There would be no more sleeping on church pews. That was mainly because they were all being destroyed- being used to board up the church. They had taken apart the organ to stick the pipes into the ground outside the front steps. It was smart and resourceful, but Gabriel wasn't too happy about it.
Rosie wasn't too happy, either, but it wasn't because they were destroying the church. Rosie wasn't happy because she wanted to go with to Atlanta. She wanted to help. They needed to get Beth back, and the more people who went with to help, the better. But Rick and Daryl wouldn't budge. Carl and Rosie were being forced to stay back at the church with Michonne, Gabriel, Ian, and Judith.
What Rosie had learned since Daryl got back was that Beth was trapped in some hospital, which is where Noah, the man boy, came from. Noah and Beth had tried to escape together, but Beth got caught. And when Daryl and Carol found Noah, Carol got taken to the hospital, too. So now Rick, Daryl, Sasha, Tyreese, and Noah were all going back to Atlanta in order to get Beth and Carol back.
"We could help," Rosie said, looking up at Daryl with her eyebrows raised.
"You can help by stayin' here and protectin' Judith," Daryl replied, nodding his head towards the church. Rosie wanted to huff and complain some more, but she knew Rick and Daryl wouldn't change their minds, so she just gave up on it. "Be good. Do what Michonne says," Daryl told her.
"I'm always good," Rosie claimed, making Daryl scoff.
"Yeah? What about when you punched Carl? Twice," he said. Rosie furrowed her eyebrows, ducking her head down a little bit. She almost forgot about how much she used to hate Carl. Now he was like a brother to her. It was weird how different things were.
Rosie shrugged bashfully and tried to tuck a piece of hair that fell into her face behind her ear, but her finger got caught in a knot. She sighed, frustrated. "Do you know how to do braids?" Rosie asked.
Daryl scoffed again. "Hell no," he said.
"Beth can. She's real good at 'em. Maybe she can help me when she gets back," Rosie said, scrunching her face up as she continued to pull strands of hair out of her face. Who knew hair could be so frustrating?
"Yeah," Daryl said. He opted out of ruffling her hair before leaving simply because she had just put in so much work to get her hair out of the way, and she'd get all pissy if he messed it up again. So instead, Daryl squeezed her shoulder a little before turning to leave with the others. "We'll be back soon," he said.
After giving a nod to say I know, Rosie climbed back up the few steps to go back into the church. Rick was saying his goodbyes to Carl, and Carl was giving him a smile that said, I understand why you don't want us to go, but it's still annoying, which was exactly how Rosie felt about it, too. After Rick and Carl said goodbye, the doors to the church shut and that was that.
As soon as Rick was out of sight, Judith started bawling her eyes out. Since Michonne and Carl were supposed to start boarding up the door, Rosie decided that she could help by calming Judith. She went over to the basket that Judith was laying in and knelt down beside it. Carefully as ever, Rosie picked Judith up and sat her down on the ground across from her.
"Hi," Rosie said, very unsure of what to say to a baby. Judith didn't say anything back, obviously. She just stared at Rosie, looking completely confused and unaware. After a moment, Judith's face scrunched up and she started crying again. "No, no, no, no, no," Rosie said quickly. She picked Judith up again and sat her in her lap. "It's ok. It's ok," she kept saying.
Then, all of a sudden, Judith stopped crying. She looked up at Rosie sadly for a few moments, and Rosie looked back at her, confused. Then a smile broke out on Judith's face and she started giggling incessantly. Rosie smiled, too, but she was still very confused.
•
An hour later, Judith was in the back office, asleep, and Rosie was sitting on the floor, watching Gabriel scrub away at the blood stains that were now deeply soaked into the hard wood. It wasn't making any difference, but he kept on scrubbing anyway. Rosie watched as Carl placed a display of weapons in front of Gabriel, but Gabriel paid no mind to any of them. She got up, coming closer to Carl and Gabriel.
"Hey," Rosie said, tapping Gabriel on the shoulder. He didn't respond in any way and Rosie huffed. They were only trying to help him learn to survive, but no, he wanted to scrub the floors for hours on end instead.
"Pick one," Carl said, gesturing down to the weapons. Gabriel didn't even spare them a glance, but at least this time he responded by shaking his head. "You need to learn how to defend yourself. We can teach you," Carl said.
"Hey, mister, he's talkin' to ya," Rosie said, crossing her arms.
Ian came up to stand by her side, also looking down at Gabriel. "I think you're supposed to call him Father," Ian said.
"He ain't my dad," Rosie said, scrunching her face up.
"It means-"
"I don't care," Rosie stopped Ian before he could try and explain. Ian pressed his lips together and stopped talking. "Mister, we're tryin' to help you," Rosie said, tapping the toe of her cowboy boot against his arm.
Finally, Gabriel looked up. He had a sad smile on his face, and he only looked at Carl. "Defend myself? They said they'd go," Gabriel said, shaking his head again. Rosie scoffed. He was mad about them saving his life by killing the people from Terminus?
"They were liars and murderers," Carl retorted, his tone harsh.
"Just like us," Gabriel said. Rosie wanted to kick him, but she restrained herself because Daryl said to be good, and being bad included kicking people.
"We protected ourselves," Ian said, furrowing his eyebrows. Rosie looked over at him for a moment. He had a sad look in his eyes, which was weird because usually he had some sort of happy-go-lucky, I-don't-care type of look in his eyes.
"They wanted us dead," Carl said, nodding his head at Ian's words. Gabriel didn't answer and Rosie rolled her eyes. After a moment of waiting for a response and never getting one, Carl continued. "You're lucky your church has lasted this long. You can't stay in one place anymore. Not for too long."
Rosie thought about the quarry, and then the CDC, and then the farm, and then the prison. All gone, gone, gone, gone. Because nowhere was safe anymore. He was right; you had to be on the move if you wanted to survive.
"And once you're out there, you're gonna find trouble you can't hide from," Carl said. Rosie caught him glancing at her, but she pretended she didn't and looked away. Carl cleared his throat before continuing. "You need to know how to fight," he said. Gabriel stared up at him for a moment before finally, finally choosing a weapon. It just so happened to be a machete. "Good choice," Carl said.
"He's holdin' it wrong," Rosie said, her arms still crossed.
"Yeah, you gotta be able to drive it down," Carl said, acting out the movement, "'cause sometimes their skulls aren't as soft and you need to able-"
"I'm sorry," Gabriel grunted out, holding his hand up to tell Carl to stop. He took a moment, bending over and breathing hard. "No. I need to lie down," he finally said, standing up to leave. And just like that, Gabriel left the room, taking the machete with him.
It was quiet for a few moments after that, until Rosie decided to speak. "Why's he like that?" she asked.
"'Cause he believes in God," Ian answered.
•
"Hi," Rosie said, sitting down against the wall next to Ian. Ian smiled wide, confused as to why she was willingly sitting by and talking to him, but happy all the same. "Can I ask you somethin'?"
"Yeah," Ian said cheerfully.
"It ain't a happy question," Rosie told him, furrowing her eyebrows a little.
"Ok," Ian said, shrugging a little.
"What happened to Lizzie and Mika?" Rosie asked. She'd been wondering about it for awhile. She thought about just letting it go, for the sake of Carol, Tyreese, and Ian, but her curiosity got the best of her. Lizzie and Mika were her friends, she deserved to know what happened to them.
"Oh," Ian said sadly. It almost made Rosie want to take back her question, but she didn't. She really wanted to know. "Um, Lizzie didn't... she didn't get it."
"She don't- or... didn't get walkers, I know that," Rosie said, nodding along.
"She killed Mika," Ian said. Rosie's eyes widened and her stomach started to hurt. She knew Lizzie didn't understand, but she didn't think she would kill someone she loved like that. That was her little sister. "She tried killing me and Judith. She wanted to turn us into walkers," Ian said, staring at his shoes.
"You stopped her?" Rosie asked.
"Yeah. Fought her. Then Carol and Tyreese got back. And Carol..." Ian trailed off.
"Carol killed her," Rosie finished for him. It made more sense now, why Carol was being so weird- unless that wasn't the reason, but it could have been. Ian nodded, confirming it. Carol had killed Lizzie. Because Lizzie had killed Mika. Ian started fiddling with the ends of his shoelaces and Rosie glanced at his face for a moment. His eyes were wet and watery. Oh no, Rosie thought, I made him cry. Rosie had absolutely no idea what to do to make him stop crying, so she thought back to what she felt like after her dad died- what Merle had told her.
"Y'know, mine and Daryl's pops died the same way yours did," Merle said.
This caught Rosie's attention, and she accidentally let her eyes move towards him, but she quickly caught herself and looked back at her boots. Merle noticed, though. It wasn't hard to catch.
"I wasn't there, I was in jail. Daryl was on a huntin' trip with our pops and our uncle Jess, Dad got his stomach torn up, jus' like yours."
This time, Rosie actually moved her head to look at him, raising her eyebrows, as if to say, Really?
"'Cept Daryl couldn't kill 'im. Pussied out. Jess had ta do it," Merle told her.
"Really?" Rosie actually said out loud this time. Her voice came out hoarse and scratchy from not being used for so long.
"Yep," Merle said with a nod, "a'ready makes you more badass than he is. He likes ta act all tough, but he ain't really."
Then she thought back to what Daryl said, back at the quarry, after the night of the fish fry. They'd just gotten back from Atlanta. Rosie was feeling stupid and guilty, because they thought Merle was dead and Rosie thought it was her own fault.
"Killed those walkers with that tiny lil' pocket knife on your way to the roof, huh?" Daryl said, changing the topic of conversation. Rosie shrugged, remembering the walkers in the stairwell. "Pretty badass," Daryl said.
Rosie found herself wanting to smile at that.
"You saved Judith," Rosie said, looking at Ian again to see his reaction. "Pretty badass," she said. Looking over at Ian, Rosie could see that the corners of his lips began to quirk upwards. Her trick had worked.
"Yeah," Ian said, halfway smiling again.
"Please! Let me in! Please! Let me in!" a voice suddenly shouted from the other side of the wall. Rosie and Ian shot up to their feet, looking towards Michonne for guidance. "They're close! Help! They're coming! Please don't leave me out here!" It was Gabriel's voice. He was now slamming against the door, and walkers were growling outside.
Carl ran towards the door, Michonne following after him. "When did he leave?!" Rosie asked, running after the other two with Ian right on her tail. Carl started pulling the boards on the door and Rosie took a weapon from the ones that were laid out on the ground. She was about to go for the axe, but Michonne got to it first.
"Get back," Michonne said, Judith on her back. Carl backed away from the door, next to Ian and Rosie. As Gabriel screamed on the other side of the door, Michonne started slamming the axe into the wood across the door.
Bang, bang, bang, screams, screams, bang, bang, bang.
Carl raised his gun, aiming it right at the door. Along with Daryl's knife, Rosie picked up the machete Gabriel had apparently abandoned. She didn't ever really use the machete, but she knew how to. She'd used it a couple times on the road in between the farm and the prison. Daryl had her take turns with all the weapons they had, just so she'd know how to use them if the time came she needed to. She wasn't expertly good with any of them, though.
Finally, Michonne pulled the last piece of board off of the door and Carl opened it up. Gabriel rushed inside. There were dozens of walkers on his tail, all stumbling into the church. Rosie couldn't believe how he'd managed to get this many walkers trailing him after just a couple hours. Carl fired off a few shots before Michonne pushed everyone behind her, pulling her sword out. She sliced off the heads of any walkers that dared come close, but they just kept coming.
"The rectory! Come on," Gabriel shouted, waving his hand. Rosie didn't know what the rectory was, but she followed him anyway. They ran into the back office, which was apparently the rectory. Gabriel slammed the door shut, but walkers were prying at the doors, their fingers pinched between the door and the wall. Rosie helped Michonne push a chair up against the door while Carl aimed his gun.
"That's how I got out. Crawl under to the back," Gabriel said, pointing to a hole in the wooden flooring. "Just go. Take the kids and go," Gabriel whisper shouted to Carl. As Michonne pulled Judith off of her back and gave her to Carl, Rosie and Ian climbed down into the hole. Judith cried and cried. Carl handed her down to Rosie before climbing in himself.
"Hey, hey," Michonne said, stopping them for only a moment. "You wait for me."
The kids climbed through the under side of the church, and Michonne came right in after them, then Gabriel after her. They climbed out the other side of the church before working together to take out the walkers that were still outside. Once the ones outside were all dead, they ran to the door and pulled it shut, locking the walkers inside.
As quickly as they could, they started pounding nails into boards, trying to stop the walkers from being able to open the doors. However, the sound of them hammering in the nails only riled the walkers up more and more. Michonne took off her belt and wrapped it around the door handles for even more reinforcement. The walkers stuck their hands through the crack in the door, but they weren't breaking through just yet.
What would've been smart was for them to leave, but they couldn't because then the others wouldn't know where to find them. So they waited out there, leaning up against the fences as the walkers continued to pound at the doors.
"Where did you go?" Michonne asked Gabriel, an angry look on her face.
"The school," Gabriel answered, staring at the ground. "I had to see. I had to know," he said.
"Couldn't jus' take our word for it?" Rosie complained, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Then a loud clanking noise came from the church. One of the wooden boards had broken off of the door, and the walkers were breaking more and more by the second. They all tensed, readying their weapons again.
"Where do we go?" Carl asked, gripping his gun tight. Rosie gripped onto Daryl's knife, too, and Ian held onto Gabriel's machete. Before anyone could provide any answer of where to go next, the sound of a rumbling engine started approaching. Rosie hoped that it was Daryl and the others that went to Atlanta, but it was a fire truck. And, believe it or not, Abraham was in the driver's seat. He drove the fire truck right up to the doors of the church, breaking the porch while simultaneously blocking the walkers from escaping.
First, out climbed Abraham, then Maggie, then Glenn. Maggie went to hug Michonne while Glenn came over to ruffle Rosie's hair.
"You're back," Michonne breathed out.
"Eugene lied," Glenn said, his face showing that he was extremely pissed off about it.
"What?" Rosie asked, furrowing her eyebrows.
"He can't stop it," Glenn said. Upon hearing his words, Rosie felt conflicted. What did that mean? She couldn't decide if she was mad about it or not. Of course, she didn't want to be fighting for her and her family's life every day, but she didn't want to be taken away from them either, and that just might've been what happened if things went back to normal. "Washington isn't the end."
Rosie felt someone put their hand on her shoulder, and she turned to see that it was Maggie. That's when she remembered what Maggie didn't know. "Daryl came back," Rosie told her. "He found Beth."
"What?" Maggie breathed out, her eyes widening and her eyebrows pinching together.
Michonne took Rosie's place, grabbing onto Maggie's hands and giving a soft smile. "Beth's alive. She's in a hospital in Atlanta. Some people have her, but the others went to get her back," Michonne explained.
Relief flooded Maggie's body. "Do we know which one?" she asked, and Michonne nodded.
"Grady Memorial."
Maggie's eyes started to flood with what Rosie guessed were happy tears. Rosie didn't really understand how people could even have happy tears, but she didn't understand a lot of things, so she didn't ask about it.
"Let's blow this joint," Tara said, smiling. "Go save your sister."
•
Rosie had never been in a fire truck before, so she was really excited about it. What she was even more excited about, though, was getting to Atlanta and seeing Beth again. She'd be able to sit and tell Beth all of the new things she learned about dinosaurs while Beth braided her hair, to get it out of her face. Maybe Beth could even teach Rosie how to braid, too, and they'd be able to braid each other's hair.
When the fire truck finally pulled to a stop outside of the big hospital, Rosie was practically bouncing in her seat. Before they got separated, Rosie didn't realize how much she'd miss Beth. She thought the singing was weird at first, but she'd grown to like it and even miss it. She hoped Beth would sing that song she sang at the prison again. The one about holding on.
With their weapons ready, the group approached the hospital. Rosie kept to the back, between Maggie and Rosita. They only stumbled upon a few walkers, because the rest were already dead.
When they reached the other side of a fence, they finally saw Rick coming out of the hospital. Sasha came out behind him, then Tyreese and Carol. Relief flooded Rosie's body. They're ok. They're ok.
But the relief came too soon.
After Tyreese and Carol, Daryl came walking out of the hospital. He was holding Beth, the same way he held Rosie after he found her in that church, off the highway. The difference was, though, that Beth wasn't holding onto him. Her arms were hanging down by her sides and her head was tilted back. There was a red spot in her bright blonde hair, right above her ponytail.
Unconscious?
But then Rosie saw Daryl's face. He was crying. He was really, really crying. It wasn't even just that his eyes were wet and glossy, like they were on that roof when he saw Merle's amputated hand. He was sobbing. Tears were trailing down his cheeks and his face was all scrunched up. Rosie had never seen him like this before. It scared her.
Maggie realized it first. She dropped down to her knees, screaming and wailing out in agony.
Rosie's stomach dropped.
Not unconscious. Dead.
It burned. It burned her stomach, then her throat, then her cheeks and nose, and then her eyes. Rosie was crying, now, too. Her hands went up to her hair, pulling, pulling, pulling.
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Sorry to everyone who hoped I'd keep Beth alive 😬😬