A kiss from the wind -The Walking dead. Daryl Dixon/OC
Chapter 4- Merciful
Summary: The gnarled hand scrabbled uselessly against the ground, rotting body trapped under the mangled car wreck, reaching, moaning and snarling. Charlotte grimaced, moving further out of reach and crouched to the ground. "Come on kid." Daryl's voice sounded behind her, a hand landing on her shoulder, "Leave it. We got ground to cover." Daryl/OC
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Just saw 'Triggerfinger' the whole Sophia wasn't mine, line made me so sad! Would it be weird if I rewrote this Carol/Daryl? Haha! No I wouldn't do that but I think Melissa McBride is absolutely stunning and really hope to utilize her wonderful character later in this story!
I wasn't originally going to make Andrew such an arse but I had a great review from HeavensWeatherHellsCompany saying how much she hated Andrew and I haven't had a character in a story in a long time that people really despised so I think Ill enjoy writing this character =]
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Oh balls! I just saw that the third baddy with Randall at the bar got away in the show! Feck! Ignore the show, my story is obviously the truth =P
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Charlotte scoffed her breakfast and wished there were seconds to go around. The thick, lumpy porridge was just on the wrong side of warm and stuck to the roof of the mouth. It barely filled the void in her stomach, left over from days of hunger but it was great. Real solid food. Almost solid food.
She delivered the bowls, plastic, brightly coloured like the plates to the new camp, this time Betty took the initiative and took the food to Daryl.
"Thanks" the blonde woman said as Charlotte handed her the food, "Looks good."
Charlotte shot her a small smile as she passed the second helping to the young boy. "It looks terrible." she laughed in response.
The blonde smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes, she'd been toughened by this new world Charlotte could tell.
"Thank you." the boy smiled, as he tucked into his food hungrily. She knelt to his height, he was a tall boy but sitting down they were the same height, "What's your name then?"
"Carl."
"Hi Carl, my names Charlotte." she glanced around at the guard behind her. "If any of these men are mean to you, you let me know okay?"
The wide eyed boy nodded the affirmative and she smiled openly "But I hear you're the Sherriff in this place so maybe you'll have to look after me instead." She indicated the boys hat that no doubt had belonged to his father, he grinned and nodded. Pulling herself up she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and he moved back to his food.
"Charlotte is it?" A male voice said behind her.
She turned, "Officer." she stated.
"Rick Grimes, I wanted to thank you for your hospitality."
"It's nothin'" she replied, "I don't exactly cook it." She moved towards the edge of their camp and the officer followed.
"I also wanted to apologize, for last nights trouble. Daryl can be a little… temperamental."
Charlottes lips quirked, "It's okay, most of the people here are worse."
"I noticed. Does that sort of stuff happen a lot? With the gun?"
"Sometimes. It's usually best to do as you're asked and stay out of the way." Charlotte explained, surveying the motion in the bigger camp before them,
"They're not good people."
"Where do you fit in here?" he asked, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun, "I don't see many females round here."
Charlotte moved some stray brown hair behind her ear and said, "There's only three of us, myself, Betty and Emma. My dad he-"
"You're dad?" Rick interrupted, "Lawrence?"
"Yeah-" Charlotte began but found herself trailing off as she noticed the three figures walking through the trees, one limping, held up by the other two. A few people dropped their current activities and moved to help them.
"What's happening?" she asked to herself as she moved forward into the group.
She noticed Tobey, he had been a friend of Randall's favouring his left leg, his right bloody and bent at an awkward angle.
"What happened?" Lawrence's voice boomed as he pushed towards the men. The others, holding Tobey up laid him onto the ground where he writhed in pain.
"We were scouting for more food, thought we saw a deer." One of the companions said, "He went up the tree to see and fell."
"That looks really bad." Emma commented.
"Get the doctor." Lawrence told Andrew and an older man, possibly late forties, that was relatively new to the group. He'd been travelling with his nephew, Charlotte remembered, though the teenage boy had been dead when the man had arrived at their camp.
They moved with conviction, towards Rick's small camp of prisoners who also stood watching what unfolded. Perhaps, like Charlotte had a first they wondered if someone had been bitten or if one of the dead had infiltrated the campsite.
Charlotte frowned as Andrew stormed towards the old man, menacingly tall, grabbed him by the forearm and growled, "Come with me."
"Dad!" The short haired brunette cried, pulling angrily at Andrews arm, "Get off of him!"
"Maggie, let go." The doctor said calmly, "It's okay."
"Glenn!" The woman cried to the Korean man, "Do something!"
The Korean, Glenn, moved forward fast, his small stature nothing compared to Andrews bulk and was soon knocked backwards to the ground. Maggie, moved to help what Charlotte guessed might be her boyfriend and the old man was dragged over towards where Tobey lay.
"Look him over, doc." Andrew sneered.
"I've told you, I'm a vet!" The old man shouted.
"It's a leg doc, animals have them too." Andrew shot back, pushing him to the ground by the back of his neck, "Get to it."
The man grunted as his knees met the hard ground and Charlotte winced.
"I'll need to cut this fabric away. I cant see anything if I don't."
"I have some scissors," Charlotte perked up, already on the move towards her tent and belongings.
"Forget it," a voice answered, "Use my knife."
A sharp blade was passed through the group surrounding them, the majority of camp by the looks of it, except the guards on watch for both the camp and Rick's crew.
"These are my best jeans!" Tobey complained as the old man fisted a handful of denim and lifted it from the leg, he slid the knife down the seam and the fabric peeled away slowly. The leg was definitely broken, you didn't need to be trained in any medical field to realise that and a bone poked harshly through ripped skin, white against the thick red blood. Charlotte felt her stomach lurch.
"Charlotte." the old man was saying, "Charlotte. I need you're help."
"I- I can't- can't one of them do-"
"I ain't having none of those faggots touchin' me!" Tobey cried. Charlotte dropped to her knees.
"I need you to put pressure just above the break. Hold his leg down. Do not let his leg move." the old man explained.
"Sir I-" Charlotte tried to protest.
"My names Hershel and I need you to hold down his leg." he commanded.
Charlotte nodded and placed her hands onto his knee, flinching at the scream of pain it caused. "I'm sorry," she said, over her shoulder to Tobey, "Just stay still."
"I'm going to push it back in. Five, four, three -" On three Hershel pushed with all his might onto the protruding bone and it made a disgusting squelch as it re-entered the skin. Tobey's scream echoed loudly through the camp.
"That's all I can do." Hershel said, "I don't know how it'll set without X-Rays. I need some anti-biotics of some kind, maybe something to suture the wound. It might get infected."
"Infected?" Andrew said slowly.
"Yes." Hershel said, "I need something to stop that happening. Do you have anything?"
Charlotte tensed when she heard a gun cock, "What are you doing?" she asked Andrew, who had the gun pointed towards Tobey's forehead.
"You heard the doc. Infected."
Charlottes eyes widened, "No." she said, "He means loose a limb infected not come back from the dead infected."
"I didn't mean it like that." Hershel said at the same time.
"You said infected doc." Andrew said, voice louder than it needed to be.
Murmurs rode up through the crowd and Charlotte thought she heard a few more weapons being readied.
"Stop it Andrew." she said loudly, "Stop it."
"Nah man!" Tobey said, shaking his head, pain all but forgotten, "I'm fine. I'm not even feverish. I'm fine."
"Andrew. You don't have to do this." Betty's voice sounded from some ways away. Charlotte hoped that Jamie and Emma were unable to see what was happening.
"Andrew-" Hershel started only to be cut off by the loud sound of a bullet.
Charlotte shrieked in shock and ripped her hands away from the now dead mans bloodied leg. Hershel fell back onto his butt in shock and the sudden cacophony of voices was deafening. Charlotte shuddered out a breath and she too dropped onto the ground. "Are you crazy? You'll attract them all!" Someone shouted and she thought she heard Andrew rebuke him with a few curses.
She thought that Rick's camp might've been shouting too, she only recognised a few voices and a glance towards them showed Rick shouting, his wife comforting Carl. The blonde woman screaming angrily at one of their guards. Daryl getting into another guards face. She could hear snippets, something about walkers and bullets and noise.
She felt sick.
Another bullet cut through the noise like a knife and Charlotte immediately felt sick, her ears ringing from the previous shot that was so close and feared an imminent gun fight that would kill them all before the dead even arrived anywhere near the scene.
"Everyone shut up!" Her father cried instead, smoking gun in the air, "I don't give a damn what your opinions are." His eyes slid over both his own camp and Rick's.
"You know how it works here. You come back with an injury like that," he kicked at Tobey's bloodied leg, the booted foot tapped against Charlottes knee and she felt her stomach lurch again, thankful that she hadn't had any more to eat that morning, "a wound that might get you into one of them. We kill you first."
"He wasn't going to die." Hershel spoke softly, though his words seemed to carry further even than her fathers shouting, "He just needed some antibiotics and bandages."
"Shut up." Lawrence said, "Move the body."
Charlotte let out a shuddered breath as the leg, the only visible part was dragged away from her. They would burn him in a smaller clearing just off to the right, used specifically for that purpose. They didn't bury people here.
"Get the doc back to the camp." Andrew sounded as people began to disperse as if nothing had even happened. As if someone hadn't just been murdered in their midst for no reason. Hershel moved with them as he was pulled off of the ground, eyes wide in disbelief. Charlotte felt a familiar hand on her shoulder and shrugged it off roughly, standing herself, "Get off me." she growled towards Andrew who still held the gun in his hand and looked exactly as he had before.
"We take no chances here, Charlotte. It was merciful." her father said from where he still stood, Charlotte felt tears pricking behind her eyes and shook her head.
"He wasn't a risk." she said, "It wasn't merciful."
She moved slowly back to her tent and climbed inside, trying to breathe as deeply as she could, feeling her lungs tighten slightly, only mildly asthmatic it wasn't usually a problem, however her skin felt cold and she felt herself panicking slightly and had to concentrate on calmer things. Life before all this, her few years in college before her mothers death at least. Friends and family, a world where people weren't executed for broken bones.
It took a long time before her breathing came back under control again.
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Note: I hate the word faggot when used in that context so meant no offence, seems like something those bad people would say.
Also, I know nothing about re setting bones or breakages etc so I made it up =]
Let me know what you thought? x