I still haven't watched the 4th season but I know bits and pieces of what happens. I did, however, watch the Season 5 premiere and I knew they weren't going to be killing off Daryl so I didn't feel much suspense. I watched it with a dull ache in my heart, thinking that it will never be the same without Merle. Gareth is one crazy sonnabitch, though, so I thought I could use that. I've brought back the three dead characters—my new golden trio—but Daryl's here as well.

Takes place as Andrea decides to leave Woodbury and Milton and Merle are still alive. But the group will not be staying at the prison, nor will the Governor be the only villain. Again, I'm probably digging myself a grave here in starting this, but it's sort of become a tradition since "Chupacabra" to start a new story every season. Hope you'll stick with it and drop me any advice, critiques, feedback, or comments of any kind. I read everything twice. Thanks everybody!

ANDREA

Like it or not, I belong here, he had said. What utter bullshit. No one belonged anywhere in this world. It was just a matter of where you chose to lay your head at night and who you wanted beside you while you did it. No place was worth belonging to and it wasn't worth it to throw your lot in with anyone because they would all turn around and stab you in the back some way or another all for personal gain.

Had she not survived Atlanta, the CDC, and the Greene farm with those people, her so-called friends at the prison? Had she not proven herself a citizen of Woodbury in her efforts to protect the people? Had she not come back to Phillip in the hopes of changing him instead of stabbing him in the back by remaining at the prison? Well, that last one didn't count because she was on her way out the door again, except this time for good. She wouldn't be coming back here, not to save these people, not to reason with Phillip, not to plead with Milton. If Amy had lived, if Dale had lived, she would have no qualms about returning to her people and yet she couldn't help but feel that she was bringing harsher hell down on them all by going back to them. Her friends were outnumbered against Phillip who not only had more men, but more weapons. The only thing going for those people at the prison was the fact that they cared for one another. Big whoop.

And yet she was still going back to them. They never used her or lied with a straight face. They still cared, even if they couldn't trust her like how they once did.

Sneaking out through one of the fences was easy enough since Phillip and his men were out doing God-knows-what, leaving the less experienced behind to guard the town. She merely located a loose board on one of the concealed fence posts on the east side and after several minutes of sweaty prying, managed to yank it out of its frame. She replaced the section she had torn away so that no walkers would be attracted to it, but wasted no more time in dilly dallying. There was no telling when Phillip would be back and once he discovered that she had done a bunk on him, he would be after her in a heartbeat, so she needed to put as much distance between herself and the town as possible.

She had the clickable knife Rick had given her, but Martinez collected her gun, so she only had the one weapon to use against walkers—and humans. Her bag with the rest of her clothes had been left behind, but this was much easier to do this time than it had been fleeing the Greene farm with walkers on her tail for miles. She had left everything in the house; her memoirs of Amy and her dad, Dale's hat, and other keepsakes that she had deemed important enough to grab when the world went to hell. Now, however, her personal belongings consisted of replaceable clothing items so she wasted no time in gathering them when she knew every second was crucial.

She sprinted for the cover of trees when the wall guard looked the other way and then doubled back north by taking the long way through the woods. Once Woodbury was out of sight and sound she slowed down to a jog as a temporary respite, knowing that she would have to pace herself accordingly and not burn out all of her energy in the first few miles. As she calculated how many times she could break into a run without killing herself, she heard a lone voice call her name—the very last voice she expected to hear in walker-invested territory with the sun setting quickly over the treetops.

"Andrea! Andrea—damn it…"

Deciding she had best find him first rather than let him add more noise to the racket he was already making in pursuit of her, she turned back around and wended her way through the underbrush as she listened to his fumbling footfalls and his increasingly panicked voice. Not long after, she spotted him stumbling around aimlessly as he consulted a compass and scratched at his head, looking thoroughly crestfallen and frustrated. He had his winter coat on in place of his duct tape suit and a small bag of what-nots slung over his shoulder as well as a scalpel that looked as if it had been stolen from Phillip's workbench in the back of the lab. Breathing heavily, he came to a halt and ran his forearm under his red nose to wipe away the runny phlegm that had accumulated from the cold.

"Milton, I don't think there was anyone within ten miles who didn't hear you," she called as she approached him.

Spinning around in relief, Milton had the shadow of a smile on his boyish face which was coated in a sheen of sweat.

"I thought I'd waited too long to catch up to you—"

"If you're coming with me, we need to get moving now," Andrea interrupted. "You alerted every walker in the area to our location and the wall guard might have heard you as well so we're going to have to move quickly and quietly which means dodging around walkers if we come across them rather than engage. We'll be running—you can run, can't you?"

"I can," said Milton a bit defensively but then added in apologetic tones, "but not very far and not for long. I have asthma—it's not as bad as when I was a kid, but my inhaler ran out so I've been trying to be careful and—"

"Milton—"

"I'll do my best."

/

As it so happened, Milton's best was ranked somewhere between an elementary school child on the last lap of a ten mile sprint and someone with a broken ankle. They would jog for fifteen yards or so and then have to come to a halt so that he could catch his breath, clutching at a tree for support as he bent double wheezing. Andrea wanted to shout at him, wanted to be thoroughly upset with his lack of physical fitness, but the idea died in her mind when she saw him sucking in breath through his nose and carefully letting it out his mouth with his eyes clasped shut. She had seen this before in children at the nursery school she volunteered at between college classes and so she suddenly had an image of Milton as an overgrown preschool kid learning how to steady his breath for the first time. It wasn't his fault that he had asthma or that he succumbed quickly to fatigue.

Unsure of how to help, she cautiously rested her hand on his back in an attempt to rub it soothingly but his own hand snapped out at her and brushed it away.

"I'm…fine…just…give…me…a…second…"

She forgot that Milton didn't like to be touched. All she could do now was wait for him to gain control of his—

Milton pointed frantically at something behind Andrea and she saw a walker lumbering towards them. She didn't want to leave Milton unguarded in case more appeared out of the blue, but she didn't want it to get in any closer and so she grabbed the sleeve of Milton's coat and dragged him along, away from the walker which continued to stalk them until they scaled a steep hill and left it behind. By now the sun had set and the temperature was dropping drastically which was extremely dangerous when coupled with their sweat. If either of them caught hypothermia…

She hated herself for doing it, but she pushed Milton to his extreme physical limits because for all the time they lost in letting him steady his breathing, Phillip was gaining ground in coming after them and if it came down to a confrontation, she would have to defend Milton as well as herself.

Several times she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps Milton had been safer staying in Woodbury, if she wasn't, in fact, leading him to a premature death on this road. If he didn't die on the way to the prison, he could very well get himself killed once at the place because of his inexperience and his timid nature. Twice she had had to rescue him from situations where his blindness and unwillingness to act would have been the death of him had she not been there, but she couldn't keep this up while at the prison. Her friends all knew how to defend themselves and would not waste time on someone like Milton which meant that the job would be hers alone, but it was a job she couldn't afford to have at this time.

Guided by moonlight, they came to a vast stretch of open field on level ground, which Andrea thought might provide some respite from the ever-sloping and uneven ground, but even as she thought so, she saw walkers milling around so that there was no clear cut path through them. Going around would take too long, but going through would mean trusting Milton to have her back. Her choices were limited.

"Milton, you're going to have to cover me," she said, preparing her knife for battle. "Just guard me and I'll get us through but keep one hand on my back at all times; I don't want to lose you in the dark."

"Okay," said Milton simply as if she had asked him to help her wipe down tables after a picnic gathering.

"Hey, look at me."

She couldn't tell exactly if he had his eyes on her in the darkness, but his head was twisted in her direction so she continued in a no-bullshit tone. "I mean it, Milton. You have to stay with me. Don't let go of me, even for a second or you'll fall behind and I won't know until I'm on the other side of the field. I know how you are with—with physical contact, but please, do this for me."

"Okay," he said again and took hold of the back of her jacket vest in a vise-like grip that a toddler would have with a mother's fingers when crossing the street.

Andrea moved fast, going briskly from walker to walker and dispatching them with clean cuts to the eye. She didn't waste time double-tapping because they were hurrying along at such a pace that by the time the walkers stood back up if she hadn't completely managed to kill them, she and Milton would be well out of reach. A few times she leaned forward slightly to feel that there was a tug of resistance from behind, assuring her that Milton was still in tow. Then, when they had nearly reached the other side of the field, she heard it.

Something on four wheels was coming fast in their direction and she spun around to see headlights piercing the night. Without thinking, without waiting for consent, she yanked hard on Milton's arm and pulled him down beside her. Through the long grass, they could see the lights moving closer and Andrea pressed herself as flat against the ground as possible. Milton's hand shook with a hold on the scalpel but whether it was from fear or cold, she couldn't tell.

When the vehicle was close enough that Andrea could feel the freezing, compacted dirt beneath her trembling, the engine switched off. Panting with the exertion of the flight through the field, Andrea copied Milton and put the breathing technique to use. She heard the truck door open and the sound of a walker growling as it neared its potential prey but after a moment, there came a dull thunk followed by the rev of the engine again. It was going, going, gone, and she finally deemed it safe enough to look up.

A walker bore down on her, clammy blood-stained hands black with loss of color in the moonlight. Milton tackled it around the knees and then stabbed its forehead with the scalpel. Almost immediately he threw himself backwards, frantically attempting to rub the blood that had squirted out of the walker's head off of his hand in the dirt. His quick, rather noisy movements were sure to attract more walkers and Andrea, though grateful for his timing, had to subdue him. She took his hand in hers, and made a shushing sound that seemed to work like some kind of an off switch on Milton.

"You're okay," she whispered.

"The blood—" he said meekly.

"Blood comes off. We'll find a stream and wash it away."

"Blood," he murmured again, sounding and looking utterly helpless.

"Milton, don't fall to pieces on me. We have to keep moving, understand?"

"Phillip's on the move."

"Yes, that was Phillip and I don't think you want him to find you sitting here in the dirt obsessing over some blood on your hand, do you? Come on, stand up."

She hauled him to his feet, retrieved the scalpel from the walker's head, and after wiping it off on the ground, handed it back to him. "Your weapon, Mr. Mamet," she said, and then led him on into the night.