August 14, 2010
When Shane reaches the highway, after more than a mile of long and winding driveway, he studies the road for a minute. North is the wrong direction for Ft. Benning, but it could be twenty miles in either direction before they find a town.
"North or south?"
Sophia looks both ways after looking at the map in her lap. "Might as well go the way we mean to go, right?"
"Yeah." He's familiar with the area around Senoia, to an extent, but they didn't search this far out. No one expected a girl to wander so far.
Like most of the highways away from the cities and towns, it's a deserted stretch of typically Georgian pavement. He takes a chance on speed to finish testing the Bug's mechanics, so they eat away the first five miles fast before he slows back down to a sedate forty-five.
With no towns in sight yet, the view is mostly isolated highway without any houses to break up the treelines.
"First town we get to, we'll check for supplies. Most of these places have a Dollar General, at least, and we could always use more water."
"And clothes."
He starts to say they're okay there, but remembers while they both have changes of shirts and pants, neither of them have spare underwear and he doesn't have socks. Plus the more clothes they have, the less they need to clean just to change when needed.
The trees fade back from the road and now there's the occasion house surrounded by acreage. It's so similar to his home that he feels a jolt of homesickness.
"Town coming up," he says when he sees the speed reduction sign.
Sophia leans forward, although he downshifts and stops at the intersection. "Luthersville. We keep going straight."
"Alright." He puts the Bug back in gear, but keeps the speed low and stays alert. If Randall's confession at the very end is true, his group was north of Senoia. But they might not be the only predators out there.
It's a tiny town, probably too small for much they need. Sophia navigates him to the highway heading south of town. "It says Greenville on the pharmacy bottle."
He feels a surge of gratitude that the girl's prioritizing a pharmacy over the search. He knows there's one in Senoia, but that's firmly in the territory he's wary of with just him to protect Sophia. Plus he's not seeing a lot of walkers here, so he's hoping the people evacuated to Columbus.
"Lookie there, what did I tell you about these stores," he says.
The parking lot of the Dollar General is completely empty, so he turns in. There's not really any place to hide or camouflage the Bug. He parks at the closed front doors.
"Stay put til I signal, okay?"
She nods, tucking away the map. He takes the keys, just in case they can enter the store, and goes to knock on the glass. After a minute, he repeats the process, before signalling Sophia.
Once she's behind him, he points out that the deadbolt isn't thrown. "We would need to break the glass then."
He pries the doors open just far enough with a piece of the display left outside to get the leverage to open them. "Stay close and watch my back, okay?"
She nods solemnly. The lucky part of these stores is that there's almost zero hiding places because they're so small. He clears it quickly, including the back and bathroom.
Once they're back in the aisles, he sighs. It's been picked over pretty well on the food and household supplies, but it's not empty.
"I saw laundry bags by the detergent," Sophia says. "What do we need most?"
Shane's glad he doesn't have to explain they're limited on space. "Clothing first, then meds, hygiene, and food."
It takes them about fifteen minutes to fill laundry bag each with socks, underclothes, and undershirts. Sophia's stuffed extras of the laundry bags in hers, even though they're carrying an empty bag each still. When he gives her a questioning look, she shrugs.
"For the actual laundry."
She's hesitating about something, staring down the personal hygiene aisle. He follows her line of sight and refrains from sighing. Would he prefer her not to need the damn things, sure. But this isn't about what he prefers.
"Sophia? Nothing to be embarrassed by. Get whatever you need."
She steps into the aisle, but seems either confused or overwhelmed, which is unusual for how she's been behaving.
"Sophia?"
"I don't need them, not really, but I don't want to not have them. And Mama never has any." She's blushing, and it clicks for him. He guesses she's still in that gray area about puberty.
"You ever see what your friends at school had?" Hell, he was a boy and got enough glimpses of boxes in lockers or items in purses to know kids see them around.
"Yeah, but the boxes are all kind of the same. I'm trying to remember health class, but that was just the basics."
Figuring there's got to be some sort of clue, he steps forward, vague memories of small spats between Lori and Rick for his partner buying the wrong product coming to mind. There's actually still a decent selection, which is a little sad with the gaps everywhere else.
"That one says teen."
"Yeah." She picks up the box and eyes it warily before dropping it in her bag. "Maybe I should take all of them?"
Works for him, because he knows Glenn had the damndest time finding tampons and pads for the women in camp. "Sure. Look for any of the others, or pick some randomly?"
She shrugs, her embarrassment fading when he's reacted calmly. She goes through the boxes, selecting them by whatever method makes sense to her, and fills up about two-thirds of the bag.
He grabs the sole remaining box of toothpaste and after thinking on it a minute, tosses a couple handfuls of toothbrushes. The move down the aisle, gleaning useful items until the bags are full. After a trip to toss the bags in the car, he grabs a handful of the plastic bags at the register.
There's not much left in the medication aisle, but it's truly empty by the time they're done.
Sophia eyes the decimated food aisles. "Well, at least the healthier stuff is what got left behind?" She drops a few random cans of fruit in a bag and tiptoes to grab a bottle of honey.
He hands her the two she can't reach. "Split the aisle like we did the clothes?"
"Sure." She moves efficiently behind him, as they both ignore what junk food remains or items they can't really use. They end up with three bags of food items.
A glance toward the doors tells him it's getting late. "Best get back to the car. It's getting dark and I don't wanna be in a town overnight."
"Can you take my bag?"
He accepts the bag, grinning as she dashes down an aisle and returns with three empty two-gallon gas cans. They get everything loaded and organized just a bit, when Sophia points to the stacks of charcoal outside the store.
"I think there was one of those little tabletop grills," Shane says. "Go get it and I'll load up the charcoal."
It's a tight fit in the trunk by the time she returns with a box carried in both arms and a bag. There's just enough room for the last of her loot. She pauses long enough to leave a note identical to the one in the farmhouse that changed their direction to south compared to the cabin one. The little bear smiles up from the empty box of Big Red gum.
"It's my favorite kind," she explains.
They're back on the road and there's still daylight.
"If they headed south from the farm, they might even go through Greenville. But they might be ahead of us, since we were on foot so much of the day." He sighs. "Or they could stay in the area, looking for you, maybe from another farm."
Hershel and Maggie know the area and which neighbors might be a safe haven. Since none of them believed him on the level of danger a group like Randall's truly imposes, they might stay right in their radius.
"Well, if we can find out about the military base, then we have information to take back."
"That's time not directly looking for your mama."
"I know. But you said Daryl would take care of her. Finding a safe place is important too."
Shane has to marvel at the irony that a thirteen-year-old girl has a better grasp on priorities than the grown ass adults he left behind.
"Columbus it is. Without a caravan of people, we can probably make it there by tomorrow sometime, if the roads aren't blocked."
They've got enough gas to make it there and back, with what he siphoned from the boat. They can find more, and they don't need gallons upon gallons without the RV.
She pulls out a paperback and reads until they reach the outskirts of Greenville. There's not enough light to risk going into a town he's unfamiliar with.
He parks the Bug across from the end of the most likely route from Senoia, backing it far enough into an overgrowth of privet to keep even the luridly colored car hidden.
"Think you can sleep?" Shane can't imagine how restless her sleep must have been for the last two weeks, with no one to look out for her.
She looks at the dimming light and nods. "We should eat first."
She reclines her seat enough to easily access the back seat. The ice chest is on the seat behind him, and she passes him one of the two Tupperware containers, a spoon, and a bottle of water. Collecting her own, she sits with her back against the passenger door and studies him as she eats.
"Do we need to check your bandage?"
Somehow, he doesn't think that's the question she intended to ask, but he answers anyway. "Probably. It's definitely not easing up on hurting like hell."
He fishes out the amoxicillin bottle, which also houses a handful of tylenol and ibuprofen for convenience. He takes the tylenol, waiting on the antibiotic until the full eight hours since his last dose.
He gets most of his food eaten before the real question surfaces.
"Mister Walsh? How did you get hurt?"
Well, fuck. He guesses he's lucky she was so grateful for a living human she knew that she didn't care at first. He takes a deep breath, feeling the pain arc through him as the reminder of what he's done.
"After Carl was shot, I made some really horrible choices. It led to someone having to stop me from making more."
"Mister Grimes?"
Shane nods. "He was right to do it."
"What did you do?"
The last thing he wants to do is terrify the girl that she's reliant on a killer, but lying to her feels worse. What if he does slip again? She needs to be forewarned.
"The man who accidentally shot Carl and I were sent to find medical supplies because he was an EMT. We got trapped and we couldn't both escape." He wants to look away from those intent blue eyes, but he can't. "I shot him so he would be a distraction."
"Did he die when you shot him?"
"No."
"He was eaten."
"Yes."
She looks down, studying her empty container, and sighs after a few minutes. Then those blue eyes are back on him and he's beginning to think his conscience will always be tied to pale eyes peering right into his soul.
"Would you do it again?"
"To save Carl? Yes." Overweight Otis might never have made it if Shane made the sacrifice instead, and without the supplies, Carl was going to die.
"To save yourself?"
"I don't know." It's the honest answer. Three months ago, he would have sworn he would never have killed an innocent man for any reason. Now? He doesn't trust himself.
"If it were me or you?"
He can translate that clearly. He killed an innocent to save Carl, but he's known Carl since before he was born. But she's a child herself, one dependent on him in a way Carl never has been.
"I would save you, just like I would Carl."
He means it, because layered on top of the suidicial mood he ran into the woods with is the memory of a little girl running into the night to save him.
She's still studying him and finally jerks her head in a stiff nod.
"Is that all?"
He shakes his head. "The man from the group that attacked ours. The group voted to kill him once, but Rick couldn't do it. We drove him away from the farm, but he knew the farmer's daughter. They were going to keep debating and probably set him free to eventually find his group."
"So you killed him."
"Yes. I took him into the woods and killed him. But I was really out of my mind that night, after. Getting rid of Randall was necessary, but after…" He can't bring himself to say it.
"You did something that made Mister Grimes hurt you."
"I did. I thought he was going to get everyone killed."
"Did you hurt him?"
"I couldn't, not when I was looking at him. I meant to. Planned to. But I didn't."
He still remembers the lowered guns. The hug and the feel of Rick's hand on the back of his neck: an anchor bringing him out of the abyss of pending insanity.
Then the sudden, sharp pain.
He wasn't the only one in the abyss last night.
Sophia's eyes flick to his chest, where the bandages distort his T-shirt.
"He left you too." Her voice cracks.
"It's not the same thing, sweetheart. He didn't mean to leave you, just lead the walkers away to find a weapon. Me? I deserved to be left. I did worse to Otis."
She's crying now. "He wouldn't have put Carl down and left him alone, would he?"
Shane's gut churns at the truth of that statement. Rick would never have left Carl alone with danger that close. In his darker moments, when he let the rage and fear really bleed over, he even considered that no one else running into the woods after Sophia would have left her.
Granted, the women or Dale would probably end up eaten themselves trying to defend her, but they would have died doing it.
He didn't lie to her about his own sins. He isn't going to try on Rick's either. But he can't say the words, so he shakes his head instead.
She's crying in earnest now, and he sets aside the food containers to lay a hand across her thin shoulder. He isn't sure she wants comfort from someone who just admitted what he did. She takes the touch as an invitation, curling into his shoulder and sobbing.
The moon rises as she falls asleep, using his shoulder as a pillow. He doesn't try to move her, but keeps watch on the empty highways in front of him until he can't stay awake either. He knows he should keep watch, but he doesn't want to ask her to watch him sleep.
She can't drive, so he has to sleep. He manages to take his antibiotic and dozes, trusting that they're hidden enough in the greenery that nothing will find them in the night.
They'll deal with what comes of his confession in the morning.
A/N: The confession is inspired/directed by my 13 year old beta reader, who says if she had to chose between Rick or Shane as a protector at the end of season one, she's opting for the one willing to kill to keep her safe.