Morning came slow and quiet over Hope 101, the kind of peace that only comes after every problem is settled.
Nobody was smiling exactly like suddenly the future is bright, but it's just that the tension that had wound tight through the camp for the better part of a week had finally started to loosen and everyone can finally take a breather.
The new arrivals from Woodbury were given beddings and blankets and left alone to sleep off the stress of yesterday's changes last night. Somewhere near the garden, a couple of kids were laughing at something, their bright laughter finally brought life to the camp after a hectic week.
It was finally over and whatever came next, at least this part was now over.
Rick had barely slept.
He stood outside Cell Block C a little before dawn, watching the sky slowly brighten, and when Daryl and Michael came around the corner behind him, he didn't turn around right away.
"You ready?" Michael's voice, low, unhurried.
"No." Rick's jaw was tight. "But let's just get it done."
Shane was on his feet the moment he heard the footsteps approaching. He grabbed the cell bars and there was a mixture of anticipation and nervousness on his face.
Soon, Rick and the other two came out from the corner and appeared before his eyes.
"Rick." His voice came out fast, too fast, like he'd been rehearsing it all night and it had finally found somewhere to go. "Just let me see her. Five minutes, that's all I'm asking. I need to hear it from her. Just five minutes and I'll go wherever you want after that, I swear to God—"
"No." Rick's voice was flat as he stood before the jail cell. He found their situation so ridiculous that he couldn't help but chuckle.
"Rick, come on man." Shane's voice became hoarse.
"You shouldn't have come." Rick's jaw was tight, the words coming out low and hard. "Just because you risked coming here, doesn't mean you can now get to talk to her. There was never about her, and it's not up for discussion."
Shane's eyes went wild for a second, he felt cornered and agitated. He took a step back to calm his emotions while glaring at him. Behind Rick, Daryl said nothing at all — just stood in the doorway with the cable ties already in hand, watching, waiting, a silence that made it clear exactly how this was going to end whether Shane cooperated or not.
Michael, he just shook his head.
'He's too far gone. Obsession can really make someone go crazy and make someone do things they should not be supposed to be doing. He shouldn't even have come here in the first place if he was thinking straight.'
"I just want to know if it's mine. That's all! That's all I've ever wanted! You can't just—"
"Shut up!" Rick barked and his face immediately hardened. "You should be grateful that I still hadn't put a f*cking bullet in your head!"
Bang!
Shane rushed towards him and grabbed the iron bars and shook it as he stared dead into Rick's eyes.
"Let me out. I want to see her." said Shane in a hoarse voice.
Growing frustrated, Daryl suddenly stepped in. "Open the damn door and let me beat a sense into him!"
Rick held him back, but then Shane turned his attention to Daryl. "Shut up, you freaking hillbilly. I've had enough of you since yesterday. Open this cell so I can send you packing and cry to your mommy Merle."
Daryl's eyes immediately grew red and Rick was surprised by those words from Daryl that he failed to restrain him in time.
Daryl was about to stretch his hand past the iron bar to grab Shane when a hand suddenly grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him back.
"Enough. We didn't come here to pick a fight." Michael finally intervened. When he stepped up, Daryl's anger slowly subsided, but that wasn't the end. He gave Shane the middle finger and mouthed the words 'fuck you.'
"Don't kill him." Rick remarked from the side.
Michael opened the cell door and finally stood close and face to face before Shane.
"Wha–"
Shane stared back with no intention of backing down. He was about to say something when he realized that his vision suddenly started warping and moments later, darkness consumed him and he fell limp.
Michael caught Shane and quickly picked him up over his shoulders. He made it look so light that people would have mistaken Shane as a doll.
"How did you do that?" Daryl asked with genuine curiosity.
"I struck his brachial plexus, but it seems I overdid it." Michael replied, a little worried. He only meant to disorient him, but it seems he was a little too heavy handed on Shane.
Michael brought down the unconscious Shane out of the building with Rick and Daryl. Along the way to the car, countless eyes stared at them.
Rick caught Carl looking at them from among the group of kids and gave him a slight nod.
The drive was long and silent, Rick was behind the wheel. Michael in the passenger seat with a rifle across his knees, and Shane was in the back unconscious with Daryl at the side. Shane's hands were bound and resting on his lap like he was praying. They took him west — past the outskirts of the city, past every landmark until the road narrowed to a stretch of empty highway with nothing but trees and silence on either side.
Rick stopped the car
"Wake up"
Daryl slapped him, but Shane didn't wake up right away. Daryl did it a couple more times, and obviously Daryl was enjoying it. When Shane finally came to, it was slow, careful, but quickly grew startled when he realized they brought him somewhere unknown.
Daryl quickly pulled him out of the car. Shane stumbled on his feet before stabilizing himself.
"What? You finally found the guts to get rid of me?" Seeing Rick standing there with Michael, he glared at him.
Rick did not say anything and instead cut the ties on his wrists first, freeing him.
Shane tried to show a brave front, but he was obviously nervous about what they were planning to do with him. He rubbed his aching wrist and said. "What are you trying to do?"
"Nothing, but this is the end for all of us." Rick said. His voice didn't shake. "You head west from here and you don't ever look back. If I ever see your face here again, I won't hesitate to put you down."
Shane's throat moved. "Rick—"
"This doesn't mean I forgive you, but I'm grateful for what you did for me. So this is my last mercy to you." Rick's voice cracked on the latter part of his words and he hated it, hated that after everything, some part of him still felt something when he looked at this man. "I understand that things happened between you and Lori since you all thought I was already gone, but everything that happened ends here."
Shane looked at him for a long moment, and something moved behind his eyes — not gratitude, not quite, but something close enough to it that it was almost worse.
"Yeah," he said finally, quietly. "Okay."
He turned and started walking, no bag, no weapon, nothing but the clothes on his back and whatever was left of him after all of this. Rick watched him go further away and didn't move until Daryl came to stand beside him, and loaded the rifle in his hands.
"Just say the word."
"No. I won't owe him anything after this." Rick shook his head. Daryl shrugged his shoulders and pulled the bolt back to extract the bullet inside.
"You good?" Michael came to stand beside him and asked.
"No." Rick kept his eyes on the road ahead, on the empty stretch where Shane had disappeared. "But I will be."
Michael didn't say anything to that. He just stood there, rifle loose in his hands, watching the same empty road Rick was watching, and for a long moment, none of them moved.
Michael was thinking he could have ended it right there when Rick was distracted with Daryl. One clean shot and the whole problem would have been solved before Rick even had the chance to stop him — a mercy killing dressed up as pest control, the kind of efficiency that he had never been shy about when it came to threats he didn't think deserved a second chance.
He didn't take it in the end. It wasn't his to decide.
Rick would have to live with whatever consequences his decision today would bring. He'd made his bed.
Either way, the moment passed, and Shane had already disappeared from their sights.
"Let's go home," Michael said finally.
Rick nodded, and the three of them climbed back into the car without another word.
They were a few miles down the road before Daryl finally broke the silence.
"You know I could've just killed him back there." He said it plainly, no weight behind it either way, the same tone he might've used to comment on the weather. "One shot, and the whole thing's over. You'd never have had to think about him again."
"I know." Rick kept his eyes on the road.
"So why did you stop me?"
Rick was quiet for a moment, working through the answer before he let himself say it out loud. "It's not that I did not want you to do it. I've killed people, Daryl. I've done it plenty, and I'll do it again if I have to, but that's not what this was about."
"Then what was it about?"
"He used to be my friend." Rick's hands tightened slightly on the wheel. "He also got my family somewhere safe when he had every reason not to do it. I don't forgive him for what he did. I don't think I ever will. But I'm not gonna stand there and watch you put a bullet in somebody who used to mean something to me, not when I still have a choice."
Michael was listening to them, watching the trees blur past the window. "And if there hadn't been another way?"
"Then I'd have done it myself, and hated every second of it." Rick's jaw tightened. "That's the difference between you and me, Michael. You do what needs to be done because it's for the best, but I still have to live with the people I used to be before any of this. Shane's one of them, whether I like it or not."
Michael didn't argue with him. He just nodded once, slow, and let the silence settle back in between them, the road stretching out gray and empty all the way back home.
"It's obvious he only saved your family because he had the hots for your wife way before any of this." Daryl mumbled to himself.
Lori had watched them leave that morning from the top of one of the watchtowers, arms wrapped around herself against the cold, and she was still standing there when the car finally rolled back through the gate almost two hours later — Rick still at the wheel, Michael beside him, and Daryl at the back.
She didn't even need to know what happened. She didn't need to. She only hoped that they did not kill Shane, because even with everything that happened. It was also him that kept her and Carl safe.
She watched Rick climb down from the car, watched him stand there a moment in the yard like a man setting down something heavy he'd been carrying too long, and when he finally looked up and found her on the tower, she didn't wave, and he didn't either.
They just looked at each other across the distance, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, something in his face looked almost like relief.