Learning to Live Again - Book One

Chapter 8

The group hadn't seen Rick in over two days and Tamara was worried, not just for the baby girl she was looking after but also for Carl. The young boy was slipping into a depression. First his mother had died in front of his eyes and now his own father was MIA, dealing with his own grief but forgetting his children in the process.

The beautiful brunette sat on the steps leading up to the exit door for their cell block, the still nameless little girl asleep in her arms. Daryl was sitting a step behind her, picking at his oatmeal and, if anyone had asked Tamara, sulking because she had refused his suggestion of a night up in their guard tower the day before because the baby would only settle if Tamara rocked her.

Shaking her head with a grateful smile to refuse the bowl of plain oatmeal Oscar offered her, Tamara couldn't help shooting occasional glances at Carl. He sat at the nearest metal table with Hershel, Glenn, Maggie, and Beth, wearing his father's deputy hat and staring sadly down at his own bowl of oatmeal.

Daryl's hand dropped onto her shoulder and he leaned down to murmur in her ear, "Eat somethin', 'Mara. Beth can hold Little Ass-kicker. Ya need ta eat."

Swallowing hard, Tamara wordlessly pushed to her feet and started to rock from foot to foot to keep the baby asleep. She told herself it was because the hard metal step was getting uncomfortable and she also kept telling herself that the overwhelming feeling of pain and sadness in her chest was all a part of the pregnancy hormones but she knew deep down, that she was grieving for T-Dog, Lori and most of all Carol. She also knew that her grief was also the reason she had refused Daryl the day before and the reason she was desperately trying to put some distance between them now. Unbidden, tears filled her eyes and she urgently blinked them back, looking down at the baby sleeping in her arms so that the hair she had tucked behind her ear slipped forward concealing her face and hopefully hiding her emotions as well.

Taking a breath she moved to the table murmuring softly to Beth, "Could you take her for a while, I need ta catch up on some sleep." At the young woman's nod she gently laid the sleeping baby in her arms and brushed her hand over the baby's small, downy head. Silently she turned but only got a few steps toward the cells when she started swaying dizzily. There was a clatter of plates and utensils as everyone stood quickly or moved to help her and then Daryl was there, his hand closing around her upper arm roughly.

"Goddamn it, girl. Would ya sit down an' eat!" he snarled shaking her slightly.

A tear tracked down Tamara's pale cheek and she flinched at his tone and low, rough voice.

"Let her go, son." Hershel spoke up in the stunned silence following Daryl's words and Tamara's reaction. "She needs to rest."

Daryl let her go as if her skin burned him. Striding back to the steps he picked up his hastily dropped breakfast and went back to pushing his oatmeal around the white plastic bowl, his eyes on the beige mush and not on the thin, pale woman he had left trembling.

Tamara, on the other hand, kept her eyes on the cement floor beneath her feet and made her way to the cell she, Daryl, Carl and the baby had been sharing. Sitting in the corner she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them before crying herself into an exhausted sleep, wedged between the bars of the cell and the bunk bed, the cool cement wall at her back. She was so tired that she didn't even wake when Daryl came to the cell after Rick's brief visit twenty minutes later. He gently picked her up and laid her on the mattress they shared, pulling a sheet over her still form and brushing his knuckles over her cheek.

"Hell, 'Mara, 'm sorry." He growled watching as she curled onto her side, a protective hand on her still flat belly.

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