I own nothing but my OC.
Chapter 10: Powdered Eggs
It was quiet in the elevator ride down, too quiet. Sam began humming 'The Girl From Ipanema', a stereotypical elevator song, in an attempt to lighten the mood. All she got in return for her trouble were several confused and concerned glances the other members of their group. They were all too tired and world-weary to make the proper connection. The only one who seemed to be even the slightest bit amused by her little display of tongue-in-cheek humor was Daryl.
"Pfft." He laughed softly, suppressing a smirk, as he looked away, pretending to be interested in the shiny, polished-metal walls of the elevator. He shook his head before turning his attention back to Jenner. "Doctors always go around packing heat like that?" He asked. He had been wondering about that gun for awhile now.
"There were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself." Dr. Jenner replied calmly, glancing back at them. "But you look harmless enough. Except you." He said with a slight smile, nodding at Carl. "I'll have to keep my eye on you." He teased, earning a small, slight embarrassed but impish smile from the boy. Jenner let out a soft chuckle. He never thought he'd see another child again.
…
"Are we underground?" Carol asked nervously as Jenner led them through a white-washed corridor with walls that appeared to be made of large concrete bricks. There didn't seem to be windows in any of the open rooms the passed.
"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner asked.
"A little." She replied tentatively.
"Try not to think about it." He replied as they came to a large, dark room. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." Jenner called out.
Sam could hear the familiar humming, whirring, and beeping of computers as the lights flashed on overhead. Apparently 'the big room' was some kind of command center, from the look of it. She found the emptiness of it kind of eerie… Was Jenner the only one there?
"Welcome to Zone 5." Jenner told them before pressing forward again, leading them further in.
"Where is everybody? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick asked. Jenner stopped and turned to face them.
"I'm it." Jenner told him. "It's just me here."
"What about the person you were speaking with?" Lori asked. "Vi?"
"Vi, say hello to our guests." Jenner commanded to his unseen partner. "Tell them… 'welcome'."
"Hello, guests. Welcome." A computer generated voice echoed throughout the room in response.
"Of course, 'Vi', for V.I.—Virtual Intelligence. It's a computer." Sam said, stating the obvious, as she let out a sigh in disappointment.
"I'm all that's left." Jenner said again. "I'm sorry."
…
"Mmf." Sam grimaced, squeezing her eyes shut, while she very pointedly looked away from the needle in Dr. Jenner's hand as it pierced her skin and slid into her vein. She, Andrea, and Jacqui were the only left who still needed to let Jenner take a sample of their blood. He had taken them into some kind of lecture room for that. Guess he didn't want them messing up any of the labs.
"What's the matter?" Jenner asked.
"You scared of needles?" Daryl taunted her, smirking slightly. It was laughable to think that someone who could face down a gang and take out walkers without flinching was afraid of a little needle prick.
"No. I just hate watching them go in and out." She replied tartly, frowning in annoyance as she glanced at him. "It looks freaky."
"Not nearly half as freaky as some of the other things we've seen." T-Dog mumbled under his breath.
"You're done." Jenner told her. He had already removed the needle and was writing her name on the vile. "Next."
Sam vacated the chair and joined the others in the seating area across the room while Andrea sat down in front of Jenner to take her turn. Jenner prepared a new needle and vial for her.
"Name?" He asked.
"Andrea." She replied as he inserted the needle into her arm. "What's the point? If we were infected, we'd all be running a fever."
"I've already broken every rule in the book by letting you in here. Let me just at least be thorough. All done." Jenner replied as he finished taking the sample and started labeling her vial.
Andrea sighed tiredly as she stood and turned to join the others, but her knees started to buckle, and Jacqui had to help her catch her balance before she fell.
"Are you okay?" Jenner asked Andrea.
"She hasn't eaten in days." Jacqui replied for her. "None of us have."
Jenner glanced off to the side, looking thoughtful.
…
"Hahaha!" Sam giggled gleefully, laughing joyfully along with the others seated around the dinner table. To their immense relief and amazement, not only did the CDC's cafeteria have an unbelievable amount of edible food still left in it, but there was also plenty of alcohol.
"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner." Dale said as he finished pouring some red into Lori's glass and handed it to her.
"And France." Sam chimed in, raising hers for a top-up. "I have a lot of French in me."
"I think you have a lot of Italian in you now." Dale said, smiling, as he refilled her wineglass more of the nice pino noir she had picked out in addition to the red and white that was out on the table . This earned quite a few more laughs from the others.
"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then." Lori replied, placing a hand over her son's cup to make sure they didn't pour him any.
"My parents used to let me have a little sip from their glasses at meals when I was little." Sam said, taking a sip. "It's a Tremble family tradition. Supposedly it helps build up a tolerance?" She added, grinning. Whether that was really true or not, she had managed to win a drinking contest or two against some of her college friends.
"That explains a lot." Daryl remarked, smirking.
"Ah!" Sam huffed indignantly, feigning offense, as she tried and failed miserably to throw her paper napkin at him in revenge.
"You're a violent drunk, aren't you?" Daryl teased.
"Only when you piss me off." She retorted, smirking. If anything, she was happy and mischievous drunk.
"How old are you, anyway?" Lori asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She looked barely old enough to be in college.
"Twenty-three. Why?" Sam replied, raising an eyebrow back.
"What's it gonna hurt? Come on." Rick said, clearly in a very good mood. Just one sip wasn't going to hurt. "Come on."
Dale laughed at the look Lori was giving her husband. She clearly thought it was Rick's glass of wine speaking.
"What?" Rick asked, smiling.
The others laughed, and Lori finally relented, allowing Dale to serve her twelve-year-old son a little bit of wine.
"Hey!" T-Dog cheered as Dale took the boy's cup and poured a little red in for him.
"There you are, young lad." Dale said, handing it back to Carl. They all watched while he took a sip. Waiting to see his reaction.
"Eww!" He exclaimed, grimacing in disgust, which naturally made all the adults who loved it crack up laughing.
"That's my boy." Lori said, patting him on the back. "That's my boy. Good boy."
"Yuck." Carl said, sticking out his tongue, as his mother poured the rest of the wine from his cup into hers. "That tastes nasty."
"More for us, then." Sam quipped, smiling.
"Mm. I hear that." T-Dog said, grinning.
"Well, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane told the boy as the laughter finally stated to die down.
"Not you, Glenn." Daryl said, pouring himself some more Southern Comfort.
"What?" Glenn said, slightly startled to suddenly find himself the center off attention.
"Keep drinkin', little man. I wanna see how red your face can get." Daryl told the Asian boy, eliciting more laughs from the group.
"Oh-ho-ho!" T-Dog laughed at the challenge. He couldn't wait to see how this turned out.
CLINK. CLINK. CLINK.
Rick tapped his wineglass with his knife to get everyone's attention.
"It seems to me we haven't thanked out host properly." Rick said, standing up to address the rest of the table.
"He is more than just our host." T-Dog said, raising his glass in salute to Dr. Jenner, who had been sitting quietly on the sidelines the whole time, having already had his supper earlier in the evening.
"Hear! Hear!" Dale cheered, grinning, as they all raised their glasses, even the children.
"Here's to you, Doc." Sam toasted.
"Booyah!" Daryl shouted enthusiastically as he raised his nearly empty bottle of SoCo, causing the others to chuckle.
"Booyah!" T-Dog agreed, smiling, as they all tapped glasses together to finish the toast, filling the room with the sound of clinking glasses.
"So, when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?" Shane asked abruptly, ruining the moment. "All the, uh, the other doctors… that were s'posed to be figurin' out what happened, where are they?" He asked as silence fell over the table.
"We're celebrating, Shane." Rick said, furrowing his brow slightly in disapproval, as he lowered himself back into his seat. "Don't need to do this now."
"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right?" Shane said, not to be deterred. "This was your move—supposed to find all the answers. Instead, we—" He chuckled derisively. "We found him." He said, pointing at Jenner. "We found one man. Why?"
Sam glanced between Shane, Rick, and Jenner. It was a reasonable question, got she got the impression Shane was saying it just as much out of bitterness that Rick's plan had actually succeeded in finding them food in shelter, when he had been pushing Fort Benning so hard, as he was for the good of the group.
"Well… when things got bad, a lot of people just… left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Jenner explained.
"Every last one?" Shane asked skeptically. He found that hard to believe.
"No." Jenner replied. "Many couldn't face walking out the door. They… opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." He finished softly. A heavy silence settled over the room.
Sam closed her eyes. It must have been. It was bad enough having to watch people you knew and worked with committing suicide all around you, but if Jenner had been left alone all by himself, then it also meant that he had to have been the one who cleared the bodies away and up any blood that might have been spilt. She didn't envy Jenner for being stuck here all alone after that. It must have been hellish.
Daryl noticed Sam was absentmindedly rubbing her tattooed wrists under the table. Something about that unnerved him, made him feel concerned.
"You didn't leave." Andrea pointed out, talking to Jenner. "Why?"
"I just kept working, hoping to do some good." He replied somberly.
"Dude, you are such a buzzkill, man." Glenn told Shane, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. Couldn't he have waited until later to ask such a depressing question instead of ruining what had felt like their first real meal in ages?
…
"Most of the facility is powered down," Jenner told them as he led them down another hallway once they had finished eating, "including housing, so you'll have to make do here." It was just a section of small rooms where employees could go to rest in between shifts and a locker room, nothing major. "The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in the video games, okay? Or anything that draws power." He told Carl and Sophia. "The same applies—if you shower, go easy on the hot water." Jenner told the adults, pointing to the different locker rooms on both sides of the hall, before walking off.
"Hot water?" Glenn asked. His face lit up like it was Christmas morning.
"That's what the man said." T-Dog replied, grinning, as they both started laughing and rushed off to get a taste.
"Thank you, God." Sam said dramatically, throwing her head back, as she raised her hands towards heaven, before following the boys' lead and heading into the women's showers without another moment of hesitation, followed close behind by Carol and Sophia, who looked equally excited.
…
Sam moaned blissfully in her shower stall as the hot water rolled down her head, shoulders, and back, soothing her tired and aching muscles. Sam ahd been roughing it for so long, that it had been ages since she'd had a real shower of any kind. She'd mostly been bathing in lakes and rivers for lake of proper facilities. Just walking around in nature butt-naked, hoping nobody saw? Talk about awkward.
"Heaven, I'm in heaven~" She began to happily, not caring that she was off tune, especially since it made Sophia giggle. She didn't mind playing the clown every now and then. It was good to hear the kid laughing after all the crying she had been doing earlier.
"What? You've never heard that song before?" Sam asked, smiling, as she lathered up her washcloth with the shower gel from the dispenser mounted on the wall. "It's Sinatra's 'Cheek to Cheek'."
"Nope." Sophia said, giggling from over in her stall.
"What about you, Carol?" Sam called out. "You a Sinatra fan?"
"I don't think I've heard that one." Carol replied, smiling slightly in her stall. She was glad to hear her daughter laughing again.
"Well, how about I teach it to you, then?" Sam asked pleasantly. "Would you like to hear the rest, Sophia?"
Sophia nodded, but then remembered they couldn't see.
"Yes." Sophia replied out loud.
"Okay, then. Here we go." Sam said, taking a breath before launching into a somewhat off-kilter but amusing rendition of the classic song. "Heaven, I'm in heaven~" She sang. "And my heart beats… So that I can hardly speak~ And I seem to find… The happiness I seek… When we're out together, dancing cheek to cheek~"
…
While Carol and Sophia headed for the rec room so she could play with Carl for a little while before 'bedtime', Sam decided to head back to the cafeteria for some more booze. Make no mistake, Sam might like to drink, but she wasn't an addict or a drunk. She just wasn't quite ready to stop celebrating yet.
"Looks like we had the same idea." Daryl said when she entered the room. He had apparently decided to go back and finish off that bottle of SoCo rather than rushing off to the showers like everyone else.
"Looks like." She said, sitting down at the table as he poured some into a glass for her. "Thanks."
They sat there in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, sipping spiced alcohol. Sam smiled absently, enjoying the warm, fuzzy feeling spreading through her body because of it.
"I've been wondering…" Daryl said, breaking the silence. "What's the story behind those tattoos?"
Sam glanced at her wrist.
"I don't want to talk about it." She replied firmly, avoiding his gaze, as she furrowed her brow and took another sip of alcohol. "Let's talk about something else." She said, trying to change the subject.
Daryl stared at her for a moment longer before deciding to let it slide. He could tell he wasn't going to get anything more out her, and he didn't want to force it. He had things he'd rather not talk about, too. Especially with someone he'd only known for about four days.
"What's your favorite drink?" He asked. She let out a wry chuckle.
"Rusty nail." Sam replied, smirking.
"Never had one." Daryl replied. The somewhat pitying look she gave him upon hearing that kind of pissed him off.
"I'd make one for you if we had the ingredients." She said. "But Jenner seems to be fresh out of Scotch and Drambuie."
"Drambuie?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's a sweet, golden-colored liqueur made from malt whiskey, honey, herbs, and spices." She explained, taking another sip of SoCo. "And it's 80-proof. It is produced in Scotland, and its name derives from the Scottish-Gaelic phrase an dram buidheach, 'the drink that satisfies'."
"What did you do, memorize the back of the label?" Daryl asked, scoffing. It didn't sound half bad, actually.
"Nope. My brother and I both learned everything we know about liquor, fishing, and hunting from my grandpa." She replied, smiling. "You probably would've liked him. He was a 'good ol' boy'. He also taught us the two family mottos."
"Yeah? And what might they be?" Daryl asked, giving her a refill.
"First, 'God helps those who help themselves', and second, 'Do no harm, but take no shit neither.'" She replied with a mischievous gleam in her eye. Daryl smirked.
"You're right." He said, nodding. "I like that 'take no shit' part."
They laughed and shared another drink.
…
"Ughh…" Sam groaned as she trudged back into the cafeteria the next morning. Hangover level: the basic. She felt like she had suddenly come down with the common cold, but she knew she'd be fine if she could get her hands on some headache medicine and a glass of water. "What's for breakfast?" She asked groggily. It looked like pretty much everyone else had already beat her there.
"Eggs." T-Dog announced, looking entirely too cheerful, considering how early it was and how much alcohol he had also consumed at dinner. Sam was pretty sure he was just experiencing what was known as a 'false dawn'. T-Dog might seem fine now, but he'd be feeling like a truck hit him later. "Powdered, but—I do 'em good." He said confidently as he carried the skillet over to the table so he could serve everyone. "I bet you can't tell."
A moan of pure agony from Glenn let Sam know she wasn't the only one suffering from a hangover that morning. Glenn's hangover level: apocalypse.
"Protein helps the hangover." T-Dog told the moaning Glenn, giving him a generous portion.
"And water." Sam added, holding her head in her hands, while T-Dog dished some out for her too. "Though it usually works better if you drink it the night before."
"Where'd all this come from?" Rick asked, also looking fairly hungover.
"Jenner." Lori replied.
"Could you help me, please?" Rick asked her, handing over a bottle of some kind of anti-hangover medicine so she could open it for him.
"He thought we could use it." Lori continued to explain as she unscrewed the cap for him.
"Thank you." He said when she handed the open bottle back.
"He thought we could use it. Some of us, at least." She said, glancing between her husband and Glenn.
"He was right." Sam said. "Pass that over here when you're done with it, will you?"
"Ughhhh." Glenn groaned miserably while Jacqui rubbed soothing circles on his back, helping him stay upright in his chair. "Don't ever, ever, ever let me drink again."
"Hey." Shane greeted everyone as he walked in.
"Hey." Rick said. "Feel as bad as I do?"
"Worse." Shane replied, pouring himself a cup of coffee before joining them at the table.
"The hell happened to you?" T-Dog asked, concerned when he noticed some angry red scratches on him. "Your neck?"
"I must have done it in my sleep." Shane said.
"Never seen you do that before." Rick said, blinking.
"Me neither." Shane replied, glancing at Lori, who pointedly ignored him. "Not like me at all."
Sam glanced between the two of them, wondering what was going on, and if she was the only one seeing this. No one else seemed to have noticed whatever weirdness was going on between them. Maybe it was just the irritably from her hangover talking. Shane cleared his throat uncomfortably when he noticed Sam's staring.
"Morning." Jenner greeted everyone as he walked in.
"Hey, Doc." Rick and Shane returned his greeting just as Daryl finally joined them. Sam narrowed her eyes when she noticed that he didn't seem to be even the slightest bit hungover despite having had just as much as her to drink the previous evening, if not more. Now that just wasn't fair. Was the man invincible?
"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing—" Dale began tentatively, not wanting to seem rude.
"But you will anyway." Jenner concluded accurately as he poured himself some coffee.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea finished."