Daryl woke up feeling cold, which was an unusual sensation when Kit was next to him. The only explanation he could think was that there had been some sort of cold snap overnight because she always managed to keep him warm. Besides, a cold snap might explain why he felt so shitty right now. When the small woman finally began to stir, he quietly commented on the temperature, trying not to wake the others up. "Kinda cold, ain't it?"
"Cold?" she asked in disbelief. "I'm so hot that I'm sweating and you can't possibly be cold. I swear you're radiating more heat than I am." She became stiff as she said this and her hand came up to feel his forehead. "You have a fever," she told him nervously. "A bad one."
"Can't be," he insisted as she pulled herself out of their sleeping bag.
She got him his water bottle, forcing him to drink from it. "I'll see what we can do." Catching the look he was giving her, she added "Do what I say, Dixon."
They were holed up in a small town in the middle of nowhere and the town looked like it had been picked over by another group when they arrived. She left the bedroom that she and Daryl had claimed and traveled downstairs where she saw T-Dog and Maggie working on breakfast together. "Hey, Kit. What's up?" he greeted her somewhat cheerfully. They hadn't encountered many walkers here and the other conditions weren't bad either, so he had no especially large complaints that morning.
"Daryl's sick and he has a fever. I'm going to go through that first-aid kits we found in the watchtower and ranger station to find some ibuprofen." She didn't need to state the obvious: in the apocalypse, a fever was much more serious than it had been before.
Once Daryl had taken the pills, she returned downstairs to maybe find something he could eat when she ran into Rick. "Lori and Carl don't feel too hot," he told her. Rick, Kit, Maggie and T-Dog all locked eyes, realizing that they may have a big problem on their hands.
By mid-afternoon, the vast majority of the group was running a fever, couldn't hold any food down and the ibuprofen was all but gone. Then, only Kit, Herschel, Maggie and T-Dog were left to take care of the others, many of whom couldn't even stand. The only pittance they had was the fact that it wasn't the walker fever.
"We need to keep their fevers down," Herschel said nervously. "This appears to be a very nasty virus and until they recover, we are not going to be very mobile." Meaning, in an emergency, they were screwed. "Now that we've got them all in the same room, it'll be a little easier to care for them, but I would prefer more medicine to help them. Kit, T-Dog, would you two mind making a run?"
"I'd like to go," Maggie interjected. "I know better than either of them what'll help the others."
Herschel didn't appear happy about her going on the run but she was adamant, so he realized there was nothing he could say. "I'll bring her back," Kit told him firmly. "None of those dead bastards is going to touch her."
With that promise made, Kit and Beth exited the home the group had been staying in and began making their way further into town. The tiny pharmacy had already been picked over by one or two groups before them but Maggie suggested they look in a couple other homes to rummage through their medicine cabinets. After all, something as simple as ibuprofen hadn't been uncommon before the outbreak.
Kit opened the door to the large, expensive home first, in case there were walkers. It was good that she did, too, because one was standing not far from the entrance, where it was quickly dispatched by Kit with one of her throwing knives.
"You're getting good with those," Maggie complimented her as she delved into the medicine cabinet, plucking bottles out as she went and stuffing them into her small bag.
The other woman nodded, accepting the compliment while giving Maggie one of her own. "It was a good idea to look in the homes, especially given the pharmaceutical jackpot this place turned out to be. We should check out the kitchen before we leave. Maybe we'll get as lucky as we did with the medicine."
"Maybe," Maggie agreed.
The two women found a few cans of food in the house, some uncooked pasta and a box of crackers. Though they weren't exactly saltines, the sick members of the group might appreciate them.
As they exited the house, Kit ahead of Maggie so she could keep an eye out for walkers, they began to make their way back to the relative safety of the group. "Well, this hasn't been too bad," Kit pondered aloud. "At least we got what we needed pretty quickly." They had wandered off the main road and were heading up the long driveway towards their 'camp' when Kit's skin prickled and she spun around in time to see a man grabbing Maggie from behind.
Fuck! Maggie gave a muffled shriek before the man pulled out a gun. This sight threw Kit into a pure rage – one that she had never before experienced – and she threw two of her knives into his abdomen.
The man made a choking sound but Kit wasn't anywhere near done with him. She shoved him up against one of the trees and nailed his hands above his head using her knives, causing him to howl in pain then whimper pitifully. But if it was pity he wanted, he certainly wasn't going to get it. Without even thinking about it, Kit took out her longer knife and rammed it into him, twisting it as she went which elicited even louder wails from him. Kit wanted to slowly slice the bastard up, maybe strangle him with the necklace he wore and make him pay for what he had been about to do but she stopped herself just in time, choosing to shoot him in the head rather than torture him, though she still didn't think he deserved such mercy.
The noise would undoubtedly draw walkers, so she wanted to get out of there, but not before retrieving her knives and staring his lifeless corpse. "Are you hurt?" she asked Maggie, feeling like she may vomit at the thought of what could have happened.
"No," Maggie responded quietly. Both women were clearly shaken.
"Then we have to go back to the others."
When they burst through the door, both on the edge of hysteria, T-Dog and Herschel jumped up from where they had been sitting and Herschel wrapped his arms around Maggie protectively. "What happened?"
"A man attacked her," Kit whispered, barely able to compose herself as she fought back her own tears. "I killed him." There was no other way of putting it. No way around it.
Maggie shouldn't have had to experience that but Kit knew she had had probably made matters worse with the sick way she had responded to his violence. Killing him had been the only option she saw for the situation but her additional brutality had been entirely unnecessary. More than anything, it was the carnal wrath that scared Kit the most: she hadn't been aware she was even capable of such sadism.
She could see a rage similar to her own fill Herschel when she informed him of what could have been and he gripped Maggie even tighter in his arms, trying to calm her down.
Her body flinched when she felt T-Dog put his hand on her shoulder. "Let's clean you up." She hadn't even noticed that she was covered in blood. Maggie looked at her with what looked like horror.
A numbness began to set in as T-Dog, Herschel and Kit continued to care for the sick along with. There were no words for what had happened that day and each of them was equally horrified.
Later that night, the four of them sat around the oil lamp, staring into it, trying not to think, when T-Dog turned to Kit. "You didn't just kill that sick bastard, did you? It's written all over your face." When he saw tears begin to form, he received his answer. "Don't dwell on what you did, do you hear me? Because whatever happened out there was not your fault: you reacted and nothing more. He had it coming." Once he told her this, T-Dog pulled her into a comforting hug. "If you need anything, just holler."
She nodded silently, appreciating the kindness T-Dog showed her. To her surprise, his words did actually begin to make her feel better. "I've never lost control like that," she whispered. "Herschel has always said that I'm the calm one but I couldn't look at that and be calm. God, you would think I was fucking Shane with how I reacted. He probably would have done the same damn thing."
"Shane wasn't always wrong," T-Dog reminded her. "And you're calm when it's important and necessary. We're all only human: you're no exception."
They had never bonded one-on-one like this before and Kit found herself appreciating their moment together, despite the circumstances which created it. "You're a godsend," she admitted earnestly.
"Well, I did do a lot of work with the church before this." She gave him a small smile for his lighthearted comment, but as usual the conversation drifted to darker subjects. "Don't really know how I feel about all that now."
"Your faith?" The gloomy look he gave her was as good an answer as she was going to get. "Well, I'm probably the last person you should be asking about that. I didn't have one to begin with. It's okay if you don't really know what you believe anymore, though."
"It was about all I had left from before." So that was it. He didn't want to let go.
"We've all changed," she reminded him.
"Herschel still seems to be pretty sure about his beliefs," T-Dog muttered.
The older man looked at T-Dog sympathetically. "That doesn't mean I haven't struggled with them, or questioned them during this mess."
"Change may not always be for the better, but it's necessary," Kit added. "Did you know I used to brake my car for birds? I was terrified of people – wouldn't have been able to do what I've had to do since the outbreak. If you've lost your faith, that doesn't mean that you're a bad person or that there's no part of who you used to be left."
"Sometimes it feels like that." Maggie hadn't said a word until now but T-Dog nodded in agreement to his comment.
"You're still the best damn cook here," Kit told T-Dog. "And you're still the person I immediately go to if I want girl-talk," Kit told Maggie with a small smile.
"None of us are the people we used to be," Herschel sighed. "But that doesn't mean that nothing can be salvaged."
"You still haul those damn books around," T-Dog realized.
"I sometimes still talk like I'm writing a college paper – a little pretentious. Daryl hates it when I do that. Actually, though they're few and far between, there are a couple changes that I actually like." The others raised their eyebrows questioningly. "I wasn't very different before the outbreak than I was when we first arrived at the quarry: quiet, mostly. I let people walk all over me because I didn't have the backbone to stand up for myself. Hell, I could barely string an audible sentence together in front of strangers. In respects like that, I like myself better now than before the apocalypse. And hey, now I don't have to pick out a major. I would have gone into my junior year of college still undecided about my major."
"I was never very close to anyone before the apocalypse," T-Dog admitted. "I can't remember anyone I was as close with as anyone in this group."
The members of the group may not have been a constant, but the group as its own entity was. Anyone in it would have a family and that at least was comforting. A living breathing person standing there in the flesh could be significantly more comforting than any divine being because everyone in the group knew without a shadow of a doubt that everyone else would be there for them.
The group had stumbled upon a small hotel a short ways off the main road in another tiny town. "That's three floors we gotta clear," Rick sighed. "I guess we better get started." Each individual room had to be checked for walkers, but as luck would have it, there were very few others to be found in the hotel besides the original handful that Kit and Daryl had eradicated when they had first entered.
The laughter that was present at dinner that night was unbelievable to hear after so long, everyone experiencing a sort of high off their happiness. Beds, after all, were a rarity. When Kit and Daryl claimed a room as their own, the pair cracked up at their fortune and began a ritual that they had been without for a while.
"God, it's been weeks," Daryl groaned between kisses and removing Kit's clothing. "I dunno if we'll even make it ta the bed."
"No complaints from me," Kit gasped after a particularly long kiss between them. "Besides, we need to pull out all the stops, hold nothing back. We have a room to ourselves for the first time in ages and no one in the neighboring rooms."
After all the tricks that could be mustered had been used, Kit and Daryl both left very satisfied, they crawled into bed together in ecstasy. "I feel like I did back at the CDC," Daryl told her with a grin.
"With my new rug burn as proof," she added blissfully. "It's too bad it can't be like this every night." Inevitably, the group would have to move on. They would be lucky if they could stay at the hotel more than two nights.
Kit hadn't slept that soundly in what seemed like an eternity and she wasn't pleased to be woken by Daryl. "Kit, we gotta get up. Be social," he added, using her choice phrase from the CDC.
"Fuck that shit," she griped as she managed to sit up.
"I thought you was dead fer a second," Daryl snickered. "Been tryin' ta get you up fer more'n ten minutes, now. Ya ain't usually a heavy sleeper."
"It's been months since I've slept in an actual bed, so cut me some slack." She pulled on a pair of cords and a t-shirt, having ditched the jacket since spring was so clearly underway.
The group sat together, enjoying a little breakfast when Rick began to divvy up tasks for the day. "T-Dog, I want you and Carol to raid the kitchen, looking for edible food along with cleaning out what's spoiled. See what you can do with the kitchen since you're our two best cooks." He turned to Kit and Daryl. "I need you two to raid places nearby fer food; we're only set for the next couple days. Beth and Lori will raid the maid stations. Herschel's on watch and everyone else is with me to block off the main entrance and fortify this place a little. We might be able to stay longer."
"Let's take the minivan instead," Kit suggested. "If we get a lot of food then I'll be easier to transport."
"You jus' miss yer mom-mobile," he accused.
"Guilty as charged," she agreed dramatically. "It still makes sense, so I'm driving," she said, dangling her keys.
While they were driving, she gave Daryl a scrutinizing look. "Rick seems to be pretty confident about this hotel. He doesn't usually bother to fortify a place we're only going to stay in a few days." She was dubious. After all, even if Rick had been a decent leader through the winter, he didn't always think things through clearly.
"Don't let yer guard down jus' yet," he reminded her "I ain't gettin' my hopes up." The feeling was mutual.
They soon came upon a Costco and hoped that it hadn't been picked over too much. While they wandered through with carts, finding that fairly large quantities of food had been left for them, they came upon a group of six walkers. "Be sure ta leave some fer me," Daryl asked. "It ain't ma fault I gotta reload."
"I'll try."
Each took down three walkers respectively which only served to fuel the passion from the previous night. "Ain't gonna lie, ya look damn sexy with those knives."
"Well, when you got one of those walkers right through its mouth like fucking Legolas, I just about ripped your clothes off right there."
"Dunno who 'Legolas' is but it sure sounds like a compliment. Save it fer tonight an' I promise I'll make it worth yer while."
"You better keep that promise," she warned him.
When they returned, hauling the food through one of the side entrances they found the rest of the group well on their way to making themselves at home in the hotel. The front entrance was now completely closed off so that no walker would be able to get through it. Still, she was cynical. They were never this lucky.
A few days had passed since they had first cleared the hotel and things were still running surprisingly smoothly. Kit and Daryl had just come back from a successful hunt, having brought back some very nice venison, when Kit heard about another raid.
"I realize things have been crazy lately, but we're gettin' a list together of all the things we're gonna need."
Kit turned to Daryl. "Well, you and I both know that I'm no good at skinning and gutting animals so I think I'll go on that run."
"We jus' went on a run; let someone else go fer a change."
"I actually really want to go," she insisted. "Besides, the most successful runs tend to have one or both of us present, so I should tag along."
"Whatever," he said with a shrug. "Jus' don't get yerself killed."
"Will do."
She approached Rick, her own ulterior motives for going on the run. "Hey, I'll go with whoever's available."
"Glenn?" Rick suggested.
"Glenn's great. Should we head off in about half an hour?"
He nodded, confused – and more than a little concerned – by her enthusiasm; Kit did what he told her to, more or less, but he had never actually seen her enthusiastic about a run that didn't involve Daryl going with her. Maybe she was happy to be going with Glenn.
Kit and Glenn headed off in her minivan towards a Walgreens that Glenn and Maggie had found the previous day while scouting the surrounding area out a little more thoroughly. "Got the list?" Kit asked.
He nodded. "I can't remember the last time we could actually go on a raid for luxuries like lotion," he sighed.
"I can't remember the last time I was actually happy about the place we were holed up in."
Glenn nodded in agreement. "I'm sure you and Daryl are enjoying the privacy," he joked awkwardly.
Kit snorted. "You're one to talk."
Once they arrived, it was agreed that Kit would take primary watch, even if Glenn had become a pretty good shot over the winter. As always, Kit was welcome to grab something useful if she saw it. Glenn began to gather items on the list while she inspected the premises for walkers or an even more terrifying possibility: other people. The place was clear with the exception of one walker which dropped to the floor only a brief moment after it was noticed, a knife buried in its skull.
Now that her primary duty as guard was taken care of Kit was staring at a wall of merchandise, almost lost in her thoughts before picking something up off the shelf and continuing her search. Plucking useful items off the shelves and tossing them in her pack as she went, she finally came upon the pharmacy and began rummaging through the aisles of it, looking for useful things. In that area, she found her ulterior motive and quickly placed it inside her bag.
"You about done, Glenn?" she asked patiently.
"Just two more things on the list and we are headed home sweet home."
The reference he made to the hotel caused the sides of Kit's mouth to turn up in a relieved smile. The long months spent roaming all over Georgia could finally be over.
While she was driving back to the hotel, a string of almost ten cars passed her minivan, the passengers clearly inspecting her and Glenn. The group was in someone else's territory. Fuck.
It was clear that they had no choice but to leave so the group gathered their personal items and food to load up their cars for what felt like the hundredth time. (It could very well have been their hundredth time, given the length of time they had been on the run.) Thankfully, they were out of there before anyone from the other group came looking for them. As Kit sat behind Daryl on his motorcycle, wondering if this would ever end.
They were at it yet again: clearing another house. Within minutes, Kit, Daryl, Rick and T-Dog secured the premises and the others began to file in while Daryl descended the stairs with an owl.
As the others began to nibble on food, Kit sat down next to Daryl, not touching anything. She silently watched as Carl appeared ready to tuck into a can of dog food, making her feel nauseous. (The other can he had graciously thrown to Beth for Bernie's benefit.) The smell of it as he opened the can was enough to make her want to hurl. However, she was thankful when Rick threw the damn dog food away from Carl. If he had actually started eating it, she may have thrown up. As per usual, walkers began to close in on them before they could become comfortable – a common occurrence which kept morale in the group low.
The nausea passed as they pulled over to determine which direction they were going in. The others headed to the creek and Daryl turned to her. "While the others wash their panties, we should hunt. Tha' owl didn't exactly hit the spot."
She nodded, strapping her knives onto herself and grabbing her rifle before trotting along beside him. Before Daryl could shoot anything, they happened upon what was once a prison, with walkers milling around the courtyard. "Damn shame," Daryl sighed.
"One man's misfortune may be our salvation," she mused.
"Ya can't be serious."
"I'm dead serious." If it meant a private toilet to pee in, Kit would do just about anything.
When Rick saw the prison, he thought the same thing that Kit did: "It's perfect," he said.
Soon, they were preparing to take the prison yard. Kit and Daryl climbed into two separate guard towers and she took out her rifle for its first serious use since she had shot Shane with it. Oddly enough, it would once again be used to protect Rick. Her aim was as true as ever and the fuckers began dropping like flies when she pointed the rifle into the yard. Within only a matter of minutes, it had been completely cleared.
Night fell and as soon as food was prepared, Kit brought both of their portions over to the toppled car he stood guard on. "Looking fierce, Griz. Care for company?"
They ate peacefully together – a somewhat foreign concept – and Kit stared at the stars in enchantment like she had at the quarry. It did Daryl some good to know some things never changed. "Yer cat'll be able to run around wherever he likes out here."
"He'll stick close to Beth. He learned a long time ago that we're the ones who protect him from walkers because he's not stupid. Honestly, I didn't know you gave a shit about Bernie." She bit her lip apprehensively.
"What's eatin' ya, Dex?"
"Just nervous for tomorrow. It's a big job."
Kit had become accustomed to her throwing knives, so it was strange holding the long one in her hand again but as soon as the blade made contact with a walker's scull, it was like riding a bicycle. Though, fighting walkers with any weapon had become mechanical now so it made no difference whether she was fighting them with a knife, a gun, or even a stick; she would take down her target, just like everyone else in the group would.
It may have been a little sick, but as she and the rest of the invasion party entered into Cell Block C, she became excited. It was safe, secure and had private toilets – practically the fucking American dream as far as she was concerned.
The others began to file in, bringing the belongings of the group with them, including her yellow pack, which she all too readily took from Carol, hoping the other woman hadn't had a reason to go through it and find her 'ulterior motive'.
She heard "I ain't sleepin' in no cage. I'll take the perch," and knew it couldn't be anyone but Daryl. Kit shared his sentiments about sleeping in the cells, but she couldn't help but remind Daryl of something as she ascended the stairs.
"It's not exactly private."
"Thas what guard towers is fer, Dex," he replied cheerfully. "I ain't in the mood tonight, anyway."
"That makes two of us." She sat down and placed his head in her lap. "Do you think this place will last? For a while, anyway?"
"Couldn't say, but I think it's inventory time," he noted, nodding towards Rick.
"No rest for the wicked," she sighed, before joining the others in assessing the riot control materials used by the guards. Once again, she and Daryl shared the same sentiments regarding the armor: fuck no, that shit was disgusting.
The prison wasn't such a bad place, though. She hoped it would last.
A/N: I experienced a sort of writer's block while I was thinking about the next few chapters. There were about four different directions I had planned for this to go in. I had even written a few chapters ahead for two of the different storylines to see which one I liked best. This particular chapter has been edited and rewritten extensively since I first typed it up so I hope the decisions I've made were the right ones. It wasn't until now that I realized this chapter could work with any of the different storylines I had in mind so I apologize for the unnecessarily long wait. Now that I've made some more concrete decisions, things should go a little more smoothly. However, I do have classes and I make no promises as far as updates are concerned. I will try to update about every two weeks, however, so hopefully that works out. Thank you guys for reading and as always please review and feel free to tell me if you don't like something because I want to make sure I'm not doing anything stupid or irritating to the story.