Rosie had been continuing on laying in bed, like she was told to. When Daryl left to talk to Rick, she picked up the only book she had, which was about snakes, and began reading it. She went on like that for awhile. It was finally peaceful again, after everyone got the medicine. There were, of course, many people lost, but most were still standing- or laying down, at least.
The assumption was that things would go back to normal. Rosie would get better, then she would go back to her own cell with her own things, and she'd wake up early in the morning to help Rick and Carl feed the pigs, and everything would be ok again. That was the assumption. Until Rosie's reading was interrupted by a loud explosion, making the entire prison shake.
Quickly climbing out of bed, Rosie slipped her boots back on and grabbed her knife and velociraptor. She stuck the knife in the sheath on her belt and held the velociraptor tightly in her right hand. She still felt a little dizzy when she stood up, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was the night before.
"Glenn?" Rosie said, making her way over to cell 100.
"Rosie? What's going on?" Glenn asked, sitting up in bed. He still looked sick. He wasn't nearly as bad as he was before- he wasn't coughing up blood anymore and he could now breathe on his own- but his skin was pale and his body was coated with a layer of sweat.
"That's what I was gonna ask," Rosie said, furrowing her eyebrows. She turned around to try and see through any windows, but she couldn't see anything that looked out of the ordinary. "I'll be right back," she said, leaving the cell.
"No, Rosie, Rosie," Glenn said, trying to climb out of bed.
"I just gotta see what's goin' on. I won't do nothin' stupid," Rosie assured him. Glenn sighed and rubbed his eyes, leaning up against the wall. He wanted to stop her, but it wouldn't be much use when he could barely stand on his own. "Jus' stay here. You're still real sick. I'll find Maggie. Be right back," Rosie said. With that, she walked off, leaving Glenn in the cell.
Rosie quickly walked down the steps, leaving cell block A despite what Glenn said. She ran outside, towards the basketball courts, and saw Lizzie, Mika, Ian, and some other kids carrying Judith outside. "Lizzie!" she shouted, grabbing their attention. The kids turned to look at her as she coughed a little "What's goin' on?" she asked them.
"Some guy's here with a tank. He has Hershel and Michonne. We're supposed to go to the buses," Mika explained, a worried look on her face. Mika was always a bit more timid than Lizzie was. Mika understood the walkers, though. Lizzie didn't. In a way, that made Mika more capable than Lizzie was, even if she was more fearful.
"We have to fight," Lizzie argued, furrowing her eyebrows at her younger sister. "They have guns, we should, too. Carol said to be strong."
"Carol? Where's Carol?" Rosie asked, raising her eyebrows. It wasn't until then that she realized she hadn't seen Carol since Rick and Tyreese's fight.
"She's not here. She's out looking for supplies. That's what Rick said," Mika explained sadly. "What if she comes back? What if she comes back and that guy is still here?"
"What guy?" Rosie asked, anxiety churning in her stomach. She knew Mika was referring to whoever was the man who sent an explosion into the prison, but she didn't know who the man was. Part of her worried that it was the Governor- but he was on his own now, right? He wouldn't come back. He wouldn't win. Right?
Wrong.
"He has an eye patch," Ian said, his eyebrows scrunched together with concern. That confirmed it. The Governor was back. And he was going to take what they had, just like he originally planned. Rosie felt like throwing up, but she didn't know if it was because of the sickness or because of the Governor's return. "Come with us. I'll keep you safe," Ian said, reaching his hand out to Rosie. She declined it.
"I don't need ya to. I told Glenn I'd find Maggie. You keep Judith safe," Rosie said before running off towards the fields. She could hear the other kids yelling for her to stop, but she didn't- not even when her lungs burned so bad that it sent her into another fit of coughs. "Maggie? Maggie?" Rosie kept rasping out, her eyes scanning her surroundings for the brown-haired woman.
She froze when she looked out through one of the fences, seeing a man in a black coat standing tall in the center of many other people, all armed. The Governor was there. It was really him. Standing there. Alive. He had an army. He had a tank. And he had Michonne's sword in his hand as he stood above Hershel, who was kneeling in the grass. In one silent second, the Governor lifted the sword and slashed it down into Hershel's neck.
"No!" Rosie screamed, grasping onto the fence. Hershel's head tipped to the side and blood soaked his pale, yellow shirt. One more second went by before the field that was once for farming turned into a battlefield once again. Shots fired from both sides, Rick shooting his weapon first as he screamed out in agony. Explosions started sounding all around her, the tank firing into the prison as the Governor's army shot bullets at her family.
Everything was so loud that Rosie couldn't even think. She couldn't even imagine what Beth and Maggie were feeling in that moment. Hershel was a good man and an even better father. He was smart and he was kind. And now he was dead.
He had helped Rosie back on the farm. He helped Sophia as best he could. He let them stay. He helped them all when they needed it during the months they spent on the road. He helped them all when they got sick. He helped. He always helped them, despite what it might've risked for himself. And now he was dead. In one of the worst ways possible, he had died. He didn't deserve it. In no way did he deserve it.
"Rosie!" Maggie said, grabbing onto the girl's shoulders to grab her attention. Tears stained Maggie's face and her voice was weak and scratchy. "You need to get to the bus. Now," she sobbed out.
Snapping back into reality, Rosie looked at Maggie with wide, teary eyes. "Glenn," she said, pointing back to cell block A.
"I'll find him. You go to the bus now," Maggie said sternly. Rosie nodded and Maggie ran off towards the cell block. Rosie spun around in a circle, her eyes searching for Daryl, but she couldn't find him. She didn't want to leave without him. What if she made it out of there, onto that bus, and Daryl didn't? Rosie didn't think she'd survive a week without Daryl, let alone the rest of her life.
A bullet fired in her direction, hitting the wall next to her. Instantly, Rosie ducked down close to the ground and crawled behind a filing cabinet. Shots kept firing and firing, puncturing the metal filing cabinet, and Rosie had no weapon to fight back with, aside from her knife. However, a knife wouldn't do much good against an army with AK-47s and tanks. So, she stayed crouched down, shielding herself from all the bullets that we're flying towards her. She waited there for a few minutes until the shots seemed to die down a little.
"Daryl! Rick! Where are you?!" Rosie called out once everything began to quiet down again. She stood up from behind the filing cabinet, looking around. When she turned around to look back into the field again, a walker grabbed onto her, pushing her back against the fence. Using one arm, Rosie pushed against the walkers chest, keeping it as far away from her as she couldn't manage. The walker kept snapping its teeth, so close to tearing into her. As quickly as she could, Rosie switched her velociraptor to her left hand and pulled her knife from its sheath with her right hand before sticking it into the walkers brain and setting herself free. The walker fell to the ground and Rosie hurried away from it, her eyes still searching for Daryl or Rick or Glenn or Maggie or Carl- anyone.
The field was full of walkers. The fences were down and the smoke and sound was pulling more and more walkers from all of the surrounding areas. They just kept coming from the woods. Dodging as many of them as she could, Rosie managed to run towards where the bus was supposed to be. The problem was, though, that the bus was gone.
Panic instantly flooded through Rosie's body. She spun around in a circle, looking for someone- anyone, really. But no one was there. There were only walkers. So Rosie did the only other thing she could think of to do. She ran.
Rosie ran and ran and ran, through the forest trees and past any walkers in her way. She ran and ran so much that her lungs felt like they were on fire and her throat felt like she was drinking acid while snacking on Weet-Bix. When she finally reached a road, sure enough that there were no walkers on her tail, Rosie collapsed onto the pavement. Her knees scraped up against the ground, skinning her knees and tearing her jeans. Her skin stung and rocks dug into her palms as she used her hands to support herself, keeled over right there, in the middle of the road. She coughed and coughed and coughed, but she just couldn't seem to breathe. Rosie turned over and laid down on her back, her legs outstretched on the pavement and her forearms over her eyes. She just kept coughing and wheezing, squeezing her velociraptor in her left hand like it was the only thing keeping herself in her physical body. She felt so dizzy, like not enough air was making it through her lungs in order to keep her brain working right. She just couldn't breathe.
"Well, I'll be damned," a cheerful male voice said. Rosie sat up quickly, despite the world around her spinning, and grabbed her knife from its sheath as she kept coughing. She was met with a group of about ten men, all dressed in a familiar way to Rosie. They reminded her of the type of men her father would be friends with. It made her feel uneasy, thinking about her life before, with her dad. The burns on her collarbones and the scars on her back reminded her every day of what it was like, but being there with the same types of people she used to fetch beers and put out cigarettes for made her feel like she was back at that house again.
"Claimed," one of the men said. He was shorter and heavier than the other men, had a short beard, and looked like he was balding.
"That's bullshit!" another man shouted out.
"Calm down, gentlemen. No one's claiming the girl. We'll all get our turns," the tallest man said. The tallest of them all was the man with gray hair and a beard. He had a black shirt on with flowers embroidered onto it, and a blue denim vest layered over top. He knelt down on one knee in front of Rosie and she scrambled backwards, holding her knife out in front of her.
"Fuck off," Rosie rasped in between coughs. She felt the same way she did when she couldn't breathe after leaving the guard tower so many months ago. The problem was that this time, it was her lungs not allowing her to breathe rather than her brain, and she couldn't stop it.
"We're not gonna hurt you, sweetheart," the man said. He gave a smile, but it didn't seem real. "My name's Joe. What's yours?"
"Leave me alone," Rosie said as she tried to catch her breath. It wasn't working. She began to see spots in her vision.
"You look sick. A sick little girl like you can't be out here on your own. We'll take care of you," Joe said. Rosie didn't care what he had to say.
"I don't need," Rosie wheezed in a breath, "you."
I need Daryl. I need Maggie. I need Rick. I need Glenn. I need Carl. I need my family.
Her hand dropped back down to the pavement to hold herself up, making it so she had no weapon held up in her defense. She coughed more, but this time the cough sounded more wet. Rosie felt a thick liquid in her mouth and spat it out. Opening her eyes again, she saw blood on the pavement.
"Well, what happens when one of the dead ones comes stumbling along, hungry for a meal, and you're lying on the pavement coughing up blood?" Joe asked with a chuckle. Rosie's vision started to blur even more. "You'll like it with us," Joe said.
"No," was all Rosie managed to say before the sickness and exhaustion from running got the best of her. Everything went black and her ears started to ring.
•
TW: implied SA
When Rosie woke up, she was on top of a bed. The first thing she noticed was that her velociraptor was no longer in her hand. The next thing she noticed was that her belt was gone, and along with it, her knife and sheath.
"Look who's finally awake," a voice said from her right. Looking over, Rosie saw Joe standing in the doorway. Rosie wasn't familiar with this bedroom. She didn't remember getting there. She liked it, though. There were books on the shelves and there was even a TV on top of a dresser in the corner of the room. There were even a few LEGO spaceships on some of the shelves. "You ready to tell us your name?" Joe asked.
"I'm not tellin' ya shit," Rosie spat, crossing her arms. She remembered the last time someone took her against her will- she wasn't supposed to tell them anything, so she didn't. She wondered if it was different this time, though. Because this time, the people who took her against her will took her and helped her. If they hadn't been there when she passed out, she might have been walker food by now.
"We just saved your life, honey. You might want to show a little appreciation," Joe said, chuckling. The way he smiled and laughed reminded Rosie of the way Merle used to. She didn't know if that was a good thing or bad thing, though, because Merle had hit her and beat up Glenn, but he also sacrificed his life in order to help them keep the prison... even if it didn't last.
"Why'd ya take me here?" Rosie asked, her eyebrows furrowed as she remained tensed up on the bed.
"You would have died out there. Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't leave a little girl to die in the middle of nowhere," Joe said. He came further into the room and sat down on the bed, leading Rosie to scoot back up against the headboard. "We're only here to help you."
"Where's my knife?" Rosie asked him. "And my velociraptor."
"Well, Len claimed the knife. And I don't know what velociraptor you're talking about," Joe answered. Rosie felt her stomach drop at that. She'd lost the last thing she had to bring her comfort. Her velociraptor was probably still lying on the pavement, next to the blood that she'd coughed up. However, the thoughts of her velociraptor were pushed away when she realized what he said about Len claiming her knife.
"Claimed?" Rosie asked, her eyebrows furrowing.
"Claiming. It's what keeps the peace in our merry little band. You see something, you claim it, and it's yours," Joe explained.
"But it's my knife," Rosie said.
"It's Len's knife now. You won't need it, anyway," Joe replied. Rosie was confused. Of course she was going to need her knife. She needed it to kill walkers, and in order to go find her family- which was exactly what she was set on doing- she would need to kill walkers. In short, she needed the knife.
"I do need it," she said. Joe looked at her with raised eyebrows and a slightly amused expression on his face. "I'm leavin'. I need my knife. My belt, too. My pants don't stay up. They're too big."
"That won't be a problem, either, honey," Joe said before laughing. Rosie didn't understand his joke. "You aren't leaving, anyway."
"I have to leave," Rosie insisted.
"And why's that?" Joe asked her, still smiling as if just the idea of her leaving was the funniest thing in the world to him.
"I need to find my family," Rosie told him.
"Oh, you won't be going back to them. You're ours now. You belong to us, so you will be staying with us," Joe said, his smile morphing into a more serious look. Rosie felt anxiety churn in her stomach. What did that mean? Joe quickly moved forward and grabbed onto her arm, pulling her off of the bed. Rosie stumbled along with him, unsure if the better move was to go along with him or to fight back. "Let's get some food in you. How 'bout it?" Joe said.
Rosie was completely confused. They were all in some house now, and she had been passed out in the middle of a random road just a little bit ago. She didn't really know how much time had passed while she was asleep, but she thought that it couldn't have been more than a day. One of them must have carried her there and put her on that bed. Maybe they were just there waiting for her to wake up. She wished Daryl was there. He would know what to do- whether they were good or bad. She really just wanted Daryl.