Chapter Text
Dark cold water froze him as the raging waves brought Rick deeper into the depths of the river. His lungs felt on fire, every inch of his body aching with pain from the impact as he tried to fight against the tide. He needed to get to the surface. If he could, he would have tried to take off his boots to lessen his weight, but as the tide fought against him, Rick knew he didn’t stand a chance.
He wanted to save the energy of his freezing body, but he also needed to get himself out of the water. The fall hadn’t killed him, but if he spent more time in the water, the cold or the high tide was going to finish the job.
Forcing himself, not giving up, never giving up, Rick swam to the surface. His ribs hurt worse as his arms flapped in the water but soon the sunlight started glinting above him behind his half-closed eyelids making him realize that he was closing up to the surface. A few seconds later, he emerged out, sputtering water, still fighting against the tide and fierce waves, trying to keep himself above the water.
A blur passed over beside him, a wide branch swirling in the water. Rick threw himself at it, grabbing it and pushing his upper body along it to keep himself afloat. God, he was getting too old for this.
He dropped his arm over the other side of the log, trying to use them as oars to navigate in the fierce water. The flow rate lessened after a couple of minutes and Rick tried to move the wooden log toward the bank. Climbing over the riverbank spent his remaining energy. He shook with painful shivers, sputtering out water and blinking against the sunlight as he lay on his back.
He could vaguely feel his wet clothes clinging to his skin as he tried to decide what part of his body hurt the worst. It was still his ribs. It hurt so much, making breathing so painful that for a split second Rick even thought of holding his breath for a little respite.
God, he needed to move and find himself a shelter before hypothermia started to give him wilder thoughts. Or the Wolves found him. Or the walkers found him. Or the wild animals found him. The dangers in the woods were limitless.
And, Rick could barely walk.
He held the earth after he dropped to his knees after trying to get up, catching his breath before he tried the second time. After he returned to Alexandria, those animals were really gonna regret they had ever crossed paths with them. Not if he returned, Rick told himself adamantly, standing up again, because he was going back, one way or another.
He wasn’t going to die today.
He couldn’t. His children were waiting. There still were so many things that Rick had to teach them. And he couldn’t leave Amanda, not after their last talk on the platform, not after she confessed she had fallen in love with him. He needed to go back and talk with her. Tell her to forget everything, forget everything that had happened between them after they came to Alexandria. Tell her they were going to start over again.
The little dubious, sneering sound in his mind mocked him, reminding him what had happened when he tried to start over with Lori, how much he had screwed up, but Rick quelled it down. He didn’t need to think on that right now. This time things were going to be different. This time history wasn’t going to repeat itself.
He wondered where the others were. He must have lost his radio in the water. The questions swirled in him. If they were okay, if they were going back after the attack, where the walkers were, where were Abraham and Sasha? Were they still driving away, how things were in the town, how Amanda was, how Carl was; so many questions, so few answers.
But still, he had done what he had to do. When he had seen Beth fighting with the man who had grabbed her and threw her over the cliff, Rick knew he had to save her—save the last of the Greenes.
He had failed to save Hershel, failed to save Maggie. He couldn’t watch Beth falling to death. He couldn’t go back and tell Amanda he hadn’t managed to protect Beth. Amanda’s reaction, her anguish flashed over his eyes before Rick threw himself on Beth, driving her away from the edge, but falling over in her stead. He couldn’t have let Amanda suffer through that, and he couldn’t let her suffer through this, either. He had promised her. Back in the funeral home, he had promised her he wasn’t going to die on her.
It was a promise that Rick still intended to keep. They still had so much to live, live together, all of them together. So, slowly, heavily, Rick trudged in the woods to find his way back to his family.
# # #
He fell…
The word turned and turned in her mind in a void as the world swirled around her.
He fell…
She couldn’t comprehend the words, she couldn’t comprehend their meaning. She couldn’t comprehend anything.
He fell…
She couldn’t think anything, couldn’t wrap her mind over it, the world felt as if it consisted of only two words. He. Fell.
Rick fell.
It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t. A world without Rick. It was what she couldn’t process; a world without him… A world in which she wasn’t going to see him again, wasn’t going to hold him again, wasn’t going to kiss him again, wasn’t going to lay in his embrace, stroke his chest. A world that they wouldn’t try to put Judith to sleep, wouldn’t read together in the bed, a world they wouldn’t make love, a world they wouldn’t even fight anymore. Amanda couldn’t comprehend such a world.
One day you would think of today and wish you acted differently, wish you would let yourself— Denise’s words from their last session echoed in her, and Amanda cursed herself for not being brave enough, for being that scared of taking risks. Some risks were worth taking. Love didn’t conquer all, yes, but it made life worth living.
And they had all tried to tell her, tried to warn her, but Amanda didn’t listen. And it was too late now, too late. He was gone.
She had lost him. She had lost him forever, without even saying goodbye. Without even saying how much she loved him, how much he, his love meant for her. How he made her life better, how he made her happier, happier than she had ever been. How she had been living in a cage self-constructed before she knew him, hanging by a thread, a puppet made of cold marble, her strings attached to other people.
Her tears hastened, running freely over her cheeks as she bent down completely on her hands and knees. Her tears fell on the ground. They had promised to each other. They weren’t going to die on each other! Why did he leave her now?
Why everyone always abandoned her?
Long, skinny arms enveloped her and took her in her embrace. She lifted her head to look at Beth who had knelt beside her. “Amanda, I-I’m so sorry—” her voice echoed in the cold dark void. “He was trying to save me.”
“What happened?” she croaked out, words felt like beads of glass stuck in her throat, suffocating her.
“W-we were under attack. They found us. We-we fought. Someone tried to throw me off over the cliff. Rick saved me at the last minute, threw me aside. But he fell instead.”
Something—like a flash of realization cut through her dark grief and pain as if she was hit by a crystal bullet at her forehead.
Amanda pushed herself out of her arms and stood up. “Where? Where did it happen?” she demanded, drying her tears.
A fire was lit in her now, a small tinder blossoming out of her chest, spreading every inch of her, coursing through her veins. Hope. It was hope. It was tiny, delicate, as miracles always were, but Amanda clung to it. Perhaps she was just deluding herself, perhaps she was just being a fool, but she didn’t care. They only saw him falling. She had seen Rick managing far worse odds.
“Closer to Del Arno,” Glenn answered. “We were trying to get back, Rick wanted us to try again, but the Wolves attacked us before arrived—” His voice roughed as he gulped. Amanda saw his throat moving, trying to talk again, “We decided to turn back afterward.”
“Did you see him?” Carl demanded with the same fierceness she felt, and Amanda understood the same kind of fierce hope was running through the teenage boy’s veins too. It was Rick Grimes. The man who had come back from death countless times. My father always comes back, his words rang in her, dissipating the emptiness in her, filling her with more warmness and hope.
But Glenn still shook his head. “It was a valley. He fell into the river. We couldn’t get him.”
“Then he still can be alive—” Carl remarked determinately, then turned to look at her. “We need to go out and look for him.”
“Carl—” Glenn called out softly, holding his shoulder, “Carl—he’s gone.”
The words made her spin to the man, jerking her head furiously. “We don’t know it,” she rejected heatedly before pointing out, “Ron survived the fall.”
They looked at her with widened eyes. “Ron is alive?”
“I’ll explain later—” Amanda brushed it off with a headshake. “My point is, Carl is right. He still can be alive. We can’t write him off dead.” She was not going to do that. Not until she saw it with her own eyes. The others, especially Anne and her people were looking at her like she was crazy, demented in grief, denying the fact she had lost the man she loved, but Amanda didn’t care.
She was not going to believe it until she saw it with her own eyes. Rick couldn’t die on them, couldn’t leave them. He lived for them. He would have managed, would have found a way. She had thought of him dead in the woods, left him but he had found them. They had thought him dead and left him behind even at the start of the outbreak, and he still had found his family. Amanda wasn’t going to throw in the towel on him. If—if he really was gone—
She stopped the thought, not letting it poison her hope. Even if she was a hopeful idiot, she still didn’t care.
Anne shook her head. “This’s crazy—” she said. “He fell over fifty feet.”
“You don’t know, Rick—” Amanda snapped. “He always finds a way.”
“So what?” Anne asked back. “Do you want us to go out and look for him when the herd and those men are all on the loose because he might be alive?” she hissed before she concluded adamantly, “We’re not doing it. You wanted us to show effort, and we did. We followed your crazy plan and it failed. We’re NOT going out again.”
Amanda sent the woman a glower. “I’m not asking you to—” she bit off. The last thing she needed right now was Anne and her people getting in her way.
The search party had to be small so that they could check the grounds quicker before anyone found him. He could be wounded, injured, or out of consciousness, and it had already passed three hours since the attack. The bottom line was that they needed to hurry.
Ron’s tortured body and face skidded over her mind, but Amanda shut it down quickly too. No. No. No. She was not going to think about that. No.
She started to check her weapons. She needed to hurry. She couldn’t lose any time. “I go alone.” Perhaps she could take Daryl with her, but after the way the tracker had returned to the town before anyone else, Amanda didn’t want to ask. Something was happening over there, perhaps Joan even had talked to him about the baby, but Amanda didn’t have time to find out, didn’t have any time to lose.
She needed to go out now. The safe house, their cabin in the woods. She needed to check it first. It was on the way from Del Arno to Alexandria, and if Rick was still conscious, he would try to get there first for protection and the first-aid kit. They had used almost everything inside the cache after the attack they had suffered from the Wolves on the night they had found Anne and her people, but Rick still might need supplies to tend his wounds. God! When she got her hands on those Wolves, she was going to rip them apart!
“I’m coming with you—” Carl lunged at her in the middle of her frantic check for her weapons and supplies on herself at the same time with Glenn. “Me too.”
Amanda jerked her head. “No. You both stay. The town needs you. We’re gonna have it hard with these walkers. We need to think on something and I’m faster alone.”
Glenn nodded, seeing her point, but Carl still refused, “No. I’m coming. I’m not gonna leave him again!”
“Carl—”
“I’m coming, Amanda—” the way Carl uttered the words made Amanda certain that she could no way stop Carl from looking for Rick now. The teenage boy had suffered this too many times to stay behind. So Amanda nodded, afraid that he would trail after her if she refused, but Beth cried out the next time; “I’m coming too!”
“Beth, no! That’s—”
“I have to, Amanda—” Beth cut her off. “He did it to save me.”
A protest died on her lips after she saw Beth’s expression. This wasn’t on her, never, and she didn’t want Beth to blame herself after all the things she had suffered. Rick wouldn’t have wanted it, either.
“All right—” She roughed out, nodding, and turned to Glenn. “Do you have radios?” she asked, “Ours are broken or burned.”
Glenn’s gaze swept her after that as Amanda reminded what kind of shit she still must be looking. Joan had tended the burns on her arms and hands, but the remnants of the explosion and the fighting were still all over her.
He handed her his backpack and the radio as Amanda nodded to the teenagers, “Let’s go.”
“Are you going out like this?” Anne’s stupefied tone asked, which Amanda ignored.
There was no time to draw a detailed plan or analyze the situation better, no time for proper preparations, no time to be cautious. She had a starting point, and it was all she needed. If anyone—anyone would stand in her way, they were making their last mistake.
# # #
Still on the porch even after Amanda left, Daryl watched Joan from the corner as she scurried in the infirmary with Carol. It wasn’t odd for him, his eyes somehow were prone to find her as they worked together in the infirmary for practice or when he took her out in the woods and they looked for her herbs and roots, it’d become a habit of sorts, but it felt different this time.
Ya became the bitch of ‘tis pussy, baby brother, Merle’s mocking voice snickered in his mind again, but Daryl wouldn’t argue with it right now. No, not after what he’d just done. He should feel guilt for leaving Rick behind and returning to the town, but when he had heard that honking, even Merle’s taunting voice in his mind had silenced. He had had to return. Had to see it. Joan, Carol, the kids, the way they had become in the town. Daryl still couldn’t say what the town meant for him, even though he’d accepted being the recruiter, but they liked it here, so it was the end of the discussion for him.
Rick had said if they returned now, it would have been for themselves because they were afraid, not because of their families and there was a part of Daryl that agreed with him. The other part—the other part had simply wanted to get back and see them.
His eyes drew to the woman inside again on their own, Daryl couldn’t help himself.
He wondered if this was what it meant falling in love, the shit that people went on about all the time, but Rick was still out there. He hadn’t returned. There were no dissolutions in him that Rick didn’t love his family. His love for them knew no boundaries, Daryl had witnessed his protective fury’s aftermath in the woods when they tried to hurt them. Rick also loved Amanda, Daryl knew it. He’d seen it first at the prison that night when Rick had confessed to him she was different.
So why the hell Daryl had returned when Rick was still out?
It was a question Daryl had been asking himself since he saw Amanda, looking like a caged, wounded animal as if she didn’t know what to do with herself going around the town. It felt awkward, seeing her like that, still keeping up, but looking helpless, so Daryl ran his eyes away each time their eyes met. He wondered if she was mad at him for returning, for leaving Rick, but there was no expression over her placid face when Joan had tended her injuries.
So, a part of him felt like shit, confused and shit, but the relief over Joan’s face when she saw Daryl the first time after he’d come back couldn’t let him regret his decision.
God, he was really in deep shit.
When the screen door opened from his behind, the clamor from inside overflew to the porch worse. Daryl heard Anderson’s widower cries louder, screeching long wails. They felt like wordless curses. She had been going on like this since Daryl came to the infirmary. He had seen the boy out of the corner of his eye but kept himself outside.
Carol emerged out from inside a couple of seconds later, a heavy expression over her face and there were still bloodstains on her, on her face, on her hands, and her clothes. She walked toward him at the corner, shaking her head, and leaned against the railings. “Got a cigarette?”
“Wanna smoke in the infirmary?” he asked, but nevertheless fished his rumbled package out of his pocket.
“We can make an exception today—” Carol murmured, taking the one he’d handed to her. She took a big breath and blew it out. “We can make a lot of exceptions today, I guess.”
Daryl narrowed his eyes. “Some of them won’t make it. Most of them won’t make it—” she intoned, lowering her voice. “But Joan still tends them. We need to discuss the practicality of it.”
Daryl’s eyes grew heavier, recalling the prison. “I’m not gonna do anything,” she assured him, reading his look. “But someone has to voice it out. We’re wasting our resources. You know how it’s done in the time of war.”
Daryl knew. The wounded were categorized and classified so they wouldn’t lose time with people who wouldn’t make it when they had so many that needed medicine and medical assistance, but Daryl shook his head. “We don’t have that many wounded to call for drastic measures yet.”
Inhaling another breath, Carol gave him a look, but only said, “Yet.” Daryl stayed silent. Carol took another drag from the cigarette. “I killed the first time today after Terminus. It always comes to this.”
This time Daryl shrugged. Carol gave him a sideways look. “Why did you return, Daryl?” she inquired.
“I’unno—” Daryl muttered, shrugging his shoulders, couldn’t decide if he was lying or not.
Carol didn’t say anything for a while, then they heard the blonde woman’s cries again from inside. Carol shook her head. “Amanda shouldn’t have brought him back—” she commented heavily, giving out another exhale of smoke. “It made Jessie worse.”
Daryl made a noncommittal voice. He didn’t know what to say. His head snapped at the door when he picked up the movement and he saw Joan coming out this time, a very similar expression to Carol over her face, too. Carol’s look turned studious, her eyes squinted, as she watched Joan walking toward them.
Joan eyed the smoke in Carol’s hands wistfully. Daryl offered her one too, but she shook her head as Carol’s gaze on her turned more pointed.
“No. I’m good,” Joan declined with a shake of her head, her dark curls swaying over her shoulders. “I just needed a break.”
“Are you tired?” Carol asked quickly, sounding almost worried.
Daryl looked at them suspiciously. He couldn’t understand why Carol was fretting, but Joan brushed it off with another, “I’m good.”
Before Daryl asked what was going on, suddenly Aaron and Eric showed up below the porch at the driveway. “They’re coming—” his soon-to-be partner cried out, “Officer Shepherd saw them approaching and signaled them to the sewers. They’re going to meet them.”
Daryl jumped down from the railings and started running toward the manhole that they’d gone down before. Outside of the town was getting crowded, so the woman had probably led them there. When they found the manhole, the iron lid was already pushed away. Daryl started climbing down the fixed metal ladder on the wall, but stopped in midday, catching the sounds.
“Hey—Rick—is it you?” he called out, twisting back over his shoulder to look down and catch sight of them in the dark.
“Daryl—” the answer carried over to him, but it was a lighter voice, a higher pitch.
“Glenn—” Daryl asked back. “Is it you?”
“Yeah. We’re coming up.”
Wordlessly, Daryl climbed up to the surface again. A few minutes later, they all pulled them out of the hole, but Daryl still couldn’t see Rick. He wandered his eyes over the people that had made it back, so few, so few of them, picking up Beth’s new boy, Glenn, Heath, and his people, and the new arrivals, and that damn woman and her lieutenants, but no Rick.
Amanda wasn’t there, either. His eyes swept around them, worry skyrocketing in him suddenly. “Where’s Rick?” he roughed out.
His eyes found Glenn’s almond ones, and before he bowed his head, the Korean muttered lowly, “He…fell.”
“What the hell did ya mean, man?” Daryl snapped, refusing to believe it.
No. Rick couldn’t have gone…His brother…his brother wouldn’t do that. He shook his head. “Nah…”
“We were attacked on our way to Del Arno after you left,” Heath continued this time when Glenn didn’t speak. “He fell over the cliff in the fight.”
The guilt came and started eating him alive. His brother had fallen after Daryl left him. The man who had given him a second chance, the man who had given him a family he’d never had. And Daryl had betrayed him.
Carol’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes widened in shock as Joan looked the same. This time Daryl didn’t care. He had betrayed his brother and he was gone. If Daryl had been there, if he hadn’t returned…
Glenn walked up to him. “We didn’t see his body—” he told Daryl in a slow voice. “Amanda, Carl, and Beth left to look for him.”
Daryl’s head whipped at him. “Did ya let ‘em go? Why didn’t ya go with ‘em?” he asked, getting furious. How they could have let her go alone!
“She wanted to go alone, said she would be faster,” Glenn answered. “She didn’t want us to come. But Carl and Beth insisted. She took them with her. She wanted us to protect the town.”
Daryl shook his head, still giving a pissed look at Glenn. There was a point in the words, small groups had a better chance when you looked for someone’s tracks than large ones, but with numbers, you could also cover more ground. Amanda would want them to protect the town, but Daryl didn’t care. He had to go out and look for his brother.
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m goin’—” he said, starting to climb down in the hole again, but a shrieking female voice froze him as it called for Joan.
Looking up, one foot still at the ladder, Daryl saw the shrink of the woman rushing toward them, calling for Joan. “Joan—you need to come!”
Joan stepped up. “What happened?”
Denise stopped in the middle of the crowd, Daryl still half in the manhole, breathing laboriously before she cried out, “It’s Jessie! She smothered Ron!”
# # #
Lifting her head, Amanda checked the sun’s position. It had well past noon now. Her shirt was almost clinging on her back with perspiration, making her feel the stark December chill worse. Her eyes turned down and she peeked at the twirling track of river like a snake on the horizon below them, imaging Rick in the freezing waters. The thought gave her a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold.
She heard snarls a second later, and quickly nudged the teenagers, directing them in a ditch along the ridge they’d climbed on. Thank God she knew the whereabouts of the cabin well. She could have taken the other way, the one that was closer to the backroad that led to Alexandria, but she wanted to see the river from the higher ground, have the situational awareness in a wider perspective as much as possible.
Rick would have preferred this way, too, Amanda knew it, it was longer but less perilous. She knew he was going to the cabin. She knew it. He was alive and was looking for help. The alternative wasn’t still an option for her.
As they hid, a small herd of the dead passed them by. Quickly, she counted half of a dozen of them, still manageable in their numbers. They needed camouflage once more. She hated doing it, especially when her skin was still throbbing and aching, but she wasn’t going to risk Beth and Carl in the woods.
Amanda jerked her head, and quickly they put down the rotters, not making a voice. She took the katana blade from Carl and cut up the freshest corpse. Quickly, still not talking they started smearing the remains of the bodies on themselves.
They stood up after they were done, looking like stuff from nightmares once more, and started making toward the cabin silently. All in frankness, Amanda was more worried about the Wolves than the dead now, but even though she only wanted to find Rick and get back to the town, there was a part of her that also wished she saw the Wolves again. Especially the leader.
She had an unfinished business with the bastard.
As the thoughts of revenge found her, Amanda tried to keep herself stable. She was out here for Rick, not for revenge. That bastard didn’t matter. She shouldn’t let her fury and pain stray her from her path.
Rick.
Only Rick mattered now, only finding him.
Her radio crackled in the silence, and Amanda almost cursed it. “Amanda, do you copy?” came Joan’s agitated voice.
Her brows furrowing, Amanda yanked the radio off from her belt. “What happened?”
“It’s Jessie—” the nurse told her quickly. “S-she killed Ron.”
Amanda stopped.
The world stopped with her a second as Amanda tried to understand the words once more. It wasn’t a bleak emptiness she had suddenly tumbled down when they’d told her Rick fell. No, it was more like a blip, a glitch of error that rendered her speechless. “What?” Amanda managed to utter the next second.
“We were out—” Joan continued. “Daryl was going out to look for you. She must have done it after we left.”
Good luck then, on trying to find anything left to save, the cruel mocking words came at her.
Amanda swallowed. “Where’s she?” she asked Joan, her voice still low, but it wasn’t only because of the threats in the woods now.
“She’s gone to her house. We wanted to look for her, but Denise stopped us. She told us to leave her alone. She told Denise she wanted to finish his suffering.”
Was it? Was it mercy?
Amanda should have done it like Carol had suggested, had done it herself back in the sewers, killed him out of mercy? A lot of people did it since the outbreak, Amanda knew, did it to the people they loved. Like Carl. The mercy of the living.
Her eyes flickered to the teenage boy, but there was no mercy over his face now. He was expressionless, forlorn. God, she needed to find Rick. She didn’t know how they would come back from all of this, but she needed to find him.
“Keep an eye on her—” she told her friend. “We’ll deal with it after we return.”
Because they were. They were coming back, all of them together. The alternative wasn’t still an option. Her resolves getting more determined, Amanda nudged the teenagers ahead.
# # #
The cabin was like how they had left it. Rick had feared that those men would have returned or would have ambushed him on the way, but so far, his eyes that scanned everything around hadn’t picked anything.
As quick as he could manage, Rick slipped inside the cabin. He usually came here for weapons, weapons they had already cleared out the last time they were here, but Rick looked for more today. He brought up the loose wood boards on the floor and revealed their secret cache. They couldn’t have refilled their supplies after using them on Anne’s people, but what was inside was going to have to make it.
He looked for the clothes first, getting rid of his soaked, cold clothes. His torso bare, freezing, Rick inspected his abdomen and his sides and back to see if he had any open wounds, and saw none. It was a good sign Rick took gladly. He changed into a new brown shirt and regular jeans, dropping his duty belt on the ground before spreading his heavy wet suede jacket beside it to dry. His hands clawed the first aid kit the next and took a couple of painkillers and swallowed them. He couldn’t risk taking anything else than basic painkillers in case they made him sloppy and dazzled. There was a part of his mind that was still recovering from his fall much like his body, but Rick needed to be awake.
His family was waiting for him. He needed to get back. Every second he spent outside, Rick knew their grief was increasing. It pained him imagining their reaction, pained him to do this to them again.
How many times Rick had made this to Carl, how many fucking times his boy had thought his father was gone. The thought made him almost throw his head back and roar with anger. He had promised it wasn’t going to happen again.
Don’t you ever dare to do that to me ever…ever again, Amanda’s heated, fierce words in the woods after Rick had come from death echoed in him, too, the frightened and relieved way she looked as she shoved his shoulder, whispering those fierce words, and Rick did it to her again.
Fury, the savage beast was a living breathing thing inside him, wanting to rip out throats, wanting to rip them into shreds for doing this to them. Rick tried to restrain his blind anger, keep his cool. Anger wouldn’t get him back to his family. He needed to stay cool, levelheaded.
When he finished dressing, Rick started to check his weapons. He should bandage his hurting ribs, but he needed to see his situation first. He must have lost the flare gun when he fell in the water. His Colt Python was still tucked in his holster, the other gun was gone. Rick pitied it. Had he still had it, he would have fired it. It would have drawn the attention of the loose walkers or the Wolves, but Rick didn’t care. If his people saw it, then they might have taken the hint that he was alive.
Were they looking for him? The thought crossed his mind at the speed of light, flashing through his brain cells like lighting. Was Amanda looking for him? The sudden thought worried him and excited him at the same time, worry for imagining her outside now, and excitement over the fact that she would do it for him, wouldn’t believe he was dead and come out to look for him.
His hands trembled as he checked his bullets, counting six still inside. He hadn’t fired his gun today yet, and Rick hoped he wasn’t going to need to, either, for the rest of the day.
He needed protection. He walked out of the cabin and started looking for a walker. He found one strayed one, circling the cabin a few yards away, and quickly put it down. Kneeling beside it on the cold, wet foliage, feeling the chill as badly as in his wet clothes, Rick started cutting it up.
A crunching of twigs from the thick shrubberies at his left side stopped his hand before Rick slit the walker’s belly, and quickly made him spring to his feet. He drew his gun, pointing it ahead, but the next second, a familiar sight emerged from thick bushes, a sight that Rick took like a dream of a dying man on his last breath.
It was Amanda, slowly straightening up from the shrubbery she had just passed through, still pushing the long wild wilds and bushes to make her way. She still hadn’t seen him, her attention wasn’t directed ahead, but backward as she spied looks over her shoulder, but her shoulders tensed before she entirely walked out, quickly gathering she wasn’t alone.
She spun around herself, her hand going to her hip for her gun, but stopped in midair after seeing Rick, staring at her.
The world felt frozen, sucked into a small bubble as they stared at each other unmoving. For a split second, he even thought he was daydreaming, his fall had made him crack up again, and this wasn’t happening. He was seeing ghosts again, but in her torn, filthy clothes, bandaged hands, bedraggled look, she didn’t look like an image of his snapped mind cooked up. No, she looked like shit, and worry rocketed in him… What the hell had happened to her when he was gone?
But Rick couldn’t have asked because the bushes behind her stirred and Rick heard a familiar low whisper from her back, “Amanda…”
She was shoved an inch forward, her attention, her wide green eyes still glued on his as Beth and Carl showed up from the shrubbery behind her.
Rick fell on his knees as Carl lunged forward upon seeing him, followed by Beth right at his heel.
“DAD!” his son’s voice echoed around them as Beth’s mixed with his, “Rick!”
Rick opened his arms to the teenagers that were rushing to him on his knees and enveloped them into a fierce hug.
“I knew you were alive—” Carl muttered to his ear, hugging him as tightly as Rick did.
“I’m so sorry—so sorry, Rick—” Beth chanted.
Rick shook his head. “It’s okay…” he whispered to them, bringing them closer to his chest. “We’re okay.” They were okay. As long as they were together, they were okay.
His eyes darted up and Rick saw Amanda still watching them like a statue of marble, not moving an inch. Slowly, untangling himself from the teenagers, Rick stood up. They looked at each other for a few seconds again, both standing still, unmoving, then Amanda suddenly started to run to him even faster than Carl and Beth and leaped on him.
Her arms coiled around his neck as her feet left the ground. Rick quickly wrapped his around her waist, suspending her in the air in his arms as she hugged him tightly, so tightly his ribs protested with a hot ache, but Rick didn’t care. He didn’t put her down. He hugged her as fiercely as she did, his arm sneaking up toward her neck and vanishing inside her hair at the nape of her neck, her feet still suspended a few inches up from the ground.
Her lips brushed over his neck, kissing him. Rick felt hot wetness on his skin where her head was resting on his shoulder before he realized she was crying. His arms tightened around her more as Rick swayed her in his arms. “Baby, I’m here. I’m alive,” he muttered. “I told you I wasn’t going to die on you, remember?”
She made a rough sound close to a sob. “I thought—I thought...” her words trailing off, she squeezed her arms, kissing his neck again.
They stayed like that in each other’s arms silently for a few seconds more before Rick put her down. Running her eyes away from Beth and Carl, looking shy with her reaction upon seeing him again alive, Amanda stepped out of his arms. Rick gave her the time she needed to pull herself back together, much as Beth and Carl did.
Rick wandered his eyes on them. They were pieces of walkers smeared on them, Rick had smelled it, but Amanda really looked like shit. “What happened to you?” he asked, tilting his head toward her bandaged hands.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Are you okay?”
Carl’s heated voice cut her off, “They threw at her a dynamite, Dad!”
Rick’s eyes widened with shock. Amanda jerked her head again. “I’m okay. They found them inside the crates,” she explained. “They couldn’t get the guns but took them.”
His head felt exploding, his jaw kneading. Those bastards, when Rick got his hands on them… “We got them back,” Amanda quickly added, possibly reading his reaction and asking before she was interrupted. “Are you okay?”
Rick nodded. “Yeah. I think I’ve got a few cracked ribs, but nothing I can’t manage.”
“Let’s check you first—” Amanda took his elbow and started to direct him toward the cabin.
Rick freed himself from her grip. “It’s okay. We need to get back to the town.”
Leading him ahead, Amanda refused. “The town is secure now. We’ve got the radio. We’ll inform them we found you. But we need to check you first—” She halted for a second, fussing with her belt, and took out her handheld radio. She threw it to Carl.
“Call in—” she instructed the teenagers as they stopped following them. “Inform them everything is okay, and we found Rick. They nodded, catching the radio. “Stay guard,” she ordered for the last, pushing Rick gently inside the cabin.
Rick let her. He didn’t want to fight with her for anything anymore. And she was also right. Rick really couldn’t have done anything with his injuries, wanting to go back to the town as soon as possible, to let them know he was okay, but since they were good, he could stop for a bit, gather his strength.
“How did you know I was coming here?” he asked, resting himself back in the corner as Amanda picked up the first-aid kit.
Her eyes finding his, she looked at him, then gave him a shrug. They knew each other so well perhaps Rick didn’t even need to ask. She took the bandages and started taking off his shirt, her eyes trained on his chest. “So you survived a fall over the cliff, too, huh?” she muttered, lifting her head at him.
Rick let out a low chuckle. “Said the girl who survived a dynamite.”
“It was a small one—” she countered, slowly wrapping the bandage over his abdomen.
His face getting serious, his head tipped down, Rick looked at her again. “I’m sorry, Amanda, I’m sorry that I made you go through this again.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” her answer came quickly, then her hands still bandaging him paused. “And—and I’m sorry, too. About-uh-what happened on the platform.”
Rick stilled. Amanda secured the bandage with a pin from the kit and pulled back from him an inch, but only an inch. They were still so close to each other that Rick could see the green of her eyes getting glazed in the gloom of the cabin.
“Y-you were right. I was trying to pick a fight. I don’t even know why,” she confessed.
No. This wasn’t the right time for this talk. They needed to talk, but not right now. “Amanda, no. It’s—” Rick started, then words failing him, he said, “We’ll talk when we get back to the town.”
“No—” she replied, shaking her head. “I need to do this now,” she said. “I’ve postponed it too long, far too long. When Beth told me you fell….” She paused, letting a small sigh. “I-I thought I could’ve never told you anymore.”
His eyes froze on hers. “Tell me what?” he roughed out, a part of him already knowing the answer. His breath started ringing in his eardrums with his heartbeat, his chest felt like stringing. Rick waited.
God, how long he had been waiting for this. “You know what…” she still insisted though. “You must know it.”
“Perhaps I just want to hear it from you.”
“I know,” she confessed, then ran her eyes away before she muttered, her small voice sounded exasperated. “I’m sorry I make everything this complicated.”
“I don’t mind.” His eyes bore through hers, finding her gaze again. “Just say it, Amanda.”
“I love you—” she breathed out. “I think I love you for a long time, perhaps even since you kissed me at Grady, and I’m sorry it took you falling off over a cliff for me to say it out loud.”
Without a word, Rick held her arm and pulled her against his chest. A shiver passed through his naked torso at the contact as Amanda came willingly and rested her head on his thudding heart.
His hand sneaking up found her chin resting aside at his chest, and lifted her head to look up at him before he whispered to her, “I love you, too, for a long, long time, perhaps even before I kissed you at Grady—” His lips pulled out into a soft smile as Rick gazed at her deeply, “and I’m glad to finally hear it from your lips even if it took me falling over a cliff.”
After she rested her head back on his head with a smile, they stayed like that in each other’s arms, not talking anymore. Rick just enjoyed the calm moment between them, feeling her warmness spreading over him in the cold. He dipped his head and kissed her hair. Amanda snuggled at him closer, holding him carefully not to hurt his bruised ribs. There was still a shitload of stuff they needed to talk over, but Rick didn’t care. They loved each other, and they weren’t afraid to admit it. For now, it was enough. More than enough.
His hand started making soft circles across her back with his fingertips. Had they been back at their home without their injuries, Rick would have carried her to the bed and made love to her slowly like their last time, holding her hand, showing her how much he loved her in a way no word could manage. As cheesy as it sounded, he still felt that was what he should do after the woman he loved confessed she loved him back.
“We should go—” Amanda murmured against his chest but didn’t move, either.
She had a point, the woods were dangerous more than any time to linger around now, but Rick still didn’t want to lose this yet. “In a moment,” he murmured back, his hands still slowly mapping her back.
“That story how Hershel made you catch walkers—” she spoke in a whisper suddenly, craning her head from his chest. “You still haven’t told me about it.”
Rick tipped his head down at her. “No, I haven’t.”
“Uh, m-maybe we go to the lounge room, and you tell it to me? I’ll cook.”
“Amanda Shepherd—” Rick dragged out her name teasingly, leaning in her further, “are you asking me to a date?”
A small smile blossomed over her lips before she hid it, hiding her face on his naked chest gingerly. “Hmm mm.”
Smiling too, Rick started standing up, holding her waist to move her up along with him. Amanda bent down and grabbed his shirt from the floor and passed it to him. Rick raised his arm and gave her a sideways look back over his shoulder as she helped him to put it on.
“What are ya gonna cook?” he asked, starting to button his shirt, but the rest of his words suddenly were cut off with a lone gunshot from outside.