So I watched Civil War before writing this back in May so deal with it.

I wake to someone shaking my arm, and I roll onto my stomach, pulling my pillow over my head. "Five more minutes," I murmur.

On my left, a voice chuckles, and I hear Carl say, "C'mon, Clary. They're gonna go on the run without you if you don't get up. Though, come to think of it, that's not necessarily a bad thing. We could spend the day together."

"I'm gettin' up," I grumble, playfully pushing him away. Carl rolls back over, half laying on top of me. "No," he says with a shake of his head. "You're not."

"Oh, get off," I sigh, but I don't fight back. I reach up, gently touching the gauze where it wraps around his head. "You should get to Denise, have her change it today."

"Yeah, I'll get on that. But first…" Carl leans down, kissing me before climbing out of bed. "Get dressed, Dixon. They're leaving soon."

I quickly get dressed before joining Daryl and Rick downstairs, where they wait for me by the car we've been taking on runs. "Ready?" Rick questions.

"Let's hit it," I reply, climbing in the backseat while Rick and Daryl climb in the front. It's been about a month since the walkers broke through the walls, and we waited for a long time before doing runs again. We started again last week, and Daryl, Rick, and I have been going out either every day or every other day to look for supplies. Namely, food, as we're starting to run a bit low. We should be good for a little while, but it's gonna take some time for the crops to grow, so we need to stock up. As we drive out of Alexandria, I question, "So, where we headin' today?"

"There's a development not too far away," Daryl answers, glancing over his shoulder at me. "Rick thinks it might not be picked through."

"It's always a possibility," Rick points out.

"You're optimistic and that's kinda scarin' me," I say, earning a bit of a chuckle from Daryl. Rick shakes his head, choosing not to say anything as he pulls into the development that has houses damn near as fancy as the ones in Alexandria. Whoever lived here before had to be rich. We climb out, meeting at the hood of the car. "Where to first?" I question.

Rick gestures to a house down the street. "Start down there, work our way back."

We clear the house first, the only walker we find being upstairs, before searching the house. We don't find any food, but we do find about a dozen batteries that another scavenger missed. We meet back up in the living room, shaking our heads to show the others that we didn't find what we really needed. Rick leads the way to a second house, this one across the street and down a bit. I lead the way inside, taking the second floor while Rick and Daryl cleared the first. I close the doors to the empty rooms, but when I get to the study, something glinting the sunlight in the corner catches my eye. I step inside, making my way over to what could be a weapon.

The unpainted shield is about two feet in diameter, and a little over half an inch thick. It looks like it's made out either titanium or steel, so I pick it up, testing its weight. I was expecting it to be made out of steel, but it must be made of titanium as it's lighter than I expected it to be. Some Marvel enthusiast had to have had this made, but they never got around to painting it to match Captain America's. There's grooves in it, marking sections, but there's nothing for the star. Cool, I can put my own symbol there. I pick up the harness that was laying beside it, looking it over. Magnets are sewn into the straps, and I find their counterparts in the straps that are in the shield. I pull the harness on, adjusting it to fit me, then doing the same to the straps. In one motion, I put the shield I'm claiming as my own on my back, and I'm relieved when it sticks. "Oh, that's so cool," I laugh.

I take off for the living room, looking for Daryl and Rick to show them what I've found. "Daryl!" I call, seeing him in the hallway. "Daryl!"

"Clary?" Daryl questions, running to meet me. "What's goin' on?"

"You've gotta see what I found," I tell him with a grin.

He closes his eyes, shaking his head as he breathes out a sigh. "Jesus, I thought somethin' happened. You've gotta stop scarin' me like this. You're gonna give me a heart attack one of these days!"

"Sorry," I apologize, looking down at my feet now. "I just got really excited. I wanted to show you what I found. I thought it was really cool."

"Aw, Clars, I'm sorry," Daryl says, taking my hands in his. "You just scared me, that's all." He moves one hand to my chin, lifting my head up. "What'd you find?"

I pull my hand free, reaching around behind me to pull the shield off my back. I put it on my right arm, holding it up for Daryl to see. "It's Cap's shield!" I grin. "Ooh, I wonder if it's bulletproof? Daryl, shoot my shield!"

"I'm not gonna shoot your shield," he says, shaking his head. I step back, slightly lowering the shield away from my face, and I look up at him with the puppy dog eyes that I've perfected over the years. The eyes that always make him crumble and give in. "Clary, sweetheart, that always works but I'm not firing a gun at you just to see if a shield works."

"Aw, c'mon, Daryl," I beg. "Shoot it. C'mon, there's no way to know." I look around him as Rick steps into the hallway, making his way down to us. "Hey, Rick! Shoot my shield!"

"Is this some kind of test?" he asks, glancing from me to Daryl.

"Yeah," I say. "I want to see if my shield's bulletproof so shoot it."

"Rick," Daryl protests as the former officer holds out his hand for my gun, which has a silencer on.

"Hey, she wants to see," Rick argues as I hand over my weapon. "You know what it's made of?"

"I think titanium," I answer. Rick nods once, and raises his gun. He fires two shots into the metal before lowering the gun. I grin, looking down at the titanium shield. There's scratch marks, but not really much of anything else. I put the shield on my back, taking my gun again, before I follow Rick and Daryl downstairs. "You boys find anything?"

"Nothin' but dust, dust, and more dust," Daryl huffs.

"Well, ain't that a bitch kick to the nuts."

"Development's pretty much picked over," Rick tells me. "We didn't find anything here. Only found those batteries in the other house."

"Yeah, houses are pretty empty," I sigh, following them out the front door. "Maybe we could hit a store on the way back. I ain't comin' home empty handed."

"We're not entirely empty handed," Rick points out. "We have batteries."

"We are empty handed," Daryl argues, then glances over at me. "You keepin' the shield?"

"Hells yeah," I reply.

We hit a store that Aiden's team never went through, loading the back of the car with just about everything we found. I stretch out in the backseat, my shield resting against my leg. Daryl glances at me over his shoulder, then turns around to face me. "You gonna paint it?"

"Yeah, I think I got an idea how," I answer.

"You should paint a spade on it. Like the Ace of Spades. You tend to have a thing for them."

"I do not."

"Clary, your lighter literally has the Ace of Spades on it."

Rick chuckles from the driver's seat. "He's got a point, you know."

"Shut up, Rick."

"But why do you have an obsession with Spades?"

"I don't have an obsession," I object. "I just happen to have a certain love for the Ace. It's known as the Death Card. In Vietnam, they used to put them in the mouths of dead Viet Cong. GI's wore 'em in their helmets. It was a fear tactic. Showed death was coming."

Rick and Daryl share a look with each other before saying in unison, "Paint the spade."

My brother adds, "You always say you bring death. You say you're a mercenary. Live up to it. Scare the hell out of the enemy and paint the spade. It's your card."

"Alright," I give in, then grin a bit. "I'll paint the spade."