Chapter 10

The afternoon had been deceptively peaceful. Most of Alexandria's adults were out on the supply run for Negan's collection, leaving behind a skeleton crew of teenagers and a handful of older residents to watch over the community. Charlotte had been enjoying her freedom from the restraints, even if Carl was still hovering nearby like an overprotective guard dog, neither of them were sure if it was from herself...or maybe the other boy she was talking to.

She was in the middle of explaining to Ron why the Saviors' system actually made more sense than Alexandria's idealistic approach when the rumble of engines cut through the afternoon air.

"That's not our people," Carl said immediately, his hand going to his gun as he peered out the kitchen window.

Charlotte's blood ran cold as she recognized the distinctive sound of Savior vehicles. "Shit. That's Saviors."

"What?" Ron jumped up from his chair. "But they're not supposed to come until tomorrow."

"He's early," Charlotte said, her mind racing. "The supplies aren't ready, most of your people aren't here..." She trailed off as the implications hit her. "This isn't good."

They could hear voices from the gates, Negan's unmistakable drawl carrying even from a distance, though they couldn't make out the words. The conversation seemed brief, and within minutes, the engines started up again.

"They're...Leaving?" Carl said, sounding confused but relieved.

Charlotte shook her head grimly. "No, they're not. They're regrouping."

"What do you mean?"

"I know him, Carl. When Negan doesn't get what he expects, he doesn't just walk away. He makes a point." Charlotte moved to the window, watching the dust cloud from the departing vehicles. "He's coming back."

They didn't have to wait long. Two hours later, the rumble of engines returned...but this time, there were more of them. A lot more.

"Stay inside," Carl ordered, grabbing his rifle and heading for the door.

"Fuck no," Charlotte shot back, but before she could argue further, the sound of air brakes hissing filled the air, followed by a mechanical whirring noise that made her stomach drop.

"Oh, fuck," she breathed.

"What is that?" Ron demanded.

Charlotte was already moving toward the door. "That's a dump truck. And I know exactly what he's dumping. He's done this to Hilltop before."

The screaming started before she even made it outside. Through the windows, they could see people running, shouting, scrambling for weapons. And then they saw them, dozens of walkers pouring through the narrow and streets like a grotesque flood, their moans filling the air.

"Jesus Christ," Carl muttered, shouldering his rifle. "How many are there?"

"Too many," Charlotte said, her training kicking in as she assessed the situation. "Your people aren't prepared for this. Half your fighters are gone, and the ones who are here don't know how to handle a coordinated attack like this."

Carl looked at her for a moment, then made a decision. "Help us."

"What?"

"You know their tactics, you know how to fight these things efficiently. Help us save people."

Charlotte stared at him, torn between years of loyalty to Negan and the sight of terrified children running for their lives. "I—"

A scream cut through the air, closer this time. Through the window, they could see Mrs. Anderson, Ron's mom, trying to fend off two walkers with a kitchen knife, terror written across her face.

"Fuck it," Charlotte muttered, grabbing a machete from Rick's weapons rack. "Give me a gun too."

"I don't think—"

"Give me the damn gun, Carl, or watch your neighbors get eaten alive. Your choice."

Carl tossed her a pistol, and they burst out of the house together, Ron close behind with a baseball bat, a sense of unease from it washing over Charlotte.

The next hour was chaos. Charlotte moved through the swarm of undead with an efficiency that was both impressive and terrifying, her blade finding their skulls with practiced ease. She shouted orders to the Alexandria residents, directing them into better defensive positions, teaching them on the fly how to conserve ammo and maximize their kills.

Carl found himself watching her as much as fighting the walkers. This was Charlotte as he'd never seen her, not the angry, bitter woman who'd been tied up in his kitchen, or the scared teenager she once was, but a fighter. She moved with purpose, with skill, with a deadly grace that spoke of years of brutal training.

"Behind you!" she called out, and Carl spun just in time to put his knife through a walker's skull.

"Thanks," he panted.

"Don't mention it," she replied curtly, already moving to help Ron, who was struggling with a walker that had grabbed his bat and had it pinned against his chest.

By the time the last walker fell, the sun was setting, painting Alexandria's streets red in more ways than one. The survivors stood among the corpses, if you could even call them that, breathing hard, covered in blood and gore.

"Is everyone still here?" Carl called out.

"Think so," someone answered. "Thanks to her." The voice was grudging but grateful, and Carl turned to see one of the older residents nodding toward Charlotte.

Charlotte didn't acknowledge the thanks. She was staring at the bodies scattered throughout the street, not the walker bodies, but the truck that had delivered them. Negan's truck.

"See?" Carl said, moving up beside her. "This is what you've been supporting. This is what he's been doing. Terrorizing innocent people, putting children at risk."

"Don't," Charlotte said sharply.

"Don't what? Don't point out that your 'precious' Negan just tried to massacre an entire community because they didn't have his tribute ready fast enough?"

"Don't talk about him that way."

Carl stared at her in disbelief. "Charlotte, look around you! Look at what the fuck he did!"

"I know what he did!"

"Then why are you still defending him?"

Charlotte spun to face him, her eyes blazing. "Because you don't understand—"

"I understand perfectly! You know it's all true, that's why you don't want to hear it!" Carl's voice rose, fueled by adrenaline and exhaustion. "You know he's a monster. You know what he does to people, but you can't admit it because then you'd have to admit that you've been complicit in it!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

"You saved these people, Charlotte! You could have let them die, but you didn't, because deep down you know this is wrong!"

Charlotte's hand clenched around her machete handle. "I said shut up!"

Carl took a step closer, his own adrenaline making him reckless. "You're not one of them, Charlotte. You never were. You're—"

"I'm what?" she demanded. "Good? Pure? Is that what you need me to be to make yourself feel better about what happened?"

"You're better than this!" Carl shouted, gesturing to nothing. "You're better than him!"

Charlotte stared at him for a long moment, her chest heaving. Then she turned and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" Carl called after her.

"Back to that fucking cell," she shot back.

Carl started to follow her, then stopped abruptly, his hand going to his stomach. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

"Charlotte," he tried to call out, but his voice came out weaker than intended.

She kept walking.

Carl looked down at his hand and saw blood. A lot of blood. When had that happened? During the fight, he must have gotten shoved against something, maybe the fence where that broken board had been sticking out...

"Charlotte," he called again, but she was already at the end of the street.

His knees buckled.

The impact with the ground jarred him back to awareness, and he realized he was still holding Judith, who he had picked up after the chaos terminated. She was crying, sensing his distress, and the sound cut through his fading consciousness.

"Charlotte!" This time his voice cracked, desperate.

She stopped, turned around, and saw him on his knees in the middle of the street, clutching his baby sister and bleeding onto the gravel beneath his knees.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she muttered, jogging back toward him. "What did you do now, you idiot?"

"I don't—" Carl tried to explain, but the words got lost as another wave of pain hit him.

Charlotte knelt beside him, her eyes immediately finding the source of the bleeding. "Jesus, Carl. How did you not notice this?"

"Adrenaline?" he managed.

"Give me Judith," she said, reaching for the baby.

Carl hesitated for a moment, his protective instincts warring with his need for help.

"Give me your sister before you drop her," Charlotte said impatiently.

He handed Judith over, and Charlotte settled the baby on her hip with surprising competence. "Can you walk?"

"I think so."

"Good, because I'm not carrying you." She helped him to his feet, letting him lean on her despite her irritated tone. "The infirmary's this way, right?"

They made their slow way through Alexandria's streets, Charlotte supporting more of Carl's weight than she was letting on. He could hear her muttering under her breath, complaining about stubborn boys and their death wishes, mostly.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked as they reached the infirmary door.

"Because if you die, your people are going to blame me for it," She replied curtly. "And I have enough problems without adding 'murdered the leader's son' to my name."

The infirmary was empty, Dr. Anderson, Denise and the other medical student were all out on the supply run.

"Shit," Charlotte said, looking around at the medical equipment. "I don't suppose you know how to stitch yourself up?"

"Not really myself, I mean, I helped you..." Carl admitted, trailing off as he slumped onto the examination table.

Charlotte set Judith in a nearby chair, surrounding her with some scratchy pillows so she wouldn't fall. "Well, lucky for you, I picked up a few things during my time with the Saviors."

"You know medical stuff?"

"I know enough not to let you die...hopefully" She tried joking, gathering supplies, antiseptic, needle, thread, bandages. "But I'm not exactly gentle about it."

Carl watched her prepare the supplies, noting the way her hands moved with practiced efficiency. "Where did you learn this?"

"Negan's doctor, his name was like Carson i think, taught me the basics. Said it was important for everyone to know how to patch people up." She glanced at him. "'Course, he mostly taught me so I could help torture information out of prisoners, since Negan trusted me to do that after a while. But y'know, the techniques are the same." She shrugged

"That's comforting," Carl muttered.

Charlotte approached him with the antiseptic and a cloth. "This is going to hurt."

"How much?"

"A lot." She poured the antiseptic directly onto the wound without warning.

Carl bit back a scream, his hands clenching into fists. "Jesus!"

"Oh, sorry," Charlotte said in a tone that suggested she wasn't sorry at all. "Did that sting? My hand must have slipped."

She began cleaning the wound more thoroughly, her touch deliberately rough. Every time Carl hissed in pain, she made some comment about how he should have been more careful, how stupid it was to get distracted during a fight, how she couldn't believe she was wasting her time patching up someone too incompetent to avoid a piece of wood.

"There," she said finally, stepping back to assess the cleaned wound, grinning at her work. "Now for the fun part."

She threaded the needle with practiced ease, then looked at Carl with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You might want to bite down on something."

"Charlotte—"

"What? I told you I wasn't gentle...I did this after torturing someone, why would I be?" She positioned the needle. "Besides, after everything you put me through today, a little pain seems fair, don't you think?"

The first stitch made Carl see stars. Charlotte worked methodically, and while her technique was competent, she wasn't making any effort to minimize his discomfort. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying his pain a little too much.

"Oops," she said as the needle went slightly deeper than necessary. "Sorry, my hand slipped again."

"You're doing that on purpose," Carl gasped.

"Doing what on purpose?" Charlotte asked innocently, pulling the thread tighter than needed. "I'm just trying to make sure these stitches hold. Wouldn't want you tearing them open because I was too gentle."

By the time she finished, Carl was pale and sweating, his jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and he was fairly certain that Charlotte had deliberately made the process as painful as possible.

"There," she said, tying off the final stitch. "Try not to do anything stupid for the next few days and those should hold."

"Thanks," Carl managed out weakly.

Charlotte began cleaning up the supplies, lazily putting them back into places they were definitely not supposed to be. "Don't thank me. Like I said, I just didn't want to get blamed for your death."

She picked up Judith, who had been remarkably patient throughout the whole ordeal. "Your brother's an idiot, you know that?" she told the baby conversationally. "But I guess you're stuck with him."

Judith babbled something that might have been an agreement, and despite everything, Carl found himself almost smiling.

"Charlotte," he said as she headed for the door.

She paused but didn't turn around. "What?"

"You saved a lot of people today."

"I saved myself the trouble of being blamed for their deaths," she corrected. "Don't make it into something it's not."

But as she walked out of the infirmary, carrying Judith with gentle care, Carl couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, there was more to it than she was willing to admit.