A/N: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of it's characters in any way, shape or form.
TRIGGER ALERT: While not in every chapter there are chapters that mention rape and/or abuse.
The song in this chapter is called Meet Me On The Battlefield by SVRCINA
Chapter 13
Adrian had managed to make it through the rest of the night without crying, or sleeping. That couldn't be said for the next morning though. Shortly after the sun had risen in the sky Daryl set out to see if he could hunt them any food. Adrian had told him she would've went with him but she had sadly lost her bow back at the farm, seeing as how it had been in the house in her's and Kale's weapons bag. She was actually really sad about loosing her bow because it held a lot of sentimental value to her.
At the mention of their weapons bag, T-Dog perked up. "Kale was in the truck with me and Andrea when we were trying to take out the walkers at the farm. He threw a bunch of bags in the back of the truck. I threw them in the back of Glenn and Maggie's car before we left the highway." T-Dog told her. Adrian looked up at him in shock and torn off after the car, several members of the group following her fast retreat.
Adrian ran to the back hatch and quickly opened the hatch to see three large duffle bags and a single medium duffle bag laying in the back compartment of the car. Tears instantly started falling at the sight of the bags as she grabbed onto them, but made no move to take them out. She cried for several reasons at the sight of the bags. Kale had probably helped save their lives by doing as she had told him and getting these bags to the truck.
Adrian only removed a few items from the bag she had loaded in town the day she, Rick, and Glenn had went to get Hershel. Later Adrian added hers and Kale's weapons to the bag she had loaded in town, so there was basically an arsenal in that bag. Guns, bullets, knifes, hatchets, arrows, and her bow.
The other two large duffle bags were hers and Kale's personal belongings. Most of it was their clothes and a few small personal belongings that they couldn't stand to part from. The smaller duffle bag though was what would really save their lives, because what good were weapons if they died of hunger or sickness first. There wasn't much in the bag, mostly canned goods, a few dried goods she had managed to hoard away, some water, and even some medicine she had been hoarding for a rainy day. Thank God for her hoarding habits because they might have just saved all of their lives.
Everyone was amazed when Adrian finally told them what the bags were filled with. Adrian handed out a few cans of food and water for everyone to share since none of them had eaten since the day before. Because of the sudden appearance of food, Daryl decided to hold off on hunting and they all packed up and went to find any fuel they could use.
TWD
They had been on the road for two weeks and Adrian had been wrapped in depression and grief those two weeks. She could still function fine, she went hunting with Daryl every day so he could teach her more about tracking so she could eventually start hunting on her own and they could cover more ground and possibly more game for the group. She would occasionally go with some of the members to scavenge for supplies that they desperately needed, food and warm clothes were high on that list.
She tended to stick close to Lori and Carl a lot when they weren't all cooped up in vehicles. She would join in on conversations every once in a while, but she mostly kept to herself. Some of the worst of the tension at all of Rick's confessions had lessened, but not by much. The first few nights had probably been the worst.
It was their second night on the road and tension was high all around. They had managed to find enough fuel to fill all of their tanks, which was a miracle in and of itself, and they had been on the road for most of the day, trying to find somewhere safe to stay for the night that wasn't outside.
They found a little one story house that was probably colder on the inside than it was on the outside, but once Daryl had gotten a fire going in the fireplace, a lucky find for them, the single room they were all huddled into started to warm up from a combination of the fire and their own body heat.
Carl had fallen asleep against Adrian's lap about an hour ago and she had absentmindedly started to stroke his hair when he had put his head in her lap, tired from a long day on the road. Hershel and Rick were currently keeping watch, one on each end of the house. It was was a beautiful night outside, the sky was clear of clouds and stars glittered in the sky and the moon was bright, but none of them cared about how beautiful it was outside.
They had all been quiet for a while when Carol spoke.
"I can't believe he killed Shane, and then to say that he did it for us, it's sick." she spoke quietly, but it sounded loud in the room where there was little noise going on around them.
"None of you can honestly say that you're surprised, can you?" Adrian asked the them all, her eyes directed at the fire, her hand still stroking Carl's hair.
"Are you saying you aren't?" Lori asked her, shocked.
"Everyone knew that Shane was getting more unstable by the day, none of you just wanted to admit it. Did you honestly believe whatever bullshit story Rick gave you after we came back from our first trip from trying to drop off Randall? Shane tried to kill Rick and then threw me into a truck when I tried to stop him. That son of a bitch left me for dead when those walkers came after us." she told them, remembering how quickly everything had gone wrong that day.
"And back at the farm, Shane planned to kill Rick from the start the other day. And I can tell you this much, if Shane had killed Rick the only people he would've given a damn about was Lori and Carl. I wouldn't have put it past him to have packed them up and left as soon as he got back, leaving the rest of us for dead. If Shane had come back instead of Rick, I would've killed Shane myself and damn the consequences." Adrian told them.
They all seemed shocked at her somewhat emotionless tone as she spoke. She didn't know what Rick and Shane had told everyone, if they had told them anything, about what had happened that day they had all come back injured after trying to drop Randall off, but she seriously doubted that it had been the truth.
Anyone could've seen that they had all gotten into a fight but they had all chosen to ignore the evidence that was starring them in the face. And Rick had done exactly as Shane was always telling him to do, eliminate any threat to the group.
To Adrian, Shane had been a threat to them all.
Adrian was currently in the woods with Daryl tracking a rabbit. They had found a house they were hoping they could hole up in for a few days, so Rick had asked Daryl and Adrian if they could try to hunt them some food. Adrian was in the lead, seeing how far she could track it before she lost it's trail.
Today was one of Adrian's quieter days. She hadn't spoken much since they had woken up that morning and no one said anything about it.
"How you holdin' up?" Daryl asked her quietly keeping an eye on the trail as well. Adrian had learned more than he expected her to over the last two weeks on tracking. She didn't talk much since they had been forced to live on the road, which was understandable, none of them seemed to talk as much as before.
"As well as I can, I suppose. It helps to keep my mind occupied." she whispered, her eyes locked onto the ground. It was one of the reasons she insisted on going hunting with Daryl so much lately, tracking kept her mind plenty occupied between absorbing everything he told her and then putting it to the test on a hunt.
"You don't talk about him much." Daryl commented.
He wasn't sure she was going to say anything back, she was quiet so long.
"It hurts too much to talk about him right now. I think about him plenty, and not just about him not making it off the farm, but all of the good times too. It's just going to take a while to get used to the idea that he's really gone." she told him before she stopped and looked around on the ground.
"Damn it, I lost it." she grumbled, annoyed that she'd lost the trail after doing so good.
TWD
They had lost the house a few nights after Adrian and Daryl's hunting trip.
A large group of walkers had crept up on them in the middle of the night, causing a mad scramble for everyone to get their things and get to the cars so they could get away. It was getting colder by the day and the nights were even worse.
They were forced to camp outside again and everyone was cold, hungry, and miserable. T-Dog was on watch at the moment and Adrian had actually been in a decent mood that day and didn't feel like having it ruined by the thick cloud of tension that was surrounding the group. She and Daryl had managed to find a few squirrels and a small rabbit earlier in the day and she could smell them being cooked.
"So what'd you do before all this, anyway?" T-Dog asked her, keeping a sharp eye on the woods.
Adrian laughed at his question.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." she told him, a smile on her face, the first one in days.
"I would like to know that as well." Hershel said from behind them, startling them both. He was holding two plates with super small portions of meat, but it was better than nothing.
"You can give mine to Carl or Lori, they need it more than I do." she said before her traitorous stomach growled.
She was hungry but in her mind Lori and Carl needed it more. Lori was pregnant and Carl was a growing boy. "Lori said that you're to eat that food and if you don't that she'll force feed it to you. You've given her and Carl your food for the last three days, you need to eat. You're just as important as the rest of us." Hershel told her as he handed her the plate.
"Hormonal baby maker." Adrian grumbled under her breath as she took the plate, causing both T-Dog and Hershel to chuckle.
"You never answered my question." T-Dog reminded her.
"What question?" she asked as she put a bite of food in her mouth, remembering full well what he had asked.
"What'd you do before all this?" he asked her again.
Adrian looked over at both Hershel and T-Dog with a smile on her face as she chewed her food.
"Librarian."
Adrian laughed at the looks they gave her.
"You're joking, right?" T-Dog asked her, completely shocked by her answer.
"No, I'm really not. I worked at the same library since I was old enough to work. That library was practically mine and Seth's second home." she told him.
"Well it explains your love of books." Hershel told her.
"It's one of the reasons. My granddad liked to read to me as a child and my love of books grew from his love of books. Speaking of my love of books, I've got a reading date with a real cutie. Night, Hershel. Night, T." she said in farewell walking back toward the fire.
Hershel and T-Dog watched as she walked away.
"I'm glad to see her smiling again." Hershel said.
"Yeah, she was really down there for a while. Reading those books to Carl really seems to have helped a lot." T-Dog told him.
It had started about a week ago, her reading to Carl every night.
They were still camping out in the same house they had found the day before and it was still bitterly cold in Adrian's opinion. Daryl was outside keeping watch at the moment and she honestly felt bad that he had to stand out there in that cold when the rest of them were decently warm in the room with the fireplace. And she meant decently warm in the sense that she could feel just how cold her fingers and toes were.
"I can't sleep. Adrian, can you read to me?" Carl asked her.
"What? Why?" she asked the boy.
"Because...I keep thinking about things I don't want to and listening to you read helps me to stop thinking about the bad things. It gives me something good to imagine." he told her sadly and Adrian knew right then that no matter what mood she was ever in, she'd never be able to deny this poor boy anything.
Adrian grabbed the single bag she had brought inside and dug around and pulled out her copy of The Hobbit.
"Here, you can take my spot." Hershel told her from his place by the fire.
"Hershel." she said, not wanting to take the old man's spot by the fire.
"You can't read in the dark and I'm plenty warm enough." he told her in that voice that told you not to argue. Adrian kept quiet as she walked over to where Hershel had been laying beside Carl.
Adrian laid her pack by the fire and laid down in front of the fire, her head facing the fire so she could see the words clearly enough to read.
"Alright, where did we leave off?" she asked him and he curled into her side.
"The dwarves had just been captured by the goblins in the Misty Mountains." he told her, excited to know what happened next.
Adrian flipped the pages until she found where they had left off so long ago. When Daryl had come in a few hours later to wake Glenn for watch he seen everyone asleep, but it was Adrian that had caught his attention. She had been so distant lately, but there she lay, on the floor with Carl curled into her side, her head laying against the top of Carl's head and an open book resting against her chest.
TWD
Adrian gasped in horror as she looked at Glenn, horrified by the answer he had just given her.
Daryl had found a creek not far into the woods and everyone needed to go to the creek for one reason or another, whether it was to wash some of the few things they had to wear that day or fill up their water bottles and a few jugs or to try to clean up as much as the could in the cold weather. Adrian was walking beside Glenn when he had asked her if she had a favorite superhero.
Adrian, being the self respecting woman she was, answered yes, telling him that her favorite superhero was Daredevil, because how could you not love a guy who was a lawyer by day and a vigilante at night. And blind to boot!
Adrian had told him about how she had loved the show they had done a few years ago and then she asked him who his favorite superhero was, and he replied The Hulk. She wholeheartedly approved, until he told her that his favorite version of The Hulk was the movie they had done a few years back, the one where Eric Bana had played Bruce Banner.
That was when Adrian tripped over a small branch and nearly face planted into the cold ground before she caught herself. She starred at Glenn in absolute horror, unable to believe anyone could possibly like such a crap movie. She stood up straight and quickly looked around until her spotted Carl.
"Carl!" she hissed loudly, catching the boy's attention.
"Quick, get the Holy Water, we have to save Glenn!" she told him running to the boy and using him as a shield between her and her now once friend.
"Why, what's going on?" Carl asked her as everyone else stopped walking to see what the commotion was about.
"Glenn said that his favorite superhero is The Hulk!" she said, pointing an accusing finger at the Korean man.
"That's not so bad. The Hulk is really cool." T-Dog said, not understanding why she was freaking out.
"His favorite version of The Hulk is Eric Bana's version of Bruce Banner!" she finally told them.
She felt completely justified in her horror when Carl and T-Dog both gave him looks of horror. Even Daryl was giving him an odd look, and if Daryl Dixon of all people was giving you a weird look about your choice of superhero, than it was bad.
"Alright, everybody, lets keep moving. We need to be back to the cars before it gets dark." Rick told them all, a small grin on his face.
"Rick, this is nothing to joke about! This is serious, damn it!" Adrian told the man.
She seen the look Lori was giving her at her cursing in front of her son, but Lori had given up on getting her to stop swearing around her Carl at least a week ago. Adrian met Lori's eyes and they shot straight down to Lori's still flat stomach.
Adrian walked out from behind Carl and walked until she stood in front of Lori. She immediately grabbed Lori's thin hips and leaned down until her face was level with Lori's belly.
"Don't you worry, Jelly Bean, I would never let you have such poor taste in superhero's, I would never steer you wrong like that. I swear, Auntie A will make sure you love only kick ass superhero's, so don't you ever listen to Uncle Glenn." she said, her face completely serious.
Everyone burst out laughing at Adrian's antics before they all made their way to the creek.
TWD
They had been on the road for four months and those months had not been kind. Everyone was alive and together, but food, shelter, and gasoline were always in demand. By now Adrian was good enough at tracking that she no longer needed Daryl's help to find the trails of the animals they were trying to hunt, so that meant that they could both go out to hunt for food when they needed to, but wild game was in short supply.
They would try to find a house or office building, or something for shelter from the bitter cold, and God forbid they hadn't found shelter and it started to rain because it wasn't fun for all eleven of them to cram up in the car and SUV. Whenever they did find a place they would look for any supplies they could use but they usually came up with nothing.
Gasoline was the easiest thing to come by so far. They were always able to siphon fuel from any vehicles they came across and no gas can was ever left unchecked. They had been lucky finding the house they were currently unpacking in, hopefully for more than a night. They had all been forced to sleep in the vehicles the previous night because it had rained hard all night.
Adrian, who was in a less than stellar mood, was standing in front of Rick.
"Rick, we need to stay here as long as we can for right now." she told him as calmly as she could.
"No, we'll stay here for a day or two and then head back out. This isn't the place we're meant to be but it's out there, I just know it." Rick told her causing her to growl.
"Rick, I know that you want to find a place where we can all be safe and build a life, but driving us into the ground while you do it isn't helping anyone. We've all been cramped up and been sleeping in the cars for three days, we need a break, all of us, you included." she told him.
"And it's not good for Hershel or Lori to sleep in the cars like we've been." she added.
Adrian gave Rick a hard glare when he rolled his eyes at the sound of his wife's name. Rick had had little patience or softness to him since the night they lost the farm, and that held especially true where Lori was concerned. It seemed that the farther along Lori got in the pregnancy the worse Rick treated her. He showed her no affection what so ever, barely even spoke to her. And when he did speak to her it was usually with a hard and angry tone of voice. Adrian hadn't reacted well the first time she had heard Rick speak to Lori like that. It was a mixture of things that had set her off that day.
She had already been frustrated from being hungry and cold, an almost constant state for her, but when Lori had tried to talk to Rick about something he had snapped at her and had even said a few things that were completely uncalled for. Rick had stalked off angrily leaving a very upset Lori behind. Adrian had seen Lori try to calm herself down before she got too upset, but when Adrian heard her try to smother a sob she had had enough.
She walked up to Rick, who had walked to the outside of the group, and punched him right in the nose. Rick had stumbled back from the sudden assault and cursed while holding his abused nose, which was streaming blood. Adrian could hear the shocked voices of everyone behind them but paid them no mind as she still glared at Rick. Rick looked up at her, about to yell at her, when he seen the look on her face. A face that clearly said that she was not to be fucked with right then unless he wanted another punch to his already sore nose.
Adrian pointed a finger in Rick's face and continued to glare at the man.
"I don't wanna fucking hear it. That is your wife you are treating so callously, your pregnant wife, I might add. You have done nothing but belittle and treat her like shit since we hit the road." she told him.
Rick bristled at the accusation.
"I don't treat her like that. I'm trying to keep her and the baby and everyone else safe." Rick told her, annoyed that she called him out on his treatment of Lori.
"My ass you don't treat her like crap. I mean, why did you even fight for her to keep the baby back at the farm if you were just going to help stress her into possibly loosing it, huh? You know what, no, I don't wanna hear right now." she told him, turning and heading toward the tree line beside the house.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked her.
Adrian quickly spun around, her red-orange hair fanning out behind her before settling on her shoulder. "I'm going to look for something to kill, hopefully dinner, because right now I don't need to be around people. I'm hungry, I'm PMSing like a motherfucker right now, I'm cold, my damn pants are wet" she said pointing down to her soaked pants legs "and right now I'm angry enough with you that I might be willing to shoot you in the damn face, so I'm leaving." she growled at him before she walked away.
TWD
A month later Adrian was glaring at the ground as she stood in front of the ugly green car she had been forced to sleep in the night before.
It was beautiful, she could admit that much, but it was absolutely the last thing they needed right now.
Snow.
A thick layer of pure white snow covered everything, the trees, the cars, the road, and currently, her boots.
They had all woke up completely frozen and looked out of the windows to see snow. They all climbed out of the cars and looked around before some of them broke off to deal with their morning business. Adrian was trying to hold it off as long as possible because the very last thing she wanted to do this morning was to go and squat her ass in the snow so she could pee.
She turned her glare to Rick, who was standing beside her for two reasons.
One was because she knew he and the other damn guys didn't have to worry about dropping their asses into freezing cold snow to pee.
And the other...
"I blame you for this. This totally your fault and no one can convince me otherwise." she told him, her glare still firmly in place.
"Excuse me?" he asked her, completely confused.
"The snow, it's all your fault and I firmly place all of the blame at your feet." she told him, the urge to pee getting worse.
"How am I to blame for the weather?" Rick asked, genuinely curious to hear how it was his fault.
"You were hoping for snow. That day we tried to drop off Randall, you told Shane that you hoped we had a lot of snow blow through here come winter. So therefore this is all your fault and I blame you." she told him.
Rick remembered the conversation she was talking about. He had been talking about the bad snow storm that had blown through the year before and had hoped for the same to happen again this year.
Of course when he said that he had thought they'd all be safe at the farm house.
"Point taken." he told her, but her glare didn't lessen any.
"What now?" he asked her.
"I'm just thinking how much I hate every male here." she told him.
"What have we done now?" he asked, wondering just how many things he was going to get blamed for today.
"None of you have to sit your bare asses in the snow to go to the bathroom." she told him before she turned to walk away.
She didn't usually have a problem popping a squat in the middle of the woods to pee, but then again she didn't usually have to worry about ice cold snow touching her when she did it.
TWD
They had gotten lucky that day.
Daryl had found a large two story house while he had been out hunting that evening and had told Rick about it. Rick had thought about passing it up, wanting to keep moving but then a loud crack of thunder changed his mind. They looked up to see large black clouds rolling in quickly, the thunder was loud enough to rattle windows and lightening lit up the sky often.
It was the middle of the night and the only sound that could be heard was the hard pounding of the rain. They were all sleeping in a large room on the second floor, everyone was sleeping on the floor, except for Lori and Hershel who were sleeping on the only large sectional. It was cold in the room, even with all of the bodies crammed into the room, but it was better than sleeping outside.
Daryl was sitting on a window seat so he could keep an eye out for any walkers or such that approached the house, not that he could see much of anything between the darkness and the heavy rain. It was getting close to the end of his watch when he heard someone moving around restlessly before gasping loudly, but not so loud as to wake many of them, if any. He turned his head to see who it was but it was too dark for him to tell, but his question was answered soon enough.
"Carl? What is it? What's wrong?" Adrian whispered, rubbing her tired eyes.
She had been sleeping next to Carl until she had been pulled back into consciousness by a fist to the shoulder. She had been awake enough to hear Carl gasp and felt him sit up.
"I had a nightmare." he whispered to a little timidly, as if it was wrong to have a nightmare in the hellish world they lived in now. She had had more than her fair share of nightmares since the farm.
"Do you wanna talk about it? Sometimes it helps." she asked quietly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
Carl was quiet for a long time, she didn't think he was going to answer her, but then he spoke.
"It was when I shot Shane." he said very quietly.
"Oh, Carl." Adrian sighed as she pulled the boy into a hug.
Adrian pulled Carl close to her, placing his head on her shoulder, putting one hand on his back as she cradled his head with the other, resting her cheek on top of his head.
"I'm sorry you had to do that, Carl. I would take that pain from you if I could." she told him.
"I know." he told her, his arms hugging her around her waist.
"But I also know that wasn't Shane anymore, and he would've killed my dad if I hadn't shot him." he added.
"No, that wasn't Shane anymore. The person that Shane was, the man that you loved, he died." she told him.
"Because my dad killed him." Carl stated.
Adrian winced, knowing that Carl wouldn't be able to understand everything that had happened between his father and friend for a few more years yet.
"Carl, what your dad did...it wasn't easy for him and I know that you won't be able to really understand why everything happened the way it did until you're a little older, but always remember that your father did not make the decision to kill Shane lightly." she explained to him.
How could one even begin to explain to a young boy that his father was forced to kill his best friend because his best friend tried to kill him twice so he could take possession of his father's family. Shane may have loved Lori and Carl, but once Rick had shown back up Shane's love for Rick turned to hate and his love for Lori and Carl became twisted and dark.
"You should try to get some more sleep." she told him.
"Will you sing to me? I like listening to you sing and it helps me sleep better sometimes." Carl asked her.
Adrian gave a small smile at the request, knowing there was very little she would ever deny the boy.
"Sure." she told him.
She released him and he lay back down in his spot beside her.
Adrian stay upright and once she felt Carl stop wiggling around to get comfortable, she reached a hand out to gently run through his hair to help lull him to sleep.
No time for rest
No pillow for my head
Nowhere to run from this
No way to forget
Around the shadows creep
Like friends, they cover me
Just wanna lay me down and finally
Try to get some sleep
We carry on through the storm
Tired soldiers in this war
Remember what we're fighting for
Meet me on the battlefield
Even on the darkest night
I will be your sword and shield,
Your camouflage, and you will be mine
Echoes of the shots ring out
We may be the first to fall
Everything could stay the same
Or we could change it all
Meet me on the battlefield
We're standing face-to-face
With our own human race
We commit the sins again
And our sons and daughters pay
Our tainted history
Is playing on repeat
But we could change it
If we stand up strong and take the lead
When I was younger, I was named
The generation unafraid
For the heirs to come, be brave
And meet me on the battlefield
Even on the darkest night
I will be your sword and shield,
Your camouflage, and you will be mine
Echoes of the shots ring out
We may be the first to fall
Everything could stay the same
Or we could change it all
Meet me on the battlefield
We carry on through the storm
Tired soldiers in this war
Remember what we're fighting for
Meet me on the battlefield
Even on the darkest night
I will be your sword and shield,
Your camouflage, and you will be mine
Echoes of the shots ring out
We may be the first to fall
Everything could stay the same
Or we could change it all
Meet me on the battlefield
Meet me on the battlefield
Adrian could hear Carl's breathing had turned deep and steady as she sang, but she was now too awake to sleep. She carefully got up from the floor, taking her blanket with her, and tiptoed her way through everyone until she had made it to window seat Daryl was sitting on. Adrian was looking out of the window, only half taking in the view when she heard his voice.
"You're really good with him." Daryl said, referring to Carl.
"Yeah, well, it's not my first rodeo, ya know." she sighed.
"But I'm not the mother that he needs." she said as she turned her attention to where Lori was sleeping on the couch. Daryl seen where she was looking and knew what she was thinking.
"You can't blame her, ya know." Daryl told her.
"Oh, I don't blame Lori at all. I blame Rick." she told him, leaning her head against the wall behind her as she looked to Daryl.
"You can't keep blamin' him for everything." Daryl told her.
'I blame you' was a common phrase that Adrian liked to say to Rick, but everyone could tell when she was joking and when she was serious.
"I can blame him for this and I do." she told him.
Over the last month or so Carl had started to take on some of Rick's attitude toward his mother. He was disrespectful to her more often, would ignore things she told him to do, and even started giving her the cold shoulder. Adrian blamed Rick for Carl's sudden change in attitude toward his mother, especially since Rick rarely said anything about Carl's behavior toward her.
"Something you have to understand about kids is that they tend to copy attitudes and personality traits of their parents as they grow up. For example, we used to love pork chops, Seth, my aunt, and I, but I had went to a friends house for dinner one night and everyone there got a horrible case of food poisoning from the pork chops that she had served. After I got better I didn't even want my aunt to bring them into the house but she didn't listen and about three months after I stopped eating them, Seth decided he didn't like them anymore either because "he wanted to be just like mommy". After about a year I gave in and started eating them again but Seth never ate another pork chop." she said.
"We've all seen how Rick's been treating Lori these last few months, and the farther along she gets the worse he is. Carl sees that and his father is his idol. So in Carl's mind, if his father is mad at his mom then she must've done something wrong, it doesn't matter whether he knows the reason for it or not. And Rick not correcting Carl's attitude towards Lori doesn't help at all." she told him.
Daryl couldn't deny anything she said without being called a liar, but that didn't mean he had to admit it to her out loud. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Daryl broke it.
"So, you almost got taken out by a pork chop back in the day, huh?" he asked, a teasing smirk on his face.
"Shut your hillbilly mouth." she chuckled.
"I'll take watch, not like I'm going back to sleep for a while." she told him.
Daryl nodded, not about to argue on getting whatever sleep he could, before he stood. He stood in his spot for a minute, looking down at Adrian before she looked up at him, curious as to why he hadn't left yet.
"You know, from everything you've ever told me about Seth, it sounds like he was a great kid, sounds like you raised him right. If he was as great as he sounds, then you were an amazing mom and don't ever let anything take that away from you." he told her softly before he turned and left to get some sleep.
Adrian watched Daryl's back as he walked away and felt a lone tear slowly fall down her face.