Dark Days

Happiness Fades

         ©JRF2016

Reid hadn't slept well at all last night.  This is the second morning since she's been back and she hasn't woken since that first time and all he wanted was to hear her voice again.  He keeps wondering if Rose was right.  He wonders if he would live to see everyone he loves die.  Rachel, Darrick, Cathy, Chi, Martha, his kids, even Conner and the rest of their group. Would he outlive all of them and die alone?  He keeps wondering if that is what he deserves for everything he had done since this all started.  Maybe he really is the monster she thought he was.  "Chief," he hears Rachel's sweet voice in his ear and he blinks open his eyes and looks into her greenish blue ones.  "You were having a bad dream I think."  He didn't even realize that he had fallen asleep but he nods and wraps his arms around her.  He offers no reply.  "I'm okay," she reassures him, "You're not getting rid of me that easy." Reid chuckles a little but he still feels uneasy.  "Talk to me, Chief."  He pushes her off him gently so he could look at her directly.  "Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about.  I know you, something is bugging you.  Talk to me."

"You don't need to worry about that right now.  You need to heal."

"I'll heal just fine, it's not like I'm running a marathon and I'm just listening to you, to what's bothering you."  She presses her lips softly against his.  When she leans back she cocks an eyebrow up at him causing a smile to cross his face.  Reluctantly he tells her about his encounter with Rose after he informed her about Tommy.  When he finishes telling her what Rose had told him Rachel sits in silence staring down at the blanket covering her lap.   When she finally speaks she is enraged, "That bitch!"  Reid looks down at her with that crooked grin of his, "Who does she think she is!  That's not you, that's not what you deserve."

"I don't know," Reid speaks slowly.   He really didn't think he deserved that but Rose had still planted that small seed of doubt.  

"You don't," Rachel assures him, "She was just angry and she took it out in you.  You didn't deserve that either.  I need to have a chat with Rose."  Rachel starts to get out of the bed then but Reid stops her.   She wasn't ready to get up and go start a fight.

"This is why I didn't want to tell you, you need to rest and you're going to jump up and go start a fight."

"I wasn't planning on starting any fight, Chief. I was just going to talk to her." Reid laughs softly.

"Yeah, remember when you were just going to talk to Lisa?" Rachel rolls her eyes and then shrugs as she realizes he has a point, she has a pretty bad temper and a long history of not being able to control it. He convinces her to stay in the bed and not to do anything along the lines of confronting Rose but a few days from now there will be no stopping her.  She had Darrick bring Becky over so they could go over their plans for this special 'birthday' party for the youngest members of our family.  They've been working on it for a few days now.  Becky's been coming over early in the morning and staying well into the night.  Everyone could tell it was taking a toll on her but she refused to quit.  It was taking a lot out of both of the women but they were both too stubborn, or determined, to stop.

Reid, Darrick, and Conner take the kids out of the house the morning of the party so Becky and Rachel can get everything set up.  Cathy had the cake covered. She had baked a huge, well huge for apocalypse standards as they were low on baking materials, for all three of the kids.  "Cathy, I told you that you didn't have to do that.  We were going to handle everything."  Rachel tells her as she takes the cake, "They are our kids, but thanks because now we have less work to do."  The three women laugh although Becky's laughter was cut short.  When she laughs her head throbs even more.  She slowly sits herself down at the kitchen table.  "Are you okay?"  Cathy and Rachel both ask as they close the distance between themselves and Becky.