by the fans for the fans

Part Seven: The Long Lull

Enough time passed in peace after the Jocelyn thing that, when trouble (real trouble) started, I was carrying my first child. Michonne, as head of security appointed by the council, turned Alexandria isolationist. The charter was somewhere gathering dust.
Dad and I were more or less in charge of the livestock in Alexandria, given that we’d owned a ranch Before, but it wasn’t official. Very few vehicles could be converted to ethanol and horses were a lot easier to fuel. Sad to say, horses were also easier to feed to the dead while humans escaped, but it’s true.
There was some grumbling, but the only person who acted on it was Tara. She took off with medicine for Hilltop – more than the council had okayed being sent – and didn’t return. I missed her. I mean, we weren’t best friends or anything, but she never treated me like a kid. Hell, she never treated kids like kids.
One of the Saviors – well, he was what the Saviors referred to as a Worker – brought in a pregnant mare. “You were outside the walls?”
“I was hunting. The more game we eat, the more livestock we don’t have to.” He offered his hand. “You must be Gabby. I’m Lazarus. Please, no coming-back-from-the-dead jokes.”
“At least people have to know their Bible to come up with that. Try being named Walker in this world.” We shook and I turned to examine the mare. Dad was still teaching me, but I knew enough for a once-over. “You’re got excellent timing, bringing her in now. She looks like she’s about ready to pop.”
“She seems healthy.”
“As healthy as can be expected. Where did you find her?”
“A little farm along the river. I was hunting, like I said, and heard the most godawful yowling. Followed the sound and there was a bunch of them eating one of the horses. She was trying to swim across the river to get away.” He patted the mare on the neck. “Wasn’t much left of the farm. Looked like a flash flood took out the house and outbuildings a while back, but her pasture had a nice bend in the river on three sides and a six-foot stone wall on the other.”
“Would you mind staying with her while I go hunt my dad down?”
“Not a problem. Me and Widow are old friends by now.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I call her Widow. She just lost her mate.”
Widow had a colt, one as spry as any I’d ever seen. Not quite a year after Orphan’s birth, Lazarus moved into our house and we were married. Life went on for a few more years.


“That ain’t cool. She has nothing to do with the Hilltop for a million years and now all the sudden she wants to unload these strangers on them?” Hattie looked up from her schoolwork to interrupt my conversation with Dad. “Michonne’s lost her marbles.”
“She’s just trying to protect Alexandria.” Dad wasn’t on the council, but he was friends with a couple of the people who were. “After the thing with Jocelyn…”
“She can’t hold Jocelyn against everyone on the other side of the wall.” Fred had grown to look so much like Pete it hurt my heart. “Where would she be now if Deanna had turned them away? I was just a tot, but I remember Rick acting pretty damn dangerous.”
“Taking them to Hilltop is an improvement, though, on just tossing them back out there.” Lazarus nodded in the general direction of the gate. “I’d like to be fly on the wall when Maggie sees her. Kinda hard sometimes to believe that those two were ever friends.”
Stacie, of course, had to defend Michonne. “It’s for our safety. We can’t let just anybody…”
“She’s scared.” Luke piped up from the family room. “She lost Carl, she lost Rick, she lost God only knows who from Before. Then Jocelyn tried to steal Judith and almost chopped RJ right out of her belly.”
Leia nodded vigorously. “Yep. Being scared will make you irrational.”
Dad surveyed the room. “I suspect they’re right. I know it terrifies me every time one of you leaves my sight. Most of you are teenagers, and well able to survive out there, but…”
“And the mere fact that she didn’t boot them out the second she saw them speaks volumes. She’s coming back around to what Rick and Carl wanted, which was a lot more than just keeping Alexandria safe.” I wasn’t telling them anything new, really. Everyone in Alexandria knew what the Grimes vision had been.



Michonne, Siddiq, and DJ took the new folks to Hilltop and that was when things got interesting. Not so much at home, but at Hilltop. And none of what went down was because of those new folks. It was because of Father Gabriel, Rosita, and Eugene.
I was putting together a crib. Not easy, since I was about seven months along, but I was managing. The younger kids were at school – all of them in the afternoon, the big kids’ class. Stacie came running into my room. “Negan’s escaped.”
“What?! How?!”
“I don’t know. The guy guarding him wandered off while Gabriel was in there and when he came back, both men were gone and the door to the cell was hanging open.”
“Gabriel helped him?!”
“No.” Laz joined us. “He ran his mouth, pissed Gabriel off, and Gabriel left in a huff. Didn’t double check the lock.”
“Just like the front gate the night Reg died.”
“Who?”
“It was before your time. I’ll explain while we search.” My little sister, who by now was taller than me, and my husband left together.
I told my belly Negan was lucky I couldn’t go. Sparing Negan was the only part of the Grimes vision I opposed. The baby kicked. “I’ll take that to mean you agree.”
The kids were home from school and rummaging through the kitchen by the time I went downstairs. When I asked if Negan had been caught, every one of them just shrugged. Hattie raised her shirt to show me her gun.
“The doors are locked and the windows are closed. We’ll hear if he tries to get in.” Leia promised, brandishing the biggest knife we kept in the kitchen. “I don’t think he’s around, though. Negan is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
What we didn’t know then would come to light later, after Negan returned (on his own!) and Michonne got back from Hilltop. Rosita and Eugene had gone out to put up a transmitter for the ham radio Father Gabriel had scrounged up somewhere and a herd surrounded them. The herd was talking to one another, even planning strategies for their pursuit of Eugene and Rosita.
Rosita got separated from Eugene and managed to send up a flare. Jesus and Aaron (who were secretly meeting for reasons of their own) rescued her, took her to Hilltop, and led a Eugene search party. This group waited until they’d found Eugene and cornered the entire party in a graveyard. After Jesus was killed, out people took out a lot of them and Daryl discovered something that was a gross relief – they weren’t evolved walkers like Eugene thought.
They were humans wearing skin masks. On the way back with Eugene, these sickos attacked again. This time our people made short work of them and even captured one. Michonne came home and told only a select few about this, but of course everyone knew by bedtime.



We named our son Paxton. It wasn’t lost on either of us that the name meant “peaceful town”. After everything we’d been through, it would have been perfect even if that hadn’t been my mom’s name. While I took off a few days to recover, the council (in other words, Michonne) decided that any Alexandrian who wanted to could go to the fair being held at The Kingdom.
Daryl showed up at the gates with Prince Henry of The Kingdom – Ezekiel and Carol’s adopted son – and two women. Well, a woman and a teenaged girl. The woman was from the group Michonne had escorted to Hilltop and the girl was the POW Whisperer. I think they stayed overnight, but I had my own houseful of teenagers to worry about.
I wasn’t comfortable about taking a newborn into the crowds and noise of a fair, as badly as I wanted to go, so I stayed home. That decision might have saved my life. The Whisperers (the skin wearing psychos) somehow got in and kidnapped several people. Their heads were found on pikes along what their leader claimed was the border. Anyone crosses that line of pikes; it would be considered an act of war.
One of them was Tara. Goofy Tara, she of the fist bump and silly shades. The others I only knew in passing if at all: A couple of a group called The Highwaymen, a pair of teenagers and a woman from Hilltop, Negan’s former wife Frankie, a former Savior named DJ, Enid, and Henry.
The Charter had been signed at the fair. All the communities got short-wave radios. Daryl took Lydia (the Whisperer girl) out to the border because she and Henry had been sweet on each other. I spoke to her from time to time, even defending her from people who blamed the border deaths on her.
“It is my fault, you know. My mother came and said she’d leave them alone if they just gave me back. They did, but then Henry came after me and Daryl and Connie came after him. He wouldn’t go back without me.”
“Your mother?”
“Alpha. I saw her at the fair and refused to leave with her. Then she did… what she did.”
“Your mom is Alpha?” She just nodded, crying. “Lydia, if you’d gone with her, do you really believe she would have left well enough alone? Because even just from the tiny bit I know, I don’t think she would have.”
“Henry told me that a lot of the people here used to be your enemies.” A glimmer of hope crossed her face. “Is that right? He wasn’t just trying to make me feel better?”
“My husband used to be our enemy.” I pointed out a couple of former Saviors. “Next time I see Alden getting nasty with you, I’ll remind him that he was our enemy.”


The winter was the worst one since the dead started rising – and The Kingdom fell during the worst of it. Not to any human enemies, but to things like pipes bursting and eventually fires. Ezekiel radioed for help from the other communities. Both Hilltop and Alexandria sent people to help them evacuate.
A blizzard blew in. Our power went out. Everyone in Alexandria huddled in the few houses that had working fireplaces. The church fireplace malfunctioned and that group had to fight through the worst of the storm to Aaron, losing Judith along the way when she went after Daryl’s dog. Negan of all people rescued her and got a nasty wound on his leg in the process.
When the storm broke and the exodus from The Kingdom was over, Michonne broke the bad news. They’d crossed Alpha’s border. They hadn’t seen any Whisperers, but they had crossed the border. Now we had to wait for the repercussions.

Part Seven: The Long Lull

Enough time passed in peace after the Jocelyn thing that, when trouble (real trouble) started, I was carrying my first child. Michonne, as head of security appointed by the council, turned Alexandria isolationist. The charter was somewhere gathering dust.
Dad and I were more or less in charge of the livestock in Alexandria, given that we’d owned a ranch Before, but it wasn’t official. Very few vehicles could be converted to ethanol and horses were a lot easier to fuel. Sad to say, horses were also easier to feed to the dead while humans escaped, but it’s true.
There was some grumbling, but the only person who acted on it was Tara. She took off with medicine for Hilltop – more than the council had okayed being sent – and didn’t return. I missed her. I mean, we weren’t best friends or anything, but she never treated me like a kid. Hell, she never treated kids like kids.
One of the Saviors – well, he was what the Saviors referred to as a Worker – brought in a pregnant mare. “You were outside the walls?”
“I was hunting. The more game we eat, the more livestock we don’t have to.” He offered his hand. “You must be Gabby. I’m Lazarus. Please, no coming-back-from-the-dead jokes.”
“At least people have to know their Bible to come up with that. Try being named Walker in this world.” We shook and I turned to examine the mare. Dad was still teaching me, but I knew enough for a once-over. “You’re got excellent timing, bringing her in now. She looks like she’s about ready to pop.”
“She seems healthy.”
“As healthy as can be expected. Where did you find her?”
“A little farm along the river. I was hunting, like I said, and heard the most godawful yowling. Followed the sound and there was a bunch of them eating one of the horses. She was trying to swim across the river to get away.” He patted the mare on the neck. “Wasn’t much left of the farm. Looked like a flash flood took out the house and outbuildings a while back, but her pasture had a nice bend in the river on three sides and a six-foot stone wall on the other.”
“Would you mind staying with her while I go hunt my dad down?”
“Not a problem. Me and Widow are old friends by now.” He looked a little embarrassed. “I call her Widow. She just lost her mate.”
Widow had a colt, one as spry as any I’d ever seen. Not quite a year after Orphan’s birth, Lazarus moved into our house and we were married. Life went on for a few more years.


“That ain’t cool. She has nothing to do with the Hilltop for a million years and now all the sudden she wants to unload these strangers on them?” Hattie looked up from her schoolwork to interrupt my conversation with Dad. “Michonne’s lost her marbles.”
“She’s just trying to protect Alexandria.” Dad wasn’t on the council, but he was friends with a couple of the people who were. “After the thing with Jocelyn…”
“She can’t hold Jocelyn against everyone on the other side of the wall.” Fred had grown to look so much like Pete it hurt my heart. “Where would she be now if Deanna had turned them away? I was just a tot, but I remember Rick acting pretty damn dangerous.”
“Taking them to Hilltop is an improvement, though, on just tossing them back out there.” Lazarus nodded in the general direction of the gate. “I’d like to be fly on the wall when Maggie sees her. Kinda hard sometimes to believe that those two were ever friends.”
Stacie, of course, had to defend Michonne. “It’s for our safety. We can’t let just anybody…”
“She’s scared.” Luke piped up from the family room. “She lost Carl, she lost Rick, she lost God only knows who from Before. Then Jocelyn tried to steal Judith and almost chopped RJ right out of her belly.”
Leia nodded vigorously. “Yep. Being scared will make you irrational.”
Dad surveyed the room. “I suspect they’re right. I know it terrifies me every time one of you leaves my sight. Most of you are teenagers, and well able to survive out there, but…”
“And the mere fact that she didn’t boot them out the second she saw them speaks volumes. She’s coming back around to what Rick and Carl wanted, which was a lot more than just keeping Alexandria safe.” I wasn’t telling them anything new, really. Everyone in Alexandria knew what the Grimes vision had been.



Michonne, Siddiq, and DJ took the new folks to Hilltop and that was when things got interesting. Not so much at home, but at Hilltop. And none of what went down was because of those new folks. It was because of Father Gabriel, Rosita, and Eugene.
I was putting together a crib. Not easy, since I was about seven months along, but I was managing. The younger kids were at school – all of them in the afternoon, the big kids’ class. Stacie came running into my room. “Negan’s escaped.”
“What?! How?!”
“I don’t know. The guy guarding him wandered off while Gabriel was in there and when he came back, both men were gone and the door to the cell was hanging open.”
“Gabriel helped him?!”
“No.” Laz joined us. “He ran his mouth, pissed Gabriel off, and Gabriel left in a huff. Didn’t double check the lock.”
“Just like the front gate the night Reg died.”
“Who?”
“It was before your time. I’ll explain while we search.” My little sister, who by now was taller than me, and my husband left together.
I told my belly Negan was lucky I couldn’t go. Sparing Negan was the only part of the Grimes vision I opposed. The baby kicked. “I’ll take that to mean you agree.”
The kids were home from school and rummaging through the kitchen by the time I went downstairs. When I asked if Negan had been caught, every one of them just shrugged. Hattie raised her shirt to show me her gun.
“The doors are locked and the windows are closed. We’ll hear if he tries to get in.” Leia promised, brandishing the biggest knife we kept in the kitchen. “I don’t think he’s around, though. Negan is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
What we didn’t know then would come to light later, after Negan returned (on his own!) and Michonne got back from Hilltop. Rosita and Eugene had gone out to put up a transmitter for the ham radio Father Gabriel had scrounged up somewhere and a herd surrounded them. The herd was talking to one another, even planning strategies for their pursuit of Eugene and Rosita.
Rosita got separated from Eugene and managed to send up a flare. Jesus and Aaron (who were secretly meeting for reasons of their own) rescued her, took her to Hilltop, and led a Eugene search party. This group waited until they’d found Eugene and cornered the entire party in a graveyard. After Jesus was killed, out people took out a lot of them and Daryl discovered something that was a gross relief – they weren’t evolved walkers like Eugene thought.
They were humans wearing skin masks. On the way back with Eugene, these sickos attacked again. This time our people made short work of them and even captured one. Michonne came home and told only a select few about this, but of course everyone knew by bedtime.



We named our son Paxton. It wasn’t lost on either of us that the name meant “peaceful town”. After everything we’d been through, it would have been perfect even if that hadn’t been my mom’s name. While I took off a few days to recover, the council (in other words, Michonne) decided that any Alexandrian who wanted to could go to the fair being held at The Kingdom.
Daryl showed up at the gates with Prince Henry of The Kingdom – Ezekiel and Carol’s adopted son – and two women. Well, a woman and a teenaged girl. The woman was from the group Michonne had escorted to Hilltop and the girl was the POW Whisperer. I think they stayed overnight, but I had my own houseful of teenagers to worry about.
I wasn’t comfortable about taking a newborn into the crowds and noise of a fair, as badly as I wanted to go, so I stayed home. That decision might have saved my life. The Whisperers (the skin wearing psychos) somehow got in and kidnapped several people. Their heads were found on pikes along what their leader claimed was the border. Anyone crosses that line of pikes; it would be considered an act of war.
One of them was Tara. Goofy Tara, she of the fist bump and silly shades. The others I only knew in passing if at all: A couple of a group called The Highwaymen, a pair of teenagers and a woman from Hilltop, Negan’s former wife Frankie, a former Savior named DJ, Enid, and Henry.
The Charter had been signed at the fair. All the communities got short-wave radios. Daryl took Lydia (the Whisperer girl) out to the border because she and Henry had been sweet on each other. I spoke to her from time to time, even defending her from people who blamed the border deaths on her.
“It is my fault, you know. My mother came and said she’d leave them alone if they just gave me back. They did, but then Henry came after me and Daryl and Connie came after him. He wouldn’t go back without me.”
“Your mother?”
“Alpha. I saw her at the fair and refused to leave with her. Then she did… what she did.”
“Your mom is Alpha?” She just nodded, crying. “Lydia, if you’d gone with her, do you really believe she would have left well enough alone? Because even just from the tiny bit I know, I don’t think she would have.”
“Henry told me that a lot of the people here used to be your enemies.” A glimmer of hope crossed her face. “Is that right? He wasn’t just trying to make me feel better?”
“My husband used to be our enemy.” I pointed out a couple of former Saviors. “Next time I see Alden getting nasty with you, I’ll remind him that he was our enemy.”


The winter was the worst one since the dead started rising – and The Kingdom fell during the worst of it. Not to any human enemies, but to things like pipes bursting and eventually fires. Ezekiel radioed for help from the other communities. Both Hilltop and Alexandria sent people to help them evacuate.
A blizzard blew in. Our power went out. Everyone in Alexandria huddled in the few houses that had working fireplaces. The church fireplace malfunctioned and that group had to fight through the worst of the storm to Aaron, losing Judith along the way when she went after Daryl’s dog. Negan of all people rescued her and got a nasty wound on his leg in the process.
When the storm broke and the exodus from The Kingdom was over, Michonne broke the bad news. They’d crossed Alpha’s border. They hadn’t seen any Whisperers, but they had crossed the border. Now we had to wait for the repercussions.

Not sure why that posted twice. I promise not to be mad if a mod deletes one of them.

What an awesome follow up. Love how much Gabby has grown too, also surprised her husband turned out to be a former savior. It's such a small world in TWD universe. Paxton is an adorable name for a boy I'm happy for Gabby she sounds like she's doing quite well, and was smart enough not to attend the fair.

Now I gotta wait til next season to find out what happens so I can tell y'all!

working on the next bit - not that much has happened that Gabby was privy to!

This is true but at least the second half of the season returns next month so that will give you more to work with. I'm really wondering how they're going to end this season. It's been decent and Alpha has proven to be a real threat.

I just hope they don't drag the Whisperer War over 2 seasons like they did the Negan stuff. (Gotta admit, Negan has been growing on me. And Gabby.)

Ugh I know. The way they handled the war with the saviors was atrocious at best. I do love Negan and how hes trying to redeem himself for all the horrible things hes done. I still wish Rick and Carl were around because it would have been interesting to see their reactions to the new Negan. Carl was definitely more forgiving than his dad.

I don't think I will ever understand Gimple's logic in killing Carl off. Makes no sense on any level. All I can figure is that he'd hoped to be rid of Daddy Riggs once Chandler hit 18 and that didn't happen. Story wise, it makes no sense... if they'd wanted an excuse for Rick to spare Negan (outside of actually listening to his son) they could've had Negan do a Big Damn Hero and save Carl's life.