Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This scenario is based vaguely off the end of 6x08 where we last see Denise and Alpha-wolf walking out of the door of the house and into the street. – Part three of my "WOLVES NOT FAR," series. Sequel to "Salt of the earth (type of dangerous)" & "Sow thy seeds (and learn thy lessons)."
Warnings: Spoilers for 6x08, kidnapping/hostage situation, Alpha-wolf is not a good person, Denise is a puff pastry of goodness. I think you guys know how this type of stuff works out, animal death, canon appropriate violence.
Have Patience (and embrace the horizon bleeding your future)
Chapter One
"You know the first settlers here, they put bounties on wolves heads…brought the natives into it, made them hunt them…didn't take them too long to kill them all.They're back now. Some of the tribes around here, they thought the first people were wolves transformed into men…and now…well, you know….everything gets a return, right?"
He taught her to boil her water before drinking it.
How to find it when the river bed was dry.
He taught her how to sharpen his hoard of knives and build a better snare.
How to recognize tracks in the brush.
He taught her how a biter's tread came out different from a person's or a deer's.
How to find out what direction she was heading without a map or the stars.
He taught her how to set up traps with empty tin-cans and noisemakers so that even when she was alone she could sleep through the night. He taught her how to string them up around her, close enough that she'd hear them coming but not close enough that the walkers would trip over them before she was awake.
He taught her how to hold her knife, subtle enough that the lesson was done without the knife even in her hand, but rather his own. Staging his own practice where he knew she was watching, getting stronger every day as his wound slowly healed and he found himself with more and more energy to burn. More time to run her through the paces and lead by example. More time to make her own it. Every breath. Every second. Forcing her to appreciate each and every one as he cut down the walkers that strayed close to camp like they were tissue paper. Showing her over and over that this was something learned. Taught. That it was a skill just like any other and someday it would be her holding that knife. And that someday, just like him, it would be her who would be the teacher.
He taught her how to live and she hated him every step of the way.
After a week it was familiar.
After two weeks it became a routine.
By that point he could more or less freely admit he had a problem.
"What's your name?" she asked one morning. Looking up from where he was sorting through the last of the supplies to find her watching him. Their drinking water for the day bubbling sluggishly in the cast-iron saucepan she had balanced over a grate above the flames.
"Alpha," he said simply, looking back to his task but not before catching the roll of her eyes. Sensing something different in her tone this morning as he eyed the length of rope laying between them. Vaguely considering tying her back up and stowing her in the den to avoid whatever she was up to as his patience threatened a shortness that mirrored his empty belly. Part of him curious about this new line of questioning and the other part equally hesitant.
It was a strange feeling. Unfamiliar.
Like fear, but not.
Anticipation?
"No, I mean your real one," she returned, impatient like it was obvious as she poked at the embers with the green end of a branch. Making his eyes water and nose twitch as the potent smoke wafted his way. Irritation flickered, threatening to rise before it was summarily dismissed. She was still a pup. She didn't know that green wood made the worst-
"Are the names we take for ourselves not real?" he replied, careful not to let anything show on his face as the animal underneath his skin chuffed and postured.
Conversation. Banter. He remembered this.
She nudged her glasses further up her nose. An unsubtle tell that told him she was distracted. Thinking his answer through without any real sort of judgement before answering. It was almost clinical - distant. But it was her eyes that always gave her away. She had kind ones. Too kind. Too good. It was a problem he hadn't worked out how to solve yet. But he would, in time.
It wasn't about breaking her.
Rather, it was changing her enough that she'd embrace the rest.
Just like the others.
"Who were you before this?" she tried again, staring at him earnestly. Sensing that one wrong answer would erase all the progress they'd made up until this point.
The corner of his lips twitched upwards - a smirk or maybe even a half-smile.
Clever girl.
Very clever.
Sharp and brutal in the strangest of ways.
"Misguided," he allowed, inspecting the last can of baked beans critically before placing it back into his pack. They would need to go hunting soon. In the suburbs. Far enough away that the supply parties from Alexandria wouldn't have stripped them dry. His nose twitched, irritated. They would have to find a new den before winter. New territory. Somewhere less populated, less open. With their lower numbers they had to be smarter, careful.
Their numbers would grow again.
Given time.
They just had to be patient.
"How?" she asked, frowning at him now. Forcing him to fight the inane urge to take his thumb and smooth the wrinkles that had taken up residence between her eyes. Knowing instinctively the gesture would be unwelcome. It would be a reminder of their situation, counterintuitive to continuing the conversation. Which he found himself enjoying, somehow. "How were you misguided?"
"I believed the lie," he elaborated after a careful moment, feeling the truth of the words come far more easily than they should have. Finding he almost wanted to let them go, wanted her to understand. To know.
"We ignored what the world was trying to tell us. We ignored the signs. I believed that we – people - had a privileged place in the center of things. We took that for granted. We couldn't fathom the world could be any other way, without us at the top of the food chain. But here we are," he remarked lightly, leaning back against the downed trunk behind him as the collar of his jacket threatened to swallow his chin.
"The world has always been a blood bath. It was just a matter of us never taking a hit. You understand?" he affirmed, watching multiple expressions chase themselves across her face as she stared blandly back at him. Wearing a mask like armor as something about the way she was looking at him reminded him of being on the Dentist's chair. Firmly in the spotlight, but removed at the same time. "We've always been on the top, untouchable. When things ended? That was nature teaching us a lesson."
"Those things?" he added, letting his hand fling back to encompass the world at large. The mouldering trees and vacant spaces. All the empty cities and towns that existed between here and there. Leftover shells of a civilization that was still in the process of falling. "They aren't the infection, we are - we were."
"When you said you wanted to free us," she started slowly, glancing back at the fire for a long moment before finding him again. "Back in Alexandria? Before- what did you mean?"
He cocked his head.
Was it still so unclear to her?
Even after all his lessons?
How could she not know?
What was holding her back?
"You're hiding behind walls," he answered after a long pause, like it was obvious. "You don't need them. It isn't the way anymore. It was never the way. It isn't what you need."
"We need to survive," she pointed out, nudging her glasses another few inches up her nose. Distracted again. Thinking. But already he could tell they weren't the thoughts he wanted from her. She was being stubborn again. Willful. "We need to be safe."
"You don't need walls to survive," he replied bluntly, laughing at her with his eyes. "You need to be able to fight. To protect yourself and those you deem worthy to survive with you. Why do you think it was so easy for us to upset the balance? Because what you people are doing isn't right. It isn't natural. It isn't the way the world works. So when we came to your town, that was what we were doing. We freed you from the metal of your own cage and reminded you what it is to be alive. That is my code."
"But it isn't ours," she shot back, a bit more spirited now - affronted. Tone arching like a house cat who'd found themselves forced to scrounge through the trash for scraps. "It doesn't have to be."
"It is, and you know it," he replied patiently. "You just don't want to accept it. But you will. You all will. Or you'll die. That's nature. It's simple. You win or you lose. The grey area between one or the other is just the time you have left to breathe."
She made a frustrated sound between her teeth that made him picture an insolent yearling. Something that might have just earned her a warning smack, before she forced the moment to evolve. Twisting it into something that made the animal under his skin stretch out and consider.
"You know, historically speaking, trying to force one viewpoint on top of another never usually works out well," she told him archly, eyes glinting angrily. But with a hint of playfulness that seemed completely at odds with her mood since he'd captured her.
"It depends on who is writing the history," he returned, not quite sure where the conversation was going now that she'd managed to gain control of it. But finding himself in no hurry to end it. Riding high on something that sang out like excitement. Pulse racing fast beneath the thinness of his skin as the promise of something more blurred through the lines they'd oh so carefully placed each other in.
"The victors are always are the ones that record the history," she slapped back, blunt like she was calling him out. Challenging him. "Is that what you think you are? The victor? Then what? What's the point? Say you kill everyone, every person in the state, then what? What will you do? Tell me!"
The stalemate lasted a smattering of moments before-
"My name is Denise," she told him, not smug but firm. Like it was a truth she expected him to heel to without question or complaint. So fierce in her ignorance that she couldn't even fathom the possibility that she could be more. That she was more.
"That's the name you were given. Not what you are," he replied, speaking the same words he'd said a dozen times before. To Beta and Aphid and every member of his pack he'd reared since.
"It is," she insisted fiercely, digging the stick she had been using to prod the kindling deep into the ash-strewn dirt. "It is who I am."
He opened his mouth to reply, but found her baring her teeth at him.
Her snarl was silent but more than present all the same, making his hackles ruffle in kind.
His spine stiffened in increments.
Adrenaline surging as the urge to put her in her place rose quick to the forefront.
Only this time she matched him.
Posture for posture.
Glare for glare.
Refusing to give an inch as the fire crackled and spat between them.
He ended up being so surprised at her defiance that he'd simply stared. Fighting down a surge of emotion – confusion, ferocity, and something dangerously close to worship - like it was nausea before he ghosted off into the green to stretch his legs and let his body remember what it was like run.
It was only later, with hindsight, that pride had the opportunity to usher in.
Likening the moment she'd challenged him to the unexpected meeting of equals.
And strangely enough he found he could only grin up at the earthy ceiling of the den as he listened to her sleep on the other side of the small, hollowed out crevice.
He would make a predator of her yet.
Authors Note #2: Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Big thank you to gunslingerdixon for the dialogue. – There will be two more chapters in this part of the series so stay tuned.