Beth thumps into the chair next to Shane on the porch, feeling grumpier than usual. "Boys are stupid."

Shane closes his puzzle book and nods. "I can't exactly argue with that, most days. Is this all boys or just a specific one?"

See, that response is why Beth tromped off to the porch when Jimmy made her so angry she couldn't keep hold of Daddy's teachings. She knows Jimmy didn't grow up with all the advantages she did. It's why he's here instead of with family, because her Daddy would never turn someone in need away.

She knew Shane would be out front, part of his recovery being mobile more each day. He can't go far, not with everyone still on tenterhooks about the fact that he had a collapsed lung and Daddy still isn't sure he found all the bone fragments from the rib that got shattered.

"I broke up with him like five times, and he doesn't believe me. It's stupid, because he wouldn't care if there were other girls our age here." Geez, what Beth wouldn't give for Sophia to be older or Maggie younger.

"You told your daddy he isn't listening?" Shane's expression is starting to cloud over.

"It's not bad like that," she hastens to explain. Beth's irritated with her ex-boyfriend, but he's not that kind of bad. "But I did lock him in the chicken coop. By accident."

Shane studies her for a minute, shifting in his seat. He must trust her judgement, since the anger fades, which is nice. He quirks a brow. "Accident, huh?"

"Yeah."

He doesn't chide her that it's unkind or silly, just grins and points to the book she started reading to him when he was mostly confined to bed. "Leave him there for a chapter or two?"

Beth smirks, and as she opens the book to the next chapter, she wonders for the first time if maybe he could help her with another dilemma. He's been out in the world and saw it fall. She thinks he might know way more than her Daddy hiding on this farm about the difference between sickness and monsters.


Shane isn't used to being as immobile as his injuries require him to be. Even before the world ended, it was rare for him to even sit still through an entire television football game. Granted, he spent a lot of his day in a patrol car, but that was definitely not a sedentary job in a small county with fewer deputies than most.

Hershel Greene doesn't seem too disturbed when Shane is willing to push on his recovery. He honestly senses quite a bit of relief on the part of the old man that his promise they can stay through Shane's recovery isn't going to be drawn out by the patient himself. After three days of movement between bed, chair, table, and bathroom, he adds the front porch to the rotation.

Maggie's antisocial nature doesn't improve, and he hopes she's better with animals than people. Shane definitely prefers Otis or Patricia when they assist his recovery. Patricia is quietly cheerful and honestly reminds him of his late mother in her unobtrusive behavior. Otis, once he's gotten over that he's the reason Shane was injured, proves a great resource to Shane's own group in finding supplies to tide them over without tapping into the Greenes' supplies too much.

The kids remain his favored companions. Beth brought some book in, alternating reading to him with whatever game can be played with one hand. It is certainly a better convalescence than any other injury he's endured.

Being up and mobile eases the shadows he sees in all three Grimes. The injury is far too close to Rick's to make any of them comfortable, and if Shane is entirely honest, the amount of sleep needed makes him nervous. Even reminding himself that Rick's initial coma was medically induced doesn't help.

A shadow falls across Shane's puzzle book, and he is a little surprised to see Maggie Greene standing there with a handful of the sort of puzzle books that are sold in checkout lines just about everywhere. She lays them carefully on the cushion of the porch swing next to him.

"Noticed you were about done with your book."

Writing with his left hand is tricky, but he's taught himself to do it before. As much company as he has, it's not a constant, so he has been passing chunks of time with a mixed book of puzzles Carl dug out of his duffel for him, especially during late night wakefulness waiting on pain meds to kick in. Maggie apparently pays more attention than he gave her credit for.

"Thanks." Shane doesn't bother to smile, like he normally would. Anything even attempting being social with her seems to piss her off. Closing the book he's been working on, he shuffles through the stack, finding the sudoku one and trades it out for the original.

"I was curious which type you actually liked," Maggie says, surprising him. Actual curiosity about him beyond his medical needs is outside her normal behavior in the five days since he was shot.

"I like most of them, but usually not a full book of crossword puzzles. Those get to the point you need a PhD in obscure English to manage."

It surprises him even more when she smiles. "I'm guessing you weren't an English major in college."

Shane shakes his head. "Communications, actually. Considered a career in sports broadcasting before Rick convinced me that law enforcement was our future."

Maggie leans against the porch rail. "So you two aren't just work partners."

Arching a brow, Shane leans back against the cushion on the swing put there to help support his shoulder. "What triggered this interest?"

"I overheard the conversation you had with Jimmy."

Ah. After Beth locked the teenager in the chicken coop, Shane figured it didn't hurt to have a little man to man chat with Jimmy. The coop is beyond the area he's supposed to be venturing, but he didn't mind.

"And you aren't objecting that I offered he could leave with us?" Shane remembers being that age, with so few choices ahead that it seemed like there were none at all. He'd had his grandmother, at least, which is more than Jimmy has.

"Not if he really wants to go. Daddy would never turn him out, but he's not family."

The sheer lack of emotion in dismissing the kid makes Shane stiffen, gaze going cold as he assesses her. "Don't worry your pretty little head. I'll make sure he's no longer your burden to consider."

It's a promise he intends to keep. There's no way he's leaving that kid to be everyone's obligation here. Looking at the books she brought, he sets them all back on the cushion and takes his own, clipping the pen to the cover and tucking the book under the sling his right arm is in. "Keep them. I don't need bribes to be a decent human being."

Before she can reply, he sets off down the steps toward his own people's camp, leaving her gaping behind him. Earlier, he let Jimmy free of the chickens, and just wanted to let him know he wasn't shackled to this farm. He hasn't even discussed it with Rick or the others yet, but honestly, he knows what the answer will be. None of them will leave a kid where he's obviously not wanted.


Eugene shoves Pam ahead of him, desperately trying to figure out how they got separated from the others. They're supposed to be guarded! While Pam's not actually inept with weaponry, Eugene is, and she's sick. It's not the virus, and her illness led them to risk the incursion into one of the big hospitals in New Orleans.

Without Pam's blood, and whatever unique spin her DNA has for the virus, the cure is worthless.

But they're on their own, and Pam is vomiting. Hiding isn't an option, not unless he can barricade them somewhere. Finally, their luck changes, just a little. He swings open a door, and it's an actual empty hospital room. Ignoring the blood splatter than signifies the former occupant was either executed or turned and then executed, Eugene shoves Pam toward the bathroom. "Hide! Lock the door!"

Courage is not among his character traits, but if they both go into the locked bathroom, that's the end of the road for them both. Jamming the room's visitor chair isn't going to work, but it buys him time to move the bed. All those things he's read about terror lending strength hold true, because he shouldn't be able to move the bed so easily. Thumps and groans of frustrated, hungry dead run a staccato beat in his head, making him shudder.

"Abe should have left us outside the city," he mumbles to himself. His objection had been overruled, with the big sergeant saying they didn't have enough people to split the group after they lost Josephine and Rex. Instead, exactly what Eugene feared happened.

Pam couldn't keep up, and she certainly couldn't keep quiet. All it took was her needing to vomit at the wrong time, and everything went wrong. He doesn't even know if the others are alive, and now he isn't sure if he can keep Pam that way, either. Searching the room for any leftover supplies, he finds an unused IV kit and bag of saline.

That explains the amount of blood splatter. The military must have killed a nurse along with a patient here. Knocking at the door, he calls out for Pam, relieved when he hears the lock turn. She sinks to the floor, looking only a shade better than the dead banging on their door.

"Have you ever started an IV before?" she asks weakly.

"No, I cannot claim that as one of my myriad of collected skills." It can't be impossible to figure out. He's drawn blood before, so it's similar enough. "Find a vein and set the needle, right?"

Pam tries to laugh, but doesn't have the energy. Between fever and dehydration, she's on her last reserves. "Except the needle doesn't stay in."

Examining the IV kit, Eugene sees what she means. "The cannula stays?"

"Yeah." Extending her arm, Pam walks him through the process before nudging her pack toward him. "I can't keep the oral antibiotics down. There's a bag of IV antibiotics in there. Only one I could find. Useless til you found that."

Eugene considers moving her out to the hospital bed, but the dead are starting to quiet down now that they can't see or hear them. Putting Pam on the bed being used as a door block will fire them back up again. Instead, he makes a pillow out of a towel and makes her as comfortable as possible. The water still works, so he turns the faucet on a small drip and sponges her skin with a washcloth.

"Need water," Pam mumbles, patting his chest. "Doan f'get."

The slurred language frightens him, but he heeds her warning. It's hot as hell in Louisiana in the summer, but they're inside a building meant to be air conditioned. He's already sweated his shirt through, and that's not even considering fear contributing. After washing them, he cups his hands under the trickle from the faucet and drinks.

All he can do now is wait and hope Abe and the rest survived, especially the kids. Eugene isn't normally fond of children, but over time, he's learned to be fond of Becca and AJ. Once the dead wander off, he'll test the windows to see if they can exit that way, but he's not optimistic. Places like this don't usually have windows that open.

Four hours pass with no change in Pam's fever, although she isn't vomiting. Eugene suspects it's because she no longer has anything to bring up. Creeping out on hands and knees, he eases to the door and listens. Raising up,the coast is clear, finally.

Pam's too weak to run, and the windows aren't a real option even if he manages to break one. She can't climb down any makeshift rope. Spotting an abandoned wheelchair, Eugene goes back and shuts the bathroom door. He can't lock it from this side, and the knob is one that fumbling dead can get lucky in opening, but it's better than nothing.

Easing the bed back only far enough to squeeze his girth out, Eugene makes his way cautiously to the wheelchair. Spotting a stray medication cart, he eases it along as well. Getting them both back into the room is tricky, but he manages.

Thinking the others might come looking for them, he shrugs out of his overshirt and snags it on the placard outside the room. Something drew the walkers away, and he just hopes it's their eventual rescue. Getting Pam out with a wheelchair and no working elevator is a problem he isn't sure how to tackle.

Using Pam's knife, he breaks into the cart, drawer by drawer. He isn't sure of what all's useful, but he recognizes the prescription grade Tylenol. When he opens the door, he drops the bottle. It clatters across the floor with an ungodly racket as he drops to his knees next to Pam.

There's a pulse still, faint and thready. But she's not breathing, and her lips are turning blue. Desperate, he begins CPR.

"C'mon, Pam," he begs, even as that stupid song plays in the back of his mind to keep pace. "Nothing I can do works without you."

Nothing works.

He loses the pulse.

Sobbing against the cold porcelain of the toilet, Eugene despairs, wondering if there's any point in continuing to try. The odds of finding someone else like Pam, someone who can survive the virus? They must be astronomically high.

It's tempting to join her. She looks so peaceful after the ravages of the illness he still isn't entirely sure what is, other than it began with an infected wound. Pam was his friend, and now she's gone.

"Eugene! Pam!"

Abraham's voice is frantic, even as he puts a shoulder to the hospital room door. Reluctantly, Eugene gets to his feet and goes to let the other man inside. The time to escape the hell the world has become passes, even as Abe and the others despair as well. Rosita is gentle as she ensures Pam won't turn.

"What do we do now?" Becca asks, sounding so young as she holds her brother's hand. The other five members of their group guard them warily.

It's Abe who makes the call. "We get Eugene to the CDC in Atlanta, like we planned. His research is still too important not to get to them."

Tired, mourning, and dreading the road ahead, Eugene takes his place in the guarded center with the kids. For their sake, he hopes it's the right choice. As much as he wants to live now that the initial impact of Pam's death has passed, he can't help but think it could have been the children today.

All his knowledge isn't worth that.