Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the writers, producers, et al of the television show 'The Walking Dead'. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, internet persona, or other being, living or dead, is completely coincidental and unintentional unless otherwise noted.
A/N: Everyone remember season one? Sorta? Kinda? Well, I was rewatching the whole series (love DVDs, don't you?) because I finally have a little time to do so (and managed to pick up season five, of which I had only managed to see the first two episodes) and something hit me out of nowhere that I'd never particularly noticed before. This is an AU that builds on that little detail that I somehow hadn't really attributed any importance to whatsoever.
The first act is pulled directly from S1E4 Vatos, though I went ahead and added bits here and there since we don't really see what the characters are thinking.
Though I've filed this under the characters of Rick and Daryl, this first chapter is more of a prologue and we won't see them until the second chapter. Sorry if this confuses you.
The Wrong Place
Chapter One: Inevitability
It's hot. Hot and humid and so painfully sunny. There's something about it all that's at once strange and new yet older than old. Older than history. Something he can't quite put his finger on. He's not entirely sure he wants to.
But this? It's not hard. Physically, he knows he should be in pain. Too sticky and overheated to make any sense. But there's ice. Even in the heat of high summer, there's ice. And it's flowing in his veins. He can feel it make a complete circuit. Can feel the squeezing pain as it passes through his heart. As it sears his lungs.
Despite what the thermometer might say, he's half-expecting to see winter fog pour from his lips on every exhale.
His hands, he knows, are numb. Rough with thick skin even before all the weirdness. Bleeding now, he's sure. There's something slick making it hard to hold the shovel and he doubts it's sweat.
There's a rhythm, too. Not in time with anything else. Maybe the ice, but maybe not. Scoop, scoop. Break apart the clusters of rocks. Fuck of a lot of rocks. Pickaxe? Maybe. Half-formed thoughts dance at the edges of his perception.
They don't matter.
He ignores them or simply doesn't notice them. Either is likely.
Distantly, he's aware that he's probably losing his mind.
It doesn't matter.
Only the holes opening up before him matter, though the reason has long since fled.
He had a reason. He had a reason. But somewhere between dreaming and waking and hiking up here with the shovel, that reason was shed and left behind like so much dead skin at a crime scene.
Then there's a familiar voice saying, "Jim, you okay?" in that concerned way that makes everyone so fucking sure that the man saying it genuinely cares for these people he's never met before.
But the words don't matter.
The man saying them doesn't matter.
He has to finish this task. The holes need dug, even if he can't remember why. He doesn't speak. Again, the voice pings off his focus. "Keep this up, you're gonna keel over out here."
Might be true.
Probably is true.
But the task needs done. He has to finish. He still doesn't know why. But there's the heat and the sun and the shovel and the ice. Always, the ice.
A flicker of blue – he knows, on some level, it's a canteen of water – skirts the edge of his vision. "Drink some water, at least," the voice implores. Worried. Worried about him.
He might have said, 'go away and leave me be', but he doubts it. The ice was passing by his voice at the time, so it might have just been a look. Does its job, though, however it was said.
Back to work.
Scoop. Break up the clusters of stone. Break apart tangled roots.
The holes need dug.
He's been at this for a while. Can feel it, distantly, turning his muscles into overused jelly that's going to stiffen up and hurt for at least a week. Doesn't care. It isn't important.
"Hey, Jim?" Another voice this time. More insistent than the last. A bullying sort of voice. He knows it like he knew the one from earlier. "Jim, why don't you hold up, all right?" He doesn't want to. The holes need dug. "Just give me a second here, please?"
It could have been 'please' that did it. Such an unexpected word from that mouth. He'll let them think it was, even though it wasn't. It was the ice. The heat. The holes themselves. "What do you want?" he says, leaning a little on his friend. On the shovel. On his trusty tool to finish his task.
"We're all just a little concerned, man," the voice hiding behind concern but still a bully says. "That's all."
A different voice, more traditional concern, all wrapped up in a light veneer of scared then adds, "Dale says you've been out here for hours."
He wants to laugh. To scream. To cry. Hours? Maybe. Days? More likely. Years? Even closer to the truth. He's been out here since the beginning of everything and will remain out here long past its quiet, whimpering end. Just him and the heat. The ice. The holes. "So?" he says.
That pushy, bullying voice replies with a dusting of humor, "So why are you digging? You heading to China, Jim?"
Could be. Might be. But isn't. He knows without knowing why or how that isn't it. The holes are here. He brought them into being like a woman brings forth a baby. He owns these holes. They own him. They and the ice and the heat. He doesn't know why, but knows why not. And Shane is wrong. "What does it matter?" he asks. "I'm not hurting anyone."
More work. Always more work to be done. Can't they see that? How is digging holes anyone's business? Why's it such a big deal? It's his task. His project. He may not remember why, but he does remember why here. It's out of the camp. Away from everyone. Up high, with a nice view, even through the heat-haze of high summer and the ice lurking just beneath.
That first voice is back, even more concerned than ever before. "Yeah," it says. "Except maybe yourself. It's a hundred degrees today. You can't keep this up."
And it is probably right, but these holes own him, and he'll give them every last thing he's got. His breath, his blood.
The ice in his heart.
"Sure I can!" he says, unsure where this absolute certainty comes from. Maybe the holes are speaking through him. "Watch me!"
The rhythm starts again, though it doesn't go far.
"Jim, they're not gonna say it, so I will," she says. That woman who's been hovering around camp like a mosquito and only half as useful sounds scared. Not concerned or worried but flat-out scared. Like he's gonna just turn around and kill them all in their sleep. "You're scaring people," she says, "you're scaring my son and Carol's daughter."
He pauses, his breath short. Was it this hard to breathe before they trotted up here to bother him? He can't remember. "They got nothing to be scared of," he manages between harsh gasps of hot and stale air. "I mean, what the hell, people?" This is bullshit. Total bullshit. He might not remember why the holes are so important, but he knows he picked here because it wasn't there. "I'm out here by myself. Why don't you all just go and leave me the hell alone?"
The holes need finishing, so he tries to recapture the aborted rhythm. "We think that you need to take a break, okay?" that bullying voice is closer than it was. "Why don't you go and get yourself in the shade. Some food, maybe. I'll tell you what, maybe in a little bit, I'll come out here and help you myself." It's crept even closer and he can see the man it belongs to is almost right on top of him. "Jim," the man says, "just tell me what it's about. Why don't you just go ahead and give me that shovel?"
That bullying voice hides well behind patronizing concern, but he can still hear it. "Or what?" he snaps. He's rapidly losing his patience – all this talk isn't getting those holes dug.
And the holes are important, even if he can't remember why.
The concern, patronizing or not, was a mask. He'd known that as soon as he'd heard it. But it's replaced with placating, and that's worse. "There is no 'or what'," the bullying voice says, though he's sure no one else can hear the bully hiding amid the words. "I'm asking you. I'm coming to you and I'm asking you, please. I don't want to have to take it from you."
His friend props him up, faithful to the last. "And if I don't," he says, "then what? Then you're gonna beat my face in like Ed Peletier, aren't you?" He can almost see his words slap that bully right across his smirking, hiding, patronizing face. "Y'all seen his face, huh?" he almost shouts, but can't quite find the volume. "What's left of it." The slight increase in volume dissipates as he looks the bully square in his trust-me eyes. "See," he says, softer. "That's what happens when someone crosses you."
It's plain, unadorned truth. In his experience, that was the one thing that bullies couldn't handle. This case is no different as the self-appointed leader of their ragtag group of survivors and refugees replies coldly, "That was different, Jim."
That blonde girl, the younger sister of the loudmouth lawyer, adds her two cents by tossing out, "You weren't there. Ed was out of control. He was hurting his wife."
Even though he'd never held with hitting women, he had a greater aversion to butting his nose into other people's business. Besides, the holes needed dug, and all this talking wasn't getting the job done. "That is their marriage," he says. "That is not his. He is not judge and jury." The fury he feels for busybodies almost – almost – manages to melt the ice. But not quite. "Who voted you king boss, huh?" he asks the bully.
He knows, even as he'd said it, that it was the worst thing he could've said. But, like the holes themselves, he couldn't stop. No one could stop what needed doing. What needs doing. What needs said.
That damn bully, hiding still behind his 'I was a cop' mask strides right up into his face, his hand out. "Jim, I'm not here to argue with you, all right?"
He wants to laugh in his face, but manages to restrain the urge. Maybe that ice was who he should thank for it. Maybe not. Maybe it was the holes. But maybe not.
His hand is out and reaching as he says, "Just give me the shovel, okay?"
Something in him snaps into panic-mode at the thought of handing over his shovel. His friend. He can't finish his task without the shovel! "No!" he says, trying to hold the tool out of that fucking bully's reach. He repeats it like a monk's prayer as the bully uses his height and bulk to try to get him to back down and cower like everyone else.
"Just give me the –"
He shoves him away. No conscious thought in the act, only the unerring certainty that if he loses his friend now, those holes won't be completed in time. In time for what is an entirely different question. One whose answer is too tied up in why for him to even guess at what the answers might be. All he knows is that it must be done, and he's the only one who can do it.
The bully isn't deterred by the shove; is even more intent on seizing Jim's precious shovel. He isn't about to let that fucker take the shovel, though, and spins it around so the blade is no longer pointed at the dirt.
"Jim!" the bully cries as he takes a swipe at him with the shovel's blade.
Too bad he misses.
He blames the ice.
That fucking bully tackles him, wrenches the shovel out of his grasp, and has the fucking audacity to shush him like an irritated infant!
"You got no right!" he shouts, repeating it as the ice circulates back through his voice, making subsequent repetitions in ever-decreasing volume. All the while Shane-Fucking-Walsh is shushing him. Pressing him into the ground. Securing his hands behind him.
He doesn't know why the holes. He knows why here. He knows he can't finish if they tie him up.
But it's inevitable.
He tries to stop them one more time, packing as much meaning as he can into a single word, "Don't!"
But they can't hear the meaning.
Maybe they have their own ice, and it's frozen their ears.
Or maybe they just plain don't give a shit.
Either is likely, but he's pretty sure it's the latter.
What that fucking bully is now murmuring at him finally sinks in as the ice steals the last of his fight. "Jim, nobody's gonna hurt you. You hear me? Nobody is gonna hurt you, okay?" It's punctuated with more infantile shushing.
He stops fighting. Somehow, he must make them understand. The holes are necessary.
Even if he can't remember why.
"That's a lie," he says, or thinks he does. To make sure it actually made it out into the world past the ice, he repeats it. "That's the biggest lie there is. I told that to my wife and my two boys. I said it a hundred times. It didn't matter. They came out of nowhere. There were dozens of 'em. Just pulled 'em right out of my hands."
He gazes directly at that fucking mosquito woman. The one with the son who shines brighter than that fireball overhead. "You know," he says, conversationally. "The only reason I got away was 'cause the dead were too busy eating my family."
Before they drag him back down to the camp, he can see sympathy and pity on her face.
No understanding.
No comprehension.
It's important that she understands.
He can feel it in his bones.
It's not as important as the holes up on the hill. Not yet. But he knows it's going to become that important later.
She needs to understand.
But words never were his strong suit.
They tie him to a tree. It's cooler in the shade and he knows that if he ever wants untied, if he wants the chance to finish his task, he's going to have to do what they want.
At least for now.
Until they go to bed, maybe.
Should be enough moonlight to finish the holes.
So, he sits quietly.
He doesn't think he needs to fake the dislocated gaze on his face – it's just a natural expression these days. A strong foundation of what-the-fuck, overlaid with God-help-us, and dusted with a sprinkling of this-can't-be-happening.
He isn't sure how long they leave him there. He does know they tied him up without so much as an offer on something to drink. How could the fucking assholes think he had heatstroke and fail to offer him a goddamn cup of motherfucking water? He doesn't think it was intentional, but he does think it was a subtle form of payback for worrying that fucking mosquito-woman. The mouse with the asshat husband. They might've said he was scaring the kids, but what sort of child gives a fuck what a grown-up is doing? Hell, the boy, at the very least, would have thought it fun to dig holes for the sake of digging holes! He knows this – his own sons would have helped, no questions asked.
Eventually, after what feels like weeks-months-decades tied to the damn tree, the fucking King of the Goddamn Hill strolls up, a bucket in his hands and kneels a few feet from him. The old coot with the fucked-up RV and shitty hat is standing guard a half-dozen paces behind him, rifle balanced on his shoulder. Like, tied to the tree, he could really be a threat of any sort.
King Asshole asks, "Jim, take some water?"
Finally! A trace of humanity from these dickwads! He never liked the elder Dixon brother, but there were times when his rants sometimes almost made sense.
Like when a self-appointed 'leader' decides to tie a 'heat-stroke victim' to a fucking tree without even offering water for what had to have been hours.
Especially when that 'victim' has better things to be tending.
He knows better than to let this show on his face, though. He needs the water. Especially if he's going to finish up those holes later. He simply nods a little. "All right," he agrees.
The water isn't cold. But it still manages to add to the ice flowing through his veins. He asks if some can be poured on his head. A reasonable request, requested reasonably, especially for a 'heat-stroke victim'. The damn bully actually complies with the request.
"How long you gonna keep me like this?" he asks in what he hopes is a suitably down-trodden voice. As long as they think he's compliant, as long as they think he's fine and fucking dandy, they're sure to let him go.
King of the Shitheap gives him this look, one that says, 'don't think I don't know what you're up to you fucking scumbag'. Out loud, though, his words are more child-friendly. "Well, yeah," he says. "Until I don't think you're a danger to yourself… or others."
He sighs inwardly. Bully or not, asshole or not, King of Shitville is sharp. He leans a little and speaks to Mosquito and Mouse, "Sorry if I scared your boy and your little girl." An apology is usually called-for in these types of situations, right? It couldn't hurt.
The mosquito looks a touch relieved. She says, "You had sunstroke. Nobody's blaming you," in a tone that tells him that she's trying to convince herself most of all.
Since the dead refused to lie down, what other sorts of fuckwittery will this world throw at them? He knows this is on her mind, and so doesn't begrudge her the lie.
Leveling his eyes on the little girl, he asks, "You're not scared now, are you?"
He can tell he was right – the girl hadn't been scared of him. She didn't know why he'd been digging those holes, but she didn't care. In either case, it wasn't something scare-worthy. It shows in her voice as she says, "No, sir."
He then shifts his attention to the boy. "Your mama's right. Sun just cooked my head is all."
He doesn't get the chance to see if he was as right about the boy as he'd been about the girl because Mr. Shitty RV pipes up with, "Jim, do you know why you were digging? Can you say?"
He wants to ask why it matters. He wants to shout at them that the holes just need dug. He wants to do neither and just march right back up there and finish what he started.
But none of those are an option.
"I had a reason," he says, then shrugs as much as his bonds will allow. "Don't remember." The old man nods at him in encouragement. Honestly, why the fuck do these people give a rat's ass about why he was digging holes? What fucking business is it of theirs? Why is digging a hole suddenly a jail-worthy offense? It wasn't like he was fucking someone else's wife, after all, or passing around a baggie of blue meth. He knows, though, that these idiots won't let him leave it at that. So he goes with the truth – or what he can remember of it. "Something I dreamt last night."
His eyes land again on the boy, and something about how he's watching everything makes a lightning flash scene from that dream spring forwards. Speaking directly to the boy, he says, "Your dad was in it. You were, too. You were worried about him. Can't remember the rest." And then, because he must know, he asks, "You worried about your dad?"
The boy just states the obvious, "They're not back yet."
Even as the boy's mosquito-mother interrupts with, "We don't need to talk about that," more jump-cuts of that fucking dream burst forth. There's no order, no real sense to the images, but that doesn't matter.
He says what those images revealed, speaking directly to the boy. "Your dad's a police officer, son. He helps people. Probably just came across some folks needing help, that's all. That man, he is tough as nails. I don't know him well, but I could see it in him." He glances at King Shit of Fuckville for confirmation. "Am I right?"
The bully nods and says, "Oh, yeah," like the endorsement of that asshat is of any use to anyone.
Returning his eyes to the boy, he finishes up with, "There ain't nothing gonna stop him from getting back here to you and your mom, I promise you that."
As King Shit and the children, followed distantly by the mouse, trail off, the mosquito ambles over like she's about to give him the mother of all tongue-lashings. Now, he wouldn't normally be averse, not if it were the good sort with a hint of teeth, but he doesn't want anything that's touched King Fuck's dick anywhere near him – who knows what you might catch? And besides, she's the boy's mother. Maybe she'll hear him. So he stops whatever she might have wanted to say by speaking first. "You keep your boy close," he says. "You don't ever let him out of your sight."
She leaves him, a disturbed look on her face.
He knows she heard him, but didn't understand.
How could he have explained? All those jump-cuts, those lightning flashes. Half of them were the fucking mosquito asking various other faces 'Where's Carl?' or 'Keep an eye on Carl for me' or 'has anybody seen my son?'
Some people should never have had children, and not because the kids were fuckups.
What he'd told the boy was true, though. The boy's father would walk through hell itself – will walk through hell itself – just for the slim hope of returning to his family.
He'd seen it.
He'd dreamt it.
The boy's father, covered in blood, unable to stand without swaying, and still refusing to back down.
The boy himself, a gun held awkwardly in his too-small grip, being told something to the effect that it was time to grow the fuck up already.
There were other flashes, but they were fading.
And none of them told him why the goddamn holes were so motherfucking vital.
He closes his eyes and tries to hammer his brain into showing him the answer to that particular question.
But the ice won't budge, and the memories remain locked and frozen away.
Eventually, King Bully Fuckwit the First of Shithole Peak strolls over like he gives a fuck. "Hey, Jim," he says like he's suddenly besties. "How you feeling, man?"
Jim really wants nothing more than to scratch the asshole's eyes from his skull, maybe take a shit down his throat for afters, but says, "I'm better." Means it, too, for the most part. "More myself now."
He lets King Shitheap drone on about a timeout or whatever benign-seeming bullshit the fucker has to tell himself in order to sleep tonight. He makes the right noises in the right places and they finally – finally – untie him from that goddamn tree. He thinks he may be developing a hatred for trees, what with how fucking much he wants to turn that one into kindling. He hides it, though. First, there's food he needs to eat, and later, after everyone else has gone to bed, he can finally get back to his holes.
They aren't finished yet, after all.
And they're still important.
He quickly wolfs down some fried fish. He doesn't even know if it's good or not – he can't taste it. He eats too quickly. Luckily, it's dark and no one seems to notice. Otherwise, he's sure those assholes would tie him back to the tree for 'scaring' them. Never mind the fact that he did actual work this morning. Never mind the fact that he was given precisely one drink of water all fucking day. Never mind the fact that none of these fucking do-gooders even asked if he was okay while tied to that damn tree.
He doesn't care. Food is fuel, and he's got miles to go before he sleeps. Promises to keep.
Holes to dig.
Conversation he doesn't pay any attention to floats around him on the campfire smoke. Something about Ol' Shitty RV's wristwatch. Some fucked-up Faulkner the man mangles nearly beyond recognition.
The blonde girl – not the mouse's daughter, the other one, the loudmouth's sister – she says something about being discrete. And then the floodgates open.
The scales fall from his eyes.
Or whatever.
The dream.
The motherfucking dream.
Every last detail.
Blood and screaming and death and fire and darkness.
And then it's not playing in his head any more.
He's living it.
The dream flashes merge with what his senses manage to communicate around the ice blocking everything and he can't tell where the dream ends and reality begins.
Or if they were ever separate to begin with.
He fights.
Of course he fights.
He can't not.
The ice wants him to.
The holes need him to.
So he fights.
In the dream, at the camp.
It doesn't matter if he's fighting within the dream or in the real world.
The dream is the real world is the dream is real is a dream…
Suddenly, there's silence.
A single long breath, as though the world herself sighed.
And then noise begins to filter back in.
The children are whimpering. Most of the women, too. The loudmouth is louder than ever, sobbing her sister's name.
He knows they need to hear it. Knows, too, that they aren't ready to hear it. But he says it anyway.
It's fate.
"I remember my dream now. Why I dug the holes."
Maybe now they'll let him finish his goddamn job.
It's not like he's got forever, after all. Only a day at the outside.
And, now that the ice is melting, the holes need dug.
A/N2: This tale is finished, but I'm only planning to post one chapter every couple of days at the most. It will be about four chapters, unless I do a little editing.
I hope y'all like this. It's gonna be kinda a weird one for me, particularly since I almost never write in present-tense. Lemme know what y'all think, alright?
