Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

Chapter 4

More people are following! YAY! I decided to do a Rick/Lori scene before Dale told him and Shane that Jewel needed help. Just to remind everyone that Rick and Lori were separated and probably would have been divorced by now. And, in my head Shane and Lori were doing something before this. This makes it easier for it to be 'over' between them. Then Daryl shows up! So I apologize if any characters are OCC. I'm doing my best but the accents, they are hard!

Rick walked up to where Lori was hanging clothes. "Carl up yet?" he asked.

"He's helping Sophia gather laundry," Lori told him. "I had expected you to come to the tent last night."

Rick looked at her. "You made it perfectly clear a while ago that you and I were done," he told her.

"You were shot, the world ended, thought maybe we could talk," Lori told him. "You didn't go through hell just to get back to your family for nothing."

Rick looked at her and stepped closer to her. "I'm not dumb Lori," he said lowering his voice. "You and Shane. When you asked me to leave, don' you think I put two and two together? My best friend and my wife?" he asked. "Yes, I fought to get back to Carl, and to you. You are his mother and I will never forget that. For him we need to get along, but you and me the way it was, it's dead. It's been dead for a while and you can't deny that."

"I swear to you that Shane and I never…not until after," Lori told him as he kept her voice down.

"But how long would it 'ave been if the word didn't end Lori? If I hadn't been shot? You were thinking' bout it. I've accepted it, I can pretend, for our son's sake you and I are best friends. I can pretend, for the sake of this camp, that there's nothing wrong between Shane and me. But, for you and I goin' back to what they were back a year ago, that's not goin' to happen Lori. So please, for Carl's sake, let's be civil," Rick told her. "Out here we need to show him a united front, Lori."

Lori started to say something before Dale cleared his throat. "Rick, I hate to interrupt, but there's a problem."

Rick looked up. "What is it Dale?"

"Jewel's got a knife to Kaden Armstrong's throat, he was tryin' to sneak into her tent, presumably to see if Summer was alone," Dale told the other man.

"Shane," Rick called out.

"Yeah?" the other man questioned as he came around the tents.

"Dale says there's a problem with a guy named Armstrong," Rick reported.

Shane grabbed his gun. "Worse of a problem then Merle Dixon. Let me guess, he's snooping around there tents? First night of camp, he cornered Summer, I thought that between Merle, Daryl and Jewel, he'd be tied up. If his two litt' brothers didn' pop out of the car when they did, he would have been dead," he explained.

Rick nodded. "Seems I got here right in the knick of time," he told the other man.

Jewel and T Dog looked at each other as they heard the scream of the boy and both took after Rick.

"Mom!" the boy yelled as he ran to Lori.

"Carl you OK?" Rick asked his son as the rest of the group gathered around.

"I've got him!" Lori said as the group ran in the direction Carl came from.

They all stop as they see a walker eating the carcass of a deer, arrows sticking out the end. "Uncle Daryl is close," Summer whispered to her mother as she joined them.

The walker turned and came after them, Rick, Shane, Glenn, Jim, and Morales start to beat on it with their objects. Dale finished it off by chopping its head off with an axe as he looked shocked.

"It's the first one we've had up here. They never come this far up the mountain," Dale told the group.

"Well, they're running out of food in the city, that's what," Jim told them as they heard branches snap and footsteps approach.

Summer and Jewel exchanged knowing glances before Daryl came out of the woods.

"Oh Jesus," Dale mumbled.

"Son of a Bitch. That's my deer. Look at it, all gnawed up by this filthy, disease bearing motherless poxy bastard," Daryl yelled as he kicked the walker.

"Well in all fairness Uncle Daryl, you don't know if he was motherless 'fore this," Summer said as she tried to make a joke.

Jewel glanced at her daughter before she took a breath. "Daryl, calm down, you're gonna bring more of those things up here."

"She's right, son, that's not helping," Dale told him.

"What do you know about it, old man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to "on golden pond"? I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?" Daryl asked.

"I would not risk that," Shane answered.

Daryl sighed. "Damn shame. I got some squirrel, that'll have to do."

Summer glanced at Jewel. "I'll take it back to camp, Uncle Daryl."

Daryl looked at her as he handed it to her. "You in trouble with your Uncle Merle or your momma?" he asked the teen as the head of the walker came back to life.

"Oh God!" Amy exclaimed as Summer jumped back before Daryl shot it with one of his arrows.

"It has to be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?" Daryl asked as he turned back to Summer who was already on her way back to camp with the squirrels and Amy. "She in trouble?" he asked Jewel.

"No, actually been pretty tame for a 15 year old moody teen with Dixon blood, livin' in a world where the dead come back to life," Jewel answered as they walked away. She gave Rick a backward glance as to say 'now would be a good time as any.'

"Where's Merle?" Daryl questioned. "Merle! Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up," he yelled at his brother.

Jewel took a breath. "Daryl…" she said.

"Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you," Shane told him.

Daryl looked at Jewel then at Shane "About what?" he asked.

"About Merle, there was a problem in Atlanta…." Shane started to explain.

"Is he dead?" Daryl asked.

Jewel took a breath. "They don't know," she told her older brother.

"What do you mean they don't know?" Daryl asked his sister. "He either is or isn't," he told the group.

Rick took a breath and went forward. "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it," he told Daryl as he reached out his hand.

Daryl turned his attention to the newcomer. "Who are you?"

"Rick Grimes," he introduced himself.

Daryl looked at him. "Rick Grimes you got something to tell me?" he asked.

"Your brother was a dangerous to us all, so I handcuffed him to a piece of metal. He's still there," Rick told Daryl.

Jewel ran her hand through her hair. "Doesn' sound any better the second time then it was the first time you said it."

Daryl looked at Rick. "Hold on let me process this. You're sayin' that you handcuffed my brother to a roof and left him there?"

Rick nodded. "Yeah," he answered.

Daryl rushed to him ready to attack him, Rick pushes him off.

"Daryl! Calm down!" Jewel yelled at him.

"Hey watch the knife!" T Dog yelled as Daryl took out his knife.

Shane grabbed Daryl from the back and put him in a choke hold pulling him back.

"Let him go!" Summer yelled.

"OK OK, you need to calm down, you're scaring your niece," Shane told him.

"You're the one who has my Uncle in a choke hold you prick!" Summer yelled at him.

"Summer," Jewel warned as she held up her hand.

"You best let me go," Daryl warned him.

"Nah, I think it's better if I don't," Shane told him.

"Daryl, please just listen," Jewel begged.

Daryl glanced at Jewel. "Choke hold's illegal," he told Shane.

"You can file a complaint," Shane told him. "Come on man, we can keep this up all day," Shane told him.

Rick bent down in front of him. "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think you can manage that? Not for your sake, but for your sister and your nieces. Do you think you can manage that?" he asked.

"Please Daryl," Jewel begged as she rubbed Summer's back.

Daryl nodded. "Fine," he said.

Shane let him go. "What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and play well with others," Rick told him.

"Didn' Jewel try to tell you that Shane?" Daryl asked.

"I already pointed that out," Jewel answered.

"It's not Rick's fault, I had the key and I dropped it," T Dog told him.

Daryl looked at him. "You couldn't pick it up?"

T Dog looked at him. "Well, I dropped it down the drain."

"Is that suppose' to make us feel better? Cause it really doesn't, well not for me anyway," Summer told the man.

"It doesn' me either," Daryl assured his niece.

Jewel took a breath. "T Dog said he locked the door, with a padlock, so the walkers couldn't get to him," she told her brother as she tried to diffuse the situation.

T Dog nodded. "That's got to count for something."

"Hell with y'all! Just tell me where he is so I can go get him!" Daryl yelled at him.

"I'll go with you, he's my uncle," Summer said.

Daryl and Jewel exchanged glances. "No you're goin' to stay here with your momma," Daryl told her.

"I'll show you," Rick told him.

Jewel gave a nod. "Let's go take a walk, Daryl. Calm down for a few minutes," she told her brother.

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