Chapter 9
Rick was pulling weeds out of one of the vegetable patches and tossing them into a bucket when he glanced up to see Andrea coming towards him. He opened his mouth to ask her if everything was alright, concerned she'd seen something on her watch, but when she got close enough to speak, he realised she was smiling.
"This is a nice surprise," he greeted her, getting up and going to meet her. He couldn't remember the last time she'd visited them out in the field. Probably not since her brief foray into gardening when she first came back, before he'd picked up on her boredom and assigned her to watch duty instead.
"It's been a while since I've been out here," she agreed, as if sensing his thoughts. "You've been talking about it so much, I wanted to come see it for myself."
He showed her around, taking her to see the livestock in their pens and pointing out where some of the crops were just starting to come in.
"This is amazing, Rick," she told him, beaming at him, and he swelled with pride on hearing how impressed she was.
"It looks different from the ground, huh?" he teased her, bumping her shoulder.
"Everything looks different from the ground," she admitted, and he was glad to see that he was starting to get through to her.
He led her over to one of the garden beds. "Here, try this," he said, plucking a ripe tomato off one of the vines and pressing it into her hands. They weren't ready to serve in the cafeteria yet, but all going well, they would be very soon.
She took a bite out of it like an apple. "Wow, I'd almost forgotten what that tasted like," she told him, wiping the juice from her chin with her thumb.
He questioned whether it had been a good idea when the action drew his attention to her mouth, and not for the first time, he started thinking about what it would be like to kiss her right there in the middle of the field.
"You wanna go for a walk?" he asked her, calling out to Hershel that he was taking a break.
They wandered away from the farm, across the field, back in the direction she'd come from. At one point, their fingers brushed against each other and he considered taking her hand again, but with so many people around, he decided against it.
"So, is that all you came down here for?" he asked her, hoping she would admit that she'd really wanted to see him.
She looked almost shy as she said, "I also wanted to ask, if you don't already have plans, if you wanted to have dinner with me tonight?"
They saw each other at meals all the time, but it usually wasn't planned that way. This was the first time she'd gone out of her way to invite him to eat with her. He grinned. "I'd love to."
She grinned back. "See you at the cafeteria when the sun goes down?"
He resisted the urge to say, 'It's a date' in case that wasn't how she'd meant it, even though it felt like one. Instead, he said simply, "I'll be there".
Andrea studied her reflection in the window as she prepared to meet Rick for dinner, trying to imagine what he saw when he looked at her. It had been a while since she'd cared much about her appearance - not since everything in Woodbury went to shit - opting for a severe ponytail to match her utilitarian button-down shirts, tank tops and jeans. She hadn't cut her hair in months, letting it grow longer and straighter than it had in years, so that it now fell halfway down her back. She pulled the tie out and shook it loose, deciding that it might be nice to wear it down tonight for a change. It had the effect of making her look younger, less serious and restrained - more like the person she used to be.
She was brushing her hair out over her shoulder when she heard footsteps outside. Her first thought was that it must be Rick, coming to walk her to the cafeteria. But the smile died on her lips when whoever it was started whistling. She couldn't make out the tune, but her mind filled in the blanks:
"Bye, Baby Bunting.
Daddy's gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit-skin,
To wrap my Baby Bunting in."
She threw her brush down on the bed and retrieved her rifle from where she left it propped against the wall, slipping out the door onto the platform. A tall male silhouette was crossing the field, carrying a shovel over one shoulder. In his other hand, he held a basket of metal implements. The moonlight glinted off the sharp edges.
"Andrea," a familiar voice drawled in her head. "Come back with me. Come back to Woodbury. We need you. Please, Andrea, come home."
Her body went rigid with terror as she was transported back to the factory, hiding from him while he stalked her in the dark, and she felt like she couldn't breathe. She wanted to run back inside and barricade herself in the tower until morning when it was safe to come out. Let whatever was about to happen happen without her.
But she couldn't abandon her friends again. After all, that was what she was out here for. She forced herself to creep over to the railing on shaky legs, her heart hammering in her chest as she propped her rifle against it. When she peered through the scope, readying herself to take the shot, she saw it was just Ryan, one of the newer arrivals, coming back from the farm with an armful of gardening tools.
Rick said goodbye to Hershel and headed up to the cellblock early so he'd have time to shower and shave before collecting Judith and going to the cafeteria. When he got there, Andrea hadn't arrived yet, so he grabbed an out of the way table where he could watch out for her.
Other groups finished their meals and left in the time that he was sitting there, waiting for her to appear. A few people invited him to join them, but he declined, wanting to keep it just the two of them - and Judith, of course. He wasn't sure what could be keeping her this long. Daryl was on watch in the other tower, so there was no reason she couldn't leave her post for a while. If there was some kind of disturbance happening out there that meant her skills were needed, he was sure he would have heard about it.
When it was clear to him that she wasn't coming, he left the baby with their friends and went out to the tower to look for her. He knew she must still be up there, because he could see the light in the windows from across the yard.
He knocked on the trapdoor, but she didn't respond. He was too on edge to worry about respecting her privacy, so he pushed the hatch open without trying again, relieved to find it unlocked.
She was sitting on the floor against the door to the platform with her knees drawn to her chest, sobbing into her hand. Her rifle lay discarded on the floor beside her, like she had just come in from being on watch.
"Hey. What happened? What's wrong?" he asked her. She had been doing so much better lately. When she sought him out in the field earlier, he really thought she might finally be coming around, not just to building a life for herself at the prison, but maybe even one with him.
She jumped at the sound of his voice, her head jerking up to regard him with red-rimmed eyes. "It's not a good time, Rick," she warned him, not seeming to remember that she'd stood him up.
He couldn't leave her when she was this upset. At least not until he understood why. He ignored her comment, and crouching beside her, did the only thing he could think of to comfort her, pulling her into his arms.
She was stiff at first, like she was considering pushing him off of her, but then she melted into his embrace, allowing him to hold her.
"What happened, Andrea?" he asked her again, rubbing her back the way he did with Judith while she cried into his chest. Her shoulders heaved and he could feel her tears soaking into his shirt. "Please talk to me. You're scaring me."
For a moment, she didn't say anything. Then she composed herself enough to answer, "I heard someone outside - a man - and I thought…"
She couldn't bring herself to finish, but she didn't need to. He knew what she thought. The threat was never far from his mind either. "I did a quick patrol on my way here and there's no one here who shouldn't be," he assured her, hugging her tighter, resting his cheek on top of her head.
She sniffled, letting out a bitter laugh as she wiped her eyes with her fingers. "I know. Stupid, right?"
"It's not stupid at all," he told her. What she just described sounded like a panic attack, triggered by her fear that the man who tried to kill her had come back to finish the job. "You went through something really traumatic. It's okay that you're not okay."
In the old world, no one would have expected her to bounce back from being abducted and almost murdered by a crazed ex without months - maybe even years - of therapy. Before, when they were on the road, breaking down wasn't an option, but here in the safety of the prison, they all had the luxury of being able to stop and process all the awful things that had happened to them.
Now that she had pulled herself together, she withdrew from him, wrapping her arms around herself to create a barrier between them. "Why are you doing this, Rick?" she asked. "I tell you I just want to be left alone, and you say you understand that, but then you keep showing up here."
He knew she was just trying to pick a fight with him so he would leave, but he didn't believe that was what she really wanted. He never had. Not when all of her actions contradicted this. "If you really want to be left alone, why do you always let me stay?" he countered.
The corner of her mouth lifted into a tiny smile, and he knew he had her. "Touche," she agreed. "But that still doesn't answer my question. Why do you keep coming here, Rick? What do you want from me?"
She was really going to make him spell it out for her. He didn't know how to put it into words, what he felt for her, this connection that had been growing since the day they almost lost her, when he sat by her bed, willing her to wake up. It was the best opening he was ever going to get. He decided to lay his cards on the table, cupping her jaw in his palm and kissing her delicately in response.
To his relief, she didn't pull back or shove him away. She let him kiss her at first, before bringing her hand up to graze his neck and returning it softly, tentatively. The kiss grew more passionate the longer it lasted, until finally, she broke it, pushing him away with a decisive shove. "Rick, no. We shouldn't be doing this."
"Why not?" he pressed her. "We're both adults. Neither of us is with anyone else. Did I misread the situation? Is that it? You don't have feelings for me?"
He wasn't sure he could accept that - not when her body responded to his every time he initiated contact between them.
She averted her eyes so she didn't have to see his reaction when she said, "No, that's not it."
He was relieved to hear that he hadn't imagined that she reciprocated his feelings, but also frustrated. Why couldn't she just let herself be happy? "Then what is it?"
"I just don't know if I trust my judgement anymore. I don't exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to relationships."
He couldn't blame her for being gun-shy after her last one ended so catastrophically, but he didn't like the implication that he would ever, or could ever, hurt her like that. "Do you trust me?" he asked her.
He could see she was surprised by the question. "Of course I do, Rick."
"Then trust me on this," he insisted. "There's something here. I know you feel it too."
She didn't deny it, deciding to try a different tack. "Even if it's not a complete shitshow, how long does either of us really have? Sooner or later, he's gonna come back with another army and try to take this place, and then what?"
This again. Everything with her always came back to this.
"So we die happy. Or maybe, we don't die. Maybe this is the start of something - a new life, for both of us. You were with him. You can't tell me you don't want that."
"It's a beautiful picture, Rick," she agreed. "I just don't know if I believe in it anymore - not after everything that's happened."
"Say you're right and we both die tomorrow," he allowed. "What have we lost?"
"You mean aside from each other?"
Losing her now would be painful. But would it really be better to never get to be with her at all? "That's more than either of us has now," he reminded her. He took her hand. "I'm just asking you to give this a chance. Who knows? Maybe it will be a shitshow and it'll be over before it gets to all that."
He succeeded in eliciting a weak laugh out of her with his feeble joke. "You could have any woman in this prison, Rick," she pointed out, taking her hand back, refusing to give in to his attempt at charming her. "I've seen the looks you get. Why do you want me? I'm damaged goods."
Who wasn't these days? "You think I'm not, after Lori?" he insisted. He was just as surprised as she was to find himself falling for her when he was sure he would never be able to open himself up to anyone like that ever again. "We're all broken. Some of us more than others. You're also smart and beautiful and one of the bravest women I've ever known. You never give up. You're a survivor, like me."
She ducked her head in embarrassment at the compliments, the curtain of her hair hiding her blush. "You're not making this easy for me," she complained.
"Good," he told her. That meant he was wearing her down. "You're the one who's making it hard."
He could see that she was struggling to come up with more reasons for why they shouldn't at least try that weren't about her fear of getting her heart broken again. "Do I have to give you an answer tonight?" she said finally.
"No," he agreed. He knew he couldn't rush her on this. She needed to come to the same conclusion he had on her own, or not at all. It was the only way it would ever work. "You can take whatever time you need to figure out what you want." He reached up to tuck a lock of golden hair behind her ear so he could see her face as he told her, "I think you're worth the wait."