Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

Warnings: See original chapter for all warnings and related information.

Authors Note #1: *Rated for adult language, adult situations, violence, blood, serious injury, gore, mind games, hurt and comfort, trauma, PTSD, and some serious whump. (Please see previous chapters for a complete list.)

Sanctuary for All

Chapter 28

…Or should he say, he was there. Because when he'd pushed his way through the thin line of bushes that ringed the perimeter of the clearing, the thing was suddenly just there.

It hadn't taken much after that. A few cautious moments slowly navigating his way through the dry reeds and wild rose bushes, doing his best to ignore the sting as the sharp thorns scored across his exposed skin. Pulling and tearing until muted beads of crimson began trickling down the insides of his arms, coloring the forest floor with a trail of red as he pushed through the thin layer of foliage and made his way into the clearing.

His crossbow was up and ready as his fingers traced the curve of the trigger, adding confidence to his steps as he slowly moved forward. Boot soles hushing through the tall grass and jagged stumps until he found himself in the center of a secluded little hollow that had been hewn out of the rock by nature and time. It was surrounded by rock on all sides save for one. One that looked out into the horizon through a man-made gap in the trees, providing a view that not only encompassed the entire skyline, but spanned outwards as well. Following the blurred lines of the distant hills and the jagged rectangles of some far flung city, tempting him with the promise of safety and civilization even as dark pillars of smoke rose up between the rooftops for as far as the eye could see. - It was a fire that had probably been burning for days, if not weeks. A slow moving blaze that could very well encompass the entire city before nature and time eventually put it out.

He'd lost count of how many cities they'd lost that way, Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver, and at least half of London and Berlin. Hell, even Hong Kong had been hit. Entire urban centers that had been blanketed in city wide fires in the first few weeks were left to simply burn themselves out as thousands of people died, trapped in the quarantine zones. There had been no one left alive to put out the fires, so the cities, the parks, and the suburbs had simply burned. The last thing he'd heard about it before the TVs has gone out was that most of Austin, Texas had gone up in smoke. – But he supposed that at the end of the day, that was neither here nor there.

Because just as he'd predicted, that hollow was exactly where he found him…

It was just standing there. Ready and waiting like the horrid thing had known he'd been coming for him all along. Like it had planned it, sensed it, or hell, even willed it to happen. The details weren't important, only the result. Only the fact that in spite of everything it was here - and now it was his problem to deal with.

It was a man. Or least it had been a man. He'd been tall and broad shouldered, with smooth skin and weathered salt and pepper curls. Its clothing was blood stained, yet still strangely clean in comparison to the majority of walkers they came across these days. - Hell, the dumb bastard was still strapped into an old hiking backpack for Christ sakes! It was a bit ragged around the edges. Caked with an uneven layer of dirt and gore, but it was still firmly affixed around his shoulders by a number of frayed buckles and straps. There was even a gun holster strapped onto its belt that housed a small, police issued Glock 9MM.

Strange...if he'd had a gun why hadn't he used it? The holster wasn't even unclipped. Had the poor bastard been jumped from behind? Taken down before he could even reach for his piece? - It just didn't make any sense. The thing was a walking paradox wrapped up in a meat suit that didn't have enough sense left to realize that it was only masquerading at playing a man.

It probably would have been funny if it hadn't been so god damn pathetic.

The man was standing with his back to him, angled in such a way that it made making out any details of his profile impossible to determine. But despite the anonymity, his eyes got caught on the little things. Lingering far too long as they raked down the man's lean, but muscled form. Catching on the individual pleats and mud caked skid marks that had been ground deep into the man's tan slacks before they continued up the rest of him. There was something familiar about the way the walker carried itself. Something in the stiffness of its spine and the way its blood streaked hands hung limply at its sides. A perfectly sculpted jumble of delicate callouses and tapered fingers, yet still deceptively strong and lightening fast all the same.

He knew those hands... But from where?

The women would have probably called him a real looker. And from what he could see around the backpack, he had to admit that the man was well dressed. Wearing a tailored, sky blue dress shirt and cattle hide belt. Everything you'd expect from your everyday millionaire in training. All bark and no bite, the type with more balls than brains.

He didn't like it. Everything about the man was out of place, he just didn't fit. Not out here, and certainly not now. He was dressed like he'd been on his way to a business meeting rather than a date with the end of the world. And he was too fresh, too whole looking to have been one of the ones that'd been caught unaware in the beginning.

Besides, what was a city slicker doing with a gun like that? It was a solid, no nonsense piece, like the kind they used to assign to law enforcement and game wardens back when the dead had generally stayed that way. So how did this jerk manage to get a hold of one of them? - Either way, he was willing to bet a considerable amount of green that there was one hell of a story behind that juicy little detail.

But like he'd said, something just didn't fit. He could practically taste it.

His fingers firmed around the trigger as a disorganized arrow of birds fluttered high overhead. Breaking the suffocating silence with a few questioning notes that echoed through the hollow like the first strains from some old ballroom melody. And for reasons beyond him, he paused. Five seconds away from putting an arrow clear through that deadhead's eye socket, he hesitated.

The man had been a survivor, and in spite of everything he respected that. He saw worth in it. Hell, he even felt a strange sort of camaraderie for the type of man this thing had once been. It was a feeling that was only reinforced when he let his eyes follow the stiff line of the man's back, taking in the lean muscle and unforgiving angles with a critical, but appraising eye.

…And honestly? It felt like looking in a fucking mirror.

A voice in the back of his head screamed at him to take the shot, babbling on about last chances and lousy odds. But he baulked at it all the same. He'd never been one to shoot someone in the back if he could help it, living or dead. It was just something that had never sat well with him, regardless of the circumstances.

If you took a life you had to be ready to look them in the eye when you did it, to take responsibility for their last moments and breathe them in regardless of the reasons or the circumstances. You had to be able to live with what you saw reflected there or you had no business killin' a man in the first place, walker or not.

So maybe that was why he forced himself to take that last step forward, crunching through the fallen rock and brittle moss with the exaggerated shriek of granite grating against granite. Letting the sound echo out in an attempt to get the walker's attention as the deadhead remained motionless, apparently content to ignore the bait and take in the view instead.

After a few moments of nothing he finally whistled, like he would to a dog or one of his mare's back at home. Barely able to temper down his surprise when the walker remained where it was, showing no sign that it was aware or even interested in him at all. - Hell, with all the noise he'd been making the damn thing should have been all over his ass before he'd even so much as pushed into the clearing.

But again the walker didn't move. It didn't even fucking stir.

What the fuck?

A sudden chill worked its way up his spine. Sending electric shivers coursing through the sweat-soaked fabric until the sensation was itching across his scalp, making his skin feel strangely tight, like he was five seconds away from bursting out of his skin on pure adrenaline alone. …Something was wrong.

A light gust of wind stirred the hairs on his arms. Making them stand on end until they puckered around the base like goose pimples in spite of the oppressive heat. He bit his lip, worrying the cracking skin as he slowly took another step forward. Sucking in a cautionary breath as the bad feeling he'd been nursing since he'd crossed into the tree line suddenly turned foul and rotten. Like the stink of old death that now encompassed the cities. Growing until it was churning in his gut like something vile, slick, and alive. Until all he could do was force himself to swallow that watery little dribble of vomit that was threatening to rise as the silent figure remained where it was, uninterested and still. Like a sentry to an invisible monument, or a pilgrim staring at some new found Mecca.

Shit. Something wasn't right. He was missing something. Something about this whole thing just didn't add up, but what? What could he have missed? It was just a walker, a walker alone and lost in the woods, the last remnants of some poor bastard whose luck had finally run out.

…Right?

"Suit yourself." He finally muttered, shaking his head at his own foolishness as he brought the crossbow up and centered his aim. Lining up the scope where those meticulously styled salt and pepper curls tapered down into an elegant, if not slightly overgrown sheath of hair in the back.

But then, just as he was about to bear down on the trigger, that was when the walker turned, shifting towards him with a slow, deliberate sway that tilted it's head the slightest millimeter to the side. The movement was so shallow that it was more like a shiver or a twitch than anything else. He couldn't see the details, or even the entirety of the thing's face. But it was enough.

Awareness prickled. Like a tangible rush that coursed down his spine with all the ferocity of fucking napalm. Hushing through his blood like a warning as the figure wavered in place. Those stupid, pointed-toe shoes fidgeting in the crumbling granite for a long, edgy moment as its blood slicked head slowly began to turn.

No. It couldn't be. They'd promised.

He stumbled backwards as his scope picked up the movement, a slight, barely there flutter that signaled the rise and fall of a living chest. Its shoulders and back flexing underneath the straps of that torn up backpack like it was expelling a pent up breath of air.

But that was impossible, walkers didn't breathe. They were fucking dead. So that meant-…

Oh Christ...

Because that was when it hit him, when suddenly everything made perfect sense. Because for all his foresight, for all his skills and instincts it wasn't until the thing had turned around enough to show him the outline of his face that he realized… no, he recognized who it was for the first time since he'd slipped into the woods to hunt one of their everyday nightmares. - Ironic that in the process, all he'd really found was his own.

Because he knew that face, that face and the name that lay beneath it. He knew it better than most people knew their own. He'd been forced to relearn it every time he'd looked in the mirror. Every time he'd dressed the healing scars and iced his swollen limbs. Every time he'd closed his god damned eyes without the buffer of a couple of pain pills and half a bottle of shitty whiskey to keep the nightmares at bay.

Because it wasn't a walker at all, it was Manning… He was alive!

And he'd be damned if something in the back of his brain just fucking howled.


A/N: Please let me know what you think? Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – As usual it's been more than two chapters, but yeah, the end is approaching, I swear. I should really just stop giving chapter predictions because I always seem to go over them and then come out sounding like an idgit. Oh well, no regrets!

"Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift." - Dante Alighieri.