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 Quarter Past Four by Avriel and The Sequoias
Chapter 14
Six months.
They had been on the move for six months.
The good news is that they were all still together and alive and it was also starting to warm up again. The cold had been getting less and less frigid over the last few weeks, which they were all thankful for.
The bad news is that they were still constantly on the move, looking for Rick's paradise, and with the warmer weather came more walkers. Recently they were getting cut off by more and more herds, forcing them to pretty much go in circles.
By the symptoms Lori had described to Hershel, that Adrian overheard, they roughly guessed that Lori was about six months along. She had started to feel the baby move about a month ago and now, Adrian was proud to say, the baby was responding to noises. Adrian liked to smugly flaunt the fact that the baby responded to Adrian the most, right after Lori.
While on the road Adrian had developed a habit of talking to Lori's belly more than to the woman herself. Adrian would walk up to or lay beside Lori and either ask a question or say something, to which Lori would answer, only for Adrian to tell her that she had been talking to the baby.
Everyone found it funny, except for Lori, but eventually even she started to find it humorous.
A few weeks ago Adrian had made it a daily habit of singing and reading to the baby every chance she got. Lori told her that the baby would get excited and start moving around when it heard her voice and would calm down or go to sleep when she sang. Adrian had been unbearably smug about that for at least a week before she stopped bragging about it.
Adrian couldn't imagine how Lori and Chipmunk, as Adrian had affectionately started calling the baby, were doing. Adrian had left their temporary home, a single wide trailer, two days ago to go hunting. They were in serious need of the food, especially Lori and Chipmunk, and they really needed meat.
After a day and a half of no food for any of them, Adrian had told Rick she was going on a hunting trip and she was going to be gone for a day or two at least. Rick hadn't like it, mostly because she told him instead of asked him, but he couldn't deny that they needed anything they could get. Adrian had grabbed her weapons, her pack, and a map with their next location marked in case they got separated. Adrian rubbed Lori's belly for good luck before she left, a habit she had started some months back that Lori didn't find amusing at first.
Adrian was currently on her way back to the trailer they were last camped in because it would seriously suck if they had moved on. Especially since she was only roughly a mile away from it and was dragging a deer behind her. It had been sheer luck that she had stumbled across the buck. After two days of seeing nothing but the occasional squirrel Adrian had decided to call it quits and head back. She had stopped by a creek to fill her empty water bottle when she heard a branch snap on the hill upwind from her.
Her eyes had near popped out of her head when she seen that large, beautiful deer standing on top of the hill. Adrian had moved so slowly, getting her bow raised and ready to fire, that she felt like it had taken forever, but the very last thing she wanted to do was to move too fast and scare it away. She would never admit it to anyone back at camp, but she had actually cried when she seen the deer hit the ground.
Not from having to kill the deer, no, she had cried in happiness. That deer would feed them for a long time if they rationed it correctly. Adrian had walked up to the deer, and like her granddad had taught her, thanked the deer for giving it's life so that they may live another day. She had almost pulled the arrow from the deer before she remembered that the smell of blood attracted walkers like the sight of candy attracted children.
Adrian had almost reached the edge of the tree line that lead to the back of the trailer when she dropped the legs of the deer she had been dragging and pulled a small laser light from her pack before she pointed the laser at one of the windows and clicked it on and waited to see if the signal was returned. She gave a sigh of relief when she seen the green dot on her left shoulder.
She put the light in her pocket and grabbed the deer before walking into the back yard. Adrian could hear the loud stampeding of feet hitting the floor from outside before the back door of the trailer was thrown open and everyone ran out into the yard. Everyone's faces were a mixture of shock and happiness, she could completely understand.
She looked at everyone until she found the face she was looking for. She met Daryl's blue eyed gaze and held it for a moment.
"I caught it and brought it back so you get to skin this bitch." she told him with a loud huff.
Everyone laughed at her choice of words before the men all helped pitch in to help get the deer gutted and skinned so they could have their first decent meal in a long time.
Adrian walked up to Lori and placed her hands on either side of the woman's belly, feeling a very active baby squirming around.
"Told you rubbing the belly is good luck." she grinned at Lori.
"How's my Chipmunk been doing since Auntie A's been gone, huh?" Adrian asked the baby, leaning down so she was closer to Lori's belly.
Adrian felt more squirming which made her smile brightly.
"It certainly missed you. Has hardly stopped moving since you left." Lori told her.
Adrian gave Lori a mock glare.
"I told you you're going to give her a complex if you don't stop calling her an It." she told the pregnant woman.
"Why do you keep insisting that it's a girl?" Lori asked her.
"Because I refuse to raise another boy. I want a kick ass little girl this time around." Adrian said, laughing when she felt a foot hit one of her palms.
"Yeah, that's right, Chipmunk, Auntie A is always right." she chuckled.
"Haven't gotten much sleep, huh?" Adrian asked Lori seriously.
"Not really, no. It's-" she cut herself off at Adrian's glare
"She's been really active the last few nights. I don't know what kinda Voodoo you put on her, but she really does only calm down and sleep at night when you're here." Lori told her tiredly.
"Well let's get you inside and get this one settled down so you can take a nap before dinner. You look like you could really use one." Adrian told Lori as she turned the woman to lead her back into the trailer.
"Adrian you must be exhausted." Lori tried to protest.
"Lori, I doubt I'm anywhere near as tired as you are right now. One song isn't going to kill me, but the lack of one just might be the end of you. Now stop arguing and get your ass inside." Adrian told her firmly.
Lori nodded before walking inside and laying on one of the two twin beds in the house. Once Lori was settled Adrian put a hand on Lori's belly and began to softly sing, smiling as she felt the baby's movements still as Lori drifted off into a much needed sleep.
TWD
They had gotten very lucky that night at the trailer.
After Daryl and the men, who were instructed by Daryl and Hershel, had gutted, skinned, and cut up the deer Adrian had killed, they all enjoyed their first filling dinner that they had had all winter. Carol had found a box or two of ziplock bags in the kitchen that they men had bagged the meat in and Glenn had found a cooler outside.
Adrian wasn't sure how they were going to keep it cold enough to not spoil after a few days, until it snowed that night. Adrian usually despised snow but was very thankful for as they had packed the meat into the cooler and then packed as much snow into the cooler as they could before the cooler was moved to their recently acquired truck so it wouldn't get left behind if they had to leave in a hurry.
They had been forced to leave the trailer after they noticed more walkers than they were comfortable with wondering around. That had been three days ago. They were currently camping out in another trailer but luckily for them whoever had previously lived there liked their comfort and warmth. They had found at least twenty blankets and throw blankets throughout the whole house and there were two extra large sectional couches in the living room.
They had found a grill on the back porch of the trailer and decided to cook on it for their dinner. T-Dog and Carol had been in charge of cooking dinner that night and it turned out better than expected. Everyone was inside and either sitting or curled up in the couches, all of them covered in blankets, except for Adrian and Maggie who was on watch.
Adrian was standing by a window that looked out into the back yard and Maggie the front. Everyone was sitting or dozing in a comfortable silence after a half filling meal. Adrian was standing on the opposite side of the room from Lori but she could hear the woman having trouble getting comfy enough to fall asleep before the woman sighed in defeat.
"Adrian?" Lori called to her.
Adrian turned from the window to look at the poor tired woman.
"Being a little shit tonight, huh?" she asked, a grin on her face.
"She just won't calm down. I swear she's training for the Olympic Trampoline event or something." Lori answered, wincing and rubbing her belly.
Rick got up from the couch and walked to the window Adrian was standing at as she walked over to his wife. Lori laid back down as Adrian walked over and sat on the floor by Lori's belly and put a gentle hand on the woman's belly. Lori wasn't lying when she said that kid was turning flips in there. She was all over the place, throwing out the occasional hard punch or kick.
"Hey there, Chipmunk. What's the matter, huh? What's got you so excited tonight?" Adrian asked softly, feeling the baby pushing either her head or butt into her palm.
"Mommy's trying to sleep, ya know. She can't do that if you don't calm down for her." she said, getting another push against her palm.
"How about a song, huh? Will that calm you down so mommy can get some sleep?" she asked, smiling when she felt the baby push against her hand again.
"Alright, you twisted my arm." she said, giving a light laugh.
Quarter past four and I'm feeling alright
I'd love to close my eyes, but I can never rest my mind
Thinking where I'm going to and where I've been
While a thousand other worries are floating in the wind
And I can't keep them all away
But it turns our fine
It turns out fine
And I can't keep them all away
But it turns out fine
It turns out fine
Never really thought I'd get to see this day
Where my heart is in the future, while my body rides the wave
Thankful every day I get to rise again
When my eyes start to open as the sunlight warms my skin
And I have troubles every day
But it turns out fine
It turns out fine
And I have troubles every day
But it turns out fine
It turns out fine
Adrian felt the baby settle down as she sang and heard the slow and steady breathes that Lori was now breathing, letting Adrian know that Lori had finally been able to fall asleep. Adrian quietly stood from her spot on the floor and walked back over to the window she had been standing at a few minutes before.
She seen the look Rick gave her, not really sure what he was trying to convey through his look.
She gave him a teasing grin to help lighten the mood.
"What can I say, I'm the baby whisperer." she told him, causing a few people in the room to quietly laugh.
TWD
They had been lucky to escape the small herd that had snuck up on them.
They had managed two days in the trailer before Daryl came charging in telling them they had to leave because a herd was hot on his tail. They had grabbed all the blankets they could grab and ran out the door and to the vehicles.
Two days later Adrian and Daryl were walking quietly through the woods.
They had found a tiny little one room shack to stay in, but unfortunately they had ran out of food the day before and they were dangerously low on water. Adrian and Daryl had volunteered to go out to see what they could find. They were probably two or three miles in when they stopped, trying to figure out what it was they were hearing.
Then a light breeze blew through that had Adrian smiling.
"Water." she told him.
They walked closer to the noise and stopped and starred at the large waterfall. It was beautiful and Adrian wished she could see just how beautiful it would look in either the Spring or Summer. They pulled out all of the canteens and water bottles out of Daryl's pack and began to fill them. The water was ice cold and their fingers quickly went numb from the cold water.
Daryl was twisting the cap onto the last bottle when he felt ice cold drops hit his face. He turned to look at Adrian, who had a shit eating grin on her face. He grinned at her and was about to splash her back when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look and he felt his stomach drop to his feet.
Walkers. Lots of walkers.
Adrian turned to see what had caught his attention and felt the blood drain from her face. She turned back to look at the water, hoping maybe they could cross to get away from them, but it was farther than she expected to the other side and it was an unexpectedly cold day today. So unless they really wanted to chance getting hypothermia, they had to fight their way through.
Adrian and Daryl both knew what they had to do and they'd be damn lucky if they made it out of this. They had no chance of getting away without being noticed because they had been noticed before they had even see the damn things and they hadn't heard them coming because of the roaring of the waterfall.
Adrian had brought her bow but she figured that her machete would be of more use to her. She had a decent supply of arrows but if she tried to use her bow on these walkers, she'd loose more than she was willing to let go of. She pulled her machete out of it's sheath as Daryl shouldered the pack and drew his crossbow.
"You take the right, I'll take the left." she told him as they stepped forward so their backs weren't completely against the bank of the river.
"Fuck that, we stay together." he growled at her.
"I wasn't asking." she told him as she broke off to the left, slamming her machete into the side of the first walkers head.
Daryl cursed as he went right, firing his crossbow at the closest walker. He ran toward the now dead walker and quickly pulled the arrow from it head and instantly reloading his crossbow. Seeing how quickly they were coming, he shouldered his crossbow and pulled his knife. He didn't like the idea of getting so close to them when there were so many but he only had so many arrows and he couldn't afford to take the time to get them back, so his knife it was.
He had to have at least 10 walkers under his belt when he threw a quick glance in Adrian's direction. He didn't realize they had gotten so far apart, at least 15 or 20 feet apart, and he didn't like being so far from her because he couldn't help her if something happened. He heard a growl close to his ear and turned to see a walker reaching out it's bony, decaying hands in his direction.
Daryl quickly shoved his blade deep into it's forehead before he pulled it back out, the walker dropping to the ground at his feet. He had killed four more when he heard Adrian scream. He jerked his head in her direction but couldn't see her anywhere. Her hair should've made the job of spotting her easy but he couldn't see it.
"Daryl!" he heard her scream, but he still couldn't see her.
"Adrian!" he yelled, trying to get to her, only to be cut off by at least 10 walkers that appeared out of no where.
"Adrian!" he screamed again, killing the walker that had just tried to take a bite out of his arm.
What scared him the most was that Adrian didn't answer him.
"Adrian!" he screamed again, and again not getting an answer.
Daryl called out to her two more times but never received an answer. He kept getting pushed back farther and father from where he had last seen Adrian when finally he turned and ran, a ball of lead in his stomach as he did so. He hated that he had to leave her but if he didn't run then he would die, and there was no guarantee that she was even still alive.
Daryl had thought about going back to the group, but he couldn't stomach the thought of leaving Adrian out there, alive or dead.
If she was alive then he planned to bring her back to the group in whatever condition she was in.
If she was bitten, then they all at least deserved the chance to tell her good-bye.
If she was dead...then he would do what needed to be done.
They had all made a promise to never let the other turn, and if Adrian had been killed then he intended to hold to his word and to whatever he needed to.
Daryl circled around the long way to make sure he avoided any lingering walkers. He only seen some here and there that he managed to dodge before he got back to where they had last been together. He looked up to see the light fading pretty quickly so he knew he didn't have much light left to track by.
He walked over to where he had seen her last and tried to pick up her trial. He seen nothing but a mess of footprints and dead walkers until he finally seen a large disturbance in the leaves covering the ground. He found two dead walkers laying beside the disturbance, but no Adrian or blood anywhere in the carnage. He seen a set of boot prints in and leading away from the disturbance, boot prints he knew belonged to Adrian.
He followed the trail, the trail of bodies lead to the edge of a hill, where Daryl could see someone fell down. There were scattered leaves and small trees that were broken leading down to the bottom of the hill where the was a single body. Daryl carefully made his way down the hill and released a sigh of relief when the body was clearly a walker and not Adrian.
He looked at the ground and picked up a single boot print in a patch of mud and followed the trail. He had probably followed the trail for roughly a mile from his starting point when he seen the trail end at a patch of rocks. He pulled out a small flashlight and looked around on the ground to make sure she hadn't gone in a different direction, but he didn't see anymore footprints.
Daryl finally pointed his light up and seen some kind of hunting blind about 10 feet in the air. The blind was sitting on a wooden platform that had been built close to a tree about 10 feet from where Daryl was standing. He had been so focused on the ground that he completely missed the ladder that was attached to the tree that lead up to the platform.
It was a large blind, big enough for two people, with windows on all sides from what he could tell. Daryl walked to the ladder and climbed up. There was a door that lead into the blind and windows on the back side of the blind as well. He pointed his light into one of the windows but didn't see anything. He put the light in his mouth and then grabbed his knife with one hand while the other grabbed the knob for the door.
Daryl jerked the door open and then pointed his light to the left to see to see Adrian pointing her gun at his face, eyes squinting in the harsh light. Daryl put his knife away and took the light out of his mouth. Adrian was sitting against the wall, her right shoulder tucked into the corner of the blind. Her hair had fallen out of it's braid at some point, leaves and the rare twig could be seen in her ginger hair. Her clothes were covered in walker blood, dirt, and leaves and her face was pale, pain clearly evident on her face.
"You okay?" he asked her. Adrian, having recognized his voice, released a huge sigh and lowered her gun.
"Damn it, Daryl, you shouldn't have come back." she told him through clenched teeth.
Daryl stepped inside and closed the door before he knelt down beside her.
"I wasn't gonna leave you out here by yourself. I thought you might be dead, but I had to know, one way or the other." he told her.
He had never been so happy to see her as he was now. He had had that lead ball in the pit of his stomach ever since he heard her scream and couldn't get to her. It was when he really looked at her that he noticed she didn't look so good. She was pushing her forehead against the wall, her face pale and slightly sweaty, and he seen her clenching and unclenching her teeth as she laid her hand on her right shoulder.
It was as he looked at her hand holding her shoulder that he felt his blood run cold. He couldn't name the last time he prayed for anything, but in that moment he prayed to whoever was listening that she hadn't been bitten. The group as a whole would take it hard if they lost her, but Daryl didn't know what he would do with himself if he lost her.
He didn't know when it had happened but Daryl realized, as he starred at her unseen shoulder, that he truly cared about this woman.
This woman who took her superhero's seriously and had been out to save Glenn from himself for months.
This woman who followed their leader but had no problems about calling him out on bad decisions, whether they concerned the group as a whole or just his family.
This woman who sang a scared boy to sleep after a nightmare and read and sang to an unborn baby so it's mother could sleep when the baby was too active.
This woman who had followed his injured body into a deep ravine miles away from help and refused to leave him until she got him back to Hershel so he could have his injuries treated.
He didn't know when it had happened, but she had slowly wormed her way past all of his defenses and had made a home inside his heart. He didn't love her, at least he didn't think so since he had never been in love, but he cared for her deeply. And if he lost her when he had finally realized his feelings for her, he didn't know how he would recover.
"Let me see it." he said reaching out to her shoulder.
"Don't touch it!" she snapped, slapping his hand away.
"Let me see how bad it is." he told her determined to see which way the dice were going to roll.
"It's not a bite." she told him, her voice filled with pain.
"I still wanna see it." he told her.
Adrian must have seen something in his eyes from the light of the flashlight sitting on the floor because she sighed. She put her left hand against the wall and took a deep breath before she pushed herself away from the corner.
Even through her layers of clothes Daryl could tell something wasn't right.
"It's dislocated." she told him, warily eyeing his hand as he reached out for her shoulder, which he thankfully didn't touch.
"How'd it happen?" he asked her, pulling his hand back.
"I threw myself at a hill and it didn't appreciate my forwardness." she tried to joke, but Daryl wasn't in the mood for her to try to lighten the tension he was feeling.
"I didn't see the hill and ended up rolling ass over tea kettle all the way down. There was a large rock that stopped my fall at the bottom. I heard the snap before my shoulder felt like it was on fire. A walker followed me down and I just barely managed to kill it before I turned and ran. I was damn lucky to find this thing so I could hole up for the night because I knew there was no way in hell I was getting back to everyone before dark." she explained.
Adrian watched Daryl as he starred at her injured shoulder for a few minutes before he did something that completely shocked the pants off of her. He reached out his left hand, that he wrapped around the back of her neck, and pulled her forward until his lips crashed into hers.
To say Adrian was shocked would've been the biggest understatement of the year.
She wasn't just shocked, she was floored.
Flabbergasted.
Never would she have imagined Daryl Dixon kissing her.
Okay, that wasn't true, she had imagined it plenty of times before, but she never thought it would actually happen.
His lips weren't as rough as she'd thought they'd be, a little dry but then again hers were surely chapped by now, so who was she to judge.
It was as that thought crossed her mind that she felt the warmth in her chest as her feelings for him broke free of the cage she had been keeping them in. She had so many feelings for him and they had all changed since she'd first met him at the camp outside of Atlanta.
She had found him mildly attractive at first but other than that she was indifferent toward him.
But then Sophia went missing and no one tried harder to find that little girl that Daryl Dixon had. Daryl had been out in the woods every day looking for her, had been badly injured searching for her.
But then after that day in the ravine her feelings toward him had changed from indifference to comradery. Not only had she fought hard to get him back to safety but he had allowed the help. He had been a little less brooding toward her after that day.
But then Sophia walked out of Hershel's barn full of walkers and it had crushed them all.
She knew that Daryl had felt that her being in there was his fault, a failure on his part. He thought that if he had just tried harder that she would've been okay, but in reality that poor girl had been bitten and dead before Carl had even been shot the next day. Nothing anybody said could've changed his mind about it though.
When he tried to pull away from the group and distance himself so he wouldn't care what happened to any of them, Adrian had refused to let him pull away from her. She felt the connection between them, and despite Daryl's efforts he already cared about what happened to the people on the farm.
Daryl wasn't good with words, they all knew that, but his actions spoke volumes.
Gifting the Cherokee Rose to Carol, giving her hope when she had lost faith that Sophia would ever be found, and even sitting with the woman as she grieved her daughter. And then being there for Adrian when she needed company but not conversation. All those times he let her stay at his camp because she didn't want to be around the others. Sitting with her while she had been unconscious with a concussion because he had been worried, although he would never admit it, and even offering her the quiet comfort of sharing his tent after Dale had died.
Adrian's feeling toward him had changed a little while on the farm, but she had been dealing with so many other emotions that she hadn't even noticed. But she had noticed how much her feelings toward him had changed during their life on the road over the last 6 months. It was little by little but after a while those little bits piled up.
Adrian had really gotten to know Daryl while living on the run and the more she learned and watched, the more attractive he became, and not just physically. Although his looks were nothing to shake a stick at, it was the man underneath all of his gruff and bluster that she had come to care for so much.
He had changed so much, from not wanting to care about any of them to caring immensely for all of them.
He was the first to volunteer to look for food and water, to scout ahead for a safe place they could sleep for the night.
He offered Rick advice when he was asked and had even started teaching Rick how to hunt properly.
He had been there through the worst of her depression after the farm, offering her quiet comfort, and even sometimes physically letting her know that he as there for her.
All of her thoughts brought on so many emotions for this man that she couldn't hold them back and she did the only thing she could think of to show him how she felt. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and kissed him back, hard. The kiss was a little awkward at first, their rhythm was off, but once they finally synced up, it was a kiss that damn near made her swoon, and she had never swooned a day in her life.
Adrian had to give Daryl credit, the man may be as socially awkward as they come, but he knew how to kiss the breath out of her. Adrian pushed herself up onto her knees, which caused Daryl to break their kiss and fall backward, but Adrian wasn't done with him yet. She quickly straddled his waist and did as he had done to her by grabbing him by the back of his neck and pulling him up to meet her now demanding lips.
Adrian kissed him deeply, pouring her feelings into the kiss. Adrian had been told that she was a biter in the past and she realized that was true, considering she was teasing Daryl by nibbling on his bottom lip. Turns out that Daryl was a bit of a biter himself since he was returning the favor in earnest. Adrian firmly had her backside planted in Daryl's lap and could feel how hard he was but she knew just from the kiss alone that is was more of his body's reaction to what they were doing than from a desire to get her naked.
Adrian felt Daryl grip the back of her neck firmly before he flipped them over. Everything was perfect, until her right arm hit the floor and stars exploded behind her eyes, and not the good kind. Adrian broke away from the kiss and yelled loudly, gripping her dislocated shoulder. The heat of desire she had just been feeling was instantly gone and now all she felt was pain radiating from her shoulder, tears streaming down her face.
Daryl was cursing, having forgotten about her injury. He had been so relieved that her injury was just a dislocation instead of a bite that he hadn't even thought about his actions before he was kissing her. And now he felt absolutely helpless because he didn't know how to reset bones.
"Do you know how to fix it?" Daryl asked her, not moving from his position above her.
"Yeah, resetting the bone generally helps." she gasped, tears still falling down her face.
"You know what I meant, damn it." he growled at her, now was not the time for her sassy mouth.
"I know how to fix it in theory, but I've never done it before and I'm sure as hell not about to try it out on myself." she told him, rolling onto her left side as she gently rocked back and forth, hoping that maybe the soothing motion would help with the pain but it wasn't.
"We need to get you back to Hershel so he can fix you up." Daryl told her and he moved to sit at her side, not wanting to touch her and make the pain worse. Adrian barked out a short laugh before she cut herself off with a deep groan of pain.
"What the hell could possibly be funny about this?" he asked her.
"Just having a de ja vu moment. I feel like we've had this conversation before." she said as she let out a breathy laugh.
"We can't leave in the dark, it'd be suicide to try to get back to them right now. We'll have to stay here for the night and head back in the morning." she told him.
She knew he wanted to get her back to Hershel, to do something to help her, but they couldn't be reckless or they'd both die.
"Well we can't do nothing. What can we do to stop it from getting worse 'til we can get back to Hershel?" he asked her, needing to help somehow.
"It'd probably be best to bind my arm to my body to keep movement to a minimum but we don't have anything to do that with and we can't spare any of our clothes to use as binding, so there isn't much we can do right now." she told him.
"Help me up." she said, panting from the pain.
Daryl helped her up, and with a lot of moaning and groaning in on her part, to the closest wall for her to lean against. Adrian opened her eyes and could just barely make out his face from the dim moonlight shining in from the windows and she didn't like the look on his face. It was determined and Adrian was positive that she wouldn't like whatever he was planning in that head of his.
Daryl abruptly stood up and walked over the the flashlight that was still sitting by the corner she had been in earlier.
"I'll be back." he grunted as he reached for the door.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?" she demanded.
"I'm goin' to get somethin' to bind your arm with." he said.
"Daryl, you can't go out there, it's too reckless, even for you!" she yelled at him, afraid that if he left he may not make it back to her.
"I can't just sit around here and do nothin'! I can do somethin' to help and I'm gonna do it, even if it is reckless!" he yelled at her, more from frustration than anger.
"What if you don't come back, huh?! What am I gonna do then? I can't fight! I can't do this on my own! I need you to help me!" she yelled at him.
Daryl was about to yell at her for being dramatic until he seen the fear on her face. He walked back over to her and kneeled down in front of her. He cupped the back of her head and gently placed his forehead against hers, hoping the contact would help her calm down. She reached out with her left hand and fisted it into his shirt.
Once her breathing had calmed down a bit he pulled away and looked her straight in the eyes. "I need to do this. You didn't let anything stop you from helpin' me back in that ravine and I'm gonna do the same for you now. I know what I can do to help you, so let me do it. I'm comin' back, I swear Adrian." he told her. Adrian looked into his eyes and seen he was begging her to understand that he had to do this.
Adrian took a deep breath before she slowly released it, nodding her head that she understood his need to do this for her.
"Come back safe." she told him. When he nodded that he would she released his shirt. He said nothing as he stood and walked out of the hunting blind. Adrian didn't know what to do with herself until Daryl got back so she decided to try to calm her mind enough to see if it would help some of the pain fade away. She took deep, soothing breaths as she tried to clear her mind.
It didn't help much with the pain but it did help to keep her focus on her breathing. She didn't know how long she had been doing it when she heard feet stomp onto the platform just outside of the blind. The door was pulled open and Adrian breathed a sigh of relief when she seen Daryl in the light of the flashlight he was using. He walked in and closed the door before she walked over to her and sat down beside her.
He pulled his pack off his back and started to pull something from his bag. Adrian seen that it was pretty much a pile of dirty, smelly rags.
"Jesus, where'd you get those things, off a walker?" she said as she put her hand over her nose.
"Yep. The one you killed at the bottom of the hill you fell down." he told her as he pulled his knife out and started cutting at the clothes. Adrian eyed the clothes he was cutting up when she finally realized his intension with the clothes.
"Oh, like hell I'm gonna let you wrap those smelly, infested clothes on me." she said loudly, sitting up straight, which caused her to moan in pain that the movement had caused.
"That's exactly what you're gonna let me do. You said we needed to bind your arm to keep it from movin' 'til we can get you back to Hershel so he can set your arm, so that's what we're gonna do." he told her as he put his knife away and grabbed a long strip of cloth. She glared at him because she knew he was right and throwing her words right back into her face at the same time. Daryl moved in front of her and she knew he was ready to help her bind her arm.
"How do I need to do this?" he asked her.
"We need to bind my arm, down to my elbow, to my side and then the rest of my arm needs to be in a sling." she told him.
When Daryl nodded that he understood she took a few deep breaths to help prepare herself for what was to come. She fisted the neck of his shirt so she could have a grip on something because she knew that if she kept her hand free she might punch him without meaning too. Daryl looked at her face as she tried to mentally prepare for what needed to be done.
"I'm going to scream, a lot, but don't you dare stop until you're done, do you understand me?" she told him.
"Got it." he told her.
She nodded at him, as prepared as she'd ever be. She quickly learned that no amount of preparing was enough for her to be ready for the agonizing and searing pain that she was feeling as Daryl tied the first piece of cloth. He put the cloth over her injured arm and across her chest, just under her breasts, crossed the pieces just under her left armpit and looped it back around to her injured arm. It wasn't so bad until he pulled on the cloth to tighten it as much possible before he tied that piece off. Adrian had given a short scream when he had first pulled on the cloth but then she turned her head into her left shoulder and bit down as hard as she could on her jacket, using the cloth to help muffle her screams because the last thing they needed was every walker within a mile finding them.
Daryl placed the second piece of cloth just above her elbow and repeated the process. Daryl then pushed her hand into her stomach to let her know to keep it there, which she did. He then did something to complicated for her pain filled mind to understand with the third piece before he made a simple sling with the last piece. Adrian was no longer screaming but she was silently crying, sweating, and shaking from the pain.
She was trying to breath through the worst of it when she heard the deep rumble of Daryl's voice but not really understanding the words. Adrian didn't know what time it was but she was damn tired, whatever the time. Daryl had suggested they get some sleep since there was literally nothing else they could do. He put his pack on the floor to use as a pillow and let Adrian use his left arm as a pillow as he placed his right arm around her hips so he could help to keep her from moving in her sleep. It took a few minutes before he heard her release a deep breath signally she had finally gotten comfortable.
"Thank you for finding me. You didn't have to come looking for me but you did, so thank you for that." she mumbled in the darkness.
"It's what we do, we watch watch each others backs no matter what." he mumbled back.
"Get some sleep. It's gonna be a long trip gettin' back to everybody tomorrow." he told her but she didn't hear him because she had already fallen asleep.
TWD
Adrian's sleep had been fitful at best the night before. She was in a bad mood to end all bad moods by the time her feet touched the ground the next morning. She had a list as long as her forearm of things that were the cause of her bad mood and she was sure that list was only going to get longer as the day went on.
They had been lucky to not run into any walkers during their miles long hike back to the little shack the group had last been camped in. The shack was empty when they got there but Daryl's bike was thankfully still there and Daryl had the map that marked the group's next possible location if the group got chased away before they got back. Adrian was sure it was funny to watch them try to figure out and maneuver it so Adrian could safely ride behind Daryl without falling off of the bike since she only had one working arm.
Adrian had finally suggested that they tie each other together with the cloth that was acting as her sling to help even the odds that her bum arm had created. Daryl hadn't liked taking her sling but she had managed to convince him into using it by telling him that a sling was useless when her arm was going to be stuck between their bodies anyway. Daryl finally caved and used her sling to tie them together once they were ready to drive away to find the rest of their group.
They had gotten extremely lucky that the group hadn't gone far from their last location so it hadn't been as bad as Adrian and Daryl had thought it might be trying to reconnect with the group. Everyone had been in a complete and utter tizzy when Adrian and Daryl pulled up to the little hovel that the rest of their vehicles were parked in front of.
Daryl managed to save Adrian from a wave of hugs and tears by stopping everyone from getting to close to her by telling them that she was injured and needed to see Hershel immediately. They all piled inside the very tiny house and Adrian sat in a chair as Hershel untied all of her bindings and got as many of her clothes off as possible without her being half naked so he could look at her shoulder.
The entire shoulder was an utter mess. Black and blue bruises covered the entirety of her shoulder and they could all clearly tell that the joint was dislocated. Hershel said he could reset the arm but it would be extremely painful and was probably best if she wasn't awake for the procedure. None of them could safely think of a way to make her unconscious that didn't involve injuring her further, so awake it was.
Hershel told them that they should prepare the vehicles because they would need to leave once he had reset the bone because chances were Adrian was going to make a lot of noise due to the pain. Adrian had to give herself credit, she didn't scream as much as she thought she would as Hershel reset her arm, but it was just as painful, if not more so, than she had expected it might be.
Per Hershel's suggestion they had all piled up into the vehicles once her arm was reset and put into a makeshift sling. Hershel told her that without medication that she was in for a long and painful recovery.
Adrian had been right, the list of things that had put her in a bad mood that morning had just gotten longer.
I wanted to make a quick note to let everyone know that it may be a few weeks before I can update any more chapters. Reason being is that my current laptop is a complete piece of crap and I'm ordering a new one online and I have to make sure all my files work properly. But in my opinion this is a good chapter to have to leave off on.