58. Alive.
When Rosie heard a thud from the other side of the train car, her head shot in the direction of the sound, and so did everyone else's. In the dark, it was quite hard to make out, but Rosie was sure she could see the figures of other people pressed up against the walls. One of the people stepped closer, his face becoming illuminated by a ray of sunlight seeping through a crack in the train car.
"Rick?" Glenn said. Rosie's eyes widened and she felt somewhat relieved, despite the fact that they were all trapped in a train car and probably about to die. She couldn't believe that he was really here. More people started walking into the light, and Rosie could see Maggie coming up next to Glenn. She knew they'd find each other!
"You're here," Rick breathed out. He stepped forwards, taking in the sight of all of them. Sasha and Bob were there, too, along with four other people that Rosie had never met before. "You're here," Rick said again.
"Who are those guys?" Rosie asked, pointing past Maggie to the four new people. One of them was a girl with pigtails in her hair and a hat on her head that Rosie liked. There was also another girl with shorter hair and a flannel, and a guy with a mullet. Behind them all was a very tall, buff looking guy with red hair. Rosie thought he looked like someone that would be called sergeant, but she wasn't sure.
"They're our friends," Maggie answered, giving a reassuring nod. "They helped save us."
"Yeah," Rosie heard Daryl say from behind her. She looked up at him and saw that he had a small smile on his bruised up face. "Now they're friends a' ours."
"For however long that'll be," the sergeant man said from the back.
"Think they're gonna put us in that pile a' bones," Rosie said quietly, her eyebrows pinched together as she looked over at Rick. He shook his head.
"No," Rick said. He looked around at the group and turned his head slightly to the side. "They're gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out."
"Find out what?" the sergeant man asked with his low, scary voice.
Rosie looked over at Rick, waiting for his answer, and so did everyone else. "They're fucking with the wrong people," Rick said with venom in his voice. And Rosie believed him.
•
"They seemed nice enough, but I was ready to go. We just got here, but, damn, it was time to go. When I told them about DC, a wink and a nod from the head asshole in charge, they pulled their guns and it was right back to our regularly scheduled shitstorm," the sergeant man, who Rosie learned was called Abraham, explained. Rosie liked the way he told stories, even though his story wasn't a good one.
•
"Black car with a white cross painted on it," Daryl said to Maggie, but Rosie was listening, too. He was talking about Beth; how he escaped with her, how someone took her. "I tried to follow it. I tried," he said sadly.
"But she's alive?" Maggie asked him.
"She's alive," Daryl confirmed.
•
"You weren't on the bus," Maggie said, crouching down in front of Rosie. Maggie had found the bus. It was overrun. She killed every walker on that bus until she was sure that none of them were Glenn. None of them were. None of them were Rosie, either.
"It was gone," Rosie told her.
"Who did you get out with?" Maggie asked her, a concerned look on her face.
"Nobody," Rosie said, shaking her head a little. "I ran. Then bad people found me. Then Rick did, and he helped me get away. Then Daryl found us."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you to go to the bus on your own. I should've stayed with you," Maggie said, a frown on her face. Daryl had told her about the Claimers- about the night they had. But he hadn't told her that Rosie was with them. He figured that if Rosie wanted to tell Maggie about that, it'd be on her own terms. "You'd have been safer," Maggie sighed.
Rosie shook her head. "Ain't your fault. Ain't mine, neither," Rosie said, thinking back to before they got to Terminus, when she and Daryl were walking along the train tracks. "It had nothin' to do with who I am, or what I did or didn't do, or what I said- nothin'," she said, repeating Daryl's words. "No one's fault but theirs."
Maggie stared at Rosie a moment, a sad look in her eyes. Then she pulled Rosie in for a hug, holding her tightly in her arms.
•
Rosie was crouched down next to Carl, both of them using whatever they had as makeshift weapons. Daryl was by the door, peaking out the crack. "Alright," he said, "got four of them pricks comin' our way."
"Y'all know what to do," Rick said, standing up to his feet. Rosie stood up, too, with a sharpened piece of wood gripped tightly in her right hand. "Go for their eyes first. Then their throats."
Everyone stood prepared, their weapons raised and ready. Rosie's heart beat hard in her chest, but what else was new? "Put your backs to the walls on either side of the car. Now," the person outside of the train car commanded.
No one did. They stared at the door, waiting for it to open, but instead, something above them opened. Light shined through the roof of the car as everyone stared. Then something small and metal dropped down into the car with a loud clang. Each of them stared at it for a good second or two, unsure of what it was or what it would do.
"Move!" Abraham shouted, and so they did. Just as the capsule exploded, releasing a white, foggy gas into the train car, Rosie was pushed into the corner. She dropped down to the ground, pressing her hand over her nose as the gas spread throughout the train car. It smelled something awful. As she inhaled the thick, smokey gas, she started to feel dizzy. She only got dizzier and dizzier until her eyes fluttered shut and she passed out on the floor.
•
Rosie's eyes shot open when someone shook her arm. She sat up quickly, suddenly remembering where they all were. Maggie was there in front of her. She must've been the one shaking her arm. Rosie's head was pounding, but it seemed like it was always pounding now, anyway, so she ignored it. She looked around trying to identify everyone who was in the train car.
People were missing. Three of them... no, four. Daryl was gone, Rick was gone, Glenn was gone, and Bob was gone. "What's- where are they?" Rosie murmured out, rubbing her hands over her eyes as she sat up straight again.
"We don't know, honey. They took them," Maggie replied, her eyebrows pinched together with concern and worry. "Are you ok?" she asked, her hand on Rosie's shoulder.
"Fine," Rosie said, waving Maggie's hand away. She pulled herself up to her feet and look around the train car again. Abraham was by the door, slamming on it and muttering things to himself. "We gotta find them," Rosie said to Maggie.
"We're trying, ok? I promise," Maggie said, standing up next to Rosie.
"What the hell is going on?" Abraham growled out, slamming his hands on the door another time.
"Someone hit 'em," Michonne replied, her eyebrows furrowed.
"What?" Rosie asked, unsure of what they were talking about. No one answered.
"Maybe our people got free," Sasha suggested.
"What?" Rosie said again. Still no answer.
"Excuse me," the man with a mullet who Rosie learned was named Eugene said, pushing past Sasha and woman Rosie still hadn't learned the name of. Eugene went to the door and crouched down in front of it.
"What the hell are you doing?" the pig-tailed woman asked Eugene. Rosie still hadn't learned her name yet, either, but it was easy to tell that she had been with Eugene before Terminus, because she was very clearly sick of him.
"I might be able to use this shell to compromise the door," Eugene replied. He had a very monotonous voice, but he sounded somewhat smart, in Rosie's opinion. "From the sound of things, there may not be anybody left to open it."
"What?" Rosie asked again, her voice more high-pitched and whiny than she intended it to sound. "Where are they? Are they ok? What's goin' on?" she asked, her eyes wide with worry. She had just gotten Daryl back, and now he could be dead? What about Rick and Glenn? Even Bob?
"Eugene, I'm sorry, but shut up," the short-haired woman snapped. "You're scaring the kid."
"Ok," Eugene said.
"What's goin' on?!" Rosie asked again, feeling extremely confused and frustrated.
"It's ok, Rosie," Carl said, his voice firm as he stepped closer. "My dad's gonna be back. They all are," he assured not just Rosie, but all of them. He said it with confidence, like he knew it was true, which made Rosie want to believe him. But how could he know it was true?
"They are," Maggie agreed with Carl, nodding her head as she looked around at the rest of the people in the train car. "And we need to get ready to fight our way out with them when they do," she said. With that, she crouched down next to one of the wooden beams and started using Glenn's pocket watch to carve out a sharp piece of the wood.
With a defeated huff, Rosie sat back down on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest. In her right hand, she held the sharpened piece of wood she still had from earlier. In the other hand, she squeezed onto her velociraptor toy like her life depended on it. It's gonna be ok, she told herself. But she couldn't be sure. None of them could.
So they continued on working. Each of them, using anything they had on them as a makeshift weapon. Sasha was on the ground, rubbing something against the floor of the car quickly, in order to sharpen it. Eugene was still by the door, trying to get it open. Rosie's confidence in his ability to open the door had faded a while ago. If he knew how, he would've done it by now.
"What's the cure, Eugene?" Sasha asked.
"It's classified," Eugene replied. That was another thing Rosie had learned about Eugene. Apparently, he knew how to stop the walkers, and how to stop everyone else from turning into walkers. But, in order for that cure to work, he had to get to Washington DC. Rosie knew where Washington DC was. It was on the border of Maryland and Virginia.
That meant that if they got out of this, and if their groups stuck together, Rosie would be going back to Virginia. She wasn't sure if she was excited about that or not. She wondered if they'd want to stop at her house to take all of her daddy's guns and ammo. She wasn't sure whether or not she wanted them all to see her house. She wasn't even sure if Rick would want all of them to go with to Washington DC. But she figured that if they did go, it'd be bad of her to not let them take things they needed from her house. No one else needed them. There was no reason to just leave them there, unused. But that was a problem for future Rosie to figure out, so she tried to stop thinking about it.
"We don't know what's gonna happen," Michonne said.
"You leave him be," Abraham ordered.
"We need to keep working," Maggie reminded them, hoping that it would stop whatever argument they were about to have.
"Yeah, but it's time to hear it," Sasha said. Eugene still didn't say anything about it. "'Cause we don't know what's coming next," Sasha added.
"What's next is we get out of this," the short-haired woman said.
"Even if I told you all, even if I provided step-by-step instructions complete with illustrations and a well-composed FAQ and I went red-ring, the cure would still die with me," Eugene said, looking back at Sasha.
You can't even open the door. You sure ya know the cure? Rosie wanted to say, but she didn't because she didn't want Abraham to get mad at her. He was very protective over Eugene, Rosie had noticed.
"I'm not gonna let that happen," Abraham said, looking at Eugene.
"The best-case scenario, we step out into a hellstorm of bullets, fire, and walkers. I'm not fleet of foot. I sure as hell can't take a dead one down with sharp buttons and hella confidence," Eugene said before getting back to trying to open the door.
"Yeah, but we can. And we will," Michonne said.
Sasha stood up and looked down at Eugene. She didn't like him at all. Rosie could tell. "You don't owe us anything. Not yet. But we just want to hear it," she said.
"You don't have to," the pig-tailed woman said. Rosie looked over at her, and then over at Abraham. She couldn't believe that they had such trust in Eugene. He couldn't even open that door. Did they really think he was going to save the world?
Out of nowhere, Eugene stopped messing with the door and stood up, looking all around the car. He took a breath. "I was part of a ten-person team at the Human Genome Project to weaponize diseases to fight weaponized diseases. Pathogenic microorganisms with pathogenic microorganisms. Fire with fire. Interdepartmental drinks were had, relationships made, information shared. I am keenly aware of all the details behind fail-safe delivery systems to kill every living person on this planet. I believe with a little tweaking on the terminals in DC, we can flip the script. Take out every last dead one of them. Fire with fire. All things being equal, it does sound pretty badass."
"So let's get back to work," Maggie said.
Just as they were about to do so, a sound came from outside of the train car. Rosie shot up to her feet alongside Carl. They stared at the door as someone pulled it open from the other side. It was Rick with a large gun in his hands. "Come on! We fight to the fence!" he shouted.
And so they did. They all ran out of the car and were faced with dozens of walkers. One immediately came after Rosie, but she kicked its knees in and stabbed it in the eye with the sharpened wood she had. She shoved her velociraptor back into her pocket, so she wouldn't lose it. As she was about to start running to catch up with Maggie, someone grabbed her arm. Just for a second, Rosie thought it was a walker, so she turned to it quickly. Much to her luck, though, it was just Daryl.
"Stay close," Daryl told her. Rosie nodded and they both started running. Daryl had a big, metal rod in his hand that he used to stab through the brains of any walker that came close. Rosie only had to kill four more walkers as they ran, because Daryl killed any others that came within six feet of them.
They ran and ran until they reached the chain-linked fence. "Up and over!" Rosie heard the pig-tailed woman say. First, they helped Eugene over the fence, because he was apparently going to save the world, of course. Rosie could hear gunshots coming from behind her, but she hoped that it was just Rick killing more walkers. Right after Carl, Rosie pulled herself up the fence. There was blanket over the barbed wire, so that it wouldn't cut them, but it still hurt beneath her palms. She tried to ignore it. When her feet landed on the other side of the fence, she felt an overwhelming sense of relief. They were all alive.
•
The group was much larger now. It wasn't just Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Carl, and Rosie. Now it was every single one of them who were in that train car. Rosie couldn't believe their luck. Something just happened to go wrong while Rick, Daryl, and Glenn- some of the smartest and bravest people Rosie had ever met- were out of the train car. They wouldn't have escaped if it weren't for whatever went wrong. Maybe Rick, Daryl, Glenn, and Bob would all be dead, too. But Rosie tried not to think about that because they were all alive and they were all ok.
"The hell we still around here for?" Abraham complained. Rosie was standing above Rick, who was crouched down, digging up the things they had buried earlier.
"We got stuff," Rosie said, looking back at the red-haired man.
"Guns, some supplies," Rick elaborated. "Go along the fences. Use the rifles. Take out the rest of 'em."
"What?" Bob asked, his eyebrows raised with concern.
Rick turned back to look at him. "They don't get to live," he said harshly.
"Rick, we got out. It's over," Glenn said. Although Rosie trusted Rick, she agreed with Glenn. She didn't want to go back there. They were safe out here, and they would be even safer if they went far, far away from here.
"It's not over till they're all dead," Rick said, loading a pistol.
"The hell it isn't. That place is on fire," the pig-tailed woman said, clearly annoyed. "Full of walkers."
"I'm not dicking around with this crap," Abraham said. "We just made it out."
"The fences are down. They'll run or die," Maggie said, trying to convince Rick to just let it go.
All of them looked at Rick, waiting for his decision. They didn't want to go back, but some of them would if Rick decided so. As she was staring at the gun in Rick's hand, Rosie heard a leaf crunch, and she turned to see what it was. Apparently Daryl heard it, too, because his head also snapped in the direction of the sound.
It was Carol. She was standing there with mud on her face, Daryl's crossbow on her back, and a few other guns all over her. Daryl ran over to Carol, enveloping her in a big hug. And soon, the rest of them followed. Rosie hadn't seen her since a few days before the prison fell. Rosie wasn't sure where she had gone, but she was here now.
"Did you do that?" Rick asked. He had a weird expression on his face and Rosie couldn't match it to a specific emotion. It looked like a mixture of sadness and happiness and guilt, but those were opposites, so it didn't really make sense. Carol nodded and Rick pulled her in for a hug, too.
"You have to come with me," Carol said, once the hug was over. And so they did. They followed her out of the woods and onto a dirt road. They walked on the road for awhile. As they were walking, Rosie kept seeing Carol glance back at her with another unknown emotion on her face, but Rosie wasn't sure why, so she just assumed that Carol was surprised they were all alive and ok.
As they followed the dirt road, they started walking up a big hill. When they made it to the top, Rosie could see a wooden cabin. And the door creaked open, revealing Tyreese. In Tyreese's arms was a baby. It was Judith. Judith was alive. She was ok. Rick and Carl both sprinted towards them. Rick quickly pulled Judith into his arms, and Sasha ran to hug Tyreese.
Rosie watched as Rick held his daughter with happy tears in his eyes. She watched as Carl smiled at Judith. Rick kissed his baby's head and held her close to his chest while Carl had his hand on the back of her head. Rosie wanted to hug Judith, too, because she loved her and she didn't even mind when she cried anymore, but she figured Rick and Carl needed a moment with her.
Looking past Rick and Carl, Rosie noticed another person walking out of the cabin. It was a boy with brown hair. It was Ian. As soon as Ian caught sight of Rosie, he came running towards her. Rosie tensed as he slammed into her, wrapping his arms tightly around her shoulders. "You're alive!" Ian said, smiling wide.
"I am," Rosie said. Ian pulled away and put his hands on her shoulders. "You are, too," Rosie said, unsure of what else to say.
"Where did you go?" Ian asked her, his smile still wide. Rosie could never figure out how he always had so much energy.
"Lots a' places," Rosie said, shrugging. She'd been in the woods, and then at that house, and then at that other house, and then in that car, and then at the train tracks, and then at Terminus, and then in the woods, and now she was here, at this cabin.
"I was with Tyreese," Ian said. Rosie wanted to tell him that she already knew that, but she didn't because she was sure that would be rude.
"I thought you went with Lizzie and Mika," Rosie said, furrowing her eyebrows. Ian seemed to frown at that. He dropped his hands back down to his sides and looked downwards.
"I was. They... they died," he said sadly.
"Oh," Rosie said, her eyebrows furrowing, too. Part of her wanted to cry. Lizzie was her friend, and so was Mika. But she knew that if something bad were to happen, Lizzie wouldn't make it out there. She didn't understand. That was sad in itself. Rosie went to go back to stand by Daryl again, not wanting to talk to Ian anymore, but, of course, Ian followed. She didn't tell him to go away, though, because that would be rude. Especially after he just found out that she was alive. So she just dealt with it. Rosie felt Daryl put his hand on her shoulder, and he pulled her into his side. They both looked at Rick and Judith. They were all alive.
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Season 5!!!
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