TW: in this chapter there is a flashback
with depictions of suicide.
Rosie was leaning her head against the window in the backseat of the green Hyundai as she watched the colorful autumn trees fly by. She had taken a bit of a nap, but kept waking up every time they'd hit a pothole. Her eyes were still droopy but her headache had started to hurt a little less, even if it wasn't all the way gone yet.
Maggie and Hershel were in the front seat together while Beth, Glenn, and Rosie were crammed into the back. They tried to make Rosie take the middle seat, seeing as she was the smallest, but she refused, saying she'd rather ride on the roof than be squished between the two. They were annoyed at first, but soon became grateful for it because Rosie ended up throwing up again, just barely able to make it out of the car in time.
The ride was pretty quiet, aside from little conversations the others would have, but Rosie excluded herself from them, not really feeling much like talking. The quiet was interrupted by the car behind them beeping, signaling Maggie to pull over.
Once the car was parked, Rosie quickly scrambled out. The car ride was starting to make her stomach hurt- unless that was just hunger- and she felt the need to stretch her legs. She leaned up against the guardrail on the side of the road, purposely crushing leaves beneath her boots and listening to the nice crunch sound they each made.
"You out?" Daryl asked, looking back at Rick from his spot on his motorcycle.
"Running on fumes," Rick replied, walking closer to Daryl. The others from his car quickly followed after until everyone was gathered around Daryl.
"We can't stay here," Maggie said.
"We can't all fit in one car," Glenn said, sounding a bit defeated.
"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning," Rick decided.
"Spend the night here?" Carol asked, wrapping her sweater tightly around herself.
"I'm freezing," Carl complained. Lori rubbed her hand on him as if it would warm him up. Truth be told, Rosie was quite cold too. She had on a black long sleeve shirt underneath her flannel, but that wasn't particularly warm. The flannel was pretty thin, but she didn't see any point in complaining, considering she was still incredibly grateful to have the long-sleeved shirt and jeans now, instead of being stuck with a t-shirt and shorts.
"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Lori suggested. Rick took off his jacket and gave it to Carl, layering it on top of his dark red hoody.
"You go out lookin' for firewood, stay close. Only got so many arrows," Daryl said. He turned to Rick. "How you doin' on ammo?"
"Not enough," was all Rick said.
"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out," Maggie said.
"Watch your mouth," Hershel scolded her. Rosie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She just didn't understand why Hershel cared so much about words. Why did words matter anymore? The fact that each of them were still alive and breathing was all Rosie cared about. "Everyone, stop panicking. Listen to Rick," Hershel said.
"Alright, we set up a perimeter. In the morning, we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on," Rick said, looking around at their surroundings.
"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas," Maggie offered, holding a shotgun in her hands.
Rick shook his head, holding his hand out in front of himself. "No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car," he said.
"Rick, we're stranded now," Glenn said softly and sadly.
"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other," Rick said, leaning forward as if it would further his point. "I wasn't sure- I really wasn't- but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place."
Rosie scrunched up her face to try and rid her eyes of the few tears that had slipped out from the cold breeze blowing against her face and burning her eyes, and pulled the sleeves of her flannel down over her hands.
"Rick, look around. Ok? There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something," Glenn said.
"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other," Rick said. Rosie couldn't tell if he was angry or not. His words didn't seem like angry ones, but the way he was saying them made it sound like they were. Either way, everyone was tense. "I know it's out there, we just have to find it," Rick growled out.
"Even if we do find a place and we think it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long?" Maggie said.
That was the real question. Even if they did think there was a safe place, how long would it really be safe for? They thought the quarry was safe, but then walkers came through and people died. They thought the CDC was safe, but then the place blew up. They thought the farm was safe, but last night...
"Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe."
"We won't make that mistake again," Hershel said.
"We'll make camp tonight," Rick said. He pointed off into the trees. Following his eyes, Rosie could see that he was pointing over at some sort of rock structure. "Over there. Get on the road at the break of day."
Carol stepped closer to Daryl, her face scrunched up. "Does this feel right to you?" she asked him. Daryl just looked at her, not saying anything. Rosie looked at her too, confused as to why she was specifically asking Daryl out of everyone.
Beth stepped forward too, but her questions were directed more towards Rick. "What if walkers come through? Or another group like Randall's?"
"You know I found Randall, right? His neck was snapped. He had turned, chasin' after Rosie," Daryl said to Rick, making everyone glance at Rosie for a moment. She looked down at her boots, not bothering to return any of their looks full of pity. "Shane killed Randall, just like he always wanted to. Rosie saw it go down, so he knocked her out and left her there, thinkin' Randall'd do the rest before she woke up," Daryl told him.
Carl's eyes widened as he glanced back and forth between Rosie, Daryl, Lori, and Rick. He didn't know what Daryl was talking about.
"And then the herd got him?" Lori asked, looking at Rick.
Rick didn't say anything. He just stared straight forward, unsure of what to say. And then he walked away without saying anything, and Lori followed after him. Rosie watched for a moment, wondering what they were doing. Lori hugged Rick from behind, but a few moments later, she pulled away and stood there, still behind him. Rosie stopped watching, though, when she felt someone place their hand on her shoulder. She turned around quickly and saw that it was Daryl.
"Ain't your business," Daryl said, referring to whatever was going on between Lori and Rick. Rosie nodded and looked down at her boots again. "Ya feelin' any better?" Daryl asked. Rosie just shrugged. Her head was feeling a bit better, but now her stomach was hurting. "You should put on another shirt over top that one, even if it ain't comfortable. It's just gonna get colder once the sun goes down."
Rosie nodded and walked back over to the green car. She swung open the back door and dug around in her bag until she found her crocodile shirt. She took off her flannel and slid the crocodile shirt over the black one before putting her flannel back on. When she turned back around to walk back over to Daryl, she was surprised to see that he had followed her over there and was leaning against the guardrail behind her.
"Got any ammo left?" Daryl asked, nodding his head towards her backpack. Rosie shut the car door again as she shook her head. She made her way over to where Daryl was and leaned against the guardrail beside him. He looked over at her, his eyes slightly narrowed. "Ya sleep any more in the car?" he asked. Rosie nodded.
Daryl stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to say something- anything, really- but she didn't. She was too busy thinking. Thinking about Fraser. In the car, she'd had a dream about him. A dream where he was still there, but he was a walker. Rosie couldn't stop wondering what things would be like if he were there.
Would he have made it off the farm? Would he like Daryl? Would he be as confused about Daddy as me?
"I'm gonna go get firewood. Do whatever Rick says," Daryl grumbled as he stood back up to his full height and started walking towards the forest. He walked slowly at first, expecting Rosie to ask if she could come with or maybe tell him not to go, but she didn't. She just stayed on the guardrail, looking at her shoes, so he went without her.
•
Night had fallen and Daryl brought back enough firewood to build a small fire. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Rosie had put herself in a corner, leaning up against the stone walls with her knees pulled up to her chest. She was cold, but she didn't want to sit by the fire. Carl was sitting by the fire and every time Rosie came near him, he started staring at her, no doubt thinking up hundreds of questions to ask her about Shane. Rosie didn't want to talk about it and, quite frankly, she was sick of hearing other people talk about it.
No matter how far away from the fire she might have been, it didn't stop her from staring into it as she let her thoughts dance around in her mind. After seeing Randall's dead body- broken at the neck- she couldn't help but think of Fraser.
Rosie woke up to the sound of footsteps outside of her bedroom. She easily woke up just to the sound of her father's footsteps, but this time there were more footsteps. Rushed. Panicked. She decided to investigate. It was better to know who her father had over, so she'd know if it were better to hide in her room or to go out into the living room with them.
She climbed up of off the mattress and snuck over to the door, her feet padding softly on the hardwood floor. She pressed her ear up to the door. She heard many voices. Rosie pushed the door open and slipped through. In the hallway outside of her room, there were a bunch of people in uniforms. Mostly cops, but some medics. What were they doing in her house? David hated cops.
Fraser would know what was going on, so Rosie pushed through the crowd until she got to his bedroom door. Then she remembered that he had left for his trip. If he was gone on a trip, why were there so many people in his room?
Rosie snuck past the cop at the door. It was easy because they were all distracted, and she was very small. When she entered the room, her eyes searched the room for her brother. He wasn't there, just like she thought. But her dad was there, sitting on the bed with his head in his hands. Why was he in Fraser's room?
Then she looked to where all of the cops and medics were looking: Fraser's closet.
What she saw, she couldn't quite comprehend.
First, her brother's shitty Vans. They had holes from his skateboard that were covered with shoe-goo. The weird thing was that his shoes weren't on the ground, they were in the air, a little bit below Rosie's eye level.
Next, her eyes trailed up from his shoes, up his legs, past his t-shirt, and to his neck. There was a blue and white rope around it- it looked like a jump rope. There were short, red scratches around the rope. His arms fell limply at his sides.
Lastly, her eyes landed on his face. His eyes were open, but droopy. His face was a purplish-red color. His head was tilted forward.
Dead.
He was dead.
"Fraser?" Rosie squeaked out. She walked forward, closer to the closet. "No," she whispered.
"Rosie, get out of here," her dad said. She didn't hear him. She couldn't hear anything. Her ears wouldn't stop ringing.
Rosie ran forward, grabbing onto her brother's leg. "No! Get him down! Get him down! Ya gotta save 'im!" she screamed out. Someone- her father- wrapped his arms around her torso and picked her up. She kicked and struggled, screaming "no!" over and over and over again. Her dad's hand pressed against her mouth to stop her screaming, but she didn't stop. She kept screaming into his hand.
He set her down outside the door, holding onto her shoulders firmly as she tried to push past him. "Rosie-" her father said.
"No!" she let out one last agonizing scream of heartbreak and terror.
"Rosie, you have to stay here. Please," her father said. He seemed sad. He didn't deserve to be sad.
"No," Rosie kept whimpering, "No. No."
She watched her father disappear back into the room.
"Hey," Daryl said, his hand lightly hitting Rosie's knee. Rosie jumped a little before quickly looking up at him, her eyes wide. He furrowed his eyebrows a little. "Ya a'right?" he asked. Rosie quickly nodded her head. "Come on," Daryl said, nodding his head towards the fire.
Rosie didn't bother arguing, she just followed him over to the fire and sat down between him and, unfortunately, Carl. She kept her eyes on the fire, hoping Carl wouldn't start talking. The only sound was the crackling fire, until Carol started whispering to Daryl.
"We're not safe with him. He doesn't know what he's doing," she whispered. Daryl stared at her, confused. "Why do you need him? He's just gonna pull you down."
"Nah, Rick's done a'right by me," Daryl replied.
"You're his henchman, and I'm a burden," Carol said. Rosie rolled her eyes, but still kept her head facing the fire so they wouldn't know she was listening in. "You deserve better."
Daryl glared at her for a moment, his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows pinched together. "What do you want?" he asked her.
"A man of honor," Carol said. Rosie wanted to scoff, but she didn't.
"Rick has honor."
Leaves rustled from the trees. Rosie's eyes shot over to where she thought the sound came from, but she didn't see anything.
"What was that?" Beth asked.
"Could be anything. Could be a raccoon, could be a possum," Daryl said as he stood up, taking his crossbow off of his shoulder.
"Or a walker," Glenn added grimly.
"We need to leave. I mean, what are we waiting for?" Carol said.
"Which way?" Glenn asked.
"It came from over there," Maggie said, pointing off into the trees with a gun in her hand. "Back from where we came."
"The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark," Rick said. He was standing off to the side, sort of isolating himself. "We don't have vehicles. No one's traveling on foot."
"Don't panic," Hershel said to the others.
"I'm not sitting here, waiting for another herd to blow through. We need to move. Now," Maggie said sternly.
"No one is going anywhere," Rick growled out, giving Maggie a serious, wide-eyed stare.
"Do something," Carol said.
"I am doing something!" Rick snapped. "I'm keeping this group together, alive! I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this! I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ's sake!"
Carl's eyes widened and teared up as he stared at his father, devastated at his words. Rosie's eyes widened, too, but she wasn't devastated, she was just shocked. Everyone was shocked. But no one said anything.
"You saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us. Hell, he tried to kill a little girl! He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice! He was my friend, but he came after me."
Carl buried his face in his mother's shoulder as he cried.
"My hands are clean," Rick said. Still, no one said anything. He looked around at the group, waiting for someone to say something, but no one did. "Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead," he gestured to the road behind him, "I say there's a place for us, but maybe- maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe- maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you- why don't go and find out yourself?! Send me a postcard! Go on, there's the door. You can do better? Let's see how far you get."
No one made any move to leave, just giving each other uneasy looks. Rosie looked at Daryl, waiting to see what he would do, but he didn't do anything. So she didn't do anything either.
"No takers? Fine. But get one thing straight- you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."
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TW summary: In a flashback, there is a description of the morning after Rosie's brother (Fraser) committed. Other than that, it's just the start of the Ricktatorship and the end of season 2.
Aaaaaand that's the end of season 2! There'll be a chapter or two of the group on the road and then they'll be at the prison 😱 I'm excited !