd came to the farm?”

Beth nods jerkily. “There were so many of them. They just kept coming and kept coming, and my daddy wouldn’t leave the farm because of the barn.” She begins crying in earnest. “My mama had the virus. She and my brother… They were inside the barn. He said there would be a cure someday, and we had to keep them safe. They were just sick.”

Oh, god. Carol can’t imagine what facing a herd would be like for a child who has been taught that the walkers are simply sick, and it doesn’t sound like her father handled his grief at all. As a man with medical training, he should have been better able to understand what happens to the dead than most, but mourning clouded his judgment. It explains the odd term Beth used about the herds, too.

“I don’t know if he got off the farm at all. T-Dog was driving the truck, and Lori was bringing me and Patricia to it, so we’d be safe. But we were too slow, and there was so much noise from the others shooting, and one of the sick got ahold of Patricia. Lori killed him, but it wasn’t enough, and they took her and…”

Carol doesn’t need the rest of the words to know what happened to Patricia, who must have been someone from the girl’s family. She rocks gently as Beth cries, but Beth is too dehydrated for it to last long.

“How did you get away from the dead?” If she keeps repeating that word, maybe it’ll solidify the idea in Beth’s mind that they aren’t sick, they’re dead. There’s no cure for what’s wrong with the walkers, and Carol knew that long before Jenner showed that recording.

“I fell, and Lori was trying to get rid of the dead, but one of the ones she shot, they fell on me. I think she thought they got me like they got Patricia. I heard T-Dog shouting at her, and she was screaming my name, but he pulled her away and the truck left. They didn’t hear me. There was so much noise. So much shooting and growling and screaming.”

Beth falls quiet, hands gripping the mug like it’s a lifeline, and Carol has no idea how to help her. The quarry attack had been terrifying, especially not knowing where the boys were, but once the chaos ended, she knew everyone vital to her was okay.

“How did you get away?” Carol asks at last, although she has a suspicion based on the story the folks told about how Rick and Glenn got them off the Atlanta rooftop.

“I just laid there until there was no more noise.” Beth takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I even slept like that, laying under all the mess of the dead ones, because I was too afraid to move.”

“That was a smart move, Beth. It probably kept you safe, because you smelled like them. They know the difference.”

“I wasn’t being smart. I was being scared.” Sighing, she takes a big gulp, finishing off her hot chocolate, and Carol takes the cup and refills it to give Beth time to settle her nerves.

Once Beth has a few sips, Carol thinks about the clothes the girl put in the hamper. Nothing about the outfit showed the damage that laying under one or more of the dead would cause. Her clothes had been dirty and grubby, but only from being worn for days. They’d also fit her well, despite her very thin frame, so Carol thinks they are Beth’s own clothes.

“Did you stay on the farm, after the dead moved on?”

“Yeah. The cows and chickens got loose, and they followed them. There were still a few strays when I finally tried to move, but they didn’t notice me at all. So I went into the house and locked it up tight. I hid upstairs until even the strays left and got myself clean. After a while, I realized no one was coming back, and I didn’t want to stay there alone forever, so I started walking.”

Carol questions Beth gently before the girl’s grumbling stomach reminds her that Beth has been living on scavenged fruit and vegetables for days. She rummages in the pantry cabinet, finding a can of beef stew and heating it up to tide Beth over until the others return. After she’s done eating, Beth curls up on the bed and sleeps so deeply that Carol thinks maybe the poor kid hasn’t slept at all since she was separated from her family.

The fishing trip pays off in plenty, and after the catch is cleaned under Shane’s supervision, they fry up the entire lot on the outdoor grill. The kids gorge themselves on fish and fried potatoes, giggling so happily that Carol keeps the news of Beth’s encounter with their missing people to herself. Once she’s sent them to play, Sophia content to supervise the boys running wildly in a way they haven’t been able to in ages, Shane leans against the deck railing and studies Carol carefully.

“How bad is it?”

Taking a deep breath, Carol relays what Beth told her, wondering what this does for their plans to stay here and hope Rick brings the others back to familiar territory. Shane looks thoughtful and doesn’t respond right away, staring out at the water in the distance.

“I’ll get the farm’s address from Beth. I can go check it out. Look for the signs that she wasn’t able to look for. Would you feel safe if I left you here with all the kids for however long it takes? It can’t be too far if she walked it.”

Identifying the dead bodies, Shane means, because neither of them expected a teenage girl to look around the fallen to see which ones had been people she knew versus long-dead walkers. Beth knows at least one of her people died, and Carol knows there could be some of their own who fell as well. The only ones Beth seemed sure survived were T-Dog and Lori, although she’d stated that all of the vehicles were gone, including Dale’s cranky old Winnebago.

“We’ll be fine. The fence will keep any stray walkers out, and there’s nothing here to attract a herd. There’s plenty of food.” Carol isn’t sure about taking the boat out without Shane, but she fished enough in her childhood to be able to fish from the bank to supplement what they’ve scavenged, and Shane shouldn’t be gone long.

Before the quarry attack, she would have been terrified to be in charge of the children all on her own, even in a place as relatively secure as this one. But she vowed to leave that person behind, buried in the shallow grave alongside Ed. That isn’t her anymore, and they need answers, Shane more than Carol, because while all her family is right here with her, his is lost out there somewhere.

She’s afraid, but it’s something she can control now. Telling Shane they’ll be fine is the truth. They’ll all be just fine.

Chapter Text

Beth’s family farm is just about fifty miles from Shane’s home in northern King County. Once, it would have taken just over an hour to arrive, barring traffic issues. Now? It takes him well over two hours, and as much as he wants answers, he feels like his skin is crawling with the need to turn around and get back home.

One thing his nerves teach him is that he needs to get a second vehicle. Ed may have been a complete and utter asshole, but the late seventies model Jeep Cherokee is well maintained and one of the better choices for their current world as long as Shane can find and treat gasoline. Eventually, he needs to switch to something diesel, since that fuel will last longer for him to find and store. But before that, they need a setup where if one adult leaves the property, the other has an escape possibility that isn’t stuffing four kids on a small jon boat.

Shane ignores the farmhouse initially after confirming for himself that there are no vehicles he recognizes anywhere in sight. It rained during the night, making the driveway fairly muddy, so he’s also certain that no one came or went in the hours since the rain. Keeping a wary eye out for areas walkers might lurk out of sight, he makes his way to the tatters of the camp.

Several of the abandoned and flattened tents look familiar, and his heart falls a bit as he pokes through them. They’d gotten too comfortable here and unpacked too many things. Leaving in such a hurry, many valuables were left behind. What really makes him wince is finding one of the duffel bags of medications from the CDC that Carol so carefully squirrelled away for everyone. He hopes the other one stayed in a vehicle, at least. Gathering up everything he can salvage, he packs it into the Cherokee before eyeing the fallen bodies scattered around the property.

Most are decomposed enough they’ve been walkers for a while, and those show the signs of gunshot wounds. Aim had not been the frantic people’s strong point, though, and Shane thinks a lot of ammunition got wasted as they fought and fled.

There’s just enough of Patricia left to recognize her from Beth’s halting description. Shane cuts away a piece of a damaged tent and drags her body away from the walkers who claimed her life before continuing his search. There’s more and more of the walkers, until finally, the face Shane finds is familiar.

“Oh, hell, old man.”

Shane doesn’t expect to feel this level of regret over Dale’s passing, not when he found the old man irritating more often than not. But with his RV gone, Shane supposes he’d just assumed the man escaped with it. Then again, it also makes sense that Dale would be the type of man to go down fighting to protect the others’ escape route.

Treating Dale the same way as Patricia, Shane finishes his search. If anyone else was bitten, they managed to turn and walk, but he’s at least grateful that he didn’t find any of the others here, especially Carl. The barn somehow held despite the herd, with the family members and neighbors Beth mentioned still trapped inside. He can’t stomach the idea of leaving even more walkers to roam should they eventually escape, so he opens the doors and slowly and methodically puts down the inhabitants with a machete.

Digging graves would take entirely too long on his own, so Shane opts for a funeral pyre instead. There’s plenty of firewood handy, and he soaks the wood thoroughly with lighter fluid. Waiting to light the pyre until after he’s searched the house, he tackles it at last.

Signs of both the hurried departure and Beth’s lonely days are everywhere. He gathers up everything he thinks might be useful, including things he simply doesn’t have enough of at his house, like quilts and towels, as well as a good chunk of Beth’s clothes and some of her family photos. Since no one’s returned to the farmhouse yet, he assumes they aren’t going to. With Beth assumed dead, it’s very possible that no one wants to return to a place where they think they lost at least three people, including a child. Leaving a cryptic note on the refrigerator is all he really can do in case someone does return.

Once the Cherokee is as full as he can safely make it, he is about to go light the pyre when he hears an odd noise from behind the house. Careful and wary, he draws his gun and eases around the corner… only to chuckle softly at himself.

For once, his wariness is only protecting him from a scrawny little rooster and two bedraggled hens. They must be survivors of the Greene flock who returned to the farm once the walkers drifted away. Since they don’t scatter when he approaches, he searches in a bin next to the damaged chicken coop and scoops out a can of chicken feed and scatters it for the trio. While they gobble hungrily, he goes inside the house and finds a pair of pillow cases.

The hens he catches easily, tucking them into one of the pillow cases. The rooster is a bit more of a task, but he’s too used to human interaction in the end, so he ends up in his own private pillow case for transport. Settling them in the Cherokee along with as much food as he can scoop into a discarded feed bag, he retrieves Annette and Shawn’s bodies from the barn and adds them to the pyre with Dale and Patricia before setting it ablaze. The neighbors and strangers stay where they fell, but he can at least tell Beth those she loved had a funeral of some sort and weren’t left to the elements.

As Shane leaves the farm, the flames are still burning strong, catching his eye in the rear view mirror. If luck is a real thing, Rick and the others will swing back by the farm and find his note. He’s never been the type to rely on luck, though, so for now, he’s got to get home and make sure things stay safe for those he’s left responsible for.

~*~

Shane leaves as soon as the sky starts getting lighter, thanking her quietly for the bowl of sweetened grits she insists he eat before he goes. Carol sets about keeping the kids busy while Shane’s away. Beth is doing much better after a few good meals and a night of sleep curled safely against Carol’s side while Sophia was on the other.

There are plenty of chores, between giving the place a good scrub after no one was in residence for months and copious amounts of laundry. The place seems safe for now, but Carol didn’t trust longevity in much before the world went to shit, so she sure isn’t now. Getting everything washed up while they can is essential.

“Do you think we could put in a garden here?” Beth asks, pausing in the middle of hanging a freshly washed shirt on the line next to Carol. Sophia and the boys are scrubbing away at another basket for them to deal with, so Carol pauses in her own task to consider the idea.

“There’s space. I don’t think Shane would object, although I think maybe we’d need a tiller or something?” There’s grassy open space that gets good sun, and Carol knows some plants are specifically started in late summer for fall crops. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, while it’s still so hot, we could plant beans, potatoes, squash. Maybe some cucumbers, too. Pickles keep a long time. We wouldn’t necessary get anything to eat for a few months, but it would be good to do for winter. Plus once things are cooler, we could plant cabbage, onions, and greens.”

Even as much as Carol wants to be prepared to run at any time, she also knows being prepared to stay is equally important. Staying in the quarry so long, hoping for government rescue? That was foolish past the first couple of weeks. No help is coming, so they have to settle for helping themselves.

“Patience is a virtue for gardening, I remember.” Carol smiles brightly at Beth and reaches for a damp sock to hang up. “We’ll ask Shane as soon as he gets back. He’ll know where best to look.”

“He’s really teaching y’all?” Beth asks after a few moments of returning to her task. “How to shoot and all that?”

“Yes. More me and Sophia than the twins so far, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to teach you as well.”

Beth’s expression turns grim as she nods, flexing her hand and staring at her fingers, obviously remembering losing her grip on Patricia. “I don’t want to feel helpless ever again.”

“I understand.” Learning self-defence and how to deal with walkers isn’t going to fix everything, because Carol knows that even Shane has had those frustrated moments of helplessness. But there’s a huge difference between having no skills to change the situation and just running out of options.

They pause after the laundry is done to eat lunch, which Carol keeps vegetarian simply because they have baskets worth of those from raided gardens. If Shane hasn’t returned by close to supper time, she’ll take the kids fishing from the bank. With a good supply of protein at hand, they need to take advantage of it.

With the breeze off the water and the temperature pushing Shane’s thermometer hung on the side of the house into the high nineties, a large portion of the laundry is dry much more quickly than Carol expected. She wants to laugh at herself for being so relieved as they fold and tuck things away, leaving only the thicker fabrics like socks and jeans to bake in the day’s heat. It’s much easier than the quarry, where the lack of regular air movement often meant drying was a full day affair even for lightweight fabrics if the humidity was high.

“Do you think he’s safe out there, Mama?” Sophia asks as she brings the last basket up to the boathouse for Carol to put away.

“I’m sure he’s fine, sweetheart. He knows how to avoid the walkers, and the Jeep is pretty reliable.” She watched Shane top off the tank before he left, too, and she knows he took one of the full five-gallon gas cans with him.

“What if he finds more people didn’t make it?”

At the worried note in Sophia’s voice, Carol stops putting away laundry and reaches out to hug her daughter close. “I’m betting you’re worried about Carl.”

“Yeah. He wasn’t with his mama and Beth, so anything could have happened.”

“Well, unless Shane finds evidence otherwise, we’re going to assume Carl was with his father, and Rick knows how to keep them both safe.”

Reassured, Sophia heads back downstairs, but quick shouts from the boys lead Carol to snag the shotgun Shane left her and head outside. The kids scamper to the shadows under the boathouse, but there’s no need for them to retreat. Shane’s now-familiar form emerges from the Cherokee to open the gate. Once he reaches the house, they can see that the vehicle is stuffed full of supplies, but Shane doesn’t bother with them right away, coming to face Beth.

“The good news is, I didn’t find any of your people on the farm except for Patricia,” he tells her. “I laid her and your mama and brother to rest, along with Dale.”

At the mention of kindly Dale’s name, Carol’s heart lurches, and she reaches out to pull the boys in close. He’d often spent time with them, watching over all the kids in camp in general, but having a special touch with the youngest ones like Benjamin, Henry, and Louis Morales. Sophia’s expression takes on that stoic look Carol hated was becoming so commonplace for her daughter as she grew up enough to learn just how unfair life truly was. At least Shane didn’t find any signs of the others that Beth didn’t see escape.

“And the bad news?” Beth looks tearful, but she squares her shoulders bravely.

“I didn’t find any sign that anyone ever came back to the farm, not even after you left. But I left them a note. If that changes, hopefully, they’ll come find us here. Made sure they knew you survived.”

Carol has to hide a smile at Shane’s startled expression when Beth impulsively hugs him, muttering a thank you. Beth releases him too quickly for Shane to return the hug, turning to the other kids.

“C’mon. We’ve got a lot of stuff to unload.”

Clothes, food, and even linens don’t surprise Carol that Shane collected them. It’s the chickens that are an entertaining surprise, especially as Shane crouches to help the boys unfasten the pillowcases to let the disgruntled poultry escape. The birds eye their new surroundings with more of a calm nature than Carol expects them to have. The hens start exploring, even as the undersized rooster gives Shane the evil eye in a way that makes her wonder just how long a chicken’s memory actually is.

“Now, boys, we’re gonna have to build them a chicken coop, because out in the woods like this, lots of things find chicken tasty just like we do. Y’all wanna help me?”

“Do they need a fence?” Benjamin asks, attention torn between Shane and the wandering animals.

“Nah. We’re going to let them out of the coop in the mornings and coax them inside at night. During the day, we’ll let them wander around so they can eat bugs and grubs and stuff to keep their diet healthy. Chickens will eat just about anything, but we’re gonna try not to eat their eggs right away.”

“Do you think we’ll get babies?” Henry’s excitement has him damn near vibrating out of his skin.

“That’s the plan to start with. How long does it take for a chicken egg to hatch, Beth?”

Beth pauses looking through the bag of clothes Shane indicated was hers. “About three weeks. Can’t always trust a hen to hatch them out, though. Maybe we could find an incubator somewhere in town? Then we can be in charge of keeping them warm, if there’s electric to spare.”

“I think we can consider that a really good use of our electricity,” Shane reassures her. “Need to run into town to get some extra lumber and such. Do we all want to load up?”

Carol considers it before shaking her head. Crowding them all into the Cherokee just means fewer supplies can be transported “Why don’t you take the girls, since the boys are going to help you build the coop? The boys can help me see about catching supper.”

Watching Sophia head off with Shane and Beth is nerve-wracking, but like most things, Carol reminds herself it’s a necessity now. She can’t always keep the kids in her direct line of sight, and it’s not like Shane will do anything to endanger either of the girls. Making note of the time as they leave, just prior to four in the afternoon, Carol sets off with the boys to see if twenty years of living in town have made her forget how to bait a hook.

It’s disappointing that Shane’s trip to the farm didn’t turn up their missing people or any real clues as to where they might have gone, but these days, Carol takes no news as good news. Losing Dale is terrible, but it would have been worse if Shane had found Glenn or Carl, who are so very young. She’ll just keep praying that everyone is safe out there somewhere. They got one miracle in finding Beth and getting this much news.

Eventually, they’ll get another.

Chapter Text

Six months ago, Shane would have said even having a girlfriend living in the boathouse would be too much. The space isn’t large at all, and he’s never lived with anyone full time, just had the occasional longer-term lady friend with her own key, here or the apartment he had in town before. Sharing ought to drive him crazy, but even more than the world turning upside down, seeing Rick shot and thinking he was dead just seems to have forever adjusted Shane’s need to be around others.

Two months after they got separated at the CDC, he’s losing hope that Rick and the others will turn up, and he’s fairly certain he’s the only one with any optimism on that front anymore. Beth has taken on a sort of fatalistic approach to their world that he knows protects her from falling apart. Neither he nor Carol want to push in case she shatters beyond their ability to bring her back.

It’s halfway through September, though, and even though Georgia doesn’t have harsh winters, he worries that this year might be an exception. They’ve sacrificed propane to keep an outdoor burner running to can the excess of fruits and vegetables they’ve gleaned from the gardens. It makes him wish he’d moved the quarry group out away from the city sooner because they certainly aren’t going hungry right now.

“You’re allowed to rest, you know.”

Pausing in stacking the firewood he’s unloading, he takes the Gatorade Sophia offers him, her smile more mischievous than it once would have been as she moves to take over stacking wood. The bolder personality she’s been unveiling since the quarry is a marvel to watch. The boys had a slightly better relationship with Ed, so they sometimes miss their father despite all of Ed’s flaws, but Sophia’s unabashed familial attachment to him? Shane can only be grateful that Carol grabbed the wrong book at the CDC that night.

“That sounds like something your mama might say.”

Sophia shrugs. “She worries about you getting sick if you don’t rest enough.”

It’s hard to miss anyone’s sleep habits when they’re sharing a single living and sleeping space. The boys sleep with youthful abandon, tucked into their camp cots. Carol still sleeps as if being instantly alert is essential to her well-being, and he wonders if finding another cot so she’s not sharing a bed with two girls who sleep restlessly would be welcomed. Then again, Shane hasn’t lost his ability to catnap from years on the police force, but he can’t shed the need to be wary even in sleep himself.

“I’ll try to do better and not worry your mama then,” Shane offers, finishing off the drink and setting the bottle aside to be refilled with water for times they head off property.

While he’s not used to anyone openly worrying about him the way Carol does, not since his grandmother died, he also is highly aware Carol isn’t the only one keeping an eye on him. He’s a role model here in ways he wasn’t at the quarry.

He and Sophia make short work of the remainder of the firewood load, while he mulls over any solution. “Maybe we set a day off for the week where we just do the basics? Just meals and stuff, like a lazy weekend before. Think that would help your mama worry a bit less?”

Based on the bright smile it earns him, Sophia likes that idea just fine.

Carol takes it and runs with it, though, going a step further by instituting a movie night as a small splurge in their electricity use. The kids enjoy that first night so much that Shane thinks about some of the things Lori always wanted for family time and collects up board games on his next supply run. Monopoly might have been a bit of a miscalculation, but the fact that the boys don’t even know how to play makes it even more fun.

“Can we check on the chicks and the incubator?” Henry asks when the game is finally won by a happily smug Carol, who swears she hasn’t played the game in years.

It had been a bit of a surprise to Shane that they could simply gather the eggs the two hens laid and leave them on the counter and pop them in the incubator when they have enough to make running the incubator worthwhile. The models they found at the hardware store will actually hold forty-one eggs, but with just two hens, that would be a lot of waiting at about an egg per day. After twelve days, they had nineteen eggs to tuck in the incubator.

Sixteen of those hatched at the end of August, making a little brooder nursery necessary that the boys have toiled loyally over keeping the chicks clean, fed, and happy. They had a week where they got the very welcome treat of Carol being able to make baked goods that needed eggs before they started saving eggs again. Now the incubator is host to twenty eggs that are due to hatch in another week.

“Whose turn is it to candle the eggs?” Shane asks, even though he knows the answer. Sophia and Henry checked the eggs after the first week and discarded two of the original twenty-two that weren’t developing.

“Benjamin’s! It’s mine to change the bedding,” Henry replies, getting to his feet.

The need for heat in the brooder without a dedicated mother hen means that Shane’s original thought of the chicks just going into the coop with the adult chickens can’t work. Plus the rooster is a mean little bastard Shane isn’t entirely sure won’t bully the little black and gray puffballs that pass as baby chickens in the brooder pen they’ve set up outside below the deck. Beth’s cautions about heat lamps starting fires (and Shane’s wince at the power they draw) led to improvising a reptile tank heat mat under a little area the boys call the ‘mama cave’ that the chicks wander in and out of at will.

“I’ll help Benjamin,” Carol offers. Beth taught them all the skills needed for the first batch, but this time around, they’re testing out what they learned.

Beth heads for the shower, something they can’t manage for everyone daily, but it’s still better than the quarry for hygiene. Daily showers are a luxury now unless someone’s done something that needs the muck taken off them, although Shane and the boys have been using a solar camping shower outside while the weather holds warm enough. Benjamin and Henry love it, and it gives the ladies of the household a bit of privacy.

Sophia follows them down the stairs, heading out to check a couple of turtle traps set in the river shallows at the end of the property. Encouraging her independence is one of the best parts of remote property. She’s damn near fearless these days, but with more alertness to her surroundings than Carl had.

Excited cheeps greet Henry as he opens the door after grubbing in a bucket next to the pen for earthworms he and Benjamin collected earlier in the day. The chicks can’t get out, thanks to a barrier Henry steps over easily, and he scatters some chick starter in their food dish to refill it and plops in a few small worms. That gets the chicks all in one corner of the brooder pen, where the floor is covered in a few inches of sand.

“They always act like they are starving,” Henry says taking the kitty litter scooper and bucket Shane passes him and running it through the sand to clean up after the tiny pooping machines.

“Just like any other baby, really. Eat, poop, and sleep.”

“At least they have little poops mostly.”

“For now. Imagine cleaning the big coop when these are all out there, too.”

Henry’s mock groan makes Shane laugh. It doesn’t take long to tidy up after the chicks, since they clean the sand twice a day as opposed to once for the larger pen. The adults roam free during the day, so they don’t make as big of a mess, and they make short work of any vegetable scraps Carol gives them, like the carrot tops and greens from tonight’s stew, and they’ve had to surround the garden with chicken wire to keep the voracious little trio out of the baby plants.

“When we know for sure that the boys are boys?” Henry asks once he’s done with cleaning and pauses to pet the more curious of the chicks.

“Next week or so, mostly, but Beth said for sure by the time they’re six weeks old.” That had been a learning experience, that the three chickens Shane caught out of all of Hershel’s mixed flock were barred rocks and they could tell the cockerels from the pullets earlier. By Beth’s estimate looking at the spots on their heads when they hatched, they have twelve females and four males.

“We are gonna have a lot of eggs to eat, that’s for sure, especially if we get more girls.”

“Or a lot of chicken and dumplings if we get a lot of roosters.”

Henry doesn’t flinch away from that reality, although honestly, Shane’s pretty sure if any of these younger males turn out to be sweeter-natured than the one they have, he’s going in the crockpot sooner than his sons.

“Do you think we can find different kinds of chickens? Not just our black and white ones? There are some really pretty ones in the book you found for me.”

Raiding the library was a great idea for more than just the kids, because living like this has taught him there are major gaps in his own knowledge, too. He can hunt most of the meat they need, so long as it avoids the walkers, and they’ve got the wealth of the river, too, but without Beth, they’d all be learning from scratch about the garden since neither he nor Carol has been around one since they were kids. He wishes he’d paid far more attention to Grandma Jean’s prize tomatoes now, but teenage Shane had far different priorities than gardening.

They’ve left the chicks to settle for the night as Sophia comes back, triumphantly carrying a good-sized river cooter. “Turtle stew tomorrow!”

“Turtle that size is going to give us days worth of stew. Good catch, Sophia.”

She grins and takes the turtle to the big trough they stash turtles in until they’re ready to clean them. While they’ve got the fridge and a small freezer, sometimes it’s just better to wait if the catch is alive and healthy. They’ve even kept some of their fish alive the same way for a few days.

The other change that’s drifted into place as September ticks by is the nighttime routine. Random hugs from the kids when they’re happy about something started early on, but the three younger ones include Shane the same as Carol in their goodnight hugs. It started with Henry, who seems to have retained far more of an openly affectionate nature than his siblings, probably because he’s the youngest and even his twin sheltered him from Ed’s temper. But once Shane proved happy with Henry bidding him goodnight that way, Sophia followed. Benjamin took a little while longer, but now, it’s all three.

Something about it makes him fall asleep each night contented in a way that nothing in his old life ever approached, and he knows he needs to just admit that Carol’s children have wormed their way into his heart the same way as Carl.

~~~

Over six weeks at Shane’s place is starting to lull Carol into hoping they might at least get through the winter here. It’s crowded, yeah, but so far the ability to spread out around the property during the day keeps everyone from being irritated. With winter, though, there will be more rain and more days where spending an entire day outside isn’t as much of an option. That’s when they’ll start feeling stuck, so she’s taking measurements on the deck with a slowly forming plan coming to mind.

“Do you really think we can enclose the deck?” Beth asks, carefully jotting down each number Carol calls out to her. Benjamin and Henry are kicking a soccer ball around out in the grass, content to play after they helped Carol and Beth hang out the laundry.

“Shane says he’s done framing work before, back in college during the summers. The deck’s big enough if we insulate it that it’ll make a nice enough bedroom for Shane and the boys.”

Putting a bed for Shane on one end and a bunk bed for Benjamin and Henry on the other will take up a lot of the space. But it’s still got to be better than couches and camp cots for long-term sleeping, and it gives a separate room for when people need to just have a bit of time to themselves. They briefly considered checking out neighboring properties before they put in the garden, but none of them have as sturdy a fence.

“I wish the hardware store here had more lumber. Feels weird for them to go closer to Atlanta.” Of all the kids, Beth struggles the most with anyone getting out of sight, and Carol knows she’ll be tense until Shane and Sophia return.

“They’ll be just fine. You know Shane won’t take any unnecessary risks.”

He wouldn’t have taken the trip at all if it wasn’t for finding the big Dodge Ram work truck to take advantage of the diesel he’s been stockpiling alongside regular gas. Taking the truck to the larger home improvement warehouse leaves Carol with the Cherokee in case of emergency, although, honestly, unless some threat came from the river itself, she often thinks escape by boat would be a better option. Either way, it’s sweet that he worries and covers all the angles.

The sound of an engine draws all their attention, with the boys abandoning their ball quickly to come running to the house as they’ve been told to do. Beth grabs the binoculars, frowning.

“I hear two engines, I think,” she mutters, and Carol tenses and reaches for the shotgun Shane drilled her on, wishing he’d gotten the radios working before this trip.

“One of them is Shane’s truck,” Beth says. “Car behind him is a… cop car?”

The only cop Carol can think of is Rick, but she can’t think of why Rick would be back in a patrol car. Just in case Shane isn’t the driver, she calls down for the boys to get into the jon boat and keeps the shotgun handy. The angle of the road means she and Beth can’t be seen easily as the vehicles have to stop for the locked gate.

“Sophia just hopped out to open the gate.” Beth’s voice holds all the relief that Carol feels. “She’s chattering away to Shane as she gets back in.”

Putting the binoculars down, Beth starts down the stairs and Carol follows. She wants to hope that Shane’s found some of their missing people, but it doesn’t feel like they’ve been that lucky, especially once she sees the Atlanta Police Department logo as the vehicles get closer. Weeks living right on top of Atlanta and even more exploring the city, and they never came across anyone. The odds of it happening now seems suspect to Carol, and she doesn’t really care that hanging onto the shotgun might seem paranoid.

It also seems to ensure that the duo in the patrol car stays in the car when Shane pulls to a stop. The bed of the truck and the trailer are fully loaded with building materials, so the trip was successful in that respect, at least.

“It’s okay, Carol,” Shane calls out as he exits the truck. “We ran into an old classmate of mine from my police training. He’s good people, I promise.”

Shane’s earnest expression eases some of Carol’s worry, so she ejects the shell she chambered and pockets it, setting the shotgun down against the stairs. “Tell him and his friend they can get out of the car then.”

The newcomers are introduced as Sergeant Bob Lamson and Officer Amanda Shepherd, and they spin a tale of just over a dozen officers looking after about twice that number of civilians in a hospital of all places. It sounds like a good setup in some ways, especially with the level of access to medical supplies and even a doctor, but it’s in the city. Carol hasn’t forgotten the desolation that lurks around Atlanta now, even if you ignore the hordes of walkers.

“What’s the catch?” she asks, turning to Shane. “Why are they eager for more mouths to feed?”

Recruiting Shane makes sense in many ways, but Carol isn’t naive enough to see herself and the four kids as an advantage yet. She and the girls are getting there, but that’s in rural towns, not a swarmed city, and the boys are far too young to do more than basic self-defense.

“Told you she’d catch on without being told,” Shane tells Lamson, who chuckles softly and nods.

“Ma’am, we’ve got some cops who aren’t adjusting well to a world with no rules. I wasn’t sure how to take care of things with just me and Shepherd. Seeing Walsh here was like a sign that I needed to get off my ass and make some changes.”

“Right now, Captain Hanson lets us bring in vulnerable people, but they owe us for their care. It isn’t a sustainable system. There aren’t enough of us to protect everyone, and I don’t like the way they’re eying the prettier wards.” Shepherd is vehement as she speaks, reminding Carol of Rick in a way. For the short time she knew him, combined with Lori’s stories, Rick was far more of an idealist even after years as a cop than Shane.

“That doesn’t sound like a place the girls need to be,” Carol states firmly, feeling her skin crawl at the very idea.

“It’s okay now,” Lamson says, trying for being reassuring. “But leadership now gives officers privileges the wards don’t have, and you and I both know that can be a lure for inappropriate favors. I suspect if we could get access to old personnel files, we’d find out a list of complaints against at least two of my fellow officers.”

“Assholes should have died in the bombing instead of the good men who did.” Shepherd crosses her arms and tilts her chin up as she levels her gaze at Carol. “I don’t know Walsh, but I’ve got eyes, ma’am. If y’all can get a place this settled with just the two of you and four kids, that’s the sort of ingenuity we need at the hospital.”

“More voices to tell the captain and lieutenant what the world is like outside the city will help. We’re getting by on scavenging, but how long can that last?” Lamson waves a hand at the garden and chicken coop. “More people will be safer for the kids, but you’d be making us safer, too.”

When Carol turns to look at Shane, she can see that he is sold on the idea, and she imagines it is two-fold. The idea that fellow cops might be turning corrupt is bad enough, but she hasn’t missed how worried he is about something happening to either of them and leaving the kids stranded somehow. He’s let them make their case themselves, but he wants to go.

At the same time, she’s certain if she says no, they’re staying put. It’s that reassurance that makes her decision. These cops aren’t just recruiting Shane, they’re recruiting her. Maybe her need to help others isn’t rooted in the same public service that Shane’s is, but she doesn’t like the idea of leaving others to possibly be abused either. As much as she likes what they’re building here, being part of a larger community will be safer in the end.

“How long do we have to pack?” she asks.

At the relief on all three cops’ faces, Carol can only pray that it’s the right decision. The consequences if it’s not are just too harsh to think about.

Chapter Text

Heading back into Atlanta feels wrong in many ways. Leading the children away from the walker infested city was the right thing to do, and now they're not only back, but in the city proper instead of lurking on the outskirts. He reminds himself the hospital will be far more secure than the sprawling quarry camp, and whatever area assigned to him, Carol, and the kids can be improved as soon as he's able.

Worse, he doesn't even have all of them in a single vehicle. In order to move their essentials, including the chicken flock, splitting up was necessary. Sophia and the boys are riding alongside him in the front seat of the pickup, while Carol drives the Cherokee with Beth riding shotgun. Both of them are pulling trailers, and they'd crammed the police cruiser as full as it would go.

"Did they say if there were other kids there?" Benjamin asks, looking curious as they navigate Atlanta's debris strewn streets.

"Yeah, Lamson said there were a couple of kids your age."

Mostly kids of early survivors, but a couple of orphans managed to find their way to Grady over time. The very idea of it makes Shane shudder to think how many kids didn't make it to a safe haven after losing their families. It doesn't bear consideration.

"That's cool. Maybe lessons will be nicer with more kids."

That makes Shane chuckle. The boys remain perturbed about Carol keeping up with their schoolwork, but they're not as rebellious as Carl would have been at their age. The idea of being allowed to rebell against Carol or Shane hasn't occurred to them yet after so many years of staying out of Ed's line of sight.

"Mama's a good teacher, Benjamin. And you need to learn your math and science." Sophia's caution is given in exasperated big sister tones. "It's even more important now, isn't it, Shane?"

"Yeah, kiddo, it really is. Maybe knowing about Shakespeare or Mark Twain isn't such a big deal anymore, but the rest is. Think about how much math we use when we were building the chicken coop."

"Or when we had to calculate what was safe for the babies in the incubator," Henry pipes up excitedly. "That was science, right? Too hot and the babies end up little chicken nuggets. Too cold and no babies at all."

The comparison of potentially overheated eggs makes Shane guffaw, and it cracks the other two kids up, too. At first, Henry isn't entirely sure what's so funny, but it clicks with him eventually and he giggles as well.

"Tell you what, Henry. First rooster we hatched that we keep, we're calling him Nugget as a reminder you figured out the right temperature to get him hatched, alright?"

Shane's offer lightens the mood, and they're all cheerful even as the police cruiser they're following slows to a stop. With the police radios Shane has installed in both truck and Cherokee, he can hear Lamson radioing in. It isn't entirely proof that Lamson didn't call ahead on a different channel. The fact he gave out the one the Grady cops are using helps Shane feel better about heading into a situation he knows isn't entirely safe and is potentially volatile.

There's no argument about Lamson bringing in a fellow cop and his family, and Shane files away the emphasis Lamson puts on making them related. It's a good angle, as random refugees might not be as welcomed as a fellow officer's family. He wishes the man said something beforehand, though. Carol's fast on the uptake, but the kids might fumble.

"Hey, kids? Once we get out of this car, you call me Dad, okay?"

It ought to take more than a simple request to get them to agree, but the twins exchange a look and nod in unison. Sophia just smiles, but she's old enough to make the connections on her own. There's something to her expression when she glances to the boys, though, and Shane resolves to ask her about it later.

For now, they're all exiting the vehicle in a parking lot heavily fenced on all sides. Three of the four officers waiting for them seem happy and excited. The fourth just looks perpetually pissed off. Shane knows the type and doesn't need Lamson to tell him this man is one of the problems that needs to be eliminated.

Carol's even faster to recognize the corrupt cop, because she's angled herself between Beth and the man. It's subtle, done in a way to make Beth seem shy, maybe younger than she is, and he somehow isn't surprised to see Beth is wearing one of the shapeless sweaters Carol favors over her button-up blouse. Shane has to resist the urge to put his own bulk between this asshole and Sophia in the same way. The man might not alert on Carol closely, not with her close shorn hair and nondescript clothing, but Shane wants a few more seconds to study his future opponent.

Shane gets the chance, while Carol shuffles the kids up in a huddle near him. Whichever this is of the two cops Lamson wants gone, O'Donnell or Gorman, it doesn't really matter. He's a bully, first and foremost, held in check in how he talks to Lamson only by still lingering training saying Lamson outranks him with those sergeant's stripes. The man isn't much different than Ed, other than he managed to get a badge to inflict his bastard nature on society as a whole, instead of confining it to wife and kids.

"We don't need more cops, especially no rural deputy who couldn't make the grade to work in Atlanta and stayed out in the country making his wife pop out kids."

That snide remark puts Shane on full alert, but Lamson goes cold in a way Shane doesn't expect before he remembers Lamson's father worked his entire career as a county deputy.

"I think you don't have enough standing here to be decided anything, Gorman. How many times did you get passed over for sergeant?"

Gorman turns damn near purple with frustrated rage, but he doesn't deny it. Considering he's at least Shane and Lamson's age, it is a little odd he's still a patrol officer in a city like Atlanta. He sends Shane a dark look before stalking off without being introduced directly.

"He'll run straight to the captain, you know," Shepherd grumbles, staring after the retreating Gorman as if she could make him drop dead with a glare.

"Let him. Captain started his career out in county, you know. Might get him assigned a few shit details to take him down a notch or two." Lamson eyes the other officers. "Any of you share that asshole's opinion?"

All three shake their head, looking like they'd rather be anywhere else but caught in a conflict between the older officers. Most look too young to be more than two or three years out of the academy, so Shane figures on letting it slide. They're followers, not leaders, and just not worth his time to worry about just yet.

"Are those... chickens?"

The astonishment in the youngest officer's voice makes Shane laugh and motion Henry forward with the box of active, peeping young chicks.

"Got a start on a good flock, if the captain can assign the kids a place to set up farming. Be a while before we should eat any of them, but one day, there will be fried chicken for lunch again."

"That sounds so much better than guinea pig." The name tag dubs the man as Jeffries.

"Guinea pig?" Carol sounds just a little too horrified for a lady who gladly ate squirrel and whatever else Daryl brought out of the woods.

"Yes, ma'am. Apparently, they're quite commonly eaten down in South America, so we cleared out a few pet stores and some of the wards have set up a little guinea pig farm. Same rules as your husband said, though. Can't eat them for a while, until there are a lot more of them."

Carol huffs softly. "Guess these days we can't be too picky where our meals come from. I wonder if they taste like chicken?"

"How about Shepherd shows Carol and the kids to your new quarters, Walsh?" Lamson asks, not hiding his smile at Carol's musing. "I'll take you to meet Hanson and make your job here official and all. You gonna object to giving up the county tan for city blue?"

"Don't see myself as particularly attached to the color of my uniform," Shane replies, turning to Carol. He doesn't like being separated from her and the kids before he's gotten the lay of the land here, but Shepherd's hardcore and determined to clean house here. She'll look after them. "You good with that plan?"

"We'll be fine. And maybe she can help us find some nice helpers to unload everything while you're busy." She slips her hand in his, squeezing briefly as she smiles up at him with that absently sweet look he's gotten used to being directed his way.

That draws the officers' attention to the laden trailers behind their vehicles, and Shane knows by their avid looks that they've won these guys' approval for their entrance just by showing up with enough supplies it would have fed all six of them for a month. It's a drop in the bucket to what Grady needs, but it's proof they know what's needed and how to get it, and they did it with four children attached.

Leaning in as if he's kissing her cheek, he whispers softly, "Don't let your guard down for a second, alright?"

"Not one damn second," Carol breathes out. Then louder, "I'll have everything all snug and homey before you've had time to blink."

Trusting she's probably as skilled at navigating sticky situations as he is, he squeezes her hand before releasing it. It presses her wedding band in contact with him, and he withholds a grimace at the though of her slipping a ring Ed gave her on for this charade. Maybe he'll find her something better out there, if she thinks folks are nonobservant enough to swap it out.

Far more reluctant than he expected to be, he follows Lamson off to see just how bad things really are here at Grady.

~~~

To her credit, Officer Shepherd doesn't leave Carol or the kids alone, other than about five minutes she spends inside the office of an uptight blonde female cop before emerging with keys. Shepherd tips her off quietly that Lerner absolutely loathes the idea of a cop with a family, warning her to keep her and the kids' heads low for a few days.

Shepherd doesn't tip off her fellow officers that Carol has multiple guns and hunting knives packed among the seemingly innocent household items. Carol doesn't figurer anyone but Shane will be allowed to carry openly once they got to the hospital, but she isn't giving up the weapons Shane chose specifically for each member of the family. It's not like they can't find new ones, if Grady doesn't work out, but these were the first.

"That's the last of the personal stuff."

Shepherd recruited a trio of wards to help Carol and the kids unload, and assessing their behavior has Carol as uneasy as seeing Gorman earlier. She's spent too much time being afraid herself not to recognize the signs in others, especially the slender woman Shepherd exasperatedly calls Joan. The wards are shy and quiet, eyeing Carol warily as they make trips to a floor not currently occupied by officers or wards. Carol likes the privacy for her family, but the fact that officers and civilians are so heavily segregated is a reminder of why she and Shane were recruited to come here.

"I can stay and help set things up?" Joan suggests, darting a glance toward Shepherd as if she expects it to be denied. Carol honestly would prefer not to have the help, so she can talk to all four of the kids in private, but it can't hurt to hear a civilian view of Grady, either.

Shepherd just sighs and shrugs. "Alright. I'll tell Lerner you're assigned to Walsh for the time being."

She dismisses the other helpers before turning to Carol. "Hanson may want to meet you and the kids later, but he's the old school sort. He'll probably want to do it over dinner, like the world's still the same as it was. I'd dress as if it was."

"We can do that." The irony of their current situation is that Carol's kids actually have better clothing now, thanks to scavenging, than they ever wore when Ed controlled the purse strings.

"Good. Joan can be your guide if you need to leave this floor." Shepherd drops a set of keys on the nurse's desk. "I honestly wouldn't recommend it until Walsh gets things settled in hand. You won't be required to work, not like the wards. Lerner's orders."

"I think I can find plenty to keep busy," Carol tells her, filing away the fact that she is exempt from whatever requirements the wards have to meet. It makes sense, as it won't win her any friends with the wards at all. Isolate the unwelcome baggage in all ways, while seeming to do her favors. Carol bets Shane will be overworked as the other half of Lerner's frustrated ire.

After studying her solemnly for a minute, Shepherd gives her a jerky nod before exiting through the double doors that lock behind her. That leaves Carol to turn and eye the kids and Joan.

"Alright. We've got the entire maternity ward, probably because all the male officers are terrified of the place. Let's figure out how we set up a chicken nursery instead of a baby one."

Joan is baffled, but willing to help. By the time the messenger arrives with the expected summons for dinner, Joan is laughing alongside the kids after an afternoon of wrangling chickens and basic construction using items left behind on the floor. It isn't a perfect solution, having the chickens indoors like this, but she suspects once the birds prove worthwhile, things will change.

"Shower and change, all of you, but go sparing on the water."

The fact that they have electricity and running water is amazing, but she's very aware of how fragile the systems that provide both are now. Joan's shared enough random tidbits during the day to know there are limits placed on the wards. They only get to shower once a week unless duties require otherwise.

"You, too, Joan, unless it violates some rule I don't know about yet."

Joan shoots a yearning look to one of the unoccupied rooms after glancing at a security camera that points toward the floor. "Officially, I can here. Just not down in our showers. It's not monitored here."

"Then shoo. Go shower."

Carol watches Joan disappear before going to examine the most obvious camera and circling the maternity ward to take careful note of the other cameras. None seem functional and wouldn't show anything more interesting than the floor right now, but she's certain there's a way to activate them remotely. Making it random would be trickier to avoid, so Carol imagines that's exactly what will happen. Just because Lamson vouches for Shane doesn't mean the rest of the leadership here will follow suit. Lerner already shows some signs of sharing Gorman's sentiment about county cops.

Filing the problem away to discuss with Shane later, she goes to shower herself. If Captain Hanson is as uptight as Shepherd implied, she needs to follow all the unnecessary etiquette he'll expect.

"Carol, I've got about five minutes to get everyone downstairs..."

Shane trails off as she turns to face him, still fastening her necklace into place. The way his eyes skim down her body makes her decide the fifties style halter dress she'd collected and never braved wearing is an excellent choice for tonight. He takes a deep breath, chest expanding in the dark blue uniform shirt he gained somewhere today, and then jerks his gaze up to meet hers again.

"Shepherd forewarned me, then sent a messenger to confirm. She's not the friendliest person in the place, but she's thorough," Carol tells him. "Think this will pass muster with the captain?"

If they were the couple they're playing, she'd twirl and ask him what he thought of the dress. It's been so many years since she's felt this comfortable in her own skin. Attention like he just gave was dangerous before. Now it's uplifting.

"Yeah, I think he'll like it quite a bit. It's got that old school vibe."

Carol laughs. "You mean I look like a fifties sitcom housewife, don't you?"

To her surprise, Shane shakes his head. "Nah. More Audrey Hepburn than Lucille Ball."

The compliment makes her blush, but before she can come up with any reply, Henry appears in the doorway. He does do a twirl, capturing Shane's attention and asking for approval of his little polo and slacks combination. The adults' moment is lost.

But she remembers his flicker of interest, and for the first time since she asked him to help her with the children, she wonders. Maybe she's not so old he doesn't find her intriguing, after all.

Chapter Text

The whole way to Hanson's quarters, Shane hopes nothing happens to tumble the basic facts he's set up. Carol confirmed Lerner didn't ask any details other than the kids' names. It's not unusual for a female career cop not to take interest in an underling's family, but Hansen isn't so standoffish.

It means his story won't clash with anything Carol's said. The trickiest part, which Shane realized only when he was in front of the man, is Beth's age. At nearly seventeen, Beth being their child means Shane and Carol's relationship would have begun before his freshman year of college. It isn't a brush he wants Carol tarred with, and they've seen his ID, so he can't change his age.

Even so, both girls know to give their ages as younger than they are. He's hopeful enough old world prohibitions remain for the bastards that almost fifteen still carries the ringing pell of 'jailbait' it always has. If not, whatever asshole so much as looks at the girls sideways, he'll feed him his own balls.

"Hey, Dad?" Henry asks, slipping his hand in Shane's as they emerge from the stairs to Hanson's level. Lerner resides with the rest of the officers, but Hanson uses an old executive office suite as his domain.

Carol dressed the boys identically, playing on the old stereotype for twins with just a twist that Henry's polo is blue and Benjamin's is green. How she managed to cobble together outfits to make both girls look so demure and young on short notice, he isn't sure. Beth's knee length pastel green dress and darker blue cardigan look like they're headed to the most conservative church in Georgia, with Sophia's matching in shades of pink.

As for Carol herself, Jesus Christ, he might have lived with her for a few months now, but tonight is the first time she's not kept herself cocooned in shapeless layers. She's gorgeous in the elegant dress, the pale blue a perfect contrast to his uniform. He nearly commented in a way he would have to a date, before reminding himself the last thing he needs to do is make Carol uncomfortable around him.

"Whatcha need, buddy?"

"Will we get to go outside here?"

He's so mournful when he asks, it makes Shane regret what the kids were asked to give up to come here. The freedom of his property on the river, where they could run and play and be mischievous little boys, is something they never had before.

"We'll figure something out. The streets aren't safe, but all hospitals have places for patients to enjoy being outside." If nothing else, there's the roof itself, once Shane wrangles access.

"And we already have all those lovely windows in our rooms," Carol adds.

Windows which don't open, because hospital regulations worried more about accidents than fresh air in patient rooms. But those can be modified, because Shane's seen it done on other floors he toured which were in use during the summer. Grady may have power, but no one is foolish enough to spend the supply of diesel used in the generators for something as foolish as air conditioning. His biggest worry is they don't seem to be planning for winter, though, and Georgia's winter temperatures are notoriously finicky.

"Yeah. And we still have our chickens," Benjamin chips in. "We get to hatch more, remember?"

Even knowing one day the chickens will become part of their food, the boys still take innocent joy in the fluffy critters. Hell, they even like the obnoxious rooster. Shane wonders idly if he could find a stray dog or cat out there somewhere, and if he could convince the leadership it should be allowed inside. As he muses, they reach the door into Hansen's quarters and pause.

"Everyone be on their best behavior," Shane cautions, less out of necessity and more out of the formality expected if anyone is close to the door. "Remember that Captain Hanson is Dad's new boss, and it's like meeting the Sheriff back home, okay?"

After a chorus of agreements, Shane reaches out to catch Carol's hand, squeezing lightly and coaxing her to stand next to him. The girls each snag one of the twins' hands without being prompted. Pride at how easily they fall into the roles chases away a good portion of his nerves. When Carol meets his gaze, there's a sweet slyness there that reminds him he is most certainly not alone.

His knock gains them permission to enter, and inside, the evidence of Captain Hanson clawing some sort of normalcy out of chaos are even more clear. The elegant rosewood dining table is expandable, with leaves inserted to allow seating for ten. Shane isn't sure if it means they'll be dining with more than just Hansen, or if the man just doesn't want to sit as close as an eight seater would require.

Hanson steps out of a side room, surprising Shane with a smile that seems far more genuine than anything earlier. He assesses Carol and the kids with an approving nod.

"Captain Hanson, this is my wife, Carol. Our niece, Beth, and our children, Sophia, Benjamin, and Henry."

Hanson offers a hand to Carol, who lets go of Shane's to take it for Hanson to squeeze gently. "Mrs. Walsh, I must say I admire your resourcefulness. It's a rare quality to be so adaptable in the face of this level of adversity."

Carol smiles warmly. "We were lucky to be isolated and none of us get sick, Captain. It meant we did not face the level of strife that those in more populated areas did."

"You thrived beyond merely surviving, though, and that is admirable." Hanson motions toward the table. "If you'll do me the honor of sitting to my right, Mrs. Walsh?"

"Call me Carol, please, Captain."

"Then I invite you to call me Robert."

If there wasn't so much honest sadness in Hanson's expression, Shane might consider the man flirting with Carol. Instead, it's as if there someone else Hanson is remembering. With an uneasy jolt, Shane recalls none of the officers here have families in residence, and Hanson still wears a wedding ring. Cops tend to be mixed on the practice, and Shane's skipped out on the custom by his history as a firearms instructor. But Hanson's been off the streets for at least a decade, so rings aren't the danger they can be to a street cop.

For the first time, Shane wonders when Mrs. Hanson died, and if it makes Hanson safer or more dangerous as a leader if his grief is fresh and recent.

As Hanson leads Carol to the table, Shane ushers the kids to seats, with Beth and Henry on Carol's side and Benjamin and Sophia on Shane's when he sits to Hanson's left. At a signal from Hanson, an older woman pushes a cart in, settling plates in front of everyone to join the cloth napkins and cutlery already set at each place.

"Would you like wine?" Hanson asks Carol. "I did not want to presume."

Carol shakes her head. "I've never been fond of drinking."

Remembering how she sipped at a single glass of wine during all the merrymaking at the CDC, Shane wonders if Carol only took the glass not to look prudish among the rest. He can't help but be glad she was clearheaded then, because the lifeline she threw him is one he can never repay her for.

"Nadine, could you bring sweet tea for Carol and the children and bourbons for Officer Walsh and me?" Hanson smiles at Carol's open curiosity when she glances toward the room Nadine disappears into. "She was the head dietician at the hospital here, who bravely stayed to the end of evacuations to assist us. Since then, she's looked after me."

"How lucky for both of you," Carol muses, thanking Nadine softly when the drinks arrive. What she's looking for when she pats the woman's hand gently, Shane isn't sure, but he notes to ask her later.

"Tonight's bounty is courtesy of your arrival," Hanson explains when Carol compliments the pasta pomodoro, which features the fresh zucchini they harvest on the way to Atlanta. "To be honest, we haven't seen fresh vegetables at all lately. The gardens inside our range were plucked clean by early summer."

"We could set up gardens here," Shane suggests, drawing Hanson's attention. "Even with winter coming, greenhouses on the roof or aligned to the windows on the upper floors we aren't using would produce vegetables year round. Canned goods won't last forever."

Hanson's expression turns a bit grim as he reaches for his tumbler. After a drink, he sighs. "The officers here want to believe that help is still coming. Do you disagree?"

Shane remembers his insistence on going to Fort Benning. Time and logic tell him if the base is still viable, they'd have seen soldiers by now. He tells Hanson that. "Maybe there's government out there somewhere still, or military, but it's not anywhere in Georgia. I doubt it's on the east coast at all. If they're out west, it could take a long time for them to regroup enough to start seeking survivors."

"So we should plan for the long haul aside from that freakish guinea pig project?"

"It can't hurt to prove we have skills to contribute."

Hanson surprises Shane by nodding thoughtfully before returning to his food and then changing the topic entirely, quizzing the kids about favorite books and games as if it were any other 'meet the boss' dinner. Watching the conversation, Shane firms up his initial assessment Hanson was a family man before. No one pays this much attention to an underling's children if they weren't. It's a good sign, especially compared to what he's heard of Lerner's bare bones approach to life.

Once Shane is more settled, he'll figure out just how much Hanson is aware of the corruption beginning among his officers. For now, at least, Shane doesn't think Hanson is irredeemable.

~~~

Returning to their floor is a relief in some ways, Carol finds. Hanson retains enough of old world etiquette to entertain them as a family, and he wasn't the sort of hardass who expected Carol and the kids to be seen and not heard. Still, the expectation Hanson might decide a single cop wasn't worth the extra baggage had Carol on tenterhooks all night.

Once everyone changes out of dress clothes, and in Shane's case, his Carol-distracting uniform, it's still early enough for the boys to drag Shane around to inspect the alterations they made while he was on duty.

"You should relax, Mama," Sophia says, distracting Carol from sorting another of their boxes. "We unpacked all the necessities, right?"

"We didn't get all the beds made, though, did we?"

At the reminder, Sophia giggles and takes a stack of sheets Joan fetched for them earlier and wanders off, calling for Beth. All the kids are using the twin hospital beds already on the ward, the boys sharing one room and the girls another. She hadn't considered those back at the boat house until Lamson suggested they bring Shane's bed along. They had enough space with the trailers, so now the room set aside as theirs has the juxtaposition of the comfortable queen sized bed among the hospital furniture Carol appropriated from unused rooms.

Finding the sheets she needed buried under spare winter clothes for the boys, Carol rolls her eyes in amusement at the packing. She should probably be happy Shane at least kept it to a theme that everything was clothes or linens. Halfway through making the bed, she hears footsteps and looks up to see Shane looking perturbed.

"I should be helping you with that."

"It's easy enough," Carol replies, but she smiles for him offering.

He reaches for the pillows anyway, shucking the pillowcases the pillows traveled in to replace them with fresh ones. Putting one on the bed, he heads toward the recliner with the other. She pauses in smoothing the lightweight blanket over the sheets, smile fading.

"There is no way that thing can be comfortable for sleeping in more than a night or two, Shane." His couch back home was expensive and quite comfortable, so sharing the bed with Beth was fine. But considering the physical nature of his work, there's no way Carol wants him spending all his nights in the torture device the hospital calls a visitor's chair, recliner or not.

Pausing, Shane looks so hesitant she puts her hands on her hips. "I'm fairly sure you don't bite by now, Shane. Put that pillow back on the bed."

Exactly as she expects from seeing how he reacted when Lori stood up for herself, Shane puts the pillow next to its twin.

"You sure?"

The boyish hesitance in his voice makes her want to hug him, but she settles for reaching out to pat his cheek gently instead. "I'm sure. I'd make you sleep in the shower stall if I thought you couldn't behave yourself, you know."

Shane covers her hand with his, pressing her palm closer to his skin for a brief moment before moving away. "If you change your mind about it, we'll figure something out." He clears his throat. "Lamson sent a tool for me to unlock the windows so we don't smother in here."

Used to the outdoor heat in summer at the quarry, Carol and the kids were okay today, but she knows she'll appreciate the ability to open them. Atlanta's weather is temperamental, and they'll have heat waves even in official winter. It only takes Shane a few moments to unlock each of their windows and test to see if the mechanical arm that stops the window's outward swing at six inches or so works. A breeze tickles its way across Carol's skin, making her smile.

"I'll go get the rest of the windows open. Then we can get a cross breeze going, maybe."

"It's too bad we aren't higher up," Carol muses.

"Yeah. Be careful. We're on the lowest floor declared livable, if Shepherd didn't tell you. They cleared the lower levels, but no one ever cleaned them."

The declaration makes Carol shiver. The maternity ward was dusty and pristine when they entered today, but she imagines it was the first one evacuated. Not for the first time, she wonders where the evacuated patients actually were flown to. Shane told her about the executions in King County, but those were at the very end, with only the sickest and hardest to move patients left. If she asks, she bets she'll hear a similar story about Grady's evacuation priorities.

From their place on the fourth floor, she can see the I-85, with abandoned vehicles clogging both sides, as if people couldn't figure out which direction to evacuate. This deep in Atlanta, she imagines it wasn't an easy decision. They wove through the snarl earlier, along a path the officers cleared carefully to provide a gauntlet of protection. Nothing moves anywhere in sight, not even a random bird.

"I don't mind avoiding anything lower down," she says, rubbing her hands along her arms, cold despite the warmth of the September evening.

Turning away from the window, she follows Shane out, wanting to keep busy. The kids eventually coax her away from her fluttering, settling into their makeshift living room adjacent to the old nurse's desk. All the board and card games they collected came with them, and it's a little eerie how easily they settle back into the routine of family game night.

Not knowing for sure what sort of schedule they might be on the next day, Carol does shoo the kids off to bed at a decent hour. She isn't surprised when Shane booby traps the entrance into the ward. It won't stop an intruder, but there will be plenty of noise to alert them to the security breech.

Settling into bed is easy enough, probably because they've slept in the same room for so long now. The tension of the day bleeds out of Shane as he relaxes into sleep, coaxed by habit she knows he gained with the sheriff's department of sleeping whenever he can. Curling on her side to face him on the bed, Carol studies him, noting how all the worry lines he carried at tonight's dinner smooth out, making him look even younger than the nearly thirty-six he's told her he'll be on his next birthday.

It makes her feel old and plain in a way Ed's criticism never did, with her prematurely gray hair and a body that only managed womanly curves during pregnancy. Her own inner pessimism is harder to silence, even it's mostly a strong echo of Ed. But then she remembers his heated gaze when he first saw her dress, and how right his hand felt in hers when they approached Hanson's quarters, and she feels the ghost banished by the memory.

To make sure it stays away, she eases across the gap between them on the bed. She isn't surprised at all when laying her head on his chest means even in sleep, Shane manages to reassure her. His arm settles around her, big hand against one hip as if keeping her close settles ghosts for him, too.

Listening to his steady heartbeat and comforted by his warmth, Carol allows her to fall asleep with a new sort of hope.

Chapter Text

Three days at Grady leads Shane to wonder just how hard anyone would look for Gorman or O’Donnell if they disappeared. It isn’t that either man is stupid, which in some ways would make helping Lamson easier. They’re both just the worst sort of cop, the type who signed up to have power over others, and the lack of any higher power to answer to is slowly eroding any lingering caution the men have. Alvarado seems content to be the third corrupt musketeer, although his participation is more by association than actively seeking out the civilians.

It wouldn’t be so terrible if the men stuck to the women who are genuinely interested in bedding a cop and moving up in the world that way. They’re adults and capable of choosing their partners, after all. It’s the ones who do their best to duck any male attention that intrigue Gorman, though, like Joan. He’s simply one of those assholes who wants what he can’t have, and Shane suspects the only reason Gorman hasn’t crossed that last line is that he knows he’s being watched. Shane’s addition to Lamson and Shepherd’s numbers keeps things even.

The other thing that tips the balance right now is the summons Shane is answering. Every day, at the end of his patrol outside the hospital, he reports in to Hanson, the only cop besides Lerner who debriefs the captain directly. His patrol partner has been different every single day, thanks to Lamson being in charge of patrol rotation. Lamson has publicly stated that he is evaluating which partners will work best with him.

Privately? Shane is sussing out whether or not any more names need to be added to their blacklist.

Smiling at the elderly woman who acts as Hanson’s executive assistant as if they were in downtown headquarters rather than some long-gone hospital vice president’s office, Shane waits for her to officially alert Hanson to his arrival. Observing all the formalities is both grating on his nerves and reassuring at the same time. Hanson is predictable, unlike nearly half of his officers.

Hanson calls for Shane, and when Shane steps into the doorway, Hanson motions for him to take the seat across from the desk. In a departure from the prior two days, Hanson reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a bottle of Maker’s Mark and two tumblers. He pours a generous amount of bourbon into each before setting one within Shane’s reach. Once Shane accepts the drink, Hanson leans back in his office chair, studying the amber liquid without speaking.

Patiently, Shane sips his bourbon. It’s never been his liquor of choice, but it gives him something to do with his hands. Being offered a superior’s special stash is generally a mark of respect, but Hanson’s ongoing quiet makes Shane suspect something is about to change in Grady’s careful balancing act.

“I’d put my retirement papers in two weeks before the virus first showed up in Atlanta,” Hanson says at last. “My wife and I had it all planned out. Put the house here on the market and buy a place out on the coast. Jekyll Island was her preference, although I suggested further south with some actual sandy beaches to lure the family into visiting.”

The mournful tone Hanson uses tells Shane all he needs to know. He wondered before tonight how recent the loss of Mrs. Hanson was. Now he knows it’s painfully fresh and recent. Finally, Hanson takes a deep swig of his bourbon before he looks up.

“She died in the first wave of illness here, before we knew how bad this nightmare actually was. The end came quickly.” He stares over Shane’s shoulder, his expression grim. “Too quickly. Our daughter and grandson were in the hospital room. Matt was a year younger than your boys.”

Oh Christ.

“Right here at Grady Memorial.”

Hanson empties his tumbler before placing it and the bottle out of sight. Shane’s never seen the man drink to excess before, and he’s heard no indication that Hanson is drinking himself to oblivion in his grief. Honestly, Shane can’t imagine the strength it takes not to crawl into that bottle and stay there.

“I shouldn’t be in charge here, Walsh. In a sane world, losing my entire family like that? I’d have been quietly retired even if I hadn’t asked for it. But if I step down? Lerner isn’t capable of keeping this place going. She’s too jaded to be in charge of a caretaker operation.”

Shane agrees with the assessment of Lerner, who he estimates is too caught up in being more hardass than the men she outranks to give an inch toward anything compassionate. It’s a bitter side effect he’s seen in many ranking female officers, who swing harshly away from any softer emotion that reminds their subordinates they’re women.

“Lamson seems capable enough, sir.”

“He is. He’s also the reason Gorman lost his sergeant stripes two years ago.” Hanson sighs, reaching in a different drawer and laying a badge, insignia, and shoulder epaulets where he’d previously set the tumbler.

The gold badge doesn’t surprise Shane at all. Lerner issued him the standard silver badge and collar insignia of a non-ranking officer, but these meetings with Hanson told him the man was looking to lay responsibility at Shane’s feet. The surprise is the rank on the shoulder epaulets.

“Jumping ranks to lieutenant isn’t likely to go over well with officers who barely know me.” Hell, Lamson helping bust a fellow sergeant down in rank is likely more acceptable for a promotion than an outsider skipping entire ranks.

“If Lamson could have made the changes on his own, he wouldn’t have recruited you. You've got an advantage that none of us here have by living outside secure walls, and the youngest officers already have a serious case of hero worship. You aren’t my only eyes and ears out there, Walsh. Take the damn promotion.”

Hanson’s intensity tells Shane all he needs to know. The captain knows his officers are starting to rot from within, and Shane bets at least one source is the elderly assistant sitting ten feet away in the outer office. Taking a deep breath to settle his nerves, Shane reaches for the symbols that potentially level the entire playing field.

They also paint a target on his back, and he feels a surge of worry for Carol and the kids as he carefully switches everything out under Hanson’s watchful eye. Hanson takes the silver badge and collar insignia and places them in a drawer as Shane finishes the remainder of his bourbon.

“I’ve called a meeting before dinner of everyone not on watch duty to make the announcement, so you’ve got an hour to share the news with your wife and children.” Hanson leans forward, his gaze intense, and the genial, grieving man disappears in lieu of a hard-eyed captain. “I didn’t take Lamson seriously before you came. I am paying attention now, Walsh. I am paying very close attention.”

As much as the promotion feels problematic, Shane feels relieved to know that they’re no longer doing everything without Hanson’s support. It might even be possible to overhaul things if Hanson is set on listening to the flaws in the current system. They can develop their own jail cell for Gorman if he can’t pack his monstrosity back in whatever box he kept it in when the world still had a legal system. If all else fails, Shane knows the double-edged sword of this rank means he’s likely the one that will take care of Gorman permanently.

He’s good with that.

Finding Carol is easy enough. In the mornings, she and the kids joined the laundry crew, which gives Carol the advantage of keeping the kids close while doing a chore few of the civilians want to tackle if they don’t have to. It’s offset by Lerner’s attempt to isolate Carol, because drop-off and delivery let Carol explore far more of the hospital than many chores would.

In the afternoons, though, Carol insists the kids still need an education, and to Shane’s surprise, no one objects. There are only two children among the wards at Grady, and Carol’s gathered them up for lessons, too. One boy, Callan, is a burn survivor due to a close encounter with the napalm, but Benjamin and Henry don’t seem to mind the scarring of their new classmate. The older boy, Al, has yet to speak to either of the girls and only speaks to Carol if directly spoken to. It’ll take time and patience to see if anything is going on with him aside from the trauma of temporarily being on his own before Lamson brought him in.

Each boy nominally has a guardian among the Grady adults, but Shane also suspects no one will complain if the two orphans are adopted into his family. They certainly don’t rush back to their own floor when lessons formally end. Callan plays with the twins, while Al curls up in a chair in one of the unused rooms and reads or draws.

Today is no exception. The younger boys look up from the board game they’re playing as soon as he opens the door, Benjamin and Henry grinning broadly, Callan more cautiously. Henry gets to his feet, coming to give Shane an enthusiastic hug.

“I’m winning, Dad. At Monopoly. Can you believe it?”

“See? I told you that you just had to keep trying, didn’t I?” Monopoly will never be Shane’s favorite game, because it’s damn near endless, but Henry is determined to win it at least once. “Where’s your mama and the girls?”

Henry grins before dashing off, loudly announcing that Shane’s home, disappearing down the hallway where the chickens are housed.

Benjamin rolls his eyes and nudges Callan, who giggles. “Like Mama didn’t hear that bell jangle on the door.”

Shane ruffles Benjamin’s hair as he passes by, deciding he wants to announce the promotion to Carol without the kids. He doesn’t doubt the children noticed the color change on his badge, but he isn’t sure they understand the significance yet. Beth and Sophia are old enough to comprehend the problem, but he needs a little reassurance himself before he has to reassure them. Greeting the girls and sending them and Henry back to the living area is easy enough, and he revels in the affection Sophia and Henry hand out like they’ve been a family for years.

“You look worried,” Carol says, closing the lid on the trash bin they’re using to scoop away chicken waste and keep the area as clean as it’s possible with poultry living indoors. Stepping close, she reaches out to touch his badge. “Hanson made a move?”

“Yeah. He made a big move. Promoted me equal to Lerner.”

“Oh, boy. That’s going to make a few people unhappy.”

“Hopefully just cops.”

Carol tilts her head thoughtfully, studying the changes to his uniform, before nodding. “I don’t think any of the wards will care one way or another. The ones who are wary of Gorman’s little gang are just wary in general, but they’ll give you some leeway.”

His concern must still show, because Carol closes the remaining distance between them and draws him into a hug. Shane responds by wrapping his arms around her and tipping his cheek against her hair. It smells like her lavender mint shampoo even this late in the day, and after weeks of sharing the boat house combined with three nights of sharing a bed, he finds it soothing. Somehow, he doesn’t think it’s the lavender’s healthful effects easing his nerves, but the contentment he finds when Carol trusts him to be this close.

“Just remember you aren’t taking this on alone,” Carol says softly, running her hand along his back.

He hates to step away, but he knows they have to get ready for dinner. Tonight, of all nights, they need to observe all the formalities. It’s not captain’s dinner level, but it’s close enough, and he’s still the only officer with any family here at all. Clearing his throat softly, he lets her go, wondering if it’s just his imagination that she seems equally reluctant to part.

~~~

As worried as Shane was, nothing happens initially that he relates to Carol. The younger officers take the promotion in stride, and the older ones were either already supportive of his presence here or part of the problem group. It doesn’t stop Carol from worrying that, unlike Lerner, Shane stays on patrol duty. Out there, she’s not entirely sure an ‘accident’ couldn’t happen.

Two days into their new routine, and nothing major happens. The officers she knew to watch for don’t seem to see her or the kids as interesting. Gorman even backs off his shadowing of Joan, to the young woman’s immense relief. In fact, all the officers seem to be avoiding the wards, to the point of taking their meals separately.

The laundry room at Grady is something cobbled together by virtue of officers clearing out a local laundromat and relocating all the machines to what was once an operating room. Grady outsourcing laundry to a linen service didn’t make their job of setting up the hospital easy, and Carol wonders why they stayed at the hospital in the first place. Relocating people and supplies to one of the residential high rises would seem so much more logical. Perhaps it’s a cop thing, continuing to follow orders, which were to secure Grady and guard the remaining patients and staff.

Laundry seems like one of the most menial chores around, and the ladies at the quarry certainly complained enough about it ending up being their task. But one thing Carol learned is that one way to become privy to many secrets is to simply blend into the background. Each officer reveals parts of their personality just in how their laundry arrives - and how particular they are with how it is returned to them.

“Boys? Keep an eye on the dryer with the bedsheets,” she cautions.

Benjamin and Henry help with the linens themselves, but in between, they often play cards or read. One day, there will be some outdoor time, she knows, but right now, she can’t imagine asking for favors or letting them out of her sight. She can't really say why she’s still so uneasy, but years of living with Ed taught her to pay attention to that wary instinct, putting her on alert.

“I’ll remind them,” Beth says, looking up from sorting one of the big laundry carts. Laundry for the wards is at the bottom of the list, but between the five of them, they typically stay abreast of the task.

Before Carol can thank her, the door opens and a duffel is tossed inside to land with a dull thump. Dawn Lerner stands there with her hands on her hips, one not far from her service weapon, and glares at them as if she found them spraypainting graffiti instead of washing dirty clothing.

“Can I help you, Lieutenant?”

Normally, one of the wards collects laundry from the officers’ floor and brings it down in a laundry cart, and then the same ward stops by to return everything once it’s clean, ironed, and neatly on hangers. Cold blue eyes flicker over Carol just like they always do before Lerner assesses the children briefly. When she sets her gaze back on Carol, the condescending expression reminds Carol of every person who knew what Ed was and condemned Carol for not finding a magical escape route.

“I just wanted to remind myself how months - years - of hard work never count so much as being part of the good old boys’ club. Marry some June Cleaver type, spawn a handful of kids, and out comes the bourbon to congratulate each other on doing what any zoo animal can do.” Lerner scoffs, her mouth twisting to match her bitter tone. “How many side pieces does your husband keep?”

“Excuse me?” Carol knew Lerner would take Shane’s promotion hard, but this is going straight for dirty and personal, bypassing the legitimate complaints of how new Shane is here.

“Oh, please. You’re at least a decade older than him. Man like Walsh might like his home life neat and tidy, and I can see where you’d hand him that on a silver platter. But I’ll bet he rotated the young mistresses yearly.”

Carol just blinks, not sure how she responds to the very specific accusation. She wonders if Lerner has some baggage of her own coloring her impression of Shane. Daddy issues, perhaps? The best option is to look shocked and innocent, she thinks, so she flutters a hand to her throat and wills herself to look near tears.

“Shane has never cheated on me, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t speak like that about him in front of the kids.”

To her surprise, Lerner actually flinches, although she hides it quickly behind looking at the kids again. Benjamin and Henry aren’t paying attention, too intent on slapping cards onto a pile in front of each other. But Sophia has that pale, tense look to her that Carol remembers too well from her time with Ed, and Beth? Beth is pissed. She doesn’t speak to Lerner, though, shooting the lieutenant a dirty look before reaching out to tug Sophia to the far end of the room where the dryers are noisiest.

There’s less bitterness in Lerner’s tone when she speaks again, but she’s still unhappy. “Then again, none of the kids look much like him. I can’t see him blindly ignoring you stepping out on him, though. Not twice over.”

Sighing, Carol wraps her arms around herself. It’s always been a flaw in their plan, just how blonde the children are, and they only explained away Beth as a niece. They hadn’t looked much like Ed, either, but at least they’d had similar coloring. The easiest story to tell is the one closest to the truth.

“He’s their stepfather,” she tells Lerner. “He adopted my three when we got married.”

So what if their marriage was spun out of thin air in a parking lot outside the hospital? Shane adopted Carol’s children long before that, and she doesn’t need a judge and paperwork to tell her it’s a promise he’ll honor to his dying breath.

“Huh. Walsh doesn’t strike me as the type to take on another man’s responsibilities.”

Carol loses control of her mousy housewife persona for a brief moment. “I don’t think you know anything about Shane at all. I thought cops were supposed to be trained in observation.”

“I know what I see, Mrs. Walsh, and your pretty boy husband no more deserves to share my rank than one of your boys. Hell, they’re probably equally qualified.”

Years of practice keeping her temper with Ed are what keeps Carol from just slapping the smirk right off Lerner’s face. The impulse is both liberating and frightening at the same time. Freeing, because for the last year or two, she didn’t even have the energy to feel this angry. Scary, because acting on the thought would really put Shane in a tougher position than he’s already in.

Her lack of response makes Lerner smirk. “Maybe I’m going about this all wrong. Perhaps Walsh just needs the right incentive to see things my way.”

When she strides away, Carol can’t even begin to fathom what Lerner is dreaming up for Shane now. She just hopes he can handle whatever it is. Glancing at the clock, she sees there’s still an hour until lunch, and Shane will stay out on patrol through the meal. There’s no way to warn him, not without causing more problems than it’ll solve, so she just has to trust he can handle Lerner.

Chapter Text

Of all the cards Lerner had to play after she confronted Carol, this one was the one Shane expected the least. When she asked him to accompany her to check on a group of survivors to assess whether or not they would be an asset to Grady, he figured it was a trap. He went along with it because it was just the two of them, while the bully boys were occupied with a project Hanson had set for them. Whether or not that's Lerner's doing, he doesn't know.

It means that he's on a rooftop on the western side of Atlanta, not all that far from the quarry, studying a garage through a military-grade scope that Lerner produced. He counts at least a dozen men, mostly younger than thirty by his guess, and all of them with gang tattoos. They seem in good health and are smart enough to be armed, but they disappear randomly into a covered entrance on a pattern he thinks is a patrol one.

"How did you come across these guys?"

"Dawson and I came across four of them raiding a pharmacy early on. We were outnumbered, so we just let them leave with their bags, and then we headed inside. Expected to see the usual stuff taken - Ritalin, Oxy, Valium - but one of them dropped a bottle as they left. Not much entertainment value in cholesterol medication."

"I'm guessing you investigated further?" 

For all his dislike of the woman, Lerner isn't the type to let an unknown threat be this close by. The fact that he's pretty damn sure who these people are already isn't something he intends to share, and none of them would know who he was if he chose not to. He sees no reason to reveal information until he knows what her motives are.

Lerner nods. "Traced them back to a nursing home the next block over. They've done a good job of making it look deserted and keeping the only activity around the garage."

Bingo. It's definitely the Vatos, then. Shane feels a frisson of hope well through him, because there's a possibility Rick might have returned to potential allies after the CDC. It hadn't been worth the risk to the children for Shane to look for them, not when he didn't know where in Atlanta the group was located.

"Is the nursing home occupied?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah. I had Dawson put up trail cameras, and he got it done before he got bitten out on a run with Gorman." There's a bitterness to Lerner's tone that makes Shane consider that Lerner may have her own vendettas at play. Dawson's name is said almost fondly, so Shane needs to find out from Lamson if Dawson was a mentee - or more - of Lerner. "I've been checking the cameras, and the gang members leave and return with supplies, and sometimes you can see a couple of the old people crossing between this one open area they have to cross between the nursing home and garage."

"Does the captain know about them?"

The stories of Grady taking in survivors vary, but as best as Shane can tell, it's only the vulnerable who make it inside. He's guessing that while the nursing home residents would qualify as such, the Vatos guarding and supplying them are simply too dangerous. The odds are also in favor of some bad blood between the surviving cops and Vatos, even if it's not personal.

"Not yet. He's been resistant to any larger groups."

"But we need more people capable of heavy lifting and surviving in the city now that we are adapting the hospital for the long term," he muses, surprised when she nods without any antagonistic looks.

"Taking in however many old folks there are will be worth getting over a dozen capable grown men." She rises up from the crouch she was in and stares back into the distance toward Grady. "We're never going to be friends, Walsh, but I'm not so stupid as to stand in the way of progress. I never thought Hanson would ever admit help simply isn't coming."

Shane gets to his feet and packs away the scope. "I don't think he has admitted that," he says, figuring it can't hurt to be honest. "But he saw the logic of having plenty to offer when the government finally remembers Atlanta exists."

When they're back in the car, one of the civilian models they use from time to time when they don't want to advertise who they are to any roaming survivors, Lerner finally makes the request he should have known was coming. "These guys aren't going to like cops at all, but I think they'll like a white lady cop even less. First contact needs to be with someone they can relate to better."

"Such as?"

"Latino, Walsh. Or Hispanic or whatever the damn label you want."

"If that was your reasoning, you should have brought Lamson along." He closes his eyes, trying not to laugh. It's not the first time the assumption has been made based on his skin being a shade or two darker than the average Georgia white male.

"Jesus. I've heard you and Lamson speaking Spanish."

He opens his eyes and arches a brow at her. "Yeah, because I needed a language credit in high school and the French teacher was a bitch. Kept it up in college because it was useful to my degree at the time, and later on, the sheriff's department gave me a bonus to keep it up."

"Dammit. What the hell are you?" She trails off, rubbing a hand over her face. "It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't, and you're right that the basic assumption might get me at least a chance to speak." He gives in to the impulse and laughs, but it's dry and sardonic. "Although Lamson will be flattered to realize you consider me more expendable than he is."

As good as Lerner is at controlling her expression after an adult life spent on the police force, she can't control the flush that tints her skin pink. To her credit, she does meet his gaze levelly as she shrugs. He lets it go and considers the area, along with snippets of his extra knowledge from Rick's venture here to save Glenn. It's not much, since he hadn't been in the right mindset to really query them like he should have, but it's more than she has. It's a risk to make the attempt, but these guys aren't trigger happy thugs.

"Alright. Pick a vantage point and cover me from above."

"You'll do it?" She sounds surprised.

"It's a good idea. I'm not going to piss on it just because you don't think I'm as competent as you are."

Trusting her to at least make an effort to cover his back - or at least not put a bullet in it herself - he eases down the street into the shadows of the building to give her time to ascend to a sniper's position after they retrieve a rifle from the trunk. Glancing up, he sees her peering over the ledge and signals a thumbs up before moving just a bit faster to close the space between them and the garage. All the doors are tightly closed, and he can't hear a thing, so he's glad the Vatos are cautious. Instead of marching up like a foolish idiot, he snags up a smashed and depleted spray paint can and gives it a solid toss toward the closest of the roll down doors. It hits with a dull clang that he hopes doesn't echo too far, and he waits for a response.

It doesn't take long, although the Vatos are smart and don't open the garage door. Instead, a window on the second floor eases up slowly, and someone peeks down. It's quiet enough for Shane to hear the man reply to someone within that it's no walker, probably just that dumbass stray cat Miguel keeps feeding.

It's smartass of him, but Shane considers meowing, just to see if they'd come looking for a cat.

"Not a cat," he calls out. "But hopefully a friend."

From this angle, they can't shoot at him, but they also can't see him clearly. The man who opened the window wisely steps back out of sight, and Shane waits to see if anyone will reply back to him. He waits longer than he expects, and it's a different voice when the reply comes.

"We are not in need of friends."

"Not even one who used to be a deputy sheriff in King County?" Rick was in uniform when he interacted with the Vatos, and Shane hopes the months that have passed have not allowed the Vatos to forget Rick's willingness to share guns and ammunition with them.

There isn't a reply, at least not from the window. A door opens, and the fellow who ventures out is a slightly built man who Shane estimates to be around his own age. He isn't hiding behind any cover, looking toward the shadows that obscure his view of Shane.

"Knew a deputy from King County once. Stubborn son of a bitch with a bleeding heart," the man calls out.

"Sounds like you and I both knew Rick Grimes well," Shane replies.

"Maybe I do, stranger, but I don't know you at all."

Shane decides to take the risk and steps out into the sunlight. The man scans him critically and frowns.

"That is not a deputy sheriff's uniform."

"Said I was a former deputy. These days, I'm helping what's left of Atlanta's force to protect a group of the vulnerable." He reaches into a pocket and pulls out his ID holder, a little glad that the Grady cops still enforce carrying old world IDs. His may not be properly updated, although he honestly thinks if the old police headquarters wasn't destroyed in the bombing, he'd have been hauled in for one. Taking out the plastic card, he holds it out as he steps into range for the other man to read.

"Where is Rick Grimes these days?" 

"Not sure," Shane admits. Lerner doesn't know he was in Atlanta before. "Are you Guillermo?"

There's a flicker of concern that disappears quickly, but the man nods. 

"My partner up on the roof that's covering me the way your man is you? She doesn't need to know that I was in Atlanta before. I know Rick left you guns and ammo to protect the old folks. I hope that can buy me some consideration until we can speak without being overhead. It's complicated, but the offer of a safe place is very real. There's food, medicine, and an honest-to-god doctor." 

Lerner probably can't hear them clearly, but he's taking no chances.

Guillermo sighs and shrugs, and Shane isn't sure he's going to agree, but his luck holds. "I want to see proof of this safe place before I agree to anything."

Shane looks over his shoulder to where he knows Lerner is waiting and reaches for his radio to cue the mike. "Man wants proof our place is safe, Lieutenant."

"That can be arranged, if he's willing to take a trip."

To his surprise, Guillermo agrees readily, and as easy as that, he and Dawn Lerner shift the population of Grady in ways he just prays don't work against him and Lamson. He just has to trust that Rick found someone to respect when he met Guillermo, and any man willing to stay in the madness of Atlanta to protect the elderly and infirm that he doesn't even have familial ties with is someone Shane cannot fathom ever siding with Gorman.

~~~

Bringing a group of more than forty people to Grady is both exhilarating and exhausting. Being summoned to Captain Hanson's office and placed in charge of the twenty-two elderly residents is both surprising and not. No one at Grady has any sort of organizational experience that even comes close to handling all this, and Hanson's easy assumption that Carol can take it on is flattering. 

She's surprised that the Vatos accepted the initial requirement to disarm while inside the hospital. Based on what little Rick told the group about the Vatos, she'd expected the men to protest more about moving under the aegis of cops they likely used to clash with, philosophically if not in reality. Then again, these are men who stayed inside the danger zone of Atlanta itself to help look after a vulnerable population everyone else forgot about. They're probably better in tune with decency than the majority of Grady cops anyway.

It'll be interesting to see how everything plays out. She doesn't think when Lerner made this particular play that she realized the easiest and best place to put all of the Vatos was on the same floor with Carol's family. They've got far more space than a single family needs, and that's without even opening up the actual delivery portion, ambulatory surgery, or the physical therapy offices on their floor. Honestly, she can't understand why they spread everyone out over multiple floors anyway, when the entire population of Atlanta could easily fit on one floor, even if they only use rooms with window access to avoid smothering in the heat and humidity.

Between Carol, Joan, the kids, and the four able-bodied but older non-Vato relatives Guillermo has to help him and Felipe, Carol only needs a handful of Vatos. She lets Guillermo choose who is best adapted to that, sending the rest of the men to the other side of the wing to begin a deep clean on the set of rooms that overlook the centerpoint of the hospital's lopsided H-shape. She gives Guillermo and Felipe a grateful smile.

"I know they want to help, but there's only so much room to maneuver."

Felipe shrugs, sorting through the boxes Carol set aside to clear the nurses' station weeks ago. She doubts it's much use to him, but she understands why he'd double check. He's set it up as a medication and chart station for his patients with an efficiency that Carol admires. 

"None of them will be offended. I am actually flattered that so many stayed," Guillermo explains. "I honestly thought that some would refuse to come once there were easy meds and supplies for the old ones. Only about half have an actual relative with us."

"They know what it is like out there," she says. "I'm betting living with cops feels better than dodging herds in the countryside." She also figures that many of the Vatos are just more familiar and comfortable in an urban area, just like Carol is. As much as she loved Shane's house on the river, it felt safe because he was a local and knew the area. Carol can't imagine staying there without him.

"The female lieutenant seemed very frustrated about our assigned quarters."

"I'm not sure I'd know what she looks like when she wasn't pissed off about something," Carol mutters, and both men laugh. "I know this is a change from what your people may have had, but we're in the process of converting the one rooftop we can access from this part of the hospital to an outdoor area for the kids. We're far enough up that we can't be seen based on where the railing has been installed."

"I am guessing that you are inviting our people to enjoy the sunshine as well."

"I think that they'd benefit, and the children certainly won't mind sharing the space." There are plenty of corridors to run in, and Shane's new rank got Carol the keys to the entire floor, so there's even a gymnasium on the far side of the building that she can let the boys enjoy now that it's getting cooler. They tested with someone on the street, and the room is solidly soundproof, although the boys find the view of the freeway eerie enough that they stay away from the windows.

"Then allow me to offer whatever manual labor is needed to finish the little park, as well as any other communal areas."

What Carol can do with motivated helpers is probably beyond what Hanson has ever considered. She thanks Guillermo for the offer, filing it away to bring it up with Shane later. He doesn't have to tell her that they need to bind the Vatos' loyalty to them, and as long as he's competent, Captain Hanson.

Supper is delivered on carts just like they've returned to regular hospital status, and Carol is careful to check that the elderly aren't being set up to be in debt for their meals. Luckily, the Vatos brought in so much surplus that she can't imagine Lerner even making the attempt, especially since it would offend potential allies. The food delivery reminds her that being spread out across multiple floors could become a resource issue as well. It makes her quiet through the evening routine, mulling it all over, but Shane just watches her carefully. He doesn't question her until they've retreated to their quarters.

"Good thoughts or worried ones?" he asks as he takes a seat in the recliner to shed his boots and uniform, glancing up at her with the most content smile she thinks she's ever seen on him. He's slowly forgetting to worry that she'll be offended by simple domesticity like changing clothing to get ready for bed, and she can't complain. Even when he's still wearing the dark cotton t-shirt that goes under his uniform, she doesn't hide her admiration of the form hidden beneath it.

"Both." She taps the notebook she appropriated so she doesn't forget something in the increased responsibilities she has now at Hanson's behest. The night's turned chilly enough to shut their windows, which is not unusual for September after a rainstorm, but it's a reminder that winter is coming. "I don't think anyone has considered heating this place come winter."

Shane groans softly, running a hand through his hair and mussing the curls wildly. "Considering it was over a hundred degrees last week, I'm gonna agree with you. Won't be long before we get temps where extra clothes and blankets won't help."

"And even that is risky with our newest residents. Easiest fix is wood heat, but that's a lot of fires to keep burning. I can't imagine the generators managing to run anything resembling a furnace."

"I'd imagine the system here runs off some type of boiler. Probably has an entire steam plant set up to run off natural gas, and if it's like the emergency plans we had back home, it would require at least one other fuel source as a backup in case the natural gas system was disrupted. The tricky part will be figuring out how to get it online and running properly, but I think we have enough mechanics on hand to sort it out. As long as the backup is something we can find and haul in, like fuel oil or propane, we can figure it out."

It's a relief to hear there may be an alternative because Atlanta might normally have mild winters, but it still gets cold enough that they could lose people to hypothermia in the deepest parts of winter. Having them completely reliant on some system no one really understands makes her nervous, though. "Maybe we stock up on wood heat as an emergency backup, too?"

"I don't see why not. Hanson's a reasonable man, and we just more than doubled our able-bodied roster."

Reassured, Carol reaches for her book while Shane ventures into the shower. He's swift and efficient, like they all are, and no one wants their already sparse resources redirected away from hygiene by wasting water. She does wonder if getting the hospital's boiler system online would give them actual hot water, which sounds like a real luxury once winter does take hold. 

Shane is bare-chested when he leaves the bathroom, clad only in an old pair of athletic shorts despite the chill of the room. It took her a few nights to convince him he didn't have to wear a shirt and sweatpants to bed, although she strongly suspects if she weren't there, he wouldn't even bother with shorts to bed. He flips his damp towel over the rack Carol rigged up before joining her in bed, stretching out on his side and blinking at her sleepily. "New book?"

They may be married in name only and only by their own declaration, but for a man who was never married before, Shane has a level of attention to detail that Carol knows a lot of women would envy having turned on them. She could have read the same book fifty times sitting next to Ed, and he'd only scoff at her reading at all, not noticing she'd switched novels.

"The Time Traveler's Wife. They made it into a movie a few years ago. Beth says both are nice, if a bit sad and whimsical." 

"Haven't read the book, but I've seen the movie. I think every woman I knew was a bit obsessed with it when it first came out, although I think it was less the story it told and how often the guy ended up naked from losing his clothes every time he popped through time."

"I could read to you. See how it compares." She knows he's tired, but she's a little bit selfish in wanting to extend the little moments like this where she wishes it was all more than pretend.

He gives her a slow, lazy grin and nods, his eyes drifting closed as she flips to the beginning and starts reading aloud. Out of old habit with the kids lying near her, she reaches out and smooths her hand across his still damp curls. When she realizes what she's done, she freezes, but he tips his head against her palm in an obvious request for her to continue, so she cards through his hair idly as she reads. At the end of the second chapter, it seems like he's fallen asleep, so she sets the book aside on her nightstand and wriggles down onto the pillow next to him. 

Since he's on his side, she can't curl up against his chest like she normally does if he falls asleep first. Neither of them has commented on the fact that they sleep so closely. She thinks of how good it feels to wake up against him, even if he's unfailingly polite in rolling his hips away if there are any nighttime reactions on his part. The idea of him not moving away makes her shiver, and she mentally rolls her eyes at herself for the schoolgirl crush she persists in maintaining on Shane.

The movement makes his eyes flicker open. "Cold?" he mumbles, reaching down to yank the quilt over them both. He rolls to his back and, for the first time, hauls her right into contact with him. It means her body coming into contact with him is a little less sedate and careful, and she hears a sharp intake of breath when her thigh slides right between his to press against him. 

Why she takes the leap tonight, she doesn't know, but instead of moving away just enough to maintain the idea that this is for warmth, she tilts her head up to see that he's watching her, his dark eyes intent in a way that makes her brave. When she slides her leg just a little closer and snugs right up against him, his eyes widen, and he groans softly.

More importantly, he makes no movement away from intimate contact.

"Carol?"

Not breaking eye contact, she trails her hand slowly down the planes of his stomach, smiling slowly when he groans again, arching into her touch. The thing she's noticed the most about Shane is how tactile he is. If he's within range of her or the kids, he's almost always dropping an arm around a shoulder, drawing someone close for an affectionate hug, and, what she really adores, playful roughhousing with all the kids.

"Carol…" 

His voice has dropped an octave, and there's no mistaking that he very much likes her touch. She cups his hip, rubbing her thumb along the bare skin above his waistband.

When he moves at last, she expects to be rolled to her back, but instead, he hauls her atop him, reaching up to cup the back of her head and kissing her with a tenderness she didn't expect and finds absolutely perfect. His hands wander, exploring her back and nudging her thighs so that she's sprawled astride him. Her nightshirt slides up, so she ends up pressed bare belly to bare belly with him, and she revels in the contact. But he doesn't move beyond the firm yet gentle grip on her ass, smiling into the kiss before ending it.

"We've been married for a while without having a wedding night," she says, giving him an impish grin. It's easy enough to let her legs slide to bracket his and sit up enough that only cloth separates them. It makes him lose his grip on her ass, which she'd mourn except for the naughty thrill she gets when she rocks her hips down against him.

"Jesus." He hisses out a breath, his hips arching into her in a movement she thinks is involuntary as he scrabbles for purchase and ends up with big hands cupping her thighs. "Are you sure about this, Carol? The kids…"

There's a mournful note in the question and trailed off statement that reminds her that the last woman Shane slept with, whom he convinced himself he loved, barred him from a child he did truly love deeply. She reaches down to cup his face between her hands, her heart aching a little when he turns into her touch like a drowning man finding a lifeline. There's a part of her that wonders if she changes her mind now, if he'd honestly spend however long the kids need him as celibate rather than risk losing those kids, but it's also obvious that Shane craves a partner's affection as much as sex.

She'd seen and envied his fond interactions with Lori. They'd kept the physical part mostly hidden due to Carl, but just their day-to-day comfort with each other makes her think that if Rick had never reappeared, Shane and Lori would have continued to build as happy a life as the apocalypse allowed. But Rick did survive, and as grumpy as Carol has been in the past about the way Lori ended things with Shane, she could understand Lori's first priority being her actual husband. Everything Carol's heard tells her that Rick is a good man, even if he was not the most attentive husband in the world before civilization fell.

"The kids adore you, Shane. They aren't playacting when they call you Dad."

He swallows hard. "Henry told me he loved me tonight when I tucked the boys in."

"That explains why you were grinning earlier."

"Yeah." 

When he eases her to lay beside him, she doesn't have time to be disappointed because he keeps them face to face, one arm under her and his hand cupping the back of her head as he kisses her. It's a leisurely exploration, the kind she imagines they could have every night. She takes advantage of it to stroke her hands along all the bare skin she can reach, memorizing the feel of him. He seems to take that as encouragement, because his free hand slides up her side to cup her bare breast. It's her that groans this time, arching into his touch, and dammit, he smiles again even as they kiss.

It's an indicator that Shane is as playful as she is about this, because once he starts to explore, he's an absolute tease, with each touch designed to make her squirm. When Carol gets vocal, it doesn't take her long at all to realize that her praise is a serious turn-on for him. He tugs off her thin cotton nightshirt with her help before pausing as he kneels between her thighs, toying with her panties. There's nothing fancy about them—just a standard cotton bikini—and she suddenly wishes she'd actually planned ahead enough to wear something pretty.

Before she can really regret it or let the doubts she can never quite chase away about being older than him, he clears his throat. "God, you're fucking gorgeous, Carol."

He isn't leaving her shirt on, looking away, or rushing to his own pleasure. His arousal is unmistakable, dampening the front of his shorts. As he takes a deep breath, the head of his cock is visible above the waistband, finally escaping the fabric's confinement. She'd known he'd be kinder than Ed when it came to sex, and she had no doubts she'd enjoy it, but she hadn't expected this level of attention to be exclusively hers.

"Then you're not the only one enjoying the view," she says, figuring the truth works the best here. Gorgeous works as a descriptor for him, even if his features aren't classically handsome. It's not just his physique contributing to that for her, but the enraptured look he has as he strips away her last scrap of clothing and, instead of removing his own, drops to his elbows between her thighs. 

He doesn't hesitate, licking away the slick evidence of her arousal before his lips close around her clitoris. She's grateful these rooms are mostly soundproof because the noise that comes out of her then isn't quiet at all. It's no surprise he's good at this, putting lips, teeth, tongue, and when she's already so close to the edge that her senses are sparking with it, finally two fingers at once that finally tumble her right over the edge. Her vision whites out for a moment, something that hasn't happened to her in years, probably as far back as the adventuresome college days no one would ever believe she had looking at her now.

When Carol has enough brainpower back to focus on Shane, he's nude now, shorts tossed aside. He's back on his knees, stroking himself slowly with one hand while the other gently traces a pattern just inside her knee. The fact that he's waiting for her makes her feel a surge of emotion that she knows that come morning she'll have to consider if he's willing to return beyond affection and sex. For now, she reaches for him, her fingers just grazing her prize from this angle, but it's enough to make his eyes slide shut as he smiles.

Just when she thinks he might just finish himself off, he takes a deep breath and moves to balance on one elbow, using his occupied hand to rub the head of his cock against her slick warmth. It's probably more of a tease for him than her, so she reaches up to tangle her fingers in his curls and draw him into a kiss. He tastes like her—a salty, tangy mix she's mainly familiar with when she's gotten curious during self-pleasure. The kiss encourages him to guide himself inside her at last, and the heat and stretch of him are enough to make her sated arousal stir back to life.

He braces himself on his forearms, pressing his forehead to hers, slowly thrusting in a way that's going to drive her mad. When she reaches to grip his shoulders, the tension there alerts her that he's likely pacing himself on her behalf.

"I won't break."

It startles him into stopping, hips flush with hers, and she flexes her muscles around his cock and winks.

Shane laughs, which eases away the tension she feels in his form, then kisses her gently. "I didn't want to scare you by being too rough."

"Sex with you doesn't scare me at all. I know you won't hurt me." He's got to be absolutely aching with the need to finish by now, but he's holding back, holding still, and damn it, she loves him for his concern for her before him. She wonders if he's had that issue before or if he's just worried about her past, but either way, she trusts him.

He nuzzles at her throat for a moment before rearranging so that his arms hook under her knees. It rotates her hips up, and she whimpers when it changes the angle he's inside her. The depth he manages with each thrust is surprising, and watching him give in to his own lust is glorious. He pants and whimpers and calls her baby and perfect, saying that her bouncing breasts are a gift from God, until she aches to finish again. It's easy enough to drop one hand off his biceps and rub her own clit with two fingers until she falls apart. The clenching of her body around him makes him curse incoherently. It takes him a half dozen strokes to finish, and she's just alert enough to enjoy watching as his body shudders through climax.

It's an odd position to lie in as he catches his breath, her legs draped over his arms and thighs and her ass lifted off the bed due to it, but the awkwardness fades away when he meets her gaze again. He should look sated. God knows she feels satisfied. Instead, as dark eyes draw across her body lying in its well-pleased sprawl, he looks like he's about half a second away from trying again. Untangling his arms, he shifts position to roll them to their sides and lay chest to chest. She arches a leg over his hip, not willing to lose the close contact yet. 

Shane doesn't seem to be in a hurry to move either, one hand exploring her back while he presses small kisses not just to her lips but to her cheeks and forehead. They shouldn't fall asleep like this, naked and sticky like teenagers, but she can't find the energy to go clean up yet. When sleep comes for them both, Carol just decides they'll deal with the rest tomorrow. For tonight, they've made their marriage of convenience one in truth, and she's just going to revel in that.

Chapter Text

Shane wakes slowly, which is unusual enough in itself. Years of cop instincts and months of survival mode mean he's usually alert the moment consciousness returns. But this morning, he's warm and comfortable in a way that has nothing to do with the hospital's climate control, and everything to do with Carol pressed against his side, her head on his shoulder.

They'd fallen asleep naked last night, too exhausted and content to bother with clothes. Now, in the pre-dawn quiet of the hospital room, he's acutely aware of her bare skin against his, the trust implicit in how deeply she's sleeping. Her breath is warm against his chest, one arm draped across his stomach, and he has to resist the urge to trace his fingers along her spine.

Jesus. This is real.

The thought hits him with quiet force. He's woken up next to women before, sure, but never like this. Those were always temporary things, a span of weeks, maybe couple of months if he was feeling particularly lonely and she tolerated his work schedule well enough. Just long enough for them to leave a toothbrush at his place, maybe have a drawer, but never long enough to really matter, never long enough to meet Rick or Carl or become essential to his life. Even with Lori, it had been stolen moments, quick encounters while trying not to wake Carl, both of them half-dressed and ready to spring apart at any moment, equally clandestine ones in the woods while Carl was busy elsewhere.

This is different. This is Carol, warm and trusting in his arms, in the bed they'll share again tonight and tomorrow night and all the nights after. This is her kids - their kids now - sleeping just down the hall, expecting them both to be there when they wake up.

He'd spent weeks being so damn careful, keeping his attraction locked down tight. She wasn't his type - or at least, not what he'd thought was his type. The women before had been younger and uncomplicated, almost always the type to be happy with something casual. Carol is... Christ, she's everything he didn't know he wanted. She's strong in ways that have nothing to do with muscle, smart in ways that have nothing to do with books, and beautiful in ways that have nothing to do with age or conventional standards.

And she chose him. After everything she's been through, after surviving life with Ed Peletier, she looked at him and decided he was worth her trust, and even more amazing, her desire. He hadn't missed that she found him attractive, admiring his body when he'd come to bed like he was used to women doing. But more importantly, he'd seen that look intensely on him when he'd been fully clothed and doing something mundane with the kids.

Carol shifts slightly in her sleep, murmuring something he can't make out, and he carefully pulls the sheet up over her shoulder. The movement makes her nestle closer, and he feels that warmth in his chest expand.
He's got a family, one that's not borrowed or temporary, not dependent on keeping his feelings buried. This is own family, messy and complicated and perfect. The boys already call him Dad, and he knows now it has nothing to do with disguising them as a family for the bad element at Grady. Sophia looks at him with trust instead of wariness. Beth fits in like she's always been one of theirs. And Carol...

Carol makes him want to be better than he's ever been. Not the man who nearly lost himself in jealousy and rage, but the man she somehow saw underneath all that, when she'd looked at him on the verge of becoming a monster and very carefully and gently drawn him back from the abyss. Now he's a man who makes her smile that soft smile and makes scared children feel safe and loved. He can protect what matters without losing his humanity in the process.

The sky is starting to lighten outside their window. Soon the kids will wake, and the day will start with all its complications: Lerner's plotting, Gorman's predatory behavior, the delicate balance of power at Grady. But for now, in this quiet moment, Shane Walsh has everything he never knew he wanted.

He presses a careful kiss to the top of Carol's head, breathing in the faint scent of her shampoo. She makes a soft, contented sound but doesn't wake.

Yeah. This is real. And he'll be damned if he lets anyone take it away from them.

The early morning light filtering through the hospital windows catches on Carol's hair as she moves quietly around their makeshift kitchen area in what used to be the maternity ward's family lounge. Shane can't help but watch her for a moment. The kids are still asleep on their beds, but he knows they'll be up soon - even indoor chickens don't allow for sleeping in.

"Coffee?" Carol asks softly, glancing over her shoulder with a smile that makes warmth settle through him, and this time, he doesn't have to resist the urge to kiss her. It's sweet and lingering, and she leans in against him with an ease as if they've done this for years.

When they part, he accepts the mug, their fingers brushing in a way that feels deliberate now. Last night changed things between them, but this morning feels... right. Natural, even.

The sound of rustling from the boys' room draws their attention. Henry appears first, rubbing his eyes, followed shortly by Benjamin. Both boys look between Shane and Carol, and if they'd seen the kiss, neither seems bothered by it.

"Morning, boys," Shane says, taking a sip of his coffee. "Ready to work on improving the chicken setup today?"

Henry's face lights up. "Can we build them better roosts?"

"That's the plan. Need you two to be my assistants. Think you're up for it?"

Both boys nod eagerly, and Shane catches Carol's approving look. This is what they're building here - not just survival, but a life worth living.

After a quick breakfast, Shane heads down the hospital corridor with the boys toward the converted nursery. The chickens are already awake, pecking at the feed scattered on the tarp-covered floor. The industrial ventilation Beth figured out helps with the smell, but Shane knows they need better arrangements.

"Okay, first thing we need to do is figure out how to give them more vertical space," Shane explains, letting the boys follow him as he surveys the room. "Chickens like to roost up high at night. What do you think we could use?"

Benjamin speaks up first, surprising Shane with his practical observation. "There's those metal shelves in the supply room. If we cleaned them really good?"

"Good thinking. What else?"

"We need something to catch the poop so it's easier to clean?" Henry adds, wrinkling his nose. "Could they use kitty litter like cats?"

"You boys are naturals at this." Shane grins, ruffling Henry's hair. "Let's go see what supplies we can scavenge."

As they work on gathering materials from various unused rooms, Shane finds himself explaining each decision, enjoying how seriously both boys take their tasks. They're careful in the hallways, remembering his warnings about staying alert even inside Grady.

"Dad?" Benjamin asks as they carry supplies back, his tone cautious. "Are you and Mama... different now?"

The question catches Shane off guard, but he's learning that honesty works best with these kids. "Yeah, buddy, we are. That okay with you?"

Benjamin exchanges a look with his twin before nodding. "Mama smiles more now. Real smiles, not the fake ones she used to do."

"We like it better here," Henry adds quietly. "With you."

Shane has to clear his throat before responding. "I like having you all here too. We're a family now, right?"

"Right," both boys chorus, and then Henry adds with nine-year-old certainty, "We're gonna have the best indoor chicken coop in Georgia."

The moment is interrupted by unexpected voices in the hallway. Shane immediately moves the boys behind him, hand going to his weapon, but relaxes when he recognizes Miguel's voice.

"It's okay," Shane tells the boys. "These are some of the new people from yesterday."

Guillermo and Felipe appear with Miguel, and Shane notes with approval that they waited in the doorway rather than entering the room. The boys peek out from behind Shane curiously.

"Morning," Shane greets them. "Didn't expect to see you so soon."

"We wanted to speak with you," Guillermo says, his expression serious but not unfriendly. "About how things work here. Lieutenant Lerner gave us... a different impression than what we observed yesterday."

Shane isn't surprised. "Yeah, I'll bet she did. Come on in. We're improving the chicken habitat if you don't mind talking while we work."

Felipe's face brightens at the sight of the boys. "Extra helpers?"

"These are my sons, Benjamin and Henry," Shane introduces them, noting how naturally the words come now. "Boys, this is Guillermo and Felipe, who were taking care of the folks from the nursing home, and Felipe's nephew, Miguel."

"Are you doctors?" Henry asks, looking intrigued.

"Not exactly doctors," Felipe corrects with a smile. "I'm a nurse, and Guillermo took care of the facilities like you're doing with your dad."

"Nurses are nicer anyway," Henry replies, and Shane smothers a laugh. After meeting the resident doctor at Grady, Shane supposes neither boy is enamored of doctors anymore.

As they enter the converted nursery, Shane notices how Guillermo watches his interaction with the boys. The man is definitely assessing, evaluating all of Shane's interactions with the children. Good. Let him see what kind of man Shane is when he's not just wearing a badge.

"Lerner came to our floor this morning," Guillermo says once the boys are distracted showing Miguel how they feed the chickens. "She suggested that your leadership here was... temporary. That Captain Hanson wasn't well, and when he stepped down, things would change."

Shane's jaw tightens. "Did she now?"

"She implied that those who supported the right leadership would be rewarded. That the current system of no one paying for protection was unsustainable." Felipe's disgust is evident. "She spoke of the 'burden' of protecting civilians who don't contribute enough."

"The way she looked at our viejos..." Guillermo shakes his head. "Like they were just mouths to feed."

Shane takes a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. "Bob Lamson and I don't see it that way. Neither does Amanda Shepherd. We've got different ideas about what Grady should be."

"And what's that?" Guillermo asks directly.

"A community that takes care of its own. Not a protection racket." Shane gestures to the boys, who are carefully setting up a new roosting bar with Miguel's assistance. "These kids deserve better than learning might makes right. The elderly deserve dignity, not to be seen as burdens."

He meets Guillermo's eyes. "I know you don't have much reason to trust cops. But I'm asking you to judge us by our actions, not our badges."

Guillermo is quiet for a moment, watching as Henry carefully hands Miguel tools one at a time, clearly proud to be helping. "The boys look like their mother."

That's always going to be the question anyone asks, isn't it? "Yeah. Their biological father's dead, but making their mama my wife meant becoming a father, not just the guy that takes up space in their lives."

"Family is important," Felipe says softly. "It's why we stayed in the city when everyone else fled."

"It's why we'll stand with you, and so will the Vatos," Guillermo adds. "But Lerner won't give up easily. She has support among some of the officers."

"I know. Gorman, O'Donnell, and Alvarado at minimum." Shane secures another roost in place. "But change is coming to Grady whether she likes it or not."

As if to emphasize his point, Benjamin tugs on Shane's shirt. "Dad? When can we take the chickens up to the roof? They need sunshine, right?"

The simple question, the easy acceptance in Benjamin's voice, seems to decide something for Guillermo. "We'll talk to our people. Make sure they understand who really has their interests at heart."

"Appreciate that." Shane offers his hand, and Guillermo shakes it firmly.

As the men and Miguel leave, Henry looks up at Shane. "Are they good guys or bad guys?"

"They're good guys who've had to make hard choices," Shane explains. "Sometimes the world makes that complicated, but what matters is what's in here." He taps Henry's chest lightly. "They protected people who needed help. That makes them good in my book."

"Like you protected Mama and us?"

The simple faith in Henry's voice makes Shane's throat tight. "I try, buddy. Every day, I try."

Carol watches Sophia and Beth work side by side in one of Grady's medical supply rooms, cataloging medical supplies they'd relocated to the fourth floor to be closer to the elderly who'd need them more often. Joan hovers nearby, still jumpy but gradually relaxing in their presence. The morning has been productive, but Carol can't shake the feeling that things are shifting at Grady in ways that could be dangerous.

"These antibiotics expire next month," Beth notes, setting aside a bottle. "Should we mark them for immediate use?"

"Good catch," Carol approves. "We'll make sure Felipe knows. He can probably direct them where they're most needed."

Beth nods. "I know the date is flexible for tablets, but I don't know how much when it comes to the elderly instead of animals."

The methodical work soothes Carol's nerves, but she notices Sophia watching her with those too-knowing eyes. Her daughter waits until Beth and Joan are distracted organizing bandages before speaking quietly.

"You and Shane were different this morning."

Trust Sophia to notice. Carol keeps her hands steady as she continues sorting. "Different how?"

"Closer. Like..." Sophia pauses, searching for words. "Like you fit together now. The way Daddy never fit with us."

The comparison to Ed should sting, but instead, Carol feels only relief that her daughter can see the difference. "Shane's good to us."

"He loves you." Sophia says it simply, like it's an obvious fact. "And you love him back. I'm glad."

Carol pulls her daughter into a one-armed hug. "When did you get so wise?"

"When I figured out what love's supposed to look like." Sophia leans into her mother's embrace.

"How do you feel about that?"

"Safe," Sophia answers immediately. "I feel safe."

Before Carol can respond, footsteps in the hallway draw their attention. Dawn Lerner appears in the doorway, her expression carefully neutral as she surveys their work.

"Quite the efficient operation you're running here," Dawn observes, stepping inside uninvited.

Joan immediately shrinks back, moving closer to Beth, who shifts protectively. Carol doesn't miss the dynamic and makes a mental note to ask Joan about her history with the lieutenant.

"We're just trying to stay organized," Carol replies mildly. "It helps everyone when supplies are properly managed."

"Indeed." Dawn picks up a bottle of painkillers, examining it before setting it back down. "Your husband's been busy this morning. Playing farmer with those children, meeting with our new... residents."

The way she says 'residents' makes it clear she means the Vatos. Carol continues sorting supplies, not rising to the bait.

"Shane believes in staying productive even if it's not a patrol day," Carol says. "And the boys love helping him with projects."

"How domestic." Dawn's smile doesn't reach her eyes.

Carol keeps her tone mild. “Did you need something specific, Lieutenant?”

“Possibly.” Lerner’s tone is neutral, almost conversational. “I was reviewing the updated floor assignments.”

That gets Carol’s attention. She caps the marker she’s using and finally turns. Lerner is holding a thin clipboard, flipping through handwritten pages.

“Everything documented should be current,” Carol replies. “If something’s missing, I can correct it.”

“I’m sure you can.” Lerner glances past her, eyes tracking Beth and Sophia across the room. Not predatory. Assessing. “You’ve organized this space very efficiently.”

She isn't praising Carol, not one bit. Carol has learned the hard way that some people only notice your competence when they can use it against you. She refuses to flinch.

“It needed doing.”

“Yes.” Lerner’s gaze returns to the clipboard. “And you did it without formal assignment, without additional manpower, and without disrupting supply flow.” Her pen moves, just one small line in the margin, before she looks back up. “That’s unusual.”

Carol folds her hands loosely in front of her. “People needed help.”

“They always do.” Lerner finally steps closer, not invading the work space, but narrowing the distance just enough to change the temperature in the room. “What concerns me isn’t what you’re doing, Mrs. Walsh. It’s what happens after.”

“After what?”

“After people start expecting it.”

Lerner turns slightly, angling the clipboard so Carol can see the headings without reading the details. Names and roles, with notes in the margins.

“You’ve created a functional civilian hub,” Lerner continues. “Medical triage. Inventory control. Patient movement. Education. Elder care. That’s not a criticism.”

“It sounds like one,” Carol says evenly.

Carol feels the weight of it, where the calm assessment of her accomplishments still somehow feels dangerous. Lerner’s you won’t be required is still a foul taste in her mouth. Carol had ignored it on purpose, not wanting her and the kids to be dead weight attached to Shane.

“Someone will ask why this floor works better than others. Why certain civilians are… indispensable. Why exceptions were made.”

“Nothing here is an exception,” Carol replies. “Everyone contributes.”

“For now.” Lerner finally meets her eyes. “But circumstances change. Resources become scarce.”

Her gaze flicks, briefly, toward the hallway where the boys’ voices are echoing faintly.

“They’re very comfortable here,” Lerner adds, lightly. “That makes people notice.”

Carol doesn’t rise to it. “They’re children.”

Lerner closes the clipboard. “I don’t need anything from you today, Mrs. Walsh. This arrangement is useful, for now. I simply wanted to be clear that usefulness has a way of becoming precedent. And precedent,” she finishes, “is rarely as flexible as the people who create it.”

Without another word, she turns and leaves.

Carol stands still for a moment longer than necessary, listening to Lerner’s footsteps fade. Only then does she exhale slowly and reach for the next box of supplies, keeping her hands steady, mind already cataloging what this really was.

It doesn't feel like a warning, but more like a measurement. As if Lerner is gathering data to recalculate and see where she missed the mark in her prior machinations.

After she leaves, Joan finally exhales shakily. "She scares me."

"Why?" Sophia asks directly.

Joan wraps her arms around herself. "She knows things. About what some of the officers want. And she doesn't care, as long as they follow orders."

"What officers?" Carol keeps her voice gentle, but inside she's filing away every detail.

"Officer Gorman, mainly. He... watches people. Follows them sometimes. Lieutenant Lerner told me once that I should be 'friendlier' to him. That it would make my life easier here."

Beth makes a disgusted sound. "That's horrible."

"Dad won't let that happen," Sophia says firmly. "Neither will Mama."

Carol pulls Joan into a gentle hug. "You stay close to us when you're not with other people, alright? And if anyone bothers you, you tell me immediately."

Joan nods against her shoulder, and Carol meets Beth's eyes over Joan's head. They both understand - Grady's dangers aren't just from the dead outside.

The rest of the morning passes quietly, but Carol keeps Joan close, noting how the woman relaxes incrementally as time passes without incident. When lunchtime approaches, she sends the girls to fetch the boys and Shane while she organizes their gathered intelligence.

Dawn Lerner is making moves. The question is whether Hanson is aware of it, and if Shane and Lamson are prepared for what's coming.

The sound of the boys' excited chatter echoes down the hospital hallway. "...and Dad said we can take them to the roof garden tomorrow! They need sunshine, right Mama?"

Carol smiles despite her worries. Benjamin calls Shane 'Dad' naturally now, just like Henry does. Even Sophia doesn't have the slight hesitation she had when the kids had first been told to call Shane that when they got to Grady. Their little makeshift family is solidifying just as forces conspire to tear at Grady's fragile stability.

Shane appears in the doorway, dusty from construction work but smiling when he sees her. The boys rush past him to wash their hands, chattering about their morning, while he crosses to her.

"Good morning?" he asks quietly, reading her expression.

"Educational," she replies. "Dawn paid us a visit."

His jaw tightens. "What did she want? Trying to rattle you?"

Carol glances toward where Joan is helping the girls set up lunch in their communal area. "She's got her eye on Joan."

Shane sighs. "Not sure what's creepier, that men like Gorman think the civilians owe them something, or that Lerner sees them as currency."

"Both." Carol hesitates, but she can't let Shane go unwarned. "She was taking inventory… of me."

“Yeah,” Shane says quietly. “So she can write you up later and call it procedure.” He sighs and pulls her in, pressing a kiss to her temple. "G warned me she'd already been sniffing around the Vatos this morning. We need to talk to Lamson. Soon."

"After lunch," Carol agrees. "The kids need to eat, and we need them settled before we deal with this."

Shane's hand finds hers, squeezing gently. "We'll handle it. Together."

"Together," Carol echoes, and for the first time in her life, she truly believes it.

The family lunch is a bright spot in the brewing storm, with the boys excitedly telling Sophia and Beth about the improved chicken roosts while everyone enjoys the simple meal. But Carol can see Shane's mind working, as he tries to prepare for whatever Dawn Lerner thinks she's going to accomplish.

Change is indeed coming to Grady. The question is who will be left standing when the dust settles.