Ch 6 Same words, different day

It had been a week since they had brought Randall back from town, and the atmosphere had been… tense, to say the least.

Beth had woken up. Or at least come out of her state. It took a bit of doing but Hershel managed to get her to "wake up".

And from what Sam had heard, she was messed up. He wouldn't be surprised if she was planning on offing herself. After everything that had happened to her it made sense.

Hell, Sam had those kinds of thoughts after he had been separated and come to the realization that he would never see his brother, sister, and mother again. Not his father though, fuck him.

Ever since Rick had taken his gun though, Sam had felt useless. That was how it was when he was with his friends and they were… scavenging. If you didn't have a gun you were useless. No gun, no contribution, no purpose.

Sam had gone to Dale first, asking if he had anything that needed doing. There was nothing that he could help with. Sam couldn't help but notice the suspicious glance he got from him.

Next up was Andrea, but he did no better there. In fact he did noticeably worse, because all he got from her was a glare. Not even a word.

Sam worked his way over to Glenn next. If nothing else he would be able to tell him why he was getting the cold shoulder.

"Glenn, hey Glenn I need to talk with you!" Sam said as he ran up to him.

Glenn turned and faced him, his eyes widened and he stumbled back a bit. "Oh uh, h-hey Sam. Uh what's up?"

Sam took in the boy's appearance and how he seemed to look at him, then it clicked as to why everyone was treating him differently.

"Rick told you all. Didn't he?"

"W-what?"

"Rick told you what I did before I found this group."

"Oh! No! Sam- I mean what would Rick tell-"

"Glenn you're a good guy, but a shit liar." Sam told him. "I gotta go."

Sam turned and made for the house. He hoped that Hershel would at least let him explain before he passed judgment.

The house seemed quiet. More so than usual. Ever since he had been there the house seemed to have a lack of noise, a lack of life in it. It unsettled Sam. The pictures showed life and laughter, but the house showed nothing but an eerie silence.

Sam saw Maggie and Lori whispering to each other, or at least trying.

"We can't leave her alone-"

"Maggie," Sam said as he walked up to the two. He noticed that they reacted as everyone else had. "Have you seen Hershel?"

"Uh, no I-"

"Why do you have that?" Lori demanded, pointing at Sam's machete.

"Rick took my gun, not my machete."

"Well I don't think you should be carrying that."

"Well I don't give a goddamn what you think. Maggie, where's Hershel?" Sam asked again.

"He's fixing one of the fences." Maggie said quietly.

"Alight, do you mind if I wait in here for him?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea?" Lori answered for her.

"I didn't ask you, Lori. Maggie, may I please wait in here for Hershel?"

Maggie looked to Lori who shook her head no. "I… uh, the machete stays outside."

"Fair enough," Said said, he unclipped the machete and walked it out to the front porch.

He waited for ten minutes. No Hershel. Ten more. Still no Hershel.

He might not have seen the old man, but he did hear some interesting things. Like Beth was in her room talking about killing herself, and Lori and Maggie had no idea what to do.

"Maggie," Sam spoke up from his seat. "I can help."

"Excuse me?"

"Your sister, she wants to kill herself right? I can help."

Lori scoffed. "And what makes you think you can help? Didn't you kill people?"

"And what makes you think you're so high and mighty? Didn't you fuck your husband's best friend?" Sam countered. "Maggie, trust me, I can talk her out of it. Besides, what else have you got to lose?"

Maggie didn't get it. Neither did Lori.

They thought that she was being dumb and selfish for wanting to kill herself. That she didn't know what she wanted. But for the first time since it all started, Beth felt like she finally did know what she wanted.

Beth curled into her covers, and buried her head into the pillow.

She shouldn't have taken the knife like that. It was a stupid move on her part. Now they were watching her like a hawk, trying to keep her from opening her wrists.

But who were they to decide? If she wanted to do it then she should have been able to kill herself.

Knock Knock.

Beth turned to the door. Neither Maggie or Lori had knocked before.

"C-come in," she said unevenly.

The door cracked open and the Irish boy walked into the room. Though he didn't have any of his weapons.

"So," he said as he pulled up a chair next to her bed, "I hear you want to off yourself."

Beth raised an eyebrow at his approach. "What are you doing here?"

"Why do you want to off yourself?"

"That's none of your business."

He cracked a smile and leaned back in his chair. "You're right, it isn't. But I'm curious, so come on, tell me."

Beth looked away from him. "You wouldn't understand."

"I would, actually," Beth heard him rolling up his sleeves, and she fought the urge to look. "You think you're the only one that's ever wanted to kill yourself in this mess? Believe me Blondie, you aren't."

Beth wiped her head back to face him. "You haven't lost what I have!"

"Oh no?!" He shot out of his seat, wrists out in the open, showing a network of crisscrossed scars along his left forearm. "Who do you think I shot coming out that barn? That was my fucking' brother, lass! And a few days before that, I lost another one. And for all I know, my brother, my sister, my own mother, they're dead! And what you think you're special? Let me tell you something lass, you're just another person that lost people they loved. The only difference? You still have people alive!"

Beth shrank down under his gaze and looked to the floor.

"You think I would kill myself if I had family left? No, I wouldn't. I would enjoy every last fuckin' second I had with 'em."

Beth felt tears welling up in her eyes. But she knew why they were there.

It wasn't out of the self-pity that had consumed her earlier. But out of hatred. Hatred towards herself. For the selfish girl she had been.

Maggie was right. She was just being a selfish brat. How could she even think about leaving her family that had already lost so should be grateful that she still had them. Enjoy what time she had left before she or anyone else died.

"So, what do you think about offing yourself now?" Sam's voice didn't lose any of it's edge.

Beth shook her head as tears slipped from her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She leaned forward and brought Sam into a fierce hug that he returned, if not a bit awkwardly.

"I… I was an idiot! I'm sorry!"

"Hey, hey lass come on," Sam whispered. "You're alright, come on now."

Beth continued to cry. Not just for wanting to kill herself, but to finally mourn. She let out all the unshed tears that had been welling up ever since her mother had died. And when she was done, she drifted off to sleep.

Sam walked down the stairs as quietly as he could. It would be best if he didn't wake her. She would sleep off whatever doubt that remained in her mind, then hopefully get back to her usual self.

Sam had only one conversation with her before that, but he could tell that she wasn't the kind to kill herself. She just thought that she wanted to.

Sam could understand that. After he had been separated from everyone he had tried slitting his wrists, hence the scars, but he didn't cup deep enough and all he did was waste bandages and water. He wasn't the type to kill himself either, but like her, he had thought that he was.

Sam didn't want to yell, but it was either that or let her cut herself in order to find out that she wasn't. He personally liked his way better.

"Sam!" Maggie said when she saw him coming down the stairs. "Is she-"

"Sleeping, I gave her a bit of a talk, she cried, she'll wake up in a few. Should be fine."

"Do you think that she'll still want to.. You know?"

Sm shook his head. "No. She knows how lucky she is now. I wouldn't worry too much."

Maggie brought him into a tight hug that sam returned awkwardly, just like he had done so when Beth hugged him.

"Uh, thanks," Sam said uneasily.

"What you don't like hugs?"

"My dad was an abusive drunk. Never really got any hugs."

It was a bit before Hershel came back. And when he did, Sam was nodding off in the living room.

"Sam?" Hershel asked.

"What?! Huh? Oh uh, Hershel, uh I was waiting for you," Sam stood up and straightened his shirt.

"Well here I am."

"Right, so… I take it that Rick talked to you. About what I did before I, came here."

Hershel nodded and Sat down. "He did. He told me that you were dangerous. That you had killed people and taken their things."

"Well he wasn't lying. I did do those things." Sam held eye contact. "I won't try to justify it if you don't want to hear it."

Hershel looked pensive for a moment. "I'll hear your what you have to say."

"It was after we had been to Benning. We were low on food, water, and just about everything else you could imagine. There were four of us. We were sitting around a fire we had made, starving and shivering in the dark. Then we heard these two people shouting. Michael was the one who thought of it. We charged in, held them at gunpoint, one of them tried fighting so, I shot him. In the chest. He bled out right there."

"Do you regret it?" Sam looked up at the old man, who wore a look of indifference. "Do you regret killing that man, or any of the others?"

Sam looked down at his feet and wrung his hands together. "I- no, I don't know. If I hadn't of done it then I would be dead. But I shot a man, I killed people. Killed them, then I took their things."

"And what would have happened if you didn't? You would have died. Sam, I know you've done terrible things, but I can see you're trying to atone for them. That you aren't whoever it was that shot that man and took his things. You are not an evil person. Maggie told me what you did for Beth. Would an evil man do that?"

"N-No," Sam stuttered out. "No they wouldn't."

"Exactly. You are a better man than you were at the beginning of this mess Sam, just like I am. Forget about the past, and focus on how you can make your future better."

Sam smiled and looked up at Hershel. "Thanks. I needed to hear that."

The old farmer nodded. "Now come on, I was just about to get some lunch."

When Rick and Shane came back with Randall and locked him back up in the shed Sam had been in when he had first arrived, he knew what was coming. Sam felt like everyone knew as well. Execution.

"Boy there's got a gang, 30 men" Daryl said after he had come back from "talking" with Randall. "They have heavy artillery and they ain't lookin' to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead. And our women, they're gonna wish they were"

"What did you do?" Carol practically accused him.

"Had a little chat" Daryl lied.

"No one goes near this guy" Rick ordered everyone.

"Rick, what are you gonna do?" Lori asked him.

"We have no choice. He's a threat" he looked around at everyone and carried on "We have to eliminate the threat"

"You're just gonna kill him?" Dale seemed astounded.

"It's settled, I'll do it today" Rick walked away, with Dale on his heels.

It still surprised him how everyone was so willing to accept that Rick was going to kill a person. Well almost everyone.

"Sam I need your help," Dale said as he walked over to the young Irishmen. "They're gonna kill him."

Sam nodded. "I know. Rick was pretty clear on that just now."

"And? We need to talk him out of it!"

"What can we do, Dale? I mean honestly, what can we do? Everyone's pretty much decided."

"Do you agree?"

Sam scoffed. "Of course not. Way I see it, that could have easily of been me in there. Hell it was me in there at one point. But the way it's going to be, is a vote. And everyone wants that kid dead, well everyone except us."

Dale began to pace. He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his head. "We- we need to talk to people, convince them that what we're going to do, that it's wrong!"

"You don't get it Dale, these people are scared, and I know from experience that when a person's scared, they'll do what they think are right, even though it isn't."

Dale took a step back. "Are you saying that… you've-"

"Oh come off it Dale! I know you and everyone else know about what I did. Rick didn't exactly keep it a secret from all of you. Hershel told me that Rick told him, so why would he stop there?" Sam ran his hand through his hair and sighed. "Look, if you want me to help I will. I'll talk to Hershel and his people, try and get them to see our side of things."

Dale nodded. "Thank you, Sam."

"Don't thank me yet, that kids still on death row."

"Hershel!" Sam yelled as he ran to the old framer. "Hershel you got a minute?"

Hershel had a straw hat on his head and, from the look of things, was getting ready to head out.

"A fence got torn down and a few cattle got out. I have five minutes but that is all." Hershel said, his voice showing not an ounce of room for argument.

"Listen I promised Dale that I would talk to you about Randall."

Hershel raised his hand telling Sam to stop. "I don't want anything to do with that son."

"But Hershel-"

"Please, I don't. It's up to all of you to either let that boy live, or to let him die."

Sam could tell he wouldn't get anywhere with the farmer so he just nodded and walked away. It seemed like everyone had already made up their minds.

"So how do we do this? Just take a vote?" Glenn asked everyone.

"Does it have to be unanimous? How about majority rules?" Andrea chipped in.

"Let's just see where everybody stands, then we can talk through the options" Rick ordered.

"The way I see it, there's only one way to move forward," Shane spoke, not showing any remorse for his words.

"Killing him, right? I mean, why even bother to vote? It's clear which way the wind's blowin'" Dale bellowed at the others.

"Well, if people believe we should spare him, I wanna know" Rick told the group.

"Well I can tell you it's a small group. Maybe just me and Glenn"

Glenn looked at Dale then, his face showing guilt like Sam had never seen, and he and his friends had killed people.

"Look, I think you're pretty much right about everything all the time but this-"

"They're got you scared!" Dale cut him off.

"He's not one of us. And we've lost too many people already."

Dale was silent. "How about you, do you agree with this?" He asked Maggie.

"Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?" She asked Rick.

"Just another mouth to feed." Daryl said quietly behind Rick.

"It may be a lean winter." Hershel spoke.

"We could ration better." Lori suggested.

"Well, he could be an asset. Give him a chance to prove himself" Dale practically begged.

Rick raised an eyebrow. "Put him to work?"

Shane shook his head. "We're not letting him walk around"

"We could put an escort on him." Dale pointed out.

"And who wants to volunteer for that duty?"

"I will." Sam spoke up.

"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy." Rick was beginning to get agitated.

"He's right, I wouldn't feel safe unless he's tied up." Lori backed Rick up.

"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles"

Sam blocked them out and leaned his head against the wall he was standing in front of. But once they began talking about how they would, kill, Randall, he checked back in.

"I thought about that, shooting might be more humane," Rick said to the other.

"Which part would be humane Rick?" Sam asked him. "The bullet, or the fact that you're gonna shoot a kid that you saved?"

"Didn't you want to kill him?" Rick pointed out.

"I did, but that was when his fuckin' foot was impaled on a fence. Now he can walk, we just send him out-"

"He could find his people," Shane told him.

"No he won't. They came from Philadelphia, they obviously don't stay in once place too long. Why would they stay here? It's just a waste of resources."

"And, what? You know this how?" Shane asked.

"Because that was how my friends and I operated-"

"When you killed people? No wait you didn't just kill people, you stole from them. You robbed and killed."

"Yeah Shane I did! I killed, I stole. I did bad things. But the way I see it, you're all going to do a bad thing yourselves here."

Shane stormed over and got in Sam's face. "This is different! We are protecting ourselves from his group! From people like you!"

"No. Not people like me Shane. People like you. People that enjoy this world, because they can do what they want. My friends and I did what we did to survive. Randalls group, and you, they do what they do because they enjoy it." Sam looked away from Shane to the others. "Now what does that mean for Randall? It means that he was just trying to survive. That boy doesn't have a cunning bone in his body. He was just trying to survive, like us."

And with that Sam walked out of the house. He was done for the day.

Night had arrived and Sam was sitting with Sophia trying to teach her the finer points of Poker, with Carol's permission of course.

"So what if I have two kings?" Sophia bluffed terribly.

Sam just gave her a warm smile and put his cards down. "I fold."

"Yay! What do I win?" Shit. Sam had nothing of value to give her. Well he had a couple hundred dollar bills but those were just in case he needed to use the bathroom and he didn't have any… you get the picture.

"You win bragging right for eternity. You've beaten me nearly every hand that we've had, so therefore you are all time champion!" Sam stood and gave her a bow.

Sophia giggled, but looked over Sam's shoulder and her face dropped.

Sam turned and saw Daryl, Rick, and Shane leading Randall to the barn.

"Go find your mother Sophia."

"But-"

"Please, just, go find her. If you can't, just put your hands over your ears and try and block out the noise." Sam began walking to the barn, careful to not make any noise.

He stuck to the shadows and looked through the open barn door where Rick had made Randall kneel. Where Randall was begging for his life.

'Please, you don't have to do this! Please!' Sam heard a woman beg in his mind. He got up and began walking back to the camp. 'Please just take it! Just don't kill me!'

'I'm sorry.' Sam remembered saying. 'We'll make it quick.'

A gunshot and the smell of smoke and gunpowder.

Sam didn't remember which time it had been. There were to many scenes just like that over the months since everything had started.

The same words, just different people.

"Sam?" he jumped at the familiar voice. "Sam are you alright?"

"Beth," He flashed her a small smile. "Hey, what are you doing out here?"

"Are you alright? It looks like you've been crying." She was right for the most part. Sam's eyes were red and a few tears had fallen free causing parts of his cheeks to become wet with tear stains.

"I have been," Sam thought that there was no use in lying.

"W-why?"

"They're gonna kill him, but that's not why I was crying. All of this, it's bring back memories."

"W-when you killed people?" Beth asked cautiously.

Sam let out a humorless chuckle. "Yeah, when my friends and I killed people. We were desperate, and hungry, and stupid. So we did the only thing we thought we could." Sam looked at her and saw that she was staring intently down at her shoes. "You don't have to be scared. I don't do that anymore. We, my friends and I, decided to stop. But that doesn't exactly forgive the things we did."

"I'm not scared of you," Beth said suddenly. "I just… I don't understand."

"Good," Sam turned and began to make his way back. "It means that there's some hope in this world left."

"Wait!" She called after him. "I was wondering if, well maybe you wanted to go for a walk tomorrow?"

Sam paused and turned. "Don't you have a bo-"

"No!" She shook her head rapidly. "We only dated for about three months before everything happened, and even then I was having second thoughts. So, tomorrow?"

Sam couldn't help but smile. "Tomorrow." Maybe the apocalypse wasn't all that bad.

Who would have thought that Sam would manage to get a date when a man was about to be put to death. Speaking of which, Sam had yet to hear a shot.

He looked to the barn and saw that it was empty. And that there was no blood on the dirt floor.

He walked as fast as he could back to the camp and saw Rick, Daryl, and Shane sitting around the fire. Rick looked conflicted, Daryl indifferent, and Shane, well he looked pissed.

"We're keepin' him alive... For now." Rick said when he spotted Sam making his way over.

Sam smiled and was about to answer when a scream echoed through the farm.

Everyone was on their feet in a second with their weapons at the ready.

Everyone ran toward the grazing fields and split up to cover more ground.

Sam had his knife raised and at the ready, reverse grip just like Michael had taught him.

Daryl was the one that found him. On the ground, Walker the cause of his opened stomach.

Dale groaned in pain as he looked at the familiar faces. Sam knew he wouldn't make it. The same thing had happened to his friend Ethan about a week into it. No bites, but the Walker had torn him open with it's hands. He didn't last ten minutes.

"Alright, just listen to my voice," Rick examined Dale as he spoke with his hand on his face. He then stood up, telling someone to get Hershel.

"Hand on, Dale," Andrea told him, her voice sounding broken, and desperate.

"What happened?!" Hershel finally made his way over, kneeling over Dale's broken body.

"Can we move him?" Rick asked.

"He won't make the trip."

"We gotta do the operation here, Glenn get back to the house!"

"Rick!" Sam spoke up. "He won't make the trip."

Everyone began crying, Rick knelt to look at Dale. Dale for his part simply kept groaning in pain, until he looked at Rick pistol, asking a question that he didn't need to use his voice for.

Rick stood up and pulled out his handgun.

As he pointed it at Dale's head, he struggled to pull the trigger. His finger kept slipping and sliding off of the piece of metal.

Sam stood up and slowly took the gun from his grip. "Go, I've got this." He aimed the gun at Dale's head. Dale leaned forward and made a motion that looked like nodding, as if he was giving permission. "I'm sorry. But it's quicker this way."

Same words different people.