Better Days

Chapter 280

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait on this one, the time change messed me up. Plus my people were being awful quiet. No one told me anything until I was driving down the road this morning, on my way to work, it was foggy and dark and Ronnie decided to speak. Of course so did everyone else. Please review.

Ronnie's POV:

Ronnie heard the door open and turned around and nodded at Deanna as she came in. She wasn't surprised by her visit, especially after Pete had stormed out earlier. "Ma'am, how can I help you?" she asked.

Deanna smiled up at the other woman. "Please, Ronnie, it's Deanna. Pete came to me about a problem between the two of you."

"I'm surprised he waited this long. I was in the Air Force to long not to be polite, ma'am," Ronnie answered her.

"So you admit there being a problem? That you've taken over?" Deanna asked her.

Ronnie leaned against the desk. "There is a problem, and his name is Pete Anderson. I'm not trying to take over, far from it. I took an oath when I became a doctor, the same as Dr. Anderson, to do no harm."

"Pete's a good surgeon, he'd never hurt anyone," Deanna told her.

Ronnie looked at her. "That's not what I heard, ma'am," she said as she put up her hand. "I can't, in good conscious, over look the fact that in about a 24 hour period, I have never seen the man sober. I did tell him to go home after I checked Eric, because the man could barley stand. When Jewel came in today, I took charge, for Pete's safety. I could smell the booze on him and Jewel wouldn't have let him touch her with a ten foot pole, and she needed immediate attention. Not to mention when he first saw me, his reaction was far from professional and he said that 'he'd fetch me if he needed me," she told the older woman. "I take my oath seriously, and if that means that I bruise his sensitive ego, then be it. Now, if you want to remove me from this position, that's your call, but I can tell you that Jewel and Rick will never let that man touch there children, and everyone that walked in that gate with me, will follow there lead."

"So what do you suggest?" Deanna asked.

"Make the man stop drinking? Remove me from the position? Let me open another clinic in one of our garages?" Ronnie told her. "You were between a rock and a hard place before, ma'am. He was the only doctor, you needed him. You overlooked some things that maybe you shouldn't have. I'm not judging you, you did what you had to do. But, now you have a choice, now you don't need to overlook that he's a danger to patients, as well as other things," she informed the other woman.

"I need you to figure out a way to work with him. He's a surgeon, a good one. I need both of you here," Deanna told her. "I know you'll be a good influence on him."

"I'm not his keeper, Deanna," Ronnie told her.

"I know you aren't, but if I take this away from Pete, well it's better for him to be here then at home," Deanna admitted. "I'll talk to him about his drinking. I really would be grateful if you tried to make this work, for everyone's sake."

"I'll do this for his wife and kids. But, I'm telling you this, if he can't stay sober and we have an emergency, I'll knock him out and tie him up and put him in a closet. If he tries to touch one of my people when he's drunk, the same idea applies," Ronnie informed her seriously.

Deanna gave a small smile. "It isn't your people or my people anymore Ronnie, it's our people."

"We're not there yet," Ronnie told her. "I'm not talking just about our group either," she told her as Deanna nodded.

Carl and Lexi's POV:

Lexi looked up from her book as Carl noticed something out of the window. "What's up?" she asked as she got up.

"Enid's going over the wall," Carl told her.

Lexi rolled her eyes. "Yeah, so? If she goes over the wall, that's her choice. We're not her sitters," she told him.

"I'm going to go after her," Carl answered.

Lexi looked at him. "Seriously? Didn't you hear about the part that we aren't her sitters?" she asked him.

"She shouldn't be out there alone. We don't do things alone anymore remember?" Carl told her.

"When did Enid become an us?" Lexi asked.

"She lost her parents out there, she was alone. If we didn't have the group, we could have been her. We understand her, the people here don't," Carl told her as he went to go out the door.

Lexi sighed. "I'm going with you."

"You don't have to," Carl told her.

"We don't do things alone, remember? You just said that, not like three seconds ago. If you are insistent that Enid is like us, then I'm going with you. Unless there's some reason you want to be out there alone with her?" Lexi challenged as she went up and over the wall.

"What? No. I just want to make sure she knows that she isn't alone anymore, you know? That she can talk to me, us, I mean us, and that we won't judge her," Carl said as he joined her.

"Or force her to play video games?" Lexi asked. "She went that away," she said as she nodded in the direction that Enid went. "What? I was paying attention on how to track," Lexi said with a shrug of her shoulder. "We don't want her to see us, it'll spook her. I don't think she'll take kindly to anyone following her, she obviously didn't want anyone to be with her, otherwise she would have asked."

"Maybe she doesn't know how to ask?" Carl told her. "Maybe she was alone so long, that she didn't know how to ask people for help?"

"So, you want to teach her she doesn't need to be alone?" Lexi questioned. "I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it's not. It's actually very sweet, but you can't make a person accept your help."

"I want us to teach her she's not alone," Carl told her.

Lexi held up her hand and pushed him against a tree. She peeked her head out as Enid hesitated then started running. She motioned for Carl to follow her.

Rick and Jewel's POV:

Rick put the gun he checked out in his gun belt. "You sure you should be going out there?" he asked as he kissed her.

"If I stay here right now, I may lose more of my mind then I already have," Jewel admitted as they walked out of the gate. "When you and Jes walked away before we got here, you hid a gun, didn't you?"

Rick looked at her. "You've known this whole entire time? You didn't say anything?"

"If that's the worst secret that you'll ever keep from me, I can live with it. I figured you did it for the same reason I gave you the other gun. To keep us safe," Jewel told him.

"I did," Rick assured her as he kissed the top of her head. "What happened back there?"

"I was back at Terminus…..it was like a light switch turned on and I couldn't get it turned off. I felt so damn helpless, and there was nothing I could do," Jewel admitted as she shook her head.

"You are anything but weak and helpless, Mrs. Grimes. You've been strong the whole time I've known you, you're allowed a mental break now and then. Trust me, I'm feeling the pressure of trying to be 'normal' and just telling Deanna she's full of crap," Rick informed her as he kissed the top of her head as they walked. "What do you think of her daughter? Quinn?"

"She seems to be strong. She definitely has vastly different ideas then her mother," Jewel told him.

"Do you think she could be an ally?" Rick asked.

"I don't know. I know that she hates one of her brothers, thinks he's the reason that people didn't come back from a supply run. She did warn me about letting Summer go out with him. I know she feels like everyone inside the gates need to be armed, learn how to use them, but if she was asked to chose between us and her family, I don't know. I haven't been able to get a well enough read on her to be able to tell. Do you think it'll come to something' like that?" Jewel asked.

Rick looked at her and stopped and stood in front of her. "If it does come to something like that, are you going to be standing by me?"

Jewel looked at him. "Where else would I be Rick? But I'd seriously like for us to give some hard thought about something like that, before we decide to go pull a Governor on them."

"We're not him, we aren't," Rick told her. "If something like that happens, we aren't going to go shooting up the place, we aren't going to make them leave. We'll be doing it because they need to know how to change, to live in this world, if they are going to survive, if we are going to survive. We are being asked to change, being asked to make all the sacrifices' so that we can live there, and they need to make sacrifices too. I'm not saying that we are going to have to do it, it's to early," he said as he heard the moaning of a walker. He took out his gun and pointed at it.

"Rick, you don't have to kill it, it's only one," Jewel told him as she lightly placed her bandaged hand on his arm. "It's only one."

Rick looked at the walker then at her and nodded as he put the gun back in his belt as he walked over to the blender where he put the gun in the blender and looked down then looked up. "Someone took it."

Jewel looked at him. "One of the Alexandrians?" she questioned.

"Most likely," he answered as he stood up and saw more walkers. "Don't use your bad hand unless you have too," he said as they both turned to see Lexi and Carl come around the corner. They both looked at them as they went to take position. "Get ready," he told them. "Lexi, protect Jewel's left side."

"On it," Lexi responded as they started to fight walkers', one grabbing Rick's leg as he pulled away. She watched as Rick got a pole to get the walker on the ground.

"Dad," Carl said as he reached for it.

Rick handed it to him as he pushed the pole in the walkers' head and nodded at Rick. "Mom what happened?"

Jewel looked at Lexi and Carl. "I'm much more interested in why the two of you are out here. Did you tell anyone? Why are you out here? How long have you been out here?"

"We didn't tell anyone, it happened to quick," Lexi answered.

"What happened to quick?" Rick asked.

"Enid slipped out of the gate, we followed her. We wanted her to know that she isn't alone, not anymore," Carl answered.

"She gave us the slip," Lexi answered.

"So, you two left without telling anyone? Is that what you're telling us?" Rick asked.

"I don't have to tell you how incredibly stupid that is, do I? What if something happened to you? How would we ever know? Both of you are grounded. No playing video games for a week," Jewel told them. She knew that it was probably Carl that went after Enid and Lexi just followed him to make sure he didn't get into trouble.

"Dad?" Carl whined.

"Don't dad me, you heard her," Rick answered as he kissed the top of Jewel's hand. "You're looking pale, we need to get back. I saw you flinch, are you in pain?"

"A little, but I'm fine," Jewel answered as she saw Carl and Lexi's concerned looks. "We'll talk it over tonight," she told both of them.