⌜ chapter twenty-three ⌟

"Alright, let's get off this highway." MJ says, and they all start for the cars. "Jack, Ellie, I want you both to stay with Matt."

"You ridin' with me?" Daryl asks her.

"Unless you're sick of me."

"Whatever, woman. Let's just go." He says, and they start for the motorcycle.

"I see you've attached yourself to the bowman." A familiar voice — and accent — to a few of them gains everyone's attention.

Matt quickly grabs Jack and Ellie, immediately pushing them behind him as MJ turns to face the demon. She sees him standing there, clad in all black, and her teeth clench.

"Crowley." She practically growls his name.

"Hello, gorgeous." He smiles. "I've come to make you a proposition."

"You don't have anything I want." She says as the others look between the two of them, most of them confused.

"I can give you your big brother, Moose, and the baby brother you didn't know you had until it was too late to save him." He tells her, and she shakes her head.

"And in twelve short months, I'm back in the pit. Screw you, Crowley."

"What about ten years this time? If you make it that long, that is." He suggests.

"No." She scoffs. "I told you. I'm not making a deal with you again. Having to kiss you is torture enough without what I have to endure after. If either of us is going back to hell, it's you."

"I can give you everything you want. Your family, including your son. The guaranteed safety of everyone in this group. Bobby's deal will be void." He tells her. "All I want is to ensure that the cage never opens. I can't exactly be the king of hell if Lucifer's freed."

"I have no control over the cage. I couldn't do what you're asking even if I wanted to."

"You don't have control over the cage, but you do have control over the key." He looks at Jack, and she takes a step forward.

"Go near him, and—"

"And you'll what?" He questions. "You left your angel blade with the little blonde girl, and I don't see her anywhere. You have nothing to protect him."

"We don't need an angel blade." Jack says, gaining their attention. "We have an angel."

"I hear you're the king of hell." Gabriel says as he appears next to MJ. "Nice to meet you, your highness."

"I think you misunderstood what I was suggesting." Crowley says as he looks from the angel to MJ. "I know that you'll never sacrifice Jack. All I want is to destroy his grace. You make a deal that tells me where it is, and I get rid of it for good."

"You get what you want, and I get what?" MJ questions. "An eternity of pain and misery?"

"Not quite."

"Right, because eventually I'll turn into something else. I won't be me anymore, I'll turn into one of you." She shakes her head as she looks at Jack. "No."

"You'd rather Bobby turn into...one of us?" He asks. "He's only in this mess because of you and your family. Everyone a Winchester touches dies."

"Why is it my responsibility to right his mistake? It's not my fault that he trusted you, and you screwed him over." She says, her eyes filling with tears. "I've given enough. I won't go back."

"You went to hell to save the father who treated you like a soldier, but you won't go to save the one who let you be a kid for a few hours when you visited?" Crowley asks.

"She's not making a deal with you." Gabriel tells him. "That decision is no longer hers."

"And whose is it? Yours?" He questions. "Do you even have the power of heaven behind you? Angels can travel through time, can't they? Why haven't you gone back to prevent this from happening? You can't, can you?"

"I can kill you." He says as he steps forward, blocking MJ from his view. "It'll be like squashing a cockroach under my shoe."

Crowley disappears, and Gabriel turns around to face MJ. She looks up at him. "Is he right?" She asks. "Would destroying Jack's grace stop Meg from ever opening the cage?"

"You selling your soul is not an option." He tells her.

"It is if it stops Lucifer and Michael from escaping. I can't let that happen."

Rick's looking around at the rest of the group. They're all confused, many scared.

"It's not an option."

"Says who? You, Gabriel?" MJ scoffs. "Now you want to step up and do something? The world has already gone to shit. It's a little late for you to come and save the day."

"What are you gonna tell your family? What about your daughter?" He motions to Ellie and Jack. "How can you ask him to live with knowing that you're back there so that he can live?"

"Since when do you care about my family?"

He grabs her arm when she turns away from him. "I'm trying to protect you."

"I can't just not stop your brothers from getting out because I'm afraid of ending up back down there." She argues. "My life isn't worth all of this."

"And what is your life worth to you?" He asks. "You never do anything with any regard for yourself. Your entire life as a hunter, you've risked everything. You put your life on the line every time someone in your family needs help. You sold your soul and went to hell to bring your dad back. Do you even care if you live or die anymore?"

"No." She looks up at him. "I never really have. My life isn't any more important than anyone else's."

"It isn't any less important either."

"Really? Because it doesn't seem like anyone up there gives a shit about me." She says. "You said it yourself, remember? My family was born to this — my brothers were born to die, and I was born to watch it happen. I was born to be forced to sit back and not be able to do anything to stop it or save them. But if I can do this, if I can keep Michael and Lucifer from—"

"You can't!" He snaps.

"Why not?" She questions. "Do you know something you're not telling me?" She asks, and he looks around at everyone who's watching them. "Do— Hey! Do you?"

"I told you, I've known the ending since the lights were flicked on around here." And with that, he disappears.

"No." She starts looking around. "You son of a bitch! You stupid feathery prick!"

"Hey." Daryl puts his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. "You're gonna attract more walkers." He says as he looks into her brown eyes, they're glassy with tears and clouded with anger and fear.

—

After explaining everything to everyone else, they hit the road. No one really knew how to handle hearing that they had just seen an angel and a demon. And MJ didn't want to talk about it anyway.

They're all driving down the road when one of the cars behind the motorcycle hits the horn one time. It was Rick. Glenn stops the silver car, and Daryl stops the bike. MJ climbs off and turns to see what's going on.

"You out?" Daryl asks as Rick makes his way to the front of the caravan.

"Running on fumes." He tells them.

"We can't stay here." Maggie says.

"We can't all fit in one car." Glenn points out.

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick says.

"Spend the night here?" Carol asks.

"I'm freezing." Carl says.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?" His mom says, helping him put on his jacket.

"You go out looking for firewood, stay close." Daryl tells them. "Only got so many arrows. How you doing on ammo?"

"Not enough." Rick says.

"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie says.

"Watch your mouth." Hershel quickly tells his daughter. "Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick and MJ."

"Alright, we'll set up a perimeter." Rick says as she looks around. "In the morning, we'll find some gas and supplies. In the morning, we'll keep pushing on."

"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas." Maggie suggests.

"No, we stay together." MJ says. It's the first thing she's said since Gabriel disappeared.

"God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car." Rick says when she doesn't continue.

"Rick, we're stranded now." Glenn says.

"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other." He says, and MJ looks down. "I wasn't sure. I really wasn't, but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere. There's gotta be a place."

"Rick, look around. Okay?" Glenn steps forward as he looks between their two leaders. "There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something."

"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but where we fortify...honker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other." Rick continues. "I know it's out there, we just have to find it."

"Even if we do find a place and we think it's safe, we can never be sure for how long." Maggie says. "Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe."

"We won't make that mistake again." Her father says.

"We'll make camp tonight over there." Rick points to where there's a bunch of stone walls. "Get on the road at the break of day."

"Does this feel right to you?" Carol asks as she steps closer to Daryl.

"What if walkers come through, or another group like Randall's?" Beth asks Rick.

Daryl looks from MJ to Rick. "You know we found Randall, right?" He's talking to Rick now. "He had turned, but he wasn't bit."

Rick's eyes flicker to MJ as she takes a deep breath, lifting her gaze from the ground.

"How's that possible?" Beth asks.

"Rick, what the hell happened?" Lori asks her husband.

"Shane killed Randall." Daryl says. "Just like he always wanted to."

"And then the herd got him?"

Rick looks at MJ again, and she nods, telling him to tell them. "We're all infected." He says after a moment of hesitation.

"What?" Daryl looks between them.

"At the C.D.C., Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"Did you know about this?" Matt asks MJ, and she looks at him.

"Yeah, I knew." She says.

"Of course you did." Glenn scoffs. "Whatever one of you knows, so does the other."

"And neither of you said anything?" Carol questions.

"Would it have made a difference?" Rick asks.

"You both knew this whole time." Matt looks between the two of them.

"How could we have known for sure?" He asks, and looks toward Daryl. "You saw how crazy that mo—"

"That isn't your call." Glenn says. "Okay, when I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told, for the good of everyone. You guys kept this, and the angels and the demons... You kept everything from us."

"Well, we thought it was best that people didn't know." MJ says. "You don't want to hear everything."

"That isn't your decision."

"So, you want to know about the creature that tried to kill me and Daryl while you were all looking for Sophia? Or about the demon that attacked me while Daryl was laying in the creek with an arrow in his side?" She questions. "You want to hear about the devil and his righteous brother who are trapped in a cage in hell? You think you can handle all of the shit that I know?"

"How do you know what we can and can't handle?" Matt questions as Rick and Lori walk away from the group.

"Because you were one of the strongest people that I knew before all this happened and you couldn't handle it. We got divorced because you couldn't handle what my life was." She reminds him. "Most people can't handle knowing the truth about what's really out there."

"Don't put that on me."

"We had this argument throughout our entire marriage. I'm not doing it again." She shakes her head and goes to get her machete out of the car. "I'm going to get some firewood. Anyone wants to come, great. Nobody does, so be it."

Daryl and MJ get back with the firewood, and he gets the fire going. T-Dog's standing watch on the wall, and the others are all gathered around the low fire.

"We're not safe with them — keeping something like that from us." Carol whispers shortly after sundown, talking to Daryl. "Why do you need them? They're just gonna pull you down."

"Naw. Rick's done alright by me." Daryl tells her. "And MJ's not like that."

"You're their henchman, and I'm a burden." She argues. "You deserve better."

"What do you want?" He questions.

"A man of honor."

"Rick has honor. And she's got more experience with monsters than anyone else you'll find." He tells her.

"I think we should take our chances." Maggie tells Glenn.

"Don't be foolish." Hershel says. "There's no food, no fuel, no ammo."

"They know you can hear them, right?" Jack asks from where he's huddled with MJ away from all the others. They all heard his question, exactly like he intended for them to, and most of them looked down.

"I don't think they care." MJ tells him. She's looking up at the stars in the night sky with her head leaning against the wall that she's resting on.

They suddenly hear something rustle in the leaves, and everyone immediately starts looking around. "What was that?" Beth asks.

"Could be anything." Daryl says as they all get to their feet. "Could be a raccoon, could be a possum."

"Walker?" Glenn suggests.

"We need to leave." Carol says. "I mean, what are we waiting for?"

"Daylight." MJ tells her, though she knows that she's the last person Carol wants answering her questions. "Fuel for the car that won't run without it."

"Which way?" Glenn asks.

"It came from over there." Maggie motions with her head.

"Back from where we came." Beth says.

"Yeah."

"The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark." Rick says. "We don't have the vehicles. No one's traveling on foot." He tells them as a branch snaps.

"Don't panic." Hershel says.

"I'm not— I'm not sitting here waiting for another herd to blow through." Maggie says as she looks at Rick and MJ. "We need to move now."

"No one is going anywhere." Rick tells them.

"Do something." Carol says.

"We are doing something." He turns to face her, and MJ gets to her feet. "We're keeping this group together, alive. We've been doing that all along, no matter what. We didn't ask for this."

"Rick—" MJ starts as Jack sticks close to his side.

"I killed my best friend for you people for Christ's sake!" His voice is low, but he's still yelling.

"What?" She gives him a puzzled look, and the others all look between their leaders.

"You saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us." He says. "He staged the whole Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice. He was my friend, but he came after me."

Carl starts crying, and Lori then hugs him to her. Ellie's curled into Matt's side, and he's got his arms around her. Jack's clinging to MJ's arm as he hides behind her back, so she's holding his hand. Rick's scaring the kids​, though he doesn't mean to.

"Alright, I think that's enough." MJ says as she glances back at Lori and Carl.

"My hands are clean." Rick continues anyway. "Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead." He motions behind him. "I say there's a place for us, but maybe— Maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe- Maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you— Why don't you go find out yourself? Send me a postcard." Nobody's moves to leave. "Go on, there's the door. You can do better? Let's see how far you get."

"I think they get the picture." MJ speaks up again, her voice more firm this time, and he looks at her. "Use that gun to point again, and I'm taking it."

Rick looks back at each member of their group, and still nobody makes a move to leave. "No takers?" He questions. "Fine. But get one thing straight — you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."

"Go." She whispers to Jack as she nudges him toward Daryl, and he quickly moves away from her like she wants. "I said that's enough, Rick. You didn't want to tell them what Jenner said back at the C.D.C., and I agreed because I didn't want to incite a panic when we didn't have any definitive answers. But you're starting the panic now, and you need to cool down."

His jaw tightens as he glares at her, his eyes hard. She can see the anger building inside him, and she's not sure how deep it runs. Everything's been piling on, and he might be ready to blow.

"What are you gonna do, Rick? Enforce your way?" She questions. "You can't lead a group that doesn't trust you. So, do us all a favor — take a beat. Cool down. We can all discuss this when we've had a chance to wrap our heads around everything that's happened tonight."

The rest of the group looks between Rick and MJ, but the two leaders don't move from their stare-down. Then, without another word, he turns and walks away from them. She takes a deep breath as she turns back to the group; her eyes settle on Daryl as she tries to maintain control.