Well ladies and gentlemen we are back! And it seems like a long time coming, but this is really where my plot diverges from the canon story. I can't say how of course, for that you shall have to read and find out ;) I have loved all of your reviews, keep them coming! Enjoy!
Emeraldgaze: Well... that was unexpected but fitting though i really wanna know what daryl's thinking right now. I also wonder if anyone else noticed those guys were missing as well as what glenn thinks of fox now!_!
All questions answered with time =)
codeblueeyes987: I loved this chapter. She is so badass
You know that is the reaction people keep giving her, which I like. I was wondering how people might respond to this chapter and for a while I debated on changing it but I'm glad I stuck with it =)
mrskaz435: No...No...No... not Glen & Fox... Oh hell no...LOL I get her being upset with Daryl for running away from her, but using Glen that way was just all kinds of wrong... Not to mention, ruined any chance of Glen/daryl friendship, which I love...What she did was wrong... this is going to cause problems for Glen & Daryl... I really liked her & Daryl together, but now, not so much... Oh well, guess we'll see what happens... Too bad that Glen/Daryl friendship won't happen... Maybe, you can bring on another OC for Daryl... someone who has some damn patience and wont jump the first guy she sees the second something she doesn't like happens..ALl she has done for the group is good and they should start to respect her & treat her better, but after this I kind of hope Daryl tells her to FO...because I just can't get behind her using poor Glen and ruining any chance of a friendship between my two favs... I think Fox will end up regretting this and I hope that she does...I also hope Glen tells her to FO once he realizes that she used him to get back at Daryl, which could get his butt kicked...
Well hello there new reviewer! Nice to hear a new voice chiming in =) I want so badly to respond to the strong points on your review but if I do it will give too much of this chapter away so I shall restrain myself as much as possible. I guarantee you that this will be a long story so there is time for relationships to be repaired if that is indeed the way the cookie crumbles so to speak. And Fox has a bad habit of looking before she leaps and the consequences come back to smack her in the face later on. Regret on the other hand is not something she's all that familiar with. I hope that the bad taste Fox has put in your mouth will deter you from reading the story though. Either way, I'm very glad you wrote in, its nice to get any and all viewpoints/opinions/perspectives especially on an OC.
SilverAdvenger12: Wow. Fox is one interesting character! Great chapter!
Interesting isn't the half of it, lol. Well, maybe I'm giving myself airs. I try to write her as brutally honest as possible, all her flaws and imperfections front and center, but without her wallowing in guilt over it. To put it mildly, she has no shame XD
FanFicGirl10: Well I did not see that coming! I did like it but I would have loved it if it was with Daryl ;) Daryl is so jelly right now, but that is what he gets for turning Fox down. I loved it, Update Soon!
Mmm, ain't that the truth? Poor Daryl, he's so shy and socially awkward beneath all of that grit. Norman Reedus himself stated that he's playing Daryl as a virgin which I thought 'well damn, throw your charrie under the bus why don't ya' but we shall see where his oh so confusing tightrope walk of a relationship with Fox goes…
Emberka-2012: So she wanted to make Daryl jealous. If she wanted to use Daryl as well as she used Glenn, hunter was right that refused her. If she wanted something more serious with him, she should have been more patient. And something tells me that Daryl react to it very seriously.
Daryl refused her mostly out of uncertainty and lack of confidence. He doesn't know her, and isn't really kosher with emotions so he's never been with someone in a romantic sense and has no idea what to do. Poor guy. But yes, Fox did what she did in part to make Daryl jealous. As you'll see later though, that wasn't the whole reason…
Louis Tomlinson Stole My Pants: Seems like everyone wants a piece of the korean lol
I have no idea what your pen name refers to but I like it ;) And yes. Everyone's gotta get their hands on little Glenn, he's just irresistible like that, lol. Thanks for writing in!
KatlynIreneGlasse: Sorry had reviewed lately I was on a family vacation before Christmas, anyway I'm only gonna review this chapter because although you say long reviews are good I feel like it will be too long. This chapter was great, poor Daryl he's so confused when Fox is kissing him you can feel his battle within part of him wants this the other part doesn't know what it want so be as he is he settles for not wanting it, but then when he sees her with Glenn that inner battle starts again, at least that's how I took it. I want to thank you, after reading this I felt inspired to write so I did and, although I don't think it compares to yours I might post it, and I just want to thank you for giving me confidence to write again. Alright mushy time is over, great chapter! Sorry for not reviewing sooner. XoXoXoKat
No worries, I totally understand family obligations and life obligations in general. And yes, poor Daryl, he is oh so confused. He's never had something even close like this happen to him before, I imagine its a lot to throw at someone all at once, lol. And I'm so glad that I inspired you to write, I love to create and bring people happiness with what I make and inspiring someone towards the same drive is just wonderful icing on the cake. If you do decide to post it let me know and I will certainly read and review!
Roxu: I'm . . . I'm very impressed by this. I've read a countless number of Walking Dead fanfics, though there are some where I like the action more -or describe more. I'm not criticizing you, trust me - there's not much to ridicule. I really like your plot and how the story started, it's the first story that I've seen starting the main character as the 'enemy'. It's awesome, honestly and truly awesome.
Wow, I never thought I'd hear that. I figured there'd at least been some stories where the main OC starts out as the bad guy, or at least unwanted in camp. Maybe there are, but I'm glad my story seems to be original/inventive thus far. And yeah, I'm trying to find that balance between inner dialogue and emotions with all of the zombie slaying that we love about the show :) I hope I continue to please you with my writing and thanks for writing in!
Daryl did everything in his power to just try and pretend that he hadn't seen what he had, but outright denial wasn't cutting it. He had seen it, plain as fucking day. Glenn and Fox devouring each other like they were wolves in heat. It made his stomach roll uncomfortably just thinking about it. It felt like fire had torn through his flesh and left him raw and exposed. And he hated it. But what he hated more was the jealousy that was eating away at each and every nerve fiber until he burned so hot a bath of ice would vaporize directly into steam had it touched his skin. Since when did he give a shit about what Fox did? When had her actions become so important to him all of a sudden? The realization that he was this angry, this burned at what he'd seen hit him like a freight train to the chest.
So what. So the hell what, Daryl. She can fuck whoever she likes. Since when did she grab you by the balls and twist you to your knees?
He ran with this train of thought for as long as it could take him, but it didn't take him very far, because try as he might to tell himself otherwise, he did care. He cared, and he cared way more than he ever thought he could. Or knew he could. To save his sanity he fell back into himself, that dark place where it was just him and Merle and his father in his life and nobody else. He let their voices crowd around him in his head, shouting out everything else that was making his hands shake with humiliation and anger. It slowly began to fade as he kept hearing the mantras of his father and his brother crowding out the images of Fox pressed so close to Glenn it was hard to tell where one started and the other stopped. It was peaceful in that place, because as dark as it was, it was familiar, and he knew exactly who he was in it, and he knew who and what he was responsible for, and feelings didn't exactly matter all that much. He leaned his metaphorical head back and closed his mind's eye letting himself drown in it.
So what if Fox decided to fuck the kid? What was she to him? A fucking nuisance and that was it. He didn't give a shit. She could get her rocks off on anybody she liked. It was none of his concern. Resolution hardened in his gut as he made his way back inside the warehouse, joining up with the others finding Glenn and Fox already there sitting around the larger fire that had been built. He noticed that they didn't sit together although Glenn kept sneaking glances at her. Jesus Christ, he was worse than a love struck puppy. It was disgusting.
He took a seat away from her as well but it put him uncomfortably close to Shane. He was grateful for when Dale and Andrea became a buffer and it was only now that he looked them over. The group that had returned looked haggard, jittery, and weakened, but no worse for wear. And they all had made it back alive.
"What did you find?" Dale asked as they began wolfing down their share of dinner.
"The CDC's abandoned." Shane started. "Ain't nothing there but bodies piled up outside of some barbed wire and Walkers on the front lawn."
"You couldn't even get inside?" Lori asked worriedly.
"Oh no. We got inside." T-dog said staring through the fire as though he could see what they had just went through again in the flames.
"There was nothing there. No people, no power, nothing. But in some of the underground labs we found print out reports about the plague." Rick started. He ran his hand through the stubble on his face and jaw before continuing. "The docs at the CDC thought it was viral or parasitic. That as it infects it takes over our cells. It kills us, but it brings the body back to life so the infection can still live. Its why they need to eat." He looked at them all. "They do need to eat. They need nutrients from flesh for the infection to survive."
"Did they know how to kill it? How to reverse it?" Dale questioned.
Rick shook his head. "No. But we found a report that said the CDC in Alaska hadn't been hit so hard. That they might have something. They lost communication right as the military pulled out, which according to their logs was over a month ago."
"So…there's still something out there. It's not just us." Lori said softly.
"There was nothing that we could find that said they were still alive. It only took two weeks for most of the country to be destroyed." Andrea said bitterly.
"But Alaska…it's not even attached to the continental US. It's isolated!" Glenn urged, excitement gleaming in his eyes. "Maybe there is still something left."
"Don't get your hopes up." T-dog said heavily. "Even if they were still operational, how the hell do you think we'd get up there?"
"Would we even want to?" Shane threw in, looking darkly at the rest of the group. "Think about it. No law, no order, nothing to stop them from doing whatever they wanted. You think if we just marched in there they'd throw the doors open and let us sleep on the couch?" he snorted with contempt. "Besides. It's Alaska. By the time we even made it up there, do you have any idea how cold it would be? If we got stranded somewhere we could freeze to death. Plus there's no telling how many Walkers are out on the highways. There's no way we can make that trip. We stay as we are." He said it as though he was the one calling the shots.
"Rick?" Lori asked quietly.
"The reports at the CDC were vague. There's no way of knowing if Alaska is up and running, and Shane is right. The journey getting there could be deadly. If it were spring and we had more time before the cold weather was going to come, I would think about it longer, but the fact is, with how limited our supplies are, and how difficult it is to find fuel…I think risking a trip into the tundra isn't a good idea." He rubbed the back of his neck.
"So what now?" Carol asked worriedly. "We just keep running?" The desperation in her voice was obvious
"We keep surviving." Rick said with a firm nod. "We got what we needed out of Atlanta right?" He turned to Glenn for an answer.
"We got enough fuel to last us a little while. We got more food and water too, but if Daryl can't hunt, it won't go very far." He sounded nervous mentioning the hunter but Daryl wouldn't look at him.
"Maybe we should split up." Andrea said quietly. "So we don't have to stretch food and gasoline so thinly. Maybe its better if we just go on our own."
"Andrea…" Dale sounded horrified at the idea.
"No. We stay together." Rick said, no trace of negotiation in his voice. "We've been through too much hell to go at this alone now. We've lost too many people."
"There's nothing left!" Andrea cried, throwing her hands up in despair. "It's gone! The world is dead! We keep trying to throw together something that looks like a life just for it to be torn away again! It's gone!" She got up from the group and stormed outside. Dale made to follow her but Rick grabbed him by the wrist.
"Let her breathe. She took what we found at the CDC very hard." Rick warned.
"She shouldn't be alone! After what happened with Amy…she's not right in her mind. Maybe you are afraid to try and put broken pieces back together, but I'm not." Dale insisted. He pulled out of Rick's grasp and followed Andrea out the door. The group fell into a nervous, uneasy silence. Fox drew away, as did Daryl, but they did not go together. She let him go back to the fire she had built earlier but she went out the back door of the warehouse. She heard footsteps following her and when she left the shelter she expected to see Glenn, but it was Rick.
"What do you want?" she asked. She didn't mean to sound quite so angry, but she also wasn't sorry she did either.
"Glenn told me what you did for him and Daryl today in Atlanta. I wanted to thank you. They might have died otherwise." Rick said. He was calm, but there was an edge in his blue eyes and Fox knew that there was something else besides gratitude he wanted to discuss.
"I did for them what I would have wanted someone else to do for my group." She answered. Two could play at this game. She folded her arms over her chest and unconsciously her hip cocked to the side.
"I really hope that's the case. And speaking of groups, I need to know if you intend to stay with us or not. If you intend to be apart of us."
She met his eyes with a cool and calculating measure. "What's it to you if I stay or if I go?"
"I saw you in the battle at the quarry. You're skilled and you're brave, and we need people like that, especially now. But some of the members still don't trust you. Now, I can vouch for you and they will just have to…get to know you." He chose his words carefully. "But I have to know where your loyalties lie."
"My loyalties lie with those who earn them." She said firmly. "And you, Rick Grimes, have not earned them. But Daryl and Glenn…they have." He didn't have to know what had just happened between her, Glenn, and Daryl. It was none of his concern, and in truth, had nothing to do with how she felt about either of the two men. Sex was just an escape, a way out of things she didn't want to feel. That's what it had always been for her, and so the body underneath her own didn't really make much of a difference. It never had, and even now, if there were a battle to be had, she would fight just as strongly beside both, even if neither wanted her there. "And they stand with you. And so I will stand with you as well. But don't think I will be the scapegoat, the prisoner, the second class citizen, simply because I didn't meet the rest of you on some God forsaken highway out of hell." She scraped her foot on the ground and stared him straight in the face. "I have seen hell. Escaped from it. And I have earned my keep with you."
Rick stared back at her, testing her resolve and her fortitude to stick by her words. When she gave no ground, his eyes softened a little and he continued. "There's just one more thing. What happened between you and Glenn? He was watching you the entire time we were talking. Daryl too."
"It's none of your business." She warned. She turned to go but Rick advanced on her and she stood her ground.
"Don't think for a second I'll let you stay if you turn our group into chaos and pit people against each other." He hissed and now there was a bite to his voice. A threat. And the look in his eyes said he was serious.
"I pit no one against each other. If Daryl has an issue with Glenn, let them work it out." Her eyes burned like emerald coals but Rick was not deterred.
"Don't tell me for two seconds it doesn't have something to do with you. They're the only ones out of the group you've spent any length of time, and you're the only common factor between them!" Rick spoke harshly, the inflection in his voice rising.
"So what?" she hissed. "They're grown men. They can work it out."
"Don't push people, Fox." Rick warned. "Don't do it. Especially not Daryl. I saw what he did to Shane, and I'm grateful you helped put a stop to it. But Daryl comes from a long history of acting first and not even bothering to ask questions later. Glenn is a valuable part of this group, I'd like to keep his face from being bashed in." Rick's fingers twitched and though he did not touch the revolver holstered on his hip, Fox could see the longing. The wanting.
"You are not my god." Fox warned and though her voice was quiet, there was the edge of a ruthless knife in it. "And if you think you can tame me into your little pet who comes at your beck and call, you're sorely mistaken." She turned to walk away and Rick made to follow. She spun on her heel, her boots scraping on the ground as she did so.
"And you're wrong." She added. She met Rick's eyes in a firm stare, but she had lost most of the aggressiveness. Now there was solace, and something that might have been pain in her eyes. "Daryl does question. More than you give him credit for."
Rick came back into the warehouse to rejoin the others for a little social time before everyone would bed down for the night. Daryl was sitting off by himself as usual and though it was routine, it made Rick wonder what really had happened, and if he should be concerned. Shane didn't miss the look on his friend's face.
"What you worried about?" he asked.
"Fox." He answered honestly. Lying to his friend had never been something he was good at. It had never been something he was good at period.
Keeping secrets was a different story.
"Yeah…I been thinking about that too." Shane said, running a hand through the back of his hair.
"She says she's planning on staying with us." Rick explained.
"And you're alright with that? We don't even know her, Rick. What's to stop her from trying to hurt one of us if she decided to take off at the last second and needed supplies? Think about Lori. Carl. She's packing heavy gear and she ain't exactly tried to make friends." Shane's dark eyes burned with sparks deep in the back of his pupils. Rick knew that look. He'd seen it on men he would never have dared to call friend, and it made his spine twitch uneasily.
"Glenn told me that he and Daryl would have never made it out of the city alive if it hadn't been for her. She scavenged off us to survive. I'm not going to hold her hostage to that forever. She risked her life to help Lori." He sounded exhausted and worn to the bone but his eyes were still strong.
"Then what are you worried about?" Shane demanded. There was something clearly unsettling Rick but Rick was good at keeping personal pain to himself. He always had been. But Shane knew him too well to believe the façade.
"She's dead set on getting under Daryl's skin. And I want to know why." Rick finally said.
"Who cares? Personally I wouldn't want to know." Shane muttered, a thin hint of disgust between his words.
"Well I do. Next to her, Daryl is the most volatile of the group. We may not like him but we need him. Glenn was right. If he can't hunt, we can't stay fed. If he takes off somewhere or loses his temper and hurts someone…I don't want to deal with the consequences of that."
"You mean the way he damn near killed me?" Shane growled. His voice was low, and his eyes burned. It was clear he had not forgotten the way Rick had just let Daryl walk scot free from their spat back at the quarry.
"I heard what you said. You provoked him." Rick answered. He felt uncomfortable doing so, but he wasn't going to back down, not now. He would however try to smooth the situation over, at least temporarily. He turned to his friend and cracked a thin smile. "Remember that time we found a rat in the back of one of the classrooms in high school? Everybody told you to leave it alone but you…you poked it until it came flying at you."
"Took a freaking chunk out of my nose." Shane said, laughing a little at the memory, running his fingers over his hair.
"Exactly. I know you and Daryl don't see eye to eye and I get that. I don't see eye to eye with him on much either." Rick replied. The laughter died but he was calm now. "I won't let you and Daryl fight anymore. One way or the other." He said.
Shane nodded quietly, pacified for the moment. "Did you find anything else while we were at the CDC? When we split up?"
Rick fell silent, the memory raw and still bleeding in his mind. The CDC had been a massive sprawl of an underground complex, labs and hallways and locked doors everywhere, darkness lit by white flashlights, cold air and close quarters. They'd spread out to try and cover more ground once they'd gotten inside. He'd gone all the way to the bottom of the complex, and he'd found something inside one of the labs. Something that disturbed him so greatly at first he thought that to take it might start a war. All the reports said that everyone was dead- but he knew that wasn't the case. He and his group were alive. Others were too. And others would want what he had found, and some instinct deep inside told him that if he didn't do something about what he had found he wasn't going to like the outcome. And for better or worse, he had made his choice and it was with him now.
"No." he told Shane quietly. "Just more pieces of paper with lab test numbers on them. I don't even know if it was related to the plague." The exhaustion in his voice covered up the thin splinters of the lie cracking the words.
Shane nodded, having no reason to distrust his friend. "Alright. Well, I'm off, gonna try and get some rest, we've got a lot of ground to cover in the morning." He clapped his friend on the shoulder before getting up and going to where his sleeping bag was stretched out. It was just a hair too close to Lori and Carl for Rick's liking, but there wasn't much he could say about it. If something should happen, Shane would be all the closer to protect them, and really that was all that mattered. He had to keep telling himself that. It was the only way he could stand to look him in the eye sometimes.
He wanted to pretend he wasn't sure why he didn't tell Shane about what he found. Shane was a member of the group- his best friend. They had risked their lives for each other more than once, even before the world ended. Why wouldn't he trust him with what he had found? He looked back at where Shane was laying feeling a stirring in his chest, a burning, something constricting and almost violent.
He knew why. Because Shane knew that while Rick might seem righteous and protective and benevolent, there was still a part of him that was animal like, that would fight, maybe even kill, to keep what was his close to him. His wife and son. Shane knew it, and Rick knew it too. It was obvious to Rick that Shane had been staking a claim to Lori and Carl for a long time now, and he knew eventually he would have to confront his friend. He wanted that confrontation to be peaceful. To be with words and emotions. But he had a terrible feeling deep inside that one or both of them would spill blood over it. Society and its constraints were gone. If Rick killed Shane to defend what was his…there would be no police to come and arrest him, no judge and jury to sentence him. And if Shane killed him and took what he had taken from the CDC for his own…what would he do with the group? Where and how would he lead them? Would he turn them into an army, with him as its dictator? So many scenarios spilled over into his mind's eye that it hurt his head to just think about it.
There was nothing to be done about it now. He would have to confront Shane eventually, but now wasn't that time. He hauled his exhausted frame to curl up next to Lori, Carl within an arms reach. He kissed the back of his wife's neck and smiled when she gave a soft, pleased sound. Sleep crawled through him like warm water soaking into his skin and he gave himself up to his dreams, too tired to fight it anymore.
When they woke the next morning there was a certain measure of uneasiness in the group. No one was really sure what the plan was, and Daryl was beginning not to care. It didn't really matter where they went, they would always be pursued by a never ending army of flesh eating monsters. It would only be a question of how far ahead they could get before they would eventually catch up. They would always catch up.
"I know that it's still warm out right now, but it won't be long until winter gets here. We need to find a place to stay for when the cold weather gets serious. Outside of Atlanta are all kinds of old farm houses and plantations, many of them with generators and wells on the property to provide water and power to the houses on the land. I say we find one suitable for our needs and stay there. We have enough manpower to provide patrols to keep a tab on any Walkers that might be in the area and once we get settled in, we can start making fortifications to the property."
"It doesn't matter what we do. They will always find us. And they will always tear their way in. We can't stop them." Andrea's voice was broken and despondent. Dale reached for her and tried to put his arm around her shoulder but Andrea shook him away. Daryl could understand. After her sister's death, she didn't have a lot left to live for, but he wasn't going to pretend that the thought of suicide didn't disturb him at a deep level. If you were weak enough to consider taking your own life then you weren't one of the ones meant to survive, and it would only be a matter of time before something else got you. Either your own hand, or in this day and age, a dead one, with a mouth of ravenous teeth attached.
"We can. And we will." Rick said firmly. "We can't just keep running. We have to find a place for ourselves, to rebuild our lives. Societies collapse, wars are fought, world's end. But we have never stopped surviving as a species. We can and we will find a place to suit our needs. And we will make for ourselves what the world has tried to take."
Lori wound her fingers through Rick's and squeezed his hand tightly. Daryl scanned the group looking for Fox. She was on the other side of the group, watching Rick with something that was close to approval in her eyes, but not quite.
"We head west in a single file formation. I'll take the lead. Let's move out." Rick ordered.
The group broke up and started gathering their things. Daryl had just finished rolling his sleeping bag and tucking it into the satchel on his bike when he felt more than saw Fox approach him from behind. It was clear to him what she wanted, but he wasn't feeling so open towards her, not after last night.
"I'm not going to apologize." She said softly. "It won't do me any good."
"Got that right." He growled as he finished strapping his saddlebag closed and tucking his gun into the back of his pants.
"But I am going to ask that you let my choices be mine and reflect on me, not me and you together."
He cocked an eyebrow at her. "What's that supposed to mean? That I'm supposed to forget you tried to freaking molest me last night and when I pushed you off you go and fuck Glenn? Forget that you used him like a cheap piece of meat just to piss me off; get something through your head. There's no you and me. There's just you getting in my face, and I'm damn tired of it." He really was tired of it. Playing these stupid games with her sapped his strength just like the Georgia sun.
She paused for a second and he could see the cogs spinning in her head, deciding whether to keep pushing or let it go. To her credit she had enough balls to just keep going and plunge straight over the cliff.
"Fine. There's no you and me. And I'm not asking you to forget." She said, and still there was no apology and no softness to her, but there was honesty and he could appreciate that, even now. "But let what I did be about me and not you."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "What the hell does that mean? You didn't screw him to get back at me?" He felt like she was playing foxy games with him and it was really starting to piss him off. This is why he didn't deal with women. They could never just be straightforward and clear.
"It wasn't about you. At least not nearly as much as you think it was." She told him. The tension filled knot in his chest where his heart sat began to loosen, but at the same time it felt like other strings were being pulled, dragging him places he had no desire to go.
"But there was still some of that spiteful bitch in it, right?" he asked. There was no apology, and his voice was still hard like the razor edge of a blade, but they were pressed for time. The others were piling into their cars and he knew what she'd come to him for. He hadn't forgiven her, but there was still something in him (and damn whatever it was) that couldn't get over how even now, as she stood there bold as brass after what she'd done, he still liked looking back over his shoulder and seeing her there. Fuck, maybe it was actually something about the way she had the balls to stand there and the bravery to still come crawling back after what she'd done. Glenn had made every effort to stay well away from him as though he expected Daryl to rip him to pieces. He'd thought about it briefly, but then discarded the idea. This hadn't been Glenn's doing. It was hers, and Glenn had just happened to be the warm body she'd culled away from the group. In some ways she had used the kid just as much as she was using him.
"Yeah." She admitted, still looking him in the face with unrepentant green eyes. "But for now, all I'm asking is for you to let me save face in front of them. You can have what you want from me in exchange, I don't care." The fact she admitted he needed his help surprised him, and that she offered him basically anything that he could want from her even stranger. Did she not understand that the world didn't work via business transactions?
But he didn't have to ask her to explain what she meant by saving face. If he didn't let her ride with them and she had to ask for room in someone else's car, they would know she'd lost her ally, and they might turn on her. She'd barely made it out of the quarry with them days ago, and that was only because he was the only one willing to take her. He wasn't as willing as he had been then, and there was a part of him that said she deserved to have to feel their guilt and their anger. The only thing stopping him from letting that happen was he knew how quickly she could fuck up a precarious situation and that could leave her stranded. So, against what might have been his better judgment, he made his decision.
He didn't care anyway, right? She meant as much to him as any of the other people traveling with them, which wasn't much more than a group of humanity facing extinction, and they needed every warm body on their side to help each other stay alive.
"Get on." He said as he swung up on his bike. She did so, and he could feel the way she tried to hold on as loosely as possible. He let the engine roar to life and felt her slip a little as he started forward.
"I'm not gonna throw you off for holding on. Just don't try anything weird. Had enough of that shit for one day." He muttered.
He swore he felt her laugh as her arms snaked around his midsection and squeezed as they took off after the convoy of vehicles.