"And hard times are good in their own way, too.
Because the only way you can achieve true happiness is if you experience true sadness as well.
It's all about light and shade. Balance."
– Gabrielle Williams, Beatle Meets Destiny
Six months ago
"You shouldn't go," Carl said as I ate breakfast with him that morning.
Only Rick, Michonne, Daryl, Carl and Beth had woken up by now but it wouldn't take long for the rest of our group to wake up as well.
"I'll be back soon," I told him. "Don't worry."
"I won't have anyone to talk to, to play with," Carl said with puppy eyes, trying to make me stay. "And I will be left alone to care for the animals."
Only about two weeks ago we had found some pigs and some hens and brought them here, we helped Rick with them every once in a while, it wasn't nice but better than killing walkers through the fence.
"There are other kids now, Carl," I told him with a smile, trying to cheer him up.
It had been about three or so months since we went to Woodbury to end it all and instead brought the people back here, we had also gone on runs and if we find someone we bring them here if we think we can trust them. There were around twelve kids now, all of them around the ages of six and fourteen plus Judith.
"They're immature." I sighed.
"What about Patrick? He's older than the rest."
"He's the most immature out of them," Carl complaint.
These three months Michonne hadn't taken a break from her searches of the Governor, she had been gone for days or even weeks and then she comes back, stays for a day or two and then leaves again.
Nobody else besides Michonne, Daryl and I have bothered to go look for him after the first two weeks or so after he attacked our prison, our home but we have been unsuccessful. It's like he vanished into thin air.
I go with Michonne on these search parties about half of the time or even less and just on the short ones and usually Daryl comes along too. At first we could use a car but now that three months have passed, Rick has forbidden us to use them because we need to save the gas for emergencies but he can't forbid us to go, even when he has tried.
"Cici, just let Michonne and Daryl go and stay with me, please?"
"So I can clean pigs' poo and miss the fun?" I exclaimed as I finished my breakfast. "No way."
"Thought you loved me," Carl said in a fake hurt voice.
I loved Carl but I wasn't going to stay, as crazy as it seems I've always liked to go out of these fences and kill some walkers and be useful for the group, even when this time I wouldn't be so useful, we weren't bringing anything back.
"I need to get ready," I said, standing up. As I passed next to Carl, I messed up his hair, earning a slap on my hand as he grunted, I just chuckled, feeling like the mean older sister annoying her sibling.
I jogged back to my cell and checked if I had everything I needed in my backpack, my gun, two knives, some food and three bottles of water.
"Why don't you take the crossbow this time?" Daryl asked, making me slightly jump. I turned around to face him and flashed him a smile.
"Because I'm not ready yet," I told him.
"Come on," he said, grabbing it for me. "You can use this trip for practice, I'll help you."
Before I could accept or refuse, Daryl grabbed my arrows and walked out with them and my crossbow. I only shook my head at him as I grabbed my backpack and went downstairs once again, my mum and Axel were up now.
"Cici," she said when she saw me.
We were in better terms but still our relationship wasn't the best, we still had a long way to go. She approached me and put an arm on top of my shoulder, making me slightly tense at her touch.
"I thought you had already left," she said with a smile on her face. "I'm glad I got to see you, though. When are you going to come back?"
"Uh, in three, four days? I can't be sure," I told her.
Axel then joined us and put an arm around my mother's waist, making the whole situation even more awkward, at least for me because my mother didn't seem to mind.
"Take care out there," Axel told me with a smile, I nodded at him with an awkward smile.
Axel is the only person of our group that hasn't gone out and seen how the real world is now, he hasn't gone on any run and I think he hasn't killed more than ten walkers since all of this started, counting the ones he has killed through the fence. I'm really not sure what my mum sees in him, maybe she likes not being the weak one.
My mother has made a huge effort to accept the fact Daryl and I are together, despite how much she hates it and I appreciate her a lot for that so the least I can do, I suppose, is to try to accept the relationship she has with Axel, despite how much I wish they wouldn't be together.
"I always do, Axel," I told him. "Now, if you excuse me..."
"Wait," my mum exclaimed quickly.
Before I could get any further, she took two steps towards me and without warming she pulled me into a tight hug, which made me flinch. Unsure, I slowly put one arm on her lower back, barely touching her. She gave me a squeeze before letting me go and looking right into my eyes and I did the same.
"It's not like it's the first time I leave," I said with a small chuckle. "I'll be fine, mum."
"I know," she whispered as she loosened her grip on me.
I finally managed to get away from her and Axel, I walked towards the door, leaving my bag there, I needed to go to the bathroom before leaving. When I turned around I caught my mother and Axel kissing as he held her close to him.
I pretended to gag as I looked at them but honestly, I was a bit grossed out, I'm sure no one ever enjoys watching their own parents kissing, especially with someone that is not the other parent and like this, these two needed a room... or not... that thought made me cringe and I decided it was better to have them in my sight. My pretended gags and disgusting thoughts were interrupted when I felt a hand smacking the back of my head.
"Stop," I heard Daryl's hoarse voice saying to me.
"That hurt," I said, rubbing the place where he smacked me.
"Just let them be," Daryl grumbled to me, ignoring what I said to him.
"You wouldn't say that if she were your mum."
At the mention of that word, my mother broke the kiss and turned to look in my direction, spotting Daryl as well. Her cheeks turned a bit red but she didn't look ashamed.
"Seriously, mum? Do you really need to do that?" I asked in disbelief, she only gave me a look.
"You're not five anymore, get used to it," she said to me and I just gasped at her words, then she left to have breakfast, grabbing Axel's hand and pulling him with her. Axel let go of her hand and put his around his waist, slowly lowering it until he was touching her ass.
Daryl noticed I was looking at the pair in disbelief and saw why, I was about to go after them and give Axel a piece of my mind when Daryl grabbed my hand, stopping me from going and instead pecked my lips to distract me and it did help a bit, just a bit.
"Just leave them," Daryl told me. "We need to leave in five minutes."
"He was touching my mum, Daryl," I whined just before I pretended to gag again to make it more dramatic.
"Leave it, Cecilia."
I decided to listen to Daryl and just go to the bathroom like I was planning to, before meeting Michonne, Rick and Daryl outside, my bag was already over my shoulders.
Rick gave me a hug and told me to take care before he opened the gate to let us walk outside, many people were attracting the walkers and killing them through the fence so we had no problems with them right now.
The place Michonne wanted to go was quite far but Rick and the rest of the council wouldn't allow us to take the car anymore, and we would have used Daryl's motorcycle if we were only two.
Luckily we were all in shape, I workout everyday and every once in a while I run around the prison terrain, people think I'm crazy as I pass by them, wearing only my sport bra and some shorts I got not long ago.
Five hours later by midday I finally allowed myself to take a sip of water. We hadn't taken a break and the heat wasn't helping, drops of sweats were falling down my face and I was starting to get really tired, Michonne didn't look tired as I did, she seemed fresh and like this heat wasn't facing her, I guess she was used to it after three months of doing this.
Minutes later we spotted two walkers on the road, Daryl stopped Michonne from beheading them and told me to kill them myself with the crossbow.
I loaded it quickly and raised it, pointing at the closest female walker, I narrowed my eyes, moved the crossbow a bit to the left and shot. The arrow barely grazed her head, if even that. I grabbed a second arrow and this time I hit it but not where I wanted, on the shoulder, I reloaded it quickly and did the same, this time Daryl got behind me and put his hands on top of mine to guide me, Michonne just rolled her eyes at us, but then focused on the two walkers, making sure they wouldn't get too close to us.
"Now," Daryl whispered.
I pulled the trigger and shot it and the arrow went right between its eyes, I smiled as I saw it collapse to the pavement, dead-dead. I redid the whole process and this time without help of Daryl I shot the second walker and killed it but this one was way closer, only a few feet away from me.
I got my four arrows back and cleaned them with a leave I plucked from a tree nearby. Michonne just started walking, wanting to get as far as we could.
"Not bad," Daryl complimented.
"Thanks," I muttered even when I wasn't that satisfied with the results. I knew I would never be as good as Daryl with it but I still didn't believe I was as good as Daryl claimed. If I was on my own with more walkers around I'm afraid I wouldn't be quick or accurate enough.
A couple of hours later Daryl spotted a bird on a tree not so far from us, he got his own crossbow, pointed at the animal and shot it before I could blink. The animal fell down to the ground and Daryl ran to it. I could barely hit a walker not so far from me, I wonder how I would do with something so small at a farthest distance.
As we kept walking, Daryl plucked out the bird's feathers so we could eat it. When Daryl's was halfway done with it, we found a small, old car but luckily it had gas and we could use it.
Daryl got on the back seat with the window open so he could throw the feathers out of it, while I got on the driver's seat and Michonne sat next to me with the map in her hands. I couldn't read maps well so it was me who had to drive.
"Who taught you how to drive?" Daryl asked me from the back seat, he had taken a break from the bird. I looked at him through the rear mirror and noticed he had a cigarette in his mouth. I really disliked it when he smokes but I never say anything because I sometimes steal his cigarettes, have only done it twice or three times a month, it wasn't much and Daryl hadn't found out about it. I just do it when I'm extremely nervous or anxious, or when there is not much food to eat, but lately that hasn't been a problem.
"My dad," I muttered. "When he wasn't drunk or with his friends and when he was actually in a good mood."
"Really?" Daryl asked surprised, finding it hard to believe that Ed bothered to teach me something.
"Yeah, but don't fool yourself, he didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart," I said bitterly. "He taught me so I could do things for him, pick up stuff, even pick him up sometimes. My mother could drive and do those stuff but he preferred me to do those kind of things. I did errands for him all the time."
It wasn't until 5:00 pm when we finally made a stop and we could cook the bird Daryl got for us so we wouldn't use our supplies yet. Daryl was the one that took care of that while Michonne and I looked around the place, we were going to spend the night inside the car but at the moment we were in the woods, making the fire.
"I'll take first watch," Daryl commented as we put out the fire and grabbed our food back to the car so we could eat in a safer and warmer place.
When we got there, we leant against the car and we ate there. We grabbed the pieces of meat with our fingers but after all this time, having good manners were a thing of the past, now all you care about is eating and having strength.
The night was darker than usual, the moon was covered by thick clouds and obviously there was no source of artificial light, we had brought flashlights but those were just in case of an emergency.
We could hear owls in the distance, there were bats too. We could hear other animals as well, we knew there were foxes and even coyotes somewhere, but luckily there weren't animals big enough to harm us really bad, like wolves and bears, at least we hadn't come across any bear since all of this started. The coyotes were a bit of a threat though, especially if there were more than four or so.
After we finished we let Michonne get in the back seat so she could rest for a bit, while Daryl got in the driver's seat since he was going to be on watch first and I got next to him on the passenger seat.
I lowered the back of my seat and lied down on my side, facing Daryl who was playing with an arrow that he had in his hands. I closed my eyes because I was exhausted when Daryl spoke to me.
"Was he always like that?" he suddenly asked. "Your father, I mean. Was he always abusive?"
"Uh, no." I sighed. "Not to me at least. I could hear them fight and some loud noises late at night and I knew something bad was happening and I could see the bruises on my mum but I guess my brain didn't process the information that good, or I just decided to ignore it and pretend everything was okay." I opened my eyes and looked at Daryl, who was already looking down at me. "I was like six the first time he hit me. It wasn't that bad, my mum got in the way. It really affected me because it was like the very first time and it hurt more emotionally than physically but I got over it because it didn't happen again in a long time. It didn't happen for like two years."
"You were six?" Daryl asked sadly.
"Yeah, six or younger. I just know because Sophia hadn't been born yet and I was seven by the time she was born. It was somewhat frequent when I was eight or so and it got really bad when I turned like ten or eleven, I remember I used to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide the bruises and if people noticed they didn't say anything, not even the teachers and I never told anyone, now I wondered why I didn't."
"My father used to do the same thing," Daryl confessed as he grabbed one of my hands. "My mum hit us too."
I didn't know anything about his mother but I already knew Daryl's father was abusive, Merle mentioned it once or twice to me just before he was murdered but Daryl had never talked about neither of his parents even when he makes a lot of questions about mine and about my childhood. I was flattered he now trusted me enough to talk about his past.
"It was really, really bad whenever Merle wasn't around and it just worsened when my mother died," Daryl muttered, his voice broke a bit at the end. "As time passed Merle was away more often and for longer periods of time, he was sent to juvie several times and then when he was old enough, he just left."
"Are you mad at him because of that?" I found myself asking in a very small voice, I was quite surprised Daryl heard me.
"Yeah, I was for a very long time," Daryl admitted. "Maybe fifteen years or more."
I bit my lip just before it started to tremble, I looked down at my hands in shame. Merle did what I did to Sophia, and just now I could realize how much I hurt Sophia because I was sure Daryl felt the same Sophia did. I always knew but a part of me wanted to ignore it and I never thought it would be that bad.
"You thought he was a coward for leaving you?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I did," he said nodding. "He was probably somewhere getting drunk and having fun with girls while he left me at home with our father, he beat me almost every night."
"How old were you?"
"I can't remember, about eight or ten," Daryl told me. "Still had about eight years of hell ahead of me and he didn't give a crap, he just left... like he always did."
"I guess I'm a lot like Merle," I whispered but Daryl heard me. "Maybe that's why we got along."
"What do you mean? You're nothing like him."
"Oh yeah, I am," I told him. "Sophia was maybe nine when I did leave, she begged me to stay but I couldn't handle it anymore, I – I couldn't. She hated me, she didn't speak to me for months, probably felt the same thing you did."
"Probably, but you ran after her when those walkers chased her, you were with her when she needed you the most, Merle never was."
Daryl's words didn't really make me feel any better and he couldn't make it better because if he excused me he would excuse Merle, and he wouldn't do that.
"When did your mum die?" I asked him, wanting to stop talking about our siblings.
"I was very young, six or so," he told me. "I was outside with some other kids when we heard the sirens and we went to the place of the commotion... we turned a corner and... it was my house the one on fire. My mum was inside."
"Oh my God, Daryl I'm so..."
"It was her fault, though," Daryl said quickly. "She used to smoke all day long and she probably fell asleep or was too drunk and well... everything got caught on fire. She just... vanished. She was gone. At least you saw your father's body, you know it was real, that it happened. It was harder to accept she was gone because..." Daryl's voice broke, I gave his hand and squeeze, telling him it was okay.
"I understand," I told him. "I felt that kind of closure you are talking about when I finally saw Sophia, if we hadn't... I would probably believe she'd still be out there and I would probably look for her everyday."
"Part of me couldn't accept she was dead for a very long time. I couldn't believe my mum was gone."
"So, for the most part, it was just you and your father?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Daryl nodded. "And the prostitutes that were around more often than Merle."
"I'm sorry."
Silence fell upon us after that, we hadn't really talked about our families like this and it amazed me how many similarities our family backgrounds had. Abusive fathers, older kid leaves and the younger is left alone to fend for themselves. Older kid ends in jail, the father gets drunk often, making his abusive behaviour even worse. The only difference was that at least my mother wasn't abusive and actually cared about Sophia and me, even when she usually was way too scared to stand up for us.
"Daryl?"
"Hmm?"
"I think I'm ready to tell you why I ended up in jail," I told him nervously. "But promise me tha..."
"I would never judge you, Cecilia," he said quickly. "And I would never tell this to anyone else. You can trust me."
"Remember I told you that when I moved out of my house I learnt self-defence and some Taekwondo and learnt how to shoot?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"When I moved out, I didn't go alone to New York," I said with a sigh. "I had a boyfriend at the time, we had been together for a bit more than a year and he was the one that came up with the idea to move in together and go somewhere far away."
"So, he knew about your family?"
"Not so much, he thought my father was a bit... rough and lost his temper quickly but he never knew that he had sent me to the hospital a few times and the beatings were at least twice a week for me, maybe daily for my mum," I told him. "Peter was a nice guy but I didn't trust him enough to tell him all the things you know."
"Peter, huh?" he asked and scoffed a bit.
"That's not the main point, Daryl," I told him. "We lived together for around seven months and things were okay until one day. He came home one morning, I tried to call him all night, I was worried because he never did that, but he never answered his phone. Once he was back I could tell he was still a bit drunk, which was very unlike him. I accused him of cheating, I just knew, he had a hickey on the neck and the buttons on his shirt were all mixed up, he was a disaster."
"What happened next?" Daryl asked me. "You broke up with him?"
"We started arguing, it got pretty bad really quickly and he just... I don't know, lost his patience and he slapped me," I told him as I unconsciously brought one of my hands to my left cheek. "It was so strong that I fell down on the ground and it stung like hell. I got a bruise for like a month, it was horrible."
"I'm sorry, you didn't deserve that," Daryl said, looking sadly at me, almost with pity, which wasn't what I was looking for.
"I stood up and he just laughed, thinking I was going to back away and tremble like a little scared mouse but I didn't and a part of me wishes I would have done that."
"Why?" Daryl asked confused.
"After I stood up, it was like... like a switch was turned off, it was so weird. I just snapped, just... snapped," I told him, biting my lip when I finished and then I looked down at my hands. "I punched him, straight in the nose. I heard a crack and I knew I had broken it, but I didn't stop there. He was going to hit me again so, I just hit him instead, like I said, I just snapped. I wanted to stop but I couldn't, somewhere in my brain, I knew I had to stop but I was unable to do that."
I closed my eyes tightly to stop the tears that were already forming in my eyes. It shouldn't affect me so much, it happened more than two years ago, I actually hated how much it still hurt me, I hated it.
Before I continued, I heard a loud snore coming from behind me. I looked at Michonne, who was deeply sleeping. I had completely forgotten about her and I was really, really glad and relieved she was because I knew Daryl wouldn't want her to know the things he said and I would tell Michonne about this when I felt comfortable, if I ever get to feel comfortable enough to tell her. Michonne knew to an extent but not everything.
"It's funny," I said with a sarcastic chuckle as I sat up straight. "You know how thin the line is between doing something in self-defence and overuse of force? Let me tell you, it's pretty fucking thin," I said with venom in my voice. "The neighbours called the police and even when the bruises were evident, the one unconscious on the ground was Peter, not me. He had two broken ribs, broken nose, busted lip, and I only had one bruise. A big and bright one but it was only one. They claimed he was already 'disabled' and that I could have stopped a long time ago, so I was arrested for almost killing him. I should have been in prison for a year but they let me go earlier due to perfect behaviour. I guess I was lucky because my lawyer was a really good one. He got me that deal."
If Daryl wasn't looking at me with pity then he was now. Yes, it was a sad and unjust story, but I got out of jail and moved on with my life, as hard as that was.
"But the worst..."
I stopped my story because I heard some faint snarling outside. Daryl heard it right after I did it. He brought a finger to his lips and I nodded but I almost shouted out as Daryl opened the door and got out of the car with his crossbow in hand. I grabbed mine, knowing I couldn't use my gun and got out of the car as well.
It was hard but I could make out six figures quite far from us, Daryl killed three before I could even load my own crossbow and raise it. Daryl let the rest get a bit closer before he killed two of the three left.
"All yours," he whispered to me, but I shook my head at him.
"It's dark, I can't even kill one at midday when the sun is at the top, I can't now," I told him. Daryl didn't argue, instead he got behind me like he had done earlier. He moved my left hand a bit further and raised my elbows a bit and when he told me to, I shot at the walker and down it went.
Daryl made sure there were no more walkers for maybe five minutes, once we didn't hear or see anything else, Daryl retrieved the arrows, handing me one of them after he cleaned the blood that was on them.
"So," he said before getting inside the car. "What were you going to tell me before we were interrupted?"
As soon as we were, as he said, interrupted, I thought it was some kind of sign, that I shouldn't tell him because nobody knew this, no one at all. I was so ashamed that it wasn't until now that I had pushed that memory to the back of my mind, keeping it there, trying to block it and forget it.
"You can tell me," Daryl said when he realized I had gotten a bit hesitant about telling him the rest of the story and now I was quite relieved we were out of the car, Michonne could wake up and hear and I didn't want that.
"There was a moment when I stopped hitting him, only minutes before the police came. I stood up and grabbed the gun that I carried everywhere, I pointed it at his head and I was so close to pull the trigger. I wanted to kill him, Daryl!" I exclaimed, raising my voice a bit but kept it low enough in case more walkers were close.
"But you didn't," he told me as he slipped his arms around me and held me close, he was leant against the hood of the car.
"I kind of snapped out of my trance when I heard the sirens, I hid it quickly before they entered my apartment," I told him sadly. "They never found it. I just thought that I had gotten away from all of that to fall into the same kind of treatment. I wasn't going to let that happen. No matter the price. No matter what I had to do to prevent it."
"But all that is over now. Princess," he said, kissing the top of my head. "I would never do such thing to you."
"I know," I said with a small smile.
I let go of him and we both got inside the car again, we couldn't risk being out there for longer. Once inside, Daryl wrapped his arms around me again
"Do you think you would have snapped like that with your father?"
"I was scared of it, I could defend myself now and I wouldn't hesitate to do it, so I refused to visit Sophia, even when she called me every week... begging me to go," I told him. "But it wasn't until that moment when I realized I could be capable of killing. It scared me."
"I appreciate you told me that, I know how hard it was," Daryl told me.
"Probably as hard as it was for you to tell me about your parents," I said.
"We'll make it through," Daryl assured me. "Together."
"Together," I repeated and nodded at him.
"Now, get some sleep, it's almost time to wake Michonne up," Daryl told me.
"Or I could keep up and wake her up in a few hours."
"No, you need the rest. Today was a long day, just sleep for a bit."
Daryl kissed the top of my head and held me tightly against his chest, calming me down because I was quite uneasy about remembering that part of my life. I closed my eyes and before I knew it I fell asleep in his arms.
So you guys finally know why Cecilia went to jail, what do you think about that?
QOTD: Who is your favourite female and male characters of TWD?
Also, do you recommend me any movie or show on Netflix? I just finished The Affair last night and I will soon finish this other show called Vis a Vis. It's similar to Orange is The New Black but way better in my opinion, but I think it's only in Spanish, but I totally recommend it. I even used the main character in one of my Multicouple Videos, I paired him with Shane :P