Ace coughed up her lungs as a cloud of smoke encapsulated her, and she covered her mouth with the neckline of her t-shirt. Tears rolled down her cheeks, her eyes stung and she struggled to crawl backwards away from the gap in the fence.

Isaac was calling out to her, but she could barely work out where that was.

The blue of the sky was the first thing that came into view, the sun casting a shadow of the leaning fence above her, the rubble of the tower and— Ace scrambled to her feet as the walkers began to climb through the gap in the wall, heading straight for her, their steps banging on the corrugated sheets of metal.

When she could finally make out her surroundings, Ace headed towards the solar panels where she saw Rick disappear earlier. She tripped over her feet as she sprinted away from the hundreds of walkers chasing her.

Gunshots rang out as she rounded the solar panels, "Ace!"

"Rick!" She grabbed his arm to steady herself as she looked back at the oncoming herd. "I couldn't find Martinez, I don't know what happened to him."

"He got out I think, he went the other way," Rick turned back to the people behind us, pulling me with him. I grabbed my gun and shot the closest walkers. "Everyone get back! Get into your houses, go!"

As Rick began to shoot the walkers around them, Ace stuck close to him. She realised he was giving the others time to hide in the buildings. She looked around to see who was nearby, but everyone had fled too quickly.

Apart from Deanna. "Rick!"

"You need to get back!" He waved her off.

"We need to get back!" She gunned down three of the walkers coming towards her.

Deanna followed them anyway, Ace noticed. If she got hurt, that could be bad for them, for the people of Alexandria. They were scared, and Deanna was just recovering after Reg's death. If she were to die now the people would be lost.

Ace followed Rick, though, her eyes on the walkers ahead of them to clear a path to hide in one of the buildings. They couldn't get stuck in the open, not if they wanted any chance to survive this long enough for the others outside the wall to get back and lure the walkers away.

"Get back!" She yelled, throwing herself between Rick and two of the walkers who reached out for him. The first one she pointed the barrel of her gun against its head and shot, but the dead weight pushed her down and she fell back on the wooden planks and a round saw blade.

"Oh fuck," Ace breathed.

"Give me your hand!" Rick helped her up immediately, pulling her away from the second walker as she cried out in pain.

He began to carry her towards the houses as Ace shot the walkers ahead of them, attempting to cover them with the hundreds of bodies surrounding them. Ace could see the blood pouring from Deanna's side, soaking into her shirt and turning it red. It wasn't as quick as she'd expected, and maybe there was some hope to stitch her up before she bled to death—there was hope.

They managed to get ahead of the herd and onto the road that led up from the gate to the houses at the back of the community. But the walkers just kept chasing them as they made it to the first two houses on the left-hand side.

"Rick!" Michonne called out.

Ace looked over her shoulders to see her approaching with Carl, Ron and Gabriel. She almost breathed a sigh of relief to see that Carl was okay, and she planted a hand on his back to push him forward as they ran. They had to get back to the

"Good, you're safe," Rick said. "Come on!"

As the walkers began to block their path off from the sides, the ones that made it into the park coming out of the trees, Michonne swung her sword taking out two of them in front of Rick and Deanna, who continued to point out more bodies heading their way.

Ace grabbed her axe and swung it into one of their heads, protecting Carl. She looked back at him and Ron, waving an arm to tell them to get to the other side of the road and stick behind her, a silent attempt to keep them safe. Carl could handle himself, but Ron? She didn't know him well enough.

A group of walkers blocked them off in the front, and everyone stopped. Ace held her axe ready to fight so they could get into the buildings safely, but different gunshots burst out and the walkers began to drop dead.

Jessie, standing in front of her house ahead of them, yelled, "Come on! I have Judith!"

They raced forward, sprinting past the walkers to get into the house. Jessie led the way, opening the door for them to get inside.

Isaac shot an arm to cover his face as the opaque cloud shot out around the fallen tower. His mind calmed for only a second when he was on the periphery of the wall and the dust barely touched him—thank God. He couldn't be worried about inhaling dust when the only sound that filled his ears was the bangs of walkers entering the town.

He quickly remembered that she had been there, where the walkers were approaching, but she vanished in the cloud when the walls came down. Isaac wanted to go and find her but his feet would not allow him to breach the threshold.

"ACE!"

A hand gripped his shoulder, causing him to flinch violently. He grabbed the person by the wrist and lifted their arm before discovering it was Maggie. Isaac quickly loosened his grip on her arm, but neither of them apologised for their actions.

"We have to get out of here, now!" she said.

"But Ace—" Isaac choked off.

Before Maggie could even try to convince him, silhouettes of the walkers began to emerge from the cloud that was settling before them. She reached for him again but remembered his reaction, and her hand hovered over his arm.

Instead, she resorted to yelling at him. "Isaac, now!"

Isaac stamped his foot in frustration, but he followed Maggie back down the road they ran when they first saw the green balloons. He was faster by a second or two. He began shooting the walkers at their sides, opening the path towards the buildings where they could hide. There was more shooting around the town.

He heard Maggie trip behind him and skidded to a stop. "Maggie!"

Her gunshots rang out as she shot the walkers that neared, her face contorted into a pained expression as she tried to push herself back along the ground. She ran out of bullets and got onto her knees to push herself up.

Isaac dropped to her side, seeing the blood that was beginning to soak into the leg of her jeans. It was a small, round wound. He couldn't even think about what might've caused it, there was so much going on, and his racing mind was doing a lot to stamp down any rational thought he could have had.

"I—I think you got hit by a stray bullet." His eyes trailed back over his shoulder to the walkers. "We can't stay here, come on!"

Isaac grabbed the arm away from her injured leg and pulled her up so she was leaning on his shoulder, and he helped her towards the lookout platform where they had spent the day. Walkers had blocked off their path to get to any buildings where he could better help Maggie.

This couldn't have been good for the baby.

Isaac helped her get a hold of the ladder, "Come on, you first! Climb up!"

He gunned down the approaching bodies, clenching his teeth to calm his nerves as he waited for Maggie to get up enough that he could follow. As she reached the top, Isaac spun around and scrambled up the ladder, but the walkers were so close they grasped at his feet.

"No, no, no," he panicked, kicking them to get away.

Maggie tried to hold the ladder still against the platform, "Isaac!"

As he freed himself and began to climb higher, walkers began pulling at the ladder. The rope that tied it down to the platform snapped and the ladder slipped out from under him just as he got a hold of the railing.

Maggie leaned over the edge and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling upwards, and helping him onto the platform. He planted his feet against the beams that held the watch post up and pushed his weight upwards.

When he finally swung a leg over, using his knee to lift himself, Isaac dropped onto all fours. Maggie fell onto her back from the exertion and her gunshot wound, staring up at the sky as her chest heaved. Isaac dropped beside her, and they lay there, trying to catch their breath.

Everything was a flurry of sounds as Ace locked the door behind them, closing the curtains to block the walkers' view of them in the house. It was the only way to get them to lose interest. She secured all of the downstairs that was accessible to the dead.

Rick and Michonnt took Deanna upstairs, following the directions that Jessie barked out to an empty room where they could try to treat her wounds. Ace waved Gabriel upstairs and followed after him, but she waited at the top, keeping watch in case the walkers managed to break through.

Judith cried behind her, and Carl paced the landings with his sister in his arms. Ace wanted to tell him to quieten her down, that they had enough problems without her screaming, drawing more of them in, but she held back—Carl knew what he was doing.

They had to fortify the house with all the walkers surrounding it. She began boarding the front door. The walkers had already followed them up to the house, taking a hammer and some nails and wood from the garage before getting to work.

When she was done, she climbed the stairs and Ace sat down, giving her a better view of the door. It rattled against the frame, the bangs and groans meshing with all the sound that came from the passage behind her. Part of her was surprised at how unbothered she was by all of this, but she had expected the walls to come down when they ran the herd back the day before.

Rick took a seat beside her, "Michonne is fixing up Deanna, how's it looking here?"

"Fucking brilliant," Ace said. "I don't know how we're getting out of here."

He shrugged his shoulders, but Ace could see the uncertainty in his eyes as he spoke. "Glenn is outside the walls, we saw the balloons. He knows what's happening, he just needs to get a car to lure them away."

"Something happened to the others," she continued. "Daryl, Abraham, Sasha. They were supposed to drive the walkers 20 miles out. Even at three miles an hour, it would take seven hours. Coming back, they could have gone 60, 70 miles an hour which meant they should have been back by last night, early morning at the latest. They're taking too long."

"And for Glenn to make it to a car that runs within an hour's walk of here will be another miracle," Ace continued. "There could be a chance that we have to get out of here ourselves and we have a scared kid and a baby."

"Good to see you're being optimistic about this," Rick said, ignoring the altercation.

"It's just maths."

He breathed out, chewing his lip. "Jessie says she has food here, enough that it should last us a while. If the others don't get back then we just need to stay here and wait for the walkers to cluster up. After that, I'll try for the armoury. I'll grab the flares and see if I can lure them away, open the gate at the front and find somewhere."

"Then I'll help," Ace said. "I can come with you."

Rick nodded.

He was already aware that Ace would offer to do so, and he didn't try to argue with her. Instead, he patted her on the shoulder and stood up to check on Michonne who was checking on Deanna. Ace remained sitting on the seat.

Not minutes later, Michonne came out of the room looking panicked. "Something happened."

"What is it?" Ace asked.

She only said, "Deanna's been bit."

There was a bang from the garage downstairs and one of the boys yelled out in pain. Ace was on her feet instantly, the sound of a window breaking kicking her into full gear. She had her gun in her hand as she tried opening the door, but it was locked.

"CARL!"

Ron had snuck past her when she was getting the news from Carl, and while Ace continued watching the stairs, Carl left to go and find him. She didn't know what was happening which meant they were causing so much noise. Carl and Ron were friends, weren't they? God, she hadn't paid attention to anything happening at Alexandria.

Rick and Jessie were just behind her, and she moved aside for him to try the handle as he yelled out for his son. "Carl! Carl!"

"Ron! Open the door right now!" Jessie cried.

"Step back!" Rick pulled out his hatchet and began using it to hit the lock repeatedly, trying to break it from the door.

When Rick got the door open, Ron was picking himself up off the ground and Carl was pushing some wire shelved against the door where walkers were trying to get in through the window. Ace burst through the door and grabbed Carl by the sleeve to pull him back as the walkers started to break through.

"Come on!"

Ace shoved Carl through first and Rick closed the door behind her. She slammed her body backwards to hold it closed because now the walkers filling the garage could just push the door open with the lock broken.

Rick left them to hold the door closed when he asked Gabriel and Carl to help him. She strained as she pushed it closed, trying not to yell out at the exertion it was taking just to keep the door closed. Jessie was having the same struggles, she noticed.

"Move!" Rick and the others lifted one of the sofas and were going to use it to prop against the door to hold it closed. Ace shifted out of the way to hold them hold the sofa still as Rick turned to the others, and whispered, "We need more, and we need to be quiet."

"I'll see what I can find," Michonne said.

Gabriel nodded. "Me too."

"Help," Rick asked Jessie.

"I got it," she agreed.

"Hey, what happened in there?" Rick asked Carl.

"We were looking for tools and knocked over a shelf," Carl said.

Ace frowned, staring at him.

"We heard yelling," Jessie said.

"Yeah, Ron saw them break through the gates, we had to move," Carl said. "That's what happened."

Ron leaned forward, tapping Carl on the shoulder hastily. "Carl, there's nightstands in my mom's room. We can brace the couch with them."

"Hey, it sounded like you were fighting," Jessie said to Ron.

It did sound like they were fighting, but Ace knew Carl was not stupid enough to start something like that while they were surrounded by walkers. Carl could make stupid decisions sometimes, but she knew him better than to put everyone else at risk, especially with Judith in the house. That meant Ron had something that put Carl in danger, and Ace didn't know what.

"Yeah, but we were fighting them," he said as though it was obvious.

As Carl straightened up to help Ron, Rick asked, "Carl? It's okay?"

"It's okay," he nodded as he ran to leave.

That lying little bastard, Ace thought to herself. She wanted to go and make sure they wouldn't start again while everyone was busy with the sofa but as she pulled her hands back, the sofa shifted heavily and she slammed against it again.

Carl and Ron returned with the furniture after a while and managed to get the back door blocked up enough to the point where the walkers couldn't just barge their way in. Ace had her eyes on it as Rick checked the rest of the house for any more signs of weaknesses.

There was a metallic crash from outside, and Ace winced at the noise it caused. Whatever it was brought over more walkers who would have otherwise been going in the other direction.

"They knocked over the sculpture," Jessie clarified.

"All that noise, it's drawing more," Michonne said.

As if on cue, Judith began crying upstairs, probably stirred by the bang of the statue. Rick made his way upstairs, "I'll get her."

God Ace hoped that they had blocked all the other doors because she knew all this noise was drawing in more of them. How on earth were they supposed to get out of there with a baby? If they could keep Judith from crying that would be a miracle.

Rick was gone for minutes before enough walkers began piling up against the wooden board, And Ace rushed forward, trying to keep it down on the door. Much to her dismay, Gabriel rushed forward to help her. Ron and Carl were next, trying to hold the table against the side.

"There's just too many of them!" Gabriel cried.

"Shut up!" Ace heard banging coming from the backdoor and squeezed her eyes closed. "Please say they're not in—"

"Everybody, get upstairs now!" Michonne yelled.

"Back off!" Rick yelled, but Ace waited for the kids and Jessie to get away before she moved from the door.

When they were up the stairs, Ace and Michonne backed up through the door until they were at the bottom of the stairs. Ace was expecting to make a stand there, but Rick ran for the sofa that blocked off the garage and pulled it back with him.

"The couch! Let's block the stairs," he yelled.

Ace gripped the other side, wedging the sofa between the two walls that bordered the stairs. The walkers tried reaching over the sofa to get to them, and Ace fell back up a step behind Michonne, her breathing heavy.

Rick gestured to the one in front with his hatchet. "I got this one, you get the one behind it. We're gonna need at least two."

They yanked the bodies up the stairs. Ace rolled her eyes. "This shit again. Cool."

"We're gonna need bed sheets, enough for everyone," Rick said as he dragged the body into the bedroom.

Jessie was rightly confused. "Bed sheets for what?"

Gabriel returned to the room with some spare bedsheets.

"We all go to the armoury."

"How?"

"We're gonna gut these things, cover ourselves with the inside." Ace wasn't surprised by the looks on their faces when Rick explained the plan. "It'll mask our smell, make them think we're like them. I've done it before. We stay calm, we don't draw attention, we can move right through them."

"They're in the house, they're making noise."

"More are coming," Michonne said.

After maybe a few seconds of thought, she stabbed her sword down into the stomach and tore open the corrode. It reeked, it was so bad, she could even imagine how long it'd been cooking down in that quarry.

Ace breathed out a shaky breath as she took a sheet from Gabriel and cut a hole in it with her knife. She took the sheet from him and put her head through the hole, covering her whole body with the fabric. At least she had something to cover herself with this time.

"Anyone who stays here is gonna die," Rick said.

Gabriel, who looked like he would throw up at the smell, said. "What about Deanna?"

There was a moment of silence before Michonne left to go and speak to her.

Ace knew it was time to get herself ready. She cringed as she began wiping the guts over the sheets Rick had cut up so they could keep their clothes clean. It took everything for her not to throw up at that point, and she was starting to feel like Isaac where her mind was stuck on the possibility of getting sick from doing this.

Michonne came back after her talk with Deanna and began to help Carl cover himself with the guts.

Ace's chest felt tight, she hated moments like these, the anticipation of doing something utterly stupid. God, she hated this idea. Anything could go wrong and they were about to do it anyway because they didn't have another choice. If she thought she could get across to the other building with the supplies they had to draw the walkers away from the others, then she would have done that just to make it a little easier for everyone else.

Rick lifted a handful of the guts to Jessie and Ron who were now covered in sheets but still hesitant about this. "We need to move. You, then me."

Jessie was quiet, her face miserable as she realised this was the only way. "I'll do it."

She began to rub the blood into the bedsheets. Just as she did, there was a quiet voice from behind them. "Mom?"

She looked over her shoulders to see Sam, staring at them. He was terrified, rightfully so, and Ace didn't know how to explain something like this to a scared kid. She turned on her knees to face him. "You need to listen to me, okay? We aren't safe here anymore. Okay, we need to do this so that we can be safe out there. We need to look like the monsters."

"No, please, no," he begged.

"Yes, honey, we have to go, okay? We have to, Sam. Honey, just—just pretend you're brave. Okay? Just make it all pretend. Okay, none of this is real and you're somebody who isn't afraid. Okay?"

Ace wanted to step in and tell him that it was okay, probably better to be afraid, but it seemed to work to get Sam to agree, so she let it go.

"Okay."

When they were ready to leave, Rick left a gun with Deanna so she could end it all before the walkers got to her. Judith was safely tucked under Carl's sheet as he carried her and they were standing at the top of the hallway ready to go.

Ace was at the front, slowly helping Rick move the sofa from in their way, and they all slowly strolled into the living room. Ace led them through the most open path as the tens of walkers flooded the downstairs, beginning to walk past them to get upstairs.

As they made it out onto the porch, a gunshot went off. Ace thought that was Deanna's end when she heard more gunshots from inside the house, and her eyes trailed back upstairs. Then she let out a blood-curdling scream. She was sacrificing herself to give them an opening.

And Ace winced.

The sun was beginning to set when Ace realised just how long they'd been trapped inside the walls. She wished to be back on her date with Isaac, and then she realised—Isaac. Where was he? Did he get somewhere safe?

They could finally see the dispersion of the walkers, how many had gotten inside the walls and Ace realised just how screwed they were. Getting to the armoury was going to be hard enough, but keeping Judith quiet the whole way, she didn't think it was possible.

Rick led them to a small opening away from the walkers. "Alright, new plan," he whispered, not drawing the attention of the walkers. "Flares from a few guns aren't enough. Too many walkers, too spread out. We're not going to the armoury. We need our vehicles back at the quarry. All of us drive. We'll need to round 'em up. We leave, we come back."

"Okay. But Judith . . . to the quarry and back, I . . ." Jessie trailed off.

Ace knew what her concern was, but she didn't see it the same way. If half the walkers from the quarry were inside the walls then really keeping Judith quiet only had to happen for as long as they were within 50 yards of the walls. Past that, there was less of an issue.

"I'll take her. Keep her safe in my church until you all lead the walkers away," Gabriel offered.

Ace straightened up and looked at Rick as he said. "Can you do this?"

"I'm supposed to," he said. "I have to. I will."

Religious nonsense, she wanted to say, but if that kept them safe back to the church then so be it. It was a yes or no question though, and such an answer would have left Ace less worried about Judith being left with this man—especially since she hated him.

"Alright," Rick agreed.

Judith let out quiet baby sounds as Carl passed Judith from under the bedsheet to Gabriel so he could take care of her. Ace's eyes drifted to the herd to ensure none of them

"Take Sam," Jessie said.

"No," he denied.

"Yes, Sam, it'll be safer."

"I'm not leaving you."

"Sam—"

"Mom, I'm not . . ." he cut her off. "I can keep going."

"Sam—"

"I can keep going. Please. Please," he was saying. "Let's just go."

Ace, for one, hated the idea of bringing him along. He was just a young kid, a scared young kid. He should have been hiding somewhere safe, not exposed to whatever the hell they would go through outside the walls.

"Okay," Jessie agreed.

Gabriel turned to Rick as everyone prepared to leave the community. "I'm going to keep her safe."

Rick nodded, thanking him quietly as he walked toward his church, now carrying an oddly silent Judith. God, Ace hoped that he was right because she didn't know what would happen to Rick or Carl if something were to go wrong with Judith.

The sun had sunk below the horizon before they could even make a dent in the distance they had to travel. Ace looked for Isaac, her eyes flickering in the buildings as she separated mere meters from the rest of the group, but at that point, it was hopeless.

Spaces between the corpses were the only thing that meant she could keep her cool because she didn't have to pass too close—not like when she and Michonne had to sneak up to the prison's fences undetected.

The others held hands and kept in a single file line. Ace opted to stay out of that, even after they had shown it worked, she didn't know what level of authenticity tricked the walkers. That, and she wanted to act quickly if something happened.

She hoped they could get further soon because they were taking too long, and she wasn't sure how well some of the structures that saved their friends could hold under this level of walkers. This many of them would tear down their houses.

The group beside her stopped, and Ace looked back to the boy who caused it. Sam had frozen at the back of the line, terrified, she could tell. He had to keep moving, or the walkers would be able to see them as humans, and it put everyone at risk.

Jessie tried to pull his hand to coax him and whispered. "Sam? Come on, come on. Sweetheart? Sam?"

"You can do it," Rick tried.

"I can take him back to the church," Ace whispered.

Rick waved her off and she took a step back, they had to get him moving before they could try to get him somewhere safe. The group started calling his name in whispers, trying to get him to move so they didn't draw any more attention than they were already getting from the walkers.

"Sam?"

"Sam . . . Hey, you can do this," Ron tried. "Sam, just look at Mom."

"Honey, you can do it," Jessie said. "Sam, you're gonna get—" she changed her words quickly as he began whimpering, tears in his eyes. "Sam, I need you to come with me. I need you to be strong."

No one saw as a walker noticed him and bit down on his neck, and another on his head. He called for his mother in a blood-curdling scream that sent shivers down Ace and she froze at the stop, staring at him as he continued.

Jessie tried pulling him away from the walkers, but it was too late, and he died in their arms. She screamed as Sam went silent.

"Jessie," Carl tried, pulling her hand and noticing the walkers who began to see what was happening to them. "Jessie."

"No!"

"Come—come with us," he tried again. "Come on, we have to go."

But she didn't move as a walker came straight up in front of her and bit down on her neck, she didn't even react. Ace swallowed, her hand brushing her skin as she watched. "Fuck . . ."

Rick shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. "No . . . No . . ."

"Dad," Carl was trying to get his hand free of hers, but he was stuck. Rick was still motionless as Carl fought for his life, calling out for his dad to help him, but Rick was in no state. Ace knew this would be one of the moments where she had to help him before he got himself and everyone else killed.

Michonne was the one to step in, pulling her sword free. But Rick began hacking her hand off at the wrist to save Carl, again and again and again. Carl, Ace realised, was the one thing that could stop Rick from going over the edge at that moment, and he'd do anything for his son.

They seemed to be free of the walkers's attention, but the corpses surrounding them should have been the last of their problems. The hammer clicked beside her and Ace's head snapped to look at Ron who aimed a gun at Rick.

"You . . . You . . ."

Before he could shoot, Michonne plunged her sword upwards through his body, pulling him back as the gunshot went off. He fell backwards on the ground and the sound began drawing the walkers to him, still hiding the four remaining.

Or should it have been three?

When Carl turned around and looked up at them from under his hat, he had blood pouring down his face, curling around the shape of his cheek as he faced Rick. Ace's blood turned cold as she stared at him, her eyes filling with tears as her brother stood before her with a gunshot wound in his eye.

"Dad?"

Normally I'm good at adding original content to the scene breaks, but to be honest, I hated these chapters so much that it was probably just better to continue to the original content I had planned for the month-long mid-season break.

Anyway, someone said it's finals week and I'm British so that means nothing to me, but I might as well keep posting as a treat for all those suffering right now. Hope you enjoyed it and lmk what you thought :)