〰

While Rick, Daryl, Michonne, Glenn, and Carol disappeared through the church doors to clear the interior, Elodie took the chance to lower herself onto the wooden steps outside. Her legs welcomed the rest.

Carl followed soon after, with Judith held securely against his chest. He sat down beside Elodie, pressing his canteen into her hands along with the last of his pecans. She looked washed-out, all colour leeched from her face, and the last thing he wanted was for her to faint.

The church itself fell short of what Elodie had half-expected, though she couldn't quite explain why she'd imagined anything grand to begin with. Big churches usually belonged in towns, not isolated clearings. From the outside, at least, there was a quiet charm to it, even if she hadn't seen the inside yet.

She had tried to follow the others through the door, but Daryl had stopped her, herding her back with a muttered insistence that she stay put. The adults would clear it first, and only then would she be allowed to step inside. Until that call was made, anyone left out front was assigned to perimeter duty, with Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene disappearing around the rear of the building to do their own sweep.

So now, Elodie was patiently waiting on the steps, taking a sip from Carl's water every now and then. 

She let her gaze wander, tracing every detail the exterior had to show her. Her body felt too tired to roam, but her eyes worked just fine. They wandered where her legs could not, cataloging the church piece by piece while she waited for the word that it was safe.

From her spot, she could take in nearly the whole building. Every crooked plank, every patch of roof that looked one stiff breeze away from waving goodbye. The steeple — she now knew what that was — climbed high and tall, stopping just short of the treetops surrounding the building.

At a distance, the church appeared clean, almost luminous in its whiteness. Although upon looking closer, Elodie could see the many places where the white paint had chipped off the old wood. Streaks of wood pushed through the endless white, withering under the sun.

Judith's soft, nonsensical sounds tugged Elodie's attention downward. Carl was smoothing the baby's clothes with careful hands, brushing his fingers through her fine hair. Watching them still felt unreal. After what Carl had told her back at Terminus, Elodie had been certain that sound, those quiet, happy babbles, was something she'd never hear again. Yet here it was.

"You should drink more," Carl murmured.

Elodie's fingers drifted to her jeans instead, tugging lightly at the fabric. They sagged at her knees now.

She hadn't heard him.

"Elodie."

"Huh?"

"Drink." He nudged the canteen toward her, nearly pressing it into her face — a small feat, considering how securely Judith was tucked against him.

"'Kay, sorry." She took it from him and swallowed another careful mouthful before realising how little was left. The bottle was nearly dry. She set it down beside Carl's boots.

Her thoughts had already wandered far from the steps beneath her.

Ever since they'd arrived at the church, Sophia had lodged herself firmly in Elodie's thoughts. She couldn't shake her. The last time Elodie had been in a church was when they had all been searching for Sophia. God, it felt like a lifetime ago. The world had shifted on its axis since then. People were gone. So many of them.

Sophia included.

The world hadn't been the only thing to shift. The people in it had, too. Rick was different. Carol was different. Daryl was different. Elodie was different, she thought. She felt different, at least. And not only because of her current sickness, but in a deeper, more permanent way.

The change lived everywhere, threaded through her limbs, settled into her bones. She no longer felt like the girl from Atlanta, or even the girl who had tried to make a life at the farm. She wasn't the child constantly scolded, passed over, made small by her own family.

And yet.

She was still her. Still the burden she feared she would always be. Still strange, still out of step. Still the girl who had stood shaking at the farm, sick with worry over one of the only friends she had ever known. Still the girl who had watched that friend stagger into the light of what she'd believed might become home — only to see the same sickly green hue staining her face. The same death she had already learned to recognise in her brother.

Just then, the door behind them swung back open, and both Elodie and Carl quickly got to their feet — Elodie only having noticed after Carl jabbed her lightly to get her going. She nudged the water bottle aside with her foot so no one would stumble on the steps. At the same time, Rick stepped forward from the dim belly of the church, light finally catching the edges of his face.

With a flat look, he dropped the church's keys into Gabriel's open hand.

"I spent months here without stepping out the front door," Gabriel began to speak as the others filed past him. Every glance he received was sharp and distrustful. "If you found someone inside... well, it would've been surprising."

Carl stepped forward then, a warm smile on his face. "Thanks for this."

Once Daryl shifted aside from the doorway, Gabriel offered Carl a tight, nervous smile before slipping past him and into the church.

Elodie's first impulse was to climb the steps and take her place at Daryl's side. Her body was already halfway there before she remembered what he had sweeped over his shoulder about an hour ago. She slowed, reconsidered, and settled instead beside Carol, shooting Daryl a brief uncomfortable glance from the corner of her eye.

"We found a shortbus out back," Abraham announced suddenly, angling his head toward Rick. "It don't run, but I bet we could fix that in a day or two. Father here says he doesn't want it... Looks like we found ourselves some transport."

Elodie hadn't forgotten Eugene's cure — how could she? — but the thought had drifted far from the forefront of her mind over the last few hours. Being reunited with her family had dulled every other concern. Of course, the plan to get to Washington still lingered in her thoughts, but for now, her hunger ached too insistently to ignore. Maybe staying a little longer at Gabriel's church wouldn't hurt, just until they were steady enough to get back on the road.

Her eyes found Rick, as they often did when she weighed their next moves. The tension in his jaw eased something in her chest. He wasn't looking at Abraham at all. Every ounce of him was absorbed in his children; one hand rested at the back of Judith's head, thumb moving in soothing strokes. The other brushed Carl's arm.

Abraham's words seemed to drift past Rick, bouncing off some invisible wall he had built around his family.

"You understand what's at stake here, right?" Abraham pressed, leaning in a little closer.

"Yes, I do," Rick answered evenly, his eyes never leaving his kids.

"Now that we can take a breath—" Michonne began firmly, but Abraham barreled over her.

"We take a breath, we slow down, shit inevitably goes down," he grumbled, the corners of his mouth twitching with frustration.

"We need supplies, no matter what we do next."

Rick jumped in again, his hands withdrawing from his children. "That's right," he said, nodding at Michonne before ascending the church steps without sparing Abraham another glance. "Water, food, ammunition."

And it was true. Their supplies were hanging by a thread; barely any food, even less water, and Elodie couldn't even bear to think about their dwindling ammunition. If they were going to make it to Washington, they had to stock up. They didn't have the military truck to lean on this time.

"Short bus ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl added, falling in beside Rick as he stepped aside to let the others pass into the church. "Bring you back some baked beans."

Elodie wrung her nose in a grimace as she followed Carl toward the doorway, already imagining Abraham's reaction. Baked beans were probably the last thing he wanted to hear about when all he cared about was getting Eugene to Washington and saving the world.

She was just about to step inside after Carl when voices drifted up behind her. She stopped short and turned around, her brow slightly creasing as she watched the others pass Abraham one by one. Each of them murmured a repeated what he said, what she said before disappearing into the church.

It left Abraham standing alone, irritation written plainly across his face, and Elodie couldn't fault him for it. They were dancing around the same question again and again: whether anyone was actually going to join him, Rosita, and Eugene on their mission.

Elodie wanted to, but only if her family did, too.

Abraham seemed to read that hesitation without her saying a word.

"I reckon I don't have to ask you?" he said, and only then did Elodie realise she was the last one still outside, save for Rosita, Eugene, and Abraham himself.

A prickly awkwardness crawled up her spine like an embarrassed little spider. Suddenly shy, she ducked her head and found something very interesting to do with the hem of her shirt. Her fingers twisted the fabric, stretched it, worried it to death. 

What was she even supposed to say? I know I promised I'd go, but only because I thought everyone I loved was dead. Turns out they're not, so... never mind? No! She had made a sort-of promise, and breaking it made her chest feel tight and itchy. She didn't want to break it. But she also didn't know how not to.

Thankfully, before she could stumble through an answer, Rosita stepped up beside her and rested a hand on her shoulder.

 "Nope," Rosita answered for her, and a tiny smile was not missing from her face. It was small, but very well there.

Elodie found one of her own in return and allowed herself to be guided inside.

〰

Elodie spent close to twenty minutes wandering through the church. Every corner felt newly available to her in a way it never had before.

In the past, her mother had kept her firmly anchored at her side — or at Jamie's — throughout the service. If not that, then her grandmother would claim her instead, tugging her along to exchange pleasantries with the pastor or pausing beneath painted scenes to explain Bible stories, a pudgy finger lifted toward murals Elodie barely had time to glance at before being pulled away again.

She had never been allowed to drift, never permitted to simply look. To linger. To decide for herself what deserved her attention. And she wanted to see everything.

She drifted from the altar to the restrooms, peering into spaces she had only ever passed by before. Near the entrance, two painted scenes of Christian history hung side by side — though Elodie sadly didn't know the story. A bronze relief was mounted against the wall,and she did know this one! The Last Supper. Elodie stood there for a long while before finally pulling herself away and continuing on.

One of the back rooms looked like it had once been meant for children. Somewhere to play during or after a service, Elodie figured. A low table stood in the center, littered with drawings, the walls just as crowded with crayon and pencil marks. Opposite them hung neat rows of laminated Christian phrases, and the toys had been pushed haphazardly into the corners.

There were multiple versions of Moses' story pictured on the drawings, so Elodie figured that must have been the last assignment the kids had been given. The last thing these kids ever drew in this church, before everything fell apart.

The thought tightened her throat.

Where were they now? Were they alive? Had they made it this far? She tried to picture them tucked safely into some quiet community, curled up in real beds, new drawings taped to their walls. That was easier to believe than the alternative.

Easier than imagining them gone, like so many others.

By the time Elodie made her way back from the rooms and rejoined the group, they were deep in what looked like a difficult conversation with Gabriel. Or maybe it only appeared that way — after all, Gabriel had seemed nervous from the moment they had met him.

But when she got closer, taking up a place beside Michonne where she was leaning against the frontmost pew, she found out they were talking about scavenging food.

"I've cleaned out every place nearby," Gabriel was saying to Rick, who had just passed Judith back to Carl so he could properly hold on to his gun. "Except for one."

"What kept you from it?" Rick asked him.

"It's overrun."

"How many?"

Gabriel hesitated, his lip trembling between his teeth before he revealed, "A dozen or so. Maybe more."

No one balked. A determined look passed between them, and that was all there was.

"We can handle a dozen," Rick spoke for all of them.

Sasha stepped forward then, coming to stand at Rick's side. "Bob and I will go with you. Tyreese should stay here, help keep Judith safe," she said, smiling toward Tyreese across the red carpet between the pews.

"That'll be okay?" Rick asked him.

Tyreese's face broke open into a smile so genuine it almost hurt to look at. "Sure," he said easily. "You ever need me to watch her, need anything for her, I'm right here."

His answer didn't surprise Elodie in the slightest. He had been the one to take it upon himself to save Judith, after all. Tyreese had been the one to keep her alive when no one else could. It was obvious he adored her. Anyone with eyes could see that.

"I'm grateful for it," said Rick sincerely as he crossed the space between them, stopping only when he and Tyreese stood face to face. "And everything else."

Tyreese dipped his head into an understanding nod. He didn't need the words explained.

"I'll draw you a map," Gabriel stammered, already pivoting on his heel to grab the supplies needed, but Rick stopped him right away.

"You don't need to," he said firmly, turning around to face Gabriel. "You're comin' with us."

Like a statue, Gabriel froze, his mouth slightly agape. 

A nervous smile twitched his lips. "I'm not gonna be of any help," he tried weakly. "You saw me... I'm no good around those things."

"You're coming with us," Rick repeated, his eyes boring into Gabriel's until Gabriel finally gathered what scraps of nerve he had left and dipped his head in a small, reluctant nod.

〰

It had been a while since everyone split up and headed in different directions. Rick, Gabriel, Sasha, Michonne, and Bob had taken off to check out the place Gabriel had mentioned. Carol and Daryl had gone looking for water nearby. Maggie, Glenn, and Tara had found a gun store listed not too far away, and had decided to check it out.

That left Carl, Tyreese, Judith, and Elodie behind at the church, and outside, Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene were busy poking around the short bus they had found, trying to get it running again.

Which meant Elodie had absolutely nothing to do.

Carl had spent almost an hour trying to teach her how to play Patty Cake. It started out fine, but then Carl kept speeding it up. The faster it went, the more annoyed Elodie got, until Carl finally gave up and decided it probably just wasn't her game.

After that, they played Hangman for a long while, but even that got boring eventually. With Tyreese busy looking after Judith and the others focused on fixing the bus, Elodie and Carl ran out of distractions fast.

So they decided to wander around outside the church instead. They had been way too exhausted to explore when they first arrived, but now that they'd had time to sit and rest, they finally felt like they had a little energy to burn.

Up close, the church was doing itself no favours. Most of the paint had peeled clean off the wooden planks. When Elodie dragged her fingers along the side of it, her hand came back dusted white, tiny flakes clinging to her skin.

Elodie frowned at her palm, flexing her fingers as the flakes drifted down like weak snow. She rubbed her hand against her jeans, but the dust clung stubbornly to the fabric.

"Gross," she muttered flatly.

Carl nudged the wall with the toe of his boot, and another little shower of paint drifted down between them. "How old do you think this church is?"

Elodie squinted up at the building, tipping her head back until the edge of the roof blurred against the sky. The height of the building from this angle made her vision spin. "Old-old."

"That clears it up," Carl muttered dryly, but Elodie didn't snap back. She only shrugged, dropping her gaze and lifting her arm to rub at the back of her neck.

The two of them drifted around the next corner of the church, their footsteps crunching through dried leaves and weeds that had grown wild without anyone around to stop them. Carl lifted his feet higher, stepping over the worst of it, Elodie didn't bother. She waded straight through like it was water. There wasn't much to look at and even less to do — so if nothing else, pretending she was swimming through green waves kept her entertained.

"Can't imagine people used to get married here," Carl said, peering through one of the grimy windows. Inside, they could see Tyreese sitting with Judith, the baby bundled up and safe in his arms. "It's so empty now."

"Wasn't empty then," Elodie murmured.

She tried to picture a wedding venue, but like Carl had said, it was hard to. Maybe it was just hard to imagine a wedding at all, considering everything.

She knew Glenn and Maggie were married now. Not officially, but they called each other husband and wife, and that had to mean they were sort-of-married, right?

It made Elodie sad that they hadn't gotten a real wedding. No crowd of guests, no towering cake, no papers declaring it true. They deserved all of that.

The way they worked together still felt surreal to Elodie. They had only known each other for a little under two years — maybe even less; Elodie had lost track of time — and now they were inseparable. Married, even. Back before, people would have laughed at that. At least where Elodie was from. Or maybe just her mom.

But none of that mattered anymore. Glenn and Maggie loved each other. They were happy. And that was all that mattered. They didn't need a ceremony or signatures to make it real.

Elodie had always wondered if she would ever get married herself. Her mother never had, and that had planted the question early. Would someone ever look at her the way Glenn looked at Maggie? Would she ever wear a shiny ring on her finger? She didn't know — she couldn't know. Tomorrow wasn't promised anymore, so she probably shouldn't even be thinking about futures like that. Yet she couldn't help it.

"Hey, you see that?"

Elodie walked straight into Carl, bumping into him hard enough to knock him off balance. He had stopped so suddenly she hadn't even had time to react.

"Ow, jesus—"

"You stopped," Elodie shot back, rubbing her shoulder, a little sheepish. "What?"

Carl opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it. He lifted a hand instead, pointing at the wall. "Look."

Following the path of his fingertip, Elodie's brows came together in a furrow. Deep scratches scarred the wood in front of them, the paint completely scraped away, leaving splintered grooves behind. They didn't look like anything accidental to Elodie.

"That's messed up," Carl said as he stepped nearer, tracing the air just above the damage.

Elodie immediately tugged his arm back, her mouth pulling into a sharp frown. "Don't touch it. You'll get a splinter."

"I won't get a splinter—"

"They hurt, Carl! Real bad."

"Okay, fine," Carl relented, throwing up his two hands. But his eyes never left the wall. He leaned in anyway, studying the grooves without touching them. "That's gotta be knives, right? I mean... nails can't do that. Not that deep."

Elodie tipped one shoulder in a small shrug, uncertain. "I don't know."

She knew nails could be sharp enough to break skin and to leave her own hands rough and torn. But this had to be something else. She couldn't picture bare fingers tearing into wood like that without blood smeared everywhere.

Before she could voice any of it, Carl was already disappearing around the corner of the building. Elodie blinked, momentarily thrown by his sudden decision to keep going. Then she hurried after him without thinking twice.

At least her boredom was gone.

The backside of the church was in even rougher shape. Weeds had taken over completely, their brittle stems brushing against Elodie's knees as she walked. The sensation prickled through the denim of her jeans, irritating enough to make her plant her feet and stomp down hard, crushing the grass beneath her soles just to make it stop.

"Elodie," Carl said then, and the alarm in his voice made her freeze mid-stomp. She lifted her head.

She had been bracing herself for almost anything. Almost.

Carved just as deep, if not deeper, than the previous scratches, were words etched into the wood. The letters were thin, craggy, and skewed — but they didn't need to be pretty to be understood.

YOU'LL BURN FOR THIS.

"Oh," Elodie breathed out. It was the only thing her brain could locate that felt even remotely appropriate. Her eyes dragged and dragged over the sentence, as if it would rearrange itself into something less horrifying if she did it often enough. "... Who's that for?"

"Gabriel," Carl said without hesitation, narrowing his eyes at the wall. "Obviously. Who else would it be for?"

"I don't know," Elodie muttered, her shoulders lifting in a weak shrug. She edged back a step, putting Carl slightly in front of her. "What'd he do?"

"Nothing good, that's for sure."

Elodie swallowed and shifted her weight, the bottoms of her shoes rasping against the dirt. The words felt harsher and burned the longer she looked at them, like they were smoldering their way into the wall instead of merely sitting there.

"Do we... tell your dad?" Elodie asked, her fingers worrying at her pointer finger until the skin there felt sore.

"Yeah." Carl was all serious now, his narrowed eyes nearly boring holes into the wall. "Yeah, we tell him as soon as he's back."

Elodie only nodded.

〰

"Hey."

Elodie's droopy eyes flew open, and her head jerked up to spot Rick walking toward them.

Rick stopped within speaking distance, and Elodie pushed herself upright, her muscles protesting painfully after too long spent folded on the ground. A small, irritated sound slipped from her throat as pins and needles flared through her legs. Carl, meanwhile, hadn't sat at all. He stood guard by the window, his hands braced on his hips with his eyes still fixed on the strange scratches carved into the wood.

"Tyreese said you two were out back," Rick said, a fond smile tugging at his mouth. He got that look a lot whenever Elodie and Carl were together doing something harmless. Something normal. Like kids.

That wasn't what this was, though.

She and Carl had burned through yet another hour crouched beneath the window, tracing the faint scars carved into the wood. Carl had rattled off a handful of wildly imaginative explanations, each more far-fetched than the last, but every theory circled back to the same thing: Gabriel had done something he didn't want anyone to know about.

It messed with Elodie, because she had liked Gabriel. Maybe she still did, but now there was doubt knotted up in it all. He had seemed like a nervous guy, and that was something she understood. She could empathise with that. But after finding those scratches, she wasn't so sure anymore.

"Come on in, we found food."

Elodie perked up instantly. "Ya found food? What kind?"

"The good kind," Rick said, glancing down at her with an amused look. "Plenty of it. Go check it out. Grab whatever you want."

Elodie took one step forward before Carl sharply turned his head and shot her a pointed look — his widened eyes making its meaning very clear.

Oh, right. Scratches. 

With a sigh Elodie didn't bother hiding, she wandered back and dropped down beside Carl instead, trying very hard not to stare longingly in the direction of the front doors.

"It's a good thing you guys found food," Carl said, only half there, his eyes tracking back to the marred window.

Rick caught the odd note in his voice immediately. He stepped closer to the two kids, angling himself to see whatever Carl was staring at. "What is it?"

"Those scratches," Carl said as he moved nearer to the wall and pointed. "They're deep. Like knives or something. We think someone was trying to get in."

Strangely, Rick went quiet for a moment. He examined the scratches, narrowing his eyes at them the same way Carl had not too long ago. Watching them side by side, Elodie couldn't help but notice how similar they looked. Father reflected in son. Son echoing father.

"We found something else," Carl added after a moment, one hand settling on his hip as he and Elodie guided Rick around the final corner. "I don't know what happened, but whatever it is, we can handle it."

Elodie had no idea where that confidence came from. She certainly didn't feel it. Threats carved into church walls sure screamed wrong, wrong, wrong to her.

But then again, Carl had always been braver than her — or at least better at pretending he was. About almost everything.

When Rick finally pulled his attention away from his son, his eyes landed on the message etched into the wall — the same one Carl and Elodie had been staring at for nearly an hour. The confusion on his face melted instantly, replaced by alarm. His jaw tightened as he reached out, resting his hand near the carved letters.

"Doesn't mean Gabriel is a bad guy for sure," Carl said carefully, head tipped to one side, "but it means something."

Rick stared at the words for a long moment, longer than either of them liked. His jaw stayed tight, the muscles shifting beneath the scruff of his beard, but he didn't say much. No grim predictions or watch-each-other's-back's spilling out the way Elodie had braced herself for. Instead, he let his hand fall away from the wall and straightened slowly, looking as if he was packing the whole thing away somewhere the kids wouldn't ever find.

"You did good tellin' me. Both of you," he said at last. His eyes moved from Carl to Elodie, the severity in them easing just a fraction. "But we'll handle it. You don't need to worry about this."

Elodie wasn't sure how Rick expected that to work — how you didn't worry after seeing something like that carved into a church — but she kept the doubt tucked behind her teeth.

Rick cast one final look toward the wall before deliberately turning away from it, stepping forward until his body stood squarely between the words and the kids. "I want you two to go on, grab something to eat."

His hand came down on Elodie's shoulder. The contact startled her just enough to pull her gaze upward, and she saw that his other hand rested at the base of Carl's neck. He gave them both a small squeeze, and the warmth of his palm seeped through the thin fabric of Elodie's shirt.

She let herself be steered, even though her eyes kept wanting to drift back over Rick's shoulder, back to the words burned into the wall. But Rick shifted as they walked, his body always just so, always in the way, until the wall vanished entirely as they rounded the corner. The message disappeared with it.

Elodie had the distinct feeling that was intentional.

〰

By the time the last of them dragged themselves back inside with their scavenged supplies, the world beyond the windows had gone completely ink-black, and exhaustion settled deep behind Elodie's eyes until even blinking felt like work.

Earlier that day, she had caught her reflection in a mirror that had more cracks than Elodie had ever seen a mirror have, and she had nearly cried right there on the spot. She had barely recognised herself.

Her hair jutted out in every direction, stiff with filth, its blondness buried beneath layers of dust and neglect. Thin scratches traced half-mended lines across her cheeks, a dark, swollen mark still pulsed ugly along her skin where Abraham's hand had hit her, and overall she just looked exhausted.

If she hadn't felt the solid press of the floor beneath her boots, or felt her chest rise and fall with each breath, she might have believed she was staring at something dead. That was how terrible she looked.

But none of that mattered. Because cradled in her hands was a brand-new can of... something. What something? Who knew. Who cared. It was food. Real  food. And there was a lot of it. Rick, Elodie thought, had been criminally modest; the altar was drowning beneath bowls and plates and cutlery, but mostly beneath food piled up. There was enough of it to feed a family of twenty, maybe more.

The constant blend of voices ricocheted off the walls and pinched Elodie's ears, layering into an annoying headache. Even so, she felt lighter than she had in weeks. It almost felt like a family dinner of sorts. Everyone hovered in loose clusters, plates warm and comforting in their hands, eating and talking at the same time, and laughing too loudly.

After Elodie had filled her plate — overfilling it, really, after Glenn had leaned over and dumped two extra spoonfuls from his own can onto her plate with a sly wink — she practically skipped straight over to Daryl, who sat on the floor with his back braced against the front pew.

Daryl lifted his chin when he saw her barreling toward him, her excitement practically buzzing off her.

"Easy," he muttered, shifting his crossbow so she wouldn't trip over it. "Y'won the damn lottery or somethin'?"

Despite not having caught a word of it, Elodie grinned — her chipped tooth reflecting the firelight — and plopped down beside him on the floor, careful not to slosh anything over the rim of her plate.

"We have food. Look," Elodie said loudly — just as she always did when her hearing aids couldn't quite find the sound of herself amongst the voices of a crowd — tilting the plate toward him as if he might miss it otherwise. As if the smell alone hadn't already made that obvious.

Daryl let out a short huff through his nose, which, for him, would pass as a laugh. 

"Yeah," he said dryly. "I got eyes."

Again, his voice drifted right past Elodie due to the noise around them, but she didn't let her annoyance show. Hopefully. She only pricked her fork into the food, and shoveled a bite into her mouth.

Elodie ate fast at first, then slowed when she noticed Daryl hadn't started yet.

"Ya ain't hungry?"

He glanced down at his plate like it had only just occurred to him. "I'll eat," he said after a second, rolling one shoulder. "Just lettin' everyone else get some first."

Elodie frowned at that, chewing thoughtfully. After a second, she scooted closer, speared a solid chunk of food with her fork, and held it up to him.

Confused, Daryl stilled, his pale eyes flicking from the fork to Elodie's face.

"...What're you doin'?"

"Hmm?" Elodie hummed, lifting her chin to look at him.

Right, Daryl thought. The noise; too many voices all stacked on top of each other. It must be hard for Elodie to hear him in this setting. So he repeated himself, only slower this time, his hands moving to help the words along. "What are you doing?"

"Sharin'," Elodie said simply. "Ya do that for me all the time."

"Nah, I'm good," Daryl insisted, nudging the fork back toward her with one finger. 

Elodie's arm wobbled a little with the effort of holding it up so long, and a bead of sauce was creeping dangerously close to the edge of the fork. "Please?" she tried, her mouth tugging into a small pout. "There's lots."

He shook his head once. "Eat your own."

She didn't pull the fork back. If anything, Elodie leaned closer and stretched her arm across Daryl's chest as she tried to keep the bite steady. Her plate tipped dangerously in her other hand, a bit of whatever-it-was sloshing right up to the rim.

"Careful," Daryl warned, one hand shooting out to steady her plate before it could dump all over his leg. "You'll spill the whole damn thing."

Elodie ignored that completely. She was practically draped over him now, her arm fully extended to hover her fork stubbornly in front of Daryl's face.

"Please?" she said again, insisting on the matter with a faint pout on her lips. "Please-please?"

Daryl's eyes flicked away from her face and then back again, his slight irritation giving way to something almost fond.

"Usually, folks say pretty please," Daryl muttered under his breath. Still, he took the fork from her narrow fingers, and scraped the food off with his teeth before handing it back. "There. You happy?"

Satisfied, Elodie beamed, nodding quickly. Then she seemed to remember the gnawing ache in her stomach, and she pulled the fork back and scooped up another bite for herself.

She resettled properly beside Daryl again, this time tucking herself against his side while she ate, her shoulder fitting easily under his arm. Elodie ate from her plate like that, curled slightly toward him, her feet tucked in, chewing slower now that the initial excitement has worn off.

"I'd like to propose a toast."

The echo of Abraham's voice hushed the group, and the murmur of conversation fell away. One by one, people settled, claiming spots around the altar and turning their attention to the red-haired man. Elodie didn't bother lifting her head. She was too tired to move a finger, let alone sit up straight.

"I look around this room..." Abraham went on, a glass of what Elodie assumed was wine clenched in his broad hand, "and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title."

A frown dawned on Elodie's features, and she edged closer to Daryl's side, even though there really wasn't any space left to close. She wouldn't say she'd earned that title at all. Survivor. What had she done to deserve it? She hid. She ran. She stayed alive because other people stepped in front of her and took the hits meant for her.

Something brushing against her shoulder jolted her out of thought, and Elodie turned her head just enough to see Carl sitting down on the pew she and Daryl were leaning against. He looked down at her with a strange little smile, almost an understanding one. Like he could hear her thoughts clear as day, and didn't agree with a single one of them.

So Elodie looked away quickly.

"To the survivors," Abraham announced, raising his glass. The word echoed back at him — "Survivors!" —  as glasses clinked together.

Elodie glanced up, searching Daryl's face, trying to find her footing there. But there wasn't much to read. There never really was. His expression stayed locked down. Only his eyes ever gave him away, and she couldn't see them now.

It's unfair, she thought, how everyone — especially Daryl — seemed to read her so easily, like she was a wide-open book with its torn-out pages tossed straight at their faces. But that wasn't the case with Daryl. With him, everything stayed closed off.

"Is that all you want to be?" Abraham said, surprising Elodie. She had assumed he had finished his speech, but apparently not. "Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat?"

Elodie frowned, the answer burning quick and certain in her chest. No, it's not. Not at all.

"'Cause you can do that." Abraham shifted the glass to his other hand, earnestly looking down at them all. "I mean, you got strength. You got the skill. Thing is, for you people, for what you can do, that's just surrender. Now, we get Eugene to Washington and he will make the dead die and the living will have this world again. And that is not a bad takeaway for a little road trip."

A churn of excitement, or maybe nervousness, slithered through Elodie's stomach. She agreed with Abraham. They had nowhere to go anyway, no signs pointing to a safe haven, no place to be except for this church. And judging by the twitchy look on Gabriel's face, it didn't seem like he truly wanted them there anyway.

Every time she looked at him, his eyes were nervously darting from the group to the door, keeping escape just within reach. He didn't trust them, they didn't trust him. And if nothing changed, this place was never going to work. So they might as well go to Washington. Right?

Again, Elodie looked up at Daryl. Just like before, his face gave away almost nothing — only a faint furrow in his brow, which she copied without thinking. Was he confused? Worried? Did he doubt Eugene?

That would be dumb, she figured. Why wouldn't he believe that Eugene could fix everything?

In the time Elodie had spent with Eugene, Elodie had learned he wasn't just a man who talked strange — he was smart. Really smart! He'd taught her things she'd never even heard of before, about layers of gas in the atmosphere and other complicated stuff that made her head spin. And if he knew all that, then surely he knew how to get rid of the walkers too.

"Eugene, what's in DC?" Abraham asked him, deliberately stepping back and handing him the floor.

Eugene blinked, fingers twitching in his lap as his gaze darted around the church, anywhere but at them. "Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude," he said stiffly. And before Elodie could even process the words, he barreled on, "That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart."

Abraham chuckled fondly. "However this plays out, however long it takes for the rest button to kick in, you can be safe there. Safer than you've been since this whole thing started. Come with us. Save the world for that little one." He nodded toward Judith, bundled in Rick's arms, "Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there... who don't got nothing left to do except survive."

And then it went quiet.

Elodie filled the silence by thinking. She thought very hard, even though she already knew her answer. Of course she wanted to go. If getting Eugene to Washington meant fixing things — meant saving the world — then how could anyone say no?

Convincing Rick, though? That was another story. Same with Daryl. Neither of them were known for hopping on long-shot plans just because someone sounded a little convincing. Rick, especially, had been dodging Abraham's speeches for days now.

So when Elodie leaned forward to peek at Rick, she wasn't expecting what she saw.

His eyes were gentle, turned down to look at Judith cradled against his chest, and when she made a little noise, he laughed under his breath. "What was that?" he murmured with a grin before he nodded. "I think she knows what I'm about to say. She's in. If she's in, I'm in. We're in."

Everyone burst into laughter, the tension cracking like ice. Elodie's own giggles got caught somewhere against Daryl's side, her shoulders hitching as she tried to keep them in.

She glanced at Abraham and nearly laughed harder. She was pretty sure she had never seen him look that happy — his huge grin lit up the stoic expression that usually housed on his face.

Still riding that wave of relief, Elodie turned back to Daryl. Though her smile slipped when she realised he didn't really seem to buy any of it. At least, that was what his face told her. His eyes were tight, fixed on Abraham and Eugene with a sharpness that made her chest pinch.

That was until he caught her watching and smoothed his expression out

"What?" Elodie asked him, her brow knitting into a proper frown now. She needed to hear what he thought, because Daryl's take on things mattered more to her than anyone else's. "Don't ya believe him?"

For a moment, Daryl was looking past Elodie instead of at her — past everyone, really — his gaze unfocused. When his eyes finally dropped back to her, they had eased, but the crease between his brows refused to budge.

"'S not that simple," he said then.

Elodie tipped her head to the side. "Why? Eugene's smart. He knows things. Science things." She wrinkled her nose, grasping for the right words. "Like... how the air works. An' machines. If anybody can fix everything, it's him, right?"

Daryl didn't move his eyes off Elodie as she talked, watching her closely. There was a bright kind of hope on her face, lighting up her eyes. It felt fragile, something Daryl didn't trust himself to touch.

She had already decided this was the answer, that Eugene could fix it all. That he was the end of her nightmare. Daryl didn't have it in him to snuff that light out.

"Yeah," he said finally. "He's smart."

That wasn't a yes.

"But..." Elodie murmured, her own eyes now trailing the group. Everyone was chatting again, voices overlapping with laughter. It was less loud now, distant enough that she could hear Daryl well enough. "Ya don't think it'll work."

"Ain't what I'm sayin'."

"What if he can really fix it?"

The breath Daryl blew from his lips brushed against Elodie's forehead. "That's a real big if, Lo."

She chewed on that for a second, her fork idle in her hand. Then she brightened up entirely, like a thought had clicked into place, something warm and vivid that made everything feel sunnier.

"We could have a place," she said, looking down at her hands around her plate, her thumb wiping across the edges. "Like, a real one. A house. And we'd eat at the table again, and ya wouldn't have to be on watch all the time. Ya can sleep. I could go to school, you could have a job. We'd watch TV 'till we fall asleep on the couch, go to the beach, an'—an' everything'd be normal again."

A corner of Daryl's mouth lifted before he could stop it, because damn it, he saw it too. A neat little house in a cozy neighbourhood. A mailbox with their name on it. Her pink little shoes kicked off wherever she pleased. Her jacket slung over a coat rack instead of tossed on a chair and ready to run. A calendar on the fridge with dates circled in bright marker — school trips, dentist appointments, days that mattered for no reason at all.

Mornings where sunlight spilled through thin curtains and woke him too early. Mornings where he burned toast but she ate it anyway. He saw her sitting at the counter, swinging her legs, asking if she could have pancakes for breakfast just this once.

He saw her older, taller, with her backpack slung over her shoulder, swatting his hand away when he messed up her hair before heading out the door. He saw himself ruining dinner and her pretending not to notice, already knowing that meant takeout. He saw them eating straight out of cartons on the couch, her feet tucked under his leg.

He saw holidays, an uneven Christmas tree because neither of them knew what they were doing. Ornaments she picked herself, ugly and perfect and proudly hung. Birthdays with lopsided cakes and too many candles. Her blowing them out and saying her wish out loud, rules be damned.

He saw it all. He saw something safe. Something he had never had. Something he wanted so badly it scared the hell out of him.

"What?" Elodie said again, her voice piercing straight through the quiet he had disappeared into. Daryl looked at her and realised he must have gone completely still. "Don't ya want that, too?"

When he looked at her, he swallowed. Because that life could never be real for them — for him — and he knew it. But she didn't, and the very last thing Daryl was going to do was scrub all that hope from her eyes. All that want in her heart.

So he kept the faint smile right where it was, even if it felt stiff on his face.

"More'n anything," he said, and meant every word.

Elodie's face brightened instantly, like that was all she needed to hear to keep her warm. "So it ain't stupid." she said, a little triumphant. "It's not."

"I ain't ever said it was stupid."

"Ya didn't have to," Elodie insisted with a shrug, finally turning back to her food. Her expression twisted the moment her teeth sank into the food, her jaw working stubbornly around the fork. "It's cold."

A twinkle of amusement sparked in Daryl's eyes. "'S what happens when ya wait forever to eat," he teased, flicking the brim of her cap before pushing himself upright.

Frowning, Elodie peeled herself off of him, settling her back against the wooden pew. Her shoulder met Carl's leg, and after a moment's consideration, she leaned into that instead.

"Where ya goin'?" she asked, disappointment sneaking into her voice.

"Gonna go check on Carol," Daryl reassured, placing his plate down beside Elodie. "Be back in a minute."

Exhaling, Elodie drew her knees up to her chest, balancing her plate across them. "'Kay."

"A'right."

Elodie tracked him with her eyes as he moved down the dingy red carpet, leaving behind faint dirt prints on the fabric. When Daryl opened the front door, he was momentarily reduced to a dark outline before the door clicked shut and took him with it.

After having finished the last of her food, she set the plate down beside her and, using the tip of her shoe, she pushed it further away. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to have eaten enough to feel sick from it.

With the excitement gone and the hunger satisfied, the tiredness hit her suddenly. At first, she only leaned her shoulder against Carl's leg, just to rest for a second. Then her head slipped down too, and soon enough, Elodie fell asleep right there.

She didn't know yet that when she opened her eyes again, Daryl wouldn't have come back.

And he wouldn't be the only one missing.

✎ NOVA'S NOTES:

good lord i really need to get more consistent with updates i am so sorry LMFAO

i hope you guys enjoyed this long ass chapter, and if not, please let me know!! :P i myself am not quite sure which i prefer (short chapters or longer ones) so your input really helps.

ANYWAY!!! guys pls remember to comment! i beg on my knees with pleading eyes! you're all so funny and i love reading everything you say, so don't be shy :))

until next time!! love you guys, as always <3