Written in either complete denial or hyper optimism regarding Rick's beard.
Judith lay sprawled on the bed, foot jiggling in the open space. She clutched a well-worn book, the cover nearly faded.
The dust motes played gently in the early morning sunshine, suspended in the air. The room was small but well-lit and cheerful, with two beds pushed against the walls and red flowery curtains adorning the windows.
The bedroom door slammed open, but she didn't blink. "You're in my spot, dork," came a gruff voice.
"Fuck off, Carl," she said without looking up.
A pair of thick arms wrapped around her middle and she was unceremoniously hoisted into their air.
"No!" she shrieked with a laugh, smacking the back of her assailant.
"My spot," grunted Carl, walking around the room with his sister flung over his shoulder.
"You're such a jackass!"
Her giggling echoed slightly in the small room. The book slipped through her fingers and Carl moved it gently out of the way with his foot as he paraded around the room with his prize.
The door creaked open, and Carl turned to face their new visitor.
"May I have my daughter back?" asked their father, leaning through the doorway with a slight smile on his face.
Carl dropped Judith to the ground, then flung himself through the air to crash on the tiny bed she had occupied. The frame squealed in protest.
"Dad, you made me lose the good bed!"
"My bed now," said Carl, crossing his booted feet at the ankles and shifting slightly to get more comfortable.
Rick stepped into the room, sliding his hands to his belt to grasp his holster. There was a moment of silence as he gazed between the two, then gestured at her book.
"What are you reading?"
"Little House on the Prairie."
"Again?" Carl said from under his arm.
"It's good!" she insisted. She kicked the leg of the bed. "Haven't been on a book run in forever."
"Well, I need someone for a run today," Rick said.
"A book run?"
"No, a clearing run. Been seeing more Walkers move in lately, need to thin the herds."
"I just got back from one," moaned Carl, unmoving.
"I know, but we gotta do it. We don't want town to be overrun." He rubbed his nose briefly with his thumb and forefinger as he stared at his son.
"I can go," said Judith, sitting up straight.
Her father glanced over at her and for a brief moment, his face took on that look, the one that she had been dreading for weeks, the one that was made all that more sinister based on what she knew-
But it was gone in an instant as Rick began shaking his head slowly, frowning at the book on the floor. "I don't wanna put you in any danger," he said. "There are a lot in town right now, and some seem pretty new. They won't be as easy to take down as the older ones."
"I can handle it." She got to her feet, trying to draw herself up to her full height. "Dad. I'll be fine."
"She's good," said Carl from the bed. "She's got this."
Rick looked up at him and chuckled slightly at his unmoving form. He glanced again at his daughter, her spine ramrod straight. "All right," he said, turning towards the door. "Get ready to go and meet me outside in twenty minutes."
The bottoms of their kayaks scraped against the sandy embankment, the small rocks below making noises of protest under the hulls. Judith felt a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. The sun was beating down on them and her shirt was sticky against her skin. As they slid onto the shore, father and daughter disembarked in one smooth movement.
Judith hopped out of the boat, grabbed the small felt loop on the front, and began dragging it behind her up the banks of the gravelly beach. She joined her father in a small copse of trees, mercifully shaded from the heat. Rick had already pulled his kayak under the low hanging branches and was opening the front of his boat to pull out a carefully wrapped set of knives. Judith hastened to catch up.
After pulling thick blankets of woven reeds over their boats, Rick and Judith stepped back into the blazing sun, the harsh drone of the cicadas loud in their ears as they looked around.
"Where to?" she asked.
Rick nodded towards a van sitting in the parking lot. "We'll take the car," he said. "See if we can't push into the western part of town. Haven't been there in a while, might be where they're coming from."
Judith clambered into the car as her father got into the driver's seat. He turned the key and after a moment, the engine turned over, roaring to life. They pulled onto the empty road.
Judith watched the trees flick past the window, leaves a green blur. She tried to count the barren telephone poles as they drove by; the wires that used to run between them had long since fallen, but some of the thin wooden poles still stood.
"When am I gonna learn to drive?" she asked, still gazing out the window.
Rick chuckled. "Eventually."
She sighed. The glass fogged in front of her nose.
The ride was bumpy; the roads were rough and uneven, cracks splintering across the paved surfaces like spiderwebs. A bad frost a few years back had done a lot of damage to the roads, and there was no one to fix them.
Judith tried to remember the last time her father had met her eyes.
Her forehead leaned against the window. It was a cool relief against her sweaty skin. There was a small fracture in the glass and her eyes fixated on it. It looked a little like an upside down tree. It had happened in a recent attack by Walkers. They had swarmed the car unexpectedly, and one of them had been wearing a watch as it slammed its hands against the window to try to break it. The Walkers had been disposed of easily enough, but Daryl, who had been driving, swore loudly when he saw the damage.
They were running low on working cars. There was never a shortage of broken ones, of course. Their husks lined all the roads, dried out beetle shells surrounded by a red ring of rust. Michonne had promised to teach Judith to drive once they actually had spare cars to do it with, but that seemed less and less likely. They scavenged off of the broken ones when they could, but there was only so much they could do with ancient, weather-worn parts.
The trees gave way to low lying homes and stores, all in varying states of decay. Rick slowed the car way down; a crash with a Walker at high speeds would damage the car beyond repair, and she knew he didn't want to risk it. She felt a spike in annoyance for some reason, but tamped it down.
Rick pulled the car into a parking lot near a small store. The lettering on the sign was faded, but Judith could just make out the word "convenience".
Turning the car off, Rick turned to his daughter. "Are you ready?" She nodded. "Got your knife?" She patted the sheath attached to her belt. "Back up?" She sighed, slapping her leg where another one was hidden. He shot her a sideways glance, then reached out to put his hand at the back of her neck. "I'm your father, it's my job to worry."
"I know what I'm doing," she said waspishly.
He nodded. "I know."
Judith stepped onto the baking pavement. She could feel the heat through the soles of her sneakers; it reminded her that she would need a new pair soon. The jeans made her feel constricted, but the denim was good protection against scratches. Rolling her shoulders, she followed her father into the store.
Rick pulled the rickety screen door open and rapped on the wooden one beneath it. They waited.
There was a thump as something threw itself against the other side of the door. The glare of the sun against the small glass panes in the door prevented Judith from being able to see inside, but she knew precisely what to expect.
"Weak," she whispered. "Probably an old one. Probably missing a limb based on the scratching noises."
Rick shot her a look over his shoulder. She pointedly ignored the look. He nodded again, turning his attention back to the door. "On my count," he said quietly. "Three, two, one-!"
He threw the door open and a body toppled forward onto the concrete. Judith plunged her knife into the soft, pale skull; the thing barely had any hair left to cover it. The Walker stopped struggling immediately. She smirked down at it; it was missing its left arm.
Rick was already stepping slowly into the darkened store. Judith stepped over the corpse into the gloom. Shafts of light cut through the darkness between the boards that had been nailed over the windows, dust eddying in the wake of the open door. The shelves were mostly barren. The few objects left were overturned and covered with a blanket of grime. They stepped carefully down the aisles, Rick going right and Judith staying left.
Her eyes roved over the shelves while her ears remained pricked for the sounds of moans. There were a few dusty bags hanging on a hook that read "Party Balloons, Assorted". Judith had seen a balloon once; Carl blew one up for her when they were camped in a store much like this one, years and years ago. He had let the air out in a loud raspberry, something that made her laugh and her father shush them for making too much noise.
She moved on, eyes searching for something more useful.
It seemed, unfortunately, that there wasn't much left. Based on the boarded up windows, there had been survivors squatting in here for at least some time, which meant that they had almost certainly used all the supplies. There were many people who still did that, roving from place to place, scrounging and scavenging their way across the land. Their group had settled on the island; they actually had a home. It still felt strange not to move from place to place - she had done it for the first eleven years of her life - but when she looked around the forlorn, rotting store, it definitely seemed the preferable option.
At the end of the row sat a small glass globe. It was alone on the shelf, as if it had not been originally there, but placed there After. Judith reached for it. There was a fat snowman inside, tipping his top hat, surrounded by sickly-looking water. It was only about half full, so when she gave it a shake, the glitter in the water sloshed against the sides and stuck to the glass, the dregs of the dirty liquid receding down the globe. She watched the water pool around the snowman again, pieces of glitter catching the light as they settled.
Judith crashed to the floor, something caught around her ankle. She whirled around to see a long, thin body on the ground, bony elbows pointing outwards like baby bird wings as it bit down on her shoe. Judith tried to scramble backwards, desperate to slide out of the grip of the Walker. Her knife flew out of her hand and skittered across the floor, sliding under one of the shelves. The Walker's jaws had barely any teeth left, but her sneakers were so thin-
She smashed the snow globe against its skull. It dented the bone, and Judith could see the vulnerable brain, but it didn't do enough damage to stop it. She tried to twist her ankle out of its grasp, scooting backwards, but the thing held on. Her hand shot out behind her and clattered against the thin metal hooks of the shelf display. Scrambling to grasp one, she watched the yellowed eyes look up her leg further, gazing at her exposed ankle-
She thrust the metal spike into its ear, swinging it in a wide arc just as a thick arm came out of nowhere and stabbed straight through the top of its head. Judith looked up to see her father's face, lips curled in anger.
"What did I say," he said in a voice that was very clearly not asking a question. "What did I say. We are here to clear, not look for supplies. Pay attention."
"I had it!" she shrieked, anger suddenly bubbling in her chest. She gathered her feet under her and stood up as quickly as possible.
"No, I had it," Rick said. "And keep your voice down. Get your knife."
Judith felt her stomach burn with hatred. She shoved the shelves as hard as she could. They toppled over into the next row, loud clangs and bangs accompanied by the tinkle of broken glass, by the noise of shredding paper.
She felt a hand close around her upper arm and whipped her head around to glare into Rick's face. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, but she shook him off. Her knife lay exposed on floor, lying on much paler tiles than the worn ones that had been exposed to the elements for years, and she scooped it back into her grasp.
"Helping you find them," she shouted, running the tip of the knife against the metal of the shelves, a high-pitched noise of protest from where metal met metal. "Come on out, dinner's ready!"
There was a slam against one of the windows. The boards prevented them from seeing inside, but they knew. They were coming.
"You wanna clear, Dad, well, we can." She stomped up the aisle, her sneakers slapping against the linoleum. "But you need to let me help, you can't do it all. Why the hell else would you bring me if you're not gonna let me do it?"
"If you're taking stupid risks-"
"I HAD it!" she shouted, whirling on him. "You never trust me, you never believe I can handle myself, you never-!"
He was finally meeting her gaze, but his face held that same expression, that same one she had seen far too often. It was haunted, sad, as if he were staring through her, as if she weren't even there. She felt invisible, and she knew, she knew he was seeing him-
Judith pointed an accusatory finger at Rick's face. "Stop THAT, you have to stop looking at me like that, I am so sick of that look, like I make you mad, like I'm not here, like you don't even see me!"
Walker after Walker hit the walls of the store, the wooden boards groaning and protesting under the pressure. Rick stared at her steadily, unkempt beard hiding the thin line of his mouth. He turned his head to the side, but his eyes never left her face.
She felt the blood pounding in her ears, but couldn't stop. "I'm sick and tired of you looking at me like I'm somebody else, like you hate me, like you don't even want to look at me. I see it and I hate it and I hate you and I know! Okay, I know!"
Human nails scratched against the paint of the store, a shuddering noise that made something crawl up her spine. The sounds of the dead penetrated the thin walls, echoing in the empty tomb of a bygone era.
"Carol told me weeks ago. I know why you can't stand to look at me, I know why you won't look me in the eyes, I know!"
Rick was looking at her now, finally meeting her eyes, but she could barely see through the tears that were obscuring her vision. Judith knew she needed to be quiet, had known from her earliest memories that noise could get you killed, but her father's face was right there, and he needed to know. She wanted his face to reflect even just a fraction of the hurt and rage she was feeling. She wanted him to fight back.
"I know about Shane, okay? I know about him, and you, and Mom, and all of it."
The vein in Rick's temple jumped as the pounding against the doors grew louder. The Walkers outside were keening for their flesh, but Judith was only concerned with the thin lines of her father's face, the wrinkles spreading like spider webs from the corners of his eyes. His hand tightened around the gun in his holster.
"Carol told you all that?"
"She told me because you wouldn't!" Judith roared. "She told me because you were too much of a coward to do it yourself! But I know that's why you won't look at me, because you think I look like him! You don't wanna see me because you don't want me as your daughter!"
Rick leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees so that she could only see the top of his shaggy, graying head, and Judith felt another surge of anger over how much larger her father was than she. She had heard the group talk about it once, years and years ago: "malnutrition"; "stunted growth"; "arrested development". They had been gathered around the campfire, back when they were out on the road. She had been lying near her brother, but she hadn't yet fallen asleep when the conversation had turned to how small she was. Judith had seen Michonne reach across and touch her father's shoulder, saying how it wasn't his fault, but he had still hung his head down in what looked like shame, much like he was doing now.
She clenched her fists, feeling ready for a fight, feeling almost frustrated that her father looked defeated. She had seen her father's face contorted almost beyond recognition as he swung an axe into the skull of a man who had tried to steal their supplies. She had seen his teeth bared and his eyes ablaze as he had battled them out of impossible herds of Walkers. How dare he look so sad, so lost; she was angry with him, and she wanted to stay angry.
With a deep intake of breath, Rick straightened and moved towards her, arm outstretched. She jerked backwards, her eyebrows knitting together; he wasn't allowed to hug her right now. Rick closed his hand, then brought it to his face to rub over his mouth. He kept his gaze on her face. Judith blinked back tears.
"You think I can't look at you because you look like Shane?" he asked quietly. The sounds of the Walkers outside almost drowned out his words.
Judith paused before answering, trying to keep her voice steady. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah. It's been happening for a long time and now I know why." She felt the familiar knot of fear coil like a snake in her belly, but she refused to back down now.
Rick watched her carefully. "You don't look like Shane."
His face was blank, impassive. Judith instinctively brought her fists up in front of her. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "Every time you look at me, it's like you've seen a ghost."
"I know," Rick murmured. "I know. But you don't look like Shane."
She lifted her chin in question.
"You look like your mother."
Everything seemed to slow down, as if she were moving through water. Even the sounds of breaking glass from the front of the store didn't register, and her father moved past her in slow motion. Judith stared ahead at the opposite wall, looking at the brown stains of water damage against the white walls.
Finally she remembered to turn around, and saw her father already walking back up the aisle to her. The front door's windows had broken, but the door itself had held, Rick had apparently just stabbed a number of the front Walkers and left them hanging over the jagged edges of glass, dripping a steady brackish blood to the floor. Their bodies provided an extra barricade against the others, and he was already walking back towards her. He was careful, as if approaching a doe in the woods.
"I look like… I look like M-Mom?" The word was foreign in her mouth, her tongue thick and stumbling.
Rick nodded, stepping across the worn, dusty floorboards. He held out a hand and placed it gently on her shoulder.
Judith had heard many stories about her mother. Carl had told her plenty about what had happened Before. Judith knew all the games her mother would have played with her, all the stories she would have read her, all the songs she would have sung her. She knew her mother had had brown hair, had been thin, had liked to wear the color blue. There were details she knew, stories she had heard, but she had never, ever seen a picture of her mother. The photo albums her mother had carried away from the wreckage of Before had all been lost and the house her parents had lived in had burned to the ground. There was not a single trace of the woman who had been Lori Grimes left in the world.
Except, apparently, Judith.
Her ears didn't seem to be working properly. Her father was saying something, but she couldn't understand. It was hard to breathe.
"Judith?" he asked, leaning over to look into her face. "Hey, Judith?"
She blinked; she was surprised to find the tears obscuring her vision.
"Honey, I… I'm sorry. I've been avoiding the subject and I know it." Rick shook his head, gazing down at the floor. "And I know… I haven't been able to…"
The dead hammered on the walls, their throaty moans and gnashing teeth echoing in the small store.
"I don't look at you and see Shane," Rick said, looking up again. "I don't. And I don't see me either. You are your mother's daughter."
"She was really short too?" Judith asked.
He chuffed. "Well, not quite as short. But the way you walk, the way carry yourself… the way you glare at me when you're upset- yeah, that," he said with a chuckle as Judith knitted her eyebrows together. She frowned and he took a deep breath. "You look just like your mom. It's… it's uncanny."
"Carl's never told me that."
"Carl didn't know her when she was your age; I did. Carl'll see it when you get into your 20s, once you're as old as he knew her at. But I remember it. I remember just how she walked, how she talked. You are just like her."
Judith bit her lip. She hated crying.
"You're strong, like she was. Your mother, she knew what she believed. We had arguments sometimes, 'discussions' we'd call them afterwards, and she would argue her point 'til she was hoarse. I see that in you a lot, 'specially when you and Carl disagree." Rick grinned briefly. "You've got a lot of mannerisms from him, though, and Carol, and Michonne, and everyone, really. But there are times when you are so much your mother, I almost…"
Rick took another deep breath and looked away. She took the opportunity to rub the heel of her hand against her eyes to wipe away the stubborn tears.
"Judith? Are you okay?"
"So I don't… look like Shane?"
Rick's nostrils flared as he bit the inside of his cheek. Judith almost wanted to end the conversation, but she had to know, had to hear him say it.
"I don't… I don't know. I haven't seen him in almost seventeen years."
"Since you killed him."
He let out a humorless snort. "Carol told you the whole story, huh?"
Judith nodded.
"Yeah, since I killed him." Rick's voice was quiet, barely audible over the sounds of the Walkers outside. "He was a threat, did Carol tell you that?" She nodded again. "He thought he knew what was best for the group, thought he was the only one who could protect them. And I don't rightly know who would have been better, if things might've been different if he killed me and took over, but I knew it was between the two of us and I killed him. But listen, your mom- Shane- all of us, me included- we made mistakes. But those mistakes," and he was kneeling in front of her, his large hands gently grasping both of hers, "those mistakes are not yours. You have nothing to apologize to anyone for… any of that."
"So you don't… you…" The lump in her throat prevented her from asking the question she knew she must. Rick waited patiently, watching as she twisted her lips and tried to swallow her tears.
"It's fine," he said.
"You don't… you don't know who…"
"No… no." He shook his head, glancing down at the floor again before meeting her watery gaze again. "You look too much like your mother for me to tell either way. Sometimes I think I see something but… you look just like your mom." Rick smiled, a wry smile that made him look sadder than before. "I met Lori when we were both still teenagers. I can still picture our first date exactly. It was summer, she wore a pretty dress, I had to have her home by ten. I wonder sometimes how much your life might've been like that, if not for all this." He waved his hand around, generally gesturing at the reanimated corpses howling for their flesh outside. "But your mom… she is not your cross to bear. These days, everyone is living for a whole list of other people. We go to sleep at night and list them off, one by one, the ones who aren't here anymore. I know I do it; I know you do it."
She did, even the ones she'd never really known: the ones she'd only heard stories about, the ones who saved her before she could even speak to thank them. Beth. Tyreese. Rosita. Bernard. Mary-Anne. And on…
"I didn't want you to feel like you had to live up to anything you might hear about your mom, any… anything like that." Rick's eyebrows were furrowed as he looked up at his daughter. "I want you to be Judith."
"Judith Grimes," she insisted.
"That." He stood up, getting to his feet with a slight stiffness that belied his age. "I don't know if it makes much sense."
"No, I get it," she said quietly. And she did. She twisted her fingers together, still feeling uneasy.
Clearing his throat, Rick said, "If you, uh, ever want to hear more about Shane-"
"No!"
Rick tilted his head, and Judith felt her heart constrict painfully. The words didn't want to come, but she had to ask.
"I don't care about that," she said. "I wanna know…"
"Judith," he said, looking almost surprised. "You're not asking me if I would really kick you out if I thought you weren't mine, are you?"
"No," said Judith quickly. "No, I know it's not that, you would have done that a long time ago if you were going to, it's-"
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she looked up into his grizzled face.
"Are you still gonna be my dad?"
Rick's hands tightened as he stared at her. Through his thick beard, she could see his lips twitch. He blinked, shaking his head slowly. "If- if you want," he said thickly. "If you'll have me."
Judith nodded fiercely, and he pulled her into a tight hug, and the tears that had been threatening to spill finally came full force. Her shoulders seized as she sobbed into his stained, sweaty shirt, inhaling the familiar scent of her father. Judith felt every fear, every concern she had had drain away as she clung to her father's chest, feeling it shake under her arms as he cried quietly above her head. She imagined briefly what Carl would say if he were here, and hiccuped with a slight giggle at the thought. The tears were hot against her skin, leaving thin white stripes in the grime on her face.
After what felt like hours, Judith felt her sobs fade into shuddering gasps, slowly fading away. She wiped her face against her father's shirt, hearing his chuckles as she did so, and looked up. Rick smiled down at her and used a hand to press back her hair away from her forehead to place a scraggly kiss there.
"It's okay," he said. "It's okay."
Judith knew it was not: the dead still roamed the streets; there was an expanse on their island covered with stones, one for each person who had died since It Happened; she would never see what her mother looked like. But maybe she didn't need to; maybe this was enough.
Something prodded at her, something important, and she pulled back enough to be able to look up into her father's face. "You're not mad at Carol for telling me, are you?"
Rick chuckled. "Carol has been doing things behind my back since the day I met her," he said. "That's why she's so important to me, to the group. That's why we love her."
"So you're not upset?"
With another laugh, he nodded. "Carol's been saying for years you were ready to hear it. I knew it was only a matter of time before she took it upon herself to say something. Surprised it took her so long, honestly. And I knew, really, that you were ready too. I wasn't." His eyes glazed over slightly as he stared down at her. "I wasn't… ready to admit I might not be your father."
"You are," she snarled. "You are." She drew him in again, and his hand found the top of her head again.
"Yeah, I know."
After another few moments, Rick patted her shoulder. Judith pulled away a bit reluctantly.
"We have a job to do," he said, looking up over her at the clawing rotten arms sticking through the broken window. "We need to clear them out. We don't want this part of town to get too overrun." He squeezed her shoulder again. "Are you ready?"
Judith held her knife up, blade unwavering. "Ready."
Rick grinned. "Then let's get 'em."
Rick had one hand on the doorknob and the other in the air, three fingers displayed. He ticked them down: three, two, one. At the last one, he wrenched the door open and the first set of Walkers tumbled onto the floor. Judith plunged her knife into skull after skull, the satisfying crunch of bone letting her know when each one was no longer a threat. Some of them were very old Walkers, barely held together by sinew and ragged muscle, and they were easy to kill, but others were newer, freshly turned, and it took a full swing into their heads to end them.
"Like we practiced!" Rick roared, and father and daughter stepped outside into the horde of the undead. Rick swung his machete into skull after skull while Judith did as she did best. She wove among the skinny, flailing arms and sprinted away, thinning them out as some followed. Pivoting, she ran at one of them. Its rotten face grew closer and closer, but at the last moment, she ducked and rolled into its shuffling legs. The Walker fell hard on its stomach while Judith popped up onto her feet. She slammed her foot down at the base of its spine, a crack like a whip sounding. Without looking back, Judith sprinted at the next one.
Finally, she spotted her father's figure walking towards her, a steady gait against the setting sun. Judith took a deep breath and admired her handiwork. A dozen Walkers lay on the ground around her, trying to drag themselves forward with their weaken arms, their ruined legs weighing them down.
"Kick a lot of ass?" her father asked, slightly out of breath.
"Kicked a lot of ass," Judith confirmed.
He nodded, a proud blood-splattered grin across his face.
"Finish the job, Lil' Asskicker."
Judith plunged her dagger into the skull of the first Walker.