AN: So now we begin the aftermath. There's so much to be dealt with here, both in way of things that need to be taken by the characters and in emotions that need to be looked at after the tragedy that it simply cannot be done in just a chapter or two. I'm attempting to break it up in such a way that things are dealt with thoroughly, but the chapters aren't overwhelming. That being said, I hope to eventually address all that needs to be addressed, but this will take a bit. Please don't expect it all to be resolved in just one or two chapters.
I hope you enjoy the story, even though right now is not the happiest of times for our little community.
I would also like to thank you for your reviews and support after the first 100 chapters of our tale. I'm glad to know that some of you are still on board!
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Daryl may have stood there a few minutes, or he may have stood there for hours. Time was nothing but a blur for the moment. Around him there were so many sounds, so many voices, that they all ran together in one indistinguishable cloud of noise.
The air around him was thick and heavy with smoke. The smell of Walkers was strong enough to gag anyone who didn't have a strong stomach against the putrid smell of rotten flesh. He held his hand to his side. He was aware that it hurt, but the ache almost seemed dulled.
There was too much to think about, too much to take in. The sun was rising now and it was painting the scenery around him into a garish, blood soaked scene like something out of a nightmare. He felt like everything around him was broken, shattered into hundreds of little pieces and he could only take in one tiny piece at a time.
Slowly he began to feel like he was waking up from something, though he hadn't been asleep at all. Part of him felt numb. His brain felt numb. Now that it was beginning to wake up a little, the throbbing in his side announced its presence more than it had before. Breathing was difficult and he didn't know if it was because of the injury or because of the quality of the air, but he struggled a little against the momentary panic that rose up when he realized that he wasn't getting quite as much air as he wanted.
Daryl looked around, his eyes falling over the masses of bodies in the streets. He let his eyes gloss over the figures of his companions, some standing around, others already pushing the rotting corpses out of the way in search of the fallen. His first concern was finding Michonne. He couldn't begin to sort out all that had happened, all that needed to happen, until he located her. On his first quick scan of the area he didn't see her, but he knew she was out there. She had been standing near him. She'd come out with the rest of them, even though he wouldn't have wanted her to if she'd asked him, and she'd been fighting.
Suddenly the panic started to well up and Daryl cast his eyes over the group again, turning a little. He started walking in the direction away from headquarters, seeing that she clearly wasn't there. He heard others calling to him, but he ignored their voices, pushing them out of his mind. He'd worry about them later.
"'Chonne!" He called, trying to swallow down the panic. "Where the hell are ya, 'Chonne?"
"I'm here," Michonne called out. Daryl heard her voice and his heart stopped for a second. He looked around in the direction of her voice and finally spotted her in the dim light. She was sitting on the steps of Rick's porch, her katana laid across her lap. Daryl rushed toward her, ignoring everything around him.
"Ya alright?" He called out. She looked up at him, clearly exhausted.
"You're shot," she said. "You need to get that taken care of."
"Are ya alright?" Daryl repeated, ignoring her statement.
Michonne nodded.
"I'm fine," she said. "I'm fine."
"The baby OK?" Daryl asked, reaching a hand out to her to offer to help her up. She waved his hand away and pulled herself up with the steps' handrail.
"Fine," she said. "I think everything's fine. Daryl, you've been shot," she repeated.
"Yeah," Daryl said. "I know that, 'Chonne. Ya need ta go ta the house. Ya need to lay down."
Michonne nodded her head. Daryl realized that she was in as much of a stupor as he was at the moment. He wondered if anyone was processing, really processing, what was going on around them. He heard screaming, and he heard crying, but he still wondered if anyone was free entirely from the cloud of overstimulation.
"Let's get'cha back to the house," Daryl said. Michonne started walking in the direction of the house, picking her way over the fallen Walkers. Her katana was grasped in her hand and she held it out to her side. Daryl considered reaching for it and returning it to its sheathe since it was clear that the thought had escaped her for the moment. He left it alone, though, figuring that she would put it up when she got inside.
"Carol needs to look at you," Michonne repeated again when they'd reached the house. Daryl was relieved to see that the fire at headquarters had burned down a good bit. It was still a nice bonfire, and much of the lawn around it was burnt, but it appeared not to be much a threat anymore.
"I'll get her ta look at me, don't'cha worry 'bout me," Daryl said. "I need ya to promise that ya gonna go an' lay down. If ya do that, I promise that I'll get this taken care of. Then I gotta help everyone, 'Chonne, there's a lot that's gotta be taken care of."
Michonne nodded and started quietly up the steps to the house. She sheathed her katana as she reached the top of them and went into the house without another word. Daryl felt relieved, momentarily, at least to know where she was and that she was fine.
Once that problem was out of the way, Daryl felt overwhelmed again for the moment. There was so much that he needed to think about. How had the Walkers gotten into the community? Their entrance had to be repaired, otherwise they were simply waiting for another wave of them to crash down on what was left of the group. How had the fire begun? If it was an accident, then that was simply that, but if it was foul play then they had other problems that could threaten them further. Who had they lost? A scan around, even without comprehending the figures walking about, left Daryl hoping that those he could see immediately standing weren't the only survivors. They couldn't have been reduced to so few moving bodies…How many were injured and lost beneath the Walkers? The Walkers in themselves were a problem. They'd have to be burned, but that was a daunting task made even more daunting by the fact that they had to make sure that no one was trapped and needing assistance.
Speed seemed to be of the essence in the situation, yet Daryl felt like he and everything around him was moving in slow motion. So much needed to be done and he was having trouble deciding what the proper order was for everything. He started walking toward the gates where he spotted Rick standing, fidgeting with the lock. He continued to attempt to block out everything around him. He could only deal with one thing at a time right now, and Rick's help was something he felt like he needed if he was going to work out a plan for what needed to be done for everyone around him.
Daryl walked up to Rick, with Sadie standing near him, and Rick turned to face him, his hand still on the lock.
"What is it?" Daryl asked.
"Chain was cut," Rick said. Daryl noticed how calmly Rick said it and he realized that there were going to be at least two kinds of people to be dealt with, those that were calm right now and those that were in hysterics. He could hear the second kind of people around him, but they were going to be of little use for the time being if they wanted to get anything under control.
"So someone cut it?" Daryl asked. As soon as he asked it, he realized it was a stupid question. Clearly Walkers didn't cut the chain.
Rick nodded.
"At least two men, probably more," he said.
"How do you know?" Daryl asked. Rick gestured a little in Sadie's direction.
"They attacked her while she was trying to get the gate closed," he said. Rick pinched the bridge of his nose and looked around for a second. "There's one of them somewhere over there," Rick gestured not far from them. "I know I knocked him out. I don't know if he's dead. I don't know what happened to the other one."
Daryl looked around. They had been attacked by people. People had done this. Someone had deliberately done this to their community. It was even possible that they were somewhere now, either lurking or buried like some of their own under putrid Walkers.
Daryl turned back and looked at Rick and Sadie, both of which looked exhausted and disheveled. He realized that Sadie's shirt was wet with blood, and it was only then that it sunk into him that everyone was half dressed at best. Rick was wearing a pair of shorts, like he was, but Sadie was only wearing a light colored t-shirt.
"You're bleedin'," Daryl said. Sadie looked down as though she was unaware that she had any wounds that might be leaking blood. To his surprise, she hiked the bottom of her shirt up and he was thankful for a second that she was wearing underwear. Apparently she wasn't embarrassed at all about exposing herself. Down both her sides were deep scratches. She looked at them a moment and looked back at Daryl and then at Rick.
"How'd it happen?" Daryl asked.
Sadie shrugged.
"Don't know," she said.
"Fuck," Daryl said. They were scratches. Each set had been clearly made by three fingers. They were human scratches, or Walker scratches, it was impossible to tell just by looking at them.
Daryl looked at Rick. He had blood on him, and it was clearly smeared down his arm, but Daryl wasn't positive if it was his.
"Ya scratched too?" Daryl asked.
Rick's hand went directly to his shoulder and he wiped at it, showing Daryl the blood on his fingertips.
"Bit," Rick said. "Sadie bit me."
Daryl looked back at the woman. She didn't deny or confirm that she'd bitten Rick, but Daryl already knew she was a biter, so he didn't question the validity of the statement. Daryl shook his head.
"What the hell do we do, Rick? Where do we even start?" Daryl asked. Suddenly he was desperate for anyone that could help him find any answers in the madness. Rick looked just as lost as he was.
"We've got to get organized," Rick said with a sigh. "We've…we've got to get Carol and Mark, find a central place for the wounded," he looked in the direction of the rubble that had once been that place.
"We can use my house," Daryl said. "The downstairs is got enough space if we just move shit. We can get another place set up when everything calms down."
"Fine," Rick said. "So we need to get the wounded there, that's priority. Save who we can before we lose anyone else. Others can get to work taking the dead over for us to dig graves, and we've already got a fire here to start burning Walkers."
Daryl nodded his response. He glanced at Sadie again.
"What do we do with those that are…" he hesitated a moment, "with the people who got scratched and bitten?"
Rick looked at Sadie too. Everyone turned when they died, that was just a fact. Now that they knew that, now that it wasn't a surprise, being bitten or scratched just meant that you were going to expedite that process and die faster.
Sadie looked at both of them, apparently having caught on to Daryl's line of questioning. She held up her hand at him.
"I'm going to help. I can help move people, organize things. When the fever hits, I will disappear. Rick will loan me a gun. You can find me later."
Daryl bit his lip. He glanced at Rick, but Rick looked as if he didn't have an answer either.
"Just don't tell Mark," Sadie continued. "He has to stay focused to help. He can't be worried about me. Tell him afterwards, but let him see me helping, think that I'm alright, and he can do what he needs to do." Sadie smiled. "It's OK. Um…I'll take the baby to Michonne. I'll tell Mark to go to your house."
Sadie walked away and Daryl glanced back at Rick.
"Shot?" Rick asked after a second. Daryl remembered that he was holding his side. At this point he'd grown so accustomed to the pain that he'd almost forgotten it. He nodded at Rick. "You need to get that cleaned up," Rick said, "before you try and do anything else. Don't bleed out on us."
"Yeah," Daryl said. "I'm goin'. What about everything else?"
"Tyreese is over there, I'll talk to him. It looks like Glenn's got his hands full," Rick said, gesturing. Daryl turned and his eyes focused in on Glenn and Maggie sitting in the street. Glenn had his arms wrapped around Maggie and it appeared that any glue that had been holding her pieces together before was pretty much worn out now. Daryl vaguely remembered making his way around them earlier, and now he didn't even have to wonder what had happened. He nodded his head in response again and let his eyes drift over the scenery in front of him, still avoiding the details.
"Go get that taken care of," Rick said again. "I can hold things down out here until you're patched up enough."
Daryl started back toward his house. He saw Mark coming, Sadie just behind him, carrying the baby. He wondered how it was that she was so calmly holding it together. He wondered how he'd react if he was in the position of being scratched, just waiting for the fever to come. He supposed, as he thought about it, that perhaps he'd be like her. Perhaps he'd be trying to make plans. There wasn't anything else to do but sit and wait, and the waiting for it would be harder than simply keeping going until it was upon you.
Mark made his way toward Daryl. The man looked confused and Daryl didn't even have to question his facial expression. It was all too much for anyone.
"We gonna let y'all use the downstairs ta patch everyone up," Daryl said. "While they bringin' the others, can ya help me with this bullet wound? I need to get patched up enough to get out here and help 'em get this under control."
Mark chuckled a little, much to Daryl's surprise.
"Get this under control?" He asked. "Do you really think we're going to get it under control?" He glanced around.
"We gotta try," Daryl said, clapping him on the shoulder. Mark nodded at him.
"We've got some supplies in the storage house," Mark said. "I'll get what I can. Most of the medical stuff we had was in headquarters. We can do what we can, though."
Daryl didn't respond, and Mark started in the direction of the storage house. Sadie passed by Daryl without a word and made her way up the porch steps with the baby.
Rick and Tyreese came up next and Daryl could tell immediately that Tyreese wasn't himself. He looked like he was breathing hard, and his eyes were wide.
"Carol's missing," Rick said.
Daryl tried to let it sink in for a moment. He glanced around the people standing again. For some reason he'd just assumed she was out there, comforting someone or trying to help someone. When he realized that he didn't see her, he looked back at Rick. He'd already figured out that Tyreese was just barely holding together whatever he had left. Much like Maggie, another blow might send him off some kind of deep end.
"She's prob'ly in the house with 'Chonne and the girls," Daryl said. Tyreese shook his head, but he didn't say anything. Apparently he'd talked to Rick and that was all he cared to vocalize at the moment.
"Said she came out behind y'all. She's out here," Rick said. He glanced around. "Somewhere."
Sadie came back out the house and stopped near them. She touched Daryl on the shoulder to get his attention, her eyes asking him what was going on without any need of words.
"Carol's missing," Daryl said. "She's out here."
Sadie's face sunk, and she nodded her head. She began wading into the lake of Walker bodies, looking down toeing at them a little. The fact remained that they didn't know how many people were lost, nor did they have any idea where any of them could be located. The best they could do was do what Sadie was doing, attempt to wade through the Walkers and find any sign of humans underneath. If anyone under there was dead, they were likely to turn soon. Daryl cast a quick glance in the direction of Glenn and Maggie. He knew that they'd do what needed to be done, but he hoped they were quick about it so that nothing else tragic happened.
"Don't worry about it, man," Daryl said to Tyreese, trying to figure out what to say. "We'll find her. She's fine, probably hit or something. Mark's gonna take care of it. We just gotta look for her."
Daryl started to wade into the bodies and Rick started forward walking quickly. Daryl knew that he was taking inventory, attempting to talk to those who were searching or were comforting others. Mark approached Daryl just as he was leaning to shove a Walker over and check underneath to make sure that it was simply another Walker below it.
"You don't need to be doing that," Mark said. "I need to check that wound. You're going to get an infection and you could cause yourself to be hurt worse."
Daryl stood up, anxious to get this over with so that he could get back on the search team. He wanted to know how many people Rick had taken a tally of.
"Carol's missing," Daryl said, following Mark into his house. "It looks like you're on your own."
"Is she dead?" Mark asked. Daryl went the couch and lie down with his side facing Mark. Mark put down the box he'd been carrying and started burrowing through it. A few minutes later, Sadie came into the room carrying a bucket of water. Daryl looked at her, but she stood behind Mark a minute and put her finger to her mouth. Then she circled around and put the bucket down.
"Clean water," she said. "What else do you need?"
"Find out how many more are coming," he said. "We've got to make room for them."
Sadie nodded and disappeared. Mark began to clean Daryl's wound.
"Is she dead?" He repeated.
"Don't know, man," Daryl said, hissing at Mark's work. "Could be hit…I just don't know."
Mark was making clean work of cleaning Daryl's wound. The bullet hadn't gone deep, apparently slowed down by the mass of Walker bodies that had been surrounding him. He could only hope that the same could be said for anyone else that had been hit. He thought back to the fact that Rick said that he'd taken down one of the men, at least temporarily, but had no idea about the other. Daryl hoped that even though everyone was occupied, they would still manage to notice any strangers roaming about the community if the men were alive and on their feet. He didn't think they would be able to handle any more than they had now.
Rick came through the door a few minutes later supporting a limping Junior who had his arm around him.
"I think his ankle's broken," Rick announced, helping Junior to one of their living room chairs.
"Anything else wrong?" Mark asked, not turning his attention from Daryl.
"No sir," Junior replied. "I fell, got caught up in a pile a' Walkers."
"Fine," Mark said, "I can look at that in a minute. How many more we got coming in, Rick? Anything serious?"
"Tyreese and Beau are bringing in Seth," Rick said. "I don't think you can save him, though. He's hit in the back, but it looks like it might have gone through. He's barely even hanging on."
"Anyone else?" Mark asked. He was busy taping a bandage over Daryl's now cleaned wound.
"So far everyone else we've found is dead," Rick said. "Beth…and they found Josh, but that's all we've got. Carol's the only one we haven't found yet. Libby and Sadie are searching for her. Chelsea's been bit, she's with Stella. The fever's already hit her. She won't be with us for long now."
Rick kept himself composed. He gave the report with little more emotion than if he were reporting the scores of a football game. Daryl understood that at the moment that was the only way that it could be done. Mark was going to have to operate the same way. Until the crisis was over and the death toll was stabilized, they could only connect so much emotion to what was happening or risk everyone being too overwhelmed to be of assistance.
"What about the strangers?" Daryl asked Rick. "Did you find the man you took down?"
Rick shook his head.
"Haven't looked," he responded.
"Can I go now?" Daryl asked Mark.
Mark nodded his head.
"Just try to take it easy, don't tear those stitches. The wound isn't serious, though," he responded.
"We have to find those men," Daryl said. "I hope they's still alive 'cause I got a few questions for 'em."
He got up and started toward the door. It swung open before he could reach and he and Rick moved out of the way.
Beau and Jimmy heaved through the door carrying an unresponsive Seth, Rachel following close behind with her hands balled into fists, held just at her mouth. Tyreese pushed her into the door. In his arms he carried Carol who appeared more to be a rag doll than the animated version of herself.
"She's hit, but she's breathing," Tyreese called, as he came through the door.
"That can only be barely said here," Jimmy said, panting. "If he's breathin', it ain't by much."
"Get him in dining room, on the table," Mark said. "I'll see if there's anything I can do." The boys complied and made their way down the hall with him.
"What do I do with Carol?" Tyreese asked. He looked calmer now just by having found her.
"Put her on the couch," Mark said. "Tell her to hang in there. I'll get to her as soon as I can. Junior, I'm afraid you just fell to the bottom of the list."
"I'm fine right where I am," Junior responded.
Daryl looked one final time at Tyreese as he gently laid Carol down and turned to go out the door. He headed in the direction of the gates, determined to find the assholes that did this and get some kind of explanation. Outside there were Walkers to be burned, dead to be buried, and the death tolls were threatening to rise every minute.
Daryl started kicking through the Walker piles in the area that Rick had indicated, and Rick joined him.
"If they're fuckin' alive, I want 'em kept alive," Daryl said. "We gon' tie 'em up, and we gon' put 'em in one of them extra houses. They can fuckin' stay there 'til we get a chance to talk to 'em and find out what the fuck made 'em decide to do this to us."
"And then?" Rick asked.
"Then we're gonna fuckin' kill 'em," Daryl said. "I don't know how many there are, but if Maggie wants it, I'm gonna let her kill the one she wants. I suppose everyone else can draw straws if they want for what's left."
"Daryl," Rick said, "Stella is staying with Chelsea to make sure someone puts her down when she dies."
"Good," Daryl said. "I reckon it's better for her friend to stay with her."
He was trying not to think about the fact that both of them were just kids. Their little group had gone through a lot since they'd arrived at the community, and even before that really, and now they were faced with losing yet another. He didn't want to think about it because it made him even angrier, and already he was a little afraid that he'd break this assholes neck as soon as he found him if he wasn't already dead.
"I got one," Rick said. Daryl looked over at him and he was holding onto the sleeve of a man that was mostly buried under Walkers. Rick shoved back one of the Walkers and pressed his fingers to the man's neck.
"Alive?" Daryl asked.
"Yeah," Rick responded. "He's got a pretty nasty knife wound. We might not want to wait too long for this interrogation. Sadie said she stabbed someone, I guess this was him. He might not make it too much longer, if he ever comes too."
"Get some rope outta storage an' tie him up," Daryl said. He continued turning over Walkers in search of the one that Rick had apparently knocked out. He was beginning to fear that the man had died and would soon be turning.
"I will," Rick said.
"And bring me some for this son of a bitch when I find him," Daryl said.
Daryl continue to sift through bodies and finally came up with the man. He'd was beat up pretty good, but he had a pulse too, though it looked like he had a very nice head injury which may mean that he too would die before they could find out any answers to their questions. Daryl knew it would be too much to ask Mark to try to treat them just to kill them later, but he'd already determined that they'd scour the area for wherever they had come from if the two assholes didn't survive to tell them anything.
Rick came back and offered Daryl a length of rope.
"He ain't fightin'," Daryl said. "Could be close ta gone."
Rick busied himself tying up the man that he'd found.
"I don't know if there's any saving them," he said, "but we can try to bring them out of their stupor enough to find something out."
"I don't think I'm gonna sleep tonight if we don't know nothin'," Daryl said.
He stood up and looked at the two men slumped on the ground. He'd originally planned to take them to one of the distant houses for questioning, but now that seemed like too much work, and it seemed like it was too good for the men, assuming they ever even recovered consciousness.
"Let's just leave 'em here," Daryl said. "We can drag 'em over there. We'll see if we can't get 'em to come to, but we ain't gotta carry 'em nowhere."
Rick nodded, agreeing with Daryl. There was too much that had to be done to give themselves extra work.
"I was going to say earlier," Rick started, dragging his man over to the charred grass near where headquarters had once stood, "that I'd like to offer to watch Sadie tonight. Mark's probably going to be busy because if Carol and Seth live through the night it's only going to be luck and vigilance. I can stay with her, be there to put her down if she can't go through with it or doesn't want to."
Daryl stopped a minute.
"You sure you wanta do that, Rick?" Daryl asked. He knew that Rick had been developing feelings for the woman, and though he'd been trying to avoid saying anything about it, now he felt like it might need to be addressed. Rick had only just begun to come back from what had happened with Lori. His relationship with Sadie was barely existent at best, but Daryl worried that even the slightest hiccup right now could send him reeling back into whatever he was just beginning to come out of.
Rick stood there a moment, not really looking at Daryl. He wiped at his forehead with his arm and it did very little good, only spreading a little of the dried blood from his arm across his sweaty forehead. He nodded.
"I feel like I need to do it," Rick said. "Mark is going to be busy, and he doesn't need to be distracted if we can avoid it. Sadie shouldn't have to do it alone if she doesn't want to, and she doesn't deserve to turn into one of them. I'm going to make Carl stay with Beau. I'll take care of it."
Daryl could see the resolve in Rick's face, and though he didn't really like the idea, he determined that he wasn't going to argue with Rick. Perhaps it wouldn't come to that anyway. Perhaps she'd succumb to the fever during the day, while they were all trying to make some kind of sense of their situation, and Daryl could take care of it, or Tyreese, and then Rick wouldn't feel the need to go through with his plan. For the moment, however, Daryl wasn't going to fight with him. He simply nodded and Rick nodded in response.
"Help me move a couple a' these Walkers to that fire," Daryl said. "We might as well use it and start to burn a few of 'em. Keep people from breakin' their necks moving around out here."
Rick stepped forward and helped Daryl drag one of the bodies over, heaving it onto the burning remains of headquarters. As they made their way back for another, Daryl realized this was going to be one of the longest days they'd had in some time.