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We Can Change

Claimed

Author's Note: This chapter was meant to end somewhere else, but then the chapter would've been too huge, so I needed to break it up. But that means two chapters posted closer together! Also, this chapter is named after the episode it follows, so...yeah.

As always, please READ & REVIEW!!! - Holly

"Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this." — Homer



As the sun rose early the following morning, a single ray peered through one of the master bedroom’s windows, reflected in the mirror above the horizontal dresser and then fell upon the forms of Rick and Jo, still asleep in bed. They both seemed to wince from the offending light at the same moment; shaking their heads and turning them slightly, while trying to cling to those last remnants of whatever dreams they were having. And, it was quite amusing, actually. They had that entire queen-sized bed to enjoy and sleep in, to spread out in and enjoy its comfort. Yet, there they laid — Rick on his back, his mouth slightly ajar from light snoring, and Jo curled tightly against his side as if she would somehow fall off the bed; as if they were still back at the prison, sharing the same bottom bunk.

Rick stirred awake first.

His eyelids felt like anvils but he managed to open them anyway and then his head began to throb a bit. He wondered if maybe he was developing a delayed concussion from his fight with The Governor but, when he lifted his head slightly and turned to the bedside table to his right, he noted the now empty bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon whiskey. He remembered him and Jo finishing it off the night before, just as he said they were going to, and then he knew it wasn’t a concussion that was affronting him. It was a hangover. He hadn’t had one of those since the morning he awoke in the CDC. It had been with what he could now, sadly, refer to as his former family; when both Lori and Carl were alive.

He wasn’t thinking about them at the moment, though. Rick was thinking about how he wondered if there was any sort of aspirin he could take to quell the whiskey-induced headache he was nursing, while also enjoying the fact that he had Jo nestled against him, and that more than enough made up for the having a headache. It was all worth it as long as she was there.

But then Rick realized it was a new day, and it was the day they had agreed to leave the house they were in and get back on the road to find Hope, and either thank or fight whoever had her. They didn’t know if it was one of their people, or one of The Governor’s. It really didn’t seem likely that it was the latter, but they had to mentally prepare themselves that it could be a possibility.

“Jo,” Rick rasped, finally finding his voice as he more fully awoke. He shook his arm which was wrapped around her to hold her to him. “We need to get up.”

“Mmm,” she groaned in response. “My head.”

“Yeah, mine, too,” he agreed.

As Jo slowly rolled away from him and fell back against the mattress, her head softly hit the pillows on the right side of the bed that she had neglected all night; having shared Rick’s with him, as that was what they were so used to doing. She placed a hand against her head and grimaced as she wiped the sleep from the corners of her eyes and then turned to look over at Rick.

“Morning, sexy,” Jo said to him, a slightly coy smile on her lips.

Rick scoffed and shook his head. “I should be saying that to you, not the other way around.” With a little exertion, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and then looked around the room.

“Yeah, I probably look like a drowned rat right now,” she remarked; her voice a little hoarse. “Probably smell like one, too. Drowned in whiskey and sex and sweat and God knows what else.”

“Sounds volatile,” Rick quipped with a grin, leaning back down to officially greet her with a kiss for the start of the day.

Jo reciprocated the gesture and nodded. “Oh, it definitely is.” Then, after a few moments of just lying there like that, staring back up at him with a soft smile, she stated, “You know, I almost forgot this isn’t actually our house for a few minutes. And I forgot Hope isn’t with us.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, turning to look out the opened bedroom door out toward the upstairs hallway, as if expecting someone to be there, standing with Hope in their arms.

“It felt like we were waking up to go get her from her nursery, so we could start the day together, the three of us,” she began to narrate. “We’d both enjoy breakfast downstairs with her, and then run around like chickens with our heads cut off so we could both get ready for work, and then one of us would drop Hope off at my dad’s so he could watch her instead of us having to stick her in daycare or pay for a babysitter. And then we’d call him a few times over the course of the day, just to check in and see how she’s doing. Maybe you’d come to the school I was working at during our lunch breaks, and all the other teachers would see you walking up, in your uniform, and then they’d look at me, all jealous-like, because I of how I snagged myself a good-lookin’ man of the law. And, as you know, everyone loves a man in uniform.”

Rick looked back at her and snickered. “You ain’t ever seen me in mine, though,”

“I have an imagination,” she insisted. “I can imagine what you looked like. And you looked good.”

Shaking his head, Rick twisted at the waist slightly and then reached his right arm across her, curling it up under her body as he half pulled her against him while also leaning down into her as well. He buried his face into the crook of her neck and kissed his way up to her jaw before claiming her lips tenderly with his.

“Well, if you’re gonna use your imagination to think of me as sexy in my sheriff’s deputy uniform, then you know I’m gonna have to use my imagination to think of you as a sexy schoolteacher,” he whispered against her mouth. When he pulled back a bit, he grinned. “Did you have one of those wooden rulers for slapping hands?”

Jo giggled. “Do you have a naughty schoolteacher fetish, Mr. Grimes?”

“Well, I have done some naughty things that might warrant me having to stay after school for detention.”

“Oh my God,” Jo remarked, rolling her eyes as she pushed him playfully off of her.

Scooting over to the opposite side of him, she stood up as naked as the day she came crying from her deadbeat mother’s womb. As she ran a hand through her long, blonde hair, which had gotten a little snarled from the night before due to Rick manhandling it, Rick watched after her and tilted his head, admiring the pleasant view her backside gave him. She crouched down moments later to begin picking up her clothes that had been discarded on the floor along with his. When she stood back up straight, she tossed Rick’s pants over to him, hitting him softly in the shoulder.

Her smile brought one to his lips as well as he pushed the blankets off his lower half, revealing that he was just as naked as she was and it was as lovely a sight to her as she was to him. Their mutual smiles grew more impish as she turned away and he climbed out of bed to pull his black jeans on, one leg at a time.

“Hey,” Jo called over to him.

Just as he was pulling his pants up over his narrow hips, Rick through a look over his shoulder at her to see she was gesturing toward the dresser. “What?”

“There’s some clean shirts T-shirts in there.”

Rick looked away from her, to the dresser, and then nodded. Doing up the zipper, he sauntered around the bed and opened one of the dresser drawers, but found only a few pairs of socks in the top right drawer.

“Left side,” Jo remarked. “Right side is belonged to the woman of the house. Left side was the husband’s. I got my clean underwear and the shirt I was wearing yesterday from the right.”

Rick nodded and stepped over slightly. “Is that a veiled attempt at getting me to not go commando anymore?” he joked. “I thought you liked the easy access.”

Crouched down to pull open the middle drawer, Rick never saw the balled up shirt hit him in the head from behind. Turning around, he looked down to see it was the shirt Jo had worn the day before and then picked it up and tossed it back to her with a snicker.

After Rick found a crisp, white T-shirt to wear, as well as a clean pair of socks, Jo had also grabbed a different shirt to wear since she had gotten blood splatter on the previous one from the walkers she’d taken down in the neighborhood. As soon as they were both dressed, they made their way downstairs and went to the dining room where Jo had placed all the food and supplies she’d gathered from the houses on the street. The large can in the back is what caught Rick’s eye right away and made him chuckle.

“I think we should eat that now. It’ll be easier not having to lug it around with everything else,” Rick commented, throwing Jo a smirk.

“I had no problem carrying all of this back here by myself yesterday.”

“The short distance of a few houses, maybe. But we’ll have miles ahead of us to go, and I really just want to split one hundred and twelve ounces of chocolate pudding with you right now.”

Jo smiled back at him with her entire face, and Rick was glad to see the sparkle back in her green eyes.

Finding a can opener, and two spoons, the pair sat down at the dining room table together, sitting side by side. As soon as they had the can opened, they dove right in with their spoons and reveled in eating chocolate; something they hadn’t been able to have in a long time. Because it was chocolate and because they were both so hungry anyway, they were able to empty all one hundred and twelve ounces between them with ease.

With full stomachs, the rinsed it down with swigs from their water bottles, and then stood up to gather duffel bags to use for carrying their food and supplies in. They didn’t even have to announce that that was what needed to be done. They just knew what they had to do and went about it silently.

They split the supplies and food evenly, or as evenly as they could, so one bag wasn’t heavier than the other and, in the event that they lost one bag, there would still have something with them.

“How’s your hangover?” Jo wondered, shoving a box of tampons she’d found for herself into the bag Rick had opened in front of him.

Rick made a face at those particular supplies and then looked over at her. “Better,” he replied. “I think the pudding helped.”

“Same here.”

Rick continued to look her over when he suddenly chuckled. Lifting up a hand, he grabbed her face and turned it to look more toward him. “You got some pudding on the side of your mouth,” he informed, clearly amused. As she brought her hand up to wipe it away, Rick shook his head. “That’s alright, I got it.”

Leaning forward, Rick placed his lips to the corner of her mouth and let his tongue flick out over the small spot of chocolate pudding there. He then used the gesture as another excuse just to kiss her; dragging his tongue over her bottom lip and then slipping it into her readily accepting mouth.

“You taste like chocolate and bourbon,” he mumbled against her lips as he placed both his hands on either side of her face.

“So do you,” Jo cooed at the way his kiss made her melt against him. She ran her hands up his chest and then down the sides of his torso before snaking her arms around him until she clasped her hands together and rested them upon the small of his back.

As they momentarily lost themselves in each other’s lips, there came a rough and abrupt couple of knocks on the front door and they couldn’t seem to pull apart fast enough.

Rick hurried away toward the living room where he remembered taking off his gun belt two nights before and found it where he left it on the floor by the couch. Sliding his Colt out of the holster, he crept up toward the door and looked behind him to see that Jo was quietly approaching with her short sword in hand.

Both of their expressions had gone from lovey-dovey to dead serious in mere seconds as they looked upon each other and nodded.

A second, louder series of knocks reverberated through the front door, and just before Rick could peer through the peephole, a voice called out to them.

“Rick, Jo…we know you’re in there,” spoke the raspy, Southern voice of a man. “We saw you two kissing through the dining room windows.”

Rick began to chuckle as he tipped his head down. He didn’t need to look through the peephole to know who it was.

Still gripping his gun, he looked over at Jo as he began to push the couch back from the door. When he had the clearance, Rick reached for the doorknob and twisted it before pulling the door wide open to reveal none other than Daryl Dixon.

“I could’ve just walk the fuck right in, but I thought knocking would be more polite,” Daryl quipped; holding onto the strap of his crossbow which was resting upon his back.

Rick’s smile brightened his face, and Jo mirrored his expression as Daryl stepped inside the house.

“Who else is with you?” Jo asked; her heartbeat beginning to race as she got her hopes up — no pun intended. “You said ‘we.’”

Daryl looked over at Jo and gave her a nod of greeting and gestured to whoever was standing off to the side of the door that neither she nor Rick could see. After a moment, Sophia stepped forward and into the house, looking quite dirty and disheveled, though not as dirty as Daryl. But, then again, Daryl sometimes looked dirty even after they knew he had washed up.

“Oh my God,” Jo gasped and sprinted by Rick and swooping the teenager into her arms. “You made it out.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Daryl remarked with a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Did the two of you get out together or with anyone else?” Rick asked. “Did you see if anyone else made it?”

“Are you okay?” Jo asked Sophia, who nodded.

“Yeah, thanks to Daryl,” the girl replied. “He taught me how to shoot his crossbow and I almost killed a rabbit.”

“It weren’t nothin’,” Daryl insisted with a shrug. “You gotta learn to hunt for your own supper eventually.” As Jo pulled the girl in for another hug, Daryl brought his focus back over toward Rick. “Everyone scattered. That tank came into the courtyard, and those people came in shooting and we were all shooting back. It was chaos. I saw Ty heading toward A Block, probably to go get Karen. Carol was still in there with Dr. Stevens and a few of the other flu survivors, but we don’t know if they got out.”

Daryl and Sophia looked sadly at each other.

When the girl pulled back from Jo’s arms, she looked between the couple and had an expression of guilt on her face. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “You gave me Hope to look after, and I was, but then there was all that gun fire and shouting and I got scared and didn’t have anything to protect us with. So, I put her down in her crib and ran outside to get a gun. I shot a man in the chest and Daryl finished him off and he was trying to get me out of there, but I told him I had to go back for Hope. We ran back inside and she wasn’t where I left her. She was gone and so was her diaper bag.”

“We didn’t see who nabbed her and got out with her,” Daryl added. “We couldn’t wait around and see either.” He looked between both Rick and Jo, who had seemed like they had just had a rug pulled out from underneath them. “I’m sorry.”

Rick nodded. “It’s okay. You tried to go back and get her, and that means a lot.” He gestured between him and Jo. “We wanted to, but Maggie said someone had Hope, a woman or a girl,” he looked briefly to Sophia, “so we knew she got out alive. We just didn’t know who got her out alive.”

Daryl craned his neck to peer behind Rick toward the kitchen. “Maggie got out, too? That’s good.”

Rick and Jo looked at each other, solemnly.

“She got out,” he remarked. “Just not alive.”

“Oh.” Daryl looked a bit crestfallen, but not really surprised.

Truthfully, they’d all be more surprised by who had lived rather than who had died.

“We brought her with us. I couldn’t—” Jo began.

We couldn’t leave her behind like that,” Rick cut in, gesturing between Jo and himself, and holding her eye for a moment. “We buried her beside a diner not too far from here.”

Daryl nodded. “So that was you.” The archer smirked. “Yeah, me and Sophia, when we got out, the way we went took us through some thick woods on C Block’s side of the prison. We made our way around after a while, doubled-back a bit when we noticed three sets of footprints. Two were normal, but the middle set was dragging. I thought maybe it was a walker. Those footprints stopped once they hit paved road. Then we found the diner, saw the grave.”

“And we saw the walker inside the diner with its head cut off,” Sophia added.

“Precise blade cut like that — I figured it might be you,” Daryl commented, looking right at Jo.

“You figured right,” she smiled.

“Saw that grave, though; thought it might’ve been Rick.”

“Nah,” Rick shook his head. “It’ll take a lot more to kill me.”

“Hell yeah,” Daryl nodded and reached a hand out to slap it down upon Rick’s shoulder; clearly grateful to have his friend alive and virtually well. He wasn’t blind to the cuts and bruising on Rick’s face. “We’re glad you’re both still kickin’.”

Sophia nodded in agreement as she leaned into Jo and hugged her tightly. If she couldn’t have her actual mother at her side, Jo was the next best thing for the young teenager. Especially since, if it hadn’t been for Jo, she might’ve died that day in the woods, a year and a half ago, when that walker had chased after her. And because of Jo, she found her mother. Sophia just hoped she’d find her once again.

“Have you eaten?” Jo wondered, resting her arms around Sophia’s shoulders.

Daryl shook his head. “We ate some snake yesterday afternoon. Almost snagged a deer earlier, but a damn walker spooked it.”

“Well, I found plenty of canned goods yesterday when I scavenged the houses on this street,” she replied. “It’s all on the dining room table. So, help yourselves to something. There’s water bottles, too.”

With a nod, Daryl glanced at Jo and then gestured to Sophia to head into the other room to get something to eat first. When the girl broke away from Jo’s side, only then did Daryl follow. Rick and Jo glanced at each other and then shut the front door before sidling up beside each other, with Rick placing a hand on the small of her back and brushing his nose against the side of her face.

“When I saw Daryl standing there, I really thought he’d have Carol with him, too,” he whispered into her ear. “I really thought they’d have Hope with them.”

Jo frowned and turned her face. Rick leaned back as they looked at each other. “I did, too,” she agreed. “With any luck, Carol’s still out there, and if she is, Hope might very well be with her.”

Rick nodded. “I haven’t exactly been a man of faith in a long time, and I’m going back before this world became what it is, but if ever there was a time for me to pray to God, it’s now. I pray he — or she — is looking out for us and for our little girl, and putting us on a path to get her back.”

Lifting a hand to the left side of his face, Jo pressed her forehead against his and then absentmindedly let her fingers play with his growing beard. “I pray for that, too.” Lifting her eyes, she glanced at him through her eyebrows, smiling when he sensed her eyes on him and looked back. “I’m praying for a lot these days, but I feel like I’m going unheard, which just makes me feel more and more faithless.”

“I know,” Rick nodded slightly. He brought his face up, removing his forehead from hers and instead placing his lips there. “But something’s gotta give, right?”

Jo shrugged and half-smiled. “You’d think.”

“C’mon.” Snaking an arm around her shoulders, Rick pulled her against his side and led her from the living room to join Daryl and Sophia in the dining room.



No, more than an hour later, after Daryl and Sophia had had something to eat, and after Jo had gotten them to take turns in utilizing the bathroom to clean up and take advantage of the clean clothes in the bedrooms, all four of them were stepping outside onto the front porch. Daryl had his crossbow slung over his back, the same as when they arrived, while Jo and Sophia were carrying empty duffel bags on their shoulders. Rick, empty-handed, slipped a hand behind Jo’s back and pulled her in for a kiss, which Daryl smirked at before glancing over toward the street.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Rick inquired with a slight smirk on his lips.

Daryl shook his head. “Nah, we got this.” He said, garnering both Rick and Jo’s attention as he turned toward them and waved at Rick. “You got beat down pretty bad and you ain’t exactly fully healed yet, are you?”

Jo nuzzled her nose along Rick’s bearded jaw. “Just rest a little longer,” she insisted. “The three of us will be fine.” Jo cast an eye over to both Daryl and Sophia. “We’re just checking the houses on the other street, and we’ll be back, and when we do get back, we’ll hit the road again.”

Rick looked down at his watch. “How long you think you’ll be?”

“Couple hours?” Daryl shrugged, not exactly sure.

“It’s almost ten now. Say, about noon?”

Jo and Daryl both nodded. “Yeah, we should be back by then. Shouldn’t take too long,” she assured.

Rick studied the faces of the archer and the teenager standing in front of him before bringing his gaze back to the woman beside him. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” Rick remarked. And then, more quietly for her benefit, he asked of Jo, “Promise me you’ll come back.”

Jo smiled a small smile. “I promise,” she mouthed, before leaning back in to kiss him again.

“Alright, enough with the sucking face,” Daryl faux whined, causing Sophia to chuckle.

After everything they’d all been through, still being able to smile and laugh about things was so incredibly welcomed.

Rick smiled as well and nodded at the three as they began their descent down the front steps.

“Lie down and rest, Rick,” Jo called back to him like a chastising mother.

He nodded and waved after them.

Slowly, he watched them head toward the street and then turn right in the direction of the tracks. When their figures became obscured by trees and other overgrown shrubbery, Rick gave a careful glance around to check for the unfriendly, undead types, he stepped backward into the house and shut the door behind him. Just to make sure, he leaned forward against the door, peering through the peephole before walking around to the opposite end of the couch and push it back in place against the door as a barricade.

Casually, Rick walked around the downstairs. The bags he had separated with Jo so there was an even amount of supplies had been emptied out so that they had an extra bag for more scavenging. Everything that had been in Jo’s duffel bag had been left out on the dining room table, so Rick took it upon himself to shove it back into his duffel bag. He figured they would be gone for no more than two hours, so he could putter around a bit before taking a small cat nap. He knew that if he didn’t do that latter and lied about having done so, Jo would probably sniff out that lie like some kind of bloodhound and he didn’t want to get her riled up about his well-being. It was best to just bite the bullet and rest as she suggested.

And, also, he was still tired.

After everything that happened, including dealing with the sickness at the prison and The Governor’s attack, he hadn’t had one, decent night’s sleep in almost two weeks. Sure, the night before was pretty decent; thanks in part to that whiskey bourbon and quite literally fucking his and Jo’s aggravations away. However, they didn’t finally fall asleep until late and they were up at daybreak.

When Rick began his ascent back up the stairs, he gripped the railing as firmly as possible with his still sore, right hand while his left hand held onto his water bottle, and then came to a sudden stop.

He was remembering the night before, as hazy as it was now, but he was remembering it nonetheless.

And he was suddenly remembering the one thing that never happened among all the things that did happen.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered. Walking forward into the master bedroom, he looked around at the floor and on any of the surfaces, like the dresser or the bedside tables, but couldn’t find what he was hoping to find. Running a hand through his curls, he let out a sigh and then brought the same hand down over his face to scratch at his beard. Narrowing his blue eyes, he let out a small, unaffected chuckle. “Well, I guess we’ll deal with that if it happens,” he said out loud to himself.

Sauntering back over to the side of the bed he’d been occupying the last couple of nights, Rick sat down upon the mattress. Setting his water bottle down on the bedside table, he then slowly leaned back against the pillows and let out a content sigh of comfort.

For a moment, he stared up at the ceiling, trying not to let his mind begin to run wild with the new thought that had appeared and instead focus on his slight exhaustion. He closed his eyes and he considered the darkness he became enveloped in. He listened to the silence of the house and the faint tweet of birds he could hear from outside through the closed windows. He focused on his own breathing; slowing it down.

Before long, Rick succumbed to the Sandman.



Jo was walking through the dining room of a house that seemed as if it had remained virtually untouched since the previous owners left it. She didn’t know the circumstances regarding why the family no longer was there, but she could deduce they most likely fled, heading toward Atlanta like so many others. The sad part was that they were probably dead. It was the likeliest outcome these days. The chances to dying were greater than surviving. However, she was a bit confused because it looked like nothing had been touched. The house had been locked from the inside out, the same as the house Jo had broken into the day before when she cut her arm, and the cabinets in the kitchen turned out to still be fully stocked with canned goods.

“Why would they leave without taking their food?” Sophia called from the kitchen, where she was shoving can after can into her duffel bag.

“They probably thought there would be plenty of food wherever they were going to,” Jo replied, slipping out of the dining room and into the kitchen. She leaned against the door frame and gave the room a careful onceover. “Maybe they had even more with them that they did take.”

“Maybe.” Sophia nodded and then let out a small chuckle, turning around and holding up a small, flat can. “Like old times.”

Jo narrowed her eyes and took note that it was a can of anchovies; remembering the anchovies she and Sophia had ate together a few times after she had found the girl in the woods. “We should look for a deck of cards in that case.” Lifting up off the door frame, Jo walked over to Sophia and tapped her fingers on the girl’s shoulder. “Switch bags with me. Don’t put them all the cans in yours. It’ll get to heavy.”

Placing her duffel bag on the counter, Jo removed Sophia’s and took it. Without another word, she walked out of the kitchen and out into the hall.

“Do you think my mom survived?” Sophia called out.

Jo paused. “I think it’s a great possibility.” Even though she hoped Carol was alive, she wasn’t going to admit to the teenager that her hopes weren’t exactly too high for anyone from the prison. She couldn’t even admit to herself that her hopes of her own daughter having survived getting out, with whoever it was, were also low. “Your mother’s a strong woman. She’s been through a lot, same as all of us, and she’s always come out on top.”

“Do you think she has Hope?”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter who has her, as long as she’s alive and well.”

“Are you worried at all?”

Jo sighed and dipped her head. “I’m her mother. I won’t stop worrying about her until the day I die.”

“I’m worried about my mom,” came Sophia’s comment in a slightly small voice; as if she felt guilty making that comment. “I’m not as hopeful she made it out as you are.” The teen suddenly appeared in the hallway with Jo’s duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Her presence got Jo to turn around and look back at her. “If she didn’t survive, you’ll stay with me like before, right?”

Jo narrowed her gaze and walked up to the young female. She placed her hands on either side of the girl’s face, forcing her to maintain eye contact. “I won’t leave you,” she insisted, adamantly. Jo nodded, as if the gesture was the punctuation at the end of the sentence to affirm it.

In response, Sophia nodded as well and then leaned in; wrapping her arms around Jo’s waist and hugging her. “I’m glad Daryl and I found you and Rick.”

“So am I,” Jo smirked, resting her head on top of Sophia’s.



Daryl hadn’t done much in the way of scavenging with Jo and Sophia. He had wandered the first house with them, but decided to go off into the woods and hunt for some rabbits or squirrels. He insisted some fresh meat for them to cook and eat would feel better for their stomachs rather than expired canned goods. Jo had assured him that was fine with her; that she and Sophia had a handle on things, and that the three of them would just meet up later back at the other house where Rick was waiting for them.

While the three of them were off doing their own thing, one street away from where they’d started out, Rick was still in bed, enjoying a rather, pleasant dreamless sleep.

Well, he was until he heard unfamiliar voices and heavy footsteps downstairs in the house.

An abrupt thud sound and someone shouting out in pain caused his eyes to pop open. His entire body seemed to tense as he lay there, listening, almost afraid to make a move. Dropping his left hand to his side, he reached for her Colt but didn’t have time to pull it out of the holster when footsteps came stomping up the staircase.

“Ya’ll stay down here,” a deep, male voice stated.

Rolling left on the mattress and out of the line of sight from the upstairs hallway, Rick climbed off the bed and stepped quietly around the floor, barely peeking his face out as he saw the figure of a man turning the door knob to one of the extra bedrooms and pushing the door open before slipping inside the room. Rick pulled his face back and looked around the master. He tapped his Colt with his fingers, but didn’t want to use it. He had one, maybe two bullets left and he didn’t know how many people were downstairs. Either way, he knew he’d be outnumbered and he couldn’t take the risk.

His only choice was to hide.

With the unknown man having gone into the other bedroom, the coast was clear for Rick to step around to the side of the bed he’d been lying on and dropped to the floor to slide underneath the bed. He laid there on his stomach for a moment, his head raised and staring forward as sweat began to drip down his face. When he remembered his water bottle on the bedside table, he shimmied slightly to the right to exit the underside of the bed just as the unknown man came walking out of the extra bedroom and Rick had never moved more quickly in his life in order to hide himself back under the bed again.

He shook slightly; worried he might’ve been spotted. Even though his breathing was just as shaky, he was able to rein it in and maintain silence. He could feel his nerves fraying and his heartbeat racing a mile a minute as his mind reeled with all the worst case scenarios of what could happen if he was found out.

As soon as the coast was clear again, Rick let out a steadying breath and scurried out from under the bed to grab his water bottle as fast as he could and then duck back underneath to lie in wait.

Without fail, the unknown man came back out into the upstairs hall from wherever he’d just been; either the bathroom or second extra bedroom. Either way, the man was now stopped just outside the master bedroom, and Rick could see the automatic rifle he had that was pointed downward at the hardwood floor. After a beat, the man walked forward into the room and Rick winced, tensing up at being found out. As the man stepped directly in front of the bed, Rick held his breath and then watched as the man kicked an article of clothing that was on the floor out of his way to open up the closet. When nothing inside was of interest of him, the man began to move back toward the bed, and then over to the dresser which Rick and Jo had utilized for a while the night before.

Rick suddenly realized he didn’t know how long he’d been asleep and turned his wrist slightly to check the time on his watch. It was almost noon. Jo, Daryl and Sophia would be returning shortly, if things had gone smoothly with their scavenging, and they would be returning to God knows how many, possibly, unfriendly types.

When the unknown man stepped back over to the front of the bed, Rick zeroed in on the man’s boots and, more importantly, on the blood stains all over them.

Blood from walkers never stained that way, Rick noted. Blood from the living did.

Yeah, these men were most likely unfriendly types.

Rick’s left hand began to shake as the unknown man walked slowly around the left side of the bed and suddenly laid down where Rick had been minutes before. The mattress above him sank down, forcing Rick to drop his head lower toward the dust covered floor. He closed his eyes tightly and looked down at the ground, feeling a bead of sweat rolling down his nose and drip off.

Please leave, he wished quietly in his mind.

For a few minutes, Rick laid there, silent as the grave. When he heard he unknown man snoring, he felt his window of opportunity had opened up.

Sliding to his right, he attempted to exit the underside of the bed again when new footsteps came clamoring up the stairs. Slipping back to his same position, thankfully unnoticed, he watched as the second unknown man approached; coming to a stop just outside the doorway to the master bedroom.

“Yo,” the second man called out. “Comfy?”

After a moment, the first man replied. “You’re waking me up to ask if I’m comfortable?”

“I wanna lie down.”

“There’s two other bedrooms, bitch.”

“Them’s kids beds. I want this one.”

“It’s claimed,” the first man informed.

“I didn’t hear it. You gonna have to lay claim somewhere else.”

Before Rick realized it, the two men were both standing up and fighting each other. The first man suddenly dropped to the floor, gripping his throat; probably having received a punch there from the second man. As the first man struggled to get back up, the second man grabbed his face and forced him to stay down and followed up by a punch to the head; all the while Rick watched, not a foot away.

When the first man’s face turned to his right, he finally noticed Rick, who cocked his head to the left, silently praying the first man said nothing. Not that he could, though. The second man had leaned down and wrapped an arm around the first man’s neck to choke him out.

Rick continued to watch, holding eye contact with the first man as his fight to struggle lessened and consciousness slowly slipped from him. With one good choke, the first man was forced to sleep, and at first Rick wasn’t sure if he had just died or not. Staring him down carefully, he could tell the first man was still breathing. He wasn’t dead, just asleep.

“My bed now, jackoff,” the second man chuckled as he dropped heavily down onto the bed.

The gesture surprised Rick slightly, who tensed back up again, and balled his fists up in the process. As the second man took his time getting comfortable, Rick turned his head when he noticed a foot draped over the left side of the bed, somewhat blocking one of his escape routes. The right was clear, but Rick didn’t want to risk it, what with it being in full view of the upstairs hallway. The front of the bed was a no go, as well, with the first man lying there, unconscious.

When the second man began to snore, Rick began to slowly slide over to his left; deeming it was now or never. There was a steady thud of something hitting the walls downstairs, signaling the possible approach of a third person, but Rick couldn’t stay put any longer if he was going to get to his people and warn them away before they returned first.

He continued to move slow out from under the bed, but stopped suddenly when he accidentally bumped into the second man’s foot. He paused, and waited for a response, but all he heard was the uninterrupted snoring from the second man. Rick mentally chastised himself, though, for being so careless. However, he didn’t beat himself up to much over it; instead choosing to move ahead and climb out from underneath the bed, quietly and more carefully. He did stop, though, as the thudding sound got closer. A wave of mild panic ran through him, causing him to wonder if he would have to slip back under the bed in case this third person came into the room as well.

When no such approach came, Rick began pulling himself up to his knees once he was cleared from underneath the bed. Sweat continued to drop from his face and from his curls as he got up to his feet and turned back to look at the second man sprawled out, fast asleep, on the bed.

Wasting no more time, Rick hurried right out of the bedroom and glanced down over the railing toward the first floor just as he spotted a man with a small rubber ball ascending the stairs, tossing the ball against the steps and catching it in his hand.

“Tony, Len, get your asses down here,” the third man called up.

Ducking backward, Rick slipped into the second extra bedroom as the third man continued up the stairs.

“Yo, you hear me?”

Moving backward, deeper into the bedroom, Rick looked pulled his Colt from his holster and gripped it tightly his right hand; ignoring the soreness. Just as he moved into the small room off the main part of the bedroom, where the bed was, the third man stepped inside and began perusing. Rick listened as something got knocked over and clattered to the floor. It sounded like a few jewel cases to CDs, but that wasn’t important.

Turning slightly, Rick lifted his gun up, prepared to aim it and shoot as the ball suddenly began to bounce off the wood paneling between the windows, mere feet from Rick. The third man never stepped into the small room with the bed off the main bedroom, though. Instead, only his arm appeared as he tossed and caught the ball a couple of times before turning around and making his way back out of the bedroom. The third man then continued to bounce the ball off the floor; leaving Rick to tip his forehead against the wall and let out a sigh of relief.

Once he was alone in the room, Rick stepped over to the windows and trying prying them open, but to no avail. They were either locked or stuck from having gone unopened for so long, probably due to either heat causing the wood to expand or moisture, or both.

As a few voices from downstairs began to shout out, “Claim!” the second man, lying down on the bed in the master bedroom, growled out in aggravation.

“Shut the hell up! I'm trying to sleep.”

“There's a woman shacking up in here,” a fourth voice called out.

“Say what?”

“Come on down.”

“She hot?”

Rick began to move, stepping up to the side of the bedroom’s door. He listened to the men talking among themselves, and knew they had found Jo’s clothing she’d discarded the day before and the way they were inquiring about her got Rick feeling both defensive and possessive.

“Don't grab your pecker just yet. She ain't here.”

Rick sneered at that comment, cocking his head slightly, as if willing them to say anything further; his two bullets be damned. If Jo, or Sophia, returned before he could warn them away, Rick was sure he’d find a way to take these men down in order to protect his own.

Just as he was about to stick his head out, the second and third man came walking toward the stairs, causing Rick to duck backward.

“What the hell you hollering about?” the second man, possibly the one called Len, wondered.

“Found her shirt. Must have washed it this morning,” the fourth voice from downstairs replied. “Smells good.”

“Oh, you found a shirt?” the third man with the bouncy ball remarked, unimpressed, as he and Len trudged down the stairs together. “She could be miles away by now.”

“Why'd she go to all the trouble of washing a shirt when she's just gonna ditch it?”

“She'll be back,” someone said.

Rick wasn’t sure which one of them has. He was too focused now on getting out of the house.

“I call first when she gets here.”

Alright, well, that caught Rick’s attention enough to make his blood start to boil. No one would lay a hand on Jo if he had anything to say about it.

“Who knows who else she got with her. We need to be ready for anything.”

Sneering again, Rick moved out of the second extra bedroom and made his way back toward the master. He peered inside and spotted the automatic rifle that Len had left behind on the bed, which Rick decided he would try and take for himself. Just as he began to step back into the bedroom, the nearing of voices caused him to stop and look back over his shoulder.

“Len, take the side room.”

“Hold on, let me get a gun.”

Fuck, Rick thought to himself, as he backed into the bathroom just as Len took the stairs two at a time.

Rick closed the bathroom door quietly behind him just as Len appeared in the hallway and walked into the master bedroom.

“Where the hell is Tony?”

That was the last thing Rick really heard before he turned and noticed another man was sitting on the toilet. He wasn’t using it with his pants down around his ankles or anything, but he was still there nonetheless and, for a moment, both he and Rick were stunned by the appearance of the other.

Without missing a beat, both of them launched themselves at each other. Bathroom Man tried reaching for the submachine gun resting on the countertop. Rick grabbed the strap and wrapped it around the man’s neck to choke him with it. He stood behind him, with the man leaning back into him, fighting to get the upper hand as he slammed Rick back into the door. Rick wouldn’t release his grip, as Bathroom Man began to go red in the face while dropping to his knees and attempting to reach for the pair of scissors on the countertop.

However, Rick pulled Bathroom Man back down onto the floor with him so that Rick was lying underneath him, as the scissors fell to the floor and out of reach.

Rick didn’t think. He only reacted. And all he knew was this man was with obviously bad men, which made him one of the bad guys as well. One of them was not coming out of the bathroom alive, and Rick sure as hell wasn’t going to be the asshole lying on top of him.

Tightening his grip even more on the strap, Rick pulled harder against Bathroom Man’s throat with it; not letting up for one moment until he was certain he had choked every last breath out of the guy. When he was certain, he tossed the man off of him and climbed to his feet, removing the strap from around the man’s neck and holding the Uzi in his hands; prepared for anyone to come inside the bathroom and try to attack him.

When no one came, Rick stepped over to the window and slowly lifted it all the way up before reaching forward to open the bathroom door a hair. Looking to his right, he spied the brown, suede jacket with a broad fur collar tossed over the top of the shower door. Grabbing it for himself, Rick threw it out the window and onto the roof below. He then, slowly and carefully, climbed out of the window and onto the roof as well, with the Uzi still in hand.

Rick looked back in toward the bathroom as he strapped the Uzi across his chest and then silently pulled the jacket on. As he guided himself closer to the edge of the roof, he looked down to judge how far of a drop he had. If he had to drop all the way down to the grass, he’d likely break his legs or back, or worse. Fortunately, the roof overhang didn’t reach that far and the drop off was simply to the back porch alone.

Sliding down onto his stomach, Rick stuck his legs out and grabbed the gutter for balanced. However, the gutter gave slightly under his weight and he lost his grip. He had no choice but to drop the rest of the way, falling to the porch with an unceremonious thud.

He didn’t waste any time, though, as he scurried over to the side of the house and gripped the Uzi in his hands, waiting to see if anyone came out the back door to see what the sound was.

When no one came, Rick darted across the back porch and down the steps. Armed and ready for anything, he moved around the tree beside the porch and made his way through extra shrubbery to conceal himself as he continued onward along the side of the house; pausing here and there to listen for anyone following.

As Rick took cover below the side of the front porch, he looked out toward the direction of the tracks where Jo, Daryl and Sophia had gone off earlier. He didn’t see any of them, only a tired, old green bike that had gone unused for a long time.

A door opened up and the sound of heavy footsteps and that same bouncing ball echoed off the floorboards of the porch, letting Rick know it was the third man, with the gray hair and beard, who had just come outside. He looked up to get a careful look but ducked down quickly as the third man walked over to the railing and spat twice over the edge. Rick looked down and held his breath again while the third man took a seat; balancing on the railing and using the post to prop himself up as he began to eat from one of the cans of food that belonged to Rick and Jo.

After spitting once more, the third man began to whistle, as if trying to summon the birds down from the trees, which Rick narrowed his eyes at. As he lied in wait, Rick glanced around the corner of the porch and spotted Jo and Sophia approaching, completely unaware of what was going on at the house or who was occupying it now.

Panic ripping through him, Rick prepared himself to jump to his feet and take the man on the railing out with the Uzi. However, the abrupt sounds of snarling and shouts from inside the house proved to be a better distraction.

“What the—son of a bitch,” the third man grunted as he got to his feet and headed straight into the house, as gunfire also began to ring out.

With the coast clear to finally get away, Rick tore off in a sprint through the trees and ran directly up to Jo and Sophia.

As soon as they realized he was upon them and urging them quickly away, the gunfire and shouts coming from the house also registered in their brains.

“Go! Go!” Rick urged.

Neither of them hesitated as they turned around and ran toward the train tracks with Rick taking a position behind them.

“What about Daryl?” Sophia questioned; her eyes wide with concern and panic.

As they got closer to the tracks, Rick looked back over his shoulder toward the house while letting the teen’s question sink in. “Where is he?”

“We split up after the first house we checked,” Jo replied, letting out a weary breath from exertion. She turned and sprinted backward slightly for a moment, looking back at the house as well before eyeing Rick. She had pulled her sword from its scabbard on instinct, prepared to use it, when she turned back around to look forward once more. “We continued checking the other houses and he went off to hunt for a bit.”

“We were gonna meet back up at the house.”

“We can’t go back there,” Rick stated. “Some men came in while I was asleep, and they’re not the good kind. They’re not like us. They fight among themselves and attempt to kill each other over a damned bed.” Once he was sure they were in no way in any line of sight to the house, Rick slowed his pace a little but he didn’t stop moving, so neither did the two females in front of him. “Daryl’s careful. He’ll hear them before he gets close enough. He’s a good tracker. He’ll figure out we’ve left and find us.”

Sophia looked back at him with a worried pout as she gripped her own gun in her hands while struggling to carry her duffel bag over her shoulder. “What if he doesn’t?”

“Don’t think like that,” Jo insisted. “If you Daryl could lead the two of you to Rick and me, he can find his way to all three of us.”

“Jo’s right,” Rick agreed. He reached out his hand and grabbed the strap of Sophia’s bag, slipping it off her shoulder and slinging it over his. “We gotta keep moving, and he’ll understand that. He’ll find us.”

With the extra weight off her shoulder, no longer bogging her down, Sophia nodded begrudgingly as she walked ahead of the two adults with more ease in her step. Rick took that opportunity to move up alongside Jo, brushing his arm gently against hers.

When she looked at him, he gave her a nod of his head. “How did you make out at the other houses?”

“Good,” she replied, reaching her sword behind her and sliding it back into its scabbard. “One house was stocked up pretty well. It had been locked up, so I thought the people who lived there took off with the intent to come back some day.”

Rick narrowed his gaze, sensing more to the story. “And that wasn’t the case?”

Jo shook her head. “They never left,” she whispered, out of earshot of Sophia who was a few feet ahead of them. “I checked a bedroom off this children’s playroom. The entire family was in there, lying on two twin beds; dead with gunshot wounds in their decayed skulls.” Jo shivered upon reliving the memory. “Another body was in a chair, holding a shot gun and gun splatter on the wall behind them.” Eyeing Rick, she frowned. “It was a child, barely older than Sophia. I couldn’t tell her what I saw in there. I lied and said it was a dead walker.”

Rick nodded. “I would’ve said the same.”

“She’s not completely jaded yet, so if I can keep her from some of the horrors in this world, then I will,” Jo spoke, focusing on the figure of the teenager in front of them. “She’s already had enough of her childhood taken from her.”

Letting the Uzi hang downward, Rick looked over his shoulder to check to make sure none of those “claimers” were following them. When he was sure they were okay, he reached out his left hand and grabbed hold of Jo’s right, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“She’ll be okay,” Rick insisted. “She’s tough.”

“Yeah,” Jo agreed, squeezing his hand back. “I really hope Daryl can catch up and find us.”

“He will. I don’t know how long it’ll take him, but he will.”

Jo smirked and caught Rick’s eye. “You sound very sure, and you have no idea how comforting that is.”

“Just doing my job.”

“Your job? What job is that, exactly?”

Rick frowned. “Don’t you know? Last I checked I’m still your fiancé. I believe being a comfort to you in tough times is one of the job descriptions.”

Jo noted the smirk pulling at the corners of her lips and she shook her head as a chuckle bubbled forth from her lips. “Must’ve slipped my mind for a second,” she teased, leaning in to him and bumping her arm purposely into his. “I’ll try better to remember from here on out.”

“Damn well better,” he snickered. “Or else I’m returning those rings in my pocket.”

Jo studied the side of his face as he stared ahead, beyond Sophia, to the tracks stretching out before them. “You still have them?” she inquired, honestly surprised. “I would’ve expected them to have fallen out by now.”

Rick nodded. “I got deep pockets.” He turned his head and when they locked eyes, he winked at her.

After about thirty minutes of walking on the tracks, the three of them came to a stop when they spotted an abandoned railcar on the track parallel to the one they were on. There was a large banner strung up along the side and a map wrapped in cellophane to protect it from the elements.

The message sounded too good to be true.

SANCTUARY FOR ALL
COMMUNITY FOR ALL
THOSE WHO ARRIVE SURVIVE


The map had all the train track routs outline and leading to the center, which was labeled with a Sharpie-drawn star and the name of TERMINUS.

Rick, Jo and Sophia walked right up to the map and looked it over.

“What do you think?” Jo asked him.

Rick narrowed his eyes and shrugged before glancing at the two females. “I think it’s an option we should consider.”

“The others might’ve seen this map, too,” Sophia offered up. “My mom might’ve seen it. Maybe whoever has Hope has seen it.”

The last comment was enough to grab Rick and Jo’s attention. The two adults locked eyes and an agreement passed between them.

“Let’s go,” Rick decided.

Jo nodded. “But if our people aren’t there—”

“—then we’ll move on,” he finished her sentence for her.

Removing the bandage he had wrapped around his knuckles, Rick tossed it to the ground just below the map and gestured up the tracks with a bob of his head. The three of them returned to the tracks and continued to go forward.

Notes

Comments

I absolutely love this story. I love how you re wrote the whole story but still kept the basics and changed who dies and when. I absolutely love that you kept Sophia alive because I really wished they had left her alive in the tv show. I love what you did with Negan. Absolutely perfect.

AliKook AliKook
4/23/19

@Grimesgirl63 @Loul461

Thank you :)

The ending is perfect

Loul461 Loul461
7/7/17

Thank you so much for this wonderful story. I'm very excited to hear that you are planning a sequel, and will be working on "The World We Live In".

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
7/7/17

I know we are getting to the end but I just do not want this story to be over. This chapter was great as usual and I can't wait for the next update. Glad that your ankle is better and you are settling in with your grandmother. Now, if you could just get that "e" key to work again!

Grimesgirl63 Grimesgirl63
6/30/17