Poison [Rick Grimes]

0.9

Staying on the farm was both a peaceful and stressful experience for Gonzalez. While the scenery was beautiful and the soft breeze against her body felt nice there was a very noticeable tension between, well, everyone except her.

     There was the thing between Rick, Shane, and Lori. Herschel wasn't so subtle about how uncomfortable the group made him. Gonzalez was 93% sure that Glenn was screwing Maggie. Daryl is on some lone wolf strike, Andrea is a bitch, T-Dog was just walking around on eggshells. Dale was starting to get annoying with his peace and love crap. He was right, of course, but still annoying. Let's not even talk about the search for little Sophia.

     Herschel had diagnosed Gonzalez with a case of Phantom pains earlier that morning. Of course they couldn't spare any extra meds so all she got was a normal dose of painkillers, a " take it easy" from Patricia and a "don't be a whiny bitch" from Daryl. Now she was on the porch doing just that- taking it easy. Not that she had much choice. Losing an arm seemed much cooler in the movies.

      In real life it hurt like hell. The phantom pains made Gonzalez cry for her mama and the real pains were twice as bad. She knew it would take quite some time to heal. Too much time, in her opinion. She couldn't afford to be a burden on the group if a herd came about. She made the silent decision that she would sacrifice herself if that were to happen before she was completely healed.

Rick stumbles on to the porch with a nervous look on his face. "Come on, tiger. It's time to change your bandages."

Gonzalez scrunched up her face at the nickname. "Rawr," she said jokingly before following him inside and upstairs into the bedroom she had been sleeping in.

She winced as he undid her old bandages and began to disinfect the stub where her arm used to be.

"I have some... things to tell you," Rick started. Gonzalez could tell he was a bit uneasy. "Honestly, I'm saying both because I tell you everything and also because I don't want Glenn telling everyone before I get a chance."

Gonzalez raised an eyebrow at him. "Sounds reasonable. Go on."

"The barn is full of walkers and Lori's pregnant. Herschel believes the dead can be saved, and the baby is most likely not mine." He said all in one breath.

Gonzalez hissed as the disinfectant burned at her wound. She shrugged it off, still trying to seem tough. "Whoever screwed her last calls dibs on the kid."

Rick laughed and tried his best to control himself so that he didn't accidentally hurt Gonzalez's shoulder.

"The baby is mine?" He asked amused.

Gonzalez smiled at him. "Damn straight. What do we do about the walkers? If they've been in the barn all this time then the place must be pretty secure. Should it really be that much of an issue right now?"

Rick shrugged. "I was thinking the same thing, but the others definitely don't rationalize it that way. They wanna clear it out." He sighed. "I asked them to let me talk to Herschel."

"Talk to Herschel?" Gonzalez scoffed. "And what did Shane have to say about that?"

"He wasn't too happy."

"Of course he wasn't. What this place needs is a distraction. They needa get their minds off of things and focus on something else." They both stood up as Rick finished wrapping Gonzalez's shoulder tightly.

"How do you suggest we do that?" Rick asked.

"Easy!" Gonzalez chirped. "We handle this like politicians!"