Shane stood at the doorway of Rick's house, his hand raised, then lowered. Raised, then lowered.
He had been pacing at the door for a while. Passing neighbors glanced at him curiously, and he could only pretend he was waiting for someone.
He was supposed to go to training today.
Rick came running over excitedly, patting his shoulder, grinning like an idiot: "Buddy, I'm going to be a dad! Lori is pregnant!"
Shane was stunned at that moment.
He remembered saying "Congratulations," remembered Rick saying something else, and remembered saying he needed to take the day off.
Rick even told him to rest well and not overwork himself.
Then he walked here.
Should he have come?
No.
But he couldn't control himself.
The moment he pressed the doorbell, he almost wanted to turn and run.
But the door opened.
Lori stood at the doorway, and seeing it was him, a flash of panic crossed her face.
The panic was brief, gone in a flash, but Shane saw it.
"What is it?"
Lori's voice was calm, so calm it was like she was talking to an ordinary friend.
Shane scratched the back of his head, a gesture he hadn't done in a long time; it was a habit from when he was a police officer.
"I heard you're pregnant," he said.
Lori's expression changed. Not turning red, but pale.
She subconsciously shrank back into the doorway, her hand gripping the doorknob, her knuckles turning white.
"This is Rick's and my child," she said, her voice very low: "It's between the two of us. I want you to... forget what happened before. That was only because you deceived me, saying Rick was dead. Now that Rick is alive, I cannot continue to make mistakes. Forget what happened before, okay, Shane?"
Shane looked at her.
In those eyes, there was pleading, fear, and a trace of something he couldn't understand.
But that trace of something he couldn't understand made him certain of one thing—the child was his.
"I was really trying to save Rick at the hospital that day..." His voice was a bit hoarse: "During that explosion, the medical equipment was paralyzed. I pressed against his chest to listen for his heartbeat... I truly didn't hear anything, I thought he was already dead..."
"But... isn't he standing right in front of you, perfectly fine?" Lori interrupted him: "Forget it, Shane."
She began to close the door.
Shane reached out to block the door, but seeing the fear of facing reality in her eyes, his hand froze in mid-air.
He watched the door slowly close in front of him and heard the sound of the latch clicking into the lock.
He stood there, clenching his fists, irritably rubbing his head with his hand—once, twice, three times. Then he turned and left.
Behind the door, Lori leaned against it and slowly slid down to the floor. She covered her mouth, tears streaming down silently.
On the third-floor office, Wu Fan leaned back in his chair, staring at the TV screen.
The red queen had already switched the feed—Shane was standing at the doorway of Rick's house, and after saying something to Lori, he turned and left, his steps heavy, as if dragging something invisible.
He crossed the main street of the community, turned into the community supermarket, and came out carrying two packs of beer.
Then he walked to the small park, found a bench, sat down, opened a can, and downed half of it in one go.
"This guy is trying to drown his sorrows," Wu Fan muttered.
He changed his posture, his fingers tapping on the armrest.
He had known about Lori's pregnancy for a long time. Every move in the Hive was monitored by the red queen. The clinic had computer records, and the system would automatically report anomalies.
He had been silent for a long time when he first saw the report.
Judith Grimes. That girl who was born in the apocalypse in the original show and had never seen a peaceful world. Was she coming?
Only this time, she might not know if she would still have the surname Grimes.
Wu Fan turned off the TV, stood up, and walked to the window.
In the distance, on the training ground, Rick was leading recruits, the sound of him shouting commands drifting over faintly.
He still didn't know what he was about to face. His good brother had slept with his wife, his wife was pregnant with his good brother's child, and he was still happily telling everyone, "I'm going to be a dad."
Should he tell Rick? No.
If Lori didn't say it herself, for him, an outsider, to go and say, "Your wife is pregnant with your brother's seed," that wouldn't be helping; that would be detonating a bomb.
If he didn't tell Rick, then what about Shane? Let him bottle it up? Until the day he couldn't take it anymore and went to confront Rick himself? By then, it wouldn't be a bomb; it would be a nuclear bomb.
Wu Fan rubbed his temples. He needed to find a psychologist to talk to Shane.
Not to advise him on anything, just... to give him a place to let those words out. Bottling it up inside would lead to trouble.
But who to find? Rick? Forget it. His good brother cuckolded him; what would happen if he found out?
Merle? That guy's mouth is as foul as a latrine; if he went, he'd probably get punched a few times by Shane to vent some anger. And with Merle's personality, he might even add fuel to the fire.
What was Shane's mindset right now? Wu Fan thought about it. Jealousy, that was certain.
Lori chose Rick, not him. Possessiveness, that was there too. He felt Lori and Carl should be his; Rick came back, and everything changed.
But at least one thing was different from the original work—there was no survival anxiety.
The Shane in the original work had to face not only the matter with Lori, but also resource scarcity, external threats, and internal power struggles. Multiple pressures stacked up, eventually driving him crazy.
But now, with the powerful Umbrella Corporation, he didn't need to worry about food, safety, or whether he would die tomorrow.
His world had shrunk, leaving only one thing—the child in Lori's belly was his.
This was a good thing, and also a bad thing. The good thing was he wouldn't completely collapse like in the original. The bad thing was he would focus all his energy on this matter, sinking deeper and deeper.
Wu Fan walked back to his desk and pressed the intercom: "Amy, come in for a moment."
Amy pushed the door open, holding a folder in her hand.
"Help me check on someone," Wu Fan said: "Dale Horvath, that old man who came in the RV, what is he doing now?"
Amy paused for a moment, flipping through the folder in her hand: "Dale... Dale..."
She knew Dale, but she had forgotten specifically what position he had been assigned to.
She flipped through several pages, frowning: "It seems... there is no work record for him?"
"What do you mean no record?"
"It's just..." Amy thought about it: "He didn't apply for any position. Not in logistics, not in security, not in maintenance, not in medical. The last time I saw him was at the parking lot of the CDC by the RV; he was clearing out a patch of land to grow vegetables, intending to be self-sufficient."
What the hell? This old man didn't want to be a beast of burden for him, and was even clearing land to grow vegetables on his turf? He must collect land rent and have half the vegetables turned in.
Wu Fan was silent for two seconds. Dale Horvath.
The nice guy from the original show, the conscience of Rick's team, always saying the most lucid words at critical moments.
However, after this guy arrived at the base, he seemed to have vanished into thin air.
He didn't cause trouble, didn't take on extra work, didn't try to be noticed. He was actually growing vegetables under his nose every day, taking walks, and chatting with other old men and women.
Too transparent. So transparent that everyone had forgotten his existence.
But it was exactly this kind of person who was most suitable to talk to Shane.
Not to preach, not to persuade, but to be a listener.
An old man who had experienced most of a lifetime of storms and seen through many things understood better than any young person how to calm an angry person down.
And since Shane hadn't gone completely off the deep end yet, he should be willing to listen.
Wu Fan said to Amy: "Go find Dale, and tell him to go to the small park on the first basement level of the Hive to have a couple of drinks with Shane."
"Okay!"