Chapter Text
The Kingdom was a thriving community during the end of the world. Each member of the gated sanctuary played a vital role in keeping the Kingdom a safe place for humanity to live on.
It had been over a year since Carol Peletier had come to this safe haven, and even longer since she had left her family back in Father Gabriel’s church.
They were celebrating and discussing the future when she noticed that no one was even on guard duty. She had just gotten them all out of Terminus, which was bound to have some survivors looking for revenge, and here they were like sitting ducks in a church.
No one even noticed her slip outside.
They were too happy, too lucky, and something bad was bound to happen. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She’d seen too many loved ones die, and she just needed it to stop.
If she was alone then she didn’t have to worry about losing anyone else. When she died, no one would have to take on the burden of delivering that final stab or shot to the head. She wouldn’t have to watch anyone else turn, or make the kinds of decisions like she had to do with Lizzie.
She would remember them as the smiling, full-bellied, celebrators that she left behind in that church. That was the picture that she’d keep with her. They wouldn’t fall for another Terminus, Rick knew better now and he would lead them to safety.
He’d go wrong, there was no doubt in her mind that they’d lose people along the way, but Rick was a good man and he’d get them to a sanctuary or die trying. She knew that he and Daryl would blame themselves the minute they found her missing, but she made sure to leave a little note tacked to a tree outside to show them that she hadn’t been taken.
It simply said: please don’t come after me. I love you all. Goodbye.
She could have written a novel to each member of her family, so she thought it best to be short and sweet, so as not to talk herself out of this decision. So she took a car, and she hit the lonely road for as long as the gas would allow.
She had met a few different groups over the months on the road, but tried to avoid getting attached to the good ones. The bad ones she eliminated when she had to, and steered clear of when she could, but there were an awful lot of the bad ones.
One of these bad groups had her pinned to the ground, with bullet wounds in her arm and leg and ready for death when the men from the Kingdom found her. They had taken out the bandits, Daniel had gotten her onto his horse and she woke up in a hospital bed at the Kingdom.
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Ezekiel confused her at first. He was a little eccentric with his pet tiger and his self-proclaimed title as King, but he seemed like a genuinely good man and she hadn’t met many of those in a long time.
She avoided staying in one place too long so she wouldn’t have to watch loved ones die, but the loneliness was eating away at her. Ezekiel had seen this in her and he offered her the perfect role. She would join the scouting missions outside the walls.
"You wouldn't have to sleep here every night, most of the men who go out are only here a few days a month," Carol considered this option, "you'd help the community by bringing in new supplies, even new people, and you wouldn't have to be on your own any longer."
She didn’t have to stay in the community every day, but she still got to contribute. She needed to have someone watching her back again, and having an occasional roof over her head with walls for protection would be a nice change, so she accepted his offer.
The six men that went with her quickly developed a strong respect for Carol. If her people were injured, she had the medical knowledge to get them patched up and sent home. If the dead ones came, she could take them with deadly accuracy and without blinking an eye. She was quite adept at dealing with the living as well. This could mean killing them or negotiating with them, but either way she usually came out on top.
They had met Paul “Jesus” Rovia on one of these runs and the trading system with the Hilltop was established. The trades were an excellent way to keep a steady supply of different foods coming into the Kingdom, and it helped that the Hilltop had weapon makers to provide protection.
The day Jesus showed up at the Kingdom talking about a man named Negan and his men, Carol and Ezekiel knew that they had to prepare. Jesus had described what had happened to a kid in their community when their leader said no to Negan’s demands, and that they now had to give half of their supplies to the Saviors every month.
The Kingdom wasn’t going to bow to the demands of Negan and his Saviors. They set up more watch duties and tried to keep anyone not in Carol’s scouting group inside of the walls. The citizens of the Kingdom knew what could happen, but they wouldn’t allow someone to scare them out of everything they had built. The Hilltop needed help and Carol had promised Jesus that once they could get some more fighters, and do some recon on Negan and his men, they would help his community out of this deal.
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When Negan and his saviours eventually came knocking at the doors to the Kingdom, they quickly learned that this was one group that wouldn’t give in so easily.
The gates were sealed the minute that the watchtower guards had noticed the incoming men. One woman had been outside foraging and had become collateral damage as a result.
Usually the Saviors would trade protection from the dead and the living for…well whatever the fuck they wanted. Some groups had to deliver food, medicine, weapons or whatever else Negan wanted, whenever Negan wanted. The Saviors would make sweeps around to these groups and make sure that the dead weren’t closing in, and that everyone was staying in line.
Negan assumed that this is what would happen at the Kingdom as well, “come out, come out!”
He yelled at the closed gates, “I have a friend of yours out here and she’s about to show you what happens when you ignore me,” a lone figure appeared on top of the gate, but she didn’t speak, merely pointed her gun at the Saviors.
“Nothing?” he placed the bat next to the kneeling woman’s head, “you’re not even going to try and negotiate or anything? Well then,” he bashed in the skull of the young woman to show the gated community that he meant business.
“Now tell whoever runs this place, the King of the Kingdom, that this is what is going to happen every time we show up and you don’t deliver.”
He gave his orders that they now had to give up half of their food and that his men would be back every month for more. He warned that the gates wouldn’t hold forever and that someone had to come outside eventually, and they’d be found.
Instead of obeying his orders as everyone else did, Carol killed eleven of his men.
Shooting at a group was a lot easier than trying to shoot one woman who had quite a few hiding spots along the ramparts of the wall. After realizing what they were dealing with, Negan called off his men, “Ok, ok we get it! Come out here so we can talk.”
The five remaining men lowered their weapons and Carol disappeared for a moment before the gates were opened just enough for her to squeeze through, “Negan, I presume?” she asked calmly as the gates sealed behind her once again.
“Seems you have me at a disadvantage, darlin’, you know my name but I don’t know yours,” the man had a devilish smile as he approached her.
“Carol,” she answered, “and this is my home, so what can I help you with?”
“So you’re the Queen of the Kingdom, hmm?” he gestured to the remains of Lucille’s newest victim, “well, your majesty, I just beat the holy hell out of one of your subjects, and it’s gonna happen again if you don’t start listening.”
Carol gestured to the dead Saviors near her feet, “and this will happen again if you don’t listen.”
Negan was intrigued. Most men wouldn’t stand up to him like this and this tiny woman was speaking to him like he was a child, “you can kill me right now, yell at the gates until your throat is raw, but no one is coming out. So unless you plan to beat down the gates and kill everyone inside, I suggest we come to some sort of agreement.”
It was abundantly clear to Negan that every time the Saviors would show up, people on both sides would die. Negan was a smart man and he knew that it was pointless to send his men to the Kingdom if it would just result in causalities each time. He knew that he could go in and kill them all, or burn the whole Kingdom to the ground, but then it’d just be another empty base. The whole point of these scare tactics was to get people to work for him and give him supplies. They couldn’t grow him food if he wrecked their community and they couldn’t work for him if they were all dead.
So, neither wanting to lose anymore people, a deal was struck. They wouldn’t fuck with each other.
The people inside the walls of the Kingdom were off limits to the Saviors, and the Saviors were off limits to Carol and the others.
Carol knew what Negan did. She also knew what living in this new world meant. It meant you couldn’t save everyone. They had managed to save a few wandering groups before Negan got to them, but they had also come upon the remains of quite a few of Lucille’s victims.
Until they could get Negan alone, they had no chance of taking him out. If they could kill Negan, the Saviors would get sloppy and be much easier to pick off. Those he had scared into submission, would be free and those who followed him for fun, would die.
Thanks to their deal, the Kingdom was off-limits so her new family was safe. So she stayed in the Kingdom, worked with the Hilltop to come up with a plan, and tried to forget her old family.
But she missed them, Oh god did she miss them.
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When Jesus showed up a few months later with news that another group would join their efforts against Negan, Carol was thrilled, but that feeling lessened as he told her more.
“They’re good people. One of the women who came with them is pregnant, they need supplies so we’ve promised them some food and medicine in return for their help,” Jesus explained.
“Do they have any ideas? We need to figure out a way to get him on his own, divide and conquer” Carol was excited, it had been a long time since someone new had expressed interest in standing up to Negan. Most groups were too scared to even speak on the subject.
“Rick said they’ve never had a problem confronting people before, I think he has a plan already worked out. They haven’t met Negan, but he sent those wolves into their town. They managed to kill most of them,” Jesus noticed her eyes widen in surprise, she had encountered the Wolves before and they were savage. These people definitely had potential if they stopped a wolf attack.
“I told him to wait since there were others who wanted to fight, but he took a group of his people to one of the drop points…”
“So they’ve never met Negan?” at Jesus’s nod she continued, “and now they’re going into one of the warehouses that is packed with Saviors?”
She started grabbing weapons, “do they have a death wish? Taking out the wolves was on their territory, this is walking right into one of the Saviors’ houses.”
Carol was putting on her armour as Jesus continued to speak, “This was a couple days ago, I rode down as soon as they left, but you’ll never stop them now.”
“I know I can’t stop them, but we both know Negan doesn’t like people killing his men so I gotta get them behind these gates before he goes looking for them,” she stuffed another gun in her boot and started out of her house towards the stables.
When her men got to the stables she turned back to Jesus, “So quick descriptions, who is it I’m looking for?”
“Well the leader is Rick Grimes, and I think his second is Daryl, think he said his last name was Dixon, uses a crossbow, or it could be Glenn. There was a woman named Maggie, but she’s pregnant so I doubt they’d have her in this fight, big ginger guy named Abraham, woman named Michonne….”
Jesus continued to list out members of her family, but it fell on deaf ears. The second the heard Rick's name she knew they were all in trouble.
“Fuck,” all of the men in the room turned to stare at her strange reaction, but she just waved it off.
The only thought in her mind as they rode through the gates of the town was goddamnit, Rick. What the hell did you get into now?