CHAPTER SIX

°REVELATION°

"You don't look back, not for anything, because if you love someone, you love them all the same."

THERE'S A DANGEROUS state between what is reality, and what we want to believe. There comes a point where you have to decide what path to take, and the course of action that will follow. This choice often comes after devastating heartbreak, tragedy, traumatic events, and in Reign's case the unveiling of a truth, a long childhood mystery.

Most people react to these situations with tears or anger, but in this case all Reign could conjure up was a hysterical laugh. Maybe it was the lack of substance in her body, or maybe the lack of sleep she'd had but her reaction to meeting her father for the first time was surprising, even for her. Sure she had been searching for her father since the beginning of the outbreak, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she would actually meet him. But here he was, right in front of her and she didn't want to let herself believe it was true in fear of hurting herself more than he had emotionally.

As she continued laughing, so hard that she head tears in her eyes and struggled for breath, people began to grow more fearful of her, and backed away.

"Reign?" Dylan asked from beside her, placing a supportive hand on her arm.

Reign ignored her brother as she bent down laughing, her laughs gone silent as her eyes closed.

"No, you can't tell me that," she laughed, looking at Daryl.

Everyone looked at her in confusion. "You can't just say that," she said, shaking her head.

"Hear me out," Daryl finally said, both startled and perplexed by his daughter's reaction. Nineteen years of watching his daughter grow from the sidelines, only getting to see her through the annual school photos their mother sent him, only now seeing her in real life was quite a big step, and to be honest he wasn't expecting such a response.

"No, you can't just do that," Reign said sternly, finally becoming serious. The laughter had died out, clearing the clouds of doubt and bringing her back to reality. "You can't just show up, expecting me to understand why you weren't there," she said, beginning to raise her voice.

"Reign, listen t-," Daryl started, but Reign harshly cut him off.

"No!" she yelled. "How do I even know you're my father? I don't have any pictures of you at my birthdays, at family Christmases', my graduation, or any for that matter. All I have is one the day I was born, and that's it. So no, don't expect me to just accept you into my life, because to do that you actually have to be there," Reign finished, tears of anger gathering in her eyes.

"Rey, come on. Let's get you out of here." Dylan said, intervening as the tension got worse and a crowd began to gather. Daryl didn't say anything, hurt and pained by his daughter's reaction. He was just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.

Reign glared at her father as Dylan guided her in the opposite direction, entering a separate cell block and into a separate cell. The walls were covered with pictures of Reign, Dylan and their mother, supposedly the only pictures left of their broken family. Reign knew immediately that this was her brothers room.

"Sit," Dylan instructed her, pointing to the chair at the corner of the room beside the bunk bed.

"No I-"

"Sit," Dylan ordered, giving Reign no choice but to give in. She slouched in the chair as he brother took out a first aid kit from his backpack, opening it up and rummaging through it's contents.

He approached her and instructed her to take off her jacket where her shirt was already ripped around the wound from where Hershel tried earlier to stitch it up. Dylan furrowed his brows in concentration as he removed the blood soaked bandage from the wound, gritting his teeth in anger as it dripped of blood.

"Who did this?" he asked.

"Doesn't matter," Reign grumbled.

"Can you just answer the damn question?" he said, annoyed.

Reign sighed. "A group of men, they cornered me in a Wal-mart."

"Is this all they did?" he asked, dabbing the wound with disinfectant.

"I already had a concussion from the Governor dude, and I think they worsened it," she said, pointing to the cut on her forehead.

Dylan only nodded, still concentrating on the wound as he spoke. "They didn't uh, do anything like force themselves on you, did they?" he asked quietly, dreading her response.

"No," she replied succinctly. "They didn't get to that before Gizmo saved me."

This sent a small smile on Dylan's face. "Gizmo huh? The fifteen pound pup?" he smirked.

Reign laughed, peaking around her brother to glance at Gizmo who laid on the bottom bunk, fast asleep on top of the pillow. It was probably the first real sleep he'd had in the past few months, and frankly Reign could use a decent ten hour sleep as well.

"Yeah," she laughed, nudging her brother jokingly. "I found him and saved him. In the end he saved me," she smiled.

It went quiet for a while, the only sound being Reign's groans as her brother cleaned her bullet wound. "Rey," Dylan asked.

"Mmm?" she replied, her eyes closed to keep herself from screaming in pain.

"Where's mom?"

Reign shot her sky blue eyes open, daring to meet her brother's who were already staring directly at her. She could tell by his ghostly expression that he already knew the answer, he just wanted clarification.

"Gone," she whispered.

Dylan nodded, but pressed for more. Even though he was barely there, she was still his mother, and Reign still his sister thus meaning it was only instinct to want to know what happened to family. "How?"

"Men took her a while back when we were travelling to Washington, and when they took her I headed back home," Reign explained. "She offered herself, to protect me," Reign said, tears welling up. "She sacrificed herself to save me."

Dylan dropped the medical tools and sat down on the bed waking up Gizmo. He stared off into the distance letting it all process. While doing so Gizmo trotted his way across the bed over to him, nudging his snout in his hand. Dylan petted Gizmo instinctively, letting the little dog comfort him.

"There wasn't anything you could've done, Rey. Mom wouldn't have let you," Dylan finally said.

Reign nodded, not wanting to think about it any more. "Hey," Dylan began. "I'm sorry for not being there more for the past few years. I was working, but I should've found more time," he apologized suddenly.

Reign cleared her throat. "You were only helping us, and frankly if you hadn't we could've died. All that matters is that you're here now," she assured him, gently placing her left hand on his.

He looked up and smiled, before sighing and getting up. "Look, I was a lieutenant, not a medical officer. I don't know a damn thing I'm doing. For all I know I'm messing it up more. Can you please let Hershel take a look at it?" Dylan begged.

Reign sighed, giving into the fact she was going to have to interact with people to get help. She was going to have to be friendly if she wanted to stay, not that her brother would let her get kicked out. "Fine," she said.

Hershel came back moments later as if he'd been waiting outside for Dylan to cave in. He successfully stitched up the wound and cleaned it up, assuring Reign that in a few weeks it would be good as new.

After changing into her familiar black clothing, cleanly washed by fellow community members, Dylan forced Reign to go outside his cell and meet more people. He had made a convincing argument saying that she either had to make new friends, or sit in the cell and talk to her father. It was an easy choice, seeing as Reign wanted no part in meeting her father at the moment. She knew the time would come though.

As she made her way outside into the courtyard, her eyes landed on one person who she recognized the most, and approached them.

"Hey Bonnie," she smiled in the most polite way.

"Reign!" Bonnie squealed, making Reign wince. Bonnie ignored her response as she wrapped her arms gently around the brunette.

"I'm so glad you found us, this place," Bonnie said, releasing her.

Reign beamed. "Me too."

"Hey, I wanted to apologize for Damon's behaviour that day, and most likely for the days ahead. He can be a total ass, but when it comes to family he's the best person to be around," Bonnie said.

"That'll be the day," Reign joked, her attention turned to a blonde and brunette approaching them.

"Hi! I'm Caroline!" the blond greeted, holding out her hand to shake. Reign glanced at the hand, debating whether or not to shake it when her subconscious instinctively reached out and shook it.

"Nice to meet you again," Reign said.

"Likewise," Caroline smiled kindly.

"I'm Elena," the brunet introduced herself.

Reign nodded and forced a kind smile while standing there awkwardly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Caroline cleared her throat. "I think Carol, the lady over there," Caroline pointed to a short haired lady standing by the bar BQ stand, "Said the water pump needs fixing outside the fence. Wanna help us?" she asked.

"They asked you three to do it? Isn't it kind of dangerous?" Reign asked.

Caroline shrugged. "We girls are just as capable, yeah?" Caroline winked. Her attitude was quite optimistic, and even though Reign wasn't a very optimistic person, she sort of liked it. It was hard to find genuinely happy people nowadays.

The four of them talked as if things were normal, as if they weren't in the middle of an apocalypse. They talked about some of the cute guys in the prison and how much they missed simple things such as showers and their favourite TV shows. Frankly all Reign could do was nod and smile, since she had never really taken interest in guys or girls, or had the luxury of television. Despite feeling left out of the conversation, Reign was just happy the girls were allowing her to hang out with them. Friends were something Reign never had, and now she did she couldn't have been happier.

They reached the outside of the fence and down to the small stream where the water pipes were hooked up. Elena reached down to unplug the tube as the rest of the girls stood guard. Reign gripped her pocket knife tightly in her belt, watching intently at the forest for any movement.

A short while later Elena sighed in content as the pipe was unclogged, water now flowing freely into the pipe for drinking.

"All good?" Bonnie asked.

"Yup," Elena replied, still bent over, plopping the pipe back in the water.

Reign turned back to Elena, finally letting her guard down thinking the danger was gone, but she thought too soon.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Just as Elena went to get up from laying face down on the bridge across the stream, something caught her hand, pulling her down. A walker appeared from the water, coming out of no where. It grasped onto Elena's arm, taking her off guard and pulling her into the stream.

The last thing they heard was a scream as Elena crashed into the water, not visible to the three girls above water who screamed in panic for Elena.

"Oh my god! Is she okay?" Caroline yelled, making her way to the water with Bonnie. Reign was already there, knee deep in the water instinctively trying to save Elena. It may have happened in slow motion, but that gave Reign more time to figure out a plan in which she was now following through.

She felt under the water for Elena, grabbing hold onto her hair only to realize it was the walker's hair. She yanked up the walker, throwing it aside against the bank, drawing her knife and stabbing it into it's brain. The walker sunk back lifelessly into the water, giving Reign a chance to help Elena. With Caroline and Bonnie's help they managed to hull Elena up the bank and onto the grass where she was still trying to calm herself down.

Dripping wet, she took deep breaths trying to shake the fear away, staring at the walker's body that floated down the small stream. Reign checked Elena over, checking for bites. Just when she thought she was all good, her eyes landed on a giant wound on Elena's right forearm, where a giant chunk had been taken out of her skin.

"Oh shit," Reign muttered, moving immediately to look at the bite.

Caroline and Bonnie eyed the wound, but didn't seem too concerned.

"W-what do we do?" Reign asked, panicked.

Caroline and Bonnie exchanged glances. "What?" Reign snapped.

"She'll heal," Caroline said casually.

Reign forced a smile, conjuring up a laugh in all the confusion. "You're joking right? There's no cure. We have to cut off her arm!" she exclaimed.

"Reign, I don't know how to tell you this but, she'll heal, trust us," Bonnie assured her, although Reign still did not understand.

"Guys," Elena began, "It's not healing."

"What do you mean?" Caroline questioned.

"The bite, it's not healing. It's getting worse," Elena gaped.

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[EDITED: 07/09/18]