Glenn woke to a prodding and rolled over to find Maggie starting at him, her finger out and ready to poke him one more time if he didn't wake up soon.
"What're you doing?" he asked sleepily.
"We're not gonna end up like Rick and Lori, right?" she asked. The only thing she could think of the whole time they were fighting was that she and Glenn would end up the same way.
"What? No!" Glenn shook his head, waking a bit more at her words.
"How do you know that?" she asked, propping herself up against the headboard. "If their relationship can go to hell, why can't ours?"
"Listen to me." he, too, sat up and put an arm around her. "You saw how they were when we got the farm, right?"
"Yeah." she nodded, remembering the strained relationships between Rick, Lori and Shane.
"Trust me, that didn't happen overnight." he tried his best to reassure her. "When Rick first joined us, first found Lori, things seemed off. Lori seemed relieved, yet...she and Shane never hid their relationship very well, so things were awkward."
"But what if..." Maggie couldn't hide her fears, try as she might.
"We won't!" he pulled her close. "Their problems probably go back way before all of this started. We're solid."
"We are, aren't we?" she smiled at him. "Thank you."
"For what?" he asked, smiling back.
"For talkin' me down." she nestled her head into his neck and returned his embrace. "It's just that, they're the only other couple in our group, and seein' them fall apart like this, it scared me."
"We're a stronger team than they are." he felt himself starting to get tired again.
"We are." she nodded as she let him drift back off, smiling to herself. She felt at peace knowing she had a solid relationship, even if she was watching another person's fall apart in front of the whole group.
Christie sat on the front steps waiting for Rick to return. She knew she'd done what she'd had to do, what people had asked of her, but still, the feeling of breaking a family apart even for a short time didn't sit well with her. She heard a shuffling noise and looked up to see Rick approaching, carrying a bag and looking like hell.
"You look worse than when you left." she regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.
"Thanks." he said, walking past her into the house. "Which room?" he asked.
"Down the hall, to the left." she directed him. She followed behind him. "It's just a twin bed, but..."
"It's fine." he sat down on the corner of the bed and let the bag fall from his hands. He felt like hell, and he knew Christie was right. He looked worse than before because he felt worse than before he'd left.
"You wanna get to bed?" she asked as she observed him. She didn't know what to say and felt out of place in what had become her own home.
"I'm not gonna be able to sleep." he groaned as he ran his hands through his hair, thinking back to his last words with Lori.
"In that case, I've got something for you." she said as she motioned for him to follow her. "Take a seat in the living room." she called over her shoulder as she headed into the basement.
Rick did as he was told and took a seat in the middle of the sofa, looking around he realized he was surrounded by boxes. These must have been what Christie was talking about when she'd said she needed to clear the spare room for him. Opening one of them, he found envelopes addressed to a Mr. and Mrs. Corbett. He could only assume they had been the previous owners. Peeling open one of the envelopes, he found a Christmas card with a photo inside.
"Sorry we couldn't make it down for the holidays, but know we're always with you in spirit. Love and best wishes for the New Year, David, Melinda, Jason and Mia."
He looked at the photo and saw a rather average couple staring back at him, two young children smiling set in front of a rather generic Christmas background. He couldn't help but wonder if they were the children and grandchildren of the couple who'd lived there, or simply friends. He assumed by the decor of the home that it had been an older couple who had once called this place home.
"I see you found the Corbetts." Christie said as she reappeared, carrying a case of beer with her. "I found all of that stuff here in the house but couldn't bring myself to throw it away." she explained as she set the case down, glass bottles rattling together. She wasn't going to mention that she looked at that photo now and then imagining that that was the family her brother and sister-in-law would have had if the world hadn't gone to hell the way it had. If they'd survived.
"No pictures of them?" he asked, a little curious as to what they looked like.
"No." she shook her head. "The house was pretty empty of those kinds of things when I got it. I just found those tucked back in a closet a week or two after I got the place."
"Same with the beer?" he asked. He tried to remember the last time he'd had beer but failed.
"No, found this on a supply run before Mitchell and I came here." she laughed as she opened the case. "I don't drink very often, but I figured it would be a good thing to have on hand, you never know when you'll need to get totally sloshed." she handed him a bottle.
"Thanks." he offered a half-hearted smile as he accepted the room temperature drink. "Don't keep any cold?" he asked as he twisted the cap off.
"No, I keep my fridge clear for as much food as I can." she struggled with her cap, finally covering it with the hem of her shirt and twisting it off. "I assume things didn't go so well.." she ventured.
"No." he took another swig and stared at the boxes on the coffee table in front of him. "We got into it again."
"Nothing new there." she took a small sip. She had watch the next morning and couldn't afford to be hungover when she did that.
"It was different." he looked up at her. "We said things to each other we've never said before...called one another names..."
"Oh." was her only response. "It doesn't mean it's the end of the world, though." she tried to sound optimistic.
"It could be the end of my marriage though." he grabbed another bottle. "All the fights, we've never gone so far as to resort to name callin'."
"I'm gonna say something, and you're probably not gonna like it." Christie set her bottle down. "If things did end, it might not be the worst thing..."
"You mean worse than bein' eaten alive by walkers?" he stared at her. She was right, he was not liking this one bit. He knew where she was going with this.
"Even if things were normal again..." she shrugged, leaning forward and picking at the label on her beer bottle. "A broken marriage isn't the worst thing that could happen."
"Says someone who's never been married." he was starting to become agitated.
"No, said by someone who had to listen to her parents holler and scream at one another." she looked up and met his gaze. "My parents got married to humor my dad's grandmother, and they stayed together because neither of them wanted to start over. They never took into account how them fighting all the time affected my brother and I."
Rick took another drink, draining his second bottle. "We try not to fight in front of Carl..." he offered as a weak excuse.
"He still hears it." she shook her head. "And even if he doesn't hear it, he can just tell by the way you are together. I can tell by looking at you two, and you've been here not quite a month yet."
"What can you tell, exactly?" he was dying to know.
"The whole time you've been here, you've said you made that decision so she could be in one place while she was pregnant. I get that. But you two...I've never seen you hold hands, put your arms around one another..."
"Maybe we're just not into public displays." he pointed out.
"I thought of that. But...you two barely regard one another." she continued to shred the label. "Unless you're fighting, I've never really seen you interact much in the time you've been here."
"Well, you're not around all the time, are you?" Rick got to his feet, drained his third bottle and set it down. "I'm goin' to bed." he turned and left. He didn't know if he was more angry at Christie for saying all of that, or at the fact that he feared she was right.
Rick woke later with the urgent need to relieve himself. He wasn't as young as he once was and beer sometimes just went right through him. He shuffled down the hall quietly, trying not to wake Christie as he fumbled with the light switch in the bathroom positioned across from her room. He had a bit of a headache from the beer he'd had hours before and laughed at himself. At his age, a few beers gave him a headache. He was drying his hands and getting ready to get back to his room when he heard the sounds of crying coming from Christie's room. The door was left open a crack and he peered inside seeing that she was asleep, but obviously in the middle of a nightmare. She twisted around, crying, shaking and dripping with sweat.
"Christie." he said quietly, not wanting to startle her too badly. "Christie!" he said a bit louder as she continued her thrashing. "Christie!" he said as she moved to the side of the bed, knelt down and grabbed her shoulders in an attempt to wake her.
With a scream, she sat up, looked around and moved to the other side of the queen sized bed, staring at him with wide eyes, full of fear and confusion.
"I'm sorry." he moved back against the wall, away from her. "You were havin' a bad dream." he explained.
"Fine..." she shook her head, wiping the tears from her face. Of all the times for that damn dream to make an appearance, it had to be when she wasn't alone in the house. "Go, please, just go." she sat up in the corner of the bed, shaking and crying. She felt as though she was about to be sick. "Just go!" she screamed.
"Okay, okay." he said as he got to his feet and left the room, shutting the door behind him. He could hear her begin to sob as soon as he was out of sight and could only imagine the dream that would shake her so badly.