Sometimes a Married Sheriff Isn't a Bad Thing to Do in a Zombie Apocalypse

The climb was frightening enough with the height without adding a pile of walkers waiting at the bottom for one of them to fall. Katherine was in between Glenn and Rick again as they climbed up the ladder and with success went to the top of what looked like a mall building. Glenn helped Katherine up over the small wall and she then helped the struggling Officer, who was clutching his side and taking sharp breaths.

“Is it yer wound?” The youngest McKinney questioned with concern as Rick straightened himself up when they got over the wall and safely onto the roof of the building.

“Still hurts.”

“I’ll clean it up and bandage it fer ye once we’re inside, okay?” Katherine handed him a trusting smile, one that Rick couldn’t help but say yes to. She slipped her hand into his again, perfectly slotting together and they followed behind Glenn. “How much ferther?”

“Just across this roof.” Glenn answered with huff.

“Are you the one that barricaded the alley?” Rick asked the young man, the three of them heading across a walkway above an almost empty alley around the other side of the building. They came to another small wall in which Glenn jumped over, Katherine expertly and somehow seductively doing the same before Rick followed their actions.

“Somebody did… I guess when the city got overrun. Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through.” Glenn informed them, making his way over to a roof hatch

“That’s lucky if yer setting up shop in this place.” Katherine commented with admiration as Glenn opened up the hatch and threw his backpack down the hole before getting inside and resting against the ladder.

“Back at the tank, why'd you stick your neck out for us?”

“Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me. Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you.” Glenn gave a dopey smile and began to make his way down the ladder, Rick motioning for Katherine to go next and he helped her get on the ladder even though he knew she didn’t need it.

They made their way down the ladder, taking a few more shortcuts before making their way towards the exit of the building that they were in. Glenn took out the walkie talkie from his heavy backpack as he jogged along to the door and their were once again outside.

"I'm back. Got a couple of guests plus four geeks in the alley.” Glenn told over the walkie talkie and the three of them went down a rusting staircase to get into the almost empty, only to be met with two walkers facing them.

“I’m gettin’ real sick of these dicks.” Katherine grumbled, dropping Rick’s hand and walking forward, taking the switch blade from the pocket of her cut leather jacket. Glenn and Rick watched, frozen and unsure what to do as she kicked a walker in the chest with her boot and it fell to the ground. The other walker tried wrapping its arms around her but she slammed her knife into the skull before it got a chance. The walker fell to the ground with a thud and Katherine looked down to the one still under her boot. “Cunts.” She insulted again, slamming her boot on its chest again making it screech at her but it was cut off when a blade came through the toe of her boot and she shoved it into the chin of the walker. Katherine turned back to a shell shocked Glenn and Rick. “Coming?” She asked, wiping the blood from her jacket casually.

“Er-“ Glenn stuttered as two men came out of a silver door opposite her, baseball bats at the ready and layered in protective gear, only to see that there wasn’t any walkers to protect Glenn from because the brunette had slaughtered them both.

“You okay, Glenn?” A muffled voice called out behind the headgear.

“Peachy. Let’s go T-Dog.” Glenn and Rick run towards the door, Katherine following in suit and the men in the gear followed behind him.

“C’mon, Morales!” They got inside a small room to see two other women taking cover inside, and immediately Rick had a gun pointed in his face by a blonde who looked a little older than Katherine.

“You son of a bitch. We ought to kill you!” The blonde growled at him, shoving him in the chest and Rick stared down the barrel of the gun in fear.

“Just chill out, Andrea. Back off.” One of the men who had been layered in the gear commanded, revealing a chubby Mexican man. He was most likely the man that the other had named as Morales.

“Come on, ease up.” The dark woman in the corner of the room also said to the blonde now named Andrea.

“Ease up, Jacqui? You're kidding me, right? We're dead because of these stupid assholes!” A click came from the back of Andrea’s head and the people in the room froze when Katherine had pulled out her gun and pressed it against the back of Andrea’s head, cocking.

“Ye gonna put th’ gun down?” Katherine questioned the American, raising an eyebrow as she was prepared to shoot Andrea if she dared to harm Rick in any way. Andrea raised her hands in defense and Rick let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Pull a gun on us again, I’ll shoot ye before ye can beg fer yer life. Ye got me?” The sister questioned darkly and Andrea turned back to Rick, tears welling in her cold blue eyes.

"Katherine." Rick warned, putting his hand up to her.

"Ach, ye wanna get shot by this bitch, Rick?" Andrea lowered her gun when Katherine insulted her, holding it tightly in her hand as she looked back up at the Sheriff, angry.

“We're dead… All of us… Because of you two.”

“Please, ye did that by yerself fer setting up here.”

“I don't understand.” The Mexican grabbed Rick by the collar of his shirt and began to push him in the direction of a second open door, the small group heading down a hallway and the noise of smashing, banging and thumping was heard easier with every step they took.

“Look, we came into the city to scavenge supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving! You know the key to surviving? Sneaking in and out, tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it's the O.K. Corral!” With every end of sentence earned a shove.

“Every geek for miles around heard you popping off rounds.” T-Dog spoke up.

“You just rang the dinner bell.” Andrea informed, the group walking inside the first floor of the department store and saw a heavy group of zombies trying to break through two sets of glass doors.

“What the hell were you doing out there anyway?” Andrea quizzed Rick and Katherine, the Irishwoman’s gun now back in her holster but kept close eyes on Andrew, not fully trusting her itchy trigger finger.

“Trying te flag th’ helicopter.” Katherine answered her, looking over to the counter where the cash register had been abandoned as well as the jewels underneath the glass desk.

“Helicopter? Man, that's crap. Ain't no damn helicopter.” T-Dog replied dismissively and Katherine raised her eyebrows at the rudeness coming from buffer man.

“Beg yer pardon?”

“You were chasing a hallucination, imagining things. It happens.” Jacqui told Katherine with a matter of fact tone.

“How do ye know? Ye weren’ out der like we were.” Katherine snapped back angrily, taking a threatening move forward, unafraid of a group of amateur scavengers.

“We saw it, we did.” Rick convinced, noticing Katherine’s distress to the arguing between her, T-Dog and Jacqui.

“Hey, T-Dog, try that C.B. Can you contact the others?”

“Others? The refugee centre?” Rick interrogated with a hopeful voice.

“Yeah, the refugee centre. They've got biscuits waiting at the oven for us(!)” Jacqui replied sarcastically and Katherine frowned at how she shot Rick down. She watched as T-Dog fiddled around with the walkie talkie to try and get some sort of signal but there was nothing coming back. Rick made his way over to Katherine with a worried expression.

“Are you alright?” Katherine’s dazed expression turned to Rick, giving him a small sigh as her eyes glanced over to the waiting group.

“No. They’re blamin’ us fer this shite, let’s jus get what we came fer and go. I needed gas so I’ll get gas, the two of us can sneak outta th' alley, get a car and we’ll boo-boo.” Katherine planned out with determination and Rick placed his hands on his hips, exhaling. “What?” She asked innocently, mimicking his actions.

“Glenn saved us, we can’t just leave.”

“Aye we can. Let ‘em find their own way out.” Katherine shrugged nonchalantly, not too bothered about what could potentially happen to Glenn’s crew. They blamed Rick and Katherine for leading the walkers to the building but why the hell would they be somewhere that they couldn’t handle? At least Katherine had a lot of experience about how to go through this.

“Got no signal. Maybe the roof?” T-Dog suggested after a few minutes but a sudden repeated gunfire was heard from above them, on the roof.

‘That would also attract walkers.’ Katherine thought to herself narrowly and the group around her began to panic.

“Oh no. Is that Dixon?” Andrea questioned herself.

“What is that maniac doing?” Morales also jumped in, anger flooding the group and Glenn motioned for everyone to follow him back out of the back doors and up several flights of stairs to get access to the open door on the roof. Katherine and Rick followed behind lazily. They walked out onto the roof, seeing a man around in his fifties crouched on the corner of the building with a gun that Katherine thought was more than beautiful.

“Hey, Dixon, are you crazy?!” T-Dog ran forward, shouting at the older man and ‘Dixon’ simply laughed back cruelly, continuing to shoot the walkers below. Katherine and Rick stood back and watched the group lose their minds over the man up on the wall.

“Oh, jeez.” Andrea face palmed as Katherine watched the man get up from his crouching position and stood on the corner of the building with a wide smile, continuing to throatily chuckle in their direction. Even though he a little too old for Katherine’s taste, his arms were very toned and tensed when he clutched onto the gun.

“Hey! Y'all be more polite to a man with a gun! Huh? Ah! Only common sense.” He pointed at them with the sniper, grinning away. He jumped off the building and his blue eyes traced over each individual in the crowd and landed on Katherine with a curled smirk.

‘What is it with everyone being blue eyed?' Was the thought that ran through Katherine’s head first when she met Dixon’s hard stare, watching as he eyed her up lustfully and licked his bottom lip at the sight of her.

“Who is this pretty thing?” He asked them, gesturing to Katherine who was standing between Andrea and Rick. “You the girl in the alley? Damn, I saw them moves.” Dixon’s razor edge voice complimented her, unable to keep his eyes off the places that were exposed on her.

“Man, you wasting bullets we ain't even got!” T-Dog continued, ignoring his admiration to Katherine. Dixon turned back to the African-American man and let out a bellowing laugh at the fact he was talking to him. “And you're bringing even more of them down on our ass! Man, just chill!”

“Hey! Bad enough I've got this taco-bender on my ass all day, now I'm gonna take orders from you? I don't think so, bro. That'll be the day..” Katherine crossed her arms over her heavy chest and watched as the apparent racist made a look of disgust at T-Dog as he laughed once again. There wasn’t something right with this guy, he was swaying on the spot slightly and he seemed very erratic. Katherine saw that in a lot of drug addicts when she worked more than played. She could see that in Dixon.

“'That'll be the day'? You got something you want to tell me?” T-Dog quizzed him with a high voice, walking forward and Morales braced himself for what was going to happen between the two of them.

“Hey, T-Dog man, just leave it.” Morales advised carefully. “It ain't worth it. Now Merle, just relax, okay? We've got enough trouble.”

“You want to know the day?” Dixon gave him a taunting smirk.

“Alrigh, I'll tell you the day, Mr. 'Yo.' It's the day I take orders from a nigger.”

“Motherfuck-!” T-Dog went to throw a punch to the older and stronger man in front of him, but Dixon caught him with the butt of his gun instead and T-Dog fell like a sack of shit to the ground. Katherine gasped when Dixon picked him up from the ground again and threw another punch to T-Dog’s cheek.

“Hey, come on, Merle. That's enough!” Morales shouted his first name yet Merle Dixon continued to beat T-Dog into a bloody pulp.

“Stop it! Dixon, get off him! Dixon, you're gonna hurt him!” Andrea screeched, as well as everyone else.

“I gotta stop this.” Rick stepped forward before Katherine could pull him back and say no, but as Rick went to grab Merle and drag him off of T-Dog, Merle turned around and punched Rick as hard as he could and he went flying over the thick metal pipe going through the ground. Katherine ran over to Rick as quickly as she could, watching out for the punches and she helped Rick up from the ground. She could see he had a mark on his cheek and Rick spat a small amount of blood onto the floor from his mouth.

“What is it wit ye men and tryin’ te play th’ hero ey?” Katherine brought a hand up to his face, at first Rick believing that she was caressing him in concern but actually her thumb pressed down every now and again to make sure that Merle hadn’t fracture or broken Rick’s cheekbone. “Not broken.” She pulled her hand away but Rick caught it, staring down at her and Katherine couldn’t help but gaze back dreamily.

“No, no, no, please. Please.” Andrea’s begging was heard behind Katherine and Rick, making them snap out of it and turn around to see that Merle was standing over T-Dog with a handgun pointed at his face and had a victorious look across his aged features. There was a few seconds of pure silence, everybody waiting to see if he was going to pull the trigger. Merle spat on T-Dog’s chest and began to grin.

“Yeah! All right! We're gonna have ourselves a little powwow, huh? Talk about who's in charge. I vote me. Anybody else? Huh? Democracy time, y'all. Show of hands, huh? All in favour?” Hands were raised amongst the group who had pulled T-Dog away from Merle as he pointed a gun at everyone. “Huh? Come on. Let's see 'em. Oh, come on. All in favour? Yeah. That's good. Now that means I'm the boss, right? Yeah. Anybody else? Hmm? Anybody?” Merle asked around the group with a laugh and Rick moved forward again, grabbing a broken pipe from the ground with a natural instinct and smacked Merle in the back of the head with it.

Katherine joined Rick in helping lift Merle up and sit him against the large pipe and handcuffed one hand to it as he struggled, kicked and swore.

“Who the hell are you, man?!”

“Officer Friendly.” Rick replied, getting all up in his face with a hard tone and pulled the gun he had in his hand previously and tossed it to Katherine. “Look here,Merle. Things are different now. There are no niggers anymore. No dumb-as-shit, inbred white-trash fools either. Only dark meat and white meat, there's us and the dead. We survive this by pulling together, not apart.” As Rick spoke down to the erratic asshole, Katherine was pulling apart the gun, taking the loose bullet and putting it back in the magazine before slotting it back into the gun and cocking it within his speech. It was natural to her to disarm a man so professionally.

“Screw you, man.” Merle mumbled, slurred.

“I can see you make a habit of missing the point.”

“Yeah? Well, screw you twice.” Merle smiled but Rick looked towards Katherine and she tossed the handgun back to him, the Sheriff catching it with ease and then pressed it to Merle’s temple angrily.

“Ought to be polite to a man with a gun.” Rick growled, Katherine watching him closely with a smirk. “Only common sense.” He quoted and Merle gave him a dead panned stare. "Ain't that right, Kathy?"

"Sure is, Rick." Katherine acknowledged him back.

“You wouldn't. You're a cop.” Merle countered back. “And ya wouldn’t wanna do that in front of the lady here.”

“I’ve already killed. Do I look like I give a shite?” Katherine questioned him, Merle hearing her thick accent wrapping around her calm words.

“Oh great, the last big tit woman is a Leprechaun.” Merle grunted, Rick narrowing his eyes further at him. “Knew ya were too good to be true, Irish. I take it you’re his bitch?”

“All I am anymore is a man looking for his wife and son, anybody that gets in the way of that is gonna lose. Oh.” Rick leant forward a little more to he could speak lower without the rest of the group listening in. “If you look at her like that again, talk about her like that again or even think about her again, you’ll be getting more than a pipe to the head. I'll give you a moment to think about that.” Rick threatening voice made shivers run down Katherine’s spine as he warned Merle off of her. She almost smirked that Rick had become to care about her more.

Katherine rummaged through Merle’s pockets of his leather vest to pull out a small packet of cocaine, and gave a sly grin having confirmed her suspicions. Rick flicked Merle’s nose where a ring of white dust sat on his nostril.

“Got some on your nose there.” They were acting heavily like bad cop, worse cop but the group in front of them couldn’t deny that they were a great duo.

“What are you gonna do? Arrest me?” Merle burst out into laughter and Katherine sighed mockingly, pouting her dark pink lips.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Katherine patted his shoulder and got up from her crouching position and threw the plastic packet off the building with a strong throw. It took a moment before Merle realized that she had thrown away his drugs and anger boiled up inside of him.

"Bitch! That was my stuff! Hey! If I get loose, you'd better pray… Yeah, you hear me, you pigs?! You hear me?!" Merle screeched at them both loudly and the two walking away to the edge of the building without a single care in the world. Katherine leaned over closer to the Sheriff with a mischievous smile with the view of the fallen city in front of them.

"That was kinda hot when ye went all policeman on his ass." She grinned away cheekily, Rick's eyes glancing down at her and he couldn't help but twitch his lips upwards into a nervous smirk. Never once has he been called 'hot'.

"Couldn't be bad cop without your help." Rick countered back and Katherine flicked her long, multi-shaded hair over her shoulder with a wide smile.

"I'm pretty buckin' awesome aren' I?"

"Yeah, you are." Rick complimented sheepishly and Morales approached them slowly, looking at them both with his admiring expression, as if he just met his superheroes when he was a child.

"Yo." Katherine nodded to him and Morales leaned on the wall along with the other two.

"You're not Atlanta P.D. Where you from?"

"Up the road a ways." Rick replied to Morales, rubbing his hands together when they were shaking with the bundle of nerves and adrenaline that he was feeling in that moment.

"And you?" Morales turned to Katherine.

"Dublin. Came all th' way here so that cunt over der better watch his mouth." Katherine turned her head back to Merle who was still screaming at her and then back to Morales with a happy go lucky smile.

"Well, Officer Friendly from up the road a ways and friend, welcome to the big city.”