Chapter 66: Issues
CPOV
~Years ago~
Sat up on the roof, I was upset, angry, my feet dangling off the edge as I stared down at the empty streets. It was getting dark and luckily, it was the weekend tomorrow. It wasn't a school night. A tub of chocolate pudding sat on my lap while I scooped bite after bite of the delicious snack into my mouth.
Hearing footsteps climbing up the stairs and towards my room, I heard a voice call out for me. "Carl?" it was Kat. The footsteps became little shuffles, until they came to my window, after not finding me in my room.
Her head peeking out my open window, Kat gradually climbed out of the window and joined me on the roof. "Hey buddy, what are you doing on the roof?" she asked, her feet heavy against the roof, both our weight on the sturdy surface was something we both had got used to.
Part of me felt relieved Kat was here but another feared what lecture she was going to give me. "Is that pudding?" her voice sounded more confused than the first question she asked me. "And you're not sharing it with me?" she was shocked that I had no extra spoon for her to share.
"Here," I offered her my spoon, full of pudding as I had stopped only to stare at the pudding I was devouring.
I felt a little guilt for not giving her some of what I had. This is her favourite and here I am, being selfish. "I'm only kidding, enjoy it but..." Kat gently pushed my hand back to me, offering back the snack we both liked to me. "Why are you out here?" she would continue to bombard me with questions.
None of which, I was answering because I didn't want to. "Mom says you didn't come down when she was calling you," she informed me she had spoken to mom before coming up to find me. "You want to tell me what happened?"
Her voice was always soft, kind and I trusted Kat with my life, should I ever need to. "Will called me stuff..." I sighed after a few minutes of silence had since passed. "Told me I was a party pooper, that I had to stop being so stinky and leave him alone. That he didn't want to be my friend anymore. He started hanging out with Luke today," I listed everything of the horrible day.
Unable to look her in the eyes, I didn't have the strength to, I was too upset to look away from the pudding sat in my lap. Stopping the scoops from being shovelled into my mouth, I sighed and cradled the tub in my hands. "Luke as in, the cool kid, who is also a bully?" Kat wondered if it was that Luke.
Whenever something happened, I always talked to Kat, I would tell her of the horrible things some of the guys and girls did to each other in school. It was the only other thing I could tell her, which wasn't the lessons or grades I was getting. "Yeah, they both started pushing me around and laughed at me," I mumbled.
"Why didn't you say anything?" she was a little irritated. I didn't know how she knew I hadn't said anything to a teacher or to mom.
Maybe, it was because I knew someone would of tried to fix it or it would of stopped. But the words they had said spun in circles in my head. "They said no one would believe me," I shrugged my shoulders.
Kat had held onto the ledge of the roof, her feet dangling off it with mine as we sat side by side. "Well they're wrong..." she spoke boldly, confidently. "And you want to know how I know they are wrong?" she bumped her shoulder with mine. "Because I believe you."
Those were words that would of given me comfort, had the circumstances been different. "But you're my sister, you have to believe me," this was my logic and it was true. She was blood, she'd have to believe me because if she didn't, then she wasn't the sister I knew.
"Exactly," she agreed with me excitedly. "If family don't believe you, then no one will," this was her point to bring forward. "And family, is all we need. Believing in each other, is what we have to do in life because the ones who matter, are the ones we always believe," her voice was soft.
Hearing her, my eyes rose up to meet hers. A perfect mixture of both dad and mom, the more I looked at her, the more it sometimes felt like seeing an older, female mirror image of myself. "Thanks Kat," I smiled to her.
Believing in each other was something I could do, something I could accept. Us believing in each other was something I could put my trust into. "But...why the tub of pudding?" Kat asked me, a little curious as to the explanation of this.
Glancing to the tub, I took a few bites, shovelling it into my mouth again. "I see you do it when you're not happy," I shrugged my shoulders as I took a bite and savoured it. "I thought it would make me feel better?" I mumbled with a mouthful of pudding circling my tongue as I swallowed.
"Is it working?" she wondered.
Licking the corner of my lip, I felt a bit of pudding dry there. "A little," I answered, trying to figure out how I felt. I felt like I was slowly filling up with pudding. Am I happier or not? I couldn't tell. "Not a lot," I decided it wasn't helping me as much as it made Kat look like she was being affected by it when she was down.
Maybe I'm not doing this right? I couldn't figure out what was making me feel the way I was. Like I was feeling a little better but I was mostly beginning to feel full. "Well, I'm going to prove those boys wrong and I'm going to prove that this is pudding is working," Kat said in a tone that was both playful and determined.
Hearing the last part, I turned my head to her and furrowed my brows at her. "How?" it was impossible for her to prove the pudding was working.
Taking a finger, she wiped it onto my nose and then took what remained on her finger into her mouth. The feel of the chocolate pudding smeared on the tip of my nose made me laugh. "See, it's working," she grinned as I reflected the same smile at her.
It was at that moment, that I knew she was right. We had to believe in each other and the pudding was working. Only because she was the one to make me smile. How I looked at her, I knew I loved her and believed her. Everything would work out and in that very moment, I realised she was my best friend. She was someone I could trust with anything and everything.
It was when I knew, she would always be there for me and I would be there for her. I had heard Kat say many times before that I was her soulmate but I truly believed it now. Kat, was my soulmate. And I admired her like the incredible sister she was to me.
PRESENT DAY...RPOV
Wandering around the walls, checking to make sure the panels still held up, I checked for any weak spots and gradually found myself getting closer to Morgan. He had been doing his regular morning routine, which was the training moves he did with his fighting stick. Approaching him, I had been meaning to talk to him once everything had finally settled. "Morgan," I called to him.
"Morning," he greeted me as he slowly stopped what he was doing to talk to me.
There had been things I heard from Carol that left me wondering just what happened to Morgan during the attack of the W's at our gates. Carol had told me how Morgan handled our attackers. "We haven't talked. We should," I had said as I walked over him, only to lightly bypass him. "A little later, okay?" I suggested it to be arranged for a time, later than the present.
He wasn't going to argue or deny me my offer. There was nothing else he really had to do but talk. "Okay," he accepted my offer.
Checking the walls, I had seen a leak of blood pooling down, I could only assume it was a walker had been forcing itself or had been forced so hard against the wall, that it spilled its own blood through the hole in the wall. A possible shot from one of our people during the battle with the W's.
My eyes became drawn to Maggie, as she stood on the watch point, gazing out into the distance. Waiting for Glenn. Going up to look with her, I had hope that Kat would show up soon with him. "You don't have to be up here so much," I suggested to her once I reached the top.
Maggie looked tired, like she hardly slept. Like me, she was worried about those that were still out there and hadn't made it back yet to us. "I won't be. This is the direction he'd come in. If he sends up a signal, it'll be from out there," softly, I had agreed with her as I would nod and glance in the direction we had hope of seeing a signal from Kat and Glenn. "Or it-it won't be."
Suddenly, she became doubtful that her husband, that my daughter, had made it out of the city. "When we go out there, it's never easy, it's never simple. It's always a fight," I gave her the truth she already knew. "But we've come back from harder things. From further away," I reminded her of all the obstacles we had got through together.
I needed to be confident that those that were still out there, were going to make their way back to us. "Glenn, Kat, Daryl, Abraham, and Sasha, they will, too," I had to give her the same confidence I had that this was the truth.
Carl believed it. So I do, too. "Maybe we don't wait for them to be back. We should start figuring out how to draw the walkers away. We have some food and water to last us a while and the walls are holding," I began to list the things that were going well and the things that needed to eventually be done.
There was much we could do. Plenty that we could do, to make our home more welcoming for those we were waiting to return to us. "We can take our time. Really think this through. Do it right," we had time to think, for now, until we needed to take action. "Clear it so they can-they can walk right in," I said, making her smile.
Picturing Kat, walking in through the gates, made a huge smile grow on my lips. If she was followed by Glenn, Daryl, Sasha and Abraham, it would make my smile grow twice as large. "I saw Judith in the house the other day," Maggie spoke up after a few short moments of silence. "She's starting to-she's starting to look like Lori," she had chuckled softly.
Thinking of the child I took under my care, a girl who wasn't mine by blood, but made by two people I loved more than they could of known. "Yeah," it made me think of the girl I was raising as my own.
Judith looks more like Lori than Kat does but Kat is more beautiful than either me or Lori combined. "Made me happy," Maggie grinned as her eyes softly met with mine.
The way she looked at me, made me think that maybe she'd been pondering something more than I thought. Visioning someone or something, behind those eyes of hers. "Me, too," I nod as I glanced to the distance. Hoping for a sign from Kat.
CPOV
Dad had been preparing himself to teach Ron how to shoot at a target. I offered to come along, wanting to see how the guy would do when he finally began trying to learn to protect himself. Father Gabriel had been placing posters about a prayer circle, which would take place at one in the afternoon and by the solar panels.
My father didn't support him. Not after what he did. How he betrayed us after we had done nothing but save him, forgive him and protect him. We brought him to a place he could be safe and he had tried to spread lies, in order for us to get kicked out. He tore the flyers down, crumpled the papers and held onto them.
"Dad," I felt like he was being a little too harsh on him. He was trying to do better, to redeem himself.
He didn't care for it. He wasn't ready to forgive him yet and had told me that Father Gabriel was lucky he didn't convince Deanna to kick him out for his web of lies. Finally reaching the set up, dad began teaching Ron the same way he had taught me. "Handguns will be a little better for your first go. Magazine release. Slide release. Thumb safety," dad began showing him the ropes.
"That stuff's easy, right, dad?" I asked him.
It was stuff that was simple. Killing things, that wasn't. It took practice and courage. It took a little bit of fear too. "Yeah," dad agreed with me. "Empty magazine. Empty chamber. See it?" dad further began to show Ron more that he needed to know.
Taking note, Ron seemed way more interested than he should be to me. "Yeah," he answered my dad, making me wonder just what got him so interested now in learning. He must of freaked out with that attacker the other day. Maybe now he just wants to be able to keep him and his family safe.
Turning to get himself into a position, dad was going to start demonstrating what not and what he should do. "Someone's in front of you, they have a gun," dad began by pointing to the space in front of himself.
Knowing what it was like, I remembered my first kill. How I had been so young, had I not counted Shane as one of the firsts too. But Shane, it wasn't him anymore. My first kill had been a boy, a part of the Woodbury community.
"You're gonna be scared," I informed him. I was scared but I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I was wrong. "You will be," I knew it for a fact. My own experience had taught me as much.
Dad's eyes had glanced over to me briefly before trying to get Ron's attention off of me. "Your body's gonna tense, you won't have time to think. You're just gonna want to pull the trigger when you get it in front of you," he gave Ron the facts before raising his gun to level with his shoulders. "But you'll miss and you'll be dead," he told Ron of the outcome of acting out of impulse. "You have to get it up to your eye."
Impulse kept people alive but accuracy, strength, patience, it was what kept all of us alive. "You've got to be strong enough to wait for your moment," I knew this from experience, as once I had panicked and almost died because of my impulse to shoot.
Ron's head eventually turned to look at my dad once more. "Can I, uh...?" Ron cleared his throat before he gestured with his palm curling closed, signalling for dad to hand him the gun.
Approaching Ron with no hesitation, dad offered Ron the gun. As Ron took it, he switched spots with dad and began aiming but already had his finger on the trigger. "Hey, your finger doesn't touch the trigger until you're ready to shoot," was dad's one rule while he corrected Ron. Watching him aim, he wasn't half bad.
A soft click had echoed. This was his way of telling us that he had fired the shot at an enemy. "Keep that one with you. Get a feel of what it's like to carry one around," dad said as he took a spare gun and examined it a little.
"Can I shoot it?" Ron was far too enthusiastic to use it. "Maybe like down at the walkers?" he was asking for a possibility that was very unlikely to happen.
Noise would only draw them to the same spot he shot from. How my dad looked to Ron, only told me he too thought the same thing. "No, with things how they are, the walls are strong, but we're lucky the walkers are spread out. We don't want to pull them all to one spot," was dad's excuse as to why it wasn't a good idea.
What came from Ron next, had me and dad both feeling a little sceptical about Ron's eagerness to learn. "Well, what about, like, target practice in the centre of town? 'Cause then the sound will spread out in each direction. Or maybe we could use, like, silencers or something like that," he was giving us many 'solutions' to our problem.
Myself and dad glanced to one another in a way, both thinking the same thing about Ron. Something isn't right with him. He's too enthusiastic about this. "But, uh...I mean, we probably don't want to waste bullets right now, huh? Just want to learn more," he apologised and gave an excuse to why he really wanted to shoot.
Patience is a virtue. I had hope that he was going to learn but that he could wait a while longer. We have to wait. For Kat. For Glenn. For Daryl. "You will," I assured him he would learn everything he needed to know in due time.
RPOV
Once I had left the boys to practice a little more with aiming, I had told them I had somewhere I needed to be. Carl assured me they weren't going to be practising for that much longer. He had to return to Judith too. Strolling past streets, my eyes roamed and had caught sight of the wall, of the block of names that had covered it. Blurry, were the names Nicholas, Glenn and Kat.
My eyes had fallen on Kat's name and it made the core in my stomach clench, like a gush of a bad feeling had crossed over me. Continuing to walk, my eyes were suddenly drawn to Morgan and to Denise who was with him. "Morgan," I called to him, making him turn to look at me. "Can we talk now?" I asked it it was a good time for him.
He looked to have been sweating, possibly from the exercise I had left him to do or from the pain he had in his arm. "Uh-huh," he accepted me offer to talk now. Leading him to my house, Carol and Michonne had joined us while we all were to talk to Morgan about what happened to me outside the walls, when I was in the RV. "What's going on?" Morgan looked around once silence had cloaked us like an invisible sheet.
Not knowing how to start it with him, I didn't want to come off as too stern with him. "When I was coming back..." I began as I cleared my throat. "I tried to cut off the herd with the RV. Lead the walkers away," I explained what part of my new plan had been after he was given the task to go back and tell them what happened out there.
"But five of those people with the W's in their foreheads, they stopped me. They tried to kill me, shot up the RV," I explained what and who I had encountered outside the safety of our walls. "Now, Carol says she saw you. That you wouldn't kill those people," I revealed that I knew all, that if he thought I wouldn't find out, he was incredibly wrong.
"Did you let any of them go?" Carol asked him. It was a heavy question but one I already felt I knew the answer to.
Morgan seemed far too nervous around me lately. Like he was keeping a secret from me. "Yes, I did," he didn't lie to me, he was up front and honest about it. "I didn't want to kill five people I didn't have to kill," he explained himself.
Carol was angered by this answer more than I was. "They burned people alive," she argued, passionate about the fact we had lost far too many, for him to show them mercy.
Not looking any of us in the eyes, it was like he feared to see our anger, our loss of faith in him. "Yeah," he didn't argue with Carol on that one. "Why didn't you kill me, Rick, back in King County?" he asked me after a few seconds of thoughts in silence. "Pulled a knife on you. I stabbed you. So why didn't you kill me? Was it 'cause I saved you after the hospital?" he began questioning all he did to me.
"'Cause I knew who you were," I answered him back just as sharply.
Leaning in, I was going to stand by the decision I had made before because I knew Morgan was good, of the good he was capable of. He proved it more when he saved Daryl from that horde. "Back there I would have killed you as soon as look at you. And I tried. But you, you let me live and then I was there to help Aaron and Daryl," he was giving me the butterfly effect example.
"See, if I-if I wasn't there...if they died...maybe those wolves wouldn't have been able to come back here. I don't know what's right anymore," Morgan was beginning to crumble up in front of me. "'Cause I did want to kill those men," his voice shook with his unsettled state.
I could see how he didn't want to look at me, at any of us, he was troubled and fighting a war with himself. A war, he didn't know which side to be on. "I seen what they did, what they keep doing," he sighed. "I knew I could end it."
Relaxing himself, he somehow found a kind of peace in his soul when he thought of his next words. "But I also know that people can change. 'Cause everyone sitting here has," he looked up to us, confident in his words. "All life is precious. And that idea-that idea changed me. It brought me back and it keeps me living," he was giving me his excuses as to what had kept him going, even after what happened to Duane.
He was right. We did change. Maybe not for the best. Maybe not for the worst. But we had changed. "I just don't think it can be that easy," Michonne looked like she wanted to accept his way of thinking but it was hard to.
"It's not easy," Morgan corrected her.
Michonne's eyes rose to meet him, to meet his gaze as he stared at her. "I wasn't saying-" she had tried to explain herself.
Somehow, Morgan understood her. "I-I know. And I've thought about letting that idea go. But I don't want to," Morgan didn't want to give up on this kind of thinking. He wanted to believe that everyone could redeem themselves.
Some people, don't change. I had hoped the Governor had. I had hoped that Shane had. I had hoped that Merle had but not many did. "You may have to," Michonne softly let the blow sink in on Morgan. "Things aren't as simple as four words. I don't think they ever were," she tried to help him understand where we were coming from.
To us, we knew what life was like, we knew how hard it was out there and we knew the evil shit people were truly capable of. "Do you think I don't belong here?" Morgan asked as he glanced to Michonne.
"Making it now, do you really think you can do that without getting blood on your hands?" I asked him.
I already knew my answer. It was just him who had to figure out his response to the darkness that surrounded our world now. "I don't know," Morgan admitted to me as his head slowly turned to meet my gaze.
MPOV
After our heavy conversation with Morgan, we decided to go for some fresh air, to try and figure something out together. A solution to the problems we had outside our walls. "If we can somehow get outside the walls, get back to our cars at the quarry, we could use them to draw them away," Rick was hoping there was a chance we could do this.
Glancing ahead, I tried to see if there was some way we could make it work. "We'll set up more watch points. Coordinate the shooting of guns and flares so we could pull them out in even directions," was a suggestion I made to see if we could somehow stand a chance against the walkers, find a way to lead them out of our gates.
Rick had been nodding along to all I had been saying. He didn't seem opposed to what I had conjured up. "We'd need to get all our people on it. Carl, Tara, Rosita, Carol," he listed those we would involve with our plan.
I had waited for him to put more names on the list, people from Alexandria that we could trust would do the job and possibly do it just as good as we could. But he never did. "What about everybody else?" I asked him, curious as to if he was going to involve anyone else from our new home.
Rocking on his feet, he instantly straightened up and turned to face me. "Well, let's just keep this to our own for now," he was preventing the others to grow, to get better suited to the world. He was denying them the chance to prove themselves to us.
"Really?" I was shocked he was going to play this card on the people here in Alexandria.
Turning to face him, I was a little disheartened that he wasn't trusting them to do the job right with us. "Look, if we had the time to bring the people along, sure," he could hardly look me in the eyes. "But we haven't had a chance to catch our breath," when he finally met my gaze, his jaw hardened a little.
Now that he was finally trusting me again, it made me wonder why. Until I remembered his words from a few days back. Only me, Carl and Kat could convince him to change his mind. "Really?" I sighed at his answer.
It was weak. "We're in here together. We're catching our breath right now," I was stating the facts. While we were cooped up in here, with the walkers surrounding us, pushing against our walls, we had time to spare. We had the time he feared we didn't have. "Anything else is just excuses."
Rick only looked at me, then down to the floor, nodding as I sensed he was slowly agreeing to the statement I had made. Fast footsteps were approaching behind me. "Deanna," Rick greeted who was coming up behind me.
"Rick," she greeted him happily.
In her hands, was a huge piece of paper. Turning to face her, I leaned against the porch railing and saw the happy expression on Deanna's face. It was a huge difference compared to the broken, lifeless version of herself a day ago. "What's that?" Rick was curious to know what she'd been holding onto.
"Plans for the expansion," she was quick to answer, panting from the little sprint she'd done to get to us.
While I was delighted to see that Deanna had some positivity brought back to her, a hopeful look to the future, Rick was more interested in the issues we had left to solve. "We got a few other things on our plate right now," Rick had slightly turned away from her, gazing towards the walls.
The way he had brushed her off slightly, hadn't phased her at all. Was she high? Or did she finally find something to put her time and effort on? To me, I felt that maybe, she found something that gave her purpose again. "I know," she assured her plans were only something to focus on in the future.
Her plans were in no way important right now but to me, it seemed they were important to her because it gave her something to look forward to. It was a goal for her. "These are for what Alexandria can be after this. Because one way or another, there's gonna be an after this," her positive words had me and Rick glance to one another then back to her. I'm happy to be seeing her coming back to herself again.
RPOV
Doing another patrol around the area, I was checking to make sure that the walls were stable. The support we had made to ensure the part of the wall where the tower was stayed strong, looked too weak to me. Setting up the cutting board, I began sawing wood pieces to fit a better support system I wanted to put in place.
Working hard, I was doing my best to keep us safe, to keep my mind off the thought that maybe, Kat wasn't going to be coming back. Or Glenn, or Daryl, or Sasha, or Abraham. I wanted them all back by now. I needed to preoccupy myself before I did something stupid. While I was trying to put the board I had cut, with the nails I was going to use to keep it steady, I felt someone approach me.
Giving me a hand to keep it steady while I began doing my best to make sure the wall would hold, I felt someone come up beside me. Lifting the board, keeping it in place, I looked to my side and saw Tobin helping me. "You look like you could use some help," he said kindly. No longer, did he fear me like he did the night of Pete's death.
Out of all the people of Alexandria, he was slowly becoming the one I trusted most to believe in me. The only one that could see what I was doing, was trying to do good, to keep us alive. "You know, I think we could build up a brace on this thing," he suggested as he went to cut another board in half.
Continuing to screw the board onto the panel, I was hoping it would work, that it would keep the place standing. That there would be no weak spots if we made it stronger. Gradually, we had been building up a good enough defence to keep it stood up. Or so, I hoped it would hold up. "It don't mean anything as long as we keep this up," I told Tobin.
His help, it had been appreciated but it didn't mean that we were getting close. As long as we were surviving, that was all that mattered. Him helping me, didn't mean we were friends. "You know, you scared the hell out of people when we first saw you," Tobin admitted, making what he thought was light conversation.
"I know," I had already known that everyone here feared me when I first entered the gates. My beard, was wild, my eyes were crazy and my mind was always on high alert. I didn't and couldn't trust anyone. I didn't know if I could say any differently now.
Hammering away, he would glance at me and chuckle quietly to himself. "You scared the hell out of me. With that beard. The way you looked around like you were seeing things we weren't...hiding around corners," he said, making me stop.
"Turns out you were," the way he looked at me, made me feel certain that he was beginning to put faith in me. He was believing in me and he wasn't as scared of me as he was before.
It didn't change things but it did make me come to terms with the fact that, if he could get adjusted to me, to trusting me, to doing things my way, then maybe there was a chance. "Things moved slow here. And then things just started moving fast. Too fast," he explained what it was like for them, for those that lived in Alexandria since we had arrived.
"But don't give up on us," he pleaded for me to not give up on them. To not give up on the people of Alexandria and what they were capable of. Hammering more, I was taking his words into account, trying to consider them. I'm trying, Kat. I'm trying.
CPOV
Thinking about Kat, I had decided to go for a walk outside, to clear my head and to take my shift on watch. The walk didn't last long, as I saw Maggie stood up on the watch point, gazing down at the distance, waiting for something. Waiting for someone. I knew who she had been waiting for. She's waiting for Glenn. Just as me and dad are waiting for Kat.
Climbing up, I didn't waste any time getting to the top while using the ladders and eventually found myself above ground. Above everything. Exchanging soft 'hey's to each other, I glanced to the distance. Hopeful to see Kat soon with Glenn beside her. "It's my turn to take watch," I informed her bluntly.
"I can do another hour," Maggie was offering to take my shift.
Knowing she hardly slept, that she'd tried getting out there with Aaron the other day, I knew she was in no shape to be out here. I wondered if she had any sleep at all last night. "No, you need rest," I was trying my best to take care of her.
From what I knew, it was something Kat would of done and not only that, we all did genuinely care about each other. From me caring about Maggie, to Kat caring about everyone from out group and dad only really looking out for everyone in our group.
Maggie knew that my words held good intentions behind it. "Thanks," she gently passed me the gun as she removed it from her shoulders.
Taking it, I slid it over my shoulders and waited. The W's wont be back but I can only hope that Kat, Glenn, Daryl, Sasha and Abraham get back to us. "Maggie?" I called to her before she reached the ladders. "They're out there. Glenn, Kat...they're out there," I told her.
Gazing to one another, I could feel her eyes soften at my words. I needed to share the hope Kat had out to those that needed it. "Have faith..." I encouraged her to keep positive about it.
If she wasn't positive, then it was only going to be a negative perspective regardless what happened next. Negative thoughts only bring negative endings. "I'm trying Carl," Maggie pursed her lips and nods to me slowly.
Her eyes looked everywhere but at me. "I am," this was her way of telling me that she was trying, that even if she couldn't she was trying to think positive about it rather than negatively. Without another word, she climbed down the ladders and went back to the house while I kept looking out, hoping for a sign from Kat.
RPOV
Walking with Tobin through the town, we had taken a break and went check the remaining walls, we wanted to make sure that everything was still standing. We were going to fortify the place to make sure our walls were secure.
That was until Tobin spotted Spencer before I had. The sound of a wire scraping made us look towards the sound. Spencer was trying to climb his way across the wall and towards another house across from the watch point. "What the hell?" Tobin said what I had thought.
Except, I was also thinking of how stupid he was being. How reckless he was being. Charging for the ladder, I climbed as quickly as I could, I watched as walkers were reaching for the sky, eager for the taste of stupid meat. "Hey, Spencer, get back here!" I yelled as I saw him dangling from the wire. "Spencer, get back here now," I called to him again.
All he did, was ignore me, ignore my demands for him to stop being an idiot and to come back before he fell and died. "Spencer. Spencer, move!" I heard Tara calling from her watch point.
Losing his balance, his feet began dangling and I watched the wire beginning to dip. "Go! Keep moving! Hurry!" I yelled, feeling worried for the boy, the only person Deanna loved left, was risking his life for something I wasn't sure of. "Spencer, come on!" I shouted, watching the wire snap and he was now left with only a metal rope to climb.
Gunshots were being fired repetitively as Spencer fell to the floor and bumped into some. On his feet, he was still fighting the walkers, shoving them back instead of climbing up. Once Tara cleared the area for Spencer, he began holding on, trying to climb but instead, had relied on me, Tobin and Morgan to pull him up from where he was.
Dragging him up, I could hardly see what was going on, only that Spencer was struggling against walkers and that they were trying to take him. As soon as he was back on the watch point, safe, he fell onto the floor and was panting at the fear he had almost died. "Tara! You almost died once for these people," I yelled at her from across the watch points.
"What?" she was offended and angry about my words.
Perhaps I did use the wrong words but her dangling over the edge, with only a clip of bullets, was not something I would of advised her to do. Not for Spencer, and not any other idiot like him that would of done what he tried to do.
Michonne was stood beside Tara, who had helped her up onto the watch point after she ran out of bullets. "What the hell were you doing?" I shouted at her, thinking of how reckless she had been too. If she had slipped, she would of died with him.
Tobin and Morgan were at either sides of me, while we had helped bring Spencer to safety and continued to be beside me as I went to lecture him next. "Lost a damn shoe. Crap," Spencer commented, more worried about an item of clothing, over his own life.
Panting, I was trying to catch my breath after the work out he gave me just trying to get his stupid ass back up here. "What was that?" I growled, trying to figure out what exactly was the plan that he had thought through.
"I was trying to help. I wanted to get to a car, draw them away," he explained what his plan was.
Evidently, he hadn't thought clearly about it, hadn't consulted anyone about what he planned to do. He didn't have the experience either. "You ever make a climb like that before?" I asked him, pointing to the wire he had left now damaged. "You want to help? Don't make us come running to save you. You got an idea, you come to me," I lectured him, made him think twice from now on before doing something stupid.
He could of cost us Tara, along with his own life. His plan was stupid and the fact he thought he could do it, was ridiculous after the outcome we just saw. "Would you have listened to me?" he asked me, challenging me and my authority.
CAROL'S POV
Sat out on the porch, I had been babysitting Judith while Carl and Rick were busy, as was Michonne. Needing time after all the killing I had done, I was happy being in the background again. Since the meeting we had with Morgan, he seemed a little off, like he was keeping something.
Keeping my eye on him, I had noticed he had been visiting Denise a lot. When I saw him leave the infirmary, I decided I would go follow him once I saw Denise leave with him. Something feels wrong...
Following them, I had noticed them sneakily going off to another direction from the others. A direction that made me feel a little uneasy. Spotting Jessie outside her door, I was thanking someone for making sure Jessie was there for me to give her Judith to look after.
Catching up with her, I called out to her. "Hi," she responded with a soft 'hey' back as she turned to look at me. "I know you just took care of Judith this morning, but they want some help with the watch points after that thing with Spencer. Could you...?" I was softly asking her to let me go on watch point.
Spencer earlier had been doing stupid stuff, meaning more of us needed to keep an eye out because the walkers were surely going to be drawn to specific spots where shots had been fired. "Oh, yeah, no problem. Unless you want me to take your shift," she offered to go instead.
Not letting her in on my lie, I wasn't going to let her ruin my chance to investigate what Morgan was doing. "No, I like being up there," I partially lied.
"Even with all them outside?" Jessie seemed a little sceptical to the fact.
She was really trying to question me, to question how I saw the world and trying to see through my excuses to leave her with Judith. "You can see everything. Even inside," I was using any excuse just to get her to drop it.
Just fall for it already. Hesitant to fall for it, she eventually did. "Um, let me just lock these up. Can you give me a second?" she hoped I'd let her do what she needed to, showing me what tool she had in her hands before she went to go inside. Humming my acceptance for waiting, she went inside. "Do you want to come in?" she permitted me to enter.
"Yeah," I accepted quickly, wanting this to be over and done with so I could find Morgan and Denise again.
Glancing around, I was praying she would be quick. "Carol? Carol," I heard a faint voice call as I walked further into the room once I shut the door.
Assuming the small voice, a voice of a child, was that of Sam, I began approaching where the voice came from. "What, Sam? Sam?" I answered his call, bouncing Judith softly on my hip.
"What happens if you can't live with it?" he asked me a little hesitantly.
He had been referring to the conversation we had a while back. A conversation I remembered like it was moments ago. "I told you, it eats you up," I answered him. "Can you come down here?" I pleaded him to come down, because I could barely hear him. "I can barely hear you."
His little voice was sad. "The people who came, were they the monsters?" he wondered what kind of people the W's were. "Did my dad turn into one?" his questions were so innocent but held a lot of curiosity and pain.
"What?" I was unsure if I heard him right.
Trying my best to hear him, to make out what he was saying as he mumbled between words. "If you kill people, do you turn into one of the monsters?" he asked me again, or so I thought. I couldn't be sure.
Hearing his question clearer, I had to think for a few seconds of what to say to him. I thought I knew but I was starting to question everything I knew too. "The only thing that keeps you from becoming a monster is killing," the words I said didn't feel as right as it should have. When the door opened, I handed Judith over to Jessie slowly. "Thank you for this."
"Oh, yeah, no problem," she assured me as she took Judith from my arms and I left.
Finding the keys, I began using it for the cell that Morgan once stayed in. The same cell Rick had stayed in after his fight with Pete. Just as I opened the door, Morgan was coming out. "Who the hell do you have in that cell?" I was going to be upfront about my curiosity. I got caught. No point in hiding my intentions to find out.
RPOV
Working away with Tobin, we were doing our best to fortify the place, keeping it steady as we would nail boards to make sure the walls weak points held. "Hey, you seen Denise?" I heard Tara ask.
"No," Tobin answered her with a small sigh.
Watching Tara leave, I felt bad for the words I had used, for irritating her the way I had. I was just worried and annoyed by what Spencer did. "I'll be right back," I said to Tobin, stopping my work so I could make things right between myself and Tara.
Following her, I made sure my pace was quick enough for me to get to her in time. Jogging over to her, she was on the hunt for the doctor. "Hey," I called to make Tara stop. "Look, I'm sorry about before. I was just-" I went to apologise.
"He was stupid," she finished it for me. "That we know," she agreed that what Spencer had done, was mindless and an uneducated guess on what he should and could do.
Rocking on my feet, I didn't know how to apologise to people lately, much less to someone I cared about like I had Tara. She was someone who proved herself worthy of our trust and regardless where we were on the day of the Governor's attack, she was family now. "I just meant what you did for him, you didn't have to," I tried to explain to her my thoughts on the subject.
"I know," she assured me she understood what could of happened.
Hearing this, it made me confused that she'd realised it was a risk. "You could have died," I didn't want to lose anyone else. I didn't know if anyone that hadn't made it back yet had survived either.
My own daughter was still out there and could be dead for all I knew. "I mean, I'd like to say I was thinking about it, but I wasn't," Tara shrugged, which made me think of Kat. How she too could be selfless for others if it meant they had a chance to survive with her.
I wondered if that was what happened back with Glenn and Nicholas. I feared she might of sacrificed herself for them. "Is that why you did it? You weren't thinking about it?" I did my best to bring myself back to the moment, asking her if this was just some kind of instinct thing.
"No, that's how it works with us," she convinced me that we looked out for each other, without thinking, we would put our lives on the line for each other. "We're stuck with each other, right?"
Before I had a chance to answer her, footsteps were fast approaching, it was Deanna. She was looking directly at me and her eyes seemed softer. Since last night, she had appeared to be a lot lighter, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. "Rick, you saved my son. Thank you," she thanked me.
"Thank Tara," I told her who the real hero was.
Her head turned to Tara, who was looking to Deanna with soft eyes. "I already did," she assured me she was a step ahead of me on that one. "Now I'm thanking you," Deanna approached once Tara left us alone to talk privately.
Rubbing at my hand, I had hope I didn't infect my hand when I had taken that weapon out of walker and used it. "What Spencer did was stupid," I warned her that the kind of thinking, the kind of actions being set as an example by her son, was not supposed to happen anymore.
He had been a risk, all by trying to be the hero that he wasn't. "I can't argue that," she agreed with me. "At least he tried," she tried to keep a positive view about her son's screw up.
Taking a step closer, she was making a light thing about something so serious to me. "That's not the point. I could have tried," I informed her that there was a likelihood I could have done it. "There was a chance."
"How's that?" Deanna wondered what went on in that mind of mine.
The way I worked things out, I was particular. "When the walkers were going for him, it made a gap. I could have jumped down, ran, made it out. I could have got in a car, used it to lead the walkers away," I informed her of the plan I had made off the top of my head, which would of gone smoothly but would of costed a life.
A life I couldn't risk letting get taken. Not if I needed Deanna here to keep order, not when she was a good woman, who let us in and finally opened her eyes to reality. "I could have done that and Spencer would be dead," I made it clear that this was what would of happened if I hadn't pulled Spencer up using the wire.
How her eyes stared at me, was like they were amused. "But you didn't do that," she stated. "Why?" she bombarded me with questions, possibly trying to make me say something she expected me to.
"I helped save him because he's your son," was all I could offer her.
This answer only amused her more. "Wrong answer," she denied that my explanation was valid. She knows. That being a leader, means protecting everyone. Every life, no matter how stupid their actions were, meant something. It was my job to protect him. As a leader especially.
MPOV
Gazing at the plans Deanna gave us, from an expansion, to different things we could add to the area we were in, from everything else, I saw the plans. I had hope for a better future. I had hope that the herd weren't going to draw us out of here like it had before. I had hope we were stronger this time.
When I looked over all the plans, I felt a sense of hope. The same kind of hope that I got off Kat when she spoke about a brighter future, when she would make a dark situation feel lighter again. Only Kat, Rick, or Carl, knew how to do that to me but this time, it was a piece of paper. There has to be an after this. There has to be.
CPOV
On a walk, I needed to clear my head, needed to see if there was some way I could help dad with something. I needed to preoccupy myself with something, because thinking that Kat was still out there, or dead, wasn't something I wanted to be thinking about. On a stroll, I had felt feet following behind me, felt like someone was stalking me.
All of that, it didn't matter, not when I saw people getting to their feet, stopping what they were doing. Everyone stared up at the sky, when my eyes drifted over to see what caught their attention, I felt a smile slowly grow upon my face. How my smile touched my eyes, was because joy filled me.
It was her. It had to be her. Kat...you really are alive. That has to be you. My heart raced, feeling light at the thought she made it. That if I just believed in her, she would always come back, like she said she would. I knew I could believe in you...
RPOV
Witnessing everyone looking up at the sky, I squinted up at it and noticed green balloons floating up, beyond the trees and reaching for the sun. Deanna had stared up at it too. A grin formed along my lips, as they tugged into a smile. A flooding sensation of joy grew in my heart.
Kat...it has to be her. Right? That had to be her with Glenn. There was no other explanation to me, because Kat and Glenn both had said they would of left us a sign. She's out there. She has to be. Hearing footsteps fast approaching, Maggie had ran over to us. Panting out that it was Glenn.
Nodding, I smiled and glanced to the balloons again. "Did you see Kat out there?" I asked, wondering if my daughter was with him. I wanted to know if she had survived. When Maggie didn't say anything, I felt my heart sinking but plummet, it had when I heard something snap over out heads and the tower, like in slow motion, began to fall.
Yelling for everyone to get back, they all ran and did their best to escape. There was no time to discuss plans on how to get Kat and Glenn back inside. Or to find out if Kat or Glenn was with the other out there. All time, had ran out and it was time to hide or fight. The dead would soon surround us...
A/N: Hope you enjoyed chapter 5 out of 7 in the multiple chapter post for the spooky season! So far, you've got to this point. So prepare yourself for the half way point which is next chapter, half way, meaning for the sixth season to be over. Uncharted territory lies ahead and Daryl, Carl, all of them are in big trouble. As you know...
I want to admit, writing that first scene in the chapter, it made me tear up because of so many reasons. From baby Carl being with younger Kat, to Kat being a sweet sister and the pair of them just living before the ZA. Not only that but that scene is going to be important in the future...very important...so remember it.
Anyway, questioned to be answered this chapter:
1) What did you think of this chapter?
2) What was your favourite scene?
3) Which relationship do you feel strongest about when it comes to Kat? Is it Carl? Rick? Daryl? Or is it Michonne?
4) What are you thinking of the series of chapters coming out so far?
5) Anything you don't want to see happen in future seasons?
Much love,
HeroJustInTime90
