BLOODLINES [twd]

{12}

Bailey shoved a shirt into her bag.

Lucas drove a shovel into the ground.

Bailey sniffled.

Lucas wiped his sweat.

Bailey didn't worry about folding clothes to fit in her pack.

Lucas mindlessly tossed the dirt aside as he dug a grave.

"You can't make it out there alone," Dwight told Bailey.

"You don't have to go through this alone," Sasha said to Lucas.

"Don't you get it? I don't have anyone else!" Bailey shouted.

"I keep losing everyone," Lucas sighed.

"We're Saviors because we have to protect you," Dwight argued.

"We're family. We love you," Sasha swore.

"Only because my screwed up father forced you to do so."

"Hyung started that.. and now he's gone."

—

"When Maggie wakes up.. you know she'll want to fight," Sasha reminded as she tied two sticks together for Abraham's grave.

Lucas pulled at a loose string on his jeans. "Yeah.."

"And she is gonna be blind with grief. After the prison.. she shoved aside her pain of losing Hershel in favor of finding Glenn. Now.. I don't know what she can hold onto."

"The baby.." Lucas breathed. "She's gotta hold on for the baby."

Sasha nodded in agreement. "I'm worried that she might not want it anymore. Or.. maybe she wants it more than ever."

"After.." Lucas paused and sighed. "Her first words were about the baby. She wanted to come here and make sure the baby was okay. She's gonna hold onto the baby no matter what it takes."

Sasha drove the makeshift cross in the ground and dusted her hands on her jeans. "You know for awhile, all I saw in Abraham's eyes was what I lost in Bob."

Lucas looked up at her, though she was still staring at the cross.

"I couldn't let myself fall for Abraham because all I saw was Bob. He had to break my walls down and make me see him for the first time. Not a ghost.. Not a memory. Him. Abraham."

Lucas started to apologize for what she's lost, but she kept going.

"And I'm afraid that will happen to the baby. Maggie won't see the baby for who they are or will become.. she'll just see Glenn."

"Ghost. Memory," Lucas repeated. Another heavy breath makes his body slump in defeat and he runs his hands over his face.

"Maggie is a hell of a woman. When she tells me that it's time to fight, I'm gonna put it all on the line for her because I trust that woman til my dying breath," Sasha revealed.

Her hand reached out and touched Lucas' knee. Lucas put one of his larger hands over hers.

"And I trust you," she added. "Anything you need.. I'm here. We're in this together."

Lucas blinked the tears out of his eyes and nodded. Seeing the younger man beginning to break, Sasha crawled over and pulled him into a hug at the head of two graves they'd just dug.

—

"It's more than Negan between us," Dwight argued.

Bailey shook her head like she knew what he was about to say.

"When he offered to marry Tina-"

"Don't," Bailey stated.

"You helped the three of us escape," Dwight continued, regardless.

"That's because I couldn't live with myself if I just sat back and let my father marry a girl that is younger than me!" Bailey hissed.

"We never told him that you helped. Sherry and I.. we trust you more than we trust him."

Bailey resumed the act of shoving her clothes in her bag.

Do you remember the first thing I said to you after he ironed my face?" Dwight asked.

Bailey turned her back to him.

"I told you that you're just as much of a prisoner as we are," Dwight recalled. "And it's still true. Do you think he's just going to let you walk out of these gates?"

"He can't stop me if he doesn't know," Bailey argued.

"You know good and well that I have to tell him if you leave."

Bailey scoffed and turned on her heel to face Dwight. She glared at him with hard eyes. "So, I help you escape but you tattle on me like a preschooler?"

"I trust you more than I trust him.. But, I'm more afraid of him than I am of you," Dwight admitted.

There was a tense silence that passed between them. Bailey crossed her arms. Her mind replayed the image of Negan scrubbing blood off the bat as he talked to it.

"What happened out there last night?" she asked.

Dwight resorted to pacing a few slow steps. 

"D," Bailey begged. "What the hell happened out there?"

"The thing that always happens when someone threatens him," Dwight vaguely responded.

Bailey sighed. Dwight huffed his own breath and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a piece of paper and against his common sense, he handed the photo over to Bailey.

Bailey snatched the photo with another glare. But, all the whispers of seeming strong vanished when she really looked at the photo.

It was a body. But.. not much else. The head was completely smashed as blood pooled around a gravel base. 

"That was only one of them.. He killed another, too," Dwight revealed.

"Dead?" Bailey asked.

"Person.. A human person," Dwight answered.

Bailey's knees wobbled and she sat down at the table.

"A few men tried to get them before, but this group killed them. Then, they attacked Rodney's outpost and killed 'em all. Paula, Primo, David, Jesse, Will.. everyone. So, Negan took matters into his own hands and killed two of them. Evened the score, at least a little."

Bailey shook her head. "No.. No, my father is fucked up, but he's not a murderer.. No matter what someone does to him."

"He is. He just doesn't let you see that side of him."

Bailey felt her stomach churn as she stared at the photo. This is what Negan is fully capable of. This is who he really is.

"He took one of them hostage. It's my job to look after him.. break him.." Dwight revealed.

"Here?" Bailey asked, eyes wide as she looked up at Dwight.

"I met him after you helped us get out. He was trying to help us.. save Tina.. But, we didn't trust him and now.." Dwight took a deep breath. "Now he's here."

Bailey stood up and walked toward the door.

"If you leave-"

"Piss off, D. I'm taking a walk," Bailey hissed and slammed the door behind her.