All Nightmare Long

Chapter 464

Author's Note:Jewel and Rick (Jick's) need some alone time. It's been long time since they've even been in the same room. And I'm afraid that it's going to get worse with the whole Negan thing. I don't want it to get worse, but just get the feeling it might. So, got to sneak them in when I can. I always felt that Rick might have felt bad about what they did, since it was against what they usually do. Maybe not as bad as Glenn, Carol or Maggie. Review please it means a lot.

Rick and Jewel's POV:

Jewel walked into the bedroom after putting Judith down for a nap. She locked eyes with Rick as she came into the room and closed the door. She walked over to him and put her arms around him, engulfing him in a hug, before moving her hands to his face and brought there heads together. "Whatever happened out there, we'll figure it out, we always do." She brought her hands up and threaded them through his hair. "Negan wasn't there?"

"Rick shook his head. "Summer went and looked at every body, and her and Zihayr both said that he wasn't there. But one of the men we kept alive, he said he was Negan. Mar, Carol and Maggie, they said that the women who were holding them said they were all Negan."

Jewel guided him to sit on the bed. "None of them would talk Mr. Grimes?"

"No Mrs. Gimes," Rick responded. "I gave him a chance, and he still responded with the same thing, that he was Negan. We took out over sixty of there people, and Negan wasn't one of them."

"You didn't take this arrangement for the food, that's not the only reason. You can tell yourself that, you can tell others that, but I know you, Mr. Grimes. You saw this as a chance to take out a danger before it comes for us, to be in front of the danger. I get it, I understand it," Jewel said as she kissed him softly.

"But it didn't end anything. He wasn't there," Rick told her.

"But over sixty of his people were," Jewel reminded him as she ran her hand down his arm. "How many more people could he have? You took a big dent out of his operation, you must have right?" she questioned.

"I don't know, I would hope so," Rick answered as he laid back on the bed. "They called for back up, from some where, another compound maybe," he explained.

Jewel curled up against him, resting her head on her hand, being propped up by her elbow. She looked at him. "So, we know that there's another compound out there, we'll just have to keep our eyes out for it. We'll heighten up guard shifts, make patrols closer together. "

Rick ran his hand through his hair. "Summer wanted to go confront Gregory. Said she made a promise if any of us got hurt, she would take care of it. She said this wasn't our fight, not yet. She said that she hadn't wanted to do this because it made us lose our little bit of humanity left. She said that maybe we should give up looking for him. I've never seen her like that. Whatever she saw at Hilltop, it shook her, it scared her. And all she wanted to do was keep us from ever getting involved with this man."

Jewel kissed his chest. "All you wanted to do was keep us, everyone here safe."

Rick brought his hand up and gently pushed Jewel down on his chest. "I missed you being by my side."

Jewel gave a small mile. "I'm tired. I'm tired of losing people and I'm tired of taking people's life. Quinn wanted to be out there. And with both of you out there, I needed to stay behind. It was hard staying behind, not knowing what was going on. Not knowing if or when you were coming home."

Rick ran her hand through Jewel's hair. "You know I'll always try to come home," she said.

"But there's no guarantees, Mr. Grimes," Jewel responded.

"But I will always fight to come back to you Mrs. Grimes. I wanted to end Negan before he could hurt you, or anyone else, like you said. This was the perfect chance to get a jump on the bad ones, get them before they got us. Just once I thought I could protect the people that I love,"Rick told her.

Jewel raised up and looked at him. "Listen to me Rick Grimes, everything you do is to protect us."

"It hasn't been enough," Rick told her.

Jewel kissed him. "People die. I hate it, but we do what we can to protect them. We wouldn't have gotten this far without you."

Rick kissed her. "It was a joint effort, both of us."

Jewel nodded as she kissed him. "You need to take a shower," she told him.

"Join me?" Rick questioned.

"Yeah," Jewel said as she stood up and undressed. She kissed him softly as they went into the bathroom and she started the shower. She stepped in the shower with Rick behind her. She jumped slightly as Rick pushed her against the wall deepening the kiss.

"How long do you think Hope will stay sleeping?" Rick asked as he sucked on the side of her neck.

"For about an hour," Jewel responded as she moaned.

"Plenty of enough time,"Rick said as he kissed her again.

**Later**

Jewel finished dressing right before Hope started to fuss. "Perfect time," she said as she kissed Rick. "Well good morning Miss. Hope," she said as she picked her up. She kissed the side of her neck causing her to giggle. "Look whose home Hope"

Rick finished putting on his shirt and reached out for her. "Hello, sweet girl," he said as he took her and kissed her cheek. "You are getting so big. I didn't I tell you and Judy that you aren't allowed to get big? Not listening to me, I see," he said as he kissed her.

"What you did, it was to try to stop danger coming to her, Judy, Carl, Summer, for me,and everyone here," Jewel reminded him. "Should I go talk to Summer?"

"Let her be for a bit she had a rough night. We all had a rough night," Rick said as he kissed Hope's cheek.

"Then you need to rest too," Jewel told him.

"I need to go help with the weapons, see how much we got," Rick said.

"First you are going to have a hot meal, then you are going to spend time with Carl, Mika, Judith, and Hope. Judith took a couple steps by herself toward Mika last night. Lexi kept trying to get her to do it again, but she wouldn't," Jewel said as she reached for Hope. "Bet you need a fresh diaper," she said as she took her and lied her down on the bed. "You and everyone else isn't going to do any body any good, if you are past out."

"I know," Rick admitted.

"You're already thinking of what the next step should be in protecting us, in protecting Alexandria," she said as she changed Hope's diaper. "You're probably thinking about taking a group and looking for Negan's camp just to end this. Right now, we concentrate on getting ready and more intensive training. They've got a good start, we just need to keep training. No one goes out alone," she told him as she picked up Hope. "See that feels better doesn't it?" she asked the baby. "But right now, we're going to go down and have breakfast as a family. Everything else can wait, just for a minute," she said as she kissed him.

Rick gave a small laugh. "You always know how to put things in prospective," he told her as he kissed her.

"I try," Jewel said. "Now you take this little one, and I'm going to go up and get Summer. Don't worry, I'm not going to force her to talk about anything," she said as she handed Hope to Rick and went to the attic and knocked on Summer's door. "Summer," she said.

"Come in," Summer said as she sat cross legged on the bed. "I don't want to talk."

"I'm not here for that, I'm here because you need to eat," Jewel told her.

"I'm not hungry," Summer answered.

"Well, maybe you aren't hungry, but you should try and eat. And if you don't eat, then you can come and sit with all of us. It's been a while since we've all sat down, you, me, dad, Carl, Mika and the babies," Jewel said.

"You aren't cooking are you?" Summer asked.

"I love you all to much to do that," Jewel said. "Now come on," she said.

Summer nodded and got off the bed. "I still don't want to talk about it."

"And no one is going to make you talk about it, until you are ready to talk about it," Jewel said as she kissed her cheek.