September 8, 2010
Shane steps out onto the deck and around to the side now designated as 'Sophia's Garden'. There's not a lot of viable places to grow plants currently on Shane's property, either due to rocky soil or tree cover. But among the things they took from Gloria's property was her rather vast stash of seeds and enough books and pamphlets to open their own farm store.
He's pretty sure Sophia stayed up all night the night after their emotional fish fry, reading the book she's been lugging around since as if it were a holy relic. While going back and forth to Gloria's garden is good for now, those crops are slowly dying off. Some will reseed and grow wild, by Sophia's estimate. Others won't, and she's determined to add to their food supply.
Thus how the deck facing the road is now divided into two double rows of raised vegetable beds, all neatly planted according to Sophia's book about square foot gardening. Shane can see notes in her neat, orderly handwriting for each section on index cards in little Ziploc baggies. He supposes he is going to get used to eating vegetables he normally wouldn't, if her project is successful.
From what he can see so far, she's got seedlings in many of the beds already, the little seeds sprouting easily in good soil and warm weather.
"Everything sprouted yet?" he asks. Since some of the beds are planted differently than others, he's not sure how many seedlings he should be seeing.
"So far, yeah. I'm not going to thin anything out just yet. Not til they're bigger."
"You're the current expert." He nudges the little fronds of green along the outside edge of the beds, the parts that face the little aisle she left down the middle. "What're these?"
"Marigolds, mostly. They help keep away some kinds of bugs." Sophia touches one gently herself. "And they're pretty."
Shane ruffles her shaggy hair. "Fee? You want to plant things we can't eat, you just gotta tell me what you need."
She looks thoughtful from her perch on the edge of one of the beds. "Most flowers you plant in the spring."
"You got flower seeds in all of Gloria's stash?"
"Some. Mostly what she grew around the house."
"We need to make a trip to the hardware store and clear them out. Garden center on the east side of town that might still have plants and such." They didn't have to go into town for the supplies for the raised beds, thanks to the landscaping neighbor whose trailer they have parked up near the gate now.
"Couldn't hurt to look around more, now that you're feeling better, right?"
She's right, because they can't avoid town much longer. He's already been thinking of the fact that they're nearly beyond the limit of collecting useful gasoline. There's still some to be siphoned in the neighbors' vehicles, but not until he can obtain more gas cans. He's already topped off the truck and filled the few he found at the neighbor houses.
"Can't hurt at all. Need to know what our resources are. You done here for now?"
Sophia nods, brushing her hands off on her cargos. "Just need to grab our gear. We taking the truck?"
"Not this trip. We'll take the Bug until we know more about what's going on out there." They didn't see any large numbers of walkers in their brief side trip into town to check out Rick's house, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. "Bug's more maneuverable than the truck."
It doesn't take them long to load the Bug up for the day. They can still haul a decent amount of supplies, and they'll save the truck for actual supply trips versus recon ones.
On the way back into town, he goes back over the directions, even though he's pretty sure she memorized it on the way out. If they get separated or something happens to him, she's got to be able to get back to their little safe haven.
"Hey, Shane?" she ventures as they enter town. "Y'all had a library here, right?"
"Yeah. You needing new reading material or this for more research?"
"Both, maybe."
He just grins at the bashful answer. "Alright. We'll put that on the list to see if it's clear today."
Shane pulls up at the Sheriff's Department first. He knows Rick cleared out the guns and ammo, but his partner wouldn't think of some of the other things that'll be useful to him and Sophia. He doesn't have his keys, but thanks to Rick putting Leon down in the parking lot outside, frisking the deputy's remains gives him exactly what he needs.
"Stay close. Rick left the building clear, but it might not have stayed that way."
She nods, alert as always, knife in hand. In another life, this girl would have made one hell of a deputy one day. They clear the building easily despite the maze, finding it as empty of life or undead as Rick left it.
"What are you taking?" Sophia asks as Shane grabs a gear bag one of the other deputies left behind and dumps it.
He flashes her a grin as he unlocks the cabinet where they store the tasers and pepper spray. "Not everything you use to disable a living person has to be a gun."
She accepts the taser he hands her and inspects it carefully before threading the holster onto her belt, followed by the pepper spray. "Gonna need a police belt soon," she jokes.
"Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but King County didn't employ anyone small enough for you to borrow one." Some of the neighboring counties had female deputies, but there were never any in King County in all his years here.
He empties the cabinet's contents into the gear bag and she follows him through as he raids various coworker's drawers for their snack stashes. He saves his own for last, ignoring Rick's completely.
Sophia plops down in his chair, grinning as he pulls open a drawer. The big plastic jar of peanut butter pretzels are probably pushing stale by now, but he hadn't even opened the damn thing.
"Did you always want to be a deputy?" Sophia asks. She's playing with the Eagle mug on his desk. "You went to college, right?"
"Yeah, I went to college. Football scholarship." Another example of where he followed Rick, although being first string at a smaller college was probably better than hoping to work up to first string on the other offers he had. "Majored in communication."
Considering the complete lack of skill he showed in that particular field at the Greene farm, he thinks it's a good thing he didn't pay for his tuition.
"Doesn't sound like a cop degree. Isn't that usually criminal justice or whatever?"
"Usually, yeah. Not all cops even bother with college." Out of the entire deputy staff, only one other deputy had a college degree here. Some of the higher ups had them, part of the reason he always figured Rick was being groomed for more, eventually.
Sophia eyes the desk that's unmistakably Rick's. Cards and small gifts are still on the surface, waiting for a man to wake from a coma that didn't come until after the givers were dead or gone. "What about Mister Grimes?"
"He majored in history. He was gonna get his teaching degree, but then he and Lori got married. Decided he wanted a job to support his family and applied here."
Shane followed him home like a faithful puppy, despite planning all his life to escape King County and all the connotations of being Sybil Walsh's bastard son. Rick needed him, terrified of his unplanned, impending fatherhood at twenty-two. He couldn't imagine letting his brother face all that alone.
In retrospect, he suspects that everyone might have been better off if he took that degree and headed out of Georgia, after all.
Sophia mulls that over and hands him the coffee mug. He wraps it in a spare T-shirt from his drawer and drops it in the bag. There's not a lot else that he really wants from the desk or that's useful for them, so he zips the bag.
"Let's go find your library, kiddo."
The Bug is stuffed to overflowing by the time Shane noses it to a stop near the Grimes' house. They cleared out several boxes of books at the library, almost all non-fiction. It seems Sophia's agile brain is planning ahead beyond basic needs from the selection she crams into those boxes. He didn't even realize the library had that many books geared toward surviving the life they're living now.
The rest of the haul is now-full gas cans liberated from the hardware store along with other necessities from there, as well as half the back seat stuffed with smaller useful items from the garden center. Both locations will merit a trip with the truck and trailer on another day.
The hardware store shows signs of recent access, which is why they're back in Rick's neighborhood. Shane's hoping it's the man who helped Rick and his son that have been inside the hardware store, because the dusty tracks are certainly made by a pair. Could be a man and woman, but he's hoping for a man and young teen boy.
He does a walk through of Rick's house, one more time, but nothing seems out of place from their last visit, and all of Sophia's notes are still present. She's in the backyard, eyeing Carl's old swing set with a wistful expression. He's debating another note on the fridge when Sophia shouts in alarm.
"Hey, kid, you gotta shoot it!"
By the time he makes it out the back, Sophia's pounding across the yard into the neighboring backyard. She shouts again for the boy to shoot the walker, drawing the decaying woman's attention on herself. The kid's gun falters and drops back to his side just as Sophia swings Carl's old aluminum baseball bat. It connects with a thud and the woman drops like a rock.
Shane reaches Sophia just as the kid drops the gun he's holding, hands trembling as he begins to sob uncontrollably. A glance at the woman on the ground tells him that more likely than not, this is the kid's mother.
"Hey, it's okay," Sophia coaxes, as if the boy were years younger and not as tall as she is and likely the same age.
"Mama." The sheer grief in the boy's voice breaks Shane's heart and he puts the Glock away.
Pounding footsteps and a cry of "Duane!" alert him that the boy's not alone. The man that appears seems torn between aiming his gun at strangers near the kid and comforting him. Shane just raises his hands to show he's holstered his gun. Sophia edges backward to him at his soft call of her nickname.
"I'd appreciate it if you lower that gun, mister, especially with my kid right here too," Shane intones calmly, same as he would with an armed and emotional suspect before.
Sophia's beside him now, responding to the signal they practiced. While he thinks this man and boy are the ones who helped Rick, he isn't sure. She hugs him and uses it as cover to pick his pocket for the car keys. Shane maneuvers her behind him when the gun doesn't lower right away.
"Who are you?" Grief laces the man's voice, his attention between the woman on the ground and the kid clinging to him.
"Shane Walsh. Former deputy for King County."
The man blinks away tears. "That name's familiar."
"Should be. You helped my partner out a few months back when he woke up from a coma."
The gun wavers a little, even as Shane feels Sophia stepping slowly away, using his bulk as cover. He's never been more grateful she's so damned small compared to him.
"What's his wife and kid's names?"
"Lori and Carl. Carl's about your boy's age. He took you to the sheriff's department for showers and guns. Left you a radio."
"He find them?"
"Yeah, outside Atlanta. Our group got separated. We were hoping they might come back here."
"He didn't mention you having a kid too."
Shane knows in reality, even with the dyed hair, passing Sophia off as his child by blood isn't likely to be believed. "Fee was part of our group. My kid now."
Let the man settle that how he likes in his head.
Surprisingly, the gun's lowered at last and the man starts laughing. "Smart kid. He's already to the porch and never gave me a good look at him."
Shane doesn't turn and look, not with the gun still in the man's hand, lowered or not. He trusts that Sophia really is aiming for the car until told otherwise. She's not the best driver in the Bug yet, but she's capable enough.
"Not everyone we've encountered was friendly. Big group over near Senoia likes to prey on youngsters."
That gets the man's attention. Pedophiles always do for fathers.
He holsters his gun and offers a hand to Shane, who shakes it briefly. "Morgan Jones. My boy's Duane." He looks to the woman on the ground. "And that was my Jenny."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Shane says. He can't imagine the boy trying to work up the courage to put his own mother down.
Morgan sighs, eyeing the discarded baseball bat near his late wife. "I should have done it. Did you put her down?"
Shane shakes his head. "Fee beat me to her. Was closer."
"Lord have mercy on me. Another child doing what I could not." Morgan kneels and closes Jenny's eyes. "Are you staying in the Grimes' house?"
"No. Too exposed here in town. We're out on the water. Just checking in periodically to see if Rick's turned up."
That's generic enough to not pinpoint anything until he's more certain of the man, between three rivers and Lake Jackson in the vicinity. Rick's bad guy radar isn't exactly the best Shane's ever seen and months have passed since Rick saw Morgan.
"Smarter than us staying in the middle of everything, I suppose."
"If you want, I can help you bury her." He knows he wouldn't want to leave one of his loved ones exposed to the elements, turned or not. The Bug's engine starts up and Shane chuckles. "Although I might be walking home at this rate."
"If you hurry, you might catch up."
Shane takes that as a signal and sets off at an angle designed to have him reach the cross street Sophia's likely to turn on. He makes it barely in time, thanks to her inexperience in driving, and she slows to a halt to let him climb in.
"Go round the block to them. Pretty sure they're friendly."
"The ones that helped Mister Grimes?"
"Yeah. Offered to help him bury his wife."
"Alright." She puts the Bug back in gear and trundles the car over to the driveway he knows belongs to the backyard in question.
"You can stay in the car if you want."
She shakes her head and shuts off the engine, climbing out when he does. Morgan already has a shovel out of the garage, beginning the dig next to a pretty azalea bush in the backyard.
"I'll go get something to bury her in," Sophia says softly. She jogs off to Rick's house, returning with a floral flat sheet. Since Morgan waved off his offer to help dig, Shane helps Sophia lift Jenny onto the sheet. He watches with Duane as the girl wraps the sheet neatly, tying it around the body with twine from one of her cargo pockets.
"Twine isn't as nice as ribbon," she explains softly to the boy. "But since we can't put her in a pretty dress, we can do this, at least."
She doesn't cover Jenny's face, and by some grace, most of the damage caused when Sophia put her down is hidden by hair. Only the dark walker blood seeping into the sheet gives away the injury.
Morgan's grave ends up a lot more shallow than a grave normally would be. But scavengers don't really feed off walkers, so Shane doesn't think Jenny will be disturbed. Morgan lifts her into his arms, carefully laying her in the earth.
In the face of the man and boy's grief, Shane wishes he knew what to say about a woman he never knew. Dark memories of trying to speak over Otis's empty grave try to claw their way up, but he forces them down. This is not the time nor the place for his unquestionable guilt.
When neither Morgan nor Duane seem able to speak, Sophia's small hand slips into Shane's as she begins to sing softly. It's not a hymn, at least not one that Shane recognizes, but the words seem fitting enough for a funeral. Morgan gathers Duane close, the father and son swaying as Sophia sings, voice sweet and pure.
The silence when she reaches the end of the song is enough to make goosebumps rise along his arms. He pulls her into his arms, kissing the top of her head as she hugs him tightly.
"Thank you." Morgan's voice is thick with emotion. "For the song, and for what you did for my boy and my wife."
Sophia just nods, burying her face into Shane's chest. He gives her a moment before nudging her.
"I'll finish here, if you want. You take the kids over to sit on Rick's back steps."
Whatever energy fueled Morgan Jones to dig his wife's grave, it's gone now. The man nods and leads his son off to sit on the steps.
By the time he's done laying Jenny to rest, Sophia's sitting in one of the long-abandoned swings on the old swing set, legs swinging as she moves slowly back and forth. She's watching the father and son huddled together even as Shane approaches.
"We can't leave them here in town," she says.
"They might not want to leave here." He's still not sure where they're even holed up.
"I would, if I were them. It's not so far away they can't visit her. You know she's why they're still here."
Shane imagines so. Trapped by the hellish choice of ending the unlife of a beloved wife and mother, but unwilling to abandon her to roam endlessly either, the Jones family has some closure now, at least.
"Guess we best go ask then, kiddo. Might need your charming ways."
She rolls her eyes at him, but smiles and abandons the swing. He watches as they show as little resistance to her cajoling as he himself manages.
Within two hours, their duo has become a quartet.
A/N: The song Sophia sings is "Going Home". There are different versions on YouTube, but my imagination uses the one by the Libera boys' choir to have the effect her youthful voice would have.