~Alexxa's Point of View~
I walked silently behind Daryl and Max. Max is talking as usual and Daryl is simply listening, probably not even caring what Max is talking about. I was more in my head, devastated about losing Theo. I wish he was still here with me. I wish he was looking at me with those adorable brown eyes, smiling at me with that bright smile. I miss him. I miss him so much. All I have left of him is the necklace he had a round his neck, which is a shell. It's pink in the inside and white on the outside. By the amount of times he's killed walkers and getting blood on him, not to mention the blood he was bleeding himself, it's clean. Pearly white, clean. It's weird to see it so clean but I think it means something. Could be nothing but to me, I think it's like an angel was there with him. Yeah, yeah, angels may not be real, but what other reason could this thing be so clean?
"Alexxa." I look up from the shell in my hand and meet eyes with Daryl. He and Max are both looking at me. I furrow my brows at them until Daryl turns his head away. I look ahead of him and see the prison. There, I could see Rick, Glenn and the others waiting for us. Glenn takes off running and approaches me, picking me up in his arms and hugging me tight. I hugged him tight in my arms, holding him and never wanting to let go again.
"You're okay. You're alive." He breaths. He lets me down and smiles at me. We finally get inside the prison walls and began explaining everything to Rick, from beginning to end.
"Theo didn't make it, like the others. Max here saved my life." I finished. Everyone is silent, avoiding eye contact with me. I furrow my brows at them.
"I totally did! Didn't think I would make it to her but for once I actually did. I saved somebody's life." Max smiles.
"What's the problem now?" I ask, looking at Rick.
"What do you mean?" Rick asks.
"You're all looking at me like there's a problem. Like a new problem shows up and now you're trying to figure it out. What's the problem?" I ask.
"Alexxa. There is no problem." Rick slightly chuckles. "Even if there was, you don't need to worry about it." He adds.
"Rick. I was out there trying to save people's lives left and right, including myself. I was tired, scared, focused on everything all at once. I lost Theo because I was driving. Me. I was the one in control of that van and I somehow managed to screw it up and kill just about everyone in that van. I'm back. I told you everything. You seemed normal until I mentioned that we lost Theo. What the hell is the problem?" I say all in one breath. Rick and Glenn both take deep breaths and look at me. I finally put the pieces together. It's about Theo. Their faces were blank until I said Theo's name.
"Theo's parents are here. Aren't they?" I say.
"We didn't want you to have to deal with it." Glenn sighs.
"Where are they?" I ask.
"Alexxa. You don't-" Rick starts. I held my hand up for him to be quiet.
"Where are they?" I ask again.
"Their in Cellblock D." Rick says and I stood up, walking away from them.
"Wh-What. Alexxa. You need to get cleaned up first!" Shouts Glenn. I ignore everyone and continued on to Cellblock D. I walk to the door and pushed it open. I see a few people awake and walking around.
"I need Theo's parents. John and Mary?" I call out to them. I see them appear from the top deck and quickly made their way down the stairs and approached me.
"Is he here?" John asks.
"Is my baby Theo okay?" Mary asks.
"Would you guys come with me please?" I say and turn away. I'm thinking going outside will be better. They'll have alone time to yell and cry when they hear the words they're son is dead and it's all my fault.
We went to the dining area and sat down at one of the tables. It's dark outside and a little breezy but it feels nice. The walkers outside by the fences are piling up a little more. The thought of them knocking down one side of the fences slips into my mind. But then I had to keep my mind focused on Theo's parents.
"Theo saved my life. I was separated from Rick and my group last winter. He helped me find his people and I promised him I'd help him find you guys. I tried. I tried my hardest, I did everything I could to save his life. And I failed."
"Wait. Wait." Mary begins crying, covering her mouth with both of her hands.
"He's-He's dead?" John asks.
"He is." I nodded.
"But-But your husband said it was a simple thing? That you guys were just doing training?" Mary asks.
"It was simple. But everything just fell apart." I say.
"H-How could this have happened?" Mary cries.
"What happened?" John asks.
"A simple task. A simple survival task. He said it was simple." Mary continues, leaning over and crying in her hands.
"It was." I explain. Without warning I felt a hand come in contact with my right cheek. I quickly held onto my cheek, shocked that I'd just been slapped.
"Shut up!" Growls John. I stood up and walked away from them. I saw Rick and the others a small distance from us. Glenn steps in front of me, grabbing my shoulders.
"We didn't want you to-"
"No! Don't!" I snap and pushed him away from me. I avoid eye contact with Rick and kept walking. I can't believe that just happened. I mean they do blame me. I killed their son. It was my responsibility to keep him alive and I didn't. I failed Theo.
The Next Morning...
I've had some sleep and everything that's happened yesterday is now in the past. I don't have any grudges against Theo's father, John, slapping me across the face because he and his wife, Mary believe I killed their son, which I did, is okay with them. All I have to do is avoid them and my mood will be great. They live in Cellblock D so I at least won't have to see them or do anything related with them. Besides the point, now they know that their son is dead, they might just move on from the prison and keep going. Fine by me.
I did my usual work. Cutting the carrots and other veggies we've planted. Rick and a few others are doing their own thing too. Michonne is back, she's out in the field talking to Rick and Carl. From the looks of it, she might be leaving again, which is weird, she was just hurt. Carol still at the grill, Daryl still getting the usual, unwanted flirts from Carol. Daryl tried to talk to me about the situation but I keep denying him. I don't wanna talk! I just wanna do my own thing and move on from the past. Glenn gets it. He understands I don't wanna talk. Daryl, same as the others, should understand that. Speaking of which, Glenn is behind me, staring at me. I know this because I know when he's staring at me, even if he's standing behind me. I just know and I don't even have to turn around to confirm that.
"What are you staring at?" I ask.
"Uh. How'd you know it was me?" He asks.
"I had Theo, Glenn. One, if he wanted something, he'd stand behind me, stare until he figured out if the question was important enough to ask me or not. And two, I know when you're staring." I say.
"So you know." He says approaching behind me, leaning over my shoulder to hover over me.
"I know." I smile at him. He remains in his spot, not even moving.
"Okay. What do you want?" I ask him.
"Nothing. Just standing here, next to my beautiful wife." He says.
"You want something." I say.
"No." He shakes his head.
"Are you here to distract me? You know I'm trying to work here, and so should you." I say, continuing to cut the carrots.
"Is it working?" He asks. "Am I distracting you?"
"You wish. I'm a rock. Nothing will ever distract me from doing my job." I say.
"Okay." Glenn shrugs. I feel him move my hair away from my neck and he plants a kiss there. I continued cutting, but slightly slowing down. He pulls away and looks at me.
"Nothing." I smirk at him. He huffs out a smile and trails his lips up my neck until he reaches my ear and kisses behind it, lightly biting down on my earlobe. I licked my lips and pursed them. He's crazy. Glenn is crazy! Seducing me in front of everyone! He pulls away again.
"I told you." I say.
"Then why'd you close your legs?" He asks. I huff out a laugh and look him in the eyes.
"I hate you." I say.
"No you don't. You love me." He says. He moves to the other side of me and looks me in the eyes.
"Hate you." I correct him.
"You love me." He says. But in his eyes, he wanted to be reassured that I still loved him.
"Yeah." I nod my head. We both lean in for a kiss but we suddenly here loud bangs coming inside the prison. We both pull away and look around.
"What the hell?" Glenn utters.
"Help! Help! Someone please!" Screams two little girls. I stood up from the table, knocking everything over.
"Cellblocks!?" Glenn asks.
"I don't know!" Maggie shouts back.
"Tyreese! What's going on!" I shout as soon as I see Tyreese.
"Walkers in D!" He says.
"Walkers in D!" Glenn shouts to Rick.
"What about C?!" Rick asks.
"Cleared! We locked the gates to the tombs!" Ty shouts.
"Come on." Glenn says, pulling me along with him and we follow Rick inside. We grabbed weapons on our way inside and ran straight to Cellblock D. We arrived and see absolute chaos here. There are kids screaming, women crying, men fighting off the walkers.
"Move!" Daryl shouts.
"Daryl!" Rick shouts.
"I got it." Daryl says, helping a woman. "Are you bit?" He asks her.
"Go! Get out of here!" Rick shouts.
"Come on!" Glenn says and we began running off to save everyone. I turn to my side and see a walker walking towards a little boy who was crying on the ground and sliding backwards. An arrow appears in the walkers head and it falls.
"Get up! Get back in the cell!" Daryl shouts, picking the little kid up in his arms and taking him to the nearest cell. I ran up the stairs to check for anything else. A walker appears from a cell and grabs my arm, leaning his head to bite down. I dropped my bow and leaned over, pulling my arm away and punching him in the head. We both growl in frustration, me wanting to survive and the walker wanting to make me his meal. I slipped on my feet and fell over, hitting my head on the wall. I ignored the pain in my head and grabbed an arrow from my sash and jammed the metal arrow into his head. He stops moving and goes limp. I let out a breathe of relief.
"You okay?" Glenn asks, approaching me. He helps me up.
"Yeah." I breathe. My ear was ringing. Shit. I gently rubbed my ear, feeling the pain setting in.
"Everything cleared up here?" Rick asks walking up the stairs, Daryl following close.
"I think so." Glenn says, walking further down the deck. He approaches a cell and pulls open the sheet to inspect it. A walker jumps out and grabs Glenn.
"Get down!" Daryl orders. Glenn dips his hips downward and hides his face. Daryl kills the walker and we all approach it.
"Oh. It's Patrick." Daryl says.
"Wait a second. Look at him." I say. Patrick looks different. Daryl grabs his body and flips him over to his back.
"No bites. No scratches." Daryl says. "I think he just died."
"Horribly, too. Pleurisy aspiration." I say. Everyone looks at me, wondering what that means. "Choked on his own blood." I say. I kneeled down and pointed at his face. "Look. It's what caused those trails of blood from his eyes and down his face." I say.
"I've seen them before on a walker outside the fences." Rick says. We all left the cellblock as it was and called for a board meeting. Rick wanted to see what we should.
As we talked over things, the continuous ringing in my ear goes on and the pain was getting worse. I was worried because it's the same ear that busted when I was in the accident. One ear going out is fine, but both ears, I'll be screwed.
"They're from the internal lung pressure building up. Like you shake a soda can and pop the top. Only imagine your eyes, nose, ears, and throat are the top." Hershel explains.
"It's a sickness from the walkers?" Glenn asks.
"No. These things happened from before." I say. "It happens." I shrug.
"Could be pneumococcal. Most likely an aggressive flu strain." Hershel says.
"Someone locked him in just in time." Glenn says.
"Locked himself in, hell, he was just eating barbecue yesterday." Daryl says.
"How could somebody die in a day just from a cold?" Glenn asks.
"I had a sick pig. Died quick. I saw a sick boar out in the woods." Rick says.
"Pigs and birds. That's how these things spread in the past." Hershel says. "We need to do something about those hogs."
"Maybe we got lucky. Maybe these two cases are it." I say.
"Haven't seen anybody be lucky in a long time." Daryl says.
"All of us in here. We've been exploded." Hershel says.
"What do we do?" I ask.
"We're gonna have to keep ourselves separated from everyone. No close contact. You two can't be near each other for a little bit." Hershel says, looking at Glenn and I. "Nobody needs to be neat each other." I look at Glenn and gave him a smile, showing him that everything will hopefully be okay.
"Let's go check on the others and see if they're okay." Rick says and stands up. We all stood up and began walking away. I needed to talk to Hershel about something.
"Alexxa? You coming?" Glenn asks.
"Go ahead. I'll be there later." I tell him. He nods his head and walks away.
"Everything okay?" Hershel asks me. I take a deep breath and huffed out a smile.
"Are you pregnant?" He asks. My smile fades and I look at him confused.
"What? No! I-I'm not pregnant. I can't do that, not after Lori." I say.
"Everything okay?" He asks again.
"The accident. My ear was ringing? My hearing seemed okay afterwords. I hit my head again today and the ringing and pain was even painful. I just wanna know if I'm okay." I say.
"We'll do some tests to see. It'll be hard because I don't have the proper equipment to make sure." He says.
"Thanks." I say and walked away. I walked outside and see Michonne hurt. I furrowed my brows at her, wondering what happened.
"Hey. What happened?" I ask.
"I fell. My sword went through." She says.
"Geez. I'm sorry." I say.
"She'll be fine." Maggie says, smiling at Michonne. I smiled back and continued on. I met with the others and see Rick, Carl and Carol around. Max sees me and he gives me a smile. Aw. Look at him. So innocent. He's so proud of himself for saving my life. He said usually when he's trying to save a life, he's too late. But me? I was the lucky one. I'm grateful for him saving my life. If I were his mother, I'd be proud.
Stop! Stop! You aren't his mother! You aren't getting attached to him. Not again. No more mothering teens or kids at that! You have way more important things to focus on than dealing with this shit. Focus, Alexxa. No Max. We're not having a Theo 2.0.
"For now, lets just get back and talk this out with the others." Rick says.
"But, Dad what about-" Carl started but Rick cuts him off.
"It's just temporary. Keep an eye on Judy. Alright? I'll talk to you later." Rick says.
"Okay." Carl nods. Carol and Carl look at each other and smile. Rick walks by past me, seeming stressed out. I turn away to follow but I hear Max's voice.
"What's going on? Is everything okay?" I turn around to face him and noticed how close he was to me.
"Whoa. Hey! Back up." I warn him. He jumps back, obviously confused. "Sorry, Max. It's just...there's a sickness going around. We shouldn't breathe around each other or be near each other for a while." I say. He nods his head and takes a deep breath. His eyes drop to the ground and I felt curious as to why he was looking like that.
"Hey. What's wrong?" I ask.
"You'd think in this world we could die of getting eaten alive by those drooling freaks. But in reality, we'll probably die from a simple sickness." He says. I take a deep breath and pulled him into my arms, hugging him, resting my chin on top of his head.
"You're gonna did, Max. You're gonna be okay, we're all gonna be okay. We're gonna figure this out." I tell him. He tightens his arms around my body.
"I gotta go. Just breathe, and don't worry." I tell him. He smiles and lets me go. I turn away to meet up with the others. I sighed, rolling my eyes.
So much for not getting attached.
Hershel, Glenn, Daryl, Rick, Carol, Maggie and myself all sat in the library of the prison talking everything out, trying to figure out what to do.
"We'll have to separate everyone that's been exposed." Rick says.
"That's everyone in that cellblock." I say.
"That's all of us. Maybe more." Rick says. "We know that this sickness can be lethal."
"We don't know how easily it spreads." Carol says.
"Is anyone else showing any symptoms that we know of?" Rick asks.
"We can't just wait and see. And there's children." Carol says. I furrow my brows at her.
"It isn't just the illness." I say.
"If people die, they become a threat." Carol says.
"We need a place for them to go to." Rick says.
"They can't stay in D." Maggie says.
"We can't risk going in there to clean it up." Carol argues.
"We can use A." I say.
"Death row?" Glenn asks.
"I'm not sure that's much of an upgrade." Carol shakes her head.
"It's clean. That is an upgrade." Rick nods.
"Think that'll work for Dr. S?" Glenn asks.
"I'll help Caleb set it up." Daryl says. We suddenly hear somebody coughing and we all stood up. We see Tyreese and Karen passing by. Carol is the first to step out into the hallway, with all of us following behind her.
"You okay?" Ty asks her.
"Mmhmm." Karen nods her head.
"You sure? You don't sound okay." Carol says.
"We're just taking her back to my cell so she can rest." Ty says. Aww. That's sweet of him. But not today.
"Tyreese, I don't think that's a good idea." I say.
"Why not? What's going on now?" Karen asks.
"We think it's the flu or something. That's how Patrick died." Rick says.
"Judith was in that cellblock." Maggie says.
"She's vulnerable." I say.
"Anyone that may be sick or possibly exposed should stay away." Rick says.
"It killed Patrick?" Karen asks.
"Come on." Carol says, guiding Karen away to be isolated.
"She's gonna be okay." Tyreese says.
"I'll get started on burying the dead ones." Daryl says.
"I'll help you with that. But I have to see Caleb before he's too busy for me." I say.
"Make sure you guys wear gloves and masks." Rick tells us.
"Uh huh." Daryl responds and walks off.
"You need to see Caleb? What for?" Glenn asks.
"Nothing major, Glenn. It's fine." I say.
"David from the Decatur group, he's been coughing too." Maggie says.
"I'll get him." Glenn says and takes off running. I took a deep breath and walked away, quickly finding Caleb so he could do some tests on me to make sure I wasn't losing my hearing.
How do ya'll feel about losing a main character? Like I'm gonna kill a good ass character and ya'll will hate me lmao.
I'm kidding. I'm not gonna do that...maybe;)