Notes: Thank you all for being patient. I am in the process of moving which makes this a "famine" time. But several people did makes special requests so I worked to put up the next chapter. It's only one this time, however. As always, thanks to all for staying with the story and supporting it with your reviews.
Disclaimer: Copyright for The Walking Dead belongs to AMC, et al. The "Litany against Fear" comes from Dune and its copyright belongs to Frank Herbert, et al. My writing belongs to me, as do errors.
Title: "Bands"
Chapter: "Stalker"
The Block C commons was empty when Rick passed back through, the only light from the stars that shown down through the windows up a story. He could see a few dim half circles of light flicker from beneath the privacy curtains that were pulled across the cells along the first floor. He mounted the stairs as quietly as he could and noted that on the second level one of the lights came from beneath Carol's curtain. He couldn't help but smile to himself, but he resisted the urge to call on her just then. He needed to see his children. But there was no reason not to drop by with Judith to say goodnight.
He crossed through the double doors into D, listening as he always did for the small sounds that would tell him the state of their community. There were the low sounds of voices, words not discernible, the concrete acoustics warping the echoes until their origin was lost. A bunk creaked in a cell as he passed, snoring, the strange reverb of a pipe somewhere in the bowels of the mighty building adjusting itself to the cooling of the night. The cells on the upper deck of D were dark with the exception of the last at the far end. Carl had waited up.
Rick tapped lightly on the bars of the door when he reached it. He still wasn't used to the tinny clang that announced a visitor to one's room. When Carl didn't answer, Rick called his name softly and pushed aside the blanket. The sight that greeted him was arresting. In that moment he missed his wife acutely. He hoped that if there was an afterlife Lori had the ability to see what he saw at that moment. Carl was lying back on his pillows with Judith snuggled up on his chest. Her head was tucked under his chin, and his left arm was wrapped securely around her. The two were sleeping peacefully. Carl's right leg hung off the bed, his foot flat on the floor, while his right hand hung limply off the edge of the mattress. It seemed to gesture toward Judith's rocking cradle beneath it.
Rick leaned in the doorway and watched his children. In the low lantern light Carl's injured eye was hardly noticeable, and he looked so much younger than he did when he was awake. His pistol in its holster along with the deputy hat was hung from one poster at the foot of the bunks. Judith's bag hung off the other. A shallow bowl peeked out from under the bed next to where Carl had kicked his boots off. Judith looked like Carl had as a baby, and Carl looked like Lori. It occurred to Rick that he loved these two beings so fiercely that it made his bones ache, and that the fear of losing them followed him like his own shadow – had replaced it, in fact. The fear clung to him, infiltrated his unconscious and only became visible, recognizable to him when the light shown at certain angles. The rest of the time he might not see it. He might go about like he was paying attention to other things, but the shadow was there as his constant stalker.
He'd read a book once where a boy had to undergo a trial to prove his manhood. He didn't remember much about the book, except the mantra the boy had chanted to himself.
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
Rick had remembered it because he was at the academy doing his police training when he read it. He thought it was fitting for some of the situations they were learning about, like hostage negotiations and unarmed combat against armed assailants. He hadn't thought about it for years, certainly not since the dead began roaming the earth. He reflected on it now.
He had been afraid he'd lost Lori when he woke from his coma. He'd been afraid he'd lost her again when he found out about the baby...and Shane. Then he'd been so afraid of what the baby meant and of losing her to it that he'd lost her while she was still alive and then lost her to death. He'd been afraid of losing Carl, and in his desperation to save his son Rick had only just realized the trap he'd set for them both to lose each other – once again while they were alive and all the more quickly to death as a result if Carl's rash behavior was any indicator.
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. Rick thought back to his earlier conversation with Carol, on his observations about Tyreese and Karen, the words of Hershel, and the exchange with Daryl. The thing about it was, he'd tried not to fear. He'd failed at that. He'd tried to face his fear alone. Failed that one, too, and failed his wife and son while he was at it. In the book the test had been for an individual. This test? These tests? He was finally figuring out that they weren't.