Forbidden Love- Rick Grimes Love story

10

The next morning I wake up with an arm across me, last night replays in my head and I can't help to smile a little. I look over to see Glenn still asleep. I try to slowly take his arm off of me and get out of bed, but he pulls me back. "Don't go." He says in his morning voice. Which is hot by the way. "We've got to get up. I gotta go see Joey." I tell him touching his chest softly. He leans over to me and kisses me. "God, I could do that everyday." He tells me. I nod, "Me too." We get up and get dressed and Glenn groans, "I'm so hungover. I'm never drinking again." I laugh at him, "Hey, some good things come out of drinking." He walks over to me and kisses me, "You're right." "Until I tell Joey, we have to be quiet about this okay? I have to be the one to tell her about me and her dad." I ask him and he nods kissing me again. We parted ways as I went to Rick and Lori's room to find Joey. Lori opens the door telling me that she was still asleep. I walk over to her and play with her hair, she starts to stir awake, "Hi momma." I run my fingers through her hair, "Hi baby, mommy needs to talk to you, okay?" She nods. I take her with me back to Glenn's room and we sit on the bed. "Mommy, why are we in Glenn's room?" She asks. "Joeybean, last night mommy and daddy got into a really big fight, and mommy decided she can't be with daddy anymore." Tears start to fill Joey's eyes and I wipe them away. "Don't cry baby. It's for the best. You still have both me and your daddy and we love you very much." Joey nods and I hug her.

We were sitting in the dining hall eating breakfast, I had Joey on my left and Glenn was on my right with his head on the table. Rick walks in and everyone greets him. "Are you hungover? Mom said you'd be." Carl asked Rick when he sat down. Rick laughs and nods, "Mom is right." "Moms have that annoying habit." Lori said looking to me and I looked away from her. T-Dog passed around the powdered eggs he made, which were honestly not bad. He was right he does make them good. Glenn groaned as I put some eggs on his plate then I rubbed his back, "You need to eat." He groaned in response and I laughed. Then Shane walked into the door and greeted everyone and I immediately looked down. "Hey. Feel as bad as I do?" Rick asks him. "Worse." Shane replied pouring a cup of coffee. "What the hell happened to you? Your nose?" T-Dog asks him and everyone looks at his busted nose. "Are you okay daddy?" Joey asks him. He nods, "I fell and busted my face in the shower." Rick looks at him confused, "Never seen you do that before." "Me neither," Shane pauses looking at me, "Not like me at all." I look down and continue to eat my food. Jenner walks in and greets everyone. "Doctor. I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing-" Dale says before Jenner cuts him off, "But you will anyway." "We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea states simply.

Jenner leads us all into the big room. "Give me playback of TS-19." Jenner says to Vi and the computer pulls up the file on the big screen.
"Few people ever got a chance to see this. Very few." Jenner tells us. On the screen is a 3-D video of a brain. "Is that a brain?" Carl asks amused. Jenner nods, "An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for E.I.V." The main screen changes to show the upper shoulders and head of the subject. The screen skews to a horizontal view then increases the magnification. The image becomes more and more detailed. The magnification shows the Inside the skull. It appears to be lit with bright blue threads of energy. Some areas are denser with light than others but there are lighted threads throughout the skull. The detail zooms in until the threads become closer and pulses of light can be distinguished. "What are those lights?" Shane asks stepping next to me. I immediately move over closer to Glenn. "It's a person's life—experiences, memories. It's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you—the thing that makes you unique and human." Jenner says in awe at the brain. "You don't make sense ever?" Daryl says looking at him and I can't help but laugh. "Those are synapses. Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says does or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death." Jenner says not looking away from the brain. "Death? That's what this is, a vigil?" Rick asks. Jenner nods, "Yes. Or rather the playback of the vigil." "This person died? Who?" Andrea asks. Obviously he's not going to tell us when he refers to it at TS-19. "Test subject 19. Someone who was bitten and infected... and volunteered to have us record the process. VI, Scan forward to the first event." Jenner answers. "That's awesome." I say looking at the brain. The screen shows a message "Scanning Forward" The brain has lights still flickering in the outer areas but the center has become dark as if black roots were growing inside. "What is that?" Glenn ask from beside me. "It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone." Jenner answers. "Is that what happened to Jim?" Sophia asks. Carol nods pulling her closer. Andrea wipes some tears away and Jenner notices. "She lost somebody two days ago. Her sister." I tell him. He looks at her, "I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is.Scan to the second event." "The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute... seven seconds." He says looking to the screen. That's insane, so you really never know how long you have holding your dead family member, until they try to eat you. A red glow flickers at the base of the brain. The rest remains dark. Random sparks shoot out into the larger area of the brain but no further lights grow. "It restarts the brain?" Lori asks. Jenner shakes his head, "No, just the brain stem. Basically,it gets them up and moving." "But they're not alive?" Rick questions. Jenner gestures to monitor, "You tell me." Rick shakes his head, "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark." "Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part—that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct." Jenner says describing the picture we see.  The subject moves, its mouth opens and closes. The head moves side to side, the shoulders move as if the arms were being lifted. The barrel of a gun appears at the forehead pointing down. A bullet enters the brain and tears through the red cluster of embers. The brain goes completely dark, the subject stops moving. "God. What was that?" Carols says scaredly. "He shot his patient in the head. Didn't you?" I ask. Jenner neither denies or agrees, giving me my answer. "VI, Power down the main screen and the workstations." Jenner orders and it turns off. "You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea asks him. "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal." Jenner lists off. Which tells me no, he doesn't. "Or the wrath of god?" Jacqui asks him. He nods, "There is that." "Somebody must know something. Somebody somewhere." Andrea says desperately. "There are others,right? Other facilities?" Carol asks him. "There may be some. People like me." Jenner shrugged.
"But you don't know? How can you not know?" Rick asks him. "Everything went down. Communications, directives—all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month." Jenner says honestly. I roll my eyes, "So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?" "Man,I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk again." Daryl says causing me to laugh a little. "Dr. Jenner, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but...that clock—it's counting down. What happens at zero?" Dale asks. I look over to see a clock counting down.
"The basement generators--they run out of fuel." Jenner states looking down. "And then?" Rick questions him. Jenner ignores the question and walks out of the big room. "Vi,what happens when the power runs out?" Rick asks the computer.

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."