Crossing The Line Chapter Four

Smoke And Fire

Daryl sat on the front porch of Hershel’s house, waiting for any kind of news about Carl. He’d helped set up the tents, away from the house, and there was simply nothing left to do but wait. Carol approached and leaned on the railing across the gap for the steps, regarding him.

“I won’t apologize for being angry, but I do apologize for saying I hate everyone,” she said.

“You ain’t gotta say sorry, Carol. Everybody knows why you said what you said. I’d be hollerin’ and snappin’ at everybody if I’d been through what you have. Some people would have even ate a bullet but you didn’t. So you’re grumpy. We get it.”

She smiled wanly, appreciative of his support. It felt good not to be judged, regardless of how easy it would be to dismiss her and her pain. “Any word on Carl?”

Daryl shook his head.“Not yet.”

“I hope he pulls through. He’s a good boy.”

They shared a few more moments of silence. Daryl lit up a cigarette while Carol screwed up the courage to ask him the one question that had been on her mind since he showed up unexpectedly at her tent and saved her from getting raped.

“How did you know?”

Daryl didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t understand what she meant. “I saw how you looked when you came back from the woods that day. I decided I’d keep an eye out on your tent and see if Shane would make a move.”

“You watched over Sophia and me? For three nights?” Carol asked, feeling emotion well up from deep inside. For once it was a good feeling, something positive, rather than hurt or anger.

Daryl shrugged, downplaying what he’d done. “I ain’t gonna sit back and watch people get raped and not do anything. I figured he’d make another move and he didn’t disappoint.”

She’d been so used to being treated like shit by men in her life. First her stepfather, then her husband. Then Shane had raped her and she felt Rick had failed to see the evil that was in him and kicked him out of the camp. She’d given up hope there was such a thing as a decent man in the world. Then she realized there were good men, and one of them was sitting across from her, smoking a cigarette and embarrassed out of genuine modesty. She came over and checked the bandage on his arm and told him it would need changing or it would become infected.

“Thank you,” Carol said thickly. “Thank you for what you did.”

Again, Daryl shrugged. He had no idea what to say. Dealing with crying women was a problem he’d never mastered. He’d rather face a herd of slobbering walkers than an emotional woman any day of the week.

Carol saw Maggie Greene in the kitchen, washing dinner dishes with her sister, Beth.

“Maggie is interested in you.”

“What?” Daryl said, suddenly embarrassed.

Carol found her first reason to smile in five days. “It’s true. She can’t take her eyes off you, Daryl.”

“Naw,” he dismissed with a snort.

“No, not ‘naw’. You looked out for me, allow me to return the favor and give you some good advice with regards to women. Be nice to her.”

“Nice?”

Carol nodded. “You can be kind of off-putting, always trying to keep people at a distance, but you need to stop doing that. Be nice to her. See where it leads. I think it’ll lead to something good if you just open yourself up to the possibility. You’re a good man, Daryl. You deserve a good woman, and Maggie’s clearly a good woman.”

Carol left to go to the camp area just as Maggie emerged from the house. He looked after Carol’s retreating form and felt an irrational sense of having been slighted. He had looked out for her, and now here she was, running off and leaving him alone with a woman who, apparently, had her eyes on him, and he didn’t have the first clue what to say. The idea of running along behind Carol actually seemed like a legitimate plan to Daryl at this point.

What the hell was he supposed to do now? The only experience he had with women involved hard drinking and, most time, the exchange of money for services rendered. Maggie wasn’t a barhopping tramp. She was a decent young woman who looked like she’d gone to college and liked reading books that didn’t have pictures. Here she came, striding out of her father’s house holding a plate with a fat slice of chocolate cake and her eyes glued to him.

“Hi,” Maggie said, grinning at him. “Your friend, the Chinese fellow, didn’t want his cake. Said he was too full.”

“He’s Korean,” Daryl corrected quietly.

Maggie shrugged. “Oh. Well, anyway, I think he was too busy eyeballing my little sister to pay attention to his portion of dessert so, it’s your lucky night.”

Be nice to her…

How, exactly, was he gonna do that? Daryl’s instincts were to tell Maggie to keep her cake while he ran for the camp and didn’t look back. Instead, his hand reached out of its own accord and took the treat she offered.

“Uh…thanks,” he muttered.

“It’s homemade with a little extra frosting. My sister, Beth, is really good with the sweets. Between you and me,” she said, and she stepped forward until she was almost touching his knees with her legs, “I’m better at being sweet than baking them.”

Daryl realized she was flirting.

Christ.

Unsure what to do, and with no idea how to respond, he shoveled a big bite into his mouth and chewed. Maggie found his shyness to be cute and chuckled before going back into the house.

Good Lord, Daryl thought. The farmer’s daughter just flirted with me. I'm so fucked.

*****

Michonne sat on the back porch of the Greene farm, anxiously awaiting any news on how Carl was doing. She just wanted to go to his side and sit with him. So far she’d hung back, giving Rick all the time with him, but she wanted a few moments herself. She planned to talk to him, remind him of their fishing trips with Andrea in the quarry, of swimming, and taking hunting lessons with Daryl, and her teaching him how to properly hold a sword. She swiped at the tears spilling from her eyes and planned to remind him of all of their good times together and beg him to fight to survive so they could have more.

“You don’t have to hide your tears,” Rick said. He came onto the porch and sat next to her. “It’s not weakness.”

“I know,” she said, wiping her eyes, but she remained quiet.

“Please don’t close me out. Lori and I started doing that before the Turn. We never recovered from it.”

“I'm scared for Carl. I keep thinking I should have done something about Shane,” she finally admitted.

“Carl is gonna be okay. As to Shane, what could you have done?”

“I don’t know, Rick. Kicked him out myself, maybe? Then he wouldn’t have been in the camp to rape Carol. He wouldn’t have shot that gun and almost killed Carl. The noise from those shots brought those walkers down on our camp.”

“Those walkers got there just as Shane left,” Rick reasoned. “You know what that tells me? They would have stumbled upon our camp that night anyway.”

Rick put his arms around Michonne and pulled her close.

“Shane would have found another group, Michonne, and terrorized them. Or he may have hooked up with a gang of cutthroats and tried to come back for revenge. You can feel guilty all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that what you’re not responsible for his actions. The only one to blame for what happened to Carol and Carl is Shane. Not you, not me, just Shane. If you keep up with this, blaming yourself, then you’re letting him victimize you.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Hershel said. He’d come onto the porch but they hadn’t heard him.

Rick started to stand but Hershel bid him to remain seated.

“Is Carl okay?”

“He’s fine. He’s doing very well. I have him a shot of morphine for pain. He’ll rest comfortably through the night. His fever broke and I got him on a drip for antibiotics and fluids. The bullet fragment came out fine. He’s sewn up. I predict he’ll make a full recovery. I think he’ll be back to walking around on his own in a week.”

Rick and Michonne hugged one another tightly. “Oh, thank God, some good news.”

“Listen, I’ve gathered enough from seeing your son wounded, hearing your people talk, and hearing your conversation, that you had some trouble with someone? He raped your friend, Carol, and shot your son as he made an escape from your camp, is that right?”

“Yes, but he’s long gone,” Rick said, trying to reassure Hershel. “He won’t pose a threat to you or your family.”

“That’s good to know. May I ask what you did prior to this outbreak?”

“I was a Sheriff’s Deputy in my home town. Michonne was a lawyer in Atlanta.”

“So you two were a part of enforcing law, order, and justice. That’s good to know,” Hershel said.

Rick could understand Hershel’s apprehension. He’d overcome the immediate threat to Carl’s life and now he needed to know what kind of people he had at his house, around his daughters.

“I know you must be wary of strangers,” Michonne said. “You have a family to protect. I assure you we’re decent people.”

“I’m a pretty good judge of character and I’ve no doubt you’re good people,” Hershel replied easily, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg casually over the other, but his brow furrowed and his lips had disappeared into a thin line as he contemplated how he would continue.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Greene?” asked Rick.

“I’m not here to talk to you just out of concern for my family, but for yours as well, Rick. I know you see this farm as a safe place so it wouldn’t be right not to tell you of some trouble I’ve encountered recently.”

“Okay,” Rick said, settling in and giving Hershel his full attention.

“A few weeks back my wife and son fell sick with this plague. Maggie brought it to my attention that you and your group view these people as dead and incurable but I have a different opinion on that.”

Rick nodded. “Yeah, Glenn told us about that.”

“That’s a discussion we can have at another time. A day or so after Annette and Sean fell ill three men came onto our farm, claiming to be survivors looking for help. They were part of a larger group and said they just wanted to know if there was a safe farm they could settle down on in the area and that they’d keep to themselves. Something about them didn’t sit right with me so I was wary. I had my daughters stay in their rooms so the men didn’t know they were here. Turned out to be a good decision. The men attempted to rob us. They also wanted to use Patricia in an unseemly way. Her husband, a good friend of mine named Otis, was killed when we told them to leave and a fight broke out. I killed two of the men but one of them got away. I fully expect he will return with people at any moment. That means this farm isn’t as safe as you may have hoped.”

Rick and Michonne exchanged a glance. She didn’t need him to speak to know what he was asking of her with his gaze alone. He wanted to help this man and she did too. She nodded and Rick turned back to Hershel.

“You saved my son, Mr. Greene. If trouble shows up here I will fight beside you. I’ll do all I can to keep your family and your property safe.”

Hershel sighed in relief. “Thank you. It’s good to know there are decent folks left in this world. It’s so easy to do what’s wrong in the interest of self-preservation in a situation like this. I’m glad to have found people who care about doing what’s right. And from now on, Rick, you and your people can call me Hershel. No need to stand on formalities. Now, I’m going to go fix up a cot in my room so you two can stay close to your boy.”

*****

The next week was spent peacefully on the farm, with Rick’s people falling into a routine to help the Greene’s with chores around the farm. Hershel’s prediction that Carl would be up on his feet in a week proved true. He’d been right when he said children were resilient. Though Carl couldn’t do any heavy lifting, and wouldn’t be fit for travel for another couple of weeks, he was at least able to get up and stretch his legs, and his appetite had returned.

In that time, while Michonne had spent every day nursing Carl back to health, Rick spent time tending to the animals as well as helping Beth, Maggie, Patricia, Andrea, and Carol with target practice at a neighboring farm. Should walkers roam the area in a herd, they didn’t want to draw them to the Greene property.

Beth, it turned out, was a natural shot, and she was quick to pick up on the pointers Glenn showed her. She had good aim and wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger.

“You’re a quick learner,” he said, and then squeezed his eyes shut when he realized he’d said that already--twice. “Sorry. Said that already.”

“That’s okay,” she said.

Beth smiled, touched by his shyness. She slicked a stray strand of hair behind her ears and regarded Glenn while he motioned her over to the fence. There, he showed her how to load a clip and then had her start on it.

“So, what did you do before the plague?”

He looked away from her, his eyes going to his feet while his face warmed with embarrassment. “I did odd jobs. Mostly I delivered pizzas and washed cars. I was working my way through business school.”

“What kind of business did you want to go into?”

“I was a pretty hardcore gamer. I wanted to own my own gaming store and maybe an arcade.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said.

“All right, y’all. Let’s wrap this up,” Rick said.

Beth was sure he cut practice short not only to conserve ammo but to get back to Carl. She didn’t blame him.

“What about you?” Glenn asked. He accepted the fully loaded Beretta Beth handed him and tucked it into the holster strapped to his hip. “What did you want to do?”

“I was going to be a teacher. No need for that now. No children to teach,” Beth said, a little sadly.

“You never know,” Glenn said, trying to cheer her. “Society is going to come back, slowly but surely, and when it does teachers will be needed.”

Beth appreciated his effort to buoy her spirits. It made her like him even more, which was saying something considering she found him insanely attractive. He was so damned cute and boyish and charming. He also had a really nice mouth she found herself staring and wondering what it would be like to press her lips to.

“May I ask a personal question?” she inquired.

“Shoot.”

“How old are you?”

“I’ll be twenty-two in a month. You?”

“I’ll be eighteen next week. You’re not so much older than me,” said Beth.

“Guess I’m not,” Glenn agreed.

“I was thinking, maybe after dinner tonight, you and I could go for a walk around the duck pond? It’s really pretty in the sunset.”

Glenn nodded readily and then blushed at Andrea, who was grinning at them as she walked past and jumped into the bed of the truck. Glenn boosted Beth inside, and he took a moment to appreciate the round firmness of her bottom, until he caught Dale glaring at him from the passenger seat inside the truck.

*****

Michonne was finishing with the job of cutting celery stalks and dicing up the eggs she planned to put into a potato salad she’d almost finished with when Carl came into the kitchen, sweating and holding his side. He still did that on occasion, unconsciously, which proved he still needed some time to heal.

“We got anything to eat?”

“You just had lunch a couple of hours ago,” Michonne reminded him.

“I’m starving, though.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Oh? Are you just starving to death?”

Catching on and enjoying the game, Carl put the back of his hand to his forehead and dramatically swooned, leaning against the table.

“I’m barely hanging on!”

“Okay, sit down. I’ll make you a salad.”

“Salad?” he said, wrinkling his nose in disdain. “I’m struggling to survive here. I need sugar. I was thinking cookies are just the things to save me.”

“Oh really? Cookies, huh?”

“I agree with the kid,” Hershel said, entering the kitchen. He’d been watching them interact and he could see how much Michonne and the boy loved one another. Carl had told him that his mother had been killed by the sick people, but Michonne had been there to hold him when he’d cried at night, and to help him deal with her death. In Carl’s words, she’d ‘made it easier’ for both him and his father to deal with losing Lori. He could see why Carl was fond of Michonne. She was a natural with him and would make a good mother to her own children someday, should she and Rick choose to have them.

“See! Mr. Greene-- I mean, Hershel-- knows what’s good for me. He’s my doctor so you should listen to him.”

“Cookies will help put hair on the boy’s chest.”

Michonne feigned surprise. “Really? Well in that case I’ll avoid eating them myself. I don’t want hair growing on my chest.”

“Neither would Dad,” Carl joked, and Michonne swatted at him with a wet washcloth.

“You hush. You can have two cookies and half a glass of milk.”

“Just two?” Carl said, disappointed.

“Yes. You’re not spoiling your dinner.”

Carl turned to Hershel, but the older man held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I did my duty getting her to agree to the idea.”

“Hershel!”

Patricia ran through the house, hollering his name, and he turned to her in panic. “Patricia, what happened?”

“We’ve got trouble,” she said. “I think that man who was with the men who killed Otis has returned. He’s got backup, and they’re on their way up the drive.”

They’d prepared for this situation, should Rick and the others be away from the house and trouble came knocking. 

“Carl, get downstairs and hide in the drier, just like we practiced,” said Michonne.

“You should give me a gun. I can help fight.”

“No, Carl. Downstairs, now,” Michonne insisted. “Don’t come out until one of us calls for you.”

Carl heaved an exasperated sigh but did as ordered.

“Hershel, you and Patricia get your guns. I’ll light the smoke signal,” Michonne said, and rushed outside to the back yard.

Hershel and Patricia grabbed the shotguns from the living room. They had six shells each and he shook his head. “If I’d known the end of the world was coming, I’d have bought more ammo.”

“I’ll die, Hersh, before I let those men do to me what that Shane fellow did to Carol in her camp,” Patricia vowed.

“I’ll die before I let that happen, too,” Hershel promised, and kissed Patricia on the forehead. “Now, help me get the table turned over.”

Michonne came inside and helped put the dining room table down as a barrier. The table was eighty-five years old and made of solid oak. It was strong, and it was the best barrier they had against gunfire. Michonne took a place up beside the door, her katana at the ready to face whatever threat came through the front door.



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