A/N: And after a half an hour wait, I give you 7.
Seems Like the Wife Type / Wait...What?
Another supply run, only this time, Andrea, T-Dog, Morales, Jacqui and Merle wanted to go with Glenn. JoJo volunteered to stay behind, feeling like there was already too many people on this mission as it was. With none of her brothers going into the city, it was assumed Lacey would be fine, but of course she wasn't. She didn't like the idea of anyone going into the city. But as she sat at the edge of the quarry with Blondie and Blue it was obvious it wasn't just the fact that a large group of survivors that she'd come close to were off in a walker infested city again.
He walked down to the quarry, after watching her retreat. Her brothers had gone off doing their own thing, Jo and Ben going to scout for any sort of food they could find incase when the others came back they weren't so lucky in getting anything edible. Robbie stayed behind to chat with Dale while he babysat Honey, leaving Lacey all alone.
Daryl rolled his eyes and sighed heavily before finally asking, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." she answered quietly.
"Damn it, Lacey, what's wrong. You got that damn face on again. It's borderlinin' on upsetin' and irritatin' me, so what the hell is wrong with you?"
She sighed before shaking her head, her eyes set forward on the water in front of her, "I never expected this, and I know no one really did, but...I never expected any of this to happen to me, like...like to have my own child under these circumstances, given to me in the middle of a... weird, science-fiction like, outbreak in Georgia."
"What's wrong with Georgia?" Daryl shot back defensively.
"Nothing," Lacey chuckled, "I was just...I wasn't supposed to be here."
Daryl's defensive nature took a notch or two down as he waited for her to continue. "I was going to be married this month..."
Daryl's brow scrunched together, 'of course', when he first saw her he thought she was too beautiful not to have someone before all of this, and with her baby, he just sort of assumed all the pieces fit together and he never stood a chance. But he figured, like the last time she was bummed out like this, that distracting her from her sadness was the key to getting her spirits up again...but to talk about the guy she was gonna marry? When only a couple of days ago he had lured her out into the woods to have sex with her... He shook his head with a sigh before plugging his nose and diving in...metaphorically speaking... though if the guilt became too much for him he just might dive into that mass of leech infested water in front of them.
"What's his name?" he assumed talking about it would make he feel better...but then again it could have the complete opposite effect. But he knew her well enough to know she wasn't a big emotional wreck like some of the other people in the camp, she wasn't a cry baby, and she kept herself put together for the sake of everyone else. But she hadn't even mentioned this, this big, huge, meaningful person in her life, for almost a month and a half, not a single word, not even from her brothers, surely they knew too. With that thought in mind he wondered if they hated the guy, or if they liked him... or if they even liked Daryl himself, well, tolerated would be the correct word choice.
"Keenan." she said, still staring at that water, as if she could see him emerging from it and walking toward her right then (in the back of his mind, Daryl remembered the first day in camp when Ben yelled at her, 'What about Keenan?', makes sense now), "Keenan Grady... I met him at the hospital, it was past midnight, and I was working a double," he noticed her smile as she rattled off every little fact, "It was my second week. I almost fell asleep on the reception desk when he ran in, his eyes were red, from lack of sleep or he'd been crying, I wasn't sure, but he was trying to catch his breath, he asked for his father, a man who was admitted the other afternoon. He was one of my patients. I took it as coincidence, he took it as fate. Either way, he visited his father a lot the next week, flirting with me until he asked me on a date... 5 months later we were engaged, a month after that I'm packed to move to New York... then this happens."
"5 months and you decided to marry the guy? That's a little quick." Daryl noted, trying to keep the jealously deep inside him where it belonged.
Lacey shrugged, "Some people can fall in love quicker than that... Or some people just settle."
"So this Grady guy was in New York when it started..." Daryl mummbled, only slightly confused about how she could possibly want to marry some guy she met in a hospital after 5 months and not even be in contact a month before the wedding.
She nodded, "New York was one of the cities that was hit hardest... but somehow I still have this tiny speck of hope that maybe he's alive."
Daryl's stomach dropped, there was the chance that this dude was still alive... then that sobering thought that hadn't even crossed his mind hit him.
There was a silence as they stared out in front of them, Lacey's smile had disappeared and her gaze fell her to hands.
"So...Grady sounds like a..."
"Irish name, yeah." she nodded.
"You got a thing for guys with accents or sumthin'?"
Completely caught off guard, Lacey bursted into laughter, "Shut up."
Daryl coerced her into talking more about her would've-been-husband, finding himself a little more curious than jealous now about the man who would have had his ring on Lacey's finger.
She told him he was about the same height as him, dark hair, almost black, and blue eyes that were way different from Daryl's. He was kinda skinny, and though he tried to speak with an American accent, his Irish always peeked through. He was a buisnessman, like his father, owning a few companies throughout the country, as well as some hospitals. His father owned the hospital she was working in, Grady Memorial Hospital, it was kind of obvious. And they lived in New York. Lacey told him about how thrilled she was at the idea of being back in New York, and being married there.
Before the tragedy happened she had girly dreams of a giant, princess-y wedding in New York, she wanted something outdoor, with a big poofy dress. That was her plan.
"You sound like a girl with expensive tastes." Daryl smirked, and she shrugged, "My dad would've paid for anything."
"Was he a millionaire or sumthin'?"
"Or sumthin'." Lacey mocked with a nod, and laughed when he glared at her, "We lived on the 52 floor, the penthouse of our apartment building. It was pretty swanky, but as I kid I didn't know any better, I just took it for granted." she shrugged, "Probably could've holed up there pretty well during all of this."
Daryl's eyes widened slightly, not only was this girl pretty, she used to be loaded. She'd gone from riches to rags, orphaned from New York to Georgia, worked more than 15 jobs until she was a nurse in a hospital her fiance owned. She could sell her story to movie producers... if the world ever went back to normal.
"Every day Dad would come with us when the driver took us to school."
Daryl put his hand up to stop her before she continued, "Wait! Driver? You had a driver?"
She shrugged, "Yeah. Dad didn't like taxis, neither did Mom."
"You were such a spoiled brat. Look at you now, eatin' squirrels and sleepin' in a tent."
"Hey! I wasn't a brat! I was a good kid, I just didn't know I had it made or I would've used it to my advantage more often."
"Whatever. I can see it, little Lacey with blonde pigtails, whinin' about her pony not bein' the right color."
Lacey gasped, "Shut up! I didn't have a pony." she laughed and punched his arm.
"Your fiance probably would've got you one then."
It fell quiet, neither one looked at the other, Lacey patted Blondie who had her head on her lap, dozing off. Blue sat between the two humans, acting like a barrier, his eyes shifting behind his heavy fringe.
"So, uhh..." Daryl broke the silence slowly, "Do you, ya know...do you...regret-"
Lacey cut him off before he could finish, "No. No, of course not." and he smiled a little.
"Everything about that was perfect...well, maybe not everything," she tilted her head to the side in thought, "the woods, dirt, and no bed weren't quite perfect, but, yeah. It was good." she nodded.
"Oh! And the constant fear of walkers. That wasn't so great either." she added with a wink.
He rolled his eyes, "So...again...sometime?" he offered shyly.
"Sometime," she nodded, smirking at his bashfulness.
"Alright," he leaned toward her and brushed his lips against hers, but pulled away the instant their lips met comfortably, "But not right now." he stood up with a cocky grin, "I gotta kill some stuff." he pulled his crossbow over his shoulder and started away.
She glared at the back of his head, "Wanna take Blondie?"
"I'll be fine on my own." he called over his shoulder and kept on. She watched him walk until his form finally disappeared from her sight.
A smile tugged at her lips as she looked out over the water.
They were opposites, one could say complete opposites, city girl and country boy. A girl who had it all then taken away then about to get it all back again, and a boy who...never really had much to begin with. She had found the man she was going to marry before all this began, she was in love with him. 'Some people fall in love... Or some people just settle'.
She sighed and dropped her head against her knees, "As if I didn't have enough stress on my mind." she grumbled.
She stayed at the quarry for a while longer, just enjoying the minor peace she could get from staring out at the water and watching Blue and Blondie play until the tired themselves out and layed down next to her.
"Well, it is getting kind of late," she said and stood up with a groan, wiping the dirt from her pants she started for the trail, her loyal, yet exhausted dogs following closely.
The closer she got to camp, the more she felt tired herself, almost wanting to just sit down and call it a day there. But something caught her ear, a sound, a very strange sound to be heard in the wildress, far from the city..." A car alarm?"
She picked up her lazy pace, and came face to face with Robbie, who held a concerned looking Honey who reached out to her, "Ma." she whined before Lacey took her, her small arms hooked around Lacey's neck as they all looked to the reason for the tremendous noise taking over the camp.
"What's going on!" she called to her brother over the noise.
"I don't know!" he shouted back, and a second later the noise was gone.
A shiny, new, red mustang had been the culprit. The driver being Glenn.
Lacey wondered forward, her facial expression giving everything away. Not that she wasn't glad to see Glenn, but...where in the hell were the others?
She'd walked in on the end of the conversation, Glenn apologising for driving the car with the alarm blaring all the way to the camp, like some sort of beakon for the walkers.
"I got a cool car...?" he offered, and Lacey couldn't help but smirk. Quietly crunching up the dirt road came the van, and she felt better already.
Amy bolted to the van and hugged her sister tightly, the same with every person that came out.
Honey whined quietly from Lacey's arms, an unmistakable plea that meant she was hungry, it took a month for Lacey to learn, but Honey had trained her well.
"Alright. Since everyone's back I suppose I can get you something to eat."
It was the cry of "DAD!" that shook her to the bone, she'd just finished making Honey's formula when she heard it, almost causing her to drop it to the tent floor. It was Carl's voice, Carl's father, he called for him. But Lacey knew the story, Lori had told her, Shane was the last to see him, the power went down in the King County Hospital and Rick's heart beat stopped.
She sprinted through the tent flaps and toward the center of the camp, and that's where she saw it, a scene that broke and melted her heart, all while putting pieces back together at the same time. Rick held onto Carl and Lori, hugging them tightly, never wanting to let go, Lacey suspected.
"Is that Lacey Black?" Rick's voice chuckled, tears in his eyes as he looked around the camp.
Lacey nodded, "It sure is, Officer Grimes." she smiled as she walked over to the complete Grimes family and was enveloped in their hug.
"Your brothers?" he wondered quietly, a flicker on worry in his kind eyes.
"The gang's all here, Rick." she whispered back with a grin, and the boys walked over to reunite with their friend.
Lacey laughed along with her brothers and Rick as they joked in happiness of the Black-Grimes family finally being united again.
But her laughter fell short when she caught sight of Dale waving her over, and her stomach dropped when he told her the news. She almost felt sick, but more angry than anything, but she kept it well hidden. There wasn't anything she could do at the moment... She could keep her temper in check...but when Daryl came back... that's when the shit would hit the fan.
Lacey told the story of Honey for the third time when everyone gathered around the fire that night. Everyone seemed in their rightful places. Though Daryl was absent and Merle was...
It felt complete in a way.
"Have you given any thought to Daryl Dixon?" Dale spoke up, "he won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind."
"I'll tell him." Shane sighed.
"I dropped the key, it's on me." T-Dog said right after Shane.
"I cuffed him, that makes it mine." Rick said with the most guilty face Lacey had even seen.
She rolled her eyes, they were all horrified and disgusted with themselves, as they should've been.
"Guys," Glenn interrupted with an airy chuckle, "it's not a competition. I don't mean to bring race into this, but it might sound better coming from a white guy." he looked to T-Dog next to him.
"I did what I did, I'm not gonna hide from it."
"We could lie." Amy piped up, only for her sister to shut her down shortly after, "Tell the truth, Merle was out of control. Something had to be done or he'd have gotten us killed." Andrea looked around the group, then to Lori, speaking to her, "Your husband did what was necessary, and if Merle got left behind it is nobody's fault but Merle's."
"And that's what we tell Daryl? I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you?" Dale, ever the voice of reason, spoke. Somewhat keeping the fuming rage within Lacey.
"Word to the wise. We're gonna have our hands full when he gets back from this hunt."
T-Dog went on to explain that he stopped long enough to chain the door, leaving a still living, breathing, cuffed Merle on a rooftop in a walker infested Atlanta.
"And you left him! You didn't even try to save him! I can't- I just-" Lacey stood up, unable to find the correct words to express herself, but at the same time thankful that she didn't. She walked away from that fire pit, angry and mind racing, and on the other side of the team. Merle was a person, maybe one of the meanest people anyone would ever meet, but he was a person. No one deserved to be cuffed to a roof in a time like this, no one deserved to die like that. Merle was a person in this camp she'd grown to like, a person she'd decided to make sure to protect when and if it ever came down to it. And this entire camp that she'd befriended had turned against him, and left him to die, like it wasn't a big deal, like it was gift to themselves, a problem they didn't have to deal with anymore. It may have been the end of the world, and they may be survivors, but in Lacey's opinion they were far from people now...
Disclaimer: I do not own Walking Dead, the graphic novel or the show.
A/N: And the almost painfully obvious and cliche reason for the guilt! And the anger makes an appearance again. I hope this will keep you all satisfied for a while, I want to say next Friday I'll have something up, and if not then then definitely Saturday or Sunday. I'd love to see some comments or if there are any questions I'd be glad to answer.