Heterochromia Iridum

Hello, you! That last episode of Walking Dead was hard to watch but so well done, right? I was glad to see mostly everyone liked how they came to an agreement in the last chapter and that it suited them well.

And, okay, I get it, some of you really want Katty to make up her mind and be more sure of herself with Daryl, but the way I see it, she doesn't have a lot of reason to be super secure in what's going on. She's still relatively new in Alexandria after being alone for a while, she has stuff that she wants to keep secret from everyone, Daryl is not the easiest person to read, and everything that has suddenly changed with him is still new as well. So, how I was trying to write it was less that she's fickle and still deciding whether she's into him or not and more struggling with herself whether he's worth the obvious risk. It wasn't that long ago that Katty had decided that she was going to leave Alexandria after the warehouse run, so it's a lot that has changed in a short amount of time.

Please try to be patient with her! She's not perfect. :)

Thank you to sillygabby,KuteKati1989, JenTen, celia azul, jeanf, Guest, Guest, GawkyTC, Eliana, purple-pygmy-puff16, addicted2memories, Biasoul, suzzie, Bactrian Camel, LoveFiction2016, Jasamfromthestart, KioshiUshima, Megahn, Jean, and Shortyred for reviewing. Thanks to everyone that's added this story to their alerts or favourites!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters associated with the franchise. I own the plot to this story and any original characters you may see, like Katty or Calum.

Chapter 21: Bruised

"It's not real, Katty, wake up."

Her body jerked as her lungs let in the gasping breath she had been deprived of. Katty wasn't sure if it had been Calum's voice or if her own hyperventilating cries had caught up to her and forced her from sleep. Her foggy mind tried desperately to clear and she blinked, trying to speed up the process.

"Sorry," she muttered lowly, forcing herself to sit up in bed and pulling her legs to her chest. Her throat hurt and she felt cold with sweat. Katty wondered dully if she had been screaming again. Reaching up, she wiped roughly at her eyes, disliking the uncomfortable feeling of dried and new tears on her face.

Calum was silent for a while, and Katty could feel him watching her with somber eyes. She tried to muster a reassuring smile at him, but knew that it looked like a grimace.

He sighed and reached to flick on Katty's bedside light before settling cross-legged in front of her. "You have to talk to me, Katty," her heart clenched at the pleading sound to his voice.

She looked up and regretted it. He was tired, and Katty knew it wasn't just from tonight. Calum was tired, tired and worried, and she could see it in the discoloration under his eyes and the dull, sad look in his eyes. Calum scratched a hand across his chin and then roughed his uncooperative hair up.

He had been pushing her more over the last few days, not laughing off her shitty fabricated tales of nightmares that hadn't happened, trying to lead him off from what was bothering her subconscious.

But she wasn't about to give up the act just yet.

"Bloody Biters again. Really freaked me out at Walmart the other day," Katty supplied, rolling her shoulders, trying to dispel the tension that littered them. Calum didn't need to spend more time worrying about her.

He usually took that for an answer. Calum usually sighed through his nose, usually watched her a bit too long, usually left after she declined to elaborate.

"Stop it," Calum said sternly, and Katty glanced up to see his eyes were narrowed in her direction.

She supposed that today wasn't usual.

Katty decided to play ignorant. "Not like I want to dream about Biters," she snapped back at him, shoving her ice cold feet onto his exposed leg. Calum let out a noise that resembled a hiss, grabbing the sheets that Katty had kicked off during the night and covered his lower half with them.

"I mean stop lying," he clarified, and Katty felt the muscles in her shoulders and neck involuntarily tense once more. "Sometimes you talk in your sleep," Calum continued when he realized that Katty wasn't going to respond. "You were telling Merle to run."

Her throat felt tight, and Katty swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the sweat that had suddenly reappeared on her upper lip.

"Was I?" Katty's question sounded hollow, even to her. It lacked any interest or substantial request for an answer.

Calum nodded. "It was about when we left, wasn't it?"

Her face burnt at the realization that she had been caught. They had done the avoidant dance for so long, each accepting that the other wasn't quite as ignorant as either of them hoped, and Katty wasn't awake enough to deal with the confrontation properly.

She loved Calum, respected him, owed him, told him everything. The only thing that typically held her back from telling her friend about her nightmares was that she didn't want him to feel guilty. Katty could see the whisper of guilt decorating his features whenever Calum looked at her lately, which was part of the reason she had stayed away from Alexandria more often.

Now, she hung around outside the walls mostly due to Daryl and how spineless Katty felt after they first had sex, that had been the main reason. But avoiding Calum's sad expression confirmed the need for her behavior and increased her sudden interest in physical fitness.

Looking at him now, Katty knew it was time to get the fuck over her qualms and just tell him. She couldn't stand lying to her friend or the looks he would give her.

"It's not always about when we escaped. Sometimes it's just the room."

Her voice came out small, but Katty knew Calum didn't miss a word of it, his head jerking back up at her correction.

It was his turn to swallow thickly, and Calum cleared his throat before he asked his next question. "I never knew what happened down there, you know?" Katty frowned. She assumed that Merle had told him. "I guessed from how you looked, but you always avoided telling me once we got out."

Katty felt bruised, from too many nights of hitting rock bottom, from scraping her fingertips along the fear in her subconscious, bruised from pressure and bruised from remorse.

She took a deep breath, wondering if this would do anything for the contusion she felt she had become.

She had been wandering, snooping in places she didn't belong, and had found Milton in a dimly lit, tin walled room. Much like the room that still haunted her.

That hadn't been surprising, Katty knew that he had been doing research of some sort. Research around Biters. Calum had offered to compile what his mother had known at the CDC with Milton's ideology the moment that Milton had mentioned what he was working on, those long hours locked away.

Seeing it, however, had been another story. There had been a Biter, restrained in every which way, and Katty had watched from the doorway while Milton had nervously tried to catch a sample of saliva from the undead's snapping, snarling mouth. She wasn't sure it could be classified as saliva, but that wasn't important.

Milton was unintimidating; he had a kind face and a nervous nature, and Katty felt sorry for him in that moment.

"I can do it if you want," she called from the doorway, and he had jumped, scrambling away from the Biter's growling jaws.

"You aren't supposed to be down here without permission," Milton hurriedly chattered, walking towards her. Katty had ignored him, snatching the test tube from his clammy palm and walked towards the Biter, unconcerned.

"I'm not worried about getting bitten," she explained as she grabbed the Biter by the stringy hair at it's scalp. It's jaw moved uselessly, and Katty held the end of the tube gingerly as she swiped the opening of it around where it's lips should have been.

Pulling a face, she stepped back and handed it back to a grateful looking Milton.

"What do you want that for anyways?" she asked, grimacing when he started transferring it into equal parts in three other tubes.

"If you must know, I'm gathering different types of DNA for testing," he explained, though his voice lacked any irritation or exasperation. It just held relief for the fact that he hadn't been the one to complete the task.

Katty's lips twitched. "Different types of DNA? You got some pubes in a tube too?"

Milton cast an amused smile over his shoulder at her. "No, but if you're volunteering," he trailed off jokingly, which Katty laughed at.

"Not a chance. Haven't seen Biter bollocks and don't particularly want to change that."

Setting the tubes on a tray, Milton opened a minifridge and Katty peaked over his shoulder, her eyebrows raising at the different array of samples that Milton had managed to collect.

"What's the point?" she had asked, not understanding what he could possibly get out of his own little collection of Biter pieces.

"What's the point?" Milton parroted back, standing up once he had closed the fridge. "Now that I have your friend Calum and some ideas from what they were focussing on at the CDC, there's nothing but time." Katty looked at him strangely, silently prompting him to elaborate.

"Why not try for a cure?"

Katty's blood ran cold at Milton's words, which was odd, considering how fast her heart had started to race.

"A cure," she murmured back, coated with uncertainty.

"We don't have the proper equipment, but why not get a head start for when we do?" Milton explained, excitement in his voice. "Your friend mentioned there's people that could have been immune before, so it must have been just around the corner when they gave up. Could you imagine? Ending this?"

At the time, Milton's words had given her hope. His excitement, his optimism, his sanguinity for the future. It made the words that had been wound tightly in her throat, stuck with doubt, loosen and unwind. Milton wasn't a malicious man. He was trying to help.

She could trust him.

"It might speed things up, then, if you had someone helping you that was immune?" she asked casually, prodding at some biomedical equipment that she couldn't name.

Milton let out a soft snort. "That'd be a miracle."

Her hand were sweaty, shaking as she reached down to unbutton and shove her pants down her legs slightly. Words no longer worked. Was she a miracle?

Katty cleared her throat, and Milton turned disinterestedly to look over at her, doing a double take when he realized that Katty's pants were halfway down her thighs.

"What're you – " Milton's question died in his throat, his eyes landing on the scar on her hip. They widened, and Katty wondered if his words felt tight and sticky in his throat, like hers had been.

They didn't come for her in the middle of the night, like how you hear about most bad guys striking. They approached her in plain sight and in the middle of the day, with expectance and entitlement. The governor approached her with a smile, though Katty knew now it had been akin to a wolf baring its teeth.

The Governor showed up with two people that Katty had grown to know, even somewhat like; Martinez and Tim.

Merle had been with her at the time, they had just finished another fighting lesson that felt more like Katty was being trained to simply be a punching bag. She had been getting the hand of it, but the more than she advanced, the more she realized that the bulky man had been holding back. Merle still berated her and slapped her around, but it had changed into an odd routine that she looked forward to.

When the Governor said that he had wanted to speak with Katty alone, she didn't miss the wary, suspicious expression on Merle's face. He didn't say anything to stop him, but Katty saw Merle immediately leave and go to the guard wall where Calum had been as she walked away with the Governor.

Milton had told the Governor. Katty didn't see the harm in it at first, she wanted to help Milton. She didn't feel useful in Woodbury, and this provided an opportunity for something that she could offer, something that no one else had. She expected that he would tell the Governor.

A glass of scotch in her hand. A few pretty words and promises that didn't mean anything other than manipulation. Empathic glances and encouraging expressions that had Katty spilling her story.

"You know, Katty, when I first met you and Calum, I welcomed you both to Woodbury with open arms, an open heart, and an opportunity to help make this place thrive," he explained, a kind, relaxed smile on his face. Katty couldn't help but return it with a nod. "I didn't realize how much you two could truly offer Woodbury at the time, but knowing what I do now, you both are truly a gift. I want to ask you to help Milton with any of his research projects. I'll be asking Calum to do the same, of course," he seemed to know that Katty was going to ask why Calum hadn't been in the room with them. "I just wanted to talk with you privately first before him. And thank you for everything you'll do in the future for our people."

Katty had agreed eagerly, though looking back at the situation and the Governor's phrasing, she knew that she hadn't had a choice. It was just an illusion.

A hand clasped comfortingly to her shoulder. More vicious teeth, masquerading as a smile. The wolf was going to eat her alive.

"You are so valuable to this community."

When she was first put in the chair, restrained at her four limbs as well as a belt around her middle, Katty had been nervous. They said that it had been for her own protection; to make sure she didn't get unnecessarily hurt if she flinched away or jumped. This would be more controlled.

Control was a good word for it.

They started off small, slow, like training a lab rat. She supposed that was another good word for it. Lab rat.

Milton had broken off a finger from a Biter and scratched her with it, the first of many marks. It hadn't scarred, hadn't become inflamed, it hadn't killed her.

So they moved on. Digging a little deeper, drawing blood, trying again with a tooth or a sharp, snapped end of a bone.

Katty hadn't thought of this outcome. She hadn't signed up for this. For pain, for inhumane experimentation. She tried to get over her anxiety; this was for the greater good, wasn't it? It was worth it, wasn't it?

When she had cried, or complained, the guards had simply gagged her or covered her mouth, irritated with her noises.

She never left the chair for more than the few hours they locked her in a closet to sleep. When she behaved, the guards would let her have food. When she fought, spat, swore, kicked, anything else but behaved, they wouldn't let her have food or let her up that day. The conditioning was obvious.

She was a lab rat, after all.

So they moved on.

The most terrifying moment was when they wrangled a Biter towards her; Katty thought she was going to die. Just because she was immune, didn't mean she couldn't die from being torn apart. They let it scratch her; Katty could still remember the burning gouge in her leg. The first was on her left thigh, above her knee. There were four other, identical marks, scattered around her body. She screamed and cried every time, and the guards laughed. Some would taunt her with the snapping, snarling Biter.

Katty wasn't sure if she had screamed from the pain or the fear, or if it was just the only noise that made any sense to her anymore.

They injected something thick and dark and disgusting into her subcutaneous tissue, to see if she reacted differently if it was inserted into her. It burnt and hurt and Katty begged them to stop. That took longer for her body to break down, Milton noted afterwards.

Katty realized that they were slowly making their way up to letting one bite her again. Even restrained, locked down in a chair, Katty could feel her body quake with fear. What would be the next step after that?

There were always guards. Never Merle though. Katty only ever saw him once when he had stormed in angrily, looking for Martinez, and froze on the spot when he saw Katty restrained in the chair. He had wiped the shock off his face faster that it could register in Katty's bleary mind, snapped something at Martinez, and then left, seemingly unconcerned. Katty had felt like her last shred of hope had been incinerated.

Milton always looked remorseful; Katty supposed he was. Milton decorated the previously bare room with random objects, none that meant anything worth anything to Katty, but she figured that it was his way of saying sorry. He added more over the weeks – was it weeks? – that she was down there; a picture frame with a stock photo here, fake potted flower there, books, pens. It was an apology that farced normalcy, impersonating a room that wasn't her prison.

She didn't care for repentance.

Katty had flinched and shook whenever the footsteps sounded, solid and calm and terrifying. The Governor would always knock before he came in, and it infuriated her at first. It was insulting that they acted like this was her fucking bedroom, instead of a prison. He came almost every day.

His smile was worse. The Governor always smiled pleasantly at her, thanked Katty for doing a good job. Ignored the black eye or split lip she would receive from lashing out against one of the men. She wanted to wipe the smile off his face.

"You are so valuable to this community."

He ordered them to remove her clothes when Katty spat a congealed mass of blood and saliva in the Governor's face. His leer had disappeared, but it was Katty's turn to smile when she successfully broke a guard's nose while they wrestled her out of her clothing.

She had never felt as vulnerable as in that moment, sitting restrained in her chair in her bra and panties, with two men leering at her. The looks were almost as bad as their promises of what they'd do to her when Milton left.

Milton didn't come back one evening after dinner, unlike usual, and the two men took the opportunity. Undid her restraints, let Katty get up on her shaky, unsteady legs. Told her that it would be more fun if she fought, if she resisted.

Katty didn't need to be told twice. She scratched at the man's eyes, her nails splintering and splitting against the concrete when he slammed her body into the ground and then dragged Katty towards him. The other one jeered and laughed while he waited, letting out a whoop of laughter when his friend punched Katty in her other eye and climbed on top of her.

"This is the next experiment, isn't it?" he sneered into her face from above as he reached down to undo his pants and held a knife to Katty's throat. "See if you make immune little babies? Governor mentioned it the other day," he laughed, the noise ringing in Katty's blurry mind as the adrenaline pumped through her veins. Struggling against him with a new vengeance, Katty disregarded the knife at her throat. She didn't care anymore.

They were a struggling mass of limbs and yells as Katty lost any inhibition or restraint that she had left. He screamed when her teeth clamped around his ear and ripped, his arms flailing and punching, desperate to get her off. The other guard punched her in the side of the head, sending her to the ground while the other one yelled angrily. She wasn't sure if the copper taste in her mouth was her blood or his. Katty heard steel scrape against concrete as she tried to steady herself and get to her feet.

Her hand clasped the handle of the knife and Katty flung herself forward, thrusting the blade into the side of the guard's neck, ripping through flesh, muscle and ligaments, the man immediately becoming a gurgling, thrashing mass. The other man let out a startled yell for his friend, and fumbled to remove the gun in the back of his pants. Katty didn't hesitate, and threw the knife. It imbedded in his chest, his hands uselessly grasping at the handle sticking out of his torso, before he fell to the ground gasping for breath.

Katty was shaking like a leaf as she removed the gun from the pants of the man. She cursed to herself when she realized that neither man held a key to the locked door, that it only opened from the outside. Katty stumbled to sit in the corner of the room, crouching down with the gun raised in her hands, hoping that she could shoot whoever came through the door before they noticed her.

She didn't have to wait long before the door swung open. It momentarily blinded Katty, not use to anything but near darkness. Katty struggled to hold the gun steady in the bright light.

"Holy fuckin' shit, Kitty Cat," the familiar, raspy voice said in amazement.

Her eyes were both half swollen shut and her head was spinning from being punched. Katty was dehydrated, hungry, fatigued. Was she delirious or did Merle Dixon have a fucking halo?

Throwing the gun to the side, Katty sobbed and threw herself at Merle, who immediately covered her with a large jacket. She was babbling unintelligibly, none of it meaning anything other than pain.

"Buck up," Merle snapped at her, making Katty freeze. "Gotta getcha outta here, 'fore they come back." Katty's mind snapped to Calum, and she opened her mouth to argue. Merle seemed to foresee what she was concerned with, and tugged at her arm to get her to move. "Yer boy's waitin' outside. He's got yer shit already. Move," he commanded again, his painful grip on Katty's arm the first thing being the first comforting thing to happen in a long time.

He pulled her to run, Katty's legs wobbly and unaccustomed to exertion, so she stumbled a step behind him. They ran down a few barren hallways before Merle directed her up the stairs. He snapped at Katty to 'Hurry tha fuck up' as well as 'Shut up' when they reached outside. It was a blur, she wasn't sure what was happening past escape until she was thrust into the arms of another person. Katty almost panicked until she realized it was Calum, her blood pumping too hard in her ears to comprehend his relieved exclamations at her appearance in front of him.

"Ya hafta leave now," Merle growled at them. "Only a matter o' time 'fore they go ta switch guards or find that ya locked Milton in his room."

Katty could see Calum nod in her peripheral and start to pull her away, but she resisted, her gaze fixed to Merle.

"Come with us," she pleaded, finding her voice. "We'll look for your brother with you." Katty offered the one thing she figured Merle might be swayed by. Merle's eyes softened momentarily in her direction before he shook his head at her, the expression gone from his face.

"No can do, Kitty Cat," Merle reached to ruffle her hair. "Governor won't stop huntin' us if I leave with ya. Daryl's out there 'nd the best chance I have at findin' 'im is right here."

"You'll be okay?" Calum asked dubiously.

"I'll blame ya fuckers when they figure out yall left, not a problem," Merle dismissed with a wave of his hand.

"Thank you," she called to him desperately when Calum made a move to pull her away again, through the folded back portion of the wall and out of Woodbury.

Merle shook his head at Katty once again, a toothy, wideset grin on his lined face. "Ya see Daryl, ya send him my way," he instructed, which Katty nodded helplessly at in return. Merle watched as they ducked out from under the folded sheet metal of the wall, and then stuck his head out so he could watch them go.

Katty would miss Merle, in a fucked-up way that she would have trouble explaining to anyone.

"I take back what I said 'fore, Kitty Cat," Merle called to them. Katty glanced over her shoulder at him, confused.

"Ya can hop on Daryl's dick if ya want."

He let out a whoop of laughter at the middle finger that she lifted, in both a response to Merle as well as a goodbye.

Katty wasn't sure how long she talked, but her voice was horse and her ass was numb. She knew she was repeating details, and that Calum knew some of what happened. She had explained before what the two men had tried to do to her and what Katty had done to them in return; she was covered in blood and the question had been impossible to ignore.

She had stared at her lap for the majority of the explanation, and Katty hesitated before she finally looked up. She could feel the sad look that he was giving her, again, tainted with misdirected guilt.

"I'm sorry, Katty," he muttered at the end. Katty shook her head, frowning at Calum.

"You can't be sorry, you didn't do anything," she said softly in response, reaching out to touch his arm. They had had this conversation multiple times before.

"I was helping Milton with research ideas," Calum insisted. "I told him about the man in France and how they experimented on him. They wouldn't have touched you if it wasn't for me."

Katty sighed. "Calum, they would have done it without you. The Governor spoke with me before they asked you to help Milton." Calum just scowled at his hands, making Katty sigh again. "It's over, Calum. We have to get over it."

Calum roughed his hair up, blinking blearily. "I can't believe that fuckin' happened," he muttered, more to himself than to Katty. "The world is so messed up now."

Katty snorted and fell back in bed, stretching out her limbs. "It's always been messed up, there just aren't any rules now," she explained, staring at the ceiling blankly.

"I wish you would have told me everything sooner," Calum said from his position at the end of the bed.

Katty shrugged. "I wanted to," she replied honestly. "Just hard to figure out how to move past it, I guess." There was a part of her that acknowledged that her chest felt lighter after talking to Calum. She just wasn't sure if it was enough.

"Yeah. Funny that you found Daryl, after everything," Calum commented with a snort.

Katty couldn't help but laugh as well. "Sounds like fate, doesn't it?" Before the apocalypse, she was secretly someone who memorized and clung to astrology, horoscopes, fortunes, anything like that. She knew a lot of people found it juvenile or stupid, but Katty found the idea that there was some overshadowing plan for her in life a comforting idea. She wouldn't have gone to Alexandria or found Calum if Aaron hadn't said Daryl's name offhandedly; there had to be a meaning in there somewhere.

If she hadn't told Milton about her immunity, if she had stayed in Woodbury, Katty might have met Daryl anyways. All the choices that she had taken, from not going to Washington to look for Calum to deciding not to join the group at the quarry those years ago. If done differently, Katty guessed that she would have still crossed paths with him. That's what fate was, wasn't it? Missing opportunities, making wrong choices, walking the other path, and still finding each other?

She heard Calum bark a laugh. "Not this shit again."

Calum didn't get it. That was okay, Katty mused. She couldn't afford to look at life as one giant coincidence. There had to be more to it than that.

Looking over at her friend, who was now snoring and splayed across the end of her bed, Katty smiled to herself.

She wasn't sure if it was from the trick of the early morning hues outside her window that made her feel this way, but Katty felt a little less bruised.

A/N: I was originally going to extend this chapter, and have some Daryl in it too, but I decided to save it for next time. And we will definitely get to Katty's thoughts about what happened and where she's at. Timeline wise it's been a few days since the incident at Walmart, not too long though. You've waited so patiently, I thought it was time to bring up what happened at Woodbury.

Next chapter will be lighter and a lot longer. Also way more Daryl. Can't wait, haha. I'm already laughing about what I'm going to write.

Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.

-Submechanophobia

Next Time: "Get the hell out." – "No thank you." – Daryl hated that Kat responded like he had offered her tea or some shit.