Fight, Love, Live.

V

"Oh my god." Was all I could manage to say as I looked over at my brother, who looked the same as he did every day for the past ten or some years. He was wearing his sheriff deputy's uniform, with the hat, and the badge and everything. His colt was on his hip, and he looked clean, and perfectly normal. 

"Ri?" Rick asked in shock, taking a few stumbling steps towards Bailey and I, and when he got close enough, I practically collapsed into his arms, sobbing my heart out, the stress of the past few days melting away as I was finally in my big brother's arms. I was safe. 

"Rick." I sobbed out as he clenched me to his chest, and I couldn't tell if the flinch I felt was from the pain I was inflicting by squeezing him, or simply feeling my own body trembling. 

"Riley. Are you okay?" Rick asked urgently as he pulled away and scanned over me with his eyes, and it was as he pulled away, and I saw the asian man awkwardly looking at us from behind Rick, that I remembered that we weren't alone. 

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Riley Grimes. Thank you for saving me." I said awkwardly, as I glanced from Rick to the other man, silently telling Rick that we could catch up later, as I stuck my hand out to the man. 

"Glenn Rhee. It's no problem. What in the hell were you two doing?" Glenn said, looking back and forth between us, seeming bewildered. Rick glanced at me before turning back to the man. 

"I was trying to find my family. I found a part of it. Why'd you stick your neck out for me, for us?" Rick said carefully, trying not to seem suspicious, but I could tell he was. 

"Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you two." Glenn said grumpily as he turned and led us to a different ladder, and began to climb down. I groaned and bent down to pick up Bailey, but whirled around when I realized she was missing. I heard a chuckle and glanced up at Rick who already had her on his shoulders, and motioned for me to go ahead. I gave a grateful smile before following Glenn down, and watched as Rick did the same above me. 

When we finally made it to the bottom of the ladder we were at the top of a staircase, and Rick put Bailey down and she immediately returned to my side. Glenn took out a walkie-talkie, and started talking into it as he started at a door down the stairs from us that was guarded by four dead. 

"I'm back. Got two guests plus four geeks in the alley." Almost immediately we began to move down the steps, and when we got to the bottom, two men in protective gear came out with baseball bats and went after the two dead closest to the door, and we rushed in.

"Let's go!" Glenn said, since we apparently weren't moving fast enough, and when we walked in, one of the men in gear ran back in and spun around to yell for the other. 

"Morales, let's go!" The other man, Morales, rushed through the door and slammed it shut behind him. Morales whipped off his helmet, and the other man did the same, revealing Morales to be hispanic, and the other man to be a fairly muscular looking African American man. As soon as the door was closed though, Rick was being shoved into me, and we were shoved against the wall, with me sandwiched between my brother and the wall, and I could hear Bailey growling at whoever had done it, and people were yelling, but I was just concerned with my baby, and my large brother that had just been shoved into it. 

"You son of a bitch! We ought to kill you!" A lady was screaming, and I could see that Rick's hands were up defensively, and it seemed like he had broadened his shoulders, trying to protect me. 

"Just chill out Andrea. Back off." Morales was saying from somewhere to my left, and an African American woman echoed his sentiments from my other side. 

"Come on, ease up." 

"Ease up? You're kidding me, right? We're dead because of these stupid assholes." Andrea, the person who had shoved us against the wall, and was apparently pointing some kind of weapon at my brother, seemed extremely angry. 

"Andrea, I said back the hell off. Or pull the trigger." Morales said, and I glanced at him in shock, but he seemed unconcerned, and I understood why when Andrea immediately lowered her weapon, and backed away, and immediately Rick moved away from me so I wasn't pushed up against the wall so hard. 

"We're dead... all of us. Because of you." Andrea said as she ran he fingers through her hair, and moved away from us, gun still in hand, but I could see that the safety was on, so even if she had pulled the trigger, the gun wouldn't have gone off. 

"I don't understand." Rick said dumbly from in front of me, but I did. I had seen it, sound draws them. 

"Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral." Morales said angrily as he took up Andrea's role of lecturer. 

"Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds." The other man in protective gear added on, but he didn't look as angry, only scared. 

"You just rang the dinner bell." Andrea said, gesturing over to our right, her left, where I saw what they were talking about. The glass entrance doors were being pushed up against by several walkers, and it looked like the glass would break soon, and there would only be one set of doors left between us and them. 

"Get the picture now?" Morales said sarcastically, and when I glanced at Rick he seemed very guilty, and when he looked at me, I knew it was because I was here with them, not because of these people. Even though my brother is a very caring person, I don't know if he would have cared that much if I wasn't here. These people are nothing to him. 

"Oh God. Wha the hell were you doing out there anyway?" Andrea said frantically as one of the dead created a crack in the door. 

"Trying to flag a helicopter." Rick said, and I looked at him in disbelief, but didn't say anything. The African American man however, didn't have my level of politeness. 

"Helicopter? Man, that's crap. Ain't no damn helicopter." The other woman decided to add on her thoughts as well. 

"You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens." Rick shook his head, and glanced at me to see if I believed him, but I kept my face studiously blank. 

"I saw it." 

"Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?" Morales asked the African American man, T-Dog, who nodded and moved to the C.B. on the counter and began speaking into it. 

"Others? The refugee center?" Rick asked, a tone of excitement underneath his normal rumbly voice. 

"Yeah, the refugee center. They've got biscuits waiting at the oven for us." The still unnamed African American woman said sarcastically, and I couldn't help but snicker at her comment which earned me a satisfied smile from her, and a glare from my brother, to which I shrugged at. What? I mean it was funny. 

"Got no signal. Maybe the roof." T-Dog said suddenly, and Morales nodded and began to lead us up some stairs to the roof, when suddenly we all froze, gunshots.