meanstreak
rick grimes 𝘹 fem!𝘰𝘤
© WANDARYEN ──── 2024

"She talked about you a lot. She talked about both of you — how she, Daryl, and you escaped the prison together." Noah, the boy who managed to escape with Daryl, sat beside me on one of the church benches to tell me about Beth. "She knew you would be safe as long as you stayed by Daryl's side. When she sees you, she's going to lose it."

A quick soft smile flashed across my lips. "That's sweet of you to say."

"I think you're her favorite sister," Noah chuckled. "With the way she spoke so highly of you."

"Goodness," I muttered while bringing my hand to my face and lightly dragged it downwards. "Don't tell Maggie that — it'll add to the middle child syndrome."

"Well, she enjoyed talking about the both of you. But whenever she mentioned you, it was like the light was returning back to her eyes, so this is just an assumption. But — " I lifted my chin towards Noah and his soft gaze quickly met mine with a soft smile. "I think she believes you're going to be the one to save her — be her hero."

Hearing him say those words sparked some hope in my chest. "Thank you – for taking care of her while you could." I hovered my hand on his shoulder, "thank you so much."

Noah smiled and nodded his head.

"Sienna," I heard Rick call out for me as I looked at Noah with a smile still lingering on my lips. Without warning I pulled him into a tight hug and whispered another 'thank you' to him before pulling away.

I quickly got up from the bench and followed Rick outside where Michonne and Carl were waiting. "By the way Noah described it — we'll be putting up a good fight to get Beth and Carol back." Rick expressed while placing his hand on the side of the church.

I nodded knowingly before furrowing my eyebrows up at the man, "but that won't stop us from getting them back — right?"

He quickly shook his head, "absolutely not. We're not leaving without them."

"Carl and I are staying back to watch over Judith," Michonne reassured me with a hand over my shoulder. My gaze immediately searched for Carls, who was already watching me with a sad smile. "Michonne will watch over Judith and I."

"Yeah," I responded anxiously. "I know she will."

"Daryl, Noah, Tyreese, and Sasha are coming with us," Rick added. "We'll need the manpower and the gun power — I have a general idea how to go through with it."

I trusted Rick, and each word sounded like a promise. We're going to find Beth and I'm going to meet up with Maggie again soon — then my entire family will really be together. I wasn't going to sleep until then.

Out of the corner of my eye, Rick gestured for Michonne and Carl to head back into the church with Gabriel silently trailing along.

I watched their footsteps disappear while my gaze was fixated on the ground beneath my feet.

"Hey," he spoke softly, placing his hand on the side of my neck. I looked up to meet his stare and he shifted in front of me, pulling me closer with his other hand. "We're going to bring her back." His thumb caressed my jaw softly.

I reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze with a quick nod. Judith's cries turned us away from one another and I immediately moved towards the front of the church to see her.

Carl stood on the front porch with Judith in his arms, passing her towards Rick carefully. Cries grew heavier, as if she sensed that we were leaving — no doubt realizing the numbers in our group were dwindling rapidly. It broke my heart to even think that Judith thought everyone was leaving her.

Rick kissed her forehead while cradling the back of her head. "Oh, baby," I whispered softly to her while taking a step closer to caress her cheek. "We'll be right back. We won't be gone for long."

He finally passed her to me and I gratefully took her into my arms — her small hands immediately reaching for my hair. I leaned my face closer towards her, breathing in her soft scent with my eyes closing briefly. Her cries subdued for a moment, visibly relishing in the comfort of my arms before I passed her back to Carl – much to my own dismay.

Her wails picked up again and she tugged on the last strand of hair harder, causing me to carefully remove her refusal of letting go. "I'm sorry, babygirl," I whispered with tears welling up in my eyes.

Carl hugged me sideways while still holding onto Judith, his head resting on my arm momentarily before letting go.

"You two better come back in one piece," Michonne demanded, a small worried smile weighing on her lips.

"We will," Rick nodded, now standing beside me with his arm circling around my waist. "Take good care of them," he nodded towards the woman.

The small group of us walked towards a black truck and I quickly looked back at the church when I heard the door shut and nails drive into the wood to keep everything outside out.

"At sundown we fire a shot into the air. Get two of them out on patrol. Then once it's dark enough that the rooftop spotter won't see us, we go. We cut the locks on one of the stairways, take it to the fifth floor. I open the door, Daryl takes the guard out."

"How?" Tyreese questioned.

"He slits his throat." Rick responded. "This is all about us doing this quiet, keeping the upper hand. They're not expecting us. From there, we fan out. Knives and silenced weapons. We need to be fast. Tyreese, Sasha, take them. Daryl, you take care of whoever is in the kitchen." He turned to me, giving a single nod with his eyebrows slightly raised. "Sienna, I know you might not like this job but I need you to stand back and keep outside grounded. You will be our back-up in case something goes down either outside or in. You'll have Tyreese and Sasha looking after you for the time being."

I took a steady inhale. "Okay." I didn't have it in me to fight the decision of keeping me outside, but from a logical stand-point if someone that wasn't Beth was trying to escape — I needed to be there to stop them.

Rick turned back towards the map. "I got Dawn. If they're smart — the rest of them will give up. Then it'll be five on three. Six on three once we get a weapon to Beth."

"12 on three." Noah corrected. "The wards will help."

Tyreese nodded his head in agreement. "That's best case." He then let out a sigh, "What's worst case? All it takes is one of those cops going down the hall at the wrong time. Then it's not quiet. All hands on deck. We're talking about a lot of bullets flying around."

"If that's what it takes." Sasha commented.

"It's not." Her brother corrected. "If we get a couple of her cops alive out here, we do an even trade. Theirs for ours. Everybody goes home."

"He's right," I piped up softly. "There's always a chance to end this without bloodshed. If she's willing to make a fair trade, we need to take it at the best possible moment."

Rick hovered his hand on my back, caressing it lightly with a nod. "Yeah, I get it. And it might work — this will work." He spoke sternly towards Tyreese.

I looked over towards Noah, slightly tilting my head to the side. "You say this Dawn, she's just trying to keep it together, right? Keep things peaceful?"

He slowly shook his head. "Trying and doing are two different things."

"So we can't rely on her cooperating?"

He shook his head again, his soft eyes piercing mine with a silent apology. My gaze immediately dropped to the ground.

"You take two of her cops away, what choices does she have?" Rick added. "It's going to force her to comply. She doesn't want to lose her people, we don't want to lose ours.  We make this as clean as possible. No killing — unless worse comes to worse."

Noah had become our bait in this game.

He ran, and he ran fast. Everyone here would know Noah once then spotted him and just like Tyreese predicted, we had two cops catching Noah. That's all we needed.

The man dressed as a cop was currently holding Noah's wrists after zip-tying them while the woman pointed the gun at him. Their backs were facing our fronts as we rounded the corner, all of our guns pointed in their direction.

"Hands." Rick ordered calmly, making the three turn around in sync.

"What do you want?" The man questioned after letting go of Noah to retrieve his gun. "Whatever this is, we can help."

"That's what we're hoping for," I muttered while moving around Rick with my gun pointed at both of the cops. "Do what we say and we won't hurt you."

The male cop slowly raised his hands. "Okay."

"Good. Now turn around. Put your guns on the floor and kneel." Rick ordered and I watched as both of them did as told — turning around and getting on their knees like Rick told them to do.

Both Sasha and Daryl zip-tied them both while I shifted towards Noah, moving the strap of my rifle over my shoulder and pulling out my knife to cut the zip-tie from his wrists.

"Mind if I ask you something?" I looked towards the male cops direction as he stood in front of Daryl, his hands behind his back. "The way you talk — the way you carry yourself — were you a cop?" Rick stared at the man, but did not speak. "Believe it or not, I was too." He smiled a bit, leaning forward as Daryl handled him.

"That's Lamson." Noah spoke softly between Rick and I. "He'll be down for this. He's one of the good ones."

When we were ready to go into step number two, a black car tires squealed, driving towards our direction with someone holding a gun out the window and firing at us. I quickly shoved Noah to the side and pulled out my rifle as I jumped to the side as well, shooting directly at the car as it came to a stop.

Whoever was in the car pulled the two other cops we managed to capture inside and quickly drove off before we got the chance to fully react.

We began following in the direction the car drove off in quick steps.

My heart was pounding against my chest — my eyes narrowing when I noticed the two cops running around the corner with their hands bound behind their back.

I only noticed two people — so where was the third? I stopped in my tracks as the others kept walking but not to my surprise Daryl had stopped in his tracks as well. He was smart and must've noticed the same thing I did.

As the others walked off, he whistled at me and nodded his head towards the black car. I held up my rifle at aim and we both slowly rounded it, checking inside the windows.

Once it was all clear, he then nodded his head towards the half burned down RV. I nodded my head in agreement, and followed beside him to the vehicle. There were burned bodies along the ground, some still were alive, snapping at us but unable to get up. As he opened the RV door quickly with his gun raised, nobody was inside reacting.

I took the chance to lower my gun until an arm was quickly thrown around my neck and a gun was pointed at my temple.

"Let her go," Daryl growled with his gun pointed at the man.

"Drop the rifle." The stranger behind me insisted but I held my grip tighter when I flickered my gaze towards Daryl, giving him a very subtle nod.

I tilted my chin in the opposite direction where the man pointed the gun, giving Daryl the opportunity to shoot a single bullet into the man's bicep.

A strangled yelp of pain caused me to flinch but his body slumped to the ground immediately. I jumped back just as Daryl stalked forward to hit him against the head with his gun. I quickly dropped down to my knees and zip-tied the man's hands behind his back with haste.

"You alright?"

I nodded eagerly, picking my gun back up and standing. "Three is better than two"

"Your friend, what's his name? I need to talk to him. Your plan is going to get me and my friends killed." The woman cop whose name was Shepherd, was trying to inform us of Dawn the moment we walked into an old abandoned building for cover.

"We're gonna make it work." Sasha stated.

"It would work if you had different cops to trade. Dawn's running Grady into the ground. A bunch of us want her out and she knows it. Pretty sure she knows we want Lamson to replace her, too."

The cop, who Daryl had taken down earlier, turned to look at Shepherd with furrowed eyebrows. "Dawn doesn't know that."

"She might. And she's smart." She pressed. "So there's a good chance you can't make this deal work and that'll leave us all dead. But if you let us go — we'll take care of Dawn ourselves and then we'll let your friends go and this is over."

My gaze flickered carefully back and forth between the trio. "No, we're not gonna do that." Lamson spoke up, causing all of our heads to turn and look at him. My eyebrow was slightly raised listening to them argue back and forth.

"Do you want to die?" Shepherd spoke frustratedly.

"No. I just need you to shut up right now."

Shepherd turned her head, defeated and looked down. There was silence in the room until Lamson spoke up again. "You can make this work. But you've got to be able to talk to her."

I shook my head, shifting on my feet then nodded towards Noah where he stood across the room with Rick. "Noah told us all about her."

"I've known her for eight years, ma'am." He stated. "I know this woman. And my only interest is peaceful resolution, not dying, and sleeping in my bed tonight. So, please, let me help you. Please."

I tilted my chin downwards, my arms crossing securely over my chest. "No bullshit? Because if you're lying — "

"You would just kill us anyway," he finished my own sentence.

Pursing my lips, I turned my head slightly towards Rick, without taking my gaze off the cops. "Hey, Rick?" I heard his heavy footsteps move quickly at the sound of my voice. He was at my side in seconds with his hand resting on my back. "Lamson wants to discuss other options."

I met Rick's soft stare before they hardened again looking back at the cops. "Alright."

After Lamson had explained his idea/plan — Rick surprisingly seemed like he wanted to follow through.

While Sasha spoke with the cops, Rick had pulled me aside towards the windows. His hand reached for mine, squeezing it gently. "I think I still want you outside, waiting," he explained. "I'd feel better knowing you were out there with your rifle in case things went downhill." I looked towards the window, slowly nodding my head. "We have to be careful Sienna, this could go in any direction."

I took a deep breath, my voice falling to a whisper. "I know, I just want this to be over with."

Rick shifted on his feet, allowing himself to look out the window then down at me. "I want you to promise me something." I raised my eyebrow slightly, looking away from the window and up at Rick while he stared down at me. "Promise me, you'll be there when I get back." A small smile formed on my lips when he held my face in both of his hands. "Don't wander off, don't charge through the building just — you don't move until she's in your arms."

His words were stern, his hold on my face becoming stronger but his thumbs caressed my cheeks. "I'm going to be the last person to walk out that building to make sure everyone gets out."

I slowly nodded my head understanding, causing him to tilt his head closer towards mine. "Use your words, baby."

"Okay," was all I managed to get out, but it was enough for him to accept with a firm kiss against my forehead.

dylan
unintentionally made that last bit attractive as hell... but we'll call it foreshadowing for future situations *rubs hands together like a tiny cockroach*