Brazen Hussy - ^_^
peonies01 - Why not both? Both is good? Grayface. I have spoken.
skittletitz - *covers ears*
Lilone1776 - I wonder if anyone's caught on that Philomena was the Patron Saint of Children...?
GG - I honestly struggled with that. But I put myself in the shoes of a mother...I don't think I'd like to leave a child to their fate (facing walkers alone), but I also think Annie's mom probably just couldn't bring herself to end her daughter's life...I like to think her mom was a good one.
ldyjaydin - I understand those emotions completely. They're just dicking us Caryl fans along on the damned show...
HGRHfan35 - Aw, cute story. So adorable! ^_^
Axelrocks - I freakin' love blanket forts (and I'm wicked old...so...) I don't think you ever grow out of that fort phase.
Surplus Imagination - Well, thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter.
MollyMayhem84 - You can have all the crushes on the Lt. you want. I'm sure he'd be flattered.
Arieanna - Oh gosh, thank you! First time reviewers are always much beloved! Thank you for being so kind and taking the time to review. ^_^
AFishNamedSushi - Haha! I was wondering when someone would bring up the 'Little Orphan Annie' remark. This pleases me! And for this I have deemed that you rock harder than I ever could! ^_^
SilverWolf84 - Ack, that mire! I hope I'm avoiding it for the most part! Thanks for the review!
Anyone sick and tired of my crazy assed Canadian spelling yet? Anyone sick with the ridiculous length of this story yet? Holy balls! It's just a monster, isn't it? Yikes.
So, due to obvious reasons, Logistics Marine Base in Georgia's layout plans are not available to every Tom, Dick and Spy, so despite my need to be as accurate as I can be, I must admit that the entire layout of the base is bullshit made up by me. There. I've warned you.
Chapter Forty-Eight: Ouvrage
**Daryl**
"What was your daddy like?"
They had stopped along the way to the base and added an extended cab truck to their caravan of two worn old pickups, mostly so that those they were with didn't have to ride in the back all the way there.
Beside Daryl in the flashy assed new truck the Cajun sat quiet for half of the ride before bombing him with that question.
Daryl glanced up in the rear view mirror and met his brother's eyes.
"He was a real son of a bitch and that was when he was sober. Why?"
"Curiosity."
"Hey, Cajun boy," Michonne purred from her spot in the back (where to Daryl's amazement she hadn't tried to kill Merle yet), "why are you so curious about father's?"
Angling in his seat, the Cajun eyed the woman. "You ever try to raise a little girl?"
"No."
"Me neither."
"Hey, dumb ass, I have a joke for you," Merle grunted from his spot. "Two hunters head into New Orleans—"
"Where the hell is this 'New Orleans'?" The Lieutenant teased, mimicking Merle's Georgian accent.
"Don't pull that dumb Cajun bullshit with me," Merle snapped.
Daryl glanced in the mirror with a small grin, watching as his brother tried to stop himself from reaching up with his good hand and smacking the back of Fay's head.
"Oh, you're trying to say Nawlins, sure yeah, go ahead, tell your little joke."
"Fuck you."
Michonne startled everyone by chuckling darkly.
That seemed to put an end to the bickering for about ten minutes.
Sniffing, the Cajun cleared his throat. "Are we just going to ignore the fact that Baby Boy Dixon got his hair cut?"
"It was about damned time," Merle growled, "he was starting to look like one of those shaggy horses."
"I will pull this goddamned truck over and beat all your asses." Daryl snarled.
..-~-..
..-~-..
The base was a little oasis of military khaki and simple cinder block buildings nestled in amongst the green Georgian countryside. It sprawled at least a half a mile in every direction, with main buildings just beyond the chain link gate and the helipad on the far end. The only reason it remained untouched was how well hidden it was, as a military base it wasn't on any map and unless you knew it was there, it was as easy to miss the turn off onto the lonely dirt road as it was to miss the one to the convent.
As the caravan pulled up to the gate, they could see the walkers inside, all of them military personnel who had been trapped much the same way the prisoners had been, within the chain link fence.
This was actually better news than if the place had been empty of walkers. Military and military only walkers meant the place hadn't been picked over by scavengers yet. All the good stuff must still be held within.
Hopping out of their vehicles to hold a quick meeting, Daryl approached Rick and Tyreese who had opted to travel together in the shitty old brown Chevy, Glenn and Maggie joining up from their truck.
"Alright, Lieutenant," Rick said. "From this point on , I'm putting you in charge of the raid, you know the place best."
The Lieutenant looked mildly surprised at the sudden promotion from just a tag along into a leader, but eventually nodded. "Alright," he looked up from their huddle at the base, eyes darting across it quickly, before he nodded again. "Okay. There's a lot of them, most are wearing their helmets which makes braining them next to impossible…we have a few days supplies, yeah?"
"What do you want to do, Fay?" Daryl asked.
"We'll take it slow, cautious, bring them to the fence and get as many as we can. A thinner herd is better than facing all of them at once. If we can at least get in and secure one building before nightfall, then we can take our time here and pick over the leavings for the good stuff."
Despite the fact Rick had handed over command, everyone looked to him for a final say.
He nodded. "Good a plan as any."
..-~-..
..-~-..
It took them all three hours of stabbing through the fence before a good majority of the walkers were down, those stragglers way off in the distance were still catching on to the fact that a fresh meal was waiting at the barrier between the base and the woods, but they were catching on fast and moving faster.
They met back at the gate after all the visible walkers were taken care of.
"We'll take one truck in until we clear the base," the Lieutenant ordered. "I don't like the idea of not leaving us a quick getaway on the outside."
Everyone nodded.
"Once inside we'll clear out HQ first, it's got the sturdier windows and doors, we can hole up in there come the dark, then continue on in the morning."
Daryl wasn't really a fan of authority. It came with being raised a white trash kid who often broke the law out of necessity (or sometimes just boredom), but he had to admit he didn't mind following the Cajun's orders when he got in his military frame of mind. Maybe it was because, like Rick, Fay had his back on more than one occasion and it forged some form of respect between them.
"Once inside HQ and it's clear, we'll break off into pairs to go through the place for things, we'll make two piles near the door, a pile for things we need and a pile for things we'd like, we'll do this in all the buildings, loading the things we need first. If there's room we'll go through the things we'd like and pack them up as well. Once this base is clear, there's no guarantee it'll remain untouched after we leave, so we'll have to make the best of this trip, yeah?"
The others nodded.
"Alright, Daryl when we get up to HQ, I want you behind me in the lead, you have the sharpest eyes and I'll need another pair of good ones at my back, Merle you get to play Tail-End Charlie, I know you'll be good to watch for uggies and our people too."
..-~-..
..-~-..
They stormed into HQ, weapons at ready, tense like predators, sweeping through the offices and communications centre.
Inside a narrow hall that was lined with doors, the group paused to allow their eyes to adjust to the darkness.
It smelled of decay and the faint scent of gunpowder, signs of walkers were painted on the walls in old blood as they all stepped over a smudge of gore that seemed to be all that remained of someone.
Breaking up into pairs to clean the HQ out, Daryl and the Cajun carefully swept each room they came across mindful of other members of their group who had moved deep into the HQ building. They moved down the hall, heading for the stairs at the far end.
Their first task was to clear the building, then secure it and finally start going through the rooms for things they could use. Bursting into an office, they took out two walkers with little effort, sweeping it carefully.
They paused only long enough to eye the sloppily painted message on the wall, 'don't give up boys', before moving on.
Each room had a message in paint on the wall, like end-of-days self-motivational posters; never give in, kill every last one of them, until your hands are raw, don't stop, but every room they entered contained at least one walker, all of them emaciated and torn open in the soft part of their belly. But they all wore military uniforms and they all were once soldiers.
Daryl kept one eye trained on his surroundings, but every now and then he would turn the other on the Lieutenant, reading his face for signs that the man recognized any of the walkers they were putting down.
He had worked, possibly bunked at the base, so there was a good chance the man would come across familiar faces.
But there was little to no emotion on his face as he worked, he remained passive, well trained and professional. At least he was until they hopped up the stairs, heading for the office at the end of the hall.
The man seemed to slow, hesitate as they passed by a multitude of bodies that were lying knee deep in the hall the closer they got to the end.
The Cajun nosed the door of the office open with the business end of his rifle, pushing inside quietly.
Inside the walls were painted with blood and motivational words, but it didn't seem to have worked as a body slumped in the chair behind the desk, half of its head missing, blown off by the pistol that was still clenched in its hand.
On the desk Daryl picked up a piece of paper that had been scrawled with the writing 'twenty-eight confirmed, Atlanta gone, makes twenty-nine'. Under it was a note, 'to whoever finds this cold clay, may God have mercy on you'.
"The old man must have held out quite a while," Daryl said, putting the papers back on the desk.
The Cajun was stooping down, picking up a stiff beaked military officer's cap, turning it over in his hands quietly. It must have been on the corpse's head when the man decided to end it, as part of it was singed from the gunshot and dappled with blood.
"Colonel Davenport had thirteen grandchildren," the Cajun said, carefully putting the hat back on the man's head, covering the missing chunk of his skull with a reverent gentleness. "Defan," the Lieutenant muttered quietly.
"Yeah, well with that many walkers at his front door, I'm amazed he made it long enough to write out a love note," Daryl replied, turning from studying the room to find the Lieutenant quietly eyeing the corpse, standing at his side. "Hey? Let's get plundering," he growled, not really good at the type of emotional support the Cajun obviously needed at the moment.
He didn't know what the old man meant to him, but it was obvious Fay cared for him beyond just admiring the soldier.
Moving across the room, he pulled the pistol out of the corpse's death grip, then patted the man's skeletal corpse down for spare bullets and anything else of use, before motioning with a jerk of his chin in the direction of the door. "Come on, we ain't got all day."
"Yeah, right behind you."
Hurrying out of the room to avoid the awkward situation, Daryl glanced back to find Fay removing the Colonel's dog tags from around the corpse's neck, before saluting him quickly.
..-~-..
..-~-..
That night the others laughed about the things they found, the amount of loose ammo found on the military walkers, the weapons that seemed to be scattered about just the office building alone.
They were excited at the prospect of finding enough fire power to not only fight Woodbury, but to keep them safe for a good handful of years to come.
Daryl wasn't sure why, but he wasn't really in a celebrating mood.
It may have been the fact that before any of this ever happened, he would have never thought celebrating a lifeless military base would be something joyous.
Or it may have had something to do with the Cajun who sat by himself in a corner of the room, quietly dismantling and reassembling his rifle as though he were slapped back into basic.
Wishing someone other than him took note of the man's mood so that they could deal with it, Daryl found no one but him even glancing in the direction of the Cajun.
At least until he spied Michonne giving the man quiet, dark looks.
She glanced in Daryl's direction and he did his best to avoid her gaze, studying the combat knife in his hands. He ran a finger over the word etched there and hoped things would smooth themselves out.
Taking a quick glance he found Michonne eyeing him with a steady, cat-like gaze, before she flicked her eyes back in the direction of the Lieutenant.
Daryl bit the inside of his cheek and went back to studying the knife.
With a huff, after a few minutes of fighting it, he stood up and made his way across the room, heading for the Cajun.
Slumping down at the man's side, Daryl watched him slide the bolt back and check the chamber for a round.
"Hey," he nudged the soldier with his elbow, bumping him in the ribs lightly. "You alright?"
"Sure enough, yeah," the man replied, setting his rifle down.
Daryl nodded, dangling his hands between his knees and bowing his head. God, he didn't know what to say to people in need of support. He wasn't exactly the hug-and-tell-me-about-your-feelings type.
Hell, he wasn't even sure the Cajun wanted him to fuss over him like he was.
"You close with him? The Colonel?" He chanced nervously.
"He was a good man," the Lieutenant replied.
Fuck the dumb assed Cajun was making consolation difficult! Daryl sighed heavily and was about to get up a leave, when Michonne eased down on the other side of the Lieutenant, casually, as though unaware of their conversation.
"Seems kind of morbid to me," she stated evenly. "Prying ammunition and weapons from the dead hands of soldiers."
Daryl and the Lieutenant both looked at her.
"A necessary evil," she went on, turning omnipotent eyes on the men. "What's eating you tonight, Cajun boy?" She asked in her straightforward way. "You've been over here playing with your gun for nearly two hours."
The Lieutenant blinked back at Michonne for a moment, before dropping his chin an inch. "I'm fine."
"The mere fact that you answered her in two words or less means you ain't," Daryl growled.
"Well, I'm not as fine as I'd like you to believe," the Cajun stated. "Most of these uggies were once people I worked with, people I knew, but…you swallow it and you survive, yeah?"
"You can only swallow so much," Michonne pointed out.
"I was hoping - a little bit - that he'd have made it out," Fay went on. "But…he died serving this country, like a good Marine." He eyed both Daryl and Michonne. "I'm disappointed, but not suicidal…just disappointed." The Lieutenant grinned then, it was plastic and forced, but still retained some of that crooked Cajun charm the man's grin possessed. "I'll be good come morning, just need a recovery period."
"Fuck! You two are like a couple of mother hen's," Merle growled as he stood over them all. "Leave the man some space! Shit!"
The Lieutenant smirked. "Thank you, Merle."
Slapping the Cajun upside the head hard, Merle scowled. "Hey, get your head back in the game! Anything happens to you, I'm going back to that convent and mounting your nun, dumb ass."
To Daryl's surprise the Cajun chuckled.
"I appreciate your incentive, Merle." Fay said.
"That's not incentive, it's a goddamned promise," Merle muttered, moving off, back towards the rest of the group. "Like we need to be worrying about your mopey ass..."
The Cajun Dialect
Ouvrage - Work