"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France," Dale grinned, taking another sip of his wine.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then," Lori laughed but firmly stood by her declaration.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on. Come on," Rick encouraged Carl and Dale, laughter shining in his eyes as he grinned.

I laughed as Carl took a sip curiously, lasting a second before his face scrunched up in disgust. Rennie poked my ribs, a question in his eyes. I shook my head amusedly, and his eyes immediately grew wide and innocent.

"Please? I wanna try too!"

"Trust me, you don't," Carl spat, his facial expression still utterly disgusted. Roars of laughter grew among the adults as Rennie huffed, reaching tentatively for a cup. Ben intercepted it before I could.

"No, alcohol for you young sir," Ben laughed, drinking it instead.

"Lyyynnnnnn," Rennie whined. The adults laughed even more.

"Fine," I conceded, grabbing a cup while Ben stared at me with mock horror and betrayal. I shook my head at him, the grin hurting my cheeks as I handed the cup to my brother. "Just a little, okay? And don't say we didn't warn you."

The boy nodded eagerly, taking a gulp of the wine. All the adults leaned in, Carl looking as if he was praying for him at a funeral. It took my brother about the same time it took Carl to gag, quickly pushing the cup away from him. Laughter erupted around the table a second time.

"Well, just stick to soda pop, bud," Shane clapped a hand on Carl's shoulder, smiling brightly.

"Not you Glenn," Daryl interrupted with a grin on his face too.

"What?"

"Keep drinking little man, I want to see how red your face can get." I couldn't help it, I howled with laughter, nudging my younger brother as he cackled.

"Keep laughing," Ben warned me with a mischievous grin. "We still haven't seen you drink yet."

"Aw shucks no," I groaned, shaking my head vehemently. "I ain't gonna touch that poison. Hell, it tastes worse than glue."

The adults chuckled before Andrea interrupted incredulously. "You tried glue?"

"Of course, she didn't…" Rennie turned to look at my expression, his eyes bulging. "Are you serious?!"

"Kiddo, there's a lot about me you don't know," I muttered loud enough for everyone to hear, winking at him. Voices clamored over one another, laughter shining in their eyes as they begged for me to either try the wine or to tell the story. I ceased them by holding my hands up in surrender.

"Twas a normal day," I started dramatically, glancing around at everyone's attentive faces. Several snickers escaped people's mouths. "I was walking home from school gingerly. It had been the one day my older brother couldn't pick me up. He had to stay behind at his high school. I was a scrawny little thing, barely eight by then."

"Was?" Ben interrupted with a rise of his brow. "Hate to break it to you, but you're still a scrawny little thing."

Chuckles escaped again.

"Interrupt again and you shall face my wrath," I threatened the boy, drawing out more laughter.

"Anyways, I was bored and felt reckless. Earlier at school, I'd won a match of stapler guns thanks to the idiot accidentally stapling his middle finger instead of shooting it at me."

"Oh my god," Lori gasped, invested in the story. "Is the boy okay?"

"Eh," I shrugged carelessly. "He survived the blow."

"How long is this story gonna be?" Ben whined, fake yawning. I stood up quickly, smacking the back of his head before eating more pasta.

"The adrenaline was still driving me insane and I happened to chance upon a school supplies store. I walked in and decided I'd had enough of stupid middle schoolers and grabbed weapons."

"Middle schoolers? Weren't you eight?" Glenn quirked his head, his face still turning gradually red.

"I skipped grades. A lot," I gulped my water down, bitterness still overwhelming me. "I was five years younger than the others in my grade and was already granted permission to skip two years in high school. At the rate I was going, I'd be graduating high school at the age of ten and graduating college at fourteen. Of course, none of the other kids liked that."

Everyone was more solemn and invested now, some pausing in the middle of their dinner.

"I decided I'd give them a taste of their own medicine and looked around the supply store, grabbing whiteouts, glue guns, glitter glue, and other additional things. I calculated the time it took for the bell to ring in our PE class before positioning glitter bombs and ink tubs with paint pads. The one girl who had bullied me more than anyone else opened her locker and screamed as the ink enveloped her and fake spiders dropped from everywhere. Some stuck to her and she bolted out of the locker room in her underwear. The boys who had always teamed up with him burst out too, covered in pink and glitter."

I smirked at the part, remembering the burst of pride I'd felt at their incomprehensible screeching. "Of course, the teachers never caught me. That doesn't mean the kids didn't have any suspicions. I got cornered the next time when my big brother was late to pick me up. They dragged me to the toilets, dunked me in it till I fell limp, got pulled out and that's when they whipped out the glue."

I felt the gazes of everyone around me, complete silence echoing in my ears. I simply ate another forkful, swallowing the memories.

"They forced it down my throat until my brother showed up on his bike. He was beyond pissed; I'd never seen him that mad before in my whole life, not even when I accidentally got arrested by the police." I looked up and stared at Rick and Shane pointedly, a slight smirk at the last part.

"When'd this happen?" Rennie asked incredulously. "Bro, I never knew you got bullied or arrested."

"That's cause Den and I agreed that if you found out about it, you'd probably do something stupid like how we did."

"Did the kids get in trouble?" Rick asked, referring to the villains in my story. I smiled sadly.

"Nah," I shrugged. "They got off easy 'cause my brother beat them to pulp. The moms all came up to us and shouted at us the next time they saw us until my brother stepped up and shouted right back at the kids. In the end, the mothers agreed to pay off our hospital bill in return for us not reporting the kids for attempted murder."

Silence followed until Glenn drunkenly cheered across the table. "So you wonnnn!"

Laughter billowed from the table again as I rolled my eyes. "Sweetie, I think it's past your bedtime."

"Nah," Glenn shook his head rapidly, pouting. "Nah nah nah."

"When I said I wanted to see how red your face could get, I meant without you going around like a headless chicken," Daryl snarked, chuckling.

"Chicken?"

"Yes, Glenn. Chicken," I cackled, forgetting about the less-than-happy story. Rick hit his wine glass all of a sudden, interrupting our laughter and conversations.

"It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly," he smiled at the doctor.

"He is more than just our host," T-dog snorted, grinning.

"Hear hear!"

"Here's to you, Doc, booyah!" Daryl cheered, obviously quite happy and relaxed.

"Booyah!" Dale echoed again.

"Thank you. Thank you, Doctor," Rick smiled genuinely, his eyes warm and twinkling.

"Booyah!" T-dog repeated the same damned phrase.

"Boooooyah!" Ben practically howled, doing a little dance in his seat. He seemed a little drunk too, well on his way to being like Glenn.

"I dare anyone to say booyah one more time," I brandished the fork I was holding in a mockingly threatening manner, eliciting more laughter.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the Hell happened here, Doc? All the—the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?" Big mouth Shane popped the question. "We're celebrating, Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick hissed at his best friend.

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move—supposed to find all the answers. Instead we— we found him. Found one man, why?" Everyone turned to look at Jenner, the question innately there in every mind.

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Dr. Jenner explained, sighing.

"Every last one?" Shane pried further.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They… opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Just like that, any uplifted tension faded within me, dark dread and emptiness replacing it. I'd thought about that option multiple times even before the apocalypse. The only thing that had held me back from stepping off the edge was my family and my brothers. But now I didn't know what had happened to any of my found family members. They could be as good as dead.

"You didn't leave. Why?" Andrea inquired further.

"I just kept working, hoping to do some good." He returned to his meal, but I could tell it wasn't the full truth. He was hiding something.

"DUde, you're such a buzz kill, man," Glenn groaned at Shane, slouching in his seat.

I reached for a whiskey bottle on the table, grabbing it and chugging it by the bottle out of impulse. Everyone gawked at me as I wiped my mouth, shrugging.

"I said I don't like wine, never said anything about this."

"That tastes worse than wine!" Lori laughed, shaking her head in wonder.

"Wine is deceptive. It looks like grape juice, smells a tad bit like it sometimes, and you love it till you drink it. Only thing I drink is whiskey," I gave a wistful smile at the last part, remembering my older brother settling me down before giving me a long speech about drinking. He then proceeded to give me a glass to try.

"Didn't mom love wine?" Rennie's words shattered my memories, turning them into nightmares of a screeching voice ringing in my ears as pain enveloped all my senses and the smell of wine crowded my nose. I flinched at the sound of glass shattering and someone wailing in terror and pain. My next words were selected carefully and quietly.

"Yes, she loved wine," I answered, pretending that I hadn't flinched at all. I made eye contact with Daryl who had been staring at me and a silent understanding passed between the two of us. We were both victims of lesser lives, given no choice but to adapt to pain, to shape it and mold ourselves into hard clay, praying we didn't get shattered.

"What happened to your mo-"

"You like moonshine then?" Daryl interrupted T-dog's question thankfully. I gave a grateful look.

"Never had it," I shrugged. "Isn't it dangerous?"

"Moonshine ain't giving no danger," Daryl huffed. "It don't give hangovers either, not like some cheap beer."

"Don't insult beers," Ben interrupted, a firm look in his eyes. "Beer is beauty."

"Okay no more alcohol talk at the table, please," Lori interrupted, bringing any conversations to a close. "We have kids here."

"I'm not-"

"We're not-"

Arguing commenced.