Words cannot describe how heartsick I feel after that steaming pile of horse manure Glen Mazzara served up as a finale, so this is my attempt to pretend that it never happened. I apologise if this posts with weird spacing but there's something going on with the Document Manager. If anyone knows anything about this or how to fix it, please feel free to PM me. ;)

Prologue

Andrea was sure that he had come this way. "Rick?" she called, cracking open the door to the warden's office.

After hearing her announcement that the 'exchange' the Governor had set up for Michonne was nothing more than an ambush to pick off the group's strongest fighters, and that he was going to attack the prison either way, he had stormed off towards the administration block with a haunted look, disappearing inside in spite of her protests.

She went to visit the others in the cellblock to allow him time to cool off before tracking him to this room, where she could just make out his silhouette, slumped in the antique wingback chair behind the heavy oak desk, the curtains drawn against the early morning sunlight. "Why are you sitting here in the dark?"

She groped instinctively for the light switch, her finger freezing on the button when she heard him cock his pistol in response.

"Leave it," he growled, his voice low and threatening.

She withdrew her hand slowly. "What are you doing, Rick? What's going on?" If anything, he seemed even more volatile than the last time she saw him.

"Is there something you need, Andrea?" he asked impatiently, brushing aside her concern.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she noticed the half-drained whiskey bottle in his hand. A second, empty one littered the carpet at his feet. "Are you drunk?"

He raised it to his lips and took a defiant swig. "So what if I am?"

It was all so familiar – the alcohol, the self pity, her own sense of horror laced with frustration – that for just a moment, she was struck with an overpowering sense of déjà vu. "Those people out there are counting on you," she reminded him. "Carl, and Judith—"

"Well maybe they shouldn't," he interrupted her, stunning her into silence.

She was sure that she must have misheard him. The Rick Grimes she knew wouldn't give up on his family so easily. "Excuse me?"

"Let's take a look at my track record, shall we?" he continued. "Since they decided to put me in charge, Jim died, Jacqui died, Sophia died, Dale died, Shane died, T-Dog died, Lori died, your sister died… Hell, maybe you died too and this whole conversation is happening inside my fucked up head."

The old Andrea, still buried somewhere inside, wanted to reach out, to comfort him, but she was done shelling out sympathy, had used it all up trying to talk the Governor down from whatever insanity had taken over him in the wake of Penny's 'death'.

"I can assure you, Rick, that I'm very much alive," she retorted, levelling him with a cool stare. "You want me to prove it to you?"

She charged over to where he was sitting and punched him hard in the bicep.

He recoiled in shock, curling in on himself, his arms raised in a defensive posture to ward off further blows. "What was that for?"

"Someone has to knock some sense into you," she told him angrily. "Look, I get that you're grieving, but that doesn't give you an excuse to act like a jackass – especially to the people who are trying to help you."

"Says the woman who shoved a gun in my face," he reminded her, his voice devoid of any trace of humour.

She felt the corners of her lips quirk into a smile. "Touché. Well I guess that makes us even then."

Her response seemed to surprise him, causing him to let out a weak chuckle. "You are something else, you know that?"

She couldn't tell if he meant it as a compliment or an insult or a little of both, so she didn't say anything, just waited for him to speak again.

"Why did you come back here, Andrea?" he asked after a long moment. "You should've stayed in Woodbury where you'd be safe. I can't protect you now. I can't protect any of you."

"Safe?" she snapped derisively, folding her arms. "From what? The man who tried to kill me?" There was no safe anymore. Not while the Governor lived. "I made a choice, Rick. I chose this group. Maybe it's time you did the same."

"You think I don't want to?" he argued. "That I haven't tried? Every time I make a decision we lose someone else. I can't be the one making those calls anymore. I won't."

"So that's it?" You're abdicating? her mind echoed. "Instead of rallying the troops you're just going to sit here on your ass feeling sorry for yourself?" She shook her head in disgust. "You know, I really thought you were better than that."

"Sorry to disappoint." He raised the bottle to his lips and took another deep pull, closing his eyes in satisfaction as he slipped further into oblivion.

She was losing him. She could feel him shutting down. She decided to try a different tactic. "It wasn't your fault, you know. What happened to Lori." She knew she had his attention when his eyes snapped open again, regarding her with a glazed look. "It wasn't your fault."

"How can you say that? You weren't there."

She wasn't, but she was there they night they lost Amy, so she understood the crushing guilt he must feel. It had taken her a long time to recognise her sister's death for what it was: a tragic accident and not proof of her own failure as a protector.

"People die, Rick. That's just the world we live in. That much at least hasn't changed. But people live too, and that… That is because of you. You've kept this group together – kept them alive – for longer than any of ever thought was possible. Can you honestly tell me that they would have made it this far without you?" The corners of her lips twisted into a wry grin as she added, "Well, maybe Daryl."

"And you," he told her seriously, something akin to admiration in his voice.

"You're right – I'm probably a bad example," she agreed. "But I had help from Michonne."

No thanks to you.

The words hung between them, unspoken.

"I'm sorry about what happened at the farm, Andrea," he said quietly. "You have to know that it was never my intention to leave you behind."

There was a time when she might have carried a grudge, but that was past. Too much had happened to her since then. "I'm not," she admitted. What was done was done, but maybe some good could still come from her ordeal. "I can help you, Rick. I know Philip…"

That's not who he is anymore, she reminded herself. The man she thought she knew – the man she could have loved – was dead, replaced by a violent, sociopathic monster. He had proved that when he spent a whole day and night hunting her down like some kind of animal, snuffing out any belief she still had that any part of him could be saved.

"…The Governor," she amended, even though this felt wrong too. He didn't deserve the respect a title like that commanded. What he deserved was a bullet, and she was determined to be the one to give it to him. "I know his weaknesses, how he thinks. Together, we have a shot at winning this. But you need to get your shit together and you need to do it now. No more of this—" She waved her hand vaguely in Rick's direction, the gesture encompassing everything from his unshaven jaw, to his rumpled clothes, to the bottle in his hand. "If you can't do that for yourself, then do it for Carl and Judith. They already lost their mother – don't let them lose you too."

He dropped his gaze from her to the carpet at his feet, shame etched across his features.

"You don't have to say anything, just think about it, okay?" she finished. "And please, just make the right choice. Don't let the darkness swallow you. Don't become like him."

She turned on her heel to leave but he called her back.

"Andrea?"

She hesitated when she reached the door. "Yeah?" she replied tentatively, unsure of what he might ask.

Instead, all he said was, "Thanks. For not tiptoeing around me like the others. They don't say it, but I can see it in their eyes, that they're afraid of me. They think I'm losing my mind. I think I'm losing my mind."

She couldn't help but smile sadly at his admission. She still remembered what that felt like: the voices that fell silent whenever you approached, the pitying looks, the endless sympathy when deep down you knew that everyone was secretly glad that it was you and not them.

"You're not crazy, Rick. You're human, just like the rest of us. But that doesn't mean we let ourselves sink into the shit heap with men like him. If Dale taught us anything, it's that this world is what we make it."

She decided to share the plan that she had been piecing together ever since Milton showed her what the Governor had been doing behind closed doors while he pretended to be hammering out a deal. If nothing else, it might give Rick a tangible goal to work towards, beyond all the fighting and killing.

"We keep telling ourselves that nothing will ever be how it was, but what if we're wrong? What if there was a way for us to get our old lives back?"

"I'm not sure I follow you," he admitted.

"I'm talking about Woodbury," she explained. "I've given it a lot of thought, and with the Governor out of the way, there's nothing to stop us from forming an alliance with them."

She could see that he wasn't convinced. "Think about it, Rick – we could be part of a community again. Carl could go back to school, Judith could have playdates with other children… We could have homes and jobs and medical care, and a nursery where we could grow our own food, so we wouldn't always have to worry about where our next meal was coming from."

"You really think they'll want us there after we killed a bunch of their people, including their leader?" he asked dubiously.

"Maybe, maybe not," she agreed. "But without the Governor and his militia those people are defenceless – you must have seen that. They're where we were a year ago. They may not like it at first, but I believe that they're smart enough to realise that they could benefit from having people like us around. Don't you think it's at least worth a shot?"

She could practically see the wheels turning inside his head as he considered the merits of this idea. "Their defences are a little weak," he allowed. "I bet if we had to, we could take the town by force."

"Let's just try it my way first, okay?" she insisted. "Then if diplomacy fails, we can consider taking a less democratic approach."

His shook his head, his expression somewhere between astonishment and disbelief.

"What?" she asked, frowning at him.

"I was just thinking about the woman who pulled a gun on me without knowing how the safety worked. And now here you are talking about assassination and going to war."

"I'm not the same person I was a year ago," she reminded him. A year ago she had naively believed that walkers were the biggest threat to their safety. She doubted Dale foresaw a situation like this when he tried to convince them all that cold-blooded murder could never justified.

"None of us are," he agreed. "I've gotta say, I'm impressed, Andrea. How'd you get so good at thinking like a soldier? The Governor teach you that?"

The contempt in his tone as he uttered the title wasn't lost on her. She rolled her dramatically eyes. "Please, Rick. I'm a lawyer – was a lawyer," she corrected herself, although in the back of her mind she couldn't help thinking that if her plan worked, maybe she could be again. They could all be what they were, or better yet, what they wanted to be.

He broke into a grin. "And damn good one, I'll bet if that argumentative streak of yours is anything to go by."

She tried to look modest. "My firm did have a ninety-nine per cent success rate."

"Is that right? Well, then, let's hope this isn't in that other one per cent."

"No pressure," she said with a pained grimace.

"No pressure," he echoed, his own expression grave, and she realised that he understood better than anyone the strain she had been under since she learning of the Governor's deceit.

All either of them had ever wanted was to protect the people they care about, and maybe together, they could make that happen.

There would be plenty of time to commiserate over the burden of leadership later, when the Governor was just a footnote in the history books she promised his people they would live to write one day.

Drawing on the same reservoir of strength she had discovered when she made that speech, she forced herself to look calm, self-assured, ironing the waver out of her voice as she said, "You can bet when he gets back to Woodbury, he's not going to rest on his laurels, which means we can't either. So why don't you go sober up and get some rest? Then when you're feeling like yourself again, we can talk about our next move. The next time we meet, I want to be ready."

For those of you who are waiting, I will update Shelter when I feel less angsty about what happened.