Chapter 8

"You say you're not ready to die - so maybe it's time you started living."

Getting ready for bed after Rick took Judith back up to the cellblock to put her down for the night, Andrea thought about what he said, turning the words over in her mind. She knew he had a point - there was no good reason for her not to get on with her life now that she was out of immediate danger, healthy and certain that bastard hadn't left her with a nasty surprise - but the truth was, she didn't know how. Amy, Dale and Shane were all gone, Michonne didn't need her anymore, Woodbury was in ruins and the man she thought she could have loved, who could have loved her, was nothing more than an illusion. All she had left was her watch and whatever this dance was she was doing with Rick, where he kept seeking her out and she kept letting him in, inch by inch, only to push him away again when she could feel him getting too close. She didn't know what she wanted from him, what she expected, other than that it felt good to be seen by him when most of the time she felt invisible. All this time later, and she still felt like the odd man out, the only one without firm ties to anyone anymore.

She decided to try heeding Rick's advice by doing something small to shake up her routine. The next morning, instead of taking her breakfast back to the tower to eat alone or save for later as usual, she scanned the cafeteria, looking for a friendly face she could join. She knew everyone here, longer than many of them had known each other, and yet she still felt like the new kid at school.

Normally, she would gravitate towards Rick, who for some reason she wasn't sure she was ready to interrogate yet, was always glad to see her, but he was on watch - she saw him up on the other tower coming in. Michonne was still off on her quest for vengeance or suicide mission or whatever she was trying to do. The longer she was away, the more it felt like she was never coming back. Daryl wasn't there either. Neither were Carol or Hershel. She considered just taking something out to Rick after all, to return the favour for last night, when she heard someone call her name.

Glenn was waving to her from the back of the cafeteria, trying to get her attention.

"You looked lost," he told her when she made her way over to the table where he was sitting with Maggie and Beth.

Judith was with them, cradled in the crook of Beth's arm while she used her fork with the other.

"Just looking for somewhere to sit," she admitted, checking the door again to see if anyone else had come in.

"So sit with us," Glenn insisted without checking with the others. "We have room." He emphasised his point by shifting his tray to create space for her beside him.

Andrea glanced at Maggie, then Beth, reluctant to intrude on their family time. But both sisters smiled and nodded their agreement, so she set her tray down and took the last chair, between Glenn and Beth.

They talked about their plans for the day while they ate, and Andrea was comforted by how normal it felt, almost like they had never left the farm.

After she finished her food, she offered to take Judith so Beth could focus on hers. She thought maybe the baby was starting to recognise her, because when she gave her an exaggerated smile as she settled her in her arms, she got a drooly one from her in return.

Daryl wandered by on his way to the food line. "Hey, stranger," he greeted her in his typical laconic fashion. He returned a few minutes later with his own tray, dragging a spare chair over between Andrea and Glenn and they all reshuffled to make room for him.

When Rick came in to reclaim his daughter as they were clearing up, he looked surprised to find Andrea still there chatting with their friends. He stopped behind her chair, his hand coming to rest between her shoulders as he leaned over to check on the baby, and when she turned her head to look at him, he was smiling.

Even though Andrea had taken his advice to heart and started coming down from the tower to interact with the group more often, she still hadn't moved back to the cellblock. Whenever Rick had a break from tending to his kids or working on the farm or just keeping things running around the prison, he made a point of going out there to visit her.

Often, he brought Judith with him, knowing how much she loved having the baby all to herself. Sometimes, they talked - about what was happening in the prison, his plans for the future or their lives before. He finally heard the story of how she escaped the farm and met Michonne, how they wound up in Woodbury, and he told her about Shane and the day Lori died and seeing her everywhere. It felt good to get it out, to someone who understood what it was like to lose yourself in grief. Other times, they just sat out on the platform together, enjoying the breeze. It would have almost been romantic, he thought, if it wasn't for the rotting corpses groaning on the fence, but in this world, you had to take whatever moments of peace and beauty you could find.

He started to look forward to those times when he could be alone with her, where he could just be Rick the man and not Rick the father or Rick the leader, and before long, he realised that seeing her had become the highlight of his day.

He hadn't spent enough time with her before, in Atlanta and on the farm - always too preoccupied with other people and things - and now, he wasn't sure why. She made him laugh with her quick wit and dry sense of humour, but she also challenged him with her probing questions and insightful comments, forcing him to look at things from new angles.

One night, they were sitting side by side on the platform in their usual spot, so close their sides were almost touching. Judith was napping in the basket Andrea brought up for her inside the tower where they could listen out for her.

He was reluctant to ruin the easy silence they had fallen into by asking her the question that had been weighing on his mind, but he needed to understand. "Do you still have feelings for him? Is that why it's so hard for you to let go of what happened?"

He didn't know what he would do if she told him she did. Already, the thought of that creep touching her made him sick to his stomach.

He was relieved when she gaped at him in horror, appalled by the idea that she could ever harbour anything but hatred for someone who had harmed her in such a profound way. "Geez, Rick. What kind of sicko would I have to be?"

He figured that was all she had to say on the subject - and really, that was all he'd wanted to hear - but then, seeming to feel she owed it to him to set the record straight, she continued, "I was never in love with him. I barely even knew him. I liked him, before I knew what he was. I thought, 'Here's a man who's got his shit together'. But anything I thought I felt for him died the moment I found out what he was doing behind my back." Tears sprung to her eyes as she admitted, "I feel so stupid, Rick. I was so naive. I trusted him. And it almost got me and everyone I care about killed."

More and more lately, he found himself testing her boundaries, seeing how close she would let him get to her. He shifted his position so that their sides brushed against each other, encouraged when rather than move away, she leant into him, her head almost but not quite resting on his shoulder. He considered putting his arm around her, but worried it would come off as sleazy, he decided not to press his luck.

"We've all put our trust in people who didn't deserve it," he reminded her. "I defended Shane right up until the moment he put a gun in my face."

"It's not the same," she argued. "You knew Shane since you were kids. He wasn't always like that."

He understood what she was saying, but somehow, that made it worse. He should have noticed the change in his friend, but he hadn't wanted to see it, any more than she had, with Shane, or the Governor. It was hard, watching what this world did to people you cared about, even when they survived.

"So, you made a mistake, and the only way you can make up for it is by waiting out here for him to show up so you can kill him?" he asked her, hoping she would hear how insane that sounded when he laid it out like that. "Hasn't he taken enough from you already?"

"Says the king of self-flagellation," she pointed out with an ironic smile, and he knew it was true - he couldn't say he wouldn't do something similar in her position, especially without his children to keep him grounded in what was really important.

He'd done his share of dumb things in the name of atonement, like neglecting his son and newborn daughter while he chased his dead wife's ghost around the prison, just so he could tell her how sorry he was. "You're right," he agreed. "I should take my own advice. That doesn't mean I'm wrong."

He knew from his time as a cop that women often blamed themselves when the men they were involved with turned violent. 'I should have known,' he'd heard them say about their abusers more times than he could count.

He moved his hand from his lap to cover hers where it rested on her thigh. As usual, she didn't shy away from the contact, taking it a step further by turning her hand so their palms were flush and wrapping her fingers around his. Looking down at their entwined hands, he was struck by how right it felt. Everything with her felt right.

"It wasn't your fault that he did what he did - to you or anyone else," he told her, because she needed to hear it, as many times as it took for her to believe it. "You can't keep punishing yourself for it. You deserve to be part of this community, Andrea. You deserve to be happy."

He didn't dare add what he was really thinking: that maybe she could be happy with him.