Go ahead and hate me. I'm sorry. I have no excuses, just that life is busy and I wish I had more time to sit down and write. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy. Please review to save my sanity. Cheers, Lara xo
Maggie let out a shriek of disgust as she wrenched her knife from the skull of a walker. The pressure caused rotted brain matter to spray forth from the cracked cranium. She stomped her boot once more into the softened bone before wiping her knife haphazardly on a handkerchief, before deciding to throw said handkerchief into the woods. Nothing took the smell of rotted walker brain out of cloth. The odor was pungent and stubborn.
"How much further did you say it was?" Glenn chirped up from the rear of their group. He was observing Maggie's knife skills with a hint of pride and adoration on his face as she finished kicking the corpse off into the ditch that bordered the thin road they were walking.
"Another half a mile or so. Not far at all. Right behind the old McDonald's store over there!" Grace pointed out the golden arches, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun which glinted blindingly against Beth's silver necklace which hung around her neck.
"Aah, what I wouldn't give for a Big Mac and a large fries," Glenn commented wistfully, hearing his stomach start to grumble at the idea of a proper feeding.
"What was pretty much all I ate until I was 21 or so," Daryl added with a wry smile.
"What? How are you not morbidly obese?" Glenn appraised Daryl's muscular arms, his left bicep tensed under the weight of the crossbow.
"A combination of high metabolism and drugs," Daryl shrugged him off, gesturing up ahead as the golden arches came into view and revealed the warehouse behind it.
"Is that what I think it is?" Maggie breathed a sigh of disbelief as the faded red-letters loomed in the near distance, growing clearer with each passing minute.
"Costco!" Grace laughed.
"Hope you've got your membership renewed, because we are going shopping!" She grabbed Maggie's hand, pulling her towards the front door which remained miraculously intact.
A few sharp kicks between Glenn and Daryl caused the emergency exit door to spring open, and they entered the dim interior cautiously, remaining light on their feet in case they roused a few lone walkers.
"Okay, let's be smart about this," Maggie whispered, her voice quiet yet strong in the open-plan department store.
"We need baby formula, diapers, dummies. Tinned food. Painkillers and bandages. Bottled water, if you can find any," she counted off the list on her hands.
"Once we've got the necessities, we can fill up our carts with whatever else we want. But needs are always first, okay?" Daryl added, trying to hint to Grace that he was not about to help her lug a ton of unnecessary clothing back to the funeral home. She only nodded in agreement as she pulled a squeaky cart from the bay, and heading in the direction of infant care.
"Any dramas, call for us. You know what to do!" Glenn waved swiftly to Daryl as he ran to catch up with Grace.
"Hey, hey, hey! Hold up. You have to wait for me," he reprimanded, immediately hating the nagging quality that his voice had acquired.
"Okay, calm down. I know where I'm going," she sighed.
"You can't just disappear on your own. That's stupid, and stupid gets you killed," he continued, internally grimacing.
"I'll remember that," she murmured bluntly as she increased her pace ever so slightly, just to irk him. Their floor of the Costco was silent apart from the squeaks of the cart wheels on the tiled floor, and the dull thunk of their boots.
"So… what did you do? Before all this happened?" Grace piped up, having forgiven him for his earlier bossiness.
"Nothin' much. Was a bit of a drop kick," he shrugged. As much as he liked having Grace around, he did not feel the need to share his life story with her.
"Really? Are you from a big family?" she prodded, keen for some form of running conversation with him.
"No. Just me and my brother. Here – stop the cart, we need diapers," he disappeared into the shelving units to grab armfuls of packages, dumping them into the base of the cart.
"That's nice," Grace murmured as she started to direct the trolley towards the display of formula and bottles.
"Huh?" Daryl was paying more attention to the task at hand, stacking bottles and formula tins into the trolley as well as a few of the other baby essentials that he knew Beth would appreciate. Pacifiers, tiny socks, onesies and baby wipes.
"Having a brother, I mean. I was an only child. What was your brother like?"
"He was a loser. Worse than me," Daryl nudged her away from the cart handles so that he could maneuver the heavy load towards the first aid supplies at the end of the store.
"That's too bad."
There was a moment of silence, and Daryl realized that she expected him to ask her his own questions. After all, that was how humans communicated.
"What did you do?"
"Oh, I worked millions of jobs. Receptionist, banker, student recruitment at a university, hairdresser – you know, I could tidy up your hair for you. If you want me to."
Daryl dodged away from her curious hands.
"Uh, no. Thanks, but no." His words must have come out as brusque. Grace appeared taken aback by his response, and was lulled into silence for a few minutes as they finished collecting the odds and ends they would need for the house.
Daryl peeked over the rows of shelving units, looking for any sign of the others. He heard the squeak of a trolley and the soft thud of an item landing inside of it on the far right side of the store, and surmised that they were safe.
"Got everything on the list? Let's head towards Maggie and Glenn," he nodded in their general direction as he nudged the cart back towards the central walkway.
"Hold up! I wanna have a look at the books!" Grace latched onto the edge of the cart, preventing him from pushing it any further.
"Huh? What for? Gonna be reading Mills and Boon on the couch all day?" he grunted in disapproval.
"I was thinking along the lines of guides on hunting and gathering. Survival manuals, you know?"
"Oh. Fine. Hurry up," he exhaled, deciding that he had no reason to be shitty with her after all. She quickly disappeared from sight, her short frame quickly engulfed by the shelving units. He remained with the cart, taking a quick inventory of what they had obtained from the infant section.
He heard Maggie's familiar laugh from a few departments over, and closed his eyes for a moment as he leaned against the heavy handles of the cart and breathed a sigh of relief. They had enough supplies to keep them happy and healthy for a few good months at least. That meant less runs, less chance of fatalities, less danger. More time that he could spend with his wife and his daughter, instead of on the road and fighting for survival.
A high pitched scream suddenly permeated the deserted department store, filling him with terror.
"Maggie! Glenn!" he cried out, ears pricked up.
"We're fine!" he heard Maggie call back.
Grace.
Abandoning the cart, he took off in the direction of the book department, not really sure of where anything was, only that he hoped he wasn't too late to help her.
He ran past each aisle, briefly scanning through the darkness for Grace.
"Grace! Grace! Where are you?" He called for her, louder and louder with each passing second of silence. He could hear Maggie and Glenn's pounding footsteps as they headed in their direction from the other side of the store.
"Daryl! Help!"
He practically squealed to a stop, his boots sliding against the shiny tiled floor at the sound of her voice.
He rounded a bookcase and saw her, on the floor, pulling herself backwards as a group of three decomposing walkers advanced upon her.
His hand went to reach for his crossbow, before he realized that he had left it hanging off the trolley in his haste to reach her. Instead, he drew his knife and sank it into the skull of the first walker. Grace screamed as blackened blood dripped onto the front of her shirt.
He kicked the lifeless corpse to the side and sank the blade into the next walker's skull. This walker was considerably fresher than the last, and the hilt of his knife became wedged inside the frontal bone of its skull.
"Fuck!" Daryl yanked on the handle of his knife, but the blade refused to budge.
"Grace, get back!" He could hear her stumbling to her feet behind him as the third walker lunged at him. He dodged out of the reach of its snapping jaws, wishing that his damn knife would come unhinged so he could end it.
He glanced behind him and saw a brown door standing ajar, set against the department store wall.
"Grace! That room, is it an exit?"
"I think so!" he heard her reply. Releasing his grip on the handle of his knife, he surrendered the only weapon that he had as he dove towards the open door. Grace held it open until he was clear of the doorway, before slamming it shut only milliseconds before the third walker threw itself against the wood.
Daryl lay, sprawled on the floor of what appeared to be a janitors closet and not an exit. His eyes were squeezed shut as he struggled to calm his thundering heartbeat, and to slow his breathing until he was capable of thinking straight.
"Uh, are you okay?" he heard Grace's voice within the dark confines of the closet. He could see the outline of her body in the dark and dusty air as she pressed herself against the door.
"Yeah. Just exhausted. Can we get out from here?" he pulled himself to his feet slowly, stabilizing himself against the door which rattled violently as the walker attempted to get at them.
"No. It's just a storage closet. There's no exit," there was a trace of panic in her voice.
"It's fine. Maggie and Glenn will get to us. They were on the other side of the department store. Won't take long," he whispered.
"Did you get hurt?" he could barely make out the silhouette of her face in the dim light of the closet as her eyes cast over him, assessing him for wounds.
"Nah, I'm fine."
"Thank you. For saving my life out there," she breathed. He shrugged off her appreciation.
"No, I mean it. It feels good, knowing that you're looking out for me. You make me feel safe."
Daryl was suddenly overcome with the feeling that this janitor's closet was not big enough. She was standing right in front of him, he could feel her breath drifting over his chest with each exhalation.
"It's fine." He kept his eyes averted, fixed on the rattling door in the hopes that Maggie or Glenn would find them. She smelled of walker blood, which spattered the front of her shirt and glistened as it dried. Walker blood, and another scent that was strangely similar and yet completely out of place. Vanilla. She smelled like the shower gel that Beth always favored. Sweet and decadent.
Daryl's ears perked up at the familiar and welcome sound of Glenn's voice in the distance. He opened his mouth to call out to them, to alert them of his presence, but suddenly her mouth was on his. Grace's mouth. Grace's lips, pressed insistently against his. Her hands, wrapping around his neck and molding their bodies together.
Without thinking, he gripped her shoulders and threw her backwards far more forcefully than he had intended. There was a crash as she hit the shelving unit that was mounted against the wall, and a cry of pain escaped her at the impact. Her eyes darted up to meet his, a million expressions and emotions passing across her face. Anger. Rejection.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he spat out, feeling his blood begin to boil within his veins. Who the fuck did she think she was? What made her think that she could do this, could kiss him?
"What? You don't want me?" she squeaked out, winded from her collision.
"I'm married. I love my wife!" he was beginning to lose all control, and accepted that unless Glenn broke the door down quick smart, he'd be throwing Grace through it.
"You're married to a child! She doesn't deserve a man like you! I do! I've lost everything," her voice cracked, no longer screaming but on the verge of sobbing. Daryl remained with his back to the door, eyeing her wearily.
"Beth ain't a child. She's… the love of my life. You're fucking crazy," Daryl muttered. He could hear Maggie and Glenn's footsteps as they approached the door, and the squelching sound of Daryl's knife being withdrawn from the walker's skull.
"Daryl? Is Grace with you?" came Glenn's frantic voice. If only he knew.
"Yeah, trapped in here!" Daryl called back, excited for the change of topic.
"One of the walkers has toppled one of the shelves over. It's jamming the door shut. Give us a minute, we'll get you guys out!" Maggie piped up. And not a minute too soon, Daryl thought to himself.
He turned his attention momentarily back to Grace, who was now sulking against the wall of the closet, full of embarrassment at her brazen attack.
"You're, um- you're going to chuck me out of the funeral home, aren't you?" she whispered into the darkness.
Daryl wanted to. He wanted nothing more than to kick her ass back into the forest where she had come from. And then he looked at her properly. At her bloodstained shirt, and the stark white tan line where her wedding ring used to sit. Her face was bloodshot and tearstained, her hair clumped together with blood. She sobbed helplessly at the prospect of being alone again. He could not throw her out without a proper explanation to Beth, Maggie and Glenn. Without having to watch Beth's face fall as he recalled in detail Grace's lips on his, her arms wound tight around his neck.
"What I want to do and what I should do are two completely different things." His mind was running at a million miles a minute as he tried to calculate the degree of anger that Beth would unleash on him at the knowledge that her only friend had been left behind on a run.
"What are you saying?" Grace stammered.
"I should leave you here. I can't trust you-" he paused as she dissolved into a new fit of gasping sobs.
"But Beth loves you. The woman you just betrayed would never forgive me for leaving you here. She's that fucking good."
"I-I know…"
"You've been through some shit, Grace. I get it, all of us have. We've all lost our families. It fucks with your head. And you make Beth happy. But you need to get this straight. I don't have feelings for you. I never will have feelings for you. I love Beth, and that's the way it's always gonna be. If you do anything or say anything to hurt my family, you're out on your ass. Hear me?"
"Of course. I'm sorry. I'd just come so close to being walker food and it was just so much adrenaline… I didn't know what I was doing."
"Shut up!" Daryl grunted as the janitor door flew open. Maggie stood in the doorway with Daryl's crossbow slung proudly over her shoulder.
"Shit, Maggie. Did you shoot the other walker with that?" Daryl peered into the aisle to see the last walker lying dead with a bolt through its head.
"Sure did. I'm a natural," she grinned up at him before shrugging the heavy weapon from her frame and heaving it over to him.
"Damn. It would be nice to have a run that doesn't include drama and near-death experiences, wouldn't it!" Glenn appeared besides Maggie, pushing Daryl's abandoned cart.
"Hah! Has Daryl told you the story about the veterinarian clinic that we raided? Had to pull his ass through a window before he became walker bait!" Maggie grinned at Grace, oblivious to the tear-tracks that marked her face and the redness in her eyes.
"N-no. He didn't mention that," she choked out as she straightened her jacket and grabbed a hold of one of the shopping carts, taking off ahead of the others as she marched towards the department store doors.
"What's her problem?" Maggie enquired, raising an eyebrow at Daryl. He shrugged off her questioning as he yanked the bolt from the skull of the last walker and replaced it on his crossbow. His bolts were in dire need of a clean.
The only sound that broke the uncomfortable silence that lingered between them as they made their way back to the funeral home was the squeaky wheel on Maggie's shopping cart. They were fortunate enough to avoid all members of the undead, which was lucky for Daryl as his mind was racing faster than the speed of light. His mind full of endless 'what-if' scenarios. Of Beth's face. Or Grace's stupidity.
He could vaguely overhear Glenn and Maggie speaking in hushed tones behind him, punctuated by the squeaky wheel of the cart as it lodged on the small stones that littered the roadside. He didn't care to listen properly. They had no idea of what had just unfolded moments earlier. They had no doubts about Grace and her role in this ragtag group of theirs.
Before long, he could see the funeral home rooftop through the trees, and headed for it with renewed vigor. He wasn't sure if it was guilt, or fear, or confusion. All he knew was that he needed to get to Beth.
The front door was wide open, courtesy of Grace. He had barely stepped through the doorway when he heard an excitable squeal from the living room.
"Beth? You right?" he called out, brandishing the reclaimed dagger as a weapon.
"Daryl! In here!" his heartbeat slowed as he recognized no sign of pain or anxiety behind that familiar voice. He followed her like a lovesick puppy into the living room, where she sat cross-legged on the carpet, holding Sophia tight to her chest.
"She said it! She said 'mama'. Daryl, she- I- I can't- it's just-" and with one final attempt at producing intelligible speech, she broke down into gasping happy sobs as she squeezed Sophia even tighter until the baby girl kicked her legs in annoyance.
An overwhelming feeling of pride filled his heart, his chest swelling as he looked down upon his wife and child, the happy tears dripping off Beth's face and staining her shirt.
"I missed it." He said suddenly, unaware himself that he had even spoken. His only child, and he had missed her very first word. What kind of a father did that make him?
"Don't, Daryl. You missed it, because you were risking your life to find her everything she needs. She'll say it again. You'll be here," she wiped clumsily at her face.
He seized her without warning, crushing her body against his and claiming her mouth with a possessive kiss. She squealed in surprise at his candor, her fingers twisting in his unruly hair until he released her.
"Love you. So goddamn much," he grunted tenderly. She couldn't hide the blush that colored her cheeks whenever he confessed his feelings for her.
"I know you do. I love you, too," she stepped back as Daryl scooped Sophia into his arms and peppered kisses across the expanse of her blonde and curly head.
"Such a smart girl, huh? Just like your mama," he crooned as he bounced her enthusiastically in his embrace.