[Finished] Living Among the Dead

20. Try

I step outside to hear Glenn and Sev tell Rick how Noah died. Sev tried convincing me to stay inside, but I told them to let me, Rick backed me up.
"I saw the grenades," Glenn is sitting on the steps, Rick kneeling in front of him, and Sev sat on the railing behind Glenn.
"We tried to stop him," Sev says, softly.
"He was gonna run," Glenn agrees. "But we made him stay."
"We were going to try to get Aiden out of there, and we needed Nick's help. And when we ended up in those damn doors," Sev's voice goes poisoness.
"All he had to do was hold the door," Glenn sounds haunted. "But he panicked. Noah, I had him. I had his hand. I tried."
"You did your best."
"I watched him die."
"I wanted to leave that fucking coward out there."
"We almost did leave him out there. Could have told a story."
When Rick doesn't respond Glenn asks, "What, you think we should have?"
"They don't know what they're doing," Rick says. "Any of them."
"We'll show them."
"I don't know if they can see it. How things really are. I don't know if they can yet. They haven't caught up."
"We have to be here. We have to." Glenn says, firmly.
"Yeah, we do. But their rules, we don't answer to them."
"We are them, Rick. We are, now. Noah, he believed in this place. I'm telling you, we gotta make this work."
I scoff, and everyone looks at me. "Noah believed in this place and now he's dead. Rick, you already know where I stand on this."
Rick nods, and I walk inside; the screen door slamming behind me.
Sev follows me, "Hey! You don't get to give up on this just because we lost someone!"
I spin around, "I've lost enough people! I've lost most of them because I believed we were safe! Noah saved me! And now he's dead because of me."
"That's not true, you know it's not."
"He was just a boy, Sev! A kid... who's next, Sev? Daryl? You? Mason?" My voice breaks. They pull me into a hug, that I push them away from; before going upstairs to tuck in Mason.

He's crying into his pillow when I get there, and I stroke his hair and start softly singing, "It's not where you come from..."

"Is Daryl back yet?" The first words out of Mason's mouth the last few days. No hello, good mornings. Just asking about Daryl.
"No, not yet."
"Can we go visit Eric again today?"
I shake my head, "No. You and I are going to stay here, we are going to cook for everyone for when they get off work."
"Carol does the cooking..." Mason says, looking at me as if he were trying to read something off of my face.
"Carol, cooks all day for her job, she probably hates coming home just to cook for everyone here as well."
He shrugs, "Okay. Hey, do you think they have dogs here?"
"I don't know, but I bet you
Carol would know."
"She does talk to everyone. If there are dogs, can I get one? We always said we'd get one before, but we never did."
I chuckle, ruffling his hair, "Your dad, he was afraid of dogs. He never wanted to tell you kids no, though. So he'd say later, and put it off."
"I miss him, Aaron... and Tonia."
"Me too."
"I miss movie nights, do you remember those?" He has a genuine smile on his face as he asks.
I nod, "Yeah, I remember those."
"We'd rent a movie each, and you'd make popcorn, sometimes dad'd be home and he'd make home made pizza."
I smile, "Yeah, those were the days, huh?"
"Do you think we'll ever have those back again?"
"I had dinner at Aaron and Eric's house. Daryl and I went to a neighbor's house to eat Spaghetti. I never thought that would be possible again, but we did it."
"Carl goes outside the walls, he follows Enid. He doesn't tell his dad, but he goes."
"Oh?" I say, unsure how to respond to this new bit of information.
"Enid lived out there before she came to Alexandria, too. I think they just have to be outside again to feel normal..."
"Yeah? Maybe," I say, thinking to how Daryl and I would leave Alexandria to breathe.
"You don't have to be afraid all the time. If things go bad, we can be prepared without always waiting for them to happen. We can be comfortable and happy, until they do. And when bad things happen, we can just deal with them, like always. But we don't have to live always waiting for them to happen. We can enjoy this place, y'know? You can say goodbye to Daryl and hope he comes back."
I nod, and pull my son close to me, giving him a kiss on the top of his head.

I'm on the porch when I hear the window crash, I immediately bolt to the direction of the sound of an obvious fight.
Rick and Pete have crashed right through Pete's window and are rolling around on the ground, throwing punches.
Pete's wife is crying as she tries to pull Pete off of Rick, but he slaps her hard enough she falls to the ground, but it gives Rick the leverage to get back on top.
Carl runs forward, and tries to get Rick off of Pete yelling, "Dad, get off!"
Rick shoves Carl off of his arm, and I'm appolled, I watch Rick put Pete in a choke hold as Deanna finally reaches the fight.
"Stop it! Stop it right now."
"You touch them again," warns Rick. "and I'll kill you."
"Damn it, Rick!" Deanna yells, "I said stop."
"Or what?" Rick pulls his gun out, "You gonna kick me out?"
"Put that gun down, Rick."
Rick's entire face is covered in blood, and he's actually having a mental break down, brandishing his gun, "You still don't get it. None of you do! We know what needs to be done and we do it. We're the ones who live. You, you just sit and plan and hesitate. You pretend like you know when you don't!" We all hear the banging on the walls, and the silenced gunfire. The dead are here.
"You wish things weren't what they are. Well, you want to live? You want this place to stay standing? Your way of doing things is done. Things don't get better because you-you want them to. Starting right now, we have to live in the real world. We have to control who lives here."
"That's never been more clear to me than it is right now," Deanna states, evenly.
"Me? Me? You-" Rick laughs, maniacly, and I look at Glenn, trying to see if he knows how to fix this, he looks as lost as I feel. "You mean, you mean me? Your way is gonna destroy this place. It's gonna get people killed. It's already gotten people killed. And I'm not gonna stand by and just let it happen. If you don't fight, you die. I'm not gonna stand by-" Michonne runs up behind Rick and punches him, hard, in the back of the head, cleanly knocking him unconcious.