Disclaimer - I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I only own my original character Rayne and anything else that seems out of place.
Thank you to Dark Angel 792, Nekoraychan, MiniKitsuneChan, khamilton16, minsuga248, Faery66, Rachael Brown, Miss Cassandra, Iris RainbowWolf, Caitlin718, Emily-May91, vampirenav and reaper935 for choosing to follow and favorite this story.
Also thank you to Lunar678 for the review of chapter 54.
So I know a lot of people love Carol, but I honestly can't stand her, so she won't be playing as big of a role in my story as she did in the show. Most of her somewhat badass moments, will be done by Rayne. I'm sorry if this pisses anyone off, but it's Rayne's story and she's my hero in this.
As always reviews are appreciated!
I apologize for the long time in between updates, my grandmother has been in the hospital for the last two months with terminal lung cancer, so I have been spending time with her.
That night after burying Beth's body, Gabriel performed a small service as the group stood around the gravesite. None of them could hide their tears, even those that hadn't known Beth cried, because you couldn't look at Maggie without feeling your heart break as she grieved.
"We look not at what can be seen, but we look at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
That night Rick sat in the back of a van they had come across outside of the hospital, beside him Noah was talking about his hometown and his family. "She was gonna come with me." He told Rick, referring to Beth.
"How far?"
"Outside Richmond, Virginia."
The next morning after everyone had gotten up, Rick gathered them to talk about moving on and finding a safe place; and Noah may have found just that.
"It was secure. It has a wall, homes, 20 people. Beth wanted to go with him. She wanted to get him there. It's a long trip, but if it works out, it's the last long trip we have to make."
"And what if it isn't around anymore?" Glenn asks.
"Then we keep going."
"Then we find a new place." Michonne offers.
The group loads up into the van and truck they found, Rick with Noah sitting shotgun leading the way. In their truck they had Tyreese, Michonne and Glenn who sat silently in the third seat at the back. Maggie had been distant with him since finding Beth, not that he could blame her, but he was starting to miss his girlfriend.
They had paused to switch drivers and Rick now sat in the back seat with Michonne while Tyreese drove. Rick took a look up front at Noah who sat staring stoically out the passenger window. "How far out?"
Noah glances over at the odometer before answering, "Five miles."
"Hey, Carol. Rayne."
"I'm here." Carol says picking up her radio.
"Me too." Rayne answered from her truck at the back of the pack.
"We're halfway there. Just wanted to check the range." He says.
Carol voice is crackly coming through the speaker, but it's audible. "Everybody's holding tight. We've made it 500 miles. Maybe this can be the easy part."
"Got to think we're due. Give us 20 minutes to check in."
"We don't hear from you, we'll come looking." Rayne tells him.
"Copy that." Rick answers.
Noah glances over at Tyreese, "I've been wanting to tell you something."
"What's that?"
"The trade. It was the right play. It worked. It did work. Just something else happened after."
Tyreese sighed but kept his eyes on the road, there was a hardness to him now after seeing Beth die. "It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to."
"I never wanted to kill anybody before."
"I've wanted that. But it just made it so I didn't see anything except what I wanted. I wasn't facing it."
"Facing what?"
"What happened, what's going on. My dad always told Sasha and me that it was our duty as citizens of the world to keep up with the news. When I was little and I was in his car, there were always those stories on the radio. Something happens 1,000 miles away or down the block. Some kind of horror I couldn't even wrap my head around. But he didn't change the channel. He didn't turn it off. He just kept listening. To face it. Keeping your eyes open. My dad always called that- paying the high cost of living."
"I lost my dad in Atlanta. I think he would have liked yours. Still got a mom and a couple of twin brothers." Noah paused for a moment thinking, "I hope."
"I hope so, too." Tyreese said.
Noah leaned over and looked at the meter, "Two more miles."
"All right." Rick nodded. "Let's pull into the woods. We'll go on foot. Stay off the road."
"We don't need to." Noah argued.
"Just in case." Rick said, he wasn't taking any chances, not knowing how many people were there or what they were armed with. Tyreese pulled off the road, parking the truck by two others vehicles that had been abandoned, Rick got out nodding, "This is good. Through the trees, it might just look like part of the wreck."
"It's this way." Noah said leading the way through the woods.
They come upon a bunch of wire stretched between the trees surrounding the fence, Michonne looks over her shoulder to Noah. "Your people do this?"
"Wanted to. They must have."
Noah yelps as he cuts his face on one of the wires. "Ah!"
"You all right?" Rick asks him as he examines the cut.
"Yeah. Yeah."
As they neared the edge of the tree line Rick paused halting the others. "They have spotters? Snipers?"
"We built a perch on a truck. Sometimes it's out front." Noah says.
"Not today." Glenn says after scoping out the area.
The group draws their weapons and ducks low using the tall grass for cover as they cross the road and approach the front gates of the estates. Noah grabs the gates and jerks then, they clang loudly as he puts his ear up to the metal. "You hear that?"
"Just wait." Rick says pausing the young man.
Glenn climbs up onto the fence and peers over into the area, his face telling all of them what he sees by the disheartened look that comes across it, as he shakes his head.
Noah panics grabbing the gate and jumping over the top of it, he lands and looks up, his brain trying to process what his eyes are seeing. Buildings half burned, bodies weeks old lying in the grass decaying. He takes off hobbling as fast as he can down the street towards his home, Rick and the others following behind him.
"Noah, hold up. Noah!" Rick yells to the kid as he collapses onto the ground in sobs.
Tyreese comes up and lays his hands on the boy's shoulders, "Come on. It's all right. You're gonna be with us now."
Michonne sees a lone walker straggling down the street towards them, she sighs as she draws her sword. "I'll get him."
Noah is wracked with heavy sobs as Rick kneels down beside him, "I'm sorry, Noah. I truly am." Rick stands up and looks around, "We should see if there's anything we can use and head back."
"Then what?" Michonne says bitterly as more walkers head their way. "They see us."
"We can make a quick sweep." Glenn says.
Tyreese nods down to Noah, "I'll stay with him."
Rick sighs pulling out his radio, "Carol, Rayne, you copy?"
"We're all here." Rayne says coming on the radio.
"We made it. It's gone."
As they move to sweep the houses Rick sees Michonne stomp on a glass case containing a shirt, he knows she's upset as he lays a hand on her arm.
"Clean shirt." She says.
"We'll figure it out." He tells her.
She nods, "We will. There's some garbage bags in the garage."
She disappears into the house and Rick turns to Glenn who's looking around the garage. "You didn't think it would still be here?"
"Did you?" Glenn asks.
"After it happened, right after with Beth in the hospital, I saw that woman Dawn. She didn't mean to do it. I knew it. I saw it. But I wanted to kill her. I remember I just wondered if it even mattered one way or another. Didn't have a thing to do with Beth. I don't know if I thought it would still be here. But Beth wanted to get him here. She wanted to get him back home. This was for her. And it could have been for us, too."
Noah is still sitting on the ground crying, Tyreese tries to make him feel better. "I wanted to die for what I lost. Who I had lost. I stepped out into a crowd of those things just trying- to take it all out on them until they took me. Put them all in front of me so I didn't see anything. But I just kept going. And then later, I was there for Judith when she needed me. I saved her. I brought her back to her dad. And that wouldn't have happened if I had just given up- if I hadn't chosen to live. Noah. Noah. This isn't the end."
Noah gets up off of the ground and Ty grabs his shoulder, "There you go. That's right."
The kid then takes off running down the street towards a house at the end, Tyreese follows him calling to the kid. "Hey, we should- Noah. Noah. Noah!"
"I was thinking about that guy in the storage container. Back at Terminus. How I made us stop." Glenn tells Rick. "After the prison, on my trip, I got Maggie back. Things went okay. Losing Washington- losing- losing Beth right after just finding out she's alive- I hadn't caught up with you yet. If it were now, I wouldn't make us stop. We'd run right by. And I would have shot that woman dead. Right or wrong."
"We need to stop." Michonne says interjecting into the conversation. "You can be out here too long."
Tyreese catches up with Noah as he reaches the front porch of the house and gently grabs his arm. "Hey, hey."
"This is my house." Noah says panting.
"You don't want to go in there."
"Yes, I do. Let me see it." He pleads.
"Me first." Tyreese says pulling out his knife, before leading the way into the house.
On the living room floor they find a body, Noah walks over and leans down beside it, taking a blanket and gently laying it over the body. "I tried to come back sooner. I tried. But I did what you told me to."
Tyreese hears snarling and scratching coming from a back room, the door is shut so he's not worried about the walker inside. Instead he goes into the adjacent room finding the body of one of Noah's brothers on the bed. He sees pictures of the two boys tacked up on the wall, he's so focused looking at them that he doesn't notice the walker coming up from behind until it bit his arm, tearing a chunk out of his flesh.
Tyreese dropped to the floor screaming in pain, Noah ran into the room, jumping up he tore one of the model airplanes that was hanging from the ceiling down and stabbed it through the walkers head. He dropped the airplane and turned to see Tyreese covered in blood, "You're okay. Just hold on. I'll get them. I'll get- I'll get them."
After Noah had ran out to get the others help, Tyreese sat on the floor, his mind imagining the people that he'd killed and helped kill sitting around him.
"I tried to tell you. I tried to tell you, man. It was gonna be you." Martin says, the guy that Tyreese had killed in the cabin to protect Judith. "You're the kind of guy who saves babies. You think Gareth would have been able to follow you guys if you'd have just put a bullet in my brain? Cut me up like your sister did? Oh, whoa, whoa. Don't get up. If I hadn't told them that you were there, maybe Gareth wouldn't have gone after you. Maybe they wouldn't be dead. Maybe Bob wouldn't be dead. Maybe him being alive, maybe something about that would have changed things with Beth. Domino shit. Maybe not. Maybe you wouldn't be bit right now."
"Man, that is bullshit." Bob said sitting on the bed. "I got bit at the food bank. It went the way it had to, the way it was always going to. Just like this."
"If you just did it, if you didn't lie like a bitch, it might have changed things." Martin continued. "Maybe the bill would have been paid."
"The bill has to be paid." Tyreese looks up to see the Governor standing in the doorway. "You have to earn your keep. You told me you'd do whatever you had to do to earn your keep. That's what you said. Hmm? Remember that?"
"It's better now, Tyreese." Lizzie says sitting on the floor across the room.
"It is. It's better now." Mica says sitting beside her sister.
"It's not better now. You know damn well what-" Suddenly the Governor turns into a walker snarling as it descends on Tyreese. He tries to fight it off as they bounce off of furniture in the room, all the while the walker is snapping its teeth at Tyreese's face. Using his already wounded arm to his advantage, Tyreese puts his arm in the walkers mouth to push it away from him, then grabs an object off of the shelf and beats the walker over the head with it.
"We could put some of the garage doors together against the break. Park a car against them until we can brick it back up." Michonne offers as a solution for the damaged fence surrounding the property. "It can work."
Rick shakes his head, "This place is surrounded by a forest. There's no sight lines. Whoever, whatever would be on top of us without us even knowing it. That's probably what happened."
"That's what happened to us." Glenn says.
"We could start taking down the trees. We use them to build the walls up." She says as an alternative, but neither Rick nor Glenn look convinced. "Look." She said pointing at the fence as she starts walking towards the break in it, she wants to make this place livable so they don't have to keep moving around.
But as she walks outside the fence she sees bodies littering the ground, but that's not the worst part. All that seems to be left of the bodies is severed arms and bottom halves from the waist down; the head and torsos were missing.
She turns around to avoid the sight and her eyes fall on the brick wall, which she can now see is cracked in multiple places all the way around. She sighs knowing that even if they fixed the hole, the fence would never hold up.
"It doesn't matter." Glenn says.
"What?" Rick asked, his attention on the distraught Michonne staring at the brick wall.
"You said you wondered if it even mattered if you killed her or not. It doesn't matter if you had done it or if I had, or that Daryl did. It doesn't matter."
"Washington." Michonne said suddenly. "Eugene lied about a cure, but he thought of Washington for a reason."
"But he was lying." Glenn reminded her.
"About the cure, but he did the math and realized that Washington was the place where there'd be a chance. We're close. What if there are people there? Huh? What if it's someplace that we can be safe? We're 100 miles away. It's a possibility. It's a chance. Instead of just being out here. Instead of just making it. Because right now, this is what making it looks like. Don't you want one more day with a chance?"
"We should go." Rick says seeing walkers heading their way. "It's 100 miles away. We should go to Washington."
As they start to walk back to the vehicle they hear Noah screaming for help. "Rick! Help, Rick! Glenn! Michonne! Help!"
The three take off running towards his voice, rounding a house they find him trapped on a porch with two walkers bearing down on him. The only thing keeping them at bay is a panel of lattice that he's holding between himself and them.
"Noah, hold on! I got him." Glenn yells as he jumps up on the porch and smacks one of the walkers with a baseball bat, then stabs it in the head.
Rick takes out the other one, but then his attention turns to Michonne who's dealing with the last one. She tried to slice its head off with her sword, but the blade ricocheted off of a piece of rebar sticking out of the walkers shoulder. Michonne grabs the walker by the shirt as it tries to bite her, as Rick jumps off the porch, yanks the rebar out of the walker and slams it into the walkers head.
"It's Tyreese!" Noah says frantically.
"Where?" Glenn asks.
"My house. He's been bit."
At the house Tyreese's visions are running away with him again as he sees Beth sitting on a chair with her guitar singing to him. "Every man has a right to live. Love is all that we have to give. Together we struggle by our will to survive. And together we'll fight just to stay alive. Struggling man has got to move. Struggling man, no time to lose. I'm a struggling man. And I've got to move on."
"It's okay, Tyreese. You gotta know that now." Beth tells him.
"It's okay that you didn't want to be a part of it anymore, Ty." Bob agrees.
"You don't have to be a part of it." Beth says.
Martin starts laughing, "See, that's your problem right there."
"What's my problem?" Tyreese asks.
"You didn't want to be part of it, but being part of it is being now. That's what it is. Open your eyes."
"You don't have to. Not if you don't want to." Lizzie says smiling at him.
Mica agrees with her sister, "You don't. It's better now."
The Governor strolled his way back into the room, "You told me you'd earn your keep. You had no idea what you were talking about, did you? Did you?! Your eyes were open, but you didn't want to see. Even though I made you see it. I showed you. But did you adapt? Did you change? No. That you would sit there in front of a woman who killed someone you loved and you would forgive her."
"That's all there is." Bob says smiling.
"This is all there is." The Governor echoes as Ty fights to get to his feet. "This is it."
Tyreese grabs onto the desk, struggling to rise to his feet as he responds. "I didn't know who I was talking to. I said I would do what I had to to earn my keep, but I didn't know you. But I know- I know who I am. I know what happened and what's going on. I know. You didn't show me shit. You, you're dead. Everything that you were is dead. And it's- it's not over. I forgave her because it's not over. It's not over. It's- it's not over. I didn't turn away. I kept listening to the news so I could do what I could to help! I'm not giving up. You hear me? I'm not giving up! People like me- people like me, they can live. Ain't nobody got to die today."
"You have to pay the bill." The Governor snaps as he shoves Tyreese back against the wall, where he slides down to the floor.
He looks up to see Lizzie and Mica grabbing his arm and holding it up with smiles; but that disappears in a haze as he sees Rick holding his arm now, Glenn behind him holding his body and Michonne standing by with her sword.
"You hold him!" Rick shouts to Glenn.
"I got it!"
"Go! One hit, clean! Go!" Rick yells as he holds Tyreese's arm tight.
In one motions Michonne's sword severs Tyreese's arm off at the elbow. Things then move fast, all of them knowing that he would die if they didn't get him help quick. Rick wraps a blanket around the severed appendage as he and Glenn all but carry the big man towards the front gate.
They can see walkers outside pushing on the metal, the only thing keeping them out being the chain that was securing both sides of the gate together. "We've got to break the chain." Rick yells.
"We can use the bat." Glenn hollers back.
Rick hands Tyreese off to Noah as he steps ahead of them to deal with the undead. As Glenn breaks the chain the walkers spill inside, Rick, Glenn and Michonne taking them out as fast as they can. Noah realizes that Tyreese's weakened state has made him heavier and he has no choice but to drop the man to the ground. Noah puts his body in between the walkers and Tyreese to protect him, willing to die to keep the man safe. A walker manages to slip by Rick and Michonne heading straight for Noah, but at the last second, Rick puts a bullet through its head.
Rick and Glenn grab Tyreese and together they move him back through the woods to the truck, all begging him to hang on to life until they can get him help.
They get him into the backseat of the truck, Rick pulling out his radio to announce their impending arrival back. "Rayne, we're at the car. We need to cauterize the arm and wrap it. Get Sasha and Carl away. They don't need to see this."
Rick fires up the truck and puts it in gear, gunning the engine, but the truck won't move. The tires spin relentlessly in the mud underneath of it, Rick slams it into reverse getting the same result, then throws it back into drive. This time the truck lurches forward slamming into the rear of the truck in front of it causing the contents to spill out onto the hood of their truck.
Michonne gasps as she sees the heads and upper torsos of the bodies she saw in the grass, lying on the hood and snapping their teeth at the windshield. Rick manages to get the truck out of the area and back onto the road, the accelerator pinned as he drives them back to their camp.
Halfway there Rick pulls the truck to a stop as they realize that Tyreese's body and mind has given up on him. They pull his body out of the truck, lying him on the road, Rick walks away his head in his hands. They had lost another member of their family, and he was the one that took them there in the first place; he was responsible for this.
They return Tyreese to the same place they had buried Beth, giving him a grave beside her. As they all said their final goodbyes, Gabriel gave a small prayer.
"We look not at what can be seen, but we look at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made from hands, eternal in the heavens. In the heavens."
