Six months ago, Shane would have said even having a girlfriend living in the boathouse would be too much. The space isn't large at all, and he's never lived with anyone full time, just had the occasional longer-term lady friend with her own key, here or the apartment he had in town before. Sharing ought to drive him crazy, but even more than the world turning upside down, seeing Rick shot and thinking he was dead just seems to have forever adjusted Shane's need to be around others.
Two months after they got separated at the CDC, he's losing hope that Rick and the others will turn up, and he's fairly certain he's the only one with any optimism on that front anymore. Beth has taken on a sort of fatalistic approach to their world that he knows protects her from falling apart. Neither he nor Carol want to push in case she shatters beyond their ability to bring her back.
It's halfway through September, though, and even though Georgia doesn't have harsh winters, he worries that this year might be an exception. They've sacrificed propane to keep an outdoor burner running to can the excess of fruits and vegetables they've gleaned from the gardens. It makes him wish he'd moved the quarry group out away from the city sooner because they certainly aren't going hungry right now.
"You're allowed to rest, you know."
Pausing in stacking the firewood he's unloading, he takes the Gatorade Sophia offers him, her smile more mischievous than it once would have been as she moves to take over stacking wood. The bolder personality she's been unveiling since the quarry is a marvel to watch. The boys had a slightly better relationship with Ed, so they sometimes miss their father despite all of Ed's flaws, but Sophia's unabashed familial attachment to him? Shane can only be grateful that Carol grabbed the wrong book at the CDC that night.
"That sounds like something your mama might say."
Sophia shrugs. "She worries about you getting sick if you don't rest enough."
It's hard to miss anyone's sleep habits when they're sharing a single living and sleeping space. The boys sleep with youthful abandon, tucked into their camp cots. Carol still sleeps as if being instantly alert is essential to her well-being, and he wonders if finding another cot so she's not sharing a bed with two girls who sleep restlessly would be welcomed. Then again, Shane hasn't lost his ability to catnap from years on the police force, but he can't shed the need to be wary even in sleep himself.
"I'll try to do better and not worry your mama then," Shane offers, finishing off the drink and setting the bottle aside to be refilled with water for times they head off property.
While he's not used to anyone openly worrying about him the way Carol does, not since his grandmother died, he also is highly aware Carol isn't the only one keeping an eye on him. He's a role model here in ways he wasn't at the quarry.
He and Sophia make short work of the remainder of the firewood load, while he mulls over any solution. "Maybe we set a day off for the week where we just do the basics? Just meals and stuff, like a lazy weekend before. Think that would help your mama worry a bit less?"
Based on the bright smile it earns him, Sophia likes that idea just fine.
Carol takes it and runs with it, though, going a step further by instituting a movie night as a small splurge in their electricity use. The kids enjoy that first night so much that Shane thinks about some of the things Lori always wanted for family time and collects up board games on his next supply run. Monopoly might have been a bit of a miscalculation, but the fact that the boys don't even know how to play makes it even more fun.
"Can we check on the chicks and the incubator?" Henry asks when the game is finally won by a happily smug Carol, who swears she hasn't played the game in years.
It had been a bit of a surprise to Shane that they could simply gather the eggs the two hens laid and leave them on the counter and pop them in the incubator when they have enough to make running the incubator worthwhile. The models they found at the hardware store will actually hold forty-one eggs, but with just two hens, that would be a lot of waiting at about an egg per day. After twelve days, they had nineteen eggs to tuck in the incubator.
Sixteen of those hatched at the end of August, making a little brooder nursery necessary that the boys have toiled loyally over keeping the chicks clean, fed, and happy. They had a week where they got the very welcome treat of Carol being able to make baked goods that needed eggs before they started saving eggs again. Now the incubator is host to twenty eggs that are due to hatch in another week.
"Whose turn is it to candle the eggs?" Shane asks, even though he knows the answer. Sophia and Henry checked the eggs after the first week and discarded two of the original twenty-two that weren't developing.
"Benjamin's! It's mine to change the bedding," Henry replies, getting to his feet.
The need for heat in the brooder without a dedicated mother hen means that Shane's original thought of the chicks just going into the coop with the adult chickens can't work. Plus the rooster is a mean little bastard Shane isn't entirely sure won't bully the little black and gray puffballs that pass as baby chickens in the brooder pen they've set up outside below the deck. Beth's cautions about heat lamps starting fires (and Shane's wince at the power they draw) led to improvising a reptile tank heat mat under a little area the boys call the 'mama cave' that the chicks wander in and out of at will.
"I'll help Benjamin," Carol offers. Beth taught them all the skills needed for the first batch, but this time around, they're testing out what they learned.
Beth heads for the shower, something they can't manage for everyone daily, but it's still better than the quarry for hygiene. Daily showers are a luxury now unless someone's done something that needs the muck taken off them, although Shane and the boys have been using a solar camping shower outside while the weather holds warm enough. Benjamin and Henry love it, and it gives the ladies of the household a bit of privacy.
Sophia follows them down the stairs, heading out to check a couple of turtle traps set in the river shallows at the end of the property. Encouraging her independence is one of the best parts of remote property. She's damn near fearless these days, but with more alertness to her surroundings than Carl had.
Excited cheeps greet Henry as he opens the door after grubbing in a bucket next to the pen for earthworms he and Benjamin collected earlier in the day. The chicks can't get out, thanks to a barrier Henry steps over easily, and he scatters some chick starter in their food dish to refill it and plops in a few small worms. That gets the chicks all in one corner of the brooder pen, where the floor is covered in a few inches of sand.
"They always act like they are starving," Henry says taking the kitty litter scooper and bucket Shane passes him and running it through the sand to clean up after the tiny pooping machines.
"Just like any other baby, really. Eat, poop, and sleep."
"At least they have little poops mostly."
"For now. Imagine cleaning the big coop when these are all out there, too."
Henry's mock groan makes Shane laugh. It doesn't take long to tidy up after the chicks, since they clean the sand twice a day as opposed to once for the larger pen. The adults roam free during the day, so they don't make as big of a mess, and they make short work of any vegetable scraps Carol gives them, like the carrot tops and greens from tonight's stew, and they've had to surround the garden with chicken wire to keep the voracious little trio out of the baby plants.
"When we know for sure that the boys are boys?" Henry asks once he's done with cleaning and pauses to pet the more curious of the chicks.
"Next week or so, mostly, but Beth said for sure by the time they're six weeks old." That had been a learning experience, that the three chickens Shane caught out of all of Hershel's mixed flock were barred rocks and they could tell the cockerels from the pullets earlier. By Beth's estimate looking at the spots on their heads when they hatched, they have twelve females and four males.
"We are gonna have a lot of eggs to eat, that's for sure, especially if we get more girls."
"Or a lot of chicken and dumplings if we get a lot of roosters."
Henry doesn't flinch away from that reality, although honestly, Shane's pretty sure if any of these younger males turn out to be sweeter-natured than the one they have, he's going in the crockpot sooner than his sons.
"Do you think we can find different kinds of chickens? Not just our black and white ones? There are some really pretty ones in the book you found for me."
Raiding the library was a great idea for more than just the kids, because living like this has taught him there are major gaps in his own knowledge, too. He can hunt most of the meat they need, so long as it avoids the walkers, and they've got the wealth of the river, too, but without Beth, they'd all be learning from scratch about the garden since neither he nor Carol has been around one since they were kids. He wishes he'd paid far more attention to Grandma Jean's prize tomatoes now, but teenage Shane had far different priorities than gardening.
They've left the chicks to settle for the night as Sophia comes back, triumphantly carrying a good-sized river cooter. "Turtle stew tomorrow!"
"Turtle that size is going to give us days worth of stew. Good catch, Sophia."
She grins and takes the turtle to the big trough they stash turtles in until they're ready to clean them. While they've got the fridge and a small freezer, sometimes it's just better to wait if the catch is alive and healthy. They've even kept some of their fish alive the same way for a few days.
The other change that's drifted into place as September ticks by is the nighttime routine. Random hugs from the kids when they're happy about something started early on, but the three younger ones include Shane the same as Carol in their goodnight hugs. It started with Henry, who seems to have retained far more of an openly affectionate nature than his siblings, probably because he's the youngest and even his twin sheltered him from Ed's temper. But once Shane proved happy with Henry bidding him goodnight that way, Sophia followed. Benjamin took a little while longer, but now, it's all three.
Something about it makes him fall asleep each night contented in a way that nothing in his old life ever approached, and he knows he needs to just admit that Carol's children have wormed their way into his heart the same way as Carl.
Over six weeks at Shane's place is starting to lull Carol into hoping they might at least get through the winter here. It's crowded, yeah, but so far the ability to spread out around the property during the day keeps everyone from being irritated. With winter, though, there will be more rain and more days where spending an entire day outside isn't as much of an option. That's when they'll start feeling stuck, so she's taking measurements on the deck with a slowly forming plan coming to mind.
"Do you really think we can enclose the deck?" Beth asks, carefully jotting down each number Carol calls out to her. Benjamin and Henry are kicking a soccer ball around out in the grass, content to play after they helped Carol and Beth hang out the laundry.
"Shane says he's done framing work before, back in college during the summers. The deck's big enough if we insulate it that it'll make a nice enough bedroom for Shane and the boys."
Putting a bed for Shane on one end and a bunk bed for Benjamin and Henry on the other will take up a lot of the space. But it's still got to be better than couches and camp cots for long-term sleeping, and it gives a separate room for when people need to just have a bit of time to themselves. They briefly considered checking out neighboring properties before they put in the garden, but none of them have as sturdy a fence.
"I wish the hardware store here had more lumber. Feels weird for them to go closer to Atlanta." Of all the kids, Beth struggles the most with anyone getting out of sight, and Carol knows she'll be tense until Shane and Sophia return.
"They'll be just fine. You know Shane won't take any unnecessary risks."
He wouldn't have taken the trip at all if it wasn't for finding the big Dodge Ram work truck to take advantage of the diesel he's been stockpiling alongside regular gas. Taking the truck to the larger home improvement warehouse leaves Carol with the Cherokee in case of emergency, although, honestly, unless some threat came from the river itself, she often thinks escape by boat would be a better option. Either way, it's sweet that he worries and covers all the angles.
The sound of an engine draws all their attention, with the boys abandoning their ball quickly to come running to the house as they've been told to do. Beth grabs the binoculars, frowning.
"I hear two engines, I think," she mutters, and Carol tenses and reaches for the shotgun Shane drilled her on, wishing he'd gotten the radios working before this trip.
"One of them is Shane's truck," Beth says. "Car behind him is a… cop car?"
The only cop Carol can think of is Rick, but she can't think of why Rick would be back in a patrol car. Just in case Shane isn't the driver, she calls down for the boys to get into the jon boat and keeps the shotgun handy. The angle of the road means she and Beth can't be seen easily as the vehicles have to stop for the locked gate.
"Sophia just hopped out to open the gate." Beth's voice holds all the relief that Carol feels. "She's chattering away to Shane as she gets back in."
Putting the binoculars down, Beth starts down the stairs and Carol follows. She wants to hope that Shane's found some of their missing people, but it doesn't feel like they've been that lucky, especially once she sees the Atlanta Police Department logo as the vehicles get closer. Weeks living right on top of Atlanta and even more exploring the city, and they never came across anyone. The odds of it happening now seems suspect to Carol, and she doesn't really care that hanging onto the shotgun might seem paranoid.
It also seems to ensure that the duo in the patrol car stays in the car when Shane pulls to a stop. The bed of the truck and the trailer are fully loaded with building materials, so the trip was successful in that respect, at least.
"It's okay, Carol," Shane calls out as he exits the truck. "We ran into an old classmate of mine from my police training. He's good people, I promise."
Shane's earnest expression eases some of Carol's worry, so she ejects the shell she chambered and pockets it, setting the shotgun down against the stairs. "Tell him and his friend they can get out of the car then."
The newcomers are introduced as Sergeant Bob Lamson and Officer Amanda Shepherd, and they spin a tale of just over a dozen officers looking after about twice that number of civilians in a hospital of all places. It sounds like a good setup in some ways, especially with the level of access to medical supplies and even a doctor, but it's in the city. Carol hasn't forgotten the desolation that lurks around Atlanta now, even if you ignore the hordes of walkers.
"What's the catch?" she asks, turning to Shane. "Why are they eager for more mouths to feed?"
Recruiting Shane makes sense in many ways, but Carol isn't naive enough to see herself and the four kids as an advantage yet. She and the girls are getting there, but that's in rural towns, not a swarmed city, and the boys are far too young to do more than basic self-defense.
"Told you she'd catch on without being told," Shane tells Lamson, who chuckles softly and nods.
"Ma'am, we've got some cops who aren't adjusting well to a world with no rules. I wasn't sure how to take care of things with just me and Shepherd. Seeing Walsh here was like a sign that I needed to get off my ass and make some changes."
"Right now, Captain Hanson lets us bring in vulnerable people, but they owe us for their care. It isn't a sustainable system. There aren't enough of us to protect everyone, and I don't like the way they're eying the prettier wards." Shepherd is vehement as she speaks, reminding Carol of Rick in a way. For the short time she knew him, combined with Lori's stories, Rick was far more of an idealist even after years as a cop than Shane.
"That doesn't sound like a place the girls need to be," Carol states firmly, feeling her skin crawl at the very idea.
"It's okay now," Lamson says, trying for being reassuring. "But leadership now gives officers privileges the wards don't have, and you and I both know that can be a lure for inappropriate favors. I suspect if we could get access to old personnel files, we'd find out a list of complaints against at least two of my fellow officers."
"Assholes should have died in the bombing instead of the good men who did." Shepherd crosses her arms and tilts her chin up as she levels her gaze at Carol. "I don't know Walsh, but I've got eyes, ma'am. If y'all can get a place this settled with just the two of you and four kids, that's the sort of ingenuity we need at the hospital."
"More voices to tell the captain and lieutenant what the world is like outside the city will help. We're getting by on scavenging, but how long can that last?" Lamson waves a hand at the garden and chicken coop. "More people will be safer for the kids, but you'd be making us safer, too."
When Carol turns to look at Shane, she can see that he is sold on the idea, and she imagines it is two-fold. The idea that fellow cops might be turning corrupt is bad enough, but she hasn't missed how worried he is about something happening to either of them and leaving the kids stranded somehow. He's let them make their case themselves, but he wants to go.
At the same time, she's certain if she says no, they're staying put. It's that reassurance that makes her decision. These cops aren't just recruiting Shane, they're recruiting her. Maybe her need to help others isn't rooted in the same public service that Shane's is, but she doesn't like the idea of leaving others to possibly be abused either. As much as she likes what they're building here, being part of a larger community will be safer in the end.
"How long do we have to pack?" she asks.
At the relief on all three cops' faces, Carol can only pray that it's the right decision. The consequences if it's not are just too harsh to think about.