Disclaimer: I do not own anything that you recognize. Although I would love to have my own personal Daryl Dixon. Short and sweet.
AN: So I decided that I would post up two new chapters today to celebrate the release of The Hobbit! I'm so excited, I love that movie. Since I'm posting two chapters today I won't be posting again til Sunday so I hope yall enjoy. This chapter is a little short but the next one isn't.
Chapter 7
Around noon the next day Adrian and Kale reclaimed their supplies that had been left in the vehicle that they had had to abandon the day before. After getting their supplies inside and in order, Adrian out for a few hours to scout around the area to check for walkers and the CDC.
A few hours before sundown, an earth shattering explosion was heard. Adrian looked up to see that about a mile from her position, huge plumes of black smoke could be seen reaching for the sky. "Kale." she thought aloud on a shaky breath.
Adrian quickly turned and charged in the direction of the nursing home and Kale. There was a fairly good chance that that may have been the CDC but if so, then what had happened? And why blow it up?
Adrian ran through only entrance into the nursing home and began to frantically yell out Kale's name. "Kale! Answer me, dammit!" Adrian yelled as she ran up the stairs two at a time while having her bow at the ready.
"Adrian?" she heard Kale shout from the top of the stairs. "What the hell happened out there? What was that noise?" Kale asked, shotgun in hand but pointed at the floor. "I don't know." she said stopping a few steps below Kale.
Then out of the sudden quiet came a noise that didn't belong. "Stay here." Adrian whispered as she started down the stairs very carefully and slowly so as to not make any noise. "No way! I ain't stayin' here while you go by yourself!" Kale whispered frantically to her retreating back.
Adrian quickly whipped her head around to give the teen a cold, hard, green eyed glare. "Do as I say before I beat the shit out of you again! Now get up there and guard the damn supplies!" Adrian whispered back. Kale backed down and did as he was told.
Adrian was at the bottom of the stairs when she heard voices just around the corner. Very carefully, Adrian poked her head around the corner only to quickly jerk it back to avoid an arrow in the face. Seeing the arrow in the wall, Adrian slumped in relief.
"Trying to kill me now, Daryl? I thought we had ourselves an understanding." Adrian said as she walked to the wall to jerk his arrow our of the plaster.
"Adrian?" she heard Rick call.
"Yeah. Who else is stupid enough to come to Atlanta?" she asked as she slowly walked around the corner.
"What the hell are you doing here? I thought you said you were stayin' put out in the woods." Shane demanded unhappily. Adrian smirked as she held out Daryl's arrow to him, which he quickly took.
"I never said I was staying put. I told Rick that Kale and I went back to camp to pack up and that we would be behind y'all. So this is us meeting up. Although the original plan was to meet up at the CDC." Adrian said turning her gaze to Rick.
"What happened to that plan, by the way?" Adrian asked him raising an eyebrow.
"It blew up." Rick said. "Literally." Daryl said moving to walk past her and up the stairs.
"Ah ah ah. Hold on there a second, redneck. Don't wanna get shot do ya?" Adrian said putting her bow in his path and then taking a few steps backwards towards the foot of the stairs and looked up the semi dark path.
"Don't call me a redneck." Daryl growled at the woman while eyeing her bright pink compound bow that was currently in his path.
'She got her damn fingernails painted?! Who the hell cares about their nails during the end of the world?' Daryl thought as he looked at the pale hand holding onto the bow.
Adrian had her mouth open ready to say something when she suddenly closed it and turned to give him a half irritated look.
"Oh please. I'm from Louisiana. Bein' a redneck hick is practically a compliment." Adrian said turning back towards the stairs. "Besides, would you rather be called a redneck or be shot at? Kale's up there with a loaded shotgun."she said to everyone.
"Kale! Don't shoot. It's Rick and the others. We're comin' up." she yelled. "Roger that!" they heard from the darkness. Adrian dropped her bow and started upstairs. "Upper level has been cleared. Smells just as bad upstairs as it does down here but at least it's safe from th walkers. Do what your gonna do and meet us upstairs." Adrian said walking away.
Daryl watched her march up the stairs, eyeing her get up, and maybe her ass a little, as she climbed. She had on a thin black long sleeve shirt that stopped at her knuckles and seemed to have a hole just big enough for her thumbs to fit through. She had on a think black cotton wrist band with some kind of red design on it, he couldn't tell what it was though. She had on tight, dark blue, boot cut jeans that made her ass look pretty good.
Okay, fine, he was totally checking out her ass and legs.
She had her bright red hair pulled back into a tight braid, like she did every other time they had seen her. 'Probably to keep walkers from grabbin' it.' Daryl thought. "Alright. It's gettin' dark so let's barricade the doors and get everyone upstairs for the night." Rick said to the others.
They all turned to tell them that it was all clear and safe to go upstairs. Lori had to practically hold Carl back from running upstairs when Rick informed the group that Adrian and Kale were upstairs.
It was after dark when everyone was upstairs and all sitting in a room. Rick's group had managed to scrounge up a big can of garbanzo beans that everyone got a little of while Shane threw everyone a bag of chips. Kale and Adrian had passed since they had their own food and didn't want to take what little the others had.
One of the women, the blonde woman she heard called Andrea, was sitting apart from everyone and looking as if she was running on fumes. The rest of the women, the Asian boy Glenn, and Carl and Sophia all looked scared and lost.
Adrian seen the older man, Dale, walk over to Andrea with a paper plate of some beans and a small bag of chips. Dale said something to the woman only to hear her huff and start complaining.
Adrian was witling away at an in progress arrow when she decided to speak up against the woman.
"Anything else you want to complain about over there, Andrea?" she asked sarcastically, never looking up from her arrow. Andrea looked past Dale to the red head leaning against the opposite wall.
"What the hell do you know about anything, outsider?" Andrea asked clearly annoyed. Daryl silently snorted to himself as he sipped from the full bottle of whiskey Shane had grabbed. 'That was the wrong thing to ask, woman. An' your not gonna like the answer you get either.' Daryl thought, thinking about the answer he had gotten when he asked that same question just days before.
Adrian stopped midstroke on her arrow and slowly lifted her eyes to the now angry blonde. The tension in the air was not thick as nobody moved sensing the argument that was about to ensue but there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it.
"So you lost your sister to walkers but you didn't have the gall to shoot her til after she had turned and tried to eat your face off. You lost your only family, tragic, yes, but this world doesn't care. In the old world you could properly mourn your dead, mope around for weeks. But not in this world. In this world, you mourn for a while, put your loved ones to rest however you want, and move on.
Amy was a sweet girl but she's dead now and nothing is going to change that. This world isn't for pussies. Unnecessary feelings are a distraction and that distraction could get not only you, but others killed. So accept that she's gone, move on, toughen up and grow some balls already. You act as if you're the only person who has lost someone to this damn thing.
Well let me inform you that you aren't." Adrian said as she pushed away from the wall and started for the door with everyone's eyes on her.
"And another thing, if you don't like the smell in here then take your unhappy as outside with the walkers for some fresh air. I'm sure they'd enjoy the meal." Adrian said as she slammed the door behind her.
"Who the hell does she think she is?! She doesn't know anything! Who the hell has he lost? We don't know anything about her!" Andrea fumed.
Kale stood in a dimmly lit corner and decided to answer her rhetorical question.
"She lost a kid she was trying to protect when Atlanta started to get overrun when this thing started. Wasn't no older than Carl there. They were running and he got bit. They knew enough about the virus to know that he was a goner. After they got out of the city, the boy asked her to kill him before the virus did. Straight shot to the head. She refused but knew that he was in pain and it would only get worse." Kale said quietly in the silent room.
"She then manned up and grated his request. She looked him in the eyes when she pulled the trigger. After she pulled herself together, she burned his body and took off into the woods. A few weeks later she found me. So don't be so quick to judge other people about their experience with this thing just because you can't read their emotions." Kale finished, looking the blonde in her troubled blue eyes.
Adrian was propped up in a doorway a few doors down from the group when she heard the men come out, minus Kale who she knew was looking after their supplies. Apparently Glenn had said something to spook the women and children and Shane was crawling his ass about it how they were already scared.
"They should be. They have every right to be. There's no shame in being scared when it calls for it." she said from the dark, startling all of the men.
"But you shouldn't be coddling them. This is the world they have to live in now. They need to learn to control their fear so that they can make it. In the old world it was fine to shield the women and children from the scary things in life. But this new world couldn't give a shit if your a man, woman, or child. It will chew you up just the same. Just a word of advise." she said, still speaking in a low voice but loud enough for them to hear.
"You mean like that kid you put down?" Shane asked with annoyance in his voice.
"Shane!" Rick and Glenn exclaimed. Adrian went deathly still at that statement. "I'm going to look around downstairs." she said pushing away from the doorway and quietly walking down the stairs.
"Way to go, jackass." Daryl said taking a swig of whiskey. "Shane, that was uncalled for and you know it. But she did have some valid points on a few things." Rick said to the three men standing outside the door. They then made their way over to Dale and T-Dog who were sitting at the top of the stairs.
Daryl had went downstairs to check on Adrian but had kept his steps quiet. She must not have heard him because he found her in one of the rooms looking at something in her hands. He could hear her sniffle a few times and assumed she was crying.
"I thought this world wasn't for pussies." he asked in a low voice. The red head quickly put whatever she had been looking at in her back pocket and quickly wiped her nose on her wrist band.
"It's not." she said with a scratchy voice as she wiped her face of the salty tear trails.
"The what's with the cryin'? Ain't cryin' for pussies?" Daryl asked as he slowly walked into the room. Adrian then tuned her head towards him in the dark.
"Crying doesn't make you weak. Crying when it's warranted is fine. Crying all the time and rolling over when the world gets a little tough is what a weak person does." she said, her voice a little stronger than before.
A beam of light snuck its way through the boarded up window and fell onto her face. Her eyes were slightly red and still shinney from her tears but the green of her eyes were as bright as ever.
"You should go upstairs, back to your group. I'm sure tomorrow will be another crazy day." she said turning away from him to peer outside. "Ain't it your group now too?" Daryl asked. A small sad smile crept up onto her pink lips.
"It'll be our group when we earn our keep. Not a second before then." Daryl heard her say as he left the room.