I thought this was very interesting....it's long, but it makes for a good read.
From: soenottelling.
Carl goes after them (whispers)and finds a place where they settle from time to time. He is about to go in to rescue Lydia when something happens that forces him to retreat. Carl goes back to his dad to ask for help but as one aouod expect Rick says basically to forget about lydia. Carl gets mad that nobody will help him...and is having one his usual "dad is so mean"talks with negan about how nobody will. Of course, negan sees a chance to escape and says he will help Carl get her back. Carl agrees as long as negan promises not to run away. He cant pardon negan, but if he helps he can do something to get his lifestyle better than it is. And if Negan betrays him...Carl WILL kill him.
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So Negan and carl go to rescue lydia and accomplish their task (quick snatched and grab)...without negan betraying him or anything (negan has a weird sense of justice). When negan gets near to hilltop with them though, with lydia in tow, negan bolts somehow. Rick of course now knows the next morning Negan is gone and assumes carl was an idiot and went with him. Rick goes with a small posse trying to head them off, but instead meets up with a whisperer raiding party going back for lydia. There is a fight and somebody dies (but not rick...maybe some of the new group of ppl that came to Alexandria recently) along with all the whisperers. This basically is the start of a conflict.
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Meanwhile Gregory is put on trial (trial last during the time carl is doing the negan and dad stuff as a juxtaposition of the situations) along with his co-conspirators who he rats out (rating out occurs before trial and plays side story while carl is following the whispers alone) and they are found guilty of treason. As Maggie said "nobody dies" so they send Gregory and the others (including their sons) out...having been banished forever from the community. Not much but talking about the ramifications of the trial and finding out carl is gone occurs in hilltop for a while.
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The banished group are snagged by the whispers on their way to see if the "New Saviors" run by dwight, will accept them. Alpha asks them questions before killing all of the adults including gregory via mercilessly stabbing them (gregory of course thinking he can wiggle his way out of death by being a horrible snitch tells them that they saw lydia back at hilltop). The kids that hurt sophia, though, are enlist into their army of whispers (so now we have more whispers who we the reader recognize as enemies)...and learn that the sexual encounters lydia dealt with were not just something the young females dealt with.
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Meanwhile all that is happening, negan is going back to the Saviors (now the "new saviors") to get his revenge. He goes back expecting to have his revenge on dwight and take back control, but nobody will have him back as their leader. Without the fear of "what it is like without negan" nobody will deal with his brutality. He is captured by Dwight and is burned the same way he burned dwight...and then sent back into the wild presumably to die a mentally beaten man. Negan rampages his way towards the whispers and asks for a quid pro quo with the whisper's leader, alpha. "Help me destroy the survivors and I'll help you destroy Hilltop." Alpha says no, that negan is a wild angry man seeking revenge and that the whispers were a way of life that he wouldn't understand.
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So now we are at the next step and alpha is on the doorstep of hilltop again and asks for her daughter back. This time they won't give her up. The hilltop gang has something ready for them and the whispers are pushed back easily from hilltop. Alpha is undaunted but unsure what to do. They could lead a horde of zombies there...but that might get ppl on both sides killed. She looks for another way.
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Now, alpha goes out and finds negan, who has set up a small encampment somewhere and is barely surviving with the injury dwight gave him. Alpha basically wants to hear the deal now. Negan says that if they help him take the Saviors camp that he will help them with hilltop...but not before. The deal is agreed upon and negan's spirit we can see visibly lifted. we see the whispers sneak into the ranks of the undead around the New Saviors' camp and the next time the gate around the encampment is opened for supplies, they all spring up and kill everyone and storm the place. Many whispers are killed and the entirety of the Saviors camp is killed. Negan says something rye about "see what happens without me as your leader you ****s?" and we see Alpha come up and say something like " the price was heavy... I assume your end of the bargain will be fulfilled" and negan will say something like "Ab-so-****ing-lutely."
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negan will proceed to tell them that hilltop survives off trade routes with the other towns in the area to which alpha says they already know that. Negan then says some sort of insider information and blah blah blah...they are going to attack that trade route. We are suppose to expect it to be an attack on Alexandria but instead it's an attack on Ezekiel's place, cutting off the greatest food supplier. We finally meet michonne again in this part as she is the warrior queen of these ppl now as Ezekiel wanted to be with her. Ezekiel dies here...Michonne is captured. Lots of whispers die and some of the other whispers question alpha aloud. She does something brutal in response and negan says she is " my kinda woman."
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Learning of this attack, rick realizes the next step they will take is to seperate hilltop from Alexandria so he has as much food, supplies, and ppl sent to hilltop as possible. Rick or Andrea stay at Alexandria while the other goes with the wagon train of supplies. Let's say rick stays and andrea goes just because. We expect alpha and negan to hit alexandria, but in reality he is waiting for the supply shipment. More of the whisperers die. With a new Lucille 2 having been put together during the raid at The Kingdom, negan is prepared to do the same head smashing as he did the last time to whichever of rick/Andrea went with the train. Instead though he turns and wails on alpha and usurp her seat as "alpha." Negan says for everyone to call him alpha now and that he will lead them to victory...that the old alpha had risked THEIR lives for that of a child she pretended not to care about.
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Dressed without their zombie garb on, the whispers go into hilltop in the supply caravan pretending to be citizens of Alexandria (remember, the ppl of hilltop don't necessarily know the ppl of Alexandria well for the most part). If you haven't gotten it yet, a lot of this resembles the Iliad. The son stealing the daughter (Helen of troy) away from a great ruler. A seige response to that capture. Failure of the siege. A Trojan horse to break through the impenetrable defenses. So here we are at the horse and now we have an attack inside of hilltop. Ppl are caught off guard dying right and left. carl has a batman situation...do I run to save Sophia or do I run to save lydia. He runs to lydia, but he finds out she was already killed. He then runs to find Sophia... and Maggie and Sophia are at gunpoint by negan/(who is now called alpha). Alpha/negan yet again puts a test of lives before Carl. He says he likes carl, that they are friends, and that he will let Carl pick one to live and one to die. Carl picks sophia. Negan lets sophia start to walk towards Carl and we can see she is already bleeding profusely from a wound to the side. Carl glares and growls that they are not friends and he will kill negan...and negan shoots sophia in the back multiple times to kill her as she is walking towards carl....just close enough to touch him as she falls. Negan says coldly "your right carl....we AREN'T friends."
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Now we have neagan with Maggie, sophia dead on the ground, and carl with his gun. Negan laughs that he (carl) has other issues to deal with and starts to walk away dragging a beat up looking Maggie (likely pistol whipped into compliance). Carl Points His Gun At Negan, but is then attacked by sophia who is now a walker. Fighting occurs and carl tearfully pulls the trigger to kill her. He howls basically and starts to fume that he will kill negan. ..he WILL kill negan.
Now negan has taken Maggie to the center of the town where everybody has been rounded up. negan says he is about to publicly execute their leader (maggie) when carl starts to storm up to him. Negan tells them not to attack carl...let the boy vent. Carl says nothing, pulls his gun, and keeps walking towards negan. Negan holds maggie in front of him and laughs at carl....all sorts of stuff about his eye, about how he had sent ppl to "deal properly' with rick already, about how carl was the reason why all of this had happened...that carl had even been the one who freed him. Carl holds his gun up as he walks closer and closer to negan and maggie. Carl says "I'm sorry maggie" and shoots through negan's human shield (maggie) 3 or 4 times hitting negan in the neck and chest. Maggie is dead but negan is not.
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The whisperers don't move. Carl grabs a nearby chair where Lucille 2 (I blue myself...sorry, arrested development. ..moving on) is sitting. Carl takes the chair and Lucille and sets them close to negan. Negan says, through coughs of blood, "so your gonna ****in kill me with lucille? Well isn't that some Shakespearian shit." Carl says "not yet.....you have something else to deal with." (Whatever line was used earlier by negan in reference to zombie sophia). Maggie is zombie-fiying while on top of negan and negan starts screaming obsenities at carl. Zombie maggie starts to eat at negan..tear into his stomach and flesh. Carl takes his gun and fires one bullet into zombie maggie's head but pulls the trigger twice. carl states that he ran out of bullets....and picks up lucille. Carl watches negan bleeding out and negan stars laughing saying rick is dead anyway...carl has nothing. He gets to a line like " Carl, you are so fu-" and then lucille comes crashing Into his head...again and again until there is only a bloody stain and chipped bone where his head was. Carl turns and walks away sayING "I told you I'd kill you."
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Killing the alpha makes you the alpha, so all the whispers now consider carl their leader. This ends the conflict. Carl finds michonne and others from the supply group still alive but gaged. Michonne looks troubled and starts to cry...which troubles carl as he is ungagging her. She says "carl....rick....negan he.." CLIFF HANGER
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So now we have a scene with an open area in front of Alexandria. Rick and the 2 or 3 ppl who stayed there waiting for negan see a small band of 2-3 in distance. One is hooded and limping. The other 2 look like zombies. Rick tells everyone to be at the ready. The 2 others leave the one with the bag in the grass on her knees and turn and walk away. Rick goes out when he recognizes the outfit to be that of andrea. He runs out into the field and takes off her hood...she is tearfully looking down when she says "don't look at me rick, just shoot me now." He is startled and she responds "I'm bit rick....its..negan. he....he said he killed carl. He...had....he had your son bite me. I'm infected rick. Kill me now before I kill you." Sappy lines about "we don't die" ensue and rick is unable to handle the news that andrea believes carl to be dead...and andrea is effectively dead already. Andrea starts to cough and dies saying "if you love me, kill me rick. You..dont die."
So now rick is sitting there crying and zombie andrea bolts up and knocks him over. He pushes her away and stands up and readies his gun. Unlike his son earlier, who earlier in the same situation almost exactly (told his father was dead..faced with a lover being a zombie) killed sophia, rick just can't do it...he is ready to stop it all. Rick let's andrea bite his arm and gets an adrenaline rush of "what am I doing?!?!" (It's not easy to just let yourself get eaten afterall). He kicks her away and scrambles for his gun but trips due to his bad leg. she is on top of him again and bites deep into his side. Rick screams. Andrea raises up to lunge into rick's neck when her head is lopped off by a sword.
Rick looks up and weakly exclaims "michonne?" Before falling back down. As she raises her sword to kill rick, a gun is pulled on her....by carl. He tells her that if she kills rick she dies the moment he does. Michonne tries to reason with him and says "he is bit. on the arm...on the torso...the shoulder. We can't amputate his entire body carl. Even if we could, it's been too long...we have to ki-" "he's my dad. it's my responsibility."
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We then see carl in the house in Alexandria where they lived sitting down on the ground, with his dad on the couch very much like we saw many volumes earlier right after the prison. Carl is sitting there with a gun and a box of cereal and is just talking as if rick is fine. Rick is laying down on the couch passed out but clearly patched up..bandages and what not. Carl talks about how far they have come; that it was time to move on; that carl was strong enough now. Carl constantly lifts his gun at his dad and puts it back down as he talks, clearly ready at any moment to kill.
Rick grumbles something and carl edges closer. Rick says for carl to get closer. Carl obliges. Rick whispers I love you to carl and then falls down. Carl shows no tears. He stands up and turns towards his father
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Now, there are 2 ways this ends.

1. Carl stands up, we see a view outside the house and a bang. Carl killed his dad and he walks outside. We see not just the hilltop survivors or alexandria...but the whispers too. All together, carl gives them a speech about how they are no longer the whispers. No longer some community. They are the walking dead. The ONLY walking dead. Too long ppl have been trying to merely survive...fighting against eachother instead of against the undead. They would be the ONLY walking dead. Using the skins as protection they would travel about in an attempt to get to the bottom of all the zombie problems of the world..or at least their area. They may never find a why, but they will kill until it doesn't matter anymore. They are the walking dead, they should be feared, and they would. Carl is now the Alpha of a composite group that goes around killing walkers called "the walking dead."
   
2. Everything stays the same, except at the end we get a zoom in back to the house and we see that carl didn't shoot his dad, but only shot a hole in the floor next to him. Rick sits up, injured, but not turned. RICK WAS IMMUNE.

 

any misspellings are on the OP's part.
Thoughts?