Disclaimer: All
publicly recognizable characters, settings, ect., are the property of their
respective owners. The original
character and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the
owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Some only see the pain behind a
scar. For some they are worn in honor;
proud badges of victory and bravery. For
Lillian James Harper, they are a mark of survival. Every scar has a story, this one is hers.
Warning: This fan-fiction is rated Mature for
Language, Gore and Adult Situations.
Readers under the age of 18 are strongly discouraged from reading.
Pairing: Daryl x
Lillian James Harper
Chapter Six
~Some animals are equal but some more equal than others. –George
Orewell~
Having slept like shit the night before, I was all but
dragging my sorry carcass out of bed the next morning, feeling sluggish and
right pissed off.
All night I had lain awake, trying to find the right way to
break the news about Merle to Daryl.
Honestly, it wasn’t worth the effort.
I had been truthful the night before when I told the group it wasn’t
gonna matter who told him; none of us would be able to stop his anger, and at
this point, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try.
The rest of my night was spent trying to get a handle my own
emotions; trying to put myself in their shoes and all that. While I completely understood what Merle
could be like when he was all drugged up and acting like a fool, he was still
my family and those bastards left him chained to a rooftop like the goat in
Jurassic Park. Merle would always be a
dick—I had no delusions otherwise—but that dick was my brother and he had saved
my ass more time than I could count; if the group didn’t like Daryl or our
family…well then, tough titty.
It was an easy decision to stay away from the rest of the
campers this morning. I knew full well
what would happen should I cross anyone of them in the mood I was in. So, I opted to skip breakfast and anything
else that had been dubbed “women’s work” for chopping firewood instead.
On any other day—preferably when these people hadn’t just
killed a member of my family—I would have happily accompanied Carol while she
worked over the camp fire or mending socks, but right now I needed to do
something a little bit more physical.
Not to mention doing anything resembling women’s work would mean I would cross paths with Andrea, and after
last night’s little spat I doubted the woman wanted to see me anymore than I
wanted to see her.
“God, I really have to
get a better handle on my mouth,” I chastised quietly.
As the sun filtered through the rest of last night’s rain
clouds, I kept chopping. I mused to
myself while I worked, that if I kept up this pace we’d have enough wood to
last us through winter. This was exactly
what I needed, to distract me, to release my anger and calm me. I would have done anything at that point to
keep from thinking about Daryl’s face when we—most likely me—told him that this
group had left his brother for dead.
My loud morning activities must have woken Responsible Rick
because he exited his tent a few minutes later stretching like he had just had
the best sleep of his life. It didn’t
help my present mood since he was mostly at fault for my own sleepless night.
“Mornin’,” He greeted with a smile. I couldn’t help the funny look I gave him.
It was strange having so many people smiling at me so
often. I guess I had gotten used to
people either being frightened of me or disgusted; now I didn’t know how to
respond. It didn’t help that I was
already extremely aggravated with him.
But, I was the newbie around here and the Dixon’s—myself
included—weren’t exactly bucking for the congeniality award. So those reason and many more, I decided to
put my best booted foot forward instead of sticking it straight up Rick’s ass.
“Mornin’,” I replied a little testily, but at least I tried
to plaster on a fake smile.
Points for effort and all that.
His genuine smile dropped and was replaced by a frown of
remorse. His blue eyes regarded me
carefully before he bowed his head. “I’m
sorry.”
Seriously? I was
beginning to think that was all the man could actually say to me. He had been belting out apologizes since I
met him. He was starting to sound like a
broken record.
For a cop he wasn’t so bad, he wasn’t like some of the
ones I’ve met in…well, never mind.
“No,” I sighed, shaking my head. “You were just trying to keep the others
safe, I understand better than just about anyone what Merle Dixon is like when
he’s high. It’s not really you I’m mad
at.”
He looked confused as he studied my face; like he couldn’t
make out who it was I was angry at if not him.
I knew he was about to probably open his mouth and defend T-dog or
Andrea, but anything he might have said died when the screams of the children
broke the peaceful quiet of our camp.
Dropping my hand from Rick’s arm, I gripped my axe handle
tighter and sprinted off in the direction of the quarry. The sounds of gnashing teeth hit my ears
about the same time as the putrid smell of rotting flesh.
Wrinkling my nose in disgust, I tramped down the urge to dry
heave. It didn’t matter how many of
those nasty things I’ve come across, the smell was always surprisingly bad…it
never got any better. Those things were
rank.
The group was silent with Rick in the lead until we reached
the snarling sounds of a walker just beyond the trees and by the sounds it was
making, I’d say it already had itself dinner.
“God, I hope it ain’t
one of the kids,” I murmured quietly, wincing to myself. Fuck, someone could have overheard that
little comment and I could have easily started a panic that would get one of us
killed.
Fortunately for me, no one heard my comment and the
walker—somehow—remained blissfully unaware of our presence. I had to wonder—was this geek somehow mentally
unstable in life or perhaps deaf, because that scream made by Carl and Sophia
should have rang the proverbial dinner bell.
As it was, the walker was on its knees feasting off the
flesh of a doe. It had already gnawed
halfway through the poor things neck and its boney, emaciated hand digging
through the animal’s entrails.
It took me a moment to wrap my head around what I was
seeing, dread filling the pit of my stomach as my eyes locked onto the bright
fletching of a very familiar bolt.
“Daryl…” I whispered.
Damn, this wasn’t gonna be pleasant. That arrow definitely signified that Daryl
would be along shortly and when he did things weren’t gonna be pretty. If I knew Daryl, he was already gonna be
pissed off about the deer and that was just gonna be a start to a very shitty
morning.
The rest of the group stood there gaping at the sight like a
bunch of fuckin’ idiots, watching the walker that was dressed in what was once
a nice business suit.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing
at this very inappropriate time, but I just couldn’t help sniggering to
myself. Here we were standing around
watching the walker eat Daryl’s deer; just starting at the thing as it ate away
at our resources like it was feedin’ time at the local zoo.
What was next? Were
we gonna share a bowl of popcorn and watch it eat the children?
When the walker finally turned to us and growled it seemed
to snap Rick and the others out of whatever funk they were experiencing and he
was the first to crack it in the head.
The other followed suit when they seemed to realize we weren’t here to
take in dinner and a show, but when they did…it was frenzied and
uncoordinated.
Personally, I wasn’t goin’ anywhere near that fucked up
swingin’ circle. I had my axe at the
ready and my gun was loaded at my side, but I had no intentions of entering that and getting my head taking off by
some asshole swinging blindly. The last
thing this camp needed was for Daryl come back to find my head was taken off by
some stupid prick who thought he was Rambo; that would not have ended well.
Dale—to my surprise—was the one who finally decapitated the
geek. I smiled to myself as I thought of
all the Big Strong Men in this camp and it was a crazy old snowbird from
Michigan that finally brought down the walker with an axe. Hell, I was downright impressed. Sadly, you could tell it bothered him a great
deal to end that life. He had gone
exceedingly pale in the face and looked like his heart was breaking.
Personally, I didn’t get it.
I mean, I understood the value of human life but as far as I was
concerned those things were no longer people…but if you wanted to look at them
in that way, well, I thought of it as a mercy to put them out of their
misery.
“That’s the first one we’ve had up here,” Dale panted,
obviously still struggling to get ahold of himself after the adrenaline wore
off.
I knew that feeling intimately.
“They never come this far up the mountain.”
“They’re runnin’ out of food in the city, that’s why.” Jim commented, his face twisting up into a
grimace as he stared down at the headless corpse.
“Maybe we should think—
Shane started to speak—no doubt to impart us with some of
his worldly wisdom—but was cut off by a rustling from the brush not ten feet
from where we were standing. It reminded
us—with a good panic attack—that this geek might not have been by his
lonesome.
Gripping my axe tighter, I tuned out everyone’s breathing
and focused on the trees in front of us.
I could hear footfalls, but it wasn’t the shuffling feet of a
walker. They were steady and moving
quickly, and the slight hitch in this person’s gate—due to having a broken hip
bone that hadn’t healed properly—had me smiling.
With an amused smile, I started forward only to be met with
resistance as Rick grabbed my arm. He
looked at me out of the corner of his eye, looking baffled by what I was
doing.
“Lillian—
He started but stilled his tongue when Daryl broke through
the tree-line, cursing under his breath the whole way.
Everyone—including myself—seemed to breathe easier. It was a relief to know Daryl was safe and
back at camp but the others were happy that it was just my irritable hunter
coming out of those woods and not another walker. I had news for them though, their relief was
about to be very short lived.
When Daryl found out about Merle, that walker would be the
least of their troubles. These people
had no doubt seen plenty of Daryl’s cranky mood-swings –or so I had been told frequently—but cranky Daryl had nothing
on a pissed off one.
Marching straight passed the group of thunder-struck
campers, Daryl headed straight for his desecrated prize.
“Sum’bitch,” he cursed as he crouched, taking in the deer’s
ruined remains. “That’s my deer!”
Had this been any other situation I would have been laughing
my ass off. Leave it to Daryl to yell at
a dead walker over a deer carcass.
“Look at it,” He whined, nudging the dead animal with the
toe of his boot. “All gnawed on by this
piece of shit, dieses barin’, motherless, proxy bastard!”
“What a baby,” I
mumbled, scratching at the back of my neck as he yelled, kicking the body of
the walker several times in what I understood as Daryl’s way of making himself
feel better.
“That’s not helping, son,” Dale said as he stepped forward,
reaching out to take Daryl’s arm. The
childish side of me wanted to dance around and sing, I wouldn’t do that… but I settled for an eye roll and braced myself
for when Daryl snapped.
What do you know ‘bout it, Old man?” Daryl snarled, puffing out his chest in the
way that clearly stated that he was done putting up with Dale’s coddling.
Wonderful, I
thought to myself. He’s already in a mood.
With the intentions of giving the old man a break—and
perhaps to get Daryl’s temper back down to a rolling boil before all hell broke
loose—I stepped forward and grabbed a hold of one of his thick arms. Thankfully, he stepped away from the conflict
without question and turned to quickly kiss my cheek.
“Hey babe, do anythin’ useful whiles I was gone?” He asked in a quiet whisper as he winked at
me, waggling his eyebrows and making me laugh.
I knew what he was asking—the fuckin’ pervert.
“Maybe,” I returned with my own sultry smirk, thinking two can play at this game. Of course my teasing only made him scowl at me. We hadn’t had sex since before the outbreak
hit, so it was fair to say that we were both wound tighter than piano strings
and I was playing with fire. Had I dared
to do this to him while we were alone, he’d have had my clothes gone and my ass
pinned to a tree so fast my head would spin.
It was kind a like poking a wild dog; sooner or later you were gonna get
bit.
It was too bad that I really like it when he bites. Besides, he was gonna be pissed as Hell in a
few minutes, anyway—might as well have a little fun with him while I could.
His blue eyes pinned mine for a minute more, telling me
without words that I was in a heap of trouble later. When he looked away, that same pissed off
pout reappeared on his face as he reached down to remove his bolts from the
carcass.
“I’ve been trackin’ this deer for miles. Was gonna drag it back ta camp, cook us up
sum venison.” He said crouching low to
ground, sneer firmly fixed on his face.
“What do ya think, think we could cut ‘round this chewed up
part?” He asked looking up to me.
My nose curled and I had to grasp my stomach to keep from
vomiting. Really, Daryl?
“Couldn’t risk it.”
Thank you, Shane.
It seemed to be unanimous because everyone was vigorously
nodding their heads in agreement with Shane—including myself. That was just nasty.
“Damn shame,” Daryl murmured, eyeing his ruined trophy with
longing. He was so damned cute when he
pouted.
“Got us some squirrel, ’bout a dozen or so, it’ll have ta
do.” He said, perking up as he adjusted
the critter-baring twine on his shoulder.
I smiled at him. Only
Daryl would be so happy about eating squirrel meat.
Something snapping at my feet drew my attention away from
Daryl’s face and back down to the walker—or should I say; the dismembered
head—as it tried to make a meal out of the steel toe of my boot.
Lurching backwards, I growled and drew my axe above my head,
ready to swing but the ‘shink’ of Daryl’s crossbow beat me too it.
“Come on people, what the Hell?” He groused as he removed his bolt with a
squish. My stomach rolled, but it didn’t
seem to bother Daryl as he continued to scold us. “It’s gotta be the brain. Don’t ya’ll know nothin’?”
All eyes turned to me as Daryl grabbed my hand and started
towards camp, shouting for Merle to get his lazy as up as he went.
“Daryl,” I whimpered, the sting of tears blurring my vision
as I yanked on his hand and drew his attention to my face.
His eyes immediately zoned in my tears, “What’s a matter?”
Shanking my head, I tried to form words…but nothing would
come out, “I-I need to talk to you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that we now had the
audience of the entire camp. I wanted to
yell, to tell those nosy pricks to go away.
I might have felt differently if I knew they weren’t all out here just
for curiosities sake; none of them really cared about Daryl’s feelings…they
just wanted to see the UFC drama. It
wasn’t going to help anybody to have this many people as witness to Daryl
losing his temper.
“Babe?” He questioned, one brow cocked in concern. His eyes were pleading with me to tell him
how to fix the problem.
“There was a problem in Atlanta,” I blurted, shakily with
more tears spilling from my eyes.
“Merle’s not here.”
“He dead?” He asked with a terse jerk of his chin, tears
already forming wet rings around his eyes.
My eyes caught T-dog’s as he made his way into camp, a load
of firewood—probably intended for me—under his arm. I looked to him with pleading eyes, begging
him to explain what I couldn’t.
It made me feel guilty that I couldn’t explain to Daryl what
had happened ‘cause I hadn’t stuck around to hear it all myself. My temper had gotten the better of me and
truthfully, I had no idea what was going on or what I should tell him now.
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully, hoping he would
understand that I wasn’t in the best form to hear any of these people out.
Daryl’s eyes cut from mine over to T-dog, Rick and Shane—who
were all milling about looking more guilty than any man should. Daryl’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as he
licked his bottom lip. I could almost
see the cogs turning in his mind, connecting the dots. Then, I saw certainty there…he knew, without
anyone telling him, he knew. He looked
straight into my eyes with a lifted brow before cutting his eyes to me and back
again. It was a silent question…and it
was a question I would answer truthfully…fuck the rest of them.
I nodded.
To everyone else in the group it would seem that Daryl was
taking the news rather well, but I knew better.
I could see the signs, the red splotches that broke out across his neck
and cheeks; it was a sure way to tell that Daryl was about to lose it. If it had just been one of Daryl’s temper
tantrums than I wouldn’t have been worried, but Daryl was about to lose his
shit in a way that even scared the Hell out of me.
“He either is or he ain’t,” Daryl spat over my head,
directing his angry voice towards the two cowardly men at my back. He was speaking to them now, after all.
Renewing my faith a little, Rick stepped forward and took
some of the responsibility on himself.
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it.”
“Who’re you?” Daryl
spat as he gripped my arm hard and pulled me behind him.
Not good. Not good.
Not good.
“Rick Grimes,” he offered.
Rather politely too, for a man who might just get his head caved-in in
the next few minutes.
“Rick Grimes?” Daryl scoffed, shaking his head as he
approached the officer like an angry bear.
“You got somethin’ ya wanna tell me?”
My eyes searched Rick’s catching his worried gaze and I
frantically shook my head in warning. I
could only hope he got the memo and didn’t decide to do something stupid, like
tell Daryl that Merle was a deviant to society.
“Your brother was a danger to us all,” he started in his
best do-gooder voice as he took a step in Daryl’s direction.
With an annoyed groan, I palmed my face in
exasperation. I knew the man was just
trying to do the right thing…but come on!
This was not going to end well.
“So I handcuffed him to a roof, hooked on a piece of
metal. He’s still there.”
My head snapped up, my brows furrowed as I tried to make
sense of what Rick just said. This was
all news to me as I was under the assumption that Merle was already as good as
walker chow when the group booked it out of town.
“Hold on,” Daryl snapped suddenly, startling me. “Let me process this. Yer sayin’ ya handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you left him there!”
His voice was rising with every word he spoke right along
with his blood pressure. His face had
gone from blotchy to completely beet red in a matter of seconds and I knew this
little pow-wow was about to escalate into more than words.
My eyes remained trained on Daryl’s back as I waited for him
to pounce. I knew it was coming, I could
literally feel it in the air. Everything
about him at the moment screamed anger; from the way his hands were balled into
tight fists at his sides right down to the coiled muscles in his back, stretched
tight with tension. He was wound so tight
I was actually worried he might hurt himself.
For the first time since I met Officer Rick Grimes, I
absolutely respected him. I knew the man
wasn’t stupid enough to not understand what was coming. He knew Daryl would explode and yet, here he
was ready to take his lumps.
Rick’s blue eyes regarded me for only a moment before he
sighed, “Yeah.”
It was a showdown from that moment on. Rick was stealing glances at Shane. Shane was alternating his gaze from Daryl to
me and back again. T-dog had his eyes
trained on Daryl and Daryl was glaring at everybody but me. It seemed like forever as we waited for the
clock on the bomb to wind down but within seconds the twine of squirrels hit
the ground and I knew it was over.
Like a tiger, Daryl lunged for Rick and for a moment I
thought Officer Friendly was just gonna take his ass-beatin’ without word, but
out of the corner of my eye I saw Shane.
His reaction was faster than I thought it would be and not a second
later he had Daryl wrestling on the ground.
“Daryl!” I yelled,
rushing forward as I saw the glint of his blade. As much as Rick could stand to do with a
black eye, Daryl seriously didn’t need to stab anyone.
Shane and T-dog were busy trying to get a better hold on
Daryl when Shane saw the knife for himself and yelled, “Watch the knife!”
It was a blur of arms and legs as the Rick, T-dog and Shane
tried to get Daryl under control. I
stood by, watching until Shane locking Daryl in a chokehold finally stopped the
brawl.
“Best let me go!”
Daryl roared as he struggled against Shane’s grip.
For anyone who didn’t know Daryl personally they would have
never caught the panic that flashed in his eyes the moment Shane’s large arms
wound around his neck. Of course they
wouldn’t know that Daryl’s daddy had nearly killed him once when he was just a
kid. The bastard was just drunk and
thought wrestling his eight year old boy in the middle of the night would be a
funny parlor trick for his friends. Long
story short, he took it too far and if it hadn’t have been for Merle coming
home—equally wasted—Daryl wouldn’t be here today.
“Naw,” Shane grunted, a smug smile tugging at the corner of
his mouth. “I don’t think I will.”
Sadly for Shane, I did know about it and when I saw that
horrified look in Daryl’s eyes something in me…snapped.
Before I could even stop to consider the consequences of my
actions, Merle’s pistol was out my side holster with the safety off and a round
in the chamber. It was also pointed at
Shane’s head.
“Let’em up, Walsh!”
Shane’s dark eyes met mine and for a moment a look of
admiration passed over his face before it settled back into a fierce
scowl.
“What are you doing?
Put that away!” Lori demanded.
Smirking, I parroted Shane’s smartass comment. “Naw, I don’t think I will.”
“We can talk about this.”
Rick—ever the negotiator—said quietly.
“Please put the gun down.”
“Let’em up.” I repeated, shaking my head. “I didn’t walk my happy ass all over the
state of Georgia to get cut up and nearly raped by some wacko freaks just so you
could strangle the only family I have just after I found him. Now, Let. Him. Go.”
Rick nodded to Shane.
“Let him go.”
Daryl wheezed for several minutes after Shane let him go and
as promised, I immediately secured my weapon and rushed to Daryl’s side.
“I’ll explain later,” I told Rick quietly as I brushed by
him, hoping he’d understand. After all,
I didn’t want him to think I was psychotic because I wasn’t and contrary to popular belief, neither was Daryl. He looked at me curiously for a second before
he had some sort of an epiphany and nodded with a slight smile. I had no idea what in the Hell he could be
thinking, but at this point—I didn’t really care either.
“It’s not Rick’s fault,” T-dog said, cautiously stepping
closer. “I had the key, I dropped it.”
Daryl, who was still on his knees gasping, looked up at him
with disbelief. “Ya couldn’t pick it
up?”
I dropped it down a drain.”
T replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
Daryl looked from T-dog to me before turning on his heels
and letting out a choked up sob. His arm
extended backwards, reaching out for me and when I grasped his hand he squeezed
it tightly.
“If that’s supposed ta make me feel better, it don’t.” He spat as he stood up and tucked me under
his arm.
T-dog took another tentative step forward and quickly added,
“I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn’t get at him. With a padlock.”
Rick—who must have seen some heavenly light at the end of
the tunnel—tacked on, “That’s got to count for somethin’.”
Daryl just shook his head, tears leaking from the corners of
his eyes. It hit me hard that I had seen
Daryl cry more in the last couple of days than I had ever seen him in the
entire eight and a half years I’d known him.
He furiously rubbed at his red eyes with his free hand, and
wailed. “To Hell with all o’ ya’ll! Jus’ tell me where he is so I can go get’em.”
Surprisingly it was Lori who stepped forward, “He’ll show
you.”
Completely overcome with shock, I stood there gaping at the
woman like she was the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I could’ve really given a shit less that she was only saying that to
sooth her guilty conscience—or perhaps even to save her husband’s ass, whatever
her reasoning, she put a spark in her husband’s eye that I was appreciative
for. The sheer thought of being his old
do-gooder-self had lit a fire under that man’s ass, which meant he would be
helping and Daryl wouldn’t be running the geek infested streets of Atlanta by
himself.
As this was proclaimed by the Queen-Bee, the group all wore matching
expressions of confusion and distaste. I
could see it in their eyes, not one of them thought it was worth risking bodies
and resources for a men like Merle or Daryl.
Every one of them could kiss my Redneck-lovin’, Hillbilly ass.
I had news for all of them though, should the same fate
befall Daryl out there…I really would slit all their throats in the
middle of the night, starting with Rick’s wife.
