You guys are awesome x3

I'm glad some of you enjoyed the humor of the last chapter!

This one's gonna be a little heavy...but I hope you enjoy!

I do not own The Walking Dead.

The couple had chosen to spend the larger portion of the day laying in bed. Yes, just laying. It was difficult for Hope to recover after her most candid confession, but she somehow managed to feel like she still had her dignity. And Glenn did get an ego boost - who was he to judge? (To say he was thrilled would be a rather embarrassing thought, however true it may be.) If he was going to be completely honest, he may have admitted to being surprised about him not having any scandalous dreams. He had been sleeping with a beautiful girl in his arms. That just didn't happen very often. He hoped, of course, that it would be happening every night from then on...God willing. He knew that she was right, though. Someone in the group was always going to be uncomfortable if they didn't know what it was Hope was running from. He wanted to know. He would've suggested that she practice with him before telling the others. Now, of course he knew that she trusted him. Hopefully she trusted him the most. Anyway, he would have suggested that, but he figured that she only wanted to go through it once. Repetition probably wouldn't make those memories any easier. Occupied by his thoughts, Glenn was unaware that his hand had drifted a little lower on her backside than usual.

"Mind wandering a little far there, darling?" He nearly jumped when he heard her sudden sultry tone. The young man looked down at her in surprise.

"What?" Realizing where his hand was, he quickly moved so that his hand was hanging off the bed. "Oh - sorry. I was, uhm...it's.."

Words betraying him, he just watched as Hope laughed at him. Then, abruptly, she was on top of him, stradling his torso. His eyes widened and the only thing he could manage was to bring his hands to her hips as she slowly lowered herself down to taste his lips once again. Her golden hair was like a curtain closing off the rest of the room. After a moment, he buried his hand in it, reveling in the feel of her soft curls. To be able to experience her like this...it was almost as if he was getting a payoff from the last few months. All the crap he's been through, what he's had to endure...it just melted away with the feel of her lips on his. He cradled her head gently in his hand, while the other continued to hold her hip firmly. They continued to exchange loving kisses for a while, neither wanting to pull away. At last, she sat up, and both Glenn's hands gripped her waist.

"We can't stay here all night." She said, a mildly stern expression on her face. He laughed.

"Yeah, I know. Just...don't move around a lot." He felt his skin flush a little when he spoke, even more so when Hope covered her face in laughter. He couldn't help it! And it was better to warn her, than for her to get an awkward surprise.

"Lets go get everyone." She finally said, carefully sliding off of him and onto the floor. He nodded his head and stood as well, helping her out into the hallway.

To say that everyone was reluctant to gather that evening was...actually, a pretty accurate statement. They had chosen the roof, since someone still had to be on guard, and Hope wanted everyone to hear, because she was most certainly not repeating any of it. The sun was setting and everyone was sitting in a circle while Daryl stood, his sharp eyes forever watchful. He was the one that had probably spoken to her the least, but he always seemed to be around. Usually the only time he had spoken was just to ruffle Glenn's feathers. Still, she had grown attached to him as well, just like the others. And that's why she was doing this. (She had to keep reminding herself of that.) She was seated next to Glenn, hands balled into fists while they rested in her lap. The air was cool and a little...unsettling. Everyone was curious, but slightly afraid. Finally, Hope spoke up.

"Okay, well...everyone knows why we're here."

"Sweetie, you really don't have to do this." Lori spoke worriedly, but Hope just shook her head, looking at no one in particular.

"No, I think I do." There was another long pause as the sheriff's wife leaned against her husband and held her son closer.

"Okay." Hope sighed, and began again. "So...you all know, I was a music major." She cleared her throat and rocked briefly before she felt Glenn's hand move to her arm. "That was at the University of Georgia...in Athens, yanno." Enough with the useless details. She had stalled all she could. "I guess, the day it started - when it really got bad, I was in my dorm. Classes had been canceled the whole week, everyone was getting sick. I was watching the news with my roommate when our suite mates burst through the bathroom door yelling and screaming...I don't remember now what they said. We threw what we could in our bags and walked out into the hall..." At that moment, it was like she could see the memory playing out before her eyes, like some sort of horror movie. She didn't see her new friends anymore, she was lost in her past.

"It was chaos. The girls on our floor were screaming, people were falling down around us. That's when I first heard the scream of a Walker...then it was everywhere. I grabbed my roommate's hand, and we sprinted down the stairs. My classmates were...being devoured, and we just had to run past them. One girl called my - " Her breathing hitched, and she brought a hand to her mouth. Glenn's hand began to rub soothing circles down her back and she focused on that for a while before speaking again. She left her previous thought where it was, figuring they could use their imagination.

"We got to my car and drove...we didn't know where to go. One of the girls said Atlanta, 'cause of the CDC and all. My roommate sat up front with me, while the other two cried in the back. We drove all night...dodging cars and people. The main highways were blocked, so we had to take the back roads..I didn't know 'em very well." She sniffed and hugged her knees close to her chest, careful to mind her ankle. "I remember it was early...the sun had just come up, when my roommate screamed. One of the girls from the back had turned somehow – scratched while we were getting out of the school, I guess, and she was biting a chuck out of her neck. Next, I felt fingers brushing against my neck, and I panicked...opened the door and jumped out of the car." Briefly she paused, a grimly amused look in her eye. "Not sure how I made that one...we weren't going very fast. Scraped myself up pretty bad, but I kept on running."

"I'm not sure how long I was in the forest. The trees were so tall and thick, I could barely tell when it was daylight." Hope stopped and took a sip of water. At that moment, she remembered all eyes were on her, but she continued to look away from everyone. If she saw one sympathetic batting of an eyelash, she might just lose her nerve...or throw up. (She may end up doing that, anyway.) "By the grace of God I made it out of there without seeing any Walkers. I wound up at some old farmhouse occupied by an older couple - Tess and John. John was a gun enthusiast, and they'd been able to keep themselves safe since the outbreak began. We stayed there for...a few weeks, I think. Tess kept up with her calender, but I never looked at it. Didn't really seem important anymore. One day the farm got overrun, and we just barely made it into his dusty old pickup. Tess was so upset about her horses..." Again, she got a far away look in her eye, while everyone else felt a knot forming in their stomachs.

"Anyway, I mentioned Atlanta, but John said this thing would be worse in bigger cities. We had to find supplies and a place where we could protect ourselves." The wind picked up, and she slowly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. " We moved around like that for...I guess a month or two? Really, I'm not sure. Seemed like we were moving for years, to be honest. At first John talked about a place where we could be safe...then he got paranoid. Even when we found a town with just a handful of Walkers, he wouldn't slow down. Guess that wore off on me." A shell of a smile appeared on her face as she thought back to a bittersweet memory...but she didn't share. They just needed to know the basics. And she just really wanted this to be over.

"I made a mistake one day. My gun went off by accident, and it attracted Walkers." Suddenly she looked agonized, and tears brimmed for a moment before she blinked and rubbed her eyes. Her voice was thick as she continued, but she was stubbornly trying to keep the tears back. "We tried to barricade ourselves on the second story of someone's house, but they broke through. The next room we ran into...was some kinda family room. Big, nice double doors...huge TV with toys laying all around...John couldn't hold the door for long, and the couch was too heavy for me and Tess to move, so he told us to go on without him." Her voice hitched again, but she immediately cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She refused to see the pained looks everyone was giving her. "Well, of course, Tess wasn't having any of that!" She laughed let out a humorless laugh. "She got so upset over her horses, you think she was gonna leave her husband of fifty years? Hell no..."

"She fell against the other door right beside him, telling him how much she loved him...they argued for what felt like a lifetime, but it ended with them taking out their pistols and telling me to head out the fire escape...then they pointed the pistols at their heads." Carol's small gasp is what broke Hope's concentration, and she looked at everyone's faces. They were mostly horrified, Glenn's was a mixture of sympathy and pain. Even Daryl was looking at her with the smallest bit of sympathy. But she pressed on, no matter how much she wanted to get off of that roof. After another clearing of her throat, drink of water and several deep breaths, she was able to continue.

"When I got down from the ladder, I heard the gunshots. I was able to get to his truck again, and I started driving." It was getting a little darker by that point, and Hope took comfort in that. Maybe they wouldn't be able to see just how much this whole thing messed her up...like they didn't already know. "We had just filled up after passing all those cars on the highway, so I was able to drive for a while..didn't know where I was going. That's when I wound up at this little town just outside this one. I saw a light on in a window and headed for it...'course, so did every Walker in town, so I was able to meet up with the survivors when they fled the building. There were a handful of them...they took me in, but they didn't ask my name, and they didn't give me theirs. None of them seemed too friendly with each other. There was a big football coach looking guy there, he was the leader. There was also a couple and two others...I don't think I was with them for long, but I was in and out the whole time. I dunno...I guess the stress and exhaustion just caught up with me."

"The day we traveled to this town was the day you guys found me." Everyone's breathing seemed to still as if they were trying to prepare themselves for what was next. They all knew she was alone, she'd said so herself. "Like you saw...those Walkers were hungry, and they were fast. They chased us up into this old, rickety abandoned house." Hope breathed out another short, humorless laugh. "Guess none of us remembered how that always ended up in horror movies."

"They were hot on our tails when the big coach guy grabbed the youngest of the guys by his shirt collar...and threw him back into the crowd of Walkers." Again, she brought her hand to her mouth as the sounds of screams and ripping intestines filled her head, this time it was an attempt to keep herself from vomiting. "I couldn't believe it, I - I wanted to help him, but there's just nothing you can do after that, you know? And there was no time to think about it, that didn't distract 'em for long, they kept coming, screaming, clawing at us!" Hurriedly, she took a drink of her water and covered her eyes with her hand. She was almost through it. She could do this. Her palms felt sticky and she suddenly noticed a distinct sheet of sweat all over her. When she continued, her voice was just a tiny bit calmer.

"We ran upstairs, but that was a dead end. There were holes in the door, the Walkers busted right through. The other woman was caught downstairs by a few of those bastards...when they broke the door, the wife tripped and her husband was trying to help her up when he was bitten. Then the Walkers that couldn't get to them, started after me and the coach." It was then that her hands began to shake, and the tears couldn't be blinked away, though she tried her best.

"He started...pushing me to them. I told him to stop, I was yelling at him, screaming! Why would he do that? Sacrifice everyone else, for what? Did he think he was gonna be able to get away? Those people trusted him, and he was just fine throwing everybody at those monsters! So I took out my pistol, I was aiming to shoot the Walker he was pushing me towards, but I didn't, the next thing I knew, I was up against the wall and when I pulled the trigger...I was aiming at him." She could've lied about that part. She had decided on it. Whatever possessed her to confess that, she didn't know...but now she was terrified. She began glancing around, but her eyes rested on Rick's. "I shot him." Her voice came out in a whisper as the gravity of her words finally set in. "I shot...another human being." Rick gave her a slow nod, as if he understood her actions. But she knew in her heart that his understanding wouldn't make her feel any better about it.

"After that, it's kind of a blur." Hope had quickly stopped crying, and her voice came out dull. "I jumped out the window, I think. Don't know how else I would've gotten out of there. Came running down the street, hopped over a fence, cracked my ankle...then I met you guys." She paused, letting herself breathe for a moment. "Don't know where the hell that gun went."

Abrupt ending?

But it's laaaate, and I must go to bed.

The next chapter will be up soon, but I'd love to know what you guys think!

What were you expecting Hope's story to be?