I just want to say, chapter 16, I warned people that I was incorporating the last of us into it. So don't complain about it. I got a review about it and I wanted to reply to only her but she was just a guest so I couldn't. Honestly, it's my story. damn.
Now, my little rant aside, this chapter might have some triggers because we get deeper in Annie's past. Just letting people know that. let's move one with this story!
Skies are crying, I am watching
Catching tear drops in my hands
Only silence as it's ending
Like we never had a chance
Do you have to make me feel like
There's nothing left of me?
You can take everything I have
You can break everything I am
Like I'm made of glass
Like I'm made of paper
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a skyscraper
Like a skyscraper
-Skyscraper (Demi Lovato)
"Annie! Can you help me over here?" Mac calls from the forest. Annie looks up from Hallie's hair that she was brushing and sees Mac trying to hoist up some sort of trap. A sigh escapes her lips as she gets up from her seat on the porch and walks over to Mac. She places her hands on the rope and helps her bring the object higher and higher. Annie groans.
"What the hell is this?" Mac chuckles painfully, still keeping a firm grip on the rope.
"A giant bolder," she hisses as the rope starts to burn her hands. Annie snorts.
"A bolder? Couldn't we wait until the men wake up or something like that?" For the first time in forever, all the women had practically forced the men to stay inside and rest. They had been outside almost every single day and all three of the mature women who worked in the house were starting to feel terrible. Gina had been the first one to mention it, and they had just leisurely gone along with it.
"Do you not remember us making them stay inside?" Mac asks. Annie rolls her eyes.
"But, Mac...a fucking boulder?! This is insane!" Mac laughs.
"I've done a few of these all around the property. This ain't nothing," she tries to say, but more or less comes out as a struggle for air. Annie moves her hands to a better position and finally gets a great grip on the slippery rope and pulls as hard as she could. Mac notices the new sense of strength that happened to suddenly appear in Annie's arms and pulls harder, and finally, they hoist the boulder up as high as they could.
"Annie, hold it for a second!" Mac exclaims. Annie's eyes widen when she sees Mac let go, but soon regains her senses when the now added on weight almost pulled her to the ground. She gets s tighter hold and grinds her teeth angrily.
"Dammit, Mac!" she growls. She glances behind her to see that Mac was tying the rope down to the ground. A trip wire. But Annie was too focused on the growing pain inside her arms to truly see what the fuck was happening behind her. "Hurry up!"
"I'm tryin'!" she replies angrily. Finally, she ties it completely down to the ground and lets it go. "You can let it go, Annie!" she exclaims. With a groan, Annie lets it go and stretches her arms, but the boulder does not fall. She looks up into the branches and sees that it was hanging happily from the trunk of the tree, and she shakes her head in disbelief.
"I can't believe you've done more than one of these," she mumbles. Mac laughs.
"Yeah, it's a lot of work." Annie snorts.
"It's a lot more then work. I acquire more sweat on me in the past five minutes then I have in the past hour out here in the blazing hot Georgia sun!" Mac rolls her eyes.
"You're exaggerating. Calm down and go back down there. I got the rest." Annie closes her eyes in frustration for a second before shaking her head and heading back down the hill near the porch. She hears Mac's snickering behind her but the voice inside tells her to stay away before she blew up.
"Momma!" Hallie exclaims, running up to her. "I drew you something!" Annie quirks an eyebrow and takes the drawing from the curious three year olds hands. But when she sees the contents of the paper, a frown crosses her face for a split second. It was a bunch of walkers chasing some animals. One of them was biting into one of them. A four year old drew this. A fucking four year old. But Annie erases the frown from her face and holds it in her hands happily.
"It's really good, sweetie," she says to her. "But how about a princess? Or a dancer?" Hallie's head tips to the side in confusion and wonder.
"What's a princess?" Annie's eyebrows wise and her eyes slightly widen. She looks up to Kelly, who was playing catch with Lacey.
"Kelly!" she yells to her. Kelly looks up just as she catches the ball. "Would you and Lacey mind explaining to your little sister what a princess is? And anything else...magical?" Kelly and Lacey smile at each other. Annie knew that they had been reading Harry Potter and any fantasy book in the past couple of weeks they had been there, and Kelly was fascinated with everything magical. "Go on, Hallie. You'll learn in time."
A smile appears on Hallie's face as she runs over to her sister quickly, and Annie sighs, turning to where Gina was. She sees she was carrying one of the barrels into the garage back door, and Annie rushes over, helping her take it there. Gina frowns at her.
"You don't need to help me, sweetie," she says. Annie rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, I do. I'm here to help, right?" Gina smiles but soon turns into a look of panic when Pepper dodges in-between their legs. "No! Pepper!" she scolds, but it was too late. Annie had been tripped by the dog and so had Gina. They both go toppling over to the ground, and the barrels contents spill all over them. Annie looks down at her shirt in disgust, only to quirk an eyebrow.
The stuff inside didn't seem to be vegetables, but some sort of juice. Annie looks at Gina questionably.
"What is this stuff?" she asks. Gina's eyes widen and she slaps her hand to her forehead.
"Son of a nutcracker! I took the wrong barrel That's fruit juice and I needed the vegetables. Dammit." Annie looks down at her shirt and highly doubts it was something along the lines of fruit juice. It was much too red for it to be that, but she looks up at the sound of Gina cursing.
"Nutcracker?" she laughs. Gina rolls her eyes and stands up.
"Be quiet, child. How about you go take a shower? I'll clean this all up. You've done a lot today." Annie begins to protest but stops before she could. She knew she wouldn't win this. Standing up from her spot on the ground, she smiles at her and moves towards the door, then glances back down at the shirt. Well, whatever the crap was on the shirt, she didn't have the time now.
She walks into the room but not before seeing Hallie's amazed expression at the stories the older girls were telling her. She smiles and closes the porch door behind her, then glances back at Gina, only to find she wasn't there. Annie's brow furrows as she looks around, but doesn't see her anywhere. She shrugs her shoulders. She didn't really have time for this. She needed to get this crap off her shirt.
As Annie makes her way to the third floor, she looks down at the shirt and sighs. This had actually been one of her favorite shirts she had gotten from a store they had raided. It had been a simple white t-shirt, but it fit her nicely and made her curves look good, unlike a good proportion of most of the clothes she wore. And now it was destroyed by God knows what that was drenched on her. There wasn't a scent, so the first thing she thought of, which was blood, was out, but it was something.
She gets to her door but stops when she sees Lauren's room slightly open, and also hears a bit of talking. Lauren was someone Annie had actually grown quite close to since they first talked. Maybe it was the fact she had cancer, or that she was so nice, but Lauren was actually really sweet and funny, and often shared the same likes and dislikes that Annie had. She had actually found out that Lauren once lived in Manhattan, and was a huge fan of the Yankees. That had sparked a whole new leg in their friendship. No one knew how much Annie loved that baseball team.
Annie had been the only one who really listens to Lauren's requests of opening up the windows and letting air in. Mac still thought it was a bad idea, and so did Gina. Dawson, she had no clue. In fact, she hadn't seen Dawson at all. Which made her peek into Lauren's room. Which answered her question. Dawson was in there talking to Lauren. To be honest, it was actually really funny. A giant black man talking to a sick young girl, but there was nothing suspicious. They looked like old friends talking.
She rolls her eyes and travels back down the hall to her room. Opening the door quietly, she steps in and immediately takes off her shirt. Her eyes travel to Daryl and she sees that he was still asleep. Just as he had been waking up that morning, she had told him to stay in bed. And obviously he protested at the thought but she had simply said stay in bed. And now she saw that he definitely needed it. Turning back to the bathroom door, she shimmies off her shorts and makes her way, then shuts the door behind her.
Walking over to the shower, she flicks it on and waits for the water to turn at least lukewarm. She goes to take off her bra and realizes that the disgusting crap was on her bra as well. It looked like the only other thing it hadn't got on was her panties. She sighs and unhooks the piece of clothing, throwing it into the garbage. She could just find another one. Her hand travels under the water and sighs when the warmness spreads throughout it. Finally taking off her last piece of clothing, she travels into the shower and gets under the shower head as soon as possible.
The warm water felt amazing against her dirty body, and she watched easily as the all the red stuff started to come off slowly. At that moment, she got a small whiff of the scent from the substance, but she still couldn't place what it was. The smell of dirt and walker blood overflew that shit. To be honest, the red stuff was the least of her worries.
Her hands move to her head when she hears the door slightly open. Moving over to the shower curtain, making sure she was behind it, she peeks out into the bathroom to see what it was, but only smirks when she sees Daryl up. "Morning, sleepyhead," she snickers. He was already taking off his shirt to get in. "How did you sleep?" He shrugs his shoulders, taking off the sweatpants he had been wearing to bed.
"Good, I guess. Didn't need those other four hours of sleep." She rolls her eyes and turns back to the shower.
"You needed it. I know you're too proud to admit anything of the sort, but you were tired as fuck and needed some extra sleep. Excuse the girls and I for being nice." She hears him chuckle and the curtain behind her open. He steps into the shower but as soon as the warm water hits his chest he flinches back.
"That's fucking warm," he mumbles. She laughs.
"Would you rather it be freezing cold?" He snakes his arms around her waist and pulls her back to his chest. His head moves down and he kisses the area where her neck and shoulder met. She moans at the contact.
"Touche," he murmurs. He moves up and sees that part of her hair still had some of that red goop in it. Taking a piece of it in his hands, his brow furrows at the strange color. "What the hell is this?" She groans and pulls back, taking her hair away from his hands.
"Stupid crap," she mumbles angrily. "Gina and I were lifting one of this barrels and it tipped over. Covered both of us in all this crap. Don't ask me what it is because I have no fucking clue. All I know is that it's a bitch to clean off and it's not coming off easily at all." He snickers at her response.
"That's why me and Harry do this shit, Annie." She rolls her eyes embarrassingly and crosses her arms.
"Shut up." She feels his hands in her hair and the bit of scrubbing to try and get the gunk out. Well, she knew this was something he never did. Wash her hair. That was new, at least to her. She sighs and shakes her head slightly. "I didn't know they were that heavy," she mumbles.
"I saw ya carrying one that day we found ya." She snorts.
"That wasn't nearly as heavy as this one was. It felt like I had a one hundred pound man in my arms. I don't have strong arms. Like I've said, I was a damn cheerleader and dancer. They're all in my legs. The only way I was able to lift that was through pure and damn luck." She finally sees the red stuff come out of her hair and she sighs happily. "Thanks," she says quietly. "Stupid gunk."
"Was that shit blood?" She shakes her head and turns back to him.
"No. Well, the stuff that was drenched on me I don't think. But everything else that's been coming off? Walker blood and dirt." He chuckles and brings her closer to him.
"Now ya know how I feel." She raises an eyebrow.
"Was that an indirect response of thank you to the extra hours of sleep?" He turns her around and place his lips on her furiously and she wraps her arms around his neck while his go around her waist. If there was no talking she was fine with this too.
"Shut up," he mumbles through her lips. She smiles as he suddenly pushes her up against the tile wall of the shower, right under the warm water as it flowed between them. She could feel how hard he was, dying to be inside her, but she decides that it could wait until they got to the bed. She pulls back and turns off the water, then smiles devilishly at him.
"Let's move this to somewhere dry, why don't we?"
Later on when they had finished they're business, Annie had her head on his chest as she sighed peacefully. They're legs were intertwined and Daryl's fingers were threading their way through her hair. They officially needed another shower, and both were slightly panting, but both knew that they needed it. Especially Annie. Very. very badly.
"Hey, I've been wanting to ask some questions," she mumbles. He glances down at her in a quick motion and nods. "Why did you ever save me that one day? From that asshole?" She feels him shrug her shoulders.
"To be honest, I don't know," he starts. "At that point, I sort of...had nothin' else. Been alone for two weeks, had no one around me. Was used to all the quiet around me. Was sorta startin' to think about just shootin' up my head and endin' it like that." Her hands curl into fist tightly at that.
"Well, that's not nice," she murmurs.
"But then I heard this really girly scream. Like, really girly. Sort of sounded like 'princess-stuck-in-a-tower' scream." She slaps his chest playfully and he snickers. "That was the first human sound besides walkers I had heard since the prison was taken. So I ran towards it, and found a girl almost being raped, so I pointed that crossbow and said back off. Little did I know that girl would turn out to be a complete annoyance."
She lifts her head and glares at him, but he raises a hand to stop her in her coming rant.
"Annoying 'cause she challenged me and didn't listen to a word I said. Amazed me that she was just some girl I saved yet felt like she had the authority to just go and say no to the guy who saved her. This girl had guts, and I liked it. Still do." She smiles.
"There are the words," she chuckles. She lays back down, now her back to him, and she sighs into the sheets. "I miss New York," she mumbles.
"Why the hell do ya miss that old place?" She laughs.
"I grew up there. I know there might not be that many good memories, but I still went to college there and became me. I miss the Yankees games, and Central Park...even the Empire State Building." He snorts.
"I'm pretty sure all those are gone, darlin'," he comments. She rolls her eyes.
"Yes, I know that. I just wish I knew what my old friends are doing. If they're ok."
'If Jill's ok," she thinks sadly. Annie shakes her head discreetly. She didn't need to think of this right now. Daryl turns his head and sees the multitude of scars that littered her back and traced one of his fingers down one of them. To his surprise, she didn't flinch, something that usually happened with scars like hers, deep and looked painful.
"Who did these?" he murmurs quietly. She sighs and slumps into the sheets under her.
"My old caretaker," she mumbles. "She wasn't nice. Like I said, she pushed me down stairs and did...mean stuff that I really don't want to get into." She feels tears threaten to fall but she blinks them away. She wasn't going to cry. Not now. He turns her body so that her back was laying against the sheets and her front was facing him. Leaning down, he places a gentle kiss on her lips, much gentler then the passionate kisses they had been sharing minutes before.
But this wan't short of passion. It just wasn't as shown as it was, and Annie really liked it.
When he pulls back, a small smile was on her face. "We don't ever gotta talk about that shit," he replies quietly. "That caretaker, those bullies, whoever...ain't nothin' we gotta talk about that ya ain't comfortable with." She smiles and leans up in the bed, giving him another kiss.
"You're amazing," she murmurs when she pulls back. "Perfect." He smiles at her, a genuine smile. "I know half the time you don't think it, but you are." Just when he was about to reply, Annie hears a gun shot come from downstairs, followed by yelling. She gives Daryl a worried look. "What the hell is going on?" He shakes his head in confusion and gets out of the bed.
But once voice stops her.
"We're not here to harm you!"
Annie practically bursts from the bed, throws on clothes, and runs down the stairs without another word. She nearly trips on her own two feet as she makes it to the front. She crashes through Harry and Gina and nearly falls onto the ground, but is instead catched by two arms. Two arms she knew very well.
"Annie!"
Annie glances up and nearly cries. She throws her arms around the woman's shoulders as does the stranger to everyone else. Tears escape both their eyes. Annie looks behind her and sees Rick with Carl, as well as Ariel and Ellie, and...Crackers. Crackers was ok! Crackers was alive!
"Jill!" she cries. "You're ok. Jesus, you're ok. Oh my sweet God, thank the Lord." Meanwhile Jill was saying the same thing. Annie felt her hold tighten. She didn't even look back when she heard people talking. She had Jill again, and she wasn't letting her go anymore.
Simon glances around the small area in disgust. He always hated the forest. It just made his allergies act up and start to swell. Why Joel sent him of all people out to scout for Daryl and Annie and everyone else he had no fucking idea. Apparently, Joel took pleasure in seeing other people in pain. And this was another side effect of that pleasure.
Well, that sounded normal for Joel.
He thinks back to the two people in charge. Joel and Carol. Ha. Perfect couple, if he did say so himself. He didn't know if they were together or not. He still knew Carol was dead set on killing Annie for 'stealing' Daryl from her, but maybe she could move on sooner or later...?
Nah.
The chance of that happening was zero to one. Carol was gonna kill her.
To be honest, Simon didn't know why they were so dead set on killing those two specifically. Sure, he had helped them bring in their kids, but felt like a complete and total asshole afterwards. But Joel was his only source of food and shelter since he had been found at Terminus. He was eternally grateful for what he did for him, and if this was the retribution he had to go through, then he was happy to do it for Joel.
He suddenly hears a scream and runs towards the sound. In the bushes he sees two women embracing, and with wide eyes, he sees that it was Annie, hugging what looked like, from behind, her friend Jill. Who had killed Blake. Now that was ringing a bell.
But it wasn't just Annie. The kids were there, and so was Daryl, even if he came out a minute later from the sudden sound. Simon smiles wickedly.
He needed to get back to Joel.
But that was before the butt of a gun hit him upside the head.
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