AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"I've been here since the beginning," Alice said. "I mean since the beginning, beginning. Right here. I flew up here maybe six days after the first reports. Before it even started hitting the news. I came with some volunteers and we didn't know what we were dealing with, really. A viral outbreak. Something, you know, something that nobody knew what to do yet, but…we were here. And things were—they seemed stable for a bit; you know? Just—it looked like we might get somewhere. Get the thing under control. That was before we knew how really just how big it was. Everything just sort of spiraled out of control and it just went downhill quickly. I was one of the volunteers that—imagine it was like standing in front of a burning gas truck. You know those big ass tankers? It was like one of those just burning in the woods on the side of the highway and the fire's just so hot and it just keeps growing and…and basically we're all over there trying to put it out with fifty-cent water pistols from the Dollar Tree."
What their silent gate-keeper lacked in words, their dining companion made up for ten-fold. She was the kind of talker that you could just wind up, let go, and sit back and watch what happened. Daryl liked that kind of talker, really. They could be exhausting when he wanted silence, but when he wanted background noise, they were the best kinds of people to be around. They required truly minimal feedback to provide hours of entertainment and, in this case, more than a little valuable information.
Carol was on her second bowl of stew and possibly her fifth piece of bread. Daryl's greatest amazement was that so much food was managing to fit in a body that he thought of as relatively small—all things considered. She was truly happy with the food, though, and Alice had already brought over a plate with cookies on it that sat as a promise that Carol could have them for dessert—but only after she'd finished absolutely all the stew and bread that her heart desired.
Carol, it seemed, was taking all-you-can-eat to the most literal point that she possibly could.
The stew wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as the stew that Carol made for them, but it was stew that she didn't have to cook and Daryl imagined that might add a layer of seasoning to it that he couldn't quite taste in the same way that Carol could. The bread was pretty damn amazing, and the only thing that kept Daryl from really tearing into the basket full of bread was the fact that he didn't want to feel that he'd taken even a mouthful that Carol might want.
T-Dog, too, was eating, and they were all listening to Alice talk with the same interest that any of them might have paid to their favorite over-dinner television show in a world long gone.
She'd been fairly easy to get going with a few general questions, and now she was handling things herself as long as nobody objected to where she wanted to take the story.
Daryl had learned that the woman in front of Carol was a doctor. A surgeon. By her own admission, she hadn't been as good of a surgeon as she would have liked to be, but the whole dead inheriting the world situation had had drastic effects on her training and practice. Now she was, from what he could tell, a jack of all medical trades.
There were worst people to have in your community than a medical person of any kind, and Daryl could imagine that her skills bought her plenty of patience with her rambling.
He'd learned more than a few other things, too, that he was storing away for when he felt the time was right to direct the conversation toward things he wanted to know.
Directing it wasn't hard, after all, as long as she was in the mood to be swayed in one direction or another.
"Your leader," Daryl said.
It was enough of a nudge that he didn't even need to ask anything about the leader. Instead, he simply pushed the plate of cookies toward Carol since she looked like she was slowing down on the stew.
"Let me tell you," Alice said, taking the bait immediately, "we've been through some leaders here."
"They don't last?" T-Dog asked.
"Never," Alice said. "Well, not really."
"What happens to them?" T-Dog asked.
"Well we don't eat them, if that's what you mean," Alice said with a laugh. She poured herself a glass of water from the jug and drank half of it before she started speaking again. "This one—he's good. I mean since I've been here which, I mean I've been here since the beginning, but since I've been here? There's been like ten leaders, maybe. Maybe more. But you know there's usually more than one screw rattling around loose in that coffee can if they come into a community and they just immediately start bossing everybody around. It's a personality that's going to start doing that. A certain personality. And those personalities are just…they're just…"
"Toxic," T-Dog offered.
It had the same effect as bumping a record player if the record got stuck. Alice looked pleased. She smiled sincerely at T-Dog and nodded her head.
"Toxic," Alice said. "Absolutely fucking toxic. They always create some drama that causes their downfall."
"That sounds a little dramatic," T-Dog said. "Downfall?"
"Shakespearean, really," Alice said. "Starting fights with people when there didn't need to be a fight. Getting too cocky about the Dead. Driving the group to split or breakdown. Even suicide because—well because we're all a little cracked at this point."
"If you're alive, you're a little cracked," T-Dog agreed with a snort.
"But the new guy," Daryl said.
He was pleased. He didn't have to finish the statement. She grabbed onto it.
"I thought he was going to be the same, honestly," Alice said. "Maybe worse. He came in here and he laid low for a few days. Hardly said anything to anyone. You know the type—quiet. Secretive. He just sat back like he was watching it all and taking it all in. At the time the leader was—well, he was really cracked. He started getting some ideas that people didn't like, but it takes time to figure out how you're going to get rid of them. You know? It didn't take the new guy time to figure it out, though. He just—killed him."
"This guy killed your leader, so you made him your leader?" Carol asked.
"It sounds bad," Alice said. "I admit it. I get it. And if I were you…but if you knew—killing him was the best thing for everyone. It was the best thing for him. I mean—I don't promote killing people. I do the opposite like…my job is to keep you from getting killed. I literally try to keep everyone from dying. But he was so cracked that…like he was going to take himself and half the fucking rest of us with him when he went. He was violent sometimes. Handsy for no reason at all. He thought that quiet meant passive, I guess. Made a pass at his wife that it was like a serious pass—but it wasn't like he wasn't doing it every day. To most of the women around here. But she turned him down and he kinda lost his mind and beat her up a bit."
"So, the new leader killed him and took his place," T-Dog said.
"He saw what he'd done to her and he stabbed him through the eye. No hesitation. Right into his brain. Right out there. Right—right in the middle of the common lawn. Nobody knew what to do. And when he was done, he was just like I'm not going to say I'm sorry. Because I'm not sorry—and he wasn't sorry."
"Good on him," Daryl commented. He realized he had more than one set of eyes suddenly burning into him. "What? I'm not sayin' you should go around stabbin' people in the eye. But—if he don't know how to act, and it sounds like he didn't know how to act, then good on him for not just sittin' back an' lettin' him fuck up his wife."
Alice stared at him, flicked her eyes to Carol, and then returned her stare to Daryl before she resumed her conversation.
"Well, this leader is a good leader, really. All things considered. I mean—there's definitely a whole bunch of screws loose—I mean he can be crazy and he's a real fucking asshole when he wants to be, but he's turned a lot of shit around, around here. The extra fences, the guards. And he's fair. We're an all-contributive group. Every single body here contributes something. Maybe what you contribute and what I contribute is different, because we're different, but everyone contributes something. And if you don't contribute? If you think you're getting carried—you're out the gates."
"What if you don't have anything to contribute?" T-Dog asked.
Alice blinked at him.
"You honestly believe there's a person alive today that has nothing to contribute?" Alice asked.
"Babies," T-Dog said. "They take but like—they don't give much. They can't do much of anything."
"New generation," Alice said. "Literally the building blocks of the future or whatever and…I mean we're not putting babies outside the fences. Jesus—we're not animals. In fact, we only have one baby so far. Not of the others—well, none of the others that have come in have made it. We've seen some mothers come in in some pretty poor condition. I tried but, I couldn't turn it around most of the time. Too far gone. But—we're hopeful. We're doing good now. We can start to really look toward the future. But everyone else? I mean little babies and kids and all aside? They can contribute. Even Ronnie—he had a massive stroke. Fucking massive stroke. I mean the fact that the man's alive is some kind of modern miracle. Ronnie washes vegetables when he wants to be outside. He—sits in his chair and he waters plants. He washes dishes. Ronnie is an important, integral part of our society—and we couldn't do what we do without him."
"That's all good and poetic," T-Dog said. "But what about the people that are just flat crazy? The ones that think they're above the common law or whatever?"
Alice laughed to herself. She leaned on her elbow on the table and smirked at T-Dog.
"Did you miss the part where I said—where I said that our leader stabbed a man to death in the middle of our common space? We haven't had anyone buck whatever we're calling the common-law around here in the couple of months since he took over."
"Because they're terrified?" T-Dog asked.
"Look—for most people, it's the idea of keeping what's good, good, that keeps them in line," Alice said. "You eat good food. You eat until you're full. You sleep well. You wake up without the Dead standing over you. You play where its safe. For some of us, this is the first taste of halfway fucking normal that we've had in…it's been a while. If it's fear of a brutal death that keeps the rest in line, so be it."
T-Dog laughed.
"You say that as a doctor?" He asked.
"I say that as a human being," Alice offered, swallowing down the rest of the tumbler of water that she'd poured for herself.
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"Michonne," T-Dog said, keeping close to the quiet woman. She'd sheathed her sword for the job of escorting them to the leader's private home, but Daryl got the feeling that it wouldn't take much to get her to pull it out again. "That's an interesting name. Is there a story behind it?"
"I'm sure it's not half as interesting as the story behind something as ridiculous as T-Dog," the woman muttered.
Daryl didn't even bother to swallow down his laughter.
"You know, T," Daryl offered, "if you was to go back to the mess hall or whatever? I bet that Alice'd find you some ice for that."
"Asshole," T-Dog muttered.
The woman, though, for as silent as she normally was and as seemingly cut off from them as she appeared to be, laughed. It was quiet, and it was reserved, but it was laughter nonetheless.
"So, what'd your leader say?" Carol asked. "About us?"
"He said he would see you, even though it's late," Michonne said. "What else is there for him to say?"
"What'd you tell him about us?" T-Dog asked.
"I said there was a pregnant woman and her husband," Michonne said. "And their friend with a silly name."
"It's short, you know?" T-Dog said.
"Are we still talking about your name?" Michonne asked.
Daryl laughed, but T-Dog shot him something of a warning look.
"It's what everybody calls me," T-Dog said. "Called me. Except my mama. If you—want to be nice about it, though, I might tell you what it's short for."
"It's fine," Michonne responded, "I'm not really that concerned."
Daryl stepped back to fall in step with T-Dog, and he leaned into him so that nobody else would overhear them.
"It's OK, man," he said. "You're doin' great."
"Shut up, asshole," T-Dog bit back.
"No, really. You got her talkin'. Just—maybe you work now on gettin' her not to roast your ass."
Carol engaged the woman, though, to get information she wanted and, perhaps, to save T-Dog from himself.
"What will happen? After we talk to him?" Carol asked. "If he—wants us to stay?"
"Then we'll find you somewhere to stay for the night," Michonne said. "Because it's late and most people are sleeping or getting ready to sleep. We start work early in the morning if you're not on night guard. And then, tomorrow, we'll figure something more permanent out."
"Do we get like—one of these cabins?" Daryl asked.
"Tomorrow we'll figure something more permanent out," Michonne said. It was clear she didn't want to say anymore on the matter.
She mounted the steps of a cabin, then, and Daryl assumed it was the one where their leader must reside. Carol followed Michonne, and Daryl and T-Dog followed close behind until they were all crowded onto the porch.
Michonne reached her hand up and knocked heavily at the wooden door. There was a faint glow of light from behind the curtains that covered the windows. Daryl heard some thumping around beyond the door. Someone was awake. He was expecting them, of course. He'd had plenty of warning that they were coming while they'd been eating.
"It's Michonne," Michonne offered, even though nobody had asked her for her name. "I brought them. The woman and her husband and…their friend."
"I hope to hell you're not wastin' my time at this hour, Michonne," the leader said, even as the door swung open.
Suddenly the stew in Daryl's stomach didn't sit as well as it had, and someone had knocked the air out of him—or so it felt—with a two-by-four. For a moment, he felt entirely outside of himself. He felt entirely outside of the moment. There was no way that it could be real.
"What the hell?" T-Dog said, each word sounding to Daryl like it came out in slow motion.
Daryl already knew the leader's name as well as he knew his own. In some butchered form of baby talk, he'd been told that it had been the first word he'd ever muttered on Earth.
"What the hell indeed," Merle mused, looking no less than staggered.
"Merle…" Daryl stammered out, though he wasn't able to add any more to the thought.
"Is there some kind of problem?" A voice carried from inside the house. The leader had a wife, of course. Daryl had heard it, himself, even if his mind was having trouble making sense of it. "Do you need some help?" The voice grew a little louder. Maybe a touch more frantic or concerned.
"Don't'cha rush or nothin'!" Merle called out. "It ain't no hurry, Sugar. But…" He stopped and laughed to himself. "Andrea? You might wanna come on down. There's some shit you just gotta see for yourself."