July 31, 2010
The trip to Columbus reveals exactly what Shane suspected. The city is close enough to rubble that scavenging from it probably won't yield as much as Atlanta. It does explain the lack of larger numbers of walkers on this side of the state.
Bombing Atlanta was a desperate afterthought with not enough planning or supplies, using the wrong ammunition even. Columbus? It went down with all the expertise that one of the biggest military bases in the country could manage.
Shane wonders how many sacrificed themselves to pull it off.
It gives him the afternoon free, although the team that went to Columbus did scavenge on the way there and back. Jacqui took over those supplies and shooed the team away to be useful elsewhere. So Shane wonders down to the water's edge where he can hear the younger contingent playing.
The children have been cautioned to careful silence for so long that he enjoys hearing them make a racket. They probably aren't swimming, probably because there's only Miranda and Maggie down here as general supervision. When he reaches the sandy beach behind the bunkhouses, he sees all the kids younger than Micah are splashing in the water's edge. None are in swimwear, something they should probably collect to save on laundry, especially for the girls.
Shane halts at the divide between the grass and the sand. His boots aren't really made for the shoreline, so he drops to the grass and unlaces them. He tucks his socks inside the boots, before rolling his pants legs up as much as they allow. Keeping them dry is probably a futile effort because Harper and Sophia are already grinning and calling his name.
His prediction to himself proves accurate, but instead of two small acrobats, he has three this time. Carl hovers just out of range, and Shane tries to remind himself that the boy needs lessons. Probably Luis Morales, based on the small boy staying close to shore. Jesse and Jimmy seem to be making friends, swimming out into the lake once Shane gives permission.
Beth looks torn between joining the three girls and their launched diving and looking put out that her boyfriend has abandoned her to hang out with another boy. It makes Shane wonder how often she's had to share the teen's attention in the past. She's sunning herself on a towel next to her sister.
That's someone who looks openly envious of the swimmers, but Maggie's still got the special figure eight splint that Quinn insists on to hold the broken collarbone in place. After over a week, her face is clearing up, the bruises fading to less lurid shades now. He knows the unseen effects will last far, far longer.
When his shoulders tire, he calls the boys to swim back closer to shore and wades up to where the two Greenes are settled. While Beth is sunning herself, Maggie's got one of the cedar chaise lounges with an umbrella for shade. He imagines slathering herself in sunscreen isn't her cup of tea with the splint brace. Miranda has the same idea of shade on the beach, but he suspects she may be sneaking in a nap with an additional adult on the beach.
"How are your shoulders not aching? My arms would fall right off if I tossed kids like that." Maggie flutters a hand at herself. "Even without Quinn's contraption."
"The trick is using the water to do as much of the work as you can. They aren't actually heavy until the final bit." Truly, all three girls are fairly light, none yet hitting that growth spurt that signals teen years ahead.
"Better you than me."
"Pretty sure I'm their favorite human diving board."
"You spend a lot of time with kids before?"
Shane shrugs and plops down next to Maggie's chaise lounge. "Just Carl, really. Dated a lady or two with a kid, but not serious enough that I spent time with the kid like here."
"Huh. I would have at least pegged you as some sort of youth coach from the way you are with Quinn's kids, Sophia, and Carl."
"Hard to coach little league or soccer on a county deputy schedule." It was something he turned down regularly, just like Rick, preferring the rare occasion they could dedicate time on the youth fields to actually watching Carl play. As it was, they missed more than they attended.
"Guess you're making up for lost time. Even Jimmy listens to you, and it was hit or miss whether Daddy could get through to him some days."
"It's nice that he does. Kids aren't as demanding as adults, even ones who figure themselves grown. And Jimmy? He's just got to feel someone can relate, and it's hard for him to see your father that way."
"How do you do that?"
"I might be older, but I know what it's like to grow up that poor and with few stable role models. I'm guessing he looks to your daddy a bit like I did Rick's. The respect is there, but the sort of absolute trust you place in a father? That takes longer."
Maggie's quiet for a few minutes, long enough for Shane to start feeling the heat again after his dunk in the lake. He should probably consider sunscreen himself if he lingers. "Would you be willing to check in on the farm on a run? It's a lot to ask, but I worry."
"I've got no objections. I'll run it by Quinn and see what she says." It's in their best interest, really, if they can get the old man to budge. He may be a veterinarian, but that's still valuable medical knowledge they lack.
The hand that squeezes his shoulder is a bit of a surprise, but less so than Beth's sudden hug. Shane blinks up at Maggie as he pats the teenager's back. "If you girls were this worried, you could have asked at any time."
"He needed time to stew on what he's doing wrong," Maggie says, her hand moving to pet Beth's hair. "And I needed time not to be so pissed off at him."
Beth makes a funny noise that makes him realize she's scoffing once she moves away and looks at her sister. "You spend half of each week pissed at Daddy about something, even before."
That makes Maggie laugh. "True. Should've took my degree and gone off to work for a zoo. Let you end up working with him eventually instead."
Beth makes a face, but she is interrupted in her reply by Jimmy and Jesse calling out to her. The blonde trots off, and Shane arches a brow at Maggie.
"Beth has been the pampered baby for a long time. She was looking forward to college like every overprotected kid does and has been working hard for a scholarship. Now, she's still stuck in that in between. Not a kid, not an adult."
Shane watches the girl interact with the two boys, and thinks regardless of their relationship before the world ended and his earlier thoughts, Jimmy and Beth show little sign of being a couple. She's barely attentive, and he doesn't seem upset when she focuses on Jesse. Even that interaction seems closer to how Harper and Jesse horse around, so at least he doesn't have to be concerned over the age difference.
Speaking of Harper, she and Sophia are venturing a little further out than he's comfortable with, so he calls them back closer. The girls wave cheerfully and start toward shore.
"You said only Carl before. So you and Quinn, that's a new thing?"
Shane looks up at the young brunette, realizing her eyes are green, but unlike Quinn's, they're darker, more leaf green. "Yeah. Fairly recent. Why?"
"Well, you know her past, right? That she's been counseling me because of her own experiences?"
"I am aware." Quinn's history is the sort that would break many people. It just seems to make Quinn more determined to take on the world. She lives by that thrive not survive tattoo.
"I asked her, how she ever trusted herself to be intimate again. That it wouldn't feel like being trapped and powerless."
Shane's not sure why Maggie's talking to him about it, but he thinks they're about to get into unknown territory considering the true nature of his relationship with Quinn. He does have some training, but it's law enforcement oriented, not dealing with the longer term effects of sexual assault. "What did she say?"
"That she didn't think her way of dealing with intimacy and sex would work for me, and I had to find my own comfort zone of who I trusted like that." Maggie gives him a sly smile. "At first, I thought she was just teasing you were unavailable. But then I got to watching how you two interact. Unless she's also sleeping with both her cousins, you two aren't a couple, not in that sense."
He really hopes the heat he feels on his face isn't a visible blush. "You're the first one outside her family to clue in, and they had extra information for eliminating the guesswork."
"What would that be?"
Knowing Quinn's philosophy on being outed is that she would probably already be open if not for their little whatever you call them, Shane sighs. "Quinn's into the ladies. Me and her, it is something that keeps another problem at bay."
"Oh? Which of the ladies has the hots for you and didn't take no for an answer?" Maggie's expression goes from pensive to impish. "Or men?"
Shane laughs, shaking his head. "That is a complicated question best offered over beer and far from innocent ears."
She doesn't object, just keeps smiling. "You'll owe me that beer and explanation sometime soon, then. Someone else's complicated sounds nice for once."
"Alright." He thinks it over for a minute. "Part of why we keep doing it, I'll share now. It's nice, having a family at my back. Knowing someone is there in the night, even when things are really bad."
His mind goes back to the first night Quinn climbed into bed with him, replacing the remembered scents and sounds of the burning building by saturating his senses with her perfume, her soft voice, and that hand cupped against his skin.
"It isn't the same as what you're looking for, Maggie, but maybe it's what she meant. Your safe place with someone else? Perhaps you find it in that kind of moment. The one where it isn't about sex, but about the absolute knowledge someone cares enough to be there even on the bad nights."
Shane only hopes he provides the same level of comfort for Quinn. Even all these years later, over a decade of safety, she still had a nightmare a few nights ago he liked to never get her calmed down from. It isn't just his sake or even the kids that makes him reluctant to end their charade.
"And if I decide I never trust someone as far as sex?"
"Then I guess you find someone who understands you can be intimate without having sex." It isn't a distinction he could have made before Lori, and now Quinn's just ground that lesson into his soul.
"Harder to find that these days."
"Maybe. But one way or another, they gotta understand some issues aren't negotiable."
Harper comes running with a turtle she, Sophia, and Eliza have managed to catch, and he gives Maggie an apologetic look as he's led away to see there's other turtles out there. When he glances back over his shoulder, she just waves, and he hopes somehow what he said makes some sort of sense. The girl deserves some peace.
A/N: Going to age Beth up a bit in this, placing her at turning 18 in October, so just done with her junior year of high school.