digging graves// rick grimes x OC//

What Lies Ahead Part 2

Riding with Daryl made Winona forget the fact the dead were walking the Earth. To say the least, she was having fun. Rick was driving behind the RV but could still see Winona and Daryl on the bike leading the group.
Lori chuckles, "You know, she always told me she was gonna ride a motorcycle one day. She even said that if no one was gonna let her, she would learn how to ride."
"That sounds like her," Rick replies, chuckling to himself, "She seems to be enjoying herself."
"I'd say," Carol pipes up from the back seat, "I've been worrying about her, she's been acting really differently lately."
"Yeah, I've noticed," Rick sighs, "She keeps brushing my questions about her behavior off."
Lori sighs and looks back to the road, changing the topic, "I'm just thinking about our trip to the Grand Canyon with Carl." Rick looks at her and smiles, starting to laugh at the memory.
"I don't remember that," Carl says.
Lori turns facing him, "No, you wouldn't. You were just a baby. Besides, we never made it past Fort Worth."
"No, you got sick," Rick begins to explain, "I never knew a baby could throw up so much."
"Ick," Carl says, grossed out.
"Yeah, ick," Lori laughs, "The doctor in Texas said you'd live. Then we'd turned around and drove home."
"That sucks," Carl states.
"No, it was a good trip," Lori smiles.
"The best," Rick looks towards her.
"Can we go see it? The Grand Canyon? I'd like to." Carl questions.
Sophia speaks up, "I would too. Can we go?"
"We'd never go without you and your mom. That's a promise," Rick said turning to face the young girl. Sophia smiles, laying her head back on Carol's shoulder.
——
In the RV, Shane is seething with anger. He's upset over losing both Winona and Lori. He sits at the table and begins to clean his gun to calm down. As he's cleaning the barrel, Andrea speaks up, "Looks complicated."
Shane replies, "The trick is getting all these pieces back together the same way." He looks up at the blonde, smirking, "I could clean yours, show you how." He reaches down into the bag of guns, pulling out the pistol Andrea uses. Shane examines it, "It's a sweet piece."
Andrea leans forward, looking at the man, "It was a gift from my father. He gave it to me just before Amy and I took off on our road trip. He said two girls on their own should be able to defend themselves."
"Smart man, your father," Shane states, he then starts to teach Andrea about her gun, "Look, it's a— it's a limited capacity. See? Only holds seven rounds."
"Oh jeez," Dale says suddenly. Shane turns a round and Andrea looks out the window. The sight in front of them held abandoned cars and a flipped 18-wheeler. There was no way they could get around it. Dale stopped the RV, also causing Rick to come to a stop in his car.
Winona and Daryl were riding ahead, she leaned next to his ear so he could hear her, "Is there any clearing you see? To get around?"
"Yeah. It might be tight ," Daryl answers.
He turns the bike around and heads back towards the RV, Dale speaks, "See a way though?" The redneck nods signaling him to follow.
Glenn looks at the map, "Uh, maybe we should just go back. There's an interstate bypass—"
"We can't spare the fuel," Dale cuts him off.
——
Weaving through the abandoned cars and debris, the group see corpses of families and flipped cars. Suddenly, the RV makes a dreadful noise, causing Winona to turn around and look, she sees steam coming out of the front. She pats Daryl, "Something's up with the RV." She feels him nod and stop the bike. Everyone piles out of their vehicles, Dale shaking his head, "I said it. Didn't I say it? A thousand times. Dead in the water."
Glenn goes to stand next to Winona and Daryl. Shane walks over to the grumbling old man, "Problem, Dale?"
"He still have a stick up his ass?" Winona mutters to Glenn, Daryl stifles a chuckle.
Glenn leans over to Winona, whispering, "He's been like this the whole ride. Save me, Wi, I don't know how much longer I can take his angry mumbling."
The three tune back into the conversation, "Just a small matter of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with no hope of—" Dale stops, watching as Winona and Daryl begin to look through the surrounding cars, "Okay, that was dumb."
"If you can't find a radiator hose here..." Shane says.
"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find," Daryl huffs.
T-Dog steps forward, "I can siphon more fuel from these cars for a start."
"Maybe some water," Carol says.
"Or food," Glenn brings up.
"This is a graveyard," Lori looks around, "I don't know how I feel about this."
"Well then, Lor, simply look away," Winona says as she goes into the RV to grab her backpack. Everyone splits off to look for supplies.
Winona finds medical supplies here and there, mainly just first aid kits but they'll still come in handy. She continues wandering around, when she spots Rick. Going up to the man, Winona snatches his hat, he turns around to see her put it on, "There's a new sheriff in town, and she taking names and digging graves."
Rick chuckles, "Sheriff Graves? That's got a nice ring to it. The hat looks good on you."
Winona blushes, but quickly covers, "Very funny, Grimes, but watch out or I might just take your title." She takes the cowboy hat off and puts it back on Rick, walking away towards another car. He chuckles to himself as he sees her walk away.
Winona walks over to the RV and sees Dale teaching Glenn. "Which one?" Glenn asks.
"The flathead," Dale and Winona answer in unison. Dale smiles and turns back to Glenn, "Radiator hose clamp is always a flathead," he hands the screwdriver to the younger man, "Here, you do it. Learn something."
Patting Glenn on the back, he motions Winona to follow, "What's up, Pops?"
"Winona, are you alright? You've been acting strange since the C.D.C. And I saw those bruises on your neck. Was it Shane?"
Her eyes go wide, but she sighs and rubs her forehead, "God, Pops, why do you have to be so observant? Um... let's just say drunk Shane is not fun to be around."
"What happened, Winona?"
"He tried to do stuff to me. I'm not going to go in detail, I assume you can piece it together. It was the first night we were in the C.D.C. He's gotten worse since camp, he's been treating me like shit. It's borderline abusive, and we're not even in a relationship anymore!"
Dale hugged the woman, "Have you told Rick? He needs to know."
"I haven't and I won't. That's still his best friend. He's already been asking me why I've been behaving differently, but I keep avoiding the question. I'm just going to continue to stay away from Shane."
"You need to tell him."
"I don't. How are you so sure he would believe me anyways?"
"Because he cares for you, I can see that even with my old eyes. He doesn't want you getting hurt."
She sighs, "Maybe. Just not right now, there's too much uncertainty." Dale nods and the two walk towards the back of the RV.
Unbeknownst to Winona, Rick had overheard her and Dale's conversation. He was about to give Dale the binoculars and heard Winona. He was furious with Shane, his heart broke hearing what she was going through. However, he couldn't let that show, he heard the two walking over to where he was. He runs over to a nearby car and then begins to walk back over to the RV, to appear like he hadn't been over there to have heard their conversation. Winona stiffens when she see him, hoping he hadn't overheard. Rick notices, "Here, Dale," he hands the binoculars over, "I just came over to return these." He turns to Winona, "I'm about to go take watch, wanna help?"
Her heart drops to her stomach, "𝐇𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭'𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞'𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐲," she thought to herself.
He awaited her response, "Graves?"
"Huh? Oh! Yeah, sure," she hesitantly agrees, waving goodbye to Dale. He waved and began to climb to the roof of the RV to take watch from a high viewpoint.
——
The two begin to walk away from the group, Rick clears his throat, searching for the words, "So... uh... how have you been? I feel like I've barely seen you these past few days."
Winona tenses, "Well that makes sense, Cowboy, we've— uh— we've been busy," she coughs trying to break the tension, "But you know, same old same old, just the dead walking around."
They stop walking as they reach where they would be on watch. Rick looks towards the woman, "Winona, you know you can talk to me right?" Before she could respond, they start to hear footsteps. Rick raises the hunting rifle, peeking through the scope, he whispers, "It's just one walker." He proceeds to load the gun, aiming at the lone walker, until he sees another come out from behind the flipped car. Then more began to pour in, "Oh Christ," Rick whispers. He grabs Winona's hand pulling her down behind a car and signaling her to be quiet. Her heart was pounding.
Rick gives a countdown and she nods, understanding. He grabs her hand and they run back towards the group. Seeing Lori, Rick shouts a whisper, "Lori, under the cars!"
Winona looks around and lets go of Rick's hand. Finding the kids, she whispers at them, "Carl, Sophia, get down now!" She watches as the two get under cars and Lori and Carol go under the same one.
"Winona, come on!" Rick quietly shouts. She slides under the car and Rick follows, they're both laying on their backs. He grabs his gun and the two have to stay close to each other, Winona blames the pounding of her heart on fear.
Laying in terror as the feet of many walkers drag by, Winona watches Lori having to shush Carol. Rick looks back at them and signals them to keep quiet. Winona grabs Rick's hat and puts it on her stomach to give them more room. As more walkers limp by, she becomes increasingly worried and grabs on to his hand. When she realizes, she tries to let go, but he squeezes her hand, reassuring her and keeping it close.
Rick looks over to the car which his son was under, bringing a finger to his lips, he gestures for Carl to stay quiet. He rolls back over to silently ask if Winona is okay, she nods in reply. They continue to stay under the cars to be sure no walkers catch them by surprise.
Sophia, however, believes it's okay to leave her hiding spot. Winona sees her slowly inching out, and before she can stop Sophia, a walker takes notice of the girl. Sophia shrieks as the walker drops down to crawl after her. Carol begins to cry, Lori shushing her. Rick looks at Lori, then to Winona, they watch as the young girl crawl under the guide-rail and into the woods, two walkers hot on her tail. Rick let's go of Winona's hand and slides out from under the car, chasing after the girl. Winona comes out too, but Rick turns around stopping her, "Stay here, I don't want you getting hurt out there, okay? I'll be back."
"But, Rick—" before she could finish, he was already out of sight.
Carol gets out of her spot running over to the guide-rail, sobbing, "Lori. There's two walkers after my baby." Lori continues to shush her, afraid to gain the attention of the walkers that just passed.
Winona looks around, seeing the group had gathered around, other than T-Dog and Daryl. She goes over to Glenn, "Hey, have you seen T? Or Daryl?"
Glenn pulls her aside and hugs her, "Oh thank God, you're alright. I was worried, I didn't see if you got under a car fast enough."
"Yeah, Rick got me under one pretty quickly," Glenn raises his eyebrow at that, "Zip it Glenn. Anyways... Daryl or T-Dog?"
"No, haven't seen them since the RV. I was by Shane and all of a sudden he started pulling me under a car."
"Shit... I'm getting nervous. They would've met up with us already."
——
Rick comes back, but before anything is said, Winona spots Daryl helping T-Dog walk. Daryl sees her, "Wi, I need some help over here."
She pats Glenn and races over, seeing T-Dog with an intense cut down his arm, "Shit. What the hell happened?"
"When I saw the geeks coming, I dropped down, slicing my arm up on a broken car door," T-Dog tells the woman.
She nods, "Rhee, grab my backpack from the RV, and quickly. Dixon, I need you to apply pressure on his cut. I need to create a tourniquet to stop your bleeding while I patch you up, okay?"
"Yes, Doctor," they all respond, chuckling.
"I'm serious." Glenn nods and runs towards the RV, Daryl begins to apply pressure.
Rick watches in admiration, but quickly regathers his thoughts and begins to talk to Shane about what happened.
Glenn returns with Winona's bag, she opens it and begins to dig through it. She pulls out her mini suture kit, gauze, hydrogen peroxide, and a bandana. She first makes the tourniquet with the bandana, "Glenn, you need to keep T awake. I don't want him going unconscious, okay?" Glenn nods and begins to supervise the injured man. She looks up at T-Dog, hesitating, "This is gonna hurt like hell, but I need to clean it so it doesn't get infected."
"Come on, Wi, just do it already," T-Dog says in huffs. The woman nods, pouring the liquid onto the cut, disinfecting it in the process. He grimaces but she continues, opening her suture kit and sewing his arm up to the best of her ability. She was running out of thread, so she couldn't close the wound up as much as she would like.
Once she finishes, she covers his wound in gauze and wraps it with a bandage, "All done, just please let me monitor it and try not to reopen it, okay?"
"Yes ma'am," T-Dog says, exhausted.
"Glenn, can you take T to the RV so he can rest?"
"Of course, Dr. Graves," Glenn lets out a laugh, she in turn smacks his arm, "Alright, alright, I'm going."
Rick comes over, "Seems like you're a pretty good doctor, huh, Graves?"
"Are you saying you doubted my abilities, Grimes?"
"Never," he smirks, "I mean... you are the one who took care of me for months."
She lightly punches his arm, "So what happened? Where's Sophia? Is she with Carol?"
"About that... I had to draw the walkers away, I told her to stay in a hiding spot until I came back for her. I told her if I didn't come back for awhile, to go back to the camp, I even gave her directions," he shakes his head and puts his palm over his face, "God, I should've just stayed with her. I lost a little girl."
Winona rubs Rick's back, "Grimes, you can't beat yourself up, you did what you thought was the best course of action. I'm sure we'll find her, Daryl is one hell of a tracker."
"Yeah, you're right. Thanks, Winona," Rick smiles, going to find Daryl.
——
She decides to join Rick, Glenn, Daryl, and Shane as they all head back into the woods to look for the little girl.
As they reach a creek, Daryl speaks up, "Sure this is the spot?"
Rick steps forward recounting what happened, "I left her right here. I drew the walkers way off in that direction up the creek."
"Without a paddle— seems where we've landed," Daryl replies.
"She was gone by the time I got back here," Rick continues, "I figured she just took off and ran back to the group. I told her to go that way and keep the sun on her left shoulder."
Daryl walks over to where Glenn is, "Hey, short round, why don't you step off to one side? You're mucking up the trail."
Shane speaks up, "Assuming she knows her left from her right."
"Shane, she understood me fine," Rick insists.
"She's Carl's age, and he knows his left from his right," Winona says.
"Whatever," Shane scoffs at her turning back towards Rick, "Kid's tired and scared, man. She had her a close call with two walkers. Got to wonder how much of what you said stuck."
"Got clear prints right here," Daryl cuts in, "She did like you said, headed back to the highway. Let's spread out, make our way back."
Shane pulls up Rick, and Rick pulls up Winona. She turns to him, "Hey, we're gonna find her, Cowboy."
Shane nods, "She'll be tuckered out hiding in a bush somewhere."
——
As they follow Daryl, he suddenly squats down, "She was doing just fine till right here. All she had to do was keep going. She veered off that way," he says pointing.
"Why would she do that?" Glenn asks.
"Maybe she saw something that spooked her, made her run off," Shane theorizes.
"A walker?" Glenn questions.
"I don't see any other footprints. Just hers," Daryl states.
"So what do we do? All of us press on?" Winona asks.
Rick shakes his head, "No, better if you, Glenn, and Shane get back up to the highway. People are gonna start panicking. Winona you should be up there to check on T-Dog or anyone who may have gotten hurt. Shane, let them know we're on her trail doing everything we can. But most of all," he looks towards Winona, "keep everybody calm."
"I'll keep 'em busy scavenging cars. Think up a few other chores. I'll keep 'em occupied," Shane speaks.
The three begin to walk away, but Rick stops Winona, "Hey, be careful, okay?" He mainly said this because she's leaving with Shane but also because he was worried something would happen to her when he's not there. He couldn't explain why he was anxious over her, he knew she could handle her own, but it was the fact if she needed him he couldn't be there.
"Yeah, of course, Cowboy. You too," she salutes him and catches up to Glenn. Daryl starts to lead Rick on Sophia's trail.
——
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