Tomorrow Will Come

Forty Four

"Judith! Judith no!" Siddiq screamed, as Mary threatened the child with death if she didn't return that instant.
"Take him. RJ, stay with Jennie." Mary demanded, throwing the child at her girlfriend.
"Let me come and help."
"No. Look after him." Mary ordered, kissing RJ's head before she ran into the blizzard, Negan on her heels.
"Judith!" The man shouted, his words echoed by Siddiq and Rosita.
"Don't let go! Keep going, hold the rope!" Rosita ordered, as her and Siddiq joined Mary and Negan.
"Judith!" Negan screamed again, running away from Mary, into the distance.
"Split up." Mary nodded to Siddiq and Rosita, the three of them separating, screaming the girls name.
"Judith, get here now or I'll fucking kill you!" Mary roared, her voice hoarse. Mary ran; screaming Judith's name for close to an hour, before she couldn't run anymore. Her face was a bluish white, not that she could see it, and her throat and eyes were swollen with the frozen air. She couldn't hear anything apart from the wind anymore, and was praying that that meant that Judith had been found, so she sank down into the snow, trying desperately to breathe in some better air as her frozen, sore eyes slowly shut.

"Mary? Mary, wake up," Toby hissed, "wake up. We got her."
"W-what?" Mary mumbled, "I wasn't asleep. Just cold."
"I know. I know, now come on, before you freeze to death."
"Where's Jennie," Mary demanded, jumping up, "she has RJ. Where is she?"
"At the house. Everyone's at Barbara's, like planned. Come on." Toby insisted. Mary linked his arm, and the pair made it to the house, the icey air whipping their faces.

When they reached Barbra's house there was a huge pot bubbling away over the fire, full of old vegetable scraps, one last chicken that wasn't making it through the winter, and some tinned vegetables.
"I want bread with soup!" RJ demanded to Rosita who looked exhausted.
"RJ, there isn't any. Just soup." Rosita replied, making the boy screw his face up in discontent.
"Hey! Got someone for you, Jay!" Toby announced, and everyone turned to look at them.
"Moo!" RJ screamed happily, charging towards his sister.
"Hey!" Mary laughed, scooping him up and kissing his cold cheeks, "Oh I'm going to get frostbite kissing you! You go sit by that fire right now! Where's Judy?"
"By the fire."
"Okay, let's go give her some snuggles." Mary nodded, letting Siddiq, then Rosita hug her. They walked over to see Judith cured up beside Gracie and Dog, Jennie watching over them.
"Hey." Mary beamed, hugging all of them as close as she possibly could.
"You're safe." Jennie sighed happily, Mary nodding and pulling Judith to her chest.
"Not gonna kill me?" Judith half taunted.
"Don't tempt me."

"Feels weird. Before Alexandria, all siblings were so inseparable. When we were fighting, dying. My relationship with her isn't anything like mine with Carl." Mary mumbled to Jennie that night, the pair laid side by side in a side room. It was basically a closet, but they were together.
"No, I get you. I suppose when you're not worried about stuff like dying, you can argue about anything and everything."
"I miss him every second of every day."
"I know."
"I don't know how... How I should ever feel whole again. Without Carl, and dad. Glenn. Maggie. Barely see Daryl. I love Judith and RJ, but I miss my old life so badly."
"What do you mean?"
"I'd give anything to leave this place," Mary finally admitted, feeling a rush of anxious butterflies leave her stomach, "anything. I love Alexandria. She's my home. She saved me. I'd die fighting for her. But I miss being free, on the road, with the old group."
"It's not just Alexandria that did all that."
"Oh but she did. These gates saved us. I just want to leave them now."
"Mary. That's ridiculous. You don't... You don't see this world properly!" Jennie suddenly snapped, sitting bolt upright.
"What do you mean? I'm not stupid!"
"I mean you have this idealised version of what life is like outside of those walls. It's not like that! It's not! You remember it happily because you had your whole family. Your mom and dad and brother and sister. Your uncles and aunts. You had your people but your mind is tricking you! You told me you got shot. Someone tried to sexually assault you when you was a kid! It breaks my heart that you went through that. It wasn't all good. It was all awful, but with good people."
"Don't you dare. Don't you dare talk about it like that!"
"It's true, Mary. It wasn't good!"
"But it was! It was the best... The best few years of my life. I don't care about the bad, I was with them. And we had so many good times. In between the bad, there was so much good. So much."
"Mary," Jennie began, her voice exhausted, but Mary snapped.
"Shut up! Don't you dare. It was my life. My life with my family. Don't ever try to say it was bad. It was perfect! It was me! I'd give it all up to have it again! Sometimes I wish we never even found this place! I love her, but I wish we never found her!"
"Then you'd have been dead! I'm sure of it. And you wouldn't have found me!"
"And my brother and dad and Glenn would still be here," Mary hissed, speaking honestly yet harshly, "I'd sooner have them."

Mary was wordlessly wrapping one of Negan's bandages when her mother walked in, and she immediately dropped it, hugging her tightly.
"Well look who's here." Negan chuckled, making Michonne sigh and roll her eyes.
"Missed you." Michonne murmured into Mary's hair, letting go of her.
"Thank you for saving her. You always did have a flare for the dramatic."
"Well, last time we were here together Rick had just slit my throat open," Negan chuckled, making Mary roll her eyes, just as her mother had done, "this, hell, this ain't nothing. She's a special girl. A damn spitfire, just like Junior Doc over there. And you... you've been through enough."
"Get better." Michonne replied simply, not wanting to hear his complements, his comments.
"You know, Doctor Baby Daddy said that you got caught in the storm with the Royalty Brigade. Is everyone okay?" Negan asked, surprising Mary; no one had told her.
"Do you care?"
"I do," Mary snapped, "no one told me!"
"Look," Negan interrupted, "I don't know any of those people from Adam. I do know what it's like to lose a Kingdom. See things fall apart. And it sucks ass."
"The Sanctuary's a shithole now."
"It always was." Mary retorted.
"Well hell, I could have told you that. All you had to do was ask. So you cut through their territory. Ballsy."
"What the hell, mom!"
"Mary, not now."
"You know how dangerous they are!" Mary retorted, making Michonne sit down with a sigh and a glare which Mary interpreted as "shut the hell up".
"We don't even know if they were there. The point is we came together and we made it."
"Common enemy, common goal."
"Or facing evil brings good people together."
"Same thing, it's just that no one ever thinks that they're the evil one." Negan remarked, sending chills down Mary's back. She'd never thought of that. Never considered that to some people, they were the evil ones.
Never considered that maybe, just maybe, other groups saw them as evil. As cruel. As having done bad things.
When they left, Michonne sat Mary down, wanting to recount the past few days to her daughter, but Mary cut her off.
"Mom, I'm done," Mary began shakily, "I can't do this anymore. Stay in these walls, see the same people, pretend everything is okay. I wasn't made for this. I can't do this."
"Mary," Michonne said gently, her voice showing well disguised concern, "whatever this is about, we can handle it together. We can always do this together. You have me. You have our family. You have friends. You have Jennie."
"I ended it with Jennie," Mary finally admitted, "I'm not in the place for a relationship. I'm not in the place to look after Judith and RJ. Or to help anyone. I need to help myself. To find me. To be me again. And I have someone else too. I'm going to Daryl. I'm sorry mom, I can't do this anymore. I can't stay. I need to be out there with him. I'm leaving, mom."