ELLA WALKED OUT OF THE RV, she walked towards the small firepit they made. Ella tied her hair up into a ponytail, the sun already making her extremely hot. Ella Walsh never did like the extreme weather during the late summertime, it was always much more hot and much more harder to move around without dying of thirst.
"Hey," Maggie breathed out, walking up Ella who gave her a smile. "I need to tell you something. . ." she trailed off, glancing over at Glenn and a few others. "Privately?"
Ella nodded. "Of course, let's go over to the chicken coop." The two women walked over to the chicken coop to get away from everyone and their ear shot. Once they were away from everyone else, Ella was crossing her arms, and shifting her attention on Maggie. "What is it?"
Maggie bit her bottom lip. "It's about Glenn," she glanced back over to the camp. Ella arched her eyebrows in confusion. "When we went on that run to the pharmacy. . . he was getting condoms, so I thought 'hey he wants to have sex' so I pulled my shirt off and showed him my boobs."
Ella dropped her arms down to her side, jealousy contorting on her face. "At the pharmacy?" she asked. Maggie nodded. "What happened after?"
"He said 'I'm sorry, Maggie, but I don't like you like that. I think of you more as a friend than not'," Maggie frowned, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "He embarrassed me. . . but I understand why."
Ella sighed, glancing behind herself. She didn't blame her for doing something that she clearly hasn't been able to do in awhile.
It was something that would probably be rare to happen nowadays, and honestly now it didn't matter whether or not you had sex before marriage because one way or another you'll die from a walker or a survivor of the apocalypse.
"Why do you understand why he didn't want to?" Ella questioned.
"He said. . . he said he loves you," Maggie replied to her, a small chuckle erupting from her lips. "I think it's adorable he wants to wait for you. . . you two are a cute couple, but look, I didn't know you guys were together so I'm sorry-"
Ella couldn't believe what she was hearing. Glenn Rhee was in love with her. Ella's lips parted as she and Maggie hand eye contact. She ran a hand through her hair, surprised and shocked.
Ella smiled, but the smile fell as soon as it formed. "He loves me?" Ella cut Maggie off.
Maggie nodded, confused. "Shouldn't you know that already, aren't you two together?" Maggie asked. Ella shook her head. Immediately realization dawned on her. "You're just friends. . . you didn't know."
"I didn't. . ." Ella whispered.
Maggie sighed. "Do you love him?"
"I don't know." Ella suddenly frowned. Ella glanced down at her feet. She wished she knew the answer to that, but she sadly didn't have the answer.
"You'll know soon enough, Ella." Maggie gave her a small smile, before giving her a squeeze on her shoulder. "But I am sorry for trying to seduce him."
Ella laughed. "It is completely fine."
Hershel started calling for Maggie, so she walked away to go see what he needed.
Ella followed Maggie away from the chicken coop. Ella gazed over to the truck, watching as Dale walked over to it with a black bag in his hand.
She slowly made her way up the small hill, walking next to Rick, who stared at a map laid on the truck, seeming to be a little stressed out.
Ella examined the map for a moment until Daryl appeared, causing her to back up and stand beside her close friend, Dale.
Daryl pointed a finger at Rick. "I'm gonna borrow a horse, head up to the bridge right here, and take a bird's-eye view of the whole grid," he stared at the map. "If she's up there, I'll spot her."
T-Dog looked over at him. "Good idea. Maybe you'll see your chupacabra up there too."
Jimmy raised his eyebrows. "A chupa. . . what?" he asked.
Ella gave Jimmy a look of amusement. She and Daryl then exchanged a look, before Ella walked closer to the truck and leaned down on it. She couldn't wait for Dale to retell this story.
Dale grinned. "You never heard of it?" Jimmy shook his head. "Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminded him of a time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a chupacabra."
Jimmy sneered.
Daryl whirled his body around to Jimmy. "What are you braying at, jackass?" he snapped.
"So, instead of walkers, you think there's a vicious dog walking around?" Jimmy asked Daryl, the hunter nodded. "And what? You think it preys on the bodies of the molding ones trying to kill us?" Rick laughed and shook his head. Ella chuckled. Jimmy continued, "You really believe in a blood sucking dog?"
Daryl shrugged his shoulders. "You believe in dead people walking around?"
Jimmy ignored the question, darting his eyes around the area, until they landed on the guns in the bag. He reached over and grabbed a gun. Scoffing, Rick took it from him.
"You've ever fired one of these, Jimmy?" Rick eyed him, setting the gun back down.
Jimmy sighed. "Well, if I'm going out, I want one." he shrugged.
Rick shook his head at him, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, giving him an angry and challenging look, daring him to go against what he said and take a gun. But luckily for Jimmy, he didn't ignore Rick.
Daryl rolled his eyes. "Yeah and people in hell want slurpee's." With that, he walked away, causing Jimmy to head to the house to pout.
"Why don't you come train tomorrow? If you're serious, I'm a certified instructor." Shane called out to him, causing Jimmy to stop dead in his tracks and turn back around.
Andrea gave Jimmy a smile. "For now, he'll come with us." Jimmy returned the smile.
After that, Ella walked away from the group.
____________________________
ELLA SAT BY THE CHICKEN PEN, a sigh escaping her lips. She didn't know why she decided to come sit here to collect her thoughts, but here she was, trying to process everything that's happened the last few days.
Pushing herself off the ground, she decided to walk closer to the camp to see if she could do anything to help them with their camp, or anything else they needed from her.
She watched as Glenn walked up to her as she trekked towards Dale by his R.V. Glenn gave her a smile, stepping in front of her to stop her for a moment to ask her a question.
"Do you want a quick lesson?"
Ella arched her eyebrows, her mouth agape from his question. "I'm sorry. . . what?"
He chuckled. "An apple-picking lesson."
Ella furrowed her eyebrows. Out of all the things he could come up with for them to do to pass time while Rick and a few others were out looking for Sophia. He could've asked her to have sex, or to at least talk about what he told Maggie at the store. But then again Glenn was awkward.
She wished Glenn was more confident.
"I. . ." she trailed off.
"It's okay if you don't want to."
She bit her bottom lip, knowing it was probably the only thing he wanted to do today, or the only thing he wanted to learn how to do.
"No, it's okay, uh, I want to." Ella nodded.
Glenn nodded his head towards one of the many tents, leading her to it. He pulled out a basket from the inside of his tent and handed it over to her. Ella took it into her hands, tracing her fingernail over the detail of the basket.
Glenn pulled out another basket from his tent and looked it over to make sure it was a good basket. Earlier, Maggie gave him a bunch of fruit baskets to make up for what she did in the store earlier.
"Wait, do you know the proper way to pick apples?" Glenn questioned.
She held the basket in her left hands, looking inside the small basket. "No," she admitted. "But I think it's easy. . . you just pluck apples from the tree branch."
"It's okay, I don't know either." Glenn laughed, his tone full of joy.
She looked up at him. Glenn was pretty stupid at times. She wished she knew why he was even going apple-picking if he didn't even know, and she wished she knew why he chose to take her to apple-pick. Neither of them knew how.
Ella nodded. "Of course."
"Hey. . . what's that supposed to mean?" Glenn frowned.
"Uh. . . nothing." Ella told him. "Let's go apple-picking, Glenny!" she forced a bright smile on.
"Glenny?"
"Yeah. Dope name, huh?"
"Sure."
Ella smiled wider.
"Follow me," Glenn nodded to the grove of apple trees nearby. "I really hope your father doesn't care we're going alone." he nervously chuckled, she returned the chuckle as she followed him towards the field.
"I doubt he would notice anyway." Ella told Glenn.
Glenn nodded. "Lately, your dad's been giving me the stink eye whenever we're close to each other. He scares me. . . and I don't want to get on his bad side because I feel like he'd literally kill me."
Ella nervously laughed, looking away from Glenn. "Yeah, he's probably considered it."
Glenn nervously laughed again, glancing around. He looked back to the house, seeing Dale give him a thumbs up on top of the RV, before he glanced down to his apple basket.
He sighed. "Anyway, I hope this will actually be fun."
"I think it'll be fun," she paused, looking up at the blue sky. "Even though we don't know how to apple-pick, we can still make this fun and have a blast by just spending time together," Ella frowned as they made their way through the tall grass to get to the grove.
Glenn nodded.
Ella continued. "Nowadays time is very precious and little, so we have to make every single second count," she looked at Glenn. "We especially have to make it count because we don't know when it'll be our last day alive."
She wished she hadn't taken time for granted. At first, she thought she had all the time in the world with Amy and her mother, but she was showed wrong when they both died. Then, Jim died and so did Jacqui. She wished she said certain things to them before they died, but she didn't because she thought she had all the time in the world with them.
She now knew she couldn't waste time.
She knew she had to tell everyone she knew the things she wanted to tell them, like Glenn for example. She had to tell him the things she wanted him to know, but she didn't want that time to come just yet because she still had to figure out if she even loved him back and if she even had feelings.
She never experienced anything like this before so she wasn't sure if the feelings were true anymore since Glenn's been taking his sorry ass time to tell her his own feelings. Maybe she moved on without even realizing it.
Soon enough, she would know if she loved him, if she had feelings, or she didn't have either or.
"So yeah. . . let's try to have fun." Ella smiled.
"Okay, we will." Glenn promised her.
Ella could tell it was the truth. Glenn meant well, so she could tell he was going to make their time together a fantastic time.
When they finally arrived to the tree grove, they opened the gate to the grove and walked inside the barbed fence lining the grove. Ella looked around the grove with a smile, the smell of apple and many other fruits wafting in her nose, but mostly it was apple because it stood out the most to her.
I love apples, Ella smiled.
"Which tree?" Glenn pointed at the multiple tree sitting next to the wooden barbed fence.
"I think any one of them will work, Glenn." she told him, approaching a tree. "How many are we picking?"
Glenn followed her to the tree. "Maybe like three."
"Deal."
She extended her arm up and wrapped her hand around one of the apples, before she gently tugged it from the branch and set it down in her fruit basket.
Glenn stood next to her with his basket in his hand, gently plucking the apples on the tree.
Ella grabbed a red apple before accidentally squeezing the apple, the insides of the apple squishing out for it was a rotten apple.
Ella gasped, lowering her arm. "Well, damn."
Glenn moved closer to Ella. "If they're brown, don't pick them," Ella nodded and noted that in her head. His arm lightly touched her own arm. "Don't try to squeeze the literal life out of them either. Just relax."
Ella relaxed her muscles the best she could, her hand grabbing another apple. "Oh."
Glenn chuckled and accidentally bumped into her. She inhaled deeply, her muscles tensing up again. They stood in silence as he apologized for bumping into her.
She sighed and scooted over. "It's okay, Glenn." She focused her sight on tree of apples, picking several more apples from the tree. Ella smiled to herself. "This is kind of relaxing."
He nodded, laughing softly. "Yeah, it is." He moved a little bit away from her and repeated what she did moments ago, plucking the apples from the trees.
Ella smiled at Glenn. "Thank you for bringing me here to spend some time together. . . and to take our mind off things."
"You're welcome, El."
Suddenly, both of their attention was turned back towards camp when they heard Andrea yelling out the word walker. The pair shared a look for a moment before they both took off running.
In the distance, T-Dog, Rick and Shane came running from the treeline of the woods. Ella and Glenn caught up with them when they fully emerged from the tree line.
Rick pointed his gun towards the figure who was dragging their feet with a crossbow in hand.
Ella widened her eyes upon noticing it was Daryl covered in blood, his breath hitched. "You gonna pull the trigger or what?"
Once Daryl spoke, everyone sighed in relief. Ella hunched over to catch her breath while Glenn was shaking his head in disbelief.
"We thought you were a walker." Ella spat out. Daryl glared at her, clicking his tongue.
"Well, I ain't!" he snapped.
Within that same moment, a gun shot rang through the air, the bullet slicing right through Daryl's chest, sending him flying to the ground. Ella gasped in shock.
"No! No!" Rick shouted, rushing over to Daryl and kneeling down beside him.
Shane examined Daryl, seeing that the bullet had only grazed him. Both Rick and Shane siezed hold of his arms and pulled him up.
Daryl let out a shaky breath. "I was kidding."
Suddenly, Andrea and Dale both came running up to them. Ella glanced back, noticing the look of regret plastered on Andrea's face.
"Oh my God! Is he okay? Is he dead?" Andrea shouted as they rushed back to the house.
"The bullet just grazed him!" Shane panted.
Glenn pointed at the necklace hanging from Daryl's neck. "What the hell is he wearing? Are those ears?"
Ella looked at the necklace, grimacing in disgust when she saw the ears on his neck, a chill shivering down her spine.
Rick looked at the ears and yanked them off, tucking them into Daryl's pocket. "We'll keep that to ourselves."
T-Dog slowed down behind them. Ella looked back and stopped when she noticed he was staring at something on the ground, concern crossing her face.
"Guys, isn't this Sophia's?"
Everyone else stopped, turning around to see T-Dog picking up a small ragged doll.
Oh my God, Ella thought.