Chapter Text
Prologue:
Rick sat there stewing in guilt as the group made their way back to the survivors’ camp. He couldn’t help it as his thoughts fell back on Merle Dixon left handcuffed to the roof. Trapped and chained out in the heat just waiting for the walkers to bust down the door and get to him like some kind of animal. Merle Dixon was a racist hillbilly that could have cost them their lives but no one deserved what they had just left him to deal with. Rick’s thoughts were interrupted by Morales. “Best best not to dwell on it. Merle got left behind. Nobody’s gonna be sad he didn’t come back… Except maybe Daryl.”
“Daryl?” Rick questioned.
Morales looked over at Rick. “His brother.” Rick turned his head to look out the window. Dixon, Daryl. The name was thick in his throat. It set off the alarms in his head and twisted in his gut. It couldn’t be… It had to be some kind of coincidence. His thoughts drifted back to before the outbreak, when the world had different types of hell to deal with.
Rick walked into the Precinct searching for any sign of the man he was supposed to meet. Captain Derek Sullivan had requested Rick to be sent down to Atlanta to help out on a case that his detectives were working. A little over a year back Rick somehow had been the one to catch the man responsible for 8 kidnappings and murders throughout the area. The case had been passed around so much that every cop at the local precincts were read in on it, and knew all the details. The man’s name was Damien Bartley and he was currently in jail sitting on death row. The crimes he committed always went with the same MO, picking up young girls walking home from school, burying them alive in a box, and then sending a video tape of the process to the local cops. The tape was always shot from the same angle, always showing the same green latex gloves covering his hands, and a pistol was always lying near the box as he covered it with dirt. His department had eventually matched Bartley to the crime and Rick was sent out with his department. When they arrived, Rick was the one that arrested the fleeing man and had interrogated him. He convinced Bartley to give up two locations of where the girls had been buried before Bartley’s lawyer had arrived and told him to say nothing else. Despite not finding the bodies of the other missing girls, Rick had figured the families had as much closure as they were going to get but that didn’t stop him from some extra visits to Bartley to try and convince him to give up locations in the year following. He was able to get two more locations out of him but the man remained silent about the others.
Last week a video had been sent to Atlanta’s PD seemingly matching ever little detail from those videos from the style to the items used. Two days ago another arrived. The fact that the man one would assume to be responsible for this was still behind bars had the department at a loss and there we no new leads on this apparent copycat. With the Captain’s team working on the case, Rick figured he was sent down to Atlanta to see if he could lend any knowledge of the case and Damien Bartley to the detectives working on it.
“Officer Grimes?” Rick turned and noticed a man walking towards him. “I’m Detective James McCann. And this is Detective Aaron Rainey. Captain Sullivan told us to get you settled in when you arrived.”
Both men were older than Rick was and looked like they hadn’t slept in days. Rick recalled the many all-nighters he had spent chasing Bartley, trying to figure out who he was and where he as hiding. And afterwards, the lack of sleep continued. Those teenage girls’ faces were burned in his memory. Even with catching Bartley Rick had never been able to save a single victim. Rick was pulled from his thoughts as both men reached out to shake his hand. They lead him into a large briefing room. In the middle was a large table with files from the case, a large tv set to the side, and a board filled with various pieces of evidence and photos.
Detecive McCann glanced over at him, “Make yourself comfortable. We’ve made this our base of sorts. You can leave your bags and files here. The Captain wanted to meet you in his office when you arrived. You can come back here when you’re done and we’ll fill you in on all the details we have.” Rick set all of his bags down and left to meet the captain in his office.
After a quick introduction and briefing on what he was expected to do while he was in Atlanta, and who he would be working on the case with, Rick left the captain’s office ready to see what he could do to help. Heading back to the briefing room he paused at the door. A younger man was talking to the two detectives he’d met. Rick leaned back against the wall and watched as the man paced back and forth in front of the detectives..
He was younger than Rick and the other detectives. Rick wondered how long he could have been out of the academy. His look stood out against the two detectives. He was in plain clothes, hair longer than what Rick was used to, and he was clearly angry. As he spoke he became more and more animated, his hands balled at his side rising slightly and his southern accent became more and more pronounced the longer he spoke.
“He sat there just smiling the whole damn time. Just let me have a minute alone with the bastard. No rules. I’d have him spilling everything he knows in minutes. Wouldn’t have to be putting up with this bullshit. Hearing him tell his stories like he’s some damn mastermind. He’d be answerin’ my questions then.”
Rick couldn’t help the scoff he let out at the man’s speech, quickly capturing the attention of the men in the room. The man in question turned and sent a glare his way. As the man’s eyes pierced his own, Rick couldn’t help but think he had some of the most piercing eyes he had ever seen but the anger in them threw him off. “Who are you?”
‘Well he’s friendly,’ Rick thought. “Rick Grimes.”
The man continued to stare at him clearly not having any idea who Rick was. “Rick Grimes? You got something you wanna tell me?”
Rick briefly wondered if he should just pass the scoff off as nothing, get to know these guys in a calmer manner, but seeing how stormy this man was and seeing the other detectives watching, Rick decided he’d rather prove his knowledge to the group. Rick grinned at him. “Yeah, your plan is a bad idea. You really think you can beat anything Bartley knows out of him? And this is if he even knows anything. This could all be some copycat that Bartley hasn’t got a clue about. The Bartley case is well known and Bartley doesn’t like to share. Plus Bartley has taken multiple beatings in his life. Nothing you do is going to make him spill anything if you approach him like that.”
The man’s eyes sparked and he started to move towards Rick. “Now listen here you city-slicker, I oughta …”
“Dixon.” Detective McCann put a hand on the man’s shoulder interrupting. “Simmer down. This is Officer Rick Grimes. He’s the one who arrested Bartley back then, solved all those cases. Captain wanted him down here to help us out. Be nice.” McCann turned to Rick, “This is Daryl Dixon. He’s our precinct’s go to undercover cop but he’s helping us out with this case. He’s the one who has been having the most conversations with Bartley while we waited for you to get sent down here to help.”
Daryl continued to glare at Detective McCann. “I’ve been workin’ him fine and I’m getting him to talk now. I’m in charge of talking to him. That’s not changing just cause we got someone else down here.”
Rick looked at Daryl knowing what the man was going through. He had heard his complaints about how Bartley wasn’t answering anything. He knew how frustrating it was to have him just sit there and grin while you asked him question after question and him only answering what he wanted to say. Rick had gotten to the point where he almost wanted to beg Bartley to tell what he needed to know. “I’m just here to help," Rick said staring straight at Daryl. "I’m not interesting in taking over anyone’s job. But it sounds like you could use a little help.”
Daryl scowled and stormed out of the room and into the Captain’s office knocking shoulders with Rick as he passed by. Rick’s eyes followed him the entire way. Detective McCann smirked at Rick “Sorry about him. He’s…
“Not usually so prickly?” Rick questioned.
“No. He is. He’s not really fond of new people. But he usually doesn’t take it out on someone helping him out, especially on cases like this. But then again, this case is a little personal for him. Come on, take a seat. You can check out the tapes we’ve gotten. Then Daryl should be back and he can fill you in on some of his sessions with Bartley. Or you can just read some of his case reports. Anything we have is in those files” Rick nodded at McCann and took a seat at the table. The two detectives excused themselves from the room when Rick started to make his way through the files.