Notes:

Sorry for the delay on this one. Besides life stuff getting in the way, this was a really annoying chapter to write. Plus I originally wrote it from POV of Mikey, then decided to change that, so had to deal with that ball ache. It's all done now to a fine enough level, so I'm releasing it, then we can move on!

Daryl stuck a knife through his temple, the colour in his cheeks already faded.

Mikey helped Gabriel carry the body out, the malnourished corpse lighter the ones of their sick people.

They burnt him inside the walls so the whisperers wouldn't find out, and the smoke made Mikey's cough worse.

Dante was already digging a hole in the graveyard, halfway in a grave for a body wrapped in a colourful duvet beside him.

"Who—?" Mikey started, trying not hold his breath as he stared over at the wooden cross leaned thoughtfully against the covered body.

"Cheryl," Dante said hoarsely, looking like he was taking it pretty hard. "I'm sorry, jefe. She was real sick."

Mikey's face scrunched into a sheet of anger as looked away, seeing the rage on Gabriel's face before he stormed off.

"She's been here for a long time," Mikey told Dante quietly. "I was going to come and check up on her... I just hadn't gotten around to it yet."

"It was quiet," Dante reassured him.

Mikey nodded, stumbling back a few paces before turning and walking back to the quiet street.

"You holdin' up okay?"

It was Daryl. Just passing by on the street when he spotted Mikey as still as a statue outside the infirmary. He'd been stood at the bottom of the porch steps for a few minutes, staring at the door, lost somewhere in his thoughts.

"Huh?" Mikey asked, pretty sure he'd heard him.

Daryl pointed up to the infirmary door. "Going in?"

"Oh," Mikey sighed, shaking his head. "I'm good."

Daryl winced. "You don't look it."

"Thanks," he chuckled.

"Nah," Daryl said, wincing at him. "Sweatin' up a storm in that cell. Coughin', and scratchin' at your skin... you're sick."

"I don't have time for it."

Daryl wrung his hands out anxiously. "You gotta take care of yourself, man."

Mikey responded with a tight smile. "Do you?"

"I took a nap with Dog earlier..."

Mikey laughed at that.

Daryl's face stayed serious. "You're good to this place. You've been here the longest and lost just as much shit as most people here. Only you lost it here, too." He stared at the floor, shaking his head. "Funny thing about dropping dead is you won't see it comin'."

"My parents died for Alexandria," Mikey told him. "My brothers tried."

"Don't follow in their footsteps."

He chuckled at the man in his one-winged angel vest. "I could never be so brave."

Daryl shrugged. "You're one of the bravest people I know."

Daryl dropped it when Mikey didn't say anything back to that. Daryl nodded, like he was agreeing with his own statement as he rubbed his chin between his fingers.

"Seen Lydia?"

Mikey shook his head.

"Apparently, Carol took her huntin', but..."

"But?"

"Don't worry," Daryl said, smiling the best he could. "Probably nothin'."

He walked away, and Mikey watched until he disappeared somewhere around Morgan Street.

Just when he was considering walking away, the infirmary door opened before of Mikey.

Siddiq stopped in the doorway, staring at him. He looked sicker than Mikey, but the funny thing was, he wasn't. He just wasn't right. Not right now.

"Siddiq—" Mikey started.

"I killed him," Siddiq murmured, slowly lumbering down the steps to meet him, a grim look of defeat darkening his face. "We could have gotten answers, and I—"

"No," Mikey hissed at him. "Don't."

"I did. I keep letting us down."

"You've saved countless people..."

"But I couldn't save them."

Siddiq disconnected himself from the conversation then, pulling away like the radio signal between the communities did when the weather was real' bad. He walked right past Mikey and down the road.

Mikey sighed, finally entering the infirmary.

It was bleak inside.

Sick patients wheezing in their beds.

Mikey passed Cheryl's room, the whole thing like she'd never been there — walls bare, the bed stripped. He lingered in the doorway, gripping the frame as he stared at the naked mattress, an eerie stillness rising from the fabric.

It was so empty. Scarily empty. Like a watchtower between guard rotation, or the crop fields after a collected yield.

The bathroom was at the back of the house near Siddiq's apartment. Mikey slipped inside and pressed his back into the door until he heard it click shut. It was empty. There was a small sink in the corner, a tarnished silver mirror with smudged glass hanging above it. A small clawfoot bathtub sat on the other side of the cramped room.

There was already a basin of water perched on the sink.

Mikey took a moment to soak his hands and dab at the seething red skin on his neck. He leaned into the sink to stare at the dark, sunken eyes in the mirror that stared back, his messy black hair plastered to the forehead above. Sweat dripped from his temple.

He pushed away from the sink to stand back up, only to realise just how much he'd been relying on moving from one task to the next.

His arms felt like semi-trucks pulling at his torso, his legs anchors dropping from their chains. He wasn't ready for it, slipping to the floor, the basin crashing down with him. There was a loud thud, and the bathroom was flooded with water.

"Shoot."

"Mikey?"

"Yeah, one second!"

But Jenny didn't wait.

Her voice had been scratchy and low through the door, but when she stuck her head around the door, Mikey saw how unwell she was.

"Shit," she huffed, dropping the blanket that was around her shoulder to the floor. "You look like death."

Mikey pushed himself back against the tub, his back pressed into the cold cast iron, his jeans soaked.

It felt good.

Jenny waddled over on a crutch, not wearing her prosthetic. She slumped down beside him, their shoulders pressed. They shared the uncomfortable heat coming off their bodies, trying to find some comfort in it — two neighbouring volcanos that happened to wake up at the same time. Angry magma, oppressive and scorching.

"Are you done?" she asked in a harsh rasp, originating from deep in her chest.

"No," he groaned, feeling all the aches and pains he'd been suppressing start to leak past his shoddy seals. "No, I'm not."

"Me neither," she chuckled.

"Siddiq will work it out," Mikey told her, believing it in his heart. "No one else has to die."

Jenny looked at him, her eyes wide and wet and full of something Mikey had never seen from her.

"I don't want to die, Em," she whispered.

He hesitated. He took her clammy hand, squeezing. Offering something. Anything.

"You won't."

She looked delirious. Her face burning. The whites of her eyes savaged by yellow stains.

"Not like him," she whined with a pained cry. "I can't die like him."

"Like who?"

"My dad never stopped smiling..."

Jenny seemed to hang from a thread, but she also held onto a faint smile that kept her present and kept her speaking.

"He loved that speech the King gave. He used to have us say it before meals, like saying grace..."

She tapped her fingers against her knee and laughed.

"He never stopped smiling..."

She pulled a face then. A sad and wounded face. Wounded in the way an animal looks right before they go. When the last breath raises their chest and pulls them down. When they realises, this is it.

"In the end, right before the cancer took him... he couldn't keep smiling. He couldn't stay himself. It stole that from him... stole him from me."

She kicked the basin by their feet, and it skidded into the wall with a weak hitting thud.

"I always thought I was brave. Thought I wouldn't be scared to die..."

She looked at Mikey, that same look in her eyes.

"I think the sickness is starting to steal that away from me."

Mikey was crying.

So was Jenny.

He shook his head. She tried to shush him. Mikey pulled himself up, one hand on the tub behind them and one on her shoulder. She watched him like it didn't matter. He pulled her up anyway.

"You need rest," Mikey hissed after getting under her arm. "You just need to rest."

Once he got her back in her bed, she laughed at him.

"What?" he asked, brushing a tear away from under his glasses.

"I needed to pee," she groaned.

Mikey smirked at her. "Hold it."

She grabbed his hand as he went to leave.

"We face dire challenge and chance," she whispered, her discoloured eyes somewhere else. "Our lives, our way of life, it hangs in the balance. A fragile glass, standing on a wire high above the asphalt as we pray for not one drop of rain under an overcast sky..." she stopped, looking at him this time. "Make it for me, Em."

"Hilltop?"

It was getting darker outside the small garage window.

"Come in, Hilltop."

Mikey barely made it through Gabriel and Rosita's house to the radio.

"This is Mikey Monroe of Alexandria, please respond."

The equipment hissed at me.

"Mikey?"

"Rhys?"

"In the static."

Mikey groaned at the stupid joke.

"How is everything over there?"

He couldn't help it when his eyes started to well up, trying to think of all the things he could say.

He cleared his throat.

"Bad."

"I'm sorry."

"How are things with you?"

"The wall's coming along. We're still sorting the bad stuff that went down with Magna and Kelly."

"Sorry..."

"Are you okay?"

"How's Carl?"

"He's good, pretty..." SHHHHH "Well, he's trying to..." SHHHHHH

"Rhys?"

"—against it. The nightmares aren't getting better. He spoke with Siddiq on the radio earlier, I think that helped."

"I missed a bit of that. I hoped Hilltop would help."

"I think it does... but then I think being away from Michonne, Jude, and RJ hurts just as much as Hilltop helps him."

"It must be hard."

"People with families, am I right?"

"Not funny."

"I try my best."

"We still have families, Rhys."

"I know, man."

"We still have families..."

"Are you sure everything's okay?"

Mikey held down the button but quickly had to let go, pulling himself together before pressing it again.

"Everything's going to be okay."

The infirmary was quiet when he got back there. Everyone was sleeping. Mikey made his way to the back of the building, far from the patients. He reached Siddiq's apartment, dragging his shoulder against the hallway wall to keep himself standing.

He didn't bother knocking.

It was dark inside, lit by dim candlelight that gently warmed the cold walls and firm floors.

Siddiq was standing by the window, staring out at the lake, his hair wet and stringy. Mikey fell into a small chair at the kitchen table by the door.

Siddiq turned to look at him. "You're sick, too?"

Mikey nodded, finally admitting it to the one person who didn't need him to.

Siddiq moved over to him, bending down to press the back of his palm against his sticky forehead.

"It's getting worse," Siddiq said.

"Gabriel— Gabriel said you figured it out," Mikey wheezed, coughing.

He nodded, getting up and quickly heading for his bag by the bedroom door. He came back with an orange bottle of ovoid pills.

"Antibiotics," he said, pushing them into Mikey's agape palm. "I've gotten everyone else on the new treatment."

"What was it?"

"The water..." Siddiq's eyes trailed off with his voice. "Someone turned the valve away from the safe drinking water."

"But you did it," Mikey said with a meek smile, lowering himself down to the cool table, head cradled in the crook of his arm. "You worked it out."

"Water is something I've been in charge of," Siddiq told him, eyes still on the window. "Cheryl died because—"

"Stop," Mikey grunted.

"Other people might not make it because I—"

"Siddiq."

He looked at him.

"I'm still there, Mikey," Siddiq whispered, voice trembling. "That barn... Alpha doing what she did to them after the fair."

Mikey winced at the thought.

"The screams," his voice broke, "and the smell, the blood, everything. Every time I make a mistake, I think of her, you know? Enid. I think about how I was supposed to teach her, and then I think about how much I miss her. I did nothing as the people I loved died. I did nothing, Mikey. I just— I didn't move. I didn't help..."

"You couldn't..."

"And now more people have died— are dying. You, Mikey, you're sick because of me."

"That's bullshit," Mikey hissed, managing a weak chuckle.

Siddiq stared at him with wide eyes.

"You heard me," he told him. "Pie in the sky. Bullshit. Someday, this pain will be useful to you. I know it will."

Siddiq helped him up, leading Mikey through a bathroom to the adjoined bedroom, telling him he could rest there.

The covers were too hot for his already burning skin, but the pillows cooled his cheek as he settled into them and they swallowed him whole.

He might even have gotten some sleep.

Maybe he dreamt of them.

Maybe they would have been proud.

A light knocking from Siddiq's apartment door pulled Mikey back from the brink of sleep.

He recognised Dante's voice coming through the bathroom from the other room.

"Hey, I know it's late, but I saw the light on—"

"Leave me alone."

"Just wanna chat for a sec, Jef."

"I'm not your Jefe."

"Ha ha, sure you are, Chief."

Dante chuckled. He sounded nervous. He went on speaking...

"Listen, boss, I'll go, but not before saying sorry. With Eugene gone, I've gotta pitch in with the water. I haven't pulled my weight."

"Stop. Stop, this is my fault. It is not yours. It is not anyone else's."

Mikey tried to sit up after lying there for a moment and feeling bad about eavesdropping, but his body seemed to weigh a million more than his arms could lift.

"Yeah, I know you want this blame," Dante hummed from the next room where they talked in calm voices. "For a sec, everything else makes sense, right? Well, I'm sorry, bro... ain't how it works."

There was a long silence in the room next door that hung in the air and turned it thin. Again, Mikey tried to sit up, but again, succumbed to gravity's grip on him. He closed his eyes and listened hard to hear their words.

"Look, this place is special," Dante told him. "I got that right away. It works 'cause it's a village. It takes everyone here to build, grow, and fight, raise rug rats... and heal people. Everyone carries equal weight. So when something happens, it's all our fault, yeah?"

There was a creaking of floorboards as one of them started moving.

"And when one of us is suffering," Dante whispered. "We're here to help."

"You don't even know me, man," Siddiq chuckled under his breath.

"Sure I do," Dante whispered again. "You're my friend. It's gonna be okay."

There was quiet.

Mikey listened as hard as he could.

Clip — clip.

It sounded like a tap that hadn't been tightened.

Clicking.

More quiet.

"NO!"

The scream from Dante shook Mikey's chest, the whole room to the bed he lay in. He could hear banging and struggling from the sitting room.

He shot up that time, ignoring the aching in his limbs and fog around his head. He suddenly regretted not carrying a weapon inside the walls.

"Get off!"

Mikey stumbled through the bathroom, skidding to a halt in the doorway, frozen in utter disbelief of what he was seeing.

He worried he might be delusional.

Hallucinating even.

Dante was on the ground, holding Siddiq tightly in a headlock that was swelling his face and bulging his eyes.

Mikey deeply regretted in that moment not carrying a weapon inside the walls.

Dante's face dropped when he saw Mikey hurtling towards him, and he was too slow to block the kick to his face that sent all three of them crashing to the floor.

Dante groaned, holding his cracked nose.

Siddiq gasped for air, clutching his throat.

Mikey was already trying to pull himself back up.

"Siddiq—" he groaned, trying to see if he was okay.

Before Mikey could check, the sound of Dante scrambling towards him stole his attention. The huge fist that connected with his cheek sent him back to the floor.

"Damn it!" Dante yelled when he spotted Siddiq start to find his feet, crawling back over to him and grabbing a fistful of the doctor's hair, slamming his head against the floor.

Siddiq threw his elbow back, catching Dante's chin with a loud crack!

It barely phased him as he started to pummel his back like a crazed gorilla with balled fists.

Mikey staggered to his feet, throwing himself against Dante's back and wrapping his arms around his throat like he had to Siddiq.

When Dante stood up properly, Mikey realised for the first time just how giant this man was. Mikey's feet left the floor. Dante spun around and slammed himself into the wall, pinning Mikey between that and his weight. All the oxygen was pressed from Mikey's lungs as he let go.

Dante whipped around, and before Mikey could raise his hands, his fist connected with his throat, the back of Mikey's head jerking into the wall behind him.

Dante staggered backwards, breathless, watching Mikey slide down the wall and crumple against the floor.

Mikey wheezed Siddiq's name, but he was barely moving anymore.

"I didn't want it to be you," Dante whispered. "Either of you."

"Please," Mikey croaked, blood drooling from between his lips and dripping off his chin.

Siddiq stirred on the floor.

Mikey gurgled for him to run, but his throat felt puffy and swollen and didn't let anything louder than a whisper through it.

Dante just staggered toward Siddiq, only to be stopped when Mikey pushed himself off the wall and clutched at his foot.

"Damn it, Mikey," he hissed, kicking him off with a boot that dug into his insides. "Give up."

Again he moved toward Siddiq, and again, Mikey rolled over and clamped his fingers around Dante's ankle.

Dante groaned. "Give up!"

"No!" Mikey screamed. Only he couldn't scream. His words hissed and wheezed from him. "I won't."

Another kick to the gut sent Mikey sliding back into the wall.

"I won't give up..."

Mikey pushed himself away from the wall.

"I won't."

Dante left him there, dropping to his knees and wrapped his hands around Siddiq's throat.

Mikey drug himself towards them.

"I won't give up. Siddiq... I won't."

Mikey could hear Siddiq's gurgling. He tried to call out to him but his voice remained the silenced rasp of a whisper.

Siddiq's eyes met Mikey's. They were so scared as they bulged with bloodshot streaks of crimson red.

"I won't gi—"

Crack.

All Mikey could do was cry. Barely a sound coming from him as he grit his teeth and tried to scream.

Dante fell off Siddiq, resting for a second on his knees. His eyes were wide with panic as he stared at Siddiq's body.

"Why?" Mikey whined quietly, not sure if he was even making sounds past his own ears.

Dante didn't answer. He slowly rose to his feet and stepped over to where Siddiq's knife and axe were hanging from a belt on the back of a chair by the window.

"What about me?" Mikey asked.

Dante glanced at him.

"I need to figure that out..."

"You killed him," Mikey groaned, trying to move, his body aching.

Dante's eyes were wide and confused, lost like he'd just woken up from a dream world so different from their own that he couldn't shake that last atmosphere.

Mikey tried to slide himself towards the door, but Dante was quick to grab his collar and shove his back down against the wall.

"I was gonna make it look like suicide," he murmured. "But I can't do that to both of you. I can't sneak you out either..."

"You'r e one o f them, aren't you?" Mikey writhed through his teeth at him. "A Whisperer."

Dante grimaced over him, his breath upsettingly fresh, reminding Mikey how hard he'd worked to decieve them.

"I was there that night. The night in the barn. I held Siddiq still so he could watch each head come off. I thought suffocating Cheryl was the worst thing I'd have to do today... then Siddiq had to go and recognise me from the barn." Dante waved the knife from Siddiq's belt infront of Mikey's eyes. He raised it above his head. "I was gonna wear him back to show Alpha how well I'd done... but you? You're a much better score. Sorry, Jefe."

Mikey refused to close his eyes.

Suddenly the both went quiet. The scraping sound of the back door opening from the room Mikey was resting in earlier. Dante glanced over his shoulder at the sound.

Mikey tried to call for help, but Dante was quick to press a sweaty hand over his mouth.

He stared at Mikey for a moment, squeezing hard to keep him quiet. Raising his other finger to his lips.

"Shhh..."

"Siddiq, are you awake in there?"

Rosita's voice was loud and completely unaware of what she was about to walk into.

Mikey knew he had to do something, so he bit down as hard as he could. Clamping down on the flesh holding his face.

Dante screeched, reeling back and striking him across the face on instinct, blood spraying across the rug from the chunk Mikey had taken from his palm.

"What the fuck?" Rosita was stood in the doorway of the adjoined bathroom. She looked confused, but then she saw Mikey. She saw Siddiq's body. She was holding Coco close to her chest.

Dante jumped up, still holding Siddiq's knife.

"Okay, okay..." she murmured calmly, slowly settling Coco down in the bathtub as she started to cry.

Dante lunged for her with both hands on the knife. She caught his wrists and slammed his hands into the wall, sending the knife skidding into the bedroom beyond.

There was a low growling coming from Siddiq on the rug by Mikey's feet, his head slowly dragging across the floor.

"Siddiq..."

But his teeth were bared, and he lunged.

"Siddiq!" Mikey cried, kicking him back.

Siddiq flailed onto his back, trying to pull himself back up.

Mikey reached up, pulling himself to his feet on the wall behind him.

His head throbbed and pounded with each movement.

He could hear Rosita and Dante struggling in the next room, and when he looked, Dante was on top of her, squeezing her throat like he had with Siddiq.

Mikey threw himself to the chair by the window and struggled with the clasp on Siddiq's axe, only just getting it from its holster before Siddiq's walker lunged again. Mikey didn't hesitate before slamming it into his temple and letting the body drop.

Mikey didn't have time to feel the sadness or grief that gripped at his chest. Only the rage. He stumbled forward, yanking the axe out of Siddiq's temple and staggering towards the bathroom where Rosita was fighting for her life against the bear of a man trying to throttle her.

Before Mikey could get there, Rosita threw a knee into Dante's ribs and tossed him to one side, where his body shattered a glass cabinet against the wall that showered him in glass and bottles of pills. Rosita grabbed the scruff of his shirt dragging him back into the room with Siddiq's body. Away from the bathroom and Coco.

Dante regained his senses quickly, punching her in her hip and tackling her into Mikey, sending all three of them crashing to the ground. He wrestled the axe out of Mikey's hand as he pinned the both of them down with his weight, struggling to his feet before they could.

Before he could raise it, the door to the hallway flew open beside him. Jenny was a flash of cold steel and and whipping hair.

Before Dante could defend himself, she sunk her knife deep into his shoulder, and he squealed.

Squealed like a dying boar.

Dante swung a heavy arm out in an attempt to bat her away, but Jenny was quicker than him. She let go of the knife to duck under his flailing arm, swiftly reaching up and pulling out the knife before sticking it back into him. His side this time.

Dante yelled again throwing his foot at her face, but, again, Jenny dodged the blow, yanking the knife from him and sinking it into his thigh.

Dante managed to shove her back, staggering away until his back hit the window and shattered the glass.

In the seconds Jenny bought her, Rosita was up, yanking the knife out of Dante and tossing him to the floor.

Blood poured from his wounds and into the carpet. Mikey crawled on top of him before he could move, and cracked his fist across his face. Then again. And again. And again.

Rosita caught his arm.

"He's done," she said between gasps for air.

Whatever strength Jenny had called on when she came through that door, it was draining fast. Mikey watched as she swayed and struggled to stay standing, finally falling down beside him. Rosita rushed to get Coco.

"Told... told you I wasn't— wasn't done," Jenny gasped.

Mikey craddled her onto his lap, crying and holding her tight. She looked like death, and yet she smiled.

There was a low hum then. A chesty hum. It slowly morphed to a growl, and they both saw Siddiq start to stir again. The deep gash in his head from Mikey's axe strike clearly not deep enough to put him down.

Rosita came back in with her knife. She took a second to look at him and dry her face. She stuck in through his temple.