I was woken up by someone shaking my shoulder to wake up, I slowly opened my eyes to be blinded by the sun and I lifted my arms to cover my eyes so I could adjust to the light til I heard a voice ask, " You awake, Sam?"
I pulled my arm down off my eyes to see who was talking to me and it was Carl. I smiled when I saw him and I started to sit up and looked over at him and I grabbed his arm and pulled him down to my lap and hugged him while I was tickling him at the same time, and he tried to get away from me but he couldn't get out of my arms, " How is my favorite boy this morning?" I asked him as I started as I continued to tickle him.
" I...hahah...I'm doing...hahah...g...good. Please stop tickling me hahahahaha." Carl tried to say while he was laughing.
" What sorry, I couldn't hear you? Mind saying that again?" I said as I continued to tickle him.
" Please, stop tickling me." Carl says again and I stopped and just held him in my arms, then I finally let him go, so I could get up and start placing things back in my bag.
Once I placed everything in my bag, Carl grabbed my hand and took me over to where the others were, by the time me and Cal arrived, I noticed that everyone was doing stuff around the camp. I felt like an outsider, Carl noticed the look on my face and tugged on my hand which made me look at him and he pointed over the RV and I nodded my head to him and we headed over to where we saw most of the others were laughing and talking to each other. Carl let's go of my hand and heads over to Rick, who picks him up in his arms and looks over at me with a smile on his face, he walks over to me, " Hey Sam, you sleep well? I saw you sleeping at the campfire, but I didn't want to wake you up." Rick said as he placed Carl down on the ground, so he could go play with Sophia and looks back over to me.
" It was better then what I have had in a long while." I said as I nodded my head to him," How did you sleep?" I asked him back.
" I slept very well, knowing that my family is safe. Also having you here, I thought I wouldn't see you again after you left with your aunt and after everything that is happening right now." Rick said as he placed a hand on my shoulder and I looked down to the ground.
" I'm glad too, but please let's not talk about it, I know that I miss them and I still have hope that Chris is still alive so I'm not that worried but let's not talk about him please. I just that he died in the prison that you placed him in." I said as I looked up to him with sadness and fear in my eyes.
" Alright and I hope so as well." Rick said as he eyes landed on my neck and he placed his hand on my chin to look at it better.
" The bruise on your neck doesn't look as bad as it was yesterday." Rick said as he dropped his hand from my chin and I nodded my head to him. I was about to say something else till I saw Carol was walking towards me with a pile of laundry and that was when I saw my clothes along with Rick's on top.
" I'm going to wash your and Rick's clothes, thought you guys would like some clean clothes." Carol said as she looked over at us with hope in her eyes.
" Carol, you don't have to do them. You were nice enough to let me borrow some of your clothes." I said as I walked over to her and tried to take my clothes from her, but she stopped me.
" It's alright, I like having something to do because it keeps my mind off of everything else that's going on with everything in the world." Carol said as she walked away to go clean the clothes. I couldn't blame her for trying to be busy since everything went to hell, but she was also trying to take care of her daughter and her husband. But I could tell that there was something not right about her husband Ed, cause before Carol left I noticed the bruises on her arms.
' So he's like my step-father huh? Oh, I'll be keeping an eye on you asshole, cause if I see you touch or hurt her or her daughter. Your ass is mine.' I thought as I turned to look over at him as he was watching Carol, then he looked over at me to notice that I was looking at him, which made him walk back in his tent.
I turned to look over to talk to Rick but then realized that he wasn't right next to me anymore and I looked around trying to find him till I saw him standing out the side of the camp, staring towards the city. I walked over to him to see him looking towards the Skyscrapers, " Something on your mind?" I asked as I looked towards the city.
" I've been thinking about what you said last night." Rick said as stared towards the city.
" About going and saving Merle." I said as I turned my head to him.
" Maybe I overreacted, but he was being an ass to everyone, and he was also hurting you that I got so angry that I handcuffed him to get him away from you, pulse I need to shut his mouth." Rick said as he looked towards the head as he shook his head.
" You did the right thing." I whispered to him as I turned to look at him.
" Is it really bad that I don't even regret what I did, but I really want to go save him?" Rick said as he turned his head to me.
" Not really, this is Merle Dixon may have tried to kill me, but he still doesn't deserve to be trapped up there to die. So when you go back for him, I'll go with you to help, just like you helped me long ago." I said while giving him a small smile.
" I really appreciate that Sam, but what's going on right now and what happened back then is not the same thing." Rick said as he had a smile on his face. I pushed his shoulder a little bit as I started to walk away from him to see what the others were doing while Rick was walking over to his wife.
As I got back to where I saw the others last, I looked around and found Glenn standing near the car that he loved so much being taken apart by the others. I walked over to him as he had his arms crossed over his chest, " Vultures." Glenn said as he had a scowled look on his face.
" Hey, don't worry Glenn, I'll find you another awesome car in the future, okay." I said as I placed my hand on his shoulder as he turned his head to look over to me and he nodded his head.
" It was a beautiful car. One type of car that I couldn't afford before everything went to hell." Glenn said as he shook his head in sadness.
I was about to say something else to cheer him up til I heard kid screams, which made me turn so quick to know that it was both Carl and Sophia. I started to run as fast as I could while grabbing my crossbow in the process and headed towards where I heard their screams, " Carl, Sophia!" I yelled with Glenn following right behind me. As I was heading towards them, the others followed right behind me when they heard their screams too and they were right now my heels as I ran through the trees. The kid's screams were getting louder, which made it easier for me to know that I was getting closer to them, then both Carl and Sophia came running towards me and grabbed me around my waist. I knelt down and held them which I was very happy to know that they were okay, then both Lori and Carol came into view and the kids ran to their mother's arms.
" What is it?" Lori asked as she knelt down to him and looked at him as she placed her hands on his shoulders.
" Walker." Carl said as his body shook in fear as he pointed in the direction where he and Sophia came from. As Lori and Carol took their kids back to camp to calm them down, while me and the others started to head in the direction where Carl pointed, but this time just a little slower so we don't attract anymore walkers in case there are some more in the area. I pushed into the clearing with Rick, Shane, Glenn, Dale, Jim and Morales following right behind me, I raised my crossbow at the ready to pull the trigger for anything that could pop up.
Carl was right, just a few feet from us was a walker that was feasting on a dead deer and I noticed that it had several arrows in its body, ' Someone was hunting this deer. Well this person won't be happy when they find out that they just lost their meat.' I thought as I looked between the arrows and the walker. We got closer to the walker without it noticing us since it was focused on eating the deer. I was about to shoot it in the head with my arrow til the others started to hit the walker everywhere else but the head, which told me that the others didn't know that one hit in the head would kill it and I was about to say something til Dale raised his ax and decapitated the head off the walker's body.
" Well, that's not the worst thing that I've seen." I said as everyone raised their heads to look at me for a few seconds then they turned their heads back to the walker body and I pointed my crossbow at it to finish it off till we heard rustling from the tree and I pointed my crossbow in the direction that the noise was coming from, everyone followed my example by raising their melee weapons at the ready waiting to see if it is another walker or something else. I was looking right in front of me waiting for a growl of anything but instead of a walker, it was a man walking towards us angrily into the clearing.
The man was fairly built, his strong arms showed through his sleeveless shirt as he was holding his crossbow. His clothes were dirty, though I could tell it was from walking around the woods. His skin had sweat and he looked like he was annoyed.
" Welcome back, Daryl." Dale said, which made me lower my crossbow as I watched him look from Dale then down to the deer.
" Son of a bitch, that was my deer! God dammit, it was mine! Look at it. All gnawed on by this filthy disease-bearing motherless poxy bastard!" Daryl said as he kicked the walker's body.
" Calm down son, that's not helping." Dale said Daryl walked towards him to get in his face but I got right in front of Daryl and stopped him from getting any closer.
" I suggest backing off, before you do something that you're going to regret." I said as I glared at him as he was looking at me. He just glared at me til he looked back at Dale.
" What do you know about it old man? You take that stupid hat and go back to "on Golden Pond". " Daryl said as he walked back to his deer.
" I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think, think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?" Daryl asked after he pulled his arrows out and pointed at the area of the neck of the deer.
I shook my head to him, " I wouldn't even risk it." I said as Daryl looked back at me and then he lowered his head and sighed.
" That's a damn shame. Oh got some squirrels about a dozen or so. That'll have to do." Daryl said as he started to head towards camp the walker's head came back to life, everyone jumped except for me and Daryl who noticed it.
" Come on, people. What the hell?" Daryl said as he walked back over and aimed his crossbow and shot it in the head, but not only did his arrow hit the head but mine did too, which made him look up to see who shot the arrow and noticed me with a crossbow as well.
Daryl walks up to the head and pulls out both arrows and he walks over to me and I reached for my arrow and my fingers brushed against his fingers, which made us both freeze a little bit as we both looked at each other for a little bit til I shook my head and I grabbed my arrow from him and nodded my head to him as I placed my arrow back in it's holder, " It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing" Daryl asked as he looked at the others and then looked over at me before he walked towards camp.
I just watched him as he walked away, Glenn walked over to me, " That's Daryl." Glenn said to me as I nodded my head to him.
" Kinda figured that." I said as I watched Daryl walk away towards camp.
" Let's get back to camp." Rick said as he started to heal back and I followed right behind him. I still didn't know much about this Daryl guy but something tells me he wasn't going to be as bad as his brother was.
As we got to camp, I was hearing Daryl calling for his brother, I had a feeling that was going to be very bad once he found out what happened to his brother, " Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you." Shane said as he was walking towards Daryl. I stayed near Rick in case things got bad.
" About what?" Daryl said as he stopped to look at Shane confused.
" About Merle. There was a - there was a problem - in Atlanta." Shane said as he looked at Daryl. Everyone stopped and looked over at what was going on.
" He's dead?" Daryl asked as he looked down to the ground and then back up at Shane. Shane looked down to the ground, like he didn't know what to say next.
" We don't know." Shane said as he looked back up at him.
" He either is or he ain't." Daryl said as he was starting to get mad and started to walk over to Shane.
" I'm telling him." Rick said as he walked over to both Shane and Daryl with me right behind me.
" Rick, wait." I said I got close to him, hoping that things go well deep down.
" No, easy way to say this, so I'll just say it." Rick said as he was right next to Daryl with me standing on the other side of him.
" Who are you, matter who she is?" Daryl asked as he looked at me and then back at Rick.
" I'm Rick Grimes and this is my daughter Samantha Grimes." Rick said as he was looking at Daryl, I turned my head to look at him in shock after I heard him say that, I didn't know what to say at first but then I decided to not say anything and looked back at Daryl, since I already think of Rick as a father.
" Rick Grimes, Samantha Grimes, You two got somethin you both want to tell me?" Daryl said as he got closer to us.
" Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there." Rick said as everyone gathered around to listen to what was happening . I noticed something move from the corner and I looked over to see T-dog walking up with sticks in his arms and was looking at Daryl and all I did was shake my head to him telling him not to do anything. Then I turned my eyes back on Daryl.
" Hold on. Let me process this." Daryl said as he lowered the squirrel's from his shoulder as he walked away a little bit with his back turned to us, then he turned back to look back at us.
" You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there?!" Daryl yelled as his eyes were glued on Rick, while I stood right next to him keeping my mouth shut.
"Yeah." Was all that Rick said as he looked away from Daryl and he was looking at the others.
" I know you're mad right now Daryl, but if Rick hadn't done anything, someone would have gotten hurt or I would have been killed, by your brother's hand." I said as he turned his head towards me and then I noticed his eyes going to my neck and that was when I noticed that his eyes turned from concern one minute to anger another minute very quickly. Then he looked back towards Rick and the next thing I knew Daryl threw the squirrel's at Rick and they started to go at each other. Shane came in and tackled Daryl away from Rick to the ground and I stood there to make sure nothing bad happened.
Daryl sat up back up very quickly and pulled out a knife and got back on his feet, " Watch out, he has a knife!" I said as I got ready for anything.
Daryl started to swing his knife at Rick while he kept dodging the knife, then Daryl swung his fist at Rick and hit him in the face, which put me in action and I came at Daryl and I punched him right in the face. Daryl shook his head and looked right back at Rick and was about to try and hit him, that was when I decided it was my turn to protect him, I got right in front of Rick and I knew that Rick was going to tell me to move but before he could say anything I raised my arms to protected my face and that was when I felt the knife make contact with my left arm and I fell to the ground and I placed my hand against the wound putting pressure while my arm was on my chest and I closed my eyes. As I opened my eyes and I looked up at him I noticed that he froze in place as he stared at me on the ground till Shane came over and put Daryl in a choke hold. Rick came over to me, while Lori and Carol ran over to me to check the wound.
" Sam, are you okay?" Rick said as he watched Lori start to clean and wound up while Carol placed my head in her lap.
" Yeah, I'm okay. Sorry, I didn't want him to hurt you." I said as I looked at him with a smile on my face.
" It doesn't look that bad, Rick. Don't worry, she's fine." Lori said as she looked over at him after she cleaned the wound and she started to wrap it. Rick nodded his head and then he turned his head towards Daryl who was on the ground with Shane still holding him in a choke hold. Rick walked over to him while both Lori and Carol helped me sit up to see what Rick was going to do, " I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?" Rick asked Daryl as he knelt down in front of him.
" Do you think we can manage that?" Rick asked Daryl again as he wouldn't answer him and got closer to his face.
" Mmm, yeah." Daryl said as I was able to get back on my feet with T-Dog's help and I walked over to Rick and Daryl as Shane let's Daryl go by throwing him to the ground.
" What he did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work and plays well with others." I said as I knelt down in front of Daryl, even though I knew that Rick wanted Daryl to stay away from me, but I didn't really care, fighting now among ourselves was not the best thing to do right now. As I looked at him, I noticed that he was looking at my bandaged arm. And I touched his hand which made him look up at me and I had a smile on my face.
" It's not Rick's fault. I had the key. I dropped it." T-Dog said as Daryl, Rick and me looked over towards him.
" You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asked as he looked at T-Dog.
" Well, I dropped it in a drain." T-Dog said as he looked at him.
Daryl chuckled as he looked down to the ground and then got back to his feet along with me getting back to my feet and Daryl walked over to where T-Dog was at, " If it was supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't." Daryl said.
" Well, maybe this will. Look I chained the door to the roof-so the walkers couldn't get at him with a padlock." T-Dog reassured Daryl.
" It's gotta count for something." Rick said as he looked at Daryl.
Daryl looks down and whips his eyes and looks back at us all, " Hell with all y'all! Just tell me where he is, so I can go get him." Daryl said looking upset towards us.
" He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori said as she looked over at Rick.
I looked over at Rick as he looked at everyone and then to the ground and looked back up to Daryl, " I'm going back." Rick said as Daryl walked away and everyone went silent.
After a few minutes of getting ready to go, I saw Rick coming out of his tent, while he was putting on his sheriff shirt, I walked over to him with my bag on my shoulder, " Your coming Sam?" Rick asked me as he looked at me
" Yes, cause I said last night that no man deserves to be trapped up there. So yes, I'm going." I said as I adjusted my crossbow on my shoulder.
" I just don't want you to get hurt again, pluses I don't want you to be near him." Rick said as he pointed towards Daryl who was getting ready to go.
" You can't stop me from going to him for one and two I'm not afraid of Daryl, okay." I said as I looked at him. Rick just looked at me and then he nodded his head to me till I saw Shane walking over to us, I backed away from him to be right behind Rick, which I could tell that Shane noticed what I did as he stopped in front of Rick as he kept his eyes on me till he looked at Rick.
" Rick look, I don't understand Rick? If you could just, could you throw me a bone here, man? Could you just tell me why? Why would you risk your life and her's for a douche bag like Merle Dixon?" Shane asked as he looked between me and Rick.
" Hey! Watch your choice of words more carefully." Daryl said as he snapped back at Shane.
" Oh no, I did. Douche bag is what I meant. Merle Dixon, the guy wouldn't give a glass of water if you were dying of thirst." Shane said angrily at Rick, which was starting to piss me off.
" Shane, just shut the fuck up. We are not leaving him behind. If it was you, we would do the same and come save you after leaving you behind. We are not going to leave and you are not going to stop us. He's a normal person like the rest of us. It doesn't matter what he did before or what he did back then, we're going to save him." I said firmly as I glared at Shane.
" What he would or wouldn't do, doesn't interest me. I can't let a man die of thirst, Sam's right, we are not leaving him." Rick said as he looked between me and Shane, when I looked over at Shane, he was just glaring at us.
" So you, Sam and Daryl, that's your big plan?" Lori asked as she looked over at us till Rick looked around at everyone til his eyes landed on Glenn.
" Oh, come on." Glenn said as he shook his head and was upset with where this was going.
" You know the way. You've been there before, in and out, no problem. You said so yourself." Rick said as he looked at Glenn.
" Glenn, please. We need your help, please." I asked him as I gave him a pleading look in my eyes. Before Glenn could answer, I heard a huff from Shane as I turned to look at him.
" That's just great. Now you're gonna risk four people, huh?" Shane said as he looked at us and shook his head.
" Five." T-Dog said as he stepped forward as he volunteered himself and I looked over at him and I nodded my head to him with a small smile on my face.
" My day just gets better and better, don't it?" Daryl said as he was looking at his arrows.
" You see anybody else here stepping up, to save your brother's cracker ass?" T-Dog said as he looked over at Daryl while Daryl looked back over at him and Shane just shook his head even more and I could tell that he was getting more mad and walked away from us a little bit with his back turned to us.
" Look Daryl, I know that you don't like him after what he did but we need as much help as we can get, okay." I said when I looked at him, which made him stop from what he was doing and I looked over at Rick and Shane to notice that they were still arguing. But then I noticed that I felt a pair of eyes on me and I turned to where I turned to the pair of eyes and it was Daryl's eyes but I didn't say anything as I looked at him and it felt like time just froze for a moment till I broke eye contacted on back over at Rick and Shane.
" Right, the guns." Glenn said as he looked at Rick and then towards Shane.
" Are more guns." Rick said as he looked at Shane and then looked over at me and I nodded my head to Shane.
" Wait, what guns?" Shane asked, confused as he looked between me and Rick.
" Six shotguns, Two high-Powered rifles, over a dozen handguns. I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed. It's just sitting there on the street, waiting to be picked up." Rick said as he looked at Shane in hopes that would calm him down, which from what I could see from his eyes, it did a little bit.
" Ammo?" Shane asked Rick as he looked at him.
" 700 rounds, assorted." Rick said as he nodded his head to Shane.
" You went through hell to find us. You just got here and you're gonna turn around and leave?" Lori asked as she questioned Rick.
" Dad, I don't want you to go." Carl said as he looked up at his father, which I started to feel bad for Carl. Rick walked over to Lori and walked over to her and listened to what she had to say to him. I walked away from it cause I didn't want to hear them arguing again, which Lori always starts. I noticed that Daryl was still where he was at, while getting ready to go, I walked over to him.
" Hey, are you doing okay?" I asked him as he turned to look at me.
" Does it look like I'm okay? Why are you even asking me that?" Daryl said as he looked at me and stopped what he was doing.
" I was just asking a question, sorry." I said pissed off and turned my head away from him and crossed my arms, but I flinched from the pressure on my left arm and I uncrossed my arms to relieve the pain from it, which I left Daryl's eyes on my left arm.
" I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." Daryl stated as he looked down to the ground as I looked back at him.
" Something tells me that you never said sorry to anyone before." I said to him as I raised my eyebrow at him, but deep down I'm glad that he was sorry for what he did.
" Well, I at least tried okay." Daryl said with an annoying tone in his voice as he looked back at me with a little glare in his eyes.
I just looked at him for a while till I had a small smile appear on my face, " Your apology is accepted." I said to him as I adjusted the strap on my crossbow on my shoulder.
" So, did you mean what you said to Shane, about saving my brother?" Daryl said as the glare went away and he looked at me in my eyes.
" Like I said to Shane, your brother doesn't deserve to be stuck on the roof to die. I'm still not happy with him after he almost killed me with my own weapon, but all I care about now is that he is safe back to you. He's the only family you have, am I right?" I asked him as he nodded his head to me confirming that I was right.
" That's why, family always comes first. No matter what they did or how bad it was, family stuck together." I said as I looked over at Rick to hear him say it was time to go and that was when I looked over at Daryl and nodded to him til I walked over to Rick.
" How did things go with Lori?" I asked him as I looked over to the side to see Lori was watching us with Carl in her arms as they watched us.
" You know how it went, same old, same old with her." Rick said as he just shook his head. After that Rick went over to talk to Dale with T-Dog right beside him. I looked over to the truck to see Daryl in the back waiting in the back, but I had a feeling that he doesn't have the patience to wait for much longer and not even two minutes Daryl placed his foot on the horn and hocked.
" Come on, let's go!" Daryl yelled as I looked back at Rick, who just got finished talking to Dale with a pair of bolt cutters in his hand as he was walking back towards the truck. As Rick got to the back, Shane came over and pulled out some bullet's for Rick's gun out of a bag that he had with him and walked away. Rick goes to the front and gets in the passenger seat and starts to load his gun while Glenn gets in the driver seat. I walked over to the back and started to climb up in the truck till I saw a hand offered to me and I looked up to see that it was Daryl trying to help me up.
' He's not an asshole that he claims to be. So he does have a soft side, he just hides it so that no one else can see it.' I thought to myself as I smiled lightly to myself.
I took his hand and he pulled me up, " Thank you, Daryl." I said and he nodded his head to me then T-Dog climbed in after us and that was when Daryl pulled the shutter door down and Glenn turned on the car and started to drive. I haven't even sat down yet and I lost my balance and was about to hit the floor pretty hard till a pair of hands grabbed both of my arms to prevent me from falling. I look over my shoulder to see that it was Daryl that caught me. We just started a little bit at each other and I was starting to blush a little bit till Daryl let go of my arms, " Thank you, again." I said to him.
He nodded his head to me and I walked over to the wall and placed my back against the wall and slid down the floor with Daryl sitting right next to me and T-Dog right across from me. I closed my eyes to listen to the sound of the tries on the road, I had a feeling that we were going to get back to the city in no time, that was when my nerves kicked in, ' Hopefully nothing happens while we are there. We get Daryl's brother, then the guns and then we leave, that simple I hope.' I thought to myself but what I didn't know was that the unexpected becomes the expected no matter what.
End of Chapter Four
Thank you for reading this chapter. I'm so sorry for the long wait for this chapter. I'm trying to make sure that I get this right cause I'm going by the series and trying to make sure that it's not bad. Just let me know what you think and I'll have the next one up as soon as possible. See ya guys.