AN: Here we go, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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Everything seemed to be happening in a fog. Andrea could see everything, she could hear some of it, but it was like it was just outside of her reach. It was just outside of her reality. Beyond the fences, the Governor was there with a small group of ten or twelve people—a dozen might even be being generous. But it wasn't the size of his group that had them all terrified.
In front of him, bound and on their knees, were Michonne and Hershel. The Governor stood to the side of them wielding Michonne's katana as though it were a baseball bat or a golf club. Right now it hung idly over his shoulder, but it was clear what he intended to do if he didn't get his way—and maybe even if it did. The sound they'd all heard earlier, quickly dismissing it as thunder or proof of some approaching storm, belonged to a tank—a tank who was ready to fire on them all. A tank that, probably, would blow up most of the prison if not all of it.
There simply didn't appear to be any way to get out of this situation without losing most of their lives.
Rick strode quickly but calmly down the yard and toward the gates. He was in the lower half to begin with and didn't have far to go to put only the fences and a short piece of ground between himself and the Governor. He stood facing him from his point in the prison yard.
"Let them go," was the first thing that Rick said. It was loud enough that it carried up to where Andrea was standing. She heard it through the fog that had settled in on her brain. She flicked her eyes to the side, where Daryl was slowly trying to move without moving to get to their weapons, but she doubted that they'd be of any use—startling the Governor or beginning to shoot had just as good of a chance of ending badly as it did of ending well. The Governor made no response to Rick's demand. At least, he made no response that Andrea could hear. "You have our attention," Rick's voice boomed out again. "What do you want?"
"We've come for the prison," the Governor said. Andrea heard that as clearly as she'd heard Rick's words. "We'll give you an hour to clear out. That's a fair amount of time. It's more time than you'd give. You take your people and you go."
"Go where?" Rick responded.
"That isn't up to me to decide," the Governor said.
"Let Hershel and Michonne go," Rick said. "We can talk about this. We can—work this out."
"There's nothing to work out, Rick," the Governor responded. "There's only time for you to pack. You and your people? You've got an hour—and the clock's ticking. You're not out of here by then? They die. You do too. I don't think that's what you want."
"We've got children here," Rick said. "We can't go on the road with them. They won't survive if we do."
Andrea couldn't tell if the Governor said something or if he was simply shuffling around and shifting his weight where he stood. Daryl had possession of some of the rifles now and he was moving, stiff bodied, while he tried to hand them out. Behind Andrea, while she stayed frozen place, she heard him offer a weapon to Eugene. She heard the man start to formulate some ridiculous response as to why he shouldn't take the weapon and she knew that he was probably right. He'd be just as likely to shoot one of them as he would be to shoot the Governor. He'd be just as likely to find a way to accidentally kill himself with the gun.
Andrea turned her head just enough to catch a view of Daryl and she hissed at him. She reached her arm back and waved her fingers at him, gesturing that she wanted the weapon. He hesitated a moment, but seeing that the conversation below wasn't going anywhere, he finally stepped forward and Andrea felt the gun in her hand. She wrapped her hand around the barrel. Then she felt Daryl's breath blowing on her face as he leaned close to her from where he was standing just behind her.
"You'll never hit him from here," Daryl said. "Not even if you're damn Annie Oakley. Gotta get closer. And don't you start shooting until you know there ain't no other way."
"I have to try to end this," Andrea hissed back, barely moving her lips with the formation of the words.
"You try to end it now, you're just gonna start somethin' else," Daryl warned. "Hold your fire. Rick'll let us know when it's time."
Andrea might have argued with him. She might have raised the rifle and, stubbornly, tried to take the shot that even her gut knew that she wouldn't make, but she stopped because she heard her name. It drifted up from the lower part of the prison yard. It drifted up through the hum of the conversation that she'd been ignoring. And then it was repeated. This time louder, and this time with some attempt to get her attention. Andrea turned her direction back to Rick and saw that he was looking back at her. He was gesturing toward her—a gesture of welcome but she knew it was anything but that. He was inviting her to come down the yard and show herself if she hadn't already been seen.
Andrea swallowed and readjusted the rifle so that she was holding it correctly, across her body. She didn't aim it, and she didn't threaten. She simply let it be seen. Then she started the walk down the yard, her blood thundering in her ears as she went so that she couldn't have heard anything else even if she'd been listening to it.
She was a bargaining chip. She didn't have to hear the words to know it to be so. She was something the Governor would want—or at least she had something he would want—and she was something Rick would be more than willing to do without. She should have felt offended. She should have felt terrified. Yet, even the fear she felt was dulled slightly by the fog that had seemed to settle into her mind for a moment. If she was the one that ended this, one way or another, she'd take that role.
"You force us out of here, you kill us, and you're killing your own," Rick said. Andrea was close enough now that she couldn't not hear the words. "You kill your own because we'll never make it on the road. Andrea won't make it if she delivers in a ditch somewhere. In a dirty barn. It's too hard for babies. My daughter won't make it. Yours either."
Andrea ignored that her breathing had naturally kicked up a notch. For the first time, she felt genuinely apologetic to her baby—a baby that she still actively tried to ignore at times—because she couldn't keep it safe. She couldn't offer it anything. Everything she'd given it was only because it had taken it. It wasn't truly an offer from her. And now? She may very well be condemning it to death before it had ever even known life.
Andrea felt Rick's hand wrap around the upper part of her arm and pull her toward him, the last few steps, before she even realized she'd gotten as close to him as she had. She focused on keeping her eyes straight ahead at the moment. She didn't want to look at Michonne—she couldn't. And she didn't want to look at him either. She could still remember the last time she looked at him and it was a memory she could do without repeating.
"We can make this work," Rick said. "We can live together. All of us! One group. We can forget what happened. We can put it all in the past. We all have a chance to start over. We have a chance to start again. We can come back from what we've done."
"I don't think so," the Governor said. His voice, now, was as loud as if he were standing beside Andrea. The sound of it—so close and so real and entirely outside of her memory—made her stomach churn. "My family wouldn't sleep well with you under the same roof as them," the Governor said. "I wouldn't sleep well."
"You'd kill your own child?" Rick asked. "Send—send it out to be born in a field somewhere?"
"Not exactly," the Governor responded. "You have someone important to me and—as I see it, I have two people important to you. Send Andrea to the gates."
"You'll let Hershel and Michonne go?" Andrea asked, this time usurping Rick's role as loudspeaker for the group.
She glanced at him. For a brief second she made eye contact with him. She willed herself not to shiver with the sensation that it sent up her spine and she swallowed repeatedly and quickly to force down the gagging sensation in her throat.
He smiled—that smile that was never a sincere smile. He'd smiled the same smile at her every time she came to consciousness in that hell-room. That smile would forever be burned into her mind.
"Send Andrea to the gates," he repeated, ignoring her and redirecting his comment back to Rick.
"Send Hershel and Michonne," Rick challenged.
"Two for one, never was a good deal," the Governor said. "Not for the seller."
"Two for two," Rick said. "Andrea brings your baby with her. It's an even trade."
Andrea felt her muscles tense. What would he do with her if he got her? Keep her somewhere—tied up—until the baby came? Then he'd cut her throat as soon as the baby was born. Maybe not even then. Maybe he'd just wait long enough to take the baby himself. Maybe he'd keep her like a pet to feed the baby—maybe not. Andrea knew, though, his affections for her—if they'd even existed—were all gone now.
"We don't have to do this," Rick said. "None of it. You put down your weapons. Come in the gates yourself. We'll work this out. We'll make it work. We can all have a home here. We can all—have our families. We can all—be safe."
"Or I can take the prison," the Governor challenged. "And my family can be safe after yours is dead."
Rick hummed.
"But you run the risk," Rick said. "You run the risk of losing your family. The ones out there and—certainly the ones in here. You need Hershel. You need a doctor. Andrea needs him. The baby. You start killing us? Bullets going anywhere? Who they hit is anybody's guess. You—you with him—are all of you willing to die when I'm promising you that you can live?"
Andrea saw those outside the fence, the so-called "family" of the Governor exchanging glances. Their faces said that they weren't ready to die. Their faces said they wanted to take Rick's offer. Short of two men—one of which was manning the tank and one who was holding a rifle—they all seemed to want to do exactly what Rick was proposing.
And, finally, someone voiced their opinion.
The Governor, as he was known for doing, looked like he was listening to the man who spoke. He look like he was considering his words. Andrea wondered if he'd shoot the man on the spot for his insolence, but he didn't.
In fact, it looked like he was listening to him.
"How do we know we'll be safe?" The Governor asked. "What kind of—insurance do we have if we return the hostages?"
Rick, who was still holding the top of Andrea's arm as though she might run away from him, shuffled some and pulled her along with his somewhat erratic steps.
"You'll have to trust me," Rick said. "That's—all there is to it. You'll just have to trust me. But—we're in a position where there has to be some trust. Any other way and we both lose. We all lose."
From outside the fence, there was a din of voices all speaking at once. Andrea watched as the Governor turned from where he stood and walked to gather with these people. These people who blindly followed him just like she had. These people who still believed that he was a good man—who didn't know what he would become when the time was right, if this wasn't that time.
She strained her ears to hear what they were saying, but she couldn't hear anything clearly. She didn't need to. Their glances back to the prison made it clear. They weren't concerned with her life, her baby's life, or even the lives of everyone in the prison. They could and would kill them all without concern—that's what they'd come there knowing they might have to do. Their reason for wanting in was selfish. Their reason for wanting this deal was simply to guarantee their own lives. It was every bit as selfish that of anyone else that was present.
It seemed like their negotiations went on for hours, but eventually the Governor turned back and closed the few steps back toward Rick that he'd put between them before.
"I'm going to have to trust you," he said, his voice lower than before. "And you're going to have to trust me."
He gestured with his head toward someone and they went to wrestle Michonne and Hershel to their feet. Two people took their places behind them to lead them.
"Send Andrea to open the gates," the Governor said. Andrea caught eye contact with him once more and he smiled at her again—that same smile that she once had believed to be sincere. She swallowed. "We're home."
