A/N: I wrote this between my second and third viewings of the episode and realize with the third that some details are not exact, but will leave the piece as is for now. If there is anything anyone feels to be glaringly inaccurate, please let me know so I can correct it asap. I think I was consistent in keeping this present tense, especially with it being so short, but 'tense' is something I often mess up in my writing, so if you see that flubbed up anywhere, feel free to point that out for a tweak as well.
Left Behind, by MissMishka
DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.
The constant running is exhausting her body, but the distraction it provides her mind is welcome as Andrea forces her feet to keep moving.
Her shoulder is weighed by the bag of weapons and she wonders briefly at the additional strain on her flagging reserves, but can't bring herself to abandon the bag.
It was Rick's bag.
It had held the guns and ammunition for the group and it symbolized one of their most prized possessions.
Rick had taken Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog back into Atlanta for this bag.
Dale had guarded it for them.
She would not leave the bag, no matter how close to empty it was.
A well-used Sheriff's Department duffel may be all she has left of her friends.
They had left her, literally, holding this bag.
Holding on to it seems somehow vital to her as she continues to press on, barely a step ahead of the Walkers that dog her every move.
This is worse than any of the nightmares that had driven her decision to opt-out with Jenner.
She fights on, though, refusing the alternatives of suicide by her own hand or death at theirs.
Andrea owes it to Dale's memory and to whoever else had been lost on the farm, to just keep trying.
It can't end like this for her. She isn't ready for it; no longer wants it.
She can't just be lost in these woods; she isn't a scared little girl like Sophia. She is a grown woman; a fighter.
And she is scared to death.
The gun jams, ending any usefulness it may have had and she feels the noose tightening around her neck.
She curses the weapon along with all fickle things that stop working when they're most needed.
There are too many of them near her now. She can't fight them off.
She takes flight, running as quickly as she can with the bag bouncing against her back. She has no bullets for the glock, no shells for the shotgun. The bag begins to feel heavier with each growl and twig snap she hears from the zombies around her.
It is useless to keep the duffel and she forces herself to shed it.
Much as she would like to deny the truth, she had seen the others leave the farm. She had raced after Rick without him stopping his vehicle to pick her up.
She had been left behind and the bag would not save her now any more than the group would.
The guns still proves somewhat useful as she wields it to bash in the head of one Walker with the butt of the weapon, but she doesn't see that working again. Just in case, she tucks the bloody Ladysmith in her parka.
There's a pocket knife in the pocket of her pants and that is all she has left between herself and death.
She unsheathes it without much hope of avoiding the latter, just as a zombie stumbles into her.
One she's able to handle with the knife to its face, but another comes right after it and she goes down under its weight.
The threat of zombie death, though, is removed so quickly she can barely process it. The thing's head is cleaved from the body in the blink of an eye and that body then falls to the side of her.
Air moves quickly in and out of her lungs and Andrea's relief is boundless.
She gazes up at her savior, seeing the long, lethal blade of sword dripping the blood of the Walker it had just beheaded. Her eyes follow the blade to the hand holding the hilt and onward.
Her breaths slow and her heart thuds ominously as she begins to take in the fuller picture of the figure standing over her. It does not wield a scythe, but the black hood obscuring the face brings to mind immediate thoughts of Death.
Perhaps this was not a savior after all.
"Were you bitten?"
She blinks at the words, more surprised by the feminine voice that spoke them than by the point of the blade suddenly aimed at her throat as the figure awaits Andrea's answer.
"Your head is as easily removed as his was," the sword presses in and can no longer be ignored. "Now, again, were you bitten?"
"No," she whispers, afraid to try shaking her head with the blade at her neck. "I'm ok. You got it just in time."
"I expect you to return the favor should the need arise."
The sword is withdrawn and a hand raises to the push the hood back.
A woman.
Wouldn't Lori just shit a brick?
A lone woman, wielding a sword had just swooped in to save Andrea's life.
She rather likes that idea, but there's no time to enjoy the irony of the moment.
The two Walkers are perilously close to the woman's back and Andrea begins to scramble for some kind of weapon to kill them, ready to repay her debt immediately to this stranger. Her mind is slow to catch on to the fact that this heroine wasn't the type to be unaware of her impending doom.
"Behind you," she cries out as soon as she gets a big enough rock in her hand to push to her feet and after the zombies.
"These are mine."
The words fail to reach her through the adrenaline rushing through her at the threat she faces, but the blade thrust out to block her path to the Walkers does the trick of halting her forward motion.
Confusion fills her as Andrea's gaze moves once more up the blade. Her eyes catch on the chains running from the stranger's left hand to the necks of the two zombies behind her.
"What are you?" her whisper expresses the same disbelieving horror she feels at what her eyes seem to be seeing.
"Michonne," the woman answers smoothly before grinning. "And the correct phrasing of the question is still 'who am I.'"
That's nice, Andrea thinks as her brain tries to process the scene, so who the hell is Michonne?