WHAT ABOUT ME?-131
"Hi, daddy." Cassie says, standing in front of her father watching him try and start his bike.
Daryl looked up at her, his identical blue eyes darted between her and aunt Carol before he went back to his bike. "Hi, baby."
"Did I ever tell you about the pedal sewing machine my grandmother had?" Aunt Carol began to tell them, finding the man's struggling amusing. "She made all my clothes. Whenever she got tried, she would have me help. Said it's because I had a really special strong right foot."
"I got it." Daryl nods, still trying to start the bike. "There's a fallen tree about a 100 yards out. We could use the scraps to patch out the wall."
Carol shook her head as Cassie petted Dog, who wagged his tail happily. "I'm done with my part for today, Jerry spearheading the rest. You know, he's taken charge a lot more lately. I like it."
"Yeah, so?"
"So what?"
"You two followed me out here." He said, looking at the girls.
Carol tried to act coy. "Nobody is following anybody, Daryl."
"But you want to come, right?"
"I want to hunt, whatever is still left out there to hunt. Yeah, and you need a good spotter and..." She looked at Cassie.
"I'm followed because I wanted too." Cassie says, smiling.
Daryl shook his head, as his bike started. Carol quickly hopped onto the back of his bike before putting Cassie between them.
"Hey, I didn't say neither of you could come." Daryl exclaimed, as his daughter wrapped his arms around his waist.
"Move up a bit, daddy. I'm squished," The eight year old complained, her face smashed against his back.
"Tell your aunt to scoot back. I'm the one who's steering." Her father replied in the same manner as she did. "Ready?"
"I'm born ready, daddy!" Cassie cheered, while Aunt Carol hummed.
"Do me a favor, Carol. Do not talk the whole time we're out here." Cassie's father told her aunt.
Carol just laughed. "No, I'm not gonna spook the animals. Don't worry."
"I ain't worried."
"Why'd you bring it up?"
"Oh, my god. See, this is what I'm talking about."
"You're the one who started talking."
When they got to the woods, Daryl covered his bike with leaves before heading further into the woods. Cassie found her father's and aunt's banter amusing as they found a dead deer.
"Come on, Doggy! Let's race." Cassidy said, patted Dog on his head. Dog barked as she countered before they took off running.
The eight year old and Dog raced down the path beside the river, making it half way down before Cassie stopped, panting heavily. Dog had obviously won so as an award she gave him a lot pets and a kiss on the head. She watched as aunt Carol got an foot cramp in her 'strong right foot' as she called it and chuckled.
"I'm fine. It's nothing." Aunt Carol says, limping down the path. "Its just a foot cramp."
"Not your very special strong right foot, now, is it?" Her father joked, making Aunt Carol give him a nasty look.
"Not much happening out here. Maybe you were right. Maybe we should've gone the other way."
Aunt Carol shook out her foot cramp before picking up her bow. "I think we should fish before moving on."
"Doesn't look like they were running."
"Worth a shot. Haven't spearfished in years." Her aunt says taking the spear from her dad. "You don't think I can? Give me that."
"Be my guest." Daryl scoffed when Carol flicked off the leaves. He placed his hand on top of his daughter's head and rubbed causing a few strands of dark brown hair to fall out of her ponytail. "Watch this disaster, right here."
"I think Aunt Carol can do it, daddy." Cassie says, right as her aunt speared a fish. She grinned. "Told ya."
"Ha!" Aunt Carol laughed, holding the fish up.
Daryl grunted. "No way. That's beginners luck."
"Can I try?" Cassidy asks.
"Sure." Aunt Carol held out her hand towards her niece and helped her down the slope.
She listen her aunt's instructions, taking the spear that was a bit too big for her and waited for the perfect time to send the weapon into a fish. She thrusted the spear downwards, impaling a fish.
"Look! I did it!" Cassie exclaimed, excitedly.
Aunt Carol looked up her father when she wasn't looking with a smug smile. "How is that for beginners luck?"
"Daddy's pouting!" The little girl laughed, pointing at her father's obvious non-Dixon like pout.
"Am not." He grumbled as his daughter climbed up the slope with her fish in hand.
Cassie placed the slimy fish in his hand, smiling up at him. "Are to."
Her dad playfully pushed her away as aunt Carol came up the slope also holding her fish. They found a place to skin the fishes, Daryl and Carol were the one to do the skinning while Cassie sat with Dog.
Her eyes darted between her dad and aunt as they started bickering about if Carol was skinning the fish right or not. She was no expert on fish skinning or any type of skinning, but her dad was so he was critiquing her aunt on it.
Aunt Carol held out her knife to her best friend. "Here, why don't you just do this yourself?"
"It's fine, really." He said before looking up at the sky. "We should go. It's going to get dark, anyway. We need to find a place to stay."
"Hey, Daryl?"
"Yeah?"
"Our luck's run out."
"What do ya mean?"
"Losing Hilltop was so hard for everyone to take. At least we were there to fight for it. We tried to save it. But this, losing Alexandria..." Aunt Carol explained.
"We didn't lose Alexandria." Daryl says.
"Maybe not yet. Like everything good in the world is not our side anymore."
"We rebuild. Start over."
"Until it happens again? We had a good long run, longer than most. You know this world. The dead...it's gonna catch up to us, eventually."
Daryl stood up and reached out for his daughter and pulled her to her feet. "Only if we let it. I ain't gonna let it."
Suddenly Dog barked and took off running, gaining three confused looks. Carol spoke. "Another animal?"
"Dunno. Dog!" Daryl shouted after his dog.
The three of them ran after Dog through the woods until they got to an old abandoned house. Cassidy followed Dog, not realizing her father wasn't following her. She walked inside the house, looking around for anything before side-stepping her aunt and looked at her dad.
He was still standing outside in front of the house, looking like he had seen a ghost. She frowned, worried. "You okay, daddy?"
"Yeah...yeah, baby, fine." He nodded as he walked towards her and into the house.
She didn't look convinced, but let it slid as she watched Dog sniff around. Aunt Carol said that they could stay here and seal up the door for the night but her dad didn't respond as he went into the back room.
"What is it, Doggy?" Cassie said when Dog started to dig at the floor. "What did you find?"
She took out her knife, stuck it underneath the floorboard and lifted it up. Inside the hole was a box, which she pulled off the lid and Dog snatched a can of food. The box had three—now two cans of food inside and a note written in what looked like her dad's handwriting. She furrowed her brows as she read it.
Leah, I belong with you. Find me
Cassie felt her heart clutched as she stared at the words of the paper. She wasn't dumb, she knew this was a note to someone named Leah from her father. The sentence 'I belong with you' seemed to haunt her for as long as couldn't tear her eyes away from it.
She didn't hear her aunt say something, or her father's reply as a lump in her throat built up. This note felt like he was either going to leave, or chase after a ghost forever until he finds whoever this Leah was. Like he was just going to leave everything behind and be with her.
Then her mother popped into her mind. He was moving on from her mom for some random woman he found in the woods. She knew he had the right to move on, but she didn't want him to. She wanted her parents together again. She wanted her mom.
"D-Daddy...who's Leah?" She asked, her voice weaving a bit.
Her father flinched at her teary blue eyes. "Nobody, Cassie. It's nobody."
He walked out of the house, she looked over at her aunt as her hands shook violently causing the paper to fall out of her hands. "D-did you know..."
"Oh, babygirl, C'here." Aunt Carol murmured, taking her niece into her arms.
She clang to her aunt, her hands gripped the back of Carol's shirt. Her aunt soothed her by rubbing her back for a few minutes before they pulled away. Cassie stood up on shaky legs, picking up her knife and walked out of the house and onto the porch.
Her father was standing on the other side as she went over to Dog, leading against the window. Her hand run through Dog's fur as he tried to open the can of food.
Cassie looked down at the dog as she asked her father again. "Who's Leah? And don't lie to me."
"Cassie—"
"Just tell me, daddy!" She cut him off and asked again. "Just tell me, please. Who is Leah and why do you belong with her?"
Daryl looked trouble as he made eye contact with Carol, who seemed to agree with her niece. She obviously already know of Leah, but not anything about her. "She deserves to know. And I know more than you've told me."
He looked between the two girls before he started to explained everything. During his time 'finding himself' he had met/found a woman named Leah and her dog named Dog. The first time he meet her, she knocked him out and tied him to a chair for trespassing on her land before she had let him go. He had been bumping into her for about a year or two after that and form a sort relationship before she disappeared.
Cassie listened to the story with a heavy heart and knew he had fall in love with Leah. He didn't need to tell you, she knew by how fondly he spoke of her, just like how he talked about her mom.
"What about mom?" She spoke after he finished. "Don't you love her anymore?"
"I do. I love your mom with all my heart, Cassidy." Daryl replied, looking utterly miserable. "But ya know, I will always love her, but I—"
"And what about me?" Cassie interrupted, finally looking up at him with a tear rolling down her cheek. "Is this one of the reasons why you stopped coming to see me? Because you need to found her..." More tears fell from her eyes as her voice broke. "Because you belong with her?"
"Cassie—"
"Because you were going to pick her, weren't you?" She choked back a sob when she didn't receive an answer. "Y-you were. You were going to leave me and Max for some lady you meet in the woods. You thought because I was little that I wouldn't notice you were gone. I did. All I wanted was my daddy. And I never got him...until he couldn't find her."
Cassie wiped away her tear as she picked up the can of food and walked into the house with Dog following, not waiting for her father's reply. "C'mon, Dog. Let's go open this inside."
Later that night, she was curled into the corner of the room with Dog laying at her feet. The can of food was sitting near them empty after Dog had scarfed down whatever was inside. She played with her mother's bracelet, her finger tracing over the discolored letters.
She didn't look up when familiar footsteps walked towards her and a body sat next to her. "If you came to explain yourself and apologize, don't bother."
Daryl sighed. "Cassie, I know I hurt ya. And I'm sorry. You and Max, and now Carl, will always be my first pick. I—she was something that I thought could replace what was missing from my heart, but then I realized it wasn't her but it was your mom, because nobody can replace Tilda."
"I know you have the right to move on, daddy. But...I don't want you to. And I'm sorry if I'm selfish but I don't." She said, looking over at him. "Not Connie and definitely not Leah."
He nodded in understanding. "I'm not going to with anyone but your mom. Leah...was just someone who I thought I could confide in. Losing your mom was hard, and I felt lost. So—"
"Making a some sort of relationship with Leah could help you. I got it, daddy. I understand." She scooted closer to him, and took his big hand in hers. "I—just don't leave me again, okay? Promise?"
"Promise." He said as they wrapped their pinky's together.