Chapter Twenty-Five:

Caesar

"No, Rick," Laurel said, watching as their leader weighed up the options. "No way."

"He's bullshittin' us. Besides, I ain't leavin' him again," Daryl said loudly, but it didn't look as though Rick were hearing either of them. He held the Governor safe against himself, thought over the possibilities. There's always the nuclear option.

"Rick," Laurel said loudly, "we are not leaving him."

"Then you won't be leaving here alive," the Governor chimed, smiling in spite of his precarious state.

"We're not leaving him!"

"You shut up, Blondie," Merle barked at her, but his eyes were on Rick.

"Go ahead, Sheriff," Merle said, and for once his tone was not mocking. It was reassuring almost, resolute. He didn't believe the Governor's offer to be genuine for a second, but at this stage in failed negotiations, anything was worth a shot.

"Go on, take these people and get out of here. Get as far from these lunatics as you can then go a little further."

"No!" Laurel's eyes pleaded with Rick, who wasn't paying her any attention. She found Martinez in the crowd of the Governor's forces. He stared back at her.

"You don't have to do what he tells you to," she said desperately, to all of them but mostly to Caesar.

Rick was not listening to anyone. He knew that every word that came out of the Governor's mouth was just another ploy, just another game; for too long Rick had been clawing at peace, trying to garner it from an enemy who hated the very concept. There would be no peaceful resolution to this conflict, no end where every party came out unscathed.

Rick glanced towards Glenn, who gave him a meaningful look. Rick nodded, releasing the Governor but keeping his pistol at his back, pressed hard there so he knew not to move. Rick's hand moved around to the back of his belt and he drew something from there; a stubby read gun with barrel-shaped pellets attached to it, ready to be fired...

A flare gun, Laurel realised. What is he planning to do with that?

The others waited with their weapons at the ready, unsure of what was happening.

"We have charges set up all around Woodbury," Rick said, holding the gun up so that everyone could see it. "We have people waiting on the outskirts of your town, ready to set them off. I fire this flare and your whole town goes up in flames."

Silence from the crowd. The Governor gave a chuckle.

"You think that's funny?" Laurel barked, surprised at the revelation.

"I think it's surprising," he answered lightly. "A little more Guerilla than what I'd have expected from you, Rick."

Rick ignored him, addressing the crowd. His eyes found Merle's, and he saw how the older man tensed. His eyes were trying to tell him something, something that he had missed.

"We're going to walk out of here right now, or I'll set this thing off and that'll be the end of your little community," Rick said, eyeing the Governor's men. Martinez shuffled forwards, his rifle held across his chest. He knelt down to Merle and pulled him to his feet, pushing him out towards Rick.

"Go," he said to their leader, stepping back towards his people.

"Smart man," Merle said, rooting his feet on Rick's side of the exchange, close by so that he might be of some use- or as much use as a man with only one hand and both arms secured behind his back could be.

The Governor gritted his teeth, jumping a little beneath Rick's hold. "Caesar, what are you doing?! He's bluffing!"

"You really wanna risk that?" Rick growled.

"Kill them!" Phillip roared, bucking against Rick's hold. The two men struggled for a moment; in the confusion several of the Governor's men moved forwards, but no guns were fired. Glenn moved in response to help, but several guns were raised in his direction and he was forced to remain where he was.

The Governor caught his foot beneath Rick's and managed to send the pair of them to the ground, the two men sprawling in the dirt. Still no one intervened, perhaps too invested in who would come out on top; Glenn wondered if half of the Governor's men weren't rooting for the wrong side.

Rick was beneath the Governor, but he still had the gun; he smacked the barrel of it against the head of the man who was clawing at his throat; the governor barely flinched, but made his aim for the gun instead; knowing it would be a loosing battle Rick threw the weapon behind himself, out of reach of the both of them, and drove his elbow up into the Governor's chin. It was scarcely a second before Phillip was back on him, driving him into the ground with his knees and pounding his fists into Rick's face, over and over and over again until...

...He suddenly stopped. Laughing under his breath, Phillip pulled himself to his feet as Rick reeled on the ground, his face painted red with blood, struggling to pull himself into a sitting position. The Governor retrieved the flare gun from the ground and backed up towards his people, wiping blood from his mouth. He examined the gun ad Glenn and Daryl pulled Rick to his feet, catching him when he swayed upon them. Glenn produced another flare gun, and held it high into the air.

The relief which had danced behind the eyes of some of the Governor's men vanished immediately. His voice gargling, Rick repeated his offer.

"We leave now," he said. "All of us. You let us walk and it's over. No one has to die. This is your last chance to stop this war."

"You want a war, Rick?" Phillip said, a concerning energy to his voice. He looked again at the red gun in his own hand, a glimmer in his eye.

"Let's make it a war."

In one sharp movement the Governor pointed the flare gun high into the sky as he watched his opponent with fiery eyes flashing.

"Don't!" Glenn snapped, stepping forwards, as the Governor's finger pressed down on the trigger-

And uup, up, high into the sky flew the flare-

Not easy to sunlight, a white streak against a warm blue sky, but still there, still reaching zenithwards with a long white tendril-

And then falling, falling, nosediving as quickly as it had ascended-

And vanishing on the air, as though it had never been there at all.

For a moment everything was still. Then the Governor's eye came back down to earth, and he addressed the stunned party.

"Bluffing!" Phillip announced, turning to his army with a smile. "See?"

No one spoke, too shocked to say a thing.

"I've gotta say, I'm a little disappointed-"

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

The bombs came in succession, three of them ripping through the quiet one right after the other. Half the people stood around jumped almost out of their skin. Phillip stopped dead in his tracks, ignoring the panic that was beginning to bloom in the crowd.

"You didn't," he said to Rick, and there was something like a smile creeping in to his tone.

A fist struck the Governor in the side of the head. It came as such a shock to him that it knocked him to his knees. Again and then again, so that half of a broken tooth flew out of his mouth in a spray of blood; the man grunted as his assailant stamped hard on his leg, and there was a harrowing crunch as the Governor fell backwards.

"What the fuck have you done?!" his assailant roared down at him, one of his own men. "My kids are back there, man!"

A woman made sure the Governor stayed on the ground by hitting him hard with the butt of her gun as he tried to stand. A few of his people were already rushing back to the trucks, ready to ride home and do whatever they could to save the people they loved, the people who their Governor had just put in serious jeopardy. More followed, but others stayed put, their guns aimed on Phillip or on the prison group, many of them unsure of who it was they ought be shooting. Martinez shouted after those fleeing as they piled into the trucks, ready for a new fight, his fists banging on the window of one of the trucks even as it took off in the direction of their community.

The man who had punched the Governor was gone now along with most of his people, whose loyalties lay back at the town. Still the Governor found weapons pointed in his face.

"I thought they were playing us," he said, spittle in the corners of his mouth as his eye flashed left and right, his mind working overtime in an attempt to reason his way out of the carnage he had caused.

Laurel had picked up the knife that the Governor had wielded earlier and was using it to free Merle's arms from the bizarre knot they had been tied into behind his back. She wondered if he was telling the truth, or if he's secretly been hoping to revel in the chaos firing that flare had caused. Still, she was sure he'd never have imagined that his hold on his people was so weak they'd turn tail and run from him, that one single action could put him in such a precarious position. When the knots were untied Merle turned to her, rubbing at his prosthetic, loosened it where the skin was hurting from being clammed up for so long. He looked her dead in the eyes, wondering if she was okay, wondering how what in blue hell had lead to her being here.

She stared back as he gestured to take her gun from her. Laurel shook her head and held it tighter.

"kill them," the Governor said to his people, but to the one holding a rifle in his face in particular. He reached out a hand and put it on the young man's arm. "Kill them, Dean, kill them now and we'll go back there right away and sort things out. We'll get your Mom-"

The young man shrugged him off, raising the rifle a little higher.

"Everyone back home. Everybody back home and you just... how could you do that-?!"

"They did this!" Phillip barked, pointing a finger across at Rick and the others. "Martinez, tell them!"

Caesar looked between both groups. He seemed remarkably calm for all that was happening. He took slow steps up to the Governor's side, then motioned Dean away so that he could stand in front of the man. Martinez stared at the man, not listening to the orders he was trying to give him; after a few moments, Caesar drew back his leg and landed a sharp kick beneath the Governor's jaw, sending the man backwards into the dirt.

"You talk too much."

Martinez addressed Rick and the others.

"The bombs are outside the walls," Glenn explained loudly to those who remained, the people who were ready to shoot them if only someone would give the order. "out in the woodlands. No body will have been killed. Your walls are safe. It was only a deterrent, something to draw you away from here if he wouldn't make a deal."

Martinez nodded, and pointed a finger in their direction. "You better be telling the truth."

The Governor was talking again, and for the first time in a long while, no one was listening. Merle picked up Rick's python from the ground and held it against the Governor's head.

"You might wanna do the smart thing and shut up for a minute," Merle said softly. The Governor growled in reply.

"We're gonna go home now," Martinez said, his voice firm. "Blown-out walls or not, the place is gonna be bedlam. We'll go clean up the mess he's just made."

"We can come with you," Rick offered. "We can help you make the place safe, thin out the Walkers that'll be drawn in-"

"Last thing my people are gonna want to see is the people who planted the bombs," Caesar rebuffed, moving for the last remaining truck. he gestured for the others to follow, and while most though confused were eager to leave, a few stayed put.

"We're just gonna let them go?!" one man said, his pistol still raised, "after all this?"

"They didn't do shit to us," Martinez replied.

"Didn't do shi... are you crazy?! What about Crowley, what about Gargulio and everyone else who' died because of them-?!"

Dean looked between them in understanding.

"It was just him," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear as he gestured for his companions to put down their weapons. "He started it all. They don't want to fight. Do you?"

He put the question to the prison group. Heads shook in tense silence.

"No," Rick said, and it couldn't have been more of the truth. "We don't want to fight."

"Then it's over," Martinez said, walking to the truck. "They'll live their lives, we'll live ours."

The man who had protested walked quickly to his side. "But they just-!"

"I said it's over!" Martinez barked, and swiped the pistol from his hand. People still held weapons, but now they were mostly lowered. Martinez nodded down at the Governor, who was still fighting to be heard.

"He's sent a separate group to the prison, to end this once and for all. I can't guarantee that they won't be there already, that your people will be safe."

"Our people aren't there," Rick said, agitated at the new revelation all the same and very glad that they had prepared for the eventuality.

Martinez closed his eyes a moment, planning their next moves and stepping into his self-appointed leadership as though it were a suit tailored precisely to him.

"I'll head back to Woodbury and deal with the aftermath. Dean, Matthers, you two over there, you go back with them and call the others off."

"Me?" Dean questioned, his skin draining in colour, "they won't listen to me-"

"They will," Martinez barked, "you'll make them listen."

"But I... what if they thing we're lying, that we're being forced to pretend everything's resolved-?"

"So convince them. You're a diplomat, Gorman. People can't help but trust you. You'd have made a good politician."

"Might still one day," Dean answered with an awry smile, a little more confident with Martinez' praise.

The others were itching to leave, already piling into the last of the military vehicles. Caesar followed after them, knowing that time was not to be wasted if there was any hope of avoiding catastrophe back home. The violence was still in the Governor, and he screamed and cursed as he fought against a defeat he had never expected.

There was a moment of whispering among the people from the truck, still suspicious, but eager to get to their families rather than lash out against the prison group.

"You can keep him," Caesar called once the micro-debate had ended, nodding at the Governor. A couple of people spat over the idea of the truck, glaring at the man who only minutes ago they might have died for had he ordered it. "He's your problem now. I'm sure you've all got plenty of ideas of what to do with him."

And with that they made their leave. The Governor cursed after them, unable to believe how quickly the tables had turned against him, how fragile his control over his people had been all along. His anger subsided as they moved further and further from the silos, and he came to understand just how severely he had been beaten. Just then, as the calmness came, it all seemed almost funny to him.

"Beware the Ides of March," Phillip breathed, his voice whimsical, barely a breath from all of the shouting, all of the fighting to be heard. Laurel stared at him, unable to take her eyes off the man.

Could it really all be over? Laurel could hardly believe it. It didn't feel real, even as Caesar's truck turned from a dark speck on the horizon into nothing at all. The only thing that felt tangible was Glenn's hand on her shoulder, him asking if she was alright.

"I will be," Laurel said, reaching up to squeeze his hand.

Merle left the Governor's side and moved to where his brother stood.

"You've looked better," Carol said as he approached. Merle smiled at her, but hadn't the energy to think of something quick and clever to say back.

Daryl's voice was thick when he spoke. "I thought you were a gone for good this time."

"S'all easy, little brother," Merle reassured him, wincing at the pain he felt all over. "can't kill me that easy."

Daryl smiled a little. Merle pressed his forehead to his brother's for a moment, and they brought their hands to the backs of one another's necks, saying all the things neither of them had the words nor the courage to say.

"Where are the others?" Laurel asked Glenn, one hand still tight on her gun, eyes still on the man they had seemingly beaten.

"Maggie set off the charges, she'll be on her way back to the others now," Glenn explained reassuringly. "They're all safe, set up safe in the petrol station by the prison. We can go and bring them home, once we've dealt with..."

Glenn looked to the Governor, too, as Rick stepped up beside the man.

"Where is Michonne? Have you killed her?"

Phillip's smug smile returned. Not completely defeated, then.

"She's alive. Probably wishing she wasn't. Oh, Rick, I can't wait for you to see."

Laurel's frown hardened.

"What are we going to do with him?" she asked openly.

"We kill him," Daryl said, and Carol nodded beside him. The consensus was absolute.

"Somehow I thought you people were above all that," Phillip said with little sincerity. "No judge, no jury..."

"Plenty of executioners, though," Laurel piped in, stepping towards him. "Everyone here has got good reason to want a piece of you."

"Let me do the honours," Merle offered.

"No," Rick said, and held out a hand for his python. "I will."

"Why should you get all the fun, Friendly?" Merle chided him, "I've just spent days at this jack-ass' mercy. If anyone deserves to take the shot-"

"Dixon, I'd like my gun back-"

"The solution is simple enough, isn't it?" Laurel said over the two of them. Laurel raised the gun she held in the Governor's direction. He cocked his head at her, understanding before the others did.

"Death by firing squad."

"When did you develop such a taste for killing?" Phillip mocked through broken teeth.

Laurel glared hard at him. "Be assured that knowing that people like you are still crawling the face of the earth has a great deal to do with it."

"Consider it my gift to you," Phillip said, sneering at her. Merle walked over and put his fist into the man's face, silencing him momentarily. More blood, another tooth. The quiet didn't last long.

"It gets easier, you know," Phillip called over to the girl, spitting a mouthful of blood into the dirt. "no one's a killer in the beginning."

"You'll be number three," she told him coldly.

Again there was a hint of a smile. "And counting, I wouldn't wager. Everyone's a murderer after the first kill, yes, but it takes finesse to become a killer. Keep on killing and soon enough it's as easy as tying your shoes." His attentions moved to Rick. "Your noble leader understands that as well as I do."

Rick did not want to hear another word out of the man's mouth.

"Firing squad it is, if everyone's comfortable with that," the former Sheriff said, not pausing to see if anyone would protest. No one did.

"Let's get this done."

Guns slowly pointed in the Governor's direction. Phillip sighed. He at least had the good grace to know when he was beaten; there was no way out for him now.

"I'd prefer to stand, if that's not too much to ask."

Rick nodded, and he and Merle hauled the Governor to his feet. Phillip stayed still, hovering on his fractured leg, maintaining a dignified posture in spite of the injury. Running would only wound his pride and reap him a coward's death. He'd sooner die with pride than like a rabbit being chased through a field.

The group waited for Rick to give the order, fingers hovering against triggers as Merle gave their leader back his pistol. All guns were raised, all pointing towards the man who had caused them so much turmoil. There was a thirst for this if every person's eye; even the Governor looked as though he were daring them, defiant till the end.

"Together," Rick said, and the others nodded in agreement.

Things became tense as Rick lingered, not yet giving the order.

"Tell your Andrea I said goodbye," Phillip said, his tone as taunting as it had ever been. Rick looked away for a moment, hating how he was still finding ways to get beneath his skin. "Oh, and Rick, one last thing before I depart-"

"I'll let you have the last word, seeing as it will really be your last."

Phillip's eyes widened.

Because what could he possibly say back to something like that?

Whatever it might have been, the Governor did not finish his sentence;

Shuck-!

A bullet finished it for him.

The wound was a straight shot, clean. Laurel wasn't sure who fired it. Her eyes were fixed on the man himself, more accurately on the dark red wound which formed at the base of his throat. red streaks streamed from his neck like a fountain, and his hand came up to meet the flow.

The Governor's eye met with Rick's for the final time. He opened his mouth again, but the gunfire which followed drowned his words out.

The man dropped in a graceless motion, each bullet throwing him in some new direction, until his body became a crumpled heap of red welts.

Phillip Blake lay dead.

Laurel stared down the barrel of her pistol at the man; she heard the heavy breaths of those either side of her.

She had not fired a single shot.

Merle put his hand to her shoulder, felt the way she flinched a little.

He cleared his throat. "You good?"

The girl nodded. "I'm good."

Merle kissed her temple, a small gesture which went unnoticed in the carnage which surrounded them.

"That's my girl."

AN: Seeya, Phillip!

Double-whammy tonight folks, hope you enjoyed. Once more chapter and we lay this one to rest. Have a great week!