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The World We Live In

Two Birds, One Stone

"99 red balloons
Floating in the summer sky
Panic bells it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else."
— Nena




Rick woke up first the next morning, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling while Georgie was curled tightly into a ball at his side with her butt pressed against his hip and the flats of her feet against his bare legs. He wasn’t fazed by how cold her feet felt against his warm skin. It was a win-win, really. Like most men and women sharing a bed together, he was her personal furnace and she was his personal air conditioner. He had gone so many nights — before, during and after the prison — sleeping without a blanket that even when he felt chilled, he was just used to sleeping without one. Even now, in bed with Georgie, in lying in a bed, in a house with heat and electricity and running water, he still felt like he was outside the walls instead of in. He still slept without a blanket covering him.

As children, and even sometimes into adulthood, people would throw their blankets up over their heads as if it was some sort of magical barrier or shield that would protect them from the bumps in the night. Obviously thin cotton material wouldn’t stop any sort of attack from happening, but it was like Rick couldn’t be bothered with the pretense while he was sleeping. If he had to get up in a hurry, he didn’t want to be caught up in sheets.

With his hands resting upon his chest, he began twirling his wedding ring around his finger again; listening to the sound of Georgie breathing deeply and he wondered for a moment what she was dreaming about. Turning his head, he glanced at the back of hers and the cascade of ginger locks that obstructed his view of her neck and shoulders. He was tempted to reach out and touch them, curl his fingers around them and just all-around find comfort in their softness.

The way life was now, the harshness of it all, it was nice to revel in soft, gentle things from time to time. Georgie wasn’t necessarily a complete softy. She could be as much of a hard-ass as he could be, but she was also gentle, both physically and personally. It probably had a lot to do with the fierce mama bear instinct she had over their three combined children. She would fight tooth and nail, she would slaughter cannibals without question, and she would risk her life to help lead a herd away from where the children were safe, as long as the walls held. And then there was the way she let Judith hold her finger or the way her the soft firmness of her hand covering his made Rick feel calm and safe. There was the way she trailed her hands along his body, the way her lips made his skin feel like it was on fire, and the way he came alive simply in her presence.

Along with his children and their people, Georgie was his world now.

He loved seeing her happy and hated to see her sad or scared.

Which is why Rick had such a heavy pang of guilt weighing down on his chest knowing what he about her son; about what his son told him. He didn’t know how she would handle it or accept it. He did know he couldn’t keep something like that from her any longer. He believed he would’ve told her the night before, but then that moment in the laundry room happened and he decided he’d rather end the day on a high rather than a low.

They deserved to have their day end on a high.

Gently moving, Rick rolled onto his right side and at up, tossing his legs over the edge of the bed before planting his feet onto the hardwood floor. For a moment, he sat hunched forward, picking at the sleep in the corners of his eyes before looking over to his nightstand and grabbing up his watch. He checked the time and then slid it on his wrist. With a casual look over his shoulder at the still sleeping form of Georgie, Rick pulled himself up to his feet and walked quietly around the bed toward the dresser where he removed a crisp white T-shirt to wear for the day.

The shirt he’d worn the day before was had been tossed into the dryer after the washing machine finished cleaning it and was probably still sitting there in the dryer.

Rick smirked as he pulled the shirt on, dazing off into some sort of daydream as he remembered how divine it felt to bury himself between Georgie’s legs while the washing machine vibrated under her ass and against the fronts of his thighs. Focusing on the memory, whoever briefly, felt like he was right back there and that enough to make him want to take off his pants and wake her up for another go.

But there was work to be done.

Leaving the bedroom, he ducked briefly into the bathroom for his morning constitution and to brush his teeth, and then turned the knob to enter Judith’s room, only to find the door was locked. Frowning initially, Rick remembered Carl had asked to sleep in Judith’s room and lock themselves in over his worry in regard to Tristan.

With his the middle knuckle of his right index finger, Rick knocked gently on the door and then leaned closely to it. “Carl, it’s dad.”

He waited for a moment, and then heard the muffled shuffling of feet followed by the clicking of the doorknob lock being turned. When the door opened up, Rick looked down into the face of his son who was looking back up at him with sleepy blue eyes and his shaggy brown hair all over the place.

Rick smirked. “Sorry to wake you so early.”

“It’s okay. I was up anyway.”

Somehow Rick didn’t believe him, and that his son was just trying to be tough. Smirking despite it, Rick stepped into the room and saw Judith was still asleep. He reached down into her playard and gently touched his hand to her hair, brushing some of it back but careful not to wake her. “I’m gonna take my morning walk around the perimeter, see how the wall’s holding up, and check to see if there’s been any sighting of the others coming back,” he informed his son. “Georgie’s still asleep, and so is Tristan as far as I know.”

“Did you tell Georgie yet about what I told you?”

“No, not yet,” he replied, standing back up straight. “I will a bit later, though, I swear.” Turning around, he placed one hand on the edge of the playard and the other on his hip as he looked back at his Carl. “More than enough happened yesterday. I didn’t want to add to it if I didn’t have to. Until I do, though, keep Judith in your sights if an adult isn’t nearby. Just to play it safe.”

“Okay,” Carl nodded. “I was thinking of visiting Mikey later. Nicholas is his dad and is all he has. He’s staying with Tobin’s family right now, but I thought I’d see if he was doing okay.”

Rick nodded. “That’s real nice of you.”

Carl nodded as well. “He’s a friend.”

“I’m glad you’re making friends. I’m still sorry Enid took off, too, and I want you to know I meant it when I said we’d look for her when we could.”

“I know we will.”

Stepping forward, Rick placed a hand on his son’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Hold down the fort.”

Carl snickered. “Don’t I always?”

Rick stopped in the doorway, turning back to look at his son with a slightly guilty expression. “Yeah, and I’m sorry I’ve put that weight on your shoulders. I still wish you could have the childhood I did, that none of this had to happen to you.”

“It’s happened to everyone.” The teen shrugged. “I’m not the only kid who’s had to live through some awful shit. I mean, at least I still have you and Judith, and the others. Enid had no one left and Mikey might not have anyone left. I only lost mom where they’ve lost both their mom and dad, so far. I’d say I’m lucky, and I don’t mind doing what I have to do to help keep it that way.”

Considering his son’s words, Rick nodded. “I just want you kids to be safe. That’s all I want in this life.”

Carl knitted his brow together. “You don’t want more? Someday Judy and I will be grown up and we won’t need you to protect us all the time.”

Rick narrowed his gaze at his son. “What are you getting at?”

“I’m not some little kid anymore, dad.” The teen chuckled and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Mom’s gone and I know you loved her and always will, but I also know you love Georgie now, too.”

“I know I haven’t come right out and sat you down to talk about that and I’m sorry. So much has been going on. There’s been a lot for me to juggle. I don’t want you to think I’m replacing your mom by being with Georgie.”

“Dad, trust me, I’m okay with it. We were all in a bad place after mom died and I know you had a lot to deal with, and I wasn’t exactly winning any son of the year awards.”

“I wasn’t winning any father of the year awards,” Rick retorted. “Pretty sure I still ain’t.”

“Eh,” Carl shrugged with a grin. “You’re doing okay.”

“Seriously, though, Carl: I’m sorry.”

“Shit happens, right?”

“Language,” Rick muttered knowingly.

“Just…find more in this life to live for than Judy and me. I know you say Georgie isn’t replacing mom, but it’s okay if Georgie takes up the place mom left behind. Someone needs to. You shouldn’t grow old alone.”

“If I get to grow old.”

“Don’t be depressing.”

“Sorry, but we had that discussion before, in Hershel’s barn, that someday your mom and I would both be gone…”

“Yeah, but the ‘when’ was never discussed; and if I ever become a father someday, I want you to still be around to be a grandfather.”

Rick began to grin from ear to ear. “Now there’s a thought: Grandpa Grimes.”

Carl pointed at his father. “You already got the grey hair and beard thing going on.”

“Hey, I will throw you over that wall to those walkers.”

Carl chuckled and waved his hand at his father. “Go walk the perimeter already.”

Casting his eyes downward, Rick considered everything that had just been said between father and son and he couldn’t help but smirk at how nice it was to talk like that with Carl. They hadn’t had a really in depth discussion, one on one, in a long while. The conversations at the lookout the day before and the one they’d just concluded were only the tips of the iceberg on more things he wanted to sit down with Carl and talk about, or delve more into.

“Let’s put aside some time sooner rather than later to talk more like this, okay?” Rick questioned as he positioned himself half out the door into the hallway. Bringing his eyes back up, he watched Carl nod.

“Cool.”

Rick sniffed with amusement and the typical teenage response. “Cool,” he repeated.



Upon waking up, Georgie rolled over in bed with an arm outstretch, expecting to find the soft yet firm mass that was Rick’s body beside her. Discovering that his side of the bed was empty, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. She wasn’t worried about where he was, just sad she didn’t get to kiss him good morning first thing. Not one to wallow in something as trivial as Rick rising earlier than she did and getting a head start on the day, Georgie got up and went about doing the same.

She went into the bathroom, disrobed and took a quick shower and then redressed some fresh clothing. All in all it took less than twenty minutes which was a personal best as of late because she didn’t use the blow dryer to dry her damned thick locks. She let took a brush through her damp mane and hoped it wasn’t too humid to make it all go frizzy on her and make her look something akin to little orphan Annie.

Her next task was heading across the hall where she found Carl reading his comic books aloud to Judith who was awake in her playard.

“Hey, you two.”

Carl looked up and stopped in the middle of the sentence he was reading and smiled up at her as she was in mourning and he was walking on egg shells as not to make her cry. “Hey, Georgie.”

“You okay?” she asked perceptively.

He nodded a bit too insistently. “Yeah, I’m good. Just reading to Judy.”

Narrowing her eyes in a very ‘mom’ way, she decided to let whatever was making Carl seem antsy slide. Instead, she nodded toward his sister. “Has Judith had a diaper change or eaten yet?”

“I changed her diaper and I was about to take her downstairs and get her some cereal to eat after this page.”

“You finish reading then,” Georgie remarked, stepping fully inside the room and walking up to the playard. “I’ll take her downstairs.”

“Uh…okay.”

As she leaned down, picked Judith up and set the sweet little girl down on her left hip. “You sure you’re okay?” she asked of Carl once more.

“Yeah, I’ve just got things on my mind.”

“Enid, right? Last night your dad mentioned you were worried about her.”

“Yeah. I think she went over the wall and I don’t know if she’s okay or not.”

Offering a gentle smile, Georgie placed her free hand down upon the teen’s shoulder. “She made it a long while on her own outside these walls. I think it’s safe to say she stands a good chance.”

“That’s pretty much what my dad said.”

“Well, you’re dad’s a pretty smart guy.”

Carl nodded and smiled. “Yeah.”

“Enid probably just got scared with the Wolves attacking and wanted to get away. She’s probably close by but can’t get back in because of the herd at the walls,” Georgie continued. “I bet she’s just lying low, bidding her time until it’s safe to return. She’s not like the other Alexandrians. She’s lost a lot and done whatever she had to in order to survive just like us. She’s a survivor.”

After a beat of silence, Carl bit his lip momentarily and found himself muttering, “I’m not sure my mom would’ve liked her.”

Georgie chuckled. “Why the hell not?”

“She doesn’t stay in the house.”

Furrowing her brow, Georgie shook her head. “I’m assuming you’re referring to some sort of inside joke from before I joined the group.”

Carl shrugged. “My mom and dad would tell me to stay inside the house or stay wherever we were camping out at, but I was stubborn and wanted to help out and it usually got me hurt or someone else hurt instead. I never meant for any of it to happen, I just hated not being included or allowed to help. I don’t know if you’re aware but going through this time in my life during an apocalypse is kinda stressful.”

“Hey, being an adult right now isn’t a picnic either.”

“My mom would get so frustrated with me for not staying in the house, and since Enid likes to climb the walls and go over them, I feel like my mom would get just as frustrated with her and think she was some sort of bad influence on me.”

“Do you think she’s a bad influence on you?”

“No.”

“Are you happy around Enid?”

“Yeah.”

“Then wouldn’t your mom want you to be happy?”

After a moment, Carl nodded. “Well, yeah.”

“I think as long as you’re happy and the two of you know how to be safe, your mother would approve of Enid. Like you said, going through this time of your life in an apocalypse is hard enough. If you can have something of a normal life with a girl you like, like all teenagers should, then I hardly feel like your mom would want anything less for you.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“As a mother, myself: I know so.”

Without anything else spoken between them, only gentle smiles flashed at one another, Georgie took her leave of the nursery, but Carl wasn’t far behind. Before she made her way downstairs, she knocked on the door to the bedroom Carl had been sharing with Tristan and then turned the handle to let herself in. As she looked around for her son, she noted that Carl was standing especially close to her, as if he was some sort of lap dog. She could feel tension permeating off him like an odor and when she came to the realization that her son wasn’t in the bedroom, she turned and looked behind her at Carl instead.

“Okay, seriously, there’s something more than Enid bugging you, isn’t there?”

“What makes you think that?”

“You’re standing there like a Doberman ready to either pounce on its victim or piss itself. What gives?” She narrowed her gaze with concern as she hoisted Judith, who was chewing on her fingers, up a little better on her hip.

“I’d tell you but it’s better it didn’t come from me.”

“Well, that doesn’t make me feel nervous at all,” Georgie commented sarcastically.

“Sorry,” Carl shrugged almost guiltily. “My dad will talk to you about it.”

Arching an eyebrow, Georgie was fully intrigued now. A million and one different thoughts began to ping pong around her mind as she accepted what Carl had just said to her. Leaving the boys’ bedroom open, she led the way down the stairs and straight through to the kitchen where she was greeted right away by both Carol and Michonne…and Tristan.

The latter was seated at the kitchen island, nursing a bowl of oatmeal that he was eagerly gobbling up while the two women stood nearby with mugs in their hands, of what was most likely coffee, and not tea; judging by the aroma wafting around the room.

“Morning, sleepyheads,” Carol winked. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Georgie replied; walking over toward the fridge to take out a bottle pre-filled with formula as she passed the toddler off to Michonne who readily set her mug on the island to accept the warm bundle of baby in her arms. Setting the bottle down on the counter beside the fridge, she moved around the island and placed her hands on either side of Tristan’s head and kissed the top of it. “Morning, sweetie.”

“Morning, mom.”

Georgie smiled, content with her lot, as she wander back around to the counter and then crouched down to pull a saucepan out of one of the lower cupboards before moving to the sink to fill the saucepan with water. “Did either of you see Rick before he left the house?”

Michonne nodded. “He mentioned wanting us to have a talk with Morgan in a little later today.”

“He let a few of those Wolves go,” Carol inputted. “He doesn’t seem to understand that there are certain things we need to do in order to protect ourselves — certain measures that need to be taken that he seems ill-equipped with dealing with.”

As Georgie began to heat up the saucepan on the stove top, she turned around and looked over at Carol, understanding that she was being vague about what she said for the sake of Tristan. Judith was too young to understand and nothing was really kept from Carl anymore. He was barely into his fifteenth year and he had already seen and done enough in the last nearly two years of the apocalypse than the average person would’ve done in their entire lifetime. There was no need to mince words around the teenager anymore.

“Who’s going to be here for the talk?”

“Rick, Michonne, myself and you, I assume.”

Georgie nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be here for it.”

The water in the saucepan began to boil so she stuck the premade bottle inside to warm it up that way. For both her children, that was how she warmed their bottles. She had friends in the world before, and even her sister, who would stick baby bottles in microwaves and that about made Georgie cringe for a number of reasons. When the bottle felt warm enough, she turned off the flame under the saucepan and tipped the bottle over so that some of the formula dribbled out onto her wrist to test the temperature. Determining it was just the right temperature for Judith’s sensitive palate, Georgie held the bottle in one hand and reached out to take the child back from Michonne.

“Can I feed her, mom?” Tristan asked, shoveling the last spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth and then pushing the bowl aside.

Before Georgie to respond with an answer in the negative, Carl jumped in and changed the subject rather abruptly. “You wanna go for a walk? I was gonna visit Mikey. You should come with me.”

Tristan looked between Carl and his mother, and then back before shrugging. “Okay.”

As the nine-year-old hopped down from the stool he was sitting on at the kitchen island, he ran over toward the door where his shoes were and sat down to pull them on. While Georgie had taken a seat at the dining table with Judith on her lap, she watched how the teenager seemed to be keeping a protective eye on her son and a few red flags began waving in her head. However, Georgie didn’t know what was up exactly, but she was determined to get to the bottom of it. If there was some sort of issue going on between the boys, she hoped it didn’t end in some sort of argument. They couldn’t afford any unnecessary noise within the walls at the moment drawing more attention from the herd outside.



No more than an hour later, Rick passed Carl and Tristan coming from Tobin’s house where Nicholas’ son Mikey was staying so the other teen wasn’t alone while his father was missing. He caught his own son’s eye as they walking back toward the direction of their own home and he began to chew the inside of his bottom lip, knowing he couldn’t put off talking to Georgie any longer. The look in Carl’s eye was basically telling him to get on it already.

Making his way toward the Gazebo to try and catch up to Carl and Tristan, Rick noticed the preacher was there putting up handmade signs announcing a prayer circle that afternoon. He considered the notion with some bitterness, mostly because he was still pissed off at the preacher for going behind their backs to betray them unjustly to Deanna and just being an all-around annoying dipshit. In what could be construed in a childish gesture, Rick reached out and ripped the sign down as he passed Gabriel. He balled the paper up in his hands and tossed it to the ground as he continued onward without a glance back to see if Gabriel had noticed what he’d done.

Not that he actually even cared either way, of course.

Rick stepped through the doors to the home he shared with have of his group, mere seconds behind his son and surrogate son, and was met with Georgie lying on her side on the living room floor while his daughter sat beside her, playing with a teething ring. Michonne and Carol were currently AWOL from the main living space, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close by.

“Hey,” he greeted with a nod of his head down toward his lover.

“Hey, yourself,” she replied, pushing her body up into a sitting position. “Is it time for that meeting with Morgan? Carol and Michonne told me about it.”

“What? Oh. No, not yet,” Rick replied, reaching up to scratch at the stubble on his chin as he knowingly eyed his son who was reaching down to pick up his sister while Tristan had disappeared upstairs to play or draw or whatever else it was the kid liked doing. “I was wondering if you and I could talk about some things.”

“Okay.”

“In private,” he added, knowing by the look on her face that she was quickly alerted to the seriousness in his tone and that she was probably running through a million and one terrible things in her head. “Maybe we could go to the other house to talk.”

“Next door or—”

“The other one.”

Georgie nodded, getting up to her feet and absentmindedly brushing her hands on her thighs once she was standing. “Alright.”

“Carl, you’re in charge unless Carol or Michonne come back.”

“Carol went to bring a casserole to the Millers. Michonne’s taking a shower,” Georgie informed.

Rick cast a glance her way and nodded, but looked back at his son to make sure he was gonna be okay. He didn’t bother saying much more of anything to Carl but he did step over to both his children, placing a solid hand on his son’s shoulder while dropping a kiss on top of Judith’s head. “We’ll be back in a little bit, if Michonne or Carol asks.”

Carl nodded dutifully. “Okay.”

As Georgie was led out the front door by Rick, she kept throwing looks up at him, all the way down the steps and as they began walking up the sidewalk toward the blue house. “Are we gonna talk about that awkwardness back there?”

“Yeah.”

“Did I do something to piss you off or something? Carl’s acting weird. He says whatever is bothering him you’d talk to me about. Is it about us? Is he upset with us together, because I could’ve sworn he seemed pretty okay with it?”

Rick sighed, placing his hand on the small of her back as they reached the steps leading up to the blue house’s front porch. “Let’s get inside first.”

Once they made it up the steps and pushed open the door, stepping inside, Rick couldn’t help himself and immediately think about every surface in the house they’d rechristened only a few days prior. He had to force those thoughts out of his mind, as wonderful as they were, to focus on the task at hand. Shutting the door behind him, he threw a look over at the plywood board that had been nailed up where the picture window he and Jake had crashed through had been. The temporary blanket was gone and assumed he could credit Tobin with having taken care of the window issue.

“Why don’t you sit down,” he suggested, running a hand through his hair and scratching slightly at his scalp.

“I feel like maybe I’m not gonna want to sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

“Sorry, I just…I’m not sure how to broach this kind of subject with you.”

“Well, shit, that doesn’t make me feel any less nervous.” Folding her arms under her bosom, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Just spit it out, whatever it is. Pretend it’s a Band-Aid and rip that bitch off.”

Despite himself, Rick chuckled under his breath at her candor. “Easier said than done.”

“It really is.”

“It really isn’t.”

Georgie could practically hear her heart beating in her ears. “Okay, well, is it something I did?”

Rick shook his head adamantly. Taking a step forward, he placed his hands over her elbows and held gently onto her, letting his eyes briefly reach hers. “No, it’s nothing you did. You’re perfect.”

Georgie snorted and shook her head. “Hardly.”

“Well, to me you are.”

“Alright, so you’re buttering me up to ease me into talking about something terrible, which makes me feel worse. Seriously, please…rip the Band-Aid off, Rick.”

Letting out a shaky sigh, Rick’s shoulders slump and he dropped his hands from her elbows; instead shoving them into his back pockets. “Alright, fine. It’s not about you or anything you did. It’s about Tristan. It’s about what he’s done and still might do.”

Instantly knitting her brow together, Georgie took a step back from Rick. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Tristan lied about what happened with that woman Melissa — about how she died.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tristan told Carl the truth about it, that afternoon before the meeting at Deanna’s.”

“Told him what?” she pressed, feeling defensive already in regard to her son.

“He wanted to use the gun she had and she said no, and it made him angry. While she was sleeping, he stole it from her and shot her in the chest with it, to see if he could do it and what it’d be like. The noise drew the walkers, who attacked her as she was already dying. That much was true. He got scared when they came. He dropped the gun, ran and hid,” Rick informed, feeling guilty about saying any of this as if it was somehow his fault. He just hadn’t wanted her to have to deal with something like this, which was why he was more than willing to help her deal with it accordingly. “He told Carl he didn’t feel bad about what he did. Tristan’s also the one that took your knife and hid it in Jake’s closet, not Jake. He watched you sleep while you let him share the bed with you those first few nights in this house. He found your knife and watched you sleep and thought about stabbing you with it.”

Georgie’s face fell. Shaking her head, she attempted to deny her little boy could be capable of such monstrous deeds and thoughts. “No, he’d never…”

“He has. He did.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

No, you’re going by hearsay. Did you hear this from Tristan’s lips? Maybe Carl’s just making up stories.”

“C’mon now, you Carl enough to know he’d never joke about something so serious. I know my son enough to know he’s not lying about this and has no reason to.” Rick took half a step toward Georgie just as she took a full one further back from him, causing his to stop in his place. “There’s drawings. They’re dark and not something a child should be drawing.”

“All kids draw monsters sometimes.”

“All kids don’t draw themselves shooting their mothers in the head, Georgie.”

“What?”

“Carl’s seen the drawings. They’re drawings of Tristan killing you. Carl’s afraid to leave Judith alone with him. Carl’s afraid for her and he’s afraid for you, too, and so am I.”

“Rick, seriously, there’s no way—”

“I’ve seen the drawings, too,” he blurted. “This morning, right before I left, I went into the boys’ bedroom. I was quiet; I made sure not to wake Tristan up. In the closet, in a box, I found the drawings. They’re…detailed. He really likes to use that red crayon. I think that whatever he’d been through and seen out there in the world before arriving within these walls…I think it changed him the same way it changed Jake. This world brought out the worst in a lot of people, and I think sometimes we forget children can be affected the same way.”

“My son is not a monster. He’s not a killer. He’s scared and he’s confused is all.”

“Honey, I’m not saying he’s a monster or a killer. I’m saying he’s troubled. I’m saying he’s seen too much for his young mind to process properly. He didn’t have his parents around to help him through this changing world, and that’s no fault of your own. It’s a shame you got separated from him so early on. You searched and searched for him and even when you felt like giving up hope, you never really did. You did everything you could to find him, and a wonderful twist of fate allowed you to.” Georgie might not have wanted to sit down, but Rick did. Letting his shoulders droop slightly, he took a few steps aside and sank down onto the blue couch. “You couldn’t help him before, but you can help him now. We can help him. I’m in this for the long haul with you. I told you I consider Tristan as much as my family as I do Carl and Judith, and I meant it. I ain’t gonna let you go through getting Tristan the help he needs alone. We met that new doctor Denise, who was a psychiatrist in the old world.” Looking up at Georgie, Rick saw that she was still standing with her arms folded across her chest and staring at the floor with the most heartbreakingly conflicted expression on her face. “We can have her talk to him. She’s a professional, after all.”

Georgie parted her lips in an attempt to say something but the words didn’t come right away. Instead, she walked around the coffee table and came to sit down on the other side of the couch next to Rick. Placing her hands in her lap, she turned her head and stared at him only to find he was already staring back. The look on his face was that of concern but also empathy.

Georgie sighed, maintaining eye contact with him. “I just can’t picture my son doing or thinking things like that. What used to get me through my darkest days when I was trying to find him was picturing him before world fell apart. I pictured him playing with his Lego kits or toy trucks while making the rumbling motor sound with his mouth.” Smiling for a fraction of a second, Georgie’s face fell as tears burned at her eyes and began to fall. “Why did he have to change like this?”

“He just…he didn’t how else to be anymore,” Rick muttered lamely, not really knowing much to say to that. Reaching an arm out he moved it around her back and placed his hand on her shoulder furthest from him to pull her closer. As she took the welcomed hint, Rick leaned slightly to right to meet her halfway as she rested her head down upon his shoulder. “He was young—I mean, he still is—and all he saw was death; the walking dead, the living getting killed and returning as the walking dead. It’s hard enough for us, as adults, to process it, but at least we’ve have decades or reasoning and knowing what’s right from what’s more or less wrong. Tristan hasn’t had enough years. His mind is young and impressionable. He coped by identifying with what he was experiencing is my guess.”

“I know you said it’s not my fault, but it is,” Georgie insisted, wiping the errant tears from her face. “I should’ve fought harder with Jake to get him to help me find Tristan. I could’ve taken Avery with me and gone out looking for Tristan, and then maybe my daughter would be alive too.”

“Damnit, Georgie,” Rick muttered with exasperation, not with aggravation. “You can’t wallow in the shoulda-coulda-woulda. What happened, happened. There’s a shit ton I wish I would’ve done differently, but I can’t change any of that. I just have to live with it and do the best I can with what I have now and hope to learn from what I did wrong or whatever. That’s all any of us can do. That’s all you can do.” Giving her shoulder a squeeze, Rick placed his lips to the top of her head, briefly inhaling the scent of shampoo that lingered in her hair. “We’re gonna get through this together. You and I will talk to Tristan and we won’t chastise him or anything. We’ll ease into it as gently as possible and tell him we know he’s having a hard time and thinking some things that are wrong. We’ll tell him we know what really happened with that woman Melissa, but we’re not angry, just concerned and want to help him. We’ll let him talk if he wants and then we’ll bring him to Denise.”

“When?”

“To Denise?”

Georgie nodded. “Yeah.”

“Today, or tomorrow,” he replied. “As soon as we can.”

“I think tomorrow might be best. I think taking him to talk to Denise about it so soon after we talk to him might be too much too soon. I don’t want him to get nervous and clam up or anything like that.”

“Alright, that sounds good,” Rick agreed. “First thing tomorrow morning, after breakfast, we’ll take him to the Infirmary to have a sit down with Denise, but we should bring it up to her first so we’re not springing it on her.”

“Okay.”

As Georgie leaned away from him to sit upright once more, Rick brushed some hair back off her shoulder closest to him and then brushed his thumb along the side of her face to wipe dry the wet streak left behind by a tear that had recently fallen. “You gonna be okay? I know this is hard to take in.”

“I don’t know exactly how I feel,” she shrugged. “Numb, I guess?”

“That’s understandable.”

Turning her head, Georgie looked upon Rick’s face once again. “How long have you known about this?”

“Since yesterday evening, when I was up on the scaffold keeping watch,” he answered. “Carl came up to talk about Enid, and I could tell something else was bothering him, and that’s when he told me. I almost told you last night but, after everything that happened yesterday, I didn’t want to end the day with upsetting news.” Watching her process this, he frowned. “Would you have wanted me to tell you last night?”

Georgie sighed, breathing out heavily through her nostrils. “Yes, but in retrospect, I agree you made the right call. We needed last night to end the way it did.”

Despite the seriousness of their main topic of conversation, Rick smirked. “So, we should end bad days in the laundry room, having sex with the washer going?”

“Having sex in general, to be honest,” Georgie smirked back at him. “You can’t deny it ain’t a great stress reliever.”

Rick’s eyes sparkled slightly as he tilted his head in agreement. “That it is.”

“It helps when you’re in love with your partner; makes it that much better.”

A proper smile spread across Rick’s lips and he dragged his hand up through the thick, ginger lock’s cascading down Georgie’s back before running his fingers along her back of her head. With his fingers splayed across her scalp, he gave he gently urged her to look more toward his direction. When she acquiesced to his gestured, Rick leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers while the tips of their noses also touched.

“Do you think we’ll ever get through any of this?” Georgie asked after a quiet moment fell between them.

“Tristan, the wall of walkers, and the whereabouts of Glenn, Abraham and Sasha?”

“And the rest of the people inside these walls who still don’t get it…”

Rick sighed this time, pulling back from Georgie, but leaving his hand where it was on the base of her skull. “I hope like hell we do.” Then, more insistently, “We have to.”

“Speaking of people who still don’t get it,” Georgie broached solemnly, “when’s this meeting with Morgan supposed to happen?”

Leaning back, Rick dropped his hand from her head and rested it on his thigh. “Soon. I saw him earlier this morning and said we needed to talk, so he knows it’s gonna happen.” Chewing on his lip for a moment, he stared forward at the stared ahead at the white, unlit pillar candle on the coffee table. “I guess I’ll gather him up now. I can go to Denise first, let her know we wanna bring Tristan around tomorrow to make use of her psychiatry skills. I won’t go into it with her right yet. We can do that tomorrow when we show up, before she sits down to talk to him so she knows what she’s gotta help him with.”

“Two birds, one stone.”

“Huh?”

Georgie shrugged. “Giving Denise a heads up while also gathering up Morgan. Two things at the same time: killing two birds with one stone.”

Rick nodded when he got her meaning. “Oh, yeah, I guess.” Leaning back forward, he placed one hand on his left knee and his other hand on her left thigh. “Why don’t you head back to the main house, check on the kids, see if Carol’s back and if Michonne’s out of the shower and ready for this sit down with Morgan. I’ll be back with him in a bit.”

“Alright,” Georgie nodded.

Pushing up off the couch, she turned and waited until he did the same. Putting on a brave face for returning home to look upon her son with the new insight into the boy he had unfortunately become, or was still in the process of becoming, she inhaled and then exhaled a steady breath. She leaned forward half a second later and stood somewhat up on tiptoe to give Rick a chaste kiss.

Neither said a thing.

Goodbyes were unnecessary. He wouldn’t be gone more than fifteen minutes, tops. They’d see each other again soon enough.

As they exited the house together, and after descending the stairs down from the front porch, Rick and Georgie took pause to look at each other with encouraging, albeit somewhat somber, smiles.

Rick then turned left, and Georgie went right.



It was two birds and one stone, alright.

On his way up the road to the Infirmary to talk first to Denise, Rick had found Morgan there on the porch talking to her about something. It was after Rick had told him it was time for their talk and sent the other man on ahead of him that Rick had taken a brief moment to tell Denise they’d need her psychiatric services the follow morning for Tristan. He didn’t go into the details, as he’d told Georgie he wouldn’t; only that Tristan had done some things and has been dealing with everything in some concerning ways they’d need her assistance on helping him with. Denise was much obliged, possibly because she was just happy for a non-medical emergency to handle and go back to what she felt most comfortable with.

When Rick walked back into the main house a few minutes later, he found Carol standing by the kitchen island with her arms crossed over her chest, looking sternly in Morgan’s direction. Morgan was seated at the dining table, his back to the wall, facing out toward the living room as Michonne sat kitty-corner in a somewhat lackadaisical position whereas Georgie, who was sitting across the table from Morgan, sat upright as if a Catholic school nun would crack a wooden ruler across her knuckles if she wasn’t. Rick chalked her posture up mostly to the conversation they’d finished at the blue house and that it had her fairly tense. If her posture wasn’t what convinced him she was tense, it was the way her eyes seemed distant and the way her eyebrows were knitted together signifying something was on her mind.

When he shut the door behind him, all three women and Morgan snapped out of their respective, silent contemplations and looked his way instead as Rick walked over toward the empty chair to the left of Georgie. As he pulled it out to sit down, he threw a look over in Carol’s direction; wordlessly asking her to come sit down as well. Once she had taken the seat at the other end of the table, kitty-corner to Rick, Rick tapped his fingers on the wooden surface in front of him and slouched a little.

No one said anything at first, mostly because they figured Rick would be the one to start the conversation. Morgan looked around the table, appearing mostly unbothered, although did seem to be a part of him that was nervous.

“What’s going on?” Morgan asked when the silence continued for a moment longer than it probably should.

“When we were coming back,” Rick began, leaning forward slightly on the table and gesturing between himself and Georgie, “We tried to cut off the herd with the RV; lead the walkers away. But five of those people with the W’s on their foreheads, they stopped us. They tried to kill us, shot up the RV.” Rick licked his lips and pointed across the table at Morgan. “Now Carol said she saw you; that you wouldn’t kill those people.”

“Did you let any of them go?” Carol asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, I did,” Morgan admitted. “I didn’t want to kill five people I didn’t have to kill.”

“That you didn’t have to kill?” Georgie repeated, her hands balling into fists under the table as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“They burned people alive!” Carol snapped, leaning forward.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged.

Georgie shook her head. “Those people could’ve been our children,” she commented, gesturing between her and Rick. “You’re saying you let murderers go freely? Vicious, psychotic murders who killed so many innocent people, and you let them walk away?”

Morgan stared back at her, looking somewhat guilty and fighting with himself over what to say. After a moment, he cast his eyes to Georgie’s left. “Why didn’t you kill me, Rick; back in King County? Pulled a knife on you, I stabbed you. So why didn’t you kill me? Was it ‘cause I saved you after the hospital?”

“‘Cause I knew who you were,” Rick answered, motioning at Morgan with austerity in his voice.

“Back there I would’ve killed you as soon as look at you. And I tried. But you, you let me live and then I was there to help Aaron and Daryl. See, if I—if I wasn’t there…if they died…maybe those wolves wouldn’t have been able to come back here.”

“Well, they did come here,” Georgie muttered.

“I don't know what's right anymore,” Morgan remarked, looking between Rick and Georgie. “‘Cause I did want to kill those men. I seen what they did, what they keep doing. I knew I could end it. But I also know that people can change. ‘Cause everyone sitting here has. All life is precious. And that idea—that idea changed me. It brought me back and it keeps me living.”

“I just don’t think it can be that easy,” Michonne commented, staring down at the table before looking up at him.

“It’s not easy.”

“I wasn’t saying—”

“I—I know,” Morgan cut in, staring back at her. “And I've thought about letting that idea go. But I don't want to.”

“You may have to. Things aren’t as simple as four words. I don’t think they ever were.”

“Do you think I don’t belong here?”

“Making it now: you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?” Rick questioned.

Morgan shook his head, answering honestly, “I don’t know.”

Licking her bottom lip, Georgie moved her gaze away from Morgan for a moment and looked briefly at Rick’s profile. Both men seem conflicted for their own reasons. Rick, like the rest of their people, understood that killing bad people was a necessary evil to protect loved ones and keep people safe, but Morgan’s moral high horse wasn’t allowing him to do what needed to be done. That could and would make him more of a liability in the long run.

At least, in Georgie’s eyes it did.

Actually, judging by the way Carol was glowering at Morgan with a critical eye, the older woman felt the same as Georgie.

Rick, who had known Morgan since the beginning, was clearly have a time of it, trying to figure out what would need to be done, but whatever his decision would be, Georgie would trust him and support him, even if she thought something different should be done.

“You might not know now,” Georgie spoke back up, casting her eyes upon him once again, “but you’re gonna have to come to a decision one way or the other sooner, rather than later. There are always going to be people like those Wolves. There are always going to be people who rather kill us without caring to befriend us. That day’s gonna come whether you like it or not, and if you put one more of our people at risk because you won’t do what needs to be done, I’ll kill you myself.”

Standing up abruptly, the chair Georgie was sitting in almost fell backward but she was able to grab onto it in time before shoving it roughly against the edge of the table.

Georgie was angry, for good reason, and for so many reasons.

Sitting there, listening to Morgan’s kumbaya bullshit made her blood boil.

Knowing the kids to be alright upstairs, having checked on them upon returning home after her conversation with Rick in the blue house, she threw open the front door and stormed out onto the porch. She didn’t bother slamming the door behind her, as much as she would’ve loved to, knowing any commotion could rile up the walkers outside the fences.

She needed to just be outside, away from that man who was angering her, and find some peace of mind, even if only for a few minutes before she had to worry about everything else going wrong.

When she heard footsteps moments later, Georgie was certain it was Rick following after her. Gripping the railing, she turned her head, only to find it was instead Michonne.

“It’s a nice day, all things considered,” Michonne remarked, looking upward at the virtually cloudless sky.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not really in the mood for small talk.”

With a sigh, Michonne gripped the railing as well and looked down. “I think he means well; Morgan, that is. He’s not used to being with people. He hasn’t had to do what we’ve had to do. I think, in time, he’ll come around. At least, maybe, find some middle ground.”

“I wish I could be more optimistic about him like you.” Georgie shook her head. “I just don’t see how he’ll come around to doing what needs to be done. He had his chance yesterday. Who’s to say he won’t drop the ball again tomorrow? I mean, yesterday we we’re lucky it was none of our group—our family—that was killed. Tomorrow, on the other hand, that luck might run out, and if he contributes to any of those deaths, be it directly or indirectly, I will have steal your katana and cut off his head.” Turning to eye Michonne, she held the other woman’s gaze with firmness to it. “I will not lose the people I care about, that I love, because some dipshit decided to appoint himself the new Dalai Lama.”

Michonne smirked. “I can understand his way of thinking, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. I can respect it, but I don’t have to like it.”

“Yeah, well, his way of thinking is stupid.”

The porch flooring creaked slightly, causing both women to turn to see Morgan walking out the front door with Rick mere paces behind him. The former gave the women a solemn nod of his head before heading down the front steps and turning to walk up the sidewalk, and up the road.

“You think he heard me say that?”

Michonne shrugged. “Probably.”

“Good.” George stood more upright as she let her gaze settle upon Rick, who came to stand on the other side of her. “Sorry I stormed out like that,” she muttered, more to him.

Rick shrugged, leaning forward to rest his forearms upon the railing. “You did what I was feeling like doing. Plus, we got a lot on our plates and Morgan’s ways are just adding to it.” He sighed and looked around Georgie to Michonne and then down to the ground below. “I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s just not making it easy.”

“I think we’ll be okay where he’s concerned for the time being,” Michonne spoke, tapping her fingers along the railing’s smooth surface. “We got bigger fish to fry right now, namely our uninvited guests clawing at our fences and the whereabouts of our friends.”

Georgie nodded and cast Rick a look that he caught. “Among other things,” she added, knowing he understood she meant Tristan and the talk they’d have with him. “Glenn and the others, if they’re alive, they can hold their own. Hell, they could be close by and they’ve probably found someplace safe to ride it out. What’s important is doing something about those walkers, first and foremost.”

“If we can somehow get outside the walls, get back to our cars at the quarry, we could use them to draw them away,” Rick suggested.

“We'll set up more watch points. Coordinate the shooting of guns and flares so we could pull them out in even directions,” Michonne added.

Nodding, Rick agreed. “We'd need to get all our people on it: us three, Carl, Tara, Rosita, Carol.”

“What about everybody else?”

“What about ‘em?” Georgie wondered.

“Well, let's just keep this to our own for now,” Rick insisted, standing upright and turning to face both women.

Michonne knitted her brow together. “Really?”

“Look, if we had the time to bring the people along, sure. But we haven't had a chance to catch our breath.”

Really?” Michonne practically rolled her eyes as she sighed. “We're in here together. We're catching our breath right now. Anything else is just excuses.”

Letting out her own sigh, Georgie stood upright as well, leaning her lower back up against the railing as she folded her arms across her chest. Before she could add any further two cents to the conversation, Rick turned his head and nodded at someone approaching.

“Deanna.”

“Rick.”

Michonne and Georgie both turned to also greet Alexandria’s figurehead.

“What’s that?” Rick asked, glancing down at a large roll of paper in the older woman’s hand.

“Plans for the expansion,” Deanna smiled; something no one had seen since before Reg died.

Absentmindedly placing his left hand on his holstered Colt, Rick turned and looked up the street. “We got a few other things on our plate right now.”

“I know,” Deanna acknowledged, still smiling as if it were Christmas morning, as she handed the plans off to Michonne. “These are for what Alexandria can be after this. Because one way or another, there's gonna be an after this.”

She stared at Rick and the two younger women, and they stared back at her, watching as she left them with those words and walked down off the porch and back up the street from the direction she’d come. Michonne glance down at the rolled up plans in her hands and began to unravel it; holding the paper out wide to glance down at everything drawn and written down upon it.

“Dolor hic tibi proderit olim?” Georgie read as she looked over Michonne’s shoulder. “What does that mean?”

“No idea.”

Feeling a hand on her lower back, Georgie looked up and over to her left and right up into Rick’s face as he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“We should talk to Tristan now while we have a moment.”

Georgie nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

“If you’ll excuse us, Michonne,” Rick broached. “Georgie and I got some parenting to do.”

“Carl in trouble?” the resident samurai quipped with a raise of her eyebrow.

“Nah, Carl’s fine.”

Michonne nodded. “Judith took the car out without asking again, didn’t she?”

Despite the general mood, both Rick and Georgie smiled. “If only it were as simple and as innocent at that.”



Georgie and Rick were surprised by how well the conversation with her son had gone. They found him alone in the boys’ room, playing with some action figures on the floor, and asked him to take a seat on one of the twin beds while they sat down together on the second twin bed. They gently eased into letting him know they knew the truth about what happened to Melissa and the thoughts he’d been having in regard to death, and about his drawings. Initially the boy clammed up and began to fidget, but they assured him he wasn’t in trouble, but that they were concerned and worried he might do the wrong thing. They let him know they wanted him to understand the things he was thinking and maybe wanting to do were wrong, but that they wanted to help him get better. They knew he’d seen a lot of terrible things, but those things were not to be mimicked.

When Georgie asked her son if he wanted to tell them anything about what he was feelings or if he had anything in general about it all to say, Tristan shook his head and cast his eyes down to the ground with a pout on his lips. He said he was sorry he had done bad things, but that he also didn’t want to talk about it. When they informed him he would have to talk about it, and that they were going to have Dr. Cloyd talk to him in the morning, he seemed to accept it.

The conversation came to a close soon enough and to ease the tension, as well as diffuse the tears forming at Tristan’s eyes, Georgie pulled her son into her arms and hugged him tightly. Rick reached his arms out as well, placing one on Georgie’s upper back and the other atop Tristan’s head as he gave the child a kiss before doing the same to the child’s mother.

Satisfied that their talk with Tristan had gone well, the two adults left Tristan alone to resume playing. Before they retreated downstairs, they had to pass Judith’s room. Knocking on the ajar door with the knuckles of his left hand, Rick poked his head in, gripping the door knob to open the door wider so that Georgie could peer inside as well. On the floor sat Carl with his sister on his lap, building a tower of blocks and then knocking them down to make her laughing, only to repeat the process over and over.

“So,” Rick began. “I talked to Georgie, and we just got done talking briefly to Tristan about everything. Tomorrow morning we’re taking him to talk to Denise, Dr. Cloyd. She was a psychiatrist and she’s better equipped for these kinds of things. We think she’ll be able to help him through his, uh…issues.”

Carl looked up between his father and Georgie, and then nodded. “Good, I’m glad he’ll be able to get help.” He focused his gaze on Georgie and smiled somewhat sadly at her. “I’m sorry this kind of thing is happening. I mean, all things considered, he’s still a good kid. I know he has things to work out and he could pose a risk if he doesn’t work it out, but I think he’ll be okay in the long run. And he loves Judy. I know he’d never hurt her ‘cause he sees her as the sister he lost. I hope you’re not offended by me keeping her away from him anyway for the time being.”

Georgie shook her head. “I understand,” she assured. “I suppose I’d do the same thing in your position.”

“I’m sorry, though.”

“Thank you, for bringing this to your father.”

“I kinda felt like I betrayed him by telling on him, but I couldn’t not do it.”

“It’s okay,” Rick insisted. “You did the right thing. Georgie had the right to know.”

“Don’t feel bad about tattletaling. If something doesn’t feel right, you should always tell someone about it,” Georgie added. As she watched Carl look down at his sister, she licked her lips and stepped inside a bit. “I’m thinking of cleaning up the blue house a bit. I’ll take your sister with me and watch her if you wanna go see your friend Mikey.”

“I saw him this morning.”

“He might like to company again,” his father urged. “Or you can help Georgie out. Bring Tristan along, keep him occupied.”

Carl considered this, and nodded. “Yeah, I could do both. I could bring Tristan with me again. He seemed to like tagging along earlier.”

“It’s good to keep him active, involved with other people. I don’t think him playing by himself is the best idea right now,” Georgie admitted regretfully.

Standing up with Judith, he shifted her onto his narrow hip and looked between both adults. “Okay,” he muttered and then passed his sister over to Georgie.

Welcoming the little girl into her arms, she watched the teenager as he slipped past her and Rick to head down the hall to the room he’d been sharing with Tristan. She and Rick listened as Carl asked Tristan to come along with him again, and when Tristan appeared in the doorway, looking between the two adults to wordlessly ask if it was okay to go, they nodded back at him and smile encouragingly.

“It’s alright,” Georgie insisted. “Go out and enjoy yourself, but listen to whatever Carl says and stay quiet. I know it’s scary but we don’t want the walkers outside the fence getting riled up by a lot of unnecessary noise.”

“Okay, mom.”

As her son stepped into the hall and walked past her and Rick, she gave him a gentle ruffle of his blonde hair and let her gaze follow both boys as they headed down the stairs. When Rick leaned his face down to kiss her shoulder, Georgie let out a sigh and caught his gaze as he was leaning back upright.

“He’ll be okay,” she muttered, mostly to convince herself.

“Yeah, he will,” Rick agreed, giving her lower back a few soothing, circular rubs while trying to convince himself as well.



A little while later, Georgie was buzzing around the kitchen of the blue house while Judith was sitting on a blanket on the floor and playing with some plastic cups. Georgie smiled down at the girl, remembering how her own daughter used to play with her toys on the floor like that while she cleaned. Looking down at Judith now, she frowned slightly, deciding that when they had the chance to make runs outside the walls again, that they would find proper toys for Judith to play with and help her developing mind.

Carol had remained at the main house, doing her own puttering, while Michonne went out. Rick, too, headed out to work on doing what he could to secure the section of wall that was damaged from the truck plowing into it and the tower. After some time, Tobin came to assist him, but then that got interrupted by Deanna’s surviving son Spencer climbing along a grappling rope over the herd and towards the decaying bell tower. Climbing up to one of the scaffolds, Rick called out for the younger man to return to safety while Tara urged him over from another scaffold where Michonne had joined her. The grappling hook began to loosen, and eventually detached from the hook, sending Spencer falling into the midst of the herd against the wall. Tara, Rick, Tobin and eventually Morgan all gathered together to help to save Spencer from the herd and pulled him back up to safety with the loose rope.

As Spencer rested on the lookout, Rick angrily tore into him for what he regarded as an idiotic attempt on getting outside the walls, but Spencer insisted that he was only trying to help; that his plan was to climb over the herd in order to reach a car to use to draw the walkers away. In response, Rick angrily ordered Spencer to consult him before acting on any plans he made in the future, but Spencer challenged him, asking if he would have listened regardless. Rick had also reprimanded Tara; shouting at her for risking her own life to help save Spencer’s ass, but was met with her scowling and flipping him off.

The noise created from all that riled up the walkers outside the fence but also drew the attention of everyone inside the community. The shouts and the Tara’s gunfire from taking out the walkers that had been getting to close to Spencer brought people out of their homes and onto their porches or into the street, curious to know what was going on. Georgie had put down the laundry basket of clean sheets she had pulled from the dryer and rushed over to swoop Judith up into her arms before stepping out onto the porch and looking in the direction of where the shots came from. She turned to her right and saw Carol two houses down on the main house’s porch, but her attention seemed focused in another direction. When the gunfire and the shouting had ended, and there was no more commotion and no one running to say anyone was dead or injured, Georgie felt confident that what had happened was under control and withdrew back into the house with Judith on her hip.

Having brought Judith’s playard to the blue house with her so the child had someplace to nap, and noting the little girl’s head was bobbing and her eyes were drooping, and with the commotion having died down, Georgie decided to put Judith down for a nap. This allowed Georgie time to clean up more of the house without have to worry about whether or not Judith was crawling toward something which she would put in her mouth when Georgie’s back was turned for more than five minutes.



Elsewhere amidst the commotion, the distraction allowed Tristan to slip away from Tobin’s house where he had been with Carl and Mikey. While the two teen boys hurried outside with Tobin’s wife and son, Tristan walked out the back door and behind the houses where he wandered over to the community’s makeshift cemetery at the end of the lane. He looked around at the planks stuck in the ground with different names of the deceased written on them. Never having had the chance to come to this area before now, Tristan was looking for a specific name.

His father’s.

Furrowing his brow, he felt confused. Everybody from the community got buried here, but his father’s name was nowhere to be found. He knew all too well the kind of man his father was, and he didn’t want to be like that. He wanted to be like Rick. However, the allure of the kind of man his father was interested him, despite how angry he felt about his father. He wanted his father to still be alive so he could kill him on his own, for hurting his mom and killing his friends. But, he remembered a time when his father wasn’t like that. He remembered his father giving him piggyback rides and taking him to baseball games or out for ice cream. He missed that father. He wanted that father back and he was angry he was never gonna have that man back.

He loved his father, and he loved his mother, but his father was gone so there was nothing left to love in Tristan’s eyes, and he felt bad in feeling hate for his mother for not being able to find where he was for so long. She said she looked and looked for him, that she never gave up, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d still be without either of his parents. And he blamed her for his sister’s death, even if he wouldn’t openly admit it to her.

He loved his mother, but he hated her for letting his sister get killed.

He loved his mother, but he hated her for finding a new family in Rick, Carl and Judith.

He loved his mother, but he hated her for making him think she didn’t care that his sister Avery was dead because she had Judith to be her new daughter.

Not seeing his father’s grave, for just a place to maybe say goodbye for good or make sense of everything that had happened enraged Tristan. He didn’t understand where his father was buried. He’d never asked and no one ever told him. He considered he should just ask his mother, or Rick, or maybe Carol. Someone had to know. Someone would tell him.

But what if it’s a secret? Tristan wondered, scratching at his head and looking around the little cemetery one more time to make sure he hadn’t overlooked his father’s grave.

Then you’ll make them tell you, that still small voice in his mind insisted.

Tristan widened his eyes and looked around, biting his bottom lip. “How?” he spoke aloud to no one but himself.

You know.

Nodding to himself, Tristan curled his fingers into a fist and then uncurled them. Stepping out from between the shrubbery that sectioned the cemetery off from the end of the road, the boy hurried across toward the townhouses, easing his way around with the stealth of a cat, just like he had the night of Deanna’s party when he followed Carol to the pantry. And like that night, that’s the same place he went to, only this time he actually went inside, slipping unnoticed by Olivia when she went to clean up a mess and that’s when he found the room he was looking for.

The armory.

This will help.



Taking a break from cleaning, and after checking to make sure Judith was still napping, Georgie made herself a cup of tea and wandered outside onto the front porch, leaving the door open for some fresh air. She leaned against one of the columns and half sat on the railing. She was looking up the road, daydreaming a little bit with the handheld baby monitor clipped to her belt much like how Rick had his walkie-talkie clipped to his. The pit of her stomach churned with anxiety over the situation with Tristan and she tried hoping for the best. She hoped taking him to talk to Denise would do him a world of good.

She tried imagining how life would be for her son right now if the world hadn’t fallen apart. He’d probably be in 4th or 5th grade now. It was hard to tell because time had been lost on her for so long. Months had slipped by without her realizing it to the point that she couldn’t tell if it was April or September half the time. But she knew her son would’ve been happy and doing well. Avery would be alive and in either kindergarten or first grade. She would’ve been more of her own person by now and not a day went by that Georgie didn’t mourn for the life her daughter would never get to lead, and she also mourned the loss of any opportunity to have further children of her own. She had loved being pregnant both times and with Rick she would’ve loved to be able to have a child with him in the future, once they got a handle on this world and made it safe enough, or as safe as it was gonna get. That chance would never come, and as they had agreed the night of Deanna’s party when they’d snuck off together, their three would be enough, and hell if they weren’t a handful. But it was a good handful. Any parent in their right mind would agree that raising children was the hardest job in the world, but it was also the best job and there were no regrets.

As if on cue, a short and blonde figure came walking up the road toward the intersection with a bit of a skip in his step.

It was Tristan and she smiled, not concerned that he had gone off on his own to return home without Carl. She could see he was safe, and she didn’t hear any cries of woe from anything that he might’ve been involved in. As she moved to stand up straight and wave him over to come over to the blue house, she watched him stop and get distracted by something near the front steps of the house that the recently deceased Erin lived in with her family. Whatever it was, Georgie watched as her son picked it him in his hands and then stepped away to carry it with him as he approached the house.

“What do you have there?” she inquired.

“It’s a dead crow,” he beamed, apparently proud with his find.

“Ew, Tristan take that in the garage and throw it in the garbage can and then wash your hands with soap.”

“But it’s cool,” he insisted. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Georgie chuckled. “Where did you ever hear that from?”

His smile fading, Tristan looked up at his mother and glared at her. “Dad.”

Without another word, he walked toward the back of the house, leaving Georgie with an uneasy chill running up her spine.

Oh, stop it, she admonished herself. He’s your son and he’s only nine years old.

Shaking any negative thoughts that began creeping up into her mind away, Georgie looked forward again and then her eyes widened at the sight of several green balloons floating across the sky.

“Glenn,” she muttered, happiness and hope entering her voice and heart.

She let out a laugh of relief, convinced it had to be her friend. It only made sense that it was him, and that was the sign he was giving them all inside of Alexandria to know he was alive.

That relief was short lived, though.

The balloons were passing by the same direction of the tower, which was now swaying way too much to be any less of a concern. The cracking sound of the wooden structure echoed throughout the community, followed by shouts of panic from those nearest the wall below the tower. Georgie saw several people begin to scatter, to get out of the way as the entire tower fell forward, crashing into the wall and taking that section down with it.

Georgie, out of instinct, cried out in shock.

Rick came to mind first, because she knew that was the section he had said he was going to work on. She was no woman of faith but she prayed he was alright.

As the dust began to settle, she noticed Tristan running along the side of the house, having also heard the tower fall.

“Mom!” he called out to her.

“It’s alri—oh God…” Her heart jumping into her chest, Georgie ran down from the porch and over to Tristan to grab his arm. “Get in the house! Get in the house!”

“Mom, what’s happening?” he asked nervously.

“The tower fell, and so did part of the wall. Get in the house.”

“What’s happening, what’s happening, mom?”

“Walkers, baby,” she muttered, grabbing both his arms and crouching to his level to look him in the eye. “Get inside the house.”

Nodding obediently, Tristan darted up the front steps and ran inside the house as Georgie turned back toward the direction of the fallen tower. Running closer toward the intersection to get a better look, some of their worst fears were becoming realized for this community.

The tower had fallen, taking out the wall in the process.

The walkers were coming inside.

All of them.

A shaky breath escaped Georgie’s lips. “Two birds. One stone.”




Notes

Author's Note: Many apologies for the lack of updates, but the holidays were crazy and the overall season zapped any and all inspiration. Instead, I just marathoned a shit ton of different television shows and movies I was due to catch up on. All inspiration returned last night, however, and I was able to continue writing once more. Hope this chapter is up to snuff for the lot of you. If not...well, tough titties. I've just enjoyed writing again! As usual, PLEASE READ & REVIEW! It's the only way I can tell that anyone gives a shit for me to continue.

xoxo - Holly

Comments

Completely understand. Thank you for sharing your talent with us all. Looking forward to your new story updates on Road Not Taken and the sequel to We Can Change.

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
1/7/19

Thanks for the update today!

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
8/26/18

Sorry to hear about your aunt.

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
3/31/18

Thanks for the update today!

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
7/29/17

Nicely done!!!

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
1/30/17