At night, when he closes his eyes, there is nothing. His mind is black and his limbs are numb and he is so done with this world.
At night, there is nothing, until he starts to drift off into sleep.
There is nothing until there is the sound of wood beating into flesh and bone over and over again, the splat of brain hitting the floor as it spills out of the skull. Screams flood his ears, but none are louder than hers, than Maggie's. Maggie, shrieking his name over and over again, the pain of her pregnancy completely drowned out by the searing fire in her heart.
Maggie, the terror in her voice intense and indescribable.
"GLENN."
And more brain falls to the floor.
"GLENN."
The whole scene plays out behind his eyes like a movie, and if he's not careful, he's back there again, hands and ankles tied behind his back.
"GLENN."
The rusty scent of blood fills up his nostrils.
"GLENN."
At night, there is nothing, until there is everything.
He blames himself.
The position of leader is a precarious one, marked by the most elating highs and the darkest lows. The wins are exhilarating. The losses are profound.
The losses are the leader's fault.
He doesn't think about what might have happened if Daryl just killed Dwight, if they never found Jesus, if Denise didn't insist on going on a run, if Daryl and Carol never ran off by themselves, if no one ran after them. People tell him that it's no one's fault, that things happen in a certain way and it's no one's fault.
But they tell him this with a certain look in their eyes, like they don't believe what they're saying.
Like it's someone's fault.
And he knows.
The losses are the leader's fault.
After Judith falls asleep and Carl goes to bed, she likes to sit next to him on their couch. She takes his face in her hands and turns his head towards her. His eyes close. She trails her fingers across his cheekbones, jawline, comes to rest them against his forehead, where she tries to massage away the frown lines embedded in his skin.
She never succeeds, but she tries anyways.
Maggie goes to Hilltop, and she doesn't come back.
He pretends it doesn't bother him.
And he can't say that there's not a part of him – a selfish part – that is relieved he doesn't have to fear facing her every moment he spends in Alexandria. Thankful he doesn't have to see the pain in her eyes and accept it as his own.
He pretends not to miss her gentle figure milling about in the garden, her light southern drawl teasing Carl and Enid, her cool and steely gaze as she held a weapon in her hand and faced this dead world.
He pretends it doesn't bother him. He pretends not to miss her, and in bed before the movie starts playing again, he looks out the window. He stares up at the moon, and doesn't allow himself to cry.
He stands in the kitchen at some time close to three am, staring down at a half empty glass of water. He hears the stairs creak, wonders if it's her or Carl. Tries to make himself care. Wills himself to care.
But he doesn't look up from his glass.
Footsteps patter across the hardwood floor, and then arms sneak under his armpits and wrap up around his shoulders.
And he knows it's her, because his heart still sighs whenever she's near him, and he tries to hold on to that as a sign that there's something there, that not all is lost.
She lies her head against his bare back.
"Hey," she states simply.
He doesn't know how to answer her. He never knows how to answer her.
She exhales, and he feels the unsteady breath spread across him.
"I remember when you used to talk to me," she laments.
He closes his eyes.
"I remember when you used to look at me."
He feels her tears, hot and slick against his skin, and he wills himself to care.
She squeezes him tighter.
Maggie has had her baby. A healthy, bouncing baby boy.
The group makes trips to Hilltop to go and visit the new arrival. He declines to go, and no one asks questions. No one really asks him questions anymore, and he doesn't ask any of anyone else.
She goes, of course.
And when she comes home, she doesn't tell him much, other than that both Mommy and baby are healthy and almost-happy. He isn't going to comment on anything, but a half-formed question does bubble to his lips, and before he can stop it, it pushes its way out, in fits and starts.
"Is she…Mag…she's…she's…"
She takes his hand, stops him before he can finish. She reaches up with her free hand, grabs his chin and turns his head towards her. He closes his eyes.
"Yes," she whispers.
He nods slowly, doesn't allow himself to cry. She takes his hand, and doesn't let go.
Sometimes he's afraid he'll forget what she looks like.
Not completely. Of course not. Not now, not then, not ever. Her face is permanently burned into his memory for the rest of eternity. She has left her mark, and it is lasting.
But he fears he'll lose details. The dark flecks in her chocolate eyes, the way her nostrils flare when she laughs really hard, her lips and the way they purse when she's serious, tighten around her snow-white teeth as she smiles.
He fears he'll only have a shadow of who she really is.
And he knows this could all be resolved if he just looked at her.
And he tries. Every time she turns his head towards her, he tries.
And every time, he closes his eyes.
She nearly throws him on the RV headed for Hilltop.
He is going to protest, but decides not to because he knows it would be pointless. She has an unbreakable hold on him. He'd walk to the ends of the earth for her.
She tells him it's just to make a trade, but he's not stupid and he knows better. And he is so tired of fighting. Abraham keeps looking at him sideways the entire ride and he knows she's given him a mission.
They get to Hilltop and make the trade. It takes all of fifteen minutes. He's about to dash back inside the RV when a voice stops him.
"Hey, Rick."
He sighs slowly, steps off the steps into the vehicle and onto the ground. Abraham stands in front of him, his red hair glaring in the sun. He clears his throat.
"Yeah?"
"Don't you want to see the baby?"
He bites his lip and draws blood, twists his boot violently against the grass and dirt. Abraham lets silence linger for nearly two minutes before speaking.
"Come on. I know where to find them."
His feet shuffle behind the man mindlessly. His limbs are numb. And he is so done with this world.
"So, which one is it?"
He doesn't move a millimeter. He doesn't give Negan the satisfaction. The man's laugh booms in the empty room.
"Someone's got to pay, Rick. Just a question of who."
He doesn't move.
Negan rolls his eyes.
"Tell you what. I'll do you a favor. As long as you're good, I'll spare you son. You see, I have a feeling about this one. Seems like he's got some spunk in him. I like it."
His heart relaxes, the tiniest bit.
"But as for the rest of your friends…"
His chest heaves. He can't breathe.
But he doesn't move.
Negan begins to pace, dragging his baseball bat behind him. The sound of barbed wire scraping against concrete echoes.
He stops when he gets to her.
And he flinches. He can't help himself.
Negan notices, narrows his eyes.
"Ungag him," he instructs one of his cohorts.
"You see," Negan continues, as they remove the black cloth from his mouth, "you've been doing a top-shelf job of staying stone faced. But when I get to her, you flinch."
He crouches down, levels with him.
"I want you to tell me why you flinched."
"Kill me," he growls.
"See, I don't think I will," Negan chuckles, standing back up. "Where's the fun in that? But her. She interests me."
"I'm the one you want," he chokes out, his voice raising. "I'm the one who orchestrated the whole thing. Kill me."
"You see, Rick, I think I'm going to kill her. I think I'm going to take Lucille here," he smiles, motioning to his bat, "and beat her brains out."
He winces again. Damn it, he winces again.
"Just tell me why you flinched."
He pauses, crouches down again.
"Is this your girl, Rick?"
"Kill me," he begs.
Negan grins.
"How many times do I have to tell you no before you believe me? Oh, and Rick? I think I'm going to kill your girl."
"No," he whispers.
"What was that?" Negan asks, cupping his ear. "A little louder for the ones in the back."
"No!" he shouts. "Not her."
"Ah. Now we're getting somewhere! Some decision-making is getting done. Knew you'd come around. Got anything else for me?"
Silence seems to crush the room.
"Not her," he breathes finally, his voice breaking.
"You see, Rick, unfortunately, I'm still interested in killing your girl. But since you made some progress here, I'll give you a little break. So how about…"
He trails off, hitting Lucille against the ground with a loud thump.
"How about we leave it up to chance?"
He chuckles lowly in the back of his throat.
"I've got an idea."
He points his bat.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe…"
Abraham leads him inside one of the tents. He looks down at his feet the entire time. He hears her voice and all the blood in his body rushes to his head.
"Mags?"
Her voice stops. And he hears her inhale sharply.
And then there is nothing.
"Come on, guys," Abraham beckons finally. "Let's leave these three alone for a bit."
Two or three people leave the tent. He can't remember. He feels nauseous and dizzy.
He still doesn't look up, even when they're left alone. He doesn't move from the entrance of the tent either. It's as if his feet are cemented to the ground, and he doesn't try to free them.
"Rick."
The sound is only a murmur that travels through the air and reaches his ears. But it reaches him, all the same.
"Look at me," she instructs gently, in her southern twang that has never wavered through all of this.
He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to.
But he does.
He pulls his eyes from the ground and meets her emerald ones, glistening with tears. For the first time in months and months, he really looks at someone.
It devastates him. His heart twists and cries and he wants to melt into the ground.
He wishes he were dead. He wishes with everything inside himself, for not the first time, that Negan had smashed his head in.
And he can't help but notice the bundle in her arms.
"How've you been?" she asks simply.
He laughs grimly, shaking his head.
"Not that great."
"Yeah, me either. Although…"
She looks down at the baby in his arms, the ghost of a smile on her face.
"Although things have been a little better since this little one came along."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she sighs, like she's almost happy.
"His name is Hershel. Hershel Greene. The second, I guess."
He nods. All the people he's lost burst into images in his head.
"I don't…" She takes a deep breath, and starts again. "I don't know how much you heard. How much you wanted to know. I'd understand if you didn't want to know anything."
"I didn't know his name," he offers. "But I'm…glad I know. Now."
She smirks.
"I'm glad."
A heavy blanket of quiet falls over them, until she throws it off by addressing the elephant in the room.
"You know," she begins, "I tried to hate you. For a long time, I tried to hate you. I told myself over and over again that you were selfish scum, that one day I would find you and kill you for killing him. But it was never genuine. And I tried to figure out why. Why I couldn't just hate you. And one day, I accepted the fact that I couldn't. Because in the back of my mind, I had this nagging thought that I couldn't shut up."
She pauses. His stomach churns. He wants to run far, far away from here and never come back, he wants to die alone in the woods where no one would find him.
She continues, "I realized, that if the tables were turned – if I had been in your position with him – I would have made the exact same choice. I guess that's what happens when we fall in love."
Hershel starts to cry. She shushes the baby, standing up and beginning to sway back and forth.
"I don't hate you, Rick. I am angry with you. I'm so, so mad at you," she admits, her voice shaking. "But anger fades, eventually."
"Does it?" he inquires honestly.
"Yeah," Maggie assures him. "It does."
Hershel calms down. She runs a hand over his head, and then lays him down in the makeshift bassinet she has with her.
"I should probably go," he says, starting to turn. "We need to get back soon and – "
"You don't want to hold him?" she interrupts.
He pauses, looks at the bassinet and then at her and back again.
He shakes his head, and looks at her. It's too much for one day. She nods in understanding.
"Maybe next time," she muses.
And he stares at her, eyes wide. She shrugs, walking closer to him.
"No matter what, you'll always be family."
And then she reaches for his hand, pulls him into a hug. He holds his hands in the air in hesitation before resting them gently on her back.
"And Rick?" she mutters lowly in his ear. "Don't let this ruin your life. I don't want that, not anymore. He wouldn't want that."
His heart beats in triple time.
He closes his eyes, rests his chin on her shoulder, and begins to cry.
At night, when he closes his eyes, there is nothing. His mind is black and his limbs are numb and he is so done with this world.
At night, there is nothing, until she crawls into bed next to him.
He is turned away from her, facing the window, as he is every night. She breathes in, places her hands on his back, traces along his spine.
Maggie's words echo in his head.
He ponders, and then turns, slowly, onto his back. He concentrates on patterns on the ceiling instead of on the moon.
If she is surprised, she doesn't let him know audibly.
Her fingers find a new home on his side, eventually finding the scar from his gunshot wound, circling it with the pad of her pinky. She finds other scars, copies all of their shapes against his skin.
"I hate everyone who's ever hurt you," she murmurs, drawing patterns over his heart.
"Don't," he whispers, his voice like gravel. And this time, her fingers stop against his chest.
"Why?" she breathes, almost in awe.
"Because I've been hurt by good people," he drawls slowly. "Everyone I've ever loved has hurt me, somehow. When you love, you get hurt. That's how it goes."
He runs a hand over his face.
"Sometimes I wonder if that's the point."
"It's not," she promises, taking one of his hands and lacing their fingers together. "I swear, it's not."
"You swear?"
"I swear," she confirms.
He squeezes her hand tighter.
"This," he begins solemnly, "it's not's going to be easy. It's going to be real hard. I'm lost. But I'm going to try and come back to you. I want to come back to you."
She brings his hand to her mouth, runs her lips over his knuckles. He feels her tears against his skin once more.
"And you're going to," she declares fervently. "You're going to come home, baby."
He takes a deep breath to steady himself. Then he turns his head.
And he opens his eyes.
And he looks at her.
(And his heart flutters.
Because he hasn't forgotten her smile.)