July 24, 2010
Getting back on the road is more than a little bittersweet for some of their group. When Maggie arrived the night before, she only had Beth and Jimmy with her. The blonde was shivering and miserable, but she took her bag into Quinn's tent with a quiet nod. Jimmy and Maggie joined the quietened circle around the fire, where Maggie confirmed what she predicted.
Hershel Greene remains convinced there's hope for the walkers in his barn. Otis won't leave the man behind, and Patricia won't leave her husband.
Quinn passes him a cup of coffee as they watch final checks being made on packing everything away in the morning sun. "You think Jimmy is up for driving?"
Shane looks to where the kid looks a little overwhelmed by Beth's sorrow. She's in the back seat of Maggie's car, just leaning listlessly against the window. Maggie's unable to drive due to the broken collarbone, and no one expects Beth to drive. "I think maybe he doesn't need both Greene girls to worry about."
"I suspect you might be right." She steals a drink of Shane's coffee. "Girl needs a distraction. Gonna go see if Beth feels like helping me out and keeping Harper entertained today."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Shane watches her work her magic on the forlorn teenager. Jimmy looks relieved when Beth follows Quinn to the ambulance. Harper looks excited, and it's infectious, because Beth's smiling at last.
He crushes the styrofoam cup and tosses it in the barrel they left all their trash in. Old habits of tidying up die hard, he supposes. He hears the rumble of the Triumph starting up, which signals everyone to scamper for their designated vehicles. Starting up the Humvee that's ended up his designated vehicle for the moment, he's doing the radio check when his passenger door opens.
Jesse drops a backpack into the floorboard and slides his crossbow into the back. He tugs off his denim jacket and drops it on top of his pack before plopping into the seat. "Sophia wanted to ride with Daryl today."
That doesn't explain why Jesse would need to ride elsewhere, since the other Humvee is a troop carrier that van seat eight in the back. Or why the teenager would bypass riding with his mother, Carol, or Glenn. It makes Shane aware that despite his seeming relationship with Quinn and the time he's spent with Harper, he doesn't think he's spoken more than a dozen words with either of the boys.
It's not avoiding them. Both boys tend to naturally gravitate toward what Amy jokingly calls their 'designated Dixon'. While Merle and Micah still spend about half their time together in camp, the older teen has been branching out since they've been on the road. Jesse hasn't, tending to keep to himself when he's not with Daryl, his mother, or his sister, usually reading or some isolated camp task.
Shane's noticed in the past that Jesse resembles Quinn about as heavily as possible for a male to resemble a female relative. Up close, it's even more apparent, although he realizes now that the darker bronze of the boy's complexion isn't solely due to sun exposure without the battered old denim jacket that is practically Jesse's second skin. The shock of bright blue curls obscures most of the left side of his face as he fishes a battered paperback out of his pack and opens it.
Radio checks finished, Shane pulls out behind Merle, set to lead the caravan behind the bike as usual. They've got a clear route planned to Hogansville because Maggie and Jimmy had made a run that far to try to find the boy's grown sister. Hershel Greene hadn't particularly wanted to keep Beth's teenage boyfriend under his roof permanently, but with Jimmy's sister dead or missing, he at least did right by the boy.
Since the teen seems to settle in to read, Shane's a little surprised when he speaks, keeping his eyes on the book. "So, has Merle given you an appropriate shovel talk yet?"
It makes Shane laugh, because Jesse sounds amused. He looks up from his book when he hears the laughter and grins at Shane.
"No, I can't say he has." In fact, none of the Dixons have made any mention of the supposed relationship. Shane isn't sure if that's because they know it's a sham or just don't get involved.
"Micah thought I should try it, give it the 'are you gonna be my stepdad' spin. He spends too much time with Merle."
Jesse pushes his hair back as he turns to look at Shane, which makes him notice for the first time that the kid has a double eyebrow piercing, set in a T. He also catches a flash of metal in Jesse's ear, but nothing definitive. The eyebrow barbells are accentuated when he arches the brow in question, making the cobalt blue of the barbell ends stand out.
"I think we can probably pass on that particular conversation." It's not an open admission of the relationship not being a permanent one, but close enough.
"Yeah. Figured y'all are just putting on a show because of Rick." He closes his book, turning enough in his seat to watch Shane drive. "Have you figured out why Mom's just playing around?"
Shane shakes his head. He honestly hasn't asked why Quinn was willing to provide a cover to let things blow over with Rick and Lori. He's just been grateful that's all that's between them, because he loves the affection she shares easily and his head is not in a good place for more.
"You're a little too masculine for her taste."
Jesse smirks, reminding him of Merle for the first time. It makes the penny drop faster.
"Oh." Shane can't help but smile at the kid's amusement. "This your shovel talk by letting me know you don't even need the shovel?"
"A little bit." He lets his smile fade. "Harper really likes you though. She really misses Adam. They were buddies almost from the time he partnered with Mom."
Shane remembers the conversation on the RV after the camp attack and Quinn's sorrow regarding her paramedic partner. He's well aware that EMS personnel often form bonds with partners as strong as cops, from so many shared high stress experiences. Adam was family.
"I like hanging out with her." Harper is full of questions and curiosity in a way that surpasses even Carl's propensity for chatter. Shane suspects this conversation is not about his friendship with Quinn at all now, but looking out for his sister. "As long as she wants to, I'm not going anywhere."
"Good." He watches the road, observing the deserted world around them. "We're going to practically be in Alabama, aren't we?"
"According to the map, I think we'll be able to see the shore on that side."
"Huh. I haven't been that far west since we moved to Georgia. We came in on the bus from New Orleans. Micah remembers the trip, but I was just barely three then. I always wanted to go there one day, where I was born."
"You never went back to see family?"
He shakes his head. "None there that I know of. My dad died when I was just a couple months old, and he was a foster kid like Mom was. They were both only seventeen when I was born."
Shane honestly hadn't realized Jesse and Harper weren't full siblings, so he files that away. Quinn is also younger than he guessed by about five years.
Jesse's quiet for a few miles, and Shane isn't really sure how to manage a conversation with a child who isn't a natural chatterbox. It seems wrong that he's ignored the teenager, even if Jesse hasn't sought him out like Harper.
"What grade were you finishing up?" he asks, falling back on the old standby of asking a teenager about school, even if that's a moot point in their current world. Carl's said Jesse is fourteen, but that could put him in eighth or ninth.
The irony hits the kid, because he snorts, shoulders shaking. "Eighth. And before you ask, because everyone always does, no, I didn't play sports. That was Micah's deal, football, but he graduated."
That would explain the build the older teen has, if he's spent four or more years playing football. Jesse still has that wiry, unfinished look of a boy who hasn't hit his final growth spurt.
"Rick caught a lot of crap when we were kids because he didn't want to play, not even baseball."
"Yeah, but I bet you didn't let that stand." Jesse sounds wistful, and Shane makes a mental note to ask Quinn for more background on her son.
"No, I did not. Just like he didn't let teachers give up on me because I didn't read as well as they thought I should." He thinks Rick had the harder task, because Shane could at least let his fists do half the work.
"Dyslexia?"
Shane nods. "I got it sorted out in college well enough." Prior to that, though, was years of Rick filling in the gaps the school missed. "You read all the time."
"I guess so. Some rereading right now since we don't exactly have a library." He indicates the battered paperback, where Shane can see Neil Gaiman as the author. "I've read this one a few times, you can tell."
"It does look a little careworn. What's it about?"
That question is how they end up two chapters into Anansi Boys with Jesse reading aloud by the time they cross West Point Lake to lead down into the peninsula.
Once they're all across the water, all the vehicles stop. Until they confirm the camp at the end of the peninsula is safe, the entire group isn't going.
Jesse tucks his book away. "I'm on watch duty, right?"
"Yeah. You and Dale and Lori." Jesse was deemed too young for clearing the peninsula, although Micah will be going.
"Alright. I'll go find a perch." He does shoulder the backpack as he retrieves his crossbow. Shane opens his door to get out and coordinate the teams going to check the camp, but stops when the teen sticks his head back inside the Humvee.
"Whatcha need?" he asks Jesse curiously.
"You know, it wouldn't be so bad, if you kept the act up longer with Mom. Stay around a while longer." Someone calls the boy's name, and he gives Shane a lopsided smile from under that fringe of midnight blue curls.
Shane steps out of the vehicle and watches him walk away, sorting the entire morning around in his head. If he didn't know any better, he would say the kid is lonely. It seems like an impossibility in Jesse's family, but the idea settles into his mind, and he worries.
The designated Dixon joke of Amy's may oversimplify things, but there's no missing Jesse's attachment to Daryl. Now that Daryl's developing a relationship with Carol and bringing Sophia into the family, maybe the kid's feeling a bit surplus. Shane thinks Daryl would be a bit horrified at the idea, and Carol even moreso, so he'll have to bring it up to Quinn.
"You're thinking mighty hard on something there. Anything I can help with?"
He turns to see Quinn, approaching with her sketched out map of the peninsula. Rubbing the back of his head, he figures there's no time like the present.
"I think Jesse is feeling unsettled by the Daryl amd Carol thing."
"Huh." She taps her chin with the rolled up map, looking to where Jesse is already on the top of the cab of the cargo truck by himself.
"He's always been a bit of a loner, because he didn't fit in well back home. The school was almost exclusively white kids, and what few kids weren't white, he didn't fit in with either. It's an issue, not fitting in either world by being too light skinned for one and too dark for the other. He say something riding with you?"
"Not directly. It seemed more of a quiet place to test out whether I would stick around after we stop acting like we're a couple." Shane remembers the other tidbit Jesse shared and smiles. "Since he seems to expect a future stepmother."
The sly smile he gets makes his expression widen into a grin. "There is that as a complication. What do you think about that?"
"I like the kids, Quinn. They can always use another uncle, right?" Because the Dixon brothers may officially be cousins, but they're much more like uncles to the kids. He doesn't want to rush toward anything that might end his niche in the family.
She smiles and leans in for one of her lingering hugs. "They definitely can use that."
"Knock it off, lovebirds," Andrea says from behind Shane, sounding amused. "You were only apart a few hours."
Quinn surprises him by swatting the blonde with the map, causing Andrea to make a surprised yelp. "Go round up the others then. We have a potential home to find."
Andrea walks away backwards, as if she's keeping a close eye on Quinn and her improvised weapon.
"If this place works out, want to play camp counselor with me and corral all the loose kids into a bunkhouse? Don't think Beth or Jimmy should be Maggie's sole responsibility, should Dr. Greene fail to grow a brain and follow us here."
Shane remembers the bunkhouses and their tidy little counselor room she described to him. He agrees that someone has to look after their two newest teenagers, and it really isn't fair to expect it to all fall on Maggie while she's recovering. "Yeah, I would like that a lot."
He's in no hurry to be a single man again.