.1884- I think that it was important to show how strong they still are as a couple, y'know? Thank you!
Runaway-Zebra- Thank you! Yeah, well Vanessa would've felt wrong if Judith grew up thinking she was her mom…so they had to be honest with her. I'm excited to write the wedding .
"We don't need you today," Michelle said when Vanessa walked into the hospital.
"What do you mean?"
"We've got a bunch of graduating kids taking their final testes. I can handle it myself. Go; surprise Shane at work or something."
"You think he'd like that?"
"Of course, his fine ass wife walks in there and y'all screw around in his office. What man wouldn't want that?" she said with a grin.
"Michelle!" Vanessa exclaimed, snorting from too much laughter.
"Well if Daryl didn't go out and work in the woods, I'd go out there. But, y'know." Michelle and Daryl had started a relationship and they were pretty happy. They even lived together.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed.
"Now go on, get."
Vanessa complied and walked across town. Shane was on office duty today, so it would be a nice surprise for him. When she walked into the police station, the receptionist desk was empty, so she just slipped down the hallway to the office at the end of the hall. She didn't open the door because she heard murmured voices, one was a woman, and one was Shane. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he was cheating on her, then it was his fault. It wasn't as if they were one of those couples that shared a house and a bed and that were it. They talked and loved each other…she hoped it wasn't just her anyway. So, she knocked on the door.
"It's open!" Shane's voice called. Vanessa walked through the door, still in her scrubs. In the chair in front of Shane's desk, was a pretty blonde with her very voluminous hair. Where the hell did she get hair spray? Vanessa wondered. She hadn't even so much as seen a can of hair spray in what? Six years? She wasn't even sure. "Darlin' what are you doin' here?" he asked.
"Um, well they're testing the recruits at the hospital so I thought I'd surprise you," she said uneasily. The blonde looked at her; her face had black eyeliner and bright red lipstick. She looked like a once Miss America type. "I knew you were on paper work duty…"
Shane stood from his seat behind his desk and ran his hand through his dark hair. He wrapped his arm around his wife and kissed her hair. "Rachel, I'd like you to meet my Vanessa. Vanessa, this is Rachel, Doug's wife." Douglas Richardson, the man that ran their sweet town.
"Nice to meet you," Vanessa offered her hand. Rachel shook her hand and gave her a smile.
"You too," her voice was on the high side and if Vanessa was honest, quite annoying. She didn't like her for some reason; Vanessa was just getting a vibe from her that wasn't good. She just couldn't trust her. Vanessa's track record with blondes, save Beth, wasn't the best. Andrea, Tiffany just to name two that she'd met during the apocalypse. "I should get back; I've got a lot of stuff to plan. Thanks for everything Shane. I'll stop by at the end of the week with that information."
"Alright, take it easy Rachel." As soon as the door closed and Rachel was gone, Vanessa pulled away from Shane.
"What the hell was that about?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely dumbfounded.
"'Thanks for everything Shane'," she said in a mock nasality voice.
"She came by to talk, that's it. Why are you suddenly suspicious of me?"
"Look, I come down her to surprise my husband at work. It was supposed to be romantic and sexy. But I get here and there's some beautiful blonde woman here! A woman much prettier than me, and then as she's leaving, she calls my husband by first name and thanks him for 'everything'!"
"Is that what this is about? You're jealous of Rachel?"
"No!" she exclaimed, looking away from him.
"Oh Jesus, Vanessa! I can't even look at another woman the way I look at you! Goddamn, why would I want someone that's just 'pretty'? I got the whole package with you!"
"Really? Then why was she here?" she wasn't letting him off that easy.
"Doug is dead! She woke up and he was just dead! Okay, she came by to speak to me about who was gonna take over this damn place!" She felt terrible. Why was it that she couldn't just trust him? She knew that he loved her…she just…
"I'm sorry, really. I just…I don't get it. Isn't being together for a long time supposed to be hard? I mean…you're an amazing father, a great husband, and a wonderful lover…I don't get how I got so lucky…and we almost never right. It feels like a fuckin' fairytale!"
"Now you're gonna try to butter me up?" he scoffed.
"I'm not…I am sorry, really. I need to stop with the jealous girlfriend shit. I need to accept that for some unknown reason I am the luckiest woman ever to live." Though Shane resented the fact that Vanessa had assumed that he was here cheating on her, he understood. Hell, if he would've walked in and some attractive man was talking to her, he would've lost it a lot faster. Come to think of it, he had. When Tiffany had told him Vanessa had kissed Rick, he had lost it.
"Apology accepted."
"Shane, I just can't lose-Wait. Did you just say you accepted my apology?"
"Yeah. 'Cause you did the same for me when I was being a jealous asshole."
"Okay we have got to solve this…it can't break us up."
"I agree," Shane said. Vanessa took a seat on his desk and rested her elbows on her thighs. He walked over and moved her legs apart so he could stand between them. He rested his forehead against hers and kissed her lips.
"We need to just trust each other…" she trailed off. She'd always loved the way he looked in a police uniform.
"Yeah," he said, leaning in for another kiss. Her fingers tugged at the buttons on the outside of his uniform, he smirked against her lips. He loved that she was so ready to do this in his office. "Hold on," he pulled back, realizing something. He quickly locked the door and came back to Vanessa.
"Good thinking," she murmured, bringing her lips back to his.
That afternoon, both Shane and Vanessa went to the girls' school to pick them up. As they walked towards the school, a thought popped into Vanessa's head. "I have to go to the grocery store tomorrow after I get off work."
"You want me to go and keep an eye on the kids?" Shane offered halfheartedly. He hated grocery shopping with a burning passion. He even hated it before the world ended.
"No that's okay. But, maybe you and Larayne should have some alone time? Maybe figure out what's going on with her?"
"And you take Judi and Aiden?" Vanessa nodded.
"They'll behave, Larayne's the rowdy one. She gets them all arguing."
Shane laughed. "She is your daughter."
"Shut up," she nudged him playfully. "She's your daughter too."
"Judith is quiet," he protested.
"So is Aiden," she argued.
"Alright, we have wonderful children, let's just go with that."
"We do, don't we?" Vanessa smiled.
"Mm hm," he grinned and they both walked up to the school building and waited for their children to walk out. There were a few other parents around them, doing the same thing.
"Mommy!" Larayne ran to her mother, it was different seeing her here to pick her up.
"Daddy!" Judith called running from the school. Both parents met their children in a hug.
"What are you doin' here?" Larayne asked her mother.
"I didn't have to work so I thought I'd come with your daddy to pick you up."
"Mrs. Walsh! Mrs. Walsh!" Vanessa turned her head to see Michelle pulling up in a golf cart.
"What is it?"
"You're needed at the hospital, now."
"Okay," she said. She tried to hide her worry.
"I got the kids," Shane said. "Be careful?" he knew that she ended up dealing with people that could very well turn. The vaccine that she'd created only worked to keep people from turning if they got bit. Shane's blood had been a main factor in creating said vaccine, and everyone in town had gotten it.
"I will. I love you. I love you girls," she kissed both of the children's heads before she pecked her husband's lips.
"Love you too!" they all called as she jumped into the golf cart and Michelle sped away.
"This group came to our walls, one of them's real bad off…the trainees won't be able to handle it…he needs the vaccine, ASAP."
"You could've given it to him," she suggested.
"He's already been bit, and I'm just a nurse! I'm still not used to dealing with this stuff! And Doug simply let them in! That's not like him at all."
"I thought Doug was…"
"Doug was what?"
"Dead. His wife was at Shane's office…did you actually see him?"
"No, but who else controls the wall? We have bigger fish to fry at the moment here though!" they pulled into the hospital and ran up the few flights of steps to the floor where the group was being held. Vanessa looked quickly at the few that were standing in the separate room. There was a woman, a teenage boy, a teenage girl, and two older men. "In here," Michelle pulled Vanessa into the smaller room where she had been examined when she herself first arrived. There was a man with a long beard dark beard, limbs that were lacking fat but not muscle, and a square set jaw. He looked over at her, and that's when she noticed his eyes. They were a blue that was all too familiar, but something was vastly different about them now…they were hallow, and worn, even more so then the last time she'd seen him.
"Nessa?" he asked hoarsely. His was voice thick with a southern accent. It couldn't be him…her mind must've been playing tricks on her.
AN: Who is he? Does anybody think they know?