Hey, guys! Thank you so much for the reviews, I can't say how much I appreciate them! Today's chapter title is "River" by Bishop Briggs, which is a perfect song for TWD in my opinion. Also, ya'll get your fill of fluff now because there might be a shortage of it in the next few chapters! As always, let me know what you think :)

14. River

Beth's eyes widened at the sight of Mason climbing out of the car, clothes torn, splattered with blood from head to toe. She rushed past Glenn and Tyreese, Michonne and Daryl, and swept Mason into her arms.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

Mason could barely manage a nod, she was so exhausted. "Yeah. I'm okay. But we lost Zach. We almost lost Bob. But there's some good news. I found this."

She handed Beth a bag of sweet Chex mix, the only bag she'd managed to salvage before everything went to shit. Then she walked inside with the rest of her worn crew.

~m~

"…so now I guess we'll have to start clearing rooftops, too."

Mason and Beth sat on the roof of the prison, sipping their nightly tea. The weather was cool again, winter not yet ready to release its hold. She'd just finished recounting her return trip to the Big Spot. Her little distraction with the boombox had worked after all, and the whole group had been optimistic until the roof caved in, spilling its load of dead ones.

Beth hugged her close. "I wish I'd've gone with you."

"No. I'm glad you didn't go. I've never seen anything like that. I don't want to again."

She curled up in Beth's arms and let herself be soothed by the steady beat of her heart. Drifting on the edge of sleep, she was uncomfortably warm but unwilling to disentangle from Beth.

"You know what I just realized today, waitin' for you to come home?"

"Mmm…?"

"There's somethin' very important that I haven't said. I can't believe I haven't said it before now."

Her curiosity outweighed her sleepiness. Mason looked up. "What's that?"

"I love you."

For a moment, the only sound was the intermittent breeze, bringing with it the distant snarl of walkers. Beth looked away shyly, up at the stars that winked back. The tiniest fingernail of moon cut a sliver in the western sky.

Then Mason grinned. "Usually it's me who's flustered."

Beth gaped. "Shut up, I am not!"

"You are, too."

"I'm not! It's just… I've been worryin' about how to say it all day and that's how you respond?"

"Hey, Beth?"

"What?"

"I love you, too."

Beth tried to maintain a glare, but her lips betrayed her, pulling into a relieved smile.

"You do?"

"Um, yeah. Jesus, you say I'm oblivious."

With a growl, Beth tackled her, planting a barrage of kisses over her face and neck until Mason was a giggling mess. Successfully distracted, the horrors of the day retreated to a lockbox in her mind.

~m~

Screams jolted her out of sleep the next morning. Dizzily she sat up, extricating herself from Beth's limbs. She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her gun and iron.

"What's goin' on?" Beth asked, still half-asleep.

"I don't know. Stay here."

Before Beth could protest, she hurried away. Her heart squeezed with fear at the sound of gunshots, so loud they could only be coming from inside the prison.

As she rushed toward the sound, a slew of bloody figures passed her, fleeing from the direction of D block.

"What's going on?" she shouted over the din, but no one stopped to explain. Gritting her teeth, she quickened her pace.

Chaos greeted her. People ran screaming in all directions, and in between them Mason caught sight of walkers taking their lunch.

How the fuck did they get in? she wondered, until she recognized one of the faces.

"Shit."

She ran her iron through the walker's skull, ignoring its familiar features.

Daryl, Glenn and Rick arrived then. She fell in step with them, slinging her iron with practiced ease and pretending they were on another mission. That the walkers were just dead strangers.

It was only when the cell block was clear that she leaned against the wall and took in the full gravity of the situation.

"Jesus…" she whispered.

Half of group D lay strewn across the room, some of them in pieces. The whole block reeked of blood, both rancid and fresh.

Rick caught her eye from the top floor, where he and Daryl had brought down the last of the walkers. There was a fear there that she hadn't seen in nearly a year.

"We need to call a meeting," Glenn said. "Mason, go let the rest of the council know what happened."

Shaking Rick's fear from her own shoulders, she nodded and disappeared.

~m~

"Patrick was fine yesterday, and he died overnight."

The council was gathered around a table in the library- Mason and Daryl, Carol and Hershel, Glenn and Sasha. The empty space where Rick used to sit kept drawing Mason's eye. She wished he was here for once. She wanted him to weigh in on what they'd discovered about the disaster in D block- that some kind of flu had killed Patrick. The memory of his eyes, bulging with blood, made her squirm.

"Two people died that quick?" Carol continued. "We have to separate everyone that's been exposed."

"That's everyone in that cell block," Daryl said. "That's all of us."

Mason swallowed, glancing at each of their sobered faces. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck.

Hershel sighed. "We know that this sickness can be lethal. We don't know how easily it spreads. Is anyone else showin' symptoms that we know of?"

Carol's brows pinched. "We can't just wait and see. People die and become a threat."

"We need a place for them to go. They can't stay in D," Hershel said.

"What about A?" Mason suggested.

Glenn raised an eyebrow. "Death row? Not sure that's much of an upgrade."

"It's clean," Daryl said. "That's an upgrade."

Hershel waited for anyone else to object, but when no one did he said, "I'll help Caleb get set up in there. When we-"

He cut off at the sound of labored coughing from out in the hall. The whole council rose to their feet at once, hurrying into the hall to find Tyreese leading Karen toward C block.

"I'm okay," she was assuring him, but her words trailed off in another coughing fit.

"Are you sure?" Carol asked. "You don't sound so good."

"I'm just taking her back to my cell so she can rest," Tyreese explained.

"Tyreese," Hershel said. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Mason leaned against the wall while he explained, fidgeting with her shirt. She wiped a wrist across her forehead and it came away glistening with sweat.

"David, from the Decatur group," Karen said. "He's been coughing, too."

Glenn and Sasha exchanged a glance. "I'll get him," he said.

She nodded and turned to Karen. "C'mon. We'll get you settled."

Once they'd gone, Hershel turned to Daryl and Mason. "We'll need to call another meeting later. Hopefully by then we'll know more."

"Okay. We'll get to buryin' the dead ones," Daryl said.

"You wear gloves and masks," Hershel said, and his tone brooked no argument.

Daryl touched Mason on the arm. "C'mon."

Once outside with their shovels, Mason tied a rag over Daryl's nose and mouth. He paused in doing the same for her.

"You alright?"

She nodded, unwilling to tell him that the rag made her feel stifled. Like she was breathing pure heat. Wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead, she followed him into the field.

They'd dug four graves when Rick found them. Without looking up, Daryl said, "Glad you were in there today."

"Wasn't much use without my gun." The shame in Rick's voice was palpable.

"No, you were."

Daryl planted his shovel in the dirt and looked at Rick.

"All this time you've been takin' off? You earned it. We wouldn't be here without you."

Rick picked up one of the extra shovels with a sound of disagreement. "It was all of us."

"No," Daryl said. "It was you first. So you gonna help us figure this out?"

Mason hesitated, shovel poised over the churned earth. Her clothes clung to her body. She had an irrational urge to tear them off.

"I screwed up too many times," Rick said, and in his eyes she saw the ghosts. Sometimes they came back out of nowhere. Sometimes circumstance resurrected them. But she saw them for what they were. She always did.

"I can't make those calls anymore. I almost lost my boy, who he was. Whatever else this place needs, I'm here for it."

"Like I said, you earned it," Daryl replied. "For what it's worth, you see mistakes? I see when the shit hits, you're standin' there with a shovel."

"Rick!"

All three of them whipped around to see Maggie rushing toward the fence, which bowed and swayed with the force of the walkers piled against it. Dropping their shovels, they sprinted over.

Glenn, Sasha and Tyreese joined them at the gate, grabbing up pipes and metal rods. Mason swung her fire poker off her shoulder and set to work jabbing it through the chain link. The dead ones snarled and snapped, pressing relentlessly on the fence, which looked pathetically flimsy against their monstrous weight.

But no matter how many walkers they dropped, it made little difference. The fence bent at a perilous angle and the wooden struts notched against it began to splinter.

"It's gonna give!" Rick shouted, dropping his pipe to lean instead against the fence.

Everyone followed suit at once, though Mason's heart thundered with the futility of it. There were just too many. Her shoulder ached as she pressed with all her strength, but it was soon spent. Hot walker breath slipped a fetid finger down her throat, gagging her violently. Her whole body shook, dripping sweat. Her feet began to slide in the gravel.

"Shit… Back up! Back up!"

Daryl grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the weakened fence. All of them stood staring, breathless and helpless, as it began to fold.

Then Rick said, "Daryl, get the truck. I know what to do."

It was all Mason could do not to collapse with relief, though it disappeared quickly when he told them his plan. Her stomach turned with guilt, and she saw it in his eyes. She always did.

The pigs made an effective sacrifice, allowing Mason and the others a chance to mend the fence.

~m~

After the walkers were drawn away, Maggie and Glenn took up shovels and set to work helping Mason dig graves. Rick and Daryl had disappeared, led away a while ago by a distraught Tyreese.

What else could possibly go wrong? she wondered, swaying a little as she drove her shovel down. Heat clouded her veins. Her muscles trembled with a deep, insistent ache.

"Hey," Glenn said. "You okay?"

Mason nodded faintly, blinking sweat from her eyes. She tried to pull the shovel up but the blade was lodged in the dirt. Readjusting her grip, wincing at the sting of rising blisters, she managed one halfhearted tug before stumbling to her knees.

"Mason!"

Glenn hopped into the grave with her. She barely felt his hands under her arms, lifting her up. She was a heat wave.

"Jesus, you're burning up. We need to get you to Caleb. Maggie, stay back."

Mason tried to protest. "No…I'm just…"

But her words trailed off as the world slipped away, and all the strength drained from her legs. She collapsed in the wounded earth.

~m~

When she awoke, she kept her eyes closed. Her whole body throbbed. Her blood felt thick and heavy and hot.

Sick, she thought dimly. I'm sick. I have it. For some reason it was hard to process this.

Muffled voices reached her but she couldn't make out the words. Where was she? Were the graves dug? Was Tyreese alright, whatever had happened?

Was Beth alright?

This roused her enough to open her eyes, though they fought to stay closed. She blinked the film of sleep from them and slowly, painfully, raised herself into a sitting position.

She held her head in her hands. "Jesus…" she croaked. It felt like a knife behind her eyes.

"Mason?"

She looked up at the familiar voice, weakened by illness, and saw Sasha leaning into the darkened cell where she lay.

A block, she realized.

"Sasha," she rasped. "You look like shit."

Sasha rolled her eyes. "Likewise."

Mason rubbed her clammy palms on her knees. "Who else is in here?"

"Most of D block. Me, you, and Glenn. Beth is okay. She and Carl are keeping watch on the kids in the administrative wing."

Mason sighed with a relief, which dissolved abruptly into a coughing fit.

"Shit," she spat when she could breathe. "Where's Dr. S?"

"Sick."

The look they shared then iced them over. From somewhere close by, someone cut the silence with a gurgling cough.

"Tyreese came to visit me," Sasha said after a moment. "He said Daryl's taking a group out to find meds. We could have them as early as tomorrow."

Mason nodded, pretending to look comforted, but it was difficult when Sasha sounded like she was pretending the same thing.

"He also told me that someone killed Karen and David."

"What?"

Sasha nodded grimly. "Someone killed them and set them on fire, out behind the tombs."

Even in her addled state, it took less than a second to figure out why.

"They were sick…" she murmured.

"That's what Rick thinks, that someone killed them to stop it from spreading."

Mason almost laughed. "He doesn't know who did it?"

"No."

At the sound of a door opening and closing, they paused. Mason rose clumsily out of bed and followed Sasha out of the cell.

Hershel limped toward them. "Stay in bed," he said. "I'll come to you."

Too tired to wonder at what he thought he could do, Mason retreated to her cot. She lay there, drifting in and out of sleep, until Hershel arrived. He helped her sit up and handed her a cup.

"Drink this," he said. "It's a natural flu remedy my wife used to make. It'll help keep the symptoms at bay."

Mason took a sip and smiled. "Elderberry?"

Hershel blinked in surprise. "Yes."

"My friend, Gina, was into all that homeopathic stuff. She's the one that got me hooked on tea."

He patted her on the shoulder. "Well, drink up. I'll come back to check on you in a bit."

~m~

Time passed in strange lurches. Even when she wasn't sleeping, she forgot whole segments of it. Occasionally the burn in her limbs would become too much and she would have to move around, stumbling around the shadowed block, checking in on Sasha and Glenn. She drank all the tea Hershel offered her and tried to keep her mind off of things.

At some point in the night, she was startled out of an approximation of sleep by the shuddering gurgle of someone struggling for breath. She rolled as quickly as she could off of her sweat-stained cot and rushed out of her cell.

She was greeted by the sight of a man clutching the side of the stairs, convulsing as he vomited blood. His eyes blinked wildly, sightless and viscous with red.

Hershel limped over quickly and half-guided, half-dragged the man into the visitation room. Glancing surreptitiously from cell to cell- everyone seemed to be asleep- she shuffled unevenly after them.

When she got there, the man was face down on the floor and Hershel was kneeling over him, his head bowed in utter defeat. Noting her arrival, however, he straightened up immediately.

"He's the first?" she asked.

"Yes."

Mason pulled her knife from her belt and knelt across from him. He frowned sternly.

"You shouldn't be here. You should be resting."

"You can't do this all by yourself," she replied and ran the knife through the dead man's head.

Hershel was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Thank you."

"No problem, old man. I think I have a few more hours in me if you need anything else."

"Thank you," he repeated.

~m~

She collapsed on her cot a few hours later, barely able to see straight. She and Hershel had stopped only briefly to talk with Maggie through the window in the visitation room. Daryl's group still hadn't returned. She was helping Rick monitor the fence. Beth was still safe, taking care of Little Asskicker.

"She wanted to come see you," Maggie said. "But I told her it'd be better to stay with Judith."

"Thank you," Mason murmured. She had no doubt that if Beth caught so much as a glimpse of her condition, there'd be no way to keep her out.

Though she was seconds away from sleep, she couldn't help longing for her iPod. She hated the silence, and she hated the noises. She hated the whole place. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, with Beth next to her and music playing in the background. She wanted not to feel like she was seconds away from collapse.

Sleep, she told herself. When you get out of here, you can listen to your music as much as you want.

Right before sleep overwhelmed her, she couldn't help adding, If you get out.

~m~

In the dream, she was alone on a beach. Everything was dim, from dawn or dusk or heavy cloud cover, she couldn't really tell. She couldn't look away from the ocean. Something was coming, she could sense it. It filled her both with fear and with hope.

It started as a single speck on the distant water, growing steadily closer with each wave. Then a second. Then a third. As the distance closed between them, her heart began to race, building to fever pitch until her ribs rattled.

The second figure was still pregnant in the dream. The third still smiled, though half of his body had been eaten. Lori and T-Dog advanced without actually moving, their limbs draped with seaweed, their eyes speckled with salt.

The closest figure, the first, looked like a walker but it didn't move like one. It danced toward her, moving languidly, moving like an ocean of its own. Its skin hung loose on its frame, the edges sparking with light. When it looked at her, its eyes flamed.

"Mason," it hissed, and she might've dropped to her knees if they hadn't locked in place.

"Gina," she said without a sound.

The walker grinned, buried its fingers in its face and, with a flourish, ripped off its skin.

Beneath Gina stood, blood and fire, her smile cartoonishly wide. Her hand reached for Mason's throat. Lori and T-Dog grabbed her arms. Mason stood stricken and allowed herself to be dragged beneath the tides.

~m~

Where am I?

In the dark.

No. Eyes are closed.

Can't open them. Hurts.

What time is it?

Does it matter?

Am I alone?

You're with the ghosts.

Is someone screaming?

It's just you.

I can't make a sound.

In your head.

No. Someone else.

~m~

The screaming was real, the gunshots even more so. Mason peeled her eyes open, wincing at the pain of such a simple movement. Even breathing hurt, her lungs chafed and heavy. Her nose and lips were sticky, and when she swallowed she tasted blood.

"Shit," she choked.

Rolling out of bed took more effort than it should've, and she ended up crawling across the room to brace herself against the doorframe.

"Her-shel…" she cried brokenly. The screaming drowned her out. Slowly she lurched into the mayhem.

Several bodies lay on the floor, puddles of blood haloing them like demented angels. Others ran screaming into cells, slamming shut their doors as those demented angels began to rise.

"Oh, fuck," she coughed, fumbling with the knife at her belt.

Before she could free it, a weight collapsed on her from behind, snarling in her ear. She slammed into the cement floor, squirming as teeth clicked at the base of her skull. The stench of blood and rot filled her throat.

Then the weight was gone, and fetid warmth slimed the back of her neck.

"Mason!"

Sasha rolled the body off of her and helped her into a sitting position.

"Did it get you?"

"No, no… What's going on?"

"I don't know but we need to find Hershel."

They leaned on each other as they hurried through the cell block, tag-teaming whatever walkers they came across. The world spun around her but Mason managed to stay on her feet.

At last they saw him, leading two walkers away from the cell where Luke and Lizzie cowered.

"Fuck."

Mason and Sasha propelled up the stairs as fast as they could, clinging to the rails and each other with weak and desperate hands.

Before they reached him, Hershel dropped both walkers with his shotgun.

"Hershel-" Sasha broke off with a heaving cough.

"Get back in your cells, now!" Hershel thundered.

"You can't lock us in," Mason said. "Let us help you."

His eyes flashed but he obviously saw no good in arguing, or at least no time for it.

"Glenn's in his cell. Both of you need to keep him turned on his side, keep the blood from choking him as long as possible."

They hurried to Glenn's cell without another word, where they found him convulsing on the floor. Together they turned him over, and Mason pried open his mouth for the blood to bubble out.

Her stomach twisted. A cold sweat broke out on her skin.

She gagged as something hot rose in her throat.

The world wrenched itself from under her.

"Shit, we need the airbag- Mason!"

But Sasha was gone, torn from her senses.

Everything was shaking, the prison was crumbling, the sky was writhing like dying snakes.

It's just you. It's just you. It's just you.

Liquid copper spilled from her mouth, burning, bubbling. There was no air. There was no air.

You're dying. You're dying.

The tides were washing over her in feverish swells. Salting her lips and tongue.

Death row

Hands touching her face, her neck

Gina

lifting her, rolling her

Gina

dragging her down into everlasting dark.

~m~

It was like swimming, the coming back. The slow return of her senses.

Taste first, which was unpleasant. Bile and blood.

Then, touch. The plush pillow beneath her head. The cool air on her damp skin. Someone's hand stroking her hair.

Sound faded in, warped and muffled at first. Eventually she recognized voices.

It took time to build up the courage to open her eyes. But when she did, there was Maggie, smiling down at her with tender relief.

"Welcome back," she said.