Author's Note: Hello, everyone! This is it! After over a year - sorry about that, folks, and thank you for your patience - the final chapter of this lil (not so little) fic is up! I'm really honored that you all stuck with me through each stage of this journey, and I hope you're satisfied with where I've ended it! As I've said off and on throughout, there's a possibility - not an absolute commitment, though - that I might write a sequel once I have the time/fewer WIPs, but it'll be a bit regardless; this felt like a natural stopping point, either way :) Thank you to everyone - especially commenters OldLonBird, ninewood, and Orangecatlady (and the guest, to whom I can't respond) - for the wonderful loyalty, support, etc throughout; without further ado, I hope you enjoy and I wish you all the best!
They were ready.
It had taken all damn day - read: starting in the morning, stretching past noon, and reaching well into the dusk portion of the day - for them to get ready, and then the night to get some sleep and not be out on the road when darkness fell, but they were finally there.
The vehicles were all packed, loaded with enough food and supplies to last them for a while. It'd slow them down - hell, packing it all had already slowed them down, and that was before they even got on the road - but they needed it. Nineteen people crammed across six vehicles weren't gonna survive on the road unless they started off in a good place, and supplies would give them that.
Still, what they defined as "supplies" was, apparently, vastly different from what Daryl defined as "supplies." He'd always travelled light, so it wasn't a real sacrifice to dump a few extra things out of the saddlebags as a way of making room for whatever Carol and Sophia were bringing, and they packed much the way he did, so that wasn't a lot. The one frivolous item they'd brought was Sophia's doll and call him soft but he couldn't begrudge them that one. Wes and his daughters had similarly sparse luggage; they hadn't exactly been travelling heavy before their camp got raided, and then Randall's group had taken a lot of the rest.
That sensibility was not, however, the case with most of the other vehicles. The sheer amount of sentimentality crammed into a very small amount of space was insane. At least three Bibles found their way into the trunk of one vehicle, and Daryl was reasonably sure he saw Patricia slip another one onto Wes' bike. Add that to the family photos and the it was our grandmother's recipe book and at least a quarter of one of the trunks was paper. (At least they'd have kindling if they ever needed it. Or toilet paper.) He could almost justify the blankets one of them packed, but the pillow was a touch excessive. The box of Annette's jewelry was not so practical as to override the stupidity of sentimentality.
But, at long - very long - last, they were packed and ready to go. The sky was still streaked with grey, early-morning light, and Carl was still borderline asleep as he was loaded into the backseat of the Hyundai, but everyone else bustled around with a frenetic energy that meant they'd be on the road before too much more time passed.
A pebble skipped across the ground behind him and he turned, letting the motion stay slow instead of harsh and instinctive. Deanna stood there, a plain black helmet in hand; he remembered it from when they went to pick up her bike, when he'd seen it lashed to the side without giving any indication that she ever actually used it. She held it out, slightly awkward. "For Sophia."
He took it, setting it down on his bike. "Thanks."
She nodded. "Yeah, no problem." Her foot scuffed against the ground, scraping a wide arc before adding, "I wanted to say thanks, too. For all your help, and for bringing us here in the first place. I know that Dad and Benny are grateful too, but I wanted to say thanks again before we left. In case…"
She trailed off, but he knew what she meant. In case something happens. Understanding what she was saying and figuring out what to say himself were two different things; he settled for his default. "Yeah."
She turned to walk back towards her motorcycle, but was stopped as she promptly ran into Carol and Sophia waiting just behind her. "Oh. Hello, little one. Ma'am."
"Call me Carol." She smiled, and there was something more free in her smile than he'd ever seen it, in the way she stood with perpetual contact between her daughter and herself while somehow managing to be at her most relaxed in… well. Ever. "I wanted to say thanks. For helping him bring back Sophia."
She shifted awkwardly where she stood, and Daryl knew unfortunately well the discomfort of being put in that particular position. (He'd been lucky that relatively little deal had been made of the whole ordeal, even if he did feel a bit weird about being grateful for everything that had been keeping them on their toes since he got back.) She shrugged, one hand slipping into her pocket, the other tightening into a fist. "Uh… Yeah. Glad I could help, I guess."
Carol was still smiling, but it was that knowing smile that always felt unfortunately humorous. "You did. Thank you."
Deanna cleared her throat. "Uh. Yeah." A minute's pause, and then, "I'm gonna… I'm gonna go." She pointed at the bike and shuffled backwards awkwardly. "Uh… Thanks, Carol." And then she walked back to the bike with a very extreme haste to the motion.
Carol turned to look at Daryl, then, so he headed off any potential continuation of the awkward-as-shit-and-definitely-unnecessary-thanks conversation by holding out the helmet in much the same awkward way Deanna had done earlier. "Here. From Deanna, f'r Soph."
"Thanks." She took it, securing it gently overtop Sophia's head. It was vastly oversized, hanging a touch crookedly and falling slightly into her eyes, but it was better than nothing. (He'd absolutely never call it cute.) "How's that? That okay?"
Sophia nodded.
– – –
They were ready.
Technically, both Carol and Sophia had been ready for a while. They hadn't had much to pack and, while Carol had expected having to fight a little harder for the ability to bring her daughter's doll, Daryl had just plopped it into the bag without a word, so that was even less time spent than expected.
What took a little longer was the technicality of being ready. It was daunting to set back out again, to go back on the road after the too-short period of time spent in safe stability at the farm. The road was a place of danger, of missing daughters and roaming herds and too-little supplies; the farm was a place of safety, of found daughters and peaceful quiet and plenty.
She wondered if the place being in ruins would make it easier. If there were fire blasting from one of the barns, or walkers storming the place would make things any more simple. It would certainly make leaving seem like a better option; as it was, the place still looked like the oasis it had seemed to be when they first got there, and leaving felt a lot more foolish without a visible, tangible reason behind it.
Of course, that was a positively horrible thing to think and she hated the comment a few seconds later because they were lucky. They were so, so lucky to be getting out of there before anything bad happened further. Before the chaos and confusion of a flee-or-die situation forced them away. Before complacency set in and they just… weren't ready. It was better than they'd had at the quarry that time, better than they'd had when that camp got attacked and they'd lost so many.
No, leaving of their own accord was better.
She reminded herself of that as they finally got ready to set out, the others settling into their vehicles, their cramped cars and their packed trucks. Comparably, the bike was vastly better… but she couldn't help an undeniable sense of concern. She was always the kind to worry, and the idea of being closer to the walkers outside, more likely to fall off the bike… it was not an idea that would calm her down.
Daryl stepped over the bike, settling down on it, and everything seemed to become real. They were leaving and there was no way out of it, and it was going to be dangerous, and there wasn't gonna be a good place to stay for a bit, and- "Hey."
She blinked. Refocused. Realized that she'd been standing stock still a foot away from the bike, staring at her daughter with enough concern that Daryl had noticed and felt the need to intervene… damn it. "Yeah."
"You good?"
She nodded. "I'm good." A look back down at Sophia was enough to ground her a tad, enough to give her a bit of stability in the unfortunate unsteadiness that made her feel so very off-kilter. "You ready?"
Sophia, on the other hand, had been ready for ages, practically bouncing in place. She, of course, simply smiled a thin smile and nodded.
"Good. C'mon, up we get." It was all she had to say for Sophia to oblige, climbing slowly and warily onto the bike, and Carol couldn't help being glad; managing anything better - anything more - would have taken a bit more will than she felt she could spare. "Good girl."
Daryl shifted forward a bit, letting her get situated. "Ya set?"
She nodded, then seemed to realize that he couldn't see it. "Yes, sir."
Carol waited for the inevitable snort and fought back a grin when it came. It was a losing battle he was fighting, and they all knew it, but he still said, "Told ya, ain't no sir."
A honk sounded from somewhere further up in the caravan - Carol couldn't place whence it came, but it was somewhere near the front - and they all bristled. She hated that she could feel the way Sophia flinched, spine sticking about as straight as hers and Daryl's, and she held back a bitter laugh at the comparison. They were the same, in some ways. Three lost souls on one motorbike, little more than part of a caravan heading to some unknown sanctuary off in the distance.
Eventually, though, they'd find it. It was just a matter of faith. "Guess they're ready, then."
Daryl nodded, still glaring out towards the car. "Shouldn't be honkin', but yeah. Guess they are."
She slipped onto the bike behind them, settling Sophia back against her. It was a relief, having her daughter there, the same way it had been a relief every second since she'd gotten back, and it calmed her down. Yeah, they were leaving… but they had control this time. They weren't running from something; they were running to somewhere. They hadn't found it yet, but it was somewhere out there.
"Ready?", he asked.
She tightened her grip. "Ready," she answered.
And, with the roar of the motorcycle humming underneath them, they set out for the open road.
