Hello everyone! Here I am with the fourth chapter! I'm glad with how well this has turned out so far, so I hope I can continue to crank out the chapters! :) This one was a little harder to get out then the other ones; I really had to push myself through this back-story filled chapter!
There was one review that was sent in by the lovely green angel01 that was asking me about the ages of the characters ... that will be revealed in this chapter since I did actually leave out the ages by accident! Sorry about that! Also, I will be trying to use cannon ages, so I apologize if I get the age of anybody completely wrong, considering no one is really given an actual age in the show ... just an approximation. LOL
Thanks so much for the follows, and for leaving a favorite or a review! It really means a lot to me, and it let's me know how you all are enjoying the story so far! Please, don't be shy to leave a review and tell me what you think! I won't bite! ;)
Thanks for reading!
-D
Disclaimer: (Do I still have to do this? LOL) I do not, or have, nor ever will own anything related to the label of The Walking Dead. That all belongs to the rightful owners!
Chapter Four: Family Histories
Casey hadn't stopped running, her shoes crunching in the dead fall and leaves that smothered the ground beneath her. Her lungs were burning, her legs were aching and her knees felt like they were being stabbed by knives. The trees provided shade, but the scorching heat still laid still in the humid air, stifling her breaths as she forced herself to pull them in. They had been running for at least an hour, crouching under strangely shaped branches and leaping over fallen trees that were partly covered in fungus and moss. It felt like they were moving in slow motion to her, for she had been practically dragging Ryan along for the past ten minutes. Every once in a while, she or Ryan would glance backwards over their shoulder, silently praying that absolutely nothing would be behind them.
"Do ... d-do you think ... they're ... gone?" Ryan wheezed.
Casey allowed herself to slow a bit. She hadn't seen anything behind them yet, so it was safe to assume that they hadn't been followed by any of the walkers. "I'm ... not sure." They continued to slow until they were at a walking pace, their heavy gasps echoing in the air, the sounds of crunching leaves and grass the only other noise until Casey spoke again. "It didn't seem ... like they were followin' us ... to begin with ... it was just ... precautionary ..."
"I'm taking that ... as a yes ..." Ryan continued to pull in breaths in ragged bursts until he could finally speak again. He twisted his head around, his dark brown eyes scanning the tree tops. "What do you figure we should do now?"
She sighed as they continued to trudge forward. "We've got two options at best."
"I'm listening."
"We could keep goin' and hopefully get farther on, but that would probably only tire us out more and cause later problems. Or we can see what we can dig up 'round here. See if maybe I can catch somethin' and get a good camp goin' before the heat of the day. We can hang out here until we wanna get goin', but we'd be sittin' ducks for walkers and people."
"I like option two," Ryan replied.
"Well, let's get goin' then. Could take me a couple of hours to get a catch dragging you along with me," Casey answered, glad he had only taken a few seconds to make the decision for her.
Casey still heard the groan that Ryan tried to suppress, and a smile pulled at her lips.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Ryan asked her, his dark eyes fixated on what she was doing.
"Do what?"
"Y'know ... hunt, make fires like that ... Where'd you learn to do all of it?"
Casey continued to turn the homemade spit she had made, crouched down and focused on the rabbit she was attempting to cook. The wind wasn't cooperating however; it continued to push and twist at the orange flames of her low-set fire, pulling them to the side. It was causing her beloved rabbit to becoming unevenly cooked, one side blistered and was practically half-burnt, while the other side was barely even roasting. She had spent so long trying to actually catch the damned jack rabbit-hunting with only a knife and a handgun was completely different from hunting with a bow and arrow-that she couldn't bare to see it go to waste like that. That, and Ryan had actually spent quite a bit of time gathering enough rocks to create a half-decent circle, and had went through the pain-stacking process of finding three even sticks to use to create the spit. She kinda appreciated not having to do all the work, and she wanted to try to repay him with a pretty good tasting rabbit.
She sighed, turning the spit once again. There would be wins and losses, she supposed, finally giving up on the distant dream of a well cooked meal. Casey twisted her head so she could give him a half-normal response. She figured he deserved it after being hit pretty badly with a branch in the face a couple of hours before-she could still see the bloodied line that stretched across his cheek. "Uh ... Daryl taught me most of what I know, but Merle taught 'im. So I guess you could say they both helped."
"Your brothers?" Ryan questioned.
"Yeah. Daryl and Merle."
Ryan sat back on his hands, so he could glance up at the tree tops once more. Their packs had been discarded at the base of the closest tree, well both Casey and Ryan were lounging in the shade, both of them on one side of the orange-red flames of the fire. "You're pretty close with your brothers, aren't you?"
"Yeah. More so Daryl then Merle, but that's 'cause Merle was always in an' out of jail when I was a kid so ..."
Ryan choked on what seemed to be nothing. "Wha-what?"
Casey glanced at him with a confused look. She leaned back, away from the flames that had warmed her face. She brushed her brown hair out of her eyes before she asked, "What? What's what?"
"Your brother was in and out of jail? For what?" Ryan gasped.
She sighed once more. She had known she was going to regret saying that. Hell, she practically regretted telling him anything about her family and herself. It always got the same reaction from him; shock and more questions. But, she figured, there was no sense in lying. She might as well just bare the truth, as ugly as it was, even though it made her uncomfortable and edgy. It seemed to make him trust her more, and that truth was going to be needed through the world "end of the world" that was going on. "Ain't nothin' too bad ... Drug traffickin' mostly, but a couple counts of violatin' parole too."
"Not that bad," Ryan breathed, shaking his head. He obviously didn't believe that her brother's past incarcerations weren't "that bad."
"Hey, he ain't no murderer, alright? So just piss off about 'im," Casey grumbled, pulling her knees close to her chest so she could lay her chin on the top of them. "'Sides, what does that matter anymore anyways? Everybody's done somethin' bad since this all started."
"Sorry," Ryan murmured. "You're right. I shouldn't have ..." He trailed off, obviously unsure of what he should say to her next. An apology probably wouldn't have cut it. A moment after, his eyes lit up again, a smile breaking across his face. "Tell me about them. And about you."
"Why?" Casey asked dumbly.
"Something to do. And I hate it when you get all quiet on me, and sit there staring at nothing. You don't talk enough. Freaks me out. It's like you're planning my demise or some shit."
Casey snorted the last comment off as she shifted forward again to rescue the stick that had roasted along with the rabbit. She pulled it out of the notches in the two other sticks and knocked them off to the side, twisting and turning the skewered rabbit to get a good look. As she had feared, one side of it was practically burnt beyond recognition ... however, the other side was a perfectly cooked golden brown. Ryan saw that their fire-roasted dinner was finished and shifted so that they could sit directly beside each other, shoulders bumping as Casey held the stick full of rabbit meat out to him first. "You go first then," she finally answered. "You tell me 'bout your family and I'll tell you 'bout mine. And careful; it's gonna be fucking hot."
Ryan tried to pick off a piece of meat, but struggled when it touched his fingers. "Damn, that is hot ... Okay. Where do you want me to start?" he asked. He was pleased that she was finally letting him into her little world; his eyes glittered with happiness, and he could barely suppress the giant grin that was threatening to spill on his face.
"Don't care," she responded, forcing herself through the burning sensation of pulling off a strip of meat with only a wince. She blew on it a couple times before she chucked it into her mouth, chewing quickly and swallowing before she had even tasted it.
"'Kay ... Well y'know that my family's originally from Michigan, but did I tell you that my parents came here from Korea?"
Casey looked at him with a dumbfounded gaze. "I thought you were Chinese," she said around another mouthful of rabbit.
He snorted. "Funny, Dixon. Real funny. Well, anyways, my parents came from Korea way back when. They settled in Michigan, where my dad became a sales representitive and my mom stayed a housewife. They had five kids; me, then Glenn, then our younger sister Molly, and finally the twins, Anna and Leah. My dad ... he ended up dying of a heart attack right after the twins turned six." His voice started getting softer, his eyes growing vacant. "Molly ... she was up in New York, with some sort of modeling contract ... The twins, they're just kids ... I just ... I hope they made it out safe with Mom ..." He shook his head, cleared his throat and continued. "Honestly my life was pretty damn boring before I turned eighteen-that was when I moved to Tampa for schooling-they've got a kick ass university there and my parents had been saving up enough money for me to get into the accounting program there."
"Are you kidding me? An accountant? You?" Casey blurted out incredulously.
"Are you going to judge everything about me? Or can I finish?" Ryan asked with a playful sideways look.
Casey plucked off another piece of meat and shoved it into her mouth. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Go on."
"I lived in Tampa for a while, 'til I was twenty-four. Then I moved to Jacksonville; I got an apprenticeship at an accounting company down there and I worked as an office clerk; y'know, when you go into an accounting office and there's the front desk? I worked behind that desk for the longest time. Ah, who am I kidding? I was still working behind that desk when this apocalypse all started." He paused for a moment to actually pluck off a piece of meat and chew at it. "Y'know, never had rabbit before today. It's actually kinda good." He swallowed and then continued. "The only reason I'm out here and not back in Florida is my brother, Glenn. We hadn't seen each other in a couple of months, and before I moved away for school we were super close. I wanted to check in on him. So we agreed I'd drive to Atlanta and meet him after his midnight shift at the pizza delivery place he worked at. But as you can see ... I never made it to Atlanta. The interstates started getting jammed and it was practically hell to try to get anywhere on them, so I took an old route through Macon instead ... and my piece of shit car broke down on me in that town we were just stuck in. I holed myself up in that house for four days and watched the streets. Then I found you. There you have it. The life and days of Ryan Rhee," he finished.
Casey bobbed her head in understanding and comprehension. She had actually been listening for the entire thing, and had found herself mildly interested in what he was going to say next. It was ... nice to hear about things that reminded her of what the world used to be. It was refreshing, knowing where he had once come from and how he had stumbled upon the state of Georgia before the dead started eating the living.
"Your turn," Ryan announced, obviously more excited than he probably should have been. He took the stick from her and glanced at what was left of the rabbit. He started tearing off shreds of meat and eating it as he waited excitedly.
"Well ... where do you want me to start? Just what I was doin' before or-"
"All of it," he responded. "Start to finish."
Casey grumbled under her breath something about him being an impatient asshole before she took a deep breath. She couldn't believe she was doing this. Why was she telling him, of all people, her life? He didn't deserve to know what had happened to her and what hadn't, and she sure as hell didn't know him well enough for it either. But, in the same breath, she knew she was stuck with him for good. They were most likely going to be survival buddies for the majority of the time, and truth be told, he wasn't as annoying as he first seemed. He was growing on her ... like a mold or a fungus. "I should probably explain somethin's first. First off, there's an age gap. An' I mean a huge age gap between me and Merle and Daryl. Shit, Merle's gotta be ... forty-four now? Daryl's ... thirty-three-no, thirty-four. I'm twenty-five. There's nineteen years between me and Merle, and nine between me an' Daryl."
"How in the-"
"My brothers ... aren't actually my full blood brothers. We're only half."
"Half ... you're only half-siblings?"
She nodded. "My father screwed 'round with my mom when he was on some road trip up in Indiana. They kept in long distance contact for a while, but he broke off and left her cut an' dry when she found out she was pregnant with me."
"But then how-" Ryan started.
"I'm gettin' there. Hold your horses, alright?"
With a quick downward jerk of his head, Ryan fell silent once more. Casey continued as if the out-burst hadn't happened. "My mom had me an' kept me up north in Indiana. I went to school, and did everythin' a normal kid's supposed to do. Didn't think nothin' of my father ... Mom just told me that he left before I was born and I never thought twice about it ... Now that I think about it, it was probably for the best. My mom didn't want nothin' bad to happen to me. My mom ... she was a real good person. Didn't smoke, didn't drink, none of that. Probably one of the nicest women on the planet too, or so everyone always told me. I don't remember her much. She died when I was little. I was four, I think. Car accident. Drunk driver."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Ryan murmured. He leaned closer to her, brushing his shoulder to hers in an almost sympathetic way.
The words continued to spill out and Casey just let them. "My mom didn't have any family members except for a sister who had like four kids of her own and her mom left. My aunt didn't have the funds to take me, and my grandmother wasn't really all there. She 'ad dementia and it probably would've been hell to make me live there. They originally wanted put me in foster care or some shit, but my aunt wouldn't let 'em. So the courts did what they always do ... they uncovered my birth father through some sort of letter my mom had written to 'im once and a DNA test they forced 'im to do. Three months after my mom's death I was ridin' down to Georgia with some guy I was supposed to call 'Daddy.'"
Casey took a deep breath before she continued. Ryan had tossed what was left of the rabbit carcass on to the fire, stick included, and they just continued to sit there, staring forward, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. The sun was lower-set in the sky, shadows reaching and twisting out in the shapes of the branches from the the tree canopy that was still providing shade from the late day sun. "I suppose it wasn't all bad. My father was a drinker and never really parented us, so we all kinda just fended for ourselves. Sure, for the longest time I only caught glances of Merle when he was in and out of prison, but didn't treat me all bad. Used to call me 'ankle-biter' all the time, the sonuvabitch. I was attached to Daryl ninety percent of the time, though. I worshiped the ground he walked on 'cause he was the only one who used to pay attention to me. Daryl raised me. Taught me how to ride a bike, how to hunt and fish and take care of myself. He protected me from a lot of things." Casey's hand went instinctively to the scar that was along the inner edge of her eyebrow. The only thing left from the beatings she used to receive, many of those directed to Daryl when he would shield her. Although she didn't say those words, Casey knew Ryan had gotten the gist of it when his shoulders flinched upward. "He took care of me 'til I could take care of myself."
"Casey ..." Ryan whispered.
"And there you have it. You know the rest," Casey grumbled, old emotions rumbling in her chest as she finished. She sourly looked at the fire first, whose flames were finally starting to die down. Her blue eyes crinkled at the corners when she finally glared up at him. "So don't you go complainin' that I don't talk enough anymore."
The rest of their night in the woods was spent in silence.
