...in which stella has a moment of truth and a close call

grrr, typo

The couple of weeks rolled along in a lovely routine. It was my busiest time of year, so I had a ton of work to do at the garden - planting, weeding, and trying desperately to keep on top of everything that needed to be done. Trying to make sure that we produced enough food for everyone was a lot more successful than what I thought I'd be doing after graduation. Maggie and Marie had been right about me and Daryl; once it was clear we were both interested in the same thing from whatever our relationship was, we pretty much just fell in step. Some nights, I was rewarded with Daryl waiting to take me for a ride or coming over after he got off his shift on the guard wall. Sometimes we hung out with the rest of the group, and sometimes we hung out together, naked of course. One thing I had to say for the lack of actual birth control available at the time was that it definitely made us more…creative.

There was still one sticking point, though. I was telling Marie about it as we walked to work one morning. "He says he's not going to tell me any more about HIS past until I can talk about MINE."

"You still haven't told him what happened with Ty?" Marie asked. Actually being serious for once in her life, she said, "You know you should tell him. I don't understand why you feel so guilty about it. You absolutely, 100%, no question about it did the right thing." She closed her eyes for a second and shivered slightly. "I would have done it for you if I could have."

I smiled at her and gave her a hug. "I know you would have. But what's done is done. I hate thinking about it, and there's no point in dwelling on the past."

She looked at me critically. "There's a difference between moving on and shoving something down the memory hole. Honey, you know I love you, but you can't just deal with everything bad by making a joke or ignoring it."

"I know, I know." I sighed. "I just spent so many years being sad. I'm tired of it."

"Yeah, me too."

We had arrived at work, so we tabled the discussion. The day passed by in a blur, and when I arrived home I found Daryl, who had thoughtfully grabbed some dinner for us from the kitchen and brought it back with him. We opened the door to enjoy the beautiful evening air and talked idly about nothing in particular. It was heaven.

After dinner, he presented me with a joint that he had stashed in his pocket. I grinned at him. "Just so you know, if you get me high, you had better be prepared for me to jump your bones later."

"Why'd you think I brought it?" he shot back.

We passed the joint back and forth between us, and my mind decided to take a detour to Weirdville. "What if we used to be able to make wishes, and then someone wished we couldn't?" I wondered aloud.

Daryl laughed. "What the fuck're you talking 'bout?"

"I dunno. Just something that occurred to me." We were quiet again for a second, and then I asked, "Do you think that when you see green, it's the same color green that I see?"

"Shit, if this is where your mind's gonna go, let's try this: you know what I'd keep? Toilet paper," he offered.

I was up for some keep/toss. "OK, what would you toss?"

"Assholes who didn't use their turn signals."

"Those two don't go together."

"Quit your bitchin'," he replied good-naturedly. "It's your turn."

"Um, OK. I miss driving with the windows down and music blasting."

"And?"

"I'd toss garbage. Literally – or do I mean figuratively...? Well, whatever. Like, all the garbage that we used to create. We used to throw SO MUCH shit away. Now everything gets reused or put in the compost pile. It's really a fantastic system. I mean-"

"Jesus, do you run on at the mouth sometimes," Daryl interrupted. I smacked him on the arm, and he responded by pulling me into his lap. He wrapped his arms around me. "I'd keep…baseball and toss, uh, hockey."

I leaned back into him. "For real? You were a baseball fan?"

"Hell yeah. Nothin' beat sitting in the cheap seats at a Braves game with a beer and a hot dog."

Hearing that made me happy. It was completely unexpected but totally fit somehow. I felt the pull of nostalgia that tonight I had no ability to resist. "Me and my dad used to go see the Riverbats; they were the minor league team in Louisville. The games were usually blowouts on one side or the other, but you could sit practically right on the field." I was lost in thought for a minute, my mind getting ahead of my usual restraint when talking about the past. "You know what I really want to know? If any of my family made it through. I talked to my dad and brothers right before shit really fell apart. They were getting ready to come ride it out at our farm. But they never made it. I never heard anything more from them." Daryl looked at me intently but didn't say anything. "Goddammit, I miss them still, eight fucking years later…." I trailed off. "Hey!" I eyed him suspiciously. "So was getting me high your sneaky attempt to trick me into baring my soul?"

He smiled slightly. "Maybe."

I stood up and shut the door. "Enough of this. Come here, because you're gonna make it up to me for being such a devious little shit." I grabbed him by the belt buckle and pulled him to bed.

0000000

The next day, we were woken up by a knock at my door.

"Goddamn, who the fuck is knocking at the ass-crack of dawn?" Daryl swore.

"Well, good morning sunshine." I looked over at the clock. "And it's 10:00."

"Go away!" he yelled at the door. "We don't want any!" He put a pillow over his head.

"Hang on!" I shouted. "I'm coming!" I pulled on the shirt and shorts I'd shed so quickly last night and walked over to the door. Opening it, I saw Violet standing there, looking a little sheepish. "Hey Violet, what's up?"

Seeing Daryl in my bed made her grin at me like a proud sister. She quickly got to the point of her visit, though. "We're putting together a foraging-slash-hunting party to go out tomorrow. I was actually looking for Daryl to see if he could join us." Violet raised her voice at the second part, directing her comment towards him.

"Yeah, I'll be there," he said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"Great! We leave at 7 a.m." Then she told me, "Last time Andy and I were out, we noticed morels starting to pop up. You interested in looking for more? If you can get away from the garden, that is."

"Yeah, that sounds good. I think they could spare me for the day. I would looooove some morels." My mouth actually started to water the tiniest bit at the thought. "And man, it's been ages since I've been out on a search." I didn't mention that I also really liked the idea of not being stuck here while Daryl was out wandering the woods. No matter how expert a hunter/walker-killer he was, it made me nervous, and it was better I was out there with him instead of sitting at home, stressing.

"Awesome! We'll see you in the morning, too." Violet gave me a conspiratorial grin and leaned in to whisper the next bit. "And it's lucky for you I'm married because I totally would have climbed that like a tree."

Laughing, I said good-bye and went back over to the bed where Daryl was still buried. Kissing him on the arm that was hanging out from under the covers, I said, "Come on babe, rise and shine." He didn't say anything, but grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back into bed.

0000000

The next day dawned clear, sunny, and way too early. Daryl and I met the rest of the group by the front gate, outfitted with the necessary gear for our trip into the woods. Everyone went armed, whether we were hunting or not. In our town, even people who never ventured outside the gate were trained in how to use a weapon of some kind. The kids had walker drills at school where they practiced both escape and fighting back. We all got pretty proficient with the baseball bat, iron pipe, hatchet, machete, and any other manner of sharp or heavy object. There were some people handy with a bow and arrow or crossbow - Daryl being one of them - and there were also several shotguns, although those were used sparingly. First of all, the noise generally brought more walkers than they killed, and second, ammunition was pretty hard to come by these days.

As excited as I was to get outside the gate, I was also fairly terrified. We were lulled into a false sense of security being inside the fence. The fact that over time we had seen fewer and fewer walkers also added to that. Once outside, we had to be on our guard at all times. As we went out into what used to be a busy state road that ran in front of the compound, we stayed quiet and alert. The coast was clear, however, which led me to relax ever so slightly.

It was nice to get out of the sun and into the cool, dappled shade of the woods across the road. We split up into two groups once we were there, foragers heading in one direction, hunters in another. While all of us foragers kept our weapons handy, Andy also came with us to serve as our lookout, to keep an eye out for walkers approaching.

Searching for morels was a bit of a trick in the semi-darkness of the woods. The little, brown, shriveled-looking mushrooms popped up on the floor of the woods near rotting logs. I had learned that the best way to spot them was not to really look. I tried to keep my eyes from focusing on any one thing, and just let them sweep over the fallen leaves and underbrush until I saw one.

About a half hour later, we heard a low whistle, which was the signal from the hunters that all was well with them. Andy responded with the same whistle to let them know we were OK, too. The four of us in my group were slightly spread out, but we always stayed within eyesight of at least one of the others. None of us had had any luck spotting any morels, until my eye suddenly lit on one. I crouched down and pushed away the leaves that surrounded it. Sweet! The mother lode! As I reached my hand out to grab them, I heard a grunt that nearly made my heart stop. Walker!

In a second, I had my hatchet in my hand and whirled around to see a walker stumbling up the hill behind me. I whistled to signal trouble and at the same time heard a cry of alarm from Liza. There was a pack of zombies coming, cutting me off from the rest of the group. Andy had immediately started whistling the distress signal to the hunters, and we heard them running towards us from what sounded like a ways off. I swung the hatchet and split the head of the nearest walker like a rotten, foul-smelling melon. It went down with a groan, but not before spraying me with its rank innards.

The others of my group were fighting their way through the mass of undead, taking them down one after the other, but it was surreal how more just seemed to keep coming up the hill. What the fuck? Do they form gangs now? I was able to take another one down, but when I swung at the third one coming at me, my hands, wet with sweat and walker guts, lost their grip and my hatchet went flying off into the underbrush. Shitshitshitshitshitshit! I took off running. Get up off the ground, I remembered from my zombie escape training, so I began looking desperately for a tree that I would be able to scale but came up empty. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck! Spotting an abandoned cabin, I figured that would be better than nothing and ran through the front door. Instantly, the floor gave way beneath me, I let out a scream of shock, and then that's all I remembered.

When I came to, I was back in the infirmary. My head was killing me, but the pain in my shoulder was a close second. As soon I realized where I was, I sat bolt upright, panic-stricken. But there was Daryl, dozing in a chair next to me. "Hey," I croaked.

"Hey, Funny Girl, you're back with us." He looked like complete hell, but once again, it was so good just to see him in one piece. His face displayed a combination of fear and relief that I'd never seen on him before. He grabbed my hand and kissed it, then leaned his head against mine, closing his eyes for a second.

"How long have I been out?" I asked. I raised my hand to my head but winced at the pain from my shoulder. I tried with the other hand and felt a giant knob up above my left eye. "Jesus, what happened?" Then panic again. "Oh my God, did everyone else make it back OK? Violet, Andy-"

Daryl kissed me gingerly on the forehead. "No worries, darlin'. They're all fine. Don't get yourself all worked up. You got the worst of it." He brushed some hair out of my eyes. "Goddammit, I'm glad to see you awake."

I smiled and found myself embarrassingly close to tears. Ducking my head, I asked again, "So how long have I been out?"

"About twelve hours," Daryl said. "Looks like when you fell through the floor, you smacked your head and got knocked out." He ran his hand through his hair and muttered, "Thank God there weren't no fucking walkers down there. I'da-"

It was my turn to calm him down. I kissed him on the lips to shut him up. "But there weren't, and I'm back home with just some bumps and bruises."

At that point, Marie showed up with a bouquet of wildflowers. "Hey Sleeping Beauty, glad you're finally awake!" To Daryl: "'Sup, Gun Show?"

Daryl got up. "Nothin' much, Mouth. I'm gonna go get your friend here something to eat. You keep an eye on her, a'right?" He swooped in and kissed me again, this time on the mouth. He held my gaze for a second and then strode out.

"Well, shiiiiit," Marie said when he was gone. "You have got yourself one knight in shining armor. Or leather. Whatever. He has not left your side since he came tearing in here like a bat out of hell with you in his arms."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember that movie, True Grit? The one with Jeff Bridges and that little girl in it?"

"Ummm, yeah, I think." My memory was a little fuzzy at this point, and I also had no idea where the hell she was going with that question.

"OK, so according to Violet, they came running as soon as they heard Andy's distress whistle. Daryl, of course, was a complete badass, taking down walkers left and right, like a BOSS. Seriously, she said she'd never seen anything like it. She said it was-"

"Come on," I interrupted. "Back to what happened."

"Oh yeah, sorry. Anyway, she said as soon as he heard you scream – which was when you fell through the floor, I guess - he took off into the house to find you. A couple minutes later, he's back out, you in his arms out cold, running like a fucking maniac until he got back here." She stopped, looking a little pleased with herself. "You know, like Jeff Bridges did when that kid got bit by the snake."

I was totally overwhelmed at hearing what had happened. I was elated and ecstatic and suddenly burst into tears. Through my tears, I managed, "I still have no idea what the fuck you're talking about with Jeff Bridges and the snake."

"Never mind." Marie gave me a hug. "God, I'm so glad you're back. Where the hell would I be without you?"

"Probably in prison."

"Damn straight," she laughed.

Daryl came back with food and stopped cold when he saw me crying. I'm sure it shocked the hell out of him. He recovered quickly and said, "I leave you alone with her for ten minutes, and you got her cryin'! Goddamn."

"All right, all right, I'm leaving." Marie got up.

"Hey Marie, can you bring me my guitar?"

She smiled. "Sure thing."

As she was leaving, Herschel came in. "So nobody thinks it's important to tell me that my patient is awake?" He came over to the bed and beamed down at me. "My dear, you gave us all a scare. Especially this one." He nodded his head at Daryl. "I don't think he moved from that spot the entire time you were out."

Daryl grabbed my hand again and squeezed it hard. I started crying, AGAIN. "I-don't-know-what's-wrong-with-me," I choked out. "It's-just-"

This time it was Daryl's turn to shut me up with a kiss.

one more chapter on deck, and one more to write!