July 19, 2010
After Ellie was up at four to check on Carl again, Shane is a little surprised that she wakes at six until he hears Merry moving. Where the baby lay on her back last night, playing with her feet, this time she makes little grunting sounds until she succeeds in rolling over to her tummy. He sets aside his book, which he's nearly finished, and Ellie moves the arm she's slung across his thighs to let him get up.
He visits the bathroom and comes back to snag Merry out of the playpen. Changing her diaper, he passes her to Ellie, who is still curled up drowsily where he left her. As soon as Merry is settled to nurse, he sneaks in a kiss to see if last night's make out session was a fluke.
It wasn't, and he remains crouched by the bed for a few minutes, enjoying Ellie's willingness to stroke one hand along his neck and jaw. A cough from across the hall drags his attention away.
"Gonna go see how Carl is this morning." It's a unique experience, feeling torn between checking on Rick's family and wanting to stay with Ellie a6md the baby.
Ellie nods, covering a yawn. "Make sure Rick doesn't go far. I need to test his blood this morning, too."
Shane takes the time to get dressed, wanting to be prepared for the day. A look out the window shows him that there's movement in their camp. Carol and Glenn are up, and Daryl's on watch on top of the RV. Reassured about the rest of the group, he heads across the hall.
Carl's stirring when he enters, and a tired Lori reaches for her son's hand. Rick is asleep on the cot, rolled with his back to the wall. Shane imagines he fell asleep watching Carl.
Once mother and son have traded greetings and Lori's confirmed Carl isn't in any concerning amount of pain, Shane ventures to speak to Lori.
"Most of the Greenes are downstairs or outside, if you wanted to get a shower in. Maggie put some more towels out, she said. I can sit with Carl, and Ellie will be over soon.
He's not sure why the farm girl told him instead of Lori, but maybe it was just that she needed to retrieve something she forgot from her room. Although he expects one of the angry, frustrated looks Lori's been giving him, she just nods.
"A shower sounds nice. Is Ellie awake?" Lori shuffles to her feet, looking for the bag of hers and Rick's things.
"She's feeding Merry." Shane helps Carl adjust his pillows so he can sit more upright. "Looked like Carol and Glenn were starting on breakfast, so I'll run down there and get food once you're back."
"Do I get to eat this morning?" Carl asks as his stomach rumbles.
"Ellie said you could, but we'll ask her when she pops over."
Lori heads down the hall. Shane looks for Carl's book on the nightstand and offers it to the boy to keep him sidetracked from breakfast. Carl begins to review the anatomy in the textbook, asking Shane to quiz him. They keep it quiet to let Rick sleep.
Beth appears at the door before Ellie, smiling brightly. "Patricia wanted to offer everyone breakfast, now that morning chores are done. Eggs, country ham, biscuits, and gravy."
"I get the feeling that might be a little heavy for Carl here," Shane says regretfully.
"For today, definitely," Ellie says from behind Beth. She's smiling warmly at the girl, though. "We need to wait and see how his body reacts to the gallbladder removal, so we're going to need to avoid fat, spice, dairy, and anything fried until he's healed a little more."
Carl sighs, but he doesn't protest, which surprises Shane. He wonders if Ellie already mentioned it to the boy.
"Like a heart healthy diet?" Beth asks, looking sympathetic toward Carl's breakfast predicament.
"More or less."
"We covered that in our consumer services class at school. Could he have an egg white omelette?"
"That should be fine."
"I'll tell Patricia. I have a basket of eggs for your camp, and she was slicing up the ham to share."
"That's very generous of your family. Could we get a single hardboiled egg for Merry also?"
Beth just nods and smiles shyly and ventures back downstairs. Ellie comes to the left side of the bed and lets Merry perch on the bed next to Carl while she takes his vitals. The baby curls up next to Carl, content to stare at Shane on the opposite side of the bed. Carl seems enchanted by her, holding her close with his unencumbered arm.
"How's the pain this morning?" she asks, motioning for Shane to pass her the notebook they're recording everything in.
"Starting to get a little bad. Maybe a four. And I really need to pee when Mom gets done."
Ellie smiles and reaches for one of the bottles. She passes Carl the pain pill and a cup of water from the pitcher. His antibiotics follow, along with a nausea tablet. "Let's be proactive on that one since you'll be eating a little more."
She motions for Shane to switch sides of the bed with her. He cups a hand against Merry's belly so she can't shift unexpectedly against Carl. He hides a grin when Carl actually tightens his arm around the baby when it seems like Shane might take her.
"Incision looks really good. We'll do a dose of anesthetic now and then assess later if the pills are good enough once you start moving around."
Carl's face lights up at the emphasized idea of him getting out of bed. "What about the IV things?"
"The IV catheters we will leave in for another day, just in case." Ellie finishes the anesthetic dose and caps the syringe before tossing it in the waste basket. She tilts her head, listening to something. "Shower shut off. When Lori is back, I want you to escort Carl to the bathroom, Shane. But let him walk. Be right back."
Ellie returns with a small pillow. "Patricia gave me some polyfill and supplies to make a pillow for Carl last night. Hold it against the incision when you walk to keep just enough pressure to ease things along. Good for if you want to laugh or cough too."
Carl takes the pillow and presses it experimentally to his wounded side. "That kinda feels better in general."
"Good. Alright, Shane, pass me the pipsqueak."
Shane lifts Merry, whose little legs kick lile she's running a race, and passes her to Ellie just as Lori returns. Carl's bathroom trip becomes more urgent, so Shane helps him to his feet under Ellie's guidance. The trip doesn't take long, with Carl managing everything for himself. When they get back to the room, Ellie is just finishing with updating Lori and a sleepy faced Rick.
She returns Merry to him and asks that he go alert the camp they're skipping breakfast to eat with the Greenes while Ellie does the morning bloodwork for Carl and Rick.
By the time he returns, after finding the camp is aware thanks to Otis delivering eggs and ham, everyone is sitting at the table, even Carl. The boy looks far too cheerful considering the circumstances, but Shane supposes it's delight in not being confined to bed.
As he passes Merry to her mother at the dining table, he catches Hershel's critical eyes on the gun in his holster.
"I would prefer your people not go armed while on my property," Hershel says without preamble.
Shane stifles his first reaction, which is a resounding 'Hell no, old man.' Ellie said being on the road isn't best for Carl. He notices that Rick isn't armed, but Ellie is wearing an overshirt that hides her shoulder holster from anyone less trained to look for one than he is.
"You ask all law enforcement to remove their weapons on your property?" Ellie asks, tone milder than her stern expression merits.
Shane pauses, hands on the back of the chair next to Ellie, waiting on the answer.
"We've never asked a cop to remove his weapon, have we, Daddy?" It's Maggie who answers. She looks unsettled, compared to the rest, including Otis, who's attention is glued on Carl.
Hershel shakes his head reluctantly. He's scanning Shane for whatever it is he thinks makes him a cop. "What department did you work for, son?"
"King County Sheriff's Department. Me and Rick both." Since Ellie turns her attention to her plate and mushing an egg yolk to a runny mess, he takes his seat.
That signals Hershel's manners to lead a blessing, allowing his patient family and guests to eat. The old man doesn't turn to his food right away.
"It would be unreasonable to ask you and your partner to disarm, but I would prefer that the rest are not carrying firearms."
Shane thinks it over for a minute, considering a compromise. "I'll ask everyone to put away individual weapons unless they're leaving on a supply or scouting run. But we keep a watch, and that person needs to be armed."
The old man thinks it over and finally nods. "That is acceptable."
"What about crossbows?" Ellie asks. "We hunt with those." Shane remembers Daryl left his outside when they brought Carl into the house.
"Those are fine, as long as they are not brought into my home itself."
Ellie favors the man with a bland smile as she dips her finger in the muck she's made of the egg yolk and lets Merry suck on the digit. The baby goes a bit cross-eyed, licking at her lips, but she doesn't refuse the next eggy fingertip.
"I thought babies weren't supposed to eat eggs," Patricia says, watching the process with interest.
"Theory used to be to avoid allergens until a baby was at least a year, but studies are now showing that starting them between four and six months is best." Ellie dips Merry's fingers in the egg yolk next, letting the baby navigate her hand to her mouth. "There were never as many allergies before the medical profession got overly cautious about feeding babies solids."
"You were a pediatric nurse in Atlanta?" Maggie asks, taking a bite of jam-slathered biscuit. There's still something off about her body language.
Ellie nods, and Shane turns to finishing his meal diligently to see if he can take Merry and let her eat. "At the children's hospital my entire career."
"What did they say, about the virus, when this all began? Surely, they knew better than the public." Maggie seems very intent on not looking at her father. Shane catches Patricia in a maneuver that looks like she's just pinched Maggie under the table, but the brunette doesn't flinch.
"I was on maternity leave when people started getting sick, but colleagues did stay in touch. They wanted to make sure I stayed as isolated as possible, since there was no cure once someone got sick."
"Surely our government can manage a cure, with all their resources." Hershel's voice holds a note that Shane wants to call beligerant.
"I doubt there's enough government structure left to make any progress toward a vaccine, much less a cure. That kind of research takes years and resources no longer available. You can't fix the decay those walking after death experience, and to be honest, it would be horrific and cruel to try, because the virus causes brain death."
Shane scans the faces as Ellie's words sink in. Hershel looks defiant, maybe even a little angry. Beth looks stricken, and Patricia's touch to the younger Greene girl is comforting as the older blonde looks uneasy. Otis seems like he didn't hear it at all, but Maggie? She shivers, laying her fork beside her plate.
"How certain of that are you?" Maggie is staring at her father now, not watching Ellie at all. She's pissed, and so is Hershel, but he doesn't interrupt his daughter. "That they're brain dead?"
"Completely and without a doubt. They scanned brains between death and reanimation, no brain activity returns but the brain stem itself. The brain function is similar to a persistent vegetative state, but worse. I heard it from people at Emory and at Children's."
That's news to Shane, that Ellie's aware of brain scans. It reminds him of her warning him away from trying the CDC back at the quarry. He supposes if he had contacts at a major teaching hospital, he would have asked, too.
"What proof do you have?" Hershel asks, sounding agitated. He's laid his fork down, too, hands gripping the edge of the table.
"If you're asking if I'm carrying around MRI recordings, no, I'm not. But I trust my colleagues had enough training to comprehend the difference between a live brain and one beyond all hope, Dr. Greene. They would never have been allowed to advise people on life support decisions otherwise."
There's a bite to Ellie's reply that reminds Shane of the way she railed at the old man to get away from Carl. The nurse doesn't like Hershel, and it's only barely hidden, and he wonders if it's something deeper than him working on Carl without anesthetic.
Shane speaks up. "From a law enforcement standpoint, we were told only a headshot kills. Some of the scenes we saw, where what was left of what used to be a person kept going…" He stops, not wanting to frighten the children present. Beth looks near tears.
"Excuse me." Maggie pushes away from the table and heads for the back door. She lets the wooden framed screen door slam hard behind her.
Hershel watches the door for a moment, but doesn't comment on her departure. "We shouldn't let good food go to waste."
They eat in silence, but Carl soon distracts Beth with a compliment about his omelette. The blonde gives him a ghost of a smile, and it shifts the somber mood left at the table long enough for quiet conversation about their destination and for Shane to offer some supply trades.
There's something odd going on in the Greene family, and Shane can't figure it out yet. He wonders if it has something to do with the missing family members pictured in the living room photographs who aren't present. Whatever it is, it is a source of conflict between Maggie and Hershel.
He just hopes it doesn't boil over onto his people.