Rick wakes to an increasingly familiar and oddly comforting sound; metal scraping rhythmically over stone.

He drops the arm that he has flung over his face and blinks awake only to flinch at the unexpected brightness coming from above him. His eyes are gritty and dry; the light irritating to them. He pushes upward with a groan, raising a weary hand to rub at the grit as his mind starts to kick in.

There's a weighted pause in the scrape of metal over stone as he shifts, but it resumes at a slower pace without anything being said to address his return to reality. He braces his hands on the edge of the bed and grips the thin mattress to prepare himself for another glimpse of the world. The motion pulls at the stitches in his right arm and the evidence of what had happened causes his stomach to lurch.

"How long was I out?"

His voice is a hoarse rasp that is so hard for even him to hear that he has to wonder if he actually spoke the words.

"Been a few hours," Daryl drawls, simple and low without pausing in his sharpening of whatever weapon he's fooling with.

Rick had known it to be Daryl outside his cell and he really isn't sure how he feels at having it confirmed. His eyes squint open and he slowly turns his head to look at the man.

He finds Daryl across the corridor outside his cell; his sitting on the floor, legs folded in front of him as he leans back against the wall sharpening his hunting knife in a habitual manner while keeping a steady eye on Rick. On the floor beside him, within an instant's grab, is the man's crossbow with a bolt loaded and ready to fire. The cell door is open, but Rick doesn't take that as any sign of faith on the group's part given the guard that he was clearly left with.

He wonders if Daryl'd actually kill him if he showed any signs of violence in that moment. He flexes his grip on the mattress, feels the ache of abuse in his knuckles and remembers the feel of Thomas's throat crushing in his grip. He feels no regret for that. His eyes meet Daryl's and he sees no blame there, no threat. He sees caution and concern and that eases something inside him.

"You got the lights on," he muses, feeling at a loss for things to say but needing something other than silence.

Daryl just grunts at the words and Rick's mouth twists into a wry smile as he remembers who it is he's trying to make idle chitchat with.

"Everyone make it back?"

"Went smooth enough. The alarm was a bitch of a surprise; got lots of bumps and bruises fighting in the boiler room, but no bites or scratches," Daryl reports.

The knife slows to a stop over the whetstone and Daryl shifts to tuck the stone back into one of the many pockets on his pants before sheathing the razor-sharp knife back in its hip holster. He fidgets for a few minutes, scratching his neck, tugging his ear and picking at a scab on his arm as he shifts legs restlessly. Rick recognizes the signs of the man having something of a sensitive nature to say and struggling with the best way to say it given his lack of experience in actually caring about sensitive shit.

"We…uh…the girls, they…they cleaned her up as best they could. Can't do much to get the blood up, but Carol's still trying. They're digging now. Hershel figured that hilly patch of ground down to the right would be best for burials. Thinks we should keep the flats for gardening if we're staying here. Glenn and T should be about ready. If you are."

"Carl?"

There's a hesitation in the answer coming for that question and Rick's breath catches with concern for his son.

"Andrea's got her eye on him," Daryl bites at the inside of his cheek. "Kid ain't left Lori's side since we got back. Won't talk," he tugs nervously at his earlobe again. "It true he shot her?"

The question brings the nightmarish memory back to mind and he sees the unreal image of his son standing over Lori and hears the deafening sound of a single gunshot being fired.

"Shit," he groans, rocking forward to hang his head between his knees as the world starts to spin.

"That boy's gonna need you something fierce, brother," Daryl's voice sounds closer, but still at a distance. "Now ain't the time for you to lose it."

Rick chokes out a sound; part sob mixed with a bark of twisted laughter overtaken by a pained gasp as his body crumbles under the weight of this day. He doesn't know what to do or how to do it. He has to be there for Carl and he set himself up as lone leader to these people so he now has to find a way to lead them through this when he's so far under it all that all he sees in crimson blood drying black and covering his hopes for survival in carnage and loss.

A howl of grief escapes him, echoing eerily off the walls and he would have fallen to the floor were it not for the shoulder that suddenly presses into his chest as an arm wraps around his shoulders and a rough hand guides his head to rest against Daryl's chest.

"I ain't no good at this shit," the man growls, warning and complaint both in the biting tone. "You got five minutes to let it out, hoss, then we suck this up and shove it down. Got stuff to get done."

Rick takes advantage of the offer, pressing into the comfort given and shuddering with sobs that produce surprisingly few tears. His eyes feel dry and wasted, he can't cry, but his body is convulsing with the grief. His loss and failure are bone deep; go soul deep. He feels like he's mourning for nothing and everything all at once; this goes beyond Lori. This is the grieving that he hasn't allowed himself since he woke up in that hospital bed to find this horrid new world.

He feels himself breaking apart and five minutes can't put him back together.

"Dammit, you make me cry and I'll kick your ass."

Somehow, those words prod a laugh from him and Rick latches on to the humor; clings to the anchoring support of Daryl's shoulder. It reminds him suddenly and painfully of Shane, the man that he'd been; the friend that he had been, up to that moment on Hershel's porch when Shane had wiped Carl's blood from Rick's forehead. He'll never understand how that had gone so wrong, so fast. How they went from practically brothers to plotting to kill one another in just the span of weeks.

He'll never understand this world, but, then, how much of it had he really understood before. Understanding it is too much, making sense of it impossible; he just has to manage it. He's got to suck it up and shove it down and focus on one breath to the next until they grow calm and steady. Then he focuses on easing his death grip around Daryl's ribs, not even knowing when he'd flung his arms around the man to cling like such a vine. They both know more than five minutes have passed by the time Rick manages to straighten away and sit upright on his own, but neither of them say anything as Daryl falls back to lean against the cell wall and does back to watching with that cautious concern.

"Y'all went through the laundry," his voice is still hoarse, but surprisingly steady as it croaks out. "Any chance there's clothes there? I," he looks down at himself for a moment before clenching his eyes shut at the blood stained uniform.

Daryl shifts and Rick opens his eyes to watch the man grab something from the top bunk.

"Eugene's still tinkering with the pipes to get actual water throughout the prison, but the showers are working," Daryl presents Rick with a bundle of clothes. "I can take you there, get you cleaned up a bit."

Rick stares at the garments on offer and feels a knot in his throat. They didn't select prison garb for him; they'd found a guard's uniform. Despite it all, they still saw him as the authority figure in the group and that realization is as much blessing as it is curse.

"Yeah," he licks at his dry lips and reverently takes the clothing. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

Daryl gives a jerky nod of his head then reaches out to squeeze Rick's shoulder before giving it a tug to urge him to stand. Once he's on his feet, Daryl releases his shoulder and reaches behind him to grab something else from the bunk. Seeing the bottle of water the man grabs, Rick takes it and gladly gulps down half of the clean, clear contents between one breath and the next. His friend laughs at his greed when he pauses to suck in air before throwing back the remainder of the liquid.

"We actually do have more of that for a change, you can take it easy, there," Daryl snorts his amusement as he watches Rick cast the empty bottle aside and look for more.

Rick nods absently at the words, locates a second bottle on the bunk and grabs it for himself. His parched throat and lips were eased by the first bottle, though, so he tucks the second in his back pocket and turns to exit the cell. As he steps across the threshold, he hears a low hum of voices from the cafeteria and stutters to a stop with his gaze going to the open doorway. He can't see anyone. In his mind's eye, all he can see is Lori in the pool of her own blood.

"Let's get you cleaned up before you deal with that," Daryl's hand claps him on his shoulder as he urges reason. "Carl don't need to see you like this."

"Worst part is, I think he's getting used to seeing me like this," Rick hangs his head at the knowledge, hearing all of Lori's recent lectures rolling through his head with some brutal truths that he hadn't wanted to hear then or now.

Daryl doesn't say anything to that, just gives him a nudge in the other direction. They walk past the cell at the end of the row and Rick pauses at the stains on the floor.

"We took that garbage out," is all Daryl says on the topic of the missing body.

They move through the halls toward the showers in silence. The room is empty, but the tiled floors are still wet from recent use. Rick is momentarily surprised by the lack of corpses in the room, but when he stops to think about it he doesn't really imagine anyone would be wanting to risk the vulnerability of a group bathroom and nudity when people are dying then coming back to life all around.

No one wants to get caught with their pants down.

Trusting Daryl to watch his back while he's thus exposed, Rick begins the process of stripping down. His gun belt is heavy with all the new additions and his body goes slack with the relief of the weights being eased away. He puts the belt on the counter between sinks and starts pulling out the things tucked away in his pockets, belt loops and waistband; flashlight, baton, keys, water bottle, pocketknife, hunting knife and yet another switchblade tucked away. He finds three loose bullets in the depths of one pocket as he empties it out and he snorts out a laugh as he carefully places each piece of ammunition on the counter.

He sees shaving cream and disposable razors at the last sink down the row and he considers his scruffy reflection in the mirrors. He scrubs a hand over his jaw and imagines it free of stubble again. Just the thought makes him feel a fraction more civilized than he's felt in a while.

He moves to a nearby bench in the room and sits to unknot the laces on his boots to pull the heavy things off. He rears back from the odor of his own feet when they hit air and he realizes he's gone a good four days without taking his shoes off to let his skin breathe.

"You happen to come across any decent shoes?" he asks without much hope for a positive response as he sets his boots aside and slowly peels off his damp socks.

"Gotcha fresh socks, but most the shoes so far are still attached to bodies and I somehow think they'd be a bit worse on the stench than what we've got on."

Rick huffs out a laugh at that and balls up his socks to drop in a pile to be thrown with the rest of his current outfit. His fingers feel thick and unwieldy on the buttons of his shirt, but he still makes a concentrated effort to undo each button to remove the garment rather than just ripping it away as it's bound for the trash anyway. Daryl moves to take position leaning against the entryway so that he has a clear view of things in and outside of the showers as Rick pulls the shirttails from his pants and gets down to the last few buttons.

"We've all lost a lot. More than we had to spare, but you've done good holding us all together," the man begins to talk, low and quiet; almost to himself as he focuses on the sunlight coming in through a barred window high on the wall to his left. "Strongest of men have broken for less 'n you're goin' through. We've lost family; brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children. Most days seems like all we do is lose, but I need you to remember one thing in all of this," Rick pauses in the act of stripping off his undershirt when Daryl's head twists in his direction. "You're family, too. For each one we lose, those that's left mean more. I lost Merle; got a damned good brother in you. You may be as thickheaded as him sometimes, but you tend to take to reason better, so I'm trusting you to keep doing what you've been doing. I can't even start to imagine how you do it, but you can't stop now."

"I have no idea what I'm doing. I never did," Rick tears off his tee shirt and wrings it in his hands. "All this has ever been for me is finding Carl and Lori and looks what's come of that?"

"Yeah. Look," Daryl pushes away from the wall to pace over to him. "You found them. Alive. You got more time with your family; not just a minute or a moment like we're barely lucky to get, but days. Weeks. They've been a lot of bad days, but I'd still take that over not knowing what happened to my brother after that rooftop. Carol would give anything for one argument with Sophia over the memory of that little girl staggering out of the barn. The list never ends if you start making it. No one's loss is greater or less than anyone else's. What matters is how we go on," Daryl stops to almost playfully kick at Rick's bare foot. "You've been teaching us that since you got here."

"Have I?" Rick scoffs and tips his head back. "And killing Thomas with my bare hands? Shane? Those guys in town from Randall's group? What kind of lesson has that been? 'We don't kill the living,' those are my own words!"

"Always said they were funny coming from a man with a gun aimed at my own head," Daryl plops down on the bench beside him. "You kill when you got to. We protect our own. Gotta hold to what's left."

"Who am I to make those decisions?"

"Long as you keep asking that question, I think you're just the right person for it. I see a threat, I'll shoot first and never ask questions later. You've still got some trust and faith in you. You're willing to give these strangers a chance and-"

"And look where that got me?!" Rick shoves to his feet to pace. "Lori wanted them dead. She wasn't comfortable with convicts and I knew something was off about Thomas, but I couldn't put my finger on anything specific with that one so I opted to wait and see and I saw my wife's dead body in a pool of blood with her throat slashed open. Carl saw his mother like that. My boy had to put down his own mother because I was to shocked to respond when her corpse started moving and all because I wanted to trust in these people being more than criminals."

"Eugene got the power back. Water, too. He'll have us heat for the coming cold. Guy's got a way with rigging up gadgets that we can really use. Axel's a good guy. Ol' junkyard dog, all bite and plenty useful for grunt work. We're lucky to have them. Focus on that."

"And Dexter?"

"We've all been watching him. He steps out of line and none of us will hesitate to take him out after today. Not a one of us would lose sleep over it if you took him out or asked me to," Daryl's gaze is as steady as his voice.

"Hell," Rick laces his hands together behind his neck and pulls his head forward in an aggravated movement. He stretches like that for a moment, then drops his arms with a sigh. "Where is he, anyway?"

"Burial. He insisted to cleaning up his bitch's remains. Got Axel outside digging a grave beside Lori's. Andrew seemed a good enough kid, none of us have a problem with that."

Rick nods at that.

"Thomas?"

"No one's digging a hole for that shit. He'll burn with the Walkers."

"Good," Rick nods again. "Good."

He breathes in and moves toward the showers, shucking his pants and boxers to leave behind with the conversation as he goes to the nearest showerhead. He turns the nozzles and the water blasts out like ice, but he doesn't care as the spray immediately picks up grit from his skin and carries it away toward the floor and drain.

There's soap on a rope hanging from a hook on the wall and an assortment of shampoos and shower gels are set on the floor nearby. He goes for the soap and begins the lengthy process of scrubbing away blood and dirt and sweat and tears along with a layer or two of skin. He uses the whole bar with only a passing thought to the waste of what is likely a precious commodity in their circumstances.

The water barely gets to more than lukewarm as he washes his hair and gives his body one last scrub down with lather from the shower gel, but he doesn't care. It could have stayed cold and he wouldn't have cared. Temperature didn't matter nearly as much as function. When he finally turns the taps back off, he feels cleansed inside and out.

He finds towels waiting on the low wall the divides the showers from the sinks and he wraps one around his waist and begins drying with another as he sets his sights on the shaving supplies at the sink. Daryl's gone back to standing guard in the entryway, keeping his eyes diverted if Rick were to want to run around without the towel. The very notion makes Rick chuckle as he fills his palm with shaving cream and lathers it over his growing beard.

"You can look, Ethel, I'm not preparing to streak," he scoffs with a sideways look at the man.

Daryl snorts at the reference and cuts him a quick glance.

"Feel better?"

"Almost human," Rick answers as he begins the process of shaving with a damned safety razor.

"You'd have better luck with my knife," Daryl snorts with a derisive look at the razor.

"Yeah," Rick glances toward the weapon in question, "if I wanted to cut off my whole face."

"Just sayin'."

"I appreciate the offer."

The man flips him off and goes back to staring up at the window as Rick works away the growth of hairs on his face and neck.

"This is gonna be good for us," he muses after a few minutes. "Got off to a horrific start, but we can make this place work. Hell," he laughs, "never thought I'd be happy 'bout spending the rest of my life in a prison, but if we can hold this…"

Rick hums and nods his agreement as he rinses away the residue on his face and checks his reflection for stray hairs.

"We'll make it a good place for Carl. A safe place. Lori'd like that."

Rick pauses with his face buried in a towel and resists the urge to scream at those words.

"Thought we were gonna shove all that down," he reminds, trying to keep the bite out of his tone as he repeats the man's earlier words back to him. "Got stuff to get done."

"We do and we will. Thing like that, though, ain't like any of us are ever going to forget it. We can stifle our reactions, but there's no unseeing what we saw. I had my issues with your missus, but she tried. Good mom, decent enough woman. Didn't deserve what she got. I'm s-"

"Don't finish that. Ever," Rick cuts him off and moves to start sorting through his new clothes for underwear to slip on. "You've got nothing to be sorry for in all of this."

"I coulda done it. I had the same reservations about Dexter and Thomas. I could've slit both their throats in their sleep last night and we'd have been done with it. Lori'd still be alive. That baby'd still have a chance."

"You are not going to beat yourself up over that," Rick orders, jaw dropping for a moment at the mere thought of the man taking that blame onto himself. "You are not my henchman. Carol's right in that. The things you do for this group are more than kill. You're not a murderer."

"Neither are you," Daryl points out as Rick begins to dress, "so I guess we can both stop beating ourselves up over not killing Thomas before he showed himself to be a murderer."

Rick pauses in the act of tucking in his new black, short-sleeved button-up shirt and gives the man a slightly exasperated look.

"You been holding that in long?"

"Had some time to work on it while you were dawdling in the shower," Daryl slants him a crooked grin.

"Any other pearls you want to add?"

"Nah. Here endeth the lesson."

Rick shakes his head and goes back to tucking in and buttoning up his shirt. He fastens his black slacks and moves to shove his feet back in to boots before crossing to the counter. He slicks his damp hair back and thinks it growing a little long for the clean cut professional look that his new uniform dictates, but he doesn't give a thought to cutting it. The guard's uniform feels as different from his Deputy garb as night and day, but the look is similar and oddly comforting. He looks at the GADOC insignia on the shirt's left chest and sleeves and casts a glance to the floor for one last look at the emblems for King County Sheriff's Department.

He wonders for a moment what his life would have been like if he had studied medicine like his mom had wanted instead of following his father into law enforcement, then he reaches for his gun and carefully loads those three bullets into the chamber.

Notes: I had more in mind for this installment, but I just love writing these two so much that the scene kept growing to take the whole chapter. Already working to get my other ideas in for another update today.

The "reference" in here is to lyrics from "The Streak" by Ray Stevens. Don't ask me why, but lines from his songs always tend to stick in my head and I can't count the number of times I've said "don't look, Ethel" or "it's me again, Margaret" with thoughts of his music and the full knowledge that the person I'm speaking to is not getting the reference. My parents are the ones that got me hooked on that music and I most often say first thing when I call them, "it's me again, Margaret" and they don't just don't get it, so I thought I'd better explain myself for the usage here. And I really don't know why I'm listening to his songs today as I write Walking Dead fics, but here we have it.