Answers for my fanfics

TWD-Rick Grimes

All questions are welcome too, they don't just have to be about the story itself or the characters and keep in mind I won't do a part until I have enough questions for it, so I promise I'm not ignoring your questions I'm just waiting for there to be enough of them.
Also, I'm gonna put songs I have stuck in my head or that I've been caught up on recently on each part of these.
Idk, just think music is a good way to learn about someone and maybe I can show y'all a song you've loved and forgotten or haven't heard in a while, or new songs you might like.
Don't be shy to leave song suggestions either in the comments with your questions or by themselves!

I want to start this by saying this is easily one of my favorite stories I've written, I love all the characters sooo much.
Since this is the first one these aren't questions that's been asked but just things I've thought about, and I didn't really have any questions to answer yet.
I probably have some in my comments but I haven't checked my comments, and I felt like this would be a good way to show everyone how it will work.
If you do have questions about this story that you've asked, please comment them again on newer chapters or here! As long as they aren't asking for spoilers for chapters that haven't happened yet I'll answer them.

I will start all of these out with spoiler warnings just in case you're not caught up on the newer parts of my stories or parts of the show that could be mentioned. I doubt I'll be spoiling anything but I like to be safe.

Now I don't have an order in how I'm gonna talk about things, we're just gonna bounce around from thing to thing.

Story: A Kentucky Cop and a Galway Runner

Her and Shane

So her and Shane had a rocky beginning, for obvious reasons—
He held a gun in her face then handcuffed her within seconds of seeing her, that was their first meeting so not a great way to start a relationship.
He was pretty unsure of her, clearly, but I feel like some of that hostility melted away when she jumped in when Ed hit Carol and they both had that moment of shared interest, which was beating the crap out of Ed, bestie goals.
But honestly I loved their relationship despite the rockiness of it.
They were good friends, steadily growing closer, and there was a mutual attraction there, idk how obvious it was to the readers.
Shane was caught up on Lori at the time, but he wanted to have his cake and eat it too, he wanted them both basically.
Now if Shane had lived and not turned into a major dickhead I would've honestly been torn between hooking her up with him or Rick, I loved their dynamic.
I did start this story out with wanting her to get with Rick, but the way her and Shane kinda grew as I wrote I can't lie and say I didn't like how they were going.
There really could've been a love triangle between them, though Rick would've still won in the end, I simp for the mans aggressively.
Shane understood her in a way, the best example I have is when they were at the CDC and he knew he had scared her, despite being a little *very* drunk, he knew.
When he realized that he moved slowly around her, made sure she knew what he was doing.
And he could make her laugh and they could pick on each other, then he began trusting her before she trusted him and began letting her cuffs off for a little bit from time to time, but what happened with them happened.
And I don't think I really went into it wanting them to grow as close as they did, of course I wanted interaction between them, but I really don't think I had it planned for it to grow the way it did. Sometimes characters know better than me and I have to listen and follow the way their leading me and I think that's cool.

Rick and Shane keeping her handcuffed

As soon as she walked into camp and Shane saw her he recognized her as this wanted killer and he handcuffed her for lack of a better way to handle her seeing as it's the end of the world. It wasn't exactly love at first sight for any of them.
But through knowing her and seeing her protectiveness and caring towards these people she doesn't know, and towards Carl especially, he realizes she's not a bad person whatsoever.
Yet he's still thinking "she brutally murdered a man" and as a cop he's thinking to himself that it could all be an act to get him to uncuff her and she's gonna kill again, not unreasonable when he's just meeting her and getting to know her.
Then their relationship grows despite the cuffs and they become fairly close friends, and somewhere in that time period he begins to obsess, I guess is the best term for it, and he knows the cuffs are no longer necessary after how much she's willing to do when Carl was shot, but Shane's not the same as he was when they first met by this point.
The light he saw her in changed, the light he saw her in wasn't friendly anymore, the handcuffs were no longer for protection of the group, they became a symbol of his power over her--
If she wants the cuffs off, he's the one that has to say yes and take them off, but she has to come back for him to put them back on, and in a show of good faith she does come to him without fighting for him to put them on and that just doubles down his thought process in his failing mind.
Every time she came back and willingly let him put those cuffs back on it made him even more sure that she wanted him as much as he did her.
So it's power and it's sexual for him, he likes her having to come to him for freedom, she can't go to anyone else but him, and she will always come back to him to be locked back up.