Chapter Thirty-Six

It only took about a week in Alexandria for the sleepless nights to start for me. Since we were off the road, and by all means the safest we had been in a long time, a lot of intrusive thoughts started making their way into my head.

I was thinking about the four people I had killed. And the fact that I only felt bad about one of the four. I didn't want to wake Daryl up, so I was laying as still as possible. But I guess Daryl must have known I was awake.

He rolled over, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close to him.

"Why aren't ya sleepin', Livy?" Daryl asked, his voice slurred with sleep.

"Because I'm thinking," I told him, rolling to face him. In the dark, I felt Daryl's lips on my forehead. Still being held by sleep, Daryl was freer with his affection.

"But you should be sleepin'."

I wrapped myself around him, nuzzling my face into his chest.

"I've killed four people, Daryl," I murmured against his skin.

"Shit, darlin', I've killed more than that." I could feel his fingers tangling in my hair.

"I only feel bad about killing one of them, though. Do you feel bad about killing any of them?"

He was quiet for a moment. I listened to the sound of his breath and his heat beating against my cheek.

"No," he finally said. "I don't feel bad about any of them. I don't think you should, either."

"I don't feel bad about the girl from Terminus. They were terrible people who didn't deserve to live, not even in the apocalypse. I don't feel bad about Joe's people either, 'cause they were going to kill you if I didn't kill them. I only feel bad about that one woman at the prison. But I don't know if that's because she was the first one or because those people were brainwashed."

"Brainwashed or not, those people were the reason the Governor was able to kill Hershel."

Daryl's voice was different now. Harsher, because he was fully awake, and mad to add to that.

"I don't feel bad about killin' any of those people. Or the ones at Terminus, or that claimin' prick. And I really don't feel bad for shootin' the stupid bitch that killed Beth right between the eyes."

Daryl began to sit up, and since I was tangled up with him, I was forced to sit up, too. I ended up situated on Daryl's lap. In the dark, Daryl took his face between his hands and lowered his face so that we were level with each other.

His eyes were bleached of color in the dark, looking silvery instead of blue. They were hard like steel as he spoke.

"You shouldn't feel bad, Livy. You can't feel bad. If you wanna live, if you want me or Carl or Judith or anyone else to live, you can't feel bad. If you want the people you care about to live, you have to kill."

"I know," I breathed out in a whisper.

"What would have happened if you wouldn't of killed that lady that was with the Governor?"

"She would have killed me." It was the truth.

"Yeah, she woulda killed you. And probably more people, but she didn't because you stopped her. Wanna know what woulda happened if I hadn't given up? If I killed the Governor? Merle, Hershel, Beth. They'd all be alive, Livy. You have to kill, or your people die."

There wasn't a change in his voice. It was too dark for me to see much more than his eyes. But something made me feel that Daryl was crying. The only move he'd made was to drop his hands from my face to my shoulders.

I reached my hand up to his face and, just like I expected, his cheek was wet.

"Oh, Daryl," I said, my heart breaking inside my chest. "None of those are your fault."

I kissed him on the lips and then wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling me towards him so that his head rested against my shoulder. I stroked his too-long hair. He didn't make a noise, but I could feel the tears against the bare skin of my shoulder.

Eventually we laid back down, and fell back to sleep. In the morning, the whole thing had the hazy quality of a dream in my memory. I woke up before Daryl, finding myself trapped in the hold of his arms while his head rested on my chest.

I didn't want to wake him up, even though I knew he needed to go to Aaron's house. They were due for a short run, and that was the day they had chosen to go. But I didn't want him to. I didn't want to face the world, to face Alexandria. I just wanted to stay in bed with Daryl Dixon, because I was pretty positive I loved him.

But eventually the stupid alarm clock went off, and Daryl picked his head up and grumbled at it as he turned it off. Then he sat up, rubbing his face with his back to me. I studied the tattoos and the scars on his back while he woke up.

I stayed in bed while he started to get dressed.

"Being lazy this mornin'?" he asked, leaning over the bed to kiss me.

"Just a little bit," I replied. "Abraham and the construction crew are almost done with the area Deanna wants me to farm, so I'm gonna have to do real work soon. Might as well enjoy being lazy while I can."

Daryl shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed to lace up his boots. I rolled myself closer to him.

"Hey," I said, obnoxiously getting in his way by putting my head in his lap. "No dying out there."

A smirk came over his face as he smoothed some curls out of my face. "Nah, darlin'. We don't die."

"And then, Glenn said that Nicholas guy just bailed! Didn't follow the plan at all, got himself out of the revolving doors and left Glenn and Noah to die."

I was lying in bed with Daryl, my head resting against his shoulder as I told him about all the things he missed while he was out on a run with Aaron.

"Did Glenn kill him?" Daryl asked.

"You know he didn't. That's not Glenn."

"No, but he should've."

Nicholas was obviously a coward. He left Aiden, Glenn, and Noah all for dead and only Glenn made it out alive. He couldn't be trusted, but he also couldn't be killed.

"We can't just kill Alexandrians," I whispered to him. "He's weak. He'll get killed eventually because he isn't made to survive."

"Idiots are dangerous. He'll end up takin' other people down with him when he goes."

I couldn't argue with that. Nicholas had already caused two deaths just in the time we had been in Alexandria. Who knew how many more he was responsible for beforehand?

"Tara's hurt, too. She's in the infirmary. Head trauma for sure, but no one knows how bad."

"Hey," Daryl said suddenly, sitting up so that I was forced to go with him. "C'mere."

It was still fairly early in the evening. The sun hadn't yet set, so there was still light in our house. We didn't use the electric lights anyway, but Deanna had actually put a short hold on electric use until Eugene could replace the bum solar lights that had cost Aiden and Noah's lives.

Daryl led me into the living room. He and Aaron hadn't found any people—they didn't go far, they were mostly testing Daryl's bike—but they had found a few odds and ends. Clothes for Judith, who was quickly outgrowing hers; a few more rounds of bullets, which we always needed; a massive beehive which they planned to smoke so they could collect honey.

"Forgot to give these to you earlier." Out of his bag, Daryl pulled a pair of black and pink running shoes. "Now you don't have to go runnin' around barefooted anymore."

A light blush bloomed across Daryl's cheeks as I hugged him tight and kissed him on the cheek.

"We're going out again, for longer, in a couple of days," Daryl said, still holding me in his arms.

"How long?" I asked, tipping my head back to look at him. I could feel Daryl's shrug.

"Few days, I reckon."

"But you'll be here for a little while?" Daryl nodded.

"Since all that shit happened with Glenn's group, Aaron wants to ask around and see if there's anything we need to get while we're out."

"Weeeell," I said, drawing out the word as an idea popped into my head. "As long as you're home, we might as well enjoy it."

I smirked at him and raised my eyebrows, glancing toward our bedroom door.

Daryl chuckled and muttered, "Woman," before pressing his mouth to mine.

The night before Daryl and Aaron were to set out on another expedition, Aaron and Eric came over for dinner. All of the frozen and preserved foods in Alexandria made it easy to make food, especially when you threw in Daryl's hunting and foraging.

"This is really good," Eric said, picking up another bite of meat from his plate. "What is it?"

I glanced over at Daryl, unsure if we should tell Eric what animal the meat had come from. But obviously Daryl didn't have the same reservations that I did.

"Raccoon," Daryl answered nonchalantly.

"Oh," Eric said, looking a little shocked. Aaron smirked at him, and I think he must have taken Eric's hand or something under the table because his hand moved. "That's interesting. I thought I had this pretty well pegged for beaver. We've eaten a few of those before."

Daryl shrugged before spearheading a carrot with his fork. "Protein is protein to me."

"I'm excited for y'all to bring honey back," I told Aaron. Eric started nodding, his mouth full with another bite of raccoon. As soon as he swallowed he was talking.

"Isn't wild honey the best? Oh, I just love it," Eric enthused. "I've been trying to convince Aaron to bring some bees. We have room for a colony."

"Livy's allergic to bees," Daryl said, his mouth full. I was surprised he remembered, it was so long ago that I had told him that. It made me happy, my heart feeling brighter in my chest.

"You are?" Aaron asked. I nodded.

"Like, deathly allergic. My throat will close up if I'm stung."

"You need to tell Pete, so your name can go on the list. We have a few EpiPens in the infirmary. They're probably passed their expiration date by now, but something is better than nothing, right?"

I nodded. I had an EpiPen back before the world ended, but thankfully I had never had to shove it into my thigh.

I liked hanging out with Aaron and Eric. I think they felt more comfortable with our group than they did their own people.

Daryl and Aaron left before the sun was up the next morning, even earlier than I got up to run. That was okay, though. I had a lot of work to do. Abraham's construction crew had finally cleared the place Deanna wanted me to start planting the farm in.

I hadn't seen Deanna around much, which was understandable. Aiden had been her son, and I was sure she wasn't taking kindly to her death. I just wondered if there would be any kind of reprimanding for Nicholas.

Besides Deanna, Aaron, and Eric, I had not talked with a lot of Alexandrians. I was not assigned a job where I would work with them, either. The farm Deanna wanted me to plant was a solo act, so it is entirely safe to say I was not aware of, or expecting, the things that were about to unfold.

We had only been in Alexandria maybe two weeks.

The farm land butted up against the area where the construction crew was still working. I went over after my run, not bothering to change clothes since I was just going to get sweaty again.

Abraham waved to me from the cab of a backhoe.

"I tilled the dirt for you. It was gonna be way too much to do by hand," he called down to me.

I gave him a thumbs up and a smile. "Thanks!" I yelled up to him.

I thought I was going to have to till it myself, so I'd gone over early in the day. Since Abraham had taken care of it, I decided to go to the other Olivia and get the seeds.

On my walk to Olivia's house, I saw Deanna and Rick talking. Well, arguing would have been a better word for it. I was too far away to hear anything they were saying, but I had seen Rick Grimes argue plenty of times before, and that is definitely what he was doing.

I didn't think anything of it, though. I went and got the seeds, returning to the land Abraham had tilled for me.

Then I planted. All day. Until I felt like my back would never straighten again, because I had spent hours bent over, dropping seeds into the little holes I made with my fingers. Just the way Hershel had taught me.

It kind of felt like and homage to Hershel, my skin becoming even darker as it got stained with earth.

I was sitting in the dirt, honestly downing the water I had brought with me, when I heard the commotion.

There was yelling, lots of it, too many voices to even try to figure out what had been going on. I got to the street just in time to see Michonne punch a very much bloodied Rick in the head, knocking him out. A gun fell from his limp hand.

I wasn't sure if the blood was Rick's or the other man's who I thought was the doctor Aaron had been talking about just the night before, but I couldn't be sure. He was covered in even more blood than Rick was.

"What the fuck?" I said under my breath, but Maggie, who I hadn't even realized I was standing beside whispered back to me.

"I'll catch you up later. We might not be here much longer after this stunt."

A/N: Okay, just in case not everyone is caught up, I'll only say this: THAT WAS RUDE. And I'm sure the finale will be even ruder. If any of y'all would like to discuss the show or comics (I keep up with both!) just shoot me a message! I hope y'all like this chapter, I tried to provide y'all with a little bit of a lighter, happier one before stuff hits the fan. Thanks for reading! I love all of y'all :)