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Shane never says anything, a distinct contrast from his real waking life, just stares. That's how Rick knows he's being haunted. "You're not there," he tells him. The same words he had said to Lori's ghost. The same words that didn't work on her either.
The first time it happens is at Woodbury, months after he died. After I killed him, Rick reminds himself, but mere days after Lori has died. The significance is not lost on Rick, no matter how grief-addled his mind may be. It was as if Shane had seen. Had seen from beyond, how Rick couldn't fix it, couldn't save them all, couldn't save her . And so, there he was: bearded and strong, stalking out of the smoke and gunfire. A spectre rolling in on a cloud of mist. Only this ghost stomps, his footfalls crunch on the ground, and there's an unmistakable click as he loads his shotgun and aims.
Sometimes it happens like that. Shane will appear in someone else's clothes, someone else's hair cut. And then other times, he appears in the clothes he died in, those are the worst days. He stares, unblinking black eyes, shaved head, bloodied nose. The accusation written plain on his face. You did this to me, and now you'll suffer for it, too. A perversion of Rick's last words to him. Shane is a vengeful revenant.
This is how he looks when he appears to Rick, the day Hershel dies. After he tells the Governor and his people that they can come back from the things they have done before, that no one is too far gone. "We all can change," he says, and there's Shane. Standing just behind the Governor; his face pale, mouth open, breathing haggardly, choking on his own blood. Rick falters, his own breath catching in his throat. And when the Governor says, "Liar." He's sure he sees Shane's lips match the movement. His own silent whisper. Rick blinks, and he's gone, and then Hershel's dead, and Rick can't see anything for a second.
Carl brings up Shane after, like a slap in the face. "I remember him, I remember him every day," Rick chokes out. I remember you blowing a bullet through his brain, too , he wants to say. He doesn't. Rick can barely stand up straight, his mind and body failing him. He can't risk letting it all slip.
Rick never tells anyone that in those early days after the prison, every other walker he encounters is Shane. Lunging at him with icy, dead eyes, forcing him to kill him over and over again. Rick worries that one day he'll finally grab for the one Shane-walker that isn't actually there, and the game will be up. The true level of his crazy will be revealed to Michonne and Carl, and then he doesn't know what he will do. How his obviously unhinged brain will react.
He's naive enough back then to think that maybe that's it. That he's gone. Every time he's convinced himself that it's done, and it was all in his head, Shane comes back.
Eventually, he grows tired of the walker act. Either his subconscious has become exhausted torturing itself, or ghost-Shane decides to try a different path for validation. Maybe, he's waiting for a Sorry, like in all those old shows, and movies. A catharsis, of some sort. And Rick decides if that's the case, he had better get fucking used to him. Regardless, he won't deny he is desperately relieved when Shane mostly stops appearing to him as his damaged, bloody self.
Joe's group ambushes them, and he's there, of course he's there. Skulking in the dark, at the edge of the trees. Stray bruises litter his face, and there's an encouraging blood-lust in his eyes when Rick takes a hunk out of Joe's neck. When he unsheathes his blade and says, "He's mine," as he staggers towards the big one. Out the corner of his eye, he's sure he sees a wicked grin playing across Shane's face. A finally . A couldn't have done it better myself grin.
And after, after Rick guts that rapist sack of shit like the animal he is, when he leans back against the car with Daryl, Shane is there. Squatting, to keep eye level with them, less vengeful these days, but always watching. His hands are clasped, as he rests his elbows casually on his knees. His own long hair and full beard mirroring Rick's. Rick can still taste the metallic tang of blood at the back of his own teeth, the stench of it wafting up from his beard. Thinks he might never be able to get that aftertaste out. But, Daryl is there, and he's apologising, needlessly. Rick let's his eyes breeze over Shane's dark ones for a moment. "You're my brother," he says to Daryl, and he means it. Daryl who is there. Who is a living, breathing, human. He feels only the slightest pang of guilt, like a memory, like an afterthought, but Shane seems to accept the scene playing out before him and nods solemnly. Ever silent, and the pain passes.
"They're fucking with the wrong people," Rick says, in the boxcar at Terminus. He doesn't even have to look to know Shane is there, leaning up against the back wall, half hidden in shadow. It feels like growth.
He makes good on his promise to the cannibal Gareth, in the church. Shane sits in one of the very back pews, head tilted back, appraising. He's dripping with blood, like he had helped them hack the group to death, like he had helped them make their sacrament. And, his expression says, Good. That would have been you if you hadn't.
Shane doesn't watch only in his worst moments. He's there, after the rain, before the storm that binds them together again. Peering up at the sky, completely dry. He was there at their feast in that same church, making Rick double take on him for the first time in a while, as Shane lounges around on the floor with them. Smiling, like he had heard a good joke, like the wine he couldn't drink was going to his head. The only other person he ever catches him looking at though, is Judith, and Rick supposes, that would be right. When he appears in these happier moments he always looks younger. Face fresh and unmarred by age, or sun, or bullet holes. Long hair, curling in ringlets around his ears, like it had in high school. He looks out of place in this barren landscape. That's the point, thinks Rick. They had all changed, they had to. None more so than himself. This Shane feels like a distinct separation from who Rick is now. From who he knows he will have to be in the future. From who he can feel himself clawing towards.
It makes him think of Judith. It feels wrong, that Rick gets to come back from his worst moments, gets to come back from it all. Gets to spend time with Judith. The opportunity Shane never got. He knows she's not his, sees it in her wide brown eyes, and golden ringlets. He doesn't care. He wonders, not for the first time, who he would be — what he would be, if he didn't have her. Shane glares at him from across the room, like he better not even entertain the thought.
He begins to see Shane as his sort of spirit guide for the post apocalypse world, thinks maybe Michonne and the others could understand that. Maybe he could tell them that. Sounds a whole lot better to Rick than, Hi, I'm Rick and this is Shane, my dead best friend who haunts my ass .
Ghost-Shane remains completely unphased by the chaos of the world around him. In the silence outside the gates of Alexandria, he walks alongside them all. This time he's got a crew cut, looks regulation, looks ready for a war. He's always watching their six, like Abraham. Then there's the sound of children laughing, children playing inside. Rick feels relief flood through him. Shane still eyes the fence with unease. And Rick looks away from him, doesn't want to think about what that means. That Shane was always ready for what comes next, was always two steps ahead of everyone else. Already good at something by the time you've decided you want to do it. Rick holds Judith, and stares into her eyes. This is for her.
"I was a Sheriff," he tells Deanna. "Yeah, I knew it was something like that," she replies. He knows she wants to try and use him, everybody wants something from everybody these days.
He wonders about the voice, if he will ever get it back. Distressingly, maybe wants him to get it back, to hear it again. He wonders if one day he'll hear another phone ring, and pick it up only to be greeted by a drawled, "What happened, Rick?" He wonders if he would even recognise it. And then he doesn't have to wonder anymore, can hear it clear as day when he yells, "You're gonna kick me out?" In Alexandria. When he threatens Jessie's abusive husband, "You touch them again, and I'll kill you." Those are pound for pound his old partner's words. It feels good. It feels right. He decides to go with it.
For a long while now, he had been less, and less. A shadow of his former self. Can't stop the feeling that he is more ghost now than Shane is. Deathly shadow Rick Grimes, who shows up to a meeting about whether he should be kicked out or not, covered in old blood and fresh blood, literally carrying a corpse. He says look what I can do for you to the Alexandrians, and then when Deanna says, "Do it." Something Shane had been wordlessly telling him for years now, he doesn't hesitate. They come around eventually, when it's this or die, they always do.
The first time Carl got shot, Shane was there. He was there to wipe the blood from Rick's face, from his shaking hands, to offer a consolatory word. Keep him from falling apart. The second time Carl gets shot, Shane's there too. Only this time he's not in the room, and he can't speak. Rick sees him on the road outside, when he peers out the window. He stands stock-still amongst the sea of walkers storming the community, staring unblinkingly back towards Rick. He's holding a blood covered blade, and raises his arms like, You coming or not? Rick doesn't bother about the blood on his face or his hands, thinks he could do with a bit more. He unholsters his hatchet, and follows him out. This is how they get through things now.
Shane laughs himself silly at Jesus. He's doubled over, slapping his knee, pointing like, doesn't Rick get the hilarious joke? His head thrown back in a silent howl of laughter. Rick does agree he's fairly ridiculous, but can't shake the feeling that something more is going on here. Like, the whole world might be a big joke right now, and Jesus is smart enough to be in on it.
The Hilltop invite them in. Shane stands behind Gregory the entire time he talks, looking back at Rick with a scrunched up, skeptical expression that simply reads, This guy's a real piece of shit . Rick agrees. He never understands Shane more though, than when he asks the people, "What?" after killing the one who stabs Gregory. When they've been here for what feels like five fucking seconds. Rick is mad suddenly. That this is who's in charge here, what the Saviors have turned them into under this leadership. Then again, none of his people would ever try to kill him, would ever stab him. The only one who had ever gotten close was standing ten feet away, cold, dead-not-undead eyes boring into Rick's soul in that understanding way they did these days.
This is how they eat. His people doing good shit together. They take the compound, and they're winning. They're gonna win. Shane doesn't do much during this time. Like, he doesn't know how to react to Rick succeeding in something. Just hangs back, watches, doesn't look angry, just cautious.
Well, fuck Shane, Rick thinks, and fuck Negan. This was his world now.
And then, it all falls apart for a while.
After Glenn dies, he disappears. Rick tries not to feel abandoned. It happens so quickly. One minute Shane is there, Rick can't remember now if he's kneeling in line with them, or if he stands like the Saviors, if he's crying or smiling or nothing, but he was definitely there. And with the first crack of bat on skull, like a real life glitch, he blinks out of existence. Rick doesn't notice until after. Thinks, horrifyingly, perhaps it was all wishful thinking, like he thought he deserved to be haunted by the memory of Shane. A penance, not necessarily in admission of guilt, but in acknowledgment of who he had become. Who he had fought so tirelessly against becoming in the beginning. He had been so ready to hold on to their humanity.
More likely, his mind is over-burdened and just can't . Can't form the hallucination when every other fibre of his being is focused on keeping everyone else alive. On how to even begin to start tackling a problem like the Saviors, if at all.
It never stopped him from coming to you in other high stress times, his mind provides, begrudgingly. This is definitely punishment. The mental gymnastics of not knowing who or what's real day-to-day; another very real form of torture for him. He desperately wants to tell Michonne about him, about his sudden absence, but she wouldn't get it. She never even knew Shane, only what stories Carl or the others had told.
He says, "Thank you," to Negan, grinds his teeth and can't help his eyes from flitting around, looking for another pair of deeper, darker brown ones. What really throws Rick's whole world off kilter is when he finally does show up again. Negan does that gorilla shit, getting all up in Rick's face, daring him to do anything other than look down, and for a flash he is there.
Shane with slicked back hair, dusty leather jacket, swinging that bat around like the terrible euphemism it is. Full, shit-eating grin. Rick feels bile rise up in his throat. It feels like one step forward, ten steps back. It feels like that with every-fucking-thing he does lately. More than anything, he can't throw the lingering question, is this what he would have become? If given the time. If given the time in this world, a world in which Dale claimed only Shane truly belonged, due to his increasingly dark nature. Maybe it could have been his, and Rick took him out of it, so this is how he copes. It feels like an insult, but to Shane, or to Negan? He's not sure.
What kind of a life is this? Asks Michonne. And she's right. "I had a friend. I don't talk about him. He was my partner," he finally says to her. "His name was Shane." He's never been more grateful his ghost partner was not in the room. This is how we live now, he says to her.
"It's not your fault when people die," Michonne pleads. It is when I kill them , Rick thinks.
And it will be when Negan dies. That he can feel in his bones. He sees that now. They're all already dead.
Maggie tells him that it began right at the start. That she was not responsible for the events which save Alexandria, and unite them with the Kingdom and the Hilltop. Glenn made the decision to save a dumb-ass in a tank, she was just following his lead. It's a nice sentiment, a perfect one. He wonders what other decisions were made for them back then. Who's lead has he been following? He leaves Michonne in the infirmary, there's a bustle among the streets. People coming down off the adrenaline high of a good win. Happy to be among friends, happy to be alive. He looks up into the dying light of day. There's a familiar figure standing guard atop the wall, straight-backed, stubbled jaw clenched, rifle in hand looking out over into the distance. What a stupid question, Rick thinks.
After Carl's gone, anyone can go, at any time, but he's there. Shane has alarmingly become his sure-thing, the one constant in this hell of a life. Dependable. But Rick already knew that, thinks of his barricaded door at the hospital, and Atlanta. The pain he was in then, waking up, seeing this new world, not knowing where his family was. A small part of him wishes he could go back to that now. Try it all again. He sits on the steps of their small chapel in a burnt out Alexandria. His eyes hurt from crying, they burn in the light, and he can't get the lump out of his throat. Shane looks as wrecked as he feels, which makes sense. His eyes are glassy with tears, his mouth hangs open slightly in shock, and he can't quite look at Rick. Rick wishes he were angry instead. Could handle Shane being mad, could deal with him flying off the handle, yelling, screaming at him. Wishes he would. Anything but this, anything but this desperate, pitying grief.
Rick wonders, for the first time in a long time, why Shane doesn't just leave. What he needs here - is he waiting for him? Has Shane been calling him over to the other side this whole time? Shane had always been there for him in life why should that change just because he was dead? He was there for him in death too. Only now, Rick kind of wants to follow. Nothing could be worse than the emptiness he feels inside now.
And in the basement full of burning walkers, when Negan says, "You're gonna kill us both." Rick has never meant anything more than, "As long as it's you first."
In the end, it's funny, he supposes, that he ends Negan in nearly the same way he had done to Shane. Let's them talk their big game, how much better they are than him, how they're going to win and he's going to lose. Let's them think he's unarmed, that he's not going to do it. Lulls them, and then does it with the sharp edge they never see coming. Or maybe, the sharp edge they don't want to look for. Only Carl isn't there to finish the job, this time, so Negan gets to live. Rick holds his abdomen, hand sticky with blood. He feels weak, lightheaded. Is this it? Has this always been it? The others leave him be. Shane waits for him. Mess of curly brown hair, clean shaven, looking like he had way back in the beginning, looking like he had that first time Rick was shot. His hands are on his hips, his face patient.
Rick leans back against that tree, and he sees Carl — no, remembers Carl. Young, innocent, unburdened, walking with him on that dirt road. It relaxes Rick, even as tears roll down his face. It's changed. My mercy prevails over my wrath. He can't be who he was, maybe can't be what Carl wanted, but there's gotta be something else. Something in between for him. Some way to step down. A peaceful life. Finally, grow out that beard.
"You can go now," he mumbles to his dead best friend. Means it. Shane smiles, broad and warm, eyes crinkling at the edges. The light from the sunset reflects off his face, through the coloured glass. He scrubs his head, and looks out towards the horizon.
"Like hell I can," he says, finally. He bends to sit next to Rick, leaning his head back against the tree trunk, letting their breathing fall in time.