Straight to the Heart

* Two Months Earlier *

"Do you love him?" Glenn asked. I knew exactly who he was talking about without him having to say it. He stood beside me in the guard tower, his arms rested against the railing as I peered through the scope of my rifle. It was our night shift for keeping a lookout, for both walkers and the Governor.

I dropped my rifle from my view, blindsided by his question. We weren't on a topic even remotely close to that subject. We actually weren't talking much at all. Glenn spent most of his days alongside Maggie and vice versa. Although, even when we were together there wasn't a need for a lot of conversation. There had always been a comfort between us, each of us being our first friend in the new world. And when we did talk there was nothing left unsaid between us. He was my little piece of Ben that I had left.

"Is there any room for love in the world we live in now?" I responded without actually giving him an answer. I could see him look over at me, his eyes studying the side of my face for any indication of how I actually felt.

"I found Maggie," he said. "What's the point of fighting through any of this if it's not for something," he paused, "or someone?"

"I guess you're right," I murmured, pondering over the thought.

"How cruel is it to think that if it weren't for the apocalypse I probably would have never met Maggie, or you, or anyone else here for a matter of fact," Glenn said. My head immediately whipped to my left, finally looking at him.

I studied him for a moment. I understood where he was coming from, I really did. We have met people along the way that we have grown to care for, put our trust in, and rest our life in their hands.

"Are we really worth it though? Worth your parents' lives, your sisters', your friends'?" I asked. I wasn't trying to be vicious towards him, I was simply trying to understand where he was coming from.

"In a perfect world, if this whole outcome was avoidable then no," he answered, his lips pressing hard against one another in a straight line, "but if this apocalypse was always meant to happen, then yeah, you guys are worth it. I wouldn't want to be with anyone else."

I sighed, taking another peek through my scope before dropping it to my side again once the perimeter was cleared.

"Do you ever wish you just stayed on your own? Isolated yourself?" I asked the burning question in the back of my head. "It would save us all this trouble of the weight of holding other people's lives in our hands and the heartache we feel when we lose them… when we can't save them."

Glenn huffed out a laugh, shaking his head, "We would have been dead a long time ago and you know that," he said, making light of the conversation. A smile crept onto my face as he chuckled.

After that, we were back to a peaceful silence. I believe we both sat there in our own heads thinking about the conversation. I placed my hand on my rifle again, ready to resume what we were supposed to be up here for. I looked over at Glenn one last time.

"I do love him," I confessed.

"Are you ever going to tell him?" he asked.

"No, probably not."

--------

My feet landed in a dry pool of blood. I ordered Daryl to put me down once I collected myself. We stood in what I assumed to be what Gareth had referred to as the driers. There were four separate stations placed in the room, each one with a human torso propped up on a hook as the blood drained from it. The room had clearly been evacuated in a hurry. Trays of organs still laid out on the tables with the tools sprawled out in disarray around the room. We collected them carefully, nauseous by what we stumbled upon.

"Cross any of these people, you kill them," Rick said as he walked to the other side of the room, "don't hesitate," his tone was flat, disgusted by what he saw.

I wiped the tear stains off of my cheeks with the back of my wrist. My stomach twisted as I stared down at the tray stacked with livers. I sucked in a deep breath, yanking out the machete that was wedged between them.

The faint sounds of a man shouting drew us all towards the window by the door. Rick peered through it, Glenn with his back to the wall on the other side. From where I stood I could see a group of walkers piled around one of the train cars, slamming their arms against the metal trying to get to the voice screaming from inside of it.

"If we run, we can get by them," Rick suggested, "they're distracted."

"We gotta let those people out," Glenn disagreed. There was silence for a moment, I looked at Rick, watching him pounder the idea. His body language said we didn't owe those people anything and we needed to run. Glenn tore his eyes away from the walkers to look at him, "That's still who we are. It's gotta be."

Rick nodded, agreeing. He swung open the door and the walker's attention immediately snapped around to us. It was like we were back on the outside again, all of our instincts immediately kicking in as the walkers approached us. I sliced my machete down on the head of the first walker to stumble up to me, kicking up my leg and pressing my foot hard against its chest to remove the machete from its skull.

Bob whacked the walker to my right with a pipe he ripped from the wall, its head exploding upon impact and coating the right side of my face. As soon as the walkers had been taken care of, we retreated back into formation. Standing in a circle, covering Glenn as he released the trapped people from within the car.

"Come on, come on," Daryl pushed Glenn along, pressuring him to get the door open fast.

Just then the door finally sprung open. A single man sprinted out from the hot compartment, lunging at Glenn.

"We're the same!" he grabbed Glenn by the shoulders, his tall stature hovering over Glenn's body. His hair was long and tangled and his face was covered in tattoos. Glenn shoved him off and the man stumbled over and grabbed onto me. "We're them!" he shouted, squeezing my shoulders tight. His beady blue eyes were wide and his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

"Back off!" Daryl's voice boomed as he shoved the man off of me. Daryl's hand hit his chest and he stumbled back laughing hysterically.

"We're all the same!" he bellowed.

This man was long gone, I could only imagine how long they had him trapped inside that car if he was the last one left. He was too busy laughing at us to realize the walker coming straight for him. It tackled him to the ground, its teeth immediately latching onto the side of his neck and ripping apart the skin. The man barely even fought back, his mind lost somewhere within that train car. There was a mix of laughing and screaming escaping his lips before Glenn put an end to it, killing both him and the walker.

"Come here," Rick whispered, grabbing Glenn forcefully and slamming his back up against the train car and out of sight. We peered around the edge of it, watching as a new herd of walkers shuffled down the road on the other side.

"We have to double back," Bob insisted, staring at the number of walkers that now infested Terminus.

"We can't. A is that way," I objected. The sooner we got to our people, the sooner we could get the hell out of here.

"We go back, we don't know where we are," Rick agreed.

"We don't really have a choice, do we?" Daryl said before he was cut off by the sound of gunshots nearing us. I could hear the sound of a man's voice shout out an order when the walkers in our line of sight began to drop to the ground.

"Wait here," Rick said before he ran out from behind the train car.

"Rick, Rick!" I called out for him to stop. He refused to listen to me, running up behind a parked police car just up ahead. He crouched on the left side of it, wedged between the door and the warehouse it was stationed beside.

I could hear the people coming, their shouts and gunshots getting louder by the second. Just then I made a snap decision, running up behind Rick to cover him. I could see the people approaching down the road from the corner of my eye. My heart raced and my body dived behind the car and out of sight. Rick turned to look at me, nodding his head.

The people passed by where we hid, their vision focused on shooting down the walkers approaching them. I hovered behind Rick, my machete ready in case we were spotted. Although I knew their bullets would reach us before I would be able to even get the chance to release the knife from my hand. Rick watched them intently. I wasn't quite sure what his plan was yet. He repetitively bobbed his head up and down above the car, taking a quick glance before he hid again. It was like he was waiting for the perfect moment.

Just then Rick was on his feet, out of cover from the car, lunging at a single man at the back of the pack. Rick's forearm swung around the man's neck, snapping it in one swift motion. The man dropped to the ground and Rick had his gun. He aimed the machine gun, killing all the Terminus residents that had already passed by us.

"Let's go," Rick called out.

We followed his lead, a clear path opening up for us back to A as the walkers became busy feasting on the people Rick left littered in the street. It became clear to us now that some sort of explosion did go off. A cloud of smoke hovered high in the sky as small fires burned in every corner or wall we passed by.

"Through there!" Glenn shouted at us. We had the option to go straight down the road, but Glenn pointed towards a door into another warehouse.

"You sure?" Rick questioned.

"Yeah, come on," Glenn insisted as he swung open the door and led us inside. He sprinted across the room to the opposite exit and the familiarity came back to me. The last warehouse we ran to before we were corralled into our train car. A would be on the other side of this door.

Glenn was right, just up ahead sat the A car, but walkers swarmed every inch of the yard.

"Alright, stay close," Rick ordered. We immediately got in formation. Rick took point towards the car, him being the only one of us to have a gun he cleared the pathway for us. The repetitive motion kicked in, stabbing, slashing, slicing. By the time we got to the door of the car my arm aches and my lungs heave for air.

We remained in our circle as Rick took the stairs to open the train door. There was so much smoke hovering around us that I could feel my lungs shrivelling up and my eyes watered as I tried to remain focused on striking any waker that stumbled into my line of sight.

"Rick, let's make this quick," Glenn shouted, his voice urgent and trembling.

I could hear the sliding open of the door before Rick let off a couple more shots to help relieve us from down below.

"Come on, let's go!" Rick ushered our people out of the car and into the plague down on the road.

We were directly in the middle of the herd by now. If it was anyone else I honestly don't think they'd have a chance of getting out of this mess alive. But we weren't just anyone, we were us. Even the newcomers held their own, making it clear to me how they lasted this long.

We didn't venture far from one another, each of us helping out another if we couldn't get an angle on a walker's head. I shover my machete up the base of a rotting walker's jaw, a clean through and through, when I heard Carl yelp out for help. He held onto the collar of a walker, with no weapon accessible. He spun its body around towards me and I immediately jabbed my knife into the side of its skull.

"Here! Up and over!" the fiery-haired sergeant called out. He stood by the fence where a pallet leant up against the chain links. An easy thing to climb up and over.

I ran in that direction, my feet moving as fast as they possibly could. I had a clear path from those who already made it over the fence. My feet were taken from under me though. My chest hitting the pavement and knocking the air from my lungs along with a scream. A walker flattened under some fallen rumble gripped tightly around my ankle, its nails digging into the leather of my boot.

Glenn whipped around upon hearing my scream, him being next over the fence he turned around and retreated from safety. He swung his arm down, his weapon crushing the skull of the walker that pinned my leg to the ground. Its grip loosened and I yanked my ankle free instantly.

"Go, go!" Glenn shouted at me, watching my back as I got to my feet and ran.

I climbed the skid after Michonne, the sergeant grabbing onto my left leg and popping me over the remainder of the fence like I weighed nothing at all. My feet hit the grass and Daryl grabbed onto me, pulling me under his arm. I turned and watched for Glenn to appear next, he was right behind me.

Everyone was out of harm's way except for the read-head, Glenn, and Rick. I waited anxiously for them, Glenn would already be on the other side if it weren't for me. I could still hear Rick shooting down walkers, I knew he'd be the last one over.

"Come on!" the sergeant's deep voice bellowed over the groans of the walkers.

Were the walkers getting too close to them? But then my eyes landed on the problem. Just over the fence line, I could see Gareth and a few of his men up on the roof. Their guns aimed at us below. Glenn's head appeared above the fence, about to make his way over. Gareth's gun went off, a rapid-fire of bullets flying towards them. Glenn's body dropped back out of sight before Gareth dived out of the way from Rick shooting back at them.

My heart stopped, both Maggie and I screaming out for Glenn in unison. I herald myself towards the fence. My fingers linking into the chains as I tried to climb back over. Daryl's arms tightened around my waist, yanking my body off of the fence and into his chest. My fingers sliced against the chain from the grip I had on it when he pulled me away.

"Glenn!"