March 30, 2011

~*~ LG ~*~

"Hey, now, Asskicker, ain't you the little badass this morning." Daryl's stretched out on the big living room rug next to Judith on her playmat. The comment draws Lori's attention and she has to smile when she sees the baby's raised up on her arms like a miniature push-up.

She squawks a 'reply' to Daryl wriggling madly as if she's already trying to crawl to him. It makes the little tutu skirt on her bright blue romper bounce.

"I guess you're right. That playmat's just not as interesting as Daddy, huh?" He rolls to his back and tugs Judith to his chest, acting as the playmat instead.

She can't see Judith's face from here, but based on the exaggerated happy smile Daryl's got, he got a smile out of her for the maneuver. The baby tires of holding her head up and wobbles it down onto Daryl's shoulder. He cups one hand around her fluff of dark hair, leaning in to kiss the baby's forehead.

"We should go see why your sister still isn't ready, huh, Judy-baby?" He takes the baby babble as an answer and sits up, spotting their audience and grinning sheepishly.

"Saturday."

It's an impulsive decision, one that won't allow for anything fancy or elaborate, but that's exactly what she wants.

She can see when it clicks for him. The council proposed and the community accepted to make the first Saturday of each month a celebration day - birthdays and new marriages. The party replaces the sports games for that one Saturday each month. The birthday part expands the Dixon birthday habits, because many here don't have family to celebrate with. Weddings can be as short or traditional as each couple likes.

Originally, she was thinking of waiting another month or two, past the rush of this first celebration day that already has four couples. They don't really need a ceremony, she thinks, because she understands Cricket's abhorrence of the idea more as she lives her daily life with Daryl. They're already together in all the ways that count.

But she thinks Daryl does need that public declaration, something confirmed by the joyous smile he wears as he gets to his feet. Judith gets a little pancaked between them as he crowds her into the counter for a kiss that's all the answer she needs.

~*~ MD ~*~

Merle surveys the former prison's courtyard, standing with Gareth. In the end, they made enough trips prior to the official moving day – today – that today's trip was more people and individual possessions than anything of bulk.

Well, mostly people. While the gardens are flush with tiny greenery and rigged with good irrigation that allowed the fledgling crops to flourish without human visitation every day, the animals didn't arrive until today. He's glad of the ongoing 'critter collection' Homestead's still doing, like a redneck version of animal control, because it means that leaving herds and flocks here won't make much of a dent in their own animal population.

The former egg house is now housing rabbits. With a little judicious breeding, they'll fill the thing in no time, he thinks. It meant building a new building and poultry yard, but the combination will keep them in protein easily by wintertime. He wonders what the former warden would think of his old sign shop being turned into a goat barn. Gareth and Mary tried to turn down the pair of milk goats and their four two-week-old offspring, since there will be no children here until Cynthia gives birth, but Hershel overruled them.

In time, they'll add more animals, but everyone wants to start easy. In a couple of months, when the baby goats are weaned, they'll cycle the four back to the bigger flock at Homestead. He knows Hershel and his apprentices have genetic charts on which of the other young goats will come here to replace them. He's just glad it's not a detail he or Carol has to keep up with other than arranging for transport or proper housing of the animals.

The place still looks like what it was, a prison, but the Terminants seem to see it differently. To them, it's more of a fortress. He hopes it stays that way.

"Carol's going to keep Daryl's teams on a once a week trip over for a while," he says. "And you've got the radios."

Gareth surprises him by laughing. "You and Carol act like you're turning a bunch of kids loose at college."

It earns him a sheepish grin from Merle. He knows these folks are competent and he hopes the odds of trouble finding them remain as low as it has for Homestead itself. Carol's in one of the two greenhouses the prison already had.

"There's just so few of us left these days to really be comfortable, I guess."

"I understand. And I'm grateful you're letting my brother stay."

Merle shrugs. "He needs more time, and it's not like we want to turn down an extra set of hands to help." Alex is recovering from the loss of his wife and the ordeal at Terminus, but it's slow going. He's a hard worker on all the hands-on crews, and Carol's suggested he's doing a jack-of-all-trades training for himself to be better prepared when he does eventually go home to his family.

"I'm hoping he'll be able to come back home by the time the baby's here."

The baby's due in early August, and while Gareth's mother's trained enough to monitor the pregnancy, the most surprising aspect of the final move is that Dr. Edwards asked the Terminus leaders to move with them. The man's not the type he ever pegged for making a move based on a whirlwind romance, but he's here and setting up the infirmary to his liking. The former biology teacher who has been sharing his quarters for the last month seems to be inspiring a real personality in the dour man.

"Maybe he will. Seems to me he's learning as much as he's avoiding, and Carol says he asked for one of the child development books the other day. That tells me you've got a good uncle in the making for your little boy."

"He feels he was not prepared for a world without accounting books and air-conditioned offices. He forgets that most of us were equally unprepared. Hell, I worked in a very similar environment, just without all the demands of answering to the IRS."

That's no longer an issue for any of the Terminants. Between the boot camp level training they've been put through and the absolute dedication to working alongside his hands-on crews, this place is going to flourish. They've got food stocks on a level they could feed themselves for at least a year without the gardens, animals, hunting, and fishing, but Merle's really glad those are insurance and not necessity.

Still, thirty-one people feels like such a tiny number now. He can barely remember when the quarry's less than twenty felt like too many to care for, not now that he's responsible for two hundred and thirty. Of the forty-one people that survived the bandits, seven children, three women, and Alex are staying at Homestead, keeping their numbers up, even with Edwards switching locales.

"He's definitely changing that." Merle glances toward the prison proper. They hadn't built extra storage here, because thirty-one people don't need prison beds meant for two to four hundred. Using the empty cell-blocks for warehouse space is perfect for now. He's just glad that no one thought him paranoid at all when he insisted on building an underground shelter that can be accessed from inside the building.

He and Gareth officially call it a storm shelter. The supplies and techniques for building it even come from a business that mostly specialized in tornado shelters. But the cold, hard truth is that the damn thing's as much a bomb shelter, a large-scale panic room, as the one buried in the hill beneath Merle's own house.

If the fences ever fall, if the prison itself ever falls, if they can't fight back… These people just have to hold out underground for Homestead to arrive.

~*~ SW ~*~

"Well, that's one novel way to stay out of walker range and survive the winter," Shane comments to Rick.

They spent their first week on the road working a wedge between Campbellton and 285, staying east of the Chattahoochee River and west of Atlanta itself. Unlike their other searches, they aren't focusing on retail and industrial areas, but checking the residential areas too. Their main focus may be the Governor himself, but after the reports out of Virginia, they're looking for pockets of survivors too.

The damned Six Flags property took two full days to completely search through. At one point, there was a survivor group of some sort, but based on the graves, at least four didn't survive their stay here. There's no sign of gunfire, so they're assuming accident or illness, and there's no way of knowing if any of the group survived, although at least one person must have survived the four for them to be buried.

But it's a clear sign of other survivors, which renews his teams' efforts. They're doing neighborhood level searching too, clearing out the dead because it's the only way these bastards are ever going to dwindle down. He's given orders to take only half of any useful supplies in the houses they find. It's similar to leaving a few days of water and food in gas stations they cleared further north. They don't want to be the reason another group of survivors starves to death, even if it means leaving provisions potentially for hostiles.

Even with leaving supplies behind in the houses and marking larger locales like the Six Flags property for later supply runs, they're still set to bring a lot of items back to Homestead when they return home tomorrow.

But today, they've ventured into their first of the state parks, since Shane remembers the quarry plans to possibly use the state park in King County and they've evidence from Quinton's group doing the same. His first instinct was to look for the group shelter, but there's no evidence of anyone living there. But when they find the visitor's center, that's what has him amused.

Whatever group's here, if they're still here, removed the yurts from elsewhere in the park and rebuilt them on top of the visitor's center. Three of the large structures are on top of the building. It's proof that at some point, someone's been here. The open areas around the building show signs of gardening too.

"No one's shot at us yet," Karen comments. They parked in the loop of visitor parking. Technically, they're in range of someone with a rifle.

"Black Team, stay with the vehicles." She acknowledges the order, which keeps their medic with the vehicles. He steps forward, his team falling in behind him, and motions Karen's team to the west while his takes the east. The first week out, the teams were still adjusting to changes in partners, but this week, he can tell it's settling in. T-Dog's moving as easily with Danny now as he used to with Maria, and Licari and Abraham clicked even faster on Karen's team.

Once they're close enough to be seen but still have cover, he waits a few heartbeats and calls out a greeting.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, since it's not been a full year of this crazy world, he gets a reply. "Are you military?"

The voice sounds young and he exchanges a look with Rick. "Not entirely. Some of us were. Some used to be cops. Is there an adult we can talk to?"

"She's coming."

They can hear footsteps on the roof, which sound like the person's making an effort to be quiet, and a flash of a blue baseball cap. "If you're here to steal, we don't have enough to be worth it," a woman calls down.

"No, ma'am. We're here looking for survivors. Help where we can if people want to stay independent, but we've got a safe place further north."

"Refugee camps all fell."

"Yes, they did. At least we haven't heard of one that lasted." Hilltop may or may not qualify as such, but he's disregarding that since it wasn't set up as a temporary camp. "Our place is where a couple of farms fenced things up. Nothing the government sponsored, just the people who owned the places."

"You told Susan some of you were cops. Where?"

"My partner and me were deputies over in King County. We have a few folks who survived from Atlanta's police department that are with us today. Got a couple of rangers from the state natural resources department too, but they aren't on this run."

"Can you prove any of that?"

Shane glances to Rick, who looks sheepish. "You've got your I.D. with you, don't you, Grimes?" Rick nods. Shane hasn't carried a wallet in a while, but it doesn't surprise him that his partner still keeps up the old habit.

"My partner apparently hasn't forgotten to keep carrying a wallet," he calls up.

It amuses the woman from the roof, because she laughs. "Think one of you can land it on the roof? He willing to step out to be seen clearly?"

Rick shrugs, dragging the plastic card out and judging the distance. He ends up fastening the card to one of the meal bars from his vest with a zip tie and pitching it to the roof. He tugs his helmet off and steps just far enough out of the shade, and Shane hopes the beard doesn't throw everything off. Some people can't distinguish faces easily between clean-shaven and bearded.

"Deputy Grimes? You could do with a good shave."

Rick laughs. "About half my family keeps trying to convince me to shave, so they'd agree."

"You got family where you're at then?"

"Yeah. My son and ex-wife are there. My nieces. You already spoke to my brother. Adopted the punk back when we were still in diapers, but it still counts."

"Kids? They're safe?"

"Yes, ma'am, they are. One of my nieces… she's about two months old now."

"Nine weeks," Shane calls out. "Tomorrow."

Rick shrugs. "New daddy, can you tell?"

His usual magic with people is working, Shane can tell. The woman on the roof has gone from barely letting them glimpse the ball cap she wears to actually looking over the roof's edge to study Rick. The child's stayed out of sight, which he heartily approves of. They're good guys, but it could have been someone worse.

Shane takes the risk and steps out into the open sunlight too, unfastening his helmet. "If y'all are happy here, that's fine. We can leave some supplies, maybe check in next time we're in the area. But we gotta let you know we're hunting a predator that could be out here somewhere. He sent men out to attack a nursing home full of elderly and disabled people. Did kill some of the able-bodied protecting them."

"Seen some rough types like that in Atlanta when we used to get supplies there. We don't go that way anymore."

"Good idea." He rubs a hand across his curls, reminding himself he really needs to stop by Jessie's place for a haircut during his off-week.

"You can take in more people, truthfully?"

"Unless you've got a group of fifty lurking around, yeah, we can." Even fifty, they would figure something out. But he suspects this group is a small one, maybe even just those two, because he can't see a larger group letting a child enough alone to be greeting visitors.

The decision seems to trigger for her and she sighs and tosses Rick's I.D. back to him. Standing, he can see she's got a gun holstered on one hip and a rifle strap across her chest. "We did have a larger group, but most of us weren't ready for this. I can't in good conscience pass up a safer place for the kids here. Just me and Susan in camp right now. Russell took the other two out on the reservoir to fish earlier."

It actually doesn't take long to retrieve the others of the tiny group, since it turns out that Russell's a former forester with the state forestry department. He knew how to keep the park's radios running for staying in contact.

Neither adult is actually related to the three kids they've been looking after. Susan, the youngest at eleven, and her seventeen-year-old brother, Charles, lived next door to Russell before. They lost their mother and brother to the virus in the early days. Their father, Adam, died in August after a bite on a supply run. Kathleen, their fifteen-year-old cousin, lost her parents and both siblings and managed to reach her remaining family by outrunning the dead on foot and sleeping in trees at night.

After worrying their neighborhood was too close to Atlanta, Russell and his wife loaded the three kids and drove them out to the park last October. Like Adam, Anne Kaufman died on a supply run. Ruby's a lot younger than he expected, barely twenty. She was at the park when they arrived, hiding in the Yurt Village she used to camp in as a teen with her family.

They rearrange the seating to fit all the kids and Ruby into one vehicle, while Russell's happy enough to ride with Shane and Rick in the M35. Shane's not going to risk further searching with a kid as young as Susan along, so they radio ahead for an early return home.

Homestead is only seventy miles away, but since they frequently take differing routes home, it'll take about three hours. He's not complaining though because it still means being home by supper.

He's looking forward to an extra day with his girls. It's a thought that makes him smile all the way home.

~*~ DD ~*~

They're completely alone for the first time since Judith was born. He knows it's certainly by design, with Scout smirking over her shoulder at him and mouthing 'happy birthday' as she left with the baby in her arms as soon as Lori finished her bedtime feed. Carl's staying the night with Jazz and Abby's next door with Anaya.

Lori kisses him, nipping at his bottom lip and pressing him back into the couch cushions. He relaxes under her weight as she sits astride his thighs. It's leisurely, but with an undercurrent of arousal they have time to explore and enjoy for the first time in months.

He honestly didn't expect Lori's libido to roar back as soon as it did. She forewarned him that after Carl was born, it took close to six months before she wanted to have sex again. It's why it took him a stupidly long time one night when Judith was three weeks old to realize Lori's inability to settle to sleep was the same issue that brought him to her bed in the first place.

Solving that issue for her went about the same as it did that very first time, just without her being embarrassed or him worrying about returning to his own bed. They've been intimate regularly since, but until she settled on getting an IUD earlier this week, it's stopped short of where birth control was an issue. He's not trusting condoms, not when the risks of a new pregnancy too soon are so much higher without NICUs.

She's got his shirt open, her clever, teasing fingers stroking bare skin and making him arch underneath her. He slides his own hands around to cup her ass and drag her in as close as possible.

"Need you." His voice is husky and she responds by rocking down hard against the length of him through their jeans.

"Bedroom."

He takes it as a command instead of the breathy plea and manages to get to his feet. She cooperates by squeezing her long legs around his waist, making him groan as he loses the pressure and friction, but it's more reason to hurry in carrying her down the hall.

She keeps up the touching, one arm around his shoulders for balance and the free hand dragging nails up his spine with just enough bite to make his body absolutely ache for her.

edited scene

When his vision clears, he kisses her gently along her cheeks and forehead before claiming her lips.

"I love you." She's smiling that pretty smile that makes him twitch with wanting her all over again.

"Love you too." He moves off her reluctantly, watching for any signs of discomfort. Instead she just stretches languidly, looking very satisfied with herself.

He remembers this morning and what she asked. "You sure about Saturday?"

She's been wearing his ring since Christmas, but the part of him that never quite healed from Carrie still expects her to realize she has other choices.

Lori catches the uncertainty and draws him down for a kiss, cupping his face between her hands. "Saturday is just signing the book, Daryl. We could go forever without it and I'll still want to start every day by waking up beside you. I'm already your wife."

He returns the kiss, accepting the comfort and affection. She loves him, shown in easy, almost careless affection. It's the casualness that's actually reassuring. She's not after displays and romance, but rather the everyday expression of need and love that he knows how to show.

He buries his face in the soft hollow of her throat, relaxing as her hands massage his exposed skin. She understands him in a way he doesn't often even understand himself.

"Yours," he whispers softly.

He doesn't have to look at her to see how she feels about that. If she were a cat, she'd be purring. Instead, she soothes him with calm touches until his body melts under her touch.