EPISODE 28 – Made to Suffer – Part II

It's so difficult, nowadays, to trust someone new.

Though when Glenn and Maggie don't come back from their run, and a woman gets to our fences with a basket full of baby formula, we have no choice but to hear her out.

Why would anyone kidnap them? What's the fucking point?

However, we ought to check if she's telling the truth; we can't just let them be missing. So, we gear up.

"Aideen," Rick takes me apart and says, "I need you to stay here."

"No way, I should help, Rick, what if-"

"We can't leave the prison unprotected. Listen, I'm taking Daryl, and Oscar. But, Carol is still weak, Hershel can barely walk with his crutches, and that Axel guy, I don't fully trust him. And no, Connor isn't ready yet. I know Carl is strong, but I'd feel better if you stayed to look after everyone. If we're walking into a trap, I need someone here."

I sigh. How could I refuse?

So, I put down my bow. Even if it makes me sick to know they're going to put themselves in jeopardy, and I won't be there to help. Connor is having itchy feet as well; he'd like nothing more than to get the hell out of that prison and do something meaningful, even just for a moment. Though, if he's getting better each day, if he's lost that daunting look and if his cheeks are already filling, he still gets breathless after any physical activity. Even though he hates it and it's killing him not to be able to help, he still needs time.

Daryl frowns as he passes me and sees me without my weapons ready. For the first time in a while, he even addresses me directly: "Ya not comin'?"

I wince. "Rick wants me to stay here."

"That's good."

But when he sees my scowl as I'm ready to bark my frustration at him, he promptly adds: "Good that ya hold the fort, I mean."

And I immediately mellow out. "Will ye promise me to be careful?"

He shrugs. "We'll be back soon."

His eyes are already shifting to anywhere but me, so I guess I won't get anything out of him. Anyway, this is not the time. Though, when he comes back, I'm determined to work it through with him. I won't stand to live like this. I need him to talk to me. Fuck, I need him to like me. Even if that's so selfish I could never voice it out loud.

When I watch them drive out the gate, closing behind them, I have an awful feeling in my guts. And my intuitions have rarely been wrong before. I just don't know what it means yet.

I obviously can't sleep all night. I'm standing guard in the tower, waiting anxiously for their return, and making sure there's no threat in sight. When I hear someone coming up the ladder.

Connor is panting when he gets all the way up there, but he makes it okay. He needs a minute to catch his breath, though, and he lies down beside me with his eyes closed.

"Shouldn't ye, I don't know, assign shifts or something so ye don't have to stay up all night?" he ends up asking.

"I'm not going to sleep anyway, so I might as well let the others rest… Is Sive okay?"

"Aye, she's sleeping with, em, Carol. She loves that woman. And the other kids too. They're great with her."

I grin a little sadistically, eager to get a reaction: "I think Carl is her first crush."

"No way. She's too young," he answers automatically. He's a protective dad alright.

"Come on, ye've seen how she looks at him every time he talks. He's like a Disney prince to her." I see him cringe and I love it.

Now that he's wearing his own clothes, that he's shaved and has cut his hair, I start to feel like he's never been gone. He's still thinner than he used to be – and he's never had much fat on him to begin with. But I guess I'm no better, with the conditions we live in. Though, if he's gained a wrinkle or two, he still has his huge blue eyes, his sensual full lips, and his angelic, falsely innocent, air about him.

God, I want him so bad. And yet I still feel like I can't. I feel like I've cheated on him and I should say something. And I also feel like it would be betraying Daryl, even though we've never even been anything close to a couple.

"The problem is," I continue about Sive, "I'm afraid she's in for a first heartbreak too. Because young Carl only has eyes for the beautiful, much older, Beth…"

"Jesus. So much drama." He laughs.

"Don't laugh, ye might get to be the shoulder she'll cry on!"

"Good. I'll tell her that no man is good enough anyway."

"Except her own daddy of course…"

"Obviously."

I shake my head at our silliness. He's still lying on his back, with an arm bent behind his head, watching the stars. In the faint moonlight, I can discern a little patch of skin on his stomach, between his shirt and the hem of his pants, and the crease of the v-shaped muscle there. My hand yearns to go graze it.

Though my mind is still miles away, trying to guess what's happening with Glenn and Maggie's rescue.

"Ye're worried about them." He interrupts my thoughts like he's reading them.

I shakily nod. "These people, they're my family, ye know. When Sive and I found ourselves alone. I was in such a bad place. I would have died- We would have died if we hadn't met them."

If I hadn't met Daryl then. If I hadn't come to trust him somehow.

"Will ye tell me about it someday?" he asks.

"About what?"

"Everything. Everything that's happened. Ye know ye can tell me, right?"

But if I were to tell him about those men in the stables, wouldn't it kill him? What would be the point of torturing him, with information he can do nothing about?

"It's just- The walkers are a nightmare, ye know. But sometimes, the living can be so much worse…"

He grits his teeth. "I know."

Of course he knows. That's why he and Murphy did what they did. Because they reckoned some people were so evil they didn't get the right to live. And I agreed. On last resort, some people must die. "It was bad before, but it's even more true now. There are no rules anymore. No one to hold them accountable."

"We will. When we find Murphy, he and I will."

I sigh. I won't get my hopes up. I want him to be alive so bad I can't even allow my mind to go there. Because if he's not… It would crush me. This time, I don't think I would survive it.

"We need to worry about surviving first," I manage to say.

"For that, I need ye to trust me," he sombrely answers.

I brusquely turn to him: "Of course I trust ye."

"Then, what else are ye not telling me?"

I gulp.

"Christ, ye think I'm blind?" he adds, and I can tell he's getting pissed at my silence. "Just tell me, Tin', get it over with."

Once upon a time he'd told me: 'there is nothing ye could say or do that would drive us away from ye'. It had been true at the time. Well, I guess I'll once again put that to the test.

"I've slept with Daryl. Twice." There. I said it. I can't bring myself to look at him and assess his response to that. But I hear him sit up. And he remains silent for a long time. When I throw an anxious glance at him, he's sitting with his bent knees resting on his arms around them, and his head hanging in the middle.

He swallows hard before he quietly says: "I figured there was something…"

"I know ye did." He doesn't say anything else, so I feel the need to stress: "Connor, I love ye, ye know that. I always did and it's not about to change. I just-… I need time to sort things out."

"I get it, ye know. We haven't seen each other in almost seven years-"

"Six and a half."

"I couldn't ask of ye to wait that long."

"Ye think I haven't waited?"

"That's not what I'm saying, but-"

"I would have waited a fucking lifetime for ye, Connor. But- I-… I thought ye were dead."

"I know-"

"No. Scratch that. I did cheat on ye before that. When I learned about ye and Murphy's failed breakout, I got drunk, and I woke up in a woman's hotel room. I have no recollection of what happened. But I might as well have cheated on ye that day. I don't know…"

"Okay…"

"Her name was Connie. And I wouldn't be here if she hadn't helped us. She's the one that arranged for the girls and me to leave Ireland when yer ma-" Fuck! I never told him that.

"I never dared ask ye…" he sheepishly says. "Was she okay when ye left?"

"Fuck. I'm sorry Connor… No, she wasn't. I would have never left, or not without her, if she had been. She was bitten in the very beginning. Protecting our girls. I'm so sorry. She'd been there for me the whole time… When they were born- I don't know what I would have done without her."

I turn to watch him this time, and I can see him bite back tears he doesn't want to shed now.

"Christ, it never ends, does it?" His voice breaks.

"Ye have no idea…" I answer, thinking of the truly endless list of fucked up things that have happened.

He gingerly takes out his rosary, and I hear him mutter a prayer. He tries to take a deep breath but it's quavering, and I rub my hand on his back soothingly.

"Does that mean she's a walker now?" he finally asks.

"She's not. Ye know yer ma. She wouldn't let that happen. She put us in the plane and she… She went on her own terms."

He has a vacant look in his eyes now. So, I try awkwardly: "She did tell me to kiss her boys when I'd see them…"

But Connor clears his throat. "I think I need to go lie down."

And he dodges the hand I extend to start down the ladder. I am such an idiot. How could I be so cruel and stupid? I guess there is no redeeming me, is there? I've spent the most part of my life ruining everything for my family. Now that I tried to create a new one, why did I think I would do any better?

The car finally returns in the early morning. I hurry to go open the gate for them, and give the biggest hug to Maggie. Glenn looks terrible, his face completely destroyed. But they're both alive, that's what matters. Now I look around and realise there are people missing.

Rick doesn't need me to ask when he sees my panicked expression:

"Oscar got shot when we tried to escape…" He trails off for a bit and can see in my widen eyes that my heart isn't beating anymore. "Daryl's alive," he quickly adds. "But-… We found his brother there. And he… Well, he decided to leave with him. I'm sorry Aideen, he's not coming back."