Beautiful Mistakes~ A Rick Grimes Love Story

*| 17 |*

I didn't sleep, not one bit last night. I was afraid to close my eyes. I was afraid of what I would see. I did what anyone would do. I got up, and went outside to kill walkers along the fence line, until the sun came up. Okay, maybe not just anyone would do that, but I did. I was being productive and distracting myself from what I did yesterday. I had been doing this for a while now, though.

I head back inside to sneak in before Rick wakes up. I quietly creep into our cell, and his eyes were still shut. I thought I had made it back without him noticing.

"That's the third time this week you've been out there until daylight. Are you sure your okay?" Rick asks. Damn, you couldn't pull anything on Rick. He was too smart and he knew me too well.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I say. Rick gets up and tends to Judith. The alarm goes off. I had to go wake up Carl and Sage.

"Come on. Your daddy needs you to help him out in the garden today. Get up!" I say, smiling while they groan through the pain.

I take Judith outside to check on Rick, Carl, and Sage.

"There's my beautiful girls." Rick says, smiling at us.

We hear gunshots in the distance, coming from the prison. Two girls come running out and yelling for help.

"Carl and Sage, take Judith up to the guard tower with Maggie! Now! Come on Luna, stay close." Rick says.

"Walkers in D!" Glenn yells.

It was mad chaos. People were screaming and crying. Gunshots echoed throughout the prison, drawing more walkers to the fence. This wasn't a breach, something happened last night. Rick and I grab guns, and start asking people if they are bit.

"Get up! Get back in the cell. Go!" Rick yells. Daryl picks up a little boy who's about to be walker bait.

"Hurry, go! Are you bit?" I ask a few people running by. I take out a walker and help a few people get into cells.

"Check every cell! Every single one of them!" Rick yells.

Daryl, Glenn, Rick, and I take out a few walkers.

"Are we clear down here? Are we safe?" Rick yells.

"Yeah, yeah!" I yell back.

"Up here!" someone calls out from upstairs.

We run upstairs. Daryl and Glenn are in front of me, Rick is behind me. As I walk past a cell, a walker grabs me. Daryl yells, "Get down" and takes out the walker.

I take a breath. "Thanks." Daryl nods.

A walker tries to grab Glenn, but he takes it out with his knife.

It became quiet. It was over. We lost a lot of good people. We look at the walker on the floor that Daryl had took out. "It's Patrick." he says.

We check each cell, taking out anyone who had died before they turned. One walker was locked in the cell. Rick grabs it by the shirt and pierces his knife through its skull.

"I don't get it. This one wasn't bit. It's like he just died." Rick says, looking at me concerned.

"Horribly, too. Pleurisy aspiration." Dr. S says.

"Choked to death on his own blood." Hershel says. "Caused those trails down his face."

"I've seen it before, on a walker outside of the fences." Rick says.

"Patrick had them, too." I say.

"They're from the internal lung pressure building up, like if you shake a soda can and pop the top. Only imagine your eyes, ears, nose, and throat are the top." Dr. S says.