Ace was up early, for a change.
Movement across the room woke her up, which was Rick getting ready to go out on watch as Daryl walked in. She let out a disgruntled sound and rolled over, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get back to sleep.
Daryl sat on the ground next to her, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. She decided not to bother him, knowing that he had been out on watch for most of the night, and even if he wasn't sleeping, she still decided to give him some space.
It was an hour or two later when the others started to wake up, the noise triggering more and more of them to rise. Still, it was quiet. Everyone was just coming around, and they all wanted whatever privacy they could get before they had to pack up.
There was a bang that alerted Daryl, his eyes snapping open. Both he and T-Dog stood up, running out of the room. Ace shoved the book in her bag and followed them. They rounded a corner to the back of the building, where there was a fire exit door.
Daryl swung the door open, pulling out his knife and killing a walker immediately behind the door. T-Dog stepped outside and looked around, before immediately rushing backwards, behind the safety of the doors.
Ace's eyes widened as she stared out. There were hundreds of walkers, there had to be, all coming towards the storage units. The noise they all made was immense, and she was surprised they didn't hear it before.
"Oh my God," Glenn said, over her shoulder.
Daryl stepped back, slamming the doors behind him. He made everyone follow him back to the room they had all been staying in that night, before yelling out instructions, "Everyone getcha shit! We're leavin'!"
Ace was one of the first back in the room, grabbing her brown, flannel coat and the yellow bag from the ground next to it. It took her seconds, which was more than she could say for most others around the room.
She moved over to help Beth shove a blanket in her bag, grabbing a few bits and bobs she left on the ground until Beth said that she was okay and didn't need anymore help. Ace nodded and stood, looking around for others that needed her help.
"Ace!" Daryl called, grabbing her wrist and pulling her out of the room. "Go out to Rick, tell him we gotta get the hell outta here."
Ace's eyes widened, "What about you guys?"
"I gotta get everyone else out, we ain't gonna take long," he said. "But Rick don' know what's happenin',"
He reminded her that Rick was even outside, on watch to make sure something like this didn't happen. The walkers came from the back, though, so she couldn't really blame him for not knowing about the incoming herd.
Daryl placed a hand on her shoulder, lightly shoving her to make her walk further down the hallway. "Go on!"
Ace pursed her lips, unsure. He had everyone else, but she didn't want to leave, she wanted to help them all get out. If walkers got in through the back, they could get trapped in a room and cornered.
She ran off down the hallway, following Daryl's instructions to find Rick who was on watch. He had to be just outside, with the cars. She zipped around the corners and headed straight for the front of the storage units.
Ace found Rick tucked against a wall, and she realised that he had seen the herd too. Ace's breath caught in her throat as she stared at the corpses, now noticing the sheer number of walkers there was around them.
"Walkers are trying to get into the back," Ace said. "Daryl wanted me to warn you."
"It's a little late for that," Rick tried to keep his voice down, hoping the wandering herd would miss them. "Where are the others?"
"Daryl's trying to help the others get their things and get out," she said.
Her eyes flickered to Rick for a second, hoping he had some kind of a plan, but he just kept staring out at the walkers.
Ace glanced over her shoulder, towards the door she ran out of, but instead of seeing the group like she thought she would, all she could see was a walker coming her way from the other side of the building. A woman was the closest, reaching her arms out to grab Ace. It scared her how close she managed to get before Ace noticed.
"Fuck, Rick!"
She pulled her knife out, swinging it up and straight back down into the woman's skull, and it squelched into place. It didn't matter how loud she was now, taking down the first walker was enough to get the attention of the first group, and now every dead thing around them knew where they were.
"Go, go, go," Rick shoved Ace towards the nearest car, the pickup truck.
"What about the others?" Ace was saying, looking back towards the storage units.
"We're cut off, we can't do anything," Rick yanked open the driver's side door, pushing Ace inside first, and climbing in after she slid across the seat.
He slammed the door closed, watching the walkers that followed him to the car and slammed their hands against the window. Ace jumped, her eyes never leaving the window to make sure the walkers couldn't get inside.
The car shook as more and more walkers pushed against the side, blocking any exit that had from the car. There was a BANG behind them, from Ace's window, making them both flinch violently, spinning around to the passenger side window.
"We can't stay here," Rick said, grabbing the keys from the sun visor over his head.
"No!" Ace yelled. "We can't leave them!"
She turned, looking back over her seat to the storage units. The walkers that had missed her and Rick climbing in the car were now walking in through the open doors of the storage units, into where the rest of the group were staying.
"They're getting inside," Ace's voice was high, panicked. "What do we do? They need help!"
"We can't go back that way," Rick said, over the groans and thuds from outside the car.
Ace's head shot back to Rick, "We can't leave them!"
Rick pursed his lips, sighing in a very aggravated way before pushing hard at the horn. The sudden sound made Ace jump, and the walkers surrounding the sides of their car got louder and more aggressive.
"What are you doing?!" Ace flinched. "They see us!"
Rick checked his mirrors. "Yeah, I know. This is what you did, at Wiltshire, right? We can't do much to help them, but maybe we can lead some away. Our priority right now is getting out."
Over all the noise, Ace could hear gunshots from inside the storage units. She looked over her seat, out the back window, and saw the rest of the group running to the other cars. As far as she could see, it was all of them. She was sure she saw everyone get in the other cars.
The thing that scared her was when she saw the others turn around, driving away from the herd in a different direction than Rick was taking. He didn't even look like he was going to try and go after them, but she knew that even if he did, the road would be blocked.
"Where do we go?" She still felt panicked, even though they were now moving faster, and further away from the herd behind him.
"We'll just keep going," Rick beeped the horn a few times before picking up speed. "Get away and collect ourselves. Then we'll circle back, meet them at the rendezvous point."
Rendezvous point.
She had forgotten the group even talked about one, but they did. After she and Glenn got separated at Wiltshire, they decided it would be best if they had one place to meetup if anyone ever got separated again.
"Okay," Ace agreed shakily, her hand wrapped around the handle on the ceiling.
Rick checked his mirrors again, then grimaced. With all the corpses stumbling behind them, he wasn't able to get the full view he wanted. Rick turned his head, checking behind them at the herd while pressing down on the gas.
"Rick, watch—!"
Rick turned back too late, and there was a loud THUMP as the car jumped and rocked and jerked from side to side. The impact made Ace flinch in her seat, squeezing her eyes closed as she listened to the horrible sounds that the corpse made under the car.
"Fuck!" Rick exclaimed, blood splattered the windshield, the car rocked once more and he glanced out the rearview mirror, seeing the body of a walker in the road.
"You hit it!"
"I know!"
Rick could feel, as Ace could, the difference in the car's movement. Rick even more so as he was driving, feeling the invisible tug, the opposite direction he wanted to go. But the force of the vehicle made the drive less straight, less sturdy.
Rick met Ace's eyes with regret, silently informing her not to say anything. He knew, he felt it. They had a flat tyre. Ace sat back in her seat, sinking down a little, trying to keep her anxieties to herself.
Rick kept driving, speeding up, trying to put as much distance as he could between them and the herd before the tyre completely gave out. It was difficult for him to accelerate with that problem, but he tried anyway. Rick took a few turns, making sure not to make whatever distance they made away from the walkers a straight shot.
"Do you think we're far enough?" Rick asked a while later.
Ace frowned, unhappy with the state of the vehicle but not wanting to stop in any way. If they stopped, it would be too dangerous to drive again without a spare tyre. It was dangerous to drive the way it was.
The only thing that scared her more than the car breaking down was the walkers that may catch up to them. She turned in her seat, looking out the back window for any signs of them, but saw nothing.
"I-I dunno," she stammered. "They're slow. They might not go this way, right?"
Rick only sighed, not wanting to answer but also not having one. He pushed the car a bit more, trying to be sure. A couple more minutes later, the drive felt worse, each roll of the flat tyre veering them off course, causing the drive to feel like a rock on a very straight, flat road.
Ace clutched the back of her hand, letting out a heavy breath. She knew they would have to stop now. If they kept going, the metal inside of the metal would wear down the rubber of the tyre and break.
"You'll have to stop now," Ace informed, leaning out the open window. "It's worse, we're not getting much farther."
Dismayed, Rick turned the steering wheel, pulling the car to a small stop on the side of the road. He knew he was right, so kept his complaints to himself.
"Why bother pulling over?" Ace wondered aloud. "We aren't expecting much traffic."
"Habit," Rick shrugged, opening the door to get out. Ace herself shrugged at his answer, not understanding his habit as she had never driven around before the apocalypse.
She got out and walked around the car, stopping at the affected tyre. "Here."
Ace crouched down. She could see the blood and other debris coating the tyre. She tried not to think about what it could possibly be, because knowing that it was walker remains was bad enough.
Rick stood over her as Ace had lowered herself onto the cement, pulling herself under the car slightly to look around the tyre. He waited quietly as she examined the deflated, black rubber, looking for the source of the puncture.
"I see the problem," she called out. "That walker we hit. Bone punctured the tyre."
"Can we fix it?" Rick asked hesitantly.
"Can we fix it . . ." Ace mumbled quietly under her breath, just quiet enough for Rick to miss. She then raised her voice for him to hear. "You got a tyre stashed somewhere I don't know about?"
Rick sighed, rubbing the back of his neck while he peered around their surroundings. "You can't patch it?"
"There's no patching this," she answered as she climbed out from under the car. "Even if I had a patch kit."
"What options do we have?" Rick thought out loud. He was listing some ideas off in his head, but wanted to know if Ace had anything different in mind.
Ace rubbed whatever dirt and small stones from her palms to her jeans, her face contorting as she spoke. "We could go on foot, find a new car. Maybe keep going for a while, see if we can find a spare or take it off another vehicle, roll it back. Or we could push . . ."
"It took long enough to find this one," Rick muttered to himself. "And we don't have the parts to fix up another."
Ace internally groaned, knowing that this would end up with her and Rick pushing the pickup to the next house or car, somewhere where they could get a tyre from.
"What happened to that radio you were working on?" Rick asked.
"Oh, fuck," Ace muttered to herself, thinking back on leaving the storage units. "I forgot it."
Rick hummed, letting out a sigh.
He walked back to the car, opening the driver's side door and pulling out a map, one that Ace had seen them use before. Apparently it was a map of Georgia, and that was all she really knew about it.
"It looks like there's something not that far away from here," Rick announced. "We could try pushing, hopefully find another car to take a tyre from."
"If we're finding new cars, why are we pushing this?" Ace grumbled.
"We have too many supplies to leave behind," he answered. "And I don't wanna risk finding something else, and have it not work. This is the best option right now."
"What if we can't get a spare anywhere?" Ace asked.
Rick stayed quiet, because he didn't really have an answer. There was a small town up ahead, which was likely to have a vehicle, but it was not definite. He assumed that if there truly was nothing.
Rick put the map back in the well of the door, before leaning further into the truck to release the handbrake. "C'mon," he called over to Ace, rolling the windows down to give them something to use as leverage. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back on the road."
Hopefully.
Ace wished she had some kind of say in their decision, but there she was, pushing a pickup truck down a road that seemed endless. Maybe it was endless. They had been walking for almost thirty minutes with no sign of the town Rick mentioned seeing on the map. Ace now wondered whether he was lying, saying it was close by to get her to help him push the truck, but with no evidence, or way to read a map, all she could do was go along with his plan.
Rick, on the other hand, was trying to ignore the complaints Ace was giving every so often. It wasn't all the time, just when they stopped to kill a walker or two, but it was just like if he had been driving and she was criticising every small thing he did. Still, he knew it was because of the situation. Ace rarely ever made comments unless she felt uneasy or anxious, so he brushed them aside.
But eventually, despite the complaints and almost an hour of pushing the car, they finally saw the houses in the distance.
"See," Rick said. "Didn't I tell you we'd find something?"
"Yeah," Ace answered. "But, I also remember you saying 'not far from here', so I don't really know what to believe."
Even though she was joking, Rick heard an edge to her voice, which he could only assume was from her anxiousness. When they found her and Glenn after escaping Wiltshire, she had the same sorrowful look, same quietness until they were found, but that wasn't a fair judgement as it was only a dew days after she had got beaten.
Then again, the edge could have been due to the fact that both of them were now tired and achy, as pickup trucks aren't the easiest things to push along a road. Rick just hummed out a response as they pushed, and around five minutes later, they stopped the car in the middle of the road, outside the first house.
Rick glanced around the street. There were a few vehicles dotted around, abandoned, ready for them to loot, but he had no judgement on whether any of them could be used as scrap for a spare tyre or just as a replacement.
He turned to Ace, "What do you think?"
"I don't know," Ace mumbled.
She walked further ahead to inspect the cars, the tyres, whether they would fit on the pickup truck, before stopping at the second car. Ace just stared at it for a second, her eyes wandering back to the pickup.
"This one should work," she said finally.
"Okay," Rick gave a nod, his hands resting on his belt, "We'll take a look through some of these houses, find some tools, hopefully a jack."
"If we can't find a jack, we'll have to push the car onto dirt and dig a hole underneath the flat tyre," she said. "Besides, I think a shovel is more likely to find than a jack."
"We'll see what's here first," Rick said.
Rick and Ace looked through three different houses before finding anything of use, collecting some of the cans of food, old cereal and other things from the kitchen, but for a while, nothing they could use to change the tyre.
Until finally they entered the fourth house, looking immediately in the garage, through the tools and things scattered in boxes around the car. Rick glanced around, before finally seeing what they were looking for in the corner of the room.
"Ace," he called. "There."
She walked over and grabbed the tool, before immediately turning on her feet and heading back outside, back to the car she was planning on taking the tire from. Rick just followed her in silence, his eyes darting back and forth every so often. But he mainly watched Ace as she starting lifting the front of the car.
Ace took the tyre off the first car effortlessly, rolling it over to their pickup. She walked back over to get the jack, before joining Rick at their car once more. She knelt down to place the jack under the front of the car, and started twisting it to lift the car.
She looked back at Rick over her shoulder, who was just staring out, looking for what she assumed to be walkers. As much as she liked that he was keeping her safe, she also knew that it was his fault they even needed to do this.
"Are you going to help?" Ace asked.
"Do you want me to help?" Rick questioned.
Ace was quiet for a second. She just wanted him to do it for her, so she could just take a break and rest. Rick was the one that crashed into a walker and punctured the tyre in the first place, so he should be the one to fix it.
But Ace knew that if she did it herself, then it would get done sooner than if Rick was doing it for her. Her fixing the car herself would also be faster than if he helped, because she would just waste time instructing him on the correct ways to change a tire.
It was a valid question.
"Nevermind," she said finally.
Rick gave a nod, turning around to watch for any signs of walkers. Ace preferred him doing that, she didn't want them to be working on the car and then having a walker sneak up on them.
Ace got their tyre off the pickup with some difficulty getting the bolts loose, but it was soon enough that the old tyre was thrown aside, and she was grabbing the new one to put onto their car.
"It's done," Ace called a little while later.
"Good, let's get the hell out of here."
After a long while of driving, they slowly started getting more and more lost. Rick had taken different turns at the sight of more than ten walkers, which eventually led them somewhere that they didn't know. He tried looking down at the map, but unless he actually stopped to read it, there was no chance of him finding where they were while driving.
So he just kept driving, hoping to find a house, or a sign, or some kind of indication that would give where they were. He tried to keep the fact that they were lost from Ace, but he knew that she guessed they were lost. She kept fidgeting, looking out the window whenever she saw a marker or sign. In all honesty, he was proud of her that she managed to keep the complaints she had to herself as best she could.
"I'm hungry," Ace grumbled after a few hours of driving.
"Me too," Rick hummed.
There was nothing they could do about it. They didn't have any food in the pickup, nothing they could eat, and one bottle of water to share for a drink.
There was a long moment of silence before Rick's hand reached out for the radio, before pressing a button. There was a slight delay before it began to play some quiet music, Ace thought to be a slow country song. Rick glanced over for a second, probably wondering whether she knew what the song was, before looking back out at the road ahead.
After a while, Ace felt her eyes grow heavy, staying closed for longer whenever she blinked, reminding her of just how tired she was. After pushing the pickup for what felt like an eternity, Ace felt drained, and with the ever-darkening sky, she was finding it harder and harder to stay awake.
Ace's head fell back against the rest, and she allowed her eyes too close to try and get some sleep. She wasn't asleep, not yet at least, but it was getting close. She was so achy, that sleep was welcome.
Ace heard a click, and her eyes opened to see Rick turning the music down a little, giving her a chance to rest while he drove. She closed her eyes again, her head rolling to the side to find a more comfortable position in the car.
When it got so dark that Rick needed the headlights on, he stopped. Ace lifted her head up, looking around with a tired and confused expression.
"We'll stay here for the night," Rick answered her questions before she could ask them.
Ace frowned at Rick before eyeing the houses. She didn't need to say anything for Rick to understand her apprehension over his plan. She just wanted to get to the rendezvous point and meet up with the others, but if they stopped, then it was more likely that the others could be gone by the time they arrived.
"We can't stumble around in the dark," Rick explained, again using her expressions as a guide to her resentment. "We could get swarmed or lost."
"We are lost."
"I mean more lost," Rick said quickly. "Come on, let's clear the house, I'll check the map and then we'll get some sleep."
Rick opened the door and got out of the car, urging Ace to do the same thing with a single glance. With one last look back to the car, Ace followed him to the house. Both pulled out their weapons as they prepared to clear it.
Rick was trying to ignore Ace, for her own benefit, attempting to give her any kind of privacy possible in their small space. After several minutes, his eyes kept flicking over to her form, unable to pretend he couldn't feel the stress and worry radiating off of her.
Finally he gave up, turning his head to watch her. His elbow was on the armrest, hand on his temple to hold his head up. Ace was still pacing, back and forth across the room, showing no signs of resting or stopping. Rick's eyes even glanced to the floor, jokingly curious if she was leaving track marks behind.
"Ace," Rick addressed in a calm voice, trying not to sound patronising. "Why don't you sit down?"
Ace stopped, letting out a heavy breath before looking around. She went across the room one more time, slower, more unsure. Then finally turned and walked back, taking a seat next to Rick with her arms crossed.
After she settled, Rick began consulting the map again. Deciding their next course of action. He wanted to talk to Ace more, distract her or talk about how she was doing. But the best way to help was to make a plan, have some assurance they would be okay. Rick continued considering their options, where the herd was last seen, where it was going, where the group was last and how to get to them.
"Where are we?" Ace asked several minutes later.
"What do you mean?" Rick replied without looking at her, focused on the map.
"Where are we?" She repeated slowly. "Like, on the map."
"You don't know?" Rick's head turned to her.
Sure Rick had been a little lost after the storage units, but he only needed to look for a second to tell where they were now. The map didn't cover all of the states, and Ace had been around when they'd spoken about navigation and other plans before.
"I never know," was all Ace said.
She stared at him expectantly, but Rick was too confused to even answer her question. She had been there for as long as he had—no, Ace had been there longer than he had. She had been around for every conversation they had about moving camp and where they were going. How could she suddenly forget where it all was?
"What's the last place that you knew where you were?" Rick titled the map, still holding it with one hand on his lap.
Ace leaned over, examining for a while before uncrossing her arms to point somewhere. "There."
Rick's brow furrowed, he didn't know or recognise that area. They hadn't been anywhere near where she was pointing to, "Where is that?"
The question was odd to ask, while looking at a map. He knew where it was, but the question meant something different. Where was it? What was it to Ace? He was sure it had nothing to do with the group, where they had been since Atlanta.
"That's where I lived before all this."
Rick nodded.
He'd expected her to give any other location, for her to have an inkling of a location they'd travelled: the farm, the CDC, the quarry, any place on the road. But Ace just pulled her hand back and crossed her arms again.
"Why didn't you ask before?"
Ace shrugged, turning her head to stare at the wall ahead of them. "Everyone else knew. I didn't want to waste anyone's time."
"You can always ask if you want to know something," Rick said. "Especially this, it's important to know where things are in case you ever get lost again. Anything could happen—"
Ace's head fell back against the sofa, showing him that he was done listening to what turned into a lecture. "I just wanted to know where we were!" She groaned
"Okay, I'm sorry. Here, look," Rick scooched closer to Ace, turning the map around so it was facing her. She lifted her head as he pointed to the map, "we're here, and we're trying to get to the others over here."
Ace watched him shift his finger across to what she knew to be East, her minimal knowledge of directions already used up.
"Okay," she said slowly, waiting for it to get complicated.
"Back here are the storage units," Rick decided to simplify their pathing over the last month, knowing that it would take hours to show every small house or store they'd stayed in. "And for the past month, we've just been going in this circle," he said, shifting his hand around the paper.
Ace frowned. "Why?"
"The herd up here," Rick pointed to a blue line that had been scribbled on the map.
"Oh," Ace was quiet for a moment, now thinking about where she remembered being for the last month, and everyone's attitude when Rick talked about where they were going next. "Is everyone mad because we're going in circles?"
"Kind of."
He hadn't really heard any complaints from the group yet, and it was the first Ace had heard about their travelling situation. But eventually they would be crossing back through places they had already been, and if they had already been there, that meant there would be less and less food to scavenge.
"Are you mad we're going in circles?" Rick asked.
"First I'm hearing of it," Ace said with a grin that made Rick smile without even thinking about it.
It was like she could sense his own anxieties, but he didn't have to pace around the room for her to notice. Rick was the reason they were travelling in a circle, much to everyone's dismay, but it was the only way to keep his group safe from walkers.
"Where was the farm?" She asked, distracting him from his train of thought.
"Oh, that was up this way," he said.
Rick told her more and more, and began explaining everywhere they had been from the quarry to when they left the farm, to Wiltshire, and eventually he circled back to the storage units. He even showed her where Fort Benning was, knowing that was a big plan for the group, before Dave told them that the place was overrun.
"Is there anywhere else you wanna know?" Rick asked.
Ace hummed in thought.
"Where was I?" She said, before quickly clearing it up with. "When I was with my dad. Shane told you where it was, didn't he?"
Ace's mouth snapped shut immediately when she realised what she said, and her eyes moved up to Rick to gauge his expression. This time he didn't glance up, not meeting her stare, and leaned back in her own seat; a small attempt to escape.
"I don't know what house it was, but it was in this town," Rick said, after what felt like an eternity for Ace. Her eyes moved back down to follow his finger, and he pointed at somewhere South-West of where he said the quarry was.
"Thank you," she said quietly, crossing her arms.
"Is that all?" Rick asked.
Ace nodded, doubting that she would ask anything else, even if she had any more questions. Rick gave a nod, sitting back in his seat like he had been before she started questioning him on the places they had been. He stared down at the map, and Ace pursed her lips.
She wanted to start pacing again around again, not wanting to keep her anxieties inside after what she had just said. As far as she was aware, Shane was a topic that they just ignored. Since Rick took leadership of the group, no one had even uttered his name, not wanting another outburst like they had back then.
Ace understood how reasonable the outburst was, seeing as he had just killed his best friend, but still, she thought it best if she let him work through his own problems. She had to work through her own problems after getting beaten, and knew that working through what had happened made her act a little different.
"Sorry," she said finally.
Rick was still quiet, his head tilting back, gaze changing from the map to the wall in front of him. "You don't have anything to be sorry about," he answered finally. "I didn't expect anyone to just forget him."
"I know, I just didn't know whether you were okay with it. Bringing him up, I mean," she explained. "I shouldn't have said it, I wasn't thinking."
"You don't have to tiptoe around it because of me, Ace," Rick said.
"I do," Ace argued, and before Rick could open his mouth, she started speaking again. "Because no matter what he did, and what you did, you still lost him. He was your friend and you needed time to grieve over him, and you didn't get that time. So you may not be ready to talk about it yet."
Rick was silent, thinking about what she said. After everything that happened, what Shane did, how he tried to kill him, he had never even thought that he could grieve over Shane. His main priority was keeping his family, and the group safe, that he never had that time to think about what he did.
Eventually he just gave a nod, hoping that Ace would leave the topic alone, and he knew that she would. When Ace saw that he had finished talking, she turned in her seat and laid down on the sofa, her head falling on the arm rest.
"Still hungry?" Rick asked after a while.
It was a stupid question, neither of them had eaten since they stopped, but he needed some other way to change the conversation. He didn't want to be hung up on what she said about Shane.
"Yeah," she mumbled tiredly from where she was laying down.
"There was some food in the kitchen. I'll go make something," Rick tapped her leg before standing up. "Try not to fall asleep," he said as he entered the kitchen.
Ace pushed herself to sit up, listening to Rick's advice to not fall asleep. She did manage to keep her eyes open long enough for Rick to return with two bowls from the kitchen, each containing different food.
"You got a choice: baked beans or vegetable soup."
"Beans, please," Ace said.
Rick handed her the bowl, before sitting down on the other end of the sofa with his own food. Ace immediately dug in, shovelling the baked beans into her mouth. She breathed out, happy to finally have a hot meal.
"This would be better with toast," she mumbled.
"Imma ignore that one," Rick answered.
After that, Ace and Rick sat in silence, both sat on the sofa, looking ahead as they ate their meals. Ace pulled her feet up so she was sitting cross-legged, and leaned back into the sofa cushions.
When they were finished, Rick took Ace's bowl back out to the kitchen, before returning a few seconds later.
"You should get some sleep," Rick said, squeezing her shoulder as she walked passed. "I'll keep watch."
"You don't have to, I think we'd hear if something tried getting in," Ace said. "You need sleep too."
Rick wanted to argue, to keep the both of them safe, but he knew that she was partly right. If he was going to continue driving the next day, which he had to do with how little Ace knew about where they were going, he would need some kind of rest.
So he said, "I'll stay awake for an hour, make sure we're alone. If nothing happens I'll try to get some sleep. Okay?"
Ace frowned, unsure if Rick was just saying that to make her get some sleep or whether he would actually try getting some rest later on. Not that it mattered. Ace knew that Rick was the one in charge so whatever he said goes. She huffed out a low fine.
"Lay down," Rick told her.
Ace nodded, laying her head back on the arm rest like she had been doing previously. She kept her legs tucked up, and when she was comfortable enough, closed her eyes.
Rick reached behind them, grabbing the blanket that was resting on top of the sofa, before pulling it over and covering Ace with it. He then leaned his head against his hand, resting his elbow on the other arm rest.
"Goodnight," Ace mumbled, rolling over to face the back of the sofa.
"Goodnight."
The next morning, Rick went to grab their bags from the car, before he and Ace each went to a different room upstairs to get dressed. Ace changed out of the joggers she wore all of the day before, and into some black leggings and a white shirt. She grabbed her coat, and shoved her arms into the sleeves. Spring had come around, but it was still too cold to go anywhere without some kind of coat.
Rick was downstairs waiting, standing in the doorway to keep an eye out for any last minute walkers that could show up as they were leaving. One of the steps creaked under Ace's boot, that got his attention for a short second, his head flicking back to look at her.
"Ready to go?"
Ace nodded.
In silence, she and Rick walked out to the pickup. Ace was unsure about the quiet, wondering whether Rick didn't say anything because he couldn't think of anything to say or whether he was still quiet from the night before.
She didn't have anything to say, either. Ace wondered whether she should have said something, asked if he was okay, if he needed anything, but she didn't want a repeat of the night before, so she just kept quiet and tapped the ground with her feet, watching the road rushing towards them as Rick picked up speed.
Rick drove for a short while. They weren't on the road very long until he pulled the truck to a halt on the side of the road. Ace glanced around, seeing a few houses either side of the car, before she raised a brow in questioning silence.
"I'm thinking we should search the houses," Rick said, "while we're in the area."
Ace looked out the window, following his eye line. "That makes sense, but should we really take longer to get back to the others?"
Rick pursed his lips, still eyeing the houses. "We won't waste gas coming back this way, if there's anything useful here, this is our chance."
Ace took a moment then nodded, undoing her seatbelt and opening the passenger door.
Ace didn't think much of it, it was just a house, much like every house they had stayed in over the winter, much like the houses they had just looted before this one. They all looked the same after a while, all blended into one.
Rick entered the building first, kicking the door open when he found out it was locked. The crack of the frame breaking, along with the bang that was made as it hit the wall, echoed through the empty halls.
He walked in, passing two open doors, which Ace would have pointed out, if a walker didn't immediately stumble out from a room on the left. She opened her mouth to call it out, but it had already grabbed the back of Rick's coat, who struggled as he tried to pull himself free.
"RICK!" Ace sprinted forwards, grabbing the corpse by the shirt. She yanked it away from him, so hard that she almost fell over when the walker did. There was a thud as the body knocked over a small table with a vase on top.
Her knife, still wielded in her right hand, was swung down into the walker's skull. There was a gurgling noise from the body, as Ace pulled the knife back and swung it down, again and again, until she was sure that it would not wake up afterwards.
Then she stood, panting, trying to catch her breath as they both tried to calm down from the fear of the situation.
"Are you okay?" Rick asked, followed by a heavy breath.
"Oh, oh yeah," Ace faked a big smile. "I'm great, so great. I've never been so great!"
"Don't give me that."
"The dead are walking and everyone is missing," Ace argued. "I think I'm allowed."
"Yeah, well, I get enough of that from Carl . . ." there was a pause before he continued, "and Lori. I don't need the attitude from you too."
"Sure thing . . . dad," Ace muttered.
Ace looked down at the corpse, now bleeding all over the carpet in the hallway, the broken pieces of vase slowly getting coated in the red liquid. She could barely believe how close she just was to losing Rick.
"Do me a favour?" Ace asked. "Don't get dead."
Rick turned to her, his head tilting in confusion, but a small smile on his face because he was sure he heard what she said. "What?"
"Don't get dead," she repeated. "It would be really inconvenient to my life right now."
"I'll try not to," Rick gave a nod in acknowledgement.
The two searched one more house, unable to find anything useful or worth taking. In the truck, they drove for a short while. One point, having to make a U-turn and take a different street when a car-wreck stood in the way.
Once again, Rick pulled the truck to a stop. Ace could see why, eyes widening in surprise and recognition of her surprise, peering out the window.
"Is that—?"
"—Gun store," Rick nodded in confirmation.
"Ah yes, the epitome of America," Ace said. "You realise since we left the farm we've found more of these than actual places to live in?"
"I'm aware," Rick answered, his tone even.
Ace gave a nod. "Just wanted to point it out."
"Let's take a look around," Rick said after a moment. "There were a lot of supplies in some of these houses, there might be stuff to take here, too."
"Doesn't look very promising," Ace commented while getting out of the car. The front door window was shattered completely, glass littering the sidewalk and road. Some kind of metal cage-gate that had once guarded the window on the outside was on the ground, collapsed and bent in odd ways. They couldn't see anything into the store, even with the window gone, blinds blocked the way.
"Nothing out here," Ace said, as they looked around.
"I'll check the back."
Ace took out her weapon and nodded, she held it ready to shoot while waiting for Rick at the front of the shop, taking watch. She heard some noises of him walking around, checking in any rooms inside, but Ace ignored them, assuming they were all Rick.
He appeared again after going around the store. He stated there were no signs of anyone, or walkers, but they would still take it slow just in case he missed anything. Ace didn't want to go slow, she didn't even want to search the place, but guns or bullets were always useful, and outweighed how badly she wanted to get back to the group.
The two were silent going in, careful not to attract attention. Ace lifted the blinds through the empty gap where the window used to be, allowing Rick to go in first. She followed behind, guns raised as they checked the place.
After confirming no dead, and no living, they put their weapons away and started searching. Trash and debris littered the floor, broken cases and shelves as the place had been ransacked. The shelves and displays were mostly bare, which had been expected. Ace barely even did a quick scan, seeing nothing around, no guns, no bullets, nothing very useful for them to take.
"Ace," Rick called. "There's some holsters here."
"There's nothing over here," Ace said on her side before making her way over to Rick.
Rick showed her the few he found, they looked like they'd been tossed aside the last time someone found and looted the place. He was holding a black material belt in his hand, that was thread through the back of the holster he was talking about.
He held it up a little to show her, "This'll work for your beretta."
"That's good, was kind of tired shoving it down my trousers," Ace laughed a little, taking the beretta out.
"I'll help you get it on," he said, and looked down for a second. "Where's your knife?"
Ace reached in her pocket of the brown flannel coat, pulling out the sheathed knife from her pocket. Rick just looked at her a second, wondering how she'd made it this long with her knife kept in her pocket. But, then again, that was why she needed the holster.
"Give it here," he said, and Ace handed him the sheathed knife. He slid the belt through the loop at the top of her knife's sheath, before saying. "Arms up."
She did as she was told, raising her arms a little, still holding the gun in her hand. Ace had been wearing black leggings that day, so she didn't have any loops to thread belt through, which made it easier for Rick to adjust where the knife and gun should sit and make sure they held there. Ace would be able to adjust the size of the belt when he was done.
After a moment, he took a step back.
"Thanks," Ace put the beretta into the holster once Rick finished. She looked down, adjusting the length of the belt a little, before noticing her knife on the left side. She grabbed the top, to move it around, but Rick stopped her.
"Keep your knife on your left," he instructed.
"But I'm right handed," she looked up. "I always have it on my right."
Rick nodded. "It's not easy to have the two of them on the same side, interfering with each other. If you have to choose between the side they should be on, your knife is better to have at cross draw. More than likely, if you use your gun . . . it isn't for a walker. You'll need to get it quicker."
Ace frowned, looking down at where the gun was. She understood exactly what that meant. She still wanted to have the knife where she was used to it, but obeyed anyway, leaving the sheath on the left side of the belt.
"I'll take a look in the back room, there's an office, make sure nothing useful got hidden."
Ace nodded, continuing to look through the store.
The two didn't find anything else, making their way to the truck after. Ace walked more hurriedly then Rick, although she agreed with checking for supplies, she wasn't happy with how long it was taking to find the others.
The drive was taking longer than Rick had planned for. There were more roadblocks, walkers or hazards around every turn, and every so often he would have to stop to plan out a new route. After hours of driving around, stopping and starting, planning new routes, they were much closer to the meet up house, but Rick didn't say anything. He didn't want to get her hopes up for them to get stuck in a traffic jam.
After a while of sitting in silence, Ace was starting to get bored. She found her eyes flickering over to Rick, his driving, the fuel gauge, the speedometer, which was just over 65 miles an hour.
"You're driving too fast," she said after a moment of contemplation.
Rick glanced over to her, which worried her a little knowing the speed that they were driving, but he let out a breathy chuckle and asked, "What?"
"The most fuel efficient speed to drive is 55 miles an hour," Ace explained briefly.
Rick kept glancing over at her, trying to read her facial expression, mainly wondering whether or not she was being serious. But her face remained completely blank, and she stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to slow down.
"Ace, I'm not driving 55 miles an hour."
Ace opened her mouth to argue, but stopped herself. She knew that no matter how much she argued with him, he would not drive at 55 miles an hour, even if it were to help them conserve fuel.
Instead she just sat back in her seat, leaning her head back and looking out the window next to her.
"The cars are here," Rick said, glancing over to the passenger seat.
He had been expecting a happier reaction from the girl, but when he saw her, curled up into a ball, head resting against the door, he knew that she was asleep. Rick reached across the seat, gently shaking Ace by her shoulder to wake her up. She grumbled, but lifted her head, wincing from the pain of sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.
"I'm awake," she assured with a yawn.
"Well, that's good," Rick said with a chuckle, "because we're here."
"We're here?" Ace rubbed her eyes, before looking out the window. Her eyes shot open, and she sat up straight. "Oh my God! We're here!"
Rick let out a chuckle of amusement, smiling as she clumsily struggled to get out of the car quick enough. He opened his own door, hurrying to see the others and his family, though not nearly as quick as Ace was.
Before Ace would make it to the door of the small shop they set up as the rendezvous point, it flung open violently. Rick could hear the loud ding of the door, which hadn't been disabled from before everything fell apart.
Carl ran out, feet pounding and hat flying off his head as he leaped onto Rick. Rick smiled wider and hugged him tight, kissing the top of his son's head as he led the door to the shop.
Glenn was hugging Ace just outside the shop, her grin wide as Glenn spoke frantically about their events and recount of how they last saw the two. Maggie lightly shoved Glenn away, giving Ace her own squeeze.
Lori looked relieved, as if an immeasurable weight had been lifted from her shoulders at the sight of Rick. He could see her obvious hesitation, unsure about how to approach and even how close.
Walking over to the others, Rick made it clear to keep a few steps back, but he shared brief eye contact, Rick gave her a nod before diverting his attention to the others. No matter the history, the feelings, they were still family, grateful for each other and everyone else's safety.
I actually still really enjoy this chapter. The only real vision we had was Ace just walking back and forth and voila. Still got all the time in the world to keep working on future chapters, so I'll try to keep them coming as quickly as possible.
Let me know what you thought :)