(A/N – No

I'm not even going to bother apologising because no matter how much I do, it cannot make up for how much wait I've put you all through.

I can't even say how sorry I am for this long wait. For the first week since the last update, I had ANOTHER virus (thank you little sister) which got cleared quite quickly but after that, since then, I've come down with quite a bad case of writer's block on this, my other oneshot series and my main story. However, I have finally returned and from now on, I guess this oneshot series is now considered AU since it will still contain a living Merle Dixon and no extra survivors. Now, this update is quite special because it's the first that is created from an idea I was given by one of you guys and it is the longest one (so far) for this series.

The idea for this oneshot comes from Rebel29. Thanks for the input dude, you are awesome!

Plus, gonna admit, this one contains quite a bit of angst.)

Love's dark side – One or the other

Rick Grimes sighed as he searched the shelves of an abandoned store in the his home town of King County. Him, Glenn and Daryl had gone out on a run to get more supplies from Rick's home town for what reason Daryl and Glenn didn't know but the reason was that Rick was hoping he would run into Morgan again. Now that the 'war' with the Governor was over, Morgan would surely have no problems joining the prison group if Rick could convince him. After all, maybe it would give Morgan a chance to bond with everyone, meet people again.

Rick smiled as his mind drifted to his son, Carl. He really had done well to survive this far in the apocalypse and Carl had gone through a lot. He had survived a bullet to the stomach, had the bravery to kill his zombified 'uncle' and near death mother, not to mention fight in a war. As Rick thought about his beloved son, his mind drifted also to the person who Carl was now closest with over his father and honestly, Rick didn't mind. Yes, Sophia Pelitier might be different in more ways than one but she made Carl happy through this mess and if Carl was happy, Rick was happy.

Clang!

Rick drew his Colt Python. 357 magnum and quickly pointed it at where the sound of dropped cans hitting the floor had emitted from. Now, in the sight of Rick's gun was a human male. He was dressed in a sheriff's uniform identical to Rick's; he was armed with an M1911 pistol and he had black skin to match his short afro and shortly shaved beard. Rick and the man both lowered their guns respectively as they recognised the other man vice versa.

"Nadeen?" Rick asked. "Nadeen Hravay?"

The black man inspected Rick up and down with his eyes.

"Grimes?"

Rick began to chuckle slowly as did Nadeen. As the realisation that one of their friends was alive hit them, their chuckles escalated into full laughter. After another moment, the two literally began laughing their heads off before they walked towards each other and engulfed themselves in a manly hug. "Nadeen" Rick began. "It is you. I haven't seen you since I left the station to go after those criminals that put me in a coma."

As the two released each other, Rick noticed that Nadeen had a smile on his face. "Yeah, it's been a while." Almost instantly, Nadeen's smile disappeared and a frown replaced it. "So Rick, why are you here? Where've you been hiding out?" Rick sighed; he hoped he would've been able to have a friendly conversation with the man he considered a brother (apart from Shane and Daryl) but as with every other human these days, all confrontations led to talking about living and surviving.

"I've been hiding up in this prison quite a bit up the road with my son and a group of other survivors. We've been hiding there for quite a while now." Nadeen raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you mean the West Georgia correctional facility?" he asked to which Rick nodded. "If you and your group are stationed that far away, why are you all the way down here?" Knowing this conversation was going to drag out a bit, Rick found the checkout counter of the store and sat on top of it. "In all honesty Nadeen, two members of my group and I didn't come back here just for supplies" said Rick, deciding to let Nadeen know that he wasn't alone.

"When this all started, I was in a coma so I had no idea what was going on. Where ever I looked there was either a dead body or some blood. Basically, because I had no idea what was going on I nearly got myself eaten within the first ten minutes in which I was back on my feet and I would've been eaten too... if it wasn't for this man and his son, Morgan Jones and Duane Jones."

"When I woke up, they explained to me about how there had been an apocalypse during the time I was in a coma, said that people were eating each other and turning other people into more of them. I didn't know if Carl and Lori..." Rick sighed at the painful memory of his wife but continued. "...were alive at that point so I told Morgan and Duane that I had to leave town and see if they were nearby. So, to stay in contact, I gave him a walkie-talkie to contact me."

"I never heard him again... until a couple of weeks ago."

"Me, my son and this woman called Michonne came here looking for weapons when we were attacked by this masked gunman. We had a short gunfight before my son shot him in the chest. However, he was wearing a bullet proof vest so he only suffered a nasty bruise. I unmasked him and it turned out that it was Morgan; he had survived all these months in this little town even after walkers took his wife and his son. I asked him to come back with us to the prison but he refused... so me, my son and Michonne took what we could find and left... I haven't seen him since."

Rick looked up at Nadeen who had a look of sympathy on his face. Assuming pity, Rick sighed and gave his friend a sad smile. "There's no need to pity me or him, Nadeen. Me and Morgan are strong men. You can take my word on him and you know me like the back of your hand." Nadeen sighed and ran his hand across his face. "No Rick, that's not what I'm pitying you about." Rick dropped his sad smile and gave his friend a strong stare. "What are you talking about, Nadeen?" Rick asked him sternly. Nadeen sighed again. "Rick, I'm sorry but..."

"Your friend is dead. Shot down last week by some bastard in a lab coat heading towards the neighbouring town."

Rick froze for a second, taking in the words just spoken by Nadeen Hravay. After a moment, Rick looked down at the ground with a neutral stare and simply sat silent. Honestly, he knew that Morgan wouldn't have lasted much longer; the guy was losing (if he hadn't lost it already) his mind over the death of his son and he was on his own. Even with the large amount of traps he had placed, Morgan had still fallen to a human. Yes, Rick was sad but he knew if not then, it would've happened eventually.

"Well enough about me and my problems" Rick said after a moment of silence. "How have you been throughout all of this?" Nadeen, who had been standing the entire time, walked over to his friend and sat next to him on the store checkout counter. "Not good Rick, not good at all. When this whole thing started, me, the wife and the kids hid away in our house. We watched the president's speech on the matter and since he said to remain indoors, that's what we did."

"Thing is, it wasn't fucking good enough."

"It had been about three weeks since it started and me and my family knew that we were finished. The army hadn't managed to do anything about it which meant there was nothing anyone could do. My son, Hassan, he was always one to give up and take it as it comes. He said to me 'why fight the inevitable, dad? May as well go now' so... he opened the fucking door and they piled in." Nadeen abruptly stopped as a sob broke through him and Rick patted him on the back in a comforting manner.

"They ate Hassan... They ate my little girl... and they... they... they ate my Kristina, Rick. Right in front of me and you know what I did? I ran. I ran away from my dying loved ones as they pleaded me to help them and all I did was... run. The only reason I'm here talking to you right now is because the dead were too busy eating my family."

Rick stared at Nadeen in pity and shock as his friend unleashed rivers of water from his eyes. Rick had known Nadeen Hravay from when he first joined the sheriff's department of King County's law enforcement and he had never known Nadeen as someone to run away from danger or fear. Nadeen, after crying away his grief, looked Rick in the eye. "So from then on, as I drove away to find a more secure location" he continued. "I swore that any dead man I see will be a dead man."

A knock on the window interrupted the pair. Both sheriffs looked up and through the store's door window to see Glenn and Daryl, the former carrying a basket of supplies varying from baby formula and food to weapons and car tools for the group's vehicles. Rick let a small smile overtake his features as he looked into the face of a frowning Nadeen Hravay.

"I know a secure location for you."

The car stopped and all four passengers stepped out of the car, Nadeen heading to the boot of the vehicle to grab the supplies Glenn and Daryl found in King County whilst the former and latter went up to their group leader. "Hey Rick" Glenn started. "Me and Daryl were talking and... we think that you may have made the wrong decision with accepting Nadeen into our group." Suddenly, an angry expression appeared on Rick's face and as he looked at his fellow survivors, they knew they had used a wrong choice of words.

"Excuse me?" Rick asked sarcastically. "What do you mean 'I may have made the wrong decision', Glenn?" At this, Glenn lowered his head in a state of what appeared to be shame. "I will have you both know that I have known Nadeen Hravay ever since I started my job at the King County sheriff's department, do either know how long that is?" Neither responded, Rick took their silence as a 'no'. "That is fifteen years and with that amount of time, I think I can say that I know Nadeen a lot more than either of you two do."

Daryl decided to take this moment to speak. "Yeah but Rick, from what we all heard on the way back from Nadeen himself, I can go and guess that he's lost his mind a little through grief, like your friend Morgan." Rick winched at the mention of his friend's name but Daryl didn't notice. "So I just think that Nadeen is one of those people who works better on his own instead of in a group."

Rick scoffed at Daryl's lack of confidence in him. Like Rick had stated already, he had known Nadeen for fifteen years whereas Glenn and Daryl had only known him for barely ten minutes. What right did they have to say if he was a bad man or not? "Listen now you two" Rick said forcefully, speaking to his two fellow survivors like small children. "I know that I said that we are a group, a family and that I am not your governor but if I am going to ask the group to trust me on anything then I am asking you to trust me on that man over there called Nadeen Hravay."

Daryl and Glenn looked away from their group leader and into each others eyes, their faces saying to each other that they knew the argument was futile and that Rick's decision on Nadeen was final. "Alright then" Daryl started. "If you think that Nadeen is fine to be here, that's your call." Rick hesitated for a moment before nodding his thanks to the tow of them as they walked off. For a while, Rick simply watched his two friends in silence, slightly regretting being forceful on them with words but if he was right about anything, it was Nadeen being good.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sounds of a basket crashing to the ground and a gun cocking.

Rick turned around at a speed unknown to man and was met with the sight of the back of Nadeen Hravay, who had dropped the basket full of supplies to the ground and was now slowly raising his M1911 pistol to point it at someone. As Rick saw who his friend was preparing to shoot, his eyes widened in horror.

The girlfriend of his son Carl, Sophia Pelitier.

Sophia Pelitier.

The human-zombie hybrid.

Mind of a human, body of a walker.

On instinct, Rick drew his gun ready to shoot Nadeen but then remembered who was preparing to shoot Carl and Sophia. Not wanting to fatally injure his only true friend, Rick dropped his gun and charged at Nadeen, ready to fight him if he had to. "NOOO!" Rick screamed before grabbing Nadeen's gun and pulling it and its carrier to the ground. Unfortunately, Nadeen had pulled the trigger just before Rick had tackled him so a bullet was fired and it hit Sophia Pelitier...

In the shoulder, only giving her shock since she couldn't feel pain.

Wanting to put an end to the 'walkers' life, Nadeen flipped Rick onto his back and straddled his waist in order to gain an advantage. "I don't wanna hurt you Rick, don't make me!" Nadeen shouted before punching Rick in the face. Leaning over, the black sheriff reclaimed his firearm and pointed it at the feet of Glenn and Daryl who began running back after hearing the gunshot. "Stay back!" he shouted as he shot at the ground in front of the pair, halting them in their tracks.

With the gap he had given himself, Nadeen pointed his gun back at Sophia to shoot but before he could get a good aim, the gun was again grabbed by Rick Grimes. "Nadeen, stop!" he shouted in protest. In response, Nadeen forcibly wrenched his gun from Rick's hold and hit him in the face with it. With his friend stunned, Nadeen stood up from straddling his fellow sheriff and pointed his gun at the head of Sophia, ready to kill.

BANG!

Rick's eyes widened as an image of a dead Sophia dropping to the ground entered his head. However, when he turned his head to look in the direction Nadeen and Sophia had been in, he was met with a much different sight. Nadeen was looking down to his chest in shock at the sight of a bullet wound through his chest. Rick turned his head the other way to see, that behind a shocked Daryl and Glenn, stood Merle Dixon with his gun raised.

Realising what had happened; Rick jumped to his feet and rushed over to his wounded friend who was now on his back on the grassy ground of the prison courtyard. As Sophia, Glenn, Daryl, Merle and the rest of the group approached the two sheriffs, Rick held Nadeen's head in his lap in support whilst blood began to flow from his body.

"I'm so sorry, Nadeen!" Rick said truly to his bleeding friend. As he noticed the rest of the group were in shouting range, he looked up to them angrily. "Back off!" he shouted. "All of you! Back off!" The group all stopped at his request and Rick looked down to Nadeen's face, which seemed to be losing its colour.

"Whoever started this whole mess" Nadeen began with a heavy tone. "Us survivors turning on each other... it's what they want, or wanted. I tried to warn you, Rick." By now, everyone was simply spectating the event that was happening before them and Carol had moved over to her hybrid daughter to check her shoulder wound. "You need a group of trust, Rick. A group that can work together and protect each other." Carefully, Nadeen moved his head upwards to look Sophia in the eye before moving to look Rick in the eye again. "You need to cast her aside, she'll turn the group against each other as you just saw with you and I" the black sheriff said solemnly. "Rick, I just want what's best for you to survive, you're my friend."

Rick chuckled sadly as Nadeen's eyes began to slowly close. "No Nadeen, you don't. You want whats best for you." Before Rick could say anything else, Nadeen's eyes closed and his lungs exhaled their last breath. Reluctantly, Rick leaned over Nadeen's body and took his M1911 pistol into his hand, pointed it at Nadeen's head and pulled the trigger.

"We should bury him" Rick said a moment later. No one disagreed, not even Sophia who had been attacked by Nadeen. As Rick looked down at his friend's body, the rest of the group walked back to the cell block... except for one.

"Hey... Rick." Said sheriff looked up see Merle, his friend's killer.

"I'm sorry about killing your friend and all but I was protecting Sophia" he said. "Gotta earn my place somewhere." Rick looked away from Merle and back to the dead Nadeen before looking back up to Merle. "I know, Merle" he said with a small smile. "You were doing the right thing. Beth's lucky to have you."

Merle frowned in annoyance at the mention of his girlfriend from his 'frenemy'. "Shut up" he said before walking away, leaving Rick to bury the body of Nadeen Hravay.

(A/N – Thank you SO much for reading! This took me like four hours to write but I REALLY enjoyed it! Please leave me a review for this chapter; I want to know what you guys think of my longest oneshot yet.

By the way, Morgan being killed by a guy in a lab coat? That's a hint for the future story I will be writing)