Ivy's grudge against Woodbury couldn't help but shrink at the sight of the people vanishing into Death Row. They formed a line that was razor sharp, strangers turned familiar. She watched from a distance as they shuffled through the courtyard and into the gloom of the cell block.
Daryl had left with Bob, Michonne, and Tyreese. She had been miserable watching the sight of the car vanish, stuck waiting inside the fences, kept apart from the world by wire and teeth.
"Maggie wanted Beth to head into quarantine," Oscar told her seriously. He was leaning against the table as he watched two more residents start for that awful place. "Maybe we could get you moved down there tonight."
He was only saying what Rick had said. But she liked Oscar more so Ivy didn't snap back at him. She simply shrugged her shoulders and tossed the little paperback onto the table. "Daryl said I could stay put. I'm alone up there anyways."
The prison looked abandoned. Ivy had spent so much time hating everything about it and her that she never realized how much of a home it had been turned into. The evidence was everywhere; the recipe books left by the big clay oven Oscar had crafted, the toys under benches, drawings taped to walls, the bits and pieces of lives dragged out on display. They were down to just a handful of healthy people left and Ivy saw how their numbers burned away.
Rick, Maggie, Carol, and Oscar were the only ones she knew still outside Death Row and the temporary quarantine set up. Three people from Woodbury were still healthy enough and there was a handful of others who had arrived to the prison after the white flag had been planted.
Ivy missed Daryl. She missed the people she didn't have anymore.
It had only been a few hours since he had left but a shadow seemed to nag her, constantly looming over her shoulders and reminding her of how little she had left to lose. Ivy's ears had a dull ringing that failed to relent and it soured her day.
"You sure? Beth's got her little set up in there. I don't mind if you need help carrying anything down."
Oscar was one of Ivy's favourite people, she realized. He had a way of understanding her. The man kept his distance from her and never touched without asking first. Oscar even knew to keep in her eye sight before talking and never exaggerated his words. It was comfortable, sitting by him. "I can help with the fence if I'm out here," Ivy frowned, fighting the urge to turn around and check that they were still standing upright. No signs of tampering had been seen but she couldn't forget the sight of those rat carcasses left like an offering for the dead. "I'm okay."
"Let me know if you change your mind," Oscar said. He stretched his hands out and rolled his shoulders slightly, trying to work out some of the pressure building at his neck. She could see ink stains all over his fingers. "You gonna help down at the garden later?"
"Yeah."
The garden had the benefit of being in eyesight of the gate. Ivy didn't want to stray far from the best place to wait for Daryl's return. If he came back at night she was reasonably confident the headlights would cast enough light that it would wake her from inside the tower.
Ivy looked and saw Maggie storming across the yard. She blinked and realized she was after Hershel who was carrying a wooden crate of something towards Death Row.
She was on her feet and moving before she fully understood the scene, fresh worry catching fire in her veins. Glenn was already sick. Ivy couldn't lose him and she didn't want Hershel to die either. Lizzie had been describing the illness in graphic detail to anyone who would listen and so Ivy had heard the full description of eyes popping blood and the body suffocating from the pressure.
Every minute Ivy tried to forget that Glenn was sick and every minute she failed.
Maggie's back was to her so she couldn't make out what she was saying beyond a bit of Southern accent bleeding through the incoherency. The woman threw out her hand to stop Ivy from coming any closer, turning around to check that she stopped. Maggie was pale and worn from exhaustion and temper.
"Glenn's in there."
Rick and Oscar came up on the scene themselves. Ivy knew without a doubt that Rick was trying to gauge the emotions before untangling the situation. He checked Hershel first for visible symptoms before eyeing the create. "What's going on?"
"Elderberries. My wife used to make tea with them. They're a natural flu remedy and Caleb's too sick to help. I can," Hershel stressed, looking at Rick. "There's so many times we haven't been able to do anything to change what was happening— what was happening to us. We wished we could, but we couldn't. This time, I can. I know I can. So I have to."
Ivy shoved her hands into her pockets and tried to keep her mind from working itself backwards and into horrible rooms full of darkness and spiderwebs. The scar on her wrist ached and she felt that awful flatness inside her chest, a burn that threatened to consume her whole.
"Hershel, if you go in there, you're gonna get sick."
"Wait, we don't know that. What we do know is that these people's symptoms need to be controlled."
Maggie looked away. She looked towards Ivy and at the space between them. Ivy wasn't used to seeing Maggie alone. She was always paired with Glenn or Beth, a knot holding a string of pearls together.
"Hershel, please. We can wait."
Rick's efforts seemed to catch at the other man, sparking a shadow of outrage. "Listen, damn it. You step outside, you risk your life. You take a drink of water, you risk your life. And nowadays you breathe, and you risk your life. Every moment now you don't have a choice. The only thing you can choose is what you're risking it for. Now I can make these people feel better and hang on a little bit longer. I can save lives. That's a reason enough to risk mine. And you know that."
Hershel pulled up his mask before turning away, vanishing into the gloom of plague and darkness. Ivy counted the steps before he was invisible.
Rick turned and looked at the group. It was different seeing him with a gun again. Ivy couldn't quite separate the man who had dragged them through an endless winter with a bitter resolve and the one who opened their doors up to Woodbury. "Carol and I are gonna take a drive out and check some places nearby for meds. Anything that might have been left in medicine cabinets."
Maggie blinked, confused. "Both of you?"
Ivy bit back a plea to join. Daryl wanted her to stay put. He had made her promise to listen to Oscar and avoid trouble, and leaving seemed like a clear jump in the direction of trouble. Ivy wasn't sure what he would do if she rebelled from his rules and her skin itched at the thought. It wasn't something that they had ever needed to discuss when they were living off of scraps or beneath the weight of a war.
Daryl had made it clear that he wouldn't hit her. But Ivy had a nagging anxiety that maybe Daryl lied.
Her chest felt unbearably tight. Ivy managed one step backwards before another, brushing off Oscar's worried expression. She started walking in the direction of quarantine and when she was certain the others couldn't see her, she began sprinting.
The were using one of the few administrative buildings that hadn't been blown apart in the prison outbreak. Hershel was supposed to be on one end of the section with the kids scattered in different offices to keep from mixing. Oscar had been the one to drop off trays of food at each door that morning but she couldn't see any sign of the food now.
Breathing was difficult. It was like her side being ripped open again, struggling not to bleed out. Ivy staggered through the hall and searched wildly but the doors were all identical. They even had a warped glass for privacy that offered no insight to who was where.
"Beth?" She cried out, wheeling around. The doors stayed shut.
But movement caught her eye from the very end of the hall and Ivy moved towards it. The knob turned and it opened to show Beth's pale face. "What are you doing here?" She asked, one hand on the frame of the door like a brace. They were always measuring space between them. "Did something happen?"
"I can't... breathe," Ivy said feebly, catching herself against a wall and sliding down so she was sitting on the ground. It wasn't as reassuring as the woods. The beige walls surrounded her and felt tight, just as unbearable as the bright sun.
Beth lowered herself to the ground and leaned her head against the doorframe. Her hair had been pulled into a braid but it was beginning to unravel. "What book were you reading?"
The question made no sense but Ivy paused to think. Her mind felt like a scrambled haze of confusion but she dully recalled the paperback she tossed on the table earlier. "One of the Carla ones Daryl found. That one about the bounty hunter."
It was one of the author's first published books and it hadn't been very good. Ivy liked the ones that came later, the same ones her mother used to pick up on occasion from the store when they had the money to spare for it.
Beth hummed, tucking her feet to the side. "I think I saw that one. Real dark looking cover?"
"Yeah."
They were silent for a beat. Ivy's chest eased slightly and she could bear the pressure a bit. "What happened?"
"Daryl told me that he died," Ivy said. It wasn't something that she had managed to put into words since he first said them in her tower. She almost spoke them in the truck but had flinched from ruining the moment. "That Michonne killed the Governor."
Beth blinked, surprised. "That's good, then."
"I think he's lying," Ivy confessed. She focused intently on Beth's face so she couldn't miss a word from the relentless ringing in her ears. "I think he told Rick and Michonne to lie to me."
"Why would Daryl lie?"
Ivy tugged on her hair, frustrated. "I don't know. But if he's lying about this, I think I might hate him."
Daryl knew the awfulness. He had pulled pieces of that night from her even as Ivy tried bottling it tight to her chest. If he was lying, Ivy wouldn't know how to trust him again.
"I don't feel like he died. I should have felt it, even without seeing," Ivy confessed, whispering the words. "I wanted to see him go."
Beth didn't judge her. Oscar might have been one of her favourite people, but Beth sat higher on the list. Ivy hadn't grown up with friends but it was so easy sitting next to Beth and feeling equal. It might have been circumstances tossing them together but Beth had always been there, a shape in the darkness to rely on.
They burned the memories of their grief into the stars together. Ivy didn't need blood to belong to Daryl and sometimes that made her wonder if Beth was like a sister.
"Trust him," Beth said seriously. "Until you don't have reason to. If he says that man died, we believe it. We have to believe it."
Ivy turned her hands into fists and let her fingernails bite into palms. Sometimes she had a habit of looking at her hands and trying to compare them to Daryl's for similarities. "Okay."
Okay, Ivy thought afterwards. When she listened to the coughing echoing loud enough that even she could hear it. When she weeded the gardens a careful distance from Oscar. When she saw Maggie manage the gate for Rick, returning alone. When the sun went down and she kept waiting. When the fence began to cave, forcing itself inwards under a wave of the dead.
When she stepped forward, bracing herself for a fight.