Liberosis – The desire to care less about things.
Metal hits dirt, digs in, lifts, throws, and swings down again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until arms grow tired, sweat streaming, keep pushing anyway.
Rick pants from the exertion, but he can't stop. He flashes briefly to that time with Jim. Jim, who they left by the side of a road to become one of them. Jim, the mechanic who dug exactly as many graves as they needed.
Jim. Amy. Jacqui. Sophia.
He keeps digging, closing his eyes against the sun and his tears. The earth gives way under the old, dented, rusty shovel as he digs, slowly but surely clearing away the dirt to form a dark, cold hole in the ground. Really, they're lucky if they get that much, in this world. To be buried and left with a marker, some sign of closure, that there had once been a life to be commemorated, rather than a raise of eyebrows as someone looks around, and a bitten lip and shake of the head. Tears shed later, once safety is once again within reach, or never, because it's never safe enough. Is it luckier to be torn apart by walkers or to be torn apart by those who are supposed to be your friends? And dammit, Shane – Shane didn't get the grave, or the tears, or even a chance to realize what was going on, when it came down to it. Rick wiped his face with the back of his arm, took a step back to gauge the size of the hole in the ground, then went back to work.
There hadn't been enough left of T-Dog to bury. Lori, either, but he didn't think about her most days. Dale had a grave. He'd helped dig it. With Andrea, there hadn't been time. There wasn't a force on earth that could've stopped Daryl from burying his brother, not that anyone had tried.
One of Rick's greatest regrets was that he hadn't found Hershell, in the aftermath. Michonne said he'd been taken care of, but she wouldn't talk about it, not even to Maggie.
He couldn't reach far enough to keep digging, so he jumped in the hole himself, feeling the cool dirt along the wall he'd created with one calloused hand. Rick took a deep, steadying breath, and got back to work.
There had been so many bodies, over and over again. Beth, Bob. Who was next? It was always a question on his mind, always, always, which face would he never see again, which of the family he'd made for himself would be the next to be ripped away from him? There was only so much he could take. Rick jammed the shovel into the wall.
Abraham, Eugene, Rosita, Tara, Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Carol, Michonne, Daryl, Carl, Judith, Judith, Judith-
He'd fight for them, die for them, kill for them, had killed for them, would and will kill again for them. To keep them safe, nothing was out of limits.
"We don't kill people," he echoed with a snort. "People don't kill us," he revised through his teeth, shoving the metal into the dirt as his tears splashed at his feet.