Dead End || Daryl Dixon

Chapter Sixteen

We all sat around a big table. I sat on a counter next to Daryl as he stood leaning against it. I smiling into my glass as I took another swig of my wine.

Daryl and I were sharing a bottle to ourselves and I was not mad about it. This is what we needed. This may be the best night sleep we get in a long time.

"You know, in Italy. Children have a little bit of wine with dinner. And in France" dale pointed out handing Lori a glass.

"Well when Carl is in Italy it France, he can have some"

"What's it gonna hurt? Come on" Rick said looking at his wife. Carl looked excited as dale poured him a little bit.

When he tested it the first thing he did was scrunch his nose. "Ewww" he said putting the glass down. "That's my boy" Lori chuckled tipping the rest of his glass into hers as we all laughed at his reaction.

I felt a hand slightly brush my knee, giving it a light squeeze. I looked up at Daryl with a light smile on my face. I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or what, but just the feeling of his hand on my thigh for that split second, was enough to get me going.

"Well, just stick to soda pop there, bud." Shane said.

"Not you Glenn." Daryl joked. "Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get." I chuckled with him as he poured more into Glenn's glass then turned to me, topping mine off as well.

"It seems to me we haven't thanked our host properly." Rick said standing up.

"He is more than just our host."

We all cheered, Daryl yelling 'booyah!' While taking a swig of the bottle. We all cheesed our glasses.

I finished off my glass, holding it over to Daryl. "Girl, ya better slow down. I ain't takin care of yer ass" he said and I rolled my eyes.

"Yes you would, I've taken care of you drink many times" I chuckled, some of the group laughing at my comment.

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane asked.

I scuffed, rolling my eyes. "Such a fucking buzz kill"

Shane glared over at me before looking back at Jenner. "All the- the other doctored that we're supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating, Shane" Rick said in annoyance. Of course Shane always has to ruin everything, go figure. "Don't need to do this now."

"Woah, wait a second. This is why we're here, right? This was your move, supposed to find all the answers. Instead we found, we found him" he scuffed, pointing over to Jenner. "We found one man, why?"

"Well, when things got bad, a lot of people just left, went off to be with their families. And when things got worse, when the military cordon got overrun, the rest bolted." Jenner explained.

I turned my gaze towards Daryl who sat back looking into the bottle of wine. I held my hand out and he looked up to me, handing me the bottle and I took another swig. I know I'm going to have quite the hangover tomorrow, but for tonight I'm gonna enjoy this.

"Every last one?" Shane questioned.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door. They... opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

"You didn't leave. Why?" Andrea asked.

"I just kept working, hoping to do some good."

"Dude, you are such a buzzkill man." Glenn said to Shane.