Changing To Adapt ➵ TWD

➵ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪꜰᴛʏ ɴɪɴᴇ

A tense Rick tosses his boot into the closest gun rack and sends it tumbling. It just so happens that the police station - which they'd had their fingers crossed for - is frustratingly empty the day they come to search it.

Michonne sweeps up a singular bullet from the floor, the only thing not picked clean, and twists it between lithe fingers. "You got any other police stations in town?"

Searching one of the bags hung up in the lockers outside the gun room, Lucas sighs and drops it to the ground, "Nothing 'ere."

"I was the police here." Rick tells her, "Me and a few other guys. It ain't a big town." He turns around and prods his tongue against the inside of his cheek, thinking. "There are other places to check. May not have as many guns as were in here, but. . ."

"We need as many guns as were in here. Ammo, too." Michonne says, keeping her eyes on the opposite side of the room.

"Yeah, we do. But right now, I only got a line on a couple." He stares her down, "There's a few places out on the main street. Bars, a liquor store-"

Lucas groans, "If we could avoid the bars, that'd be great." He says, sinking into a bench beside Carl.

"-owners had a gun or two behind the counter that people didn't know about. I did. I signed the permits. They might still be there." Rick sighs.

Lucas can feel the tension between them from the other side of the gate. When Carl glances at him, a brow cocked, he understands that the kid can too.

Rick squints at Michonne and scratches a thumb against his upper brow, "Do you have a problem with that approach?"

She slowly looks at him with a shake of the head, but her voice says she's holding something back, "No, Rick. I don't have a problem."

In the hand Michonne holds out to him, the bullet. Rick takes it and drops it in his shirt pocket.

Lucas finally meets Carl's eyes, who shrugs in return.

What they stumble upon next doesn't exactly ease their concern. Past a pile of burnt bodies, to a street filled with cars.

Lucas sees the painting on the ground first, bright orange against the asphalt. 

Turn back and you live. 

When he looks past it to see the contraptions blocking off the street, sticks with pointed ends, and a maze of gates, he starts to believe this isn't a good idea.

But when has that ever stopped him?

"It looks like someone's already made this theirs," Michonne says for him, her hand already attached to her katana.

"Doesn't mean they found what we're looking for. Couple of the places are just up ahead. Let's get in and get the hell out of here." Rick unholsters his python.

Ducking under the barbed wire stretched across two cars, Lucas follows in their example and frees his gun from its confines.

Carl nudges his dad's arm and gestures behind them. They turn in sync to gouge the threat, a lone walker with eyes on its new meal.

"Wait." Rick stops Michonne before she offs it, "She'll get caught."

And it does in fact. Lucas takes note of the fancy contraption, and hopes he ends up back at the prison to implement it.

With a crack of a sniper, the walker goes down.

Lucas ducks, still expecting the heat of another bullet. He sucks in a sharp breath when the shooter - his features concealed under a helmet, standing on the roof of the building in front of them - starts demanding orders instead.

"Hands!" They do exactly as they're told, not in the position to hash it out. "Now you drop what you got and you go. Your guns, your shoes, and that sword. All of it."

"I already got shot once this week." Lucas hisses, tossing his pistol to the ground by his feet and putting his one good arm back in the air, "This better not be the second."

"Ten seconds!"

 "Take Carl and run for the car. Now." Rick doesn't release the gun from his hands, still in the air.

"Nine!"

Lucas nods at him, inconspicuously, and sets his feet further apart in preparation.

Lori's words are all he hears past the rush of blood in his ears. He's between Rick and his son, making it easier to slowly lower his hand behind Carl's back. If it comes down to it. He will shove the kid.

"Dad." Carl hesitates.

"Eight!"

Michonne side-eyes them, "We need that rifle." She hisses, looking up at the roof and its surroundings. "I think I can get up there."

"Six!"

Rick's fingers twitch around the gun. "Go."

Lucas kicks his gun to the left and pushes Carl the same way, diving for cover. His gun ends up under the car as he planned, and he pulls it out to flick the safety off.

Firing off a few rounds, Rick makes a distraction for Michonne, who twists around the cars and around the building.

Silence encompasses them.

Appearing on the wrong roof, Michonne looks around and tosses her arms up in question. Exasperated, Lucas gestures to the roof beside her, but pushes himself back when the man exits the building and starts shooting in Rick's direction.

"Shit!" Lucas breathes out. He taps at Carl's arm and jerks his chin in their direction, "Come on."

Carl is faster, moving up behind the guy in quick succession, and just as Rick is about to reveal himself in order to shoot, his kid does it for him.

Lucas lowers his gun from just over Carl's shoulder and squints down at him.

Rushing out of the building with her katana held high, Michonne looks across at them, takes in the situation and screws her face up. In either shock, or fear - eyeing a kid his age pulling the trigger so easily.

Breathing hard, Rick checks on the body before staring at Carl, "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"I told you to run for the car." Rick looks from Lucas to Carl, gun still pointed down at the body, "I didn't want you to have to do that."

"We did. But you were cornered," Lucas shrugs, holstering his gun. "Kid's fast."

"I had to," Carl adds, staring up under the sheriff's hat to meet his dad's eyes.

Michonne, Lucas, and Rick share a familiar look. The willingness Carl has for killing isn't. . . It isn't right. But it's also a new world for him. He no longer has the pleasure of growing up like Lucas did. So is it really wrong? Or are they just not used to it?

Rick ducks down, knocking his hand against the man's chest. It gives off a dull thud, and Lucas frowns at the noise.

"He's wearing body armor. He's alive."

Lucas releases a rattling breath. Carl doesn't have to live with the blood on his hands. Not for this.

"Do we care?" Michonne kneels down to see for herself.

Rick doesn't answer. Not until he removes the helmet, tugs it off, and sees the man's face. His eyes go wide, ". . .yeah."