Monday, February 1, 2010

When Rick woke up this time he was clear headed. He remembered everything that had happened over the last two days. There was no confusion, nobody startling him awake this time. He laid there for a minute, reviewing their plans, reviewing the past two days. He finally decided he couldn't have done anything differently, that things were good and their plans were well under way. In fact, things last night had gone better than he'd ever dreamed. He got up, got dressed and ready for the day. The clock showed it was 6am, a little early, but he'd like to get in and out at Carol's house before there was even a chance of Ed being released. He was in the kitchen, contemplating breakfast when Lori walked in, already dressed.

"Why don't you wake Carl, I'll get breakfast going."

He nodded and went off to do that. He couldn't say he didn't enjoy waking Carl after the rude awakening he'd given him yesterday morning. Soon they were all seated and eating, breakfast was taken care of quickly. Neither he, nor Lori missed the inquiring glances Carl gave them, but they just continued acting normally. This was their new reality after all, best to get him used to the fact they could get along just fine now.

Soon they were pulling up in front of Carol's house. Rick pulled out the keys she'd given him, unlocked the door and carried the boxes he'd grabbed from the garage into the house.

"Carl, why don't you pack up Sophia's room honey?" Lori asked him. "You'd know best what she'd want to keep. We'll be doing the same for your room as well soon. No need to hold back, bring anything you think she'd want. We have room."

Carl nodded and grabbed a couple boxes and headed into Sophia's room. It was obvious which one it was with the pink comforter on the bed.

Lori pulled out the list and pursued it for a minute. Then she looked up at Rick. "Okay, she wants her stuff from her bedroom. Also a few kitchen items including the cast iron. I can get all of that, but she lists a bunch of MRE's in the garage. Can you load those into her station wagon while I get the rest?"

"MRE's? Why does she have MRE's?"

Lori smiled. "Ed was some kind of survival nut, he had them when we made camp at the quarry, wouldn't let her share them. I guess she wants them this time."

"Huh. Makes sense. Alright, I'll get that done."

They all bustled around the house, packing up every item on the list. Soon the last box was loaded in Carol's station wagon, the door shut and the house locked. Rick tossed the keys to Lori. "Follow me to the farm?"

She nodded, then hesitated as she shot a look at Carl and then back at her watch. "It'll be 8 by the time we get into town."

"Yeah, so?" Rick queried.

"I called Colleen last night." Colleen was her lawyer friend, she had a daughter Carl's age. "She said she'd draw up the divorce papers if we wanted to drop by and sign them this morning. Since it's amicable and we are just selling everything and sharing custody of Carl, she said it'd be ready by 8 if we wanted to stop by."

Rick shot a look at Carl now. Carl sighed. "It's okay, would you both stop looking at me like I'm gonna break? I'm good. You're good. The divorce is good and it's what needs to happen. I'm not gonna break down or anything. Let's get it done." Carl whipped around and climbed into the station wagon. "C'mon Mom, let's go."

Rick and Lori shared a smile and got into their respective vehicles. The drive to town was short, the signing of the divorce papers even shorter. Soon they were on the road with Rick in the lead, headed to the farm to plan their future.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Ed was angry and ready for some retribution as a taxi dropped him at his driveway. Stupid bitch sent him to jail. Wouldn't even answer when he'd called for a ride. He'd show her. He stomped into the house and immediately it felt different. Emptier. It didn't take long to determine all of Carol & Sophia's things were gone. He poked his head into the garage and then colorfully swore as he saw her station wagon and his pallet of MRE's all gone as well.

She'd never done this before. She'd never had the courage to actually leave him. Well, there was that one time, but he'd showed her what'd happen if she ever thought about that again. They belonged to him, damnit!

Ed's eyes narrowed. It was all that cop's fault. He'd messed it all up at the quarry too, he and that partner of his. Yeah, he'd woken up in jail the day before with strange dreams. Memories, not dreams. He remembered being killed after that cop disabled him, beat him. It was all his fault, no way he could fight them off when he'd beat him half to death for nothing. He'd never have died if it wasn't for him.

He'd come home determined to grab his woman and child and high tail it out of there. No way they were getting a chance to kill him again. He'd find a hideout and Carol could make it nice, cook him some good food.

That's when he realized. It was them, those cops again. They took Carol, they were hiding her away from him. That's why she was gone. He'd find her. He'd find them and kill them for what they'd done to him. Then he'd take his woman, his child and go where they'd never find them. He'd make Carol pay for this for a good long time. She'd regret leaving. She'd never leave again when he was done with her.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Carol borrowed Annette's car to go into the bank in Senoia before Rick got there with her car. She was just thankful that there was a branch of her bank there. She was also thankful that Annette pulled Sophia into a bread making lesson so she could go alone.

Carol was determined to get her money out of the bank before Ed moved it or froze her out of their accounts. She was angry at herself for letting him control the money for so long, for letting him beat her, for a lot of things really. She'd been so stupid, so trusting and then so stupid and downtrodden. She just hoped there was something left of the $200k inheritance she'd received when her Daddy died last year. They could use it right now, they needed to build up the farm and order in supplies.

When she arrived at the bank, she took a deep breath, put on her helpless Carol face and entered the building.

"Hello, may I help you?" the man manning the counter asked her.

She fluttered her hands, putting off as many helpless vibes as she could. In self-derision she told herself that wasn't too hard, when it came to money she truly was pretty helpless--and clueless. She hated that feeling.

"I sure hope you can. I'm not quite sure how to do this. I think I need a cashier's check?"

She pulled out her checkbook. Thank God she had that with her at least. She handed the checkbook over to him along with her ID. She knew he'd need that.

"It's from this account. Or in our savings. I'm really not sure which, I'm so sorry."

"Alright, we can go ahead and look and see your balances to see which one it should come from. How much should the check be for and who should it be payable to?"

"All of it. And I guess payable to me?"

His breath hitched. "All of it? Do you want to close your account then? I see you and your husband are both on this account, I'm afraid you both need to be here to close it."

She eyed him and then took a gamble. She really didn't know how this worked and would have to throw herself on his mercy. She looked him fully in the face for the first time, knowing that the black eye Ed gave her the other night would be on full display.

"I'm sorry, I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm hoping you can help me. I got an inheritance from my Daddy last year. $200,000. My husband controls the finances and he deposited it. I'm not sure how much is left. I've been very stupid. My husband beats me. I let it go on for far too long, let him convince me I deserved it. The police came and stopped him the other night, convinced me to leave. I don't want him to spend the rest of my inheritance. I want to withdraw it before it's gone. I'm leaving him and I want there to be some left when the divorce decree comes through. I don't want to close his account, I just want what's rightfully mine to get started in a new life." She bent her head back down, looking ashamed. Playing it up, yes, but it was all truth. "He broke our daughter's arm that night. There will be medical bills as she heals. I need to get us a place to live, we can't stay at the shelter forever. How do I do that? Is a cashier's check right?"

He looked back at her in horror at her story. She cringed inside but told herself it'd be worth it as she imagined Ed screaming when he realized 'his' money was gone.

"I can absolutely help you with that. I don't think a cashier's check is right though. He could put a stop payment on it, stop it from going through. Checks take longer to clear. It would be better for you to just transfer it to a new account that only you control. He wouldn't be able to reverse the transfer. Do you have anything you could open an account with? Or I could withdraw $20 from this one for you to open a new one with."

She pulled a $20 bill out of her purse. Leftover grocery money she'd tucked away. Ed gave her a strict budget but she was very frugal and always had extra. She hoped Rick had found it tucked away in her underwear drawer.

"Will this work?"

"Perfectly. What address do you want to use? Do you have a new one yet?"

"No, not yet. I wouldn't want him to be able to track me through it either. Can I keep using my old one? I haven't technically moved yet."

"Absolutely. Now sign here, initial here and here. Make sure you check this box for online banking. That's important. And this one for email statements so they won't go to your house where your husband can see them. Then fill in your email right here."

Carol did as he asked but then said, "I don't have an email. Ed wouldn't allow it, we just use his."

"Don't you worry about that. See this computer over here? We're going to sit down and set you up one right now."

Soon Carol was in possession of a new email account and a new banking account. Complete with a brand new visa debit card he created and issued right there on the spot. Frank was a lovely person and they chatted while he worked. Soon he brought over more paperwork for her to sign up for online banking on her and Ed's account. She signed, he did his magic and then showed her how to log into online banking on the computer she sat at.

"Now. I'm going to show you how to transfer money between your accounts. I can't do this part, I can't get involved in a money dispute between clients. You understand. If I'm ever called to testify about where this money went, I can honestly say that the transaction information shows it was an online transfer by one of the account owners."

"I understand," she murmured. She was excited. She liked being able to do it herself anyway.

"So click the transfer button right here. Now you choose from this dropdown menu what account you want to transfer from. See this savings account? It has a balance of $150,452.25 in there. When I looked at the history, a $200,000 deposit was put in there last October. That looks to me like it's your inheritance."

Carol felt her anger rise. She should really go back and kill the son of the bitch no matter how hard it would be to hide his body. He spent $50,000 in three months?! She was glad she put his MRE's on the list to be taken. They were rightfully hers, she's sure he bought them with her money.

"Okay, I understand. So I clicked there."

"Now just type in the amount you want to transfer." She carefully typed in the full amount. She wasn't leaving him a penny of her inheritance.

"Now click here and choose the account you want to transfer it to. The one with the $20 balance is your new account that only you have control or access to. Click that. Now click on the 'transfer' button. There you go, now it's done."

Carol was so excited. She could see her new balance go up and the old one go down. She jumped up and hugged Frank. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Frank patted her back and reassured her that he was happy to help. While he gathered up all her paperwork and told her he'd get a folder for it, she turned back to the computer while he wasn't looking. There was Just under 10k in their checking account. She scrimped and saved and fed them on scraps and they had almost 10k. She quickly copied what he'd taught her and transferred almost all of it out to her own account. She left him $50 and it was more than he deserved too. She logged out, rose and thanked Frank profusely and then on impulse asked him about construction loans and how one would go about getting one. She was asking for a friend of course. He was happy to explain, he was so sweet.

Armed with her money, her debit card, her righteous indignation at Ed and more construction loan knowledge than she could possibly ever use, she walked back out to Annette's car and headed back to the farm.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rick drove the cruiser, alone with his thoughts as Lori and Carl followed him. They were within a half hour of the farm when his phone rang over the car's bluetooth. He reached out to answer it.

"Deputy Grimes."

"Rick Grimes. You asked me to think about what you told me a couple days ago. And to call you if I wanted to talk more."

"Edwin Jenner," Rick replied. "You're calling me, so you must want to talk more. I appreciate you giving me this chance to explain more."

"You don't have to. Candace and I both woke up yesterday remembering. We know what's coming and I know you were telling me the truth."

Rick let out a sigh of relief. He was so glad he didn't have to try to explain. "There are several of us that remember now. We've started planning, we have a place we're going to build up on a farm off the beaten path. We have a cover story that we're building a hunting retreat, gonna put in cabins and an apartment building for more living space. An urgent care for hunter injuries that will really be a medical center for us. We'll have walls, good ones. There's a place for you if you want to join us, if you can't stop it."

There was a pause and then he heard Jenner ask his wife if he heard that. "Sorry, I'm trying to share the phone with Candace. We're calling from a phone both. We couldn't call from work and to be honest, I don't think we could at home either. We're stopping before we get to work to call. All CDC personnel are closely monitored. We never cared before, we had nothing to hide, but this--well this we can't let them hear."

Rick was confused. "Nobody will listen to me. I'm just some deputy from backwoods Georgia, but surely you can tell people, prepare them. I thought you might be able to develop a cure, save more people or even stop it if you knew ahead of time."

Rick heard Candace Jenner's voice for the first time then. "We can't. They'll want to know how we know, how we remember this virus that hasn't happened yet. How we ended up in an alternate timeline. We don't have answers. I assume you don't either?"

"No. No idea. I'm just grateful for the chance."

"As are we, Mr. Grimes. But telling them would just end up with us locked up and them conducting testing to figure out what's happening here. They'd focus on us rather than what's coming. They'd gather you all up as well if they knew about you and I'm not certain we wouldn't be forced to tell them eventually. We can't let that happen."

"No." Rick emphatically agreed. "No we can't."

Edwin speaks then. "Candace and I went out yesterday, saw the sights and stayed at a hotel on a romantic getaway where we were sure nobody could hear us to work out our strategy. We will keep working here, keep our ears out. Conduct what testing we can before the virus shows up. That won't be long. Our goal is to eliminate or at least control and contain the virus. We will give suggestions of avenues to pursue everywhere we can, try to head them away from the dead ends we wasted so much time on before."

"I'll try to collaborate with the French early on." Candace said. "Edwin says they were close before they ran out of fuel and were lost. But I know my bosses. They don't take suggestions well, think they're right about everything. I'm not sure we'll be able to prevent it, especially since we still don't know what provenance it is. We will continue our research here though."

Edwin then said firmly, "As long as it's safe to do so. I won't let Candace die again. If we aren't making progress and we see the CDC is going to fall like before, I'm getting her out of there before she's bit. We'll take you up on your offer, can you set up a lab for us? We'll gather the equipment we need. Hell, I'll steal it from the CDC on our way out the door if I have to."

"We can do that," Rick said. "You're welcome here, we'll do everything we can to gather what you need. You'll need to come out to the farm though, give us some direction so we can get it done and ready for you."

"We can do that, perhaps this weekend when it's easier to slip away," Candace said.

Rick rattled off the address to Hershel's farm. He had it memorized now. "Come whenever you can, ask for Hershel if I'm not there. I'll let him know."

Rick finished the drive to the farm in satisfaction after they hung up. They had scientists on their side now. Maybe, just maybe, they could find a cure and not have to live inside walls forever. Maybe there was hope for civilization after all.

A/N Okay, so I think I've touched on everyone who remembers right now so we're caught up on that part for now. More will come on that later as they try to figure out how it works. Three different points of view in this chapter, so I hope it's clear as we switch around. It's the first time I've tried more than one pov in one chapter so let me know if it works or not. It just didn't seem like I had enough to do a whole chapter from each of them alone. Thank you to everyone for all the kind comments and interaction!