Denise comes up to the room the next morning. She starts to remove the stitches from my leg and tells me about Flax. He was moved to another space to help him recover from his wound. He's heavily sedated to deal with the pain, although I know it's at Rick's order to keep him from talking . I tried not to hear what she was saying, I didn't want to think about Flax. I didn't want to think about any of them. There isn't too much pain when she removes the stitches and she's happy with how well the wound healed. She moves the conversation to what it's like being the "doctor" in town now. I do my best to listen and stay engaged but my mind keeps wandering back to Daryl. "Uhh, Shannon?" Denise calls to me.
"Oh. What? Sorry." I say being pulled from the daze.
"Worried about Daryl?" She asks putting her tools away into a bag and removing the gloves she wore.
"That obvious?" I ask biting my lower lip. If Denise can figure it out then surely everyone else can too, maybe everyone except him.
She smiles "I'm sure he's alright. With what everyone is telling me happened in the woods the other day.." She looks away for a moment saying that "he's probably out looking for monsters to kill to get out his anger." She says.
"He shouldn't be doing that alone" I tell her though.
She shrugs "I don't think he's alone. But if he was he'd be fine. Daryl's a lone wolf like that." She returns. She must notice my reaction and adds on "until you came around" she says. I give her a look to call out her lie but she only defends her words "I mean it. He was the one always wanting to go out and find people to bring back, even when Rick didn't want anyone else comin' in. He always held out hope he'd find the good ones. He must have really found one in you because he hasn't gone back out with Aaron since you've been here" she tells me.
"Really?" I ask "he goes out looking for people to bring here?" I question
"Yup." She says now moving to the door "you know, you should tell him how you feel. I think it'd help open up his shell a little bit.." she goes to leave "yours too." She adds on.
Before I have a chance to respond to her though she leaves the room. I mull over what she says to me in a shower. It feels so good to stand in a shower again. I rinse my hair and go back into the room to get dressed. I know I've been fine with being cooped up lately but now that my leg is healed I feel the need to get out. I need to move! With Daryl gone, I decide to just leave the compound for the day. I know I should clear it with Rick, but he's busy. I'll just head out to the main gate and tell whoever is there that I'm doing a deeper perimeter check than usual. I walk downstairs and a few people look at me. No one says anything when I go to leave the house. I walk down the front steps quickly and make my way to the main entrance keeping my head down just in case. Most people were busy with something else so I was lucky. When I reach the gate Spencer looks down from his post "Can I help you?" He asks when I'm still a few steps away.
"open the gate, would ya?" I holler back up to him.
He looks at me strangely "why you wanna go out there?" He questions.
I throw my hand up to cover my eyes from the glare the sun is casting "I'm gonna' go do a perimeter check." I tell him. It's not a total lie, when I'm out there if I do see any biters, I'll take them out. It's a two birds one stone kind of thing.
He begins to make his way to the bottom of the tower and I stand with my hand on my hip and the other still blocking the sun while I watch. He comes and stands across from me "why would ya go and do something like that for?" He asks me.
"Been cooped up for like a week, I need to get out." I tell him honestly.
He turns his head to the side and purses his lips "Rick know you going out there?" His eyes and head do a quick jolt towards the gate before eyeing me for my answer.
"I didn't clear it with him, I can take care of myself" I say back to him.
"You shouldn't go out there by yourself" he tells me.
I chuckle "again, I can take care of myself" I repeat with annoyance.
He takes a step closer "Hold on, let me get someone to cover my post and I'll go with you." He insists starting to walk past me towards the town.
"You don't have to do that! I'll be just fine!" I call to him
"I insist. Besides, with Daryl gone someone needs to cover your ass" he smiles while jogging backwards to speak to me. He turns back around and continues his pace. I snarl at his comment but know he couldn't hear it. I make the decision to wait for him. I thought I wanted to be alone but maybe having someone with me would be a safer idea.
A few minutes pass before I see him jogging back over to me "alright, Tara's on her way to cover for me. I'll owe her one." He says as he reaches me.
"Tara? She'll tell Rick as soon as were gone that we left" I roll my eyes. Tara has been on edge around me since we went on the gun run together, I don't have any doubt that she would do that just to put a rift between Rick and I.
"It's good, he was talking with my mom and I let him know I was going on a perimeter check. I told him you were coming along." He said moving towards the gate now. From a short distance away I see Tara walking forward with a gun slung around her shoulder. "You coming?" He asks now standing next to it. I nod to him and walk over and stand next to him. Tara makes her way over to us and opens the gate without making eye contact with me.
"You got 5 hours" she says in a flat tone before shutting the gate.
We begin our walk on the dirt path before I move off the road a few feet down and into the woods "where you going?" He asks nervously.
"Into the woods, perimeter means the entire perimeter, not just the dirt road. Walkers won't just drive up to the gate" I return. He nods and follows me forward. "So Rick was okay with me coming out here?" I ask after a few minutes of walking. I know he's accepted me into the group but I didn't think he'd be okay with just anybody going outside the walls. That's why Daryl always took the hidden way.
"Ya, said somethin' bout you getting back out there and ready to do runs again. Thought I had a good idea." He smiles now keeping pace with my walk.
"Your idea?" I coif.
He laughs back "I aint' on Rick's best side so I'd figure I'd let him think it was my idea." He explains.
"Stop." I say holding up my hand. He takes a step further then I do before freezing. "you here that?" I ask him in a whisper trying to listen.
The leaves brush softly against one another in the light wind. A bird caws from somewhere far away but the sound of grumbling I heard is non existent. "here what?" He asks back.
"nothing" I say slowly before moving again, this time I keep my pace slow and and watch where I'm walking. It's one thing being out here alone and on guard but keeping up the conversation like this could be dangerous.
"anyway.." Spencer tries and to push the conversation forward. I give him a warning look and he understands what I was trying to get across and leaves it at that. We keep walking around the perimeter of the town all the while walking further away from it. I occasionally mark a tree trunk with an x through it in case we need to find our way back. I know the way I'm going and how to get back, but you never know what you're going to run into to get you off course. I've learned from experience. After 2 hours of walking and 7 biters down I decide to stop and take a break. My leg is a little sore from walking this much after being off of it for a few days and injured from the arrow. I sit under a dying tree and pull out a water from my pack. I pass the bottle over to Spencer who drinks half of it before offering it back. I shake my head against it knowing I have another my bag and he finishes it off.
"What if we got lost out here?" I ask him raising an eyebrow.
"What?" He asks back wiping off his mouth.
"You just chugged 1 of the 2 bottles of water we have." I return "if we got lost we'd need that to hold us over as long as possible."
"Didn't really think of that" he says tossing the bottle on the ground. I roll my eyes at his stupidity and stand to retrieve the trash.
I put the bottle back in my pack while speaking "you ever even been out of Alexandria longer than a few hours?" I ask him.
"Sure, I've done a run or two" he shrugs back.
"But always with a group? Always with a car?" I ask. He nods yes to my questions. "You don't waste things like water bottles, and you don't leave obvious signs of human life around this close to your home." I tell him firmly.
"So it's as bad as Rick says then, huh?" He returns back to me.
"Worse" I say through gritted teeth thinking about all the horrible people I've come across. He nods his head in understanding and we begin to walk back.
__
What do you think of everything so far?
Q: Do you have any walking dead ships?
A: I can't say I do at the moment. Rosita and Rick would be interesting, but would never happen. And I'm not really a shipper either.