TWENTY NINE

Chapter Twenty Nine

An Epilogue... of sorts

"Thank you brother," Rick said from behind the steering wheel, his finger itching to turn the ignition in his own excitement to be away, even for just a little while, from the smoldering battleground of the Sanctuary. "You gonna be alright til we get back?"

"Man, just get on and handle your business," Daryl said, giving the other passenger of the pick up truck a quick glance then looked back at Rick with a knowing nod and a grunt that sounded like "congratulations". Michonne flashed a sweet grin in his direction before focusing her look in the rear view mirror at the scene framed in the small reflection. The smoke was dissipating and the moving bodies of all of their allies and former enemies alike were dispersing to follow the random orders that were being given out.

"We got it from here," Daryl assured his brother from another mother. "Like Morgan said, it's gon' be a long road to fixing all what's been broken here. Best you get started on your way so we can get started on ours."

Rick nodded back, "We'll be back as soon as the situation with him is handled. Either way it goes, we'll be back to join you. You sure you don't want to come back with us now? I'm sure Judith would be happy to see her uncle again… And Maggie, she's already got a trailer earmarked and ready for you."

Daryl smirked at the audacity of hope within Maggie. She not only prepared for their victory but she included him in that preparation when he really felt he had no right to her generous forgiveness. "Yeah… Naw, I'm gonna stay her for a bit and help with the clean up and see how the rest of this day is gonna play out…" His voice trailed off as he glanced over to see Carol in deep conversation with Morgan. Rick tried to follow his brother's eyeline but his vision was obscured by the back of the truck but he could guess who had caught Daryl's attention.

"Well, alright then. Give us a couple of days and we'll be back. Whether he makes it or not." Rick grimaced, "There's a bat that needs burnin' and world that needs rebuilding." Daryl nodded his understanding and gave the roof of the pick up two knocks of his knuckles to send them on their way.

He watched the back of the vehicle as it disappeared in the distance, leaving a wake of road dust billowing in the air behind.

He felt her presence before she made herself known with a slight shoulder nudge and he looked down at her.

"Well, there they go," Carol said quietly, "I wonder if they'll even make it to the Hilltop without pulling over this time around?"

He gave his version of a chuckle before he replied, "Well we know for sure that they can definitely do what they need to do in transit. But I think Rick's got something that he wants to do before they get to that part."

Carol let out an actual guffaw at that. "Oh you saw them too?"

"Yeah, I saw 'em" he said, "Saw you seeing them too. Seemed like you were having a good time with his Great Talkiness too." He sideeyed her before he continued, "Saw you laughing. It was… good to see you laughing."

She didn't know how to respond and knowing Daryl she knew he wasn't expecting a response. She knew he had something else to say so she waited.

"Seems like anyone who can make you laugh like that again… and often," he took a deep breath and looked back into the distance of the disappearing caravan of cars moving to follow Rick, "Well, it seems to me like that that's the kind of person I think I can appreciate."

A feeling, something akin to relief came over Carol Peletier in that moment. She didn't understand why and she didn't really want to make heads or tails of it but she knew. She knew it was relief she felt when she got what she could only see as Daryl's blessing. Not that she needed it but she was grateful to have this one thing that she knew was all he could give to her. Besides Rick, Daryl was the only other person who knew who she was before. Knew the scared and trembling shell of a woman she was when the world as they knew it ended. Hell, Daryl had known her longer than even Rick. He had even known her bastard of a husband. Had seen her bruises and for some reason, even back then she knew he was a kindred spirit and had known pain like hers. When he had brought her that Cherokee Rose and the story that had come with it to her so long ago she had known he understood what she had gone through and had brought her a glimmer of hope back then.

Even though it was all for naught.

Even when they both broke that horrible day at Hershel's farm so long ago. Even when he had to fight to hold onto her as she clawed and screamed to get to the monster that her only child had become, she knew he was broken apart just like she was. Yet he was with her when she had to rebuild. She rebuilt herself into someone no one would have recognised from the old days. He watched as she became stronger. As she became hard. Hard and brutal. She would never know his reaction to Rick when he was told that she was sent away but she knew when they were reunited again that he never stopped believing in her. In her new learned ability to survive. He was her silent sentry. She would always be connected to him until her last day on this godforsaken earth.

She would also remember this, his gift of acceptance and blessing. Yes, she had abandoned him in her search to become whole again. Her search to feel just a little bit more human. It was the hardest thing she ever had to do, leaving Alexandria the way she did. Leaving him behind was necessary as she too watched as he began to grow. As he began to open himself up more to the possibility of being more than just the outsider of their mishmash family. She left him because she knew if she had stayed, with the growing dark hole in her soul.

It would swallow her and he would have had to watch and see that darkness take her over. He wouldn't be able to be fully happy seeing that happen to her. She didn't want her darkness to seep into his ever growing light and snuff it out. The way it had been snuffed out in her time and time again. First with her beloved Sophia. Then with poor deranged Lizzie. Again with that soft little soul of young Sam, who she knowingly manipulated and twisted until he broke, just like she knew he would. No, that darkness would have killed him to see in her.

Morgan. Morgan saw it and knew her for what she was and had tried to pull her back into the light. Tried to make her see and even though she still thought his "all life was precious" mantra was always going to be a bunch of bullshit that she would never see the sense in, in this new brutal age of the damned, he had saved her. She would be forever indebted to him for bringing her to the Kingdom. Daryl didn't understand that the blessing he gave was really a blessing for her to be free. To be free to do what she needed to do to help Morgan who now needed her to pull him back into the light. Maybe someday in some fantastical future she would return to the laughter of the fairytale that King Ezekiel offered. But that was not who she was now. Now she would become Morgan's lighthouse beacon guiding him away from the deep dark waves of anger and despair that she had rose from. Romance in any form felt like some faraway star that she would never make a wish upon… and … she was alright with that. There was work to be done and she had knew what her job was.

She put her hand on Daryl's shoulder and stood with him and watched the lights of the caravan of trucks disappear in the distance. They stood together in their silent way. She hooked her small hand into the crook of his arm at the elbow and then she tilted her small head on his shoulder and his head declined to rest on top of hers.

"Thanks… Pookie," she whispered.

He grunted out a small chuckle and rubbed his chin on the top of her head.

###

"Well, you gotta give to him," Marie said, "The man certainly knows how to put down a good speech."

Gavin's chuckle turned into grimace from the flare it made in his ribcage. "Yeah, you could say that," he replied, "I can see where Carl gets it from. Short too. Gotta be grateful for that. Said what he had to say and then got down to business straight away."

"That's what made all the difference." Marie thought back to another speech giver she knew and rolled her eyes at the time she wasted listening to Negan drone on and on about the qualities of being a Savior. All of which he didn't realise he lacked being the greatest of all ironies.

"That ain't the only difference," Gavin came back with, "I don't know about you but I never came back from a half hours' worth of a Negan pontificating session feeling the way I did after listening to Rick for five minutes. I don't know about you but that is what's made all the difference to me… ow… damn. Easy there doc."

"Oh hush you big baby," Marie said as she watched Eric apply some more hydrogen peroxide to Gavin's head wound before wrapping some clean gauze padding to it.

"Oh I'm not a doctor," Eric said, "The only one we had left in Alexandria was killed… right before all this." He paused as he thought of the awkward but well meaning psychologist turned unwilling (at first) town doctor Denise. Until Rick's group came he didn't know him and Aaron had a fellow member of the rainbow coalition within the community.

He found it astounding, even now all the changes that rocked his little community of survivors once Rick and his people came on the scene. He and Aaron still wondered, had Denise not found Tara would they never had known that they had a "sister-in-arms" among them. It was things like that, momentous and little that made him grateful for the moment he and Aaron had decided to bring the rough and ready survivors back to Alexandria so long ago.

"And Denise wasn't even our first doctor. But she stepped up after Rick killed our first doctor," he went on not seeing the "what the fuck he just say" look Marie gave him. Not being one to hold her tongue, Marie said exactly that, "What the fuck you just say? Did you say Rick killed your first doctor?" she exclaimed. That sounded way to close for comfort as she remembered the screams of the Sanctuary's doctor as he burned alive in the furnace that she had watched Negan condemn him to.

"Wait, wait wait…," Eric stuttered, when he realised his grossly negligent faux pas. "It's not as bad as it sounds. Well actually at the time it was pretty bad. Pete, that was his name, he was a wife beating asshole who just happened to know how to save a life… well I've never actually seen him save a life but he was a surgical doctor and he did know how to set a bone. And well… you know what. I'm just gonna stop talking."

"Yeah babe," Aaron had come by and heard the tail end of his blabbermouth partner and shook his head, "Why don't you do that. Listen, you don't know us. I get that. You don't know Rick. But I can tell you this. Even back then, everything Rick has done since I've known him has been for a good reason. He's a protector. He fights for those who can't fight for themselves. And I'll tell you something else. Even if you don't know it yet, he fought today for you and every single person he left alive at the Sanctuary today."

Aaron gave Marie a steady look directly, "He's a good man. A good leader and I count myself grateful to be one of the people he's fighting for."

"Well that's all well and good for you," Marie said, "But I'll see for myself won't I?"

"Yes. I guess you will, " Aaron replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He turned to Eric to give him the status he was going to before his own version of "I believe in Rick Grimes" soliloquy, "So Rick and Michonne are headed back to Hilltop with Negan and the doctor. The Doc has more of a chance of saving Negan with whatever he has set up there. The King, Carol and Daryl stayed to organize the pull out of the herd that is wandering the floor of the Sanctuary and I'm staying to see to the Sanctuary survivors and make sure Rosita doesn't shoot any of them on general principal. Wanted to check with you and see what you wanted to do. Head back to Alexandria now or wait until Rick comes back."

Marie's head snapped back to Aaron when she heard a name she hadn't expected to hear ever again.

"I'm with you babe," Eric answered, "I'm not leaving your side for a long time." Aaron knew that would be his stance and wasn't surprised until Marie jumped from Gavin's side to grab him by the arm.

"Who did you say Rick was heading back with," she asked, "What was that name you said?"

"Michonne? Rick and Michonne," Aaron said, looking at his arm that Marie was squeezing tightly.

"Marie," Gavin had never seen the normally cool Marie look so perturbed, "What's going on? What's wrong?"

"Michonne. You said Michonne right?" she questioned again, "Michonne Anthony?"

"Well, I honestly don't know her last name," Aaron said.

"Wellll, I think her name is Michonne Grimes now," Eric said, with a knowing smirk,"If it isn't now it's going to be." He and Aaron exchanged a knowing glance before Marie brought his attention back to her.

"Was she the woman I saw with Rick and his son. I couldn't really see her face from where I was in the crowd but is she the one that Carl said was his mother?"

Gavin answered before Aaron could, "Yeah. that's who he calls Mom. And I gotta tell ya, I've never been intimidated by a woman, present company excluded of course," he gave a sheepish grin to Marie before he continued, "Than that one. I've seen what she can do. And from what I've seen, she's a stone cold bad ass when it comes to her boy and that man Rick Grimes. Believe that."

Marie took a beat and then to the surprise of Gavin, Aaron and Eric she belted out a loud laugh. A laugh so jubilant and raucous that Gavin thought he was witnessing true madness born right in front of his eyes.

"He… hahahah.. He wanted ME to… hahahhaah… he asked me to... " Marie could barely get out what she was trying to say. The perfect pure audacity of irony had hit her fully and she couldn't hold in her glee. "Negan ... he was asking ME to be the one to welcome her. Oh this is priceless! This is too much."

Tears from her hard laughter had emerged from her caramel coated eyes and she shook her head.

"They're coming back you said," she said when she had calmed down somewhat, "Michonne is coming back with Rick?"

"I can't imagine them going anywhere without each other for awhile," Aaron answered.

"Well ok then. Then here is where I'll stay until she comes back," Marie stated and continued to giggle to herself. Gavin kept a wary eye on her but felt the relief lift the weight from his mind that Marie was going to remain with them. At least until Michonne came back and he'd find out what was so damned funny about that.

"Stop looking at me like I'm crazy. I'm good. Just… looking forward to this new beginning everyone has been talking about."

She and everyone else. Everyone felt it like the change in a season. The journey was just starting.

The road to the new beginning was here.