Too many years of being up before Ed to make sure his breakfast was ready at the correct time means that Carol dozes but doesn't really sleep after her late-night pilfering with Shane. Giving up on any real sleep, she gets dressed and makes her way to the kitchen after leaving a note for the kids. T-Dog is already up and getting breakfast underway.
"Need any help?" she asks, taking in the heavenly smell of fresh coffee and going to get a cup from the big cafeteria-style dispenser.
"Nah, not yet. Jenner left some aspirin if you need it." T-Dog motions toward the table with a cheery smile. There's an economy-sized bottle just like a few Carol appropriated last night on the table next to a platter of bacon.
"I'm guessing you've already helped yourself to be so bright-eyed." Carol's head is just fine, but the late-night meal with Shane, combined with limiting herself to two glasses of wine, is key to the lack of hangover.
T-Dog shrugs, smile turning sheepish. "Got used to being in a tent with noises all around. Was too quiet here last night. Figured I'd do something useful."
Carol understands that all too well, but since breakfast is well in hand, she remembers something else she was meaning to do this morning. "Where is Jenner?"
"Wandered down that hall with his coffee," T-Dog points with a spatula. "Said something about checking on his test results."
Filling a second cup and taking hers along, Carol heads in the direction indicated. It's not hard to find the office he's using, not with most of the interior lighting shut down to conserve power. She stops in the opening of the only lit doorway and clears her throat.
It doesn't look like Jenner slept at all. While he didn't look his best yesterday, this morning he looks completely haggard. He probably is about her age, but stress and despair have aged him prematurely to seem a decade older. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he does offer a quiet thanks for the coffee, dropping the empty cup on his desk in the nearly overflowing trash can. He uncaps a bottle of vodka and pours a liberal amount into the new coffee cup, tilting the bottle her way but recapping it when she shakes her head.
On his desk, two monitors are displaying data, a different one for each screen. One is obviously a spreadsheet type list, but the other looks like the sort of lab report Carol's seen in doctor's offices and hospitals. "Did you spend all night checking our blood?"
"Yes. The good news is that you're all reasonably healthy for people living without the benefit of civilization for weeks. I'd recommend vitamins for everyone, but especially the kids." He sounds so absentminded as he speaks, delivering the health report routinely. Glancing up at her, he gives her a ghost of a smile. "Hopefully, you collected some up last night."
There hadn't been anyone in this office during their scavenging, but he'd probably been in a lab somewhere. She's not surprised that he noticed movement in the building. He probably kept an eye on all of them via whatever security system still exists.
"So I'm right that this is a temporary safe haven for us?" Carol is so used to being disappointed that it shouldn't feel like such a blow.
"Temporary, yes. When I said no one could exit the building, I wasn't lying. There's not enough power to open those doors upstairs again. Once the twelve-hour mark passed, only this floor has power, and that will slowly cycle down to the barest essentials as time runs out. The elevators won't work now, either."
"Sounds like a terribly inefficient way to safeguard a government building. What if you needed to evacuate?" Fear tingles along her nerves at the combination of him agreeing to temporary and then referring to the lack of power again. The long-familiar sense of impending danger that was honed under Ed's dominion is rearing its head, and her claustrophobia claws at her before she fights it down again.
Jenner straightens in his chair and taps the desk with his fingers, thinking something over and glancing to a timer counting down on the office wall. It's a smaller version of the big one in the main work area, and it reads just under two hours. "Two offices down on the right was our head of security. You're welcome to go looking for a solution."
"What does that timer mean, Dr. Jenner?"
"It's how long we have until the fuel runs out to power the facility." Mournful eyes meet hers. "I shouldn't have let you in, knowing there were just under sixteen hours left for the building to remain standing. When the generators fail, the self-destruct system will ensure that nothing escapes the labs here."
A shudder runs through Carol at the thought. They're trapped in a building that is effectively one massive bomb, complete with a timer like some Hollywood movie. She turns to leave, but Jenner calls her name to stop her. When she looks back at him, he's got an expression of such earnest entreaty that she stays to listen despite everything telling her to get to her kids, to deliver this news to Shane so he can help figure a way out.
"It might be kinder to just not tell them. I understand that the destruction will happen so swiftly there should be no pain…" He trails off and takes a drink of his liquored coffee. "No more grief. No more suffering. What lives can your children lead out there among the dead?"
Carol squares her shoulders, remembering her thoughts of finally being free of a man's tyranny last night. Shane reminded her she isn't alone in keeping them safe, and his offer to teach them all? That'll help keep them alive.
"They'll have good lives for however long it is granted to them, Dr. Jenner. It is not your place or mine to end them. As long as they're alive, there's always hope."
He looks wistful, reaching for a photo on the desk. "We never had children, my wife and I. It was always something we put off, a thing we'd do once her brilliant research concluded. When she died after being bitten, I thought maybe it was a blessing, that she only left me behind."
Placing the frame back on the desk gently, Jenner reaches for the vodka bottle, unscrewing the cap and tossing it to the trash can before taking a deep swig from the bottle. "I wish you all the luck if you can get your people back outside."
"You could come with us." Suicidally depressed or not, the man's a doctor, and those certainly are in short supply.
"I could, but I'm too tired to keep delaying my inevitable end. I would just like to finally find some rest at last." He closes his eyes, resting his head back against his office chair as if he's in extensive pain. "Do you believe in an afterlife?"
Carol always has clung to the tenuous faith she was raised in. She hopes it's true because Ed deserves to burn in hell for what he was. "Yes, I do."
"Then don't deny me being able to see my wife again."
Glancing at the timer, she decides to leave the man to his solitude. Either he'll find the will to live and follow them out of the building, or he won't. But he's not a child, and she can't dictate his choices for him. Slipping out into the darkened hallway, she goes to wake Shane to tell him their paranoia last night has a basis in truth.
Shane grips the steering wheel hard, knuckles white as he dodges obstacles and walkers as he can. Meaty thuds signal he isn't missing all the walkers, and he hears one of the kids whimper in the backseat. Glancing up to the rearview mirror, he thinks it was Henry, who has his face buried in Sophia's thin little shoulder. Benjamin is stoically staring out the window.
"They just don't stop coming," Carol hisses out, reaching between the seats to grip Henry's knee to reassure him, before speaking louder for the kids' benefit. "Hang in there, kiddos. Shane's gonna get us out of this."
He wishes he had her confidence, but there's nothing else to do but keep up as much speed as he dares. They're on their own, separated from the rest of their little caravan by a massive herd that was drawn to the explosion at the CDC. He doesn't have the first clue where to try to meet up with Rick again, and the masses of dead are pushing him to go further and further north out of the city.
Whatever instinct drove Carol to go talk to Jenner probably saved all their lives. She doubled down on her lucky streak when Glenn was unable to bypass the CDC security in the time he had, not without the long-dead security chief's biometrics. Jenner had never been important enough in the ranks to have the same clearance, although he'd at least come to the surface level and tried.
Only a woman would put a grenade in her purse and forget about it, Shane thinks. It's like one of the crazy sermons he used to deliver to Rick in their patrol car. He will never complain about Carol pack ratting anything, ever, or say something as stupid as what he did about the nail file in the CDC lobby.
While Glenn tried to hack the system with the manual Carol found, the rest of them had gone through the supplies, adding to the cache he and Carol began the night before. When desperation led them to blow out the glass with the grenade, they'd had thirty-six minutes to spare. That had been enough time to siphon gas from Shane's Jeep and T-Dog's van and abandon both vehicles just to have enough fuel to even consider escape. The bags of pilfered supplies had been divided between all three vehicles, with the lion's share going into the RV's bedroom just due to space available.
Putting half a mile of distance between them and the CDC before the actual explosion still meant being rocked by the force of it. From the tell-tale flicker of fire Shane glimpsed when they stopped to regroup and decide on where to hole up for the night, he's not sure anywhere in the city near the CDC will be safe. The destruction of one of the most dangerous buildings in America is far more deadly and efficient than the haphazard military napalming, and there are no fire departments to stop the spread of the fire if it finds the right tinder.
"I should've gotten one of them to draw me a damn map to that nursing home," Shane says, feeling completely unprepared.
It had seemed practical for Shane to drive Carol and the kids while Glenn and Andrea joined Daryl in his truck and the rest went into the RV with Dale. But now, the foolishness is made apparent, because they're the only vehicle who had no guide to their destination.
Carol flinches as a walker rolls off her side mirror with a squelching sound. "For today, maybe we just get out of the city. The walkers will keep going to the fire, right?"
"If we can get far enough away that they aren't hearing us, yeah." He's able to pick up speed, just a little, giving him hope. "I don't know the area north of the city that well. We need to find somewhere we can secure."
Sophia leans forward enough that her blonde hair brushes Shane's shoulder. "LIke a school with a fence?"
"Yeah. You got one in mind, sweetheart?" he asks her.
She nods. "My friend went to a private school that was on the river. I remember how to get there from the freeway because I went with her to her brother's football games a couple of times last year. They've got a bunch of areas fenced off."
It's better than any idea he has, so he prays the school was evacuated and not used for any sort of refugee center like some of the Atlanta high schools were intended to be. Their luck holds when they make it to the sprawling campus, which has a fairly new football field complete with the type of pretty, yet sturdy black iron fencing no public school could afford. He parks the Cherokee near the ticket and concession area and exchanges a look with Carol in the day's fading light.
"We have supplies, but out of all the buildings on campus, this one and the cafeteria are the two that might be worth checking. Definitely safer to start with the smaller facility." He can't imagine anyone being out here by the football field, but he's seen a few random walkers on the campus in the distance. "If I secure the building, we can park inside the fence and have somewhere to sleep for the night."
"You shouldn't do it alone."
The protest is expected, but Shane shakes his head. "You move to the driver's seat. Anything happens to me, you get the kids out of here."
Gun at ready in his holster and tire iron in hand, he breaks into the building and clears it. It's an echoing space, meant just to sell tickets on one side of the building and food on the other. He'd been right about some supplies, although there's not as many as there would be if the place had shut down during football season. He'll check the baseball field's concession before they leave. The food supplies from the CDC would last them a little over a week, he thinks, but they need to be constantly gathering.
The most important part is that all three kids can get out of the car in a reasonably safe place. Once everyone's visited the bathroom, the kids settle down to eat on the bleachers because the building is too cramped and hot, even with Shane opening the service windows. Carol had unpacked a little camp stove to heat up some of the canned nacho cheese, and the kids are in better spirits as they assemble their own little nacho platters and collect their choice of snacks from the bagged chips left behind.
"The chocolate is a damn tease," Carol says, smiling and passing him a heavily laden tray of nachos and a bottle of water. She leans on the counter, looking like it could be any game night and her the band mother helping out at concessions. "All these melted candy bars."
"Could try it melted." It's a joke because milk chocolate that's been in this heat? No way it's safe after all these weeks.
"I don't think I've ever craved chocolate that bad. There are some hot chocolate packets in the storeroom, but it's too damn hot." She's got her food now, fewer toppings than he or the kids have, but it seems to be a preference, not going without. There's plenty that will spoil if not eaten once they opened the restaurant-sized cans for this picnic supper.
Glancing over to where the kids are happily sipping warm sodas, Shane agrees. They deserve the treat of the syrupy drinks, but he can't imagine trying it himself. He finds it's easy to fall into quiet companionship while eating, just like their late-night meal had been.
Food eaten, they take the sleeping bags from the car and spread them out near the bleachers where the kids ate their food. It's too damn hot to sleep inside the stuffy little building, and the overgrown grass of the football field adds extra padding. The bugs aren't bad, so he bypasses setting up his tent for the night for them to sleep in.
Carol joins Shane where he's sitting on the bleachers in the moonlight keeping the first watch, brushing her shoulder against his.
"Sophia wants to help keep watch."
While his first instinct is to say no, he knows that with just him and Carol, they're going to end up exhausted if it takes a while to reunite with the others. "You think she's up for it?"
"Somewhere like this, where all she's got to do is stay awake and listen? Yeah. She's good at being on guard."
Neither of them comments on why Sophia has that skill. She's almost thirteen, Shane remembers, and much less sheltered than Carl. "Alright. You can wake her around four. Let her do a dawn watch."
He knows damn well Carol won't sleep once she's woken Sophia, not with things so uncertain and Sophia standing her first watch, but building confidence has to start somewhere.
"I will. Thank you for trusting she can do it." Carol sighs, and he thinks she's going to get up to go get some sleep herself, but then she speaks again. "What do we do if we don't find Rick and the others?"
"Might try to circle the city to head back home. Rick seemed to think there weren't any big herds there, and he left his friend with the kid down there. I figure Rick might go looking for him and hope I had the good sense to head for familiar territory, too."
"Alright. Best to be somewhere you're familiar with." She shivers, and it can't be that the night air is cold, because Shane is sweating in the humid July heat.
"You okay?"
Carol nods, even as she wraps her arms around her legs and rests her chin on her knees. "This is too close to home," she admits finally.
Oh. It makes sense, with Sophia having a friend who went to the school, that Carol had lived somewhere in the area. Shane hadn't thought much about where anyone was from before, because it didn't matter beyond Glenn knowing Atlanta well enough for supply runs. The fact that none of the Peletiers offered to go to their former home makes him angry and sad at the same time.
He reaches out to squeeze her shoulder, remembering how her simple contact reassured him the night before. "We'll do our best not to stay long, then. Is there anything the kids might need while we're close, though?"
It earns him a grateful smile. "No, what few keepsakes they couldn't live without they already have with them. But thank you."
Tomorrow, they'll scavenge more fuel for the Cherokee to see if he can top off the tank and get them away from an area with such ugly memories. That'll be more than enough to make it to King County even with detours. Wherever Rick is, Shane certainly hopes the others are as safe as he and Carol and the kids are tonight.
The alternative, that they got swallowed up by that herd, just doesn't bear considering.
Rick had been right that the Vatos would let his people stay the night. Guillermo hadn't even asked for any payment, but they still had Felipe go through the medical supplies from the CDC to see if anything was more useful for the elderly than Rick's people. There's no sign of Shane, Carol, and the kids, and he's still cursing himself for not noticing they'd disappeared from the rear of the caravan during the herd.
Even Daryl and his passengers aren't sure when they stopped seeing the Cherokee. All Rick can do is trust in Shane's ability to adapt and hope the same determination that kept Lori and Carl safe is something that endures to keep their missing people safe. Rick will just have to have the same faith he'll find Shane and the others the same as he believed he would find Lori and Carl before. Tomorrow, they'll find somewhere to stay that isn't a drain on the Vatos' resources and start the search.
Until then, Rick is just grateful for a safe place to stay after the chaos of the CDC escape and hopes Shane is somewhere just as safe for the night.
A/N: Canon Divergences: While canon through the CDC arrival (aside from Carol's sons), the CDC didn't devolve into the chaos of being locked in. Jacqui is still with Rick's group, and Andrea didn't try to stay behind. As for Jenner? I think he was likely beyond hope at that point, even if kept from his "take them with me" moment.
The Vatos are obviously still alive. This is important for later. :)
Don't expect a lot of details on Rick's group (not like 'Swim' and 'Time'), but Rick got a wee cameo here.