Chapter I
Rose, Glenn and Maggie ran back to Alexandria while the confusion and the walkers had Negan and his goons distracted. They would routinely stop, hide and check their surroundings to make sure they weren't being followed before they proceeded onward. They also took a circuitous path, taking care to cover their tracks once they had gotten further away. In doing so it took several hours longer than it should have before they were back at the gates of Alexandria. Carol and Sasha hurried to open the gates and let them in. "What happened? What took you so long? Where's Rick and that doctor?" Sasha's questions came too fast; none of the returning party had even had a chance to catch their breath yet. "Daryl? Is he behind you?" asked Carol. "We were ambushed by some men. The Doctor and Rick got away in the TARDIS." answered Rose, being the first one to spare the air to form words. "These guys have some serious hardware on them, heavy equipment and military grade shit. We muddled our path to shake them from following us back here." Glenn explained. "We still need to prepare in case they come looking for us." Maggie added. "Daryl? What about Daryl?" Carol repeated the question forcefully as the gate doors were locked behind all of them. Glenn straightened up and took a deep breath. The look on his face was enough to tell Carol all she needed to know. She turned and walked away without saying anything. Glenn exhaled, saving his words that need not be spoken. Carol went into an empty house and slammed the door behind her. Sasha grabbed Glenn's arm and turned him towards her. "We, we couldn't do anything. . . " he confessed woefully. "It'll be all right. That's the world we live in now, and so it goes, and so it goes." she told Glenn, trying to appear strong but the sorrow came through in her voice as well. "The son of a bitch with a baseball bat is their leader, if I see him again I'm gonna kill him." Maggie declared, turning her grief into anger. "Sasha, I need you to warn the others and get this place ready to repel a full scale attack, by the living." Maggie ordered Sasha. Sasha scrunched her face as she tried to get into a focused state of mind and stood there for a little while. "Sasha?" Maggie repeated herself. "I'm going, I'm going." Sasha said then turned and walked away. "I'm going with her." Rose said and followed off behind Sasha to sound the alarm. Rose trusted in the Doctor that he would restore the timeline and these people's sorrow would be erased, though she was still shaken up. Maggie and Glenn then hugged each other, effectively restraining their tears and appearing stronger than they were. Daryl had been there with them since almost the beginning, and now they had lost him. Maggie was right though, that son of a bitch with the bat was going to pay.
Late that night in the forest where the TARDIS had once stood there remained a multitude of slain walkers and a handful of Negan's minions lying permanently dead among the bodies. Daryl's corpse rested in a seated position next to the tree where he had his head bashed in. The manner in which he passed prevented him from resuscitating as the undead. One death would be enough for him, he would rot in peace. The abandoned tow truck remained jacked up against the fallen tree with a big damp puddle beneath it where some of its fluids had leaked out. There were no living men around this place anymore, only a small number of walkers lumbering about aimlessly. With little to draw their attention they were slow, almost inactive at this point, that is until a series of flashes illuminated the night next to where the TARDIS had once stood. Five Cybermen had materialized and now stood amongst the walkers. The light had at first attracted the walkers but once the cybermen had manifested in their midst the walkers were disinterested. Their metal shells concealed their organic components from detection by the undead. The metal men were of little more interest than a car or a garbage can to the walkers. "Tachyon signatures indicate recent temporal flux in this region. The Doctor was here." the lead Cyberman stated in its stoic computerized voice. The speech drew a few walkers to crowd around the cybermen. "Analysis of lifeforms. Human. Degraded physical and neural capacities." a second cyberman reported. "Are they upgradeable?" inquired the lead Cyberman. The second cyberman paused while it processed the data it retrieved through a series of algorithms. "Yes." the second cyberman confirmed.