CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Andie's driving down the road with Daryl sitting next to her. It's a long drive back to the prison, and the three in the backseat have been silent since they left the college. Daryl has the jasper in his hand, and he steals glances at the brunette every now and then.

"Hey, Andie?"

"Jesus fucking Christ, Theo..." She shakes her head. "I am not in the mood for your usual bullshit line of questioning."

"No, it's a real question this time, I swear." He says, and she sighs as she glances in the rearview mirror.

"Okay. What?"

"You know that voice in your head — the one that stops you from doing something you know you shouldn't?"

"What, your conscience?" Andie questions. "What about it?"

"Whose voice do you hear?" He asks, and her eyebrows furrow.

"What?"

"Like, is it your mom? Your dad?" Theo asks. "Who do you think about when you stop yourself from doing the wrong thing?"

The brunette takes a deep breath as she shifts in her seat. "I hear Scott's voice. He's who I think of when I don't want to do the wrong thing." She admits. "All Scott ever wanted to do was good, so... So, that's your answer."

"He had that much of an impact on your life?" He asks, and she nods. "Because you were in love with him?"

"No. No, I was never in love with Scott." Andie says, and his eyebrows furrow.

"But, I thought..."

"Yeah, so did I...for a long time." She pauses for a moment as she thinks about the boy in question. "I spent so much time alone after the fire, I didn't want to be around anyone. Ever... I became friends with Scott and Stiles again, and everything changed. Knowing him, seeing the way that he dealt with everything that came his way — I wanted to be more like him.

"Don't get me wrong, I do love Scott. I'll always love him, but it wasn't that kind of... He made me want to be a better person, he was the first one who saw that I could be someone different than who I was. He made me believe that I could be better, and when I finally proved him right, when I became someone I never thought I could... I thought that was what it meant to be in love with someone. I had removed myself so far from other people, I didn't realize that all that was...was friendship. He believed in me even when I didn't, he pushed me. He did it because he was a good person, and I have always admired that in him."

"And?" He asks, and she smirks.

"You know I'm serious when I say that you stalking me is creepy?"

"We've lived together every day for six months, Andie. It's not stalking, it's caring."

"My God... Theo Raeken has finally learned to care about someone other than himself." She muses, and he rolls his eyes.

"There's more to it that you're not saying."

"I loved that Peter hated Scott." Andie says. "Scott was everything that Peter could never be, he had everything that Peter would never have. He hated him for it, and I loved that me loving Scott pissed him off. After Laura... I would've done anything to spite him."

"Why do you always talk about them in the past tense?" Theo asks, and Daryl looks over when her grip on the steering wheel tightens. "You get annoyed when I mention your friends. That's the first time you've mentioned Peter or Laura since I found you."

"Who found who?"

"You get defensive and cagey if I mention Malia. And if I so much as try to say De—"

"So, why don't you leave it alone?" Andie questions.

"You really don't think we'll ever find them?" He asks. "They're out there somewhere. You have to know that. I mean, you found me, Melissa, and Stilinski."

"I stumbled across you while going to try and end a war started by some bastard who wanted us all dead." She argues. "That's the world we live in now, and the only people who matter are the ones with us. There's no point in wishing for a miracle."

"It's called hope, Andie." He says, but she doesn't respond after that.

They get back to the prison well after dark, and Andie runs in to see how Zoe and Carter are doing. The brunette's footsteps falter when she makes it to his cell and sees his white t-shirt covered in blood.

"You look like shit." Carter coughs, and she forces a smile.

"Wanted to look worse than you, thought it might be a bit distracting." She says, and he attempts a chuckle. "I ran into Maggie on my way in, heard you played hero today. Cell block got overrun with walkers, and you didn't let anything stop you from saving our people."

He smiles as he looks up at her. "I was trying to imagine what you would do. I impress you yet?"

"Beyond words." She offers him a warmer smile than she could muster before. "Where's Carol? I want to check on her."

"I haven't seen her since she went on a run with Rick." Zoe tells her. "You should probably check with him."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna do that." Andie nods. "I'll be back to check in on you before the morning."

"Okay." Carter turns his attention back to Zoe when she tries to get him to drink more of the tea that Hershel made earlier.

The brunette heads back out to the courtyard, and the three men look over when they hear her coming. "Zoe said you and Carol went on a run, and she hasn't seen her since." Andie says as she looks at Rick. "She's alright, isn't she? Where is she?"

"Yeah, she's alright." He nods, glancing between Andie and Daryl. "But we gotta talk about her."

"Talk about what?" Daryl questions as the younger girl's eyebrows furrow.

"It was her. Carol's the one who killed Karen and David." Rick tells them, and Theo looks at Andie as all confusion melts out of her face, leaving a look of pure disbelief and tears in her eyes. "She admitted it to me, she told me herself... She's gonna be alright. She has a car, supplies, weapons. She's a survivor."

"What are you— You mean she's not here?" Andie takes a step forward, but Theo places his hand on her abdomen and forces her back.

"I couldn't have her here. Not around Carl and Judith." He says as the brunette shoves Theo's hand away from her. "She did it. She said it was for us. That's how it was in her head. She wasn't sorry."

"No, that's not— I don't—" Her fists keep tightening and unclenching; she's having a hard time not getting angry.

"Man, you couldn't have waited 'til we got back?" Daryl questions.

"I had to get her away from Tyreese." Rick tells them.

"I could'a handled that."

"She killed two of our own. She couldn't be here."

"Andie, no!" Theo blocks her fist when she tries to punch Rick, then he shoves her back. "You need to calm down. This isn't—" He stumbles back when she swings, clocking him across the face.

Daryl tries to get between them, but Theo pushes him back before turning back to Andie. He can tell that she's close to snapping, close to shifting if she doesn't get her temper back under control.

"You wanna hit me? Go ahead." Theo tells her. "I deserve it. I deserve it a hell of a lot more than he does. So, hit me. Take it out on me."

She's not thinking and her hits aren't calculated. She's lashing out. Andie strikes his chest a few times before shoving him backward. He stumbles, and Daryl and Rick steady him as Andie turns around. Her eyes are squeezed shut, not allowing them to see the blue that she couldn't contain.

"I know you're mad... Okay? And I know that you're hurt." He says, and she chokes back her tears. "Hitting him isn't gonna make you feel better, and you know it. You'll only feel worse after you cool down."

She scoffs as she brings her hands up to wipe the tears from her face. "You talk like you have a clue, but you don't know anything. You never really understood any of us, and you don't know me — not even now." Andie says as she turns around, and he sees the pain in her dark brown eyes. "You will never understand. You think that hearing a few stories about our past and spending six months around me means that you know anything? You have no idea what I went through after the fire at Hale House leveled my entire life. Do you have any idea how much family I lost when Kate set the fire, when she murdered damn-near everyone inside? It wasn't just Aunt Talia who died, and thinking that Cora was dead for years, and Peter ending up in a coma for six years. And then I felt like I was reliving it when Derek called to tell me that Laura was dead, and I had to go home after all that time spent avoiding those town lines.

"You weren't there when Erica and Boyd were missing, and Derek blamed himself for it for months. You weren't there when we fi-finally found Erica's body, or when Boyd died. You didn't see what we went through when we thought that Stiles might have had the same disease that killed his mom, when we almost lost him.

"You didn't feel the loss when Al-Allison..." She chokes back her tears. "When Allison died to save me, or when Aiden died a day later, and then Isaac just left. We had barely buried them when he left Beacon Hills, when he left us behind and he never looked back.

"You have no idea the absolute hell that I went through when I thought Derek was dead...and when I had to figure out how to live without him when he left. Not to mention everything that you put us through when you moved to town, what you did to Scott. And Noah almost died! And then Stiles was just gone... So, no, Theo, you don't know...

"And now I have to just accept that Carol's gone too? After I lost my mom, and we lost Lori and T... I have to just accept that Rick decided what was best for all of us." She wipes more tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head. "You don't know what this feels like."

—

Andie's sitting in the courtyard at one of the breakfast tables, her head hung and her hands gripping the seat on either side of her. She's finally past the anger, not really wanting to hit Rick anymore. Now she's just having a hard time keeping the tears from flowing.

Nearing footsteps catch her attention, and she knows that it's Daryl even before he sits down at her side. He remains silent, giving her a moment to compose herself.

The brunette sits up, pushing her hair away from her face as she looks out at the darkness in front of them. Clearing her throat, she swipes her hands across her cheeks before rubbing her palms on her jeans.

"Are you alright?" Daryl asks, and she lets out a humorless chuckle as she keeps her gaze fixed on the silhouettes of the large trees surrounding the prison.

"Just peachy, thanks for asking." The younger girl says. "Nothing else is really an option anymore."

"Why didn't you ever tell me before?" He looks at her. "About all the people you'd lost."

"It's not gonna bring them back. Talking doesn't change or fix any of it, it doesn't make me feel any better." She shrugs. "What would be the point in talking about any of it?"

"Doesn't sound like you've dealt with any of it either."

"You lose enough people, there stops being enough time to deal." Andie says. "You have to just keep going, keep moving."

"How's that working out for you?"

"I manage."

"Are you sure about that?" He asks, and she simply shrugs. "Because it sounds to me like you're trying to handle too much on your own."

She hums. "Welcome to my entire life."

"Why do you try to do it all alone?"

"Who's gonna help me through it? The ones who are already dead, or the ones who survive long enough to leave me on their own accord?"

"I'm still here."

"Are you?" The brunette asks as she turns her head to look at him. "Because even with you sitting right here next to me, it feels like you're a million miles away."

"If I'm being honest...I never really know what I'm supposed to say to you anymore." Daryl admits.

"I miss when things used to be so easy between us." Her voice is barely above a whisper as she turns away from him, her eyes closing as she tries to keep them from welling up with tears all over again. "I miss when we'd sit outside after everyone else was asleep. I miss annoying you by looking up at the stars when I was supposed to be helping you on watch. I miss our conversations and playing twenty questions where I asked you stupid, trivial shit and you pretended not to be listening...until you answered all of them." She says, and a small smile tugs at his lips.

"Me too."

Andie turns so she's facing him again as she sits on the bench. "I'm sorry." She says, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks at her; he thought he was the one with amends to make. "I was just so angry after what happened in Woodbury, and I took it out on you. I took it out on anyone who expressed any kind of concern for me, and I'm sorry... I was hurt after you left without saying goodbye, but I was never angry with you. Hell, I understood why you did what you did. I was just so angry at the world, and I lashed out, but I never meant for this to happen.

"The last six months have been... I hate not talking to you. I hate passing each other in the cell block and barely acknowledging each other." She tells him, reaching out and taking his hand in hers, and he doesn't know how to respond. "Do you think... Do you think we can go back to how we used to be? Or at least try?"

Daryl looks down at her, struggling to find the words to say what he's thinking. He should tell her why he didn't say goodbye to her before he left, apologize for thinking that it'd be so easy to smooth everything over once he got back. He wants to say yes to her question, but what words does he use without sounding as desperate for her presence as he's felt for all these months?

As he sits there, struggling to speak his mind, not saying anything at all, he watches the hope fade from her eyes. He swears he's never seen them look so dark or so hurt in all of the time that he's known her, and he realizes that she thinks his silence is his rejection before she even opens her mouth again.

"Yeah, I guess I should've known that an apology six months after the fact was already way too late." Andie says as she looks down at their hands, not wanting him to see the tears building up in her eyes. "I mean, the damage has already been done, right? Can't just go back to how things were before."

"Andie—"

"Goodnight, Daryl." She gets to her feet and walks away from him, not wanting to listen to him let her down gently.

His hand feels cold without hers.