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"I'll take Maggie."
"You sure she's up to that?" Hershel asked but it sounded more like he was telling him to rethink.
After a moment Glenn nodded. "If she's not, I'll bring T-Dog."
T-Dog nodded in agreement.
Eve nodded and began assigning people to teams for each task. Five minutes later and everyone was off doing what they should be, and Eve walked past Maggie's cell and paused, the corner of her mouth quirking up as she watched Beth giving Judith to Maggie.
With that warm little bundle in her arms, the cloud of gloom hanging over Maggie lightened. It almost looked as if the room itself was visibly brighter.
Beth looked over her shoulder, feeling eyes on her and smiled at Eve; for once not getting a jump start when she's been snuck up on.
The quiet woman gave the smart teenage girl a quick wink and a thumbs up before leaving them to bask in baby Judith's healing presence, which she herself experienced last night. Maternal instinct is an incredible, terrifying power.
Eve followed T-Dog and Glenn as they went out and reluctantly passed her truck keys to Glenn.
She put her hand on his shoulder with a meaningful look and Glenn nodded. "I know. It's just around back. We'll be careful."
Eve nodded and waved them off as they went to the truck and Carl opened the first gate for them. They'll have to open the outer one themselves, seeing as no one is guarding down there right now, all their manpower is tied up elsewhere. That's part of why Eve went to the guard tower immediately, to see Randall, who has been keeping watch as usual while everyone was inside.
Sometimes she feels a little guilty that he's always on watch duty, but he seems to enjoy it, if not then she really couldn't fathom why he always volunteers to do it.
Randall looked over when he heard the steps and nodded when Eve emerged from the stairwell.
After greeting her, Eve stood next to him in the tower, a few feet from the railing and filled him in on the plan. When she was finished, Randall nodded. He looked hesitant for a moment, like he was debating whether he should tell her something and then pointed to the far fence.
"I saw you come back this morning, I guess you went hunting or somethin'. But Rick's been out there almost since you came back. I've been watching him walk over that bridge into the forest and back for almost an hour."
Eve narrowed her eyes at the figure where Randall pointed. She mistook it for a walker before but looking closer, the black automatic rifle hanging from its back was indicative. It is indeed Rick, but what's he doing out there?
Eve's eyes moved to the other figure standing at the fence on the inside and seeing the crease in her eyebrows Randall confirmed without even being asked.
"Hershel went down there a few minutes ago."
The two of them watched the men at the fences, tacitly guessing what they could be talking about.
Hershel hobbled up to the fence, grasping it with his fingers and called as quietly as he could get away with, "Rick!"
He had to call a few times but eventually Rick came back from where he'd just gone into the forest and crossed the little wooden bridge, coming back to the fence, looking around his surroundings.
"You know I wouldn't have hobbled all the way down here if it wasn't important. Are you coming back soon?"
Rick didn't answer.
"Eve's got a plan, but we need you to come back, Rick."
"She's got things in hand." Rick dodged the attempt to get him to go back inside, looking behind him like there was something he needed to get back to.
"What are you doing out here?" Hershel asked, worry all over his face.
Rick stared off into the forest for a moment, before stuttering, "I… I've been— I've got...stuff. Out here. Stuff."
"How much longer do you need?"
"I don't know."
"There anything I can help you with?"
Rick was quiet for a long time, so Hershel took his cue and turned to hobble back up, but just as he was about to leave, Rick answered.
"I saw somethin."
Hershel turned and moved back to the fence.
Rick stepped closer, grabbing the fence with a dirt layered hand. "Lori. I saw Lori— I'm seeing Lori."
"Look, I know it's not really her. But there's got to be a reason. It's got to mean something, you know."
Hershel recalled when he went to check up on Rick just after Lori's death, when he was hiding out in the tombs. Hershel had found him answering and talking on an old rotary phone that wasn't connected to anything. When he had asked him about it, Rick told him someone had called but when Hershel picked up the phone, it was of course lifeless, devoid of even static. No better than a paperweight.
Knowing this, Hershel asked, "Was it her on the phone?"
Rick nodded, glancing down, and decided to fess up about everything. "Shane, too. In the town."
Hershel nodded, thinking for a moment before responding. "Do you see them now?"
Rick looked up at him from under his lashes, like a kid gauging whether they'll get in trouble for telling the truth and shook his head before looking around again like he'd heard something.
"You're looking for them." Hershel stated but it was more of a question, inquiring whether his guess was right.
Rick surprised him by looking at him firmly for the first time and with a calm resolution Hershel hasn't seen from him in a while, he said, "I'm waiting."
"For what?" Hershel kept his tone light but shook his head, not understanding.
"I don't know. Something." Rick looked down, thinking before letting go of the fence and kept his hand up, an open palm like he was telling someone to slow down. "There's an answer."
Rick swallowed, touching the fence lightly like he was gonna fall over from thinking too hard and then rubbed his eye with his thumb, exhausted and worn down to the bone. With dark eyes sunken into his skull, his skin covered in dirt and sweat he looked so much older and so tired. "I know it doesn't make sense. Well, it does. It can make sense. I mean, I think in time it will...make sense."
Rick nodded to himself as he went on, trying to affirm it to himself. A part of him knew that what he was seeing and doing didn't make sense but that's the part he couldn't figure out. It had to make sense somehow, he's trying to find an answer — he knows it's there he just… doesn't know the question it's answering yet.
"Rick. Come on in. You need rest. It's not safe out here." Hershel tried to coax him, and Rick looked away like he'd heard something behind him again, like someone was trying to talk to him from another room and he was trying to hear.
"I can't. I can't." Rick whispered before walking back towards the forest.
Seeing Rick walk off, Eve looked down another heavy sigh in her heart. It's painful to watch a friend go through this but he can't be out there right now. Even if he could handle himself against walkers, with a fight looming on the horizon, she can't let him wander out there. So, she moved back into the tower, heading for the stairs.
The others in the courtyard, preparing some stuff to go out and start on the traps shared her sentiments, watching the scene from a distance. Even Michonne from her place at the prison bus had watched.
Axel, who has been getting close with Carol while the two have been setting up the metal and wood pallets on the over-bridge fences for most of the day, nudged her as he came up next to her in the yard where they haven't started on reinforcing the fences yet. "Stress. Gettin' to your man, Rick."
"Can you blame him?" Carol replied in sympathy, stretching her neck trying to see Rick better as he walked to the forest again.
Axel replied, Big Tiny coming up to stand next to them. "Nah. In here, I've seen plenty of dudes crack. But not me. I got on better on the inside."
Carol and Tiny both looked at him.
"There were rules. Things made more sense. Life was more…simple."
Tiny nodded, understanding but Carol's forehead creased, recalling a story Axel told her earlier about how he really wound up in prison. He said he was in for pharmaceuticals but that was just because he didn't want them to think he was a violent man and at the time he said it, you really couldn't blame him for lying. The real reason he was here though, Tiny had already known, in fact he was the only one aside from Oscar who knew. He was here because he robbed a gas station with a water pistol that never left his pocket, and the cops found him at his brother's house the next day but didn't believe that he'd used a water pistol, so they searched his brother's place and found his 38. As Axel put it: there you go, armed robbery.
"Didn't you miss your brother?" Carol looked at him.
"My brother?" Axel laughed. "Hell no. He had a real problem."
Carol looked away again with a somewhat judging expression. "What kind of problem."
"He didn't lend me any." Axel playfully nudged her elbow with his and both Tiny and Carol simultaneously snorted, languid but appreciative of the poor joke.
Then a gunshot rang out.
Randall cried out as pain exploded in his leg and Eve whipped around and shot forward, but she wasn't fast enough to catch him as Randall dropped to the ground. The rifle clattering against the metal floor.
The people in the yard below scattered, running for cover as more shots pierced the sky, raining like a hailstorm around them.
The simple little wooden-path bridge Rick was standing on exploded in shards and dust as bullets pelted it and he ran, diving for the ground on the other side at the same time as Hershel dropped to the ground.
The tall grass provided enough concealment that thankfully nobody fired on Hershel, but the gunfire was near enough to Rick and from far enough away that stray bullets still whooshed into the ground nearby him.
Maggie heard the gunfire inside and within a minute she made sure Judith was safe and ran out of the prison grabbing 3 massive automatic guns and whatever else she could carry, rushing outside to bring them to those in the courtyard who she knew weren't carrying.
However, she only managed to hand over two — to Beth and Carol — before they were also fired on and forced to take cover behind whatever they could in the upper yard. She had to wait for a break in the spray of bullets before she could toss one gun at a time to the others, or risk running from her position to them.
Eve's knees hit the metal in a flash and helped Randall turn over, and blood gushed from a hole the size of a penny in his outer thigh, but in his leg sealing the hole was the bullet.
In a heartbeat she tore off her jacket, pulled her knife and cut the hem of her shirt into long strips, tying piece after piece of it around the wound trying to slow the bleeding. Her hands quickly caked in blood, ears filling with screams and gunfire and shouts, but her focus hardened like she couldn't hear a single thing until the wound was dealt with.
Once she stopped the bleeding as best she could, she grabbed the rifle with blood-slick hands and got on her stomach sticking the end of the barrel underneath the last bar of the railing, to snipe at the Governor's forces.
She searched through the scope for the man, but she only just found him when a bullet hit the metal right beside her and sent a spray of sparks into her face, forcing her to roll and get back.
The only way they could've hit her from that position is if they were in the other guard tower right across from this one. She risked getting a look and sure enough a sniper of their own stood at the rail in the other tower, raining bullets down on the others in the courtyard below.
Eve growled under her breath and checked the rifle, before quickly stepping out and shot at him. At the same time, Maggie below started shooting at him too, and one of them managed a kill shot; though it was impossible to determine who.
While they were occupied, a truck that looked like a big unmarked ice cream truck crashed through the front gate, ripping both fences off without even being slowed down. It swerved through the grass before abruptly coming to a stop in the center of the field.
A long moment of ominous still passed as Eve got back down on her stomach and looked through her scope at the van. Her stomach churned as it tightened further and further the longer nothing happened.
She looked at the driver seat, but the van was heavily armored and she couldn't see the driver through the thick grate that looked like it was haphazardly just slapped over the windshield. She checked her clip and ground her teeth. She doesn't have the rounds to waste on random fire on the off chance one will get through and kill whoever is inside.
The back of it suddenly dropped open, and Eve's heart leapt into her throat. Walkers came pouring out by the dozen until there must've been 30 corpses invading the field, and more walkers were already wandering through the destroyed gates, drawn by the noise and excitement.
Eve had no time to worry about the Governor anymore, Hershel and Michonne were both undefended in the field.
The first shot killed a walker heading in Hershel's direction before she noticed the driver hop out of the car and make a break for it, shooting at Michonne as he ran past her.
Like Hell you're getting away.
Amber eyes fixed on the back of the man's covered head and the moment he was in her sights, a bullet ripped through the back of his helmet. Even the military grade protection was utterly useless against the bullet that went in like a dart and came out the other side with enough force to rip his entire face off, along with the protective goggles he'd been wearing.
Brain matter and fragments of his skull scattered across the dying grass like bird food, freeing Michonne to unsheathe her sword and make a mad dash through the field with the blade held high, to get to Hershel as his own gunfire was drawing the released walkers closer to him.
Eve tried to shoot the Governor after that, but his dirty white truck was already retreating. She only got off one more shot before the rifle bullets ran out. It wouldn't have mattered anyway; the trees obstructed her line of sight. They got away.
Eve punched the metal baseboard and bruised her hand to hell in an instant, but then her own truck came racing down the road and drove straight into the yard.
T-Dog leaned out the window shooting walkers as they got to Hershel and Michonne in an instant, and Randall cried in pain behind her, forcing Eve to let go of her frustration at missing this chance to end things here and now, and focus on Randall's leg which was bleeding even more fiercely than before.
The others in the courtyard threw the upper gate open and covered the truck while they rescued Hershel & Michonne and drove up, getting through the gate before it was slammed shut to protect their small meager bubble of safety once more and stare out at the ruin, like the farm or the disaster that claimed Lori's life all over again. History repeating itself for the 3rd time.
Rick ran out of bullets for his big gun after one shot and barely even noticed as the fight raged before it came to a chilling quick close with the Governor's forces retreating with their victory.
The gunfire had already drawn every walker in the area, and they staggered in from all directions.
He ran out of bullets for his python after killing only a handful and he tried to get back to the hole in the fence which wasn't more than 30 feet from where he was but he was already cut off and had to go back.
The nearest walker forced him to kill it by bashing it's head in with the empty python but there were two others that were too close. As soon as he'd straightened enough to raise his arm, he was pinned against the fence by a rotting corpse, and had to use his other hand to intercept another, using his arm like an arm bar against the struggling walkers.
With more closing in and his head muddled from too many thoughts, he blanked on what to do.
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