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 normally I don't like it when people put lyrics in a fic, but I thought I would just throw it out there for those of you who don't listen to that kind of music. Also I do realize that the real airing for both Radioactive and Titanium would have been after the Z.A. But I would like you to listen to both songs but listen to the Madilyn Bailey versions of the songs. It's kinda what I imagine Adrian sounds like.
Chapter 17
The next day Adrian decided to stay around camp since she had been gone so much and there was plenty for her to do. She started her day out cleaning her's and
Kale's weapons, along with sharpening some suitable branches she had found while out yesterday. After that she did hers' and Kale's laundry, which had been held off for as long as possible because she hated the chore.
She still couldn't dig up the courage to see Daryl after what she had showed him last night so she had sent Kale to Daryl's tent with the herbal tin with instructions to leave it with him.
She had been on top of the RV keeping watch when she heard Carl talking to Shane about learning to shoot. Apparently Carl had somehow gotten his hands on a pistol and seemed to have made Shane angry, which wasn't very hard to do.
She couldn't fault Shane for caring about the kid. He was the son of his best friend, and the woman he was in love with. She could fault him, however, for caring too much. Adrian knew that she had crowded Carl alot lately and had backed off so Lori wouldn't feel so threatened.
Shane wasn't Carl's father and had lost sight of the fact somewhere along the way. It had been commendable that he had stepped up to the plate to make sure Lori and Carl, along with everyone else at the camp in the canyon, were safe. But he had overstepped when he had started seeing Lori and Carl as his family, instead of Rick's.
And now that Rick was back, she could see the longing, envy, and jealousy in Shane's eyes. And it grew more every day. She made a note to start keeping a closer eye on him, because out of all of them, Shane was likely to snap first. And her gut was telling her it wasn't going to be much longer before that happened. And she hoped that she wouldn't be forced to do something that would change the other's view on her.
She remembered first time she had been forced to defend her's and Kale's camp against people who meant them harm. Kale had been wary of her for a full week, looking at her as if she were some kind of monster.
A while later Rick, Shane, Lori, and Dale were all talking about Carl having the gun. Lori still didn't want Carl to have anything to do with them but she was glad that Rick seen the sense in Carl learning how to use and carry a gun around now that he was up and walking. Rick and Carl finally convinced Lori to let Carl attend the gun training, Adrian was glad for it, but she didn't say anything.
Shortly after everyone except for Dale, Adrian, Glenn, Kale, Maggie, Hershal, and Daryl left for the off sight gun training. A few minutes later Kale came up the ladder to the top of the RV. "What are you doin' up here? Afraid I'll leave on you again?" Adrian asked looking around for anything out of the ordinary. "You've been leaving out on your own too much lately, Adrian. I don't like it." Kale said not liking that she was making light of the subject.
"The barn's full of walkers and Lori's pregnant." Adrian and Kale heard Glenn say in a hurried but somewhat quiet voice. Adrian looked in the direction the statement had come from to see Glenn talking to Dale. Kale looked at Adrian his face showing his shock and surprise. And then he noticed her lack of reaction to the statement. "You knew?!" Kale hissed at her. "I knew about the walkers. I didn't know that Lori was knocked up though. Don't know why I'm surprised, with the number of times I happened upon her and Shane while I was out huntin'." she said looking up at the young man.
"How come you didn't tell me?" Kale asked a little disappointed that she would keep something like that from him. "Because he can hold a secret about as well as Glenn can." she said grinning up at him. "That's not fair. I haven't said a word about everything you've told me about your past." Kale said sitting down beside her.
"That's because you know I would skin you alive and use your hide for walker coverage if you told these people my business. My past is my business, not their's. Walkers in the barn and Lori being pregnant effects everyone. Both things put everyone in danger. I talked to Hershal about it and he wants the barn left alone. I may be a supreme bitch but I'm gonna respect that he doesn't want the barn messed with. Or what's inside of it. And when the time comes that people take action, I won't tell you what to do." she said looking at Kale.
"What?" Kale asked in disbelief. He knew that everyone saw him as Adrian's lapdog because he always followed her orders and rarely asked questions of any order given, but Adrian was all he had left in this world. He may not have known her before everything had gone down the toilet, but she had saved him when she could have left him to die on his own. She saved his life, taught him how to survive, and gave him a new direction in this new world. He had vowed to himself that after everything that she had done for him, when she didn''t even know him, that he would do any and everything she ever asked of him.
"You're a grown man now, going by new standards. And I can't tell you what to do forever. I know I make you feel useful but I won't always be around, whether it be my choice or not. I've been all you've had since this whole thing started. It's time to let other people in, grow, become your own man. Not the man I tell you to be. There will still be times when I tell you to do things, small things, like watch Carl, watch my six when I need it, skin game, things like that. But from now on, the big decisions are your's to make." she told him.
"But why? I don't want to make a wrong decision and disappoint you." he said in a somewhat small voice.
"I know but I'm sure that at some point in the future that one decision or another will disappoint me to some degree. But you have people here, people closer to your own age like Jimmy, Glenn, Maggie, and Beth, that you should get to know. If after the group finds out about the walkers and they decide that severe actions needs to be taken, then it's up to you to make your choice. If you think that killing those walkers is in the best interest for everyone, then that is your decision. If you want to stay out of it, stay out of it for your own reasons, not because I'm not going to." she told him.
He didn't look at her but she could still see his face and knew that he was having a bit of a hard time wrapping his head around it. It had been a while since she had shown him any kind of affection and decided that now was as good a time as any.
Reaching out she gently pulled him towards her and placed his head on her shoulder and propped her chin on top of his head.
"It's time I took off the kid gloves, so to speak. I want you to still be a kid in whatever ways you still can and not feel like you need to be chained to me because of some sense of duty because I saved your life. You've been there for me when most people would have either stabbed me in the back, literally, or ran as fast as their legs could carry them. You've been there for me when I needed somebody the most, especially after Seth, so in my mind that makes us even. A life for companionship. I haven't had much of it in my life. So thank you." she said softly before she kissed the top of his head, stood up, and climbed down the ladder towards the ground.
Later that night everyone was sitting around the fire after dinner just enjoying the peace. "Hey Adrian?" Carl asked a little hesitantly. "Yes, Carl?" she asked the boy. "Will you sing for me again?" he asked. 'Well that came out of nowhere...' she thought.
"Yeah, Adrian. You haven't sang in a while and it's one of the few things that make you happy." Kale said happy at the thought of her singing again.
"I don't have my guitar anymore." she said knowing that not having her instrument would get her out of singing in front of everyone. "I found a guitar when we were looking for supplies out on the highway." Dale threw in getting up to go get it out of the RV. 'You cheatin' bastard!' Adrian thought cutting a death glare in Dale's retreating direction.
Dale came back a minute later handing her the guitar. Looking back at Kale and Carl then back at the guitar, she gave a deep sigh and took it from Dale. "You two will most likely be the death of me one day." she muttered situating the guitar making everyone chuckle.
"Alright Carl, what do you wanna hear?" she asked looking up at him from across the fire. "Umm...how about Radioactive?" he says. Adrian and Kale laughed at the irony of him remembering that song. "Radioactive it is." she said getting her fingers in place and started to hum softly and then started to pick at the appropriate cords for a slower version of the original song.
It wasn't long after she started singing the song before the other adults caught on to why she and Kale had laughed at the song choice. "Fitting song in our current situation." she heard Andrea say from a few chairs to her left.
"Adrian?" she heard Kale ask not liking the tone in which he had asked her the question but she looked at him anyway. After seeing his expression she wished she hadn't looked. She knew that look. He had given it to her alot at their old camp in the woods outside of Atlanta.
"Will you please sing it? For me?" he asked her. To the others she was sure it looked like some kind of intimate exchange, but in reality it was the song that Kale thought fit her after everything that had happened in her life, from her childhood right up until the night Seth had been killed.
"Alright." she sighed giving in to the second pair of puppy eyes that had ever worked on her.
Readjusting her fingers, Adrian took a deep breath and started picking at the cords again.
"You shout out loud, but I can't hear a word you say.
I'm talking loud, not saying much.
I'm criticized but all your bullets ricochet.
You shoot me down, but I get up.
I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
Cut me down
But it's you who'll have further to fall
Ghost town, haunted love
Raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones
I'm talking loud not saying much
I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
I am titanium
I am titanium
Stone-hard, machine gun
Fired at the ones who run
Stone-hard as bulletproof glass
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
I am titanium"
No one said anything after she stopped playing and put the guitar aside. "Alright. That's enough for tonight. I'm gonna hit the sack." she said in a somewhat reserved tone of voice.