"Nothin'." Daryl snorted, shooting Rick the deadliest of looks. The poor sheriff had no idea what he had just walked into. Sparks were flying between the couple in promise of another heated argument and Daryl's famous stubbornness wasn't helping.
"Bullshit. What did you do last night?" Alice spotted Rick's eyes softening, if Daryl wouldn't spill he definitely would.
Turning to Rick Alice said, "I'll get my stuff and meet you at the entrance in, like, 10 minutes?" From the corner of her eye, and with great delight, she watched her lover's face inflate with a florescent red. He was having great difficulty not to break his stubborn silence to voice his concerns, if he let his cool facade slip he knew she would get under his skin and annoy the hell out of him until she got her answer.
Only once devious Alice had disappeared down the hall did Daryl speak.
"I'll go with her, tell her everythin' on tha way." Rick nodded, he was certainly in no place to disagree with Daryl's way of handling things when his own relationship lay in ruins.
When Alice got back to the room it began to dawn on her what she had actually signed up for. Still injured, she would have to outrun walkers, lug heavy supplies around and remain in a very focused state of mind the entire time. None of which seemed easily possible. But there was no way she was backing out now! Damn, she and Daryl were definitely meant to be together- probably the two most stubborn people left alive on planet earth.
It was hard not to smile. She had expected to see Rick sitting waiting for her in the car but she had been surprised with Daryl on his brother's bike. She loved that about him, those little ways that he showed her that he cared even when he was in a pissy mood.
"It don' suit you acting like a bitch!" he called to her sexy ass loitering hesitantly in the doorway.
"You don't look like Rick!" she retorted, crossing her arms in a stroppy manner.
"I'll get up an' drag ya if I have ta."
He noticed how she clung to his waist tighter than the last time they'd ridden together. He slowed right down to a speed that couldn't even outrun a dismembered walker to see if that relaxed her at all. Nope. She was still crushing his lungs. A sensitive man would have just asked her out right what was wrong but Daryl Dixon wasn't that kind of guy.
Alice didn't want to question Daryl's sense of direction but for a tiny town Rick had described as 'a ten minute drive away' it was sure taking a long time.
With the wind lashing against her face and the loud rev of the engine any other small sounds were left behind with the exaughst fumes. A few times they passed walkers standing aimlessly by the edge of the road like hookers, they would reach out their hands and stumble closer, mouths gaping in silence. Without a doubt they were groaning for human flesh but Merle's bike drowned them out. They were alot less scary like that, Alice decided.
"Not…back…." Daryl was shouting something back to her.
"What?" she yelled back, pressing her mouth as close to his ears as she could reach.
"We're not going back!" he repeated. She signalled for him to pull over. She thought that she'd heard every word clearly but she couldn't have if that's really what he had said, she couldn't possibly be that lucky. It took a while to find a safe enough place to stop, anything close to the woodlands they had been passing was off limits unless they wanted to get ambushed from behind, abandoned gas stations were too risky aswell. It became apparent that the only thing to do was pause on the highway once the treeline had dwindled.
Daryl turned off the engine but didn't shift position, he needed to be ready to take off again at any sign of danger. So far, the silence hadn't invoked any shouting. Daryl was surprised, he knew how much Alice valued honesty.
"Ok." she whispered, wrapping her arms around his body.
"Ok? Ya up for this?" he questioned cautiously. This certainly wasn't the reaction he had expected.
She was grasping at the opportunity Daryl had given her recklessly, she hadn't realised how badly she didn't want to go back the warehouse.
"If this is what you want to do then it's fine with me. I don't like what you did but I would still follow you into hell." He lowered his head shamefully, he wasn't proud of how he had behaved but he would prove himself to her this time.
"Alice…" he swallowed hard, his throat was tightening subconsciously to prevent the emotion flooding out but he needed to tell her how he felt if she was willing to follow hin without question.
"It's destroyin' me stayin' there. It's a constant fuckin' reminder of what happened, how badly I let you down. And tha' group, well, bunch o' dumbasses keep puttin' us in situations that could've killed us. So far we've been lucky, really fuckin' lucky but I'm scared tha' luck is gunna run out." Alice was shaking against him, sobbing quietly into his back. It hurt. She'd had no idea that he had been feeling like that. She wanted to tell him that he didn't let her down, that he came back for her and that's what mattered but she couldn't force herself to speak. She was overwhelmed by the sheer emotion and pain in his words.
"Don' cry. Hold on ta me for now 'cos when I find us some place to stay I'm not gunna stop holdin' on ta you." It wasn't a lie, once the deserted house on the former ranch had a thorough check they cuddled up in the main bedroom wrapped in the blankets of the former residents. Alice found herself hoping that the absent horses had run away, she had almost gotten used to walkers eating humans, walkers eating beautiful animals somehow seemed more horrific.
"Ya thinkin' about the horses?" Daryl's breathing had sounded so deep and peaceful that she thought he had fallen asleep. He almost made her jump.
"Yeah." she admitted with a ghost of a laugh.