Better Days

Chapter 363

Author's Note: Thank you all for continuing to read and to the new readers who have found the story, you are all awesome! You are the ones who motivate me and keep me plugging away. I'm dreading season 7 already. So Deanna wanted to confront Carter, who am I to argue? Review please.

Quinn's POV:

Quinn walked with Deanna to Carter's home and glanced at the shorter woman. "You don't have to do this, mom. I've already talked to him and Rick and Jewel both talked with him. You don't have to take all the responsibility on yourself, not anymore."

Deanna turned and looked at Quinn. "I need to do this Quinn. Carter needs to know that Rick and Jewel have my full support. The fact that he held a gun to two people's heads, one being a ten year old child, that can't be ignored," she said as she started walking.

Quinn followed after her. "Mom, I agree that it should never have happened, but it did, and it was taken care of. You are mourning, and we don't expect you to be to involved of the day to day running of Alexandria right now."

"Quinn, either you can go with me and not argue, or go back to the house and keep your opinion to yourself. I may be mourning, but so are you, so is Rick and his group. He needs to hear it from me, otherwise he may try it again, and if he does, who to say someone doesn't get hurt? You know he can't handle a gun," Deanna said as she walked up to Carter's house and knocked.

Quinn sighed and joined her mother on the porch. She knew that she was trying to make up for the decisions she had made concerning Aiden and Nicholas, then with Pete, both of which resulted in deaths.

Carter opened the door and looked down at Deanna and then at Quinn. "You told her?"

Quinn started to say something but stopped when Deanna looked at him. "Spenser told me, not Quinn. Rick and Jewel didn't come to me, like they should have. Let us in Carter, we need to talk."

Carter sighed and walked out of the doorway and let them in as he glared at Quinn. "Spenser shouldn't have told her."

"It's a small town, she's the leader, of course Spenser was going to tell her, and if he didn't then someone else would have. It's a very small town," Quinn reminded him.

Deanna looked at him. "Carter, I have every right to know what's going on, I still am in charge, even if you don't think so."

Carter glanced at Quinn then looked at Deanna. "Deanna, I'm not sure what Spenser has told you,but I'm sure I can explain," he told her.

"Did you or did you not suggest that you needed to get rid of Rick, killing him?" Deanna asked.

"He's going to get us killed, Deanna. You saw him, he wasn't raising a hand to help us. All he cares about is his people. You were about ready to kick him out yesterday, before Reg. Look at what Jewel did," Carter said as he gestured to his nose.

"You held a gun to a child's head," Quinn told him. "Do you think that is ever acceptable? Believe me when I say that if I had seen it, I'm not sure you'd still be alive to be having this conversation."

Deanna looked at him. "I don't agree with Rick holding a gun and waving it around, and I certainly don't believe in what you did. Two wrongs don't make a right, Carter. What were you thinking? What was going through your head? Why would you think killing Rick would be a good idea? Even if you could kill him, and that's a big if, do you think that you would get away with it? Do you think that Jewel would let you get away with it? Or Daryl? Or any of them? We need them, we need Rick."

"You were ready to kick him out yesterday. You didn't think that we needed him until Pete killed Reg," Carter said. "If that hadn't happened, then Rick wouldn't be here."

"Carter," Quinn warned.

"Then we would be facing certain death, wouldn't we? You may have all the objections in the world to every plan Rick has, but you didn't have any suggestions, neither did I," Deanna said. "We are going with Rick's plan and you are going to listen to every word he or his people say. He may not think of us as part of his people, but I don't think that he would intentionally put anyone in danger. He wouldn't have came back here and told us about the dead ones in the pit with a plan if he didn't care. That's why we need Rick and his group, that's why they are staying. There is no more trying to sabotaging them, there is no more second guessing them, or arguing with them, and there is certainly no holding guns to there heads. Do you understand me Carter?"

Carter looked at her. "Yes Deanna," he answered.

"Good, be ready for the run through tomorrow," Deanna told him as she left.

"Do you really think Deanna's alright to make decisions?" Carter asked Quinn before she got to the door.

Quinn turned around and looked at him. "She's in charge, and until she tells us other wise, she is giving the orders. You bringing up what happened to dad is only going to make her lose her temper easily with you, Carter. Just, please, let it go," she said as she walked out the door.

Summer, Lexi and Carl's POV:

Summer looked at Carl and Lexi, who were playing cards. "Hey come up to my room, I want to talk to you two."

Lexi and Carl both looked at each other. "What's going on?" Carl asked.

"Did they do something wrong?" Beth asked.

"No, nothing like that," Summer assured her. "Come on you two, don't look like I'm going to bite your heads off. Seriously, have you two done anything wrong that I should know about? That mom, dad or Sasha should know about?"

"No, of course not," Lexi answered as they walked up the stairs with her.

"Then you have nothing to worry about," Summer told them as she walked into her attic room. She closed the door behind them. "I wanted to talk to you about day after tomorrow," she told them as she nodded to the two chairs.

"You mean when you all lead the walkers' away?" Lexi asked.

"Yes," Summer said. "Tomorrow is the dry run and I'm probably going to spend the night with Joey tomorrow, so I wanted to talk with the two of you and make sure you know what your part is."

Carl looked at her. "We're going to help mom and Carol with Judith, Hope, Mitch, Mika and Jenny. We know what to do, Summer. You don't have to worry about it, we'll keep them safe if anything happens."

"I know you will," Summer told them. "I've always been around, been in charge of the kids since the Atlanta camp, and this is one of the few times that I'm going to be doing something else, well without supervision."

"You know how to handle yourself, dad believes in you," Carl told her.

"We believe in you," Lexi told her. "You don't have to worry, Carl and I aren't going to let anything happen to the kids. We know our jobs if something happens. We know that they are our top priority."

"I'm just glad we can carry guns now," Carl said.

"So am I," Summer told him. "Mom is going to need your help, you know she's going to try to do more then she needs to, and she's going to be worried about all of us until we walk through that gate. I want you two to make sure she doesn't have to worry about Hope and Judy. I want you to make sure that you do most of the feeding and diaper changes, even if mom insists."

"Mom is going to go out with us on the dry run tomorrow, so make sure she doesn't have to worry," Summer told them.

"We've got this," Lexi assured her.

"Do you think something is going to go wrong day after tomorrow?" Carl asked.

Summer sighed. "I wish I could say that I thought everything would go smoothly, that we would be back before dark and no walkers' would be around. But, maybe I've became disillusioned, maybe I've seen to much, faced to much disappointment, but I can't think of a positive outcome without seeing something bad happening."

"I think that's normal," Lexi answered.

"With everything that we've been through, it would be stupid for us not to think about the what ifs. Like dad said at the church, all it takes is one second," Carl told her. "You're being smart," he informed her.

Summer sighed. "But I'm not seeing the what if's Carl, all I'm seeing is a negative outcome. My mind isn't telling me what could go wrong, it's not giving me options, it's just blank. When I try to see us all coming back to Alexandria after we do this, there's nothing there. I think it would be easier if I could see the various ways this could go wrong, who could mess it up, but there's nothing there."

"Do you think you're up to doing this? If you aren't, maybe you should tell your dad. I know he would understand. We've all been through so much, it's normal for us all to have a breaking point. Maybe you could blame it on your arm," Lexi suggested. "Carl and I wouldn't tell," she assured the older girl.

"I'm not going to lie to dad, and I'm not going to stay behind. He needs people he can trust out there, people who won't freak out when things go bad," Summer said.

"It's been a while since you were out there, it's alright to be nervous," Carl told her.

Summer sighed. "I'm not nervous, Carl, that's the thing. Being in here, this isn't normal, this isn't life. I'm excited about being out there again, dealing with the walkers'. That's what life is now, that's what its supposed to be, not in here with electricity, or nice beds. You know what I see when I see people walking around dogs with no cares in the world? I see us roasting Fido on sticks. I don't know if it's even possible for us to ever be normal, those things are part of us, part of our experiences."

"I feel sorry for them," Lexi answered.

"They don't know what it's like to have nothing, there world hasn't changed," Summer added.

"The kids are the ones I worry about the most," Carl said. "Sam, Ron's little brother, he's scared of his shadow."

Summer sighed and looked at him. "People might have been scaring him with threats of monsters. That's what he calls them, I've heard him. You were scared when this first started. That's what I mean, they can be kids. We grew up fast, we had to or we wouldn't have made it to this point."

Lexi hugged Summer. "Everything is going to be fine, Summer."

"How can you still be optimistic?" Summer questioned.

"Because the other way of thinking means more of us die, and I can't think like that. I can't lose anyone else. This place is supposed to be our safe haven, and we've already lost Noah. Rick knows what he's doing, Daryl, Abraham and Sasha know what they are doing, and they have you and Joey on the bridge and David and Axel on the side of the road in another car. They have Glenn at the warehouse. Even with the Alexandrains not knowing a thing about surviving, I know that our family knows what to do and all of you will make it back. I have to know that, I can't think any other way," Lexi said.

"You think about the negatives, and Lex will think about the positives," Carl said.

"And what are you going to do?" Lexi asked.

"Be somewhere in the middle?" Carl answered. "We'll be alright, Summer, we always are," he said as he squeezed her hand.