Breathe Princess (Daryl Dixon Love Story)

Chapter Twenty Six

It was getting to sunrise by the time we'd made it properly out of the farm and onto the highway where Daryl was leading everyone.

We'd managed to pick up a couple of the cars on the way here, at least most of our group was safe.

I nearly laughed as we caught sight of Rick, Herschel and Carl, having already beat us here.

Rick walked over, clapping Daryl in a hand shake and holding one hand on my shoulder.

"You okay?" He asked, concern shining in his eyes.

"Sprained knee. I'll be okay." I weakly smiled and let him run to Lori as she stepped out of her car.

"Where'd you find everyone?" Rick turned to Daryl and myself, considering the fact that we'd been at the front of the group that was leading everyone.

"Well, with their tail lights zigzaggin' all over the road, figured they had to be Asian drivin' like that." Daryl laughs a little towards Glenn, earning a sarcastic remark in return and a light slap on the arm from me.

"Where is everyone else?" I asked, looking around the group at the people that were in the cars following us. No Andrea, no Patricia and no Shane.

"They didn't make it." Shit. I sighed and leant back against Daryl on the bike.

"We need to sort out your knee." Herschel pointed towards my leg but I shook my head.

"I can manage Herschel. We'll find somewhere to sleep, then we can worry about me." He gave me a pointed look but eventually decided that he wasn't going to win this particular fight and left me to it.

"We need to get going." Rick instructed everyone to try and find some extra fuel from the cars that were still around us. I hopped off the bike, limping around the highway staying close to the bike. It hurt to move pretty much at all, but I'd been through worse, I could handle a sprained knee.

"You okay?" Glenn asked, walking over to me with a half filled canister I assumed he'd gotten from about three different cars.

"I can manage." I nodded and pulled open the cap on the car, only managing to get a tea spoon of fuel out of it. "Another?" I ask with a smile, pointing over to several other cars and hopping my way towards them.

It ha taken us a while, and even with the little fuel we had, we filled up the cars and bike evenly and went on our way; me on the back of Daryl's bike this time, arms wrapped tightly around his middle so I wouldn't fall off.

I didn't know how long we had been riding for, but I know that we were now finally on a proper road, surrounded by foliage and tall trees, the leaves falling off onto the ground. Most of the time I loved fall, but now, it was a little hard to appreciate the beauty.

There was a honk of a horn that sounded behind us, forcing Daryl to pull over to the side of the road, us hopping off the bike and turning to look as the other made their way out of the car.

"You out?" I call, looking over at their exhausted faces. Not that I blamed them.
"Running on fumes." Rick answered, looking back at his car.

"We can't stay here." Maggie pointed out the obvious.

"We can't all fit in one car." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, trying desperately to think of what we could do. I hugged myself closer to Daryl as the wind bit at me. It was incredibly cold out at the minute and having the warmth of Daryl may not have been incredibly useful but it was all I had, not that I minded particularly.

"We'll have to make a run for fuel in the morning." Rick nodded to himself.

"And stay the night here?" Carol rose an eyebrow. It looked to me like she was starting to doubt Rick's abilities, not that I blamed her.

I wasn't saying that I was starting to doubt Rick, God no I was the furthest thing from it, but he really was starting to get tired of being the one who was looked at to make the final and hard decisions. Even though he didn't show it, I was starting to think that Shane dying may have taken a toll on him.

"I'm freezing." Carl complained, hugging a little closer to his mom. He wasn't the only one. By the redness of some people's cheeks and the fact they had their arms wrapped around themselves, it was easy to tell everyone was getting tired of the cold.

"We'll build a fire yeah?" Lori asked, rubbing a hand over Carls shoulder to create friction.

"If you go out lookin' for fire wood, stay close," Daryl spoke up from next to me, warning the rest of the group. He never really had any reason to worry about me wandering off in the first place, plus with my knee injury now thrown in, it was pretty easy for me to stay put. "Only got so many arrows. How you doin' on ammo?" Daryl continued, looking towards Rick.

"Not enough." Rick shook his head and was pacing, hopefully looking for places to set up camp for tonight.

"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie piped up, clearly getting annoyed by this whole situation, although Herschel was quick to interject.
"Everyone quit panicking and listen to Rick." At least someone was still on Rick's side.

"We'll set up a perimeter and then in the morning we'll head out to find gas and supplies. We'll keep pushing on." Rick decided once everyone had actually chosen to listen to him for once. It was a pretty good plan, plus it allowed everyone to get some rest. My knee was really starting to hurt now.

"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and get some gas." Maggie suggested but Rick stopped her, telling her that considering we didn't have enough fuel, he didn't want anyone going out on their own and getting stuck. No one would be able to find them. God I miss my cell phone.

"I know it looks bad now but we've been through worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure, I really wasn't, but we did. We're together, we keep it that way." Rick gave his little emotional speech, making me feel only a little bit better. He had a point. We were together now and that was all that I cared about. Being with the people that were slowly becoming my family.

"Rick, look around," Glenn stepped forward, panic on his face. "There's walkers everywhere they're migrating or something. No where's safe." Again, a very good point.