Chapter 14 #2
They escaped the dead, gathered supplies, and are heading home in one piece. They’re long overdue for the kind of luck they were gifted today.
* * *
Wyatt can’t get inside fast enough when they get home. Only, instead of being greeted by Addison, all he sees is blood.
It coats the sofa cushions and trails along the floor. He follows with newly hesitant steps, and his heart in his throat. “Addison?”
His voice is barely a whisper as he unsheathes his knife, grabbing Emma by the arm to prevent her from running toward the bedrooms in search of her mother. If the worst happened and she’s gone, he won’t allow her to see that.
If there are rotters in the house, he has to protect her.
It might be shock that keeps him sane as he climbs the stairs, the last one creaking so loud that the bedroom door flies open right as he reaches it, putting his target right in line with the blade of his knife.
“Wyatt?” Addison is wearing a coat like she’s going somewhere. She has her knife out and a bag on her shoulder. She is not, however, as relieved to see them as he is to see her, judging by the way her eyes widen. “Oh my god. What happened? Who got bit?”
Emma runs past him and into her arms, and okay, now he understands why Addison’s looking at them like they’re both about to drop dead. Which just so happens to be exactly how he’s looking back at her after seeing that trail of blood.
“We ran into some trouble, but we’re good. No one got bitten,” he assures her. “But you…what the hell happened here? Where were you going?”
She squeezes Emma, her eyes on him until her daughter steps away.
He feared her worse off than when they left, but she’s right here in front of him, one hand twitching at her side like she wants to reach for him but corrects at the last second.
“We don’t need the ultrasound machine anymore.” Her voice is monotone as she holds his stare as if begging him not to make her clarify why.
It shouldn’t hit him as hard as it does. This child was never his.
This family isn’t either.
He is no one to her in the grand scheme of things, but he allowed himself to get caught up in playing house long enough that it started to feel real.
He averts his eyes a moment before forcing them back up, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll survive. I have no choice.”
The urge to pull her into his arms overwhelms him, and he takes a step forward as if to hug her, only to watch as she steps back with a slight shake of her head.
“I can’t yet,” she whispers.
Can’t feel it. Can’t think about it. Can’t anything, he supposes.
Emma is caught in the middle of this mostly nonverbal interaction, and she isn’t quite on the same wavelength yet. “Momma, what happened?”
Addison strokes a hand through her hair. “I’ll explain later. I’m okay, that’s all you need to know right now, and I’m so glad that both of you are too. I got so worried. I was about to come looking.”
She nearly left the house to find them in her condition, and fuck if that doesn’t send a chill right up his spine. She looks pale and weak, more in need of a few nights’ rest than running off on a rescue mission.
“We had a bit of an adventure that we didn’t ask for with a herd, but—”
“I never should have sent you,” Addison says with a self-deprecating sigh. “You could have gotten hurt, and it would all be for nothing now.”
“Coulda, woulda, shouldas never did anyone any good.”
She shucks her coat and follows him into the kitchen, where he puts the water on.
“Wyatt did a lot of swearing today. We need a jar,” Emma says calmly.
“Wow, okay. Throwing me under the bus like that. I see how it is,” he snorts.
“One swear jar coming right up. The apocalypse is no excuse for poor language,” Addison agrees, throwing him a half-hearted, sly wink that looks far more tired than he wishes it did.
He forces out a half-laugh that barely reaches his eyes, hearing her stomach growl right around the same time his does. “Did you eat? I’ll make something for all of us.”
“You don’t have to, I can—”
“Stay put. I got this.”
He cooks up some scrambled eggs courtesy of the chickens and adds some bacon they found in the chest freezer downstairs. It’s the only thing he can do for her. So he throws his attention into the task, wishing that dinner wasn’t the only comfort he could offer.
* * *
Later, when he’s alone in his room, Wyatt can’t sleep. He wishes there wasn’t a wall separating him from Addison, but she needs to be with Emma, and he won’t begrudge them that.
It doesn’t mean he wants to be alone, either. All the stress from the last few days caught up to him, and he longs to see her face, even if that only means watching her sleep.
She was so exhausted earlier. Helping her through this is entirely out of his depth. It’s not his place anyway, that’s for damn sure.
A soft knock at the door is a welcome surprise.
“Yeah?” He sits up, fussing with the blankets for no other reason than nerves.
Addison pops her head through the cracked door. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No. Come on in.”
She approaches the bed with a shy bite of her lip. “Can I sit?”
Can she join him? Is she kidding? He’s never wanted anything more. He gives her a nod, and she takes up the space beside him with bent knees, tucking her bare feet under the blanket.
“Emma is asleep, and I…told her, but I’m not sure she really understands why it happened,” she admits, fiddling with her empty ring finger. “I don’t either, really.”
He doesn’t think she’s purposely trying to draw attention there, but that’s what happens all the same. “You took it off.”
“I should have sooner. I was afraid that if he came back, he’d see it gone and be angry, but I’m not afraid anymore. At least, not about that.”
“How are you? Really?” The thing about hard conversations is that he’s never been good at them in the slightest. He is talented at avoiding them.
He would often get lost in the air if he could, letting the clouds clear his mind rather than facing any hard truths.
Maybe that’s why his own marriage ended.
“Still bleeding. If you want the gruesome truth. Not as badly, though, so at least there’s that. I’m not sure how to feel, and even that…not knowing which emotion to go with, feels wrong somehow.”
“I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to handle this.”
She is quiet for a long moment, leaning her head back against the pillows, before she speaks.
“I didn’t get pregnant because I wanted to, Wyatt.
Both times. It was expected of me. It was the natural course of things.
Get married. Have babies. Repopulate a broken world.
It was my duty as a wife.” She runs a hand over her face with a wince at that last sentence.
“Stupid. Stupid. I love Emma more than anything left on this planet, but I couldn’t be happy about this baby.
I kept pretending I wasn’t pregnant. It felt too risky to get attached, all things considered, and so I didn’t let myself. I ignored it. Maybe if I hadn’t…”
“You can’t go down all these rabbit holes.”
“I cried for hours while you were gone, but now I feel relieved that I won’t be bringing another child into this world only to risk losing it the same way we saw Jeff and his daughter get tackled by the herd.
That’s what’s waiting out here for anyone brand new.
Maybe what happened today was a gift by comparison. Am I horrible to feel that way?”
“You’re not horrible. I’m just sorry you were here alone.”
“It’s better Emma wasn’t here.”
“Hey.” He offers her his hand, palm up. His nerves calm when she takes it. “I know that, but I still wish I’d been with you.”
Her lower lip wobbles as she leans toward him to rest her head on his shoulder. “Me too.”
“You’re gonna be alright, sweetheart.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You are.”
“Can I stay here a while?”
“Long as you need.”
He isn’t a cuddler, but lifts his arm anyway in tentative encouragement.
She doesn’t know how to nestle any more than he knows how to hold someone, but they fight for it anyway when she presses against his chest. It’s intimate in a way he thought only existed for other people.
“Relax, I only bite if you ask me to,” she says, no doubt feeling the tension in his body, he can’t shake. “Did my poorly timed and highly inappropriate joke calm you at all? I can try another if you like?”
“Keep going, and I’ll fire you,” he deadpans.
“You’ll rehire me.”
“I will not.”
“Come on, I need this job.”
He snorts, rubbing her arm and marveling at how the urge to jump out of his own skin slowly fades.
A stretch of comfortable silence is broken by her soft yawn. “I’m so tired, and you’re so warm…I’ll just rest my eyes for a while.”
The last thing he remembers before sleep takes him too is how good it feels to have everything he wants right here in his arms.