OH GOD someone save me from my Rick feels!
No but seriously they just keep coming.
Be advised: This is pretty Rick-centric, with a strong dash of Carick. Whether you want to take it as friendship or anything more is up to you.
Also be advised that I am by no means abandoning Caryl. My muses are just being very special right now and I can't say I blame them.
I disclaim everything, as always!
She was there.
She was there.
But she wasn't. She couldn't be.
He screamed. His head pounded. His pulse fluttered in his neck and the people around him scattered, shouting, afraid.
He was afraid too, couldn't they see that?
Afraid of what he was seeing, afraid of what it meant.
Afraid that his own mind was failing him, and that in doing so he would fail what few loved ones he had left….
And God save him if she was there to judge him, Hell take him if she was there to condemn his failing efforts.
The fear and chaos in the room spiraled away and his vision tunneled on the figure standing in front of the window above, peering down at him, silent….
"JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!"
His arm lifted. He didn't recognize the glint of metal in his grasp or the living, breathing person he was pointing at….
A sharp pain in the back of his head sent him rolling into darkness, and the phantom image of his wife disappeared with his consciousness.
When he opened his eyes the first time it was to an empty cell.
An empty, locked one.
A dull ache throbbed in the back of his skull. He could hear voices on the tier above, whispering. A woman. A young man.
Definitely Carol and Glenn.
He blinked. Stared at the ceiling and tried to make out the conversation.
"Don't do this. Don't cage him up like a wild animal."
"He almost shot you. He's irrational; we just need to make sure he's safe, we're safe...until he calms down…"
A swallow sent him choking on dry air, his eyes watering in both a physical reaction and emotional. The cell spun around him suddenly, and he shivered.
Fell back into the nothingness of sleep with a tear-streaked face.
Silence greeted him when he woke up again.
So did darkness. It was nighttime, and the prison was still and sleeping.
His head hurt far less than before, but that did not stop him from reaching up to cradle his face in his hands. The memory of the conversation he'd overhead echoed in his ears, whispered and cracked, taunting….
Like the ghost of Lori herself laughing down at him.
The jingle of keys jerked him up to attention.
The bright flashlight that shined into the cell blinded him momentarily before he heard the metallic clunk of the door being unlocked and pulled open, of soft boot steps making their way inside.
Rick closed his eyes against the light and when he opened them, Carol was kneeling by his bed.
Another jingle brought his attention to Carl outside the cell, keys in hand.
His chest suddenly hurt.
"Carl…I-"
"It's okay. Just get some rest, Dad."
And like a ghost himself Carl stepped back into the permeating black of the block bay, moving on to continue his watch.
Rick was left alone.
With the woman he'd apparently come close to killing.
"Rick…"
A whisper, a hand reaching out to wrap warm fingers around his wrist.
The small light in the room illuminated her body, bouncing shadows from the features of her face…
And just like that his vision spun again, and he blinked, and she was there…
And then she wasn't.
"God, no….stop…"
The fingers on his arm tightened.
"It's okay…"
He couldn't breathe.
He just couldn't—
"What did I do? Carol, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
He chanced to look away from her hand and meet her eyes, bright blue, soft, concerned…
Forgiving.
"You didn't do anything. Everything's fine, Rick…"
God, no, don't say my name…
Just leave me alone, just leave me alone…
"Just tell me what you want."
She jerked, her fingers loosening, and Rick breathed deep and blinked down to find his own fingers digging into her arm, his grip like a vice and obviously painful.
He pulled away. So did she.
His head was hurting again.
His eyes were watering.
"I'm sorry."
Warm hands reached up to settle against the rough scruff of his cheeks. Rick breathed, shaky, and let the tears come. She leaned in, and the soft press of her lips against his forehead made everything so much better and so much worse at the same time.
"Rest. That's all I want. That's all we want. We've got this. Just rest."
She smiled at him and let go, the flashlight flickering about the cell as she moved away.
His chest tightened and he wanted to cry out for her to stay, to sit by his bed and let him cry into her neck until he passed out from exhaustion.
But that would neither see the group secure or see him coming back from all of this, and he knew it.
And maybe that was the problem that would never be solved.
Rick smiled grimly when Carol waved and stepped from the cell, shutting it behind her.
He was alone. He was the leader. And he'd never be one without the other.