Just written today! 10.30.2014
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She badly wishes she could be pacing right now. Instead she's stuck sitting at an uncomfortable stone table in the "holding cell". Michonne is seated at her right. Annie at her left. Beth is in the room and the infamous Merle is pacing back and forth. Glenn is getting ready, trying to prepare the prison for another attack.
Merle whistles when Lottie comes in and she rolls her eyes. It's her first time meeting him but she knows who he is, she's heard of the things he's done.
"My brother really did a number on you. Fucked you so hard you can't walk straight nine months later huh?"
"I'm seven months." She says bitterly and glares at him as she tries to make herself comfortable on the bench. Michonne is staring Merle down from where she's sitting beside Lottie.
"Well god damn. You're bigggggg for seven months, little mama." She shudders at the name Daryl had taken to calling her. Did Daryl tell him? Or are they really that similar?..
"Please leave me alone." She begs.
He stares at her like she's breakfast for a few more minutes before finally turning his attention to packing his things. He wants to try to get to where Daryl, Rick and Hershel are meeting the governor, trying to "negotiate". He eventually tries to force his way out the door and Glenn has to wrestle him down. Lottie only backs away. She wishes she could help them contain the hostile idiot but she's just about accepted the fact that she gets in the way more than anything now.
It's barely another two hours after that when she hears Daryl's motorcycle. She's still mad at him but she's excited that he's back. She stands and awkwardly climbs around the table, Michonne is at her side. Lottie laughs, "I'm fine. Seriously, I'm only seven months."
"Don't care, you're broken everywhere." Michonne mutters half teasingly and Lottie giggles again. She's grown to really like Michonne.
Rick and the others enter the cell block and call for a group meeting.
Rick explains his meeting with the governor, how there is no peace treaty, the governor wants the prison and wants them all dead. "We're going to war." Rick says finally.
Everyone looks worried and frightened and Daryl goes towards Lottie for a moment, like he's going to hug her and then seems to think better of it, goes upstairs instead.
Lottie frowns, tries to decide if she should go up the stairs after him. After a moment, she decides yes and begins making her way carefully up the stairs, holding her bump tightly, trying to support the tautly stitched skin on her side and keep her knee stable.
A whistle from behind her again.
"I see why my brother always follows you up and down these stairs now. She turns bright red and stops, turns to the side to allow him to get through.
"Afraid that's not gonna work, baby doll. It's a bit of a tight squeeze. You're pretty big." He whispers, close to her face as he moves his metal plated arm near her belly. "An so am I" he adds in a whisper, his remaining hand moves towards her hips and she squeaks, fumbling to get away from him.
"MERLE! Back up off her!" Daryl comes shooting down the stairs.
"The hell you think you're doin'!?" Daryl immediately gets in Merle's face, Lottie's stuck between the two of them arguing over her bump.
"Nothin' baby brother! Just enjoyin' my walk up the stairs is all!"
"Best move past her!"
"Might have to give her a bit of a rub to do that." Merle taunts and Daryl looks like he's about to push him down the stairs. Lottie is trying to back away as much as humanly possible but she can't exactly suck her belly in or anything. Daryl finally manages to squeeze around it.
"Back off, bro." He says, and Merle moves down a step. Lottie begins making her way back up the stairs as quickly as she can until pain springs up, burning her side and she hisses. Daryl looks up at her and then follows her, helping her up the last two steps and then into her cell.
He helps her sit down, leaning against the wall and takes her boots off.
"Stay in bed for just a couple hours, wouldya?" He grumbles at her. She laughs.
"And miss all the good going to war stuff? Nahh." She jokes. He stares at her seriously.
"What's going to happen?..." She asks softly after a little while. "I'll do my best but I can barely get up and down these stairs right now...I'm so vulnerable like this, what am I supposed to do?" She bursts into tears and buries her face in her hands for a moment before Daryl awkwardly pulls her into his chest. She sobs for a while with his arms around her.
"I'm gonna take care of you, okay? Both of you." Daryl says and plants a kiss on her forehead..
"I barely even believe you.." She mumbles and he says nothing.
"What happened at the meeting?"
"Not much. Governor and Rick just talked for a long time." He says but there's something on his mind, she can tell.
"So we're just going to fight? That's all he said? That's it?"
Daryl shakes his head and she waits a long time, curled into his arms before he says any more.
"Governor said if we take him Michonne tomorrow, he'll leave us be. I don't trust him."
Lottie jerks away from him, "What!? Give her to him!? You can't give one person to another! We don't own her, she's not a captive!"
He shushes her. "I know. I don't wanna do it but Rick thinks it will keep the group safe."
"Then Rick is an idiot! He's breaking, this isn't the right decision for him to make this isn't a decision that anyone should be making! This is wrong. I have to go talk to him."
"Lottie no, look, I wasn't supposed to tell you, no one's supposed to know."
"So what? You're just going to pull a bag over her head while she's sleeping? Knock her out and tie her up? Take her there? What if they had asked for me."
"It's different." He mumbles.
"No. No it's not. She may be new but at one point I was too. She saved me. I saved Sophia. We're the same."
Daryl doesn't say anything for a long time. Eventually he looks at her, and she still feels fired up but then the baby kicks and she rubs at her stomach.
"You okay?" He asks and she nods, smiles at him a little bit. "My little friend is kicking away."
He stares at her for a long time and she rolls her eyes, takes his hand and puts it on her stomach for him.
He nearly jerks back at the feel of the kicking and she laughs.
"Weird, huh?" She jokes and he nods and she laughs again.
"Does it hurt?"
"Only when he's kicking my ribs or my bladder or something."
The baby starts crying downstairs and Lottie squints one eye shut, makes a face. "At least we don't have to hear that just yet."
He snorts and nods and then lies back on the bed, rubs at his face with his hands.
"You're right. I ain't ready at all."
Her heart breaks a little at him admitting that but she nods and tries to keep herself steady.
"I know. It's okay. I should have been smarter about this. I should have realized... I probably never should have even come here, I mean what was the point?.. We're not safe here. I'm not, the baby's not. We have people coming to attack and kill us...I should have just kept looking for my mother's house. I shouldn't have come here."
Daryl is staring at her.
"Glad you did." He says quietly and she's surprised.
"Why? Because we're doing so great? Because you love me so much? No, you know what? I'm not glad I came. I should have kept looking. Speaking of which, do you know where LaGrange is?"
He shakes his head and sits back up.
He looks like he has a lot he wants to say but he sits there being quiet. To Lottie it feels like his unsaid thoughts are thickening the air in the room like smoke. She can't stand it.
"Please go, Daryl. Go to your brother. Go to Carol. Go...somewhere that isn't here so you don't have to try so hard to act like you give a fuck."
He stares at her. "Lottie, I-"
"Stop. Just. Please. Stop."
"Either you go or I go and I really don't feel like seeing your brother or having to go up and down the stairs anymore." She adds.
He nods and gets up from the bed, looks down at her for a second before grabbing his crossbow, heading towards the door.
"I love you. Or I did love you. I'm not sure which it is anymore." She says quietly and he looks back at her for a second, then he leaves without saying another word.
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She looks for Michonne the next morning, early but can't find her. She can't find Merle either. When she runs into Rick after about an hour and a half of searching for the woman she shoves him into a wall and screams at him.
"WHERE IS SHE!? How can you do this to a person!?"
Rick looks taken aback and confused and like he wants to pull his gun on her but doesn't at the same time. Daryl rounds the corner.
"Hey hey hey! What you doin!?"
"Michonne is gone! He did it! He gave her away!"
"What? No, no I didn't. I decided I wasn't going to. Are you sure she's gone?" Rick admits, Daryl is looking between the two of them.
"Yes, I've looked everywhere, I even searched to the cafeteria and back,she's nowhere."
Daryl is glaring at her for that.
"Your fantastic brother is nowhere to be found either!"
"I just seen him, c'mon." Daryl says after that and he runs in a door on the side, Rick runs after him and Lottie does her best to keep up.
"He was down here. Look at the bag on the floor, musta taken her himself."
"Are you kidding me!? We have to go after him." Lottie is freaking out, checking her side for her handgun.
"I'll go. I said I'd go so I'll go. He's my responsibility." Daryl says.
"No, I'll go with you." Lottie says and he looks at her like she's being outright ridiculous.
"I'll go with you." Rick says.
"I'll go alone." Daryl says. "Stay here. Both of you. Get yourselves ready."
She wants to protest but he's gone out the back door of the generator room before she has a chance. She's left standing there feeling empty with Rick.
"Maybe you can try watch again." He suggests quietly and then she makes for the door Daryl left out of.
"Lottie, please. There's nothing you can do."
She pushes the door open and Annie is waiting for her on the other side. She has a sword that looks almost like Michonne's. Ready?
Lottie nods and they take off together towards the gate.
Xx
They don't have to travel even a mile before they run into Michonne and Lottie almost kills her with a tight squeeze of a hug.
"You're okay!" She says and she can't help herself, not anymore, there are tears streaming down her cheeks and Michonne laughs at her.
"Didn't think anyone would miss me that much."
"Are you kidding me?" Lottie shakes her head at the woman with the sword.
"I would have kicked Merle's ass." Lottie says as they begin walking back towards the prison. Michonne laughs loud and it's a great sound. Lottie would have missed that sound for sure.
"Wait. Where's Daryl?" She realizes suddenly and Michonne frowns.
"He told me not to let you follow him. I have to oblige, I couldn't let you continue out there."
Lottie shakes her head, stops walking.
"He went after Merle. Merle went after the governor. I don't know how it's going to turn out but I can't let you go." Michonne adds.
Lottie feels like crying again but just nods her head and accompanies Michonne back to the prison. She doesn't feel right.
"If I wasn't pregnant I would fight you." She mumbles.
Michonne laughs again, "I bet you would." She agrees.
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