Maly spends the night in a tree, as she has a hundred times before.

Overhead the moon is waning in the star filled sky, barely visible through thick oak leaves, but brighter than it has been since the dawn of the industrial age. There's no competing illumination -no light pollution at all- and she supposes she never really realized it was there until it was gone.

It is just her and the darkness, the hard edges of her bag digging into her head and the deceptively thin fabric of her hammock walled around her. Some whip-poor-whill trills on its namesake song, loud and uncaring of the affairs of the world around it.

She breathes deep, taking a lungful of clear, crisp air so unlike the stuffy humidity of the church. Everything here feels slower after being around people again, stiller. The minutes tick by in her head, and she still can't tell if she likes it. Can't figure if she wants time to blur into sunrises and sunsets again.

It's an awareness that had melted away, a sense that she hadn't noticed going. An abstract concept that had no use to her out here because she had nowhere to go and nowhere to be. She just was. Just is.

She closes her eyes, tired. It was hard, laboring to check what snares remained and scrounging like she had before. The fact that the heat of the day left her dizzy and sick feeling did not help in the least and made her stumble more than once. She clung to the deeper edges of the woods and the stream, made a meal from crayfish and what walnuts she could crack. Noted her codeine was gone, and half her NSAIDs.

It may have been easier to forage closer in where the underbrush was not so thick in her condition, but she stayed well away from the structures that might house people and places. Always was a lot of work living like this, always will be, but it ensured her safety. People can kill her in more ways than she can count.

But those people didn't.

She shifts slightly in her hammock, considering that fact.

It would have been efficient. Taking her out would have ensured that she couldn't be a threat any longer. She could not harm their members or turn against them if she was dead. They could have added all of her supplies to theirs, made a net gain.

Granted, they could have left her alone in the first place, but after they took her it would have been smarter to either keep her under lock and guard or end her for good. She knows where they are staying, how many of them there are. Maly could do any number of things. Maybe she can't kill them with pocket knives and tampons, but she could do damage with what little she has. They have seen the traps and the incident at the food bank. They should know that, if anything, Maly can do much with little.

It doesn't make sense. They know people are dangerous.

What they did was a gamble.

She breathes in through her nose as the whip-poor-whill trills loudly, bringing sound from her chest and throat. The low, solemn coo of a predatory owl reverberates past her lips and fills the night.

The little bird goes quiet, and yet Maly cannot sleep.


There's no damn reason for her to come back.

Maly knows that. She isn't a dumbass. She is completely capable of surviving on her own, of getting as far away as she possibly can while the groups are distracted taking each other out. It would make sense, and maybe she's missing her machete but she has gone farther with less and she knows more than she did when she began.

This group is broken and inefficient, living with their heads in a dream. They take when they need not; when they are capable enough of learning how to survive just as Maly did. Her ideals and theirs do not align, and there is no good justification for standing here.

But she is.

She's standing stock still at the edge of the treeline she disappeared into not a day ago, the meat-pack scattered around showing her how little she knows. They should not have come this close to the group, should not have lingered when she was inside the church she's staring at, should not have followed her when she ran to Father Gabriel and they smelt gunmetal and steel. Just because they could have done worse but didn't doesn't mean shit. She should not be here after what happened, after everything.

Should not this. Should not that.

Is.

Maly stares forward at the church, knowing very well that she can be seen from the inside. That was the point. Lurking and trying to stay hidden would have gotten her shot.

She waits.

Eventually, the church doors open. A figure walks out, just as dirty and dour as she recalls. Beside him is the woman who was her guard, strong arms cradling a rifle, a new sword across her back. Michonne looks at Maly like she understands; like she gets why she's here when Maly herself only knows that she is.

For a while, everyone simply looks at one another. Nothing is said or done, there is only watching.

"Thought you'd gone for good."

Maly does not reply to the man even after her brain untangles the words. It is not that she can't find the sounds, it's that she doesn't know what the hell to say.

Kindly enough they wait for a response, but when no reply comes they shift ever so slightly. It's a simple readjustment to the growing heat of the day, nothing more. Around them the world is alive with the sounds of nature, ever moving and always making some sort of noise.

"You gonna try something?"

That, at least, she can answer. Revenge takes time, effort, resources, and desire. She has none of those things to give.

"No."

"You wanna come closer so we don't have to make so much noise?"

Maly stares forward. She blinks slowly, keeping her eyes on them.

And takes a step forward.

Then another, and another.

Each footfall seems to stretch for a lifetime to her. She can feel every piece of gravel that she crushes beneath the soles of her boot, hear every blade of grass the breaks under her weight. She traveled hundreds of miles, slogged through riverlands, meadows, and mountains, but these few yards somehow have meaning that those thousands others did not.

'Keep going, Maly Smith,' she hears her mother say, but she never said where or why. She just said to go, so Maly moves until she is standing in front of the duo.

There's a moment where no one speaks. They assess one one another, taking in whatever new information they have gleamed, weighing it with what they knew. It's the changing of perspective and thoughts, the quiet re-evaluation.

Devil eyes glance down briefly at the wary mutt a few feet behind her heels, then scan around the area behind her where the more skittish dogs will stay. Maly notes that his stance is more open than it was. His hand does not linger by the gun strapped to his side, and his shoulders are not squared back.

He inhales briefly, thinking something through.

"The people in the area who attacked. They ain't a threat anymore."

This, she thinks, is another out. Another reason to leave. One group has already taken down the other, giving her more safety to go.

She stays.

"It's Maly, right?" Michonne asks.

She looks over, noting the taller woman's relaxed grip on her weapon. Still held close, but not at the ready.

"Yes."

"Why'd you come back, Maly?"

Maly wonders why herself. It doesn't make sense. There isn't a good, sound reason. All she can think of is one thing.

"Because," Maly states cautiously. "You let me go."

Michonne blinks, still looking like she knows something Maly doesn't, and she glances to her leader. Rick himself give Maly one last searching look before swiping his hand beneath his nose.

"Alright."


She doesn't go back inside the church, and they do not make her.

Instead, she paces the border between the parking lot and trees, picking through the greenery with keen eyes. Wild thorn bushes abound, from native roses to berryless raspberry shrubs, but there are plants here and there with broad leaves, tipped at the very end. She knows that given a year or some, they would have grown into something that could have sustained her for much longer. Planned on letting them grow until winter at least.

Now it seems inconsequential.

She takes them from their roots up. The only thing that cannot be eaten on it is the vines.

She gathers what could be called a bundle if one were feeling generous, but like spinach, the leaves shrivel down when cooked, and the purple blossoms wilt. Kudzu can be eaten raw, but it doesn't do not feel as filling, which seems to be the way of things.

The roots can be made any number of ways.

She walks to the stream, a section far closer than she went before, and washes the dirt from the plants. Takes enough time to place the stakes she has left in her pack in a fish trap. It will be nothing but minnows if she catches anything at all today.

She gathers what water she can carry and heads back again, settling herself on the tree line, back against a trunk and ass in the dirt as she works. The leaves get plucked first, set aside or picked off for something to chew on, then the flowers, then the roots.

But before she can even start the fire to boil the water, the church doors open again.

Maly zeros in on the figure striding towards her, solemn eyes locked with hers. No rifle this time, but she's still armed. The sword, knives, a machete.

Maly's machete.

The shorter woman eyes her carefully as she approaches, a plate in hand, her strides confident and pronounced. Some of the dogs skitter warily as she gets closer, coats fresh with a new layer of mud from the stream, eyes gleaming.

The other woman stops and eyes them back.

"Can you call them off?"

Maly looks to Meatsack, who stands not far away, and then further out to the rest of them. That's actually not something Maly can do. If she made a loud noise they might skitter around and back off some, but they would come back. They can smell the food.

She turns her head back to the woman, unfazed.

"No."

There is a tense silence.

"Lunch," Michonne states simply, holding up the plate. "For you."

Her eyes dart to the kudzu in her hands, then back. She has her lunch.

"And your machete."

That is something Maly cannot scrounge from the woods.

She stands slowly, laying the leafless vines in the dirt where she sat, never once taking her eyes off of her one-time guard. Each step is measured and drawn as she approaches, the leaves turning to gravel underfoot.

She reaches her hand out, nails caked with plant fiber and dirt. The paper plate settles neatly on her palm, freeing the other woman's hands to undo the belt strap of the blade.

"This food," Michonne says cooly. "Got it from the school when we went in after the cannibals. We found three of them camped around a stache."

Maly feels a pang of something, but it dies fast and only apathetic acceptance is left in its wake. It was there, now it's gone. Nothing she can fucking do.

"The fourth one was already dead in the hall outside the cafeteria. Ankle was twisted, and there were spikes through his chest."

Again with the subtle insinuations of things. It's like a crossword puzzle in her mind, trying to figure out what she's being told without having the words spoken. She mulls it over in her head as she grabs for the weapon, the sheath sun-warm as she takes it in her palm, the hilt still held lightly by Michonne.

When she looks up the stranger's gaze is measuring again, like she's trying to read Maly and can't quite make out the text, but she lets go of the machete.

Giving her this is another gamble, that she knows. Not a big one, because they have superior weapons and numbers, but a small bet they do not have to take. It is a stupid, wasteful risk on their part.

Maly takes the blade and the plate, slipping back to her seat in the dirt.

Michonne leaves her be, walking back into the church, and Maly considers the food on her plate before flinging some to the mangy dogs.


Father Gabriel watches her from the window.

Maly does not know what he thinks, has not known what anyone ever truly thought but herself, but in this case, it does not truly matter. What they had is still the same, and the only thing that has changed is the way he cannot seem to tear his eyes away as she runs metal across a sharpening stone, bringing back the edge that never seems to stay.

This way of life is not kind to sharp things, and maintenance is a constant thing, damn near every day. If it is not bones that dull her blade, then it is the stakes she cuts, or the vines, or the branches. There are a thousand and one things that dull the and nick the edges, from cordage to cleaning catches, and though stainless steel requires care, she gives thanks that it does not rust and wear at the rate other metals do.

Her hands ache as she glides the fine grit down the metal, again and again, her joints protesting the movements. She and discomfort are closer company than usual today, but there is nothing to be done for it, and like most days it simply makes a home in the back of her mind. A constant, dull sort of chronic pain like this is nothing compared to the first legs of her journey where her body struggled to adapt to the demands, but it is noticeable nonetheless.

She does not have to like it. It exists despite her thoughts on the matter if she has any at all.

Dirty hands lift the blade and she holds it up to check the edge, wiping away stray grains of the stone on her pants.

The priest, she thinks, has yet to learn that lesson.

She sheaths it by her hip and places the stone back inside her bag, casting a glance around at her surroundings. The wind is gentle, bringing no relief from the humidity and the heat. Inside her torn jacket she sweats, precious water flooding from her pores and slicking her skin as she notes the scattered placements of the meat-pack.

She turns on her heel and shoulders her pack, heading back to the stream. Meatsack makes a noise, soft and high, before following along with. It's not a protest, but an attention grabber that has the other dogs following along with her, tongues lolling as they pant. Their steps are her cadence as she goes, four feet shuffling for every two of hers, keeping them all at the same pace. Leaf litter shifts as they carry on, ears pricked and eyes keen.

The fish trap is empty -as she thought it would be- but Meatsack manages to snatch a frog from the bank, and Maly sets to looking for those instead. She picks her ways upward along the shore, half crouched as she wades, only catching three that the meat-pack do not get to first. They are not big things, curled up about the size of her fist, but they are enough.

She splits them open as she walks away from the stream, the snot-slick skin making her grip a little less sure as she travels. Her feet are steady as they take her where she wants to go, and she crams the frog corpses in her pocket for later, slapping the shepherd mutt that tries to nip through her jeans to get to them.

It crops up suddenly as it always does, little warning of existence evident through the lush greenery that grows on this side of it. It is simply trees and thick foliage until it is not, an overgrown walkway around the playground of the school taking place of the rougher terrain. The red brick is still obstinately standing, the windows dusty and coated with dried fluids from the death that once resided within, handprints and finger trails evident from even a distance. It's only as she gets closer that she notices the signs of something else. There are boot marks near the hole by the entrance, too big by far to be hers, and stamped out stalks of grass where she knows she did not tread.

She follows them inside where the turn to scuffs in the dust and grime where the tile shows through, the dirt that had settled there disturbed and displaced. She picks out all the different sizes -notes the way the weight settled more in the heels or toes for some- and trails them until she reaches the hallway outside the cafeteria.

The body there is crumpled awkwardly, one shoe twisted ever so slightly in a way that's just a little off. The tip of several sharpened river reeds juts out of the back of the flannel shirt they were wearing and thick, coagulated blood stains the floor around it. Most comes not from the punctures, but the wet stump at its shoulder, the flesh around it cleanly severed instead of torn.

Maly nudges it with her boot to make sure it will not attack, watching the leg she touched shift lifelessly. It's dead as dead can be.

She moves to start disassembling the trap so she can salvage parts for later.

Death, like her soreness, just is these days.

He just gambled and lost.


AN: Usually I don't interrupt these things, but since readers and reviewers on here got me to this point I wanna thank you and let you know I'm writing original stories at Alleycatpublications. com if you ever wanna check it out. Also, this chapter took forever to work out, thank you for all your support!