Hey, guys, super excited and super nervous to begin the last installment of this series. I have a lot of things planned that I can't wait to write, and I hope ya'll will join me for them. I know I left a lot of things unanswered in "Spirits", and I assure you I am going to get to each of them though it may not be for a few chapters yet. The title of the fic itself comes from "Windows" by AWOLNATION. We're starting off strong as far as music today- the chapter title is "Under Ground Kings" by Drake and it is absolutely amazing. The chapter itself is fairly short because I was really anxious to get the ball rolling, so hopefully it'll allow me time to get the next one out quickly. As always, I hope to hear what you think!
1. Under Ground Kings
The morning was colder than the night. They'd cleaned off the blood as best they could, but Mason could still feel the chill weight of it dragging at her limbs.
Seventeen guns. Eugene's bow and arrows. One fire poker and one machete and a few knives between them.
And Daryl's crossbow. They had that, too.
If it were just the two of them, this arsenal would have been impressive. They might have felt like royalty. They might have felt untouchable.
Mason scowled at the frosted ground as she and Eugene trudged on. They hadn't stopped since throwing themselves to the herd of walkers and her legs were getting shaky. But there was no stopping. There would be no stopping until...
Until what?
Until the Saviors burned? And then what after that? What life was she looking at after that?
She blinked against the sudden sting of tears. She couldn't imagine the life she'd once wanted for herself, that one where she and Eugene lived in peace in their house, tending to their garden in the morning and getting high on the roof at night. Had that ever been a possibility? It felt like someone else's fairy tale.
Seventeen guns. Eugene's bow and arrows. One fire poker, one machete, a few knives. And the crossbow.
This was meager. This was pathetic compared to Negan's cache. And Eugene might have been able to make bullets, but it wouldn't matter if they were using them quicker than he could get his hands on the casings.
But we now have information regarding not only the layout of their compound but their inventories and inner workings, Eugene had told her when she'd voiced her fears. That is now our greatest weapon.
Of course he would say that.
Knowledge might have been power to him but all she felt was hopelessly empty-handed. They had nothing extraordinary to offer aside from a few memorized maps.
You've done more with less, she tried to remind herself.
Yes, they had.
But never when they were up against someone who had brought them so swiftly to their knees. Never against someone who had gutted her so effectively.
~m~
The temperature seemed to drop with every step they took in the direction of Alexandria. Home, she supposed it still was, although it no longer felt like it. The sun sat heavy in a grim sky and offered no relief from the biting air.
Neither of them spoke unless they needed to, but Mason felt Eugene's eyes on her as often as hers were on him.
Months ago, back when Rick fought with Pete, she had come to him in his cell to talk him into giving the Alexandrians a shot. She had told him that the new world demanded different versions of yourself. That parts of her had died and other parts had grown out of the corpses.
Now she only felt like a corpse, and from the way Eugene carried himself she could tell he felt the same.
They had been brutalized into new shapes, the anatomy of how they thought and felt and reacted forced into new architectures. But where she burned- arduously, rigorously- Eugene was the enduring sting of ice. She was a sprawling desert and he was an arctic tundra, but they were both wastelands. And she didn't think she was ever going to feel more relentlessly intertwined with anyone or anything in her life.
Her heart shook, thunder from a distant sky, when they came upon the clearing. Not the one from last night.
The one from the night.
Mason and Eugene halted at the same time, rigid as the memory speared them.
There she was on her knees, watching as first Abraham and then Glenn were taken from them. There she was, screaming as Daryl attacked Negan. There she was being dragged into the van, watching as Eugene made symbols with his hands.
The images piled over each other, spilling gasoline in her brain, catching everything on fire.
She burned so easily these days.
Her breath came in deep, ragged gasps, but she didn't realize this until Eugene wrapped his arms around her. Pressing his face into her hair, he murmured, "We need to get to Alexandria."
He didn't call it home anymore either, she noticed.
~m~
It was approaching noon when they found the highway. Everything looked achingly familiar. They were close- even the air smelled different- yet there was not a trace of excitement in her, no relief that she would see her family again. She knew she wouldn't feel relieved until all of this was over, one way or another, and even after that...
What if this fire remained after everything? What if she could never rid herself of it?
Don't think about it, she told herself. It doesn't matter anyway.
They walked parallel to the road, always within the shadow of the trees. They encountered no walkers, no wildlife. As if the forest had muted itself in the aftermath of...everything they had done.
Eugene heard it first, jarring to a halt so suddenly that it startled her. She frowned as he cocked his head, brows furrowed, and that's when she heard it. The deep, diesel rumbling of a truck.
It came from the west, from the direction they were travelling in, and as soon as she spotted it her stomach curled with dread. Eugene's eyes glittered grimly at her. Together they flitted toward the road, dodging from shadow to shadow as the sound grew louder. They just had time to duck behind a tree as the cattle truck flew by, so close the wind from its passing buffeted them.
The breath caught in her throat.
It moved too quickly for her to see inside, but the apprehension pinching her gut had her imagining the worst.
It had come from the west.
The only thing out west for miles was Alexandria.
"Go. Go," Eugene hissed, but she was already running.
The woods blurred as they launched themselves full-tilt in the direction of what had once been home. Her blood whirled so hotly through her veins she was surprised she didn't leave a trail of sparks in her wake.
Then they were swerving across the highway, onto the little, winding road limned through the dense trees like a scar. She remembered every trip back and forth on this road. She remembered the very first time, in the RV so soon after losing Beth, and Tyreese. She remembered, she remembered, she remembered...
The gate was open.
They slowed at the sight of it, and stopped altogether when they saw no one guarding it.
No one in the watchtower.
No one coming or going.
The silence hovered like a vulture. Sinister. Hideous. Her stomach turned over and she drew a thin, shaky breath.
"Eugene," she said and his eyes were like flint, like ice, as he glared down the road at Alexandria. At home, once upon a time.
He took her hand and said, "C'mon." And they walked the last little bit to the place they'd been trying to reach all this time, the place they'd been trying to save.
But they knew what they would find, even before they stepped through the open gate and found no one waiting for them.
Just like everything she'd ever tried to hold on to, her people were gone.
Alexandria had been taken.