There are enough rooms in the hotel for everyone to spread out, but Shane isn't surprised no one wants to be separated enough to make use of both wings of the ground floor. It's a low-end budget hotel, which was part of the reason Abraham preferred it. No hallways or hidden nooks like one of the bigger chain hotels have for walkers or worse to hide in.
Most of the rooms are divided up by family groups, and while once that would slot Shane in with Rick, Lori, and Carl, tonight he takes a king room instead of a double queen. Somewhere between Rick's miraculous return and the farm falling, Shane's acquired a family of his own to look after. He no longer fits as the extra to the Grimes' family.
"Couch is a hide-a-bed," Shane tells Jimmy when the teenager eyes the single bed. "Glenn said he'd bring one of those rollaway beds down for Jude."
Jude is the reason Shane chose the room with a larger bed. He doubts Jude will actually sleep in the rollaway, not as clingy as Jude's been since he first decided Shane was a point of safety. Shutting himself in the bathroom as soon as Shane indicated which room they were taking is as far away as Jude's been since he cried himself to sleep in Shane's lap.
The surfaces are all covered in a thin layer of dust, and the room is sluggishly hot. There is a generator, but the diesel behemoth is too noisy to risk and wouldn't run the air conditioning anyway. Fiddling with the latches, Shane's glad to see the windows open, which isn't always a given on a floor without a balcony. With leaving the door propped open too, they get a cross breeze, which is makes it even cooler than normal in the room due to the lake nearby.
"Run down to the office and get some extra towels for us?" Shane asks.
Jimmy nods, glancing toward the closed bathroom door. There's still water pressure here, likely thanks to how deserted the town is and the giant water tower they can see. With no electricity, they'll be using cold water, but faint splashing indicates Jude's taking advantage of the water while he can.
"Hopefully they'll have plenty. If not, I'll raid an upstairs room."
Jimmy trots off down the row of rooms, leaving Shane to strip the bedspreads away and taking them outside to drape over the back of the truck to air out some. The sheets aren't too bad, protected from the musty room by the cheap bed covers, and they probably don't need anything extra with the temperatures as warm as they are.
Outside, he can see two of the three watch points, both on the upper floor's walkway where they can see both directions for the road. The third watch point is one of the ground floor bedrooms, gaze out the back window to make sure nothing approaches from behind the building. Beth waves at him briefly from her spot on watch before turning her gaze back to the south. Julliard is lying at her feet, seemingly asleep, but Shane figures the dog will alert on anything approaching even faster than Beth.
A metallic rumble of wheels on concrete alerts him it isn't Glenn delivering Jude's bed, but Maggie. She looks as tired as Shane feels, and he's surprised to see her small ruck sack over one shoulder. Taking the rollaway, he maneuvers it into the room, glad it's a single. It fits at the end of Jimmy's hide-a-bed with enough room for Jude to squeeze between the two.
"You staying?" Shane asks as Maggie sets her bag down on the ancient dresser that holds a useless and bulky television set that's probably as old as Jude.
"I'd like to."
Jude seems content enough with Maggie being around, and the bed's big enough to accommodate Shane's still healing shoulder plus Maggie and Jude both, if necessary. After Maggie rode along with them as they left Georgia behind, he isn't
"You okay?" After the bold kiss behind the barn, the uncertainty flickering in her expression surprises him. He holds out his good arm, glad to see she steps into the embrace easily.
"Not really. Today..." Maggie turns her face into the side of his neck, sniffling just a little. "Don't wanna impose, but I don't wanna share a room with Daddy and Beth tonight."
Shane tips his head to press a kiss against her temple. "Not an imposition. Might not be the best pillow just yet."
Maggie turns and tips her face up to kiss him, but there's none of the teasing urgency of their prior kisses. It's soft and tender, especially when Maggie reaches up to cup his face gently. Whatever this is between them started out as gratitude and release on her part, he thinks, but events keep weaving them closer. For once, he can't cross the line quickly with a woman, between his injuries and the two children depending on him. After what happened between him and Lori, he finds he craves the innocence of it.
Funny thing is, he thinks it's the same for Maggie. The way she kissed him at the barn? She normally moves fast herself.
The bathroom door opening draws both their attention. Jude is dressed in fresh clothes, an outfit cobbled together from the other kids' spares. The shirt is too big, meant for Carl, but the shorts fit at least, and Jude doesn't seem to care they're pink and floral from Becca's stash.
"Where's Noelle?" he asks, looking around for the dog.
Maggie eases away from Shane to smile wanly at Jude. "She was eating some kibble we found in the office. Manager must have had a dog. If you call for her, she'll come."
Jude takes the permission, crossing to the door and calling out for the Australian husky. There's a startled male yelp and cry of Noelle's name before the dog appears to circle around Jude's feet rapidly. Jimmy appears in the doorway behind her, looking disgruntled.
"We almost had to dust off our towels and pillows," he grumbles, easing past Jude and Noelle to put the stack of towels on the bathroom counter before tossing three extra pillows toward Shane's bed. "Can I shower first?"
"Gonna be cold after Jude ran a bath." All the lukewarm water in the pipes is probably gone now.
"Don't care. Clean is clean."
"Have at," Shane tells him, motioning at the bathroom. "Jude, why don't you see if Noelle wants to sleep on the rollaway with you?"
He hadn't considered the dog as a comfort for Jude in the night. If Noelle's willing to cuddle up with the boy, Jude might be more comfortable sleeping in his own bed than Shane expects. The kids switch spots, but it isn't the rollaway bed Jude and Noelle claim once the bathroom door closes, it's the hide-a-bed. From the careful look Jude directs toward the bathroom, he knows exactly where Jimmy intends to sleep.
Maggie snickers softly. "There's hope, huh? That's mischief I see Jude planning."
Remembering Carl's ability to rebound to normalcy when they thought Rick was dead, Shane agrees. It doesn't mean the dark mournful mood won't return, or there won't be nightmares, but all the trauma hasn't cowed Jude's spirit. When it comes to good signs, Shane will take all he can where the kids are concerned.
Luckily, Jimmy seems happily baffled by Jude's immediate request to read to him, taking the tattered paperback Jude offers him. He sits beside the younger boy and dog and opens the book, reading slowly at first before he gets into the spirit of narrating the tale, which seems to involve small warrior animals. Maggie leaves Shane to shower, probably feeling the need more than any of her new roommates, who just spent the day in a car or waiting.
Jude's sleeping arrangements become even more hilarious after Shane's shower. He was right that the water would be cold, but the shiver across his skin is welcome. Hershel removed the stitches before they fled the farm, but his collarbone still itches like crazy, far more than the entry wound lower down. It makes sense, considering the metal plates under his skin in one place and not the other.
The bathroom is too small for the exercises he needs to do while out of the sling, so he steps back into the room. Maggie is propped up in their bed, mouth covered to muffle giggling. On the hide-a-bed, Jimmy is looking panicky. Reading to Jude led to the usual outcome to reading to any small child at bedtime: sleep. Jimmy isn't sure about being turned into an impromptu teddy bear, holding completely still and looking between Shane and Maggie in panic. Noelle is snoring softly near the foot of the bed, just far enough down for Jude's bare feet to nestle in her shaggy fur.
"Get used to it, kid," Shane tells him. "I think you're officially adopted."
Considering the conversation they had in the car, Shane doesn't think Jimmy objects to Jude's attachment. He just hadn't expected Jude to cling to him instead of Shane for comfort.
Hesitantly, Jimmy reaches out to adjust the sheet up over Jude's thin frame. "Can you hand me my book? This one isn't much fun without Jude listening."
Passing the book over from Jimmy's bag, Shane runs through his physical therapy routine. The burn is lessening almost every day, but he knows better than to rush it. Hershel might not be able to patch his shoulder back together next time. Easing his softest shirt on over his right arm and then his head and left, he arches a brow at Maggie's intent expression while watching him. Glancing over to Jimmy, who is dozing off while reading contentedly by camp lantern like he always does, Shane waits to comment until he's settled next to Maggie on the bed.
Laying flat still isn't a comfortable option, but the extra pillows Jimmy raided without being asked come in handy. Maggie rolls close, tucking herself under his arm, but careful to stay off his chest. When her hand slides under his shirt, he huffs softly before realizing she's gently touching the scar below his ribs, running her thumb over the raised flesh.
"Does it hurt still?" she murmurs once Jimmy's finally asleep.
"Strangely enough, not all that much. Shoulder's the tricky one."
The actual bullet wound, tearing into lung and liver, ought to plague him, but other than his breathing not being full capacity yet, it's an ignorable ache. His shoulder, though, that's a chronic sharp pain and he can't immobilize it enough. Hershel gave him good painkillers, but beyond the first week, Shane avoids them because they fog his reactions too much. He's already a liability being wounded. Adding drugged to the list isn't something he's capable of.
"We'll find somewhere to stay soon enough. Let you finish healing and Eugene tinker on his cure."
With Atlanta's CDC gone, they considered closer places with labs, but all the cities are big ones who probably went the same way as Atlanta and the other cities Eugene's group passed through. Shane figures DC is as desolate of government as all the rest, politicians squirreled away somewhere out west in some failsafe plan, but it's got the largest concentration of labs Eugene thinks might be useful. And if the government does ever poke its nose out of some remote bolt hole, DC ought to be the first place they come looking.
"Yeah. We'll find somewhere. Lots of isolated areas to chose from, even close to DC. Military bases for supplies, too."
"Keep the kids safe." Maggie's hand, which she's slowly drifted back to rest at his waist, squeezes him lightly. "Keep the girls safe."
Even as quiet as she's being, there's a tension to her body that reminds him about the task she was part of. Smoothing her hair, he runs his hand along her back, too. Her reason for not wanting to sleep alone tonight has little to do with the sorts of things they could do if they didn't have the kids here. Shane doesn't mind being what helps keep her nightmares at bay.
She's right, though. Jude got lucky in escaping those madmen, but his sisters didn't. Being on the road makes them all vulnerable, and Shane knows what's running through Maggie's mind tonight. It isn't the unknown girls she'll dream about burying in her nightmares, or he in his. It's Beth and Sophia and little Becca, and the knowledge that men like that don't balk at boys or grown women either.
"Get some sleep," he says quietly. "You've got dawn watch."
Curled against his side, Maggie manages to sleep somehow, leaving him to stare into the dark and worry about worse monsters in the world than the cannibalistic dead.
Taking watch is old habit for Eugene by now, as well as knowing Abraham will always assign him first watch and then relieve him to take the middle watch. That's the hardest shift, the one where you nap on either side and get no uninterrupted sleep. Eugene can manage it, if he has to, but Abraham barely acknowledges the need for another warm body on watch can be filled by Eugene. The big sergeant is desperate for Eugene's mind to stay clear.
So he isn't surprised when Abraham ventures into the ground floor hotel room they're using to watch the rear approach to the hotel a full hour before the shift ends. The surprise is that Abraham doesn't shoo him away and take his seat near the open window. Instead, Abraham leans against the wall next to the window and goes through the motions of lighting one of his cigars.
The scent of the cigar drifts past Eugene as the smoke exits the window. This one reminds him of hot chocolate somehow. He doesn't think he'll take up smoking anytime soon, but at least Abraham's ever present cigars don't stink of ash and nicotine like the cigarettes his mother preferred.
"You kept my kids safe," Abraham rumbles lowly after a good ten minutes of silence and sweet smelling smoke.
"Wasn't just me." Eugene kept the terror of being responsible for Abraham's children at bay while they were separated because he wasn't alone. Having Michonne along, and Beth, even as young as she is, helped immensely, especially with Andre to consider also.
Abraham turns to level his best don't-bullshit-me stare at Eugene. "Doesn't matter that you had help, Eugene. It matters that you didn't think twice. You got my babies out of there and kept going until you hit safety."
Emotion thickens Abraham's drawl more than normal. It has the added bonus of leaving out all the colorful faux hillbilly speech patterns Abraham often uses to keep people from realizing he's far smarter than the army grunt he pretends he is. Gratitude isn't the only emotion Eugene sees when he meets Abraham's gaze, though. It's grief - deep, overwhelming grief.
He's never been told what happened exactly to Abraham's wife, but whatever it was, it gutted Abraham down to the core. Without the kids to care for, without Eugene's cure to focus on, Eugene strongly suspects Abraham would follow Ellen into death.
"You know I'll always do my best to keep them safe," he promises. Maybe one day he won't be able to keep it, but he's grown to love Becca and AJ and the feeling is mutual. He didn't understand the concept of dying to protect someone else before, but he knows he would for those two kids. All his knowledge is worthless if they lose the kids.
Stubbing out the cigar and pocketing the unsmoked portion, Abraham reaches out to haul Eugene to his feet by the lapels of his shirt. Instinct makes Eugene flinch, but before he can protest, Abraham is bear hugging him. Breath whooshes out of Eugene from the embrace, but he can't bring himself to fuss about it.
When Abraham finally releases him, Eugene sucks in a deep breath, his smile wobbly. Few people ever initiate contact with him, not until the world turned upside down. Now he gets tiny arms flung around him in random bursts of emotion, but this? This is new.
Abraham's rapid blinking alerts Eugene that his friend is trying to not to cry. Today can't have been easy, not even for a man as battle scarred as Abraham. Hesitantly, Eugene reaches out, and this time, he's the one who initiates the hug. When Abraham sobs brokenly, Eugene just clings to him and lets him cry while he keeps watch resolutely.
Everyone is safe tonight, and Abraham is finally letting down the protective walls on the grief that's been consuming him for months now. Tomorrow, they'll continue their journey, and somewhere, Eugene will find the answer to end this nightmare for everyone.
