Daryl and Kat eventually left the woods, joining the group back out on the road. They were quiet, but it was a relief for the group to at least see them together. They had all been standing around the road, looking down at what Kat had to narrow her eyes at to make sure she was seeing it right. Bottles of water. A dozen 700ml ones and a few larger 4L bottles. Rick walked up to the two of them, holding out a piece of paper for them to read that had been left atop of the bottles.
'From a friend.' It read. Daryl looked around instantly as Kat took the paper, the lot of them wary of the gesture.
"What else are we going to do?" Tara asked.
"Not this." Rick protested. "We don't know who left it."
"If that's a trap we already happen to be in it." Eugene spoke. "But I for one would indeed like to think it is from a friend."
"What if it isn't?" Carol asked. "Put something in it."
Eugene step forward without much care, grabbing a small bottle. "Eugene!" Rosita protested along with a few other people, but they didn't really do anything and he didn't listen.
Then Abe stepped forward, slapping it out of his hands before it could touch his lips and letting the water spill out onto the road. He took a step back in silence then. Maybe it was instinct, a habit of keeping him safe, but really he just didn't want to see his friend die.
"We can't." Rick said firmly.
It was silent for a long time. And then a poetic rumble was heard before rain began to fall from the sky. They soaked it up like it was the greatest thing on this earth. But Maggie stood in silence, as did Sasha and Daryl. Kat looked between them as they all did before she stepped forward.
Kat moved first, grabbing out her own bottle before moving to grab the one that dangled off Daryl's belt and laying them out into the rain to fill. "Empty the bags. Grab anything you can find." Rick ordered.
Nelly began to pour at the ground in the rain, the soak refreshing her as well as she kicked her neck up and down. They couldn't use the other bottles even if they emptied them, just in case. They'd seen to much to trust something so simple. But the rain kept coming. The thunder cracked and the lightning lit up the sky as Carl shielded Judith who was beginning to cry with his hat. The clouds swelled in a black anger as the smiles began to fall from people's faces one by one.
"That's not going anywhere any time soon." Kat turned to Rick.
"Lets keep moving." Rick nodded.
"There's a barn!" Daryl yelled over to Rick above the pouring rain.
"Where?"
They gathered up their items collecting water and took them with them, pretty much drinking what was inside by the time they made it to the barn. They searched the inside and found nothing. Kat ran in with Nelly, Luke sitting on her back as the horse recognised the place as needed shelter. She could feel the storm getting worse and she wasn't called Nervous Nelly for nothing. Kat quickly held out her hands to Luke, guiding him off the animals back.
"Go over there, take these." She handed him their water bottles. "Find anywhere water might leak through the ceiling and start filling them." It was a well made barn but there was bound to be some cracks in the roof.
He nodded with a small smile, happy that she was once again showing some signs of life. The horse began to whinny as the doors were slammed shut. She stroked her nose and rubbed above her eye until she calmed and began to recognise she was safe and then Kat moved to tie her up.
Maggie made camp away from the others, as did Sasha. Rosita, Eugene, Abe, Gabriel, Noah and Tara made their own little spot and Kat stayed mostly with the horse. The others tried to make a fire, but it threatened to die out constantly, the wood too wet to keep it going.
Maggie was asleep nearly instantly. As was Carl with Judith still in his arms and Luke not far away. Kat began to make her way over to the camp after a while. Deciding the fire might be nice.
"When I was a kid," Rick was saying as she approached, "I asked my grandpa once if he'd ever killed any Germans in the war. He wouldn't answer. He said that was grown up stuff so... so, I asked if the Germans ever tried to kill him. He got real quiet. He said he was dead the minute he stepped into enemy territory." Kat took a seat between Glenn and Daryl. Glenn was leaning close the fire while Daryl sat back, his knees pulled up to his chest. "Everyday he woke up... told himself, rest in peace now get up and go to war. And then after a few years of pretending he was dead... he made it out alive. That's the trick of it, I think. We do what we need to do and then... we get to live. But no matter what we find in DC, I know... we'll be okay. Because this is how we survive. We tell ourselves that we... are the walking dead."
Kat looked up from the fire then. She'd already been saying it to herself for days and just hearing him say the words she became alert. Daryl's eyes moved from Rick and then to her, the words not quite sitting right with him and less so when he saw her interest in them.
"We ain't them." Daryl finally spoke as he got a up a little to reach for more kindling, beginning to break it and place it in the fire.
"We're not them. Hey." Rick called his attention to look up. "We're not." He reassured.
Daryl began to stand, picking up his crossbow and saying one final time. "We ain't them." Before walking off to his own section of the barn. A tear ran down Kat's cheek as she continued to look into the fire. She didn't know why.
They all saw it. That tear. Nelly's whinny snapped her head back around before she jumped up to move over to the horse that was beginning to pull against it's rope. She was panicking. And one by one people began to realise why. Daryl was the first to run to the door and try and hold it shut as the herd outside began to push against it next was Maggie and then Sasha. Everyone around the fire soon got up and when Abe's group jumped to action, them being the closest to Kat, her attention was drawn to the door as well. She left Nelly to her own devices to run and help the others. The lot of them pushing against it, against the corpses on the other side. The storm got worse, it got louder. The kids woke up and stayed back, Carl guarding both Luke and the baby as Nelly neighed in a frantic panic and her rope finally snapped. But she had no where to take off to except the doors and she recognised them as danger. She reared up as lightning flashed through the barn and the group continued to push until slowly it got easier. The wind became louder than the rain and soon it all just stopped.
The walkers no longer pushed on the doors, but no one dared to look out. After a long, long while they decided it was safe again and slowly began to step back. Everyone eventually succumbed to exhaustion, except for Daryl. Who sat awake on the wall opposite the doors, watching. Kat left Nelly to trot about as she pleased, not bothering to tie her back up once she had settled again. Luke fell asleep next to Carl, but Kat eventually moved over to Daryl.
First she sat down next to him and then she let her head rest against his shoulder. By morning he was still sitting as he was, watching the doors while Kat lay stretched out, her head in his lap. Maggie woke first, looking about and then seeing the two.
She moved over to them, sitting down next to Daryl. She glanced down at her sister and then back up at him. "You should get some sleep." She said quietly.
"Yeah." He nodded, but didn't sound very convincing.
"It's okay to rest now." Maggie took another look down to Kat and then over to Sasha who slept soundly off to the side.
"He was tough." Daryl said, speaking of Tyreese.
"He was."
"So was she." He added, not daring to say her name. "She didn't know it, but she was." Maggie smiled slightly before Daryl reached over to his side and pulled out the music box Carl had given her. "Gear box had some grit in it."
"Thank-you." She whispered then glanced back to Sasha one more time and then down to Kat.
"She'll be fine." Daryl said softly.
"Are you sure?"
He slowly began to nod. "Positive." Daryl knew what she was thinking and he nodded over to the girl further away from them. "I've got Kat, go to her." He said.
Maggie smiled at that and began to get up, the music box in her hands and moved over to Sasha. As they were leaving Kat began to stir. It made Daryl think that maybe she hadn't been asleep, but she didn't say much on it. "Did you sleep?" She asked him.
"Mmhmm."
"Liar." She accused with a soft look as she began to stand. "I need to stretch my legs. Sleep." She ordered. He began to lay down on the ground as requested as Kat began to walk through the barn. Nelly had made herself comfortable inside one of the stalls, a safe place for her, but everyone else was exactly where she had remembered them being.
Carl was awake though, having been woken by Judith's early morning stirrings. He was beginning to stand and Kat made her way over to him with a smile. "Come on. Lets take her out before she wakes everyone." She whispered to him.
Carl was surprised at her, but agreed happily. They saw Maggie and Sasha just leaving between the trees as they came outside. "Holy hell." Kat breathed, looking over the damage made by the storm. Trees were ripped up, some snapped clean in half. Walkers were strewn everywhere; trapped, impaled, broken. "Pass her here." Kat gestured to Carl as he handed the baby over after had stepped over and under a few logs so that he could then do the same. They came up around the side of the barn and found a nice spot that was clear of debris and the dead.
Kat took up a seat on the ground, leaning up against the wall with Judith in her lap as Carl sat down next to them. The baby was beginning to grow more uneasy and she was threatening to cry.
I don't own a single gun
She began to sing, the child lulling a little at the sound
But if I did, you'd be the one
To hold it, aim it, make all of the bad men run
But I don't own a single gun
Judith's eyes had gone wide as she stared. Beth's singing had always managed to calm her. Carl looked on at his little sister's stunned expression with an amused smile.
And I don't have a sweetheart yet
But if I did I'd break my neck
To please her, make her want to stay in my arms she'd rest
But I don't have a sweetheart yet
I can't believe what I found in daddy's sock draw, sock draw
Today
It was a pistol a Smith & Wesson, holy, holy shit
Carl chuckled a little as Judith began to smile.
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la
The baby began to laugh now at that strange sound which might well have been the only one she understood.
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la
It went on in the same pattern several times over, slowly increasing in intensity as Judith laughed even more and eventually began to bring a smile to even Kat's face. Six times she did until Rick poked his head around the corner having come looking for his children that were not beside him when he woke. He didn't walk over though. It was the first time he'd seen her smile since Beth and he hadn't been expecting it, not before Maggie, not before Sasha, not before Daryl. It was a nice thing to watch. His friend seeming to slowly come out of that black hole she'd been trapped in. Even if it was just for a little while as she bounced his daughter on her knee, the little girl giggling in that babyish way while his son smiled at the little girl and the older one he had been so worried about.
Things I knew when I was young
Some were true and some were wrong
She kept going.
And one day, I'll pray, I'll be more than my father's son
But I don't own a single gun
She finished, smiling once more at the baby as it dropped into silence for a moment. "You didn't write that one." Carl said, having picked up on some of the wording.
"No, not that one. Wesley Shultz did."
"Who's that?"
Kat turned her head over to him with an unimpressed look. "Lead singer of the Lumineers. We have got to get your head out of those comics and get you some albums, kid."
He smiled. "Glad you're back, Katie." Was how he responded in a soft voice. She give a weak smile in return, but didn't respond, not until he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver chain. Shawn's chain. Beth's chain.
Kat's hand shook slightly as she reached out to grab it, turning it over in her hand as she tried to stop herself from crying, but it was a futile effort. She sniffled back some tears, but a couple silently escaped.
"You believe in luck, kid?" She asked.
"No." Carl said back right away.
"Good." She nodded before undoing the clasp and reaching around him and doing it up. "Because this is the unluckiest of lucky charms." She explained as it fell about his neck. "Don't worry, it was made for guys."
He smiled and let his head fall against her shoulder as she wrapped her arm around him and bounced Judith a few more times. It was easy to be strong around people that were so easy to love. It was easy to smile and it was easy to sing. It was just the movement of muscles, no more than breathing. The pain was still there. It was just a flicker of maybe not happiness but contentment. A moment to gasp for air in that black abyss she had been drowning in. And when that moment drifted into more silence.... then came the guilt. The guilt of forgetting for a briefest of heartbeats.
Her smile dropped and her heart pounded in her chest, but only because it couldn't just stop. Only the baby seemed to notice at it looked at her with these big eyes that she felt shooting straight through her. It was strange how they could have such an overwhelming sixth sense at that age. Kat wondered when she would lose it. She didn't need her knowing all her little secrets. How else was she going to keep that mask on, otherwise?
Rick smiled and ducked back inside without being seen, none of them realising that there was another intruder on the opposite side hidden among the trees.
The man retreated back before following along the path Maggie and Sasha had left on, a small smile on his face. He had made up his mind the night before when he saw Daryl lead the group to safety, but there were still some doubts. Those doubts were gone now. He wanted this group.
I went back to the chapter Always Moving and added in a thing about how Kat put Luke's shell on some plaited string. The necklace in this reminded me that I forgot to add that in somehow.