I'd have gotten this up earlier, but this week was real life hell for me, presidential election being the least of it. So enjoy.
Daryl
"Is this it?" asked Abraham to the captured Savior, on the side of the road. Abraham was pointing at the map spot that mentioned the safe house. After getting lost, we decided to stop and give our guest a proper welcome.
"I ain't telling you shit."
Abraham punched him again. Clearly, physical intimidation didn't work on these sons of bitches alone. We needed some more gut to the interrogation.
So I went to get it. There were plenty of dead bodies in the telecoms building. I cut off a hand and and tossed it in front of the man. "This happened to one of your friends that tried to pull some shit like you did. Still wanna play games?"
It took a few more seconds, but the Savior eventually gave the directions. "You'll never get there," he said. "We have reinforcements. You'll be deader than I am."
"Sure," said Rick sarcastically.
We got back in our vehicles and continued on our way. Beth and I got back to the subject of filling in the gaps of her travels here. "So your group camped in Fort Knox?"
"Yep," replied Beth. "But it was abandoned. Someone took all the gold early on, it seemed. Maybe they thought it would actually be worth something today."
"The only thing worth shit today are food and guns," I said. "And maybe people. I really like having you back. After I thought-"
"Don't. I'm alive. No use beating yourself up about it again."
"Sure," I said, looking into her pretty blue eyes.
"Who we really need to worry about is Maggie. I know she's probably still a better fighter than me, but I can't help but think any time someone is unaccounted for, the probability of them dying goes up."
"That's not happenin'. I'm going to make sure of that for ya. Even if it means getting me banged up."
You got your balls in the wind, little brother. That's what Merle would have been saying to me had he still been alive.
She looked like one of the many loose women Merle had brought home to their trailer before the turn. He'd had a knack for making them wet their pants for him, while I just did my best not to be caught up in all that drama. Beth hadn't changed in the months she'd been "dead". Sure, she'd matured (for the better), but the person I'd see "die" had not physically changed.
Not that I was wanting to change that.
The rest of the drive was relatively boring. The captured weapons in the back rattled a few times, but no real sound other than the car driving its way over dirt and paved road. When the safe house (a converted slaughterhouse) came in view, all doors were prepared for and weapons at the ready. After two of them were busted open with nothing, the group converged on the third.
"Ready?" asked Rick.
"Ready." I threw the large steel door open…
…to find Carol and Maggie already standing there. They looked beaten up, but were alive. Carol looked like she could use a hug, so I did just that. I cared about her too much to just let her stand around and act like that.
"They're all dead," said Maggie, to Beth and Glenn. "The ones that took us, their backup…" The bleak look on her face told us all we needed to know.
Rick turned to the surviving Savior, preparing to question him further. "Your friends are dead, no one's coming for you. So I'm going to ask you one last time: was Negan in that base last night?"
"Let him burn," I said. He probably knew a hell of a lot more than he gave off, but wasn't willing and not likely to crack.
The savior's face changed at the sound of the name Negan, as if he were a deity. He turned around to Rick with a newfound confidence and said, "I'm Negan, shithead. There's a whole world of fun to talk about, let's have a chat."
"I'm sorry it had to come to this." Rick executed the man point blank, and without hesitation.
That didn't shock me as much as the fact that Carol looked more shell shocked by it than Beth.
Beth
The car was pretty dirty, but had a lot of items now considered luxury by today's standards. This included a pile of CDs in the dashboard. I began going through the names: Metallica, Eminem, Limp Biskit…
"These people had no taste in music," I muttered. Daryl just shrugged his shoulders.
"You still do that music thing?" He asked.
"I try at times. It gets easier to think about it when you're surviving in the world we live in." Then I looked at the last CD in the pile: Johnny Cash. It didn't have anything on it other than the name.
"Let's try this," I said, popping the CD in. A somber guitar track came on, immersing us in it:
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Now I could see why the Saviors might have liked this song. It was a grim tune of every person getting their due. I couldn't help but hum to the tune a minute in. Daryl was too. "Old man used to play a version of this half the time, at least when he wasn't drunk. Merle hated it."
"And you?"
"It got stuck in my head, like a loop. I could get a rise out of Merle just by playing it… God I still miss him. Thank God the group is a second family, otherwise I'd lose my damn mind." He paused for another minute, thinking. Then he said, "Hold Maggie close."
I didn't speak, but just listened. It was just the two of us in the car, just like it had been after the prison's fall. The drive, a twice as long journey, seemed like a fourth of that with some music to pass the time.
"You know, there's a music store not too far from one of the strip centers we raided," said Daryl as our car was let in the gate. "I could pick up a few things,"
"No, really," I said. "Don't risk yourself."
"We already cleared that area weeks ago. And we could use the entertainment."
The night was spent in celebration. We had dealt with a major threat for the time being, and we now had a steady stream of food coming from the Hilltop. The party was more of a laid back thing than anything, with Rick inviting the people from the prison group, plus Abraham, Eugene, and Gabriel (Rosita was at Spencer's). I took the opportunity to finish the gaps in what had happened between Grady and now.
"So, Rick and Michonne?" I asked Glenn. I knew they were friendly back at the prison but had never seen them as a couple.
"Well, Rick did like this one woman named Jessie that was here, before she and her kids got eaten." Glenn glanced at Maggie, who was talking to Sasha. "You know, Maggie is actually really enjoying having you back. I am too. Don't know if I've told you yet."
"You probably have." She knew Rick, Carl, and Daryl all had, the last of these at least a few times now. "This is the happiest I've been in a long time. I could just sing till my lungs gave way."
"Well lucky you." Daryl barged in, carrying with him a guitar. "For you. No one else was using it anyways."
"Aw, thanks, but you shouldn't have."
"Least I could do."
I figured I would just let him feel good about himself, so I took the guitar from his hands and began playing a few songs I hadn't forgotten. I soon became the community's house music person, the one people could turn to when they needed a uplifting beat.
Life was finally good again.
Daryl, a week later
I was not happy. Denise, our only doctor, had wanted to come out on a run, so Rosita and I let her do just that. And what happened? She fucking died. The worst part of it was, it wasn't by a walker. It was by that bastard Dwight.
He'd been burned on the left side of his face, but it was the same asshole who'd stolen my bike. And now he was a leader in the Saviors. "You're going to let us into your little camp, and let is take whatever – and whoever – we want. Otherwise we kill Eugene here."
Eugene had actually gotten himself captured. To get us out of the mess, he first told Dwight that Abraham was hiding behind some oil barrels. When Dwight got distracted and sent one of his men to investigate, Eugene did something pretty ingenious: he bit Dwight in the balls. At the same time, Abraham came out of hiding, guns blazing.
This gave me the opportunity to grab a gun and fight back. Dwight and his surviving men eventually retreated after some walkers got attracted by the gunfire. I wanted chase that fucker but the others had to pull me back, with other concerns.
I'd failed another person. I should have killed Dwight back then. I should have never let Denise.
"Once again, you go too hard on yourself." That was Beth, thinking she could make the fucking guilt go away just like that. We were pacing in the house where Glenn and Maggie called home.
"Out of all the people here, I'd think you were the one not to believe that bullshit." I didn't mean to raise my voice. But I was a sponge for getting people killed.
"If you want to wallow in self-pity, I can't help you with that." Beth turned around, heading for the door. "You think you're the only one who got people killed?"
"Like who?"
"Doctor Stevens from Grady. He was one of the people that accompanied me for a month. He fell in a ditch crawling with walkers. Our hands failed to meet by an inch. But do you see me continuing to weep for him? No. We mourn the dead and carry on with our lives."
I was silent for a moment.
"You're not the same girl that tried to slash herself." Then I walked out, angry as hell. Denise's death was still on me. I should have not let her go.
Ah, fuck it. We'd lost people far better this world than her: Merle, Tyreese, Andrea, Bob… The world was a funny damn place.
I decided to go talk to Carol about it. She was someone I could confide all this shit in. But she wasn't there. A note for Tobin, one of the Alexandria residents she'd gotten close to, but nothing more. She'd left.
Beth
"You sure about this?" I asked Maggie. She wanted her hair cut to a much shorter length.
"Yes I do. Just makes things easier, if you ask me. I know you have your ponytail but this is just what I want."
Under other circumstances, I'd probably decline. But anything for the last surviving member of my family. I took the scissors and began chopping away and Maggie's dark brown locks, one by one.
"I think Daryl's interested in you," Maggie said out of the blue. It made my heart pick up a pace or two.
"Well, of course," I said. "We were stuck together for a while, and now that I'm-"
"Not just that. I think he's taken a liking to you. Had he not, he'd have never let you in on the attack on that Savior base."
"You know I learned out to fight."
"Daryl wouldn't have let you be at risk for death the first night he had you back. The fact that he let you in anyways shows he trusted you more than most, that he cared about what you wanted."
Well, that made sense in a way. Daryl was a tough person to pin down. I finished the rest of Maggie's hair and let her look at it in a mirror. "I actually like it," I said.
"So do I."
"We should show Glenn when he gets back. No doubt he'll love it too-"
Maggie suddenly lurched over in pain, crying out. The way she grasped her belly was an immediate indication that it had something to do with the baby. Whether it was just kicking around or an actual miscarriage, I didn't know. I grabbed her and sat her back down, and then ran outside to find help. I first found Sasha, who in turn got Rick at Maggie's side.
"We need to go to the Hilltop and get her medical attention," I said with urgency. "They've got a doctor, something we no longer have."
Rick looked troubled. "Rosita, Daryl, Glenn, and Aaron haven't returned from their scouting yet. If we spend more people-"
"Don't get weak on me now! My sister is going to die if you don't get her to the Hilltop doctor!"
Rick then snapped out of his thoughts. "Let's get the RV up and moving." He, Abraham, Sasha, Eugene, Michonne, Carl, and I began loading weapons and gas for the drive that would save my sister's life.
So I'm thinking of tweaking a few things in the encounter with Negan, mostly because this is already an AU. Any suggestions? I'd enjoy the chance to talk about this story, the show, etc. Just review or even shoot me a PM.
