L

—/<3/—

"Looks like Little Miss Perfect's been kicked out of the discussion." Rory chuckled as she sparked up a cigarette, offering the pack to Jonah.

"Marlboro Golds? I thought you didn't like those," Jonah said as he took one, letting Rory light it for him.

"Can't be picky in the apocalypse."

"What will you do when you tell Rick about the information? I don't want to stay in Woodbury anymore knowing that you guys are all in the prison."

Rory sighed. "I don't know. That's up to Rick. I'm gonna try convince him to take you in though. You're family. He hasn't taken kindly to letting people into the group lately so it's probably going to be hard."

"We should go back around to the front before Martinez and Milton get suspicious," Jonah said, inhaling the smoke and then blowing it up towards the sky. Rory agreed and the pair trudged back around to where the others stood around awkwardly waiting for Rick and the Governor to be done. Andrea sulked on a crate by the door, her head in her hands as she avoided looking at anyone.

"You two all buddy-buddy now?" Martinez sneered, eyeing the cigarettes and the way they walked side by side.

"Shut up Martinez." Jonah rolled his eyes.

"BFFs actually. I think we need to go skip through a field of daisies and get matching stick and pokes." Rory deadpanned.

"That attitude's gonna get you in trouble, little girl." Martinez scowled.

"That a threat?" Daryl stood up, stalking towards the man.

"Nah man, chill out." Martinez held his hands up in surrender. Daryl scoffed and backed away, leaning back up against the car.

"Rory," Daryl said quietly. The girl perked up, strolling towards her boyfriend. He took the pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and motioned towards the lighter in her hand.Rory lit it up for him happily, balancing her own cigarette between her lips. "Thanks," he murmured.

"You two got closer then," Andrea said, her voice flat. Daryl and Rory just stared at her, smoke escaping their lips. "Still not talkative I see." She huffed with a roll of her eyes.

"We might as well use this time together to talk about the situation... It's a good thing they're sitting down together, no one wants another battle." Milton walked forward, addressing Daryl and Rory.

"Why is your Governor so obsessed with the prison? Why can't we just live peacefully? We all got too much shit going on as it is—famine, herds of walkers, lack of medicine—we don't need to be adding war to the list just because some stupid cunt's dick gets hard over being in power," Rory said calmly, her eye contact with Milton not faltering once.

"Young women shouldn't say that word," Milton grimaced.

"What? Cunt? You know what 'cunt' means, don't you?" Rory raised an eyebrow; Milton stayed silent and Rory took that as a 'no'. "It means vagina. I'm arguably more qualified to say it than a man is. Now back to the matter at hand, why is Philip so obsessed with the prison?" She pushed.

"You attacked first—"

"Don't give me that bullshit. We only infiltrated to get Maggie and Glenn back after the Governor decided he wanted to torture them for information about our group's whereabouts, don't think I don't know what the Governor and his goons do when they find other groups, we've already grilled Merle for information. Why is he so obsessed with being the leader of the only prominent group of survivors? Going as far as to kill off any other survivors that don't want to join Woodbury is a bit far, no?" Rory titled her head innocently, a smirk decorating her face as Milton began to stammer.

"That's not—" Milton went red and avoided eye contact with her, instead turning to Hershel, who started at Rory with wide eyes as if she had a death wish for ruthlessly interrogating the opposition.

The conversation was but short by the familiar growling of walkers trying to get through the fence. Daryl and Rory threw their cigarettes down and didn't bother stomping them out as they jogged off to deal with the dead, Martinez, Andrea and Jonah hot on their tails.

They rounded the corner and came face to face with half a dozen walkers following the sound of their conversation. Daryl was about to step forward but then looked to Martinez. "After you," he said.

Martinez gave Daryl a dirty look and then scoffed, "no way, after you."

Andrea and Rory side eyed each other, seemingly in agreement for the first time ever. They both rolled their eyes with a sigh and shoved past the men to deal with the problem themselves, Jonah followed. The three of them dealt with one each and then Martinez finally moved forward, bashing a walker's head in with a metal bat. He looked back at Daryl with a cocky smirk and said "Pussy."

The two carried on in some sort of competition, taking down walkers and sending each other glares and arrogant looks after each kill.

"Is the dick measuring contest over yet?" Rory questioned after Daryl stole Martinez's kill, throwing his hunting knife into the walker's skull before the latter could fully raise his bat.

"We weren't competing," Martinez sneered.

"Yeah, you were," Andrea said.

"You kind of were," Jonah agreed.

"Whatever." Daryl dismissed, slinging his crossbow over his shoulder and swaggering back to where they'd left Hershel and Milton. He stopped next to one of the fallen walkers and began looting its pockets, pulling out a stale half-smoked pack of cigarettes. He turned and offered one to Martinez, who leant up against a wooden beam. "Want one?"

"Nah, I prefer menthols," he answered.

"Yeah, you look like to kind of psycho who'd smoke menthols," Rory grumbled as she walked past, taking a seat next to Jonah on the bench.

"What's her problem?" Martinez asked Daryl.

"She had to pull a baby outta dead woman's body last week and I'm pretty sure she feels responsible for Glenn 'n Maggie getting abducted. She was meant to go loot that store alone but they tagged along 'cause she took over baby duty from them the night before."

"Right, and none of this would've happened if your people didn't end up at Woodbury... This is all a bunch o' bullshit, ain't it? They ain't gonna sort shit out in there." Martinez sighed.

"I know." Daryl nodded.

—/<3/—

"How are you gonna get out of Woodbury without them sending people after you?" Rory asked, looking around to make sure no one was hovering around.

"Don't worry I have a plan. I've already planted a car in the woods a mile away from the Woodbury gates. I just need to wrap things up and wait until things are less tense and then I can sneak away," Jonah replied.

"But aren't they just going to assume that the prison group had something to do with your disappearance? That'll just spur the Governor on, he'll attack us again. We can't take another hit, Jonah." Rory bit her lip, gnawing on a piece of dry skin.

"No. I told you I have a plan, trust me Rory."

"At least tell me your plan so I can let the others know."

Jonah huffed, eyeing Milton who kept gazing at the pair out of the corner of his eye as he chatted to Hershel. "You know I had that part time job doing SFX makeup when I was in college? I found a little kit on a run and kept it thinking it'd be fun to do something normal. I'm going to use it to fake a bite mark and get exiled from Woodbury."

"That's your plan? Jonah, what if they kill you?" Rory hissed.

"They won't, trust me."

Rory stared at him for a second, taking in the beautiful brown eyes that she once loved, and then nodded. "Okay, just don't die or I'll kill you."

—/<3/—

"What happened with Maggie?" Andrea questioned as she approached Rory after Jonah went to check on Martinez.

Rory sighed and took a drag of her cigarette. "He made her take of her shirt and her bra and then pressed himself against her. He touched her up to try and make her give up the prison's location. He didn't rape her, if that's what you're planning on asking, but it's still fucked up. He can blame the situation on Merle all he wants but he played a part in the interrogation too."

Andrea's face scrunched up as tears formed in her eyes. "Oh god..."

Rory nodded awkwardly. "He isn't a good person, Andrea."

"What am I gonna do?" She whispered. "I can't go back there."

"I don't know, that's up to you."

—/<3/—