Rick no longer simply wakes up. He gets ripped from his dreamless sleep with his heart pounding, adrenaline readying him for whatever may have changed since his eyes closed. A shift in the breeze, a new sound, an impatience with himself for being defenseless for any period of time. His body now hates being vulnerable as much as his mind does.
Wide-eyed, he looks around the unfamiliar room, searching for what woke him. He's in the infirmary supply room. Right. He remembers sitting down on the small bench, needing a second alone. He doesn't remember closing his eyes. How long had it been? Daylight still streams in from the small windows, but now with the pinkish foreshadowing of evening. More than an hour. Less than two. The most sleep he's gotten in the last couple of days.
A high-pitch baby giggle is coming from the other side of the closed door. Judith is apparently being entertained. He pushes back the guilt of not tending to his baby and allows himself a moment of gratitude for the people helping him carry this particular load.
Rick rises from the bench, his blooded soaked clothes cracking with his movements. He should really change out of them, but he has more important things to tend to now. He stands on wobbly, exhausted legs and leaves the room.
In the makeshift waiting room in the infirmary Judith laughs, now held tightly in the arms of Abraham. Abraham handles the baby as surely as he handles a gun, and wasn't that still a surprise. His daughter coos and speaks nonsense to the military man as he answers her in exaggerated seriousness to the delight of the Denise and a smirking Tara. Daryl and Sasha seemed to be in the middle of a good-natured debate about... projectile strength? Carol worked outside the group, as always now, fiddling with some type of casserole dish, now firmly wrapped in the old cloak of her happy homemaker persona. It's not fooling anyone anymore, but perhaps it's more of a comfort to her than she'd like to admit.
The high from a rare win and the reality of the aftermath put them all through the emotional wringer, leaving them all a little more raw in the end.
And there were new faces in crowd as well. Well, not new exactly, but the faces of folks with names he hadn't bothered to remember. Names he'd forced himself to forget before they became something else to lose. But, looking at them, now clean, Rick couldn't help but think of the gore and crust that had been caked in their clothes and skin two nights ago when they'd all banded together to take back their town. They had been almost indistinguishable from the people he'd fought along side of for years. Standing beside them, fighting through the rotting and bloody mess that had become this new world, together pushing back against all the nastiness that wanted to consume them, he could no longer deny that they're his people too.
They were all here to support him. Their last leader. His son fighting for his life upstairs. The tragedy of losing the other children still present even in the relief of surviving themselves.
That night, he'd hated the Alexandrians for the luck that had kept them weak for so long. Hated how he'd loved that weakness in Jessie and there was physical pain in wondering if his ego killed that family. He hated that he'd risked his own family trying to save people who couldn't save themselves. Above all, hated what his decisions cost his son.
These new failures settled on his shoulders to join his old ones. Added weight that he was still learning to breathe under.
Rick shook off any pity directed at him by the Alexandrians and walked through the group without a word. He shares a nod of thanks with Abraham and goes to the recovery room in the rear of the infirmary as conversation resumed, though now more subdued.
The loudest sound here a slow clear voice coming from the curtain enclosed space on the left.
Still and pale, Carl lies on the bed as Michonne sits at his bedside in the large floral armchair, reading to him from a well worn book, her sword beside her ready for whatever comes through the door. Rick wills his body not to give out on him as he's hit with the bone-deep relief of seeing Carl breathing, some part of him still expecting to find the worst. Always expecting to find the worst. His son, almost a young man, looks like a child again. It's been days and still no real sign of improvement from him.
Half his face is obscured by white gauze. His beautiful boy, the last piece from his life with Lori, the best parts of himself and her, now forever marred. But as painful as it is to see his son this way, the cosmetic implications were the least of Rick's worries.
Rick clears his throat causing Michonne's hand to fly towards her katana as she notices him. He smiles in silent apology for startling her as she sends back a half-hearted smirk at her over-reaction.
Looking into the eyes of the woman sitting by his son's bedside, Rick saw the quiet strength that he'd come to rely on more than he wanted to admit. Still wearing her own bloody clothing, Rick knew there was nowhere Carl would be safer. He glanced at the book she still held in her hand.
"Harry Potter?"
"It's a classic."
"It's for little kids."
"That's what Carl said when I first found it, but this is the Half-Blood Prince. Definitely some PG-13 entertainment."
Rick chuckled as he sat down in the small plastic chair that Michonne brought in last night when their roles were reversed and he'd spoken to Carl while she sat in silence, both of them keeping vigil.
"Lori used to read them to him. Before. She made him stop because she thought they got too dark."
"Huh. He must have finished them on his own because I know he thinks the Deathly Hallows ending is too sappy," said Michonne.
She looked Rick's hands, uncharacteristically fidgeting with Carl's blanket fringe. She put one hand over his and squeezed for a second, forcing him to meet her eyes.
"He's always been a tough kid. He can handle it," said Michonne.
Rick recognized the look she was giving him. It was the look that dared him to disagree with her. He felt something in his chest right itself. Breathing was a little easier. He reached across the bed and took Carl's hand into his own. Let himself feel the calluses and the still faint pulse. Let himself believe.
"He's always been a tough kid. He can handle it.," he said.
And somehow in that tiny chair, beside his best friend and holding the hand of his son, Rick found himself falling back to sleep listening to the exploits of wizards.