Shane watches Beth head up the stairs with Patricia. The older blonde has an arm around the girl, speaking softly and soothingly. It leaves him and Maggie alone in the living room. Her father and Otis came in one at a time earlier, going upstairs to shower. Otis returned downstairs, but Hershel did not.

Notifications had always been easier for Shane to do than Rick, because his partner always empathized so much with the people involved. It's harder for Shane to find the needed distance he usually found so easy this time. He's fond of Beth, and as much as she'd sought his help, the girl still grieved the finality of what happened tonight.

"Are you sure moving back to your tent is a good idea?" Maggie asks, startling Shane out of those somber thoughts.

Honestly, the idea of trying to sleep in the tent, even with the good sleeping pad he has, sounds a little intimidating. Getting in and out of bed is uncomfortable as hell, and then he's at least got the elevation to help.

"Not going to leave Jimmy on his own. Promised him." He cuts himself off before finishing that what he promised was that he wasn't an unwelcome burden. Maggie doesn't need that tonight, even as angry as it made him earlier.

"You seem really set on looking after him." There's honest curiosity in Maggie's expression this time, and just enough regret to make him consider answering.

"I was raised by a single mother, and she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer when I was twelve years old." He sees the realization click for Maggie even before he continues. "She fought the cancer for two and a half years. Double mastectomy, chemo, experimental chemo. Things worked a while, but then the cancer would double back in a new area. Liver, bones, lungs… finally her brain, those last months."

"Was it just you and her?" Maggie asks, voice carefully even. He's actually happy she's avoiding the sympathy most give if he tells them about his mother's illness.

"Had my grandmother, but she was nearly sixty when I was born. My mama wasn't so sure a seventy year old woman would be allowed to raise a teenage boy all on her own. She grew up in foster care, so that was her worst fear for me." Foster care now is rough. Foster care back in the sixties and seventies? It's not something Shane likes to dwell on.

"Did you go into foster care?"

"No. I honestly don't think anyone ever checked on me once she was gone. Just moved in with my grandma and kept going to school." Shane shrugs. "But I've dealt with foster kids before. Kid like Jimmy? He's spent his whole life never being allowed to stay in any home more than a year, did you know that?"

Maggie shakes her head, looking horrified. "Why?"

"I'm sure the state has some stupid reason for it, but outside of group homes, a year is usually the maximum a child stays with any set of foster parents. Maybe it's to keep them from being attached if they can't or won't adopt. In the end, it means that the kids get bounced from home to home, no stability at all, and the group homes? Those can be worse."

"Jesus. No wonder he was always so eager to help out and stay out of trouble."

"When he came here, how were his clothes and belongings packed?" Shane needs her to really understand. The first time he'd seen what he's asking her about, it had made him get stuck between livid and sick.

"A black garbage bag. Otis gave him an old army surplus duffel."

"That's usually a foster kid's only suitcase. Think of how many years that kid's been handed a garbage bag to pack what few things he owns into."

"Oh God. I didn't know." She presses a hand to her mouth, looking the same mix of angry and ill that Shane remembers being. Finally, she drops her hand. "That's why he was willing to trust you so easily. You understood."

Shane nods, getting to his feet with a pained grunt when his immobilized shoulder twists a little wrong. "I need to be getting back."

Maggie's goodnight is subdued, and he leaves her sitting on the couch looking thoughtful. It's nearing dusk, and the look on Jimmy's face is so damned anxious, yet relieved, that Shane nearly sighs. He makes sure to stop next to the teenager and drop a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, let's stick your bag in my tent."

Picking up the duffel, Jimmy follows him over, and Shane sorts through his gear that's just piled in the tent since he's been sleeping in the house. "Here's you a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag. Too hot for the sleeping bag, really, so just extra padding."

Jimmy takes the offered items. "I'm not taking yours, am I?"

"Nah. Got extra." Technically, it's because he intended to hitch them together to sleep, but he can handle not doing that. He nudges the other pair of items with the toe of his boot, then uses his foot to slide a milk crate over to the center of the far wall. Emptying the crate, he flips it over and sets the camp lantern on it. "Voila. Bedside table."

It makes the teenager laugh while he unrolls his sleeping gear. "You gonna leave the rest of the stuff on the floor?"

Shane glances down at the pile and grins. Much of it is gleaned from the highway traffic jam, as he'd lost pretty much all his gear when the Jeep was overrun in Atlanta. Only his duffel bag made it because it had been in the Cherokee. "Might as well. Not like we can stuff it under our beds, right?"

Honestly, the idea of crouching down to sort it out makes him wince, and Jimmy seems to figure that out. He stacks everything into a semblance of order. "You like to read?"

"Here and there, when I have time." With his mind set on leaving back at the highway, he had honestly considered he would have a lot of time on his hands without a dozen people to look after. When he found the milk crate full of books in some abandoned Toyota, he discarded a few he wouldn't read. Adding the camp lantern from another vehicle and a smattering of oddball items like a camping axe, spare flashlight, and a canteen, the books had been covered until he dumped it.

The way Jimmy's looking at one of the books, he offers, "Read whatever you like."

Smiling a little shyly, the boy drops it onto his sleeping bag. "I've never actually been camping."

"Gotta start somewhere." Shane glances around and sighs. "Won't always be calm and quiet, somewhere we can set up a tent, Jimmy. Out there? Off the farm? Could be nights we spend on the road, sleeping in the cars."

"I understand. You made that clear earlier. It's dangerous out there." Jimmy sits crosslegged on his sleeping bag. "I've been off the farm, sorta. I went with Otis a bit. Helped him bring in a few of the walkers."

Shane refrains from cursing by a narrow margin, only because it might scare the kid. "How in the hell did he manage that without getting bitten?"

"Those poles with loops, like animal control uses. Get it around their neck and lead them in." Jimmy's shoulders hunch in a bit before he continues. "He'd keep hold of the pole, and I would walk ahead to keep it headed the direction he wanted it to go."

From somewhere deep in his memory, thanks to some stress management class the department required him to take, Shane drags up the idea to count to ten. Ten's not sufficient, so he ends up making it to fifty. "Jimmy? Anybody asks you to be walker bait? You tell them to fuck off and come get me. Or tell Rick, Lori, or Dale if I'm not available."

Nosy and annoying as the old bastard is sometimes, Dale would lose his utter shit if someone suggested using any of the kids to lure walkers along. Hell, the man never liked the risks Glenn took for the group back in Atlanta, and Glenn's at least well over legal age as an adult. He can't see Rick or Lori allowing it, especially if it meshes in Lori's mind that Jimmy's a kid. Shane makes a mental note to tell the others what he just learned, too.

"Alright. I just worried Otis would get hurt by himself."

Teaching the kid self preservation is probably going to take longer than anything else, Shane's afraid, but they'll get there. "Shouldn't be long before the ladies have supper ready. Think I saw Daryl bring some rabbits back."

Jimmy nods. "Four of them. Said his snares were doing well out around the edges of the cow pastures where the blackberries and stuff grow."

Before they can head back out of the tent, a familiar voice says "knock knock" outside the tent.

"It's open," Shane calls out, smirking at Jimmy when he laughs.

Maggie ducks into the tent, carrying two fairly nice camping cots, the kind with actual small mattresses instead of just canvas. She looks a little sheepish as she sets them down. "Shawn liked to go camping, but he wasn't the sleep on the ground type. Figured they'd be easier on your shoulder than a sleeping bag."

It's a peace offering, Shane thinks, especially since she brought two. "They're definitely welcome. Thank you."

"No sense in them gathering dust." Maggie slides a bag off her shoulder and offers it to Jimmy. "Some of the other parts of his camping gear, so you have your own."

Jimmy is so hesitant to take it that Shane ends up reaching out instead. Maggie looks resigned, but doesn't comment. "Thanks again. Figured we could go back out to glean extra items on the highway, but this saves us having to do that right away."

"Before you decide for sure about going, can you come up for breakfast tomorrow? Clear up a few things with Daddy."

Although the invitation is indicating her father, Shane knows the biggest issue for him was Maggie's behavior. She is making an effort, so he can at least hear them out. None of his people are really ready to go back on the road just yet. "Alright. How about I come up after breakfast, though?"

Maggie glances toward Jimmy and seems to understand, nodding. "I'll see you in the morning then."

Once she's gone, the teenager looks concerned. "Do you think everything will be okay? I think everyone would be happier to stay until you're doing a lot better."

At least that confirms that Jimmy listened in as he sat around the fire. "It's possible. If the walkers in the barn were the thing they didn't want us interfering with, that's done and over with, at least. I'll keep an open mind."

Jimmy takes the cots and sets them both up, and they each spread out a sleeping bag. Rummaging in the bag Maggie brought, the teen laughs. "Even got little camp sized pillows."

"How well do you know Beth's family?" Shane asks, a little curious about what these people had been like before the world ended.

"I'd been invited out for Sunday dinner a few times before. We only dated for three months, so I hadn't met Maggie until she came home when everything started shutting down."

"I thought she worked in her father's clinic?"

"Summers and stuff, yeah. But she was still finishing up veterinary school." Jimmy sits on the cot and looks thoughtful. "Dr. Greene didn't used to be so standoffish. He and Mrs. Greene were looking into making sure I stayed at the local group home long enough to graduate high school."

"That was pretty nice of them."

"Yeah, I thought so. I wasn't here when Mrs. Greene and Shawn died. I wish I'd come sooner, but the home kept saying we were going to be bussed to Columbus. No one ever came, so eventually the two staffers that stayed loaded kids into their personal cars. I figured the Greenes were probably safer than a refugee center somewhere. Walked all the way here."

The idea of the teenager walking from town to the farm all by himself makes Shane shudder. "So you do have a good idea of what it's like out there?"

Jimmy nods, looking fearful, but resolute. "I can't imagine it got any better than it did at the end of May."

"It definitely did not." Shane jerks his head toward the tent opening. "I need to go touch base with Rick and the others about meeting with the Greenes in the morning. You can go hang out with Carl and Sophia, or stay here if you're all visited out."

Somehow, Shane isn't surprised when the kid follows him back to the others, who are still settled in camp chairs. No one is really ready to turn in for the night, he supposes. Glenn is playing Uno with the kids and T-Dog, and they deal Jimmy in easily. Shane eases into the chair next to Rick, and all eyes are on him quickly.

"We still looking to pull out before the end of the week?" Rick asks, looking concerned. He'd loathed the idea of leaving the farm as long as Shane's still go this arm up in the brace, but he also understood Shane's reasoning. It hadn't been just the weirdness of the Greene farm, but also the idea of Fort Benning being more likely to have human doctors to look over Shane's shoulder and wounds.

"Maggie seems to be waving a truce flag. Wants me to come up to the house in the morning to discuss things again. Figured might be best if you came along for that one, Rick. Cover all our bases."

"I can do that." Something tense in Rick's expression eases. "It's safer to stay at least a couple of weeks, if we can. We almost lost you, Shane."

Rick isn't the only one with the relieved expression, so Shane just nods. He passes on what Jimmy's told him, especially about the walker baiting. From the looks of everyone, it isn't just the three people he told Jimmy to go to that would stand up for the kid now. Shane makes a mental note to bring it up with Hershel, who might not have known. It's too easy, sometimes, to look at a kid Jimmy's size and mistakenly see an adult, not a teenager, and Otis had a hell of an extra job to do.

Shane would like to stick around to make sure Beth's okay, too. The girl had been so brave in giving them the information, but the reality of her mother and brother's deaths still hit her hard. He's grown fond of the girl, more than he expected, but he's discovering since his injury especially that he's got a larger capacity than just Carl to play uncle to.

Seems the apocalypse is teaching him to go beyond all those limitations he thought he had before. He finds he doesn't really mind at all.


A/N: Shane POV only chapter.

I had considered a Eugene POV, too, but the chapter just seemed complete as is. Time will probably move a little faster after this chapter.

Jimmy as Walker Bait is canon, sadly. BetaDaughter and I have been binge watching seasons 1-5, and she had a major fit seeing the barn scene, because Hershel and Rick were using Jimmy to lure the walkers into walking where they wanted them to go. Then I forgot how horrifically the boy dies to warn her about it, so she's made me promise Jimmy gets Sophia level priority in all future stories.

Final note... I'm not sure how stage IV breast cancer was treated in the mid-eighties. Shane's mother's story is a homage to BetaDaughter's godmother, who died in 2007 after her 2.5 year breast cancer battle. Shane would have been the type of character she would have loved to analyze and write.