AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Just the way it is," Carol said softly in response to their complaints that the women, at the end of the world, should be the ones that ended up scrubbing clothes by hand while the men—what even were the men doing? Ed was sitting, smoking cigarettes, and watching them like he was their supervisor. Shane, a few feet away, splashed in the water with Carl like he was no older than the boy. The division of labor was not exactly equal. But Carol accepted it, better than any of them. It was "just the way it is" and likely she'd had to learn to accept a lot of things for that reason.
Carol was quiet and reserved. Of course she was. Her husband lorded over her and frequently pulled her away to their somewhat secluded tent for her to return later with her skin showing signs of the earliest stages of bruising.
So Andrea was surprised when, after they'd begun lamenting the things they missed most about their lives before the world went to hell, Carol quickly and quietly admitted that she, like Andrea, missed her vibrator—a statement made even bolder by the fact that her husband was sitting some distance away. Clearly his abilities to do some things were just as poor as his personality.
The laughter that Carol's statement stirred up riled Ed up enough that he got up from where he was sitting and moved closer to them, still smoking his way through all the cigarettes that were left in the world. Andrea quickly offered an explanation, that didn't really say anything, to his inquiries about their laughter, but the man didn't go away. He continued to hover, trying to stand over all of them, and supervised them while they washed the laundry.
"Problem, Ed?" Andrea asked, growing irritated by the feeling of having someone hanging over her shoulder—someone who might tell her that her work was insufficient when she hadn't seen him lift a finger in days to do a single thing.
"None that concerns you," Ed responded smartly.
And yet he continued to watch them—to watch Andrea among them—as though anything that any of them did really concerned him in the slightest. Her irritation only growing, Andrea finally stood up and decided to confront him, wondering if a man like him might finally back down if he realized that women—yes, women—could confront him. They didn't have to be afraid of him just because he'd beaten his wife to the point that, sometimes, she forgot that she was strong enough to make him back down too.
"Ed," Andrea said, "tell you what. You don't like how your laundry's done? You are welcome to pitch in and do it yourself. Here."
She flung the went garment in his direction and was surprised when it came back to her with much more force than she'd employed and slapped her in the face and neck. She was momentarily stunned because she'd never been in a position where a man would have done such a thing—and for all the preparation that she might have thought she had, she really wasn't sure how to handle it at that moment.
"Ain't my job, missy," Ed said.
In response to Andrea's questioning about what exactly Ed's job was, given that she'd seen him do nothing that really benefited anyone but himself, Ed unleashed a chain of insults on her. The insults, especially coming from someone like him, really didn't hurt her but she was amazed at the audacity of him. She was surprised at how quickly he made her blood boil and how high her blood pressure could raise just by looking at him. She didn't believe in violence—not by anyone and really not for any reason—but she wanted to hit Ed for simply being himself.
And then he suggested that Carol should come with him. He insisted that she accompany him—no doubt to suffer some punishment for what he perceived as Andrea's wrongdoings, and Andrea reached out to stop her. She reached out to tell her that she didn't have to go with him—not now and not ever. Not even if Carol told her that it "didn't matter" and she should simply let it go.
Because it did matter.
Ed got his hands on Carol, though, enough to slap her across the face. The sound of it stunned Andrea, for a second, as much as the sting of the wet garment had. For most of her life she'd heard about men beating their wives and she'd had more than one strong opinion about it, but she'd never actually seen it happen. She'd boldly said, as well, what she'd do if she were in that situation—both as the wife and as the onlooker—but she'd never been able to put into practice what she preached. When it happened, though, she reacted by doing the only thing that she could think to do and lunged at him to keep him at some distance while Amy wrestled Carol away from him. In the scramble of things, Shane appeared and snatched Ed away from them. For the first time in her life, Andrea struggled against her belief that violence wasn't necessary because, now, she had the conflicting belief that Ed should somehow pay for being the kind of man that he was.
Andrea returned to Carol, almost catching her as she tried to run toward the men who were rolling around in the scuffle, and wrapped her arms around Carol to hold the woman. She talked to her and touched her. She tried to remind her that they were there and they were supporting her. Her chest ached over the fact that Carol was distraught—truly suffering—because of what Shane was doing to Ed. Despite his abuse, Carol still wanted to protect him. Maybe her need to protect him was drawn from love, or maybe it was just fear of the level of retaliation she'd suffer from Ed later, but the need was very real. And the pain was very real. It was palpable and Andrea felt like she was absorbing it all through her skin as she held tight to Carol.
There was nothing that Andrea could do for her, feeling a little guilty because she hadn't thought enough to not provoke the man in the first place and start the chain reaction that ended up like this, except hold her and attempt to comfort her. She knew, more than anything, that she had to keep Carol from breaking loose from her hold and running the short distance to get to Ed. Shane wouldn't mean to do it, but he was so wrapped up in his efforts to beat Ed to death that he might very well end up hurting Carol if she were to get into the middle of things.
All of them yelled at Shane, every bit as much as Carol yelled for Ed, that he had to stop. He had to stop or he'd kill the man. He had to stop before he killed him.
Punishing him was one thing—and maybe it was something that he deserved, even if Andrea found the violence hard to stomach—but beating him to death would be a turning point that none of them could ever come back from.
Shane wouldn't be able to come back from it.
And right now? From the looks of it? They needed to draw him back.
He must have heard them, though, because he finally stopped. He finally gave one last warning to Ed that this—what had happened—was Shane's final warning. If Ed should think that his practices were acceptable and should dare to touch his wife or child again, Shane would kill him.
And Andrea had no doubt that he was telling the truth.
She finally released Carol, when Shane walked away from Ed, and she stood there staring at Shane and shaking her head. He looked back at her, still struggling to get his breath and fully rein in his temper.
"What?" He asked, the word barely coming out.
If Andrea wanted to say anything to him, she couldn't have. She couldn't find her voice. Her voice—which had possibly caused all of this in the first place—wouldn't work for her at the moment. Instead, she walked over to Carol and leaned down, resting her hand on the woman's shoulder. When Carol jerked, Andrea lifted her hand and returned it to gently rest there.
"I'll help you," Andrea said. "Come on—I'll help you."
It was all she had to offer at this point. She despised Ed, but she would help Carol for Carol's sake.
She didn't tell Carol that, though the means wasn't the desired way to effect change and get to the desired end, she hoped Shane's warning was one that Ed was smart enough to heed.