Shambles- The Walking Dead [Alden x Maggie] [1/2]

57- Soldier

"I got it!" Carl cheered. "Antibiotics, antiseptic and bandages. Everything we need." He lifted the crate filled with medical supplies from the hidden basement and brought it to the couch. "You're lucky Syddiq and Enid taught me a bunch." He grabbed a bottle of antibiotics and unscrewed the cap. He gave two of them to Rose and watched her take them. "I'm still going to clean your wound. Better late than never." he continued.

She scoffed, "right." She looked away as he worked on her wound, somehow it always seemed to hurt less then. The antiseptic made the wound sting and burn. Her mind traveled back in time to get away from the pain. Back to the barn. Back to the cobwebs. And back to the heads rolling over the floor.

"Hey." Carl tapped her shoulder, bringing her back to reality. "You alright?"

"Mhm," she nodded. Those memories only seemed to return when her mind was way too busy already.

"I'm gonna wrap it up. It should hold for a couple of days but Syddiq's still gonna have to see you when we get back," he continued to explain.

"The bone's sticking out. I saw," she told him.

Carl bandaged it up neatly, with an extra buffer for any accidental bumps. Now all they could do was wait for the others.

"Try to get some sleep, both of you. I'll keep watch," Jesus offered. He already stood near the door to keep an eye out. "We've been going nonstop for a long time."

Carl nodded and sat down on the couch next to Rose. He wasn't planning on finding somewhere else to sleep for safety reasons and the only comfortable place to nap in this room was that small couch. They both nodded off quickly because they were exhausted, huddled close together. The thing that woke them up was Maggie, Alden and Negan walking in through the front door. Maggie and Jesus hugged each other immediately, both glad to see the other alive.

"Rose." Alden ran to her. She jumped up and they hugged each other tighter than ever before. When he pulled back he noticed the fresh bandage wrapped around her clearly missing vingers. "What happened?" he asked, concerned.

"One of those thrown knives cut them off last night. Nothing to worry about. I'll be fine," she promised him.

"It can get infected. We need to–" He looked around stressfully to find the medical supplies.

"We know. We already took care of it. I'm going to be okay."

"But they took your fingers," he spoke with disbelief. He couldn't quite believe the sight of the bandage yet. It hurt in another kind of way to see her hurt. He'd much rather see his own fingers cut off. That would've hurt less.

"I'm going to be okay," she promised him again.

"And now what?" Negan asked. "We found some of the others."

"We wait for the others to show up," Maggie insisted.

"How long?" he shot right back. "Because we don't even know if anyone else is alive."

"How long would you want someone to wait for you?" she deflected his question.

"I just think the longer we stay here the more likely it is that these lunatics catch us. Look, how about we take this food back, alright? I know it's not a lot, but at least it's something," Negan tried.

"It's nothing," she growled straight back at him.

"People died to get us this far." Alden shook his head. "If we only take the food that's here, they would've died for nothing. We're going to see this to the end. For them. Not that you understand a damn thing about family."

"We need to cut our losses," Negan insisted calmly. "Think about your kids; Hershel, Hope and Adam. They're waiting for you to return."

"Do you think I don't know that?" Maggie spoke calmly. "They're the reason we're doing this."