walkswithheroes | (no subject)

When the last time you were stuck somewhere against your will maxed out at five years, a measly four months stuck in an alternate dimension is nothing. Especially not when there's a regular supply of money and a place to stay and someone Fred knows from home around. It's more than a few steps up from living in a cave.

Though, all of that doesn't mean that Darrow's stopped feeling like some weird place that Fred can't wait to figure out how to leave. Even without much success, she's kept up trying to figure Darrow out. Which is why she's holed up in a booth in a diner near Chelsea Cloisters, a small stack of books on the seat next to her while she flips through a book on magic that she's found in the back of one of Darrow's libraries.

There's a cup of coffee next to her that's gone cold, but every time she remembers to ask for a refill, Fred's distracted by something else in her book.

Just three more pages and she'll flag down a waitress.

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"Tell me about it," Andrea says. "The easiest part about living in a world full of zombies was the zombies." There was no moral quandary when it came to getting rid of them. Even Hershel had come around after seeing what had happened to his wife and children.

"You know, this is the first time I've thought that maybe we had it easy," Fred says, "Just when it comes to creatures. For the most part. The clean up part, at least."

Of course, there were the demons that Fred is convinced exist almost entirely to spew mucus all over everything, but with vampires all you really needed was a broom and dustpan when it came to clean up. Something tells her that it's not quite the same with zombies.

"We buried our own. Burned the rest."

She hears Rick when she says it, hears his voice clear enough that she would think he was standing right there with them if she didn't know better. Sometimes it's like he's right beside her, reminding her of the things they went through together. Their rules, the way they lived. But she's glad he isn't here.

"It definitely wasn't easy," she says.