2 - You Need To Move On
He sat in the dark. The bed below him was comfortable, even with the dust, but Shane didn't lie back and sleep. The moonlight came through the open windows, casting the man in pale silver rays that just barely provided enough light to see the outline of his reflection in the dresser mirror. Dark pools of shadow sunk into his face, his eyes in an unwavering eye contact with his own reflection. Shane stayed very still and listened to the noise in his head.
I'm sorry.
He thought he saw a fat figure in the darkness behind him. Its skin was all gone, a bloodied mix of bone with a rifle strung across its back. Shane turned, saw nothing but the hideous floral wallpaper and the pitch black, but could still hear the far-off screams.
The murderer took a deep breath, rubbing his chin. His silver chain glinted in the moonlight, hanging out from his t-shirt.
He'd saved Carl's life. Shane told himself that they would have all died if he hadn't done it, even as his gut twisted and he thought that maybe they could have made it without what he'd done. A ghost pain shot through his scalp and he ran his hands over his shaved head, felt the area that was still tender from where Otis had ripped his hair out.
Shane flinched away from his reflection. A dark figure had floated past the windows and a knock floated through the dividing wall a few seconds later. They were real. Shane moved, keeping his eyes open and on the window because when it was in the corner of his eye he was imagining either Otis or one of the group just stood outside, watching him. The wall was cold against his ear as he pressed against it to listen.
"I'm worried about him." he heard the first voice, female, ask. She sounded upset.
"Atticus, again?" the second said, and Shane found himself recognizing Tess' voice.
"He's just' getting steadily weirder. I know that we're all struggling to stay alive but...he asked if I'd be willing to help him stop you callin' the shots. Said he don't want no woman runnin' this place."
"I'll keep an eye on him. I know he's your brother but, if he does anything, he even tries anything, he's gone. We have to have rules."
"I don't know how I feel about sending my brother to his death out there." Athena, Shane thought.
"We got to do what we got to do. Just 'cause we don't know if it's gonna be the right call doesn't mean we shouldn't do everythin' we can to stay alive."
"We have to be just. We can't just be savages, Tess."
"That ain't what I'm sayin'. Nobody who's a danger to this group has any fucking chance of staying." A long pause, and then, "Go get some sleep 'fore this run tomorrow."
Shane heard footsteps and threw himself onto the bed quickly, the springs creaking below him, as the figure went back past the windows. He really needed to start closing those curtains.
Tess had a right to be like that. He almost admired it, but it meant she'd easily toss him out if she found out he'd lied. Shane didn't think he could contest it, not without hurting someone. There were kids here.
He twisted, feeling the knife under his pillow, and tried to push thoughts of Otis aside as he closed his eyes. He had to do it. That's what he told himself as he slept there, his fingers around his knife and his eyes firmly closed. Shane was fairly sure that if he opened his eyes, he'd see Otis again.
He needed to stop seeing Otis.
A gunshot went off. His gun. Shane looked at the gun he held, at the bleeding man on the ground. He kept firing, unable to stop as he kept pulling the trigger over and over.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang-
He woke to the sound of knocking. Shane found his knife, still in his grip, but he realized he didn't have to hold it so damn tight because the figure in the window was blonde and human. The whole thing had been a dream. Glad that he wasn't back there, doing that, he let his eyes adjust to the sunlight pouring into the room.
Shane hadn't gone to sleep under the covers, so he didn't bother to fix the rumpled but still-made bed as he stood and padded over to the door. He probably looked like shit.
"Morning." Shane wincing as the sunlight came through the now open door. The woman was again dressed like she was half-cowboy half-cop with her boots and her taut bun.
"What?" he asked because he didn't know what else he could ask. Nobody had worried about him waking up for anything other than him taking a watch since they got to the farm. He still felt sour from his dream. Nightmare.
"We're having breakfast soon, and then we're goin' on a run. We need shit to fix up the wall," she said, looking at him with one eyebrow raised like she knew something he didn't. He chose to stare her down rather than moving away.
Shane noticed the dark-blue of her eyes that reminded him of the ocean. Shane hadn't ever seen the ocean, but her eyes were the same color as the ocean was in the honeymoon pictures Rick and Lori showed him. "I need you to keep watch, help Atticus and Edison out, while we're gone."
"I can do that."
"'No bullshit. You do anything to these people while I'm out, I will gut you." Half-serious, and yet still worrying. She made to move and Shane nearly closed the door in her face, but she held a hand out and said, "By the way, the shower works. No warm water since the generator's out, but the motel has its own water source."
Shane thought about the bloated walker they'd found in the farm's well.
"I won't do shit. I ain't like that." Shane said. He supposed that it wasn't actually a lie; he had no recurring thirst for blood. No want to kill in cold blood. Still, guilt needled his chest as he stood with her, watching him like she was just waiting for him to spill his secret. Maybe he was paranoid, like when Dale had been a piece of shit, comin' up to him and saying all this shit about him and Rick and Otis.
"You should grow your hair out. Bein' bald makes you look like a damn psycho." is all she said before she moved away, this time for good, with her cowboy boots thudding on the ground.
"So what's your story, stranger?" the voice didn't startle him. Shane had been sat on watch for a long while now and he hadn't missed the stares that Edison had been sending him. He'd been waiting for the silent man to say something for the last sweating hour in the sweltering sun. Fall hadn't yet kicked into high gear, even with the subtle changes in the leaves and the ever-stronger winds.
Shane almost yelled at the man. Hell, he wanted to, but sat there with the sun in his eyes and the wind raising goosebumps on his bare arms, he remembered that he didn't need to go making more enemies. "I was a cop."
"Military," Edison responds, "But I didn't serve all that long. Anybody tell you that I was on Survivor?"
"Tess did. I think I mighta even seen your season," Shane found himself remembering sitting in his front room with a girl, one who he'd thought could be to him what Lori was to Rick but turned out not to be, and her getting worked the fuck up about this manipulative asshole who'd betrayed everyone. "They got you back in the end for betraying them, didn't you?"
"Yeah. Can't believe that. Final four, but I got robbed." he said, "They even asked me to come back, do some sort of returning season. Missed opportunity. I suppose that million dollars wouldn't do me good right now but I still loved the damn show."
"You prefer this or that island?" Shane leaned back in the chair, almost at ease. He saw no walkers on the empty patch of road or the empty fields around. He bet that they could farm there, someday. But, did he really want to live in a motel for the rest of his life? Practicality was all that mattered now.
"Island. I always had somethin' I'd be comin' back to. The scariest thing about that was comin' home and everyone hating you on twitter and reddit," he said, "No society left now so I got nothing but my sister."
Shane said nothing. He was too busy thinking about the world to wonder why Edison didn't include his wife in that. He was sure that Tess mentioned the man having a wife.
Shane realized that his world wasn't as small as Edison's. He knew about the people at the farm, and he knew Morales was out there somewhere if he and his family weren't already dead, but for all Edison knew, they were the only people on the whole planet.
Everything was gone. Shane had never been a man who particularly gave a shit about the planet. Recycling didn't appeal to him, but he saw it now. Saw all the trash everywhere that no one was walking around and picking up.
Without people, the world was a fucking mess.
It was dark when they came back with obvious blood splatters on the side of the pickup. Shane was sat alone, again, and tried to act like he wasn't curious. If this place was gonna be enough to bring Lori and Carl to then he needed to know what was happening.
He shifted, sat under the shadowed shelter of the motel's upper walk because he thought it might rain but didn't want to pen himself in that little motel room.
Tess- he recognized her easily- climbed out of the truck first. She didn't look happy as she moved, stomping away from the pickup and leaving the other three behind in the pickup. Two of the triplets- Athena and the guy that wasn't Atticus, 'cause Shane knew Atticus had stayed back with them- and another woman that Shane thought was maybe Edison's wife but he hadn't been paying attention to the introductions all that much.
Shane saw Tess' feet disappear up the wooden staircase, but no one followed her. The other three stood together, speaking loud enough that Shane could hear them in the silent night.
"You think she's mad?" the woman who was very possibly Edison's wife asked.
"That's the third place we've tried and it was a hell of a lot worse than the other two; 'course the woman is pissed." Athena said, "Bet she'll organize another run tonight. Damn woman doesn't sleep."
The trio all went for the staircase, and when it became apparent that Shane wasn't going to get any more information from them by eavesdropping he stood too. It was getting late and Shane had agreed to take a watch in the early morning. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sounds of doors thudding shut and, somewhere out in the darkness, a single bird cawing. A crow, maybe.
Shane made the way back to his room, pausing at his door to see that Tess' curtain was half-open and she had a light on. He could see her, illuminated by the stark white light as she perched over a map, a pencil in her hand and tourist-information leaflets around her.
The officer rapped his knuckled on the glass, and the blonde cast her eyes from whatever she was doing to him before climbing to her feet. He walked to her door as she opened it.
"You got a habit of lookin' through that window, huh?"
"Can't have the curtains open like that; it's dangerous."
"I was a little occupied." Tess stepped back, hair still pulled taut into a bun, and cast her eyes to the window before looking back to Shane, "You want to help? You might know somethin' I don't."
"What are you doin'?"
"Trying to find somewhere to get supplies."
Shane figured that helping plan a run was a good way to make himself more important in this group. He didn't like not knowing what was going on and not being able to make decisions.
"I'll help," he said, stepping inside the doorway and taking the door when Tess released it, closing it with a soft click. With the curtains fully closed over, the thick material keeping all the light from the camping lantern in, the room felt as though it was the only place in the world, just floating in some endless darkness, "They were sayin' you're angry."
"The warehouse was burnt down and surrounded by the dead. Fire must have been recent enough to draw them all there, so someone not too far from here did it." Tess sat back on the ground, next to her maps, and Shane considered taking the chair before joining her on the cheap tiled flooring, "We really needed to get something to patch up the wall, especially if there are people around here."
"Could do another run. Scout any areas out with a couple people. Means you ain't wastin' a whole day." Shane ignored that he knew people less than a day's drive from here. Ignored that he could ask Tess to bring them back to the motel because he'd gotten in the Hyundai instead of fighting Rick for a reason.
"That's the third place we've checked, damnit." Tess crossed her legs, elbows resting on her knees and her jaw moving, chewing at the nail of her thumb, "Priority is food and medicine, but that wall... if it comes down to it, it ain't gonna hold. Not long enough to get everyone out of here."
Shane ran his hand over his shaved head. He'd seen the wall and he knew exactly how vulnerable it was. How long before he had to make another tough decision just to keep himself alive?
No. He'd done that for Carl, not him. "Double the watch. Gives us more warnin'."
"We ain't got the numbers to double the watch, not without drainin' everyone."
"You wanna keep these people alive?" Shane would have argued that they find the military if he wasn't beginning to understand that the military was completely gone. Fort Benning was gone, probably everywhere else too. Shane knew he was depending on the slim chance of somewhere like that still existing, "Right decision's the one that keeps these people alive."
"That's all I've been tryna do since we put this place together."
"How'd you end up in charge?" Tess kept her head down, looking at the papers before her, and Shane absentmindedly picked up the closest map. There was a red x for their location on the highway, and it only took Shane a moment to figure out the way they'd come from and how to get back to the farm. How to get back to the only people he gave a damn about.
"I just started calling the shots and people listened. It isn't easy." Tess said.
"They all think that it's easier to tell 'em what to do. It ain't."
"You lead your old group?" Questions that he had to be careful about. If this was what creating an alibi was like, Shane was glad he'd been the cop and not the criminal. He actually felt worried.
"I did. They didn' like how I was doin' it, but I'll bet they realized it ain't all that simple."
"Sometimes I think that Edison wants to lead instead. He kinda thinks I'm making all the wrong decisions lettin' you in an' trustin' you." Tess kept eye contact with him as she said, "I only started lookin' for people, namely you, 'cause we need more able-bodied people here. He don't get that. He just thinks that someone is gonna come in here and take everythin'."
"Can't leave your camp undefended. You leave it a few men down and there ain't gonna be enough to protect it."
Atlanta. He still thought that Rick was wrong to leave. Merle Dixon's dead corpse was not worth the lives lost in that camp attack. Shane had done all he could to save everyone he had, no matter how small that number had gotten when Rick turned up.
"That how you lost your group?"
"My old partner thought a bag of guns and a dead guy in Atlanta were worth it. They weren't."
Shane had to remember that she thought his group had died in an attack and he couldn't say anything else about it. Yet, the lies coming from him were frustrating and making him remember Amy's dead corpse. He ran a hand over his face.
"I'm sorry." She paused, "Yeah, I think we should draft up a double watch. 'case someone falls asleep or somethin'."
Tess' features were stark in the white light, the lantern on the floor and casting a thick black shadow on the wall and ceiling behind her.
"You ever play shadow puppets as a kid?"
"Me and Edison-" Tess turned and saw what he was looking at. She smiled, raising one hand and making an oddly shaped dog.
It felt stupid, but- Shane put both hands up, did the shape he'd perfected in the first couple months of this. A butterfly. He could do a few, but the butterfly seemed right. "When this all started, I got my partner's wife and kid to safety. He was in the hospital and I couldn't- thought he was dead was dead. I did these for the kid every night on the tent wall when he was cryin' about his dad." paused, did the voice he'd always done with Carl, "Shane and Carl's shadow adventures."
"That's sweet," she smiled, lowering her hand because Shane already had and currently had his head tilted to the side and away from her.
It had been perfect, as perfect as the end of the world could get, before Rick came back. Shane woulda made like Jenner said if not for Lori and Carl. 'opted out.'
He lived for the people he gave a damn about and no one else.
"You wanna do some watches together?" Tess reaches up, fingers working the hair ties around her bun free, "I'm kinda sick of talking to my brother and Athena is basically my best friend but if she asks me about what's goin' on one more time I might lose it."
"Depends if you're gonna give us shifts in the dead of the night." He smiled, felt wanted by someone. Felt like joking about, "I ain't some vampire."
She'd pulled a pad of paper closer to herself, and now she was scribbling on it. "I always try and take the dawn shift. I like the mornin' when it's blue but the sun ain't up yet. Keeps away all those pesky vampires,"
"You never know. Anythin's possible when the dead are up an walkin'."
So, you believe in a blood-sucking dog?
You believe in dead people walkin' around?
Rick and Daryl. Shane hadn't meant to remember that conversation but there it was, glaringly obvious in his mind. Shane hadn't been Rick's partner for a long time now. He'd lost his brother when he'd left him in that hospital because he didn't know how to work the machines and he couldn't hear a heartbeat and he thought his brother was dead. His brother was dead. Shane was alone now.
Somewhere between shooting that first walker in the station and Rick coming back, Shane had changed into something else. It was the only way to live. They'd all figure it out one day.
This world took a piece of you and it wasn't ever going to give it back.
"You good?" His eyes snapped up, landed on the waves of hair now falling around her face, on the concern in her eyes.
"You just kinda started starin' off into the distance."
Shane let out a loud exhale, ran his fingers over his head and wished that he could feel them tugging at hair he didn't have anymore. "I'm good."
He wasn't. He could feel himself falling down and down and Shane wasn't sure he'd climbed any higher in getting out of that dark hole. Leaving the farm had helped a little, but now he was thinking about everything and it didn't feel better. Rick came back, ruined everything, but Shane hadn't done any better. Shane had aimed at his brother's head and put his finger on the trigger.
He hadn't pulled it but he'd meant to. He'd meant to. Fuck. Remembering their friendship, remembering him and Rick in high school, as partners, it was easier when he was away. When he wasn't looking at Lori and Carl and loving them.
When had it gone from him being like family, to wanting to be family?
Shane let one hand clutch his lower face. Exhaled and felt his warm breath force it's way through his splayed fingers. Both, for some reason, sat on the floor.
"Used to say how shit it was. Shit world, shit life, shit people." she was quiet, "I thought that the world was just that bad that the next World War was on its way. This... it's kinda like a slap on the face. Fucks with you. Fucks with everything you love."
"Should be easier. Self-sufficient, no factories makin' holes in the atmosphere or anythin'. Ain't, though." As he spoke, Shane let his eyes wander above her, to the mirror on the dresser, and the empty reflection of the back floral wall that was all white-light and shadows. His outline shadowed on the wall.
"It'd be good if you didn't feel bad or anythin'. Just do what you gotta without feelin' bad about it." Maybe she did get it. Why he'd done what he did to Otis. Save Carl. Save Carl had been on loop in his head and he'd done that. He felt bad, though, no cure for it but time and therapy that he didn't have.
She started suddenly, twisting to yank open the cupboard of the dresser and revealing a bottle of brown liquid, "Want a drink?"
He grinned, "You a secret alcoholic?"
"Just a bartender. Was."
It was stupid, but neither of them really had anywhere to be and Shane needed a pick-me-up. He could use a hell of a lot of those, actually.
"Bartender becomes the undisputed leader of some survivors? Ain't that a miracle?"
"Guess ordering drunks to call a taxi home and give you their keys gives you some leadership skills." She'd pulled two glasses from the cupboard, and now she was pouring the amber whiskey into them, "I'd ask if you want it on the rocks but the freezers don't work."
"Could snow," he shifted himself, butt going sorta numb on the floor but not really caring because he liked talking to people and he hadn't been able to be the jokester he'd been back in high school since before all this started, "Never had snow and whiskey before."
"Bet there's a reason. Don't eat brown snow?"
"Pretty sure that's talking about dog shit," Shane said and she laughed, even though it wasn't all that funny, and Shane was laughing too. Maybe this was better. Maybe just fuck Lori. He needed to stop thinking about them.
Shane took the glass when she offered it, and decided that he didn't need Lori and Carl to keep him alive.
And later, when he'd finally left her room and gone back next door, Shane didn't notice the figure that stood on watch watching him and not the road, and as he sat on the end of the bed and slowly unlaced his boots and tasted the whiskey in his mouth, he ignored the bloody figure of a devoured Otis behind him.
A/N: I'mma start off with a super big apology. I know I haven't updated in awhile, but I'm not abandoning this. With the new year comes new workload, and so I have to focus on that and don't have much time for writing at the moment. : ( I am wriggling in time to write, and the bus is my new favourite writing spot, so I promise I am continuing to write this.
Second, I realise that throughout the stories and in these author notes, you guys from America may spot that I'm using irregular spelling. I'm actually british so it's normal for me to spell things with an s over a z, or with an ou instead of just an o. I do intend to keep to the american spelling but I sometimes forget, don't know, or just don't notice because of what I'm used to. I promise I can spell.
So, I know that not much happens here. I'm trying to set the scene for it all, and I'd like to do it with more action involved but bus-writing is hard to plan out. I promise more action in the future, : ) .