Soon enough you stumbled through the thicket of the forest, following the dead in front of you step by step, even though you’d caught up with the start of the herd enough by now to see the reaper who was leading them. He was casually talking into his walkie, for now rather unbothered by the situation as he took some walkers out that got too close. He stuffed his walkie back into the holster on his belt, chuckling cockily as he moved a little further forward and took some more dead out right there and then, unaware of the fact that his days were counted too.  Negan brushed his hand against yours once more, making sure that you noticed him moving a little further to the left and away from you to make sure that you’d end up with chances of attacks on the reaper of all sides. And just as you prepared yourself to start an attack, the dead helped you out once more as another group of them started to stream down the hill, drawn in by the loud noises which started to catch the man off guard and changed his face from cocky to worried quickly. “Pope, we have a situation here”, he said as he reached for his walkie again, struggling to take another walker out at the very same time before he tugged the walkie back into its holster as he focused on the threat in front of him. ”Now”, you heard Negan mumble, just loudly enough for you to hear it through the groans of the dead before you watched him move a little faster towards the man who kept on stabbing into the rotting skulls, one by one. His lucky streak ended abruptly though as he tried to lunge at Negan who swiftly moved to the side, catching the reaper by surprise as he stabbed him right into his abdomen, forcing him to let out a pain-filled howl while he kept on whirling his knife around himself, hoping to protect his body.  Just then you stepped forward, ducking as he tried to reach for your skull as he gave you just the right opportunity to stab him into his side that elicited another agony filled groan to fall from his lips. You moved further, hearing him scream one more time as Maggie seemed to give him the last strike that finally made him go down, just before this one last scream turned into a full orchestra of it as you heard the munching and squelching sounds of the dead as they devoured him, and you knew that it was time to lead the walkers back to Meridian, to get the rest of the reapers, once for all.  It was dark by the time you reached the community again, the night only enlightened by the moon and the lights that shone within Meridian.  A shivering breath fell from your lips as you moved over the field among the dead, focused on shuffling over the ground like they were before the sound of Maggie clearing her throat slightly made you look slowly at her. ”I’ll get Gabriel and get inside, we can’t wait any longer. Elijah’s still out here, you’ll find him”, she said as soon as she had yours and Negan’s attention and though you could tell that he wanted to speak up at first as much as you did and remind her of the rules of splitting up that you’d made earlier, you realized that you had to throw those over board now so things would keep moving. So instead of saying something you both only nodded slightly, only noticeable for her, before she slowly started to stray from you and vanish in the herd, while you already started to look out and search for Elijah within the crowd. You could only see the walkers move closer towards Meridian with every passing moment, and saw a reaper outside the walls struggling to fight the dead approaching dead. He kept going, kept on digging his knife into skulls just as the one in the woods had, but it was clear that soon enough, the number of dead would overwhelm him. So just as you thought that the walkers were on a good way to reach the walls within the next few minutes, and defeat the next reaper, a deafening boom ripped through the air and a big cloud of debris and dust formed at the crown of the herd. “Fuck”, you heard Negan say beside you, a frustrated yet shocked tone in his voice as you flinched the moment another boom echoed through the night, “This is a goddamn minefield.” With widened eyes you stared at the field that seemed spiked with bombs, realizing that those psychos and their minefield had just put a large spoke in your wheel. Trying to somehow collect yourself you breathed deeply through and looked around as best as you could in your Walker disguise, trying to find something that would give you a moment to catch your breath and let you think about the next steps. And just as another mine went off, your eyes fell on an abandoned house close by, the perfect hideout for now. Softly, you moved in to nudge Negan and get his attention as he glanced over at you and watched you nodding towards the house.  “Just for now”, you lowly said, watching as he nodded slightly, already starting to move towards the house, slowly, so it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone, living or dead, that you were straying from the herd.  Your glance switched from the reaper to the house and back, keeping a close eye on both until you vanished behind the house, sure to enter through any window or door that laid on one of the walls that weren’t visible to those at the wall. Shuffling closer, Negan moved before you up the porch’s steps and nodded towards one of the several open and broken windows that would give you an easier access t the inside of the house than the wooden front door which although it didn’t seem all to stable, still looked locked.  You nodded back, heading for the window to the door’s right, whose glass had nearly been cleared out entirely out of its frame. Negan followed you, with the same scuffling walker steps as before as you looked around one more time before you carefully climbed through the window, and landed inside the broad hallway of the house, just before Negan joined you.  There was a staircase at the left wall of the room that lead upstairs, and a few doors at each side that were wide open and gave you a quick look into a living room, kitchen and dining room that had likely been laying to waste for the last decade. “Let’s see if we can see the spots where they buried the mines from above”, Negan said, nudging your arm softly as he nodded at the stairs,”There’s gotta be a difference between the shit they dug out and the rest of the fields.” “Yeah”, you agreed, following Negan up the stairs, always with one hand on your knife in case any unpleasant surprises were waiting for you, but luckily, the first floor seemed to be entirely empty except for the worn down furniture. “Alright, let’s take a look”, Negan said as he moved towards a big, broken window in the master bedroom, leaning against the wall beside it, close enough to look outside but still hidden enough to stay undetected. “Bingo”, you heard him say as a small grin drew over his lips, nodding at you to join him as you moved to the other side of the window and glimpsed outside as Negan started to point at the ground,”You see those round spots in-between the grass? They’re laid in a pattern, and it matches with the ones that have already blown up.” For a moment, you furrowed your brows, trying to make out what Negan had just said in the dim light before you spotted the grass-free patches within the field as well, in the same even manner as he’d just described them. “Okay that’s good”, you said, nodding softly as a small burden fell from your shoulders, relieved that you wouldn’t have to blindly walk through this minefield before another realization kicked in that put the burden right back on. “Where’s the reaper?”, you asked, your eyes already starting to widen as you tried to find the man who’d vanished from the spot you’d last seen him fight walkers. He wasn’t buried below a bunch of walkers who devoured him, nor was he fighting them at any other spot that was visible from the window. He was gone.  “Do you see him?”, you asked, still trying to find the man as you moved to the next window, hoping to get a better view from that spot as Negan started to shake his head. “No”, he said, tension hanging heavily in his voice as he cussed,”Fuck.” “Maybe he went back inside?”, you tried to reason, just hoping that you were right and your fear of being spotted by the reaper didn’t come true after all. You had been so careful, hadn’t you? Had moved and detached yourself from the herd slowly, had checked on him before you walked behind the house, hadn’t provoked any unwanted attention at any moment.  He couldn’t have followed you, right? “Can’t see that fucker, shit”, Negan cursed again as a frustrated sound fell from your lips before a dull thud sounded through the lower floor of the house and instinctively made your glance shoot towards the bedroom door. “Ding Dong”, a deep, loud voice suddenly echoed up the stairs and brought a cool shudder down your back,”I saw you fuckers get in here. What kinda psychos are ya? Wearing the deads’ faces? Lord, that’s insane...but creative, gotta give it to ya.” His voice echoed trough the house as you heard his footsteps wandering through the lower floor, widening your eyes in fear and shock as you looked for a place that would quickly give you a hide-out.  “Here”, you heard Negan whisper as he wrapped his hand around yours, tugging softly on it as he pulled you into the small nook in the corner of the room which wasn’t visible to anyone who entered the room through the door facing the hallway. A a thick, old and wooden closet stood within the nook, merely leaving enough space for you to hide for now as you heard the footsteps coming back closer towards the stairs. “Come out, come out wherever you are”, the male voice called out again, a rough laugh falling from his lips as you felt Negan shifting beside you,”Gonna get ya either way, no way past it.” Glimpsing up at him you saw as his eyes fell on you and a tense breath fell from his lips as he nodded towards the midst of the room, “I’m gonna go out, distract him.” Quickly, you wrapped your hand around his wrist, keeping him from leaving your hideout for another moment as you shot him a worried look, though you started to realize that he hadn’t finished talking about the entirety of his plan as he leaned a little down to you and raised his voice again, merely loud enough for you to hear him. “He can’t shoot, that shit would draw each ‘n every dead fucker in here”, he whispered as he held your concerned glance,”He knows I’m armed, he ain’t gonna attack right away, just gonna keep on blabbering.” For a second, Negan’s glance looked back into the room, his hand moving quickly but swiftly to gesture at the open door on the other side of the room, on the wall diagonally from the window front. “See that door? Leads right to the next bedroom”, he mumbled, shifting a little deeper into the room again as more heavy footsteps echoed from below through to you,”I distract him and lead him inside and you sneak up through the hallway and finish him off.” Slowly, you found yourself nodding, realizing that this was the smartest way to kill that asshole, even though it didn’t minimize your worry that he might try to attack Negan right away anyway. “Okay”,you started to say, brushing your thumb over his risk before you let go of him,“Be careful.” With a nod and a small smile, Negan slowly started to walk towards the door, careful to not make any unwanted noises before he had reached the other bedroom. You held your breath as you saw him vanish in the room, just as the footsteps started to make their way up the stairs. “You really wanna play this game, huh?”, the male voice said with a chuckle as he reached the top of the stairs and suddenly heard Negan’s voice echoing through to you from the other room. “Hell yes I do”, he said, a theatrical amusement laying in his voice, and you could tell that the reaper hadn’t expected this type of response as he remained silent for a moment before another rough laugh fell from his lips as he stopped in front of the door to your room. You could feel your heart starting to hammer against your chest, hoping he wouldn’t move in here and ruin the plan before Negan’s whistle echoed through the other room. “You’re makin’ me wait”, Negan said, with the same amusement as before, though you could tell that there was some tension stuck in him. Luckily, he moved past the door of your room and towards the entrance of the bedroom where Negan hid, and though it relieved you that your plan was still working, your heart kept pounding harshly against your chest before it took a jump as you realized that the reaper had found Negan. “There you are”, the man chuckled dryly, and with these words, you started to slowly but surely make your way out of your hideout. ”Damn, that’s a hell of a costume. I promise, won’t be long till you won’t need that anymore to walk with the dead”, the reaper said as you gripped your knife tighter and started to round the bed, slowly shifting towards the door and into the hallway, careful not to make a noise or provoke a squeaking sound from the old wooden floorboards.  Just as you reached the door to the other bedroom, your hearts skipped another beat as you heard his voice again, even though you forced yourself to keep moving, sure that he wouldn’t keep talking much longer. With each more second you spent waiting, he’d get closer to heading into an attack. “I know you’re not alone though”, he said, the grin audible through his voice just as you moved into the room and saw him standing with his back towards you, facing Negan who stood by the windows and merely stared at him through his mask. Holding your breath you took the next steps forwards as you could feel the tension spreading all over you, clawing at you while your pulse pounded in your throat. Slowly, you tightened the grip on your knife and raised it up as he tilted his head, waiting for Negan to answer before he started to push again. ”Now where’s the other one?” With that, one last step, you shot up behind him, winding up your knife with one quick movement before you drove it down with all your strength and dug into the exposed side of his neck, preventing him from screaming as his flesh squelched underneath the impact and a gurgling gasp fell from his lips.  “I’m right here”, you said, breathing heavily as you allowed yourself to finally draw deep breaths again as the man reached up to hold onto his neck with the last strength that he had, while his death rattle sounded through the room and brought a shiver down your back as you dragged the knife out of his skin. With that, he finally fell forward onto the ground, shaking as dark red blood covered his hands that were still desperately wrapped around his throat. Negan stepped forward, adjusting his knife as he leaned down to bury his blade into the man’s skull, ending his life indefinitely and preventing him from coming back and plaguing you as a walker, just before he looked with a grin up at you. “Now that was hot”, he said, biting his lip as he dragged the blade out of the reaper’s head and got back on his feet, winking at you as he stepped closer and reached with his hand for the back of your neck that wasn’t covered by the mask,”We’re the best fuckin’ team.” “Damn right we are”, you chuckled, relief washing through your body as Negan grinned down at you and leaned in, pressing his lips over yours in a swift but loving kiss. “I never thought we’d kiss while wearing dead people’s faces”, you mumbled as soon as he started to back a little off before a chuckle fell from your lips,”Oh god now that I say it out loud it sounds even worse.” A thick but low laugh rumbled through Negan’s chest, as the grin on his lips widened while he brushed his fingers over the back of your neck and gave you a playful wink. “Well there’s a first time for everything, huh?” Just as his voice hushed another bomb outside went off, enough to make you flinch while Negan’s hand dropped from your neck as he turned around to stride towards the window at the end of the room, trying to see which one of the mines had killed parts of the herd this time. You followed him with fast steps, trying to stay in the shadows though as you looked outside and saw smoke rising up from a freshly detonated mine close to the wall. “Isn’t that Elijah?”, you suddenly heard Negan ask as he nodded towards a figure that strived a bit further away from the others, not obviously but still noticeable enough to catch your attention right away. Your eyes scanned over him for a moment, trying to see as well as you could within the dim light before the shoelaces that fell over the back of his jacket gave you the last conformation that you needed. “Yeah, yeah that’s gotta be him”,you nodded, gulping softly as you gave Negan a soft nudge and then nodded towards the dead reaper on the ground,“We can still catch up on him, let’s just see if that psycho still has some useful stuff on him and then head out.” Quickly, Negan started to nod, giving Elijah outside one last look before his deep voice sounded through to you again. “Good call.” Equipped with the reapers small handgun and his large hunting knife you moved along with Negan out of the house and back onto the field, turning back into fake walkers in the matter of seconds as you moved towards Elijah with scuffling steps, always on guard to keep another incident as in the house from happening again. “Elijah”, Negan finally lowly mumbled as you were close enough to the other man who flinched slightly before he slowly turned his head, only enough to confirm that it was truly the two of you who stumbled towards him. Just as soon as you reached him he lowered his head again and you formed a triangle formation, trying to remain close to one another to hear each others words but still look like a natural moving group of walkers. “Where’s Gabe and Maggie?”, you asked after a moment, scuffling behind Elijah who lowly responded, though you could hear the clear sound of tension within his voice. “They made it inside.”  “Good”, Negan said, only to flinch slightly as another mine went off close to the gates that made him nudge Elijah slightly to make sure he had his attention, “You have to take care of the round, grass-free patches. That’s where they buried the mines.” You could see the other man nod slightly underneath his masks as you started to feel the suspense spreading back over you and made you lower your head again so you could scan the ground for the spots. You started to move back into the direction of the walls, attempting to lead to keep the reapers busy and ideally get so many of the dead against the metal that it would eventually give into their weight. Every other moment you could still hear mines going off, and you hoped that they wouldn’t kill too much of the herd at once, though it seemed that many of the dead who were now walking closer to the walls had passed either still active mines or had walked over those that had already detonated.  Gulping tensely you scanned the ground again, catching another spot as few as a couple of feet from you as you reached to nudge both Negan and Elijah quickly. “There’s another one, left from us”, you said lowly, seeing both of them nod softly as they kept moving forward though steering more to the right direction to avoid the patch. And just as you thought you’d made it, you had to watch as two dead stumbled right towards the patch, too fast for any of you to keep them from stumping right in, too late to move out of the way without revealing yourself as human.  A then, a loud, deafening boom echoed through the air as the dead stepped onto the patch, forcing it to go off in the matter of a second as debris flew through the air, rushing past you and cutting through the fabric of your jacket on your back, hitting your backpack underneath. You stayed spared from injuries, protected by your bag only to realize that you were the only lucky one of the three of you.  “Shit”, you heard Negan grumble as he held his upper arm, blood daubing his fingers while Elijah winced as his knees buckled slightly as his hand cupped a large cutting wound on his thigh. You cursed underneath your breath, as you looked worried at Negan while grasping Elijah’s arm at the same time, keeping him from falling as Negan did the same, just trying to stay in a close formation without drawing any more attention. “We got this”, you heard Negan grumble as he held Elijah closer, keeping him up on his feet and walking just as you heard screams inside the walls as a roaring engine sounded through the air, growing louder and louder with each second.  From one moment to another, a loud metallic thud sounded through the air, so loud that it cut even through the loud booms of the mines that kept going off around you. A huge could of dust and dirt filled the air around the gates before you could see a large piece of the wall on the ground, the piece that had stood right next to the gates, while a smoking pick up truck laid crashed within the metal and wood. “This is our sign, we need to get inside”, Elijah panted through the pain, trying to walk faster as gunshots started to go off within the walls and you hoped that Gabriel was the one who was responsible for those and killed reapers right now, and the opposite wasn’t the case. “Wait a moment, let the dead do their job first”, Negan said, tightening his grip on Elijah, “They’re gonna wear them down, maybe even kill one or two, we’ll have an easier game if we stay in the back at first.” You nodded, agreeing with your husband as a shivering sigh fell from Elijah’s lips, and you knew that this had to be harder for him than for the both of you combined, with Maggie inside the gates of his old home, but it was clear that he understood and accepted Negan’s suggestion.  You started to slow your steps down, still moving into the direction of the gates though to lead more walkers into the direction of the fallen wall as more and more dead moved into Meridian, even though four men fought them as best as they could. There were too many though, too many walkers and not enough fighters, and slowly, you could see them moving away from the gates and further into the community, desperate to keep more dead from streaming inside the walls.  “There far enough inside, I think we can give it a try now”, you said after you watched another wave of walkers roll inside, and saw Negan start to nod as he still tried to keep Elijah steadily on his feet along with you. “Yeah”, Negan mumbled, before his eyes dropped down at the shorter man beside him, “I know this is gonna sound like pure, steaming shit but you should stay a bit in the back at first, cover for us two. That shit on your leg doesn’t let you move as fast and those fuckers would use that right away to kill your ass.” “I’m not staying behind. They killed my sister, I’m not staying behind-” “That’s not what I’m saying, just stay behind the both of us for now, so we can manage the direct attacks they’re gonna throw at us”, Negan cut him off as soon as he heard the sorrow and frustration in Elijah’s voice, trying to calm him as he went for another try just as you started to reach the gates, “Wanna walk out there alive again, don’t ya? That’s the best revenge. They’re fucking dead and you’ll stay alive.” For another moment, the younger man stayed quiet, just before his knees buckled slightly again and forcing him to realize that Negan was right as he slowly started to nod. “Okay”, he said lowly through the pain within the very moment you reached the fallen wall. “Gonna let go of ya now, that alright?” “Yeah”, Elijah nodded, before first you, then Negan started to let go of his arms to reach for your weapons and move in the same shuffling steps as before into Meridian, and slowly towards the reapers who’d been pushed further back inside by now and desperately kept on fighting the dead, and one living woman.  Maggie was rushing towards one reaper, a tall broad shouldered man who tried to lunge at her, though remaining unsuccessful as she jumped back and directly went in for another attack. Quickly she dragged the blade of her knife along his shoulder that made him curse loudly in pain, distracting him for a second, though not long enough as he directly moved in for another lunge at her with his machete. She ducked, trying to fend him off as both you and Negan made your way towards them, ready to give the reaper a deadly surprise before the crackling of a walkie suddenly sounded through the air in the very moment you started to reach them.  You could merely hear a voice, though not what it was saying, but whatever it was, it was reason enough for the man to step back and run, without attempting another attack on Maggie, just as other remaining reapers at the walls started to do the same. Confused you looked around, catching Maggie’s glance that was just as irritated as yours while a dry chuckle fell from Negan’s lips as he looked around the courtyard only to find nothing but dead and undead walkers, with no sign of the reapers. “You got to be shitting me. They’re retreating”, he said with a dry chuckle as he moved beside you, furrowing his brows as an odd sizzling sound started to cut through the walkers’ groans even though you couldn’t pinpoint what it was. “But why?”, you heard Maggie say beside you, while you still tried to find the source of the sizzling, glancing around to find something that could be responsible for it before it started to grow louder. Irritated you looked up the platforms that were build along the walls, and the bright light that formed on one of them, right in front of you and just then, you started to realize what was happening in these moments. A blonde woman stood high up on the platform, staring down at you as she dragged a large wooden trestle beside her, mounted with sticks that looked like a mix between arrows and fireworks which were pointed directly down at you.  They were the source of the sizzling sound, they were the reason the reapers had retreated, and they were ready to be fired as they started to light up one by one within the matter of seconds.  Your breath hitched in your throat and your heart started to pound against your chest as you began to realize what was happening in the very moment the first fireworks started to go off, and then from one moment to another, the darkness of the night lit up in bright, white lights. And the very last thing you felt as the deafening noises of the fireworks echoed through the air, was the sensation of Negan’s body wrapping protectively and tightly around yours as you fell against the cold, hard ground.