'Cause hells broke loose in Georgia, and the Devil deals the cards.
Charlie Daniels Band. Devil Went Down To Georgia.
The tent poles snapped.
The once dome shell caved in around them.
Garr, gurgh, yarg.
The protests of hungry walkers filled their ears as their unseen heads tried to poke into the tent, causing large bumps to unnervingly hit against them as they pressed themselves in to the ground.
They were everywhere.
They all woke up to the heart stopping cracks of gunfire as Andrea, the on duty watchmen, started taking out as many geeks as she could on top of the RV.
It wasn't a herd but a swarm of walkers. While there was nowhere near the number of bodies in a herd, they came out of nowhere so suddenly as if someone kicked over a hive of geeks.
Andrea stopped popping off shots when Rick, Shane, Daryl, T-Dog, Glenn, and Dale began to intermingle with the crowd of walkers (she had learned her lesson, the absolute hard way). She only climbed half way down the ladder and jumped down the rest, beating a walker's head into a bloody pulp with the butt of her gun very shortly after reaching the ground.
She didn't know where to go. Every time she spotted a walker it was being taken out by one of the guys.
"Ahhhh!" someone screamed behind her.
Andrea turned around to see a walker was closing in on Lori.
Time didn't speed up as Shane said that it did. It slowed down, everything almost stopped, she heard Rick call out for Lori. In his face, Andrea could tell that he knew he wouldn't make it over to his wife.
The gun felt heavy in her hand. They were too close together, if she missed she could hit Lori but if she didn't take the shot at all, the walker would bite her.
Andrea raised her gun, she took a deep breath, took aim and blew a hole through the walker's skull. It was too dark to see the brain matter spray. It crumbled over at Lori's feet. She looked over at Andrea, mouth opening and closing, gaping like a fish.
It may be extremely petty, especially in the current circumstances, but Andrea couldn't resist give her a condescending look.
Leave it to the men, huh? She thought and hoped expressed on her face.
Even though the situation was way less than ideal. That felt so good.
As quickly as they had arrived, they exterminated the walkers. Rick ran over to Lori and hugged her, Carl came from out of nowhere to hug his mom as well.
"That was some good shooting." Shane said quietly coming up behind Andrea. "Thank you."
She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
A quiet rasping directed them to a pair of overlooked geeks on top of a collapsed tent, they were grabbing handfuls of the canvas with discombobulated, clumsily stiff hands, bringing it to their mouths to try and rip it open with their teeth like the tent was a stubborn candy bar wrapper.
Andrea and Glenn were the closet so they quickly ganked the walkers silently and without much thought. She started doing an informal survey of everyone. Her heart jumped a bit when she saw Dale clutching his hunting rifle on the other side of the pummeled heart of their camp, taking count of everyone as she was. He looked disturbed at something over her shoulder.
Daryl was kneeling on the devastated tent, next to a body shaped bump. Andrea and Glenn went back over there and scrambled to help Daryl find the zipper to the opening flap of the tent. The rest of the group came over and watched on.
"Carol? Sophia?" Andrea called out.
There wasn't an answer. They froze for a moment. Daryl took his knife out of its holster about to make a new entrance when Glenn found the displaced opening and pulled the zipper back.
Carol was lying face down, perfectly still. Daryl ducked inside. Tentatively he rocked her shoulder.
"Hey," he mumbled.
Slowly Carol raised her head, revealing her daughter tucked underneath her. If any pair of teeth had breached the tent fabric, they would have to go right through her before they got to Sophia.
The almost ultimate sacrifice left the mother extremely shaky. Andrea supported Carol as she got to her feet outside the tent, Sophia crawled out after her, and then Daryl. As Andrea and Lori checked over the mother and daughter for bites or scratches, he hovered very nearby.
The full moon gave them a eerie amount of light for the middle of the nights, light that bounced off the whites of their eyes as the whole group stood around in their vandalized camp, strewn with immobile corpses. Déjà vu was strongly present in the cool night air as they all flashbacks to the attack at their fish fry. But this time they were whole. They would only be burning come morning. They wouldn't be burying friends.
In the distance, there was the distance rumbling of more gunfire.
He may have lived in town, had a beer with the boys at Patton's bar, served by Lou Bush or maybe he was just visiting some relatives. There had been a new car parked in the Smyth's driveway lately. Or maybe he just aimlessly walked here. Whoever this man had been before didn't matter. He was here now and he wasn't alive.
None of them were.
Hershel took one out with a shot to the head, then another and another. His girls huddled behind him, Jimmy with a hunter's rifle stayed near them, Patricia, at his shoulder, hit one in the chest and it kept staggering toward them, completely un-phased as it didn't need its lungs or feel pain.
The walkers had come in through the backdoor, so they made their way to the front door. Maggie opened the door, Hershel and Jimmy had their guns at the ready but it didn't matter how ready they were, there were too many on the porch, too many that were now aware of the living residents, turning toward them in a stiff synchronized movement. They came shambling towards the open door. Hershel and Patricia tried to clear a path for them with a few shots but they closed in before long. Jimmy shoved one with the butt of his rifle. It created a domino effect and knocked over two others, which slowed down the others but pile up disabled Hershel and his family from making their escape outside.
They retreated back in to the house and up the stairs as it was the only place they could go. The walkers had gathered around the staircase. More walkers came in from the front, joining the ones from the back door. They bottlenecked at the base, trying clumsily to climb up the stairs with their staggered walk, those that made up the first step were shot.
Jimmy got tripped on the stairs when a walker grabbed his ankle through the spindles on the banister, he pulled out of it's grasp on his jeans and slipped on the step. He tumbled down into the open jaws of the dead. They were on him before anything could be done. His screams were indescribable, they stopped suddenly and the void was filled by the sound of snacking walkers.
As horrible as it was for them to lose Jimmy in such a way, it gave them a much-needed distraction to escape. They got into Maggie's bedroom without the walkers knowing they had taken a step.
Maggie, Patricia, and Hershel moved the dresser in front of the door. Beth stood in the middle of the room, shaking like a leaf. Maggie had to physically move her to the far side of the room where they all then sat against the back wall.
Waiting.
Would the walkers remember their other prey after they were done their last meal?
In the morning, they might be able to escape out of the window, like Maggie use to do when she was fourteen. That is only if the farm wasn't completely overrun beyond their doors.
They had no supplies up here. They wouldn't be able to live in this room.
Eventually there was the heart-stopping sound of heavy footsteps walking by the door. Beth buried her head into her father's shoulder, he raised his shot gun at the door. Beside him, Maggie and Patricia had a very hushed conversation about Patricia's lady Smith & Wesson pistol.
The roar of an engine blared outside. Hershel peeked out the window above his head. Coming up the drive was a singular headlight, followed by a pair of headlights.
It couldn't be…
But the motorcycle, the raucous noise that Hershel heard the next morning after Rick Grimes showed up with his son, a shattered bullet in his guts, signified that it was in fact Rick's group.
When the engines went quiet. Maggie popped the screen out and crawled out on to the roof ledge. She warned someone on the ground below about the cluster of walkers and reported that they were safely tucked away in her bedroom for now.
Thuds, and thunks, gunshots and a crash came from down the hall. Light jumped under the crack of the door for a quick moment. There was some more noise, the murmur of voices and then a gentle rapping at the bedroom door.
They, except for Beth, moved the dresser back, out of the way of the door. Rick and Glenn helped them from the other side once they could squeeze through the door. Once it was clear, Maggie hugged Glenn.
"I'm gonna get 'round to saving your life someday," she said after thanking him with a public display of affection.
"Ah no worries, I like doing it," Glenn said.
Silence.
"Thank you," said Hershel.
Rick nodded. He looked exhausted as did Glenn. Daryl leaned in the doorway, not looking as tired, more out of breath like a coyote after running down a calf. It became apparent that they were the only ones that came. Perhaps there weren't as many walkers as he thought, it was hard to count in all the chaos. Maybe there hadn't been a lot but it had been more than enough to overwhelm them.
That was the truly scary part of the night. How unprepared they were. How weak.
"Where's the rest of you?" Hershel asked.
"Three or four miles down the road," answered Rick
Why they had stayed so close, Hershel didn't know but he knew that they were extremely lucky that they had. Three or four miles in any direction would be exposed.
"Bring them here." Hershel said.
It was no longer the Christian thing to do, it was how they were all going to survive.
Shane sat by the open door of the Winnebago with his shotgun in his lap.
Everyone was quietly sitting inside the , even Andrea who would characteristically be complaining about being left out of a chance to prove herself, was quiet.
Due to very recent events, Rick had wanted to the majority of their forces to stay behind, taking a special ops team as it were to go see in the Greene's were alright. Obviously Glenn could not be told to say behind, but then Rick had picked Daryl over Shane.
He knew that he had brought some of it on himself for what he did out at Hershel's barn, but he was still Rick's partner. Him and Rick had been in a number of tight spots while they were small town sheriffs. They could communicate without talking.
The hillbilly had been sneaking in on his belly ever since his brother got his worthless ass left behind in Atlanta. That's what the whole business with Sophia had been about. Daryl was trying to get in good with the group, make them forget what he was by being the delusional hope that the group didn't want to let go of for Shane's realistic plans that would keep them alive, making Shane out to be heartless in the process. For that Shane couldn't help but be a little bitter towards him. Perhaps more than just a little.
Finding Sophia had made him a big damn hero, which he definitely deserved to be and Shane was sincerely glad that he had been wrong about finding Sophia alive. The problem was it had made Daryl prouder than a rutting buck, and that pride made him challenge Shane, like that little quip of 'know that you were wrong' when they happened across each other on their way back to camp the first night he had brought Sophia back.
If Rick started feeding that pride, it was going to be a problem.
No use dwelling on it now. It was over and apparently done as car came up the road. The motorcycle it left with did not accompany it. Rick got out of the driver's seat.
Glenn hopped out of the passenger seat, looking confused as the tents were all packed up. Rick looked around the empty ground with a hard look on his face, then up to Shane.
"We're going back to the Greene's," said Rick in a very clenched manner of speaking.
He knew that Shane was planning on moving their camp regardless of Rick coming back with that bit of news.
Shane cursed silently. He was hoping more for a we're-not-wanted-there-so-we're-finally-going-to-m ove-on-as-we-should've-done-days-ago.
"Where's Daryl?" asked Shane
"Doing a lap around the property, making sure we don't get caught with our pants down again tonight," explained Rick.
Of course he was.
A walker suddenly materialized in front of him.
The speed he was going was too much to pull off a turn gracefully or at all successfully. The back end fish tailed on the loose gravel, the motorcycle keeled over, Daryl slamming into the ground, shoulder first. Pain. An explosion of pain coursed through him starting at his shoulder and then through the rest of him as it hit the ground. For a few seconds he thought he was going to puke up their dinner of grouse with a side of rice.
The walker he had almost hit came ambling over in its drunken stumble. The crossbow was somehow still in a spot on the back of the motorcycle, which was pitching a revving fit on its side, Daryl didn't free it but he managed to get it aimed and launch a bolt through the walker's head as it leaned over the motorcycle.
Making a gun – technically crossbow stand – off the motorcycle would've been badass if he weren't a messed up, heaving wreck that he was.
The forest's edge never looked so sinister to Daryl as it did then. There could be a herd of walkers out there and he wouldn't know. More to the point he was…broken. Vulnerable.
He shut the motorcycle off with a flick of the keys and then curled up beside, under the walker slumped over it. If any other walkers went past, hopefully this would be good enough to hide him. Hiding was the only thing he could do.
Daryl kept his face buried against the cool ground, breathing in the fresh grass smell to keep the stench of dead flesh out of his nose.
When would someone come looking for him? What if he was out here all night?
His body was throbbing, he still felt a little queasy, and ice cold. Daryl pressed himself as far as possible against the motorcycle. The motor was still warm.
A cliché coyote howled in the distance.
The heated metal heart started to get uncomfortable on his skin, but he didn't move because he knew that it would eventually fad and it was all he had so Daryl clung to it.
To say the Greene's house was a mess was a huge understatement. A mess was spilled cheerios, muddy paw prints, and glitter. This was a train wreck. Bullet holes in the walls were the least of the damages. There were blood splatters on the wall and the floor. The worst was the walkers that they couldn't move it outside. They would wait until it was safe to dispose of them in daylight hours. For now they covered up the bodies with a tarp.
It had felt like forever since they had left to go find Daryl after he still hadn't met up with them.
"He'll be fine, probably make it back before the others," said Carl, offering a very optimistic smile.
"Yeah."
If there is anyone who deserves to be in your Grace, it's Daryl. He's done so much and asks for nothing in return. Carol prayed.
Her daughter, sitting beside her, was staring off into space. Carol had become familiar with the expression. It was all in her eyes, her face would go slack, void of any emotions, but her eyes seemed to quiver, were strained from whatever torment was going on her mind.
Carol ran her fingers through her fine golden hair. Sophia didn't respond to it. She had retreated into her own little world. Sometimes it was the quiet before the storm. She would come back in to the present and would start cleaning or organizing in a frenzied state.
It had been going on for a few months before the End, Carol consulted with Ed about it once, expressing that perhaps Sophia should see a doctor like she had when she was young. But Ed had quickly snapped that they weren't going to spend a bunch of money to find out that she was just being a moody preteen.
But it was something more than hormones. She had pulled away from her friends, showed little interest in ballet, and her episodes became more frequent and frightening.
Carol felt powerless to this face that was silently begging for help. No matter what she tried she couldn't get through to her daughter. She had locked away her problems as well as a large portion of the child Carol knew.
The chassis of the motorcycle caught the attention of the Mercury's oblong headlights.
"Daryl," Glenn called out.
Daryl sat himself up. Glenn and Maggie came up to him so he tried to put a lid on the shivering.
"You okay?" asked Glenn.
" 'M alive. Think I broke somethin'," Daryl said. He prayed he didn't actually sound as pussy as he heard himself say it.
"Dad will be able to patch ya up. C'mon" Maggie said.
Glenn and Maggie very carefully, like as if he was ninety-nine years old carefully, helped him on to his feet and into the car. He slumped over in the backseat, resting against the door.
They pulled up to the house after the worst quick trip down a gravel road. He got out of the car by himself, holding damaged arm tight to his body with his other arm and walked about three steps to the porch. Walking jarred his frame enough for it to be completely shake up the bone no matter how tight he tried to hold it together. Daryl looked over the steps, going up them was going to be a bitch.
Andrea, T-Dog, and Dale were all up under the porch light. They stopped their conversation when they saw him leaning against the post.
Oh goody, a audience, Daryl thought as he prepared to mount the porch steps. He caught a whiff of cigarette smoke.
"Can I bum one of those?"
T-Dog passed him a cigarette over the railing.
"Layed the bike down. Popped something right in here," Daryl lit up and rubbed the afflicted area.
"That sounds like your collarbone, very easy to break," Dale said.
They talked a little but the conversation felt forced. Daryl wasn't really bothered by it, there wasn't much outside of his collarbone that could. Everyone was sort of giving him weird looks, thinking that he should go inside and get seen to instead having a smoke. But he needed it after all the moving it took to get this far. He snubbed out the butt of the cigarette under his boot and prepared to take on the stairs.
"Hey, let me help you man," Glenn offered.
"I can do it," Daryl growled
He gave up after the first step and took up Glenn's offer of support right into the bedroom off the hallway. He gave up trying to have any shred of dignity and let Glenn put him on the bed. It actually wasn't all that comfortable lying down. Daryl didn't think there was anyway to lie comfortably so he didn't move.
Hershel came in. The farmer's blue eyes looked tired but the shock of the evening had looked to wore off. Daryl opened up his shirt so Hershel could see it.
"The good news is the bone didn't break through the skin," Hershel tried to give him a silver lining.
Still fucking broken Daryl thought miserably.
"Can I come in?" He heard Carol ask but couldn't see from his position.
Your call, Hershel looked at him.
"Yes," Daryl answered.
He was mostly dressed this time. But it wasn't like he had anything she hadn't seen before. That night she brought him up some dinner, he had tried to cover up his bare back but didn't get the sheet up or roll over quick enough and she saw the scars on his back.
Carol appeared by his side. She was looking at him with that same gentle look that she had that night. That's what got to him, was that she saw the scars, he got the feeling she knew what they meant but didn't look at him with pity.
"I gotta set the bone," Hershel said
Before he can process what that meant, he felt the absolute worst pain of his entire life as Hershel pulled his arm in the opposite direction, and the bar had been set quite high by breaking his collarbone in the first place. Daryl screamed.
Carol's delicate features may have turned to pity there. Hershel's definitely had pity on his face. Daryl pitied Daryl at that moment but mostly because he was going to be embarrassed for screaming like that later on.
Hershel brushed over his hairline and looked at the stitches on his temple. It felt like the ravine all over again.
Are you wondering why these things keep happening to me? Cause I sure am, thought Daryl.
But this was new. Oddly enough Daryl had never broken a bone before. There were plenty of times when he should've; the time he fell out of a hunting blind, getting in too one to many fights, his father…
Maggie came in with some familiar looking bottle of painkillers. She also had a perfectly square cloth. Daryl shook two pills into his hand and threw them back. Then Hershel adjusted his arm to being crooked in the sling.
"It doesn't look like you hit your head. But there is still a worry of repeat trauma to the brain. He'll need to be monitored tonight." Hershel said.
That was sort of a scary statement. The pills got caught in his throat.
"I'll stay with you tonight," Carol said to him.
That was much more of a comforting statement. He wasn't going to be staring up at the ceiling all alone. That helped the jagged pills in his throat slide down.
It had occurred to her earlier, when they were out in the pasture with Greene's horses that Carol didn't know anything about Daryl.
"Where did you live?" asked Carol.
"Fifteen minutes outside of Juno."
Carol wasn't sure if the clipped answer was because Daryl didn't want to talk. So she tried another.
"Live on a farm?"
"What gave it away?" Daryl said. "Actually we lived in town when I was young, didn't move out to the ol' Dixon homestead till three or so years after my grandpa died when our house burned down."
That was a bit more open. Carol wanted to ask about that out of curiosity but she had to keep him focused on happy things if she could. "Grow crops?"
"My Dad weren't much of a farmer, he leased our land to ranchers for their cattle for a few years, then we took up bordering horses. Some good money in that. I kept it up when I was on my own. Where are you from?"
"I was born and raised in Dawsonville," Carol said out of habit. Although she had been living in Canton for the past nine odd years.
"No shit. I've been there. It's quite the place."
"What do you mean by that? And keep in the back of your mind that's my hometown you're talking 'bout."
"It's just so small, I blew right through it when I came out there to look at a quad, had ta turn 'round," said Daryl. "Pretty little place, very coz-homey."
"Coz-homey?"
"I was wanted to say cozy but than I wanted to say homey too and just said both," Daryl explained.
Carol laughed. Daryl blushed, looking down but looking over to her a few times. She was smiling like they weren't in the place they were.
"Coz-homey," Carol repeated in a light laugh.
"Hey, ya gotta be nice to me, I'm broken." Daryl defended himself.
They sat reveling in their little joke in a comfortable silence.
"Did you eat at C.J's Diner? I had lunch there, had some kind a soup and sandwich special, it was really good." Daryl said,
"Of course I did. Did you see the church on the hill right off the exit?" asked Carol.
"I think so."
"That was my father's church."
"Shoulda known you was a preacher's daughter,"
"What gave it away?"
"oh I dunno, just makes sense when ya say it," Daryl said. "That prayer ya said in that church when Sophia was missin'-"
Carol's heart stopped. What she had said in that plea for forgiveness was not meant for others to hear.
"I didn't hear all of it but it was – I don't know – I never heard anybody pray like that before. Could tell that ya have really strong faith. I'm not making sense, am I?" Daryl rambled.
Daryl had finally fallen asleep, he seemed to be fighting it for a while even though it was where pain couldn't get to him. It was going to be awful to have to bring him out of it to see if he could remember his name, his brother's name, her name, she'd probably ask if he knew her daughter's name as well. Carol really couldn't think of other questions.
Their conversation, while it had been the longest one the pair had ever had, didn't turn up much on him. Daryl would answer questions but didn't give much away. Once they got on Dawsonville, they didn't get off it with Daryl asking questions about her life there.
While he was a sleep, Carol took the opportunity to make a small trip to the bathroom. The living room outside had taken a different shape as everyone had set up a bedroll. Hers and Sophia's sleeping bags was perfectly rectangles align with the foamy underneath and pillows on them were placed so perfectly they looked like they were out of a advertisement. She didn't see her daughter but as Lori and Carl were gone as well, she knew that Sophia would be with them
She pushed the ajar door open, thinking no one was in there. Andrea was in there, but only staring at her reflection in the mirror over the sink.
"Sorry," Carol apologized about to shut the door.
Andrea looked over at her, she looked to be frozen at the mark of ten seconds from crying.
"Oh hun, what's wrong?" asked Carol, coming into the bathroom.
"I just keep thinking about Amy," she said in a hushed voice. "If I had learned to shoot before maybe I would've been able to save her and she'd be here with us today."
Carol hugged her.
"You can't do that to yourself. You can't torture yourself with the if only's. There is only what is."
A timid knocking at the door brought Daryl out of his light sleep. His eyes hit on the empty chair where Carol had been sitting.
Knock, knock.
"Yeah," he answered.
Sophia crept into the room. It was the same bedroom that she had slept in when they had spent the night. Only this time it was Daryl in the bed. She had that feeling that she shouldn't be in there. Not after what she had done.
"Hey," croaked Daryl, He looked sick, and pale.
"Wanted to say goodnight to my mom," Sophia explained to her toes.
"She stepped out," said Daryl. "Sorry I'm stealing her from ya. Yer more than welcome to stay."
"Naw, I already got my bed all set up in the front room. Right by Carl, we're gonna read ghost stories."
Sophia straightened a wrinkle out of the blanket. Then scratched at her shoulder.
"You doin' okay?"
Of course you're not. You've been scared ta death for the past week. Daryl looked at the angry red mark on the small shoulder.
I broke your collarbone, Sophia thought.
"Yes."
When Daryl had last seen Sophia in their broken tent, she had been in her pajamas but since then she had changed in to her clothes. She had even combed her hair back in to a clip with a little blue butterfly on it.
Dressed to receive company. Like a right, proper young lady. He was taken back to coming back into the bathroom after bathing her. Sophia had curled up under the towel and fallen asleep on the floor. He sat her up against the wall to put his shirt on her and she just seemed so doll like.
"You found a doll…" He heard Shane growl in his head.
"Is my pack in the house?" asked Daryl.
"Umm, I dunno. I'll go check."
Sophia went back out into the sitting room. She looked over the backpacks in the house, most were at the end of a sleeping bag. She had seen Daryl's pack before. It was tan with three big pouches on the front. It wasn't in the house.
They had moved the couches against the wall. Dale was sitting on one of them and he was the only one in the room who wasn't busy and that she had an easier time approaching him than most others.
"Daryl needs his pack, I think it's in the RV," said Sophia.
"No problem," he said.
He went out to the front door with T-Dog, Sophia waited by the door. They gave her backpack and she went back into the bedroom and set it down on the bed beside him. Daryl looked in the front pouch, not finding whatever he was looking for, he undid the top zipper and started rummaging through it, turning up a lot of shirts with plaid pattern.
"Don't go nowhere," he said when she started to take a step.
Sophia rooted herself to the spot obediently. She couldn't stop looking at the sling that Daryl's arm was in.
"Think this is yours," Daryl pulled out her doll out from the bottom.
When Sophia reached out to take it from him, a static shock nipped at both their fingertips. She hugged the doll close to her.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
He was glad he had stolen it out of fear that Carol had lost hope and would throw it out. In a small way he wanted give that doll back to Sophia as much as he wanted to get her back to her mother. Daryl could tell from the way she held it that the doll that it meant something to her.
And he was right.
Whenever I got sad, I would go to my bedroom and hug one of my stuffies. I would remember happy memories, like Maline, my golden monkey with the Velcro on its hands and feet so they stuck together. Tiffany, Jo, Emily, Mary Anna, and Jessica all had monkeys too and we all wore them around our necks or on our backs like they were our babies. Our fifth grade teacher, Ms. Kutcher, was so cool, she let us have them in class but one time we had a mean sub and she took our babies away. I helped Curtis put glue on the teacher's chair during morning recess. Wasn't so tough with a bunch of glue on her butt.
When we had to go to Atlanta, all my toys got left at the house. Which was fine, I was getting too old for them anyway. It's just without them, I have a hard time remembering good things. I knew they existed but I couldn't think of little details sometimes, and it was impossible when I was upset.
Eliza gave her doll to me because she felt bad about my dad. She thought I was sad about it. I wasn't. I didn't feel anything the moment I found out he was dead. It wasn't till the next morning that it sunk in.
Daryl watched a slender smile slowly dawn on Sophia.
He couldn't hurt me any more…
Author's Note:
JackAndHoney cracked the whip on this story, and I was all like Dark Horse is an abused animal. JK, thanks for the poke.
Thanks for all your input and kind words that keep me going; 6747, Chemical Ghost, JackAndHoney, Emberka-2012, wolfgal97, sonshinedaisy, HGRHfan35, Sira1, NatLaufey, GemmaTellerSoa, SilverWolf84, sodapop765, I luv ewansmile, Runaway Fantasy Princess, itsi3, DerpPaws-McReedus-Caryl-LOVER, Dixxxon.
I was shown by my good buddy, h8erade, how to do links so they are not butchered to the point you can't retrieve it. Below is the cover Natlaufey did for this story, I love it so much, I can't describe it so go see it.
stuff[dash]i[dash] DH[dash]cover[dash]363525568
Copy and paste in to your website typey bar, (I forget its name, I know its simple) and remove put a real . or -
For anyone who is concerned over how "disturbingly well done" this is written, know that I've had quite a happy life, good relationship with my father, so not writing this from a past experience or anything like that.
However since y'all have shared with me, I will tell that you that I am an anxious/depressive person at times. I was on anxiety medication a few years ago when I had a bad episode. I was so stressed out, could barely eat and because of that I had no energy so I was sleeping all the time so I basically became a fainting goat, (look 'em up on YouTube). Anyway that's my story