Work Text:
So This is Love
Her sobbing is muffled by the firmness of his shoulder as he bounces her lightly in his arms. Had unwanted thoughts not kept sleep just out of your grasp you doubted that you would have heard her yourself. As it is the others have not been roused from their own rest by her gentle crying. Not even Daryl from his perch seems to have registered the muted softness that occupies Rick’s cell, and for a single, selfish moment you savor the rare sense of isolation.
He stands with his back to you, unaware of your presence, as he murmurs soothing words into her hair in an attempt to calm the fussing newborn. You know that you should speak up, or at the very least return to your cell, but in a life where anything can be lost in the blink of an eye you want to carve this moment into your heart lest you never get a second chance to. This moment that he shares with his daughter is the first time in months that he resembles anything close to the man he once was.
Rick is not the same man that brought you under his protection when Doctor Jenner pushed you to follow after him though he could have just as easily turned you away once all was said and done. You had been a woman he had only known for a few precious hours, a survivor by chance that had been studying in the CDC under another of the Doctor’s coworkers. You were another mouth to feed, another risk that could upset the balance of his people, and he had taken a gamble on you others might not have.
Lori, Shane, and the burden of a leadership he had never asked for had broken him. He had accepted his role, but it had come at a price that only he was obligated to pay. Over the months he’d become withdrawn and bitter. When he spoke it was with a tone that brokered no arguments. He never became the brute that Shane had been, but there was no denying that he had lost something in him that had helped to keep him human.
When you had stumbled down the steps after him, hours after Lori had passed during childbirth and his once nameless baby had been settled into the warmth of her patchwork family, he had been drowning in his grief. You had stood uncertainly at the bottom of the steps torn between offering him a comfort that would do little good for him and allowing him to grieve for everything he had lost. It hadn’t been your place, but nobody else seemed to have remembered the grieving father.
A vicious tyrant of words and slurred speech had made that decision for you, but it hadn’t kept you from returning later that night to fold him into the blankets stripped from both his bed and your own.
“Please stop crying.” Your nails dig into the cold metal of the bars that form the entrance to his room as his whispers to his child in a tone so broken that you are left uncertain as to which of the two is more upset. “Please stop crying.” You should have left Rick to his child when you had the chance. This moment of humanity, these small seconds that he takes to break, are not yours.
But you can’t walk away.
“Rick.” He visibly stiffens at the sound of your voice and turns with Judith pressed protectively in his hold. You lament the barely masked grief hidden under an expression of neutrality. He is stepping back into his role, neatly tucking away each crack in his shell though one day there will be no pieces of him left to put back together. “Here.” With slow, measured steps you approach him slowly. “Let me help,” you murmur just under your breath, just for his ears, as you hold out expectant arms towards Judith.
For a single moment there is nothing but you, him, and a child that might not even be his own. His gaze is levelled on your form and the intensity, the rare show of emotions that have been absent for months now, catches your breath. In this moment that slows to the sound of your thrumming heart you watch as a thousand unnamed thoughts flicker behind the startling blue of his eyes. For this moment there are no Walkers that even now hunger for your flesh, there are not the restless sounds of bodies shifting in their cots; there is only a man that holds his world in his arms and a woman that is asking him to share the only thing that is truly his.
And in the blink of an eye the moment is gone as he gently transfers Judith into your waiting arms. A vicious, protective instinct takes hold of you, and as you press her head to rest into the crook of your neck Rick is forgotten for the time being. Your fingers run over her fragile back as you support her weight, rocking her with swaying motions of your body, and lips brush against the soft wisps of her hair.
Judith is not your child, but that does not make her any less a part of you. When Rick watched her hesitantly from a distance you knew it was as much a punishment to himself as it was resentment. Judith meant the loss of his wife, not only in life but in love as well. Judith was a child that would grow up in this world unaware that life had been anything but this Hell. Judith was an innocent and he was a sinner. Weren’t you all though when it came down to it?
You love her. You love her just as much as any other member of this group. There is no doubt in your mind that previous to her existence there was nothing that you would not have done to protect this family of yours, but loving one that can do nothing to protect herself is not the same as loving an equal. Judith needs you in a way that no one else needs you, and that instinct calls to a side of you that you had never known existed. Her life is something that you all share in the protection of.
Unbidden, a lullaby comes to your lips, a song of a life that was laid to rest long ago, but for Judith the words slip from the memories of what once was. You do not dare to give voice to the verse, but you hum softly to her instead as you lose yourself in a gentle swaying. Eyes shut and her warmth melded into the frame of your body, you hum to her the tune of things that she will never touch with her own two hands. For her you grieve the life that she could have had so that she will not have to.
It is not until Rick’s fingers graze against your hip that you realize Judith has fallen back into a deep slumber. Reluctant to part with her but knowing that it is for the best that you leave child to father, you turn to deposit her into the safety of her arms, but a steady hand upon your elbow halts your actions before quickly withdrawing. His actions leave you uncertain as to what he wants, but he speaks before you can turn slowly upon your heel to face him.
“Sing.”
His tone is so soft, the word choked with such grief and pleading, that for a moment you think you have imagined it until he repeats himself. You want to tell him no. You want to tell him that the words have been lost to you long ago. You want to beg of him to ask anything of you but the lullaby that will bring back ghosts that have no place in this world. You want to bury these memories to someday offer Judith when she is older, but when he pleads with you once more with that single word you break for the man that has nothing of himself left.
“So this is love…” The words are barely a whisper without a tune to them, but he does not protest. “…so this is what makes life divine.” You begin to sway gently again as you turn to bury your face into the softness of Judith, fingers gently curling around her as if she were your salvation. Perhaps she is. “I’m all aglow, and now I know the key to all heaven is mine.” You can feel his gaze following your movements, staring into the face of his sleeping child. “So this is the miracle that I’ve been dreaming of. So this is love.”
The last note vanishes as soon as it takes breath as if it had never existed and only silence remains. You do not dare to chance a glance over your shoulder at Rick, uncertain if you are prepared to face the nameless thing that hangs in the air between you two. You are torn between wanting to know why he insisted upon hearing the ghost of a lullaby that had once been yours and slipping away from him to mull over the moment in privacy.
Your knees nearly buckle under the weight of his emotions as he presses his forehead against the back of your head and whispers into your hair, “I’m terrified.” You know without a single moment of doubt that he is speaking of Judith when he voices his fears. “I want to love her, but I don’t know if I remember how to. Until now it’s always been doing what’s best for everyone, but she needs love, and I don’t know if I remember that.” He loved Lori, he loves Carl, he loves each person under his care, but a love for Judith in this world is different from anything that any of you have ever given.
“I want to love her.” You watch as a trembling hand reaches around your shoulders to stroke her hair reverently and are struck by the size of his hand against her tiny body. “I want to love her the same way that I love Carl and I know that I do, but there are some moments that I forget how and that’s terrifying.” At this point you aren’t even sure if he is speaking to you anymore, but you do not turn his voice or his fears away. You do not break this moment of humanity. “What do I do when I forget a few years down the road?”
And without hesitation you rest your hand atop of the one that lies against her cheek. When he doesn’t withdraw or shake the warmth of your palm away, you tuck each finger between his own and squeeze, thumb stroking the back of his knuckle. Judith stirs under the shared twitches of your hands, but makes no other movement as you both gaze down upon her and share in this moment of a mutual instinct to protect this child.
“Then you let me help you to remember how.”