Before

Her first night with the Civic Republic brought back her dreams.

They landed outside the city just before dusk and planned to camp on the bank of the river for the night. Aside from herself, only one other person from the hospital accompanied them. Percy volunteered to leave as collateral just as she had, though his motives were unclear.

There was a small encampment there already, men in fatigues enlisted to keep the helipad and dock clear. Just men.

The uniforms reminded her of those worn at Grady and she fitfully fell into a light sleep, dreaming of wandering hands and the too-sweet flavor of artificial apples. When she jerked awake just before dawn she found herself being stared at. Whether it was from the sounds she made in her sleep, her scars, or something else, it unsettled her to the point that she felt the need to be armed. Okafor had confiscated her only blade before she got on the chopper, promising she'd get it back should the need arise. Not having it on her person made her hands twitch.

She glared back at those staring at her until the Major cleared his throat, startling her. The pair were still unsure of each other; the man not giving up anything about the place they were going, and the girl not giving up anything about her past or why she wanted to leave it behind her so harshly. She tore her eyes away from him at the sound of walkers approaching from behind them.

The bozos in camouflage all raised their weapons to begin firing on the handful of dead who came around the corner of a building. Idiots , she thought as the sound started to draw more of them from all directions.

She sighed and turned back toward the terse man, holding out her hand. He looked her up and down before removing her knife from his belt and handing it to her.

Now

She didn't manage to reach a deep sleep before waking with the sun. It poured through her wall-length windows to brighten the room. She liked it that way–refused to cover the sunrise with curtains when she could watch it bring on the day. It was a better alternative anyway, to the scenes that had been playing through her unconscious mind. She dreamed of running through the forest with death on her heels and a protective presence beside her. Going nowhere and yet towards something it was suddenly dark and she was alone, crying out into the abyss where no one could hear her.

It'd been years since she'd had that type of dream, and she blamed it on the recent events and arrivals. It had been easy to shove thoughts of them all to the side in the beginning. She had been so mad at them–still was–but it had been hard to quell the relief she felt when one of the teams came back with news of them from an outside contact. It was different, easier, when she finally saw one of them again. Treated Rick like any other consignee other than to make sure he made it through. She saw the reports on him from Okafor and the others, not surprised that he was both the highest ranked in both delt kills and number of escapes.

She set her own eyes on him a few times, all from a distance. Very few outside of the Council and High Command knew of her connection to the man and that was the way she wanted it to certainly didn't want the man in question to find out until his Echelon briefing. At that point she would know for certain that he would be amenable to the mission and all it entailed.

Once he looked directly at her, and even with the distance of a courtyard she thought she might be found out. But she either didn't register on his radar, or she'd changed so much over time that she was now unrecognizable to him from afar. How right that was.

The Councilor stood from the bed and started stripping off her remaining clothes, walking to the fancy shower before cleaning herself. She tried to imagine how the interrogation would go that morning. She knew the type of things the old Rick would say and ask of her, but they conflicted with both her new position and his previous (current?) loyalty to the CRM. However, she surmised that he was feeling even more conflicted than her at the moment.

After stepping from the shower and drying herself hastily, she redressed in clean clothes to her usual attire: a mix of the robes the Council wore while in session and the uniform of the CRM, lest anyone forget who she is. She then towel dried her shoulder length hair and worked it into the tight bun that showed off her features just the way she liked, doing the tasks by memory as there was no mirror in this particular bathroom. To finish the look she pulled on a pair of fitted gloves, completing the full coverage of her skin from her collar down.

With her pale, slicked back hair and ghostly skin contrasting the black, she looked a child-villian from a book she'd read as a child. The scars were something he had to if she remembered correctly, though none as prominent as the ones on her face. Funnily enough, he'd had something to do with green as well.

She blinked herself out of the thoughts of a silly little farm girl and exhaled loudly. She double checked herself for her weapons and her PRB before leaving the apartment and the building altogether.

She made a decision in the shower that was going to anger a lot of people, but would probably be the best in terms of getting Grimes back on her side. Their side. Beside, there were cameras in the holding cells that could be pulled for the official record.

Councilor Greene strode briskly to the far side of the encampment, nearly the same path she followed the previous night but in reverse. Once she entered the Cascadia Base headquarters, she headed towards the holding but ducked left towards the cells instead of the interrogation rooms on the right. It only took her a moment to look down the hall and guess which rooms were occupied. They didn't even staff this hall unless there were prisoners, so the two armed guards standing across from each other halfway down stood out like sore thumbs.

She didn't recognize the pair, but they certainly knew her as they both straightened and ignored the stiff muscles they must have had from standing all night on guard. She did not greet them but to say, "Grimes?"

The taller of the two men stood ever taller before gesturing to the door behind him. "In here, ma'am. He's been quiet all night."

She pursed her lips and nodded to him. "Open it." His eyes widened a fraction but he obeyed, knowledgeable enough not to question here. He pulled keys from a ring on his belt and swung the door open. The woman quickly inserted herself on the other side of the frame and shut it behind her.

Grimes was sitting on the small cot placed on the middle of the back wall of the space with his head in his hands. She would not be surprised if that is how he sat all night long. It took her clearing her throat before he looked up at her, blue eyes wide and searching her face. She tried to maintain a look of nonchalance but it became harder the longer he openly looked at her, as if he was trying to determine if it really was her.

She let him stare and stayed quiet. She would like him to be the first to speak, to set the tone for this conversation. To see if her theories of it from earlier would be fact or fiction. His eyes took her in from top to bottom and back one more time before he finally spoke. "You're part of the Council?" The members rarely interacted with the general masses, but everyone knew that they existed.

"I created the Council," she said plainly. He blinked in surprise, as she expected so she continued. "It was one of the correct decisions at the prison. No one person gains too much power."

He cocked his head at her and squinted. "Looks like you have quite a bit." She smirked up one side of her mouth as he went on. "How long have you been here?"

The small smile fell as she went back to her uncaring face. "I arrived here about the time you did in Alexandria. The CRM had eyes there before you even stepped foot inside."

"That doesn't sound like Deanna," he frowned and looked confused.

She held back the instinct to roll her eyes. "It wasn't her." She considered him before continuing. "You know the history of the CRM?"

He nodded. "Some of it. Whatever I was allowed to know."

It would do no harm to fill him in on the details. Besides, she needed him to understand. This mess up was likely the final straw with the rest of the Council, and he was going to have to agree to keep his pulse going. "At the start it was just one man trying to run the city with the help of what was left of the military."

"Okafor."

She frowned. "Yes, Okafor. And eventually Beale. But it was a mess. Roger Murray, was the unofficial leader for the survivors. He was a car salesman who people recognized. They forgot how shady car salesmen were, apparently. He was more concerned with the image he wanted to create of the 'Civic Republic' for the citizens and left everything else to the soldiers, namely a general named Marvin Walters. Okafor did what he could but–" she paused. "Walters and his men did what they wanted to whoever they wanted. They set up agreements with different people and communities, trading for information or supplies or people . He kept herds away from some communities and sent them to others. They thought the people he brought in would end up in the city but," she breathed, "he had other uses for them as well."

The man across from her sat quiet while she regalled him with the history, eyes intense and focused on each word. "When I got here things were already starting to come to a head. I just helped to…push it over the edge. Murray claimed to know nothing about what Walters was doing and the city believed him," she said with a sneer. "But the council was established and what remained of the military became the CRM, with Beale and Okafor leading."

"And you somehow got a seat on the Council?" He had to know that she played an important role in the switch in order to score the position.

"Mhm," she nodded. "I had more than a few ideas for the new Civic Republic, ones that the others involved with the takedown agreed with. The Council, like I mentioned," she just shy of bragging as she listed them off. "For the military to live separate from the civilians. The people in that city are soft, we're not. It's not a good mix. Better for them to be ignorant of what we do to keep them safe. Keep them safe from the type of people we have to be to keep them ignorant. Information is dangerous."

He studied her for a moment. "How is that different than what Walters did?"

She looked at him scornfully and sighed. "Because there's no one-person making the decisions. There's no out of control military doing whatever the hell they want." She paused. "And because we have a real mission that's more than just getting by day to day." He looked at her expectantly. "You were supposed to get a promotion and the Echelon Briefing when you returned from the last mission. Now I have to give them a reason to not kill you for fucking up again."

He looked down, ashamed maybe? More likely apathy. For all he knew, she was the one keeping him from returning to his wife and family. "Why?"

She cocked her head to the side and deliberated on how she wanted to answer. It was the one question she'd been expecting without any doubt, and yet she surprised herself by not having an answer rehearsed beforehand. "I'll admit when you arrived here I didn't expect to interact with you at all, or put any effort into converting you to what we're doing here. I knew you were too headstrong for that," she professed. "But then you kept trying to leave, to go back to that disastrous group you'd left behind and it hit me."

She paused purely for dramatic effect. "I realized that if we could get you on our side, nothing would stop you from your role in completing our mission."

"What's the mission?"

She smiled, as real of one as she gave anymore, and said in a lively tone. "Tsk, tsk, Sergeant Major Grimes. You lost everyone's trust with this stunt you and Michonne pulled. You have to earn it back now if you want the Echelon Briefing"

He sighed heavily, and when he looked up at her again he'd aged somehow. "What happened to you, Beth?"

The Councilor snorted and rolled her eyes. "What hasn't, Rick."