Isaac was less than shocked when Hershel came into his room, almost uninvited. He and the man that came waited outside until Isaac noticed them, and awkwardly invited them inside. They did so, and Isaac could only stare at the new man he'd never spoken to.
"Isaac, this is Caleb Subramanian," Hershel introduced. "He's been here a little while now but you two probably haven't crossed paths yet."
Isaac guessed that he was probably right, seeing as he had not become acquainted with anyone he did not speak to on his first day at the prison. He'd noticed different people, groups that were more likely to hang around one another, he assumed because they'd known longer. Despite the obvious new people, there was very little separation among the people of the prison.
"Caleb here is a doctor," Hershel finished.
"Dr. S, if you prefer," the doctor smiled.
He immediately reminded Isaac of someone who tried acting younger for kids or teens so they would feel more comfortable. It didn't help Isaac feel more comfortable, but he saw the friendliness behind the gesture. It also helped that Isaac had heard other people, even grownups, refer to him as Dr. S, so it was probably more of just a nickname than Isaac had imagined.
"So, Isaac, Hershel tells me you've sprained your wrist?" Dr. S began. "Do you mind letting me take a look at it?"
Isaac frowned. "Why?"
His little knowledge of sprains from his high school friends told him that they would just wrap it up and wait a week or two for it to heal. A lot of the time the doctors didn't even give them braces or support and just sent them home with pills. One of his friends sprained his ankle a week before their SATs and barely got to school to finish them. The difference was that most of his friends got their injuries from whatever sports they played, mainly football, which Isaac would not have been caught dead doing.
"I just want to make sure it isn't cracked or broken," the doctor explained. "Hershel said it was particularly bad, and if there is something more serious then that brace won't be the best way to help it heal."
Isaac suppressed an eye roll and shuffled to the edge of his cot, sitting just in front of Caleb who had taken the chair from his desk. Hershel was just leaning against the doorway of his cot, arms crossed as he watched the two of them.
"You can sit down," Isaac said as the doctor started taking the brace from his arm.
"No, I've not wanted to take a seat since getting this new leg," Hershel let out a breathy laugh as he lifted the prosthetic off the ground for a second. "I've missed just being able to stand."
"How'd you—?" Isaac stopped himself, unsure of a polite way to ask.
"I got bit clearing this place out," Hershel answered, understanding his hesitation. "Rick cut it off before the infection could spread."
Isaac cringed at the idea; getting bit, infected, all that blood and just the sheer pain he must have gone through during all of that made him squeeze his eyes closed. He guessed the two men would be confused at his reaction, but he couldn't stop himself from picturing it at that moment.
"Not a lot of swelling, which is good," Dr. S said, saving him from the horrifying images in his head. "That means the brace is doing its job. But the bruises are quite heavy."
Isaac nodded, letting his mind wander as the doctor poked and prodded at the bruises, watching his face for his reactions (which were always ones full of pain). From his friends' experiences, Isaac hoped his wrist would have healed at that point, because it never seemed to take long for anyone else, but Hershel wasn't lying when he said it was bad.
He just wanted to get better so he could make a clearer decision on if he wanted to leave the prison. And if he did end up leaving, where would he go? He was still so angry with most of the people who lived here and wanted nothing more than to get as far away from them as he could. Still, he considered staying sometimes, knowing this place had more than enough supplies to keep him alive. He needed his wrist to get better so he could decide what he wanted because the injury just made him mad, and he wanted to get away from the people who gave it to him.
"Gloves?" Dr. S questioned.
Isaac followed his gaze to the box on the ground at the head of his bed and he felt his cheeks heat up, his feet shuffling on the ground beneath him. Part of him wished he'd put them away, now feeling like he was taking something from the group just by having them, despite them being given to him of someone else's accord.
"Uh, Ace gave them to me." He was unsure of who knew about his illness at the prison. He only told Ace but she'd rambled so much to him that he was sure she told someone, either on purpose or by accident. Maybe there would have been a reason for her to bring it up with her group, so he wasn't angry if she'd done that. "You don't need them, do you?"
"No, no," he shook his head, raising a hand. "They brought back so much medical equipment the other day that we won't need anything else for a long while. Even got things that we don't really need, but I suppose that is what I get when I don't go on the run myself."
"In their defence, they didn't think they'd come across any medical equipment on that run," Hershel added. "We did have another place in mind, but we can hold off on that for a while."
Dr. S nodded and squeezed a part of Isaac's wrist which made him wince. "Do you mind me asking what you wanted them for?" Dr. S asked.
"I didn't ask for them," Isaac stated, somehow sounding more guilty than he should have been. "Ace thought it'd help my OCD."
"Contamination OCD?"
He just nodded in response.
"Very unfortunate at this time, given the circumstances," Dr. S commented. "Though, I suppose it wasn't very easy to deal with before, either."
"It was better," Isaac said. "But unless you have a cognitive behavioural therapist or a year-plus supply of SSRIs then those are the next best thing."
"Well, I am neither a psychiatrist nor a therapist," Dr. S said, almost apologetically. "I don't want to prescribe anything outside of my specialities, and I doubt we'd be able to give you the best treatment. Ace was very smart by giving you those gloves."
"She usually is."
A warmth of admiration crossed his chest at Hershel's comment. Isaac noticed that Ace was a big part of most things he heard the group talking about. Apparently, she'd cleared the prison with a group of people and built new walls at the back, putting fences up so they had control of the whole building now. It surprised him to even find out that at one point the whole thing had been completely overrun, and a dozen or so people were able to kill hundreds of corpses to live here.
She also recently built a new giant gate out front to make it safer for everyone coming and going, but he hadn't seen that yet. There was a lot of talk as that was going up, not too long before the run to the prosthetic clinic.
With how prominent and talked about she was, he assumed that she was in charge, a part of the council Rick mentioned before bringing him to the prison. It was weird that someone his age had so much standing in a group, but he knew she'd put more than enough work in to get that title.
"It's pretty bad for a sprain," Dr. S commented. "How long has this been in the brace?"
"We're going on week three," Hershel said. "Not long before you got here."
"The good news is nothing seems broken, but it is difficult to distinguish that. I didn't believe you when you said how bad it was," Dr. S was saying, now wrapping Isaac's wrist back up in the brace. "We'll keep giving you painkillers and anti-inflammatories but it could take another three weeks to get better, maybe longer if you put a lot of pressure on it."
"Not planning on it," Isaac mumbled to himself.
And best of all, there was no new information on his wrist. The same things Hershel had told him that the first day was the same thing being parroted to him now. Hershel didn't say that he was a doctor, but he had some kind of medical background that Isaac wasn't really aware of, he wondered why Hershel would have him see a doctor when he must've been so confident in his abilities.
Maybe Hershel couldn't tell if Isaac had broken a wrist, but even if he had, there wasn't a lot he could do about that. It all seemed pointless to Isaac, not that he would voice any of these opinions to the people who had been housing and feeding him.
"Okay," Dr. S stood up. "I'll let you be. It was nice meeting you, Isaac."
"Yeah," Isaac gave a nod and shifted back into his spot on the bed as Dr. S left the cell.
When Isaac's gaze returned to the door, he saw Hershel standing there, arms still crossed and still leaning against the doorframe. He just stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to say whatever he was going to say.
"I know your plans, but I would like it if you stayed," Hershel said finally.
Hershel left, and Isaac was happy about him leaving without a response. The request made him mad, mad enough that he couldn't understand it. He thought maybe he understood why, but then he was left overthinking Hershel's intentions.
It's not up to you, Isaac thought.
This was the first time Isaac had been outside, at least long enough to take a look around. He'd left his cell with the intention of exploring, maybe finding somewhere quiet and unvisited by the people of the prison. He just wanted a quiet place to sit away from anyone who lived here, somewhere to clear his mind where he wasn't worried about being bothered by anyone.
At the bottom of the field, he saw Hershel and Rick, digging into the ground and turning the dirt over. Beth was walking around them, holding the baby he'd seen her with sometimes. She seemed to be the one tasked with watching her throughout the day.
He saw the boy in the hat who was also around the prison sometimes, Rick's son. They had not interacted before, but Isaac could tell that the boy did not trust him (which was how he thought more people should react to him being around).
Different shouts across the field got his attention.
Up in the guard tower at the front of the prison, he saw Ace. She leaned against the railing around the outside of the tower, looking down to the ground below her. He could hear her faint voice as she shouted something downwards.
At the bottom of the tower was Daryl, who knelt over a pile of corrugated metal, tying a knot at the top of the stack to secure it. When Daryl moved back, the pile of metal slowly lifted into the air, and Isaac followed the rope back up to see Ace now pulling back on her end of the rope, threading it between her hands as she lifted the metal into the air.
Inadvertently, Isaac continued watching her. She was stronger than he imagined; despite struggling with the task, Ace managed to keep the pile hoisted at a consistent pace. Her body leaned back against the weight, counterbalancing herself the higher the metal climbed.
Daryl came up next to her on the tower, helping her get the pile over the railing, and it clattered to the ground with a loud bang, which was when she wiped the back of her arm across her forehead. She was smiling, with the same big smile Ace always had when something was going right for them.
"Hey," a stern voice startled him, and he jumped around to look at Glenn. Glenn stared at him, arms crossed as he followed his gaze to where Isaac had been staring. "What are you doing?"
Isaac shook his head. "I . . . Nothing. Just looking."
"Looking." Glenn's gaze went forward before back to Isaac. "Right."
Isaac thought for a second that Glenn might say something else, holding the almost annoyed look on his face. He seemed stern or protective, and most of the people he met acted that way about their people, but he assumed it was something closer to Glenn and Ace. Probably the same relationship she had with Rick or Daryl, because she spent a lot of time with the three of them.
Instead of saying anything else, Glenn just started walking towards the field, Isaac now saw that he was holding a toolbox in his hand, and he followed the path down to the guard tower where Daryl and Ace were working.
"Don't let anyone here scare you," a woman with grey hair said, coming to stand at his side, "they're sometimes difficult with new people, but they're all harmless unless you plan on hurting anyone."
"Not my intention," Isaac said.
"They know," she said. "I'm Carol."
"Isaac."
He was starting to get sick of telling people his name, even though everyone already knew it. It was just polite to answer with his name.
"You don't have to watch," she told him. "They could probably do with the help."
"It's not my thing," he cringed at the idea of getting dirt or rust on his hands but remembered he had an even better excuse. "And I can't, with my wrist."
"I suppose," she shrugged. "I'm just trying to give you more options to get to know the people here. This is how they spend most of their days."
"And you?" Isaac asked.
"I go on watch sometimes," she said, bringing his attention to the rifle hung over her shoulder. "Read to the kids. I'm not as involved in building this place as anyone down there, but we all have our jobs to do."
Isaac wondered if that was some kind of dig that he hadn't been doing anything for their group, but in his defence, he was injured and intended on leaving. Her voice was calm, though, and he thought that maybe she was just trying to sell the place instead, telling him how it worked and maybe he'd decide to stay.
Both options made him clench his teeth, annoyed.
"I'll let you get back to work," Isaac said, turning back to the prison.
"It was nice meeting you," she said as he walked away.
Instead of exploring around like he'd planned (something he was now considering doing later in the day so the whole cavalry wouldn't be out and working), Isaac decided to return to his cell. On his way in he passed more of the residents and some kids playing in the halls, kids he'd seen a few times in the prison before.
Being around people in his current mindset made him feel a little sick, just because of the effort it took to get used to them after something so bad happened. Though, if someone brought up something other than the prison or his injuries, he'd probably be okay with that.
In his cell he usually did some other things to pass the time, finding it harder to come up with anything to draw with how little he'd seen for the past few weeks. That and with his wrist in a cast he found it harder to draw anyway.
Exercise was his new hobby for the time being, despite how sticky and sweaty he felt during it. It was just something else, something else he could focus on because if he spent his time lying around he just got sad or angry. Exercising on the floor of his cell distracted him from that because part of him did want to move past being angry at the people around him.
There were worse people to blame for his mother's death.
He was doing situps for a little while, it being one of the only things that he could do in the small space without using his arms. He'd done a few sets without getting tired because his energy was not spent during the day, so he could generally keep this up for longer than he normally would.
"You don't wanna put your hands behind your neck doing that," the woman said, interrupting his third set. "It can cause some serious damage when you start lifting your weight by your neck."
When he looked up, a woman was standing in his doorway as she watched it. It was the one he'd seen around the prison with a sword. He thought it may have been a little awkward of a meeting, but at that point, he was too sweaty to care.
"I'm Michonne."
"Isaac," he nodded, a little out of breath.
"I know."
She crossed her arms and leaned against his cell, and Isaac took a second to regain some kind of composure. He wondered if she was just going to stay, watch him start up again to see if he'd get it right, but Isaac needed a little more direction if that were the case.
"Where should I be putting my hands?" He asked after a moment.
"Just out of the way," Michonne instructed, holding her arms up and pressing her fingers to her temples with her elbows bent outwards a little. "Having them behind your neck means you'll sit up from your neck, not your core. You could pull something."
Isaac held his arms up the way she'd shown him, laying back on the ground and doing another situp. It felt better, but he understood what she meant about pulling something in his neck if he kept doing it the way he was, but this felt a little more difficult. That was probably better.
"And you don't wanna sit up all the way," she called out again. "You don't gain anything from doing that. Get halfway up, more like crunches."
He nodded, doing it again, but only stopping halfway up in the sitting position and he winced when he felt how much harder it was doing it like this. How much more painful it was. His friends had invited him to work out with them before the apocalypse, and now he was glad that he didn't.
Isaac did that same thing ten more times, and then stopped, sitting up completely to take a break. He pushed himself back against the wall and panted again, his chest hurting when he realised how sweaty he was getting, but he forced himself to try and ignore it.
Michonne was still standing in his doorway, and he looked up at her out the side of his eyes, a way of asking if she wanted to say anything else.
"Why are you doing this?" Michonne asked. "Bored or angry?"
"A little of both," he admitted.
"Well, if you're gonna keep this up when you stop feeling bored and angry and want to get a little stronger, I could help you," Michonne suggested. "Maybe somewhere with a little more room."
"I might not be staying," Isaac said.
"I'm not planning on being here a lot either," Michonne said, "at least not for a little while."
"Where are you going?" Isaac only asked because he wanted more ideas of what he could do if he left the group.
"There's someone I want to find."
From the look on her face Isaac knew that if she found whoever it was, she'd kill him. He assumed it was the same person that left the bullet holes in this place, someone he heard people allude to if they were reminiscing about early days.
"What did they do?" Isaac asked.
"They're not all my stories to tell," Michonne mumbled. "The man ruled a town near here called Woodbury. Called himself the Governor, and killed anyone who left his group. Tried to kill me for that."
Isaac had heard the name Woodbury mentioned a few times, someone saying that it was a shock that the two groups didn't meet sooner with how they'd circled the area several times over. If Woodbury was as close as they were saying, what shocked him more was that he and his mother didn't run into the Governor or his people.
"He killed my friend, a woman who stayed there with him," Michonne continued. "She was with Rick's people before they got separated at the start of Winter. His men kidnapped and almost executed people here. He shot Ace."
Shot Ace? That one surprised Isaac because it meant Ace did more for this place than just build things and fix cars. She fought with them, fought for this place and the people here. He knew Ace was a higher-up, but he thought it was just because of the work she did now, not because she was some kind of soldier. Surprisingly, it was something he wanted to hear more about.
"He killed his soldiers and escaped after the war," she finished. "A lot of people here want him dead."
"Sounds like he deserves it," Isaac said.
"He does."
"Is that why you work out?" Isaac asked. "That made you angry?"
"I started it because I had nothing else to do," Michonne said. "I spent a lot of time alone before Andrea."
Isaac nodded, understanding.
Andrea must've been the woman the Governor killed, her friend and former resident of this place. Michonne mentioned that the woman knew Rick before they got split up, so if that was the case then it was more likely that they lived somewhere else and Rick found this place before her. He was confused about how everyone knew each other, and how long they'd been in the same group.
He understood what she was telling him anyway. Isaac had a hard time on the road, and he had someone there he loved. Michonne was alone before finding anyone, which was what he had been planning on doing.
"If you do end up leaving," Michonne started. "It's hard being on your own out there. You gotta be prepared for it."
"I will," Isaac promised.
Michonne nodded, accepting his answer. "I can show you some core exercises you can do until that wrist heals. If you stick around after that I'll help you with some other stuff. I'll leave you for now, but the offer is always there."
"Thank you," Isaac nodded.
Isaac settled for the library more towards the end of the day. It was clean in there, which made him realise that it was probably frequented a lot throughout the day, but with everyone either eating or getting ready to turn in for the night, it gave him some time to be alone and clear his thoughts.
Not that it ever seemed to last long for him.
He heard the door at the front of the library open and close and continued looking at the door until he could see who was there. Ace walked in past the bookshelves, illuminated by the orange glow that came in through the window.
She seemed just as surprised as he was to see anyone else.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, coming around the bookshelves.
Isaac had to suppress an eye roll. They're everywhere. He should've expected something like that in a community as close-knit as this one, but he never realised how small it actually was until he kept having to speak to people. But at this point, it stopped seeming unintentional. "Were you looking for me?"
"No, just found you by accident," Ace admitted.
He nodded and looked away. He hoped maybe she'd leave, but part of him didn't want her to. Ace was the first person he wanted to speak to, at least the first he could tolerate without getting angry or annoyed.
If Ace decided for him, he wouldn't have to work out what he wanted.
"You didn't answer the question," she accused.
"I came here because it's the first place I've found without people around," Isaac said. "It's quiet."
"Do you want me to go?"
"No, you can stay."
Ace nodded, taking a seat at a table opposite him. She leaned back against the chair and let out a long breath through her nose. "Thanks. I was kind of looking for somewhere quiet too."
Isaac cocked his eyebrow up. "Miss Happy-to-Help needed to get away?"
Ace's face contorted like she was going to get angry with him, but she didn't yell or answer him. It seemed like she did not fight, that she was just too tired to argue with a comment that normally would have been fun banter.
After hearing what he did today, Isaac understood why she'd need the time to herself. He saw the work she did and heard what she'd gone through in a battle at the prison. He didn't know how to talk about it with her, but she probably had more going on than he'd ever know about. But there was something he'd wanted to know.
"I heard you got shot?" He didn't know why he brought it up, but it'd been on his mind and he did want to know more about it, more about her.
"Kind of. I was wearing riot gear and it just kind of . . . cut across?" She made a hand gesture across the front of her chest to show where it'd hit, and Isaac almost cringed at the thought. "We think it cracked a rib."
"Wow . . . That's . . . Does it hurt a lot?" He questioned.
Ace shrugged. "Not so much now, sore, aches sometimes. It was worse in the beginning, for obvious reasons."
He nodded, leaning back as he tried to think about something like that happening. "That must have been scary."
"I guess? But, I didn't really have time to be scared," she explained. "Everything just seemed to happen at once, nothing mattered, just having to process one thing after the other."
"I can't imagine being in a situation like that," he said, shaking his head.
"Count that as a good thing, I suppose, right? No one would want to. In fact," Ace quirked a smile, pointing at his arm, "think you may have gotten off lucky there."
He raised a brow, also smiling. "Why do you say that?"
"Well, it could've gone worse. You could have gotten them at a worse time, surprised them, you could've been shot, killed," the fact that she said it told Isaac enough about her people, that they've killed. Maybe she had killed. "We've all been through a lot, it can be hard to keep control in the moment when something is happening, to think before really acting."
"Yeah, I get it," Isaac said. "I can understand that. Knowing what I do now, I could have run into worse people, anyways."
"There's always something worse," Ace said solemnly.
"I've gotten that too," Isaac nodded.
"I know you never got the best impression of this group," Ace started, and Isaac wondered if he was going to be trapped in another conversation that he'd hate. "And I know you want to leave, and I'm not going to try and stop you. But it's good here. This place is as good as you choose to make it, and it's going to get better. The people here, they're not bad people."
Isaac raised a brow and stared at her. "You trust everyone here? You'd speak for all of them?"
"We've taken people in, I can't pretend to know everyone as well as who I'm closer with, those I've been with since . . . closer to the start anyway. Even those I do, I trust them with my life, they're good people, who want to help others, build a life, build a future," she explained. Isaac was partly aware of the people she'd known since the start, just by the way they acted around each other. Some were obviously closer than others, and Isaac could see who Ace was close to. She continued, "But I also can't pretend we've all kept our hands clean to get to this point."
"And you?" Isaac asked, because what did it matter how good everyone else was if one of the leaders was bad too?
"I've—" she stopped herself, and Isaac thought she might not finish what she was going to say. Her eyes hit the ground as she said, "I've done things."
"Does that make you a bad person?"
"I don't know," she said quietly, and Isaac could see that maybe she thought she was. "I'm not innocent. Everyone's gone through something, had to overcome, or been forced into something . . . terrible. I think it's what comes next that matters more, what we want next, our intentions."
"And this is what you want?" Isaac asked.
Ace stared at him for a second, as if to ask if he was serious. "If by this you mean a community, a life, a future. Then yes," she said. "That's how I see it anyway, and that's why I really hope you'll stay. Like I said, and I believe it, there's always worse out there. You've seen part of it, you don't know what else could be out there, and you don't need to. You already have a chance at something here, why lose it for something worse or even . . . nothing?"
Isaac had been annoyed at people convincing him to stay, but this was different. She wasn't asking him because she felt guilty or responsible, and if she felt that way, she didn't act like it. She didn't act like she knew better, either. Ace was just drawing in from their experiences, letting him know what she thought, but he still felt like he had another option.
"I'm not saying you have to like us, or anyone you think might be responsible for what happened," she said cautiously, but still trying to make a point, "but there are more people here, good people."
Isaac just nodded, still thinking about his decision. Surprisingly, her being there didn't influence any decisions he was going over in his mind.
"I've been working on a car for you either way," Ace finished. "You can take it if you do decide to leave. We never would have lasted on the road as long as we did without the cars."
Isaac stayed quiet, thinking about what she said. He didn't have to like anyone he deemed responsible for his mother's death, at least anyone who delayed his reappearance to get her back. There were so many people at the prison, so many people that weren't involved (not that he believed anyone on the council delayed him getting his mother back, less so now).
But he liked some of the people here, at least some of the people he'd spoken to. It wouldn't be too hard to leave them behind, but he did feel kind of bad that some of them would still be here when he was gone. That they would have somewhere to live, and he wouldn't.
"You don't have to keep working on that car," Isaac said, finally.
Ace looked at him, and from her eyes, she didn't know where Isaac was going with his speech. He continued his blank stare, but then looked down at the ground, thinking about a good way of saying what he wanted. Eventually, he gave up and came out with it.
"I think I'm going to stay."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I am very tired after this one, I just spent the whole day moving back into my uni flat. I broke one bowl and one shot glass, tipped over a glass of water and cannot find my utensils/holders so now I have to buy more. Just venting.
And forgot that I got 1 too many chapters ahead yesterday so I thought I'd just post this now I've had a chance to sit down.
Hope you enjoyed :)
