Before I start this chapter I just wanted to explain that this is going to be a little bit different to what you may be used to.
Instead of switching POVs, (which can get really confusing) I've decided to instead use third person to portray what the others are doing and thinking. The majority of the story is still in Amy's POV, but this is only for those chapters where another POV is needed for the story to blossom —
— No, Amy doesn't have visions or mind-reading powers. This is NOT in Amy's POV.
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Dale had somehow managed to convince the rest of the group to meet up in the lounge room. He had to go and speak to every member about the situation that had been the topic of talk for the past week.
It was a painstaking process, having to go around and speak to every person about how they felt. But it was one that he felt had to be done. The girl, Amy, was obviously not a threat to anyone. There could still be a chance that Randall was innocent, too.
If Shane and Rick were serious about killing them, something had to be done.
He stood beside the sofa, Glenn making his way to sit in the seat beside Dale.
The two men made awkward eye contact, as the few people in the room spoke quietly to each other. Meetings like these usually ran the way Rick wanted them to, but today was going to be different.
Today was the day Dale was going to take charge. That's what he hoped for, anyway.
The group was gathering, each person milling in, one-by-one.
"Let's gather up," Rick ordered from outside the house, watching Lori as she waited for Carl. He was standing at the porch, holding the front door open as Carol stepped inside, followed by T-Dog and Shane.
"Come on, Carl," Lori urged gently, holding her arm out to the young boy. He was completely ready for this meeting, fists balled and ready for business. Of course Carl knew he could handle it, he wasn't a kid anymore. "I want you to stay with Jimmy," She continued, making Carl's heart drop.
"B-But I wanna listen," He pressed, shoulders slumped already. His mother never changed her mind, and he knew that.
"Uh-uh, not this time." She placed her hand on his shoulder, leading him up the stairs cautiously, as though he was a fragile piece of porcelain. Carl hated that. He hated her overbearingly protective ways.
Rick held the door open, his eyes on Carl's, as if warning him not to argue. The small family were the last to enter the already full room, with Dale standing poised to begin his already-prepared argument. Rick himself knew he wasn't prepared to kill those kids. Or, maybe he was. It went against almost everything he believed in, but as Shane had said, it was all that could keep the group safe.
Carl paused beside Daryl just in the doorway the hall. Daryl had gone unnoticed by the group once again, and Carl, recognising this, decided to stand by him and go unnoticed too. He wanted to join the conversation so badly.
The entire room was silent, as Carl tried to make himself as invisible as possible, standing next to possibly the most undetectable person in the group.
Rick, who was ready to start, had noticed everyone's silence, and turned to where Lori was staring, which was straight at poor Carl.
With one warning glance, he had managed to send Carl straight off and up the stairs.
Once they were sure the little boy was gone, Glenn spoke up.
"So, how do we do this?" He asked, his mind already made up. "Just take a vote?"
"Does it have to be unanimous?" Andrea asked too. She was in between Dale and Shane, standing against the wall.
Meetings usually started like this, people asking questions about every little detail to try and delay the heavy stuff.
"How about majority rules?" Lori asked quietly from the front door.
"Well, let's... Let's just see where everybody stands, then we can talk through the options." Rick stood forward, taking charge as always. Dale was waiting for his moment; he already knew what he was going to say.
"Well, the way I see it, there's only one way to move forward," Shane said, his thumbs tucked under his belt.
"Killing them both, right?" Dale jumped in, seizing his chance. The disgust in his stomach made it hard for him to even speak to the man. "I mean, why even bother to take a vote? It's clear which way the wind is blowing."
He didn't actually mean that in reality, but it was effective in making Rick stop and think. He held hope in trying to persuade him to change his mind on the matter.
"Well if people believe we should spare them, I wanna know." Rick looked up at Dale, leaning forward on the lounge chair in front of him.
"Well, I can tell you it's a small group," Dale muttered in dismay, looking over to the girls sitting on the sofa opposite him. He had spoken to everyone about the issue, not one of them giving him a clear answer, and most saying that they didn't care. "Maybe just me and Glenn."
Of course Glenn was going to agree with him. He was very kind to the girl, Amy, and had even fought her case in a few of the arguments about the two prisoners.
Dale's frown deepened further when Glenn looked at the man, seeming apologetic.
"Look, I... I think you're right about pretty much everything, all the time, but this..."
"They've got you scared!" Dale couldn't help but raise his voice, betrayal settling in just a little. He raised his hand to indicate Shane, Andrea, Rick.
"He's not one of us!" Glenn argued back, his voice rising too. "And we've... We've lost too many people already, without adding that girl to the mix. I mean, look at what happened to our Amy." Although the decision felt harsh even to Glenn himself, it truly was how he felt.
Andrea bowed her head, clearly not fully adjusted to life without her younger sister even at that point.
It was hard to deny the resemblance of the two girls, who shared the name Amy. They were both emotionally and physically vulnerable, both shy, slightly irritating when they start talking, and innocent.
"How about you? Do you agree with this?" He turned to Maggie, who had been silent for the entire discussion. Maybe getting Maggie to agree would make Glenn change his mind.
"Couldn't we continue keeping them prisoner?" Maggie sighed, looking to Rick for an answer.
"Just two more mouths to feed," Daryl interjected. Two more mouths to hunt for, Two more mouths to protect and clothe. Two mouths that were to be locked in a shed all day, doing nothing for the group.
"It may be a lean winter," Hershel spoke up, thinking about the crops he'd been tending to earlier that day.
There just seemed to be no way around this.
"We could ration better," Lori stated, her head lowered slightly. She honestly didn't know what to think of all of this. There was no reason those two young adults should be killed, no matter what her husband believed. And although she knew she would always stand by Rick, there had to be some way to fix this that he hadn't thought of.
"They could be assets. Give them a chance to prove themselves. Amy was helping you wash up today, Carol." Dale recalled seeing the young woman in the RV. "And the boy, he can help with the crops."
"We're not letting him walk around." Rick shook his head at the thought of that man being around his family, being around this group.
"Put an escort on him." Maggie tried to resolve the issue, only to be met with a chorus of shaking heads.
"Who wants to volunteer for that duty?" Shane snorted, crossing his arms.
"I will." Dale straightened his back. Of course he would. This was a man's life they were discussing here.
"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy," Rick said firmly.
"He's right. I-I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up," Lori muttered from behind him.
"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles and sentence him to hard labour," Andrea stated, her voice laced with the anger she held towards Lori. It seemed unnecessary to the rest of the group, but to Andrea, it was totally justified. The two had been at each other's throats lately, both looking for an opportunity to snap.
"And the girl?" Dale stared over to Rick. "You said it yourself, she saved your life. You want to kill her too?"
All eyes fell on Rick.
Some of the people had seen the woman around camp, puffy eyes, matted ponytail, and the same bloody old jumper on every day. She seemed harmless enough.
Even Daryl had to admit she wasn't a threat to anyone but herself. He'd seen that firsthand in the forest.
"No..." Rick scratched his forehead in confusion, averting Shane's stony glare. "Let's, let's just focus on Randall for now."
At least that was some ground Dale had covered. He had already seen this decision coming, after what Amy had said in his RV that morning. The threat for Randall was very real though, and something that may have already been decided. This little bit of confirmation was enough to keep Dale arguing.
"Look, say we let them join us, right?" Shane spoke up from across the room, his eyes focussed on Rick's. "Maybe... Maybe they're helpful, maybe they're nice," He said the last word as if it were a complete joke. "We let our guard down and maybe they run off, and bring back those thirty men."
Daryl looked from the carpet, something finally catching his attention. It was definitely a possibility, he had to admit. After what Amy had told him, and what Randall had admitted to... The only thing Daryl did care about was ensuring those men didn't come to this camp.
"So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime that he may never even attempt?" Dale stared Shane down, determined to at least do something here. "If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead. There is no civilisation." He couldn't control the anger that was flowing through him.
"Oh, my god." Shane rolled his eyes looking to the window. Dale was swiftly becoming a huge annoyance to him, getting in the way of keeping this group safe. Now, not only would he have to fight tooth and nail to keep Lori and Carl safe by ridding the group of Randall, he'd have to convince Rick about the girl too.
"Could you drive him further out? Leave him like you planned?" Hershel wondered, hoping maybe that was a possibility.
"You barely came back last time," Lori mumbled, holding her hand to her chest in worry. Rick had told the group they were overrun, after taking the two prisoners to a school. They didn't go too far into detail, but after seeing the distressed look on Rick's face afterwards, she knew he might not have survived the trip. "There are walkers. You could break down. You could get lost."
"You could get ambushed," Daryl grunted. It was certainly a possibility, if this group really was so close. They could still be looking for the girl. After all, she wasn't the one impaled on a fence.
"They're right. We should not put our own people at risk," Glen muttered to the group, fiddling with his fingers that were hanging in between his legs.
"If you go through with it, how would you do it?" Patricia asked shyly. She barely ever spoke up in front of the group, preferring to be in the kitchen with Beth and Maggie. "Would he suffer?"
"We could hang him, right?" Shane shrugged. "Just snap his neck."
"Ah, I thought about that," Rick breathed, a little uncomfortable about talking like this. He looked to Lori for assurance. "Shooting may be more humane."
The whole conversation had taken a darker turn, one that Dale couldn't stand.
"What about the body? Do we bury him?" T-Dog glanced to Shane. He had told Dale he would prefer to stay out of the whole argument, but it was clear which way he was heading.
"Hold on, hold on. You're talking about this like it's already decided." Dale shook his hands in front of him, gripping his hat tightly in his left hand.
"You've been talking all day, goin' around in circles." Daryl swung his finger around in a circle as he said this, taking a step sideways. "You just wanna go around in circles again?"
"This is a young man's life!" Dale snapped, in a state of disbelief at the lack of morality in this group. "And it is worth more than a five-minute conversation!"
Everyone looked down slightly, partly afraid of looking into Dale's searching eyes, partly in shame. Daryl shuffled on his feet, staring at the same point he had been looking at for a while. Rick picked at the fabric of the armchair he stood in front of, while Shane kept his head up, watching the poor man scan the room with his urging eyes.
"We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him?" Dale shook his head angrily, looking to Rick. "You saved them, and now look at us." He indicated to this exact meeting, and all the people around the small coffee table in the centre of the living room. "Randall's been tortured," He glared at Daryl, who still hadn't raised his head. "He's gonna be executed."
"How are we any better than those people we're so afraid of?"
There was a silence. A long, thoughtful silence.
Rick could feel his skin redden, and he knew. He knew Dale was right, and he knew that there had to be another way to do this. There had to be.
"We all know what needs to be done," Shane said, his elbow leant against the fireplace.
"No." Rick stood straighter now, with more authority than he'd been using for the past ten minutes. "Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here, we have a responsibility."
Dale let out a loud sigh of relief, glad that finally he was getting through to someone.
"So what's the other solution?" Andrea stepped towards Rick, demanding another idea. She felt that something had to be done, and soon.
"Let Rick finish," Lori snapped at Andrea, both of the women pausing for a second to stare each other down.
"We haven't come up with a single viable option yet. For Randall, or for the girl." She paused, "I wish we could-"
"So let's work on it," Dale pushed, gaining more confidence from Rick's agreement.
"We are," Rick argued back, as the room quickly fell into chaos. The people at the back of the room, Patricia, Hershel, Maggie, were all watching in silence as the remaining members began raising their voices.
"Stop it."
Carol had finally spoken up, somehow increasing the volume of her gentle voice to get the group to be quiet. Daryl, who was standing beside the staircase, looked up just to hear what she had to say. He had noticed the woman's cold regard towards him after what he'd told the group, and if he said he didn't care, he'd be lying.
"Just stop it," She repeated, louder this time. "I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this."
"Please decide, either of you, both of you, but leave me out," She said pointedly to Dale and Rick.
"Not speaking out or killing him yourself, there's no difference." Dale stared Carol down, angry that she'd just sit there and say nothing about this.
"All right, that's enough," Rick intervened, after seeing the hurt look on Carol's face when Dale said this. He took a deep breath, as the room fell into silence again. "Anybody who wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance."
Patricia and Maggie both sat on the sofa beside Hershel, giving up their votes on the decision.
Rick turned around, looking every standing member in the eyes as the silence echoed on. Everyone seemed to look around, trying to see who was standing and who was sitting. Dale was wringing his hat nervously, hoping somebody would have the guts to speak up.
"You once said we don't kill the living," He said desperately, holding his hand out to Rick in hopes of getting through to him.
"That was before the living tried to kill us."
"But don't you see? If we do this, the people that we were, the, the world that we know is dead." He shook his head, his heart plummeting as every person in the room avoided his stares, having already made their mind up. "And this new world is ugly, it's, it's harsh. It's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't wanna live in."
"And I don't, I don't believe any of you do. I can't." The inevitable prickle of tears was blurring his vision. To the rest of the group, Dale's passion for this, his belief and heartfelt desperation for these kid's lives was heartbreaking. He was begging for their lives. "Please," He added, pausing to take a breath.
"Let's just do what's right," He croaked, looking broken at the idea of this murder. If a boy was a fitting target for the group, who knows who they'll see as a threat in the future. "Isn't there anybody else who's gonna stand with me?"
Glenn felt like complete dirt, as Dale looked down at his friend, hoping for any sign of regret. But there was none. There was no other option in his eyes.
Dale let out a loud sniff, turning back to look at the wall. He couldn't look any of them in the eyes. He was absolutely disgusted, mortified, that it had come to this. The world really had changed them.
"Are y'all gonna watch too?" He choked, gripping his hat in his hand so tightly his knuckles turned white. "No, you'll go hide your heads in your tents and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being."
Everyone hid their faces, not accustomed to seeing Dale so emotional. Was he really tearing up over this?
"Oh..." He breathed, shaking his head in disgust. "I won't be a party to it."
With that, he stormed out of the lounge, brushing past an embarrassed Rick, an uncomfortable Daryl, and an ashamed Lori. He slammed the back door behind him, deciding he needed to take a walk to clear his head of his racing thoughts.