A/N: I actually wasn't going to elaborate on Maggie further, but someone asked about her, so I decided to do an extension on her. As always, thanks for reading.

Chapter 5: Sun

Maggie's POV

I wake up with the sun in my eyes and a cool breeze blowing from an open window. My first thought is that I hope to god that everything that happened yesterday was just a horrible nightmare. But seeing my bloody boots on the floor proved otherwise. I really had lost my father and sister. There's a knock on the door.

"Maggie?" Glenn says. "Are you up?" I don't answer and leave my back to him. I can hear him make his way to my side of the bed. I close my eyes to make him think I'm asleep. I hear him kneel down in front of me. He puts his hand over mine. "I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. I loved them, too." It's almost like he knew I was thinking about them. He kisses my hand. "Well, the girls wanna go out. So, I was, uh, gonna take them for a out for a drive or something." He puts a piece of hair that fell on my face back in place. "But, I know you can't actually hear me, so I'll write you a note, too." He picks up the pad of paper and the pen from the side table and slowly writes a note in his big, but neat, handwriting. He stands up and places a delicate kiss on my forehead. "We'll see you later." He says and walks out the door.

Only after he spoke, did I actually feel a wave of serenity rush over me. Regardless of losing Beth and my dad, I still have my family. I have my husband, who loves me and cares for me, no matter what happens to either of us, that I love back just as much. And I have two girls that I love just as I would my own daughters. I thought I had lost everything. I lost a large portion of what I have to live for, but I still have so much more. And only when he uttered those few simple words, could I actually see that.

With the sun still in my eyes, the memory that I did not have decent night's rest comes back to me. I was tortured by the night terrors that were coaxed by the trauma going back to that dreaded prison caused. The exhaustion reenters my body, but I can't sleep. So I do the one of the only things that will pull me in to unconsciousness. "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree." I whisper-sing to myself, even though it's only late August or early September, nowhere close to Christmas. But the repetitive lyrics and soothing tune do the trick as just as well as an Ambien would. With every verse, I feel my surroundings turning into a fog. I only make it to the 7th day of Christmas.

I have a dream. A really good dream. My mom, my dad, and Beth, even though she never knew my mom, and I are all sitting around the TV in the living room. I'm about 12 in the dream, and Beth is about 6. We didn't watch TV much growing up because there was a lot of work to be done on the farm, but we loved every moment of television. I have my head resting on my mom's shoulder and I can smell her lilac perfume that she always used to wear. And Beth is sitting on my dad's lap and he is running his fingers through her long, blond, almost white, hair. No one says anything; there's no need to. This intimate moment of peace and togetherness would be ruined by mere words. My mother looks down at me, and I look up at her. She kisses my forehead. I'm awoken by something touching my face.

I open my eyes and push myself up with my hands. Glenn is sitting next to me. "What?" I ask.

"You're crying." He says, wiping tears from my cheeks. I lift my hand up and touch my eyes, feeling the wetness under my eyes. I wipe away the rest of the tears. "What's wrong?" He asks. I smile and nod my head.

"Nothing. I'm okay."

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"No, no." I say.

"Then what is it?" He asks. I slowly lean forward into him and he wraps his warms around me and holds me.

"It's nothing. Really." I say, the words half muffled by his chest.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Not at first."

"Are you too tired to hang out with us?"

"Of course not." I pull away and look up at him. "Where are the girls?"

"They're in their room. I told them to close the door so they wouldn't bother you." He says, stroking my hair. I lean back into him.

"Do you love them?" I ask.

"What?" He pulls back and I turn to face him.

"Lizzie and Mika. Do you love them?" I repeat, looking him in the eye.

"Of course I do." He answers. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Just wonderin', I guess." I answer absentmindedly. "I'm gonna go say hi to them." I slither from his arms and open the door to the girls' room.

"Mommy, look what I got!" Mika rushes over to me.

"Let's see it."

"Daddy says it's called a GameBoy Color. You can play video games on it." She explains, although I know very well already.

"That's cool. Where did you find it?"

"Ehh, in a house." She says hesitantly. I've told Glenn before not to take them on house searches. It's too dangerous.

"Oh yeah?" I turn and eye Glenn and he smiles nervously. I turn back to Mika. "What game are you playing?"

"Umm, what's it's called again?" She asks Glenn.

"Pokemon Crystal." He says.

"You know, I had this game when I was a kid." I tell her.

"Really?" She asks, surprised.

"Well, it was my sister's. But I played it from time to time."

"Wow."

"Lizzie, did you get anything new?" I say to her. She hasn't said anything since I came in.

"Yeah. I found some Legos and a CD player, and some decent CDs to go with it."

"That's a good find."

"Yeah. Not bad." She says. There's a bit of an awkward pause. "So, are we just not gonna talk about it?"

"You mean about what happened yesterday?"

"Yeah." She says with an attitude.

"Would you like to talk about it?" I answer calmly. I'm not ready to handle teenager sass.

"Well, no." She says quietly. "I just thought you might want to."

"No. I mean, I'll always love them. And I'll miss them like hell, but I want to move on." I explain, and she nods. There's another awkward silence that I don't know how to break.

"Is any one hungry?" Glenn says cheerfully. Oh, Glenn, how I love you.

"No." Lizzie says dryly.

"Nope." Mika says blankly.

"Yeah." I say.

"Will you guys be okay up here?" He asks the girls. They both nod. "Okay. We'll be downstairs." Glenn leads us downstairs into the kitchen. "Oh!" He exclaims. "I got somethin' to show you." He takes my hand and takes me out back, behind the hotel. In a medium sized cage is a white chicken, a hen.

"Oh my god." I say, habitually covering my mouth with my hands in surprise, and a little disbelief. "Where did you find it?"

"It wondering around uptown."

"Were there any others?"

"No." He says shaking his head. "We looked everywhere near where we found it. Nothing."

"Now all we gotta do is find a rooster." I say, elbowing him playfully. He laughs and rolls his eyes.

"Heh, then we'd have a whole mess of chickens. And a lot of eggs." He sighs.

"Man, do I miss eggs." When we were on the farm, all we ate was eggs. I was sick to death of them. And now I would do anything for one. And then, as if on command, with a squawk, the hen pops out a big, white egg. We look at each other to see the others' reaction. He opens the cage and reaches his hand in to take the egg. He inspects it. "Let me see it." He hands it to me and I hold it like it's my greatest treasure.

"You think it's okay to eat?" He asks eagerly.

"I don't see why not. But what if it's fertilized?"

"But there were no other chickens."

"You mean you didn't see any other chickens." I say. "I think we should wait."

"Won't it be bad by the time we know?" I laugh. I forgot he doesn't know anything about farming.

"No. Eggs last for several months. We'll know in two weeks or so. But, for we should definitely wait and see." I take a small bundle of towels and make nest inside the cage. I place the egg inside it and put the chicken on top of it. Then I move then entire thing inside and put it in the corner of the room. "Did you pick up anything for it to eat?"

"Yeah, it's in the car." He says and rushes outside. He returns quickly with a large bag of chicken feed. I tear the bag open and put a small bowl of feed in the cage along with a separate bowl of water.

"You didn't need me to do this." I say.

"But, you know, uh, farm things." He stutters. "I'd probably do it wrong." I get up and give him a light, closed mouth kiss.

"You're funny. I like you." He laughs. And then my stomach growls.

"Right! We came down to get you food." He digs through a reusable shopping bag, listing off what there is. "Uhh, there's peanut butter, tuna fish, Spam..."

"I love Spam!" I exclaim like a small child.

"What? Really?" He says, popping the top on the can.

"Yeah. I used to eat it all the time in college."

"Huh. I learn more about you everyday. How are you supposed to eat it?" He asks, looking at the open can before handing it to me.

"Just out of the can with a fork." I say, pulling a fork from the utensil divider beside me. I impale the strangely appetizing block of meat and bring a small piece to my mouth. Enjoying the savory saltiness of the canned ham. He sits next to me and stares at it like it's an alien. I put more on the fork and offer it to him. "Try some." He shakes his head like a stubborn child. "Down the hatch."

"No." He says playfully.

"You know you want to."

"No."

"Doooo iiiitt." I say and he accepts the bite and chews it slowly and swallows.

"It's actually not bad." He admits.

"Did I tell you or did I tell you?"

"You told me." He says, smiling.

"Glenn, did you go to college?" I ask out of the blue. We've been together for over a year and I've never asked.

"Um, sort of. I went to community college, but I had to drop out."

"Why?"

"I couldn't afford it." He says casually. He doesn't seem ashamed.

"Same here. But I didn't really want to go in the first place." I say.

"Why not?" He asks. "I always dreamed about going to college when I was a kid."

"I knew I would never get a decent career, so I figured, you know, just screw it. I'll just live on the farm." I say. "But my dad insisted that I go. So I went." I finish my Spam. "Let's get back upstairs." He nods his head and we walk up the stairs in silence.

When we get back to our room, Mika asks me about the chicken. "Mommy, did you meet Chapstick?" She asks me excitedly.

"Chapstick?"

"That's what I named the chicken." She says.

"Ohh. Yes, I did. It was a nice surprise." I say.

"I hope it lays a lot of eggs." She says.

"Me, too, honey." I say. "I'm just gonna change real quick." I close the door. I pull off my shirt and out on a fresh one. "Glenn." I whisper.

"Yeah?"

" I can hear them talkin'"

"What are they saying?" He asks. He puts his ear up to the door next to mine and we listen to them.

"You have to stop calling them mom and dad." Lizzie says to Mika.

"Why?" Mika asks her sister.

"Have you forgotten about our real mom and dad?"

"No." She says sadly. "But Lizzie. They're not coming back."

"But do you really wanna betray them?" Lizzie asks Mika.

"They would understand." Mika says, obviously close to tears. "You don't have to call them mom and dad, but I will. And you're gonna have to deal with it." Mika has never stood up for herself like this before.

"Should we go in there?" Glenn asks me. I shake my head.

"No. We don't need to intervene." I answer. "Let them work it out."