Just Keep Walking

One hundred and four

Mary found herself walking towards Negan and Eugene, guns surrounding her, Rick and Carl shouting at her.
"Well, well, well. It's my Mary! How are you, my darlin'? You holdin' up well?" Negan beamed.
"Stop this." Mary whimpered, reaching the lorry.
"Mary!" Rick screamed hysterically, but the child stayed calm.
"Tell them to let go of their guns. Now. Stop this, please. I'll do anything." Nary whispered, and Negan walked forwards, and lifted her up onto the lorry, looking into her eyes.
"Mary!"
"Take me. Take me back to the Sanctuary," Mary whispered, "and I'll be good. I'll be so good. You can make me grow up, and you can raise me. You can be like my dad, and you can let me take over of the Saviours when you're too old. I know that's what you wanted. Just please let my family be okay. Let them be okay, don't kill anyone, and I'll forget everything. I'll forget about them. You can have me. I'll pretend they don't even exist. You can have me. Just let them go."
Negan smiled softly, then sighed. "You know what... Maybe. But first, I gotta have a talk."
"Negan, please." Mary begged, but Negan raised a silencing finger in her direction.
"You ever hear the one about the stupid little prick named Rick, who thought he knew shit, but he didn't know shit, and got everyone that he gave a shit about killed? It's about you. You're all gonna wanna put your guns down now."
"No one drops anything! We had a deal."
"Ramiro came for the boat things. Followed ones who took. Made a better deal." Jadis shrugged, and Rick shook his head slowly.
"Negan." Mary begged, and he raised his hand again.
"You push me and you push me and you push me, Rick! You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me, my people. But Eugene? He's one of yours. And after what he did... He stepped up! You people are animals! Universe gives you a sign, and you just shove your finger right up it's ass. Dwight, Simon, chop-chop."
Simon and Dwight came into the truck, and pulled away a tarpaulin, revealing a coffin.
"Please. You can have me. You can have me." Mary whispered, as the coffin was stood up, but the man couldn't even hear her, as he walked to the coffin.
"So, you don't like Eugene anymore," Negan sighed loudly, "you guys gotta like Sasha. I do too! Got her right here, packaged for your convenience. Alive and well. Now, I brought her so I wouldn't have to kill all of you, and not killing all of you could get complicated. See, I know there's a lot of firepower left in there Rick, so I'm gonna make this simple. I want all the guns you've managed to scrape up. Yep, I know about those too. I want every last grain of lemonade you got left. I want a person of your own choosing for Lucille. Daryl, ohh, I gotta get me my Daryl back. I see you. And the pool table and all the pool cues and chalk. And I want it now! Or Sasha dies and then all of you. But not Mary. We have plans. Probably."
"Leave her!" Rick screamed, and Mary let out a whimper.
"C'mon, Rick, just because I brought her in a casket doesn't mean she has to leave in it. You know what? You suck ass, Rick. You really do. I don't want to have to kill her, but that's exactly what you're gonna make me do!"
"Let Mary go into the house. Mary. Mary, come here. Give me Mary, and let me see her. See Sasha." Rick demanded.
"Mary stays here for now, but you can see Sasha. Alright, just give me a second. I might have to get her up to speed. You can't hear shut inside this thing!" Negan shouted, banging on the coffin. "Sash! You're not gonna believe this crap!"
Then Negan opened the door, and a Walker came out. Sasha came out.
"Holy God damn!" Negan shouted, as Sasha fell on top of him, pushing him to the floor.
Carl seized his moment, and suddenly span, beginning to shoot the Scavengers, and suddenly everyone joined in, Mary frozen in her spot, bullets flying around her.
Her eyes fell on Rick, and she watched him scream her name. He was screaming at her, telling her to get down. To hide. But she couldn't hear, her ears were dull, muffled. All she could see was the bullets flying, and Rick's mouth moving frantically.
Then Negan suddenly grabbed Mary, snapping her back into the real world, and he pulled her behind a car, following Simon.
falls s on top of him, c spins and begins to shoot.
"Plan B it is!" Negan shouted, as Mary whimpered, then she wriggled around, kicking Negan, punching him, biting him, screaming at him.
"Shut up! Don't you know!? You're safe! So! Shut! UP!" Simon screamed over the gunfire, as Mary's eyes were wide and wild.
"You fucking dumbass bastard. My daddy's gonna kill you all. You're so fucking dead!" Mary growled, her fingers curling around her knife.
"Get rid of that." Negan sighed through gritted teeth. They stayed there in silence for a few minutes, until the shooting slowed.
Then before Mary could comprehend what was happening, she was on a circle of Saviours again. She could just see Glenn. They were in this circle when Glenn died, but now the only person in the middle was Carl, as Mary was with the Saviours this time.
She let out a tiny, pain-filled croak as she saw Rick and Jadis came into view, Rick shot, limping, Jadis nudging him in his wound with the butt of her gun.
"Move." Jadis barked, and Rick stumbled over to Carl.
"Hello again." Negan said simply, and Mary whined.
"Where's Mary? Where's Mary!" Rick whimpered.
"Down," Jadis growled, "or again."
"Daddy." Mary breathed, stepping into view, and Rick nodded slowly, then knelt down next to Carl.
"Well, shit, Rick," Negan sighed, "You just couldn't stick with us, huh? You had to go with these filthy garbage people? No offence."
"Deal is for twelve, yes?" Jadis asked suddenly.
"Ten. People are a resource." The man argued.
"Twelve." Jadis insisted, and Negan met her with a steely silence. After a few too many seconds, she nodded, and walked away. "Ten."
"Rick," Negan chuckled darkly, "this is just gonna make you sad. Broken. You're gonna wish you were dead. I like having fun. I do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your friends wasn't me, like that was some sort of a put-on, like I'm not the guy with the bat. I'm just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti!"
"Leave daddy alone!" Mary cried, and she whimpered again, as a tear fell down Rick's face.
"Oh. Oh shit! Maybe this is on me? Maybe this is all on me! I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start all over again. I gotta tell you, Rick, if I had a kid, I'd want him to be just like your kids, which makes this so much harder."
"You're not gonna win." Carl whispered.
"Carl," Negan whispered, "it is over! Why don't you point your one ball up the street there and take it all in?"
"Don't be mean to him!" Nary screamed, running forwards and pummelling Negan's chest with her fists, but was cut off by a long, high pitched scream, and Rick's face fell.
"Oh, oh, oh. Oh, wow," Negan breathed, "you just lost somebody important to you right now, like, just now. Jesus. That is timing! Well, Rick, you chose this! I truly don't know what more I could've done to warn you. And thus isn't a warning. This is punishment. I'm gonna kill Carl now. I'm gonna make it one nice hard swing try to do it in one because I like him. I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute. I'm gonna kill Carl and then Lucille here she's gonna take your hands. Then I'm going to take your daughter. And she won't be yours anymore. She'll be a Saviour. And she's going to rule the Sanctuary."
"You can do it right in front of me. You can take my hands. I told you already. I'm gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today maybe not tomorrow... but nothing is gonna change that. Nothing. You're all already dead."
"Stop! Stop!" Nary screamed, and a Saviour grabbed her, pushing her across the grass.
"Damn," Negan chuckled with an angry smile across his face, "wow, Rick. Okay."
"No." Mary croaked, as Negan took Carl's hat off his head.
"You said I could do it." Negan shrugged, raising Lucille. But before he could kill Mary's brother, out of no where, a tiger ran across the grass, devouring a Saviour.
Then all hell broke loose, as Shiva ate men, and the Kingdomers ran and rode over.
"End these Saviours and their accomplices! Alexandria will not fall, not on this day!" Ezekiel shouted, as the gunfire erupted.
"Mary, run! Run! RUN! NOW!" Rick screamed, and Mary nodded, the child's legs running further and faster than she ever had.
She ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran.
She didn't stop; she couldn't stop. Bullets were flying and people were dying, and she couldn't die. She knew she couldn't let herself die. Because she needed to become a doctor. She needed to fix people.
But death did seem welcoming. Glenn. Lori. Sasha. Tyreese. Abraham. Noah. Bob. Jessie. Sam. Deanna. Andrea. Andre. She wanted to meet Andre.
But Mary Grimes was stronger than death. She didn't die. She fought. She wasn't going to die.
So she clung onto her bunny, Glenn's coat cocooning her, and she thought that maybe she could survive.

Bullets were flying though, and Mary was the one to catch one.

"We can do this! We can do this!" Rick nodded to Ezekiel and Maggie, each of them on either side of him.
"We're doing it." Maggie nodded back in a promise, and for a second, for a half second, he pretended that she wasn't the woman who broke his daughter's heart.
"They're retreating!" Daryl shouted suddenly, as smoke bombs exploded on the streets, and Rick grinned. Because they'd won. They'd won the battle, not the war.
But they'd won.
He could see the defeat, he could feel it. He had made it. His children had made it. Carl, Mary, Judith. Mary. He'd defeated this horrific man. He'd defeated him for her.
He could see the defeat, and in his mind, when he closed his eyes, he could practically see Mary dancing in the open fields. He could see her happy, because they were going to win the war. For Mary Grimes. For his Mary Grimes.

But Mary didn't see the defeat. Mary didn't see the Saviours and Scavengers retreat. She only focused on a drop of dew on one single, beautiful blade of grass as she bled out, turning the lush green into a deep red.

She didn't see it.

She didn't see anything, as it all faded into darkness.