@fighterfrankiearchives
Time passed with almost no recognition for Axel after that morning. It still ebbed and flowed but Axel just rode it out, let it take him where it pleased. He moved like a robot of sorts, threw himself into his work so that he couldn’t be able to feel anymore; took his shifts at the fence and more, went on the scheduled runs and stepped in on any others that he could. Helped around the city, acted as if everything was okay - but it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be. In the short period of time he had free to himself he couldn’t sleep, and when he did it was tormented with nightmares.
The pain numbed after a while. Days that melded into weeks that pooled into months blurred by. Eventually the hurt washed away, replaced with nothing but a dull ache in his chest and an emptiness in his heart. He hadn’t known her long but he’d come to know her well, and having Frankie slip through his fingertips was the biggest mistake he’d made yet. She was something special to him. He could’ve done something. He could’ve saved her.
Or maybe he couldn’t have - but he had deluded himself into thinking it was his fault, his fault that she was dead. Not those who had attacked Fall City and torn it to pieces, not Xavier or any of his men. It was his fault because he couldn’t be there when she needed him most.
But this was the new reality and it was what he would have to live with from now on. Xavier had disappeared, the attack on Fall City nothing but a distant memory, and they had been forced to move on.
So he took up his post at the gates just like any other night, pacing back and forth at the post, kicking up dirt with his boot. It had gone like almost any other night so far until a noise had him raising his gun, pointed in the direction of the entryway. His first thought was a clicker or something of that sort; it more than often was just one that had wandered a little too close to their borders, maybe attracted by the noise of the group. But the figure in the distance walked with some authority, clear cognitive thought. Not infected. He squinted, barrel of his weapon trained on the approaching person.
“Identify yourself. Now.”







