Rick Grimes

As the door swayed shut and the group dispersed, I got out of my chair and walked up to Rick. He was standing next to Lori; her eyes were still closed and she had a towel on the side of her head. It was stained red from the cut she must’ve gotten when she had fallen. Carl was sitting in a chair next to her, holding her hand and crying.

“It’s my fault…” he whimpered. “I was the one who came up to help dad and then she fell trying to get me back inside…”

Rick didn’t say anything. He knew Carl was right, but didn’t want to admit it and hurt him any more than he already had. Instead, he went into the kitchen and sat on a chair. He started to reload his gun with bullets he had in his police jacket.

“... last of 'em.” He muttered to me when I came in.

I waited a couple of seconds, mustering up the courage I had in me to speak, and finally blurted out,

“Why did you kill him?!”

He looked up at me with an expressionless face.

“What do you mean why did I kill him?” he hissed, “You obviously saw what he tried to do! I had to, Lin! I think the better question is: why did he almost kill me?”

I knew he was right, but I couldn’t admit that Shane had truly lost his mind. He had seemed to be getting better, but something had obviously snapped and fell apart.

“He was lost…” I said under my breath, “Even as the virus was spreading, he was becoming lost…” And I remembered the day he left me…

Flashback

“I know how you feel.” Rick whispered, “Shane had left me in the hospital, didn’t come back.”

“He thought you were dead.” I said coldly.

“He’d done plenty of other things while knowing I was alive.” He shot back.

I slowly nodded, “True. He did have a knack for making irrational decisions, but he always had a reason for them. Good reasons.”

“’Cept for when he was determined to put a bullet in my head.” Rick said with a sudden hatred in his voice.

I scrunched my eyebrows together. I was about to open my mouth to argue further in Shane’s defense, but Rick spoke first,

“Well, we should get going.” He said, snapping the cylinder back into his revolver and getting up out of his chair.

“Wait… I don’t have any more ammo.” I followed him to the sitting room.

“Well…” Rick hesitated on taking something out of his back pocket, “Then you can have this. It was Lori’s and she’s obviously not using it now.” He glanced at her motionless body on the couch.

He handed me a small revolver and I took it. I pushed the cylinder open and found that five out of the six rounds remained.

“Good enough.” I said as I flipped it shut. We headed outside and met up with Daryl and Andrea. Then we climbed into the car that had once been Shane’s.

Rick Continued...