❛ YOU PROMISED. ❜
41. Conquered
❛ SEASON 05 EPISODE 16 ❜
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The cold, dead touch of his hands slipping down my skin causes me to shiver briskly, it causes goosebumps to arise amongst my skin. His ghostly touch makes me itch and burn, pushing me to knead and scratch the parts of me he touched. He returned, from the deepest parts of my mind he recovers, to haunt me. Even dead, he was alive. The Governor wins.
Thinking of all the endless possibilities of what could happen to us out there, if Rick is exiled, brought this along. Dealing with the dead is less scary than other people, at least we'd know the walkers intention. My mind couldn't help but to scramble to that conclusion first.
Deep breaths of air pushed its way in and out of my mouth as my nails drag against my skin with the goal of getting rid of his disgusting touch, but it stays. The feeling clouded my mind and charred my skin; it brings tears to my eyes by crawling down my throat, making me choke on a sob.
As soon as a single tear dared to slip from my eye, my bedroom door slams open. To hide evidence of stress, and apprehension, and sadness, and my tears, I wipe the tear away while hastily blinking until my eyes were all dried up.
"He's still knocked out." Carl barges into my room, flopping down on the bed right beside me. "Michonne sent me away, she told me to come back later."
His touch is gone.
"Hey, you okay?" I ask while he wraps his arms around me. "I know you don't wanna hear this.." He pulls me close as I trail off, laying his head across my chest. "he didn't mean to shove you. He just.. wasn't aware of his surroundings. I think he reached his breaking point."
"Kendall.." He says my name warningly.
"Carl, just—"
"Kendall, I don't wanna talk about it." He tells me, muttering quietly while nuzzling closer. "Can we not talk about it, please?"
"Got it." I kiss my teeth, moving on to the next subject. "I thought about back then... back at the prison when Merle kidnapped me, and Maggie, and Glenn; when he just gave us to The Governor, when he helped him do what he did, what he did to Glenn, and Maggie, and me. I haven't really gave it much thought until now, but, I won't go through that again. And if they exile your dad—"
"They won't." Carl speaks with quickness, grabbing my hips and pulling me down til my nose grazes his. "They won't exile my dad, they can't, they need us."
"I'm scared." I confess, finally having the guts to actually say it aloud. "I don't want to deal with another person like him. And even though these people are weird, I like it here. Kind of."
"You won't have to worry about that, not anymore. Not The Governor. Not Gareth. Not anyone like them. They aren't gonna exile my dad, I promise."
"Pinky promise?" I ask, poking my lip out playfully while holding out my pinky.
"Pinky promise." Carl scoffs and rolls his eyes at me before locking our pinkies and pecking the other end of his hand, sealing the deal. "Now, can we sleep or not?" He asks placing his hands back over my hips.
"Yeah." I murmur. "We can sleep."
Snuggling closer to him our chests touch, and while my arms are thrown around his neck, his are wrapped around my waist to pull me even closer. I flung a leg over his hip as we settle in; his hands slide up and down, up the sides of my body, then back to the lower part of my waist; a couple of times his hands slip down a bit lower. We finally found the perfect position to sleep in.
With our eyes locked, we can't help but to feel drawn to one another. Our eyes speak to each other, and they say the exact same thing-- kiss, kiss, kiss. But, Carl has other plans, and they were to tease. He leans in acting as if he was going to kiss me, only to caress our lips, teasingly, causing mine to pulse with need. I suppress a frustrated groan and harden my stare; and he smiles. Again, he leans in, this time his lips mesh with mine. I moan throatily and kiss back with just as much force. Our lips merged, smelting together like two magnets; there was nothing I want more than this— than him.
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Unconsciously flinging my arm to the left side of the bed, I flinch awake when I feel nothing there; he's gone. I blink, fluttering my eyes open and glancing around to look for him, but he really is gone. With a long sigh I lazily throw my head down into my pillow.
After seconds of letting it sink in I scoff, a hint of bitterness scratching against the tip of my tongue as I did so, while sliding off my bed, heading for the closet after. I grab a jacket for the cold weather and leave my room.
"Hey, have you seen Glenn?" I ask while crossing paths with Kareem who's sitting on the couch with a book in his hands. "I have to talk to him about something." He shakes his head as I speak, causing me to sigh and move on. "Alright, well did you see Carl?"
"No." He mutters.
"Okay.. Well, are you going to that stupid meeting so you can tell me what'll happen to Rick?"
"No." Kareem mutters out, again.
"Alright.. Well, you just stay here then, I'll go and after I come back I'll check on you because you're acting all weird." I tell him while speed-walking pass him and out the house. "Bye!" I yell out, shutting the door.
THE MEETING
Mumbled chatter of annoyance and worry, others just making conversation, filled the air as we waited— after waiting for nearly
a half an hour— for Rick to show up. The fire in front of us crackled, topping us off with more noise so that it isn't completely silent.
Rick hasn't shown up to his own meeting.
Speaking through our confusion for Rick's absence, Deanna announces, "We're going to start."
"Can we wait?" Maggie asks softly while stuffing her hands into her coat. "There is still people coming. Glenn, Rick."
"We're going to start." She repeats, saying it in response to Maggie, glancing around at us before landing on her and tilting her head. "It's already dark." Deanna tells her.
"We're gonna talk about what happened.. Not the fight. Not what precipitated it— we're dealing with that. We're gonna talk about one of our constables, Rick Grimes.
We're going to talk about how he had a pistol he stole from armory, about how he pointed it at people. And we're gonna talk about what he said." She pauses to shake her head, disappointedly. I was hoping he would be here."
"She said he's coming." Michonne used a taut voice while, still, smiling genuinely.
"I'm sure he'll be here." Carol joins. "And I'm sure we can work this all out." Smile! She throws in that charismatic, fake smile that kept them all on their toes about who she really is underneath it.
"It's overwhelming." I say firmly, raising from my seat, continuing to speak. "This place is overwhelming for us, especially for him. We survived. We lived out there for a long time. Rick, he went through so much just to stay alive.. to keep us alive, and Rick still lost people he cared about. He can't flip a switch in his brain to stop him from being on survival mode twenty four-seven, he can't just smile and forget what happened out there. I understand, I do. I get how scared all of you must feel, but live out there for years without walls keeping you safe and see how you'd end up." I explain with eyes burning directly through Deanna's, but softly.
After a long beat of silence and awkward glances casted my way, Michonne speaks.
"And after being out there and then not being how you were out there... it could drive you crazy." Unlike me, Michonne looks around, making sure to make eye contact with everyone. "Rick just wants his family to live. He wants all of you to live. Who he is, is who you're gonna be.. if you're lucky."
Carol stands up from her chair to speak, "Rick Grimes saved my life over and
over. There's terrifying people out there. And he rescued me from them." Her bit, her innocent act made me uneasy, but I digress because it works. "People like me, people like us, need people like him. I know what happened last night was scary. And I'm sure he's sorry for that. But maybe we should listen to what he was saying."
Now, it was Abraham's turn. "Simply put.. there is a vast ocean of shit that you people don't know shit about. Rick knows every fine grain of said shit... and then some."
Maggie is last. "My father respected Rick Grimes... Rick is a father, too. He's a man with a good heart who feels the things he does, the things he has do to." She speaks with emphasis, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets. "And all of us who were together before this place, no matter when we found each other, we're family now. Rick started that." Her eyes lingered on Deanna with her next words, her head turning to lock eyes. "And you won't stop it. You can't. And you don't want to. This community, you people... that family... you wanna be a part of it, too."
Deanna steps forward saying, "Before we hear from anyone else, I, uh.. I would like to share something in the spirit of transparency. Father Gabriel came to see me the day before yesterday... and he said our new arrivals can't be trusted, that they were dangerous, that they would put themselves before this community." With her words, and the name of the person we saved leaving along with it, I scoff. "And not one day later, Rick seemed to demonstrate all the things Father Gabriel said. I had hoped Gabriel would be here tonight."
"I don't see him here, Deanna." Jessie, the
woman Rick was trying to protect, gave a brief peek around for Father Gabriel. "So you're just saying what someone said. Did you tape him?"
"He's not here." Maggie stood with her.
"Neither is Rick." Deanna's adamant on kicking him while he was already down.
"Excuse me." Maggie rushed out, turning around and walking away.
"Deanna..." I stand once again. "I respect how you wanna look out for your people, and yourself, but you're wrong. About us, about Rick.. and so is Gabriel— the man we saved, who we fed, and kept safe. You may not be on our level yet, you probably never could be, so you might not ever be able to understand us or the way we think, but you have to know that you're wrong." My voice strains as I reach the end of my sentence, almost begging her to just listen.
The look in her eyes, the aggressive stare that burns through me lets me know that I wasn't going to get through to her; so, I sit back down.
"I just wanna keep my family safe." Tobin stands after I sit. "You know? And I don't even know what that means anymore, but if it means we've gotta get rid of— of.." I follow his eyes when he stops speaking to look at something behind Deanna.
In all his glory, Rick appears; his shadow stalks into the light coming from the fire, making him more visible to us. Splashed across his face is a darkened color of red, which made sense when my eyes shift to the dead walker thrown over his shoulder. He ignored all the stares mixed with fear and confusion, stepping closer and closer until he's where we can all see him much clearer before throwing the walker off his shoulder and on the ground. As everyone stands to back and flinch away, I continue to stay in my seat and watch Rick— kind of like a movie.
"There wasn't a guard on the gate." Rick rasped out. "It was open."
Deanna glares up at her son who was fast to give her an excuse. "I asked Gabriel to close it."
"Go." She orders him and he sprinted off.
"I didn't bring it in." Rick continues while pointing down at the walker. "It got inside on its own. They always will— the dead and the living, because we're in here. And the ones out there.. they'll hunt us. They'll find us. They'll try to use us. They'll try to kill us. But we'll kill them. We'll survive. I'll show you how." He scratches his head while glancing around. "You know, I was thinking— I was thinking how many of you do I have to kill to save your lives..?"
I blink, striving, hoping, wishing for the same power and strength Rick has while staring at him in pure awe.
"But I'm not gonna do that. You're gonna change." He turned away from the people and turned toward Deanna. "I'm not sorry for what I said last night. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner. You're not ready, but you have to be. Right now, you have to be. Luck runs out."
"You're not one of us." Pete came out of the darkness, shouting at Rick with rage. "You're not one of us!" In his hand, that was hidden and angled to shy away from us, is a large weapon, like the katana that Michonne has.
"Pete, you don't wanna do this." Reg says, standing in front of Pete to stop him from coming any closer.
"Get the hell away from me, Reg." Pete was seething with anger, wanting to get closer to Rick for a rematch.
"Pete, just stop."
"Get away from me."
"Reg. Reg." Deanna tries to warn her husband, but everything's in one ear and out the other.
Everyone backs away once noticing the weapon Pete has, all a bit scared.
"Pete, just stop."
"Get away."
"Now, Pete. Pete."
"Get away!" Pete shouts, using both of his hands to shove Reg away which was a big mistake. The sharp end of his weapon had sliced straight through Reg's throat, which forced him to choke on his own blood; he drops to the ground, immediately. Deanna screamed and sobbed for Reg, falling with him, holding him and crying while he dies slowly. "This is him!" Pete screams again, this time Abraham was pinning him to the ground; he twisted his arm up and pushed his shoulder down.
"Shut up!"
"This is him!"
"Oh, God!" Deanna sobs over Reg, watching and feeling as he dies in her arms. "No, no, no. No! No, my love."
"It's him! This is him!"
Deanna slowly looks up at Rick, her eyes teary and narrowed, and all before saying, "Rick... do it."
Those words were all he needed, not that he needed to them in the first place. With one swift turn and a void look in his eyes, something I had the opportunity to see on many occasions before, he shoots Pete in the skull with no remorse.
"Rick.." Standing in front of him, an old friend calls his name; that man from the run-down town, except now he's here, in these walls, staring right at Rick.
Morgan.
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