Don't Die

She knew something was wrong when he insisted very little and had an annoying smile on his face, but she wouldn’t take her chances to investigate his intentions any further. All Michonne wanted was to get the fuck out of there, make sure nobody followed, and go back home.

She was followed.

The governor sent four man after her, she counted as she hid in the woods. I mean, the man finds a woman in the woods, takes her somewhere, offers that she stays and when she says no thanks, they try to fucking kill her! What kind of a sick motherfucker does that?

They were out there to kill her and my chest tightened just to think of it when she told me. Four armed men against one woman with a sword. But Michonne… Man, that was Michonne, so they had no fucking idea what they were up against. The woman was fierce and when she was angry she got even more dangerous. And they pissed her for real. Three of them were dead already, heads rolling away from their bodies when they hadn’t even seen her approach, among the walkers that had come to their noise in the woods. She’d had to kill them as well and got covered in guts in the process, when the last one of the men shot her in the leg. It was a graze on the back of her thigh, but it was enough to slow her down from limping and pain.

She found a parking lot of a grocery store on the side of a road but had no time to try to find a place to hide because there was a car approaching, so she just hid anyway she could behind an abandoned van. From the red, decrepit car, a woman came out with a gun, followed closely by the driver. They both looked thin but clean and healthy, and they both did a quick swipe around.

“Clear outside,” the woman announced and they seemed to relax. Well, it wasn’t clear because Michonne was there watching them through the dirty windows of the car, so they really, really should have been more careful. But they weren’t, seeming too confident as people who probably had been doing this for a long time now.

“Alright, let’s take a look,” the man said but the woman approached him and they kissed, smiling and sweetly, speaking tenderly to each other. Then, when the man broke open the door and walked in, the woman stayed outside.

“Glenn? Get that duck!” she told him.

“What?” he asked from the inside.

“Get that duck!”

“Are you serious?”

“A kid growing up in a prison could use some toys.”

Michonne had a start at this whole dialogue. Glenn? She’d heard that name somewhere, it rang a bell but she couldn’t remember clearly then, because she was scared, hurt, tired, and she didn’t connect the name to my stories. She didn’t know then that it was Glenn.

Second thing was the mention of the prison. The prison she planned to go to before she was found by the Governor’s men. A kid growing up in a prison. These two people had a group and they were living in the prison and there was a child there.

And the Governor’s men were around. She needed to warn them. They seemed to be good people, and people who are out there caring about children should not be found by the Governor.

“We just hit the powdered formula jackpot!” the man said minutes later when he left the store.

“Thank God!” the woman commented.

“I also got beans, batteries, cocktail wieners, many mustards! It’s a straight shot back to home from here. We’ll probably make it in time for dinner.”

“I like the quiet. Back there, back home, you can always hear them outside the fence no matter where you are.”

Michonne knew they had to just shut the fuck up about home and the prison because there were Governor’s men around and goddammit you don’t just talk aloud about your place in the open like that! Didn’t people know anything?!

She was going to warn them, decidedly. But before she could get up with difficulty from her crouched position, the last standing man that had been sent to kill her in the woods arrived, gun pointed at the woman, asking where was it that they were calling home. It was a whole, quick mess after that, the couple pointing their guns, the man shooting to distract them and grabbing the woman, making her hostage. It was like two minutes and they were in the car, leaving, the sonofabitch who was trying to kill Michonne talking the couple to Woodbury.

All Michonne could think not was shit, shit, shit. And she wasn’t even one to curse too much. So these two were good people who lived in the prison and there was a group and a child, a baby, because they were taking cans of formula there. And now the cans were abandoned there and there was a baby that needed it. The decision was made even before she could stop and consider it. Limping, she took the basket and made her way to the prison, which she knew exactly where it was. She had to bring the baby the formula and let their group know what had happened. She’d be damned if she let the Governor destroy yet another community.

And I wasn’t there, but I was told.

Michonne limped her way to the prison carrying the basket with the formula. She was scared, she tells me. She knew nothing good would happen to those two at Woodbury, she was hurt, hungry and thirsty, feeling faint from losing blood and the goddamn heat, and worried about going back home and about helping the baby, whoever this baby was.

She limped among the walkers who didn’t detect her with the blood and guts and marched straight to the diamond shaped fence of the prison. Someone saw her from afar and made his way to her, reaching the inner fence just as she reached the outer.

Michonne says she remembers thinking damn when she saw him, but didn’t linger in the thought.

He stared at her, utterly confused, and she grabbed the fence with her hand, looking straight at him as to convince him she was a living person, yes, he was seeing it right. Before he could act on anything, though, the walkers around finally recognized her as living and she had to drop her bag and the basket, take the katana out and fight them.

“Should we help her?” She heard someone else from the inside of the fence, but paid no mind. She was weak and fainting, and fell to the grass amidst the hungry dead.

She was inside when she came to herself again, lying on top of a blanket on the floor with people standing above her and the men from the fence way too close.

“Who are you?” he asked her. In reflex, she tried to reach for her katana, scared and confused, and he kept it away from her. “No! We’re not gonna hurt you unless you do something stupid first, aright?”

“Rick?” somebody said as he entered the room. “Who the hell is this?”

She tried sitting up.

“You wanna tell us your name?”

She was shocked wordless.

“You wanna tell us your name?” he repeated, annoyed.

Rick.

Glenn.

A redneck with a sleeveless shirt.

She’d found them.

She says she was considering just blabbing out “Shit I found you all!” or simply yelling “Sam’s alive!” but Rick was too suspicious of her already, and how the hell do you break a piece of news like this to people who thought their former leader was dead?

“Ya’ll come on in here,” the man that she knew to be Daryl, nobody had to say his name for her to know, told Rick.

“Everything alright?” Rick asked without taking his eyes off Michonne.

“You gonna wanna see this.”

Rick then gave orders for the others around to go in and for the boy – Carl, who Michonne knew the story about the shooting and all, to take the basket with the formula. They all obeyed with no questions, but the boy made a point in taking Michonne’s backpack with him as well. The radio was in there.

“We’ll keep this safe and sound,” Rick said showing her the katana in his hands. The doors are all locked. You’re safe here. And we can treat that.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” was all her surprised, still weak mind could make her say.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rick turned and walked away. “We can’t let you leave.”

So then went into a large corridor and Daryl – Daryl! – locked the door behind them.

And I was there, at the Village, getting a freaking haircut and then deep cleaning my house when Michonne was in the same room with Daryl!

She sat up, her back against the bars of a jail cell, trying to breathe normally, get her wits back, and she even laughed a little. She knew how happy I’d be; she knew how much this encounter would change everything in our lives. But then, with a start, she knew my friends were taken to Woodbury, to the Governor, and that they were in serious trouble. The Governor would do anything to find out where their community was.

Getting up with difficulty, she limped her way to the locked door and saw the group in there. There were around a woman who was crying and the baby she’d brought the formula to. She remembered my stories about me not being the only pregnant woman. The baby was there, born and alive.

Minutes later they returned and came on strongly asking questions. They did not seem amicable to her even though she’d just brought the baby stuff, keeping it from going hungry tonight, and yet they were not friendly at all.

“We can tend to that wound for you,” Rick came saying, “give you a little food and water and then send you on your way. But you’re gonna have to tell us how you found us and why you were carrying the formula.”

“I’ve always known where this prison is,” she explained and she got up from her spot, “but even if I didn’t, the man who dropped the basket, the Asian boy with the pretty girl, they spoke of it aloud for anyone to hear. You might wanna tell your people to be more careful.”

“Hold up a moment now,” Rick said not allowing her to move on. “He dropped the basket? What happened?”

“Were they attacked?” the senior without a leg asked, his voice deep but trembling a little with worry.

“They were taken.”

“Taken? By who?”

“By the same sonofabitch who shot me. And destroyed my community before.”

“Hey, these are our people! You tell me what happened!”

At that, Rick pressed his hand to her bullet would, violent and angry and she felt less and less like telling them about me. She was considering just leaving and going home to tell me, and I’d decide what to do. Why would she give these people good news if they were locking her in and pressing fingers to her wounds?

She defended herself, pushing him away and pointing a finger at his face, “Don’t you ever touch me again!”

And then Daryl had the crossbow pointed at her, “You’d better start talking or you gonna have a bigger problem than a gunshot wound!”

She stared at him over the bow. She couldn’t even believe she was in front of the man she’d heard so much about, Merle’s brother, for fuck’s sakes, but was under his arrow’s aim. Michonne was never one to be too sweet to unknown people or too patient, and she was at the end of hers already.

“Find them yourself!” she told Daryl and Rick made him lower the crossbow.

“You came where for a reason,” Rick told her, making her stop for a moment to remember the reasons. They had almost slipped her mind. It was to bring the baby the formula and to help people who seemed to be good to be rescued from the Governor’s hands. So she breathed in and told them about Woodbury and the man himself.

“And where the hell is this place?” Rick asked after she explained.

“South. I’ll show you.”

“And how do I know you’re not bullshitting us? That you’re not leading us to a trap?”

“You don’t,” she told him simply.

“I’ll tell you what, then. You’ll point us in the direction and we’ll go check if this place is real. You’ll stay here. In there,” Rick pointed to the outer cell. “If we see it’s real, I’ll believe you and then we’ll go get out friends back.”

“You’re locking me up,” she affirmed angrily. “After I came all the way here to help?”

“Anyone can say they’re trying to help and then fuck us up. This is how this is gonna be and end of discussion.”

 * * *

 I’d told Merle that Michonne had intended to go to the prison that day, so it was easy for him to find it. From afar, he saw it wasn’t overtaken by walkers anymore and that there were people in there, living, the only walkers were outside at the fence, aimlessly trying to reach someone. He knew if Michonne had come here and found people, and was missing for over a whole day, the chances that she was in there were huge.

He observed for a long time, the knife attached to the hand and a pistol on his waistband, holding up the binoculars to try and understand the place and the people in there before deciding on what to do. It didn’t take long for the answers to become clear.

Merle started laughing, not believing his eyes, because it was just not fucking possible that he was seeing his baby brother come out of the building and start packing a car with stuff with other people, one of them the young kid Merle remembered from the quarry camp.

It was Daryl. He’d found his brother.

Fighting not to let the emotion of it came out, because this was Merle, he was a changed man but he didn’t do feelings, Merle walked his way in the open to the fence of the prison, without knowing he was repeating exactly what Michonne had done just a while ago. The people inside stopped to look at the foreign movement for the second time that day, and Merle could see the moment Daryl recognized him. He extended a hand to make another man Merle didn’t know lower his weapon and started walking in his direction.

Merle was laughing aloud as he stabbed walker after walker in the brain on his way there and reached the gate just as Daryl did too.

“Hey there, little brother!”

Daryl was shocked, eye wide looking at a man he thought he’d never see again. A man, in all honesty, he had gotten well used not to have around.

“Merle?” he asked

“As I live and breathe!” Merle laughed aloud. “Knew I’d find ya one day or another!

“How?”

“How I found ya?” Merle looked around at the walkers approaching. “Ya really wanna discuss that right now?”

Daryl looked back to exchange a look with Rick, who was standing there a little behind, hearing it all, seeming just as shocked and, with reason, worried. Daryl didn’t wait for an authorization though, he unlocked the gate, allowed Merle to step in and locked it back again.

And was surprised out of his shit by a tight hug given by his big brother. Perhaps the first one in their entire life.

“Fuckin’ shit, baby brother, it’s good to see you!”

Not knowing what to do and way too stunned, Daryl hugged him back, patting his back. When Merle let go, Daryl repeated the question, “How did you find us?”

“Came looking for my friend, one I believe you got in there?” Merle explained. “Ebony ninja warrior?”

“Your friend?” Rick asked and Merle turned to him.

“Yeah, Sheriff!” Merle yelled at him, laughter in his voice. “Did ya handcuff her to a pipe? That how ya greet people ya just met?”

“She ain’t handcuffed,” Daryl told him.

“So ya do got her in there! Michonne, with the katana?”

“Yeah, she’s in there alright,” Daryl told her.

“Yeah… As glad and I am to see ya, baby brother, I’m gonna have to see with my own eyes if she alright, if ya don’t mind. Don’t like that tone ya got there.”

Merle tried talking away and into the prison but Rick put a hand up to stop him, Daryl rushing to stand by Rick.

“Not you hold up a minute. How is that that she finds us out of the blue, and them minutes after you find us too?”

“Didn’t find ya, dickhead!” Merle said crossing his arms, the knife poking out of his stump up but not intentionally threatening. “Knew all along this prison was here. We got a place a few miles away.”

“You gonna tell us it’s Woodbury?” Daryl asked him.

“It ain’t. And no more bullshit, I ain’t telling ya anything else until I see Michonne’s safe and sound!”

 * * *

 She was standing, wound tended to, arms resting on the bars and hanging outside, looking pissed out of her mind at anyone around, when she saw Merle come in. Her expression changed immediately and she straightened up, stunned to see him there.

“Merle!”

He walked straight to her, looking at her up and down to check she was fine, “What the fuck is she locked in for?!” he asked when he turned around and away from her.

“She says our friends were taken,” Rick said.

“You remember Glenn from camp,” Daryl completed and Merle turned to look at Michonne again.

“The Governor’s got them,” Michonne told and then added really low, “You know she’s gonna wanna get them back.”

“You told ‘em?”

“I haven’t. I wasn’t the best reception.”

“Whatever you’re whispering over there,” Rick stopped them. “We gotta go get our friends back.”

“Ya ain’t answered my question!” Merle yelled as he turned to them again. “Why the fuck’s she locked up?”

“’Cause ain’t no way we know she’s telling the truth!” Daryl answered in the same.

“They think I’m lying about Woodbury and it’s some sort of trap.”

“Bullshit!” Merle yelled again. “This woman don’t lie! She says china boy was taken to Woodbury, then china boy was taken to Woodbury!”

“Either way we’re gonna go see if it’ real before –”

“It real! I lived there once. Worked for the governor ‘til I quit’em!”

“Not gonna help them trust us, Merle,” Michonne told him.

“Yeah, Merle, that don’t help a lot,” Rick told him.

Merle was silent for a moment until he slowly started laughing. The others looked confused at each other but said nothing.

“Stepped up at the leader then, have ya? How well it turned out for ya that yer friend Officer Sniffers offed her, ain’t it? The original leader of this group? Sam?”

Rick looked enraged but it was Daryl who reacted, walking quickly to Merle and stopping right at his face, “How the fuck you know that happened? Huh?!”

Merle didn’t flinch nor defend himself, he just kept smiling, and very low and softly said, “Cause she ain’t dead, little brother. Sam’s alive.”

Everything froze.

Eyes wide in his brother’s, Daryl shook his head fast and nonstop for a long moment.

“No. No, ya full of crap. She ain’t –”

He stopped to see Merle raise his eyebrows and just nod for a moment. “She didn’t die that night, Daryl,” and then he looked at Rick, who had his eyes wide and completely shocked with the information. “Ya saw it all wrong, Sheriff. Girl wasn’t dead yet. Ya shot the man and he stopped killin’ ‘er. Was no dead yet.”

“I saw her,” Daryl was saying nearly over him. “I saw it too, she was turned, was with the walkers, I saw her!”

“Covered in guts and blood,” Michonne said from inside her cell and Daryl looked at her. “Too hurt to run or fight the walkers. I know all about that story too. I know what you saw.”

Daryl stepped away from Merle and started pacing with no direction, repeating “No” over and over, hands in his head.

“That’s – not,” Rick was trying to speak, his head low, “he was on her. Strangling. She was down… I couldn’t… I couldn’t… Get to her with the walkers, she was… She was dead,” and he looked up to Merle and then to Michonne. “She wasn’t dead?”

“I can say it over and over again,” Merle said impatiently. “Little Miss Tattoo blondie princess Sam Danes,” and then he shouted as loud as he could, “IS FUCKIN’ ALIVE!”

Rick sat down and Daryl was frozen staring at Merle. Other people started coming in having heard all the interaction and asking questions, confused, and Merle just rolled his eyes and turned away from them. He’d never liked these people anyway and there were even people he hadn’t met before. He turned his back to all of them and rested his arms on the cell bars with Michonne. She nodded at him with a smile, knowing one of them would have had to tell one moment or another.

“Where is she?” Daryl asked, his voice shaking, as he stood nearer now. There was silence from the others. “You tell me where she is,” he insisted when Merle said nothing. “You take me to her!!”

“Now why the fuck would I do that?!” Merle swirled around to face his brother, angrily. “When you’re keeping her best friend locked up in a fucking cage?!”

After another stunned moment, the reaction came from someone nobody was expecting. They described her as a mousy woman with short grey hair – Carol moved from her spot over to Rick and took the ring of keys forcefully from his waist.

“Hey!” he reacted trying to take it from her and Carol moved it out of his reach, ignoring him completely and moving to the cell. She struggled a little to find the right key but unlocked and opened it, and then looked at Michonne through the open door.

“If you’re Sam’s friend, you’re my friend.”

With a stunned smile, Michonne nodded at her and stepped out of the cell. Merle rested a hand on her shoulder, looking over her and she nodded at him too, telling him she was alright.

“I want my bag and my sword back,” she said looking around and finding Rick’s eyes. The man was stunned, mouth opened. “She sent you after me?” she asked Merle.

“Yeah, was bitchin’ ‘bout you going out alone and that she ain’t gonna allow it no more.”

“Where’s your radio?”

Merle reached to the back of his waistband and took it from there. “Don’t know it’s in range.”

Michonne pressed the button, “Sam, you there?”

“Michonne?! You okay?!”

In the prison, there was silence for a second and then people started laughing, perked up at my voice coming out of the radio. Daryl froze again, looking at the radio in Michonne’s hand as if he would be able to see me though there.

Merle says his eyes were filled with tears and they started falling then, his chin trembling a little.

Oh, my Daryl! And I had no idea I was so close to seeing him again!

“I’m fine!”

“Is Merle there?”

“Yes, he found me.”

Merle took the radio from Michonne then and pressed the button before I could answer, “How ya doin’ Sammy girl!”

They all heard me say “Don’t call me Sammy” and there was a little laughter around. Everyone had heard me say it before, it was like it was a proof it was really me. “Where are you? You coming home?”

Merle and Michonne exchanged a look.

“Not yet, I’d say,” Merle gave his opinion.

“Yeah,” Michonne agreed. “Not the kind of thing you tell over the radio.”

“It’s dark outside,” Merle said looking out a high, small barred window. “We’ll take’em there in the morning.”

“Michonne?”

“No!” Daryl stopped them. “Now. You’ll take me there now!”

“Listen, I don’t know what your leader’s orders are,” Michonne said to Daryl and she threw a dirty look at Rick, “But ours says no travelling at night or even staying outside in the dark unless you can help it. Sam’s own decision,” and she pressed the button to speak again before he could answer. “We’ll be back a first light tomorrow. Too dark already.”

“Are you safe? Gonna be safe until morning?”

“We’re safe, don’t worry.”

“Good. Good, okay. Thank you for reaching out, I was sick worried here.”

“I know you were,” she said smiling and asked “How are things there?”

“All in order,” I informed her. “Found two kids in the woods and brought them home yesterday. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Please, no delays in the morning, okay?”

“You got it. We’ll see you soon. Good night!”

“Night. G’night, asshole!”

He just laughed there, by Michonne, and they said no more on the radio.

“Is this for real?” Carol asked Michonne.

“You’re Carol, right?” Michonne asked and Carol nodded. “How would I know that if Sam hadn’t told me?”

Carol smiled bringing her hands to her mouth and then she looked at Daryl, who was still utterly stunned. Michonne, seeing where she was looking and sensing Daryl’s distress, poked Merle and pointed at his brother. Merle got it instantly.

“Come on, little bother. Let’s go on and get ourselves a little jabber.”

It was dark outside when they sat together overlooking the vast grassy area in front of the prison, stray walkers far at the fence not causing any trouble for now.

“You gotta tell me you ain’t bullshitting me,” Daryl started as he got up again after sitting for just seconds and paced in front of his brother. “That ain’t the kinda thing you joke about.”

Calmly, Merle took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one up before offering it to Daryl, who hesitated just for a moment before taking one too.

“I know all about the CDC. Atlanta… The farm, the kid who got shot, the girl who died in the woods, the fuckin’ barn. Know all about you two hookin’ up. About the sonofabitch tryin’ ta murder ‘er. Ya tell me how’d I know it all is she ain’t alive.”

Daryl said nothing, just kept pacing, smoking quickly, deep puffs.

“Guess I’ll only believe when I see’er,” he finally said. “’Cause that ain’t possible. I saw her… Saw her walkin’. Rick saw her on the ground, Shane strangling her –”

“And then he shot the man but couldn’t go there to check on’er ‘cause of the herd that was right there. Then ya saw her up and walkin’ among’em. Ain’t that what happened?” and Daryl just nodded, a bit too fast showing how nervous he was. “She’d killed a walker before, was covered in blood and guts. She was alive, little brother.”

“Mean she saw me? Then? When I saw’er?”

Merle nodded gravelly. “Saw ya… Heard ya too.”

Daryl threw the butt of the cigarette angrily to the ground them and brought his hands up to rub his face, turning his back to Merle to hide his emotions as he usually had to do his whole life. He’d be teased if he demonstrated any feelings. Merle didn’t judge, though, not this Merle. He just stayed in silence, knowing the question that was gonna inevitably come. Daryl turned to him again after a long moment and finally asked.

“The baby?”

Merle also threw his cigarette as he got up and took two steps to stand in front of Daryl, and rested a hand heavily on his shoulder and breathed out slowly before telling him.

“Sorry, brother. Your boy didn’t make it.”

Merle says Daryl was unable to keep holding it together then. He cried, his head lowering as he stepped away from Merle and paced around, nervous, grieving. He walked over to the closest fence and held on tightly to it, leaning down. I can only imagine what he was feeling. He’d mourned me and the baby before, went through all the pain and the feelings, and the he hears I’m alive and nearby and then this flicker of hope for the baby as well, only to get mercilessly crushed, and the mourning for him coming back, fresh and kicking. Repeated mourning.

He stayed like that for minutes, Merle could hear him cry quietly from where he stood, lit another cigarette, and just waited in silence. After a while Daryl moved back to him.

“How?” he asked with his voice trembling.

Merle shook his head, “Was born too early. But that’s her story to tell, brother. That and others I’m sure she’ll want to be the one to tell.”

Daryl nodded ad he bit on his lower lip, staring at Merle for a moment. “Ya different, Merle.”

“Clean. Bet ya never seen me like that before.”

“Never. Clean all the way?”

“The occasional weed don’t count, now do it?” and Daryl shook his head. “Yeah, bro, clean all the way. But that ain’t all,” Merle said as he turned to go sit back down. Silently, Daryl followed him but didn’t sit, he stood there near his brother. “Got a home now. Real one, not like the shit you and I had growin’ up. Girl gave me a home, job, responsibility, got me convinced I could do it. Know that if I fuck up now, be fuckin’ up a whole lotta other stuff wi’me.”

It was clear Daryl had no idea what to say to it because it probably felt like this was a complete stranger talking to him. This was not the Merle Daryl knew, and it was not the Merle I had known either, but I’d been living with this new person for months so I was used to it. Daryl would too.

“Where is it?” Daryl asked already with another cigarette. “Where ya’ll live? Is it near?”

“Nearer than ya’d think but if I tell ya now ya gonna slip away and go there tonight. Know ya, little brother. Nah, talking ya there in the morning along with these assholes. Gonna surprise the fuck outta Sammy girl.”

“Don’t call her Sammy.”

 Day 310

 Daryl woke up everyone who was going before sunrise. Merle and Michonne had shared an empty cell, Merle with a mattress on the floor and Michonne on the bunk bed, both of them extremely uncomfortable for being inside a jail cell and in such bad beds. They were used to their own homes and nicer mattresses in real bedrooms.

He was already out by the car, the same one they’d packed the day before in the postponed intention of going to Woodbury. They’d need the stuff, because the plan was to go to the Village, get me, have a reunion and whatever, and then we’d all go to Woodbury to rescue Glenn and Maggie. How did they think a reunion like this would go simply and quickly, I had no idea, but I don’t think Daryl was even thinking straight. They tell me he was pacing, nervous, snapping at everyone for being too slow and that they had to go now. They didn’t even eat, just finally followed Daryl into the car, Rick driving, Michonne in front with him and Merle and Daryl behind.

“Where is this place, anyway?” Rick asked as, with Michonne instruction, they got to the empty road.

“We call it the Village,” Michonne told them. “South of Brooks, not even ten miles east from here.”

“Ya been that near… How long?” Daryl asked from the back seat

“Four months or so,” she answered. “Had a lot of work to get it going. You all haven’t been at the prison for too long, have you?”

“Not long. Just a few days, in fact,” Rick told her.

“You were on the road all this time?”

Rick nodded silently for a moment, “Yeah… All this time.”

Before the conversation could move on, both Merle and Michonne’s radios came to like, startling them all.

“Sam, do you hear me?”

Rick looked back at Daryl, both of them trying to understand it.

“That’s Mikki,” Merle said to everyone.

“Clearly, what’s up?” they heard me answer.

“I see cars coming down the road towards us, bit slow.”

It was Michonne and Merle who exchanged a look then.

“Pro’ly Merle and Michonne coming back,” I said again to all their ears.

“We ain’t that close, are we?” Daryl asked to no one specific.

“Nope. Not their cars.”

“I’m on my way.”

There was silence on the radio again.

“Hey Sheriff, it’d be nice is ya could put pedal to metal over there!” Merle barked at Rick.

“Sam, quick, they’ve stopped!”

“Shit!” Michonne cursed from her seat.

“You’re armed, right?” they heard me ask and also heard my feet hitting the ground.

“I am, but they –”

“Did we lose signal?” Michonne asked worried, looking back at Merle.

“No, she just stopped talkin’.”

“Mikki?!” I called from the radio.

Rick had sped up already and Merle lifted his radio to speak, “What’s goin’ on over there?”

“Gonna know in a minute!”

“That happens a lot? People coming to the gate?” Rick asked

“Just once before…” Michonne answered and looked back, exchanging a meaningful look with Merle.

Three or four minutes in silence later, when they had already turned from one road to another, accelerating towards the Village, both radios spoke again.

“Miranda, you got Ma and Emma?” they head me ask.

“I got them!” the answer came.

“You three stay in there no matter what until one of us go get you!”

“Got it!”

And then I spoke directly to them, “Michonne, Merle, you get your ass back here RIGHT NOW!”

“On our way already!” Merle answered immediately, beating Michonne to it. “Fuck’s happenin’ there?”

“He found us,” they heard me say in a dead serious voice. “The Governor’s here.”

“Fuck!!” Michonne cried

“Sonofabitch!!” Merle yelled at the same time, his fist hitting the inside of the car door by his side. “Gonna kill that motherfucker!!”

“We’re close! You’d better run, sheriff!” Michonne told him and he accelerated even more. “When we get there, you all shoot to kill. They are not playing around, do you hear me?”

I sent Merle out to look for her instead of going myself because there was work to be done at the Village, and I trusted Merle’s tracking and fighting skills. If someone could find and bring Michonne back, it was Merle. So he left and I stayed working with Morales on the wall – I was learning well how to set the bricks with cement – and I got David working with us as Miranda worked on comforting Emma – poor thing, she was jumpy and anxious all the time, even after a good night of sleep. Miranda and Emma were cleaning a house together where the girl and her brother would live. Honey liked her and I thought maybe she could be good company for her. As I worked, my mind was constantly out there, with Michonne and Merle. We had Mikki in the platform, Andrea rounding, and it was all alright.

But my mind was out there with my friends, picturing every little thing that could have gone wrong, every horrible way they could have been hurt, every terrible person they could have found on their way. And if I kept on with it I would go insane.

I needed to do something. Everything in the Village was fine as I walked along Circle Street and turned the corner to Main Street. I saw Mikki coming out of her house to cross the street towards the office. Her hair had changed since I knew her, looking more blonde now, contrasting prettily with her tanned skin. So I jogged to meet her before she could enter the house.

“Mikki!” I called her and she stopped to look at me and smiled. “Odd question! Could you help me with my hair?”

“Oh, honey,” she said tenderly and reached for my head. “What hair?”

I laughed, “It ain’t that short anymore! It’s what, two inches now?”

“If that. What do you wanna do –” and she stopped abruptly, widened her eyes and was suddenly really excited. “Oh, I know what we can do!!”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the next house, Merle’s. She entered with no ceremony, like she knew the place well. That got me thinking, but I didn’t ask. She dragged me straight to the bathroom – exactly where I had shaved my head the first time – and found the machine inside a drawer.

“You’re shaving me again?” I asked her

“Yes! Not all, though. Just trust me, you’ll look great!”

Eager, she dragged me away again, now to her house. Ma was napping on the couch, so we crossed the house silently and entered the bathroom. This house was larger than mine, more spacious, as we both fit well in the small space. So Mikki looked, and looked, and measured, and drew lines with the handle of a comb, and then started shaving the sides, leaving the top and back of my hair untouched.

And she was right, after she styled the longer part to stand up with hair gel, I did look awesome.

It was still the middle of the afternoon, tough, so I tackled the deep cleaning of my house that I’d been intending to do for a few days already. I had some detergent and bleach and they did a great job. I hand washed all the bed sheets, swept and mopped the floors, cleaned the inside of the fridge – thank the gods for the solar power we’d been able to get running. My fridge was small and didn’t spend a lot, so I still had enough energy for one warm shower a day and to have lights on at night. I washed the sink and kitchen floor with bleach, took the couch and mattress outside to take some sun, cleaned every surface of the house.

I was sweaty and stinky but I still decided to do a little makeover on the outside of the house. I walked around the Village looking at the other houses and chose a few path stones there were in front of one of them. They were large and heavy, so I took the car there and loaded them on the back, one by one, and drove then back to my place to lay them, making a path to connect the sidewalk to the porch steps. Then I swept it all from any dirt, and ended up sweeping the sidewalk too. One thing led to another and I ended up with a can of white paint that Morales’ had stocked and painting the rails of my porch.

I did it all to keep my mind busy and it worked damn well, because it was dark already when I stopped, deciding to give the paint a second hand tomorrow. I went to the sidewalk and looked over the house, the light on the porch on, couch and mattress back in. It was a nice house, real small with just a living room joined with dining room, a small kitchen, bathroom and one bedroom. It was enough and more than that, it was awesome. It was mine, the first time in my life that I had a house that was nobody else’s, and that was home.

I just needed Daryl there with me now. We could be happy in this house.

The radio on the back of my waist came to life then, startling me but in a really good way.

“Sam, you’re there?”

I nearly dropped it in the hurry to answer, “Michonne?! You okay?”

“I’m fine!” her voice told me.

Fuck, that was a relief!

“Is Merle there?”

“Yes, he found me,” and before I could ask what had happened and whey they’d be coming home, Merle’s voice came over Michonne’s. I could see him grabbing the radio from her hands unceremoniously.

“How ya doing, Sammy girl?”

I laughed. Shit, thank God!

“Don’t call me Sammy!” I answered exactly what Merle was expecting to hear. “Where are you? You coming home?”

I waited for an answer but the radio was silent for a while. Too long.

“Michonne?”

A few more seconds passed before she answered. Shit, don’t do that to a person!

“We’ll be back at first light tomorrow. Too dark already.”

Right. No wandering around at night, I had decided that. Nobody was to be out of the Village at night even if they had to sleep somewhere else in order to only be out of any safe place during the day. I wanted them back home, but I’d made the rule for a reason.

“Are you safe? Gonna be safe until morning?”

“We’re safe, don’t worry.”

“Good. Good, okay. Thank you for reaching out, I was worried sick here.”

“I know you were,” she told me and I could hear she had a smile at that. “How are things there?”

“All in order. Found two kids in the woods and brought them home yesterday. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Please, no delays in the morning, okay?”

“You got it. We’ll see you soon. Good night!”

“Night,” and I added knowing Merle was by her. “Night, asshole!”

There was no answer but I could hear Merle’s laugh in my head. I laughed shaking my head, relief flooding me. They were fine.

I made one more round in the Village, spoke to everyone, checked again on the nights shifts and went back home. I tried turning on the little stereo that had been in the house but apparently the battered had finally died and it didn’t work. I remembered there were other ones on the stock house but I didn’t bother going there to get them now. I just took off my boots, sat on the couch, closing my eyes and breathing out, and then lit up a joint and smoked a little of it. Only two or three lungful’s, just to relax. I couldn’t smoke too much today because I had to be up in the middle of the night for my round shift. Already light on my feet, I moved to the kitchen, prepared myself some dinner – I had leftovers from yesterday’s canned meatballs – and after eating I took a quick, hot shower and went to bed.

I didn’t know, when I woke up just a few hours later, that my life was about to take a whole turn once again.

 * * *

 Merle wasn’t there but his schedule was followed normally. In the last three hours of the night, Mikki was on the gate platform keeping guard and I was in my post, circling the inner walls of the Village, Honey loyally following my every step. It was a calm night like all and the day was starting to show its face, the sky palling gradually and all the birds around starting to sing.

I was up on a tree on the back of the Village looking out to the woods over the hedge with binoculars. All quiet, nothing more than one walker with a long white dress wandering blindly far from there. Damn, that was a bride…

Mikki’s voice on the radio cut the silence, “Sam, do you hear me?”

I took it from my waist band, letting the binoculars hang, “Clearly, what’s up?”

“I see cars coming down the road towards us, bit slow.”

“Pro’ly Merle and Michonne coming back,” I told her.

“Nope,” she said with certainty. “Not their cars.”

“I’m on my way.”

I let myself fall from the branch to the ground and made my way walking fast nearly in a sprint around the lake towards Main Street. Just as I entered it, the radio came alive once again.

“Sam, quick, they’ve stopped!”

I started running, Honey did too, keeping up with me, “You’re armed, right?”

“I am, but they –”

She stopped abruptly.

“Mikki?”

Instead of her voice on the radio, I got Merle’s from somewhere out there, “What’s goin’ on over there?”

“Gonna know in a minute!” I told him and was already halfway up Main Street and now I could see Mikki up the platform, and she seemed fine. Not less worried, I saw David under it, looking up, his rifle already in hand. I heard steps behind me and saw Andrea and Morales, also armed, running up the street, and as I ran past Will and Mikki’s house, Will was coming out as well. I just stopped on the bottom of the platform to cock and arm my crossbow and having it ready before joining Mikki upon the platform and instantly aiming out, before I could even see who or what was out there.

I understood who it was at the same time he also recognized me.

The Governor.

He had an annoying, arrogant smile on his face, but when he saw who I was, when he fixed his eyes on me, it was gone instantly.

“You,” he said simply.

“Right back at ya, asshole,” I had no fucking ceremonies this time. “The fuck you want?”

He started laughing, his assault rifle in hand still pointing up. His man behind him, though, had them all pointed right at Mikki and I.

“Lynn,” the Governor said as he laughed. “Who’d tell? It’s you! I remember you. You’ve killed my men! Massacred them, I’ll give you that. I’ve been looking for you; did you know that?”

“How did you find me?”

“Oh, your little friends told me where to find you.”

Wait a minute. Merle and Michonne hadn’t. I was definitely sure they hadn’t, they’d talked to me yesterday on the radio, Merle had just talked to me. They hadn’t.

“Don’t bullshit me, Gov,” I mocked. “No friend of mine told you where to find me.”

“No? China boy and farm girl are not your friends then?” he laughed and I was frozen, the words still meaningless in my ears.

China boy and farm girl.

China boy and farm girl!

Glenn. Maggie.

Glenn and Maggie!

“D’you have them?” I asked, my insides in turmoil but I kept me exterior firm.

“Oh, so now you do know them,” he said with a smile. “It wasn’t even that hard to get them to say it. Point a gun at the china man’s bloodied head, farm girl will tell you all.”

Glenn and Maggie.

How the fuck did they lead the Governor here? I understand Maggie would tell anyone anything is Glenn’s life was a risk – and damn, Glenn and Maggie!! They were together and nearby; they were all nearby! – but how in the holy fuck did they know where the village was? Fuck, so many questions and the only person who could answer them was the Governor, the motherfucker.

I needed help. I needed everyone who was at home and I needed Merle and Michonne, I needed them all. So I needed time. I lowered my crossbow a little, not aiming for his head anymore, as an attempt to get them to relax a little bit.

“What have you done to them?”

“What do you think, Lynn? Wouldn’t mistreat guests, now, would I? What kind of man you take me for?”

“The kind that attacks smaller communities to take it all and tortures people for information? Am I close?”

He laughed, opening his arms, “You got me!”

I smiled at him. “Let’s talk, Gov. I ain’t willin’ to strike back like I did last time. Maybe we can work something out.”

“You wanna talk?” he stopped and pretended to be considering it.

“I got more than I did back then. More people, even more weapons. If I was trouble for you then, you don’t wanna know what I can do now.”

“You’re threatening me now?”

“Friendly warning. Let’s all put our guns down and I’ll go down there to talk, how does that sound?”

He nodded, mouth turning up and opening his arms, “Sure. Come on down, we’ll talk.”

We’ll talk, my ass.

Nodding, I lowered the crossbow all the way and Mikki and I went down the ladder, and started giving out orders immediately, my voice firm but low so they wouldn’t hear me from the other side of the wall.

Thank god the front wall had been the first one we got done. No bullets would go through it.

“Full load, everyone! Hide behind the cars and shoot the fuck outta them! This man will not talk, he’ll shoot as soon as we open the gate. Shoot to kill. They’ll not take the Village, we’ll fight for it!” and I took the radio and pressed the button, “Miranda, you got Ma and Emma?”

She answered immediately, “I got them!”

“You three stay in there no matter what until one of us go get you!”

“Got it!” she said.

“Michonne, Merle, you get your ass back here RIGHT NOW!”

“On our way already!” Merle said though it. “Fuck’s happenin’ there?”

“He found us. The Governor’s here.”

He took a second to answer and I knew he and Michonne were over there wherever the fuck they were, sharing a worried and angry look.

“Six minutes,” he informed me.

Good, that was quick enough.

I hang the crossbow on my back and took the .12 shotgun what was Will’s before, checked it was full and moved to the gate, everyone already out of sight but ready behind the cars. Looking at Mikki, who had her hands on the gate ready to slide it open, and gestured for her to open it and then to run up the platform. She nodded, her face serious and concentrated, and opened it.

With my back to the wall right on the side of the gate, I peeked out just as there was only a gap. The first shot came right then, hitting the metal of the still sliding gate, sparks flying and making me flinch back inside.

“Fuck! I thought you said we’d talk!” I yelled.

“I changed my mind!” the Governor’s voice came from somewhere outside.

Unlike in the movies when the bad guy and the good guy have a whole conversation before the big action scene, we said nothing else, neither did anyone. My people started shooting as soon as the gate was fully opened, aiming for any parts of bodies from the Governor’s people that could be seen. Mikki was already up in the platform, crouched down to hide behind the wall, shooting and hiding again. Shots came non-stop from the outside, making it hard for me to get an opportunity to look out, aim and shoot. These motherfuckers were trained, much better than we were.

Mental note to get battle training to everyone from now on. With plans and formations and all.

I needed to get out of this corner because he knew that’s where I was and bullets were grazing the corner of the wall too close to me for my likes. Before I could sprint away though, his voice came from the outside again.

“I thought you said you wanted to talk!”

“I lied!”

I took the crossbow from my back and let it fall there near the wall. As much as I loved it, I wouldn’t be much help not and the thing was heavy, I didn’t need anything holding me back. Then I ran away, not entering the line of fire by running behind and around Ma’s house – thank God she was at Miranda’s with her and Emma, no stray bullets would get to them – and returning to the street behind the cars with the others. I knelt on the asphalt and from there I had better chances on seeing and shooting them. I hit one of the men high in the chest, nearly on his neck instead of in the head like I wanted.

Update on my kills: five.

We’d have as least one walker in a few minutes, also all the noise as going to attract others from the area. This had to end as soon as possible. I heard, among the all the shooting, when the door of a car was strongly closed and a motor turned on. They couldn’t be withdrawing, could they?

Looking over the hood, I saw the Governor had a huge truck with some sort of metal grid fortifications on it, and he was accelerating. Caught his eyes then.

He was smiling.

“Get away from the cars!!!” I yelled at the others as loudly as I could. “Now!!”

But I only moved after the instant I saw the others heard me. Morales, Andrea, David and Will ran seeking cover elsewhere but I had no time to see where because looking again I saw the car coming straight at the car I was behind, straight at me.

I jumped to the side of the street, falling on my chest and hands just as he hit the car. Motherfucker destroyed my Hummer but it didn’t matter now, because as I turned to look, the car had flied sideways and it went straight to the office porch. The wood column tumbled and the roof fell on top of the ruined car, the whole small house bending to the side. It was destroyed.

Safe inside the car even after a strong crash, the Governor looked out at me through the window, smiling and opening the door. Still on the ground I reached for my shotgun that had fallen by my side, stretching a bit, but before I could even point at him and cock it, the Governor was out of the car and a golden brown shadow was flying over me towards him.

Honey attacked like I’d never seen her do, viciously, growling and biting his arm. He was screaming, his machine gun falling to the ground, and he fought her. I turned to shoot at others who were approaching to try to help him.

Six. Seven.

I didn’t see him take a pistol from fuck knows where even as he tried to fight Honey away. I just heard the shot and a shriek whimper and Honey fell to the ground. I froze looking at her, who was trying to stand, limping and crying, and there was blood coming from somewhere on her hind.

Now I had it. That was it. Motherfucker wanted to take my Village? I’d kill him for it. But shoot my dog?! I’d fucking torture him!

It was like it was all happening in slow motion. Honey had fallen and I’d looked at her, and rising my shotgun again looked back at the sonofabitch as he pointed his pistol right at me, a satisfied, smug look on his face even as his other arm bled. I lowered my shotgun as I swirled around myself, raising my leg as I went, the motion giving me force to kick the motherfucker’s hand away and send his gun flying away. It hurt his hand, good, and he cradled it as I got nearer and pointed the shotgun right at his head.

“Kneel!” I yelled and he rose his hands. The shooting around us was lessened but not gone, so his men were still around. The Governor was bending his knees a little, looking a bit scared at me but not kneeling as I ordered.

And then his creepy, annoying little smile returned, and felt a barrel of a gun press on the back of my head.

“You kneel,” a male voice said from behind me.

My wrist burned like hell as I held the shotgun, finger on the trigger. “I got a shotgun on your boss forehead, you sure this is a good idea?”

“Drop it!” the man yelled as he pressed it strongly against my head. It was still a bit hot from his probable shooting with it before, and it pushed me a little forward.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck.

Where the fuck were the others? There was still shooting going on, so I don’t think any of them could come to my rescue, and there the hell were Merle and Michonne? It’d been over six minutes hadn’t it?! But was that a car noise? I couldn’t look, but I knew someone was coming. They were here, they’d help.

I’d had to lower the gun but I didn’t want to. But the hot barrel on the back of my head made sure I did. I lowered it and –

And then so many things happened at the same time it got all a mess in my mind. The car I’d head came cross the gate and ran over one of the governor’s man, who flew somewhere out of my sight. I felt the gun on my head move and the man holding it got startled, but it never left. I looked to my side to see it and they were coming out of the car, Merle, Michonne, Rick, Daryl, all guns pointed at us, including the crossbow and –

What?

I saw nothing, all the sounds around me deafened by my pounding heart and ringing ears and I looked, just stared, everything around me in slow motion again. Daryl was coming on our direction, crossbow pointed and long steps, and his eyes found mine.

He was here.

Daryl was here.

My eyes widened and I started, but only just started, to come back to myself and the reality around me. There was a gun pointed to my head but I couldn’t simply not look at Daryl, because this was Daryl and he was here.

It had all happened in probably two seconds. I was being grabbed forcefully, turned to face the others, to face Daryl with the Governor behind me, the gun now in his hand, pointing it at my temple, his arm around my neck. I hadn’t seen it happening. I got distracted, obviously because Daryl was here, how could I not? I raised my hands to hold the Governor’s arm, trying to pull it away from my neck because the feeling of a man around my neck again got to my nerves instantly, but my eyes were still on Daryl, as though if I stared enough I would understand what was happening and what he was doing here.

“Merle?” the Governor asked from behind me and then laughed aloud.

It was only then that I looked around, my eyes leaving Daryl’s to see Rick right there, his Python pointed right at me – of course not at me, but the man had his head hidden well right behind mine – and then Merle, his eyes worried looking at us and Michonne coming a little behind, limping.

Oh, these guys had lots to tell me! I’d want details!

But first I had to get rid of this motherfucker. The other man was by our side and I felt movement behind us, which meant other of Woodbury’s men where there, and then my people we closing in behind the others, behind Daryl.

So it was me between the two groups. Nobody wanted to do anything not to risk him shooting me in the head right in front of them. Oh, no, he wouldn’t. Daryl was right here, finally, after so long he was here in my sight, and I would not just motherfucking die now.

I hadn’t said a word yet and I wouldn’t because if I said anything it would end up being Daryl’s name and now was not the moment.

“Drop it!” Daryl said and I couldn’t believe I was hearing his voice again. It was loud and firm and filled with anger. Oh my Daryl.

I had to think and act fast but any defense movement I knew would point the gun right at the people in front of me even for a milliseconds and he could pull the trigger and end up hitting someone. I couldn’t take the risk.

It felt like it’d been all happening for minutes but it was seconds. The Governor was speaking, threatening but I didn’t register the words because I started panicking a bit when he started walking back, towards the car he’d used to enter the Village. He was going to take me away.

Everyone reacted at that, yelling at him to stop, at his man to drop, but nobody felt safe enough to shoot or he’d shoot me, I knew that’s what they were all feeling.

“Shoot’em!” the Governor yelled from behind my head and at that, chaos spread. I barely saw it, everyone was shooting and looking for cover but I didn’t watch long enough. I squatted a little as I removed one hand from his arm around my neck and raised it strongly above our heads, pushing his armed hand up and away from my head. I failed in grabbing hold of his wrist, though, and that was a mistake. As I grabbed his arm around my neck with my other hand, I tried shoving him backwards with my hips and pulling his forward so he’d roll over me and fall on the ground, but his free hand came down on my head, the butt of the gun hitting me straight in the nose.

I hear the crunchy noise and went blind to everything, my eyes watering instantly and I screamed a round of curses because that hurt like a motherfucker, and then I was being dragged into the car. I kicked and punched and spat all I could but now I was mostly useless. He was again on my back, the worst bear hug I’d ever experienced, and then I was inside with him and two other men were entering even as the bullets flew freely outside, people yelling and cursing. He pressed the gun to my temple again to make me stop fighting and then the car was backing off, bullets grazing it and the thing was probably armored because none came though, not even the windows.

We were outside already and people were running, I was able to look though the back window and I saw, and it broke my heart and filled the little pieces with rage, that Daryl was out, looking at the car sped away on the road, and he ran after us for a while before stopping and running back to the Village.

This was not over. They were all gonna go after me. Daryl was gonna get me.

So I relaxed and stopped struggling against the Governor’s chest, and he let go of me, pushing me away to press my back against the back door, and he faced me.

And he saw me smiling.

“Do you think you have reasons to be smiling about, Lynn?” he asked me, the gun pointed at my chest.

I licked the blood that was rolling down my nose to my lips. “Yeah, I actually do. It’s ‘cause you got no idea. No fuckin’ idea, Gov.”

“No idea of what?” he asked as he breathed hard though his teeth.

While I was gone, Michonne had stepped up as the leader and she’d done a wonderful job. Things kept on going as planned, the chicken coop Morales had planned was done, now all we needed was birds, and he had started building the wall inside the hedge. There was a huge pile of bricks at a corner of the Village, cement, sand, all he works. It would be slow because we didn’t have enough people, but it’d get done.

Michonne and Merle had gotten even closer and were great friends now. Andrea had been hanging out a lot with Will and she liked Ma’s company. Ma had been sick lately, nothing specific. She was simply ninety-eight. I spent days thinking about having a conversation with Will and Mikki about her. If she passed away on her sleep or something like that and nobody saw it… She was going to turn.

I’m not even sure how I knew this. I’d seen D dying from a stab and turning, I’d seen many walkers wandering without a visible bite mark, so I was pretty much sure anyone who died would turn.

Although Jack never did.

Thank the Gods I didn’t even really believe in.

But I thought there was a strong possibility Ma would turn when she passed and we’d all have to know how to act in this case. I needed to talk to them.

But I hadn’t yet. It was sensitive and I was running from it. I started going out there alone again, with the same old excuse of looking for signs of Daryl and the group. I did look for signs; I did… But I was lying. To everyone, to myself. There was a laundromat on a little town nearby and in there I had created myself a little hideaway. To myself, to be alone and mourn and hurt without anyone seeing it. And to drink. I had hidden bottles there and I controlled myself, never got too drunk, or so I thought. It’s the mentality of the addict, always thinking we’re in control, always believed it’s no harm, it’s just a little drink, no problem. I’d return home after a few hours and nobody noticed, so why should I have to stop? Everything was fine, I was in control.

What I didn’t see, couldn’t ready understand then, was that when I was drinking the thoughts in my mind were always terrible. It made me feel worse, it made the pain even more painful, instead of numbing me, it made me think terrible things, when I slept under the effect of the alcohol my dreams were disturbing, full of walkers, Daryl turned, Michonne and Merle turned, Jack in my arms trying to bite me. It was awful, but my addicted mind could not understand that taking another shot to forget those images did not work at all. So I kept on.

Merle knew something was up. He may not know exactly, but the way he’d been looking at me with suspicious eyes was clear. He knew something was wrong. I mean, still wrong. Or maybe he was just worried because it hadn’t been long since I lost my baby, so I was obviously not fine.

One day he told me now I knew how to shoot with the crossbow and was good at it, I could take a step further and learn how to hunt, maybe even track. He’d been the one responsible for going hunting once a week bringing us all any kind of animals he could find, and he said it would be good to have someone else able to do it in the group. He was right. As I leader I should have thought about it.

So we were on the woods, Honey tracking in front of us, smelling everything and very attentive. We were silent for a long time, tracking something he had detected but I hadn’t been able to see, and Merle, even still tracking, kept looking at me and starting to say something but stopping himself. It was so unlike him that I knew something was up, and feared he was going to talk about my continuing drinking. But it eventually got to my nerves and I had to ask.

“Alright, Merle, what is it?” I said as I stopped and lowered my crossbow to the ground.

He stopped too, fished a pack of Morley’s from his pocket, offered me one, lit his own and then reached with the lighter to light mine.

“Ya know I ain’t smart, right?” he started

“Why do you say that?”

“Things I just can’t wrap my head around…” he looked far into the woods as he spoke. “Like Mikki.”

Well, that I wasn’t expecting.

“Mikki?”

“Yeah… Says she’s a girl but ya can see she ain’t a girl. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Ya can’t understand that?”

“Nope. Knew my whole life that if ya got a dick, you a man, if ya got a pussy, you a girl. That is ya wanna be the other way ‘round, you a freak.”

“Yeah, you’ve known wrong then.”

“But how?” he asked turning to me, and I could see his question was genuine. “How can Mikki says she a girl if she got a dick down there?”

“Well… I don’t know how to explain it, maybe she’d be the best one to do it. But just think it like that: you know you’re a man. Right?” he nodded the obvious answer. “And you’ve always known you a man, nobody had to tell you, you knew it since you was a little boy. Never had a question ‘bout that. And you know that, like, inside, you don’t have to look down and see a dick to know you’re a man. Right?” he nodded again. “But now imagine being this sure ‘bout it, but looking in the mirror and seeing the body of a woman. But in your head you know you’re a man, but what you were born with is different from what you know, from what you’ve always known your whole life.”

He shook his head, confused, “Nah, can’t see that happening.”

“You can’t see, but tons of other people can. Don’t matter if you don’t see, Merle. Mikki is a girl and she knows she’s a girl since forever, but something went different and she was born with a boy’s body. It’s wrong for her, her body don’t match her head, her soul, ya know what I mean? She is a girl, no matter what the register said when she was born, no matter that they yelled ‘it’s a boy!” when she was born. It being there make no difference. You’d still feel like a man if you, god forbid, lost yours, wouldn’t’ you?”

“Don’t even say somethin’ like that!”

“You know what I mean, Merle. A dick or a pussy don’t make a person a man or a woman. It’s all in the head.”

“But… It’s there, ain’t it?”

“Yep. I don’t know, it’s probably there, I don’t think she had it removed before the apocalypse. I’ll never ask either, it’s too intimate,” he said nothing, was just thoughtful smoking his cigarette. “Merle?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like her?”

He threw to cigarette to the ground and turned to walk, “I ain’t no faggot.”

“Merle, stop,” he did and turned to me again. “You ain’t, I know that. She’s a girl. You’re just a man who likes a girl.”

He turned to walk again, saying nothing, thoughtful.

“Does she know? Something’s happening between you two?”

“Think she does. Think she likes me too.”

“Then it’s a good thing, Merle,” I said smiling I was happy for him. Merle was overcoming a lot from his past. His prejudices, his racism, his homophobia. He was changing for the better, had already all those months, but now it was more. He liked someone and this was huge for a man like Merle. “Just don’t go breaking her heart, alright?”

 * * *

 I made a mistake.

I should have never kept on drinking in the first place, but that goes without saying. It was obvious that I should have stopped it again, I’d done it once, I could do it again. I could and I should. And every day, even as I drank, I knew it was bad for me. I knew my thoughts got fuzzy and way too negative under the effect. My dreams were terrible nightmares of everyone in the Village turned, Merle, Michonne, Andrea, all trying to eat me. Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Lori, all dead and invading the Village and the constant cry of a baby in the background, and I looked for him as I tried to escape the dead and couldn’t find him. I’d wake up heavy hearted, which made me want to drink more, which made the dreams even worse, and the thoughts in my head even when I was sober were dark and hopeless. So drinking was bad for me, for my mind, for my body, bad for everyone and everything, but I just kept on.

But that day, my mistake was to bring the booze I’d gathered into the Village. I brought it home, hidden among my personal stuff, and I drank at a night I wouldn’t be on watch.

And I obviously lost control.

My house was still isolated from the others. I had moved from the one I’d given birth in, and chosen an even farther one. It was nearly on the back of the Village, still near the lake as the other one had been. It was a nice area, trees all around, birds, the water. The kind of place I had always wanted for me before it all happened, and now I had it. But the fact that it was away from the others’ made me too comfortable and I got drunk in there, sure nobody would notice.

But they did. Michonne came first to check on me because I apparently had turned on some loud music, and there was nothing wrong with listening to some music in the Village as long as it wasn’t loud enough it could he heard outside the walls. If it could be heard outside, walkers would come, people could come.

It was a huge mistake. I put them all in danger, our home, our Village, the safety of my people.

But somehow, I think it had to happen. I needed Michonne to find me drunk at the house. I needed her to call Andrea and Merle. I needed them to see me like this, I needed their help. I needed help and I didn’t even know it.

It just had to happen.

They cleared my house of any alcohol, put me under a cold shower, told me off, and kept careful watch over me for the next few weeks. I wasn’t allowed to go outside alone anymore and I hated it in the beginning. I craved a drink and couldn’t have it. I fought with them, told them to leave me alone, said they had nothing to do with it, that they had no right controlling me like this.

But they saved me.

Merle understood well. He’d been though it in the few months after the hand incident in Atlanta. He’d gone through withdrawal from alcohol and drugs and he knew how I felt. He was not a patient care provider, though. He was more of a tough love kind of guy. Andrea was sweeter, but Michonne… She’d been disappointed.

And that’s what hurt the most. My very best friend got disappointed at me and this hit me hard. This is what made me, after the first few terrible days, understand what I’d done and understand the need of what they were doing for me. I talked to her, apologized, made promises all over again. But she knew promises meant nothing, I’d broken them before.

Over a week into it, Merle came to my place. I’d been pacing, making even Honey distressed. I asked him to leave me alone because I was not a good company then, I was aching for a drink, but he didn’t leave, shaking a bit, heart pounding. Instead, he sat on my couch, took something from his pocket, and lit it.

A joint.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Lightin’ up a joint, what ya think?”

“Have you been smoking?”

“Found this stash a few days ago. Little country home with a dead plantation in the back. Lots of it, years’ worth if we don’t let’em dry.”

“Merle… What?”

“What?” he looked up at me. “You saying you’re against it? Can have all the booze and be addicted to it, not function right without alcohol, but weed is bad? Weed’s what will do ya harm?”

I had no answer. It had been years since I had a joint, but I knew it was never as bad as alcohol. Or any other drug, for that matter. I’d liked it once, but never even got addicted to it. Drinks and other drugs, yeah. They were the ones that nearly destroyed my life, but nothing bad had ever happened after smoking a joint.

“Ya an addict, Sam,” he told me in all seriousness. “Ya can’t go anywhere to get treated. Ya can’t make therapy. Can’t go to a meeting every time ya need some. Ya hear me out, if ya smoke a joint now, ya gonna relax. This think ya feeling now? Will get numbed and will go away with time.”

“Ain’t that just exchanging a drug for another?” I still rebated even as I sat down on the couch by his side.

“Ya damn right it is. But at least it won’t do you too much harm. Ya gonna smoke one at night after a long day, relax, laugh, eat a lot and fall asleep. If ya gotta have somethin’ because you’re too damn used to have some substance in your system, at least won’t be much of a bad one.”

Did it make sense or was it just my addicted mind wanting to believe it?

Merle took a long drag of it, holding it in for a moment and then started couching like crazy. I had to laugh. What a pro!

“Fuck you, it’s been a while!” he said when he could and saw me laugh at him.

“Are you sure about this, Merle?”

“Ya do what ya want. I ain’t saying it’s the best solution, is just the least worse, is all.”

“I can’t do this… Michonne –”

“Is the one who suggested it in the first place when we found it. She ain’t no dimwit, Darlin’. She knows this ain’t as bad for you or anybody as alcohol.”

And then he handed it to me. I hesitated for a moment, but I knew he was right. Weed had been smoked since the beginning of humanity’s ability to plant stuff, thousands of years. The prohibition of it was recent, but not it’s usage. If this made me stop craving for a drink, it would help me get clean. I mean, as clean as someone is when smoking weed.

So I took it. Probably not the best solution, but it was a solution.

It turned out that, that night, I didn’t crave a drink anymore. At least that night, I calmed down, wasn’t shaking anymore, and my thoughts got lighter. No negativity about never seeing Daryl again. No pain for Jack’s loss. Just good memories, just Daryl’s voice calming me down, just Jack’s cute little hand clutching my finger. Just the good parts of the little while I’d had with him. And when I fell asleep – after Merle and I drowned in a family size pack of Cheetos – I didn’t have a nightmare. No dreams at all, just slept long and deep and woke up still feeling sleepy, but simply fine.

And I hadn’t felt fine in a very, very long time.

 * * *

 Merle and I were hunting. I had finally been able to pick up an animal trail myself and we were following it. I wasn’t sure what it was and Merle refused to tell me, because he obviously knew what it was. Honey was with us, silent on her paws, sniffing and attentive to all around us all. I had had a lot of success in training her. She’d come to me and be silent at a short whistle, sit by my side and stay put at a hand gesture, look for threats at a low, long whistle and relax and be free to play around at a click of my tongue.

And it was her who warned us someone was around. She froze by my side, eyes fixed somewhere high up a tree, completely still, just one short low growl to get my attention. Looking up, our weapons ready without even knowing why, Merle and I saw the ruins of a hunting platform. We couldn’t see anyone, but Honey knew for sure there was someone. My crossbow pointed up, Merle with a loaded pistol, we exchanged a look. We couldn’t keep walking and pass under the tree to the risk of getting attacked.

“We know you’re up there!”, I said and my voice echoed in the woods. “We mean no harm, just passing my, hunting some food. Will you show yourself?”

There was silence. Whoever was up there had surely heard me, but was keeping hidden. This could either mean it was someone really scared of people who just wanted us to go away, or a threat, someone who’d attack and try to rob and kill us.

“We just want to pass by knowing you won’t attack us, alright?” I kept on. “Come on, show yourself.”

It took a few more seconds, long ones, but they did. A boy who looked barely eighteen poked his head out of the platform, a rifle in hand pointing down at us, looking repeatedly to Merle and I.

“Good, thank you,” I told him. “You alone up there?”

“Yes!” he answered really fast and I knew it was probably a lie. “I don’t have stuff, so please just leave us alone!”

See? He wasn’t alone.

“Us?”

“Me! Leave me alone!”

“Hey, it’s alright. We don’t wanna rob you. I told you, we’re just hunting out here.”

“Go on, then!”

“And how do we know you ain’t shooting and robing us? Not taking the chance, kid.”

“You say ya don’t got stuff?” Merle said by my side. “Mean ya hungry?”

Oh, so proud of Merle! The old Merle I knew from before would never ask anyone that. He just wouldn’t care, but this Merle did.

“Why you ask?”

“If you’re hungry we can get you something,” I told him. “But we won’t if you don’t put your gun down.”

“Why would you help us? Nobody helps anymore these days!”

“Not nobody, kid,” I told him, my arms hurting a bit from pointing the crossbow up and steady. “We been hungry. Been there, alright?”

“Why should we trust you?”

Merle was the one to answer “Alright, I can see you gone through some shit, kid. You’re right in not trustin’ people, good thing these days. But we both down here got ya on our aims and ya not even hiding right, coulda shot ya between the eyes three times by now. What’s that tell ya?”

He hesitated and didn’t lower his rifle. Quietly, I told Merle to keep his own pointed at him and lowered my weapon. The kid’s attention picked up at that, as I rested my crossbow to the ground, removed my backpack and crouched down to open it. I had water and a packed lunch I’d brought from home, some real cooked food. I got up and help it on his sight.

“We’re offering you food, real food. Now, please, lower your weapon for once and come down or you won’t have it, simple like that.”

He wanted to believe us but hesitated and I admired him for that. It was good not to trust people easily these days and I knew it quite well. After a moment he did lower his rifle and by my side Merle visibly relaxed. I patted honey’s head to calm her down a little but didn’t tell her it was fine to relax. He disappeared from our sight for a moment and them we saw him star to climb down the stairs, and he really wasn’t alone. There was a girl with him, just a child who kept hidden behind him all the time.

These were David and Emma, brother and sister who’d been on the road with their two uncles after their mother died on the first few days of the outbreak. They had been robbed of everything weeks before and, when the men tried to react, they were killed. David and Emma had to watch all of it when they hid on top of a tree, or they’d have been doomed as well. Emma didn’t say a word, too scared to speak even as Merle and I led hem both back to the Village with us.

Day 230 was the day I was gonna die.

Not day 73 as they all thought, as Daryl thought.

No, it would be on day 230. A whole 157 days later. And oh the irony… It was not walkers who’d kill me. It was not people.

It was me.

My legs were weak and trembling when I got up from bed. Disuse, after 10 days unmoving in bed, weakness for eating so little all this time. Honey was there. She never left my side. She hopped down from the bed with me and followed me out. I managed to leave though the half opened door. I didn’t know whose house I was in; it didn’t look like anyone of theirs. I couldn’t care less, though. I entered the bathroom, leaving the door opened and saw Honey lay down there, sleepily watching over me. I avoided the mirror completely and sat to pee. It was a real clean bathroom; someone’d been taking care of this house. And of me.

I wouldn’t bother them anymore.

Getting up, I accidentally took a look at the mirror. I saw a ghost. That wasn’t me, not anymore. That face wasn’t mine, those protruding cheekbones, those hollow eyes. Sam was gone and she’d been for a long time now.

Of the three small drawers on the counter, I opened the first. Just a few bathroom things, toothpaste, two toothbrushes and scissors. I stared at in in there for a long minute. I could use it. I could split open my wrists and die the way the world made us all now, bleeding. But as I looked at myself in the mirror again, I made another decision.

My dreads dropped cut off to the ground one by one. I took my time, holding each in my hand for a long moment before cutting it off as close to my scalp as I could. I wasn’t crying, but tears rolled down from my eyes anyways as my head felt the loss of the weight I’d been carrying there for so long. Dropping the scissors on top of the pile of brownish yellow dreads, I rubbed my hands in my hair, feeling the shortness. It was uneven and pointed in several spots.

Honey followed me quietly out the door. I was on Circle Street, one of the houses that’d been empty, I recognized now. It was chilly and I hugged myself, looking up and taking a short, shallow breath. It was late night, probably near morning, and everything was quiet and dark. I walked slowly to Main Street and stopped halfway there. Ahead and up in the platform, Merle was on guard, smoking a cigarette and looking out. He didn’t see me. Honey was just as silent as I was when I entered Merle’s house, dark and empty. Passing by his kitchen, I saw a pack of Morley’s and a lighter on the table and took them with me as I went straight to his bathroom, knowing what I was looking for. As predictable, it was a mess and didn’t smell good, but I didn’t give a shit. Inside a drawer I found his shaving machine. I knew he’d have one, he always kept his head clear of hair.

Lighting up a cigarette after too many months felt bitter sweet. It felt good, my addiction to them happily satisfied, but the fact that now I could smoke didn’t pass unnoticed. I took a long, deep drag with my eyes closed, feeling a little bit of lightheadness as I puffed out.

For a while the only noise was of the machine. Staring at the mirror, cigarette between my lips, I shaved it all. Right to the scalp. I could see I had small cuts and scars in there I didn’t even know of. It’s just how life was now. Once I removed at trace of hair, I turned it off and ran a hand over my head. That was better. No hair. Not the same Sam anymore.

I didn’t let Honey follow me out. She whined but didn’t bark when I closed her inside Merle’s house. I walked away with my chest tight because I knew she’d follow me anywhere and I wanted her safe, so she couldn’t come. I walked silently to the gate, the Morley’s pack on my pocket and yet another cigarette lit between my fingers. It was time for the change of guard at the gate so I was able to slide out without Merle or Mikki noticing me. At that moment I was like a shadow.

I had no weapons, no car, just a pack of cigarettes and the roads. I walked slowly and silently, like a ghost. On my feet, a pair of sneakers, not made to walk for too long. On my scalp, the cold air of the minutes before sunrise send me chills to my entire body. I didn’t care.

It was so many things amounting to this decision… The end of the world, no hope, people who had gone so bad they’d stab pregnant women in the belly. My group gone… My Village running well without me. They wouldn’t need me leading them anymore, not this ghost. They’d be fine. Daryl gone, I was never gonna find him again. And now… Did I even want to anymore? He had mourned me and the baby. He had suffered his loss already. How was I supposed to find him, make him hope the baby was fine and then tell him he was gone? He’d suffer it all over again. I didn’t want to make him go through it. I didn’t want him to feel what I was feeling. It’d been months, he’d be moving forward now, only with the memories but probably with no pain now. Maybe… Now I didn’t even want to find him, and the wish to do so had kept me going all those months. Three things had kept me going: my baby, the plan to build a place, and finding Daryl and the group. I had one failed, dead. One achieved. And one I didn’t want anymore.

Nothing else to fight for.

It was day already when I reached a street with a few stores. I don’t know how I got there, and it didn’t matter. I entered the first store, a little raid out grocery store and walked around. My feet crunched stuff on the ground, broken grass, shelves, making noise I usually wouldn’t make. I rounded the cashier counter. There was money still in there. Under it, there was a locked cabinet. I knew from my old times the kind of things stores kept locked. It was probably what I was looking for. It was luckily a pretty weak lock because I was able to burst it open with a piece of metal fairly easily and, sure enough, there it was.

I left the store with three bottles. Tequila, whiskey a vodka. No wine, which would’ve been my choice, but whatever. On the parking lot in front of the stores, an abandoned car. It wasn’t too dusty, so it probably wasn’t there for too long. There was a couple of walkers coming from around the stores. I ignored them and sat on the driver’s seat, closing and locking the doors from the inside. The cd player in there still worked and there was a cd on the glovebox, entitled in a handwriting Greatest Songs of All Times. Good, let’s judge what people thought were the greatest song of all times.

It started very well with Bohemian Rhapsody. Tequila accompanied it. The first gulp burned my throat and brought tears to my eyes, my taste bugs aching, my brain making connections it hadn’t done for a long time. It wasn’t as pleasurable as I thought, so I took a second gulp, and it felt a little bit better. By the end of the song, where I shriekly sang with the lyrics, making different voices aloud, it didn’t even burn anymore.

Aretha Franklyn got me screaming Respect as I kept on drinking. I was already dancing on the seat when Elvis sang Hound Dog. Numb, thinking nothing, wondering why the fuck had I ever stopped drinking in the first place. I felt like a professional singer but probably sounded terrible screaming Hit the Road, Jack as I stared as the walkers by my window. I didn’t even know I knew the lyrics to Under Pressure but I sang it all, the herd of walkers all the noise attracted my audience. I was Lennon singing Stand by Me, I was Michael singing Smooth Criminal, I was Aretha again saying a little prayer.

I was everyone, except for Sam. I wasn’t there.

I couldn’t even see anything outside anymore. The walkers were all over. In front and behind the car, right and left and even on top, and even if there weren’t so many, I would be seeing anything, my head fuzzy, nothing making sense. No pain. Nothing hurt anymore, I was just singing and drinking and dancing.

Numb. Gone.

 * * *

 Day 236

 The world was a mess of blinding light and deafening noise, all spinning and blurry, making my head turn and hurt. It felt like it’d explode. I had no clue what was happening, where I was, whose voices were those. Was this what being dead was like? I remembered trying to be dead, had I succeeded?

“Daryl?” was the first word I was able to say, my throat rough and lips chapped. He’d know what was happening, he’d help me. He had my back. Except…

No, wait. No, no… I was still alive. Daryl wasn’t here. My baby was dead. And how the fuck did I get out of that car? I was supposed to stay in there forever, until I died of drinking, of hunger, of walker bite, anything. How was I here? And where was here?

“Welcome back, Sam…”

Merle? Calling me Sam? He never did. Sugar, darlin’, goldilocks, sweetass, anything on his redneck vocabulary, but never Sam. It made me force myself to focus on his face, my head exploding at the effort, until I was able to see his expression.

No smile, no jokes. He was sitting in a chair by my bed, elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were sunken. By my side on the bed, Honey moved her heavy body closer, resting her head on top of my stomach. My much smaller looking stomach…

“What happened?”

“Got back home after watch and found the dog in. Hair all over the place. Knew you’d been there so went looking for ya. Gone… Got Mich and went out looking for ya. Found a shit ton ‘o walkers surrounding a car, music on, all the goddamn dead from miles around going at it… Had to make more noise than ya to get part of’em away and kill the rest, but got to ta. Out like a rock, vomit all over. Ya lucky ya didn’t breathe that shit in.”

Lucky… I snorted, looking away from him to the ceiling.

“Ya don’t think ya got lucky? Fuckin corpses were this close to breakin’ in and eatin ya alive!”

“It’s what I was there for, Merle,” I told him firmly but my voice felt weak. “You weren’t supposed to find me.”

“That what ya wanted? What you was tryin’ to do?”

“Yes. It was. You risked yourselves with all the walkers to get me out but you shouldn’t have. Ain’t worth it.”

“Ya talking shit right now, sis. Ya not on yer right mind.”

I shook my head and turned to my side, giving Merle my back. “Just… Leave me alone.”

He took long seconds to move, silence filling the room behind me. Honey snuggled with me and I threw an arm over her body. She smelled clean… Someone had been taking care of her. Good, not even Honey really needed me anymore. Better for her. I eventually heard Merle get up and slowly leave the room. I was glad to be left alone, I just wanted to sleep and nothing else, but it wasn’t even a minute until I heard movement again. I looked over my shoulder at the door and saw Michonne standing there, holding the door handle. I said nothing, just stared back at her. Her face was sad, pitiful, lips tight because I knew her, she was trying to suppress something she wanted to say.

I looked away, staring at the wall again.

“Do not pity me, Michonne,” I told her and the bitterness in my voice scared even myself.

“I don’t pity you, Sam. I understand you.”

“If you understand me you should’ve left me there.”

“You really think I’d ever leave you to die? Just like that?”

“Yeah, great. Thank now. Now just leave me the fuck alone. All of you”.

She did leave after a moment, taking a wile just like Merle had, and I knew nothing else after that. I fell asleep, Honey’s warm body comforting me, and must have been there for hours. I was miserable, smelling, in dire need to pee but with no wish to get up at all. I might just do it right there. I had small, quick dreams as I slept, more like flashes of image. The baby in my arms. The man’s knife coming in my direction. Daryl screaming at the farm. Walkers all around the car. Honey getting eaten by the dead. My image on the mirror, no enlarged stomach. Myself alone and naked in the woods.

Andrea came in eventually. She looked just as depressed as the others had as she took a seat on the chair by the bed. She said nothing for a while, and I didn’t move to look at her behind me. I was probably going to fall asleep again, ignoring her, when she spoke.

“You wish you were dead right now, don’t you?”

Ok, this started different from the others. I said nothing.

“You wanted to die, and they stopped you from it. From going on with your choice.”

Oh. Oh, okay. She’d gone through it. She’d tried to die before and someone stopped her. Slowly, I turned in bed to my other side and looked at her. “Dale stopped you,” I said.

“He did. And I hated him for it. You all heard… He had no right to take the choice away from my hands. He made me stay alive and keep feeling all those things I was feeling. Things I didn’t want to feel anymore…”

Damn straight.

“They hurt too much… The fear of all in my bones… The need to seem strong because this need had always been part of me… To prove I was strong. It was overwhelming. And the loss… My little sister, such a good person, so much better than myself, just gone like that, turning into one of those things… I couldn’t bare it, I wanted to be dead and not feeling. And he took it away from me.”

Tears had escaped my eyes even though I didn’t really cry. I knew it, and now I understood her completely. I hadn’t, not really, back then.

“But then…” she started again. “It got…” she stopped to think of her words. “Less painful. Slowly, gradually, so slowly sometimes it felt like nothing in my feelings was changing, but over time… I’ll never forget her, it will never stop hurting that she is dead and everyone else I knew from before probably is too. It never will… But I learned how to live with it, how to move forward. And who I am now… Things I’ve learned, how much I feel I’ve changed, and most of it all is thanks to you, would never have happened if Dale hadn’t stopped me that day at the CDC.”

I closed my eyes, tired. Of course she’d get to this, saying I shouldn’t hate them for saving my life.

“You hated him, Andrea,” I said weakly.

“I did. It’s why I understand what you’re feeling for both Merle and Michonne now. I get it, I’ve felt it. But it passed. If I ever see him again, I’ll tell him that no matter the things I told him back then, I am grateful now. Because all the things I’m living now, learning, growing, building in this place? I’d have nothing of it if he’d let me blow up that day. I wouldn’t have this family we’ve built. I wouldn’t have built this good relationship I have with Merle, I wouldn’t have you and Michonne as my chosen sisters. I just didn’t know it back then.”

All her words made sense, if I was rational about them. But I wasn’t. All I could feel was this pain inside my chest, drowning me, and I couldn’t see how one day I’d be glad to be alive again. I just couldn’t see it… I said nothing, just wishing she’d go and let me fall asleep again.

“I know you don’t see it now,” she moved on. “If someone told me those things back then, I would either. But you will… One day you will. You just gotta stay alive until you get there. Just say alive one more day, one at a time.”

I didn’t see her get out, because I kept my eyes closed, thinking of those last words.

Just one more day. One at a time.

 * * *

 Day 238

 “Alright, time to get the fuck up!”

For the first few seconds I had no idea what was happening. My blanket was pulled back roughly from me, coldness startling me like hell, and then hands were grabbing me, pulling me up and off the bed like I was a puppet. When I registered it was Merle getting me off the bed and could muster any kind of reaction, he had pushed me all the way to the kitchen already.

“The fuck you doing?!”

“I’m getting ya out of that shithole you dug yaself into! Out, now!”

Things were spinning, my head hurt, I felt like vomiting. I wanted a drink and I recognized I was probably in withdrawal all these days, my body shutting off and depression making me sleep though most of it.

“Get off me, Merle!” I shouted at him, trying to get him to let go of my arm.

“Ain’t gonna happen, sweetcheeks! Ya comin’ with me.”

He dragged me out to the street. I was barefoot, wearing a thin camisole, bald, probably looked like hell, but still I fought him. I kicked and screamed for him to let me go, he was hurting my arm as he made me walk with him. I saw the others around looking at the scene, shocked, but Merle didn’t mind them. He rounded the house, dragging me to the woods area, straight in the direction of the side hedge, my bare feet on the dry earth. In any other moment of my life I’d been able to fight him off, defend myself, but now my mind was blurred and it was like I didn’t know any self-defense movement, nor would I have the energy to do them if I did. So I just yelled, cursed at him, called him all the names I knew. Soon he stopped and turned to me, both hands strongly grabbing my shoulders to make me look at him.

“Shut up now!” he yelled. “Ya sad, bottomed down, I fuckin’ get it!”

“Then let go of me!!”

“But while ya been in bed drowning or out there drinkin’ and tryin’ to get yaself killed, we all been here! Watching over ya! Taking care of the Village! Keeping ya and the place safe!” and then he roughly turned me, making me look away from him, his hands still holding my arms from behind, “and getting your boy a proper resting place!”

Then I saw what he wanted to show me. Where he had dragged me to.

My baby’s tombstone.

I stopped struggling and stared at it, unable to look away. They were unbelievable. It was so well made, so carefully thought and built with the little tools we had these days. The stone was made of concrete and stood over a mount of earth with fresh grass starting to grow on it, a rectangle of stones pained in white and fresh yellow wild flowers adorning it.

Merle let go of my arms.

On the stone, they’d written it in the same white paint.

Jack Dixon-Danes.

My dad’s name. Daryl’s name. My name. Jack Dixon-Danes.

Merle said nothing else, just stood there behind me, out of my sight but solid. I slowly sank to my knees and let myself fall to the ground as I stared at it. They’d done this for him, carried him out there, paid their respects, buried him. It had to be hard for them too…

“Jack…” it came out a whisper and it made Merle move. He lowered himself to the ground by my side, a little behind, crossing his legs.

“We had to choose it for ya… Michonne knew your dad, said you’d like it.”

I nodded. She was right. The woman knew me back then, knew me well now. I hadn’t chosen the name before, deciding to choose when I saw him, but Jack had been one of my main options. I closed my eyes, allowing tears to spill. My heart had been thundering ever since Merle woke me up, and it was now slowing down, calmer. Even so, I allowed myself to cry, mourning the loss of my son, permitting the pain to come to the surface. I’d been avoiding it for too long.

Merle held me as I cried, pulling my back to his chest, firm and unmoving for a long, long time, and he kept saying things. He told me how he knew nobody was suffering more than I was but they were all mourning too, and to make it worse they had almost lost me as well. He told me how important I was to all of them, how I was family, his sister, and that Jack was a Dixon and I had taught him that being a Dixon was not a bad thing. He said he had a missing brother and a nephew in heaven already, couldn’t lose me too.

It was amazing how transformed Merle was. And I, apparently, had a part in it.

After crying out all I had to cry right now, and after a while I was just sniffing quietly, looking at Jack’s name and still near Merle, my back no his chest, my head fallen on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Merle…”

“I know ya sorry, darlin’. But ya ain’t gotta apologize.”

We got up from the ground what felt like hours later. I was sore and weak. Strangely, for the first time in all those days, I felt hungry. I had more important things than eating to do right now, though. Merle left me in front of Andrea’s house, giving me a kiss on the forehead before heading away. I watched him go thinking of how lucky I was to have such a brother now, an inevitable comparison between the Merle he was for the entire time I knew him before, and now. Feeling my eyes welled up and my nose prickling, I turned and limbed the few steps to the porch of Andrea’s house and knocked.

As if she’d been waiting for me, Andrea opened quickly. Seeing me there, she smiled with her lips closed, a breath coming out and tenderness all over her eyes. I extended a hand to her and she took it with no hesitation, and then I led her out to the front yard and to Michonne’s place right by hers. Still holding Andrea’s hand, I knocked and, again, it was like she was waiting for me, opening in a second.

Michonne had the same tenderness in her eyes seeing me there, but instead of a smile on her lips, hers trembled with emotion and she pulled me to her, hugging me tight and crying. I let it go as well, sobbing with her. There was something about being held and feel the empathy of a woman who also had lost a child. She understood. She knew how I felt. Miranda would know too. This thought, as terrible as it was to know both women had suffered it, comforted me somehow. I was not alone.

Andrea, Michonne and I spent the night together that day, at Michonne’s place. I was hugged by Andrea too, her height making my head rest on her breasts and she shushed me tenderly like a mom would. We sat together at the table, had dinner and desert, then tea, and talked a lot, with no stopping. I told them all I was feeling, deciding not to hold anything back. I told them I’d wished to die and hated Michonne and Merle for saving me. I told Andrea what I understood what she’d gone through months ago when she was the one who wanted to die, and that her telling me so a couple of days ago had helped more than she thought. I told them I didn’t even really want to find Daryl and the others anymore for fear of telling him what happened to Jack, for being terrified of seeing him suffer. I told them I still didn’t know how to move on with life now and that maybe I’d never know. I told them how much I wished that tea was wine. I told them I loved them, thanked them for being there for me, thanked Michonne for going out there to save my life, told them they were my family.

Contrasting with the heat I’d felt inside the car with my dream, it was chilly outside the morning after we found the Morales’. There’d been a solid, heavy sadness inside my chest as I opened the back door and let my legs fall outside. My throat was tight and I just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe I’d dream of him again.

God, I hoped he was alive.

Please, don’t die…

But as always, stuff happened to take my mind off it. That morning, in came as the sound of barking. Loud, thunderous barking, clearly from a large dog. I got out of the car to look around just as the others did too, we all looking at each other trying to understand it. Seconds later, the barking stopped and we saw it. The dog was running towards us, fast, looking back over its muscular shoulder twice.

Oh, for fuck’s sakes, don’t make me kill a dog! Walkers, fine. People? If I have to. But a dog?!

But it didn’t attack us as we’d been prepared for, all weapons ready. It stopped and turned looking to where it had come and as if on cue, a herd showed from behind that huge pile of wrecked cars. Like twenty, thirty of them. The dog, smart thing, didn’t bark again, just stood there nervously, pacing and looking around at the living people it had found.

“Let’s move!!” I yelled at all the others from where I was standing at the side of my car and moved to close the back door. Before I could, though, the dog had sprinted over, startling me like hell – damn, that was a big dog – and jumped into the car, crashing loudly against the inside of the opposite door.

With the herd coming I had no time to make any decision. I closed the back door, trapping the dog inside, and opened the driver’s, hopping in and turning on the car. I looked back over my shoulder to reverse the car and the dog was there, breathing hard with its tongue out.

“Please don’t attack me!” I told it and reversed.

Our five cars – including the truck with all the metal scraps and Morale’s white van – got out of the junkyard, the walkers nearly catching up, but we left them behind quickly. My heart was pounding; it all had happened do fucking fast! I had been sleeping, like, two minutes ago and now I was accelerating on the road back home with a huge, bulk gorgeous dog on the back seat.

“Holy fuck!” I let it out, and as if I was calling the dog, it placed its large head right by mine between the seats and started smelling my face. It had a terrible breath, seriously, but I did nothing, I let it smell me and it didn’t seem threatening. So as I drove I lifted a hand to it, letting it smell me there too. It did for a moment, then stopped, passed between the seats, flopped down the passenger seat and started panting with the tongue out, it’s face looking adorably like it was smiling.

“Well, hello!” I caught myself speaking sweetly to the bulk dog as I reached out to pet the large head. “How the hell did you end up here?”

If it had an owner, I was sorry, but there was no way I was going back there to look for someone. Too many walkers, I wasn’t endangering myself and my group to reunite a dog with its owner. But taking a better look at it, I saw it was muscular but simply because it was probably a trait of the breed, because I could see its ribs and how thin it was on the sides. It’d probably been out there for a long time.

“Hey, you a boy or a girl?” I tried to see, still petting it, looking from the road to the dog repeatedly, and I was able to take a look. “A girl, alright! There you go, we girls gonna stick together then, right?”

She had a short, light brown coat with a large white spot on her neck going down her chest. Her head was huge, similar to a pit bull’s, her ears were cut to make them pointy and her eyes were a beautiful honey brown. And she was huge, really too thin in the middle for her size.

We took over one hour to get back home. During this time, the dog had slid from her seat to my lap, where she laid and let me pet her all the way back home. It was like she was starving attention, as well as food, most likely, and she basked on the attention. Shit, I had a dog now! She jumped out of the car just a moment after me and followed me around as I walked over to talk to the others.

“Welcome home, Morales family!” I told Mo and Miranda as they got out of the white van. “This is it,” I gestured around, at the opening, at the first houses we’d been staying in and down the street.

“Wow...” Mo said looking around. “This is amazing, Sam…”

“Well, it’s good, ain’t amazing yet. There’s lots of work to do yet, first thing will be to set the gate.”

“Yeah, I see why it’s so important,” he says eyeing the big opening. “If I can see the projects I think I can start working on it right away.”

“Have a rest first, ok? You two can pick a house for you, just stay close to the others, there’s one right on the corner down there,” I pointed to the end of the main street. “It’s already cleared of walkers. After we clear them all you can pick any house you want.”

Then I introduced them to Will and Mikki, who were a bit wary but welcomed them. By now the dog had also been welcomed by everyone. She was the clear image of what people call a gentle giant. She let everyone pet her, licked their hands, and only after a while she took off to look around, smell the place, probably pee all over.

When the Morales’ drove their van slowly to the corner so they could unpack the little belongings they had on the corner house, I sat on the steps of the house I’d been sharing with Merle, Michonne and Andrea to have something to eat. The dog sat right in front of me, never trying to take the food, but staring with huge puppy eyes, so I got back into the house to get her a bowl and in there I emptied two cans of tuna. Going back outside, I put it down and she tried to get to it immediately.

“Wait!” I told her and he stopped instantly, sat on her heels and looked up at me, expectantly. Uh, interesting. Whoever her tutor had been, she was a well-trained girl. I allowed her to eat after a second and she swallowed all the tuna in no more than two bites. Damn, it was gonna take a lot of food to maintain her. I decided to call her Honey because of her eyes, and because I had never seen a dog named Honey.

Now it’d been oven a month since she came home with us, since the Morales’ were here. With a group of eight, one elder and one dog, we were building a place to call home. The gate was functional, Morales had done an incredible job in partnership with Merle and Mikki, and now it was a tall, sturdy metal gate that slid sideways and had strong locks. Also, we’d built a wooden platform where we could climb up and watch the whole entrance and outside area, it was where people kept guard at all times in a scale.

After I filled Honey’s bowl with her dog food, I had a cup of unsweetened coffee and a bowl of oatmeal with raisins for breakfast, and was out of the house through the back door with the first day light. Honey took off to take her morning pee as I stood for a minute looking at the lake.

A deep breath, hand on my stomach, a grounding moment to face the day.

I had already picked my own house and was living alone there. Each one of us had our own space, except for Will and Mikki who shared the house with Ma, and the two Morales’. Merle had stayed in the one we’d shared in the beginning, Morales and Miranda decided not to move from the first one they stayed in at the corner. Across from them at the corner and by Merle’s, Michonne had picked hers. Andrea was her neighbor on that street, the one the circled the lake area. As for myself, I’d chosen a more isolated one. The street around the lake area was a big circle that covered most part of the community and returned to the corner of the main street. In it, a few small streets originated, little cul-de-sacs, and mine was at the very end of one of them, its back to the lake, lots of trees all around, and it was quiet. The house was a one bedroom, trailer like, the front door opened to a living room with a good couch. The living room was separated from the kitchen by a small counter, this was also small but had lots of cabinets, and I had gas and running water. By the kitchen there was a small 4 seat table. Ahead there was a tiny corridor with a door to the bathroom and another to the bedroom, which took the entire back area of the house. A double bed, a dresser and a wall mirror, and that was all. It was smaller than the one I’d live in for so many years in Savannah, but it was better. It was mine.

Honey came back to me after doing her morning routine and after a pet on her large head – the girl had been gaining weight and now looked even stronger than she did before; she surely was intimidating - I started my morning walk. I had taken on doing it every day before going to the entrance of the community were all the others lived. I walked among the trees around the lake, taking a look at the fruit ones – we were not in season, so no fresh fruit for a while. Reaching the back hedge of the community, I walked along it, checking if it was all okay, including the little gate which locks we’d reinforced, and then went back to the street, circling the whole community. I went to take a look at the coop construction, which seemed nearly done, all we’d need now was the chickens, and at the vegetables garden, where we’d been growing a few things from the seeds we looted from a gardening store – an imitation of what we’d done before at our first house.

Things were good here. We needed more people, of course, and there sure were enough houses to call it a town one day. We’d named it simply The Village, because it had been the official name of the place we’d found on the projects at the office. The Village Mobile Home Park had been the planned official name before the investments had been cut off and it went on without even being named. Lots of people had lived here though, even without the concretion of the self-sustainable community plans. The Village needed a population, needed more people to work on the land and the security and on building up for the future.

It needed my original group.

We all had well defined jobs. Morales was responsible for planning and executing constructions. He’d made the gate, the platform, was working on the chicken coop, and he’d been drawing the plan for build a brick wall around the Village, just inside of the hedges. He had help of all others to perform the constructions.

Miranda, the sweet, God sent woman, had nursing experience and she was taking care of everyone’s health. Every other day one of us would get hurt by something and the was the one to take care. She took inventory of the medicine we brought home, controlled stock, cleanliness, she’d medicate and bandage us and even the dog, who once got a huge splinter on her paw and needed care. Miranda had been monitoring my baby’s growth, would listen the liquids and blood flow with a stethoscope, measure my belly weekly, made sure I took the little vitamins we’d been able to find around. She was very dedicated. We had transformed one of the houses in an infirmary – it was the one across the street from Michonne’s place – and Miranda took great care of it.  

Merle was responsible for security, and the irony was never lost on me because he was doing the job Shane once had done. And he was good, I don’t think he’d ever known he could be good at something like this. Even with all things considered, back in the previous life Merle would have been a hell of a good cop if he’d wanted to. He took care of the watch schedules – always one person up the platform and another circling the inside of the Village’s hedges in three-hour shifts – and the organization, maintenance and stock of all weapons. He also went out once a week to go hunting and sometimes stayed out for as long as two days, and would rarely come back without any meat for us all.

Andrea was a valuable assistant to various parts. She helped Miranda at the infirmary when it was needed, then helped Merle with the planning for security, then Morales with the projects, and she even helped keep to take care of Ma – who was now believing she was her daughter and adored her company. Also, surprisingly, Andrea was the best cook among all of us, although Miranda was great competition, and she was getting a taste in cooking family meals for everyone every now and then.

Michonne took care of the runs. She was always out there, she’d decorated the area maps in her head and would show me all her plans for runs, telling me exactly where she’d be and where she was planning to go next. Someone would always go with her for safety and so they’d be able to carry more stuff. She always brought the most different sorts or cargo. Once she brought us a whole set of walkie radios, with spare batteries and all, and we now used them to communicate inside the Village and small distances outside too. There were also baby clothes and bottles and cans of formula, even a disabled crib, a stroller and a baby bath. She brought clothes, towels, bed cloths, blankets, pillows, washcloths, toiletries, cleaning products, furniture, mattresses, wires, ropes, seeds, seedlings, all kinds of canned and dried foods, candy treats, weapons, ammo, arrows, once she even came back with a military armor. She was good in recognizing the hide spots of stores, the underground or attic storage rooms nobody had looted yet. There was a maximum security prison nearby, just around 9 miles away through the main roads that Michonne wanted to go take a look. She’d seen it from far and it was totally infested by walkers. If all the inmates had turned while in there the inside must be the proper sight of hell. She believed we could find valuable stuff in there, mostly weapons and armor, but she was reluctant to try.

Mikki took care of the general maintenance of the Village. She’d worked with the landlord before the end and she knew this place like her own hand. She kept the water pumps going, and with Morales had made sure the solar panels were working. It was not a lot of energy, just enough to have the lights on at night in the houses, to turn on the electrical stoves, keep a small refrigerator going, and to have warm showers every couple of days. It was incredible. Mikki was also always checking on the fences, plumbing and anything else that broke or needed repair.

Her brother Will could never get involved in too much because he was the primary care taker of their elder mother, but he did take guarding shifts at the platform, sometimes went out with Michonne on runs and helped the others on small necessary things.

And as for myself… I was the leader. I knew how to do everything the others did, and what I hadn’t known, I was learning. I made the decisions and gave orders and approved or disapproved ideas, and they all heard me. I was overseeing the whole Village and I knew constantly everything that was going on inside the walls and with each one of the family. These days, however, almost thirty-four weeks pregnant, I was slowing down, even though I didn’t want to. I got tired easily, my back hurt, the heartburns were killing me and my feet looked like loaves of bread in the end of the day. The others wouldn’t let me carry heavy things, walk too much, and Merle was insisting I’d let the crossbow go at least until I was back on my feet after the baby came. I did not let go of my crossbow, though. Never.

 * * *

 I was training Honey. She was a great learn, seemed always eager to pick up new tricks. She was unbelievable in her obedience to me. I’d had no experience with dogs at all, so it couldn’t be a talent of mine. I was sure Honey had belonged to someone who’d trained her before, so she was used to commands and following them. She’d chosen me to be her leader now, and I adored it. Honey was a huge, muscular American Bully, absurdly smart and a total sweetheart. Now I was with her near the lake among the trees testing a few commands. She was playing around, sniffing trees and stuff, and I gave her two short, quick sharp whistles. She immediately ran to my side and stopped there, facing the same way I was. Then I pointed to the ground, leaning down just a bit, which made her lie down. Then I walked away and she stayed, eyes always on me, but unmoving. I gave her the two whistles again and she ran to my side. Such a good girl!

My radio came to life on my waistband just then, static preceding the message.

“Goldilocks, I need ya at the gate pronto,” it was Merle’s voice. “We got company,” I was already moving, Honey on my heels, as he continued. “Hell, gotta have ya’ll nearby just in case.”

Shit.

I took the last few yards by running and quickly climbed up the platform where Merle was planted, looking outside. Sure enough, there was a group of four men outside, ragged and thin as all of us still living people must look like these days.

“What you want?” I asked instantly, observing each of them.

“We’re starved!” the one upfront said. “Please…”

Well, they did look starved. “You name?”

“It’s Charlie, ma’am,” he said humbly. “These are Tom, Phil and Nick.”

Each one of them nodded at me the mention of their name. I thought those names sounded made up.

“Where ya coming from?”

“We were trying to get to the coast, see if there was help there. Before tried Fort Benning.”

Silence. I looked back and behind me to share a look with Andrea, who was standing down there with a .12 in her hands. What if, after all, my group had decided to go there? If they didn’t know Shane killed me because of the Fort Benning idea, they may have tried it.

“What was it like there? Fort Benning?”

“Was down, ma’am. Exploded and overrun. Corpses wanderin’ around all over.”

“Did it seem recent? Or down for a long time?”

“Uh… I’d guess a long time, ma’am. There was no fire nor smoke, just the burned building and the corpses. Pro’ly a long time.”

Please tell me they never went to Fort Benning…

I nodded gravelly at the man. I needed to check if they were safe, I’d been thinking how I’d deal with a situation like this for a while now. At some point somebody was bound to find us, ask for help, to want in, it just took a while for it to happen.

“You armed?” I asked.

“Uh… Just the knives. Gotta have’em these days.”

I nodded again. Sure, he was right. “Did you cross too many of them?”

“Yes… Many of them.”

“So you know how to deal with them?”

“We mostly avoid’em, run… But when we gotta, yeah. We know how to deal with’em.”

“What about people?”

“Ma’am?”

“People out there. How do you deal with’em?”

“Uh… Uh… We, uh…”

Man, if for him answering to this question was so fucking hard I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. But as he stuttered, another one of them, I guess I’d seem him nod at the name Nick, took a step forward and said, “We do what we gotta do, miss,” his voice was more sure and more firm than Charlie’s. “How we kept alive so far.”

Fuck.

“And care to tell me what is it that you gotta do?”

“People you find wandering around there don’t share… Miss. Sometimes what separated us from death was the things people didn’t want to share.”

“You mean you took things,” I said to confirm. “And killed’em?”

“I know you’ll understand, Miss. Can’t have a place like that and not take things and deal with’em out there.”

Holy shit, this was getting dark. I just nodded, as if I thought what he was saying was normal, and he continued.

“If you let us stay we will do it for ya. Work, I mean. We’ll earn our keep.”

Merle leaned down, resting his hands on the top of the fence on the hedge, staring right at them. He had a smile on his lips and was nodding, then looked sideways at me and gave me his opinion by shaking his head minutely. I obviously was thinking the same he was. So I looked back at them.

“You hungry, we’ll get you a bag with some provisions,” and I looked back at the street where the others were and nodded at Will, who nodded back and ran into the first house right there, where we kept out stock. “But ya can’t come in.”

“Ma’am?” Charlie said again, a plead in his eyes.

“We don’t take strangers in. This is a closed community.”

“But, ma’am –”

“We’ll work for you!” the other said. “Whatever we gotta do.”

“You not once offered your services to help with maintenance, cleaning, lookouts… Ya offered me your services to steal from and kill from people out there. Ain’t the kind of service I’m interested in.”

“No! I said whatever we gotta do, if what we gotta do is cleaning then we’ll do it.”

“I’ve made my decision.”

Will came back with a heavy bag and I turned around to climb down the stairs making a gesture for Morales to open the gate and I took the bag from Will. I walked out with it hanging on my shoulder. Up on the platform and behind me, I heard all the others’ weapons getting cocked, ready. I stopped in front of Charlie and Nick and slid the bag from my shoulder and handed it to them. Charlie took it, placed it on the floor and opened it, his companions coming to look over his shoulder.

“That all?” Charlie said.

“You’re kidding me?” Nick said from his side.

Oh, motherfuckers. The bag was not bad at all! There were at least fifteen varied cans inside and about ten bottles of mineral water. It was certainly gonna help the get along until they could find some more.

“Keep complainin’ and I’ll take it back,” I told him.

Nick straightened his back with a can in his hand and I saw so much hate in his eye that my hand closed over the handle of my pistol. This seemed to anger him even more, to the point of desperation, because even with at least four weapons cocked and pointed at him, Nick striked, a knife quickly sliding from his sleeve to his hand. My reflex got me turning my torso to the side because his knife was plunged right towards my belly.

He’d seen it. He saw my pregnant belly and was so… Indescribably son of a fucking bitch that he tried to stab me there.

Not fast enough. Caught by surprise, not fast enough.

I turned but not enough by inches. The blade cut though the left side of my stomach and stuck in there. It was all very confusing after that. I heard shots, many of them, and then all the man in front of me fell dead on the asphalt, and then I was falling myself, shocked by what had just happened, paralyzed from fear and pain. Terror like nothing I’d ever felt before, comparable to the feeling of Shane strangling me, swooped into my veins, making me cold, frozen. And then I was getting carried away, people were screaming all around me but I didn’t hear a word, the world around me a blur of color and sound, but nothing was felt anymore, just the cold, solid terror for by baby.

Then I was in a high bed and Miranda and Andrea were all over me checking the stab, trying to figure where it had hit me, if the baby was fine. I could barely breath, waiting for a signal that it was all fine because if it wasn’t I would ever breathe again.

Time had no measure anymore because it felt like an eternity and like just a few seconds until they decided it hadn’t hit me anywhere vital nor on the baby. I have no idea how they got to that conclusion, but then they were taking the knife off and it hurt like a motherfucker, making me scream and try to get away, but hands of other people kept holding me know, saying it would be fine, calm down, but I was out of my mind in pain and still shocked and panicking from the stab.

Merle was there, holding my face in his hands, and told me firmly that I was fine, wasn’t too hurt and that the baby was fine. The baby’s fine, he repeated over and over, trying to get to my head, Slowly, he did and I stopped struggling, letting Miranda and Andrea work cleaning and stitching the cut, that apparently had only been superficial.

Apparently I had turned quickly enough, after all.

I kept repeating it like a mantra in my mind, I’m fine, the baby’s fine, but convincing my body was another whole thing. Things were calmer around me again, everyone relieved it hadn’t been bad, when the first pain came. I doubled over, sitting up and then the panic around started again, nobody understood what was happening.

Miranda said it could be just a natural reaction of my body to the stress, that I needed to calm down, relax, get it past, get some sleep, and it might be over, but I’d need to be closely observed so someone would stay with me tonight. I was taken back home and my sisters started taking shifts watching me, and I knew even when one of them wasn’t there, they weren’t sleeping. Michonne, Andrea and Merle were around all the time, watching me as pain after pain it came back, never fading, just getting closer together. Miranda came back when it was clear it was not just a stressful reaction.

I was in labor.

I was in labor.

Painful, sharp contractions every fifteen minutes, and then every ten. At less than eight months of pregnancy. No, no, no… Too soon! To fucking soon. But they kept coming, and Miranda checked me and… God, the worry in her eyes when she removed her hand from me. There was fear and sadness there when she told me I was getting dilated, ready for birth.

I was in early labor.

He was coming. The baby was coming and he wasn’t ready, I knew he wasn’t ready. He’d gone through too much, he needed as much time inside as he could have to be ready to be born, he could not come out now. He wasn’t ready, please, please, he ain’t ready!

Michonne didn’t leave anymore. She sat with me in bed, held my hand, and didn’t leave me alone for any second. Right there too, was Honey, lying on the mattress with me and whining, knowing something was wrong. When the pain was gone she’d come near for me to pet her, trying to give me some comfort.

I was incoherent, my thoughts all over the place and in a pain I hadn’t imagined. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about labor because I was scared of it. With no resources, no medications, no hospital, anything could go wrong, so I just avoided thinking of it. And it was all happening now.

Merle came and went, pacing all over the house and around it, but when my contractions seemed to never go away anymore and Miranda measured me again, he stayed. It was time. My boy was coming. Merle sat behind me to keep me propped up and Michonne held my hand and encouraged me. I sweat, screamed, hit Merle’s legs and squeezed Michonne’s fingers and cursed with all the words I knew.

It took no more than three hours from the first pain to the moment he came out. He came out. My baby was born. Miranda held him, cleared his airways, pat his back and got him to finally, finally, God, whimper.

He didn’t cry. He whimpered.

Miranda lifted him and showed him to us all. My boy… He was so small, so tiny, a wrinkled little thing and he was whimpering, his little chest working hard, trying, trying so hard… I reached out for him and she handed him over. I rested him on my chest, liquid and blood all over and someone placed a sheet on top of him…

And I cried. I cried because I knew.

I had a baby and he was right here, real, he existed. I looked down at him, his little face, held his tiny hand between the tips of my fingers and spoke to him, rocking back and forth. Merle got up from behind me and was looking at the baby and at me and Michonne was crying by my side, but I didn’t look at anyone, I didn’t lift my sight from him even for a second.

I looked at him for his entire life.

I kissed his head, is hands, I talked to him. I love you, my angel. You’re loved. You’re beautiful. My little angel, my precious little boy. I love you so, so much…

I held him in my arms during his entire life.

I had suffered and cried painfully many times in my life. Many times in the past few months. But nothing had ever, nor ever would again, hurt this much. Nothing had ever hurt and would never hurt me as much as the second I realized, a couple of hours later, that he wasn’t there anymore. That he’d stopped breathing, losing the fight.

He fought. He fought hard, my brave little warrior. He fought his entire life. He was held and loved for his entire life.

 * * *

 Mich and Andrea washed me like they’d do to a baby. I was limp, just letting them. The cleaned me, dressed me, took me to bed. I don’t think it was my bed, it was some other one, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care, I fell asleep.

Woke up to Miranda checking on me and Merle making me drink some water. He said something, I didn’t register. Woke up again to Michonne petting my hair, saying I had to eat something. Woke up again to Honey licking my hand, trying to get me up. Woke up again to Andrea forcing spoons of broth on me. Woke up again feeling I needed to pee. Woke up again when I peed all over myself. Woke up when they took me to shower again.

No matter how much I wished I wouldn’t, I kept waking up.

It was hell, I didn’t want to wake up anymore. I don’t know what day it was, how long it’d been, I just knew he wasn’t there anymore.

He was nowhere, he was not inside my womb, he was not in my arms.

There is such a thing as too little fear. We did not check the outside, we didn’t look around the porch, we just opened the front door and went out, and that nearly got Merle bit by the walker that was there, reaching hungrily for his arm.

“Merle!!” I yelled, but I couldn’t see more, I didn’t see if he killed the walker with his knifed hand, because in an instant there was a whole crowd of them coming from the side of the house, some pushing their way into the door, some going to Merle on the porch, separating him from us. Inside, Michonne, Andrea and I tried pushing the door closed against their force, our full weight against it, but the glass on the door broke, the shards raining down on us.

“We gotta run!” I head Andrea say when it was clear we could not hold them, their hands and arms now inside trying to grab our heads and hair.

“There’s no back door!” Michonne reminded us.

Yep, the fucking house had no back door. I mean, seriously?!

“We gotta run upstairs!” I yelled and paused before completing, “Now!”

I leaned down to take the crossbow from where it had fallen in the ground and ran. The first walker was on Andrea’s heels as we ran and climbed up the stairs, but they were thankfully slower than us so we were able to reach the upstairs corridor before they could come up, and we entered the last bedroom of the house, closing the door behind us and locking it. Seconds later they were there, scratching and groaning. Michonne and Andrea were dragging a dresser to block the door as I moved to the window and lifted it open, poking my upper body out to look for something, for Merle, for an escape.

“Merle!!!” I yelled, hoping for something. The fucking walkers had been to goddam close to him.

There was the roof of the porch right under the window and I could see a few last stray walkers crossing the street and going into the house, but they were not many, we could deal with them. Most of the crowd was already inside the house, the door of the bedroom creaking dangerously under their force.

“We gonna have to jump,” I told them both as they stood by the window by my sides.

“Are you insane?” Andrea screeched. “You can’t jump!”

“Course I can!”

“You keep forgetting you’re pregnant!” Michonne agreed with Andrea.

“What do you suggest then?!”

Before any of them could speak, there was a loud, piercing honk noise coming from the street, making them put their bodies out of the window to look at it as I was. A car came down the street, one of ours, slowly and honking like crazy, and Merle put his head out and yelled, “Come and get me motherfuckers!!!”

And surely enough, as we laughed in relief that he was fine, the walkers started going in his direction, a tide of them coming out of the house, even though their noise on our door still continued. The honking would not be enough to attract all of them. Merle kept driving slowly, making them follow him, honking and yelling and hitting his hand on the car.

But the door broke, large splinters pointing into the room as the uncountable number of walkers tried to get in though the gaps, squeezing, groaning, skins getting caught on the wood. Too many to deal with.

I pointed the crossbow at them, knowing damn well it wouldn’t be enough if they got in. “Get out! Get out!” I told them and kept my aim, not seeing them get out but trusting they would. Michonne called my name once they were out and I turned to leave as well. Just as I passed, she had the mind to lower the window closed after me. We walked to the side, away from it, and could hear them at the window now, trying to follow us. The glass wouldn’t hold for too long, maybe even less than the door did.

Months ago I’d have jumped down with no second thought, but not things were different. I hesitated, I had the big belly going on and I just couldn’t jump. Merle was still honking somewhere, we couldn’t see him anymore, but the herd following him was visible.

I placed the front of the crossbow on the roof, stuck my foot on it and leaned down to pull the string up. It was tight to pull but I was getting used to it and did it fast. Hearing it click in place I took one of the five arrows from the holster and armed it. Michonne had walked to the left on the roof to take a look at the side of the house, and I did the same to the right. The roof did not continue to neither side, so we had to stay there.

“We’ll have to wait,” she whispered. “Merle will come back.”

It must have taken over two hours. The sound of the walkers in the windows slowly diminished. The glass panes had broken hours ago but they hadn’t been able to break the wood parts, so they couldn’t get out. The three of us sat with our backs against the house, quiet, and they lost interest. The herd had disappeared too and we had to wait for Merle to come back to pick us up, but we got inpatient. We didn’t even know if he was fine, maybe he was the one who needed our help now.

I stretched my neck to the side to carefully look into the bedroom though the panes. There were six walkers in there, dormant, looking at nothing. Six was easy.

“Hey,” I whispered and they both looked at me. “Six. Let’s end’em and get the fuck outta here.”

Andrea was going to say something against it but Michonne got up just as I did, also clearly tired of being here. So I faced the window from the outside, took aim and, for the first time, was able to finally use my crossbow to take down a walker. Oh, that felt good! It was thrilling, the sound of the arrow leaving the barrel, sharply cutting the air and perforating the skull as if it was butter. I understood why Daryl liked the thing so much.

The other walkers did not understand what was happening, just groaned at the movement of the other one falling. I lowered the crossbow to cock it again and was done in seconds, and the second walker fell to my arrow. Oh, the chills on my spine! It was only then the other four noticed us and came back to the window, growling to get to us, but on each side of the window, Michonne and Andrea dealt with them with their knives as I cocked the crossbow again. One extra walker came into the room from the corridor and I shot it before it could cross the bedroom.

“You’re getting good with this thing,” Andrea told me making me smile.

We opened the window and got in again. Just inside I armed it again before bending to take back the three arrows on the walker’s heads, and then left room in before the others, crossbow raised and aiming at any threat that could come. I shot one more on the stairs and its dead weight rolled down the steps loudly, knocking down another one on its way and trapping it under its body. The ground floor was empty, apparently all the ones that had been there had followed the honks outside. This time we checked the porch before leaving the house, it was clear. Our cars where there on the street and we ran towards it, but from the corner we heard a car approach. We didn’t know it was Merle so we ducked behind a few bushes on the garden, only to get up a second later when he called out to us.

“Come on, evil triplets, let’s get the fuck outta here!”

Incredible how hearing Merle’s voice could make me feel so relieved! We ran to the cars and took off behind him in no time. I could see walkers coming out of the neighboring houses on my rear mirror but we were gone.

And then it happened again.

There had been signs of a junkyard on the road a few miles back and we were following them, heading east. The little walker driven town was far behind us and we were now approaching its neighbor town. Our car’s breaks screeched loudly when that fucking giant herd appeared right in front of us after a curve. It was big, must’ve been bigger than the one that had closed on us on the road the day Sophia disappeared. The sound of the screeches did nothing to attract them, though, they kept on trying to get over one another to get to something that was in front of them, obscured by their putrid corpses. Behind and beside my Hummer, the others started backing down with the cars slowly and silently, but I remained there.

The walkers were after something. Or someone. It they were still attracted by it; it was probably alive. If it was alive, they wouldn’t be for too much longer with that huge herd on them. Could be anyone, could be my group, could be Daryl, or could be just a person I didn’t know and needed help. So I didn’t back off with the car. Instead, I grabbed the binoculars I had in the glovebox and got out of the car, only about fifteen yards between me and the backs of the nearest ones, and climbed up the car until I was standing on its roof, and I looked.

There was a white van among this enormous circle of walkers. I couldn’t even see its cab, only the roof of it and the tallest part, and I watched as a man climbed out of the cab through the sunroof and reach down to help someone else up. They looked vaguely familiar but it was impossible to see from this distance. A woman came out, grabbing the man’s hands, and they both stood there for a second looking around and them climbed up the tallest part of the can. Now I could see them fully as they looked all over, walked from one end to another of the van, trying to find a solution. No apparent weapons on them. The man lifted his hands to his head, as if understanding they had no escape, just as the woman kicked away the hand of a walker that got too close to her foot.

I slid down from the roof of the car to the floor without any more thoughts. I stood on the step of the open door so I’d be high enough to make the other three car’s drivers hear me. They had stopped backing off from there and were waiting to see that the fuck I was doing.

“Back’em around!!” I yelled gesturing to them. “And then ya honk like a motherfucker!!”

I didn’t wait for an answer, just entered the car, which was still on, and pressed a button on its panel, turning on the cd player. I knew exactly what dc was in there, so I put the volume in maximum. The first notes of Seek and Destroy exploded on the sound boxes and I felt a huge thrill. When the second verse started my head started bopping up and down with the music and I yelled in joy. Incredible how good that felt! Smiling, I closed the door and looked at the herd. It was working, the last ones had turned to our direction and already taking the first steps to get to us. Behind me, the others honked like crazy as the I started backing off slowly, following them. In minutes, whole herd was following us, and I was having way too much fun backing out and letting them nearly get to the front of my car and them accelerating away again.

“Stop fucking around!!!” I heard Michonne yell from her car. Oh, she was mad, cursing and all. She never cursed.

Oh, let’s just quit it. I accelerated back so I’d have time to reverse the car, and then I reached the side of her car.

“My bad!” I told her.

“Are you fucking insane?!”

“Sorry!!” but I kept on before she could answer. “Let’s find a way to get around and get to them! There’s a couple, they need help!”

Merle happened to have been in the area before and thought he remembered a side road we could use. He was correct, and we returned to the road quickly, just a bit ahead from where the white wan was still in the middle of the road. We stopped near it and there was no sign from the two people. Silently, we all raised our weapons. Michonne poked me and signaled she’d seem movement from under the van, meaning there were people behind it. We went around the van, Andrea and I on one side, Merle and Michonne on the other. I had the crossbow ready and, when I reached the end of the van, took a one second breath and rounded it, pointing straight to a man’s face. He had his hand raised with a knife and, behind him, the woman did the same towards Merle.

“Drop it!” I said, pointing at his face. “Now!” He hesitated, fearful but keeping his brave stance. “We just saved you from that herd, the fuck you think we’ll do to you?”

He looked over his shoulder at the woman, both of them trying to decide what to do, and at that moment it hit me. He’d looked familiar from afar, but now I saw it. I felt like laughing, but I didn’t.

“Drop it, Morales!” I told him and his eyes widened as he looked back at me.

By my side, Andrea left the protection of the van to look at him. “Morales!” she said opening a smile, and she tried going by me to approach him. I took a step back and stood in front of her, blocking her way. She couldn’t approach anybody who had a knife raised and ready to attack, it didn’t matter if we knew him.

“Andrea?” he asked and let his eyes slide from her to me. “Sam?” his voice shook as he said it and his hand lowered a bit. I took it as a good sign and raised my head from aiming position looking though the scope.

“What’s up, Mo?” I asked, a little smile escaping my lips against my will. “It’s alright, please drop the knife, you both.

Miranda, on his back, did it first, her hand grabbing his arm to make him drop the knife and then turned to me, letting me know it was safe. So I instantly lowered the crossbow, a laugh coming out of me in a huff.

“You’re finding people you know again?” I heard Michonne say.

“Shit, Sam…” Morales said, disbelief and relief all over his face.

I hugged him with one arm. It was good to see him, but not so good it made me oversee their demeanor. The absence of their children. How thin and pained they both looked. Miranda hugged me after and I could tell she was holding back her emotions. Merle stood a bit afar, outside our little reunion as Andrea also hugged them and I introduced them to Michonne.

“The others?” he asked then.

“It’s just us,” I shook my head. “Got two more you don’t know back home, but the original group… We got separated from them months ago.”

“They’re out there,” Andrea completed. “Somewhere.”

“You got a home?” Miranda didn’t miss the implication.

“Yes. ‘Round fifty miles west. You?”

“We’ve been on the road all this time… No home.”

“You can come back with us if you want. Stay?”

They wanted to say yes immediately, a fuck yes!, but something made them both hesitate as one. They looked at all of us until their eyes fell on Merle and Mo tried to say something but couldn’t really form the words. And then he nudged me away, alone. Miranda stayed with Andrea and Michonne and Merle leaned against the van lighting up a cigarette as I walked away a few steps with Morales.

“What’s worrying you, Mo?”

“Uh, to be honest? Dixon,” he paused. “He’s… Back?”

“Yep. He’s back. He’s part of this group, real important one, and he’s staying,” I told him firmly to make to room for questions. “But I know why you’re worried. The way he was at camp, what happened on the roof. You were there, last thing you remember of Merle was that scene, I get it.”

He nodded, “Good. So… I don’t know.”

“Mo, listen. Merle’s got his personality and that ain’t changing. But he ain’t the same anymore. No drugs now. He’s got this group’s backs like it’s his family. You stay and you have his back too? He’ll have yours. You don’t have to be friends, but I assure you that we’re better with Merle with us.”

He thought for a moment and then nodded, pressing his lips together. “Ok… Okay. Alright. If you’ll have us… We’ll stay.”

I smiled up at the big man, “Good. You got a home now then. You and your wife will even have your own house.”

He looked like he could cry at any moment. I’d have to have him tell me what had happened to them in all those months, but it wasn’t the moment.

 * * *

 Morales had been a welder a few years back, he told us. He knew how to weld and thought he could make something up for out gate. A sent from the fucking heavens. So we loaded a big truck Merle found in the junkyard shed with lots of metal parts and welding instruments he guaranteed us he knew how to use.

Night fell too quickly and we decided to stay there for the night, sleeping in the cars. There were enough people to keep watch now, so it was safer. I laid on the back seat of my Hummer after we are jerky and canned spinach as a dinner, and tried to get some sleep.

Our group was growing and we did have space for that. It was a big area, 39 houses, Mikki had told us. I hadn’t counted yet, we had still to get into all of them. The land was pretty much clear now, we didn’t see stray walkers on the streets and land inside anymore. After cleaning all the houses we’d have room for lots of people. I started making a list of steps in my mind. One, set the gate. Two, finish clearing the houses. Three, set up one of the houses as storage for food and weapons, and make an inventory. Choose someone to be responsible for it. Three, clean and organize houses for each one of us. I wanted to choose my own, I’m sure the others would too. But anyone could share if they didn’t wish to be alone. Four, check the land, soil, find a gardening tools and seeds and anything else we could, as we had on out previous home, as start a planting stuff. Check is any of the trees inside were fruit trees, if not find some seedlings if there were any still alive out there. Five, built coops and find chickens or ducks or turkeys, any kind of livestock. Six, find Daryl.

With all the car doors closed, I was in silence and warm, and feeling safe with five road companions around, so I allowed myself to relax. My eyes heavy, I pillowed my head on my right arm and looked down at my own body. Down there, partially hidden by my belly, Daryl was between my spread legs, his hot, wet mouth on me, his tongue lavishing me, his low voice moaning in pleasure for having me in his mouth. I reached down to him, my fingers threading though his hair, and sit up a bit so I could see him. He looked up at me, his clear blue eyes glued on mine, watching my soul, seeing me sigh and bite my lip. Never looking away, he entered me with two fingers and I whimpered and whispered his name, feeling the warmth bubble inside my lower belly, my hips jerking against his mouth. He felt so fucking good I felt like crying, my head fell back and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to come in his mouth.

“Sam, someone’s coming,” Andrea warned from the window. All three of us moved near her to see it and saw someone crossing the narrow street, coming from the other house and, seconds later, there was a knock.

“See any weapons?” I asked them because I couldn’t see properly from that angle.

“None visible,” Michonne answered.

So I moved to the door, Merle standing right on my back, his attention peaked, and I opened the door. It was surely Will’s sister, tall, tanned, long, straight hair pulled back in a tight, tall ponytail, eyebrows curved up, perfectly made. Though the probable months she’d been without her estrogen were visible on her lines, she was beautiful.

“Hello, I’m Mikki,” she started firmly, head up bravely and showed her hands up, “Unarmed, just so you know.”

“I’m Sam,” I offered her a hand and she hesitated just for a second before shaking it. “Can’t say we’re unarmed ‘cause we ain’t.”

She nodded, “I figured. I’ve got weapons too but I preferred leaving them home. You fed my family last night, guess it’s the least I could do. Thank you, by the way. I was unable to bring any back yesterday and Ma… She needed to eat.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. You had problems out there?”

“My truck died. I’d found a lot of good stuff; it will probably still be out there if nobody found it. There are weapons as well, found a storage in the basement of a gun shop that nobody had found yet, but I think all the food I got there is the most important part.”

“Food as weapons are just as important these days,” I told her.

“Why didn’t you bring at least the food with you?” Merle asked her from over my head.

“Got overrun,” Mikki explained. “The dead were all around and the packs were on the back of the truck, I couldn’t get it. Had to run.”

“So ya got a truck full of food and weapons somewhere out there,” he said again. “I say we go bring it back.”

Mikki nodded, but I stopped them right there, “Wait, not so fast. Come in, Mikki, let’s talk. We need to know more about this place.”

I stepped back and gave her space, Carefully, Mikki entered the house and looked around, now seeing the others standing there. She nodded at them as a greeting.

“This is Merle,” I pointed, “Andrea and Michonne,” Mikki nodded tersely at them again, probably feeling cornered and outnumbered. I pointed the table at her and we sat facing each other, the others standing up around the kitchen and living room. “So, Mikki. What is this place after all? A community?”

“Uh, it was supposed to be one of those self-sustainable communities people were beginning to build all around?” I nodded at her. “But investors backed up, some sort of crisis or something, so they didn’t really finish it. Just sold the already built houses for real cheap and never got on with installing all the things they wanted to install, not even the gate.”

“What kinda things?”

“Solar panels, they are on the roofs of almost every house but they were not properly installed, so they’re just there doing nothing.”

I shared a quick look with the others and looked back at Mikki, “What about the water?”

“It’s good water, comes from a mine, pressure pumps ring it up. We’ve been using it for years.”

“No energy needed for it?”

“Nope.”

I’d never hear of pumps that didn’t need energy, but whatever, I actually know nothing about water pumps, mines or solar energy…

“Do you think we could finish installing the solar panels?” I asked her.

“Maybe, if you know anything about it… There might be instructions or a manual of some kind in the office. All kinds of projects are stored there, probably something about the panels.”

Ok, too good to be true?

“We’ll take a look later… How many houses are in here?”

“Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight if you consider one of them is the office.”

“And the walkers?”

“Walkers?”

“The dead.”

“Oh. The dead are all over. Will and I never go further into the community, we just stay home and go through the entrance. Too many of them for us to take out, and we got Ma, can’t take unnecessary risks.”

I said nothing, just looked lingering at each one of my friends. Each of them nodded to my silent question. Looking back at Mikki once again, I told her. “We’ll clear it all. Each of the houses too. It will be safer for you and your mother.”

“What are your plans for this place?” Mikki asked me. She surely knew we wouldn’t be doing it from the goodness of our hearts.

“We plan to stay. We don’t want to just survive; we want a home. A safe place to grow and thrive. You’re here before us, so you’re staying if you want to.”

“You want to make a real community,” she affirmed.

“Yes. If you and Will want to, you can be part of our group, work with us. We’ll teach you how to handle the walkers better, I saw Will was scared yesterday. We’ll have your backs if you’ll have ours. Everyone will have a job and everyone will work hard. Things won’t be easy, but you and your family won’t be alone anymore.”

Mikki said nothing, looking straight into my eyes for a long moment, thinking. After a while she blinked, breathed and looked down, some sort of emotion there that she couldn’t keep holding.

“It’s uh…” she tried to start. “It’s not been easy.”

“I know…”

“Ma, she’s… She’s ninety-seven and she’d got Alzheimer’s, and Will takes care of her around the clock. So I’m out there by myself looking for stuff, medicine, food, all to keep her well and safe, but…” her voice shook and he looked at he again, her eyes shining with tears. “She doesn’t even know what’s going on. She thinks we’re just too poor to have enough food.”

“We can help, Mikki,” I told her. “Being alone these days ain’t safe. Been sayin’ that from the beginning, we’re safer in numbers,” I took a look at Merle then, he surely remembered me saying that on the road when I decided we’d join the others. “But we gotta know you and your brother will be 100% with us, that you’ll have our backs too.”

Mikki had a tight lipped smile, eyes still shinning when she nodded at me. “You help us keep her safe and comfortable and you got it.”

“Good,” I smiled and looked at the others. “Looks like our group’s just grown!” they smiled nodding too, accepting it. “First things first, Mikki. You let Will know what we’ve agreed and then Merle will take you to your truck,” I looked at him. “Take the ropes with you so you can tow it back here, alright?”

“A’right boss!” Merle moved from his position where he’d been leaning against the kitchen counter and clapped his hand once. “Let’s go get that shit!”

Mikki thanked me and left through the front door to go to her house before they left, and I stopped Merle before he could follow.

“Hey, listen,” and he stopped. “Seriously, Merle. Full respect with her, that clear?”

“The fuck ya talkin’ about?”

“You know damn well what I mean, Merle.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. He can kill ‘em walkers, got my respect.”

“She!” Michonne said as she passed us to go outside. “She, Merle!”

“Yeah, she,” I completed. “Don’t go calling her he. She ain’t a he, get used to the pronoun.”

 * * *

 There was a wired fence inside the hedges all around the community, or so Will told us. With his help, Michonne and I checked the whole front part of the hedge to see if there were no holes while Andrea guarded the entrance. After that, for the whole rest of the morning, we moved further into the community, the street we’d been in so far ending at a corner and elongating left and right. Right in front of us there was a square with a pond in it, many trees all around. We decided to turn left and entered the house right at the corner. Two walkers down in there, three more on the street until we reached the next house. We noticed the houses had space to spare between them, as if there was still space for new buildings later on and community growth. All this space between houses gave us a lot of possibilities because there was plenty of land, grassy areas, trees. No thinking about that now, we needed to clear it all. There were too many houses and it would be a lot of work.

When the sun was right above our heads Will, Michonne and I were stinky, sweaty, blood spilled all over, and we’d cleared eight houses in total, lost count of how many walkers. At least most of them were confined into the houses, so they didn’t close up on us dangerously in any moment. As we returned, Merle and Mikki had just arrived, Merle’s Jeep towing Mikki’s Hilux along the street. They parked right between the two houses.

“You can’t go in there like this!” Mikki told her brother as soon as she hopped out of the passenger seat of the Jeep. “Ma will freak out!”

“Yeah, I’m fine by the way!” Will said. “Been killing walkers all morning, comes with a price!”

“Good for you. Now go shower before she sees you! I’ll go in to check on her,” she then turned inside the card and took out a heavy looking bag. “Thanks for your help, Merle!”

Will did wash, and then we all had lunch together. There was even bread on the stuff they brought in – infused with preservatives, obviously, because they were as good as fresh, and only after that we started unloading the cars. Two or three walkers came attracted by the noise but honestly? We didn’t really care much about them anymore at this point. Sometimes they were just fucking annoying. I mean, just let us be for a moment, for fuck’s sakes! Even Will, who’d been nervous about facing them before this morning had already relaxed a bit and was the one to kill one of them without hesitation. It was good to see people learning things and getting braver.

The wooden crates all on the asphalt, we started opening them and damn. Holy damn, seriously. We were packed now! They were great weapons, shotguns, pistols, a machine gun, and over half of the crates had ammo in them. What a find! Mikki came out after feeding Ma lunch and she was celebrated. Not even she knew how good her looting the day before had been.

But it was when I opened one of the few last ones that my heart gave a somersault.

A crossbow.

Brand new, dark grey… A crossbow.

All the other paused too, looking at it and at me, checking on my reaction.

“What?” I heard Will ask but nobody answered. “Seriously guys, what?”

“They, uh…” Michonne started. “They know somebody who used a crossbow. Someone who’s disappeared out there.”

“Oh.”

I leaned down and lifted it from the box. There was still plastic in a few parts of it and it was heavier than I’d imagined, but I picked it up.

“Got arrows?” I asked to nobody specific and saw Merle was moving to the rest of the unopened boxes. If he found arrows, this was it. This was my weapon. And he did, there was a pack of something like fifty arrows. I had no idea how to use the crossbow, but I’d learn. My heart was tight and my throat painful when I turned away from the group carrying my crossbow and the arrows.

I needed to be alone.

Damn, that fucking hurt.

I was already sobbing as I rounded the house, finding a step behind it to sit, laying the crossbow on the ground in front of me.

“I’ll teach you the crossbow if ya’d like.”

It was unreal how it all had happened, how it’d been months as we were still apart. Sometimes I couldn’t believe that because of the hurt masculinity of a fuckin man everything in my life had crumbled. Shane… I hated his guts so much, I wished he was alive. I wished I’d been the one to kill him, but for what Andrea had told me I guessed it’d been Rick. Shane had taken all from me. I was rebuilding, but I didn’t have to have lost it all. My group, those people… I wanted them back. I wanted them here, working with me to make this place our home. It would be so much easier with all of them here, we’d clear it all up in no time. They had to be here. But the sadness and longing I felt for my group was nothing compared to the hole in my heart, the ache in my chest that Daryl’s absence had left.

He also made me feel somehow closer to Daryl and, incredibly, made me keep the positivity that one day we’d find him. My hopes went down many, many times, to the point I could give up and just accept Daryl was in the past, but Merle would have it. He was certain we’d still find him, just like he’d been certain he would one day find me and his brother. Merle had always though he’d find us together, at the same time, and not separately, but still. He believed it for real and made me keep faith as well.

That day we had been driven away from the bank we’d been holed up in for nearly a week by a small heard and the fact that the place was stinking so bad it was getting hard to breathe in, so we were on the road again. We had taken to drive only two cars and tow the others with ropes as a form of saving gas but still having all the cars.

It was a dirt side road, much like where our previous house had been, and there was an untrimmed, overgrown long hedge that went on for like fifty or sixty yards until there was a wide opening at a corner. I slowed down to a stop, looking at it. Seconds later, Andrea stopped her car by our side and I could see she and Michonne were also observing the same thing I was.

“What ya think’s inside?” Merle asked by my side.

“Let’s find out,” and I moved with the car again until we parked in front of the opening.

Inside we could see it was a paved street that elongated into the area, trees all around it and two or three houses barely visible, one of them pretty close to the opening. It was very quiet. The four of us came out of the cars, all thinking the same. We would do the same thing we’d been doing for so long: check, clear, loot, and if it was good, stay for as long it was possible.

It was a huge square shaped area, streets on two sides with the gateless opening right on the corner, and dense woods on the other two sides. It took us a while to round it all and make sure it was all closed – it wasn’t, really, there was a small metal fence gate on the back that led to the woods, weed overgrown nearly covering it all, rusted and locked tight.  Getting back to the opening, we slowly and silently made our way in.

Before we could reach the first house, though – it was a mobile home styled house, we could see now, walkers came out of the trees and from around the house itself. Many of them. Refusing to shoot because of the noise, we dealt with over a ten of them before getting to the minuscule house porch. More were coming when Merle busted the door opened, no time to check for sound or look through the windows this time, and we entered. There were two more inside, which Andrea and Michonne killed off as Merle and I dragged a couch to secure the door with its ruined lock. Walkers outside tried to get in, loud groans and nails scratching the wooden door.

Still silently, we checked the house and found it was clear. It was a tiny one-bedroom trailer, fully furnished, with just the one door as a way in. I was already opening the kitchen cabinets trying to find anything useful and it was all there, like someone had been living there before the world ended and left without packing anything. There were bags of chips and pasta and cans of soup, meat and sauces. In the bedroom Andrea found a dresser filled with men’s clothes.

Merle was already sitting on the couch, groaning at his aching legs, when we all gathered there, the walkers outside still trying to get to us. Right by the door there was a table and booth and a window above it. Sliding into the booth and taking my knife out, I opened at the window a crack and hit the knife there on the windowsill to get their attention off the door. Using the crack, I started stabbing their heads, making them drop one by one. Michonne quietly approached and gestured me to let her do it after around ten minutes I’d been doing it, and kept on going. The number of walkers increased, their own kind attracting the attention of others, and then dropped again until no more were heard around the house. Outside, there was a pile of dead, fetid corpses.

“Let’s get the cars in,” I told them, the first word I’d spoken in hours.

We had to skip over the walkers’ bodies to get out of the trailer and then went back outside to get the cars. The noise of the engines attracted more of them.

“Son of a bitch, motherfuckers just keep comin’!”

“We’ll do the same again,” I said from his side in the car. “Go further, to the next house.”

The second house was a little larger than the first, and it looked a bit more well taken care of. The owner was still inside, a chubby little old lady who might have been a cute grandma once. It was not hard putting her down. This house was a two-bedroom, cozy little home with flowery curtains on the kitchen window and what had been daisies now dry in a vase.

Right across the street there was the largest of the three houses, painted in olive with white windows and a more spacious porch. This house was the next one we’d go in, but it was probably going to be the last one because it was going to get dark soon. We crossed the street on a quick run and tested the door before busting it open and found it unlocked. Al usual, Merle went in first and froze right there, the three of us hovering around his shoulders.

“Move Merle!” Michonne told him as we eyed the walkers that were coming close to our backs.

Instead, Merle put his arms up, his knifed stump in the air as he said, “No need to shoot, man.”

Fuck.

Looking around him, I saw there was a man inside, a .12 shotgun pointed right at Merle’s chest.

“Incoming!” Andrea warned us and I had to turn away from the living man threat to deal with the dead ones. Still under the man’s aim, Merle didn’t move to help us, but he did step away from the threshold and back onto the porch. We were lucky there weren’t many of them on this tide. Finishing the last one, I ran back to Merle and rounded him as I dropped my bush axe and stood in front of him.

“Fuck you doin’?” Merle reacted.

“Hey, we mean no harm!” I told the man who looked from Merle to me. He looked like he was trying to be firm but his eyes betrayed him. He was scared as hell. “We’re just looking for a safe place, same as everyone else! We’ll just go,” and I nudged Merle with my back to his chest to make him take a step back, which he did.

“Will?”

Okay, what? It was a female voice, weak and sounding real old, coming from the inside of the house. The man, Will, turned his head nervously to look at the direction it came from and them back at us.

“D’you have company, dear?” she spoke again.

“No, Ma!” Will said nervously. “Was just someone at the wrong house. They’ll be goin’ away now!”

“Oh, okay. I just made lemonade, if they want some!”

“Go!” Will ordered.

“You got a group?” I asked him.

“Sam, let’s just go!” Michonne whispered from behind me.

“No group, but this is our house and you’re not welcome!”

“It’s just you in this place?”

“That I know of.”

“We ain’t a threat, Will,” I told him, trying to sound calm, my hands still in the air. “Were just looking for a safe place. We might stay in one of the other houses for the night, if you don’t mind.”

“How can I be sure you ain’t a threat?” he asked and his voice shook a little.

“You got an elder here, man,” Merle answered instead of me. “Wouldn’t harm an old lady.”

His shotgun went down just a little as he said, “Just stay away from my house!”

“We will!” I assured him and told the others over my shoulder, “Go on guys, let’s go back across the street.”

Behind me I felt them move backwards, Merle’s chest not touching my back now, and I saw as Will licked his dry lips nervously.

“You got any food?” he asked.

“Not much, but I can spare you some if you’re hungry,” I told him. “But only if you stop pointing that gun on us.”

He looked to his side into the house again and back at us nervously before doing so. We were still outside.

“She’s 97,” he told us. “She ain’t got a clue what’s happenin’.”

“I understand, Will. My name is Sam, this is Merle,” he looked at Merle who was hovering over my shoulders. “Andrea and Michonne. We really don’t mean any harm, okay?”

He nodded nervously, swallowing hard.

“She didn’t really make a lemonade, ya know.”

“Thought so,” I tried smiling at him, but my heart was still accelerated. “It’s just the two of you?”

“No, my sister’s out there, went looking for food. We wanted to go in the other houses but there’s always dead people inside. Can’t get bit and leave Ma alone.”

“Okay, just make sure your sister doesn’t shoot us when she comes back home?” I asked him and he nodded. “We’ll get you some cans, alright?”

“Ya sure ‘bout that, darlin’?” Merle asked me. “Man just had a fuckin’ shotgun pointed at my chest a minute ago.”

“Yeah, and we tried to break into his house. You’d do the same.”

“Ya sure ya can spare?” Will asked and eyed my stomach. “I see ya need it.”

“Wouldn’t give it away if we couldn’t spare it.”

I did give him some, we’d found a good amount in the first house and had all that we’d been carrying with us in the cars. We were good. We didn’t get to see his old mother then, we just went back to the house across the street and stayed there. Sun went down and we arranged a quick dinner – there was still gas in the gas canister outside, so we could warm the food up and boil the water that came out of the faucet. It was a clear water but you never know. After eating we make sleeping and lookout arrangements.

Merle wouldn’t take his eyes off the window and the house across the street. We could see the light of oil lamps in there and shadows inside. Once I could see three of them, which meant the sister had come back without us seeing it. Maybe the house had a back door. They didn’t get out or did anything else, though, but I could see Merle was worried and if I knew him well, he wouldn’t be leaving that window any time soon.

The house went silent and we lit a few candles to be able to see anything. I stood by Merle, looking out as well. There were crickets and cicadas singing outside and it reminded me of the quarry camp, the tents, and Daryl. As if on cue, the baby moved and I rested my hand on my stomach and I saw Merle look down at it quickly before looking out again.

I thought of when we were on the road and stopped at a gas station, right after we left Savannah. Daryl and Merle were bickering and I heard Merle tell Daryl not to hit on me and I hadn’t wanted to hear it that time, but now thinking of it I knew Merle didn’t approve the idea then. That’s why I hadn’t told him yet. He’d get mad at Daryl for doing what he told him not to do. For some reason… But I wanted to tell him, he deserved to know, especially if we were gonna find Daryl sometime in the future. I didn’t want it to be a surprise to Merle when I jumped on Daryl right in front of him.

“Hey,” I said quietly and Merle looked at me. I pointed at my stomach where my boy was moving quite energetically. Merle didn’t understand, so I reached out for his hand and pulled it so he’d feel it. His eyes went wide when the baby jumped under his palm. He’d never felt it before. “This baby? That’s your nephew,” I whispered. “Daryl may not have made it, but he wanted it. And I wanted it to be his too, so it is. That’s your nephew.”

His look was unreadable, expressionless, but his large, calloused hand still rested there. The baby stopped after a few seconds and I let his hand go and he withdrew it, but still looked at me.

“I know you told him not to,” I moved on. “But we did get together. For a whole four days before that fuckin’ night. And it was real. It was that real thing people talk about and I never believed I’d find.”

Merle looked out the window again, thoughtful. “Thought so,” he told me. “The way you talk ‘bout ‘im…”

“I love him, Merle,” I told him firmly yet gently.

He nodded and was silent for a long moment until he finally said “Told him not to come onto ya.”

“I know. Just don’t know why.”

“’Cause we Dixon’s no good,” he said bitterly ad looked sideways at me. “Known that my whole life. Thought ya could do better.”

“That’s not true, Merle. Fuck do you mean, no good? You two have been rocks in my life since that fuckin’ night at my place. Having my back, protecting me, being my friends, my family. Even before when you were a sonofabitch all the time, you were my friend.”

“Even when I tried to get you ta drink?”

His voice was so bitter when he said that, that I knew he’d been thinking about that night. He felt guilty, ashamed for what he’d done. And he should, it had been a shitty move.

“You did wrong then, Merle, but ya different now. A sober Merle’s a whole different person. I guess you just didn’t know that ‘cause you’d been drunk and stoned for too long.”

“Got told that ma whole fuckin’ life,” his voice sounded like a low thunder. “Old Will Dixon?” he said taking an unconscious look at the house across the street where the other Will lived. “Always sayin’ we were just like’im.”

“Yeah, I know all about the old Dixon,” I said angrily. “What he did to Daryl… And to you, getting you two to believe you were pieces ‘o shit like he was. He just wanted his boys not to be better than him and you both believed it. You even kept telling Daryl those things yourself, ‘cause you believed‘em,” and then I turned fully to Merle, arms crossed. “Well, ya know what? Old Dixon had no fuckin’ idea what he was on about. He didn’t know his sons the way I do now. Ya good enough, Merle. You good enough to be my family and Daryl’s good enough to be my man.”

I don’t think nobody had ever said good things to Merle before. I don’t think anybody had had his back. Nobody had been kind to him and that’s why he got fucked up like he still was, believed himself a piece of shit and therefore acted like it.

He was silent for a long time and I let the moment stretch. He was thinking hard.

“We had a sister, ya know?” he finally said.

“I know. Georgia.”

He nodded, “Meningitis,” he told me. “She was seven, just one year older than Daryl, I was fifteen. Ya reminded me o’ her,” I nodded, wordless. He’d called me Georgia up on the roof in Atlanta. “If that baby there’s my nephew…” he looked at me. “That means ya my sister.”

My eyes filled up with tears. That was it, this was my brother. I had a family. I had two sisters who were sleeping right now, and now I had a brother as well.

“Not that ya takin’ Georgia’s place,” Merle felt the need to say. “No replacing that little angel.”

I laughed tearfully, “I know that. And ya know, you my brother, Merle, but Daryl?” I shook my head slowly. “Daryl ain’t my brother!”

“Prepared to fight, ladies?” the same man said. “Where is your leader, then? Or is this it?” as we didn’t reply, just kept pointing our weapons at them, he laughed aloud, “Leader Jack, my ass! That is it, fellas, just three pussies!”

“Why don’t ya lower yer weapons then, girlies?”

Oh, wait.

Wait!

He came from among the other man, walking over to us, a machine gun in hand, and a knife stuck to the stump that used to be his hand. I knew it was him before I could see his face. By my side, Andrea moved nervously but didn’t saw a word.

“Better just give already,” he kept on saying as he passed right by the man who’d been speaking before. “We might not even kill ya! Gotta find some use to such nice pieces of ass, ain’t that right?”

Then he stopped right in front of me, looking down at my eyes for a moment and…

Winked.

“Hey there, darlin’.”

I smiled, eyes fixed on his. Holy shit, it was good to see him.

So Merle turned around to face his own group and without a warning, started shooting each one of them with the machine gun. Desperate and caught off guard, some of them tried to escape, running to back to the gate, but as soon as I’d seen Merle give his back to me I already had started shooting as well, and after a few seconds of shock, so did Michonne and Andrea. I ran to the side of the big truck and found men hiding there. My barrel got empty and I finished them with my bush axe, they were too confused by that what happening to offer me too much trouble. It was all a mess of loud, deafening noise, screams, feet hitting the gravel and dust in the air, but it was over quickly enough.

They were all dead. And I had killed two more men.

Four in total, and counting.

Heart pumping, I stayed crouched where I was by the truck wheel as I caught my breath. Then Michonne was there, looking for me, relief passing over her face as she saw I was fine but only for a second, because she raised her katana again at the sight of Merle also rounding the truck.

“Mich, it’s fine!” I told her.

“Yeah, Mich!” Merle laughed as he stood there, his machine gun being left behind somewhere as Michonne uncomfortably eyed his knifed hand. “Sammy girl and I go way back!”

“I told you,” I said getting up on my feet. “To not fuckin’ call me Sammy!”

He smiled at what I said and said nothing, which was so unlike the Merle I knew that it startled me. He was smiling, genuinely happy to see me, and then he walked over and gathered me in his arms, hugging me tight, my feet leaving the ground and a laugh flowing out or me.

“God dammit Merle, it’s good to see you!” and said and I hugged him just as tightly.

“I’ll say”, he said in a low voice, a tone I’d never heard on his voice. He then lowered me to the ground, a hand on my shoulder and looked at me up and down, eyes lingering on my belly for a moment. “You good?”

“I’m good!”

“Where’s my brother?”

I was not expecting the question to come so suddenly, nor was I expecting a sob to come out of my throat and tears to spill so fast when I heard it. I saw panic on Merle’s eyes at that, immediate and deep.

“I don’t know!” I told him as I burst into tears. What the fuck was happening to me?

“Fuck does it mean, you don’t know?”

“I got lost form him, from them all, couldn’t find him!”

“But blondie’s here!”

“She got lost from them too. Merle, he thinks I’m dead. He ain’t looking for me, Daryl thinks I’m gone!”

“He think ya dead?!”

“Long story, Merle,” Andrea said from behind him and he turned. She and Michonne looked calmer, now that Michonne understood what was happening. I had told her about Merle before.

Merle turned again to me totally ignoring her, “And that the fuck’s about the belly?!”

“Merle I –”

“That my brother’s? Son of a bitch knocked ya up?!

“No! It’s from before! Not Daryl’s, okay?”

“Can we focus for a moment?” Michonne said from behind Merle and he turned, four of us forming a circle. “You were with the Governor!” she told him.

“Yeah, but how’d I know I’d find Sammy girl here?!”

“Don’t call me Sammy.”

“He just sent us here to take it and whoever was in to Woodbury, son of a bitch ain’t even bothered to come up himself.”

“So you just do as he says and attack other communities like it’s nothing?!” Andrea said crossing her arms.

“Ain’t like we find other communities every other day, Blondie. Don’t know ‘bout those motherfuckers but was the first time I got sent to one.”

Michonne wouldn’t let it go, “If this wasn’t Sam you would just –”

“Michonne,” I stopped her. “Merle’s just defended us by turning against his own people, killing them all to save our ass. Guess that’s enough, ain’t it?”

“My own people my ass!” Merle disagreed, looking at me again. “Owned them for helping me with the hand back in Atlanta, but paid the debt long ago by working my ass off for them, keeping the place safe. My own people’s right here.”

Alright, okay, who are you and what the fuck have you done to Merle Dixon?

“And speakin’ ‘bout people!” he moved on ignoring my stunned expression. “Second batch ‘bout to throw shit in the fan in ‘bout an hour.”

“Second batch?!” I asked him. “This ain’t it?”

“Megalomaniac fucker, the Governor is. He ain’t letting this go. We better not be anywhere near here when they come.”

 * * *

 We were around the clock, running against time to be able to be gone before the others arrived. I hated leaving. I hated going away without a fight. We had guns now, all the dead man outside had dropped, we could still fight, but Merle assured us the second groups that was coming was bigger and it was too risky. He didn’t want to end up dead for betraying his group as well. He’d perforated their brains with the knife attached to his hand to avoid them turning as the three of us ran to the house gathering everything we needed and loading the cars. We got loaded on weapons now too, if something good was to come out of this all.

Except of course for finding Merle.

I’d found Merle!

Each one of us in a car, Merle on the big truck that had knocked the gate down, we left. And again, in less than one hour, I cried.

 * * *

 We chose a mall to sleep that night. All looted and filled with walkers, but we found out four is even better than three to clear a place up. The cars and stuff on the parking lot, we holed up. I had gotten used to sleeping in a bed with quality mattress so I put my foot down in choosing a Mattress King to sleep in.

Merle sat by my side as I laid in one of them, his back to the headboard, kicked off his boots and groaned when he removed the metal cover from his cut arm.

“You said you owed them for helping you back in Atlanta?” I asked quietly as not to bother Andrea and Michonne who’d gone to sleep.

“Some of them,” Merle answered, his voice just quiet enough for Merle’s levels. “Was a group of them looting there, looking for artillery. They helped, tourniquet and shit, and took me with’em.”

“But you weren’t bleeding anymore, were you? They found the stove where you burned the wound still on when they went looking for you.”

He was quiet for a long moment, looking down at me. “They went for me?”

“Of course they did,” I said sitting up and facing him, legs crossed under me. “I told you we’d go back for you.”

Merle shook his head, “Anything ya told me that day just fell outta my head. Was not registerin’…”

“You don’t remember me telling you to wait?”

“Nope.”

“Shit… You didn’t stop for a moment to think that I’d never leave ya like that?”

“Wasn’t thinkin’ straight!” he rose his voice a little and lowered it again immediately. “Was high, kept seeing walkers all around, had to get the fuck outta there.”

I rubbed my face with a hand, “Well, they did. Daryl went back there, with Rick, Glenn and T-Dog.”

“Ah, right, Officer Friendly and Mr. Yo…”

“Damn, don’t start, Merle…”

“Look, I get it. I fucked up. But didn’t think ya’d want to go back for me anyway. Not after…” he stopped.

“Not after our fight the night before,” I finished it for him. “Didn’t matter the fight, wasn’t about to just leave you there to rot. Neither would Daryl. All ya had to do was wait and we’d’ve been together all along. You’d still have your hand.”

“Hey, I told you I know I fucked up!”

“Shh!”

“’S why I didn’t use again after that.”

I had a stop. “You didn’t use again?”

“No. Been clean all along.”

“Oh… Good…. Good for you.”

“Know all the shit that happened, getting handcuffed, left there, losing the hand, not finding you ‘n my brother again… Was all ‘cause of drugs. All ‘cause I ain’t got no control of anything when I was on ‘em.”

I was quiet for a long moment, his words taking me back to over three years in the past when I got to the same conclusion he did.

“I know the feeling… ‘S why I stopped too.”

He said nothing and I was thankful. I didn’t want to talk about what had made me quit.

“How’d it happen?” he asked nearly in a whisper after a while and I knew what he meant, so I told him all about what happened after he disappeared. The walker attack at the quarry, the CDC, Atlanta, the road, Sophia, the farm, the barn, Shane trying to kill me, my survival, Daryl’s screams. Merle just listened to all of it in silence.

“Motherfucker was alive I’d make him suffer for that…” was all he said, anger in his quiet voice.

“I know… I kinda wish he wasn’t dead.”

“Where ya think he at now? Daryl?”

“He’s with the group, looking for a place. He’d want to make to happen… What I planned for the group. A safe place, walls… Just like the one we just lost. But he ain’t looking for me, Merle. He’d’ve found me already, but he ain’t looking ‘cause he don’t know I’m still around.”

“We gonna have to then,” he said and I looked up at him, not understanding. “We gonna find ‘im.”

“That means this is for good?” I asked him. “You stayin’?”

He smiled, “Told ya once I got yer back, haven’t I?”

I smiled tearfully at him, “You did.”

I screamed and cried and tried to fight him by my limbs felt heavy and his hands were tight on my shoulders, now shaking me strongly.

“Sam? Sam!” It was Michonne and I was in my bed, still screaming. Reality came back to me slowly as I looked at my sister, breathing hard. “Just a dream! You’re okay. Look at me, you’re fine, you’re okay…”

She hugged me like she would hug a child and shushed me, petting my hair, rocking me in her arms as I sobbed. I tried to speak as I cried but I don’t think Michonne could understand a word. I was saying I had seen him, he’d been there but he wasn’t there, and that he’d been turned, and that I needed him, I needed to find him.

I missed him like hell, my life only half happening, the other half frozen, waiting to move on, at the last night we spent together, when he told me he loved me and that this was his child.

Where was he? Where the fuck was he?

He had to be here now. We had a place. We were safe, we were eating well, growing things, we had chickens! The baby was growing and moving, and he had tried to feel it once, he could feel it now! He had to be here, why wasn’t he? Why did this had to happen, what kind of fucked up life was that that brought us something so, so good and then ripped it off our hands like that? He had to be here! They all had to, this could be the community I had dreamed of for everyone, why weren’t them all here?

It was all good. We had problems, of course, but overall, things were good. We’d found very smart chickens inside the walls, hiding and finding their own food on the grass and under the trees, able to escape the walkers that had been in there by hiding. Smart, smart chickens. When we cut off the grass with gardening tools we looted from a store in the nearest little town, they showed up scaring the living hell out of us, and then we started feeling them and they grew used to us, becoming more docile with time. They were all free, out of the chicken coop, going in there on their own to sleep at night. We needed to find a rooster now and we’d have eggs and more chickens. We had fruit trees, some that would not normally be found in Georgia, and we were eating well, and soon the vegetables we’d planted from the seeds we found at the same gardening store would be blooming.

The water part was not easy but it was manageable. The house had none, of course. It would be dreaming too much hoping there would be a well inside the property like there was at the farm… But we did find a small farm nearby that had it. The farmhouse had been destroyed by a fire and nothing in there could have helped us, except for the well. Twice a week we went there with a truck and several barrels and buckets we’d gathered and brought back enough water for the tree of us to drink, cook, wash and flush, for the chickens, and for the plants when it didn’t rain for long.

So it was working. Michonne, Andrea and I had been together for about two months now. My relationship with Andrea had taken a complete turn, it was something else. I had taught her to fight with no weapons, self-defense, and now really knowing now to fight she felt more confident, but not as she tried to be before. Not it was real, now it didn’t seem forced anymore like it had been. She was going though many changes, physically and psychologically, and I had decided I’d be there for her for whatever she needed. She was my sister now.

Now, with Michonne… We had a history. We had a past, and a strong one at that. When she moved away from Savannah on 11th grade I thought I’d never see her again. I had let her down multiple times during out two-year friendship then and I had been sure she was better off without a friend like me.

“Why the hell would you think that?” Michonne asked me once when I told her that.

“I broke promises to you, Mich… More than once.”

“You had a problem, Sam,” Michonne told me firmly. “I knew that every time you promised, you wanted to go through with it.”

“I did want to…”

“So that’s what counts. At the moments you made the promises, you were being truthful. But your decease, your addiction was stronger than you. I went through it the wrong way, I know now… Keeping asking you to promise me you would quit, that was not the right way to go.”

“It was your best, that’s what’s important. Don’t matter if it was the right or wrong way to do it. It was more important to me to have someone that cared as much as you did.”

She nodded with a sad smile, looking down, “You were my best friend. I just wanted to see you well.”

“I know… I wish I had been well enough for it to be… You know… Enough. Today it would be, with the person I am now.”

She smiled, “That’s gotta count for something.”

“Well, life did bring us together again, right? You were always supposed to be my sister!”

She laughed nodding and we hugged tearfully. Michonne had been so, so special to me… I had known her for a long time at school but then one day in the first week of 10th grade I walked up to her, asked her about her dreads because I’d been wanting to get them done too, and that was it. We were together until her parents had to move away from Savannah at the second semester of 11th grade, and we’d never met again. I’d quit school not even a week after her departure.

Michonne had been opening up a bit more, slowly. At the beginning she didn’t even explain the walkers she had on leashes, just told us that they kept the other walkers away for some reason, and they did help quite a lot while we were on the road, but they didn’t keep all of them away. Big crowds still closed in on us even with them. One day Michonne had one of their heads cut off by accident when we got surrounded, and when the fight was over she was kind of shocked with that. Quietly she moved to the second one and killed it too, and never spoke of it. Andrea and I still didn’t know what they had meant or what had happened to her before finding us, but she would tell us on her own time, we didn’t press.

And it was on this day that she did. It got me crying ‘till the end.

Michonne had a son. A baby boy, two years old, named Andre. She lived with her boyfriend and had gone to a refugee center at the outbreak with him, Andre and a friend. It all went well for a while, but one time she went out to go find useful stuff, food, medicine, and when she returned to the center, it was all gone, overrun, nobody had survived. She found her friend and boyfriend turned near the drugs they had been taking, making them useless to defend themselves and Andre. Michonne had lost her son, her everything. My heart was tiny I my chest just to imagine her pain. She was so mad with grief, so enraged, that she made sure the two walkers were not able to bite or scratch and had tied them to chains. Michonne was looking at a wall, not seeing anything, her eyes filled with tears as she told me.

“I was somebody else, Sam. Not me. Not the one you knew. I was gone, faraway. I kept them with me as a reminder to not trust anyone. He was Andre’s father and yet didn’t protect him. If this had not been trustable, nothing else would ever be. So I walked, and walked. Moved south. Wanted to find Savannah but I don’t even know why. I just… Walked. My mind went blank for long periods; I’d be faraway when I came back to myself. I was not me.”

Then she blinked and looked at me, the tears rolling down her face. “And then I found you. You and Andrea brought me back. Your dreams and plans brought me back. Your hope to find somewhere safe and to find your group, your family, brought hope back to me. It brought me back.”

She got me crying like a baby.

 * * *

 I had never been much into cars. Couldn’t figure what was the big deal. I’d wished I had one for transportation, but wouldn’t have cared about brands or models or whatever. But now I’d found this black H3 Hummer in a locked up garage and I adored it. It was my car. With time each one of us had found a good one and took it for ourselves.

I looked fucking great in it.

I’d go out alone at least one a week. Michonne and Andrea didn’t approve it, but it was something I just had to do. Had to. I’d go back to the main road, sometimes nearly got back to the farm, then circled back, entered the side roads, the neighborhoods, other farms. Always looking… For them, for any sign they’d been there, for arrows, just anything that’d help me keep my hopes up, and it was always the same. There were signs of people, but no way of knowing if it was them, no goddam arrows. If Daryl had been there, anywhere I was, he was taking the used arrows back so he wouldn’t run out of them. That was smart… But I wished he’d leave at least one behind.

Please just leave one behind…

Nothing… Again. But I refused to let my hopes die. What would I be without them? What would I de fighting for? I had to still believe, as I returned on my way home, that next week there would be something. Someone, some sign, some trail, anything.

The worst part of it all was that I knew nobody was looking for me. Daryl was not trying to find my trail. He’d be just moving on with his life, protecting the group, making sure they found a place, but not looking for me. He thought I was dead, why would he? He’d have found me already, my Daryl, such an outstanding tracker. He’d have found me. I wished I’d learned it from him. I’d have asked him to teach me if I’d known…

But how would I have known?

If I wasn’t distracted thinking about this one more failed search, I’d probably have noticed, but I didn’t. I just drove straight home and brought this group of men straight no our gate.

I’d been back for about half hour when there was a strong, loud knock on the wooden gate. We froze where we were at the car as we unpacked things I’d gathered today – of course, I didn’t just wander around looking for them, I’d also take useful things back home. Today it had been real long parachute cord, a few pairs of boots and a box of ground coffee – and were silent for a long moment, minds working fast, hearts accelerating.

“Come on, I know you’re in there!” a male voice said when we didn’t make a sound. “Saw you getting in. Blond girl in a huge Hummer?”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Our weapons were in our hands already as we thought of what to do, who the fuck was this? It was not a voice I’d heard before. Someone had followed me, stupid, stupid distracted, dreamer ass!

“What do we do?” Andrea whispered.

“We just wanna talk!” the man said again. “You gotta have a group in there, just let me talk to your leader! It’s all I want, to talk!”

“Ok”, I whispered to them, who turned to look at me waiting for instructions. “I’ll go up the latter and talk to them. They don’t know it’s just us, they don’t have to know. I’ll say… I ain’t the leader, the leader’s a man and he’s inside and sent me to see who it was.”

They nodded, agreeing it was important for them to think the leader was a man. Fucking sexist world even after the goddam apocalypse.

So I replaced my weapons around my waistband, had guns on a holster, took a deep breath calming down as we walked over to the gate. We had a tall wooden ladder there on the ground, which they helped me put up, and I climbed it.

There were four cars parked there. At least four man out and by each of them, heavily armed with fire weapons, all heads turning to me as I appeared over the wall. In front of them it was clear who was the leader. He smiled pleasantly up at me.

“Ah, the Hummer girl!” and he opened his arms, not carrying guns but with a pistol on his waistband. “Nice to see you up close!”

“How can we help you?” I asked.

“Let me introduce myself first. My name is Philip, but they call me Governor,” don’t laugh, Sam. Seriously, Governor? What a haughty ass. “I run a community a few miles south of here. And you?”

What now? Real name, fake one, who’s our leader? Go with middle name.

“I’m Lynn, nice to meet you. How can we help you, Governor?”

He took a second to answer, a little smile playing on his lips, and then said with the most condescending tone I’d ever heard, “Are you the leader?”

“Jack is our leader,” I said easily, my father’s name flowing out of my lips without a thought. “He sent me. You can tell me how we can help you and I’ll let him know.”

He laughed. The mothefucker actually laughed and I just knew then. No good. No good at all. My wrist ached my I just tilted my head, not laughing with him as he looked back and around at his men, who were laughing quietly as well, and I waited.

“Well, as I am certain that Jack is right inside this gate listening to every word I say, I’ll go with it then, Lynn.”

“Please go ahead,” I told him, trying to keep my cool.

“I see you have a community going on here, just like I do. My town’s called Woodbury. I’d like to invite you… And Jack, for a meeting where we can discuss the potential future of our communities regarding trading and partnerships that I am certain would benefit us all.”

Would have sounded good if I believed a single word he was saying.

“I see. Interesting… But what do you have that might interest us?”

He laughed again, quicker this time. “A whole town, Lynn. People, supplies, food, water… Artillery. Everything that is of interest these days.”

I was quiet, thinking for a moment. Artillery, he said. I looked at the men behind him and, sure enough, there were rifles, pistols and more than one fucking machine gun. Machine guns! If he ordered them to attack now we’d be done.

I needed time.

“South, you said?”

“Thirty miles or so,” he said nodding. “It’s on the maps, there’s no missing it.”

I paused and looked around. I knew those looks. The Governor was at least acting, but he should take more care with his men. Their intentions were all but written on their faces. Most of them eyed me with that look some men eye women as if they’re a product, something to consume.

There would be no business with this man. No trade, no relationship. This would end bad and we were just three when he clearly had a whole town and artillery. I needed to buy time, needed to gather my thoughts, decide what to do.

“Sounds interesting. Too good to be true?” I asked him.

“Not at all. It can be good, and this is up to you.”

I nodded, “We’ll gather to discuss it and come to a decision. We might show up for a visit at Woodbury, to see the town and have a meeting with you. How does that sound?”

He nodded quietly with a little smile for a few seconds before finishing. “Sounds terrific. I’ll be looking forward to your visit.”

Still, I had lost weight. My stomach seemed to have grown abnormally for this stage of pregnancy. I was four months along or so, I calculated about eighteen or nineteen weeks, but as I was so thin it was very perceptible now. The jeans I had on when that all happened at the farm, and the other pair of jeans I had found a bit after we formed out three-way group did not fit anymore. I had to find new ones, larger, and made do with a belt. They were comfortable, though.

The girls worried. Michonne tried to be discrete when asking about the baby’s movements, but I knew she was worried when I told her I hadn’t felt anything other than the little butterfly wings inside my belly. I worried too… But he was growing, wasn’t he? If my stomach was getting bigger even with all the lack of food, nutrition, rest and all the things I should be having, he was still growing. I felt weak sometimes, had to sleep more, and Andrea and Michonne were always there to keep watch and let me rest.

So who needed men?

Well me. I did. I needed my man.

I couldn’t believe it had been over a month since that night and we hadn’t found a trace of them. Not a sign that they had been around the places we went though. Every single walker we found on our way, walking or gone, I would check to see if there wasn’t an arrow stuck to it. I never found any. We sometimes did see track marks but it was impossible to know if it was theirs, they could be anyone’s. There was nothing that could make me believe Daryl was around, that the others were around.

I thought a lot of them, of what they were doing. If they’d found a safe place, if they’d found trouble on their way. How was Lori now? She was over a month behind me, so she was probably already showing as well. Were she and Rick fine? How was Carl? Had he perfected his shooting, or learned how to use any other weapon? How was Carol surviving the loss of Sophia? Was Carol keeping her loyalty to Daryl like she’d told us that day in the RV? Had she learned how to fight? Had the Greenes escaped the farm with them? Were they all a big group now? And if so, did that mean Glenn and Maggie were still together? Had the Greenes, Jimmy and Patricia learned how to fight, to defend themselves?

How about Daryl? Had he moved on? Was he still mourning me? Did it cross his mind at any moment that I might still be alive? That Rick was mistaken or that he had not seen it right when he looked at me across the meadow? Probably not. Certainly not. Had he retreated within himself or had he created a good friendship with the others?

There was one thing I was sure, though. Daryl would be making sure the group went on with my plans. That they were looking for and would find a safe place. With walls. I was sure he’d tell the group “It’s what Sam would’ve wanted.” I could hear him say it in my mind. So they’d find a place, Daryl would make sure, or maybe they already had. They’d be fine.

And I would find them. Someday…

 * * *

 We’d been off the main roads for a long while now. Weeks probably, trying to find a place to stay. Occasionally we found small districts or neighborhoods, but in there we always found nothing that felt right. We’d thought we’d found somewhere interesting once: a L shaped motel with a parking lot right in front of it that we could maybe close around somehow. We spent three nights there until we decided the only open area of a new place to live could not be a cemented parking lot. So we moved on.

There was a tall brick, roughcast wall partially hidden by the overgrowth by a long abandoned dirt road side. I gestured Michonne and Andrea to stop and they did without a question, going silent, attentive and ready. We stood there trying to listen to something, any sign that there was something on the other side of the wall. There was complete silence. I gestured to them again and we restarted our walk. This side of the wall elongated for about fifty yards, and we reached its corner. Using it to observe the other side, we checked for anyone’s presence and carefully entered the empty lot, bushes and weed nearly taller than Andrea who was the tallest among us, as we kept following the wall. Another fifty yards and we reached the next corner. We stopped there to survey the other dirt road that was there, one we hadn’t found before. Once again we just stood there, hidden by the overgrowth, trying to listen to anything. I nodded at them when I realized there was nothing to be heard. So we left the bushes and walked on the road. On that side of whatever this place was, there was a closed gate as tall as the walls, made of solid, rough wood. Nothing was visible inside.

We circled it all once again, to make sure whatever was inside was really completely closed up on all sides. It was and there were no flaws on the wall, no wholes, nothing fallen. It was sturdy and solid. Now we stood again in front of the wooden gate.

“What if there’s people inside?” Andrea questioned in a whisper

“Doesn’t look like. Seems abandoned,” Michonne told us.

“We’ll have to take the risk. But we gotta know what’s inside first, it ain’t safe to just go in,” I told them even as I looked around trying to see a way to look over the walls.

“How would be just go in, anyway?” Andrea asked. “It’s too tall.”

“That tree over there,” I pointed to one by our right. It was taller than the walls. I’ll climb it and look over the wall.”

“Let me, Sam,” Michonne put a hand on my forearm to stop me when I started walking over there.

“It’s fine, Mich.”

“Please?”

I did love that they cared about me but sometimes it got to my nerves. I could still do stuff, you know? It was like Daryl when he didn’t want me to go to Atlanta, and he didn’t even know I was pregnant. But now Michonne was already walking away, sheathing her katana as she went. Andrea and I followed and stood under the tree, our weapons out as we took guard and Michonne climbed the tree. It was not an easy one but Michonne was capable and fit enough to do it. Once she was high enough, she settled on a branch and gestured something to Andrea. She understood immediately and took off her backpack, looking inside to find the binoculars we had found on our way. She the tossed it up to Michonne, who grabbed it midair.

We were all quiet for long minutes. Up there, Michonne observed carefully and patiently until she finally started climbing down to report.

“No movements inside. It’s overgrown but not as much as outside. There’s a small construction on that corner by the gate, seems to be just one room, and there’s a house towards the back of the lot, it’s kinda big and seems to be a recent construction. Behind it there are trees but nothing more visible. My bet is that it’s empty, but walkers can still be hiding in the brushes.”

“So what you think?” I asked them. “Should we go in?”

They agreed and all we needed not was a way of opening the gate or climbing a 10 feet tall wall. Simple. It was firmly locked from the inside, no chains visible from the outside, so we ended up deciding we’d have to cut open a hole on the wood. Simple. From the tools we had in hand, only my bush axe was fit for it, so we got to work. After the first few strikes Michonne gave it, we head a growl from the inside, a walker in there had heard it. We had to take turns, the wood was really sturdy and it felt like we were at it for hours. I had killed the walker though the gap once I was finally able to cut through the wood and we could see a little of the inside. Another walker came and got the same treatment.

Once the hole was just wide enough for us to pass through it, yet real tightly, we stopped. We didn’t want a huge hole on the gate if we stayed there, and we knew we’d have to close this one somehow. If we got in, anyone could. Michonne went in first, stepping over the walkers’ corpses and surveying the inside for a moment until she called it safe. I went in next and it was much harder to go through the gap sideways with my belly. From the inside, Michonne had to grab the wood and pull it in to try and make the hole a bit wider and I got a scratch on the skin of my stomach even under the shirt, but I got in. Andrea came though much easier.

As we stood inside with our backs to the gate, on our left I saw the small construction Michonne had mentioned. It has a simple door that was left open and, peaking inside, we saw it may have been a small office, left there from when the construction was being done. There was a desk and chair and lockers and papers everywhere.

Ahead of us there was a concrete path that led to the house, a driveway. The grassy area by the right, in front of the house was overgrown over half my height, but it allowed a good view of the house. Michonne had said it was kinda big… But it was really big. I wondered why had anyone built such a good house here in the middle of nowhere, and why was it this closed up with walls and a strong gate?

“It guess it was supposed to a drug dealer’s refugee or something,” I told them as I started slowly down the path and then, to my companions’ jump scare, I brought two fingers to my lips and whistled sharply and loudly.

“What the fuck, Sam?” It was Michonne. Since high school I found it funny when she cursed because she rarely did.

“If there are more walkers we’ll know,” I explained and, sure enough, more than one growl sound came from somewhere near the house. “See?”

It was one for each, dealt with easily, and then we started walking around, always together, starting by following the driveway to the side of the house and rounding it. Behind the house there was a full orchard. The fruit trees, which we didn’t stop now to check of what fruit they were, were blooming and I felt a good thing seeing this. It seemed more and more to be the kind of place I had in mind since the beginning. There was a wide porch on the house there and it even had outdoor furniture still wrapped in plastic, brand new. I caught Andrea smiling at that. On the other side of the house, there was a wooden, cute construction: a chicken coop.

“So did the drug dealer liked to raise chickens?” Andrea asked as we approached it. The little door was open and no chickens were in sight. A shame.

The front of the house also had a porch, though smaller than the back one. We climbed the few steps that led there and looked around at the grassy area and tried to see into the grass windows, but they were too dusty. All we knew is that it was all completely quiet.

As it turned out, the construction of that property wasn’t even done. The attic didn’t even have windows yet and some rooms were not yet painted, but other than that it was all brand new, there were already a few pieces of furniture, the bedrooms were done the kitchen had appliances installed, everything a large family would need to live comfortably in. There was dust, but nothing other than that, no walkers, no bad smells.

She thought for a moment before saying “My father… He was very, uh… Demanding. Rigorous, critical. He was always finding my mistakes, my weaknesses, and my mom’s… I guess instead of believing him and putting myself down as well, I wanted to prove him wrong. Everything I did was always to show him that he was wrong.”

I had judged Andrea, not ever stopping to think that her personality that I disliked would have come from something. Everyone has a history and their own wounds and they all make a person what they are. I didn’t dislike her anymore. Andrea had shot Daryl in an unconscious attempt to prove do Dale, a father figure, and probably Shane too, that she was capable of doing it. She was not right and it was no excuse, but I could understand it a bit better now.

We talked as we followed road signs. On pointed to a church somewhere in a community and we followed it, talking a side road. Even only three months with no care this road already had overgrown on all the sides, and it made me uneasy. Walkers could be hiding on the bushes, so I had my axe ready. We needed to find Andrea a weapon urgently. Since this morning she’d been carrying a spike that we thought would be strong enough, but it was not ideal. And we needed food, water, and a car. And to find our group. To find Daryl.

Oh, Daryl…

“You ‘n I… We’re it.”

The bushes shook right on our left side removing me abruptly form the memories. As if they’d been there all the time, just waiting for us to get close enough as if they could think, a small herd of walkers came out, at least ten of them. Surprised, Andrea and I stumbled a bit and ran ahead on the road, but from the same bushes ahead of us, more of them came out, so we turned to go back were we’d come from, but the first part of them had closed the road behind us. So I grabbed Andrea, and she grabbed me, and we ran into the woods on our side, straight into the bushes, All I hoped is that there weren’t more in there. I felt something cut my arm and still ran, entering the sparse patch of woods there.

Goddamn big herd. They’d been dormant there and our presence woke them up and now they were coming and I did not get scared, I got fucking furious. This again, seriously? Running through the woods with walkers behind me and nowhere to go? No fucking way.

“That tree!” I shouted at Andrea over the walkers’ growls. “Climb up!”

It was a huge oak, royally standing there, dwarfing all the other trees around. Thick, strong branches that seemed easy to climb. Well, at least for me, I was used to that stuff, so I let Andrea go first, positioning my hands to give her foot a shove up. She groaned in the effort to go up but was out of the ground in seconds and kept on. I looked around before going up and they were there, at least tree closer and this crowd of dead behind them. Axe in hand, I looked up at Andrea who was just settling on a higher branch, safe, looking down terrified at me. I let the axe fall against the oak roots, I knew the walkers wouldn’t be taking it, obviously, took a few steps back for impulse and ran, climbing over the tree. It would have been a much easier movement just months ago without the baby bump and not being so hurt and tired, but I did the job. In seconds I was sitting with Andrea, the walkers on the ground confused, looking around and passing the tree following nothing. Thanks to fuck they were not smart at all.

“What now?” Andrea whispered. We were sitting straddling the branch face to face, pretty close to each other. I was glad she’d learned not to be loud. Finally.

“Now we wait. They’ll pass.”

“We won’t be able to hold this position much longer.”

She was right. We’d have to hold upright, holding on only to the branch we were sitting in.

“Okay, rest your back against the trunk,” I whispered to her pointing to the tree with my chin. She was about four feet away from it. I offered her a hand to steady her. “Slide back, careful.”

Nodding demonstrating just how nervous she was, she took my hand while I still held myself to the branch with the other and started wiggling her hips backwards, sliding really slowly, afraid she’d tumble sideways. I stretched myself forward to keep her hand safe in mine, until her back finally rested against the trunk. She breathed. I asked if she was alright with thumbs up gesture and she nodded.

Now I had to get a better position, and for that I’d need to go to another branch, the best option was one above us and slightly to the left. The herd under us lifted dust and a terrible stench, but I tried to ignore it. Had to ignore the fact that if I fell I’d have absolutely no chance. No chance to survive, for by boy to survive, to lead Andrea to safety, for me to find the group, to see Daryl again.

But well, no pressure!

I slid towards Andrea and she helped me on the last few inches as we sat nearly chest to chest, and then using the tree trunk and her shoulders as leverage, I carefully stood up.

“Oh god, careful!” Andrea whispered in terror from beneath me.

I said nothing, just focused in reaching up to a thinner yet stiff branch above my head, needing to get on my tiptoes to be able to get a good grip. Trusting it, I eyed the larger branch that was my goal, calculated, took a deep breath and jumped, my hands firm on the branch as I swung my whole body. I heard Andrea whimper in trepidation when my feet did not reach where they were supposed to and I hang there by my hands, whimpering. I was breathing hard through my teeth, my arms burning at my own weight, nothing under my feet except for the herd. Concentrating, I swung my body back once again, taking a stronger impulse than before, and reached it. I hugged the branch with my legs and stopped for a moment, breathing, and then gave the branch I was holding a strong shove and let go, throwing my upper body over the large one. I hugged it with arms and legs, my face turned to Andrea and stayed like that for a moment, my strong breath puffing my cheeks. After a moment I sat up and slid back a little, finally finding the oak trunk and resting against it.

I was getting old for this. And too tired. And maybe just a bit too pregnant.

* * *

I didn’t doze. I just rested my eyes.

Andrea and I were silent for a long time. It was probably over an hour. We didn’t know how many walkers big the heard had been, but it was so much larger than we thought. So, so much. They were slow, so it took a long time for their crowd to thin up, but even then they never stopped coming. Looking down, I could see at least five at each time, never less than that, as if they were following each other, not necessarily us or anything alive. They were just walking aimlessly, but at the moment we jumped back to the ground they’d attack.

My back was burning and Andrea was always trying to stretch and change positions the best she could. We couldn’t stay here for much longer.

“Hey,” I whispered at her and she looked sideways at me. “Where’s your spike?”

“Down there,” she pointed to the ground. It was fallen near the roots, just a foot away from my axe.

“We gonna have to go down,” I told her.

Her eyes opened more at that, “You’re sure?”

“We need to go, can’t just stay here. They’ll never stop coming. We’ll have to kill a few and run in that direction,” I pointed behind us. “I don’t see any movement from there. And then we can try the main road again.”

Swallowing visibly, Andrea nodded.

“Hey,” I called her again and she looked back at me. “You can do it.”

She nodded again, taking a calming breath.

“I’ll jump down first and start on them so you’ll have time to go down and take your spike, ok?”

“Please be careful!” she told me

I nodded, “When you have the spike, we’ll stand back to back and kill them, alright?”

I didn’t wait for her to answer because I knew she’d just nod nervously and maybe tell me to be careful again. So, trusting she’d do as I said, I threw a leg to the side of the branch and let myself fall. I fell heavily to the ground to a crouch and looked around just as the walkers saw me. Taking the axe that was at my feet, I got up and walked towards them rolling it in my hands.

Come on, motherfuckers.

Andrea did exactly as I said. When she got her back to mine, armed with the spike, I had killed two of them already. One by one we let them come and killed them. Odd how satisfying it was becoming… Creepy to think about that.

It stopped being satisfying when Andrea’s spike broke and she screamed when the walker came over her. She stumbled backways, falling down by my side, the walker over her. I had one right there coming at me but Andrea was panicking.

“Fuck!” I shouted and shoved the farmer walker away with a kick in the chest, and then turned to help her, my axe spiking into the back of its head. It fell dead on top of Andrea and I turned to deal with the one I’d kicked.

Too close. It was inches away from me, no space for me to rise the axe, its hands reaching and grabbing my arms. I fought it way, stepping back and then…

Well…

Then the head of the walker was gone, falling to the ground like a football, its heavy body falling just a moment after.

Standing right there in front of me was a living person I had not seen arrive at all, hood up covering her face, a sword in hand. A fucking sword. Behind her were two walkers chained as if on leashes, just standing there, not attacking or anything. She said nothing, just moved on to kill the next walker as I recovered from my shock enough to keep fighting them with my axe, Andrea not getting up, too scared and obviously weaponless to fight. The ninja with the sword killed like half a dozen walkers in seconds when I dealt with three of them with the heavy axe.

Damn, I wish I had a sword.

Then they were gone. The woman and I looked around, rounding each other to make sure no more walkers were near, and it was finally clear. Only then I faced her again, just as Andrea got up from the ground. The ninja was shaking her sword, walker blood splattering out of its surface.

“Where did you come from?!” I asked before even thinking about thanking her.

“You alright?” she asked.

You know in movies when somebody suddenly remembers something and a lot of scenes of those memories are quickly shown? Her voice did that to me. It was just not possible. I leaned down a bit trying to see her face under the hood and asked, disbelief clear in my voice:

“Michonne?”

She paused, just like Andrea by my side, and after a couple of seconds she lowered the hood and damn, it was really her, surprise widening her eyes.

“Sam?!”

I laughed. No, really, I just had to laugh. How the fuck was this possible? How, in the middle of the woods of Georgia I could’ve just had my ass saved by Michonne?

“Oh my God, Sam!” she said and rushed to hug me. I’m not sure if I was laughing or crying now as I hugged her back. It was just so good to see her.

“Holly shit, Michonne, I can’t believe it!”

She let go of me and held me by my arms, “You did get the dreads done!”

I laughed aloud, “I did!”

“I can’t believe you know each other!” Andrea said by my side and sobered me up a little.

“Mich, this is my friend Andrea. Andrea, Michonne was by best friend in high school!”

Andrea huffed a quick laugh, “Seriously?”

“Yes!” Michonne and I answered together.

“You’re back!” I said turning to Mich after she and Andrea shook hands.

“I was living in Sandy Springs when the outbreak happened. Tried to go down to Savannah after a while but… Well. Couldn’t.”

Oh, something bad had happened.

“Let’s catch up later. We need to get out of those woods, this huge herd just passed by us. And fuck, you’ll need to explain these two!” I said pointing at the walkers in chain behind her.

“I saw the herd,” Michonne said. “Didn’t think living person could be ‘round here ‘till you two jumped down from the tree,” she said as she sheathed her sword on the holster hanging from her back. “C’mon, I’m holing up in a cabin a few miles away.”

 * * *

 It was a simple hunting cabin among the trees, but Michonne seemed to have worked a bit on it already. It was almost clean and there were boards on the windows, an oil lamp on a table, bottles of water and canned food on the small kitchen area and a bed with blankets at a corner.

Andrea and I ate from what she gave us and had water and were able to sit and rest a little. Andrea dozed off right there where she sat on the floor. The poor woman was exhausted.

I sat on the bed with my back to the wall and Michonne came to sit by my side. Quietly, she reached for my hand and squeezed it, and we smiled at each other sideways.

“It’s so good to see you…” she told me quietly.

“You have no idea, Mich…”

And at that, with no warning, I started crying. Clutching her hand, my chin fell against my chest and I cried, my chest painfully tight.

“Oh, honey…” she whispered and hugged me sideways, making my head fall on her shoulder. “It’s alright… You let it out.”

I couldn’t speak for long minutes. After I was cried out, I straightened and tried to dry my face but even if I wasn’t sobbing anymore, the tears still fell freely.

“You two alone?” Mich asked in a whisper.

My chin trembled as I nodded. “We had a group... Got separated from them. They’re still out there, somewhere.”

“How this happened?”

Well, she got me started. I told her all that happened that night with Shane, but to explain Shane I had to tell why he’d hated me so much to the point of trying to murder me, and to explain it, I explained my leadership of the group and how it all started, since Savannah, since the Dixon’s house.

“So Daryl thinks you’re dead?” she asked when I finished. She’d also asked questions during the tale, to understand it better.

I felt like crying again when I said “He does… And the way he screamed…” and I didn’t hold anymore, I cried again.

“They’re still out there,” Mich squeezed my hand and said it firmly. “They might think you’re dead but you know they’re alive. We can find them.”

We.

“We’ll stay together now, right?” I asked her, nodding with a hope she’d say yes.

“We absolutely will,” she said with total certainty.

“Do you have a group?”

She smiled sadly, shaking her head. “No. It’s just me. I’ve been alone since the beginning.”

I reached out for her other hand, now holding firmly to both of them. “Not anymore. You’re not alone.”

She smiled tearfully as she nodded. She pulled me for a hug again and I was so relieved to have found someone I trusted so much, someone I had loved as a sister one day in the past. It was like a balm to be feeling something good among so much sadness.

“Now…” she said as she let me go. “What about this belly there? Daryl’s?”

“Not technically… But after we got together he said he wanted it. So yeah… It’s Daryl’s.”

“Damn… Must be hard for him to think he’s lost not only you but his baby too…”

“God…” I cried. “This hurts so much because I can imagine what he’s feeling. It would have killed me if it was him…”

“He’ll make it through it.”

Oh, something bad had happened.

“Mich… Who did you lose?”

Her eyes went vacant in an instant. She looked away and down and I knew whoever it was, it was still fresh, it still hurt just to think of it.

“Can’t speak if it… Not yet,” she said, her voice grave.

“It’s okay. I’ll be here when you want to talk,” I whispered at her and saw her nod, still not looking at me. I was silent for a moment before speaking again. “Andrea lost her sister,” I told her and Michonne looked at me and then at the sleeping Andrea. “Not long ago. It’s been… God, feels like a year but… Two weeks ago? So much’s happened since then…”

“We’ve all been hurt, one way or another… Sometimes I don’t even know what the hell I’m still fighting for.”

I thought for a moment. “People kept saying it was the apocalypse. The end of the fucking world. But… We’re still here. Ain’t we? We’re here, alive. Finding old friends,” I smiled at her and she also did, tight lipped. “And still able to fight, and breathe, and love. So the world ain’t really over, is it? We’re still here.”

There was nobody there. I looked back at the corridor and at the front door in the end of it, and there was Shane, standing with his side to me, staring. There was something in his eyes. He was on his spot on the lookout as agreed, but… I don’t know. There was just something.

“Who’s switching with you?” I asked quietly, jut loud enough for him to listen to me from across the house.

“My shift will be done in an hour. Dale will come down.”

I nodded, looked at him for another moment, and turned to get out through the door. The night was a bit chilly and it felt good after the heat of the day. Crickets were singing and everything was just so quiet, so still, and there was a smell of wild flowers in the air, it was hard to imagine the way the world was now. It all seemed to be so alright, so why the hell did my wrist ache like that? Why was my heart tight as if something terrible had happened?

From out on the backyard, I looked into the house and Shane wasn’t there on my line of sight anymore. He was patrolling. Just patrolling. I’d never been afraid of Shane before, why was I now? I could defend myself and Shane knew it, he saw what I did to Ed. Given, Shane was stronger and bigger… And trained. But why was I thinking about it? He was not about to attack me. I was just being stupid.

“We never get much of a chance to be alone, do we?” his voice came from the corner of the house. He had rounded it, leaving his post, and was walking slowly towards me, both thumbs on his front pockets, the other fingers resting by his groin.

“Your door’s unguarded, Shane,” I told him, my voice steady and my wrist burning.

“It’s fine, we can both see it from here,” he said as he stopped in front of me and looked into the house where the front door was visible at the other end of the hallway. “It’s alright. Night’s quiet. We can talk.”

“What you wanna talk about?” I said turning more to him but stepping back. I was uncomfortable with his proximity.

“You ‘n I, Sam? Never seen eye to eye, have we? Since the beginning, on the road.”

“You can put it that way.”

“But one thing we got in common… We both want what’s best for the group, even if we disagree on how to do it.”

“You seem more focused on just a part of the group lately,” I said and regretted it. He was being threatening, if not with his words, with his posture, and I was saying this kind of stuff to him? Bad move, Sam.

“You know Lori’s pregnant, right?” I nodded. “It’s my baby.”

“She says differently.”

“No matter what she says. It’s mine.”

“It’s hers in the first place, Shane.”

“Yeah…” he nodded, a dangerous smile on his face and I dared one more step back but he followed it. “Thing is, Samantha… Baby’s mine. Lori’s mine. And this whole fuckin’ group’s mine. And you’re out.”

Not a chance to tell him my name is not Samantha. Not a change to step away from him. Not a chance to react. A rag was out of his pocket and his hand was pressing it against my mouth and nose, his other hand cupping the back of my head, holding it in place.

Chloroform.

I fought. My arms were hitting him all around, my legs kicking and I was holding my breath but it didn’t seem to matter because the smell and the effects were happening anyway, and I screamed, called out for Daryl, except that I’m not even sure I was really screaming or if it was just in my head. Things didn’t fade away slowly into darkness, it was sudden. In a millisecond I was fighting, in the other I was not. I was… Nothing. Nowhere.

 * * *

 Where the fuck was I?

I was lying down, it was night, my head hurt like a motherfucker. It was all I knew for a long moment. Turning my head to the side hurt a lot, my eyes were burning, and what the fuck had happened?

Oh, right. Shane.

Son of a bitch.

I looked to my right side, a huge effort and my eyes took a moment to focus, but when they did, there was the fucker. Shane was up, a few steps away from he, and he was dealing with two walkers. If there were walkers around, I’d need to protect myself. I patted my waistband, nothing. Raised my hands to my shoulders, the holster wasn’t there. I was bare of any weapons. I had to get out of there before Shane killed the two walkers and could get back to me, but just as I tried to lift my head, what I saw coming right at me was a third goddam walker, a big male, and he was one of the worst I had seen. In the second before he fell over me growling a drooling, I saw his stomach was cut open and there were darkened, fetid guts coming out of the gash. He was on top of me then, my mind was too slow to jump up before he did. I’d have been much faster without the chloroform. The thing had its hands on the grass by my head and was growling and hissing trying to bite my face off. With no weapons, I screamed as I raised my hands to its face, pushing it up and away from me by its hollow cheeks but even dead it was strong, the instinct to feet giving it all the strength it needed.

I couldn’t kill it. I had nothing, my mind was fuzzy, I felt weak.

I was gonna die.

As a last resource I pushed my thumbs in the walker’s eyes. It kept on just as it was before, no sign of pain or the natural desperation any person would feel with someone pushing fingers into their eyes. It just wanted to eat me. I kept on pushing, deeper and deeper, until I felt the eyeballs pop and some sort of putrid liquid fall on my face, and still I kept on, keeping my mouth closed so I would swallow any of it, and deeper, stronger, until I felt my thumbs entering a mushy goo, a disgusting noise, and the walker stopped. That liquid and blood rained down on my face, neck, chest, I was covered in it, but the walker was dead and it hadn’t bitten me. Breathing hard, exhausted already, I pushed its body off of me and it rolled to the side.

But then Shane was there, standing up and looking down on me, also bloody and I hoped he’d been bitten. I tried to get up but he held me down. I fought him off but he sat on my stomach and held me down.

“Just give in, bitch,” he said with rage dripping from his tone, holding my hands down to the ground. “You took everything from me. Took everything I had. Spoke some shit ‘bout me to Lori, I know it was you, she liked me and the she didn’t and it was you! I should have never asked you to go with us. I should have left you to die on that road!”

I don’t know what I was screaming, I just know I was, and I was trying to grab him with my legs but he was too big and I was not on my right mind and I couldn’t. I had trained that so many times before, I knew I could do it but right now I was helpless.

“You’ll be found dead. I tried so save you but you got bit, all they will see is you waking around, undead. Not getting on my fuckin way again, bitch!”

“Like you did to Otis?!” I shouted up at him and his hands instantly let go of my wrists and found my neck.

“You got me all figured out, don’t’ ya? Yeah, just like I did to Otis. Greater purpose.”

He squeezed my neck and I couldn’t breathe anymore. My face felt like it was going to burst, I fought for air, fought to get him to let go but nothing worked. He was staring right at my eyes as he choked me, he was going to watch me die and take his pleasure in it.

I was dying.

I don’t know if people’s lives pass right in front of their eyes when they are dying… Mine didn’t. All I thought was of the present, just tonight, just Daryl telling he loved me. Just what my death would do to him, and that my baby was dying with me, not even a chance to live and fight and it was so fucking unfair.

Desperation is not a word clear enough to describe what I felt being strangled like that. I kept fighting, all I needed was a breath and I might have strength to fight Shane of, but the breath didn’t come. I was never coming again.

There was a far, faint sound that seemed like someone shouting Shane’s name. But I don’t know. I was probably never gonna know because I was about to die.

Everything disappeared around me and I was no more.

 * * *

 I thought maybe it was afterlife, because it was so confusing and fuzzy that I didn’t recognize anything at first. Took me seconds, maybe minutes, to start to understand I was still there, laying on the same meadow. My head and my throat seemed to be on fire, they hurt so much, and that was what made me understand I had not died. Next thing I noticed was the sounds. Moans and groans of walkers all around me, on every side just as I laid there, and I risked a glance to the side.

My heart clenched in my chest and coldness filled my stomach. I was in the middle of a herd. I was frozen, paralyzed, couldn’t move another muscle, just my wide eyes as I looked everywhere I could. Nobody alive, just the dead and me, and there seemed to be thousands of them. Some were dormant, walking around in circles, but most were going in the same direction, following each other to an unknown destination. After what felt like hours I dared to turn my head to the other side and it was only than I knew I wasn’t alone.

Or, well, I actually was. Because he was dead.

Shane was fallen right by my side, his head turned to me, eyes wide open, the rage frozen in his dead face, and on his temple there was a shot. Somebody had shot him. So somebody had been there. Somebody saw him, saw what he was doing, and shot him. Maybe somebody was still around.

This made me get the strength to sit up. Before, though, I looked up at the sky, took a deep breath, as deep as I could with the stench, and lifted my head, looking down at myself. I was covered in blood and guts and I remembered the walker I’d killed before and realized that damn walker had most likely saved my life, because the others couldn’t detect me now. I smelled just like them. And just as I thought it…

The first walker found Shane. He wasn’t transformed, so even dead he still smelled great to the walkers. It started eating him and chewing loudly. I froze, they were right my me, inches away, and another walker, then another, and if I stayed there I was gonna get buried in them. I had to go.

Even in panic, I sat up as slowly as I could for them not to notice I had the motion of the living. Everything hurt. It was like I was beat us and not just doped and strangled. Every muscle of my body complained, my head screamed, but still I got up to my feet and started walking away. Looking ahead to where the herd was going, I finally understood where I was.

The farm. Why had Shame brought me to the meadow at the farm? I mean, why?! That he’d wanted to kill me I got it, he hated my guts, but why the farm? Guess I’d never know because he was just turning into carcass right by my feet. But what I was seeing bothered me much more. This immense herd had reached the farm, there was movement there and I started hearing shots but it was all too far for and dark for me to recognize anybody. I kept walking and I was unsteady, feeling weak, like I’d faint from hurting and from panic at any moment.

But you know when you think things could never get worse but they just… Do? A moment you never see coming, but changes everything in your life, your future?

Someone screamed. Loud, desperate.

“NO!!!”

It was Daryl. I found him by following the sound of his painful scream, and he was still screaming it. I saw him. He was running to me, to this herd all around me.

No, Daryl, please, it’s too dangerous. They don’t see me but they’ll see you!

Then there was people holding him and I saw Rick, Glenn and Theo stop him and he fought them like hell to get away, to go to me, his screams turning to cries… And it hit me.

He thought I was dead. He thought I was one of them.

No, no, fucking no!

The others were dragging him away, most likely saving his live, but then they were going, fleeing from the herd, movement ahead at the farm house as others did too. They were gonna leave, they had too, but I was there, and I was fucking alive!

I started walking faster, as fast as I could, which wasn’t much, and raised a hand as I tried to call out, scream, and thank God my throat was too hurt to do it because I wasn’t thinking. I was surrounded by walkers, I couldn’t just scream! But still I tried to run, maybe Daryl would see I wasn’t walking like the dead, but the others had dragged him away then and he wasn’t looking in my direction anymore, his screams getting lost more and more among the dead’s groans.

This couldn’t be happening. No, just… No! Daryl thought I was dead. They were leaving the farm! They were leaving me behind not even knowing they were doing it.

I was fucking alive! I was still alive…

But maybe not for long now what I whimpered in desperation to scream, tears rolling down my face, and they saw me. At the same time, what felt like a dozen walkers turned their dead heads right at me.

For the third time that night I thought, that is it, I’m dead.

No weapons, no strength, no people, all I could do was look around to find the path that had the least walkers and run there. It was in the opposite direction, towards the woods. I started running and I was too slow, they’d catch me. I dodged a few of them on the way, pushed a few them away, and ran, just ran, my pace picking up slowly. I crossed the line of trees and looked back. No more walkers in front of me but many behind, following me. I couldn’t count but if I had to guess I’d say like fifty of them. I ran blindly among the trees, twigs hitting me, cobwebs gluing to my sticky skin, and I didn’t know where I was going or what was happening, but I just ran, my muscles screaming.

In my mind, Daryl was screaming. Kicking and fighting to get to me. I heard it over and over again. The agony in his voice pierced into my heart and I started crying even as I ran, getting even more blind to my surroundings.

What the fuck had happened? Who shot Shane? Why did the one who shot didn’t help me? Did they also think I was gone, that there was no more time? Was it the herd what made them not get to me? How did the others know what was happening? When did Daryl wake up at the house and got to the farm?

I had to get to the house, but to do so I’d have to turn around and go back to the farm and cross it, which I knew it was impossible because where were thousands of walkers there. I had to go around then, a long, real long way and in the dark I was most likely going to get lost, but it was my only option. But the walkers where still behind me, too many of them, I couldn’t make my way now. I needed to get rid of them. Their groans were too loud, which meant they were really close and really too many. I’d have to get them dispersed, maybe I could kill one by one if they weren’t too close to one another, and for that… I’d have to keep walking.

 Day 74

 When day rose I could see them better. They were a little less than I thought, but still a lot. I had been escaping them for hours, my legs were weak and trembling, the pain was unbearable, but still I walked in the same pace as they did, and they never gave up, they wouldn’t just let go, their instincts were gonna make them keep following me to the end of earth. I had to kill them. I had to kill over thirty walkers with nothing in hand and when I was near death myself.

So if I was gonna die anyway… I would fucking die fighting like hell.

Never stopping walking, I looked for something that’d help me on the forest ground. Before, when it was dark, it had been impossible to see anything, but now my eyes caught a long branch on the ground, broken from a tree, resulting in a splintered yet sharp tip. That was it. I stopped and turned, testing the branch weight in my hands, and when the first walker got to me and I pierced its brain with the tip, I saw this could work.

So I kept letting them come to me, not bothering to escape anymore.

There was a pile of nearly ten walkers on the ground already when the long branch broke and I was left with it much shorter, which made me need to get even closer to the walkers I killed, but it ended up working well too. There were still walkers coming at me, but they were sparser now, and I lost count of how many I had to kill as I started walking back the way I had come.

I needed to get back to the farm. I needed to know what was happening, where they’d all gone, if they were still at the house or had it been overrun too? Was anybody hurt? Was Daryl safe?

My heart hurt physically imagining what he was feeling. I put myself in his place and thought of how I’d feel if I’d seen him as a walker. Part of me would have died. My heart would have been unrepairable broken and I’d never be the same. And he loved me. He said it just last night… He loved me and he thought I was dead… And now I was crying as I walked, no more walkers at sight for now. I tumbled around, hoping I was on the right way, I didn’t know if I had been walking in a straight line, probably not, and I’d end up lost in the woods.

But among the thinning trees I saw I reached the farm. The sun was high in the sky and I calculated I had walked for around three hours in the dark, stopped to fight walkers and then walked all the way back, so it was probably around noon, which meant I’d been gone, dead, for the entire morning.

It’d been too long. Way too fucking long…

I stopped there and couldn’t go any further. Leaning on my side on a tree, a hand on my baby bump, please, please be alright, I remained there for a long moment, tears falling freely down my face because I had no strength to even sob anymore, as I watched hundreds of walkers all around the farm, on the meadows, around the barn, on the tent area we’d lived in, around the house, on the porch. They were everyfuckingwhere. It was impossible for me to get in there. I wanted into the house, clean myself up, have water, something to eat, but I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to swallow anything, my throat hurt so badly.

But I couldn’t just stay here watching the farm. I had to go to the house, maybe the walkers hadn’t got there, maybe there were all in, safe, maybe Daryl was there. So I restarted my slow, painful walk, going to my left as to go around the farm, at least cross the land through somewhere with no walkers. It was a really huge farm…

I found the stream. A God’s blessing, if he existed or was even looking at me. I all but fell in the water, drinking desperately, the pain on my throat not stopping me from getting the most needed large gulps. I got a bit more alive then. I washed my face, took off my shirt and tried to clean it against a rock. It didn’t do a good job but part of the blood and guts that were there did wash off. Then I rubbed my body with the shirt itself and felt a bit more human. My dreads were caked but there was no time to deal with them now, so I just knotted them as high and away from my face as I could, put on the dripping shirt back on, took a deep breath to muster the courage, and kept on my way.

I killed many more walkers on my way to the house. The spike had broken halfway there and I had to find another one, not as good as the first but it did the job. I was wandering robotically by now. I don’t know where my energy came from, I was miserable, hungry, hurt and hurting.

Shane… That son of a bitch, look at wat he’d done! He tried to kill me! Sadness gave place to rage as I thought about it and it helped. It was good to feel something other than despair. It kept me going. I wished Shane was alive just to I could fucking kill him.

It might have been late afternoon when I found the area of the house. It’d been difficult because had no idea where I was and when Daryl and I had found the house we’d been on other area of the woods, and the second time we came from the road with the cars. But I did find it and stopped at the line of the woods, watching.

No cars. No sounds. No bike.

Around the house, by the roses, inside the house, visible through the open door and windows, there were tens of walkers dormant walking aimlessly around.

Nobody was there. They were gone. Daryl was gone.

In a last flicker of hope, I thought they could be on the road where it all started. Where it all started… I was already dry in thirst again when I forced myself to move. I needed to walk to the road…

I need to get to the road. I need to find Daryl… Daryl…

 * * *

 Sophia, stay... We…

There was water and food, a blanket and a flashlight. Nobody had found it, Sophia obviously hadn’t, and if they had been there after escaping, they had ignored it. It was all still there, and I drained one of the bottles of water immediately. It was warm and nearly made me throw up. I grabbed the jar up peanut butter and opened it desperately, my last meal had been the turkey – oh Daryl… – and I ate it with my fingers as if it was a feast. Still eating it, I kept on walking among the cars, just… Looking. Looking for someone, some sign, some life… And there was nothing. They didn’t wait. There weren’t there waiting for anything. They had nothing to wait for, or to look for… Because I was dead.

Dusk found me sitting on the asphalt, crying and completely alone. My heart physically ached more than my head and my throat, it hurt like it never had before.

I’d been left behind.

 Day 75

 It was a good thing I’d still had the mind to crawl into a car to sleep instead of just lying there on the road because what woke me up was the sound of a walker by my window, groaning and leaving goo all over the glass, trying to reach me.

Fuck, just leave me alone for a fuckin’ minute!

Day was high by then, I probably slept a lot, many hours and my body needed to recover, and even though I still felt miserable I did feel a bit stronger. I still had no weapons on me, though, and the walker was right there. Looking out of the car through the dusty windows, I tried to find something that’d help, since the inside was clear, but there was nothing I could come up with. So I stopped and looked at the walker at the window.

That’s it motherfucker. Leaving through the opposite door, I rounded the car before it could follow me, opened the back door and grabbed the wanker by its neck when it reached me. Groaning, I maneuvered it to the open door and slammed it shut on its head. It still groaned after the first bow so I repeated it twice more, making her brain explode everywhere.

It was eerily silent after that.

I walked back to where the sign for Sophia was and on the way found a bag full of useless papers. They flew in the wind along the road when I tossed then away. The bag was filled with the rest of the food and water, the blanket and flashlight. Hanging it on my back, I walked.

Miles ahead, the jammed cars were sparser and the road elongated in front of me until it was empty of cars. Right there, at this mark between all the looted, abandoned cars, and the empty road, I stopped. There were track marks. Larger ones like in a truck or the RV and a single one like in a bike. They’d gone through here, and Daryl had been riding his bike. I mean, that if this was really them, those marks could have been there for a long time, but they did make me hope and keep walking, following them. Maybe I could still catch up, even though they were motorized and I was walking and it had been over a whole day…

No. Don’t. Don’t lose hope. It’s all you got now. Just go.

I stopped just once to eat from a tuna can, sitting in the middle of the road, and kept going. It was when the sun started to go down that I stopped seeing the marks. They were faded, as if they’d gained speed and not needed to hit the breaks for anything. There was nothing to track anymore, and it wasn’t like I knew how to track or if Daryl was here with me to do it.

Daryl wasn’t here with me…

God, I missed him.

I sat again, this time with my back against the guardrail, and I knew it wasn’t safe, I knew walkers could come up from the woods behind me, that people could show up, that I was being too loud, but I lost all control. I just lost it. I sobbed loudly, my heart broken, all hope gone. They were gone and I was alone and there was nothing else to do now but cry, but to feel all those painful feelings, but trying to find a why and a what could I have done. Why hadn’t I escaped Shane before he could put the chloroform in my nose? Why hadn’t I attacked him? How did I not see that he was approaching with bad intentions? Why didn’t I run to Daryl when I saw him, ignoring the possibility of getting bitten by all the dead around me? At least I would have tried… If I’d got bitten at least I would be here now, alone…

But then my baby would be dead too.

My baby… My little boy…

I stopped immediately, hugging my stomach. “Please be fine…” I whispered. “It’s just the two of us now. Please be fine…”

It was getting dark and I needed shelter. Time to stop with the self-pity.

Get the fuck up, Sam.

Minutes ahead I found a dirt road coming out of the main road and took it. A few miles on, there was a little wooden house, more like a cottage, with a dry hedge all around. I circled it carefully looking for signs of life or death and found nothing. In the backyard, a tree stump with half cut firewood was left abandoned, an old, long handled axe suck to it. So then I had an axe again, after so long. I remembered I had gotten well with the axe I had before letting it fall on the street in Atlanta when I ran to recover the bad of guns. That would do well.

The back door of the cottage opened easily with a strong shove. The whole space smelled like mold, but it was clean of walkers and seemed to be empty for a long time. That would do for tonight.

I sat at a corner, curved around myself as I ate from another can and had some water, and tried to sleep, wrapped in the blanket. I missed that bed… I missed the tent I’d slept in with Daryl.

My god, how I missed him…

 Day 76

 I emptied the last of the water I had when I woke up and ate one more can, this time of anchovies. I’d always hated anchovies, but well. With more light now, I looted the house a little but there was nothing useful to me. Leaving the house though the back door, I saw there was a pear tree with a few fruit and they seemed not to be ripe yet. Either way, I took the few I could reach and put them in the bag.

Getting back to the dirt road I saw this was actually a small neighborhood and there were houses all along this narrow road. The axe was in my hand when I reached the next door house and looted it as well. In there I found a slingshot and nothing else. I had never used a slingshot in my life, but I thought I could give it a try, so I tossed it in the bag. On the third house there were a few cans of soup but looking at it I saw they had been expired for nearly two years. This house had to have been abandoned since long before the apocalypse. Across from it, on the fourth house, I found a large jar of honey and sat at the kitchen table to eat a bit of it. My taste buds exploded at it and I felt the energy returning to my body at the presence of sugar. But now I needed water. In this same house I found also a jar of hearts of palm and canned peaches.

So I went to the next one, and after this fifth house there would only be two more to go. The front door of this one had been busted open already, so I entered carefully, axe in hand and raised. There was noise on a corner, like someone was hiding there. The house was dark even in daylight, with boards covering the windows, a strong smell of mold and dust making me want to cough. I walked slowly over every corner and was just considering leaving the house and letting it go when I was jumped on. Someone attacked, and it was dark and I held them at bay, pushing the away as strongly as I could so I’d have room to lift my axe and –

“Sam?!”

I froze and then…

“Andrea!!”

I had never liked her and the she’d shot Daryl but fuck was I happy to see her! My axe fell and we hugged tight, laughing in relief.

I found them! I’d found them!

“You’re alive!!” she exclaimed laughing as she let go and held me by my shoulders. “I heard you were dead, turned!”

“Where are the others?” I asked instead of answering, this was not a question that could wait any longer.

Her face fell, though, and I knew she was alone.

“I got lost from them… The herd, they... I had to run and they had to go. They left me behind.”

“Fuck…” I said. She was just as lost as I was. “How’d you know they think I’m dead?”

“Heard shouting. Daryl was… He was out of his mind and Rick kept telling him he couldn’t go there because you were gone, he’d seen you dead. But I don’t know much after that because I had to escape and I never found them again.”

Nodding and feeling the sadness that was getting old washing over me like rain, I let myself slide to the floor, my back against the wall.

“What happened?” Andrea asked as she sat in the middle of the hallway, facing me.

I told her all of it, since the lockout with Shane and what he’d done to me. She was tearing up when I finished and I was too, but I was tired of crying and time was flying. So I forced myself up, reached a hand to help her up saying, “Let’s check the rest of the houses for any signs of them and for food, and then we’ll go back to the road. It’s the last place we know they’ve been, so it’s where we gotta stay.”

 * * *

 They had been siphoning cars on the road for gas. I wanted to believe it was them, at least. Someone had taken all the gas from every car we found, none worked, so Andrea and I kept on walking. She had found water before and had a few bottles on a bag, so we were good on it. We stopped once to sit down and rest a little, eating what I’d found, but for the most part we simply walked. Walked…

Night was falling and we’d decided we’d stop at the next town or car we found to rest for the night. Here was a car a few miles after that, but now that we were not alone it would be safer since one could sleep while the other took watch. Andrea offered to take the first and I was glad because I was simply exhausted.

It was probably a couple of hours of sleep. I’d just disappeared into slumber, not even enough time to think of all that had happened before blacking out. I was woken up, though, and in the second I opened my eyes I knew something was wrong.

The back door of the car by my head was open and Andrea was there, crouched on the ground, calling me.

“Someone’s coming!” she whispered urgently.

“Is it –”

“Not them!”

I was wide awake in an instant, patting myself for my knives and guns, but remembered I didn’t have them anymore and Andrea had my axe. So I slid out of the car, grabbed her hand and pulled her urgently to the woods. We stopped just a few trees in, hiding behind a large trunk, and watched. Andrea handed me my axe as we did, in silence. It didn’t take a minute for us to see them: two man with flashlights were checking the car and, clearly as day, we heard them talk in the silence of the night.

“They ran through there,” one was pointing directly at us. “Two women I think.”

“Were they alone?” the other asked.

“Saw only them, guess so.”

“Good…” the other said and his tone sent chills all over my spine. “We getting ourselves some warmth tonight.”

Andrea and I looked at each other, her eyes wide in fear. Then the man left the road, entering the woods and coming right at us.

“Run!”, I mouthed to her and we took off, the men instantly seeing us, shouting and following. Once again I saw myself running in the woods in the dark without seeing where I was going, and I was sick of it, but this time it was even worse because these were people, and people could me so much worse than walkers.

They were fast and we were both too tired to outrun them. They’d catch us, unless we attacked first.

Unless I attacked first.

So I reached a hand for Andrea to make her stop and dragged her down onto the roots of a big tree. Not questioning it for a moment, she sat there and made herself small as was shaking in terror but kept quiet. I stood there, my back against the tree, breathing hard.

Don’t hesitate. Do not hesitate.

Their running footsteps were closer and closer and I prayed that I’d get the timing right. Closer, closer. My heart was beating loudly in my years, and still I heard them.

Don’t hesitate.

I swung the axe sideways with all the strength I could muster onto the path by the tree and it met his chest, penetrating him deeply right at the heart. He screamed in agony and loudly but just for a moment. I tried to hold on to the axe as he fell to the ground, motionless, but it had gotten stuck there and fell with him.

I’d just killed another man.

The other one came running than, enraged, and tackled me to the ground. I hit it hard, tree roots hurting my back bad and making the air escape my lungs, and for the second time in three days I had a man on top of me, trying to kill me. I’d be damned I let his hands around my neck, so I screamed and fought like hell to keep his hands at bay, but quickly enough I heard Andrea growl loudly just before she attacked him with the axe. It stuck to the back of his head and he was dead instantly. I froze for a moment, some blood showering down my face, but quickly recovered and rolled his body away from me.

Andrea had the axe in hand, breathing hard, eyes bugged glued on the dead man. I’d done this before, this was my second kill and both of them had been to protect myself. But this seemed to be her first time. I got up and carefully approached her, reaching out for the axe.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I told her quietly and she turned her wide eyes to me. “It’s alright. Just hand me the axe. Good, there you go,” I took it and rested it against the tree. “You alright?”

She stuttered before being able to say “I killed him.”

“You did,” I said holding her shoulders to keep her looking at me. “And you saved my life. You saved my life, Andrea,” she just blinked, saying nothing, maybe only now understanding that. “He was gonna kill me. Rape me most likely, and then kill me. You saved my life. Focus on that.”

“I want it, Daryl...”

He was kissing my neck now, “What’d you want?”

“You… I want you inside me,” and I tried taking him in by pushing against him but he still held me at bay. Oh, he liked games, then… Interesting.

“Lemme see how much you want it,” he teased before sliding his hand from my hip to between my legs. “Fuck, so wet…”

“I am… I want you Daryl,” and I moaned breathlessly because now he was moving two fingers over my clit. “Please…”

“Damn, Sam…” and he pushed in just a bit, only the head, and stopped.

“No, don’t stop, please!”

“You so fucking hot pleading like this,” he sped up his fingers on me, my desire rising with it. God I wanted him…

“Fuck me Daryl… Please fuck me.”

He laughed softly in my ear, “Nah, wanna to hear you like this a bit more…”

“Fuck, you’re killing me…”

“Got any idea how fuckin’ hot you are?”

“Ya think I’m hot? You’re so hard for me,” he entered me a bit more at that, suddenly and strong, making me “Oh fuck yes!” but took it out again.

“Fuck, you want it bad don’t you?”

“You know I do… I know you want it to, please love just fuck me!”

He did so suddenly that I cried out as he pushed in fully, holding my hip flush against him, his fingers buried on my skin, his other arm pillowing my head curved to hold my hair tight and he groaned into my ear. He fucked me so good then, his rhythm never faltering, moaning and hissing behind me, his fingers making my clit sing in pleasure.

“Tell me… Tell me Sam…” he said in my year and I didn’t know exactly what he wanted me to say, so I went for what I was feeling.

“I want you so much Daryl… I want you all the time. I want it all with you. All, all of you.”

“You got me, darling,”

I reached an arm back to hug his head against me and turned my head to look at him from over my shoulder, “Then say it… Tell me you’re mine,” I asked him, a sudden need to listen to those words, to know this was my man.

He raised his pace, breathing hard in pleasure, his eyes locked on mine, and moaned, “I’m yours. You got me. I’m all yours.”

“Oh god, Daryl!” and I was coming, those words just adding to the nearly overflowing pleasure, and he came with me, fucking me hard, groaning and moaning against my neck, my name rolling out with it, his hand now still, cupping me and holding me in place as we throbbed together.

It was like the world hadn’t ended. It was like it was just starting.

 * * *

 We went downstairs together. Crossbow in hand, knives on our waist bands, my double gun holster back in place. I had missed it, got too used to wearing it before the farm. We stopped right in front of the kitchen entrance. Daryl looked at me, reached out for my hand and gave it a squeeze with a nod and a little smile before leaving the house through the back door. I was smiling when I entered and saw Lori, Andrea, and Maggie in there, staring at me, and I felt like I was in 10th grade when with all my friends seeing me with a boy.

“What?” I asked, avoiding their looks

“Why, nothing, Mrs. Dixon!” Maggie answered smiling

“I thought you said there was nothing there,” Andrea quipped.

“There wasn’t,” I answered as I sat on one unsteady chair by the kitchen table. “Well, I mean… There’s always been something, but it not really. Just… There is now.”

“We know, honey, we all know well there is something there now,” Lori said trying to sound disapproving but still smiling.

I knew they’d heard it.

“Oh god…” I said hiding my head in my hands. “Were we that loud?”

“Not that loud, but well… We heard,” Andrea said from across the table as she started beating a bowl of eggs.

“Yeah, you know it’s hard to keep quiet when it’s really good,” Lori said rising her eyebrows at me, and I got that here was a question there, and Andrea and Maggie were looking at me with the same expression.

“I ain’t telling!” I laughed and they did too. “Get to your own conclusions by the little you heard.”

“Well, he’s good then,” Andrea said looking at the others as if informing them of her conclusion.

“Hey!” I said throwing dish cloth at her, making her laugh. “You all, stop thinking about my man’s penis.”

They laughed aloud at that and so did I. Strange sound, something that hadn’t been heard for such a long time in this group. And it occurred to me that I was laughing and joking with Andrea, which was even weirder. But it felt good. I liked those women, I just wished Carol was here too, laughing with us, but I knew it would be a long time until she was able to smile again.

This thought sobered me up.

“Did anyone check on Carol?” I asked when we all got silent again.

“I did,” Lori told me as she took the bowl of beaten eggs from Andrea. “She’s alright, I mean… As alright as anyone can be in her place… She’ll just have a lie in.”

“Right…” I nodded, looking down. “Let’s just let her sleep and rest for as long as she wants. We can stay one more day here, regroup, and then we’ll go.”

I saw Maggie look down sadly at that. Getting up, I stood facing her and said, “Hey, honey.”

“Hey…” she looked at me, her green eyes sad but firm. “Can we talk?”

Nodding, I lead her out of the kitchen and the house. There was an old picnic table on the yard under a tree and we sat there.

“Did you bring those eggs?” I started by asking her.

“I did.”

“That’s great, thank you Maggie… But you know you didn’t have to. After all that happened.”

“I know. I wanted to. Worried about you guys.”

I was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I’m worried about you guys too. What you watched happening yesterday… Gotta break anyone’s heart.”

“I think we all made mistakes,” Maggie told me. “I don’t think you guys acted right in opening the barn and shooting them. Things could have been solved in a more peaceful way. But I also know we were wrong in not telling you about the barn before. If you knew, maybe you could have asked yourselves if Sophia maybe was in there and checked, maybe you’d know the truth a long time ago.”

“True… I think I’d have thought of that, but yesterday, during the time we knew before opening it, I didn’t. I should have… “

“It’s done now,” Maggie said shaking her head. “It had to be done, I see it now. After that walker attacked me in the pharmacy and then the way Lou Bush was shot in the chest and kept on going...” Maggie shivered at that. “I know there’s no way back. I know there’s no cure, and my father’s starting to see it too.”

“It must be hard to let go of hope like that. And I’m sorry you had to see your loved ones like that.”

“I know… It’s all wrong. You all, and us. But either way I wished you didn’t have to go.”

“Too much would have to be different for us to stay, Maggie. We would impose too much. I would have to make changes there and decide things because we’ve been out there, we’ve survived out of the haven that farm is for now, and your father hasn’t. He can’t make the correct decisions in this new reality without having knowledge and experience in it. I didn’t want, and I still don’t want to impose things to him on his own land. What I need to do is think of my people’s safety. They come first, you know? And what I’ll say might not sound good, but as he told me himself: there is my people, and there is his people. He’s the one who makes the decisions for you, not me.”

“You told me before you don’t think we’re safe.”

“Yes, and I reaffirm that. That haven there? Could be gone in a blink of an eye.” Maggie looked down at the worn wood of the table and nodded sadly. “I’m sorry about you and Glenn. I know this between you could be more than just a casual thing…”

She looked up at me, lips night but nodding. “Yeah… I like him. Glenn is… He had the gentlest, biggest heart I know. He’s just such a good man, and so brave, and I do like him very much.”

I smiled, “I know. Glenn is a great guy, you’re lucky to have found him, especially in this new world. We all love him and he is crucial part of this group. But Maggie… He’s a free man. He can stay if he wants to. We’d all miss him, I’d miss him, but ultimately it would be his decision.”

She just nodded, thoughtful, before saying, “I wish you’d stay too, Sam.”

“I ain’t, Maggie… We ain’t staying. Too much has happened.”

“And it’s not safe,” she completed my thought.

“Right now, as it is… It ain’t safe.”

Silent and looking down, she nodded and got up after a moment. “I’ll go see Glenn.”

She put a hand on my shoulder as she passed me to go back to the house, and I knew we were good, but I’d probably never see her again, not unless many things changed in a day as we stayed or, highly unlikely, she went away with us. Which was a shame because I liked Maggie very much.

Getting up from the picnic table I saw Daryl approach me, as if he’d been waiting for our conversation to be over to come to me. I leaned back on the table and watched him come.

“Alright?” he asked as he stood close to me and I looked up at him.

“Fine… Just setting things straight with Maggie… After what happened.”

He nodded with his lip biting before saying, “There’re eggs in the kitchen, you should eat.”

“I will. Did you eat?”

“Just did. Goin’ out hunting, see if I can get you a nice dinner,” he paused. “And Lori, she needs it too.”

I smiled at how thoughtful he was. “Okay. Still waiting for that veal.”

With a little smile he took the last step between us and leaned down to hiss me, holding the crossbow in one hand and cupping my face with the other. I hugged him by his waist and we kissed deeply for a minute of two, and then he let go, lowered his hand to my stomach, resting it on the baby for a moment and planted a quick kiss on my forehead, before turning to go.

I was still lightheaded form his kiss, smiling goofily when I said, “Don’t die out there, okay?”

He looked at me over his shoulder saying “I won’t,” and was gone.

 * * *

 Carol still hadn’t come down when we all had breakfast together and I asked if Andrea could go up to bring her some if she was awake. She came down with a full plate saying Carol was still asleep. I helped the others clean the kitchen and organize it a bit because hopefully we’d be cooking some meat later.

When I left the kitchen, I head a mild discussion coming from one of the rooms nearby and followed it. Rich and Shane were there, being watched by a quiet Carl.

“I’m telling you, Rick, been telling you for what feels like years: Fort Benning!”

“You’re right you’ve been saying in for a long time, and nothing ever worked out to get us there,” Rick answered him.

“And you know why!”

I asked, “Why, Shane?” from behind him, making him turn startled. He recovered quickly, though.

“Because of the decisions that’re being made.”

“We’ve been through this, Shane…”

“No,’ he said firmly, “You’ve been through this. You stated what you thought about it. Not sure who made you the decision maker of this group.”

“It ain’t a dictatorship, Shane. People can disagree and go a different way if they wish, but you’re the only one I see still insisting in Fort Benning.”

“Because it’s the best way to go!” he yelled and Rick got up from the couch.

“It ain’t the best way to go!” I retorted just as firmly. “I told you, you can go if you believe this so much. You can go! But I will not rely in the military. I will not put our lives in the hand of an authority that hasn’t done shit for us so far. Nearly three months, Shane, and where the fuck are they? And you want to go looking for them? They all abandoned us to our own luck, so we will make out own luck!”

He was breathing hard, angry like he’d constantly been in the past few days, and stared at me silent for a long moment. I held his gaze, not allowing him to intimidate me. Then he turned to look at Rick, who’s been standing there with his hands on his hips.

“How about you? Where do you stand, Rick?”

“I’m with Sam in this, Shane.”

Shane nodded shooting Rick the same look he’d given me, and after a moment he stormed out of the room. I looked down, my heart pounding because as much as I was sure I was right, Shane was a big, strong man and that look… There was something in that look that knotted my stomach. I looked up at Rick and nodded at him, thankful. I had Rick on my side now, and I’m sure he had considered every aspect of it, his wife, son, the upcoming baby, and he still was going to stand with me. I was glad.

A minute later I saw Shane leave the house and the area with one of the cars. I asked myself if he’d come back, and if it would make any difference to me.

 * * *

 In the afternoon I left the house alone with my thoughts. People seemed comfortable in this house. It was not great, but it had potential. It was spacious, everyone had found a good place to sleep, Daryl and I had out own bedroom, Lori, Rick and Carl too, the others had been comfortable as well, there were other rooms in the house we could turn into private bedrooms for the others. There was no running water but with the well outside we could make do, we could even flush the toilets with buckets of water, and the old wood stove we’d been able to cook breakfast with was a great asset. We’d need to fix the doors and windows, fortify it, and then there would be the hardest part: surrounding the area with walls. If we managed to do that, maybe we could just stay. I knew people agreed with my plans, but it was evident nobody wanted to be on the road again. I was trying to find ways in my mind to make it not have to happen. Maybe we could keep the Greenes as neighbors and just… Stay.

The thoughts took me to the woods that surrounded the house. If we put down some trees we could use their trunks as walls. It would take a lot of trees and a lot of work, but we could do it. I’d need lots of support from the others and lookouts until the work was done, but it wasn’t impossible. There were a few clearings in the area and there was a lot we could do. Build sheds, maybe cabins out there, so everybody wouldn’t have to live in the same house.

Crunching leaves under careful steps took me out of my thoughts and I looked around trying to find the source. For a moment I didn’t and my hand was already on my knife when Daryl appeared from among the trees, something big hanging from his back and he crossbow half up, ready to take aim. Seeing it was me, he lowered it instantly.

He looked damn hot. Like a caveman bringing the food. He dropped it to the ground and I saw it was a turkey. We’d be having a damn fine diner tonight. But now, I cared more about the way he was looking at me, head to toe and back to my eyes.

“You alone out here?” he asked taking deliberate steps towards me.

“Not anymore,” I said as I gave him the same look and damn, wasn’t the air charged.

He practically charged at me, surprising the fuck outta me but it was so damn welcome. He kissed me hard as if we’d been apart for weeks and got me all melt from him.

“Got any idea what you doin’ to me?” he asked as he kissed down my neck. “Can’t stop think’ ‘bout you. Don’t know how I got the turkey, all I could think ‘bout was your pussy in my mouth…. And how you scream my name when you’re cumin…”

“I know… I want you all the time. Could fuck you all day,” and I lowered my hand to cup his cock though his jeans making him hiss and jerk against my hand. “There’s no one around,” I told him.

He said nothing, just pushed me against the nearest tree and kissed the fuck out of me, his hands everywhere, cupping my breast, my ass, opening my jeans. He lowered it only enough to make room for his hand to slide under my panties and rub his palm there.

“All ready for me…” he groaned in my ear and I started working on his fly. “Turn around”.

I did and, as he freed his cock, I lowered my jeans to my knees and bent over, hands on rough tree bark and then, so good, I felt the head of his cock against my entrance.

“Say it?” he asked. He was always gonna ask for permission, I was sure of that. Fuckin hot, adorable man.

“Fuck me Daryl, please –”

I couldn’t even finish my plead and he was in, deep and strong, holding me flush to him by my hips. It was a quick, hot and heavy fuck that got us both coming in like five minutes. The arousal of the danger of getting caught added an urgency to it, we both looking around even as we fucked, and it was so fucking good that I thought immediately I wanted more of it. I wanted him in the privacy of our bedroom, on top of his bike, out in the open in the woods, everywhere. I couldn’t get enough of Daryl.

I had a secret in my panties as we both walked into the house, Daryl bringing the turkey. His seed was still flowing out of me, I could feel it, and I thought strange how good it felt.

Everyone was happy with the turkey and thanked Daryl for bringing it. He dismissed it, though I thought I saw some satisfaction in his eyes, and went upstairs. I wanted to follow him, keep going, but got distracted noticing Carol was in the kitchen with the others, now discussing with them how they’d prepare it because it was a huge bird and roasting it in the oven would take too long. They were deciding to cut it to pieces and make it fried or maybe a stew when Shane came back to the house. He dropped a plastic bag of pharmaceuticals on the table mumbling something about how he’d found a drugstore out there, and left again.

He was not normal.

 * * *

 Daryl was already sitting in bed, back against the headboard and both legs stretched on the mattress when I entered the bedroom. I’d been cleaning up in with the bucket of water in the bathroom – we’d need to come up with a better bathing solution if we stayed in the house. I closed the door behind me and stood there, looking at him as I tied my dreads up, and only when he asked “What?” I noticed I was smiling.

So I crawled into bed and got close to his face, “You got us turkey. You’re a provider, you know that?”

With a pfff me pulled me to sit by his side, an arm circling my back, “Didn’t get it for them… Got it for you,” and he paused, I said nothing because I didn’t believe him. He did care for the others. “Maybe Lori too, and Carol ‘cause she’s sad…”

At that I smiled up at him, “Right. “Cause you don’t care ‘bout the others.”

“Care ‘bout you.”

“And not a little about the others?”

“Shut up,” and he pushed me to bed, rolling over me making me laugh aloud. “Care more ‘bout you than anyone else.”

“I know you do…” I said quietly looking up at him, my arms circling his shoulders. “You make me feel it. You’re all contained and closed up with the others, but me? I feel it. I feel protected… Cared about.”

He was quiet listening to me, and as I said it he slid to the side, propped up on his elbow, and looked down at me. He had a weird look on his face, seemed confused somehow.

“You feel… Protected. With me?”

“I do… You seem surprised.”

He cleaned his throat and looked down. “Kinda am…”

“Don’t see why. You been protecting me and having my back since the beginning, since D and Owen. Never left my side. I feel that you care for me.”

Quiet and still not looking at me, he rested a hand on my stomach and looked at it for a long moment before asking in nearly a whisper, “Did ya mean it?”

His hand on my baby bump told me what he was talking about. I reached for his face and cupped it gently to make him look at me. “I wished it was yours. Still do. So if you tell me you want it… He’s yours. I’ll be lucky to have a baby with you.”

His eyes were suspiciously shinny when he asked me “He?”

I just nodded. I’d been feeling it was a boy. Daryl lowered is head no my chest, his thumb caressing my stomach. Very quietly, he asked “Why?’ in such an open, pained voice that I felt my heart swell with love for him.

“Because I see in you all the things they never allowed you to see your whole life,” I was holding his head with my both hands. “Because you and I both know exactly how not to treat a child and I know you’ll make a great dad,” and I hugged his head to me, and kissed his hair, “Because I love you.”

His hand froze on me and I suspect he stopped breathing. For a moment he didn’t move, but then he raised his head and looked up at me, staring at my eyes.

“I mean it,” I said, even though I got nervous. I was sure he cared about me, that he had my back, that he had feelings for me, but come on, I was just a human with a heart and I’ve just opened it to a guy I’d been dating for what, three days? My heart sped up a bit, afraid of how he was going to react, afraid this would be too much for him. “And I know you have trouble believing yourself worthy, but if you trust me, then please believe me when I say you deserve to be loved. That you’ll be a great dad for this boy, and that I love you.”

Hand still on the baby, Daryl turned to his side, resting on his elbow, looking at me. “There’s stuff you don’t know ‘bout me.”

I lifted an arm to pillow my head, trying to get comfortable. “Wanna tell me?”

He shook his head sadly, “You won’t love me…”

“I will. I know you got a troubled past, but I got too. You ain’t perfect, but I ain’t either. It don’t matter to me. This life is what matters, what he got now. I love you for who you are now to me, and all the bad things that you gone through or did before, they are who you are now. My fucked up story makes me who I am today, right? And you like me either way –”

“Love you,” he corrected me and my heart nearly exploded. He raised his hand from my stomach to cup my face. “You think I’m worth it? I’ll have it, and I’ll do all I can to really be.”

Daryl just lifted his head from where he’d rested it on my neck and looked at me questioning.

“That it’d be like that… With you. I’d have tried to get close to you years ago.”

He was thoughtful at that, rested an elbow on the ground propping his head up in his hand and turning to the side a little, sliding out. I could feel his fluids oozing out of me.

“Can’t know if it’d be like this.”

I looked away from him up to the tent. Outside, the sun had only just started to rise. “Yeah… I was someone else.”

“I was too. Don’t think being close to me or my brother would be good for your drinkin’ problem.”

“Why do you say that?” I looked at him again.

“’Cause you know Merle… And there was a time I nearly got into it too. Just stopped ‘cause I didn’t want to end up like my father. Helped Merle sell for a while too.”

“If we were together then… We could have either helped each other out of it or just sank down together with no way back.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Can’t know.”

“Just can’t believe the world had to end for us to happen,” I told him and he said nothing, just nodding a little and biting his lip. “Can I ask you somethin’?” he nodded again. “Why’d you tell me to fuck off?”

He knew what I meant. It was the first time we saw each other. I mean, I had seen him during my moving day, he was at his porch looking curiously at the people moving next door to him, but he first time we stopped and spoke to each other.

I was fourteen and had just moved there with my dad and Bobby-Jo. I hated being there. I wanted to be in Atlanta, near my friends, my school. I had just finished 9th grade and now I’d have to go to a new school, meet people all over again. Back then, at 14, I had no patience to meet new people and I was feeling like going to school less and less. I was still not addicted to anything other than cigarettes but even that young I already smoked pot with my friends.

That afternoon, over a week after moving, I was behind our new house, hiding just out of the yard on the patch of woods there was there to smoke a cigarette. There were no fences, it was all open. I had my back against a tree, out of sight if my dad came out of the house. I lit it, took a smoke and looked back at the house to make sure nobody was there, and when I looked back at the road the neighbor was walking towards our houses through the woods. He startled me, I had not seen him approach. I recognized him as the boy next door who’d been looking as we moved in. He was wearing a brown tank top and was dirty from head to feet, as if he’d been in the woods for a while.

“Holy shit!” I cried, a hand on my chest. “Fuck, I thought you was my dad,” and I laughed in relief saying “phew!” He said nothing, just stood there, rooted, staring at me. I took another drag and kept talking, “You live there, right?”

He nodded fast, a bit unnatural, but still said nothing.  I smiled at him. A shy, cute boy that looked dangerous? Yep, I’d hit that.

“You smoke?” I asked him and he nodded again. I fished into the pocket of my sweat pants and extended the pack and lighter to him. “I’m Sam. What’s your name?”

That was a question that would actually have to make him speak and he seemed to notice that too. He ignored the cigarette and started walking towards his house, finally saying “None of ya business. Fuck off.”

Well, that was a disappointment. I thought since he was near my age I could make a friend, and he was cute, dammit, but he was an asshole. I got angry at him because I’d done nothing wrong, and decided I would never speak to him again.

“’Cause I was just stupid kid,” he answered now. “Didn’t know how to talk to people, especially with pretty girls like you. You offered me a cigarette and you was smoking like a pro and I hadn’t been able to smoke without coughing my lungs off yet. Would’ve make as ass of myself in front of ya.”

“Well… You kinda did anyways telling me to fuck off.’

“I chose to make you think of me as an asshole instead of as an idiot.”

“You don’t know I’d have thought you an idiot… I’d pro’ly have taught you to smoke right.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know that. Thought you’d be the one to tell me to fuck off ‘s soon as I started speakin’ to ya.”

I smiled up at him. I understood. “I’d do to, I think. Was fourteen and trying to be and look cooler than I was.”

“You looked cool to me,” he said and I didn’t really believe him. “Ya did. All pretty, blondie with the eyes,” he gestured to my eyes with a finger and I laughed, “and standing in the woods like that with a cigarette and cursing and all. Too cool for an ass redneck like me.”

I turned to my side to get even closer to him, a hand on his chest, “Well, you should know that when you came down of the woods with a gun in hand and all looking dangerous and mysterious, my developing hormones went nuts.”

He shook his head, “Nah, ya just sayin’ it.”

“I mean it! But well, then you told me to fuck off and I let it go for all those years.”

He was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, a hand tracing my underboob tattoo. “Was better like that. If we got along then with all the hormones we’d be making a baby after another.”

I laughed aloud and he was surprised. It was true, hormonal and irresponsible, I’d end up pregnant on our first time.

“Well, what matters,” I said when I stopped laughing, “is we get along now and we’ll be doing all the hormones ask us too, and I can’t get more pregnant than I already am, so I guess we’re good.”

“We’re good…” he said before leaning in and kissing me.

“Can we just stay here?” I asked him lazily after the kiss. “All day… Do nothing, see no one?”

“Nah…” he said quietly. “Sophia is out there. Gotta find her.”

Shock of reality. Time to wake up. I nodded and kissed him again before we got back to the world outside.

We should have stayed in bed.

 * * *

 They knew. Fuck, they’d heard us last night. The little smile and raised eyebrow Andrea gave in my direction was too foreign for it to mean nothing. Rick laughed a little looking at me when I looked around questioningly, and looked down at his food again. I looked at Daryl who seemed to also have noticed it. We’d tried to be careful with the noises! Or so we thought. Discretion inside a camping tent is not as possible as I’d thought. I couldn’t wait to have a real bedroom.

We were all having breakfast, eating real eggs – the perks of being in a fam, when Glenn got up from his seat, nervous, trying to say something. He called out our attention but most people didn’t even look at him. I stared at him, waiting, my wrist aching. Something bad was coming.

“The barn is full of walkers.”

There was a heavy silence for a moment, when people kind of woke up and tried to understand what he meant. I lowered my half full plate of eggs to a little camping table and got up from where I’d been sitting by Daryl, walking over to Glenn.

“You said what?”

“The – the, uh – The barn. There are walkers inside, locked in.”

“How do you know that? How long’ve you known that?”

“Two nights ago?” he replied as a confession. “Maggie asked me not to tell so I didn’t know what to do!”

“Fuck,” I said and then turned away to walk in the direction of the barn, yelling “Fuck!!”

I head movement right behind me, the others were following. What the fuck did he mean the barn’s full of walkers? This sentence made no sense! Why had none of us ever gone near the barn enough to notice it?

But there they were. I looked in thought a gap, Shane doing the same a little above my head, and the walkers were there, dormant, walking blindly in the dark, and there were many of them, uncountable through the gap. One of them looked directly at us, noticing the presence of the living, and Shane and I retreated.

“Do you still wanna stay?” Shane barked at Rick. “You cannot tell me you alright with this!”

“No, I’m not, but we’re guests here, this isn’t our land,” Rick seemed to be trying to keep level headed.

“This is our lives!” Shane shouted.

“Keep your voice down!” Glenn called out, we were really too close from the walkers.

“Either we go in there and do what we gotta do or we just fucking go!” Shane yelled and then found me among the others, “The house you wanna us to move to? To fucking close to this pet herd here! Not safe at all! We gotta get going, we been talking ‘bout Fort Benning for a long time!”

“We can’t go,” Rick told him.

“Why, Rick? Why?”

Carol was he one to answer, “Because my daughter is still out there.”

Then a fight started because Shane pretty much told Carol Sophia was dead by now and Daryl got angry because he’d been nearly killing himself out there to find her, and there was the house she seemed to have been in and the doll and fuck, it was all a mess. I turned my back on them when Daryl tried to jump on Shane, yelling, someone held them, and I didn’t wanna see it. Fuck it all. I started walking back to the camp and didn’t see the end of the fight, but at some point people started to follow me back and away from the barn.

I was already kicking earth on the fire to put it down and throwing the grill and pans to the side when they got near.

“What now?” Theo asked first.

“Now we’re leaving. We ain’t sleeping another night in this farm,” I looked around at all the others and gave the order. I didn’t want any discussion on this. I’d had enough discussing it. “Start packing, We’ll have work to do at the house so the sooner we get there, the better.”

“Did you not fuckin’ hear what I said?” Shane came over, chest puffed in an attempt to intimidate me, fast steps in my direction. “It’s too close from all the walkers! You insane wanting to keep us around!”

Daryl came over and stood between Shane and I because Shane was not stopping even as he got close to me, menacing. Shane stared angrily at him and Daryl held him on, both ready to attack again, as Rick came over to try to separate them and it was all nearly starting all over again. So stood by their side, looking up at the three fire-spitting men.

“You all with the testosterone, that’s enough!” I said loudly to make them listen. They looked at me, the same anger in their eyes, except maybe for Daryl who wasn’t angry at me specifically. I looked at Shane, staring up at him and all but yelled, “You want so much to go to Fort Benning, then just fuckin’ go! Ain’t nobody holding you here! Just go!” and I looked around at the others. “Anyone who wants to go with him, do as you wish!” and I looked at the enraged man again. “You’re unhappy, just go. We’re moving to the house.” And I got away from his face, looked around again at the stunned others and aid, a bit calmer, “Come on, let’s pack.”

Nobody disagreed, they all just started moving, except for Shane who kept on his spot breathing hard, looking like he’d explode. When he spoke again, at least was something coherent. “I want someone on the lookout around the bard at every minute until we leave! Two hours each, I’ll start and Glenn’ll take over after me!”

And he stormed out. It was all quiet for a moment and my heart was pounding, so I took a breath to calm down and them marched to where mine and Daryl’s tents were. I entered mine to start collecting my clothes that were thrown all over and thrown them in the backpack and for the noises I head Daryl was doing the same to his. I didn’t feel like talking right now, there was too much in my mind. What the fuck was Hershel thinking, keeping walkers in the barn?

But well, I knew what he was thinking. Didn’t agree at all, but I knew. He’d said on the first day we were here that he thought there was a cure. He was expecting the crew to come over and heal those walkers in there. Their bodies were decomposing, but sure, they could be healed. They’d be missing a face and all the blood from their bodies, but life would go on normally after that. For fucks’ sakes…

After I got the tent empty, putting my bag and the foldable bed I wouldn’t be using anymore near the cars where everybody else was doing the same, Daryl had already finished with his few things and was putting my tent down. His, or now ours, but hopefully we wouldn’t need to use it again, was already down on the ground.

“Hey,” Daryl said as he saw me get closer. “Going to get the horse and go out again, find her trail after the waterfall.”

“You sure you’re fine to go? Especially on the horse again?”

“I’m fine,” he said and I knew he was annoyed in general at things.

“Well then when you come back go straight to the house, we’ll pro’ly be there already.”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there.”

He turned to go after that, leaving the tents folded on the ground for me to deal with.

“Daryl?” I called him back and he looked at me, turning around and still taking steps backwards. “Don’t die, alright?”

He nodded gravely and left, going to the stables. Noticing Rick’s absence, I asked Lori about him and she said he’d gone to talk to Hershel. Goddam stubborn men! Whatever, I didn’t care, fuck him. If he wanted to stay in tis farm with his family, fine. He could stay, Shane could go to the fucking fort, whatever, I’d keep the others safe at a house with real beds for the moment before moving on.

“Sam?” I heard Maggie call me and turned to look at her. I dropped a backpack onto the pile before standing with her, drying the sweat from my forehead. “You’re leaving?”

“Yep. We’re leaving.”

“Were you not gonna tell us?”

“I don’t see why, Maggie. None of you cared to tell us you kept walkers in the barn.”

She looked down, taking a breath. “I asked Glenn not to tell you because my dad wanted it like this.”

“I know, Maggie, and he thinks they are people, and that there’s a cure. I’ll tell you something, this is insanity. Alright? This is him and all of you holding on to hope that things are not over, that those people are not dead, and I understand someone trying to keep up hope, but come on! If they were people you knew, I’m sorry ‘bout what I’ll say not, but they are dead. They are putrefying on their feet. They should be buried with honors and love, and not rotting as they walk in a locked barn!”

I turned away from her because I was getting too angry and she was quiet for a moment. I was looking at the barn at the distance and saw Shane was there guarding it and Rick went to talk to him. Damn them.

“I know that,” Maggie said after a moment, her voice dripping sadness and trembling. “My stepmom and stepbrother are there, together with many other people we knew. But I get it now. A walker tried to kill me at the pharmacy and Glenn saved my life. It changed how I see them.”

I turned back to her. “I’m sorry about your mom and bother,” I said calmly. “They deserve to rest like all the other people we’ve loved and died deserve. I would never leave my dad in that situation. Never.”

She nodded, looking down. “Where you all gonna go?”

“We’ll stay at the house a few miles that way,” I pointed. “Daryl and I found it. We’ll stay until we find Sophia, and then we’ll be on our way. See where the road takes us, find a safe place.” Seeing Maggie just nod, I moved on. “I’ll talk to your father before we go. Rick’s still around him lickin’ his boots to let him stay with his family, and it’s his decision, not mine.”

I didn’t see when she walked away because I kept on with what I had to do. As the others were packing too, I looked around to count them all. Lori and Shane were speaking in the far out of the tent area, Andrea, Theo and Glenn were packing, Dale was checking on the RV engine, Carl was just sitting around doing nothing. And then there was Daryl, coming back already. I went over to meet him.

“You didn’t go?”

“Carol told me not to.”

“Wait, what?”

“She don’t think Sophia’s alive anymore!” he said angry punching the air. “Said I couldn’t go ‘cause I’d get hurt again and she couldn’t lose me too!”

Wait, what?!

“She – what, she – Wow!” I was completely incoherent. “She can’t lose you?”

He looked at me understanding what I was thinking. “She pro’ly didn’t mean it like that.”

After a pfff I said, “Wouldn’t surprise me, you’re all worried about her and the girl and you – I mean, you look like that,” I pointed up and down at him.

“Stop,” he said but he was calmer but turned to look away, in the general direction of the barn.

I hummed and crossed my arms. “And how’d you take it?”

He took a few seconds to answer, “Not well.”

“Hm… Something you’d need to apologize for?”

“Pro’ly.”

“Hey…” I said softly and he turned to look at me quietly, so I approached and paced my hands on his hips, “Maybe is for the best. You sill got stitches.”

“Told you I’m fine.”

“I know…”

He lowered his head until it was near mine. He’d calmed down now. “Ready to go?”

“Almost… People are finishing packing, but Rick’s still out there kissin’ Hershel’s ass and Shane… God knows what Shane’s planning.”

“Leave’em… Their grown ass is not your responsibility.”

“I will. They’ll do whatever they wanna do.”

“Good…” he paused. “I go talk to Carol.”

“Okay.”

He seemed a bit in doubt of how to say bye to me now, unwilling to just turn away and go now that things had changed between us, and even more because we were near the others. I didn’t kiss him because I didn’t know how he felt about public affection, but after a moment he gave a very quick peck on the lips and then he was gone. Adorable.

 * * *

 We were ready to go. Everyone was ready to go, except for Lori and Carl who seemed to be waiting for a miracle and just stay, and Rick and Shane who were simply gone for hours now. I wanted to at least set things straight with them before talking the road, and it was time. Glenn was sitting with Maggie on the porch and the others were just around, doing nothing, waiting.

When Daryl and I went to the porch to ask Glenn if he knew something, because Glenn seemed to know everything these days, Theo and Andrea followed. When I saw Shane come in our direction carrying heavy load I knew what was going on. I knew what he was gonna do. Daryl did too, because he stood by my side, eyeing Shane come and ask me “How we gonna go ‘bout this?”

That was the thing. I didn’t really think Shane was wrong about wanting to kill the barn walkers. It was not our decision, but the people in this farm were delusional and they’d end up getting killed by those they still called people. We’d be gone, but still near, if they escaped they wouldn’t take long to reach us at the house. And if they escaped and found Sophia somewhere on the woods, she’d be gone too. If she wasn’t yet, I mean. I had just seconds to make a decision. Shane was there, handing a rifle do Daryl, asking “You with me?” and Daryl took it but still didn’t know what to do. “You got yours?” he asked me.

“No,” I told him and the decision came. No going back. “Gimme one,” I told him and he passed me another rifle. The others kept asking Shane questions and he made a little passionate speech about how they thought this place was safe and how everyone was just as insane as in constant danger, and then started marching to the barn. Before following him I looked at Maggie, and Beth and Patricia who were at the porch, and told them, “I’m sorry. I’ll do this for your safety.”

And we left but fuck! things just would stop getting worse! There was Rick in the far coming back with Hershel and Jimmy, dragging two walkers on leashes in the direction of the barn. They wanted to add more walkers there but that was enough. That was it, this was insanity! Rick was so desperate he was totally blind, completely losing his fucking mind.

But so was Shane. The way he kept on yelling and the things he was saying were completely out of control. He had to be stopped but right now he was dangerous. Everyone would better stay out of his way. He chose to show Hershel walkers were not people by shooting the one he had on the leash in the chest multiple times and it kept on standing and growling and Hershel seemed completely shocked. But when Shane started breaking the locks I was right at front with my rifle ready.

They fell like flies, the sound of the shots ringing in our years, as walker after walker got out of the barn. Shane even shot the one Rick was holding. I could not hear the cries behind us over the shots, but I knew we were breaking this family’s hearts. These walkers had been people they knew, but they had to understand by now after seeing one of them get shot in the chest and keep going, that they were gone. They’d been gone for a long time and they deserved better.

Then it was over. The echo of the shots was the only sound for a long moment, even us who’d been shooting kind of in shock, and what the hell were we supposed to go now? What was I gonna say? I lowered my rifle, breathing hard. Hey, sorry we did exactly what you didn’t want us to do, thank you for everything, bye-bye? We were gonna go away anyway, but now any kind of good relation we could have with this family was gone.

But then…

Just when you think things can’t get any worse.

Sophia’s dead body comes out of the barn.

The shock from a second ago was nothing compared to now. I head many “no” around but I was grounded, looking at her skinny dead body focus on us and growl, a huge bite mark on the side of her neck. From the back of the group, Carol screamed and called out to her baby girl and ran. I looked back and I knew nothing was going to stop Carol from going to Sophia and holding her, even as if it would mean her death.

“Daryl!” I shouted and he looked back to see Carol coming, and he instantly held her down as she fell to the ground, sobbing, her heart shattered.

Who’d do it? It had to be done. She was coming and she’d bite the first one she could see. It had to be done but everyone was rooted, most crying, even Shane had looked down looking defeated.

It had to be done.

Letting my rifle slide to the ground, I took my hunting knife from the holster. This was Sophia, I didn’t want to shoot her. Maybe it was just pure sentimentality, but I felt like it should be more personal. Her mother was watching. I walked over to her and she saw me, focusing her dead eyes on me and she’d bite me is I wasn’t careful, if I let the tears in my eyes blind me. I reached her and held her at bay by her forehead and she growled angrily, hands trying to grab me. I rounded her, holding her head still from behind with an arm, and she struggled but she had been such a tiny girl that it was not hard to keep her still.

I looked up then and found Carol. She was crying on the ground, Daryl holding her, but she wasn’t screaming anymore. My chin trembled and I was crying but… it had to be done.

So I forced my knife into her temple. One strong, purposeful push and it was in, and she was quiet and still. I kept holding her as she went limp and lowered her as gently as I could to the ground. I laid her there and pulled the knife out, and then fell on my knees by her side, surrounded by walkers. I had no control over the tears that simple fell from my eyes, but I felt blank, empty, and couldn’t express anything though my face.

Daryl was telling Carol not to look, but how much worse could it get to her heart? If mine was shattered, how would hers be now? She got up and struggled out of his hold and she ran away alone. I had no strength to get up. I couldn’t. I had just put down what had been Sophia, the one we’d been looking for so long, who Daryl had nearly died in the efforts to find. She was here. She’s been here all along, in the barn, and nobody had known. Mr. Greene would have said something if he knew, wouldn’t he? He probably didn’t know. Maybe it was Otis who brought the walkers and then he died and couldn’t tell us. My mind was in overdrive and I just kept on crying and I knew people were slowly walking away, Beth’s cries getting far, Shane, Rick, most of the others following.

And then Daryl was kneeling by my side and holding me, I hadn’t seen him approach. His presence and his arms made me sob, but it was choked, tears flowing. He took the knife out of my hand, I had still ben clutching to it, and threw it away from us. I clung to him and he held on tight, shushing me, saying it was alright, it was over.

Yes, it was over, but it was not alight.

I gripped Daryl’ arms and looked up at him. “Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know, just away.”

“Go to her?” I asked him. “Please? Just stay with her.”

He was uncertain, just looking down at me, pain and resignation in his eyes.

“Her pain’s bigger than mine now. Please stay with her?”

“You’ll be ok?”

“I will. Soon. There’s work to do.”

He nodded. It felt good that he understood me, that he didn’t insist on holding me as I cried, that he knew I was strong enough to do whatever I had to do now. So he helped me up, placed a hand on the side of my face and rubbed his thumb there, biting on his lower lip, and then turned and left.

I looked around then. There was me standing there, Dale as he paced in shock, Lori sitting with Carl as they looked at the carnage, and Jimmy and Theo standing as if waiting for instructions. From the house, still far, I saw Shane and Rick come back, quite a few paces of distance between them. From the barn, Andrea came out carrying a blanket and came over to where I was standing by Sophia. She looked at me and reached a hand to touch my shoulder, an empathetic look on her face.

“You did what you had no do. None of us could’ve done it”.

I nodded, my chin tense curving my lips, and I was thankful she’d said that. Then she knelt by Sophia and carefully and respectfully covered her body. Lori sent Carl away with Dale and Shane and Rick stood near us.

“You want us to star burying them?” Theo asked

“We’ll need a service,” Andrea said. “Carol’d what that for Sophia.”

“Jimmy?” I asked making him look up. “Who are Mr. Greene’s wife and stepson?”

“Uh, there’s, uh,” he tried pointing but decided to go over and roll one walker from over another, a female one under it. “There’s Annete, and, uh”, he walked a little further and pointed at another one, “this is Shawn,” he looked up at me again and around at the group and corrected himself, “Was.”

“Ok… So Annete and Shawn and Sophia… We’ll dig them graves over there,” I pointed, “near Otis. The other’s we’ll take away as far as possible and… Burn’em.”

They all nodded gravelly, Shane left saying he’d get the truck to move them, and we all started working.

 * * *

 Daryl was sitting on the RV counter, silent, looking over at Carol who as sitting at the table looking outside. Daryl looked at me as I entered and we exchanged a long look before I looked at Carol.

“Carol?” I said and she looked at me, a bit dazed. “There’s a service… For Sophia,” and Carol looked down and shook her head. I looked at Daryl and back at her. “you don’t wanna be there?”

“Why would I?” she asked.

“’Cause that’s your little girl,” Daryl answered gently.

She looked up at him, “That’s not my little girl. It’s some other… Thing.” Carol looked out the window again and I fully entered the RV, crossing in front of Daryl to sit across from her at the table. “My Sophia was alone in the woods. All this time I thought –” she paused and shook her head, her lips forming a sad, little smile. “She didn’t cry herself to sleep. She didn’t go hungry. She didn’t try to find her way back. Sophia died a long time ago,” she was silent for another moment before looking at me for long second and then saying, “But you never gave up,” and looked at Daryl, “two of you never gave up. You’d’ve given your life for her in those woods,” she looked at me with tears in her eyes. “I’ll be forever grateful,” I opened my mouth to say she didn’t owe us anything but she kept on, looking from me to Daryl and back all the time she spoke, “and you have my trust. No matter what the others want to do from now on, I’m with you, no matter what.”

My heart was swelling with love for that woman and in pain for all that was happening, and I was crying again as I reached other the table and grabbed her hand firmly, and she responded firmly. I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded at her, accepting her trust and yearning for her friendship. After a moment when we just exchanged a look under Daryl’s gaze, I got up and puller her with me, making her stand.

“Let’s go,” I whispered. “It’s a service for who Sophia was, not for the one from the barn. It’s your baby girl, for the girl we’ve all met. Ok?”

She nodded, crying too, and I led her out of the RV. We walked her there between us, Daryl close by her side as I hugged her all the way there.

 * * *

 It was probably past four in the afternoon when we reached the house. Our caravan was slow on the dirt, narrow road that led to the house Daryl and I had named Cherokee House. On the bike, I clung to his back, just as I’d wished to do on the road before we got trapped by the hoard, before we lost Sophia… I hugged him tighter and feeling it, Daryl let one of his hands go from the handlebar and reached back to squeeze my knee.

Everyone was silent, even Shane, no words exchanged. There seemed to be nothing more to be said. We checked the house before everyone got in, in was still clear of people or walkers, and just as silently people started looking around, putting things away, dusting couches and tables with rags, and going upstairs carrying bags to choose from the many bedrooms there were there. Daryl found a well on the land close to the house and water was brought in. We still had food from the road that we’d been able to save eating from what the farm provided us, so we’d be fine for now.

It was getting dark and there were candles lit on the coffee table on the living room, and without planning everybody gathered on the couches around it, eating from what Carol and Lori had been able to make up for us. Poor Carol, was trying to keep her mind busy…

After long minutes of silence, someone asked what now.

The question of the year.

“Now we rest,” I told them and I know I sounded grave and tired. “For tonight, maybe for all day tomorrow. We sure need it.”

There were nods in solemn agreement

“We’ll need one guard at each door,” Shane said in a grave, raspy voice. He’d yelled too much today. “I’ll take the back door for the first two hours. Volunteers for the front door?”

Theo did, and as I climbed up the stairs Shane was choosing who’d be the next one to take over after them. Thankfully neither Daryl or I were put in the schedule.

I had chosen the bedroom furthest in the upstairs corridor, perhaps the smaller in the house but with a double bed that was dusty but not too bad. After cleaning myself up the best I could with a bucket of water that had been taken to the bathroom, I found it empty. With just a loose t-shirt, I looted the old wooden wardrobe and found one clean white sheet and pillowcases, which I used to replace the dusty ones that were in the bed. I couldn’t even believe I’d be sleeping in a real bed tonight. And with Daryl.

He came in then, also looking cleaner. He saw me sitting in bed then, and I probably looked the image of defeat, looking down to the floor, shoulders down. I felt small. He slowly came over and sat by my side, lowering his elbows to his knees and hanging his head. We were silent for a long moment.

‘I really thought she’d be alive…” Daryl cut the silence with a whisper towards the floor.

“I had my doubts, I confess… But I hoped… I really did hope.”

“D’you think they knew?”

“No… Ain’t nobody this… Cruel to let us keep looking knowing she was there… I don’t think they knew.”

“It was their barn…”

“Otis…” I said simply and he took a second but answered.

“Yeah, pro’ly.”

“At least now we know…”

He nodded and said nothing. I knew he was in pain because he’d dedicated so much to finding her… He’d tried to keep to positive, he’d been so hopeful and now his heart had broken.

“You okay?” he asked me.

I felt my throat tightening. He was hurting but still talking care of me. My beautiful Daryl… I sighed shakily and let my head fall to his shoulder. “Not really… But I’ll be fine. I don’t think we did anything wrong. We were wrong thinking she was alive, but we didn’t do anything wrong. We did all we could. If she’d been out there, you’d have found her.”

Daryl looked sideways at me, still all but curved on himself. “You really think so?”

“I know so.”

He sat up then, turning to face me in bed and rested a hand in my cheek. I closed my eyes, breathing out, trying to allow myself to relax and believe my own words with my heart. He kissed me gently on the lips, never going further than that, maybe afraid I wouldn’t want him tonight. But I did… I wanted him so we’d both be able to feel something good in such a terrible day. So I deepened the kiss, my arms circling his shoulders to bring him closer, and he seemed to understand and kissed me back the way I wanted him to. The kiss I was getting to know, slow, deliberate, firm. The sexiest kiss I’d ever had.

We laid across the bed and he rested on top of me, and right then we didn’t even try to control our desire anymore. It was the hot, breathless moaning kisses, we needed each other, needed to be touching, to feel something good, to forget everything else.

Daryl took my t-shit off me and found me bare under it. I hadn’t even bothered on putting on bra and panties after I washed, I knew we’d need each other tonight. By his groan I got that he approved. He moved so quick I nearly missed it; he slid to the floor, on his knees by the bed, grabbed me by my thighs and pulled my body to the edge of the bed, spread my legs and covered me with his mouth.

I couldn’t believe I was so lucky to find that, other than all of the qualities Daryl had, he also loved eating pussy. And damn, did he do it well. I was like he was feasting, not just eating. Savoring. My feet up in the air, a hand gripping the sheets and the other on his hair, I permitted myself to just feel, let all the pain and guilt disappear. It felt so amazing that I wanted Daryl to feel the same, I want to give him what he was giving me.

He had one hand pumping two fingers inside of me and the other arm extended to hold one breast on his hand. I looked down at him to see those beautiful blue eyes him staring up at me, eyelids half closed.

I hissed, “Fuck Daryl, you’re so good!”

His eyes smiled up at me, only his eyes, because his mouth kept working his miracle. Soon after he got on his feet making me look confused at him. Looking at me he put his two fingers in his mouth and sucked them before saying “Turn around. On your fours.”

A chill ran all over my body and here was no way in the world I was not gonna turn around a get on my fours for him. So I did, crawling to the center of the bed, breathless, fully expecting and hoping that he was gonna enter me not and fuck me ‘till tomorrow, but he didn’t. He kept on what he was going, now from behind. My head fell to the mattress and I swear it was like I could pass out at any moment now. I’m not sure even sure when my orgasm started or for how long it went, all I know is I was lost in it, seeing stars under my eyelids, my legs going weak. I buried my head in a pillow and screamed into it, unable to hold it anymore, my whole body trembling.

When I came to myself he had stopped and was running his hands over my ass and back, saying something I didn’t even assimilate. I fell on my side, breathing hard and looked at him with glassy eyes.

“You’ll end up killing me one of these days,” I told him, making his smile that little sideways smile of his as he got up from the bed to stand by it. Trembling, I sat up and crawled to the edge of the bed. He’d tossed his shirt away and was working of his jeans buttons but I batted his hands away to do it myself. “Will you let me this time?”

He looked down at me, “You wanna?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Fuck yeah,” I said when I lowered his jeans and his boxers at the same time, setting his cock free right in front of me. “Sit down.”

He did and took his jeans off from around his ankles and I knelt in front of him. Before I could do what I wanted, though, he caught my face in his hand and pulled me up for a kiss. I could taste myself on him as we kissed for a long moment, my hands on his cock working up and down. When I finally took him in my mouth, Daryl rested his weight on his hands behind him and let his head fall back, just feeling. It’s what I wanted, to have him feel, just feel and not think, not suffer. He was rock hard in my mouth, I could trace his veins with my tongue and I did all I wanted, I took him deep in my throat, I sucked on his head, I traced every inch of him with my lips and tongue, I massaged and kissed his balls, all the while making Daryl breath harder and harder, and then start moaning losing control over his voice. I sped up, taking him in and out and his hips started thrusting forward on their own.

“Sam… oh, fuck, Sam…” he cried and I throbbed just to hear it. He grabbed my hair and his other hand was buried in the sheet. “Gonna cum… Fuck, oh I’m cuming Sam!”

And oh, he did. I took him halfway and sucked him hard and felt him spurt into my mouth. I swallowed one after the other, taking him all in, feeling him pulse and throb in my mouth. I cleaned all of him as he finished, every trace of it. He fell back on the bed, his hands rising to his head as I climbed in by his side, and we both laid there, side by side. It’d been so hot do blow Daryl until he came that I was ready to keep going all night, but give the man a break.

I kicked out the second boot and took his hand, pulling him inside with me. The tent was not tall enough for him to stand there, so he was bent a bit. He zipped it closed as I lowered myself to the ground, pushing a sheet away and lying down. It wasn’t soft or anything but it wasn’t much different from the sleeping bag I’d been using all those months. I scooched to the corner and he sat by my side.

“You did good today,” he told me just above a whisper as he bent his legs, resting his arms on his knees. “They needed to know the truth.”

“I think so too. Don’t wanna start making decisions and just informing them later,” I answered just as quietly.

“You not that kind of leader.”

It was the first time I head Daryl calling me a leader.

“The thing you told me a while ago? ‘Bout me stepping down and all?” he nodded. “Ain’t happening.” He answered with a pfff because he’d already known that. “I don’t trust the others… Rick and Shane. Shane’s acting weird, getting angrier ‘bout everything since he lost Lori. And Rick’s too desperate to think things clearly. And I don’t even know if he already knows Lori’s pregnancy, and if Shane knows, ‘cause will pro’ly make things ever worse…”

Too fuckin much in my mind. I breathed out covering my face.

“Hey,” he told me making me look at him again. “Only so much ya can take care of. Gonna take care of the group? Alright. But can’t worry ‘bout their personal stuff, you’ll go nuts.”

He was right, of course. They were all grownups and I didn’t have to worry about their messed up love triangle. I sat up, ready to just forget about everything for a while, got to my knees and invaded his space straddling him, sitting on his thighs, my hands on his shoulders. Oh, the shoulders. Looking up at me he held me by my hips for a moment before sliding his arms around my lower back and pulling me flush to him. I rested my forehead on his.

“I don’t think I’d keep it up without you by my side. D’you know that?”

“Yeah, you would,” he disagreed and leaned in, his lips touching mine as he said, “But I’m gonna be here anyway.”

Did he have any idea what he was doing to my heart? At the very moment it ached for him. At that very moment I was so deeply in love with him and I’m sure he had no idea. He had no clue of how much he meant to me, how I’d come to rely on his presence in my life, of how good it was to have him by my side. He was troubled by insecurity, by the anger he’d grown up with, by the violence of his past. All of that hadn’t been enough to destroy his good soul, his huge heart. And it was mine. He was all mine.

I don’t know who started it but we were kissing then, and it was not soft, gentle, slow like before. It already started hot, his arms tight around me, my hands everywhere, his hair, face, shoulders, chest. I attacked his buttons, probably rip off some of them, and roughly opened his sleeveless shirt, letting go of his mouth and curving over him to kiss his neck. He bent his neck to give me full access and as I licked his skin I heard him moan quietly, more like a sigh. Oh, such a good sound…

His hands moved over my back under my t-shirt and slid to my side, where I felt him grip me strongly, his fingertips on my flesh when I bit on his neck. That made me hiss, control gone. I let go of his neck and took off my t-shirt sudden and roughly, and just as fast I reached behind me to unhook my bra and threw it away. His hand still gripping me, Daryl kept me away when I tried to kiss him again, just so he could look at me, bare right in line with his face. He licked his lips to be able to say “Fuck, Sam…” and then took them in his hands, squeezing them bit too gently for my likes. He looked up at me and I took the chance to kiss him again, hard and hot, and it did he trick. He grabbed my breasts strongly in his hands and earned a slow, strong rounding of my hips on him.

He groaned and suddenly turned to our side, laying me in the ground and covering me with his body, his mouth leaving mine to take a nipple even as he still held them in his hands. My head fell to the pillow, my eyes closed as I moaned aloud, but still aware I shouldn’t just let my voice go.

“Oh, fuck,” I said when he sucked my nipple into his mouth.

He let go for a moment to gently shush me and kept on, going to the other breast. I held his head on me and I felt like if he kept going I could cum just like that. I wouldn’t mind that at all though, so I let him do it for as long as he wished because I felt so fucking good. After a long, delicious while, he planted a long kiss on by tattoo between my breasts, a reminder of what we’d nearly done that morning, and moved down, planting open mouthed kisses to my stomach and looking up at me just as his hand touched the button of my jeans. He said nothing, and he didn’t move, and I knew he was asking for permission. My sweet Daryl. I nodded emphatically and he immediately got to his knees between my legs. Licking his lips, he opened the button and lowered the zipper and wasted no time in lowering my jeans. I helped him by lifting my hips a little and wiggling out of it. The jeans got thrown away mindlessly, Daryl’s hands covering my spread inner thighs and firmly and slowly sliding up. My hips were already moving on their own because I needed more, I needed friction, I was sure he could see the wet spot on my panties. His hands nearly reached me then but stopped to pull them out and then I was bare in front of him, my legs spread, hips rounding. He stared, his eyes dark and heavy on me.

“Gonna eat the fuck outta you,” he groaned a second before going down on me.

I lost all thought. I was gone then, my mind blank as all there was in the world was Daryl’s mouth on me, his tongue moving inside me and then travelling up to suck my clit into his mouth. There was nothing but his groans as he ate me expertly, fingers entering me rhythmically. I covered my mouth with a hand, head thrown deep in the pillow as I fought not to just fucking scream, my breath loud enough already. He was so clearly enjoying it, moaning in pleasure for having me on his mouth, his eyes half closed staring at me, and it’s when he saw me go over the edge, a silent scream as I contracted round his fingers and pulsed in his mouth, my hands gripping the blankets and my hips thrusting up in rhythm with the pleasure waves Daryl has eating off of me.

I felt like crying as I came down from it, it’d been so fucking good and I was still feeling it all over my body. Daryl was kissing and softly biting on my left inner thigh when I sat up and pushed him to his knees between my legs. Biting on my lip I looked up at him and I did the same to his jeans as he’d done to mine. He was breathing heavily, lips parted as he licked my taste on them. I lowered his jeans around his knees and wasted no time in grabbing the side of his boxers and lowering them. The waistband got caught on his erection and he reached down to free it, his hard cock jumping free in front of my eyes. He tried to get me to lay down then but I wasn’t having it. I wanted him in my mouth so I pushed him to keep on his knees right there.

He understood then and groaned “Sam…” like a question, like a warning, but his words turned into a low, deep moan when I took him in my mouth. A hand held on my locks, his eyes down on me. I took my time to taste him, feel every inch of his cock, learn what made his breath hitch. A hand holding his balls, I took him in deep, took a breath and then went even further, the tip of him in my throat and he cursed aloud, hissing and grabbing my hair even tighter. I slid him out just to shush him as had done to me as I smiled up at him. For some reason this made his eyes roll and his head fall back, and I took him again and kept doing it, taking him deep and sliding back again to suck firmly on the head, and then deep again. And again, and again…

“Fuck,” he moaned in a whisper. “Fuck, Sam, fuck… Stop. Stop…”

He made me let go and kept me at bay when I tried to get back. I wouldn’t care if the let go in my mouth, I wanted it. I wanted to have Daryl simply let go and come undone for me, but he didn’t let me keep on.

“Let me, Daryl,” I moaned. “I want it, let me…” I pleaded as he shoved his open shirt off of him.

“Wanna fuck you,” he as he pushed me to lay down again, moving on top of me. “Let me fuck you, Sam…”

I may have orgasmed a bit by hearing him growl it.

He half sat half knelt then, trying to get his jeans off awkwardly but was fast enough, and them I was pulling him to me with a hand grabbing his ass as the other held his cock. He let me guide him to the right place, resting his weight on one elbow as the older held up my leg around his waist.

And then he was pushing in, entering me slow and continuously, his eyes locked in mine, our mouths hanging open. When he fully entered me he seemed to lose the capability of keeping his head up, his forehead lowering to my chest and he breathed hard, little whimpers coming from him. He held himself in, deep and grabbing me tight. Without moving he looked up at me and his expression was indescribable. He was in complete awe, his forehead sweaty, his face scrunched and he held his breath and I could feel his body tremble slightly. I was fighting to breath normally and I wanted him to move, to fuck me senseless, but I felt this was as important moment. Somehow I knew I should let him take his time.

I was throbbing with him inside me and I’m sure he could feel it. I held his face in my hands gently to keep him looking at me and I thrusted my hip up. He breathed out and nearly closed his eyes but kept looking deep into mine and I thrusted again. I was aching for more.

“Lie down,” I told him in a whisper and he slid out of me, laying down by my side. In a moment I was on top of him, straddling and taking him all in, my hands on his chest. I started riding him slowly but never stopping, going from closing my eyes to just feel him inside me, to looking down at him. His hands travelled up by body to grab a breast as the other gripped my hip tightly as I moved them up and down on him, rising my pace.

“Oh, Daryl… So good… So fuckin’ good…”

“Fuck, Sam,” his other hand grabbed the back of my neck sending chills all over my body. “You fuckin’ amazing. You know how long I wanted this?”

“Tell me,” I got faster. “How long, Daryl?”

‘First time I wanted you…” he grabbed my hips tightly with his both hands, motioning me on him, “was the first time I laid my eyes on you.”

That had been nearly two decades ago when we were just two teenagers. I remembered well because I thought he was so cute and had one of those instant crushes because he was really cute. I went even faster, even stronger, his cock massaging my spot at every pass.

“Oh god… That long?” This knowledge messed up with my control.

“You were really pretty. And now you’re fuckin’ beautiful…”

“And now I’m your girl,” I told him. “And now you get to fuck me.”

He growled as he sat up, circled by back with his arm and laid me down again, his cock never sliding out of me, and then… Damn, then he fucked me. With all the passion and strength he had, with all the feelings he could convey into a hard, hot fuck. My legs were up on his shoulders as he sat on his heels, the angle making me come nearly instantly, throbbing and clenching around him. He watched me as I did and I wasn’t even starting to come down from it when he lowered my legs from his shoulders to his sides rested his weight on his hands by my sides. And then he fucked me hard, silent but with his breath labored and sweat rolling down his face, keeping his eyes open on me all the time.

But then he closed them, looking up as if to the heavens, and let go. He started to cum inside me, his face something between extreme bliss and a kind of desperation, and his whole body trembled, still thrusting into me in time with his pleasure waves, slowing down gradually. His breath came out in hard huffs, his mouth hanging open. It was beautiful to see. He looked so fucking gorgeous right now and seeing him come undone like this was wonderful. God, I wanted to see it over and over again.

I reached my hands up to his face and he opened his eyes to look down at me, looking strangely surprised by what he had just felt. I pulled him down to me, his weight on my body, I could feel his stomach against my bump but it didn’t bother me. We kissed, still breathless, my hand in his hair and travelling down his chest, ribcage and to his ass. He was still inside me and we were both throbbing the after waves. Too breathless to keep kissing, we hugged each other tightly, his hot breath against my neck. I kissed his shoulder and couldn’t stop touching him, my hands everywhere I could reach but still avoiding the biggest part of his back.

“Fuck, that was so good…” I whispered after a moment. “So fuckin’ good…”

He said nothing, just held me even tighter, an arm circling my back as he thrusted into me one more time, just so he’d stay inside me like he didn’t want the moment to be over, he didn’t want to get out of me. I could feel out hearts beating fast, couldn’t know which was my heart and which was his, and we stayed like that for a long moment until they slowed down and we were breathing normally again.

He lifted his head to look down at me then and must have found my happy, relaxed expression amusing because he laughed a little, looking shy once again. His arm under my back let go and le lowered his hand to my baby bump.

“You ok?” he asked just above a whisper.

I smiled up at him, “I am… Baby is too, don’t worry.”

He nodded and looked down at where his hand rested, and then he slid down, wetly sliding out of me, and got on level with my stomach. He planted a sweet, tender kiss there, as if he was now caressing the baby too, not only me.

Looking up at me he asked, “Will you let me take care of you? Both of you?”

I didn’t answer. There were no words. Was he asking what it felt like he was? Because it felt like he was asking if he could be part of the baby’s life. Of my life, of my baby, our baby. Did he want the baby to be his too? I hadn’t thought that far yet but he apparently did. Did he want this baby?

I felt my throat tight when I asked “Do you want to? Do you want this baby?”

He kept looking at me for another moment and then nodded, sure of his answer but unsure of how I’d take it. But I smiled seeing him nod and pulled him back up to me. He laid on his side, up on one elbow, looking down at me.

But despite of all those thoughts that came to my mind in a second, to his utter confusion I laughed, trying to hold it and making an unladylike noise, lying down in bed by his side again.

“Fuck, it was like getting caught by daddy all over again!” I said as I laughed and turned on my side to face him. As I did I saw a slight change in his eyes, a little relaxation because the first thing I said was not ‘get the fuck outta my sight’. I stopped laughing and, still smiling told him “This ain’t how I imagined waking up today.”

He laid back down as well also on his side, getting real close to me, “How’d you imagine it?”

“Well…” I approached even more, “Something like…”

And I kissed him. He reached out for me immediately, responding to the kiss eagerly, his hand holding my waist and pulling me flush against him. I was still careful to avoid he bandages on his side and head and also his back, but other than that I let my hands roam to all the places I’d wanted to touch, his side, ribcage, chest, and lower to his ass to pull him closer. The turned a bit to me, nearly on top, his hand sliding from my waist to my stomach and slowly up. His kiss was so good, firm and demanding but still gentle, hot and slow and damn, got me all ready for him.

He let go to look down at me as soon as his hand touched the underside of my bra, and his eyes fixated on another tattoo he hadn’t seen yet. My underboob lilies, that start between my breasts and elongate to both sides right on the line under them. He stopped all to look at it, his fingers tracing it, dipping under the bra between my beasts.

“Fuck, this is sexy as hell…” he breathed out a moment before lowering his head and kissing it. I throbbed when I felt his tongue on my skin and his hand reaching up and under the bra to grab the underside of my breast. My hip thrusted up without my control when he replaced his fingers with his mouth and I must have mumbled something but I have no idea what. I was ready, damn, I was gonna fuck Daryl right there and now.

But he stopped, pulling my bra down to cover the part of it that was showing and looked up at me, his lips parted and his eyes hooded, fucking sexy as hell and he whispered, “We gotta stop.”

“No…” I whined ad I tried to pull him back to me, to kiss him and never stop, but he resisted.

“Can’t do it under grandpa’s roof.”

I breathed out, unable to tear my eyes off him. “Shit… You’re right.”

But he still kissed me again, this time a long, soft gentle kiss on my lips that got me holding his face just as tenderly. After the kiss we stared at each other for a long moment and I was unable to contain my smile.

“Just go,” he told me as he gently pushed me away.

It was never so hard to get up from a bed as it was that morning.

 * * *

 Carl was up and about that morning, physically looking as though nothing had happened, but when Shane caught him hiding a gun under his shirt he insisted in learning how to shoot, it was clear the incident had affected him more than anyone had thought. He had matured a little, I mean, as much as a 12-year-old boy can mature, and he had a point. I’d been saying he and Sophia had to learn how to defend themselves for a very long time now, and I agreed he should know how to shoot, but not only that. He, and all other from the group, had to restart a physical training with knives and other weapons, not just guns. I couldn’t understand how fucking difficult could it be for them to understand that guns were not our best choice. Lori ended up allowing Shane to teach him after hesitating a lot. I mean, a lot. I swear it was like she wasn’t living in the same world as I was.

Daryl came out of the house followed by Mr. Greene, who kept an eye on him as he climbed down the porch steps. Daryl was walking slowly but straight and looking well, without the bandage on his head, a hand placed on his side where I knew his stitches were. He saw me instantly as I walked towards him, as if his eyes were trained in finding me.

“Hey,” I smiled up at him. “Good to see you up!”

Daryl looked quickly over his shoulder to point at Mr. Greene, who as still there. “It’s no use anyway, he’s forbid me to go out there too soon.”

I laughed, “Yeah, as if you’ll actually listen to him.”

“Goin’ out there as soon as I can.”

“I know. Just don’t go today, the stitches are still too fresh,” I said reaching to touch his arm.

“Yeah…” he said quietly. “Still a bit sleepy from meds anyway.”

I was about to tell him he needed and deserved to rest all day, but Mr. Greene interrupted from his spot on the porch, “Miss Danes, a word if you please?”

I looked at him and back at Daryl, fighting a laugh, and he also seemed amused, eyebrows up, “Miss Danes?” I questioned

“Grandpa must be mad,” he said before also touching my arm and walking away towards the tents. I looked at him go for a moment before turning to Mr. Greene and climbing the steps.

“How you doing, Mr. Greene?”

“I have two young daughters, Sam,” he started directly. “I keep an eye on them, at Beth with her boyfriend, and have kept an eye of Maggie her whole teenage years,” oh I saw where he was going and this was a big, big nope. “I do not wish to have to keep an eye –”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Greene,” I cut him out. “for interrupting you but I have to stop you right there. First of all, you need to know that nothing happened between me and Daryl last night. I slept with him, and I say it in the most innocent meaning of the word, because he’d been hurt and I wanted to be close and check on him. I didn’t have a shirt on because I decided not to sleep on this one because I’d been wearing it all day,” well, okay, a bit of a lie there but I didn’t have to tell the old man that I took it off to show Daryl my scar so we’d bond over past traumatizing experiences. “So you can rest assured that nothing happened and nothing would have happened even if he wasn’t hurt. I would never disrespect your house like this when I know what your ways and beliefs are. Nothing happened, and you don’t need to give me the dad speech.”

I kept looking at him expecting him to say something, but he just tightened his lips and nodded, so I turned to go.

“Your people are getting a bit too comfortable here in my farm.”

To the point. Ok. I turned again to face him.

“I’m aware of what Rick asked you. I’d like you to know that he asked it on his own mind, he never talked to me about it before going to you. We only talked about it after.”

“And do you not share his thoughts and his request?”

“Honestly? I don’t.”

He seemed impressed, raising his thick grey eyebrows, “You don’t?”

“No, sir,” I placed both my hands on by jeans back pockets. “I’m leaning more to the realistic side. When Rick is thinkin’ ‘n actin’ out of desperation to find his wife and kid a safe place to live through the end of the world, I’m thinking more rationally about our safety.”

“You don’t think the farm is a safe place?” he crossed his arms, a bit defiantly as if it offended him I could think such thing.

So I explained to him everything I had already explained to Rick, all my thoughts about the safety of the place, how easy it had been for me to just run into the farm and barge in, how simple it had been for the others to find the farm and just drive into his land, and that if we had been able to do it so easily, anyone, dead or alive, could as well. I also told him what I thought we needed from a place to settle in.

“So if you’re considering Rick’s request, and I ain’t asking you to, we’d stay, but then you’d have to permit us to do a lot of changes around here to make it safe. I honestly don’t think it would be our best choice seeing that there’re places out there that got walls and gates built where we could just settle in.”

He was quiet for a long moment looking at me, then looked away, around at the people by the tents going on with their days, thoughtful, and then looked at me again.

“Your group surely don’t seem to know that’s how you’ve been thinking. I say it again; they are getting too comfortable.”

“You’re right, sir. I’ll gather them and set everything clear as soon as I can. Especially now that Carl is up, we’d all pro’ly better start planning our leave, finding another camp to keep looking for Sophia,” I paused. “So if you still considering letting us stay, now would be a good time to let us know so we can all start planning some stuff. But you want us gone, we gone, and forever grateful for what you’ve done for Carl and for the temporary shelter you provided us.”

As he again only nodded saying nothing, I turned and went down the steps, making my way to the tents. I found everyone ready to go gun training and I rushed to Daryl’s tent. He had the door open and I could see him in his cot with a book in his hand from a few steps away, and only the noticed Andrea was in there with him. Ugh.

‘What, no pictures?” Daryl was asking when I stopped right in front of the tent and crossed my arms.

“I’m so sorry… I feel like shit.”

Good, you feel like shit. Go on and keep feeling it.

“Yeah, you ‘n me both,” Daryl told her in a dry voice.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, but if there’s anything I can do…”

“Can start by listenin’ to what people tell you for a start,” he said looking up at her. I didn’t hear her say anything, I don’t think she had an answer to give, because after a moment I saw her move and go through the open tent flap. She saw me then and froze a bit. “And hey,” we both heard Daryl said from his cot and Andrea turned to look at him. “Shoot me again and you’d best pray I’m dead.”

She nodded with a little smile and turned again. I said nothing just watched her approach me.

“I know you hate me,” was how she started, “never liked me before and even more now after what I did. But you need to understand that I did think it was a walker, I would have never shot if for a moment I thought it could be one of ours.”

I had my face showing clear confusion, “What are you talking about, Andrea? You think that’s why I’m angry? You think that was your mistake?” she said nothing and had the same confused expression, shaking her head a little. “We all thought it was a walker! The guys ran to him with bats and knives in hand to kill it. That was not the point, Andrea.”

“Oh, ok, then what was it?” she said defiantly crossing her arms. “Is it because it was me? Because people in this camp are suddenly so terrified of having me around guns?”

Jesus Christ and all the saints I didn’t even believe in!

I had to hold myself not to answer too fast and breath, my head going down as I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers.

“No, Andrea,” I finally said, looking up at her again. “That’s not it. At all, you got it all wrong. You think this is about you, when it isn’t. It’s not about you and your problems and whatever you will want to do with a gun. I am not that worried about you all the time to make decisions based on you. Okay?” she still tried to maintain her defiant expression, now mixed to show she was a bit offended. She pretended to laugh and shook her head. “Are you listening to me? There was a reason Dale and I told you not to shoot!”

“Oh, I know all about Dale’s reason!”

“Alright, I don’t care about Dale’s reason, I know about mine. You think I told you that because I don’t like you? Come on, Andrea, really? Are we in ninth grade?”

She stuttered a bit, looking away trying to say something but she had no answer. Then she gave up, huffing out a breath and looking down.

“It ain’t personal, Andrea! I told you not to shoot ‘cause shooting must be our last option. ‘Cause the guys had it. ‘Cause the noise of a round can attract walkers. ‘Cause every bullet counts and that one less bullet can mean whether you survive or not someday. It ain’t such a hard thing to understand.” Andrea said nothing, crossed arms, looking down. “You want to help with security? You got it,” this made her look up at me, surprised. “You’ll get the gun training and you’ll be put on lookout schedule and you’ll have a gun in hand. But the first thing you need to learn, Andrea, and learn really good, is when it is and when it isn’t the time to shoot. Until you know how to make this decision on your own, you’re gonna have to listen to what other people tell you.”

She was embarrassed, still trying to disagree but it was clear she’d heard me. Maybe Andrea was the kind of person who had never learned how to admit when she was wrong in her life, so it was probably a struggle. But at least she seemed to be fighting it internally. So I gave her a little smile, touched her arm and rounded her to get into Daryl’s tent. He was lying there, the book forgotten by his side on the cot, an arrow in hand. I looked back out and saw Andrea walking away.

“Well, at least she’s got the decency to look ashamed,” I said looking down at him again and lowering myself to sit on the edge of his cot. It barely had space for one.

“You going away with’em today?” he asked me quietly as he fidgeted with the arrow.

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do to help. Practice a little too, maybe learn something I don’t know. I ain’t a shooting expert anyway.”

“Did more than fine that night at the quarry.”

I smiled down at him, “Kinda, yeah, but I think I’d like to learn some other weapon, not rely just on guns.”

“I’ll teach you the crossbow if ya’d like.”

Adorable. Damn adorable man, he offered this shyly, as if he kind of expected me to say no.

“Yes!” I said excitedly. I loved the idea. “Yes, of course I’d like it!”

“Well then after that all we gotta do is find you another crossbow.”

“Pff, that’s just a detail,” I said waving my hand. “Alright, gotta go,” I slapped his thigh and got up, turning to go saying, “you get some sleep, I’ll be back later.”

“Slept just fine last night,” he said from his cot and I turned to look at him. Here was a little smug smile on his face that got me blushing a little. I just smiled like a stupid teenager in love and left.

 * * *

 They were not as bad at it as I had thought they’d be. The training Shane had started at the quarry with part of the group had had lasting results. I practiced a little too and let Shane and Rick oversee it all because they were professionals, Shane was even a certified instructor. He corrected my standing and my posture once and I did feel good results after that. Carl took a while but started hitting the big targets making Rick look inflated with pride and even Lori smile. Andrea was very good – I was glad she had not been that good yesterday. Jimmy kept trying to look cool and failing miserably. Carol did really well for someone who had never had a gun in her hand before. Maybe she had it in her and didn’t even know.

After over two hours at it, with my ears ringing loudly, I went back to camp with everyone except for Andrea and Shane. He offered to take her to a deeper training because she was doing so well, something about moving targets, and they took off together.

Mr. Greene had been right. People were counting too much on the farm to guarantee our futures. I could see how tense Lori was, having just found out her pregnancy, and I saw her discussing something with Rick, tense. I could understand her. I’d been there on the first couple of weeks after I figured I was pregnant. This desperation of not knowing how life was gonna be, in what world my child was going to grow up in. But as days passed I calmed down and started thinking rationally, like I did now. Lori needed someone rational to help her now, and Rick wasn’t it. I wasn’t even sure he knew she was pregnant, but I was sure Rick was not level headed right now, dis desperation for permanent shelter blinding him to the facts. He’d been talking to Hershel still, I’m sure insisting for him to let us stay even after I had that talk with him. It was necessary to set things clear with the group, as soon as possible.

Lori called me to talk a little after that, even before I had time to do check on Daryl, and we sat together on the same log again.

“I’ve come to a decision,” she started, looking to the ground between her knees, her big eyes unblinking. “I’m not keeping it.”

I said nothing, but my mind went overdrive. I could understand her decision, I had considered it myself, and honesty, I probably didn’t do it only because I wouldn’t know how, I wouldn’t have the resources.

“Ok,” I told her. “How you gonna do it?”

She looked up at me at that, mouth hanging a little open and huffed a breath with an attempted laugh.  “You’re so surprising, Sam, did you know that?”

I was genuinely confused. “Why’d you say that?”

“I just told you I plan to have an abortion!” she whispered.

“I know, so what?”

“It’s just - I just… Before it all if I told any friend I planned on doing this they’d go crazy! It’s an abortion, for God’s sakes!”

“Lori, I ain’t like your old friends, ok? I’ve always been what these days people were calling it ‘pro-choice’. I was not completely in favor of abortion, but never against it either. I think a woman has the right to choose, whatever her reasons are. You’re choosing, that’s all.”

She stared with the same baffled expression.

“I thought about doing it too,” I confessed.

“You did?”

“Yep… But I hadn’t told anyone, when I figured I was pregnant it was just me and the Dixons on the road. I didn’t tell them. And I had no idea how to do it, we didn’t go thought any pharmacy on the way and the days started passing and I just… I don’t know, accepted the fact. Knew I was fucked, but accepted it.”

She said nothing, looking down again and nodding. We were silent for a moment.

“I don’t know I’m as strong as you are,” she told me. “Even scared you’re just facing it. We don’t even know if we’ll have a place to live in if Hershel decides not to let us stay…”

“Oh, so Rick told you.”

She looked at me. “Yes. And he’s pretty certain he’ll manage to convince him.”

“Did Rick tell you that I disagree with it?”

She was surprised again. “No. No, he didn’t. Do you? You don’t think we can stay?”

“Lori…” I paused, sighing and looking around. “I’m gonna gather everyone tonight and talk about it. You have doubts most of the others pro’ly have too. I’ll tell you all my thoughts about it and things I have in mind. Please don’t worry about it now?”

She nodded quietly again and moved on, “I’ll have Glenn pick something up for the at the pharmacy in town, like he did before. Do you think it’s okay?”

“If he’s up to it, sure. And,” I leaned to look at her in the eyes, “most important, if you’re sure.”

“I am. I think I am. I… I don’t know.”

“I guess you’ll know when you have the pills in your hand.”

 * * *

 I spend the rest of the late afternoon in Daryl’s tent. I zipped us in, enjoying the fact the sun was going down and it wasn’t so hot anymore. Saying nothing as he saw me enter, Daryl turned to his side making room in the cot, but just barely. I squeezed myself there, my back against his chest, his arm as a pillow, and let myself relax, breathing out loudly.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked quietly behind me, his hand resting on my hip.

I breathed in, “Shane and Andrea fucked. Glenn and Maggie are together. Lori’s pregnant, it’s Shane’s, and she says she’s gonna end it. Hershel’s pro’ly telling us to leave now that Carl is recovered.”

He was quiet for a long time, I only knew he was awake because he was caressing my hip with his thumb, much like he’d done the night before. It was comforting. I relaxed and nearly fell asleep there, in the safety of his arms.

“Cherokee house,” was all he said, and it was all he had to say for a light to come to my mind.

I turned a little to look at him over my shoulders and he lifted his head a bit to look at me, “Cherokee house, of course!”

“It’s messed up but better than the tents,” he made a point. “And still in the area so we can keep looking for Sophia.”

I said nothing, too happy to even think of another good reason. I smiled at him and he kept looking for me for a moment before he leaned in a little and kissed me. The butterflies in my stomach took off flying. It was real… Daryl and I were together now, we wouldn’t even need to talk about this. We were it since the beginning, but now it was more, now he was my guy and I could kiss him when I wanted, and I could cuddle with him and have his support, as I always had before.

I was not alone.

 * * *

 There was a fire burning high in the middle of the circle. The Greene’s house had its lights on a bit far from there, quiet. I had asked everyone to gather there, we had diner – a divine chicken pot roast that Carol had made us all – and then it was time to talk. Daryl was up, a little outside the circle, up and leaning on his side against a tree. Lori was staring at me and when I looked at her, she held my eyes and shook her head slightly. She was telling me she hadn’t gone through with the abortion. I knew she would know what she really wanted when the moment came.

So that was it, one more new baby to the group.

Conversation died in its own, as everyone knew I wanted to say something. So I got up so all could see me, and got it over with.

“I wanted to talk to you about our situation here at the farm. Mr. Greene talked to me about it today and I felt like I should let you all know. Our, uh… Our stay here is most likely no permanent,” and as I had thought so, people reacted immediately as if I had just dropped the worst possible news. I waited for them to start listening again. “Rick’s talked to Mr. Greene and asked if he’d let us stay permanently – without discussing it with me or anyone before, I should add,” I said taking a look at him and everyone probably knew I didn’t like it, “and he says he’d consider it if we followed his rules as we’re here.”

“So there’s a chance?” Lori asked

“There is a chance but I honestly don’t believe in it. He’s too different from us, the way he thinks about walkers, he thinks there’s a cure for them and we shouldn’t kill them, for God’s sakes… But anyway, he’s thinking about it, and if he says yes, we’ll stay. He says no, we’re gone.”

“But where are we gonna go?” Andrea’s voice rose above the other’s and I heard Shame say something about Fort Benning.

“What we need to think,” I started and waited for silence again. “We need a safe place. Right? And as I explained to Rick before when he told me what he asked Mr. Greene, I don’t think this is the right place.”

“You don’t?” Dale asked

“It’s a good place!” Carol gave her opinion

“Well, it’s a good place, ok, there’s space, water, food, I can see all that and how this can masquerade it all as a perfect place to stay. But think about it! It’s all open, all around. Small wooden fences won’t stop any threat. Walkers can fall over it and reach us, people can jump over them, open gates. Hell, the way we got here? We just barged in, Mr. Greene couldn’t do anything about it! We had good intentions, but what about the next group that find the farm? It ain’t safe, not at all. It’s been good but it’s not supposed to be permanent because we need more than this. We need more than sleep in tents for fuck knows how long. We need a place we can build a life, make our own rules, have safety, somewhere we can make plans and think of the future.” I paused and they were all quiet looking at me, absorbing what I said. “The CDC, the nursing home, Fort Benning, this farm? We’ve been placing out future in other people’s hands. We’ve been looking for help since the beginning, and it hasn’t worked at all until now. I think it’s time we stop. We gotta stop looking for others to be our solution, we gotta stop believing other places and other people will save us. What we gotta do now is take control over our situation and make it happen. We, not others!”

I stopped because I thought I was getting too passionate. They were all quiet, kind of baffled staring at me and them looking around at each other.

“I like the thought…” it was Theo who said first.

“What do you suggest?” Glenn asked me.

“For now, I suggest we wait for Mr. Greene’s decision. I talked to him about it. If he lets us stay, we’ll have to work on the farm’s perimeter to make it safe, build around, you know, walls, strong fences, a sturdy gate, and I don’t think he’d want us making so many changes in the farm. And if he doesn’t we’ll accept it, pack our things and go. There’s that big farmhouse nearby where we can hole up as we keep looking for Sophia,” I looked at Carol who let her shoulders relax as soon as I said it. She was sure worried I was planning of abandoning the search, “but again, just temporarily because it’s just in the open as we are now and it’s not what we want. But at least there are real bedrooms and beds, so it’s be better than the tents we have now.”

“And after that?” Rick questioned.

“We’ll find another place, but not just any place. As I told you Rick, we need walls. We’ll find somewhere, a hotel, a school, a gated community, wherever we can be safe inside and stay permanently. I’m having a baby for fuck’s sake, I need to have a safe place to give birth, somewhere the baby’s cries will not attract walkers, ‘cause if we’re in the open, it will,” I looked briefly at Lori then and she knew I was also talking about her baby. “So what I mean is just… Be prepared to leave but don’t be all desperate about it. Leaving is actually out best choice. We’ll make things work; we don’t need this farm to make it. Just imagine how much we can do. All that we can build for ourselves and our kids. Ain’t gonna be easy, I’m well aware of that and I think you are too, but life ain’t easy or fair anyways, before or now.”