After the push to reach the South Carolina border, they slow down. As much as they need to find a lab, and the DC area has the most concentration of the type of lab Eugene needs, they also didn't get prepped for the trip the way they intended. The combination of the herd overrunning the farm and the encounter with the bandits threw everything off. Traveling the back roads, they pick their way across raiding anything left standing.

The raw, militaristic efficiency Abraham trains into Shane and Hershel's people in those six days is impressive. Shane is a little jealous he isn't part of it, but his shoulder being good enough to come out of the sling doesn't mean it's healed enough to risk going on supply runs. A month simply isn't enough healing time for the level of damage he sustained.

Each small rathole motel they find, Shane puts the kids through their paces. Even Abraham won't put the kids on the runs, so rather than have them suffer being bored, they train. Tiny Andre does his best to keep up with the older kids, although the toddler's exercises are more crazy energy than anything concrete. Teaching him to run and climb is the best thing anyway, even if his skill at climbing terrifies the adults who see him do it.

"Have you always been this good with kids, or is it a recent development?" Maggie asks, leaning on the fence next to the playground. The area's reasonably clear, so the teenagers are helping the smaller kids run off any remaining excess energy.

Her hair is damp and wildly curly, so she must have showered when Abraham's teams returned to the motel. The white tank top and shorts reveal far too much tanned skin for him not to feel regret they haven't had a room to themselves this entire trip. But while Jude doesn't always crawl into bed with them at night, he does refuse to sleep alone, and it's just safer to keep Jimmy close, too.

Still, Shane gives in to the urge to cup his hand around the back of her neck to draw her into a kiss. Keeping anything subtle between them when she sleeps beside him every night isn't going to happen. He isn't immune to the relief in Rick's eyes when Rick spots them together, either. None of them bring up what happened between Shane and Lori, and Shane isn't going to rock the boat as long as they're trying to play happy couple. It isn't going to work out, he knows, but at least it won't be due to him, like he thought it might be when he couldn't just let go of the time with Lori.

"Always been good," he says, drawing out the word for a slightly different implication.

Maggie laughs, her eyes going heavy lidded with interest. "We ever get to our destination, you'll just have to show me."

"Consider that a promise."

"Shane!" The exasperated tones of one very small Ford offspring interrupt the kiss he steals. He turns to see AJ has his hands on his hip, glaring as only a small child can. "We need your help. Jude's overalls are stuck on the teeter totter and we can't get them loose."

The two teenagers look far too innocent to explain why they can't free the stuck child, and Beth's look fades quickly to mischievous and Jimmy isn't much better. Damn pranksters. "Is he even stuck?"

"Yes!" Jude is less amused than the other kids, so Shane huffs softly and goes to set the poor kid free.

Done carefully, he can lift even Jude, so he throws Jude over his good shoulder with only a small wince and listens to the giggling that follows him back to the motel. It's nice, hearing the kids enjoying themselves, since they're recovering from what happened to Jude's family more and more the further they get from Georgia. They aren't safe here, not without walls, but the small town near Martinsville mostly evacuated. They haven't seen a walker outside anywhere. It'd be eerie if they hadn't found a few indoors here and there. With the dogs along, nothing is sneaking up on them.

Abraham's kids dart forward when they see their father, clamoring for attention, and Beth passes Andre off to Michonne. Just as Shane swings Jude to the ground, running a hand over the boy's barely there fuzz, there's a grunt and thump. Shane doesn't need to turn, because Beth's distraught shout of "Daddy!" tells him exactly who fell.

Maggie nearly bowls him over to get to Hershel, checking vitals while he steps up and wraps an arm around Beth's shoulders. Patricia and Eugene kneel alongside Maggie.

"He's breathing. Someone help me get him off the ground," Maggie says, sounding far calmer than Shane would, and Hershel is swarmed with helpers, Daryl and Abraham lifting him and carrying him into the nearest ground floor room.

"He's been feeling really bad, Shane," Beth says plaintively. The tears starting to streak down her face make him pull her even closer. "And I didn't say anything because he said he was just tired and missing Mama."

"It's not your responsibility to monitor your father's health," he tells her. "He knows how important everyone keeping healthy is." Considering how many lectures Hershel has given Shane, he is more than a little irked that Hershel wasn't feeling well and told no one.

Maggie isn't completely trained even as a veterinarian, and though she's switched her studies to human anatomy and diseases since the virus spread, it's nothing compared to the years of experience Hershel has. Even with Patricia and Eugene assisting, none of them are doctors, not the sort they need. The immediate explanations for a man Hershel's age are heart attack or stroke, and neither of them are something they can handle or fix.

Everyone not on watch waits and observes as Patricia scurries out to raid medical supplies, recruiting Otis to bring the portable x-ray machine inside. That activity is followed by Eugene heading to his mobile laboratory with vials of blood. None of it is soothing, and Shane guides Beth to take a seat where she's not in the direct line of sight of Hershel's room. Jimmy and Jude join them, all trace of Jude's earlier joy gone while he clings to Jimmy like a baby koala. Staring at the two boys, Beth makes a valiant attempt to stop crying.

It seems like hours, but Shane's watch says only about thirty minutes pass between Hershel's collapse and Maggie coming out to talk to everyone. She looks exhausted, all her earlier perkiness washed away under worry for Hershel.

"Daddy's awake, and I've been able to get some more details on his symptoms. He's been having muscle pain, chills, occasional fevers, and the last two days he's been having chest pain and a cough. It's definitely pneumonia setting in, but he says he was feeling sick before that and it doesn't match up. Especially this rash that Patricia says she's seen on Otis, too."

"What are you thinking this is?" Abraham asks, frowning. "Doesn't fit the walker virus symptoms."

"There's a number of illnesses common to people handling animals that can lead to lung issues or pneumonia. Blastomycosis, Q fever, psittacosis, leptospirosis, tuberculosis..."

"Jesus. That's all we need is a TB outbreak," someone mutters, and Shane doesn't turn to see who it is. He agrees with the sentiment, but Maggie doesn't need more stress.

"We'll run all the tests we can. Eugene doesn't have everything he needs in the lab, so tomorrow morning, we need to organize a raid on the hospital to see if we can reach the lab and collect what he's missing. We aren't that far from Blackburg, either, and there's a veterinary school there." Maggie sighs. "For now, as much as we need to get closer to that list of research labs Eugene has, we need to get the pneumonia treated before we move into a possibly more dangerous area."

Abraham runs a hand over his head and sighs deeply. "Alright. Come first light, I'll take a team in and rip out every piece of equipment and testing kit we can find. The rest will stay here and make the place more secure if we're going to be here longer instead of pulling out tomorrow. Do you have everything you need to treat the pneumonia?"

"Yeah, gonna switch his antibiotics up a bit. He was already treating it with Augmentin and azithromycin, I'm switching him to doxycycline, because it'll treat the pneumonia plus a good number of the infections that are probably at play. Gonna treat Otis just in case, but if anyone else has anything at all odd going on, let me know. It could be from them working with the cows at the farm, but I imagine anyone in contact with wild game or walkers could pick up zoonotic infections from them, too, considering where they roam and feed."

"Maybe we should just test everyone," Eugene says, approaching from the mobile lab with a piece of paper in one hand and a tank of oxygen under the opposite arm. "A lot of the illnesses can be asymptomatic. Once we collect extra supplies, it won't be all that hard to do."

"I think we'll just do full physicals once we're somewhere permanent." Maggie glances back to the room. "Make sure none of us have anything lurking that can be a problem, all things considered."

Like the fact that sudden death now isn't just traumatizing everyone with grief, but actual physical danger of the dead attacking loved ones. Shane supposes Maggie understands it more than most, considering Annette's illness and death.

With Hershel stable, Maggie calls Beth over to see for herself that their father is okay. Shane takes Jude off Jimmy's hands to give the teenager a break from big brother duties, and they all settle in to try to make their evening as normal as possible for the kids. Hershel will be okay, since the attack is something treatable, and it's taught them all a lesson that there are more things to be careful of than the virus that dominated their lives for so long now.


As is her habit on nights Eugene doesn't have watch, Michonne stops by the room he shares with Abraham and the kids with two mugs of tea. With his roommates sleeping already, she tips her head toward the next room, which she shares with Rosita. Andre is in bed, sprawled bonelessly like toddlers are prone to, but Rosita is on watch. Michonne sits cross-legged on Rosita's empty bed, while Eugene takes the chair.

"Chamomile and sweet," he says, smiling. "Trying to soothe me to sleep?"

"With a lot of honey, but yes. You seemed like you couldn't settle tonight."

"Maggie seems fairly confident that whatever ails Hershel is something we can cure, but I couldn't help but read the entirety of the entries about the infections she is concerned with." Eugene shudders, glad they're looking at likely bacterial or viral and not some of the parasitic diseases, at least. "There could be complications beyond the initial illness."

"And you can't help but have all those facts running around in that brain of yours, can you?"

Michonne sounds so kind about the type of hyperfocus he can get sucked into, but then again, she always does. No one has ever been as unfailingly kind to him as Michonne has been so far. It's not just when chores are being on the road throws them together, either, but making sure he has a cup of tea every night before bed. Their life doesn't lend well to the routines and rituals he craves, but somehow, just this tiny thing helps more than it should.

"I wish otherwise, but no, I cannot forget it once I've read and understood it." He sighs, sipping at the tea and savoring the warm sweetness before deciding to admit the selfish part of his restlessness. "I must confess I was looking forward to getting to a real lab and not having all this unknown around us. Traveling has never been my wont. I am very much a domesticated sort of fellow."

"And here I had a list of all the crazy places I was going to visit as I could afford them and Andre was old enough to enjoy the trips. This is not my idea of seeing the world." She laughs softly, although Andre is a deep sleeper and doesn't mind noise around him. "Somehow I imagined more fluffy beds, sunny beaches, and maybe a masseuse or two."

"I conjecture the beds here are designed to make guests move along as quickly as possible, but perhaps travel will be feasible again one day. Our unwanted neighbors can't stay animated forever, although you might have to take up horseback riding if we cannot source biofuel in quantity."

"Horseback riding would be fun. I wish we'd been able to bring Hershel's horses along."

Eugene wishes they had, too, if nothing else because those were known, tamed, and healthy animals, compared to any they might find once they settle. He can ride, but it's never been his best skill. At least horses are remarkably good at surviving on their own. They've spotted numerous loose livestock along the way, along with a few random zoo animals. At least he hopes the zebras were zoo animals and not someone's pets.

"Hang in there, Eugene. At least the delay means staying in one place, right?"

Reluctantly, he nods as he empties his mug. This is the point where he returns to his own quarters every night, once the comradery of sharing the tea is done. He wishes he could slow down how fast the drink disappears without looking needy, because as much as he cares for Abraham and the children, it's lonelier there than with Michonne's warm gaze on him like everything he says interests her.

She stands when he does, reaching for the mug, but instead of heading for the sink, she sets them both down on the rickety dresser and smiles at him. He doesn't want to think about how close she is, so close that he can feel the heat radiating off her skin and smell the smoky scent of the castor oil she uses on her dreads mixed with the vanilla-like scent of her lotion.

"Michonne?" he manages, proud that his voice holds stead and doesn't waver, although he's less proud of asking a question more appropriate to a school boy than a grown man. "What are your intentions here?"

"Well, I've figured out that if I don't spell things out for you, you're never going to act on all that attraction you have for me." She smiles, running her hands from his shoulders to his elbows, letting them rest just around the lower end of his biceps. "So I'm asking if there's a reason I shouldn't kiss you, before I do."

He takes a deep breath, savoring the fact that not only is she interested in him, but she understands it's not just a matter of laying one on him. Clearing his throat, he eases his hands onto her hips, alert for any sign she's going to change her mind. "I cannot think of a single reason I would decline any level of amorous attentions from you."

The kiss is slow and gentle until he twitches in reaction, inadvertently tugging her closer to him. Having her slim form pressed against his short circuits most of his thoughts, focusing everything down to just how good it feels that she's mapping out his lips, tongue, and mouth like she's committing them to memory. Only after a pause to catch their breaths does he kiss her back with equal care to detail, and any worry he had about it being an experiment evaporates when she giggles softly and tips her head back. The soft skin of her throat would be immensely tempting, if they had privacy.

A glance at Andre reminds him they don't, and Michonne looks that way with her own reluctant glance.

"You don't have to rush back to your room," she says. "There's still plenty of charge on his little DVD player."

Spending the rest of his evening before Eugene reluctantly heads to his own room to sleep watching the superhero movie Andre fell asleep watching is a sign of his future, he sincerely hopes. The lazy kisses interspersed in the slow parts are a highlight he'll relive over and over while falling asleep. A man could be content with this sort of coziness every night of his life, especially with a woman like Michonne in his arms.