(Nate/Noah (12) Rose (9) Attie (7) Ben (6) if you were wondering)
Keeping 5 children alive in a post-apocalyptic world may not be the easiest thing Alma had even done. Nathaniel and Noah had really stepped up to the plate when they realized they couldn't stay in the cabin any longer.
Daryl had been adamant about teaching them how to hunt and the only kid who had straight up refused was Atticus. Rosalie wasn't overly happy about killing animals but Daryl had explained that if things ever went down and they couldn't buy enough food, hunting would help them. Alma had gotten very angry at Daryl when she had figured out that certain method of persuasion.
Ben had just recently started his training but it had to be cut short when Daryl went to Georgia. Apparently Merle had gotten himself in trouble again and as always Daryl showed up to fix it. He had taken Nanok with him. The young dogo argentino had been the successor to Baxter after they'd been forced to put him down.
They waited for about two weeks in the cabin, but it got overrun and the family needed to leave. Ben, Rose and Attie had wanted to wait for Daryl but with the help of the twins Alma had been able to get the younger ones into the beat up Impala.
And that is what lead them to the outskirt of central Atlanta. Ben had taken to writing it down, that they should stay in the city that is. He was still sharper than any six-year-old Alma had ever met, even in her occupation as a teacher. In the beginning he would sign that Daryl would find a way to the city and that we couldn't be gone when he did, but after a while he got scared that we weren't listening so he wrote it down about twice a day.
Food had become a luxury Alma couldn't afford, all thing edible went to the children. They all insisted that she could have some of theirs but Alma was fine with eating just enough to stay afloat. She was sure she had seen a building that looked like a mall or something and she wanted to see if they could barricade themselves in there for the night.
Alma gathered up the kids and their belongings, one backpack each and a duffle bag, and moved towards the general direction. A bit ahead of them they could hear some commotion and they stopped short of a tank. It was surrounded by 'the deathly hollows' as Rosalie had named them. Alma tried to maneuver the kids back, they could probably go around this block, only to find more of the hollows behind them. The mother tried to keep all the kids away from them but to no avail. Panic begin to consume her when she truly realized how hopeless this all was.
Like a grace of God himself the tank-lid opened, a sheriff jumping out and killing one of the hollows on the outside. Then he noticed the family.
"Run that way" he yelled motioning towards an alley. And the Dixons didn't need to be told twice.
In the alley they ran into, quite literally, a young Asian man. The twins and Rose immediately took aim, having been thought how to use firearms since the age of five. Behind them Mr. Sheriff ran up, seemingly equally startled by the sudden appearance.
"Whoa! Not dead! Come on! Come on! Back here! Come on! Come on!" the Asian man yelled pointing at a ladder before proceeding up on it. When he notices or apprehension he continues, "What are you doing?! Come on! Come on, get up."
When we have all reached the roof we stop and pants for a while.
"Nice moves there, Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff, come riding in to clean up the town?" the younger man says, making a sarcastic joke.
"It wasn't my intentions" the older one responses, taking in the situation.
"Yeah, whatever. Yeehaw. You're still a dumbass."
That comment earned him a chuckle from Nate and a quiet giggle from Rosalie.
"Rick and thanks." the sheriff one said, introducing himself.
"My name is Alma, this is Nate, Noah, Rose, Attie and Ben" Alma countered, purposely not using the childrens full names, with the exception of Noah since he didn't really have a nickname. She nervously eyed the edge of the building, not being completely comfortable with heights.
"Glenn," the Asian man responded, "and you're welcome." Then he noticed me inching away from the drop. "The bright side: It'll be the fall that kills us. I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy"
"Are you the one that barricaded the alley?" Rick inquired.
"Somebody did" was Glenns answer. "I guess when the city got overrun. Whoever did it was thinking not many geeks would get through."
"Geeks?" Rose threw in "Is that your word for the deathly hollows?"
"Well now that I now that that's what you call them it doesn't sound as cool" he muttered, giving the family a quick smile.
"Back at the tank," sheriff Rick continued "why'd you stick your neck out for me?"
"Call it foolish, naive hope that if I'm ever that far up shit creek, somebody might do the same for me" he shrugged "Guess I'm an even bigger dumbass than you."
They took another ladder, going down this time. Glenn took out a walkie-talkie.
"I'm back. Got a few guests plus four geeks in the alley" he spoke into it.
The group walked down another staircase to a door where two hollows appear. Two men with protective gear runs out of the door and goes after the dead.
Glenn ushered the others through the door, the two new men following behind.
Inside were two women, Alma thought they both looked kind of uptight so she and the kids stayed by the wall. Suddenly the blonde one pulled a gun on her new-found sheriff friend. Alma felt a need to help, after all he didn't really need to help them back by the tank. So she quickly stepped between Rick and the blonde bitch, shoving her back.
"Back off" she growled standing protectively in front of the grown man.
The trigger-happy blonde was about to reply when a Latino looking man butted in.
"Just chill out, Andrea. Back off"
Andrea huffed but backed off and Alma nodded in appreciation and the Latino man quickly smiled before frowning again.
"Yeah," the black woman said "Ease up."
"Ease up?" Andrea repeated, clearly offended "You're kidding right? We're dead because of this stupid asshole!"
Alma shook her head and tuned them out, only sort of listening, returning to do a health check on her kids. She starts to listen again when she hears them mention a refugee center. Jacqui, as the black woman called, were making some sarcastic remark about cookies and once Atticus had signed the comment to Ben the latter let out a chortle.
"Got no signal, maybe the roof?" the one called T-Dog speculated, trying to find some sort of solution.
Suddenly they hear gunshots from above.
"Oh no, is that Dixon?!" Andrea exclaimed. Almas heart jumped at the name and the kids all looked at their mother with hopeful eyes. She made a hand-motion to calm them down, not overly fond of the idea of them getting their hopes up. Dixon wasn't an unusual name after all.
"What is that maniac doing?" Morales questioned rhetorically.
They all ran up to the roof, eager to get the moron up there to shut up. But Alma insisted on staying downstairs with the children, keeping an eye on the hollows.
Atticus were in an ASL-discussion with Benjamin, talking about some books they'd found in the corner. Nathaniel, Rose and Noah were looking at the jewelry and gushing over the fact that it all looked so sparkly and expensive.
After a good while there was a commotion going down the stairs and down to, what Alma guessed was the basement. She paid them no mind, keeping her eyes on the kids. It made her happy that they were still somewhat carefree.
After a few more minutes Andrea comes back to the front, followed by Rick. Alma smiled at him trying to ease the obvious tension in his shoulders by pure willpower. They started talking and Alma heard Rick point out what she had already noticed, that the safety was enabled on Andreas gun.
Andrea moves to where the twins and Rose were still touching the different necklaces and bracelets. She stops and looks at a necklace that had been put on display, it had some sort of pendant on it but Alma couldn't really distinguish it.
When they regrouped on the roof they had apparently come up with a plan to get a truck. Rick had noticed Almas apprehension and told her that her job in the plan was to make sure they had everything they could carry and the kids were ready to go. Andrea scoffs at this, obviously believing the young mother to have gotten off easy.
From the front the Dixon family can hear the group grunt in disgust and Alma mentally thanked the sheriff that she or her kids weren't there to witness the hacking.
When Glenn and Rick had been sent out the group ran back up to the roof to follow them while the kids and Alma packed everything they could in whatever bags they could find.
There is a lot of noise upstairs then they all come running down.
"The roll-up doors!" Morales yells when he runs past the family and Alma hurries everyone along, the same way the group ran. They end up at a loading dock and they throw in the bags that Alma had collected. T-dog manages to jump into the car the second it pulls away and Alma let's out a breath of relief.
In the truck T-dog mutters sadly about dropping a key, but Alma pays it no mind. Her remaining family is fine and they seem to have found a decent group of people. She could hear Glenn shouting in glee outside, accompanied by a loud car-alarm.
Alma takes out her MP3 player and motions for the kids to do the same.
"May we take a nap on our way to the camp, we haven't slept for a while…" she queries, not wanting them to get offended, or presume her lazy.
Morales turns to her and nod, smiling warmly, and Alma finds herself concluding that he is a father. He just seems to have that glint in his eyes.
The group wakes the family up when they're on a gravel road and Alma notices that Benjamin is still sitting where he was before she fell asleep. She makes a mental note to make sure he sleeps tonight.
Alma listens but she can't hear Glenns car anymore so she presumes that they are going to stop any second now. Turns out she was right and everyone jumps out to greet their families and friends. Morales comes back to the truck, coercing them to follow. Or more like telling 'helicopter boy' to come say hi.
"Dad?" she hears someone question, quickly followed by a screech of, "DAD!" Alma gets out just in time to see Rick hugging a young boy about Nate and Noahs age, and a woman. Alma smiled warmly at the scene, happy to see a reunion after all this time of misery. She notices the woman looking at a man with black hair but decides not to stick her nose in something that could be nothing.
Glenn clears his throat and says "This is Alma and her kids." he introduces her, putting a hand on her shoulder and Alma is happy for the moral support.
"Hello everyone!" she says, smiling as brightly as she would have before everything went to shit. The children followed suit smiling and waving. The man with the black hair seemed to assess them but the old man next to the big RV came up to the family, hand extended. Alma gladly took it.
"I'm Dale." the man explained, smiling kindly at her youngsters. They were directed to a spot where they could put up their tent and then they were left to allow them time to get situated.
By the time they were finished it had gotten dark and Alma made the decision to put everyone to sleep. The twins shared a sleeping bag, so did Ben and Rosalie. Atticus being the sensitive one had to share with his mom, but neither of them complained.
Alma found it disturbingly easy to fall asleep, the sound of her kids lowly snoring and the distant sound of chattering made her eyelids heavy and she thankfully welcomed sleep.
The next morning the tent is empty. Alma scrambles to put her clothes on and she stumbles out of the tent. When she sees the kids she visibly relaxes. They are laughing and having fun with the four other kids at camp. Two latinx kids and a girl she didn't recognize. Noah and Nate was in a discussion with the boy that hugged Rick, his son.
"I'm keeping an eye on them" she heard from above. When she looked up her eyes met Dales. "If you wanna sleep for a while longer that is?"
Alma nodded and backed back to the tent, she knew she tended to trust people to easily but even with that in mind she trusted Rick, and Rick let his son stay under Dales supervision. Therefore, it would be alright if she did too.
The next time she woke up there was a ruckus going on in camp. Her kids were back in the tent and she quickly signed to Benny, asking him what was going on.
Hollow – in – camp
That was the answer she got and Alma immediately grabbed her gun and walked toward the opening, ready to investigate.
Once she got to the main part of camp her breath caught in her throat. There was her husband, in the flesh. Then she processed the position he was in when she heard him choke out the sentence:
"Choke hold's illegal!"
Alma cocked her gun, aiming it at the black-haired mans head.
"Let. Him. Go." she growled out between clenched jaws. He looked surprised at loosened his grip on Daryl who jumped to his feet. He looked at her like he'd seen a ghost but before he could even get enough time to process what was happening Alma turned around and glared at Rick. The two former cops seemed dumbfounded and Daryl quickly jumped back into the conversation.
"They locked Merle on the damn roof!" he yelled, lunging again bit he stopped in his tracks when Alma put her hand on his face.
"Please calm down, darling. If you just lash out there will be no proper conversation to have."
Daryl looked at his wife with immense anger, painfully aware of the confused eyes prying into their exchange. He didn't move a muscle, but Alma could see that he would listen to her.
She turned back to Rick and decided to ignore the frazzled look he wore.
"That was Merle on the roof?" she questioned, now feeling extremely bad. Rick and the other man nodded.
"Well," Alma shook her head "Guess you'll just have to go back and get him." she continues, her voice calm but clearly laced with finality. The men seemed dazed, obviously still not fully understanding what was going on.
"He'll show him the way" the woman Rick had hugged said "Won't you?" she persisted looking poignantly at Rick.
He didn't get a chance to respond before loud shouts of 'DAD' came from behind Alma, followed by the five young Dixons almost tackling Daryl to the ground. And if Daryl wasn't, well, Daryl, he would have probably cried. But he visibly forgot the audience when he realized that his kids were fine and that his wife were standing right behind him.
The camp started murmuring, eyes glued to the unusual scene in front of them.
"Wait!" Andrea declared, "You're married to Daryl?!"
Alma couldn't for the life of her understand the confusion and even distain she could read on the blondes face.
"Yeah," she answered slowly "we've been married for 11 years now."
Daryl and the kids had noticed how tense the mother had gotten and stood ready to step in behind her. Nathaniel and Rosalie by their father side while Noah stood behind Benjamin. Atticus was behind Daryl, clutching the hem of his shirt.
Andrea seemed to actually grasp the awkward air and just scoffed before leaving.
"We'll start planning the run" Rick said, excusing himself. After that the crowed slowly dispersed and Daryl pulled Alma into his arms. Kissing her everywhere his lips could find.
He grabbed her face and looked into her eyes before pressing their lips together.
"Where tha fuck you've been woman?" he questioned lovingly against her lips.