Enter your standard disclaimer here: yada, yada yada…. : p

Notes: Kudos to Angelinaa for Beta work, any mistakes left are mine! : )

updated: 5/19

Chapter Fifty-Two

(Fin's POV)

He's not there when I open my eyes again.

The sun is still up. I can tell by the low amber light still slanting through the windows high overhead. The skylight over the hallway maintains the shadowy grey glow that tells me its beyond late afternoon—at most an hour from dusk.

I have slept most of the day; again.

My stomach feels better, but my shoulder is seriously stiff…I find a heavy wad of gauze pressed over my collar with too much medical tape when I raise my hand to find the cause; slip my fingers over the padding marveling at the sheer mass of material with a shake of my head.

No way Carol did this…it had to be Daryl.

All that tape is going to be a serious Bitch.

I lay still breathing slowly in and out for a moment before sitting up. I recognize the back hallway of my warehouse; but not the mattress I sit on. They must have brought it back here realizing with my injury I wouldn't be capable of climbing the ladders for a while…not without a good deal of pain at least.

Since Daryl isn't back there's no one to stop me from seeing if I can find Mika. She's got to be somewhere down here as well with her wounds. Carol might be with her, maybe she'll help me peel some of this tape off so I can shower, put on my own clothes.

I pad barefoot down the hallway, the concrete cool under my bare toes. Daryl must have taken off my boots when he laid me down the second time. Maybe he thought it would keep me from running outside again. I snort, rolling my eyes.

She's awake when I peek into the doorway to check her. I think about leaving again before she notices me, but I can't bring myself to do it; especially with her alone. Carol must be upstairs as well maybe its dinner time up there.

My stomach twists; whether in protest or interest I'm not wholly sure.

"Hey how are you feeling?" I keep my voice soft; try not to startle her as I step inside the doorway so she knows I'm here.

"It still hurts, but it's not so bad now…" She tilts her head up to look at me. The angle looks unnatural with her chin jutting up like that. I sit down on the floor next to the cot so she doesn't have to do it anymore.

"Where are we?"

"Home."

She smiles softly, eyes slipping shut at the idea. I know how she feels instantly. It's a special, almost sacred word these days.

Home.

For a moment I think she's asleep again but then she opens her eyes again, gaze flicking to me. "You live here?"

"Yes," I lean towards her smiling, rest my forearms gingerly on the frame of the cot at her side. "And now, so do you."

She stares up at the tiled cardboard ceiling in the dim light, eyes sweeping around the small office interior. "It's kinda small."

I smile. "No silly, there's a whole building out there, this is just one room."

"Oh, well that makes more sense." She stops; bites her lip troubled by something. "Fin…I'm sorry I stabbed you…it was a bad thing to do; I know that…I'm not like Lizzie…I don't want to hurt people."

"It's okay."

She shakes her tiny head. "You're just saying that because I know your secret."

My next inhale wheezes past the sudden knot in my throat. I swallow; it doesn't help. My stomach twists.

Am I?

"I won't tell though…I want to be a good person…like Carol…like you…" She stares up at me with wide brown doe eyes.

"I'm not going to tell them Mika. I promise." I can't out a ten year old girl for what her twisted sister made her do.

Her eyes water; overflow. Tears spill down her cheeks in shiny streaks I find myself reaching up to brush away with shaking hands.

"It's okay for you to miss her Mika. You can love and miss your sister and still hate what she made you do."

I don't hold what happened that night against Mika, not even a little bit.

Mika stabbing me in the back in that split second before Lizzie jumped me couldn't be more Lizzie's fault even if her fingers had been wrapped over Mika's on the knife hilt…

Considering the sway her older sister had on her; the fear she controlled her with she might as well have done it herself.

"I'm sorry, Fin, I don't want to be bad."

She practically leaps at me from the cot with a distorted babble of words. I wrap my arms around her tiny shoulders while she clings to me sobbing apologies until my shirt is wet against my skin, probably soaking through to the gauze underneath…

"You're not bad. I know you didn't mean it; you barely cut me at all."

It hurts my shoulder to hold her like this but I ignore the ache to rock her back and forth as smoothly as I can, shushing her cries.

When her sobs turn to hiccupping breaths I help her lay back down and sit my hip near her head smoothing her hair back with my good arm like my mother used to when I was younger or sick. I stay until she falls asleep.

When I slip from the room about ten minutes later pulling the door mostly closed behind me to muffle any sounds from the hall Carol is leaning against the wall. My stomach twists into a complex series of knots at the sight of her standing there.

Her hands are folded between the small of her back and the wall, the lines of her face, the set of her shoulders all speak to unease. I don't know how long she's been standing there but I can bet it's long enough to hear what she wasn't meant to know.

She stares down at the concrete floor under her feet as I stand stone still just outside the doorway, one hand still on the knob; neither of us knows what to say next.

With the door open during our conversation and Mika's sobbing…there's no telling exactly how much of that she heard…what she understood in context.

When she speaks first my heart plummets to my stomach.

"Mika stabbed you?" Her voice sounds oddly thick.

"It's between us."

Carol tilts her head back stares up at the high ceiling of the warehouse soaring overhead. "I'm sorry."

This woman is always apologizing to me. I'm starting to see the brokenness just under her surface; like Daryl's its intense. She just wears hers differently. No wonder they gravitate towards each other.

Broken people don't mend each other though, they might prop each other up briefly…but it's hard to heal someone else when you're too shattered to take care of yourself.

It doesn't matter how strong you pretend to be, eventually it comes crashing down…

Huh.

I push those thoughts away quickly before they can tighten the knots in my insides to the point of pain.

"It's not your fault." I shrug ignoring my inner turmoil, absolving Carol of any wrong doing once more.

"She shot Lizzie too?" I stare back at her in silent answer until she nods her head, eyes slipping shut again. "God, what a mess." Her voice shakes; and she doesn't even understand just what a mess it really is.

Only a broken little girl and I do.

"She doesn't want you to know, I promised."

I silently Thank God Mika didn't say anything more specific about that night…about those Walkers and how I got rid of them that might endanger my place here.

I've just started to depend on him…to lose him now…

Carol nods. "Secret is safe with me."

I nod, walk away. I don't ask her to help with my shoulder after that, I can't. Looking at her tear streaked face reminds me that large parts of me are broken too…

How long do we have before this all falls apart?

How long can we really keep it together before Daryl and I rip each other to shreds on the shattered, jagged pieces of our extremely broken lives?

How many pieces will he be in when I'm gone?

Will I still be alive when all this is over?

I head straight to the shower room shutting the door behind me sealing off the back hallway then I move across the cold dark tile floor by memory to the spigot twisting it. I strip as the water starts and stand under the spray of ice cold water scrubbing and scrubbing until my teeth chatter so hard with cold shudders I think my jaw might break and my muscles ache with spasms.

It doesn't matter how long I stand there, I can't wrap my head around it, my chest feels hollow, raw and empty.

I slide my fingers over my skin certain that I'll find a gaping hole it feels so real.

I don't shut the water off before my legs give way even though I feel it coming. It continues beating down over me, ice cold rivulets running down my face, cascade off the end of my nose and run into my eyes burning when I collapse into a shuddering heap over the drain. The water pools around me, lapping at my legs on the tile floor.

I thought the cold might help; It doesn't though.

I can still feel it…

The instant I close my eyes I'm right back on that searing hot rooftop, the skin on my back burning through my shirt, lungs gasping for air with the heavy scent of hot asphalt, tar and ozone on the back of my tongue, the rest of me baking under the steaming July sun.

"We're safe…" Abby's voice…

…but when I turn my head Abby's body is the torn bloody mess I'm going to find in the alley...always find in the end of my nightmares…I can never save her.

I can't even save myself.

I stare at her lifeless form in horror as the features on her face shift to Daryl's…

Daryl's lifeless face, pale blood smeared skin and dead eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky…

I clench my eyes shut against the burning and scream myself into darkness.

I wake shaking uncontrollably still in the pitch dark. The image is burned against my eyelids…flutters before my face in the darkness.

I struggle to sit up trapped by something heavy against my ribs. My damp hair chokes me, loose and twisted in unconditioned clumps tangled against my neck, twisted around my back with cold sweat…I'm in bed again…Daryl's arm tightens around me, pulling me back down, his solid presence reminds me to breathe…I bury my face against his chest so his heartbeat pulses under my cheek. His scent fills my aching lungs, loosens the knot in my chest.

Relief floods me instantly: overwhelming and sweet.

He's alive…

"It's okay, it's just a nightmare, you're safe."

I shake my head against his words. Eyes clenched tight to stop the tears threatening to spill over.

I'm never safe…

It's always a false hope.

:: Walking Dead ::