Note: Had been working on this and saw the latest episode...wasn't going to post it but thought i'll just post this section of it...Enjoy!
"Nell, are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I had abruptly stopped in my tracks when I saw him. After all this time and during this apocalypse, I had to run into him. Part of me had hoped that he would have been picked off at the lab but Fate had something else in mind. I shook myself out of the memories and smiled down at Judith. Since she was born, we had become attached. It helped since I was the one to help birth her and her own father went a bit nuts after the death of his wife. There was one other adult who she loved and said man was coming up beside me.
"Why ya stop?" he asked.
"Can you hold Judith for a second? I see an old buddy of mine and wanted to say hi," I said, passing the toddler over to Daryl.
Pushing my black hair out of my face, I strode over to the little group and smiled at the military man.
"Hey there, Doc."
The man with a not so stylish mullet turned around. His skin went white at the sight of me but it reddened up when I slapped him. I tried to get in a punch but was pulled off by Tyrese.
"You son of a bitch. I told you it wasn't something to mess around with. You and the rest of them just had to see how far you could take it. Is this far enough? You destroyed the fucking world. You condemned all of us to Hell."
My group had caught up and only two really knew what I was talking about aside from Doctor Eugene Pinkton. Beth and Maggie had their weapons out in their hands ready but if we were going to survive this, we couldn't kill the bastard. Unless there were others still alive, we needed him.
"Someone care to explain what the fuck is going on?" the military man yelled.
"Sure. That asshole helped to create all this. An experiment went wrong, got out, and turned the dead alive again."
"And you know because you were part of the team?" a woman standing next to Eugene questioned.
"I was the experiment. There's something within my DNA that keeps me from contracting any disease and the government thought testing every disease on me was a good idea. Then they thought about taking my blood and tried to duplicate it. It blew up in their faces."
"She's a mutant. That's what my boss told me. She'd been locked up in the cages since the '60s," Eugene exclaimed.
"Like I said, something in my DNA."
"Ya said you were their cousin."
Beth stepped forward, putting the knife back into the sheath hanging from her belt.
"She is in a way. Nellie is actually Daddy's grandmother. She stopped aging after giving birth."
The groups went quiet and stared at me. I shouldn't be the one under scrutiny just because I was born back in 1877. Several looks were of shock and a couple were guarded. Rick's eyes kept glancing over at Carl and Judith. I had donated some blood to Carl back at the farm and it had helped to heal him quicker although not as quickly as I would. And the looks to Judith must be from all the time I cared for her.
"They're fine, Rick. You can't turn someone into a mutant. Besides, Carl isn't the only one in our group who has received some of my blood."
"Yeah, I don't feel any different."
When Daryl had been shot and skewered on an arrow, I had donated blood to him as well. It might have played a role in why we were so close or it could be that we found comfort in each other's beds several times.
"You know what? I'll leave if you don't think you can continue to trust me. I'll head back to the farm and salvage what I can. I'm the victim in all this and guys like him are the reason the world's going to shit."
No one said a word but I knew Beth and Maggie would have if I hadn't shared a look with them. Maggie had Glenn and Beth was only alive because of this group. They pulled her back after the suicide attempt and then when Hershel was killed.
Heaving my bag a bit higher on my shoulder, I turned and started walking away.
"Ya'll are fucking stupid."
Daryl caught up with me. There was no way that they'd allow him to leave.
"Wait. It's not that we don't trust you, Nell, but it's a huge surprise."
"There's been other mutants in our group so I haven't been the only one. Is it because part of this walker business is because of me?" I asked.
"Maybe. Let's just continue on to this Terminus sanctuary and then we'll deal with everything there," Rick suggested.
I knew that this was only the beginning. Life had been simple even in this fucked up world but now…who knows?
