Lori stared at the group of vehicles being loaded, her mind the clearest that it had been a while, wondering just what she was going to do now. On one hand going along with the group, no matter how much she hated seeing Rick with that hick and the state of her marriage, was the best idea. This world was not meant to be lived in alone, now more than ever. She was pregnant, and the dead were walking, it only made sense to stay with those who could protect her in this state. But following the herd also meant dealing with the looks of disgust and pity that were only growing by the day. People that used to respect her, listen to her now disregarded her like she meant nothing. All because she had slept with her husband's best friend when she had thought he was dead and hadn't reacted well to the consequences when he returned.
She wasn't perfect, she had never claimed to be no matter what the others may say behind her back now. And sleeping with Shane was just one of her many mistakes in this life. It had been satisfying to do, especially when she remembered the things that she had heard about the day that Rick had been shot and how Shane had reacted to him being wounded. She had been so… angry with Rick for almost dying that she had drawn up the divorce papers, unsure that she could live through another incident like this, and she had been disgusted with Shane. She had spent several long days lamenting just how involved that pervert had been in their life, wondering if he had always had those feelings for Rick and not knowing how she had never realized it before.
Before the dead started walking and taking bites from the living, she had been going to demand that Rick never see his friend again when he recovered. She wasn't going to have that perversion in their lives anymore, so even if she did file the papers, it would have been one of her demands really. But then the world had ended, and Rick had 'Died' instead of waking up and protecting his family from this newest horror and Shane had been her only option for protection. Any dislike she had for him had to be swallowed down for the sake of her son and her own survival. Some people may give her looks for that if they ever found out, but she had been practical. She was smart enough to know that caring for Carl in these conditions wouldn't have been easy and that men got… creepy when there was a single female out and about when the world was normal. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to her when the world was like this. She'd rather enjoy herself then deal with what would happen if she had to bargain for her survival under duress.
Besides, Shane had been with plenty of women in his life. She knew that he had, and before she had been told about what he had done when Rick had gone down, she had never had a suspicion that he was in any way like that . She had seen his previous girlfriends, heard him complain about their bad habits and thought that those silly little girls hadn't known what they were losing. Whatever sickness he had when it came to her dead husband? She could ignore that now that Rick was gone, and she could remind him what life was like with a mature woman who knew how to please a man. And it had been good for a while.
Shane was a fantastic partner in bed, better than Rick in so many ways. And he was the defecto leader of their camp of survivors. People looked up to him because he had been a cop when the world ended, they depended on him to keep them safe in a world where nothing was really safe anymore. She could admit to herself that she had enjoyed the respect that being his woman brought her and hadn't even considered the fact that she hadn't had her monthly during all of this. She felt like an idiot for not tracking that now, because having a child after the end of the world seemed like the dumbest decision ever. If she had been actually thinking she would have done everything that she could to prevent such a thing from happening. However, she had just been living in the moment, and obviously hadn't considered what might happen long term.
Honestly, she didn't know how far along in this pregnancy that she was because the best part of fighting with Rick had been the eventual make-up sex. Now that she was thinking clearly that in itself was a problem, even if she managed to end the pregnancy she didn't know if the remains would still manage to be her own end. She shuddered at that thought, imagining the thing inside of her chewing its way out of her body as revenge for ending its life. No. They obviously had to keep the baby alive, and pray that the birth was an easy one, even if they did have a doctor in their camp now thanks to Rick bringing him along when he had returned.
She shivered again as her arm ached, reminding her of yet another mistake she had made. While Rick's companion may very well be the reason that Lori survived this pregnancy, she couldn't forget that he was only with them because Rick wasn't as dead as she had been told. Rick had come back, because of course that man was too damn stubborn to die when the world ended. He had come back and the comfortable life that Lori had been building herself at the end of the world had crumbled to the ground because he hadn't come back ready to reunite with her. Instead of happiness and relief that a miracle had happened she had been left with a feeling of bitterness. He had come back with proof that she had been going to divorce him and acceptance that their marriage was over and that she had moved on. That… man… he hadn't even tried to fight for their family because he had already set his eyes somewhere else.
Maybe it was hypocritical of Lori, especially since she had been sleeping with Shane since this whole end of the world disaster began but seeing Rick so ready just to let her go had hurt. And that hurt was only compounded by the fact that he wasn't even moving on with a woman. He was moving on with a man and proving that she had never known his true self at all. Worse yet, Rick had apparently known Daryl fucking Dixion before the end of the world and he had known him well enough that their son had known Dixion as well. From there on, this paranoia that Rick had been gay all of this time and just using her started to grow, making her even more bitter and desperate to stop the trainwreck that was her life now.
Before the end of the world Rick wouldn't have done well in their southern town as an openly gay man, and he wouldn't have children. Or that's what she told herself as proof that she had been wronged. She had just been his beard and incubator. And she still was an incubator because she was carrying another child that could be his. Or it could be Shane's. Shane, who was still in love with Rick, even if he had kept being kind to her once Rick returned. She could see him looking at Rick sometimes, a sharp reminder that she wasn't even his first choice. He was just being polite to her, and maybe even waiting for his chance to make his feelings clear to Rick. She was… trapped in this hellish existence and she knew it.
Contrary to several ill thought desire's Lori also knew that she couldn't count on ending Rick's life fixing this mess either, even if the thought of doing that had been comforting to her when she had failed to end her own life. If Rick died, then all eyes would be on her, and her situation would be even worse. There would be no chance of letting all of this... drama settle and fade away into the background. She would never see a moment's peace again and might even find herself having to leave with no choice. The realization that she couldn't even have that satisfaction had hit hard, she wasn't going to lie. But unless she was going to take herself out after getting rid of the reason her life had imploded, she wasn't going to go that route.
Taking all of that into consideration she was down to the option of leaving this group or dealing with the hand that she had been dealt. As tempting as it was to strike off on her own and find other survivors who would be willing to take on a pregnant woman with a history of birth complications, she also knew that urge would be her death sentence. She had been pregnant once, she remembered all of the things that came along with being in this state. The nausea, the fatigue… the fact that eventually even moving around would be hard as her belly grew. There was no guarantee that there was a community out there that would accept her in this state, and that the mythical community would have a doctor that could help her deliver safely on top of it all. As much as she hated the thought of staying with her... ex-husband's group it was her best bet at surviving and staying with her son. If she left there was no way that Rick would let her take Carl, or that Carl would want to come with her, and she couldn't bring herself to abandon her boy even if he wasn't really talking to her right now.
Lori sighed, wondering what sin she had committed for this to be her life now. She didn't think she had been a bad woman before. Sure, she had nagged at Rick and had fallen for temptations a couple of times when their homelife had not been the best. But she had been a good wife, she knew that much. It had always been Rick who wasn't putting enough effort into their marriage. He was the one who would get distant while working overtime. He was the one who kept leaving her alone to raise their boy. She had needed more, and he hadn't been willing to give it, she remembered that much clearly. But that was neither here nor there anymore. Rick had finally left her, and she needed to pick herself back up and quit being so weak. She had a son, and whatever was growing in her belly to care for, and she would.
Maybe once the baby was born and she could see who it looked like she would have a chance of making her family whole again with the father of the child. Rick wouldn't stay mad at her forever, right? And even if he was screwing Daryl there were things that man could never give him. Or if the baby looked like Shane, then he had enjoyed being with her enough to drag her off at every chance that he got before Rick's return. With her having his child, then maybe his stance on it being too odd sleeping with her when Rick was here would soften and they could go back to being with each other. And then eventually, once she didn't need a damned doctor, they could talk Rick into letting them take Carl and start their own settlement just far enough away that Lori didn't have to have Rick's perversions shoved into her face every day.
If Rick was insistent on keeping his redneck, then Shane would be a rejected lover as well, because there would be no way in hell that he was getting Rick. He wouldn't have any reason to stick around the group because of that fact. Maybe it was still possible for her to have a good life at the end of the world, even if it wasn't the one that she thought she should have right away. Maybe it would just take some time. Lori knew that it was unlikely, but her current situation wouldn't improve if she kept going the way that she was, and she was sick and tired of being regarded as nothing more than a danger to them all. She just wanted this mess to be over with.
"Are you doing okay Lori?" A voice asked close to her, startling the wounded and pregnant woman from her ever-circling thoughts. She looked up at the young blonde woman who had been watching her with clear concern, feeling a sting of guilt at the sight of her. Beth Greene was a sweet girl, and Lori had put her in danger in her own home when she had decided to end her life. She hadn't registered that right after the fact, too bitter and angry that she had failed to even consider the consequences of her actions. It hadn't helped that the men who were tending to her were being so judgmental. Lori gave her a forced smile, wondering how she was ever going to apologize for what could have happened to her. Out of everyone involved in this she deserved some sort of apology really. Beth wasn't involved in any of this after all, she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I'm fine. Just wondering what's coming next. I know yer daddy said this farm wasn't made for long term in all of this, but it seems like such a shame just ta up and leave it. It's been safe this long, who's to say that we couldn't make it safe for the long term?" She replied, avoiding talking about what had been going through her thoughts by bringing up another issue that wasn't making sense for her. When she had woken up after her attempt on her own life, she had been informed that the people who were living here were working with her group to prepare supplies to leave again so she shouldn't get too comfortable in her surroundings. She hadn't had any say in all of this, and maybe.. maybe Beth wasn't happy about leaving her home either. The younger girl looked over at her for a moment before she sighed and moved to settle next to her.
"I know it may seem like we might be able to make it here longer, but we've been seeing more of those walkers every day. And they're coming in larger groups than ever before. Daddy says it's a sort of migration, that they've eaten up their food sources so they're moving on looking for more. It would take either a larger group of people, or longer than we have to build the sort of perimiter's that we'd need to keep the farm safe when larger herds of the walker's come. Honestly your group's arrival was like a sign from god that it's time to move on, and Daddy aint' one to ignore a sign like that. Neither is mama." The girl explained, not sounding resentful at all. Lori bit back a sneer at the mention of god, knowing that her current doubts in the man wouldn't be welcome if this family was moving on from the home that they had lived in because of a sign from him. Beth's explanation made a sort of sense though, even if Lori wasn't fully convinced that she was right yet.
"How can you know that there is a safer place to be found out there though? Your family is putting an awful amount of faith in this group to find somewhere that probably doesn't exist. Whatever caused this? It's not like there's some designated safe zone, that the dead won't get up and walk in. But here you all are, packing up after butchering your stock and picking your crops, ready to walk away from where you've succeeded in surviving so far. We only left where we were when there was an attack that we lost people in." Lori prodded instead, curious as to just why they were trusting strangers with their everything on the off chance of finding somewhere safer. Beth smiled gently instead of looking scared at the pointed hints that they could be leaving safety for their deaths. After a moment she put a hand on Lori's.
"We can't really know that we'll find somewhere safer, but we'll be with good people and have a better chance of defending ourselves if we leave now instead of sometime later. And that's better than sitting at home, burying our heads in the sand about just how serious things have gotten outside of our temporary safe haven. We've been luckier than most because we've been able to stick it out here without feeling too much of the impact of all of this, I won't lie about that. When everything happened, we just stayed home. Sure, we made sure we could protect ourselves a bit, but we would never be enough to defend against a herd of those walkers. If you all hadn't come, then one night we would have eventually been overrun, or we would have fallen one by one while trying to get supplies from town or working the land. I hope one day we'll be able to come back here after all of this dies down, and I can be sad to leave the memories I've made here behind, but I'm not going to dwell on it too much in the meantime. Life is just like that sometimes." Beth replied firmly, stressing some of her words.
While this was the least stressful interaction that Lori had experienced with another person in a while, she couldn't help but feel like she was trying to tell her something beyond her hopes about her home in the future. But since she wasn't outright lecturing Lori about her choices, she decided to ignore any indignation that threatened to swell up at what the girl could be implying. Instead, she focused on the fact that this girl, only older than her son Carl by 10 years at most, was able to speak so wisely. Beth was right of course, holding onto hopes to return to normal was fine, being sad over what she lost was too, but she couldn't hyperfocus on it if she was going to make it in this world.
If this situation had happened before the world had ended, she wouldn't have gone off the deep end because… well put together women didn't do that now did they? Sure, she may have tried to ruin Rick's life a bit when she found out that he was dating a man after their marriage had ended, but trying to end her life? That wouldn't have happened because she wouldn't have wanted the stigma that follows the people that did try. She wouldn't have wanted to be labeled unstable or unreliable. So why had she decided that she didn't care about being labeled now, when she needed the people around her to be able to survive in this world? If she hadn't already been planning on changing how she was reacting to Rick leaving her and her pregnancy that single realization would have set her straight.
Lori's smile turned more natural as she shifted her hand just enough to squeeze the one that Beth had laid on hers. She was such a good girl, and Lori didn't blame her parent's for being so upset with her about the situation that Beth had walked into the other day. While Lori had been too far gone in her own misery to care if anyone walked in on her shambling corpse then, she was thankful that she hadn't managed to end her life or hurt her now. There were too many good people dying in this world, and she didn't need to contribute to that.
"That's a mature outlook on all of this Beth. A real mature one." Lori replied, not sure what else to say to her. She didn't know Beth well enough to confide in her that her words had helped, or about her previous thoughts but she wouldn't let them go unacknowledged. Beth's bright smile was as comforting as the conversation had turned out to be.
"I try to have one of those these days. I was much less reasonable when this all began though. I hope you're feeling better Lori. I've been in that place of hopelessness that makes you do things that you wouldn't normally. It's not a fun place, but I'm sure you can make it out of there. You have a good son- Daddy says he's been really helpful in getting things ready. If nothing else, he needs his momma." She replied, before getting up and heading over to the vehicles to help them, her mission with Lori seemingly accomplished. Lori watched her go, trying to figure out just how she was going to make the changes that she needed to. It wasn't going to be easy but maybe one day it wouldn't hurt so much to look at Rick and see him happy with someone else.
