AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.
I own nothing from the Walking Dead.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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"OK. You win," Dale said, sitting down.
This wasn't how he imagined he would die. Of course, these days he didn't imagine that too many people were dying in the ways that they'd imagined. The option of going quietly and comfortably in your own bed, surrounded by loved ones, just didn't seem to exist for any of them anymore. Even if that world did exist, Dale wouldn't have had the loved ones.
His loved one was here. The last one. And she was staying. She was choosing to sit here and die this way. And though this wasn't the way that he wanted –the end to sorrow, grief, and regret that Jenner had called it—it was the way that he'd go if that's what she chose for him.
He wouldn't leave her. He didn't want to die alone, and he wouldn't let her die alone. Not for as long as he could control it.
"Don't pull this, Dale," Andrea said, shaking her head at him.
He shook his back at her just as adamantly.
"I'm not pulling anything," he said. "We don't know what's out there. I don't want to face it alone. So, you win. I'm staying."
Andrea looked at him, pain in her eyes. She wanted him to live, but he couldn't imagine why. Andrea, herself, said that there was nothing out there. She said there was no life left for them. She said that she knew, enough that she was willing to stay here and wait for an explosion to rob her of what she had left of her life, that there was no hope. So why would she want him to live?
He knew the answer to that too. You simply wanted those you loved to keep on living. You could hold out hope for others long after you'd lost it for yourself.
But Dale wasn't going anywhere. Not without her. If this was what she chose? Then she chose it for both of them.
He studied her as she stared at him. He memorized her face. It would be the last one that he'd ever see. He wondered if, in those last few moments, she would move closer to him. Instead of huddling against the computer table in fear, maybe she'd come to huddle close to him seeking comfort. If she didn't, though, that would be fine too. They'd go, at the same instant, simply looking at one another.
There was nothing left to say and there was very little time left to say it anyway.
In the last moments of life, Dale had always thought he'd have a lot to say to God. He thought that he might have some great list of regrets to atone for. Sins to confess. He'd imagined all the things that he might think or he might say just before he gave up on his very existence. In the face of it, though, he realized his mind was blank.
The only thing there, at this moment, was Andrea.
When she got up from the floor, Dale was surprised. He was even more surprised when she dragged him from the space, though he immediately started to run with her. In an effort to literally save their lives, Andrea ran through the building just ahead of him and he followed her, half pushing her when she slowed her steps and seemed to need the physical encouragement.
And still Dale's mind was blank enough to surprise him.
They might make it out—into a world where there was nothing left—or they might be caught by the draft of the explosion and die anyway. They ran through the hallways and staircases, Andrea leading the way, until they found the window on the first floor that had been blown out by the others who had gone before them. As they reached it, Andrea hesitated a moment and Dale practically pushed her out the window. She hopped down and turned back to make sure that he'd make it down the short distance.
She waited on him. She wasn't leaving him, either.
Smelling the air—the scent of rotten corpses once again filling his nostrils—Dale's senses started to come back to him. Surrounded by so much death, it was strange to suddenly feel alive again. They were out and he had to believe that they were going to survive this. He had another chance at the death that he wanted. Andrea had another chance at all the life that still stretched out in front of her. The life that he knew she'd eventually want again.
As they ran toward the vehicles that held their friends, Dale heard them screaming that they had to get down. They had to protect themselves. The blast would come soon and, if they weren't covered, it could very well kill them despite their successful escape from the building. Dale's lungs cried out for mercy as he reached the sandbags that were piled up on the ground, leftover from the military no doubt, and he pushed Andrea down behind them.
He dropped beside her and, in the last second, covered her body with his own in case the explosion brought shrapnel in their direction. He was an old man. He'd lived a full life. And if he had to, he'd rather take the impact of the explosion than leave her vulnerable to it.
It was louder than Dale had ever imagined a bomb might be. The screeching sound of the explosion, the din of glass breaking, and the sound of the building collapsing in on itself nearly deafened Dale. Underneath his body, he could feel Andrea quaking. All of it was too much for her at the moment. The rush of hot hair blew over him like a strong wind and he closed his eyes to the light sprinkling of debris and prepared himself for a greater shower of bits and pieces of what had once been the CDC. The hot rain never came, though, and finally he raised himself up enough to see that the worst of it was done.
Dale got to his knees and checked Andrea quickly. She was already stirring, still quaking, and he got her up again and onto shaky legs before he steered her toward the R.V. Once they were inside, both of them still reeling from the onslaught of adrenaline pumping through their veins, Dale took the first breaths that he was sure of in what seemed like an eternity.
He knew why Andrea was looking at him like she was. She was afraid. She was almost overcome with fear for what the future held—they'd all felt that way before, even if their reasons were different. She'd overcome that fear, though. She was safe now. They both were. She wasn't dead. And she could overcome the fear. And, eventually, she'd overcome her anger too.
This time, Dale had won. Andrea was there. She wasn't dead. She was safe.
And to Dale, that's all that mattered in the moment. The rest, they would handle together.