The warm sunlight shone down on the field, the sound of children's laughter filled the air, almost drowning out the sounds of insects buzzing around. In this world; there are no more walkers, no more bad people, no more surviving – just living. Perhaps one day Valerie would tell them about the world that came before this, how dark the world was before they were born. Her children – the dancing girl with the blonde hair and the crawling boy with the dark hair – no nothing about the walkers or Negan or anything their parents did to survive. They don't know their playground is also a graveyard, soaked in the blood of those that died in order for them to live. Perhaps one day they will understand what happened before they were born, but for now all they cared about was spinning as fast as possible and having cuddles from their parents, normal for children their age.
Valerie knew that in a few years, they will ask about the world their parents had lived through. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? Valerie thought to herself as she kept a close eye on her children while also trying to sew up a hole in her husband's shirt. Sewing was never Valerie's strongest points, and she did manage to prick herself many times through the shirt and to her exposed thigh. She regretted deciding to wear a light blue dress when she did that but she liked wearing dresses; to her, it meant that she didn't need to go out and kill walkers, she could be a mother without having to protect her children and her family from the horrors that used to exist.
The fences around Alexandria were left to rot and rust; there was no need for them. The small neighbourhood was filled with families, giving Valerie's children many friends to play with. After years of feuding with Maggie, the pair finally became friends and allowed their children to play together, and would give each other emotional support whenever they need it most.
Negan might be long dead but the scars were still inside Valerie's mind, locked inside and would never really go away. They were a part of her now, and she could pretend they weren't there as much as she liked, they would always remain.
Picking up the boy gently and resting his body on her hip, Valerie turned around to see her husband who was with their daughter, causing her to smile as she looked towards her son, giving him a gentle squeeze. "Look, there's daddy! Daddy's home."
Valerie had married Daryl in a small and private ceremony almost a decade earlier, but they both decided to wait until the walkers were gone before starting a family; they wanted their children to live in a safe environment, one where they didn't need fences or guns to make them safe. It wasn't easy, but they managed with what they could.
After greeting Daryl, Valerie placed her son down for a nap, knowing full well that he needed sleep after crawling around the yard after his older sister. But a few hours later, Valerie was placed on high alert as she heard her son screaming for his mother. Her nightmares were like that; everyone in the house doing their own thing and one of her children would scream and when Valerie would arrive, her child would've been devoured by a walker and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Valerie ran into her son's room as fast as her legs would carry her, soothing him as he cried into her shoulder while his mother gently rocked him back and forth to calm him down. "Did you have a nightmare? It's okay, I have them, too. Maybe someday I'll explain it to you, why they came, why they won't ever go away, but I'll tell you how I survive it. On bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in things because I'm afraid it could be taken away by the bad things that came before you were born. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've witness in my life. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than ten years. But there are much worse games to play."
THE END…