Curative
By Kaimaler
Okay, moving forward. We've reached the end of Season 1! Now, I know how I'll work Laura into Season 2, but Season 3 will be TRIIICCKKKYYYY. So, when the time comes for Season 3... Just hang in there, I JUST saw episode 8 and when the second part of Season 3 comes out... It will probably take me a little while to actually see it.
Like I watched the starting four episodes of the Walking Dead when Season 1 was almost done and abandoned watching it until about... two months ago when I decided to watch everything. And I did. :3
Review Replies:
LittleMeep:
I guess "shallow" is actually too drastic of a term for what I'm thinking of. I don't mean Laura's shallow, like some kind of hallow shell, I mean she needs more explanation.
She has a fear of people that I forgot to add a reason for. I needed to explain it, but I failed to do so earlier so I did it now. :3
The two NEW chapters have replaced chapter six and seven, they are titled "Last Ones Standing" and "Make Your Own Way" respectively. So check 'em out. They aren't necessary to continue the story, but they add more depth. ;3
And I wonder that myself. xD
To anyone whom I've missed replying to a review from:
Sometimes I get a message telling me I got a review, then the review doesn't show up for hours or even a full day later. So I gotta' wait until I can actually see the review before I can reply to it.
Lame I know, but I can't help it. :/
I will, however, post a reply the moment I read it. Thanks and enjoy this latest chapter! Longest of 'em all. x.x
Laura was reading when the first event of the day happened.
Daryl woke up.
She smiled and laughed, "Welcome back to realm of the living." He flipped her off, a strained groan coming from the hungover man as he tried his damnest to get up and off the couch. It took him a fair amount of time, but he finally managed to sit up right. Barely.
"Long was I out?" He ran a hand through his messy hair, he was squinting but it was dark in the room, no windows and no lights on. Laura put her book down to not raise any unwanted alarms so early, if it was actually morning.
"Don't know honestly. Haven't a clock to keep time." She shrugged, he managed to get up and headed straight for the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
She continued to read for a few minutes, she heard the shower running and steam rose from the crack at the bottom of the door. It wasn't helping that Laura was thinking about Daryl taking a shower in her shower.
Laura sighed, Don't start this now, the man can barely stand.
When Daryl reemerged from the bathroom, he actually looked clean. It was a shocking change from the usual dirty gritty Daryl that she'd come to know. She couldn't actually imagine what he looked like without being covered in grime and now that he was... Laura's eyes narrowed. The damn looked damn fine.
He couldn't see her appreciating him in the dark, but he did pause and look at her. "The hell?"
She diverted her eyes, like she'd been caught red handed, but she didn't know how. It was pitch black in the room, to a normal person there wasn't a possible way for him to see her drooling over him.
Daryl walked to the door and flipped on the switch. He looked straight at her and she returned the blank look. He flipped the light off again and then back on. He continued to do so until Laura got a very bored look on her face and rolled her eyes. "Daryl, what are ya' doin'?"
"Your eyes." She blinked, tilting her head. "They're glowin'."
Laura shut her eyes, "You're seein' things."
"No, I ain't. They're glowin'." He replied gruffly, he stopped flipping the light and left it on. "I told ya', I ain't stupid."
"Then you're imaginin' things. You're hungover, probably seein' all sorts of bright lights." She tried to divert his attention, but only ended getting him more interested.
"Ain't my first time havin' a hangover, I know what it does." He pointed at her, "Never seen anybodies' eyes glow."
"It's reflecting light, that's actually pretty common." She averted her eyes and acted like she was reading her book, but she was too worried about Daryl asking too many questions. Her hood was up, but it wasn't covering her face as much as usual. So she pulled it down again.
Daryl huffed, "Yer makin' excuses."
"Daryl, just stop." Laura sighed, "Just... stop now." Why wouldn't Micheal just stop? She put her head in her hands, "I'm sure the others are up, go get breakfast or something. Maybe Jenner has some medicine for your hangover."
That seemed to be it for Daryl, he left the room. Allowing Laura some peace before she got up to have breakfast too. Daryl was pursuing it, cautiously but not favoring anything, he wanted to know and must've felt it needed to be known. He didn't strike Laura as the kind of guy who would just press on a topic that clearly makes someone uncomfortable just because he wanted to know, he had to have thought there was more then that.
For now though, he hadn't pressed too far and she was able to keep her secret.
Laura just now realized where she was.
Underground and locked inside the CDC, if they found out while she was inside... Laura's entire body froze up in fear. She wouldn't have a way to escape, no undead horde's to comfort her, no safety of being able to run into their greatest enemy without so much as a second thought.
She had to play it safe, no joining in crowd events, talk to no one as best she could, and remain in whatever dark corners she could find. Laura didn't know how long they'd be there, but she'd have to remain quiet and invisible to stay alive.
Ironically, the place where they were the safest was the single most dangerous place for her.
She was hungry now though, it had been a good twenty minutes since Daryl left and she was just getting hungrier and hungrier. So she got up and left her room.
Right before the door closed, she noted the lights in the hallway and reversed back into her room and shut the door. The light trickled in from the outside, just barely. There, that's a better excuse. She wanted to cover herself if Daryl decided to start questioning her again when she made it to the cafeteria.
However, when she reached the cafeteria, all she saw was a bunch of the group sitting around the table they'd eaten at last night and were all enjoying breakfast.
There was a happy announcement from T-Dog. "Eggs! Powdered but I do 'em good." He walked over to a very sad looking Glenn and a disturbed Rick, "Bet ya' can't even tell. Protein helps the hangover."
A painful groan from from Glenn confirmed he heard him but didn't care.
Rick was looking at a bottle of pills. "Where'd all this come from?" Rick passed the bottle to his wife, "Jenner."
He looked at the bottle rather pitifully, "Can you help me?" She just took it and popped it open, "He thought we could use it, some of us at least." Lori grinned at Glenn who had Jacqui rubbing his shoulders as he rested his head on his wrist.
"Don't ever, ever, ever let me drink again." That sound was enough to make Laura giggle at him.
"Hey." Shane had come strolling in, looking no worse for wear. Rick barely turned to acknowledge him, but not because he didn't want to greet his friend. "Hey."
Shane went straight for a cup of coffee, "Feel as bad as I do?" Rick practically chugged those pills. "Worse."
T-Dog was next to Shane, staring at him in confusion. "What the hell happened to you? Your neck." He was looking at four angry looking cuts, one on his jaw and the other three on his neck.
"Must've done it in my sleep." Shane sat down, sipping his coffee. Rick was looking at the marks now too. "Never seen you do that before."
Shane looked up, glanced around the table before his eyes rested on Lori. "Me neither. Not like me at all."
Oh seriously? Laura could figure this out from here and she was standing a good few feet away from them all. Shane and Lori? Lori seemed like a rather loyal wife actually, not one to go sleeping around. Since Rick got back...
Since Rick got back... Ah. She could put the puzzle together pretty easily. Rick had only found his family the same day she joined the group, Lori and Shane could've been together before that.
Not my problem. She licked her lips, their soap opera didn't concern her, especially now. Laura needed to watch her back, no one else here had it. She was alone again, for now, and had to make sure she didn't get herself killed like she nearly did last time. Complacency and contentedness will get me killed. If I just keep my wits about me, I'll pull through.
Laura went to grab a plate, T-Dog was dishing out eggs and happily filled her plate with them. "Thank you." She left the main table where everyone was at and sat alone in the dark to eat.
As she ate, she heard someone else walk in. "Mornin'." It was Jenner and everyone greeted the doctor as he went for his own cup of joe.
"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing." Dale had spoken up, apparently he had more questions for Jenner. Laura was satisfied in her knowledge, there was too much to know and too little time to learn it all.
"But you will anyway." He didn't looked to them, just poured his drink.
"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea was straight forward, something Laura wasn't expecting from her.
Jenner turned around this time and saw them altogether eating. "When you're done, meet me in the big room." Jenner rounded the table and walked up to where Laura was sitting, he tapped her shoulder. "You may want to see this."
Everyone stood up, ignoring the rest of their food and followed Jenner out of the cafeteria. Laura wasn't too far behind, she shoveled in what eggs she could and caught up to them. She wanted no more answers then them, but Jenner invited her and anything he had to say was interesting to her.
They all entered the large room with all the computers, Jenner ahead of them all.
He set down his coffee and typed something onto one of the computers. "Give me playback of TS-19."
"Playback of TS-19." Vi, the computer, repeated and the large screen in front of them displayed a loading bar before lines appeared, words and numbers flashed onto the screen, all incomprehensible to her. "Few people ever got to see this. Very few."
The screen had MRI scans of a human skull and brain, lights washed over the largest image of the human skin, skull, and brain before it tilted view to the side. Effectively cutting the head in half.
"Is that a brain?" Carl sounded excited, Jenner just grinned. "An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end."
He withdrew again, locked himself up. "Take us in for EIV."
"Enhanced Internal View." The screen drove straight into the brain, showing the synapses that Jenner and Laura had spoken about the night before. They were like white flashes all across the brain, the millions of lights creating the smallest of thoughts to the loudest of ideals.
"What're those lights?" Shane asked first, Laura no doubt believed most of the people in this room didn't recognize what they were looking at.
Laura went up to stand near Daryl this time, she stood behind him just a little bit, he noticed her but didn't do anything about it. He looked at her for a moment and could easily pick up that she knew what was going on.
He turned his attention back to the screen, back to the brain.
"Those are a persons' life. Experiences, memories. It's everything." He gestured to the screen, "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, in all those ripples of light, is you. Is the thing that makes you, unique and human."
The others were a little too caught up in shock and awe to speak up. Except Daryl who looked a little antsy, but Laura didn't know what about. "You don't make sense, ever?"
Laura smiled, of course he'd make a joke at this.
"Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages." Jenner explained, "They determine what a person says, does, thinks. From the moment of birth... until the moment of death."
"Death? That's what this is? A vigil?" Rick walked up to the doctor, getting a better look at the brain.
"Yes..." Jenner stared at the screen, "Or... or rather the playback of the vigil."
"This person died? Who?" Laura was happy someone was actually thinking of the person this brain belonged to. It was very human of her to consider other human life first.
"Test Subject Nineteen." That was a little... dissociative. "Someone who was bitten, infected, and volunteered for us to record the process." They all couldn't take their eyes off the screen, the lights were almost hypnotic and each of them were thinking about how all of that was inside their heads all the time.
It was a lot to think about.
"Vi, scan forward to the first event." Jenner's voice tore everyone from their thoughts.
"Scanning to first event."
The screen had another loading bar and the brain changed from the bright whites and blues and now had this black and reddish tint, what looked like roots in the brain were slowly strangling out the electric impulses.
Glenn seemed to have gotten over his hangover quickly. "What is that?"
"It invades the brain like meningitis, the adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down, then the major organs." He listed off fatal side effects of the virus and Laura felt like he was telling her what she had thought were her last moments alive. The brain on the screen went pitch black, no lights, nothing but darkness. "Then death. Everything you ever were or will be. Gone."
Being bitten, taken into a room, the basement of the old house that was made into a lab. She was laid on the table without straps at first, but she never moved, it hurt too much to move.
He would do tests then too, but she was stifled, every moment felt like she was struggling for air and while trying her hardest to not move so nothing felt like breaking, her body was killing itself slowly and every second was worse then the last.
She remembered closing her eyes for the last time, what she thought was the last time, and being thankful that she was finally going to die. It had taken so long, hurt to bad, nothing truly compared to it. Even breathing felt like someone was driving a dull blade into her skin, digging through the flesh and slowly breaking the bones.
Laura cringed, she didn't want to remember that pain, it was too much.
"Is that what happened to Jim?" The young Sophia asked her mother, "Yes."
Andrea was trying to cope, to keep herself together with everyone in the room and Jenner noticed this. Lori was the one to speak on it though. "She lost somebody two days ago. Her... sister."
"I lost somebody too, I know how devastating it is." Jenner offered her consoling words, but Andrea was still going to mourn her sister. "Scan to the second event." He faced the screen again.
"Scanning to second event."
The loading bar reappeared, "The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little and three minutes, the longest we've heard of was eight hours." Everyone got closer for this, to witness the brain and how it was awoken by the virus. "In the case of this one patient it was two hours, one minute, and seven seconds."
Only a few seconds passed before red lights began to flare inside the brain, but it wasn't lighting up everything, only a select spot, the rest was still as dead as before.
"It restarts the brain?" Had they been killing people this entire time? That was almost Laura's question.
"No, just the brain stem." Oh thank God. She felt a little weird at being relived to hear his answer. "Basically it gets them up and moving."
"But they're not alive?" Rick had just about asked her question word for word.
Jenner stepped aside, "You tell me."
Rick shook his head as he looked at the screen, the brain looked dead to all of them. "It's nothin' like before. Most of that brain is dark."
"Dark. Lifeless. Dead." Jenner described, "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part; that doesn't come back. The you part." The body on screen began to move, "Just a shell, driven by mindless instinct."
A small edged object came into view before a bright light flashed and there was a cavity in the head, the test subject was now permanently dead.
"God, what was that?"
Andrea recognized it, "He shot his patient in the head." She was going over the memory of shooting Amy, "Didn't you?"
"Vi, power down the main screen and the work stations." Jenner turned away, he didn't give and answer and Andrea's question caused him to lock up again.
"Powering down main screen and work stations."
"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea's question was more pointed, they all wanted answers and he didn't have them.
"It... could be microbial. Viral, parasitic, fungal." Everyone got the idea, Jenner didn't know what it was and that meant no one else here had any idea either.
"Or the wrath of God." Jacqui offered. Jenner turned to her, "There's that."
"Somebody must know something, somebody, somewhere." Andrea's comment was more akin to a plea then an actual confident opinion. Laura, however, knew of one person that made Andrea right.
Laura wouldn't say anything, there was a high chance he was dead now anyways. If he wasn't, she wished he'd hurry up and die.
Carol was saddened by this discovery. "There are others right? Other facilities?"
Jenner shrugged, "There may be some. People like me." That made him even quieter.
"But you don't know, how can you not know?" Rick was desperate, they came for answers and he wasn't any closer to them then they were. "Everything went down. Communications, directives, all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."
"So it's not just here." Andrea continued, "There's nothing left anywhere. That's what you're really saying, right?" Jenner looked down, he wanted to give them what they needed, but he had nothing. His silence answered Andrea louder then he ever could and everyone felt it.
Jacqui felt like the air had been stolen from her lungs. Lori was on the verge of tears, as was Carol. T-Dog and Glenn just stared blankly off into space.
"Man, I'm goin' to get shit faced drunk again." Daryl rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands.
"Doctor, I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but..." Dale turned and pointed to a large red timer on the wall. "That clock, it's counting down. What happens at zero?"
No one noticed it before now, Laura could barely remember seeing it when she was in this room last.
"The... basement generators, they run out of fuel." Jenner spoke quickly and Laura got suspicious.
"And then?" Rick prompted, but Jenner didn't say anything. He walked off without another word. Everyone was disturbed by this. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"
"When the power runs out, facility wide decontamination with occur."
Laura's eyes rolled shut. She remember decontaminating in the old chemistry labs, her father even explained it once or twice. In the event of an incident, they would decontaminate with fire.
"Shane, Glenn, T-Dog, with me." Rick ordered, the three men nodded and followed Rick out of the room. The rest went on to think about what Jenner had said.
Carol and Lori took their kids to the rec room, the others mostly followed. Others went back to their rooms.
Daryl apparently went to get drunk again and Laura followed him, he noticed it but didn't show any signs of caring. Once he was in his room, he stood with the door open, waiting for her to come around the corner.
She entered the room and the door swung shut.
Laura held her hand out for Daryl's whiskey, he looked at the label and passed it to her. She smelled it, it was strong and didn't smell very appealing, but if the building was going to go up in flames, she wasn't against having her first taste of an alcoholic beverage.
She sipped it and swallowed, it tasted as bad as it smelled and burned worse. She opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out. "That's disgustin'."
Daryl grinned, took a swig and had absolutely no reaction to it. "Ain't the best whiskey, but it ain't that bad."
"I've never drank anythin' like that, just keep that in mind." She shuddered, "It doesn't exactly fit my palate."
Things went quiet for a little, Daryl just fell onto the couch drinking the whiskey like it was water. She wasn't sure that was really possible or even healthy, but she doubted Daryl did many things for his own health.
Laura remembered him looking rather odd after Jenner told them about the virus, what it was or what it did, he didn't know what it was at all. She figured her father knew, but she wasn't about to go out looking for him to ask what his take was on all this. That would be one of her bad ideas.
"So, ya' here to talk 'bout somethin' or tell me off again?" Laura winced, was Daryl sore about her shutting off to him? She should've figured he'd bring it up when she followed him and yet she did, Laura wanted to be in the company of someone she considered a friend and that she felt a little more sure of then just Glenn, T-Dog, or Jacqui.
"I didn't tell you off." Laura shrugged and sat on the opposite end of the couch, "I just... I can't answer those questions. You can't be askin' them."
"Why the hell not?" He handed her the bottle and it didn't smell any better now then it did a few seconds ago. Still, she tried to swig it like Daryl was doing and did a good job of it, but it still tasted bad to her.
"You won't like the answers." Laura gave him the bottle back, while he accepted it he didn't take his attention off her or drink from it again. He just looked at her, actually, if she was being completely honest, it was more like a gaze. He was asking her what she meant by just looking at her. "I mean... If I told you, it wouldn't end well."
Daryl scoffed, "You tellin' me what I'll do now?"
"No, just goin' off of experience." She brought her legs up underneath her, "It doesn't end well."
He seemed to go with that and drank some more whiskey, he offered it to her but she denied it. "That just... Nooo, it's gross." He smirked and pulled the bottle back to him. "More fer me." He took another swig.
"What's your take on all this?" She asked him, fiddling with a loose string on her jeans.
Daryl just tightened his jaw and stared at her, "I guess it ain't nothin' we didn't know already." Laura rolled her eyes, "Not really, we knew somethin' went wrong, really wrong, but not on the scale Jenner talked about."
He bit his thumb, the topic was starting to cause him to think deeper then he wanted to. "I don't know... Weird bein' the only ones left. Figurin' we just settle in and keep outta' the way of the walkers. Don't care what the world does, just gotta' keep survivin'."
Laura nodded, "Fuck the world."
He smirked, "Exactly."
They didn't say anything else, just sat together in comfortable silence while Daryl drank the whiskey slowly. It was nearly empty by the time Laura felt something strange and heard it too.
The air conditioning, that quiet hum that was in the back of her hearing was no longer there and she didn't feel the low breeze it provided.
"Hey Daryl?" He looked to her, "The air's off."
He focused on that for a moment, stood up and raised a hand to the vent in the ceiling. She was right, there wasn't any air coming through. "The hell." His brow furrowed, he looked around for a moment, then the light turned off. "What the hell is this?" He was aggravated now.
Laura got up and opened the door, the hall light was still on and Daryl leaned out the door.
"Hey, what's goin' on? Why's everythin' bein' turned off?" Jenner came walking by wearing his lab coat, when he passed he stole the whiskey from Daryl.
The others were in the hall, asking the same thing. Laura sighed, she knew it then. That count down timer was at one hour when they left the big room, she didn't think she was with Daryl that long.
"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner said in a passing manner.
"Air isn't a priority and lights?" Dale questioned, Jenner took his own swig of the whiskey. "It's not up to me. Zone Five is shutting itself down."
"Hey," Daryl called, "Hey, what the hells' that mean?" He ran up beside Jenner, who was actively ignoring him. "Man I'm talkin' to you." Jenner kept moving, he wasn't saying anything. "What'do ya' mean it's shuttin' itself down? How can a buildin' do anythin'?"
"You'd be surprised."
Laura could hear the others, Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog down below them. Lori leaned over the bars, "Rick?"
Jenner descended down the stairs, the entire group now following him. On the ground floor, Rick stalked up to the quiet man. "Jenner, what's happening?" He walked backwards to face Jenner while they walked, "The system is dropping all non-essential uses of power. It is designed to keep the computers running until the last possible second. It starts as we approach the half hour mark." Jenner pointed to the clock as they entered the big room. "Right on schedule."
Taking another drink of whiskey, Jenner paused and held the bottle out for Daryl, who took it back, but was less interested in the drink as he was what was happening. "It was the French."
"What?"
"They were the last ones to hold out as far as I know." Jenner faced the group. "While our people were bolting out the doors and committing suicide in the hallways, they stayed in the labs until the end. They thought they were close to a solution." Jenner climbed the small staircase to the main platform.
"What happened?" Jacqui implored, they all wanted to know.
"Same thing that's happening here. No power grid, ran out of juice." He pointed to the room, "The world runs on fossil fuel. I mean, how stupid is that?" All these powerful computers, nothing without substantial energy.
Shane jumped up, "Let me tell you somethin'-" Rick pulled him back, "To hell with this Shane, I don't even care. Lori, grab our things, everybody get your stuff, we're gettin' out of here. Now!"
They all started to turn around and head to the rooms, Laura stood still and watched. A blaring alarm went off and everyone stopped dead.
"What is that?"
"Thirty minutes until decontamination." Vi announced, the large screen displayed the count down timer now too. Jenner dodged off, typing on something she couldn't see.
"Everybody, y'all heard Rick, go on get your stuff now! Go now!" Shane urged them away and T-Dog began leading them out of the room. "Come on, let's go!"
A loud sound took their attention away from their tasks and Laura understood it as gears moving, big ones. All the doors slammed shut, blast doors so think that running all their cars into them at full speed wouldn't even scratch them. Her blood ran cold, He trapped us.
"Did you just lock us in?" Glenn looked to Jenner. "He just locked us in!"
Laura climbed up to the platform and was watching Jenner put in his last log. She sighed, his last recording.
"You son of a bitch, you locked us in here!" Daryl came around the computers, "Shane!" Rick was too far, but Shane was able to grab Daryl before he hurt Jenner and T-Dog got in between a bottle of whiskey and Jenner's head.
Rick came around, "Jenner, open that door now."
"There's no point, topside is locked down. All the emergency exits are sealed." He pulled his chair back up to the desk and arranged his coat.
"Well, open the damn things!" Dale exclaimed, "That's not something I control, the computers do. I told you, once that front door closed it wouldn't open again. You heard me say that."
Heard you? Yes. Thought it meant being locked in while a timer counts down to our deaths? Not exactly what I had in mind. Laura shook her head, hands on her hips. Jenner locked them in, but the front doors were locked too and he couldn't get to them.
"It's better this way." Not if you knew us. Laura growled, she knew this group was made up of survivors, people willing to go to hell and back just to make it out of the other side. Fighters.
"What is? What happens in twenty-eight minutes?" Rick demanded answers this time.
Shane yanked the chair back and Rick got in Jenner's face. "What happens in twenty-eight minutes?!"
"Do you know what this place is?! We protected the public from very nasty stuff!" Jenner turned and faced Shane, "Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! Ever!"
Jenner looked around the room and sat back down, shaking his coat. "In the even of a catastrophic power failure, a terrorist attack for example, HIT's are deployed to prevent any organism's from getting out."
"HIT's?" Rick asked, but Jenner looked down. "Vi, define."
"HIT. High-Impulse Thermoberic explosives consist of a two stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration then any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum pressure effect ignites the air between five thousand and six thousand degrees and is useful when the greatest loss of life and damage to structure is desired."
Laura put her head in her hands, she just wanted to be with a group, with good people, and this is what happens? She'd much prefer if this had happened to those other people she met, the men who took her deserved a slow death, but the group that was going to kill her, well, she cared much more for this group then she ever did for them.
"It sets the air on fire." Jenner wasn't even paying any kind of attention to them anymore. "An end to sorrow, grief... regret." He looked to Rick, "Everything."
She wasn't aware of herself crying, she didn't want to die like this and she didn't want these people to die. They deserved so much better, granted, outside was a painful, hard, and unwelcoming life, but it was a life and they all wanted it more then death.
Laura felt a hand on her arm, she was too deep in her thoughts to be scared of someone touching her. "I'mma get you outta' here, ya' hear me?" It was Daryl, he looked pissed off but his usual demeanor was softened while he held her eyes. She nodded, "Just... be with me before the fire starts." Laura pulled him into a hug, wrapping her arms around his midsection.
He was a little surprised, but the situation was desperate and he put an arm around her. "Ain't no need ta' be. We're bustin' outta' here." He let go of her and Laura watched him march over to the door, he was checking it, trying to see how dense and stable it was.
In his rage he threw the bottle at it, the shattered glass shot out. "Open the damn door!"
"Out of my way!" It was Shane, running at the door with an ax in hand and he swung it with all his force. The resulting sparks only managed to barely scratch the surface polish.
T-Dog had found axes and tossed the second one to Daryl, who went up to the door and put everything he had into it.
Nothing was even budging a little bit, the cries of the Sophia and Carl distracted her, they were frightened and had a reason to be. Laura looked at Jenner who was watching them try to cut down the door fruitlessly.
"You should've let well enough alone, it would've been so much easier." Jenner spoke with an unnerving calmness, he knew this was going to happen from the moment he met them.
"Easier for who?" Lori spat.
Jenner didn't take her venom to heart, "All of you. You know what's out there, a short brutal life and an agonizing death. Your sister, what was her name?" He was looking to a very lost looking Andrea. "Amy."
"Amy. You know what this does, you've seen it." Rick was near and Jenner focused on him. "Is that really what you want for your wife and son?"
Rick got in his face again, "I don't want this."
Shane had come back, exhausted. "Can't make a dent."
"Those doors are designed to withstand a rocket launcher." Jenner seem to find their idea of cutting through the door amusing.
Daryl, on the other hand, did not. "Well your head ain't." He raised the ax and came at Jenner. Dale was the first to cut him off, followed by Rick and T-Dog. "Whoa, whoa! Daryl! Daryl!" They were able to force the hunter back and disarm him. "Back up!"
Jenner rose to his feet, "You do want this. Last night you said it was only a matter of time before everyone you loved was dead."
It went quiet, Rick looked to Lori. "What, you really said that? After all your big talk?" Shane was still panting, giving Rick a tired and incredulous look.
"I had to keep hope alive, didn't I?" The question was directed to Lori, but they all knew the answer.
"There is no hope, there never was." Jenner insisted, but Rick was a stubborn man and Laura, right now, found that the greatest thing in the world. "There's always hope, maybe it won't be you, maybe it won't be here, but somebody! Somewhere!"
"What part of everything's gone do you not understand?" Andrea was huddled up on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest.
"Listen to your friend, she gets it." Laura braced her hands against the table, Survive, fight, starve, but you're alive. "This is what takes us down. This is... our extinction event."
"This isn't right." Carol cried, "You can't just keep us here!"
"One tiny moment, a milisecond, no pain." He tried to explain, but Carol shook her head. "My daughter doesn't deserve to die like this."
"Wouldn't it be kinder to just... hold your loved ones and wait for the clock to run down?" Carol and Sophia had gotten up to get away from Jenner.
The cocking of a shotgun tore their attention away from Jenner and to the very irate Shane who stormed up with his shotgun in hand. "Shane!" Rick tried to block him, but Shane was able to shove him. "Stay outta' my way Rick!"
Shane came up to him, the shotgun aimed solidly at Jenner's head. "You open that door or I'mma blow your head off. Do you hear me?!"
"Brother, brother, this is not the way you do this. If you do this we will never get out of here." Rick tried to talk him down, but Shane looked downright manic. "Shane, you listen to him." Lori warned.
"If he dies, we all die!" Rick enforced, Shane just yelled at the top of his lungs and aimed away from Jenner, to the computers behind him and opened fire. Everyone dropped and Rick grabbed hold of the shotgun, forcing it out of Shane's hands before knocking him to the ground.
"You done now? Are you done?" Rick growled, Shane was still panting on the floor. "Yeah, I guess we all are."
Dammit, Carol was right. They didn't deserve this. "Jenner." He looked at her and unfortunately so did everyone else. "In light of recent discoveries, you have the nerve to say that there is no hope left?"
"That doesn't matter now. There's no way to distribute, no way to help everyone." He leaned back into his chair.
Laura stepped up to him, "There is, if we go out there, we could help other survivors and I can help others who have turned. Restore families and return some kind of balance."
"You can't save everyone. Billions of people are dead, not just reanimated, but actually dead." He stood up and gestured to her. "You don't have the capability of healing even the tiniest fraction of that number. You couldn't make an effective change. Eventually, like everyone else, you would be met with a violent death and so would they."
"Jenner, you said yourself that you were here to find a cure. So here I am! I'm a cure, use me." Laura yanked down her hood. "I can help people and to those few that I do, that I can save, it will make all the difference in the world to."
"It wouldn't be enough, they'd still face what I'm trying to tell you. A painful and lonely end." Jenner stressed, but Laura shook her head. "Technically, you are dead already. Do you really want to go out there and face a world that will shun you, people who won't understand you? They'll kill you. You even said you were too afraid to tell these people, out of fear of what they might do to you."
The group was looking quite interested now, "Jenner, I'm a walker. I get that, but there are still people out there like these people, good people. They just want to survive and the more of us there is, the more we can help each other, defend one another and maybe, if we're lucky, build something out of what's left of us. I'm a cure, here I am, a ready and willing test subject, one more valuable then any other. Why won't you see that we can help make others' lives better?"
"There is nothing left, whoever is out there will not make it long. You can try to help them, but you cannot keep them safe forever." Jenner took a seat again, "All you would do is prolong the inevitable."
Laura couldn't get through to him, even with everything, but she still tried. Rick searched his group, they all wanted to live, but didn't see it happening. They were on the edge of giving up hope. "I think you're lying."
"What?"
"You're lying. About there being no hope." Jenner actually looked up from his resolve. "If that were true you would've bolted with the rest or taken the easy way out, but you didn't. You chose the hard path. Why?"
Jenner leaned back, "It doesn't matter."
"It does matter, it always matters." Rick approached him, pleading for a way to escape. "You stayed when others ran. Why?"
"Not because I wanted to." That spoke volumes. Laura blinked, Jenner stood and he was taller then Rick, it made for a very strange look. "I made a promise. To her." He pointed at the screen, "My wife."
Lori was nearly reeling from the news. "Test subject nineteen was your wife?"
"She begged me to keep going as long as I could..." Jenner held his arms out in defeat. "How could I say no?" How can you deny the final request of a dying person? Laura was actually hoping Rick was onto something, but all he did was uncover the real reason Jenner was ready to die.
"She was dying. It should've been me on that table." His voice raised, he spoke with passion about his late wife. "She was a loss to the world! Hell, she ran this place I just worked here! In our field she was an Einstein. Me? I'm... I'm just Edwin Jenner. She could've done something about this, not me."
"Your wife didn't have a choice." Rick was calmer with the man, learning about his deceased wife made Rick more sympathetic with the hurting man. "You do. That's all we want. A choice. A chance."
"Let us keep tryin' as long as we can." Lori begged.
Jenner saw them, really saw them this time. They all wanted to survive, no matter how difficult the life they chose was. "I told you topside is locked down, I can't open those."
He went to a keypad, swiped a card and put in a code. A confirming beep and the doors opened immediately. "Come on!" Daryl called from the door, ready to run with the others.
"Let's go!" Glenn ushered the others, T-Dog and Shane were calling to people too, trying to get them out as quick as they could.
"There's your chance, take it." Laura was right behind Rick, she hadn't run with the others when she noticed Rick hadn't either. "I'm grateful."
"The day will come where you won't be." The foreboding message silenced Rick, but Jenner accepted Rick's hand and pulled him close, whispering something that Laura couldn't make out.
Lori ran back and took Rick's hand, Glenn was at the door waiting but he was getting too anxious to run. "Hey! We got four minutes left, come on!"
They hurried out, before being stopped again. "No, no! I'm staying! I'm staying, sweetie."
"That's insane!" T-Dog wanted her with them, she was such a kind woman, she took care of the group, everyone, when they needed her. "No, it's completely sane! For the first time in a long time! I'm not ending up like Jim and Amy. There's no point in arguing and no time, not if you want to get out. Just get out.: Jacqui pushed T-Dog away, patting his face before Shane took his arm.
"T-Dog, come on man. Come on." He broke T-Dog's attention. "Let's go, let's go!"
Dale came to her, but Jacqui just stepped back.
At this moment, Daryl had come back. "Damn girl, you better come on. We're outta' time!" He took her arm and moved her, she liked Jacqui, a lot, she was so kind to her even when she didn't know so much as her name.
Daryl dragged her out of the halls and when they came to the stairs again, he swung her in his arms and carried her the rest of the way.
Once on ground floor, he set her down and Shane tossed him an ax. They were all trying to break through the glass, when it was obvious the axes weren't working, T-Dog charged the glass with a chair and began beating on it with all his strength.
No hope...?
"Dog, get down! Get down!" T-Dog spun around to see Shane coming at the glass with his shotgun, after reloading and cocking the gun, Shane fired a single shot, but the bullets ricocheted. It was too dangerous to fire off rounds, the bullets could hurt or kill anyone unfortunate enough to be caught.
Carol rushed up, searching in her bag. "Rick, I have something that might help."
"Carol I don't think a nail file's gonna' do it." No need to be an ass Shane. Laura glared at the man, but what Carol pulled out of her bag was more shocking.
"Your first morning at camp, when I washed your uniform." A fucking grenade?! "I found this in your pocket."
T-Dog saw it first, Rick took it and ran to the window. "Look out!"
Daryl grabbed Laura and put her under him, shielding her with his body when she heard the sound of the grenade pin click and Rick sprinting back to them. The resulting explosion knocked Rick off his feet, but once the glass shattered, everyone was up.
She was pulled up by Daryl, who kept her close to him the entire time. Lifted her up to the glass, jumped down in front of her and helped her down. They went straight for the cars, a few walkers were hanging around, but they didn't care about sound and shot them all to the ground.
Daryl opened the door and threw her in, jumping in behind her. Laura looked up for the moment she could and saw Andrea and Dale nearing a stack of sand bags and ducking behind them, before she was pushed into the seat by Daryl as the explosion shook the cars.
The sound was deafening and she held onto him for dear life, hoping that the explosion didn't reach too far.
When the tremors were done, he let her up and they both looked at the collapsed ruined of the CDC. Fires so large they could be seen for miles and a smoke stack five times the size.
Daryl got out, went around the truck and got in the driver side. They had to leave, now. No doubt all the walkers in the city heard that.
He started the truck and followed the caravan out.
The CDC was a shot in the dark, maybe it was worth it, but she wasn't sure they'd ever know.
For now, she sat in Daryl's truck and was rendered speechless. The events at the CDC were nothing like she, and the group, expected it to be. Either deserted or have the last bit of government in the country holding down fort there.
Neither of those happened, but she still thought highly of Jenner. He wasn't bad or anything, but he'd given up any hopes of surviving or even wanting to, a long time ago.
She only hoped that no one in this group ever faced that level of ruin.
When she looked at Daryl, he was in deep thought, maybe about where they were going, what they'd do, but she couldn't be bothered to concern herself with that. Laura was so shocked at what had happened in such a short amount of time she actually hadn't a clue what had happened just yet.
Resting her head against the window, she watched the trees go by with a lot on her mind.