34; CATCH TWENTY-TWO
(original episode, post season nine)
FREYA'S FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY was spent at an ice rink, much to her own and Carl's chagrin. In the months leading up to the celebration, Lori had dedicated at least an hour of each day loosely implicating that Freya needed a hobby that didn't involve spending her days parked in front of a television. It was easy to dodge for the first few weeks, but after a while, it grew tedious and felt like a daily inquisition. To staunch a lecture on a particularly grim day, Freya blurted out that she was interested in ice skating.
Lori was overjoyed, to say the least. So much so that she made reservations for an ice rink and an ostentatious restaurant - that neither Freya or Carl particularly cared for but Rick's pay cheque covered - that night.
Unable to worm her way out of it without confessing to lying, Freya forced a smile through it all and prayed for the car to break down. When it didn't, she asked God for a traffic jam. Instead, the roads had never been clearer and they got there early.
All four grimes' spent far more time on their asses than they did skating, none of them even made it past the assisting barriers. They left an hour early with wet pants and bruises splashed over their limbs but nothing compared to the ache in their ribs from how much time they'd spent laughing at each other falling.
Lori ultimately decided that their unkempt appearances (from the consistent tumbling on the ice) wouldn't bode well with the restaurant she'd chosen and they stopped at a diner for burgers and soda instead. Despite being well on their way to adolescence, Rick carried both of his tired children to the car and then upstairs to their beds when they got home.
It was the best birthday Freya ever had.
Back then, if things went awry, they were quick to fix themselves and turn in her favour. She'd had such a good run of luck - a wonderful childhood with a loving family.
Even if she wasn't able to recall as much of it as she'd like to; her heart remembered. It grew warm every time she thought of her mother's embrace, Carl's goofy little laugh and the way her father's eyes lit up when he smiled.
Standing on the guard's post, the artic temperature biting into her cheeks and nose, Freya watched with an expression of total neutrality as a frail, rimy-limbed Walker impaled itself on one of the defence spikes.
She'd spent the past week wondering if, given the recent tragedy, they should be abandoned as a means of defence. Their participation in protecting the community was so slight she doubted their absence would even be noted, but still - they'd always been there.
Rick and (two-armed) Aaron had secured these particular spikes in place. Splintering the wood, discarding of them. . . It felt as if she'd be erasing another piece of him, eliminating his legacy one step at a time.
A cough from below. Crisp and intentional, wanting her to hear and notice.
Freya pivoted round with a soft sigh, looking down to see the sullen Enzo with Lori and RJ on either side of him, clutching his hands.
She knew why he was here. She knew what had happened again. But she waited anyway, gave him a moment to string his words together.
"Trudi's throwing mugs at Daryl," Enzo informed her casually. It was almost a twice-daily occurrence, - not always mugs but something - and everyone was becoming more and more unsettled by the hostility.
"Can't Mich-"
"She's with Eugene and Gabriel at the radio tower. Left before sun up."
Freya pinched the bridge of her nose, emitting an exasperated exhale. "That was today?"
Enzo nodded grimly. His red-ringed eyes narrowed slightly. "You should probably go, 'cause I've seen you drink cocoa, and you can't do that without any mugs."
The silence of both Lori and RJ was deafening. Instead of running noses and quivering lips, they stood with hunched shoulders and a brooding glaze pulled over their eyes. Angry, sad, tired and without a single inkling of how to even begin to process those emotions.
The guilt that came from being unable to palliate their woe was insuperable. Freya was a living, breathing fiasco. The last thing her very much depressed children needed right now.
"Could you take them somewhere?" Freya asked the teenager, hating that he was bearing responsibility for a situation that barely even concerned him. "Rosita's? Or Aaron's?"
"Yeah," said Enzo monotonously. If he wanted to put up a protest, he was doing a remarkable job of hiding it. He tightened his hold on the children's hands and led them away.
Freya set her foot on the top step of the ladder and paused. She pushed her overgrown bangs out of her eyes. They were almost reaching her jaw now, and it wasn't the time to ask Trudi for a haircut, so whether she liked it or not - she was growing them out. There was a silver lining to it too; looking at her reflection would now be a little easier.
After scrambling down the ladder, Freya crossed through the community in record time. She could hear the clamour coming from her home the second she turned the corner - shattering ceramic, the squeal of rubber shoes against linoleum as someone swerved out of harm's way, the roar of anguish as another throw was made, voices cursing and hissing.
It was enough to make her want to spin on her heel and resume position on the guard's post.
Alas, she pushed the door open and cupped a hand over her face to prevent any mug shrapnel from penetrating the flesh of her face, she had one too many scars there already.
Sitting on the stairs were Brodie, Judith and Lydia. The former huddled together in the middle, holding hands for comfort whilst the latter sat alone on the top step, arms wrapped around herself and lip between teeth.
It was the sight of their despondent state that gave Freya the final shove she needed. She all but stormed into the kitchen, dodging a flying mug on her way to either talk down or restrain Trudi because this was getting much too out of hand and somebody was going to get hurt - probably not Daryl either, which would only make matters all the more peracute.
Daryl and Carol were dodging shards of honed ceramic, forearms shielding their faces and the embittered glares that rested upon them.
Trudi's hand was inching toward the single remaining mug, fingers twitching to curl around the handle and hurl it at the man she deemed responsible for her brother's murder.
Freya caught the grief-stricken woman's wrist before contact could be made and pointedly parked herself in front of the island the mug rack reposed on. "Trudi. . . You're done. Come on. Take a breather."
"We can't go on like this," Carol announced, hand warningly brushing over the hilt of her nice. "What's done is done. Bringing it up every five minutes won't change the past. We were just trying to have a civilised breakfast."
"Well, I'm sorry that your friend's lack of self-control is getting in the way of your oatmeal, Carol," Trudi countered venomously, sidestepping around Freya to catch the woman's eye. "But he does not get to sit there - in my brother's chair with his kids - and act like he belongs, like this is home. 'Cause it's not. This is Tariq's home- this was Tariq's home, and-"
"Trudi-" Freya tried to grab her but the brunette slipped out of her reach.
"And he is the reason my brother died," Trudi accused, her voice high-pitched, strained from the tears clogging her throat. She jabbed her shaking finger toward Daryl. "How could he fight back with legs that didn't work?"
The statement teemed with an unspoken truth and everybody in the room knew it. Tariq's death, was without doubt, a consequence of Daryl's impulsivity. The years of misery and self-loathing that led up to it.
But Freya's heart was bursting at the seams already. There was no more room for love or hatred, the fact that it was still able to beat beneath its current load astounded her. She couldn't let herself dwell on Trudi's veracity, even at the cost of it denting her integrity
"We're not doin' this," declared Freya, forcing the words out with as much resolute as she could muster. It wasn't directed solely at Trudi, she let her eyes sweep over Carol and Daryl too, ensuring that they were aware she considered them just as at fault for the disruption as Trudi was. "We've got an entire army out there that wants us dead - what chances do we have if we're killin' each other?"
"Still more than Tariq had," Trudi gritted out, her eye burning holes into Daryl's capitulating form. "More than he took."
"Daryl, go take Dog a walk or somethin'. Just get out of here for a while," Freya instructed him, stretching her arm out to serve as a barrier against the vengeful Trudi. "Seriously, go! I don't need this escalatin'."
Grunting sullenly, Daryl sulked off into the hallway, whistling for his canine. Carol followed him out, as loyal as ever.
Trudi turned her back to Freya, body trembling with rage as laboured breaths snaked over her lips. "How do you- how can you look at him? How? How do you see Brodie and Lori so fucking sad and not want to kill him?"
"He played a part." Freya grimaced, abhorring the words balancing on the tip of her tongue. "But it was Alpha. All of this was her. You can hate him for what he did-"
"I know I can!" Trudi whirled round, glassy eye clouded with incomprehensible rage. "This isn't. . . You don't get to tell me what to do for this one, I'm not- I don't care what happens to me. I'm not shutting my mouth. I am not gonna stop trying to make him feel even a shred of what I'm feeling. You can throw me out or put me in the goddamn cell. I don't care. He killed my big brother. He's gonna pay."
"You know I can't let you kill him," Freya shot back, dragging her hand down her face. "So, what do you want? What do you want from me? What can I do?"
An incredulous laugh came from Trudi, she gestured to the hallway. "Get him out of this fucking house maybe? Don't make me look at him every day? It's not rocket science."
"We only have two other houses and they aren't an option for Daryl and Enzo," Freya reminded her. "You know that."
"You know, I. . ." Trudi used the back of her hand to wipe the single tear trickling down her cheek. "I have spent seven years telling myself that I'm just as much as your family as everybody else. That you love me, I'm your sister and it's us - in this house - before anybody else."
"And it is," Freya assured her. "It is."
Trudi shook her head and sniffled. "No, it isn't. I'm still the Saviour. I'm still in your debt." She sighed softly. "Can you imagine if I found the Walker that bit Carl? And I brought it here, made you look at it every day?"
Freya bristled, her sympathy ebbing away to make space for her indignation. "That is nowhere near the same."
"Yes it is," Trudi insisted, taking a step toward Freya. "That walker bit him, it made him sick but the gunshot killed him. Daryl shot Tariq, he made him sick and incapable of protecting himself and Alpha finished the job."
Freya's jaw shook with how hard she was clenching it. A thousand darts of rage itching to claim Trudi as their bullseye. But once again, it was an irrefutable statement and try as she might, dismissing this one felt impossible.
"Fine," Freya yielded, tilting her chin to meet Trudi's gaze. "Fine. I'll get him out."
The flicker of gratitude in Trudi's eye lasted a millisecond, but Freya glimpsed it and it was enough to make her more confident in her decision to pander to the demand.
Trudi was still hanging on beneath all of that heartache. Sitting at the bottom of a dismal abyss, waiting for someone to throw her down a rope and guide her toward the light.
That was Freya's job now; sister and brother. Mother and father. Strong and gentle.
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A HOUSE CLEARANCE wasn't on Freya's winter bucket list. Especially not this house but it had to be done - for Trudi to know a semblance of peace again, it had to be done.
The Monroe's house had been reduced to a dust gatherer a long time ago, but they'd kept it intact as a shrine to the woman who - albeit with questionable morals - built this place up and kept it running long enough for Freya's family to find a home within it.
She could still remember her first day inside these walls. In Deanna's office, refusing to be filmed and walking out with comics tucked under her arms for Carl.
Seventeen and so blissfully unaware of what was to come. Plagued by pain she thought could never be exceeded, only for far worse tragedy to befall her barely a year later.
Lydia packed Deanna's diploma into a cardboard box, eyes scouring the desolate office with curiosity. "Why did you wait so long to do this? This place is great."
"Respect," answered Freya with a weak smile, eyeballing Brodie who was squinting at a slap bracelet in the corner, pausing her emptying of the storage cabinet. "You can take that, if you want."
"What is it?" The twelve-year-old held it out in front of her eyes. "It's a watch without a face?"
Freya laughed softly, shaking her head. "No, it's a bracelet. You slap it on."
"Slap it?"
"Mhm."
Brodie tucked it into her pocket, though her wrinkled nose indicated she still had no idea what it was. "This place is bigger than our house and there were only five people in it."
"Technically four," Freya informed her daughter, depositing a heap of files into the box. "Val moved out pretty early on, I think. She was living with Aaron and his husband when we got here."
"What happened to them?" Lydia asked tentatively, wondering if she was stepping into forbidden territory. "The five?"
"Uh, well. . ." Freya began to clear the bookshelf, placing some into the storage box and others into a pile for Judith. "Aiden died on a supply run, he was kind of an asshole. Reg, he-" she swallowed and nodded to Brodie, "- actually got his throat slit by your machete. Deanna got bit when a herd rolled through. Val was shot by one of the saviours and Spencer was killed by. . . Negan."
Brodie's eyes bulged in horror. "You killed the old man?"
"No, no- god, no!" Freya clarified at once. "They confiscated our weapons when we arrived, so some prick took it and he went outside yellin' and upsettin' everyone. Reg tried to grab him and got his throat cut."
"What happened to the prick?" Brodie asked, brows raising slightly with interest.
Freya sheepishly glanced at her feet. "Uh, also your machete - in my custody that time - and my Dad's gun. It was a combined effort."
Lydia forced a swallow, glancing across the room to meet Brodie's stare. "I get what you mean now."
Brodie nodded. "Told you."
"Oh, we're givin' history lessons, huh?" Freya's eyes darted between the adolescents.
They both remained silent.
Freya turned back to the bookshelf, hiding the grin that blossomed on her lips. She'd been a tad worried that Brodie would struggle to take to Lydia given her background, but it seemed that much like herself, her daughter held no malice for those forced into situations through no choice of their own. Though, admittedly, that was likely instilled in the preteen by Tariq.
A crash resounded from the next room - Val's therapy room that had doubled as Reg's study. Daryl was in there. He'd offered to clear it alone but clearly, he wasn't having much luck.
Promptly excusing herself, Freya meandered out into the hallway and hesitated outside the door for a solid minute - Where the hell was Carol when she needed her? - before pushing it open with an air of reluctance.
He was sitting on the floor with his legs tucked beneath him, a wounded hand splayed across his knee whilst the other gathered fragments of shattered glass from the carpeted floor, and he didn't bother to acknowledge her presence.
Freya's eyes scoured the floor in search of the broken object. It was a photo frame, the one containing the photo of Val with the ginger cat cradled in her arms and a smile brighter than they'd ever seen her wear. To her knowledge, it had been out in the hallway, but she could see now that Daryl had dropped his entire box - he'd been moving the photo in with his stuff.
"Could get you another frame," Freya told him, voice coated with uncertainty. She wasn't sure how to approach him anymore now that the tables had turned. He was mad at her for some god-unknown reason, and it dissolved the fury she held for him because her wretched inner child couldn't bear to see his eyes gleaming with a rage brewed solely for her.
"Nah." Daryl reached out and pried the photo out of the frame, shaking off the excess glass and blowing away some dust. He gently brushed a thumb over the moment captured in time. "Ain't the frame that matters."
Freya advanced forward in slow, calculated steps, careful not to spook him. "She was beautiful."
"Hm." Daryl looked down at his feet, shaking his head slightly. "She always came here. Even after Deanna and Reg. Made sure Spencer was eatin'- god knows the prick didn't deserve it but she was just good like that."
"Yeah, I can't say I miss him."
"One thing Negan did right."
A temporary silence blanketed over them. Freya used it to close the distance between them, awkwardly hovering over his hunched form, peering down at the photo.
Daryl sighed softly and let his thumb trace over Val's face again. Guilt radiated from him, it assumed a tangible form and raced around the room in laps, unable to settle or cling to the walls that teemed with Val's essence.
A delayed reaction maybe? No, who the hell could avoid their grief for seven years?
This was Trudi - her words at least. Her verbal cognisance of the accountability that lay heavy on his shoulders. He'd pulled that trigger in an act of blind loyalty and now two little girls were without a father and another set of siblings had been granted eternal separation.
It was bound to stir up old memories. Like him driving off in a fit of rage, thirsty for vengeance and uncaring of the consequences, only to find himself captured and watch Val take a bullet that was meant for him.
It was all factual. Nobody had tweaked or twisted the truth to fit their own agenda - these were wholly honest statements.
But Freya still found herself feeling bad for him, pitying the state he'd worked himself into and hating herself for considering him worthy of sympathy after all that he'd done.
"Ain't right. . ." His voice wobbled as he spoke, a crack in his armour allowing the broken man inside to bleed out over the carpet. "Bein' in here without her."
His exterior was suddenly made of crumbling bricks and she was an unwilling victim to their harsh landing, blow after blow, unable to dodge because her muscles wouldn't permit it.
When was the last time he'd demonstrated such vulnerability? After they lost Beth. She'd stumbled across him slumped against a tree, maiming his hand with the blazing head of a cigarette just to feel something that wasn't the overwhelming grief in his gut.
It was the unanticipated torrent of nostalgia that commandeered her next move. It awoke something that had long ago become dormant inside her - kindness. The one moral her mother had ingrained into her above all else.
Don't do to someone else what you wouldn't want done to yourself.
Oh, it was so simple in theory. But whoever said that wasn't well-versed in complexity.
Freya was stuck in a catch twenty-two. If she spared Daryl the hindrance of having to live in the home of his dead companion, she was forcing Trudi to live with the man who'd ruined her brother's life and that would only ignite a nasty infection in the raw wounds that bereavement had sliced into her flesh. But if Freya left Daryl here, she'd have to watch him deteriorate piece by piece and if he deteriorated; Carol would too, and Enzo would fall even further from his emotions.
She didn't mull over the choice the way she should've. A certainty bloomed in her chest, sown from the soil of a seventeen-year-old's loyalty. "You don't have to- just come back to your stupid basement."
Daryl turned to look up at her, a flummoxed glimmer in his watered eyes. "What 'bout Trudi? How's that gon' work?"
Freya forced a swallow, finding that her throat was now coated in sandpaper. "I'll. . . I don't know. But you can't be here. Enzo can't be at the Anderson's. Rosita's doesn't have space for you and we're pretty much full elsewhere."
"You sure?"
She blinked rapidly. Taken aback by the question. She'd expected silent agreement, maybe a little gratitude but never prodding to make sure she was entirely sold on the decision. He was (unintentionally) pushing her into a corner that she didn't want to be in.
"My dad was willing to live with The Governor if it would keep us safe," Freya stated, a lump of guilt forming in her throat as she tried to convince not only Daryl but herself that this was a truly necessary decision. "He believed that he could come back, and. . . I just think that we need you to come back. Carol does. And Enzo. And we're down fighters, so. . ."
Daryl nodded stiffly; an acceptance. He tucked Val's photo into the pocket of his jeans and was careful to avoid applying pressure to his bleeding hand as he stood. "I'll tell Enzo."
As he made a beeline for the exit, Brodie stepped into the doorway, shooting him a nasty glare as he passed her.
Freya hadn't seen her yet. To her knowledge, she was alone. She let her legs buckle beneath her and sunk to the carpet, reaching for the rings hanging around her neck, twirling them around and silently asking for a sign.
Did I do the right thing? Would you be proud?
Brodie cleared her throat. Arms folded over her chest, eyes narrowed into slits and a curled lip - great, the ultimate angry Grimes stance. "How could you do that?"
"Brodie, this is bigger than one person, okay? Daryl's a unit. He holds people up," Freya explained pitifully. "We can't lose that."
"But we can lose Aunt Trudi?"
"We're not losin' anybody."
An angry click of the tongue; Brodie wasn't buying into any of this. "You're not in charge of people's hearts. You can't tell them what they're allowed to be mad about."
"I'm not tellin' anyone-"
"- he shot Dad! He shouldn't be in our house. Not with Lori." Brodie gritted her teeth together, holding back the tears seeking passage through her airway. "You know she still thinks that he's just gone. That he left her and you won't do anything about it."
With hindsight, Freya knew that she should've tried a lot harder to maintain composure but in that moment she was drained, frustrated and human. So, she bit back, "What the hell would you have me do, Brodie? Take her to the grave? Show her the blood on my clothes? On Trudi's?"
All of the colour left Brodie's face in one fell swoop. She stumbled backwards.
"She's four," Freya stated plainly. "Four years old. She doesn't understand because she's not supposed to. She's still. . ." Her voice cracked, lowering to a shrill murmur. "Still a baby."
"Your baby," Brodie fired back, silent tears trickling down her cheeks. "So, you should be the one to stay up with her. Not me and not Trudi. You can listen to her. You can answer her." A finger was stabbed in Freya's direction. "You always act like you don't feel grief, like it doesn't get you down and you think that you're hiding it from us - you're not. You never have. I could always see it."
Freya averted her gaze. She slammed her palm against her forehead, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Right, yeah, figures." Brodie scoffed incredulously. "You just keep avoiding us. I'll go tell Aunt Trudi that we have to share a bathroom with the guy who got Dad killed."
The door slammed shut behind her.
Freya hung her head in shame.
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author's note
hello!! i'm alive and back after a two week hiatus and of course it's a sad chapter i make my comeback with. but anyways I'm back and updates should resume as usual.
for those who don't know, i made a discord server for readers of tffs, the link is on my message board if anyone would like to join<3