The Rest of your Life

Chapter 5

Eerie, yet comfortable are two words Rory would use to describe the room they were all currently sat in. As it turns out, there was still a guy here and he let the group in. As soon as the doors had opened, everyone piled inside and Rick chatted to the scientist guy who was called Edwin Jenner.

He let them stay as long as they all had a blood test, so they did just that, which lead the group to now, all piled around a long table with food and drink. Rory was sat between Lori and Sophia, as her dad was sat at the end of the table.

"You know, in Italy." Dale started. "Children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France."

"We'll, when Carl and Rory are in Italy or France, they can have some then." Lori laughed. Rory didn't mind it when Lori took charge, she was like her mom.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on?" Rick encouraged. "Come on." Rick and Lori stared at eachother for a second before the table burst into laughter. Dale then smirked at the two children before pouring a little bit of wine in each of their cups.

"There you are, young lad, young lady." The whole room looked between the two children as they looked at eachother before taking a large gulp each from their drinks.

"Eww!" Carl exclaimed in disgust, at the same time Rory spat her drink out back into the cup. The people in the room, once again, erupted into gentle laughter at the childrens reactions.

"That's my kids, that's my kids." Lori mumbled softly before taking the drinks away. Rory took the orange juice her dad slid over the table with a soft smile and gulped the thing down in one go to get rid of the taste.

"We'll, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane chuckled towards the two kids.

"Not you, Glenn." Daryl announced.

"What?" Glenn questioned nervously with a smile.

"Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get." Daryl joked. People around the table begin to laugh again, before Rick clinked his glass and stood up.

"It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly." Rick mentioned.

"He is more than just our host." T-dog commented.

"Hear, hear." Dale announced.

"Here's to you, Doc. Booyah!" Daryl expressed, holding his drink in the air, many people around the table copying him.

"Thank you, Doc. Thank you." Rick thanked. He then sat back down as the laughter died down a little.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?" Shane asked, killing the mood almost instantly. "All the... the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick scolded his friend.

"Woah, wait a second." Shane defended. "That's why we're here, right? This was your move. Supposed to, you know, find all the answers. Instead we.. we found him." Shane pointed.

"Dad, stop." Rory pleaded quietly. Lori rubbed the child's back as her cheeks burned from her fathers actions.

"Found one man." Shane continued. "Why?"

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just... left. Went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Jenner explained. When he stopped speaking, the room was dead silent.

"Every last one?" Shane scoffed.

"No." Jenner denied. "Many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Rory looked at her feet under the table. She knew what that meant, her dad used to get calls about it back when he worked at the station.