I decide to stay back, I cannot be bothered with dealing with walkers or scavenging, I want to rest for a minute. "You guys guess what I've got?" I gather the kids around and pull the pack of cards out of my bag. "Wanna play?" I ask, "you only know how to play go fish." Carl sighs, "okay? That's the only one you know too."
"We could play cheat?" Hayden suggests, "I don't know how to play that one." Sophia shrugs. "I can teach you guys, it's pretty easy." I've never heard of the game before so we let Hayden walk us through it. "You playing Ty?" I ask the man who was stood nearby, "I think I'll leave the fun to you guys."
It takes us a few trial runs but eventually we pick up the game, "cheat!" I huff as I've just placed my cards down and they're accusing me again. "You guys can't call cheat on me every time." It was mostly Carl but they all giggle. The giggling increases once I turn over my cards to reveal that I had indeed not cheated this round. "Come on guys, you should know that I'm an honourable player by now." Carl curses under his breath as per the rules he now had to take the pile. "You're still a sore loser kid." I tease as he playfully glares at me. "I'll still beat you." He says adamantly making me laugh. "Who here thinks Carl can achieve that?" Sophia starts laughing when his face drops, Hayden looks like he feels bad so he raises his hand and then lowers it when we all shake our head at him. That just makes everyone laugh.
"Alright you guys keep playing, I'll be right back." I say after the round ends and I am crowned the winner. I decide that now is a good time just to make sure everything was alright outside.
I do a quick perimeter check and when I'm satisfied I start making my way back to the church. "Oh my goodness!" I jump when Carl suddenly appears out of nowhere. "Jesus kid what were you doing?" He shrugs, "just making sure you were okay." I smile and throw an arm around his shoulder, "it's my job to worry about you guys, not the other way round."
"I promised I'd always look out for you." I knock his hat affectionately making him smile up at me, "don't tell the others but you'll always be my favourite kid." He laughs, "I'm not a kid anymore." I shake my head and take his hat, placing it on my own head I ruffle his hair. "Yeah you are Carl, my favourite kid, don't forget that."
"You're my favourite old person too." I giggle and push him gently, "I'm not an old person." He takes his hat back and then ruffles my hair, just like I'd done to him. "Yeah you are Selene, my favourite old person, don't forget that." The two of us can't help but burst into laughter at that as we walk back towards the church arm in arm.
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"Cheat!" We were still playing the game a few hours later, it'd been quite the hit. "Oh come on! How'd you guys always know?" Tyreese asks as he shows he did cheat, "you've got a terrible poker face Ty." I shrug as the kids giggle loudly, "what's going on here?" Rick asks with a small smile as he watches us all playing happily. "Hayden taught us a new card game because Selene was boring everyone with go fish." I roll my eyes, there was nothing wrong with go fish.
He tells us about all the food they'd brought back and then when the other get back from scavenging we put together a small feast. Everyone is smiling and talking as they eat. I'm sat next to Daryl, my head is on his shoulder because I've already stopped eating and Rory is sat facing us as she tells us some story. I'm not really listening to her but it's fine because Daryl is, it's so adorable to see him interact with her. He's so kind and patient, even though her stories hardly make sense he listens and provides input like he understands.
I sit quietly for a second and just look around the room, at the people I loved most. Daryl entertaining my baby sister. Rick was sat with his daughter, he's playing with her as Tyreese and Michonne are sat on either side of him. Tara and Maggie are talking, Carols sat chatting to Aelia about something, Glenn is up at the table getting more food as he laughs with Rosita. My smile grows when I see Carl and Sophia, they're sat with Hayden the three of them talking, the look like regular carefree kids and I hope that everyone gets to keep feeling like this for a while longer.
"I'd like to propose a toast." We all stop talking as Abraham raised his glass. "I look around this room... and I see survivors. Each and every one of you has earned that title. To the survivors." We all cheers to that and then he continues.
"Is that all you want to be? Wake up in the morning, fight the undead pricks, forage for food, go to sleep at night with two eyes open, rinse and repeat? 'Cause you can do that. I mean, you got the 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."
I refrain from rolling my eyes, I still believed Eugene was lying. It had to be some form of survival, get people to protect you with this big lie that they desperately want to believe. It was smart and he'd be forced to tell the truth soon anyways. So I figure as long as we're all going together it's fine, everyone's happy, I'm sure we'll find safety somewhere and that we will settle and on the chance I'm wrong, maybe Eugene will fix the world.
"Eugene, what's in DC?"
"Infrastructure constructed to withstand pandemics even of this fubar magnitude. That means food, fuel, refuge. Restart."
"However this plays out, however long it takes for the reset 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. Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there... who don't got nothing left to do except survive." It's a good speech, if I believed in this I could imagine that I'd be lapping it up just like the others. Still, I'm not opposed if everyone decides to go, at least we'd still be together.
Rick chuckles as Judith coos. "What was that?" He asks softly. "I think she knows what I'm about to say.
She's in. If she's in, I'm in. We're in." Everyone starts laughing and clapping. It's nice to see everyone happy, with something to believe in.
"Hey I'm just going to check on Carol." Daryl informs me as we notice she's slipped away, I nod and he presses a kiss to his usual spot above my brow. "See you in a minute." He mumbles but before he can leave I pull him back and give him a kiss. "Hurry back, I miss you already." I say over dramatically making him chuckle. "You're so cheesy." He tells me as he shakes his head, "yeah but you love it."
