The Walking Dead: Season Two

Episode IV: Prisoners of War

Chapter Two: Consequences

Previously on The Walking Dead: With the help of Old Jack and his family, Clementine, Johnny and Donald took the Air Force Base back from The Sheriff and his men, though there were many casualties during the battle. Old Jack was killed, Dick and Michael were gravely injured, and Lilly left the survivors to join The Sheriff. With Lilly gone, it was up to Michael (Old Jack's eldest son) to step up as leader of the survivors. Meanwhile, Tommy, The Sheriff's right hand man, awoke in Dr Phillips' waiting room to discover he had been left behind, and was now a prisoner of war.

"We can finally stop surviving, and start living," Michael said as he stood before his Father's grave to speak to the group who suddenly looked to him for guidance. "That's what my Father wanted. That's the dream he died for. And it's the idea I'm going to make a reality at all costs." For a moment, Michael stood proudly before the survivors, as though he was expecting some king of round of applause. When nothing of the sort followed, Michael left his Father's grave and pushed his way through the crowd back to the Men's Barracks.

"Dad?" He heard a child's voice call. He turned to see his eight year-old son, stood by his Mother's side. He seemed confused, and who could blame him? He almost didn't recognise the man his Father had just become. The man he'd had to become to lead these people.

"Son." Michael tried to think where to begin. He knelt down to match his son's height. Michael knew his son must have had a lot of questions, and he wasn't sure how to go about answering a single one of them. "I know you must have a lot of questions. But right now, there's something I have to take care of. I hope you understand. These people are relying on me now," he explained, never taking his eyes off his son.

Danny's head was bowed. He buried his hands in his pockets and was kicking the dirt beneath his feet, pretending he hadn't heard his Father. "I understand," he said quietly and unhappily. He looked up at his Father and faked a smile. "Better get to work, then," he said.

Michael smiled warmly and chuckled. "That's my boy," he said as he mussed Danny's hair.

Michael pushed through the rest of the crowd, leaving them to let his words sink in, and marched towards the Men's Barracks where he hoped to find his answers.

"Michael!" He heard a girl's voice call his from behind. When he turned, he saw Molly pushing her way out of the stunned and confused crowd of survivors. "Wait up!"

"What's up, Molly?" Michaela asked casually, ignoring the fact that he was in a hurry.

"You're going to see Tommy, aren't you?" She asked suddenly, stunning Michael.

"How did you-?"

"I know these people, Michael. I lived with them for three months," she explained, referring to her time in the living hell called Crawford. "And I know that, when Coach, Harold and I were burying The Sheriffs men, Tommy's body was nowhere to be found. He's alive."

"Clever girl," Michael said patronisingly. "But could we please keep this knowledge to ourselves? You know how the group would react if they were to know we were keeping one of The Sheriff's men alive and hidden under their nose," he said. Molly knew far too well. "Right now, the last thing this group needs is another reason to worry," Michael declared.

"I understand," Molly replied. Between Molly and his son, Michael appeared to have been doing a fairly decent job of getting through to these people. He just hoped his luck wouldn't run out before getting some answers from Tommy. But that was not all Molly had to say.

"Speaking of which," she said, and Michael knew what was to follow. "We need to talk about Johnny." Molly became deadly serious, and Michael sighed deeply.

I don't have time for this, Michael thought as he wiped the sweat that had stuck to his brow. The kid had been trouble from the beginning, so why had it surprised Michael to learn that, before he'd met him, the kid had murdered a member of their group. Stupid kid, he thought.

"What are we supposed to do about him?" Molly asked, looking to Michael for the answer.

"This isn't my problem," Michael told her coldly. "This is a domestic issue."

"A domestic issue?" Molly asked in disbelief. "The kid murdered someone in cold blood!"

"And I'm saying that you need to deal with this yourself," Michael told her, in her face now. "This is your problem." He looked her coldly in her eyes. "Fix it."

"And how exactly do you suggest I do that?" Molly asked, her arms crossed impatiently.

Michael sighed, looked between his feet, and the back at Molly. He'd hoped he could have skipped over this part, but apparently the girl needed it spelling out for her. "You know how," Michael told her as he pulled a 9mm pistol from the back of his trousers, and held the handle out to her, as though it was the tool perfect to solve their problem.

Molly's eyes widened at the sight of the gun. She looked at Michael, saw just how serious the man was being, and slapped him hard across the face. The blow took of his glasses and almost sent him straight to the floor. "This is not how things work here," she assured him.

Michael felt where Molly had slapped him as his cheek began to heat up and redden. Then, Michael laughed. And that scared Molly more than anything. "I don't know what dream world you're living in, Miss. But you need to wake the fuck up," he urged her cautiously.

"Guns are for walkers," Molly assured him. "Not people."

But Michael laughed again. "You really think the walkers are the reason I take this thing everywhere I go?" He tucked his pistol in his pants. "Think again."

As the crowd dispersed, Johnny made his way back to the RV, steering clear of the other survivors on his way. He caught eyes with Christa briefly, but she seemed scared to so much as even look at him, and turned to Omid quickly after. Johnny wasn't sure whether these people hated or feared him, but either response seemed reasonable after what they'd seen him do. Johnny had murdered another human being right in front of their eyes. It was only logical that they stopped treating him like one, and more like the walkers lurking at their gates.

Upon returning to the RV, Johnny found Coach sat peacefully on the single step up to the RV's door, where the giant of a man seemed to be dwelling on something.

"You're in my spot," Johnny said bluntly. But his frown quickly turned into a smile, showing Coach that he had only been joking. "I'm kidding, Coach." He said, laughing nervously.

But Coach's frown remained. "Sorry. I guess your jokes don't get me the way they used to," he apologised, the sound of pain and deep regret clearly present in his voice. "Not so much to laugh about these days, anyway." Johnny could tell, something was clearly troubling him.

So, realising he was going to be there for a while, Johnny leaned back against the RV, as he waited for Coach to gather his thoughts. In the meantime, he pulled from his jean pocket an old packet of cigarettes that had remained untouched for the past month, and picked from inside one of the few cigarettes left. From his other pocket, he pulled a silver lighter. With a snap of his fingers, he lit the cigarette, and took a long, bitter smoke.

He heard Coach tut from beside him. "That'll kill you one day, kid," he pointed out.

Although Coach had been very right, Johnny still found a reason to laugh. "We're sitting here, surrounded by zombies, thieves, killers and God knows what else, and you're worried about a little throat cancer?" He laughed again, and took another long smoke.

Coach chuckled quietly, bobbing up and down in his seat as he did so. A faint smile grew across his face. "I guess you're right," he agreed. Then, he sighed deeply, as though an unwelcome and unhappy thought had just occurred to him. "My brother died of cancer," he revealed.

"Shit," Johnny cursed in a panic. In all their time together, Coach hadn't even mentioned ever having a brother. "I'm sorry, man. I never would have said that if I'd have known…"

"Forget about it," Coach urged him. "It don't matter to me," he claimed, though he still appeared to be dwelling on his brother. There was something still eating away at him.

There was a long and silent pause. "Are you sure you're holding up okay?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah.. I'm doin' fine," Coach insisted. "And that's the problem," he said, confusing Johnny.

"What do you mean?" Johnny asked, looking at Coach curiously.

"I'm not half the man my brother was, and yet, I'm still standing," he said as his thoughts filled with memories of his late brother. The brother he'd idolised. "I know that, if it hadn't have been for the cancer, he'd still be alive today. After everything we've been through, I know my brother would still be here," he explained. "He'd have made a good leader," Coach said with a faint smile. "Perhaps, if he'd have been a part of our little group, things would have been different. Maybe, if he'd have been in my place, less people would have died," he wondered aloud, and Johnny couldn't help but wonder too. "But, God chose to take my brother and put me here instead, for better or worse."

"For better," Johnny assured him. "You've saved a lot of lives in your time, Coach."

"But my brother could have saved more," Coach decided regrettably. "Things could've been different," he said.

"You don't know that for sure," Johnny told him, putting a hand supportively on his shoulder. "Things could have been very different. But, ultimately, we dig our own graves."

Coach nodded, appearing to agree with Johnny's words, and for a short while, the two stood by each other, watching the world go by, and dwelling on the words that had been said.

"Funny isn't it? The kind of people God chooses to place in a world like this?" Johnny said with the most optimistic of smiles as he looked at the people around him. "I mean, just look at me. What exactly did I do in my life to make God wanna put me here?" He wondered.

"I didn't take you for a religious kind of guy, Johnny," Coach told him with surprise.

"Always," Johnny said as he revealed a necklace from underneath his white shirt, attached to which was a small wooden cross, and rubbed it with his thumb for luck or as part of some other ritual. "Despite everything religion has to say about people like me," he noted.

"So, when you say that you wonder why God put you here, you mean you think he picked people to rebuild the world? To start the human race from scratch?" Coach asked.

"Maybe," Johnny speculated. "Or… Maybe we're being punished," he added.

"What reason would God have to punish people like us?" Coach wondered aloud.

Johnny knew all too well the answer to that. He swallowed his dread and spoke of it.

"They're going to kill me, Coach." The words alone made Johnny's blood run cold. It had only been when he'd spoken the words that he realised how frightened they made him feel.

A long, awkward pause followed. And, until he said what he said, Johnny wondered whether or not Coach had actually heard him. "That is not going to happen," Coach simply uttered. "We can still work this out," Coach assured him. "You know I've got your back, Johnny."

"It's too late for that," Johnny admitted. "I've made a serious of very bad decisions. I dug my own grave. I alone must suffer the consequences," Johnny said. In the distance, he saw Molly approaching him, and gulped when he saw the loaded 9mm pistol she grapes tightly in her hand. "And it looks like those consequences are finally coming."

Tommy could feel the handcuff's slowly digging into his wrist, cutting and chafing his skin until Tommy would have happily cut his own hand off if it meant freedom. The barracks were almost silent, the only sound to be heard being the scratching of Dr Phillip's pen on paper as he jotted down some useless notes. Traitor, Tommy thought hatefully.

"Watcha writing there, Doc?" Tommy asked, making conversation with the Doctor as though nothing had changed. As though things on the Base had never been more normal.

"Nothing," Doctor Phillips assure his patient. A patient he'd once called his friend.

Tommy scoffed at the Doctor and his unwillingness to share what he knew, and instead withhold information from his own patient. "You figuring out the best way to kill me? Maybe you're deciding what kind of lethal poison to feed me or inject into my arm?"

"I'm not going to poison you," Phillips insisted, struggling to believe he even had to say it. "Nobody is trying to poison you," he assured him as he looked down at him through the narrow lenses of his eyeglasses. "Not yet, anyway," he said worriedly.

"Fuck you," Tommy cursed at the Doctor. "Traitor," he muttered under his breath.

Doctor Phillips sighed. He turned from his desk again to face Tommy, with whom he was beginning to run out of patience. "I'm no traitor. I picked a side, is all," he told Tommy. "And I just so happened to pick the winning side." He turned back to his papers.

Tommy didn't seem impressed. He spat at the Doctor's feet. "You're still a coward."

The door to the Barrack's swung open, and Tommy felt the heat from outdoors on him immediately. Tommy did not recognise the man who entered, his face masked by a shadow, but judging by the way he marched towards him, Tommy knew he was here for one reason.

"Are you going to kill me?" Tommy asked the shadowy figure that stood over him.

The man got on his knees and knelt before Tommy, allowing him a look at his face. Tommy saw him smile. "Not yet," Michael said mockingly as Molly took a place by his side.

Tommy watched as Molly pulled her ice tool from the sheath she'd made for the weapon she had psychotically given a name. He saw the sunlight bounce off the sharp edge of the weapon, and Tommy felt his heart skip a beat.

"I ain't telling you a goddamn thing," Tommy swore to them both there and then.

"Oh, I believe you," Molly assured him, confusing Tommy. "But Hilda here is gonna make you sing," she said as she grabbed Tommy by the neck and pulled him close. Helpless, Tommy had no way of stopping Michael from doing what he did next. With his thumb and his finger, Michael held Tommy's right eye open, as Molly leaned in for the kill. It wasn't until Hilda's blade was a couple of inches from his eyeball that Tommy finally screamed.

Hey, guys! I know, it's been a while. I hope you're all still reading though! Although they still need writing, I finally have the final chapters of this fan-fiction all plotted out. So, whoever's out there and still reading, I'm gonna need some REVIEWS from you guys, just to make sure there are people still actually reading every week! So, leave your thoughts below and I'll see you guys again soon!

Take care, and thanks for reading!

-George