This Night

Chapter 219

Author's Note: Hi again! So, I'm in denial from last nights episode. And, seriously this is just ironic that this is a chapter that was coming up next. Don't hate me, please review?

Carl, Rick and Lexi POV:

Lexi walked outside with Rick and down the steps. "It's out back," she told Rick. "Carl, your dad is back," she called to him. "He's been out here since he found it, trying to figure it out," she informed him. "Figuring things out, must run in the Grimes family," she said with a smirk.

Rick shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, I guess it does," he said as he agreed with her. "Carl, we found food, lots of it," he told his son. "Lexi said that you wanted to show me something."

Carl nodded at the window. "Those scratches, they're deep, like knives or something. Someone was trying to get in," he told his father.

Rick looked at them then the scratches.

"I found something else," Carl told him as they moved over to the words 'you'll burn in hell for this.'

Lexi looked at Rick as he touched the words. "I thought maybe he could be working with the people from Terminus."

Rick shook his head. "He's to much of a coward for that," he told her.

Lexi shook her head. "Carl said almost the same thing."

Carl looked at his father. "I don't know what happened, but whatever it is, we can handle it. Doesn't mean Gabriel is a bad guy for sure, but it means something," he told them.

Lexi looked at them. "We should go inside, get some food," she told them. "Abe, Rosita, Axel, come on, we've got food inside. Don't know how long it's been since you all had a decent meal or a feast but it's been a while for me, so last one in is a rotten egg!" she called after them.

Rosita put down her tool and took after her. "Cheater!" she called after her as she took off after her.

Group POV:

Jewel adjusted Hope under the blanket to nurse her as she leaned against Rick's shoulder as he was holding Judith. "Have to admit, I'm really wanting a glass of wine," she told Rick softly.

"Want me to put mine away?" Rick asked as he kissed the top of her head.

"No, told you before I'm not bothered by you drinking," Jewel assured him as Judith held out her hand to give Rick a bite of food.

"Yum, give me," Rick told Judith. "How about mommy does she get some?"

"Oh, that looks delicious, thank you Judith. Yum!" Jewel told Judith as Michonne sat next to her. "I never thought cold baked beans and spaghetti would be a feast."

"Let's not forget mini hotdogs," Summer said as she sat down on a pew next to Joey.

Everyone laughed as Abe stood up. "I'd like to propose a toast. I look around this room and I see survivors. Each and everyone of you have earned that title," he told them. He held up his glass. "To the survivors."

"Survivors," the group echoed as they held up there glasses.

Jewel smiled at Ronnie as she took a drink of her water. Ronnie smiled back.

"Is that all you want to be? Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat? Cause you can do that. I mean you got the strength, you got the skill. Thing is for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now we get Eugene to Washington and he'll make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that's not a bad takeaway for a little road trip," Abraham informed them as Judith cooed.

Jes looked around at the members of the group and noticed they were waiting for him to continue. She decided to hear him out.

"Eugene what's in DC?" Abraham questioned.

"Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude," Eugene answered. "That means food, fuel and refuge. Restart," he continued.

"However this plays out, however long it takes for the reset button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer then you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us," Abraham told them as he looked at Rick and Jewel. "Save it for those little ones. Save it for yourselves, save it for the people out there who don't got nothing left to do except survive," he pleaded.

The group was quiet as they looked around at each other, none of them saying a word. Rick looked at Jewel and gave a smile just as Judith cooed. "What's that?" he asked. "I think she knows what I'm about to say," he said with a grin. "She's in. If she's in, I'm in," he said with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Tyresse said as others clap.

Jewel stopped nursing Hope and kissed the top of her head. "We're in," she said as she went to burp her.

"Give me that baby," Michonne said as she went to take her.

"Let's do it," Rick said as the others clapped. He got up to put Judith down and extended his hand to help Jewel stand up.

"I'm goin' to take a walk around the perimeter, check things out for the night," Merle told Rick.

"I'll go with you," Jewel offered. She sighed as she looked between the two men. "Just a quick perimeter check, and Merle is with me. It's good to stretch my legs," she pointed out.

Rick arched an eyebrow as he looked at Merle. "You'll watch out for her," he told Merle.

"Don't even have to ask," Merle told him. "We'll be back in no time," he said as he looked to see Bob walking out the door. "Come on, just want to check out back. Bob, you want to join us?" he asked as he got to the door.

"Na, just need a minute to myself," Bob told them.

"Don't stay out to long," Jewel told him as her and Merle walked in the other direction.

Jewel and Merle's POV:

Jewel glanced back over her shoulder to where they left Bob. "Maybe we shouldn't have left him, it's not safe being out here alone."

"Man's got something' on his mind, he's not that far from the church, we'll pick him up on our way back," Merle told her. "Seems like Officer Friendly made the decision for the whole group," he commented.

"Didn't hear you offering up your opinion in the matter," Jewel told him. "If you disagreed, you should have said something."

Merle shrugged. "Wouldn't have made much of a difference, people respect Officer Friendly's word," he pointed out.

Jewel hit his shoulder with hers. "Hey, people listen to you. You aren't the same prick you were on that rooftop in Atlanta," she said as she heard a noise. "Did you hear that?"

"Coming from the shed," Merle told her. "Stay outside cover me," he told her.

Jewel arched an eyebrow. "Or a better idea is to turn around and go back to the church. Didn't Gabriel say that he kept that locked?"

Merle glanced at her. "I broke the lock," he said. "Just stay outside the door."

Jewel shook her head. "No, you go in, I go in. That's how it works," she said as he opened the door.

"You never did listen, you know that right?" Merle questioned as he went in.

Jewel smirked at him. "You usually never said anything worthwhile for me to listen to," she said as she felt a gun to her head.

"Maybe this time you should have listened," a male's voice said as he grabbed her around the neck. "Now, if you don't want your sisters' brains all over the place, you're going to throw all your weapons down, including that arm," he said.

Merle looked at Jewel then at him. "I take it you're one of the Terminus ass holes," he said as he threw down his weapons. "You don't have to do this, you can let her go, do whatever you want to me, but she's got a newborn that she needs to take care of."

"Oh I'm quite aware that she does. You want to tell your brother here how you killed my daughter?" Grayson asked. "Sorry, but your sister and I have some unfinished business to take care of," he said as he used his weapon to knock Merle out. "Now, where were we?" Grayson asked as he punched Jewel causing her to get to her knees.

Bob's POV:

Bob took a breath as he woke up, being disoriented.

"You waking up? Ah, you're back with us, huh? Good news is... you're not dead yet. That's a relief, right? But try not to read too much into the word yet there. It'll just drive you crazy, Bob. I want to explain myself a little," Gareth told him. "You see, we didn't want to hurt you... before. We didn't want to pull you away from your group or scare you. These aren't things that we want to do. They're things we got to do. You and your people took away our home," he explained to Bob as he looked around. "That's fair play. Now we're out here like everybody else trying to survive. And in order to do that, we have to hunt. Didn't start that way, eating people. It evolved into that, we evolved. We had to. And now we've devolved into hunters. I told you, I said it. Can't go back, Bob. I just hope you understand that nothing happening to you now is personal. Yeah, you put us in this situation and it is almost kind of a cosmic justice for it to be you, but... we would have done this to anybody. We will. But at the end of the day, no matter how much we hate all this ugly business... a man's got to eat. If it makes you feel any better... you taste much better than we thought you would," he hissed as he took a bite out of meat.

Bob looked down and started breathing heavy as he noticed his leg was gone as walkers' moaned around him.

"It's probably pretty stupid to be here. Dangerous, I don't know, maybe not," Gareth said as the walkers pounded on the doors. "You can see the threat, that's something. Looking at them makes me feel better about things. My mom used to say that every day above ground was a win. Doesn't really apply anymore, but... you can still get some perspective," he said as he held his hand up to the glass. "The glass is gonna break sooner or later. Nothing lasts too long anymore. You know, we marked our way here so that we could find our way back after. So stupid, right? I mean... back to what? It wasn't just a trap, it was gonna be a choice. You join us or feed us. You know... bears... when they start to starve, they eat their young. If the bear dies, the cub dies anyway. But if the bear lives, it can always have another cub. That was part of the pitch," he said with a laugh. "Wonder how long it would be til Jewel took that precious little baby apart and ate her. Now, that's something to think about, when we catch them, make Jewel tear her baby apart," Gareth said. "You know, Greg and Mike came this close to nabbing that grey-haired queen bitch who killed my mom. She drove away with the archer. Greg saw them pull away. Can't wait to try her," he said. "Or that skinny blond, Jewel's other daughter, Summer right? I like women better. Most of us do. My brother Alex has- also currently dead because of Rick- he had a theory that it was because of the extra layer of fat that women have, you know, for childbearing. Even the skinny girls have it. Like that pretty one- Sasha? I think pretty people taste better, too. We're going to get all of them. But for starters, you'll do just fine. We did a good job on your leg. We've had practice. When we started, it was about making it slow. I'm being a human being here, I'm talking to you. Perspective, Bob. You're above ground, at least you're better off then them," he said as he motioned to the walkers.

One of the men looked at Bob as he started laughing. "He lost it," the man said.

"Lasted longer then I thought he would," the woman said.

Bob laughed. "You…you idiots," he said.

"Keep it down," Gareth said as he looked back at the door.

"I can shut him up," Martin said.

Bob pulled down his jacket. "I've been bitten you stupid pricks, tainted meat!" he yelled.

Jewel and Merle's POV:

Jewel felt herself be put in the chair and tied up. "How long do you think it'll be until they come looking for me Grayson? There is no way out for you. You're alone, and everybody is right inside that church. They'll come looking for us," she told him as she glanced at Merle who was still unconscious.

"You killed my sweet Clarisse. I found her, her head all over the ground, like it had been dribbled like a basketball," Grayson told her as he bent down before her. "She trusted you."

"She was crazy, and it looks like the nut didn't fall far from the tree," Jewel told him.

Grayson balled up his fist and hit her again, causing blood to come from her nose. "I want you to beg me to save your life, like she begged you."

Jewel looked at him and gave a small smile. "I didn't give her a chance to beg," she told him. "Where's the rest of them Grayson? Did they abandon you? Leave you to the vultures outside?" she asked as she glanced over at Merle. She knew by the slight movement he was making, that he was coming around.

"Shut up!" Grayson said as he smacked her. "Things would have worked out a whole lot different if I was in charge," he told her.

"You'd still be a bunch of dead assholes," Jewel told him. "So is this your big plan Grayson? You were just going to wait in this shed until someone passed by? You're alone, and believe me, you may kill both of us, but if you do, what happened to Terminus is going to be like an amusement park. Rick will hunt you down and kill you, slow and painfully. He won't give you a chance to beg for your life," she said as she saw Merle reach for his hand. "But, then if you do leave us alive, you'll have a short life span because we will kill you."

Grayson must have saw Jewel's eyes divert to Merle as he turned around and kicked the makeshift weapon out of his way. Merle got up and knocked Grayson to the ground as they both struggled for Grayson's gun. Jewel closed her eyes as she managed to reach down for the knife in her waste ban and started to cut the binds off her wrists as she heard the gun shot. "Merle!" she yelled as she saw Grayson get up. "NO!" Jewel yelled as she managed to get her hands untied and took her knife out and stabbed Grayson in the eyes. She stumbled over to Merle and saw the wound to her stomach. "No, you don't get to do this to me Merle! You don't get to leave Daryl and me again, you can't," she begged as she cradled him, as she looked at the door.

TBC

Author's Note: No throwing tomatoes. Merle has been giving me this idea for a while, and every scenero in him getting to the safe zone and fitting in was failing. Merle is alright with this. Please review and I'll be hiding.