Rick was mentally and physically exhausted as he drove the truck filled with the people he had saved. Morales had explained to Rick where they were going and had dozed off. Rick could hear little bits of short conversation from the others in the back but mostly they were silent. Everyone was tired. They had all been through hell.
Rick could see a trailer with what looked like an umbrella on the roof peaking out over the tops of some trees in the spot where Morales had told him he would find the rest of their people.
He didn't want to take any chances.
"Hey, this it?" he asked as he nudged Morales awake.
Morales jumped as if Rick was going to hurt him and then relaxed when he remembered where he was, "uh, yeh." He answered wiping sleep from his eyes. "Right up here, just pull in."
Rick put his forehead on the steering wheel and rested his eyes for a moment while the others piled out of the back of the truck.
He could hear them celebrating. Families hugging. High fives.
"Welcome back." said one voice.
"Glad you're safe" said another.
Rick thought about driving away.
He felt so indifferent to everything that his world had become. There was no joy, no hope. Only emptiness. He did not want to get to know these people. He didn't want to introduce himself, explain where he'd come from, or whom he had lost.
"Hey helicopter boy! Come say hello!" Morales called to him.
Rick sighed, opened the truck door and stepped out. He shut the door but kept his fingers on the handle for a few seconds, looking through the window and thought about getting back in and driving away.
With reluctant steps, Rick turned and started to walk over to the people.
He looked up and stopped. Standing in front of him he swore he saw his best friend and cop partner Shane.
But his eyes shifted quickly to something even more incredible and through the crowd he saw a face and for a moment he thought he must have been hallucinating.
"Oh my god", Rick mumbled to himself feeling like he was about to pass out.
"Dad!" shouted his son Carl's voice. "Dad!"
It wasn't a hallucination. It was Carl. Carl, his little boy. His son who he had believed with all his soul had died. Carl was running to him and calling out "Dad!"
And behind Carl – Lori.
Rick walked towards Carl with wobbly steps, still feeling like he might faint and crouched down to hold his son. He squeezed Carl and kissed him. Rick gasped and cried. He felt as though his heart would explode right out of his chest.
Rick stood up with Carl in his arms and walked over to Lori. He hugged his wife with their son between them. They were alive and he couldn't even begin to believe it.
But when he hugged Lori, his feelings were confused. He was happy and relieved to see her alive but not the kind of happy he felt he should be. Maybe it was because he'd already allowed himself… no, forced himself to believe so strongly that Lori had died, tried so hard not to love her anymore, that he'd succeeded a bit too much. And now he'd fallen out of love with her a little.
Rick and Lori had their problems, back when things were normal and they weren't fighting for their lives and separated from each other. Lori could be so cold. In the past when Rick and Lori were having a really hard time, Rick would distance himself mentally and emotionally from her, as a kind of self-preservation. He knew it wasn't the healthiest, most helpful thing to do in their marriage, but it helped him not go crazy.
He would spend a lot of time at work, go out for beers with Shane, or do father-son activities with Carl. Eventually he would fall back into a rhythm with Lori where they acted mostly normal because it was all he knew.
Rick held Lori and Carl and didn't like the feeling in his gut that he wasn't completely happy to be with his wife. He wanted to feel nothing but happy. He had found his wife that he believed to be dead and he was supposed to be over the moon. But he just wasn't.
Daryl had been walking all day trying to kill that damn deer. It had taken him in circles all over the woods and despite his excellent tracking abilities, every time he thought he was really close, it was as if the deer had just vanished and it took him some time to find its trail again.
Daryl was tired and a little fed up with the deer.
"Bambi? You're more like a damn Houdini with all this disappearing" he said as he sat down onto the grass, his back against a tree trunk.
Daryl let out a long sigh. Sometimes he didn't understand himself. If he didn't want to be around those people, didn't want anything to do with any of them, then why was he busting his ass, all day in the woods trying to kill a deer so that they'd have something decent to eat?
He thought about how, when he got back, lugging this huge deer over his shoulders, they'd probably be all thanking him and shit. A few of them would probably even want to hug him. Daryl shuddered at the thought.
Daryl heard some birds flutter and chirp coming from the direction he had his back to. He looked up just in time to see them fly overhead through the trees, and as they passed, the sun shone into his eyes causing him to squint and lower his head. It all happened so fast but when he widened his eyes again a walker was almost on top of him.
Daryl tucked into a forward roll away from the tree and slipped just under the walker's out-stretched hands. He stood up facing the walker with his cross-bow ready.
"Where the hell did you come from!?" he shouted. A little too loudly he realized.
One arrow to the head and the walker went down.
That night as Rick sat around the fire with this new group of people, he held Lori and Carl tighter than he ever had. He was back with them and he never wanted to let them go. He had decided that his feelings about Lori were just because he had told himself to forget about her He told himself that his feelings would right themselves soon and he would be completely in love with her again. Fake it till you make it.
His thoughts and fears were interrupted when Dale brought up Daryl.
"I dropped the key, leaving him was my fault. I'll tell him." offered T-Dog.
"No, I handcuffed him to that roof. I should be the one." Countered Rick.
"Sorry to make this a race thing, but maybe it's better coming from a white guy." Said Glenn.
Rick remembered how Merle treated T-Dog and thought that if this Daryl guy was like his brother, Glenn may have a point.
Andrea explained what happened and defended Rick's actions.
She said to Lori "Your husband did what was necessary" and on the word 'husband' Rick flinched.
He was somebody's husband. Lori's husband. For a few days he was no-ones husband, maybe a widower, but not a husband.
Dale warned, "word to the wise – we're gonna have our hands full when Daryl gets back from his hunt."
The group continued to discuss what happened and how they will tell Daryl. Rick started to imagine who this Daryl person was. He tried to picture a younger Merle. Low-class and just as bigoted. Violent and short tempered.
He won't like what's happened, he thought, and nor should he really.
Rick thought that Daryl was going to be a huge problem and that they wouldn't get along. For a split second he wished Daryl just wouldn't come back from his hunt at all. But his good nature didn't let that thought last and instead he thought he would probably have to take Daryl and go back for Merle. It was the right thing to do. Even for someone he hadn't met and already hated.
Daryl thought he'd have the deer dead and back to camp long before dark. But the deer had led him too far away. After getting attacked by the walker, Daryl had tried to find the deer's trail again but eventually gave up when the sun had started to set.
He couldn't get back to the group safely in the dark. He'd have to find a place to sleep for the night and set out again when the sun came back up.
Daryl was pretty angry with himself. The whole day had been a complete waste except for the squirrels he had. And now he was stuck out in the woods with no tent, not even a sleeping bag. And that walker that he'd shot was a telling sign that the area wasn't safe.
Well this is a fine mess. He thought.
He made a very small fire and cooked one of the squirrels quickly so as not to draw too much attention.
Then he climbed a tree, making sure he was high enough to be out of reach of walkers, but not so high that if he dozed off and fell he would hurt himself too badly.
Daryl sat with his back to the trunk and his legs outstretched on a thick branch. He held his crossbow close to his chest with one hand and ate the squirrel with the other. It was comfortable enough.
He would sleep only winks all night.
He listened to the sounds of the night. A rustle here, a squeak there. He was so tired but needed to stay alert. Anything could happen to him alone in the woods in the dark.
Then Daryl heard the rain before he felt it. The tree-tops sheltered him from most of the drops but he was still getting wet.
Can it get any worse? He thought.
"Got anything else for me!?" He shouted into the darkness.
Daryl thought about his tent and his soft cot back at camp. He thought about the voices chatting around the fire. A knot tightened in his chest. He was lonely now. Even if he kept his distance, he knew that having people around was better than this.
The forlorn hunter folded his arms around his crossbow tightly, turned his head to the side, lay his cheek on one raised shoulder, and you wouldn't have been able to tell because of the rain, but a tear rolled down his face and landed on his shirt.
In their tent Rick stroked his son's hair and kissed him goodnight.
He got under the covers with Lori.
"I thought you were dead", admitted Lori.
"I knew I would find you," lied Rick.
Rick thought about his lie. It was what the truth should have been. So that's why he said it. He did not think there was any chance he would find them.
Lori showed Rick his wedding ring and asked him if he wanted it back. Inside Rick's head he felt himself screaming, "NO!" But the words that came out were "of course."
Rick lay next to Lori and held her but it didn't feel right.
He didn't completely understand what was going on with him but a thought crossed Rick's mind.
Could it be possible that he and Lori had never belonged together at all? Maybe believing that she was dead and that there was nothing he could do about it was, in a twisted way, the push he needed to realize that he could live without her…
Rick pushed the thought down. He couldn't just throw away this miraculous second chance he had been given with his wife.
