I'm going to warn you now, There is a little smidgen of Black humor in this chapter, right around Amy's death. I have been watching too many Comedy skits on facebook. It is also where I got the idea of people not liking too many Zombie bashing scenes and how the it would potintually bore people if over used. Thus, the meantioning of boredom. I thought, if people find Zombie bashing boring just watching, imagine what people would be feeling if they were living it for several months... Thus, my peeps are bored of killing zombies now and finding the world to be a little... meh without society advancing.
~Loner
"I go by Aiden, now," Aiden respond moments later when it came obvious that Daryl wasn't going to say anything else. "It's my legal name." Aiden lifted his feet up onto the cot with a relieved sigh. Finally, a break. "Got to say," Aiden idly said as he leaned back into the bundle of cloth acting as his pillow, "it took you a lot longer than I calculated. What happened?"
Daryl, meanwhile, stood staring at Rick, who seemed to be having a panic attack in front of him as Ace was babbling away in his ear. T-dog was at the man's side asking "what happened?" as Glenn ruffled in though the drawers and cabinets, looking for something, anything, to help. When Ace's question finally registered in his brain, Daryl found himself crashing back down into his body with a full body trimmer, feeling the thick slime sliding slowly down his body to merge with the floor beneath him. "Rick," Daryl shook his head, ridding himself of the last of the weightlessness air in his head, "seems to be having a panic attack."
Daryl could hear Ace sitting up in his cot from the amount of static the motion caused. "Rick, fucking, Grimes?!" Ace sounded shocked, almost as if he knew the guy in front of him. "He is alive?" the tone turned breathless towards the end.
Daryl snorted at the question. "Not if we don't get him breathing properly." The ex-cop was starting to look a little faint, even to Daryl.
Daryl heard Ace sigh in frustration. "If it is a panic attack, then he will be fine. If he passes out, his body will naturally start breathing again on its own." Daryl tense muscles relaxed at that comment. If Ace said Rick was going to be okay, then he would be.
Kneeling down in front of Rick's gasping body; Daryl took a few minutes to look the man over. He wasn't sure what exactly set off the attack. Rick had a look of panic in his eyes as the man tried, and failed, to suck in the previous, as contaminated as it was, oxygen around him. Taking pity on the man, Daryl asked, "How do we stop it?"
Aiden tilted his head, a little curious about the emotion he could hear in Daryl's voice. When was the last time Rick has had a panic attack? He tried to remember. Why and what did he do to stop it? It seemed like ages ago, now. It was stress induced, wasn't it? The man spent so long pushing his own emotions to things off, ignoring his own mentality, until, finally, Rick's body just took things into its own hands. If Aiden had to compare it to something: it was like a computer crashing. First the body lags, then a function in the brain stops sending signals to the body. Eventually, the body gives out, forcing a reboot on the brain. "Well," Aiden started with that thought in mind, "first, you have to get him to calm down." Only when the computer isn't overloaded, can it function properly. Normally, the user could do this by hitting the 3 key option on the keyboard and ending the task. With a human, however, you would need to talk about something calming, usually positive situations that pushed all the negativity out.
"No shit." Aiden clicked his tongue at the sarcastic comment. "How do we do that?"
Aiden groaned in frustration. Was he not speaking English? It was irritating when you were the only one who understood the situation and weren't there to fix it. "Talk to him, idiot." Aiden ignored Daryl's angry huff.
"'Bout what?"
Was he really about to give a lesson on social interaction over the phone? The only other opinion available was to do it himself, but over the phone? To a man who was undoubtedly too worked up at the moment to hold anything let alone a phone on his own. Aiden debated his options. By now, Rick was probably seeing spots, possibly tunnel vision due to the lack of air in his lungs.
Aiden sighed in defeat, running a hand through his graying black hair. "Just hold the phone up to his ear, Baby doll." He was calling on Daryl's softer side with the nickname. The side of Daryl that listened to Ace's every demand regardless of Daryl's normal routines.
Daryl pursed his lips, biting them from the inside to keep them closed. Slowly, with reluctance, Daryl moved the phone, lining the speaker up with Rick's ear as best as he could. Already, he was feeling the loss. It had been so long since he had been able to hear Ace's- Aiden, he suddenly remembered, voice, he had almost forgotten just how smooth it could be. Idly, Daryl wondered what Ace's- yeah, the name Aiden wasn't going to stick, looked like now. Did the man look as tired as he sounded? Why was Ace so tired? Obviously, he wasn't alone. So, who was still with him? Daryl had a lot of questions.
As these thoughts filtered through his brain, Daryl watched Ace work his magic through the phone. Rick's breathing gradually slowed down to a more normal rate and the panic in the man's gray eyes gave way to a more dazed look. Daryl didn't need to know what Ace was talking about. He already knew; had been victim to Ace's smooth words more times than he could count. It was with a bit of jealousy that Daryl was looking at Ace's other lover: Rick, fucking, Grimes. Daryl really didn't know how he felt about that revelation. "Yer married." It had left Daryl's lips before he could even process the fact. "With kids."
Rick's eyes snapped to Daryl as if taking the kid in for the first time. "He says, 'you've always been smarter than everyone else.'" Rick paused; listening to Ace's words again, gray eyes dropping to the floor. Rick listened with such intensity, Daryl noted. "Yes, Sir," the man quietly replied. The words were so low, Daryl doubted anyone else besides him, who was literally arm's length from the older man, could hear them. Rick's eyes snapped back to Daryl. "Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir." The pure sincerity in those statements alone sent shivers down Daryl's spine. Was that what he sounded like when he was with Ace? No wonder Merle kept telling him to cut it out.
Then, Rick was reaching up, pushing the phone back towards Daryl. "I'm fine, Daryl. Thank you." Rick stood up from the ground with a groan.
Sometime during the whole episode, T-dog and Glenn had left the room. When, Rick wasn't sure. Having panic attacks tend to do that to you, Rick couldn't think of anything other than the need to breathe. At some point during the attack, you can't pay attention to others anymore. Even now, Rick only vaguely remembered what Ace had said in his ear. Even that, though, was fading with the traces of the attack, leaving behind the faint smell of motor oil and, strangely, his wife's vanilla soap his senses. Lethargically, Rick made his way towards the cot in the corner.
"Is he asleep?" Aiden asked through the phone after a few minutes.
Daryl hummed in confirmation, backing away from the cot to the furthest corner of the room. He reached over and turned off the radio, developing the room in semi-silence. The world was devoid of life, leaving faint the sound groaning and hissing, a sound that seemed to be a constant white noise in the background these days as the world of the dead grew. "What was that?" Daryl asked quietly, subconsciously keeping his voice down as to not disturb the man sleeping in the opinion corner. The whole scene had scared the shit out of him, not that he would admit it later. In his 23 years of life, Daryl had never come across something like what he had witnessed.
Aiden yawned, feeling his internal battery slowly leaking away now that he was in his cot. The shock of the situation bleeding away what little energy he had left for the day. "Rick's…" his voice was faint from exhaustion, "father was a cop. So, Rick became a cop for his dad. Something about making him proud. But, Rick" here, Aiden let out a yawn, unavailable to mask it anymore, "isn't built mentality to handle the pressure. His coping measures are: basically push everything to the back of his mind and focus on the situation." Aiden shifted a bit on the cot, uncomfortable but unwilling to move. The cloth under his head was too bulky and the fabric underneath his body making up the cot was itchy and kept sticking to his skin. It was too hot in the warehouses without the central AC though to put down or wear more fabric, though. "Over time," Aiden continued when he gave up, "the issues in the back piles up and spills over, overloading his brain. Thus, panic attack."
Daryl looked over at Rick. "Should he be out here?" By here, Daryl meant in the middle of the Walker's territory, protecting his back.
Aiden, however, thought Daryl meant 'should Rick be out in an apocalypse?' "Honestly, no," he said tiredly. "Rick has fucked up his own mentality too much to be able to deal with situations healthily. It will catch up to him eventually. When is anyone's guess, though. Could be tomorrow. Could be a year from now…" Aiden didn't have all the answers in life. He was just well diversified in the things he did know. "I do know, though," he continued, "he'll get the job done. It's how he justifies himself."
What Daryl was hearing was: he had a guy here, who could potentially have a psychotic break down at any point. Great. Would have been nice to have known that before he allowed the man to be signed up to go into the city with him. "So, then…" Daryl paused, trying to form the words to his question, "how do I keep it from happening?" Because, Daryl was now depending on this guy to get out alive.
Aiden opened his eyes, wondering when he had closed them, taking in the rusted ceiling above his cot. That roof is going to leak in the spring, he thought absently to himself, making another mental note to move his cot by then if he could remember. "The next panic attacks?" he steered himself back on track, "That I know of, Rick gets relief through sexual release." He was pretty blunt about it.
Daryl groaned in despair. Of course, it would be the one thing he couldn't- wouldn't do. "I'm fucked then."
Aiden chuckled. The double meaning in that statement was both hot and funny to him for some reason. "Well, I'm not sure how Rick would accept that offer, but you could try. He is rather fun in the bedroom. At least, from my experience."
"Disgusting." Daryl had always known Ace had other lovers, but he had never had any interest in meeting or sleeping with one. "'Sides, he is married, Ace... With a kid." That in itself was a red flag to Daryl. Even if Daryl had intentions of sleeping with one of Ace's partners, Rick wouldn't be on the list of accepted simply because the man was married.
Aiden shrugged, shoulder jostling the phone in the motion. He never said no to sex when it was offered. Honestly, with his short frame, Aiden didn't have many opportunities to say no. It was rare that someone was interested. The modern world was just that shallow. "It's not like he gets it from her anyway." An excuse for his behavior, even to his own ears. "Besides, she was sleeping around first. Clearly, it was a failing marriage." And, Aiden took advantage of that fact. "The child, what's his name, again? Coral?" Aiden couldn't remember at the moment. Any case, he thought sluggishly, "the kid doesn't seem to mind too much." Aiden wondered if the child was taller than him yet. Weird thoughts invaded your mind when you were beyond tired.
"O' course you met the kid."
"A few times." Aiden's eyes slipped closed again. "More like he met me." Aiden remembered constantly having to tell Rick to keep an eye on the child. "I think, I should go…" he said when he realized he couldn't open his eyes anymore. That one action seemed to take too much energy, all of the sudden. "End the call for me…" Just as his mind drifted off, Aiden suddenly pushed out, "Hey, Darlina…" because he didn't know when he was going to be able to say it again, "I love you."
Daryl frowned as he listened to Ace's even breathing. For some reason, he was beginning to hate it when Ace said that. The words themselves filled his soul but the situations that usually occurred those words were said… Daryl, suddenly, was filled with an ominous feeling. A thick dark cloud settled on his back, causing his shoulders to sag forward under the weight. Well, fuck.
Realization set in to the returning group as a piercing scream cut through the air around them. A high pitched blood curling scream settled deep into their ears. One of the children from the camp! They recognize immediately.
"Was that Sophia?" Glenn asked the others, wide eyed.
Then, Rick was, unnecessarily, pulling Daryl into a run. "Let's go."
Daryl frowned at Rick's actions, shaking the man's calloused hand off him. He made a show of throwing his crossbow onto his back, pulling out a knife instead as he ran with the others. He had noticed Rick's sudden attachment to him back in the office building, after the man woke up. Daryl hadn't said anything then, too wrapped up in trying to get the guns and, later, saving Glenn. However, it seemed it had progressed into a subconscious clinging to his person. Daryl didn't like people, other than Ace, grabbing at him.
Upon reaching the camp, Rick and Daryl didn't hesitate. They, both, flew out of the surrounding bushes; Daryl plunging his knife through a nearby Walker; Rick putting a bullet into the Walker a few feet away. They were already putting down their next target when Glenn and T-dog decided to join the two. Rick providing Glenn cover when he realized Glenn was trying to defend and herding a trio of children to the RV stationed on the other side of the camp.
"Everyone thinks they know what they would do in a life or death situation when they had never been in one. "Oh, I would so go in gun's blazing," they would usually say. The truth is, unless they were there, no one knows what would happen. It happens so suddenly, you just react. There wasn't any time for logical reasoning." Aiden found himself, mic in hand as the people in the background moved quickly in their tasks. Papers were being hastily snatch up, equipment hurriedly hauled out. Soon, Aiden would be the only one sitting at the empty table that, at one time, served as his desk in the communications warehouse.
Daryl quickly pulled little Sophia out of the way of a Walker her father had pushed the girl towards, striking the groaning… thing in the head with the blade of the knife. In one smooth action, Daryl swung around his crossbow, putting down the Walker aiming to take a chunk out of Carol as the woman screamed for her child. He ignored the one sinking it's teeth into Ed, the husband and father, as he ushered the two towards the group Glenn was herding to the RV. It all happened in an instant. Daryl didn't think, just relied on instinct.
"In the heat of things, you have to trust that the comrade at your side will have your back too. Every battle is a war. Ongoing until one side either gives, which the dead didn't do." Aiden stood from his desk, watching as his assistants dismantled their maps. At this very moment, Aiden just hoped Daryl and Rick's team had made it out of the city.
Daryl turned the same time Rick did. Suddenly, they were face to face on the battle field. Harden blue eyes met stern gray, crossbow and gun going off at the exact moment. Daryl's arrow, having a wider tip, nicked Rick's cheek bone as it flew dangerously close in its path to the Walker just behind him. The younger of the two grinned unapologetically as Rick touched the flesh wound. Rick shook his head and they went their separate ways, back into the fray.
"Today, we retreat, but, tomorrow, we will be back to reclaim what is ours." With that last sentence, Aiden let Jill take the truckers radio, following the woman out where the rest of the community was putting the last of their things into the idling trucks. All around the encampment animated bodies clawed at their gates. A few bodies slipped in only to be taken down by a high powered sniper rifle perched on top of the closest vehicle.
Aiden ignored most of everything around him. He first checked on the big rigs that were to be bringing up the end of the line, the generators. Then, made his way up the caravan line, doing one last check. When he reached the front of the line, Aiden went over the plans again with the group of bikers dressed in the thickest layers of leather they could salvage. Every price of skin was covered, either with metal, leather, or padding. "If one of us goes down," he started, seriously, only for Terry to cut him off at the pass.
"Yeah, yeah," the blonde said, knocking his visor down over his face. "We all go down," he finished for Aiden, voice echoing through the helmet and the Bluetooth eyepiece the techs had whipped up for them. Terry's group of riders, started up their engines around the same time he had finished speaking, as if it was a group decision.
Jefferson gave Aiden a mischievous look as he, too, hit his visor down. "Like that would ever happen." Together Terry and Jefferson's group of bikers drove down the line to bring up the end, leaving Aiden, who was shaking his head at their stupidity, and the rest in the dust of their back tires.
Laughter echoed in Aiden's earpiece as the shorter man made his own bike. Throwing on his favorite leather jacket, he adjusted the newly added pieces of metal along the arms and shoulders. Aiden understood why the mechanics wanted to add the extra protection along the arms, but it didn't make it comfortable. Plus, the jacket was older then dirt, meaning the cold metal tacks had to be reinforced on the inside creating this odd metal brace in is sleeve that cupped around his upper and lower arm. All in all, the new design meant the jacket no longer slid on in one smooth motion like a regular jacket did.
"Between the techs and the mechanics, I really hate my life," Aiden complained as he adjusted the cuffs around his wrist.
He didn't notice his helmet was missing until a few minutes later when he was reaching out for it. He turned, looking from one side of the bike to the other, even along the ground near by just in case it had been knocked off and rolled away. "Okay," Aiden sighed when he was sure it was really gone. "I give. Where is my fucking helmet?" he asked rubbing circles at the skin between his eyebrows.
"What helmet?" Terry's voice was coming through the ear piece.
Aiden lips curled back in a scowl. "I swear, Terry if you don't tell me where my helmet is." They didn't have time for this, Aiden thought angrily. "Fuck it." He started his bike. Aiden turned towards the front of the line, fingers mentality crossed. Please, don't get pulled off the bike, he prayed, hands tightening around the handlebars.
Before the dead rose from the dead, Aiden wore the bike helmet because it was the law in most of the cities he visited. It was hard to be a fugitive avoiding the law when most of the highway patrol cops actively pushed the law. Aiden, who hadn't really done more than run from place to place, didn't fancy being thrown in a cage because of how he made a living. Surprisingly, the helmet law, also, unknowingly got him out of more sticky situations then he could count. A lot of the officers didn't really know what he looked like. Funny how the simplest things saved you: a switch of the license plate, the generic helmet, following the law while on the run.
Now, Aiden wanted the helmet for a completely different reason. He had watched one too many fellow bikers turn because animated dead bodies got a lucky shot to the face, resulting in scratches, or a coincidental grab of the hair, which resulted in the driver sliding because of the shocking pain. Aiden wasn't comfortable riding into a crowd of contagious dead bodies, even less with the idea of riding in without as much protection as possible, but…
Aiden banged on the driver side door of every truck he road passed. One by one, the big trucks started their engines confirming the knocks. Soon, Aiden was sliding to a halt in front of the main gate. The zombies pressed into the gate with renewed vigor. Aiden steeled himself, reaching to his left to grab the handle of the baseball bat he had strapped down under his leg.
After a few minutes of just watching the dead push on the gate, Max, who had just finished his task, pulled up horizontal to him. The red head took one look at Aiden, nothing the missing helmet, and clicked his tongue. Placing the sawed off shotgun across his lap, Max turned to riffle through the bags attached to his saddle bag. After struggling to reach the item, he turned to Aiden with a hum of triumph. In his hands, Max held a plain black helmet. The half visor of the passenger helmet was modified with a strip of metal to cover the lower half of the face.
The helmet wasn't pretty; actually quite ugly, but Aiden took it anyway with a grateful look. It would due until he got out of this mess. Then, he was going to kill Terry and Jefferson, because he was sure those two had his original helmet. "Alright," Aiden started as he slipped on the helmet and strapped it on, "Let's get this show on the road."
The first of the big wheelers started inching forward creating a chain effect. One by one, the caravan started moving towards the front gates, plowing through the gate and animated bodies. Behind the first truck a military inspired jeep started firing off rounds from the top of the sun roof, pushing the incoming crowd back and providing cover for the bikers to exit through the space the truck had created behind it.
Aiden knew not everyone was going to make it out. All he could do was push forward and hope, at least, the trucks made it out. Each and every truck carried with it the precious legacy of the community, the hope for the future of the new world after the apocalypse, and the knowledge of the old world order.
The battle in the camp was over by the time the half-moon hung low in the sky. Stars peered down on them as everyone lowered their weapons. Bodies of both the living and dead littered the ground around the survivors, and, sadly, neither Shane, nor Lori was a part of them. Everyone left gathered around the main pit near the RV. Rick collapsed tiredly on the log, his legs no longer able to support him. Daryl, refusing to show any weakness to the camp that left his brother for dead, stood stubbornly behind Rick's right shoulder. T-dog was practically laying on the ground, panting up to the night sky, arms lying flat out like the man had just fallen backwards onto the ground the moment it was declared safe. The last of the group of returnees, Glenn was speaking quietly to Carol, who hugged her daughter tightly in her arms, checking up on the woman. A family of Hispanics sat, almost forgotten, in the back of the group; tightly huddled together as if afraid a flash eating monster would appear from the shadows to take one of them away.
"I remember my dream from last night," Jim, their mechanic, was muttering insanely to himself. "I finally remembered," his voice cracked under the mental strain, "why I was digging all those holes."
Shane shook his head when Rick threw him a questioning look. Too much had happened in the two days the group was split apart. Most of it: too crazy for words.
"Amy?" Andrea called out as she searched the group for her sister. "Amy?!" the woman shouted when the girl didn't answer back immediately, her mind instantly thinking the worst.
"Calm down," Amy huffed from behind her. "I'm right here." Rolling her eyes at Andrea's, in her opinion, unnecessary worry.
Andrea twirled around, grabbing her younger sister and pulled her into a tight hug. "Oh, thank God!" The older of the two let out a sigh of relief.
Amy let out an odd squeak at Andrea's hug. The girl started to smack at her sisters arm as she struggled to get away from the embrace. "I have to…" she trailed her arms in the direction of the RV, hoping it would help her escape, "pee, now."
Dale laughed at the scene of the two sisters. Seeing the two women fall back into the same routine after such a heart retch incident did more to calm his soul then anything he had ever in countered over the years. "Andrea," he found himself playfully scolding the older of the two, like any grandfather would, "let Amy go so she can go to the bathroom."
Andrea tightened her arms around her younger sister, causing the girl to struggle even harder. "No," she stubbornly denied, "just a little longer." There was a begging edge to the woman's voice. She had been so worried when she got separated from Amy in the mist of the fight. Right now, she just wanted to reassure herself that Amy was alive.
"Damn it, Andrea!" Amy snapped and shoved her sister with the sudden internal power of the Hulk. Then, ignoring Andrea's surprised cry as the woman fail, Amy slipped into the RV before she had an embarrassing accident in front of the whole camp. Never underestimate the power of a City Girl when they had to pee.
Dale almost had a heart attack from how hard he was laughing. Andrea's surprised face that quickly morphed into one of betrayal as she fell would be etched into his memory forever. The other's, attracted by Dales booming laughter, and turned just in time to see Dale offer Andrea a hand up from the ground. Wide eye, they watched the two before judging the situation as nothing and turned back to their activities by the fire.
Lori was the first to voice her opinion on Dale's behavior. "A little inappropriate," she muttered as she poked the fire. They had barely survived a Walker attack, in front of the dead wasn't the time to be playing around.
Rick laid a, what he hoped was, calming hand on his estranged wife's back, rubbing gentle circles on the small of her back, like he use to when she was pregnant. "Relax, Lori. Everyone distresses in their own way."
Daryl snorted them. No matter how he looked at it. Lori and Rick looked like husband and wife. If it wasn't for Rick's panic attack the evening before, he wouldn't have guessed the dark haired man was sleeping with someone on the side. More than a little grossed out, Daryl turned away from the main camp fire, heading back to his own. Nope. He wasn't going to think about that.
"Hey, Dale," Amy called out as she threw open the RVs door, "We need more toilet paper."
Dale nodded in acknowledgement to the statement, even as he reached out to take the small plate of food from Carol's hands. "Thank you, Carol." Then, he turned to reply to Amy but the words were stuck in his throat.
Andrea watched the plate fall from Dale's suddenly limp fingers. "Dale?" A spike of panic jolted through her heart, and she, suddenly, didn't want to look up from the shattered plate. Something told her something bad was going to happen if she looked up. At the same time, she just knew it didn't matter if she did or not, because the groaning coming from Amy's direction wasn't Amy.
Dale's piercing cry of "Amy!" cut through the group. T-dog's instinct to run away from danger was already in effect when Rick, Daryl, and Glenn were moving towards Amy's last known location.
"Look out!" Rick screamed at Amy, who was frozen in fright.
Poor clueless Amy watched the abrupt chaos break out in front of her. None of the group's efforts to warn her registered. Why were they screaming her name all of the sudden? She naively wondered. She turned her head to look behind her simply because it was human nature to look towards the direction everyone was running to with such urgency. That was when she saw the Walker. Amy's body locked up in panic. Oddly, just before teeth sank into the soft skin of her arm, she thought, oh, they are trying to save me.
Amy scream of fear quickly turned into one of pain as her nervous system rerouted the signals in her brain.
Death, in Amy's point of view, was agonizingly slow. There weren't any complete thoughts, just feelings. It felt like venom was shooting up her arm; bring with it a whole new slew of pain. Her body felt heavy as her knees buckled and the world tilted. Amy found herself floating, eyes staring up at the black night sky. For the first time, she realized the sky was a deep blue, not black like she had always assumed. It hurt. What else was she oblivious to about the world? She wanted to know.
Andrea stood holding Amy's limp body at an awkward angle: Her sister's head was tilted back, the upper chest held up by Andrea's arms, arms dangling lifelessly towards the ground, and her legs bent at the knees. "Amy?" Andrea called out to her sister. She didn't get a response. Her beloved sister just stared past her, facial features slowly relaxing from the twisted agony the girl had no doubt been feeling into a serene calm. Andrea felt the pin pricks of tears well up in her own eyes as she watched, knowing her sister was dying. Slowly, Andrea sank to her knees, carefully laying her sister down into a more comfortable position on the ground. "Amy, stay with me," she begged, even as she started to cry over Amy's body. "Amy," Andrea sobbed, "You can't leave me alone, Amy."
The other's gathered around the two sisters, whom just a moment ago were laughing and joking. Now, one was tragically dying in the arms of the other. Funny, how life worked. One minute you're just living life to the fullest, and the next you're wishing you had never let your guard down.
Secretly, Daryl thought it was karma getting back on the group for leaving his brother handcuffed on the rooftops to be eaten by Walkers. However, he wouldn't say anything about it… yet.
Later in the night, when everyone but Andrea, who was still laying over her sister's stiff body, had retired to their respective area, Daryl was digging out Ace's field phone from his bag and slipping out of the camp. It was too quiet in camp tonight for privacy, too depressing for a phone call to your lover.
Aiden's caravan had just pulled over into the first truck stop for a rest and shift change. It had been a long day, and they were expecting a longer week before they could officially rest. Currently, they didn't have a destination. They were just trying to escape the overrun city. It had happened so fast, Aiden barely had time to give the move out order. No one really knew what happened. Best Aiden could tell, a sub-community fell, causing a chain reaction around the city.
Given that, Aiden knew exactly who was calling when his satellite phone started to ring. All other phones had been packed away seeing as everyone was within eyesight of, at least, 3 people at any given time. "Already back to old routines, Baby Doll?" Aiden asked the minute he answered the call. He lazily poked at the fire under Tammy's pot as she slowly poured a can of drained carrots into the stew.
Daryl let out a breath of relief when Ace answered. A part of him was afraid something had happened to the man since the last time they had talked. "I miss you, Daddy."
Aiden let out a bark of laughter that shocked even him. These late nights, early morning calls always started the same way. It was strangely nice to be able to have it back again. Aiden turned away from Tammy and retreat to his tent. "I miss you too, baby doll." His reply was different this time, though, because it truly had been a few long months since he had last seen Daryl. Every day in a dying world felt like a life time. It didn't help that the current options of things to do was to kill each other, kill people who were already dead, or fiddle with the things around you and hope you didn't get blown up in the process. Really, while the apocalypse was fun for a while, it was boring without the previous diversity of the era.
Most of the phone call was idle chatting that Aiden sat through patiently. There was an almost undetectable trimmer in the younger man's voice that Aiden could only pick up on when Daryl said certain words. The kid seemed to have learned how to hide his emotions even better now, Aiden noted mentally, which meant he didn't trust the people he was with. That could be bad news in the long run. If Aiden had learned anything about Daryl at all, it was that Daryl had a six sense when it came to reading people.
Finally, as the call was drawing close to 30 minutes in, Daryl ran out of diversion topics and his end was silent. Aiden felt relief run through him. Honestly, he wasn't sure how much longer he could listen to… well, pointless information really. How the kid came up with so many different topics was really surreal to the shorter man. It wasn't like they could go out and watch movies anymore, yet, somehow, Daryl had managed to make it a relatable topic. Aiden wondered just how long the kid had been locked up in his head. Clearly, Daryl didn't have an outlet if he was still thinking about the movie he saw before movies weren't a thing anymore.
"I think," Daryl seemed hesitant to bring up the latest topic for some reason as the kid had paused for a second afterwards, "Rick and Lori are still fucking."
Aiden couldn't help but chuckle at the statement. "I'm gonna go on a limb here and assume Lori joined your group with a man named Shane and her child." Aiden made this prediction off what he knew of the small family Rick surrounded himself with. Lori wasn't much of a mother, in his opinion, but she wasn't the type to completely ignore blood. Carl- the name suddenly just came to him after a few days of trying to remember it- was Lori's trophy child, only kept around because he completed her expectations of a family unit. Outside of that, however, Carl had very little use to her until he was older. Aiden supposed, maybe not all of it was an act, because the woman did carry the child for 8 or 9 months in her body then breastfed the kid, but most of it was.
Daryl seemed surprised by Aiden's matter of fact attitude. Aiden could hear the kid's thoughts of "how did you know" through the phone, which caused him to grin subconsciously. "Yes," Daryl confirmed Aiden's statement.
"Then, they aren't fucking." Aiden was so sure about it. Lori wasn't going to replace the kid, but she could replace the husband in her fantasy family unit. In fact, she had already begun the process of doing just that before Earth decided to hit reset on society. "She already had the divorce papers drawn up." He had found them in the kitchen the last time he had visited Rick. Conveniently, Aiden remembered, they were sitting on the counter like someone was going through them. Aiden frowned, but it wasn't Rick who was looking at them as he was pretty sure they weren't out when Aiden last saw the kitchen, and he had kept Rick pretty satisfied that night in the bedroom.
Damn, he thought in amazement when a thought hit him out of the blue, that kid good. Carl could have been a detective when he grew up with his curiosity and perfect executed manipulations. Too bad Aiden had swiped the papers first. Nothing was going to ruin his time with his pet. The point of a vacation was to relax, he had thought at the time, and those papers would have ruined that if Rick, fucking, Grimes had found them first. He did begrudgingly respect the kid idea planning though. Carl was probably thinking it was better for his father to go through the proceedings with support, and Aiden, being the man's lover, would agree to do just that. Sadly, Carl didn't understand how long the court battle would have been. The child probably thought Rick just needed to sign the papers and it would be done.
Later, after going over the papers on his own time, Aiden was glad he had stolen them. Lori was going for everything. Including, but not limited to, full custody of Carl, which would have devastated Rick. That child was Rick's world; Aiden was just the moon orbiting that world.
"Does Rick know?" Daryl asked curiously, pulling Aiden from his thoughts.
Aiden scratched at his chin in thought. Had he ever put the papers back? He thought he did, but he couldn't be sure. "You know, I'm not sure." Maybe Carl broke down and told the man? "But, Carl does."
Daryl echoed him, "Carl?" Why would Carl know?
Aiden shrugged, and then remembered Daryl couldn't see him. Right. Phone. "The kid is too curious for his own good. He's, actually, the reason I found out. Don't think the kid knew the details of what he found, just the jest of it."
The crunching of gravel against pavement drew Aiden's attention to the tents entry way. "Hey, boss," Jenny's quiet voice was calling out from outside, "foods done."
Aiden found himself sighing, reluctant to end the call but his stomach grumbled angrily at him. "Okay," he replied, "Just a minute." When he heard Jenny retreating footsteps, Aiden turned his attention back to the phone call. "I got to go, baby doll." There was a strong reluctance in his voice. What he wouldn't give to be there with Darlina right now. Unfortunately, Aiden's group was going in the complete opposite direction of Daryl's group according to Merle. "Don't worry about your brother," he quickly tacked on when the man entered his thoughts, "He's one of us now." Meaning Aiden's group would do everything they could to insure Merle's safety.
"I know," Daryl responded gratefully. There, honestly, wasn't a better group for Merle to be with. As much as Ace and Merle didn't get along, mostly because Ace was fucking the man's younger brother, Ace knew how much Merle meant to Daryl, and Ace, Daryl knew, wouldn't allow the man to die in fear of losing Daryl.
"Stay alive, Darlina," Aiden threw the demand out of the blue, "'Cause, I expected to see you again."
"That is the plan, Daddy." Then, Daryl hung up, because Ace was avoiding it.
Nothing about the near death attacks were mentioned in the call by either man. Both of them were trying to pretend everything was okay on their end, but there was a dark undertone in the conversation. They knew, without asking, the other had just made it out of something horrifying. The significance of something normal, such as a phone call, was more comforting then any words they could have said during the call. To know the other was still breathing and to hear each other's voice responding was the best balm to the emotional wound they were wearing.