If I can't find you
I'll wait on down the hill,
And if you don't find me
I'll think you've been killed,
And if you don't find me
I'll run on down the road,
Find me the sheriff
Tell him what I know,
Find me the preacher and pray for your soul.
No safe place child,
No safe place child,
No safe place child,
No safe place child,
We don't know why,
We don't know why,
Come back my baby,
Come back alive.
-Mikey-
"Regret coming to help yet?"
Mikey pressed a damp cloth against Jenny's sweat soaked forehead, trying not to look at her with too much sympathy for fear of a smack from the huffing infirmary patient.
"No," she answered stubbornly, attempting to sit up in the squeaky clinic bed she'd been confined to, somehow ending up buried even further in the pillows. "And wipe that sorry look off your face."
Mikey leaned back in his chair, leaving the cloth on her head so he could cover his face while he coughed. "It's just my normal face."
"Haha," Jenny groaned.
Then she furrowed her brow, a slightly similar expression to his coming to her face.
"...you don't sound too good either."
"I'm alive."
Jenny turned away from him, grimacing. "Carl asked me to come and look out for RJ and the rest of you... now I'm just another person taking up antibiotics."
One of the many other inflicted patients glared daggers from their bed.
Jenny noticed, not too weak to flip them off. "Fuck you, too, Meryl."
Mikey chuckled. He reached for the knife on her bedstand, but she flicked his hand away.
"Do you really need that?"
"I do."
Mikey offered a sorry smile, standing up. "Get better, okay?"
She nodded. "I survived the end of the world like the rest of you... and I was down a leg. A cold's not taking me out."
Mikey stepped out onto the infirmary porch, weaving through the long line of sick residents that had grown since this morning. He moved to the side that overlooked the lake, tilting his head up to feel the sun against his droopy face.
Jenny wasn't wrong. He felt awful.
"Mikey!"
He looked to see Gabriel storming down the street towards the town hall, beckoning him to follow.
By the time Mikey caught up, Gabriel had stopped where Carol, Daryl, and Lydia were sitting at the playground on the lawn out front of the town hall. Aaron had finished building for the kids last month. It was one of those projects you do when you're worried you might break something otherwise— he seemed angry while he was putting it together and even angrier when he was done.
"What's going—?" Mikey tried.
"You put us all at risk!" Gabriel barked over him at Carol, who didn't look sorry for whatever she'd done.
"We have to find that horde before it shows up at our gates," Carol snapped back at him.
"So you decide for all of us? Knowing what it could mean?"
"The heck's going on?" Mikey asked a little louder this time.
"Carol little outing with Daryl yesterday," Gabriel explained like a 3rd-grade teacher talking to his slowest student. "It was supposed to be to look for Negan... instead, they came back this morning with a Whisperer they just so happened to take prisoner out there!"
"Lydia said he tends to their walkers," Carol sighed as if everyone else was two steps behind her. "He'll know where to find the horde."
Gabriel threw his hands up in frustration. "That's not the point!"
"Doesn't matter anymore," Daryl grunted. "We still gotta find that horde."
Gabriel's mouth hadn't managed to un-ajar itself over the last minute. He stared at Mikey, who crumpled his nose in an 'I'm annoyed, too' kinda way, hoping it would be enough to sooth the priest.
"A member of the council will be in there with you at all times," Gabriel told them. "And Siddiq will treat his wounds first."
"He bleeds until he answers," Carol hissed with a grimace so foul it could deceive a walker.
"That's not up to you," Mikey told her calmly.
"None of this is," Gabriel followed up harshly. "You did what you did, but I'm not gonna let it go from bad to worse... agreed Mikey?"
He turned to him.
Mikey cleared his throat, feeling a little light-headed from all the conflict. He nodded.
"I think Carl, Michonne, and the rest of the council would agree," Gabriel added.
Carol didn't try to hide the scowl that told them that she didn't agree.
Instead, she looked at Lydia. "C'mon, you can stay with me."
She snatched her arm before Lydia could argue and marched off towards Michonne's house. Daryl followed.
Mikey was on the roof of a house that once belonged to him.
Belonged to his family.
They loved their roof terrace.
His mom would often sit up here and smoke when the stress got to be too much, and she thought no one would notice.
His dad used to go here to read.
His brothers would smoke, too, because they thought their mom wouldn't get it.
Mikey was pretty sure he was the only one that knew she did.
Then Carl lived here.
His family.
Only most of them weren't here.
It made Mikey jealous sometimes.
Carol tapped his shoulder as she stepped out onto the terrace through the bedroom window, and Mikey turned from looking at the spot his dad's reading chair used to be in.
Lydia was leaning on the half-wall that overlooked Alexandria's crop fields. Carol went to stand beside her, offering a small pot of antiseptic cream.
"I've had worse," Lydia said, ignoring the pot as much as she was the bruises Gage and the others had given her.
Carol placed it on the wall, sliding it towards her. "Me, too."
Mikey watched. He knew Carol had been a mother once. Then again, with Henry. But he also knew Carol; who she was without all of that.
"The Whisperer we captured," she asked, "what else do you know about him?"
"Only that he won't betray my mom. The ones that watch the horde are loyal... she gave them no choice."
"Neither will I," Carol said with an icy bite to her words.
Mikey started to wonder why he was invited to this rooftop meeting.
"You can't just torture him," Mikey said, taking a step towards them.
"They attacked us," Carol snapped at him. "They brought this on themselves."
"Gabriel will never go for it."
"Has that stopped us before?" Carol hissed.
Lydia squinted at her.
"If you pitch it," Carol went on to him. "If you're the one to suggest it, Gabriel might bite."
Mikey exhaled irritably. He turned to Lydia. "What else?"
"People will die, right?"
Carol was quiet, but Mikey nodded.
"There's no other way now," he said. "I've tried. We have."
"I hate them," Lydia said miserably. "But I know them, too."
Carol chewed at her bottom lip like she felt bad for her, but she went on anyway.
"Alpha drew a line... and you need to choose which side you're on."
Lydia crinkled her brow, eyes wet as she looked away and towards Alexandria's crops. Carol and Mikey kept watching her. "I wish I'd left with Henry when he asked."
Mikey remembered Rhys telling him something similar.
"So do I," Carol said.
Lydia turned back to the two of them. "My mom twists people. Gets them to do what she wants. Make them think it's what they want. People obey because they think they have no other choice. But if you let him see what you have here..."
Her eyes drifted back to Alexandria. Mikey's followed this time.
"...that a place like this can survive..."
He saw it in the way she saw it this time, her words painting a new picture.
"... an idea like that is dangerous..."
Carol looked, too, seeing it. Maybe she always had.
"...It would spread..."
Mikey swallowed.
"...and there's nothing my mom could do to stop it."
Mikey and Carol left Lydia on the roof to nurse her wounds with the balm. Before they set off, Carol prepared an array of jellies and slices of bread on a small wooden tray, covering it with a white cloth.
On their way to the cell Negan had escaped from only the other day, Carol asked Mikey something.
"Sure you can go through with this?"
He stopped; she did, too. Her probing expression didn't change.
"What do you think I've been doing?"
She smiled with pressed lips, not really smiling at him.
"You've changed," Carol told him. "I'm not saying you haven't."
"Then what are you saying?"
"It's only going to get worse from here," she told him. "You used to be soft."
"So did you."
She smiled at him and he felt patronised.
"I'm not weak, Carol."
"I didn't say that," she sighed. "You've just always been... emotional."
"That's not changing."
"Then?" She raised an eyebrow. "Can you go through with everything that's gonna happen."
Mikey paused. "We'll find out."
They spotted Siddiq then, passing them on the sidewalk without so much as a word.
"Hey!" Mikey called out, stopping him. "Did you fix up the Whisperer?"
Siddiq looked at them. He was sweating, eyes sunken and glazed, like he wasn't really there with them.
"Dante..." his voice was hoarse. "Dante's got it."
"Everything okay?"
Siddiq nodded. "I just need to check on some patients."
"When did you last sleep?" Carol asked.
"When did you?" he chuckled.
She didn't answer that.
"Sorry," Siddiq sighed, rubbing his eyes. "I need to figure out what's causing this sickness before anyone dies."
"You will," Mikey said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Carol nodded. "In the meantime, we'll figure out where they're hiding this horde."
The smell in the small cell was rank.
Daryl and Gabriel were waiting in the small space before the bars.
Beyond those bars was him.
A skinny man with curly grey hair and a dirty goatee watched them with intense, beady eyes from his seat on the bed.
Daryl opened the unlocked gate and Carol strode in, putting the wooden tray down on a short table beside the man before dragging a chair across the room to sit before him.
He watched her, amused, glancing up as Mikey went to stand behind her. Then to Daryl as he put his back against the wall under the cell window. Then he looked to Gabriel, who stayed by the door.
"Let's get started," Carol hummed, whipping the cloth off the tray.
The Whisperer looked at the food, his brow creasing in confusion.
"So, what's it gonna be?" Carol's pitch was all high and chipper. "Honey or jam? Strawberry or apple?"
"Apple," Mikey said with a smile. "Alexandria's orchard is older than the walls, and we make some killer good sandwiches with them."
The man sat forward and into the sunlight that poured in from the window. Mikey saw the white gauze covering the wound Carol gave him out there, contrasted by the filthy grey vest he wore.
His eyes were fixed on the food.
"All of it," he said.
"Not a problem," Carol told him as she dug in with a knife and began to coat the bread with coloured jams. "For lunch, I was thinking salted fish. I like to wrap it in a fresh piece of lettuce, add a little—"
"What do you want?" he asked suddenly.
"Well, right now, we're just gonna talk," Carol said.
He grimaced at her. "Pass."
She shrugged. "Okay."
She passed him the fresh bread. Then, eat."
The Whisperer's arms trembled as he took it from her with both hands, slowly bringing it up to his face, where he inhaled and let out a quiet whimper.
He bit into it, staying with his teeth sunken into the dough, his eyes watering as he continued to make faint sounds of delight. He stuffed it all in without chewing.
Carol watched.
They all did.
"Good?" she asked.
The Whisperer looked up, cheeks filled. That was until he retched and spat it back out, coating Carol in wet chunks of jelly and bread and slobber.
"No," he growled.
Carol's shoulder suddenly relaxed.
Her posture slumped.
Before anyone could blink, she lunged forward and slammed the Whisperer's head into the wall behind him.
He let out a winded gasp as she stood over him and threw her fist into his stomach.
Gabriel took a step forward, but Mikey held out a hand.
Carol turned away to grab the cloth from the stool and wipe her face.
"Where's the horde?" she uttered at him over her shoulder.
The Whisperer sat himself upright, staying silent and unphased.
Carol spun around, ripping the bandage off his shoulder and driving her thumb into the wound.
He groaned in agony as she dug around inside his shoulder like she was looking for something.
"Tell me," she growled into his face.
He moaned and slumped his head forward. When he looked back up, he was grinning.
"Lady, you have the animal in you," he panted. "If we were out there, I would take you like a bitch in heat."
She took her finger out of his shoulder, reaching into her pocket to grab her wedding ring and put it on.
She struck him across the face with the metal.
He fell to his side on the bed, pulling himself upright only for Carol to hit him again.
Blood sprayed from his busted lip and flicked across the wall.
Carol dragged him up this time and hit him again.
His cheek was bruised and bloody, and she raised her hand again, but Daryl caught it.
"That's enough," he said.
Carol walked over to the corner closest to the Whisperer, watching with short, heavy breaths.
He sat himself back up and looked around at them.
"You're all weak."
Daryl drew his knife real slow.
"I'ma start with your fingers first," he grunted, pointing with the tip of his sharp blade. "Then both your ears. I'm gonna take all your teeth."
"You lie to yourselves..."
The Whisperer droned, sounding genuinely bitter.
"To each other..."
He glanced at each one, ending on Mikey.
"You fight for what? Sandwiches?"
He laughed as Daryl snatched his hand, pinning it against the wall above his head. He pressed the knife edge to one of the man's fingers.
But the Whisperer didn't stop preaching.
"You ignore the truth when it's staring you in the face. I would never betray Alpha. She rescued me. She protects me. She loves me. She loves us all! She sacrificed her own daughter for us."
There was this unsettling energy that settled in the room after he said that. They all exchanged looks that the man cared not enough to notice.
"She killed Lydia?" Carol asked.
"She did," he hummed. "And I am willing to give my life for her."
Daryl, Mikey, and Gabriel had to chase Carol out of the cell and onto the street, only managing to stop her on the steps to Michonne's house above.
"Stop," Daryl hissed low enough that the prisoner wouldn't hear.
"This ends now," she whispered.
"You are not getting Lydia mixed up in this."
"He swallowed every ounce of Alpha's bullshit... every ounce," she hissed. "If he sees that Lydia is alive and well and gets it that his great leader lied to him, then maybe that changes something."
"Please..." Daryl begged. "That kid's been through enough."
Carol shook her head. "Let her make up her own mind. This is the only way, and you know it."
"No," Mikey hissed at her finally. "Daryl's right."
Carol glared at him.
"I think Carol's right," Gabriel sighed. "I didn't like what happened in there, but if this will break him..."
"It will," Carol declared.
Gabriel nodded. "Go get her."
It took a while, but Carol eventually came back out with Lydia in tow.
"You don't have to do this," Daryl told her.
She shrugged, hugging herself. "But I'm the only one that can, right?"
"That's right," Mikey sighed.
"Then I do," she told them.
But it didn't matter.
They heard screaming from the cell...
They rushed down the steps...
But by the time they got there...
The Whisperer was dead.
"Get her out of here!" Daryl barked at Carol, who rushed Lydia back out.
The Whisperer was cradled in Siddiq's arms, with Gabriel standing over them, a bewildered look in his eye. Dante was crouched beside them with the medical kit, covered in blood.
"What happened?" Mikey shouted.
"He just—" Dante stuttered. "He was coughin' up so much blood, I don't..."
Siddiq reached into the open bag by Dante's knees, pulling out a small jar of herbs.
"This morning..." he frowned, looking at the jar. "Did you give this to him?"
"Y- Yeah," Dante said, nodding. "For pain and inflammation!"
"You killed him," Siddiq said slowly.
"How?" Dante asked, scoffing disbelievingly at the idea. "No, that's yarrow."
"It's hemlock," Siddiq said with no trace of forgiveness for the mistake.
Dante's head snapped around the room to everyone in panic. "I- I didn't know! I thought..."
Daryl grimaced. Gabriel placed his head in his hands. Mikey stared at the body on the floor.
"What?" Siddiq pushed angrily. "You thought what?"
"I never thought hemlock would be in the bag because, um..."
"Because what, Dante?"
"Because you packed it, doc."
A/N
Song: Come Back Alive by Delta Rae