A not so quiet life

9/13

Back to the warehouse, you didn't feel like telling anyone about your accident with the walker, especially to Rick, ashamed and afraid the others would think you too useless to go on runs.

Logically, you knew it was silly to think like that and that probably they'd only worry about you, but neither you wanted them gushing over you and asking you if you were okay and what had happened. That wouldn't help you forget.

You'd been too embarrassed to ask Maggie, Daryl, or Glenn to not mention your accident to the others, so one they began telling everyone about the run you braced yourself for it, but to your relief, they didn't mention it and everyone seemed content enough with your haul.

As Daryl'd said, Rick's face lighted up when he saw the cans of gas and immediately he was back to inspect a map, trying to find more and better places where the group could stay...somewhere permanent maybe. You didn't dare to have much hope, afraid of having it crushed again and again.

Carl and Beth attacked the bag of candies and so did you, taking one of the toffees and spitting it right away.

"Not good?" Carol asked teasingly after Carl and Beth did the same.

"It tastes like if you made a candy out of mold." You complained, eyeing the big bag of candy with sad eyes. "Such a waste..."

At least the cans of food and bags of dried vegetables were edible and your mouth watered a bit as Carol began rummaging through them and telling you the soup she planned on doing for dinner. You were in an abandoned, dilapidated warehouse in the middle of nowhere, during the apocalypse, in a damn cold winter, and you were going to dine hot soup...you had to count yourself lucky.

You were proud when everyone celebrated the first aid kits and hygiene products you had found, deeming them more than useful and totally necessary.

You got the magazines out of your bag too, wondering where you could keep them along with the books and deciding probably an empty box inside the trunk of one of the cars was the closest thing you were going to get to a library.

Lori had flinched a bit when she laid eyes on the magazine about babies, but later you saw her whipping through it and you hoped it had something useful...though probably nothing about how to deal with a pregnancy and motherhood during the apocalypse.

That night, after dinning on Carol's delicious soup, you tried to sleep but after an hour of tossing and turning in your sleeping bag without falling asleep, you decided to get up.

You sat down outside the warehouse, shivering a bit as the cold air hit you but hoping to maybe watch the stars for a bit or something, anything that maybe could help you relax. Anything that wasn't be lying down trying to sleep through anxious thoughts and images of that walker snapping at you, cornering you against a wall, of your hand dipping into the goo of that other one...

You looked back when you heard footsteps approaching you and you weren't surprised to see Daryl making his way to you. He was wearing that poncho he found on a run not long ago, you'd been teasing him about it non-stop, saying how it ruined his badass biker look, but as he took it off and wrapped it over your shoulders, you couldn't deny the fabric was warm, or maybe it was warm because Daryl had been wearing it. Either way, it was comforting.

"You okay?"

He asked quietly, squeezing your shoulders gingerly before going to sit down next to you. You nodded in silence, snuggling into the poncho.

"Yeah," you said aloud when you noticed he was giving you worried glances from the corner of his eye. "I'm okay."

What had happened had truly scared and shaken you, you couldn't sleep with your mind full of images of that walker, the feeling of its touch, the realization of how close it had been... but you didn't feel like talking about it, not even with Daryl.