Chapter Text
As the shreds of their future pierce through him, blown up by his own gun, Rick thinks, for a split second, that he’s happy he’s dying.
He regrets that thought almost immediately, even though is not the first time in the years since the End that he thought it. He remembers at the beginning, when Carl got shot and Lori had wandered if maybe that was for the best. Rick didn’t want to see it then, but he saw it now.
And he was just so tired. Tired of the mistrusting and the fighting, and having to be the one calling the shots. He never wanted that, and yet, from the beginning, he was at the center and it has cost him everything.
Well, no… not everything. He had Michonne and Judith. Daryl, Carol, Maggie and Hershel. But he didn’t have a lot of others, he didn’t have Carl, and a part of him would never recover from that. Some days, Rick couldn’t breathe right, could barely keep himself from crawling in the dirt by his son’s grave and just never stand again. Those days, Michonne made sure Judith was around, ready to stuck her small fingers in her Daddy’s bear until he smiled, ready to poke his cheeks and his “big belly”.
Gods, Rick loved her so much. He loved Michonne so much, he loved Daryl and Carol and Maggie so much. That was the problem, he though. They were everything to him, and he would lose them eventually.
Like he lost Carl. Lost Lori, Beth, Hershel, even Shane.
So yeah, a part of him was happy it was ending. He didn’t want to go, not really – he wanted to try and do what Carl had asked, because his son was right. There has to be something after, for the future, for them to keep on living. But Rick was tired.
And then it ended.
-/-
His body felt so heavy he was sure death was still hugging him. Shit, what does a man has to do to just die already?
Blinking blue and tired eyes, Rick faced not the sky above him by the riverbank, but a ceiling. A hospital ceiling. His face scowled, his head hurting something fierce, and the thought that maybe the others got to him in time crossed his mind. He genuinely felt some relief, and yeah. He was tired and the world was shit, people were even shittier but he still believed, apparently. So he was gonna suck it up, visit Carl’s grave and go to work again.
Except when he turned to try and get up, he saw them. those flowers, long dead and so familiar. His whole body froze and his heart started up like Daryl’s bike after a cold night old, stumbling on itself, making Rick cough. He looked at himself, and oh god.
“Oh, God.”, his voice was fucked up, hoarse from days of no water. The felling of thirst was a familiar one though, so he didn’t mind it. There were other things to focus on.
Like the hospital and the gown and his own fucking body. He was back at the skinny and non-scarred body from… three years? Four? Years back.
Back at the End.
His head ached, and like before, getting up was harder than ever. Well, no, not really. Rick knew he could stand much worse now, but this body didn’t, and so he gave himself a few moments of labored breath while sitting doing fucking nothing except remembering.
Remembering everything that happed. Or was going to happen. Was it going to happen?
A hysterical laugh left him, making him cough more. Was this just purgatory? Hell? His mind playing tricks on him again? Was he going insane at his deathbed? Again?
Still laughing and/or coughing, he got up, using the pole of the IV for support. His legs shook like leaves on a storm, but he powered through. He didn’t care if theses legs thought they couldn’t handle the pain, he knew better.
The view from his window was the same as before. The city completely destroyed and deserted, smoke filling the air. Rick rested his forehead on the glass and closed his eyes.
What did this meant? Why was this happening? Was it real or just in his mind? Had the whole thing been a dream?
No, no. No way in hell he had the type of imagination needed to come up with all that. Flesh eating corpses walking the earth? The prison, the Governor, Negan? No, Rick could never come up with them, with this world.
It had happened. It had been real. And now, it was real again.
He opened his eyes, felling something akin to steel on his veins. It was a feeling he had grown used to, feeling it whenever he had to kill a walker or a person. Whenever he had to be cruel and not take any chances.
He didn’t care for the why anymore. Maybe it was the universe finally giving a fucking break, maybe it was just in his head. Didn’t matter.
“We’re doing this”, he said to himself, to this weak and tired body, to the Rick from his memories.
And this time, they were going to beat this world.