November 18, 2010
It takes less than twenty-four hours for a conflict to arise about the community taking in twenty new people. Shane supposes he shouldn't be surprised that it involves Rick and Sophia. Something between the two was inevitable, but he had thought that it would take the psychiatrists to get his girl in Rick's presence. Instead, it's her innate sense of defending others.
The younger kids summoning the adults prepping the closest empty house for new residents is almost not needed. Once outdoors, the shouting is indistinct but the voices carry. "Molly! Get Carol and Daryl!" Shane directs as he sets off at a dead run once the girl stammers out that Sophia and Rick are fighting.
He isn't alone in the run, because Michonne is faster than him. Others working at the house trail behind then, less motivated than they are to intervene. When they hit the end of the driveway, at least it hasn't advanced to the point of Sophia using her gun.
But that's probably because she's unleashing a furious hailstorm of golf ball sized rocks from the gravel driveway, while Rick wisely takes cover behind the outdoor kitchen he's been building. Lori and Carl are on the porch, and Patrick is kneeling in the driveway further up, checking over one of the new kids who is sprawled on the gravel.
Snatching Sophia up, Shane isn't surprised by her rage fueled strength. Just as she attempts a mule kick on her restrainer, he barks out, "Calm your shit down and talk to me, Fee."
It's like he flipped her switch, because she goes from screaming curses at Rick that show a decidedly Merle Dixon influence to hanging limply and sobbing. Rotating her in his arms, Shane lets her cling to him as Michonne crosses the yard toward Rick.
"What in the hell did you do to set her off, Rick Grimes?" The fury in her voice isn't heated, like Sophia's. It's the stuff of arctic ice, and Rick looks ashamed enough that Shane thinks this is about to get ugly. While Sophia doesn't avoid the house at the end of the road as religiously as she did at first, she almost always goes with an adult buffer, and Rick has faithfully honored her wish for distance. So what changed so drastically today?
"He didn't like Noah coming up to the house with me," Carl volunteers from the porch, where he's got an arm wrapped around his mother. He and Lori both have been crying. "Grabbed his arm to make him leave."
Glancing to the teenage boy being helped up by Patrick, Michonne sighs. "Are you okay, Noah?"
The boy nods, gaze going a bit wide eyed to Sophia. "Just a skinned knee and palms, ma'am. I tripped where the sidewalk joins the driveway. I think Sophia thought he pushed me."
Daryl and Carol have arrived, among others, so Shane passes Sophia gently to her mother. "Going to take her down to the lake until Doc is free," the woman murmurs, causing Shane to nod. When Sophia goes without an argument, Shane feels his heart ache for her. Others step forward to hustle Patrick and Noah away, and Shane's grateful to see Merle carrying Molly while Morgan has Luke.
Getting to his feet unsteadily, Rick peers over the brick kitchen at Shane where he's still standing in the driveway. It seems all the Grimeses are crying, because Rick's face is tear wet, too. "She said…" He has to stop and clear his throat. "She said she had to cut you. Screamed about infection and smells worse than walkers and hoping she would die if you did."
Shane rubs his hand over his face, feeling an upsurge of guilt for what Sophia experienced during his illness. It is a wound in her mind that may never heal. Eastman says, and Denise agrees, that she directs the anxiety in constructive ways, between her gardening and medical training. But that doesn't erase the fear she still carries.
"Jesus," Daryl says, voice gruff. "It was that bad?"
Reluctantly, Shane nods. He may have been mostly unaware of the worst of it thanks to the good pain meds Sophia stuffed down his gullet, but the smell of the infection? He remembers that, still sometimes gets flashes of it randomly if he gets a muscle twinge in the area. Worse than walkers might be an exaggeration, but at least it provides some reference point to the idea of the putrid decay that tried to take hold.
"Wound went septic not long after I found Sophia. Systemic strep infection on top of the sepsis in the wound itself. Sophia excised the infected flesh with a razor blade in an old caulk scraper." Shane shudders, remembering all too well, ghost pain flickering across his senses. "We didn't have the kind of painkillers appropriate for doing it."
Rick's flinch at the terse explanation makes Shane realize the man was hoping Sophia exaggerated, as kids sometimes do. "M'sorry," the slim man mumbles, moving slowly around the brickwork. It seems like the effort is exhausting, and suddenly, Shane can't stand the waiting for the shrinks to tell them it's time, not anymore. Unlike Sophia, he has a lifetime of good memories of the man he called his brother.
When he makes his way across the yard and sweeps Rick into a crushing bear hug, it's returned with equal force. "I'm so sorry," Rick keeps repeating, burying his face in Shane's shoulder. The lightweight material of his henley shirt is soaked as his brother sobs against him, as hard as Rick did the day Mama Grimes died four years ago.
Shane meets Michonne's worried gaze as he blinks back tears of his own. "Gonna get him inside."
She nods, dreads shifting around her shoulders, and turns to handle the others who came to the children's frantic summons. He's confident she'll handle any explanations for those less informed in the saga of Walsh and Grimes, like the two new cops assessing the interaction. Leading Rick to the house is as easy as looking after him always has been.
Underneath all the pain and hatefulness they visited upon each other at that farm, the trust is still there, somehow, surviving despite the Pandora's box of sins they unleashed. It amazes Shane, because even if Rick doesn't know how close he came multiple times, throwing that wrench was unmistakable in Shane's intent. Only Shane's last second horror at what he was doing changed the trajectory just enough that he didn't brain Rick with the heavy tool. He doesn't intend to tell Rick his gun was unloaded that night in the field. It's a layer of guilt Rick doesn't need, and Shane prefers him to keep the tattered idea intact that he was defending himself.
On the couch in the living room, Shane blinks away tears as Lori and Carl take a seat in a recliner opposite, the boy perching on the arm. "That's why the scars are so bad, isn't it?" Carl says, his voice subdued. "Because it isn't just a stab wound."
Shane nods, uncomfortable with the attention from Rick and Lori once Carl speaks. "How bad is it?" Rick manages to ask.
As much as he doesn't like showing it to anyone other than Michonne or the kids, Shane untucks his undershirt and eases it and his henley up. Below the left pectoral, the damage is wider than the initial two inch stab wound. In fact, nothing of the original wound remains, all carved away under Sophia's razor blade. At one point, before the tissue knit itself back together, glimpsing bone wasn't uncommon. The musculature is naturally sparse over the ribs, and now he has less.
He doesn't share that the doctors in the group assure him he'll always have pain from nerve damage, much the same way Rick probably does from the gunshot wound. Certain movements don't flex the same as before due to the drawn tight scar tissue. But he's alive when he shouldn't be, so to Shane, that's all that matters.
"Jesus." Rick looks away as he chokes out the word, but Lori doesn't, staring as if she is requiring herself to memorize it. Shane finally eases his shirts back down, unwilling to stay on display. Lori's hands twist in the loose fabric of her maternity shirt. She seems at a loss for words, and Carl slides an arm around her thin shoulders.
"Sophia is constantly spending time with one of the doctors." Carl's subdued tone makes Shane nod, and the boy continues. "Because she wants to know how to do things like that better."
Unsure if it is a request for input, Shane nods again. "She hasn't stopped studying. Doc says she'll evolve into a fine doctor one day."
The teenager squares his shoulders, his jaw setting in that determined way that reminds Shane more of Lori than Rick. "I'm going to ask for lessons, too."
Whether or not it will last, Shane doesn't know. But he thinks it will be good for Sophia to have another youngster learning alongside her for as long as it does. Her experiences and personality combine sometimes to isolate her a little, making her older than her years. Even Patrick and Duane only get ao far through her shell, as much as she seems to genuinely care for them.
"I'm sure Doc won't mind," Shane tells him. An added bonus is more time for Carl around the shrink, and he doesn't miss that Lori seems to share that thought.
When he turns his attention back to Rick, his brother is studying his hands. They're no longer the fairly soft hands of a man who became a cop to serve the public when he didn't have to. Nicks, scars, and callouses from his building projects are a map of slow progress in rebuilding who Rick is. After the outdoor kitchen had come a storage shed, with Rick painstakingly teaching himself the skills needed.
Looking up at last, Rick faces Carl and Lori. "I'm sorry about earlier. I knew there were new people here, and I should have been prepared to see one of them."
Carl sighs. "You were telling Mom she had to stay here. That's not right."
"What?" Shane is confused, since things seemed to have escalated beyond just Noah being unknown to Rick.
Rick ducks his head. "Too many new people. I didn't want Lori going to help today."
While he noticed Lori's absence this morning, Shane just assumed she was feeling poorly. But he focuses on Lori, who sighs. "I think it may be time for me to stay somewhere else," she admits quietly. "Me staying here may be keeping his paranoia active."
Christ Almighty. Rick seems to shrink in on himself further, but most telling, he doesn't object or argue Lori's point. "Okay. There's space with Denise's group, if you are willing to stay with her."
Because despite the fact that he can rearrange to allow Lori to have Michonne's old room, that's an option probably as unhealthy for everyone's mental health as her staying here seems to be. It also won't hurt to keep Lori close to a medical professional, if she's moving away from Hershel. The downstairs room that was once Gloria's sewing room is being rearranged today, intended to house someone from Grady.
"Lori moving out is going to leave space here for some of the newcomers. You gonna be okay with that? Or should we switch houses? Have T-Dog, Karen, and her boy move here, and you and Hershel move across the street." Shane reviews the list Michonne was studying this morning, deciding Rick might ease into seeing other cops around best. Maybe the two female cops, since they've asked to stay together.
Shane still doesn't want to think about why they requested not to sleep alone, yet both stated firmly they aren't a couple. No one would care about that here, but it's the other reasons two women coming from an environment where cops turned rapist would team up even at night that makes his gut roil even though the men are dead.
"Why make Hershel move?" Lori asks, looking puzzled. "Couldn't Rick share with T-Dog?"
The original idea of T-Dog taking the couch or sharing with Karen's foster son didn't last long. But apparently that's a little tidbit of change not widely noticed. Shane smiles wryly. "T-Dog seems happy with Karen as his roommate."
"Oh." Lori actually smiles, seeming happy about the couple.
"Think you can manage getting to know the two female cops, Rick?" Once upon a time, Shane wouldn't question women's safety around his brother. After Daryl's description of the breakdown Rick had, with it focusing on a woman and boy Carl's age, it's a legitimate question he has to ask. It's also possible the women might refuse, and something else have to be arranged. Moving Karen into the same house with Rick isn't an option.
"I would like to meet them first. They probably would require the same." Rick sighs and drags a shaking hand through his hair. "Was it as bad as Glenn said, there at Grady?"
"Far as we can tell, yeah. They've had it rough, despite being a little more protected by their uniform." Hell, it might be worse, in a way, for the two women, who probably compound personal fear of the situation with frustration that they couldn't protect their wards.
"If they're willing to try, I'll meet with them." Rick looks at Lori and Carl. "I'm sorry I keep having setbacks."
That launches Carl into action, the boy coming to hug his father fiercely. "Don't apologize for that, Dad. Long as you keep trying."
Smoothing Carl's hair, Rick kisses the top of his son's head. "You tell your new friend I'm sorry, okay?"
Carl nods, not releasing Rick yet.
"Rick?"
Shane waits until his brother is looking at him. Up close, the physical effects of Rick's mental health are obvious. He's lost weight he couldn't spare, and there's a haunted look to Rick's expression that goes beyond today's revelations, he thinks. Reaching out, Shane lays a hand on the other man's shoulder and squeezes gently.
"I am sorry for all that I did that led us here," he says, struggling for the right words. Nothing seems adequate for his part in their personal disaster. "None of us got here alone, and I couldn't escape my own head for a while. I understand days like today."
Shane's been blessed that paranoia no longer seems one of his issues, but Doc suspects that is because he has slowly added positive aspects back to his life. By contrast, Rick is still adrift. His marriage is beyond salvation, his only son spends most of his time with other people, and the continued restriction on him moving around the property limits his daily work.
Rick's response is to move his hand from Carl's hair to cover Shane's hand with it. It's a gesture they often exchanged over the decades. "You should go check on your kids," Rick says softly, managing a smile. "They'll be worried, all things considered. I'll be okay."
Looking into his brother's eyes, Shane believes for the first time that they can retrieve that sense of brotherhood with time and hard work.
A/N: This was a bear of a chapter that fought me pretty hard... Ugh.
Sophia was always going to explode somehow at Rick. Luckily for him, she aimed for a child's revenge instead of an adult's. Shane forgiving Rick is key to her being able to.
I'm starting to see an end for this one, too. There will be at least a couple more chapters, at least one from Sophia. But probably no more than four. Then we'll bring in Merle's story, so we'll still see all our folks growing older and wiser.