"What happened?"
She walks into the empty bedroom at Hilltop, him pressed into her side. She closes and locks the door behind them, and then half-carries him to the large bed in the middle of the room, her arm around his waist, his hanging across her shoulders. When they reach the bed, she gently sits him up on the mattress. As soon as she lets him go, he lurches forward, and for a second she thinks he's going to fall over onto the floor, until he places his hands on his thighs, catching himself. She sees his back move up and down as he takes two deep breaths.
"Where's Carl?" he rasps.
"With Aaron," she reminds him gently, settling on the bed next to him, close enough that their legs touch. "He said he wasn't going to be able to sleep. That he wanted to do something. So Aaron told him to come keep watch with him. It was just downstairs, before we came up. Don't you remember?"
He exhales, his head still hanging. After a moment, he nods, almost imperceptibly.
She bites down on her lower lip, and then brings her hand to rest on his thigh, her fingertips just grazing his, her thumb smoothing the dirty denim of his jeans.
"What happened?" she repeats.
He doesn't answer her. She notices that his whole body is shaking slightly, and she moves her hand on his leg to cover his more, but he flinches at her touch. She freezes, drops her hand, tries not to let it hurt her. She knows he doesn't mean it like that.
She closes her eyes and turns away from him. When she opens them, she's greeted with a blurred picture of the sun just starting to peek out from behind the horizon, her unshed tears clouding her sight as she looks out the window.
"What did he do to you?"
The words are barely more than a whisper, but she knows he can hear them in the still room. But again, he offers her no explanation. Instead, all she hears are his unsteady breaths, him heaving and exhaling in irregular patterns – the sound of him crying. Her lips quiver before she slides off the mattress and onto her knees in front of him.
She reaches up slowly, placing her hands on his cheeks, ignoring the way he flinches again. She keeps her grip on him, lifting his head until she can see his face, watches his tears fall from behind closed eyelids. And it is this sight that finally makes her own spill over.
"Rick," she nearly whimpers.
He takes another deep breath before dragging his eyes open, both of them red, puffy, and bloodshot. The pain on his face takes root inside her, cuts open her heart and burns as it flows through her veins.
"Rick," she breathes, her voice breaking, water flowing down her cheeks freely. "What did he do to you?"
He squeezes his eyes shut for just a moment before opening them again, shaking his head back and forth, a half-strangled sob surfacing from deep inside his chest.
She's never seen him like this; she's seen him bleed, she's seen him cry, she's watched him get dragged through hell and back. But she's never seen this. She's never seen him come out looking like this.
She's never seen him completely and utterly broken before.
And she swears to herself, right then and there, that she will kill Negan. That she will not die before she gets to stand over that man and watch his life leave his body.
She leans up slightly, bringing her face to his, running her nose up his and to his forehead before stopping and inhaling him twice. She feels his feather-light touch run down her sides until his hands land on her hips. She turns her head slightly, letting her lips pass over his skin before beginning to stand up and pull away. His grip on her hips tightens in protest.
"I'll be right back," she assures him softly, stepping into him, letting her fingers fall into his hair. "I promise."
She waits until she feels him nod into her stomach before she extricates herself from him, walking into the bathroom adjacent to their room, digging through cabinets and drawers until she finds towels, washcloths, soap, shampoo, and a first aid kit. After placing the items on the sink, she reenters the bedroom. Rick sits unmoved on the bed, having returned to his original, slumped-over position. She walks over to him again. He looks at her unprompted now, and it seems like his tears have slowed the tiniest bit. She stands in front him, gazing into his eyes for just a moment before crouching down, taking his foot, and beginning to pull off his boot.
"You don't have to –"
"Yes I do," she tells him, peeling off his sock and already starting on the second boot. "I do have to. And even if I didn't, I'd still want to."
He doesn't protest anymore, and after she's done with his feet, she stands up, settling herself down on his lap, straddling him. She unzips his jacket and pushes it off his shoulders, and then reaches down and pulls his t-shirt over his head. She pushes him back onto the bed, and shimmies off of him to undo his belt and unbutton his jeans, lifting his ass and pulling his pants and his underwear off in one swoop.
He keeps laying and simply watches her as she stands and quickly undresses in front of him. She uses her headband to tie her hair on top of her head, and then reaches out to him, offering her hand. He takes it, and she pulls him up off the bed, leads him into the bathroom. She takes one of the towels and shakes it out, laying it on the floor like a blanket. She instructs him to sit, and he does, back against the tub, legs stretched out in front of him. She takes a washcloth and wets it with hot water. Then she grabs the first aid kit and sits down by his legs, facing him, pulling her knees up to her chest. She stares at him, and he gazes back at her. He doesn't speak, and his shoulders still slump, but at least he looks at her. His eyes glisten with tears, and she tries desperately to take some comfort in the fact that they've seemed to stop falling for the moment.
She reaches out, touches the washcloth to his face, and begins to wipe at the blood on his cheeks.
"Were you bit?" she asks, her heart pounding in her chest.
"No," he murmurs, dropping his gaze to the floor.
"Were you scratched?"
He shakes his head, bringing his hand into his lap to pick at some imaginary mark on his leg. She lets herself exhale just the tiniest bit.
They sit in silence, her cleaning his skin, him still fiddling with his fingers. Once she's wiped the majority of the blood off, she goes to put the rag to the side, but he stops her – reaching out, grabbing her forearm, and opening her hand, taking the cloth from her.
Her eyes question him, and he shrugs.
"You, too."
She hesitates for a moment, and then brings her hand up to her cheek, feeling the dried blood splattered over the left side of her face under her fingertips. She's almost surprised. In all the chaos, drowning in her worry over him and Carl and the rest of her family, she'd forgotten herself.
He hadn't. Despite everything, he hadn't forgotten her.
He leans towards her, takes her hand and places it back in her lap before pressing the terry against her skin. The water is only lukewarm now, and she shivers.
He rubs the washcloth harder against her face, as if he's not only trying to remove the blood, but also the memory of Negan smashing in the skull of their friend with his bat again and again. Trying to wash away the picture of Abraham – loud, boisterous, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes a dick, but their friend, nonetheless – cracking open, his brain spilling out onto the forest floor.
Trying to erase the memory of Glenn…
He's not succeeding, but she doesn't tell him, instead letting the fabric make her skin sore. She closes her eyes as the scene replays in her head, and her eyes fill again. She flicks her eyelids open, sees him focus on his task, but with two fresh tear streaks marring his cheeks.
He finishes, cleaning her to the best of his ability, before sighing and handing the washcloth back to her. She takes it and throws it into the basin of the sink.
She opens the first aid kit and grabs a cotton pad, opening the small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and pouring some onto the pad.
"Thank you," she tells him.
"I had to," he breathes, echoing her words to him. "And even if I didn't, I'd want to."
She smiles sadly.
He winces when she first presses the cotton to the marks on his face, and she scoots forward, setting her free hand on his thigh, whispering a soft apology. He shakes his head, and she thinks he tries to turn his lips up into a small smile, but all that manages to pass across his face is a pained grimace.
After she's done cleaning his wounds, she throws the cotton pad in the trashcan, and closes the first aid kit, reaching up to place it back on the sink. She rests her head on her knees, staring at the hand she's placed on his leg, rubbing gentle circles into his skin. They sit in silence for a few minutes, and she just listens to him breathing, air still passing shakily through his nostrils and into his lungs. Finally, she speaks.
"I had a son."
She shifts her gaze in time to see his head snap up with a jerk, his eyes wide as her stares at her. She sees him start to open his mouth, but she shakes her head, continuing before he can say anything.
"I'm not telling you this so you can feel sorry for me. I'm not trying to say that what happened to me was worse than what you've – what we've – just gone through. I..."
She inhales and exhales slowly, steeling herself.
"I've wanted to tell you for a while, I just didn't know how. Didn't know how to casually bring up my dead kid. We were just so happy."
Her voice breaks, and she can feel her tears well up again behind her eyes, as she thinks back. Back even to the morning, as she lied beside him in bed, his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her against him. His lips on her bare skin, dropping soft kisses on her shoulder, her breast, down her body.
She struggles to reconcile herself with the idea that those moments occurred less than twenty-four hours ago. It seems like another lifetime. And she supposes that it is, in a way. Things had changed, permanently.
Their lives would never be the same.
"I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I just need you to listen."
She glances up at him again, and he nods, placing his hand over hers on his leg.
"His name was Andre," she tells him, adverting her eyes, staring at the white porcelain of the tub in front of her. The corners of her mouth involuntarily turn up as she feels his name roll off her tongue.
"Andre Anthony. His father's name was Mike. We'd been together for six years. We lived in a condo in Atlanta. I was a lawyer, but I took a break after Andre was born. I worked at this neat, little art gallery right in the middle of the cultural district downtown a few days a week. Mike was teaching at one of the local colleges, and working on getting his doctorate in rhetoric."
She feels a pang in her heart as she thinks back on her family, on the loved ones that she'd lost, the life that had been ripped from her.
"I had everything I ever wanted," she whispers wistfully. "Everything I hadn't even thought to wish for. I had it. All of it."
She laughs once.
"I guess it makes sense, in a way. How everything fell apart. Nothing that perfect can last forever."
His grip on her hand tightens. She turns up her palm, and laces their fingers together.
"Andre was three when everything happened," she continues. "We went to a refugee camp just outside the city when it started to get bad with Mike's best friend, Terry. Everything was okay for awhile. Until it wasn't."
She looks up at him briefly, sees that she still has all of his attention, his blue eyes fierce, still watery, boring into her.
"We started to run out of supplies. And first it was just little things, like soap. And then it was bigger things. And then it was food. And once you run out of food, everything goes to shit.
"And on top of that, the four of us weren't in the best of shape. Mike and Terry – they weren't built for this world. I could see that they were already starting to give up. And I knew that if I wanted to save them, if I wanted to keep them alive – if I wanted to keep my son alive – I had to start being proactive. I had to start doing things."
She pauses, unfolds one of her legs and stretches it out against his.
"A group was going out on a run," she whispers, "and I decided to go with them. The camp didn't really have any centralized system set up, so I knew that if I wanted anything significant for us, I had to go and find it myself. I told Mike and Terry to watch Andre. We were only gone for a few hours. Three, I think. And when I got back…"
She trails off, biting her lip, squeezing her eyes shut at the burning across her chest in response to the memory, a slow-moving fire pushing against her ribs. She hears him shift, and soon his arms encircle her as he pulls her towards him, against him, laying his ear over hear heart. She folds her hands around his head, threading her fingers through the curls near the nape of his neck.
"It was overrun. There were so many of them, just wandering aimlessly around, through the rows of tents. I don't know where they came from, or how we didn't see them when we left. There were so many."
His hands stroke her back, slowly moving up and down her muscles.
"I ran. Without thinking about it. I ran and I ran and when I got to our tent, Terry was sitting in the corner with his head in his hands and Mike was holding Andre. I took him out of his arms, and his little body was so limp, and he was barely breathing, and he was so warm already, and I looked at his arm and…"
Her tears fall steadily, plopping into his hair. He burrows himself further into her.
"The tent reeked of weed," she scoffs, sucking in shallow breaths. "They were high, Rick. Instead of taking care of Andre – instead of protecting my perfect little baby boy – the smoked and got high.
"I just held him and held him. And I talked to him and told him that I was there, that Mommy was there, and everything was going to be okay. And he reached up and wrapped his little fingers around a piece of my hair, and I just held him. I held him until he stopped breathing. His hand let go of my hair and he was…gone. My son. The boy I'd held every day for three years. This little life that I'd grown inside me. He was just gone."
She pauses, stares off, sees nothing.
"And then I put my sword through his head," she murmurs evenly.
Rick squeezes her so fiercely that for a moment she can't breathe. Then he loosens his grip, pulls back to look her in the eyes, lifts his hand up to gently cup her face. His eyes are puffy and red again, just as much as they'd been before she brought him into the bathroom. Whether he was crying for what Negan had done to their family or for her and Andre, she didn't know. He was probably crying for both.
"I should have killed him before he turned," she tells him, closing her eyes, ashamed of herself. "I shouldn't have let him become one of them. I should have killed him as soon as I got back. As soon as I found the three of them. But I – "
Her voice cuts off abruptly as a sob wracks her body.
He coos, "Sweetheart," his voice breaking.
She opens her eyes, finds him shaking his head back and forth slowly and deliberately.
"I couldn't do it," she cries. His thumb wipes her cheek, trying to dry some of her rapidly falling tears.
"Not while he was alive. Not while he was still breathing. I couldn't."
She brings her hand up to his on her cheek, wraps her fingers around it so tightly. If it hurts him, he doesn't complain.
She sniffles, takes a breath, and tries to make the water seeping from her eyes ebb.
"Those walkers Merle told you about just after we met? The ones I had with me, with no jaws and no arms?"
"Yeah?" he answers.
"They were Mike and Terry. I let them turn, then made it so they couldn't hurt me. And at first, when I was towing them around, I didn't even know that they protected me from the walkers. I told myself that I was punishing them, not letting them go. Parading them around on some twisted walk of shame. But I think…I think it was more for me. I was punishing myself. I wanted to remind myself every moment of every day that I had failed. That I killed Andre. That I failed all three of them."
"Sweetheart."
She brings her free hand up and presses her fingers to his lips gently.
"Just listen. I'm almost done, I promise."
She sighs, looking down at the tile floor.
"I wasn't me," she begins. "After they died, all those months I was alone – I was gone. I might as well've been dead too. I was moving. I was breathing. But I wasn't alive. I had nobody. I didn't feel anything. I was just going through the motions: killing walkers, looking for food, trying to stay hidden from everyone. I didn't want to. I didn't even know why I was."
She hesitates, decides to divert from her point a bit.
"I know why I was now. Why I was fighting. Why I felt the need to keep going."
She drags her eyes up to look at him, liquid threatening to spill from her eyes again, but this time from a reason other than sadness.
"I was supposed to find you all. I was supposed to find Andrea, and she was supposed to start to help me heal. She was supposed to lead me to the prison – to your group. I was supposed to find a new family. I was supposed to meet Judith and Carl, and take care of them and love them."
She moves her hand from his lips and reaches behind his head, tangling her fingers in his hair again.
"I was meant to find you. I was meant to fall in love with you."
She hears him inhale sharply. And she can't help herself. She crawls into his lap, wraps herself around him. She feels his lips press on the top of her head.
"And I am. I'm in love with you. I'm so in love with you, and I was afraid I was never going to get to tell you. When they took me and Glenn."
She pauses, has to suck in a breath at the mention of his name.
"I was afraid that I was going to never see you again. And you would never hear me say it. And then, when he lined us all up, I was so scared it was going to be you or Carl. I was praying that it would be me, that he would pick me. Just so it wouldn't be one of you.
"And then when he picked Abe, I was relieved for a second. And the second time, I was relieved again, just the tiniest bit. And I hate that I felt that. I hate it, and I feel so selfish. I hate to admit there was a hierarchy of who I wanted to die. But there was. I couldn't help it. Even after you two, there were people that would've hurt more than others.
"And then, when he took you."
She begins to shake as the memories race through her head.
"I was so scared. I wanted to scream, I was so scared. I hadn't told you I loved you. I just got you. And I hated the fact that I hadn't done anything. I felt sick. That he had just taken you, and told us you might not come back. And I didn't do anything. I didn't even try. I just kept kneeling there, and let him take you."
She feels his lips against her hair again.
"He would've killed you if you had," he says bluntly.
"I would've been dead anyway," she murmurs into the crook of his neck. "If he hadn't brought you back, I would've died, just like I did after Andre. And I wouldn't have come back this time. There would've been no reason to. There's no one after you. No one."
She punctuates her words with a kiss to his collarbone.
"But you didn't die. Carl didn't die. I didn't die."
She stops speaking for a few long moments, turning her head and resting her ear over his heart, listening to it beat.
"Losing Andre, that was the worst pain I've ever felt. It was even worse than the pain I feel now, if you can believe it. There's nothing worse than losing your child. Nothing worse than having your baby die in your arms. Nothing even come close."
She pulls her head away from his body, grabs his chin with three of her fingers and tilts it down towards.
"You brought me back from that. You and Carl. You brought me back from nothing. You, and how I feel for you. You reminded me of all the good things that exist in the world. You showed me that they were still there, and that I could have them again. You, and your love for me, and mine for you. It showed me that we got to start over. That we got to try again. That we get to come back," she declares fervently, echoing the words he spoke to The Governor on that fateful day at the prison.
She sits up, turning and straddling his legs, holding his face in her hands.
"You didn't let me disappear. And I promise you that I won't let you disappear, either. It's going to be so easy to allow yourself to slip, to drown in the pain. But I'm not going to let you. I'm not going to let you go, whether you want me to in the moment or not. I love you too much. And I'm not going to let you go away. I'm not going to let you die like I did. I swear to you, on my life. I'm not going to let you get lost."
She pauses as she watches a solitary tear fall down his cheek. She presses her thumb to it, stops its descent.
"You just don't let me get lost either, okay?"
He turns his head to press his lips against her palm.
"Never," he whispers solemnly.
"Thank you. I love you," she tells him again. He closes his eyes as she scratches the stubble covering his jaw. She stands up and grabs the soap and shampoo.
"Now let's get a shower, so we can rest a little before we go home and see Judy."
"I want to go now," he mutters towards the ground.
"Me too," she admits. "But we'll never make it home like this. We need to rest."
She places the items the items on the side of the tub and then turns the water on, adjusting it until it's just cool enough for her to handle it. Usually she would make the water lukewarm, but she didn't care right now. They deserved a hot shower.
"I don't know if I can," he tells her sheepishly as she reaches out to him.
"I'll help you."
He stares at her open hand for a few seconds before grabbing it. She pulls him up, and he wobbles a bit as his feet touch the ground. She puts her hands on his torso to steady him.
"I told you."
"Don't worry," she assures him. "I've got you."
"Yeah. You've always got me."
"You're damn right I do."
She thinks she sees the corner of his mouth turn up at that, but it falls so quickly that she can't tell if she imagined it or not.
She steps into the tub first, and then guides him in with her. He pulls the curtain closed behind him. His eyes close as the water beats against his body, and she reaches up to push the hair out of his face before bending down, covering her hands with soap, and going to work.
She sees and feels his body react to her as she moves up and down his body, caresses his skin with the utmost care. Once she decides that she's cleaned him sufficiently, she grabs the shampoo. She stands on her tiptoes to work it into his hair, and he moves his head into her touch, a low growl escaping him from deep inside his throat. She feels his erection press into her stomach.
Once she's helped him rinse his hair, he grabs the soap and shampoo, washing her from head to toe, his hands, and occasionally his lips, touching her. He runs his hands over her like she is the most precious thing in the world.
They stand across from each other after he's finished, gazing. The water is still hot, and the steam it's created dances back and forth in the space between them. Rivulets of water flow down his pale skin in thin streams. He reaches out to her, grabs her hips and pulls her towards him. He leans his head down, touching his lips to hers so lightly, mouth open. She deepens the kiss immediately, pressing herself flush against him, rubbing her tongue along his lower lip before allowing it to enter his mouth to find his. He strokes his tongue against hers, bites and nibbles at her upper lip just so. She moans against his mouth, the water still pounding against them.
He rotates them, never breaking their kiss, moving her until her back hits the wall, and he uses his lower body to hold her in place against the tile.
He pulls back, props himself up against the wall by putting his arms on either side of her head.
"I need you," he rasps, his voice like gravel.
"You've got me."
He exhales roughly, before bending back down and devouring her lips with his. He leaves the kiss with a suck and a pop, and she is about to protest before he moves his mouth to the spot just below her ear, making a path with the tip of his tongue across and under her jaw, down her neck, and to her shoulder. She feels a pinch as he uses his teeth again to nip at her skin. He runs his tongue over the spot before speaking into her skin.
"But I need you," he nearly whimpers, pressing his lower body into her again until she wraps her legs around his waist. "I need to know you're really here with me. I need to feel you. I need to know you're real. I need to know you're here."
She pushes his head back, stares into his eyes as she nods, showing him that she understands, that she needs him too. He nuzzles his cheek against hers, before placing his lips to her ear. She hears his breathing increase in speed, and his low groan as he slips inside of her. She sighs, feels every muscle in her body welcome him to her. Her eyes close, and she leans her head back against the wall, savoring the feeling of him.
It's like she's just come home. But she pauses, correcting the thought that floats through her mind. She is home. He is her home, has been since long before that night on the couch. And as long as she had him, nothing could break her completely. They could survive this, as long as he was beside her. They would get through this immense hurt - this devastation - as long as they were together.
She grabs his face, brings his forehead to rest against her own. They breathe each other in. The water running down his face plops onto hers. She tilts her head to plant a kiss on his nose as he begins to move his hips against her. Her legs tighten around his waist.
"I'm here."