It took them what they figured must be two months to work out all the variables. Maybe a little more. Each day they repeated the parts they knew worked and discussed something else to change the next time around. It was slow going, but eventually they narrowed it down to Morgan and Duane.
They killed a lot of people to narrow it down. Because those were the variables that seemed to count: who survived and who didn't. Trial and error taught them that when one of those they - one of the five of them - cared about died, not all of them would wake up in the same 'frame'. Only when they'd made sure everyone in the quarry camp lived through the day, safe and sound, did they realign.
The only ones they couldn't easily test it on were Morgan and Duane. They needed to get the two to the quarry. But no matter how much Rick pleaded and tried to get Morgan to come with him, some days staying there instead of meeting up with the quarry camp, Morgan refused. He was a man of conviction who couldn't bring himself to kill his wife's corpse. And he couldn't leave until it was done. If Rick did it for him, Morgan broke down. He couldn't be moved and Duane screamed at him to leave no matter how many walkers the noise enticed.
Eventually the decided that they'd have to come to Rick instead of Rick coming to them. It was the only plan they hadn't yet tried. But it would take time to work out the logistics. How much gas they'd need to siphon for the car, how much food to bring for a hopeful return trip, planned stops to keep siphoning gas. It would take a few tries.
Once the plan was decided on Rick stopped leaving Morgan and Duane. His part was no longer to come to Atlanta. His part was to get the guns from the station – all of them – and go back to his neighbor's house with his friend to wait for pickup. He couldn't tell Morgan that. Morgan would have thought him crazy. So he told him he had little to no real leads on his family's whereabouts. It would be better for him to stay with those he knew were alive than to go looking and possibly get himself killed. Safety in numbers. Morgan didn't question the sense of that. Not after the night they shared and Rick waking up like that. Rick needed time the way Morgan did.
The group got into town on the fifth attempt, half-way through the day. Sophia was with Merle and the quarry camp thought Glenn, Daryl, and Carol had gone into the city for supplies. Carl was missing so everyone was in a tizzy. Merle was the only one that didn't get questioned a dozen times over. He'd been clearly in view of everyone, showing Sophia how to skin squirrels.
Daryl was driving when they pulled up on the street. Duane was the one that spotted them, though. He ran and got his dad and Rick followed Morgan to the upper floor window to watch. When Morgan raised his rifle, Rick was quick to put his hand on it, "No. They're friends. The kid, there. That's my son."
Morgan was clearly surprised, but he did lower his gun. At least until he spotted the first walker, "They're bringing trouble."
"Don't worry about it, they got this," Rick put his hand out once more. "Trust me on it."
Morgan eyed him like he was crazy, but Rick nodded his head and said quietly, "Just watch."
So Morgan did. Nervous and with an itchy trigger finger, he watched.
The four of them noticed the walkers immediately but they were far from quick to lay down fire on them. They knew how much time they had to do other things before they had to act. Glenn was the first to walk out and meet the nearest geek. It grabbed at him and he ducked under it's arms to hold it by the neck and bury his knife into the back of it's head. He let it's weight pull it off his blade before he moved to the next closest.
Carol had the hatch back open by then, carefully moving their supplies around to make sure there was room for three more. Carl had climbed on the roof of the car, his gun held at the ready. A silencer had been found on the way up. It had been considered a necessary detour and they'd spent an entire day of their test run just searching for it on the edge of town, hitting all the places that might have extra guns until they knew which one to hit the next time around.
Daryl held his crossbow at the ready and finally shot one of the bastards as it came down the street on the opposite end of where Glenn was quietly and calmly going after his targets one by one. The bolt hit through the mouth and Daryl set it down to reload. As casually as any by your leave.
Morgan and Duane stood there, silently impressed. Right up until she appeared. Duane let out a gasp and wrapped his arms around his father's waist, burying his head in his side. Morgan couldn't do much more than hold him tight.
"I should do it," he murmured, nearly choking on his words.
"You don't have to," Rick answered, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"It should be me," Morgan insisted.
Rick shook his head, but if Morgan needed to do it, he needed to do it. He leaned out the window and whistled. Daryl, Carl, and Carol all stopped and looked up at him. He waited until Glenn backed off his current walker and put enough space between it and himself to look up. Rick spun his hand to tell them to close ranks. The hatchback got shut securely and all four of them retreated to the porch. Rick took the steps two at a time and flung the door open just as Carl lifted his gun to fire at an oncoming walker. Once they were safely inside, the door was shut and a heavy shelf moved in front of it with that quiet teamwork they were all used to.
They moved back and took up positions, ready to hit any walker that might break through. Morgan watched them in confusion and slight awe. They moved so cleanly and he had to question if Rick really did just wake up from a coma.
The group sat there in silence like that for hours. The day bleeding away into evening as the walkers outside started to give up and go away. The lack of sound and movement allowing them to be distracted by birds flying over head and a few stray dogs racing down the street. By the time night was on them, the group felt safe enough to start pulling out food from the backpacks they had and talking softly.
"Hey," Carl greeted Duane with a smile. "I saw your comics earlier. Can I read some?"
Duane looked to his father for permission and when Morgan nodded, he and Carl curled up next to each other to have a quiet conversation amongst themselves.
"How'd you know we were here?" Morgan finally asked. It was the only really pressing question he had.
Carol was the one that answered. She was the best liar of the group. "We didn't. Well, not for sure."
Morgan gave her an obvious look of disbelief and she just continued on.
"We've been checking the hospital once a week for the last month. To see if he was awake and make sure the IV was full if he wasn't. Carl here told us about him. His mom doesn't believe Rick's alive – sorry Rick." And to both Carol and Rick's credit they were able to look suitably, respectively, apologetic and hearbroken over that statement. "But Carl wasn't giving up. Glenn, Daryl, and I, we're the only ones that really believed him. Daryl's the one that usually comes up. He hunts for the survivor camp we're set up with and no one questions him being gone for a few days at a time. But it's been getting more difficult with the walkers leaving the city. The last run up here he nearly didn't come back from."
Daryl nodded to Morgan, as if agreeing with the statement, but remained otherwise silent as he chewed on a thumb and let his eyes drift back toward the windows. Ever alert for walkers.
"Glenn's our best scavenger," Carol went on, nodding at the man who smiled and waved. "And I'm pretty decent with a knife. But my best skills are in rationing provisions. So we all got together and came up this time. Carl was supposed to stay at camp, but he snuck into the car and we didn't know he was in there until he started complaining about a bathroom break three hours into the drive."
"Too late to turn back," Glenn shrugged, rolling his eyes with a light laugh. This part was true enough that he didn't feel awkward adding to the story. He looked over at Carl and then at Rick, "Lori's going to kill us when we get back, you know."
Rick could only chuckled, "I'm okay with that. It means I'll live long enough to see her again."
Morgan visibly relaxed by that point. The story was plausible. Odd, out there, but it was more believable than Rick having survived a coma in a hospital that had no power for almost two months. Someone coming up and keeping him alive, that made sense.
Carol had moved on to start packing up what supplies they'd pulled out for the meal, "Anyway, when we came up today and checked, he wasn't in his room. We didn't find him on the hospital grounds, and we checked a couple floors. He wasn't there and Carl said he might go home. Obviously he'd be disorientated and confused. So Glenn and Daryl checked it, but Daryl said he saw signs of a recent scuffle in the yard and drag lines for a body. We followed that here and here you are!" She make a happy noise, shoulders squeezing together and up for a second before reaching over and putting her hand on Rick's forearm, rubbing it for a moment before letting go again.
Morgan snorted and shook his head, "That's... that's quite a lot. You are a very lucky man, Rick."
"I know," Rick said, his own eyes falling to Carl, who was still going through the comics with Duane. Both of them quietly animated as they shared an intense discussion of whatever story was being told.
"You should leave with us in the morning," Glenn murmured, broaching the topic that needed addressing. "Come to the quarry camp. You and your son will be safe."
But Morgan shook his head, "Can't. I have something I need to do first."
Rick licked his lips and looked down at his hands, "Then you should do it tonight. It's not safe for you two to stay here." His friend kept shaking his head and Rick's voice went low, "Please, Morgan. For Duane."
Duane looked up from his comics, eyeing Rick first, then his father. He bit as his lip before whispering, "Please Dad? Can't we go with them? They have more food and more people. I don't like sleeping here."
Morgan's eyes shut and he swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Rick stood up and came to him, putting a hand on his shoulder so he could lean in and speak in a quiet, firm tone, "You can do this. But it needs to be tonight. It needs to be now. For both you and Duane."
He held his own rifle out, the silencer already on it, traded out earlier by Carl. Morgan eyed it for a long time before his hand slowly closed around it.