found lands → the walking dead ³

[ 008 ] i'm sorry i left, but it was for the best, though it never felt right.

FOUND LANDS.

chapter eight, i'm sorry i left, but it was for
the best, though it never felt right.
[ season five, episode eight ]

IT'S A GOOD THING Daryl decided they needed three hostages instead of two because now they were down to two. Lamson, the one Noah said was good, knocked Sasha out and escaped.

Rick hit him with his own police cruiser. Then he shot him in the head. He left his body there for the walkers to feast on.

Odessa sits with her knees pulled to her chest. Her heart pounds.

"Hey," Shepard says. Odessa looks to her. "You're too young to be doing this, kid."

Odessa rolls her eyes. "You should meet my brother."

Shepard's brows dip. "Is your brother younger than you?"

"He's about to be fourteen." Odessa nods. "I'm turning eighteen in the winter."

She doesn't know why she answers them but she does. Daryl glances at her. "Dessa." He says suddenly.

She looks over at him and he nods her over. She glances at Shepard and moves towards Daryl. She stops about five feet away from him.

"I ain't gonna hurt ya, Des." He looks up at her. "I wouldn't ever do that."

"I know." She tells him. "I promise, I know."

Daryl nods and looks down at the dirt and dust under his feet. "I'm worried 'bout ya." He admits.

"Oh?" Odessa says. She's shocked Daryl would admit something like that. He's never ever done that before. "I'm fine, Daryl. Scout's honor."

"You can't lie to me." He says.

Both of them know it's the truth. Odessa can lie to Rick and Carl and Glenn and Michonne and Maggie and anyone else. But not to Daryl. He sees straight through her because he knows her. He is her.

Odessa's lips shake and tears well in her eyes. But they don't spill. "I'm tired, Daryl. I'm so tired." She whispers as if she's too afraid to admit it out loud.

Daryl nods. He knows how she feels. It felt when they were all separated. When he watched Hershel die, when Beth was taken, when he nearly allowed Michone and Rick to almost get murdered and Carl assaulted.

He blamed himself for it all. And now Odessa is blaming herself for what happened to her. "You can't do that. Blame yourself. It ain't your fault, Des."

"I shouldn't have left the church." Her voice cracks and it causes Daryl's own heart to crack right down the middle. This girl— she's so broken, he realizes. He's never seen a more broken and beat down child in his life. "I'm the reason this happened to me."

She's done, he sees that now. She's tired. She's so exhausted.

"No," Daryl shakes his head. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to curl in on yourself and blame it all on you."

Odessa blinks and her tears fall.

"You're stronger than that." He tells her. He wants to hug her but he knows that will on terrify her more.

Odessa can only sniff, wipe her eyes, and look away from Daryl. The man who had saved her countless times. The man who's become her second father.

She's so grateful for him n

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Carl and Theo are sitting together on a pew when they hear Gabriel screaming outside. When they hear the snarls.