Notes: Just when you thought I'd forgotten all about our Andrick! OMG, I'm writing again and I'm so happy I could do cartwheels even though it's 1am and I have to be up 6 for another long long day at work. So. Worth. It.
Missed you all, hope you enjoy.
Sleep now.
It starts as a trickle; one lone Walker straggling out from the dark interior of the prison as if just woken from a deep sleep. With a barely visible flex of her index finger Andrea fires the shot to hit the thing dead center of its forehead to drop it back into the shadows before it gets anywhere near them.
Another one creeps forward to meet the same fate and a third follows. All slow and leisurely and Rick knows it can't be this easy.
As he thinks it, a pair of zombies becomes visible in the entrance. He raises his gun to finally fire a shot and it wavers as he sees the movement surging from inside the facility toward the light.
"If we survive this," Andrea says with absolute calm and sincerity as she fires two shots in quick succession, "I may have to kill you."
He hears the words and feels an unlikely grin lift the corner of his lips as he begins firing to try taking out as many Walkers as possible as soon as their heads become visible in the sunlight. Six bullets go far too quickly and the number of fiends still coming is increasing at an alarming rate.
Andrea sees him flick out the chamber to reload and moves to stand guard in front of him, providing cover with her body and gun to give him the time needed to dig out six more rounds from the dwindling supply in his pockets. The move gives him pause for just a moment before he begins to jam the new bullets in.
He's torn between conflicting urges and instincts; the old-fashioned notion that he should be pushing her behind him because it was a man's duty to do the protecting of a woman versus the appreciation he had for anyone so willing to stand undaunted in the face of such coming danger.
She steps backward, pushing into him to urge him back as well and he sees that they're losing ground. He shoves aside sexist thoughts, finishes his reload and snaps the chamber back in place to resume firing.
He can't count the number of bodies coming at them. Some wore the orange scrubs or blue coveralls of inmates, others the remnants of guard uniforms and a few were in casual clothes. They filled the wide space of the bay door and just kept fucking coming.
Even making every shot count as he did, six rounds just weren't cutting it against the coming numbers. As he fires the last shot in the chamber his blood freezes at an announcement they really didn't need at that particular moment.
"I'm out," Andrea says; calm enough until she realizes that his ammo is spent as well.
"Chevy," he orders with a quick glance at the vehicle.
She's moving toward it without his instruction, sliding inside to check the clip she'd told Lori to refill with rounds.
"Goddamnit," she curses, finding T-Dog's clip to still be completely empty.
He quickly reloads his Colt; back braced against the side of the Suburban while she ejects her cartridge and begins to shove the .9 millimeter rounds into the clip. If her fingers fumble with the urgency of the situation, he doesn't see it.
As he flicks the reloaded chamber back into place to resume firing a shotgun blast comes from the gate. He doesn't have to look that way to see who had fired or why as he looks in front of him and sees a corpse collapse to the ground with a good portion of its head now blown away.
Without hesitation, he shuts the door to the truck to put Andrea safely inside the vehicle while he faces the threat alone. There are eight practically surrounding him now and he hears her cursing him and them before he starts firing and drowns out all sound aside from the click and crack of the hammer going down and bullet being expelled from the barrel of his gun.
Shotgun blasts come again, indicating that both Glenn and Maggie are now offering assistance from the other side of the fence and he swears he'll kiss them both once he gets out of this.
The truck rocks slightly at his back, drawing a moment of his attention to make sure no Walkers had overtaken the vehicle and somehow gotten into the driver's side to get to Andrea. He sees her blonde head disappearing over the seat into the backseat of the extended cab before she slips over that hurdle to wriggle through the window to get into the back of truck.
Knowing she's going for the duffle and whatever weapons it holds, he returns his focus to another quick reload before picking off more zombies.
"Rick, get out of there," Glenn calls from the other side of the gate as he expels the last shell in his 12 gauge.
His mind rejects the order, but his feet seem to obey it, shuffling backward along the body of the truck while digging in his pockets for bullets that were no longer there. He holsters the useless weapon and continues to inch toward the fence.
"Dad," Carl cries out, drawing his attention to the fact that the boy has exited the Hyundai and has a serious talking to coming. "Use this."
The machete just barely fits through the links of the fencing but the key is that it fit and he takes it gladly while Glenn turns to aim a shot at a Walker that had gotten dangerously close to Rick's back. His eardrums ring from the blast and he takes back the kiss he would have given the other man because that had just been too damned close for comfort.
"Get back in the car, Carl," he orders, shaking his head to try clearing it as he grips the handle of his new weapon and tries to focus.
He can only hope the boy obeys because he has no time to check as a zombie stumbles around the bumper of the Silverado just as Andrea decides to pop the hatch open and try climbing out.
"Get back inside," he orders, feeling like a broken record as he hacks the machete into the back of the Walkers head.
She makes no attempt to obey him as she throws the duffle back up onto the cap atop the bed of the truck then continues her slide out of the vehicle.
"I'm taking the high ground," she defies, using the tailgate to push herself up onto the roof after the bag.
He has no time to argue with her as the undead begin to swarm around the vehicle trying to get at the pretty blonde buffet shoving shells into the chamber of a 12 gauge on top of the Chevy. As a distraction it isn't one he would have chosen, but with the back closed up once more she's put herself in an ideal location; out of reach. He takes the opportunity it presents and begins to slash and hack his way through the heads of the Walkers as they gather around the truck and try to figure out a way to climb it or pull it down for them to get at Andrea.
They start to stagger at him, but he gets in the swing of it and finds the machete easier and more effective than the Python, though the effort is exhausting. Finding more bullets for his prized possession was tops on his list of priorities after getting out of this mess.
Shots begin to fire from above, indicating Andrea's gotten into position and she begins picking the creatures off like tin cans on a split rail fence. Random shots continue to boom from behind him indicating Glenn and Maggie still have some ammunition and Aspirin is racing up the list of things he needs after this because the barrage of bullets firing so close is making his teeth rattle.
Daryl and Michonne suddenly reappear like a mirage at the rear of the onslaught.
The newcomer to the group is slicing a path of destruction through the Walkers far more elegantly than Rick's managing with the machete, but his ego can handle such facts given how she's swooping in to help finish the task of keeping his ass alive.
Daryl is … Rick blinks and believes more than his teeth have somehow been rattled in the last few minutes because he swears Daryl is fighting with a mop. Broken in half with a blood caked sharp and jagged end in each hand, but still… a mop?
After what feels like hours, but was likely no more than thirty minutes the battle stops. Everything stops. The area goes quiet as guns stop firing and everyone seems to stop even breathing as they wait for the next shoe to drop.
A heartbeat.
Two.
Three pulses of blood still flowing through his veins and he allows his lungs to draw in the breath they're beginning to clamor for.
He blinks and slowly allows his hand to lower the machete from up high and ready to swing at the next head to hang at ease by his side.
Michonne flicks out her right hand, Katana flashing outward as an extension of her body and a veritable river of blood and gore runs from the hilt of the sword down a grove in the deadly blade to splatter to the pavement. Her head turns slowly to survey the scene around her, eyes watchful for a single twitch from anything sprawled on the ground. When all the bodies remain unmoving and possibly dead dead now she turns her dark eyes upon him and there's an expression there that makes a voice in the back of his head speak up and say, "Oh shit."
Daryl seems oblivious to the rage in the woman's eyes as he calmly yanks one half of his 'weapon' out of a skull then strolls past the woman to stand beside Rick.
"Nice little party you managed," the redneck drawls all casual like, but Rick knows the spark of angry sarcasm in the man's tone. "Hope you're ready to clean it up now 'cause I'm pretty much done for the count."
With that, the man grabs Rick's left arm and cheerfully jams the bloody mop head into his hand.
"Let's see about getting y'all past the velvet rope now," Daryl moves on to the fence to proclaim grabbing at the edge of the gate and giving it a yank to try opening the barrier.
Dropping the mop with a barely suppressed shudder of revulsion, Rick glances up to check on Andrea, finds her beginning to move from the roof of the Chevy then turns his attention to the other man before Glenn can move to help open the gate.
"Don't open it yet. We need to do a sweep of the inside and-"
"I can assure you," Michonne stands over him with her free hand still fisted from the punch she had used to cut him off before he could complete his instruction. "Whatever may have been inside either trampled past us on its way after you or was killed by us. If you care to doubt me feel free to walk yourself into the big, dark building without a damned light to see by and I'll stand out here in the open seeing how many more I can wake up to grab at you while you're virtually blind."
He hears Andrea's boots hitting the ground before she rushes to carefully put herself between Michonne and him.
"Come on, now," she chides, giving her friendliest smile as she subtly begins to urge the other woman to back away. "It wasn't his brightest idea, but you got back out. Looks like we may have cleaned house pretty well, too. Let's not do anything rash now."
"Perhaps you could have thought of issuing that advisement to him before he deliberately went against the one simple request I made that we not make noise to alert this things to our presence and bring this whole place down on our heads at once."
He makes no attempt to defend his actions, pushes to his feet and allows her to vent for a few moments before moving to stand beside Andrea. The blonde immediately moves herself to put him behind her and out of Michonne's range and he smiles at the maneuver; the first time she does it.
When it happens again, he's too tired with too much work yet to be done to allow the shenanigans to continue. As she wiggles her way between him and the other woman he tries not to look down at her wiggling backside as it positions itself in front of him and he puts a firm hand on her shoulder to hold her back as he moves to stand directly in front of Michonne.
"I appreciate what you done here and I understand what you've been through, so I'll allow the outburst, but if you're fixing to stay here with us you've got to realize things need to get done and sometimes quick, hard and ugly is the only way to do it if we're to survive. It may not have been my best judgment call; most everyone here would probably tell you there's been a lot of that lately, but it had to be done and now it is done. Can we move on?"
If she had been a man he would have extended his hand for a shake, but the gesture doesn't sit right in his head so he just holds her gaze until she gives a single nod of agreement before nimbly sliding her katana back into its sheathe on her hip.
"I believe you were volunteering yourself for a sweep of the inside," she says, crossing her arms across her chest with challenge now lighting her eyes. "Your friend and I can begin piling the bodies."
"You can use my flashlight," said 'friend' remarks as he moves away from the gate to join the trio. "Soon as you find my bow. Got knocked out of my hands a few yards in."
Seeing Daryl shoulder up to the black woman and exchange a smirk as the two are obviously relishing the idea of Rick venturing into the prison, he really wishes for some of that Aspirin right about now.
His fingers flex and he feels clothing beneath them; realizes he's still gripping her shoulder. Before he can pull his hand away, she reaches up to touch his fingers, giving him a smile over the shoulder.
"I saw a few flashlights in the Chevy. We'll use them, see if there's any way to get some lights on inside," she gives his hand a squeeze then slowly pulls away to head toward the vehicle.
He smiles at her back, liking the idea that she's spoiling the fun their companions had thought they would have sending him into the prison without light. His eyes follow her all the way to the truck, lingering as she opens the back door, bends in and rummages on the floorboard to come up with one flashlight.
He opens his mouth to tell her that all he'd need because there's no way he's letting her go in with him when a movement on the other side of the fence catches his eye. His eyes meet Lori's before she looks away from him to glance at Andrea before moving back to him. He wonders how long she'd been there, what she'd seen or heard and what she thinks she's seen or heard. The clench of her jaw and sour pucker of her lips along with the condemnation in her eyes tells him she's seen enough.
Suddenly wandering into the unknown depths of a prison that may still be overrun by zombies seems the lesser of two evils.