"It'll be okay," Ivy whispered to the unfinished starlight in the sky as she caught sight of how vibrant Carl's blood was and how quickly it spread. The entire world seemed to fall apart as Lori's son bled onto a street full of walkers, catching at their attention just as easily as the gunshot had. They were merely sharks drawn to that hurt, his blood sharper than the camouflage of old gore smeared across their arms and faces.
Rick caught him with one arm and braced Carl against him, wheeling around for the best options available. And Ivy saw the math he was playing out, recognized the frantic urgency in picking a direction, the choices being made.
Carl simply needed to get to the clinic. They needed shelter, the security of a fortified door.
Ivy didn't need either of those things.
Rick's hand on his hatchet went slack as he held it out and Ivy caught it, pushing herself to stand up straighter. "Try," she said hoarsely, looking around at the bodies forming a wall around them. But there was a break. Two smaller walkers staggered sideways, one hooked onto the other's belt somehow. "Try and get him help."
'You stick to somewhere until I find you. You hear?'
'Sorry, dad,' Ivy thought bleakly as her ears rang, as she heard her heartbeat pounding wildly just like any song. It wasn't the same as the cassettes Beth liked playing on repeat but she still heard it clear. 'Live, die, live, die.'
People had to survive and if she gave them a chance, they could get to that clinic. Bob would be behind that door and he could do something about the damage, saving the life of the boy. Ivy simply had to provide them the cover to get moving, had to let them scramble for the chance of surviving.
Because Lori would have wanted Carl to survive.
Lori had been kindness; her hand sweeping back damage and old bits of hurt, life catching in the hopelessness. And she couldn't ever forget that.
Ivy held the hatchet tighter in her hand and watched for Michonne to move away first, the woman slashing at a target with her sword, before she could move in the opposite direction towards that tiny space of chances. "Over here, you pricks!" She shouted, grabbing the sheet from around her shoulders with one hand and whipping it out, catching the two connected walkers in the face and blinding them. "Fuck you! Come on, I'm right here!"
Rick was holding Carl and they vanished; Michonne and Deanna with him. Ivy was running, ducking low to avoid the forest of hands and teeth. The streets made it easier to run across but she had to keep moving, invisibility long gone. The sky was merely a veil of darkness and she had to shove attention away from the others still.
She struck the first walker down hard. Ivy's hand managed to grab at the knife from her belt and she stabbed it into it's face, slamming the hatchet down to help wrench the blade back easier.
The danger made her demented. Ivy shrieked as she pushed one grimy figure back, choking on a hysteric laugh as she kept going. Any chance of surviving was gone and it was merely a fight to draw it out, anything to claw for the last bits of life she had left.
Because she couldn't stop.
Mailboxes looked like graves as she rushed across the length of pavement and chalk drawings were mere outlines beneath her feet. The herd was consuming all of the space that Alexandria had to offer and the haven was a fading heartbeat beneath the night sky.
Someone might clean the mess up. Someone might take the pieces left and rebuild.
Someone might be left to keep it all going.
Ivy wasn't Abraham or Daryl. She didn't have the luxury of their brute strength to conquer the sea of the undead. But she had learned enough over time, adapting to their world and dangers that came with it, moving her feet the way Glenn would have; mapping out the nearest options as she tore down another body in her way. Hershel would have taken the last stand, Oscar would have pushed her towards a wall so she could fight with something solid against her spine.
They had taught her lessons in holding a line steady and now Ivy could only see a deadline forming, charging straight against it with only the stars watching from overhead.
She slashed a way through the best she could, running and scrambling over the road and bodies, cutting a path straight towards the park. Maggie had spent weeks planning that wedge of green space into a future garden to maximize potential and it was tauntingly close to the gate but Ivy already knew she wouldn't make it there. The swarm was dense and it had been designed to lock at three different points along the wall and gate. It was heavy enough that a grown man had to force it open, that she had seen Tyreese and Tara struggling to slam it shut just hours before.
Ivy didn't have a single chance of getting through the gate without dying in the process. She wouldn't waste the effort in trying.
She just had to keep going until the end caught up with her.
And she wasn't going to stop until the end found her.
Some unlucky soul had been torn apart on the sidewalk, buried beneath a pack of walkers still gorging themselves on the flesh attached to bones. Ivy tumbled towards that pile and nearly got swept up by one hand, picking herself up off the pavement and hurtling further into the darkness. Whomever had died, their body left behind a distraction that Ivy used to her benefit, fleeing through the slight opening and away from the thicker current.
The air burned with copper. Gore, blood. Decay. It all rotted in the air and flooded her lungs.
Ivy swung the hatchet again and it glanced off of one skeletal face before she could recover, bringing it back across so it sent the body pitching sideways. Abraham had done that once, punching a walker twice until it stayed down. "Come on!" She screamed, alone. "Is this it?"
'I left that prison trying to find you.'
Daryl wasn't there and she wanted her dad, she wanted him—
It was the Governor before her. It was Gareth. It was Carlos. It was her father. It was the man in the woods, the man who pinned Beth to the ground. It was Phillip, it was always going to be Phillip. Their blood caught at her skin and she was burning up from the fight, running like she always had. Her knife got lost in the throat of one walker and she didn't bother wasting seconds struggling with it, instead clinging even tighter to the hatchet as she kept swinging.
A body hit the ground and she kept going.
She kept moving.
This was the lesson her mother taught her best; how to run even when it hurt. She had walked straight out of Ivy's life and never stopped, and later, Ivy had followed that same path; yanking herself free from the doorway with her hands bloodied, running so she would never have to ever stop.
"I'm still here! I'm still—" Ivy cried out as she pushed deeper; fire in her bones and soul, a Dixon's temper igniting in a burst of heat.
Stars scorched the sky overhead and Ivy couldn't afford to look at them. If Ivy got to the park, she could get to the wall. It would shield her back and she could have a chance of bringing down as many walkers as she could before losing to their numbers. Eventually they would overwhelm and destroy her, ripping her apart while she screamed and begged, mouths so desperate to consume every last piece of her.
They would shred her into nothing.
But Ivy would take a few back, would leave an exchange for the violence of it.
And maybe Daryl would find her knife and know that she kept trying, that she had been fighting all the way to the end.
He had wanted Alexandria for her and Ivy had stubbornly wanted it for him. Anything to make it worth choosing her from the beginning.
Ivy clipped one walker hard and swerved around it, refusing to look up at the apartment window as she skirted around the bench on the sidewalk, the familiar ghost of her life playing out in the darkness. Walkers were a thick swarm around the building and she couldn't afford the risk of cutting through and up the stairwell, and she couldn't leave her remains on the doorstep for Daryl to clean up.
So she went forward alone.
The walkers met her and she gave them destruction back. Each impact of her swing jarred straight to her bones but she took it; ducking hands that stretched out, bodies that wanted to snatch her up.
And Ivy was scared of them for the first time since the beginning.
Nobody had known what they were when the radios first started spitting out rumours of a death cult. They had wandered the coast and into towns; bleeding across the country like a flood that couldn't be managed. The numbers kept growing until they were a virtual army, biting and ravaging anyone in their path. Her school had closed down in response. Every school had closed down in response. People stopped going to work and started fleeing instead. They went north and south, abandoning their homes for any glimpse of hope.
But her father hadn't. He had simply locked their door tight and got drunk and mean, starving them out while the world vanished. They had lived in the country which meant it had taken time for the first walkers to stumble across the property, but Ivy had seen one neighbour, an older woman in a nightdress, unaware of the sharp stones beneath her bare feet as she ambled her way up the road.
Somebody had ripped her throat out. The blood was tacky, dark looking. It stained the nightgown all down the front and Ivy knew that nobody could bleed like that and she still be alive.
And nobody could take six bullets to the chest either.
It didn't matter that the woman fell backwards, jerking from each shot. Her stubborn, relentless hands kept grabbing at the grass, legs pulling herself right back up. The dead woman kept walking, gnarled fingers rattling at the door, hammering against their boarded up windows.
And they had simply watched. The world ended and they were still walled up inside a house, ignorant to the fire catching in the distance. Cities had burned. Radios went dead. There wasn't a school to go to anymore and their town was a place for ghosts. Ivy's life had shrunk down to the size of their living room, her father's shadow threatening to drown her completely.
Until she killed him. Ivy had her mother's old boots and a knife and her father wouldn't let her go until she made him.
So he died at her feet, choking on blood, and Ivy started running to escape the violence of it all. One kill had been lucky and she never tried her chances with fighting the walkers so she tried outsmarting the packs that caught her trail, blindly forcing her way deeper into the woods, racing across the landscape until it all looked the same.
The walkers had merely shifted along like water rushing through, streaming over vague pathways and across shallow creeks, hungry to devour. And Ivy had been terrified. All she had was a knife and a feverish, desperate desire to keep surviving.
Days. Weeks. She had run, alive with fear. Ivy managed the distance until she found an old rundown house looming through the woods, the tin roof curling up like a mouth of jagged teeth. And it looked safe, splintered bits of domestication, wild returning through the space, a door swinging wide like an invitation.
And so she curled up tight in a closet and waited to die and to live, trusting in a pink switchblade that her hand held so tight for comfort, until someone opened that door and pulled her out, forcing her to feel something beyond fear.
A skull broke beneath her swing and Ivy felt that same old, raw fear again. She shoved a body aside with her shoulder and rushed forward, familiar with all the dangers that came with hands and desires to take, chasing the last mile of her road before it ended.
She was down to mere moments left. One hand swung the hatchet out and slice straight through the brittle bone of what had once been a woman. Phillip was dead, Phillip died as she kept striking, Phillip's mouth broke as she struck him out of her way.
Blood made her hands slick. It was a familiar feeling, almost as familiar as the scar at her wrist. Walkers were dangerous again and they were going to win because they had the numbers and the space and she was alone, a single weapon fighting against hundreds.
There wasn't anyone left to save her.
The pavement vanished as her feet hit grass and she leapt across a body laid out, staggering when her ankle twisted. Something grabbed her and Ivy tried to fight it, lodging her forearm across the throat of a walker that held her by the shoulders. Yellow teeth flashed and she screamed, shoving as hard as she could. But it's fingers were steel, catching her like a hook spearing a fish. It's mouth snapped at her and she felt the seconds bleed through, the last bit of her life fading into ruin.
The wall was so close. It bled into the night but she could still see it, a defiant legacy of protection wrapping around Alexandria so tight. Stars, a moon. A sea of blood and teeth, death looming overhead.
Oscar would have loved this place. Hershel, Lori. Maybe Sophia, the girl Ivy had never known. Alexandria could have given them all more time to exist, they could have stayed longer.
But they hit their ends and now she was ending—
Ivy shrieked when the skull suddenly exploded. Hands fell slack and she nearly pitched over the remains at her feet; tennis shoes and faded jeans, a purse slung around the torso with a rotting strap. Two more walkers hit the ground and Ivy looked up to see Beth and Maggie perched up high with their guns, both firing down into the herd around her.
They were on the look out platform and the ladder was on the ground, stranding them above the lawn and dirt. Ivy couldn't waste the time it would take to haul it upright and climb so she moved around the dead walkers, sprinting beneath their bullets, chasing the cleaner path to finally make it to the wall and touch it with her bloodied hand; old strength warm beneath her fingertips.
She pulled out her pistol from her belt and switched the safety off. There were only so many bullets left. Her ears screamed with ringing, a siren that never ended, and she looked up for one last starving look. Beth and Maggie were clinging to the railing of their platform as it all began to tremble; supports buckling as hungry forces below started tearing at it.
Nobody had crafted it with the intention of withstanding a siege of the undead. It was merely a casual level meant to hold one or two people at a time, something to view up over the wall.
Oscar would have designed it better, Ivy thought loyally. He would have made it safe.
The gunfire from both Beth and Maggie were attracting more walkers. Ivy screamed in response and brought her pistol up, firing each shot of her own as a legacy of the gentle coaching from Daryl. He wouldn't want her to squander bullets so she made each round count, forcing attention back to her.
Her dad would have wanted her to save one bullet. But she was going to waste every single one of them on the night itself.
'I'll find you. Just get out of here and find somewhere safe, I'll be there.'
"Over here, you ugly prick! I'm right here! Come on, over here!" Ivy cried, whipping out the hatchet with one hand and catching a walker with a good blow. But it slipped from her grip, buried deep into the skull.
So she let it go. Her hands managed the process of reloading, clearing five more shots. The sky was screaming above and she struggled, trying to load again for another shot. Ivy was an easier target than the two girls sitting on the platform and the sea was turning towards her, desperate for her blood to catch.
Ivy had to be good for something.
She had to be good for death.
She shifted further down the wall. Beth and Maggie were going to watch her die and Ivy wanted to move her death further away, anything to make it less horrible to see. They both kept firing rounds until their guns ran empty and Ivy knew they had nothing left to give, knew that she was on her final dregs of life.
The walkers were no longer spaced out. They grouped tight, marching in on her with cold feet, pushing at the space around her until it was as tight as a noose. Ivy had to physically shove one back in order to bring her gun up and shoot, spine pressed tight to the wall. "You motherless—"
There wouldn't be anything left for Daryl to bury. They wouldn't have a tomorrow for her to see.
When she ran out of bullets, Ivy took her pistol and slammed it against the wall like a drum, mimicking her heartbeat. "I'm over here, you fucking jackass! I'm right here."
She had finally gotten to live a safe, good life. That had to be enough.
Daryl had yanked her out of a closet and given her a home where the doors didn't slam. Ivy didn't wake up to the sound of glass shattering or a fist breaking through the wall. It had been warm. It had been safe. It had been every dream she ever had all bundled together in a foundation that didn't ask for anything in return.
He had given her everything and in turn Ivy had seen her old life vanish within seconds.
Lane became Dixon and Ivy had been someone's.
That had been plenty.
Ivy was going to be good for this.
Her mother had taught her how to run but Daryl was the one who showed her how to fight. The gun dropped and she kicked out, last moments bursting through her mind like sparks. Fireflies, bonfires. Her name tattooed against a wrist. The farm house, the rail car. Finding people again, finding the good things still left in life. Daryl, when he opened that closet door. When he found her. When he kept finding her.
'This was okay,' Ivy tried not to sob. Bravado was an illusion that was quickly slipping on her shoulders and she wanted to cry. She didn't want to face death proud. "Come on!" Ivy tore the words out, forcing her scream to catch through the night sky like an echo that would outlast her. Her fist punched a walker hard in the face and tears burned like the starlight above, unfinished and unnamed.
Their eyes flashed at her. She saw their teeth first, recognized the shapes of their ghosts. Black blood soaked the space between them and her lungs ached, her own ghosts burning through her heart and chest, unfinished in a place that demanded so much.
And then heavy automatic gunfire wrenched through the night. It battered the nearest line of walkers like a storm that couldn't end. Their blood splattered and Ivy slid down against the wall with arms raised up, dead dying at her feet.
.
'I'll find you afterwards.'
.