The voices around her were like mumbles, echoing through the empty holes of her mind. Isaac and Noah have been spending time together, not doing or saying anything, but getting used to the new company around them. Ace hadn't tried speaking to know where yet—there was nothing for her to say. The idea made her feel a little wrong. Usually, she'd have been spending her time trying to get to know all the people around her, but the more she thought about it, the more dread entered her chest.
At that moment, as they had stopped on the side of the road for the night, Noah had been telling Isaac what his community was like. The same details Rick had given, with a little more nostalgia thrown into the mix. He was talking about his family, his mother and two brothers that they left at the group.
While Noah talked about returning to his family, Ace could see a hesitancy behind Isaac's eyes. This is basically the same scenario he had when he was brought to the prison, except that he wasn't brought as a prisoner. We will get back to them, Isaac had told him, but still, there was always that concern that lingered from losing his mother.
Noah then went on to talk about why he left them there in the first place. One day, his uncle went missing after leaving the community, which led Noah and his father to chase after him. When they made it to Atlanta, they were ambushed, and his father was left behind for a day while he was taken to the hospital, he'd been trying to get out and get back to his community ever since.
There was a brief talk about his time with Beth, at the hospital. From the moment she got there. She has been trying to help him. They almost made it out together, but Beth was grabbed before she could slip through the gate. Noah had to leave her behind. He's been running from the police officers when he met Daryl and Carol.
Isaac worked out what happened from there.
Switching to light a topic, he decided to ask Noah about school. On a lighter note, they talked about their friends, their favourite subjects, and the aspirations they had for after graduation, if any. Noah hadn't considered anything, but Isaac wanted to pursue his art. He didn't know how he could've made a living out of it, but it was something he wanted to try.
Ace caught snippets of the conversation, But never really tried to include herself. Any of her hobbies became a job when the world ended, and she didn't want to ruin the mood with her, she was too burned out to continue any of them. Her aspirations also came from a place of sadness, and she was not in the right mind to bring that up.
As she crossed her arms, her eyes closed as she leaned back against the tree. Sleeping had come in the small segment of naps on the car ride, but sometimes it was just too hot or uncomfortable or bumpy for her to have gotten all the rest she needed. On top of that, she hadn't slept through the full night for as long as she could remember, waking up at random intervals every few hours. She knew she'd have to get used to this feeling.
Her attention was brought back to reality when she heard footsteps nearing her, and to make sure, Daryl tapped the side of her shoe, with his own. "Comin'?"
He got the attention of both the boys beside her. Noah looked away when he realised that Daryl wasn't speaking to him, but Isasc kept staring at them, mainly wondering where they could be going as the group was settling down to camp for the night. It was probably something he'd hate, but that didn't stop him from being curious.
"Hunting?" She asked tiredly.
"Yeah."
After a moment of contemplation, she shrugged, and gave a nod. "Yeah, okay."
Daryl lowered a hand to her and helped her get off the ground, and Ace winced as she put the weight on her bad leg. "Okay?"
"Fine," she answered after a moment.
He nodded and waited for her to get used to being on her feet after being sat down for so long. Eventually, she blew out a sigh and slowly shifted her weight on both of her feet. He could see the pain resting in the creases on her face but decided to just let her get used to it so she could come with it.
"Here," he held out a rifle.
"Not the best idea," Ace raised her wrapped hand, reminding him of her injury. There's no way she'd be able to hold a gun with her left wrist sprained, not with the kickback of a rifle, she'd probably just hurt herself even more than she was.
"Take it," Daryl offered again. "We'll work something out."
Ace was skeptical, but took the gun anyway, pulling the strap over her shoulder. She grabbed her bag from the ground beside her and placed it in the car, not wanting to take the bright yellow bag on a hunt, but putting it away in case anything happened and they had to get on the move very fast. Daryl just waited for her before they headed off to the woods across the road to hunt.
The silence didn't escape him, but it wasn't unwelcome. If Ace had been her regular upbeat self he wasn't sure he could have brought her on the hunt. It was exhausting for him to be around the rest of the group, and his hunting trips were becoming more regular just to get some time to himself.
This wasn't a hunting trip in the sense that they needed food, not that Ace was aware because she stopped keeping tabs on their resources shortly after rejoining the rest of the group. He just wanted to give her a break, get her away from the group for a while so she wasn't under the watch of all the prying eyes.
Carol was the one to tell him what happened when he got back from the hunt, how Ace tried to let Eugene get eaten by a walker. It surprised him a little; he was aware that Eugene lied, but Ace had suspected that from the beginning. He was concerned until Rick informed him about what happened with the bus and the fact that Ace had given up on some of her duties due to a lack of trust.
Everything had been calming down since that day at the inn, but inside, Ace was still seething. He wanted to get her away from the worried glances she'd often received from Rick and give her the space she needed to clear her head. Ace was typically a talkative person who often cracked a lot of jokes, and the change in her attitude was concerning.
It worried Daryl too, but he knew that she just needed time to get over what happened. There was a chance that she would never forgive Eugene, (and she didn't have to) but constantly being around him all the time wasn't going to help her accept the fact that he was a part of their group now, whether she liked it or not.
Not only that, but he knew that she hated being idle, sitting around and not being able to do anything, so he was able to give her something to do while setting a slow place that wouldn't put her in too much discomfort as they walked around.
Ace adjusted the strap of the rifle before placing her hand behind her neck and tilting her head back. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms up to relieve the aching that was growing in her muscles from sleeping in the back of a car or on the ground.
Daryl stopped when he heard a skittering nearby, his eyes flicking around the nearby area. On a tree, far enough away that the small creature didn't notice them, a squirrel ran around the stump before settling on the junction where the branch met the log.
"There," he said in a hushed tone.
Ace gave him a look and lifted her hand again to show him the injury as a way of saying, how do you expect me to shoot like this? He blew out a breath through his nose and shook his head, before grabbing her elbow to bend it at a 90-degree angle in front of her, before propping the rifle up in the crook of her elbow.
She was unsure but tried for a second to aim the rifle to the squirrel that was still on the tree. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't keep her arm steady enough to keep the sight on the animal that hadn't noticed their presence. After a moment or two of trying, she started to get frustrated and blew out a breath, shaking her head. "This isn't going to work."
Daryl gave a nod and scanned the area, before nodding for her to follow him. Ace lowered the rifle down from her elbow and quietly stepped after him, her movements slow to watch her step to not scare away the small creature.
He squatted down behind a stump, whispering to Ace. "Prop it up."
Ace knelt on the ground beside him, putting the gun on top of the fallen tree stump. For a second she suffered through aiming the rifle with her bad hand as she got used to having to aim from the back of the gun with her right hand and trying to tuck her body in a way that she could see through the scope. When she finally lined herself up, Daryl stepped in.
"Use your good hand to keep it tight as you shoot, don't wanna hurt yourself," he reminded her, pushing the gun tight against her shoulder to help to begin with. "Got it?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Think so."
He took his hand back, his eyes returning to the animal in front of them that had now scurried down the tree and was scavenging along the ground. Ace breathed out, turning her body to turn the gun and follow the creature. When it paused on the ground, she pulled the trigger, and the bullet landed in the ground, sending pieces of dirt flying up and the squirrel shooting off.
"Fuck's sake!" She snapped to herself, blowing out a long breath. "Fucking useless!"
Part of her wanted to say that he should have just come out here alone because all she was doing was scaring away the wildlife with her terrible aim. Then she took a second, calming herself down. Daryl didn't need her yelling at him, not after losing Beth.
"S'aright," he said. "Not your fault."
He was right. Ace had once gotten good at hunting, getting some time to practise when they lived at the prison. The problem now was that she couldn't keep the gun steady with her left hand, and aiming was nearly impossible. She'd have to have practised for months to get good at aiming a rifle with one hand, whether it be propped on a tree or her own arm.
Daryl nodded his head for her to follow so they could continue the hunt. (Or, at least, he could.) Daryl was able to catch more, a couple of squirrels, rabbits, and even a possum that Ace cringed at the thought of having to eat. Still, he was able to do so much more than she was, which made her wonder why he even invited her in the first place.
Back at the camp, Isaac had been keeping an eye out for her return. He wasn't sure about the idea of Ace going on a hunt with all of her injuries, knowing that something else could happen or she could just become more injured.
Isaac knew that Daryl would do whatever he could to keep her safe, but still, he couldn't stop the bad thoughts that entered his mind—it was just a part of the OCD. He had to pull out his sketchbook to try and relax, but even then he was just flicking through the pages without even seeing any of the drawings.
"Are you okay?" Noah asked, bringing Isaac back to the world around them.
"Oh, uh, yeah," he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just . . . they aren't back yet."
"I mean, they're hunting," Noah shrugged. "Can't imagine it's an easy thing to do. Besides, you never get this panicked when it's just Daryl."
Isaac turned pink, and he looked away. "Yeah, well . . ."
"Nah, I'm messing with you," Noah smiled. "I get it."
He didn't know enough about him to argue. Maybe his feelings about Ace were more obvious than he realised. Noah had already been in the group for a few days and he was making the same jokes that Zach would have been making whenever they hung out.
"We aren't together or anything," Isaac confirmed. "She's just a friend."
"Sure," Noah joked but quickly moved on. "I suppose getting away might be good for her. I mean, I don't know what happened but she seems a little off."
"It's been a lot," he confirmed.
"Well, I wouldn't worry about it," the other shrugged.
Isaac let out a breathy chuckle. "That's easier said than done."
"I know people say it a lot, but I'm sure it's going to be fine."
"No, I mean I have OCD and not worrying about things is not one of my strong suits," Isaac explained.
"Oh," Noah's mouth was agape as he realised. "Sorry, man. I didn't know."
"No, I know." There was no way Noah could have known, Isaac hadn't said anything about it and he'd gotten to the point where it wasn't outwardly obvious that he was suffering. He was just trying to make a joke, that didn't land because he was telling it to the wrong audience. "And I don't mind that you're trying to help or anything. But telling me not to worry about it is probably not the way to go about it. It just doesn't work for me."
"What does work for you?" Isaac raised his sketchbook and Noah gave a nod. "Wait, that's really good."
"Thanks," he nodded.
"Can I see some more?" Noah asked.
Isaac nodded. He started on pages from before the apocalypse, and when they passed any of the scenery pictures, Noah noticed that they became more rundown and empty—the drawings were still amazing, but those were the scenes of the apocalypse if he'd ever seen it.
When Isaac reached a certain section, he grabbed the next bunch of pages and passed over them like he didn't want to look at them. Maybe he couldn't. Noah didn't know that those were all the pages he spent drawing his mother as they lived on the road.
The first picture of someone Noah recognised was Ace, which wasn't all that surprising to him. Probably when Isaac found the group that he was with now. The very next page was someone that he didn't think he'd get to see again.
"Is that Beth?"
"Back when we lived at the prison," Isaac nodded, before realising it might not be the best sketch to be showing Noah. "Sorry if it's a little weird. I'm just better at drawing people and drawing the people I saw used to help me practise. Now it's kind of a little way to remember them, I guess."
Noah shook his head. "I'd probably do the same if I was anywhere near that good at drawing. I get it."
Isaac continued to flip through the pages, passing people that Noah was familiar with and some people that he hadn't seen. Eventually, he got to the last page of drawings, when what Noah really recognised was the shirt he was wearing at that moment.
Noah raised a brow. "You got me in there?"
"I got bored the other night," Isaac gave a nod. "Needed someone else to draw, I guess."
"It's really good," Noah complimented again.
"Yeah, not much I can do with them, though," he shrugged, closing the book.
"At least you have some way to pass the time," Noah said. "Sometimes that's all they need to do."
Maybe so. Isaac used his time drawing as a way to ease his anxiety or some of the thoughts the OCD brought him, so maybe all they needed was to give him some time to himself. It reminded him of what Maggie told him in the church, that everything Ace once considered fun had now become a job. That couldn't necessarily happen with his hobby, at least he didn't think so.
Isaac saw the two figures across the road before Noah did, and they became clearer as they stepped into the sun. Ace and Daryl walked side by side as they crossed the road to return to the group, with some gains from their hunt, he could see hanging over Daryl's shoulder.
He audibly sighed when he saw that she was back, no worse for wear than when she left the group. Ace didn't meet his eyes, her stare blankly as Rick went to greet them. He watched as the man placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn't even look at him. Rick then turned to speak to Daryl as Ace slipped away.
Isaac rarely spoke to Rick, but in that moment, he felt for him. Ace and Rick had been inseparable for as long as he'd known them, but Ace had been distant ever since the church. He felt guilty that she'd forgiven him for his actions at the church, but she was still cold around Rick. (Though, she did hug him when she found out about Beth's death, and she was often unaware most of the time she spent around himself lately.)
Maybe she had forgiven Rick for whatever it was that made her angry, and she was just trying to get over the events of the last few days. Isaac, like many of the others, had stopped trying to figure out what Ace was thinking and instead just tried to be there for her.
"They're back," Noah said. "You can stop worrying for real now."
"I wish," Isaac grinned.
Ace grabbed her bag from the car when she returned, and took her coat out. She pulled her arms through the sleeves and went to sit on another tree away from the group. Isaac felt a little bad that she didn't come and sit with him and Noah again, but he realised that she probably wasn't even thinking about it and chose to sit down where she'd get the most privacy from the others.
Before night fell, they started a fire to cook the food. Rick didn't want the fire to start after nightfall so they didn't draw attention to themselves on the side of the road. Daryl and some of the others skinned the food, which Isaac shifted so he didn't have to watch.
"That's a problem?" Noah asked.
"I just keep thinking that one day he might ask me to help," Isaac frowned, looking down at the book. "And if I see how they cook it without being in a kitchen then there's a chance that I may not be able to eat it."
Noah frowned. "You lived on the road before, right?"
"Yeah, but my mom used to carry around a metal dish so we always had something to cook the meat in, and I had dish soap to clean it," Isaac explained. "I can't really ask them to make those changes for me. It's a little embarrassing and a lot of extra work. If I find a dish at some point then I'd cook my own meals so they didn't have to make that change for me. Right now it's just easier to not think about it."
"But you said you're still going to be thinking about it, right?" Noah raised a brow.
"Yup," Isaac popped the 'p'.
"I'm sorry, man. That sucks."
"Yeah, well . . ." Isaac trailed off.
He wanted to say that you get used to it, and maybe that was the truth, but it took him a long time to be able to do some of the things he was able to do now. If he were going to get used to living like this, then they'd have to be doing it for so long that it became a new norm. Even then, he'd probably have to crack out some of the techniques he was taught in therapy.
It was just easier at that point to hide what he was feeling or overthinking about until he was at a point where he could truly work on it. (Besides, after he'd fought through the meal, sleeping on the side of the road where something could easily kill him were the thoughts he often fell asleep to. It was like a cycle.)
"Kids," Tyreese called, standing before them. "Food."
"Thanks," Noah reached up to grab one of the dishes.
"Yeah, thanks," Isaac agreed.
He handed Isaac the dish, before pushing himself to stand up. "Do you guys need anything else? Water? Anything?"
"No, I'm good, thanks."
"No, thank you, though," Noah and Isaac answered at the same time.
Tyreese just nodded, wiping off his cargos. He didn't encroach on what they were talking about, try to make any other small talk to see if they were okay. It was too early after the incident at the hospital to pretend that everything was happy with Isaac and Noah. Maybe they shared some lighter moments, but there was always this sad overtone that covered them like a storm cloud that would just not go away. He gave them a small smile before going back to hand the food around to the others.
After their disaster of a hunting trip, they returned to the group with some food for the night. Ace slipped away to grab her coat before Daryl could ask her to help prepare the animals as he used to do after they went hunting. She wasn't in the mood to get all covered in blood.
She took her bag and sat down against one of the trees away from the group, facing off into the distance. This had been her routine recently, and it didn't escape the others how much time she had been taking away from the rest of the group. (Not that they didn't understand why she did what she did, but it worried them nonetheless). She would have considered being on watch if she were looking out for dangers.
Ace was becoming used to being redundant—the thing was, she never expected the group to need her once she quit her role in helping them as much as she had been. Abraham or Daryl filled the role of mechanic for her, and beyond that, she was only useful for killing walkers or going on runs, which almost everybody could do.
The place where she shined was being able to kill, and they didn't need that in their current state.
Of course, the point of it was to show them that they needed her, and her services would only come with the trust she assumed they had in her. But over time she realised that it didn't matter, that they didn't need her if the group wasn't in immediate peril.
Ace was like a weapon.
She didn't want to admit it, but the only way to prove herself wrong would be to go back to what she used to do, to fix cars or go on watch or be involved in the group and what happened. It would make it seem like she'd just forgotten everything that happened to her or why she quit in the first place.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she was just bored. She would have felt like this when they settled down for the night anyway because she rarely had anything to do once it went dark. Mechanics used to be a hobby for her, if she just messed around with random cars whenever they stopped for breaks she wouldn't be helping.
"Got you some food," Carl said.
Ace nodded and took the meat from him. "Thanks."
Carl sat down beside her, crossing his legs as Ace took small bites of her meal. It made it last longer, and made it seem like the small amount of meat wasn't the only thing she was going to be eating that night.
"You okay?"
Ace just shrugged. She'd never been one to fake smiles, because she hated the idea of lying to him if something was wrong. He hated her for it after she was beaten in the Winter because Ace just spent days quiet and unhappy, but sometimes she was just too exhausted to even hide what she felt. Carl was old enough now that he understood why she did it.
"Everything hurts," she mumbled after a while.
"I could see if anyone has any pills," Carl offered. "Maybe someone found something."
"It's okay," she shook her head. "I don't think we have anything."
They were running low on supplies, as much as she hated to admit it. Pills were slowly becoming one of the last things they needed, not a necessity like it used to be. Their priorities were shifting so much that it was starting to scare her.
Carl hadn't noticed it, she realised from his offer to find her pills. Maybe that was for the best, that he didn't have to be worried about it all the time. Though, if he were anything like her then he would be worried about it either way. Maybe he needed to worry about it, to get used to living on the road again.
As much as she struggled, she didn't like to admit that she wasn't sure how Carl felt about their living on the road over the Winter. It was never really something they spoke about. Ace hated it, the constant fear, everything that happened to her over the Winter. Worse has happened since then, but it was one of the first scenarios where she thought that she was going to die. Carl had only recently had those kinds of experiences.
She also didn't get to speak to him a lot after the claimers and what they almost did to him. Again, it wasn't something she'd ever want to bring up around him, because she'd been there. Ace had the fear that she'd be sexually assaulted at the bar when they met Tony and Dave, and she was glad that Rick had been there to save Carl as he was to save her.
"Are you okay?" Ace asked after a while of silence, the thoughts of everything that had happened to him so recently filling her mind.
Carl was quiet, and she saw his lip quiver slightly before he looked away. "I don't know."
"That's okay," she assured with a gentle nod.
"Yeah?" He glanced at her.
Ace placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him into her side. "Yeah."
Carl leaned against her, and once Ace removed his hat, his head came to rest just under her own. His hand came up to wipe the corner of his eye as Ace squeezed his arm, rubbing her hand up and down over the rough denim sleeve.
"You know I'm here for you whenever," Ace promised.
The more she thought about it, the more she realised that maybe Carl wasn't aware of that. At the prison, she was often too busy to spend time with him, and as she already remembered, they hadn't spoken since they found each other before Terminus. While she hadn't necessarily brushed Carl off, or ignored him in any way, they had just been distant recently.
But Carl needed her support.
He had so many responsibilities that were longer than any full-time job. Taking care of his sister was a big part of that, and while it should have been down to his dad in any regular scenario, Carl was the one to take the majority of the workload when it came to Judith. Maybe he didn't see it as a job, but Ace knew that it was. Taking care of children is hard, and time-consuming, and it isn't something you can just take a break from. Not in their current scenario.
Maybe Michonne had Judith now, but when they hit the road the next day, she knew that Carl would be the first one to take care of her. The adults were often driving or reading maps or working, unable to help, which Ace knew was wrong. If she thought that she could have dealt with the constant care of Judith without getting frustrated or snapping at her, then she would have taken the job herself.
"Talk to me," she begged in a whisper, realising now just what Carl had to do with what should have been his youth.
Carl shrugged, his shoulders bumping her own. "I hope Noah's community is still around. We need somewhere to live."
Ace couldn't say that she had the same hopes, but she understood why everyone wanted the end of this journey to lead somewhere. She kept her hopes down on the front of Noah and his community. She had to prepare herself for it ending in heartbreak as it did when they tried to go back and find Isaac's mother.
She didn't deny they had to live somewhere, but she found it difficult to feel like she cared about anything, to be hopeful that Noah's family were still in Richmond, Virginia. Ace knew she couldn't say any of this in front of Carl, not now, so she just squeezed his arm and nodded, his hair brushing her cheek as her head moved.
"I know."