Staying Alive//TWDFanFic

Fifty

The next day, I go to a site with Mercer and the troops, I've been assigned to Lance for the day so I follow him up to the roof. Gabriel and Aaron are standing on the opposite side of the roof as we shut the door behind us, I stay a few feet behind Lance as he begins questioning them about what happened here. Walking through the building, up to the roof, we passed a lot of bodies of troopers from the commonwealth, it didn't truly surprise me once I heard Gabriel and Aaron's story. I took some bullshit notes to avoid basically saying that I know that they're lying because no one else needs to know that. Apparently a bunch of armed 'strangers' took out a bunch of the troops but left Aaron and Gabriel alive, Lance wasn't buying and neither was I but I played it off because I assumed something was going down that we don't know about. Daryl comes up to the roof after a few minutes and stands beside me as we listen to Lance question them some more. Daryl and I glance at one another once he catches on that they're hiding something. "It doesn't make sense that a bunch of violent strangers would kill a group of armed and trained soldiers but keep you two alive and then you two lie for the violent strangers... unless... they weren't strangers." Lance says, Daryl and I share another glance before Aaron speaks up, "Are you calling us liars?" Gabriel then says, "Your guy lost control of the situation, we barely survived. We're not taking the fall for this." It's quiet for a moment before Lance startles me by stepping back and saying, "Okay, fair enough. I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers here. I've just got a job to do, at the end of the day, we all want the same thing, right? Justice." I try to hold back a laugh by covering my mouth with my hand and rolling my eyes. Gabriel nods, "Of course." Lance turns around suddenly and commands the two troopers standing behind us to keep searching the area. Aaron asks, "Back to the commonwealth?" Lance shook his head before turning to look at me, "Oh no, there's monsters on the loose, we've gotta smoke em out. We'll start with the Hilltop, see if our friends heard anything. At the very least, they should know that some very dangerous people are on the loose." He looks at Daryl, "Better suit up, soldier." He leaves the roof, Daryl follows him and I just stand there glancing between Aaron and Gabriel before following Lance down the stairs.

I wait for Daryl to suit up before we both follow Lance once again, we're all walking through the woods with a bunch of troopers around us before a group of walkers appear in front of us. Lance challenges Aaron and Gabriel by asking them to take out the group by themselves, everyone is silent for a moment before they sigh and go ahead. Daryl steps up and helps them out as I stay beside Lance and watch. They take them out and as they're walking back, Lance stops Daryl, "Put your helmet on and keep it on." He says before we continue making our way to Hilltop.

After a few hours, we finally get to the gates, Maggie is already at the top of the gate watching us approach. Lance goes ahead and I assume tries to get her to let us go in but all I can hear is her refusing. I watch as he starts whispering to a trooper before Daryl steps up, I'm so far behind everyone that I can't hear anything but I see Daryl take off his helmet and step in front of everyone, speaking to Maggie. She looks conflicted by whatever he's saying but the gates start opening so I rush to the front of the group and head inside first. Lance immediately puts a hand on my shoulder as he enters, "You stay by the gate and observe." I glance at Daryl as he raises an eyebrow, Lance walks toward him and Maggie before walking off out of view. I keep as close of an eye as I can on them from a distance, all I see is Lance uncovering a truck and getting inside. He goes to start it as he's talking to Maggie and Daryl but it doesn't start and his face falls as he looks around in confusion, almost like he was sure it would start. I chuckled to myself once I saw Maggie and Daryl walk away from him in separate directions, Lance looks at me in disbelief and I just smirk before walking toward the mansion.

I sit on the steps for a while and doodle on my clipboard, waiting for something to happen, I could feel the tension in the air. After a while, I notice that Lance goes in the same direction I saw Hershel go a few minutes ago, I set my clipboard down on the steps beside me before going in the same direction slowly. I look around the corner once I'm closer and see Lance is bent over in front of Hershel, "What the fu-" I'm shoved to the side quickly before a younger man shoved Lance against the wall and everything immediately turns sour and before I know it, everyone's guns are pointed at Lance and the troopers have guns on the people pointing guns at Lance. Lance somehow weasels himself out of the situation and since he found nothing, we leave Hilltop after Maggie basically has them shove us out.