Alexandria
RickyJo and Eugene finished up with the dinner dishes. Most everyone else had left to go over to the meeting or get a few last minute things done before it started. Carl and Sammie were going to stay at the house and babysit. They had seemed a little too excited about it, so RickyJo guessed they their own plans for after the babies were asleep. Like probably sucking faces on the couch or maybe even on the bed up in one of their rooms. At least she hoped that was all they were doing. She had meant to have a talk with Sammie, or maybe ask Carol if she wanted to do it. Someone ought to make sure she knew about pregnancy prevention at the very least. But things had been a little hectic lately and it had slipped her mind.
After a very insincere apology from Rick to Deanna, about taking the gun, Rick was back and he had gone out with Merle to check the walls. He had the new gun that RickyJo had given him carefully hidden away, with very strict instructions to keep this one out of sight. RickyJo suspected they were actually going off to have some sort of man talk or maybe to see who could pee farther. She thought the two of them were kind of funny, but the sooner they got on the same page and stopped hating each other the better. Personally, she had resovled to try and stop silently wishing that Shane was still here and Rick was dead every time she talked to the man. Her Nana used to tell her that holding a grudge was like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. And the truth was, there were a lot worse people out there than Rick.
"Ready to go?," Eugene asked her.
"Let me go up and give Emmie a kiss goodbye and then we can go," she said. Eugene nodded. RickyJo headed up to check on her son. Carl and Sammie had the babies in the playpen with the little portable tv strapped to the side, cartoons playing. MJ and Judith were laying on their backs, staring up at it. Carl and Sammie were on the bed, reading comics. Sammie gave her a little wave. "You two have your guns?," RickyJo asked them. Carl pulled his out of the back of his pants and waved it in the air. Sammie pulled up her pantleg to show her ankle holster. RickyJo held back a giggle. "If MJ starts kicking off, you can come and get me," she told them.
"And theres a bottle and applesauce in the fridge," Sammie said before the woman could tell her again, "we know, we got it RickyJo." RickyJo came around the side of the bed and leaned in to hug the girl. Then she gave her small son one more glance and headed back downstairs. She knew she wasn't going far, but since she was used to him clinging to her like a tiny koala, it felt strange to be alone. It was like she was missing her arm or something. Eugene was leaning against the wall by the door, waiting for her, and when she came down, he opened the door for her. As they headed down the steps she adjusted the vest she was wearing over her tank top to make sure her gun was covered.
When they got to the meeting spot, Spencer was trying to get a small bonfire going. RickyJo knelt down to help him. Starting a fire with flint took some practice. She showed him her technique and soon they were feeding small sticks to the blaze. When it was clear he didn't need any more assistance, she got up and took the seat next to Jessie. She took the woman's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. This was going to be a hard meeting for Jessie. Her husband had been abusing her, but he was still her husband and the father of her children. If people wanted to exile him, RickyJo guessed it might be more upsetting for her than she expected.
Merle and Rick were not at the meeting yet, but most other people had filed in and found seats. Deanna stood up and waited for everyone to quiet down before she started talking. She had spoken to Rick and RickyJo separately earlier in the day. She had also asked her husband and her sons for their opinions. And she still wasn't sure what she should do. When the girls had gone over to support Jessie in kicking her husband out, Deanna had not expected him to physically attack them. Even she still had a nasty bruise on her head from where he had knocked her against the hard part of the couch. She knew he had been angry and drunk, but she wasn't sure if he deserved another chance. And if he didn't she wasn't sure what she should do with him. Rick had made it very clear that kicking him out of the community was a terrible idea. First of all, he could easily climb the walls and come back in. And if he left, he might be picked up or followed by another group and then lead the other group back here. That meant if he wasn't fit to live here, they were going to have to kill him.
RickyJo and Spencer had the same idea, though they didn't know it. They wanted to put him on some kind of probabtion. No drinking and stay away from Jessie. If he agreed to that and stuck with it, he could stay. He's not the first guy to act like a jerk when he's drunk, RickyJo had told her. She had been thinking about that crazy ex-girlfriend of Merle's and the time he slapped her so hard it knocked out one of her teeth. While what Pete had been doing had gone on a lot longer and was a lot worse, she didn't think he deserved to be executed for it. Maybe he would be alright if he just layed off the sauce. They also had to consider what was best for the community. Pete was a doctor. That meant he had value. Just for that reason, Deanna thought it might be worth giving him another chance. She wanted to hear what everyone else had to say about it.
"Most of you know why we are here," she said. Most people nodded. RickyJo looked around. Rick and Merle were not here, and she knew they had been planning to come. Maybe they were just off talking to each other, but it made her feel uneasy. Deanna went on. "A member of our community has done some things that I consider unacceptable and I have brought you here to talk about what we should do about it."
"Pete was abusing his wife," Deanna said. There were a few hushed whispers and some people looked at Jessie. "When a group of us went over to talk to him about it, he attacked us." She waited a moment and went on. "It had also been brought to my attention that he has a severe drinking problem." An older man spoke up from where he was sitting.
"A man's personal life is his own business," the man announced loudly. He had not been impressed with the uppity women around here, going over and trying to throw Pete out of his own house.
"Its gonna be your business," RickyJo told the man loudly, "when you or your wife gets sick or hurt and Pete kills ya because he is too drunk to give you proper medical treatment." The man huffed and crossed his arms, but he didn't say anything else. Deanna had to hide her smile. That had shut him up. And good. Tobin spoke up from the back of the group, which suprised Deanna.
"My dad beat my mother for years," he said, "and no one would help us because they thought it wasn't their business. Thats not the kind of community I want to live in." Now some of the girls were clapping and looking at him with glances of approval. RickyJo noticed Carol was looking at the man with a curious expression on her face. I told you he was your type, RickyJo thought to herself. As soon as he had shown interest in Carol intead of trying to hit on one of the younger girls, RickyJo had known that dude was a first class gentleman. And what he had done with the construction team, giving up his position as leader willingly, only confirmed it. Carol could do a lot worse, that was for sure. Maybe what he said tonight would finally be the enough to win her over.
Deanna waited for people to quiet down. She made a mental note to thank Tobin later for speaking up. "The question now is what are we going to do about what had happened," she said.
Rick and Merle had been talking as they walked the wall. They didn't like each other, which Merle had made sure to point out several times. But they agreed they could work together. I worked for the governor, I can work with a cop. They came around to check the front gate before heading to the meeting. Thats when they saw it. Someone had left the gate wide open. Some rotten flesh and a bit of torn fabric were plastered to the latch on the gate. Merle slammed the gate shut in anger.
"Left the fuckin' gate wide open," Merle cursed, "god damn stupid cock headed fucking retard assholes."
"Our people are at that meeting," Rick said.
"Our people got guns," Merle reminded him, "lets find the biters." Rick nodded. There was a smear of blood on the wall off to the left, so they must have gone that way. The men headed in that direction. They spotted the first one, and Rick stood back and let Merle smash its head in with the metal sleeve he wore on his arm. When it was down he stomped its head in with his boot. Rick ran ahead, spotting another one over between two of the houses. He grabbed one of the garden shovel the girls had left out and took it down. When he turned, Merle had another one on the ground, kicking its head in.
"Think thats all of them?," Rick asked.
"Don't know," Merle said "But I think the meeting might have to wait until tomorrow. People need to go home and lock up until daylight tomorrow when we can make sure this place is clear." Rick nodded. Then he reached down and picked up one of the walkers. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked towards the meeting place, with Merle following behind him, snickering. Guess the sheriff had decided to teach these people a lesson.
Spencer had stood up at his mother's request to repeat what he had suggested to her earlier to the group. He was getting ready to start talking when Rick stomped into the middle of the meeting with a dead walker, flopping it down on the ground. Some of the nasty liquid inside the thing splashed out and got on Spencer's boots. He jumped back. Rick looked around at everyone there.
"Someone left the gate open," Rick announced. Now everyone was talking at once. Deanna was trying to shush everyone up so she could tell them all to go home. Spencer tapped at Rick's arm.
"It was Father Gabriel," he said, "earlier he was coming in from walking outside the walls and I asked him to get the gate. He must have left it open."
"Is that fucker here?," Merle asked, having heard what was said. He looked around to see if he could spot the man. "He has another ass beating coming." Deanna heard that. She pointed her finger at Merle.
"Don't you dare," she told him, "you let me handle it." Merle shrugged. She wasn't sure if that meant he had agreed, or if it meant he was going to beat the man up later anyway.
"Should have beat his ass harder last time," Merle commented. Deanna shook her head and quickly decided she would just speak to RickyJo and let her deal with the man. There was a hard crunch behind them. Merle and Rick turned, thinking it might be another walker. But it was Pete. He was drunk and had stumbled into the small pile of firewood, kicking it everywhere. He also had Michonne's sword, which both men knew was razor sharp. They moved back, giving him a wide berth. Deanna's husband stepped in front of her, partly to shield her and also to try and reason with the man.
"You wanna have a meetin abo me," Pete slurred, "I think I shoulda be here to defend muself." Reg started trying to talk to him, reasoning with him and telling him to put the sword down. But RickyJo was up out of her chair. Feet shoulder width apart and both of her hands holding her gun, the safety already off. Pete held the sword up, and started bringing it down towards Reg's throat in a slashing motion. She popped off two shots, one wizzed by Pete's head and the other buried itself in his shoulder, knocking him back. Reg fell back, hand to his throat were a small trickle of blood was coming out where the very tip of the sword had nicked him. Abraham was up now, grabbing the sword away from Pete and holding him to the ground. People were screaming and yelling. RickyJo darted around the fire and knelt down by Reg.
"Is he going to be okay?," she asked.
"Cut myself worse shaving," he insisted. Then he saw the gun in her hand. "Thank you," he told her. She nodded. She pulled a hanky out of her back pocket. It had a little dried milk on it, but was otherwise clean, so she pulled Reg's hand off his neck and pushed the hanky against it.
"You make sure he keeps some pressure on that," she told Spencer, who nodded like a bobble head. "Rosita can suture it up later if it doesn't stop bleeding." Then she stood up and helped Deanna up. Abraham had Pete on the ground and Rick and Merle both had their guns pointed at him. Deanna was angry and upset, RickyJo could see her hands were shaking. She was thinking she should have let Rick beat that man to death in the street.
"Do it," she said to Rick. But RickyJo held her hand up to stop him. She lead Deanna over closer to the man. Then she pressed her gun into Deanna's hand.
"You are the leader," she told the woman, "Its your job to do." It was easy to give an order to have someone killed. It was another thing to do it yourself. And she wanted to see what the woman was made of. Abraham looked nervous. RickyJo gestured for him to back up, which he did. Deanna was clearly not trained on how to use a weapon, and no one needed to be shot by accident.
RickyJo got behind Deanna and put her foot between the woman's feet, moving them apart a little. Then she brought her other hand up to support the one that was holding the gun. "Never give an order that you aren't willing to carry out yourself," she told her.
"Just go on and shoot him mom," Aiden called out. Pete was a total asshole. And Aiden knew if his mother didn' t do this, these people would never respect her again. RickyJo stepped back to give Deanna some room. She saw the woman take a deep breath and then she pulled the trigger. It hit Pete in the neck instead of the head and blood started pouring out everywhere.
"Good enough," Merle told the woman, holding up his hand to make sure she wasn't going to fire again. Then he knelt down and stabbed the man through the ear, ending his pain and making sure he wouldn't turn. Really the asshole didn't deserve that shit, but he thought he ought to show these people the proper way to get the job done. He stood up and was startled to hear his brother's voice behind him.
"What in the hell is going on?," Daryl asked. Merle turned to look at him. He blinked hard a few times, not sure if his brain believed what his eyes were seeing. It wasn't until RickyJo rushed past him and threw herself into her cousin's arms that he really understood that what he was seeing was real.