Surviving Nyx (C.Grimes/TWD) {{ON HOLD}}

THIRTY-NINE: Things Turn

(19th April, 2012)

I shot up awake when the sound of an alarm went off, "shh, you're okay..." Carl sat up to comfort me but Rick opened our cell, peaking in with Judith in his arms as I try and catch my breath. "Come on," Rick asked us, I got out of bed, picked out an outfit for myself and Carl. "Thanks love." Carl mumbles giving me a smiling kiss, I hum into the kiss, "we better hurry, we're farming today and I want to say goodbye to Michonne."

I step away from Carl's arms as he tries to distract me, "get dressed." I tell him as I start to get dressed standing in the corner with my back to the cell door just in case Rick pops his head in again. "Feeling any better?" Carl questions once I finished putting my hair into two boxer braids, I turn around to face him, "yeah, thanks to you." I give him a kiss on the cheek. I pick up his hat off the dresser, plopping it on his head, but Carl takes it off. "It ain't a farming hat.." Carl states looking at the hat sadly, "mind if I wear it today then?" Carl tells me to go ahead, and I do as he say, "how do I look?" I ask as I sit the hat right on my head, "beautiful." I smile giving him another kiss, sliding my hand into his as we leave our cell.

"Well this is new." Rick points out to me wearing Carl's hat, "I know, I don't think I pull it off as good as your son does." I admit as I send Carl a wink, "Nyx? Why yew wearing Carl's hat?" Naomi questions as she spots us, "Cuz I'm the new sheriff in town, sweetpea." I give Naomi a kiss on the forehead good morning, I do the same to Judith who was sat against Beth's hip, "mornin' darlin'." I whisper at the baby who giggles at me, Carl greets the little girls, "Carl, can yew do my hay-er?" Naomi questions, I chuckle as I get on one knee to be at her height, "sorry darlin', but we've gottta work. Your big ol' brotha is on hair duty t'day." I say in my best strong southern accent which made Naomi giggle, "oh al-rye sheriff." Naomi mimics my accent before running off to Noel's cell.

"We don't talk like that," Carl gestured to him and his dad, "sure ya don't, darlin'." I wink playfully at Carl and tip the sheriff's hat at him making Rick laugh. Carl takes my hand as we make our way to the field. Michonne is holding the rein of the horse as she walks closer to the gate, "careful out there." Rick tells Michonne, who says that she always is, "any requests? Books? Comics? Some stale M&Ms?" Carl reminds Michonne that she's the only one who likes stale M&Ms. "Then I'll definitely looking for some. I'll look for some stuff you like, too." Michonne smiles over at Carl, before smirking at me wearing his hat.

"Nyx, looking good." "I always look good, Ma'am." I smirk cheekily and tip my hat at Michonne, who just chuckles and agrees with me. "Now we know where Naomi gets it from." Carl mumbles, I roll my eyes at him, "but when Naomi does it she's adorable, when I do it I'm full of myself." I point out the obvious different between age groups. Carl questions Michonne if she'll be back soon, and she informs us that she'll in fact be back "pretty soon."

We reached the compost pit, Rick keeps it near the vegetable to get extra nutrients and to get extra worms to give the pigs. Carl and I hold a bucket each as Rick filled them with food for the pigs, "they only took out one cluster yesterday. Probably gonna need more people today. Maybe we could help." I know how much Carl misses it, yeah he's happy we're safe but he missing survival, he misses the walkers, the rush of saving your own skin everyday over playing 'farm'.

To make it worse, his girlfriend is pretty much allowed to go where she pleases, alone. I think he just wants to prove himself a survivor and not a kid that needs protecting. Rick stands up and I realised I missed the rest of their conversation but by Carl's face it was a no. "Hey, I'll talk to him later see if I can convince him to let you come with me on my next run because of last time." Carl smiled at my effort, "do you miss it?" Carl questions as we follow Rick to the pigs pen, I asked Carl what he meant, "before the prison." I shook my head no, "I didn't sleep, or eat much before the prison. I didn't have you." Carl gave me a kiss, before we reach the pen.

We step into the pen, "Dad..? I'm sorry. I'm trying." I knew that I was about to impose on a father-son moment, I cleared my throat handing Rick my bucket and informing them that I was just going over to check the tomatoes. I was almost at the tomato plants when I heard a gunshot, I see Rick running up to the gate but I hear a whistle, I run to let Michonne in. I opened the heavy red doors, Carl opened the chainlink fence but walkers got past the red doors.

I quickly close them, Michonne goes to fight the walkers to protect the horse but the were grabbing her hair. I only had my knife on me, I pulled it out running to help Michonne, she trips and kicks the man walker up and Carl shoots it, I sunk my knife into the head of the woman walker. Lifting it and throwing it over spikes, Maggie rushes and helps me get Michonne off the ground, she's after injuring her leg.

All the walkers were piling up at small points of the fence. "You two get Michonne up to the prison, I'm going to try and make a dent in that." Noel comes running down with my bow and arrows, as well as his crossbow and all his arrows. "We'll do it together in the guard tower." I nod, "stay alive." Noel and I say to them before we rush into the guard tower getting onto the balcony. "Noel I don't think we should use all our arrows, we can't exactly go out and get them back after because we don't have enough to kill all of them." I look over at our pile, I had 600 and Noel had 300. "I'll use a hundred, you use two hundred. That'll be a big enough dent before we to go by hand." Noel informs me and I agree to follow his plan. I roll my shoulders back, and we began to shoot down some walkers.

300 arrows later, Noel and I make our way to the fence they're all pushing against. I pick up a bucket and began to jog away from Noel making noise to spread the walkers out a bit. "Need some help?" Phoebe questions me, "yes please," I smile at her and Lena, who quickly join us. We each stood 5 yards apart, spreading out the walkers and we started to kill them. "What happened in the prison?" I asked the girls with a yell, "walkers in D." Phoebe informs me with a shout in return.

"RICK, DARYL!" Maggie yells, I see how much the fence is bending in front of Lena and Phoebe. "NOEL BESIDE PHOEBE." I move to Lena's side and moving as fast we could to clear the walkers, Glenn, Maggie, Sasha, Tyreese, Rick and Daryl join us. I wasn't aware of anything going on around me, I was just focused on trying to save these fences. "Are you seeing this?" Sasha yelled grabbing my attention, I look over seeing a heap of dead rats, "is someone feeding these things?" Sasha asks, but we were pull out of our trances by Daryl pointing out a a part of the fence that was almost caved in.

"Hold on, hold on. Hey, hey, hey." We all step back like Rick tells us, before he raises his hand saying that it's going to give way, we push up against fence. I heard a scream next to me. A walker had Lena's braid in it's hand and it was pull her closer. I swung my knife cutting her hair. "Noel, Lena out now!" I order them, they didn't argue, they grabbed each other's hands and ran to get away. I help the others push back against the fence, but we were losing the push war. "Everybody back! Come on, back, now." Daryl ordered us, we all stepped back to take a step back to see the full picture, and it doesn't look good. "The fence keeps bending in like that, those walkers are coming over it." Sasha points out to us, but we all already knew that. "Daryl, get the truck. I know what to do." Rick spoke up, whilst the rest of us went back to killing the walkers.

"Nyx, Phoebe go back to your cell blocks please." Rick asks us, we didn't argue, we jogged out and made our way back up to the prison. "See ya later Phoebs." I smile at her as she heads to B and I head into C. I see Lena crying as Noel tries to comfort her, I make my way over to the first aid kit, I grab a scissors and then approach the young couple. "I can fix it for you now." I tell Lena, she smiles at me as I sit behind her, "get me a brush Noel." Noel nods, leaving to go get the hairbrush, "thank you for saving me Nyx." Lena whispers to me as I unbraid her hair, "we keep our own alive." I inform her as Noel slides the hairbrush into my hand.

I brush Lena's hair, until it's straight and knotless. "I'm gonna cut it to your shoulders." I inform her, Lena doesn't argue knowing that it's for her own safety. I chop off about 8" of hair, brushing her and styling it to have two space buns. "Done."