AN: Another chapter.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"Pass me that bag?" Alice requested, pointing somewhat in the direction of over Carol's shoulder and somewhere behind her. Turning around, Carol found the black bag in a matter of seconds. She was growing used to Alice's manner of organizing things and she could almost predict what the woman wanted before Alice even knew she wanted it.
Her days helping Alice, though, were pretty much the same every day. Carol was let out of her house early and she made the walk herself to Alice's office. She got there just about the time the first pot of coffee was brewed and she prepared Alice's coffee for her without being asked to do it while Alice sat, still looking half asleep, and went through the files on her computer that needed review. Then Carol tidied the office while Alice went through the box of "incoming" information that she got and sorted it, entered it into the computer, and put together her schedule for the day. Normally, at that point, Alice needed privacy to make phone calls that Carol wasn't supposed to overhear, so Carol was sent to pick up something or drop off something—and if there was nothing to do, she was sent to put in an order for Alice's lunch at the mess hall. Then it was time to take patients. Sometimes guards were dispatched to bring patients to the clinic. Other times, Alice simply went to her patients.
Today they'd spent most of the day going to the homes of patients. They were expanding the clinic and the noise was irritating to Alice so she was more inclined to want to leave as often as she could. It was almost lunch time, but it was clear that they weren't ready for their break yet. Alice was obviously preparing for another home visit.
"This is the only one you need?" Carol asked, shouldering the bag herself rather than offering it to Alice.
"Here...gimme," Alice said, signaling that she was going to take the bag. Carol passed it to her and Alice shouldered it herself. "I don't even need this one, but right now? It's better to have some clear and visible evidence of what you're doing."
Carol knew what Alice was talking about. Woodbury was still reeling from the attempted escape of two citizens-sometimes-known-as-inmates and it seemed to make some of the guards who worked there a little jumpy. Even when she was sent to pick up a supply order that had come in for Alice, Carol had carried one of Alice's clearly marked medical bags, along with her pass, to keep suspicions low. It would pass, Alice assured her, but for the moment it had everyone on overly-high alert.
"You work here," Carol said. "You can leave every day."
"And I do," Alice said. "But it's just easier not to get questioned about everything." She laughed to herself. "Like I even answer to them. But you have to figure, Carol, that it takes a certain personality for someone to want to go into being a prison guard. I mean—it did back then, but it definitely does now. Come on. Let's go."
Alice's overall tone for the day suggested that she was tired and Carol doubted that it had anything to do with her quality of sleep the night before. What had happened was nothing more than a reminder of how far they still had to go, regardless of how far they'd come.
Carol followed Alice through the streets of Woodbury and didn't say anything else to the woman until Alice addressed her.
"What's a quick and easy comfort food?" Alice asked.
"Do what?" Carol asked quickly. Alice laughed to herself in response.
"You're pregnant," Alice said. "And—you're supposed to have all sorts of cravings and food is supposed to be amazing, right? Help me out, I've never done this before. Quick and easy comfort food. What are you craving?"
Carol shrugged.
"I mean—I don't have any cravings right now," Carol said. "But I had a few weird ones when I was pregnant before."
"I'm looking for comfort food," Alice said. "Something—not too heavy. Not too light. Just comfortable. Quick and easy. For me? That would be like potato soup. But I don't know—I'm not sure I'm normal. And I'd like something a little more substantial than that."
Carol laughed to herself.
"I don't know what you had in mind," Carol said. "But the other day Daryl made us grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and—I have to admit I've already asked for it two other times."
"Hits the spot?" Alice asked.
"It hits some spot," Carol responded.
"You're a genius," Alice said, seemingly very pleased with Carol's choice of comfort food. "That's why I can't ever let them move you. It's also one of the reasons why I told Milton I'm training you. I can't bestow like a—like an official medical degree on you? But—I can come pretty damn close. A little along."
Carol's stomach sort of oddly flipped at the statement. Alice was training her, and Carol had suspected that might be what she was doing, but Alice hadn't come out and said it. Alice had Carol doing the mechanical aspects of her job under supervision. Taking vitals was something that was easy to pick up on, but Alice had also volunteered herself as a human pin cushion for Carol to practice drawing blood on and, just that morning, Alice had let Carol try her acquired skills out on one of the women in her care.
Now Carol wondered where the training would stop—and she was a little proud to think that maybe, if they really did make it out of all this, she might come through with a skill that she could really do something with in the world.
"Milton liked the idea?" Carol asked.
Alice smiled.
"Liked it? He loved it. He was as enthusiastic about it as—as Milton gets about anything," Alice said. "Medical personnel is always a necessity, and it's especially true if you happen to get one that's sympathetic to the whole wilds are human philosophy. Not to mention—it looks good for the project that well..."
Alice hesitated and her words dropped off. Carol knew from experience that meant that there was something she wanted to say, but she was afraid of offending Carol with the words.
"Go ahead," Carol urged. "I don't care. You can speak freely around me. You know that."
Alice hummed.
"It looks good for the project if we can show that Wilds can assimilate to the point that they acquire useful skills," Alice said. "But that sounds like some shit out of a pamphlet."
"And some shit I've heard sounds like it comes out of a horror novel," Carol said. "I'll take the pamphlet." Carol only realized where they were going when Alice steered her in the direction of Milton's house. Carol's stomach tightened a little. "What are we doing?" Carol asked quickly. "Is Andrea OK?"
"She's OK," Alice said. "She's fine. Gotta pay a house call."
Carol followed Alice up the steps to the house and waited while Alice knocked, announced her presence, and then produced the keys from her pocket that she used to unlock the house. By now, Carol had learned there was a master key for all the houses. From what she could tell, all the "businesses" within Woodbury had their own key. And Milton's house had its very own special set of keys.
Alice let them inside and Carol closed the door behind her. Alice wasn't normally in the practice of locking the doors behind her when they entered a house, but she had been locking them since the "incident". She was no different here and she quickly locked the door from the inside before she called out to Andrea to come out of wherever she was "hiding".
Carol didn't know the house well enough to know from which room Andrea appeared. Andrea stopped and stared at Carol standing in her living room and Alice laughed low in her throat.
"Go ahead," she said. "Hug it out. Do whatever you gotta do. I need to make a quick phone call and then? Everybody get comfortable."
Alice disappeared around the corner into the kitchen to use the phone and Carol closed the distance between herself and Andrea to wrap her arms around the woman. Andrea returned the hug with more strength behind her hold than Carol anticipated and Carol didn't try to pull away from her until Andrea seemed satisfied enough to release her.
"It's been a couple of days," Carol teased Andrea when they pulled apart. It had been a couple of weeks, in all honesty, since Carol had seen her. She'd managed to miss some of Andrea's appointments with Alice while being occupied with other tasks she was assigned.
"You're OK?" Andrea asked, her voice almost sounding urgent. "Everything's OK?"
Carol offered her a smile.
"I'm fine," Carol assured her. "I'm fine and—Daryl's great. He's working on expanding the clinic right now and—I'm working with Alice and...the babies are fine."
Andrea raised an eyebrow at Carol.
"You mean all of them?" Andrea asked. "Everywhere? In Woodbury? How many are there now? Enough?"
Carol quickly shook her head at Andrea.
"I wasn't talking about all of Woodbury," Carol said. "Though—there's about fifteen confirmed pregnancies right now? I think. We lost two a couple of days ago. Nothing happened just—one of those things. When Alice is confirming them at the moment that it'll show up on a blood test, well, there's been a few ups and downs."
"But Carol is a bit of a celebrity right now," Alice said, reappearing around the corner.
"Wild A?" Andrea asked.
Carol shook her head.
"That's all you," Carol said. "But—twins."
Andrea's eyes went wide.
"Twiins? You're having twins? You and Daryl?" Andrea asked. Carol nodded. Andrea bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, her excitement for Carol coming through. "Oh! Right now?"
Carol laughed to herself.
"I hope not!" Carol said. "I'm not ready yet—and I don't think they are either. But yeah. Right now." In response she got another hug from Andrea that very nearly robbed her of her breath and came accompanied with some declarations of "congratulations" in her ear. "How are you? How are you feeling?"
Andrea just nodded at Carol. It wasn't that sincere, but Carol accepted it for what it was worth. Then Andrea turned her focus to Alice.
"What's wrong?" Andrea asked Alice. "I wasn't expecting you."
"We're here for lunch," Alice said. "I just put in the order so they'll be here soon."
"Lunch?" Andrea asked.
Alice nodded her head.
"I was looking at your food journals and..." Alice started.
"Food journals?" Andrea asked.
"You'd be surprised what I know about you," Alice said. "Milton has tabs going on everything about you. Everything. And you don't eat your breakfast unless it's a piece of toast or a croissant. Lunch? You return most of what they bring. Dinner is the only thing that you actually seem to consume in a day, and that's touch and go. And I thought to myself that breakfast can be explained. Morning sickness has been kicking your ass and we all know that. And you don't normally get around to breakfast until Michonne's left for work, and Milton's gone to work, and then lunch? You eat that alone. Dinner? Depends on the day, but usually at least Michonne's back. So—we're here for lunch. Just to test a theory."
"I'm not starving myself," Andrea said quickly and quite defensively. There was enough anger behind her words that Carol found herself stepping out of the way a bit.
"And did I say you were?" Alice asked, her tone sharp enough to get through to Andrea. Andrea visibly relaxed a little. "I never said you were. But I have a theory that you're not eating as much because—there's nobody here. And sometimes? When people eat alone all the time? Meals become a chore more than a pleasure. It's something you have to do, not something you want to do. It becomes instinct to eat to survive. And what we need to survive doesn't always match up to what we need to thrive." Alice softened her tone a little then. The change was something that Carol was accustomed to hearing from her when she was trying to get through to someone who still wasn't quite comfortable in Woodbury. It happened often with the patients they went to visit. "You're losing weight, Andrea, and that's the exact opposite of what needs to be happening right now. So I have a theory. And that theory is that—if Carol eats lunch with you, which both of you need to do, then you're going to do what I ask you to do and you're going to eat everything I give you. Or, at least, you're going to make a valiant effort."
Andrea shrugged her shoulders.
"I'll eat whatever you tell me to eat," Andrea said. "If I can."
Alice nodded her head and offered Andrea a soft smile.
"And if it works," Alice said. "Then I'll have no choice—and I hope you understand that—than to tell Milton that Wild A was under constant supervision and I think that medically supervised meals are just—they're just the best thing we can do to make sure that everything's going well."
Carol realized what Alice was doing, and she couldn't help but smile to herself. Andrea still looked a little suspicious, though, of what was going on. Perhaps she wasn't quite as accustomed to how Alice operated as Carol was.
"So you're coming here every day?" Andrea asked.
Alice shook her head.
"I've always got a lot to do," Alice said. "But my assistant? I think she's trained enough to—supervise lunch and record the information that I need. To pass to Milton, of course."
Andrea looked at Carol and then back at Alice. There was something breaking through in her expression, even if she hadn't reached a sincere smile just yet.
"Carol's going to eat lunch here?" Andrea asked. "Every day?"
"I think we should give today a try," Alice said. "And then, if it goes well, I'll let Milton know my recommendations. Should we give it a try?"
Andrea didn't smile at all then. Instead, her features drew up like she might actually burst into tears at the thought. She nodded her head quickly, though, both to Carol and to Alice. Carol nodded her agreement to Alice as well.
"Excellent," Alice said. "Then Carol? I'll get you set up and let you know what I want from you and as soon as they bring the food, I'll let you get to work. I'll pick you up in an hour."
