A kiss from the wind -The Walking dead. Daryl Dixon/OC
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Chapter 8- While fathers away
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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Thanks so much for the great responses, please pass this on to your fellow WD Fanfic friends.. I'm really proud of this work! Thanks!
Dear SIGK1 … never stop mailing me, it gets by huge buttocks into gear, no excuses really for the time.. Well a few, work, helping my sister with her GCSE coursework, my degree, Christmas and new year (I have so much family its ridiculous! 32 cousins altogether.. Yeah.) Other fics etc… but I'm here now! =]]
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"What did he mean?" Daryl asked her that morning, where she stood in their camp watching as her father and his chosen group departed for the raid.
"Who?" she asked, eyes on her father who spared no look back as he walked away from the camp, and his family.
"Him." he indicated David, who stood off to the side, gun in hand, smirk on his face, "When he said all bets were off."
"He's an ass." Charlotte replied, "He likes to intimidate us, my dad doesn't let him. He'll just throw his weight about a bit. Nothing we cant handle."
"He seems to more than intimidate you." Charlotte looked to the man next to her and shook her head, "I'm okay."
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"How far do we think the town is?" Lori questioned, "Do you guys remember?" she directed towards her husband, Glenn and Hershel.
"We were about an hour the other side of the farm when they found us." Rick replied over his food, "and it took probably double the time to get here."
"Maybe a day? Two?" Glenn asked, his arm wrapped around Maggie's shoulders. They sat huddled around the fire, voices lowered so that their guards would not hear, "Not long enough." Daryl growled, "Not to get out of here. Not with all we've got to do."
"We've still got to get our weapons back, the keys, everything in that trunk." Carol spoke.
"How?" Carl asked.
"We cant get anywhere near the trunk." Glenn said.
"We could rush it?" T-dog suggested, "All of us at once?"
"Not with the amount of guns they have." Daryl stated, "They'd get most of us, maybe all of us."
"Aren't we okay here?" Beth asked, "Aren't we safe for now?"
"No." Daryl stated.
"Something isn't right here Beth," Rick said more gently, "These aren't good people."
"The girl, she told us not to get comfortable, not to let our guard down. If everything was okay here then she wouldn't have said that." Daryl explained.
"The people here are scared," Andrea spoke up, "The women and children anyway."
"What do you mean?" Lori asked, she hadn't so much as left Rick's side since their incarceration.
"The men are-"
"Perverts." Maggie spat, "They leer and touch and it's disgusting."
"Did they touch you?" Glenn cried, outraged, voice louder.
"Hush!" Hershel hissed even as Maggie replied, "No." to his question, Glenn calmed and relaxed onto the floor by the fires warmth.
"We'll work something out." Rick said, "Keep an eye out for weaknesses in the defence, in the guards. Anything you can find. We're not stayin' here."
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Charlotte avoided David as much as possible the first day, she stayed with Betty and the kids and in her tent as much as she could get away with. She went to the river to wash when she saw David return from his guard duty there, she took food to the opposite ends of camp where she knew he was not. She mainly stayed close to the smaller camp. Jamie had taken to spending more time there throughout the day, considered harmless by the guards and engaging in a budding friendship with Carl, that is when the boy was in a good mood, his moods changed rapidly and unexpectedly, Charlotte couldn't even begin to guess the things he had seen. Carol had told her the story, how they had been safe, happy even on Hershel's farm until they had been over run. She had told her about Shane, Ricks best friend and his down fall. Carol hadn't however mentioned her daughter, Sophia, and Charlotte hadn't asked. She knew loss, how hard it was to talk about, even five years after losing her mother she found it difficult to talk about.
She could feel David's eyes on her though, if she were ever in the same area as him she could feel his eyes following her. She fought hard not to shudder when she felt his stare.
She thought maybe Betty had some idea as to what was happening, a few times she had called Charlotte to her when David had come within close proximity and asked her to perform a chore that didn't need doing or that Charlotte had never been asked to do before.
Charlotte thought Betty knew how grateful she was.
"When do you think they'll be back?" Charlotte asked Betty from where she sat in front of her tent, warily watching the camp. "The town is only a day away right? They should be back tomorrow night?"
"It depends." Betty replied, "You know as well as I do that nothing can be set in motion these days. Nothing is for sure. They could be back tomorrow they could be a week."
Betty's eyes searched the camp too, "Perhaps you want to go and talked to the officer and his friends?" Charlotte nodded, didn't look behind her and made her way to the other camp.
"Hey Charlotte!" she was welcomed warmly as she stepped into the camp, by Maggie and Glenn.
"Hey." she replied, smiling an instant warm feeling of safety overwhelming her, "Is my menace of a brother here?"
"He's in the tent with Lori and Carl." Maggie told her. Charlotte laughed and looked around her, noticing Beth and Hershel and T-dog and Rick all eyeing her to different degrees. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
"Everything's fine." Rick replied, with a smile.
"Right." Charlotte smiled awkwardly, "Is Daryl around?" She hadn't seen him around camp so he more than likely was.
"River with Carol, Beth and Andrea." Maggie said.
Charlotte nodded, Daryl was often on guard duty for the females of his group, no one trusted anyone alone with the women, Charlotte didn't trust them alone with the women. Daryl, along with Rick was one that her fathers men tended not to mess with. He had this kind of animalistic anger to him that nobody but Andrew had really tried to take on. Andrew constantly antagonised Daryl, as was Andrews way, for all she could say on Andrew though, for all his bad points he had managed to keep her fathers men mostly in line and nothing terrible had befallen her or Rick's group.
"I'm going to go and check on everyone, is Jamie okay here still?" She asked.
She thanked them when they said yes and set off to find Daryl, her suspicions mounting when the moment she was out of ear shot the Greene's initiated Rick once again in muted, secret conversation.
She moved quickly towards the river and found Daryl sat on the river bed, Carol, Beth and Andrea in the water along the way with Emma.
"You told them?" Charlotte said bypassing a greeting as she looked down at him. She met blue eyes and frowned when his face remained blank. "Daryl.."
"Take a seat Dimples."
"Dimples?" Charlotte scoffed as sat beside him.
"Yes, I did tell them." He replied to her previous question. "Cant be the only one not getting' comfortable can I?"
"I suppose not. What are you thinking of doing?"
"Don't know yet." he frowned, "But we'll think of something."
"I don't doubt that." She smiled. Waving at Emma who caught her attention.
She heard a haggard sigh beside her, "What?" She asked, taking in the frustration on the older mans face. "What?" she asked again as he shook his head, "Okay…" she sighed.
"I'm goin' crazy here." He replied, "I need something to do."
"You're bored?" she barked a surprised laugh, "People are literally rising from the dead and you're bored?!"
The man rolled his eyes and continued to star into the tree line ahead.
"You could…" she looked around for inspiration, "talk to people?"
"don't like people"
"Dance?"
"No."
"Jog around camp?"
"Not enough room."
"Swim?"
"No."
"Read? I have books?"
"Can't."
"What?" She asked jolted from her thoughts, "You can't read?"
Daryl's jaw clenched and the line of his body beside her tensed, "No" he growled, "Didn't exactly get to learn."
"Did you go to school?" Charlotte asked, probably against her better judgement, back before everything had happened she'd always been too nosey for her own good, it came with the territory of training to be a lawyer.
She received no answer which she perceived to be confirmation that he hadn't. She found herself wondering about this man and his life, when they'd first met he had been like an angry captured animal, snarling and angry at anyone who caught his eye she had just assumed that he was a dirty redneck, someone mean and rude, racist and homophobic and all of the other stereotypes that you could imagine. She'd soon learned though that there was something sensitive there, something emotional and strong. He was protective of his friends and companions and caring. Charlotte had never been so wrong about someone. She hadn't realised though, even now, how deep he was.
"Dar-"
"You don't know where I lived kid, my dad and brother always in and outta jail and no way of makin' honest money. Mum dead when I was a kid, I kept the shit hole we lived in from falling to the ground, di'nt have no time for school. Why would a piece of shit redneck like me go to school anyway? People like me don't get the job or the lives like you do. Ain't never been any good at that brainy shit."
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Ain't never been any good at that brainy shit.
The words stuck with Charlotte that day as she helped Betty dish up the food, they were running precariously low so there wasn't much, another reason she hoped that her father and his group returned soon.
They gave out the food like usual, Charlotte ignoring Davids leer as she passed his tent. The small book in her back pocket seemed to burn through the denim fabric of her jeans. She wondered if what she was about to do was a good idea, Daryl had stalked to the other side of the river once he had finished speaking, his whole body radiating hostility and "stay the heck away" and he hadn't met her eyes since, had actively avoided her actually. She figured he couldn't run now though, not now it was past the infused curfew his group had been given to be back under guard in their own camp.
She saved his meal until last and hesitantly made her way to his tent where he sat outside, "Here," she said, holding the plate towards him, he made no move to take it. She placed it before him and pulled the book from her pocket, "Harry Potter." she said, "Jamie has them all, they're his favourite. They're for kids but they're good. I read them to him." She received no response so carried on, quietly so the rest of his camp wouldn't hear. "I never got to read anything like it before I read them to him. I was going to become a lawyer, I was heading that way, all I ever read was law books they were so boring. But when my mum got sick I went home to look after her and someone needed to read to Jamie. I hadn't ever enjoyed a book so much and I was almost as excited as Jamie every time a new one came out. These books, they made us happy. I had to stay after mum died to protect Jamie, from our dad. He could escape in that world, live another life."
She held the book out to him but he didn't reach for that either. She nodded, "Maybe its not your thing, its probably not but I could help you. Maybe, if you wanted to escape or learn or whatever." She placed the book beside his food and smiled as his eyes met hers. "Just let me know."
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Small explanation: Maybe, Daryl has read something in the show. I cant remember and I don't care this is my mind baby!
I just have this plot thing where I think, based on what we know about Daryls past and family that he wouldn't have gone to school or anything and could be illiterate. Not stupid but never bothered with education. Or unable to be educated due to his past… Abuse and neglect etc.
So yeah. Hope you enjoyed!