Chapter Text
Not going galloping into the city with a horse was for the best. The horse must have drawn the hoards of walkers, since none came tumbling out from their hiding spots to greet them. Min didn’t let this lower her guard, since she knew that they could pop out at any second.
The only downside to not riding on a horse was the fact that they had to leave the car. It was running low on gas, and it also didn’t fit through the rubble of the city like a horse could. Even worse was they had to leave most of the bags behind — again. All that hoarding Min did was for nothing, apparently. Still, each of them were given their own bookbag to carry, because Min was ready to start WWIII when they were just going to leave all of it.
Rick grabbed a bag — the bag. The sheriff bag of all the guns from the station, that she had completely forgotten existed and also completely missed him getting. He placed it over his shoulder, hat on his head. Min wanted to laugh at him, just a little, for still choosing to dress like a sheriff in the end of the world.
The group moved through the city. The effects of the napalm dropped evident – so is the general catastrophe that occurred during the last moments of society. Overturned cars, charred buildings, and bubbling bodies melted to the pavement.
Min shivered.
Chen made his way to her side. Min glanced down at him, and wide brown eyes stared back up. He reached for her hand, and she accepted, swinging their hands between them, while keeping a good grip on the kitchen knife in the other.
It was going good so far. Too good. Min felt the familiar feeling of something was about to go terribly wrong creep on her. She knew that already, of course, but that didn’t stop the nauseous feeling pooling in her stomach.
“No one’s here,” Chen noted in a stage whisper, louder than preferred. “I thought Morgan said there was?”
Lily and Rick shared a look over the heads of the kids. Connor was holding Chen’s other hand now, the three of them forming a chain. He was in the middle of trying to convince his mom to latch on when Chen interrupted him.
“Maybe further in?” Rick asked, though he sounded unsure. “Haven’t seen much of anything.” Though, much to Min’s enjoyment, he pronounced it anythang . She loved accents. She was going to lose it when she met Daryl.
“There’s not gonna be a camp,” Min said, “It looks like they bombed Atlanta. They wouldn’t bomb where they were keeping people safe.”
Lily looked back at her. She was as white as a sheet of paper, other than her eye bags. “It does look like that, doesn’t it…?”
“We don’t know that.” Rick disagreed, though he eyed the surrounding area warily.
Connor gasped suddenly, stopping Min in her tracks. She followed his eyes to the form of a stumbling corpse, masquerading as what once must have been a businessman, dressed in a fine suit. Though it was now stained with blood and gore.
Min dropped Chen’s hand, moving towards the walker, getting ready to kill it. She was stopped by the sound of a loud gunshot, and the body dropping. She blinked, turning to face Rick, who was in the middle of lowering his gun.
That idiot. That goddamned idiot. He was going to get them all killed.
“Mom?” Connor’s scared voice carried through, but was quickly overpowered by the sounds of the undead.
Min glanced around wildly. The hoard like in the TV show, instead of being brought out by the horse, was moving towards the gunshot. She grabbed Chen without thinking, pulling him forward. “Go!”
Lily grabbed Connor’s hand, and got behind Rick, who started shooting wildly into the crowd.
They moved as quickly as possible as a group, Min dragging Chen and Lily urging her son to go faster. Min didn’t look back at Rick, who was still shooting, but yelled at him, “Save your bullets!” He listened, the sounds dying down as they continued forward.
They passed by the overturned bus, which had its own small army of the undead hidden within. Lily shrieked at the sight, yanking Connor away, and Min followed quickly behind. Rick didn’t fire his gun again, instead choosing to pick up the speed.
This was different in the show, Min realized. Of course, there was no horse, but Min was pretty sure that Rick turned a corner and there met the hoard. Were they even close to the tank? Would they all fit in it? That was the only way she knew of to get into contact with Glenn, and she got this far, she was getting Rick to his family.
They continued on, somehow always ahead slightly of the hoard. Only slightly. One set back and they’d be walker food, and if it came between getting Rick to his family and Chen’s life, she was choosing Chen. She would always choose Chen.
Finally, after what felt like hours, the tank came into view. Min breathed out a sigh of relief and pointed towards it, making sure the two adults in the group realized just what she meant. They shared another look. Then, Rick gave a hesitant nod, and they were off.
The tank was, much to Min’s shock, bigger than the one in the TV show. This was worrying for two reasons — 1.) How the hell did the universe, or whatever, know that there was going to be more people, and 2.) Were there even bigger tanks? She always assumed there was one model, and that was all you got.
She wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, and did not voice any concerns when Rick started herding their group underneath it. Unlike the show, where Min had such a clear picture of Rick pressing a gun to his head before realizing he could climb up in, Min wasted no time in locating the latch and letting them all in.
Another difference to that scene was that they weren’t absolutely swarmed with the undead. It got to the point where she couldn’t even blame the horse anymore, the total lack of hordes of undead like seen on the show caused a raised eyebrow, which luckily went ignored by everyone else.
Was it TV drama? There was a hoard, yes, but looking at it objectively, it was nothing compared to the corpses wandering around in AMC’s version. Hell, they hadn’t even been cornered yet, and Min could just barely make out a few scuffed up shoes of the undead by the time Rick helped her into the tank.
It was troubling. Did that mean that other than what she changed,, there were just changes in general? Did she really know everything that was going to happen? If she could completely change the way Rick gets into Atlanta, what was next? Accidentally changing who died? What if she got Rick killed before he ever got back to his family?
“Min?” It was Chen. Min felt like she was underwater, and after taking a deep breath, which shuttered in her chest, she realized she was one more thought away from spiraling into a panic attack. What she wouldn’t give for a Xanax.
(Maybe Merle Dixon had some in his little junkie stash?)
“Hmm?” Min hummed back, only to nearly jump out of her skin when the dead soldier, now walker-ified, let out a low, strained groan.
Lily shrieked, a hand flying to her mouth, and pulled Connor to his side. Both boys stared with wide eyes, like they couldn’t believe it, and Rick (who unfortunately was sitting beside it) let out a horrified breath of air and raised his gun.
“Don’t!” Min practically shouted, but it was enough to startle the man into lowering his gun. He eyed her curiously, “If you fire that in here you’ll blow our eardrums out.” She reached for her knife, stabbing it through the front of the walker’s dead. “See? Silent and less painful.”
She felt like she was explaining not to pull a cat’s tail to a toddler. But she guessed that about summed up early Rick Grimes. He didn’t start out a badass, and waking up two months into the apocalypse did create a steep learning curve.
Rick found a handgun on the ground of the tank, from the dead man, probably. Min, however, started raiding his pockets. Lily gave her a disturbed glance from her spot against the wall, where Connor was curled up against her lap, but Min paid her little mind. The grenade was in here, and she wanted it. Why? She had no clue, since she was not planning on walking into the death trap that was the CDC. She’d find a use for it, somehow.
While she was doing that, everyone else fell silent. She had a feeling the two adults were contemplating the situation they found themselves in, and how they probably weren’t getting out of this with their lives. Min was waiting for the radio to come to life.
And it did, right when Min found the grenade hidden away in the soldier’s pocket. It hummed to life, giving off that radio-frequence sound, before a voice filled the uneasy quiet, “ Hey, you guys in the tank .” Glenn did not sound as chilled as he did in the show, and also didn’t include any of his taunting insults.
Maybe because he saw that there were kids in there? People tended to treat women and children differently than a lone male, and Glenn wasn’t a prick, he was just having a laugh at Rick’s expense.
No one moved to answer. Min was finding a secure place to store the grenade now, and Lily and Rick were staring at the radio with disbelieving eyes. “ Hey, are you alive in there? ”
Min finally glanced up at the sound of something hitting metal and Rick’s pained groaned, it seemed that he hit his head standing up too quickly. She eyed everyone else. Lily was still sitting against the wall, Connor in her lap, and Chen was sitting beside her. He had been watching Min the whole time, she wondered if he saw the grenade.
She hoped that if he did, he wouldn’t be getting any crazy ideas about it. She was in no way letting her brother near something that exploded, thank you very much. That’s how you end up with a dead kid.
Rick picked up the radio in a rush, “Hello? Hello?”
“ There you are, you had me wondering ,” And, once again, Glenn sounded actually relieved. Maybe he did care more than she remembered in the show?
Rick kept talking, “Where are you? Outside? Can you see me right now?”
“ Yeah, I can see you. You’re surrounded by walkers. That’s the bad news .”
“There’s good news?”
“ No .”
Min would have laughed if all their lives weren’t at stake. Glenn always was her favorite character, and she hoped he didn’t end up sucking in real life. Or getting his head bashed in.
“Listen, whoever you are, I don’t mind telling you that I’m a little concerned in here.”
“ Oh man, you should see it from over here. You’d be having a major freak out. ” Min frowned, moving so she sat against the wall, too, on Chen’s other side. She was letting Rick handle this little walkie-talkie conversation, since it worked out fine enough in the TV show. Also because she had no other ideas to add. She really didn’t mean for them to end up in the tank.
Rick sounded exhausted, “Got any advice for us?”
A brief pause on Glenn’s side, then, “ How many of you are there? ”
“Five, three kids.”
Min was confused, until she remembered that oh yeah, she was a kid, too.
“ Man, I’d say make a run for it. ”
“That’s it? ‘Make a run for it’?”
The conversation continued on, like it did in the TV show. Min stopped paying attention, probably not a good thing, but she’s too focused on Chen now, who’s shaking and has tears in his eyes.
“What is it?” She asked, though she felt dumb asking, since she knew why. They are trapped in a tank in the middle of a walker infested city, and a random man on the radio is telling them what to do.
Chen shifted, wide eyes staring up at her, “Are we going to die?”
Lily made a small noise at that, one of fear, and Connor shifted and shoved his head into the crook of his mother’s neck, obviously scared by the prospect.
Min moved her eyes from them, and back down to Chen, who’s eyes were now watery. “Of course not,” Min answered, “We’re going to be fine, we have Sheriff Rick on the case.”
Rick didn’t respond to his name, and Min peeked over at him, where he was still having a conversation with Glenn. Which was probably for the best, because she would have felt shitty if she made his stress even worse, by putting this all on him.
Well, it all was sorta on him. But still, he didn’t need a verbal reminder.
“Are you sure?” Chen asked.
“Positive.”
She really hoped she wasn’t lying.