OUTLIVE.
❝The dead were never the enemy.
It was the living. ❞
THE WALKING DEAD.
DARYL DIXON.
BOOK TWO of the LANCASTER SAGA.
[ SEASONS 4 - 6 ]
*****
*I do not own The Walking Dead or any of its characters. I simply write to write. Astrid, any addi...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
[ lxviii. you can't carry her alone ]
october 26th, 2012
➸➸➸
THE NEXT TEN DAYS passed by slowly and uneventfully.
Within the Alexandria Safe Zone's tall, fortified walls, its residents moved about their daily routines, unfazed by the mass execution it had taken part in less than two weeks ago. But, beneath the bloodshed, there was a holding of breath. The absence of any new movement or threat—or mere mention at all—of the Saviors had heightened relative anxieties to an extent.
Well, maybe only Astrid's anxiety.
For her, this calmness within her home, within herself, held eeriness. Like the calm before the storm.
Astrid knew in her gut that the Saviors were still out there, biding their time and surely plotting their own move against the Alexandrians. Paula and Molly's comments to her in the slaughterhouse, regarding the ruthless nature of the Saviors and their enigmatic leader, Negan, had not been for generic conversation. No, the strangeness of their undoing still echoed constantly in her mind. What had been said was only said to scare her. And it had done its trick.
But she kept her fears of a promised deadly reality to herself because no one would believe otherwise.
Rick, and Michonne, and Maggie, and even her husband himself, now clung to peace as if they had not already declared war.
"All right."
Denise Cloyd's voice drew Astrid's attention back to the infirmary cot she lay upon. She raised her head to find her assistant—her own obstetrician of sorts—hovering over her, her youthful expression guarded as she carefully began to examine the wound on the Dixon woman's stomach.
Astrid winced as Denise peeled back the gauze, revealing the angry red line. On her opposite side, Daryl stood, his eyes fixed on the slice. She recognized his guilt and helplessness in an instant.
"Hey." She reached out with her left hand, her fingers threading carefully through his. "I'm okay."
But Daryl's worry was impossible to distract. Instead of responding, he chewed furiously on his bottom lip. It was a nervous habit of his, accompanied by the way he shifted his weight absentmindedly from foot to foot, as if unable to find solid ground.
"She's right, Daryl," Denise assured, her voice steady. "And there's no harm to the baby. In a few more weeks, her cut will be fully healed, and all that'll be left is a scar. Astrid is going to be fine."
"What about her hands?" Daryl prodded.
Astrid let out a small sigh at the mention of her hands, the epicenter of her pain. The jagged cuts on her palms were slowly knitting together, enough that she could hold her husband's hand in her left as she did now, but the fracture in her right knuckles still provided daily agony.
