'But if your strife strikes at your sleep
Remember spring swaps snow for leaves
You'll be happy and wholesome again
When the city clears and sun ascends'
I sang softly as I sat beside Beth. We were taking turns watching over her as we waited for Rick and Glenn to return with dad. I had done everything dad would have, but he still needed to be here. The sun had now set and the others were preparing dinner while I watched Beth.
"Kat?" I heard Jimmy's voice as he came into the room. "Dinners ready."
"I'll eat later." I replied.
"Patricia told me not to take no as an answer. I've already eaten, I'll watch her."
I sighed as I got to my feet, nodding slightly before taking my leave. She was getting better. She wasn't dehydrated anymore and I could feel her grip lightly on my hand if I held hers and she smiled when I first started singing.
When I made it downstairs I was more than angry to see Shane at the dinner table with the rest of his group, but I didn't say anything, no longer having the energy. I took up my seat as Carol placed a few plates on the table and then went and called for Lori to come and eat.
"She's not in there." Maggie replied when Carol went to go into the living room.
"Where is she?" Dale then asked and Maggie shrugged as a reply.
"Carl, when's the last time you saw your mum?" Shane asked.
"This afternoon." He stated.
"She was worried about Rick, asked me to look in on Carl." Andrea then spoke up.
"She went after them?" Dale questioned.
"She didn't say that." Andrea replied.
"How long after they had left was this?" I asked.
"20 minutes." Andrea shrugged and I had to suppress an eye roll.
It takes 25 minutes to get to the pub; probably another 20 at least to get my dad out of it and then another 25-minute trip back. If Lori had gone after them she should have at least waited a little over an hour when they would be overdue. No doubt that was the reason she had gone to see Daryl earlier, to get him to go after them.
"Nobody panic. She's gonna be around here somewhere." Shane said as he got up from the table, apparently not believing she had left.
We split up into groups all looking for Lori, while Patricia stayed in the house with Carl and jimmy with Beth.
"Where's Daryl?" Carol asked as we made our way outside.
"About half a mile that way." I pointed in the direction of where I had seen him last, now noticing a distant flame from a campfire. "See that fire? That'll be him."
"What's he doing out there?" Carol asked.
"Getting peace and quiet." I muttered.
Carol sighed and then trudged over to Daryl's new camp while I teamed up with Glenn and Maggie to look. After a while we all came together again out the front of the house, none of us finding her. Carol soon jogged up, apparently running the distance to and from where Daryl was.
"She asked Daryl to go after them, must have gone herself."
"Did you know about this?" Shane questioned Dale.
"No. Look, just... Did she take a gun?"
"I don't know. I wouldn't let her go out there alone." Dale stated, but before he had even finished Shane was walking away, jumping into one of the cars and speeding away.
It was silent for a moment more before we all eventually made our way back inside.
"Shall we eat?" T-Dog broke the silence.
"Might as well. Nothing else we can do for now." Dale replied.
Just like the last time we ate in silence and I was the first one into the kitchen, being a rather fast eater. Carol followed me with a few empty plates.
"You don't mind if I bail on the dishes, do you?" She asked. "I just want to go up and talk to Daryl again. See if I can get him to come back down and join the group."
"Sure, but my opinion, for whatever it's worth... you're better leaving him be, at least for now. Some people grieve better on their own." I shrugged a little.
"You didn't see him before... I don't want him resorting back to how he used to be... distant."
"Oh, I think I can imagine." I replied and Carol smiled a little. "Go, I've got this." I nodded, taking the dirty plates from her hands before she left.
But she only made it a few steps before turning back to me. "Actually... would you mind going instead?"
"Sorry?" I questioned, all to confused.
"It's just... I have already spoken to him briefly and he wasn't all that cooperative, but you seem to be good with people, you know how to handle them."
"You heard about me pointing a gun on Shane, right?" I questioned.
"I saw it... from a distance in the RV. Daryl took it off you." She paused for a moment. "Please, just try."
I reluctantly sighed, not particularly feeling like saying a flat out no to the women who just lost her daughter. "Alright, but no promises... and if he yells at me I'll be blaming you." I joked as she nodded and took over the dishes.
Grabbing an oversized hoodie, that sort of acted as the community go-to jacket in our house as it was always hung up on the hat stand and none of us actually knew who the owner was, I made my way outside and began to head towards the distant campfire.
I walked at a steady pace, in no hurry whatsoever and unaware of what I was actually going to say or what I had gotten myself in to. But before long I was only a few meters away from the fire and Daryl noticed me, looking up curiously and then back down at the flame, poking the hot embers with a stick.
"I came up here to get away from you people." He stated, clearly unimpressed by the number of visitors he had received today.
"Carol sent me."
"Well it's a wasted journey."
"I told her it was probably best to leave you be for the time being, but she's a hard women to say no to, particularly under the circumstances."
"Why would she send you?" He demanded, giving the embers another poke.
"If you come back down to the house you can ask her?" I offered, but not all that hopeful it would work. In fact I wasn't hopeful at all. Daryl looked up at me and then back down with no reply. "Well if you won't come back down to meet your curiosity you should come back down for food. There's a roast and baked potatoes... and salad." I added on the end earning myself another glare.
"I've got food." He responded which caused me to look to the left and see a few dead squirrels hanging over a rope he had tied between two trees.
"Well, you have the meat... really a Greek salad would go wonderfully with those." I mused, turning back to him. "Come on, do you really think I want to be out here anymore than you want me here? It's freezing, dark, the grass is wet, my dad isn't back yet and my sister is still essentially catatonic. I'd much rather be inside in the warmth with her, but instead I got roped into trudging out here to drag your ass back down to the much safer camp near the house." I rattled off, doing my best to stop my teeth from chattering. "Could you please just do me this one tiny little favor and come back with me before you get eaten by a Walker in your sleep because if I wake up and find out you have in fact been devoured after I failed to get you back then I'm going to feel really bad." No response. "Alright, Dixon... I mean I did help patch you up after you stole our horse, got yourself thrown off a cliff and an arrow in your side and were then shot in the head, but hey, if you want to be stubborn..." I trailed off as I briskly walked over to the campfire and reluctantly sat down in the cold grass next to it.
"What are you doing?" He groaned.
"During Maggie's rebellious stage I picked up a few tricks, so basically... you can put up with my presence until you change your mind or you can personally get rid of me, but to be able to do that you're going to have to carry me back to the house and then I'll never let you leave."
"And how would you do that?"
"Rugby tackle." I shrugged. "Or I'll tell Jimmy to tackle while I get the rope."
"You're wasting your time. I'm better on my own, I'm not going to get devoured." He mocked.
"No." I shook my head. "You were better on your own. Not anymore, not in this world and if you really believed it you would have packed up that bike and driven off, but instead you didn't even make it a mile."
"I thought you wanted us gone." He shot back as a reply.
"I want Shane gone, but I know that can't happen without him taking the rest of you with him... and we need your group. You can't do anything without people anymore, you can't survive." (This is an important line because it's what Daryl says to Merle in season 3, but I'm telling you now because it's a fair way off and I don't know if I'm going to write Kat in that scene yet. But it's her influence).
"Did you know?" He suddenly asked me.
"Know what?"
"That she was in the barn."
"If I did do you think I would go out of my way to search for her?"
"You went out once, twice if you count the run to the interstate and that was more for supplies. After that you never left the house under Daddy's orders." He said, seething with mockery. "He could have told you not to say anything."
"I never went near the barn."
Daryl leapt up from the ground; keeping his eyes trained on me as he took a step to the side and hovered for a while, resisting the urge to pace back and forth clearly agitated.
"You're lying." I was technically lying, I had been near the barn in the past, but I didn't know Sophia was in there, but I had no idea how Daryl could tell. As far as I was aware I was a fantastic liar. The amount of times I had to cover for my siblings was proof of that.
I felt the need to get to my feet as well before replying. "You have no reason to believe me, but I didn't know she was in that barn and if I did I sure as hell wouldn't have kept my mouth shut about it. Now, you can either continue sulking up here on your own, distancing yourself from everyone else because you're too afraid to care or you can man up and follow me back down."
Daryl's rage clearly only got worse as he stormed over so he was now standing in front of me, barely 15 centimeters away.
"You know jack." He spat. "Just go, I don't want you here!" He yelled as he turned his back and took a few steps away from me.
Most people would probably just leave him be and I had tried so Carol would have at least been pleased with that, but I was now determined. A combination of competitiveness, stubbornness and determination were three traits that could be somewhat infuriating to other people... and I had all three.
I stepped over to the half collapsed stone building and leant my back up against it, folding my arms and keeping my eyes on Daryl who was getting madder and madder which could go one of two ways. The first would be him shooting me with an arrow, but the second was that he just needed to yell to get all that built up anger out of his system.
"You're a real piece of work, lady." He grumbled.
"You wouldn't be the first to say it." I mused.
"What are you even doing? You out of projects? Your family knows the truth, can't do anything else for your sister, you can only wait for your dad to get back so you thought you'd move on to the next thing? Putting people back together, that a hobby of yours? You gonna make this about my daddy or some crap like that?" He rattled off, his voice not rising, but he was still enraged. I didn't budge, calmly standing where I was, never breaking eye contact and keeping my face neutral as Daryl now walked back in front of me.
"You're afraid." He finally concluded. "You're afraid of bein' alone. You don't want us to leave 'cuz you don't wanna be the last one standin' with no more problems to fix. Well, you ain't my problem and you ain't gonna break me down like that damn truck because you don't know what else to do with yourself."
"You can say whatever you want, Tough Guy... I'm not that easy to break, but for the record... I'm not here as a project, something to do or because this is a problem that needs fixing... I'm here because Carol asked me to come and I'm staying because she's right and because whether you're willing to see it or not those people down there care... and we've already lost too many today."
"Yeah and you almost killed another. If I hadn't 'ave taken that gun off you, ya would've pulled the trigger."
"Maybe." I nodded in agreement. "I am not my father. I don't have the same beliefs as him or faith as him... Do not underestimate what I would do to keep my family safe." I paused for a moment as Daryl's angered expression softened a little to one of understanding? I think. Normally I was exceptional at reading people, but Daryl was a hard one to pinpoint an exact emotion. "But you aren't a threat to them, Daryl. If anything you're the complete opposite. Look... I don't know you, but I know you're one of the good guys and something tells me that's about to become a very rare commodity. You can't retreat just because you couldn't find Sophia... there was nothing to find, not out there. The point is you tried and you didn't give up. You did more than anyone, so don't stop now. You know what Shane is and you know that's not going to end well."
"That ain't my problem neither." He said stubbornly.
"Yeah, it is, because when it goes to hell, they're going to need you and if your group stays here then by 'they' I mean my family as well, but sooner or later you're going to need them, so when you're done brooding up here there's still a place for your tent down by the house." I finished.
It was silent for a long while as Daryl took in what I said. I was getting ready to just turn around and leave when both of our attentions were drawn to growling moans that came from the edge of the tree line and in the dim lighting caused by the moon and the fire we saw two slow moving Walkers making their way to us.
Both of them were men, one with a chuck of flesh missing from the side of his face, exposing the bone underneath. The other had a ripped shirt that barely clung to his chest leaving a visible bite mark that had ripped through his right shoulder.
Daryl acted fast, immediately moving to his ready loaded crossbow and firing at the Walker with the bitten shoulder, hitting it right the middle of its head. Not bothering to reload the his bow, Daryl puled out his hunting knife, that was strapped to his belt, and ran up to the second Walker, not hesitating before jamming the blade through its forehead.
All of this happened in a span of five seconds, barely giving me enough time to process what was happening. I stared at the two dead walkers as Daryl ripped his arrow from the first one's head and then turned back around to face me. I knew they were already dead and I didn't feel anything regarding that, but this was the first time I had seen anything like this actually happen (excluding the incident at the barn, but this was different).
"We should check for more." I found myself blurting out as I recovered from my moment of shock, shaking my head a little and looking over to a still staring Daryl who appeared to be taking in my reaction. "There could be more of them and I don't want them wandering down to the camp at night." I explained while Daryl didn't say anything, only looked at me with a questioning gaze like everything I did confused him. "Fine." I stated when he still didn't say anything. "You can stay here, but I'm going to do a perimeter check." I, of course, didn't have any form of weapon or even a flashlight considering I had used my knowledge of the land to get up to Daryl's new camp, but I guess I was using that as a kind of tool to get him to follow. Call it step two in my attempt to get him to join the others (step one being my lecture that went nowhere).
It was a few meters into the tree line that I heard Daryl huff behind me and then fast approaching steps as he caught up.
"You can be a pain in the ass, ya know? Here." He grumbled, shoving a flashlight in my hand.
"Yeah, I know." I smirked a little as I took charge of the flashlight.
"Take this." Daryl added and I turned to see him holding out his hunting knife that I looked at curiously. "You came out here with no light and nothing to defend yourself with. Take the knife." He stated. I nodded and gently took it from his hands, turning it around in my palm to get used to the weight. "You know for someone who was insisting I stay in bed and not move you seem to be pretty keen on having me search through these woods."
"I never said you had to join me."
"Well, you didn't give me much of a choice... which was probably deliberate." He muttered on the end.
"Yeah, well. Re-stitching your side is less hassle than digging a six foot grave if a Walker we let get by bites you in your sleep."
"I'm a light sleeper." He counteracted. "How often do they come onto your land?" He then asked.
"Not very. They usually get stuck in the mud down in creek beds. That's where Otis used to get most of them from to put in the barn, but they've been known to occasionally get through. Not normally more than two, but it's better to be safe."
"In other words you want me doing something that makes me feel productive so I'll want to move back down to the house."
"Shhh, you're ruining my plotting." I whispered with a slight smile that I threw his way before picking up the pace and stepping out in front a little.
It was silent after that as we both paid attention to our surroundings. I used the flashlight to look between the trees and at the ground, hoping to maybe find some tracks. I wasn't exactly an expert, but Otis and I had picked up on a few things when I used go out hunting with him over the last month.
After a few minutes I was startled when Daryl quickly rushed to my side, ripping the flash light out of my hands and turning it off. I went to say something, but his hand was suddenly over my mouth as he pulled my back into his chest and backed into a tree. He removed his hand after a little while, slowly lowering it down once I had gotten the message to be quiet.
Just then I heard the light shuffling steps of definitely more than two Walkers before they slowly walked past us about five meters away, not having any idea we were there. I counted them as they walked past, getting up to five and then waiting a bit to see if any more would come, but they didn't.
"Get that knife ready." Daryl barely whispered to me once all the Walkers had their backs to us.
Doing as I was told, I gripped the handle as Daryl readied his crossbow. He aimed it at the Walker at the back of the line, a female with ratty brunette hair. He pulled the trigged and she fell, his aim (presumably as always) staying true. This caught the attention of the other four as they turned around just as Daryl and I took action. He used the end of the crossbow to slam across the side of one Walker's head while I went straight for another, not hesitating in the slightest before ramming the blade into its head just like I had seen him do earlier.
Like I said before this was the first time I had seen something like this, let alone participated, but I knew it was either them or us and there was no way I was letting them go, risking the chance of them finding their way to the house.
It took a lot more effort than I thought it would to drive the knife through its skull and then pull it out again, but I managed just in time to turn on my second Walker as it came up beside me.
It was closer than I had realized so I was forced to press my forearm to its chest and almost tackle it into a close tree trunk before driving the knife through its temple.
When its rotted corpse hit the ground I turned to see Daryl finishing off the last Walker. Or at least I thought it was the last one. Just as he ripped his arrow from the fifth Walker's head a sixth rounded a tree, only just showing itself, and lunged at him.
My warning cry came a little late as Daryl was knocked to the ground, the Walker pinning him down as he struggled to keep its teeth and nails away from him.
Gripping the knife in my hand, I wasted no time in sprinting over, gripping the moving corpse by its shoulder and shoving it away from Daryl. It landed on its back and immediately made a move to get up, but I was on top of it before it could, driving the blade straight through the front of its forehead as my knee rested on its chest to keep it down as I did.
It was only after that I realized how hard my heart was beating in my chest as I stood on shaky legs, but not before ripping the hunting knife back out of its skull.
I took a few steps backwards, my breath still deep, until I bumped into a hard body that I didn't need to turn to know it was Daryl. Instead of moving away I just stood there with the left side of my back barely touching the right side of his chest. The dagger hung loosely in my right hand as I continued to stare at the now dead Walker for a moment more.
Glancing down at the knife, I moved it to my left hand, holding on to the blade and then lifting it up before looking up at Daryl so he could take it back.
He looked down at me for a moment before slowly taking the knife back and placing it back on his belt.
What happened next is honestly a little blurry. Well... I know what happened, but what triggered it was something that neither of us were expecting, at least I certainly wasn't. Maybe it was the adrenaline, the need to vent, the want of a distraction, I guess you can draw your own conclusion if you like.
But after a few more seconds of silence, neither one of us looking at the bodies anymore, we both reacted at the same time.
Daryl's hands went to my waist as mine went around his neck, each one drawing the other in for a rough, lust filled kiss. My feet were lifted off the ground as my legs on instinct wrapped around his waist and my back slammed into a tree trunk.
I never had been the best at controlling myself.
Okay, so before you freak out and say it's happening too fast, i'll let you know that this is just a one night stand. It is Daryl (i don't doubt he's had plenty of one night stands before and Kat also isn't really the committed relationship type either) and i'm not going to dive into a serious"i love you" relationship, but I really wanted something to happen now so they aren't "friend-zoned."
Also, i know it happened very suddenly, but I've been writing this chapter for about a week now and i knew how i wanted it to end, but every time i went to write it in i just kept going on with more and more dialogue.
Please comment and let me know :).