Chapter 9 – Postictal
When the decision had been made to head for the CDC (against her very reasonable and very loud protests), Stevie hadn't believed for even a second that any of the remnants of the quarry group would be allowed inside the facility itself. If the facility was still standing and operational, she'd reasoned, then it would be heavily restricted. The best that civilians could hope for was to be allowed into an encampment surrounding the facility—if the military presence necessary to establish and hold such an encampment when all the others had failed didn't just shoot said civilians on sight or corral them for the scientists' experiments.
(There had to be a reason that all the other camps and centers had failed, right? There was no way that every detachment had been completely incompetent to the point of extinction. And the mystery of the fall of Michonne's previous group swirled overhead like an impending tornado—obvious yet out-of-reach and definitely going to wreck shit when it landed.)
When the quarry group pulled up on a well-rotted massacre, the teen didn't give a single thought to wading farther into it. Sometimes, you just have to nope out of a clearly bad situation; there's no shame in that. If anything, it's a sign of basic self-preservation instincts. But, yet again, Mama insisted on dragging her daughters along in the cops' wake. If there hadn't been a need for silence, Stevie might've accused her of being a badge bunny, might've actually encouraged her to turn Shane's attention from Lori now that the catty woman had her own hubby back and was determined to play good little wifie.
The gray hair and years of stress and abuse made Mama look older than she actually was, and Stevie wasn't opposed to a stepdad, especially a hot one. Shane wouldn't have been her first choice, and not just because he and the Grimeses were giving strong throuple energy. But in the unlikely scenario that he currently wasn't or wouldn't soon be Rick and Lori's boyfriend, Shane was welcome to date her mama. If he was good for her, then great. If he proved to be a problem, then Stevie had zero compunctions against disposing of him as she had her mama's last big mistake. Hell, the apocalypse made premeditated murder an acceptable hobby.
When the closed shutters loomed, Stevie stuck close to Merle and Daryl, one of her hands a vice around Sophia's wrist and the other keeping Hazel propped on her hip. Gavin remained glued to Stevie's rear, clutching her waistband and whispering soothing nonsense to his freaked-out cousin while Bruno herded the group of kids. Michonne stalked along in front of them with her sword up and ready and Andre strapped to her back.
When the gates opened, Stevie's dread doubled.
Wrong. This is all wrong.
She knew that a facility like the CDC had to have protocols, and there was absolutely no way that allowing random civilians into restricted areas was permitted under those protocols, especially under emergency protocols, extra especially under oh-fuck-humanity-is-fucked protocols. Being granted entrance meant that whoever was in charge either wasn't actually CDC staff or was CDC staff but had completely given up on any semblance of procedure and didn't have anyone left to answer to about the horrendously foolish breach.
"Once this door closes, it stays closed!"
Stevie opened her mouth to object, because holy shit that was a flaming red flag and a completely idiotic thing to agree to, but Bruno started nudging and pawing at her in a way that he only ever did for one reason. Her training was as extensive as his, and shoving everyone and everything away, dropping to the floor, and curling onto her side to ride out the oncoming seizure wasn't a conscious choice.
xxXxx
Cold hit her first. Trembling cold.
And her fingers sought warmth. The silky fur and bulky body pressed alongside hers.
"Stevie?"
If Stevie was lucid enough to recognize her own name, then her sister had probably been sobbing it for quite a while.
The fingers that weren't warming and grounding themselves in Bruno's fur opened and closed until tiny fingers slid between them and squeezed hard.
Her head hurt.
Everything hurt.
Sore like a full-body pavement slam.
Headache.
Gross mouth.
But no taste of blood.
Good.
Once she remembered she had eyes, she knew they weren't working right.
Flapping like…
Flappy things.
That.
Not fun.
"Mmmph."
"Stevie?"
"Mmmokay," she slurred, succeeding in forcing her eyes firmly shut.
Or.
Yes.
"Mmmokay."
"Angel?"
She giggled.
xxXxx
Mama sometimes backslid to doormat behavior, but she was always militant about Stevie's medical needs and medical records. The apocalypse had amped up that vigilance. Each of the Malone family packs, including Bruno's vest (recently improved with a scavenged Kevlar lining), held extras of Stevie's meds and a hard copy or a thumb drive of Stevie's records or both or two of each (depending on the space available), each sealed in a watertight plastic case. Sophia's and Mama's records were included, too, because why not?
Stevie's eyelids worked.
She was somewhere colorless and, from the smell, germless as well.
"Stevie?"
Groaning as she turned her throbbing head and catalogued her aching, fucked-up, stupid, uncooperative body, the teen sought her sister's watery blue gaze and smiled through the pain.
And the knowledge that every episode shortened her life.
"Angel?"
Stevie flinched hard and took a long moment to remember that the gruff male voice intruding on her vulnerable postictal state was safe.
Merle was beside Sophia. He leaned back far enough in his creaky folding chair to indicate that he knew he'd scared her. But he didn't make any move to leave. In fact, he settled down like a cat snuggling onto an electric blanket, and the IV in his arm that didn't have a bracelet of bruises didn't deter the motion.
Within sixty seconds, Stevie clawed the IV out of her own arm and made herself sit up, no matter how many laps her stupid brain seemed to do of the bland room. "He locked us in," she recounted.
"We're safe here," Sophia argued, though she didn't sound at all convinced. "There's food and showers and no walkers. You have to sit for a half-hour, and then you can go see for yourself."
That was protocol. Stevie was lucky that her seizures had been steadily decreasing in frequency ever since her first year as a traumatic-brain-injury survivor and that they'd never had a very long recovery period. Even when her broken brain had been punishing her several times a day for not taking better care of it, the post-punishment phase had never been more severe than a few hours of aches and confusion. But the fear always churned in her mind that this time was the time the damage had worsened and stolen her ability to walk or talk or see or swallow or just generally perform some function vital for continued independence and overall living. It was even worse now, when every disability was a likely death sentence.
Calm.
Fucking chill.
Don't panic.
"We should go," the teen managed to complain, carefully touching each fingertip (or close enough) to its accompanying thumb as she struggled to get her stupid hands back under her conscious control. She had to keep reminding herself that there was nothing wrong with her hands. Her hands were fine. It was her brain that was fucked up, and the stupid, useless thing was just in the final stages of a hard reset.
It was really difficult not to hate herself when her body had just turned on her and might decide to do so again at any second.
"Can't," grunted Merle. "Already dark out, so we're stuck fer at least the night." He responded to the visual evidence of Stevie's mounting terror by swiftly insisting, "Ain't so bad. Doc's a bit of a fruitcake, but like the little spitfire said, there's food and showers. Meds. Booze. Pretty sweet setup, really."
"Mama asked the doctor if you could have an MRI," Sophia reported, "But he said there's not enough power."
Stevie would've rolled her eyes if doing so wouldn't have made them feel like they were spinning wildly around in their sockets for the following five minutes. She didn't need a damn MRI for one little seizure. Her last checkup had been shortly before the world went to shit, and everything had been normal for her and trending toward even better in the future. Heck, she'd just had her first seizure since a few weeks before that checkup, which meant she'd gone over two months without an episode. Mama would have an exact count of days down to the hour and minute, but regardless, that was good. That was progress. That was no cause for hysterics. In the old world, a habitual seizure with a short recovery time and no bodily injuries wouldn't have even warranted a trip to the closest urgent-care clinic, let alone an MRI.
The teen forced herself to breathe. Fuck, she always forgot how fucking paranoid she got right before and right after an episode. It should've been a big clue that one was about to happen, but her stupid brain never seemed to make that connection.
Bruno did, though. He was such a good boy. The best boy. It made her want to cry.
Christ. Paranoid phase, check. Weepy phase, check.
"Pfft," Stevie joked, "There's no need for that. I didn't even piss myself."
Ignoring Merle's guffaw, Sophia stared back, slowly adopting an I have something unfortunate to tell you sort of expression.
"Nuh uh, you little monster," the teen accused, trying to jab a finger at her sister and almost smacking herself instead. "You're not tricking me again. I have to color-code my underwear because of you."
Soph's serious façade cracked into an impish smirk.
xxXxx
"Steal everything that isn't nailed down," Stevie advised. "Fill a bag. Hell, fill two. As much as you can carry. And then fill some bags for the grownups to carry. Food. Weapons. Gear. Meds. We're getting out of here tomorrow morning."
Her small army of small minions stared up at her, some of them teary, most of them confused, all of them sleepy after being quietly yoinked from their improvised beds. Gavin elected himself as the spokesperson, dark eyes solemn and dark hair still damp from his shower as he suggested, "Shouldn't you be resting?" He was awfully patronizing for a seven-year-old but overall a sweet kid.
"Nah," Stevie denied, offering a gentle smile and trying to ignore the soreness and faint tremors in her stupid body. "Up and moving is better. I know it was probably really scary to see me like that, but I promise I'm ok." For a certain definition of ok, but whatever. "It happens sometimes, and it sucks. But that's why I have Bruno." She noogied her faithful beastie all over his massive head and enjoyed his preening pants. "He knows when I'm about to have a seizure, and he protects me so that I don't really get hurt."
Except for Sophia, who looked fond and amused (utterly accustomed to her sister's absurd behavior), the kiddos remained skeptical. Carl was possibly the worst. He'd known the Malone family for over a year and been aware of Stevie's condition that whole time, even receiving an early talk from the girl about what to do and not do if she ever dropped in his company, but he hadn't actually seen it happen before. And his first experience with her episodes had been especially high stress.
Still. The kids' cooperation was important. There was only so much ground she could cover and so much loot she could loot on her own. Especially right after a seizure. And the adults were, of course, useless—most of them drunk enough to sleep through mischief and trouble alike, all of them too stupid to listen to her even if she tried again to explain her insistent dread.
If Stevie was wrong, then there'd be no harm done other than having to return supplies to where they came from and offer an insincere apology for inciting underage kleptomania.
If she was right, which she probably was, then she would gloat for days and make everyone who wanted to partake of her purloined supplies apologize for doubting her obviously superior instincts and for making ill-timed forays into alcoholism.
Fuck yeah I will.
"Gavin and Hazel don't have bags or clothes or any other stuff," the teen argued. She was still quite salty that no one (including Sophia and her grounding edict) had wanted to let her go on a run before the great CDC migration. Stevie hadn't even been permitted to raid the long list of targets she'd painstakingly compiled on the way back to the quarry after fetching Merle, including the RV dealership. "And Dr. Jenner said we can help ourselves to anything that doesn't need electricity, right?"
There was some collective mulling over that creative interpretation of the doctor's words, but the four children (Stevie wasn't brave or stupid enough to attempt to snatch Andre directly from his mother, who was intimidating even in sleep) eventually nodded.
(She was back to four minions, but her heart hurt at the knowledge that she hadn't swayed Eliza and Louis's idiotic parents from their idiotic plan. And kidnapping kids was a lot harder when there were a lot of idiotic adults around. Hopefully, Stevie's lessons in geek-killing and high-stakes hide-and-seek and her provision of various weaponry would serve the Morales kids well. What was the saying? Vaya con dios.)
Stevie nodded back, reasoning, "So, we should poke around and see what we can find. I don't want to have to send anyone out for supplies unless we really need to." False, but whatever. Lying to children was ingrained in the American culture (Santa, Tooth Fairy, Democracy, etc.), and if she didn't distract herself from the fact that she been locked underground by a dead-eyed weirdo, she'd spend the night frantically trying to Shawshank herself out of the sterile tomb instead of calmly preparing to be released from it or die in the attempt.
Besides, once she got the minions on task, Stevie had an AI to interrogate and possibly corrupt…
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I have no firsthand experience regarding seizures, and I did most of my research on Wikipedia and YouTube. I am also not a medical professional. Don't take medical advice from strangers on the internet. Don't be offended that fiction (especially fanfiction) isn't 100% accurate, though feel free to correct me on anything that you know (and can prove) is blatantly false.
Anyway, just the fact that Jenner actually let the group into the CDC always bugged me as super unrealistic, but I realize it was mostly for exposition purposes. I tried to speed through it and still ended up with three chapters stuck there (this one and the next two). I'm excited to get to that third one. I came up with a (to my knowledge) unique resolution, but I stand by the fact that I treated the scenario with all the seriousness it deserved (i.e., very little).
Reviews are appreciated.