AN: I just posted the first chapter of this earlier, but I imagine that you read it already. If not, and you somehow got to the second chapter first, please go back. LOL

Chapter has an Ed warning, I guess you could say. Nothing too graphic, but there is vague/brief mention/thoughts about Ed being Ed, including violence and sexual abuse/assault. I promise that there's nothing graphic, but I do like to offer a bit of a warning in case you need it.

If you choose to read, I hope you enjoy! And if you do enjoy, please do let me know!

111

The driveway was dirt. They'd never paved it, and they'd avoided gravel since they didn't want the little bits of it getting thrown up and dinging the bikes unnecessarily. Andrea had lived here for a long time. She hardly even truly saw the little details of the place anymore. It was just home—the only home she'd ever really felt like she had.

Tonight, in the light of the headlights, she was trying to imagine seeing it for the first time. She noticed that the mailbox really did lean a little to the left. They'd been meaning to fix it since Dody's idiot self had backed into it about two years ago, but they'd just never gotten around to it. The driveway was dirt, and it was rutted. The bikes and cars, both, rode the ruts up to the house, or else people would probably die just trying to come to their house.

That was fine. It was always better to have some sort of silly little level of challenge, like knowing to keep to the ruts, that weeded out the strangers from those that were welcome in your space.

The driveway was a bit long. It curved slightly. There were woods all around them, and farmland, too. The little scrubby woods on either side of the first part of their driveway were dotted with bits and pieces of Merle's and Daryl's projects. They were going to clean it up—haul all the scrap to the scrapyard and all the trash to the dump—but it hadn't happened yet.

Andrea figured that it would eventually happen, or else Mother Nature would simply take it all back, one day, just the way that the tree in the backyard had swallowed up the little birdfeeder that she'd nailed into it years ago.

"Here it is. Home sweet home," Andrea said, as she pulled up and put the car in park. The yard was pretty well lit up thanks to the lights on poles that Merle had installed to keep them from being in the pitch black out there.

Home sweet home was just that. It was her home, and it was precious to Andrea. This home—this place—and all the people that were in and out of it meant the world to her. She was never happier than she was in her home.

And, for just a moment, she wondered what it would look like to Carol.

The roof was pretty new, and Merle and Andrea had painted the shutters just this summer. A couple of the guys had helped replace some of the front porch, where it had started to rot through from age, and they'd sort of fallen short of finishing the painting. Most of the porch kind of matched, but there was one little section of the floor where they just hadn't finished—and nobody had gotten back around to it.

The place needed a good scraping and a good coat of paint, but the bones were good—that's what they always said about places, wasn't it?

Andrea felt a little sad when she thought about how someone might judge her home, but there wasn't anything to be done about it now.

"Paint's chipping," she offered, as she opened the door, "but—the roof doesn't leak, no wind gets in through the cracks, and there's plenty of hot water for a shower that'll do you good. You'll see. You'll feel like a new person after."

To her surprise, Carol stopped her from getting out by reaching and putting a hand on her arm. Andrea stopped and looked at the woman. Carol offered her a smile, her face mostly illuminated by the light shining in through the windshield.

"I think your home is lovely," she offered. Andrea felt something of a chill crawl up her spine and, for a half a second, she wondered if the woman could read her mind. She quickly dismissed that with the understanding that, perhaps, the fear of having one's place in the world harshly judged is somewhat universal. "And I thank you for letting me stay here tonight."

"Come on," Andrea said. "It'll be straight into the shower for you, and there should be Chinese when you get out. I hope you like Chinese."

"I'd eat anything right now."

"You might have to," Andrea teased. "Merle always gives Chen hell that there's not a great abundance of stray animals in Henton, and Chen never really tries too hard to argue with him."

Carol laughed quietly, understanding that Andrea was teasing. She let go of Andrea's arm, and she got out of the passenger side of the car, bringing her two small bags with her. Andrea locked the doors when both were closed.

"That's a lot of motorcycles," Carol said. "Does your—husband collect them?"

Andrea glanced at the three bikes parked in the yard.

"That's not a lot of bikes," she said. Before she could offer any further explanation, the bike that had been tailing them at some distance—not in too big of a hurry, but never falling too far behind—came practically idling up the driveway. It pulled right in around the other three bikes and the rider killed the engine.

Andrea smiled as the rider got off and walked in her direction, more than toward the house.

"Took you long enough," she teased, walking to meet him. "We could've been snatched up and practically hauled across the border by now."

The man laughed and lit a cigarette.

"Don't know what fuckin' border you're going across," he said. "Unless maybe it's the one to South Carolina. Don't know what the hell you'd want there, though. You think you could have given me a heads up that you were gonna have my ass out there another what—hour? Hour and a half? I was half afraid they were gonna arrest my ass for pissing in public, but I didn't get caught."

He offered her a hug, and she gladly took it—not that she hadn't seen him several times during the day. He held his cigarette away from her, so he didn't burn her, and he hooked his other arm around her, lifting her just enough that she rose up on her toes to keep herself grounded. She laughed at him and playfully swatted him when he let go. He laughed in response and rubbed his chest as though any damage had been done.

"Something came up," Andrea said, gesturing her head toward Carol. "Peach, this is Carol. Carol—this is Peach."

"Peach?" Carol asked, extending a hand somewhat awkwardly.

The man laughed.

"Tommy Fenigan," he said. "But nobody calls me that, if they know me."

"Peach it is," Carol said, shaking his hand. He laughed again, shaking her hand a bit dramatically. Andrea knew that he was amused by the practice, and trying to make sure that Carol understood that shaking hands was a bit formal around here.

As soon as he let go of her hand, he made a bit of a dramatic gesture for them to go inside, in front of him, and they did. Carol followed right on Andrea's heels, and Peach brought up the rear.

As soon as she opened the door, Andrea was greeted with the simple, warm, welcomed smell of home. It wasn't much, but it was hers. It smelled, right now, of some apple pie scented candles that she'd picked up at the store and sat around. The smell was strong, and it made her smile, because she knew that Merle had lit them for her.

Merle didn't greet them right away, but Andrea wasn't shocked or offended by that in the slightest. She could hear the sounds of him talking, and she knew that he was in the den. She bypassed it altogether and took Carol straight upstairs, knowing that Peach would make himself right at home.

"Come on this way, Carol," Andrea said. "I'll show you the bathroom. You can shower first, and eat, and then we'll get you squared away for bed. Just put your stuff down in the hall for now, and I'll handle it."

"I don't want you going through any trouble," Carol insisted.

She was walking so close to Andrea, that when Andrea stopped at the linen closet, Carol ran into her and actually stepped on the back of Andrea's foot. She looked horrified, like Andrea might beat her for the accident. Andrea gave her the best reassuring smile that she could.

"It's no trouble," she said. "I'm happy you're here." She opened the closet, took out a couple of towels and a washrag. Carol followed her to the bathroom. Andrea flicked on the light. The bathroom was clean, even if it was dated. "Tubs clean. Shower's got really good pressure. There's shampoo, conditioner, soap—all of that. In that drawer, there's some unopened toothbrushes. I always keep a half a dozen around. There's disposable razors, too, if you want that. If you don't, no judgment from me. The hot water tank is one of the best things around here, so don't feel like you need to rush. Do you need clean clothes?"

Carol shook her head. Andrea accepted that.

"If you do need anything—and I mean anything—let me know. Take your time and enjoy the shower." She handed Carol the towels.

Carol nodded her head and offered Andrea one more tight-lipped smile and a sincere thanks.

"No more thanks," Andrea said. "It makes me uncomfortable. Give me your keys, and I'll send someone for the car—don't even worry about it, it's not an imposition. Have a shower, then come downstairs and have some Chinese."

Andrea took the keys that Carol handed her. Then, she waited until Carol took her two bags into the bathroom—not judging her, since she may need the items in there or, after all she'd been through, simply might feel more comfortable not leaving the few precious things she owned—and closed the door. Then, she headed downstairs to her own room, eager to at least don her sweatpants and get rid of her work flats. She'd shower later, but that didn't mean she couldn't be comfortable now.

111

The water pressure was practically like something sent from heaven, and the water was hot enough to have sterilized things.

That was a bit what Carol felt like, standing under the almost pounding stream of it. She felt a bit like she was being sterilized, and she relished it. She closed her eyes, and hoped that Andrea was being honest about taking her time, and she let it wash away as much as it could—the closest she could come to being sterilized by fire and having her past burned away.

She let it wash away any memory of the last time that Ed Peletier had put his hands on her. She shaved her legs as if to cleanse them. She scrubbed her short hair—sheared practically completely away, only a few days ago, to keep him from holding her by it, and conditioned what was left of it with the good-smelling conditioner that she imagined Andrea had picked out, and she washed her body thoroughly, twice, to wash away every little bit of him that he might have left behind from the last time that he'd reminded her that he believed that husbands had complete rights to their wives' bodies.

And, then, scrubbed so thoroughly that she was practically raw—and glad of it—Carol let herself cry. She let herself cry for the first time, for just a few moments, and then she washed her face once more and finally turned off the water.

The towels were clean and soft. They smelled like laundry detergent and they felt like being wrapped in a hug—mostly because there had been a great deal of kindness in Andrea's eyes when she'd handed Carol the towels.

Carol couldn't remember the last time she'd felt as much kindness as she'd experienced just in the past twenty-four hours.

The car she'd driven into town had belonged to Eleanor Washington's late husband. He'd died some years ago, and the car had sat practically rotting under the shed in the backyard, because Eleanor hated to drive. Two weeks before, Eleanor had mentioned something about having someone come and get it, when Carol had stopped by to bring the old woman a casserole to say that she was sorry that her brother had only just died. The car drove fair enough, she said, but it wasn't worth selling. It would be worth more as scrap, by her figuring.

To Carol, it might very well be worth the world. Thinking about that car, complete with expired tags that Carol thought might fool a cop as long as she wasn't breaking any other law to get their attention and didn't drive right in front of them, had practically kept Carol up at night for two weeks.

She'd left Ed before—three times. The first two times, he'd caught her before she could really get anywhere—and he'd taken her directly to the emergency room for the "accidents" she'd had. The third time, she'd had to come back to him, because he'd been right. She didn't have a pot to piss in of her own. He'd made sure of that, and he'd made sure that nobody in the area would harbor her or give her a job.

But Eleanor Washington was under Ed's radar and not at all under his thumb.

She hadn't batted an eye when Carol had shown up at an ungodly hour and looking as she had. She'd handed her the keys, told her that she wanted to know nothing about anything, because she never wanted to be any more dishonest than she had to be, and she'd waved a couple of times from the porch as Carol had driven the car down her driveway, her whole body practically shaking hard enough to make her teeth chatter.

Ed Peletier was likely to kill her, one way or another, so she might as well live as long as she could.

Carol pulled the drawer open in the bathroom and her throat tightened at the sight of the little toothbrushes—a variety of colors—in their cardboard and plastic wrappers. She selected pink, tore it open, threw her trash away, and brushed her teeth thoroughly with toothpaste from a somewhat twisted up tube by the sink.

She knew that Andrea felt self-conscious about her home, but Carol couldn't begin to think why. The place was cute and comfortable. It smelled like a warm hug—like Christmas. It stirred up happy memories in Carol's mind of holidays that she hadn't actually experienced. It stirred up hope that, someday, she might have a little home like this that was just as comfortable, and smelled just as nice, and she might live there without the fear of hearing her husband's steps making the floorboards creak.

Carol combed her hair, put on one of the few clean outfits from her bag, and decided that she didn't look too damn terrible, all things considered.

She would heal. In every damn way, she would heal.

And if Andrea asked her to leave in the morning, which she had every right to do, Carol would leave. Andrea had been right about the importance of the shower, though. It had been just enough to fortify Carol and make her believe that she had some kind of life out there, just waiting to be lived.

She'd eat the food offered to her, sleep in the bed that she already imagined would feel just like sleeping on a cloud—especially knowing that Ed had no idea where she was, and couldn't possibly find her here—and she'd figure out, in the morning, what the rest of her life looked like.

No matter what, though, it already looked a hell of a lot better than anything Ed Peletier had ever given her.