Their boots scuffed against the pavement as they continued their march to D.C. Anna wasn't sure how much longer they had anymore. She could still feel the dog meat resting in her stomach, digesting – she wondered if the others felt as disgusted as she did.
So much for man's best friend, she thought, laughing quietly to herself.
"What's so funny?" Jessie asked.
Anna sobered, realizing that her thought wasn't so much funny as it was morbid, causing her to question why she was laughing at all. There wasn't anything funny about their situation.
"Nothing," she sighed, furrowing her brow as unwarranted guilt washed over her.
She knew it was ridiculous to feel guilt or shame simply because she laughed at something that wasn't funny, but she couldn't stop the feelings from rising to her chest. She clenched her jaw and pinched her thigh in an attempt to keep herself under control, reminding herself that she had no reason to feel this way.
"Hey, Anna – take a drink," Glenn instructed as he came up beside her, holding a bottle of water.
She looked at the water, glistening in the plastic, and counted in her head how many people were in the group. Seventeen people needed water, and based on how much was left, they'd each only get a sip before it was gone.
"Let the others drink first," she sighed, shaking her head as she gently pushed the bottle away from her.
"Daryl went to go find more. You need to drink," Glenn insisted.
"Glenn," Anna groaned. "He may not find any. Please, let the others drink first – I'll take what's left."
She could see Glenn clench his jaw before he relented and continued on. She watched him go down the line, offering water to everyone as he went.
"How heroic of him," Jessie said flippantly.
"Glenn's just trying to look out for everyone," Anna sighed.
"I wasn't talking about Glenn," he muttered
Anna furrowed her brow as she paused, looking at him.
"Daryl?"
Jessie worked his jaw, glaring straight ahead.
"What is your problem?" Anna snapped, pulling him to a stop. "I thought we were past this. It's like he can't do anything right by you."
"Sorry," Jessie sighed, his jaw relaxing. "He's not a bad guy. It's just… I don't like you two together."
"I'm not asking you to like it."
"Do you still love him?" Jessie asked. "I mean, after everything. Do you still love him?"
"Yes," Anna said quicker than she had time to really think about it.
But she didn't need to think about it. She hadn't had to think about it for a while now. It was simple – as easy as breathing. She loved him and that was all there was to it. No matter how hard things got, how upset she may be with him, she loved him.
"Does he feel the same?"
Anna tensed at this. She thought about all of the rejected touches, how he had been shutting her out, pulling away. She hated to admit it, but Jessie had a point. Suddenly, Anna couldn't help but ask herself – why would he?
"Hey, hold up," Rick called, his hand in the air, indicating for everyone to come to a stop.
"The hell is that?" Abraham asked.
.
.
Daryl sat down and leaned against the tree before reaching into his pocket to pull out what was left of the cigarettes Anna had given him. He stuck one between his lips and lit it, taking a long drag. Settling in, Daryl turned his attention to a structure just a few yards off. A barn.
He hated barns. Ever since the farm, he'd had an aversion to them. He knew why, he just didn't like to think about it. He didn't like to think about a lot of things, preferring to ignore everything until it went away. That's how he had always dealt with things. It was the only way he knew how.
"I try if you try." That was the deal. And he couldn't even do that.
He couldn't get his old man's voice out of his head, shouting at him to nut up and stop acting like a bitch.
Daryl felt empty. He'd killed Dawn for what she did, but it didn't fill that void in his chest. It didn't make him feel better. It didn't make him feel anything.
Taking the cigarette from his lips, Daryl stared at the collection of ash at the tip, watching as the paper and tobacco burned away. He took one last drag before he pressed the end to his hand, holding it there as his skin sizzled until even the searing pain faded into nothing.
He wiped the ash off his skin and dropped the cigarette to the ground, resting his head against the tree, listening to the call of the insects.
Beth's eyes flashed in his mind, her voice ringing in his ears. "...and we'll buy a beer to shotgun, we'll lay on the lawn and we'll be good. Now I'm laughing at my boredom and my string of failed attempts."
Breath catching in his throat, Daryl's chest heaved and a sob ripped from his throat. A gut wrenching, chest constricting sensation consumed him, and he couldn't stop himself from feeling it. He just wanted it to stop.
.
.
They stared at the water bottles and jugs on the ground. Rick held a piece of paper in his hands. Anna had her eyes trained on the trees, searching. They were being watched. How had she not noticed?
A twig snapped and she raised her rifle, only to find Daryl coming out of the woods. She lowered her gun and relaxed, suddenly realizing how tense she was without him in sight.
Rick walked over to him and passed him the paper.
From a friend was written on it in sharpie.
Daryl crumbled the paper in his hands and took his crossbow from his shoulders, eyes scanning the trees just as Anna had done.
"What else are we gonna do?" Tara asked, not taking her eyes off the water.
"Not this," Rick insisted. "We don't know who left it."
"If that's a trap, we already happen to be in it," Eugene stated. "But I, for one, would like to think it is indeed from a friend."
Anna shook her head, keeping an eye on their surroundings.
"What if it isn't?" Carol asked. "They put something in it?"
Anna looked over just in time to see Eugene step forward and take a bottle from the ground.
"Eugene!" Rosita snapped.
"What are you doing, dude?"
"Quality assurance," Eugene said, unscrewing the cap and tilting the bottle towards his mouth before Abraham slapped it out of his hands.
Water splashed across Eugene's face and onto the pavement, and all Anna could think was how much of a waste that was.
"We can't," Rick said firmly.
There was a rumbling overhead, and Anna squinted up at the sky. A single, cold drop of water hit her cheek and rolled down her face. She blinked and wiped it away, staring at it on her fingers. And then it was raining.
She felt the water washing over her, felt relief from the heat, felt it soaking her skin and clothes. She felt nothing else.
"I'm sorry, my Lord," Gabriel cried beside her. "I'm sorry."
"Everybody get the bags," Rick demanded. "Anything you can find. Come on."
Thunder clapped and roared as the storm grew closer and harsher, and Judith began to cry. Their reprieve was over.
"Let's keep moving!" Rick declared over the pouring rain.
"There's a barn!" Daryl called.
"Where?"
.
Daryl led them through the trees, their bodies drenched as they approached the small structure with the red roof. Rick, Glenn, Abraham, Maggie, and Anna filed into the barn with guns raised as they cleared the building.
Anna caught sight of a stack of books. At the very top was the Holy Bible. She shook her head, turning her attention toward Maggie as the woman pushed a wooden door open. Inside was a walker amidst sheets and empty cans of food, trying desperately to crawl towards them.
She stared at it. At the cobweb on its head, and its bright blue eyes and lips pulled over its teeth. She shined her light on it, then around the room, and she saw it. A rifle leaning against the wall.
Maggie pulled her knife and plunged it into the walker's skull.
Carol came then, standing beside Anna.
"She had a gun," Maggie said, her voice numb. "She could have shot herself."
"Some people can't give up," Carol offered. "Like us."
Anna considered the assertion. She decided it was bullshit.
.
They started a small fire, Daryl breaking off wet pieces of wood to try and keep it going before he gave up and sat back. Anna sat between him and Jessie, holding her knees, trying to ignore the way her body shivered. She wanted nothing more than to curl up into Daryl's side, but she was afraid, her brother's question still echoing in her ears.
"I'll try," Glenn said, leaning forward for some more wood.
"No, too wet," Daryl insisted.
"He's going to be okay," Carol said to Rick as the man looked to his sleeping children. "He bounces back – more than any of us do," Carol explained.
"I used to feel sorry for kids that have to grow up now," Rick started. "In this…. But I think I got it wrong. Growing up is getting used to the world. This is easier for them."
"This isn't the world," Michonne said. "This isn't it."
"It might be," Glenn sighed. "It might."
"That's giving up," Michonne said.
"It's reality," Anna corrected.
"Until we see otherwise, this is what we have to live with," Rick interjected.
Anna shook her head. She didn't believe they would ever see otherwise. This was it. This was all they had to look forward to. She wasn't going to fool herself into thinking there was an after.
"When I was a kid…," Rick began. "I asked my grandpa once if he ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn't answer. He said that was grown-up stuff, so…, so I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him."
"This world doesn't give a shit about your ridiculous notions of right and wrong, Anna!" Marley's voice screamed in her head.
"But he got real quiet…. He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory. Every day he woke up and told himself, "Rest in peace. Now get up and go to war.""
"When you're out there!" Shouted Drill Sergeant. "When you're out there, you remember this. The moment you set foot on the other side of that fence you are presumed dead. Killed in action. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Drill Sergeant!"
"And then after a few years of pretending he was dead…, he made it out alive. That's the trick of it, I think," Rick sighed. "We do what we need to do and then we get to live. But no matter what we find in D.C. I know we'll be okay. Because this is how we survive."
"It's just survival," Marley's voice hissed.
"We tell ourselves… that we are the walking dead," Rick whispered.
Anna stared into the flames. You're dead, she thought. She'd been dead for a long time; she just didn't want to admit it. She wanted to keep pretending she was a person, that she had come back from it all.
"We ain't them," Daryl said and she looked to him as he crouched in front of the fire, snapping some more twigs to throw into the flames.
"We're not them," Rick said. "Hey," he called.
Daryl looked to him.
"We're not," Rick assured.
Daryl set the twig down and stood.
"We ain't them," he repeated before grabbing his crossbow and walking off.
Anna couldn't tear her eyes away from him until he disappeared into the shadows. She turned back to the fire, chewing the dead skin off her bottom lip. Absentmindedly, Anna reached down and picked at the holes in her jeans from where her nails had dug through.
"We ain't them,"
Clenching her jaw, Anna climbed to her feet and followed after him.
He was pacing in front of the barn doors when she found him. Like a wild animal, trapped. Anna wasn't quite sure why she had followed him, or what she had intended to say. The storm raged on outside while another, much different storm raged on inside.
She opened her mouth to call out to him, to try and calm him down, when he set down his crossbow and stepped up to the doors. Whatever he saw, he slammed against the doors and pulled tight on the chain.
Anna's eyes widened, and she took in the panic on his face. That was all she needed to run forward and throw all of her weight against the doors beside him. With her body pressed against the wood, she could hear them – the walkers – snarling and growling over the howling wind and crashing thunder.
She felt the door give way in their favor as another body joined them – Maggie – and then another – Sasha. It wasn't long before the others noticed their struggle and jumped in to help. Squeezing her eyes shut, she willed the doors to stay closed, feeling the monsters push back against their efforts.
For the briefest of moments, she wondered what the point was. Why any of them should keep fighting so hard when everything they strived for was ripped out of their grasp.
A glint of light on her wrist caught her attention, and Anna stared at the silver plate, the scratches and dents telling their own story like words on a page.
May you live all the days of your life.
Her eyes flicked up and found purchase on Daryl's face, twisted up in a fury she had never seen before.
"Do you love him?"
"What are you holding on to?"
"Take it from a dyin' man; ain't no time to waste."
And suddenly, it clicked. For the past two years, she had been in the tumultuous ocean, unable to see past the violent storm as she struggled to stay afloat with a few leaks in her boat. But now she could see it. The lighthouse, piercing through fog in her mind and showing her the way to safe harbor.
Anna stiffened her body, digging her heels in, finding purchase in the mud. Her ears were ringing and wet hair stuck to her drenched face as the rain sprayed through the cracks in the doors. She was tired, weak. But she held firm.
"What are you holding onto?"
She'd lost sight of that somewhere along the way. Too consumed with guilt and shame to realize what she had. A chance. Not for the first time in a long time, because that chance had always been there. She was just too afraid to take it.
But she couldn't be afraid anymore.
"Live."
.
.
Daryl leaned against the wall, running his fingers over his beard as the rest of the group slept. Not far off was Anna, laying on her side with an arm tucked under her head. He watched her for a while, even after the sun rose, taking in the tranquility of her face. It was the longest she had slept in a while.
He caught movement and saw Maggie walking toward him, her steps silent before she sat beside him. She looked to him after a moment.
"You should get some sleep," she said, quiet to avoid waking the others.
He nodded, dropping his hand away from his face. "Yeah," he said.
He knew she was right; he just wasn't ready to close his eyes quite yet.
"It's okay to rest now," she assured.
The two looked over at Sasha, passed out in a pile of hay, curled in on herself and alone. Tyreese hadn't deserved to go out the way he did. Sasha didn't deserve to lose her brother.
"He was tough," Daryl said, picking at his nails.
"He was," Maggie agreed.
Daryl's mind turned to Beth. For the first time, it didn't hurt to think about her.
"So was she," he said. "She didn't know it, but she was."
Maggie looked to him and smiled.
He reached over and grabbed the small green music box Carl had found scavenging and handed it to Maggie.
"The gearbox had some grit in it," he explained.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Maggie looked back at him and smiled before climbing to her feet. He watched her go over to Sasha, waking her, and the two slipped out of the barn.
Daryl sat there for a moment, looking back at Anna sleeping soundly on the ground. Finally, he got to his feet and made his way over to her and laid down, being careful not to wake her.
He took in her face, surrounded by a mess of dark brown hair. Gently, he wiped the hair off her forehead and her eyes opened the slightest bit. She looked back at him, groggy, and she smiled. It was the first time he'd seen her smile since – he couldn't exactly remember, but it sent his heart racing in his chest.
"I love you," she mumbled before closing her eyes again, her breathing even as she fell back to sleep.
His eyes widened as he stared at her. His gut twisted painfully as he tried to make excuses and explanations as to why she would say it, convincing himself she was delirious from dehydration and exhaustion. She didn't mean it. She didn't – she couldn't – love him. Not him.