Elle didn't stop thinking for a long time. Even when the horde passed and everyone was getting checked up at the rendezvous point. Her knees were to her chest and her eyes never wavered from the blood-stained knife on the floor. It was covered with Earl, it freaked her out.
Eleanor didn't know how to deal with the wreckage of Hilltop and the distraught members. They were all upset, crying — screaming for those who were lost and begging for a place to live. She had to walk away when a little boy said he couldn't find his dad.
Even if it hurt, Elle didn't move from her crawl space against the outside walls of the house. It wouldn't be long until Daryl or Carol finds her but for now, she just needed this moment.
The thoughts in her mind were on another level, and she couldn't get a solid grasp onto her emotions, not like before. She's had her breakdowns, but they were easily manageable. Right now? She was sobbing even if it hurt her ribs and stung the gash on her cheek from the salty tears.
She was heavy on Negan, heavy on Hilltop, heavy on Earl. And she didn't know what to do. Elle still felt mentally pained and distraught from the cave accident, and with everything else piling on top - she felt so stuck.
"Figured ya be here."
Elle didn't look up. "There's that southern twang I've missed so much." Daryl didn't laugh, dick. "How is everyone?"
"Stop asking stupid fuckin' questions." She sighed. "How ya feelin'?"
"How am I supposed to feel?" Daryl didn't know the answer to that. "Feels like i've got shat on by twelve tonnes of rock. Literally." He should've chuckled at that, he didn't - fuck. "I'm pissed off and upset."
"There yur go."
"Negan shouldn't have left. And I'm so sick of people- people putting all blame on him as if he's actively actually fucking here. News flash, he fucking ain't." She rubbed her nose with a frown. "I don't care if that makes me the bad fucking guy - I don't care! It's not fair, he promised he wouldn't leave, said he'd stay for me, said it'll all get sorted out. Now the prick is off with Alpha messing behind fucking walker masks!"
"And- and I'm so pissed off with Earl! He shouldn't have got bit, that's fucking stupid." Elle gave herself a couple of seconds where a heavy sigh spilled from her lips. "I'm not angry at Earl."
"I kno'."
"Just- things should've been different. I can't keep doing it."
Daryl shuffled next to her, settling his crowbow on the grass next to them. "Life shit sumtimes." Elle scoffed. "Alri', lotta times. Don't mean ya give up."
"I'm not giving up." Elle finally tore her eyes away from the knife and looked at Daryl. "I can't, can I? We ain't Switzerland, we can't die peacefully here. What's the shittin' point?"
"Point is ya gotta keep going." He gently wrapped his arms around her body, "For Maya, for me, for Ne- for him. Ya gotta keep goin'." To change the topic, which was clearly needed, he cleared his throat and pointed towards the woods. "Ya seen Carol?"
"She's not back?"
Daryl shook his head, "Shit ton ain't back." He slowly creeped up back onto his feet and looked down at her. "Thinkin' ya and me go out, help, what ya think?"
Eleanor couldn't breathe properly, nor walk, nor enjoy life and her friend's presence. Yet when Daryl said that, it brought a familiar smile onto her features. He knows me. Distractions got her through the entirety of her life and even if she was severely bruised head to toe - this would make her feel better.
"Swnio'n hwyl."
-
Negan hasn't killed someone of importance in a long time.
A very long time.
The once normal feeling dragged away and chipped at every passing moon and sun. It felt foreign to his blood and bones, and even when he did slice the knife across Alpha's throat - it felt weird. It shouldn't, it really shouldn't, but it made bile form in his stomach and goosebumps to raise on his skin.
He kicked himself over and said he was a 'pussy' before he dug the knife through the thick bone and uneasy texture of Alpha's skin and decapitated her, rolling her head into a rugged bag you'd see on a scarecrow.
Only thing keeping him going right now was the fact that now this was over, finally done with, he can go back to Eleanor.
God, the only damn thing that kept him going was simply her. When he tried to sleep at night (which wasn't at a good acceptance rate from the dark bags under his eyes) he'd think of her. Her laughter, her smile, just the way she carried herself most of the time. Yeah, he did have dreams where they got freaky-deaky on the kitchen counter, but then he stopped himself and remembered that if Elle ever found out he was having sex dreams in the enemies house then... it wouldn't be good.
He just could not wait to see her. It brought an excited buzz through his body and shook a smile onto his features every time her name whizzed through his thoughts. Like a kid on christmas day, or a teenage boy who successfully stole some pornos.
"Took you long enough."
Negan narrowed his eyes at the voice and flicked them between the woman's face and the decapitated head by her feet. "Where is she?"
The woman raised a brow.
"You promised compromise, woman."
Her eyes filled with a succeeded darkness as she traced the skin-rotting features of the walker-ified Alpha. "Change of plans."
"You gave me your fuckin' word." Negan scowled. Now he was angry, made promises now broken. "Where the fuck is she, Carol?!"
The woman sharply inhaled and shrugged, crouching down to pick up the snapping head in her hands. She stared at Alpha's clouded eyes with a somber stare yet clear snarl. It was over, finally over. Why didn't she feel any change? Maybe Elle was right, maybe revenge didn't change anything. "You'll get to see her."
"When, hm?" Negan pushed, following after Carol when she made a bee-line to the border. "You said you'd bring her and then we'd all go to Alexandria like the big happy family we are."
Carol ignored him, or at least ignored the useless bits. "I'm not going back." Negan's jaw dropped. "Not yet."
"I go back there without you, there is a noose around my neck the second I step foot in there."
"Then wait." She snapped back.
-
"I needed this," Eleanor admitted, chugging on a canteen bottle that was filled to the brim of lukewarm water. "Should've warned you that you'd be my crutch if we left."
Daryl let out a slither of a chuckle and tightened onto her waist. Right now, the two friends were pushing through woods and past broken trees to scout the place for survivors who got lost. Majority of people were back at the rendezvous point, including a safe Maya who instantly took a nap when she got time to.
"Ya whine too much." Elle stomped onto his foot. "Ya bitch! What tha' for?!"
Elle narroed her eyes. "You know what it was for."
"'cause I said ya whine?"
"I'm just talking!" She responded, "Nothing wrong with talking."
"Annoyin'" He said under his breath.
Elle rolled her eyes, but a slither of a smirk was on both of their faces. "You're just sad that's I'm so amazing and you're so boring."
"Amazing?" He scoffed. "Ya havin' a stroke or summin?"
She stomped his foot again.
Their childish conversation and battles were soon pushed aside when they found a footstep imbedded into the wet patch of mud. It must've hardened as the sun rose up — thank God. "What'chu think?"
"Girl." Elle answered. It was a small foot, size 5 at most, same size as Maya. "I say we follow it."
Daryl looked down at her and chuckled sarcastically. "I say I track it. Ya stay sittin' and breathin'."
Elle just kept walking, which clearly meant end of conversation which ultimately meant Daryl was left ignored. Per usual. They pushed through the lowering branches of browning trees and every time they got stuck behind a log, Daryl would help her stand over like she was a pregnant lady getting out of bed.
Eleanor hated feeling useless and weak, but at least now her pain was subduing. It was still definitely there and yeah, it stung to do anything, but at least it was bearable. She just didn't appreciate the thick disgusting change of colour in her skin, where purple met green and black met blue.
"Hut over there," Daryl pointed through a clearance in the trees, showing a vast field. "Hunker ther', get sum food."
"I need a piss."
Daryl stopped.
"Sorry..."
He looked at her with a questioning and almost scared gaze, seeing how she'd respond to his reaction. He waited for the smile, the crack up in her stoic look, but nothing came. Shit. "Do ya need... help?"
Elle blinked, slowly, and then the smirk came. Thank fuck. "No, you perv. Just take my shit, can't be assed to carry it with me."
Daryl was happy with that and gathered all her stuff in his hands. He took her jacket, her little bag with little things like breakfast bars and water bottles, and then took her knife. She left sauntering through the woods with a handgun Daryl gave her and a pained look as she walked over logs.
Nonetheless, Daryl made his way inside the hut and stopped at the sight. There was a chair dead centre in the middle, fallen rope to the sides with fresh marks in the wood below. Everything else was dusted over... besides them marks. Shit. Daryl quickly dropped Eleanor's things by the door and stuck his crossbow up to his eye.
Someone was coming.
It wasn't going to be Eleanor, the woman just left to piss and with her bruised and wobbly state, she'd be at least an extra five minutes than normal. Daryl pushed that aside and peeked through the fogged up and dirty window — is that...
"Hey, kiddo." He sighed and pushed the door open. "Sorry about- SHIT!"
The man was cut off instantly when Daryl barrelled forwards with a hefty fist, connecting it straight into the man's weirdly perfect cheekbones. Negan grabbed his cheek with a loud groan - Daryl ignored it. "Where's Alpha?"
"Look," He had his hands up to his sides. "Whatever Lydia told you-"
"Where is she?!" Daryl pushed again, this time with his bow right up against Negan's face. One button and the man would be dead. Daryl would've done it, easily, if he knew it wouldn't hurt Elle in the process.
"She is dead!" Negan yelled back. "She is dead. I killed her."
"You liar."
He sighed. "I'm not lying. Look, I have somethin' in my pocket. It's- it's not a goddamn weapon." Fuck, Negan felt like he was under gunpoint by a police officer. "I am slowly gonna reach for it." Good thing he had experience with this from all the past bar fights he's got in.
Negan grasped through the pockets of his leather jacket and pulled out a jagged yet sadly familiar mask. It was Alpha's - oh shit. "Her mask ain't her head." Daryl wasn't wrong.
"Oh, I know. I am- I am getting to that." Negan dragged his eyes from the edge of the bow to the surroundings of the hut.
Daryl pushed his bow higher up, "Then get to it!" Negan caught a glimmer in the corner of his eye.
"Is that her shit?"
Daryl could feel anger break the surface. "Get to the fuckin' point!"
Hell fucking no, he thought. He figured it was odd when he saw a pile of shit by the door, thinking Daryl was never the one to bring things for the sake of emotional attachment. Daryl was prepped head to toe with things for the apocalypse, he needed no jacket or dainty bag, or a large knife with E.S. carved to the side.
Negan yelled back, "Is that her fuckin' shit?! Is she here?"
"Shut yur damn trap!" Daryl snarled. "Get to yur fuckin' point."
Negan was torn between pushing for an answer or listening to Daryl so he wouldn't get a bolt to the eyes. Negan likes that option better, but he didn't strive away from that knife. "The whole reason I threw in with them was so I could get close enough to Alpha to slit her throat."
"Now, you talk about "silencing the Whisperer's"," Negan forced a gulp. "I silenced the Alpha!" Daryl's chest was heaving in and out and the hold on his most precious weapon began to shake—he was angry. "Why the hell else you think that your girlfriend let me outta that cell?"
It was like time froze in that hut. So weirdly slow as both male heads turned to the entrance of the building, a broken silhouette in the doorway with a placed sneer.
"Carol fucking knew?"
Negan could've dropped dead.
😛