Chapter Twenty-Eight: A bland Breakfast for the Hearty


Their first night in the prison went rather well. Primrose only woke up once during the night for a diaper change and she went back down in under five minutes after Esme let her suckle on her chest. Rick brought Judith over three times during the night for a feeding, the baby was sweet and really no problem since she would immediately fall asleep in her arms after eating. Esme lamented the lack of consistent sleep for only a moment, but it wasn't like the cries of an infant hadn't immediately aroused her anyway. Besides, she was genuinely happy to fill Judith's tiny belly with milk and gently rock her to sleep. Rick, on the other hand, was definitely rocking new baby eyebags this morning. In fact, most of the group was.

Esme hid an amused smile into Primrose's darkening baby hair as her youngest drank her fill. Her little ones were chirpily eating the cheerios she'd handed out for breakfast as they babbled loudly to one another. She was only happy that she didn't need to worry about Bora and Thomas accidentally falling off the table now that Daryl had kindly helped her set up three high chairs. Carl had his face planted on the crook of his folded arms, not even looking at the small bowl of oatmeal that had been placed in front of him by Beth.

Oscar and Axel were also looking worse-for-well as they sluggishly ate their portions of breakfast, she tried not to feel too uncomfortable about Axel's occasional stares at her semi-exposed breast. She gave the ex-convict a hard look, making the man pink and look away sheepishly, before scooping some of the oatmeal Beth had served her into her mouth. Rick had already finished eating his plate and was rocking his wide-awake daughter in his arms, she'd fed Judith about half-an-hour ago now and the baby was now temporarily energetic.

She looked up curiously as Daryl and the woman, Carol, walked into the cafeteria. Carol was an older woman, probably in later thirties with greying cropped hair and inquisitive blue eyes. Esme shot the woman a shy smile but it died off when she realized that Carol was staring incredulously at the gaggle of toddlers having breakfast. Lilac was the first of her children to notice the new face, her oldest daughter smiled cutely at the strange woman and chirruped, "Hi!"

Carol's face went through a gaggle of emotions, from surprise to grief and then to a carefully placed blank expression to mask the rest of her thoughts. "Hello." the woman croaked out as she sat down as far away as she could. Esme felt a bad feeling sinking forming into the pit of her stomach, this woman had lost a child. She recognized that expression that flitted across Carol's face. She'd seen it before on the face of a former parent that had entrusted their child to the daycare (Mrs. Morrell had never recovered from losing her oldest daughter to cancer, and in the end, made her husband a widow and her toddler son a motherless child). She would keep her children away from the woman as well, at least until the grief that clouded over Carol's eyes stopped appearing just from looking at her babies. Esme pulled the strap of her shirt back up when Primrose finished and instead maneuvered her to sit up on her lap so that she could peer at the other adults at the table.

The small amount of conversation at the table waned when Rick cleared his throat and placed Judith down in the bassinet near the table.

(Well, almost all of the conversation, since it didn't look like Lilac and Andre were going to stop talking to one another about the adventures of Tarzan and... yup, Mogli from the Jungle Book. Thomas and Bora also didn't look willing to stop babbling to one another either just because the adults at the table wanted to have a serious conversation).

"Esme here informed us of a very concerning threat in our area." he started, Carl looked up for the first time that morning to observe his father from under the brim of his sheriff's hat, "From now on, no one goes out without a partner."

Daryl looked up at that, "Wha' about huntin'?"

"No." Rick shook his head, "You wanna go out huntin' you gotta take someone with you. We need to work on fortifyin' this place in case this other group finds us."

"We'll schedule a watch shift from the guard tower, keep an eye on the roads." Glenn spoke up, agreeing murmurs broke out.

Esme bit her bottom lip roughly, "What about scavaging supplies?" she asked making all the eyes in the room turn to look at her. "I know it's a bit far, but the daycare has a lot of supplies I gathered over the year. Some things that we didn' bring with us because of the time an' lack of space in the trucks."

Rick rubbed the bridge of his nose, "What kind of supplies?"

"The solar panels on the roof, I have the guide for installing and taking them apart. We can bring them here for electricity. The space heaters, petroleum for generators, gardening supplies, my canning tools to preserve food, more clothing for the children... more of the foam rugs I lined my kid's room so that we can make the other cells more comfortable..." Esme sighed softly, she ignored the considering looks that the others were throwing each other.

"I'm pretty good with machinery," Axel piped up, "I put one of them solar panels up once on a job, I could dismantle 'em and set 'em up here."

"There's more things there that can be useful..." Esme divulged hesitatingly, "But if you want to fortify this place, I think we need to make it more unattractive to the rotters we need to cover the fence. They rely on sight as much as sound, I think if they cannot see into the prison they are less likely to be interested."

"Cover it with what?" Hershal asked.

"In the town, there is this thrift store, there's a bunch of useful things there. It's where I got all of the archery equipment," she added with a pointed look at Daryl before she continued, "Near the back, they have a section for yard things, and the last time I was there, I found a lot of rolls of -dios, como se dice- privacy netting for fences. We can use them to cover the fences surrounding the prison, so at least the rotters and maybe even people cannot see the inside."

"That's not a bad idea..." Glenn trailed off, "When we were in the area last time, the place was practically a ghost town. The only walkers we encountered were the ones that'd been attracted by the noise to the daycare over the last two days."

Rick turned to observe her carefully, "Are you sure it's worth it? The Governor's people, hell someone else could have raided the shop already."

Esme nodded understandingly, "Yes, but it would be hard to get through that door. It's a very heavy one, and there are no windows so it's not like an outsider even knows what kind of store it is unless they know beforehand... And I have the keys. I got them off- well I have them an' I locked the door the last time I was there."

Maggie let out a tinkling laugh, "Well, you certainly never do things by halves. Any other stores worth looking into while we're there?"

A small smile bloomed onto her cheeks, it looked like the group wasn't planning on outright disregarding her suggestion. Even Rick was leaning forward in interest after she mentioned the privacy netting. "I also have the keys for the pharmacy. It doesn't look like a pharmacy, it used to be a house until the owner changed the bottom floor into the store. It's across the street from the thrift store."

"How did it look like when you were last there?" Hershal asked, "Were there a lot of medications still on the shelves?"

She nodded as she gave her little ones more cheerios after being prompted by pleading whines, "It was untouched... I found Ms. Aggie- uh, the previous owner and a couple of other starving rotters inside. They has been there since the beginning of the outbreak. At the time I was in a hurry to get back home, Lilac was sick and I ran out of baby fever reducer. I left a lot of things untouched, the upstairs will probably have cans or dry food."

"This sounds worth the trip." Rick piped up, "I want a group to make the trip out there today. Might as well grab everythin' we can before we batten down the hatches."

"We can take Esme's truck. 'S got a lotta bed space, we put down the seats in the back, we'll have even more room." Daryl grunted.

"I'll take out the emergency supplies and the car seats I got in there." Esme promised. The archer nodded in her direction.

"Do you have a map of the area?" Rick asked her, "First things first, I need you to mark down the shops we need to hit."


Words 1589


(Hello everyone!)

(I hope you liked this new chapter! Esme has had a very productive first morning with the group! Next chapter we are more than likely going to be introducing our favorite brother and sister combo!)


(Guest1: Haha! Thanks! I love watching soft Rick moments, this was a pretty wild season for him though which made the rare fluffy moments with hin in thems extra special!)

(itsprettyboy: LOL. I'm glad I was right! Not sure that they'll be besties... maybe... actually... no... wait... nah... Now I'm thinking. You got me thinking. Damn, it's all I'll be able to think about now. Technically, between the two of them they have the most dependents... and she'll eventually be taking care of Judith a lot, which means that Carl will also be around her a lot... STILL, our main man Daryl will be the most important man in her life... barring Thomas and Andre, because let's face it... They are Esme's little mans.)

(DarkFireNyx: Thanks! I'll definitely bookmark DEAD MAGIC on my AO3 account when I get a chance!)

(Guest2/MYSTC4TH: I'm glad you're enjoying this fic! Thank you so much for reviewing! I'm currently on a huge Teen Wolf reading binge, but I'll definitely get to reading some of your other fics as soon as I can! I'm not sure how to comment on the platform you use, but I'll definitely comment when I can!)

(Beachgirl25: We'll see about the crazy train bit, in cannon Rick was already really stressed after their first Governor interaction and losing Daryl when they encountered Sasha and Tyreese's group which led to him snapping pretty badly and having a breakdown. Obviously that's not how it's going to play out here... But, remember he'd been having some hallucinations since losing Lori... So Carol has appeared! Esme isn't going to have much interaction with her yet, but Lilac definitely triggered Carol into having Sophia flashbacks. Hopefully, I'll be writing Michone very very soon!)

(Guest3: Thank you so much!)

(Guest4: I definitely will! Thanks for reviewing!)

(Guest5: Haha. I'll try to update as soon as possible once more!)

(iamemma1: The whole Governor debacle, while still going to happen, will definitely be different!)

(Heidi191976: Aww, thanks!)

(MerryLimp: THANK YOU for your wonderful REVIEW! I swear, when I read your review I felt paranoid for a split second and thought you'd somehow read my future plans for this fic from my not-so-secret clipboard... LOL. Anyway, I'm really happy to see that this story is being well-accepted by my viewers, aka you guys! I'm having a lot of fun writing this fic and I'm glad that other people are enjoying this too! I remember the first time I held my friend's baby, it was later on the evening she was born, she was just so tiny... especially compared to some of the kids I babysitted at the time, even though one of them was only ten months old at the time, I was completely thrown by the difference. I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well! We'll definitely see the results of the ripple effect Esme has had on this universe come to affect very soon!)

(Guest6: I'm using google translate to write this, so I hope that it isn't spelled or worded wrong... Спасибо за чтение моей истории! Я рад, что вам понравилось! Я был очень рад видеть, что кто-то из другой страны нашел время, чтобы не только прочитать мою историю, но и оставить отзыв! Надеюсь, вам понравилась эта глава!)

(ajahane: Thanks! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!)

(SciFichikie: Hahaha! Thanks! Our favorite fur baby isn't in this chapter but she will briefly be n the next one! I love cats, but since everyone in my house is super allergic to them I can't have one... I do have a dog, his name is Leo and he's a golden retriever. He's definitely the baby of my family. I swear my dad likes him more than us.)

(Guest7/Seris: LOL! I know right! Just because the world ended it doesn't mean your taste buds have! Be creative people!)