August 15, 2010
Shane wakes to light just starting to filter through the shrubbery. A glance at the dashboard clock shows it's not yet eight. Sophia is still curled against him as best she can be in the confines of the front seat.
He marvels at a world where he can confess to most of his sins and a kid still finds him as her safety net.
"Hey, Sophia?"
She stirs, coming awake with that instant alertness that makes him want to beat Ed all over again. The sad part is that it will make her survival more likely because she's more aware of her surroundings than the average thirteen-year-old.
"What time is it?" she asks. There's no wariness in her expression, just the same calm confidence in him she's displayed so far.
"Nearly eight. Figure we need to stretch, take a bathroom break while we're still hidden, eat a little something."
As he stretches in his seat, the burn added to the pain worries him, so the first thing he does is take his meds. He eases the door open and edges around to Sophia's side of the car. Nothing seems amiss, so he opens the door.
She slips to the rear of the car to take care of her bladder, carrying the ziploc baggie with toilet paper. He does his best to keep an eye out while giving her privacy. Once she's back to the car and climbs inside, he follows suit.
He snags a couple of packages of wet wipes from the stash in the trunk, figuring they need them more in their day use bags to keep their hands clean. When he's back in the driver's seat, she's already got their first aid kit out, and he knows she saw his flinch earlier.
Shane eases his shirt over his head and releases the pressure bandage. There's no blood visible on the gauze, which is good. He peels away the bandaging and grimaces. The beginnings of inflammation he noticed yesterday are worse today.
"Should we clean it again? Maybe with antiseptic."
"Antiseptic can slow healing." He tries to remember his Red Cross course. It shouldn't be this hard, since he requalifies regularly, but it's mostly about initial treatment and not ongoing. "We'll just clean and rebandage for now."
She's gentle as she cleans away the discharge and applies more antibiotic cream. Once they get the bandages taped into place and he's got his shirt back on, she rolls down her window and tosses the old bandaging.
"Look at you, littering in front of a cop."
She giggles just a little. "Fruit or granola bars?"
They end up sharing one of the still half frozen freezer containers of strawberries. It's a cold treat, and probably not a thorough breakfast, but they're both anxious to get on their way. The worry he feels about his chest is reflected is the little furrow between her brows.
He doesn't think anyone passed them in the night, or he would have woken to the sound of engines in the quiet world they live in now. He starts the car and eases out of the privet, keeping an eye out. There's nothing moving anywhere in sight but them.
They get lucky on finding the pharmacy, because it's in a strip of ancient buildings that face the courthouse. The front door's been smashed and the security gates pried up. He just hopes there's something left behind.
"You willing to play lookout?" Being on the open street makes him nervous. She looks around and seems to understand and nods. "Just honk the horn if you see keep your gun handy."
"Be careful, Mister Walsh."
"Hey, Sophia?" She looks over, alert as always. "Why don't we stick to Shane? Someone who's covered my back ought to use my name."
It gets him a ghost of a smile and a nod. She tears a page off the notebook she brought from the lady's farm and passes it to him.
Shane unholsters his gun and eases inside the building, feeling the crunch of broken glass under his boots. Like most stores in these old buildings, it's set up long and narrow. The shelves have been ransacked, but not thoroughly. He reaches out to snag a couple of the floral reusable shopping bags near the register and circles the big counter to the restricted area.
It's as he expected. Whoever broke in was looking to get high, not to medicate. The narcotics cabinet is smashed to hell. He ignores it to scan for names he knows on the shelves.
The luck he's had since he stumbled upon Sophia's hiding place holds. He dumps two pharmacy-sized bottles of ciprofloxacin in a bag, followed by a bottle of cefalexin he remembers another deputy taking for pneumonia. He scans until he spots the Toradol, glad the painkiller isn't a narcotic and got missed.
It's an old fashioned pharmacy, because he glimpses the bulk of a hard copy PDR and slides it from under the counter after holstering the Glock. He's hoping they never need anything else, but the more access to information they have, the better. Even if they find Rick's group, Hershel is a vet and could use the resource.
He does pause at the narcotics cabinet long enough to pick up a missed bottle of hydrocodone, just in case. He knows from dental work that the shit makes him sleepy, so it's a last ditch resort.
On his way out, he stops to clear everything left in the first aid aisle and what's left of the snacks. Anything chocolate is a complete loss in Georgia's August heat, but he figures Sophia can use the other treats. He leaves the note the girl handed him in the now empty box of Big Red gum.
He pauses at a display of something he always thought frivolous, but now seems like a solution to a problem. Deciding he's left Sophia long enough, he selects what he needs and heads to the door cautiously.
Sophia spots him at the doorway, but she's relaxed. He brushes against a tipped over display with one foot and smiles, remembering the doll the girl carried and scoops up a beanie bear from the pile on the floor.
It earns him one hell of a smile when he passes the tie-dyed little peace bear to her. He sets the bags in the driver's seat. "Gonna go get some jugs of water I saw."
She nods and he makes it a quick trip to retrieve the gallon jugs of distilled water and a bottle of white shoe polish. He sticks the water in the backseat for now and gets himself settled back in the car.
"Hair dye and clippers?" Sophia asks, puzzled.
"If you're willing, it might be safer for you to seem to be a boy." The thought occurred to him, facing that display, that she's a blonde teenage girl and he's dealt with too many perverts over the years to not know that's distinctive.
She's already dressed like a boy, and the clothes either loose enough or her development slow enough that her hair is the main indicator of gender. Considering Carol's slender build, he thinks it might be easy to pass her daughter as a boy. Predators still target boys, but that's a smaller group.
He would rather she be shot as a potential threat as a male than suffer whatever fate a group like Randall's would inflict.
She thinks it over. "Do we have to cut my hair as short as yours?"
He barks out a laugh, running a hand over his prickly buzz cut. "Nah. Maybe like Carl's. There's different settings on those clippers."
"Next time we stop for the night," she agrees, and he breathes a sigh of relief. She tucks the items away in the bag she's still holding, before tapping him on the forearm. She opens her hand to show she's already got a dose of cipro.
He takes it and the bottle of water she offers, praying it helps more than the amoxicillin. He can't afford to get that kind of sick. "There's another bottle. Toradol. It's a pain med, kind of like ibuprofen but prescription. Snag me one of those."
She fishes the bottle out and hands him the tablet. Once he's done with that, she gets the map out. "There's a lot of ways to Columbus, but if we stay on Highway 27, it may be the shortest."
Shane thinks over his mental image of the map and nods. "We'll get there fast. Maybe come back another route."
He figures they're about fifty miles out of Columbus now. They'll probably hit traffic jams closer in, if Atlanta's anything to go by, but maybe they'll have answers by this afternoon.
Remembering why he grabbed the shoe polish, he hands her the bottle. "Think you can draw that bear in this?" They left a note on a car for her, back at the highway jam, so he hopes Rick or Daryl will look for similar signs.
"Yeah." She hops out, sketching in the bear quickly on the window glass with the white shoe polish. "Which way is Columbus?" she calls out.
He points and she adds an arrow with a cheeky grin over her shoulder at him.
Sophia settles back in the car with the PDR in her lap, expression intent as she reads. A glance shows him she's reading about the ciprofloxacin. Good. One of them needs to know more than just that it's an antibiotic he's taken before.
The little pastel bear peeks out of a pocket in the cargo pants she donned after her shower yesterday. It makes him smile as he turns his attention to pulling the car back onto the deserted streets.
"Gonna stop at that Napa we passed."
She looks up, curious, holding her place in her reading with one finger.
"Siphoning gas with a hose works, but it's dangerous if you accidentally ingest it. Parts store should have something with a pump."
Unlike most stores carrying food or other supplies, the Napa looks like it's ready for a normal work day. It's locked, though, so he risks breaking the glass. When nothing stirs inside or out, he heads inside, returning quickly with what he came for and another empty gas can.
Sophia opens her door. "We're gonna need to rearrange."
"Alright. You do that while I check out their truck."
He's in luck that they've never had reason to install a locking gas cap. He fills the five-gallon container easily and takes it to Sophia, who is moving some of the lighter items to the backseat. He takes the smaller gas cans and returns to the truck.
By the time he has all three containers full and the Bug's tank topped off, Sophia's organized their supplies to her satisfaction.
It's also when they see their first walker since the lady at the farm. It's dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with no visible signs of injury, and since they can leave in a hurry, he decides to test her shooting skills on a moving target.
"Sophia. See if you can take that one down."
It gets him a nervous look, but she nods and steps to the back of the car with her little Walther drawn. He doesn't offer advice, just watches. She aims, gun held properly with both hands and her stance decent, and fires.
Her first shot hits the shoulder and she makes a frustrated sound. Before he can speak up, she adjusts her aim and fires again.
The second shot hits the walker right in its face, dropping it like a rock. When she turns to him with a look of triumph, he knows she's going to adjust to this just fine.
"Good job. You adapted to the difference in the target moving quickly and didn't waste ammo."
She's still smiling when they get back on the road.
The roads stay relatively clear most of the way in, but then the signs that Columbus repeated Atlanta's fate begin. Stranded cars, loose walkers, and miles of backed up vehicles, all headed out of the city.
They press on, because he needs to know. He pulls the car to a stop and they both just stare.
Compared to the damage they can see where Interstate 80 used to be, Atlanta's bombing was an amateur attempt at destroying a city. The wreckage of what was once Georgia's third largest city looks like images Shane's seen of warzones.
Now he understands why there aren't herds of walkers around Columbus like Atlanta, because he can't imagine anything surviving this level of devastation.
There's a bus on its side. He gets out and checks for any walkers before motioning for Sophia to join him. She's solemn, staring at the wreckage beyond this final strip of intact highway.
"Draw your bear," he says hoarsely.
She pulls the shoe polish out of a cargo pocket and graffitis the comical animal on the rear windows of the bus. "What note?"
"Going to KC."
She adds the message, along with a stick figure in a hat that is unmistakably Rick in his sheriff's department hat for anyone who knows their group.
At his quirked eyebrow, she shrugs. "So they don't think we crossed the river."
Kansas City. He laughs and pats her shoulder.
She studies the glass for a minute. "Think they would look for a note if I taped it? In case the rain messes up the message?"
"Yeah, they should."
It takes her less than five minutes to get a note written and stuck to the window. The folded paper is protected under a strip of duct tape. He doesn't know if it'll be found, but they've tried.
Once he's got the Bug turned around and they're driving in the wrong lane to go back the way they came, he broaches the problem.
"Searching the area they're in could be real dangerous if the bandit group is still around." He doesn't want to disappoint her, but he doesn't want to endanger her, either.
She bites at her bottom lip and nods, finally turning to look at him. "You sure Mister Grimes would go home eventually?"
"One hundred percent, no. But he's the type that likes being somewhere familiar. Hated being away even for college." Unlike Shane, who delighted in escaping the narrow confines and low expectations of his future that King County held.
"Okay. It'll be safer there, since you know it too, right?"
That's what he hopes. He knows King County and the neighboring areas like the back of his hand. "I hope so."
She pulls out her map. "Show me where we're going."
He takes his eyes off the road to point it out on the map. Letting her work out a route to keep her involved, he starts to think over where to go that he can fortify until his partner wanders home.
He doesn't know what he'll do if Rick doesn't follow expectations, not in the long run. Right now, he's just going to keep setting the goal of keeping Sophia safe, no matter what it takes.
A/N: There's a Daryl&Sophia story that has them road tripping and leaving spray painted messages. I'll try to find it for due credit since it inspired the shoe polish notes. Edit: The story is called Divergence, by Aurilia, on FFnet. Quite a good read for the Sophia survives niche.