digging graves// rick grimes x OC//

Pretty Much Dead Already Part 2

    Hershel sits at his dining room table, eating lunch. A knock sounds from his door, "Come on in," he calls out.
   The sound of footsteps approaching, "A little light reading for lunch?" the familiar noise of Rick's voice says.
   Hershel looks up at the man, "Been working so hard lately I get my studying where I can."
   "You know we can help you out with your work," Rick offers, leaning onto a chair.
   Hershel looks back up, quickly becoming defensive, "It's my field to tend."
   Rick pauses for a moment. He then begins to speak, "We found the barn."
   Hershel doesn't look up from the book, "Leave it be."
   Rick leans down, whispering, "Well, I'd like to talk about it, but either way— your barn, your farm, your say."
   "I don't want to talk about the barn. I don't want to debate," Hershel responds.
   "Not a debate, a discussion," Rick clarifies.
   Hershel turns to face Rick, wiping his mouth off, "I need you and your group gone by the end of the week."
   Not giving up, Rick continues, "I talked to Dale. You and I have our differences with the way we look at the walkers. Those people," Hershel looks up at the word, "they may be dead, they may be alive. But my people, us, we are alive right now, right here, right in front of you. You send us out there and that could change."
   "I've given you safe harbor. My conscious is clear."
   Rick sits down, "This farm— this farm is special. You've been shielded from what's been going on out there. Dale says you saw everything happen on the news. Well, it's been— it's been a long time since the cameras stopped rolling." Hershel gets up, grabbing his plate, Rick continues, "The first time I saw a walker it was just half a body snapping at me from the ground," Rick begins to follow the older man, "My inclination wasn't to kill it. But what the world is out there isn't what you saw on TV. It is much much worse and it changes you. Either into one of them or something a lot less than the person you were. Please do not— do not send us out there again." Rick begins to walk away, but before he leaves the kitchen he stops, "My wife's pregnant." Hershel quickly turns around at the sudden news, "That's either a gift here or a death sentence out there. If we were to stay we could help you with the work, with securing this place. We can survive together."
   Hershel shakes his head, "Rick, I'm telling you we can't."
   "You think about what you're doing."
   "I've thought about it."
   "Think about it," Rick declares.
   "I've thought about it!" Hershel yells.
   "Think about it again. We can't go out there," Rick ends the discussion and walks off. Hershel stands still, his eyes landing on his eldest daughter, who seemed to have heard the conversation from the other room.
——
   Winona had left Glenn on watch duty and was going towards the house in search of Maggie. She sees Rick stomping out of the house and immediately decides to go in the opposite direction. Her eyes come across a frustrated Daryl making arrows, so she decides to head over to him.
   Daryl doesn't even look up from his task at hand, when she approaches, "Did she send you over?" he huffs.
   "Who?"
   "Carol."
   "No," Winona says sitting next to him, "I was wondering if you wanted to ride along the highway to look for Sophia. I still need to learn more about the bike."
   Daryl finally glances to the woman, "Yeah. Okay," he stands, groaning from his healing side, "I'm tired of being stuck here anyways."
   The two head out, telling Glenn where they're heading to.
——
   Shane continues to stand guard in front of the barn, watching every crevice. Hearing footsteps from his right, he looks up to see Rick, "What's it gonna be, man? Which way does this thing go?"
   "I don't know yet," Rick admits.
   "Well, what did he say?"
   "We're negotiating."
   "You're nego—" Shane starts, scoffing, "Clock's ticking, Rick."
   "No it isn't, Shane," Rick faces the man, "That barn— that barn is secure. We didn't even know about it till this morning."
   "We didn't. Well, we know about it now. Right? We know there's over a dozen walkers in there. We know that's it's about a stone's throw from our camp, Rick— where we sleep. So look, if we're not gonna go in there and clear it out then we just got to go."
   Rick cuts him off, "We're not gonna clear it out and we're not gonna go."
   "We at least need our guns," Shane says ignoring him.
   "We can't have them, not here," Rick demands.
   "Why do you want to stay here when it's not safe? I just—"
   Rick talks over him, "We can make it safe."
   Shane looks around in disbelief, "How we gonna do that?"
   "We will, okay?"
   "How we gonna make it safe?"
   "We will, okay?" Rick raises his voice.
   Shane slaps the farm equipment he was leaning against, "No, man, it's not okay."
   Rick, frustrated, yells, "Shane, Lori's pregnant." Shane freezes. "We need to stay," Rick emphasizes.
   "We need our guns," Shane says, still in shock.
   "No, I can work this out." Rick walks away but stops, "You good?"
   "Yeah," Shane chuckles, "Lori's having a baby, man. Congratulations."
   Rick gives a disheartened smile, he walks away, "Thank you."
——
   Inside the house, Maggie stands in the kitchen, doing chores. Hershel walks in, "Hi, honey." She gives no response as she angrily continues her task. "Carl doesn't need any more of my help," he defends, knowing she overheard his conversation with Rick.
   She looks up at her father, "So that's it?"
   "Rick was trying to make his case," he sits, "It'll be hard. They'll have to be careful. But he was being dramatic. They're a strong group. They've done well on their own. They have Winona, she is a nurse, too. They're just gonna have to go out and find their own farm. There's plenty of them now to choose from."
   "There aren't. Every one of them nearby is burned out or full of walkers."
   "Walkers?" Hershel nods, upset at his daughter's change of behavior, "So we just keep these people here forever?" Maggie looks at him but doesn't answer, "How are they my responsibility?"
   "A new command I give to you: love one another as I have loved you. That's what you told me, right?" Maggie says, sparing a quick glance at the older man, "I was mad about mom. Mad about you marrying Annette. I was fourteen years old and I was awful, to you more than anybody. All I wanted to do was smoke and shoplift. Love one another. That's what you told me."
   "Maggie," he says, shaking his head, "That was different."
   "No," she frowns, "You're different."
   "I am. But we're not. I love you. That's part of this. Is this about you and the asian boy? Do you want me to—"
   She interrupts, her voice breaking as she begins to cry, "No." She sighs composing herself, "His name is Glenn. He saved my life yesterday when one of the people you think is sick tried to kill me. How's that for dramatic? And Winona, she nearly died on that run, three of them had attacked her, but she only asked if I was okay. Things aren't what you think they are. They aren't. Don't do this. Okay? It's not about me and Glenn. It's not about me and you. It's about you. It's about who you are, who you're gonna be."
   "Hershel!" A voice calls out. Jimmy comes running in, covered in sweat, "It happened again."
——
   Hershel sees Rick and Andrea standing around a map, catching the middle of his sentence, "...Also shows she could be moving this way south. If Sophia kept in that direction, she might have gotten out of the forest and into the farmland. So we take 74 up to Ivy Road, then we push down south on foot through the forest till we hit Christopher, go east a couple of miles and then double back."
   "Rick," Hershel gathers his attention.
   "Hershel. We just have our guns out because we're gonna go look for Sophia," he explains.
   "Before you do that, I could use your help with something."
   "Count me in," Andrea speaks up.
   "Thank you, but I just need Rick."
   Andrea nods, "I'll be down at the barn keeping watch until you're ready."
   Hershel glances at Rick and then begins to lead him away.
——
   Lori sits under a tree, cutting up carrots for dinner. Shane walks over, squatting in front of her, "I thought he was dead."
   "Shane, I don't—"
   "And then when he came back, right then, right there, you see I wished he was. Not— not because you wouldn't be mine, but because I knew that sooner or later he would be dead." Lori looks at him with an icy glare, Shane continues, "See Rick, he ain't built for this world, not for what it is now."
   "You're wrong," Lori says, "You're wrong."
   "Lori, how many times has he saved your life? I just— I just want to know how many times. Because by my count, I've saved your life on four different occasions. And that's Carl's too. So I just want to ask you, how many times has Rick saved your life?"
   Lori points her knife out to the right of her, "That night at the camp. That night at the camp after the fish fry."
   "No no no. See, no. That was me too. You see, Rick, he showed up late because he went on a suicide mission over nothing. Yeah, he joined in, but see, we wouldn't have been in that situation if he hadn't left because he felt that he needed to leave to save a drug dealer. And so we lost Amy and we lost Jim. We lost—" he stops and squats back down, "Rick told me."
   She looks up at him, "Told you what?"
   "And I know the reason why you didn't is because you know it's mine."
   "It's Rick's."
   "Okay. You know, we carried on quite a bit before Rick and Winona got back, Lori. It's mine. You know it is."
   "You're wrong. You're wrong. I'm sorry. Shane, I'm sorry. But even if it's yours, it's not gonna be yours. It's never gonna be yours and there's nothing you can do to change that."
   Shane stands, "I don't need to." Lori watches as he walks away.
   "Hey, Shane," a voice says as the man stomps back to camp. He looks down to see Carl getting up, "Can I talk to you for a sec?"
   Shane walks back to the boy, "You okay?"
   "Yeah," Carl nods, "I know you think Sophia's dead and that we should stop looking for her. But that's bullshit."
   "Hey, man, watch your mouth."
   "We're gonna stay her until we find her."
   Shane glances around and then focuses back on Carl, "You think that's what we should do?"
   "It's what I know we should do," the boy declares.
   Shane shrugs, "Then we stay. That means we got to do whatever we got to do to make that happen. Hmm?"
   "Like help out with chores?" Carls asks.
   Shane hums.
   Lori looks up to see Shane talking with Carl.
   "Like help out with the chores," Shane agrees.
   "Carl," Lori's voice rings out. The boy looks over to his mother, "Come here for a minute."
   "Why don't you go see what your mom wants?" Shane tells him. Carl nods, "Go on." Carl proceeds to start heading over to where Lori was, but Shane calls out to him, "Hey, Carl," the boy turns back, "Don't let me hear you talk like that again." He nods and continues to head over to his mother.
——
   Shane marches towards the RV, Glenn calls down to him, "S'up?" Shane doesn't answer as he heads inside. He begins rummaging through the RV, in search of the guns. No luck. "Son of a bitch," he seethes. He goes out, looking up to Glenn, "You see where he went?"
   "Who?"
   "Don't even try to shit me, okay?"
   "What?"
   "Dale, Glenn. Did you see where Dale went?"
   "Yeah, he asked me and Winona to run and get him some water. He said he'd cover us on watch."
   "And he was gone when you got back, huh?"
   "Yeah," Glenn says confused, "You think he's okay?"
   "Oh, he's fine."
   "Why'd he bail then?"
   "So you wouldn't tell me which way he went."
   "I don't get it."
   "No, man, you don't," Shane says under his breath as he stomps off.
——
   After being out for almost two hours, Winona and Daryl decide to head back to the farm. They had gotten off and went along the woods, so the hunter Daryl is, ended up shooting some squirrel. "Daryl?" the woman begins as he was loading up the bike.
   "Yeah?" he answers.
   "What do you think of me driving back?"
   "I don't have a death wish," he chuckles.
   Winona rolls her eyes, "You've taught me the ins and outs, how do you expect me to learn if you won't let me drive longer than 2 minutes?"
   Daryl says nothing, slinging his crossbow over his back. He pauses, seemingly thinking it over, "Fine. But we're stopping a mile from the farm and we're switching back to me driving. Ain't no way I'm letting them see me on the back of my bike."
   Winona smirks, "Oh no. Of course not." She gets on the motorcycle, "Well, hop on, Daryl."
   He huffs, "I can't believe I'm doin' this." He slides onto the back, tapping Winona to give her the go ahead. She kicks up the kickstand and starts the motorcycle, beginning to head back to the farm.
——
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