NEW CHAPTER! Sorry for slacking on these! Juggling multiple stories, beta-reading, school, work, and everything else is slowing me down. You are all such awesome readers, and I just want to give you the best I can do so it takes longer than it used to, ya know? Also, I've been going back through the chapters of this story starting with numero uno (It's crazy how much the story has evolved since then, especially Annie as a character!), adding things, tweaking things, correcting things, you know, basic polishing for any newcomers or if any of you feel like doing the old re-read. ENJOY!

68: Heavy Soul

I was looking out of the cell with the same expression of worry that I'd been wearing all day when Hershel's words snapped me back to reality. "They aren't your responsibility," he had already inspected my arm, and was now undoing the mess of metal I'd wrapped around my leg. He looked at me from the tops of his eyes, "You keep this up and the stress will get to ya."

I sighed, looking back out of the cell, "What else am I supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to take some time," he started to prod at my now free leg, "Try to recover."

I shook my head, "We don't have time for that." I could see the concern in his face, so I explained myself, "I don't see anyone else taking a day off."

"Annie," he stood up as he continued, "I might not be a young man anymore, but I can still see what's going on with you."

I glanced back to him, "And what's that?"

He raised his hands, "Ever since you showed up you've been carrying everything on your shoulders. Lori, T-Dog. And now Axel. You have to stop."

I shook my head once more, "It's my fault that they are dead. I should have been here. I should have been paying attention."

He kept pushing the point, "You were bitten and you survived."

"So were you," we stared at each other in silence for a solid minute, neither of us letting up.

"Yes, I survived," his gaze went to the floor where his foot would have been, "But only because Rick was quick about it." He went back to examining my ankle, speaking so softly I could just barely make out his words, "You were captured by a sick man. You can't keep this up. You need to heal."

My words came out as stern as my mother's once had been, "Once he's dead, once he's taken care of, then I'll take time or whatever."

"Please," he pleaded, "If it comes down to war, we will need you at your best."

"Maybe this just is my best now," I was surprised by the subtle tears forming at the bottom of my vision, "Maybe this is as good as it's going to get."

"I don't believe that, not for one second." He moved my foot around, and I was happy enough that it didn't cause much if any discomfort, "Right now all you should be focusing on is dealing with everything that's happened to you. The bite, Woodbury, everything. Get it sorted out, and then we might have a chance at making it out of this."

I sighed, looking down at my foot and thinking about Rick's refusal to bring me on their outing today, "You don't need me."

"We do," his tone was adamant, "And even if we didn't, I know that we'd all still want you here." He stood up and scooted over to his crutches, "Try standing."

I followed his orders, able to take a few steps without any pains. A small smile crossed my lips, "Finally."

"Aren't you glad you kept off it?"

"Yeah," I nodded to the pile of debris that was once strapped to my leg, "The splint thing was a good idea."

He clacked out of the cell with a smile, "Might have to have you make me one of those."

-o0o-

It was nice enough just walking on my own again. I'd felt so helpless before, but now I at least had this, freedom of motion. I walked around the cellblock for a while, just because I could, until finally I stopped a few feet away from Carol and Judith. I didn't say anything at first, but then Carol noticed me.

"Want to hold her?" she smiled over to me.

I took a hesitant step forward, "Can I?"

"Of course," she patted the space beside her and I took a seat before she handed the child to me. Then she did something unexpected, "How are you holding up?"

I just looked down at Judith for a bit, trying to figure out how to answer that. "I don't know," my voice sounded so empty, so confused, "Hershel said I should try to work through everything before…"

She looked ahead, "War."

I nodded slightly, "Yeah." I started to rock Judith back and forth, "I don't think there's enough time to, though. There's still so much to do."

"What was it like?"

I turned to her, "What?"

Her eyes were glued to the scar on my arm, "Getting bitten?"

"Oh," I debated lying to her, but decided against it, "Scary." She nodded. "It was like," I continued, still searching for the right words, "like I knew I was going to be dying soon. Everything kind of shifts."

"How do you mean?" She sounded genuinely interested, and for a second her tones so closely resembled those of my mother that I forgot where I was.

I looked over to her, "I felt it before I saw it, the teeth. Then when I finally looked over it took me a second to realize what was happening, but before I had I'd already stabbed the guy." I sighed, remembering those moments so clearly, but they had a haze about them. It was almost like they'd happened to someone else. Maybe they had. I was so different back then, it might as well been someone else. But I had the scar, the hunger, the proof that I was she. I shifted Judith closer to me, "Then it was just, stay alive long enough to kill them all. And when that was done I just sort of kept myself busy, read the notebook Carl'd given me. Thought about my life." I looked to the ground, "I was so ready for it, I almost wanted it, but it didn't happen."

There was apprehension in her next words, "And then you found out that you're different?"

"Yeah," the corner of my mouth jutted up for a few seconds as I kept talking to her, looking at the floor in front of me the whole time, "I was so happy about it, too. Being immune. Until I went hunting and I found out that I wasn't." I took a long pause, and felt the sting behind my eyes, "It's hard to feel like you're not human anymore."

I felt a hand on my knee, "I don't think you're the only one who feels that way, sweetie." I stared at her hand for longer than I should have. Affection. Carol was being affectionate towards me. This was… This was actually helping.

"I know," I looked over to her, "It's just… a lot. I'm starting to forget what it was like before, what it felt like to not be one of them."

Her eyebrows furrowed and her voice came back more confident than I'd ever heard it, "You're not one of them." Her face morphed, and I saw shame as clear as day there, "When I said those things… I wasn't thinking clearly."

I shook my head subtly, "You were right."

"No," she looked to Judith, happy in my arms, "Just look at the way you are with her. How you were with Aidan when you patched him up. Even if you still… you still want to feed, you fight it. You still try to help people. You're trying to do the right thing." The shame returned, "That's more than most people these days can say."

"I killed Aidan," I said the words before my brain could stop my mouth, "With a spork."

"I thought he was shot by one of the Governor's men?"

"No," I confessed, taking full advantage of this chance to talk, "I ran into him when we were trying to escape. He… He was one of them."

There was terror on her face, "What?"

My voice turned cold, "He was from Woodbury. Said that I could stay there with him. Said that he'd talked it over with the Governor and everything."

"And you…"

I looked her right in the eye, "I didn't even think about it." The heat was back, and my eyes began to water, "He said what happened to me, what that bastard did, it didn't matter. I…" I looked down at the ground again, "It matters to me."

Her arm wrapped around my shoulders, "I know it does."

"The strangest thing is that Merle was there," my eyes darted to Merle, who was standing across the cellblock talking to his brother, "Saw me kill Aidan, could've killed me. But he just let me go."

"Is that why you've been defending him to Glenn?"

I nodded and turned back to her, "He could've killed me." I sighed, wiping my eyes with my free hand, "Not only that, but, after that thing happened, he was… he was nice to me."

"We can talk about what happened," there was honest sweetness in her voice, the kind I'd never experience from her, "If you want."

I perked up, but fear still crept in, "Really?"

"Of course," there was a somber smile on her face now, "Hershel's right. You've gotta try to deal with it."

"Okay," I nodded, trying to find the courage in me but failing, "I guess I just don't know where to start."

She tightened her hold on my shoulders, reassuring me, "The beginning?"

"I remember I was trying to keep the attention on me," there were flashes of that room, that horrible room, it was all I could see, "So they wouldn't go after Glenn and Maggie, hurt them. That was the whole reason I let myself get captured."

She was shocked, "You let yourself get captured?"

"I could've hid," I batted away a few more tears, "Like Michonne did. But, I could've just leave them." More flashes of the room, my ear on the table, that dingy wall, "I was trying to antagonize them, pretended I'd talk if I spoke to him."

"The Governor?"

I cringed. "Yeah. Then he came in. Wanted to know how I knew his name. I lied. Then it all kind of blurs." It did. The events that transpired, they were fuzzy, like the bite, but at the same time they contained such clarity, "I remember they untied me, and I kicked one of them. Then I was put on the hook. And-and then he m-made the others leave." I'd started to cry. I couldn't help it. Not anymore. Not while talking about it. It was just too hard.

She leaned over towards me, "I'm sorry that happened to you." Just feeling another body by mine, that I wasn't alone, it helped.

"I t-tried not to cry," I continued, wanting to just get it over with, get it all out so I could start healing like Hershel said, "Not to l-l-let him know that it was getting to m-me. I t-tried to think of s-s-something else."

"Were you able to?"

I nodded, still finding it difficult to speak between the sobs, "T-thought about him, Daryl. I-I knew he was mad at me, but it made it easier. It-it was like it wasn't happening, not all the-the way."

She'd started to rub my back, "Good." I couldn't help but think about how my mother had done the same thing. The first time a boy had broken up with me there she was, rubbing my back, trying to make it better. Just like Carol.

I tried to stifle my hysterics, "And th-then it was d-done." I reached up to wipe of my face again, but her hand was already there, doing it for me. Wiping away the tears. I continued on, calming down gradually, "Merle came in, b-but then the others were going to talk. So he left." I squeezed my eyes shut, "I knew I was going to die in there."

"Like with the bite?" It was strange how little her questions annoyed me. They didn't bother me at all, not like I thought they would. It was making it easier.

"Yeah," I nodded as I took in a sharp breath, "But this time it was different. This time Death actually came." I smiled as I thought of him, the macabre vision I'd been blessed with while trapped in that room. "Nicely dressed fella," my grin widened, "Eternity for a face. I don't think I was imagining him either. He moved a chair."

"What?" Her head snapped to look at me.

"Yeah," I continued nonchalantly, "He talked to me, said I shouldn't have to be alone, go through that alone." Her face was still full of disbelief, but I didn't mind. Maybe I was crazy? Did that even matter now? Does crazy matter anymore? "First I asked him to make sure the Governor never makes it back to his daughter, but mostly I just wanted my mom," my face fell again to look at Judith, "I know it sounds stupid, but I still want her here with me."

She patted my back a few times, her tone warming again, "I know you do."

"I worry about that with Judith," I rubbed her little belly, "That she won't get to have that."

"That worries me too."

"I don't know what to do," I looked back up to her, almost begging her for guidance, "I still have this feeling that I'm going to die."

"Don't think that way," she pulled me in with a few more pats, "We're going to make it out of this."

"What if I'm never the same?" I sighed, looking at the plain concrete because looking at her would have been too difficult, "What if I can't put the pieces back together?"

"We'll help." Carol and I both turned around to see Beth and Maggie walking down the stairs behind us.

I immediately went into backtrack mode, "I'm not going to ask you—"

Maggie stopped me, "Don't have to." She sat just above me, looking at the baby in my arms and then back to my face. "Thank you for going with us," her face was full of sorrow, despite her words, "And trying to keep us safe there."

Beth called my attention next, smiling over at me, "If you need us for anything, you can tell us, okay?"

It wasn't until then that I considered that Death had been right. Maybe I can pick up these pieces. Maybe I can be whole eventually.

-o0o-

After my talk with the girls I dragged a chair outside so I could spend some time keeping watch in the cage. The groans of the walkers kept me at attention, but my mind was starting to sift through everything.

The Governor was going to die, and it was only a matter of time. Men like him always do. But as I watched the empty faces of the ten or so dead people clinging to the fence several things occurred to me that I hadn't considered for a long time. Morality, for one, the morality of everything I'd done. I'd killed people without thinking twice, and not just one or two. The tablet on my soul had been etched a few too many times; I wasn't like this before. This world didn't allow for it. Before all of this life had meaning. Before all this I would have considered everything, and even then I would never take a life. Before all of this doing the right thing meant being merciful, it meant trying to see past evils. What did that mean for me now? Was I too far gone? Or could I do the moral thing, at least until the bullets begin to fly?

Only kill when it's absolutely necessary; wasn't that my rule? How does vengeance factor into that? Yes, the Governor was an evil man who deserved death, and deep down I wanted nothing more than to be the one to bring that down on him, but what if me killing him is the wrong play? What if the talks of coming to an agreement, a peace treaty worked? Then I could ruin everything for the people I care about with just one bullet.

Maybe there was a way to do the right thing and keep Carl and Judith safe? Keep them all safe? Maybe this was how I manage it, maybe following Rick's orders was the way to move forward? Just because I don't want to go racing over to Woodbury right now and slaughter everyone in the town, hell a part of me wants nothing more, but I could wait. I could hold off until it was absolutely necessary. I could stand the hatred until this was all sorted out if that meant they could all still be safe.

The other thing I had to consider was that I wasn't alone anymore. Whatever happened I had people, people whom I cared about and who cared about me right back. I had friends who'd not only listened to my hardships, but offered to help clear up the mess inside me.

As the groans persisted I leaned back in my chair, and life wasn't so bad.

Okay, so no Daryl time. [My sincerest apologies!] Next time there will be! I swear! Please REVIEW so I know you all aren't abandoning this ship! Reviews keep me invested, and thorough reviews mean better chapters (what a tangled web we weave). Also, if you are in the market for another Daryl/OC story to read I do have another one I've been writing (And it has CLEMENTINE from the game! I love her.); it's called Take Us Back and I kinda like it, maybe you will too. :)

Question Time! How did you all like the sisterhood of the prison yard situation in this chapter? Ladies getting together to help their fellow sisters! Girl power! And how about Annie's attempt to rationalize a potential truce, and have her thirst for vengeance taking a backseat? Think that will hold up for long?

THANK YOU FOR READING! I GREATLY APPRECIATE IT!