Rick stood very still as he studied the waif like young woman that Hershel had pointed out- held not only his life, but the lives of his family and group in her dainty little hands. His expression a moment ago had been worried, even somewhat calculating. Until of course he had seen the somewhat sweet and awkward exchange between her and Daryl.
Turns out, the gal wasn't much of a people person. Which he could probably understand a bit more than most given how things had been for him since waking up in the hospital.
But as it turned out she had no problem what so ever with making trades.
Which had worried him at first since he and his group had nothing of real value aside from their weapons to give, if things came to a trade. However his mind was now set a bit more at ease thanks to the fact that the woman had promised to let them all stay in return for some food.
And now that she was waiting for Daryl to return, Rick saw all traces of the slightly simple minded waif's awkwardness and semi playfulness melt away. Leaving behind someone who went over all of the angles, analyzing and calculating chances and probabilities and thinking of inventive new ways to make things better.
Rick's lips quirked slightly in bemusement as he thought of how much he'd hate to ever get on her bad side since he was pretty sure that even now when she was unarmed, she could kick his ass six ways from sunday. Possibly without even trying.
"How long are you going to stand there and stare?" She finally said after a moment, startling him slightly.
"Not long," He replied before moving a bit closer to her and saying, "So you noticed I was here. My ninja skills need a serious brush up."
"Well it wasn't like you were actually blending in with the side of my house. Only I can do that, and it took years of practice to master."
Ricks lips twitched again as he moved to sit down on the porch next to her. "Really? You can actually blend in with the side of the house? How?"
"I color coordinate my clothing to match the houses color. And I use hand made hats and stuff for the rest. I'm Lisa, but my friends call me Ghost." She said suddenly as she stuck her hand out to him. Rick blinked at her for a moment then took her small hand in his and shook it while politely introducing himself.
"I'm Rick. Rick Grimes."
"Well Rick, I'm supposed to talk to you about staying here."
He nodded his head sagely, all traces of earlier amusement fading. "I'd appreciate it if you did."
"What do you want to know exactly?"
"Not one for beating around the bush, huh."
"Not really." Lisa replied in a deadpan tone. "So what do you want to know?"
"Well, for starters- my group and I know that we shouldn't have stayed for so long. But with my son injured we couldn't move on. So to start off, I'm sorry that we all sort of took refuge here while you were away and took advantage of you're home and land and resources..." Lisa looked at him, her eyes seeming to pierce all the way to his soul as she nodded her head, indicating that he and his people were forgiven. "We had no right to do that." Rick continued, "But with the world the way it is now I guess we just got desperate to find a place-"
"You don't have to explain that to me. I understand more than you know, how it feels to be lost and on your own and wish for nothing more than a slice of normal."
"Yeah," Rick muttered with a far off look in his eye. Obviously recalling the way things had been before the military had fucked things up. "So, even though we imposed ourselves on your home and your friends. Would you please let us impose on you a bit longer?"
She nodded her head yes before saying. "I have no problem with you or your people staying. In fact I'm a self taught doctor. And Hershel and the girls will need someone to help keep me out of mischief. And besides, if you can spare three or four guys in the next few days or so- I'll get each of you're people inside and out of the open with your own living space and set up an extra few escape routes just in case something happens and all of us need to get out of here quick."
Rick was silent for a moment before making a humming sound. It sounded like Lisa had figured everything out without needing to really run any plans by him at all. "It sounds like you have everything figured out."
"Not really," Lisa admitted as she began to fidget a little bit with a strand of her hair. "I haven't quite figured out everything." She said as she thought of the cover story's she used to hide her condition. Hershel's knowledge of medicine helped make her covers for her condition seem more real and less threatening.
Rick tilted his head to the side a bit, his expression curious. "Anything I can help with?"
"No. It's nothing that you help with. It's just something that I have to live with...and hopefully when you and you're people find out- you won't mistake me for one of those thingys and shoot me."
He blinked at her, his expression questioning before he said in an unintelligible tone, "W-What?"
She blinked owlishly at him and echoed his question, "What?"
(****************************************************************************************************************************)
Hershel sat at the head of the table looking from face to face when he heard Maggie growl in irritation, "Dammit! She ditched us. And after all the trouble I went through cooking everything too."
"Now, now, hon. We all knew that the likelihood of her actually showing up to eat dinner with us was slim. Especially when there's so many people around."
"Daddy's right, Maggie." Beth said as she quietly put some potato salad on her plate and then passed the large glass bowl to whoever was next to her. Which turned out to be Daryl who was eavesdropping a bit while he collected food for himself and the girl hiding out on the porch outside of the kitchen. "Ghost has never really been one for socializing. Besides, after being gone for so long- one of her medical conditions may be about to kick in..."
Maggie opened her mouth to say something but after a moment or so, closed her mouth again and sighed and said, "Damn, I didn't even consider that when I started fixing dinner today. I was just so glad that she was back alive and well after being on her own."
"We know sweetheart. And after dinner I'm sending you girls to hunt her down and drag her to the surgical room in the basement so I can check her out and take care of any of her medical conditions before they kick in. After all the last thing she'd want is to scare anyone and be shot for it." Hershel muttered as he reached out and patted Maggie's hand in his as he glanced over at Daryl who had frozen with the bowl of mashed potato's in his hands, his aqua eyes seeming to stare a hole through the elder as the man stared back, seemingly trying to gauge his reaction to what he had overheard.
(******************************************************************************************************************************)
"Why would any of us shoot you?" Rick asked seriously after a heartbeat or two. His mind working overtime to figure out what she was talking about.
She continued to fidget, her agitation levels rising to the point where she was practically ripping out her hair. Causing him to reach out and take her hand in his and hold it still while he waited patiently for her to reply. "C'mon, talk to me," Rick said coaxingly wanting to understand what was going on in Lisa's head. "I can't help if you don't."
"Can't help. No one can help." Lisa said in a small childlike tone that made Rick frown.
"Try talking to me anyways, you never know." He said, again trying to coax her into talking. But she just shook her head no and tried to pull her hand from his grasp so that she could resume her fidgeting, he assumed. Perhaps she found the action of ripping her hair out somewhat soothing but he found it disturbing and couldn't help but wonder what it was on her mind that was so bad that it warranted ripping her hair out until she was as bald as Brittney Spears had been after her nervous breakdown.
He was about to try coaxing her into talking to him again when they both heard the squeak of the screen door open and then close and the faint sound of footsteps heading towards them. Rick shifted slightly and released Lisa's hand as she shot to her feet the exact moment Daryl came into view carrying a tray piled high with enough food for almost four people. Plus three unopened cherry cokes that he must have pilfered from the fridge in the kitchen.
She moved to take the tray from him, but Daryl shook his head and motioned with his head for her to sit back down. "Hershel figured out that you weren't going to join everyone for dinner today so he and the girls all insisted that I bring you all of this to eat." He said as he dropped down to a kneeling position across from her and set down the tray and grabbed his plate and drink and silver ware and decided to kick back, eat and figure out what sort of medical conditions he'd heard Hershel and the girls had been talking about earlier.
Daryl made himself comfortable and leaned his back against one of the porch railings and settled his plate in his lap as the girl looked over everything that had been brought from the tomato soup with parsley and sour cream in it to the bowl of salad with ranch dressing to the five pieces of chicken, the piece of baked salmon with dill on it, along with the potatos (both the mashed and the potato salad- heavy on the mustard- like she liked it. Or so he'd been told) to the cole slaw and last but not least the dish of brownies, cake and cookies.
Rick looked at everything on the dishes in front of Lisa and jokingly asked, "Wow. Think you can really eat all of that?"
"Give me about ten minutes and you'll see for yourself." She retorted as she picked up the soup bowl and instead of using the spoon that Daryl had brought for her- simply brought the dish to her lips and tipped it back and drank it like it was water or something, making both men stare almost slack jawed in disbelief at her lack of manners since they had expected her to use hers.
Since ya know, she was a woman and all.
However Lisa didn't seem to care much for manners or decorum. She set the empty bowl down and then picked up her salad dish and there for a moment both Rick and Daryl thought she was simply going to toss it back like she had the soup, so they were a mite surprised when she actually took the time to pick up her fork and use it to practically inhale her food.
It didn't even appear like she was even bothering to chew what was in her mouth before she set aside the empty dish and moved on to one of the others, this time going through her mashed potato's and potato salad with the barest minimum of jaw movement before moving on to the chicken and practically inhaling it in what seemed like 0.02 seconds flat before moving on to the fish.
This time she simply stuffed as much as possible of it into her mouth and then tipped her head back like a raptor from one of the Jurassic Park movies and swallowed the bite whole before repeating the process two more times and then snagging a soda and opening it so that she could take a few drinks and glanced from Rick to Daryl then looked away feeling a little bit embarrassed by her lack of manners.
But in all honesty she had been absolutely starving and they were lucky that she hadn't decided to gnaw on someone's leg or something just yet. Besides, how would she explain to them just why she was inhaling her food and how having something in her stomach now kept her from possibly hurting someone.
She doubted they'd understand. Hell, even she didn't totally understand. But she was wary enough and had enough info to go on to know what worked and why.
"Sorry. I was really hungry..."
The two men took a moment or so to recover their ability to think and speak before Rick shook his head and said, "Obviously."