devil's water || the walking dead

- 02 - no, sweetpea. -

[season 1, episode 6]

A chorus of laughter traveled through the empty air of the CDC. Friends and family, eating and drinking together like they were supposed to. The sound of glasses clinking and silverware against ceramic brought Scotty back to Pre-Outbreak times, back when her father was able to conceal his disdain for her existence.

Now, all she gets is angry hangovers and exasperated sighs. Scotty twirled the spaghetti on her fork and ate it quietly, keeping her eyes down to her plate.

"Y'know," Dale started between laughs, "kids in Italy and France often have wine with dinner!"

Lori put her hand over her son's cup defensively. "Yeah, and when Carl is in France or Italy, he can have some!"

"What's it gonna hurt? C'mon!" Rick egged her on with a goofy smile across his face.

Scotty watched as Lori lifted her hand off Carl's cup, allowing Dale to pour wine into it. The young boy lifted the cup to his lips, and took a sip of its red contents.

His face immediately scrunched with disgust. "Ewww!"

Yet another chorus of laughter broke out, but Scotty and her father stayed quiet. Doctor Jenner swished his glass of wine, while his eyes focused on the still-full plate of food in front of him.

"You just stick to soda-pop there, bud," Shane told Carl.

"Not you, though, Glenn!" Daryl called out.

The man smiled and chuckled nervously, "what?"

"Keep drinkin', bud! I wanna see how red your face can get." Daryl teased.

Rick's gaze shifted, and his eyes fell on the final members of the Jenner family. He clinked his knife on his glass, signaling a toast. Rick stood up and cleared his throat.

"It seems like we haven't thanked our hosts properly," Rick raised his glass.

"More than just hosts," T-Dog added.

"Booyah!" Daryl yelled, holding up the entire bottle of wine.

Doctor Jenner took a sip of his wine, while Scotty cheersed her cup of Sprite.

The laughter continued as Shane began to speak.
"So, when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?"

The laughter came to a halt. All eyes were on Scotty's father, the man who was supposed to have all of the answers. But, truthfully, he didn't. Scotty knew that.

Shane continued, "y'know, all the, uh, other doctors? The ones who were supposed to be figuring this whole shitshow out?"

"Shane, we're celebrating. This can wait," Rick told him in attempts to deescalate the man.

"Hey, hey, that's the whole reason we're here, ain't it? It was your move, trying to find all the answers, huh? But, instead, we found him." Shanes thumb jutted toward Scotty's father. "We found one guy and his teen daughter. Why?"

Scotty shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, biting and ripping the skin off.

"Well, uh, when things started to get bad, a lot of people just left. Went off to be with their families." Doctor Jenner's eyes flickered to Scotty, who had her head down low. "And when things got worse, like when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted."

"Every last one?" Shane challenged.

"No. Many couldn't even bear the thought of walking out of the door. So they...opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."