The Walking Dead: "Days Gone Bye"

Chapter 1: Officer Down

Rick was sitting on the driver side of the Sheriff's car. The Sheriff, Shane Walsh, was sitting on the passenger side. Shane had a little more hair than Rick. He looked stronger than him. Rick and Shane were best friends. They had burgers and fries between them and snacking on them in the fast food parking lot.

"What's the difference between men and women?" Rick asked.

"This joke?" Shane replied while handing him a napkin.

"No, I'm serious," he said as he took the napkin from his hand.

Shane thought for a minute and finally said, "I never met a woman who knew how to turn off a light. Born thinking the switch only goes one way. On. I mean every woman I let ever had a kid, swear to God,"  he said while Rick smiled. "It's like I come home, the house is all lit up, and my job, you see, apparently because my chromosomes happen to be different cause I then gotta walk through that house, turn off every single light this chick left on," he said.

"Is that right?" Rick chuckled.

"Yeah. Now, this same chick, she'll bitch about global warming," he laughed. "Well, darling, maybe you and every other pair of boobs on this planet, just figured out that the light switch goes both ways, and maybe, we wouldn't have so much global warming," he looked at Rick, pretending he was talking to the girl.

"So you really said that?" Rick asked.

"Well, the... polite version of it," and they both laughed. "But still man, she says, 'You sound just like my damn father! He is always yelling about the power bill and telling me to always turn off the damn lights!'"

As Rick took another bite of his fries, he asked, "And what did you say to that?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I wanted to say. 'Bitch, you've been meaning to tell me that you've been hearing this your entire life and you are still too damn stupid to learn how to turn off a switch?'" and Rick started to laugh at the thought of it. "Haha, well I wouldn't actually say that, though, let's just go with the polite version." Shane laughed.

"Yeah, very wise," Rick said back.

After a few seconds of silence, Shane asked Rick, "So how's with Lori, man?"

After a moment of hesitation, Rick said, "She's good. Very good at turning off lights," and Shane laughed as he was eating one of his fries. "I'm the one who sometimes forgets," he continued.

Shane then told him "That's not what I meant."

Then out of depression, Rick told Shane, "We didn't have a great night." Shane wasn't very satisfied with the answer.

"Hey look, man, I may have failed to amuse with my sermon, but I did try. The least you can do is speak," he told him with assurance.

"That's what she always says. Speak... Speak," he said without even looking at him. "You'd think I was the most closed-mouth son of a bitch ever to hear her tell it."

"Do you express your thoughts? Do you share your feelings, that kind of stuff?" Shane asked with a hint of sympathy in his tone.

Rick had to pause and think about what he could say. "Lately, whenever I try, everything I say makes her impatient, like she didn't want to hear if after all. It's like she's pissed at me all the time and I don't know why" he shakes his head.

"Look, man. That's just shit couples go through. Yeah, it's a phase." Shane looked over at Rick for an answer after that but all Rick could do is let out a small sigh and look the other direction.

"Last thing she said this morning, 'Sometimes I wonder if you even care about us at all.'" He looked back at Shane and Shane couldn't say anything. "She said that in front of our kid," he continued. "Imagine going to school with that in your head."