I apologize for any inaccuracies.
Gracie had begged him to let her come with them for months. He really didn't want his little girl out there, she was far too young. A child! But the world was cruel now and if you didn't accept that, if you didn't get used to it, saw it, you died. Still, it took a long time until he could make the decision. It would be a short trip. Just in a miles radius around Alexandria, getting rid of Walkers in the area and Michonne and him would protect her the whole time. She'd wanted to go behind the walls because Judith was allowed to and Gracie had never really seen anything else than their place. One time he had taken her with him to Hilltop, to visit Jesus. She had loved it and when they returned she wouldn't stop talking about it for days. But that was now long enough ago, that the memory started to fade away from her. So he agreed. "Michonne and I are going on a clearing mission tomorrow. You can come with us if you want to." He told her at dinner.
"Really? You'll let me come? Do I get to kill a walker?" She was clearly excited. "No Gracie. You can come with us but only if you promise to do exactly what either one of us tells you to. No running off (?) and no killing anything. You promise me that?"
For a moment it looked as if she was about to disagree, then she shook her little head a little as if telling herself not to.
"I promise Dad" "Okay baby girl. We're setting out tomorrow morning so you better go to bed now. It's going to be a long day."
"Mhm..." her mind already seemed to wander of to the next day, wondering what adventures she might witness, what heroic things she might accomplish. And Aaron suddenly doubted again that he should let the kid before him go outside, where it was so dangerous. Where people died. All sorts of things could happen! What if a walker got her? What if they got separated somehow?
"Are you going to tell me a story so that I can sleep?"
"Alright. Yes. I will."
Then he brought her to bed and told her a story about his own childhood. Stuff that a long time ago would have appeared basic and boring. Now it only seemed cruel to him, telling her about some far away world she never knew, where people died from old age rather than being eaten by a dead monster, but she loved hearing about it. It made her dream about all the things that were possible, if not for her then maybe somewhere in the world. Gigantic planes lifting up in the air, carrying as many people as the entire population of Alexandria, all the people she'd ever met, to unknown destinations. Cities where even in the night it never got dark because of all the different lights. It made him sad that she would never know all of this, and he was pretty sure that none of it existed anymore, but he would never tell her that. And after all. She had a life. She had friends, always enough to eat, and she had him. And he would do anything to be a good father in all of this. After she had fallen asleep he went downstairs to check if everything was ready. Then he sat down at the kitchen table and stared out of the window for a long time. Telling his daughter about the past, he had remembered his brother. The fact that he still didn't know for certain if he was dead pained him but with that he had made peace, he hadn't seen him for a long time even before all of it, anyway. He wanted to stop thinking about death because he knew what the next thought would be. But of course now it was far to late. The tears were already running down his cheeks. A picture appeared in his mind and he buried his face in his hands.
"Eric... I'm so sorry"
It had shaken him so badly, he wouldn't have been able to go on if it hadn't been for the baby. The moment he had realized that he was gone, dead, and nothing on earth would bring him back to him. Pointless to look for him, even though sometimes Aaron wished he had. Maybe he could have found him, buried him. He could at least have had that closure. But he didn't. He went on and had as much of a life as he could.
It was long after midnight when he finally found the strength to stand up and go to bed himself. Some days he couldn't bear to leave the house, even after all these years. He'd tried to hide his pain and suffering from the girl but had long found that it was better to just be honest about it. To tell her that it would be okay. He didn't expect how good Gracie would understand and the fact that she did, seemed like a sad reminder to him, of the kind of world that she had to grow up in.
"That's okay. You loved him."
she had said one time when he had brought her to Michonne's house for a few days because he was going outside. It was one of these days, where he just couldn't stand all of the noise. Gracie looked up to Judith a lot. And after Rick was gone he knew exactly what Michonne was going through, so the two little families had become closer as time went on after everything that had happened with the Saviors.
When he woke up the next morning, Gracie was already sitting in the kitchen, nervously dangling her legs. When she saw him she immediately hopped from the chair and started babbling. She never could stop talking when she was nervous like this. Aaron laughed and then made breakfast while Gracie sprung around the room in excitement. "Gracie! Stop that, you need to calm down, out there you need to focus. You can't be distracted!"
"I know... I'm just excited. You never let me go behind the walls. You always say it's to dangerous"
"And it is" Aaron sighed "That's why I need you to pay attention I can't have you carelessly running around like this"
"Well I won't! I'm not stupid Dad!"
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just a little bit on edge. "
They met Michonne at the gate. She actually seemed to be happy to get away for a few hours, too, she had a lot of stress going on with the council and Aaron knew she was struggling a lot with Rick's death. He had seen her going out in the night, but he knew better than to ask her about it. But when he had told her that he wanted to show Gracie the outside world a little he had expected her to say no. Instead, she told him that she'd be happy to help. And so two adults and a little girl sat out on a mild summer morning to look at nature and kill some undead, rotten creatures.
Aaron's plan was to walk a little towards Hilltop on the road and then back through the woods where the Walkers would be more scattered and Michonne and him could still do something useful while keeping Gracie as safe as possible. Gracie was thrilled, though she kept her promise, stayed close and didn't make any noise. When he saw her like this, Aaron realized how much they actually took from her, all of the kids really, by keeping them in Alexandria most of the time. Technically they had everything there but it was all the same, over and over again, the same houses day by day, the same people. Children liked to explore, discover new things. And there was little to explore in their little oasis. The first two walkers they ran into, they saw and heard long enough before they reached them. Continuing their path down the road they didn't get into any situations anymore dangerous than that. Gracie kept asking them names of different trees or birds she noticed and Michonne and him relaxed a little, never of course getting careless or letting their guard down.
When they reached the point where the road split up, they decided to rest. They had brought food and water and sat down at the edge of the forest. Always wary but now not as tense as when they had set out.
Michonne joked around and Gracie's bright laughter echoed through the air.
When they went on, they followed the part that abruptly went to the right until they decided to go back to Alexandria through the woods. If Aaron remembered it right, they would come to an open field before finding the old pathway that led back to Alexandria. Long ago he had sometimes used it to get out in the woods when looking for new people. They entered the forest and that's when everything started to go wrong. They had only walked five minutes when they suddenly saw themselves surrounded by walkers. Drawn by the noise the little group made stepping through the wood and onto a lot of dead leaves and dry branches, probably a dozen tattered corpses tumbled in their direction. A dozen was fine, and they got rid of all of them, even though it took a little more effort and caused a mess of a lot of sliced braines, skin and guts spread on the floor. This scared Gracie and that was not good. They still had a long way to go and couldn't afford to have her lose her head and run away, or, maybe even worse, scream. "Gracie is everything okay?"
"Yes"
"Are you sure? You're safe with us. Michonne and I will protect you, no matter what."
"Yes I know..."
With a last glance at the scattered body parts of long dead people she took his hand and they followed Michonne. They moved through the woodland long enough, as quietly as possible, that Aaron started to wonder if he had been wrong about the field being in this part of the landscape or if they were going in the wrong direction. Even in the worst scenario they couldn't be off more than a mile, and they certainly wouldn't get completely lost, but he wouldn't want to search their way back when it got dark. Not with the girl already getting tired. Suddenly he heard the familiar sound of a walker nearby. He let go of Gracie's hand and looked around him, trying to make out where it came from. Then Michonne spotted something before them and immediately went to check it out, her bloody sword ready in her hand. Aaron took two steps to follow her and saw that she could handle it. A fallen tree had caught a walker that was now stretching its arms, though of course not getting anywhere. She stabbed her sword in its head, turned around and came back.
"We should get going. I don't think we're far now. Gra..."
Aaron's gaze on Michonne froze in shock. Then he slowly turned around and his little daughter was gone.
"Gracie? GRACIE!" He wanted to run. Find her, bring her back safe. But Michonne held him back.
"You'll never find her if you just run off like that"
He tried to shake of Michonne's hand around his wrist.
"I need to find her!"
"And we will. If we think this through!"
He half-heartedly tried to get rid of Michonne again but of course he knew that she was right. He nodded slightly and Michonne released his arm. Then she asked:
"Where would you have gone?"
"I don't know... she wouldn't go back, would she?"
"Probably not. So let's split up! She must have gone either that way or that." She pointed to their left and right, then she looked at Aaron. "Your choice."
He nodded again, then turned left. He looked around him and tried not to miss anything. He was afraid of what he might find, saw images of his dead daughter, no matter how hard he tried not to. Aaron told himself that he would find her. He couldn't lose her, too. He had purpose. He had a life. That wouldn't have happened without Gracie. Not after losing him. She had saved him and now it was his turn to save her.
He called her name over and over again when he suddenly heard a shrill scream, coming from right in front of him.
"Gracie!"
He started to run and suddenly wasn't surrounded by trees anymore. The field! They had been nearby the whole time. Then he saw his daughter. It looked as if she had tripped and maybe twisted her ankle because she was laying on the ground and she looked at a walker that slowly tumbled in her direction. Aaron saw that he wouldn't get to her in time, so he stopped running.
"Hey! Hey, here!" He cried out, hoping to get the walker's attention. It worked. The walker slowly started to turn around, then Aaron recognized the dark gray shirt and just as the thing before him turned completely around and began to move towards him, the knife in his hand slipped from his grasp. He couldn't move. He couldn't think. He could just look, and all that he saw was Eric. He just stared.
Michonne, who had taken the way to the right quickly searched the area. When she heard the scream she immediately turned around. When she reached the field only minutes after Aaron she first noticed him standing there and not moving even though a walker was approaching him.
"Aaron?"
Then she looked closer at the walker.
When she looked at Aaron again, she had to struggle not to cry. She imagined what he had to feel. All the sudden pain of it. That could be her. She had looked for Rick a long time, to get it done. Say goodbye. But Aaron probably never thought he would see Eric again and certainly not now. With a quick look she made sure that Gracie was fine and gestured her to be still.
"Aaron." She then said softly, placing her hand on his shoulder, then carefully picking up the knife he had dropped.
Aaron flinched under her touch and looked her in the face. He opened his mouth but no word left his lips. Silently he reached for the knife, his eyes tearing up. Michonne nodded. She squeezed his shoulder and went to get Gracie, to take her back home. "It's him, isn't it? That's Eric?" The girl asked.
"It was. Yes."
"Does Dad want to bury him? Will you get him a shovel?"
Michonne looked at the child a little surprised.
"Yes I think I will."
Aaron felt the knife in his hand, he stepped forward and rammed it through the skull of something that had once been the love of his life. He caught the body and sobbed as he laid it softly down on the grass. He knelt down beside him and put his hand on Eric's face, where it had laid so long ago, when he had told Eric that he would come back. The tree... he remembered the pain of that moment when he came back and couldn't find Eric underneath it. It had ripped his heart out.
Aaron sat in the field and cried. He had sometimes imagined finding Eric and killing him. Giving him the peace he deserved. Giving himself peace. But seeing him like that... About an hour later Michonne came back and placed a shovel next to him. Aaron looked up and managed a weak "Thanks" before his voice cracked again. When Michonne had gone he slowly stood up and started to dig. He dug and dug, and when night fell he was still not done. He continued until the grave was ready, the faint moonlight shining down from above. He placed Eric's body in the hole, took one last look at him and dug it back up again. When he was done he just quietly looked at the grave, his tears all gone now, dried on his face. He would never be as happy again as he had been when they had been together. That day when he had seen his love walk away, cold, dead, not feeling anymore... something deep inside him had broken, and he knew it couldn't be fixed. Ever. He wouldn't be whole again but that was okay. Because Gracie would and it was his job to make a world that she could live in, be happy in.