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 because I am a few chapter ahead, and going strong I might add, I have decided to grace you all, my lovely reader, with an extra chapter. And let me tell you, that when the author is tearing up while writing a part in a chapter, that it is truly sad. So please read and tell me what you think.
Chapter 19
An hour after Sophia had been shot Adrian walked through the door of the RV to see Carol sitting at the small table and Daryl sitting on the counter across from her. Adrian had wiped her face down as best she could before she had left her tent but she knew that her face was a mess. Adrian walked over to the empty seat across from Carol and looked up at her. She then looked over at Daryl to see him looking at her.
She was a hot mess. Her clothes, which consisted of a thin black cotton long sleeve shirt, the black and red wristband she always seemed to be wearing, dark boot cut blue jeans that seemed to have a fair many rips in it, and her tan Ranger Joe boots. Her hair was in it's usual braid but a few thick strands had fallen out at some point during the day and now framed her face which was paler than normal.
And her eyes were bloodshot.
All in all she was a hot mess. 'A hot mess with a nice ass.' Daryl thought looking back at Adrian.
Adrian then looked back over to Carol and lightly cleared her throat. "I'm sorry." she whispered. Carol looked at her. "Why? You didn't know her." she asked. "I may not have known her like the rest of you did but I know her." she said looking Carol in the eyes as she spoke her next words.
"Sophia was a beautiful girl. She was as happy as she could be even though she lived in this raging hell hole that we were forced to live in. She and Carl were great friends and she was a smart. Most of all I know that she loved you." Adrian said still whispering.
"I know how you feel about Sophia's loss. And I would never wish that on anyone. Especially you." she said. "How could you possibly know how I feel? You've never lost a child before." Carol said in a mocking tone of voice. Adrian then broke eye contact, shifted and pulled something out of her back pocket.
It was the picture that Daryl had seen her holding on two different occasions since he had met her. And she had been crying both times. She looked at the picture with a sad smile, turned it upside down, and the placed it on the table in front of Carol. Daryl could see the picture from where he was sitting.
It was a picture of Adrian and a little blonde headed boy in front of a beach with the ocean in full view behind them. They were both smiling towards the camera. Adrian had both arms around the boy's shoulders while both of the boy's arms were wrapped around her waist. Adrian's hair was in a high ponytail, her bright green eyes sparkling, and she had on a white tank top. What drew Daryl's attention the most was the bright ass, happy smile she had pasted on her face. She had a beautiful smile and was even prettier in the photo but Daryl preferred the sexy ass female Rambo ninja he seen skulking around camp all the time. The boy was young, probably around ten or so, with a thick head of shaggy blonde hair, hazel eyes, tan skin, and also had a big happy smile on his face.
"This is Seth. I've known him since the day he was born. He was a good kid but had quite the attitude." she whispered with a sad, humorless laugh.
"He was staying with me for a while when this thing broke out and started getting bad. After people started raiding houses for supplies, whether someone was there or not, I knew we couldn't stay there anymore. So we packed what he could carry and got the hell outta dodge. We were almost out of the city when a walker jumped out of nowhere behind us." Adrian said never taking her eyes off the picture of her and the boy.
"I was holding his hand when it happened. But I wasn't fast enough to stop him from getting bitten. If was on the shoulder and it was just a bite, no real damage. Kinda like how Jim's bite was actually. I stabbed it in the head knowing by that time that noise attracted the things. But we also knew that once you were bitten, that it was only a matter of time before you became of them." she was still whispering but it was coming out harsher than before. As if she was forcing herself not to cry.
"We made it a few miles into the woods before we were forced to make camp, not only because it was getting so dark but also because Seth was getting sicker the farther out we went. It was after the fever kicked in that he asked me the first time. He wanted me to shoot him before he died and turned into one of them. Said he didn't want to die and then come back and hurt me." Adrian was silently crying again at this point.
"The longer the fever went on, the more he asked, begged me, to do it. But i just couldn't. How could I shoot this boy that I had known since the day he took his first breath? How could I do that and live with myself afterwards? So I kept telling him no. It had been hours since the fever had hit and at that point he was starting to see things. It was at that point that I decided that I would grant him his request, no matter how much it pained me to do it.
He liked when I would sing to him. So I sang to him, which seemed to bring him back to reality for a short while. Right as I was finishing the song, I pointed my gun at his head, kept my eyes on his, and shot him." she said crying in earnest at this point.
Adrian somehow managed to pull her red, bright, watery green eyes to Carol's and held them there.
"So I know exactly how you Carol. So I just wanted to say I sorry because I know your pain." she said putting the picture back into her back pocket. "No you don't." Carol said to her. Adrian looked up at her. "But thank you all the same." Carol said giving a weak smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Adrian nodded and got up from the table and started for the door.
"What was the song?" Daryl asked looking at her when she reached his side before exiting the RV.
Adrian didn't look at him and she reached the bottom step, holding onto the doorframe.
"Titanium." she whispered, leaving the RV, seeking the solace of her tent.
Adrian didn't stay in her tent long. She gathered her knife, bow, and arrows and headed for her bike. She needed to get away to think little bit and since she hadn't ran into town since they had gotten to the farm , she decided that now was as good a time as any.
Nobody paid her much attention until she had cranked her bike and took off down the long, dusty, driveway. She knew that she probably should have told somebody where she was going, but she wasn't in the mood to talk to anybody.
It only took her about fifteen or twenty minutes to make it to town. Even though she was extremely depressed at this point she made sure to think of the possible danger. Instead of driving straight into town on the bike Adrian parked behind one of the outer buildings and traveled on foot from there.
Her first stop was by the hardware store. The place was pretty bare but she searched anyway. She grabbed a blood splattered duffle bag she had found just outside the store and began to look around to see what was left. She was getting ready to leave by taking a quick inventory of what she had in the bag.
'Gloves, rope, duct tape...' she thought while digging through the mostly empty bag, until something shiny caught the corner of her eye. Looking to her left Adrian seen a nice, shiny machete hanging on a bar. Adrian walked over to the machete to pick it up when she seen a few nice sized hatchets, and even an axe not far away.
Chewing on her lip for a minute Adrian thought 'Fuck it.' and grabbed the single machete, two hatchets, and single axe and placed them all in her duffle before leaving the store.
Adrian's second stop was the sporting goods store. She didn't have much hope of actually finding anything useful but she decided to check anyway. The store was empty, save for two walkers that she had quickly disposed of. The store was fuller than she would have expected it to be but maybe with the dead eating each other, the living had been afraid to leave their homes.
She ventured over into the fishing section and grabbed some string, hooks, and even some weights and fake bait and threw it in her new scavenge duffle. She then walked over to the hunting section and grabbed any and all boxes of bullets that she had seen. Making her way over to the display case where the knives and guns were normally kept, she seen that it was pretty empty as far as guns went but the knife selection was almost endless.
There were only a few big gaming knives, but that was okay. Adrian walked behind the counter and grabbed all of the knives that she seen.
"Can never have too many weapons these days." she muttered to herself, periodically checking around her to make sure that no one tried to sneak up on her, walkers nor humans.
Her next stop in the hunting section was arrows. She had a decent amount of arrows already but she liked the more durable arrows better than the ones that she had to make. She grabbed every arrow that she seen, which was quite a few handfuls. She was on her was out when something dark but shiny caught her eye again. She walked over to it to see a dusty black helmet on a shelf. And on the rack beside the shelf was a thick, brown leather jacket, which seemed to be made for a woman and just about her size.
"What the hell." she said grabbing them and then leaving the store not only quickly but as quietly as possible.
Her last stop was the bar, which to her surprise was occupied by half drunk Hershal.
"Well howdy there, Hershal." she said as she dropped her now very heavy duffle onto the bar. Adrian walked to the back of the bar and walked behind the counter and began to inspect the selection of mostly full bottles of alcohol.
"Did they send you to come and bring m back?" he asked as he poured another drink.
"No. As far as anyone knows, I went batshit crazy and just took off without a word to anyone. Kinda like you I'm betting." Adrian said without looking back at the older man. It was silent for a few minutes while Adrian picked out quite a few bottles of nice alcohol.
'Let's see now. Jim, Jack, and the Captain are always good bets.' she thought as she grabbed the whiskey and rum off of the drink shelf and placed them on the counter out of Hershal's reach.
And then she seen two bottle of a perfectly good whiskey and grabbed both bottles with a smile. Her mood was somewhat lightened but she knew that as soon as she stopped being in survival mode that that would all change. She grabbed the bottles an placed them carefully into her duffle but wrapped them up in her newly acquired jacket to keep them from hitting anything and breaking.
She hefted up her heavy bag and turned to Hershal.
"Do you want me to send anybody after you Hershal? It's going to be dark soon and I'm sure you're out here without protection." she asked before she walked out of the bar.
"Just leave me alone." he muttered as he took another shot. Adrian heaved a deep sigh and then walked up to Hershal at the bar and gently placed a spare .45 that she had taken out of her duffel onto the counter next to the old man and walked out of the bar the same way she had come in.
An hour later Adrian was back at the farm and was parked close to her tent. She hauled the large, heavy duffel bag to her tent and deposited it on the floor with a loud thud. Still not in the mood to be in one place for long, Adrian decided to do a little hunting and then do whatever tickled her fancy at the time.
Grabbing an empty backpack Adrian opened it and began to fill it with a few bottles of water, a package of turkey sausage, an extra large handful of arrows, a few knives, and a bottle of liquor she had grabbed from the bar earlier, zipped it up, and took off towards the woods with her bow, gun, and hunting knife.
It was past dark and she was sure that if Kale had noticed her absence, which she was fairly sure he had since she had been gone most of the day, that he was worried about her being on her own again. She adored the kid, she really did, but he was such a mother hen when it came to her. She didn't think it ever occurred to him that she had been on her own before he had showed up. She liked his company when she was in the mood for it, but most of the time she just wanted to be left alone.
Especially today.
Adrian was nearing the tree line when she heard voices. Knowing that there shouldn't be people out this far put Adrian of the defensive as she stalked closer towards the voices.
"Sophia wasn't mine! Just get the hell outta here! I don't want you here, so just piss off!" Adrian heard in a voice that could only belong to Daryl Dixon. Staying in the shadows, Adrian slowly crept into what she assumed was Daryl's new accomidations since his tent was set up and he had a fire going.
There was a large stone chimney standing in the middle of Daryl's camp so she assumed that there used to be a house there that had probably burnt down some time ago. Carol walked off back towards the farm house and left Daryl standing alone in the dim light of the fire. Adrian planned on making herself known but she wanted to admire the view for a minute before she did that.
Daryl was standing with his right side to the fire looking back towards the farm house so the light of the fire only really touched his right side while shadows played across his face and the other side of him. All the hunting, whether it be from hunting game or killing walkers, had kept him fit through the whole ordeal so far.
She had only seen him without his shirt a few times and she hadn't been disappointed at the sight no matter how much he had been embarrassed about his scars. When she had first seen him without his shirt back close towards Atlanta he had had a healthy figure and a hard body from what she could tell but as with them all, he had since lost weight but he hadn't lost much muscle.
As a matter of fact, whatever muscle the rest of him may have lost seemed to have taken up resident in his arms because they were some of the best damn arms she had ever seen.
It was at times like these that Adrian had to admit to herself that it wasn't just the fact that she hadn't had sex in a long while that drew her to Daryl so much. She had been attracted to him long before she had started only thinking with her vagina when around Daryl. She had thought him attractive, scars and all, almost from the first time she had laid eyes on him.
"You know it's not nice to yell at a lay who just lost her daughter." she said stepping out from her hiding place.
"Oh great. Another one. What the hell do you want?" Daryl said. "Nothing much. Was just passing through." Adrian said shrugging her shoulders. Then a thought occurred to her and she swung her backpack around so she could dig through it.
"Went into town today. Raided a few stores. Thought you might like some of these. My quiver is full." she said placing a handful of arrows next to his cross bow by the fire.
Daryl said nothing, just looked at the arrows she had just added to his pile of mixed arrows. Then she started to walk off in the direction that Carol had gone. She had taken a total of maybe ten steps when she stopped and turned back towards him.
She then reached into her bag again.
"So." she said looking back up at him with a small smile. "I don't suppose that if I shared this with you-" she said holding up a full bottle of Southern Comfort for him to see "that you would let me stay up here for the night huh?" she asked slightly swinging the bottle back and forth with a somewhat wicked grin on her face.
"You're willin' to share a whole damn bottle of whiskey to be around somebody that don't anybody around? Why?" Daryl asked. "Well you wanna be alone and away from everybody. I wanna be alone and away from everybody but I have alcohol, which I know after the day the both of us have had, we could both seriously use." she said tossing him the bottle.
"So do we have a deal?" she asked as he started to turn away and walk towards the fire. He sat down and cracked open the bottle. Adrian walked over to the fire taking his silence as confirmation that she could stay. She sat down far enough away to where they couldn't accidently touch but close enough to where they could pass the bottle back and forth.
"So what the hell were you doin' out in town today? It's dangerous to go out, especially alone." Daryl asked sipping from the bottle.
"That's kinda like the pot callin' the kettle black, don't ya think?" Adrian said reaching for the bottle and taking a sip. Normally she didn't like to drink alcohol but she occasionally had the urge for it and today was one of those days.
"I'm better on my own. I don't need nobody." Daryl said taking a long pull from the bottle. "I like my alone time but I don't like being alone. And if you're so much better on your own, why haven't you left the group already? Merle is gone, alive or dead, you don't know. Sophia is dead, so you can no longer use the excuse that you're looking for her. So what's really keeping you here?" Adrian said with a bit of bite in her tone figuring that if she annoyed him that it might get him to spill some truth for once.
She could feel the heat of Daryl's anger coming off of him in waves but he said nothing, just kept drinking.
"It's not your fault you know." she whispered after a few minutes. Daryl looked away from the fire to look at her but she was looking into the fire as well. "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about." he said.
She must have gotten the good stuff when she grabbed the bottle because he was already starting to feel a little buzzed. After a minute she looked up at him and he couldn't take his eyes off of hers. Her bright green eyes were naturally beautiful but with the orange and yellow of the fire reflected in her eyes made them enchanting and impossible to look away from.
She had regained some of her color back during the day and he had noticed that she was slowly going from snow white to tan.
"You're not a failure because you did't get to them in time. Merle thought he had been left for dead on a roof in the middle of Atlanta. In a desperate attempt to get away he cut his hand off. If he had been thinking clearly I'm sure he would have realized that you would have went back for him and just waited. Same thing with Sophia. If anything, it's more my fault than anyone's that Sophia got lost and bitten." she whispered still looking at him.
"Whatchu mean 'your fault'?" Daryl asked
"I didn't have to go with Rick to kill those two walkers. He would have been just fine on his own. I could have let Rick take care of the walkers and I could have stayed wit Sophia. We wouldn't have had to leave Sophia alone in the first place if I hadn't forgotten my damn bow under the truck with Carl when I took off after them." she said turning to look back at the fire.
"If I hadn't forgotten my bow Sophia wouldn't have gotten lost, Carl would't have been shot, you wouldn't have been hurt, Carol would still have her little girl, Otis would still be alive, and Hershal and his family would still be in their little bubble of happiness. All because I forgot my stupid bow." Adrian huffed and she flopped onto her back and looked up at the night sky through the tree tops.