I don't own anything to do with Rick or any character from the Walking Dead. I own the OC character, Ruby, however, and I adore her.
Summary: Shane's been killed by Rick and the group doesn't trust him anymore. So what does Rick do? Snap. He finds a girl in the woods and takes out his aggression.
Yes, I know if you've read my other stuff you know that I am a Shane girl, but Rick is awesome, too. So I decided to play with him a little.
Rate and comment if you like! Thanks, and please, no flames. They are... unhelpful.
*** Get ready folks, a BIG point of contention is going to be discussed. Hope you like how I resolved it. Much love!
**** The reviews have been OUTSTANDING! Thank you all so much for taking the time. I am so so sorry it's taken so long to update, hopefully this makes up for that in a small way. It's been nuts around here for me lately. Anyway, thank you again, and I appreciate your time and kind words.
It was obvious that something was going on upstairs, and Carol did her best to occupy Carl while Rick and Lori were alone. Daryl came back and grabbed a spot next to Ruby on the couch. She didn't lament the fact that he was alone, she just gave him a grin to let him know she was glad he was back safely, and Maggie helped serve dinner. They were more than half done, chatting quietly around the table, Daryl and Ruby staying on the couch to watch for more walkers, plates in hand, as Rick came down first. When Lori was right behind him, and leaned down to give Carl a kiss at the table, their faces held none of the anger they usually did after their encounters, and the house seemed to let out a collectively held breath. They were either going to figure it out or kill each other, they figured. At least this wasn't bloody.
Rick grabbed a plate and came to sit across from them in the living room, his face calm, almost peaceful. Daryl narrowed his eyes at him, obviously trying to read him. The man didn't miss much, and Rick expected it, but what he didn't expect was no reaction from Ruby at all. He wondered if she would notice his ring was gone, but she just swallowed the bite she was chewing and gestured out toward the yard.
"Looks like we got lucky. Been quiet out there."
Daryl scoffed lightly. "For now. Our luck is won't last the night."
She tilted her head at him, raising an eyebrow. "We need to work on your positivity level."
"No we don't." He said simply. "I'm positive it ain't gonna last."
She grinned and looked at Rick, rolling her eyes and he chuckled as he took a bite of his dinner.
"Hey Rick?" T-Dog came around them and jerked his head toward the dining room. "You got a sec?"
"Yeah." Rick put his plate down on the coffee table and followed the broad shouldered man. T turned and waited till Rick was right behind him before he ducked into Ruby's room quietly.
"Finished it when you were upstairs. What do you think?" He asked, going to the window. He had nailed boards tightly across the window, leaving four inch spaces between them, and a six inch space where the window would stop when it was left open. The top was sealed a lot tighter, and nothing was coming through without a hell of a fight. "And look. I tied this cord to the brackets on the bottom on both sides so she can raise it easier." He finished, holding the thin rope left hanging over the top and pulling up. The window slid open behind the boards and the cooler night air immediately began circulating in the room.
"How'd you do this? I didn't hear you hammering." Rick asked, his eyes surprised and impressed.
T shrugged. "You were busy and Daryl kept Ruby away. I can be quiet when I need to be."
Rick chuckled and pulled at the boards. They were solid, and didn't move a centimeter under his hands. "Thanks, she's gonna love this."
T-Dog grinned. "When you want to close it you just push it back down. The lock still works." He leaned back and put his hands in his pockets, his eyes going tentatively over to Rick again. "You did it, didn't you?"
"Is it obvious?" Rick asked, genuinely curious.
"She not screaming or crying, so I figured you either got back together or you got a break up line that I have GOT to learn."
Rick shook his head. "Just told her the truth. Got her to admit it to herself. Had to happen sooner or later, you pretty much told me that."
T-Dog didn't push, it wasn't really his business despite his unwarranted advice from before. He smacked Rick on the arm with an open hand, winked and left the room.
"Hey Ruby." He said a little louder than he had to from just outside the door, alerting Rick to her incoming presence and Rick let a low chuckle escape his lips. She came in, but she was looking back at T-Dog with a confused expression.
"What's up with T?" She asked, turning to look at Rick and a smile broke out across her face when she saw the window. "Did you really get it to open?"
He pulled up on the ropes and when she felt the air blow in she gave an excited hiss of victory. "Oh god, that's fabulous. You guys are freakin' awesome."
She came to stand in front of it, enjoying the breeze and he pulled on her braid gently. "Glad you like it, but it was all T. And Daryl for distracting you while he did it."
"Is that what he was doing? Here I thought he was just really into boy bands all of a sudden. I was getting worried." She said with a wide eyed but false innocence and Rick let a sharp burst of muffled laughter. "Seriously, though. Thank you." He moved his hand to the back of her neck and squeezed, his eyes never leaving hers, and she put a hand on his arm affectionately. "I want to thank the guys."
He nodded and shut the window while they were out of the room. No sense in taking unnecessary risks, he figured, and when he got back to the living room she was just pulling away from giving T-Dog a hug as he headed upstairs. She went to take her seat by Daryl again and was speaking quietly to him, a grin on her face, when Carl came up to him.
"Night." The boy said, smiling up at him and Rick got down and gave him a hug, his eyes going up to Lori behind him. She nodded peacefully at him and led the child upstairs. Rick went to back door and double checked it again, made sure Maggie and Glen would be keeping watch that night, and when he went back to the living room Daryl was laying across the couch, his arm over his face and the candles out.
"Hey." He said when he got back to Ruby's room. She had the bed moved halfway across the room and was struggling to turn it around so the head of the bed was closer to the window. "Let me do that." He said quickly and went to help. She paused while he pushed the small dresser down the wall to make room and together they finished shifting the bed to where she wanted it, making sure to leave a good arm's length between them and the space.
"Looks weird, but it's gonna feel amazing." She said, standing back and grinning. Going to the dresser, she dug around and pulled out a couple things. "I'm gonna get a shower."
She smiled at him as she left, and he got his own clothes out of the dresser. He found a softer pair of pants, worn from age and washing, and changed out of his dirty clothes quickly. He shaved in her mirror, loving the new regularity of the routine, and he was waiting for her when she came back.
"Feel better?" He asked, and she nodded as she dropped her dirty clothes next to his on the floor.
"I'm blissful that we have running water, don't think I'm not. And the cold doesn't bother me now, but if we're still here in December we might need to rethink that." She said lightly, brushing her hair out in the mirror. She tied it up in a knot on her head and came to lay on her stomach next to him, her face turned toward the window.
He waited for her to ask about what happened between he and Lori, but she never did. He sat there next to her silently for a few moments, brushing his fingers through the damp strands of her hair against her head.
"I'm staying here tonight." He finally said softly and she turned her face toward him, watching him closely, but with no expectation in her face. "Is that ok?"
"You tell me." She answered, almost a whisper. He pressed his lips together and took her hand in his, bringing it to his chest and holding it there with his left hand. Her eyes finally fell on his empty ring finger and she looked up at him quickly.
"Everything's ok." He said simply, and she nodded. She didn't need the details, she trusted him enough to know she was being told the truth, and she moved so her head rested on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. Both of them had too much respect for what had ended to do anything more that night.
Lori's routine, what they saw of it, didn't change much. But, as they saw the next morning, her attitude seemed to have improved a bit. She didn't shoot glaring darts at anyone anymore but they also didn't give her a reason to. The focus had been on how to fill their afternoons without sitting and waiting for the next attack, getting increasingly frazzled nerves in the process. In fact, when Daryl spotted another car passing by later the next afternoon he quietly told Rick about it only, and spent the rest of the day in the woods around the house.
As for Rick, he spent his time between watching the trees closely, wondering how inappropriate it would be to pick Ruby up and carry her away in front of everyone. He shielded his eyes from the late afternoon sun for the millionth time as he looked out toward the front left of the house, watching Ruby and Daryl gathering sticks for arrows, her bright grin as he scowled as something as contradictory as anything yet strangely fitting. Rick hadn't wanted to crowd them, Daryl didn't seem to mind having Ruby around provided she didn't come with an entourage. So when she shot Rick a look that told him she'd be fine earlier and went off with the redneck, he took a careful watch by the house and tried not to be too obvious about it. It must have worked because they started walking back soon, and she still held a smile along with the handful of small branches she carried.
"Find anything good?" Rick asked casually, standing from the front stoop of the house.
"Guess we'll find out. Gonna show her how to sharpen 'em right, just hope she don't go and cut her finger off." Daryl said grumpily, but the emotion didn't carry to his eyes. He gave her a little smirk and walked off around the house before them. Rick put his hand on her lower back as he led her along with him.
"Why do you like hangin' out with him so much?" He asked lightly and she grinned.
"What? You think his joy is overwhelming, don't you? I can see that."
He chuckled. "That's never been the problem."
"He doesn't feel like he needs to apologize for himself. It was a rare thing to find even before all this happened." She continued, her voice falling softly as they rounded to the back of the house and she saw Daryl sitting on a stump nearby, a branch and his knife in hand. Rick pressed his hand a little further into her back, unaware he was even doing so. Hearing her respect for the redneck had inspired a twinge of jealousy in him, he wanted to hear her say such things about him. She looked up at him and smiled a little before stepping away, and he stopped his broad gait, watching her go.
"Rick! Somebody's coming!" He heard Glenn before he saw the young man's head come out of a window above him, and instantly his body was alive. Daryl's head snapped up and he was jogging toward them, Ruby right behind him, as Rick turned and looked around the house.
There was a large blue truck coming down the road toward the house and he ducked back, looking back at Daryl and Ruby. The man was standing behind Rick, Ruby behind him, and both of them were looking at him for direction, though their weapons were drawn.
"Back inside. Where's Carl?" He rushed them back toward the back door, Carol just inside when he shut the door behind them.
"He's with Lori upstairs." She said and the three of them rushed to the front windows as a door shut outside. The truck, he realized, and he swept Ruby behind him as he peered out through out the slats in the window. There was a tall man, rugged and harsh looking, his clothes tight against his bulging muscles in his chest and arms. He was young, but had obviously been through a lot- he looked road weary and his eyes were narrowed warily.
"What is it?" Maggie hissed from the stairs and Ruby went to her quickly, her hand leaving Rick's grasp where he had taken it as soon as they had entered the house. They whispered softly to each other for a moment before looking back at Rick's back nervously. He put a hand out to calm them as he watched the man take in the front of the house carefully. The big guy let out a deep breath, obviously frustrated at seeing the seemingly abandoned property, and his shoulders fell a little. He started walking back to the truck, but stopped as he reached the hood. He frowned and looked back at the house a last time and let out a low whistle, a short sing song that sounded strange coming out of his large body.
Rick heard Ruby let out a sharp gasp and he saw her eyes go larger then he'd ever seen before. She raced from Maggie's side to the window and he caught her right as before she hit the boards with full force, pulling her against him as she pressed her face against the slats.
"Oh god." She said in a low voice, and she whistled herself, almost an answer to the one the man outside had done. His head whipped around from the truck, the surprise on his face obvious.
"Starlet?" He spoke loudly, but questioningly, like he didn't believe he had actually heard anything at all.
Ruby broke free of Rick's grasp and raced for the back door, and Daryl caught her as she got there. She pushed back on his arms, looking up at him and Rick frantically. "It's Paul!"
"Let her go, but watch for walkers." Rick said and she gave him a grateful look as she threw the door open and ran into the sunlight. They followed her around the house, never more than two steps behind her as they rounded to the front of the building and the truck came into view. Paul's face went almost slack with relief when he saw her and she threw herself into his arms. He picked her up and twirled her around, a huge smile on his face making him appear years younger. Rick and Daryl stopped a few steps away and watched the exchange nervously. New people, especially ones as large and rough looking as this one, were almost never a good idea. And that wasn't even mentioning the ripped apart feeling Rick was getting in his stomach watching the man embrace his Ruby.
"Starlet, where did you go?" Paul pulled back and put his hands on either side of Ruby's face and looking down at her almost frantically. Rick noticed his accent was a sharp northern one, maybe from Boston or somewhere east.
"I ran, like you told me to." She was laughing, tears falling down her face. He rubbed them away with a large thumb.
"Thank god you did. God, I didn't think... after all this time." He pulled her against his chest again and closed his eyes. He still hadn't paid any attention to Rick or Daryl standing to the side, and both of them were feeling too awkward to interrupt the reunion. "After Songbird..."
"Sarah?" Ruby's eyes widened fearfully and she pulled back to look up at him.
He shook his head. "We got through the worst of it, but when we lost you she was a mess. Kept wanting to go back out, even if she couldn't stand she was so tired. We got careless, didn't see one of the geeks till it was too late." He was apologizing through his words, wiping the new tears off her face. "I'm so sorry, Starlet."
She shook her head. "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have let myself get separated from you."
"No, if you hadn't, you might not be here now. It got bad. What happened to you after that? What is this place?" He stood back a little and looked up at the house, then finally at Rick and Daryl. He looked concerned, his brow furrowing as he looked back down at her.
"I went back to that ice house we found, and then Rick found me." She said, stepping forward and taking Rick's arm, leading him toward Paul. "Brought me back here, with Daryl and the others."
Rick stuck his hand out and Paul shook it gratefully. "Thank you so much, man. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd have found her like..."
"It's no problem. She's been... really great." Rick felt so tentative as he spoke to the man Ruby had been waiting for. He felt like something was slipping away from him, something he hadn't even had a chance to have yet.
"Yeah, she's something." Paul grinned down at her proudly. "And you're Daryl?" He looked toward Daryl, sticking his hand out, but Daryl just returned it with a indifferent look and turned and walked away. Paul frowned and looked down at Ruby. She looked sadly after Daryl, but just looked up at Paul and shook her head.
"Rick, can we go inside?" She looked expectantly at him and he nodded quickly.
"Yeah, just pull the truck around the back first. You alone?"
"Yeah." He nodded and Ruby frowned.
"Where did you go?"
"The prison, like we planned. I thought you'd headed there, I needed to check. But it wasn't what we thought. Thank god you didn't go, you wouldn't have gotten back out." He said and their faces dropped. Rick felt a knot in his stomach at the call he himself could have made. He was glad Daryl had left, there was no one around to know that he'd known about its existance.
"You went to the prison? What was it?" He asked Paul.
"Bunch of militia types, thought they ran the world. Set up a camp, secure enough but they fought over everything. Food, pills... girls." He threw a look over at Ruby and swallowed hard. "You don't want to know more, trust me."
He coughed and Ruby took his hand, holding it tightly to reassure him. He let out a breath and looked back up at them. "Anyway, I slipped out a week ago and found the truck abandoned on the road. One of the last ones, they'd been taking them in for parts and gas, and I've been backtracking to where I lost Ruby. Saw the sign. Was that your idea?"
"It was Daryl's." She grinned up at him. "Come on, pull the truck around back and come meet everyone."
"Ok." He said with another wide grin and squeezed her shoulder as he walked back to the truck. She stood back and watched him climb in and as he began to drive around the house she and Rick retreated around their own side and went to meet him.
"I can't believe this." She said happily as they walked, throwing a big smile up at Rick.
"I'm glad he's ok, but I'm sorry about your friend."
Her face became sad again, momentarily. "Yeah, me too."
They reached the backyard and went to where Paul had stopped the vehicle. He hopped out and she pointed to the bed.
"Did you bring anything with you? Bring it in."
"Not much. Wasn't able to keep hold of much in that place." He said and Rick came up close to him.
"Would you mind not mentioning the prison in there? We got people who might have wanted to go, we were trying to figure out whether or not to tell them about it."
Paul shook his head. "No problem, man. You gotta keep them away from it."
Ruby smiled at him gratefully as he threw a huge arm over her slight shoulders. She was dwarfed by his massive frame, but they walked comfortably enough together. Rick closed the back door behind them, noticing Daryl on the far side of the back yard against the trees at one task or another, keeping busy. He'd long ago stopped wondering why the man shied away from new people, and he let it go.
"Carol, this is Paul." Ruby said as they entered the kitchen and Carol looked up at the man with widened eyes but put a small smile on her face.
"Nice to finally meet you." She said in a soft voice, taking the hand he offered shyly. "Ruby's told us so much about you."
"Good to know she didn't forget all about me." He joked and Ruby elbowed him in the side. She led him into the living room and introduced him quickly to the others who had gathered there. He was met with friendly handshakes and nods, and he turned back to Ruby after he'd greeted everyone.
"Come on, we can talk a little, if you guys don't mind." She said, looking back at Rick. He waved his hand at her.
"Of course, go." He said and she grinned, leading Paul back to her room. When they were gone, T-Dog let out a low whistle.
"That's Paul, huh? Dude's huge."
Maggie grinned and went to sit in the armchair in the semi circle. "She said he was a bodyguard."
"Well, I don't want to piss him off." Glenn said, sitting down next to her.
"I'm gonna check on Carl. T, keep watch, make sure nothing followed him." Rick said, going for the stairs.