Like it Was Before

The doctor has decided to make us privy to his research, share his findings. His attitude has done a complete 180 overnight, going from sneaky and frankly, creepy, to open and welcoming, yet still creepy. The only explanation I can come up with is that he's desperate to talk shop again, to a person and not a computer even if the talking is in layman's terms.
"TS-19." Jenner announces, drawing my attention to the present, throbbing headache and all while we stand there looking at him questioningly, waiting for elaboration as a scan lights up a screen the room's dominant feature.
Slowly, methodically, Jenner takes us through the process of a turn using his visual aids and, his booming voice, and occasionally, VI's.
This information is a lot to take in at once and I reach out blindly to clutch Shane's arm.
Everything's both harder and easier at the same time-there's nothing left, not once you've been bitten.
The very essential human part of you is gone, irrevocable.
We really weren't killing people, after all. All the people, it seemed, present company excluded, were gone.
"Man, I'm gon' get shit-faced drunk," Daryl announces, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard. He has a point-it is depressing, if not illuminating. "Again."
I reach out to him without thinking, letting go of Shane to absentmindedly rub Daryl's broad back.
It is a soothing maternal gesture and I'm surprised when he tolerates it.
"What's the clock for?" Dale asks, startling everyone. The man had been largely silent up until this point. "I mean, what happens at zero?"
There's evasions, an argument I hardly listen to until Rick drags the computer into it-VI can't lie to us, at least, and she tells us tales of spontaneous combustion, sending everyone into a tailspin looking for first exits and then generators. The men, anyhow.
Us women (and Dale) hang back in our rooms, unsure of our place and what's to come next.
Shane'd gone off with the rest of them leaving me behind to try (and succeed mostly) to remain calm about the entire thing, encouraging everyone else to do the same. My moderate victory in accomplishing this collapses in on itself when the A/C fails followed by most of the lights, leaving us with no choice but to crowd back into the main room like sheep, luring by the remaining electricity.
"Shutting things down," Jenner informs us serenely between chugs of wine straight from the bottle. "Prioritizing energy."
Practically everything he was saying at the moment sounded ominous-he could very well recite the phone book and I'd be terrified.
Keeping a tight reign on the emotion for everyone else's sake, but terrified nonetheless.
We're trying to make heads or tails of his this situation when the men come charging back in, Lori calling for Rick.
I head straight to Shane, laying a hand on his sweaty, heaving chest, waiting as patiently as I can while he catches his breath.
Rick, frantic as everyone else, somehow manages to get Jenner talking yet again, spelling out our ultimate demise, concluding with a smug "We're right on track!" He sounded almost proud of his lab, the one that would soon be frying us to death; he really was batshit crazy.
"It was the French," Jenner informs us self-importantly while I stand there with the rest of the group, my hands off of Shane and shaking. "They were the last to hold out."
This statement, tossed out as if it were nothing brings it home to me; this virus, this infection, this walking nightmare had crossed oceans, invaded other countries than ours. There was no safe haven to strive towards. There was no running away.
And, to pile on the devastation, the French had supposedly been close to a cure.
Yet, here we were. And here we would stay, just like the French who had run out of power like sand in a damn hour glass.
I suddenly find myself wavering, my vision dark around the corners as I gasped for breath-this was too much.
On autopilot, I begin to gather Shane and I's things, responding to Ricks shouting without even a moment's hesitation.
It was good to have something to do, something to focus on. I have one strap on my shoulder when the alarm begins blaring, however briefly and then Shane's there, picking up bags of his own, shouldering the weight just as the doors slide closed.

xx

Everyone freezes in place as we realize the gravity of our situation before we all fly into action, a flurry of shed bags and, in Daryl's case, bared firsts. "I told you," Jenner yells belligerently.
"Once that door closes, it can't be opened. I said that, you heard me say that."
I'm in actual shock, and I believe it can not get any worse than this when an HIT is explained to me.
The hits, to borrow a phrase, just keep on coming. "It sets the air on fire." Jenner explains.
The mad scientist continues speaking but I find it impossible to follow his diatribe over the roaring in my ears.
Shane reaches for me, grabbing my hand and I grip hard, my spine stiffening with resolve.
"It can't end like this." I announce definitively, thinking of Carl and Sophia.
"It won't," Shane assures me before he and Daryl take off both of them wielding axes stolen from who knows where.
"I can't make a dent," he tells me moments later, winded, sweating even more as he leans on a nearby counter.
This time it's Shane's back that I reach out to rub comfortingly. I haven't seen Shane this close to tears since that day in the hospital parking lot and that feels like another life, one that belongs to a different girl.
"I love you," I tell Shane hopelessly at a loss for words and without responding, he takes off spurned into action by my simple declaration and oh Jesus, he chooses now to go after one of the guns. I don't know the Shane that points his rifle at Jenner, or recognize the one who fires it into the air, screaming. For once, I don't even register the fact that Lori's being a meddlesome bitch. "Baby,"
I've got my hands on him, pushing back futilely, trying to keep him away from Jenner.
After it has become abundantly clear that I am accomplishing jack shit, T-Dog hauls me out of the way, clearing a path for Rick to intervene. The Shane that's so out of control his best friend has to take him down? I don't recognize that Shane, either.

xx

"What the FUCK were you thinking?" I demand of him, shoving angrily the moment he's calmed down and climbed back to his feet.
Behind us, Daryl starts again with that tiresome ax.
"It doesn't matter, Savannah Jane," Shane sighs, rubbing his freshly bruised forehead. "It's over."
I'm too angry to speak, terrified that this is really the end and I'll spoil everything by saying something unkind, spew out the hateful thoughts running through my mind if I so much as open my mouth, forced to walk away from the man I love.
Miraculously, he comes after me, actually crying now, leaning into me hard and unexpected-if I hadn't been braced on a nearby desk we both would have gone sprawling. Instead of falling, I plant my feet and wrap my arms around his shaking shoulders, speaking into his dirty, too-long hair, telling him that I loved him with every breath that I took, heedless of how many I might have left.
Shane's gathering himself, looking up at me with his bright eyes and-incredibly-making a joke about finding ourselves a private corner.
He is disgusting and I have never been more consumed by another human being in my life.
Thankfully, blessedly, I don't have to say this to him in so many words or contemplate any of the darkened cubbies the room has to offer because at this exact moment, before Shane can even reach his punchline (something sure to be along the lines of 'going out with a bang'), the doors open before us, hallway dotted with dim emergency lights and it's like a breath of fresh air, seeing that. or like sweet tea on a summer day or any other cliche you could ever possibly think of. In short, it is a relief.

xx

There's four minutes on the clock when we all separate, much to my chagrin.
I have time to squeeze Jacqui's hand before Shane is pushing me along ahead of himself before going back for T.
There's no time to contemplate our loss, no time to even think as we bolt up the stairs to the ground floor.
It's like our minds are shutting down the non-priority items, just as the building had done, such as emotions .
All that we can think of right now is survival, putting one foot in front of the other.

We're at three minutes when we reach the lobby, sun pouring in through the floor-to-ceiling windows we can not penetrate no matter how badly we want to, or how much we try. The ax comes into play again, a chair, Shane's rifle.
Shane's yelling at T-Dog to get down the very same instant he's cocking his gun and I realize in a split-second what he intends to do.
"Shane, careful," I warn worried sick about a ricochet as he pulls the trigger again and again until the chamber is empty.
The glass is bulletproof, and honestly, we should have known.
"I have something," Carol announces, rooting around in her purse. She looks scared out of her mind, but game. "It might help."
"Carol, I don't think a nail file's gonna do it," Shane reprimands the woman and while there's no time to feel exasperated at him I feel a wave of the emotion anyhow. Carol was strong as hell, to have survived the life and death of Ed Peltier-couldn't he see that?
My exasperation at Shane is vilified as she produces a hand grenade, a surreal sight.
I feel ridiculously proud of her. Before any of us can react or congratulate her on her smart thinking, Rick is yelling his booming voice instructing us to get down and we all drop immediately, Shane landing heavily on top of me, bodily protecting what he thought of as 'his' before the glass breaks. Hallelujah.

Two minutes left as we're racing out into the putrid air which is scores more tolerable now that we're aware of how close we were to not breathing at all, even if there are still walkers surrounding the perimeter.
Everyone clambers into the RV and I begin to follow suit before doubling back, going to Shane who had stupidly climbed into his precious Jeep. I never understood what went through his mind, it seemed now or ever. He blinks at me standing next to the drivers side.
"Savannah, what are you doing?" What am I doing? That was rich. "Get in the-" Shane's cut off by the RV's horn honking loudly and Lori shouting at Dale to get down, which is ridiculous because Dale had stayed behind. Still, I could read the honking and the shouting well enough; our time was up. The CDC was going.
I duck down, curling up tight next to one of the tires feeling first a woosh of hot air, speckled with debris followed by a roar that strikes the lot of us temporarily def. Then, in a moment, it's over and we can relax just a notch as the crisis is averted.
Averted or not, my legs are shaking so badly that when I stand I'm not sure that they'll support me, until they do.
I stand there, Shane and I staring blankly at one another, taking stock making sure we're both whole.
"You stupid girl," he accuses in a funny tone of voice before kissing me, hard, and I scramble across him to take my place next to him in the passenger seat. We're the last in the carpool that how somehow inexplicably become a family, driving back the way we came without speaking as a black mushroom cloud blooms ominously behind us, blotting out the cities landscape, Jacqui left behind somewhere in all of that mess. It's miles later and my throat is thick with un-shed tears when Shane flips his CD player on, the Skynyrd disk still happily residing in there. Freebird, this time.
It is achingly appropriate and this sends me right over the edge, tears streaming freely down my face as Shane comforts me with one hand, steering with the other. "It's gonna be okay," he tells me just as he had hours before and I nod, turning up the volume.
We'd survived together this long, so in a lot of ways, I supposed everything already was.