July 20, 2010
What started out as an idea that he needs to spend time with Sadie as well as Merry ended up with Shane surrounded by all of the children. It makes him wish life before the outbreak had allowed him time to coach a Little League team or something, because the kids are damned good company. He sort of always thought Carl was a bit of a fluke there, in holding his interest long term.
"Who taught you how to do this?" Sadie asks, fingers nimble with the knot he just taught the other kids. Duane's struggling with his, so Shane's repeating the taut-line hitch for him. "Were you a Boy Scout or something?"
"Nah. Never could sit still long enough to really fit in with the Boy Scouts." That, and Rick never had much interest beyond the first couple of Cub Scout meetings they went to when they were small. Without Rick there, it was boring. "My grandma taught me actually. Also taught me to hunt and fish and a lot of other things."
"Your grandma?" Sophia looks puzzled as she finishes her knot and then undoes it to repeat the motion. "Not your dad or grandpa?"
"My grandfather passed away before I was born, but she always went camping and hunting with him." The less shared about his long-absent father, the better, as far as Shane's concerned. Grandma Jean often swore she must have dropped his father on his head as a baby, based on how he turned out.
Hours spent following Grandma Jean through the woods were some of his favorite times as a kid. Shane can still picture those modified camo coveralls she wore every time they hunted, which had to be altered from store bought because back then there wasn't a real selection for women, much less a woman who didn't top five feet in height.
"Is she where you learned to find mushrooms?" Sadie asks, leaning over to nudge Louis and help correct the knot. "I know Daryl's mama taught him how to forage as a kid."
"Yeah. Doubt she ever knew we would end up living off them so much."
Movement at the Greene farmhouse catches his eye, and he looks up to see Ellie and Daryl are returning with Beth tucked under Ellie's arm. Patricia, half distraught, came and fetched her to help with a problem up at the house, but the older blonde didn't specify what. Ellie leads Beth to where the majority of the kids are, nudging Sadie as Beth sits listlessly next to the younger teenager. Daryl angles over to where Merle has Merry and babynaps his niece.
"Beth is going to stay the night with us," Ellie tells Sadie.
"I'm guessing we aren't leaving in the morning?" Shane asks. He didn't accompany them up to the house, since the request seemed medical, and he figured Daryl or Ellie would fill him in.
"Gonna take another day here, but then if Carl's feeling up to it, we'll get underway. Greenes are coming with us." Ellie still has a hand on Beth's shoulder, obviously trying to comfort the girl.
Shane isn't sure the rest of the details need to be shared in front of the kids, so he gets to his feet. "Y'all keep practicing. See if you can link all your practice pieces together, maybe. Sadie? Think you can show Beth?" He hands her the pieces he was using for examples. The old rope sacrificed for the lessons is getting a good workout this evening.
The girl nods, so Shane leads Ellie over to where Jacqui's left the main group shooting the breeze in after supper relaxation. The older woman's concerned look between Beth and the farmhouse displays Shane's own feelings on the matter.
"They're a complicated mess up at the house right now. Weeks of denial did not help their grieving process, so it's a bit like the reality of everything is hitting them all at once instead of in steps. Maggie may be down here later, but she and her father seem to have aired out the worst of the bad blood." Ellie sighs, looking strained, and Shane reaches out to rub a hand against her back without really thinking about it.
"Well, at least they aren't letting it fester," Jacqui remarks. Her sharp eyes take in his movement, and she gives Shane a look that says the shovel talk that hasn't yet been delivered by a Dixon may arrive from a unique direction. "But why do we have the littlest Greene?"
"She's been too protected, so it's too much reality at once. Patricia came to fetch me because she thought Beth was disassociating, which made her afraid the girl might hurt herself."
"She suicidal?" Shane asks, feeling alarmed. He's dealt with the aftermath of attempts and suicides before, and it's one of the most heartbreaking things he ever tackled as a deputy. Beth looks so damned young, but he knows from experience that age doesn't mean a thing when it comes to despair.
"Possibly. I don't think her isolation here from other kids really helped. She might be older than the other kids with us, but I think that is actually a good thing. Seeing how they're coping might help her see there's hope better than an adult preaching at her."
"And Sadie's lost her parents, too," Jacqui says softly, looking toward the two girls working intently over the ropes in their laps.
"That was my thought, yeah. She doesn't really remember losing her father, because she was only five, but she watched the cancer take Mary away from her. I think the experience is enough overlap for Beth to have a peer to talk with. Plus losing a brother is another parallel."
"Lot of responsibility to put on Sadie," Shane observes, feeling concerned.
"It is, but Sadie's had years of professional counseling, and obviously we'll all be there for Beth, too. Daryl doesn't like to talk much about what it's like to lose a mother, especially the way she died, but he's already said he'll do what he can."
Shane remembers the conversation that revealed Ellie not knowing Merle was her father until she was an adult. If Ellie was four when her adoptive mother died, that would put Daryl about nine. Jesus.
"Am I allowed to be nosy and ask how?"
Ellie's expression doesn't change when he asks, so he assumes she's not upset. "Of course. There was a fire, right after school started that year. I was at the head start program in town, and Daryl at school. When we weren't picked up, the sheriff's department sent someone out to do a welfare check and found the fire burning out. We were in foster care for about a week before someone finally tracked Will down, but at least they kept us together."
"Where was Merle?" Jacqui looks like she wants to just snag Ellie up in a hug, but Shane is the one that gets to step in, sliding his arm around her waist.
"Off in the Marines, stationed out in California. He enlisted as soon as he turned eighteen and could sit for his GED, so he had been gone about six months by then."
It's not something Shane wants to comment on, but he would just about bet that Daryl becoming a firefighter is directly related to how his mother died. The two kids probably would have been better off staying in foster care, but he suspects the system would have ended up separating them. Barely beyond her toddler years, Ellie would have been a prime candidate to be adopted. Daryl? Foster care might not have been a real improvement for a boy already that old and from an abusive home. Adoptive homes don't want half-grown, damaged kids as much as babies and toddlers.
Jacqui rubs at her forearms and looks thoughtful. When Shane follows her gaze, he's a little surprised to see that she's watching Merle, who is on the fringes of the adult group. The older man is reading in the fading light, some battered paperback that looks more tape than text on the exterior. But she turns back to them after a moment.
"You said that Maggie and Hershel cleared the air? How so?"
"Apparently with lots of shouting, and Hershel taking a header off the wagon. He's sleeping off the liquor, and Maggie wanted to sit with him. I think it's part of what worked Beth up, because she's never seen her father drink. According to Patricia, Hershel's been sober since before Maggie's mother died, but he was a hardcore alcoholic for a number of years prior to that."
That will make things interesting if they're taking a man struggling with a relapse along with them, but Shane figures they can manage it. He can't see the girls leaving without their father, and he really isn't comfortable leaving them and Jimmy here with so little adult protection.
Ellie frowns as Jimmy comes venturing across to join the group of kids, looking a little lost. "You two will want to meet with Otis and Patricia in the morning to sort out what to do with the animals and such. Honestly, if we can safely transport at least the horses and chickens to the coast, it's a resource we shouldn't give up."
"If we stay moving as much as we can, I don't see why we can't. Birds don't seem all that noisy, other than that damned rooster," Shane notes. "And horses don't usually fuss much without reason. Might be a warning system if we do have to stop for the night."
Not taking the cattle, even though they're a food source, probably makes sense. If he remembers correctly, cattle is resource intensive in comparison to the food payout. They can always come back to transport the animals if they find a secure place.
Jacqui nods in agreement. "We'll get it sorted. Meanwhile, I think it's about my turn on watch, so you two have a good night."
Shane watches as she goes to climb the RV ladder, sending Morales down to his family.
"You gonna stay with the girls tonight?" he asks Ellie, knowing what the answer probably is and tamping down on the little surge of disappointed loneliness. It'll be better when they get somewhere they can settle, so he just has to be patient.
"Unless Maggie comes down, yeah. Don't want to drop it all in Carol's lap."
Although the older woman seems to be creeping out of her shell with Ed dead and gone, Shane can understand the sentiment. "Alright. Come sit with me awhile?"
She joins him at the fire, sitting close and taking Merry from Daryl when the baby fusses for her bedtime feeding. The side eye he gets from her uncle for the hour or so before Ellie goes to round children up to disburse for bedtime makes him uneasy. A supply run into town took up enough of his day that he didn't remember to ask her what she and Daryl discussed the night before.
Deciding he might as well face the music, he says his own good nights. "Hey, Daryl? Got a minute?"
The man replies in an affirmative far too quickly for Shane's comfort and follows him to his tent. With his being in the outer arc, they're relatively far enough away from the fire to not be overheard.
"Figured we probably had a talk coming."
Daryl snorts. "That would be a fucking understatement. Ellie's told me to stay out of it, but since you invited me over, I guess that means I don't have to mind my own business."
"If you're worried about me because of Lori," Shane begins, but Daryl's shifting expression makes him trail off.
"Ain't just the non-widow I worry about. Ellie likes to remind me that people grieve in their own ways and at their own pace. Seen things like you and Lori happen before. The Lazarus bit, not so much." Daryl is fidgeting and rubbing that ring finger again. "It's the secrecy. Can tell no one is talking about it, because how all three of you keep looking at each other."
Shane can't exactly argue with that. He's avoided the conversation he knows he should have with Rick, because he isn't sure their friendship will survive it. The Grimes marriage was fragile as hell well before Rick ended up in a hospital bed, and Rick seems almost desperate for a restart with Lori. The antagonistic behavior Lori had toward Shane has ceased, leaving them to a solid case of ignoring each other aside from a few brief conversations regarding Carl's recovery.
"Feels like too much to drop onto Rick right now," Shane admits quietly. "He's still recovering, and Carl being shot sure as hell rocked him hard."
"The longer you wait isn't going to make hearing it any easier." Daryl laughs, but there's little humor in the sound. "I don't want Ellie caught in the crossfire when it does finally blow up. She fought hard to get to where she is now, stable and happy. Her and Sadie both."
As much as he dreads that talk with Rick, he agrees with Daryl that Ellie certainly doesn't need to be even sideswiped by the issue. Although they've discussed it, it was brief and in passing when they were both distracted by the exploration burgeoning attraction between them. "It might be best to wait until we're not on the road."
Daryl meets his gaze then, blue eyes narrowed, but whatever he sees, he nods. "Can concede that much. Can't say I even understand you and Ellie much at all, but if you fail to live up to the trust she's placing in you, Walsh…" He sighs, shifting his weight and looking like he's in pain. "Ellie doesn't trust easily. For some reason, she does trust you. I gotta try to trust Ellie, because God knows she's better at people than I ever was."
Shane thinks Ellie isn't the only Dixon that doesn't trust easily. Merry might be the first, but even the baby seems to have her issues with people. Whether it's an infant's whim or the baby feeding off adult feelings, who knows? The idea of hurting Ellie makes his gut churn, and he already knows he's too far gone on Merry to back away from the baby. He knows that Sadie will wriggle her irrepressible self right in there, too, given the opportunity.
"I asked her why me, because I sure as hell don't appear to be a catch, lack of population or not, with my baggage," Shane admits. "She said because I understood what that moment was like, to lose someone like she did."
While he expects Daryl to raise the objection he did, that Rick's not actually dead, the other man doesn't. Instead he looks thoughtful, and Shane wonders if he didn't actually ask Ellie anything about why. "Makes sense. Can't explain that feeling to someone who hasn't felt it. Would have given the entire fucking world for Ellie to not understand."
Although he doesn't expect an answer, Shane asks anyway. "You're a widower, aren't you?" Divorced could explain the habit with the ring finger, but the sense of grief around the other man at times is too mournful to be explained by divorce.
"What's the worst fear you have as a first responder coming up on an accident?" Daryl asks.
Jesus Christ. Although Shane was there when Rick was shot, standing not three feet away and feeling a cascade of relief that his partner survived the first impact on his vest, it's not the same as what Daryl's suggesting. The horrified sympathy must show clearly because Daryl nods almost absently.
"They tried to stop me from going up to the car. Captain recognized it before I did." Reaching into the collar of the worn, sleeveless shirt that Shane can't actually visually replace with the firefighter's gear the man once wore, Daryl exposes a pendant. It takes Shane a minute to recognize that the gold circle of the compass pendant is an actual wedding band, with the compass rose suspended within it.
Daryl touches the ring with a softly muttered, "Mine", and the compass rose, "Rowe's". He rubs his thumb against the centerpiece before dropping it back out of sight. "Ellie had it made for me eight years ago."
Shane thinks of Lori, wearing Rick's ring against that locket like a ritual, and he thinks he understands it. After all, Ellie still wears her rings, although he has no idea if she has Isaac's somewhere.
"You'll never be able to help dying. None of us can, especially now. But anything else? Make sure you're as certain of wanting to be with Ellie as you know your own soul." There's no voiced threat, no 'or else', but the small hairs on the back of Shane's neck stand up anyway.
"I will." Not I am, because he thinks Daryl would sense that he's not that committed, not yet. Shane doesn't think Ellie is either, and the messed up world they live in now doesn't really give them all the traditions of dating to sort out compatibility.
"All I can ask." There's no farewell from the other man. Daryl just turns and walks away, back to pick up his crossbow outside his tent and the ambling patrol Shane knows he does at every camp. Glenn calls out to Daryl, and the older man pauses long enough for Glenn to catch up, which is a relief because the solo patrols make Shane uneasy for Daryl's sake.
Even as he gets ready for bed so he's got some sleep before his dawn watch shift, Shane thinks of that compass medallion and wonders if he's capable of the sort of devotion that has a man mourning at least eight years after losing his spouse.
Something tells him it's something he should figure out, before he and Ellie go any further.
A/N: As I said, last chapter set up some future stinkbombs, but they won't hit just yet until the group is actually beyond the farm. There's not going to be a Randall encounter, as this Hershel found his liquor more local (Otis did not hide his stash well enough), and Beth is getting better help than people fluttering around not sure what to do about her suicidal ideations.
Next chapter will be them finding their sanctuary and we'll start moving forward in time a little more. At this point, they're only about 11 days since Rick reappeared.
Daryl/Glenn note: As this chapter makes poignantly obvious, that's going to be pretty slow going, and I'll probably roll it into a sequel for the full romance. I don't want to shortchange the D/G fans by them only getting to see it secondhand through Shane (and Ellie, if she snags the POV wheel again). The way Daryl gave out the name accidentally obscured his spouse's gender, because "Rowe's" sounds like "Rose." That will be important for a future chapter, as well exploring what marriage meant in a time where Daryl and Rowe would not have been able to legally marry.