"This Old Death," Part Seven
Jul. 23rd, 2014 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustTHIS OLD DEATH
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
Doesn't help that Michonne meets the Governor for the first time at the fights that night, but Rick thinks she probably wouldn't've taken to him anyways; he's in full charm mode, but she appears to be impervious. He gives her the time-honored Woodbury sell, and she just stands there waiting, cutting him the most blatant side-eye Rick's seen since before he steered his horse onto the road to Atlanta. And Christ knows Philip's not dumb, so before long, he simply sighs, and says—
“Well, you don't have to trust me, miss, you don't feel the urge to—trust Rick here, instead. Most people do. He's a trustworthy guy.”
“Seems to be,” Michonne allows, which Philip takes as a species of victory, strolling away, back into the laughing, cheering, whooping crowd. But: 'Cept for the fact he's standin' next to you, Rick can almost hear her add, inside her mind.
She's right to be suspicious, he knows, though he can't say that out loud. Instead, they just stand there watching a few long moments more—the pitiful specatcle of it, biters with their teeth pulled stumbling in a circle, paying out their chains 'til they trip over their own feet and fall on Merle's blade (is that Philip's own knife he's wielding, down there?) while that white trash jackass acts like he's winning a damn MMA title, or something.
“This your idea of fun too?” she asks, eventually. And: “Hell, no,” Rick hears himself reply, before he can remind himself not to.
Michonne looks at him full-on, then—a good, long stare, hard but assessing, like he's suddenly come into focus. “What you say your name was again, 'Officer Friendly'?”
“Rick, ma'am. Rick Grimes.”
“Don't call me ma'am, I'm not your mama. Grimes, though...that sounds familiar.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Was this woman Andrea used to talk about sometimes, when the fever got bad; part of the group she was with, back at that burnt-out farm I found her near, and I don't think they got along.” She frowns even more than usual, thinking. “She had a boy with her, I know that much.”
Rick feels his heart lurch. “Lori, was that her name?”
“Don't recall, though it might've been—but the kid was Carl. And there was some guy named Shane who ran everything, used to be a Sheriff's Deputy in some podunk town...”
(All hat an' no cattle, Merle sneers, in Rick's memory. After which comes Daryl, almost on the same mental “breath,” chiming in: Barely go out, even after his woman talked him down—)
“Him and Carl's mom,” Rick manages, clearing his throat. “Were they, um...together?”
“Think so, yeah. Why?”
And: he's already on his feet, starting to move, fight-pit completely forgotten; breath burning, throat raw, maybe a beat or so away from full-blown cardiac crisis. Hasn't felt like this since...well, maybe back when he was a kid, the year he got his full growth, though it's not like he ever hit six foot four, unlike some people he could mention. When his center of gravity shifted, and everything he'd known up 'til then was sent reeling.
Elbowing people aside and not even apologizing, like he usually would; sweat in his hair, slicking his back and the palms of both hands, rendering them too slippery to hold a gun. Calling back over his shoulder to Michonne, as he goes—
“I need to talk to that friend of yours, that Andrea, pneumonia or no pneumonia. Right goddamn now.”
***
Hours later, Rick finds Philip down in Milton's lab, just like he thought he would—relaxing in front of the tanks, leant back in an old barcalounger with a whisky in one hand and some sort of report in the other, a stapled-together mess of paper he flips shut, the minute he realizes he's not alone. “Richard,” he says, coolly. “What is it brings you my way, exactly? And who's lookin' after miss Michonne, while you're here?”
“She's in the med centre, drinking coffee, last I saw; Doc Stevens said it was okay for her to watch over that friend of hers, so I sent Morgan in to keep her company. But listen, Philip—”
“See you so rarely, these days, I just had to ask,” the Governor says, eyes still on those floating, flesh-wrapped skulls, like he's studying them for clues: ten the last time Rick was down here, but now there's more—Michonne's pets, for example, way over on the end, exposed single mandibles vaguely fluttering, trying to click the jaws they no longer have together. And a new one, too, right on top, angel-star to the grossest Christmas tree imaginable. It's fresh enough there's still blood in the water, rendering the red-tinted face inside impossible to place, even were Rick interested enough to try...
But: “I miss our talks,” Philip continues, bad imitation of “sadly,” taking another swig. While Rick just shakes his head, impatient, blurting out: “Hell with that, I said listen! My wife, my son—”
“What about 'em?”
“They might still be alive. Says she was travelling with them, just a few months back..."
“Who, Michonne? I'd take whatever she says with a slight grain of salt, that one.”
“No, not her, I mean the sick lady—Andrea, that's her name.” Rick pauses just long enough to take a breath, for what feels like the first time in ages, at which point it occurs to him: “'Sides which, just 'cause she didn't take to you, that doesn't make Michonne's info automatically untrustworthy.”
“True enough,” Philip agrees. “Well—that's amazing, Rick, if so. That's...just great. I mean it.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, I really do.” Another slug. “Gotta follow up on that, definitely.”
“I will, for sure—asked Morgan to walkie me, the minute she wakes up again. So how'd things go with Welles, anyhow?”
“The Lieutenant? Very helpful. All but drew us a map to where the rest of his squad're camped out, right on the edge of the red zone. Gonna take a team up there, soon as the sun rises.”
“You need me to come along?”
“No, I don't think that's necessary. Stay here, keep an eye on Michonne, make sure she don't just cut and run once she figures out where that pig-sticker of hers got put. Oh, and talk to Merle for me, will you? He's got somethin' he wants to propose, but I just don't have the time.”
Not gonna want to talk to me about it, if he does, Rick thinks. But he can't give it much attention, because his mind's already skipping right on back to that brief, scattered conversation he had with Andrea, Michonne squeezing he hand and glaring at him: yes, she does know a Lori Grimes, her boy Carl and their protector, Shane Walsh. Long brown hair, flat as a board and kind of grim 'round the mouth, 'specially when she doesn't get her way. Shane has a temper on him, but she keeps him even—mostly.
Heard Glenn and the farmer's daughter were running into for drugs after Carl got shot, and asked 'em, to get her a pregnancy test. Asked Glenn to get her Morning After pills at the same time, but don't tell Shane.
Wait, hold up—Carl was SHOT?
Well yeah, but he's okay, he's good. Farmer's a doc...a vet, actually, but he pulled it off. Tough old bastard. Uhhhh, I gotta sleep...
Just one more thing 'fore you do, Andrea, please. Is Lori...did she do it, or what? She pregnant still?
Last time I saw her, yeah. Like—three months, maybe four. Must be ready to drop, by now.
The very idea of Lori, with her narrow hips and her caesarian scar, getting ready to give birth in some...God knows where, really: some dirty hole, some cave in the forest out where the biters migrate in pods, like goddamn locusts. It makes him want to run wild, more so by far than the idea she'd take up with Shane, hard though that is to stomach; they've all known each other so long, after all, tied tight as him and Shane've been since childhood on, and he knows Shane likes her that way, though he'd never've done anything about it—not 'til he was pretty much sure Rick was dead, that is.
So there's shock, sure, but no blame. Three months in a coma, then the world comes to an end, like some landslide out of hell. How could they possibly think anything else, either of them?
“We have to go get them,” he says, out loud, not even aware of it; sees Philip shoot him a look under lowered lashes, reading him head to toe, just like that first day they met. Calculating just how far he has to go, maybe, to make sure Rick doesn't do anything too foolish.
And: “'Course we do,” Philip promises him, without a second's hesitation. “We will. You got my solemn word.”
“Thank you, Philip.”
“Anything for you, Richard,” the Governor repeats, in exactly the same tone, reasonable as anything. “You know that.”
And his eyes slide right on back to that tank on top.
End Part Seven
Fandom: The Walking Dead
AU; canon divergence
Pairing: The Governor/Rick Grimes
Doesn't help that Michonne meets the Governor for the first time at the fights that night, but Rick thinks she probably wouldn't've taken to him anyways; he's in full charm mode, but she appears to be impervious. He gives her the time-honored Woodbury sell, and she just stands there waiting, cutting him the most blatant side-eye Rick's seen since before he steered his horse onto the road to Atlanta. And Christ knows Philip's not dumb, so before long, he simply sighs, and says—
“Well, you don't have to trust me, miss, you don't feel the urge to—trust Rick here, instead. Most people do. He's a trustworthy guy.”
“Seems to be,” Michonne allows, which Philip takes as a species of victory, strolling away, back into the laughing, cheering, whooping crowd. But: 'Cept for the fact he's standin' next to you, Rick can almost hear her add, inside her mind.
She's right to be suspicious, he knows, though he can't say that out loud. Instead, they just stand there watching a few long moments more—the pitiful specatcle of it, biters with their teeth pulled stumbling in a circle, paying out their chains 'til they trip over their own feet and fall on Merle's blade (is that Philip's own knife he's wielding, down there?) while that white trash jackass acts like he's winning a damn MMA title, or something.
“This your idea of fun too?” she asks, eventually. And: “Hell, no,” Rick hears himself reply, before he can remind himself not to.
Michonne looks at him full-on, then—a good, long stare, hard but assessing, like he's suddenly come into focus. “What you say your name was again, 'Officer Friendly'?”
“Rick, ma'am. Rick Grimes.”
“Don't call me ma'am, I'm not your mama. Grimes, though...that sounds familiar.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Was this woman Andrea used to talk about sometimes, when the fever got bad; part of the group she was with, back at that burnt-out farm I found her near, and I don't think they got along.” She frowns even more than usual, thinking. “She had a boy with her, I know that much.”
Rick feels his heart lurch. “Lori, was that her name?”
“Don't recall, though it might've been—but the kid was Carl. And there was some guy named Shane who ran everything, used to be a Sheriff's Deputy in some podunk town...”
(All hat an' no cattle, Merle sneers, in Rick's memory. After which comes Daryl, almost on the same mental “breath,” chiming in: Barely go out, even after his woman talked him down—)
“Him and Carl's mom,” Rick manages, clearing his throat. “Were they, um...together?”
“Think so, yeah. Why?”
And: he's already on his feet, starting to move, fight-pit completely forgotten; breath burning, throat raw, maybe a beat or so away from full-blown cardiac crisis. Hasn't felt like this since...well, maybe back when he was a kid, the year he got his full growth, though it's not like he ever hit six foot four, unlike some people he could mention. When his center of gravity shifted, and everything he'd known up 'til then was sent reeling.
Elbowing people aside and not even apologizing, like he usually would; sweat in his hair, slicking his back and the palms of both hands, rendering them too slippery to hold a gun. Calling back over his shoulder to Michonne, as he goes—
“I need to talk to that friend of yours, that Andrea, pneumonia or no pneumonia. Right goddamn now.”
***
Hours later, Rick finds Philip down in Milton's lab, just like he thought he would—relaxing in front of the tanks, leant back in an old barcalounger with a whisky in one hand and some sort of report in the other, a stapled-together mess of paper he flips shut, the minute he realizes he's not alone. “Richard,” he says, coolly. “What is it brings you my way, exactly? And who's lookin' after miss Michonne, while you're here?”
“She's in the med centre, drinking coffee, last I saw; Doc Stevens said it was okay for her to watch over that friend of hers, so I sent Morgan in to keep her company. But listen, Philip—”
“See you so rarely, these days, I just had to ask,” the Governor says, eyes still on those floating, flesh-wrapped skulls, like he's studying them for clues: ten the last time Rick was down here, but now there's more—Michonne's pets, for example, way over on the end, exposed single mandibles vaguely fluttering, trying to click the jaws they no longer have together. And a new one, too, right on top, angel-star to the grossest Christmas tree imaginable. It's fresh enough there's still blood in the water, rendering the red-tinted face inside impossible to place, even were Rick interested enough to try...
But: “I miss our talks,” Philip continues, bad imitation of “sadly,” taking another swig. While Rick just shakes his head, impatient, blurting out: “Hell with that, I said listen! My wife, my son—”
“What about 'em?”
“They might still be alive. Says she was travelling with them, just a few months back..."
“Who, Michonne? I'd take whatever she says with a slight grain of salt, that one.”
“No, not her, I mean the sick lady—Andrea, that's her name.” Rick pauses just long enough to take a breath, for what feels like the first time in ages, at which point it occurs to him: “'Sides which, just 'cause she didn't take to you, that doesn't make Michonne's info automatically untrustworthy.”
“True enough,” Philip agrees. “Well—that's amazing, Rick, if so. That's...just great. I mean it.”
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, I really do.” Another slug. “Gotta follow up on that, definitely.”
“I will, for sure—asked Morgan to walkie me, the minute she wakes up again. So how'd things go with Welles, anyhow?”
“The Lieutenant? Very helpful. All but drew us a map to where the rest of his squad're camped out, right on the edge of the red zone. Gonna take a team up there, soon as the sun rises.”
“You need me to come along?”
“No, I don't think that's necessary. Stay here, keep an eye on Michonne, make sure she don't just cut and run once she figures out where that pig-sticker of hers got put. Oh, and talk to Merle for me, will you? He's got somethin' he wants to propose, but I just don't have the time.”
Not gonna want to talk to me about it, if he does, Rick thinks. But he can't give it much attention, because his mind's already skipping right on back to that brief, scattered conversation he had with Andrea, Michonne squeezing he hand and glaring at him: yes, she does know a Lori Grimes, her boy Carl and their protector, Shane Walsh. Long brown hair, flat as a board and kind of grim 'round the mouth, 'specially when she doesn't get her way. Shane has a temper on him, but she keeps him even—mostly.
Heard Glenn and the farmer's daughter were running into for drugs after Carl got shot, and asked 'em, to get her a pregnancy test. Asked Glenn to get her Morning After pills at the same time, but don't tell Shane.
Wait, hold up—Carl was SHOT?
Well yeah, but he's okay, he's good. Farmer's a doc...a vet, actually, but he pulled it off. Tough old bastard. Uhhhh, I gotta sleep...
Just one more thing 'fore you do, Andrea, please. Is Lori...did she do it, or what? She pregnant still?
Last time I saw her, yeah. Like—three months, maybe four. Must be ready to drop, by now.
The very idea of Lori, with her narrow hips and her caesarian scar, getting ready to give birth in some...God knows where, really: some dirty hole, some cave in the forest out where the biters migrate in pods, like goddamn locusts. It makes him want to run wild, more so by far than the idea she'd take up with Shane, hard though that is to stomach; they've all known each other so long, after all, tied tight as him and Shane've been since childhood on, and he knows Shane likes her that way, though he'd never've done anything about it—not 'til he was pretty much sure Rick was dead, that is.
So there's shock, sure, but no blame. Three months in a coma, then the world comes to an end, like some landslide out of hell. How could they possibly think anything else, either of them?
“We have to go get them,” he says, out loud, not even aware of it; sees Philip shoot him a look under lowered lashes, reading him head to toe, just like that first day they met. Calculating just how far he has to go, maybe, to make sure Rick doesn't do anything too foolish.
And: “'Course we do,” Philip promises him, without a second's hesitation. “We will. You got my solemn word.”
“Thank you, Philip.”
“Anything for you, Richard,” the Governor repeats, in exactly the same tone, reasonable as anything. “You know that.”
And his eyes slide right on back to that tank on top.
End Part Seven
