Part 2 - Disunity

7 - The Dead Guy

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

- Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)


The hallway was shadowed, the last dregs of the day's light slipping through the dusty window at the end of the hall. The door she came to was beside the window, her figure surrounded by disturbed dust that was dancing in the sunlight. Alice put her hands on the grey door. The yellow wall beside it still held a browned handprint from the beginning but otherwise held no blood. The building was almost normal, save for the complete silence outside.

The journalist stopped stalling and put the keys into the lock, pushing at the door. It swung open with a creak. She heard the officer behind her adjust the shotgun rested on his shoulder. The room past the door was dark, save for the drawn brown blinds which glowed from the light behind them. Some light surrounded them, illuminating the gleaming kitchen sink and the ceiling like sideways haloes.

Alice strode across the room, grasping the cord to open the blind. She squinted as the blind rose and she got a view of the outside. The convoy sat in the street, waiting. She gave them the thumbs up before turning back to the now slightly lit-up room. Shane was leaning into another doorway, one beside the television set, and Alice hoped her bedroom wasn't a complete mess. Not that it really mattered, but she didn't want the officer seeing anything personal about.

"There's nothing in here. No one else had a key but myself and the landlord, who I happened to see get bitten outside this very window." Alice looked back out of it, seeing the group moving across the road and to the building. Three stories high, it didn't give her or them the best view, but they'd agreed that Alice would open the blind when she and Shane knew the way up to the apartment was safe and the plan seemed to have worked. They would take over next door, too, for space.

"This your parents?" she turned around and saw the officer now sat on her couch and holding the silver-framed photo she kept on the coffee table.

"I want that so don't ruin it." She said, putting her hands on the back of the faux leather couch so that she could see the photo, "That's their wedding."

"That you?" he asked, pointing to the toddler stood between the pair in the photo. Her father had married her mum when she was four after her own dad had jumped ship a couple months into Alice's life.

"Yeah." Alice caught sight of the red down his neck again, thinking of the conversation he'd had with T-Dog about it over breakfast that morning. "What actually happened to your neck?"

"I told you-"

"Don't be a git, I saw Lori get upset when you talked about it this morning. I don't think your sleeping habits would bother her so-"

"It ain't your business."

"It ain't your marriage." She mimicked, stressing the ain't. Alice wondered if, over time, she'd end up speaking like she was from Georgia

"I love her.. I can protect her. Rick is just gonna lead us into another trap. He doesn't have what it takes for this world." He clenched his fists around the picture frame. Alice had suspected Lori and Shane weren't just friends ever since she'd gotten to the quarry. Alice had even thought that they were married before she'd heard about Rick. Now, though, she worried as to why Lori would have scratched Shane.

"What happened to you being half the man Rick is?" Shane had no time to reply, a figure appearing in the apartment doorway The officer's grasp became white-knuckled around the silver frame. Alice leaned over the couch and yanked it from Shane's grasp, making sure to keep it close to her as she sat up; It was the only physical photo she had of them.

"I am what?" the sheriff asked as he walked in, a bag over his shoulder and his hand still moving to put his pistol away. Alice knew that the man finding out about his wife's infidelity now would be nothing but trouble. The group was too fractured to have the two leaders fighting each other in the street.

"Shane said he's half the man you are. I guess he respects you. Was just asking him about that." Alice said, before gesturing to the photo in her hand, "I'm gonna go and pack some stuff, okay?"

"I appreciate it, brother." The sheriff nodded to the officer on the couch. Alice wondered if Shane felt guilty, if he even considered Rick his brother now. Rick placed his bag next to the door, turning to watch the rest of the group coming up the stairs, "You got any food?"

"Not much." Alice swung the bedroom door open, "Don't know about my former neighbors though. I never felt right about raiding their places. They'll have some left."


Alice stared at the clothes hanging in her wardrobe and questioned why she didn't own anything decent for the situation. She'd managed to find a fleece and some jeans but most of her wardrobe consisted of things that were intended to look good, not be warm or cool or durable or anything that she actually needed them to do now.

"Alice?" the journalist turned to see Rick stood in the doorway of her room. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Something felt off.

"What's up?"

"You still have your notes about the virus from work?"

"Yeah." Alice wondered why Rick was asking but moved over to the little desk in the corner of her room anyway. She brushed papers aside, finding the black notebook buried under them. "What did you need them for?" The papers and notes made her remember work, remember the last day before everything was gone.

"Just want to know what was happening while I was in a coma."

Alixe didn't question that, even though her notes would only be so useful and the man had heard all he could from Shane and his wife. Not including their relationship, but Rick had no reason to ask for her notes if he suspected that.

She held the book out, "The notes about walkers are near the back. If you're confused I uh, I called them methheads in my notes a lot before they proved it wasn't a drugs thing."

"Thanks." Rick stayed silent, keeping quiet and still. Whatever he wanted to see, he wouldn't tell Alice. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.


Her heels clicked along the ground as she walked across the office. The glass walls around her boss' office blocked the sound from the main office, though Alice knew the walls weren't necessary when half the office hadn't turned up to work. Some called in sick, others didn't let them know anything at all and Alice worried about her coworkers.

"Got a second?" Alice paused in her stride, adjusting the papers in her grip, and saw the white bandage peeking out from under his blazer cuff, "Are you sick?"

He frowned at his blazer sleeve and yanked it down to cover the bandage, "I'm not running a fever yet."

"You need to go to the hospital-"

"No. That's where this happened. I went to go and visit Peter. They came in and… they shot him. I'm thankful they didn't see him bite me."

"It can't be that bad-"

"It is and I understand why. They're scared of the sick people." he glanced back at his computer screen. Alice wished she could see it out of morbid curiosity. When the world went upside down, you wanted to see what was going on. "People are posting videos. You can chop off all the sick people's limbs and they'll keep coming at you, dragging themselves along the ground."

"Who did that to someone-"

"Chances are, in rural areas where the military aren't helping, those people won't have any problem in killing who they need or want to."

"That's sick." She muttered, and decided to change the subject because bad people were never a nice thought, "People are leaving, by the way. They're worried because of the warnings. They want to get their families." Alice was scared herself but she wouldn't just give in. People needed to hear what was happening and they were working here to help that happen.

"Let them go."

Alice frowned, wondering how he expected to keep the company going. She adjusted the hem of her pencil skirt, wondering if he was delirious from the sickness. "It's still the morning. We're so busy with all these reports-"

"Work doesn't matter right now."

"People have to know whether it's safe to go outside for the shopping or pick their children up from nursery, Jon."

"I won't force them to stay when they have their own families."


Alice sat on the ground, against the wall. It might have been her apartment, before, but now it was just a room. The whole group barely fit into the two apartments, nevermind in Alice's one all at once so that they could eat together, and she'd given up the couch for the mothers and children.

"You sure nobody wants the bed tonight?" she asked, still feeling bad.

"You deserve to sleep in your own bed one last time," Lori said. Alice thought she looked really pretty in the lamplight, the lights that Alice still thought would attract the dead. Rick had taped thick sheets over the windows but Alice wasn't convinced that it'd hide all the light. She'd never had a light on after dark before meeting this group. She'd sat in her bedroom, with the curtains drawn, and taken up praying for a time until she realized that praying out of desperation, not a real belief, would do nothing for her and she was better off getting sleep.

"Thank you." Alice had another spoonful of the sausage and beans that they'd cooked. The food reminded her of being a child. Rick and Shane had found an abundance of the stuff in cans in the apartment next door, the one where a single mother and her child used to live. Alice knew they'd gone to one of the parks for evacuation just before the city was napalmed. "Feels weird being here again."

"I'm sorry that we have to leave." Lori said.

'We can't exactly live in here." Alice ate the last mouthful of the meager ration, chewing slowly. The bowl she ate from had a chip down the side from when Alice had thrown the TV remote at Delia, before this. In hindsight, walking the two feet to her might have been a better idea. They'd laughed about it though and Alice didn't regret it. She liked having the bowl to remember.

Alice couldn't stop thinking about before. Alice kept expecting to turn around and see the TV on or hear the kettle boiling.

"Though, I always used to buy toiletries in bulk. We can split what I have left. Should last us awhile." Alice stood, weaving around the piles of bedding and sleeping bags that people had made, and dropped her empty bowl into the sink. It wouldn't ever be washed. The breakable things were useless on the road and the running water hadn't worked for a long time.

She crouched before the sink and opened the cupboard, revealing the stacks of things she'd bought well in advance. Soap and deodorant and feminine products, a whole bunch that wouldn't last the group all that long. Alice saw the picture frame, the one Delia had bought her because she didn't have enough 'reminders of love' around the apartment. The picture of them was still inside. Alice pulled it out and set it on the counter. She'd shoved it into the cupboard when the pair broke up. The journalist took the back off the frame and took the photo out, wishing Delia had gotten to live longer. That drew her thoughts to Jonathan and to everyone who'd died before they had a fighting chance.


"I need you to do something for me." his voice was quiet but sure. It didn't tremble despite the sweat dripping from his reddened face.

The office was silent. Everyone else had long been sent home or left of their own volition. Alice stayed because he was sick and she had nowhere to go to. Somewhere far away, sirens blared and gunshots sounded across the city. She could hear car horns, too, beeping at traffic to move. Alice was glad that she still walked home, having avoided learning how to drive with the driver on the left instead of the right.

"What?"

He reached into the desk, his hand concealed within the drawer. The bandage peeked out from under his suit cuff. "I may be your manager but I consider us friends. My boyfriend is dead." He looked down, remembering something, and Alice hoped that Peter hadn't had a bad death; he'd been a good guy. "We've seen reports all day that they haven't got a cure."

"What are you saying?"

"This is going to kill me. There's nothing at home for me with Peter dead and I couldn't move if I wanted to, not like this. Will you stay with me?"

"You aren't going to die," Alice argued. She moved from the window, from the view of the luckily deserted street outside, and stood before his desk.


The building was still quiet as she crept through the reception. Alice had unlocked the front doors with the keys Jonathan had given her to close up. He wanted her to be one of the top people in this company, before, but now it was just a building. Alice had no career here anymore.

She felt herself constantly turning around, looking for the walkers that she hadn't yet seen. Alice felt like she wasn't alone and tried to convince herself that the living were all sleeping in the darkness of the city. The building had an alarm on the back door and the front doors had remained locked. It was all Alice could use to calm herself when considering what she'd do should there be walkers in here.

She took the stairs up as she always had done to avoid the elevators. Alice hoped the group hadn't woken and found her keys and her note. She'd snuck out when T-Dog left his watch to take a leak. It hadn't been that hard to sneak out of her own apartment building.

The journalist stayed silent as she climbed and she stayed silent as she emerged on the right floor, flashlight in hand. Though she couldn't smell decay and felt relieved, Alice knew she'd find a walker here. Slowly, with the bluish light reflecting off of all the glassy computer screens and glass-windowed offices like a spirit in the darkness, she got to the office. She saw him through the glass.

Still in the chair, now struggling to move at the sight of her light. Rotten and dead and a thing, not a man. Alice pushed open the glass door, the material cold under her fingertips, and hoped that the belt she'd used to tie up his still body would hold now that he was animated.

Sunken face, white eyes, a dark grey pallor that the living couldn't ever have. It reeked of death in the room. The last time Alice had been here, she'd been in a skirt and a blouse and heels that she pretended didn't kill her feet. Alice stood, in dirty clothes, and wished it had been different. Wished she could have been something more than this.


"We've been releasing reports on this disease all day." he withdrew his hand from the drawer, a black handgun clasped in it. He placed it on to the wood with a thunk. "You know how this is going to end."

Alice stepped back, nearly stumbling in her heels, far too aware of the power of that little weapon, "What do you want?"

"Don't let me become one of the infected. When I die-"

"No. No. No, Jon you can't be serious-"

"I am."

Alice was backing up. She felt tears burn in her eyes and remembered to blink. "The fever is making you delirious. The military is out there fixing this. Listen to the fucking gunshots!" Alice knew her hairbun had fallen out, hair flying around her tear-stained face as she shook.

"And who are those gunshots for?" He stayed calm, collected, as he strode up to his fate.

Alice knew the answer. Knew how they were dealing with it. She'd seen the video of the hospital, the one they knew they couldn't put out online. Children, some sick, being massacred.

"It's just to regulate the numbers. They can't control that many cannibalistic crazy people, that's all."

He watched her. Alice sat down in the hard wooden chair in front of his desk like it was a meeting and not a sick man asking her to end him.

"I'm going to die-"

"No, you'll pass out. They said it's like they're unconscious where the person doesn't know what they're doing but the body does it's own thing..." she spluttered, aware that she was wrong.

"They amended that to biologically dead, except for the brain, four hours ago. When I die, I want you to shoot me in the head. I won't make anyone else sick that way. I'm not asking you to shoot me before I'm dead; I'm asking you to shoot a dead body."

"Jonathan-" Like using his full name might knock sense into him and change his decision. They watched each other, Alice trying to find a reason for him to wait for a cure and Jonathan wondering how he could convince her to shoot him.

"Please." He was begging. He was begging her to murder him, to become a killer. She couldn't do it. But, he was dying, and he'd asked of her his one final wish.

"Okay." her voice trembled. Unlike his voice, which was calm even in the face of certain death. He'd made peace with it, taken what he had and shaped a decision out of it. He was as decisive choosing death as he was in choosing what articles got published. "Okay. I'll shoot you, when you die."


"I'm sorry." Her light fell on the gun and she took it, the freezing metal a dead weight in her hand, "I'm so sorry."

Alice felt tears sting her eyes, "I tied you to the chair and I left you because I couldn't do it. You can't hear me, can't know I'm here. A scientist at the CDC told me that the human part doesn't come back and I know that now but, before...I thought I was murdering you. I couldn't do it but I'm here, Jon. I know this is the best way now." Her throat had a sore lump in it, making her words come out as sobs.

The journalist raised the gun, hand trembling.

"There's no cure. No nothing. I'm sorry I left you here like this on the pipe dream of some perfect cure. I came back though. Does that mean anything?" His shirt was stained grey from his rotting body. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. She could taste the death in the air. "I hope you're with Peter."

She did what he'd shown her in the office, how to turn off the safety and load a round into the chamber. Alice hadn't ever questioned why he owned the gun and now she wished she had because she never could. Dead. Death was a finicky thing. It slammed into you, at first, and you took years forgetitng how bad the impact was until all of a sudden it came back, hit you again, and you remembered how bad losing someone really was.

"I'm sorry."

The gunshot echoed around the room. Her ears screamed at the noise. Blood trickled from the hole in his ashy forehead.

"I finally came back." She whispered, "Please let that mean something."

Alice didn't have long to cry, for something thudded behind her and Alice spun with the light, looked for the source of it, but couldn't see anything and she panicked, wondering how many walkers had followed her into the building. She listened and realized they were footsteps, not the shamblings of a walker. Alice wondered if she was ready to shoot somebody as she shut off her flashlight and felt for the gun, hoping it had more ammunition.

A light blinded her. They'd turned it on and it was shining through the glass windows. Alice raised the gun again-

"Alice?" a voice growled and the glass door swung open. The figure lowered the light to point at the ground and she lowered the gun and raised her own flashlight to illuminate the dark figure. She sniffled to try and stop crying.

"Daryl." Her voice hiccuped, "I had to do it. I couldn't do it before but now I know that not doing it in the first place was the mistake."

She saw his silhouette shift. "Y'alright?"

"I will be."

Something started screaming. The flashing outside the office windows drew her attention. A car alarm. What had triggered it? The former journalist moved to the window, looking down, and saw the mass that each flash of the headlights illuminated. Walkers. A lot of walkers that hadn't been there before. Some were coming for the building, staring up at the lights in the window, and Alice quickly turned off the flashlight so she could more easily see the walkers illuminated in the yellow and white lights of the car.

"The gunshot." Alice had been so revolted by the idea of putting an axe in Jonathan's head that she'd never considered the noise of a gunshot in a silent city of walkers.

"Must be four, maybe five dozen of 'em." Daryl shut his light off too. "There another way out of this place?"

"The back access is alarmed and I don't have keys. Jonathan never had a reason to have those; that way's only for delivery staff."

"Jonathan, he the dead guy?" Alice cringed at the wording, not that it was wrong. She nodded.

"Prob'ly ain't got long 'fore that car runs out of battery," Daryl spoke easily when they were alone, she realized, and somehow managed to smile that he didn't seem to hate her.

Alice questioned something that she hadn't before. She rubbed her eyes to get rid of the tears. "Why are you even here? You thought I was just trying to stick around for protection last night. I'm not, by the way. Sure I'm with the group for protection but I didn't speak to you for that.."

He stayed silent and Alice knew that Daryl wouldn't come searching an office in the middle of the night for no good reason.

"Did you follow me?" Alice hadn't even noticed. She needed to shape up for this world. "Why?"

"Ya left a note sayin' if you weren't back then to leave. Thought ya'd…" he looked down to her hand, to where the gun was still in his grip. "Ya nearly offed yerself at the CDC."

"I'm not opting out." He'd noticed she nearly didn't leave. Alice wasn't surprised; he was an observant man. Still, he'd followed her here so that she wouldn't do something stupid. Clearly, he wasn't just another Merle. Merle would have followed her for one thing in particular, not that Alice was very well-endowed when it came to her womanly assets.

Outside, the walkers kept going for the car. Alice stood by the window, illuminated every few seconds by the light from the car. There were more walkers appearing, blocking the whole street. "If there are that many groups of walkers around here then the other direction will be blocked too."

"Goddamnit. Ain't no way we can wait it out. It'll take days an' by then the group will be gone, leave us jus' like they left my brother." Daryl moved quickly, storming away, and then back towards the window. He was pacing in the most aggressive way Alice had ever seen anybody do it. He'd swung his crossbow onto his back and Alice could just about see the dark outline of his body, the weapon sticking up, as he walked back and forth.

"They won't leave us, this is different. Besides, I know how we can get out of here." Alice turned back to the desk, to the body, and pushed down everything inside of her screaming no. "We have to pretend to be walkers."

"Ya insane?" he stopped pacing though and stood to face her. The moonlight was just slightly reflected in his eyes as he looked at her.

"We haven't got many options." Alice turned the safety off of the handgun before tucking it into the waistband of her pants like she'd seen Shane and Daryl do with their guns. The cold shocked her as it made contact with her warm skin.

Alice cupped her palm over the flashlight to limit the light before turning it on to see Jonathan's body. Her gut twisted. He was her friend. She'd failed him before and now she was going to destroy his corpse. She had to hope he'd understand.

"Can I borrow your knife?" she asked. Daryl stood beside her. He quickly understood what she wanted, saw the paleness of her face.

"I got it."

"I knew him. I should do it." Alice hadn't ever dissected anything in science class. She didn't know if she'd be able to do this, but she didn't want to make Daryl do it just because she couldn't. She knew she'd have to learn how to get things done.

"Ya already did what ya had to." He stepped past her to the body. Alice held the light so that he could see before turning away. The smell was putrid. It got worse with the first squelch of the knife going in. She thanked her body for Its strong stomach even as her throat tightened up. Alice took small breaths in to limit the smell.

"Should be good enough." the hunter said, stepping back.

Alice looked only at the open stomach and pretended she didn't know the man to whom the body belonged. After all, she'd seen walkers in worse conditions. The hunter pulled his vest off and rolled it up before shoving it into his waistband. Alice watched as Daryl dug his hands into the flesh and pulled out a gloop cupped in his hands.. She swore even he was grimacing as he rubbed the blood onto his shirt.

"'S fucked up." He said. Alice put the flashlight down, the light facing the ground, and tentatively reached forward. Her fingertips sunk into the red. It was as cold as the room around them. It was just a dead thing. Not a person.

Alice retched as the blood soaked through her shirt, her gagging noise the only sound other than the squelching of guts and the car alarm outside.

Although the substance was thick, enough was slick that it trickled from her hand and onto the floor. Alice rubbed the blood over the arms of her leather jacket and hoped to whatever might have been listening that it didn't make her sick. When she was done, blood ringed around her eyes and nose and mouth but not too close to them, and dripping from her jacket and her jeans and the bit of exposed t-shirt that was sodden with the blood, she reached across the body and pulled Jonathan's eyes closed.

That should have been the first thing she did.

The alarm was still screeching. Alice didn't know how long the dead would be outside before the alarm died. She reckoned that they wouldn't leave until another noise distracted them.

She stood up, ignoring the way she could smell and feel the blood shifting from her damp clothing. "We better go before this is all dried."

Daryl nodded and they both moved, going down the stairwell by touch alone. Alice's arm, half outstretched to feel the next bit of railing, would occasionally bump into Daryl and she'd panic at the feel of the blood and chunks before realizing it was just the hunter. Her chest felt tight and wouldn't expand.

At the bottom of the stairs, the figures of the walkers outside were hard to distinguish from the darkness during the moments between flashes of the car's headlights.

"How do you think we got here without running into them?"

"They musta been grouped up all together someplace. Reckon they wandered about and any stragglers just followed 'em like sheep." Daryl gestured with his finger in circles as though he was drawing out

"Don't kill any because that'll alert them. Just... walk with them and groan and try not to push."

The door was a pull from their side. Alice edged it open slowly while he held his crossbow, just in case. The walkers seemed too distracted to notice the slight movement, the alarm echoing around the street and the lights drawing them all into one spot. Alice stepped outside after Daryl had lowered his crossbow and went through. Alice edged the door slowly while he waited.

A walker stumbled up to the hunter. How smart really were they?

It sniffed at him, growls coming from its mouth, and Alice saw Daryl tighten his grip on the crossbow. She adjusted her grip on the hatchet that hung from her grip. She might need it after all.

She stumbled over to beside Daryl because if they turned on him, she would be there. This had been her idea and he'd followed her. No matter what, they either made it out of this or Alice went down with him. She ignored that the group would never know what had happened.

The walker shambled back towards the car alarm.

The pair walked together and into the throng of walkers around the alarm. There were others, milling about, that had missing limbs or just couldn't walk fast enough to join the massive clump. There had to have been hundreds of walkers filling the street. A whole population of people, dead walking and centering on that one spot. Alice followed Daryl as he walked. The dead were everywhere with pale, dead skin, but they just looked human save for the blood coating their mouths and the wounds ripped into them.

A group surrounded her. Alice stood deadly still, shaking, and tried to control the breathing that she could feel coming out of her mouth in audible breaths. The walkers didn't want her but they wanted to get past and if she moved with them she'd get trapped in the throng with the car. One groaned down her ear, it's dead breath blowing on her neck.

She was inside the group. She was inside the group of walkers and she covered in Jonathan's blood which was drying. She couldn't move.

The scent of death was powerful and Alice didn't know if it was from her or the living dead. She couldn't do it. Jenner had been right, it had been a mistake and-

A hand gently brushed into her elbow, pulling. Alice could just about make out a figure with a crossbow stuck to it's back. Each flash of the car lights illuminated his face and she could see the stripes of bloody war paint across it.

She staggered along with him once he'd dropped the grip. He stayed beside her, not in front, and they walked.


Alice threw her leather jacket off the moment they closed the door of the hiking store behind them. It was on the way back to the apartment and both had agreed that turning up, covered in blood, would scar the children and panic the group enough that they'd try and leave, running straight into the mass of walkers.

"You think there'll be some clothes in here?"

"Ain't like the dead came back and started stealing hiking gear."

"I sure wish they'd done that instead." She said, following the hunter through the aisles. She pulled a black hiking bag from a shelf as she followed him. "May aswell get something useful while we're here."

"Thought ya was scared of all this." Daryl kept his crossbow up, checking for walkers in the small store.

"I know it was stupid. I just… I had to. I guess I was so determined that I could ignore the fear." she said.

"Nearly got yerself killed." Alice stopped beside the minimal racks of female clothing, watching Daryl take the extra steps to the next aisle, and looked through her options. Fleeces, which would be useful, and boot socks and a bunch of winter gear that was too bulky to carry about. Alice grabbed a handful of clothes that seemed to be her size and suitable for the weather and shoved them into the bag. As an afterthought she grabbed a few pieces for Lori, not knowing if she'd like it but wanting to repay her for the clothes Alice had borrowed from her.

"Ya nearly done?" a voice barked over the aisle between them, "Best damn hurry up 'fore yer officer buddies start asking' questions."

"Stay over there. I'm changing now." Alice sent a look both ways to check that Daryl wasn't at either end of the aisle, before changing into a pair of black cargo pants and a grey fleece to combat the night chill. Alice used a spare t-shirt to wipe at the blood on her face and hands, trying to remove the red smears. She was about to pull her bloodied trainers back on when she saw the rows of proper leather walking boots. Alice was pulling a pair of brown boots on when Daryl called out again.

"Ya decent?"

"Yeah." The hunter appeared at the end of one aisle with his flashlight in hand. Alice couldn't help but smile at the shirt with the sleeves torn away. Wasn't he cold?

"I got some shit." He adjusted the hiking bag that hung over his shoulder, "You done?"

Alice finished tying the laces of the boots and stood up, yanking her own bag onto her shoulder. "We should get some first aid kits. Stores like this always have little travel ones. Then we can sneak back in and decide what to tell Rick and Shane in the morning."


They left in the morning. Alice was the last one to leave. She stood, keys in hand, and placed them into the lock without turning them. Something selfish in her shouted that she should stop anybody else entering the place but Alice knew that someone might need to shelter here one day.

Alice patted her hand against the pocket of the cargo shorts, feeling the wallet she'd filled with the photos from her apartment. She turned, with white morning light creating shadows in her eye sockets, and left home for the last time. Daryl gave her a short nod as she joined him on the stairs and they left.


"Alice." the voice caught her attention and snapped it upwards to the man sat opposite her. "You even listening?"

"I honestly don't care about your conquests of women, Shane. I get it, the dance teacher was hot-"

"I was askin' why you went for those supplies in the middle of the night. It was damn stupid."

Alice had been so wrapped up in remembering the last day her life that had been half normal that she'd stopped listened long before Shane had gotten his first sentence out. She felt the RV shake as it went through a pothole and scowled at the bottle on the table fell from the jolt.

"How the hell did you end up dragging the redneck out for something that stupid?"

"I had some business I needed to finish. Daryl just followed me out to see where I was going, what with him being so observant I guess he's a light sleeper too and he woke up."

"That business worth your life?"

"Probably not, but it felt like it was when I planned to leave. It's not like my office was even far from the apartment. I used to walk there and back for work."

"Damn stupid anyway." He muttered. "Can't be puttin' people at risk like that."

Alice took the opportunity to reach into the bag shoved under the table, digging through the clothes she'd scavenged at the shop and the ones she'd reclaimed from her closet to pull the heavy metal from within.

"I got this.' She placed it on the table, facing towards him, and the first thing he did was push the weapon so that it pointed towards the wall of the RV, "Nobody gets this but me, okay? It's important."

"Can you fire it?" He sounded interested now, his eyes focusing on the weapon.

"I know how to turn the safety off and that's about it. Could you teach me?"

He ran a hand through his black hair before he nodded, "Yeah. We can't fire it this close to the city but I can show you how to clean it." he paused, lowering his voice, "Keep quiet about it. Don't want Andrea getting any ideas with it."

Alice didn't consider that the man might have ulterior motives; Andrea's sanity was a threat. Alice was so sure in her own mind of her wanting to live that she didn't consider why Shane wouldn't mind her having a weapon if Andrea couldn't when she'd considered staying too.

"Thanks." Alice let Shane check that there wasn't a round in the chamber and that the safety was on before she buried the weapon back inside her bag, "You think Fort Benning will be any better than the CDC?"

"It's heavily defended, full of trained soldiers and ammunition. If anywhere is left standing it'll be there." Alice nodded, staring out of the window at the receding giants of the skyscrapers as they left the city behind. Wherever they went, Alice knew all she had was the group. The woman became incredibly aware that she would have to figure out how to fight for the people around her instead of running away.

The noise of Glenn and Dale laughing up front in the RV, the clicking of Shane taking his gun apart, the children laughing over the CB as Lori told them off, and the sound of a motorcycle filled her ears. Alice knew she'd do whatever she could to keep those noises going, no matter what.


A/N : So that's the start of part 2, Disunity. I know that the group goes to the Vatos hideout in the deleted scenes but I actually have a reason for them going to Alice's apartment. This is definitely a less plot-driven chapter as it's the lead in for things that will become relevant on the farm (specifically, the point of Alice finishing up unfinished business now rather than before she met Glenn) but it has quite a bit of Daryl interaction and is the day before they have to stop on the highway so the next chapter will have a lot to do with the first episode of season 2 and Sophia's disappearance.

Thank you so, so much to everyone who's read this and especially if you've followed, favorited and/or reviewed the story. I am eternally grateful to you!

Let me know if you enjoyed this chapter since the flashbacks are different to the rest of the story and keep an eye out for the next chapter.