Carol was looking at her knife, waiting for Lizzie to come to the visitor mirror. Killing Karen and David, that had been necessary. Finding out that Ani should have been down there too, that was what had her mildly troubled. Ani was sick; even if she hadn't been down here the day before last, she should have been. She'd adopted the young woman, but she was a young woman. Ani didn't need her protection or sympathy. Carol assumed that she would understand why she'd killed her if Ani had been down here. There were children in the prison; Ani was all about protecting the kids and if her death meant saving them, she wouldn't hesitate. Carol kept telling herself that, rationalizing her choices and the implications they had regarding Ani.
A knock on the window brought Carol on out of her reverie as Lizzie appeared, "Ma'am?"
"Hey Lizzie," she said as she walked up to the window.
"They told me to come down here," Lizzie told her.
"Are you okay?" Carol asked, concerned for the girl who looked pale and weak. Lizzie just nodded her head, making Carol say, "Good. I wanted to see you because I'm going on a run with Rick."
"Do you think Daryl's dead?"
"No," Carol said definitively. "He had to go far away to get the medicine, so it's gonna take a while. And we lost all our food in cell block D, so we're gonna go look for more and whatever else we can find."
"Nobody's died since I've been in here," she commented. "Is Ani okay?"
"As far as I know. I haven't checked," she answered the girl.
"Why not?"
"She doesn't need me. You and Mika do."
"What about Sophia?"
"Same thing."
"I think a lot of people are going to die," Lizzie told her. "It's what always happens. Makes me sad...but, at least they get to come back."
"Lizzie, when they come back, the aren't—people aren't who they were."
"Yeah, but they're something. They're someone. I'm little now. If I don't die, I'll get big. I'll be me, but I'll be different. That's how it is," Lizzie reasoned. "We all change. We all don't get to stay the same way we started."
"Lizzie, it's more complicated-" Carol started.
"You said I was weak. I'm not," Lizzie cut her off. "I'm strong, so I'm telling you what I think."
"Remember what I told you to do when there's danger?" Carol asked her, not wanting to argue with the sick girl.
"Run as fast as I can."
"That's right. You run and run until you're safe. And if it's your life or your sister's life, you can't be afraid to kill. Understand?"
"Yes."
"You are strong, Lizzie. You're gonna live. You, your sister, and me? We're gonna survive. I know it," Carol told her. "Where's your knife? Put your t-shirt behind it. You gotta be able to get to it quickly."
"Yes, mom. I mean ma'am," Lizzie said.
"Don't call me mom," Carol told her, thinking about how many of her choices had nearly cost her the two that already called her mom and how neither needed her.
"It was an accident."
"Just don't."
"Okay."
"What is it?"
"I'm not afraid to kill. I'm just afraid."
"You can't be," Carol told her harshly.
"How?" Lizzie asked brokenly.
"You fight it and you fight it. And then one day, you just change," she said. "We all change."
She left the tombs and went out into the courtyard where Rick was waiting. He stayed quiet the entire time they were in the car, a feeling of foreboding coming to Carol the further they drove. In the end, the silence became uncomfortable, causing her to look around at the forest going by before speaking.
"Maggie wanted to come, you know," she told Rick.
"Someone had to stay back. Watch over things," he told her.
"Someone you trust, you mean." When Rick didn't answer, she began defending herself through explanation, "They would have drowned in their own blood. They were suffering. I made it quick. Ani would have done the same thing if she hadn't been sick herself." When he still didn't answer, she continued, "We needed the bodies gone. We needed to stop it from spreading. They were the only ones we knew were sick. They were a threat. I was trying to save lives. I had to try. Somebody had to."
"Maybe. Would you have killed Ani?" Rick asked her quietly.
"She'd've thanked me while I did it."
"No, I don't think she would. I don't think she'd agreed with just killin' them before they had a chance to try to recover. That's why she made the tonic, wasn't it? To give people a chance if they got sick? She thinks of you as a mother figure, and you'd do that to her?"
"I did what I have to to keep the others safe," was all Carol could say, knowing that wasn't the answer the man wanted.
They fell into silence again as they drove to a small suburb. It was a nice little community Glenn had told them about a week ago. Ani had been planning on making a run out here, but then everything happened at the prison, she and Glenn fell sick, and now it was Carol and Rick out here. There were a few large houses and what looked to be a greenhouse, so hopefully they'd get lucky enough to find some food and maybe even some medicine. As they rolled to a stop, they noticed the vehicle in front of them was unusually packed and clean for today's world.
Grabbing backpacks out of the trunk of their car, they carefully made their way to the vehicle and looked inside. "Think they're comin' back?" Carol asked him.
"Windshield's clean, wiped down," Rick told her. "Can't have been here more than a day, maybe two."
"You mean Daryl and the others," Carol said, looking at him. "That's what this is, right? In case they don't?"
Rick gave her a look as if she had already given up, "Until they do. That's what this is. Search through the medical cabinets and the first aide kits. Anything that could help Hershel. We get in, we get out. And if we can eat it, we take it."
They started walking towards the houses. The silence was deafening with how Rick barely spoke to her. Carol could understand it, though. She'd killed two people at the prison and now he didn't trust her. In her mind, she'd done nothing different than what Ani would do, but Rick did have a point that Ani had made all that medicine for just such an occasion. The tonic only worked so well, though, Lizzie telling her that several people were already coughing up blood. She didn't even know how Ani was fairing with it.
Walking into the first house, they moved silently, Rick checking the bathroom while Carol ruffled through the kitchen. They didn't find much, but something was better than nothing. Preparing to leave, they heard faint snarling coming from behind them, up the stairs. A walker made its way to the stairwell, falling and tumbling down the steps towards Carol, forcing Rick to grab her back. She quickly took out her knife and plunged it into the walker's head, not even thinking about it, just acting. The sound of a door being opened caused Rick to bring out and aim his Python up the stairs again.
A girl popped her head out, followed by a guy with an arm up in surrender saying, "Whoa, whoa. It's cool."
"We have fruit," the girl offered, holding the peaches in her hand out to the pair.
"Yeah, we got apricots, peaces. Here, catch," the man said, gently tossing a peach down to them. When the pair at the bottom just watched it roll down the stairs, the man chuckled and nervously said, "Or, you know, don't."
Carol and Rick could only stare at them, trying to figure out just what these two people were playing at. After a little while and some talking, they learned that the man was injured. Carol, having had some basic training by both Ani and Hershel, told him she could look at it. She sat him down in a chair in the kitchen and helped him take his outer shirt off. There was a deep purple bruise covering his shoulder with some scrapes and cuts.
As she carefully cleaned the wound, she asked him, "How'd this happen?"
"Greenhouse around the corner," he said, looking up at her from his seat.
"We were looking for a place to crash, the woman said from beside him. "The roof's broken now and it's been getting rain, so it's full of fruit. We were there for about a day and then the skin-eaters came."
"Killjoys, man," the man said through his pain. "Jackin' it up for the whole world. I thought everybody was an asshole before this all went down. Now I love people. You know, people who are alive."
"How did it happen?" Carol asked as she checked the bones themselves.
"When they were coming in through the door I tripped crawling out the other side. Pulled the glass out, but my shoulder—it still hurts like a bitch," he told her.
"It's dislocated," she said plainly.
"Can you fix it?" the woman asked.
Taking a breath and sighing, Carol told him to lie on his back while taking everything off the table. Telling him to hold his arm straight, she gave him a bag to hold onto as she moved his arm out to the side. All through his grunting and groaning and cries of pain, Carol kept telling him to just hold the back while she moved his arm slowly but surely upwards until a sickening popping sound was heard. She let him drop the bag then, helping him to sit up as the woman checked on him. Rolling his shoulder, they both smiled when he realized the pain had greatly subsided.
"It's gonna be sore for a few days," Carol told him.
"After the greenhouse, you came here?" Rick asked from behind Carol.
"Yeah," he answered. "We thought it was clear. We missed the deadie in the pjs, so we dove into the bathroom."
"Well, how long were you up there until we showed up?"
"Like, two days," the woman answered.
"There was just one and you have a gun," Carol said incredulously.
"We have about twelve bullets," the woman informed her while chuckling. "It usually takes us about five or six to bring one down."
"But you have knives," she said, still confused.
"To what? Stab it in the head?" the man asked.
"Yeah," she said as if it weren't the most obvious thing ever.
"We got separated from our crew about a week ago," the man informed them. "Been trying to play it safe with just the two of us."
"I have to with my leg," the woman said. "We were at a refugee center together. There was a fire. People were just trampling over me."
"Assholes," the man said, shaking his head before looking at the woman with devotion as she spoke about him.
"Sam saved my life. We didn't know each other before. It didn't heal right, but it healed. And we found each other. It was worth it."
"Where are you two heading next?" Rick asked.
"We just keep moving," Sam told him. "We haven't been waiting for places to go bad. I mean, it's getting a little old."
"You guys look alright. What's your setup like?" the woman asked.
"The 'skin-eaters.' We call 'em walkers. Though I'll give you fair warning, just agree with Ani when she says they're zombies," Rick told them contemplatively. "How many have you killed?"
In the end, the couple had killed only a handful of walkers between each other and no people. They'd run from people who wanted to cause problems, which was how they'd gotten separated from their group. Rick and Carol continued bagging and packing as much stuff as they could while the pair helped them as best they could, giving them more fruit as thanks for helping Sam with his shoulder.
As Carol grabbed a garbage back from the kitchen to the doorway, she said, "We've got about everything we can here. We should move on."
"So, did we pass your test?" Sam asked, making both Carol and Rick still in their movements.
Glancing at Carol before he answered, Rick stood from his crouching position and turned to Sam, "We're in a prison eight miles north. If you come back with us, we can't guarantee your safety. There's an illness, the flu. It's bad."
"We've lost a lot. Kids too," Carol told them.
"Yours?" the girl asked.
"No, thank God," Carol said flatly, thinking more about Lizzie and Mika than Sophia and Ani. "But one of my girls, she's got it."
"Two, two of your girls," Rick corrected, giving her a strange look.
"One," Carol restated, looking right back at him.
"I'm sorry."
"Lizzie's strong, she'll make it," Carol said flatly, earning a scoff from Rick, who just turned around.
"You got fences and walls?" Sam asked, trying to break the tension. Seeing Rick nod his head, Sam excitedly said, "We're in!"
"Yeah, whatever you need us to do," the woman told them.
"For now, sit tight," Rick told them. "With your leg and your shoulder, just stay here. The two of us will circle back for you before dark."
"Or you could help us sweep the rest of this neighborhood," Carol suggested.
"We can do that!" the woman jumped at the chance to prove herself. "I can check the greenhouse, see if it's clear and bring back more fruit."
"And I can hit some of the houses," Sam offered.
"That's nice of you to offer, but our other leader, she won't be too happy if she finds out I let an injured man and a hobbled woman help carry the load. She'd want you to rest up and stay safe-"
"Ani's not here and we could use the help," Carol cut him off.
"As long as I don't put too much weight on my shoulder," Sam reasoned.
"And I can still move pretty fast," said the woman.
"I just don't think-"
"We won't take any chance," Sam cut him off again. "We'll look. And if it's cake, we'll do it. If not, we'll just roll. I mean, you don't look so good yourself, man. Are you a righty or a lefty?"
Rick couldn't argue with that as his main hand was currently wrapped. Carol took the opportunity to point out, "We'll cover more ground. The sooner we get back..."
"You can't carry us, man. It doesn't work that way."
"Please, we want to help," the woman begged.
Rick looked around while chewing the inside of his lip before grabbing a couple pistols and handing them to the couple, "You fire a shot, we'll come running. Let's meet back here in two hours." Taking off his watch, he handed it to Sam, "You'll need this."
Walking out of the house with Carol, they moved on to the next one. Combing through the medical cabinets and nightstands, they were able to find quite a bit of medicine. It was Carol who was dismayed by their findings, all the medicine having been completely outdated.
"It's all outdated by at least a year," she complained to Rick.
"Better to take it. Let Hershel decide what he needs," he said, going silent for a moment before speaking again. "Did you think it was right? Letting those kids come back with us?"
"I think it was the humane thing to do," she replied.
"But did you think it was right?" Rick restated.
"Look at us," she said. "Digging through drawers, hoping that a couple of cough drops and some disinfectant might be the difference between dying and living a couple more hours. If they're strong enough to help us survive this, yeah, I think you made the right call."
"And if they're not?"
"Let's hope they are," she said plainly, turning on the man.
"Yeah," Rick said softly while turning away; all about hope with a couple of strangers but willing to kill the people she'd known for months.
"Rick, I killed two people and you've hardly said a word about it," Carol said, going over to stand in the doorway of the bathroom he was raiding.
"What do you want me to say?"
"It's not about what you say. It's about facing reality," she said harshly. "It always comes for us and over and over again we face it so that we can live."
"So that we can live," Rick emphasized.
"That's right," Carol said, completely missing Rick's point. "That's what it always comes down to. You can be a farmer, Rick. You can't just be a farmer." Rick just looked up at her with a smile that told her he was listening but internally rolling his eyes. "You were a good leader. Better than I probably gave you credit for."
"I never murdered two of our own, or confirmed the intent to kill more," Rick said in defense.
"Ani has."
"He was gonna kill her."
"So were they. They were gonna kill all of us," Carol defended.
"You don't know that."
"If you thought it would save Judith or Carl, would you have done it then or would you have just gone back to your crops and hoped it'd all be okay? You don't have to like what I did, Rick. I don't. You just have to accept it," she told him, crouching down at his level.
Rick didn't say anything as she turned away from him having said her piece. He still was having trouble believing that Carol would have killed Ani, that she actually believed Ani would be happy with her choice. Ani and Sophia thought of each other as sisters, confiding in each other and overall getting on as if they were. Merle had commented once about how they reminded him of Daryl and him with their ages and how Ani was always looking out for the girl while Sophia was always looking up to Ani. Thinking carefully about how to handle this situation, the options in front of him made him happy that Sophia had formed a closer family bond with others at the prison than she had even with her mother. Then again, he'd seen that coming since the farm.
They finished up in the house, managing to get several bottles of expired cold medicine and fever reducers as well as some canned goods. Spotting small vegetable patch outside, the pair left the house with backpacks full of their finds and walked behind the building. There were several different kinds of plants, ranging from tomato to cucumber and zucchini. As they walked up, Carol noticed a cluster of more buildings, thinking there might be more there.
"Let's hit the houses across the street," she said.
"Hold on," Rick told her as he knelt down and began picking the tomatoes. "How'd you put his shoulder back before? You learn that from Hershel?"
"Internet," she answered. "Easier than telling an ER nurse I'd fallen down the stairs a third time."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Don't be. Just fixed what needs fixin'." She paused for a moment before she shook her head, "I actually convinced myself I was happy with him. Which wasn't that hard to do considering my idea of happiness then was just not being alone. He was charming when he wanted to be, especially those mornings after he'd come home piss drunk and...Stupid. Could never protect Sophia, couldn't protect myself. I was stupid. I didn't think I could be strong. I didn't know I could be. That I already was."
"Why don't you count Ani and Sophia as your girls anymore?" he asked her.
"They don't need me. Ani. Sophia. They don't need me. And I don't need them like I thought I did. They're players in somebody's else's slideshow, not mine. I tried. I did, I tried. I tried pretending that everything was okay, that I was still the same, that I still felt the same. But I'm not. They're not. And they, they're just not my girls. My girls need me. They need what I can give them, the protection, the guidance, the things I could never give Sophia, I never gave Ani. Ani gave it to me and Sophia at the same time. It's like my daughter is on the same level with me. That's not something...I can't just stand by and pretend I can do anything more for her. Better to cut the cord now than have her disappointed in something I can't do anymore. They have each other, they don't need me."
"You can't seriously believe that," Rick told her.
"I do. It hurts, but I do. I've never been able to protect Sophia. The things her daddy tried to do, the things he did. Ani would have killed him in cold blood the moment he laid his hands on her. Me? I sat and cried in the corner. I knew the way he was headed and I couldn't do nothin' about it. I look at them, I see what should have been for my Sophia. But that's not my Sophia. That's Ani's, and Merle's. They built her up, they made her strong. She's not mine. Not anymore. Not for a long time," Carol said honestly, looking off into the distance.
Rick didn't know what to say, so he simply finished loading the vegetables into the bag in Carol's hand. Standing up, they began to walk around the garden to the other side of the building when something caught Rick's eye. A basket and a trail of fruit followed by a trail of blood lead to a fence. Opening it, they found the woman's severed leg, her body across the road being eaten by walkers.
"We should get back," Carol said from beside him, voice seemingly unaffected. "Sam's probably waiting."
They headed back to the house they'd agreed to meet the man at, but he was nowhere to be found. They waited for quite some time in silence, Rick tapping away at his gun. He knew they should have stayed in the house. He should have fought harder against Carol's encouragement. Heaving a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes as Carol spoke.
"It's been too long."
"We should give him a couple more," Rick said.
"He might be fine. He really might be. But it doesn't matter, because he's not here," Carol told him, leveling a stare, "and we have to go. It was a nice watch."
She began gathering the supplies and carrying them out to the car. Rick followed behind carrying the rest. Loading up the vehicle in silence, Carol went to open the passenger door after putting the last crate in the back, only to find it locked. Looking at Rick in confusion, he stood while giving her a hard stare.
"They might have lived," he said. "Karen and David, they might have lived. And now they're dead. That wasn't your decision to make. When Tyreese finds out, he'll kill you. He damn near killed me over nothing."
"I can handle Tyreese."
"The others, when they find out, they won't want you there. Ani and Sophia, they'll take it as a betrayal because Sasha wanted her down there too. Daryl. And if they don't make it back and if everybody dies with thing and it's just the two of us, with Judith and Carl, with my children. I won't have you there."
"Rick, it's me," Carol pleaded. "No one else has to know. I thought you were done making decisions."
"I'm making this decision for me. Me and Ani. I'm saving her from having to decide what to do with you, because that isn't something she can do. I'm doing it for me, to keep my children safe."
"I could have pretended that everything was gonna be fine," Carol said as she started crying. "But I didn't. I did something. I stepped up. I had to do something."
"No," Rick said. "You didn't."
"If you think I'm going anywhere without Lizzie and Mika-"
"You want them to leave? To go out there with you? Lizzie's sick. Mika is ten years old."
"You can't."
"We'll keep them safe. Ani will when she recovers. You know she will. You're not that woman who was too scared to be alone, not anymore. You're gonna start over, find others, people who don't know, and you're gonna survive out here. You will."
"Maybe," Carol said as Rick began removing her things as well as some of the rations and fuel.
He loaded it into the car Sam and the girl had been traveling in, letting her take their things as well. Right before she walked away, she handed Rick the watch Ed had given her on their first anniversary, saying she should have given it away long ago before turning and climbing into the car. Rick watched as she drove away in the opposite direction of the prison before climbing in his own and driving back towards the prison.
~x~
Daryl and Michonne were walking ahead of Bob and Tyreese down the forest trail when he spotted something on the ground. Bending down, he picked up a stone before he blew on it. Rubbing the dirt off with his fingers before he licked them and went back to rubbing, he was able to see what kind of stone it was and kept cleaning it.
"Is that jasper?" Michonne asked.
"Mmhmm," Daryl hummed.
"It's a good color. Brings out your eyes," she joked with him, smiling down at him as he crouched.
"When Mrs. Richards went into A block as we were leavin', she asked me to keep a look out," he explained. "I'm gonna use it for her old man's marker."
"You know all them back there?"
"You stay in one place more'n a couple hours, you'd be surprised what you pick up," he told her as he stood and continued walking. "'Sides, Ania's the one that really knows everyone. I just picked things up along the way."
They walked for a few hours, the trail eventually letting out at a road they could follow towards the small town. It couldn't have been more than a couple miles later that they found what looked to be a garage, covered in vines and fallen branches from the storm that had passed through. There was a downed tree leaning against the building, making it even harder to tell if there was anything inside. As Daryl passed a tangle of vines and branches, he thought he saw something and moved to get a better look.
"You see something?" Bob asked him.
"I don't know. Maybe," he answered, moving some of the branches aside. "Hey, give me a hand with this, would ya?"
He and Bob began pulling at the branches until the side of a minivan came into view. Bob and Tyreese continued pulling branches off of the vehicle after Daryl managed to get the passenger side door open. Climbing in, he began fiddling with the wires to no avail. Sighing, he threw the wires back behind him and climbed out of the car.
"We gotta find us a new battery," he informed the men working on clearing the vehicle off.
Looking behind him through a window of the building, he tried to see if he could find anything useful there. It was too dirty to see anything, so he spit in his hand and started rubbing it into the window. Daryl jumped as a walker slammed against the thing, bringing his hand back away from the window and taking a step back.
"We got some friends inside," he said. "Come on."
They walked around the building where the tree had fallen and began pulling and cutting at the branches. Tyreese was angry about it, and it showed in how violently he was swinging his hammer at the branches and leaves. Even as Daryl called out a warning, making it a point to tell him they didn't know what they were dealing with, Tyreese wouldn't let up, getting his blade stuck in the vines. He managed to get it out, a bit of wire tangled around the corner of it as the rest got back to work. Daryl continued watching the big man as he went back to wailing at the vines, only of a hand to come out of nowhere and grab a hold of him.
Rightfully, he started as the walker tried to get a firm grip, moving out of the way just as Michonne swung down with her sword. A walker came out at Bob as Daryl killed the one Michonne had helped him with making the woman move to him. Tyreese was pulling on something through the vines as Daryl finished up, Bob hollering for the big man as he fell back when Michonne decapitated the head of the walker trying to get him.
"Ty!" he yelled.
"Ty, let him go!" Michonne told him.
Even as she said it, he pulled until the walker fell out of the vines, sending them both to the ground. It fell on top of Tyreese causing the man to struggle for a moment before Daryl pulled it off of him. Bob walked up and shot it in the head, the three looking down at the man huffing on the ground. Daryl understood that he was angry over Karen and worried about Sasha, but he was going to get them killed acting like this.
"Why the hell didn't you let go?" Michonne asked him as Daryl helped him up.
Tyreese just stood there, not answering, just looking out at nothing. Daryl shook his head and pulled more branches and vines off the building, finding the door near where Tyreese had been working. The man was still out of it by the time they were able to enter the building. He and Bob walked in together, Daryl taking point and cautiously moving around the store as he held his flashlight high. Calling for Bob to follow him, he raised his crossbow to keep his sights in front of him where he shown his light. They slowly made their way into the store and through to the garage area.
"Here we go," he said, placing his bow and flashlight down momentarily as he found a new battery. Putting his flashlight in his mouth, he used his hunting to open the battery up.
"Cells look a little dry," Bob said.
"A little distilled water will clear that right up," Daryl told him before looking around for what he needed. Walking through to another section of the store, he stopped short noticing a trail on the ground. "That's puke," he stated as he shown his light around, finding an empty bottle of antifreeze. "Those douchebags in the vines?" he told Bob. "They took themselves out, holding hands—Kumbaya style."
"They wanted to go out together same as they lived. That make them douchebags? You know Ani'd do the same thing," Bob tried to reason.
"Naw, man, she'd fight tooth and nail against the dead 'til she died. That's how she'd go out," Daryl said. "These guys are douchebags 'cause they could have gotten out."
"Everybody makes it," Bob reasoned again, "'til they don't. People nowadays are dominoes. What they did, maybe it's about not having to watch them fall."
"Right," Daryl said with a roll of his eyes. "Come on."
They continued walking, Daryl picking up a gallon of distilled water along the way. He could hear the rasp of a walker, checking every aisle as he passed until he found it. It had been an older gentleman, probably the owner of the garage, now stuck underneath a pile of debris. Daryl walked away as Bob stood there looking at the pictures before he went over and finished the man off. Not having bothered to stop, Daryl grabbed the battery and left the building, heading back out to the van they'd found.
Daryl got to work changing out the battery and looking over the engine as he smoked a cigarette and talked to Bob, trying to keep his mind off of how Ania was doing. "You never told us about the group you were with before."
"Which one?" he asked. Daryl just looked at him before tilting his head with a shrug. "You know, when you and Ani found me out on that road, I almost kept walkin'."
"Why is that?" Daryl asked around his smoke as he poured the water into the battery cells.
"'Cause I was done bein' a witness. Two time, two different groups. I was the last one standing. Like I was supposed to see it happen over and over, like it's some kinda curse. But, when it's just you out there with the quiet...Used to be I'd drink a bottle of anything just so I could shut my eyes at night. Figured the prison, the people, thought it'd be easier. Talking to Ani made it easier a bit. The run to the big spot, I did it for me."
"You gotta keep busy," Daryl rationalized as he took a drink of water from the jug.
"No," Bob denied. "I did it so I could get me a bottle. Of anything. I picked it up, I held it in my hand. And I put it down. I put it down so hard it took the whole damn shelf with it. That's what brought on the walkers, and that's what got Zack killed."
Daryl stared at him for a good hard minute, trying to figure out what to make of the new information before saying, "That's bullshit. Why don't you get in there and try the engine? It's the red and green wire. Go on. It ain't rocket science." Bob looked at him before taking a drag from his own cigarette and walking to the driver's side door. "Give it some gas," Daryl told him as he worked on the engine.
Bob opened the driver's side door, hitting the wires and hitting the gas pedal a couple times. The engine roared to life, Daryl raising his hands in an odd victory celebration on something going their way for a change on this damned run. Turning behind him, he whistled at Tyreese and Michonne before shutting the hood of the van. He moved around to talk to Bob once again.
"You know, Sasha, Ania and me, we picked that spot. We took you with us. There's no way anyone coulda known," he told the man, trying to ease his guilt. "You ain't gonna be standin' alone, not no more. Let's go."
They pulled out of the lot and away from the building, leaving the dead battery as well as four used tires on the side of the road after loading up all the stuff they scavenged from the garage. Daryl had Bob pull over on the outskirts of the town the college was located at, not wanting to risk getting caught in a herd and losing another vehicle, let alone the supplies. The quartet headed out on foot, thankfully not finding many walkers along the way. Daryl and Michonne easily dealt with the threat as they moved along, making it into an area where tall brick buildings loomed.
"Looks like we're gettin' closer," Daryl commented upon seeing what looked to be dorms.
"The building we want is just up ahead," Tyreese informed him.
Daryl let Tyreese take the lead as he wasn't sure where he was going. He'd never been to college, let alone on a college campus, so the layout of the area was completely foreign. Either Tyreese knew the building needed before the change happened, or Hershel had given the man more explicit directions. To be fair, Daryl hadn't been paying much attention when Hershel came out with the man and Michonne to tell them what building they needed. He'd been too busy staring at the guard tower and hoping Ania would make it until they got back. The last thing he'd expected was to lose a night thanks to a herd. Daryl couldn't admit it to the others for Tyreese's sake, but he was just as angry about it as the bigger man.
When they finally got to the building, Daryl took point again, Tyreese following along behind and pointing him in the right direction. As quietly as they could, they ran through the rooms until they got to the lab they needed to. Taking the paper out of his pocket, he looked at the list of medicines written on it before simply crumpling it and tossing it on the floor.
"Alright, let's make this quick," he said.
Everyone got to work grabbing any and all medicines they could as they moved along. Continuing from one room to the next, they found several cabinets full of medicine bottles. Each of them took place in front of a different cabinet, riffling through it until while looking for what they needed.
"Anything ending with -cillin or -cin, C-I-N, grab it," Bob said told Michonne as they packed medicine into her bag. "We'll dissolve the pills in the IVs, put 'em right into the bloodstream. Dosage will be tricky, but considering the time we lost...How'd you do?" he asked Tyreese as he and Daryl came back in with bags of their own full.
"Bags, tubes, clamps, connectors," Tyreese counted out. "Everything on the list."
"What about y'all?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah, we got it all," Bob said.
"Includin' stuff for those allergic to, uh, that -cillin shit," Daryl asked.
"Penicillin?" Bob asked. "Yeah, got plenty. Anything ending in -cin should do the trick. For Ani?"
"Yeah."
"We're good," Michonne said after doing one last double check on the cabinets.
"Alright, let's roll," Daryl said as he grabbed his bag and his crossbow and headed towards the door.
They headed down the hallway and tried to get out of the school without being noticed, but it didn't work very well as they passed a door that had been busted down. The light Daryl was shining so they could see attracted the walkers inside, pushing them to go faster, even as they had to move carefully with the supplies. They ran around a corner through a door as the walkers began coming out of the room after them. It landed them in an even darker room filled with empty wire cages.
"Hey, the door's busted," Bob shouted in a whisper.
"Okay, hold up," Daryl said as he went to help him.
Daryl held the door shut as the walkers got closer, allowing Bob the ability to shift some of the metal cages in front of the door to block it. Michonne led the way through the room, trying to find an alternative exit. They found a walker instead, the thing jumping out at Tyreese before he was able to smash it in the head with his hammer. Continuing on, a chained door with a heavy lock met them. Michonne was considering breaking it when it pushed inwards, the fingers of the dead trying to get at them through the small crack. Daryl shown his light through, trying to get a count, but it was impossible to do so.
"We can take 'em," Tyreese said as the walkers at the other end began to break through the door and cage barricade.
"No!" Bob denied. "They're infected. Same as at the prison. We fire at 'em, get their blood on us, breathe it in. We didn't come all this way to get sick now!"
"How do we know the ones in there aren't any different?" he countered.
"We don't," Michonne stated.
"Well, it's gotta change sometime," Daryl said, not willing to give up or get trapped when Ania still needed the medicine. Breaking a piece of metal off some wood, Daryl used that as leverage against the lock and chain while the others prepared. "Ready?"
"Let's do it!" Tyreese said.
He broke the lock open, releasing the chain as the doors flew open at the sheer force of the walkers behind it. Ducking out of the way and grabbing his bags and crossbow back from Tyreese, he watched as Bob shot one walker and Michonne beheaded two more. Thankfully, they were the only walkers so far in the corridor as they ran down it, more and more infected walkers coming up behind them. They ran up the stairs as quickly as they could, though Daryl had no idea where he was leading them. He just knew he needed to get them out.
Running out of the stairwell on the next floor, Daryl started down one end of the hall only for walkers to round the corner. Michonne went the other way, leading the men while taking out the walkers that came out of the rooms ahead of them. Bob was frantically dropping everything in the hallway onto the floor as the infected walkers mingled with the uninfected while chasing after them. Michonne tried to open a door, only to find it completely locked.
"We have no exit!" she said as Daryl began kicking at the door with all his might.
When it didn't bulge, he simply jumped up onto the tall windowsill shouting, "Then we make one!"
He was checking for a way to open the window when Tyreese yelled at him to get down. That was all the warning he had to turn his back and cover his head as the man launched a fire extinguisher right through the window. Tyreese helped Michonne up onto the sill as Daryl told her to jump on the walkway below, turning to help Tyreese up before jumping out himself, followed by Bob. Bob jumped a little too hard, falling out the window and rolling onto the walkway, his bag almost falling to the ground below. He managed to keep a hold of it, but it was immediately swarmed by the walkers. Bob fought to keep a hold of the bag even as the others fought to help him up. Tyreese and Michonne urged him to let the bag go, but he kept fighting for it.
"Just let the damn bag go, man!" Daryl yelled at him as he, Michonne, and Tyreese pulled.
Together, they managed to pull the man up. The bag went flying from his grip as he was sat up, falling to the ground with a clink. Their bags rattled with the sound of plastic and clinking of metal every step they took. This, this was glass. Even as the walkers surrounded them below, Daryl couldn't help but stalk over to the bag. He wasn't the only one looking at the man pissed all to hell as he spoke after bending down and picking up the bottle of liquor.
"You got no meds in your bag? Just this?" he asked as his anger boiled. "You should have kept walking that day," he growled, getting ready to launch the bottle from the roof.
"Don't," Bob said, unclipping his holster and preparing to draw his gun.
Tyreese couldn't believe what he was seeing as Bob just stood there, looking down in shame. Michonne was similarly disgusted by Bob's actions. Daryl, however, was pissed. Ania had brought this man in, taken pity on him, and now, instead of the medicine he was supposed to be getting, his bag had liquor in it. Stalking up to the man, he literally went nose to nose with him, pushing his forehead against Bob's and rounding to his full height. Daryl wasn't a pushover, never had been except for Merle, and right now he was showing that fact. The air of dominance that surrounded him as he stared Bob down, the amount of force in his movements making the man take a couple steps back. It all allowed for the anger inside of him to surface and show Bob exactly what Daryl was holding back. Tyreese looked at Michonne, wondering if he should stop Daryl, but she made no movement herself. Daryl took Bob's gun away as the man looked down in shame. He pushed his head back against his, trying to force Bob to look at him, but the man refused. When he wouldn't even look at him after Daryl'd grabbed his vest, Daryl was about to push him off the roof.
Tyreese must have noticed Daryl's darkening mood, because he called out, "Just let it go, Daryl. The man's made his choice. There's nothin' you can do about it. You just gotta let it go. We gotta get back to Ani and Sasha."
"I didn't want to hurt nobody," Bob said as he shook his head. "It was just for when it gets quiet."
Daryl stalked up to him and forcefully shoved the bottle into his chest, "Take one sip before those meds get into our people, get into Ania, and I will beat your ass into the ground. You hear me?"
He pushed the man a little to make his point before making his way back over to where he dropped his crossbow. He couldn't even bring himself to stop or slow down as they made their way off the roof and out of the town. It wasn't until they got back to the van that he bothered to stop. Sitting in the passenger's seat, he stared at the piece of jasper he'd picked up earlier in the day. Daryl listened to Tyreese and Michonne discuss how they were going to get back before they all loaded into the vehicle.
"You were right what you said before," Michonne said as she climbed into the driver's seat and started up the vehicle. "About the trail going cold. I don't need to go out anymore."
"Good," he said as he slammed the door shut, pissed to hell and hoping and praying Ania was holding up for him.
~x~
A knock on the door woke Merle up in the morning. Opening it, he found Sophia and Carl standing there with a jar of deep reddish purple liquid and a cooked rabbit. He meant to take the stuff from them, but they just let themselves in as Ani started coughing herself awake. Merle tried to get them to leave, but neither teen was having it.
"We were already exposed," Carl told him. "I hugged my dad after the attack on D block. And we were both around Patrick the day he got sick. If we were gonna get it, we'd have it."
"Just like you, Pops," Sophia added. "Please? At least here we feel like equals. Besides, I'm sure you'd enjoy the company since Ani's just sleepin' most of the time."
"Ya kids shouldn' be in 'ere," Ani said as she worked herself into sitting up. "Even if ya been exposed, ya shouldn' be idiots like the Dixons."
"Well, I'm going on watch later," Carl said. "Dad and Carol are going on a run to see what they can get, so Maggie, Sophia, and I are all that's left that's not sick."
"Damn, afta the cell block, we only had maybe twenny people left. How many we lost since?"
"Dunno," Sophia said. "The adults haven't really told us much. Momma has been more worried about Lizzie and Mika than anything else. I don't even think she knows I've been out hunting."
"By yaself?"
"No, I went with her," Carl said. "Can't go alone, but there really isn't anyone else to help, so..."
"Nah, that's fine. Ya helpin' when we need all the help we can get. Nothin' wrong with that," she said as Merle took the rabbit from Carl and tore it into pieces, handing some to each of them before taking a piece himself. "Ya clean and cook it yaself?" she asked Sophia.
"Nope! Carl and I came to an agreement," Sophia said. "I really don't like the blood, and he don't wanna kill Bambi, so he cleans and I hunt!"
"Really now? That's pretty awesome, but ya got somethin' wrong, sweets," Ani said, something her papa had once told her popping into her head.
"What's that?" Sophia asked, honestly wondering what she got wrong.
"Ya don' shoot Bambi; ya shoot Bambi's mama."
"Oh, now that's the truth!" Merle laughed. "Which one of you cooked it?"
"Both," the kids said at the same time, looking at each other and cracking a smile.
"Carl started it, but I didn't think it was done enough when he did," Sophia told them. "Oh! And drink some of the elderberry tea Hershel made. We saw Maggie before we came here and she says that Sasha and Glenn are doing a little better, up and walking around."
"Alright. Hand it ova," Ani said, gladly taking a drink straight from the jar. "Gods, wish me tonic tasted like this. Not the greatest, but at least it's not bitta."
"You're tellin' me!" Merle said. "Carl's prolly growin' chest hair drinkin' that stuff."
"Shut up!" Carl said in protest, his face going red with embarrassment.
"Jus' an old wives' tale anyways, Carl, don' worry 'bout it none."
Ani ate the half the piece of rabbit Merle had handed her and drank a quarter of the tea before she stopped. She'd barely been able to keep anything down because of the coughing, so she didn't want to risk putting too much in her stomach just to throw it back up. It didn't help that the elderberry tea was similar to the color of blood, so no matter how much she tried to explain that to Merle, he'd turn into papa bear and hover like he had before. After propping up the pillows, she leaned back and listened to the trio talk. Although she was still coughing a lot, she managed to stay awake for quite some time watching the trio in front of her.
It was mid-afternoon when she finally succumbed to sleep after another dose of tonic. She was still sleeping when Rick came back without Carol. Merle told Sophia to stay put, Carl having left to go on watch, and headed up to the courtyard to find out what happened. He wasn't looking forward to having to tell Ani and Sophia that Carol was dead. He was met by Maggie, who informed him what had happened. Rick exiled Carol for killing Karen and David without remorse. Even though Merle had already figured it out, hearing what he'd been suspecting was like a punch to the gut. The woman really would have killed Ani, he thought to himself as he headed back towards the tower.
"Is everything alright?" Sophia asked as she wiped Ani's forehead of sweat.
"Yeah, girly. Everythin's gonna be okay," Merle told her, unable to bring the words out of his mouth.
He decided then and there that Rick was going to tell these two himself. He also decided to take it upon himself to look after Sophia. She called him her Pops, had the same amount of respect and reverence for him Ani had when she talked about her papa, and was overall a good kid. She'd been dealt almost as shit a hand as Ani had, which, according to Ani, was why Carol had taken to the sweet and innocent Lizzie and Mika lately over Sophia. Sophia reminded Carol of how she failed in her duties as a mother while Mika and Lizzie were a second chance to get it right. And Ani, poor Ani, she was caught right in between being a reminder of what she failed at as well as a glimpse at what she could have been. She herself didn't see it that way, but Merle figured it out pretty quickly as Ani described why Carol was leaving Sophia alone with them more and more. Well, if Carol could take kids under her wing as second chances at motherhood, Merle could take Sophia under his as a form of redemption for all the bad shit he'd done in his life. Besides, Ani wouldn't let the little girl leave her side once she found out about Carol.