"Keep your helmet, keep your life, son

Just a flesh wound, here's your rifle

Crawling up the beaches now,

'Sir, I think he's bleeding out,'

And some things you just can't speak about"

– Epiphany, T.S.

Mila

We heard the gunshots before we even made it into camp. Wordlessly, we all started sprinting. I pulled out my measly knife and vowed to do what I could. Daryl must've seen me and pulled a much larger knife from his belt, pushing the handle into my hand.

"Hold it the way I taught you." I could only nod, breathless and chest heaving. I slipped my fingers around it, just the way he showed me, and gripped tightly. "Aim for the brain." Easy.

As we approached the campground, walkers were everywhere. It was hard to tell who was even human and who was already dead with how dark it was. Not to mention the chaos. The screaming. One stumbled toward me, jaw swinging from side to side and flesh falling from its face. I coaxed it forward before tripping it over my ankle and slicing my knife through the air to make contact with the back of its skull. With a disgusting squelch, I withdrew the knife and turned– looking for my next target.

Daryl had some sort of rifle, but the sound meant that more walkers were heading his way. He had three inching forward in a clearing, but another was sneaking up behind him. I ran to intercept it.

"Behind you!" I warned and then landed the knife in its eye. I pushed down the bile I could feel rising– nothing could prepare you for the slime or the smell, and swallowed thickly, "Gross."

Daryl popped off two more shots and the walkers in his way dropped. The camp was still in a frenzy, but it appeared only the living were standing. Everyone was on edge, and sobs echoed around the small space. I'd seen a lot in my career, but I never got numb to the sounds of grief. Cries and animalistic screams that rang in my ears long after the shift was over. The true sound of pain.

Andrea kneeled over Amy, trying to bring comfort in her last moments. My first instinct was to run over and apply pressure to her wound, but there was no point with a bite. Buying her time now just meant creating suffering for her later. The end result was the same.

I had to look away, willing my brain to think about anything but Aly. I started listing antibiotics in my head. Amoxicillin, Augmentin, Ceftriaxone… she was probably already dead… Clindamycin, Doxycycline, Gentamycin… I couldn't protect her… Metronidazole, Minocycline, Vancomycin. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes anyway. I willed my internal veil to pull itself over my brain, over my heart– to make me feel like I was watching myself on a screen instead of living it. After a few moments, that's exactly what it did. My eyes glazed over and I felt nothing.

It was morning when we could finally start cleaning up, dragging bodies of the previously undead to one side of camp and the newly dead to the other. Glenn and I worked silently to drag an especially heavy walker to the fire. I grunted as I pulled him over. Andrea was still hovering over Amy, not allowing anyone to get close enough to her to put an end to what we knew was coming. Maybe she just had to see it for herself in order to know nothing could be done. I don't know what I'd do in her shoes, but I was very grateful I didn't have to know.

"Y'all can't be serious? Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time bomb." Ah, Daryl. Ever the picture of tact and carefully choosing words.

"What do you suggest?" Rick asked, somewhat rhetorically.

"Take the shot. Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance." I couldn't help myself and sharply inhaled a breath of air before running my mouth.

"Jesus. The body isn't even cold yet, give her a minute." His eyes met mine, critically, and I'm sure mine looked the same to him. "She's got a gun for when it happens. What would you do if that was Merle?"

His eyes darkened as he scoffed and part of me worried that I went too far in trying to get him to empathize, but the other part of me that was projecting didn't care.

"Let her be," Lori declared before walking off with Rick, her tone final. I felt the tension rolling off Daryl's shoulders in waves and knew I pissed him off. Guilt settled in my stomach and I internally glared at it. Couldn't I have just one day to be reckless with my words and decisions without my conscience screaming at me?

I took a step closer to Daryl.

"Hey, I'm-"

"Don't say sorry again," he grumbled, taking an axe and bringing it down on a walker's head, "Ya say sorry too damn much."

I frowned, taken aback that he could somehow read my mind.

"Well, maybe I have a lot to be sorry for."

"Ya don't."

"Apparently I do."

"Nah, ya don't," he grunted as he brought down the axe again, "Your job was takin' care of people and you're still doin' it now. I think you're good on the sorries."

Blood rushed to my ears. I know what he said was supposed to be nice, but it pissed me off– more than anything else he had ever said. It had happened all my career– people heard I was a nurse and just assumed I was a good person, without needing to know anything else. But I had met shitty people within the hospital walls. Mean, power hungry, vindictive, ignorant, you name it. A degree and a badge didn't make you a good person, your choices did. And my choices never felt like they'd ever be good enough. Perfection was always just out of reach, at least on a good day. On a bad day, it felt like I shouldn't even exist at all. But here was another person acting like I was holy for doing a job that paid me.

"Plenty of terrible people are nurses or doctors or teachers or whatever other job makes people think you're automatically a saint." I didn't want to have this argument right now, but I couldn't help myself. "But since you seem so trigger happy, I want you to know that if it were me, I'd want you to take the shot."

He stilled, taking his hand off the handle attached to a blade that was still stuck in a skull.

"What?" His voice sounded like I'd managed to piss him off even more with this conversation. Too late to backtrack now.

"If that's me and I'm dead– or even alive but bit– I'm giving you permission to take the shot." What was so hard about this to understand? Surely, he'd want the same. "Ideally though, I won't see it coming so take me by surprise," I laughed before adding, "I used to tell Aly my ideal death was a bus that I never saw coming."

He stared at the pile of bodies, breath coming out shallowly and nostrils flaring. Why did he look so hot when he did that? Focus.

"Ya suicidal or somethin'?"

It was my turn to scoff, both surprised and amused.

"Not that I know of. I mean, life ain't exactly great right now but I'm here, aren't I? Why? You offering to take the shot now?"

It was meant to be a joke but it didn't appear to land. He ignored me.

"Ya just seem to be willing to die more often than most. This is the second time in twenty-four hours ya talked about it."

I shrugged.

"I think it's a side effect of seeing so much death at my job. I know it's inevitable, doesn't make sense to try to outrun something that's coming for you no matter what. I'm not looking to make it happen any quicker than it needs to, but I'm not exactly going to be devastated if it does." I sighed, pushing some dirt around with my toe. "You know, life sucks and then you die. Even before the world ended, I used to say that my last breath would be a sigh of relief. I meant it then, but I mean it even more now."

This is something I thought maybe he'd understand, but it was looking like I read him all wrong. Now, I felt too exposed– like I'd told a secret I shouldn't have. I was naked in front of the class except I wasn't dreaming.

"Offerin' yourself up as bait seems more active than just lettin' it happen. Why go through all the trouble– why not just call it now?"

His tone was a taunt, a challenge. He couldn't get to me though, because I had a promise to answer to that was impenetrable to my own desires and misery. No matter how bad it got.

"My sister. Aly." Her name hung in the air. I met his eye pointedly, "I'm trusting you to do what needs to be done, if we ever get there."

With a final glance, I walked back toward the fire, ready to drag another meat sack over. It wasn't long before animated commotion got my attention from across camp.

"What are you doing? This is for geeks. Our people go over there," Glenn pointed determinedly to the other side of camp, anguish written on his face. "Our people go in that row over there! We don't burn them! We bury them. Understand?!" His voice was escalating in volume, becoming more desperate and emotional.

I couldn't help myself. My feet were moving before I knew what I was doing and my body slammed into his as I wrapped him in a hug. He staggered for a second, surprised by the sudden contact, before wrapping his arms back around me and pushing his face into my hair. I felt his shoulders shake and gripped him tighter.

"Hey, it's okay. We'll bury them. They matter." He cried into the crook of my neck as his whole body went limp before trying to compose himself. He let go of our embrace and wiped his eyes, trying to stop the tears. He took a shuddering breath and looked off into the woods. "You're a good guy, Glenn. They're lucky to have you to care about them, even in death."

I grabbed the feet of the body that had been dragged to the wrong pile and started trying to pull it to the right side of camp. I felt someone else grab the arms and the load lightened considerably. Of course it was Daryl. He grumbled, low enough so only I could hear, as we carried the weight.

"I don't see how it matters, they're all gonna turn anyway."

"It matters to him. The things we do for the dead aren't for them– it's for us."

"Yeah, well, forgive me if I don't care about their feelings about it. They left my brother for dead. The way I see it, they had this comin'."

"Hey, we tried to get him back and risked a lot to do so. No one deserves to die because five people in camp made a judgment call under duress," I snapped.

"To hell with y'all."

Daryl stalked off, to go do anything else. I rolled my eyes and huffed, annoyed that it was already a shit day made even shittier. I wasn't even here yet when they left Merle behind. Whatever. I doubt I changed his mind about any of it, but no more of our people ended up in the walker row.

"A walker got him! A walker bit Jim," Jacqui's voice projected through camp as everyone gathered around.

The men circled Jim as he backed up, reminding me of an animal cornered. The most dangerous place to be was between it and the escape route. I gathered the kids and put them behind me.

"Show it to us!" Daryl demanded, axe high on his shoulder.

Jim turned around and grabbed a shovel, met with a chorus of "easy!" and "back up!". T-Dog bum-rushed him from behind and restrained his arms, giving Daryl access to lift up his shirt– a bright red bite visible on the lower half of his torso.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Jim kept repeating, almost as if he could make it true. But he wasn't, and he wouldn't be.

Rick, Shane, and Daryl converged to decide on what to do.

"I say we put a pick-axe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." I could've predicted Daryl's contribution.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane questioned harshly. Daryl didn't budge.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

I quirked an eyebrow up, silently calling him a hypocrite for judging me earlier, earning me a scowl from him. I smirked. He apparently could read my mind, and it was mighty convenient at a time like this.

"I hate to say it… I never thought I would… but maybe Daryl's right," Dale added. I frowned, protective. He didn't have to act like Daryl didn't have any good ideas. He would've starved a long time ago without him.

The discussion devolved further into questions about our humanity and deciding who lives or dies. At the end of the day, they decided that going to the CDC was the only viable option. Of course, not before Daryl tried to do things his way and lunged at Jim– which Rick promptly stopped, by holding a gun to his head– again. Daryl eventually backed down, which bought Rick time to load Jim into the RV. The CDC would have to wait, we still had work to do here.

I had taken over some of the brain-stabbing duties, swinging my knife down over and over. Moving down the line, ensuring that no one else had to get bitten or die. In between corpses, I took a break and shook out my arm. My bicep and shoulder were screaming from the repetitive movement and force required to actually break through bone. I raised my arm high to start on the next one when Carol stopped me.

"That's my husband, Ed. I'll do it." She reached for my knife. I hesitated.

"You don't have to. I don't mind doing this for you…"

"I know. Thank you. But I need to do this."

I passed over the blade and took a seat at the nearby picnic table to give her some privacy. I expected her to maybe cry, but I did not expect her to stab him until he was a pile of mush. I was both fascinated and horrified.

"He was a piece of shit. Put hands on her. Everyone could see the bruises."

I didn't have to turn to know whose gravelly voice was speaking, apparently not mad at me anymore.

"The trash took itself out today," I murmured, "I knew."

"Ya only been here a night, how could you know?"

"Experience. I could see it in his eyes and how he looked at her." I stood up and threw the bloody rag that was in my pocket on the table. "Abusers are all the fucking same."

I needed a break from the dead. Stomping across camp, I reached the RV door and entered. I left it ajar… just in case. I didn't know what I might find. Jim was laying on the bed, clammy and pale.

"Jim… can I get you anything? You doing okay?"

It was a dumb question, but what the hell are you supposed to ask when someone is actively turning into the bogeyman everyone was scared of?

"Oh no, not this… no, no, no!" His eyes were staring at me, but they didn't see me. I'd been around the dying enough to know that he maybe had the day left.

"Hey Jim, shh… it's just me. It's Mila. You're okay. We're in the RV. No one's here but you and me. You're safe."

It wasn't totally the truth but it also wasn't totally a lie. One of my rules was to never lie to my patients or their families. I can't promise you'll be okay, I can't promise that anyone will live or that we'd buy them more time. But I can promise I'll be with you, I can promise that I will do my ultimate best to help you and that you're in the exact right place to receive that help. I took Jim's hand and his fingers closed around mine. He finally looked at me, instead of through me, and gave me a relieved sigh.

"Oh, it's you. Sorry… I think I'm seeing things." His eyes still flicked behind me, as if he couldn't ignore the horrors his brain was conjuring.

"I know, it's okay. I got you. It's just you and me here. Whatever you're seeing isn't real."

He relaxed a little bit, shut his eyes with a shuddering breath, and then proceeded to vomit blood into the bucket next to him. I was up in a flash, holding the bucket for him as his body spasmed in pain. He finally stopped and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"My family… they didn't make it. My wife and two boys. I got away because they didn't make it," he cried. My heart broke for him, for all of us, as I saw this for what it was. A deathbed confession. Guilt he no longer wanted to carry.

"Keeping anyone safe in this is an impossible ask," I said, grabbing his hand again. "I'm so sorry. What were their names?"

"What?" His mouth fell open in surprise.

"Your family. What were their names?"

"Susan. Matthew. James Jr," he could hardly get the names out as he groaned in pain, panting. I wiped his brow with a nearby towel.

"Those are great names. I'm sure they loved you a lot."

As rusty as my nurse brain was, I silently prayed I was saying the right things– if there were even any right things I could say.

"You're the first to ask me their names since they passed."

"Do you want to tell me a memory?" I asked tentatively, knowing this could go either way and preparing myself for an outcome that included lashing out. Logically, my brain would never judge a dying man, but I have a sensitive heart that's easy to bruise.

"Every summer," he gasped, "we'd go out to the lake. I'd teach the boys to fish and Sue would fry up whatever we caught." Another groan. "Sometimes they'd fight or get bored and want to go anywhere else, but I never felt my life was more perfect than when we were out on the shore together."

My eyes teared up as he triggered my own memories of going to the lake. I knew exactly what he meant.

"That sounds so lovely. My sister and I used to spend time at a lake and I find myself wishing I could go back there, one more time, even just for five minutes," I swiped at my eyes with my free hand. "Did you ever catch much?"

Jim gave a quick laugh before holding his stomach in pain.

"God, no. If we were lucky, we'd catch a single trout to split between the four of us."

I wanted to end on a good note for him.

"Why don't you try and get some rest? Maybe think of the lake and you'll see visions of that instead."

Jim closed his eyes and nodded, as I wiped his brow a final time. I stepped out of the RV and into the sun, shielding my eyes with my hand.

"Mila," RIck called out, walking up to me, all official in his sheriff uniform and hat.

"Rick?"

"We're heading out now. We put you in Daryl's truck."

"Oh? I thought I'd ride in the back of the RV with Jim."

I was torn between wanting to listen to my urge to care for my patient and my natural inclination to orbit around the broody, rough around the edges hunter.

"I appreciate that, I do, but it's too risky to lose you when we know…" he trailed off. We know he won't make it, I mentally finished for him. "What if he turns and attacks you back there while we're all tied up? I know you joke about being useless but at this point in time, you are one of the most useful members that we have. We'll need you."

I felt my cheeks flame under his earnest praise, that I didn't necessarily feel I deserved, but could only nod in response.

"Hey, Dixon!" I called out across the camp, to where he was standing in the truck bed and securing a motorcycle. He squinted back at me, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun in the same exact way I was doing. "I'm riding with you."

I grabbed my pack off the ground and made my way to the side of his truck. His arms rippled as he pulled the bungee cords taut, ensuring the bike wasn't going anywhere, causing something to ripple in me.

"How'd ya know my last name?" He grunted with the effort of tightening the last cord.

"I heard someone else say it," I gave him a bright smile. "I hope that's okay. I like it– very southern. Very you."

There was that blush again. I didn't mean to do it on purpose but it gave me a thrill every time it happened. Proof that I affected him, even if it was a fraction of the way he affected me. Pulling open the door with a creak, I hopped in and pulled my seatbelt on while Daryl slid into the driver's seat.

"A seatbelt? Really? Ain't no one gonna give you a ticket now." He turned the key in the ignition and the truck turned over with a roar. "Well, maybe Rick will– Captain America."

I laughed, because it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

"Trust me, if you've seen the things I've seen, you'd never drive without a seatbelt again."

He considered this with a cock of his head before shrugging his shoulders.

"What do the kids say? I'm here for a good time, not a long one?"

I smirked and shook my head as I looked out the window.

"Something like that."

—-

Daryl

My fingers intermittently drummed on the steering wheel and I shifted in my seat, ass already falling asleep. I was much more used to walking for miles over hilly terrain than sitting, but here we were. I glanced over at Mila– legs curled up under her, scanning the scenery through the windshield, before returning my attention back to the road. None of us got much sleep, on account of coming back to camp to find walkers chowing down on half of our group. I was nervous when she first got in the truck, worried that she'd spend the whole ride babbling about shit I didn't care about, but we both seemed to be on the same page about silence being drove for quite a while down an uneventful stretch of highway when the RV started smoking in front of us.

"Uh-oh…" I heard Mila mutter.

I followed her eyeline to see Dale pulling over as everyone else followed. I hopped out of the truck and rubbed my brow as I followed Dale to take a look under the hood. Bikes are more my speed, but Merle and I had a brief stint working in a car shop by day, chop shop by night– until Merle got us fired by mouthing off to the boss's girlfriend.

"What's the problem?" I asked, crossing my arms and staring down into the engine block. "Radiator hose?"

"Unfortunately," he answered, "and it's more duct tape than hose at this point."

Shane was lingering nearby and looked like he was itching to get away from the group, or more accurately, the recently reunited family.

"I saw a gas station up the way."

And with that, he stomped off. Good, his energy pisses me off. Never seen a situation yet that he didn't make worse. Jacqui burst out of the RV, hurriedly.

"Y'all… Jim. It's bad. I don't think he can take anymore."

I sighed and went to grab Mila from where she was still sitting in the truck. I pulled open the passenger door to find her laying across the truck's bench, feet in my seat. She jumped upright at the sound of the door opening.

"I don't know anything about cars. Human guts, yes. Car guts, no," she smiled at her own joke, and I pushed down the warmth that lit up my bones when she did. It didn't make any sense and for that reason, I didn't like it.

"It's Jim." Her face immediately dropped. "He ain't turned yet, but I don't think he's making much more of the trip."

She moved to jump out of the truck and I stepped to the side to let her. Mila raced to the RV and up the stairs, while I leaned against one of the cars and chewed on my thumbnail. Walkers, I could handle but all this… people stuff had me lost. There were too many ways to mess up or piss someone off. It was easier to become invisible and wait for it to pass.

I looked up just in time to catch Rick and Mila helping Jim down the RV stairs and over to a shady patch under a tree. I wandered up to the edge of the group, just barely making out Jacqui saying goodbye. Mila gave them space, but walked up to Jim when Jacqui was done. I eyed her warily. She always surprised me, and it wasn't always a good thing.

"Just think of your family. Sue and the kids. Picture that lake and all the trout you're not going to catch," she said with a sad smile.

She squeezed his hand as he used his other to motion her closer. She leaned in when her shoulders slightly tensed, which made mine follow suit, and then recovered before giving him a hug and pulling away. Jim just caught my eye over her shoulder and I opened my mouth to speak, but figured I'd fuck it up somehow, so I dipped my chin in acknowledgement and hoped that said it all for me.

Mila and I left everyone else to walk back to the truck, with her intermittently sniffling and wiping her eyes.

"Sorry, I don't mean to cry. Just ignore me." She pushed on her tear ducts, as if that was gonna keep them from coming out.

"What is that– number 4 on apologies in 48 hours? I'm pretty sure cryin' when someone is dyin' is normal."

It shouldn't, but it irritated me that she was constantly saying sorry. Merle and I didn't say sorry for shit, even when we should've, and we lasted that way for well over three decades. Meanwhile, Mila acts like a freakin' saint and is constantly offering up her life on a silver platter but can't keep from apologizing if the breeze blows by unexpectedly.

"Remember when people died like, once every few years? Instead of multiple times a week? Those were the good old days," she mused.

I grabbed for the truck handle and hauled myself in, thinking back to a time when people stayed dead. Me and Merle, living in shithole places and getting wasted to pass the time, sleeping with whoever could numb the pain for a night– although that was more Merle's scene than mine– and popping anything we could find to take the edge off. I slept walk my way through years. Maybe I'd have tried harder if I knew it would all go away one day. Maybe I would've taken better drugs.

"This is all we got now." It's all I could offer. Depressing. Bleak. But true.

Dale managed to get the RV running again, with whatever car scraps Shane managed to track down, and we were back in our caravan. The windows were down now, airing out some of the stale cigarette smell from Merle and I spending years smoking in the cab, and I inhaled the fresh Georgia air before remembering something.

"Hey, Mila?"

My voice was thick and low from the past hour spent in silence. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable but curious enough to push past it. She stopped what she was doing, which was digging through the glove compartment to try and find a CD, and faced me.

"What's up?"

Her hazel eyes were sincere and I felt like I could see right through them, directly into her thoughts, if I looked hard enough. Most of the time, anyway. When camp went to shit earlier this morning, there was a moment where she looked so devastated and broken. Seconds later, that was wiped and an unsettling, glazed look took over. In a flash, she felt a million miles away and it was so not her that she didn't even look like herself anymore– the warmth in her eyes had disappeared. Thankfully, that seemed to improve once we got some distance between us and the campsite.

"Earlier… I saw Jim say something to ya, before we left."

Not wanting to overstep, I left the statement there. An unasked question in between the lines for her to answer, if she wanted to. She sighed, knitting her brows together in an expression that felt familiar after seeing it a handful of times in the past two days. As far as I could gather, she made that face when she was deep in thought or confused. Maybe both.

"Oh… that." She seemed to be deciding whether to tell me the truth or not. I didn't want to care about the answer, at least I had no reason to, but it made it even more intriguing that whatever he said seemed to affect her so much. "He just said that I deserved to live too. I didn't have to be a martyr," she forced a laugh, but I didn't have to look at her to know it didn't sound real.

"Seems like I'm not the only one to notice ya seem to have a death wish," I remarked, trying to keep my voice neutral and even. I didn't see her eye roll, but I could practically hear it.

"He doesn't even know me."

Her tone was resentful, almost mad at him for even thinking it. I almost said that I didn't know her much either, but decided to keep that to myself. We dropped the topic and I leaned back on the head rest, following the headlights in front of me to our next temporary haven. Hopefully this one was more promising than the last.