Thanks for all the continued reviews and feedback! I know we have a lot over conversation in this fic, and not as much action and movement. I'm trying to change that in the next few chapters. Let me know what you think, and as always, onwards and upwards!
Morning found Star with her head awkwardly leaning backwards and a knot in her neck, her muscles stiff in odd places. She slowly lifted her head upright and grimaced as she rubbed her sore appendages. Squinting in the bright light, she found herself in the living room of the family home, early morning sunlight yellowing the unfamiliar walls.
She stretched her legs out, and the carpet crinkled in response. Confused, she looked down and saw that her legs were resting on a widespread pile of papers.
Ah yes, she thought to herself. The maps, inventory lists, and brainstorming sheets from last night. After their little encounter on the counter, Daryl had occupied himself with a more traditional version of keeping watch as she poured over the information. At one point, she must have fallen asleep on the cold counter top, because she didn't recall moving to the couch.
She turned to look around the rest of the room, and found her companion sprawled out on the couch, snoring quietly. His hand was barely touching the back of her shoulder, but she felt his warmth nonetheless. He must have carried her over to the living room during the night.
She slowly leaned away from the couch, so as not to wake him, and rose to her feet, stretching upwards onto her toes. She quietly padded her way into the kitchen, and was surprised to see Carl sitting at the dining room table, snacking on some bread.
"Morning Carl," she whispered. He smiled and nodded back, his mouth full of crust. She crossed the room and selected a few pieces of fruit from the bowl and a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard. Picking up her pocket knife from inside her shoes by the door, she sat across from the young man and began to slice away at an apple.
"Did you figure anything out?" Carl asked, gesturing to the living room with his thumb. Star shook her head sadly.
"No. I keep looking at the same maps and lists, waiting for something to hit me, but nothing so far," she confided.
Carl looked straight at her with the confidence of someone years older. "We should leave," he said with conviction. "There's nothing for us here. These people are going to get us killed."
"These people saved your lives," she reminded him firmly, getting up from the table and retrieving her pile of papers from the floor of the living room.
"We would have made it," he said, but with notably less confidence as she sat down again.
"Maybe so, maybe not," Star conceded. She spread the papers out on the surface of the table. "We'll never know. It's all irrelevant anyway, because we have to figure out what to do now."
He shrugged again. "And we still don't know what that is."
Star sighed, and stood up suddenly.
"Wait, I'm sorry!" Carl immediately said. "I didn't mean it like that."
"What?" Star said, genuinely confused. "Oh, no Carl. I know you didn't. I just can't stand to look at these papers any longer. They're mocking me."
He gave her a funny look and shook his head, laughing to himself.
"Laugh all you want, but after however many hours, I'm starting to see them as torture, not useful." She looked around the rest of the house. "Is anyone else up?"
Carl shook his head. "No, it's still pretty early."
"Great. I'm going to get a quick run in, and try to clear my head." She looked down at her attire. She was still wearing the straight cargo pants and black top from the night before. Carol had taken her other layers to clean after Ron's blood had gotten all over them. She slung her holstered spear across her back. "I guess that means stopping by my house."
"Can I come?" Carl asked, standing up as well. Star's eyes widened in surprise.
"Sure, I guess," she responded. She was tempted to ask why the boy wanted to run with her, but decided against it. Carl bounded upstairs and appeared a few moments later, dresses in shorts, tennis shoes and a t-shirt. He tucked his knife into his waistband and nodded to her, and the two were out the door.
After a brief stop at Star's, they headed out to the gate. Carl came to a halt at the gate, and Star went a few steps ahead to unlock the padlock with a key she kept tucked into her shoelaces. She frowned slightly when her key refused to enter the lock. She flipped the lock around in her hands, and sighed in frustration.
"Someone changed the lock in the night, and I don't have the new key," she informed Carl. The boy nodded in understanding and then said, "Follow me," taking off down the dirt perimeter along the wall. Star dutifully followed her new brother, and they soon came to a stop at a specific post. Carl hopped a few feet up the pole and grabbed some kind of handhold, hauling himself up until his feet could make use of the previous holds.
Star squinted up at him, and saw that he was using long wood screws in the post to clamber his way up. She followed his lead, and soon the two were dropping down the sheer surface on the other side.
"Nice trick," Star commended Carl. "Where did you learn to do that?"
Carl visibly blushed. "Enid. She had just one spike she put in and pulled out. I thought leaving them there was more practical."
Star began to set a mid-range pace, and smiled at Carl's concern for the girl. "She's a smart one. She spent a lot of time on the outside, like your group. I see why you have similar ideas about Alexandria."
Carl picked up his pace. Since he was shorter than her, he had to move a little faster to keep up.
"Alexandria…it's nice," he started.
"But?" Star prompted.
"But the people here are soft," he said, almost bitterly. "They're soft and they're naïve and afraid and they are going to end up dead. Or worse."
"Maybe they can learn, Carl," Star argued. He shot her an exasperated look.
"You can't really believe that, Ryl…Star."
"What if we trained them? Armed them? Do you think they could make it then?"
His gaze remained hardened. "No. It doesn't matter if they have guns or not. They don't…they aren't prepared to mentally deal with what's out there. Out here, you have to know that everyone could die today. It doesn't matter if you love them or not." His sullenness came through even more aggressively. "All of us are gonna die and maybe turn, and those people think they're special and it won't happen to them! They live in safety and luxury and think that they're the exception!"
"And you hate them for it?"
He stopped dead and shot her a reprimanding look. "Don't tell me you don't. I know it's not true. You were on the outside, so you know how the world really is! You didn't even tell them your real name!"
"Man," Star muttered under her breath as she resumed her running. "That is never going to stop being thrown in my face, is it?"
Carl wasn't done with his rant, though. "And the worst thing is, everyone else is playing along! Carol pretending that she's a housewife again, and Michonne and my dad doing stupid patrol in their uniforms! Even Daryl's playing mechanic in Aaron's garage!"
This time, it was Star who stopped, putting her hand onto Carl's shoulder. "That's where I'm going to draw a line, Carl. You can hate on the luxury and the mindset, but hating on your family for trying to fit in with what's normal here is not okay. They are trying to rebuild lives."
"That's stupid. They're just saying that all of this is back to normal," Carl shot back. "It's not the old normal!"
At that moment, the rustling of dragging leaves echoed from their right. A half-rotted walker, its arm partially torn from its torso, a chunk of its face covered with fat maggots, dragged a boot behinds its foot, the laces caught around its bony ankle. Star instinctually put her arm out to shield Carl behind her, but the boy went around her impatiently. He rotated his knife around in his hand and expertly plunged it deep under the walker's jaw, all the way to the hilt. The creature slumped forward, and he yanked his weapon out before the body hit the ground.
He stared hatefully at the corpse as Star came up behind him. Despite his mature and angry exterior, she knew that part of Carl was still a young boy, saddened at the things he had seen and frightened by the lives he had ended. She carefully placed a hand around his shoulder, tracing small, comforting circles with her fingertips, and saw his free hand ball into a fist. In a sudden outburst, he kicked the body right in the rib cage, the crack of several ribs echoing out into the morning.
"That's the new normal," he said quietly, resentfully.
Star's reassuring hand suddenly stilled.
"What did you say?" she asked him, eyebrows furrowed and a distant look in her eyes.
"That," he said, gesturing to the grotesque lump of flesh and bones, "is our new normal."
Before he could process what was happening, she was sprinting back down the trail, a flurry of brown leaves kicking up behind her in a storm of dirt and debris.
"Ry…Star, what the hell?!" he called, taking off after her. She showed no notice of his words, gaining even more speed as she bolted straight for the wall.
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Daryl jolted awake as a bright light hit his face. He grunted and threw a hand over his eyes, shielding them as he groggily investigated the source of the glare. The sunlight was coming in through the tall, thin window next to the door, lighting up the entire living room.
He slowly lifted up to a seated position, trying to shove the sleep-induced haze from his mind. Why wasn't he in his room?
A glimpse of the counter brought memories of the previous night flooding back. Oh…right…keepin' watch.
He looked down at the floor below the couch for the person in mind. He had carried her to the couch after she had fallen asleep in a pile of her maps. She had, half-asleep, fought him over sharing the couch for the night, and stubbornly refused to take the piece of furniture for herself, finally settling on the floor to prove her barely-conscious point. He felt strange sleeping on the floor next to her, still unsure of what or how he and she…or they?...were, and certainly not willing to share any of that with his roommates. He also felt strange abandoning her downstairs to sleep in his room, and even stranger thinking about bringing her to his room. So he simply settled on the couch, and apparently had fallen asleep there as well.
And now she was gone, he realized as he scanned the room. He got to his feet and made his way into the kitchen, which was also empty, save a jar of peanut butter, some bread crusts, and an apple core on the table.
He was about to go upstairs and begin rousing the others when he passed by the front door. The entire family left their day-to-day shoes there, and kept a spare set of boots by their bedsides. Two sets of shoes were missing: Star's orange and black shoes, and Carl's worn, dirty Converse. Her spear and holster were missing as well.
Jesus Christ, man, he chided himself. Calm down. She don't need nobody worryin' after her. Getting' all worked up over nothin'.
He sat down at the table to finish the open jar of peanut butter when footsteps sounded from upstairs. A few moments later, Carol appeared in the kitchen entryway.
"Good morning," she greeted the man. He waved his peanut butter-laden spoon at her in return.
Carol busied herself with a kettle on the stove, and casually asked after a few moments, "Is Star still asleep upstairs?"
"Naw," Daryl responded. "Went out with Carl."
Carol nodded slightly. "That's nice of her."
Daryl chose not to respond, so Carol kept going. "She seems intelligent, and good with people."
Daryl again remained silent. Carol scowled at him behind his back as she rinsed out a mug in the sink, but kept her voice informal as she continued. "And she is a lovely looking girl."
Daryl smirked slightly. "Don't let her hear ya say that," he finally spoke.
"Why's that?" Carol asked, sitting across from him.
"She don't like being called a girl," he informed her.
"Well, then what should we call her?" Carol asked slyly. Daryl rolled his eyes at her prying.
"Her name?" he said sarcastically, tiring of the game.
"Daryl, you know what I mean," Carol sighed, exasperated. Daryl got up from his seat and tossed the empty jar into the sink, glaring at the motherly woman as he stalked out of the room. Carol returned the look with equal energy.
"And you should wash out that jar!" she shot as his back.
"Whatever!" he returned, but stopped in his tracks at a sound echoing the neighborhood outside. He returned to the kitchen, pressing his finger to his lips as he peered out the window next to Carol. She crouched below the line of sight and pulled her blade from her waistband.
"What is it?" she hissed over his shoulder.
"A bunch of footsteps. Movin' fast," he muttered back.
The rest of the family must have heard the same noises, because within fifteen seconds, Sasha, Rick, and Abraham were at the bottom of the stairs, still clad in their clothing from the day before, weapons in hand and at the ready. Daryl gestured to all of them to keep their voices down and out of sight of the windows. The slamming, rapid footsteps were growing louder with every second, and soon whatever, or whoever, it was would be on the front doorstep.
"STAR WAIT DON'T GO IN!" Carl's voice sounded down the street. The louder set of footsteps suddenly quieted and slowed.
Daryl was at the door in a second, wrenching it open before Rick could warn him off.
"Daryl don't!..."
But the hunter was out of the house, Rick hot on his feels. Rick knew that Daryl wouldn't hesitate to throw himself in danger's way, but they had no idea why Carl and Star were running, or what or who was behind them.
"Stay here!" he ordered Abraham as he bolted after his right-hand man. Abraham immediately pulled the front door closed and locked it behind their leader.
Daryl sprinted out to the center of the street, and saw Star and Carl down about 20 yards away.
"What's going on?" he shouted down at them. Star broke into a faster-paced jog upon seeing him. She reached him, and he held out his arm, his eyes checking her over for injuries.
Her eyes danced with excitement, the gold specks as bright as ever, as she jogged past him and up to the front steps, saying, "I figured it out!" as she passed by.
Carl came up to Daryl a few minutes later, out of breath. He stopped by the older man, hands on his knees, gasping, "She…she keeps …saying that. We must've run… a mile…and a half…full sprint…"
Rick was standing nearby, confused by the scene. Star was pounding on the door, shouting, "Guys, it's us. Let us in!"
"Where's Rick?" Abraham's gruff voice demanded. "What in the name of hell is goin' on out there?"
"What is going on?" a soft female voice with a bite asked.
"Woman, what did I just ask?!"
Rick approached the door. "Abraham, we're fine. Open up."
The click of the lock was heard, and the door opened to reveal fully-armed Carol, Sasha, Abraham, and latecomer Michonne.
"What is going on?" Star asked, perplexed by the ready militia inside the house.
"We have the same question for you!" Sasha responded.
"Why were ya making so much damn noise, runnin' through town?" Daryl demanded, still not placated that there was no present danger.
"Star, why did you take off like that?" Carl pressed.
She was too excited by whatever the answer was to take the time to verbalize it. Instead, she pushed past the crowd at the door and dove to the floor of the living room, rifling through the maps and lists she had accumulated. She produced a single, large, worn map with a triumphant "Aha!" and scrambled to the kitchen counter.
The band of perplexed survivors wearily followed her into the large room, gathering around her as she chewed on a pen, tracing circles all over the map until she enthusiastically circled a tiny section of print, almost dead center. She flipped it around so it read upright to Rick, who was standing directly across from her.
He read the print enclosed in the ink, and then looked even more perplexed.
"Sadelia, Colorado?" he read.
There was a pause, Star's eyes and face still lit up with excitement and hope.
Finally…
"I don't get it," Carl deadpanned. "What's Sadelia?"
Star took deep, invigorating breath. "Guys, Sadelia is where we find the new normal."
What is in Sadelia, Colorado? Why did Carl's outburst suddenly bring it to Star's mind? And the fate of Alexandria's citizens still hangs in the air!