[ i. the end ]

october 23rd, 2010

➸➸➸

SUPPOSEDLY, WHEN THE WORLD ended, there was no possible way that one was ever supposed to be really prepared for it.  At least that was what they all said.

"Sage."

Whoever 'they' were . . . Hell, Sage Dixon thought that they could not have been any more right.

"Sage, come on, wake up."

The young girl in question groaned against the insistent voice above her head.  Slowly, her icy blue eyes opened, glowering already, as she took in the small space that had become her temporary—or maybe it was permanent, she was not sure, really—home.  It was a tiny, pitiful tent.  But at least it was hers, and hers alone.  For the time being, that was.  Until her father got back from whatever hunting trip he had taken off on last.

She hated Daryl more and more every time he left the camp, but what was she to do?  She could not follow him.  She was barely trusted out of eyesight by the other adults left to look after her in his absence.  That meant she was stuck, and in that makeshift prison, she had found unnecessary solace with a family she was still warming up to.  The Grimes family: a mother and a young son—and a family friend, though she rarely talked to him.

Sage barely talked to anyone.  She felt no reason to.  People were just going to keep dying.  Death was a familiar concept to her now, though she was only thirteen.  And the outbreak had not even been her first taste of it. 

The outbreak. The end of the world. The line blurred. Basically, all that was really certain was that a lot of people had died, and most of those who had were now somehow up and walking again.  And not in an "oh, back from the dead and alive, it's a miracle" way.  No, it was in an "oh, they're dead in the head, but their bodies are getting back up and still trying to kill you" way. 

In the past month, Sage had only seen a few of the dead (yet somehow still living) ones in person.  Walkers as most around the camp had gotten around to calling them—but she had yet to really acknowledge that term.  The less she thought about them, the less they worried her.  The less it made her feel that she needed to be afraid every waking moment.

Because she was tired of being afraid. She hated feeling afraid.

After all, who got to decide that one day the world decided to end? Who got to decide that a certain illness decided to spread?  Who got to decide who lived and who died?  There were so many unanswered questions that it made Sage's head spin.  She hated that feeling, too.

Suddenly, the girl's name was called again, and a pair of fingers snapped in her face.  Sage blinked against the daze within her head and looked upward from her place still curled on her mattress.  "Morning, Lori," She greeted.

A brunette, 30-something-year-old woman met her tired, inquiring stare.  She was smiling gently, a kindness that Sage barely registered.  "Your dad should be coming back today or tomorrow," She informed hopefully.

Sage only nodded and waited until Lori took her cue to leave so that she could dress for the day.  She was silent as she pulled her shirt over her head and buttoned up her jeans.  Even if her father did come back to camp in the next twenty-four hours, it would change nothing.  Her father would still ignore her in preference of her uncle Merle who had also managed to join their group.  Every time Sage said this to Lori, though, the woman would chastise her and remind her how much Daryl cared for her.  Sage just ignored that comment, too.  She had long since grown used to her father's behavior.  She had grown up coming in second place to her uncle.

What she would never tell Lori, however, was that she never felt anxious at her father and uncle's absences.  It was at their returns.  She liked being alone at the camp more than she would ever care to admit, lest it sent the other adults into worry.

"I'm going to run down to the quarry," Sage announced, knowing Lori was still right outside her tent as she exited it.  "We need more water."

Lori was unphased.  It was a usual chore to keep the girl busy throughout the long afternoons when she refused to keep up with her schoolwork.  "All right, but take Carl with you," She instructed.  "He hasn't been out of the camp in a few days.  I think he needs it."

Sage wrinkled her nose but did not protest at the additional company.  "Sure," She said, and then left without bidding her goodbye.

She could feel Lori's eyes on her as she left the trees that shaded the tent sites and made her way toward the center of camp.  She never looked back as she found the woman's son sitting beneath the shade of the awning from a large RV parked near the camp's edge.  He was already watching her, his youthful blue eyes alight as he took in the two buckets under her skinny arms.  "Are you going mushroom picking?" He asked.

"No," Sage answered.  She offered him a bucket.  "Your mom wants you to come down to the quarry with me."

"What for?" Carl asked.

"We need more water.  Your mom wants you to protect me on the walk there."

"Really?"

"No," Sage answered again, this time much more bluntly.

Somehow, Carl's face both brightened and darkened with her response as if he could not decide whether to laugh or cry at her comment.  Sage felt that he often looked at her like that, and she almost laughed every time she saw the familiar expression.  She would have hoped he might have gotten used to her attitude by now.  Still, he never seemed to learn.

Finally, he clambered to his feet and accepted the bucket that Sage still held out to him. "Let's go, then," He said.  He started walking down the dirt path away from Sage and a beat passed of silence between them.  Then, he looked back over his shoulder to her and called, "Don't worry.  I'll protect you even if you think you don't need it."

Sage smirked.  Maybe he was growing used to her.

She fell into step beside Carl, and they were quiet for a long time as they walked.  She appreciated the silence, though.  It kept her guard alert.  Yet regardless of the distance down to the water, she was not afraid of walking down to the quarry.  More often than not, there was at least always one other person walking this path to and from the water.  It was the only escape from the camp, and tensions could only build so long before someone finally exploded.

Sage was thankful she had not lost her own head yet.  She thanked the frequent absence of her guardians for it. "So," She said, readjusting her bucket so it rested against her chest, her arms crossed over it. "How have you been?"

Carl almost snorted.  It was a stupid question, she knew.  But he was too kind to tell her that.  "Same as I was yesterday," He huffed. "Same as I was the day before that."

Sage made a soft noise of agreement in the back of her throat.  "Me, too," She admitted.

"It can't stay like this forever, can it?"

Like what?  She almost dared to ask.  A world full of misery?  She could feel Carl looking at her as she contemplated how honestly she wanted to answer his question, but she did not meet his serious expression.  "It can't," She finally reassured him with a gentle breath. "These are bad times, but they can't stay bad forever."

For a moment, Carl only continued to look at her.  She kept her gaze straight ahead, hoping her own expression was convincing enough.  Usually, it was. 

"You're right," He eventually said.

"I know."

Sage smirked again at her own comment, and the two young teenagers continued walking onward down the gravel hill in silence again.  Though she kept her lips tilted up, she was grateful for the blaring Georgian sun overhead so that Carl could not see how the smile no longer reached her eyes.

➸➸➸

THE ADVENTURE DOWN TO the quarry was short-lived and ended with both Sage and Carl returning to camp with soaking, sopping clothes.  They tried to argue it was a case of unsteady rocks and even more unsteady footing, but while such an excuse might have worked in Carl's favor, the daughter of an adept tracker could not bide away so easily.  What had really happened was a race down to the water that turned sour when Sage pushed a victorious Carl into the shallow waves, and he pulled her in after him.

Lori merely frowned at the both of them and bid them off to change.

An hour had passed since then, and Sage was well on her way to transferring the boiled water to places in the camp that needed it.  As she was balancing a large canteen on her knee, she heard a loud groan from behind her, but the sound did not startle her.  She had heard Carl approaching from halfway across the camp.

He dropped down to his knees beside her in the dirt.  "I need help with math," He gasped in desperation.

Sage glanced over her shoulder and back down to the endless scribbles in his workbook.  "It's times like these when I'm thankful that my dad doesn't care about my education."

Carl frowned.  "That's not funny."

"I wasn't trying to be."

"Just help me?" He pleaded.

Sage rolled her eyes but lowered the canteen and took the math book into her hands with a dramatic huff.  She flipped through the pages with ease.  She understood the equations, but she hated them all the same.  "What's the problem?" She asked.

"Well, I don't—" Carl pointed over to an equation, but before she could begin reading the problem, her attention was torn by the sudden yet distant sound of a car alarm ringing.  She lifted her head as she lowered the book to the ground and looked around the camp at the lingering cars.  None of them were going off.  No, the sound was coming from a vehicle outside of the camp entirely—but based on the growing shrillness, the vehicle was coming right to them, and would be there in a matter of minutes.

Carl left Sage's side as his mother called him into her arms.  With her son tucked securely against her, Lori looked toward the RV where another fellow survivor of the camp, Dale Horvath, was standing on the roof, acting as a lookout of sorts.  "Dale, what is it?" The woman questioned.  "Is it the military?"

The old man, likely in his sixties, looked through his binoculars and then back to the small group of gathering survivors.  Sage was unsure she had seen so many gathered in the hub of the camp since the very beginning of its forming.  "No," Dale informed. "My guess is that it's a stolen sportscar."

Another woman named Amy Harrison, only eight years older than Sage, piped in, "Do you think it's them?" She asked.  Sage knew that she was referring to the group that her uncle Merle had left with.  Earlier this week he and five others—one of them being Amy's older sister—had gone into the city of Atlanta on a supply run and had not returned.

No sooner than when Dale voiced his suspicions, did the inevitable vehicle make its appearance on the outskirt of the camp.  Stirring up dust and dirt in its wake, a red and beautifully gleaming sportscar screeched to a halt.  Yet the alarm within continued to blare loudly, echoing off the trees around them. 

The Grimes' family friend—whom Sage decided she should actually acknowledge by name—Shane Walsh, was quick to pounce on the hood of the car and nearly ripped the battery in two.  A moment after he began screaming at the driver for his recklessness and stupidity, his behavior showing immediately to the others that watched the familiarity of the occupant still inside.

The front door to the now-silent car opened and Sage's eyes brightened at the sight of who climbed out; it was one of the few survivors—a young Korean man—that did not look at her and only see another mouth to feed within the camp.  As his eyes seemed to scan over her and at their gazes locked, Sage abruptly sprung forward to greet him.  "Glenn!" She cried. 

She stopped before she could be pulled into a hug, which had happened more than enough times for her to learn to stay back a few extra feet.  "Hey, kiddo," Glenn Rhee said, smiling down at her.

Curiosity got the better of her.  "What happened out there?" She asked.  "Are you all right?  Did everyone make it back?"

"Yeah, we're all fine.  Well . . ."  Glenn hesitated then, and in that silence, Sage braced for the worst.  "Everyone except for Merle."

Glenn no longer met her stare, but Sage found herself looking away from him, too.  Her brows furrowed deeply as she processed the news.  Then her face twisted even further with confusion over the lack of feeling she felt.  She looked back up to Glenn again, still frowning.  "Is he dead?"  She wondered.

Several times Glenn opened his mouth to answer, but the right words could not seem to come out.  Finally, he sighed in defeat.  "I don't know," He admitted.  "Only the new guy knows, really."

"New guy?"

Before he could respond, a large white moving truck came pulling up the dirt path to park behind the abandoned, deadened sportscar.  Someone she did not recognize was in the driver's seat, but her attention on the stranger was short-lived by a sudden and loud exclamation of relief from Amy.  The younger Harrison sister sprinted toward the back of the moving truck as the shutters slid open, revealing none other than a sweaty and tired Andrea.  Close behind her, crouching in the back of the truck, were Morales, Jacqui, and T-Dog.  But no Merle.

Morales was the last to exit the back of the truck and was immediately engulfed in the embraces of his wife and two young children.  After pressing a kiss to all their heads, he looked back toward the driver's seat.  "Hey, Helicopter Boy!" He beckoned.  "Come say hello."

Sage watched with a baited and cautious breath as the stranger, a man, climbed from the truck and shut the door quietly behind himself.  He was keeping his head down, and Sage did not blame him.  They were quite a group to take in.  Then again, so was he, apparently.  Clad in a cleanly pressed sheriff's uniform, the stranger looked like he belonged in another world entirely.

Suddenly, from somewhere to Sage's right, she heard another startled gasp of breath escape, and she turned to see Carl leaving the arms of his mother and charging head-on toward the sheriff.  "Dad!" The boy exclaimed loudly, brightly.  "Dad!"

Sage's jaw dropped.  From what she had been told by Carl, his father, Rick Grimes, had been killed before the start of the outbreak.  Shot in the line of duty on Carl's second day of school.  His father had survived the surgery only to be lost to a coma.  A coma that was supposed to have killed him.  But did not.

Carl screamed for his father once more, and Rick sobbed as his son leaped joyfully into his arms.  The man nearly fell to the ground by the strength of the embrace, but he quickly scooped Carl back up and clung him tighter to his chest.  Only seconds later, Lori was sprinting forward, too, and throwing her arms around his shoulders.

Sage was silent as she watched the family reunion.  Never once had her own father ever held her like that, ever cried over her like that.  She doubted her mother had, either.  She did not know for sure, though.  Her mother had never once been in the picture.  As if that somehow made things better.  No matter, Sage was not feeling sorry for herself.  She was only being honest, only reminding herself of what her reality was.  Of what her own family was.

Sometimes reality and family sucked.

➸➸➸

AND YET SOMETIMES, REALITY and family were all that a person had.

Still, Sage waited a decent amount of time for all the reunions and catchups to cease before she dared to start asking questions that she was unsure she even wanted to be answered.

She looked at Rick first and found that she was not afraid of his presence.  He reminded her greatly of Carl already.  "Do you know what happened to Merle?" She asked.  "He's my uncle."

Rick hesitated and looked to Lori who he still had tucked under an arm.  The woman only nodded her head in encouragement, as if somehow reassuring her husband that Sage could handle any news thrown at her.  As if the woman somehow knew her in the few weeks they had been forced to live together.

But Lori did not know her.  No one did.

Rick pulled away from Lori and crouched down to reach Sage's much shorter height.  She hated when adults did that. "He was left behind," He explained to her.

That same emptiness filled the pit of her stomach, and there was no emotion in her tone when she prodded, "What happened?"

"He was a danger to the group."

Sage did not doubt that.  Merle was a danger to everyone that he met.  He was a danger to himself.

"He put our lives at risk, so I handcuffed him to a roof," Rick continued. "It's my fault—"

Before he could finish, T-Dog was interjecting brashly.  "It wasn't your fault," He insisted.  "You gave me the key.  I dropped it."

Sage almost scoffed.  "And you didn't pick it up?"

"I dropped it down a drain," T-Dog clarified.  "I couldn't pick it up."

Sage looked carefully between the two men who had survived the depths of the overrun city of Atlanta.  Both of them were unharmed.  Could the same still be said for her uncle?  Her gaze settled on Rick.  "You said you left him on the roof." He nodded in confirmation, and her eyes shifted back to T-Dog.  "Is there a chance he's still alive?"

"There's more than a chance.  I know he's alive," T-Dog assured.  "I locked the door up tight so that no walkers could get through."

Relief should have filled her at T-Dog's response, but it was only dread that coursed through her heart now.  She swallowed thickly and shook her head.  "My dad won't be happy to hear about this," She commented aloud, speaking partially to herself and partially to the others.

That seemed to pique Rick's interest and he tilted his head in a curious manner.  "Where is your father?"

"For your sake," Sage warned, "you should hope he's still far away from here."

Rick was silent.  Contemplating.  Taking her information in.  His mouth opened but he almost immediately shut it again.  Then he tried again.  "What's your name?" He asked her.

"Sage Dixon."

A brightness, near-playfulness, seemed to fill his gaze, and she knew that he was assessing her confidence, assessing who she was.  It was in his nature as a sheriff to do so.  But it was also in her nature to avoid the presence of the law with every living part of her. 

As a result, Sage did not bother to wait for his polite, introductory reply before she swiftly turned on her heel and walked off in the other direction.  Bidding the conversation over before it could truly begin, she did not feel bad at all about leaving Rick Grimes to stand abandoned, facing the rest of the camp alone.

~~~~~~~~~~