Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

My company-mandated therapist had wanted me to try some kind of rapid-eye movement therapy in order to, as she'd said in her earnest, bright voice, 'reprocess the memories correctly and integrate them into your life'. She had always been on about that, about integration and processing and memories not affecting you once you've dealt with them entirely.

I hated her a little bit, with her cheerful optimism, her bright- if professional- clothes, her soothing office. The office had a sweet scent, an air freshener somewhere I could never locate while we talked.

Mostly she talked, in the beginning and in the end. Hell, maybe in the middle, too. It was only when I realized if I didn't give her something, anything, they'd never clear me to get back to work that I began to let some of the darkness spill into that bright, soothing office.

But I kept the darkest parts to myself. I watched her as closely as she watched me, and I saw the bright cheerfulness dim and pale. I saw the tic in the corner of her eye, the small swallow, the slight shake of her hands as she took her non-obtrusive notes. She couldn't handle the worst of things, the darkest parts. Then again, who could? It would take a monster. Or an angel.

Some days, I was both.

I kept my face expressionless by sheer force of will, watching the scene unfolding across the courtyard. I leaned against the cook shed we'd built at Carol's insistence, trying to make it look like my attention was on the growing build-up of walkers on the fence and not on Shane Walsh at one of the picnic tables, flirting with a pretty redhead Daryl had brought in a month ago with the group from Decatur. She laughed, staring up at him with an awed, adoring expression, and I felt my teeth grinding together.

Goddamn it, I thought, forcing myself to look at something, anything, but Shane and the redhead. He was free to do as he wished, like I was. Reminding myself of that served only to make the tightness between my shoulder blades increase.

But did he have to do it so… obviously? And right in front of me? Like, damn, at least Dixon had the decency to make it more subtle. Not that I'd missed the fact that he was flirting, too; with one of the women from the Coventry group Ricky had brought in before he'd decided being Farmer Rick was all that mattered.

I tore my traitorous eyes back away from Walsh to check on my brother, out in the field with his crop of corn and tomatoes and beans. We needed the food, sure. But we needed my brother in charge more, in my opinion. Because if he didn't step back up soon, I'd have to. This whole running a place like this by committee and consensus thing was bullshit. It had been working- so far- but we hadn't exactly had any real crises over the winter or spring. Now we headed toward high summer, and my back was up.

It had been too long; something bad was about to happen. I could feel it.

"You know, if you told them how you felt, they'd stop." Carol's voice, low at my shoulder, was pitched for only me to hear, thank fuck, but it was filled with far too much amusement for my taste.

I jerked my eyes away from Shane and the redhead, turning to Carol with an innocent expression. "I have no idea what you're talking about," I informed her dryly.

She scoffed. "Sure. That's why you're glaring daggers into Mel and Shane across the way."

"Who?" I asked, feigning confusion. Years of training, I thought at her smugly. There was no way she was breaking me down. Not that easily.

Her look said she knew damn well what I was thinking, but she changed the subject. "How much longer are you here? I'm sure you're getting restless."

I was. She was definitely correct about that. But with Walsh and Mel over there getting their flirt on- I jerked my eyes away when Shane's met mine briefly- and Dixon doing his far more subtle thing with CallieAnne- there was no way in hell I'd be leaving for more than a quick supply run for the next little while.

They could do what they wanted, I reminded myself firmly. They could. That was the arrangement. But goddamn it, it pissed me off. I wanted them to be happy and fulfilled, but here they were constantly telling me how they love me, and yet-

And yet, nothing. It didn't matter. They could do whatever they wanted. I just wished they wouldn't do it so blatantly.

"I don't know," I answered Carol, turning deliberately away from Walsh and Mel. I focused on her, once more grateful for the mind and the competence she'd displayed since the Woodbury residents had moved to the prison with us. "I'm going out today with Merle, but I'm not going far any time soon."

"Finally giving up looking for him?" Her eyes gleamed as she looked up from slicing the thick, rustic brown bread she'd made from scratch. "Or just don't want to stray too far from your boys?"

"They can do what they want," I reminded her- and myself. "So neither. Just want to stay close for a bit. Keep an eye on things here."

"Things here are fine."

"I know." I sighed, staring now out over her shoulder at the laundry lines and rain barrels that dotted the courtyard now. "Doesn't that- I don't know. I've just got this feeling."

"Is that your spy senses tingling or your feelings for Shane and Daryl finally trying to break free?"

I stared at her flatly. "I'm going to leave now."

"You do that," Carol agreed. She flashed me a quick smile that turned into a smirk. "Maybe go drag Shane off into a corner and remind him why he's in love with your stubborn ass."

"You've been hanging out with Merle for too long," I informed her as I turned away with what was left of my dignity.

My eyes fell on Shane and Mel, and my teeth started grinding together again.

I went to see Ricky. Arguing with him about taking control back from his committee was a far more useful waste of my time than staring at Shane being an idiot. Or at least, that's what I told myself as I followed my brother around as he fed his pigs and told me his plans for chickens next.

I wondered how in the hell I was going to find- and catch- him some goddamn chickens. The pigs had been hard enough.

"Ricky, honestly. This place needs someone where the buck stops. Use the Council if you want for day to day operations; it seems to be working well enough, but-"

"It's working perfectly. I'm not fit to be the leader, Angel," Ricky interrupted. "You know why."

"I know you had a temporary breakup with sanity, sure," I agreed. We'd been here before. We'd be here again. "No one blames you for seeing Lori everywhere for a while. Or the phone calls. Or-"

"Thanks, sis," he said dryly. "You're making a great case for me. I'm not going to be in charge. Not like I was. That was wrong of me, too."

"That was the only reason we survived," I countered. "If you hadn't, I'd have had to. Like now. Something's going to happen, Ricky. I've got this feeling."

"That's called jealousy."

I turned and walked away from him without responding, too. Asshole.

As if summoned by my thinking the word, another asshole appeared to call my name. I waved at Merle and broke into a jog back up the gravel drive, more than ready to get out of this place and go kill some dead. At the car, I bitched. "Should just get on the back of my bike, you know."

"I ain't nobody's bitch, lil sister," Merle shot back, tone lazy as we cruised up to the gate.

He acted all helpless when it came to things like driving or processing his kills, but he was far from. Having only one had hadn't slowed him down at all, except when it benefited him. I rolled my eyes, waving out the window to David on the gate to open her up.

"Hey, Angel! Wait up!"

I mentally groaned, but waited as Walsh and Dixon got closer in the rearview mirror. They crowded around my window, both of them scowling at me. I scowled back. "What?"

"Just gonna leave without sayin' nothin'?"

I lifted an eyebrow. "I'm a big girl. I didn't realize I needed your permission to go on a run."

He tossed hair from his eyes and scowled harder. "Meant sayin' bye. Shit, what crawled up your ass today?"

"Nothing," I muttered. "'Bye, boys."

"I'll have 'er back before dark, ya mother hens," Merle drawled, sounding far too amused by the entire exchange. "Now finish suckin' face so we's can go bring home the bacon."

"I already did that. I got pigs. We're looking for chickens, remember?" I shot back at him, annoyance growing. "And we're not sucking face. We're talking."

"I mean, we can suck face if you want, girl," Shane said, wicked grin spreading over his lips.

Hadn't he just been flirting his ass off with Mel? I blinked at him slowly. "I'm good, thanks all the same. We'll be back in a couple hours, shit. Can I go now, Mom?"

Shane leaned in the window and brushed a kiss to my cheek, and Daryl echoed his action before they slapped the roof of the car. "Bye, Angel. Love you."

"Love ya."

"Bye!" I called, intensely grateful to see the gate sliding open in front of me.

"So," Merle asked as we took off like a shot down the road. "Anything ya wanna talk about there, girlie?"

"Not a damn thing," I growled.

"Whatever ya say, lil sis."

Chapter Text

We didn't find any chickens, though Merle made a few pointed comments about how he knew where to find one easily enough. I ignored him. He laughed at me.

We had, however, discovered a potential gold mine. It was my idea to hook the radio up to the spare battery in the trunk of the car, position it within hearing range but far enough out to eliminate the problem, and then open up a hole in the fencing to let the walkers take care of themselves. I only suggested it after Merle shot down my suggestion that we go in and clear the place single-handedly.

He had appreciated the joke, but declared that plan of attack "unnecessarily" idiotic. The distinction was why we seemed to get along so well these days, I decided.

We set up the battery, the radio, and the snipped gap in the fence, and I stared at the Army Reserve patches on the shoulders of some of the dead and wondered what was happening to the people I knew out in the wider world. Was everywhere like this? It had to be, or someone, some government, would have descended on us by now and either killed everyone with a quick bombing to contain things or rescued the living.

Of course, there was always the possibility this was a controlled experiment and we were being studied like lab rats, but that was a bit too far into conspiracy theorizing for even the spook to go.

"Should clear 'em out in a day or so, lil sister," Merle drawled from the passenger seat as we made our way back to the prison. "Ain't a half-bad idea, that there radio."

"Thanks so much." I didn't roll my eyes, but it was a near thing. "If that Big Spot hasn't been picked over already…"

We grinned at each other, Merle holding up his remaining hand for a high five. I obliged, and we settled into easy quiet as we approached the gates. I swept a critical eye over the prison as always, grimacing at the walker build up in the north corner. "Again?"

At least the fence crew was on it, but they were split between the north corner and the east wall, where there was a sizable gathering going on as well. Not as bad as they'd gotten a month or so ago, in either spot, but still. This was getting ridiculous. They'd be impossible to keep up with if they stayed this clustered.

"Gets outta hand every few days now, it seems," Merle agreed. "Ain't got a clue why they's like that spot so damn much. Need to tell ya pig bastard to get that fence reinforced somehow over there."

"He's probably already on it. And tell him yourself. I've decided I'm not talking to him," I muttered, scowling at the mention of Shane. We rolled through the gates, waved to Annie and John on gate duty, and puttered up the gravel lane at a snail's pace so we didn't stir up dust.

Ricky waved from his field, battered Walkman headphones over his ears to drown out the noise of the dead. I waved back.

"Well shit, girlie. Ya that pissed off he's got his flirt on with Miss Mel, then?"

I glared at my hands on the wheel, deeply regretting opening my damn mouth. "He can do what he wants. That's what we all agreed to. They both can."

"Darylina gettin' him some on the side now too? Well, well."

Merle sounded entirely too goddamn amused. I ground my teeth together, focusing on breathing in and out slowly so I didn't do something stupid, like punch him in his smugly grinning mouth.

"Ya know," Merle stage-whispered as we parked and Daryl himself strode toward us, "it ain't like ya cain't change ya terms of agreement. They's both said they'd be inta you alone if ya'd just say the damn word."

I threw myself out of the car, slamming the door with more force than was strictly necessary. Shane had joined Daryl, and a laughing Merle filled them in on what we'd found and done at the Big Spot while I unloaded a couple bags worth of random finds we'd picked up along the way. I'd take them to Carol, who along with her minions would have everything inventoried and delivered where it was most necessary within an hour, probably.

"Shouldn't have messed with it. If it was as overrun in that emergency zone as you're saying, you should have just left it alone. Reckless," Shane snapped, glaring between Merle and I.

I scoffed. "We cut a hole in the fence, got back far enough to watch, and waited ten minutes to see if they'd get interested in the noise from the radio. How is that reckless? I wanted to go in there and take them all out ourselves."

"Single-handedly, she said," Merle put in, his big laugh ringing out. "Girlie thinks she's funny now."

Shane and Daryl both turned glares my way, talking over each other to tell me how stupid that idea had been. I stared at them both, expression blank, and walked away without a word.

I'd staked a claim on the tower furthest from everyone else. Maggie and Glenn turned the inner tower into a love nest of sorts regularly, though it was really used by whoever was on watch duty overnight, but this one no one bothered with except me. I liked it that way. It gave me a nice sniper perch that would be largely missed by anyone keeping watch on the place- I'd checked all the angles for surveillance from the outside and only from one was the base of the tower even visible, so the likelihood of seeing me go in and out was low- and it gave me a place to retreat when the sheer number of people living together in such close quarters got to be too much.

I'd gone out there tonight, more to get away from Walsh and Dixon and from everyone else's amused looks than anything else. At least up here, I could think clearly.

And it was quiet. So much quieter than inside C block, where all my little family still gathered most nights to talk and laugh, play cards or board games, and just be together. I enjoyed that sometimes, too, though I was usually an observer of the games rather than a participant. But shit, they were loud.

The door at the foot of my tower squeaked as it opened and I closed my eyes, banging my head lightly against the brick wall. There were only four people who came up here, and I wasn't thrilled by the idea of three out of those four bothering me. Though Ricky would be acceptable, I supposed, but I'd far rather have his kid.

I liked my nephew. Right now, hanging out with my brother always seemed to wrap around to him not carrying his gun when he went outside or his peaceful farmer shtick. I wasn't in the mood for an argument tonight.

Shane's head popped through the hatch. Dixon followed him, carrying a jug of clear liquid I had a feeling wasn't water.

"Shouldn't you two be busy?" I said as they stepped through the plexiglass enclosure and out onto the walkway where I sat, back against the wall. "With your other girlfriends?"

"What other girlfriends?" Shane said, tone mild.

A faint smile played around both of their lips as they exchanged a look before sitting on either side of me. Daryl took a small swig from his bottle and passed it over. I sniffed at the lip, shaking my head when I discovered I'd been correct.

It sure wasn't water.

I took a much longer drink than Daryl had and handed it over to Walsh. "You know, the ones you keep flirting with in front of everyone?"

There was a pause. "Got a problem with that?"

I snatched the bottle back from Walsh and drank again. "Only with you being all up in my face about it."

Dixon reclaimed possession of the bottle, fiddling with it while eyeing me sideways under the scruffy hair growing far too long and into his face. "Ain't never said we's just exclusive to us."

"'Exclusive'," I muttered. I scowled out at nothing, the feeling that the two of them were having an entire conversation over my head increasing my already bitchy mood. The vodka probably hadn't helped either, I admitted.

I took it back from Dixon anyway. "We're not exclusive, any of us. Doesn't mean I like seeing you flirt with some skank in front of me."

"Did ya just call CallieAnne a skank?"

My eyes narrowed on Daryl. "So you do know who I'm talking about!"

There was a look in his eyes, a dancing amusement that pissed me off more as he glanced beyond me to Walsh. But guilt swept in as well as anger, because there was no need for me to be nasty toward the women. It wasn't their fault these two were morons, after all. "She's not a skank. Neither of them are. I just… don't like seeing you flirting with them in front of me."

The silence grew until Walsh broke it, speaking carefully. "You know, you said we were all casual and free to do what we want…"

"I know!" I snapped. I tossed my hands up and scrambled to my feet, albeit a tad unsteadily from the vodka. I paced, annoyed by this conversation, by their presence, by how I felt- especially by how I felt. "I just don't want to see it!"

The two of them had also risen, and more pointed looks were exchanged that I couldn't decipher. Then Dixon leaned in and kissed my cheek. "Listen, baby. When ya figure out what ya really want, come find us. We's gonna go back inside. Ain't no point in talkin' to ya right now. Cain't ride two horses with one arse, ya know."

"What in the-"

Shane cut off my bewildered response with a brush of his own lips. "You can't have it both ways, angel. Either we're just yours, or you don't care if we see other people, too. Make up your mind."

I banged my head into the plexiglass once they were out of sight.

I didn't care what they did. I didn't. We were casual, that was all.

I glared into the night sky and wished Dixon had left the vodka. Actually, no I didn't. I didn't want to get drunk. Drunk dreams were worse than medicated dreams. I shivered at the thought, especially when I was clearly going to be sleeping alone tonight.

I hated how much I'd come to expect one or both of them nearby during the night, easy to turn to for warmth, for comfort. It felt right, having them there. It was cold laying down on my pallet in the tower alone. I hated it, and hated the thought of them being in other cells tonight. They said they loved me, but then-

Did I want to change the rules?

I shuddered away from that, old pain rising into tears in the back of my throat. I'd been in love with Shane Walsh before. I'd told him I loved him, and he'd broken my heart. There hadn't been anyone but him, and I'd worked long and hard to get over him. It was risk enough, being casual like this.

And how could I say they couldn't see anyone else when I wasn't willing to choose between them? It wouldn't be right, even if that was what I wanted.

Which meant I had to live with this irritation. I'd have to find a way to make peace with them flirting with Mel and CallieAnne and who knew who else.

Maybe I should take up a good flirt, too, I mused as sleep finally started to slip in. Maybe that would make me feel better about it. It felt too much like commitment, the way the three of us had been. It felt too much like a relationship, not just casual sex partners. Especially with the 'I love you's' from them.

That would have to stop, I decided firmly. And I'd find someone else to have a fling with. Then it would feel better. It'd be more casual again.

Chapter Text

Days passed, as they always do. I ignored the flirting, but it was difficult as hell. And when I tried to do it myself, I…. Failed. Completely.

I didn't want to flirt with someone else. I didn't want to fuck someone else. I wanted everything to keep going the way it had been, damn it. I didn't need extra complications and drama like this. Calm, controlled, peaceful as life after the end of the world could get- that's what I wanted. I'd had enough of the dramatics to last me a lifetime, and that was before the dead rose, damn it.

Of course, peaceful was in the eye of the beholder, and the dead on the fences were building up badly again. Huddled with Carol and Dixon, while everyone and their third cousin said hello and good morning to a rather perturbed Daryl, we discussed what the hell to do about it- again.

We didn't have a lot in the way of choices, all things considered. We'd put more people on the fence crew for the next day, and if that didn't get us ahead of it enough, we'd light the bonfire set up a mile or so away and Daryl and I would lead them to it. We'd waste resources like gas and ammo, but it had to be cleared so we could really get busy reinforcing the fences.

"We could make a run to Woodbury," I offered as Shane wandered up to steal a strip of deer from the cook top. "Dismantle their wall a bit at a time, use the materials to reinforce here."

"That's not a bad idea," Carol said softly. "We'll vote on it this afternoon at the meeting. You going to be there?"

I scoffed. "Nope. Dixon and I are taking a group to check the Big Spot. Even if I was going to be here, I'm not on Ricky's Council."

"Oh right," Carol agreed sagely. "I forgot."

"Bullshit she forgot and bullshit about going to Woodbury. Place is overrun," Walsh objected. "He left the gates open when he lit it up, and every walker in the area found their way in."

I lifted an eyebrow at him. "And? It's not like he burned the wall down. We can use the supplies."

"And we can end up with a bunch of dead on our hands trying to get them, too," he snapped. "Damn it, we'll think of something better in the meeting. You should be there. Both of you, actually."

"Gotta move on the Big Spot if it's ready," Daryl put in mildly, shrugging one shoulder. "An' if I don't go, she'll take Merle."

"There's that," Walsh muttered, shoving a hand through his hair with a grimace. "Yeah, ok, fine. Whatever. Be careful. Both of you. Don't get any ideas about Woodbury, either."

I blinked at him, face blank. Daryl snorted.

"Had to say it, didn't ya, man? Now she's gonna go for it. Damn it."

I walked away from both of them wordlessly. I wanted to talk to my brother about this whole Council business yet again, and despite evidence of its futility. He really, really needed to take charge again, if only so they'd stop acting like I was on the damn thing and pressuring me into going to their meetings.

I wasn't a meetings kind of girl. I worked in the field and got shit done, while the higher ups had meetings over what in the hell to do. That wasn't my department.

And besides, I did what I wanted no matter what the Council declared. Which meant I'd be taking Merle Dixon to Woodbury if they came back and said it was a bad idea, because it honestly wasn't a bad one. It was a damn good one, and if we could take a couple trucks and a dozen or so sets of hands, we could dismantle a solid chunk of the damn thing and make our fences into a barricade the dead could throw themselves against as much as they wanted without result.

Which would, in turn, free up the fence crews for other jobs, including finding more food, building more of Ricky's Farmer Brown structures, and generally starting to work on the whole survival standpoint from a place of thriving, not merely eking out an existence.

I scowled at the air, knowing damn well I was right and also that the Council would vote to stay away from Woodbury. It was overrun; Walsh wasn't wrong. But it could be closed off and contained, and the dead inside handled like we'd handled this place. Then as the walls went down, we'd do the same thing we were talking about doing on the fence- set up bonfires and other traps to lure the dead away from where we wanted to be so we could work. I'd make it work, even if it was one truck, a one-handed stubborn bastard, and myself as the only crew seeing it through. It'd take longer, but still. We'd manage.

"You got a look," Ricky said mildly. "What is it?"

I leaned against the pig pen with him and Carl, staring at the pig laying on her side, body heaving as she struggled to breathe. I frowned. "What's up with Violet?"

Carl grinned. "See?"

"You, too? They're food," my brother said in a despairing tone. "Not friends."

"Can't they be both?" I asked brightly. "Would you feel better if we named her Bacon? Or Pork Chop?"

He shook his head, turning away from the pig pen to head toward his corn. "I can't do anything with you two, can I? She's not feeling good, it seems."

"No shit," I agreed, tossing an arm around Carl's shoulders as we trailed after his dad. "What's up with her, though? You keeping a close eye? You remember that whole swine flu thing-"

"I remember. She's probably just overheated," Ricky cut me off. "What brings you down here? Ready to tend crops with us?"

"Heaven forbid," I said with a mock shudder. "Talk some sense into your Council, would you? Or just override them completely. They're going to make a stupid decision. A wrong stupid decision. And I'm going to do what I want anyway and then get a lecture, be proven right, and then told I still shouldn't go against them, even as they take up what I was doing in the first place. We can skip several steps if you just take charge again."

Ricky gave me a look as a whistle pierced the air. We turned to look up the road, smiles spreading over Ricky and Carl's faces at who we saw there, clip-clopping her way up on the back of the horse she preferred, for some bizarre reason, over a motorcycle.

"Come on," Carl called, darting for the gate system. "Michonne's back!"

Michonne was indeed back, and she'd brought presents for the boys- comics and stale candy for Carl; an electric razor, hilariously, for Ricky. I was enjoying watching their mild flirtation that everyone saw but them, but I kept my mouth shut about it.

When she turned serious eyes my way and said 'didn't find him', I wasn't surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. We kept searching, knowing damn well the trail- such as it was- hadn't just gone cold, but turned into the arctic. I wasn't giving up on finding him, but without a fresh lead, it was a shot in the dark.

I'd found people that way before, sure, but I'd had an entire team to track movements, financials, cell phones, etc. Literally looking for him without all those things was just… futile. But we did it anyway.

Her to avenge Andrea. Me to avenge myself.

Daryl's motorcycle broke the semi-quiet, and I flashed Michonne a grin. "Supply run. Wanna come with? Get to see some of mine and Merle's handiwork."

She eyed me like that scared her somehow. I couldn't really blame her. But she nodded, and I turned to Ricky with a raised eyebrow. He shook his head, as I'd known he would. He barely left the fences anymore, it seemed, and when he did, he often didn't even take his goddamn gun.

For a cop, he sure could be stupid sometimes, I thought with mild disgust even as I swung on the back of Dixon's bike. "Michonne's home. She's coming with."

"See that. Come on, then. Rick? Ya want in? Got room. Could always use the hands."

Rick shook his head again under Dixon's steady gaze, his eyes sliding away, and I squeezed Daryl's shoulder. He'd taken it harder than the rest of us, honestly, when Ricky decided to completely step down, quit even bringing people in, and become Farmer Ricky. He and Dixon had gotten close, especially on their runs together looking for people, and to Daryl it seemed like a small abandonment.

Dixon nodded acceptance and waved one hand in the air, signaling to Zack's car behind us- Beth's new boyfriend at the wheel- that it was time to roll. Ricky at least grabbed the gates for us on our way out.

Chapter Text

"Radio worked," I said smugly as we regrouped by the doors. The tents had been empty except for a few of the immobile or less mobile dead, easily dispatched by our small group. We'd picked up some medical supplies- simple stuff like bandages, hydrogen peroxide, etc- from the medical tent, too. I considered today's outing a success already, but Dixon wanted to get inside and see how bad it was in there.

I was fine with it. After all, if we left it, someone else might come along and clean the place out. This was our score.

"Yeah, it did," he agreed. "Be a little less humble about it, would ya?"

Michonne chuckled as he rolled his eyes at my eloquent middle finger. Zack had been watching nearby, his eyes narrowed in thought. I knew he'd be trying to guess what Daryl did before the world ended soon- his single guess a day that amused Shane, Merle, and I probably more than it should. Daryl could have just told him- or any of us could have- but we didn't want to ruin the kid's fun.

He wasn't really a kid. He'd been in college when the world ended. He and a couple buddies had banded together and managed to stay alive until Ricky found them and brought them in. He and Beth had become friends quickly, and more than friends even faster. Daryl called it a damn romance novel.

Shane and I asked how many of those he'd been reading that we didn't know about.

He finally took his guess while I leaned on the building, face blank. He'd also been trying to guess what I had done, but he was only offering those guesses to Shane and Daryl when I wasn't around. Apparently the scars had people thinking they should be discrete about my past or some such shit. Michonne looked thoroughly entertained by the entire concept as Zack explained it to her before launching into his explanation for today's guess. Finally, he came out with it.

"Homicide cop," he said finally.

I kept my expression blank as Daryl nodded, saying only 'undercover' in response. Zack trying to figure out if he was right or not had us all exchanging amused glances.

But it was time to go inside. The dead within responded to our banging on the doors, stumbling into them and pawing at the glass, smearing rotten flesh and worse against it as they tried to reach us.

"Time to get to work, Detective," Michonne murmured.

Michonne and I somehow wound up moving through the aisles together. I'd gone looking for baby supplies, something we almost constantly needed for Judy. Michonne must have had the same thought, though I'd noticed the way she kept a careful distance between her and the baby whenever she was with us.

I had suspicions about why that might be, but I wasn't going to pry. She was one of my people now, and whatever her secret regarding infants, it wasn't a danger to us. She'd had plenty of secrets I'd been willing to dig into when she first joined us, but this wasn't one of them.

"I'm going to look toward Macon next," she said in a soft voice as we gathered diapers, formula, distilled water, baby food in jars. "Want to come with me?"

I hesitated. I did, on one hand. I wanted that son of a bitch's head for daring to put his hands on me. On the other hand…

"If I told you they were only doing it to get under your skin and get you to admit you're in love with them, would you believe me?"

I lifted an eyebrow, face blank as I tossed a ridiculous plastic toy into my cart. "I've got no idea what you mean."

"Sure," she agreed, rubbing a hand along the edge of a soft baby blanket. "And you're not withholding on them because of what that bastard did to you, either."

I stilled, staring at nothing as I remembered him thrusting into me, all about pain and domination and not at all about desire. "I'm long over that, Michonne," I said softly. "It's not even in my top ten worst things to ever happen to me."

"I know."

We turned to the next aisle in silence, scooping up feminine hygiene products- another constant necessity- and toothpaste. I thought the topic dropped, but of course it wasn't.

"The thing is, Angel," Michonne said slowly. We were approaching Bob, in the wine aisle, and I frowned,, not liking the way the shelf looked. "I don't think you are over it. I don't think you're over any of it, actually- what gave you those scars, Philip, anything. Because if you were, you wouldn't be holding them at arms' length the way you are. Things get taken too fast these days. People. Don't let them be taken from you before you tell them how you really feel."

I watched, time slowing down, as the shelf tipped forward when Bob reached for a bottle.

Everything turned to chaos in an instant, as it often did. Bob's leg was trapped by the shelf, but the noise had drawn dead who'd been ignoring our presence previously.

Then the dead started raining from the ceiling, and I seriously considered killing Bob where he lay and hustling us all out of there. Whatever was on top of the roof that had so many dead milling around, it wasn't good.

But instead, I responded to Daryl's called commands to help him move the shelf. We tried, both of us putting our backs into it, but then Glenn yelled that the roof was coming down, followed by a pregnant pause and his deeply concerned 'uhhh, guys?'

We both looked up.

Falling through the roof was a helicopter. As well as the dead, now walking to the massive hole in the roof and plummeting down to cause us major problems.

In the chaos and the noise- Bob's screaming, the building and the helicopter groaning, the dead's moans and hungry snarls- I got busy trying to keep a lid on things and an eye on our exit. I watched, too far away and in slow motion, as Daryl turned to help Bob again and one of the dead fell right beside him, jaws open and hungry.

"Dixon!" I heard myself scream.

But it was too late. I couldn't get to him.

Chapter Text

I slammed the door of Zack's car, stalking toward C block without looking at anyone, even Daryl. I could have ridden back with him and let someone else handle the dead kid's car, but I'd needed to drive something. I'd needed to be in control of something.

It was my fault. I'd scoped the place out and pushed to go. I hadn't seen the entire fucking helicopter on the roof, or the rain damage, and now-

Now we'd lost another person. Beth's boyfriend was dead. The romance novel had turned back into a horror story, I thought as I abruptly changed direction, pivoting on my heel and heading for my tower instead. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go in there and deal with whoever had to tell Beth, and her tears, or anything else.

Because it was my fault. And the kid had gotten killed for it.

And Daryl damn near had.

My hands shook as I drug them over my face, reliving the moment- teeth, rotten skull, Daryl's turned back and bared neck, and I was too far away-

"Shit!" I yelled it, kicking at the door to my tower. My foot connected with a resounding clang, and it was satisfying in a petty way, I had to admit. But it wasn't enough. I wanted to kill something. I wanted to rip and tear and scream, to erase the fear coursing through my veins at the idea that I could have lost Daryl. In one stupid instant, one slip, one moment of focused attention on a fool in need, and...

I turned, ready to attack the door, and hands snatched me around my waist and pulled me back instead. I was happy to have a target with a pulse, so I spun toward whoever had just dared to grab me, already throwing punches.

Shane dodged and blocked, then grabbed my hands out of the air with a glare. "Damn it, girl! You want to beat up the door, go ahead, but you're going to break your hand before you break it. Thought I'd- I'd spare you the pain, but whatever."

"Shane," I muttered, finally registering who it was. Not that I hadn't known. There were only three people who could touch me without permission first, and only one of them was fool enough to grab me like that. "Asshole. I could have hurt you."

"You could have tried," he dismissed with a scoff he'd clearly picked up from Daryl. "What happened? You're a mess, Daryl's a mess, Bob looks like he wants to drown himself in a bottle. Glenn and Michonne were positively grim."

"We lost Zack," I told him, leaning against the tower. I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to ignore the fact that they still trembled slightly. "We almost lost Dixon. It was- shit. It was close. Shane, I couldn't- I couldn't get to him in time."

Walsh pulled me to his side, cautiously, and I let him. I leaned in, letting his warmth seep into my skin and my bones, but it didn't drive away that moment, frozen in my mind. It was the closest call we'd had since the Governor had run, and it was all I could think about. How close I came to losing one of them, one of my boys.

I couldn't bear to think about it anymore, so I shoved away from Walsh and gave him the update- the shelf falling, Bob's leg, the helicopter on the ceiling, how everything came crashing down. How we lost Zack getting Bob free. How the whole run was a waste, since we'd lost all the supplies we'd gathered due to running from the oncoming helicopter. "It's my fault," I finished bitterly. "So proud of myself for my cleverness, me and Merle. Didn't see the crash on the roof."

"How could you? You grow ten feet while I wasn't looking?"

It was entirely reasonable, and I shrugged it off with a scowl. "I should have climbed a tree. Checked from all angles. I know this shit."

"Yeah, sure. Super Spy, right? Want to hear what your brother got up to today?" Shane asked, changing the topic with a forced casualness that had my back up instantly.

"Fuck. What did Ricky do?"

"Nearly got fed to a severed head."

I stared at Walsh. "He what now?"

I found Ricky by his half-made chicken coop, drinking some of Merle's blackberry vodka and staring moodily at nothing. That sounded like a decent plan to me, honestly, and I dropped down beside him, snatched the jar from his hands, and took a gulp.

"This is awful," I managed after the coughing fit faded.

"It's Merle's. What'd you expect?" Ricky looked amused as he took a far more cautious sip from the jar he'd reclaimed.

I grinned. "Awful."

He toasted me in a silent cheers, then passed the jar over. I took a sip instead of a gulp, and it went down easier, but the shit was strong. Not eye-watering if you didn't drink it like an idiot, but enough that I'd only be having a few more sips if I didn't want to end up absolutely wasted.

I passed it back, waited till it was at my brother's lips, and said casually. "Talk to any severed heads lately?"

Ricky choked, shooting me a glare as he coughed into his hand. I plucked the jar from him smoothly and waited till he finished his own coughing jag. "Shane tell you?"

"Of course Shane told me," I said, rolling my eyes. "You shouldn't have been out there alone."

"I was checking the traps. I took my gun, like all of you said I had to. I don't need a babysitter, too."

I lifted an eyebrow at the venom in his voice. "Oh? Then explain the headless wonder?"

"There was a head. He was missing a body." Ricky took another sip, grimacing out at the fence where the dead were already starting to gather again as night fell. "It was- it wasn't good, Angel. She was crazy. Couldn't live without him. Killed herself to be like him."

"Shit," I muttered. I took the jar he passed wordlessly and took a deeper drink from it. So what if I ended up a little drunk? Wasn't that sort of the goal, anyway? "Zack's dead. Daryl almost died. And we lost all the supplies."

"Shit," Ricky echoed.

"Yeah."

We passed the jar back and forth in silence. Finally, Ricky turned and looked at me. I could feel his eyes, but I refused to look away from the fence. "What?"

"When are you going to admit you're in love with them?"

"Goddamn it, Ricky," I muttered. "Not you, too."

"Yes, me too. It's a- a valuable thing, Angel. Don't waste it. You never know when it'll be taken away."

I leaned my head to my brother's shoulder, knowing he was thinking about Lori. "Yeah," I muttered, seeing that moment in my mind again. "You're right."

"Always right. I'm the big brother."

"So when you going to go back to being the leader of the Rickytatership, then?" I demanded.

Ricky grimaced. "Go away. Take the jar with you."

Beth's sign in her room had been changed from '30' days without an incident to '0' days. I saw it on the way to bed. I tried not to see her, laying on her stomach and writing in her diary, her eyes dry. I tried not to see anything, or anyone.

I tucked the jar on the shelf I'd made from scrap wood and hope and collapsed onto the empty pallet-bed filling the back end of my cell, pretending I'd be able to fall asleep.

I didn't.

Sometime after midnight, I gave up the pretense. Neither Daryl or Shane had ended up in my cell, and I felt the cold more now than I ever had in he absence of their warmth, but without the numbness that I'd long used to survive. Now, it was painful- a biting cold, like frostbite.

I rolled to my feet, shoving them into my boots without bothering to tie the laces, and grabbed the jar from the shelf. I'd go to my tower, drink my way to oblivion, and deal with the dreams that would follow. It wouldn't be hard, I thought as I made my way silently to toward the common area, to reach oblivion. It wasn't like I'd had a lot of practice lately.

Hell, I was probably halfway there when I first came in from my chat with Ricky.

I checked cells as I went, pausing automatically at each door to either peer in- if the curtains were pulled back- or listen for breathing, checking on my people. Daryl's was empty. So was Shane's.

The cold spiraled through me, and I prayed for the numbness to return. It didn't. Instead, I got a flash of each of them in someone else's cell instead of mine, wrapped up in someone else's arms, and I took a long, deep drink from the jar as I moved away from Dixon's door.

Maybe I'd step up my plans to find someone else. Maybe I'd take Merle up on his never-spoken offer to take me from the two of them, and-

I grimaced. Ew. No. I'd never take that offer. Merle was a friend, a brother. Nothing more, and I could as much force a sexual feeling for him as I could for my actual brother. The very idea of it made me want to hurl.

Low light came from the common area, which wasn't unusual. We often left a camp lantern on, for those on watch coming in and out, or just for the early birds and late sleepers. What was unusual were the voices also coming from there.

I paused in the shadows, just out of sight, and listened to Walsh and Dixon talking together. So they weren't in anyone else's cells, I thought, and the tight coil of hurt and fear eased somewhat. But still, it was a possibility. One I hated, I realized as I stared at the bottle clenched in my hands.

One I hated so much, I didn't know what to do with the feeling.

Then I heard Daryl's voice mention CallieAnne's name, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw something. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to throw hands.

I stalked through the door, both of them looking up in surprise from where they leaned against a table together, cups in hand. Between them was another mason jar, with more of Merle's vodka. I slammed my own jar onto the table, breathing hard. "Here," I snarled before either of them could speak. "Take this to them, too."

"What the fuck ya-" Daryl started, but I wasn't finished.

I talked over him, hands shaking again, my whole body trembling with anger and fear and something worse, something I didn't have words for. I'd survived the worst things humans could do to each other, I thought as my words tumbled over themselves, but this feeling- this feeling might just take me down.

"Take that one, so you can each take a bottle to your other woman. But don't come back to me if you do!"

Shane rose, something in his expression both angry and- vaguely triumphant. He and Daryl exchanged a glance, but I was too far gone to interpret it. I was too damn angry, too damn sad, too damn- something.

"Angel, you wanted this to be casual," Shane said, shrugging. "So we're just treating it that way. If you want-"

"I don't know what I want!" I exploded, voice rising in something approaching- I realized with growing horror- hysteria. "I want you two! And it's not fair to you to not chose but demand that I be your only! But I- I could have lost you today, Dixon, you idiot, and I- I love- I love you! But I love you too, Shane, and can't you see that that- that fucking terrifies me!"

I screamed the last of it out, throat going raw, and started for the door, tears blurring my eyes. I wanted out. I wanted clear, fresh air. I wanted space, and solitude, and for this burning, aching, horrible thing in my chest to go the fuck away, and-

Arms wrapped around me, and I found myself sandwiched in the familiar warmth and scent of the two of them, and I started sobbing. It was jagged and rough and ugly, and I hated it, but there was no stopping the tears, no stopping the flood of emotion.

Even when I heard Carl's sleep-roughened voice somewhere behind me declare, "finally!"

Chapter Text

"The hell are you reading, Angel?" Ricky asked, a look of horror on his face as he stood in my doorway.

I glanced up at him over the novel. "I'm doing research. Fuck off."

"Language. Research on what?" He eyed it like it was a bomb set to go off any minute, strolling in and gingerly sitting down on my bed near me.

I snorted. "Sex, obviously. And dating."

"What- why- that's-"

"Calm down," I advised, eying my brother's wide eyes and cutting off the stuttering words before he hurt himself. "You're turning purple. I'm fourteen; I should already know some of this stuff. But this doesn't seem physically possible."

Ricky looked both curious and like he absolutely didn't want to know at the same time. "Mom and Dad know what you're reading? And why are you researching sex anyway? You're too young."

"No shit. I don't want to get pregnant, thanks. Call it morbid curiosity." I closed the book and tossed it aside, nearly as disgusted with it as Ricky obviously was. "Besides, no one would date me anyway. But Hailey was bragging about going down on a boy behind the bleachers last week, and then half the girls in class were trying to prove they knew more about it than she did, and-"

"Hailey Lewis or Hailey Clark?"

I shot my brother a look. "Does it matter?"

"Maybe." He stared back, face inscrutable, and I felt my eyes narrowing.

"I swear to fuck, if you tell Dad any of this-" I threatened, voice going low and hard. If he told on my classmates and got them into trouble, I'd end up as more of a social pariah than I already was. Not that I cared, but if they started doing shit to my locker and shoving me around in the halls again, I'd probably be the one getting into trouble when I decked a wanna-be Barbie.

Ricky waved that off. "I'm not telling Dad. But there's shit going around the upper classes, too. About some of your classmates. Sis, don't- just don't. You don't want them talking about you like they talk about some of the girls at school. Trust me."

I snorted. "I know. I don't want to be a topic, thanks all the same. I just want to know which of them is lying."

Ricky stared at me before busting up laughing.

Stunned, I lay on the pallet in my tower, staring up at the ceiling as light began to filter in through the glass. Tears still clung to my cheeks, making my face stiff and sticky-feeling, and I hated it. I wanted to go to the showers and clean up; pull myself together before having to face anyone today. Especially the family in C block, who had no doubt heard my breakdown last night.

I wondered if they'd been taking bets, like we had on Maggie and Glenn at the farm.

Revulsion shot through me again at the show I'd put on last night. I couldn't believe what I'd said. What I'd done. The screaming, the meltdown, the- the announcement.

Oh sweet fucking hell, I'd shouted at them both that I loved them.

I wanted to run away. I wanted to hide. I kinda wanted to puke.

But I was so very, very comfortable, I admitted to myself as my traitorous fingers kept running through Daryl's hair. He lay with his head on my stomach, arm wrapped around my waist, an almost-snore telling me he was just as comfortable as I was. My own head rested on Shane's shoulder, the warmth of his body pressed against mine, his heartbeat in my ear along with the steady breathing that told me he, too, was asleep and content.

I'd told them both I loved them. And instead of being angry, demanding I choose one of them, turning away, leaving me alone with the horror of it filling my body and mind, they'd scooped me up, hustled me out here, and-

And held me while I sobbed. And then we all fell asleep, like we'd done a thousand times before, in this strange but wonderful bubble of warmth that trickled into my core and somewhere down to my toes.

I wasn't sure what to think. What to feel. What to do.

I'd loved Shane my whole life. It was as easy and as impossibly difficult as that. And Daryl- he'd given me something I didn't know I'd needed. He'd shown me that I could fall in love again. He'd shown me I wasn't a monster. He'd seen past the scars littering my body, my mind, and didn't think worse of me for them.

They couldn't mean it. They couldn't be ok with this, really.

"Stop thinkin' so loud," Daryl mumbled, voice thick and heavy with sleep.

"Sorry, Dixon," I whispered, my fingers running through his hair again. I'd stopped at some point, the warmth now at war with cold reality. "Go back to sleep."

"Cain't." He shifted, not moving away, but somehow burrowing closer into my stomach. My shirt had ridden up at some point during the night, and he pressed an absent kiss to my bare skin. "But cain't move neither, so don't get any ideas about runnin' off."

"Why would you think-"

"He's met you, that's why." Shane's voice was a rumble under my ear, and I tilted my head to scowl at his profile.

He had one arm thrown over his eyes now, and the other, the one I used as a pillow, tightened around me. "I can leave if I want."

"Sure," he agreed. He lifted the arm from over his face just enough to glance down my way, amusement written all over him. "You don't want to leave, though. You want to run away and pretend last night never happened."

"Do not!"

Daryl snorted against my stomach. "Do too."

Unfair. This was wildly unfair. I scowled at the ceiling, resenting that they were probably not entirely incorrect, though they weren't entirely correct either. I didn't want to pretend it hadn't happened. I wanted to forget that it had happened, and we all go back to what it was before they'd started flirting with other women and gotten me all tangled up inside, and-

"Baby. We love ya. You love us. Ain't that big a deal."

I stared down at him, his face now turned so he could see me. Not that big a deal? "You on your brother's drugs now, Dixon? How is it not that big a deal? Don't you want me to pick one of you? Don't you know what happens when I love someone?"

Daryl shrugged one shoulder while Shane lay perfectly still beneath me. So goddamn casual about it, I thought as the wild hysteria rose up in my throat again. He just laid there, blue eyes so bright as he looked up at me, and it was so casual.

"Naw, we ain't want ya to choose. Do we, Walsh?"

"Nope," Shane agreed. "Don't mind sharing with him. Anyone else, now, we might have to renegotiate the terms of this agreement. But him I'll share with."

"Fair 'nough. Works for me, too. Work for you, baby?"

I stared at him. He looked back, unconcerned and not at all joking, and my brain just couldn't process. "You- you-"

"We love you," Shane said gently. "You love both of us. And I- I fucked it up when we were younger, angel. I don't think you fully trust me anymore, and that's ok. I'll prove myself to you eventually. But I see the way you look at him. The way you are with him. That's something special. He reaches a part of you I can't, not anymore. I wouldn't take that away from you for anything."

I couldn't speak. Words wouldn't form; thoughts either. I just lay there, feeling their warmth, and totally paralyzed by the ease with which they declared that they could share me. That I could have both of them.

"He don't think we's should tell ya this, but I do, an' he cain't stop me, so-"

"Damn it, Dixon," Shane muttered.

"Bite me, Walsh. Anyway." Daryl flashed me a grin, and my eyes narrowed as I recognized the look of mischief I so often saw in his older brother's face. "We only started flirtin' with 'em to get to you. I don't want nobody else. CallieAnne's nice enough, but she was in on it. Don't know how to flirt my way outta a paper bag, if I'm honest."

What, I thought wildly, the fuck? What the fuck. What-

"Shouldn't have told her that," Shane muttered. "Bad idea. We're going to be in trouble for it."

"Oh, you're so in-"

Gunshots echoed in one of the cell blocks.

Chapter Text

We ran into a wild-eyed Ricky and Glenn coming from opposite directions. Ricky had been down in the fields, Glenn doing his last check of the fences during the changing of the guard, and the three of us- barefoot but with weapons in hand- had come from my tower as soon as we heard the shots.

"Walkers in D!" Glenn called as soon as he saw us, already pivoting and changing direction to head back toward D block. He'd been coming for reinforcements, I decided as I fell in immediately, and he'd gotten them.

"What about C?" Ricky and Shane yelled in unison.

Their baby was in C, I thought grimly. But the others were spilling out of C block now, guns in hand, and the updates flowed as we moved. Nothing in C, and the gate to the tombs was locked. Hershel and Beth on guard, with Judith.

Carl had followed Ricky up from the fields, but he stayed behind as we made our way in. My brother had, for some misbegotten reason, demanded his son stop carrying a gun as well. It'd been a fight for the ages, and I'd been drawn in several times despite my best efforts to stay out of it. Carl-and I- had lost in the face of pure stubborn Grimes determination. Plus, I wasn't his parent, so my vote honestly counted for nothing, which I knew damn well.

Now I hated Ricky's decision even more. I wanted Carl at my back, especially since my brother was armed with only a knife and force of will. Not that Grimes force of will didn't count for a lot, but it sure wasn't bullets.

But at least I had Walsh and Dixon, and I'd need them, I thought as we burst into the sheer pandemonium that was D block. Walkers were everywhere.

My body moved even as my mind tried to comprehend the scale of the disaster here. How in the hell had this happened? They weren't random dead, either. They were our people. People brought in from Woodbury, Decatur, other places in ones and twos or in small clumps.

I scooped a kid out of the way and tossed him bodily toward Karen from Woodbury. She pulled him and several others into a cell, closing the door behind her as we fanned out, taking down the dead and hustling the living out of the block or into cells behind closed doors.

It was nightmare fuel in an already hellish landscape, I thought. And then I saw Patrick.

He was Carl's friend. They'd been playing together the day before. They'd gone to Carol's story time, which I pretended I didn't know turned into survival classes for the children as soon as the adults got bored and wandered off.

If I knew, I'd have to tell someone. Like the kids' parents and guardians, who clearly did not know what was happening in the prison library. So I didn't know, because the woman was doing the right thing. Without those survival skills, the kids were just walker bait.

But he'd been fine yesterday. And then there was Charlie, who sleepwalked and so locked himself into his own cell every night. He was dead, blood streaming from his eyes in a way that had my stomach sinking.

It was a disease. I knew it before Hershel and Doc S said it. I'd seen things like it before, and I knew exactly how fast they swept through close quarters like these.

"Goddamn it," I whispered, staring around D block with its bodies and blood.

This was going to bad.

"Everyone who was in there could be exposed," I told my boys flatly. Hershel had already said it, but I stared at Shane in particular. "Which means we're carriers."

"Already figured out I gotta stay away from my baby, girl. Don't need you to rub it in," he snapped, shoving a hand through his hair.

We'd gathered in a loose knot just away from where Rick stood talking to Carl and Michonne. I frowned at the way she leaned on Maggie and Carl, limping with every step, and she rolled her eyes my way and made a face.

I'd get that story later. We had more important issues right now, and I speared Walsh with a look. "It's more than that, Shane. This shit's going to get bad real quick. We need to stop it immediately. Boiling shower. Scrub down. Burn our clothes, ours and everyone else's. I'll burn out D block first, then get mine. Everyone who was in there needs to do the same. We're about to have a fear, housing, and goods crisis on our hands. And the goddamn walkers are piling up on the fence again."

Daryl glanced over his shoulder at the corner the fuckers always congregated on first, frowning. "Cain't be bad as all that, can it?"

"Yes, it can," I said grimly. "Worse, even. We need a council meeting, now."

"We? Thought you weren't on it."

"I'm not. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's seen this before."

I stared at the screen, not sure which of the grim-looking heads in boxes to make eye contact with first. "I'm sorry, did you just say 'plague'? As in, the Black Plague?"

"No." One of the heads belonged to my immediate boss, two others to fellow operatives in the area, and the rest to upper management and a couple of doctors. The annoyed voice answering me belonged to one of the doctors, and I located him on the screen after a couple of tries. "Not that specific. Plague as in, it's wiped out an entire village in a matter of days and it's spreading in the area. We haven't figured out exactly what it is yet, but it's highly contagious."

"And deadly," I agreed, sitting back as I studied the documents on my second monitor with wide eyes. "How do we stop the spread? This thing could destabilize the entire country if we don't contain it."

"Not just the country," one of the other doctors put in. "Continent. World. The only luck we have is that there is very little travel in and out of this region except from the bigger cities. We've only seen cases in a handful of outlying villages so far, but we expect that to change soon."

"How soon? And what do we do?" I repeated, leaning forward anxiously.

I'd been boots on the ground in one of those villages. It was a ghost town now, but it had only been beginning to spread when I'd been there. The sick weren't everywhere; and families tended to sick members in their own homes. Masked and gloved, I'd trailed one of the local doctors and taken notes for my report.

I'd never expected it to blow up like this, or for my mandatory three-day quarantine to be moved to a week, and then two weeks, as things spread. I was ready to get out there and help, however I could.

Watching the sick had been brutal. They were miserable, wracked with fever and coughing, the rash over their skin so painful to look at. How much worse would it be to feel?

"We can't do anything but prepare," the lead doctor said grimly. "We can't stop the spread. We need to limit it as much as possible, but it will get out, and it will show up in more places."

"We burned the village where the outbreak began," my boss put in. "We've advised the locals to declare quarantine zones; burn bodies and clothing of any victims."

"That's good, but it won't be enough," another grim-sounding doctor said.

"The poor won't do it, either," I said softly. "Belongings, clothing- they're too valuable. They won't burn anything. Some of them won't even wash them."

This could be horrific, I thought, leaning back and closing my eyes. How in the hell did anyone prepare for something like this? I listened as suggestions, recommendations, and orders flew back and forth, but there wasn't much I could do. This was for the doctors, to get hospitals world-wide ready. Someone would carry it out, and things would go to shit if we didn't spread the news.

My part, it was determined, was done. I'd written my reports, submitted my own blood as a sample as well as specimens I'd helped the local doctors collect from the village. I'd finish my quarantine, be thoroughly screened, and assigned to another problem.

And I'd watch the death toll rise in the remote places.

Debate raged around the table about what to do. All of Ricky's Council- Shane, Daryl, Carol, Hershel, Sasha, Glenn, and I- had been exposed, as had Ricky, everyone who was in D, and probably anyone who'd come into contact with anyone in D.

Jesus, the whole place had been exposed.

"We can't just wait and see. There's children," Carol said, grim counterpoint to Hershel's calm reminder that we didn't know how fast it spread. "It isn't just the illness. People die, they become a threat."

"Quarantine," I said flatly. "Anyone showing symptoms. And get the kids and the elderly away from the rest of the population- separate them into groups, too. The exposed and the unexposed. If there is really anyone who hasn't been exposed."

Violet the pig had even been sick, I thought grimly. And we'd missed it. Walkers, pigs- they'd been the first signs. It had been right under my nose.

We needed medicines, and Daryl- vibrating and anxious- volunteered to take a team to the veterinary college we'd deemed too much of a risk before. Animals and humans got treated with the same things, and the distance wasn't too much of a risk now.

I was going too, but I didn't feel the need to say anything yet. There were other issues to handle first, like anyone showing symptoms and burning D block.

They wanted to bury the dead, and they'd decided masks and gloves would do the trick. I argued, but Glenn snapped at me. "We bury our dead. They're our dead."

"Sure," I agreed with a shrug. The Blind Angel had taken over my voice and my thoughts again, but I welcomed her. "But they're just that. Dead. They don't give a shit. The only way to beat this is to treat it and try to get ahead of it. We burn the cell block, quarantine anyone with symptoms, and get the meds as quick as we can."

Of course, they disagreed. We'd bury the dead and clean the block. Quarantine, yes. Fire no.

I had other plans.

The sound of coughing in the hallway had me closing my eyes while the others left the room. Karen from Woodbury. An almost-friend, I thought sadly. And David from Decatur.

They'd be quarantined, but that wasn't enough. I wasn't going to let this place turn into the ghost town of villages I'd seen before. They were the only two showing signs of being sick. If we took them out, burned the cell block-

I slipped away as the others finished the meeting. I had work to do.

Chapter Text

I collected enough gasoline to burn D block out and headed for it. Unfortunately, Daryl and Shane beat me there, dragging bodies out with covered faces and gloves on their hands. "Idiots," I muttered, watching from a small distance. "That's only going to make it worse."

But there was nothing I could do until they cleared out of there. At least with the bodies in the ground, I'd be able to quarantine my boys and douse their clothes along with the rest of D block. Hopefully that would be enough to contain the problem.

That and taking care of Karen and David, which was where I headed next.

It wasn't pretty and I didn't want to do it, but it had to be done. Bandana of my own pulled up over my face, I slipped into the cell block we'd set them up in for quarantine. I could hear the ragged coughing from a row away, and it steeled my resolve. It sucked, but they had to die. As the only ones showing symptoms, if I took them out and burned anything they'd touched down here, then burned out the D block and anything any of the exposed had worn- maybe. Maybe.

And that maybe was enough to justify what I was doing here, creeping up on two sick people with a knife and a jug of gasoline. It had to be.

There were others to think of- Carl, Judith. The other kids. The old ladies who didn't deserve to die like this, with blood coming from every hole in their body. Hershel. My people, my family.

If Carl and I had been analyzing this threat, I'd have had to agree with him, I thought as I slipped in the room. But Carl hadn't been coming to me for things like that for a while, and I was on my own with this analysis. If I breathed a word to anyone, they'd stop me. At least, they'd try.

This was for the Blind Angel to take care of.

I took David first, laying on his side with his back to me. He slept, his body shivering and shuddering with fever. I slid the knife in at the base of his skull. One twist and it was done. He wouldn't come back as a walker either.

Then I moved to Karen. I hesitated, looking down at her. She lay on her back, her eyes closed but moving behind the eyelids. She slept fitfully. A small noise might wake her up, or a touch. She'd saved my life. She'd distracted the Governor when he was crushing the air from my lungs and digging into the bullet hole in my shoulder. That distraction had given me the oxygen I needed to survive until Shane and Daryl got to me.

I owed her. A life for a life, right?

I put my hand over her mouth and nose, turning her head firmly as her eyes shot open, widening in surprise. I watched, feeling just outside my own body, as my arm lifted and the knife plunged in, smooth and without hesitation. Small twist, pull back. Let the head go.

It was done.

I wiped the blade of the knife on Karen's shirt, leaving behind a smear of blood. Now for the next part; the harder part. I rose, tucking the knife back into its hiding place against my skin, rotating my neck until the tension released.

A small noise at the door had me whirling, dropping to a crouch and reaching for the pistol at my hip. Carol stood there, watching beneath a mask of her own.

I held my hands up, a gesture of peace. "It had to be done. If we burn them, burn out D block, burn anything those exposed wore, we can get ahead of it. Contain it. If not-"

She stared, eyes inscrutable. Then she lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Did you bring gasoline?"

"Duh. Can't burn shit without it. Help me with the bodies?" I asked, cautiously.

"We should bring the-"

"Sheets, too. That's the plan," I grunted, hauling Karen's body down by the ankles. I glanced over my shoulder to find Carol doing the same to David. "You ok with this?"

She shot me an almost amused look over the bandana around the lower half of her face. "Why do you think I was down here?"

"Seriously?" I let out a low whistle as we deposited the bodies in the courtyard, heading back for the sheets and clothes they'd had with them. "Damn."

"It's the only way to stay ahead of it," she agreed with a shrug. "Things like this, the spread of them in close quarters…"

"Yeah," I said softly. I shivered, thinking of empty ghost-towns where vibrant villages had been. "We can't tell them. Any of them. They won't understand."

"Of course not. They're children," Carol said with a scoff.

We piled the laundry on top of the bodies. I poured gasoline on, and Carol struck the matches. We watched as the flames licked around the fabric, the hair, before swirling over the skin. I stared at Karen's face, her eyes open and wide, and knew it was an image that would haunt my nightmares.

"We should have listened to you all along." Carol's matter of fact voice broke the silence. "Throw in the mask and gloves, by the way. If we'd listened to you, we wouldn't have lost so many."

I'd already started on my own mask, but I paused to glance at her as she took her own advice. She met my look with grim eyes, a hardness under the competence that I hadn't seen before. Something more than cold pragmatism. Something lost and broken and cold, cold like I so often was.

A kindred spirit, who had been through hell and numbed herself to cope. To more than cope; to thrive.

"Maybe," I said softly. "Maybe not. I'm not infallible."

"No. But you're smart, and ruthless, and experienced. My daughter would still be alive if we'd done things your way, back then. The Governor would be dead. Many of his people would still be alive. Maybe we'd be trading with Woodbury instead of having this many people here, packed together so that we can barely breathe. There's a crisis coming. I'm not sure we're prepared to handle it."

She turned away from the fire abruptly, nodding at the can. "Leave that. Touched it with your gloves. We need to go before someone smells them."

I fell into quiet step with her, thinking about her words, her actions, her dead eyes and frozen voice. "You've become one tough bitch, haven't you?"

She shot me a look, a hint of a smile on her lips. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should. I'm going out with Dixon's group, for meds. Keep an eye on this place? Even if we stopped it, we need the medicine."

"We do," she agreed. "Should have gone before now, even with the risk. I'll make sure it stays running."

"I know you will. Handle D block if I don't get the chance, will you? The boys were in there earlier, so I couldn't burn it. Goddamn it, they should have listened to me. Stupid council," I muttered with a scowl.

We rounded the corner, heading into the courtyard, and I froze at the sound I heard.

Wracking coughs.

I turned, and my heart dropped to my knees. Shane leaned against the wall, Daryl hovering at his elbow and Ricky close by and looking pained. Walsh coughed again, harsh and hard, and I closed my eyes against the sight.

I saw Karen's open eyes, flames surrounding them, as soon as they closed.

Chapter Text

I didn't know what to do with the feeling in my stomach. It coiled around my spine, intertwining my ribs with choking vines; puncturing my lungs with thorns and stealing my breath; spearing through my heart as it grew, creeping ever-closer to my throat. When it reached there, I'd go stark raving mad, I thought.

I stared out the window of Zack's Charger, the fastest car we had on the lot. The look on my face had been enough that no one fought with me over taking the driver's seat- not even Daryl. We'd been loading up when Merle stalked up and slid into the backseat without a word, leaving Daryl and Michonne to sort themselves into a seating arrangement with the one remaining spot- the passenger seat.

Now Michonne was half in Daryl's lap as they shared it, no one in the small car willing to stay out of this trip. I pushed the needle even further, climbing past eighty and heading toward ninety. It wasn't like there's be anyone else on the road to worry about, and if there was, they could get the fuck out of my way.

Shane had it. He'd leaned against the brick of the building, holding all of us back with one hand as he'd coughed into his arm, his shoulders jerking with the strength of it. I could still see it, still hear it, and the mental image of him dead, with the blood running from his eyes, his nose, his ears- I shuddered. It had been in my mind since I'd heard him.

"Damn it, Walsh," I'd whispered, held in place by sudden lead in my shoes.

For nothing. It had been for nothing, what Carol and I had just done to Karen and David. They hadn't been the only. Just the first.

Carol moved into action before the rest of us could, the courtyard stunned into silence by the sound of Shane getting sick. She got everyone moving, and I accompanied her and Shane down to cell block A to set up a quarantine area. They'd argued against using death row before, but it worked now. Down to the viewing room where we could get updates through glass.

We had him and the others- Sasha, Glenn, more of the Decatur group and some others from D block- in, supplies being brought to make the cells more comfortable, and I pulled Carol aside in the bustle and stared straight into her eyes. "Kill him and I'll do worse to you than death," I'd whispered fiercely.

She'd nodded in agreement. "There's too many of them now. It didn't work to contain it. Tyreese found them. He's angry. Had Rick investigating. There's another meeting, before you go."

"Give me the highlights," I snapped. "I'm staying here until I need to leave."

"You shouldn't. You'll be more likely to catch it. Or spread it."

I stared across at Shane, helping one of the women from Decatur settle into a cell. "I don't give a shit."

"He's gonna be fine, baby."

I shrugged one shoulder, not looking away from the road. I drove one-handed, despite the high speeds, the other tapping restless patterns on the butt of my gun at my side. "I know."

Daryl scoffed. "Naw, ya sayin' that so ya don't have to deal with it. Dangerous to be distracted out here."

"Cause you aren't?" I fired back, the vines of sick fear turning to fury in an instant. Where was the cold, I wondered. I missed the cold arctic numbness that let me think so clearly, weighing outcomes and choosing the right path. This was- this was impossible. My web of information gone up in flames; nothing there but horror and anxieties when I tried to think through future outcomes.

"Course I am. Just sayin', ya should-"

"I should what, Dixon? Close my eyes and pretend he isn't sick? Couldn't die just as fast as Patrick did, or Charlie?" I snarled it, hands now tightening on the wheel, pushing the car faster, faster. It was a dumb choice, fueled by recklessness and disaster, but I couldn't stop myself. "Pretend there's no chance that the next time I see him, he might be covered in blood and dead?"

"Hey, lil sister? There's more'n ya pig bastard sick, an' I think some of the rest of us might appreciate not thinkin' along those lines."

My eyes shot to the rearview, where Merle met my gaze steadily, then cut his eyes over to the silent ball of rage that was Tyreese. He'd been in love with Karen. And he'd gone to visit her and found the charred remains that Carol and I had left behind.

Then Sasha had gotten sick, starting to cough and going pale, coming down to A while I helped Shane help everyone else settle in.

Tyreese had beaten on my brother when he took Ricky to see the dead. Then Ricky had beaten on him in return. The man wasn't having a good time at the moment, but my sympathy, such as it was, was little.

He'd hit my brother, after all.

I lifted my lip in a sneer at Merle in the mirror, but I stopped talking. Silence fell again, until Michonne- doing her best to stay as pressed against the passenger window and therefore out of the situation as possible- broke the awkwardness filling the overcrowded vehicle.

"Angel. You aren't wrong. He could be dead when we get back. They all could be. But we're out here to do our part to make sure that doesn't happen. And if you're too distracted, thinking about the what-ifs, you get stupid. Make stupid mistakes. That's all Daryl meant."

"Don't tell me what Daryl meant," I muttered. "He can tell me that himself."

"Shit, ya difficult sometimes, ya know that, baby?" Dixon muttered, tossing his hair and looking annoyed as fuck. "We're all worried, aight? But he's a tough bastard, is all. He'll hold on."

I let out a long breath, wishing like hell that all these people weren't around so I could freak out privately and then maybe, maybe have a moment to get myself together and fall back into the ice. I wanted the ice.

Was it because I told them I loved them? Was that why I couldn't stare from a distance at the problem, hold it at bay, not feel it when someone I cared about was in danger? I'd crossed that invisible line I'd drawn for myself, and the worst was already happening.

He'd kissed me so gently before sending me away. Telling me to get my pretty ass out of isolation and go get them the meds. I hadn't wanted to leave his side, torn between needing him where I could see him and know he was still hanging on and needing to do something, anything to defeat this.

"I love you," I'd whispered, the words sticking in my throat and coming out torn and frayed. "So don't die on me, ok?"

He'd flashed me the grin, the same crooked, cocky one he'd had at eight, at twelve, at fourteen, at sixteen, at twenty-five. "I love you too, my angel. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be waiting for you to get back."

He was the only man I'd said those words to, I realized. I'd screamed them at Dixon, sure. But Shane Walsh was the only man I'd ever told, intentionally and quietly, that I loved him. My father, my brother- they didn't count.

I peeled my hand from the steering wheel and reached for Dixon's now, my fingers locking with his. His hands were always warm, I thought as I held on tight. Always a counteraction to my cold, like Shane. Fire and ice, and wasn't there a poem about both of them destroying the world, or something like that?

I turned my eyes from the road to meet his. Cramped car or not, Michonne awkwardly in his lap or not, Merle the asshole Dixon in the backseat or not, there were words I needed to say before the vines choked me completely. "Dixon. I- I love you."

"Shit, baby, think I ain't figured that out yet? I love ya too," he said back, just as serious, a small smile on his lips.

"About goddamn time," Merle declared.

I glared at him, taking my other hand from the wheel momentarily to flip him off. I didn't want to let go of Daryl to do it.

"Angel!"

I ripped my eyes back to the road at Michonne's yell, slamming on the brakes and swerving to avoid the walker who'd suddenly appeared in the middle of the goddamn road. I missed that one, shot around it, and played a terrifying game of bowling- or maybe chicken- with a shit-ton of others until the car screeched to a stop in the middle of a herd. The dead bounced off the windshield and the sides of the vehicle as I plowed through them, and the back wheels got stuck immediately in a pile of blood, brains, and decayed flesh and bones when I threw it in reverse.

"Shit!" I half-yelled.

We were surrounded. Just like that, everything fucking fell apart. And just like that, the vines shriveled and died, cold washed over me, and I stared at the dead now pressing hard against the vehicle, hungry jaws clicking against the glass.

"We have to get out," I said flatly. "Dixon, through the sunroof. Make us a gap. We make a run for it, left side. Hit the trees and keep going. Don't stop once you're out," I added to Bob, who looked terrified squished between Merle and Tyreese. "On three. Ready?"

"Ready," Daryl and Michonne agreed.

Merle's lips curled in what might have charitably been called a smile. "Born ready, little sister."

"One. Two. Three."

We burst from the car and into chaos.

Chapter Text

The dead swarmed. Daryl shot from the sunroof, firing out into the mass with his crossbow as doors swung open and bodies burst into action. My baton snapped out, the modified knife on the end sinking into an eye and ripping it free from the skull it belonged to. Beside me, Merle swung his arm like a sword, the stump converted into a blade of his own.

"Aight, missy. Aim for that gap right there. You too, Bobby boy." He hustled Bob, our least capable fighter but the one best able to identify the medicine we needed, along between the two of us, and Michonne cleared a path with her sword. The trees weren't far, but the dead were everywhere and closing fast.

I spun, moving with my back to Merle and trusting him to handle anything Michonne missed. I shouted Daryl's name as he wasted time loading the crossbow for a second shot, but then he was moving, sliding down the car and bludgeoning a walker before reaching my side.

Then I realized Tyreese had never moved.

He sat in the car, staring straight ahead, as the walkers gathered tighter around it. We all started screaming, calling for him to come on, let's go, but there was nothing we could do. I grabbed Dixon's arm, hauling him back when he'd have gone to help.

"If we don't go, we're all dead," I said flatly. "Our people need the drugs. He made a choice."

We made our way to the trees, but the dead didn't stop when we got there.

The bushes rustled. Merle and Daryl pushed to the front of our little knot of panting, exhausted survivors, ready to take on whatever fresh hell this was. The dead were still scattered too thickly for our comfort, and we couldn't stay still long. But whatever decayed fucker was interrupting our much-needed pause would be met with a very unfriendly greeting.

Tyreese appeared ax-first, soaked in blood and guts. His teeth were set in a snarl and the look in his eyes sent a shiver of tension through my body. I moved silently to back the Dixon brothers up, Tyreese's wild, blank rage leaving me wondering if he saw who stood in front of him.

But he lowered the axe, shot a glare somewhere over everyone's heads, and growled that we needed to keep moving.

"What in the actual fuck?" Bob muttered it so low I didn't think anyone was supposed to hear.

Michonne stared after Tyreese, concern in her cool expression. She met my eyes as I fell in beside her, and I nodded without wasting breath on speaking.

I saw it. He was a loose cannon, a potential hazard. A walking threat to the safety not just of anything that got in our way, but to us as well.

I'd be keeping a close eye on him.

Despite my protests, Daryl was right. When Michonne and Merle came down in agreement on his side, I had to admit that traveling in the dark with this group, on foot, through unfamiliar territory that had so far proven to be thoroughly scattered with walkers probably wasn't the best idea.

But I resented the time lost as the hours dripped slowly past. The others took turns sleeping and keeping watch, but my eyes never closed. Adrenaline ran too high, and I sat with my back against a tree, watching the darkness for moving shadows long into what seemed like an endless night.

Dixon sat beside me sometime after midnight but before dawn. I wasn't looking at the watch being passed from watcher to watcher to keep track of their shift.

The brush of his arm against mine was welcome, a comfort in the darkness. "I can't sleep so don't ask me to," I murmured.

"Ain't gonna. Know ya don't sleep much when we's out in it."

I nodded, scanning around me again despite the utter lack of movement. Keeping my eyes roving kept my brain sharp. The shadows didn't blur into each other, and tiny changes stood out starkly. I'd have to stand up soon, to keep my body from going cold and stiff. Seeing didn't mean shit if you couldn't move to respond to the threat.

"It ain't the end of the world. We'll get us another ride tomorrow, get the meds an' get back. Everyone'll be fine." Daryl's tone was soothing, pitched low, but I could see him picking at the skin around his thumbnail.

I reached over and moved his hands so he couldn't do that. "Patrick died overnight."

The words were flat and emotionless as they came out, belying the thorned vines growing once more around my organs, my bones, in my veins. Patrick had gotten sick and died in one night. Charlie had too.

And here we were, wasting the hours we could have spent saving Shane sitting and doing nothing.

"Walsh ain't some kid," Daryl snapped back, temper and impatience disguising his own worry. "He ain't gonna croak overnight to some shit virus."

I didn't take the snarls personally. Dixon hid his emotions behind anger. I hid mine behind ice. "I wish- I wish I hadn't told you I loved you. Either of you."

Daryl went still beside me. "What?"

I shook my head, hating that my eyes welled. "If I hadn't said it, he wouldn't have gotten sick. And I'd be able to slip into the Blind Angel right now, cold and calculating, and that's what we need. But I can't."

"Shit, baby. Ya think you somehow made him get sick by sayin' what we all knew? Ain't how that works, silly." Daryl reached for me, slow and cautious.

It was a question and an invitation, and I accepted the offer. I leaned into him, abandoning my endless watch to collapse against his side. His arms came around me, warm and secure, and I closed my eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath full of his scent.

And a bit of walker blood and gore, but that wasn't abnormal for Dixon, either.

"I just- it's better when I don't feel anything. I'm so- I don't know what I am, but it's eating me alive. I can't think; can't analyze situations clearly. I can't function the way I need to," I said into his chest. I hated the way I sounded; hated the way I felt; hated that I needed this comfort even as I took it from him. "I need to be the Blind Angel, and I'm just fucking Harley Grimes right now, seven years old and learning her best friend in the world has chicken pox bad enough to send him to the hospital."

"Shit, got the pox, did he? Rough shit. Hey, look at me." Daryl pulled me away from him until he could lean his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes in the darkness. It was strange and uncomfortable, and I wanted to pull away, but he held me gently in place. "Ain't nothin' wrong with being Harley Grimes. Ain't nothin' wrong with bein' the Blind Angel, either, but I's in love with both of 'em, so I'm good with whichever ya wanna be. And Harley ain't so different from Angel, either. Both of 'em badass as hell."

Merle's sleep-filled scoff spared me from responding to the sheer sappiness of that statement. "Shit, I get up to piss an' you two are makin' out in the damn corner. Thought ya was on watch, lil brother."

The sun came up. I whistled, ordering everyone up and into motion. Somehow, the rays of the sun seemed to burn away the thorny vines of fear that had been overwhelming me in the night, and I felt the Blind Angel taking control.

Shane, I'd decided, was probably dead. I'd grieve that loss forever, and deeply. I'd never recover from it, and I might not come back from who it would make me. But the certainty drove away the paralyzing, mind-filling terror, and now I could think. Now I could plan, and execute, and lead. I could look at Tyreese, crouched at the streams edge lost in himself, and think only that I'd leave him in an instant if he didn't get moving.

Bob went to convince him to do so. I didn't flinch when Tyreese started yelling, his voice deep and dark and erratic. "What's the point?" he screamed in Bob's face. "They're dead!"

"They probably are," I agreed, hearing the flatness of my voice as if came from someone else. I settled into the numbness that statement brought, settled into the cold, frozen tundra of the Blind Angel, the angel of death. "But we're getting the medicines anyway. Get your ass moving or get left."

I turned on my heel and started forward without another word. Daryl jogged to catch up with me, grabbing my elbow to try and make me slow down or stop. I didn't do either.

"Ya really think that? Ya think they're dead? Even Walsh?" he demanded, voice pitched low so the others now following behind didn't hear.

I shot him a look, a grim funeral smile twisting my lips. "Yeah. And before you ask, I'll be fucked up about it forever. But I have a mission right now, and if there's even one person those meds can save, we get them, and we get back. Carl, Ricky, Judith. They need us. So we go on."

"Blind Angel, huh?" Daryl asked softly, his eyes more knowing than I liked. "I kinda think I might like Harley better after all."

"You'd be about the only one."

Chapter Text

Somehow, the day ran more smoothly than the one before had. Merle and I took the lead, slipping into the rhythm of soldiers on campaign with ease. Dixon watched- me in particular- with worried eyes. Michonne seemed amused by the way Merle and I moved and communicated, by the clipped orders and hand signals and the ramrod-straight stances the usually laconic and sloppy Merle Dixon took up.

Finding the gas station turned our luck in a new way. Behind the overgrown tangle of vines I deliberately didn't compare to the feeling I'd frozen out of my body, the Dixon brothers spotted what could be a vehicle. All we had to do was carefully clear the tangled mess.

Of course our group loose cannon, who for once wasn't me, went at it full tilt and found himself entangled with a walker as well as the plant. It took Merle and Michonne both to get him free, and we all watched in awe as Merle absolutely lost his shit on the big man. For a minute, I thought I'd have to take Tyreese down myself.

But he backed off, we cleared the vines, and the brothers Dixon hot-wired the van behind them. From there, it was suspiciously smooth sailing to West Peachtree Tech. I spent the ride studying the map Hershel had made for us of the campus and his list of medicines. This time I let Daryl drive.

Not only did we get there, but we got in. It was easy, too easy, and I set myself and Merle on watch while the others cleaned out the medicine lock-ups and supply closets. My shoulders were tight, the place just between them tingling with tension.

"Too easy," I muttered to Merle.

"Yup."

"Gonna go to shit soon." Almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I heard the approaching snarls and moans. "Damn it."

"Time to go, little sister," Merle agreed.

We turned to get the troops moving, only for the whole easy operation to devolve into bedlam.

Walkers were coming from both directions, blood streaming from their eyes and noses and ears telling us they'd died of the illness, or gotten it after they were already dead. Was that possible? I wondered even as I scanned rapidly through our options.

There weren't many. Actually, there was only one, and Daryl and I arrived at the same conclusion together. He snatch up a chair and hurled it at the window while Merle and Tyreese watched our backs, trying to keep the dead at a distance.

The slight gap between our window and the top of the covered walkway below wasn't much to worry about, and I called to Merle that I was first and he was last. He nodded acknowledgment, and I ignored Daryl's muttered protest by ducking through the shattered pane and making the jump before he could.

Michonne came next, then Daryl. Then Bob came through while Merle and Tyreese hovered behind him.

Somehow, Bob overshot his jump. He rolled, ended up dangling from the walkway cover just out of reach of the now-hungry and swarming dead below. The bag he'd carried was in one hand, the dead clutching it and trying to take it from him and pull him down with it.

I'd have let him fall, I thought impassively as I watched Daryl dive to grab Bob's arm. But that bag… It had medicines. What if they were some of the ones we needed to save our people?

If there was even the smallest chance Shane wasn't dead, I'd get every drug on Hershel's list home to him, one way or another.

My feet, frozen in place through training as I watched Tyreese and Merle leap through the window, shot into motion as soon as Merle's touched the walkway roof. I slung my gun down, tossing it vaguely in Merle's direction, and hit my stomach beside Dixon. I grabbed for Bob as well, hearing everyone screaming instructions to him, his own screams of fear, the noises of the dead; but I was focused on one thing.

The bag.

I honestly didn't care if we managed to pull Bob up. It was the bag we needed; the extra body- especially one who'd proven a liability instead of an asset, with the singular exception of his medical knowledge- I could take or leave. But the medicines in his bag-

I struggled against the grip of the dead, tuning the others out as they yelled for Bob to drop the bag. They wanted to save a life; I wanted to save as many lives as I could. He refused to let go, even as the dead pulled at his feet and Daryl slid closer and closer to the edge himself.

Now I was pissed. I slid myself, worming my way to a point where I knew I could still come back, but it was perilously close, and unsnapped my baton from my side. Flicking it open, I used the tip of it to hook the strap of Bob's backpack, yanking hard to rip it from the grasp of the dead.

Inadvertently, I ripped it from Bob as well. He grabbed at Daryl, who was now held in place by Tyreese and Michonne, while Merle yelled obscenities but stood where he should have been, standing guard against the walkers pressing against the window we'd jumped from. I swung the baton up and back over my shoulder, the bag going flying at what I hoped was the correct angle, and as I pushed myself back up I realized I'd mistaken the gravity point.

I was going down.

I didn't have time to do more than think it when a hand grabbed the back of my shirt and hauled me upright. My shirt ripped under the force, but it was enough- barely- to reverse my momentum. On my knees on the walkway, panting hard, I felt Merle's hand move from my now-backless shirt to my shoulder.

"Thanks," I said breathlessly.

Then I took in the frozen scene a few steps away.

Daryl held the bag both he and I had nearly died for in his hands, open. He stared at Bob, his face streaked with tears and shoulders hunched, and the others watched, hovering nearby. I climbed to my feet and met Daryl's eyes. "Dixon. Good?"

"I's fine." The words were clipped, pissed as hell, and genuinely so now; not the angry-to-cover-fear-and-worry kind. Something deadly lurked behind Daryl's eyes as he stared at the downcast Bob. "You?"

I strolled toward them, scooping up my rifle as I went. "All good. What's in the bag, Daryl?"

His angry eyes met mine. He reached in and pulled out a bottle of Wild Turkey. My eyes narrowed.

Daryl held it up in front of Bob's turned away eyes. "Got no meds in your bag? Just this?" he snarled. "Maybe ya should have kept walkin' that day."

Bob was an alcoholic. He'd told us as much while Daryl and Merle hotwired the cars. It had started when he came back from the Army, where he'd been a medic and learned the skills we kept him around for. He'd fallen into a bottle to drown out what he'd seen, and when his entire group of survivors died, he'd been wandering the road alone trying to kill himself when Daryl found him and brought him in.

He'd said he'd gotten Zack killed, back at the Big Spot, because he'd been staring at the wine and thinking about falling back in.

Dixon scoffed. He lifted the bottle, ready to throw it to the walkers below, and Bob's hand went to his gun. "Don't," Bob whispered.

I was going to kill him. I decided it in that moment, when he threatened Daryl- again- over a bottle of goddamn booze.

"Let it go," Tyreese advised, suddenly the picture of reason after his several bouts of full crazy. "Man's made his choice. There's nothing you can do about it but let it go."

"It was just for when it got quiet."

He sounded so ashamed, but it wasn't ashamed enough. Daryl was in his face, his forehead against the other man's, a clear threat without the words he snarled anyway as he shoved the bottle into Bob's hands. "Ya take one sip," Dixon growled. "When those meds get in our people, I'll beat your ass into the ground."

He turned away, and I made my move. The baton in my hand, not yet slammed closed, was around Bob's throat, pressing hard as I got him in a headlock. I'd choke the life from him. Leave him to turn for the danger he but Daryl in.

"What the fuck?" Tyreese yelled.

Hands grabbed at me, Merle and Daryl the only ones brave-or foolish- enough to try to pry me off the bastard. I whispered into his ear as he clawed at my arm, gasping for breath. "I'm not as kind as Dixon. You want to silence the quiet? I'll oblige, bastard."

"Damn it, Angel!"

It was Merle who managed to pull me off and away, and I didn't make it easy for him. He wrapped his arms around me, physically hauling me back even as I kicked, scratched, tried to get my elbows and the baton into play. Daryl moved in, slapping my hand at the wrist with both of his in a move that had my hand automatically releasing the baton.

"Stop it! We ain't got time fer this shit, girlie!" Merle snarled. "We's got people to get back to. Want ya policeman dead cause ya wasted time on that waste of breath?"

"Won't take time if you let me go!" I snapped.

Merle scoffed. "Gonna have to get through me first, lil sister, an' that will."

"Why are you protecting him?"

"Cause I've been him," Merle said flatly. "An' I got a second chance. Maybe he'll prove worth somethin', we give him one. Imma let ya go now. You head for him again an' I'll take ya out at the knees. Haul your ass home on my back."

I whirled as soon as he released me, driving my knee up into his crotch, but I pulled it. I wanted to send a message, not take him out completely. He grunted, doubling over all the same, but there was a grin on his face as he looked up at me.

"Fair 'nough, girlie. We good?"

I held out a hand and he used it to unbend himself. "We're good," I agreed. My eyes traveled to Bob, standing with the bottle in his hands and a bruise already growing around his neck. "You and I aren't. Let's go."

I shoved by him without another word.

Chapter Text

Somehow, the ride home was more tense than when we'd started out. There was more room in the van, thank fuck, so Michonne wasn't sitting on Daryl's lap anymore, but my Dixon chose to swing into the backseat instead of the front.

His brother claimed the front before anyone else had any bright ideas, for which I was grateful. I'd taken the driver's seat with no objections. I wondered if it had more to do with my attempted killing of Bob, or with the look on my face.

"So, little missy," Merle said in a low voice after a few hours' intense silence. "Wanna talk about that?"

"With you? Nope."

"Well, shit. Sorry I's the only option ya got."

I shot him a look, smile pulling at my lips involuntarily. "Damn it, Merle."

"That's better," he said, smirk spreading as he winked at me. "Wanna talk about them scars instead?"

The smile disappeared as fast as it came. "Nope."

"Aight, aight. Jus' tryna make conversation," Merle said peaceably.

"Well don't," Daryl snarled from the next row.

My eyes met his in the rearview, and he was pissed- truly so. I had a feeling it was at me. I had a feeling I didn't really care. If he had an issue with me killing Bob, he could talk to me about it like a grown-up. If he was just pissed at the world for everything going wrong, he could keep sitting back there and stewing. I wasn't doing subtext; not today.

Not when what I was heading home toward at reckless speeds was probably Shane's body.

I was forced to slow down when the sun set, since a repeat of the trip out wasn't advisable, especially after dark. We were so close to home, impatience had my body tingling, every muscle quivering and on edge.

Especially when we heard the gunfire.

Merle and Daryl both shot upright at the same time, Michonne and Dixon leaning in toward the front seat. In the back row, Bob and Tyreese stared blankly out windows, both of them lost to their own thoughts.

I sped up.

"That guns? Shit, what're they firin' at, a damn army?" Daryl asked, voice pitched low.

"Almost home," I said flatly. "And it's coming from there."

I bent the needle more and Daryl muttered a curse.

The sight at the gates had me staring, eyes wide, even as I pulled through and slammed the van into park. "Jesus fucking Christ," I muttered.

"On a goddamned camel," Merle agreed.

We all flung ourselves out of the van, my eyes raking over the downed fence, the bodies of the dead, and my brother and nephew standing with automatic rifles over their shoulders and crowbars in hand. They'd- shit. "What the fuck, Ricky?"

"How's-" another voice cut over mine.

Ricky pulled me in for a hug even as he answered, voice grim. "I don't know. Hershel's been in there, but there were gunshots. We haven't been able to go."

"Shit," Daryl took off, along with Bob, Tyreese, and Michonne.

I hesitated, torn between wanting to go and wanting to put off the inevitable a little longer. Merle's hand touched my shoulder, then he turned to continue making sure the herd that Ricky and Carl had downed stayed down. "What the shit, Ricky?"

He scrubbed a hand over his eyes as Carl went to work with Merle. "I don't know. It's been- it's been awful. Things go ok out there?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug. "I'm going to kill Bob, probably soon. But we managed. Got the medicines. Is-"

I couldn't ask, but Ricky knew. He shrugged helplessly. "Last time I went down there, he was hanging on. Looked bad, but he was helping Hershel keep everyone alive. Don't know since- since the shooting started. We had to reinforce the fence. They were all over it. Didn't work too well after all," he added bitterly.

"You and Carl did this by yourselves?" I asked, eyes sweeping the dead again.

"I had to get him to help," Rick said. He sounded upset about it, but I snorted.

"No shit, brother mine. You pulling a last stand at the Alamo alone was a horrible idea. Glad you still have some brain cells left."

"I'd like to think so." He sounded vaguely amused, under the exhausted and worried, and I leaned into his shoulder.

"I- I need to-" I started, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't move yet; the ice I'd drawn into my blood shattered by the thorny vines of fear.

"Before you do. There's something you need to know," Ricky said. He turned serious eyes to me as my breath caught, wondering what fresh hell this might be. What could possibly be important enough to need to discuss now, before I went to see if our best friend had survived? "Carol… Carol killed Karen and David."

I blinked. "No she didn't."

"She told me she did. She said she did it for the good of us all, to try to stop the spread. I- I gave her a car, some supplies, and sent her away. I couldn't have her stay here, Angel. Not after she-"

I rubbed a hand over my eyes, sighing heavily. "Ricky, I swear- you finally decide to make decisions again and you make the wrong ones. She didn't kill them. I did. She got there about five minutes too late."

"You- what?"

I glared into my brother's eyes, his cop look firmly in place. "Don't. You can try banishing me if you want, but we both know how that will turn out. I've seen plagues like this wipe out whole villages. You think I was going to let that happen here if there was a way to stop it? There were two people showing symptoms. The logic was sound- the two of them for the rest of us. It just didn't work. Not our fault."

I turned away from him. "When we get everything sorted here, I'm going to bring her back."

"I can't have her here," Ricky snapped, grabbing my arm. "She-"

"She helped me burn bodies. That's all. Nothing all of us haven't done a thousand times before. You going to try to banish me, too? Can't have me here, either? I'm the one that did the dirty work," I said coolly. "Try me, Ricky."

"Angel! Rick!"

We both turned, sibling bonding moment broken by Michonne's urgent call. She gestured from up the gravel drive. "Come on. You need to get in here. It's Shane. And Glenn."

I was running before she finished speaking.

Chapter Text

"Shane!"

I heard myself call for him as if it came from somebody else. I'd convinced myself he was already dead; frozen off the part of me that had loved him since I was a little girl so I could keep moving. Now I'd heard his name from Michonne's grim lips, and that meant he was still alive. He was still alive, but that could change any moment now.

If I didn't move fast enough; if I didn't get to him in time; if we'd brought the meds back just a few hours too late-

"In here, Harley!" Dixon's voice came from one of the cells on the upper level of A block.

I blocked out the sight of the dead littering the block; of blood on their faces. Whatever had happened here, it had been bad. We'd lost most of our people to this thing, if I had to guess. But I saw Glenn, being tended by Maggie and Hershel; and Sasha, with Tyreese holding an IV bag in the air over her head.

I turned into the cell where I'd heard Dixon, and there he was. My Shane, laying pale and sweaty on the bunk, eyes closed. "Is he-"

My voice cracked, throat closing around the words. Daryl, slumped against the wall opposite the bed like I'd seen him do thousands of times before in my cell, in Shane's, in his own, answered anyway.

"Ain't dead. Near it, but we got here in time. Bob got him on the meds right away. Only did Glenn first, cause Hershel'd put him on the bag to breathe for 'im."

My legs went weak before Daryl had finished speaking. I collapsed, slow-motion it felt like, at Shane's side. I reached out and brushed a limp, sweat-soaked curl from his forehead, letting out a shaky breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. "Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell."

I put my head on my knees, trying to get control as I went suddenly lightheaded. We'd almost been too late. Another delay- like the one for me to get past Merle and Daryl and kill Bob- and he'd have been gone.

"Bob saved him."

For some reason, Dixon's snide tone instantly gave me the control I'd been seeking. I turned, leaning against the bunk at Shane's side, and speared him with a glare. "And?"

"If ya'd killed him-"

"We'd have figured it out anyway. Old man Hershel could have done the meds," I snarled. "He earned a slow death, Daryl."

"He earned a beat-down, sure, but killin' him for no reason-" Daryl's voice started to rise, as it always did when he fought.

I scoffed. "No reason? I had plenty of reasons."

"Blind Angel reasons or Harley reasons?"

I stared, chill creeping through my blood. "They're the same person, Dixon. I'm Harley, and I'm the Blind Angel. And sometimes, I'm the angel of death. You ok with that? Because if you're with me, you have to be."

"If? Thought ya loved me," he snapped.

"M'angel. Daryl. Shut up, m'head hurts."

Both of us froze, eyes going wide. I turned slowly, staring down at Walsh, but his eyes were still closed. His forehead had wrinkled up like he was scowling at us both, and he'd spoken. I took his hand, expecting it to be limp in mine, but his fingers tightened briefly as he sighed.

I promptly burst into tears. I was getting really sick of doing that.

We moved him out of A block a few hours later, once everyone who'd survived had IV drips and meds. It was a process, getting everyone out of there, especially since those of us who were mobile were outnumbered by those who weren't, and we all wanted to hover close to the ones who'd been sick. I took being pried away from Walsh to move others rather personally, but as I helped Maggie and the old man with Glenn, I could only be so pissed about it. Especially considering the other hovering figure, filled with worry, was Merle Dixon.

Somehow, Merle and Glenn had gotten past the beating Merle had given the kid and the walker he'd thrown into the room with him. They'd gotten past what the Governor had done to Maggie. And strangely, they'd become friends. I supposed the end of the world would do that, given enough time. There were only so many of us around to talk to, after all.

Plus, Merle had saved Glenn's ass out there on a run when he'd have gotten himself killed doing something stupid. At least that was Merle's story. Glenn's was that Merle had made things unnecessarily complicated, then simplified them again and declared himself the hero. Whatever the truth was- probably something somewhere in the middle- they'd come out of it with scowling tolerance that changed rapidly into friendship.

Glenn was like that, I'd noticed. He didn't keep enemies long, if ever. He wanted people to survive, and thought everyone deserved a chance.

After getting Sasha settled into her cell and leaving her with Tyreese, there were only a few non-mobile left to move, and Merle waved me off saying he and Rick could handle it. My brother nodded, giving me a little shove in the direction of Shane's cell.

I took the hint, and in the half-light of a dimmed camp lantern, I watched his face closely until Daryl came back in, too. "Hey."

He collapsed beside me. "How's he doin'?"

"About the same. Hasn't said anything else, but he's breathing better. And it seems like he's sleeping now, not passed out."

"That's good. Bob been in to check on him yet?"

I shot him a look and Dixon held up a hand. "Ain't tryin' to start nothin' back up. Just know he's makin' rounds, checkin' on 'em all."

I hesitated, but I didn't want to fight with Daryl again. Not tonight. I shook my head. "He hasn't been since I got back in here, but I was gone for a while. Glenn's doing much better. Sasha too."

Dixon grunted an acknowledgement, staring at the floor and picking at his thumbnail. "Look, Harley. I's- I said some shit I didn't mean."

"Yeah?" I knew an apology when I heard one, but I wasn't entirely sure what he was apologizing for. Or why he kept calling me Harley instead of Angel, like everyone else.

He rolled his eyes, huffing out a breath. "Yeah. I know you're who ya are. Got a cold streak in ya, and it's kept you'n'us alive more than once. Wouldn't change that. It's who ya are. But it ain't who ya have to be, is all. An' sometimes I think ya forget that. That ya don't have to be like that. You can be whoever ya want to be. Make different choices. Be… softer, I guess."

"You want me to be someone softer?" Incredulity filled my voice, and my lip curled, the scar tissue tugging tight. "Dixon, have you seen me? I couldn't be soft if I tried. Soft would have died in the caves long ago."

"That ain't what I meant." He sounded frustrated, and I waited. Annoyed at the idea of 'soft' I might be, but Dixon had seen me more clearly than anyone else in the world. I could give him a chance to undig the hole before I buried him in it. "I just mean it's aight to choose the riskier road if it means showin' compassion. Ain't a lot of us left alive, after all, and we's all done shit things. Made shit choices. Just sayin', everyone don't have to die because of 'em."

"I know that." Stung, I stared at him. "I don't just go around killing everyone."

"An' I know that. But ya don't have to be the Blind Angel anymore. That's all I's sayin'. You can just be Harley. I'll help."

I sighed, leaning my head back against the bunk. "Daryl. I am the Blind Angel. I've always been that. Even when I was a kid, I was different. Ask my brother. Ask- ask Shane. I kept it hidden, but that's who I was, all along. And I will kill anyone who puts you, or Shane, or Ricky, or Carl, or Merle, Maggie, Glenn, Beth, Carol- any of my people- in that position again. He almost pulled you down with him, Dixon. Into all that hungry death. For booze." I shook my head, voice going hard. "I will kill him for that. It's one thing for you to risk yourself doing something for our people, our place. It's another for someone to almost get you killed for their own weakness."

"I don't need protecting."

"Of course not," I agreed with a huff. "You protect yourself just fine. But I avenge my people, Daryl. And you can't stop me."

"Ya don't have to-"

"Angel?" Shane's voice came, thick and disoriented. "Dixon?"

I turned, on my knees at his side, and found his eyes blinking open. "Hey, Walsh. Have a nice nap while the rest of us worked?"

"Shit," he mumbled. "My head."

"I bet." I laid my hand against his cheek and he turned into it. Stroking my thumb over his cheekbone, I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. "You're going to be fine. Got you medicated and hooked up to an IV. Just rest, ok?"

"'Kay," he agreed. "Wait. Glenn-"

"Is also fine," I interrupted as he tried to sit up. "Damn it, Walsh. Keep your ass horizontal. You need it."

He scowled, but his eyelids were already drooping again. "Don't go anywhere."

"Wasn't planning to," I whispered.

"Tell Dixon to stop yelling at you."

"He wasn't," I assured him, lips twitching into a smirk as I glanced over my shoulder at Daryl. He rolled his eyes at me, but the set of his shoulders told me he was just as relieved to hear Shane talking again as I was.

My boys, I thought as Shane slipped back into sleep with a sigh. I pressed a kiss to Walsh's cheek before turning back to Daryl. "We good?"

"Course we are," he muttered.

"Good." I slid over to him, batting at his knees until he let me lean back against his chest, his legs to either side of me. A warm, friendly cage that felt like home.

He rested his chin on my shoulder, arms coming loosely around me, and I closed my eyes. "Love you," I whispered.

"Love ya. Shut up an' get some sleep. I's got an eye on him."

Chapter Text

Shane woke up for real in the early hours of the morning, which was fine since neither Dixon nor I were asleep anyway. I got the old man to come check on him, deliberately avoiding Bob and the question of whether he got to continue breathing. Hershel gave Walsh some tea, hooked him up to another IV with meds and saline in it, and told us all to go back to sleep.

That, of course, didn't happen, and it didn't take long before we'd moved to the common area, carting Shane's IV bag along with us on a coat hanger and getting creative to keep it above his head. Unsurprisingly, we weren't the only ones in there. Maggie, Glenn, and Merle had taken up another table close by, a strange little knot of growing closeness that had me suppressing a smile at the sight of it.

It really was remarkable, I thought. How easily Glenn forgave. He might have been the best of us all, I knew. He'd saved my dumbass brother from being in tank surrounded by walkers for no reason other than he'd seen a man in trouble and decided to save his ass. He'd forgiven Merle, and gotten Maggie to as well- a much harder task.

I'd have to keep a close eye on Glenn. Make sure his good nature didn't get him in trouble. Or the rest of us. That was the thing about the truly Good People. They tended to do stupid shit that cost them or those around them.

"Can't believe Glenn's up and moving," Shane muttered, hunched over another cup of Hershel's miracle tea. He sounded bad, his throat raw and sore from the coughing, and there was very little color in his face. But he was up, and he was talking, and he wasn't dead.

I hadn't failed him after all.

"He that bad?" I asked, watching Maggie holding his hand. He looked worse than Walsh, and someone- probably Maggie- had draped a blanket around his shoulders. He cradled more of the tea as well, and was currently looking at Merle like he wasn't sure why he tolerated this friendship after all.

Considering the gleam in Merle's eyes as he met mine and winked, the look was probably deserved. I rolled my eyes and focused on my boys, leaving Glenn to deal with the consequences of being good all on his own. Maggie would handle it if Merle got out of hand. She had a mean right hook.

"He wasn't breathing. Thought we were gonna-" Walsh interrupted himself to cough into his elbow, his whole body shaking with the movement. "- gonna lose him. Sorry. Then all hell broke loose, people turnin' faster than we could get to them. Doc S had brought in a shotgun as well as his medical shit. Still hate we couldn't save him. End stage my ass. Hershel could have- could have kept him alive."

I knew what end stage meant, but I kept my thoughts private. The old man had done a lot, but he couldn't work miracles, after all. "I'm glad Doc S thought to bring the damn gun. Someone else should have."

"Hush," Shane said mildly. "We were trying to handle it quiet, when they went. So no one saw. Morale or some shit. But then Henry was on the bag when Glenn passed out, and Henry turned, and that weird little girl, the one Carol's so attached to but don't want to show it- she lead Henry away from Glenn, and I was trying to get the bag from Henry to keep Glenn breathing. Then I don't remember much, honestly."

"Cause we busted in and found ya ass unconscious and bein' pawed at by a walker. Lucky he was- whatsit- intubated. So's he couldn't take a bite," Daryl growled. "Idiot."

"Why am I an idiot? Old one-handed lump over there says you two tried to stop Angel from killing Bob. Think that's dumber than trying to save Glenn."

I rolled my eyes upright, rubbing at them in tired annoyance. "Do we have to argue? Shit."

Both of my boys were grinning at me. I glared at them.

An explosion rocked the block.

The only good thing I could see about this situation was that my people still reacted like we'd been on the road for six months. In minutes, we'd swarmed out of cells and the block, grabbing guns from the laundry bins we kept stationed along the fence for situations just like this.

Well, not just like this one, I admitted privately as I sighted along the rifle- my rifle, the one no else touched- at the fucking Governor, standing in front of a goddamn tank. This one was, admittedly, a bit unexpected.

"I knew that fucker was still alive," I muttered. "Should have been out there."

My tower- the target of the goddamn tank out there- spewed smoke into the sky. I felt ice flooding my veins. This time, he was mine. That bastard down there, who'd put his hands on Maggie and worse to me- I would kill him. Here, today.

But apparently, Ricky wanted to talk first.

"No," I snarled. Shane and both Dixons backed me up on how horrible an idea going down there like he demanded was, but Ricky was determined to try to end things without a fight.

Especially after the Governor brought out Michonne and old man Hershel. He had prisoners.

"Right," I said flatly, feeling our options tick away. "Ricky, you're going down there. Take your goddamn gun. I need a perch. Keep him talking, and I'll handle him. When I start shooting, they're going to as well. Take out the tank, Merle."

"With what, little missy?"

It wasn't an objection; it was a question. We were forming the battle plan, in low rapid voices while Philip the dick bitched and cajoled and threatened. "There's some grenades in the hamper. Down at the bottom probably," I told Merle, a confession none of us had wanted him to know.

He blinked, shot me a look like he knew I'd been holding those back and why, and nodded once. I focused on the others, lingering on Shane, pale but gripping a rifle with the look of death in his eyes. "Why are you out here? Damn it, Walsh."

"Shut up, Angel. Rick, I'm going with you."

"The hell you are!" I exploded, pulled from the ice of the Blind Angel for a moment by sheer terror. "Absolutely not."

"Stop me, then," Shane snarled. "Beth, Maggie- get everyone headed to the bus. Like we've practiced. Everybody else, get ready to light it up when Angel does. Angel, get your shot. Rick, let's go."

"Fuck. Fuck!" I spun on my heel and headed for C block. The only decent perch for me to get to from here was the guard walk. It'd be a target, but at least I'd get my shot off.

Philip was mine. And he was dead.

Chapter Text

"What's happening?" Glenn asked as I slammed through C block toward the walkway. "Angel, what's going on?"

"Goddamn Governor," I called over my shoulder. "Get everyone heading to the bus, will you? And get your ass on it!"

I broke into a run, grumbling at the gate and the door both being closed, despite that being protocol and having grumbled even more over them being left open more than once. I hated the delay, wondering what was happening down at the fence, where my idiot brother and my idiot boyfriend- who should have still been getting fluids pumped into his body, not negotiating with terrorists, damn it- were attempting to talk the fucker down from destroying the place.

They had a tank, I thought grimly. A tank. We weren't going to be able to keep them out if they wanted to come in. All I could hope was they wanted the place whole, not in bits and pieces. That bastard couldn't want us so dead he convinced an entirely new group of morons to support his vendetta with no reward, right?

It didn't make sense. He had to be trying to take the prison from us. Which meant he'd want to use the damn tank as little as possible, so I'd have time to get in position and get my shot, and maybe that'd be enough to scare the others off. Or Merle could get there to take the damn tank out. Or, or, or. Maybe, maybe.

This was not a well-planned op. I definitely did not have the upper hand.

I opened the door enough to slip out, down in a belly crawl. I could only hope he didn’t have anyone in the trees who was supposed to keep an eye out for exactly this type of movement, and that the choice of my tower for blowing up was random and not intentional. When no bullets came raining down on my position, I figured my hope came true. A small miracle, at least.

I shimmied into place, dragging my rifle along with me, and cursing because commando-crawls weren't exactly in my training repertoire anymore. Maybe they should be, I decided as I- finally- got into place, after what felt like an eternity. "I'll start running drills like I'm a boot again, just as soon as this one-eyed bastard is dead," I muttered.

I got my gun in place, rotated my neck to either side, and set my eye to the scope. I panned along the trees first, trusting Ricky and Shane to keep the bastard talking until I was ready. "No wind speed checks," I mumbled. "Gonna have to guess. Won't be the first time."

There were no glints or movement in the trees, so I turned my attention to my real targets. I wanted the Governor, but if there was a way to take the tank out of commission without it getting another shot off, that should be my first target. From a tactical standpoint, anyway.

Unfortunately, the best I'd be able to do with one rifle and a prayer would be to drop the driver if he showed his face. Someone leaned in the hatch, but there was no way for me to know if he was the driver or not. Tanks were bigger on the inside than they seemed, and there might have been a gunner and a driver tucked in there, and I'd waste my surprise shot on someone who didn't fucking matter.

The chance to take the Governor out and end this without any more bloodshed was better than the odds of taking the tank out of commission from here. I scanned the rest of his forces, noting the faces that looked scared, pissed, whatever. Then my breath caught in my throat.

"Damn it. Damn it!"

On their knees, hands behind their backs, were Michonne and the old man. He'd taken prisoners. That changed everything. Made everything harder. Especially since Hershel couldn't exactly get away easily. I had a hunch Michonne would be fine no matter what happened, but Hershel with his false leg wasn't exactly speedy. Goddamn it.

The flash of light off Michonne's sword tore my focus from the prisoners to the man himself. When he filled the sights, his expression strangely earnest and beseeching, I felt the world fall away into a roaring silence in my ears.

I could feel his hands on my skin. I could smell Tom Ford lingering in the air.

My finger brushed over the trigger, but I didn't squeeze. "Not yet," I whispered. "But soon. You're mine now."

I found my brother and Walsh in the scope, noting the way Shane's shoulders were set and knowing he'd watch Ricky's back when it all went to shit. But would that be enough? This wasn't going to be pretty, no matter what happened.

Ricky held out a hand, his head moving, no doubt doing his best to charm and convince everyone to just get along. I shifted back to the Governor, watching his face as he watched Ricky, and for a moment- For a moment, I thought it would work.

Then his remaining eye went hard; the sword rose over the old man's head; and as light glinted along the blade again, my finger tightened on the trigger.

In the crosshairs, a hole bloomed between the bastard's eye and the eyepatch. I watched him fall in slow motion, but I'd fired a hair's breadth too late. The sword had descended, slamming into the old man's neck, and the world went red.

I could hear Beth and Maggie scream from below as Hershel's head fell sideways, away from his shoulders. Then his body crumbled as the gunfire began.

I settled in to work, veins turning into ice. One shot, two. Three. Men and women dropped, unseen because I was already searching out my next target.

"Too many," I muttered as I fired again. "Too damn many. And that tank-"

The tank rolled forward, crushing the fence under its treads. Trucks roared, the Governor's people moving with them, and I wondered what he'd told them about us that made them want to attack even after he'd just cut off an old man's head and been killed for it. Were walls and fences really worth that much?

I fired again, keeping Shane and Ricky in my sights as they tried to get out of the way of the approaching vehicles.

"Angel!"

I heard my name screamed from below, Daryl's voice, and jerked my eyes from the sights and down to him. "What? Busy!"

"Move!" he yelled back, eyes wild. "Tank's sighting on-"

The world exploded.

I went flying. Luckily, the tank shot at the building beside me, not at the walkway, but it was close enough in my opinion. Dazed, ears ringing, I shook my head to clear the stuffed-in-cotton sound from it, even though I knew it was stupid.

"Shit," I muttered. "Gotta- gotta move.'

It hadn't thrown me far; just enough to leave me dazed, confused, and annoyed as fuck. I staggered upright- slowly- and headed for the door to C block. I'd get down, swing around out through the tombs, and head for the field to get my idiot brother and idiot man.

I knew damn well it would never work. But I had to give myself a plan, one that gave me control, to keep myself believing there was anyone left down there to get to.

A person appeared in front of me, lips moving so I knew he was talking. No sound reached me but distortion. I shook my head and pointed at my ears, interrupting him. "Glenn? I can't hear shit. Explosion. Come on, we gotta get you to the bus."

He bent, pale and sicklier than Walsh had been, his whole body wracked with the force of coughing I couldn't hear. I grabbed him by the elbow, hustling him along with me as I talked. I knew I was probably yelling since I couldn't hear myself, but it didn't matter. My ears would stop ringing eventually, and yelling might be the way to go based on what had been happening down there last I got a glimpse.

"Shit's gone sideways completely, man. We have to get out of here. I'll get you to the bus, then head back to collect whoever I can. Bastard Governor and his bastard tank."

The bubble in my ears cleared a little at a time, and I heard the cell block door slam open. I dropped Glenn's arm, gun up as I stepped in front to cover him, and Maggie flew into the block with tears and soot all over her.

Her lips moved, and I heard her voice, but couldn't make out the words. I shook my head. "Don't bother; ears not working. I've got Glenn; get him out of here. I've got to get to the field."

I shoved by her without waiting for a response. It wasn't because of my ears.

Outside, everything was pandemonium. I'd been in battle zones before, but it still took me back for a moment. The living and the dead, and all of them were trying to take down my people. What the fuck had happened? Yesterday our biggest threat was the virus we couldn't contain, but at least we could treat.

Now, we had people. I'd forgotten, over the months of peace, that people were infinitely worse than any other threat could be.

I fired, stabbed, ducked behind cover. Did it again. Dust and smoke filled the air, making sight almost impossible. But my hearing was coming back, as I'd known it would. I'd almost have preferred it didn't.

My name broke the battle sounds, in an Army bellow. I yelled a response, and he came out of the chaos and dropped to my side, slapping my shoulder to let me know he was in place. "Girlie. Right shit we're in, ain't we? Time we's got ourselves outta here."

"I'm going to the field. I have to get my brother and Shane."

We both returned the spray of bullets that came our way; then Merle grunted and a walker appeared twice-dead on the ground beside me.

"Baby girl, they's- they's dead. They's all dead, if they weren't on the bus," he said softly. "We have to go now, darlin'."

I shook my head, the words bouncing off some invisible shield around me; never quite connecting. "No. I'm going down there."

"Honey, I's gonna knock ya pretty ass out if ya try. Listen to me, Angel. I saw 'em. Ricky took one to the leg; old Shane took another to the body. Then the dead was on 'em. They're gone."

I spun around, standing in the chaos and getting in Merle's face. "Then I'll get Daryl!" I screamed. "Your brother! I'm not running away!"

"Ain't running to save ya damn life!" he screamed right back. "M'brother's dead, too! Saw him get bit! Now let's go, girlie! Only one left fer me to save, so Imma save ya ass!"

I slugged him. Then I was on him like a rabid wolf, fists and elbows and knees. The bubble popped, like my ears had popped, and everything rushed in like the sounds of battle returning.

"They're not dead!" I screamed as I attacked. "They're not dead!"

"They are!" he roared back, blocking what I threw. "All of 'em! Ya gonna be too if'n we don't get the hell out of here!"

"Then let me! I'm not leaving without them!" I whirled, breaking off my attack as abruptly as I'd begun it. "I'll die right here with them!"

Chapter Text

Bullets shattered the stalemate between us. I dove left, going for cover and scrambling for my discarded rifle, but I couldn't get to it. "Shit," I muttered. "Shit!"

Pronouncement aside, I wasn't actively looking to die. I just wasn't about to leave until I knew for myself if they were- If they were. I popped up, returning fire with the pistol I pulled from my holster, but there were too many. "Merle!" I yelled.

There was a river of the dead between me and him. He met my eyes over them, looking pissed as fuck. "Get outta here, girlie! I'll cover ya!"

I nodded. "Only till you can't anymore! Get yourself out; get to the meet-up spot! The bus got out; Glenn's on it!"

Merle nodded back, his eyes hard and focused as he fired. I did the same, crouched and moving along my meagre cover until I could find my way around the hailstorm of bullets and the river of dead to someplace maybe not quite so deadly. I had a feeling I'd have to leave the premises entirely for that to happen, but I had stops to make first.

They're dead. Merle's voice echoed in my mind, sending those thorny vines swimming up my veins, but I froze them out. Not until I saw the bodies, I told myself firmly. Then I'd believe it, and only then.

Once free of the line of fire, it was easy. Well, that might have been overstating it, but training and instinct kicked in hard, and the smoke and haze gave me cover. I turned into a ghost, a shadow, a demon. An angel of death, coming out of nowhere and taking down whoever was in my path as I made my determined way to the field where I'd last seen my brother and my lover. One of my lovers.

I'd collect them and go find Dixon. I'd have gone for him first, for backup, but Walsh wasn't at his best. Daryl could take care of himself, and I refused to believe anything could take him down, much less a fucking walker. Daryl would be fine until I could get to him, and he'd understand why I went for Ricky and Shane first.

It was my brother, after all. And Shane was sick.

I cleared the courtyard, rounding the dead-in-the-water tank. I didn't know how he'd done it, but Merle must have dropped the tank like I'd told him to. Dixons and grenades sounded like a serious problem- for everyone else.

The living, whoever remained of them, were behind me now. It was only the dead between me and where I'd seen Ricky and Shane last. Only the dead in the field, I thought as I stared at the stream of them approaching and flooding the yard we'd worked so hard to take; worked so hard to make something of; to build a future in.

They had to be among them, I knew. Staring at it, I accepted what Merle had said. He had to be right. There couldn't be anyone alive in that.

"So I'll make sure," I whispered. "I'll find them, see for myself. Put- put them down, if I have to. Then I'll go find Daryl and get out of this hellhole."

But if they were dead- and they had to be- then Dixon…

I shook the thought away and started down into the field.

I wanted to see bodies. Specific bodies, because there were certainly enough of them to satisfy any strange urge for decay I might have picked up somewhere along with all my other frightening issues. That wasn't the case, however.

I grabbed, stabbed, and checked every shambling walker in my path, aiming for where the Governor had been. Where he'd killed Hershel and I'd put a bullet between his eyes a second too late. I needed to see his body; to find Ricky's and Shane's. I'd go back and find Dixon's after, and then I could give myself over to the dead.

I couldn't do this life, not without them. There was no way. What was the point? To live in sorrow forever? Fuck that.

"Aunt Angel!"

What the fuck? I whirled, confused and halfway convinced I might be hallucinating. "Carl? Kid?"

He appeared like a ghost, emerging from the overturned bus we'd never bothered to try to move and running straight for me. We collided into a sticky, guts-and-blood-covered hug, my mind whirling.

"What the hell are you doing down here?" I demanded, letting him go and turning to handle a walker getting too close. They were starting to ignore me now, which meant I really didn't want to know what I looked like. Or smelled like. "Why aren't you on the damn bus where you should have been?"

"Dad's shot; he needs help."

There was a wildness in the kid's eyes that told me I wasn't going to get anything coherent out of him any time soon. But Ricky was alive. Ricky was alive and Carl was right here, and I knew I couldn't die even if Shane and Daryl did.

I followed Carl to the bus, slipping into it behind him and standing still until the walker shambling along decided I was dead too and moved on.

I felt dead, I thought as I stared at the destruction. I felt more dead in this moment than I had when I returned from the caves. When I was in the endless agony of Tom Ford's hands.

There was no way Daryl was alive. Or Shane. Daryl would have fought to the bitter end, trying to get everyone out. And Walsh- if Carl hadn't mentioned him, that meant he was gone. He'd been with Ricky. Now-

I turned to see my brother, looking like he'd gone ten rounds with something the size of a gorilla and lying flat on his back, unmoving and eyes closed. My heart stopped. "Is he- Kid, get back."

"He's not dead; he passed out," Carl snapped, already back at his dad's side and putting pressure on his leg. "Come help me, Aunt Angel."

I blinked and I was at my brother's side, kneeling and ripping a sleeve from his shirt to wrap around the bullet hole in his leg. "Shane?"

"I don't know. By the time I got down here, I couldn't find him." Carl's voice was as grim and flat as mine, and I nodded.

So he was dead. He was really, truly dead this time; not in the way he'd been when I was late with the medicines and told myself he was, but carried a sliver of hope inside me anyway. He was truly dead, because if he wasn't, there was no way he'd have left Ricky's side.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" Carl asked, watching the walkers keep moving in toward what was left of the prison.

"No," I said firmly. "The bus got out. Merle was with me just a bit ago. We got separated by the dead, but he's alive. Maggie and Glenn- I saw them too. We have to meet up with the bus."

"What's the point?" Carl demanded. "Everything's gone!"

I sighed. "Kid, that's my line. I'd gladly stay right here and be dead with everyone else who is, because yeah. We've lost people in this. Merle saw- he thought your dad was gone. Shane, too. Shane-" My voice broke and I shuddered, sucking in a breath. "I think he's gone. Daryl. Merle saw him get bit. But you're alive, and I'm going to keep you that way. Your dad, too. For as long as I can. Which means."

He looked at me as I shifted, pressing my fingers against Ricky's throat until I found his pulse. "Which means what?"

Sullen wasn't a good look for him, I thought, but I pulled Ricky up to a sitting position, then shifted to a crouch and slung his upper body across my shoulders. "Which means I need your help to get his deadweight ass on my back so we can get moving. We can't stay here much longer or there'll be no getting out. Come on, help me. Then get yourself a walker and take a gut bath."

Carl stared at me, his jaw set and his eyes hard.

Chapter Text

The dead weight on my back shifted. This was both good and bad news. I didn't really want to carry my brother out of there, but also, I didn't know how mobile he was going to be if he did decide consciousness was for him after all.

Plus, he tended to disagree with my plans. And I didn't think we had a lot of time for arguing. The dead were getting thicker out there; roaches coming to the carcass.

"Ricky?" I held my breath after whispering his name, not sure if I was hoping he was awake or not after all.

He groaned. "Fuck are you doing? I can't see."

"Oh, good." Turns out I'd wanted him awake, disagreement possibilities aside. "You've gotten heavier, damn it. Down you go, but watch that leg."

I eased him down, Carl helping, and my brother leaned on my shoulder and stared out at the swarm. "What-"

"Plans went to shit, of course," I interrupted. "But fucking Philip is dead. I took him down; the shooting started; here we are. Now, on to the getting out part. Here's the plan. We go. You lean on me. Carl's on guard. We're following the path of least resistance and hoping we don't get noticed much, so we're going with the flow of them- back inside, out the way the bus left so we can try to meet up with it tomorrow."

Ricky's eyes had taken on a wild look, and I knew he was about to argue. I just knew it. But I was in command mode, and he wasn't exactly in a good position to bargain, so I kept on moving and talking so he never had the chance.

I got a good grip on him and he leaned in, limping his way to the end of the bus with Carl in the lead. Carl had given me a hard look, but he had his gun in one hand and his knife in the other. He was set. I was set. Ricky would be swept along with me until he got his shit together, and then he'd probably try to change the current working order. Hopefully, by the time he wasn't dazed and confused any longer, we'd be out of this shit.

Hopefully.

I slapped Carl's shoulder as we reached the end, and we slipped out of the bus and into the dead.

It wasn't easy, but it wasn't as hard as I felt like it should have been, either. Maybe it was the walker guts coating me or the blood all over Ricky, but the dead seemed to have other things to do than harass us too badly. We made our way up and in, shuffling along with them in the hazy smoke, and I was surprised at how much it hurt to see this place in ruins this way.

I'd never been attached to places or objects or anything like that. People mattered; locations didn't. Things didn't. Things could be replaced, locations changed too often in my working life for me to grow attached. Hell, I wasn't even all that clingy when it came to people, either, because they slipped in and out of my life like shadows in the sunlight. Or maybe it was me who slunk into and out of theirs.

But looking at the prison, the thriving community we'd made and all the promise it had held of hope for something to come out of this mess… Seeing it riddled with bullets and rubble and the dead broke something inside me.

It might have been hope.

Movement caught my eye and my head whipped to track it, something different about it than the shambling dead. It moved with purpose, with intention, and I wasn't exactly fond of the living at that moment. She was in the same cage area where the old man and Beth had run when the little weasel had let walkers in and turned on the alarms; when I'd been busy cutting my sister in law open and pulling out my lover's baby. My little niece, who was on the bus waiting for us. Waiting for Ricky and my Shane, my Shane who wouldn't come because that girl in the cage had been with that raping bastard Philip Blake and destroyed my home.

I met her terrified eyes and turned deliberately away. I didn't say a word to Ricky or Carl.

"No!"

My brother's voice was harsh and hoarse as he cried out, stumbling out from my grip toward it. I stared in mute horror, refusing to let the image before my eyes sink into my heart.

It couldn't, after all. I didn't have a heart left for it to reach.

"Ricky, you can't reach it," I heard myself say, grabbing at his arm and holding him back physically. I didn't look at Carl, who reached for his other arm, both of us keeping my brother from throwing himself into the river of dead to try to get to the car seat. "You can’t get to it, Rick. We have to go."

"Dad," Carl begged, his voice breaking. "Dad, she's right. We have to go. Please."

It was the please that did Ricky in, I thought as he turned away from the blood staining the seat and the dead surrounding it. I couldn't look at his face, not his or Carl's, and they clung to each other as we started forward again.

I took point this time, baton snapped open in hand. I wanted something to get in my way. Something, someone- it didn't matter. I could take out the threats. I could keep Carl alive, at whatever cost.

Because someone had to make it out of this mess. But it didn't need to be me. Not in the long run.

The letter was from Shane. I blinked at the paper in my hand, filled with handwriting I had not been expecting at all. Somehow managing to be both sloppy and neat at the same time, it was writing I'd have recognized if I'd been braindead and someone held it in front of my face.

It hurt to look at, so I set it aside and pretended it didn't exist.

But why, I wondered as I showered off the sweat of another harsh training session on the Farm, had he written at all? Shane hadn't had much to say to me since the day we broke up, and I'd had less to say to him. The polite 'hello's and 'how are you's when we were together, sure. He came with Ricky and Lori and Mom and Dad when I graduated boot camp. I'd been to the ceremony when he and Ricky graduated the police academy and to their awards ceremony after they'd both been hired at King County and saved a kid from a car wreck and the sheriff gave them a medal. Dad had retired by then, so it wasn't nepotism, apparently.

But we didn't talk. We didn't do phone calls, or video chat, and we certainly didn't write letters.

I wandered back to the drawer I'd stashed it in, wet hair still clinging to the back of my neck. If Shane had written to me, it must have been important, right?

But then, why wouldn't he have just called. Or texted. Or emailed. Why a handwritten letter? It didn't make sense.

Did I even want it to?

I sank down onto the dining room chair, eyes already on the pages in my hand.

--Angel. I know this is strange and I know you probably won't answer it anyway, but I- I need to talk to someone, and when I feel like this, the only one I want to tell is you. And besides, it ain't like Rick isn't feeling what I am too and I figure he won't tell you the details but you should know anyway. So you can check in on him like someone needs to. He won't tell Lori either, I'd bet.

Shit, I don't blame him. Only reason I'm telling you is… I don't have a reason, actually. I just need to get some of this shit off my chest.

We had a call, see. Amber Alert. Stolen baby. Bet you already know- bet you already know.-

I stopped reading and pressed a hand to my mouth, wondering how long ago he'd written this and why my brother hadn't said a word to me. I set the letter aside, grabbing my phone to call him, but my eyes went back to Shane's neat-messy words and I traded phone for paper again.

-See, this baby was only a couple weeks old. Weeks, angel. Not even months or anything like that. Weeks. And her daddy was a piece of shit who'd walked out on her mama, found a bottle, and gotten behind the wheel when her mama had told him about her. He plowed into a van and took out the driver. He wasn't hurt at all.

So he's in jail for the rest of his life, see, or will be when the jury comes back if there's any justice in this world, so this little girl's mama is doing it all on her own. She takes her to the store, middle of the morning, broad-ass daylight. Puts her baby seat in the cart, in the basket part where it's safe. Follows all the rules. Does it all by the book. Crouches down to get something from the bottom of the shelf, turning her back on the baby for a second- a second- and poof- little girl is gone.

I watched the video from the security cameras. Mama did everything right except grow more hands and eyeballs in the back of her head.

We turn out for this little girl, Angel. We turn over every rock, every leaf, every stick in the county. State's involved. Everything.

Investigation took two weeks. Two weeks. Two weeks of all hands on deck, long shifts, stress, prayers. Little's girl's mama was a goddamn wreck. Begging us. We promised-

We promised we'd find her. Bring her back.

Bet you already know we failed.

We found her, yeah. We brought her back, sure. But we found a body. What was- what was left of a body.-

I stopped reading, closing my eyes as I let out a long breath. I knew why Ricky hadn't told me. He'd be- well. He'd be as much of a mess as Shane had to be, to send me a letter about all this.

I turned to the back of the page and kept reading. When I was finished, I'd call Ricky. After I'd gotten myself back together so I could be there for him.

Tears slid down my cheeks as I read, hearing Shane's voice in my mind as he described finding what was left of that baby girl, and learning that her drunk driving no good father had paid someone to do that to her.

When I set the letter aside, I reached for my laptop before my phone. I'd find his name. And I'd place another call before I called Ricky.

The bastard father wouldn't make it more than a week.

Chapter Text

We made it out. Something about that car seat had broken us, and I couldn't say I was surprised. I couldn't say I was anything, really. I was numb.

Carl was angry, but under the anger was grief, wild and untamable. I knew somewhere, deep in my body, grief had twinned its thorny vines around my veins and cut off the flow of blood from my heart. But I felt nothing. I looked for the next threat and kept my brother moving, my eyes on Carl's angry back, stalking ahead of us with the speed of someone running away from his feelings.

"They're ok. We'll- we'll find them. Shane. Daryl."

I scoffed and ignored my apparently delusional brother. "Sure. We'll find them as walkers, you mean."

"No. I mean, we'll- shit." He cut off as he stepped wrong, his leg buckling. It was only my shoulder under his that kept him on his feet. "I mean, we'll find them. Alive. The others, too. We'll meet the bus, and-"

"Ricky? Shut the fuck up," I said blandly. "They're dead. Merle saw Daryl go down; Shane too. And Carl saw him get shot. Everyone's gone. I don't even know if the bus made it out."

"It made it," he said softly. "It made it. Our people are out there."

I didn't bother responding.

Ricky tried to talk to Carl, but the words died in his throat with the look Carl gave him. I watched in silence, keeping my brother upright and staring at the trees around us.

He was right; we needed to find somewhere to hole up, get some supplies. Let Rick rest, not that he wanted to say that. But Carl wasn't in the mood to hear anything about being ok, and frankly, I wasn't either.

We kept going, Carl out in front and Ricky limping along, slower and slower even with my help. When we found the restaurant, I leaned my brother against the wall, stepped up to Carl's side, and nodded to the kid.

"Stay outside," Ricky said.

I think my expression probably matched his son's. "Say what?" I asked.

"Carl. Keep watch. I'll go in with Angel, and-"

"You keep watch," Carl snarled it, venom dripping from his tone. "You can barely stand. I'm not going to let you go in there."

"Excuse me?" Ricky had his pissed off dad voice fully in play, but honestly, the kid was right.

Carl shook his head, disgust dripping from his words. We'd have to have us a chat about that later, I knew, but for now I was focused on survival, and he was right. "We've done this before. Aunt Angel, let's go."

"Stay put," I told Ricky firmly. "Kid, left. I'll take right. Go."

We pushed the doors open and made our way inside. Clearing the place certainly didn't take long, considering it was deadass empty except for one dead fucker behind a barricade of chairs. "Get your dad," I told Carl, eyeing the sauces piled up behind it. "Gonna draw it out. It's weak."

"Want backup?"

"For one walker? Shit, kid," I said over my shoulder, mildly offended. "If I can't handle this bastard, I deserve him eating me."

I took him down easily, turning back to find Carl slamming into the dining room ahead of his limping dad. Ricky scanned the place, exhaustion in his eyes.

"Might be all that's left," I told him, gesturing to the sauces behind the barricade. "Carl, see what you can turn up, ok? Then we should move on. This place isn't exactly securable."

Ricky watched us both as we collected what little there was, looking like he wanted to object to everything we were doing. But my brother wasn't in any shape to making decisions. I was, I reminded myself firmly. So I would be. For as long as it took.

Ricky declared a house as good as any, and I couldn't help but agree. When Carl started yelling in another room, banging on the walls, I came running to see what the problem was. The problem, it appeared, was whatever my nephew was working his way through.

I did have to admit that hearing him yell "hey shitface" was almost as amusing as the look on my brother's face as he did so.

They continued their power struggle as we cleared the rest of the house and set up for the night. I took the back door, Carl having come down from one of the upstairs rooms with an auxiliary cord for a gaming system or some shit in his hands and look on his face I figured would need exploring later. He and Ricky continued to bicker as I shifted a chair under the handle on the back door to keep it secure against living threats but easy enough to escape from in the event of dead ones.

Then it was back in to play referee, just in time to hear Carl throw Shane's name in Ricky's face. His expression turned stricken when he saw me in the doorway, and the argument died as he turned guilty eyes away and helped Ricky finish moving the couch in front of the front door.

Of course, it ramped right back up again over food and whether or not to save it or eat it, but that one wasn't my business or my problem. I took a bottle of water, cracked it open, and drained half of it in a long pull. I set the rest aside and went into the bathroom to find anything resembling medical gear for my brother's beat-up body.

He stalked in moments later, looking pissed and fucked up six ways to Sunday. "Sit before you fall," I told him, gesturing at the blessedly closed toilet. With running water in short supply these days, I didn't even want to think about what might be hiding in there. "Don't be a dumbass."

I added the last as he hesitated, but finally he complied. He ripped what was left of his filthy-ass shirt over his head and I whistled at the colors all over his body. He wheezed as he breathed, and I moved in to run my fingers over the bruises, prodding as gently as I could for broken bones or anything else I might be able to discover by touch. Not that there was much.

"Who'd you get in a fight with, a goddamn bear?" I muttered as he hissed. "Ricky, honestly."

"One of- one of them. Took it personal, I guess, when you shot him."

"No shit." I didn't feel anything obvious, so I turned my attention to his face, grimacing at the look of it, too. "Not a lot to work with here."

"You mean to patch me up, or just my face?"

My lips twitched at that one. "Face never had much going for it anyway. Better than mine, I guess, though. Ricky. Take it easy on the kid. He's right about a lot of it."

"He's too angry. Don't know what he's angry at me for."

"Who knows?" I said with a shrug. "He's grieving. His new home, his sense of security- again- his place in the world, our- our people. Just let him be. He's also worried for you, and doesn't want to show it."

Ricky grunted, then hissed when I pressed against his nose. Shit. That would need to be popped back into place, I thought. He wasn't going to enjoy that.

Might as well get it over with. "Hold still," I said mildly, then placed my thumbs on either side of his nose and jerked hard.

Ricky half-yelled, trying to jump away from me, but he couldn't move all that well or quickly. I heard footsteps behind me, guessing it was Carl coming to see what that was all about.

"I fixed his nose," I said without turning. "He's fine."

The footsteps receded without a word.

"Could have warned me," Ricky grumbled.

"Why do that? More fun this way. Plus, you didn't tense up. I don't have any bandages, so that'll have to do. I'll find a clean sheet or something in the morning and look at your leg again. Go pass out on the couch before you do it in here and give yourself more head trauma," I told him, patting his shoulder. "I'm going upstairs. Good window for watch up there."

"Angel-"

"Go to sleep, Ricky. We got this."

Nothing stirred in the night, not even a lone walker. I wanted something to happen, some movement or threat to keep my adrenaline up and running. To keep me from thinking about what I'd lost.

What I'd left behind without knowing.

I wanted to feel something. To feel that terrible choking sensation I'd had when Shane got sick. But there was nothing. Just smooth, icy stillness; a running list of what had to be done for survival; and a lingering sense that nothing was as it should be.

On the other hand, I almost thought I deserved this. That I was paying for the damage I'd left behind in my other life, somehow; or that this was what I'd earned by being greedy and wanting to have two men when I'd never believed I'd have one I cared for again.

Did I bring this down on us? On them? On Carl and Ricky and poor little Judith, so small and defenseless against a world that wanted to consume her? On Maggie and Glenn and Beth and Hershel and Merle and-

Daryl. Shane.

Why couldn't I feel it? I wondered. Somewhere, I knew there was a part of me screaming in anguish, devastated and weeping. But I was fine.

I'd go back, I decided. Tomorrow, when the sun came up. We weren't so far away that I couldn't get there in an easy day, not traveling alone. I'd go back, and I'd see what was left. The bulk of the dead would either be entrenched or moved on, attracted to the next loud noise or smoke or flame. I'd slip in and see what I could salvage from the wreckage.

See who I could find, dead or alive. Put down the dead. Maybe- if I was more lucky than I had any rights to be- save the living.

"Aunt Angel?"

I turned at the sound of Carl's voice, seeking out the shadow in the darkness that was him. "Yeah? What's wrong?"

"Everything."

I let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

Chapter Text

Morning came and Ricky never stirred. We'd found food in the kitchen, the non-perishable bullshit that every household had contained, before all this. I came down from my perch a couple hours after sunrise to find Carl in the kitchen, eating dry cereal out of a bowl with a spoon.

I checked on Ricky first, poking and prodding at his face, his leg. He didn't wake up- or even seem to notice- but he was still breathing. That was all that mattered.

Changing the erstwhile bandage on his leg had me grimacing, wishing we'd found something, anything that could be considered medical supplies. Peroxide, high-alcohol booze, anything to clean the wound and give it a better chance of not getting infected. But we hadn't turned up any of that here, which meant before I circled back to what was left of the prison, I needed to check out some of the houses nearby and get Carl and Ricky set up well.

Just in case.

I rewrapped Ricky's leg in a clean sheet and hoped it was good enough.

"Aunt Angel?"

"Yeah?" I answered as I tied the bandage off. I didn't bother speaking softly, not like the kid did. My brother wasn't waking up for anything any time soon, and that was probably for the best. His body needed the shut down time to heal… Well, everything. "What's up?"

"Is he dead?"

I snorted, standing to shoot Carl a look. "Would I be bandaging up a dead person? Use your head, kid."

His eyes lingered on his dad, worry in them before his face hardened back into the angry mask it had been the day before. "Ok. We need supplies."

"My thoughts exactly. You stay here, keep an eye on your dad. I'll hit the houses and see what-"

"No." He didn't sound pissed at me the way he did when he'd been talking to Ricky the day before, but he was just as determined and just as serious as he interrupted me. "I'm not staying behind. I'm not a kid, no matter what Dad thinks. I'm going too. If we split up, we cover more ground."

I hesitated. He saw it, his eyes narrowing as he glared my way. "What? You think I can't handle it?"

"Nope." I set a hand on his shoulder, getting him to look me square in the eyes and really listen. "You're a survivor. You're a tough sonuvabitch, Carl Grimes, and you've more than proven that where I'm concerned. I just worry about any of us, out there on our own."

"You're going to-"

"I was going to leave you with your dad, so he wasn't alone." I interrupted, tone dry. "Seeing as how he's unconscious and all. And yes, I was going out. By myself. Because I've literally had training on this shit."

"Walkers? You had training on those in spy school?"

He sounded so much like Shane, I laughed before it caught up to me. The smile slid from both of us as I shook my head. "No, not walkers. Just survival- alone- in general. Does it mean that much to you?"

"I'm not sitting around waiting to be saved," he said flatly. "I can take care of myself. Dad had me out there growing corn and taking care of pigs, without my gun, when I should have been looking for the Governor. When Dad should have been looking for him. I'm not a kid, and I'm not a farmer. I'm- I'm-"

"You're a Grimes," I finished for him. "I know. Don't knock what you learned and what you gained from being Farmer Ricky's assistant, kid. But get your Dad's gun. We'll make sure all of them are clean as they can be before we head out. No oil or anything, but we'll give them a good wipe down, make sure everything's in working order. You probably need the practice."

We disassembled, checked, and reassembled all three guns. The number of bullets between us made me cringe and add 'ammo' to the list of things we desperately needed- and the list of reasons to go back home and raid whatever wasn't destroyed- but Carl handled his weapon and Ricky's perfectly fine. He only fumbled on parts of Ricky's, which didn't surprise me all that much, really.

"Why is he so attached to this thing?" he muttered as he reloaded the handful of bullets Ricky had left into the barrel. "It's-"

"Old?" I supplied when he stopped talking. "I don't even know, kid. He's always had it, though. It's very Wild West of him."

"Cowboy style."

"I thought you were into superheroes, not John Wayne."

Carl shot me a look, brow furrowed. "Who's that?"

I stared at him for a full thirty seconds before I realized he was pulling my leg. "Just put your dad's gun back in his holster, damn it. Kid thinks he's got jokes," I muttered. "Make sure the front door and all those windows are secured. Don't want anything getting in here while he's… uh, sleeping."

I eyed Ricky's unconscious form, worry starting to grow as he remained in oblivion.

We split up, each taking a side of the road. I told him in no uncertain terms that if I did not see him on the road outside the house in ten minutes, I would come for him, and we would not split up again. He rolled his eyes.

Kids, man. And this one had the Grimes' stubbornness and attitude.

I cleared my first house and found little. No dead, but no good shit either. I grabbed a couple thick blankets to potentially turn into ponchos or something if it got too cold- there was a chill forming in the air in the mornings and evenings that said it probably wasn't a bad idea to be thinking ahead- and what little remained of canned or boxed food. The powdered mashed potatoes were a decent find.

There was a first aid kit under the bathroom sink that had Band-Aids and half a tube of long-expired triple antibiotic ointment. That was better than nothing, but not by much, and I really didn't want to think about Ricky's leg getting infected and what that might mean for his long-term survival odds.

And if he was still out cold when we got back, with no sign of stirring…

Noise came from the house Carl had taken, and I frowned, ready to head in there and do something drastic if he didn't reappear. But I'd told the kid I knew he was a survivor, and I had to trust him. I'd give him another minute or two, and then-

He opened the door, grinning like a damn fool. "Aunt Angel! Check it out!"

I waved him into silence, but then I saw the massive can in his hands.

Chocolate pudding.

We cleared two more houses each and headed back to Ricky, leaving the now-empty can of pudding in the street. Between the two of us, sitting on the roof, we'd killed it pretty quickly. Carl told me about the walker inside, how it had gotten his shoe, and gave me a look of triumph. He'd won something in that struggle, apparently, and I was glad I'd waited before charging to the rescue.

He needed to know he could do this. Especially since I was going back to the prison tomorrow, and I might not return.

We went back to check on Ricky and found him exactly where we'd left him. I smeared the expired antibiotic cream all over the gunshot on his leg, wiping what was left onto the worst of the mess on his face. It didn't make me feel much better, nor did the fact that he didn't stir while I did it.

"Carl." We'd returned to my spot upstairs at the window, where I'd settled in to keep watch as the sun started to go down. "We need to talk."

He looked up from the floor. He'd grabbed a comic from the boy's bedroom, and we'd both scoffed at the video games and other detritus of a childhood he wouldn't have. "What? I'll take first watch tonight. You didn't sleep any, did you?"

"I did, some, and you'll take second, not first." I shot him a look and he shrugged, rolling his eyes. "But no. Tomorrow. I'm going back."

He set the comic aside, shooting to his feet with a wild look in his eyes. "No! Why? It's gone!"

"I know. But we need things. Medicines for your dad. Ammo. More guns. It's all still there. The dead aren't going to raid the medicine cabinet or eat the bullets. I'll get what I can and get back here before sunset. It's not so far away I can't make that on my own."

"You won't come back."

I lifted an eyebrow at the harshness of his voice. "Says who?"

"Anyone with a damn brain cell!"

"Language, kid," I said mildly. "I've made it back from far worse things, you know."

"No." He shook his head, anger spilling out hard and harsh. "You won't. It's overrun. You'll go, and you'll look for Uncle Shane and for Daryl, and you'll find them. Because they're dead. Everyone's dead. And it's your fault, and Dad's, because you stopped looking for them! And then you'll be just like them, because there's too many of them there, and you'll be trying to put our people down and get yourself bit instead!"

His voice had risen with every word, until he yelled it at me, voice cracking. I rose from the windowsill and did the only thing I could think to do. I wrapped my arms around him in a hug, and Carl leaned into me, tears suddenly wracking his body.

"I'll come back," I told him when he shoved away, dashing at his eyes a few minutes later. "We need the supplies, kid. Your dad- I'm worried."

"Me, too," Carl said after drawing a deep breath. "But you can't- you can't go back there. You just can't."

"Ok," I said soothingly. "I'll think of something else, instead. Go get some rest, ok?"

He nodded, eyes on the ground and not meeting mine. "Wake me up for watch, Aunt Angel."

"Sure thing."

I didn't wake him up. In the night, I heard Carl yelling at his dad, the fear and anger back in his voice, but I didn't go down to him and he didn't come up to me. Whatever it was he'd needed to get out of his system, it seemed to have purged him, because he was still sound asleep when I slipped down the stairs the next morning after sunrise.

I grabbed a couple of backpacks we'd found and took a look at the supplies amassed on the kitchen counter after yesterday's adventures. It wasn't much, and certainly wasn't enough. But I started sorting through them, splitting them between the bags so that food and water and medicine were in both. If one got lost, we still had some of everything in the other.

"Harley."

I whirled, hand dropping to my baton. "Shitballs, Ricky!" I hissed at the ghost of my brother standing in the doorway. "What the fuck?"

He raised a hand in the universal gesture of 'hey, don't kill me'. "It's just me."

"No shit. But 'just you' has been passed the fuck out for twenty-four hours. Maybe more," I snapped, glaring at him. "And then you sneak up on me? Shit. Could have shot you. Damn it."

"Sorry for being alive," he said dryly.

"Shut up." I rounded the table to look at him more closely, eyes narrowed. "Still look like shit. No fever, it doesn't seem. How do you feel?"

"Like I've been unconscious for twenty-four hours."

"Smartass," I muttered. "Seriously, go sit down. Where's the kid?"

"Bathroom," Ricky said, turning to head back to the couch where he'd been. He looked about dead on his feet, but he was on his feet and that's what mattered.

I grabbed a bottle of water and the cereal as I followed him into the living room. Carl joined us there, smiling at me as I shoved Ricky into a seat and forced the water into his hands. I smiled back, but we weren't out of the woods yet.

I was going for supplies. And I was going back to the prison to get them.

We were arguing about it when someone knocked on the door.

Chapter Text

Ricky went to one side; I went to the other. He shifted the curtain and eased up to look out.

I'd never forget the look on his face. He dropped down to the floor, sitting with his gun lowered, a smile splitting his battered face wide open. "It's for you," he told Carl, who looked as confused as I was.

The kid and I exchanged a glance, something in Carl's eyes telling me we were both wondering if Ricky had gone to crazy town again. I decided to risk a look as well, and outside the door, sword in hand, stood goddamn Michonne. "Son of a bitch."

"Who is it?"

I started undoing the kid's game cord knot. "It's your other favorite person."

"Uncle Shane?"

Pain shot through me and my hands stilled. Ricky reached over, gently moving me out of the way to finish what I'd started and let her in. He opened the door wide, staring at Michonne like she was the sun come up after the longest night.

"Not Uncle Shane, kid," I managed. I couldn't muster up more than a hint of a smile, but I met Michonne's eyes as Carl flew to her arms. "Hey. How'd you make it out?"

We swapped stories and discussed plans. Michonne's survival was, I realized rapidly, perfect. Not just because she was one of my people, and any of them who made it out was wonderful, but because she'd found us, here.

I could leave her with Carl and Ricky, another pair of hands and eyes, and I could go back knowing they were safe.

In the end, the plan for the day became to leave Ricky resting at the house while the three of us went and hunted down some supplies. Carl's hard anger had lifted somewhat with Michonne's presence, a return of that fickle bastard hope I wished I could share in. But I couldn't.

I left them to go on my own, with promises to Carl's knowing eyes that I'd be back and I'd be fine. We'd meet up back home before sunset. They agreed, but I didn't think I was fooling either of them. I didn't much care at that point.

I slung the empty backpack into place after hugging my nephew, checked my gun, my knife, and my baton, and set off toward one of the houses like that was my destination. Instead, I went straight through the front door to the back, barely pausing to glance around.

They'd find little in these houses. But I knew where we'd find what we really needed.

Carl, Ricky, and I had limped our way to those houses in a day, after spending several hours arguing and fighting that bastard. I figured I could make it in far less, even accounting for potential obstacles.

I ended up being correct. The threats on the road were few and far between, easily avoided and easily handled, and I reached the bullet-ridden sign warning people not to pick up hitchhikers because they could be escaping inmates in a few short hours.

I slowed there, sipping from the water bottle I'd brought along and mentally preparing myself for what I was going to see.

It wasn't enough.

The dead had reclaimed what we'd fought and died to take from them. The filled the yard, the courtyard, the halls. The rubble of the tower I'd made my own and the walkway where I'd taken my shot a second too late added to the horror show of fallen humanity in front of my eyes.

I stared, feet unable to move, mind unable to do more than watch the ruin, fascinated and devastated all at once.

How had we thought we had any hope, I wondered, of taking back the world from the dead? They ruled. We just survived.

Until we didn't.

I tried to get in. I slipped up to the mangled fence the tank had run over, gunfire echoing in my ears along with the Governor's voice calling my brother's name. Tom Ford lingered in the air, pain my body remembered when my mind tried to forget shivering through my body.

"I have to get in!"

My own voice shocked me, ringing out into the moans and snarls of the walkers and the whispers in my ears. I shuddered at the sound of it, the brokenness; the panic-stricken wildness. I hadn't meant to speak. Hadn't meant to draw the dead to me.

But they turned at the sound, and I searched the faces frantically, hoping I wouldn't know them. Hoping, maybe, that I would.

I fought. One by one, they fell. Baton to the head and brain matter sprayed through the air; knife up under another's chin. Kick one back and grab his friend, drag her close. Slip the point of the baton into the base of her neck and twist, then shove her away to tangle up the next two.

I gained ground slowly, inch by inch, dead by dead.

I didn't know them.

I stopped looking at them.

Chapter Text

Sanity crept in, little by little. I gained ground only to lose it; killed one and two more turned in their place.

By the time I accepted the futility of my actions I was struggling to catch my breath, wearing a nice coating of blood, guts, and offal, and sobbing. I didn't even realize I was sobbing until I stopped killing the dead and started screaming wordlessly with the tears.

It only took a moment for me to remember that wasn't the best idea when surrounded- because I was now far enough into the yard to be surrounded, though not so far as to make continuing forward worth the time and effort it was costing me- by the dead. I stopped screaming, at least out loud, and turned on my heels, putting the wreckage of the prison we'd made a home behind me.

Then I turned back, staring at it, staring at the dead.

I could stay here, I thought even as I killed one who came too close to making that reality. I could stay here, with my boys lost somewhere in this devastation. I could become the hungry dead.

Wasn't I already?

I stood locked in place for too long. I couldn't decide between living and dying, and part of me said that was choice enough. If I didn't want to live, why not surrender? Why keep fighting through the pain, the terror, the heartache that my life had turned into?

But I'd made a promise. I'd told my nephew I'd be back, and he'd lost enough already. How could I let myself die here and put more loss on his shoulders? Leave him with these same lingering questions that had me searching the faces stumbling close to me once again.

Did I hope I saw them? Or did I hope I didn't?

How did I still have it in me to hope for anything at all?

I stayed frozen. I killed the walkers as they came too close. I didn't see anyone I knew in their dead eyes and hungry snarls.

Finally, finally, my feet allowed me to move. Somehow, in the mindless killing, my mind made itself up.

I'd survived.

I'd survived the caves. I'd survived the end of the world. I'd survived the Governor's attempts at destroying my spirit. I'd survived everything this fucked up life had thrown at me so far, and I didn't have it in me to surrender to death without a fight.

Even for Shane Walsh. Even for Daryl Dixon.

I made my way out. It was faster than heading in, and it didn't take long before I was climbing over the ruined fences and free.

I paused when I saw the body.

It had been partially eaten, as all the bodies had. Large chunks of flesh had been ripped from his arms, his legs. His stomach had been shredded to get to the organs within, and little remained. But his face-

His eyes stared, open and somehow still angry. I stared back, standing over his cannibalized corpse, and contemplated killing him again. Not that I could, since the bullet hole right between his eyes said he'd never have second life for me to take.

"You won, in the end," I told him, voice raw and ragged. "Governor of your kingdom. You destroyed everything."

I dropped to my knees beside his body, my blood-coated knife in hand. I considered what would be best, easiest, most likely to get Ricky looking at me with concern. But I was taking a part of him with me, as a reminder.

It wasn't over unless they were dead. All of them. Never leave an enemy alive behind you. Never believe you were safe, even for a moment.

I settled on the knuckles. I dug the point of my knife into one of his hands, one of the hands that had ripped at my clothes, hand traced the scars on my skin and struck my face. I slid the knife up, sideways, down. Twisted.

Then I reached my fingers into the wound, gripped the bone, and tugged it free. It glistened, covered in blood long cold, and I thought about fingers and worse sliding into the tattered places of slashed and broken flesh while I screamed.

I stood up, knucklebone clenched in my fist, and walked into the trees.

I wanted a shower. I wanted a drink. I wanted a drink in the shower.

Not that the water was working back at the house we'd set up as base, but I could still find a change of clothes at least. Maybe a pond or puddle or something on the way back, to get the worst of the blood and guts out of my hair and off my hands.

As for the drink, well. That wasn't likely to happen any time soon.

I found a small stream on my route back; scrubbed up as best I could. I cleaned my weapons and the bone I'd claimed as a prize from the Governor. I took one of the laces from my boots and cut a length off of it, just enough to string the knucklebone on and wrap it around my wrist. I tied it off, retied my boots- one a little further down the tongue than the other, but it would still do- and continued on my way.

It had been a wasted trip. I'd gained nothing by going back; nothing but pain and hatred and the bone now resting on my wrist.

No supplies. No closure. No certainty.

Fool's errand, I chided myself. And wasted an entire day on it.

The sun was starting to sink toward the horizon. Not heading into sunset yet, but far past noon and approaching evening at a rapid pace. I hoped Michonne and Carl had better luck than I did, and that Ricky had done as instructed and gotten rest.

Maybe it was paranoia, maybe it was instinct, but I approached on a winding path that used the other houses as cover, not wanting to move in plain sight down the road. I realized almost immediately that it was a damn good choice, when a man stepped onto the porch of the house I'd left my brother in.

"Son of a bitch," I whispered, staring hard. "What now?"

Chapter Text

I rubbed the knucklebone on my wrist as I watched the house where I'd left my injured brother. Guilt for being gone and the devastation I'd just come back from urged me to start shooting; to take down the asshole standing on the porch bouncing a ball against the railing while he whistled, and then keep going.

There were others in there. I heard yelling, arguing. Porch Asshole turned and yelled back.

I could start with him. Single shot, center of the forehead. Or I could slip closer, using the cover. Get the drop on him with my baton to his throat and kill him nice and slow. Ask some questions about Ricky, Carl, Michonne. Either way, I could clear the house without being detected. It wouldn't be the first time I'd gone into a complex solo in broad daylight.

But instinct and training held back the savage hungry for blood and answers. If Ricky was inside, if Carl and Michonne had come back and been swept up, going in blind would be nearly guaranteeing someone died. I might have done daylight infiltrations, but never without plenty of intel.

So I watched, turning into ice. Patient as a spider in a web, immobile, luring the fly in- that's what I became in my hidden place among the leaves. I watched and I waited.

It didn't take long to determine that my people weren't inside. Porch Asshole went in and more shouting ensued.

Then it got really interesting.

Up until then, they'd been arguing, bickering, staking claim on things they found and bitching about someone getting to it first. Abruptly, the shouts became real. Urgent and angry, they flooded the house with adrenaline and fear as sunset crept closer.

Gunshots echoed from within, and then the lot of them boiled out of the house and into the yard, looking grim and pissed with Porch Asshole- easily determined to be the leader- at their head.

They yelled about someone being dead, someone being nearly so, and Porch Asshole told them to search everywhere.

That, I decided, was my cue to leave. Especially since I figured I knew who'd made one of theirs dead inside that house. Couldn't take my brother anywhere these days.

The only problem was figuring out where my people had run off to. I glared in the general direction of the ruckus being caused by the roving band of men- never a good sign in my mind when a group consisted solely of men- and spiraled out further from the house, trying to pick up tracks or sign. Ricky's boots left a distinct imprint, after all, especially with his limp. That's part of how Michonne had found us, after she got over her depression episode and killed a herd of walkers.

Couldn't say I blamed her for that, if I was honest. I'd just done something very similar, after all, if a bit delayed.

But they'd been covering their tracks, probably because Ricky had left a mess behind and he'd known it. Only problem was, that left me a bit in the dark.

Or I was, until I saw it.

I stopped dead where I was and stared, shaking my head. "Had to be Carl," I muttered to myself. "No way Ricky would- had to be Carl."

A feather sat on the side of the road, held in place by a rock. Above it was a circle, which looked rather suspiciously like a halo. Below the feather was an arrow formed by three small sticks. I tossed the sticks in several directions, moved the rock and freed the feather, and scuffed at the dirt halo, muttering over how obvious that had been. Anyone could have figured out it was a message, damn it. Might as well have written 'we went this way' and called it a day.

But it made me laugh, just a little. Feathers and a halo, I thought as I headed in the direction they'd indicated. Because I was Aunt Angel.

Daryl popped into my mind, a perfect image of the last time I'd seen him- tattered wings on his back as he turned to face the next threat, right before the explosion had thrown me off my feet.

They left a few more feathers, some sketched in the dirt and some real and pinned by rocks. More subtle than the first one, for which I was grateful, but still woefully detectable by anyone with half an eye for these things. I scuffed the drawings and set the loose feathers free and hoped that'd be enough to keep the men behind me off our trail, if they bothered to look further than the first few houses. Never could tell with men like that, I knew. Either they'd hold a grudge and try to track us down, or they'd forget about it when we weren't easily found.

I hoped it was the latter; but then, I'd already decided to head back and kill them all after I found my people. If any of them had been hurt-

I frowned at the dirt in front of me. This time it wasn't a feather, but a clearly defined boot print, turned to the side, away from the road I'd been following. I glanced around, adjusted my grip on my knife, and turned off the road and into the trees.

It didn't take long for me to find their camp, which was good, since it was already dark under the trees and heading into dark everywhere rapidly. I hadn't been looking forward to searching the road for more signs in the night. But I was severely disappointed in their security. They didn't notice my approach, but all of them had weapons in hand in seconds when I stepped out from behind a tree. "Don't shoot; it'll attract the men."

"Aunt Angel!"

The relief in the kid's voice was palpable, and he practically flew over to throw himself against me for a hug. "Hey, kid. Have some fun while I was gone? Or was it all your dad?"

Ricky sighed. "Might have been Michonne."

"Naw, if they'd had a girl in the house I'd have heard about it. Besides, killed him in the john. That was a Grimes, right enough." I kept my tone light, but I had a feeling they could still tell I was pissed and ready to go hunting. "I got back and they were in our house. Listened and watched to make sure you all weren't in there. Learned some things when they found the walker, then had to make tracks when they started searching around for you guys. Stupid clear sign you left, by the way. I cleaned it up."

"We had to make sure you could find us," Ricky said with a shrug. "Feathers were Carl's idea."

"Oh, I had no doubt," I said dryly. I settled down with them, stretching my legs out and reaching for my toes. Face in my knees as my back loosened up, I asked what happened.

Ricky had been asleep in the bedroom when they came in. He'd hidden under the bed until two of them had gotten into a fight, then made his way into a bathroom while trying to escape, where he'd stumbled on a man with his pants literally around his ankles, taking a shit.

Ricky had strangled him, stolen his coat, and gone out the window. But he'd overheard them talking about finding Michonne's shirt and how they hadn't had a woman to share in a long time. He'd managed to intercept Michonne and Carl coming back up the road in plain sight right before they'd have been discovered, and they'd booked it out of there.

Then they turned to me. "Your turn," Ricky said grimly. "Where have you been?"

They were angry. Especially Carl. I ignored their anger and focused on making plans for the morning. That pissed them off worse, especially since said plans included going back- alone- and killing Porch Asshole and all of his buddies.

Ricky and I ended up nose to nose over it, hissing at each other in the dark while Michonne stood nearby and watched with amused eyes and Carl looked like he wanted to bang his head into the nearest tree.

"Never leave an enemy at your back, Ricky," I snarled. "I learned that overseas, and if I'd forgotten, he reminded me!" I held up my wrist, jabbing the knucklebone on it toward my brother.

"He who? What the- Angel. Is that someone's-"

"It's the Governor's," I spat. "I took it."

"And what exactly are you going to do with it?"

"Use it to remind myself what happens when I fuck up. I'm going back tomorrow. I'll take care of them. We'll fortify the house and let you finish resting up. Then we'll spend some time searching the area- systematically- for any more of our people who might have gotten out." I turned away, mind whirling with what we'd need to do and how to do it. "Then-"

"No."

It was Carl who'd spoken, voice soft but decisive. "Pardon you?"

"No," he repeated, his jaw set and as stubborn as his father's. "You're not doing that. We're not doing that. We'll keep moving. Find a better place to rest. Leave them be. They're trouble. We don't need it. But they're people, too."

I shoved a hand through my hair and considered screaming.

In the end, I lost. We didn't go back. We went on. And when Ricky saw the sign, the message, he looked like he'd been given the golden ticket.

Terminus. Sanctuary for All. Community for All. Those Who Arrive, Survive.

"I have a bad feeling about this," I said slowly.

I lost that one, too.

Chapter Text

"Ricky, it's a bad idea."

"Ignoring it would be a worse one."

I ground my teeth, staring at the sign, and tried one more time. All evidence of futility aside. "Ricky-"

"Angel, come on. It's a place. Sanctuary. And these signs, they're probably all over. If any of our people-"

"I'd hope any of our people who made it out of that- not that any of them did, I keep telling you- would have the sense to avoid places that use advertising," I snarled back, pushing away the grief at the thought of our people. "We didn't, and we got wrecked. If they are, they're either stupid, stupid strong, or luring people in for a reason."

"When did you get so paranoid?" Ricky asked, eyes looking mournful and intense.

I snorted. "Third grade. I know what I'm talking about."

"Maybe," he acknowledged. For a moment, I thought he'd have sense enough to see it my way, to do what I was suggesting. "But we have to try. We have to check it out. And see if any of ours are there."

I couldn't keep arguing with that, no matter how badly I wanted to. I knew no one else had made it out of that place. They couldn't have. It was a miracle- or a testament to my survival skills- that Ricky, Carl, and I had. Michonne had been on the outside, at least, behind the madness. She'd had more of a chance, and even she said it was close.

There was no way.

Shane, Daryl, Merle-

I shut the stream of faces down and leveled another glare at my stubborn-ass brother. "Fine. If you're determined to be stupid and reckless, we're at least going to be smart about it. We're doing it my way," I said briskly, ignoring the amused look from Carl. "We go. We stay away from main roads, entrances. We scout- for as long as I say. Then when we make a move, I'm in charge. It's that, or I knock all three of you out, steal a car, and drive as far as I can until you wake up. Then do it again."

Carl lost his battle with keeping a straight face. Ricky was grinning openly, and even Michonne had cracked a faint smile.

But Ricky nodded. "We'll do it your way. You're right; you know what you're doing. We'd be stupid not to listen to you."

"Well, you are stupid, because you're not listening," I muttered. "But whatever. If we're going, let's get moving. Follow these train tracks, I guess?"

"Yeah. We follow these tracks."

"This is such a bad idea."

Ricky shot me a look as I fell in step with him. "You said that already."

"Shut up. It is."

We followed the damn train tracks. I wasn't happy about it, but I brought up the rear of our little band, keeping an eye out for any sign that the assholes from before were on our trail. I rubbed the knucklebone on my wrist and regretted not staying right where I was and finishing them off from the shadows before chasing after Carl and Ricky.

But that choice had been made, and I couldn't redo it. All I could do was watch our backs, and watch in amusement as Carl and Michonne balanced on the rails, moving forward at a snail's pace to see who got the last Big Kat bar.

I knew damn well no matter who won they'd split it, but it was fun to watch. Especially when Ricky- who was talking to himself up ahead- finally noticed what was happening and met my eyes with a smile.

Michonne got too clever, tried to scare Carl off balance, and lost hers instead. They split the bar, as I fully expected, and I waited until they'd finished it to hop on one of the rails myself.

"When did she turn into Legolas?" I heard Carl mutter. "Not fair, Aunt Angel!"

"Not fair?" I turned back with an incredulous look. "How is it not fair? I didn't make any bets!"

He frowned, confused, and I shrugged. I hopped off the rail ahead of them, waiting until they caught up to shift the tone to serious again. "So. Food and water."

Ricky nodded. "Food and water."

Water we found easily enough. Food was, of course, far harder. We snared a rabbit, but splitting a single rabbit four ways didn't go far. Within a day, we were all starving. It sucked, but it wasn't the first time we'd been this hungry.

But it was the first time in a while. And all it did was remind me what we'd built and what we'd lost.

What I'd lost us, by not making sure that bastard went down before any of this could have happened.

Michonne sat down beside me, where I'd chosen my spot to overlook as much of our little camp as possible. There was no fire- we hadn't had anything to cook or boil tonight, so there hadn't been any point- which meant I could see clearly even in the dim light of the half-moon. It was amazing how fast eyes could adjust to the dark when unspoiled by electricity or firelight.

"I've got watch. You should get some sleep," I told her.

"You should take your own advice. Have you slept since you went back?"

I scoffed softly, an annoyed blow of air from my nose. "Of course. Humans can only go a few days without it, and they get useless real fast. I catch a few hours here and there, enough to keep sharp. I don't sleep much when I'm on the job."

"On the job?"

Her tone was gentle, but it still felt prying. "Keeping Carl alive is my job now. Ricky if he'll let me, but Carl? Carl has to survive this."

I felt more than saw her small nod. "Did Ju-"

"No." I cut her off, firm and hard.

Silence fell, and I wondered why she was sitting with me instead of getting the sleep she should have been. I rubbed at the bone on my wrist, a bad habit I'd been forming and should probably stop, but I didn't bother to try.

"His?" she asked, voice no more than a whisper.

I grunted an acknowledgement.

"You killed him."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't really a statement, either. "And?" I asked, harsher than I'd meant.

"He needed killing. I wanted to do it. For Andrea."

Michonne had rescued her, been on the road all that long winter with her. Andrea had sided with Philip, Michonne with us. Then Andrea had tried to get to us, and Philip had caught her, taken her back to his torture room- same one he'd held me in- and left her tied to a chair in the room with his slowly-dying scientist.

The scientist had bitten her when he'd turned. Andrea had put herself down. Michonne had stayed with her. It was why Michonne had never stopped searching for him, even when the rest of us- even when I- had.

"I shouldn't have stopped looking," I told her. "That's why I have this. To remind myself. Don't leave an enemy at your back. Whatever it takes, make sure they're dead."

"Everything went cold. There was no way to find him. You, me, anyone- we couldn't have, until he stirred again. This, all of it- it isn't on you."

I shook my head. "Maybe. Maybe not. Hershel is."

"How?" She sounded perplexed, genuinely baffled.

I shrugged one shoulder, eyes roaming the trees surrounding us for any hint of movement. I wanted something to fight. Something to do. Something to get the adrenaline running and push away all this sadness, all this grief, all this self-doubt and self-loathing. I wanted to be the Blind Angel, the angel of death, but all there was for me in this moment was Harley.

Broken, guilty, useless Harley, who'd given up looking for the biggest threat to her family and lost nearly everything in the process. Harley, who'd fired her shot a moment too late. Harley, who couldn't even go back and find the bodies of her loved ones they way she'd promised to.

"I didn't fire fast enough," I told Michonne. "A second faster, and-"

"And he'd still have been killed," Michonne interrupted. "By Philip or one of his people. Hershel couldn't move quickly. The only reason I survived was being fast on my feet. I'd have tried to save him, but we'd have both died in the process. It wasn't your fault. None of it was on your shoulders. Certainly not yours alone."

I shrugged, rubbing the knucklebone and trying not to think about any of it anymore.

"Shane made it out. I'm pretty sure."

I jerked at the sound of his name, any ice filling me turning to a flood. I shook my head, mute denial.

"I saw tracks. They lead in a similar direction, like yours and Rick's. I think it was him. I thought I'd find him with you, after- after I got my head out of my ass and stopped wanting to die."

I could relate to that, and to her mindless shamble with the dead until she killed them all. It had been rather similar to my time in the prison yard, after all. But-

"When he wasn't with you, I was going to have us look for him. He'd have seen the signs, too. He'll be at Terminus."

"Stop," I finally managed, voice harsh and cracking through the night air louder than I'd intended. "Michonne, stop. He didn't. He's dead, like the rest of them. We're the only ones."

"You don't know that."

"I do. I have to. I can't-" I cut off, swallowed, shook my head. Tried again. "I can't live with the hope. If he's dead, I can keep moving. If I don't know, and I carry that hope- I'll stop. I won't be able to keep on. Shane, Daryl. They're dead. They have to be. I'm going to get some sleep. Take watch."

I didn't give her time to answer or argue, rising and moving away from the rest of them to the tree I'd already picked out. Ricky rose on his arm as I passed, but I ignored him too.

Chapter Text

Another day of walking passed, and we left the tracks to search for a campsite that evening. The vehicle was long abandoned, doors wide open, and probably nothing resembling supplies to be found inside. But there weren't bodies or walkers either, and it'd be cover enough for a couple of us to sleep securely at a time.

Ricky and Michonne had the same idea, clearly, and we risked a small fire because of the chill in the air.

I scored another rabbit to share between us, and swept the perimeter of the camp again as Michonne and Ricky sat close together, talking about the worst meals they'd ever eaten. Something had my back up, a restless feeling that something was wrong that I couldn't put my finger on.

"Aunt Angel?"

Carl's soft call had me wrenching my eyes away from the darkness I'd been staring into, trying to find the source of my lingering unease. "Hey. Why aren't you in the car sleeping?"

He'd been asleep when I started my sweep, after all, stretched out in the backseat with his sheriff's hat over his face. It was such a military thing to do, dropping off like that, it had made my heart hurt. Kid wasn't in the service. He shouldn't have those habits.

But in this world, we all had them, it seemed.

"Couldn't sleep. Well. Couldn't stay asleep. Come with me?"

I turned, shot him a look. "Why?"

He rolled his eyes, all drama and annoyance. "I want to ask you something."

Shit, I thought. This was a trap and I knew it. Ricky had already tried to convince me to go crash out. Michonne, too. And now Carl was using our old code for 'I need to talk about a threat my dad is being damn stubborn about'. I was being ganged up on.

"Seriously?" I whispered. "Now?"

He nodded. "It's about those men. The ones in the house."

Shit, damn, and ever-loving fuck. I was so being manipulated. But I sighed heavily and gestured toward the SUV. "Fine. Let's go. In you get."

I saw Ricky's smug ass smile before he managed to get his face under control and flipped him off as I settled into the front seat, back turned and placed against the door.

We sat in silence as I waited for the kid to spill. He fidgeted in the backseat, stretched out again, and I suppressed a smile as the silence turned tense and uncomfortable- for him, anyway.

I'd been correct; it was a trap. Manipulation. He didn't want to talk about shit, he just- like the other two- wanted me in here to get what they called 'real rest'. I'd been resting as much as I needed, damn it. But I was here now, and I was going to make the kid suffer for it.

At least a little bit.

He sighed. "Ok, so I didn't really want to talk about those assholes."

"No shit, Sherlock."

He huffed a laugh at my dry tone. "You mad?"

"I was fully aware I was being manipulated, kid. But something is bothering you. Spill."

He leaned up on his elbow, studying me through the seats. "Not bothering. I'm just… wondering, I guess."

Caution had filled his voice and I felt myself tense. "Wondering what, exactly?"

He hesitated, but spat it out all in a rush. "Your scars, Aunt Angel. You don't talk about them, and we don't ask because it's not polite, but…"

"But you're asking anyway?" I filled in the silence when he'd trailed off.

"No," he said slowly. "More… saying if you need to talk to someone, you can talk to me. You can talk to me about anything."

It stabbed me right into the heart, the pure sweetness of the offer. In it, I heard Shane- his tone, his inflection- and my throat closed around the pain. "Thanks, kid," was all I could manage. "I'm ok, though."

"No, you're not. You're faking it and trying not to feel anything. You're trying to be closed off and hard, like you were when everything happened and you had to leave my dad behind. Before you fell in love with Daryl and Uncle Shane. But it's not working, because you're different now."

My fingers knotted into a fist around the knucklebone, squeezing hard. I poured everything into that grip to keep my body still and my voice steady. He was a kid, I reminded myself. Just a kid in this crazy world, who'd experienced too much loss already.

"Thing is, Aunt Angel." He shifted, gesturing one-handed, a shadow moving in the dark. "I get it. After Mom, I was- not good. I was trying to be you. But Dad brought me back. You helped, but it was Dad. I didn't think there was any coming back from that, from- from shooting my mom in the head so she wouldn't turn. From killing that kid in the woods. But there was. I came back. You came back, too. You can do it again."

I tried to speak, but no sound came out. I swallowed hard, licked my lips, tried again. "I don't think I can, kid."

"You can. But maybe you don't want to. Not yet, anyway. Get some sleep, ok? You need it. You've been missing things."

That stung, a whip-crack across my cheek like a branch slapping as I ran past. Had I? If anyone else had said it, I'd be pissed, offended, and call bullshit. But Carl was different. Carl had been different since that day, my hands bloody and his sister crying and his eyes as cold and hard as my own over the body of my sister in law. If Carl said it, it was true.

Damn the kid, I thought. But I shifted to a more comfortable position, crossed my arms over my chest, and closed my eyes. I'd sleep. It wouldn't fix anything. It wouldn't change the fact that there'd be no bringing me back this time. But I'd sleep.

"Oh, dearie me. You screwed up, asshole."

I shot awake, hand going straight for my gun as a voice I didn't know shattered the silence. Out the windshield, men held guns to Ricky and Michonne's heads, and-

More surrounded us. I stayed still, holding up a hand to Carl down low, where the movement wouldn't be seen. Don't move, kid, I thought hard, staring at the asshole from the house.

Goddamn it. God fucking shit bastard damn it! I should have killed them, I thought, wild and grim as I stared at the gun to my brother's temple. I should have killed them, just like I said. Just like I wanted to do. But no, I just had to listen to my do-good brother, and now- now I was stuck in a vehicle with the kid, and if I made a move, they'd spot us both.

What the hell did I do? I could keep Carl in place, come out gun up, and tell him to drop it. More of them than me, but if I got him off Ricky's head, my brother could handle it. Same for Michonne.

I ran odds rapidly while my hands moved slowly, steadily, surely as I adjusted my grip on my weapon, planted my feet, gripped the door handle. "Stay," I breathed, no more than an idea of the word. But Carl heard me. I knew he would.

And I shoved the door open. I was on my feet, gun trained on the one who had Ricky. "Drop it, motherfucker."

"What is this? Well, well. We were wondering where you were, princess!" he declared, grinning wide and friendly as his eyes shifted to me.

His gun, sadly, didn't move an inch. Ricky's eyes met mine, stared hard, and then widened fractionally.

Shit, I thought, whirling just in time to see some fat, grinning bastard fling open the door and grab Carl. He struggled, he fought, but there was no help for it. Kid was nothing compared to that motherfucker, and cold coiled hard in my gut at the way he sniffed at the kid's hair as he put the knife to his throat.

"Well, shit, princess. You tried. I'll give you that. You tried real hard, but it just wasn't enough. Hand over that gun, now, or someone gets it. Probably this guy, but I really don't want to take him down just yet."

One of the men watching reached for the gun in my hands, and with the knife to Carl's throat, the guns to Ricky and Michonne, I didn't have a choice. Not fast enough to take them all. And I wasn't willing to risk losing Ricky or Carl. Not now. Not when I had no one else left.

I let my gun be taken.

Chapter Text

"Well, today is the day of reckoning, sir. Restitution. A balancing of the whole damn universe. Shit, and I was thinking of turning in for the night on New Year's Eve!"

I stood very still, waiting for my moment. My baton was in reach, but with that gun against Ricky's head and the knife to Carl's throat, I wasn't making any moves without a distraction. Patience was the name of the game here, and patience would pay off. It always did, eventually.

And this one seemed inclined to talk. That was always good. But under the bluster and dramatics, there was steel- he was a dangerous animal with a thin shred of civility keeping him in check. But rip that off-

"Now, who's gonna count down the ball dropper with me? Ten Mississippi! Nine Mississippi!"

I focused on his shoulders, where the first sign of movement would be. Ignore the face, ignore the eyes. Don't even focus on the hands- could be a kick coming my way, after all. It was the shoulders, the chest that betrayed the movement.

"Eight Mississippi!"

"Joe!"

The world ended- again- with the sound of a voice. I turned, slow-motion, everything freezing into silence. I saw the leader- Joe- moving his lips, clearly speaking to the person who couldn't have called his name. That single word, in that voice- it was impossible.

But it was true.

He stood in the dark, crossbow on his back, the strap gripped tightly in one hand. He and Joe, they kept talking, but I didn't hear a word of it. How could I? What did it matter, whatever they were saying?

Daryl was alive. He'd made it out of there. He was fucking alive.

"But Merle said-"

Daryl's eyes shot to mine, interrupting whatever he'd been saying to Joe. Probably pleading for our lives, which maybe I should have been helping with, or at the very least paying attention to. But he was impossible.

And Dixon blue eyes locked on mine, his lips still moving as he plead his case, and the world rushed back just as it had disappeared.

"You want blood. I get it," Daryl said, weariness in his voice. "Take it from me."

What in the absolute fuck was this idiot thinking? I wondered, fury ripping through my body in a wave. Absolutely not. Whatever this was, I refused to allow it to happen, because Dixon should be dead but he wasn't.

"This man killed our friend. You say they're good people. See, now that right there, is- is a lie. It's a lie!" Joe's voice had lost the shroud of civility, the feral underneath blazing through as his men closed in on Daryl.

Blows began to rain down and I screamed out an insult in a language I didn't speak, the worst insult I'd ever heard in guttural syllables that I'd picked up in the darkness of a cave a world away. Joe turned from Daryl to me, and the gun wasn't pressed to Ricky's head for a moment.

But the knife was still on Carl's throat, the fat bastard laughing behind me at my obvious distress. Joe shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips as he watched me and spoke to Ricky. He hauled my brother up to his feet, bringing him in close and pressing the gun back to his forehead.

"It was me! It was just me!" My brother's voice had gone hoarse and ragged, a sound that meant bad things would be happening to bad people, and I'd get to be a part of it. I met his eyes, saw the red rim to them that I'd seen when Lori had died and Ricky started killing walkers as some kind of fucked-up therapy.

"Now, that's the truth. That's not some damn lie! Look, we can settle this. We're reasonable men. First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death. Then we'll have the girls. Then the boy. Then I'm gonna shoot you, and we'll be square."

That was it, I thought as ice flooded my veins. That was the mistake. Behind me, I could hear Carl crying, screaming, and the fat fucker laughing. The bastard holding me went in for a feel, chuckling a little to himself as well, and Joe smiled.

Joe smiled.

Blows landed, grunts of pain and effort from where the man who couldn't have survived fought for his life, for ours. Carl sobbed. Michonne sat still as a statue, waiting for her moment, and my brother's eyes met mine.

I bared my teeth.

Ricky didn't hesitate.

In the screaming, the chaos that followed, I grabbed the arm of the asshole holding me, not bothering to see if Ricky went fully wild and swallowed that pound of flesh he'd bitten from Joe's throat or if he spit it out and went for a second bite. I had my own battles to fight, and my brother's savagery, while satisfying, wasn't my top priority at the moment.

Ricky, Michonne, they'd take care of themselves and give Dixon a hand. They'd be fine.

I pulled, turned, twisted the arm and let it go, heading for a better target on my prisoner who'd thought he was my jailer. I shot my hand forward, fingers sinking into the strange, gelatinous feeling of an eyeball as I reached for my baton with the other hand. Screaming, screaming echoed all around- behind me, in front of me.

I felt the moment the eye burst, and the asshole went down, the pain too much.

I jabbed the point Merle had helped me modify onto the baton through the other eye and into his brain. Now he wouldn't have to tolerate it, I thought impassively as I shook blood from the blade and snapped the baton open with a practiced jerk of my hand.

I took two half-running steps toward where the fat fucker was on top of my nephew, pawing at his belt, trying to get his pants down. He laughed, laughed at Carl's struggles, laughed at Carl's fear, and Tom Ford filled my nose. He was a child. A child.

Absolutely not.

I swung the baton up, gripped it in both hands like a baseball bat, and took my finest swing straight at the fuck's head. The thunk was satisfying, sending him reeling, but it wasn't enough to kill him. Or at least not to kill him enough.

I kicked at him to get him off Carl even as the kid scrambled free, going for his own gun, his own knife. "Help your dad. Help Daryl," I snarled, eyes fixed on the dazed lump of flesh trying to get to his feet. "I've got this one, kid."

I moved in, taking up a batter's stance, and smiled as I landed the next blow.

By the time I was satisfied, there was nothing left of his head. I studied my handiwork, trying to decide if it looked more like a watermelon had exploded or a rabbit had.

Watermelon.

I turned, registering the silence where there'd been fighting noises before I started in on the fucker who thought he could rape a child and live. There were five of them left, their hands raised in surrender, their weapons on the ground at their feet.

Daryl watched me from a bloodied, bruised face, expressionless and waiting.

I didn't bother asking, or speaking. Not this time. This time, it was my way, as it should have been all along.

They didn't try to stop me.

Chapter Text

By the time I finished, I was breathing hard, jaw locked and teeth bared. I stared blindly down at the dead man at my feet, the dead man with a puddle of blood where his face used to be, and I screamed. Primal; broken and harsh; it ripped from somewhere deep inside, somewhere I hadn't known existed. Whatever it was that fueled the deaths, the scream, the incomprehensible rage coursing through my veins, it wasn't sated. It wasn't over. It was a well, deep and dark, and I would drown in it, bathed in blood and hatred.

These men, these- these animals-

"Harley."

No more than a whisper, my name from him was as broken as my scream. And as full of something, everything.

I shuddered, still unable to tear my eyes from the corpse or force my head to turn, to take in the sight that should have been impossible. He wasn't there. It had to be someone else, some random good Samaritan who didn't want to see women and children raped and a man shot to death, who'd intervened on our behalf. And I'd made him into Dixon, in my mind, because something about this encounter had finally snapped whatever was left of my tenuous sanity.

And about time, too. Honestly, I was surprised it had taken this long.

Of course, now Ricky or Michonne would have to kill me, to make sure I wasn't a danger to them or Carl. Poor Carl. He'd watched his mother die, now he'd have to watch his aunt die- after she lost her mind.

"Naw, don't. She ain't all here right now. Not sure- they touch her? Before I got here?"

I tried to block out the voice, the one only I could hear, I was sure; but I could have sworn my brother replied to it. Good Samaritan, just wanting to find out what was wrong with the crazy bitch who'd used several heads as baseballs. No, it wasn't anything done to me this time.

It was the threat to Carl.

That fat fucker's hands on my nephew, the way he'd licked his ear- I shuddered again, stomach turning with the same raw fear that had filled me then. I knew what it felt like, to have hands on you like that. Bodies forced on yours, things you didn't ask for, didn't want, hated. The pain, the fear, the horror, and the guilt.

Carl was a kid. Just a kid. He didn't- and from a grown man, with the threat of more than one, of a gang rape, like the caves but he was a child, damn it. A child.

"Harley. Hey. Look at me, would ya? Shit, I thought ya was dead. Thought the explosion took ya out, and now I found ya, so you ain't gonna go to shit on me now, damn it. Toughen up, girl. You've been through worse shit than this."

My forehead wrinkled into a frown at that, eyes still fixed on the spot where the dead man's eyes had been. "Excuse you?"

"That's better. Ya heard me, damn it. Been through way worse shit than some threats, so get it together."

Dixon didn't talk to me like that, damn it. That was how Shane acted, more like. Jesus, I was even fucking up my hallucinations. I seriously needed help.

A hand touched my shoulder, soft and questioning. I didn't move, still trying to figure out which of my dead men I was thinking was here and why they were bullying me either way. Then the hand move to my cheek, calloused and warm, and pressed gently. It forced my head to turn, and I allowed it to happen because resisting felt like too much effort.

Dixon's face, covered in bruises and with a hauntedness that hadn't been in those blue eyes before all this, stayed crystal clear, etched in diamond and firelight, for a moment. Then he whispered my name again, barely breathing it out, relief palpable in the touch of his fingers to both my cheeks. "Harley. Shit. Thought I'd lost ya."

His face blurred and fell away into darkness.

"Whatdya mean ain't nothin' wrong with 'er? She just- eyes rolled back and dropped, Rick! You saw it!"

"I saw it." My brother's voice was a calm counterpart to the wildness of Dixon's, a study in intentional patience that had me wanting to laugh, if only I could remember how. "But she's fine. No cuts, no bullet holes, no nothing that shouldn't be there and everything that should. She just- passed out. Fainted, maybe."

Deep offense drug me the rest of the way out of the darkness. "Never fainted a day in my life, asshole."

Silence.

"What was that?"

Sigh. Probably didn't come out clearly, or loud enough, I figured, so I'd better try again. I groaned, forcing my eyes to open, and glared at both of the men staring down at me. Daryl was a ball of anxiety, Ricky remarkably calm.

I sat up, staring at Dixon. He was still there. He was- he was alive, and real. I wasn't crazy- well. Not any crazier than I'd been yesterday anyway- and he was here. "I said," I tried again, this time knowing it came out strong and clear, "I've never fainted a day in my life, asshole."

"Well, you did a good impression of it just now," Ricky said dryly. "Don't blame you, I suppose. Delicate flower like yourself, haven't had much to eat in days. All that fear and action."

"Delicate flower, my ass."

"Hey, both of ya, do me a favor an' shut up." Dixon's eyes never left mine as he snapped it out. "Just shut the fuck up, and-"

I leaned forward, taking his face in my hands as he'd done to me before, and pressed my lips to his. There was nothing tentative about it, all heat and passion and pain and fear pouring into that point of connection, and he responded in kind. His fingers tangled in my hair, he dragged me forward- not unwillingly- and into his lap, holding me as close as he could possibly get me.

And when we finally broke the kiss, both of us breathing hard, he pressed his forehead to mine, eyes closed, and didn't let go. I held on just as tightly, clinging to him, my impossible Dixon, alive and well.

"How?" I managed after who knew how long. "How? Merle said you were-"

"Merle? My brother-" He cut off the wild question as fast as it began, seeing the look on my face. "Oh."

"I- I saw him, after the explosion. He said you, and- and Shane- and Ricky, too. Then we got separated. I found Carl and Ricky, and we got out, and then Michonne found us. Shane's- Dixon, Shane's-"

He pulled me close again, and I buried my face into his shoulder, sobs wracking through my body out of nowhere. Grief, that tidal wave I'd held back by stubborn force of will, swept over me as all my willpower fell apart in Daryl's arms. Daryl was alive, and that was a miracle I'd never expected. And somehow, his presence only brought up all the others that were missing, and I was sobbing, wails muffled by his shoulder, for more than just Shane. It was Shane, it was baby Judith, it was Merle, and Glenn, and Maggie, and Beth, and old man Hershel, and Carol; it was a home hard-built and destroyed; it was- hell, I might have been grieving the end of the goddamn world at that point. I didn't know.

I just knew I was drowning again, and in the current and the storm the only life preserver was the man who held me close, not wasting useless words on comfort or denial that wouldn't do anything. He held me; that was all.

And that was enough. That was more than I'd ever expected, before the world ended or after I thought he was dead. And it was enough.

The storm raged through me, but like all of them, it passed. And as it faded into hiccupping breaths and mild horror, still he held on. I sat back, not going so far as to slide from his lap or his embrace, but just enough that I could look in the blue eyes I'd never thought I'd see again.

"Dixon," I whispered. "You're alive. You're alive."

"Yeah. Yeah, baby, I am. You, too."

"Me, too," I agreed. "I love you. I thought I'd lost you."

"I love ya." It was a growl, fierce and possessive, reclaiming something that was his that had been stolen away. "C'mere."

Tear streaks, blood, none of it mattered to him as he took my face between his hands again, no gentleness this time. It was firm, controlling, holding me captive as he claimed my lips with his. I matched his fervor, his near-angry demand of submission, with my own, and we reclaimed each other.

"Damn it, Angel. My kid's watching," Ricky said, mild disgust making me break away from Daryl with a laugh.

Dixon answered for me, disgruntled look in his eyes as he shot his middle finger up in Ricky's direction.

Chapter Text

Carl broke us apart, in the end, with his voice cracking as he asked his dad if they were all dead and we were safe.

"Yes," I said flatly, finally prying myself from Daryl's arms to go to my nephew. I set my hands on his shoulders, felt him trembling. Hatred for the now-faceless bastard swarmed up in me again, but I kept a lid on it as I looked him in the eye. "They're all dead. I made sure of it. Very, very thoroughly. They're not going to lay a hand on you, kid. Why don't you get in the car, get some rest? Drink some water. Michonne-"

I turned, knowing Ricky and I were too covered in blood- and worse, in my case- to be much use in calming him down, and he had a bond with her anyway. She was already at my side, going to his. "Come on," she said simply, in that soft voice. "The others will clean up a little while we do."

Her pointed look at me and Ricky confirmed my suspicion of my state of cleanliness. When she and Carl were tucked inside, I ran a hand over my eyes and stared hard at what was left of the fat bastard. I started that way, but Ricky called my name.

"Help me, would you? Sun's going to come up soon. I want to cover the windows."

Damn it, that was actually a really good idea. I helped strip the bodies and pull most of them into a pile, to get into the woods and out of sight. It didn't help with the blood and brain matter all over the ground, but at least they wouldn't be right there in his face when Carl woke up. And they wouldn't be calling the dead like a dinner bell, either.

We tossed shirts, jackets, whatever we could over the SUV windows, so when dawn broke as we hauled corpses, it would stay dim inside. "He needs it," I said softly to Ricky as we moved bodies. "He's going to- he's going to need to talk. Eventually. Maybe to you, maybe to me. I'm not sure. But he's going to need it. And he'll need someone to tell him he isn't less of a man, now. I can't really help with that."

Ricky, face set in a blank snarl, nodded without a word. I sighed, turning away from the cleanup to face the last body, the one we'd all been avoiding. I studied my handiwork critically as I approached. His head- well. There wasn't much of a head left. Those batons packed a punch, maybe more even than the baseball bat I'd turned it into.

It would take more than moving the body and scuffing some dirt around to hide what had happened to this bastard. And that thought curled satisfaction into my gut. I searched his pockets for anything useful, then rolled the body over and pulled out my knife.

"What are you doing?"

I didn't bother to look at my brother, grabbing one of the fat, sweaty hands that had pawed at my nephew and slamming the tip of the knife into it. I set to work, slicing tendon and flesh, then pried out my prize. I held the knucklebone up, grinned at it with a snarl of teeth in threat, and sank back on my heels to add it to my bracelet.

"The fuck ya- what the shit, Harley?"

I looked up at Daryl, not knowing what my face said. I felt both light and heavy at once, and the bones on my wrist burned into my mind and my skin. "A reminder. We don't leave them at our backs. Never again. Right, Ricky?"

"We do it your way. Always should have," my brother agreed.

"Damn straight."

Daryl's eyes were troubled, but he didn't argue. Neither of them made a move to stop me when I sliced the bastard's dick off, either. I tossed it long and far into the trees, a treat for some animal.

We sat in a silent trio, leaning against the SUV. Daryl's hand held mine, my head tipped to his shoulder as he spoke in a low voice. He'd gotten out with Beth, he said. And then she was- gone.

Not dead. Just gone. A car had taken her in the night, when they'd been running from walkers. He'd chased it all night. And in the morning, there had been Joe and his boys.

"They had a code," Dixon said, voice half-broken. "It weren't much, but it was- was somethin'. I didn't know what they were capable of."

Ricky reached across me, gripped Daryl's arm. "Thank you."

They talked more, quiet and broken. Ricky told Daryl he was his brother, which I considered making weird. But with Daryl's real-life brother probably dead, he needed that connection, that affirmation of his importance to someone more than just me.

I closed my eyes against that 'probably', and almost fell asleep. I woke up when something cold and damp brushed my cheek, jerking away and lashing out automatically.

"Settle, woman," Dixon said mildly. "Ya cain't see you. He can. Rick's cleanin' up too."

I nodded, slumping back against the vehicle and letting Daryl scrub at my face, my hands, my hair as best he could. "I thought you were dead."

"I know. Thought you was, too."

"I'm sorry. I should have found him. Made sure he was dead. If I had, none of this-"

"Shut up, baby."

I shot him a glare as he rubbed at the tip of my nose. "Make me."

"Not now. Ya gross. Ain't your fault," he went on in the same tone while I blinked and tried to catch up. "I stopped lookin', too. Weren't nothing to look for. He was gone. Underground. Listen to me, Harley. It ain't your fault."

"Why do you keep calling me Harley?" I asked, ignoring the rest because he was wrong. But I wouldn't convince him.

"Ya name, ain't it?"

"Well, yeah. But everybody calls me Angel," I said with a shrug, finally taking the bandana away from him to clean my own hands. "Like, even my parents called me Angel. Ricky started it."

"I know the story." Daryl took my hands, turning them over. He stared at the knucklebones on my wrist, right up against where my pulse hammered. "But someone needs to remind ya there's more to ya than just Angel. Angel's great. Angel's badass and amazing. Captivating. I love her. But Harley's the same, an' sometimes, ya lose track of Harley cause ya too busy bein' Angel. I just like remindin' ya she exists."

He kissed my palms, my wrists, lingering over my pulse and moving the bones to do so. "I love Harley somethin' hard, baby," he whispered. Then he glanced up at me from under the shaggy-growing fringe of his hair falling into his eyes. "Plus, it's a motorcycle."

I laughed, unexpected and rough-edged, but it was a laugh.

A few hour's rest did us all good. I glared from Daryl to Michonne to Carl, finally settling on Ricky as we grabbed what supplies there were and filled up a bag with all of Joe and his crew's weapons.

"Now," I said firmly. "We do it my way."

Ricky nodded, his eyes just as hard as mine. There was blood lingering in his beard, and I really needed to tell him how proud I was that he'd gone fully feral. "We do it your way."

Fucking finally.

Chapter Text

We kept to the tracks. Along the way were more signs promising sanctuary and community at the end of the line, more signs I regarded with intense suspicion.

As we left Joe and his buddies behind us, my brother's edge of savagery faded. It hovered there, behind his eyes, but it wasn't sitting right on the surface like it had been that night, and the first day after. Sleep, and having a new focus- Terminus- soothed the edge of it for him. It only made me more feral. Or that's what Michonne said, anyway, late at night while everyone else slept. I accepted that. I'd take feral, if it kept us all alive.

My world had never been small. Not in the sense so many people meant when they said it. I saw the world, after all; saw its best and worst parts. But when it came to who I cared for, that world had always been narrow and focused. Ricky, Lori, Carl, Shane. They were my people, my world. My team, when I was working. My contacts, the ones who depended on me.

And that was it. No one else mattered.

Then at the end of the world, I'd opened that focus. Carol and Sophia. Maggie, Beth, Hershel, Glenn. Dale, Andrea, Amy, T Dog. Daryl and Merle Dixon. Michonne. It had shifted, some of my people dying and others being added, and then it had opened again to include a place- the prison we'd made a home. Everyone we brought in, even as I grumbled about my brother's freely opened gates.

And then I'd lost it, and all those people with it. My world now, my focus, was these four. All that remained of my family, my place, my purpose- they were gathered around a shitty small fire with a shitty meal in their bellies, asleep while I did what I did best and kept us safe.

Yes, I'd be feral.

"Hey, kid. We need to talk."

Carl looked up from studying his feet and the ground under them, brow furrowed. "We do?"

"Yeah." I saw the tension in his shoulders, heard the caution in his voice. I knew he was expecting someone to start up a Big Talk about what had happened with the fat bastard, and that was exactly my purpose today, since Ricky had yet to do so. But first, I had to get his walls down. Too much like me, this kid, and he'd never talk if he felt pressured or ambushed into it. "About this place."

"I- we do?"

"Yeah. I need to run some scenarios, and you're the best one to do that with." It was honest, and it was true- I did need to bounce ideas off a mind open to my style of working, and with Daryl currently on a kick of ensuring I didn't forget Harley- whatever that meant- and Ricky slowly coming down from his throat-biting savagery, Carl was hands down the best option. Besides, we'd done this kind of thing before, while he was in farmer lessons with Ricky.

He nodded, shoulders relaxing instantly and interest piquing. "Ok. What have you got, Aunt Angel?"

Without having an idea of what the place was like- aside from a center point train depot, which we'd gleaned from the signs and which honestly told us little- there wasn't a lot we could nail down. But Carl and I started running through how to handle different outcomes with the brutality that made Ricky wince and Michonne's eyebrows shoot up. We lingered a great deal over 'staying out and shooting everyone we saw sniper-style to just take the place' for so long I knew Ricky was getting concerned. But that was as flawed a plan as any of the others without any real information on whether this was a good place or a bad one, and Carl came to that rather reluctant conclusion for himself- which meant I would be outnumbered in the Grimes vote if I insisted.

As we moved on to more reasonable and actionable ideas, I met Dixon's eyes and jerked my chin at the others. He nodded, knowing damn well what I was doing because he'd done something similar for the kid when Lori died. He- subtly- moved Ricky and Michonne out of earshot, taking them far enough ahead of the kid and I that we could talk freely.

I kept us focused on the upcoming Terminus for a bit longer, and when we naturally faded off of that, I segued into what I was looking to talk to the kid about to begin with. "Most of my scars I got overseas," I said quietly, no warning.

Carl's shoulders jerked, clearly startled. I kept my eyes ahead, watching him from my peripheral vision instead of staring right at him- another deliberate choice, one I knew would help him open up. It's easier to talk when not under the intense scrutiny of a steady gaze.

"You know I was held hostage for awhile, right? I'm sure you've figured that out, even though we never straight up told you."

"I've heard a few things," he agreed, caution in his voice. "Adults forget kids have ears."

"Only stupid adults," I countered with a grin and wink. "While I was held, I was- well, they tortured me. In every way they could think up. They starved me, cut me, burned me. That's where the scars came from." Tom Ford whispered in my ear, his scent lingered in my nose. I drew in a slow breath, grounding myself in there here and now. It wasn't hard, considering how badly we all had started to smell.

Carl reached over and squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, Aunt Angel."

"Me too," I managed as my throat closed around the pure kindness in his voice. He was a good kid, my nephew. "They also- Carl, I know this is a weird and uncomfortable thing to talk about. But you've experienced something now that no kid should ever experience. No adult, either, but that's- well. While I was over there, they did rape me. You know what that means, and I know you do, so I won't give you more than that. And the Governor, he did too. I'm telling you this for a reason," I added as he started to pull away. I kept his hand firmly in mine until he turned and met my eyes reluctantly.

I took his face in my hands, held his gaze. "Woman to man, not aunt to nephew or adult to child. Survivor to survivor, ok, kid?"

"Ok?" His voice was soft, small, and a question, but he held my eyes.

I waited a beat, then said what needed saying, but what he probably wouldn't believe yet. "You did nothing. You have no reason to be ashamed. You have every right to be angry. To be disgusted. To feel violated and horrible and like you need the world's hottest shower for maybe a year, and some bleach to scrub every inch of you before you feel better. It wouldn't help, but I'd bring you the bleach if I could."

He quirked a smile, almost, but his eyes slid away from mine. I let him go, and we resumed walking before his dad noticed we'd stopped and butted into the conversation. I waited, giving him a chance to speak if he wanted to before I said more that I thought he needed to hear.

"I'm sorry they did those things to you. That's- terrible. It felt- and if he'd actually- shit. I'm just- I'm sorry."

I reached for him, tossing an arm over his shoulders and pulling him to my side. "You really have the best heart, kid. Don't lose it. Don't let that bastard take it from you, for sure. Besides, he's dead. Very dead."

"I know," Carl said, something like satisfaction curling into his voice. "You took his entire head off."

"Would have done it twice if I could."

"I know that too. Aunt Angel, does it ever go away?"

I hesitated, not sure what he meant. "Does what ever? Imma need you to be more specific there, kiddo."

"The- the feeling? The ick? The- the memory, I guess."

I thought about it, wanting to answer him honestly. He needed an honest answer, and Tom Ford lingered in my nose. "Not entirely. But also, yes. It's- complicated, like most of life. It becomes less immediate. There will be bad moments, bad days, bad times. Hopefully not as bad for you, and you're young enough that if we talk about it as you need and you tell us what you need, you'll be able to move on and move past. But you'll never forget, unfortunately. And sometimes it might sneak up on you when you don't expect it."

"I can hear him laughing, sometimes."

My nephew's voice had practically disappeared, his shoulders tense under my arm and hunched. I took a deep breath and hoped I got this right. "I smell Tom Ford. That wasn't his name, the one who did the worst things to me in the caves. It's the type of cologne he wore. I don't know his name. I never saw his face. But I can smell Tom Ford in my worst moments, and hear his voice. It wasn't what he did that was the worst part. It was how he made me feel."

Carl's shoulders hunched more. "The laugh. I feel- disgusting. Dirty, I guess."

"Don't," I said instantly. Harshly. "If there's one thing I can give you, Carl, please let it be this. Do not let him make you feel dirty or disgusting. He was the dirty and disgusting one. All you did was exist. And he tried to turn that into something terrible, something awful. He did what no one should do, and tried to use your body without your permission. He was the grown man, he should know better. He should be better. You, my amazing, strong, badass nephew- you did nothing wrong. All the shame, all the disgust, is on that fat, faceless bastard."

"I know that. In my head," Carl whispered. "I think."

I tightened my grip and he leaned into my side. "That's fair. That's so entirely fair, and a totally normal reaction. If you ever need to talk to someone who understands, I'm right here. Always."

"You always are, Aunt Angel."

"Want this?" I held my wrist up, showing him the two bones. "I'll give you the fucker's if you want it. As a reminder that you're alive and he's not, and he can't hurt you."

"Why do- that's kinda twisted, you know."

I grinned at the mild concern in his voice and his face as he looked at me, the wrinkle of his nose. "I know. I'm kinda twisted, kid. I took it, like I took Philip's, to remind me of what can happen when I don't follow my instincts and when I leave an enemy at my back. I'll protect you, kiddo. With every last bit of what I've got in me. Forever."

He rolled his eyes, so purely teenager it lifted some of the leaden feeling from my stomach. "I can take care of myself. And I'll pass on the weird trophy, thanks. That's a bit too scary for me."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself. I don't mind being scary."

"You are scary."

At the next sign, I nodded sharply. "We're close. It's time to do this my way, now. Agreed?"

Michonne and Daryl nodded. Carl was watching our backs as we studied the map, and he flashed a thumbs-up over his shoulder than had me smiling. I turned to Ricky, eyebrow up, expectant. We locked eyes, something passing between us in that moment. Some understanding that he'd never had before was there now, after fear so strong for his son that he bit a man's throat out. He understood now, at least better, why I could look at the world and let it all burn to warm the people I cared about.

He nodded. "We do it your way."

Finally, I thought, and started giving orders.

Chapter Text

We came at it from the back, circling away from the train tracks and the pretty front entrance with its deceptively inviting open main gates. There'd be secondary ones closed, or I was a pumpkin. And they had better security than we'd had at the prison- and I'd been in charge of security there.

But no matter what, they wouldn't be expecting me. That's what it came down to, in my head. Me versus them, and whoever they were, I was better. I had to be.

We watched. We waited. I stationed my people at different vantage points, stretched out around the place to view from different angles. A full day, I told them. We'd meet back up at sunset and discuss.

In my tree, I watched as very little seemed to happen. People moved from one building to another. People watched, for sure. They watched for the dead, certainly. But were they also watching for the living? Was it the giant mouse trap everything in my body screamed it to be, or was it what they advertised- a safe place. A community. I didn't know, and from what I saw, I couldn't be sure. And that pissed me off.

Hours stretched into each other. The sun began to dip. I stayed in my tree, eyes on my target. Saw nothing to raise a red flag worth going the other way and burning this place into a shell. Damn it, I found myself thinking as I slipped from my perch to go to the meet-up spot. Ricky would want to go in. Unless one of the others saw something to keep us out.

Which meant I needed to make a couple of infill plans. I had some ideas in mind already, none of which involved those oh-so-inviting open front gates. But I'd honestly been hoping I wouldn't have to go in there. Something about the place had me on edge, but I couldn't articulate the reason why. Instinct, training- without something concrete, Ricky would say I was being paranoid and probably waltz right in through the main gate without a second thought.

I certainly couldn't have that, now could I?

We met as directed. No one was late, no one was missing, and that eased a small knot of worry in my stomach. They had security for the place, then, but not the area around it like I would have done. Like I should have done at the prison, but we didn't have the right people for it.

"So," I said as we shared some of our meagre supply of food and water. "Report?"

Ricky shrugged one shoulder. "Not much. Some movement between buildings. Nothing to say we don't go in."

I knew it. I turned to Michonne next, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged silently, gesturing toward Rick in a way that clearly conveyed 'what he said'. Carl gave a far more detailed and thorough report of the movement he'd seen, what the people looked like, etc that had me nodding and smiling. "Good eye, kid. Good memory. Dixon?"

Daryl did the same, detailing every movement with a minimum of words. I knew I liked him for a reason, I thought as I considered everything.

I did a quick, rough sketch of the place- as we could tell from the outside- in the dirt, putting in the paths of movement and the positions of the watchers I'd spotted. Dixon was the only one of the others to clock some of their sniper nests, and I added those in as well. Then I looked up at Ricky and tried again, despite knowing the definition of insanity when I played it out.

"I don't like this place, Ricky. We should move on." I held his eyes, but he wasn't having it.

"It's the best we've found. There's nothing- we didn't see a good reason not to explore further," he insisted.

I sighed heavily. "Fine. If you won't listen to reason, there's two good infill options. No one say the front gate, or I'll knock you all out and carry you away from here one at a time."

No one suggested the front gate, but Daryl's eyes danced with a faint amusement and Carl flashed a brief but bright smile. I outlined two options, then spent some time discussing both with the committee. Only Dixon and Carl really added much, in my opinion, and my brother was shockingly receptive to both ideas. He really was going to do it my way, even if he wouldn't agree to just bloody well leave.

"We need overwatch," I muttered as I contemplated. I'd been toying with it all along, wondering what the best option might be. I was the best marksman from this far, even without my carefully calibrated and set rifle, lost now to the dead in the prison. I missed it like I'd have missed my arm, which only made me think of Merle.

I shrugged it away and focused on the choices: me or Carl. It came down to that. Did I keep myself out of the action to provide rescue, or did I keep the kid out of the way so it was less worry? Plus, he was a pretty crack shot himself. Dixon was better, but Dixon needed to be boots on the ground with the others for me to relax. And no way Ricky would stay behind if Carl was going down. Michonne's shooting skills I wasn't sure of, but her up close and personal ones guaranteed effectiveness in the thick of it if things went to shit.

I looked the kid in the eyes, and saw the same calculations running through his mind. He shrugged. "Me or you, Aunt Angel. But if you're asking me, then we should all go. Stick together, for one, and we have a better chance of getting out if it does go to shit. And two, we have to give people a chance some time."

"Do we?" I asked, grimacing. "I thought I'd taught you better, kiddo."

"Maybe, but Dad taught me some things too. But we're doing it your way. I'll stay if you think it's best, but I don't."

Damn it. Damn it all to hell and back.

We all went, in the end. I had no intel for inside those buildings, so I couldn't provide overwatch effectively for long. That was the deciding factor on not leaving Carl behind as well- he'd be on his own, and we would too. That wasn't something I was ready to do yet.

Before we slipped into the complex over the barbed wire, we buried the bag of guns and supplies and marked the location so we didn't lose it. I'd made an exit plan- several of them, though they all had several question marks due to the gaps in available knowledge- and we all knew to meet up at the bag of guns if shit went bad inside and we got split up.

Heaven help these assholes if that were to happen, I thought as we went over the wire one at a time. Because I sure as fuck wouldn't.

I took the lead. Carl fell in between Ricky and Daryl on my six and Michonne as rear guard. We made it into the closest of the buildings, one where I'd seen foot traffic in and out but no one with visible weapons. We made our way through empty halls, following the sound of steady voices until the voices became clear.

"Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all. Follow the tracks until the paths meet. Those who arrive, survive. Terminus. Sanctuary for all, community for all."

I recognized propaganda when I heard it, and my distaste for the place kicked up a notch. The Blind Angel was in charge now, and she didn't bother to spare a thought for what was irrelevant to the current mission, and propaganda was irrelevant, as I wasn't falling for it.

I eased forward, eyes around the corner, and took in the room with a rapid glance. Map on the wall. Stations scattered around and fully maned. A woman on the radio, repeating her phrase over and over. And one asshole in the center, looking in charge.

I hated him instantly, and filed that information under 'currently useless without more to go on'.

I looked back at the others and considered our options. If I wanted these people dead, I'd start shooting from here and drop most of them before they could react. But that wasn't the mission, currently, and that meant we had to take a chance.

I nodded to Ricky. He nodded back.

He took the lead as we went around the corner.

I let my brother be the face, the voice, the focus. He was better at it than I was, and it gave me the chance to watch, to listen, and to learn.

They reacted quickly enough, with the man in charge taking control of his people with fluid ease and keeping the situation calm. They went back to work soon enough, the steady drone of the propaganda on the radio returning as the leader approached and introduced himself as Gareth. He told Ricky how smart we were to come in the back way and check things out; how the front entrance was much prettier and set up for arrivals. Ricky didn't respond, staring the man down with a dead look in his eyes that had me feeling a glowing approval.

And, admittedly, a trickle of worry for my friendly neighborhood policeman big brother. The coldness in his eyes told me he wasn't Officer Friendly anymore, and while I approved based on the current state of the world, I also thought he might have lost something he needed somewhere along the way. But for now, I loved it. And listened as Gareth gave a short pitch and welcome, then said what I'd been expecting.

They wanted us to put all our weapons down and be searched. He pitched it as a 'so we can trust each other' thing, but I wasn't buying.

I waited until Ricky looked my way, nodded slightly. I nodded back, then locked eyes with Dixon. He didn't have to nod; I knew what he'd do.

He covered the others as they unloaded their weapons into a pile. Then I stayed still, gun in hand, as he did the same, covering him and them. Then Gareth turned his eyes to me, calculation in them had me suppressing a smile of my own.

Got him, I thought. He'd dismissed me, at first. Now he was evaluating threats again, and he still wasn't sure where my standing was.

I set down the gun, pulled my knife and baton. Added my boot knife, since it would be found easily in a search.

I didn't mention the slim blade holding my hair pinned up, since I didn't think even my people knew about it. I'd kept it on me since I had to leave Ricky behind in a hospital, and only Shane had ever seen me use it. I had far better weapons, and kept plenty of them on my person, so I'd never had to use my last resort. But it made me feel better, knowing there was always one more at my disposal. These guys would certainly never think to take my hair down and try to open the hairpin up, and I'd have some form of weapon if they took all of ours.

Of course, if they took my baton, they'd have a fight on their hands.

They didn't check my hair. Gareth himself searched Ricky and I, while a friend of his took the others. While Carl was being patted down, we all watched like hawks, and Gareth noted it with calculation in his eyes. He saw everything, I thought, and I wondered what he was, before the world ended. And what he had turned into after it.

But he missed my hairpin. He was efficient and businesslike, not lingering or creepy about it. The only time he paused was when he saw the bones on my wrist. Something flashed across his face that I couldn't read but sent shivers through me, a warning blaring in my mind and added to all the others I couldn't explain that fed into my distrust and general dislike of this place.

He stepped back, nodded, and let us have our weapons back. Then he smiled that fake-ass smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Ok. Let's take the tour."

I brought up the rear, so I could take everything in and make a back exit if we needed it.

Chapter Text

It was lovely. Plants, clotheslines, smiling, welcoming faces. And a cook station much like we'd built Carol, with a meal being prepared and served as we looked around. A woman with long dark hair handed Carl a plate, and her eyes lingered on Gareth's too long. I was watching, not lulled by the smiles or the peacefulness. And that was all it took to have me looking even closer at everything- that one brief, too-long glance.

Something familiar caught my eye, on the line. A poncho, white and red, that looked like one Daryl had draped around my shoulders a lifetime ago. But it was the smell that screamed for attention, the scent of cooking meat that called my eyes to stare at the plate in Carl's hand while Gareth droned on about what we'd find here.

And it clicked.

I shot a sharp glance at my brother, but he was fixated on something else, his eyes hard and intense as he stared down one of the smiling, friendly people. Carl lifted the plate, sniffed it. Began to take a bite.

I calculated the odds at a rapid pace as I noticed the flicker of movement from a shooter on the roof. Goddamn it, this would get ugly. But there was no way in hell I was letting Carl eat that. I moved, slamming the plate from the kid's hands at the same time Ricky exploded into action, his gun trained on the person he'd been giving the stare-down to. We all grabbed for weapons, following his cue, and that sniper on the roof was joined by a couple of friends.

I held my gun on the one I could see. "Ricky?"

"Where did you get this watch? Angel, what's wrong with the food?"

"Remember Karen and David?" I didn't take my eyes away from the shooter to see what the hell watch Ricky was on about, but it didn't matter. The food was enough, as was the hard look in Gareth's eyes, though his hands were up in apparent surrender. "Take a good sniff."

Behind me, someone gagged. I suspected it was Carl.

According to Ricky, the watch was Hershel's, but much like the poncho, that couldn't be right. None of the others had made it out. There was no way. But things were falling apart here, Gareth shaking his head sadly and talking about the lack of trust, the shooters on the roof, the enemy all around.

We should have cleaned this place out from afar and moved the fuck on, I thought grimly. Why was it that even when we did it my way, we didn't do it my way?

Oh yeah. My brother was a Grimes, too.

I waited for what I knew was coming, even as Gareth continued lamenting the lack of trust between them and us now. I considered informing him there had never been trust, but I was too narrowed in on my target and the other shooters surrounding us.

Yes, surrounding. We were up shit creek, but at least this time we had a paddle. Well. Guns. Close enough for me to work with, anyway.

We needed to move before they did. That would be key. Make our move before the signal- whatever it would end up being- was given; take them off guard. They'd done this before- the whole song and dance, and whatever came after this display of distrust. They knew what was coming, which gave them a better advantage than simply having the high ground did.

They had enough advantages. The only one we had was that these people had no idea who they were dealing with.

I shifted, tapped my brother's side with my elbow, never taking my eyes off my target.

Gareth sighed. "Well. There's no help for it now."

My eyes shifted from my target for a fraction of a second, long enough to watch one of his raised hands fold into a fist. "Shit," I snarled. "Ricky-"

The shooting started, and we were all moving. So much for taking back that advantage.

I let my brother take the lead. It took about three seconds for me to realize we were being herded. The shooters weren't aiming for us. They weren't trying to kill us. They were keeping us moving along a single path, pre-approved.

We needed to take back control there, too.

I went through the sketches of this place in my mind, wondering where we were being led and what the best place to veer from the path would be in order to get to our rear exit, get out, and take them from the trees. No way in hell was I letting this place stand, letting any of them live. They were eating people. I'd encountered cannibalism before, in my time with the Company, and it never ended well for anyone who engaged in it. Even the ritual kind, not the fully-feeding-my-body-with-your-body kind, turned out badly. The symbolic kind, too, but that went bad in different ways.

Once you've looked at something as a food source, you never go back. Turn humans into meat, and they become beasts. It's not a long drop from there to psychopathy, and then to pesky little things like mass murder, inbreeding, and disease. Fun times.

No, I'd be eradicating this entire place, just as soon as I figured out how to get myself and my people out of the maze.

The problem was lack of intel. I didn't know what was inside any of the buildings. If we forced our way into one of them instead of along the paths, we'd be in a worse situation. And they had an obnoxious number of people on these rooftops, shooting at our feet. They, too, knew the terrain, where we didn't.

While we'd gotten lucky and dropped a few of them, we were too busy running to really take up a good position for any of this shit. If we stopped moving, they'd gather, and then Gareth and his pals behind us would catch up.

Damn it, damn it, damn it. I should have stayed out as overwatch. Ricky would have seen the watch and started shit without me recognizing the cannibalism aspect and I could have picked their snipers off from afar.

There was no place in a situation like this for would-have, could-haves. The past was over, the future was uncertain, and the only thing I knew for sure was in the present, we had problems to solve. And we needed to solve them fast.

We didn't solve them fast enough. They herded us into their dead-end, and Gareth's people set their sights on Carl.

We were done. There was nothing for it.

Except.

I hesitated, hating myself for the single play I saw available to make and for the fact that I was considering it. But in the long run…

I took the chance. I slipped behind the open door and left my brother, my nephew, my lover, and my friend behind.

Chapter Text

I watched as they left behind their weapons, stood waiting to head into the train car. Goddamn it all, this wasn't good. One by one, they were sent inside- Ringleader, Samurai, Archer, he called them.

Then they noticed I was missing. Anger filled Gareth's voice over the bullhorn, an anger covered by careful control and long practice, but it was there all the same. He asked where I'd gone, and my brother shouted back that he didn't know what the man was talking about.

I wasn't sure gaslighting him into believing an entire person had been a figment of his imagination was the proper path there, but if Ricky succeeded, all the better for me.

"We'll find her. It would be best for everyone if she surrendered now, but we'll find her. Ok, into the car, Ringleader."

I knew they'd be looking for me, and I should move, but I had to make sure they didn't try to shoot Carl because I'd gone. I'd put myself in there if that was threatened, and just deal with the next set of problems as they arose. But he sent Carl to line up with Ricky and the others, behind Daryl, and I watched as my people filed into the train car slowly; watched as one of these cannibal assholes appeared to slam shut and lock the door behind them.

"Ok. That just leaves our disappearing woman. I know you're nearby. You don't seem the type to abandon your friends. We will find you. And we'll kill you first. We don't like troublemakers around here."

I scoffed. I'll bet he didn't. But it was time to move, no matter how badly I wanted to hang close and free everyone as soon as the ruckus died down. They'd be watching closely with me missing, and searching everywhere nearby. I had to cause problems in other places; spread them so thin they couldn't keep a close eye on this particular car.

I'd seen others, after all. They had more people trapped, I was sure, and I'd free them if I could. But Ricky, Carl, Daryl, Michonne- them I would get to.

And we'd burn this place to the ground after I did.

I kept in motion, training from decades ago taking over my muscles. This was guerilla warfare, this was survival, this was everything I'd dedicated my career to doing before joining the Company and some during my time there. I could- and would- be the ghost in their walls, the thorn in their sides, until I razed the place and left it a smoking ruin.

But first, I needed to get myself out of the trap they'd sprung.

It was easier than it should have been, which wasn't to say it was easy. It wasn't. I got almost caught more times than I was happy about, but almost isn't the real thing and that was all I cared about in this moment. And I began to learn the layout of the rabbit warren of buildings as well.

When I found the memorial room- there was nothing else to call it- I could only stare. Candles everywhere, names written on the floor in what looked suspiciously like blood, and the words 'never forget' on the walls? This was a shrine, a sanctum, a religion. And these people were the worst kind of full crazy- they held a grudge.

I knew it was the worst kind, the most dangerous kind, because I was one of them, I thought as I rubbed the knucklebones against my wrist. I held a grudge, too. And whatever had happened here to these people, it was nothing compared to what I would do to them.

Not long after, I found the trophy room. It brought me up short for the second time, sending me back to a hot morning in the middle of nowhere and a vast hole in the ground, bones everywhere and personal items lined up in a covered tent as humanitarian workers tried to identify who had been left in the mass grave.

Tables with jewelry, tables with weapons, tables with watches, hats, shirts, pants, shoes, and- worst of all- the one filled with children's toys. I touched the battered, worn ear of a blood-stained teddy bear and felt something inside me break.

Blood spattered a car seat, the last we'd seen of Shane and Ricky's baby girl; a dead little boy used as a human shield at the last minute, my bullet lodged in his brain; the hand of a child, too young to know if it had belonged to a boy or a girl, laying in the street among the rubble from a suicide bomb; my contact's son's right hand, bandaged but missing his index finger-

I stroked the bear again, promised whoever this had been loved by, cherished by, that it ended here and now. Maybe I couldn't get revenge for whoever had carried this small toy, this small comfort in a time when there was so little comfort to be had, but I would burn this place from the inside out, and none of them would be left alive.

They ate people. They kidnapped and killed them, luring them in with promises of sanctuary and community and safety, and they fed them the flesh of other victims at the door. Then they stored them in cars, like cattle, like livestock, like cargo, and slaughtered them- old, young, it didn't matter.

They'd die, I promised the bear, looking into its dull eyes. They'd die one by one and in pain. No easy ways out for these monsters.

The angel of death promised it, and she always delivered on her promises.

I turned into a shadow with teeth.

I took back what was ours, what belonged to my people. I slid Ricky's Python into my belt, slung Daryl's crossbow over my shoulder. I slipped the watch Hershel had given Glenn into my pocket, because my brother had been right. It belonged to him.

But it was in this room, which meant however it had gotten from home to here, he was dead now. Dead and gone in the worst way, and I'd add avenging him to my list of grievances against these people.

I even scooped up a nice rifle for myself, to replace the one I'd lost. It was military-issued, with a scope and canted iron sights for close range, and honestly, it was my new favorite toy ever.

But for these people? I'd be doing wet work, and close in. It was knives and baton all the way, I thought grimly, and I planned to use my hair knife for Gareth. Show him what he'd missed, up close and personal, and tell him to deliver a message to the devil for me when he got there.

Through the halls, between buildings, I crept. I moved to the roofs and took down some of their guards; I moved through the rooms and took down people who didn't know death was loose among them. I didn't care if they were unarmed. They were here, walking free, which meant they, too, were eating people. They too had slaughtered whoever had loved that bloodstained bear.

In a few hours' time, the halls were filled with people. All of them looking for me.

Satisfaction curled in my stomach, settled on my lips in a death's-head smile. I could keep it up, just like this. One by one, from the shadows.

Or I could take advantage of the distraction I'd caused and go find my people. Let them help me. Dixon, in particular, would enjoy this hunt. And the thought of them, trapped and waiting, pissed me off.

I slipped back toward the train car where I'd left them, ready to collect my people and turn into the tip of a spear driven through the heart of this place. And as I slipped around the last corner, Gareth's voice sounded again, demanding everyone in the car get against the walls and wait.

"Goddamn it," I snarled, seeing the team around my people's prison. "Fucking bastard. I'm going to take his eyes first. And feed them to him."

Chapter Text

They went in from above. I hadn't been expecting them to drop smoke bombs and have gas masks, but shit- it didn't really matter for me. From where I was, I could drop them one by one. Hopefully.

I took aim as they prepared to open the roof. One shot. Two shots.

Screaming chaos.

The rest on the roof of the train car dropped down rapidly for cover. Gareth called orders. Return fire began finding its way toward me, not close enough to worry yet but getting there. I shifted my aim to where Gareth revealed himself, on a rooftop nearby, and got him in my sights.

Slow breath in, slow breath out. Finger brushes the trigger, and-

He fucking moved, ducking back behind cover, and I snarled. Nearby, sounds of angry struggle, coughing, yelling filled the air, and the train car opened from the side to spill bodies out. I slung the rifle over my shoulder and grabbed the baton from my side, charging into the fray as some idiot drug my dazed and confused brother out and tossed him down onto the ground.

He'd bitten him- good on Ricky, I thought with a snarl. One swing, two swings, and the woman who'd appeared in my path, between me and Ricky, went down with a bad case of brain matter explosion. The asshole curb-stomped my brother, and I was in the thick of it now, as Daryl got tossed to the ground beside Ricky, fighting like a feral rat to stay alive.

I could, I would free them here and now, and go for Gareth next, and-

I clawed at the belt around my throat, pulled tight and cutting off all traces of oxygen. It wasn't my first experience with being choked, but I'd been focused on the battle in front of me and someone had slipped up behind.

"There you are. We've been looking for you, little lady." Gareth's voice was cool, calm. No stress, despite the four dead I'd littered his killing field with. "You've been causing trouble, haven't you? Take her with the others. No need to give her more opportunities. Keep her alive, though. For a little longer."

Stars exploded in my vision, black spots as the lack of air took its toll. I stopped fighting, relaxing my muscles, hoping the belt would loosen a fraction, just enough for me to suck in a little air and keep fighting, but-

As darkness claimed me, I could have sworn I heard Merle screaming something.

I came to on my knees, hands and legs zip tied, and something in my mouth. For a moment, I was in the caves, but my brother's face swam before my eyes, staring at me. I blinked and shook my head to clear it.

Jesus, I hated oxygen deprivation. It was one of the more effective ones, because who wouldn't do anything at all to make sure they could just keep breathing?

Ricky's eyes were blank and wild, red rimmed and pissed and hungry. I wondered if mine looked the same.

The sound of a saw had me paying attention to more than just Ricky, with Daryl on the other side of him and, impossibly, Glenn next in line. We were lined up, on our knees, bound, in front of a trough. I had an instant sinking feeling, and scanned the rest of the room while I had the chance.

Tables with bodies- human ones. Saws for cutting limbs- that was what I'd been hearing. Drainage in the floor, hoses. Aprons spattered with blood and offal. One asshole with a baseball bat, another sharpening a knife.

Yeah, this was less than ideal.

I took a quick stock of myself as my head cleared the rest of the way. They'd taken the weapons I'd reclaimed- and I noticed them in a pile on a cart by the door- but there was my hairpin holding my hair back and I could feel the handle of the extra knife I'd tucked into my boot, far down where it couldn't been seen. I could work it out, cut the ties, and kill them both. If I had enough time.

I was out of time to think.

Baseball Bat and Knife Man moved to the end of the line, past my people and to some poor bastard I didn't know down at the end. One swing knocked him out, sent him forward, and Knife Man grabbed him by the hair and slit his throat. Screaming from the next in line, and Daryl's wild eyes met mine with a look in them that seemed a lot like a goodbye.

Fuck that. I wasn't dying in this room, slaughtered like a pig to feed some bastard who thought he was smart. I was the Blind Angel, goddamn it, and they'd left me a weapon.

With them busy at the end of the line, I could work more quickly, covering the movements with the same jerking, squirming attempts to get away the rest of the line was engaged in. I kept one eye on them as they took out the next bastard, another poor soul I didn't know from Adam and didn't much care about helping. My knife popped free of the boot, into my pant leg.

Another one dead. One more unknown man before Glenn, before I had to be free and make my move. I scrambled as they moved on to the last person I didn't give a fuck about, and I said a quick thank-you to whatever fucked up god was actually on my side for the favor of time in the form of others to kill first.

I got the knife untangled from my pants, popped it open. They took up a batter's stance behind Glenn, and I sawed rapidly at the tie on my feet- I didn't need my hands, but I had to be able to get down there- cold flushing my body with calm when I should have been panicked and on fire. The bat rose, the ties broke, and I started to my feet when-

"What were your shot counts?"

Gareth walked in and everything paused. He held a clipboard and a pen, and some corner of my mind said Carol would appreciate the effective record keeping, but I didn't give a shit about that right now. I watched, I waited. My opportunity was coming. As the idiot with the knife apologized for not counting, I stared at Gareth, shifting the knife to work subtly on my hands. If I got them free, it was all over for them. Starting with him.

"Three from A, four from D?" Gareth asked. "And the troublemaker on the end. You search her? Good?"

"Of course we did. She's got nothing on her."

Idiots, I thought. They'd missed two blades. But I stilled my hands as he crouched in front of my brother, pulling the gag from his mouth.

"We saw you go into the woods with a bag, and come out without it. Had to pull my spotters back before we could go look for it. What was in it? You hid it, right?"

Damn it. There'd been spotters after all, and we'd missed them. He was good, Gareth, I thought as I started applying pressure- no movement, just pressing the blade into what I'd already weakened- to the zip ties on my hands. He was someone I'd want on my side, if he weren't using everything he knew and could do to fucking eat people.

I wondered again who he'd been, before.

"Hid it in case things went bad. Smart. Still, we'll find it. But it's too dangerous to go out there right now-"

Didn't that have me wondering what was going on out in the wider world?

He shifted, then moved like a snake, grabbing my head and dragging me down over the trough. The threat was clear, but I didn't flinch. He had only one hand on the back of my neck, crouched in a position that wasn't good for fighting, and his head was close to mine. One solid slam of my forehead to his and I'd send him reeling.

It'd disorient me for a minute, too, but I didn't need to think all that much. I could react. I'd been trained to, after all.

He claimed curiosity, but I knew he wanted our supplies. I kept waiting for my moment, the assholes still hovering behind Glenn. Shift just a little, I thought at them as Ricky started slowly listing the contents.

"And a machete with a red handle. That's what I'm going to use to kill you."

I grinned around the gag. My brother had been taking lessons from me, I thought delightedly. That was the feral gene of the Grimes family shining through untempered.

I fucking loved it.

Gareth smiled, releasing me and re-gagging my brother with an utterly unbothered expression I almost believed. "Thanks," he said, patting Ricky on the shoulders. "You have two hours to get them on the driers. I'm going to go back to public face. Now's the time we can get messy, but we need to dial it all in by sundown."

He started to leave and the others took up their stances behind Glenn again when gunshots sounded from outside. Gareth turned, his eyes lingering on me, and an explosion rocked the building, throwing everyone off their feet.

There was my moment, I thought, pleased. And my knife snapped through the zip ties on my hands.

Gareth lit out immediately, and our two started arguing. It was exactly what I needed, and I flashed a concerned Dixon a wicked smile around my gag as I shot to my feet, tossing the knife in my brother's direction.

He'd get it, get himself and Daryl free. I didn't need a fucking knife, I thought as I charged in. I was getting the bat, and then I would get my baton.

I took him down as he told the other one to look at him. His head bounced off the floor, and I set my knee in his throat and bared my teeth at him. "Fast or slow?" I asked.

The other asshole got over his shock and closed in, but it was too late. "Fast, I guess," I said pleasantly, and I grabbed his head and wrenched it sideways, snapping his neck.

"That means with you, I get to do it slow," I informed the man with the knife, who was circling, a scared look in his eyes. "Do you want to drop that pigsticker and give up now?"

The knife clattered to the ground. I swept it up, shooting to my feet. He held his hands up, a gesture of surrender, but I closed in anyway. I had him spun around, pinned, and I sliced his Achilles tendons first and then severed the muscles at the back of his knees. He went down, flopped over the trench, screaming.

I grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head back, and set the knife to his throat. "Shut up. I'll cur your vocal chords but keep you alive, damn it."

He shut up. I smiled. "Good boy," I purred in his ear. "Ricky?"

"On the door."

"Weapons pile," I told him, sliding the blade back and forth over the neck of my pale, trembling prisoner. "Got you a present. One for you too, Dixon. And for Glenn, who shouldn't be alive. Good resurrection act."

"Yeah, thanks," he muttered. "Had help. What are you going to do with him?" Armed, Glenn came into view, his hand clenched around his watch. He eyed me and my prisoner, and I shrugged.

"I haven't decided yet. Might let him live. Until this place is ashes, anyway. Might let him bleed out slow, tied up, with no way to stop it. Feel every second of what he did to these people. To who knows how many others." I tapped the knife to his cheek as he sobbed. "Might leave him for his broken-neck buddy over there. Didn't take the brain, after all."

"Damn it, Harley," Daryl muttered.

I heard a squelch and shot a glare over my shoulder. "Hey. I had plans for that."

"Yeah, well. I got plans, too. Wrap it up already; we got places to be."

I sighed. "Fine. How do you want to die, little piglet?" I whispered to my prisoner. "Fast or slow?"

"Fast. Fast, please. Fast."

"Slow it is," I said pleasantly. I drew the blade along his throat, deep enough he wouldn't recover but not so deep it would be quick, and shoved him forward so he could watch his blood drain slowly into the trough. "Anyone find some zip ties laying around, or should I just cut his hands off so he can't use them?"

Chapter Text

They wouldn't have succeeded in keeping me from watching him bleed out slowly if the shooting hadn't started coming closer.

"Gotta go," Ricky said grimly. "You know the way out of here? Back to the train car? We have to get the others."

I sighed, reluctant to leave my prey but knowing he was right. "I'll lead. Stay on my six. Limited bullets, so make them count. We'll empty the place later. Right now, we need to get back to Carl." I didn't wait for a response, since another- smaller but no less concerning- explosion rocked the place. "Move out."

"Harley."

I shot a glare over my shoulder as Dixon hissed my name. "What? Busy here."

"We need to-" He broke off, crossbow coming up as his eyes widened.

I whirled, finding several walkers in the path we'd been following and coming up fast. I traded gun for baton as Dixon's bow twanged and a feathered flower appeared in the center of its forehead. I was on the next rapidly, slamming the knife blade tip of the baton into an eye even as I kicked the next into my brother's waiting arms. Teamwork had them down in seconds, but there were more coming, filling the place with dead and living problems between us and Carl.

We didn't have time for whatever Dixon thought we needed to do. Not now. It was go time, and that was precisely what we were doing- going. Now.

And we did, at least until Glenn saw a shipping container marked with a big ass letter D. Screaming and pounding from inside told us all it was full of poor schmucks who'd been scooped up by these freaks and were being stored for dinner time, just waiting for their turn at the bleeding trough. The container was surrounded by the dead, and I had no intention of tangling with that big a group for people who didn't matter to me one bit. They could find their own way out; I had my people to save.

Glenn seemed to think we had other plans. He started toward the damn thing, straight around the corner and into the main pathway before I'd had a chance to check around the corner. I snatched him by his shirt, hauling him back before he got more than a few steps.

"The fuck you think you're doing?" I snarled.

He looked confused, gesturing at the container. "There's people in there!"

"Yep. And they're surrounded by the dead."

His eyes narrowed, stubbornness filling him. "We need to save them. We can take the walkers."

"Sure. We could. And one of us could get bit for nothing," I snapped. "Not worth the risk. We have our own people to save. Come on; it's clear. The dead are distracted and we're close to the target."

"They're people too! Shouldn't we-"

I shot him a look. "The bastards slitting throats in there are also people. I'm not risking one of mine for anyone else. Not anymore. Let's go, Rhee. There's no time for this if we want to get out alive. This place is getting overrun and we've got a limit on bullets."

He wanted to argue. He did. I saw it in his face; in the way he turned to look at the container and the dead.

"I'll knock you out and carry you," I told him flatly. "We go. Ricky?"

"We go," my brother agreed.

And we went.

When the living, panicked and wild-eyed, got between me and my people, I killed them. When the dead did the same, I put them down, too. We were getting out of here, and I'd raze this place to smoking ruin. No one would be fooled by promises of sanctuary and community here again.

Bones on my wrist dug into my skin as I sighted along my new rifle, took my shot, and moved on to the next. Never again, I thought.

It crossed my mind that they had the same motto on their floor. But unlike them, I wouldn't lure people in only to punish them for someone else's sins. If you left me alone, I'd leave you alone. If you were genuine and good with me, then I'd be the same with you.

But harm me and mine, and I'd strip everything from your bones before I let you die.

"We made it," Glenn breathed as we came into the small courtyard with the red train car where I'd made the decision to slip away and let my people be herded inside. "And it's still standing. Good. Maggie."

Maggie? I scanned the trees behind the fence with my scope, looking for threats in our exit path despite the way I wanted to ask Glenn the fuck he was on about. Maggie was in there? Maggie was alive, too?

Well holy shit.

"Harley."

"Not now, Dixon," I snapped, slinging the rifle over my shoulder and heading to the door I'd slipped away using. There'd been blankets in the room close by, blankets and other supplies, and while our people got adjusted to the light I'd grab what we needed to get over the barbed wire. "Kinda busy. We can talk about me being ruthless later."

"That's not it, damn it; it's-"

"Angel!"

I froze, eyes widening. I knew that voice. That voice was dead.

I turned slowly, not sure I wanted to look over my shoulder and discover my brain had fooled me. But I looked, because that was my name being called and these were my people.

I blinked once. Twice.

"Impossible," I whispered.

Dixon huffed. "That's what I's tryna tell ya. Walsh, he's- he's alive. So's my brother. They's alive, baby. Our people, we found 'em."

I blinked again, stunned and still, and before Shane could come charging my way, the dead spilled into the courtyard and the world snapped back into focus.

"Ricky! Fence!" I yelled. No need for stealth now; we were all here- including some extras, but that was a problem for after we'd solved the getting out of here one. I'd kill them, too, if it came down to it, but for now, they got to come with us.

Maggie, I saw, was in fact alive. And Sasha, and Bob- not that I was excited to see him- and Merle. Carl, Michonne, I counted as they gathered in a knot that Daryl and I made our way back to. And Shane. Somehow, impossibly, Shane.

It didn't make sense, but I'd figure it the fuck out later.

I tossed the blanket at my brother, who went straight for the fence keeping us hemmed in. I turned away from all of them, trusting Ricky and Shane and Merle to get everyone going up and over and take care of anything immediately on the other side. My attention went back to the dead surging forward, getting entirely too close for my comfort.

"Gotcha back," Daryl said flatly.

And he did. I knew he did, and he always would. We stayed put, a wall against the oncoming tide, and I traded gun for baton in one hand and knife in the other. No sense wasting bullets. We wouldn't be overwhelmed, not here. We were retreating, after all. The idea wasn't to wipe out the dead and try to move forward, it was to keep ourselves and our people alive long enough for everyone to get over the damn fence and into the next frying pan. Or fire. Whatever.

It wasn't hard, killing the dead. The living were far harder, though the living did have a tendency to be a little more predictable. I kept one ear on Ricky calling names, sending people over, and fell back when a hand slapped my shoulder.

"Dixon, I'm last out," I told him. It was the tone that allowed for no arguments, but he'd try to argue anyway. I could feel it.

He didn't, shockingly. Just nodded. Almost like they were starting to understand exactly how good at this shit I was. "Covered from the fence. Just get ya ass over, soon's we call ya."

"Easy day," I said cheerfully.

"Angel! Daryl!"

"You first," I told him, not taking my eyes off my undead dance partner. "Got you covered."

He dropped out of my sight, slapping a hand to my shoulder as he went. I fell back a little more, ducking a set of hands and kicking their owner backward.

"Harley!"

My turn, I thought, but before I could, something was tangled in my hair. "Goddamn it!"

I spun with the tugging and found myself far, far too close to teeth. And an eyeball sliding down a rotting face. I brought one arm up and over the one tangled in my hair, jerking down as I trapped it between my upper arm and my body. I kicked out at the same time, baton slamming blunt-side into the head, and I heard the snap of breaking bones. As abruptly as it had begun, the pull on my hair eased, and I reversed the baton and stabbed it into the side of the skull with the attached blade.

"Angel! Damn it, Angel!"

They were yelling my name as I shook the now twice-dead bastard free, shooting a glare over my shoulder. "I'm coming! Hang on, damn it! Cover me!"

I scrambled up and over the blanket-covered fence, somehow still managing to slam my hand onto one of the barbs. I yanked my hand free, knowing I'd feel that later but too adrenaline-charged to care right then.

And then I was over, a shot ringing out as someone took down a fucker who got a bit too curious about our exit route.

"Ready?" I asked breathlessly, slinging the rifle back into my hands. "We need the bag, Ricky."

"Yep," he agreed. "Come on."

I brought up the rear as he lead the way, staring at people I'd never expected to see again and sizing up the four I'd never seen before, all of whom eyed me just as much as I eyed them.

Chapter Text

It was a straight shot to our hidden bag of weapons, nothing in our way. We moved quietly, precision and training causing my people to fall in together smooth and practiced. The others, the outsiders- they formed their own knot, though the girl with the ponytails stuck close to Glenn and Maggie.

She was familiar, but I couldn't place her. I studied her while Ricky dug and she shifted uncomfortably beneath my look. I knew faces. I never forgot them. When the adrenaline keeping me running at full speed settled down, my memory would kick in. It was only a matter of time.

Ricky grunted. "Still here."

"Good." I shifted from eyeing her to sweep a critical eye over the complex of buildings behind us. "Now, we can-"

"Angel."

His voice cut through everything, adrenaline, pain, hatred; all of it. It sliced through the Blind Angel and left me, for a moment of complete weakness, just Harley Grimes.

Harley Grimes, six years old, and Shane Walsh wouldn't leave her behind. Harley Grimes, twelve years old, and Shane Walsh made her cool when she otherwise would have been tormented. Harley Grimes, sixteen, and Shane Walsh was her date to the dance after no one her age asked her.

Shane, I thought, eyes closing as I drew in a shuddering breath. Shane.

His hands gripped my face before his arms locked around me, pulling me close and holding on so tight I couldn't breathe. Or maybe that was my own fault, my lung forgetting what they needed to do while my brain struggled to understand that he was still alive.

I'd given him up for dead. He had to be dead. There was no way he could be alive.

But he was here. He was here and he was holding me right now, his face buried in my hair and his body trembling with the same relief that flooded my own. The same desperation that filled me.

I gripped him back as hard as he did me, my hands claws in his shirt to hold him still, hold him here, to ensure he was alive and he wasn't going anywhere. I couldn't do it; not again. If he disappeared, after this, I'd be broken. Done. Forever.

Both my boys, alive when I'd told myself they were dead.

"Shit. Ya bleedin', girl. Walsh, let 'er go."

"Bleeding?" Shane pulled away, holding me at arms' length when I would have stayed collapsed against him for a year, a decade, eternity. "Where? What happened? Angel, are you bit?"

That snapped me out of whatever had descended over me and I scowled at him. "No, I'm not bit, what the hell? I'm fine, both of you, I just- I can't believe you're alive!" I gestured, flinging my hands at the both, and blood splattered onto Shane's shirt as I did. Oh, I thought, frowning down at my hand even as Ricky snatched at it. "Oh wait. That's right. Forgot about the fence."

"You forgot about- damn it, angel!"

"Gimme a break, Walsh; it's been a bit busy!" I snarled right back at him.

And Daryl started to laugh.

Shane wrapped my hand up, bitching steadily, while the others armed themselves from our gun pile. I eyed the strangers, who helped themselves to our weaponry, but Ricky didn't seem to mind. Plus, Merle was laughing with the redheaded asshole who was clearly the leader of the little threesome. Ponytails was on her own, it seemed, but clearly Maggie and Glenn vouched for her.

It was enough, barely, for me to focus on the impossibility currently tying a rough bandage over the puncture on me hand. "Walsh. Stop bitching. You're alive. How the hell- Carl thought- we all thought-"

"Yeah, don't blame you. I thought it too, several times," he said softly. He finished with my hand, but held onto it, cradling it in his as he stared into nothing. "I got out. Then I circled around and went back in, looking for- looking for Judith. I didn't make it far in before Maggie, Sasha, and Bob collected me and refused to let me go further. They said it was done, the place was gone. They were right. I'd have died there, going back in looking for my baby girl. For you. But I knew you made it out," he added, refocusing on the present. He caressed my cheek and I leaned into his hand. "You were always gonna make it out. My tough-ass angel."

"Shut up," I whispered. "Not that tough. I went back. Carl said he didn't know what happened to you. I was looking for you, for Dixon. I thought you were both-"

"Yeah, well, we ain't," Daryl murmured as I cut off with a shudder. He hovered close by, and he reached out to grip both my shoulder and Shane's.

Walsh nodded firmly. "We ain't. He's right. We made it. I love you, Angel. Kinda like you too, Dixon."

Daryl snorted and flipped him the bird. "Shut up. Like ya too, I guess. Love you for sure, Harley."

I felt myself trying to tear up and held on by stubborn force of will. "Both of you are idiots. I love you both. Oh, how in the hell? We're all here. We're all here."

"Almost all of us," Daryl said, his voice going grim again. I knew he was thinking about Beth, and I reached for his hand. He held on, and Shane nodded at him in a way that said they'd shared stories already.

"Would ya move ya asses an' let someone else have a go at the girlie? Greedy bastards."

I smothered my grin, shifting to eye Merle Dixon without leaving our little triangle. "Asshole. Shut up."

"Naw. Besides, ya like assholes, or ya wouldn't be with these two. C'mere and give ol' Merle a hug."

I scrambled to my feet and did exactly that. "I thought you were dead, too. Saw you get overrun when we got separated."

"Shit. No one can kill Merle but Merle, ain't ya figured that out yet? Made it through well enough. Lost track of ya though. Thought Darylina over there would kill me when we met up again."

I scowled at him. "You told me he was dead!"

"Thought he was. Then got to thinkin', as I's tryna find anybody left alive and ran into Glenn doin' his best dyin' impression, how if shit ain't killed my lil brother yet, weren't likely a walker would neither. Lil Grimes there said ya killed him," he added, eyes glinting fiercely. "The Governor."

"Philip the dick? Yeah. Well. No. Ricky killed him. I just went back and made extra sure he was dead. Took a souvenir, too." I held up my wrist, showing off the bones.

Merle grinned even as Shane muttered a 'what the fuck?' to Daryl behind my back. "Good on ya, sugar tits. Now, this party ready to move? We gonna take that place down to studs, or what?"

"That's exactly what we're doing," I agreed grimly. "Fucking cannibals. Should have seen their trophy room. Ricky! Can we get moving yet?"

"Yes, we should," Ricky agreed. "Smoke and noise will be drawing even more of the dead. We need to get away from here. Find a spot to hole up and regroup. Get supplies."

"Sure thing," I agreed. "Just as soon as I've made sure everyone in there is dead."

"Harley-"

"Nope," I said brightly. "Kids, Dixon. They were killing and eating kids. Tables full of stuffed animals and other toys, along with the weapons and the jewelry. Kids."

Daryl hesitated, looking from the smoke to my eyes. He knew it was useless to argue with me, I thought. But I braced myself for him to try anyway. "Harley," he said slowly.

"Rick."

We all whirled at the sound of the voice, weapons jumping into our hands.

Chapter Text

I could have laughed. It was Carol, my partner in crime who Ricky had decided needed to be banished for a choice she didn't make. It had been me who killed Karen and David, after all. Even if she'd been right behind me with the same thought, I'd been the one who did it. And Ricky had sent Carol away.

Now, covered in walker guts and with extra weapons slung over both shoulders, it was clear she'd helped save his sweet bacon. The poetic justice was not lost on me, and judging from the scowl he sent my way, it wasn't lost on him, either.

"You did this?" he asked, gesturing at the place being overrun behind us.

She nodded and I flashed her a thumbs up and a bared-teeth grin. She had a look in her eyes, though; one that said she wasn't ok. But even as Ricky hugged her tight- second only to Dixon, who'd dashed to her the minute she spoke- she was speaking.

"We need to go."

I hesitated, glancing from her to Terminus.

"Angel. Trust me," she called.

A look in her eyes had me nodding again. Whatever the reason, it was a good one. I could come back to blast Terminus off the face of the earth.

And I would.

Shock had my feet rooted to the ground, unable to move as I processed what I saw in front of my eyes. Ricky, Carl, Shane- they were already there, scooping Judith from Tyreese's arms and falling to the ground in a heap, tears on their cheeks. But I couldn't move.

I'd seen the seat, covered in blood. There was no way. She'd been dead, just as dead as Shane had been and with more proof of it. My brother's baby, Shane's baby, the baby I'd cut from Lori- she'd been dead. How was she alive?

"Harley," Dixon said gently. "She ain't dead."

"I- I don't understand," I whispered back to him. "You were dead. Shane was dead. Judith. Merle. Everyone. And now… So many of us, after all."

"Yeah. Funny how that happens," he agreed. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder, and I leaned into the touch. "Ya should head over there. Love on 'er a little bit. Be with ya family."

I nodded. "In a minute. I need- I need to- process, I think. Besides, you're my family, too."

He kissed my neck and I felt my eyes beginning to water. Jesus. How in the hell? Him, Shane, Judith, Ricky, Carl. Glenn and Maggie. Merle. Carol and Sasha and Tyreese. Even fucking Bob, who hadn't looked my way once and I was grateful, since I might still punch him in the goddamned face.

And I'd thought about staying at the prison.

I turned and grabbed Daryl's face, kissing him hard. He seemed startled when I let go, and I flipped off Merle's low whistle as I headed not for the Grimes-Walsh puddle on the floor, but for the woman who'd provided the distraction that provided us a paddle for the shit creek we'd found ourselves in. I regarded her steadily, and she regarded me right back.

"Should have told him it was me," I said bluntly.

She shrugged one shoulder. "It could have been me."

"Think we were wrong?"

She shook her head. Her eyes strayed back the way we'd come, and I knew she was thinking of Terminus, too.

"Did you go inside?" I asked, voice lowering. "Did you see it?"

"The trophy room," she said softly. "And the memorial. I killed a woman in there, who told me what happened to them. Why they'd turned into this."

"Cannibals. I can't fucking stand them."

Her eyes gained a light for the first time since she'd appeared, just a flash of humor as her eyebrow quirked up. "Meet a lot of them?"

"More than you'd think," I said dryly. "Carol. Excellent timing."

"I try."

"I'm going to hug you," I informed her. "It's going to embarrass us both, but I'm going to do it anyway. Accept it and it will be over soon."

She actually smiled then, and it reached her eyes. She held out her arms and I stepped into them, hugging her tightly. We made a weird squelching noise as we broke apart that had me actually looking at myself for the first time.

"Ew," I muttered at the nastiness smeared over my body. "And I don't have more clothes. Damn it."

"That really your thoughts right now, girl? Your wardrobe? Get your ass over here and hold this baby girl. She needs her Aunt Angel. And I need you back in my arms."

I made gagging noises, much to everyone's amusement, but I went to Shane's side, taking Judith and leaning my forehead to hers even as I let him wrap us both up in a tight hug.

We couldn't linger long. The dead would be coming to the smoke and noise in droves, and when night fell, it'd be too damn dangerous to try to make a camp somewhere or to try to be on the move. But I wasn't leaving without being damn sure no one came out of that snake den alive, no matter how much the others argued.

In the end, I faced off with Ricky, one on one. It was Grimes against Grimes, with Walsh playing referee with an amused look in his eyes, like he was remembering days when we'd been in this same position as kids- nose to nose and pissed, about two seconds away from taking swings.

I won, of a sort. I was staying behind, and unless they wanted to physically knock me out and drag my lifeless form along behind them, they couldn't change my mind.

I saw Ricky consider it.

But Shane, Daryl, and Merle all volunteered to stay with me. The others could go on ahead, just leave some sign for us to follow, and we'd catch up to them in a few hours. Just long enough to be certain no one slipped out of there to start their sadistic practices again.

Ricky contemplated knocking all four of us out, but in the end, he nodded.

"Could have taken him," I muttered to Shane.

He snorted. "Probably. But not if I came in on his side. That's my best friend."

"I'm your girlfriend."

"Bros before…" he trailed off, looking vaguely appalled at what he'd been about to say, and I laughed.

We stayed together, a quartet of watchers in the trees, armed to the teeth and waiting for anything to make a move. Nothing stirred, at least not moving out of the smoke-covered compound. There were plenty of dead moving in, however.

With Shane and Daryl on either side of me, close enough I could feel their presence but not so close as to foul up my shot if I needed to take it, I felt something inside me loosen for the first time since the tank fired on the prison. I had both my men. We were together, we were alive.

The knucklebones dug into my wrist, a reminder of how close I'd come to losing them forever. How I'd believed I had lost them, forever.

"So," I said conversationally in the silence, panning my rifle over Terminus slowly. "Who the fuck are the others?"

"The others?" Shane asked, sounding confused. "What?"

"Angry redhead, ponytails, mullet, the one who looks like she stepped out of an apocalypse video game?"

Merle guffawed nearby, loud enough for Daryl to lob a pinecone at him and tell him to shut up. But Shane laughed softly, too, and Dixon himself had that amused glint in his eyes. Merle waved a lazy middle finger at his brother. "Forgot ya ain't know 'em from Adam."

"Who's Adam?" I asked dryly, which earned me an eyeroll and a crooked grin. "But seriously. Who the fuck have we picked up now? Did we vet them? Could they be with this crew in disguise? Plants in the train car?"

Shane scoffed. "Shit, girl, you got a paranoid mind. No, they're cool. All of them."

"Have you seen the world lately? Paranoid will keep your pretty ass alive."

He shoved my shoulder when I took my eye from the scope to rake a lascivious gaze over him, shaking his head in mock judgment. "Shit. Stop that. Dirty mind. Tara- the one with the ponytails- she got Glenn out. She was with the fuckin' Governor- don't jump to conclusions- but he'd lied to her, her sister, her niece, all of them. Never fired a damn shot. Glenn passed the fuck out just down the road, and she hitched a ride with the other three. Abraham- redhead- Eugene- mullet- and Rosita. They're… interesting."

"That's a word fer it," Merle agreed lazily. "Man with the hair thinks he can save the whole damn world if Abraham and Rosita just get his ass to Washington, DC."

I eyed Merle. "How many times have you hit on her?"

"C'mon now, sweet cheeks," he protested. "I's the soul of discretion."

I scoffed and went back to my rifle for another slow scan. "Sure you are. How did you get out of there, by the way?"

"Bloody, just like the rest of ya." He didn't elaborate any further, and I decided that was good enough for me. He was here, as were my men. And my brother and my niece and nephew. Plus our friends, so many of them.

And this place had brought us all together, only to try to eat us. Fuck this place, I thought yet again, anger hard and hot in my stomach. "I wish I had some C4," I muttered. "Merle, got any grenades handy?"

"Darlin', if I's had a grenade, you think my lily white ass woulda been in a damn locked train car?"

Chapter Text

A few blood-spattered, traumatized survivors slipped out one by one. We picked them off, single shots in the silence that descended without the explosions and the screaming. But there was little life left to stir in the shell of a place, and it was clear as the sun began to slip toward the horizon. It didn't take much for Merle to convince me it was time to go. But reluctance had me dragging my feet on it, wondering if it was smart or pig-headed to go back in and be certain. And to look for Gareth.

I wanted his bone for my collection. And I wanted to take it the bloodiest way possible. Hell, I wanted to take it from him while he was alive, but dead would do in a pinch.

"Ain't nobody else alive in there, girlie. Best we get on back to the other afore they get themselves into some more shit," Merle drawled at my shoulder.

I stared at the compound. "I want to go in."

"Now that nonsense is some of the stupidest shit I's ever heard come outta that pretty little mouth." His tone was light, but there was steel under it, the kind of steel that said I wasn't going to get my way if I tried.

I considered doing it anyway. "We could infill easy, through the gates. Hell, I'm coated enough, I'd blend in with the dead. Do what Carol did, grab you guys some of the dead and dirty you up and-"

"An' get our asses killed bein' stupid? Naw, we'd be trapped inside by the horde, it'd rain, and there we go- bye bye Angel and her band of boys. Use ya head, spook. C'mon. It's over. We's done what we could, an' now it's time to go."

I grimaced at the buildings still issuing smoke. He was right. I knew he was right. It was too much of a mess in there, too great a risk. But…

"Don't make me tell them other boys ya thinkin' 'bout it, girlie. They's gonna knock ya out and drag ya away, like you done threatened to do to them a few times."

"Fuck you," I said pleasantly, lips twitching despite my best effort.

"Naw. Ain't my type. Too pretty for ol' Merle."

I shot him a look. "You need glasses or something? I'm not pretty. Not anymore."

He shook his head, eyes more serious than our playful tone had anticipated. "Girlie, scars ain't make ya any less of anythin'. An' ya beautiful for more'n just that face. If'n the pig and my baby brother ain't makin' sure ya know that right enough, I'll have me some words with 'em."

He hooked his fingers in his mouth and whistled, making all of us jump. Walsh and Dixon glared his way, but he circled his fingers in the air lazily with a smirk that said he'd make life hell for anyone who gave him an opening. I shifted, glancing back at the ruin of Terminus one more time.

"Angel, come on. Your brother's probably made a stupid decision by now," Shane called.

Damn it.

We swapped stories on the way, following the signs Ricky had left for us. Carl and his damn feathers, I thought with an eye roll. But it made me smile anyway.

Shane seemed concerned by the things Ricky and I had done to get us out of the situation with Joe and his fucking brigade. Merle only grunted, grabbing my wrist and nodding in approval at the sight of the bones on it. Shane looked like he sided with Dixon- mildly disturbed and probably worried about my mental stability or some shit.

Oh well, I thought flatly. They both knew who I was when they got into this. Walsh most of all.

We speculated about what had happened to Beth, the haunted look in Dixon's eyes growing stronger as we did. I reached for his hand and he gripped mine back, hard. Shane rested his own hand on Daryl's shoulder, and it was a moment of such pure solidarity and comfort it had my breath catching in my throat.

Then Merle made gagging noises. The asshole.

We caught up to the others in a makeshift camp, far enough to hopefully be out of danger but not far enough for my taste. It was open, exposed, as so many of our camps had been before, but I didn't like it. I turned in slow circles, scanning the falling night around us as Ricky, Walsh, and Dixon held a planning meeting nearby. I could hear them, and I knew I was included in the group brain trust now, but I didn't much care what we decided on right now.

I cared about the way this place was making my shoulder blades itch.

But there was nothing. No sign anywhere to explain it away, and I was tempted to chalk it up to paranoia. I knew already that I wouldn't be sleeping that night, no matter how much any of the boys urged me to. I'd be out there, in the trees, keeping watch.

First, though, I was using that creek to clean up. We didn't exactly had a change of clothes available, but I would rinse my shirt and scrub at my pants with water and get as much of the grime off as possible. Plus, I could get it out of my hair, too. That was what was really driving me insane.

Carol appeared, a ghost at my shoulder, as I headed for the creek. "My brother apologize yet?" I asked her in a low voice.

"Yes. He didn't need to. It was the right choice."

"Bullshit," I said blandly. "He should have sent me off too, then."

"No. I'll cover you. Clean up."

She stood while I stripped off my shirt, dropping to my knees to scrub it and get water all over my face. "Bullshit again," I said as I set to work.

She shifted, eyes on the trees. "No. I'm dangerous. To our people as well as others. He was right."

"And I'm what, a princess on a feather pillow who gives out candy to small children and passing strangers?" Genuinely offended, I stared up at her. "Bitch, you think I got these scars at the movies?"

Her eyes were amused as they flashed down to mine and back to the trees. "No. But I think you're a killer who knows when to stop. I'm afraid… I don't. Something broke. When my daughter died."

"Yeah," I said softly, knowing there was nothing I could say to that. "I'm sure it did. But you put it back together, Carol. You're stronger now. That's all. Not dangerous, or unstoppable, or cold blooded. Just strong. Don't forget that."

I grimaced at the feeling of wet shirt on my body, but at least I was semi-clean again. "Come on. Let's get back. Make sure the men don't do anything stupid."

She smothered a laugh. I was sure of it.

I didn't trust the newcomers. They were vouched for by everyone and their third cousin, apparently, but that didn't matter. I wasn't the trusting type before the end of the world, and I sure wasn't about to become one now. Not after everything.

Tara seemed fine. She was attached to Glenn like there were magnets inside them, and Maggie had welcomed her with open arms as well. It took only moments of observation to understand there was a sibling bond going on there, with her and Glenn.

Abraham was a wild card, hotheaded and angry and violence on a short leash. He was dedicated to protecting Eugene, and shacking up with Rosita. Again, it only took a second or two of observation to figure out. Rosita herself was a mystery. I saw the quiet competence, the watchful look. She was the one to keep an eye on for entirely different reasons than Abraham.

But it was Eugene I really studied, lip wanting to curl in a sneer. He claimed he could save the world; fix everything for all of us if he just made it to Washington DC in one piece.

I waited, biding my time. The moment presented itself, as I'd known the moment would, and I slipped through the dark to where he'd stepped away from the others to piss. I waited till he was done, of course, because I didn't want or need to see any of that, and then I spoke.

"So. You can save the world?"

He jumped. He stumbled back, eyes widening, and his voice stuttered on an answer. "He- hello. Yes. Yes I can."

"Tell me how then," I said softly. "The others believe you. Or if they don't, they want to badly enough to pretend. So. Tell me."

He glanced away, back toward the fire and his keepers. His mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. Then he swallowed hard, and spewed forth the biggest bullshit I'd heard in a long, long time.

I stared at him, suddenly severely questioning the intelligence of everyone around me. "And this is how you bought yourself safe passage? With this bullshit?"

"I assure, Miss Harley, it is not-"

"Oh yes it is," I said flatly. "It's massive bullshit. Heaping, stinking, nasty, bullshit. The only real question I have is- what's your angle? What's your end game?" I moved closer as I asked it, voice turning into a low purr, threat in my eyes and every movement of my body. "Why shouldn't I tell them all right now, and expose your little secret?"

"How- how- I am not lying," he spluttered, but even if I didn't know what I knew, I could have seen through that from a mile away. "Why do-"

"I'm a spook, dumbass," I said, letting a small smile play on my lips. "I made knowing shit my responsibility. So. What's your game?"

"A- CIA?"

"Yep." My patience was running thin, but there was real terror in his eyes, and suddenly it clicked. "You're a fucking coward. That's why. You made up some story so these poor bastards would keep you fucking alive. That's it, isn't it? Fuck."

I turned away from his rapid nod, disgust so great it made me want to kill him where he stood. But Abraham was watching us now, his hand hovering near his gun, and I swept my eyes over this crowd of people I loved and wanted to continue breathing.

I settled on my brother. Hope, I thought. He hadn't had any since Lori died. We needed hope, all of us, and the way the others were about this whole DC thing,, just from watching tonight-

I turned to Eugene, getting close. "Listen. I'll let you play your little game. Not because I give a single shit about you, mind, but because those people need something to keep them going right now. They need something to believe in. And DC isn't a bad idea, overall. A long damn way, and a lot of problems between here and there, but- it's not a bad thought. There's things there- and in Langley and Virginia Beach- that can help restart a civilization we can actually deal with. So. You get to keep breathing, and keep surviving, for now. But the minute I don't think it's useful anymore, you're going to tell them all. Or I will. And if I do," I added in a purr, a smile on my lips, "I'll do it right before I kill you, and add your bone to my collection here. Oh. And call me Harley again, and I'll use your spine for shoelaces. Since it's soft and all."

I melted into the trees before he could muster a response, leaving him standing on the edge of the firelight with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. I'd find myself a good tree and settle in for the night.

Chapter Text

I caught sleep in snatches, more concerned with safety than rest. I didn't trust that we'd left the danger behind, and though I couldn't put my finger on what bothered me, there was a tension between my shoulder blades that wouldn't let up.

I slipped from the tree to roam circles around the campsite while the others slept, widening my radius as the night went on and the feeling persisted. I found nothing. Some animal sign, a few disturbed places in the vegetation that could have been something or absolutely nothing.

And then, as the morning light rose, I found a single footprint in dirt.

I debated what to do as I stared at the print. It could have been old for all I knew- I wasn't so good at this shit that I could tell if something was from hours verses a day or two. But with the tightness that wouldn't go away, and Carol and Daryl on high alert during Carol's watch as well…. The only question was did I investigate on my own, or did I go back and get Dixon and Walsh to come with me?

With the rising sun, the camp would be stirring. Ricky would be looking for Shane and Daryl to have the meeting of the minds, figure out where to go next. My boys would be looking for me, and get pissed if I wasn't there. On the other hand, if I didn't act now, I might not get to act at all. "Damn it," I whispered, staring at the track.

"Harley."

I fucking jumped, whirling around and snapping my rifle up to lock on Dixon's head before his voice registered. He had faint amusement in his eyes as he held his hands up in mock surrender. I glared at him. "Damn it. You could have gotten yourself fucking killed."

"Pay more attention next time," he said easily. "Whatcha find?"

I gestured, leaning closer to his warmth as he stood beside me and studied the print. He crouched for a closer look and I curled my fingers in the hair at the base of his neck, staring at the angel wings on his back. "I wish you'd call me Angel again."

"Hmm? Why's that? Don't like ya name?"

I shrugged one shoulder even though he wasn't looking at me. "I like it fine, I guess. Just feels like you're mad at me when you call me Harley. Probably cause everyone else is when they do it," I added, laughing to myself.

He shifted, squinting at the ground. "Ain't mad. Just don't want ya forgettin' who ya are."

"I'm Angel." My tone went harder, irritation churning under the surface. I was who I was, and if he couldn't understand that… "Why can't you accept that?"

"Accept it just fine." He rose, gestured to the footprint. "Could be early last night, could be a day or two old. Think someone's out here?"

"Yeah."

He nodded. "Me too. Ain't seen nothin', but I'll keep an eye out. I know who ya are, baby. I know ya stone-cold plenty. I know ya consider yourself a weapon. I know ya think killing's ya best talent, an' it may be. But that ain't all ya are, and if ya lose the parts that are warm and soft to the cold and hard, you'll lose parts that make ya who you are. Parts I love. Same as if ya lose the steel inside. Like all of ya, that's all. And you got plenty of people who remind you of the other parts. It's the soft ones that get a little lost sometimes, is all. But I'll save it for when I think ya need it, if ya want. Stick mostly with Angel."

I hesitated, absolutely floored by what he'd said. "I- I don't- ok?"

He flashed me that hint of a smile, tossing hair from his eyes, and kissed me gently. "Don't think about it too hard. C'mon, baby, let's go tell ya brother what we's found."

"We?"

"There she is."

Ricky and Shane wore matching scowls as we emerged from the trees, and I proceeded to cross my eyes as well as I could- the one didn't exactly do it right- and stick my tongue out at them both. The scowls didn't fade, but I knew they were trying not to smile. Or at least roll their eyes.

"Don't worry; I was perfectly safe out there, Dad," I said before Ricky had a chance to scold me.

"Stop."

I flashed him a grin. "Never. Now. I found a print. Single shoeprint. Dixon says it could have been last night or a day or so prior. Other than that and some disturbed plants and foliage, nothing. But I have this feeling…"

Ricky nodded. "Carol and Daryl heard something in the night and said the same. I think we keep going. Keep our eyes peeled, but just keep moving away from the mess back there."

"Sounds right to me," I agreed cheerfully. "Now, on to other business. Walsh, when did you start snoring?"

Dixon's half-laugh was low enough to pretend was a cough, but Shane's eye roll was loud enough for all of us, in my opinion. My big brother eyed me as I winked Shane's way and I lifted an eyebrow in question.

"You're in a good mood," he observed. "Happy."

"Cannibals are dead, we're not, and I've got all my favorite men back around," I said with a shrug. "That's about as good as it gets. Now, go get the others rounded up and moving. And make Carl disassemble and check that gun. I don't like something about it."

Ricky eyed me a bit longer, then kissed me on the forehead and headed off toward where the others were packing up our meagre camp. I lifted an eyebrow at the looks from both Walsh and Dixon. "What?"

Shane shrugged. "He's right. You're… chipper."

"I am not chipper." Offense had me scowling, which had my men shooting each other triumphant looks. That, of course, made me scowl harder. "Assholes."

"Naw, that's Merle. Other Dixon," Daryl drawled. "Speakin' of, he's bein' a dick to Tara. Gonna go rescue her."

Dixon brushed a kiss across my lips and headed for the other side of the camp, where it looked like Tara was holding her own perfectly fine against the older Dixon brother. Who was, indeed, an asshole.

"You ok? For real? Know you didn't sleep much," Shane said softly, his hand brushing my arm.

I leaned into his side, head on his shoulder, and scanned my people. Maggie and Glenn were watching Tara and Merle with matching smiles as they checked over their guns. Sasha and Tyreese stood close to Bob, with Carol and her never-changing serious expression on her own. Ricky and Carl were stripping the gun like I'd suggested, my Dixon was scowling at his older brother, and the newbies huddled together, watching our people the same as I was.

Except Eugene the liar, who was watching me. I kept my face expressionless as I held his eyes, knowing the look in them far too intimately for comfort. He looked away first, blush rising on his cheeks, and I turned my back on him deliberately to answer Walsh.

"I'm fine. Something's out there, I think, but I can't prove it. Just this feeling, between my shoulders." I broke off as Shane turned me around and dug his thumbs into my back, kneading right at the place the tension had settled. "Shit, that's nice. As for the supposed 'chipper'… I thought you were dead. Almost all of you. And you're not. What's not to be chipper about, I guess?"

"Have you looked around recently?" Walsh asked dryly.

I snorted. "Yeah, I have. Know what I see? My people. My friends, my family, my lovers. All of us, together and alive and not currently being eaten by supposedly fellow humans."

His hands stilled and wrapped around my waist, his chin resting on my shoulder. "Shit. When you put it that way, girl."

"Yeah," I agreed softly as we watched the camp. Across the way, Dixon tossed his hands in the air, turning away from Tara and Merle's now-matching grins. He looked back at the two of us, and I saw the softness in his eyes.

Then Merle tossed what I was pretty sure was a sock at his face.

We walked. It wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't exactly pleasant, either. Especially as the day wore on and the simple joy of the morning, with my people safe and alive, wore off and the feeling of being watched increased steadily.

Daryl ranged out and around, coming back with squirrel and no sign of anything out there. I slipped in and out of the group and found the same- nothing to justify the tension in my shoulders or the feeling of eyes on us.

Abraham approached Ricky and suggested getting pavement under our feet and heading toward DC. Ricky agreed, and I started formulating plans for where to break off and when and how to let my brother know in private what I knew about this supposed cure. Like the information that we all turned, there were some things that everyone just didn't need to know immediately.

And then someone screamed for help, and Carl took off running.

Chapter Text

He was dressed as a priest, sitting on top of a rock screaming for help. Three walkers reached their arms up, trying to get to him.

Three. What in the shit? I wondered, staring with my lip curled in a sneer. It only got worse when he slid down from the rock and proceeded to puke, almost on Ricky's shoes. My brother stared at him, his eyes empty and cold. I was goddamn impressed, honestly. I couldn't have done the stare better.

The priest babbled. He wasn't armed- except with a Bible- and he relied on the Lord to protect him. He'd called for help, and we'd come. I had my hand on my baton, contemplating whether or not he should continue breathing, when Ricky turned and looked at me.

I shrugged. "I don't trust him."

The priest- he'd introduced himself as Father Gabriel, but there was no way in fucking hell I was calling him 'father'- looked crestfallen, his hopeful, earnest expression dropping away into a flicker of real fear. In an instant, I knew he didn't want us to leave him alone again.

"I don't either," Ricky agreed, talking to me like he wasn't standing right there. "Shane? Daryl?"

Dixon shrugged. Shane glanced at Ricky, then at me, and did the same. "Lettin' the Grimes' clan handle this one, brother."

"Well, I'm a Grimes," Carl said firmly. "He has a church. We should go there. At least for the night."

I shot my nephew a glance, pleased to find him watching the priest closely, suspicion in his eyes as well. But he was right. It was shelter, at least for the night. And if he double-crossed us- well. I had no problem killing a priest. Slowly. I nodded at Ricky's inquiring glance, then set off into the trees. I'd circle around, watching from afar, and check things out on my own. Overwatch, and a secret weapon.

I could feel the priest's eyes on me as I went, right between my shoulder blades. Something wasn't right with him. Not at all.

The church was empty. As were the cans that littered the altar area, remnants of the food drive for the poor that Gabriel said his flock had been running before the world up and ended. He'd been living off it, but the supply had just run out. That's why he'd ventured out of the safety of his church, and had run into problems.

Under the window, outside the church, someone had scratched a message. 'You'll burn for this'. Carl and I had found it while Ricky and some of the others had gone to the food bank the priest told them of, Daryl and Carol had gone for water, and Merle and Abraham- now best buddies, apparently- had been fixing up the bus they'd found around back. A bus big enough, it seemed, for all of us to potential go to Washington, if they could get it started.

My brother was taking his cues from me these days, warning his son before he left that we weren't safe, and he was never safe. Carl, to his credit, had agreed. And we'd gone on patrol together, around the church, while the others were busy.

The message under the window intrigued me, reinforcing what I already knew- something was up with the priest. He was hiding something, and while it hadn't been cannibals in the closet or rapists in the attic- so far- it was still something. I wanted to know what it was. It was my job to know what it was, and I'd figure it out. And soon.

I wandered the church once everyone was back together, gathered in the sanctuary and feasting on canned food and communion wine. Candles lit the place like a beacon, and I frowned at the pretty stained-glass windows and wondered who might be watching from afar. And who we held inside with us.

The Bible on the pulpit was covered in a handwritten message, the same one over and over again. Thou shalt not kill. Interesting, but it didn't solve any mysteries for me. The strands of observations and information hadn't formed into a coherent picture, not yet. In the Sunday School room, children's crayon pictures covered the walls. Noah's ark. God covered the earth in a flood to start again.

The parallels were clear, if you believed in things like that. I didn't. I'd lost any faith in anything resembling a god long ago, even before the caves. I left it on my first battlefield, with the body of my best friend through boot camp. Maybe this was supposed to be extinction for humanity, so the earth could begin anew, but it wasn't a god who had done this to us.

No, we'd done it to ourselves, in labs and on battlefields, turning death into something we thought we could control.

There was nothing in here that told me what the priest was hiding, so I slipped into his office instead. Office, Sunday School classroom, small bathroom, sanctuary- that was all there was to this place. I studied the walls here, the papers strewn on the desk, the floor. Looking for a clue, looking for another string in the web.

"Why you hidin' in here, Hell's Angel?"

I snorted, not bothering to look over my shoulder. I'd heard him come into the room, and I knew my brother's gate- even almost on the edge of tipsy, like the increased southern drawl in his voice told me he currently was. "I'm not hiding, and isn't that appropriate to pull out now?"

"You still believe in any of this?" he asked, waving a Styrofoam cup of sanctified wine around as he came to stand with me, surveying the back wall of the office with its window. "God. Heaven. Hell."

"Nope. Stopped a long time ago. We need to talk. You sober enough for it?" I asked, shooting him an amused look.

He rolled his eyes at me. "Course I am. I know you know something, sis."

"'Sis'," I muttered. "Jesus. You are on your way to drunk. Damn. Gimme that." I took the cup from him and he laughed but didn't protest. I sniffed at it, but didn't take a sip. "Carl showed you what we found."

It wasn't a question, and Ricky didn't treat it as one. "I don't trust him. He's hidin' something."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Something big. Thou shalt not kill. I haven't figured it out yet, but I will. This place is safe enough for tonight, at least. But we need to talk about the future. Abraham wants to go to Washington."

"He does. You think it's a bad idea?"

I shook my head. "No, I think it's a better one than any of the others we have. But Ricky, Eugene can't fix the world. He's a fucking liar and a coward, and he's only saying he can to keep Abraham protecting him. He's just an intelligent bastard who wants to stay alive."

Ricky nodded, his face hard. "I had a- well. A suspicion. If it was that easy, you'd have known about it. We shouldn't tell them. The others. Why's he still alive?"

"Oh, now you want me killing people?" I asked, part teasing and part serious. "He's alive because he's not a threat. Just a liar. We don't tell the others though. Especially Abraham. If he doesn't know, it's because he needs something to believe in. And you know what happened with the knowledge we all turn."

Ricky stared into nothing, no doubt remembering that as well as I was. It was the moment Lori turned on him, truly and completely. The moment he stopped treating everything like policework and quit being officer friendly. He nodded slowly. "I remember. Abraham wants us to go with them."

"It's not a bad idea," I said with a shrug. "But not for DC. Though there's resources there, sure. I say we go along, but we split off and head for either Langley or the naval base at Virginia Beach. VA Beach would be better. If anything remains of the military, they'll be there. And if not, there will be resources and defendable areas."

Ricky nodded. He stared at nothing awhile longer, then slung an arm over my shoulders. "Long way, sis."

"Got a better idea?"

"I don't, actually," he said blandly. "Except that you come out and eat something. Celebrate a bit. We're all alive, Harley, and we've found each other."

I smiled at the smile in his voice. "I guess I could eat something."

"Good. Listen to your big brother."

"Goddamn it, Ricky."

Abraham made a toast to the survivors, and a speech. And a pitch. Ricky, cuddling Judith, was silent for a long time, and our people watched him closely. Then Judy made an adorable little noise, and Ricky smiled. He looked up at Abraham, his eyes meeting mine for a moment on the way. "I guess she's in."

One by one, our people shrugged and agreed as well. Where Ricky went, it seemed, our people would go too.

I slipped out into the night while the others were celebrating, to make sure we were safe. Or as safe as we could be. There was nothing. No eyes or sign in the trees, nothing in the darkness. Everything was still and silent and secure.

For now, I thought as I slid back through the doors. For now.

Chapter Text

Shane waited for me, just inside the doors. "Everything ok?"

"Yeah." And it was. Surprisingly relaxed and happy, and I leaned into his arms, allowing myself to be wrapped up tightly. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," he said, not catching my tone at all. Then it hit him. "Oh. Seriously? In a damn church?"

"I mean, if you don't want to-" I pulled away, smirk on my lips as he held on tighter, backing me up against the wall around the corner from the others. "That's what I thought."

"Shut up, angel," he muttered, lips already against mine. "I love you. I'd lost you."

"I know," I whispered. My hands were in his hair, his thick curls back and getting downright shaggy, and I gripped tightly as his hands wound under my shirt and against my skin. "I lost you. I love you."

"Better." He grunted it out as he boosted me up, and my legs wrapped around his waist, kissing back with the urgency and heat he always brought up in me. Heat to melt away the last of the cold, the last of the ice, the last of the glacier I'd turned into at the loss of him, of Daryl. "Here?"

"Why not? We'll be quiet. And quick." I gasped a little as he bit at my neck, stifling the moan that wanted to follow by sheer force of will.

He breathed out a laugh against my skin, sending shivers along my skin. "Not that quick, girl."

We were pretty quick, all things considered. And pretty quiet. Practice, it seemed, made perfect, I thought as we strolled around the corner together and did not face the round of applause I personally thought we deserved. The others were scattered around the sanctuary, stretched out asleep on pews or in the floor. The only one awake, it seemed, was Dixon, watching us with a heat in his eyes that somehow sent need coiling in my core again, despite the way Walsh had just thoroughly handled any needs I thought I might have had.

Shane laughed under his breath and gave me a shove in Daryl's direction. "His turn, it seems," he whispered in my ear as he did, his hand sliding along my neck to tip my head back so he could kiss me again, long and slow and sultry. "See? We share just fine, don't we, girl?"

He let me go with another little push Dixon's way, and I found my eyes locked on Daryl's as I managed to get my feet working again. I couldn't have looked away if I'd tried, the intensity of them searing straight into me and drawing me in like an arrow to the target.

He didn't say a word when I reached him, jerking his chin toward the office door instead. I nodded, mouth suddenly dry and hands trembling with something like anxiety, like fear, but different. Anticipation, desire, and uncertainty combined into a toxic mixture that had me following his unspoken order in a way I would usually have snarled and fought against. I looked back to see Shane watching with a lazy grin and flashing a thumb's-up Dixon's way.

That was almost enough to snap me out of whatever spell Daryl had cast with that look, but I couldn't do more than frown before the man in question had me through the door, kicking it closed behind him and fixing that look on me again.

He was the hunter and I was the prey, and I wasn't scared, I was turned the fuck on. And vaguely annoyed by that, I thought with a scowl. But not enough to think about it too hard.

Not that he gave me much of a chance. In moments he was on me, going from still and watchful to a blur of movement between one blink and the next. I was helpless against it, a feeling I should have hated but surrendered to instead, melting into him and his hands and his eyes-

When he looked at me that way, I realized as I trembled and shivered in his arms, heart racing and body poised to let go, to fall over the edge with just a word from him, I turned into Harley. He brought out all the softness, all the weakness, all the surrender in me with just that look, and when he whispered my name in my ear, much like Shane had before him, it felt right. It fit, being Harley Grimes, as I shuddered and fell in Daryl's arms. I saw, for a moment, what he saw, what he wanted me to never forget, and I clung to him and to that vision as we drifted slowly back to earth.

My boys. Laying between them, a little apart from the others in the now-open office but close enough to hear any threat, I stared at the ceiling and pondered how in the hell I'd ended up here. It wasn't the first time, and I had no illusions that it would be the last, but something about having gone from one of them to the other and then them sandwiching me between them had me pondering.

It was overwhelming, how they'd simply passed me on like- like- Like what? I asked myself, really thinking about it. I'd been about to be derogatory, but that wasn't it. That wasn't what it felt like, and I'd never have accepted it if it had been. It was, like Shane had said, just them sharing. It wasn't like I hadn't slept with both of them in the same day before, but this had been more intimate, more obvious, than any of that. We'd had our own spaces, our own privacy. Nothing about the current conditions was private, and I winced as I thought about just how not-private it had been.

I'd get some grief tomorrow, I'd guess. Or we would.

We. The three of us. Together, and safe. I needed them. I needed them both so much, and I knew it now that I knew how it felt to lose them both. To be alone again, just the Blind Angel, the angel of death, out for judgement and revenge. I needed both of these men, and somehow, buy some miracle, they were fine with that need. They embraced it, even.

I drifted to sleep, thinking of the caves and the scent of Tom Ford, but for once, it didn't linger in my nose. And I didn't dream.

Cold woke me. Cold and absence. I shifted, grumpy and annoyed, and reached for whichever of my boys had drifted away in their sleep.

My fingers found nothing. I made an unhappy noise into the pack I was using as a pillow, and pried my eyes open to squint in the darkness and see if I could make out where the hell Dixon had gone.

He wasn't there. I frowned harder, sitting up, as something swept through me and sent tension between my shoulder blades. We were being watched. It settled over me like a weighted blanket, heavy and stifling, and I rose silently.

Shane grunted, rolling to the place I'd vacated without a word. My lips twitched in a faint smile, but I needed answers. I slid my baton into my hand and moved into the sanctuary, taking a count of my people as I headed for the doors. Ricky, Carl, Judith. Maggie and Glenn, Tara nearby. Merle. Tyreese, Sasha. Eugene, Abraham, Rosita. The priest.

No Daryl. No Carol. No Bob.

That was too much to be a coincidence. One could be explained- bathroom, quick perimeter patrol, something. But three? No. Something was very, very wrong.

I waited impatiently by the doors for Ricky to catch up to where I already was. All our people were awake now, weapons being checked and readied and eyes losing sleep and gaining edge. We were primed, honed. We were warriors, and some of our own were missing.

Merle and Shane hovered near me, as impatient as I was. I spoke in a low voice as Rick soothed a stressed-out Sasha and eyed the priest. I had one eye on him as well, but he looked just as confused as the rest of us, sitting in the corner with his legs drawn up to his chest and a dead look in his eyes. "Didn't see Gareth. He's out there. He's not dead. That's what it is."

"No way he made it out," Shane disagreed, but there was hardness in his voice. "He was in the thick of all that. He's dead, angel."

"Not yet. But he will be. I'm not going anywhere until I fucking kill him." My eyes were on Abraham, standing over the liar, and looking like he was about to suggest something stupid.

Fuck this. Too much hanging around, waiting. "Ricky! I'm going out. I'll slip around, see what I see. Be back."

I didn't give him- or Shane or Merle- a chance to respond, sliding out the door while they were trying to catch up. I'd rather go out a window, but that would have required breaking one. It would be too obvious, and I made a disgusted mental note to have a back door made just as soon as I finished this.

Turns out, 'this' didn't take long. Something- someone- lay on the lawn, just outside of the trees, and I turned right back around to get the others.

I was right. Small pleasure, considering what I was right about and how we found out, but still. I was right.

It was Gareth. He and a small group had escaped after all, and I was poised by the doors, angry and ready to go on the attack.

It had been Bob on the lawn, Bob missing the bottom half of one leg because they'd eaten it in front of him. Bob who'd been bitten by a walker during the supply run and hadn't told anyone, so he was dying already. Bob who the others were mourning, delivering goodbyes to.

I didn't give a fuck. He'd been largely dead to me since he'd put Dixon's life at risk for booze, back before the prison fell. He could die, and I wouldn't shed a tear.

But I'd kill that sick bastard for him.

Hell. Forget that. I'd kill Gareth for myself.

Chapter Text

It took Bob too damn long to finish dying. I heard how that sounded even as I thought it, but it didn't change the thought. It was, after all, true.

Him dying slowly cost us time we didn't have, time we could have- should have- spent preparing. Someone needed to take the task into hand and take the man out, so we could figure out what the shit was going on. But of course, he and Sasha had developed some kind of relationship, and Sasha wasn't about to let anyone near him right now. I couldn't take matters into my own hands without also taking her out, and that would get Tyreese involved, and that was a level of crazy we didn't need going on right now. Especially since I had no idea if he knew I was the one who'd killed Karen and David.

Now didn't seem to be the time to find out, honestly.

As we waited, I made plans. Most of them were shit. I didn't have enough information, though Bob had given me plenty to confirm my suspicions. It was Gareth. They had a small group of survivors, roasting leg of Bob on a fire in a school yard, while the dead beat on the windows and doors, trapped inside.

They were watching us, and had been all along. That footprint Dixon and I had found was, in fact, theirs. And I was going to kill Gareth. Slowly, painfully. I'd cut out his knuckle bone while he was alive to feel it, and then maybe I'd let Ricky take the kill shot with that machete with the red handle, like he'd said he would.

And I'd like to get started on all of that, if only someone would put Bob out of everyone's misery and get my brother and Walsh over here for a council of war, because neither Bob nor any of the rest of us knew where Dixon and Carol were, and I had a bad feeling about that.

But of course, Bob croaked and things went even further to shit. Sasha pinned the priest to the altar rail and demanded to know what he had to do with things, and he denied having anything to do with anything. Ricky and I exchanged a long look, and Ricky went on the attack. He pushed and prodded, demanding, and let Sasha hold Gabriel at knife point until he cracked and spilled the horrible things he'd done.

He locked the church, every night. And when his flock came, begging for help and refuge against the dead sweeping the world, he kept the doors locked. He listened to them crying, screaming, dying bloody. He listened, and he did nothing.

I turned away from him, dismissing him as worse than Eugene in my mind. Eugene was a coward who sought others' protection, but Gabriel was worse. I'd never think of him as a priest again, because what god could he possibly believe in that permitted him to listen to children screaming and dying horribly outside his place of worship and do nothing?

"Ricky. Walsh. Merle," I snapped, summoning the people I'd need to figure this shit out. They nodded, leaving Gabriel sobbing on the floor of the altar, Sasha staring down at him like she was contemplating killing him even though he had nothing to do with Bob's capture and roasting. I couldn't be bothered to give a shit which way she ended up going, honestly.

Before they could converge on me, Abraham ran his mouth, demanding we leave and get Eugene to safety so he could save the whole world, Dixon and Carol be damned. Ricky told him no, but he got louder and louder, and then he made the colossal mistake of getting in my brother's face.

I was on him before anyone could say 'Angel no'. I didn't bother playing fair, because why the fuck would I? My baton at his throat, I snapped his head back and applied pressure-- just enough to shut him up, but not enough to crush his windpipe entirely, though the thought drifted through my mind. "Shut up," I hissed in his ear. "Just shut the fuck up about Washington. About Eugene. We're not going anywhere- anywhere!- without our people. Besides," I added, voice dropping to a low purr. "He's-"

"Angel, let him go."

That wasn't the normal voice to try to stop me. It was Maggie, not Shane or Carl or Ricky. I lifted an eyebrow her way, not releasing the steady pressure on Abraham's windpipe. "Why?"

"We'll go with him," Glenn said. "Not yet. Give us twenty four hours. One day, to figure this out and find Daryl and Carol. Then we'll go, Maggie and I. Let him go, Angel. Please."

I snarled, lip curling upward in a sneer. "Why the hell would you go with him? He's-"

"Trying to do something," Glenn interrupted. "Something good. Something right. We should all go. And we will. Because we'll have Daryl and Carol back, and those assholes will be taken care of. Let him go, Angel."

My eyes moved to Eugene and his terrified expression and I laughed, low and angry. "He's taking a coward somewhere, Glenn. A coward and a liar. I see no reason to keep up the pretense when it's a danger to our people, Ricky."

"I agree," my brother said flatly.

Eugene started crying. Rosita, who had one hand on her gun like she wanted to aim it at my head, turned from staring at me to staring at him. Abraham tried to speak against the pressure on his throat and I growled in his ear.

"Be still, idiot. Now listen up. I worked for the Company. The CIA. You served; you know if anyone knows shit about shit, it's them. It's me. And I wasn't just part of the Company, I was one of its best. A legend. Heard whispers about the Blind Angel? That's me. Nod if you understand."

He nodded, just a slight movement of his head, and Merle chuckled. "Ol' Red looks scared as shit, girlie. Ya reputation precedes ya. Now, what's this about liars and cowards and danger?"

I flashed him a smile that was more a baring of teeth, still speaking to Abraham only. "If I let you go, are you going to go after me or my brother? Or anyone else for that matter?"

The barest of head shakes had me glancing to Merle. Merle nodded, and I eased up the pressure on the baton slowly, then melted away from Abraham's back. He bent forward, coughing a little, and flung up a hand when Rosita started his way. She stopped, watching impassively.

Ol' Red, as Merle had called him, turned to me, eyes narrowed. "Merle, you served. Little girl telling the truth? She CIA?"

"Hell yeah she is, brother man. Do good to listen to 'er, too." Merle's drawl sounded lazy and relaxed, but there was steel beneath it.

Abraham turned my way, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Behind him, Eugene's face crumpled, twisting as he cried quietly. I stared into Abraham's eyes, letting the tension and silence build and grow.

Then I turned to Maggie and Glenn, because I couldn't have cared less what Abraham thought. It was them I needed to talk to; them I needed to convince. "Eugene's a coward. He spun a pretty story for Abraham here to keep himself alive. He can't do shit about shit to save the world. There's no place where the Human Genome Project has some sort of lab that can reset humanity. And he didn't work with the project anyway. Don't you think I'd have told you guys if there was a way to save us all? Don't you think I'd know about it, or have heard whispers at the very least? I knew we all turned from the beginning. We'd heard rumors, whispers. Everyone blamed everyone else, said whoever was our enemy at the moment had secret labs where they were working on a new biochemical weapon, one that turned the living into the dead without actually killing them. It was there, hidden in the shadows. But there is no cure. And it certainly isn’t some button Mullet here can push."

Maggie and Glenn looked from each other to Eugene, now sobbing in his pew. But it was Abraham that lost it, moving in a flash to the coward, grabbing him by the collar and demanding answers. Demanding the truth.

And faced with the wrath of Abraham, Eugene told. He blubbered and babbled it out, and Abraham gave in to the wild temper I'd seen under the surface. In an instant, Eugene's face was bloody, his eyes rolling back in his head, and Abraham was pulling back to hit him again, and again.

I waited, eyeing him and weighing the pros and cons. The others seemed frozen in shock, until my brother made the first move, going to grab Abraham's arm before he swung again. Abraham shook him off with a roar, turning toward Ricky with fire and fury and blankness in his eyes. Shane, Merle, and I moved as one, converging on him from three sides. He fought like a wild man, shaking all four of us off, and he got a solid swing into my stomach that had me staggering backward and wheezing for air. Shane snarled a creative curse he'd probably picked up from Dixon and moved in with a vengeance, and Merle did, too.

Ricky came to my side, reaching for me to help me up. "You ok, sis?"

"I'm fine," I snapped, eyes narrowed. "I'm fucking pissed now. In fact-"

I grabbed my gun, moving away from Ricky before he could stop me, and whistled. Shane and Merle backed off immediately, and I fired a single shot into the window right by Abraham's head. "Stop it or the next one goes in your fool Army skull."

Abraham froze. The whole thing had taken minutes, at most, from him losing it to my fired shot, and my people looked vaguely shell-shocked. His eyes met mine and he nodded once, dropping to his knees with his hands on his legs. He fixed his gaze on a spot somewhere in the distance, and I watched him leave himself. I watched the life, the drive, the fire slide out of his eyes with the rage dripping from his body to soak into the floorboards, and I sighed.

I knew how that worked. The complete cutting off of one's self from reality. I shoved the gun back into my holster and turned to my boys. "Now," I said grimly. "I have an idea. Let's discuss."

Chapter Text

It took surprisingly little time to get them on board. It was Walsh I expected to object the most, but he took one look at my face and shut the fuck up on any objections he might have had. I was fine with that, honestly. It meant he was starting to understand.

The Blind Angel was planning things now, and she would execute them, with or without anyone's help or permission.

The points that needed refining fell under who would hide and who would be visible. And who would be doing the killing. Ricky, Shane, Merle and I- we could handle that part easily enough. Hell, I'd do it myself if the others objected, but I needed them either completely off guard or in one place and pinned down. But from the look in Merle's eyes, in Ricky's, in Shane's, they wanted in.

Sasha would too. For Bob.

I'd let her, if only because more hands made light work, and I wanted to concentrate on Gareth. Ricky would argue with me on that one- he'd made a promise, after all, involving the machete at his side- but I'd win. He could kill the man. That was fine.

I wanted to make him suffer, first.

We wrapped up our little conference and turned to the others. With Abraham still staring fixedly at the wall and Eugene unconscious, it was easy enough to determine that Rosita wouldn't be in on the fight. She would stay with her people, and she nodded once when I suggested it. That was fine with me. She seemed competent as fuck, but she wasn't one of mine. Not yet. Which meant I didn't care to have her at my back.

Tyreese refused to participate. That was also fine with me. We put him in charge of Gabriel, who was cowering horrified in the corner at the idea I outlined crisply and rapidly. With Carl and Judith also going to hide alongside them, that left Maggie, Glenn, Tara, Sasha, and Michonne, all of whom agreed to the plan immediately and without hesitation.

My little band, I thought as I studied my assembling team. We'd all turned into bloodthirsty animals, it seemed.

It was Glenn who looked the most troubled by the idea, glancing around the church with a faint frown between his eyes. But he'd been there, been the next to die and bleed out into the trough, and when I drifted to his side as Ricky and Shane worked to settle everyone into hiding, his voice was firm and unwavering.

"I'm not sure it's the right plan, but it's the only one we have. And they're bad people. They ate Bob's leg. They would have eaten all of us. I'm with you, Angel. Don't worry."

I nodded. "It's just four walls and a roof, Glenn. Nothing more and nothing less, anymore."

"Was it ever more than that?" he whispered. "Can there be a god out there, watching what's happening here and doing nothing?"

I huffed out air, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. "Rhee, I am the last person to be asking philosophical questions too. I left any faith I had in a higher power on my first battlefield. I believe in one thing only, anymore- my brothers and sisters. You all. Come on. It's time to go. They're watching."

We made a show of it, and we made it look real. We gave instructions behind us to barricade the doors- instructions to no one, since everyone we were leaving behind was already hidden- and Merle did his part of objecting loudly and being hushed beautifully. Then we filed off into the trees, heading for the school Bob had told us they'd held him. Ricky and I discussed strategy as we went, low but audible if they were already in place in the trees like I thought they were.

I caught the movement as one of them slipped from a hiding place and moved away from us. That was my cue, I thought as satisfaction stirred. Time for phase two.

I nodded to Shane, who stepped up and made an objection to something Ricky had said. None of us were paying more attention than was absolutely necessary to what was being said, and I dropped back one step, two steps, three, and-

I was in the trees. The others kept moving, and would keeping going for another three minutes before they turned around and booked it back- quietly but with purpose. Meanwhile, I slipped into the darkness and began to hunt.

I found them, gathered just inside the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing holding the church. Gareth watched the church while his people watched him, a handful of men and women who looked angry and hardened.

Who looked, if you didn't know better, just like us. I smiled, teeth bared and eyes narrowed in focus, waiting for them to take the bait. It didn't take them long.

Gareth lead the way, his people creeping slowly toward the church they clearly believed we'd abandoned. Behind them, silent as shadows, I waited for a count of five before I made my move, slipping across the open space while their lookout's back was turned. A draw of my knife across a throat and his hands reached for it, mouth moving as no sound came from between his lips and blood spilled over his hands.

I dropped his body over the side of the porch, discarding him like the rag doll he was now. In my head, time ticked down until my brother and the rest arrived, and I eased one eye around the open doors and smiled as I saw Gareth and his people converging on the altar.

A small noise, barely louder than the other nighttime sounds, alerted me to the others arriving. Walsh and Ricky were at my shoulder, Merle across the doorframe, and I nodded once. He nodded back, and we moved in together.

Three shots broke the stillness, and Gareth's voice, trying to convince those remaining behind to surrender. Gareth's droning voice turned into a scream of pain, and two of his remaining five people dropped like rocks.

Three left, plus the leader himself, I thought as I closed the distance between me and Gareth with slow, steady steps. He glanced from Ricky, putting the Python away, to me, with my baton snapped open and my knife in my other hand, blood on the blade and staining my fingers.

"So," he said slowly. "This was a trap, wasn't it? Very clever. You win. Shoot me, then."

"No," I said simply. "Ricky, you can have him when I'm done."

My brother snarled. Merle's low voice drawled to just leave me be, and let me work. I closed on Gareth slowly, his eyes on mine unflinching despite cradling his hand- now missing three fingers- against his chest.

"You think you're better than we are," he said. "But you're going to torture me, aren't you? We kill people clean. Not like the ones who came to Terminus first. It wasn't supposed to be like this, you know. It was real, once. The safety. The community. Then people like you came."

My smile was slow and cold. "Oh, honey. There are no people like me."

"Maybe. But you're going to hurt us. Kill us slowly. We did it fast. Until Bob. You all pushed us to this. Destroying our home. Killing our people. It's really your fault, what happened to Bob."

I circled him, and to his credit, he didn't try to keep me in his sight. He waited for me to come back around, and instead, I stopped at his back, leaning close to his ear. Silence reigned in the church, the others waiting for their signal, Gareth's remaining friends on their knees with their hands in the air. My lips brushed Gareth's ear as I whispered.

"You think you're a hunter. That everyone weaker than you is prey. How does it feel, to know there's stronger out there? To know that you might be at the top of the food chain, but someone like me can carve you to pieces, slowly, and lick your blood from my fingers?"

As I finished speaking, I sunk the tip of my knife into his neck, behind his ear. He cried out, stifling the sound almost immediately, and drew the blood-slicked blade along his cheek as I moved back in front of him. I smiled, and slashed it down along his cheek and through his top lip.

Then I did as I'd said I could, and ran one finger down his neck, collecting droplets of blood as I did, and licked them from my fingertip.

Fear was in his eyes for the first time, and I knew what was on my face wasn't a smile. I closed in, setting to work.

"You carved them up, Gareth," I said, voice even and clear. Around me, the others went to work as well, on the last three of his friends. "You cut their limbs off, hung their bodies like carcasses. Do you wonder what it felt like? To have limbs hacked off?"

He screamed as I grabbed his injured hand, yanking him close to me and slamming the baton into his elbow, his shoulder. Both joints popped sickeningly, hanging at odd angles, and I stared into his eyes as I ran the blade down his arm.

"They were dead first!" He screamed as I made a cut at the wrist, carefully severing the tendons. "They were dead!"

"Yes. They were. What a pity you aren't."

He passed out when I started carving for real, going for the knucklebone.

Bloody to my elbows, I nodded to Ricky. I held my prize clenched in my fist, and I stared at the stained glass windows as my brother moved in, machete with the red handle raised.

Chapter Text

Gabriel looked at me with horror in his eyes, seeing a monster where there'd only been a scarred and hardened woman before. Tyreese wasn't much better, because despite being told to stay put behind the closed door of the office, he'd cracked it open to watch, and seen my time with Gareth in all its glory. The only thing I cared about was that Carl hadn't seen, and he- thankfully- had stayed tucked out of sight with his sister, like he was told to.

I ignored the stares, the murmurs from some of the others- Sasha, Tara, Rosita. Glenn looked troubled when his eyes would land on me, but Maggie, Merle, Shane, my brother? They nodded, unbothered and unphased.

Gareth's arm flopped strangely as Shane and I hauled his body out to toss off in the woods with the rest of them. No graves for that bastard, I thought fiercely. Not if I had anything to do with it.

The dead could finish what I'd started, and remove the rest of his flesh from his bones.

"He'll be back, Angel."

I blinked, focusing on Shane's soft words with a frown. "What? He's dead as shit, Walsh. Ricky put the machete through his skull. Almost to his shoulder, I might add. Didn't know Ricky had it in him."

Shane snorted as my contemplative tone. "Rick can do worse than that if it comes to it, girl, but I wasn't talking about that bastard. I mean Dixon. He'll be back."

"Of course he will," I agreed, shaking my head as we started back to the church. "And I'll punch him in the face."

"Yeah, seems better than 'hey, I missed you'."

I scoffed. "He left without a word to anyone, in the middle of the damn night. Whatever happened, it was important, or he wouldn't have done it. But I'm still going to deck him for making me worry like this."

"Ain't the only one worried, girl," Shane muttered.

I reached for his hand, glad I'd been forced to scrub the blood off. I'd cut the sleeves off of the flannel I'd been wearing as well, deeming them too far gone to save. Walsh gripped my hand hard, and I leaned into him at the doors of the church, not wanting to go inside yet and deal with the argument over what to do next. Committees irritated me, and for all we'd been agreeing to do whatever Ricky did, there were way too many strong opinions in there for there not to be a committee-style discussion.

"He's fine, my angel," Shane whispered into my hair. He rubbed a soothing hand up and down my back, but I could feel the tension in his body that belied his belief in his own words. "He just- had something to take care of, I guess. Carol too. They're probably together, causing trouble."

"No shit," I mumbled. "Carol is terrifying, and out there with Dixon? I'm kinda mad I'm not there to play, too."

Shane laughed. "That sounds right. We should get back inside, under cover. Work on a plan with Rick."

"We should," I agreed. "But everyone will have…. Opinions."

His chuckle in my ear had a faint smile on my own lips. We stood in silence, and I listened to his heartbeat with my eyes closed, swallowing down the twining vines beginning to crawl up through my throat again and looping around my heart. Where the fuck had they gone? What could have been so important to leave without a damn word, in the middle of the night?

Or had they never left at all? Were they out there somewhere, dead, and we'd be forced to move on without ever really knowing?

The undergrowth rustled in the trees.

"What the shit, Dixon?" I snarled, the split second it took to process who was coming through the trees thankfully being less than the time it took to aim and fire. But it had been damn close.

I shoved my gun at Shane, not bothering to holster it again, and strode down the steps and toward the man now leading a complete stranger- and not Carol- out of the woods and into the clearing. He tossed hair from his eyes, expression intense and pissed off, and that was fine with me. I was pretty damn pissed off too.

I struck when I reached him, feinting like I'd throw my arms around him in a hug and instead socking him once, right in the damn jaw. I scowled at him through clenched teeth as he staggered back a half step, probably more in sheer surprise than any real damage from the punch.

I'd meant it, but I hadn't put everything I had into it. Just enough for him to get the damn message. "What the shit?" I asked again, fury now coursing through me. "Where the fuck have you been?"

"Beth," he snapped.

The single word was enough to have some of the blind anger fading. "Fuck," I whispered. "Where is she? Where's Carol? We assumed she was with you. And Dixon, shit went down here, too."

"Let the man get inside," Walsh said grimly from over my shoulder. "And we'll talk together. Dixon, who's this?"

"Noah," he muttered with a jerk of his chin toward the kid hovering behind him.

He was young, but he wasn't truly a child. I sized him up and dismissed him as a threat immediately, more focused on the clear absence of Beth and Carol. If Carol hadn't been with Dixon after all, where the fuck could she have gone? Gareth and his people hadn't mentioned her to Bob, and-

"Angel," Daryl said softly. "Didn't meant to run off. But I lost Beth, and I saw the car again. Had to follow. Y'know?"

I sighed heavily, rubbing my hands over my eyes. "Yeah. I know. Scared me, asshole. Especially with everything that happened here. Gareth got Bob. Ate his goddamn leg. Joke was on him; Bob was tainted meat."

"The fuck?"

Shane scoffed, reaching up to squeeze my shoulder. "Angel, ain't making any sense. Dixon, new kid- get inside. We can clear everything up one time instead of having the same discussion six times."

I had to admit that was a good point. I nodded, then leaned in and kissed Daryl hard. "I'm glad you're back. Not sorry I punched you."

"Love ya, baby," he whispered, caressing my cheek as Walsh hustled us all inside.

Daryl and Carol had been together. They'd seen a car with the same cross on the back glass that Daryl had seen speeding away from Beth's pack. He'd followed it that night, for as long as he could, but he'd lost it. He'd been on foot that time.

Carol, it seemed, had found a car that worked, and I knew she was trying to leave us all again. She didn't think she should be with us, because she was a dangerous killer who didn't know when to stop. I glanced at the blood puddles still on the carpet in front of the altar and thought she probably wasn't the only one.

But they went after the car together, and discovered it went back to Grady Memorial, in Atlanta. I sighed. We were going in goddamn circles out here, it seemed. But of course we were going back for Beth, and now for Carol, who had somehow gotten hit by one of those cars and taken into the hospital.

Noah, the new kid, had been there with Beth. They'd been escaping together, and Beth had let herself get taken again to let Noah go free.

It wasn't good in there. Dawn did her best to keep her men in check, but it was one of the others who really ran the show; Atlanta PD gone bad. Dawn kept her unit as together as she could, but there were still things going wrong.

Whoever they brought back, whoever they treated medically or rescued from walkers, had to work off the debt they owed the group for food, housing, medicine. It was slave labor, basically, as they were charged further for food they ate and things they used while they were there. Indentured servitude at the end of the world, I thought with disgust. That's the way to do it, sure.

And it was worse, because Noah said some of the officers took it further. Coerced, threatened, outright assault the women working there, paying off debts. And they claimed it would go toward their debt, but somehow, it never did.

I cut through the discussion of what to do, voice flat and offering no room for argument. "We're going . We'll get her and Carol, and anyone else who wants to come. Small team- me, Ricky, Walsh, Dixon. Both Dixons, actually. Sasha's a good shot, she can come along, too, if she wants. But we're going, and the plan is to fucking kill everyone. Anyone got an argument, save it. The rest of you will stay here; fortify this place and we'll be back. Questions, comments, concerns? Voice them now or don't voice them at all. But remember," I added, shooting a glare around. "We're doing it. No arguments."

They didn't fucking argue. They were starting to get it, it seemed.

Chapter Text

Carl looked like he wanted to argue, but when I met his eyes and shook my head, cutting my gaze over to Gabriel to make my point, he agreed to stay behind. Obviously, Gabriel wasn't going, and if we were leaving Judith, we sure as shit were leaving some others behind, too. To watch over her and to keep an eye on him.

Rosita wasn't in question. She was staying to keep an eye on the semi-catatonic Abraham, who was clearly having a meltdown of epic proportions that I didn't have the time or energy- or fucks to give- to deal with. Eugene, having regained consciousness after the beating from Abraham, would be staying in a corner with Gabriel, under the clearly-marked heading of 'Not To Be Trusted'. But he was alive, and wasn't that what he wanted?

The others were being more difficult about it all, which I'd honestly expected. I refrained from banging my head into the wall through sheer force of will, letting them argue over each other about who should be staying and who should be going while I sorted through the weapons and ammo we'd scored from Gareth and company and what we'd already had available.

It wasn't much either way.

Merle's voice joined the discussion in a loud, lazy drawl that sounded more amused than pissed, so after a pause I resumed ignoring them and moved on to packing food into supply bags. Dixon crouched at my side, chewing on a ragged thumbnail.

"They'll settle into my recommendations, most likely," I told him. "And we'll be moving in a couple of hours. We'll get them both. I promise you that."

"Yeah, yeah. What happened here? While I's gone? Rick ain't said."

I sighed. "Gareth. He got out, despite us going back. He and his merry band of murderers stole Bob and cut off his leg, roasting and eating it in front of him. Joke was on them, though, because Bob had been bitten. They left him on the lawn for us to find, and then we lured them in and killed them all. I took Gareth's knuckle bone first."

"Why?"

I glanced up at him, setting the last pack aside. "Because I wanted it. I'm starting a collection."

"Noticed that," Daryl said with a small grimace. "Ain't sure what ya plan on doin' with 'em, is all."

"Wearing them. I seem to recall someone wearing ears as a necklace, so keep the judgement to a minimum there, Dixon."

Daryl's eyes lightened, a smile in them if not on his lips. "Yeah, whatever."

"Angel! We've got it sorted."

I rolled my eyes at Ricky's tone, like he'd done anything I hadn't already done. "Let me guess- you, me, both Dixons, Walsh, and Sasha?"

"And me," Tyreese said firmly.

I scoffed. "Absolutely not."

"You can't tell me-"

I whirled to him, getting up in his space, temper flaring out of nowhere. "I absolutely can. Remember last time you went on a mission with us? Remember being told to get out of the car and not fucking doing it, so we had to choose between saving your ass and abandoning you? And how I chose to abandon you? And how you refused to be part of killing Gareth? I'm in charge out there, Tyreese. You really want to go?"

"I know how you work." It was said flatly, angrily. His eyes were tight, but starting somewhere just over my head, not at me. "I've seen how you work."

Somehow, I didn't think he was talking about Gareth. Or not only about him, at any rate. I felt a cold smile flicker over my lips. "You know I killed them, then. Karen and David."

"She was your friend," he said softly. "I know. And I forgave you for it a long time ago."

"I never looked for your forgiveness," I spat. "I did what I thought was right. I'll do it again, if I have to. I'll kill you without hesitation if you put this in jeopardy like you did last time. Am I understood?"

He finally looked into my eyes. "I know who you are. You're a monster. I saw what you did to him, before you let him die. I won't let you do that to my people."

"Your people?" I laughed, but it was humorless. I felt the others listening, stirring at my back. "Who have you kept alive, Tyreese? Those little girls? The one who killed her sister, the one Carol had to kill? She saved you. A cold-blooded killer just like me saved your life and Judith's. I saved your ass out there while we looked for medicines for your sister. For the others. But sure," I added as I felt Walsh shift at my side, reaching for my arm. "Come along, big man. But stay out of my way."

Before we got underway, we needed to reinforce the church. We were leaving the children behind, and the cowards, and the injured. Plus Glenn, Maggie, and Tara.

Maggie surprised me, in not wanting to come along. I'd have thought she'd be all over it, getting her sister out, and I told her so in a low voice as we prepped walker traps outside the doors and reinforced the windows.

She sighed. "I do. I want to. But if I go, I'll be too worried about not letting anything happen to hurt her to be any good. I'll be waiting for her when you come back with her, where I can worry and stress out without causing anyone distractions. She's in good hands, with you going for her. I know you'll get her out safe."

"I'll bring her back to you," I promised Maggie, squeezing her shoulder. "Just as fast as I can."

I worried the problem over while we worked, trying to get a head start on a plan. I'd been to Grady Memorial once, I thought, but it was a long time ago and I had no idea of how the place was laid out other than vague generalities of most hospitals being the same. Noah was busy with a hymnal and a pencil, making me detailed maps of each floor he'd been on and where he remembered Dawn's policemen being stationed or quartered, where the civilians and doctors were most likely to be. It was good, having him to give me that information, but it wasn't the same as observation and firsthand experience.

Then again, I'd done more with less.

On the other hand, it had always gotten messy.

"Come eat, angel. Fuel up for the road."

I finished hammering the board to the window, just above the scratched message to Gabriel, and frowned at it. I probably would burn in hell if there was one, but not for what I'd done since the world ended. It was the things happening before then that had damned me so thoroughly. I rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck, and dropped the rock I was using as a hammer, since we didn't exactly carry tool bags around with us.

Come to think of it, those would actually be really helpful. But also really heavy.

I accepted the water from Walsh and wandered over with him to the shady spot were Dixon had parked himself, taking the can of yams Dixon shoved my way with a grimace. I hated the things- not very southern of me, but it was what it was- but I'd rather have them than dog food.

Everything got measured against dog food and shit-covered moldy bread. Pretty much everything ranked higher, too.

I ate in silence with my boys on either side of me, looking over the defenses we'd erected with a critical eye. They'd do, I decided, for a couple days. If this rescue mission took more than one night, I'd be surprised. And annoyed.

"Headin' out soon, right?" Dixon asked.

I nodded. "As soon as the windows are done. No reason to delay. This place is as good as we can make it, and we're not going to be gone long. We need to get a move on. Get our people out of there."

Dixon nodded, then stretched out on the grass, his head in my lap. I ran my fingers through his hair absently as I chugged the water Shane had given me. Walsh sat at my side, leaning back against a tree with his eyes closed.

"The best way is to kill them all, quick and quiet. Especially if they've been raping people as well as forcing them into servitude." I was musing, turning over plans, thinking out loud. "Go in quick and quiet, take them down in a rush. It's the best way, and when Noah's done with those maps, I'll be able to plan our route."

"I's not sayin' killin' 'em ain't the way to go," Dixon said slowly, his tone sounding very much like he was about to say that. "But, baby- I heard what ya did to Gareth. Ya ok?"

I snorted, not looking down at him despite feeling his eyes on me. "I'm fine. I got what I needed from him. And he got what he deserved. Less, actually, since Ricky killed him. I'd have let him bleed out slowly."

"Like ya'd have let the fucker in Terminus."

"Exactly like that," I agreed, voice going hard. "They were eating people, Daryl. Eating people."

"I know. Just- worried about ya."

"Again? I'm fine," I snapped. "This is just a day in the office for me, you know."

"Think the man's just wanting you to know you've got people who have your back, angel," Shane said, clearly trying for soothing. "And you can take the high road sometimes."

"What high road? There's no high road when it comes to cannibals. Or kidnappers who take our people. Or rapist bastards," I added, face going hard.

"That's what I'm sayin', baby. Ya got that look in ya eye again, the one ya got after- after the damn Governor. Noah said Beth ain't been touched like that. She's aight, and so are you. Don't have to go scorched earth if there's a better way."

I shoved to my feet, shaking my head. "I'm fine. Both of you. And the best way to know no one else will be hurt? Is to burn down the bastards who might do the hurting. Yo, Ricky! We gonna move while there's light or am I on my own for this?"

Chapter Text

Getting to Atlanta was easy. Getting into Atlanta was suspiciously easy, considering all the things that had gone badly last time we'd been here. We took up residence in an abandoned parking garage, close enough to Grady Memorial to have a good view, but not so close that we'd give ourselves away. As long as we weren't stupid about it all, anyway.

We watched for a few hours, looking for changes in movement from what Noah had told us of the place. We had him and his maps and information, but still. I wanted fresh intel, as up to date as possible, because things might have changed after his great escape.

I was annoyed, somehow, that he hadn't managed to get Beth out with him, because if he had, I could have avoided this whole hoopla and been well under way to VA Beach or Langley or the Farm, like we should have been, with everyone together where I could keep an eye on them. But no, instead we'd left my nephew and niece behind, as well as a bunch of our people, and here I was trying to plan an infill and rescue with a team that absolutely wasn't trained for this, no matter how reliable they were at my back.

There was only so long Dixon would wait before charging in with a head full of stupid, however, so I couldn't observe for as long as I wanted to. Ten hours, ideally, or overnight if possible- but no. I got about three hours and spent half of that with Daryl practically snarling and vibrating in my ear.

Finally, I turned and stared at him. "Dude, what is your damage?"

He tossed hair from his eyes and shrugged, looking confused. Like he had no idea what I was talking about. "Jus' need to get them outta there's all."

"You develop a crush or something? You know I need intel before I can execute this properly."

"What's there to fuckin' execute?" he fired back, looking just as annoyed as I was feeling. "We go in, get Beth and Carol, and get out."

I stared at him, truly baffled. "That's missing the entire 'plan' part of a plan, Dixon. You want to get killed? That place is a fortress. We need to know what we need to know, and then I'll get the mission plan sorted and we execute. We'll have them both. Just wait. I need to see if anything has changed."

He scowled, fiddled with his crossbow strap, and then started pacing. I gave up about twenty minutes later and sent him to call everyone back to our parking garage.

I crouched with Ricky and Shane, sketching an outline in the dirt. The others hovered over us, watching as I marked targets and explained the route, sliding into Blind Angel mode easily, and with something akin to relief. The restlessness in Dixon and the way both my boys had ganged up on me earlier had me itchy, annoyed and almost vaguely guilty for being who I was and doing what I'd done to Gareth.

The bones on my wrist clanked together softly as I pointed out objectives and assigned jobs and targets.

For a brief, shining moment, it seemed like no one was going to object. For once, I thought, everyone was going to accept my plan and follow orders, and this would be quick and easy as I was saying it would be. We'd kill all the cops, rescue the doctors and the indentured servants, grab Carol and Beth, and be on our way by sundown.

And then the moment ended with Tyreese opening his mouth.

He objected to killing them all. Why not take prisoners? Do a trade?

Because prisoner exchange was fraught with issues, potential missteps, and the ability to double-cross and leave everyone dead anyway, including the people you wanted to get back from them. Why did he think the government traded as little as possible, besides having a standing policy against giving the bad guys back to their friends to keep being bad guys? It almost never went right. Infill and extraction was the usual way for rescue for a reason.

The Blind Angel can see. Repeat, the Blind Angel can see.

I should know. I had experience. But why would any of these people listen to me, including my own boyfriends and my dumbass big brother, who was a cop at heart and not the feral neck-biting killing machine he sometimes morphed into.

He chose a terrible moment to morph back, and decided to leave which plan we took in Daryl's hands, for some reason both Merle and I objected to loudly and passionately. We were, of course, overruled, and Daryl stared at me with a look in his eyes I couldn't identify before declaring we'd try the prisoner exchange. Because of course he did.

I immediately began working on a plan for taking Merle in with me alone and doing the 'kill them all and call it a day' plan, but Ricky was trying to set up a prisoner exchange and doing it horribly, so I counted backward from ten to calm down before I jumped in and made it as good as it could be, under the circumstances.

I only made it to seven before he said something spectacularly stupid and I slapped my hand against my face hard enough to echo in the empty building. That got everyone's attention.

"I highly advise that we not do things this way, and I mean highly. It never works like you think it will. Someone important always ends up dead." I ground the words out through my clenched teeth, then removed my hand from my face and sighed. "But if you're not going to take the literal expert's advice on the best way to get our people back, at least, for the love of fuck, take my advice on how to do your stupid plan in the least stupid way possible."

Shockingly, they listened to that much, at least. Still intent on taking hostages of our own and doing a trade, Dixon refused to go back and consider my first approach. Ricky and Tyreese backed him, Shane shrugged and said he didn't much care either way, and Ricky got that look in his eye that said he'd do it how he wanted and get himself and probably the rest of us killed in the process.

So I fixed their plan as best I could. We'd use Noah as bait for one of their regular patrols, which were still going out despite- or perhaps because of- his escape. Sasha and I would provide overwatch as Noah lured them into our trap, and Ricky and Shane would be in charge on the ground, with Daryl, Merle, and Tyreese as immediate backup.

I eyed Tyreese and Sasha and wished like hell I hadn't had to bring them along. Yet again. I seriously, seriously wanted to do something permanent to Tyreese for refusing to follow my orders like he'd promised to do, but short of killing him- and Sasha as well probably- there wasn't anything I could do. And then Walsh and Dixon would seriously have issues with my supposed violence and brutality.

"Ya gonna go along with this?"

I turned from studying the hospital to find Dixon and Walsh studying me. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Cause ya don't like the plan."

I scoffed. "I think the plan is stupid and likely to get someone killed. I'll go along to make sure it's not one of my 'someones'. I wish you’d change your mind and listen to me, though."

"This seems solid, angel," Walsh said, shrugging. "I think it'll work."

I eyed them both. "What do you want from me here? I'm going along, aren't I?"

"Angel-" Shane started, shoving a hand through his hair and getting that look that said I wasn't going to like whatever he said next.

I cut him off, getting more pissed off by the minute. "Stop it. We keep having this conversation, don't we? This is who I am. This is what the CIA, the caves, the end of the world made me. Accept it or don't, but make up your minds. I'm so tired of having to defend myself to you both."

I shoved past them and Shane grabbed my arm, spinning me around and pulling me back toward him. I refrained from decking him by sheer force of will and not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

Then he cupped my face in his hands and brushed a soft, quick kiss to my lips. "We love you, idiot. We're worried about you, is all. We want you to talk to us about all those things, and all the things going on now, instead of closing off and assuming we don't like how you operate, girl."

"Yeah. An' we want ya to remember it don't always have to be the worst way. Sure, it does sometimes, baby. But not every time. Noah says there's some bad eggs in there, but that they ain't all bad. So maybe we work with the ones that ain't, and we don't have to go killing more of us that're alive. Ain't that many left, is all."

I sighed, taking one of Shane's hands from my face and reaching for Daryl's hand as well. "I know there's not. And not everything needs the nuclear option, sure. But some things do, and that's what I'm good at. I am the nuclear option. Are you two good with that?"

"Course we are, baby," Dixon said softly, squeezing my hand. "But this ain't one of those times. We can do this, this trade. Tyreese is right."

I grimaced. Those were terrifying words, and while I hoped he wasn't wrong, I had a sinking feeling that he was.

Chapter Text

Noah made for excellent bait, though I made a mental note to offer to rebreak his ankle so it could heal correctly if he wanted. Later, after everything else was handled. For now, I watched through the scope of the rifle as he limp-ran between buildings, being as obvious as he could possibly be without shouting 'here I am! Come get me!'

The rifle wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst. It certainly wasn't the one I'd taken from Woodbury, military-spec and with canted irons as well as the incredible scope. But it would do the job, at least at the distance I needed it too. And Sasha was nearby, set up further into the ambush point and closer to the ground, a backup overwatch prepared to leap into action if necessary.

Please, for love of any god bothering to listen, let it not be necessary. Because if it was, that meant everything had gone horribly wrong. As usual.

The car was on approach, and Noah's acting skills were on point. He looked terrified and started limping faster, up the alley toward where Ricky, Shane, and both Dixon boys lay in wait. He looked over his shoulder, eyes wide and panicked, and felt my lips twitch in what resembled a smile. He was good; I'd give him that. He really hated these people, this place. And he was determined to get Beth out. She'd worked her magic on him, it seemed; the kind of magic only truly good people can work.

I didn't have that magic. But I didn't need that magic.

I shifted the rifle from Noah to the officers in the car, both of them wearing their uniforms and shouting out the windows toward Noah. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I'd have bet money it went something like 'come on, give it up and come back where we can keep you safe!'

I could shoot them both right here and right now. My finger ghosted on the trigger, the urge to apply just the lightest pressure and take out the driver first, passenger second so strong I almost gave in.

It was the smart thing to do, damn it. It was the safest way, no matter what Tyreese said about something going wrong and them hurting Beth or Carol in the meantime. Something would go wrong. Something would always go wrong.

But statistically, more somethings were likely to go wrong with a hostage exchange.

I didn't fire. The car sped into our trap, and out popped my men and my brother, with Merle on their backs. The two in the car got out slowly, hands up, and for a second I thought, ok. We pulled off step one.

Then as they were being cuffed- and didn't Shane and Ricky look like their old selves again, for a moment, as they bent them over the hood of the car and slapped the cuffs on them- I heard the engine rev and the tires squeal.

"Shit," I muttered, rifle swinging to find the vehicle. "Shit, damn, fucking- there you are."

In my sights, a second cruiser moved full speed ahead toward my people. I muttered another curse, tracking it as it careened toward them, and hoped my boys down there were smart enough to get the fuck out of the way. I drew in a deep breath and hoped my aim wouldn't fail me now, even as icy calm covered the pounding adrenaline in my ears.

Shots rang out from Sasha's position, but they all missed wildly. On the ground, I later learned, our two captives had taken advantage of the distraction to fucking bolt. My brother, Shane, Merle, Tyreese, Noah and even Sasha gave chase. Daryl hesitated, trying to get a shot at the driver.

I didn't bother with the driver. I let out the breath I'd drawn in, stroked the trigger like an old friend, and watched the front tire explode. I didn't have long to be satisfied, though, because the car went veering sideways, overcorrected toward the other wall, almost took out Dixon, and shot through the end of the alley and into the blasted-out courtyard of a temporary FEMA relief station.

When the choppers had gone over the city, they'd targeted places just like this. The dead had been congregated there, looking for the living.

I muttered a curse, shifting positions but losing both the car and Daryl for too long before I found them again. My heart damn near stopped at what I saw when I did.

Dixon was on his back, some bastard in a uniform on top of him, hands pressed to Daryl's throat and clearly doing his best to choke the life out of my boyfriend. Ew, that thought felt strange- boyfriend. Not that I had long to think about it; even as I lined up my shot, Dixon's scrabbling hand hooked the eyes of a burned walker that somehow still had just enough brain function left to try to eat whatever was closest to it by opening and closing its jaws in sheer desperation. He ripped the head from the spine, slammed it into the side of the cop bastard pinning him down, and they reversed positions between one heartbeat and the next.

I couldn't get a shot. They were all over each other, things changing too fast for me to risk putting a bullet into the mix. I'd have the bastard in my sights and by the time the bullet reached them, it'd be Daryl it slammed into.

So I had to watch, heart rising into my throat, twining vines sinking into my lungs where the cold had been moments before, as they scrambled for the bastard's gun. Somehow, impossibly, he came up with it, and my fingers was on the trigger as Daryl froze, and-

And let out a breath. Ricky was there. Ricky had his gun to the bastard's head, and he dropped the one on Dixon, and I could breathe normally again.

For now. Until this plan went to shit a second time.

Yeah, Sasha would be overwatch from now on. I needed to be boots on the ground for when things went to shit like this.

We had three hostages to their two. On the one hand, it was a better negotiating position. On the other hand, it was more opportunity for things to get fucked up. I stood close by while the brain trust debated, but I wasn't going to be a part of it. It didn't change anything, fundamentally, and they weren't going to listen to whatever I had to say in the first place. Why bother contributing just to be ignored?

I was a little bitter. I had a right to be.

I kept my attention on our prisoners, who'd introduced themselves- or been introduced, as it were, by the girl who seemed so willing to cooperate- as Shepard, Lamson, and Licardi. I didn't care who they were, but having names was easier than Bastard One, Bastard Two, and Bitch, I guess.

Shepard, the woman, tried to convince us we had a solid plan and everything would be fine. Lamson, her partner, who I'd almost taken out at the wheel of their car while they chased down Noah, said the opposite. That Dawn didn't care about her people and it wouldn't matter how many of them we had; she wouldn't trade for them. We'd have to take the place.

That's what I'd wanted to do all along, of course, but now we couldn't. With none of these three checking in and the gunshots ringing through the city, they knew we were out here and we'd lost the element of surprise that would have made the plan go off without a hitch. Tyreese's 'what if' scenario could play out in there now, before we even had a chance to arrange for the meet and exchange, and we had no way of knowing.

Ricky believed, as Tyreese did, that just having her people missing would keep her from hurting anyone inside, since she didn't know who we'd be trying to free. I thought that was bullshit. If I were her, I'd be killing anyone I thought might lead to trouble, and the recent escape attempt and Noah's assistance in the kidnapping would make it clear who that trouble might be.

Beth might be dead already, and Carol too. I hoped not, but I was prepared for that. I'd kill everyone then, if they were. I'd empty that place and let the dead take it over, like they had the city. And Ricky wouldn't be able to stop me. None of them would.

The great debate was wrapping up, and both Shepard and Lamson were issuing conflicting statements still. Licardi was silent, staring at everyone with a smirk on his lips and eyes that promised violence. He was one of the bad apples, I could tell. He would have raped Sasha and I in a heartbeat, and called it his due for protecting us.

I broke into the discussion now, loud enough for everyone to hear, including Sasha and Tyreese on watch nearby. "Nobody talk to these three. It doesn't change anything, Ricky. We need extra hands at the drop, though. I'll do it."

I moved to the guard rail, taking up my rifle and scanning the city without another word.

Chapter Text

Water. Fucking water.

People not listening was really starting to get on my nerves, and now we had an entire situation on our hands because Sasha couldn't pay attention to a simple direction like "do not talk to the prisoners". All because he convinced her to give him a fucking water.

I knew I shouldn't have left her on guard while we did location scouting for a decent meeting site. But I had limited choices and I sure as shit wasn't leaving Tyreese behind. Him I knew to be a wild card, but Sasha had never given me a reason other than siding with her brother to doubt her basic competency in an incredibly simple task. Watch them, watch out for the dead, watch out for other problems, and absolutely do not engage with them.

"Simple," I muttered as I followed at Ricky's heels, chasing down the escaped Lamson. "Very fuckin' simple."

"Shut up and run, sis," he snarled over his shoulder.

He was right, but I was still pissed about it.

He dared Ricky to shoot him. We had him dead to rights, and Lamson told us he wouldn't be going back, no matter what happened.

Ricky hesitated. I didn't.

The bastard dropped after two steps, and that was only because Ricky yelled after him and I thought he might change his mind. This wasn't a good thing, after all, and I'd really have preferred not to be put in this situation.

Nothing about this rescue mission was going well, if I was being honest. I stalked up to the corpse and rolled him over with my foot, looking down into dead eyes. I'd shot him in the back of the head, and his forehead was an absolute mess as a result. Exit holes were always worse than entry wounds.

But the eyes were intact, sightless and vaguely accusatory, and I curled my lip at him. "Asshole."

"Does this- this change things?" Ricky asked at my shoulder, sounding worried.

I snorted. "Of course it does. She knows how many people she sent out, and now we've killed one. The only good news is we haven't made contact yet and guaranteed the safety of her people in exchange for the safety of ours. The bad news? We haven't done that yet and she could be inclined toward retaliation."

We contemplated the dead Lamson in silence, and I let out a heavy sigh. "I might- might- be able to salvage the situation, if you do the negotiating. You've got that thing where people like you and you always know what to say."

"Thanks? I think?"

"It was a compliment. Mostly." I hauled off and kicked Lamson's body, squarely in the side; just letting out some of the anger simmering under the surface. "Should have done this my way, Ricky. We'd be done by now."

My brother shifted, shaking his head and looking toward the hospital in the distance. "Yeah. Probably."

"Probably my ass. Come on. Let's get back before Sasha and Tyreese decided the other two need feather pillows and bon bons."

In Sasha's defense, she'd been hit in the head. That defense was slim considering the reason for that was her ignoring my express orders and giving him water as well as talking to him in general.

She was fine, except for the bruises to both skull and ego, and I proceeded to ignore her the way I'd been ignoring Tyreese. She'd be with her brother, when the meet went down. They could keep each other company off on the sidelines, where hopefully they couldn't do any more harm than they already had.

I really, really wanted to punch Tyreese in the face a few times. Or slit his throat in the night.

The only thing stopping me- aside from mutiny by all of my favorite men, except maybe Merle- was the fact that extra hands were helpful with prisoners, including ones trying to convince everyone around them of two entirely separate things. Shepard, earnest and serious, kept telling everyone that our plan would still work; Dawn would still trade and we'd taken care of a problem for her, even. Licardi smirked, scoffed, and occasionally snarled the opposite, earning glares and rebuttals from Shepard.

An air of general unease filled the space, which frankly, it should have all along. This was a dumb plan, and it had just been made dumber by the fact that I'd had to kill one of our negotiation points.

Sasha was apologizing to everyone, and tried apologizing to me. I ignored her, like I ignored Tyreese's glare.

I was done dealing with the stupidity head on. I'd decided to simply ignore it and focus on the situation I could deal with, which was the upcoming necessity of getting the goddamn show on the road.

"She fucked up. Don't have to ignore her over it, girl," Shane said in a low voice as I stood staring at the hospital and mentally running through a thousand different scenarios at a time. I proceeded to ignore him as well.

He sighed, shifting in the silence, and shoved a hand through his hair. "Being difficult, I see."

"No. I'm working, Walsh," I snapped. "We need a plan, and I'm trying to think. Cover all the bases, since we now have yet another variable in the soup, one we didn't plan for. One I shouldn't have had to plan for. And all because people don't fucking understand how operations work."

"Understand 'em just fine, baby. Still think ya bein' a bit harsh."

Oh, great, now Dixon was getting involved. What was it with them questioning me every step of the way these days? I decided to ignore both of them, too.

I closed my eyes, connecting dots and threads and snippets of information in my mind. Things Noah had said, things Shepard, Lamson, and Licardi had said; the communications we'd heard over the radio of the police cars we'd grabbed- it all formed a pattern; a web; a picture of the woman in charge over there, clinging to her authority by her fingertips.

How would she act? How would she react? It mattered, and the gaps in my knowledge might prove the pitfalls that got people killed.

I ground my teeth together, angry again that I'd been ignored and overridden. If we'd done it my way-

But we hadn't, and I had to work with what I had. And now, that was those two prisoners and a team of idiots who didn't understand that this was literally what I'd been trained to do, for years, and that I really, really should have been in charge all along, like we'd all agreed.

Oh, and Merle Dixon.

I turned decisively, my eyes sweeping over everyone assembled. "Ok, listen up," I snapped, raising my voice to be heard.

Faces turned toward me, responding to the tone more than the words, and I smiled, tight and angry.

"I'm done playing games. This is a life or death situation for people who are important to me. I'm in charge now, for real, again. Get in my way and I will sideline you. Maybe permanently, maybe temporarily, but I'll do it. How extreme a sideline will depend on how much I usually like you, because let's be clear- I'm not all that fond of any of you right now."

Shane and Daryl looked vaguely annoyed, Ricky looked offended, and Merle amused. Sasha and Tyreese looked pissed off, Noah scared, and the prisoners intensely interested. I didn't give a fuck about any of those reactions. I had a mission, a singular one that needed completing and needed completing fast.

"So, agree now or be added to my prisoner line-up. I'm in charge. You do what I say, when I say it. Opinions are welcome, but I'm the god in charge. My word is final. If everyone agrees to that and stands by it, we'll get our people back and be on our merry way. If you don't, I'll kill you or maim you or chain you to one of these pillars like those two. Am I clear?"

Merle laughed while the others eyed me with a mix of emotions ranging from concern to open hostility. "Hell, sugar tits. Been god of the mission all along in my book."

Chapter Text

I had a plan, as best I could come up with under the circumstances. I was still considering saying 'fuck it' and doing a direct attack on the place while sending a small group to the attempted exchange, and honestly, that might be the way I went.

Or send most everyone to the exchange, and then I slip in alone do what I've been trained to do. Ok, I was leaning that way.

But first, we had to figure out a meeting with someone to get our message to Dawn in the first place. I was working my way through the last details of how I wanted that to go when Dixon drifted over to me from the knot of the others, all muttering quietly among themselves. Merle was the only one apart from them, leaning nearby but not too close to me and staring down both remaining prisoners. He was the only one I really trusted to be watching them right now, so I was grateful, and also pissed the fuck off that I couldn't trust either of them men I loved to follow my orders in the field.

Maybe it was because I was sleeping with them? I didn't know, but I was annoyed and over it.

"Hey."

I grunted in response, in the zone planning and running scenarios through my head. Daryl leaned against the wall beside me, elbows on it as he faced the others inside, whereas I was staring at what really mattered- our target.

"Can ignore me if ya wanna, but I ain't goin' away. We's gonna do shit your way, an' maybe you're right. Maybe we shoulda done it your way to begin with. But thing is, baby, Beth would want it this way. The exchange. Minimize loss of life. An' I figure, we's rescuin' her, we should do it her way, right?"

Something bitchy and irritable rose to the surface, and I didn't take my eyes from the target even as I sneered. "Want me to be more like little Beth then, Dixon? That it?"

Daryl's scoff was as eloquent as my sneer. "Naw. Beth's a kid, baby. Ya ain't. But just think maybe she's got the right idea and you've gone a bit far down a dark road is all. Wanna make sure there's still enough light ya can see by it."

"My dark road will keep your ass and hers alive, so fuck you, Daryl. Go away. I need to talk to your brother." I turned away from him, annoyance becoming anger in the blink of an eye. He thought this road was dark? Fuck it. I'd show him dark.

I'd for sure be sneaking in on my own during the exchange and taking everyone down.

But first, I needed another head in on this. Committees sucked, but good leaders and planners had someone to bounce ideas off of and make sure there were no gaps in the plan. I didn't want to talk to any of my usual people, but Merle knew the language, knew the chain of command, knew his place in it and mine. He knew how my brain operated in moments like this, and he was probably the second most likely person here to go down Daryl's 'dark road'.

So he was my sounding board now.

"Yo. Motorcycle Asshole. Need opinions from someone intelligent."

"Aw, hell, sugar tits. I's flattered. Thought ya figured my baby brother was the brains of the operation, though," Merle drawled, small smile on his lips and his eyes still on the prisoners.

I knew there was a reason I fucking liked him, asshole status or not. "He's not being the sharpest knife in the drawer at the moment."

"Done pissed ya off again, ain't he? Cain't help it. He ain't the charmer ol' Merle is."

"Shut the hell up," I said, shaking my head as a faint smile rose despite my mood. "And listen."

"All ears, sugar britches."

"But that ain't so good for exfil, neither. Too damn high up to be effective, ain't it?"

"Damn it," I muttered. He was right. He'd been right all along, and my 'go in while the others do the exchange' plan was being shot to pieces with every reasonable-toned objection. "What if-"

"Only way that works is if'n ya kill everyone but our people, darlin', and ain't no way to be sure ya can do all that afore they take notice. Now, you wanna make it an ambush, we maybe could figure us out a plan, but I do think we'd be needin' more people on our side."

"You two want to let any of the rest of us in on your grand plan, god of the campaign?"

I glared at my brother, still not happy with him for overruling me when Tyreese suggested this dumbass exchange plan. "The grand plan is fix what you shouldn't have allowed to be broken."

Ricky leaned beside me. "You're right. We should have gone in while we had the surprise. But we don't, and we do have them. So let us help figure it out, ok? We're not entirely useless, no matter what you think, sis."

"I'm well aware you aren't, which is why when we go wave a flag to arrange the exchange, you'll be the one doing the waving and the arranging," I shot back. I ran a hand through my hair and blew out a long breathe. "The real question is, do we play it straight or do we double cross? Personally, I'm for the double cross, but then the trick becomes how to pull that off without them double-crossing our double cross. And I just don't know enough about my targets to determine if they'd think of that or not."

"Noah says they wouldn't," Merle said, not for the first time. "Or at least, this Dawn wouldn't. But I'd always assume the worst if'n I's in charge."

"I usually assume two steps past the worst," I muttered. "It's too hard to know for certain."

"So we take it one step at a time," Ricky said. "Start with arranging the exchange. See how they respond to that, and then make plans from there. Gather more information that way, right?"

I hated it when Ricky made intelligent suggestions. At least I did right now, when I was pissed at everyone, including him.

I outlined the plan for arranging the exchange. Ricky would have the flag and do the talking. I'd be on the ground, hidden close, so I could do whatever needed doing. That was beginning to include vague plans to hop into the vehicle of whoever we managed to flag down and see what happened when I got back.

Actually, those might not have been all that 'vague' of plans after all. I was seriously considering it.

Shane and Daryl would be the immediate backup, with Tyreese and Sasha acting as overwatch. Merle would hang back with Noah and guard the prisoners. I'd have liked to have Merle at my back, a thought which I was vaguely surprised to be having, but I couldn't trust anyone else to do the watching- a thought which I was pissed as hell to be having.

No one objected. I paused, waiting for voiced questions, comments, concerns, and attempts at overriding my authority. None came.

I might have been disappointed.

I stalked away to sit and stew in silence while the others geared up and got ready. I didn't need to get ready, since I already was. I wanted this over with as soon as possible. Hell, sooner would have been nice. I wanted Beth and Carol back with us, and to be out of this fucking city, and done with these fucking prisoners, so that I could sit down my boys and have a good long for-the-last-time hash-out conversation about whether or not they could accept me the way I was, dark road or not.

I was sick of thinking they understood me just to have them second guess me at every turn and suggest that I was crazy or bloodthirsty or whatever the hell it was this time. I wouldn't keep doing it, I decided. They had one last chance, when this was over, before I said 'fuck you both' and stopped actually doing that.

"Hey, angel."

And of course, Walsh wanted to talk. "What?"

He snorted and dropped down to sit beside me, leaning against the half-wall overlooking the hospital. "Cranky much?"

"When I had a perfectly good operation planned, it got canned for a shit version of a plan, and then the plan went even more to shit because no one can follow directions? Yeah, I'm cranky. What of it?"

"I'm just sayin'-" Shane started.

I cut him off with a gesture. "Well, don't. Let's just get through this, and then we need to have a long talk. You, me, and Dixon."

"About what?"

His voice had turned cautious, guarded, and for some reason that pissed me off worse. Maybe I was fucking cranky, but I had reason to be. "About how you two can't make up your minds. Not now, Walsh. There's shit going on more important than the domestic problems. Watch our backs, ok?"

"Course I will. All the time. Whatever you think Daryl and I can't make up our minds about, girl, we know one thing for damn sure. We love you. Be safe. And don't be stupid."

"How would I do that?" I asked caustically as I headed for the cluster of the others.

"Sneaking into the hospital in the back of the car we flag down, maybe?"

I didn't bother to dignify that with a response.

Chapter Text

"They're headed toward the vantage point."

Tyreese's voice over the radio had me grinding my teeth together, but he'd done what he was supposed to do. Now it was mine and Ricky's turn, and it was time. Ricky nodded to me, reaching over to grip my shoulder in one of those moments of brotherly solidarity he bestowed sometimes.

"It's a good plan, Hell's Angel."

"It's the best I could do," I said with a grimace. "But it'll do. I'm heading into place. Remember- our turf, not theirs. Do not agree to meet in the damn hospital, ok? I've got your back."

Ricky nodded, smile on his lips as he squinted in the sunlight. "Always do."

Yeah, I always did, I agreed as I moved into my hiding place among the waiting, empty police cars. This was one of the lots they were using, one of two we'd located where they frequently began and ended patrols. Smart, having multiple options. In case one got overrun.

I settled into my position, close enough to hear and to help if things went wrong, hidden enough to be invisible.

Ricky's hands were up as he strode confidently toward the car turning into the lot. They were out in a heartbeat, guns trained on my brother, and a smile tugged at my lips as Ricky took charge instantly. I could see in that moment why he'd been such a damn good cop.

"Officer Franco. Officer McGinley. I'm Rick Grimes."

I watched their faces change, confusion coming over them as Ricky talked in that calm, authoritative tone he'd learned from our dad. It was always fun, this part. One of the best things about the end of the world was definitely getting to watch Ricky work his magic.

"I was a deputy in the King County Sherriff's Department. I'm here to make a proposal."

"Lay your weapon on the ground."

In contrast to my brother, the other officer didn't have the magic. But Ricky agreed, moving slowly and easily, one hand still in the air. He was covered from above, by Sasha and Dixon and Shane, and I knew it. Dixon and Walsh might have been being difficult, but they wouldn't let shit happen to Ricky, and neither would I.

I kept a close eye as Ricky turned in place, showing the Python on the ground was his only gun. The machete with the red handle at his side didn't count, apparently, and the officers moved forward. One covered the other as they came forward, and I took advantage of the moment to change positions, slipping closer to their vehicle.

"What's your proposal?"

The proposal was simple. We had two of their people, they had two of ours. Ricky proposed the exchanged, and we'd be on our way. They asked who, because of course they did, and when told, there was a look in their eyes I didn't like.

They asked about Noah being with us, and Ricky said he was. When they asked about Lamson, my brother lied his ass off, for which I was very proud. As the walker came around the corner, one of the two asked where our people were.

Ricky didn't bat an eye when the walker dropped. "They're close. Radio your lieutenant. I'll wait."

Wait we did. They radioed in. Everything was going well- too well.

And then, of course, the negotiation over location began, and my dumbass brother forgot the one thing- the one thing- I'd said about location. 'Don't agree to inside the hospital, Ricky.' I'd said it numerous times, including right before I'd ducked out of sight. What did he agree to? What did he fucking agree to?

Inside the goddamn hospital.

Once again, I was pissed. Simple instructions, people. How difficult was it to follow simple, clear instructions?

That was it. If no one else was going to stick to the plan, why in the fuck should I? I eyed the vehicle they left unattended as they negotiated, and- fuck it.

I made my move.

Trunks are not made for riding in. They're uncomfortable and stuffy and dark and bumpy. But it did the trick, and when Officers Franco and McGinley took their vehicle into the emergency bag of the hospital itself, I was pleased with my field decision to hitch a ride.

Now I was in, and Terminus had already learned how much of a problem that could be, having me loose behind their defenses.

It was time to hunt. I'd find our people and either get them out myself or give them an edge in the exchange, and then I'd probably kill everyone here, just for the inconvience they'd caused me with all this mess.

Dixon and Walsh could bitch at me about it if they wanted, but all problems would be solved. Everyone won- everyone I gave a shit about, anyway.

I had exactly one hour to do whatever I could, and what I could do with an hour was a lot. Unfortunately, this was a big-ass hospital. Fortunately, because it was a big-ass hospital, they were only running power to certain places in an attempt to keep it going as long as possible. It was giving me major CDC vibes, and I didn't like it. Not at all.

Plus, I'd seen enough horror movies that skulking through a darkened, abandoned hospital wasn't in my top ten list of things I'd like to do with my time. Luckily, it didn't take long to find the occupied floors, and from there the skulking didn't change but the vibes did.

I found Carol's room first, and I glanced over her chart, hung neatly at the foot of her bed where it would have been had the end of the world not happened. I was fucking pissed; the woman had been hit by one of these assholes who was chasing after Noah and put into a damn coma. She was sleeping at the moment, it looked like, and I was grateful. Our little band didn't exactly have the capacity to provide medical treatment for someone in a coma.

I couldn't recruit her assistance, however, which made me equally pissed off, because if there was anyone I trusted to help me make sure this didn't get fucked six ways from Sunday, it was Carol. She saw things my way, in shades of darkness, and would skip down Dixon's 'dark road' with me hand in hand no matter how shadowy it might get.

Ok, maybe she wouldn't skip. But my point still stood.

I left her room when I heard voices in the next room over, slipping back into skulking mode quick and easy. Finding Beth was next on my agenda, and I was rapidly running out of time to do it before the exchange. The whole point of coming in here was to gain an advantage, right?

I didn't have to look hard. Beth found me, instead. One of those voices in the other room had been hers, and she looked pissed, fierce, and like she'd been hit a couple times as she slammed out of that room and then into Carol's.

She wore scrubs, and had stitches in her forehead. I was already pissed, but found my irritation rising as I thought of her in her room at the prison, laying on her bed with her feet kicking in the air and scribbling in a diary.

She was still a kid. Just a kid in the middle of the fucking end of the world, and now she was being held hostage by someone who thought indentured servitude was the way to go when we had so few of us left.

I mean, it wasn't cannibalism, but god the bar was too low if that was the thought process.

I followed her inside Carol's room and she whirled, a pair of sharp scissors in hand. She stared at me, her eyes wide but not afraid.

"Hey," I said easily, closing the door. "Listen, we don't have much time. Do you think the two of us could get Carol out of here unseen?"

"Probably not," she said after a surprisingly short processing pause. "She's in bad shape. And they're watching all the exits really closely."

"Not all of them, apparently," I muttered. "How's your face?"

"I'm fine. Angel, what- how-"

"There's an exchange being planned," I said, disgust clear in my voice. "And it's going down in about twenty minutes, so I only have about two more before someone comes looking for the two of you. I think you're right, we can't get her out, which means the exchange needs to happen. I'm going to hide nearby, so just go with it and don't let on, ok? Here, take this," I added as my internal clock started screaming at me to get hidden before someone came in here to prep.

Beth took the knife I handed her and tucked it away under the scrubs. She looked angry, and I liked that. I made for the door, ready to slip free, but there were voices in the hallway.

"Supply closet," Beth hissed. "Angel. Dawn needs to die. Kill her."

"If I have to," I said, though privately I definitely agreed. But also, wasn't that different than Dixon's 'Beth would want to minimize loss of life' approach?

"If you don't, I will," Beth said firmly, and closed the door to the closet.

Chapter Text

I could not believe what my brother had agreed to after I got in the trunk of the police car. He'd not only agreed to meeting in the hospital, but several floors up, where a quick escape on our part in the event we had to pull some shenanigans- and we were going to have to pull some shenanigans- was the next best thing to impossible.

I followed at a distance as Beth pushed Carol's wheelchair, escorted silently by a doctor in a lab coat who sort of looked like he'd rather be anywhere but where he happened to be at the moment. I could relate, but I also had a strong desire to take him out now and slip out a back door with Beth and Carol. If only I'd had a little more time inside to get the lay of the land and find those back doors, I'd have done it. If only I could be sure my brother and both of my idiot men wouldn't get killed walking three floors up into an exchange that was probably a trap without me fucking things up worse.

At least Beth and Carol were back in their street clothes, though I didn't know why that mattered. Something about seeing Beth in those scrubs had bothered me, with her stitched-up face and the cast on her wrist. And Carol looked far less fucked up and helpless with her own gear back on, even if she still seemed glassy eyed and confused as Beth wheeled her along.

I found what I'd expected to find, honestly, at the end of the road. Dawn had her full, uniformed police force filling the hallway, guns out and facing where my people would be approaching soon. Luckily, that meant no one was looking behind them, which meant no one would see little old me.

Except my brother, who didn't bat an eye as he followed McGinley and Franco to the closed doors between us and them. And Dixon, who didn't act like he saw me either.

Good, at least I'd taught them a few things. I moved to cover in a doorway just behind the line of uniforms and Beth and Carol. In place, I could watch, wait, and make a move when it was necessary.

I wished I was in the ceiling. That would have been better, honestly. Then I could have dropped down like a shadow among them and wrecked everyone's day. Oh well, maybe next time.

"Holster your weapons," Dawn said into radio.

That pleased me. I did not do any such thing, keeping my gun in one hand and sliding my baton free into the other. It would give me a few seconds of advantage, them not having theirs out already. Cop reflexes were quick, though, not like civilians. But not as quick as I was.

Ricky turned from the door, probably telling the others to do the same thing. This was a show of good faith, and the exchange was a one-for-one, after all. Easy day, right? Fuck that, there was never an easy day.

Surprisingly, our captives lied to Dawn about Lamson, the idiot who got away and I'd shot in the head. Apparently, everyone was agreeing he was eaten by the dead. I wasn't mad about it, but having them lie had my hackles up. What was in it for them? Aside from staying alive to get to this point. But it wasn't like Ricky- ok, I- would kill them here, in front of Dawn, while she still had our people. They could have told the truth.

But they didn't. Hell, maybe they didn't like Dawn much either. Licardi had certainly given that impression.

Motives of our captives aside, the exchange was going well. One for one, as we'd planned. Dixon brought Licardi to the middle of the hallway, trading him for Carol and a bag of gear Carol had apparently had on her when she got run down.

So far, so good, I thought, and eased into a ready position. Neither Shepard nor Licardi had noticed me yet; or if they had, they kept their mouths shut and their faces neutral. I didn't much care either way, since I was close enough it wouldn't matter if they gave me away. I could grab a human shield in the form of the good doctor, to be used dead or alive, and I'd be set.

Beth moved forward with Dawn now, and Ricky brought Shepard to the center as well. Things had gone perfectly, smoothly, swimmingly.

My spy senses were tingling, as Carl would have said.

As usual, I was right.

"Glad we could work things out," Dawn said casually, too casually.

I was proud as shit of my brother's growled response, not bothering to look over his shoulder. My people were starting down the hallway when the whispers began behind Dawn's back. The last piece fell into place, and suddenly, suddenly, I understood her.

She'd need something to regain face. She was holding onto power by a thread, and while she wanted a reasonable outcome, she wouldn't let it go without a power play of some sort. She couldn't, or-

"Now I just need Noah."

There it was, I thought grimly. Everything goes to shit from here.

I moved before anyone else could, not entirely sure what I planned to do, but acting on instinct. I shoved the doctor into the uniform closest to him, grabbed the still zip-tied Licardi and spun him with my own momentum, shoving him in the other direction toward more of the now-confused uniforms.

Straight shot to Dawn, and I took it as confusion reigned among her people. I had the baton around her throat in an instant, back to my own people and with her facing her troops, and I snarled into her ear for her to order them to stand down.

"Don't!" she yelled, but no one was listening to her now.

She had her hands up, and everyone in front of me had their guns drawn now. Licardi had a smug look on his face that made me want to shoot him on principle, but Shepard looked worried. Everyone else just seemed confused and scared.

On one hand, good. I liked it when people were scared. It made them stupid. On the other hand, it made them stupid, and stupid people with guns are not my favorite combination.

"Angel?" Ricky's voice cut through the cacophony in front of me, calm and controlled.

I liked that, too. He was learning to trust me, my brother. Learning to be as feral as I was. It was always in us Grimes kids, I guess. "All good. I've got this. Get out of here. Dumbass, letting yourself get brought three stories up. Didn't I tell you?"

"Not the time," Ricky said mildly. "Everyone out. Shane, Daryl."

"Ain't goin' nowhere. Harley, let her go. We can work this out still!" Dixon yelled. "Damn it, baby!"

"I've got this," I repeated. "Get Noah and the girls and get out."

I heard Carol mutter something that was probably an objection to 'the girls', but I wanted all of the people that Dawn had had her hands on moved out of the combat zone. Someone might get the bright idea to do another one-for-one, in the sense of 'I'll kill one of yours since you've got one of mine'.

I did plan on killing her, but then again, I planned on killing all of them.

"Let's go," I heard Ricky said flatly.

Good, everyone was going to listen this time.

Chapter Text

Everyone did not listen. Everyone never did.

I wished to god they had.

It was Beth who broke rank this time, and I couldn't really blame her. She hadn't been given the 'god of the mission' speech, after all, and besides- who knew what she'd been through here. And Noah was her friend, and Dawn was running her mouth still demanding him.

I wanted Dawn to shut up, but I needed my people out of the way before the shooting started, and there were some fingers getting itchy on triggers over there. My attention was focused on the threats in front of me, and I left Ricky to handle the people behind me, the ones I was doing this whole shitstorm for.

Beth slipped by us both.

She moved like lightning, silent and accurate, and Dawn was the tallest tree on the plain. Beth had the knife I'd given her in hand, and the next thing I knew, that knife was in Dawn's shoulder.

Dawn's gun- which I'd made the mistake of not wrestling from her because my own hands were occupied- fired once, and Beth fell backwards, a stunned look in her eyes as she went toward the floor.

I shot Dawn in the temple and dropped my baton to grip her body as a shield, already firing into the stunned onlookers.

I heard nothing from behind me, thought of nothing except eliminating the idiots in front of me now scrambling for cover and weapons of their own. I wasn't leaving anyone alive in this place who might follow us, and I didn't give a shit what Ricky or Dixon or Tyreese or- or Beth might have thought. It was the smart thing to do, and the smart thing was the only thing now.

A hand tapped my shoulder and gunfire joined mine. I was three down and sighting on the fourth when they began to fire back, and the hand came again, slapping my shoulder hard. I moved without thought, falling into a rhythm as familiar as breathing, and we made our way backward toward the doors where we'd have cover.

I was still a better shot than the cops. So was Merle.

We dropped the last one with unison fire, and I stood breathing hard as I surveyed the chaos, finally tossing down Dawn's lifeless body. It had some extra holes in it now besides the one I'd put into her, and I kicked her hard, once, for good measure.

"Time to go, girlie," Merle said firmly. "Other's're on their way down already. Gotta watch their backs."

"Yep," I agreed, voice hard. "Should have done it my way, Merle."

"Yeah. I done knew that the whole time. Ain't the best time to be sayin' that to anyone else, though."

"Yeah," I agreed, falling back with him without another glance at the dead littering the hallway. "You're right."

We caught up to the others quickly. It had seemed forever while it was happening, but the entire shoot-out had taken less than two minutes. Strange how that always seemed to happen.

Dixon carried Beth- what was left of Beth- cradled in his arms like a bride on their wedding night. I hated thinking that, hated that my mind was still in Blind Angel mode, thinking only of the mission and how to get from here to somewhere safe, in case I'd missed someone up there or Dawn had been smart enough to not have all her troops in one place, but I couldn't stop. It was my job, after all, to keep everyone alive until exfil was complete.

Well. Everyone else.

We emerged into the sunlight to find the rest of our people, the ones we'd left at the church with Gabriel, waiting for us in front of the hospital. All I saw was Maggie's smile slide off her lips and be replaced with devastation, a cry wrenched from her as her legs gave out and she hit her knees on the pavement. Glenn fell beside her, clutching her tightly as they both cried.

Everyone hated the sight of the blonde girl in Daryl's arms, and I turned away from the grief rippling through the group to scan the world around us, looking for threats. Looking for someone else to shoot.

I wanted a target, to keep the ice in my veins and not have to think about Beth's eyes as she fell backwards, or the look on Dixon's face as he held her body now, sitting on the back of a van and refusing to let her go.

"Anything?" I asked Merle in a low voice, scanning the buildings for movement.

"Nothin', little missy. Go meet with our lord and dictator over there, find out where we's goin' next. I've got the lookout."

I moved to my brother's side, about to speak, but he beat me to it. "We need to move, everyone," he said, voice more gentle than mine would have been. "Get out of the city. Then we can regroup."

"Can we all fit in that van?" I asked, doing a rapid head count. "eighteen- nineteen," I corrected, not looking at the body Daryl clutched. "We can make it work."

"Yeah," Ricky agreed. "Come on, everyone. Load up."

We stopped just outside of the city, because we couldn't stand being enclosed in the van with the grief and Beth's body that Daryl still held, sitting in the floor behind the seats with her. Maggie cried silently now, leaning on Glenn, and I couldn't look at anyone.

Shane drove in silence. I had shotgun.

When we stopped, I did a perimeter check with Merle and Shane, and then went to Daryl's side, where he sat now in front of the small fire the others had kindled. Beth's body was covered by a blanket now, laid out beside him, and Maggie and Glenn were close by on the other side. Maggie's eyes were closed, her head in Glenn's lap, and he stroked her hair while staring at the flames without seeing them.

"Daryl," I said softly as I crouched beside him. "Shit, Dixon, I don't know what to say."

I reached for his shoulder and he jerked away from my touch. I froze, waiting for a word, a glance, something. But there was nothing.

"I'm-"

Daryl stood, movements jerky and angry like I remembered seeing them at Hershel's farm, when Sophia was lost in the woods and I suggested maybe she was dead. He stalked off without looking my way, shooting a 'lookin' fer game' over his shoulder to Ricky before disappearing into the trees.

I stayed crouched on the ground, staring at the blanket-draped body. Blonde hair spilled from under the edge.

There was dried blood in it.

Chapter Text

I went to find my brother. Shane and Merle were already with him, Merle somehow slipping in to fill the Dixon role since Daryl was too consumed by grief to handle it.

We'd all been there. I'd follow him soon enough, after we'd made our plans, and try again to offer my shoulder.

But first, we had to know where we were going. This wasn't even a safe place to be camping, which was why there were three on watch for the dead and the living alike, and why I'd be staying awake tonight as well. For now, Sasha, Tyreese, and Michonne were our lookouts, and that was good enough for me. Two of the three of them might have been on my hit list, but Sasha was a good shot and not likely to miss a herd of the dead coming in.

"So," I said flatly, leaning against the van as I joined the loose circle. "Where to?"

"Just talkin' about that, girl," Shane said. "We don't really have a destination anymore, what with Eugene being a lying prick. Don't know how he's still breathing."

"Because I've had more important things to do than kill him and we pried Abraham off him. Speaking of, is he still bent on Washington?"

"No," Ricky said with a shrug. "He said they'd go with us, where ever we end up. I'm glad he was there, with the others. When things went bad."

The church had ended up overrun. No one would give me details, but by the way their eyes slid away from me and to Gabriel, who huddled in on himself and didn't say a word, I assumed he'd done something stupid that put everyone at risk. He was another one I wanted to take out, but again- more important things going on.

Everyone was fine, after all. Everyone except-

My eyes strayed to the blanket-covered body and Noah now sitting beside it looking lost. He'd tucked her hair under the blanket. That was good.

"She promised we'd take him home." Merle's voice was missing the asshole edge, softer than I'd ever heard from him. "Think we should do just that, if'n I get a vote."

"You're the stand-in for Daryl," I told him, faint upturn of my lips to show it was a joke. "Sure, you get one. I'm with you on this. He's from someplace up in Virginia, right?"

Ricky nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, he is. Towards DC, actually. Northern Virginia."

"Perfect. We drop him at home, then head for VA Beach and the naval base there. If that's fucked up- which it probably is- we either take it over and make it safe or we check out Langley or The Farm. One of them is bound to be in decent enough shape we can take it over and make it defensible." I shrugged at everyone's stares. "What?"

"You want to take over a naval base?" Shane asked, sounding vaguely incredulous. "But Fort Benning was a bad idea."

"I want to take over the most important naval base in the states, but only if it's been fucked up as badly as everywhere else has," I corrected. "And Fort Benning was a bad idea. Things have changed."

"'Things have changed'," he muttered as he shoved a hand through his hair. "Yeah, they have. Shit. We can argue the particulars of after when we get to it. If we get to it. Long way to Virginia, Rick."

"Long way to anywhere," Ricky said slowly, staring at nothing. "It's a good deed, to take him home. She'd want us to."

"Yeah," Shane agreed. "Guess we're going to Virginia, then."

"Don't worry, Officer Walsh." Merle's voice was far too cheerful for the somber mood in the camp, and I lifted an eyebrow his way in concern. His eyes twinkled with amusement, the pale blue so similar to Daryl's dancing. "Still below the Mason-Dixon. Technically. Still be a southern pig bastard."

Shane rolled his eyes, but the rest of us were smiling, even if only barely.

It wasn't hard to track him down. He hadn't gone far, after all, and he wasn't hunting. He leaning against a tree, sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his arms limp against them. He stared at nothing, and I wasn't sure what he was seeing but I knew it wasn't the ground in front of him.

"Hey," I said quietly, not wanting to startle him too badly. We tended to shoot first, check the bodies later these days, which personally I considered a good thing. On the other hand, I wanted to keep breathing. "Dixon."

He didn't twitch, but his eyes moved slightly. I took that as acknowledgement enough and came closer, sitting beside him but not touching. He didn't speak, and for a long moment neither did I.

What would I say? I'd fired jealousy at him last time she'd come up between us, accusing him of wanting me to be like her. He'd denied it, and I thought maybe I believed him. But then again, we hadn't known who she really was, had we?

She'd wanted Dawn dead. She'd tried to make it happen herself, like she'd told me she would.

She'd gotten herself killed in the process, but it worked. Dawn was dead, too. All of them were.

She'd saved him, pulling him out of the prison as it fell and giving him a reason to keep going. To keep pushing, to keep looking. He'd told me some it, in the few quiet moments we'd been able to share. How he'd gotten drunk with her, said everyone was dead. How she'd comforted him when he broke down crying over old man Hershel, how he hadn't been able to save him.

Daryl Dixon thought everyone was his responsibility. He believed he had to keep everyone alive and safe, once he'd accepted that we leaned on him. He took the losses hard when they weren't so close to home.

And Beth had been close to home.

"Daryl," I said quietly, reaching for his hand where it dangled loose over his knees. "I'm sorry."

The moment my fingers touched his, he jerked away. He didn't get up and stalk off, but he made the rejection clear. I froze in place, hardly breathing as a different kind of cold than the one I was used to, the one I welcomed, flooded my veins. "Dixon-"

"Jus' shut up, would ya?" He snarled it, so full of venom I flinched away.

"There's no need to-"

"No need ta what?" He shot to his feet, snarling and angry. He stalked in front of me, pacing the small space between trees and throwing his hands out as he spat fire. "No need to tell ya the truth? Jus' shut the fuck up, Angel Grimes. Talkin' big game all the time about how ya know better'n all of us. But you's the one got her killed!"

I blinked. Climbing slowly to my feet, I let the silence grow as I watched Daryl's caged animal pacing. He was breathing hard, hands clenched like he wanted a fight, and his eyes blazed with something more than grief and anger.

I shrugged finally. "Ok. Blame me if you want. I gave her the knife, after all. But I sure as shit didn't tell her to use it. I told all of you to leave. She ran up and-"

"Don't. Don't fuckin' blame her!"

I bit my lip to keep from screaming at him. "I blame Dawn. She's the one who fired. Sure, I guess if you look at it close enough, I should have taken her gun, but I was a little busy getting her as a hostage so I could take care of the problem while you guys got the hell out."

"We had it! Rick had it under control! He coulda talked her down, if you hadn't- hadn't gotten in the fuckin' way!"

He was up in my face now, yelling from close enough I could have kissed him or killed him. At the moment, I was certainly leaning toward the latter. "Back the fuck up, Dixon."

He scoffed and backed off, holding his hands up dramatically. "Ain't gonna take a swing at ya."

"I know. But I might take a damn swing at you," I shot back, voice bitingly pleasant. "Fine. You want to blame me? Blame me. I made a choice and made a move. So did Beth. Beth died for it. I made sure everyone else did, too. If we'd done it my way to begin with, that wouldn't have happened. Beth wanted her dead, Dixon. She wasn't the little angel of light you think she was. She was tough and battered, just like we are."

I moved closer to him as he sneered, about to argue, and kept talking. "She saw that sometimes, the dark road is the one that keeps you alive. So be angry. Blame me. Whatever. But don't be a dick to everyone else. They need you. My brother, your brother- they need you. Be there for them."

"Or what? Ya gonna kill me, angel of death?"

I paused, not letting the hurt show on my face. I shook my head, turning to walk away and leave him in the woods alone. "No. I can't. I love you too much. I won't kill you, Dixon. But you might find yourself alone if you try to drive everyone who cares away."

"Fuck you, Angel!"

"No thanks," I called over my shoulder as I left him behind.

Chapter Text

Walsh was waiting for me at the edge of camp, looking worried. His face relaxed when he saw me, but he frowned almost immediately. He reached for me and I shied back, much like Dixon had done earlier.

"What happened?" he asked, tone so gentle it shattered the cold I'd drawn around me like armor.

I didn't cry, but I felt my face contort like I wanted to. Walsh reached out again, slowly- an offer, not a demand. I let him collect me into his arms this time, his warmth seeping slowly into my skin and down to my bones.

Ya gonna kill me, angel of death?

He knew. Dixon knew, because he'd found me at the CDC, shaking and bleeding and trapped back in the caves, where Tom Ford whispered in my ear as he hurt me. I shuddered, trying to keep myself above all that, above the black well of pain and terror.

He'd been trying to hurt me. That much was clear. Well, he'd succeeded, and now I was second guessing myself as well. I should have dropped the baton and made sure I could take Dawn's gun. I shouldn't have given Beth the knife. I shouldn't have taken Dawn hostage; I should have just killed her and opened fire. My people could have handled themselves.

And someone else could have- probably would have- died. It was that simple; that inevitable. If all of her people had started shooting, it would have been fish in a barrel. That's why I'd told them to leave; to get out of harm's way. One person alone is much harder target to hit, even when the numbers aren't good.

I shuddered again and Shane cursed under his breath, holding me tighter. I let him warm me up, just enough to keep above the pool I wanted to sink into, the one full of Tom Ford and pain.

"The fuck he say? The fuck he do? Don't care if he's grieving, I'll-"

"Is he right?" I asked abruptly, pushing out of Shane's arms. I had to stand on my own feet, or- or-

Shane glared my way, shoving a hand through his hair. "Right about what? He who? Dixon? Probably fuckin' not, based on you shaking like a damn leaf in my arms, girl."

"I was not." I glared right back at him, but I couldn't hold it for long. My face crumpled, tears finally coming to my eyes. "He- is he right? Am I the reason Beth's dead? Did I get her killed, by grabbing Dawn like that?"

"Dixon said that?" Shane's voice was cautious, his face unreadable. Then again, tears were blurring my vision, making it hard to read much of anything. I was sinking, sinking, slowly getting sucked into a tar pit I couldn't escape, one where Tom Ford whispered and told me strange things, like how I'd gotten all my people killed, how I'd spilled secrets I knew I couldn't have and now they knew all my assets and all the American secrets and-

I broke free of it again, drawing in a shuddering breath. Tom Ford was dead, and I'd learned more than I'd told, in those caves. And here around me was evidence that I hadn't gotten all of my people killed. Ricky, Carl, Judith. Michonne and Merle. Carol. Maggie and Glenn and Tara and-

And Beth's blanket-covered body beside them.

"He said if I hadn't grabbed Dawn, Ricky could have talked it out. That Beth wouldn't have died. And I- I gave her the knife. And I didn't take Dawn's gun. Walsh, was he right? Did I get her killed?"

I tore my eyes away from Beth as silence stretched, painful and cold. Shane stared out at the trees, his jaw working, and I took a step backward. Cold crept up, from my toes to my heart, and I nodded. "You agree with him."

"I didn't fuckin' say that, girl," Shane snarled, his eyes snapping my way. "Did I?"

"You didn't have to," I said, voice flat. "Message came through just fine."

"Angel-"

"Don't." I turned, heading for the trees. "I'll be on watch tonight. Make sure I don't get any of the rest of you killed, too."

"Angel, damn it, I don't-"

I ignored him and walked away. Seemed something I would be getting damn good at.

It's a long fucking road from Georgia to Virginia. It seemed even longer with Dixon giving everyone the cold shoulder, and I couldn't even complain to Walsh about it all. I did complain to Merle, his eyes hard and angry as I told him what Daryl had said, how Shane had reacted.

He did suggest, gently, that Walsh wasn't in agreement with 'his dumbass baby brother'- Merle's words, not mine- and maybe I should get my pretty little ass over there and talk to the boy. He said he'd heard some of Shane's side of it, after all, and maybe- just maybe- I was interpreting some things incorrectly.

He even accused me of having a habit of doing so, which I found offensive.

I considered his advice and rejected it, because if Shane didn't think I was some psycho-killer responsible for Beth dying, he could come tell me himself.

I steadfastly ignored the voice in my head that tried to point out maybe he'd attempted to do just that, given the number of times he'd come over and tried to talk to me in the first few days of the trip. I'd ignored him or snapped at him, too damn pissed off and hurt to listen. That was maybe on me.

But then he'd gotten snippy and pissy, and well. That tripped my bitch switch, as I'd told Ricky one night on watch. Ricky was tired of our shit, too, and tired of Daryl disappearing into the trees each time we stopped and sitting in brooding silence in the back of the van while we drove. Ricky, frankly, seemed tired of everything.

So I ignored his far-less-gentle advice to put on my big girl britches and go apologize or at least let Shane do it and kept right on largely ignoring both my boys.

Sometime after we'd put Beth in the ground and Gabriel had said some religious shit and Maggie and Glenn had cried and Dixon had stared at nothing before disappearing and coming back with burn marks and a bleeding cut, I'd decided maybe they weren't my boys anymore after all.

But Walsh still came and slept nearby, on the rare occasions I slept and wasn't out on watch, and he told me he loved me, however pissed off it came out. I said it back, begrudgingly, but still.

Ricky also set me straight on second-guessing myself, saying if he'd been in a position to do what I'd done, he'd have done it too. I wasn't sure that was a ringing endorsement, but it was nice to hear. I gave him shit about biting Joe's throat out and he suggested maybe I should have done that to Dawn, to really send a message.

It was nice, knowing at least my brother fully had my back. Even if I then overheard Walsh bitching to him about me being a bitch and how he wished I'd just listen already. Ricky honestly sounded like he'd rather be anywhere but there as he told Shane to maybe just man up and apologize. Walsh told him to go fuck himself cause he didn't have shit to apologize for, as I'd made the problem up in my damn head.

I figured Shane's apology could do about the same, if he ever got around to it.

We were two days from Noah's home and I was in a mood. I was restless, angry, sad, and lonely. I wanted a target, something to take down and take out, but when Ricky and I tried to make plans, I couldn't focus. Couldn't think.

We needed to fucking get there already. We all needed something to do other than drive and take shots at each other. Everyone was getting grumpy and snippy, tired of being cooped up on top of each other.

Something needed to change.

I watched Dixon walk into the trees and seriously considered shooting him in the leg to get him to just fucking stay put in camp.

Chapter Text

We reached Virginia in about a week. After that first night, Dixon didn't speak to me. I don't think he spoke to anyone else, either.

That was fine with me, as I'd decided I wasn't speaking to him.

We camped not far from Noah's community, Shirewilt Estates, and convinced the kid it was a good idea for us to scout it out the next day, since evening was rapidly approaching. He'd been with us long enough that it didn't take a lot to get him to see reason, and he sat with Ricky, Shane, Merle, and I and sketched out everything he could remember about the gated community he had grown up in and sheltered from the walkers within.

He told us about his mom and his twin brothers, who were still there waiting for him and his dad to come home. His dad never would, but at least we could return him.

I had a bad feeling, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I told myself while he talking that it was paranoia, but my paranoia had kept me alive too often to ignore. When we were done here, I was going scouting. Maybe after dark, when none of the others could argue with me.

Dixon was already out in the woods, being an asshole to the trees and the squirrels. I'd slip out while my other three minders weren't looking and figure out what was what.

We sent Noah off to get some rest and huddled together to do the real work. I studied the map in the dirt, knowing they had to have some strong ass people in there to hold the place. A gated community wasn't a bad place to be, necessarily, but if anyone other than the dead tried to take it, it wasn't exactly going to withstand an attack, either.

I shook thoughts of the Governor and his tank out of my mind, fingering the knucklebone on my wrist as I thought through the possibilities. "If everything's fine, we just hand him over with a wave and a smile," I said into the silence.

Merle grunted. "When's it ever been that easy, girlie pop?"

"Never. So if it's not all fine…" I trailed off, frowning down at the map. "I'm going to scout it out tonight."

Damn it, I hadn't been meaning to tell anyone that. It would have been easier and better to just go. Less arguing.

Surprisingly, there was no arguing. Ricky nodded. "This evening. Before dark, please, sis. Don't make me send you a babysitter."

I leveled him with a flat stare, but nodded. There was enough sun still that I could do some solid work out there and get back before dark. "We shouldn't send too many people in, though. No matter if everything looks fine or not. Just a handful of us, with someone on overwatch who can radio back to the rest if shit goes sideways."

"Ain't a bad thought, brother," Shane agreed. "Angel, you wanna-"

"I'm boots on the ground," I told him in a tone that refused argument. "Merle, you'll have my back. Shane, you're overwatch. We'll take me, Ricky, Merle, Shane. That should be enough. Keep the others on standby."

"I'm going."

I ignored the voice behind me. He absolutely was not going, no matter what he thought, and I'd knock his ass out myself if I had to. Shane and Ricky exchanged a look in the awkward pause that followed, clearly trying to figure out the best way to handle this tactfully.

Merle took care of it with a snort. "Nope. Didn't heed the god of the mission last time, man. Ain't givin' ya another chance to fuck things up for 'er this time."

Tyreese shifted behind me. My shoulders itched, but I wasn't worried about him hulking behind my back. He wasn't enough of a threat for me to care. "I- I know. My way, maybe it wasn't the right way. Maybe Angel's was. But I want to go. For that little girl."

I rose, slinging the rifle at my side over my shoulder. I still didn't bother looking at Tyreese as I headed for the trees. "No."

The gates were closed, but everything was too still. There was no movement, no noise, no voices reaching on the breeze or bodies moving between houses or on porches. It was eerie, and I had a sinking feeling that something terrible had happened here.

I made the snap decision to go in on my own. They were my best kind, and it wasn't like anyone was currently around to stop me. Ricky and the others could bitch me out later if they wanted, but we needed to know things and I could figure them out.

I went in very stealthily. I walked up to the front gate and pulled on it. The fact that it opened had me even more certain there was something going on I would vastly dislike.

It took exactly thirty seconds for me to discover the place was deserted, ransacked, and left littered with the dead. This was a ghost town now, a community home for its residents for the rest of eternity. Or at least until someone like me put them out of their unending hunger.

It wasn't the walkers that worried me. It was the evidence of human action, not undead action, that had me slipping further through the streets to look deeper.

'Wolves Not Far,' one wall declared in sloppy orange spray paint. That wasn't a normal thing to find graffitied in a place as classy and upscale as this, which meant it had happened since the world ended. I had suspicions about it being more recently than the dead rising.

Broken things and corpses with a 'W' carved into their foreheads littered the community as well, particularly around the walls. One poor bastard had had his arms removed, been chained to a fencepost, and left to die from the amputations. He'd turned, snarling and biting at me, rattling his chains in an attempt to reach my living flesh.

He had the same 'W' carved into his skull, and I studied it and him both before and after I sank a knife into his skull.

Something had happened here.

I heard the soft scrape of a shoe behind me about half a second too late.

Chapter Text

Pain registered before consciousness did, coming from the back of my head in a low throb and from the center of my forehead in fierce sharpness. I groaned, not bothering to open my eyes, because all I'd see would be the blackness of the cave anyway, and what was the point? What had they done to me this time? I tried to think, to piece together the last few shreds of memory, but nothing made sense.

"She's waking up." It was an unfamiliar voice, and I forced my eyes to open. I blinked at the firelight, eyes watering between the brightness and the unrelenting pain. Shapes of people moved around, in and out my vision. I tried to focus the images but couldn't.

I was standing, I realized abruptly. I was- I frowned as things began to trickle in, making more sense slowly. I was tied to a tree. Someone had hit me from behind, knocking me out, and now I was tied to a damn tree.

I'd been sloppy, if someone had managed to get the drop on me. Damn it. Too distracted by the drama with Dixon and Walsh and-

"Hello."

His voice was calm, controlled. Polite, almost. I stared at the man who appeared in front of me, holding a bottle of water in one hand. He studied me as much as I studied him, taking in the 'W' scar on his forehead, the dirty, ragged look of him, and more important than any of that, the look in his eyes. He was a killer.

"This is a bad idea," I told him softly, humor tinging my voice. "I've got people, you know."

"Yes. I know. But they aren't here, are they? And you are. So." He stepped closer, leaning in to speak into my ear. "You have two choices, little cub. Behave, or get killed. Do as you're told, or die. We don't need you. But you're…. Interesting. You have scars, the kind of scars that make me think you've been here before."

I said nothing, keeping my eyes straight ahead as he moved around me, his fingers tracing the scars that were visible and tugging at my clothes where they disappeared under them.

"We can free you. From everything. Or we can free your life from your body. You are nothing to us. But you could be one of us. You could join the pack, eventually."

"'Wolves not far'," I said softly. "You think you're a wolf? You're not. You're just a rabid dog, and not a very threatening one."

"Well. We'll see. Be a good little cub," he purred as he kissed my cheek. "And stay put."

It wasn't like I was going anywhere any time soon, I thought in annoyance as he ambled off. Ricky and the others better get their asses in gear and come find me.

"We killed them," he breathed in my ear in the darkness. "Your people. They're dead. Food for the Wolves."

"I don't believe you," I snarled, struggling against the rope he used to pull me along by my throat. If I fought too hard, it would turn into a noose, and I'd be dead faster than I could say 'fuck you'. "Liar."

"I know. Now. Look."

He ripped the hood from my eyes and I screamed.

In front of me was Tyreese's head, arrow blooming from his forehead like a deadly flower. There was something shiny in his mouth, dangling from slack lips held at eye level for me to see.

A number 22 on a chain.

I'd given Walsh that necklace, once upon a time. When we were kids, and Shane played football like he was going pro. He'd been wearing it every day since, even when we broke up, even when the world ended.

There was blood on the metal. There was blood on the feathered ends of the arrow.

"No," I whispered.

"Yes," Owen whispered back.

"Now be a good cub. On your back."

I did as I was told, lying back and waiting for it to be over. It wouldn't be over. They were dead, and they weren't coming to save me.

"Say his name," he commanded in my ear, his breath ragged as he pumped into my body. "Say his name, now."

I said nothing. His hand locked around my throat and squeezed, oxygen disappearing in an instant.

"I said, say his name. Or I'll gut you right here and now." Cold metal pressed to my bare skin and cut in, flesh parting raggedly on the dull blade, and still he fucked into me, hard and brutal as I bit back the pained cry. "I'll finish in your corpse and think nothing of it."

"Shane," I whispered brokenly. "Shane."

"Louder! The other one, too!"

"Shane!" I screamed as the knife sunk in again, a plea for rescue that would never come. "Daryl!"

Chapter Text

Anger filled him to the brim, like it had in the days before he and his angel had put themselves back together, when Rick had just come back and the world was all kinds of fucked up between him and Lori, him and Angel, him and Rick. He hadn't been this full of pure, focused anger since then- not even at the Governor, not even during Terminus, not even when his angel had come out of the woods after talking to Dixon and been shaking and sobbing in his arms.

But Shane was pissed the hell off now. He headed into the woods, not caring how loud he might be, and he yelled for Dixon at the top of his lungs.

And just like that, Angel's other lover materialized in front of him, and Shane almost decked the asshole. If she'd run off because of him, Shane might kill him.

"The fuck ya in here yellin' fer? Tryna become walker bait?" Dixon snarled, glaring at Shane.

That was fine. Shane felt like fighting. He glared right back. "She's gone, asshole."

Daryl's face went pale. "Fuck ya mean, gone?"

"I mean, she went to scout out Noah's community, and said she'd be back before dark, and she wasn't. So we went looking for her this morning as well as to take Noah back, and shit went sideways. Tyreese is dead, Noah's community ain't one anymore, and there's no sign of my angel!" He ended up yelling the last words, shoving Daryl back with both hands.

"She dead?" Dixon asked, voice flat and hard.

Shane closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. "We don't fucking know. Weren't you listening? She's gone. Gone! Disappeared, no sign."

"You think she left."

He hadn't wanted to. He hadn't wanted to think it, to let himself feel it, but it had coiled there in his gut, sick and twisted. "Yeah."

"S'my fault if she did," Daryl muttered, barely audible.

"Yeah," Shane agreed flatly. "It is."

They went back together, and took Merle and her brother with them. Fear had weight, slowing him down, holding him hostage. He couldn't think, he could barely keep moving.

It was his fault. He'd been so angry. Beth had been a kid. Just a sweet kid who'd turned out tougher'n he'd believed she could be, and saving her, keeping her alive, it had meant something to him when he'd believed everyone he loved was dead.

And in the end, he'd failed her. She'd brushed by him and Daryl had grabbed at her, but he hadn't gotten hold. She'd pulled away and gone straight for Angel and Dawn, and she'd ended up dead. She'd ended up dead because Daryl hadn't been able to save her, after all.

Harley had thought he'd had a crush on her. She'd shot it at him, sneering, when he'd only been trying to make sure she was ok, and stayed ok. He saw the look in her eyes when she turned into who she'd been before the world ended, and it weren't good. Her eyes went dead and cold and flat, and he'd seen that same look in them when he'd stumbled on her in the showers at the CDC, caught in a nightmare of memory in a way Daryl understood far too well.

But the thing was, he wasn't good with words. And every time he tried to tell her he was worried about her, not because she chose the hard things, but because of what those hard things were doing to her, he fucked it up, and she thought he wanted her to be someone else. To be soft.

Fuckin' hell, Daryl had enough soft people he was tryin' to keep alive. He needed her to be just who the fuck she was- tough as nails, able to do the hard shit without batting an eye. He just needed her to be ok while she did it, was all.

And then he'd gone down a road he'd sworn he'd never walk. He'd turned and he'd lashed out, full of the grief and the guilt and the anger at himself for always being as useless as his daddy had said he was and not being able to keep Beth alive, one of those soft people who needed his protection, no matter how tough she'd become. And he'd opened his dumbass mouth and said the worst things he possibly could to the person he loved most.

Hell, he'd called her 'angel of death'. He fuckin' knew what that did to her, and the minute it left his mouth he'd have gladly cut out his town damn tongue to take it back, but he couldn't. He couldn't, and she hated him now, and he couldn't even blame her.

If she'd left because of him-

Worse, if she was dead because of him…

Walsh was pissed at him, Rick was pissed at him, hell, his own brother was pissed at him. Daryl'd earned it. He deserved it all, and he'd fix it. He would. He had to.

They had to find her, so he could.

But she wasn't fuckin' anywhere, and there were no signs he could pick up either, and Daryl had the sinking, horrible feeling that he'd gotten the love of his life killed because no matter how hard he tried, he was a Dixon, and that meant he carried some of his daddy's darkness inside him he couldn't purge, ever.

He'd eat one of his own arrows if she was dead. He'd stay here waiting for her if she'd left.

Walsh looked at him as they stood in a small huddle around the only thing that might be a clue- a rock with a hint of blood on it- and Daryl saw the same things in his eyes that were churning around in him.