(June 3rd, 2011)
I was only out there for about twenty minutes before Rick came to find me. He apologised for pulling a gun on me and for telling me that I couldn't go on runs anymore, and he told me the real reason as to why he said it in the first place. Rick said that he felt guilty, he's the one that pushed that I went with Maggie and Glenn and he blamed himself for almost getting me killed. He told me about his ghosts, Lori, Shane, Amy, Jim, Jacqui, how they told them they had a safe place and he wanted to get us there, which he now knows was all in his head. I told him everything from my past, everything, so he would understand why I try to hold onto control, why I kept track of everything since the apocalypse began, and how I obsessed over it.
"I told Glenn that part of the reason I came after you all was because, I didn't think I could alone anymore... that was a lie." The air was thick with tension, "the truth is that, for once, I wanted to have someone take care of me, to make sure I'm safe, that I'm eating enough, that I've gotten enough sleep, and that I'm happy." I sent Rick a honest smile, "I found that here with every single one of you and I'm just struggling with handing over the last of my control, but I'm trying, I just ask for you to have some patience with me." Rick promised he would, before pulling me into a hug. A tear trailed down my left cheek as I held onto Rick tighter, that was the first time that I have told someone what's truly going on in my head.
"Come on, we need to get back to the others. I have to put Maggie on watch and give the others a brief on our situation." I nodded as we made our way back inside, I see Noel walking out of Daryl's cell, we share a smile and a nod before we all meet Rick at the end of the stairs furtherest away from Merle, after he told Maggie to go on watch. "Field's filled with walkers. I didn't see any snipers out there, but we'll keep Maggie on watch." Rick informed us as Daryl reached us via the stairs, "I'll get up in the guard tower, take out half them walkers, give these guys a chance to fix the fence." Daryl plans, "or use some of the cars to put the bus in place." Michonne suggests another option, " we can't access the field without burning through our bullets." Hershel argues, "I could use my bow, that way I won't attract more of them by the sound of gun shots. Daryl and Noel could help, we'd have enough arrows to clear it." I suggest another way of clearing the field.
"It could be used as an advantage..." Noel spoke up, we all turned to look at him to explain, he looks at Michonne, "you said those people haven't much experience with walkers, in a way the walkers will be protecting us or at least give us a warning because they'll have to clear the field to get to us." I smile at my brother, his suggestion actually makes a ton of sense, "so we stay trapped in here. There's barely any food or ammo." Glenn argues against Noel, "been here before. We'll be all right." Daryl points out, Noel and I nod agreeing with Daryl.
"That's when it was just us. Before there was a snake in the nest." Glenn was clearly referring to Merle, which upset Daryl, "man, we gonna go through this again? Look, Merle's staying here. He's with us now. Get used to it. Okay? All y'all." Daryl looks at me and Noel before he reclimbs the stairs to get away from all of us. "Seriously, Rick, I don't think Merle living here is really gonna fly." I sighed at Glenn's words, how many times are we going to have this argument, look I agree with Glenn but Merle staying means that Daryl will stay, and I want him to stay, Rick tells Glenn that he can't kick Merle out, "I wouldn't ask you to live with Shane after he tried to kill you." Glenn shouts in Rick's face, I was surprised to say the least, Glenn wasn't the type of man to get into someone's face unless absolutely necessary.
"Merle has military experience. He may be erratic, but don't underestimate his loyalty to his brother." Hershel reminds us of Merle's past and relationship with Daryl. "What if we solve both problems at once? Deliver Merle to the Governor. Bargaining chip. Give him his traitor, maybe declare a truce." Glenn suggest, "he's not going to take it, he wants war, he wants to fight." I speak out to Glenn, "the man shot me when I threaten him with the idea of our group. He won't let a group that could get into Woodbury undetected, twice in less than two hours, live." I tried to argue, but realised that everyone agreed with me, because they weren't arguing against me. "We're not clearing the field and Merle stays, we need him."
I was cleaning Naomi up after she ate her lunch when Carl came rushing in, "Andrea's here." Is all he said, Hershel took Judith off Beth and everyone grabbed their guns. I sat Naomi next to Hershel and told her to do whatever he says before following the others. We rushed through the cage outside the cell block, rushing behind a car, "go." Rick nudged Merle who moved to the next car shouting clear a few seconds later. Rick yells at Andrea asking her if she's alone once we get near the gate, all of us behind something to shield us, just in case. Andrea yells back at him to open the gate, he questions her again and it wasn't until she called his name that he threw his keys to Daryl and gave the go ahead to open the gate.
Once Andrea is through, Rick closes the gate and tells her hands up and turn around, she questions him, he pushes her towards the fence and began to search her. When a walker came up to them, she moves to kneel on the ground, "I asked if you were alone." Rick repeats, and as Andrea says she is alone, Rick rips off her messenger bag and threw it towards Noel, he opened it and dumped it out on the ground. An empty bottle, a cereal bar wrapper, a map and a knife falls onto the ground at his feet. Rick tells him to put the stuff back after he looked to see what it was, Noel does as he told before Rick orders us all to go back inside.
I lead Noel back inside, I asked him to go take care of the Naomi and Judith whilst we deal with Andrea, "I want to stay." Noel spoke up against my wishes, I took a deep breath reminding myself that I need to give away control, "ok, just sit Naomi on your knee." He nodded and sat down on the bench placing Naomi on his knee, I stood behind them both protectively. Rick, Andrea, Carl, Daryl, Maggie and Merle join the rest of us. We stood in a circle as Andrea hugged Carol, "after you saved me, we thought you were dead." Carol told the blonde woman.
As they let go, Andrea notices Hershel's leg, "Hershel, my God." she says out of breath, she began to look around the room, "I can't believe this." She looked at all of our faces before asking "where's Shane?" to Rick who shook his head, "and Lori?" she questioned and Rick repeated his action, Hershel was the one to speak up, "she had a girl. Lori didn't survive." "Neither did T-Dog." Maggie adds, Andrea apologises, "you all live here?" she asks, Glenn was the one to answer her, "here and the cell block." She points towards the entrance of the cell block, asking if she can go in, but Rick wouldn't allow her to, and she tells him that she's not the enemy.
"We had that field and courtyard until your boyfriend tore down the fence with a truck and shot us up." Rick informs her and she looked genuinely surprised at his words, "he said you fired first and killed Adams." Andrea told us, "well, he's lying." Rick responded, "I shot Adams leg, the Governor killed him when he shouted in pain drawing walkers to them." I told her, she looked at me, then Noel and finally Naomi, "who are you?" she questioned, "they're a part of us now, Nyx, Noel and little Naomi." Daryl spoke up for us, she nodded looking at us as if she wanted to ask a question, I knew what the question was and Noel stirred in front of me before he spoke, "our parents are dead, Nyx had to do it."
Andrea looks at me with sympathy swimming in her eyes. "He killed an inmate who survived in here." Hershel spoke up reminding everyone of the conversation at hand, "we liked him. He was one of us." Daryl informed the blonde as we all nodded in agreement. Andrea look at Daryl and told him that she didn't know anything about that. She started to move around looking at everyone as she said, "As soon as I found out, I came. I didn't even know you were in Woodbury until after the shoot-out." I rolled my eyes at her excuses, and Glenn points out that that was days ago. "I told you, I came as soon as I could." Andrea says and she continued to look between Glenn and Maggie, before spinning around at looking towards Michonne, "what have you told them?" Michonne tells her that she hasn't said nothing.
"I don't get it. I left Atlanta with you people and now I'm the odd man out?" Andrea questioned as her head darted to look at different members of the group. "He almost killed Michonne and he would have killed us." Glenn gestures to me, him and Maggie. "With his finger on the trigger. Isn't he the one who kidnapped you? Who beat you?" She argued pointing at Merle, "actually it was your boyfriend that beat Nyx, shot her in the shoulder too." Noel spoke up.
Andrea looks at me as if she wanted proof, "she almost bled out." Maggie adds, as I reveal the wound that was plastered. Andrea took a second to think what she was going to say next, "look, I cannot excuse or explain what Philip has done. But I am here trying to bring us together. We have to work this out." She pleaded looking at Rick, who told her that there's nothing to work out. "We're gonna kill him. I don't know how or when, but we will." Rick promised, I nodded in agreement. "We can settle this. There is room at Woodbury for all of you." Andrea tried to change our minds but Merle told her that she knows better than thinking the Governor will accept us all.
Hershel asks Andrea what makes her think the Governor wants to negotiate, and if he said that he wanted to. She told us the answer was no, and when Rick asked her why did she come here, she told us, "because he's gearing up for war. The people are terrified. They see you as killers. They're training to attack." Andrea tries to warn us, but all our decisions were made up during her plea for us to go to Woodbury. "I'll tell you what. Next time you see Philip, you tell him I'm gonna take his other eye." Daryl tells her, I chuckle lightly, "funny, I was thinking about doing the same thing." Daryl smiles nodding at me.
"We've taken too much shit for too long. He wants a war? He's got one." Glenn informed Andrea, who began walking towards Rick as she said "if you don't sit down and try to work this out, I don't know what's gonna happen. He has a whole town." Rick doesn't answer her so she spins around to look at the rest of us, "look at you. You've lost so much already. You can't stand alone anymore." I scoff, "better alone than next to that psycho." Everyone nodded their heads in agreement to my words, "You want to make this right, get us inside." Rick asked Andrea, who refused, "then we got nothing to talk about." Rick walked off back into the cell block as Andrea call back to him saying that there are innocent people.
Everyone else began to disperse as well. Noel, Naomi and Carl followed Rick, "Michonne, can I speak with you outside?" She nodded, I got up too, "I'm going with you, still can't be sure you're not trying to lure your boyfriend's enemies out one by one to get killed." Michonne smile at my protectiveness of her as the three of us make our way outside. "You poisoned them." Andrea accused Michonne, "I just told them the truth." Michonne insisted which Andrea scoffed at, "I didn't choose him over you. I wanted a life. Once we entered Woodbury, you became hostile." Andrea argued, "that's 'cause I could see it." Andrea asks Michonne what could she see.
"That you were under his spell from the second you laid eyes on him." Andrea became defensive and was clearly in denial as she said that it wasn't true, and Michonne points out that Andrea is still under the Governor's spell. "No, I am there because those people need me." I rolled my eyes at Andrea's words, because when questioned about us she said she was trying to save us too. "We don't need you to save us," I mumbled as Michonne spoke out clearly, saying, "I did not realise the Messiah complex was contagious." Andrea told Michonne to go to hell before going to walk away.
"He sent Merle to kill me." Michonne called after her, Andrea looked at me to confirm it, "yeah, that's how Merle found me, Glenn and Maggie. He stumbled across us while hunting her under the Governor's orders." Andrea shook her head in disbelief, "would have sent him to kill you, too, if you had come with me. But you didn't, did you?" Andrea looked extremely guilty, "hm-mmm. You chose a warm bed over a friend. That's why I went back to Woodbury. Exposed him for what he is. I knew that it would hurt you." Michonne went back inside, "maybe you should be more careful on who you decide to crawl into bed with, you seem to have a thing for unhinged men, first Shane and now the Governor." Andrea looked at me stunned as I made my way over to the door. "How do you know about Shane?" "He was the first person you asked about when you noticed that some people weren't with us." I close the door behind me as I return to the cell block.
"Wake me when it's my turn to go on watch." I ask Rick who's on watch before me, "will do Nyx, get some rest." Andrea is still here, Glenn is gone to get her a car, I make my way to my cell. I hung a sheet up blocking the light coming into the cell, I crawl into the bed, and allowing sleep to take over me.