Staying Alive//TWDFanFic

Forty Eight

-Day 30 in the Commonwealth- (Rj and Judith live with Carol in this story.)

It's Halloween, I wouldn't have even known that if I didn't come here, I kind of love that they were able to keep track of the dates and time after all of the world fell to shit. Daryl and I took Judith and Rj through a haunted house, it was cute to see Daryl interacting with them as they got scared at every turn. I stayed back a bit since Daryl and I still aren't on the greatest terms, I let go of the situation with Leah and him but I haven't been able to bring myself to be intimate with him since, we're kind of just taking things slow right now and more on a friendly level, we do live together and sleep in the same bed because that's what we're used to but I haven't even kissed him since before the whole reaper situation. We get to the exit and we're back out in the Halloween festival, it's a bit overwhelming so I decide to break off from Daryl and the kids to walk off on my own to take everything in, in my own way.

I'm walking around for a few minutes when a good looking, clean shaved man approaches me, "Hi there, are you one of the newcomers?" I nod, "Yeah." I don't like interacting with new people, all the new people I've ever known in this world either try to kill us or betray us in some way so I've kept my distance from mostly everyone, it's also been hard for me to adjust because Negan left us before we returned to Alexandria and it took me losing him to realize he's my best friend. "Aren't you Mercer's new assistant?" I nod but don't say anything, he smiles, "Well, I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner sometime." I chuckle softly, "Uh, no, I'm sorry. I'm actually married to-" I try to find Daryl in the crowd, it took me a moment but I was able to point him out to him, "Daryl, over there." He glances at him before looking back at me, "Ah, well, he's a lucky man." We say an awkward goodbye before I decide to just go home. I was stopped by the lady who works at the music store, "Holy shit." She approaches me slowly, "Are you Josie Rage?" I was stunned when she said my stage name from all those years ago, so stunned that I didn't know what to say and my eyes just widened, she laughed, "I'm sorry, it's probably been a while since anyone has asked you that. I was a huge fan, your song 'Mania' got me through some tough shit. I'm Princess." She puts her hand out for mine so I shake her hand to be nice, "Nice to meet you." I say as I pull my hand away, she looks me over, "Wow, almost 40 and you don't look a day over 21, how do you do it?" I give her a weird look, "Uh, I don't know, genetics?" She laughs loudly, which startled me a bit so I backed up, she put her hands out, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Just wanted to say, I'm a big fan and it's so cool that you're here." She turned around when Judith and another girl approached so I took the opportunity to make my exit quickly.

Daryl was already home, getting ready to go to work when I came in. He eyed me as I closed the door behind me, "Have fun?" He asked as he buttoned up his shirt, I shrugged, "I guess, this is all just really weird." He's one of the soldiers in training for the commonwealth, which is ran by Mercer, who is my boss. I'm his assistant, I help with interviews for newcomers and I basically watch/observe training of the new recruits because I have a talent for reading people, I guess that year or two in law school ended up benefiting me in the long run. I'm already wearing my uniform, so I didn't have to get ready. I'm not used to being able to change clothes as often as we can now so I just wear my uniform everyday. The commonwealth also has a money system and our jobs actually pay here, we're stuck in a tiny apartment with paper thin walls right now because Daryl is in basic training but once he's out, we'll be able to move to a bigger, nicer place. Since I'm Mercer's assistant, I'm classified here as what you'd consider someone who is 'rich' in the old world but I don't care enough about it to let it get to my head. Daryl approaches me slowly after he's fully ready, "I got you something today." He pulls out a ring box from behind his back, "I know you lost the old one so I thought I'd get you a real ring." I chuckled as he took my hand and put it on my finger, it was beautiful and it made my heart melt that even though I've been cold to him, he still thought of me and got me this. "Thank you." He nods before I go into the bedroom and open the drawer to the end table on my side of the bed and pull out the old ring he gave me originally, I walked out of the room and showed it to him, "I've always made sure I kept it, I just stopped wearing it because I didn't want to lose it." He smiled before putting his hands on my waist and pulling me close to him, he leaned down to kiss me and part of me wanted to dodge it but I've missed his touch so I kissed him for a moment before he pulled away, "We should probably get going." I nod before putting ring back in my drawer and heading out behind him.