A/N Thank God our gang is back together! I don't know about you guys but that wonderful Rickyl moment last night will help get me through my Sundays until February. 'Til then...
Chapter fifteen
As May slows to a crawl before surrendering the glorious green freshness of spring to a June that will carry the new world toward a vengeful summer, she takes a hearty breath and holds it deep. Then with a resentful kick at Mother Nature before sulking off to wait through three long seasons until she is invited back to fill winter's barren trees and bring flowers to bloom once more in a profusion of color, she blows a final gust of frosty air over the southeast, sending a chilly current to drift through the camp as the sun shines down over the cliffs surrounding the quarry.
"Damn, it's cold this morning. Are you warm enough?"
"Mmm, yes." Erin nuzzles into Rick's shoulder as he carries her out of the tent to deliver her to the table for breakfast with her friends. The heat from his skin beneath the soft material of his tan button up shirt warms one cheek while the sun seeps into the pale skin of her other. As a cool breeze dances across her exposed legs below the capri jeans, and the new bandage covering her right shin, her thick Emory sweatshirt shields her upper body from the light wind while her feelings for the man carrying her are warming her from within. "Not that I'm complaining - because I really am enjoying this - but I can probably walk you know," she tells him with a clear head and just a slight ache in her lower leg.
"This is the first time you've been wide awake for more than an hour in the last three days," he replies as they pass the fire pit with a nod and a smile from Dale and Jim. "I want you to take it easy still."
"I will, but I feel pretty good today. And I'll have plenty of nursemaids to do the hovering for you, so you don't have to worry about me when you go out with Daryl today."
He stops mid-stride and Erin lifts her head to meet his eyes, and smiles at the surprise on his face that he is unable to mask. "I know you hardly left my side while I slept, Rick." She lays a tender palm against his stubbly jaw. "And I know that you need to go check out that school today with Daryl, so I don't want you to worry about me." When he continues to silently regard her with a curious look, she adds, "Carol mentioned it when she sat with me last night. Glenn found the school and thinks it might be safer since it has fences all around, right?"
"That's right." He takes a hesitant step and then another, slowly continuing their trek across the camp. "It's over by Campbellton but it shouldn't take too long. I'll only be gone a few hours."
Only a few hours, she ponders. But every hour can feel like an entire day in this new fucked up world. She ignores the sinking flutter in her belly as he deposits her gently on the bench at the table, chalking it up to nothing more than the distance that will separate them for the first time in days.
Forty minutes later, Erin slowly stands up from the table, taking care not to put too much weight on her sore right leg. When she reaches back to clear her empty cereal bowl and coffee mug, Kelly and Jacqui wave her off with orders to relax while they clean up. She thanks them both and gradually makes her way toward the warmth of the fire, after assuring them that she can walk over on her own.
She stops halfway, feeling slightly winded, but she plays it off by reaching down to stroke Nikki's head as he follows her from the table. The big dog had done his own share of hovering the last three days as a constant shadow at the foot of her cot. "You're a good boy, aren't you Nikki. But you've got to go with the boys today. Rick and Daryl need you." She looks at his soulful blue eyes and smiles as she imagines him nodding his big head in understanding.
"Aren't you supposed to be resting?" Rick's voice breaks into her thoughts and she looks up to see him walking toward her with a semi-serious scowl on his face and a jacket hanging from his hand.
"I am," she replies as she stands to her full height, challenging him with her chin raised to make up for her slightly bent right leg. "I'm going to sit in a chair by the fire like a good little girl." She gives him a smirk with a sarcastic tilt of her head.
"Good." The corner of his mouth curves upward. "You are feeling better, aren't you? Just couldn't wait to argue with me." He takes a step closer, leaving only a small space between them.
She smiles up at him and this time there is only warm humor brightening her eyes. "Told ya." She shuffles forward to close the distance and rests her hands on his ribs.
In a smooth motion he swings his jacket behind her and fits it over her shoulders, nestling her warmly beneath the two-toned brown denim. "No, Rick. You'll need it more than me." For protection from more than just the chilly air, she thinks as she tries not to picture a swarm of walkers surrounding him on this mission.
He hugs her tightly, squeezing her shoulder blades beneath his jacket. "I'll be fine. Keep it warm for me."
Wincing at the slight soreness still lingering in her breastbone from Rick's lifesaving efforts, she winds her arms around to his lower back and rests her cheek against his chest. "Please be careful out there."
"I will," he says against her hair. "And don't worry, we'll be back in a few hours. In the meantime, you really need to take it easy."
"I can't stay in the tent another day, Rick. It feels too good out here."
"No, I know. You can stay out here, just stay off your leg as much as possible."
"I will. I'll just sit and fold laundry or something." She turns her cheek to breathe him in, inhaling the masculine scent that is all Rick; woods and water and musk and matches all infused with an underlying trace of coffee and courage. A heady combination that fills her senses as she tucks her forehead beneath his chin.
"Don't worry about doing the chores, honey. If you feel tired - sleep. Don't push yourself."
"Yes, doctor," she says, mocking the tone of authority that comes so naturally to him. "I'll take a nap in one of the hammocks," she adds, referring to the pair of hammocks that T-Dog had strung up between a cluster of trees just beyond the tent he shared with Shane.
"Good idea. Just kick Merle out if you have to."
"Yeah, that'll be fun," she says cynically, knowing that Merle won't give up his favorite spot easily.
"Have Glenn help you. And if Merle still gives you a hard time, tell him I'll shoot him in the balls when I get back."
She smiles at his audacious gallantry and believes that he would take great pleasure in fulfilling that promise. But she hopes the widely known fact that Rick has become her personal guardian will be enough to deter Merle from giving her a hard time. Ever since the incident with Ed on the beach, the impossible redneck has been showing a little more respect to the sheriff. Or if not respect so much, at least he's keeping a respectful distance and staying out of Rick's way.
"I've gotta go, honey," he whispers against her crown as he rubs his hands along her shoulders.
Tightening her hold around his waist, she presses her cheek against his chest and closes her eyes to imprint the contour and texture of him on her heart. "Be safe," she breathes as his heart beats soundly beneath her ear.
He squeezes her once, his arms solid against her back as he crushes her to his chest. A moment later, and much too soon, he leans back and presses a kiss to her temple. "I'll see you later," he says in a voice that sounds strangely thick.
Her hands slip from his waist as he pulls away quickly and she fights to swallow the sudden tightness that threatens to choke her.
"Stay out of trouble while I'm gone!" he calls out over his shoulder as she watches him walk away, Nikki trotting happily at his side.
The bumper of the black Ford Escort aims upward for a moment before pitching down heavily as Rick drives the car over another bulky speed bump in the parking lot of Campbellton High School. He glances at the clock on the dashboard and then leans forward to peer through the windshield at the sky above them. Plenty of sunlight at this three o'clock hour but he had hoped to be back to the quarry by now. That herd blocking the wooded section of Lynhurst Drive had cost them several hours when they were forced to turn west toward Douglasville,where they ran into another handful of traffic snarls that had to be manipulated, including a flatbed tow-truck jammed into the side of a Greyhound bus full of walkers snarling at the windows. They had agreed to keep pushing on, confident that there was plenty of daylight left to get them there and back home safely, even going the long way around again.
For what feels like the hundredth time since he woke from the coma, Rick wishes he had a cell phone. Knowing his family must be worrying about him, impatient frustration darkens the good mood he had pleasantly woken up with after seeing Erin's bright, healthy eyes looking back at him at dawn.
With his mattress pushed flush against hers, after her insistence that Carl take his cot back, he'd watched her welcome the morning with a spark of life in her eyes that he hadn't seen in several days. A band of warmth had filled his gut when a smile spread slowly across her cheeks as he held her gaze. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
He was amazed at how quickly she had crawled into his heart and made a place for herself. Like she'd searched the chambers and found a door with her name on it and let herself in with a key that was the exact size and shape of her soul. He couldn't help but feel that she was made specially for him.
The distance between them now seems incredibly vast after spending so much time together the past three days. He is itching to get back to her with a physical ache inside his chest, a tight coil of yearning that expands and contracts with every breath he takes.
He imagines Erin trying to keep herself busy to take her mind off of his delayed return, meaning she is most likely not taking it easy as ordered. Ordered. Who am I kidding? She is a woman who can think for herself and never hesitates to prove that to him every chance she gets. He can't order her to do something any more than he can keep the sun from rising in the east. As frustrating as that is, he can't help but love her for it too. He'd rather spend his time arguing with her than being intimate with any other woman on the planet. And that thought humors and terrifies him all at the same time.
If only she would listen to him as easily as she listens to his son. Carl is the only one that she'll bend over backward for to make him happy. Thank God he'd asked the boy to keep an eye on Erin before he and Daryl had left. Rick smiles at the recollection of his son's face when Carl had promised to take care of her; the solemn expression matching what he must have felt was justified for the gravity of the task.
Believing that the two are taking care of each other under the watchful eye of the Almighty - whose existence he's been questioning daily with the fickleness of an atheist on death row – Rick returns his focus to the pavement before him which leads up to a large brick building at the back of the lot. "Let's make this as quick as we can."
Nikki growls softly from the back seat as they drive past a pair of walkers wandering aimlessly among a scattering of vehicles left abandoned in the large lot.
"What about them?" Daryl asks from the passenger seat as Nikki continues to growl.
Rick looks out across the lot at the disheveled duo staggering toward them. "We'll take care of them first and then check out the fences before we go into the school," he replies, pulling up to the curb and shifting the car into park.
The high school sits on the southern edge of Campbellton, a small town southwest of Atlanta. The large main entrance juts out toward the parking lot, welcoming students and faculty into the long figure-eight shaped brick building. Expansive windows sweep across the second floor of this front section, overlooking the wide cement walkway and the low stone wall that funnels everyone into the front doors. The arced curve of the wide entrance softens the top of the boxy structure while the roof stretches higher at its two corners, the tall glass enclosures revealing matching staircases leading up to the second level where a single walker can be seen lumbering about inside.
High chain-linked fences stretch across thirty yards from each side of the building and run back a good distance to create a large expanse of enclosed land behind the school. A paved pathway leads out of the building on both sides to take students back to the fields where carefree teenagers once played soccer, football and baseball. The tennis courts sit to the left of the school inside of its own enclosure within the fences surrounding the property.
On the right fence line, double gates are opened wide where a cluster of walkers are shuffling across the overgrown grass as it blows in the breeze to resemble a wave on a rippling green lake.
After making quick work of dispatching the two walkers in the lot, Rick follows Daryl through the opened gates, drawing the attention of nearly a dozen undead figures. As they all turn in unison in an eerily synchronized ballet of death and disfigurement, Daryl draws back his bow and reduces their numbers as one arrow flies after another until only five walkers are left standing erect. Or somewhat erect anyway.
As Rick embeds the sharp blade of his knife into the forehead of a stocky male with greasy black hair and shredded lips, he has complete confidence that the man behind him will protect his back as they silently work together to clear the field. A fleeting thought ghosts across the sheriff's mind that this kind of trusting partnership is usually born of years on the job. Who'd ever have thought that he would be standing shoulder to shoulder with a backwoods redneck instead of Shane, his best friend and partner of over ten years? But this new world tends to create relationships out of circumstance and necessity, and he is grateful that his family had found this quiet hunter, despite the addition of his troublesome brother.
Pulling his blade from the eye socket of an elderly gentleman that should have had a few more golden years to enjoy, Rick turns to see Daryl putting down the last of the dirty dozen. He inhales deeply to catch his breath and says, "Let's check out the back, make sure there aren't any more lingering around."
After retrieving his arrows, Daryl whistles for Nikki who had been commanded to stay back. The big husky leaps forward, happy to rejoin his pack after being forced to growl quietly from the sideline as Daryl had trained him to do when they were out hunting.
Rounding the corner of the brick building, Rick stops dead in his tracks as Nikki lets out a short huff and a sneeze before baring his sharp teeth with a low rumble emanating from inside of his throat.
"Fuck. That ain't good," Daryl says, standing next to Rick and gazing at the horde of walkers spread across the soccer field on the far side of the school grounds. "Shit, and I thought that herd on Lynhurst was big. We can't take on that many, man."
"No, and it wouldn't be worth it anyway," Rick says quietly, disappointment thick in his voice. "Look at the fence back there." He points his chin toward a huge gap in the fence behind the goalie's net where the diamond-meshed silver lies flat in a bed of grass that stretches eighty feet wide, glimmering where the sun's rays catch it just right.
"Damn. So now what?"
"Now we go home," Rick responds. "Maybe think of other places that might be secure, places that are secluded enough to not be overrun."
"Yeah? And where's that?"
"I don't know. But we'll be okay at the quarry until we can figure it out. Come on." Rick turns back toward the parking lot and Daryl follows his lead, keeping Nikki close to his side.
Walking back through the gate, Rick absently touches its cold metal frame as a loud crack echoes from the lot ahead of them. Thrown backward with the painful momentum of the bullet, he falls to the ground as a blazing fire of molten lava burns a fiery path through his flesh.