A/N Heh, this chapter is really long. But it covers a lot, and the end is kinda sweet, totally worth the wait. Much love to you all! Love reviews. Until next week, enjoy!
Rick takes off at a full out run, yelling for Lori and Carl. Daryl can hear people being called to the RV. He and Sam follow Rick, taking out any of the eaters in their way. Some of the people at the lower end of the camp have already been lost.
Sam stares at the carnage below her. Amy lies dieing in front of the door to the RV, Andrea holds her hand, crying over her and stroking her hair. Bodies are strewn over the hillside, both their camp and the walkers. People all over are crying either with or for their loved ones. Rick and Lori both have their arms around Carl, all crying in relief.
Sam looks at him and he can see the pain clear in her eyes. This scene must bring back memories of the two kids they lost. She starts walking towards him and, for the second time that day, wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his chest.
She can feel him relax a little after the initial surprise of her actions wears off, and he awkwardly wraps his strong arms around her, tentatively stroking her back, helping her keep calm.
Suddenly a realization dawns on her and she pulls away "Oh god, I'm so sorry. You lost your brother today, and I'm trying not to break down over some people I hardly know. I'm such an idiot."
He catches her wrist before she can walk away and gently pulls her back into his arms. "Merle was hardly there anyway. Hard to miss what ya don't have."
He couldn't stand the idea of her going away when she is clearly so upset. The comforting actions come a little easier than the first time she cried on his shoulder, but he is still unsure.
"Let's get you to lay down. Get some sleep. Everything looks better in the morning." he says, something his mother used to tell him, while leading Sam to their tent.
"You'll be on guard, right?" she asks, laying down for only a minute, but already drowsy.
"Yeah, don't worry bout it." he goes to stand and leave the tent when Sam reaches out and grabs his hand.
He doesn't pull away, and she doesn't let go, so he sits back down again, her hand in his now.
Daryl was almost right. When Sam wakes the next morning the aftermath of the night before isn't quite so bad, now that it's easier to see who from their camp was lost and which were already walkers, but the morning is still filled with the awful task of burying or burning the bodies and making sure none of their fallen people will get up again. Andrea still hasn't moved away from Amy, and Sam can hear the whispered argument behind her on how to approach it.
"Clean shot, through the brain." Daryl argues "Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance."
Sam walks up to him, grabbing him arm. "Don't you dare. She'll handle it when she's ready. Not like Chris."
Daryl pulls his arm away "Wake up Jimbo, we got work to do. You left my brother to die, you people had this coming!"
Daryl is the first to grab a pick axe and get to work. When he gets to the mauled body of Ed Peletier, Carol stops him.
"I'll do it. He was my husband."
Daryl shrugs and gives her the pick axe. Carol takes the axe, swings it over her shoulder and brings it down once, twice, too many times to count until what used to be her husband's skull is a pulpy mix of red and white.
Sam walks over to Carol, who has started sobbing too hard to lift the axe again. She hands the axe off to Daryl and leads Carol to a stump to sit down.
Jim, having been bitten during the attack, sits by the RV while everyone tries to figure out what to do.
"What do you suggest?" Shane asks
"I say we put a pick axe through his head, an the dead girls and be done with it." Daryl suggests.
"I heard the CDC was working on a cure. Maybe they have one by now. There would be no way to let anyone know." Rick reasons "We have a sick man, he just needs help."
He listens to Shane and Rick debate which way would be best, getting more and more agitated .
"Ya'll lookin for aspirin. Why dontchya do what needs to be done!" he turns and runs at Jim, axe raised.
Sam hears the hammer clock and rushes to stop Daryl.
"We don't kill the living." Rick insists.
"That's funny, coming from a man who put a gun to my head." he shoots back.
"Rick," Sam pleads, grabbing Daryl's arm "Come on Daryl.
"Fort Benning." Shane suggests, "The government would try to protect their own bases. It's well fortified."
Sam's stomach drops as the last conversation with Andy rushes back to her. "No. We can't. it was lost in the beginning. My friend was there."
"Maybe it's cleared out now. Think of all the food, the ammo. We would be set there." Shane brushes off her warning.
"That's a hundred miles away." Rick argues "We're low on gas and water. The CDC is much closer."
The next morning Sam walks over to Daryl "We're going to the CDC, we need to get packed."
"We don't need to stay with these people, you know." Daryl says as they pack up camp "We were good on our own."
Sam stops and looks at him, "I still think we're better in a group."
"What if the CDC is a bust? Then we'll be stuck on the outside of the city, with no resources, at dusk."
"Well then we'll figure something out. But we can't just stay here."
"So let's get going" Daryl resigns and continues taking apart the tent.
Their caravan shrinks a little, the Morales family leave to go find their own family, and Jim can't take the ride and asks to be left behind. They arrive at the CDC just as night is starting to fall. The doors are sealed tight. The group starts to break, Shane insists they try for Fort Benning again, Rick is banging on the garage door with Sam and Daryl is taking out all the walkers their noise is attracting. Almost everyone else is screaming or crying.
"Shane, Fort Benning is lost!" Sam screams at him "Do you know how many people are in an army base? Or how secure it is? There is no way anyone could have gone in and gotten it cleared out."
Sam and Rick pound more furiously on the door until Lori and Daryl come to pull them away. Rick swears he sees the camera move and starts yelling at the person he thinks is. They give up and head back to the cars when one of the doors opens and a sterile light flows over the pavement to them. Without hesitation they run inside. Dr. Edwin Jenner is the only person left at the CDC. He explains how everyone else either left or "opted out", and he only stayed because of a promise.
Sam appears right before dinner, smiling ear to ear at Daryl. He can't figure out why until she produces a bottle of whiskey from behind her back.
"It took me forever to find this." she says.
Daryl smiles back at her and breaks the seal on the bottle, taking a big sip.
"Hey!" Sam grabs the bottle back, splashing it on her hand in the process. She absently licks the dripping liquid off her hand before taking a sip.
He watches, fascinated, as she licks a stray drop off the back of her hand. He tries to prevent the blush that is creeping up his neck from reaching his face by grabbing the bottle back again and taking a deep drink.
Jenner helps them make a large dinner, making sure everyone has a full belly before leading them down to the dorm quarters.
"Rec room there, you kids might like it, just don't use anything that uses electricity. Same goes for the showers, don't use all the hot water." he bids them goodnight and walks back to the lab.
The group can hardly contain their excitement at the idea of a shower, hot or not, and they all scatter into their rooms.
Sam drops her bag onto the floor and immediately strips out of her clothes and jumps in the shower, not waiting for the water to heat up. She washes her hair a few times in quick succession, amazed at the rejuvenated feeling she gets from washing away all the sweat and grime. She steps out, feeling like a new person and towel dries her hair enough to put it in a loose braid before throwing on probably her last pair of clean clothes and heading to the rec room.
Sophia and Carl have a game of checkers set up, Carl is ahead by a few pieces. Sam sits on the couch behind Sophia and whispers a few moves into her ear, tying the game.
"You're so good!" Sophia says with admiration, adding three checkers to her stack "King me!"
Sam smiles "My sister an I used to play a lot when we were younger."
"You have a sister?" Sophia asks, completely intrigued "What's she like? I always wanted a sister."
"Well," Sam forces the words past the lump in her throat "she's fifteen, and she loves making trouble for me. Her and my mom used to fight a lot. Mostly about stupid stuff. She ran away a few years ago, me and my best friend, Andy, spent all night looking for her. I was so worried."
"What happened?" Carl asks, trying not to sound too interested.
"We were about to call the cops to come help us find her, when I see her hiding in a tree at the park across the street from our house." Sam smiles at the memory "I was so mad at her, I yelled at her for twenty minutes."
"She sounds like quite a handful." Carol says from the bookcase.
"She is." Sam says sadly. "I wish I knew if they were ok or not. I haven't been able to talk to them since before all this. Not knowing is worse, I think."
Daryl sits on the edge of the bed, hair still damp from the shower, the bottle of whiskey sits on the table next to the bed, still mostly full. His brother, his only family is gone. Merle might not have been much, but he was family. The only person who cared, even a little of Daryl was alive after their mom died. Well, when we was around anyway. Merle didn't give a shit what happened to Daryl while he was gone, only cared about himself. Why did Daryl think that would change now? Sam was right in the truck. That conversation seems ages ago. Merle has always been selfish, never bothered with anyone but himself. And Daryl knew never to expect anything more. Even now, Merle took off with no through of his brother.
Daryl is suddenly angry that Merle fooled him into thinking he cared about him. He picks the bottle off the nightstand and takes a deep drink.
"Dumb bastard." he says to the empty room "You think I wouldn't fuckin come back for you? You left me. Again! We protect our own. Til it's yer ass on the line, right? Fuck you Merle. You was never there anyway." The bottle shatters against the wall, sending glass shards and whiskey flying over the floor.
Sam passes Lori on her way to her room. Everyone is in a much better mood after the meal and showers, and of course the wine helped too. She crawls under the blankets on the cot and closes her eyes, welcoming a restful sleep. One minute passes, two, five minutes. She opens her eyes and sits up, unable to sleep in the quiet of her room. She slips out of her room and silently heads to the kitchen fishing out the other bottle of whiskey she saw earlier and heads back to her room, sipping it on the way. She drinks a good amount on her way back, hoping it will help her sleep, but after trying for another ten agonizing minutes, something is still off. Her fuzzy brain automatically jumps to Daryl.
There is a quiet knocking on his door as he is cleaning up the last of the glass pieces as best he can, but he ignores the knocks. Not wanting to talk to anyone else. Dale heard the bottle smash and has already been by to talk to him, Daryl shut him down pretty quickly and Dale left. He just wants to be left alone.
"Daryl, it's me." Sam's soft voice says from the other side of the door. "Can I come in?"
Before his brain can disagree, he opens the door and sees Sam, standing on the other side in a t-shirt and cloth shorts, another bottle in her hand.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just couldn't sleep. Thought this might help." she waves the bottle around "Didn't work."
"Ok?" Daryl says, a little confused.
"What happened?" Sam asks, seeing a few stray shards of glass and the wet spots on the wall.
"Nuthin. You comin in or what?" he says, a little embarrassed at the evidence of his outburst.
"Yeah." she steps inside, wary of the glass, and sits on the bed. "It's weird here. Too quiet."
"I guess." Daryl agrees with a shrug, not having noticed the lack of noise.
"There was always so much noise at camp. The sounds outside, other people." she blushes and quickly, and drunkenly, slurs "I got used sleeping with you."
He stares at her for a second before she tries to correct it, and her cheeks turn a deep crimson. "I mean, you know, hearing you. We slept three feet away from each other for like a month."
Sam stares down at the bottle in her hand, wishing she could crawl inside and take back what she said.
"I know what you mean." Daryl says quietly, even in the dim light she can see the blush creeping up his neck into his cheeks, he swipes the bottle back from her "Gimme that. I haven't had enough to drink for this."
Sam laughs "Don't hog it all. You already wasted the other bottle. Don't go wasting this one too."
They pass the bottle back and forth until they are both well and completely drunk.
"What do you miss most about the ay things were before?" Sam asks, laying on her side on the bed..
"I dunno. Sides from the movin around an the dead people, it aint much different." Daryl shrugs "Bout you?"
Sam thinks about it for a minute "Music. I miss music so much. I used to love to dance too."
Daryl watches her face in the dim light, she sits up and wavers slightly but looks at him and smiles.
Her face suddenly gets serious "You don't mind having me around, right? I'm not like some burden, holding you back?"
His foggy brain takes a minute to process the question, "Nah, you're actually pretty cool to have around."
She leans forward and presses her lips against his, but quickly pulls away "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
Daryl is still sitting on the bed, somewhat shocked at what just happened. He tries a few times to say something "Don't worry bout it."
He watches as her eyes struggle to stay open, exhaustion and alcohol finally catching up to her. She is still trying to mumble apologies as he helps her get all the way onto the bed. He covers her with a blanket and starts to move off the bed.
"Don't go 'way." she mutters, eyes still closed, but reaching for him "Stay here, with me."
He lays down on the bed on his back and she quickly adjusts so she is laying against his side, her head and left hand resting on his chest.