You know, there is a reason why I love, love, LOVE big huge long reviews. Sometimes, they give us writers SUCH good ideas and I thank you, Halo, for that huge nice long review that gave me the inspiration I muchly needed in order to write either the next chapter or the one after that, I'm not sure yet, so yay - thank you! :)
Not much going on in this one . . . Daryl and Ethan harmlessly pushing each other's buttons in the beginning (like they always do) and Tessa and Wren slight bonding time at the end . . . kinda boring, really. Sorry, 'bout that, but the next chapters should be more exciting :)
Nevermind, I lied, it gets pretty awesome. Oh, and sorry for the cliffhanger ;)
DarylDixon'sLover: Yup. Cried a little while writing it, won't lie ha ha
NanamiYatsumaki: I like to think that Sam stayed with her because he genuinely loved her and he wanted to try and help her get over Daryl - that he still kinda feels something for her, despite Daryl being there - but as we all know, that came back and bit him in the ass, multiple times. Don't know why they stayed together though, might have to explore that in later chapters . . . money issues? Probably.
HaloHunter89: Oh I loved your review. Seriously, I did. And yes, it did give me a major idea that I will be putting into words fairly soon, so feel good - your helping me! And I'm glad you keep catching what I'm trying to portray. I wanted to portray, that yes, Tessa left him, but she never stopped feeling guilty about it - that it plagued her so badly throughout those thirteen-fourteen years they were separated. But remember, she didn't want that baby - she was having that baby to get Sam off her back, so . . . yeah, there was a little coldness there that I slipped in at the last moment because I thought it better portrayed how mechanical her life had become without Daryl. And your poor doggy! I feel so bad now ;)
"Ethan, come on now, enough of ya shit - it was a big word!"
Ethan couldn't stop laughing as he sat up in the passenger seat of the car with Daryl as his father continued to drive down the road in the general direction of the veterinary college, a grin plastered on his face. He ended up having to hold his sides as he only laughed harder at his father's words. He shook his head and glanced at him, mirth shining in his eyes. "Deddy, do you have any idea how much worse that makes it sound! 'It was a big word, so's I had to get Martin to translate it for me!'" He spoke, his voice lowering to mimic Daryl's and he shook his head then, his laughter trailing off gleefully as Daryl gave him a look.
"Yeah, well, sorry Ethan if ya old man wasn' exactly a scientific whiz kid back in highschool! And Hell, I dare ya to try and read those fuckin' scientific medicinal names! In fact, fuck it - Martin, give him the list - we're gonna test this shit out now -!" He snapped and Martin smiled and shook his head and politely declined as he continued to sit there crammed in the back seat in-between Michonne and Tyrese. Sam sat in the back with the supplies and he gave a laugh as Ethan shook his head.
"Nah, deddy, that's fine - I don't want to have to hang something else over your head that tells everyone else that there's something else I'm better than you at." He told him with a shit-eating grin and Daryl gave him look of slight incredulity, his eyebrows disappearing up into his hairline as he did so.
"Ya pushin' it, kid, I swear to God ya are!" He pointed at him then. "Ya watch - next time we're huntin' in tha woods - its fuckin' on like Donkey Kong! First one to nail five squirrels in under five minutes wins -!"
Ethan gave a snort of derision. "Five squirrels in five minutes? Shit, deddy, I'll make 'em in three! You can spend the extra two minutes to scrape that egg of your face."
"Fine, ya want three ya little Dixon shit?" Daryl asked, a grin appearing on his face as well as him and Ethan let out identical laughs. "I'll lower it to just a minute, jus' 'cause ya gonna need tha extra two to differentiate that hole in tha ground from ya ass!"
Michonne and Martin grinned and laughed as they good-naturedly shook their heads at the harmless fight currently playing out between the two Dixons in front of them. Even Tyrese found himself smiling and when Michonne glanced back at Sam, upon seeing the expressionless look on his face as he had no choice but to listen to their words like the rest of them, she was drug back into reality when Martin chuckled and spoke, breaking up the two's fight as he did so.
"Look, I don't think this is necessary. Daryl, anyone could have messed up that word unless you had some type of medical training, so don't feel bad. Hell, there were doctors out there that I used to know, who couldn't even pronounce half the meds they prescribed to their patients!"
"Or scientific, he's right." Sam added with a slight smile and Daryl gestured back in his general direction as he directed his words towards Ethan.
"Ain' tha' what I said five seconds – scientific whiz kid?" He asked before shaking his head. "Ma entire highschool career, Ethan, was spent in shop class and workin' on cars – shit I could do with ma hands and which didn' take a whole lot of brain power to do – or at least a different kind of brain power, anyway. I wasn' exactly mixin' up shit in chemistry. I don' even think I took chemistry, come to think 'bout it . . ."
"That came later in your life, right?" Ethan grinned and Daryl immediately pinned a look on him.
"Who tha' fuck told ya 'bout tha'?" He asked him, his voice going slightly testy and cold and Ethan gave an indifferent shrug as he moved to prop his feet up on the dashboard in front of him.
"Truthfully, it wasn't that hard to guess, deddy. Momma left ya, ya lost ya job . . . makes sense you'd go Breaking Bad." Daryl gave a scoff.
"Yeah, well, I hate to burst ya bubble kid, but unlike tha' show, ya don' exactly have to be a chemistry genius to make tha' shit." He told him as he leaned over and began fiddling with the radio. Michonne gave a roll of her eyes from the backseat.
"Daryl, now what makes you think that the radio is gonna be working?" She asked him with a grin, and he ignored her as he nodded towards the dashboard that Ethan had his feet propped up on.
"Why don' ya hand me one of those CDs there?" He told him and Ethan nodded as he took down his feet and opened the dashboard, where he took out the black leather case and began thumbing through the CDs. His eyebrows furrowed in disgust as every second ticked by that he observed the CDs contained within.
"There's Fall Out Boy, Hinder . . . fuckin' Lady Gaga?" Ethan read before letting out a snort of disbelief. "Damn, Zach had absolutely no taste in music!" He muttered as Daryl gave him a slightly disgusted look and continued to fiddle with the radio.
"You mean there's no fuckin' rock in there?"
Ethan shook his head. "Nope. Not even fuckin' Motley." Daryl shook his head.
"Shit - everyone loves Motley -!"
"Wait, was that a voice?"
Martin was the one who interrupted Daryl in order to speak, immediately silencing everyone as Daryl quickly moved to retrace his steps with the radio. And eventually, slowly but surely, he managed to narrow it down to a couple of channels where the radio broadcast was coming in loud and clear. It was clearly a man speaking and they all shared looks of incredulity for a moment before Sam let out a loud curse from the back and latched onto the seat in front of him.
"Shit Daryl – look out!"
Michonne leaned forward and clasped a firm hand on Ethan's shoulder, keeping him back, as the car hit a walker lumbering across the road in front of them before he swerved to avoid another. The quick swerve caused the car to immediately begin to fishtail down the road and Daryl expertly maneuvered the machine through the motions before it grew safe enough to slam on the breaks. They came to a stop and sat there for a moment, catching their breathing and trying to still their frantically beating hearts. Michonne slowly let go of Ethan, but not before their hearts sunk down into the pits of their stomachs. A massive herd of walkers that separated them from continuing down the road towards the college, quickly came up on them, where they began pounding at the car, trying their damndest to find a way in.
Ethan swallowed nervously, as did everyone else there. "Uh . . . deddy, got any of those amazing ideas of yours?"
"Yeah - grab onto somethin'!"
Everyone promptly did as Daryl told them, before he slammed the car into reverse, turned around and then gunned the engine. The tires spun for a moment seeking traction, before they found it and propelled backwards. Ethan quickly latched onto the dashboard in front of him as he was thrown forward along with anyone else who hadn't immediately heeded Daryl's words.
Walked after walker collided violently with the car's back bumper and when they came to a stop, it was only because the back of the car was stuck on a pile of still moving corpses. Michonne quickly pointed, her mind not missing a beat. "Go to the left, Daryl – the left!"
Daryl nodded and popped the car into drive before hitting the gas pedal. The tires spun but didn't go anywhere as he simply ran the rubber into the faces of the walkers trapped underneath them. Daryl cursed violently before shooting a look at Ethan.
"This, Ethan, is why we need more Jeeps with lifts!" He told him and Ethan nodded in agreement.
"Tell ya what, deddy: I'll be sure to bring it up next council session. Now, how in the Hell do we get out of here?"
"We'll have to make a run for tha gaps right there," He told them while pointing towards the trees not that far away from the road. They nodded as they immediately got their weapons ready. Daryl's eyes locked with Ethan's before he wrapped a hand around his neck. "Ya stick with me, ya hear - almost to tha point where I expect ya to become ma livin' shadow! If we get separated, though, go with Michonne – don' go off on ya own – ya stick with one of us, okay?" He told him and Ethan nodded and swallowed hard before Daryl turned to gaze at all of them. "Ya'll make a run for tha woods and ya don' stop for nothin', ya understand?" He barked and everyone nodded as they grasped the door handles. They took a moment to collect themselves before Daryl nodded and popped out the glass of the sunroof above him.
"GO!"
The car doors were all opened simultaneously, with blades and bolts immediately sticking into decaying heads, only for walkers to fall dead to the ground as they all scrambled to get out of the car and then pulled their weapons free. Daryl slid down the front windshield of the car and pulled out the bolt he had shot through a now dead walker's head before he stabbed his knife through another unfortunate walker. He then made an immediate beeline for the others.
"Come on – go, go!'
He roughly pushed Ethan in front of him and they continued to fight a steady path through the walker horde surrounding them from all sides, Michonne by their side and Martin and Sam bringing up the rear as best they could. "Ya doin' good, Ethan - jus' keep goin'." Daryl told him, his breathing starting to tear ragged from his lungs with the energy it took to fight their way through. Ethan simply grin as he slammed the blade of his knife through a walker's head before yanking it free and kicking him away from him.
"That's the fifth one for me so far – how many you got, old man?" He asked and Daryl shot him a look, although a look of pride and amusement shone in his eyes nonetheless.
"Probably about four, but ya better watch out - tenderfoot - I'm catchin' up on ya -!"
"Look, I'm extremely sorry for interrupting your twisted father/son bonding moment, but can we please focus on surviving right now instead of making this a damn competition?" Sam snapped and Michonne nodded as she sliced off the head of a walker lumbering towards her.
"Yeah, I never thought I'd say this, but I think I agree with Sam right now." She grunted and Martin nodded as well as Daryl gave a shrug.
"Suit yaselves – but ya better move ya asses, 'cause we're almost there!"
Daryl immediately grabbed a rough hold of Ethan shirt before pulling him in the direction of the woods behind Michonne and Sam. It wasn't until they were almost at the break in the trees, that they started hearing Martin scream Tyrese's name.
"What tha fuck is tha' dumbass doin'?"
"Martin, come on!"
Martin was standing in the middle of a quickly growing herd of walkers as Tyrese . . . remained sitting in the car. Their eyebrows furrowed in bewildered confusion and the three people standing there shared mutual looks as Martin continued to fight off the walkers coming at him, while simultaneously shouting for Tyrese to hurry up and get out of the car.
Once Tyrese was finally out of the car, Martin stumbled towards them, Ethan grabbing ahold of him and pulling him to his feet. They stood there and helplessly watched for a moment as Tyrese slowly but surely found himself surrounded by hungrily moaning walkers. The big man was cutting down as many as he could, as quickly as he could while continuing to shout at them to 'go' as he did so and eventually, Daryl swallowed hard and clasped a hand on Ethan's shoulder, where he pulled him in the direction of the woods along with the others.
"Come on, there ain' nothin' we can do." He told them and they nodded in helpless agreement as they ran through the break in the trees, finding themselves on a beaten forest road seconds later. Not knowing where they were going – not really caring where they were headed – they slowed to a stop when they came to a clearing. Daryl bent down and reloaded his crossbow as the rest stood there and caught their breath, their eyes perpetually trained on the woods that they had come from, their heels hot with walkers.
It wasn't long before they heard walkers and when they came, snarling, from the trees, the five of them raising their weapons in preparation for battle, none of them were expecting to see Tyrese come barreling out of the treeline, not a scratch or bite on him and cutting down the walkers as he did so. He immediately collapsed to his knees in exhaustion and slight shock when he saw his friends and as Michonne quickly sliced off the head to the remaining walker, the rest ran over to him. Daryl and Ethan reached him first and both Dixons grabbed him by the shoulders and hefted him to his feet before quickly pulling him in the direction they had been going, not one of them wanting to turn around and see how many walkers were lumbering out of the woods behind them.
"Ya know what, deddy . . ." Ethan gasped out when they could eventually slow their pace to a fast walk instead of a near constant run and Daryl nodded as he glanced at him.
"Yeah . . .?" He asked as Ethan shook his head.
"I don't think those Jeeps with lifts is necessarily a bad idea, 'cause I do not wanna do that again – ever!"
Daryl gave a laugh then and nodded. "I'm tellin' ya . . . there ain' nothin' a Jeep can' do if ya trick it out right."
A sharp laugh caught their attention then and they all stopped and turned to look at Sam as he gave another laugh and shook his head. His hands moved to his hips as he gave a shrug. "Are you serious right now?" He asked him and Daryl's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Pretty damn - why?"
Sam shook his head. "We just got . . . inches away from getting our faces chewed off by a herd of fuckin' walkers and you fuckin' make a competition out of it?" He spoke and it took Daryl a moment to realize that he was directing his words towards Ethan instead of him. He turned a bewildered glance onto Ethan, saw the look of wide-eyed surprise on his son's face and then felt a roiling of anger when he saw the look of wide-eyed surprise replaced with one of sheepishness. He immediately twirled around and marched over to Sam, anger filling his eyes.
"Hey, ya need to watch it -!"
"And your no fuckin' better!" Sam interrupted him with a snap and a glare of anger that almost rivaled his own. "Fuckin' egging that shit on - making a twisted fuckin' father/son bonding thing out of it!" He shook his head. "You ain't teaching him anything, Daryl - your just showing him how to get cocky enough so that he can more easily get himself killed -!"
Daryl shook his head. "Motherfucker, how I raise ma kid is none of your business -!"
Sam let out a snort of sarcasm. "Oh well, that's rich considering you are simply picking up where I left off at!"
Daryl recoiled in slight shock for a moment and shook his head in incredulity, although he couldn't help but feel a flicker of respect for him now that he was finally growing a pair of balls. However, he was always trying to step out of that place that he had put him in and Daryl couldn't let that happen. He was King of his family's hill and he'd be damned in he'd let Sam think he could stand on it beside him.
Only one person could do that - only one person was his fuckin' equal in this world, and that was fuckin' Tessa.
Finally, and after thinking for a moment, he realized he had Sam's ticket, and only grinned evilly as he stepped closer to him, his face moving inches from his. Michonne and the others tensed, the scene before them immediately bringing to mind an Alpha wolf reasserting his dominance over a weaker male and Michonne would be lying if she said it wasn't a little bit amusing, if not prickly.
"Yeah . . . yeah, ya raised him, I'll give ya tha' . . ." His told him before trailing off, his grin becoming almost wolfish in its cruelty then and immediately, everyone tensed, feeling the heady, almost electric air that surrounded them. "But how does it feel knowin' tha' I was tha one who knocked her up? How does it feel knowin' tha' she had ma son in Ethan and then I knocked her up again - tha second time we slept together - and with twins too!"
His voice lowered still then, so that only they could hear, and he temporarily allowed his inner Merle to come out and play. "How does it feel havin' to live every day with the knowledge tha' she never has to fake it with me but she did all tha damn time with ya? Tha' every time ya ate her out or fucked her, she was thinkin' of me - fantasizin' of me? Tha' every time she "moaned" ya name, she was really screaming mine in her head?" He gave a grin and a laugh then. "How does it feel knowin' I did all of tha' and when ya never could - tha' ya could never compare to me!" He gave a laugh before shaking his head. He gave him a look of disgust then as his tone of voice went back to normal so that the others could hear them again. "So why don' ya do yaself a favor and put those teeth away and sit back down, ya impotent, pathetic excuse for a man!"
"Holy shit -!"
"Sam, I wouldn't - fuck!"
Daryl felt pain explode in his jaw as Sam's fist collided roughly with it and he stumbled backwards, his hand immediately flying to cradle it as he became immediately shocked at just how hard the guy could hit. For the love of God, Daryl was pretty sure he had popped his jaw out of place!
Sam shook his head as he also shook out his hand but immediately felt his heart sink when Daryl turned his eyes onto him, a look of pure, almost psychotic anger in his eyes. His hand that was still holding his jaw, roughly popped it back into place and he winced slightly at the sharp pain but then shook his head as he began a quick march over to him.
"Oh ya son-of-a-bitch, ya better throw much harder punches than those mosquito bites if ya wanna get me on ma ass after the ones I got from ma old man! Now come here - I'll show ya how a man punches!"
"What have you been thinking so much about lately?"
Tessa heaved a sigh as she turned to gaze at Wren sitting on the desk across from her in the little quarantined administrative office that would be their home until Daryl and the others arrived back with the antibiotics. The both of them were sitting there, relaxing and completely bored out of their minds as the twins slept soundly in the crib not that far away from them. She gave a shrug and a small smile.
"Just . . . my past has been haunting me a little lately and I don't know why. A lot of it is shit I don't want to remember, too, so that's always a magnificent plus."
"Is it because Sam's back?" Wren asked in interest, and she gave another shrug.
"I don't know. Possibly . . ." She admitted before trailing off and turning her eyes onto the door, where she observed the blurry world beyond the glazed glass window. She moved to rub her face with her hands then. "That or I'm just . . . really, really worried for Daryl and Ethan. Twelve hours in a direction that's been known to be crawling with walkers . . ." She shook her head and gave a dry laugh. "I'm pretty sure I have a right to be worried!"
"They'll be fine. They're with Michonne and the others, so it's not like they're alone." Tessa nodded slowly at her words, having no choice but to glumly agree.
"Yeah, but they're also with Sam, and Daryl . . ." She gave another dry laugh. "Daryl isn't exactly known for his restraint when he's around him."
"Well, in Daryl's defense, Sam doesn't exactly do all he can to curb that anger." Wren told her with a laugh as she moved to cross her legs on the desk, and Tessa nodded again in agreement.
"You're right, he doesn't. I don't know why, either . . . personally, if I knew Daryl hated my guts and wanted nothing more but to rip my head from my shoulders, I'd do all I could appease him, not egg him on!" Wren gave her a smile.
"Easy for you to say – you know how to calm Daryl down!" She told her and Tessa slowly shook her head.
"Daryl's a Dixon, Wren. Once a Dixon gets mad, there ain't no calming him down. Merle and Will were the same way – Will only made it worse by drinking and Merle . . ." She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Merle was always a jackass. And even Daryl's uncle Jess could have an anger issue if you pushed him too much," She sighed. "Anger problems run in that family, Wren - they always have - and I've raised Ethan well enough to know that although he might not actively show it, his anger is there, he's just better at controlling it than his father and uncle and grandfather. However, you push him enough . . ." She trailed off and gave a snort of laughter. "You better be runnin' 'cause that kid's anger rivals a bull seeing red!" She told her before giving her a small smile then. "So, here's my advice to you: if you marry into this illustrious deep Southern family, little girl, like I know you are, then you better know that when the Dixon men get angry, your best bet is to avoid them and let them calm down. Don't get in the middle of 'em, don't try and calm them down . . ." She trailed off again and Wren gave her an interested look.
"You do." She told her and Tessa grinned and let out a laugh as she nodded.
"Yeah . . . yeah, you're right, I do - out of stupidity or not, I've never figured out. But, I do know that Daryl would rather rip out his own throat than hurt me trying to get at someone, so yeah . . ." She shrugged and trailed off then and they stayed silent then, especially when they heard the tiny knock tha came at the glass of the door.
"Hey, Tess, are you in there?"
Tessa's eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion at Maggie's voice that came through the door and she nodded as she stood and moved over to the door. She could just make out the younger woman's short brown hair and blurred features in the glass and she smiled. "Yeah, Maggie, I'm here; what do you need?"
"I'm just checking up on everyone; do you guys have everything you need?" She asked and Tessa nodded again as she glanced at Wren still sitting on the desk behind her, who also nodded.
"Yeah, we do. Was that it?" She asked and Maggie stayed silent for a moment before she saw her shake her head through the blurry glass.
"I'm . . . I'm worried about Glenn, Tess. What if he . . . what if he goes and I'm not there to say goodbye?" She asked as she gave one of those sniffs that either walked hand-in-hand with sobs or heralded them. Tessa's heart immediately went out to the younger woman, knowing well how she felt. She worried the same thing about Daryl – about Daryl and Ethan.
"I'm . . . I'm worried about Daryl and Ethan too, Maggie – so I know what your feeling right now. Hell, we're all worried about someone right now. But we gotta be strong – Daryl, Glenn, Ethan, your father – they'd all want us to be strong right now." Maggie nodded and gave a little laugh.
"You sound like Beth." She told her and Tessa gave a little laugh as well.
"Yeah, well . . . she's speaking the truth, whether we want to hear it or not. We gotta stay strong - we can't be weak right now. You guys okay out there too?" She asked and Maggie nodded.
"Yeah – as good as we can be, I suppose. Carl has security handled and Mikey is feeling a little sick but he thinks all it is, is a little food poisoning from eating one of those cans of beans we had." She told her and Tessa nodded, feeling her heart sink slightly, for a moment fearing the sickness that had taken so many and incarcerated them in Death Row. She heard Maggie tell her the symptoms and she released that uneasy breath in a breath of relief. She nodded.
"Yup, he's right – he's just got a little stomach bug. If it gets any worse, though, you need to tell me, okay? With Hershel and Dr. S in Death Row with the others, I suppose I'm the closest thing you got to a doctor in here, huh?" She spoke with a laugh and Maggie replied with an equal laugh, as well as another nod.
"Yeah, you are and even then what you have is experience!" She muttered and Tessa gave another laugh as well before she gave a confident nod.
"Things will be fine Maggie, I promise. Daryl and the others will be back with the antibiotics in a little under twelve hours and then we can focus on curing the others. Then, we can move on."
"How can you make a promise like that, though, Tess? How do you know things will be okay?" She asked her, and Tessa swallowed hard.
"I don't know, but what I do know – and from personal experience, too - is that sometimes, hope is all you have left to keep you going. And right now, Maggie, if I didn't hope and with how much I'm worrying about Daryl and my son out there - I wouldn't be going right now!"
