"It was the French."
This was the snippet of conversation Cassia caught as Jenner strode down the hallway, passing her room with a few of the group at his heels. Daryl doesn't seem to be there yet. Her bags were packed and ready to go on her bed. Rick had ordered everyone to do as such; she hadn't really taken anything out, anyway. There wasn't much of it left.
Cassie almost backflips off her bed but then remember that firstly, she can't do a backflip, secondly she is 9 weeks pregnant, and lastly that it would be much more time consuming than she could afford. Instead she simply slips off the bed and darts out into the hallway, trading looks with Andrea.
"What?" Andrea asks finally, in response to Jenner's bizarre comment about the French.
"They were the last to hold out, as far as I know. While our people were bolting doors and taking their own lives, as well as others, in the hallways, they stayed in the labs 'til the very end. Last I heard they thought they were close to a solution."
Oh, she thinks distantly, numbly, The French. The blessed French.
She licked her lips and did her best to keep up. Not an easy task when one is pregnant.
"Is there- do you think there's a safe place in France?" She asked, Jenner gave her an odd look over his shoulder and Andrea made a ridiculous sound of disbelief,
"Cass, there's no way we can get to-"
"I have family there." She explained hurriedly, cutting Andrea off. Jenner glanced back at her once again, and his pace seemed to falter.
"I... wouldn't know about any safe havens," he broke it to her gently, at least, and she nodded. A hand was suddenly at her back, and she thought it would be Daryl, for a moment, before Rick spoke up from right beside her,
"So-" He began, but got cut right off by Jacqui. All pretense of manners went straight out the window the moment tensions got high. Daryl still hadn't joined them.
"What happened?" Asked Jacqui. Rick edged his way around everyone until he reached Jenner's side. A new hand rested on her back, and this time it was Daryl; though he didn't look too pleased. Cassia recognised that look, after all. That was the one he'd get whenever he would spot one of her bruises, any new ones, and just generally whenever he would see Ross; more recently it had presented itself whenever Merle would provoke him. Merle. She hadn't thought about Merle in a while. Daryl's fuse was running out, she could tell.
"The same thing that's happening here," Jenner shrugged. They'd all reached their destination, by then, the group automatically fanning out around Jenner to circle and enclose him, like a pack mentality, but he doesn't seem too worried. He seemed to be where he wanted to be, "No power grid. Ran out of juice. The world runs on fossil fuel - How stupid is that?" It seemed rather like a rhetorical question.
Daryl was pacing back and forth by now, his entire frame almost rattling with his anger. She could tell it was permeating through him the same way a harmful gas would spread through a very confined space. Daryl was almost wringing his hands the same way she often did. Cassia tried to catch his wrist and steady him but he wrenched himself from her grasp, irritably, not a harsh or violent act by any means, but it still stung a little, oddly, in her chest and in her eyes.
... Right. She was going to disregard that and blame it on the hormones.
Or the loud as heck siren that suddenly kicks off and very kindly informs them they have thirty minutes before the entire building gets blown to high hell. Daryl gets over his aversion to contact, then, and grabs her back towards him, his hand clamped down on her shoulder like a horrible vice; and she freezes up at the very horrifying way this reminds her of Ross. Daryl's usual grip always had some kind of a varying pressure, seeing as he was always uncertain about any contact in the first place, and any touch initiated by him was fleeting and rare. Somehow always gentle, but not in this moment. It affects her more than the siren does, and her breath catches in her throat the way an errant kite might hit a tree in a storm and her heart begins to thump and then rocket about in her chest. For a moment she's terrified that it will ricochet about enough and burst right out of her chest, the rising panic bubbling away inside of her was almost painful, and the tears that stung at her eyes felt like tiny little razor blades slicing away along by her tear ducts.
An uncomfortable feeling down by her abdomen distracts her for a second.
And then she's released. The world stops spinning and the loud metallic screeching is brought to a close.
The hand Daryl had crushing her shoulder now holds a bottle, and Daryl himself is rushing towards Jenner,
"You son of a bitch!" He roars, Shane intercepts him and looks for a moment like he's going to tackle him around the waist, but his eyes touch on hers and he clearly decided against it, as he straightens up and merely shoves Daryl away; keeping him from getting to Jenner.
Jenner, himself, has snapped. He turns to whip round and react to the aggression, stance utterly defensive and outraged. His face is quickly turning an interesting shade of red, sweating and raging,
"You know what this place is! We protected the public from very nasty stuff! Weaponised smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country in mere days - Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!" Cassia's a little concerned, half convinced they're witnessing this man's inevitable break down. Jenner retakes his seat in front of the only active monitor, the only seat occupied and the only monitor with power in the whole place. In Daryl's graveyard full o'nerds. Jenner's break down appears not to be happening, however, as he drags a hand down his face, reigning in his fury, something she would bet he'd been bottling up for a long time. His usual mask of gentle apathy and lack of emotion comes down to veil him, "In the event of a catastrophic power failure or a terrorist attack, for example, HITs are deployed by the AI to prevent any organisms from getting out to brutalise the general public."
Rick hesitates, coming across more ghoul than man; his cheeks seem more hollow than usual and the bags under his eyes look thousands of years old, the cavernous depths in his eyes looked fit to bursting with despair, and he voices the question on the tip of everyone's tongues, "HITs?"
"Vi, please define."
Vi sounds almost mocking, thought Cassia knows that was her ears twisting the intent, "HITs - high impulsive thermometric fuel-air explosives consist of a two stage that produces-"
Cassia covers her ears. She doesn't want to know.
Her harmless pile of cotton balls metaphor had been spot on, but perhaps the visual of a grenade being tossed at the pile would have been more apt.
Daryl lets out a shaky, furious breath from where he's pacing about by Shane. He looks to be past the violent chapter of his reaction, but then he hisses something to Shane, who stalls for a minute, considering something, then steps aside. Why would-
Daryl steps up past Shane to be closer to Jenner and demands his attention. Rick stirs and inches forward a little to be in range to stop Daryl if his temper gets the better of him. Daryl mirrors Jenner's earlier action and drags a hand down his face, he paces back and forth, bouncing a little with the rage in the soles of his feet, needing to get some adrenaline out. Jenner slowly brings his half-dead gaze round to him, and Daryl raises a shaking arm to point towards her, downwards towards her stomach.
Oh.
"We got kids with us. We got a pregnant woman."
"It sets fire to the air. No pain. An end to sorrow, grief, regret," Jenner informs Daryl, his tone is softer now and she can tell he thinks it's a mercy, "Everything."
Daryl doesn't accept this. Something twinges painfully in his jaw, she can see it from where she's standing, and he shakes his head in a stiff, short, rigid motion,
"That's my kid you're killin' 'fore it gets the chance to live," Daryl's tone drops and even comes close to breaking when he emphasises his words, his arm shakes even more, and his mouth closes into a grim line, unforgiving gaze fixed on the shell of a man in front of him. Jenner lets out a sigh, his somber, melancholy eyes travel oh so slowly over to where she stands, they scan her from head to toe and his adam's apple bobs erratically when his eyes drift past her baby bump. He looks back to Daryl and tilts his head,
"So you're the father."
Daryl nods again, a smaller movement than before, still tight lipped. Jenner sighs again.
"It's a chance to save that innocent child from the horrors of this world, a painful upbringing, a childhood filled with trauma; countless horrors it's certain to face. This will be a mercy to yourself and to your wife. Your baby will never have to witness the things you have."
"She ain't my-" Daryl corrects him, but Cassia is trembling and bristling with rage, taking slow, calculated steps towards Jenner,
"Who are you... to decide the fate of my baby?" She questions, her tone is low and ominous; verging on dangerous, even. Daryl blinks in something akin to bewilderment, measuring the distance between herself and Jenner.
Jenner responds to her calmly, frowning slightly,
"Your baby?" He notes, glancing to Daryl momentarily, "Not 'our' baby?"
"As I said," Daryl growls, "We ain't married..." He pauses and then asserts, "kid's mine, too."
She inclines her head in agreement, accepting her mistake, "Yes. Our baby."
Jenner puts a hand to his head, "I'm not deciding anything on your behalf. You are the ones who entered the building. I told you that once the shutters closed, they would not re-open again. If I were you, I would take this opportunity and save your child from all the pain and the suffering and the opting out."
Cassia caught a sob in her throat and clenched her fists at her sides, entire frame rattling now, her fury was so immense, "Generally, it's considered polite to inform people beforehand when something will lead up to their gruesome death," She uttered to him, and he nodded. Daryl's fingers curled around her wrist once more, and his other hand curled around the curve of her shoulder. His touch was gentle, this time, trembling, he guided her back towards him, their impending doom evidently brought down the usual walls that stood between them. She slipped her hand from his grip and laced their fingers instead. Daryl didn't react, and she was sure he hadn't even noticed, but then his fingers curled back around hers, reflexively, and then they were properly holding hands. Jenner spares them a last look, dropping down to their intertwined hands and then panning away, back to his computer monitor.
The hand holding doesn't last long, and Daryl disappears to go attack the big metal door with a fire axe. Jenner doesn't even glance back,
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher."
Daryl growls. He takes Shane by surprise and even Rick and almost achieves his goal of imbedding the axe in the side of Jenner's head. He's stopped before he can, though.
Daryl pushes his captors off him and stumbles back towards her, he grabbed her by the chin, yanking her head gently so that she's forced to look at him, eye contact, pulled out of her stunned daze,
"We're gettin' out, Cassie. You hear me? Our baby's gon' live." He vows, and she nods very slightly, wishing he'd let go of her. He does, seeming to be appeased.
Rick's rambling on at Jenner, trying to crack him, she thinks. Cassia drags her whole attention away from Daryl and tunes in,
"... Always matters. You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to. I made a promise... to her. My wife." Jenner points at the screen where he'd shown them Test Subject Nineteen's death, short un-death, and then final shuffle of this mortal coil. She was...
Oh. Oh.
Oh, Jenner.
"Test Subject Nineteen was your wife?" Lori's voice is hoarse and well within the territory of coming out as a whisper.
What a noble way to die. What a horrible ending for both of them. He must have been the one to do it. Daryl's back on his mission against the door.
Jenner's basically a ghost in this moment,
"She begged me to keep going. How could I say no? As long as I could, she said. She made me promise. She was dying. It should have been me on that table, not her. I wouldn't have mattered to anybody. She was a monumental loss to this world!" It sounds like he's going to sob, but he doesn't, "Hell, she ran this place; In our field she was like an Einstein. Me... I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could have done something. She could have saved us. Not me. I can't-"
Rick seizes the opportunity to beg and plead;
"Your wife didn't have a choice. You do. There's always a choice. That's- That's all we want; a choice, a chance."
The breathing around her is ragged and shaky.
"Let us keep going as long as we can," Lori pleads in a whisper, hands fretting over Carl's hair, clutching him to her. Jenner hesitates.
Cassia holds her breath and Daryl tenses up beside her, having abandoned the assault on the impenetrable door in favour of listening in. Something seems to finally unclench and let go inside of Jenner and he closes his eyes, breathing through his nose before tapping on buttons and watching them all when he's done. Daryl doesn't wait a moment longer, he wrenches her by the arm and she stumbles after him. She doesn't hear enough footsteps to reassure her that everyone's following behind them, and it causes her to pause, to hesitate. She throws Daryl a pleading look. He groans and pushes her by the middle of her back,
"Don't you stop runnin'. Get out." He demanded, and observes her very pointedly until she nods. In the next instant he's gone to help the others, and she sets off at a run, ahead of everyone else.
"Cassie-" Carol cries from behind her, and she doesn't stop running, but looks back to see Carol and Sophia running as fast they can. The frantic look in Carol's eyes hits a chord deep in her chest, and it resonates with her as the sheer panic of another mother. Cassia drifts back and catches Sophia's hand, pulling her forward to get away from the danger even faster. She hears Carol breathe a thank you and thanks her own lucky stars that she'd always been a fast runner. That's two out of three kids she'll have saved and secure if they can get past those shutters. Carol and Sophia wait by the shutters for the others, and Cassia speeds off to grab her bags, adrenaline pushing her further, accelerating her overall speed. She's back just in time to see Carol hand Rick a grenade, of all things. Shane, predictably, says something sexist, but she doesn't quite hear him because Daryl's expression was all she could process. He was darting about between the others, his eyes roaming everywhere and his head whipping around, searching. He comes to a shuddering halt when he sees her, and the relief on his face is so handsome she almost chokes. That would probably have effectively ruined the moment. Daryl rushes to her side and pushes her down just in time, covering her body with his own, careful not to press her against the floor for the sake of the baby.
There's a distinct ringing in her ears and a deafening sense of white noise in the atmosphere around her, after that. Her hands immediately fumbled around for Daryl, panic instilling itself momentarily before it's clear he's okay and so is Glenn, and so is Sophia and so is the baby and so is everyone.
Except for three. The names wouldn't come to her in the middle of all the panic.
They make quick work of the walkers as they dash past them, and Cassia's even fleetingly proud of the proficiency at which she manages to stab one in the head. Daryl's moving too fast, though, dragging her along behind him, and so she loses the knife. He all but throws her into the pickup truck and only just manages to leap in himself, right on time, flattening them once again to the floor. She angles herself so she's not face down, so that the baby's okay.
Just like that... it's gone. The entire CDC is gone. Dust.
So is Jacqui.
Andrea and Dale just about made it out, but Andrea does not seem so grateful for the rescue.
In the aftermath of the blast, staring at the remains and the very skeleton of the CDC, Cassia is reminded of something her younger sister, Cayenne, once told her, about three years ago, after Cayenne's girlfriend had left her.
Nothing is forever.
