The Third Dixon [The walking dead OC x OC]

Chapter ten

The rain had been following them for most of the drive back, turning the road ahead into a blur of gray and green, the world outside the RV softened by water running down the windows. It should have felt peaceful, almost normal, just the sound of tires against wet pavement and the steady rhythm of the storm, but Measi had never been very good at trusting quiet moments. Quiet meant waiting, and waiting usually meant something was about to happen.

She sat toward the back of the RV with her rifle resting beside her, close enough that she could reach it without thinking. It was an old habit, one she had stopped noticing years ago. The weapon was familiar, predictable, something she understood. People were harder.

Her mind kept going back to the ultrasound.

That tiny shape on the screen, the proof that something new could exist in a world that seemed determined to destroy everything. She had watched Maggie's face when she saw it, watched Glenn try to pretend he wasn't terrified while looking happier than she had seen him in a long time. Everyone had reacted differently, but they all had the same thing in their eyes.

Hope.

Measi didn't know what to do with hope.

Survival she understood. Survival had rules. You found food, you found shelter, you watched the people around you, and you made sure you were still breathing at the end of the day. Hope was different, because hope meant believing there would actually be something waiting for you tomorrow.

She looked down at her hands, then at the worn leather of her jacket. She had carried that jacket through more than she ever wanted to remember, and sometimes she wondered if it looked more like a piece of armor than clothing. The scars, the missing pieces, the things that had happened to her before and after the world fell apart, they were all there whether she wanted them to be or not.

Gregory had brought something back that she hated.

Not a memory exactly, not one she could point at and name, but a feeling.

That old feeling of being looked at like she wasn't fully a person, like someone else thought they had the right to decide things about her. She had spent years learning how to survive people like that, people who believed power meant they could take whatever they wanted.

And now there was another name.

Negan.

She had never met him, never seen his face, never heard him speak, but somehow that almost made it worse. Her mind filled in the blanks, because it already knew what kind of people existed in this world. The kind who built themselves up by making everyone else smaller, the kind who smiled while they made threats, the kind who wanted obedience more than they wanted peace.

She hated that it still affected her.

After everything she had survived, after every walker, every fight, every person she had lost, there were still things that could reach inside and pull at old wounds.

Her fingers tightened around her sleeve without her realizing it.

Nathan noticed.

Of course he did.

He always noticed the things she tried hardest to hide.

He didn't say anything at first, which was exactly why she trusted him. Nathan never forced his way into her thoughts, never acted like he could fix her if he just said the right thing. He simply moved from his seat and sat beside her, leaving enough space that she didn't feel trapped.

"I hate the rain," she said eventually, still staring out the window.

Nathan glanced outside. "You've said that the last two days."