The sun is bright, hot, clouds sure to obscure it for most of their time outside. The local weatherman said so, though sometimes things like this can be unpredictable. Last time they were out together, it was expected to be cloudy. That was the weekend of the sunscreen shortage. No one likes to talk about it.
They're prepared today. Nothing can get in their way. They are invincible. They are on top of the world.
Right now, Rick is pacing, going in circles, mumbling to himself. The rest of his team gives him space. It's the best thing to do.
For this occasion, their playing field is the backyard of a church, owned by a preacher Rick doesn't like. With soft grass and colorful flowers, this stretch of ground will serve them well for their endeavor. Bees flitter from bud to bud, the wind picks up dandelions, and Rick stomps on small petals and grinds the pinks and purples into the soil underneath. Whether he notices what he's doing doesn't matter; Beth sits and gathers each trampled plant until they form a pastel rainbow in her palm.
"Look," she says.
Rick grunts.
"I wasn't talkin' to you," she says. "Daryl."
Daryl's eyes are on Rick, watching him stomp about in that way he does. "Mm. Don't you think he looks a bit like a hammerhead shark when he does that?"
Beth lowers her hands, head tilted to the side in thought. "A bit."
Before it starts, only unintelligent and inaudible noises leave Rick's mouth. When they first began, they would try to decipher what he was trying to say, but over time, they let Rick have his moments. Even his kid didn't seem to understand what he was doing.
Around noon, the rest of the team arrives. Even without the addition of the opposing team, the field is already packed. The last to stroll in is Abraham, Eugene, and Rosita. Rosita is wearing a baseball cap, dressed for the game. Glenn is donning the same, despite Rick telling him to leave his "pizza boy delivery outfit" at home, before their last game. When Rick saw Glenn and his hat today, he gave him a scowl, but Maggie gave Rick a scowl of her own, and Rick hasn't been close enough to either Glenn or Maggie since then.
"Don't we need to go over the game plan?" Tara asks. "What's he doing over there?"
"I don't know," Carl says.
"He always does this," Daryl says.
Michonne takes the incentive and approaches Rick, though he is coming toward them now. He claps his hands and gives each of them a look. The look is indescribable. Rick smiles. "Let's fucking do this."
It's times like this when Rick is actually a competent leader. He details them a plan he's extensively worked nights and nights over. He's lost sleep over this.
"Sounds like what we tried to do to the Governor," Maggie points out, slow, considering. "And we lost."
"We lost Merle," Glenn continues, "Dale, Shane, Andrea, Hershel, even Lori."
"He broke your hand," Daryl says, "had to learn how to swing a bat left-handed."
Rick is silent.
"Merle fucked off," Daryl goes on.
"Dale didn't like Shane, and Shane wasn't feeling it anymore," Carl says.
"Daddy wanted to come out, but he said the sun was going to be harsh today." Maggie shrugs.
Michonne nods. "Andrea and Lori are over there, at the refreshments table, with Carol. She said Sophia made some badass lemonade."
Abraham interjects, "To me, it sounds a lot like the one we used with Gareth and Deanna. And we won those games like no monkey's business."
"But we lost Tyreese," Glenn adds, "and Noah, Bob. Sasha isn't into it anymore after they left. Morgan is sometimes here, sometimes not. Beth was kind of touch-and-go, too."
"I'm here now," Beth says, grinning. "I still get pretty bad headaches, though."
They don't know if Rick needs the reminder of how many people he's lost. He doesn't move, stares at the ground. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. "It was supposed to be cloudy today."
"This is a very efficient plan," Eugene, the benchwarmer, says.
It's quiet for a brief moment. Rick claps his hands again. "Let's fucking do this."
They exchange looks, but Rick is already running, chanting, raving. "We are the Walking Dead! The Walking Dead!" Despite the name not being agreed upon by the rest of the team, Rick is the leader, and what he says goes.
"We're probably going to lose," Glenn says, the sensible co-captain.
They are on top of the world—for a second. Then, Negan shows up, and they begin to dare each other to be the first up to bat.
"Do you know anything about them, his team?" Glenn asks Rick. Rick's hands are on his hips, and he's giving Negan a stare down. He seems to be coherent.
"No."
Glenn blinks. "What?"
"I don't know a single thing about them."
"Right."
Glenn volunteers to bat first. He's their best player by far. But as Negan steps up on the mound and handles the baseball with far too much sensuality than what will ever be needed, Glenn isn't so sure of himself anymore.
He gulps.
And strikes out.
"Holy fucking shit," Negan says, and laughs.
That laugh will haunt them all for the days to come.
Whoever does manage to hit the ball doesn't go far. If they don't get out by someone catching the ball, they are forced to stay on first base until someone is successful in their swinging. Right now, Maggie is on first base, posed to take second, but so far, Daryl and Abraham have struck out. Tara is up to bat. She and Maggie meet eyes. "Please," Maggie mumbles.
Sitting on the ground with no worry in the world, the man behind her chuckles. "You're not gonna make it," he says, but Maggie ignores him.
Tara stands with her feet shoulder-width apart, her eyes squinted into a glare.
Negan fondles the baseball before throwing it.
Tara hits it, and Maggie runs to second, then third. Tara makes it to first base. Rick is shouting from the other side of the field. It's mostly a jumble of words and sounds. He's excited, thrilled; anybody could have guessed that.
Negan frowns.
Rosita is up next. She hits the ball, and Maggie makes it to home base. Tara scrambles to third, barely makes it. She beams at Rosita, at her position on second. They're happy. They're going to win.
It's early in the game.
The next batter is Michonne.
She hits a home run. Tara dashes to home, Rosita skipping behind her. Michonne walks with a smile on her face.
Rick hugs Michonne right after. "You," he says, but doesn't say much else.
"Are you crying?" Michonne asks.
Rick sniffs. "No."
Rick's team is now in the field. Daryl is on first, Glenn on second, and Abraham on third. Rick is in the outfield.
Beth is the pitcher.
Negan laughs at her. "Seriously?"
Beth strikes out the first batter on Negan's team, the second right after. She can hear Rick's screech of triumph and mockery in the back. Negan appears to have smoke coming from his ears. He grabs a bat. It's his, dark, splintered. He doesn't let anybody touch it. "Her name is Lucille," he told them, then proceeded to stroke her wood provocatively. Everybody tried their best to not make eye contact when this happened.
With Beth on the mound and Negan ready to bat, breaths are held, eyes are wide.
Beth throws the ball. Negan hits it. And the ball flies through the air...
And smacks Glenn in the middle of his face.
As everybody is making sure Glenn is okay, Negan runs through the bases. He doesn't act like anything is wrong, not even when Rick gets in his face and tells him off. Negan is a large man. Rick should be intimidated, but he holds his ground. Negan doesn't give Rick the time of day.
"You come back here. I was talkin' to you."
Coddling a bleeding nose and a cut lip, Glenn sits out, Maggie next to him and nursing the wounds. "Rick, it's fine," Glenn urges.
Rick doesn't think it's fine, but they continue playing.
Tara replaces Glenn on second, and Michonne takes over as the pitcher.
It doesn't end well.
Most of Rick's team is injured. Negan swears his team didn't mean to personally hit each of them. "Must be the wind," Negan says. "It's blowing like a motherfucking whore."
Rick rubs his face. "It was supposed to be cloudy." His nose and the back of his neck are red. He's forgotten to wear sunscreen. Lori rubs some into Rick's skin, though it burns, and Rick only gets angrier. This fight will be the straw that breaks the camel's back when it comes to their marriage.
Rick kicks the refreshment table's leg. Kool-Aid and lemonade spill onto the grass, stains it. Rick yells, and Daryl takes him off to the side and gives him a stern talking to.
It doesn't help.
"Let's fucking do this!" Rick shouts, clapping again, beckoning them all over. "Remember what I told you."
"We are the Walking Dead," Rosita sighs, rubbing at a bruise on her bicep.
The Walking Dead is… toast. Burnt toast. Toast that made a stomach growl at the beginning, but then it popped out of the toast all burnt and disgusting. And it is now in the garbage. Nobody wants to acknowledge how shit the toast is, so they continue complimenting the toast, saying how great it is, how much they can't wait to have another slice of it. Behind closed doors, they're crying, rubbing at pink eyes because they hate the toast. They want the toast they had on Halloween all those years ago. But they can't have that toast. Because they recently purchased a new toaster, and it was an expensive toaster, and it sits on the kitchen counter, all shiny and new. "Make toast in me!" it says, because it's a new toaster, and that's what toasters do. The toast isn't great. It's never great. It comes out burnt, charred. But still they chew and give a thumbs up and pretend it's good. "I love toast," they say, but they love the toast they had before this shitty toaster. Their old toaster is in a landfill somewhere. They can't get it back. They need to push through the burnt toast. The Walking Dead is toast.
The game is on. Still. If the preacher Rick doesn't like were to look outside the window, he would think the game was over. No one is standing, no one is playing. All team members are lying in the grass, plucking at flowers and stalling for the inevitable. Rick is away from the rest of his friends, head in his hands. Daryl is next to Beth, but he joins Rick, nudging him in the ribs with an elbow. "I'm with ya," Daryl says.
"I thought Shane was with me," Rick says, "and he fucked my wife."
"Okay."
"You're not gonna fuck my wife, are you?"
"No, I'm not like that." Daryl narrows his eyes, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Negan might."
"Negan."
"How come we don't know anything about him?" Glenn says, a few feet away. The bridge of his nose is black, the circles under his eyes purple. "We must know something about this asshole."
"It's like he… came out of nowhere." Maggie shakes her head, using a towel to dab the sweat from her forehead. "Took us all by surprise. I don't like it here."
"He's sucking all the life from us," Michonne says, standing over Rick and Daryl. "What are we going to do?"
"Kill him," Rick declares. He jumps to his feet. "We have to kill him."
"Metaphorically, yes?" Abraham asks.
Rick scoffs. "'Course, yeah. Not literally kill him. Come on, we can't do that. This isn't some kind of bad TV show."
The field is split in half. Negan's team on one side, Rick's on the other. They meet in the middle once the unofficial time out ends. "We thought up a name," says Negan. "The Saviors. Sounds pretty bitching, doesn't it?"
"Sounds like someone who has a God complex."
"You don't know shit. How does that feel?"
"What are you, my therapist?"
"Fuck, I could be. A hot one."
"Man, shut up. You're going down."
"Truly? Your group is all sprains and ugly-ass bruises. What makes you think you can take me down?"
"I have no idea."
Negan smirks. "I want your son up to bat now. I'm gonna nail out his eye, and then feed you the other one."
"That's some dark shit, man."
"I know. I don't care. Get in line."
"Dad, I don't want to."
"Carl, please."
"Dad—"
"Please."
And though Carl does get a black eye, Negan doesn't feed the other one to Rick. It's the little things in life that add up to something grand.
There is no end. It's evening time now. The drinks have gone warm, the food has gone bad, and many members on both teams have left. When it comes to Negan's Saviors, Daryl is who forces them to leave the field. He's good at causing big explosions in tight corners.
But as soon as they leave, more come.
"There is no end," Eugene says, dropping to his knees—the first time he has gotten off the bench.
"There's gotta be a way to stop them," Abraham says.
Rick is destroyed. He's red in the face, mostly due to sunburn, and he looks as if he might burst into tears. "I don't know what we're going to do."
"I'll do something," Glenn suggests.
"Glenn, you're gonna get yourself killed."
"No, I won't," he protests. "I already had a near-death experience today. What are the chances I'll actually be killed off now?" And Glenn disappears, and they don't hear from him for some time.
Rick lies in the field of flowers, limbs splayed out, soaking up all the bad sun, the good sun. The flowers are his friends. Michonne lies next to him, on his right, and doesn't say a word.
Daryl is on Michonne's right, farther down the line. He swears he hears singing, but no one else can hear anything.
"This is it," Rick says. "Where's Carl?"
"Carl is going to be okay," Michonne tells him. "Negan likes him."
Rick closes his eyes. He feels wind on his face. Negan is laughing, deep, like ripples of thunder. He's swinging Lucille, a tornado, spinning, spinning.
"You don't know shit. Sucks, don't it? The moment you realize you don't know shit."
"We might get through this," Rick whispers, reaching over to touch Michonne's hand. "We might win."
Negan is going in circles, Lucille is going in circles, swinging, swinging, swinging.
"Or we might not. We might lose."
"Yeah," Michonne says, "we might lose. What are the chances of us winning?"
"What are the chances of Glenn returnin' in a timely manner?"
"Maggie hasn't stopped crying."
Rick opens his eyes. The sky is orange, the sun about to set. "We'll get through this. It's just a stupid baseball game."