Curative

By Kaimaler

We are moving on to the CDC now. Well, we're getting there anyways. ;3

So, on their way to the CDC we get to see the Atlanta group, and our walker friend Laura, out on the roadways. Best part? No road laws, fast as you want, drunk as you want, and crazy as you want. Because fuck all, it's the end of the world. Might as well enjoy the finer things of life in the apocalypse. :O

Sorry about the wait guys! I'm still sick and had a really bad spell yesterday so I was asleep for nearly a full 24 hours. xP

Review Replies:

LittleMeep:

Yay! I'm so happy you enjoy this story so much! I'm sorry about the shortness of this one, but I needed to get them to deal with Jim and reaching the CDC before actually writing about their time in the CDC. Which will have a little drunk Daryl/Laura talk. xD

We will be seeing Laura's ass of a father again, sooner or later that is. :3
So I'mma just let y'all toss that idea around in your heads while Laura's at the CDC with the Atlanta Group. :O

Thanks for reviewing, enjoy this short but descriptive chapter. :P

When the sun rose and people began waking up, it was a drastic change from the last morning she experienced with the group. No liveliness, no routines, no chores, no children running and playing. Almost dead silent.

They were either sitting or standing around the dead fire, not saying a single word to each other. They all felt anything they said would be out of place, possibly even inappropriate.

Laura spotted Glenn going around and talking to them all, she couldn't hear them, but it was important enough for them all to start getting up and moving. All in the same direction and her eyes followed them until Glenn came up to her.

"Hey Laura, Rick and Shane are calling a meeting, want you there too." Laura nodded and carefully climbed back down the ladder. Glenn was waiting for her as he checked to make sure everyone had gone. "Cool, come on." He waved her along, they weren't far behind the others.

People started gathering in a circle, Rick and Shane stood facing them all.

"Alright everybody, listen up." Shane stepped forward first. "Those of you with CB's, we're gonna' be on channel forty. Let's keep the chatter down, okay? Now if you have a problem, don't have a CB or can't get a signal, you're gonna' hit your horn one time, that'll stop the caravan. Any questions?"

Morales stepped up, "We're uh... We're not going."

The group looked at them all, Morales and his family. They were going to try their luck out there alone. "We have family in Bermingham, we want to be with our people."

"You're on your own, you won't have anyone to watch your back." Shane stressed and Rick looked a bit distraught over losing the Morales family.

"We'll take the chance," Morales looked over his wife and children before turning to Rick. "I gotta' do what's best for my family."

"You sure?" Rick was quietly hoping they'd change their minds. "We talked about it. We're sure."

The sheriff just nodded, "Alright. Shane?" He crouched down and searched the gun bag. ".357." Both of the cops approached Morales with a gun and a box of ammo. The family was leaving, but they weren't letting them go without some form of protection against the undead.

Morales took the gun and the ammo. "Box is half full."

This made Daryl scoff lightly.

Lori was the first to go and comfort Miranda. "Thank you all. For everything." The woman was crying quietly, hugging Lori like a sister and kissing the heads of both Louis and Eliza, the children she got to know so well.

The little ones said their goodbyes, Eliza gave her doll to Sophia who was heart broken to lose her friend.

"Channel forty if you change your mind." Morales shook Rick's hand. "Yeah."

After their heartfelt goodbyes, everyone started piling into their cars. Shane in his jeep, Rick got the Cherokee, Dale drove his Winnebago, T-Dog in his van, and Daryl took his pickup.

With most of the seats taken up, and Laura not wanting to risk riding with Shane only for the wind to blow her hood off, she hitched a ride with T-Dog and Andrea as they had plenty of ride and the prospect of her other option was excessively awkward. Riding with Daryl right now was just not a good idea for her, she wasn't sure what would or could happen.

It was a rather peaceful, no one was talking but that was because T-Dog and Andrea were both wondering what lies in store for the group at the CDC. Laura had no doubts that's what everyone was thinking right now.

Laura hated the half of herself that really just could not bring itself to care. This enraging heartless response to the loss these people just suffered was severely inappropriate and she felt ashamed for it.

The ride went relatively streamline, only having to dodge a few derelict cars here or there.

Before the RV honked once and the caravan, just as they said, stopped.

She couldn't see what was going on, but it looked rather serious. They all left the van and joined the rest of the group in front of the RV, which she could now see was billowing out white smoke. If there was one thing she learned about cars, was that when it started spewing white smoke like that, there was a problem.

"I told you we'd never get far on that hose. I needed the one from the cube van." Rick put his hat back on and Laura grinned, he did love that hat. "Can you jerry-rig it?"

"That's all it's been so far is more duct tape then hose." Dale shrugged hopelessly, "And I'm out of duct tape."

"I see somethin' up ahead." Laura fixed her eyes on Shane who was using the binoculars to check down the road. He lowered the binoculars. "Gas station if we're lucky.

There came urgent feet from the Winnebago that made everyone turn to look. "Y'all, Jim. It's bad, I don't think he can take anymore."

The group went silent again, waiting for someone to do something. "Hey Rick, you wanna' hold down the fort? I'll drive ahead, see what I can bring back." T-Dog had the binoculars too, looking in the same direction Shane had. "Yeah, I'll come along to and I'll back ya' up."

"Y'all keep your eyes open now, we'll be right back." Shane and T-Dog turned and headed for the jeep.

Laura stayed still, she didn't know Jim and she wasn't going to go with Shane and T-Dog, two was enough for a short supply run like that, another person would only weigh the group down.

She watched Rick enter the RV to talk with Jim and Laura couldn't take seeing the people mourning him. If only her father was around, he could help these people and the others who had turned already.

Amy would still be alive and Jim wouldn't be in this mess.

Laura wanted to go for a walk, a decent one. Jacqui was crying quietly with Lori comforting her, the others were doing their own thing, dealing with the weight of the world on their backs.

They were all facing the same end. Being bitten and dying slowly, being eaten alive by cannibalistic undead humans, or maybe even being killed by people like the ones who took her or others like the Vatos, only not so caring about the elderly.

She felt responsible, she wasn't sure how or why, but she did. Like being brought back was an insult to be waved around like a steak in front of starving people just to where the tips of their figures could brush her, but could never reach her.

Laura wished she could do something for Jim, find a way to give him back his life and bring him out of so much pain. The same with Amy, when she was bitten that night, when she died and they all knew she was going to reanimate, Laura felt a tiny little bit of hope rise up, thinking Amy alive and not a walker. Of course, she was wrong, but Laura couldn't help herself.

Hope had to be out there, somewhere, just waiting to be found. Whether they discovered it or not was another question, one she would try to solve if it meant her life.

All her life she would quickly become interested in stories and people, she was never good at joining in a conversation, but the discussions about the Big Bang or Creationism, Democrat versus Republican, Wolverine versus Batman, she would get deep into the fundamentals behind it and find her own personal decision, based on facts.

She realized a few topics were not in the realm of factual or evidential, yet that didn't stop her from trying. When she found nothing, she would remain neutral to the unproven bias.

This time Laura felt her obsession was well placed. Survivors of the apocalypse, zombies versus humans, the virus and how it works; many things she wanted answered. If no one could provide her the answer, she would march out and find them herself. She took biology, knows her anatomy and chemistry, she wasn't the best and sure there were many more facets to being a scientist, but she wouldn't run around not knowing why she is what she is.

One day, she wanted to know if she could be human again and if given the opportunity to be so, would she take it or reject it?

Being able to live with walkers and humans? The benefit was, clearly, exponential, but it came as the cost of longer painful injuries, no sleep, walker-esque appearance, and the Voice. Laura didn't know if the Voice was part of being a walker, her going insane, or there was actually something substantial to it.

When Laura turned around and headed back to the cars, she saw Shane and Rick dragging a particularly weak looking Jim out of the RV.

She hurried up to see what was happened, had Jim turned or began to?

Shane and Rick laid him against a tree on the hill, getting him situated properly before letting go of him. Laura stood behind Carol and Sophia, right behind Daryl's shoulder. He noticed her, but they were all caught up in Jim's presence. She wasn't able to see well, but she could see their feet and make out Jim sitting against the tree ahead of them.

"Hey Jim," She could hear Shane, but couldn't see passed everyone. "I mean, y'know it doesn't need to be this."

"No... It's good. Breeze feels nice." The sound of Jim's voice, the strain and exhaustion. She remembered when she sounded like that. "Okay. Alright."

"Just close your eyes sweetie, don't fight." Jacqui's unmistakable voice tried to calm Jim, it was working on Laura from here.

A few footsteps and she could make out Rick approaching Jim. "Jim, do you want this?" He didn't even look down, "No, you'll need it. I'm okay." Jim assured Rick, the man was ready to die like he was.

Dale kneeled, resting a hand on Jim's knee. "Thanks for... for fighting for us."

No one had anything else to say, but made sure to be seen by Jim as their respects. He knew he was dying and was ready for it, Jim also knew that it was hard for everyone to say goodbye after losing so many people just the day before. He had no choice, he's stay if he could, but his body was already shutting down.

Carol lead Sophia away, Glenn had his hat off and turned to leave with the others. Daryl stepped up, nodded to Jim, and left. Laura came up to Jim, putting a hand on his shoulder and kissing his hair. "Rest well, Jim."

Laura turned and made for the others, all the while imagining how devastating it to watch them leave knowing that he cannot join them. The he has to die.

She didn't want to spend her time with people who were crying, so no RV, Cherokee or T-Dog's church van. Same rule applied to Shane's jeep as it had done before. Could she hitch a ride from Daryl without him asking about her?

No way of knowing until she tried.

She went up to Daryl's truck, which he'd already started, and knocked on the window. Daryl looked over and she pointed to herself then to his truck.

It took him a moment, then he nodded once. Laura popped the door open, the age evident in the loud sound the truck made as the door swung open. Climbing it, she shut it behind her and got comfortable. She wasn't very familiar with this area, all she knew it was in the direction of the CDC, but she'd never taken this route, she didn't know how long it'd be until they got there.

Laura wasn't crying over Jim, not even really mourning. Many people would probably call her heartless and get all pissed off with her for showing such little emotion towards a mans' suffering and eventual death, but the way Laura saw it... Death was a part of life, it happens. She's never truly experienced a human dying, but she didn't feel very obligated to tear up over someone she barely knew.

Daryl was respectful in that he didn't ask any questions about his little discovery in the woods with her. He seemed to catch on that she didn't want to talk about it and certainly wasn't going to willingly. Instead, he left her to her thoughts.

She appreciated this as she stared out the window, watching Jim as he saw them leave.

Neither spoke a word until they arrived at the CDC. It was getting dark, they'd been driving for a few hours, but they made it. "Come on, let's go. Stay close to me." Daryl said, getting out of the truck.

Laura followed suit, looking over the piles of bodies strewn out around the CDC building. Military personnel mostly, all dead from the looks of it. They'd been dead for quite some time to reach their level of decomposition.

People were coughing from the smell and odor of the gases rising from the decomposing bodies made all of their already fragile stomachs churn.

They all kept checking faces, making sure everyone was close and together. Laura had her hatchet out, ready to kill any walker that threatened the group. She would almost forget at times that they were a walker's main food source and they all knew it.

When they reached the building, Rick and Shane went for a shutter door and shook it, trying to see if it was loose. "Nothing?" Shane asked while bracing his back against the shutter and pushing, but it didn't budge an inch. They were all locked down. Shane banged on the shutter, trying to find a reaction or catch the attention of anyone who maybe inside.

The loud banging made Laura antsy again, it was bound to attract some walkers.

"There's nobody here." T-Dog guessed, "Then why are these shutters down?" Rick disparately tried to find a handle, a key pad, something to open the shutter or talk to people inside.

"Walkers!" Laura spun around when she heard it, a few walkers were heading their way.

And all she had was a damn hatchet.

Daryl shot the first walker and stormed behind her, back to the others. She heard them yelling, but chose to ignore them. Bigger fish to fry and all that...

Laura jumped out from the group and started cutting down walkers, none of them paid any kind of attention to her in the slightest consideration for her cutting down the others.

She heard them calling her back, not Rick, Daryl, Glenn, or T-Dog, but everyone else seemed to think she was going to get herself killed. Let them think that, so long as the walkers didn't get to them.

There was already a steady kill count of walkers at her feet, but as more came and she was forced to rush from side to side trying to stop them all, she kept getting pushed back a few feet at a time. The scattered walkers made it hard to hold them off, but until Rick and Shane came to a decision about what was going on, she wasn't going to stop killing them anytime soon.

Rick was screaming now, something about a camera and a person inside. Laura didn't know, but the walkers numbers were increasing by the second. It wouldn't be long before they couldn't handle the number with so many at risk.

Shane grabbed Rick and started dragging him back, announcing that they were leaving for Fort Benning.

Then, as Shane threw Rick back to the group, a loud screech came from the shutter door and a bright light shone forth like some kind of a miracle. There were still walkers, Laura hadn't the time to admire the light for too long.

The light shut down with a loud snap as Laura finished the last closest walker. "Daryl cover the back." What do you think I've been doing? Laura rolled her eyes, she was covering the back, did Daryl really need to be there too?

He was though and she turned to see everyone entering the CDC building. "Hello?" The echoes could be heard from her place just outside. She hurried back to the group.

Daryl aimed at her, she raised her hands. "Don't shoot! It's me." He lowered his gun, "Get inside." He instructed her and she was happy to accept. Heading inside the CDC, she felt a wave of nostalgia.

There was a loud sound that reminded her of a weapon being cocked. "Anybody infected?" That's because it was a gun being cocked. Laura mused, the man was demanding an answer Laura would, in being honest, say yes to.

They all reacted to the sound of the gun first, then Rick lowered his own gun when he saw the man. "One of our group was. He didn't make it."

"Why are you here, what do you want?" The man stepped forward, showing himself a little better to the group.

"A chance." Rick was panting, tired, stressed, and praying to every deity out there that they could stay. Going back out there would almost certainly kill them. With such low supplies and a gathering number of walkers just outside... Yeah, it would kill some of them.

"That's asking an awful lot these days."

"I know."

The man was looking at them, studying them intently. He could see the scared faces of the women, the tears in the children's eyes, and how terrified and tired everyone else was. This seemed to be the final straw for the man.

"You all submit to a blood test. That's the price of admission." Oh goddammit. Laura glared to herself.

"We can do that."

The man immediately lowered his gun, "You got stuff to bring in, you do it now. Once this door closes it stays closed." Rick turned and ran with the others, Laura followed them a little bit behind them all.

She didn't have any bags, she owned nothing except the tent and bedroll they gave her... and maybe the clothes on her back, but they needed protection as much as anyone else. So she followed them to and from the cars, bags piled on each shoulder.

Once they were all back inside safely, the man stopped at the door and swiped a card. "Vi, seal the main entrance and kill the power up here."

Rick stood in front of the man, offering his hand. "Rick Grimes." The man awkwardly accepted it. "Doctor Edwin Jenner."

He lead them all to the elevator, they were going straight down and they could all feel it. Everyone stuffed themselves into the elevator, pushing some up against the sides.

"Doctor's always go around packin' heat like that?" Daryl, of course, asked. "Oh, there were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself." He glanced around everyone in the elevator. "But you all look harmless enough." Jenner looked down to Carl, "Except you, I'll have to keep my eye on you."

When the elevator stopped, everyone followed Jenner out without a word. He lead them down a few halls until Laura saw Carol get a little uncomfortable.

"Are we underground?" She was looking at the ceiling and walls around them.

"Are you claustrophobic?" Jenner turned slightly.

Carol shrugged, "A little." She admitted, the feeling of being trapped under the surface was not an inviting thought.

"Try not to think about it."

They all came to a large dark room, people were slowing down when Jenner walked straight in. "Vi, bring up the lights in the big room." The lights snapped on, a large circular light system shone over the platform in the room. "Welcome to Zone Five."

"Where is everybody? The other doctors, the staff?" Rick had taken note that he hadn't seen anyone else around since they entered the building.

"I'm it." Jenner stood in the center of the room. "It's just me here."

"What about the person you were speaking with?" Laura was proud she remembered the answer, her father showed her Vi when she was younger and she'd visit him at the CDC. "Vi?"

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them... welcome."

"Hello guests. Welcome." The computerized voice played out over the intercoms. Laura liked Vi. "I'm all that's left. I'm sorry." Jenner could see the absolute disappointment on their faces.

After they arrived in the big room, Jenner lead them into another room where he set up supplies to draw blood.

To test it.

Oh no. Laura cringed, this could end badly.