AN: Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I've had a lot of stuff going on in my life and family lately that its really taken a toll on my writing schedule as of recently.
But I won't keep you any longer, enjoy the chapter!
The hot sun of the Georgian atmosphere beat down on the prison-goers, their foreheads already breaking out in sweat.
Reagan checked the clip of her pistol, making sure it was loaded before she tucked it in the lip of her waistband. Tying off her knife on a belt loop, she unclipped the strap for easier access and slid it both in and out before securing it. She let out a deep breath, a barely faint breeze tossing about her baby hairs that tickled her face annoyingly. Her fingers tucked her blonde locks behind her hair as she stood to her feet, manning her scythe in her left hand.
As she turned, her gold eyes saw the rest of her group readying themselves to head into the upper prison yard to try and capture the inside. Maggie and Glenn were conversing with one another while checking their weapons, T-Dog and Daryl packing up the rest of their camp with everyone else, and Rick staring at the Walker plagued prison gates they were set to attack. Reagan shifted in her boots and began her trek towards Rick, shouldering her scythe and rubbing the back of her hand across her dry lips. Rick turned his head to face her once he heard her footsteps in the grass stop next to him.
"Sure are a lot of them up there." Reagan kept her eyes set on the gates at the end of the dirt road, the Walkers clawing and gnawing at the welded wire as they stared at her and Rick.
"We can take them down."
"You sure are confident, Cowboy." Reagan smirked and finally looked over at him, Rick meeting her gaze. He didn't reply to her, only turned around to face the rest of his group as they readied themselves. Reagan turned, but did not walk after him, only watched as he stopped in front of everyone while placing his hands on his hips.
"Alright everyone, gather up." Rick called and waved his hand before placing it back on his hip. He licked his lips and gave a look back at the gates above them, returning his attention to everyone that now stood before him, "We've got a lot to do when we get up there, so we're goin' to have to take our regular formation. Reagan is gonna head up the front with her scythe, me and Glenn will hold the sides while T-Dog, Daryl, and Maggie take up the rear. The rest of you will draw as much attention away from us as you can from the fences. Strike 'em down through the wiring."
"Is everyone ready?" Rick asked, his blue eyes staring over the weary faces of his group as they tiredly nodded their heads. Letting out a silent breath, he nodded more to himself than everyone else and turned around towards the fence, grabbing up his machete along the way.
Reagan, Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn, and Maggie didn't take any more time to follow after him, all their weapons ready for battle. Rick walked past Reagan and stood only inches from the gate, eyeing the clips that kept it from sliding open. Reagan looked over her shoulder at the rest of the formed group, their eyes all holding secret conversations with one another before they all looked back to Rick. Hershel stood beside him with his fingers intertwined in the fencing, his blue eyes staring through the thick white whiskers of his eyebrows.
"Ready?" Hershel asked and Rick didn't answer him, only grabbing one of the clips and yanking it from the fence. Rick shoved the gate open and the battle begun.
Reagan made short work of the first Walker, everyone making sure they kept their distance from the range of her scythe once it beheaded the walking corpse. T-Dog ran in behind her, shoving his fire stoke through a Walkers head and shoving it to the ground. Daryl jumped forward, his nine-inch knife ramming through the top of a Walkers scalp, Daryl easily knocking it to the concrete with his brutal strength. Everyone slaughtered the oncoming Walkers with no regret, no pity taken upon the decaying individuals. They had one thing on their mind and one thing only: take this prison yard.
Reagan gracefully and almost flawlessly swung her scythe as if it was an extension of her own body. Walker's heads popped off their bodies and rolled around one the concrete like soccer balls, their jaws continuing to chomp at the bit even though they were no longer connected to a base. Rick was beside her, taking out any Walkers she managed to miss with a swift machete to the brain. Like a strategic team, they all exterminated the threat around them, their weapons swinging violently around each other.
"Stay tight!" Glenn shouted as the group began to split, "Stay tight!"
The group tightened around each other once again, all their eyes darting to and from in one big blur of adrenaline. The shouts of the rest of the group banging their weapons up against the clanging fences flooded Reagan's ears, causing her to briefly look over at them as they smashed skulls through the welded wire.
A cold hand brought Reagan's attention back to her situation and her hand instinctively ripped out her knife. The Walker that grabbed her plummeted to the ground after she yanked her knife out from under its jaw, Reagan scowling down at it. Her eyes desperately searched for her loyal scythe that she had dropped in the process, but once an approaching Walker let out a snarl directed at her, she immediately dismissed her search.
Rick mowed down a Walker with his machete and once it fell to the ground, Glenn rammed his blade down through its head to make sure it wouldn't get back up again. Rick pushed forward with his followers behind him, his blue eyes noticing that the Walkers were finally diminishing in numbers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw T-Dog jump forward and away from the safety of the group.
"Don't break rank!" Rick shouted and T-Dog looked back at him,
"I got it!"
"T!" Rick shouted back, keeping his eyes on the Walkers approaching.
T-Dog grabbed a riot shield and wrapped his arm through the bars, finally reaching it up. He struck a Walker across the face with the unbreakable plastic of the riot shield, Maggie running forward and smashing the Walker's head in. Glenn grabbed at Maggie's arm and pulled her to safety, their eyes scanning about for their next target.
"Almost there!" Rick called and Reagan followed closely behind him, her knife risen and ready to strike like a deadly viper.
Reagan slowly pushed open a door next to the tall building, both her knife and Daryl's waiting to break through a Walkers skull at any moment. Daryl and Reagan briefly exchanged eye contact before moving forward to follow after Rick again. Daryl tore his crossbow from off his back and pointed it over Reagan's shoulder, her hand rising as they neared the corner of the prison side.
"Shit!" Rick jumped back and pressed Reagan back just before she blew their cover, the two of them sucking up against the wall with everyone else. They all tried to calm their labored breathing and just as they thought they were in the temporary clear, movement caught Reagan's eyes.
"Rick!" She breathed while pointing and his blue eyed gaze followed her to the end of the prison yard. A large, green dumpster sat in the middle of the clearing, a couple large, robust Walkers walking out from behind the dumpster.
Rick's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Walkers approaching them, their bodies clad in some sort of black riot gear with helmets clasped to their heads. Rick looked back at Daryl, who stood away from the wall with his crossbow pointed at them. Reagan's heart dropped when she saw more of the Riot Walkers stumbling out from around the corner of the building, their eyes instantly falling on the weary group of survivors.
Daryl's trigger finger was quick as he pulled, a crossbow bolt being slung from his crossbow and slammed up against the face guard of the helmet. It bounced off in defeat and clanged against the ground, the Riot Walker letting out a discontent snarl as it quickened towards them. Daryl took one large step back and Rick was the first to charge the Walker, his machete slamming down hard on the Walkers helmet.
Reagan ran forward and shoved her foot against the chest of the large Riot Walker, its feet stumbling back from the sheer force of her weight. Reagan pressed forward once again but doubled back when another prison Walker reached for her out of nowhere. Her hand jumped out and slashed her knife across its face, its nose falling to the ground as it let out a wail. Reagan shoved all her weight forward, the Walker slamming to the ground under her strength. T-Dog rammed his fire stoke into the Walker's head, both he and Reagan nodding at each other in thanks.
"Daryl!" Reagan heard Rick shout as he tackled a Riot Walker to the ground, recovering quickly. Another Walker's face slid off its jaw by the influence of Rick's machete, his boot kicking one back behind the gate that led to the next prison yard. Daryl rushed forward and the two yanked the gate shut as fast as they could, Rick's fingers fumbling to put another set of chained clips on the fencing to keep it closed. Walkers pounded against the welded fencing, their fingers clawing at Rick and Daryl in attempts to grab at them.
"We're good!" Rick shouted and both he and Daryl whirled around to help the rest of their comrades in dealing with the Riot Walkers.
Reagan shoved one back and stabbed her knife around the helmet, trying to pierce its brain as quick as possible. But with the Walkers erratic movements, it was proving quite difficult to do so. Its gloved hand reached out towards her, but she knocked it away and Reagan swung her leg up, kicking it as hard as she could in the head. She couldn't help but smile when the helmet peeled off the Walkers scalp as it flung of its head, crashing to the ground. Reagan wrapped her hand around its neck and pushed back, her hand gripping her knife tightly as she rammed it into the Walkers face.
The Walker fell with a hiss and plunged to the concrete, Reagan's hair spinning once her hair whirled around the face the rest crowding her group members. Her legs darted her body forward and she tackled one to the ground, shoving her knife into the only exposed part of the Walkers skull in through the back of the helmet. Reagan jumped up and watched as Maggie finally figured a way to take the Riot Walker down head on, and with that information, T-Dog and Glenn followed in her footsteps.
She panted and turned just in time to witness Rick tearing the mask off a HAZMAT Walker, all the skin of its face going along with it. Reagan scrunched her nose in a bit of disgust as the Walker thrashed about under Rick's weight, Rick not sparing the Walker anymore moments of life as he brought down the edge of his machete, slicing most of the Walker's head in half.
Reagan noticed another Riot Walker struggled to lean up. It was the very one that Rick had tackled before he closed the gate to the next prison yard. Reagan darted forward and grabbed the facial shield of the Walker's helmet, reaching her knife under and shoving its long blade right up under its jaw. Her bloody hand swiped her bangs out from in front of her face as she stepped back from the dead Walker, her golden eyes looking back over at her group, who all exchanged eye contact with each other.
Walker's bodies littered in the waking path of the prison survivors, the only living bodies of the undead now behind the clipped fencing that Rick and Daryl had shut. Their loud snarls echoed throughout the captured yard, their snarls bouncing off the walls loudly. Blood was everywhere: on the ground, on the walls, and on the clothes and skin of Rick's group. It was all fresh from their most recent battle.
"Wait!" Rick called once he noticed Glenn hurrying back towards the others standing idly behind the fences waiting for their return.
"Well it... looks secure." Glenn said when he watched everyone looking around at the buildings towering above them.
"Not from the look of that courtyard over there." Reagan's finger pointed tiredly to the next courtyard, Glenn quickly noting a hole in the fence once he saw it.
"And that's a civilian." Daryl pointed his knife hand down at a Walker lying close to them, Reagan staring down at the female corpse.
"So the interior could be overrun with Walkers from outside the prison?" T-Dog said tiredly as he pushed off the wall, the riot shield he adopted still clad in his hand. Glenn shook his head and slapped his hands on his thighs,
"Well if there's walls down, what're we gonna do? We can't rebuild this place."
"We can't risk a blind spot..." Rick shook his head while looking at all the members of his offensive group, "We have to push in."
"Wonderful..." Reagan sighed to herself before retrieving her downed scythe and tossing the strap of it over her shoulder.
She took up the rear once the group filed into a wired corridor, her hand gripping onto the knife in her hand shakily. Her adrenaline pumped fast as she wiped her bangs from her face once again, her body stopping once every else did. Over T-Dog's shoulder, Reagan watched as Daryl slid the iron door open and Rick raised his machete just in case a Walker jumped out of the shadows. Upon seeing it somewhat clear, Rick pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on, disappearing into the darkness as everyone else followed after him.
Reagan could feel her eyes widen once she shut the door behind her, the squeal of another door being pushed open softly. There was a subtle light shining through whatever windows occupied the inside of the room, Reagan's feet stepping down a small flight of stairs. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, not seeing any visible Walkers or hearing any hidden ones behind other iron doors. The clamminess of the inside of the prison bit at her exposed arms and legs, her skin immediately feeling sticky to the touch. She brushed off the feeling once she set her eyes on the small watch tower that grimly stared back down at her.
Cautiously, she trekked her way through the room, seeing a few tables strung about the floors with two iron doors set on opposite ends of the large space. Reagan stopped when she heard a soft whistle and turned, seeing Rick nodding towards her and looking up at the guard tower. He wanted her to go up and see what she could find.
With a nod in agreement, Reagan walked towards the tall, open stairs and silently made her way up the steps, keeping her eyes on the door. Her fingers brushed against the soft, old wooden handle of her scythe as it pressed against her rump, Reagan wishing she could peel it off her back and using it. But with such small quarters, there was no way she would be able to. So once again, she raised her knife warily as she stopped at the doorway.
Seeing the door already open, Reagan took a deep breath and held her knife out in front of her defensively. With her cat like reflexes, she jumped forward and stopped, her knife hand shaky as she stared at a body sitting on a chair in front of a platform of controls. Her lungs hesitantly let out her held breath and she leaned over the body, poking the body with her knife to get some sort of response from the corpse. But seeing blood and body matter splattered all over the glass of the tower, Reagan knew that the man had blown his brains out with his own bun.
Something caught her eye. Her gold eyes stared down at the corpse's waist where she saw a ring of keys waiting to be grabbed by her hand. Licking her salty, dry lips, Reagan reached down and rested her finger tips on the keys, keeping her knife pressed against the body just in case she had been wrong. Her fingers hastily grabbed up the keys and she leaned back up, eyeing the body suspiciously as she took a couple steps back. Through the windows of the glass she saw Rick staring up at her, a smile crossing her face once she lifted the keys and jingled them at him. He nodded back at her with surprised eyes and Reagan turned around, jaunting down the steps back towards them.
"Looks like were in luck." She said as she tossed the keys towards Rick, his free hand catching them flawlessly. He opened his palm and stared at the keys, turning towards Daryl to show them to him,
"These should open almost every door in this place." Rick said and Daryl nodded at him,
"Won't know till we find out."
Rick walked towards the barred, iron door and reached his hand through with a key, his hand trying to search for the lock. Once the key was in, Rick twisted it slowly and pushed the big door open as quietly as he could, his nose breathing out an annoyed huff when it squealed loudly. Dismissing the sound, he pressed in with his group at his heels, all their weapons ready for any attack by their undead enemies.
Reagan and Daryl brushed past Rick, their eyes scanning around them defensively. Reagan lowered her knife when she didn't see any threat, her golden orbs staring at the prison cells to her left. With a soft sigh, Reagan shook her head to her thoughts, 'Never thought this place would be so homey...'
Her thoughts were knocked when rough footsteps hit the stairs and her eyes were drawn to see Rick and Daryl rushing up the steps to the top set of prison cells. She broke her gaze from them and walked further into the cell block, checking the cells along with Maggie to make sure no Walkers were occupying their depths. The only audible sound bouncing off the walls of the prison were their footsteps. No one dared say a word in the stale air until Rick deemed it completely safe.
Reagan stopped when she saw a prisoner's dead body lying on the ground in a cell in its own pool of dried blood. She let out a sigh and walked in, kicking the body in the chest to rouse a reaction as if it were a Walker. But yet, the body did not make a move and she backed out of the cell as quietly as possible.
She jumped when she heard a slam above her and backed all the way up, staring at the catwalk above her to see Rick and Daryl standing back, "Everything alright up there?"
"Just some locked up Walkers." Rick called back down, the loud echoes of their snarls causing everyone on the base ground to become uneasy.
But in a few short seconds, their snarls halted.
"Let's get these bodies out of here. This place is secure." Rick tossed Daryl the keys to the cells and Daryl began unlocking them to retrieve the bodies. Rick marched down the stairs and Reagan, T-Dog, Maggie, and Glenn all stood next to each other, waiting for Rick's next call.
"Reagan and Maggie, you guys run back to the rest of us and help with bringing in our supplies. Me, Daryl, T-Dog, and Glenn will start dragging these bodies out of here. We can rest up afterwards."
"Alright then." Reagan nodded and looked to Maggie, who tiredly turned around and walked back in the direction they came. Reagan tossed a look back at Rick and he only stared, Reagan turning to follow after Maggie.
"Alright everyone... its safe to come it." Reagan said as she pulled open the gate, Hershel staring at her through the thicket of his brows,
"You took out all the Walkers."
"Most of them for now." Reagan nodded and looked to Lori and the others, "Let's gather our things and hurry back. Faster we get our stuff in there the faster we can rest."
They all nodded back at her and walked towards their packed up camp, each of them grabbing their things to retreat into the prison. Reagan shouldered her backpack and gathered up her sleeping bag, her eyes glancing over to Lori, who struggled with her own items. Carl, Beth, and Hershel were already walking up the path towards the prison, Carol and Maggie's arms already full of their supplies. Reagan wrapped both her backpacks straps over her shoulder and walked towards Lori as she leaned up to stretch her aching back.
"Let me help you."
"No, no..." Lori shook her head with a smile while reaching down to grab a sleeping bag, "I've got it just fine."
"It's not a problem." Reagan said as she leaned down and grabbed a duffle bag, shouldering on one of her already occupied shoulders, "You shouldn't be straining yourself too much, for the baby's sake." Reagan nodded back down at Lori's protruding belly, Lori's hand unconsciously gliding over it.
"Alright... sorry." Lori said quietly and handed Reagan the sleeping bag in her hands. Reagan took a deep breath and saw the worry in Lori's eyes, Reagan's teeth gnawing on her bottom lip.
"It's going to be alright." Reagan said with a nod and Lori's big blue eyes stared at her widely, "We're finally going to get our break in somewhere secure. You, your family, and your baby will be safe."
"How can you be so sure?" Lori asked quietly and Reagan stared at her for a moment before nodding her head,
"I just know things..."
With that, the two women hauled up their load and stepped back towards the prison, their boots kicking about rocks on the dirt path. Reagan's feet finally connected with the concrete of the prison yard, her eyes staring over her shoulder to make sure there was nothing else left to gather up. Making two trips, for her, would be rather troublesome and she just wanted to get inside the large walls of the jailhouse. The old bullet wound in her shoulder began to throb from the mass amount of weight that dipped off her particular arm.
Lori pulled open the iron door for Reagan and she slipped inside the door sideways, almost tripping down the stairs on her trip. Lori managed to pull on her backpack to steady her, Reagan letting out a sharp huff and nodding back at Lori in thanks. The two stepped down the stairs beside each other and Reagan led Lori to the cellblock they had secured, everyone else already piled in and setting down their things.
"What do you think?" Rick's southern licked voice echoed throughout the block as he stepped down the small flight of stairs from the catwalk on the second floor.
"Home sweet home." Glenn mumbled while tossing a sleeping bag into the cell.
"For the time being..." Rick replied.
"It's secure?" Lori asked as she walked further in, her eyes staring at the second floor of cells above the first set as if looking for any sign of danger.
"This cell block is." Rick said as he stopped a few feet in front of the flooded group, Lori stopping and staring at her estranged husband. He watched as everyone stared at the cellblock silently, their minds thinking it was too good to be true.
"What about the rest of the prison?" Hershel asked from the back of the group, Rick's eyes falling upon the older man,
"In the morning, we'll find a cafeteria and infirmary." Rick replied as he walked towards Hershel, all their eyes watching Rick as he stopped with his hands on his hips.
"We... sleep in the cells?" Beth asked a bit skeptically and Reagan looked to her,
"Only place we really can sleep." Reagan dropped her backpack's strap from her shoulder, walking towards an empty cell while looking back at Beth, "A lot safer than sleeping on the cold concrete out here."
"Reagan found some keys on some guards..." Rick's hand fumbled with the keys on his belt that Reagan had found, "Daryl has a set, too."
"Well I ain't sleepin' in no cage." Daryl's raspy voice vouched and everyone looked up to him, his head nodding towards the top of the stairs, "I'll take the perch."
"Come on..." Carol said softly to Lori and led her towards the stairs.
From inside her cell, Reagan saw everyone disperse to their own chambers to rest up for the rest of the day and most likely into the night. Tiredly, her gold eyes settled on the old iron bunk bed in front of her and her fingers dropped her backpack to the floor, its contents landing with a heavy thud. She stared blindly at the small bed in front of her, her long legs stretching forward to bring her closer to the old, pale blue mattress. Her body gave out and it thumped onto the mattress, the bunks stand rattling from her sudden, abrupt weight.
She closed her eyes and let out a long, weary breath that brushed her bangs out from in front of her face. She wanted to rest her body in a more comfortable position, but her brain didn't bother to tell her limbs to move, it was just too exhausted. Slowly, her eyes opened and she stared at a few blood droplets on the wall, her lids blinking to bring her gaze to the floor. A small, very old, dry pool of blood stained the concrete floor and she groaned low in her throat, her fatigued neck managing to roll her face to towards the wall the bunk was set on.
Reagan's hand rubbed over her soft cleavage and she let out a deep breath, her hand sliding to her sore shoulder as she massaged it groggily. The relief of her sore muscles caused her eyes to shut, never to reopen from their intense heaviness. Her lips parted as they sucked in a deep breath, her sweaty body shutting down as he mind slowly succumbed to its unconsciousness.
Every single one of her stresses diminished in a subterranean slumber.
.:o:.
A bright light surfaced through one of the thin windows in the prison wall, the sun glaring through and finding its way to Reagan's face. She scrunched her nose and rolled over, trying to hide her tired face under the sliver of a shadow generated from the upper bunk. But it was all in vain.
The sun already did its damage and Reagan's eyelids cracked open, her mouth stretching open in a deep yawn. She rested her head on a wadded blanket again, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. Her headache was gone, most of the soreness in her body disappeared, and she didn't feel like passing out after a few seconds of consciousness. Finally, for once in weeks, Reagan felt like an entirely new woman.
After being a watchdog with Rick or Daryl most of the nights that they kept themselves up in abandoned houses, shed, and even a few storage units here and there, Reagan barely got any sleep. The longest she had slept in a long time was a top of four hours, and since then, she was all but running on the fumes of a daily empty stomach. But she was used to it, after all. Her times of being a drug addict she would be up for days at a time running off the high of her destructive remedies.
Reagan lifted her body with her hands and groaned, rubbing her forehead and pressing her hair out of her face. Another yawn escaped her lips and she stretched out her body from the tips of her fingers all the way to her toes. A smile of sheer pleasure stretched across her lips as she finally let her body go limp, her legs lifting herself to her feet.
She pouted when she realized she was still in her boots, her tiredness hindering her from stripping out of her dirty clothing. With a huff, she grabbed a blanket and tossed it over the top of her cell door, closing it shut to get some privacy. Reagan had only woken up once throughout her lengthy slumber, remembering briefly that it was indeed night time when she woke for a few moments. If she lied awake then, she would have changed her clothes and taken off her boots to be more comfortable. But that was long past due.
Reagan tossed on a half sleeved shirt and pulled up a somewhat clean pair of shorts, securing the button and zipper around her waist. She then tossed her hair up on the back of her head with a black tie and let her hands slap against her thighs. The door to her cell squealed open as she pushed it, Reagan finally stepping out of her cell for what it seemed like days to her. With a deep breath, she turned towards the common quarters of the cell block, making way when she heard faint voices.
"Glad to see I wasn't the only one sleeping in." Reagan said as she eyed a few of her counterparts, namely Carol, Maggie, Beth, and Carl all sitting at a metal table.
"You kind of are." Maggie said with a smile and Reagan looked to her, turning towards a table and grabbing a water bottle before sitting down.
"Is that so?" Reagan asked, uncapping the water bottle and taking a hearty swig. Carol aimlessly rolled her spoon in a paper bowl, Reagan imagining that there was cold oatmeal inside,
"Lori is still in her cell resting."
"Good, she needs it the most out of all of us." Reagan took another drink of her water bottle, hunching over her knees and resting her body again. Her brow furrowed and she looked around the room, trying to find a few particular faces that were missing from the scene, "Where are all the boys?"
"They went to find the armory." Maggie leaned back on the table behind her bench, rubbing her fingers into the back of her neck.
"How long?"
"A couple hours." Carl said a bit disappointed and Reagan looked to him,
"They didn't take you along?"
"Dad gave me the task of looking out for everyone. He says that with the entire prison insecure there's no telling what might pop up."
"Good then. Now I know my life is in safe hands." Reagan smiled and stood up, taking another chug of her water before setting it down on the table behind her. Carl smiled to himself and looked to Beth, who sheepishly shrugged her shoulders with a sheepish smirk.
Reagan wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sighed, looking around the commons until her eyes fell upon the big iron door behind her. "Did they go that way?" She asked while looking back at the group at the bench, Carol nodding in agreement,
"Yeah. They said they should be back anytime."
"Well I suppose I'll go scout around for them." Reagan turned back towards the cell block only to be stopped,
"That's not a very good idea to go by yourself." Carol stood up a bit worried and Reagan rolled her eyes, turning to face the older woman,
"I'll be fine by myself... I'm not going to go far, anyways." Reagan shook her head and turned back around, stalking back towards her cell, "Ignorant woman."
Reagan gathered up her pistol, slipping out her silencer and twisting it onto the edge of the barrel. Checking to make sure it was loaded, she slid her knife's sheath around her belt and then reached down, picking up her flashlight.
After leaving her cell, she went through the iron door of the commons and the darkness consumed her immediately. Clicking on her flashlight and holding up her pistol, she rested her flashlight hand over her pistol hand and watched warily in front of her, hearing nothing but random noises throughout the hallways. She slid through the narrow, black hallway, keeping her eyes and ears out for any abnormal sounds of enemy movement, not wanting to get caught up or cornered anywhere. She hated being in such a tight, small area without her scythe. It was her most trusted weapon.
A pack of voices caught her ears and she stopped, holding her breath to listen in closely. The first voice she could hear was Daryl and soon, Rick's deep voice found its way into her ear. Taking a deep breath, she pursued forward and winded through a couple hallways, her flashlight showing her the way. Finally, Reagan clicked off her flashlight once the dim light of a room in front of her greeted her, Reagan stopping in the doorway.
There they all stood, crouched down next to a doorway stuffing things in a bag. Reagan leaned on the doorway and rested a hand on her hip, her pistol hand dangling. She stared at them amused, "What goodies did you find today, boys?"
She startled T-Dog and Glenn, Hershel turning to her, Rick instantly at his feet, and Daryl pointing his crossbow between her eyes. She tilted her head and stared at Daryl's bolt pointed at her face, her chin giving him a soft nod, "You gonna pull that trigger Redneck?"
"Give me one reason not to..."
"Easy there, you two." Rick called and Daryl lowered his crossbow to the floor, glaring at Reagan.
"You should get a treat for listening to your master." Reagan mused with a smile while walking up to them, Daryl scoffing and shaking his head. She stared down at the items they were placing in a bag curiously, "So what do we have here?"
"Whatever's left of the armory..." Glenn said a little disappointed while staring at the half empty duffle.
"Better than nothing." Hershel reassured while staring at Glenn through the thicket of his white brows. Rick reached down and grabbed the handles of the duffle, pulling it up and motioning towards the door,
"You and Daryl lead the way... we're done here." He commanded politely and Reagan and Daryl gave each other glares before turning towards the doorway.
The two cavaliers led their offensive group to another room just outside the commons of their loving home of a cellblock, Rick calling for them to stop. T-Dog pulled up a table on the wall and Rick poured out all the weaponry they had found in the small armory, everyone's eyes glazing over the many items of weaponized hardware.
"I have to go talk to Maggie... I'll be back in a little bit." Glenn said and Rick looked to him,
"Don't be gone too long."
"I won't." Glenn reassured while shaking his head, his body turning to leave the room.
"Looks at all these little toys." Reagan said as she grabbed up a handheld grenade, studying the fabrication of it and the deadliness it held in such a small little casing. Everyone began to grab up the weaponry to study them all on their own.
"Not bad..." Daryl said as he slammed down a flashlight on the table, his hand instantly going for another handheld device on the platform.
"Flashbangs... CS triple chasers..." Rick studied a triple chaser in his hand and lifted it up above him, narrowing his eyes, "Not sure how they work on Walkers... but we'll take 'em."
Reagan eyed T-Dog checking out a pistol and Hershel stood humbly next to Rick, only staring down at the weapons. Reagan curiously reached out to a riot helmet that sat on the edge of the table, instantly regretting her decision.
Slime and some sort of mucus dripped out of the helmet once she tipped it right side up, her lip curling in a sneer, "That's fucking disgusting..." She scrunched her nose and tossed it back on the table once the smell hit her face. Wiping her hand on her shorts, the back of her other hand hit her face.
"I ain't wearin' that shit..." Daryl scowled at the helmet, taking a step back from the stench. T-Dog reached down and grabbed a glove from the table, tipping it right side up in the same manner Reagan did the helmet, grime sliding out of the destroyed glove.
"We could boil 'em..." T-Dog reasoned but Daryl shook his head at the idea,
"Ain't enough firewood in the whole damn forest, no!"
"I feel like I'm getting infected just looking at that nasty shit..." Reagan sneered, her eyes still staring at the helmet on the table. Daryl reached down and grabbed a police baton, swinging it like a bat,
"Besides... we've gotten this far without 'em."
"Reagan?" A female voice called and Reagan turned at the sound of her name, seeing Carol standing in the doorway of the small room, "Can you come here for a minute?"
"Yeah, sure." Reagan nodded and grabbed her pistol off the table, walking towards the doorway past Carol.
"Everything alright?"
"Yeah, nothin' to worry about." Carol smiled back at Rick before turning back after Reagan and following her.
"Something the matter?" Reagan asked as she walked back into the commons, staring at Carol as she shut the door. Carol reached her hand towards the cellblock door,
"Lori said she needed to talk to you. About the baby."
"Where is she?"
"In her cell up top." Carol replied and Reagan turned around, dropping off her pistol in her cellblock as she strode by.
Reagan quietly lifted herself up the flight of stairs to the long steel catwalk, her hand whirling her around the corner of the railing. She stopped when she finally saw Lori, who was hunched over her belly rubbing it anxiously. Reagan narrowed her eyes and stepped in, grabbing up an old stool in the corner and pulling it up.
"You needed to see me?" Reagan asked curiously, staring into Lori's worried eyes as she stared back up at Reagan. Her lips drew into a thin line and she let out a heavy breath, her blue eyes looking back down at her baby belly.
"I-it's the baby... I think I lost it." Reagan's brow furrowed once again and she placed her hand atop Lori's belly, Lori's hands moving out of her way.
"You haven't felt it move? At all?"
"No... nothing..." Lori breathed with the shake of her head, her body beginning to softly rock back and forth, "At first I thought it was exhaustion and malnutrition... but..."
"You haven't eaten?" Reagan asked and Lori only bowed her head, ignoring her question. There was a brief silence between the two women and Reagan broke it, "It's probably a good idea if you go eat."
"If we're all infected... then so's the baby." Lori said, brushing off Reagan's recommendations. Lori lifted her head to face Reagan, "So what if it's stillborn."
Reagan had only seen one stillborn baby in her short time of being a registered nurse. The woman who had given birth to it was absolutely hysterical with utter sadness. Reagan couldn't imagine the pain and agony she was going through to lose her first child, but that all came from the risks of trying to be a mom. Anything could happen.
"What if it's dead inside me? What if it's dead inside me right now and it rips me apart-!?"
"Shut up." Reagan demanded and stared at Lori hard, the worry in the expecting moms face clear, "Don't let your fear take control of you."
By this time, a couple tears managed to escape Lori's eyes and she sniffled, wiping them away quickly. Reagan leaned in closer to Lori as Lori rested her hands back down on her knees, "Okay... okay..."
"Let's say it lives..." Lori continued on, staring hard at Reagan, "And I die during childbirth."
"I won't let that happen."
"Why not...?" Lori asked thoughtfully with a small smile on her face, "How many women have died in childbirth before modern medicine?" Lori drew in a deep breath and stared at the floor for a moment, Reagan waiting patiently for what she was going to say next.
"If I come back..." Lori lifted her head to stare at Reagan once again, "What if I attack it? Or you? Or Rick... Carl? If I do-if there's any chance- you put me down immediately, you don't hesitate! Me, the baby-!"
"Easy now..." Reagan reassured while placing her hand on Lori's knee once Lori began to cry, "Getting upset is not good for you or the baby."
"If we're Walkers... you don't hesitate and you don't try to save us." Lori shook her head, eyeing Reagan determined, "Okay?"
Reagan hesitated for a moment, staring into Lori's watery eyes with a bit of dread. Just the thought of putting Lori down with a bullet, or even the unborn baby, made Reagan cringe with goose bumps. With a dry mouthful of air, Reagan's lips thinned out and she nodded at Lori in understanding. Lori shook her head and sniffled again, taking in a deep breath.
"It would have been better if-." She hesitated to finish her sentence but Reagan pried it out of her,
"If what?"
"If I didn't make it off the farm..." Lori let out her deep breath and gaped at the wall. Reagan shook her head,
"You're exhausted, Lori-frightened-..."
"Yeah, that's true. My son can't stand me... and my husband, after what I put him through since before we even met you..."
"We've all been carrying a weight like that." Reagan leaned up and clasped her hands in her lap, staring at Lori hard, "All winter long."
"I've tried to talk to him! But he-!" Lori's voice cracked and she rested her hand on her forehead, tears dripping off her jaw.
"He'll come around..." Reagan had noticed for quite some time that the marriage between Rick and Lori had been slipping. Every now and then she would unknowingly stumble upon Lori's one sided conversations with her husband, but Rick would brush her off and ultimately walk away. She had heard from Glenn and Maggie a few things or the other about the two, about what had happened between Rick and his best friend Shane, as well as the love triangle the three had shared.
Reagan was jealous of Lori in every way possible. Even if her bonds between them were slipping, Lori had a loving husband and a beautiful child, still alive and with her every step of the way. And even now, Lori was pregnant once again and waiting for another one to love and cherish. But for Reagan, all she had back in her old life were a couple boyfriends here or there, some one night standers, and a son that she watched grow up from afar under a shelter of strangers. But now, her son was dead and there was nothing she could do about it.
"He hates me..." Lori sniffled while staring back at Reagan from the floor, knocking Reagan from her thoughts, "He's too good a man to say it, but... I know. I put him and Shane at odds... I put that knife in his hand!"
Lori began to sob and Reagan's hard was being stabbed at with a searing needle. Even though she was a hardass most of the time, Reagan knew when she needed to feel sympathy for another person, "You know who doesn't give a shit about half of what you're talking about? That baby in your stomach..."
Lori couldn't help but laugh under her breath and Reagan leaned forward, prying at her, "Now, let's make sure everything's alright. Lay down on your bed."
Lori nodded and wiped away the rest of her tears, lying on her back and pulling up her cotton shirt. Reagan pulled the small stool in closer and rested her cold hands on Lori's belly, Lori flinching a bit from the sudden cold. Reagan smiled thinly at Lori and returned her attention to her belly, rubbing her hands across the hard, soft skin of the protrusion.
Reagan pressed her fingers into the skin of the belly, feeling for the baby inside. She could feel what she imagined the baby's legs were, moving her fingers about to feel the rest of the baby's body. A twitch retorted to Reagan's prodding and she leaned down, placing her ear on Lori's belly. Lori held her breath to steady it, giving Reagan some quiet time to listen to the insides of her body. Reagan closed her eyes and held her own breath, hearing the muffle sounds of Lori's blood pumping through her veins.
And inside, Reagan could hear a very calm, tiny heartbeat.