#thewalkingdeadsiddiq

[mydarllinglover]

Alone || Fearless

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Carols whisperer wouldn't crack, they were nowhere near finding out where Alpha's horde was, and Carol knew that if anyone could get someone to croak, it was Natalia.

But she had only agreed to talk to him, if Carol were to babysit the kids, as well as making a special remedy for Bambi and Archie, the woman could work miracles with a pan and a few ingredients.

Daryl insisted that he had to go with Natalia, he didn't want her alone with the freak, he didn't like it.

Lydia had been removed from the holding cell, Daryl had personally kicked her out, Natalia hadn't known this, and she didn't know where the girl had disappeared to, either, or where her eldest daughter had gone, for a matter of fact, but apparently seducing a mind-fucked freak-show was more important than tracking down two teenage girls, according to Carol.

"This is a bad idea." Father Gabriel gave his opinion."

"Shut up, Gabe." Daryl answered, fluffing out Natalia's hair, he liked her curly hair, it made her seem happier, more free-spirited, easier to open up to.

"I'm just being honest, here, this is no offence to you, Natalia, but you are a hothead, where is the logic in sending her in there, she'll just kill him in a matter of seconds." The priest carried on. "What's the point of having a dead, captured whisperer, with no results.”

"I'm not gonna kill him." Natalia rolled her eyes.

"Natalia-"

"Gabriel! I'm not!, Daryl, you tryna pimp me out or let me interrogate a man?" Natalia removed her husbands hands from tugging down her top, exposing more of her cleavage.

"We need results." He explained himself.

"We'll get results, and no one's dying today." She turned to the priest. "Anything that's gonna take Carol off her warpath, so you can stop chasing after her like a lost puppy." She turned back to Daryl. "Are we ready, or not?"

"Yeah, uhm, yes, yeah, I think so." Gabriel turned to the other man.

"Yup." He nodded.

"Perfect."

Her so-called hostage looked to be an middle-aged man, with greying and receding hair, matching his thick moustache and short trimmed beard, he was also quite thin in statue.

His face seemed to be caked in dirt, but it also looked slightly red, maybe sun burnt? But how would he manage that when he apparently was always sporting one of the hideously gruesome masks. He had an bandage taped to his left side, interesting.

He let out an unimpressed scoff when he layed eyes on her.

"My names Nat." She layed on the southern charm, thickly. "A lil birdy told me you got some pretty clever intel that I wanna know, we can either do this the easy way, or the hard way." She scanned him with fake interest, "Somin tells me you like things hard, though, ain't that right?" She smirked.

"Must be a busy day, up there, if they got a lil thing like you down here." He laughed to himself. "We don't see much of your kind, anymore."

"My kind?" She raised a brow.

"Hunting season came and went a long time ago, all the prizes went the quickest, now, its just what's left, the last thing you can get your hands on, that ain't just about animals, lady."

"I don't know what you’re talking about, we only have the best around here." She shared. "No fighting for scraps. But you know I'm not down here to promote this place. Where is the horde?"

Suddenly the cat got his tongue.

"Hard way it is." She sighed, standing up and leaning towards him, she watched with an impressed grin as his eyes shamelessly looked down her top, she let him, only for a second, before she jammed her thumb into his injury, letting it bleed through the bandage, she pushed deeper as he cried out, attempting to nudge her away. "I'll stop, all you have to do is give me a place, then it'll stop."

"Lady, you ain't the prized prey, you the hunter." He told her.

Natalia looked over he shoulder, an amused glint in her eyes as she met blue iris's, that didn't share her sense of humour.

"But, if we were out there, I would take you like a bitch in heat." The man finished.

Gabriel was quick to move himself in front of Daryl, seemingly "accidently" purposely block his movement, as Natalia sat back, lifting up her left hand, taking in the rings on her finger, before taking them off. "You like?" She asked her victim, switching hands. "They're from my husband, just too bad I'm right handed." She then threw all her force into throwing a punch that would break his nose, and the satisfying crack that followed, confirmed that.

"Ugnh!" The sound that came as he smacked the concrete floor, then, as he gathered the strength to try and sit back up, she threw another, into his cheek, and then another.

"I have daughters, four, that live around here, so you understand why I can't tolerate that sorta language, have some respect." She told him, gently. "Babe, hand me that knife." She layed her hand out, her fingers than wrapped around the weight.

"I would never betray Alpha." The man started speaking. "She rescued me. She protects me. She loves me. She loves us all."

"But she's not gonna come looking for you, is she?" Natalia asked. "That's part of the rules, you separate from the pack, the pack move on, and you'll just be forgotten. I mean, that is what she did for her own daughter, right? Until she waged a war to come back and get her, seems like someone has a hierarchy."

"She sacrificed her own daughter for us." He shook his head.

"She killed Lydia?" Natalia whipped round at the voice of Carol, behind them, not at her house, with her kids.

"Uh huh." He nodded.

"Oh."

"She did." He "Confirmed.” "And I am willing to give my life for her."

Natalia watched the lightbulb go off in the woman's mind, before she darted off.

She rushed forward, handing the knife back to Daryl, before going after the woman, herself.

"Carol." She hissed, as they reached the stairs of their home. "Stop it."

"This ends now." Carol replied.

"You are not involving Lydia! You may have my husband at your beck and call, but you are gonna leave that girl the hell alone."

"He swallowed every ounce of Alpha's bullshit." Carol aggressively pointed at the jailcell door. "Every ounce."

"And I couldn't care less." Natalia shrugged.

"If he sees that Lydia's alive and well, and gets it that his great leader lied to him, then maybe that changes something." Her voice turned desperate.

"Please, Carol. Don't, just leave Lydia out of this, she is in my care, and just like my children, I'm going to do everything in my power to protect her and let her live a childhood, or what little she has left of it."

"Let her make up her own mind." Carol decided. "She's not your kid. This is the only way, and you know it." She sprinted up.

"Hey, you can't go in my house! That's breaking and entering, Carol!" She yelled, as she ran. How did Carol even know she was home?

Natalia had lost, Lydia decided to talk to the whisperer, show her face, for Henry, she had said, before sending Evie, who had also appeared, an apologetic look.

Except, when they had got back to the cell, Daryl was trying to usher them back out, they were only able to catch a glimpse of the two doctors sat behind the unmoving body of the whisperer, he was dead.

"I didn't do it." She called, as she was pushed out. "I gotta go check on my kids." She grumbled, stomping towards her house.

"Should clean up your hand, too." Carol called after her.

"Two birds, one stone, Carol." She replied, entering her house.

The kids were sat at the table, Evie was with them.

"Hey, Mom. Kid's fevers came down, so thought Bambi would enjoy sitting at a real table to eat dinner." Evie smiled at her, but then her eyes bulged at the bloody mess that was her mothers knuckles.

"Mommy! You're hurt!" Daisy gasped.

"What happened?" Bambi asked.

"Oh, just work." She shrugged. "Are my babies feeling better?"

"Yeah, Aunt Carol made us drink a red tea, it wasn't very nice, but she said we would die if we didn't drink it."

"She said that to you?" Natalia asked, anger flooding into her tone, as she walked towards the sink, to wash off the blood from her hand. "Where's Archie?"

"Carol dropped him off with Rosita, she's feeling better too, so thought she might want the company, and so he wasn't stuck with us."

"Carol has some serious nerve." Natalia muttered under her breathe. “Eve's you busy." She gestured to her hand, but the teenager was already up searching for the supplies to properly treat it.

"Mom, come sit down, the girls can learn a thing or two." She ushed her mother to sit at the table, as the six year olds watched eagerly. "Y'know, the first medical treatment I gave, was to Dad." She smirked, looking at her younger sisters.

"Our Dad?" Daisy asked, her eyes swam with wonder, the same as her twins.

"Yeah, gave him stitches, and I was around your age, too."

"Cooool." The kids oohed.

“Eves, what happened to your own hand?” Natalia asked, looking at the girls knuckles, which looked a bit sore, themselves.

“Oh! Nothing, don’t worry about it.” Evie brushed off, pulling the sleeve of her sweatshirt down, covering her hand.

In the night, Siddiq was unfortunately the one to discover the mole inside the walls of Alexandria, it had been Dante, and upon this discovery, the man had killed him, to keep the secret, though Rosita hadn't known this, not until she walked in on the scene with a one year old in her arms.

She almost broke down in tears as she explained to the parents of Archie, how she fought, not just for her life, but for their son's, against Dante and an reanimated Siddiq, and how she hadn't let anything harm him.

And in other news, Carol had led Lydia out of Alexandria deep into the woods, where they had ran into Aaron, that was before a whisperer had spotted the girl, realising the truth of her existence, fleeing the scene, and it was at that moment Lydia had connected the dots on what her place was in Carols scheme, the “help” she needed, causing the girl into also leaving, refusing to not come back.

Natalia bounced her baby on her hip, reassuring her friend, as Daryl beat the ex-doctor, who was actually an whisperer.

"Hope that hurts." He spat, shaking his hand, moving to stand beside Natalia.

"It doesn't matter." Dante said, spitting out blood onto the infirmary floor. "None of this matters. Watch enough people get incinerated, devoured alive, you see how ridiculous it is getting attached to ourselves. But knowing that sets you free." He smiled.

"Is that what you're doing? Setting us free?" Carol entertained him.

"If you learn that lesson, it'll only help you."

"What, so we can be more like you?" Daryl asked.

"Accept the future." He raised a brow, smiling at the man, as he stepped away from his wife and child, lighting an cigarette.

"Why put him through all that hell in the barn just to kill him months later? I-I can't see an ideology behind that." Gabriel pressed.

"I liked Siddiq. "

"Oh, you liked him?" Rosita scoffed.

"He wasn't part of the plan." Dante whispered. "But he found out who I was, so I had no choice."

"What plan?" Carol asked him.

"Encourage your paranoia about us... which will push you into bad decisions. Places like this are cruel promises to their people and they crumble at the smallest nick. Hell, I'm gonna enjoy watching you rip each other apart over what to do with me. Just like with Negan." He winked at the Dixons.

"Easy, we're gonna kill you." Natalia spoke up for the first time. "You ain't no Negan, honey, and there ain't no one around who's gonna sympathise with you, not a single soul, after what you've done, you're the enemy, and now, we have a face to put to the hysteria."

"We helped you." Rosita was still trying to wrap her head around the betrayal.

"Why?" Dante asked. "'Cause you wanted another doctor around? You got something from me, too. Don't pretend you didn't." He grinned, shaking his head.

Rosita begun cursing in Spanish, pacing behind him.

"No one is actually kind. We are selfish. We are brutal. Come on, that's why she's been using her time popping out all these kids, during all this, I was trying to do the both of y'all a favour, I hear boys are always the hardest to raise." He nodded at Archie, but Rosita had kicked him to the ground, hard, ending his monologue about the near murder of Archie Dixon.

She then stormed out of the door that Aaron had just happened to be walking through.

"He's been here four months." Aaron had reminded, during their debriefing on what to do about the situation. "How didn't I know?"

"None of us did." Daryl said, his way of trying to comfort the man.

"We all ate together. Talked about training the militia. He treated Gracie." He choked up.

"You can't do that to yourself." Carol told him.

"Hey." Natalia layed an hand over his. "He treated mine, too, I sat with him, had conversations, you're not the only person who could've or should've spotted him, We especially can't do anything about it now, we do not cause or fault ourselves for other people's actions, we can't do that, it is not our responsibility."

"All we can do now, is figure out what's going on." Daryl gave his opinion, seating himself on top of the counter.

"Mary, the Whisperer I've been talking to, um, told me where Alpha is keeping the herd."

Daryl and Carol both jumped at this, eager to know more, but Natalia took her hand back, placing it to her forehead as she prayed for strength, with a heavy sigh.

"Just over the border, on their side. It's this sunken field. On the edge of the natural forest."

"We can leave right after the funeral." Carol suggested.

"We?" Natalia scoffed. "He said it's on their side, not our business, not our problem. Besides, it really wouldn't hurt to have some compassion, Siddiq is dead."

"You wanna do nothing?" Carol asked.

"Lydia's still gone." Daryl reminded.

"Oh, yeah, because Carol let her go!"

"We don't even know what that means yet." Daryl continued.

"Alpha doesn't know that." Aaron whispered. "With Dante locked up in a cell, she never has to."

"We ain't gonna talk about how this is probably an ambush?" Daryl asked.

"Well, the baby that Connie rescued, apparently that's Mary's nephew. She wants to see him."

"Hell no" Natalia put her foot down.

"I don't think she's lying." Aaron told her.

"Alright. Get a group from Hilltop and meet us there. Second we're done, we're going looking for the girl." Daryl ordered.

"Yeah. I'll radio them. Maybe they can get the news to Michonne, too."

"Alright."

Aaron then left the house, and Carol followed, but Daryl stopped her.

"Hey. Why don't you stay here? I'll go." He said.

"What?" Natalia stood up, facing him.

"Why?" Carol asked.

"You gonna tell me what really happened out there?" He glanced at Natalia, before facing Carol again.

"I told you. Lydia didn't want to come back. I couldn't make her."

"Because you scared her."

"Nat, you weren't there!" Carol snapped at her.

"Hey! Her being here protects us. You know that.

"So, that's it for her now, to be our shield? Just lock her up again? I showed one of Alpha's people that their leader lied to them, and that's good for us. We can push on their wounds, too."

"Oh, of course, yeah, because keeping her behind these walls and keeping her safe is unfair to the young girl, so that she can actually have a chance of growing up, but using her as an tactic is fair game, right?" Natalia mocked.

"Bottom line is, you should have told us." Daryl moved on before the two women could get into it.

"I'll help you look for her, but I don't think she wants to be found." Carol shared.

"Are we talking about her, or are we talking about you?" Daryl pressed.

But she didn't give an response, instead left their house without another word.

"I'll go get the kids ready for the funeral, then, I'm going to take a shower, you can either help me or go chase after her." Natalia told him, heading upstairs.

It was silent for a half a minute, then the sounds of heavy steps moving towards the stairs alerted her of his decision.

The pair worked together to get the twins as well as RJ, washed, dressed, teeth and hair brushed, as well as reminding them on manners and funeral behaviour expectations, it was a lot, and it was a hard conversation on why people had suddenly begun dying so often, when neither child had experienced it since the new people had joined their lives.

Evie was already out, with no other Doctor in the community, she had volunteered to take on the rounds and to do house calls for all the people who had got sick from the infected water, most of them were already on the mend, luckily, but Carol's special tea was helping.

When they quietly opened Archies room, he was playing with his blocks, curiously, as though he was trying to work out a specific pattern for them to be stacked.

The couple leaned against the doorway as they watched, taking in their youngest child, Daryl glanced at his wife, hearing a small sniffle from her, noticing the tears that welled up in her eyes, the sad expression on her face as she watched their baby.

"He's alright." He murmured, tapping the back of her hand with his own.

"We almost lost him, Daryl, we almost-" She choked up, screwing her eyes shut, tightly. "I knew something was off about that guy, I felt it in my gut, and I just left it alone, that's not me, I never make a mistake, not like that, but-- and Henry, I saw her, I spoke to her at that fair, I knew it was her and I ignored it, now, Carol is going to get herself killed for revenge, and you, and it's all my fault" She dug her fingers through her hair, pulling at it with frustration.

"Hey, hey, come on." He grabbed her wrists, stopping her as he walked backwards, towards their room, shutting the door.

"It's all my fault, this is all my fault, Henry wouldn't be dead, Tara and Enid wouldn't be dead! And I haven't done anything to do anything! Our friends are dead and I did nothing to prevent it! Now, Archie was almost eaten, eaten alive by Siddiq, the doctor who helped me with the twins, who Carl risked his life to save, I mean, the irony in it all." She laughed with horror.

"Nat, stop, just breathe." He sat on their bed, bringing her to stand between his legs, rubbing her arms up and down, trying to get her to concentrate on him instead of breaking down and snapping. "Archie is safe, alright, he's fine and alive and I've checked him over, Rosita's checked him over, so has Evie and you've already done it about five times, he didn't get bit, he's gonna be fine, and he's too young to even remember last night."

"That's not the point, Daryl!" She raised her voice. "I could have prevented it even happening, I could have prevented all of this, but I didn't."

"You couldn't have done anything." He held her tightly, trying to get her to come off of it. "There's nothing that you could've done, you didn't know, but you know now, that's what matters."

"If,... If I never killed that guy... If I never killed those guys, that day... Glenn would still be here-"

"Nat, stop it!"

"Glenn would still be here, then Maggie wouldn't of made me distract Michonne, she wouldn't of tried to kill Negan, and the bridge never would of exploded, Rick would still be here, and none of this would happen, because Rick would've known what to do, he would've known what to do, and this wouldn't be happening, then Henry wouldn't be dead, and Carol wouldn't be going nuts, and they wouldn't all be dead, but they are, and it's because of me that they are, I can't keep anyone alive."

"Natalia, listen ta me-"

"Do you regret having the kids?" She seemed to have awoken from her self-deprivation.

"What?" He looked at her, he wasn't sure if he should be stumped or angry at her question.

"Just, our lives would be so much easier if we didn't have them, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't of had them, cause we never planned them, that was all your fault, okay, my body just bakes like it's supposed to do, but you're the one who gave it the ingredients, but I just mean, like what if there was another world in which we didn't have kids, so we could just focus on ourselves, and maybe we wouldn't be so preoccupied and less people would have died because of it, which is kinda funny if you think about it, but totally morbid, y'know, like take a life, leave a life... well, birth a life, but then there's reincarnation, we have three kids, a lot of people have died because of me, but out of those people, three of them could be our kids, but then what if it turns out that it's one of the bad people I've killed, instead of the good people, like what if one of them is Harley, now that would be bad-"

"Natalia! Shut up! Just stop talking, damn." He could barely keep up with her talking 100MPH, but he was catching bits of it here and there. "Just... just shut up, we're gonna be late for Siddiq's funeral." He slightly nudged her away from him, getting up from the bed and walking out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Natalia look a deep breath in, then exhaled, before moving to have a quick shower, before getting ready, building herself back up.

"I remember this passage from my studies. Written by a scholar centuries ago who was trying to understand the impossible." Gabriel told the crowd at Siddiq's grave. "Let me live if life is better for me and take my life if death is better for me." He had surrendered himself to fate because his world defied logic. Defied justice." He walked towards the mound of dirt, throwing a handful on top of Siddiqs cocooned body. "We created you from it... and return you into it... and from it we will raise you a second time." With every pause, he threw another handful. "Evelyn... would you like to share some words?" Gabriel looked to the girl, who was stood with the Gage boy, who had a bruised cheek, but no one cared to ask about it. "You probably spent the most time with him, than all of us."

Evie looked around, as the people waited for her to speak, she then turned to her parents, who gave an encouraging smile along with an nod.

She then stepped forward, clearing her throat.

"Uhm... I met Siddiq when I was only seven years old, which means, Carl Grimes had risked his life ten years ago for him. And Siddiq never let himself forget it. Because since before Uncle Rick allowed him into our community, he was already pushing himself to help in any way he could, it didn't matter who you were, he just wanted to help, no matter what..." She let herself peer into the grave. "Siddiq was my mentor, but he wasn't my first mentor, no...but... he didn't even know me and he saw my potential, he never left me out despite my age, either... I mean, the man was teaching me fractions the same time he was showing me the proper way of how to amputate a limb." She laughed with watery eyes.

"Boy am I thankful you could both multi-task." Joe, the amputee from the story commented, earning a chorus of laughter.

"Then he was teaching me how to read blood, and what it could mean, that's how I found out a certain person was having twins, yet he failed to share that it was my own mother." She earned another chuckle, and a small smile from Natalia, the twins were looking up at her realising that they were their mothers twins. "Siddiq was a person who was full of light, he was a person for the people, he was fearless, he never had to prove to us that Carl Grimes sacrifice wasn't a waste, because that was just Siddiq, that was just who he was, and we dall have many thanks to give..." She then crouched down, picking up a handful of dirt. "I'm going to miss you, Siddiq." She said, lowly, before dropping the handful.

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