I do not own the characters featured in this story.
Lori leaned against the kitchen counter while Patricia ladled hot water into a metal basin. Patricia was silent, eyes glossy. She looked like she was somewhere far away. Wherever she was, Lori wished she could be there with her. Anywhere but here, waiting to take Shane in some water to use to clean himself up after being raped.
Rick hadn't told her, not directly, but she had known the second she'd seen Shane was still alive. Animals like the ones who had wanted to take her and the other women; they left survivors for a reason. They left him because to live after some things was even worse than it was to die. They left Shane because after they'd had their fun they had no incentive to kill him.
"There you go." Patricia handed her the small tub. "You should tell him to give it a few minutes to cool."
She bobbed her head and tiptoed toward the bedroom, unsure of what she'd see. She'd seen the injuries already, what she hadn't seen was how Shane was. After the CDC, she'd been left shaking and crying, and it had taken her a few hours to pull it together. She wondered if Shane would be nearly as upset or if he'd shrug it off, unfazed, his humanity too far gone to be affected by things like that.
She rapped on the doorknob to let him know she was coming in.
He was already up. He'd been expecting her and she looked to see if his eyes were shiny or wet. The eye that was open was dry, but haunted, and she was afraid to stare into it. She didn't want to see. She had images in her head already.
"Bet you think I deserve this," Shane said, sitting awkwardly, knees spread, most of weight on his feet, leaning forward, sheet twisted up around his lap. There was something mean to his voice, the curl of his mouth, but it wasn't directed at her. He kept his head titled down.
"No one deserves this." She thought, had always told herself, that this much was true. No one deserved this. That was what she had said, debating the death penalty and eye-for-an-eye with her friends around a kitchen table, cup of coffee cooling in her hands. No one deserved this. But she saw the world different now, sharper, clearer, without the filtered, rose-colored screen. She saw the horror and the ugly and the hurt. She'd lived through it. And she remembered those men who had tried to get their hands on her, and she remembered Shane cocking his shotgun, and she remembered screaming at him to pull the trigger, to blow all their heads away while Andrea bled into her lap.
"But if anyone did?" he asked, sounding like a child, soft-lipped and open-mouthed.
"It'd be you," she told him, honest, with Shane and herself. It would be him; her husband's best friend since childhood. The man who loved her and hurt her and fucked everything in her life right up. The man she'd, for a while, wished was dead until he had saved her child, until she realized his worth in protecting her son.
"I didn't," he said, lifting his face to her. His broken, smashed in face. One of his eyes completely swollen shut. He looked puffy and aching and raw and she bet it hurt, throbbed with his heartbeat, stung to every touch.
"Would you have?" She set the basin of water in front of him, made him meet her eyes. She wanted to know. He'd so far managed to skirt around it, apologize in the briefest way. He'd apologized so he wouldn't have to think about it. "If I hadn't stopped you?"
He reached his hands down into the basin, picked up the washcloth.
"I don't know," he said, eventually, and wrung the excess water out. "I don't want to think so."
"Well." She watched him move the cloth to his face, gingerly start to wipe the dried blood away. The skin was no cleaner underneath, dark and purple. "I'm going to need more certainty than that."
Shane didn't answer. He continued dabbing at his face, hissing when he touched a sore spot. He wasn't getting anything done. She reached out and took the washcloth away from him, went to cleaning his face herself, fast and efficient. She didn't care if it hurt. She started to work down his neck and his shoulders, clear away the grit, not looking at him, pretending this was Rick or Glenn or anyone but Shane. She stopped, however, when she let her gaze drift downwards, unintentionally into his lap.
Shane had a bite mark on the part of his thigh that she could see. Deep and red and hard enough to have broken the skin. Shane heard her gasp, quickly pulled the sheet over it, skin from the chin up that wasn't bruised flushing red.
Impulsively, because she had loved the Shane she knew in the world, the Shane who made her laugh and smile, who made Rick smile, who would play with Carl in the backyard and pull up a plate at dinner, she leaned forward and kissed his battered cheek. She had loved the Shane who had protected her and Carl like they were his. And she felt bad for this Shane, even though she probably shouldn't. This Shane who did things and then tried to justify them, who was going a little crazy, maybe, or who had always been this dark and was just starting to show it. But he was also vulnerable, and his hands were trembling, and he had fingerprints on his hips and shoulder blades, and he had them because he'd done what he always, always said he'd do.
Protect her. Carl. Keep them safe.
Shane's skin was hot against her lips. She hoped he wasn't about to catch a fever. It would worry Rick and Carl half to death.
"Thank you," she whispered, and it felt real, the way the sincerity of the words swelled to fill her heart and chest.
"Anything for you," he said and it scared her, because she knew he meant it, because this had happened to him and she wondered what worse he'd do or have done to him all out of his love for Carl and her. She didn't want to give him a chance to say more, so she spun on her heel and left the room.
She found Rick in their tent, sitting cross legged on the nest of their sleeping bags. His eyes were open and his face blank, thoughtful. She knew even before he spoke what is words would be.
"How does he seem to you?"
She wasn't sure if she was supposed to tell him the truth. Rick didn't know the things she did. He didn't know the same Shane. Whatever she told Rick would only break him up, make him feel guilty. Rick felt things deeper than most; put more weight on himself than he should. Some people, like Shane, just weren't his responsibility.
After careful consideration, she decided to lie. She'd told him about Shane and the baby, one little secret wouldn't hurt.
"No different than usual."
Rick nodded like she'd given him confirmation.
"He doesn't remember," Rick said, hands closing into fists in his lap. "He doesn't know."
It took her a moment to understand what he meant. And it made sense. She and Shane were both partial to lies over the truth. It was the single thing they had in common.
"He doesn't?" She tried to sound surprised, forced herself to suck in a breath. She wondered why Shane had bothered to tell her, of all people, but then she realized it was his way to show he was sorry, his way to show her how much he cared. It was his look what I would go through for you and it made her want to thank him again and spit in his face. It felt like she was being manipulated. Like he was trying to guilt her into loving him, only she couldn't see anyone making the conscious choice, and if she had to, she would wish it on him before she'd wish it on herself. She'd have begged him to take it for her, would have promised him almost anything she had to give.
"He was unconscious. They knocked him out before they started, so he doesn't know. And I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to tell him." There it was, that anger toward Shane again, reignited with a vengeance, blazing like the infernos of hell. How dare he put something like that on Rick. But she also saw things from Shane's perspective, couldn't think of a single man who would openly admit to something that came with so much pain and shame. Of course he wanted to pretend like it had never happened. Of course he didn't think Rick would feel the need to bring it up.
"You don't have to." Rick's head snapped up and he stared at her. "Get Herschel to do it or Maggie or Patricia or Glenn, if he knows, if any of them do. Don't put it on yourself. Maybe Shane doesn't even need to know. Why tell him something that is only going to hurt him?"
"I have to, Lori."
"Not right now. Wait a while. He could remember on his own if you give a few days. Think about it."
Rick's face was a mask, but she could still read it. She'd always been able to. He was beating himself up. He blamed himself, because he was Rick fucking Grimes, master of the martyr complex, and she wouldn't have it, not this time.
"It's not your fault. Shane's a big boy, Rick. He made his choices. And what he does is not your fault."
"That's not it." Rick said and he almost sounded angry. "I don't—" His composure got closer and closer to cracking. "I feel guilty because I'm glad it wasn't you. I'm so glad it wasn't you." He pulled her to him, buried his face in her neck. That was the one thing she hadn't been expecting. But she was glad for it too. "Christ, he's my best friend and the first thing I thought when I found out was thank God it's not Lori. It would have been him or you and I'm relieved things turned out the way they did."
"I know," she murmured, hushing him, smoothing her nails across his scalp. She rested her cheek against the top of his head, pulled his ear lower; let him listen to her heart. "I'm glad it wasn't me too."
"What kind of man does that make me?" The words were muffled into her chest, lost in the fabric of her shirt. She could feel the heat and the wet of his breath.
"A normal one," she said, trying to think of a better word for it. "A man who loves his family, and there's nothing bad or wrong with that."
