"Ma'am..." A voice called and Kelly furrowed her eyebrows as she began to wake. Since when did Mickey start calling her ma'am? "Ma'am, are you alright?" It wasn't until a rough hand touch her shoulder that Kelly remembered Mickey wasn't with her anymore- that he hadn't been for a week now.
As quickly as her body would allow her, Kelly grabbed the knife underneath her pillow and turned over in her bed, holding it against the strangers throat. It was a man in his thirties with bright blue eyes and fair skin. He wore a sheriffs deputy uniform with a matching hat that covered his dark hair. He looked nice enough, but Kelly couldn't help but remember the last man that had come across her path looking all nice and innocent. That had almost cost Kelly her life.
With the knife pressed against his throat, the man held his hands up slowly. "I'm not gonna hurt you." He told her quietly and she said nothing. "I just came in here to look for supplies and I found you. I wanted to see if you needed help." As well as she could in her condition, Kelly moved so she wasn't in such an uncomfortable position, but one wrong move caused pain to shoot through her stomach. With a gasp, she clutched at it and the man used it to his advantage; grabbing the knife from her before she could even blink.
"Please," Kelly gasped. "Don't hurt. I don't have anything worth taking, but you can take what you want and go. Please..."
"I'm not here to hurt you." The man insisted throwing the knife into the corner of the room. "I told you; I only came in her looking for supplies and wanted to know if you needed help. I promise."
"Why?" Kelly sucked in a deep breath as her pain began to fade away. "Nobody helps anymore- not without wanting something in return. That's not the way the world works...especially not this one"
"Well," The man began. "I've never been a fan of the way of the world. My mother always told me that you should help whenever and whoever you could." The smile he gave Kelly made it so easy for her to trust him- or, at least, want to. "My name is Rick Grimes."
"...Kelly."
"Well, Kelly," Rick stood up to his full height and held out a hand to her. "This is me, offering my help- if you want it." He added on. Kelly stared at his hand for what seemed like hours before she finally took it and let him help her up. It was only when she stood at her full height, five inches shorter than his own, that he spotted her protruding stomach. "Oh..."
"Yeah," She nodded.
"How far along are you?" He asked, eyeing her belly. Considering her frame was thin, it made sense that her pregnancy stomach wouldn't be too big.
"Seven and a half months." She told him. "Or, at least, I was a little while ago before my phone died.
"So, you're due soon-"
"And terrified that I'm gonna die during labor if I don't find a doctor soon." She finished. "So, if you're gonna help me, I'm gonna need to know where you're on your way to."
"Atlanta." He told her as she went to the end of the couch she left on to grab her bag, but Rick got it before she could. "I got it."
"Why Atlanta?" Kelly asked. That's where she and Mickey had been on their way to before they got over run by the dead.
"That's where my family is." Rick replied and he led Kelly out the door. "My wife and son."
"Your wife wouldn't happen to be a doctor, would she?" Rick gave her an apologetic smile as he led her through the dead bodies. "I figured."
Getting Kelly on the horse hadn't been as hard as Rick anticipated, although it hadn't been as easy as he hoped. Either way, both he and Kelly were happy once she was finally up and they were on their way to Atlanta.
"Are you alright back there?" Rick asked as they rode through the abandoned streets and Kelly nodded. Being on the back of the horse while pregnant with a bag full of guns on her back wasn't easy on her body, but she'd get through it if it meant she wouldn't be food.
"Where is everybody?" She asked. "There was supposed to be a safe zone or something." Rick shook his head and noticed a few walkers coming towards them.
"Hold on." He told her and he felt her arms tighten around his middle before he forced the horse to pick up the pace. A couple of cars blocked their route so Rick was forced to take a turn, coming upon yet another street littered with cars, bodies, and-
"Is that a tank?" Rick shushed his companion and his horse continued forward. Kelly groaned at the sight to two crows eating a dead soldier.
"Do you hear that?" Rick asked as he looked up and Kelly did the same. Soft, yet hard humming assaulted her ears as she saw the reflection of a helicopter in the glass-like window of a tall building. Not waiting for an answer, Rick snapped the reins on his horse, forcing it to go faster and Kelly to hold him tighter.
"A warning would've been nice!" She hissed, grimacing with each dull pain that went through her. Rick continued chasing after the sound of the helicopter until he took a left and led them straight into a herd of walkers. The horse reared back on its hind legs, nearly knocking Kelly off, but she held on.
Rick snapped the reins once more and the horse took off down the street as they were chased until they ran into more walkers.
"Rick!"
"Hold on!" Rick turned the horse and tried to take off, but they were surrounded with walkers trying to grab at them and the pain in Kelly's stomach got worse and worse with every time the horse reared back. Eventually, she couldn't help but let go and fell to the ground- on her back luckily, but hit her head, knocking her out- and Rick was right behind her. He watched in horror as the walkers tore apart the horse before he came to his senses and realized he needed to get out of there.
Seeing that she was passed out, Rick grabbed Kelly and picked her up underneath her arms before leaning her against a nearby car as he opened up the back door. Knowing the walkers would only be distracted for a few more moments, Rick put Kelly in the backseat and put a blanket, which he was found inside, over her. He shut the door and took off running just as the walkers who couldn't get to the horse went after him.
"So, that's it, huh?" Shane was there as soon as Rick left his tent. "You're just gonna walk off? Just to hell with everybody else?"
"I'm not saying to hell with anybody." Rick claimed. "Not you, Shane. Lori, least of all." And then he walked away before Shane could even try to talk him out of it.
"Tell her that." Rick stopped and turned back to Shane.
"She knows." Or, at least, she should.
Rick continued walking, but Shane followed after him. "Well, I- Well, I don't, okay, Rick? So could you just, could you throw me a bone here, man? Could you just tell me why? Why would you risk your life for douche bag like Merle Dixon?" Rick stopped near the main fire pit, which- looking back, was a bad idea considering Daryl was waiting there.
"Hey," He warned. "Choose your words more carefully."
"No, I did." Shen assured the younger Dixon. "Douche bag's what I meant. Merle Dixon; that guy wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst."
"What he would or wouldn't do doesn't interest me." Rick reminded his friend. "I can't let a man die of thirst- me. Thirst and exposure. We left him like an animal caught in a trap- that's no way for anything to die, let alone a human being and this isn't just about Merle."
"Then what is it about?" Shane asked desperately. "Tell me."
"There's a woman, I met." Rick told him and he could feel Lori's eyes on him. "I found here right outside of town in a shack almost nine months pregnant. I dragged her to the city and I left her there. Hopefully she's still safe."
"So you and Daryl?" Lori questioned from where she sat next to her son. "That's your big plan?" Actually, it wasn't. Rick turned his sights on Glenn, the young man who had rescued him from that tank.
"Oh, Come on." He groaned and Rick stepped towards him.
"You know the way and you've been there before; in and out, no problem. You said so yourself. It's not fair of me to ask, I know that, but I'd feel a lot better with you along." He looked back at Lori. "I know she would too."
"Now, that's just great." The sarcasm was clear in Shane's voice. "Now you're gonna risk three men?"
"Four." T-Dog piped up and Daryl scoffed.
"My day just gets better and better, don't it?"
"You see anybody else here stepping up to save your brother's cracker ass?"
"Why you?" Daryl questioned and T-Dog's answer was immediate.
"You wouldn't even begin to understand. You don't speak my language."
"That's four."
"That's not just for." Shane insisted. "You're putting every single one of us at risk. Just know that, Rick. C'mon, you saw that walker- it was here, it was in camp! They're moving out of the cities. They come back, we need every able body we've got. We need them here, we need them to protect camp."
"Seems to me what you really need most here are more guns." Rick was sure this would get Shane onboard.
"What guns?"
"Six shotguns, two high powered rifles, over a dozen handguns." He listed off. "I cleaned off the cage back at the station before I left."
"Where are they?"
"With the pregnant woman I mentioned, Kelly." Rick told him. "I had to leave her and lead a herd of walkers away. I put her and the bag of guns in a car that Glenn can get us back to. I doubt she knows how to use them and, hopefully, she's still in that car."
He could see the wheels turning in Shane's head. "Ammo?"
"Seven hundred rounds, assorted."
"You went through hell to find us." Lori spoke up. "You just got here and you're gonna turn around and leave?"
"Dad," Carl began, on the verge of crying. "I don't want you to go."
"To hell with the guns," Lori said. "Shane's right; Merle Dixon? He's not worth one of your lives, even with the guns thrown in." Rick went over to her and she grabbed his hands. "Tell me." She pleaded. "Make me understand."
"This isn't just about Merle Dixon." He said, once again. "If you asked me to, I would stay here and leave that man up on that roof to die- that's how much I love you...but I need to go back for Kelly. I made her a promise that I would help her- that I would keep her safe. Would you rather I left her in the middle of all those walkers waiting for the day that she either dies from starvation or tries to get out and gets eaten by walkers?"
"What if you get eaten by walkers?" Carl asked suddenly and Rick let go of Lori's hands before kneeling in front of his son.
"I made this woman a promise, Carl." Rick told him. "I can't break it- I can't leave her alone in such a dangerous situation when I was the one who dragged her into it. I need you to realize that I have to help her. Okay?" It took a minute, but, eventually, Carl nodded. "Alright. I'm gonna be back...I promise.
When Kelly woke up, she knew that she had been out for a while.
When she and Rick had gone into Atlanta, it had been early evening at the latest. Now, even through the dirt streaked windows of the car she was inside, she knew that it was morning.
She couldn't remember anything that had happened, just falling off the horse and waking up in the car with the bag of guns still attached to her back. She could only guess that Rick had put her inside, but that only begged the question of where he was.
So, Kelly stayed in the car for hours, too afraid to step out. If it was just her, she would've at least tried to overcome her fear and made a run for it, but she couldn't risk her baby- she wouldn't.
"We can't stay in here forever, kid." Kelly said, looking down at her stomach. She had moved to sit up in the car, the blanket Rick had put on her was now around her shoulders. Despite the three layers of shirts she wore, she was still cold. "But we'll be okay...Rick will come for us." She was giving herself false hope; Rick was most likely dead, otherwise he would've come for her. It was either that or he had abandoned her, just like Mickey.
"Alright," She cracked her knuckles. "This is it; we have to go. We can't stay in here too long without food." She remembered reading that on a bus ad once when she was in Ohio. Her stomach growled. What she wouldn't do for some avocado and fish right now. "Okay, on the count of three." She took a deep breath. "One...two...three." Raising her hand, she went to pull on the handle of the door only for it to open from the outside.
She nearly screamed at the sight of the young Asian man, but he held a finger to his lips. Remembering the walkers, Kelly settled for staring at him wide eyed. She would've taken out one of the guns in the bags, but she couldn't even figure out how to take off the safety.
"Shh," The man warned. "My name's Glenn. Rick sent me."
"Rick's alive?" Did she dare have hope?
"He's waiting for us a couple of blocks from here." Glenn insisted and held out a hand. All the possibilities ran through Kelly's head; this guy could've killed Rick for all she knew, but then how would he have known were she was? There had been no one around when they were swarmed by walkers. Who would've seen him put her and the guns in the car?
Hoping she was doing the right thing, Kelly grabbed the bag of guns before letting Glenn help her out of the car. Once she was out, Glenn took her hand and they began running down the street.
"What are you doing?!" Kelly hissed when Glenn stopped and rushed towards the tank she had seen the day before. He didn't answer, he simply picked up Rick's sheriff's hat before running back to her. "You're insane!"
"Let's go!" he grabbed her hand again with his free one before taking off down the street. They didn't run long before they came upon a gate alley and Glenn led her inside.
"Glenn!" She yelled in worry when a large Hispanic man punched him across the face, sending him to the ground.
"She's got the bag!" The other man yelled and Kelly tried to run out of the alley, but they grabbed her.
"Stop struggling!" The one who held her demanded as he pulled her out of the alley. That was before he began screaming in pain. A third man took hold of her as the one from behind clutched at his behind and a van pulled up.
Kelly was pushed inside along with Glenn before the door slammed shut and the van took off.
