KEZZ 1: As always, thank you for the review.
top story: Definitely. The war traumatized a lot of people, Negan did, too. It's not going to be something everyone fully comes back from.
godric777: Thank you so much!
I hope y'all like this chapter from Sophia's point of view. I thought it was important to get her thoughts on everything out there in the ether with how I've written Carol and kept her story intact how I have due to the psychological problems she obviously has in the show. I also wrote her based on what her backstory most likely was with Ed, and how Sophia was probably a child of rape. They both are having problems dealing with the new world and how they both have changed so much. The ending to this conflict is fast approaching, though, probably next chapter, and Sophia and Carol will finally have their reckoning. All I ask is that you wait until then.
Sophia was sitting outside to get some fresh air after talking to Ani. Daryl had come in and all but demanded she'd laid down, prompting her to ask him to stay with her and Sophia to keep an eye on the injured. They'd already been asleep for a couple hours and most of the injured had been taken care of, but several were still bleeding through bandages pretty quickly. She didn't mind that she'd been asked to help out, especially since Enid was also trying to help but kept getting told how to do it right. While she knew it wasn't right, Sophia had to admit that it felt good to be able do tasks that the other young teen couldn't. Sophia knew it wasn't right to flaunt the fact that she knew what she was doing when Enid was only just starting to learn; she just didn't care. Even if she knew that Ani wouldn't leave her like she had, she'd also suggested Enid learn medicine, too. It almost made her feel that if she didn't prove her usefulness, if she didn't prove she knew what she was doing, maybe Ani would adopt Enid, too, and she'd have to share that attention. It was wrong, and she knew it. But she couldn't help but feel that way.
It was something Ani had said that stuck with her. If her mother really was trying to replace the innocent, weak version of her, what was to stop Ani from replacing her at some point, too? She knew it was ridiculous; Ani had had plenty of chances to take in other kids, but she'd always paid special attention to Sophia. Ever since the quarry, any time her father had been angry or was getting worked up, Ani had swooped in under the pretense of lessons in foraging and medicine. She'd given her her first knife and showed her where to aim if her father ever tried to do anything to her. At one point over the winter, she'd straight up asked Ani why she was always training her and pushing her harder than anyone else. Her only response was that she was 'her girl.' Sophia could admit that it was a long time before she understood what she had meant. When she heard Rick tell Hershel that she wasn't her girl; if Carl hadn't have been there and distracted her, and then everything that happened afterward, the sickness, the attack, Terminus and finding Alexandria. Everything that had happened had kept her mind off of the fact that Carol didn't want her.
In fact, while they had been in Alexandria, she and Carol had tried to ignore each other's existence. While she was busy building a life with the Dixons, Carol had been busy playing pretend, like she was everyone's friend. It was like she'd gone right back to the fake happiness Sophia had seen so many times before the world ended. She wasn't stupid. She knew what had been happening at home and why she wasn't allowed to have friends over. Hell, she'd talked about it several times with Ani when she was plagued by nightmares in the beginning. She'd been scared of the look her father would get on his face sometimes, the way he'd grabbed her, and Carol had only ever pulled her away or made some excuse for her to run away. Ani had taught her how to get out of his grip and defend herself from bigger men. Truth be told, it'd been much easier to view Ani as a mother because she had taught her how to be strong rather than Carol, who was still so weak that she ran away from her fear.
But was she really weak? Or was it simply that she was afraid of the outcome of her actions like Ani had tried to tell her once? Was it really that Carol's mind couldn't handle the stress or what the past held, so she'd just wanted a clean start, leaving Sophia in the care of those she knew could take care of her? Maybe Ani was right about it all and was trying to help her see it herself. Maybe they both just needed to start over. It wasn't like the anger was doing her any good anyway, let alone the jealousy. She had Ani, Daryl, and Merle looking over her and teaching her how to survive, how to fight. That had been more than Carol had ever done for her; it wasn't like that was the first time she'd thought about it that way, either.
When Ani and Daryl had been taken, it honestly hurt worse than when she'd found out what Carol thought of her. She didn't really need Carol anymore, she needed Ani to help her understand what she didn't know and how to fight. She needed Daryl to learn how to hot wire a car and keep it maintained, a motorcycle and ATV, too, as well as how to process the animals they hunted. Merle had been there for her since he'd been tasked with teaching her how to shoot a bow, and he'd never once made her feel like she wasn't worth the time and effort he put in, and he'd come after her when she'd left to get Ani and Daryl on her own. He didn't send or force her to go back, but simply went with her and helped her make a real plan to help get them out. They all treated her like she could conquer the world as long as she listened to their lessons and they all came after her when she went missing or made a wrong choice. That was more than Carol had ever done for her.
Sophia was fiddling with the bone that had been braided into her hair every morning by Ani as she headed to the next room. She didn't know who was in it, and maybe that's why she froze at the entryway. Tobin and Carol were in the room, Carol obviously upset at the state the man was in. Doing her best to remain unnoticed, she ducked down and back to the side of the doorway, squating in place next to the wall as she listened to them talk. Carol was even more worried about Tobin than she was Sophia. The woman hadn't even come to check on her after the fight, unlike the Dixons who all came to her on separate occasions. Daryl had made sure she was alright before sending her down to help Ani with the wounded. Ani had literally double checked every inch of her that she could to make sure she hadn't gotten so much as a scratch, even if all she'd done was fire a rifle from the second story to help defend against the Saviors. Merle had pretty much followed her around until Abraham shouted at him to give them a hand with the bodies outside. It was like she wasn't even an afterthought to Carol anymore.
"You had me worried," she heard her mother tell the man on the bed.
"Well," he started slowly, "if I'd known getting stabbed would get your attention, I would've done it a lot sooner."
Sophia had to clap her hands over her mouth to stifle the laugh that wanted to escape when he'd said that. So she wasn't the only one the woman had run away from. It really wasn't her fault that her own mother kept running away from her. Carol ran away from everyone, and there was literally nothing Sophia could do about that. The woman had seemed happy with Tobin, happier than Sophia had ever seen her at the very least. And yet she'd run away from him as well.
"I'm sorry for how I left," Carol said, Sophia rolling her eyes at that, never having heard an apology herself. "What I did to you."
"I don't need an apology. You don't owe me anything" Tobin answered, though the young teen outside the door certainly felt like she was owed a lot. "But, uh, I guess I have been wondering why, uh...Was any of it...real?"
"I didn't want it to be real. I was pretending," came the answer that shattered the pieces of illusion left in Sophia.
"Well, don't go easy on me here," Tobin chuckled.
"I was trying to live a life," Carol explained further. "Then we found out that we hadn't gotten rid of the Saviors. And that there would be more fighting and more dying. And I couldn't. And it was right about the time that...it felt like—like-like maybe it wasn't...Like maybe it wasn't going to be pretend again."
"Well...that just might be one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me," Tobin said sarcastically, both he and Carol sharing a chuckle.
"I'm sorry," Sophia heard Carol say quietly.
"You gonna leave again? After it's over?"
"I don't know. I think I might just accept that some of us are lucky enough to just live, some of us are lucky enough to just fight."
"Even after it ends?"
"I don't think it ends."
"What we're doing...The end of the fight is—is what we're fighting for," Tobin insisted.
"Winning just means we get tomorrow," Carol responded. "And even then, what will tomorrow hold? More fighting? More dying? More anger?"
"So, you won't stick around?"
"I don't know. I doubt Sophia would want me to," Carol admitted, Sophia stiffening in her position.
"The Dixons' girl? Why would she be a problem?"
"I'm not who you think I am, Tobin, I'm really not," Carol said in a broken voice. "You weren't the only one I left when I ran. Sophia...I told you my daughter had died. Got lost in the woods and never came back," Sophia could barely make out even as she strained to listen more. "Sophia is that daughter."
"I don't understand."
"The Sophia I knew, she died in those woods. She stopped being so afraid and started stepping up. She stopped looking to me for advice and went straight to Ani. And I just...I just let her. I stopped trying to discipline her. Stopped trying to talk to her like I was her mother. I just...gave up. And after that, I made a lot of mistakes. A lot of them. And Sophia slowly began to resent me for what happened. Every time I look at that little girl, all I see are the mistakes I've made trying to do what I thought was right. I lost my daughter by my own mistakes, and I will never get her back. My Sophia, the Sophia I raised, the one that I tried to protect in the only way I knew how, she died a long time ago. The Sophia that is here now, she's someone else. Something I could never be. She's not my daughter anymore."
Sophia got up from her position, then, tears streaming down her face. She didn't notice that Carol looked over and saw her leaving. Her thoughts were on everything she had just heard as she began furiosly wiping her face and stormed out of the medical trailer. It wasn't as if she was the only one who had changed completely since the start of all of this. If she was being honest, she kind of felt the same way as her mother. Who she used to be really was gone, but so was the person she knew Carol to be. At the beginning, they were both terrified of her father, cowering and trying to make sure he didn't get upset. Sophia had to admit that after she had the knife, she'd thought about using some of the things Ani had begun teaching her on her father in order to just stop all of it. The only reason she didn't was because she wasn't sure how her mother would have reacted, especially when she'd cried for many nights after his death. That wasn't who the woman was now, and somewhere along the line, her mother had changed to someone she didn't recognize, too.
Carol had become cold and distant, prone to lashing out when she was angry or stressed, and emotionally unavailable. She'd started making choices without really thinking them through and, if Sophia was being honest, she was being stupid. Sophia had been learning how to think before she made a decision and the only one she'd made in an emotional state was to go after Ani and Daryl. Carol had killed Karen and David, even though anyone who had been around them would have been exposed. She had ran away when the fighting started, even though she was a strong fighter and had become a great shot and they had needed her help. She had given up on her while simultaneously acting like she could still tell her off for doing what she needed to to help the people she cared about survive. Carol wasn't the woman she had grown up with for nearly twelve years, and neither was she.
It wasn't like no one was there for her. Even when Ani and Daryl had been taken, Carl and Merle had been there for her. And Ani had never once treated her like she was just one of the kids like she did with Enid and the others from the prison. While she had trained a lot of the kids in one way or another, she'd only taught her mixed martial arts to her and Beth, and for Beth it was because of whatever happened in Atlanta. She trained Beth because Beth had asked her to; she had trained her simply because she wanted to. In fact, Ani had told her she was training her in it simply because she was 'her girl.' And if Sophia really thought about it, Ani had been calling her 'her girl' since before they'd even left the farm. When Carol pulled away from her, Ani pulled her closer. She'd never left her alone unless she had to go on a run, and she always made sure she knew when she'd be back. Carol had never done that let alone try to find out where she was going or when she'd be back. It was how it was so easy to sneak out of the prison, and Carol wasn't even the one who cared about it. Ani was, and she hadn't even been angry.
Or rather, she hadn't yelled at her or berated her like Ed did, and she hadn't broken down crying or just ignore her like Carol had. She'd given her new purpose and listened to why Sophia had been having so many problems back then. Ani cared when even her own mother had acted like it wasn't really that big of a deal that she'd been outside the gates of the prison by herself. She cared enough to set more time aside for her, to spend that time with her, to teach her things she hadn't taught others, to trust her to do more for the camp. Carol had never even trusted her to pick out her own clothes, always worried about what Ed would say of what they both wore and always making sure she looked like a weak little girl. She'd been able to start wearing jeans and muscle shirts, t-shirts, and plaid button ups with boots, things her mother would never have worn or let her wear before. It had taken over the winter for Carol to even let her get rid of those stupid earrings she'd always made her wear. The only jewelry she wore now was an owl bone, much like the one Ani braided into her hair. In fact, both had been fashioned by Daryl after the three of them had gone on a hunting trip and she'd gotten the shot at night.
And, if she was being honest, Carol worrying more about Henry, was it really that she didn't care about Sophia? She really didn't feel that she really was her daughter anymore because that weak little girl had grown into a strong warrior. Carol didn't recognize who Sophia had become under the tutelage of the Dixons. Sophia, herself, barely recognized who she used to be. Maybe she had changed so much that it was easier for Carol to think of who she used to be as her daughter, and since that version of her was dead, Carol couldn't be there for her? Did she even want to remember how weak she used to be herself? Why was she jealous of the attention Carol was giving to others when that attention was keeping them weak? Why was she jealous in the first place when she had everything she could ever want in a family with the Dixons? She'd been so jealous of the attention she wasn't getting from Carol that she had ignored the attention she was still getting from them this entire time. It hadn't been like this when she couldn't see Carol being nice to the other kids, wanting to protect them and care for them. Even at the prison, she simply pretended not to notice until it was thrown in her face with Carol's actions and words.
Carl was waiting for her outside, wearing that stupid smile on his face that had started to make her blush all the same every time she saw it. "Hey, how's your shoulder doing?" he asked, coming up and placing a hand gently on it, his smile turning into a worried look.
"It's fine," she answered with a sigh. "I'm stronger than I look, though it's gonna leave a scar."
"It can't be worse than my eye."
"Hey, I think scars are cool. And we can have someone make an eye patch just for you. Make it look all badass and stuff."
"Scars are cool, huh?" Carl said, the stupid grin coming back. "Why do you think that?"
"Well, all the awesome people we know have scars," Sophia answered. "And the scars tell a story of how they survived. Ani, Daryl, and Merle have scars from their families and life since the change. You and your dad both got shot. I mean, how are they not cool?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right. You want me to help with anything?"
"Well, I'm going to the other trailer to get some more tonics and ingredients for the poultice. If you want, you can help me carry the stuff into the house."
"Sure," Carl said, grabbing her hand and heading to the trailer with Sophia in tow.
Together, they grabbed more bandages, the ingredients for the poultice as well as some fresh herbs meant to be brewed for various kinds of tea and even more meant to help ease pain and fight infection. Entering the house, they found Ani helping Siddiq and the other doctors tend to the wounded. She immediately came up to Sophia and smiled, thanking her for thinking about the extra herbs before taking them from the teens and heading to the kitchen. Sophia took over helping with the bandages for a while before Ani came back with two tea kettles and several cups. Both Sophia and Carl moved towards her and offered to help her give the medicine to the injured. After explaining which one to give to which patients, she let the teens handle the distribution while sitting down. Enid was even helping give it to the people, too, Ani going into more detail and telling the older teen how much to let the patients have before letting her help. Carl and her didn't need to be told that much, just which was which. Daryl came down and clapped her shoulder gently before going over to Ani and leaning down, whispering something before kissing her cheek and leaving the room.
Sophia walked up to Ani and asked, "Where is he goin'?"
"No where important. Wanted ta make sure the bodies had been moved out and help with it if it ain' done yet."
"But he should be helpin' you! What if somethin' happens that makes you have a panic attack again? What if you start havin' contractions again? What if the Saviors come back? What if-"
"Take a breath, hun," Ani chuckled, taking the girl's hands. "He jus' went outside. What's wrong, Phia? Ya normally not this worried."
"I'm just...I'm just nervous about everythin' I guess."
"Ya got a lot on ya plate, kiddo. It's okay ta take a break. Go get some rest. Ya lookin' dead on ya feet and it's showin' even more when ya actin' like a madwoman. And ya done 'nough ta help for a good while. If we need anythin' I'll send Carl or come up meself ta get ya."
"You promise?"
"A course! And ya know I don' break me promises," Ani told her, pulling her into a hug. "Go rest. Might need ya ta help with watch tanight with how many people are hurt."
"Okay," Sophia said, Carl coming up and giving her a hug, much to Sophia's delight and Enid's despair, Ani catching her smile and shaking her head at what Sophia assumed was the 'teenage drama' she had muttered about several times.
She walked upstairs and went to her room, passing out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She wasn't sure how long she slept for, but it was dark out when Merle came and knocked on her door, asking for her help with the patients downstairs again. Several of them were in a lot of pain, and while he'd been charged with keeping watch, he didn't know how to help them. Apparently, Ani had fallen asleep downstairs where she had been sitting earlier and Daryl had carried her upstairs. Daryl was keeping watch outside on the wall and had told Merle that under no circumstances was he allowed to wake her up, which is why he'd come looking for Sophia. He spent the entire trip downstairs complaining about it, making her laugh at him for his comments.
"What the hell you laughin' at, Missy?" he asked once he realized she was trying to laugh silently.
"You wouldn't've woken her up anyway! She always takes a swing at ya when you do," she replied, outright laughing at him that time.
"Yeah, I can admit to that," Merle said while nodding his head. "Got more than enough black eyes from that little psycho."
"Don't let Daryl hear you call her that."
"Let him! What's he gonna do?"
"You do know he's been sparrin' with Aaron every day, still, right? And that before Ani knew she was pregnant, she was teachin' him how to fight in some of her styles?" she asked as she got to work making the teas Ani had earlier.
"Yeah, I know. I ain't stupid. But I got my own skills. I can still take 'im. With one hand at that."
"Well, you only got one hand, so it'd have to be one handed!" Sophia laughed, Merle turning to in shock.
"Did your momma tell you to say that, or did you come up with it on your own?"
"What? No!"
"That's funny, 'cause she's always teasin' me about my damn missin' hand, too. It's like this inside joke whenever I mention doin' somethin' with one hand."
"Hey, Pops?" Sophia asked, a little confused, her head picturing both Ani and Carol when he said that.
"Hmm?"
"Who do you think is my momma?"
That froze Merle in his tracks, his own look morphing into one of confusion as he turned to the little girl, "Who do you think it is?"
"I don't know."
"Really, now? You don't know who's been takin' care of ya? Who's been teachin' ya? Who's cared about ya since this all started?" he asked, making the girl shrug her shoulders. "Well, I ain't tellin' you what to think. But the way I see it, you only got one, and she's a damn good'un. I wouldn't waste time thinkin' too hard 'bout somethin' I know you know the answer to. You ain't that damn stupid, girly."
"I know I'm not stupid! It's just...I'm confused, is all," Sophia finally admitted. "I mean, Carol and I are blood, and blood is blood, right?"
"Hey, now, don't go takin' my word for shit when it comes to that," Merle told her sternly. "All Daryl and I had was each other, and I wasn't about to leave him stranded. Blood was blood because all I had was blood. Now I've got Ani callin' me her brother and you callin' me Pops. If the two a you ain't family, then who the hell is? Family don't end with blood, girly. Took a long, hard lesson for me to learn that."
"Do you think we can start over? Pretend like the past didn't exist?"
"No, I don't think that's possible. But I know where you're goin' with this. This is 'bout Carol and how she's been and what she's done, ain't it?"
"She's all over Henry now," Sophia said with spite.
"I've noticed."
"She didn't even ask if I was alright! And when I came back from Simon, she blamed me! Why ain't I good enough, Pops?"
"You talk to Ani about this?"
"She says it's her issues, that I'm not to blame for anythin' and that I'm always gonna be her girl, no matter what."
"Bein' honest, it is Carol's problems. I had my fair share of 'em back in the start. So did your mother. We weren't nothin' back then; couple of screw ups that did nothin' right by the people we care about. But blood don't end with just blood. Family is family. I learned that from Ani, you should've too by now. Like I said, you ain't that stupid," Merle said gentler than he normally would when dealing with the others.
"You came back from it. And you didn't abandon anyone."
"That so? Or did I learn from it? And I left Daryl to Ani back when I got locked up on that roof. It's only a fluke I came back. I got a lot of shit in my past that made me who I am today. Ain't sayin' I'm good, but I ain't that bad no more. Ain't sayin' you can't move on from whatever you're dealin' with, but I am sayin', you got people around ya, kid, that care 'bout ya. That try to do right by ya. Ain't that what family's supposed to do?"
"Yeah, I guess so. But Ani and Daryl left back at the prison!"
"Now, you know damn well that was different," Merle said sternly. "They came back, didn't they? And if I remember right, the first thing she did when she came back was to check on you, and told you she was sorry for worryin' ya. That little lady never once left you without the promise of comin' back."
"Yeah, that's true."
"That answers your question, now don't it?"
"Which one?"
"Who your momma is," Merle said bluntly. "If Carol don't check on ya and Ani's always worryin' about ya, who do you think is more of a momma to ya?"
"I don't know," Sophia answered, realization dawning on her face. "I think about them both when I think about who my mom is. I don't know what I'm supposed to think."
"Well, kiddo, I can't tell you what's right or wrong in this," Merle said with a shake of his head as they alighted the stairs. "That's somethin' you gotta figure out on your own. Go check on your patients. I gotta take a piss."
"I didn't need to know that," Sophia told him, a disgusted look on her face as he walked out. She was on the fourth or fifth patient when loud banging came from the stairs and caused her to look up. "WALKERS!" she shouted as loudly as she could, several of the people jerking awake as the walker scrambled to the first person it could reach, taking a chunk out of them.
Ani, Sophia shouted in her mind, taking out the walker from the stairs and running up them two at a time. She ran into another walker at the top, immediately ducking to the side and kicking its knee out from under it before slamming her knife into its eye once it fell. It didn't take her long to hear struggling coming from another room, finding Carol holding a walker Tobin at bay. Sophia's first notion was to continue running to find Ani, but a larger part of her brain took over and had her running into the room. Without so much as batting an eye, she ran into the room and took matters into her own hands. Grabbing one of his arms and using all her strength and body weight behind it, she managed to pull and knock the walker back several steps. She used the bed as a spring board and slammed her knife into his skull before kicking him away.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Carol immediately started yelling. "You should have run!"
"I'm not you," Sophia said coldly as both Ani and Daryl ran into the room, both their hands bloodied at the fact that they had been killing walkers.
"Are ya okay?" Ani said, rushing to Sophia with Daryl and Merle before Daryl turned to Carol and made sure she was okay, Maggie and Rick running into the room after them.
"You alright?" he asked her, though he turned his head to Sophia as well.
"Yeah, just...I was talking to him earlier," Carol answered. "He wasn't bit. But he turned. And I could've handled it myself," she said angrily while looking to Sophia. "You should've run."
"She did exactly what I would a done if I'd a seen ya in trouble. Don' fuckin' talk ta her like that when ya don' even botha askin' if she's alright afta she saved both ya ass and Bertie's, let alone comin' out a the woods alone. Both fuckin' times," Ani replied, seething, her hands on Sophia's shoulders as she brought the girl closer to her.
"She was being stupid," Carol insisted. "You expect too much out of the kids. Carl, Sophia, even Henry, making him protect people."
"He needed ta be a part a it somehow, or 'e was jus' goin' ta take it upon 'imself ta do somethin'! Gods, Cars, it's like ya can' even see past ya own nose! If our kids weren' as good as they are now, they wouldn' make it in this world, now would they? Take tanight for example! Carl's downstairs helpin' take care a the bodies while Enid's cryin' 'er eyes out ova the people we lost! Phia fuckin' saved ya life! She saved othas, too, takin' out a couple walkas before they could get down the stairs! How can ya be angry at 'er for that?"
"She could have ended up dead! Are you fine with that?" Carol asked, an angry look on her face that Ani would call her out.
"She ain' gonna die 'cause I taught 'er how not ta. It was jus' one fuckin' walka, Carol. Jus' fuckin' one. She knows when ta run and when ta fight, don' ya, kiddo?"
"Yeah," Sophia answered, angry herself at Carol all over again. "But, how'd he turn?"
"Fuck!" Merle shouted. "Negan's fuckin' bat! The bastard had it covered with blood! How much you wanna bet it was walker?"
"Maybe he just crossed them," Rick suggested.
"Or 'e planned it from the start. Dammit! They got us workin' against ourselves!"
"Killin' our own," Maggie agreed, the man on the bed speaking up.
"It's the fever," he told them. "That's what it is. It makes sense now. One of you...you're gonna have to do it. I can't. You gotta do it for me. Please."
"I'll go get somethin' that'll help," Ani told him. "Jus' hold on for the next ten minutes and I'll make sure it's painless."
Sophia watched Ani leave the room, the others leaving as well while she was told to head to Tara's room and wait for them there. Walking in, she saw Tara sitting up on the bed with Beth sitting next to her, Michonne leaning against the dresser, and Enid pacing. Sophia chose to stand by the window, watching the people outside closing the gates and making sure all the walkers had been dealt with. When Ani came up a few minutes later with a forlorn look on her face, Sophia went up to her and gave her a hug, one that was tightly reciprocated. Looking around the room, she watched as Daryl, Merle, Sasha, and Carol all came in shortly after. Daryl and Merle walked up to them, Daryl putting a hand on Ani's back asking how she was before looking at Sophia and asking her if he was good, to which she just nodded. Carol was resolutely ignoring the exchange in the other corner of the room when Carl walked in with his dad. The Dixons nodded at Rick while Carl came over and asked if she was alright, too, having heard about how Sophia had helped alert the entire house to the walkers in general.
"The house is clear," Rick told them. "How many people needed that drink?"
"Had ta give a lot a people that poison," Ani replied, going over to Tara and beginning to make an assessment of her wound, pulling her shirt and the bandages down.
"What was that anyway?" Carol asked, wondering what could have made the people fall asleep so fast.
"Belladonna. Told Ezekiel ta get rid a it, but now I'm happy I took some from 'im. Painless, relaxes the muscles. The right amount puts ya inta a sleep ya won' wake up from. Figured they'd want somethin' so they didn' have ta pass in pain. Didn'...I didn' want anyone ta suffa knowin' what was comin'," Ani said before she sighed. "Perry, Nick, Mark, David, Mercy, Candice, and Jo all needed it, too. Couldn' come back from their bites or were already as far gone as Larry had been."
"How'd this happen?" Tara asked.
"Um...the Saviors," Daryl began, "they did somethin' to their weapons. Everyone they cut up...or got shot...they all got sick. Some of 'em turned."
"What?" Enid asked, her tears falling anew. "Why?"
"'Cause they're shite bags cova'd in fleas!" Ani spat out. "Only good thing is ya don' feel hot and ya shoulda doesn' look infected. Looks like ya one a the lucky few."
"Okay," Tara said quietly while nodding her head.
"When we were out there," Daryl said looking over to her, "and you said you were done waitin', I coulda killed him. I shoulda."
"No," Tara denied. "He wanted to be here with us. No matter what he did or how hard he tried, I wanted him dead. I just couldn't let it be anything else. Karma's a bitch, right?"
"I don' think this is karma, Tara," Ani told her. "Ya don' got the feva and ya wound looks good. A couple a the othas have the same thing. Looks like some a ya jus' got fuckin' lucky."