Chapter Seven

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, ect., are the property of their respective owners.  The original characters and plot are the property of the author.  The author is no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise.  No copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: Rated Mature for language, gore and adult situations.  Readers under the age of 18 are discouraged from reading.

Scars of Survival
Chapter Seven

Men willingly believe what they wish.  ~ Gaius Julius Caesar

After a bit of deliberation Daryl stalked off to the tent, dragging me behind him and told me point blank that I wasn’t going.  Was I really that transparent?

Of course that started the first real argument we’d had since finding each other again, but on this topic, I wasn’t so quick to back down.  He was relentless in finding reason after reason why I was in no shape to go and I was just as fast to counter.  By the end though, after the screaming and cursing, I relented.  He was damn near begging me not to go, said he could breath easier knowing that at least one of the two people he loved would be waiting for him when he returned. 

How could I argue that?  The plain simple fact of the matter was, I couldn’t.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t a stubborn and cranky bitch about it.  In fact that was what I was doing now, sulking.  Trying to take my mind off what Daryl was about to do, I made myself useful, airing out the tent, and cleaning up a little.  I loved my boys but my boys were slobs of the worst kind.  Daryl, I could handle, I was used to it and over the years we’d lived together he’d actually taken to at least picking up after himself, guess all that fell by the wayside when people starting eating people. 

I had just finished sifting through all of our laundry, Merle’s included and was ready to just sit back for a minute, soaking up the suns rays through the moon roof our little home until it was time for Daryl to leave.  Or I would have, if Shane’s big mouth didn’t carry like a barking dog across camp.  I could tell he was arguing with someone and my money was on Rick.  Shane was the least happy about the planned trip back to Atlanta and he wasn’t shy about voicing that, several times.

Shooting of the floor of the tent like a rocket, I quickly threw on my boots and grabbed Merle’s gun before heading out to see what the fuck all the fuss was about this time. 

Of course, I should have known that prick Shane would be trying to change Rick’s mind again and poor Rick was at a loss at how to make his friend understand that this was for the good of the camp.  Merle; crazy, raciest redneck or not, was still another pair of hands.  He could hunt, the fucker was a crack shot and the huge bastard was about as resilient as I’ve ever seen a human being. 

“Why risk you life for a douche-bag like Merle Dixon?”  Shane growled as I was stepping out of the tent. 

I frowned, not liking how this was going, if Shane kept running that cocky fuckin’ mouth of his Daryl was gonna end up feedin’ him his teeth.  Speaking of the my gorgeous hillbilly devil, he was next to our fire-pit, wiping down the 120.  Never saw a man spit shine his bow or bolts as much as he did, but boy did I love watching him do it. 

“Hey,”  He spat, shooting a glare at the deputy, his grip tightening on the stock so hard I think I heard it crack.  “Choose yer words more carefully.” 

“No, douche-bag is what I meant,”  Shane repeated, brushing off the fact that a man that hated his guts was holding onto a deadly and had every intent to murder him in his sleep. 

I flipped the idiot off. 

“So you and Daryl?”  Lori asked snottily, throwing in her two cents.  “That’s your big plan?”

My eyes snapped to hers and narrowed.  Was this bitch for real?  It was her fuckin’ mouth that got her husband into this, it was her fuckin’ idea.  But Rick wasn’t paying attention to his wife and her protests or her big spiel about leaving her and their son defenseless.  That one sure ruffled Shane’s feather.  Why wasn’t Rick paying her any mind, well he was far to busy giving Glenn, what I now refer to as, the guilty eye.

“Awe, come on,”  Glenn groaned, looking at Rick.

“You know the way,”  Rick pleaded.  “In and out, no problems, you said it yourself.  It’s not fair of me to ask, but it would make me feel better.  And I know she would too.”  Rick explained further, pointing to his wife who was still glaring at her husband like he just pissed in her cheerio’s. 

Why you manipulative… I was really starting to like Rick.

When Glenn sighed and dropped his head I knew Rick had won this battle, as for convincing Shane, not so much. 

“That’s just great,” Shane sneered, further proving my point.  “so you’re going to risk three men, now?”

T-dog stood proudly, his hands coiled as he added.  “Four.”

Daryl scoffed next to me.  “My day jus get’s better an’ better, don’t it?” 

Smacking his arm, I hissed at him to hush, the big fuckin’ baby.  Sure I was still pretty miffed about what they did to Merle, especially since the main reason the others were going was for the bag of guns Rick promised and not Daryl’s brother, or at least that how they validated going.  But I was a firm believer that beggars can’t be choosers and this was the best shot he had at finding Merle.  He was lucky they offered to go at all.

I couldn’t deny the guilt I felt as well over all of this.  If hadn’t been for my Franken-face, Merle would have never offered to go with the others.  Daryl tried to tell me otherwise, to tell me that Merle had gone because he was running out drugs, I slapped him hard and made him promise never to feed me such an utter line of bullshit again.  I had seen Merle stash bag with my own eyes, fuck it was in his saddle bags of his bike for fucks sake, and he had over an ounce of crystal-meth, more than plenty to get him through the next month, especially with all the other goodies he had floating around in that zip-lock bag.  So yeah, I called Daryl on his bullshit lie. 

He didn’t like it and I didn’t like the fact that he’d lied to me, even if it was to protect my feelings.  But as always we made up quickly, both apologizing for our short fuses.  I always found it fuckin’ hilarious that two people so quick to shoot their mouths off as much as Daryl and I did, could never stay mad at each other for more than a couple hours, and that was pushing it. 

Speaking of stitches, my were itching like crazy and the harsh Georgia sun wasn’t helping at all.  The hotter it got, the more I sweat.  The more I sweat, the more it itched.  I couldn’t even wear bandages anymore, they just refused to stick to my face.  So I switched out bandages during the day for salve, it was disgusting and felt like a giant loogie on the side of my face but it was better than sting of sweat.

T-dog glared at Daryl from where he stood, at a safe distance.  “You see anyone else steppin’ up to save you’re brother’s cracker-ass?”  He held his arms out to the rest of the group for emphasis but it was unnecessary, we already that no one carried if Merle stayed gone.  Pansies.

Daryl jerked his head in T’s direction.  “Why you?” 

T-dog responded with something that I didn’t quiet catch, mostly cause Shane was glaring at me again, but whatever T had said he’d just earned the grudging respect of Daryl.  Though, I doubt T-dog would be hearing anything about it anytime soon.

“You’re putting every one of us at risk…”  And with that shitty comment, I turned around and busied myself with more tidying of the now, blessedly, aired out tent and gathering my basket of clothes to wash.  Daryl’s clothes definitely needed it. 

Daryl must have been thinking along the same lines as I was about Shane as he entered the tent a few minutes after me, cursing under his breath.

“You alright?”  I asked him, cupping his red cheeks.  Boy was he pissed off. He nuzzled my palm for a split second before he kissed it and jerked away.

“Fine.”  He grumbled with growling, kicking at his pack and biting his thumb. 

Grabbing his arms, I stilled him.  “Hey, don’t let that prick get to ya, all right?” 

He nodded.

~

If A is a success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z.  Work is X; Y is play; and Z is keeping your mouth shut.  ~ Albert Einstein

An hour had passed by the time Rick finally had the rest of the volunteers ready to head out and Daryl was already fit to be tied.  He paced around the same white cube truck, cursing and about ready to spit nails. By that time and I had already done everything in my arsenal as a woman to keep him from going stir-crazy, which included a neck rub and a quick blow-job in the woods, he enjoyed his treats well enough but nothing would still him.  He was a fuckin’ mad man and it tore at my insides that I couldn’t do anything more to help him. 

Finally fed up with waiting, Daryl climbed into the trailer of the truck, curses still spewing from his mouth and anxiously biting at his thumb nail as he paced.  I had gone with him to help turn the truck around and I was constantly rubbing his arm in a failing attempt to keep him from losing his temper again.  It was no use. 

Angrily he walked to the cab of the truck where Glenn was sitting, stuck his leg through and started layin’ on the horn with his boot.  “Come on!  Let’s go!”  He yelled, pacing back to the roll-up door.   

Huffing with impatience he spat, “Can ya fuckin’ believe this shit?” as he watched Rick and T-dog still speaking with Dale and Jim.  I could understand where he was coming from, if it were my brother I would’ve held the whole fuckin’ camp at gun point.  Every hour they stood around was an hour Merle was out on that rooftop alone.  He’d already spent a day and a night up there with no food, water or shelter. 

“Hey,”  I called his attention.  “I love you, stay safe out there.” 

“Always do.”  He replied with a curt nod. 

Sighing, I turned away.  He was in no mood to hear my sentiments, his one-track mind was steadfast on finding Merle.  With a little hop to the ground, I turned and started back towards camp.  As I walked away, feeling pretty shitty about the day in general something occurred to me and I briefly wondered if Daryl had given any thought to it.  How was Merle gonna react when they found him?  I didn’t think it would be all hugs n’ puppies, that was for damn sure. 

“Hey!”  he shouted at my back as the engine cranked and I turned.  “Ya’know I love ya.”

Smiling, I nodded. 

Daryl cast me once last parting glance.  It was short but his eyes said so much.  They told me to stay safe.  They told me I was beautiful.  They told me he loved me and that was all I needed to know.

I watched for as long as I could see the truck before I turned back towards camp, thinking of what I might do while he was gone to keep myself from going crazy. 

Deciding that I wasn’t ready to make friends this early in the morning, I thought more firewood might be on the list of things to be done around here.  After all our only hunter, excluding myself was now on his way Atlanta. 

After promising Dale that I wouldn’t wander too far, I set out on a well worn path compound strapped to my back and axe in hand.  As promised, I didn’t wander far and really with all the firewood I had chopped earlier it wasn’t really needed, it was more an excuse not to be bothered.  It gave me the time I needed to pull up my big girl panties for what I had to do next.  As much as I fuckin’ loathed to do it, I had to go make nice with the townies.  Daryl was enough anti-social for the both of us and like I said before, safety in numbers.  It was nice to sleep at least a full six hours a night, knowing there were always eyes watching. 

So for the sake of sleep and my sanity, I would play nice. 

With my new resolve I dumped my firewood off at several pit’s around camp and headed back to the tent to grab my laundry.  I could see that their was several woman already down there, actually the only ones I didn’t see were Miranda and Lori.

Lori, weirdly enough, came thudding out of the woods a few minutes later , sounding more like a bull elephant than a woman.  When she saw me she stopped and gave an awkward smile.  Yeah, that makes two of us, lady. 

“I’m sorry,”  she blurted a second later.  My eyebrow shot up but she continued before I could ask.  “For what I said… about Daryl’s brother, I can tell you two were close.”

Both brows shot up this time before I doubled over in a peel of laughter.  She looked very confused but she started to laugh along with me as I began slapping my knees and wiping the tears from my eyes.  “Oh…”  still chuckling.  “If you only knew.” 

This time it was her turn to gape.

“Not like that… ew.”  I told her showing my distaste by curling my nose.  “No, what I meant is… I understand.  The first time I met Daryl, I threw Merle out of the bar I was workin’ at.  Called him everythin’ but his name and it took me three months before I would even speak to the prick again.  If ya had told me eight years ago that I would defend Merle Dixon fer anything, I probably would have punched ya in the mouth.”

She snorted, shaking her head as she asked.  “Eight years? How old are you?”

“Thirty-one, why?” 

“You don’t look it.  You said you’ve been with Daryl eight years, what’s that like?”  She asked, truly intrigued.  I guess it wasn’t so far fetched to assume the rest of the Atlanta survivors were all a little curious about the younger Dixon.  Daryl wasn’t exactly big on small talk, especially with strangers and already agitated.

Shrugging off the bit of offence I took to the question, I answered her the best I could.  “I guess like most couples.  I was reluctant at first to get messed up with Daryl,”  at her look of smugness, I added.  “But not fer the reason yer thinkin’; Daryl worked for an out of town construction company, based in my home town.  I was scared I’d get attached and that he’d leave.  It never happened.  After three months of comin’ in the bar I worked at least once a day, I finally went on a date with him.  Been with ‘em ever since.”

She giggled at the thought.  “Daryl seems older than you?” 

Yes, I agreed he did, mostly because of the years of hard labor he put himself through.  “By five years.”  I answered.  “And three months.”

“I really am sorry.”  She said after a minute.

I brushed it off.  “Don’t worry about it.”

As we approached the R.V., Dale gave us a wave as Lori shielded her eyes and asked if he’d seen Carl.  He smiled back and dramatically answered.

“Shane took him down to the quarry, there was some mighty bold talk about catchin’ frogs.” 

As she looked over the bluff with a scowl, I motioned to the laundry I had sitting out by the tent.  “Well, Daryl’s nasty-ass clothes aren’t gonna clean themselves. I better get down there.”  With a laugh over my shoulder I added.  “I just hope I don’t kill off the fish population with Merle’s underwear.”

She laughed hard and apparently Dale heard me as well because he was red in the face and looked about ready to fall out of his lawn chair.

My stomach fluttered as I approached the gossiping foursome at the bottom of the quarry and groaned when I saw that Ed was on watch duty.  To me it was code for sitting on your ass doing nothing, duty. 

All four women looked up as I approached some of them giving me timid smiles and others were wary. Andrea was one of them, but then again, I guess I deserved it.  I mean, I did threaten to cut her face off.  I reminded myself to tell Daryl about that one later, he’d get a kick out of it. 

Forgoing pleasantries, I pulled off my boots, rolled up my jeans and started my scrubbing but thankfully the dark skinned woman Jacqui offered a cup of crudely mix of detergent and a thick scrubbing brush.  As she handed it over she smirked.  “If yer washin’ for them Dixon boys, yer gonna need this.”  All the girls cracked up at that and it gave me the boost of confidence I needed to say what I needed to say.

“I wanted to apologize,”  I started quickly, swallowing my nerves as everyone went quiet.  “Especially to you, Andrea, it was uncalled for.  I was angry.”

Surprisingly she didn’t get lippy or smartass, she just smiled at me and went on about her business.  As we worked the topic of what we missed the most came up.  It ranged from everything from Carol’s Maytag washer, Jacqui’s coffee maker and Amy’s phone. 

“What do you miss? Lillian, right?”  Carol asked with a polite and genuine smile.

I nodded.  “Call me Lil’, and I miss my bathroom.”  I added with a mournful sigh.

Amy cocked a brow.  “Your bathroom?” 

With a shrug.  “Well yeah, Daryl custom built the damn thing, my tub was my baby.” 

All the girls looked at me with mouths open.  “What?”

“Ya are talkin’ ‘bout Daryl Dixon, right?”  Jacqui asked, ringing out a shirt before slapping it to her knee and dunking it again. 

I rolled my eye, they’d never understand. 

With a casual wave of her scrub brush, Andrea piped in.  “I miss my vibrator.”

Carol cut her eyes over as Jacqui made a hmm-mmm noise in the back of her throat with the “you nasty” look to match as we all giggled.

But it was Carol’s sneaky sweep of the surroundings before adding, “Me too.”  that had us all rolling on the floor.  Yeah, I guess I’d miss my vibrator too if I had to fuck a man like Ed.  The very thought had me shuddering.  Just ewww.

It really seemed to lighten the work load, joking around the way we were and it finally made me feel welcome.  Well, until that fuckin’ pig of a man decided he didn’t like how much noise we made.

Strutting over to us like a was king cock of the hen house, Ed took a drag of his smoke.  “What’s so funny?”

We all turned to give the bastard cheeky smiles but Andrea shot him shit first.  “Just swappin’ war stories, Ed.”  It didn’t surprise me in the slightest, I could tell from first meeting the blonde that she wasn’t the type to put up with a Ed’s caveman like attitude. 

As the asshole lingered it was clear that he made everybody nervous, myself included.  I could already see it in his eyes, he was lookin’ to pick a fight and as stupid as he may have appeared, he wasn’t.  He knew Andrea’d take the bait and she didn’t disappoint. 

“Problem, Ed?”  She asked, clearly done with his intimidating attitude.  I had news for that fuckin’ dick, she wasn’t the only one. 

He took another puff.  “None that concerns you.”  he sneered before turning his nose down at his wife.  “You outta focus on yer work. This ain’t no comedy club.” 

Now that right there, pissed me off.  Who the fuck was this pig to tell us we couldn’t laugh while we were actually doin’ something while that bastard sat on his high fuckin’ horse all day, smokin’ cigarettes and barkin’ out orders.  Fuck him!  There was only three men in my life who have ever earned the privilege to tell me what to do; two of them are dead, you do the math.

Andrea scoffed and I discreetly whispered to her that this wasn’t the best of times to start shit with a man that we all knew was violent and outweighed her by a good hundred pounds.  She gave me a look that said she could take care of herself and while I believed that she could more than pull her weight with words, when the shit really hit the fan, I wasn’t so confident.  I think the first time Ed really showed her what he’s capable off it was gonna freak her out.

Have I ever mentioned that I hated being right?

Completely ignoring my previous warning, Andrea stood, swaggering her hips.  “Ed, tell ya what? If you don’t like how you’re laundry’s done you’re more than welcome to pitch in and do it yourself.”  Tossing the shirt she’d been scrubbing, she snarkly said.  “Here.” 

His whole demeanor changed in that moment as he threw the shirt back at her with force, smacking her in the face with it.  I stood up, already dreading that look in his eyes.  “Ain’t my job missy.” 

With that Amy stood as well, pleading with her sister to keep her mouth shut, again she didn’t listen and I just knew somehow I’d end up involved in this.  Sighing to myself, I moved closer.  Daryl’s gonna be pissed.  He hated it when I involved myself in other people’s business but I wasn’t about to stand around and watch Ed smack the shit out of an innocent woman, it would go everything I was raised on. 

“What is your job, Ed?”  The blonde asked, advancing into the much larger man’s personal space.  I hissed at her to back up but she just kept going.  “Sitting on your ass, smoking cigarettes?” 

I could tell Carol was already fighting back tears, and of course I knew why.  Poor thing would be the one who really paid for Andrea’s smart mouth, Ed would take it out on her later. 

“Sure as hell ain’t listenin’ to some uppity, smart mouth bitch, tell ya what.”  He replied coolly, blowing a puff of smoke in her face, baiting her further. 

Ed cut a glare over to Carol and she was all but breaking down in Jacqui’s arms.  “C’mon, let’s go.”  He hollered.  Red with embarrassment and tears she made to follow, but Andrea wasn’t done yet.

“I don’t think she needs to go anywhere with you, Ed.”  She said, taking a stance I’ve always called “the puff”.  She was putting up a tough front, a really good one but I knew she was gonna crumble as soon as he lashed out.  And boy howdy, was it comin’.

Looking straight over her head, he replied.  “Told ya, it ain’t none of yer business.”  before he called Carol to him again.  Deeper lines of annoyance were etched into his forehead.  He was reaching his breaking point.  I had seen it many times with many of my mother’s lovers. 

Carol really upset now, begged Andrea to let it go, that everything would be fine.  But I think we all knew that was bullshit.  Andrea had already pushed him to far and nothing short of a divine intervention would save her from him now.  Even if we kept him away from her during the day, he’d get her later when we weren’t watchin’. 

Ed came forward then, flicking his butt into the water before sticking his meaty finger in Andrea’s face.  Here we go.

“Don’t think I won’t knock you on yer ass, just cause your some college educated cooze.” 

She scoffed indignantly and I blew my top.  “Fuck you, fat man.  Jus ‘cause ya beat on yer own family don’t give ya the right to wave yer little cock around at us!”  I snarled.

He turned that hateful gaze on me before directing that same finger directly at my nose.  “That goes for scared up whores, too.”  Turning back to Carol with a look that said ‘I’m done fuckin’ around, he declared.  “You c’mon now, or yer gonna regret it later.”

Ignoring what he said to me entirely, my hackles rose as he blatantly threatened Carol in front of us.  Jacqui stepped forward, murder in her stare.  “So she can show up with fresh bruises later, Ed?  Yeah, we’ve seen them.” 

He chuckled then, like he wasn’t at all concerned with a pack of mouthy women and hollered once more for his wife to come on.  It was getting intense and I could feel my knees starting to tremble from the rush of adrenaline as Ed stepped forward and grabbed Carol’s arm, with what I’m sure was bruising force. 

All at once the dam broke and Ed wrapped Carol hard across the face.  Something inside me snapped, perhaps the memories of that same feeling before I charged forward and struck him with all my might.  Cries of outrage filled the air as Carol sobbed but I didn’t have time to think about it. 

It took one look in his wide eyes for me to regret hitting him.  Not the I regretted the cause, just that I should have been smarter, I should have kept my mouth closed and waited.  Daryl would have handled it if I asked him, hell even Shane or Rick didn’t seem like the type to stand idly by and watch something like this.  But it was too late, the damage was done and I didn’t even have time to shield myself before Ed’s gigantic fist came forward and connected with my face, the left side of my face.

I felt my skin part as white exploded behind my eyes and then I was falling, not stopping until I felt the cool quarry water as my back hit the bank.  Then it was dark.