Jessamine Dixon lives in the apocalypse

How It's Gotta Be

I rubbed the back of Judith's head while rocking back in forth in the chair. The door to her room was opened.

"I'm excited to tell you these stories, the ones of us winning. When we win and when this is over, I think I'll be able to breath again.
I'm excited to tell you the good stories of them. Your mom, uncle Glenn, Abraham, Tyreese, Aunt Beth, Sasha--the ones that got you here.
But I know that I'm gonna have to tell you why they're not here with us anymore, because you deserve to know.
Those stories are the only things your gonna have left to hang on to." I whispered to her.

Judith was sitting in the grass and I walked up so Michonne could walk down. I saw Daryl packing up and I stood next to him.

"So, possibly sacrificing yourself was your big plan?" I asked and he looked at me.

"Your talking to me and I'm able to talk back. That's what matters." Daryl told me and I scoffed.

"You were okay with dying. You were okay with it and the last thing I would get to remember with you is me being a bitch." I told him and he looked down.

"It worked and I'm here. The only option they have is to give up." Daryl said and I started walking away.

"Can we talk later?" Daryl asked and I shrugged my shoulders. I looked back and Daryl was talking to Michonne, she was the one that told me about his big plan.

I ran back to the house and ran up the stairs. Carl was sitting in the corner of his room writing letters and my heart sank again.

"Hey." I said and knelt down in front of him. I put my hand on his shoe and I read the word "dad" on the letter.

"Your handwriting could be better." I said and tried to laugh.

"Don't cry. If you want me to hide this, then I can't walk out of here crying." I told him and he nodded his head.

"Okay." Carl said and his voice was breaking. I leaned forward and pushed the hair out of his face. I kissed his forehead and Carl held onto my forearm while I leaned back.

"I love you." He told me and I nodded my head.

"I love you, too. Just make sure your still here when we get back." I told him and he nodded his head.

"I will." He said and let go of my wrists.

"Deuces, dude. I'll be back." I told him and walked out of the room. I took a deep breath at the door of his room and I walked out trying to be as confident as I could.

Something hit against the fence and it was dark out. It sounded like Lucille but I didn't want to believe that.

It hit again and there was feedback from something outside the fence.

"You may be wondering why the hell your lookouts didn't sound the alarm.
See, we are polite. I mean, I don't know when they're gonna wake up from that kinda shot, but they should wake up.
So let's just cut through the cow shit--you lose. It's over.
So you're gonna line up in front of your little houses, and you're gonna work up some apologies, and when the person with the lamest one is gonna get killed.
Then I kill Rick in front of everybody, and we move on.
You have three--count em, three minutes to open this gate, or we start bombing the shit out of you!" Negan told us and I looked around.

Carl and Michonne were by the sewers and by now everybody was behind me on the sidewalk.

Negan started whistling and I looked at everybody behind me.