Chapter Text
Alicia woke up the next morning, confused. It was close to 4:30 in the morning and Althea wasn’t in bed next to her. She heard a weird noise, like someone was rooting around in the room so she turned on the bedside light and saw Althea sitting in the corner of the room, looking through the duffle bag.
“Althea what are you doing up?”
Al didn’t respond and she only kept looking through the bag.
“Al, come to bed, we’ll do that in the morning.” She said, wanting Althea to get some sleep.
Al kept going though, and Alicia wasn’t even sure if her girlfriend was awake or aware of what she was doing. Althea never mentioned sleepwalking, but Alicia didn’t want to count it out.
She got out of bed and went over to where Al was sitting and lightly touched her back.
Althea jumped out of her skin and whipped around to look at Alicia. She didn’t say anything but she did whimper and Alicia could see that she was clutching her camera to her chest.
“Al, it’s too early to be up. Come back to bed.”
Al shook her head and scooted further away from Alicia, hugging her camera close to her.
“My camera.” Al said, and Alicia realized that Al was probably afraid that someone, especially June, would come in and take it.
“Yep. That’s your camera. Now how about we put it back and go back to bed? I promise no one is going to take it.”
“MY CAMERA.” Al growled, raising her voice slightly. Alicia stepped back at Althea’s tone and raised her eyebrows.
“Althea, I’m not going to argue with you about this at four in the morning. Hand it over and get yourself back in bed please.” Alicia said, holding her hand out.
“No.” Althea said, refusing to give the camera to Alicia.
“Althea, that wasn’t a suggestion. Get your butt back in bed. Now.”
“NO!” Althea screamed, and she crawled on her hands and knees as fast as she could to the corner of the room, curling her back and tucking herself into a little ball so Alicia couldn’t grab her or her camera without a fight.
“Althea, you’ll wake up the others. Inside voice.” She said, to remind Al that they weren’t the only people in the denim factory.
Al grunted in annoyance and stayed huddled in her ball.
“Why are you even up anyway? Why are you looking at your camera right now?”
“It won’t turn on.”
“Sweetheart, you knew it wouldn’t turn on. It landed on a boulder and got wet. It’s a miracle that it lost only a few pieces and is still somewhat intact.”
“I want it to work.” Al whimpered, still upset about the situation.
“I know Honey. And maybe we can get it to work again, but now is not the time to start doing that. Now is time to go to bed.”
Before Al could answer, the two heard a soft knock at the door. Alicia went over and was surprised to see Victor standing on the other side.
“Hey, is everything ok in there?” He asked, looking at Alicia with a worried expression.
“Al decided to get up and see if her camera still worked. I can’t get her back to bed.”
“May I try?”
“If you want. You probably won’t get far.”
Victor walked into the room and knelt down next to Althea. After whispering in her ear for a little bit, she finally surrendered her camera and put it back in the bag. It took a little bit more coaxing and eventually Althea let Victor help her up and lead her out of the room.
“I’m going to take her downstairs. How about you go back to bed Alicia?”
Alicia was too tired to disagree and went back to bed, letting Victor take control of the situation.
Victor took Althea down to the living area and settled in one of the recliners, pulling Al onto his lap.
“Althea, would you like to talk about this?” He asked, in a gentle and soothing voice.
“My camera won’t turn on.”
Victor nodded and rubbed her back.
“Well, considering what happened to the camera, I’d be surprised if it did turn on.”
Al nodded and sniffled. Tears started to fall down her cheeks and Victor swiped a tear away with his thumb.
“I want my mom.” Al whimpered, this being the final straw. She started to cry harder and Victor knew that Al missed her parents terribly, and this event caused that pain to resurface.
“Oh Sweetie.” He said empathetically, feeling bad for Al. If only he had known that June was going to do what she did, he could have prevented it somehow. Then Althea wouldn’t have had to go through the pain of losing her mom twice.
“I’m sorry. For being loud and waking you up.” Al said quietly, resting her head against Victor’s chest.
“It’s ok. We have all the time in the world to sleep.” Victor said, not really minding. He was used to getting up early anyways.
“What do we do today?”
“Today we’re going to have a meeting and talk about what we’re going to do with June and then once we have that squared away, we’re going to work out in the garden. You and Alicia could work on your camera too.”
“I don’t want her to stay. She hurt my camera.”
Victor nodded in understanding. No matter how anyone voted or felt, it was Althea who got the final say. She was the one who was hurt by June so she gets to decide.
“Well, we’ll come up with a final decision after everyone is awake. But we’ll keep your wants in mind, I promise.” Victor said, smiling slightly when Al yawned.
“Would you like to go to bed Al?” He asked, seeing that she was fighting to stay awake.
“No. ‘Licia’s mad at me.” Al murmured, rubbing her eyes.
“Alicia’s not mad at you. I promise.”
Al shook her head and got off of Victor’s lap, before going to the couch and lying face down on it.
“Althea, you should go to bed.” Victor said, a bit more seriously. He felt that if Al was going to fall asleep it’d be better for her to sleep in her bed than on the couch.
Al grunted in response and Victor chuckled before picking her up and carrying her bridal style back up to her bedroom.
Alicia was sound asleep so he deposited Al on her side of the bed and tucked her in before leaving the room. Al was too tired to fight him and she was almost asleep by the time he left the room.
With nothing else to do, Victor went back to bed also, and it wasn’t until about ten in the morning when everyone was up and around. After breakfast, Morgan sat everyone down to discuss what to do with June.
“Here’s the thing.” He started. “We all agree that what June did crossed a line. She never should have destroyed Althea’s camera and tapes.”
“I want her gone.” Al said, staring at Morgan.
“But we do need a doctor, and that’s what June is. For the greater good of the group, she needs to stay.”
“For the greater good?” Alicia shouted, not believing what she was hearing.
“Alicia………” Morgan said quietly. He felt that shouting and getting angry was only going to make things worse.
“I want her gone. Victor promised that I get to choose.”
“Althea, you can’t just think about yourself, you have to think about the group. Don’t be difficult about this.” Morgan said.
Althea stiffened when she heard that. She remembered how when she was a child, teachers would call her difficult because of her sensory processing disorder. Difficult wasn’t something that she wanted to be called. Difficult was bad.
“Ok.” Al whispered, before getting up and leaving. Alicia followed close behind and the two went up to the bedroom.
Althea went over to the dresser and started to pull her clothes out, dumping them into a duffle bag.
“I wanna go.” Al said, zipping up the bag.
“Ok. How about we wait until tomorrow. Then we have the whole day to travel. We can work on your camera up here for a while and just keep to ourselves. Then before bed we can pack up the van and in the morning after breakfast we’ll go.”
“Really?” Al asked not sure if Alicia was going to want to leave. She was pretty sure that at the time, Alicia was only telling her it was ok to leave to keep her calm and from going into meltdown mode.
“Of course. I told you that we’d find another place to call home if they didn’t accept you, and Morgan allowing June to stay and not even considering what you want is not accepting of you.”
“If you want to stay, we can. I don’t want to be difficult.” Al said quietly, Morgan’s words spinning in her head.
“Hey, what did you just say?” Alicia asked, hoping she heard her girlfriend wrong.
“I don’t want to be difficult.”
“Althea, doing something that will help you feel better is not you being difficult.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes Al. I promise. You doing what you have to do is not you being difficult.”
“So, we can still leave?”
“Yes. Bright and early tomorrow morning.” Alicia promised, giving Al a hug.
The two went on to stay in their room for most of the day, trying to see if the camera or any of the tapes could be salvaged. Unfortunately, the tapes had been jostled so the boxes opened, and the film in them was destroyed. The camera also wouldn’t turn on, no matter what they tried, so Al decided to leave everything behind. It’d only upset her if she brought everything along and could only look at it and be reminded that they were useless and ruined.
“Alicia?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to kill everyone, like you said?”
“What?”
“Back before I told everyone, you said that if they didn’t accept me, you’d kill them and we’d leave. We’re leaving tomorrow. Are you going to kill everyone before we do?”
“No. I’m going to go against that. I won’t kill them. But I hope that they are still happy with their decision once we’re gone.”
“Did you tell Victor and Lucy yet?”
“No, why?”
“Because if they want to, they can come with us. Charlie, Wendell and Sarah too, if they offer.”
“Althea, are you sure you’d be ok with that? Because last night I was under the impression that you wanted it to be just you and me.”
“If the others want to come with because they disagree with Morgan’s decision, we should let them because we’ve all been together for months. We’re not just a group, we’re like a family.”
“Ok. I’ll tell everyone what our plans are, and I’ll let them know that anyone is welcome to join us.” Alicia said, getting up.
Al nodded and went over to the bed, picking up her bunny, holding close to her.
Alicia returned after a half hour, a strange look on her face. She looked pleased, and at peace about something.
“What?”
“Everyone, except for Morgan, June and John, wants to come with us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Victor, Luciana, Sarah and Wendell are all fed up over Morgan’s decision, and Charlie thinks that Morgan wasn’t being fair to you.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re all leaving tomorrow to go north. Charlie was looking through a book about states and she says that Wisconsin might be nice. It’s an agricultural state, so we could find a place and grow crops. They experience all different kinds of weather there, so it won’t be like living in this heat anymore.”
“But doesn’t it get cold?”
“Yeah. In the winter they get a lot of snow and it gets cold. But besides that, they only really have to deal with occasional flooding from heavy rain and the possibility of tornados. I think we should give it a chance.”
Al nodded in agreement. She didn’t care where they went, as long as they were away from June.
“We’ll probably find an abandoned neighborhood, fortify some walls and live in the houses there. Right now, we think that it’s for the best to just start our own little neighborhood, and not start a full-fledged community.”
“I like that. Just us.” Al said quietly, wanting it to be the next morning already so they could start their latest adventure.
Alicia smiled and nodded, happy that Althea wasn’t upset over these new plans.
“Let’s go down to dinner.” Alicia said, knowing that Althea was hungry.
Dinner was quiet, mostly because it was very awkward around the table. Morgan didn’t think that everyone would be leaving, he thought that Althea would be angry for a while and then get over it. He also thought that June needing to stay because she was a doctor was logical and everyone else would agree with it. He was dead wrong though, and now he had to deal with the fact that everyone was leaving because of it.
After supper, everyone who was leaving with Alicia and Al went to bed, since they wanted to get an early start. When Alicia came back into the bedroom from packing the last things in the swat van, she smiled when she saw Althea passed out on the bed, her bunny laying over her face.
“Good night Baby.” She whispered, pressing a feather light kiss to Al’s hair, before going to bed herself, excited to start this new adventure.