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Surprise! Fanfic, Part Two
Jul. 18th, 2014 01:58 pmTHIS OLD DEATH
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
THEN:
True to his last words to Morgan, Rick's heading towards Atlanta on that horse he picked up when he meets a jeep coming out of it, ex-army by the make and paint-job, with a small caravan of cars, vans and RVs trailing behind. Can't see who's driving with the sun reflecting straight off the windshield, but there are men in the back, all armed, all civilians—some big black guy, male Hispanic in a backwards-set baseball cap, and a 40-something white man so tall he looks like he comes with his own weather system, who waves at Rick as he thumbs the walkie-talkie in his hand, murmuring something into it.
Seconds later, the jeep slows to a halt, neatly blocking Rick's way, and they consider each other a long moment, Rick resisting the urge to drop his hand to his gun-butt; nothing immediately threatening about him, but you want to be cautious, don't you? Given.
“Evenin', Officer,” the man says at last, voice one big rumble, as he smiles down at Rick—a friendly gesture, ostensibly, though it doesn't quite seem to reach his mild, assessing eyes. “You headed for the city?”
“I was, yeah.”
“Well, now...that'd be a mistake, in my opinion. Nobody left in there but the dead, and us chickens barely just managed to get out ahead of 'em.”
“What about the refugee centers?”
The man's eyes narrow further, blue as old denim. “Those've been down for weeks; four at least, maybe five. Where're you comin' from, exactly? Your information's 'bout three months out of date.”
A great wave of panic splashes up over Rick, making him want to rear in his stirrups, just kick the horse and flee: Carl, Lori, Christ! For a split second he sees her wavering down the street like Mrs Morgan, her face slack yet hungry, their boy's blood crusted on her mouth, and it burns in his veins like venom.
The Hispanic man sees what it's doing to him and goes to raise his gun, but the tall man waves him still. Asking Rick, as he does—
“Listen, Officer...mind if I come a little closer? Hard to talk, like this.” At Rick's look: “C'mon now, I don't mean you any harm, none of us do. See, I'll leave my gun—Shumpert, mind takin' this a minute? Thank you.”
Even once he clambers down, his head's still flush with the horse's shoulder; he lays one big hand on the skittish beast's flank, drawing a snort, and keeps right on staring, calm and level, his gaze anchoring Rick's with ridiculous ease.
“You got people you think would've gone to Atlanta when things fell apart,” he continues, equally quiet, like he's gentling a dog, “that about right? Family? 'Course you do. But they're long gone by now, Officer, no way they're not. Probably headed out for some campsite nearby, just like us; might even be when we get there, finally, we'll find 'em waiting. Though of course, it's not like we'll be able to recognize 'em, you aren't right there along with us...”
Fifteen minutes later, somehow, Rick finds himself and the horse following along after at a tight clop, bag of guns still heavy on his back. They reach Nazareth Boy Scout Campsite by dusk, and Rick almost believes that because Carl went there a couple of times, he and Lori—and Shane, maybe—could indeed already be there. But they're not.
The tall man shoots Rick a sympathetic look, as Rick sits down, heavily, gun-bag at his feet. “Damn,” he says. “You're all worn out, aren't you? Better stay for supper.”
“Where you want to set up, Governor?” the Hispanic man—Martinez—asks, at almost the same time, while Rick struggles to figure out the politest way to refuse. And: “Oh, over there, by the fire pit,” the tall man replies, not turning. “Make sure to check the outhouses, too, 'fore you let anybody have a pit-stop; don't want to find a biter hidin' down there, not when women and kids are likely gonna be hangin' their bare behinds out on top of it.”
The title gives Rick a reason to look up, so he does. “Governor?” he asks.
“Just something people started callin' me, probably 'cause I like to be organized. My real name's Philip, Philip Blake. You?”
“Rick Grimes,” Rick tells him, remembering a second later to reach up to shake hands—a gesture Philip takes firm hold of, grip both strong and warm, effortlessly drawing him back up to his feet, where Rick has to crane a bit to look him straight on.
“Pleasure to meet you, Officer Grimes,” he claims, sounding for all the world like he believes it, so expertly it makes Rick want to believe it too. “So, now we're here...let's see 'bout getting you settled.”
***
“I can't stay long,” Rick tells him, after dinner. The gun-bag's still where he left it—almost thought it might be gone when he got back, spirited away somewhere, for Martinez and Shumpet to check over. But Philip's obviously smarter than that.
“'Cause of your family? Well, I understand. But I can't say I don't wish to hell you would.”
“You've got a good set-up, from what I see. Good men.”
“In the main, yeah, but they're none of 'em trained, me very much included. Hell, when the shit hit the fan, I was working in an office for a boss half my age, crunchin' numbers and changin' copy toner. We could use some expert help, Richard, and that's a fact—somebody to set the standard.”
Rick shrugs, uncomfortably. “Truth is,” he admits, after thinking it over, “I'm not really a cop, not anymore. Day—hell, months—after the dead start rising, I'm just a man in a uniform. And power shouldn't come out of that, no more'n it should out of the barrel of gun.”
Philip makes a little noise, somewhere between a hum and a huff. “It's sweet you think so, but I beg to disagree. No, this is an authority-driven world, and you got something 'bout you makes people want to trust your word on things, with or without the hat. In a tight spot, you'd be of immeasurable help.”
“These people seem to trust you, from what I see,” Rick points out, and Philip chuckles, self-deprecatingly.
“For now, sure. But what about when things go wrong, like you know they're gonna? It's just math. If I find I gotta start talking about things like rationing and self-restraint, that'll go down a whole lot easier if I have Officer Rick standin' by my side.”
“...you're probably right.”
“We both know I am.”
And: Yeah, Rick finds himself thinking. I guess we do.
“So who's this guy Morgan you were talking about, earlier?” Philip asks, neatly switching subjects, like he's juggling plates. “A sniper, you said? Useful skill. And he's got a boy, too...sounds like a bad situation they're in, way you described it.”
“It's not good,” Rick agrees. Then: “We should go back, tell him about Atlanta, so he doesn't send anybody else there. Then bring 'em here, maybe. Where it's safer.”
Philip smiles. “Just what I was thinkin'.”
***
Morgan and Duane are happy to see them, which makes Rick happy. Philip watches them from afar before introducing himself, enclosing Morgan's hand in his, complimenting him on how well he's taken care of himself, his son, Rick. Some of the older kids take Duane off to feed Rick's horse, while Morgan and Rick share some of that whiskey Philip has in his pack.
Some hours on, they're pouring over a map together, making plans. Rick tells Morgan how he had vague ideas about going to the CDC, but Philip talked him out of it. His pet scientist, Milton Mamet, has answers for every question Rick could think to ask: yes, it's probably a virus; no, we don't know how everybody caught it, let alone where it spread from, or whether or not there's a cure. And he did mean everybody, since both he and Philip had seen at least five people who died of natural causes, unbitten, rise again.
“That's crazy,” Morgan says, more in hope than disbelief. But they see it proven themselves just the next day, when a domestic incident goes south: some man simply flips out, threatening his wife and kids with a knife. Rick aims for his leg but goes too high, blowing a large enough chunk from his artery he bleeds out in minutes, and by the time the extraction team arrives he's opening his eyes again, snarling weakly.
“Holy Christ,” Rick said, taken aback like he hasn't been since that little girl in the trailer-park, that half-woman humping herself across the field. Sighting down his barrel at her and saying, out loud, like he really thought God might be listening: I am so sorry this had to happen to you...
And that just for himself, or 'cause no one else was likely to do it, that he could see. Unsure, in fact, that there was anyone else left to.
But: “Not quite,” Philip replies, a little coldly. And steps forward, quick as a snake, to drive taht huge knife of his through the dead man's eye.
Later on—much later—Rick will wonder if Philip actually arranged that little demonstration, somehow; tapped the man in question on his mental shoulder, whispered in his ear, played bad shoulder-angel to his growing imbalance. Impossible to tell at the time, and equally impossible to prove, after, but he supposes it doesn't matter much either way, not in the long run. Just something he and Morgan needed to see, so Philip let them see it, to stiffen their resolve. He's good at that.
Back with the map, talking over strategy, relying on Morgan's expertise. “Best idea might be to find ourselves a town, smaller than Cynthiana even, and fortify the holy hell out of it,” he says. “You know, like a one-stop shop, built around a crossroads. Run vehicles across the main streets, then wall off the town center with anything comes to hand—wire, tires, sheet metal. Build 'em high, post guards with silenced weapons, pick off whatever comes looking and make a ring of corpses, so the smell keeps 'em away...”
Philip shakes his head, back in what Rick's starting to recognize as Governor mode. “People won't like the stench—it'll bring back memories, make 'em nervous. But say we dig pits, like catch-traps...ain't like those things look where they're going, after all.”
“That's smart,” Rick says. “Then when we got enough, we throw in gas. Burn 'em, and start over.”
“Exactly.”
“This place looks pretty good,” Morgan says, tapping the paper. Under his finger, Rick can just about read the letters spelling a name: Woodbury Township, population 150. He glances at Philip, who nods: yeah, that's the one. Perfect.
“Seems like we got quorum, to me,” he says, with a grin. “Let's do it.”
End Part Two.
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
THEN:
True to his last words to Morgan, Rick's heading towards Atlanta on that horse he picked up when he meets a jeep coming out of it, ex-army by the make and paint-job, with a small caravan of cars, vans and RVs trailing behind. Can't see who's driving with the sun reflecting straight off the windshield, but there are men in the back, all armed, all civilians—some big black guy, male Hispanic in a backwards-set baseball cap, and a 40-something white man so tall he looks like he comes with his own weather system, who waves at Rick as he thumbs the walkie-talkie in his hand, murmuring something into it.
Seconds later, the jeep slows to a halt, neatly blocking Rick's way, and they consider each other a long moment, Rick resisting the urge to drop his hand to his gun-butt; nothing immediately threatening about him, but you want to be cautious, don't you? Given.
“Evenin', Officer,” the man says at last, voice one big rumble, as he smiles down at Rick—a friendly gesture, ostensibly, though it doesn't quite seem to reach his mild, assessing eyes. “You headed for the city?”
“I was, yeah.”
“Well, now...that'd be a mistake, in my opinion. Nobody left in there but the dead, and us chickens barely just managed to get out ahead of 'em.”
“What about the refugee centers?”
The man's eyes narrow further, blue as old denim. “Those've been down for weeks; four at least, maybe five. Where're you comin' from, exactly? Your information's 'bout three months out of date.”
A great wave of panic splashes up over Rick, making him want to rear in his stirrups, just kick the horse and flee: Carl, Lori, Christ! For a split second he sees her wavering down the street like Mrs Morgan, her face slack yet hungry, their boy's blood crusted on her mouth, and it burns in his veins like venom.
The Hispanic man sees what it's doing to him and goes to raise his gun, but the tall man waves him still. Asking Rick, as he does—
“Listen, Officer...mind if I come a little closer? Hard to talk, like this.” At Rick's look: “C'mon now, I don't mean you any harm, none of us do. See, I'll leave my gun—Shumpert, mind takin' this a minute? Thank you.”
Even once he clambers down, his head's still flush with the horse's shoulder; he lays one big hand on the skittish beast's flank, drawing a snort, and keeps right on staring, calm and level, his gaze anchoring Rick's with ridiculous ease.
“You got people you think would've gone to Atlanta when things fell apart,” he continues, equally quiet, like he's gentling a dog, “that about right? Family? 'Course you do. But they're long gone by now, Officer, no way they're not. Probably headed out for some campsite nearby, just like us; might even be when we get there, finally, we'll find 'em waiting. Though of course, it's not like we'll be able to recognize 'em, you aren't right there along with us...”
Fifteen minutes later, somehow, Rick finds himself and the horse following along after at a tight clop, bag of guns still heavy on his back. They reach Nazareth Boy Scout Campsite by dusk, and Rick almost believes that because Carl went there a couple of times, he and Lori—and Shane, maybe—could indeed already be there. But they're not.
The tall man shoots Rick a sympathetic look, as Rick sits down, heavily, gun-bag at his feet. “Damn,” he says. “You're all worn out, aren't you? Better stay for supper.”
“Where you want to set up, Governor?” the Hispanic man—Martinez—asks, at almost the same time, while Rick struggles to figure out the politest way to refuse. And: “Oh, over there, by the fire pit,” the tall man replies, not turning. “Make sure to check the outhouses, too, 'fore you let anybody have a pit-stop; don't want to find a biter hidin' down there, not when women and kids are likely gonna be hangin' their bare behinds out on top of it.”
The title gives Rick a reason to look up, so he does. “Governor?” he asks.
“Just something people started callin' me, probably 'cause I like to be organized. My real name's Philip, Philip Blake. You?”
“Rick Grimes,” Rick tells him, remembering a second later to reach up to shake hands—a gesture Philip takes firm hold of, grip both strong and warm, effortlessly drawing him back up to his feet, where Rick has to crane a bit to look him straight on.
“Pleasure to meet you, Officer Grimes,” he claims, sounding for all the world like he believes it, so expertly it makes Rick want to believe it too. “So, now we're here...let's see 'bout getting you settled.”
***
“I can't stay long,” Rick tells him, after dinner. The gun-bag's still where he left it—almost thought it might be gone when he got back, spirited away somewhere, for Martinez and Shumpet to check over. But Philip's obviously smarter than that.
“'Cause of your family? Well, I understand. But I can't say I don't wish to hell you would.”
“You've got a good set-up, from what I see. Good men.”
“In the main, yeah, but they're none of 'em trained, me very much included. Hell, when the shit hit the fan, I was working in an office for a boss half my age, crunchin' numbers and changin' copy toner. We could use some expert help, Richard, and that's a fact—somebody to set the standard.”
Rick shrugs, uncomfortably. “Truth is,” he admits, after thinking it over, “I'm not really a cop, not anymore. Day—hell, months—after the dead start rising, I'm just a man in a uniform. And power shouldn't come out of that, no more'n it should out of the barrel of gun.”
Philip makes a little noise, somewhere between a hum and a huff. “It's sweet you think so, but I beg to disagree. No, this is an authority-driven world, and you got something 'bout you makes people want to trust your word on things, with or without the hat. In a tight spot, you'd be of immeasurable help.”
“These people seem to trust you, from what I see,” Rick points out, and Philip chuckles, self-deprecatingly.
“For now, sure. But what about when things go wrong, like you know they're gonna? It's just math. If I find I gotta start talking about things like rationing and self-restraint, that'll go down a whole lot easier if I have Officer Rick standin' by my side.”
“...you're probably right.”
“We both know I am.”
And: Yeah, Rick finds himself thinking. I guess we do.
“So who's this guy Morgan you were talking about, earlier?” Philip asks, neatly switching subjects, like he's juggling plates. “A sniper, you said? Useful skill. And he's got a boy, too...sounds like a bad situation they're in, way you described it.”
“It's not good,” Rick agrees. Then: “We should go back, tell him about Atlanta, so he doesn't send anybody else there. Then bring 'em here, maybe. Where it's safer.”
Philip smiles. “Just what I was thinkin'.”
***
Morgan and Duane are happy to see them, which makes Rick happy. Philip watches them from afar before introducing himself, enclosing Morgan's hand in his, complimenting him on how well he's taken care of himself, his son, Rick. Some of the older kids take Duane off to feed Rick's horse, while Morgan and Rick share some of that whiskey Philip has in his pack.
Some hours on, they're pouring over a map together, making plans. Rick tells Morgan how he had vague ideas about going to the CDC, but Philip talked him out of it. His pet scientist, Milton Mamet, has answers for every question Rick could think to ask: yes, it's probably a virus; no, we don't know how everybody caught it, let alone where it spread from, or whether or not there's a cure. And he did mean everybody, since both he and Philip had seen at least five people who died of natural causes, unbitten, rise again.
“That's crazy,” Morgan says, more in hope than disbelief. But they see it proven themselves just the next day, when a domestic incident goes south: some man simply flips out, threatening his wife and kids with a knife. Rick aims for his leg but goes too high, blowing a large enough chunk from his artery he bleeds out in minutes, and by the time the extraction team arrives he's opening his eyes again, snarling weakly.
“Holy Christ,” Rick said, taken aback like he hasn't been since that little girl in the trailer-park, that half-woman humping herself across the field. Sighting down his barrel at her and saying, out loud, like he really thought God might be listening: I am so sorry this had to happen to you...
And that just for himself, or 'cause no one else was likely to do it, that he could see. Unsure, in fact, that there was anyone else left to.
But: “Not quite,” Philip replies, a little coldly. And steps forward, quick as a snake, to drive taht huge knife of his through the dead man's eye.
Later on—much later—Rick will wonder if Philip actually arranged that little demonstration, somehow; tapped the man in question on his mental shoulder, whispered in his ear, played bad shoulder-angel to his growing imbalance. Impossible to tell at the time, and equally impossible to prove, after, but he supposes it doesn't matter much either way, not in the long run. Just something he and Morgan needed to see, so Philip let them see it, to stiffen their resolve. He's good at that.
Back with the map, talking over strategy, relying on Morgan's expertise. “Best idea might be to find ourselves a town, smaller than Cynthiana even, and fortify the holy hell out of it,” he says. “You know, like a one-stop shop, built around a crossroads. Run vehicles across the main streets, then wall off the town center with anything comes to hand—wire, tires, sheet metal. Build 'em high, post guards with silenced weapons, pick off whatever comes looking and make a ring of corpses, so the smell keeps 'em away...”
Philip shakes his head, back in what Rick's starting to recognize as Governor mode. “People won't like the stench—it'll bring back memories, make 'em nervous. But say we dig pits, like catch-traps...ain't like those things look where they're going, after all.”
“That's smart,” Rick says. “Then when we got enough, we throw in gas. Burn 'em, and start over.”
“Exactly.”
“This place looks pretty good,” Morgan says, tapping the paper. Under his finger, Rick can just about read the letters spelling a name: Woodbury Township, population 150. He glances at Philip, who nods: yeah, that's the one. Perfect.
“Seems like we got quorum, to me,” he says, with a grin. “Let's do it.”
End Part Two.
