Chapter 6

Rick didn't get a chance to talk to Andrea again when they got back to the prison, because as soon as they finished unloading the trailer, she went straight to the guard tower to take over from Maggie.

He didn't see her again until he was coming back from the farm, when he spotted her in the courtyard, struggling under the weight of her mattress, her rifle on one shoulder, knapsack on the other, rolled-up bedding wedged under one arm. "Where are you headed with all that?" he asked, crossing to her side.

She jerked her head at one of the empty towers near the front of the compound that hadn't been decimated in the Governor's assault.

"You planning on napping during watch duty?" Rick teased her, still not sure he understood.

She shook her head. "I'm moving in."

Rick frowned at her, surprised by her announcement. "You're gonna live out here? By yourself?" Where was the woman who'd wanted so much to be around other people that she'd risked her life trying to save Woodbury?

She used the opportunity to take a break, depositing the mattress on the ground while they were talking. "I'm on watch most of the time anyway. It makes more sense than walking back to the prison in the dark."

"It's gonna get cold out here soon," he reminded her, hoping to dissuade her from leaving the comfort and safety of the cellblock for whatever this was.

She shrugged. "I've had worse."

He realised with a stab of guilt that she was referring to all those long winter months she was on the road with Michonne after the farm. From what Merle told them, she got so sick she almost died. Would have, if it wasn't for Woodbury and the Governor. No wonder she was so reluctant to leave there.

He tried again. "Look, I know what happened back there was scary."

That had to be what this was about. If the Governor's goons were still in the area, then he must be too. It couldn't have been easy for her, running into them like that, having to kill someone she knew, even if he was a bad guy.

"But the way I see it, if he is still alive, he's down two lieutenants thanks to you and Michonne. That's a good thing. It means he won't be prepared to launch another attack on this place any time soon. We have the numbers. Even if he's dumb enough to try, he won't succeed."

She didn't look comforted. "I appreciate that, Rick, but this is where I need to be."

"It doesn't have to be you, you know," he told her. After seeing the effect taking a man's life had on her, he wouldn't blame her for letting someone else handle the Governor. Between him, Michonne, Daryl, Glenn and Maggie, there was no shortage of people who wanted him dead.

"Yes, it does," she insisted. "If I hadn't told Merle Daryl was alive, they never would have come looking for you. He would have left you alone."

That might have saved them, but she wouldn't have been so lucky. "What about you?" he asked her. Sooner or later, she would have figured out what that asshole was doing behind her back and stood up to him and he would have killed her for it. And they wouldn't have been there to bring her back that time.

"I made my choices. This is how I live with them."

Rick wanted to say more but he could see that her mind was made up. They all had their own ways of coping. Who was he to stop her if this was hers? "Suit yourself, but our door is always open if you change your mind."

She nodded, picking the mattress back up again.

This is ridiculous, he thought, watching her stagger away. If she couldn't even lift it properly on her own, how was she going to get it up into the tower? There was no way she was carrying it up the ladder by herself.

"You're gonna need some help, though," he called after her. "That's a two-person job, at least."

She stopped again. "You offering?" she asked with a coy smile, and for a moment, he wondered if she was flirting with him.

It wasn't hard to imagine that before the turn, she was one of those women who never had any trouble getting out of a ticket or finding a guy to help her change a tyre. He bet she never had to buy her own drinks, either. All she had to do was flash that smile and men would fall all over themselves for her.

Rick sighed, feeling his resolve begin to falter. He didn't want to enable her in what he worried was self-destructive behaviour, but maybe she was right and this was what she needed to feel safe right now. He decided to help her in the only way he knew how. He picked the other end up off the ground.

He knew he was doing the right thing when her expression turned grateful. "How should we do this?"

He switched into take-charge mode. "When we get there, you get up on the ladder and I'll pass it up to you."

Between the two of them, they managed to get the mattress through the trapdoor in the guard tower floor by folding it in half.

"Got it?" Rick asked Andrea once she was off the top of the ladder.

She tightened her hold on the top edge. "Yeah," she agreed.

He hoisted it up, but as she tried to pull it in the rest of the way, it unfurled in her hands and she lost her grip, stumbling backwards into the wall.

Her head knocked against the window glass with a crack and she grimaced. "Ow."

Without her there to hold it, the mattress tipped over, narrowly missing Rick coming off the ladder, before landing on the floor beside him. "Whoa!"

Rick managed to reach her in time to catch her by the arms, steadying her before she could go down too.

"Thanks," she told him with a self-conscious laugh once she regained her footing. "That was graceful."

She was going for levity, to cover her embarrassment at her lack of coordination, but he didn't seem to find it amusing. "You okay? That sounded like it hurt."

The back of her head smarted where she bumped it against the window. She reached up to feel it gingerly, wincing as her fingers made contact.

Rick brushed her hand aside, gently parting the hair above her ponytail to check for signs of injury. His touch was so delicate it sent a shiver down her spine. Fortunately, he was so focused on examining her head, he didn't seem to notice.

"You might have a bruise, but it's not bleeding," he told her. "Any dizziness? Nausea?"

"No," she assured him. "I don't think it was that hard."

His brow unfurrowed as he finally relaxed. "Good. The last thing you need is another concussion."

Not when she was barely over the last one.

"I'm okay," she reassured him. "Thanks to your lightning quick reflexes."

She meant it as a joke, to lighten the mood, but the words came out sounding more serious than she intended. She was distracted by his hands, one still cupping the back of her head, the other still resting on her bicep. She'd never been this close to him before - so close, she could feel the heat of his breath, smell the musky scent of his soap mixed with his sweat. Clean, but not fussy. She decided she liked it. It was very him: simple, honest, without an ounce of pretension.

The feeling of being trapped between him and the wall wasn't as awkward as she might have imagined. From this position, he could kiss her if he wanted to. Her eyes flicked from his, down to his lips and back up again while she tried to figure out how she would feel if he did. She wasn't sure if she was imagining it when he mirrored the gesture, as though he was going through the same thought process.

When he realised he was still holding onto her, he dropped his hands to his sides, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them all of a sudden, and took a step back.

She was surprised by the disappointment she felt at the loss of contact. She couldn't remember the last time a man touched her like that, out of genuine tenderness and care, without expecting anything from her in return. There was no artifice to anything he said or did. She never had to question what was real, because with him, everything was real.

He seemed to change his mind, lifting his hand to scratch the back of his own head. "I should let you get settled in." He didn't sound convinced.

The more time she spent with him, the more she found she enjoyed his steady, reassuring presence. There was no danger or cruelty to him when his life wasn't under threat, like a coiled snake waiting to strike. Sure, he'd done bad things - so had she now - but only ever in the name of protecting people. Like her, he got no satisfaction from it. She knew she could trust him with her life. That he meant it when he told her he would do whatever he could to keep her safe - including putting a weapon in her hands and making sure she knew how to use it for the times when he couldn't be there himself.

She wasn't sure she was ready for him to leave yet, despite her insistence that she was fine out here alone, so she grasped at the first thing that came to mind. "You helped me move. That means I'm supposed to buy you a drink. It's not exactly a carton of cold beer, but I can offer you" - she pulled a bottle of clear liquid from her bag with a flourish like a magician drawing a rabbit out of a hat - "vodka."

He took it from her, turning it over in his hands while he looked at the label. "Where did you even get this?"

"Found it at the warehouse," she admitted. It wouldn't have been her first choice, but all the good stuff was long gone. She remembered Martinez, dead on the ground from the bullet hole she made. "It's been a rough day. Month, actually. I was planning on getting shitfaced tonight." Maybe then she would be able to forget about everything long enough to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.

His expression softened with sympathy, and she knew he must be thinking about how she almost lost it in the parking lot after killing Martinez. "My grandfather used to say, 'A gentleman never lets a lady drink alone'," he told her, opening the door to the platform, and she smiled at the image of him as a boy not much older than Carl, lapping up his grandfather's homespun wisdom.

He led her outside and sat with his back against the outer wall, twisting the cap off the bottle so he could take the first swig.

She sank down onto the platform beside him, and he handed it to her. "Bottoms up."

She pulled from the bottle for as long as she could stand, screwing her face up at the taste as it burned down her throat. It reminded her of parties in college, when the goal was to get drunk as quickly and cheaply as possible. These days, her tastes were a little more refined. Although she'd be happy if she never saw another glass of whisky again.

Rick laughed at her disgusted expression, a soft, husky sound that warmed her more than the vodka, accepting the bottle when she pushed it towards him.

They sat in companionable silence after that, drinking and watching the sun set over the prison together.

Rick left the tower while he was still sober enough to climb down the ladder. Andrea was glad she was already planning on spending the night there, because she wasn't so sure she could. But then she'd always been a bit of a lightweight when it came to straight spirits.

She dragged herself up to the cafeteria the next morning to find Rick already up, slumped at one of the tables, nursing a cup of coffee while he fed Judith her bottle.

"You look as bad as I feel," he told her, taking in her blotchy skin and the dark circles under her eyes. He didn't look too hot himself.

She considered feigning offence, but it felt like too much effort. "The only reason I'm even out of bed this early is because I needed coffee," she admitted, dropping into the chair opposite his. She put her head down on the table to stop the room from spinning.

She didn't think her stomach could handle any more than that in her hungover state; the smell of the eggs Carol and the other women were scrambling for breakfast made it roil in protest.

"Ditto," he agreed. "Well, that, and the crying baby," he added, gesturing to his daughter, still working on her bottle.

She winced at the thought of the baby's piercing wail. Waking up with the sunrise was bad enough. "Okay, you win. I withdraw my complaint."

He laughed, nudging his still full mug towards her. "Here, you probably need this more than I do. You drank a lot more than I did."

He phrased it as more light-hearted teasing, but sensing the true intentions behind his words, she asked, "We're not really gonna do this again, are we?"

Taking note of the flashing red caution sign she was putting up, he raised the hand not holding the bottle to indicate that he was backing off. "I just wanna make sure you're alright after yesterday. I know that wasn't easy for you."

What was done was done. She didn't regret it, but she also didn't want to talk about it. She didn't even want to think about it anymore. The worst part wasn't the act of shooting someone - that came more naturally to her than she liked to admit - but the knowledge that that monster was right: that in this world, killing people was as necessary for survival as killing walkers.

"I'm fine, Rick," she insisted. She steeled herself and pushed her aching body up from the table, taking the mug he gave her with her. "Thanks for the coffee." She paused on her way to the door, not wanting him to think she was upset with him for just trying to look out for her. "And thanks for last night." She didn't wait for his response, retreating back to the solitude of her tower to resume her watch.

From her vantage point on the platform, Andrea watched Michonne march down the drive, heading for the front gates. She was dressed in her travelling cloak, carrying her knapsack, her sword sheathed on her back, like she was going somewhere. She hadn't even told Andrea she was thinking of leaving.

Andrea ran inside and clambered down the ladder, scurrying out of the tower after her. "Mich!" she called. "Michonne! Where are you going?"

At first, it looked like her friend was just going to ignore her. Then, finally, she said, "Rick might be content to sit around and wait, but I'm not. I'm going to finish this."

She didn't have to tell Andrea what 'this' was. "You don't even know where he is," Andrea pointed out, stopping behind her, out of breath. Her head throbbed from her hangover. "Even if he was with Martinez and Shumpert, he would have moved on when they didn't come back." It wasn't like he was sentimental enough to look for them. Michonne seemed to be forgetting that she knew him better than anyone else here.

"If he's out there, I'll find him," Michonne insisted.

Andrea could see Glenn on watch on the other side of the compound. He and the others could handle it if anything happened. "Give me a minute and I'll come with you," she told Michonne, making a mental list of the things she would need as she started back towards the tower: food, water, warm clothes, plenty of ammo… "It'll be like old times."

She almost smiled at the thought of a girls' trip with Michonne, sobering when it occurred to her how unhappy Rick would be when he realised she was gone. After everything he'd done for her, it felt wrong to leave without telling him. He wasn't in the field yet; she considered going up to the prison to find him, but she knew he wouldn't approve and would only try to talk her out of it. Better to slip away quietly, let Glenn fill him in. There would be time for explanations and apologies when it was done. He would understand then.

"No," Michonne snapped and Andrea stopped. "You need to stay here, where you'll be safe."

She was as bad as Rick, thinking she could protect her. Andrea let out a bitter laugh as she turned back to face Michonne. "I'm not safe here. None of us are safe. We're sitting ducks. What if I don't want to sit around and wait for him to attack us either?"

"If he gets his hands on you again, he'll do something even worse," Michonne told her, trying to scare her into backing down and staying inside the prison walls. "He'll make you wish you'd died the first time."

She said it as if the thought hadn't already occurred to Andrea, didn't already keep her awake at night. "You think I don't know that?" she insisted. "I want this over just as much as you. Probably more." None of them had suffered as much at his hands as she had. He got off on toying with her, like a cat with a mouse, punishing her for her betrayal. The only reason he'd let her go was because he believed that he'd finally killed her.

"I say this as a friend," Michonne began and Andrea knew she wasn't going to like whatever came next, "but you don't have the stomach for what I'm going to do to him when I find him."

"You'd be surprised what I could stomach these days," she told her. Especially where that monster was concerned. "Or did you forget what I did to Martinez?" She was a killer too now, just like Michonne and Rick and the rest of them. Like him. The next time would be easier. Especially because he deserved it.

But Michonne kept on walking, refusing to give her time to prepare. "Stay here, Andrea," she threw back over her shoulder. "I mean it. I don't need you."

Andrea knew her harsh words were meant to drive her away, so she wouldn't try to come after her, but what hurt more was that Michonne didn't even look back to see how they'd landed as she left her standing alone in front of the tower, watching her go.