Rick was cursing so loudly at himself in his head that he could barely hear what was going on in the outside world. He would have been cursing out loud, but Carl was by his side, and the boy wasn't quite old enough to start hearing that kind of language come from his father.
Not that it mattered, of course.
They were going to die soon enough anyways.
It was his fault. He'd led them into this city – he didn't even know the name of the place, they'd been flying blind for so long – promising food, supplies, and safety. It had seemed empty enough from the outside.
They'd only been in a few blocks when Judith had started crying, drawing the attention of a relatively small herd. Rick guessed that it had probably only been about a hundred or so Walkers at first. They'd all appeared out of nowhere, and some of them had come from behind, forcing the group to take shelter in an apartment building. With each floor, they'd managed to pick off another dozen of the dead, but there were too many of them, and too few bullets.
They'd fallen back (or up, rather) as far as they could, and now they were on the roof and couldn't go any further.
They were going to die.
They all knew, of course, but they were still getting ready for the last stand: Carol gripped her punch knife, Michonne raised her sword, Sasha took a practice swing as though her rifle were a bat, all while Tyreese and Daryl struggled to keep the door closed and the Walkers struggled to get through.
They were going to die.
And it was Rick's fault.
"Listen," he said quickly to Carl, "If it gets real bad, you jump, you hear me? You jump." Carl nodded, his face white and scared.
Rick knew it was fucked up. He'd just told his son to kill himself, but he'd be damned if he watched his boy get torn apart by the dead. It would be quicker, less painful, to free fall for five quick stories before hitting the pavement. That was just the awful truth.
"I love you," Rick heard Glenn say to Maggie.
"I love you too," she whispered back, almost as white as Carl.
She hadn't been the same since Beth died. None of them had. The girl had been so sweet and pure and beautiful and good…the world was a darker place without her. They all felt that every day.
And her songs – they'd made things easier sometimes. Maggie wouldn't sing without her sister. That was something they all missed terribly.
And now, none of it matters, Rick thought sadly, looking one last time at the group that he'd come to love so much, against his own best wishes. He hadn't meant to get so attached. They'd grown on him far too quickly.
He wanted to apologize, to tell them how sorry he was for causing this, but there was no time. He looked down the side of the building, still trying to find an escape route, but there was none. He turned back, ready to make his last stand with his people.
Then, a small movement down below caught his eye.
He looked down across the street, where four young-looking people were walking out of the building parallel to the one he was standing on. They were talking quietly, moving stealthily, but they clearly thought there was no threat. They had no idea what was going on in the building beneath him.
Rick thought to yell down at them, then caught himself and almost chuckled aloud. He'd been worried about the sound drawing Walkers. What am I thinking? He wondered. The whole town's fighting to get up here right now.
Just then, one of the people in the street, a tall blonde girl, looked up and saw him looking down at her. She hesitated for a moment, surprised, then grinned and waved up at him as the rest of her group turned to leave without noticing what she had.
The sounds of the Walkers below and the labored breathing of Rick's group dimmed, and it seemed that the whole world fell away until it was just Rick and the girl in the street, who was still waving. He slowly lifted his hand from the rifle in his grip and waved back as though in a dream.
The girl's smile stretched wider and she called softly to her friends, just loud enough to get their attention. They gestured to her without looking to hurry and catch up, so she chased after them and grabbed the one closest to her, a tall, well-built boy, and gestured up to Rick, pointing him out to her companion.
What am I doing? He thought suddenly, and the world came crashing back to him.
"Help us!" He yelled down to the four kids on the pavement. No one on the roof responded to his words. They were too busy blockading the entrance, using anything they could find to seal it off.
The blonde girl raised her hand, cupped it to her ear to signal that she couldn't hear him. That smile was still on her face.
"Help us!" He shouted again, hands around his mouth to amplify the sound.
He didn't know if his words reached her, but something did. His tone, his stance, the multitude of bodies in the street – something caught her attention, and the smile faded from existence was replaced by a darkness, an intensity in her eyes that told him she knew.
He felt her say the words – he didn't just see them on her lips, and they certainly weren't carried to him on the breeze. He felt her say to her friends, "Let's go." And they followed her into the building without hesitation or question.
Rick only prayed that they would reach his group in time. It was in short supply.