top story: I know. I have a reason for that, too.

"Cindy, please, just tell me what's goin' on," Ani begged the younger woman. "Was 'e or was 'e not a part a what happened ta ya?!"

"Just leave it alone, Ani," Cindy sighed dismissively.

"Was 'e a part a it or not?!"

"Why do you care?! What if he was? Are you blaming us? Do you think we have something to do with all the Saviors walking off?"

"Yes, Cindy, that's kind a what it's lookin' like. When nah one's tellin' me what's goin' on and three Saviors disappear in less than two weeks in the dead a night without a trace and nah one saw anythin', yes, I think somethin not so simple's goin' on. Am I wrong?"

"So what?" Cindy asked her angrily, turning to face her as they were in the woman's tent; the boys were currently with their father and uncle. "Are you gonna tell everyone we're doing? Send us away when we're the second biggest part of the work force? Send the Saviors away?"

"The ones who're in danga, yeah!" Ani said in a manner that showed just how obvious she found that question.

"Do you even have any proof that they didn't just walk off? They don't care about anyone but themselves, and they're not quiet about how they don't like being here. Maybe they just went home. Maybe a walker got them. Maybe they just ran off because they could. Is there any proof that they're not just leaving?"

"Nah, I don' have nah definitive proof. But Oceanside's been on watch every night someone went missin'."

"So was someone from Alexandria. Do you suspect them?"

"Nah, but they don' have any motive anymore. Maggie's the one with the motive ta kill the Saviors, and she's at the Hilltop now and don' spend more time than it takes ta unload the wagon out 'ere. Ain' 'er doin' it. But you. Oceanside. Ya have the most a anyone out 'ere 'sides Anne ta kill people, and it ain' Anne."

"How do you know it's not her?"

"'Cause she's a coward. When all is said and done, she'd ratha take and not get involved. Even now, she'd still ratha jus' do what she needs ta savive and keep 'er head down than try ta start somethin'."

"So it has to be us?" Cindy asked her, the bitterness in her voice not lost on Ani.

"Ya the best bet if it's somethin' more'n nothin'."

"Would you stop Maggie?" came the response that shocked Ani into silence. "If she tried killing Negan, if she wanted to, would you stop her?" There was nothing Ani could say to the younger woman as the floodgates opened and everything she'd been holding back since Ani had started questioning her came pouring out, "We tried to fight. Tried to run. My mother; she got shot before we could even call for a retreat. Right in front of me. Right in front of my eleven year old brother. I remember when he was born, how I promised to protect him. And he was ripped away from me. Just torn from my arms. All because one of the other boys, Bailey, tried to stop one of them from raping his mom," she said, making Ani gasp and Cindy shake her head. "She wasn't raped. None of us were. Instead, this one guy with a beard, no hair, Simon's right-hand man. He told the other guy to stop, said he'd get in big trouble if he did anything else to her. Then he dragged Bailey out by his neck. He said, 'we do this right. If even the boys are gonna cause problems, let's get rid of them, too.' And then he shot him in the head. After that, it didn't matter if they were too young to fight. The Saviors killed all of our men, all of our boys, right in front of us, as a warning about what would happen if we tried to fight. How they would kill us all next time. A group of them stayed behind. You're not the only one who knows plants, you know? So did my mom, and we had a beautiful garden. Did you know that foxglove plants are poisonous?"

"Yeah, I did," Ani said quietly before Cindy started talking again.

"The Saviors didn't. And they didn't know we'd cooked their food in it, either. We poisoned them and ran and never looked back. We killed every Savior that stayed behind, and then everyone who came near us in fear that they would find us again," she said sternly, her resolve showing through even though the emotions on her face were a dead giveaway for how she felt. "We didn't have to, but we did. Just like the Saviors didn't have to take us over, but they did. We could have worked with them, come to some sort of deal that was good for them and us, like we did with Rick, after," Cindy reasoned, clearing her throat and shaking her head. "But that's not what they wanted. And they still don't, not all of them. They're not sorry. They don't feel guilt for what they've done. They don't even care about how it's hurt us. Rick walks in, saves Negan, declares the war is over and they just...move on. Well, I can't. We can't. Whatever is happening right now, we're not going to stop it. You can try to, but you won't," she said, the certainty in her voice as clear as the words that rang in Ani's ears. "Maggie still wants Negan dead, and you know that. Would you really stop her if you knew she was going to do it?"

Cindy left Ani standing alone in her tent as she went back to work and Ani tried to figure out what she wanted to do and what was the right thing to do. If she told anyone about what she'd just learned, she knew that it would result in people taking sides. The only problem with that was that there were only two sides in this; Oceanside's or the Saviors' and most people would take Oceanside's. Ani knew for a fact that the only people that would take the Saviors' side was the Saviors themselves and the teens. If she told the teens about what she'd found out, both Sophia and Carl would make it known to the Saviors and the Saviors would retaliate. Either that, or they'd go to Carol and Rick and tell them, who would then go to Cindy and still make it known to the Saviors what was happening. Daryl would be on the side of the women and would probably help them if she decided to let him know what was going on and Merle wouldn't be much better. She couldn't say anything to Rick or Carol for the same reason she knew she couldn't say anything to the teens and she wasn't sure what Abraham or Sasha would do. Michonne would tell Rick, Beth would tell Tara, who would feel guilty and tell Rick, and Maggie, who would side with Oceanside. She could potentially go to Gabriel in confidence and beseech him and his dignity as a priest to not say anything, but how much could he really help her in this situation? The only person she knew she could go to to talk it out with that wouldn't immediately run to tell someone else was Simon, and he was off galivanting with Georgie.

Ani's face grew grim as she realized that there actually was one other person who she could talk to, someone who no one else would take seriously if she did. Negan would be able to help her and tell her exactly what happened from the Saviors' point of view and what happened afterwards. He would know who had been involved and be able to give her a detailed description of who did what to the women of Oceanside. There was no way he wasn't aware of what happened and what had gone wrong at the settlement, even if he hadn't been the one in charge of the Sanctuary at the time. He was still in charge of the Saviors and had taken over at the old factory just after they'd lost Oceanside. Ani knew that Negan had, at the very least, kept an eye on the women without bothering them after looking at his maps and charts of his territories. He had specifically not created any more outposts past DC even though he knew that the survivors of the Oceanside's original camp had to be somewhere in that area. There was no way in hell the man wouldn't be willing to give her details, either, though she would probably have to talk to him about her life since the end of the war first. But talking to Negan meant going to Alexandria, which meant telling Daryl and/or Merle where she was going or what she was doing.

"Guess Gabe'll have ta do afta all," Ani mumbled to herself as she left the tent, almost running into Daryl in the process.

"Thought you were gonna come back as soon as you were done talkin' to her," he accused. "What'd you find out?"

Sighing and shaking her head, vowing to tell him everything once she figured out how to tell him, she simply said, "I don' know what ta do right now. There's a lot, and I don' have proof, and I don' know if it's 'em or if they're jus' not willin' ta step in or if they know what's goin' on for sure or not. All I know is that they don' give two shites 'bout the missin' Saviors."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time a bunch of 'em have walked off," Daryl said, leading her back to their area as they spoke.

"We had word 'bout the othas walkin' off or knew they'd be walkin' off 'cause they always talked 'bout it. The ones that went missin' this week jus' went missin'. They ain' at the Sanctuary and nah one's heard from 'em since their shift the day 'fore they disappeared. It's jus' fishy."

"It's just what they do. They don't like the work. Should hear them at the bridge and lumberyard. All they do is moan about workin' and not havin' guns. It's the damn same every damn time somethin' happens they don't like. You don't hear it 'cause you're in camp, but they don't wanna be here any more'n we want 'em to be here. They just have to be. Can't get the work done without them."

Ani said nothing and instead sighed and leaned into his arm with her eyes closed, allowing him to guide her for just a few steps before opening them again. She had known beyond a doubt that Daryl's reaction to the walk-offs was going to be as visceral as his attitude toward them had become. She couldn't blame him, though, when so many of the men from the Sanctuary that they worked with were talking about the women around them like they were little more than meat. Most of the women around him were women that had been traumatized by the Saviors in one way, shape, or form or were as close to them as family. Daryl had a heightened sense of justice about women and how they were treated ever since he'd found out about Ani's past. It bothered him to no end that the Saviors didn't care about what they'd done to the women of Oceanside and talked about how they wanted to try to make a move on them. It didn't help matters any that he had heard some of the men talking about what they would do to Ani if they could catch her alone, which had almost resulted in a brawl. Rick and Michonne had been in the area during that time and Ani hadn't been too much farther away, the entire thing ending before it really began. That had only made things between the groups even more complicated when most of the main players in all the groups were divided right down the middle.

No matter what angle Ani looked at what was happening at the bridge in the last two weeks, she knew that her hands were tied. She had to remain Switzerland in this battle for the sake of her children and her dream of not having to deal with any of it anymore. Ani felt like she had been stuck in the middle of everyone and everything since the war had ended and was sick of it. She was sick of feeling like she had to hide things or put it off into the professional part of her mind that had stayed alive and kept confidentiality with patients. It hadn't felt so suffocating to help people through their trauma back before the world had ended or even before they'd found Alexandria. When she thought about it, it wasn't until after everything that had happened with her parents, finding out the truth about her birth and treatment, and trying to help everyone traumatized by the Saviors that she'd started feeling that way. If there had never been a war, she might not feel so trapped on all sides while helping everyone, but because of it, because she'd fought in it, she was simply worn out. Ani couldn't help anyone move forward because no one knew how to move forward and she couldn't turn to anyone to help her work it out. She felt like she was stuck on a merry-go-round while wanting to get off but being unable to catch the operator's attention to make it stop. One way or another, when the bridge was completed and everyone headed back to the communities, Ani was determined to wash her hands of it all.

~x~

"I'm not goin' lookin' for some assholes who don't wanna be found," Daryl told Rick.

"Daryl, you and Merle are our best trackers. We need to find them," the other man tried to reason.

"The nearest settlement is ten miles away! It takes damn near a full day to get there and back on horseback," he argued. "There ain't no way to find someone in all that 'less there's a trail, and you know damn well we don't got one! What you're askin', it just ain't possible. We can't cover the entire fuckin' forest with and Merle alone, and I ain't lettin' Ania go out there alone or leavin' my boys here just to look for those assholes!"

Rick stared at him contemplatively for a moment before shaking his head, sighing, and walking away as Daryl watched him go. He was thankful that Ani was sleeping in the tent after nursing the twins and Merle had taken Lou with him to hunt for their dinner. If Ani had been awake and about when Rick brought up going looking for the missing Saviors, she would have wanted to go. She had been doing everything she could lately to try to keep everyone on the same boat as the tensions began to rise again. There had been a few short weeks where there had been peace to the point that Sophia and Carl had been claiming their hard work had paid off. Yet, the minute someone else had walked off, the fighting had started back up and the Saviors had started talking about how unfair their situation was. If Merle had been around, things would have exploded with his brother dressing Rick down left and right about asking for their help. That would have woken Ani up and it would have turned into a larger fight than necessary because she would have wanted to help. Merle would have argued with her and inevitably been beaten down, either with words or Ani's fist, when he said something stupid. Daryl was thankful that neither of them were around when he was talking with Rick and didn't even know how he felt about it other than annoyed.

Sighing to himself, he turned around and walked into his tent, the irritation he was feeling ebbing slightly at the sight of his wife and twins sprawled out on the sleeping bags. She'd been doing that more and more often; leaving the kids on the ground with them to sleep rather than putting them in their bassinets. It didn't bother him at all, especially since he'd started sleeping with Lou when he woke up in the mornings. They also hadn't really been intimate since the twins were born with all the stress of the three boys and what was going on at the bridge. He also got to see the three or sometimes four of his family members sleeping peacefully next to each other, Ani's hand always resting on one or both of the twins' stomachs. When Lou was sleeping with them, he was always sleeping snuggled into his mother's chest while clutching his bunny, unless Daryl was sleeping, too. If Daryl was down next to them, the boy would lay facedown across his chest and drool all over him. He and Ani still got plenty of time to cuddle and have their quiet conversations about what their future would look like. As such, it really didn't matter if the kids slept on the bed with them and neither of them cared to change things for the time being.

Being quiet, he scribbled a small note on the paper Ani kept on hand, letting her know that he was heading after Merle and would be back with him and Lou soon. He knew his wife well enough to know that, if she was awake when they got back, she'd have something prepared so that they could get right into cooking. She'd probably strap the twins to her chest and/or back and go out into the woods around their camp to forage some fresh vegetation to go with whatever was brought back. Most likely, it'd be squirrels again, but, with being by the river, Ani had made it possible for the food not to taste the same with every meal. Stews that would have been just water and meat became stews with chickweed and dandelion greens, something she called pineapple weed and knotweed, too. Daryl didn't care what the damn things were called; he just liked the fact that she was getting Lou used to some of the more bitter, but nutritional plants. He and Merle were used to eating whatever they could, but some of the things Ani had them eat tasted worse than canned spinach and sardines.

It didn't take Daryl long to find his brother's trail, the telltale signs of Catty's three-legged signs giving the man away as soon as he came across them. He managed to catch two mud snakes and a squirrel before he caught up to his brother, who had a small string of squirrels himself. Merle told him he didn't want to hunt too many since he wasn't planning on sharing anything he bagged with the camp anymore. What Merle caught was for Merle and his family and them alone; he was sick of being expected to help everyone when it came to hunting. Daryl wasn't so stingy about it, but did agree that they had to stop hunting for everyone if they expected to sustain a decent game population. Sure, squirrels reproduced as much as rabbits did, but that didn't mean they couldn't be hunted to scarcity. They needed to make sure that they didn't take more than they needed, and with the Hilltop's crops booming, it made it easier to say no to hunting for everyone else. No one was going to go hungry with a plate full of vegetables and eggs or the occasional chicken. If they caught something bigger, like a deer, that would be different as the five Dixons who could eat solids and Carl couldn't finish all of that meat before it went bad. Ani could dry some of it and turn it into jerky or can it, but there was no real point in doing that when there were so many others close by.

"Lookin' for me, baby brother?" Merle's voice called out, Daryl whipping around with his bow ready before realizing who it was.

"Man, that's a good way to get shot!" he told him angrily.

"I know you won't shoot me. Not unless you have to," Merle said with a shrug. "'Sides, I ain't the one who spotted you."

"Dada!" Lou called out, his head and hands popping out from behind Merle, who was working on untying the knot to the sling.

"Hey, bug," Daryl said, a smile on his face as he walked up to his brother and helped him get his son down. "You enjoy huntin' with your uncle?"

Lou didn't say anything, just smiled, as Merle informed him, "Yeah, he didn't mind comin' out here, but the damn kid kicked me in the kidney. If Ani teaches him that ninja shit of hers, he's gonna be beatin' our asses in no time."

"Why'd he kick you?"

"Oh, got too close to a pheasant I didn't see and the damn thing flew up and surprised us both. Just happy he didn't start cryin'. Don't mind bein' around your kids, Darylina, but I can't calm 'em down for shit."

Daryl just scoffed and asked, "Where's Catty?"

"Bitch ran off after a fox. Doubt she'll catch it, but she's gotten pretty fast for only havin' three legs."

"Didn't Reese have a three-legged dog way back when?"

"Oh, yeah," Merle said, remembering one of their old 'friends,' a man they mostly used for free booze and a place to stay. "That son of a bitch would chase cars. Prolly how 'e lost his leg."

Daryl just hummed at his words as they started making their way back towards camp, the going being slow as Lou walked between them. Merle chattered away, remembering the old times and everything stupid choice they'd made back in the old world. They were both pretty happy with how much they'd changed and how neither of them could believe the way their lives had gone. They were both still surprised that either of them had found women and actually had been able to be in stable, healthy relationships, though Merle's was short-lived thanks to the war. Lou, Hunter, and Bowie were blessings they never thought they'd ever have with how much they'd messed up in their younger days. Merle joked about how Daryl needed to knock Ani up again and try for a girl since there were five Dixon boys now. The five of them outnumbered the two Dixon girls, but Merle saying they should try to even it out made Daryl pale. He told Merle that if he wanted a girl to be born to a Dixon, he should hurry up and find himself a wife and knock her up because he and Ani didn't want any more. At least, he certainly hoped Ani didn't want any more after the accident of getting pregnant before Lou was even a year old. They hadn't really talked about it yet, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to try for another kid even if the thought of having a little girl was heartwarming.

They got back to camp to see Ani standing in front of a freshly lit fire with the twins laying in the pack and play she'd moved out of the tent. They were doing tummy time as she flitted about the camp and took clothes off the laundry line they had set up. Lou immediately tried to run up to her, falling after three quick steps and switching to crawling as fast as he could to her. Ani laughed and picked him up when he got closer, spinning around with him as his little giggles filled the air around them. Merle was smiling like the buffoon he was while Daryl's small smile spread even further, walking over to his wife to give her a small kiss. None of them really spoke as they went about their business, the brothers getting to work skinning and cleaning their game while Ani went back to the laundry. She eventually went over to the twins and rolled them over before going into the tent for their cooking rig. She also brought out their larger cast iron skillet and a jar of lard, positioning the rig and getting the lard started on melting. While they could still make butter thanks to the cows and goats from the Hilltop and Kingdom, Ani preferred using lard from the larger animals the Dixons hunted themselves. She had them cut the meat into pieces before frying it with some wild herbs and flowers, creating a kind of stir-fry they all enjoyed before settling in for the night.