CHAPTER ONE: THE BEGINNING
"i guess he grew up."
—
BEFORE
Indiana grasped Carl's smaller hand in hers tightly. He squeezed three times, asking silent questions and she responded with a kiss to the forehead and a reassuring wink. He settled against her arm, watching the road pass on as they headed to Atlanta.
Her mind was reeling, but she couldn't show that to Carl.
Carl, who'd just lost his father and everything he'd ever known.
She exchanged a look with Shane, who glanced in the rearview to her. He nodded once, a soft smile on his face. Wordless exchanges between two people who had known each other a decade.
Indiana ran her hands gently through Carl's hair, quieting his soft sniffles. She didn't offer words of comfort. What was there to say?
He'd come home sobbing a week prior when his teacher had tried to kill his best friend. Neither of them were allowed to leave their homes until Shane had them pack everything up in an hour.
Indiana had left nearly all of her art supplies. It was stupid: to miss small, miniscule and mundane things. Paintbrushes that would dry out from lack of use. Half-finished brain projects and dreams and a mural in her bedroom, the tribute to her favorite novelization forever stilted in time.
She'd grabbed a sketchbook and pencils and knew to use them sparingly. Who knew the last time she'd find authentic charcoal could be?
They all hoped this...disaster would only last a few weeks at most. The world would be reset in no time. The government would sort everything out.
In the meantime, Shane informed them they'd be heading to Atlanta, where there would surely be more word on help.
But the road was long and strenuous and the cars inched on. It seemed as though everyone had the same idea and hours passed before they were even out of King County. By the time they'd reached Atlanta, Indiana had fallen asleep with Carl, his head on her shoulder, and her head on his, their hands still tightly gripped together.
"Think she's doing okay?" Shane asked Lori softly, eyeing his daughter.
For all their problems and his own mistakes; Indiana was the best choice he'd ever made, and he'd make it a million more times if he could.
Her hair had grown out; he'd reminded her to get it cut, nagged her about the dye in her roots fading — she always hated when the pink faded into black, claiming that the bright colors matched her aura (whatever the hell that meant) — but she'd kept putting it off.
Absentmindedly, he hoped the world would fix itself soon so she could redo her hair. She always felt more confident surrounded by bright colors.
Except when she was twelve and went through her "emotional phase" — "emo phase, dad" as she so fondly called it — and wore only black. She claimed she was learning to understand her inner self and become as authentic as she was destined to be.
Shane hadn't a fucking clue what that meant, but it made her happy, so he bought her first leather jacket and took her to the gun range.
Then she cried for three days after killing a rabbit during a hunting trip when she was fourteen and he swore he'd never put his little girl through that shit again.
Lori looked back at the kids, shrugging uncertainly. "I hope so," she responded quietly. "She's always been resilient. Looked after Carl more times than I'd care to admit."
"Keeps him sensitive," Shane confirmed, nodding in remembrance. "I just wish she wouldn't put herself through so much. We haven't even talked about Rick," he confessed, then shifted, an apologetic look crossing his face. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
Lori winced at her husband's name but nodded, regardless. "Carl won't talk to me about him either. He just cries...so much." Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know how to help him."
"He'll come to you," Shane promised, glancing around as the sun faded from the sky. "Took a long time for Indie to talk to me about her parents. Longer than I'd care to confirm, but...it was worth it. Pushing her ain't right, Lor. Don't push Carl into grief if he ain't ready for it."
Lori chuckled humorlessly, wiping away a tear. "When the hell did you get so wise, Shane? I remember you being Rick's drunk friend with too much time on his hands."
Shane grinned at the memory, eyes flickering to the rearview where his daughter's messy eyeliner — she hadn't cleaned it before they left? That would upset her in the morning. — and sighed quietly.
"Guess he grew up."
—
The first few weeks were hard.
Morality was low in the group composed of survivors. No one talked about Atlanta the first few days. Everyone was in shock that it had been decimated. Bombed. Destroyed. An entire city and it's whole populace — gone.
Shane had filled the leadership position easily enough, calling on his skills from his time as deputy. He made Indiana his number two, claiming she could wield the weapons with a trained hand and he trusted her explicitly.
Both were true.
Indiana had a hard time fitting in, like usual, and kept to herself for the most part.
Except for Glenn.
Something about the Korean made her head spin. It wasn't in a romantic, all-consuming, butterfly-inducing kind of nervous. It was the same nervous feeling that consumed her when she'd first been adopted by Shane.
Love.
Glenn was easy-going and funny and had a great laugh. He and Indiana exchanged witty banter and teasing prods and she even graduated from sharing a tent with her dad — which was incredibly embarrassing and she'd forgotten how much Shane could snore — to sleeping next to Glenn.
They never really slept though.
She felt like a kid with Glenn. Staying up late reading comic books with a flashlight, giggling in muffled whispers about which character would be a smash and which would be a pass.
(Not that either of them had ever had sex. They hadn't. But they agreed on nearly every answer.)
Glenn had quickly become the first real friend Indiana had ever known. He was bathed in sunshine and basked in her warmth and the pair brought radiance and light wherever they endeavored.
And Indiana followed Glenn on every run, despite her father's wishes. She would never live with herself if something happened to Glenn. She couldn't stand around as her best friend risked his life for everyone.
And they always came back, safe and sound, with a few more supplies and closer than ever.
After the first month, they'd gotten to the point of nearly finishing each other's sentences, their thoughts practically meshed as one being. It annoyed Shane endlessly, but Indiana caught him smiling fondly when he thought she wasn't looking.
Things were...okay. For being in the middle of an apocalypse.
Until she found Lori and Shane in the woods and had a panic attack against a tree.
They hadn't seen her, and she'd never approached them about it.
(In hindsight, she wondered if confronting Shane about it could have changed the outcome, but she didn't allow herself much time to dwell on it.)
Instead, she'd been found by Daryl Dixon. The hick redneck with a chip on his shoulder the size of Florida. Gruff noises and scowls were the highlights of her interactions with the younger half of the Dixon brothers.
His older brother, Merle, was a real piece of work. Racist, sexist, condescending, and incredibly inappropriate. He'd called her every slur in the book for being Hispanic and he mocked Glenn's appearance more than he took care of his own.
Indiana would remember the first day the Dixons joined their camp for the rest of her life. One sentence to Indiana was all it took for Shane to deck him and give him a concussion before the boys quieted enough to respect him.
Still, when Daryl found Indiana curled into a ball, hyperventilating against a tree, something shifted between them.
An olive branch. A quiet promise to keep the other safe. A burst of sympathy and understanding in its highest form. He didn't say a word to her, nor her to him.
Instead, he sat next to her and held his crossbow, tugging at the grass below them. She cried for nearly an hour and he let her. He observed the area for potential threats and offered his quiet presence, a reminder that she wasn't alone.
They never spoke of it again, but any time the other needed time to breakdown or a moment of panic; they sought out the other.
—
Shane sent out a larger scavenger party, despite Glenn and Indiana's protests, and Indiana was sent hunting with Daryl instead of with the group. Indiana believed that was the first mistake.
Either way, it brought her and Daryl closer. She hadn't killed in years and told him as such at the beginning of their hunt, to which he scoffed and rolled his eyes. Not twenty minutes later, he was instructing her on how to make rabbit snares and track a deer.
A week had passed with their hunting trip and they'd come back with enough squirrels to last a few days. They were on the lookout for a deer they'd been seeking since the beginning of the hunt, but it wasn't until they came across the first rabbit that Indiana's heart sank.
She'd killed something.
She'd never even killed a Walker before. She knew she could, if the time came, to protect her father, Carl, Lori, Glenn. Hell, even Daryl if it came to it.
He called her a stupid bitch when she cried over the rabbit, then told her to look away. He tucked it into her bag and carried it for her so she'd "stop fussin' over the damn thing."
As they ventured the trek back to the camp, he eventually brought up the debate of necessity over pleasure. He liked hunting, but he didn't relish in killing animals. They didn't ask for it. But he did it to eat. And now he was teaching her.
And each time she'd interrupt him with a sob, he'd awkwardly pat her back and tell her she'd be fine. Even gave her a nickname to mock her.
"You're bunny now, Indiana. Like the rabbit you couldn't kill. Learn to survive or you end up like that damned cottontail. Get it?"
But the nickname stuck. And eventually, the mockery was replaced with fondness he had for no one else.
And just like with Glenn, a bond was formed between her and Daryl. Kindred spirits, in a way. Entirely different people with different outlooks and views. But entirely too connected for it to be coincidental.
By the time they'd returned to camp, the Atlanta group had returned, with one less person and a new member.
Rick was alive, but in trade, Merle was gone.
Indiana didn't like Merle, that much was to be sure, and he was the most unpleasant man she'd ever spoken to — but he was Daryl's brother. And he was as much apart of the group as everyone else.
A nagging feeling in her gut scooted her closer to Daryl that night, as he stalked off in his tent away from everyone else. After a hug with Rick and a tearful conversation with Carl, she spent time with Daryl, surprising everyone but the pair in question.
He knew how she felt about Lori and Shane and the consequences that would soon befall the entire group.
And she knew how he felt about Rick's return and Merle's abandonment.
She tried to think of it logically; listened to everything they'd said. She might've even done the same thing. Handcuff him to a roof until they could sort everything else out. But to leave him there? For their own lives?
Felt an awful lot like trading lives, and Indiana didn't feel comfortable about that one bit.
She didn't confess her moral objections to Daryl, and he didn't ask.
—
After the group was attacked by Walkers, Indiana was a mess. She'd killed four Walkers that night and sat next to Glenn in the RV. Until Jim smelled too bad and kept making passing remarks to her about his dead wife, in and out of consciousness from the fever.
She moved to sit next to Daryl.
They were quiet again.
—
The CDC was a short break from dreary reality. Indiana had her first real shower for the first time in months and she'd gotten absolutely plastered. Shane had watched her with a fond smile, ruffling her hair, but she could see the sadness in his gaze.
Things were changing.
She knew it and he knew it.
And she hated it.
She woke up the next morning in Glenn's bed, both of them fully clothed, Glenn covered in vomit. They showered separately — and opted not to tell anyone about the putrid odor on his old clothes — and then the CDC was a bust.
Dr. Jenner was a nobody with no cure and Indiana had a panic attack against the wall at the thought of dying.
She was reminded of her childhood. Of the look in her mother's eyes after—
Shane had been the one to calm her. Pressing kisses to her head and quieting her sobs. He shouted and screamed at Jenner and Indiana had never felt more tense, more terrified. She and Carl exchanged fearful looks. Would this be the end of them? Carl hadn't even had an eleventh birthday yet, and technically, Indiana wasn't even of drinking age.
In the end, they escaped, but lost people along the way.
Indiana had begun to see a pattern.
They were always losing people.
—
okay first one kind of short and very different from my normal writing style but next chapter will be the farm with episodic stuff, i just realllyyy didn't wanna write season 1 lol. tysm love y'allllllll