Author's Note: I do not own the rights to the Walking Dead. As I was watching, this is something along the lines of how I pictured "The Grove" would end. Obviously it didn't, so this is an AU.

The Rebirthday Party

A gentle wind blew across the farmhouse field. It rifled through the nearby pecan trees, sending more pecans to the ground, ready to be collected and cooked in whatever way one cooks pecans during the Zombie Apocalypse. The nearby woods waved at the house as the wind blew through it and the water pump creaked slightly, a small drip dropping out as the lever shifted a smidge.

Such iconic scenery had lulled Carol into a false sense of safety. A sense of… home.

But not anymore.

Carol stared at Lizzie's bloody hands, words and thoughts escaping her. Her thoughts flashed to this morning when Mika had been smiling, eating the last bit of the roasted walnuts they had gathered together and baked in the oven. That moment expanded in Carol's mind, filling her with elation and comfort. But then it shrank and pulled away. Carol wanted to shout for it to stay but her voice was gone and so was that moment. Mika was dead. Carol stared at Mika's pale face, a heaviness in her stomach and an ache behind her eyes.

"Don't worry, she'll come back. I didn't hurt her brain," Lizzie announced with a smile, jarring Carol out of her thoughts.

Movement from the woods caught Carol's attention before she could formulate a response. She looked up and noted a Walker emerging from the forest. It was still far away enough to be ignored for the moment, but would need to be taken care of shortly. Lizzie followed her gaze and her smile became even wider. She waved at the Walker with the bloody knife.

"The first guest has arrived for Mika's rebirthday party!" Lizzie said. She looked down at Mika's immobile form and began to hum "Happy birthday to you."

Tyreese made an odd strangled noise and grabbed baby Judith from the blanket before Lizzie turned back to them. Tyreese gave the Walker a wary look, but he gave Lizzie an even warier one. Carol stared at the humming Lizzie, one thought clear in her mind. She had no choice. She had no choice. She had no choice.

Another Walker emerged from the forest. "Lizzie?" Carol asked, her voice smooth and soothing. "How many… " she paused, unsure what to say, before glossing over the word and continuing, "did you invite to this party and how do they know to come here?"

Lizzie looked at Carol and shrugged. "Well, I found a group of them yesterday and I used some mice and mousetraps to lead them here." She beamed at Carol. "It's not a party without people, right?"

Carol bit back her remonstration that Walkers are not people. What was the point? She had said it again and again and it had never sunk in before; it wasn't going to sink in now. Instead, Carol made eye contact with Tyreese and then looked toward the house. His eyes widened and he nodded slightly.

"I'm… I'm going to go make sure we have enough… uh… chairs… and… party stuff, right stuff, for our guests," he said and all but ran to the farmhouse.

Carol swallowed the dryness in her mouth away. "Honey, I think you may have invited too many. We all want to be reborn, but they'll just eat us up and we won't be able to come back. You saw them do that at the prison- remember?"

Lizzie frowned and looked up at the sky. "Oh yeah," she said softly. "I do remember that."

A sudden hissing noise made Carol's heart stop. She looked down and saw Mika blinking open her eyes. Lizzie gave Mika a huge smile, holding her hands together and looking at her as if she had just birthed her herself. A buzzing noise filled Carol's ears and her vision blurred. She rubbed her eyes and when she looked down, she found herself looking at Sophia, looking as she had before this had all started. But then Sophia's face sunk in, yellowing and decaying until Carol's tears blurred her vision once more. She hastily rubbed them away and when she looked down, it was Mika's face once more.

But it wasn't Mika who stared back up at her. The Walker that used to be Mika sat up, entrails falling out of the hole in her stomach and piling onto her lap. Carol bit her tongue so as not to gag.

"Happy rebirthday Mika!" Lizzie said, clapping her hands together with a loud wet sound that made Carol wince.

Carol wanted to scream that this was not Mika anymore than the abomination that had taken over Sophia's body had been her. She wanted to scream that Mika was not coming back and would never be back. She wanted to shoot this imposter and all of the creatures coming back. But she controlled herself. She had to see this through. She owed it to both these girls to end this.

"My turn now," Lizzie sing-songed, ignorant to Carol's near-breakdown. She held out her hand to Mika. Carol moved to stop her, but before she could Mika made a familiar clicking noise with her teeth and launched herself at Lizzie's arm. Lizzie winced as blood sprung out from between Mika's teeth. "Ow, ow, ow. Ok, Mika, that's enough. I only need to be bit a little to turn."

Lizzie jerked her hand out of Mika's mouth, choking on a sob as the skin tore away. Mika began to chew what little she had gotten, blood dripping down her mouth. Lizzie wiped the tears from her face and stood up, holding her injured wrist with her other hand. She puffed out her chest to Carol, who fought down the impulse to cut Lizzie's hand off and drag her away.

Lizzie's eyes widened and she looked down to see Mika grabbing at her ankles. She kicked her off. "Mika, I'm already going to turn. You don't need to bite me anymore."

Another Walker, the first to exit the forest, came up behind her, leaned down, and bit into her neck. She shrieked and instinctively stabbed him in the head with her knife. He dropped to the ground, instantly dead for the second and final time. "I'm so sorry!" she told his corpse as she clutched her neck. "But that hurt!" she whimpered and looked down. "Nobody told me it would hurt."

Carol's eyes glazed over as she pictured the possibilities. She could just leave. Leave Lizzie to the monsters she loved so much. Carol gritted her teeth. No. She had taken them under her wing. She was responsible for them. She was responsible for what they had both become: one too weak to kill living things to survive and the other too weak to kill dead things to survive. It was her fault, all her fault. The pressure around her eyes that had built when she saw Mika's corpse threatened to overwhelm her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Carol saw Tyreese with all their stuff run out of the house. Lizzie turned to look and found three more Walkers closing in on them. For the first time, uncertainty flashed in her eyes. "Carol," she said, her voice wavering. She kicked Mika off of her again and backed away towards Carol.

Lizzie backed up further. Instead of bumping into the softness of Carol as expected, her head bumped into something hard and familiar. She stopped, her body tensing up and her eyes widening.

Lizzie whipped around to find Carol's gun pointed at her forehead. Betrayal and fear flashed across her face. Carol's hardened eyes met Lizzie's pleading ones. "Please," Lizzie said. "Don't. I won't come back."

Carol stood there, her hand shaking.

"I'm sorry I didn't wait for you," Lizzie said her voice shrill. "I knew you wouldn't believe me so I had to show you."

She was sorry… for that? For not waiting for them to be there when she killed Mika? She wasn't sorry for killing Mika. She wasn't sorry for bringing all these Walkers here and ruining their safe haven. She wasn't sorry for anything she had done wrong. Everything inside of Carol solidified.

"Lizzie," Carol said, her voice strange. "Look at the flowers."

"No," Lizzie screamed, clenching and unclenching her fists. "If you shoot me in the head I won't come back! I won't come back, Carol I want to come back. I want to be with my friends. Shoot me anywhere else but not the head!"

Carol's eyes glossed over as Lizzie continue to scream at her. She stared into Lizzie's pleading eyes and saw all her dreams of raising the two girls, of being a family, of redeeming herself for failing Sophia dissolve into nothingness like the ridiculous fantasy it had always been.

Carol took a deep, shuddering breath- and pulled the trigger.