Different Worlds |Daryl Dixon Fan Fiction- The Walking Dead|

Thirteen: Everyone's Gone

             Refreshed, but still hiccuping from my crying fit, I sat in the living room. Rick had brought me my bow and quiver when he said that they had everything set up for Otis' burial. It was a quiet ceremony by the apple tree, Barnie and Mattie had laid on his grave for most of it and were probably still there. Carl said he put bowls of water and food with them in case they stayed the night.
"I never asked you," Daryl finally spoke. We'd been sitting in comfortable silence for some time now. "What's the tattoo mean?"
"Which one?" I asked. He'd practically seen me naked more than once, and I had more than one tattoo.
"The one on your thigh." I rubbed my thigh where the tattoo of the buck and bird was.
"For home. I got it when I first moved to Tulsa, the buck is my father and the bird is my mother."
"What about the one on your rib?" I smiled at the thought of the simple feather.
"My grandmother, said she loved it and would've gotten it herself if she could, so I did when she passed."
"You have any more?" He asked, looking me over. I smiled and turned around, lifting my hair to show the small tattoo on the back of my neck.
"My brother and I are Sagittarius'." Daryl gave me a strange look.
"I talked to your brother, he said his birthday was in January." I gave a soft smile, I knew when Tom's birthday was.
"I mean Elliot. I had a twin brother, but he died shortly after birth." I felt the tears coming once more, the burning in my throat, but pushed it away. Daryl nodded, but didn't say anything, which I was thankful for.
"What about you?" I asked, turning to look at him.
"What?"
"Do you have any?" I asked, smiling softly.
"Just the one on my back, you probably saw it." I nodded, remembering there had been something there, but I had been so distracted by his scars.
"About that... are you alright?" I asked, placing a hand on his arm. He flinched, and I almost lost it. How could someone hurt another human being to the point that they were permanently damaged?
"As good as I can be." At that moment I felt like he was really opening up. I didn't know Daryl's story, we both had our own stories. Surely mine seemed much less action-packed than his.
"I keep hearing you guys talking about people, like the Governor, Shane, I don't want to intrude, but what happened to you guys?" I questioned, not wanting to push to much. Daryl looked down at his hands, grunting.
"We started out in a small camp outside of Atlanta. Rick's wife Lori, his friend Shane, and Carl, Carol and her daughter and husband, Glenn, my brother..." He paused here, but I didn't ask any questions. "A couple others. I don't think people knew except for the ones who paid attention, like me, that Lori and Shane were screwin' around. You see, before all this Rick went into a coma, got shot on the job."
"I heard about that." I nodded, listening closely.
"So Shane said when he went for Rick, all this shit died and he thought Rick was a goner so he left. Couldn't take him because he was attached to a bunch of stuff. So, Lori and Carl thought he was dead. Rick came along a while after and handcuffed my brother to a roof because Merle wasn't the best guy. I found out and when we went back for him, Merle had cut his damn hand off and left. Skip forward, our Atlanta camp got over-run and we lost a lot of people. We went to the CDC and it went to shit, had to escape before the whole thing crumbled. Lost one of our people there, she decided to stay behind and 'opted out'. Anyways, we stopped at a highway jam and a herd came through, we lost Sophia, Carol's daughter. Spent a long time lookin' for her.
We found ourselves at Hershel's farm when Carl got shot in a hunting accident. We stayed there for a long time, looking for Sophia. I took one of my own arrows and a bullet in the process." Daryl snorted and I chuckled. "We found out Hershel kept Walkers in his barn because he thought they were just sick, he even had his wife and son in there. He also had Sophia, had no idea how she got in there though, assumed his dead farmhand did it. Anyways, Shane opens up the barn in a big fit and we gotta kill all Hershel's dead friends.
Rick comes back with some guy when he goes looking for Hershel, because he ran off after the barn incident. Turns out the kid knew Maggie so we couldn't set him free. Shane took matters into his own hands and brought him into the forest and killed him, but no one knew. He said the kid had escaped, but Glenn and I found him as a Walker. Shane just used this as a distraction to try and kill Rick, but Rick won the fight. The gun shots from Rick and Shane attracted a whole herd of Walkers, and they destroyed the farm. We lost some people then, too." Daryl stopped for some breath, and I couldn't believe that this was only half the story.
"Rick told us that the man in the CDC told him that we are all infected, and we all turn no matter how we die. After that we found a prison, managed to clear it out. Turned out we were pretty close to a place called Woodbury, run by the Governor. Long story short, he invaded us. Sometime before that though, Lori gave birth to Judith, and nobody quite knew if it was Shane's or Rick's, but I think she's Rick's." The look on his face told me it was what everyone should believe. "She died during child birth. Anyways, back to the Governor. Merle was with the Governor but left him for us. I almost left Rick to be with my brother because none of our people liked him. We went back, though. The Governor killed Merle, left him to turn, but I found him and yeah..."
"I'm sorry." I squeezed his leg, willing him to continue.
"The Governor came in with a tank and everything, destroyed the prison. We lost a lot of people, more than ever before, and everyone got split up. The girl I was with got kidnapped, so I found myself with a bunch of pretty bad guys who were hunting down Rick, but I didn't know. Those were the guys that almost got Carl, but Rick did what he had to do and got us out of it. After that, we went to Terminus where they locked us up, and we met up with Maggie and Glenn and the others."
"You've been through way more than I thought possible." I shook my head. "I just went from Tulsa to here, then me and my Dad found you guys."
"It's the living you gotta watch out for. The world's gone to shit." Daryl laid back his head as he spoke. I curled up on the couch, looking outside to find everyone back to what they usually do.
"So what's Rick been doing lately. Looking at the maps, is he planning on leaving?" I asked, watching as Rick and a couple others examined the map.
"I don't know, been to busy savin' your ass." Daryl smirked.
"If you don't like how I spend time with people, you're more than welcome to leave." I said sarcastically. Daryl chuckled, sitting up to look out of the window, too.
"I don't know why he'd want to leave, with Judith and Carl safe here. He wanted to stay at Hershel's farm and have the baby, but that didn't work."
"Maybe he's just preparing, since you guys had it pretty rough before. So that if something happens you can stay together, lose less people." I suggested, looking over at him.
"Then he should be talking to your family, too, and me." I nodded, he did have a point. "You guys are part of the group, now. I mean, look at Maggie."
"Thanks, but I don't want to intrude. You should go find out, though, you're like Rick's right-hand man." I smiled, watching as he stood up. He stopped, "I'll be fine, go!" I shooed him off, and Judith began to cry from the den. "I've got it, just go." I urged, and he finally left once I started walking to Judith's crib.
I picked her up, and went through the routine of trying to find out what exactly she needed. I tried a bottle, but she wouldn't give, and she'd been in her crib so she wasn't tired. That only left one option, and I tilted her and checked her diaper. She definitely needed to be changed, so I dug around for a clean diaper. I laid her down and changed her, then carried her out onto the porch.
My father and mother were sitting on the swinging bench, deep in conversation. Carl was sitting by Otis' grave with Barnie and Mattie. Everyone else was with Rick, surrounding the map. As I closed the screen door, Rick and Daryl looked up and saw me with Judith. Rick gave me a small wave, and I took that as enough of an invitation to walk over. He took Judith from my arms, and I took it as a chance to look around. There were several markers of different colors around the map, and a few rocks were holding it down. Circles and squares were all over it.
"Do you guys need anything?" I asked, looking from one face to the other.
"Yeah, could you get your parents over here." I nodded, and grabbed their attention, calling them over. We all looked up at Rick, and he finally began to explain what he was doing.
"I'm just taking precautions, like we should have done before. I went looking the other day, found some places around here that would be good for a backup if things get out of control. Carol is going to find some more maps and make copies of this one for everyone. What we have here is a sort of escape plan. The circles are places to go first, the squares the next place to go if the circles aren't safe. If we get attacked from behind the house, you go to the red safe-house, which would be behind the barn. If they come from behind the barn, we go to the purple ones, which is behind the house. If we're attacked from the front of the house, go to the blue ones, which is in the direction of the apple tree. If they're from the apple tree, go to the green, which is in the direction in front of the house. It's hard to remember, which is why I want everyone to have a map." I looked at Rick in wonder, he'd really been at work this whole time.
"We've got quite a bit of maps in the den, if you want to see if you can find them." I suggested, looking over at her. She nodded and disappeared into the house.
"Will someone go get Carl?" Rick asked, and I offered to go. He was with my dogs.
I walked to the apple tree, sitting next to Carl. He looked over before returning to rubbing Mattie's head. I tugged Barnie, laying part of him in my lap as I pet him. "They do this when a friend dies, I think they know he's gone, and this is their way of mourning. The only thing is, if no one looks after them while they do it, like you have been, they wouldn't mind dying right here." I sighed, stroking Barnie's fur.
"Really?" Carl asked. I nodded, kissing Barnie softly. "I had a dog, before all of this. His name was Buddy, he was a mix of a lot of dogs, white with black spots. When everything happened he ran away, I don't think he died. He might be dead now, or he might be like some of the wild ones I've seen. Either way, he's gone." Carl sighed, standing up and moving the bowls to be closer to both of the dogs.
As I sat with the dogs I realized what Carl meant. He didn't mean Buddy was gone, as in dead. Carl meant that no matter where his dog may be, across the country, eating Walkers and fighting with other dogs, or if he'd starved to death months later while on the road, Buddy wasn't the same as he had been. Nobody was the same as they had been except for some, and those were the lucky few. Everyone was gone.