Another Apocalypse? // Daryl Dixon

10. Hot water

"You know, in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France." Dale said to Lori.

We were all seated around a large dining table eating. I was sitting between Sam and Dean. Cas, Daryl, and Glenn were sitting across from us.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then." Lori responded.

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on." Rick nudged her. She finally gives in and Dale hands Carl a glass of wine.

"There you are, young lad." Dale said, all of us watching Carl expectantly.

He brought the glass of wine to his lips and took a swallow. His face instantly changed to one of disgust.

"Ew." He said, causing all of us to burst into laughter.

"That's my boy. Good boy." Lori says, pouring his wine into her glass.

"Yuck. That tastes nasty." He said, all of us still laughing at his reaction.

"Well, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane told him.

"Not you, Glenn." Daryl said, looking over at him.

"What?" He asked, confusion all over his face.

"Keep drinking, little man. I wanna see how red your face can get." Daryl explained, causing Dean and I to start laughing. Glenn just shot us a look.

I glanced down at the end of the table to see Jenner clearly not enjoying himself. I turned my attention to the other end of the table and subtly got Ricks attention. I nodded my head in Jenners direction and Rick quickly caught on. Rick picked up his fork and tapped it on his glass, getting all of our attention.

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

"He's more than just our host." T Dog cut in.

"Here's to you, Doc. Booyah!" Daryl yelled excitedly, something I wasn't expecting from him.

"Thank you. Thank you, Doctor." Rick said to Jenner while some of the other guys were still yelling, including Dean of course.

We all laugh and clink our glasses together before Shane starts talking.

"When are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc? All the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?" Shane asked Jenner.

"We're celebrating, Shane. Don't need to do this now." Rick tried to get him to drop it but Shane wasn't having it.

"Whoa, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move, supposed to find the answers. Instead we found one man. We found him. Why?" Shane spoke to Rick before turning to Jenner.

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest just bolted." Jenner explained.

"Every last one?" Shane questioned, clearly not believing what Jenner was saying.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Jenner said, a sorrow look on his face.

"You didn't leave. Why?" Sam asked him curiously.

"I just kept working, hoping to do some good." Jenner said.

"Dude, you are such a buzz kill, man." Glenn said to Shane. I couldn't agree more.

After we all finished our meal, Jenner takes us around to see the rest of the place.

"Most of the facility is powered down including housing so you'll have to make do here. The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall that you kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in the video games, okay? Or anything that draws power. The same applies, if you shower, go easy on the hot water." Jenner explained to us, my ears perking up at the thought of hot water.

"Hot water?" Both Glenn and Dean said at the same time, grinning like five year olds.

"That's what the man said." T Dog said to them.

Everyone had headed off on their own to go shower. Once I knew I was out of my brothers and the rest of the groups sight, I quickly grabbed Cas and pulled him into one of the bathrooms.

He looked at me confused but didn't have time to speak before I was pulling his shirt up to look at the bite mark. My eyes widened when I realized not only had he lasted this long and been perfectly fine, but the bite mark was almost gone.

"Oh my..." I started to say but Cas quickly cut me off.

"It's not appropriate to use my fathers name in vain." Cas said sternly.

"Cas! It's gone, look. The bite is almost completely healed." I said to him.

He looked down at the wound and nodded his head. He was clearly at a loss for words about how that could have happened. I just shot him a reassuring smile before sneaking out of the bathroom and going to take my own shower.