All Nightmare Long

Chapter 473

Author's Note: As one reviewer said, and so it begins. Yes, believe me I'd rather skip the whole Negan thing but it is part of the story. Negan is a bane of my existence right now. This chapter reviews how people are feeling after Denise's death. Please review.

Jewel and Carol's POV:

Jewel came downstairs carrying Hope and kissed her cheek. "If you and your sister would sleep at the same time, I'd be very happy. Yes, I would," she told her.

Carol turned from the stove. "Are you alright?" she questioned as she went and hugged her.

"Yeah, I'm alright," Jewel responded as she sat down with Hope.

"Do you want me to take her so you can get some rest?" Carol asked.

"No, holding her and Judy are keeping my mind off what we may have to do, if they come for us," Jewel answered.

"You mean, when they come for us," Carol corrected her.

Jewel sighed. "When not if," she agreed.

"It never stops," Carol told her as she sat down. "Maybe we should have listened to Summer, she tried to warn us."

Jewel sighed. "I made this decision with Rick, just like we've been doing since the beginning. All I wanted to do was for once was be ahead of them. Go after them before they came for us, save our people before we lost anyone. We should have been able to handle twenty to thirty people, no problem. After Terminus, after the Wolves, I wanted to stop it before they came for us. Once, just once, I could deal with being the aggressor. But now, now that I know that we are dealing with a lot more than what we were told, I wish I could take that decision back. I wish we would have listened to Summer, I wish we never took the deal with the Hilltop. But we did, and there's no going back. I don't think we can say sorry and make this go away. And you know what's the worst thing about this is?"

Carol looked at her. "What?"

"Because of that one decision, I lost my humanity. I became the Governor, I became the people of Terminus, I became the Wolves, hell, and maybe I even became Negan. Go after them, take what they have before they come after you," Jewel said.

"It doesn't make us them," Carol responded.

"Doesn't it?" Jewel asked as she rubbed Hope's back. "Tell me how we are any different than when the Governor came to the prison, our home, and started taking us out? You can't, and you know it."

Carol sighed. "You're right, I can't."

"Mar and Maggie told us that you tried to let some of them go? That doesn't sound like you," Jewel said.

"Maybe I hoped they could see they were wrong," Carol answered. "Maybe I've been letting Morgan get to me," she admitted.

"I don't think that's going to be an option, not now," Jewel told her as she stood up. "We'll manage, we always do," she said as she squeezed her arm.

Mar, Mitch Summer, and Daryl's POV:

Mar walked into the infirmary, Mitch behind her and stopped when she saw Daryl, she let out a breath that she didn't know she was holding and ran toward him and flung herself in his arms. "Are you OK?"

Daryl nodded as he kissed the side of her head. "Come here," he told Mitch.

Mitch went over to him and hugged him. "Is Eugene going to be OK?"

"Yeah, he will be," Summer said as she walked over to Mar and Mitch giving them hugs.

"Was it the Savior's?" Mitch questioned.

Daryl rubbed the back of his neck. "It was one of the people Jes and I tried to help. I should have killed him when I had a chance."

"You tried to help him, that's what we do," Mar said.

"Maybe we shouldn't," Summer said.

"I agree with her," Daryl said.

"Excuse me?" Mar asked.

"People are getting worse," Mitch said.

"We shouldn't have went after Negan and his men, I've said that from the beginning. But we did, and now they know who we are. And they killed Denise. That guy that Uncle Daryl tried to save, he was aiming for Daryl, and he shot Eugene. That's who he tried to save, a man who would have killed Uncle Daryl if he had better aim," Summer told her.

"What if Aaron, Phoebe and Eric felt that way about us?" Mar questioned. "What if they decided they weren't going to try to save anyone else? Where would that have left us?"

"We would have made it," Daryl said.

"Or would we have become them?" Mar questioned.

"We wouldn't," Mitch said.

"I'm going on guard shift," Summer said as she picked up her gun.

"Summer," Mar warned.

"Look, it's not going to do any good debating what could have happened, Mar. They did save us, Uncle Daryl saved Dwight and now here we are. This isn't going to be the last that we see of them, they'll be back. He probably already ran to Negan, and he probably is blabbing how we killed more of his people. Just like mom and Abraham went and told dad about what happened out there. And, the more people we have standing guard the better. That's what I can do right now," Summer said as she walked out the door.

"Should I go after her?" Mitch asked.

"Nah, leave her," Daryl answered. "She's got to work it out for herself."

Mar sighed and looked after her. "You can't blame yourself for Denise," she told Daryl.

"Then who do I blame?" Daryl asked.

"The people who did this," Rosita answered as she turned and looked at them.

"She's right," Mitch added. "You didn't do anything but try to help him and the people he was with. It's what we do."

"Yeah, I'm debatin' that," Daryl said.

"Good thing that I'm here to keep you on track isn't it?" Mar asked. "If we didn't save people, everyone in this room but you would be dead. Rick, you, Jewel, Summer, Glenn, you all started saving people. You could have left Mitch on his own, you could have let me off myself, and you didn't have to take Rosita and Eugene after we found them at Terminus. So, this whole saving people has worked out pretty good," she said as she kissed his cheek.

Rosita squeezed his arm then went back to Eugene.

Joey and Summer's POV:

Summer walked up to the truck he was loading up. "You guys getting ready to get Denise's body?"

Joey nodded. "Yeah," he answered. "You want to come with us?"

Summer shook her head. "I'm going to do a guard shift," she said. "Be careful?" she asked.

"Always," Joey said. "You aren't going to do anything stupid are you?"

Summer glanced at him. "Classify stupid?"

"Like going out by yourself to go to the Hilltop to confront Gregory," Joey said as he turned and looked at her. "You were thinking about going to the Hilltop to confront Gregory. Please tell me that I'm wrong about that."

"I can't," Summer admitted.

"You were thinking about going out there by yourself? You let Abraham have it because he left Eugene by himself. Why would you want to put your parents through that? Put me through that?" Joey demanded.

"Gregory endangered everyone in here by not telling us the truth! He's sitting up there in his mansion, happy as a clam, and we just lost Denise. He sent us on a suicide mission! And I told him what would happen if one person in this family got hurt. I made a promise," Summer told him.

"Forget about the Dixon motto for one damn minute!" Joey yelled at her. He sighed as he noticed people staring. He took her arm and pulled her behind one of the houses. "What if the next person they kill is you? I can't lose you, and going out there right now would be a suicide mission."

"You're going out there," Summer reminded him.

"Not by myself I'm not," Joey shot back. "Do you want to go confront Gregory?"

"You know I do," Summer responded.

"Then I go with you," Joey responded. "We do it together," he told her.

"You don't want me in danger, and I don't want you in danger. Going out there is dangerous and I don't want you in danger," Summer told him.

"Too bad," Joey told her. "I can't lose you, I won't lose you. I'm not stupid enough to think that I'm going to talk you out of this, so we do it together or I go and tell Rick and Jewel exactly what you are planning and let them handle it. So what's it going to be?"

Summer looked at him. "Together."

Joey nodded. "Good. I still want to put it out there that I think this is a stupid idea, especially with the savior's out there."

"Yeah, it's stupid, but you're the one willing to go with me," Summer said.

"You're going to do it one way or another," Joey responded. "I happen to love you too much to let you do it alone," he said as he kissed her. "Plus, I really don't want to tell Rick and Jewel I knew and I let you go alone," he teased. "How are we doing this?"

"I'll go with you to get Denise, we'll slip away," Summer said.

"Slip away from Jes?" Joey asked. "How do you plan to do that? Hit her like Merle did at the prison?" he questioned as he shook his head. "We tell her."

"Tell her?" Summer asked.

"Yes, we tell her, someone knows where we are going, and she knows we aren't alone. There's no sneaking away from her, and you know that," Joey told her.

Summer sighed. "Yeah, you're right."