October 16, 2010
Shane remembers the extra guests in the house when he wakes under the clinging weight of Molly. When she crept into his room and climbed up between him and Luke right at midnight, he just tucked her in and reassured Patrick on his cot at the end of the bed that everything was fine. He carefully peels away his little spider monkey and rolls her so she can use her brother as a teddy bear.
When he suggested having the boys bunk with him so that Carol and Daryl could share Sophia's room, he actually expected Molly to balk at staying. She didn't at bedtime, but he guesses in the end, having two strange people in the same room overrode the idea that Carol was Sophia's mother.
He makes a pit stop by the bathroom before making a quiet trek to the kitchen. It's his morning for breakfast, but most importantly, the coffee. Their other guest, the man who did his best to stay out of the family issues, comes alert from the sleeping bag on the floor nearest the TV. He sits up as Shane enters the kitchen, not bothering to sleep or pretend to sleep like Merle does on the couch.
After he gets the coffee started, Shane waggles a coffee cup toward Paul, who smiles but disappears down the hall while it's brewing. When he returns, Carol's behind him looking around the kitchen with more interest than she showed last night. Shane adds another cup to the two already on the counter and fills all three.
"Powdered creamer and sugar in the jars on the bar, if you need them," he says, setting his cup next to the stove to cool. Paul takes a seat at the table without adjusting his coffee, but Carol pauses to add sugar.
"Can I help with anything?"
Even though his first instinct is to say no, since she's a guest, he remembers how Carol likes to keep busy. He intended to use canned fruit for a pancake topping, but they have a ton of apples harvested from a nearby orchard.
"Basket of apples over in the corner if you're game to peel them for cinnamon apples." When Carol goes to fetch the apples, he slides a knife onto the counter even as Daryl ventures into the room.
The hunter eyes Merle and his ongoing semblance of sleep before sliding onto a bar stool next to Carol. Shane passes him a cup of coffee and sets the machine for a second pot after pouring two more. He times that just right, because Merle finally gives up the playacting and rolls to his feet with a grumble. The man half empties the cup before thunking it on the counter on the way down the hall.
"He still not a morning person?" Daryl mumbles around his cup.
Shane isn't sure if it's both Dixons who aren't, but he just chuckles. "That would be an understatement."
He starts on the pancakes, grinning as Merle returns up the hall with Luke tipped over one shoulder and Sophia trailing behind.
"Place does not have enough bathrooms," Merle grumbles, flipping Luke around and tickling him before dropping him with a thump on the couch.
"Was a single man when I bought the place, Merle. Seemed like two bathrooms was excessive back then."
Merle snorts and retrieves his cup before retreating out of Sophia's way. She greets her mother and Daryl with a smile before rummaging in the fridge for several cans of Boost for the kids still needing the calories and milk for the other three.
"Might not be enough sausage thawed," she says, head still in the fridge. "Gonna grab a can of spam."
"Got another paring knife?" Daryl asks. Sophia smiles and digs one out of the drawer on her way from fridge to grab spam to go with her package of venison sausage. She sets to work beside Shane. He's halfway through a towering stack of pancakes when he starts the oatmeal and sets the kettle to heat for Michonne's tea.
It doesn't take long to get breakfast done, even the cinnamon apples that Daryl and Carol peeled and diced. They forego the kids table for breakfast as the rest trickle in, letting the kids cluster around the dining table with Merle. The adults perch where they can, and Daryl follows his brother's antics with a thoughtful gaze.
When the younger Dixon comes into the kitchen to ease a few spoonfuls of oatmeal and apples on his plate, he leans in close to Shane. "How long's he been clean?"
Shane finishes a bite of pancake and shrugs. Andre is perched on Merle's lap, sharing a plate with the man. "Never asked, but I'm guessing since shortly after the amputation. Michonne wouldn't let him near Andre, otherwise. Her ex was an addict that nearly got him eaten."
"He's doing good with avoiding the racist bullshit?"
Shane thinks about how battered T-Dog was after that Atlanta run, and the question really makes sense. Daryl's trying to reassure himself his people are safe with his volatile brother. "Haven't heard a peep of anything untoward. Occasionally, he'll make a sort of sexist remark, but it seems more to get smacked by Michonne or Sophia than serious."
"He seems awfully attached to the girl."
"He is good with all the kids, honestly. But yeah, he and Sophia seem to each get where the other is coming from." The rescued kids were abused, but they didn't grow up in a home like that. There are times when something jolts Sophia, and Merle can soothe it with nothing but a hand on her shoulder.
"And you're sure you're good with more folks on the property?"
Shane realizes he's never spoken this long to Daryl. He wonders what changed in the past months to boost the man's confidence. "I imagine the problem would be more them with me than vice versa. I'll stay out of their hair. It's a big damn place."
Daryl finishes off his food and rinses the plate in the sink. He looks over to where Carol is sitting with Michonne at the bar, turned to face the kids. No one is in earshot.
"Rick ain't mentally stable, Walsh. It got real bad a few weeks back, and we've had to keep him locked away. Don't know that it's safe to have him loose just yet."
Shane feels his heart sink to his feet. "What happened?"
Daryl is succinct as he relates Rick's breakdown. "Sophia says your doc here is a shrink. Gonna need him, if he's willing. We've just been making guesses."
Shane is horrified over the man's honest assessment that they had worried, all the way down to Carl, that Rick might harm Lori or the baby or both. That Rick had lost his temper violently in regards to an assault victim and a teenage boy Carl's age.
"That change your mind about him being here? Especially with Sophia?"
Shane takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "If he needs help, he needs help. Maybe he wouldn't be in this shape if there was help available when I was losing my own mind."
"Alright. I'll use my best judgement when I tell them about this place. Might be what's needed, for Carl, for sure."
Molly's entrance into the kitchen ends the conversation, especially when she wraps her thin arms around him and just stares at Daryl. Shane runs a hand over her still close cropped hair and down her back. Daryl heads toward Carol, but he glances back, assessing eyes watching Shane with the girl.
It doesn't take long after breakfast for Daryl, Paul, and Morgan to pack up and leave. Shane turns to Carol, who looks worried but resolute about them leaving.
"What tour do you need first? Sophia's chomping at the bit to show off."
Carol looks where Molly is still clinging, unwilling to be far from him. It's not her usual behavior, although she is the most readily affectionate of his brood. Carol turns to Sophia.
"What can we do with the kids along?"
Sophia, sweetheart that she is, runs a hand over Molly's back. "Let's take the boats up to Gloria's place."
That launches a day spent exploring by water, showing Carol all the houses on the waterside. Sophia details her plans, with Shane or the other children chiming in as needed.
He's a little surprised that Andrea stayed back, but she and Carol were never truly close, he supposes. The blonde gets along best with Michonne for the most part, thanks to their former careers. Shane doesn't really care, as long as Andrea keeps taking his disinterest seriously about renewing their brief fling.
They drift back to the house for lunch. This meal is Eastman's turn in the kitchen. Shane isn't surprised, though, when the man separates them off to the outdoor table.
At least his smile is kind. "I'm not going to hover unless you need me to, but there is a conversation that needs to happen without young witnesses."
He shuts the door firmly, and Shane knows for at least a half hour, none of the children will be allowed near.
"I'm sorry," he manages.
"For what?" Carol meets his gaze evenly. "You saved Sophia, and rather than just do the bare minimum to keep her clothed and fed, you loved her. You encouraged her. I don't even recognize my daughter, and that's a compliment."
"I never set out to come between you in any way." He rubs at the back of his head, sighing. "I don't want to repeat what happened on the farm. She is not a possession."
"She isn't. She's a child who loves both of us." Carol smiles, and he notes absently that she's a pretty woman, now that she's not hiding it from Ed.
"I tend to love too much," he admits. "I didn't know how to cope with losing the family I got by accident when Rick was gone."
"You avoid even asking about the baby."
"The foundation of putting myself back together was believing what Rick swore to me how things would be. The price to pay to keep him was that the baby was his. I can't dwell on what I can't have and stay healthy."
As easy as it was to say it was all about Lori and Carl and the baby, about keeping them safe, in the end, it was Rick he feared losing the most. And everytime he looked in his brother's eyes, he knew that he had. Even giving up the baby wasn't going to fix that. Losing that hope is what led to the field and words screamed out about losing the wrong damned person.
"He had no right to demand that."
Carol's words are so unexpected that he snaps his head up so he can see her face. All he sees is sympathy.
"Would you like to know about the baby?"
Shane can't find his voice, so he nods.
"You're having a daughter. Not the first, from what I see here, but another little girl for you to set the world afire keeping safe. The ultrasound estimate is that she's due at the end of February."
Shane lets that sink in. Another little girl seems like he's been promised the moon and actually going to get it.
"And Lori?"
"She's been sick more than she's been healthy. Her needing care is about half the reason Daryl took over the group. She needed a stable place to stay. But I know she deeply regrets whatever happened at the farm. I don't think Rick would have her support to keep your child from you."
He clears his throat, not sure if he can feel grateful yet, not after Lori convinced Rick he was dangerous to them. But he hates that she's sick. "Daryl said he had some sort of breakdown."
Ironic that they both snapped like brittle wood under the pressures of leadership and family.
"He did, and it was violent enough he's still confined. Some of that is his own choice now." She surprises him by reaching across the table to pat his hand. "Carl is going to be the happiest kid in the world. He talks about you a lot."
"Still? I figured after the field, he would hate me. He's doing good, despite everything?"
"Carl is an amazing kid who still takes on the world at full tilt. Children are immensely more forgiving of things you try to do wrong and stop, versus the things you actually do. He adores you like he always has."
Her words remind Shane that Carl saw what transpired in that field. Shame floods him as bitterly as it did the night it happened. How the boy can still love him, he doesn't understand.
"It's the issue I have to overcome with my daughter. She sees what I did, by staying with Ed, and that will take time to forgive. Fear is a powerful master."
"I've tried to talk to her, about it not being as easy as just walking away."
"It isn't, or wasn't, but she's also right to resent how she grow up. My choices might have been limited, but she had none at all, until now."
"I don't want to lose her," he admits quietly. "But you're her mother." Sophia, just like his unborn daughter, has a mother with more claim than he does.
"And you are the father she chose, when nature gave her one not fit for the title. It's not a choice I expected, but she chose well, I think."
Shane stares at Carol, marveling at her willingness to give him that title in Sophia's life. "So, what do we do?"
"We have the most amicable custody arrangement ever, because we aren't hung up on our own baggage. There's plenty of housing and no reason she can't have two homes, right?"
Relief floods over him, and he feels tears threaten. "No reason at all. Could even offer for you to stay here, if you like. Morgan's going to be settling next door."
That's what the man said, when he came to Shane's room after most of the household was asleep. Shane will miss him being in the same household, but he's right that their community no longer requirs them to live in such close quarters.
"Perhaps we start out to see how it works. Will Michonne be okay with that?"
"Christ, does everyone notice that but me?"
Carol laughs. "So her staying in her room and the boys in yours wasn't a polite fiction for our sakes?"
"Not at all. It's not that it's an impossible thing. I'm just not ready to be that close to someone again."
"I understand. It surprised he hell out of me when I looked at Daryl one day and Ed's ghost was no longer haunting me. Here's this guy who will never stop looking for my kid and loving these other kids rhat aren't his. I was hooked."
Funnily enough, he thinks she does actually understand. He smiles gratefully. What she describes about Daryl could reflect on Michonne, too, and all she does for the children who adopted him.
"Now, let's get this nice meal eaten, before we go get that house at the end of the road set up for its new residents," Carol suggests.
Shane finds he actually has an appetite, now that he knows Carol wants him to stay an active part of Sophia's life. He still feels the desperate unease lurking about the return of the Grimes family, but he'll face that challenge once it's actually here.
For now, he's having lunch with his daughter's mother, and all is right with his world.