Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's The Walking Dead or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Because it has been a while since I have attempted to purposely ruin everyone's feelings, okay?

Warnings: *Contains: adult language, adult content, character death, canon appropriate violence, blood, guts and gore, angst, season five spoilers, reference to the usual emotional trauma and unexpected bonding along the way.

Forever (is a limited time offer)

Chapter One

"I'm not pretending. You were. I know. I can hear them… They just want me to change. They can make me be like them. Maybe I should change. I can make you all understand."

Washington had gone sour.

It hadn't been what they'd been promised.

Something had turned it sick – rotting from the inside out – bedrock deep, maybe further.

Even the wind had tasted bitter, dank with mildew and mold. It was bad enough to make even Daryl turn skittish – bleeding misplacement and uncertainty as the crumbling blacktop refused to give underneath his worn soles. Squinting suspiciously around every corner as the looming buildings set the atmosphere dark regardless if it was night or day.

They'd all noticed it.

Even Judith – growing sulky and muted as their lonely caravan pushed forward.

The streets leading to D.C were hard and unkind and it'd only gotten worse when they reached the city limits.

They'd lost Tyreese long before they hit the state line.

She kept trying to tell herself that it was a blessing in disguise.

That any of them would have been lucky to go out like that – quick, clean, easy.

No one said it though.

Not to Sasha.

Not to each other.

Choosing to keep their own council as she'd cradled him close, silent tears streaming down her cheeks – too far gone to do anything else. And like shadows carving channels out of living stone, everything else was unspoken. Come morning they would grieve and move on. Bowed but not broken. Not yet.

And why not?

There had still been a purpose then.

A reason to keep going.

She'd never been to Washington. In fact, she'd never been out of Georgia proper. Ed had seen to that. And in hindsight, it seemed like he'd done her a favor because she'd hated every minute of it.

The chill had been bone deep - pervasive and gross - like nature had hit pause on the wrong end of a season. She told herself, at least at first, that she was just biased. That it was all but ingrained after years on the run – something that left her with a distaste for the unfamiliar, the unknown and unexplored. It made sense, after all, you stuck with what you knew – where you knew.

She realized pretty damn quick that it wasn't her.

It was this place, this city, this-

And the people, god, the people had been-

But she supposed that hadn't been anyone's fault. Least of all Eugene's.

Because he'd been telling the truth. Everything he'd said, impossible as it'd been to believe, all of it had been true. Every sullied second of it. From the pass-code he'd punched in on the side door of a nondescript building a few blocks from the docks, all muted concrete-grey and still smelling faintly of fish. To the handprints painted – thick and dribbling across bullet proof glass - there had been no question then, not even from Daryl, that Eugene Porter wasn't exactly who he said he was.

Their best chance.

Their best hope.

Maybe their only hope.

The truth of it had been written across his face as they'd dragged out the bodies, clearing a space in the control room as he'd cursed and sweated, flicking at unlit switches and mumbling about generators and operational capacity before taking off down one of the side halls. Almost giving Abraham an aneurysm before they caught up with him in a fish-bowl office, flushed with pride and grinning like a manic as he held a key card tight in his fist.

That was when she understood.

He was in his element here.

In all the ways he didn't fit outside, in the wild, this was where he belonged. Surrounded by humming computers and sterile whites. He found his niche in numbers, in playing the odds. In this place he owned every inch in himself, he was every inch of himself.

Meanwhile, she felt muted. The cavernous spaces and limp lab coats that still hung beside office doors reminded her so much of the CDC that she felt a shiver of claustrophobia creep down her spine. And she hadn't been alone. Daryl had paced, hands running through that long brown hair she was just itching to take her scissors to.

Try not to think about it.

That was what Jenner had said, wasn't it?

The parallel between them - between Eugene and herself - wasn't lost on her.

But neither was it welcome.

She'd come too damn far to devolve.

To take a two steps back instead of three steps forward.

So she didn't.

And despite the nervousness crawling underneath her skin every second they stayed put, she chalked it up to a win and moved on. Unwilling to look back too long lest she make herself out to be a liar.

There had only been a few hours to look around before Eugene crowded them out the door, muttering about the basement and an alternate power supply. But she saw enough to put the rest of the puzzle together.

Something had gone wrong down here.

Something that shouldn't have happened.

Something they hadn't anticipated.

She'd taken the time to dwell on the little things. Like the bloody smears and dented doors, automatic locks that'd been bolted down. Faulty wiring, Eugene had whispered, cut corners and under budget – trapping the people who'd worked here inside, air-tight and strangling.

She registered the dusty pictures on his desk, an older man with his face - his father maybe – sitting like still life on the far corner. Things like the broken glass underneath the empty case labeled 'fire axe' and the jagged gouges that'd been hacked out of the wall by the main doors. The way the control panel beside it had been pulled apart and re-wired, frozen in place just a few inches shy of a finger-length wide.

They'd almost made it.

A/N #2: Thank you for reading. Reviews and constructive critiquing are love! – There will be more to come! Stay tuned.

Reference: Big thank you to gunslingerdixon for the help collecting the Lizzie quotes from season four for use in this chapter.