Robert Kirkman just took a shit in my heart. Spoilers for issue 100.
Prompt #98: Numbers
Andrea has twenty-three freckles on her face and several others on her shoulders.
He lays next to her as she sleeps, and when he's done counting he counts them again. Twenty-three on her face and several others on her shoulders, though it's too dark to count those.
So he keeps counting the ones on her cheeks. Again and again. Because if he doesn't count them...
If he lets his mind wander...
One, two, three. Again and again. Twenty-three and he starts over.
He can't stop. He can't think about the horrors of that night. He can't let his mind take him back to that road and...
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. This time he thinks he finds a twenty-fourth one but it turns out to be a fleck of dust. He runs his finger through her skin to wipe at it and begins to count again.
Six, seven, eight.
He hears and feels movement in the house. He thinks Carl has gotten out of bed for a glass of water. But it's not Carl. When he hears the weeping he knows he's not the only one still awake.
Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.
The weeping gets a little louder and he closes his eyes and breathes hard. He loses count of the freckles and then he's there, on the side of the road. The screams and the crying and the blood. The rage and his inability to do something. Brain matter splashing everywhere and ending the life of his friend, his dear friend, his brother.
The images are intense and horrific and he can't help the groan that comes out of him as he tries to block them from his memory. He tries to count again, but he can't see the freckles, can't see her face anymore. Only the bat, the blood, the look of horror, the cries.
He feels something grip at his hand hard and he realizes he's woken her up. Her eyes are light blue and filled with concern as she looks at him. She's mourning, too, but not like him and he's glad. He's glad she wasn't there. He's glad she didn't get to see it. So glad he left her behind, safe. Because if she'd been there. If it had been her instead of Glenn...
"Can't sleep?"
Rick shakes his head. He's exhausted, beyond measure, but he forces his eyes to remain open.
If he sleeps he knows what he's gonna dream about.
He doesn't have to tell her anything. She knows him better than anyone and can read him easily. When she cups his cheek with her hand he turns towards it and places a kiss on her palm. Once again he's been reminded of how easily it could all end. Either the walkers get to you, or people do. Ultimately he knows she's right - they deserve some happiness in this new world, they need to continue living. But fear and doubt are in his heart once again.
If it had been her out there. It could have been her. So easily could have been her. Or Carl.
Maggie's weeping reminds him it wasn't her or Carl. It was Glenn and the images come back.
He sighs heavily. The memories stay with him. He can still hear it, too, and he feels a shiver run through his spine as he recalls Glenn badly beaten, yet still crying for Maggie. Sweet, young Glenn who died loving. The boy who found him in the middle of nowhere in Atlanta and brought him to his family. Glenn who until his very last breath did so much for him, for them, for all of them.
He feels a lump in his throat at the thought. "He saved my life." His voice is raw and raspy from all the shouting and the anger. "If it hadn't been for him..." He doesn't even want to think what would have happened that day if he hadn't run into Glenn in Atlanta. He'd be dead for sure.
Andrea shakes her head stubbornly and looks at him with sympathy as her thumb runs through his cheekbone. "Rick, it's not your fault."
He hears the words but he can't accept them. It was his choice to leave for the Hilltop. His choice to antagonize Negan. His choice to listen to Jesus. His choice to stop for the night. His choice to allow Glenn, Maggie, and Sophia to join him. His guilt for not trying hard enough to convince Glenn to stay.
What will become of Maggie and Sophia now? Maggie who's pregnant and soon enough won't even be able to run. Sophia who is barely a baby herself, who doesn't even know how to shoot a gun. What will become of Glenn's family? What will become of the child? How soon before he gets them killed?
Glenn died to protect them, to protect his family, and Rick carries that guilt deep within him. It's tattooed into his heart and Maggie's cries brand him deeper.
He looks at Andrea, who has been his sole source of strength for so long, but even she can't shine some light into this darkness.
His face pains as he still remembers his dear friend lying on the side of the road like roadkill, and he can't hold it in any longer.
"They're having a baby," he chokes out and then he feels his insides collapse. Tears blind his vision, the lump in his throat swells with agonizing pain, and he holds her hand so tight he thinks he might break it, but he can't loosen the grip. If she lets go, if she lets him go under, he's not sure he'll be able to re-surface, not this time.
The sight of him crying breaks her heart and she can't take it, either. Andrea's own eyes pool with tears as she holds his face in her hands and kisses him lightly on the lips. Rick presses his forehead against her neck, letting a sob escape him. He wets her shoulder and the pillow, and she holds him as he cries, remembering Glenn, sweet, young Glenn who kissed Sophia to sleep every night and was so excited about his baby. Goofy, funny Glenn who, for the first time in years, was looking forward to tomorrow.
And now tomorrow will never come. Not for Glenn. He'll never see the child that Maggie still carries in her womb. He'll never hold his baby, never hear it cry, never hear him or her say 'dada'. He'll never watch Sophia grow up. He'll never grow old with Maggie.
Another name has been erased from their community and this loss is crippling. With Abraham it was easier, so much easier to forget and return to normal. But Abraham hadn't been there from the very start. Abraham's death wasn't caused by one of Rick's foolish decisions.
Glenn's was, and it reminds him yet again how fast, how easy it is to die. Negan is right, he realizes - Rick has been too spoiled by the safety of Alexandria, by his good luck, too cocky to see clearly, foolish enough to forget. One bullet. Or one bite. One baseball bat. And life ends just like that.
One less name in their town now. One less person he'll wave at in the morning. One less family member, and all he can think is - who will be next?
He shuts his eyes tight and takes a deep breath, forcing the tears to cease. He pulls back and looks at Andrea, holding her face with his hands. He thinks of Glenn crying out Maggie's name as his life was taken from him, and he wonders, in the end, if Carl and Andrea will be the last two names he'll shout out when his time comes.
"I love you," he tells her like he's running out of time, which he knows he is. Any day now, at any moment, it'll be her or him or Carl. Or maybe all three. "I need you to know that."
She smiles and he wipes her tears with his hand. She does the same for him and kisses the corner of his mouth. "I love you, too."
They press themselves to each other, impossibly close, and let their sniffles and Maggie's cries resonate through the night. In the morning they'll have to bury Glenn. They'll add him to the piles of bones decomposing in their small graveyard at the edge of town. Next week, when Negan returns, they'll probably have to bury someone new. And it'll be like that until it ends, until Alexandria becomes a ghost town and decades from now their bones become an archeological site.
He can't think about it anymore, so he just counts.
One, two, three...
the end