A/N: I do not own The Walking Dead in any way, shape or form.
Chapter 6
The next day the sun rose high into a blue cloudless sky. Everyone, except for Rick, Lori, Adrian, Hershel, and Patricia, were outside collecting large stones in a wheel barrel for Otis' memorial. Rick, Lori, Hershel, and Patricia were all inside, while Adrian sat in a rocking chair on the porch.
After waking up that morning Maggie gave her a change of clothes and told her that she could use the shower and that she'd have something for her to eat when she got out. Adrian didn't realize how many things she took for granted until it was all gone. Before, need a hot shower to wash away a bad day? No problem. Now, need a hot shower to wash away a bad day? Better keep dreaming.
Looking in the mirror made her wince at her reflection. Her bright green eyes were now dull, her skin had taken on a sickly pale color, unlike her normal paleness. The brightness of her red-orange hair didn't help her to look any less sickly, if anything it washed what little color was in her face out. Looking at just terribly she looked, she was starting to rethink about being so stubborn with Hershel about giving more blood than he was comfortable taking.
It was amazing how much better someone could feel after a hot shower and a change of clothes. She assumed the clothes were Maggie's since they were the closest in size and height. The jeans were light blue, a little tight but were soft and comfortable, and the shirt was an emerald green tank top. She had left her hair down her air dry since her scalp had been pretty tender when she had let it down earlier.
As promised, Maggie was waiting for her in the kitchen and handed her an sandwich and a glass of milk. Adrian thanked the younger woman and took the food, which she took outside to eat on the porch to sit and enjoy the peaceful silence. Adrian had long since finished her food when she heard the loud growl of a motorcycle. Looking up, Adrian seen the top of the RV come into view in the distance.
When all of the vehicles were parked, Daryl's motorcycle, Dale's RV, and a mint green SUV that Andrea drove, Rick and Lori walked out to greet everyone and exchanged hugs as Glenn, T-Dog, Shane, and Adrian hung back. Rick then explained that the whole thing had been an accident but thanks to Shane and Hershel, Carl was going to live.
Adrian caught sight of Kale standing in the back by Daryl and walked over to him. She wrapped the young man in a warm hug, feeling uncomfortable at the relief she felt at him being safe after such a short time apart, but in her defense it was the longest they had been separated since she had found him all those weeks ago.
When Kale pulled away he looked her over and she could clearly see the worry written all over his face. She looked terrible and she knew it.
"It's not as bad as it looks." she told him, trying to ease his worry.
"Really, because it looks pretty bad." he told her, not believing her for a second.
Adrian felt eyes on her and turned to be met with a pair of clear blue eyes.
Daryl looked over the woman standing across from him. She was dressed in clean clothes and had showered recently if her damp hair was anything to go by. Her usually bright green eyes had a dull look to them and he had seen milk with more color to it than she currently had. He was pretty sure that if she lost any more color that she'd be translucent. He could already see how brightly her veins shown against her skin from where he was standing.
She looked like a hot mess and not the good kind either.
"You look like shit, woman." Daryl said.
She didn't know why but it struck her as funny and it clearly surprised Daryl that she did so. "Well, I've practically been bled dry, so what's your excuse?" she asked, still laughing. "Him and Andrea went out late to look for Sophia last night. From what I understand, he told her a story that involved him getting lost in the woods and ending up with an itchy ass." Kale said, grinning at the now scowling man.
"Now this sounds like a story I need to hear." she said, laughing again.
They all turned when Rick walked up to them. "It's time." he said, referring to Otis' memorial service. Any happy feeling the previously had were quickly washed away. They followed Hershel and Patricia to a small grouping of trees where a tall pile of stones stood as a replacement for Otis' grave since there was no body to bury. Everyone from the farm who had known and loved Otis placed a stone onto the pile, as did Rick and Lori, as a thank you to the man who gave his life to save their son.
The Hershel read a scripture from his bible before he gave a short eulogy for Otis. When he was done he asked if Shane would say a few words for Otis, which instantly made Shane uncomfortable. He got quiet for a moment before he tried to pass with the excuse of not being good with words, but relented when a crying Patricia begged him to share her husband's final moments, so she knew that his death had meaning.
Adrian found his behavior odd, though she couldn't exactly tell why. Shane was usually a confident man in everything he did, so to see him tense and uncomfortable was a strange sight, and that's exactly what he was as he recounted his last moments with Otis. He told as how he had been slowed down by his injured ankle and how Otis had given him the pack with the supplies he had been carrying and told him to run while he held them off. But when Shane had turned around that Otis was gone. Shane then walked forward and placed his own stone onto the pile before everyone left.
TWD
Later in the day Rick asked Hershel if he had a map of the area, which he said he did. Maggie brought out the surveyors map and unrolled it on the hood of Carol's jeep, which was surrounded by Hershel, Rick, Adrian, Maggie, Andrea, Shane, and Daryl. Rick was excited about the map, hoping to start getting an organized search for Sophia started, only to be halted by Hershel.
"Rick, you and Adrian gave too much blood. You wouldn't make it across the field in this heat before you passed out." he told Rick, which seemed to take some of the wind out of Rick's sails. "And you, you should be off that ankle for at least a month." he told Shane who no more happy than Rick did. Rick reluctantly decided to wait until morning to have an organized search. Shane and Andrea volunteered to go back to the highway in case Sophia showed up in the night and Daryl pointed to an area on the map that he was going to search since he had no health restrictions to keep him from going out as he pleased.
Before they disbursed Hershel requested that no one carry any firearms on his property. Rick agreed to the request stating that they were guests and would do as he asked. Adrian didn't care one way or the other since her gun might as well be for show since she preferred her bow and knives to the gun. Shane and Andrea, however, did not feel the same. Shane suggested allowing Dale to keep his rifle to keep watch, which Rick managed to convince Hershel into agreeing to.
Adrian went back to studying the general area that Daryl said he was going to search in. She couldn't tell much of what she was looking at except the obvious landmarks, like the creek. It took a minute to notice how quiet it was. She looked up expecting to see everyone gone and was surprised to see them all looking at her.
"What?" she asked, wanting to know what the looks were for.
"Lookin' awfully hard at the map." Rick said, clearly trying to beat around the bush.
"And? I can't look at a map now?" Adrian asked, throwing her hands onto her hips.
"They think you're gonna try to go running off." Kale said as he helped Glenn put up his tent. "What?" she said, looking at the boy but he stopped paying attention. "Seriously? Guys have you seen me, because I have and I'm a hot mess, emphasis on the mess. I've seen vampires with more color in their face than I do right now and I can't walk more than fifty steps without getting hit by a dizzy spell." she told them, not understanding why they would think she'd try to run off.
Clearly she was the only one who knew her limits.
She grew slightly annoyed when none of them spoke, clearly not believing her. "What do you think I'm gonna do, go charging into the woods after Daryl the second you turn your backs?" she asked mostly to Hershel and Rick but she could see Daryl's face in the corner of her eye, he didn't believe her much either.
"You know what, you guys" she said pointing at Hershel, Rick, and Daryl "can suck my dick. All of you." she said, turning away to leave, fully annoyed now.
"Young lady, please watch your language." she heard Hershel call after her.
"Sorry, not sorry, Hershel." she yelled back.
Rick grinned when he overheard her talking about shooting arrows in asses.
TWD
Adrian spent the day with Carol. She found the older woman in the RV attempting to clean it up to help get her mind off of Sophia. Adrian would do little odds and ends to help but mostly let Carol do as she pleased, she needed the distraction more. Carol didn't say much so Adrian spoke enough for the both of them.
And then Carol broached an unexpected topic.
"Why don't you ever talk about him? Your son?" Carol asked, her voice timid, as if she was afraid of the reaction she would get for asking. Adrian got quiet for a minute before she spoke. "I don't do it on purpose. I haven't forgotten him, not even a little, and realistically he didn't even die all that long ago, even though it feels as if it was forever ago. I guess I've just had so many other things to think about and do that it just keeps my focus there." she told her.
"But, when it's quiet, he creeps back up on me. It used to be every little thing that would remind me of him. I would look at the stars through the trees. Reading certain books. Singing certain songs. Even something as simple as something I was eating or seeing a certain color. All of it reminded me of him." she said. Carol said nothing but seen the distant look in the red headed woman's eyes as she spoke.
"At first I was completely and utterly devastated. The last thing I was thinking about was finding somewhere safe to stay, or moving at all. If I'm being honest with you, I don't remember much of what happened after I burned his body. I don't even remember finding the cabin. It had to have been days before my head cleared enough to even realize where I was. I was running on autopilot the whole time. But once I became clear is when the pain set in. As if my heart had been carved out." she said, still in a bit of a daze.
"Does it still hurt?" Carol asked.
Adrian finally looked back at Carol, her eyes sad.
"It'll always hurt, but it hurts just a tiny bit less every day. Kale helps with the pain a lot. A lot more than he gives himself credit for. If I'm being honest, finding Kale probably saved my life. I was all alone, my son was dead so I had nothing else to live for. But then I found that little dummy running around in the woods in the dark. He never tried to take Seth's place in my life, but his life gave mine meaning again." she told her.
"I think the key to the pain is to find others who are willing to help you through the pain. For me, that was Kale." Adrian told her, as if gifting her with some great wisdom.
"What was your son like, if you don't mind me asking." Carol asked her, sitting down across from her.
Adrian laughed.
"He was a sassy little shit. But he had a heart of gold. Always wanting to help. People, animals, even the stupid plants. I remember one time when he was about four or five years old, he had picked me some wildflowers and he was so proud of himself when I praised him about how beautiful they were and how happy they made me. So we took them home and put them in water, but they died a few days later. He cried when I had to throw them away. When I asked him why he was crying, he said that he didn't want me to get sad because the flowers were gone."
Adrian didn't even realize she was crying until she felt the tear tracks cool on her face.
"He sounds like you raised him right." Carol said, looking at the table.
"It didn't always feel that way. I'm sure every parent feels like they fail their kids at some point or another." Adrian told her.
Adrian sniffed loudly and wiped her face with her hands before she stood up and offered Carol her hand.
"Come on. Enough sad talk. We want this place to look super amazing for when Sophia comes back. I'll even sing Whistle While You Work." she said, smiling down at the older woman.
Adrian smiled even wider when she seen the small smile cross Carol's face at her joke.
TWD
It was a few hours later when Adrian and Carol felt the RV rock, signaling someone had come inside. A few seconds later Daryl slowly walked into the back room where Adrian and Carol had decided to sit after they had cleaned everything else. They seen Daryl looking around at the now tidy RV but neither said anything at first.
"We wanted it to look nice for Sophia, for when she comes back." Carol finally said.
"Thought I was in the wrong place there for a minute." he said before he got quiet again. Adrian watched as he shuffled around uncomfortably for a minute before he gently placed something on the counter across from them.
Adrian's heart melted a little at the sight of what he had placed on the counter.
A Cherokee Rose, with an old beer bottle as a vase.
"A flower?" Carol asked, not understanding the meaning behind the gesture.
"It's a Cherokee Rose." he told her, but Carol never lost her confused expression. Even though Adrian already knew the story behind the Cherokee Rose, it warmed her heart to hear Daryl tell Carol the significance behind the flower he had brought her. "I'm not fool enough to think that anybody's out there shedding any tear for my brother, but this one, I believe it bloomed for Sophia." he told Carol.
Carol nodded a silent thank you to the socially awkward redneck before he turned to leave.
"Oh my god, I think I just fell a little in love with him." Adrian sighed with a smile as she caught Carol's eyes, who also gave her the tiniest of smiles.
Daryl stopped at the door before he turned back to Carol, his ears red, possibly from embarrassment since Adrian had spoken her words loud enough for him to hear.
"Sophia's really gonna like it in here." he told her before he quickly left.
TWD
Adrian woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Kale had set up her tent the day before but had refused to share the tent with her. When she asked if he was sharing with her he told her that she needed the space more than him and that he was going to bunk with Glenn. What he didn't know was that she knew the real reason he wasn't sharing the tent with her and she had had to fight back a laugh when he told her that.
Adrian had seen Kale put up their tent as was walking toward him to thank him when she heard him talking to Glenn outside of his tent, so she decided to wait until he was done before she approached him. She was partially hidden behind a tree a few yards from them so she could hear them.
"Come on, man, please, I'm begging you. Let me bunk with you." she heard Kale saying.
"What's wrong with yours and Adrian's tent?" Glenn asked, sounding both confused and slightly frustrated.
"It's not the tent that's the problem." Kale grumbled.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Glenn asked him, not seeing the problem.
"Have you ever been woken up from a punch to the nuts? Because I have." Kale said, completely serious.
Glenn said nothing.
"That woman is like a damn octopus when she sleeps. She's everywhere. We went on an extended hunting trip once and had to stay in the woods overnight. She punched me three times and kicked me at least twice." Kale said.
Adrian had to bite her lip to keep from laughing out loud.
She remembered that trip. She also didn't remember being so abusive in her sleep.
"So, please, let me stay with you." Kale asked one final time.
"Yeah, okay." Glenn said, his voice sounding a little strained.
Adrian waited a minute before she walked out from behind the tree as if she had just showed up. She had never had to fight a smile as hard as when she seen Glenn's face pale a little at her approach.
Adrian got up and grabbed a pair of clothes from her pack and got dressed. She knew it was going to be hot that day, as it was every day, and decided to wear a pair of dark blue jean shorts, a black tank top, and her tan combat boots. She grabbed a foil packet of poptarts and a bottle of water and walked outside. She'd seen Rick, Andrea, Shane, T-Dog, Daryl, and Jimmy, the young man in Hershel's care, standing around the hood of Carol's jeep, the map spread open in front of them.
"Whoever slept in that cupboard couldn't have been any bigger than yay high." Adrian heard Daryl say and he buttoned up his faded long sleeve shirt. Dale walked up to the jeep with their bag of guns on Daryl's right as Adrian walked up to Daryl's left. "Maybe we'll pick up her trail again." Rick said. "Ain't no maybe about it. I'ma take a horse, head up here to this ridge, get a bird's eye view of the whole area. If she's up there, I'll spot her." Daryl told them.
"I'll go with Daryl. Nobody needs to be walking around in the woods alone." she said, not even bothering to ask the surly redneck if it was okay.
"Yeah, maybe you can see your chupacabra up there too." T-Dog said to Daryl, face completely serious, even if his voice was mocking.
"Chupacabra?" Rick and Adrian asked at the same time.
"You never heard this?" Dale asks, digging through the gun bag. "First night in camp, Daryl tells us how this whole things reminds him of the time he went squirrel hunting and he saw a chupacabra." Dale tells them as he passes Rick a rifle.
Jimmy laughed out loud, which annoyed Daryl. "What're you braying at, jackass?" Daryl said, not finding it funny at all. Daryl then turned his glare onto her, as she was still laughing quite loudly.
"Were drugs of any kind involved during this squirrel hunt of yours, Daryl?" she asked, a large smile on her face.
She laughed harder the more Daryl glared at her.
"So, you believe in a blood-sucking dog?" Rick asked him.
"You belive in dead people walking around?" Daryl asked back.
Adrian grunted at the come back.
"Daryl-1 Rick-0." she said.
Jimmy tried to grab the gun in front of Rick, which he quickly put a stop to. "If I'm going out there I wanna protect myself." Jimmy told him. "Yeah, and people in Hell want slurpies." Daryl said as he shouldered his crossbow and walked away. Adrian turned to follow him.
"I'm going to grab my gear. I'll meet you in the barn." she told Daryl.
"Don't want your help. Don't need it neither." he said, never turning around to look at her.
"I don't recall asking. But I do recall you telling me that you would teach me how to track." she told him, which caused him to stop and turn to look at her. Neither said anything as she looked at him and raised her eyebrow, as if challenging him to go back on what he said a few days earlier.
"Whatever. Do whatever the hell you want." he said, turning away from her again and walking away.
Adrian watched his retreating back before she turned toward her tent to grab her weapons.
"Adrian-1 Daryl-0." she said, a satisfied grin on her face.
TWD
"I have to say I'm impressed. I never would have pegged you as a man who knew his way around a horse." Adrian said from her place behind Daryl. He had barely spoken in the hour or so that they had been out there, but she didn't mind. Adrian could keep a conversation going, even if she was the only one having it.
She was talented like that.
Seth used to say it was because she was just plain weird.
She never disagreed with him.
"I'm equally impressed that you also own a shirt that has the sleeves attached to it. I've never seen you so covered up before." she said. Daryl said nothing, not that she expected him to. He raised his crossbow and fire at a tree, killing a squirrel. He pulled the arrow from the tree and then pulled the squirrel off of the arrow.
Daryl was directing the horse onto a path that followed the creek when he suddenly stopped the horse. "What is it?" She asked, seeing him look down at the creek below them. "Somethin's down there." he told her, getting down from the horse. Adrian followed him down and took the rope attached to the horse he handed her.
"I'ma go down there and check it out. Stay up here with the horse." he told her as he carefully started to make his way down the steep hill. Once he made it down he walked over to an old fallen tree that was laying in the creek and picked something up. She seen him look at it for a second before he started to look around.
"Sophia!" he suddenly yelled.
"What is it?" she asked, wanting to know what he found.
"Sophia's doll." he told her as he tucked it into his belt at the back of his pants and started to climb back up the hill.
"She can't be too far, right? I mean, she wouldn't just leave her doll. She's scared and the doll probably helps her to be a little less scared." she said, really hoping that they found the poor girl soon.
"Maybe. Ain't no tellin' how long it was down there for." Daryl said as he climbed back up onto the horse, Adrian following him up.
They walked for about another half hour before things went bad. They were still following the creek and were keeping their eyes and ears open as they made their way towards the ridge Daryl wanted to get to. Everything was quiet until some birds flew in front of the horse, spooking it. The nervous horse made Adrian grab onto Daryl tighter to keep from falling as he tried to calm it down.
Daryl managed to calm the horse down and get it walking again.
Adrian heard a small hiss before the horse freaked out and reared up, throwing Adrian off in the process. The air was harshly knocked out of her lungs and her back screamed in pain as she landed on top of her bow. She blinked a few times before she rolled away from the horse, not wanting to get trampled on. It reared again and Daryl knew he couldn't control the horse, so he quickly jumped off in the opposite direction as Adrian and quickly disappeared from her sight.
The horse took off at break neck speed and didn't stop. Adrian heard Daryl's grunts of pain fade before she quickly scrambled to the edge of the hill he fell down. Adrian saw a large rocky but shallow waterfall that went all the way down the hill, and apparently was how Daryl got to the bottom. She could hear him moaning in paid and cursing but she couldn't see well from so far away.
"Daryl, are you okay?" she yelled down at him, wanting to make sure he was okay.
"No. Gotta damn arrow in my side." he yelled up at her.
Adrian mentally cursed at their lack of luck.
"Get to the bank. I'll find a way down to you." she told him.
Daryl didn't say anything but she just decided to take his silence as a yes and started to look for a safe way down.
While Adrian's way down was safer than Daryl's, she by no means got away unscathed. She had managed to carefully walk halfway down her intended path when her foot landed on a patch of dirt that wasn't as firm as it looked. Her feet fell out from underneath her and she rolled down the rest of the hill. Her ponytail was now crooked and she had dirt and leaves in her hair. She had a few scratches on her arms and legs from sticks and small trees she had rolled over and her skin was covered in patches of dirt.
She quickly stood and tried to wipe the dirt and leaves from her skin and clothes but the dirt just smeared on her sweaty skin. She quickly ran over to the bank where Daryl was laying as he panted in pain. Adrian didn't like to think she had a weak stomach, but seeing that arrow sticking completely through Daryl's side made her a little queasy.
Adrian fell to her knees at his side as he sat up, clutching his side in pain.
"Okay, so we can't pull it out for sure, so we have to make sure it moves as little as possible. How can we do that?" She asked him, panicking slightly at not knowing how to help him.
"We gotta tie somethin' around it." he told her, panting from the pain.
"What can we use? I used my shirt for Carl, but there's no way my shirt is going to fit around you, no matter how I cut it." she told him, looking at him.
Her green eyes were filled concern while his blue eyes were filled with pain. Daryl suddenly got a look in his eyes as he pulled his knife out and started to cut the sleeves off of his shirt.
"Well, I guess not cutting all of the sleeves off of your shirts comes in handy from time to time." she said in a sad attempt at humor. Daryl gave her an unamused glare as he tied the sleeves together and quickly wrapped them around his waist and the front of the arrow.
The entire process hurt him, causing him to cry out in pain. The sound physically hurt Adrian because she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do to help him hurt any less. After Daryl got the arrow tied off he looked up at the hill in front of them, their way back up to flat ground. Adrian followed his line of sight and and felt her stomach bottom out.
"Daryl." she said, her voice trembling. "We can't climb that. YOU can't climb that. How in the hell are we going to get back up there?" she asked him, hoping he could tell her how to help him.
Daryl started to stand up, groaning in pain as he tried. Adrian stood up and grabbed him by his arm to help him up. Once up, he stumbled over a to a long, sturdy stick that he picked up. Then they heard something snap in a thicket on the other side of a small stream that came from the pool of water Daryl had just crawled out of. The trees started to rustle and move, making both of them feel uneasy.
Adrian carefully pulled her bow over her head and knocked an arrow, pointing in the direction of the trees. Daryl reached back for his crossbow, only to find it missing.
"Crossbow's gone." he told her, looking around.
"It must be in the pool. You go in and look and I'll stay here to keep an eye out." she told him. Daryl nodded as he slowly walked into the pool of brown water with his stick. He used the stick to feel along the bottom for his crossbow and finally found it, pulling it from the bottom of the shallow pool before he walked back up onto the bank.
Once Daryl was back on the bank and Adrian was sure nothing was coming out of the thicket, they walked along the bank to find a way up the hill. Daryl spotted a path that was more dirt and trees and rock and told her they would try to climb that way.
"Okay, I'll go up first. I can find where it's safe to step and help you up as much as possible. I can't stop you from falling in I go behind you." she told him, looking up the steep hill with dread.
"What I wouldn't give for a rope right now." Daryl heard her mumble.
"What good would a damn rope be?" he snapped at her.
"We could tie ourselves together. I'd be much less worried about you falling if I knew I could help anchor you." she told him, looking at him, her eyes as serious as her face.
"Point taken." he told her.
"Okay, let's do this. I'll walk up a few feet to make sure it's safe and then you follow, okay?" she asked him.
"A'ight." he agreed.
They had made it about ten feet when she looked back to see how physically taxing the pain was on Daryl.
"Where'd you grow up?" she asked suddenly.
"What?" he asked, wondering where the hell the question had come from.
"You're in pain and the more you climb the worse it gets. We need to keep your mind occupied, so talk to me. Where'd you grow up?" she asked as she leaned down and offered Daryl a hand.
He looked at her for a minute in complete silence.
"Georgia." he answered as his sweaty hand grabbed her equally sweaty one.
"What 'bout you?" he asked when she carefully made her way up a few feet.
"I was born and raised in Louisiana for the first fourteen years of my life. I moved to Georgia a few months after I turned fourteen. Been here ever since." she answered.
"Okay, this stretch of dirt right here is soft, so be careful." she told him, turning and pointing to the patch she was talking about.
Daryl nodded before he grabbed a small but sturdy tree and pulled himself up, groaning in pain.
"What made you move?" Daryl asked her as his feet slowly followed him up.
There wasn't an inch of him that didn't hurt, but talking to Adrian did help take his mind off the pain.
"I moved in with my grandfather when I was young. He died of a heart attack. My father was a piece of shit, so my great-aunt and her husband got custody of me and they lived here." she told him.
"Why didn't your dad take you?" he asked, cursing as one of his feet slipped from underneath him.
"That, my handsome fellow, is a story for another day." she told him, looking up at the path before she looked back down at him.
"Tell me the story you told Andrea." she said.
"What?" he panted, looking up at her.
"Kale said you told Andrea a story. Tell me." she told him, quickly reaching out to grab his wrist when she saw him slip a little.
"I got lost in the woods when I was a kid, younger than Sophia. I got lost. Dad was off on a bender and Merle was in juvie again, nobody even knew I was gone. I was lost for 9 days, eatin' berries and wipin' my ass with poison oak. I got home and fixed myself a sandwich. I was okay, aside from an itchy ass." he told her.
Adrian laughed, still holding onto his wrist as he climbed.
"I'd be careful if I's you. I made Andrea throw up for laughin' at my itchy ass." he told her, trying to glare but failing.
"I might be afraid of the threat if you weren't half dead trying to climb up this hill." she said, letting go of him to climb a few more feet.
They were halfway up when Adrian gave Daryl the bad news.
"All of this dirt is soft and loose, Daryl. It's going to be next to impossible to get you up here." she told him from about two feet above him.
"Come on. We've done half, don't be such a pussy." he told her.
Daryl started to poke his stick around to try and find a solid enough patch of dirt to plant his feet, but the dirt fell away in clumps every time he poked it with his stick.
"Give me your hand, maybe that will help some." she told him.
She wrapped her hand around the nearest tree that she knew wouldn't uproot so easily and reached down to him. Daryl gave a small jump and reached for her hand but he missed and grabbed onto whatever he could to keep his balance. He threw his head back as he moaned in pain, standing still until the worst of the pain passed.
Adrian was looking down at Daryl and her eyes slowly started to widen in horror.
Daryl was slipping.
"Daryl, grab my hand!" she yelled at him.
She saw him look up at her, panic clear in his blue eyes, as his feet started to slip out from under him, the soft earth no longer able to hold his weight. Then Daryl started to tumble down the hill and hit the bottom hard.
"Daryl!" she screamed down at him, but he didn't answer.
She didn't know if he was unconscious or if he was just in too much pain to speak. Adrian slowly started back down the hill, trying to get to him. She got away unscathed this time, but it had taken her far longer to get safely down the hill than she had liked.
Daryl was indeed unconscious.
He was laying on his injured side on the bank at the bottom of the hill. Adrian knew that he couldn't stay like that so she gently rolled him onto his back as best she could. She walked around toward his head and reached under his arms and started to pull him backward towards the rocky incline on the bank to prop him up against. There was a lot of grunting and straining involved.
Daryl was a heavy man and Adrian wasn't as strong as she looked, and she didn't look very strong.
Once she had him propped up she knelt beside him. He was clearly breathing, which made her breath easier.
"Daryl." she said, but he didn't move.
"Daryl." she said louder. Still nothing.
"Damn it, Daryl, talk to me." she said frantically, grabbing his face in her hands and lightly slapping his face, but he still didn't wake up or move.
"Son of a bitch." she yelled as she released his face.
She couldn't move him, she knew she couldn't, but she had to do something.
Anything.
She looked back up at the hill. She knew she shouldn't leave Daryl alone, but she had to do something and the only thing she could think of was to find a safer route up the hill for when Daryl woke up so they could get the hell out of there and back to the farm. The longer Daryl's wound went untreated, the higher he was at risk of getting an infection.
"Alright, you stubborn bastard. For now, your job is to stay here and rest, you've more than earned it. I'm going to find a way up that fucking hill and when I come back we're getting the hell outta here." she told him firmly.
She leaned down and pressed a hard kiss to his dirty and sweaty forehead before she pulled away.
"I'll be back. I promise." she told his unconscious body before she quickly pushed herself up and started her grueling new task.
TWD
Adrian didn't know how long she had been gone but something had happened while she was gone. Daryl was passed out by the water, his crossbow leaning against his side, the arrow from his side was gone. What worried her the most were the two dead bodies of the walkers laying a few feet from Daryl's body. One had it's face bashed in with Daryl's walking stick impaled in it's face, while the other had an arrow sticking out from the top of it's head. Adrian assumed it was the arrow that was in Daryl's side.
Adrian ran to Daryl's side and dropped to her knees. She looked him over as best she could but didn't see any bites or scratches on him. She placed both of her hands on his chest and started to shake him.
"Daryl. Daryl, wake up!" she yelled, shaking him roughly.
She gave a deep sigh of relief when Daryl jerked awake. His blue eyes darted around, taking in his surroundings, when his eyes finally landed on her.
"Where the fuck have you been?" he snapped at her.
"I went looking for another way up the hill so we could leave when you woke up." she told him, not phased by his snappy attitude.
"Fat lotta good that did. I damn near died while you were gone." he said, shoving her away from him as he started to sit up. Daryl stumbled over to a semi-flat part of the incline and sat down, holding onto his side.
Adrian walked over to him and tried to pull his hand away. Daryl didn't seem to want to cooperate because he fought her hold.
"Let me fucking look at it. Don't make me hurt you." she snapped at him, the heat and the stress starting to get to her.
"Like you could." he told her.
"You ever been punched in the same place where you had an arrow in your side?" she snapped at him again, her green eyes glaring into his blue ones.
Daryl glared back at her but she never broke eye contact. Finally, Daryl moved his hand. Adrian knelt down at his side and gently moved the sleeve rope and both of his shirts aside so she could get a good look at his wound. It was red, raw, and looked painful. There was some dirt around the wound so she told him that they needed to clean it up some and then re-wrap it.
"Take off your shirt. I'm going to cut a piece off to clean it with and we can use the rest of it as a pad to put against your side." she told him.
She seen the look on his face at the suggestion and she rolled her eyes. She had no patience for his modesty at the moment.
"If I ever see anything on your body that I haven't seen before, I'll throw a dollar at it." she said as she took her knife out and grabbed the bottom of his shirt before she started to cut a large strip off.
Once she had what she wanted, she stood up and walked over to the water and got the piece of shirt wet. When she walked back over, Daryl had his overshirt unbuttoned and was pulling it off his arms. She knelt back down by his side and raised his undershirt, gently washing the wound. Daryl hissed as she cleaned it, whether from the cold, the pain, or both, she didn't know, but she didn't stop.
"Alright, let's get that wrapped and get the hell out of here. I'm done with nature for today. We have to get you back to the farm so Hershel can look at that." she said, nodding her head towards his side.
She looked up at the cloudless sky, seeing that the sun had moved farther than she had thought it had since they had first left. She reached up and wiped the side of her hand across her forehead and underneath her chin, wiping the sweat away. All she really did was smear dirt and blood that she had on her hands, onto her face.
Adrian was only half listening to Daryl when she heard something about "being right" come from him.
When she looked back down at Daryl, he was gone. She turned to see that he had re-wrapped his wound and was now sitting on a log, washing off his large knife in the water at his feet, the squirrel he had killed earlier in the day laying on the log in front of him. She can no clue where he had pulled the squirrel from but she was pretty sure she didn't want to know.
She had never been more grossed out than when she watch Daryl cut the squirrel open and started to pick it's insides out and eat them raw. She felt herself throw up in her mouth a little.
More than once.
She seen him look over at her while he was eating, squirrel blood coating his chin. It made her want to wipe her own chin. He just looked at her, never saying anything.
"No, I would not like any of your bloody, raw squirrel, thank you." she finally told him.
After he finished his meager meal of raw squirrel, he walked back over to the bank and took one of the shoelaces out of one of the boots from a walker that he had killed earlier.
What he did next grossed her out almost as much as when she watched him eat the squirrel.
He took his knife and cut the ears off of the walkers and put them on the shoelace, which he then tied together and put around his neck. He turned toward her, knife still in hand. Seeing the look in his eyes, she raised her hands in surrender.
"No thank you. I prefer my jewelry much less dead, but if that's what floats your goat, you do straight ahead, big guy." she told him.
Daryl just glared at her and put his knife away. Adrian gave a large sigh of annoyance and rolled her eyes. "Come on." she told him, gesturing for him to follow. She walked over to the incline at a section of the bottom of the hill and then turned to him.
"So, this is where I think we should go up. It will be difficult, I'm not going to lie to you, especially with your injury. It's more rock than dirt but the foot holds are less likely to crumble from underneath you. The downside is that almost all of the foot holds are pretty shallow, which means you're going to have to keep you feet as steady as possible. I'll still be there to help you, so if you need me, I'll be there." she told him before she looked up the stretch of terrain they were about to fight.
"I still really wish we had some rope. One more tumble downhill like before and you may not wake up a second time." she said more to herself than to him.
"You really like hearin' yourself talk, don't you?" Daryl finally snapped at her.
Adrian's temper finally snapped.
"Hey, listen here, motherfucker!" she shouted, pointing her finger in his face. "Do not test me right now! I am tired, hot, hungry, and stressed beyond belief right now, but I'm still here trying to help your ungrateful ass! I didn't have to take the time to look for an easier way for you to get up there, but I did it because I'm worried about you and it needed to be done! If you don't want my fucking help, I'll climb the damn hill myself and let you fend for your fucking self! You do not want to see who can get more bitchy right now, because I can promise you, you won't win that fight." she said, panting from her anger.
"Alright, I get it. Let's just go." Daryl said but with much less attitude. Adrian started up the equally rocky and dirty hillside, Daryl close behind her. She could hear his frequent grunts and moans of pain, but she said nothing. She didn't try to distract him with conversation this time around, other than the occasional word of advice on where to place his hands or feet. They were close to the top when Adrian really started to worry about Daryl. She could hold a conversation with herself, sure, but it sounded to her like Daryl was having a conversation with someone else.
Only no one else was there except for the two of them.
They had finally got past the rocks when she first heard him. "I did better when you was missin'." she heard him grumble as he slowly pulled himself up.
"Well, that's just rude. And you were nearly bitten by two walkers while I was gone." Adrian said, throwing him a slightly offended look over her shoulder at him.
"Yeah, since when?" she heard Daryl say, which confused her since it didn't seem to go along with what she said.
"You never took care of me. You talked a big game but you was never there! Hell, you ain't here now. Some things never change." he said.
Adrian turned to look down at him to see him trying to find the next place for him to safely put his foot. She was especially confused because she didn't say anything.
"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked.
"I know what I saw!" he said loudly.
"What are you talking about?" she asked him as she finally got to the top.
She turned to look down at him when suddenly he looked straight up at her.
"You best shut the hell up!" he yelled at her.
"I didn't say anything!" she yelled back.
"Just stop talking and get up here where I can help you back to the farm." she told him.
Daryl finally managed to reach the top. Adrian grabbed his arm and pulled, helping him up onto the top of the hill. Finally, after more than half a day of trying to get out of that damn ravine, they were back on high ground. Daryl jerked his arm out of Adrian's hold and stumbled a bit, panting from his exhausting climb up.
"Yeah, you better run!" he yelled out into the woods.
"Alright, I'm done with you having conversations with your imaginary friends. We need to get you back to the farm so Hershel can look at you." she said, loosing her patience with the extremely dirty redneck. She reached over and pulled his arm around her shoulder, supporting some of his weight as best she could considering how tired they both were.
"I don't need your help." Daryl said.
"You know what, just shut your country mouth and let me help you so we can get the fuck outta these woods. I'm sick of being surrounded by trees. You can bitch and complain all you want once I get you back to the farm and can toss you off onto someone else for the rest of the day because I'm officially done with your shitty attitude." she told him, forcing him to accept her help and to start walking.
TWD
Adrian had long since given up on trying to keep time that day. All she knew was that it was going to get dark soon and they had to be out of the woods before that happened. Daryl and Adrian hadn't said much to each other in a long while, which she was honestly thankful for. She was panting from the heat, exhaustion, and helping Daryl walk. All she wanted was a hot shower, something warm to eat, and to be asleep before her head hit her pillow in her tent.
In that order.
Adrian didn't know how far they were from the farm but Daryl swore it was close. Adrian could see the trees thinning out some when she heard a noise to her far left. She stopped and looked in the direction of the noise and after a second of focusing really hard, she seen movement through the trees. Daryl became confused when she pulled his arm from around her shoulders and walked to his other side.
"Keep going towards the farm. I see something out there and I wanna check it out." she told him, keeping her focus on the movement.
"The hell you talkin' about? What if it's a walker? You gonna go after it in that condition? You can barely stand up straight." he told her.
"Better me than you. You're worse off than I am. Besides, walker or not, we need to know what it is and deal with it. It's too close to the farm." she told him, turning around to look at him.
"Just get back to the farm. You're injury needed to have been looked at hours ago. I'll be right behind you." she told him. Once he seen that she wasn't gong to listen no matter how much he spoke, he just nodded and started to walk towards the farm.
Adrian carefully walked to where she heard the noise, which she could still hear from time to time. Once she got close enough, she let her guard down, recognizing the sound. She broke through the trees, and there in the middle of a small clearing, was Hershel's horse. She was glad she had found it. It was bad form to loose something that belonged to someone else. Especially something like a large, healthy horse.
Adrian clicked her tongue to get the horses attention, which it did. Adrian made sure to stay where the horse could see her, making sure not to spook her. The last thing she needed was for the damn thing to get spooked and to take off again. Adrian managed to get close enough to the horse and to stroke her soft hair. Adrian carefully mounted the horse and started to lead it in the direction she and Daryl had been heading.
Adrian was enjoying the quiet sounds of nature, even though she was more than ready to get out of it for the day, when a gunshot rang through the silence.
The sudden shot slightly spooked the horse but Adrian managed to keep it under control. After she recovered from the shock of hearing the gunshot she kicked the the horse in the sides and they took off at a run. Adrian had to quickly blink her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the dying sunlight once she broke through the trees and into Hershel's field. She looked around to see what was going on when she seen Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog huddled around something. The something turned out to be Daryl when Shane and Rick lifted him up between them, each of his arms around their shoulders.
Adrian ran the horse in their direction, the horse barley slowing when she dismounted, which caused her to fall on her backside. A sharp zing of pain ran up her spin from her abused tailbone before she jumped up and ran towards the men.
"What the hell happened?" she yelled at them.
"Are those ears?" she heard Glenn ask in a horrified voice.
"Hey, guys, isn't this Sophia's?" she heard T-Dog ask, holding Sophia's doll that they had found early that morning.
Adrian took advantage of Rick and Shane stopping to look back at T-Dog holding up the doll. She ran in between the men and stood directly in front of an unconscious Daryl, for the second time that day. She grabbed his face in between his face, trying to see what could have made him pass out when she seen a streak of blood coming from his right temple.
"What the hell did you guys do to him?" she yelled at no one in particular, but fully expecting an answer nonetheless.
"Andrea shot him. She thought he was a walker." Glenn told her.
"She what?!" she yelled, looking back at the younger man with a surprised expression on her face.
"Seriously?! I manage to keep him alive long enough to get his sorry ass back here, only for the blonde jackass to shoot him? Who the hell even let her have a gun?! That's it, from this moment on, Andrea's gun privileges are fully and completely revoked! Jesus guys." she ranted at them all.
She had not spent all of her time and energy keeping him alive only for them to kill him.
"Alright, let's move. He needed to see Hershel hours ago." she told them, turning and jogging ahead of all of the men. She passed Andrea and Dale who were both completely freaking out, asking if Daryl was dead or okay. Adrian's automatic response was to tell her that Daryl was most certainly not okay, but she cared more for his health than Andrea's panic attack, meaning she had to get Hershel.
Adrian ran her very dirty body into Hershel's very clean house, yelling his name as soon as she ran through the door.
"What in the world is all the shouting about?" Hershel demanded as he walked into his living room to see a very disheveled Adrian.
Her hair was a mess of dirt and crushed leaves, her skin and clothes were both soaked and covered in dirt stains, and she had numerous scratches long her arms and legs.
Adrian's frantic eyes finally locked onto the old farmer.
"It's Daryl. He took and arrow to the side this morning. He probably has a concussion, and that was before his head was shot at." she told him, panting for breath.
"Rick and Shane are on their way up here with him." she added before the man could say anything. Hershel had just opened his mouth to speak when Rick and Shane burst through the door, Daryl still unconscious between them.
Hershel directed them to a room and told them to put him on the bed. Once Adrian seen Daryl was in safe hands she walked through the house until she found Maggie, who she then asked if it was okay to take a shower. After Maggie told her to go ahead, Adrian walked outside to her tent and opened her tent. She stepped in to quickly toss her weapons onto the floor of her tent before she grabbed a change of clothes, which consisted of a pair of black and pink yoga pants and a pale pink tank top.
With her clothes now in hand she walked her tired body back to the house where she gratefully thanked Maggie before she walked into the bathroom and locked the door. With the door firmly locked she quickly threw off her sweat and dirt covered clothes and stepped into the hot spray of the shower. She released a tired but satisfied sigh as she felt her muscles loosen under the hot water.
She scrubbed at her skin until she was sure all of the dirt, sweat, and blood was gone, then she vigorously scrubbed at her hair. She knew it resembled more of a bird's nest than human hair before she stepped into the shower, but she was determined to rectify that before she left the shower.
She felt like she had been in there for forever when she stepped out but she didn't think it had actually been that long. She brushed out her straight ginger hair after she had towel dried it as much as she could and then got dressed before stepping out of the bathroom. With her dirty clothes in her hands Adrian walked back outside to put her clothes back into her tent so she could wash them later when she had time and wasn't so damn tired.
She had bumped into Kale, who she had noticed had been spending a lot of time with Glenn, who had told her that Carol and Lori had offered to make everyone dinner with the use of Hershel's kitchen that night. Adrian thought it was a nice gesture but she hadn't exactly felt welcome there where Hershel was concerned. Adrian figured it was time to check on Daryl and made sure she hadn't kept him alive all day for nothing.
She walked back into the house and toward the room Daryl was laid up in when she heard voices coming from the room, one of them being Daryl's.
"Where's my horse?" she heard Hershel asked as she got closer to the door.
"You mean the one that almost killed me? If it's smart it left Georgia." Daryl sassed at the old man.
"We call that one Nelly, as in Nervous Nelly. I could've told you that she'd throw you if you had bothered to ask." Hershel said in a reprimanding voice.
"She's back in the stable. I found her in the woods, brought her back to the field. I had Kale fetch her and bring her back to the stable. Jimmy helped him unsaddle the horse and everything." Adrian said as she leaned against the doorframe.
Everyone turned to look at her, surprised that none of them had heard or seen her walk up.
"You need me to take a look at you?" Hershel asked her, looking over her arms and legs that were covered in scratches.
"No thanks, Doc. I think I'll live." she told him.
Everyone then filed out of the room, leaving just Daryl and Adrian inside.
"So, will you live?" she asked, walking over to the bed and gently poking in in the ribs a few inches above his arrow wound. Daryl jerked at the poke, glaring at her.
"The hell, woman?" he growled.
"Oh don't be such a baby. You've endured worse today." she told him, sitting down in a chair that sat against the wall.
"Yeah, but it still hurts." he told her.
"Well that's obvious, you had an arrow through your side for half the day." she said.
Neither spoke for a while, just enjoying the silence.
"Who were you talking to today?" she asked him quietly, not needing to speak loudly in the quiet room.
When Daryl gave her a look of confusion, she explained. "When we were climbing up the hill the second time today. You were talking, but it wasn't to me. So who was it?" she asked.
Daryl looked away from her and stayed quiet. He was quiet for such a long time, she didn't think he was going to answer.
"My brother." she finally heard him whisper.
She didn't know what to say, so she said nothing.
"Think I'm screwed up now, don'tcha? For talkin' to my dead brother." he asked her. He expected her to call him a complete nut job and leave the room, but her response actually surprised him.
"No. I don't think you're screwed up." she told him.
He looked over at her to call her a liar when he seen the serious look in her eyes.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Because I still talk to my dead son. It's not as often anymore, only on really bad days. I'll see him as clearly as I see you. And we can hold full conversations. But I know he's not really there. That's he's just a figment of my imagination. But it doesn't mean I'm not glad to see him. Or sad to see him go. Everyone copes with grief in their own way." she told him, keeping eye contact with him so he would know how serious she was.
"I'm gonna go grab some dinner and then get some sleep. I need it after today." Adrian said before she got up and walked out of the room, leaving Daryl to rest, but suddenly, with her gone, he felt lonely too.
TWD
Daryl was startled when the door opened behind him. He turned to see who it was, pulling the sheet up higher over his torso.
"Too late to hide what I've already seen." he heard Adrian say she walked through the door, a tray with two plates and two glasses of water on the tray. "Brought dinner. Figured you're just as hungry as I am." she said as she closed the door behind her and placed the tray on the bedside table beside him.
"Thought you was goin' to get dinner and then goin' to bed." Daryl stated more than asked.
"Well, that was before I walked into the kitchen to get dinner. The tension in there is so thick you can barely see anything. I'd rather give myself a bikini wax than force myself to sit through that awkward dinner." she said as she walked back over to the chair she had claimed before.
Adrian and Daryl ate their dinner in a comfortable silence, neither feeling the need to fill the silence in the room. Daryl had been laying on his uninjured side, looking out of the window, not really thinking anything, when he heard a soft snore. Daryl looked over to where Adrian was sitting in the chair and couldn't believe his eyes. She had somehow managed to curl her legs into the chair and had fallen asleep with her head propped up on her hand that was resting on the arm of the small chair.
Daryl had never really taken a good look at Adrian and decided to take advantage of the moment since she was sleeping and wouldn't catch him starring at her. Her hair was straight, finally fully drying from her shower earlier. She had a slight sunburn on her cheeks, nose, and shoulders. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were a little darker than her hair, looking a little brown in the dim light. Her lips her parted and she was snoring softly.
He could only imagine how tired she must've been after the day they had. Daryl wasn't as tired, having fallen unconscious a few different times that day. Then he thought back at everything that had happened that day. He could honestly admit to himself that he was surprised she had stayed with him after they were thrown from the horse. She had fallen down the hill trying to get to him after he had rolled down the waterfall and got skewered by his own arrow. She could've seen how badly he was hurt and decided to leave, to head back to the farm for help.
Might've saved them a lot of trouble if she had, but she hadn't. She'd stayed with him. Watched his back while he searched for his crossbow. Had offered to go up the steep dirt hill first so she could find a safe path for him to climb and had even talked to him to help distract him from the excruciating pain he had been in while they climbed.
And then after he had fallen and passed out, she had left to find a different way for them to get back up the hill. She had even told him off when he gave her attitude, which he kind of respected. Most women he knew would cry and get upset over his harsh words, but not her. She didn't cry or walk away from him, she had snapped right back at him and told him that she wasn't going to take his shit talking laying down.
He had been shocked when she had put his arm over her shoulders and helped him walk. He knew she was tired and could barely hold some of his weight, but she had gritted her teeth and pushed through it, determined to get him back to the farm. He couldn't remember the last time someone had done so much for him, not even Merle.
He hadn't spent much time in her company since they met up at the quarry but he knew what kind of woman she was after today.
She had a soft heart but she didn't let it interfere in every situation.
She was kind and compassionate but also strong and determined.
She put other people before herself.
She had helped save his life that day and he had never met a woman that he knew would do the same.
Daryl was broken from his thoughts when he heard the door open behind him. He turned to see it was Carol and tried to shyly pull the sheet up over his scarred torso.
"I seen that Adrian had come back here with dinner for the two of you. I'm glad you ate. You two must've been starving." she told him. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly after seeing Adrian asleep in the chair.
"Not as good as I look." he told her.
Carol leaned over and timidly gave Daryl a kiss on his forehead.
The gesture made Daryl seriously uncomfortable.
"Watch out, I got stitches." he told her.
"I want you to know something. You did more for my little girl today than her daddy did for her in his whole life." she told him.
"Wasn't just me, ya know." he said. "I know. And I've already thanked her. But I haven't thanked you yet." she told him as she collected the dinner dishes.
"Didn't do anything Rick or Shane wouldn't have done." he told her, turning over and giving her his back.
"I know. You're every bit as good as them. Every bit." she said before she turned and left to bring the dishes to the kitchen to be washed.
Daryl lay on his uninjured side, the blanket pulled up to his chin, and looked back out of the window, unused to such praise.
He wasn't sure how he felt about it, so he decided to stop thinking about it and get some much needed sleep.