July 18, 2010
Shane's dozing in his stall, belly full of venison and mind worn down by the emotional day, when the stall door opens. He tenses, wary until a whiff of jasmine perfume hits his senses.
Quinn, not Lori.
He opens his eyes to see Quinn looking apologetic.
"Light was on, so I assumed you were awake. I'll let you get some sleep."
"Nah. It's fine. You need something?"
She gives him a sheepish grin. "Was trying to put a little distance between mine and Carol's stall for a little bit. Give her some privacy so she'll give in and sneak next door to Daryl's like I know she wants to."
"You matchmaking Daryl and Carol?" There's a bit of gossip that's got his attention. Better than thinking of the mess he's made of his own life.
"More like they're matchmaking themselves, with me being smart enough not to embarrass them. They've been dancing around it a while, but Carol still had being married stuck in her head."
"And now Ed's dead and gone."
"Yep." Quinn reaches in a pocket and pulls out one of the convenience store sized packages of Nutter Butters. "Share these if you let me hide out for an hour or so."
He can't help laughing at the bribe and motions for her to stay. She drops down to sit on the end of the sleeping bag as soon as he sits up. She's obviously ready for bed, with her hair covered with a silky looking scarf of some sort and lighter clothing than her daytime wear.
"If Carol is slipping off to Daryl's stall, why do you need to hide out?"
Quinn passes him a cookie and shrugs. "If I can hear him fart in his sleep next stall over last night, I sure don't want to eavesdrop on him tonight."
He nearly chokes on his bite of Nutter Butter laughing at that.
She doesn't speak again right away, handling him another cookie before crumpling the package after taking the last one.
"Why me?" Shane's reasonably certain Merle's still up. He saw the man reading when he walked by earlier.
He and Quinn have always been friendly, needing to work in tandem to keep the camp functional. She's been a welcome buffer between himself and Merle, in particular. But she's never sought out his company outside of camp business.
"Figured you had a shitty day and might like the company. Easy to get stuck in your own head late at night."
"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."
"Figured as much when I didn't have to patch anyone up when we got back."
She digs a deck of cards out of a pocket. "Distraction?"
"What're we playing?"
"Crazy Eights."
He figures what the hell, especially in light of his recently discovered envy of the casual family time he's seen among the Dixons.
"Y'all play cards a lot," he says as she deals.
"Habit I picked up in foster care, especially the group home I spent several years in. If you stay engaged in a game, even just solitaire, you're less likely to be labeled a troublemaker by staff. Decks of cards are cheap and easy to keep up with. Less likely to be stolen, too."
"Why not read?" He knows he's seen her read plenty when she had downtime in the quarry camp.
"Being labeled bookish or uppity is its own special hell with the other kids." She shrugs. "Worst thing I ever did was fall prey to that line of thinking. Didn't graduate high school."
Shane's own homelife wasn't the best, but he always had a home. "What happened to your parents?"
Obviously, she had some contact with her father, to be raising Micah, but he knows that doesn't mean the man was involved with her growing up.
"They never married, understandable after I saw where my daddy came from. Bad enough to have a kid that's not white, but do the right thing and marry her mama too? Wasn't happening."
Quinn being biracial has definitely been the subject of gossip, especially since she rarely seems to intercede with Merle and his mouthy, asshole exchanges with anyone except Glenn. The young Korean is off limits, but she leaves the adults to fend for themselves.
"Her family didn't approve of me either, but she did her best as a single mother. Got by with the child support he sent her and worked as a CNA at the local nursing home. She got hit by a drunk driver when I was eight, coming home from work."
Damn. "And they sent you to foster care?"
"Yep. Her sister didn't feel up to raising another kid with four of her own and recently divorced, so she told them to track my daddy down. They couldn't find him, since he was pretty transitory working the offshore oil rigs. Took him about three months to come see why the checks weren't being cashed."
"And no social worker was going to hand over a girl to a single man with no permanent home and working the rigs," he guesses.
"Bingo. Now the idea of fully abandoning his blood didn't set too well with him. He talked my auntie into taking me in. Paid her what he paid Mama. Worked out fine for a few years til she remarried.
"I was old enough then to be keeping in contact with him. Snagged money out of my aunt's purse and took a bus down to Abbeville. Got lucky on him being home at the time."
"Please tell me you were at least a teenager." He has a feeling the answer is no.
"Eleven." She plays a card. "Spent the next three years in a group home. When he married Micah's mama, she decided a live-in babysitter was awesome."
"What happened to her?"
"She overdosed when Micah was two. Since I was already dropped out of school for my GED, I just kept looking after him. Didn't want to go back to care and definitely didn't want him in it."
"So he's essentially always been yours."
"In a nutshell, yep." Quinn lays her cards down, tilting her head at an odd whistle. "Your visitor from last night is returning."
"Shit." Rick's never going to believe he's trying to stay away from Lori if she keeps coming to see him. It's probably to yell at him again, but it looks godawful.
"Play along." Instead of sitting primly across from him, Quinn's suddenly in his lap just as the stall door creeps open. He doesn't get a good look to confirm it's Lori before he's being kissed pretty thoroughly.
She tastes like peanut butter, he thinks distractedly. He probably does too.
There's a disgruntled sound from Lori that reminds him of the time he stepped on a half-chewed dog toy in someone's yard. He doesn't try to look, because Quinn murmurs against his lips, "Ignore her."
Unsure exactly where to go with what's obviously a show for Lori, he slides his hands onto Quinn's hips.
It earns him a "good boy" and another kiss before Quinn grips the hem of her T-shirt and tugs it off with a toss behind her.
Before he can begin to question that maneuver or try to ignore the very pretty bra now on display, the stall door clacks shut with more force than necessary.
"Maybe that will send her scurrying back where she belongs. If it wouldn't drag all the kids into it, I would go play offended about her 'barging in'."
"Were you planning this?"
"Honestly, no. I would have given you a warning if I thought she would show back up. Now that there's the possibility you might not be alone, I doubt she'll risk it again."
Quinn moves away finally, settling back at the end of his sleeping bag after snagging one of Shane's own shirts and pulling it on. He finds he doesn't mind her wearing his King County shirt at all.
"You keeping that?" he asked, still more puzzled than anything else. He knows they're friends, or at least that's what he thinks her openness tonight is about. But just friends.
"Just til breakfast or so. That good?"
Huh. She isn't going to make a loud fuss that might alert the kids, but a more subtle approach. "Won't the kids notice that?"
Hell, if it weren't for Carl overhearing, he might be willing to have a shouting match with Lori himself if it would clear the air.
"Maybe, but not likely, and we did your laundry today. Mixups happen. Alibis are important, deputy, even if you're planning on the fly."
Shane laughs. "Christ, woman, you sure your record is clean?"
"Probably no worse than yours. I get the feeling you toed a fine line back in the day."
He gathers the scattered cards and deals a new game. "There was the time someone stole the principal's car for a prank, but I don't believe it was ever proven who did it."
"My, my, grand theft auto. I never aspired that high. There may have been some interesting limericks spray painted in the gym about a spectacular bitch of a gym teacher though."
"That why you dropped out?"
"One of the reasons, yeah. Couldn't graduate without a PE credit and I wasn't about to voluntarily take her class a second time."
"What did your dad think about that?"
"Told me to get a job and went back out on his next tour on the rig." She shrugs. "He was often rather proud that I raised myself up nicely."
Shane's incredulous look makes her giggle. He wonders if that explains the tattoo he saw below her collarbones: Don't just survive, thrive.
"Logic is not always a common Dixon trait, but the lack of adult supervision thing? It's a miracle we didn't all go feral."
"I am gonna plead the fifth on that one."
"Smart move."
They're quiet through several plays before Quinn speaks again. "You said once that Rick's family was all you had left."
It's a question without being a question, and since he's been nosy enough about her life, he answers.
"Mama died of cancer when I was thirteen. She worked at the grocery store back home her whole adult life. Daddy was a prison guard. Kept applying for deputy and getting turned down. Died when I was in college of a heart attack on the job."
"You become a deputy to spite him or make him proud?"
"Does it really matter?"
"Truthfully? No. But past motivations often predict future actions, don't you think?"
"It was not to make him proud. What does that tell you?"
"That you're willing to work hard even if the odds are against you."
"I suppose that's true." His grandmother and Rick were the ones who saw something more than just another jock in him.
She flicks a card at him and he catches the eight of spades. "Yeah, it is. Now that you aren't so stuck in your cycle of grief and guilt and can start healing, it'll be interesting to see what kind of leader you become."
"Rick…"
She interrupts him. "I'm sure Rick is a good man, but he's got PTSD that makes Merle look stable right now. In time, once he's adjusted and finished recovering physically, maybe. But right now? No."
"That's not negotiable, is it?" Guilt arcs through him. He and Rick have always been partners.
Quinn shakes her head. "I don't want to rock the boat when people need stability, but that's also why I would have to. We've kept these people safe for a while now, Shane."
Damn, those pale green eyes are intense as she continues. "This isn't a dictatorship by any means, but the wrong decisions get made, these people die. I like them too much to see that happen."
Shane realizes for the first time that she might have been perfectly willing to work alongside him for weeks, but she will only continue to do that as long as she trusts him to make the right decisions.
"I can work with that."
Rick will understand, he thinks, and it's not like they've disregarded anyone's input. Rick, Daryl, and Glenn all helped plan their exodus. Merle's a knife edge of stability on his best days, much like she implies Rick is. He's not sure any of the others will ever step forward enough to even consider leading.
"Good."
She checks her watch and gathers the cards. "Almost time for your watch shift. Walk me back to mine?"
"Sure." He tugs his boots back on and laces them up.
Quinn's waiting for him at the stall door. He arches a brow when she links their hands.
"Trust me."
Her stall is three down, the one closest to the big main doors, just like his is near the exit on the other end. He's pulled half into the unoccupied stall, where shadows would hide most interaction. From outside, they'll be mistaken for kissing again.
"Quinn?" He's not sure of the audience yet. He didn't see anyone in the open areas, just a few half shut doors.
"We are being watched." Quinn's hand cups the nape of his neck, playing with the shorter hair there. He snags her belt loops, keeping his hands hidden from anyone behind him.
"Who are we playacting for now?"
"Rick for sure, probably Lori."
"Not sure it'll help."
"In the past, how did you get over a breakup?"
Light dawns and he laughs softly. "You already got me figured out?"
It's a good plan, because she's right. The few times a woman stuck around long enough to make it uncomfortable when it ended, he rebounded and fast.
"Not everything, but the basics, you aren't that different than Merle." She smiles at his surprise. Once he would argue the comparison. Now? He'll wait and see. "Best go relieve Glenn before the poor boy thinks he's up there all night."
"Yes, ma'am."
He very carefully doesn't look toward Rick's stall as he goes to relieve Glenn on watch. Morales is returning already, so he assumes T-Dog's already taken up the second post.
Behind him, he hears Quinn tell Rick morning comes awful early, even for peeping toms.
He smiles, because Rick laughs, and it's not the weaker, almost forced reaction from earlier today, after the anguished confessions.
Rick laughs like all just might be right in his world finally.