Walking Dead: Fragile Bonds

Chapter 6 of my Walking Dead story, enjoy.

Reviews

Boris Yeltsin: Indeed :) Thanks :)
Wolfgirl2013: Yeah :)

Now onto the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Walking Dead or its characters.

Chapter 6

Tension stood thick in the air in the Grimes home the following day as Rick was in the kitchen, having breakfast, tense and waiting for the inevitable to happen. He had been keeping an eye on things at the club, hoping to at least prevent any break outs of violence and to get a look at any of the possible gang members. That was until he caught sight of an altercation and, when he went to investigate, had found his own son present at the club, despite being underage, in accordance with the club rules at least, and in the confusion the young man Carl had been arguing with had disappeared.

'Which of course led to me finding out he was one of the only known members of one of the gangs, Brandon Rose.' Rick fumed. 'He got away while I was dealing with Carl.'

It only got worse from there as he had forced Carl to leave, leading to a loud argument between the two of them outside while the young blonde woman who had been present during the almost fight between Carl and Brandon had followed them. It had only been then that Rick discovered that she was Carl's girlfriend and that she was the one who had got Carl inside. Despite protests from Carl, Rick had insisted on getting both of them home. Which led to him finding out that the police had not long been at the girl, Lydia's, home and her mother arrested. Even worse in his eyes was Lydia's surprising nonchalance about it and explaining she already had somewhere to spend the night before getting out of the car. Leaving Rick to take Carl home, both still fuming.

Now it was morning and tempers seemed to have cooled, but there was still simmering tension. Rick looked up, waiting as Carl finally came downstairs, glaring when he saw Rick.

"Carl-"

Carl snorted and turned to leave.

Rick's sharp words however stopped him. "I don't think so, you are not going back out there, to see that girl again, after what she did."

Carl rounded on his father, rage filling him. "Don't you dare talk about Lydia that way, you don't know her, you have no right-!"

"Carl James Grimes!" Rick snapped, suddenly on his feet. "You watch your tone with me, I am your father and…"

Carl scoffed. "Since when."

Rick froze at that; startled partially out of his anger by the utter coldness in Carl's voice as he said that.

"You check out for years and now suddenly your my father." Carl continued. "You seem to be forgetting I'm nineteen, I can make my own choices."

"Choices that include lying about your age, going into an over twenty-one's club with some girl you're apparently dating, something she already said was her idea." Rick countered. "That girl is bad news Carl, look at what she's doing to you."

Carl shook his head, anger clearly building. "For god sake, stop pretending you care!"

Those words stopped Rick cold.

Carl however shook his head, not even stopping.

"You've not cared for the past five years, so don't suddenly start pretending you do now." He shook his head. "What gives you the right to judge Lydia, after all she's been through. You get on her case, start talking shit about her-"

Rick recovered enough to point out. "We literally got her home to find her mother had been arrested and she didn't care in the slightest."

"Because she's finally free of that abusive witch!" Carl exploded. "She's finally free of the woman who killed her own husband in order to have complete control over her daughter and you don't think she should be happy about that!"

"I...Carl, I had no idea." Rick protested defensively.

Carl scoffed. "Of course you didn't, you didn't bother to find out, just like you assumed I just suddenly have a girlfriend when in fact we've been dating for two years. But since that doesn't suit your rush to judgement naturally you don't bother trying to find out."

"Carl enough, this is ridiculous. She talked you into going to that club, she's clearly leading you astray and you're defending her. I'm trying to-" Rick tried once more to reason with his son.

But Carl simply stalked over to the table, mere inches from Rick who tensed, already his outrage building that Carl would even consider something like this. But it didn't happen, unlike the attack, Carl lashing out, that Rick expected, Carl instead pulled up the sleeves of top he was wearing, causing Rick to step back. Both of Carl's inner arms were covered in scars of various sizes, scars that, as a police officer, Rick had seen before. Scars caused by self-harm, cutting.

"If you care so much, how come you never noticed these, never noticed that I started wearing long sleeves all the time...unlike Lydia." Carl remarked, his voice colder than ever. "She cares about me, you don't. She was there to help me through it, got me to stop, not you. So don't think you have any right to judge Lydia, she's a far better person than you'll ever be. Dad."

The last word was spat out with such venom Rick flinched, Carl meanwhile fixed his sleeves and stormed out of the house, before Rick could even protest.

Sinking back into his seat, still trying to process everything that just occurred, Rick felt lost, stuck.

'How did I...this wasn't supposed to…' Rick thought in dismay. 'It wasn't enough to lose my wife and best friend, I've clearly lost my son now too…'

Far from proving his point about this girl Lydia being dangerous to Carl, he found himself countered at every turn.

Rick just felt defeated. 'Everything he said...it was all true, or at least, most of it.'

He was still sceptical about some of the claims; again as a police officer he had seen people make up claims of domestic violence before, usually as the perfect sob story. But something about Carl's conviction in believing her made Rick sure it was the truth, with the girl's mother now in custody it would be easy to verify too. He'd just have to talk to the arresting officer and find out what the charges were.

But still he remained at the table in defeat. 'None of that is going to fix this with Carl. I'm just trying to help him, trying to make sure he doesn't put himself in danger…'

He was then jolted from his thoughts by the TV, which had been on in the background, suddenly issued a news report.

"Just in last night, for the first time in five weeks, night club Stampede had a night that was not marred by gang violence stirring up inside the club. However the gangs still stuck again last night with a brawl that resulted in two bystanders injured and large amounts of property destruction, two blocks away from Stampede. Both Mayoral candidates, Pamela Milton and Douglas Monroe released statements condemning the violence and have pledged that if elected will do their part to stem this outbreak of gang warfare and culture."

Rick sighed, concerned as he knew these were the people he was looking for. It seemed that incident at the club with Brandon Rose had led him to escape and warn his fellow gang members not to go to Stampede, yet still somehow they ended up clashing with their rival gang. Things were clearly not over by a long shot.

End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.