November 28, 2010
It's funny, Alex thinks, that she and Rick spent months sleeping in the same bed, often close together, and nothing happened. Reawakening both their libidos seems to have a genie they can't put back in the bottle. It feels a bit like being a teenager again, this inability to keep their hands off each other.
Sadly, they aren't teenagers with only homework and parental approval to worry about. Hershel's depression lessened enough that the man ventured out of his room the day after Alex's brush with death. But he spends his days drifting from his home office to the porch to his room, with only meals in between. Maggie may be an adult, but Beth isn't, and both girls are trying to tackle their own grief while watching their father move around as a ghost of his former self.
Alex can't leave a child in need, and no one else seems to want to make her. After the first day, where she sedated Beth, the girl responds well to the antidepressant. Everyone takes turns keeping her busy, and Beth is slowly edging away from the intense grief her mother and brother's final death inspired in her.
"Hey, Alex?" It's been a quiet day for Beth so far. The teenager has been following Alex through her day of inventory and laundry, helping without being bidden. Running the washer and dryer are luxuries they don't want to spare generator fuel for, and Hershel's family has been on this farm long enough Patricia long since unearthed an old hand crank wringer washer. It makes laundry quite the workout.
Pausing in clipping one of Rick's shirts to the line, Alex looks over to where Beth is readying the next piece of clothing. "Yeah?"
The blonde grimaces at a stain on Otis's shirt and dunks it for an extra scrub. "Could Daddy take medicine like mine?"
"Oh, honey." Alex sighs, glancing toward the house. She can't see Hershel in his spot on the front porch, but she knows that's where he is this time of day. "Sometimes grief is something you have to work through on your own."
It's not like she and Rick haven't both tried to talk to Hershel. Rick's lost a wife and child, and Alex her stepdaughters, but shared grief doesn't seem to bridge the gap with the veterinarian.
"But it would help, wouldn't it? I felt like I was being smothered before, ever since people started dying. Months of it, but the last week or so, it's not so bad."
Beth's expression is so open and earnest that Alex thinks it over. She'd hesitated to medicate Beth, but trusting the same instinct that led her to take Lizzie to a psychiatrist, she'd proposed it to Patricia. The woman grew up with Annette Greene, her first cousin, so she agreed readily. Annette had suffered from similar deep depressions after deaths in the family and taken antidepressants for a few months each time.
"I can try to talk to him again. Let him know you're concerned."
"Thank you." Beth smiles shyly, dropping the shirt she's finished into Alex's basket. "I'm going to go get some more hot water from the kitchen. This is getting cold."
It'll take Beth a while to boil a few pots of water to refresh the wash water, so Alex finishes hanging the already washed clothes and heads around to the front of the house. Hershel's on the porch swing, snow white head bent over his Bible. She knows he hears her come up the steps, because his hands tighten around the book, but he doesn't look up.
Maybe trying to empathize with Hershel was the wrong tactic. This time, Alex goes for blunt words. "Your daughter thinks you need to be medicated for depression, Dr. Greene."
He's startled enough to look up, but he's not angry, at least. "What?" It's the first thing he's said to her since the barn burned.
"Beth thinks that an antidepressant would help you better come to terms with her mother and brother's death."
"Beth?" The puzzlement in his voice is probably justified. It's probably the sort of thing Maggie would do, not Beth.
She takes a chance and sits next to the man on the swing. "I prescribed Beth something when she struggled to come to terms with things. It's been helping her. She's been struggling for months."
The pain in Hershel's expression is one that Alex knows well. She spent a couple of months trying to convince herself that she was wrong about Lizzie. Before, she just told Hershel her daughters had gone to the Refugee Center that fell to the dead. Now, she shares that stressful, horrible last year of her marriage, watching as he actually seems engaged and curious.
"That's why you stayed," he says at last. His hands smooth the page of his Bible. "You couldn't leave when you saw a child suffering as yours did."
Alex nods slowly. It hadn't helped that pretty, delicate blonde Beth looks so much like her girls that working alongside her on chores is both a joy and salt on a wound that will never heal. She knows Rick has a similar issue with Duane, not because of physical similarities, but because the sweet, mischievious boy is so like Carl that Rick can't help but compare them.
"Are you a religious woman, Miss Ybarra?"
The question is unexpected, but perhaps it shouldn't be. Hershel's faith is one of the things all the members of his household mention in stories of the man. "I consider myself a woman of faith, yes."
"How does your faith reconcile with the world as it stands today?"
"The same way it always did when horrible things happened in the world." She glances at Hershel's Bible, noting the chapter he's reading. "I'm not so sure this is the end of times, Dr. Greene. A trial of humanity, perhaps, but not the end."
The veterinarian smiles softly, closing the book. "Why do you believe that?"
"Because where there are children, there is always hope."
He's quiet for a while, gaze going out to the small family cemetery that can be seen from the porch swing. Between Patricia and Beth, there's a knee high decorative fence around the two family graves now. Otis carved a pair of wooden crosses, and Maggie wove a gauzy ribbon along the top of the fence that adds a flash of red, which was both Annette and Shawn's favorite colors.
"You must think me the most selfish man in the world."
"Even if my training didn't tell me so, I've experienced enough loss to understand that everyone grieves differently, and the same person may grieve differently under different circumstances." She had expected both her parents' deaths, even if she would have wished each of them at least a decade more of life. Her twin? Nothing topped losing Alvaro until she realized her girls were in that devastated place in Atlanta.
Hershel stands, the movement slow and looking as if it pained him. As depressed as he's been, it likely does. He doesn't head for the house, like she expects, instead heading down the steps and walking slowly toward the cemetery. When he sinks to his knees next to Annette's grave and begins to talk, she decides to give him privacy and returns to the laundry with Beth.
The real change shows at supper, when Hershel turns to his younger daughter, seated on his left. "After supper, perhaps you could sing for us, Bethie, while Otis plays."
Beth's smile lights up the room, because it's the first time Hershel's spoken directly to anyone during a meal without being asked a question. It's certainly the first time he's requested anything joyful to be done. The girl glances over to Alex before turning back to her father. "Of course I will, Daddy. But we can all sing happy birthday to Rick first."
Rick freezes beside Alex, his fingers brushing her elbow to gain her attention. "That's got to be your doing."
"Of course. There's even lemon raspberry tart for dessert." Patricia had known how to make the dessert, and luckily the supplies had been among the things gathered in Alex and Rick's supply runs.
It earns her a kiss right at the table, sweet and chaste, and Rick's blushing at the outright grins everyone is wearing except Hershel. Even the veterinarian seems to approve of the display of affection, watching them with something close to a smile. The tart is a hit with everyone, a treat they know won't last since lemon juice won't be around once the bottles scrounged from abandoned store shelves run out. Maybe once they wander further south, if it's safe, they can find actual citrus fruit.
Alex is a little surprised when Hershel approaches as everyone's getting ready to retire for the night. Rick's hand is warm at the small of her back as she confirms with Maggie that they're doing a supply run the next day. He smiles at them both.
"It seems to me that if you are staying to continue helping my family, perhaps an RV isn't the best place for four adults and a child to be staying during the winter," the veterinarian begins. "And we would use fewer resources to heat one house for us all."
Considering the massive amount of seasoned firewood Morgan has been helping Otis collect from other farms, Hershel is probably right. Propane for the RV is easy enough to find now, but they're running the heating sparingly, and only at night. Looking at Rick, Alex gives a little nod when he arches an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?" he asks Hershel.
"My girls can share a room, and perhaps young Duane can join Jimmy in Shawn's old room, if that's okay with his parents. Otis and Patricia have the attic bedroom, but that would leave the guest room downstairs for one couple and one of the girls' rooms for the other."
Rick looks at Alex. "Is this far enough south to relieve your phobia about snow?" It's light and teasing, enough to make her smile.
Hershel chuckles. "We haven't had any significant snow here in a long time. This year could surprise me, but probably not."
"Our only real goal was to head for the islands, so we wouldn't have to worry about fences. Sometimes the walkers bunch up into large enough groups to be dangerous," Rick tells him. "Staying here would be good, but your fences are only meant to keep cattle from wandering, not keep walkers out."
"How about we sit down tomorrow and see what improvements would be helpful?" Hershel replies. "At least here, we know the land and the climate."
Rick agrees, and rather than tucking into the RV for the night, they find themselves bringing their immediate possessions inside. Morgan and Jenny are fine with Duane sharing with Jimmy, and the teenager seems happy enough to have a roommate despite the age difference. The Jones take Maggie's room upstairs, leaving Rick and Alex to the downstairs guest room.
Alex is unpacking their clothing into the room's dresser when Rick catches her around the waist, pressing a kiss under her ear as he pulls her close so her back rests against his chest. "I'm surprised he didn't kick up a fuss about us not being married," he notes, still nuzzling at her throat.
The level of casual affection Rick gives her is heady. She hopes it lasts beyond the honeymoon phase they're currently in, because there's something adorable in his playful caring touch. "He does seem the uptight sort, at least before. Now? At least he's not fussy with the world gone upside down. Would you prefer to sleep on the couch?" she teases.
"Hell no, and not just because our own room means not sneaking around like we're sixteen and ducking our parents." Rick turns her in his arms, blue gaze solemn as he meets her eyes. "I don't want to sleep anywhere else but beside you."
There's a lot still left unsaid between them, she knows. That first time in the abandoned house had happened because the encounter with the big walker wiped away any shyness about each other. She cups his face and kisses him tenderly. "I feel the same way."
Finishing unpacking gets delayed a bit, because Rick guides her back to the bed. "We're the only ones on the whole ground floor," he observes. "And we have a door now."
Laughing, she helps him shed clothing, admiring the lean muscle he's put on after so many weeks of losing weight in the hospital. If not for the scarring, she would never guess he'd been in a coma earlier in the year. "Gonna turn into a nude sleeper on me?"
"Something tells me a wood heated house probably merits pajamas." Her current lack of pajamas has his entire attention. He's a toucher, often blushing when he explores her bare skin with his hands and eyes. Being bold in the bedroom isn't his norm, she thinks, remembering the months ago admission about his transition from his relationship with Shane to the one with Lori.
"And socks. Fuzzy socks, if we can find any." This place doesn't have carpets. But she forgets about warm feet when he's kissing her.
They can take their time tonight. There's no worry about sneaking in an interlude while on a run, and there's no avoid sex in favor of bringing each other to peak with careful touching in silence because there's only a thin accordion door between them and their friends' eleven-year-old son.
Rick gasps when she nips at his collarbone, and she grins just a little. He likes the mock bites, so she ventures to something she hasn't before, following kisses and nips of teeth all the way to take the warm heat of him in her mouth. It doesn't take long to have him panting her name, hand tugging lightly at her hair in warning. She has no intention of stopping, so the slightly bitter taste of his pleasure isn't unexpected when his body contracts.
He's watching her with heavily lidded eyes when she eases herself up to lie beside him. "That was a good birthday present," he drawls, sounding blissed out.
Alex just grins, stretching out beside him. "Worth getting a year older for?"
"No." It's spoken so decisively that she arches a brow, until he rolls her beneath him, kissing her with a heat that belies that he's already climaxed. She ends up making a needy whine that she's absolutely not ashamed to admit to. He grins when he lets them up for air, and she can feel the evidence that his body is already awakening again when he rocks his hips against her. "What's worth getting a year older for is you."
Now that's a sentiment she can get on board with. "Maybe the world will let us get old and gray together."
It wasn't a guarantee, even before the world ended, that a couple could grow old at each other's side. Rick was probably headed for divorce before he was shot, and Alex's marriage failed when life got harder than either she or Ryan could overcome. But looking at Rick right now, she wants to be optimistic about their chances.
He must agree, because he reaches up to thread his fingers in her long, loose hair before claiming another kiss. His expression is serious when he looks at her again. "I am so fucking in love with you, you know."
"Yeah, I do know." She smiles broadly. "I love you, too"
She is, and she's forgotten how good it feels to make love with a man she's wanting to spend her life with. It's slow and sweet and sweaty, his fingers twined with hers, because tonight they can take their time. It'll happen again and again between them, and she can't help but pray for years upon years of this.
A/N: A bit soft and slow, but honestly, there really isn't any great trauma planned for the Greene Farm before they finally get the nudge to wander further south. They may not last the entire winter on the farm, but we'll see, since we've gone completely AU here.