Breathe Princess (Daryl Dixon Love Story)

Chapter Fifty Five

Aaron came too not long after Rick had punched him and the others had tied him up. He gave this long winded speech about us being good people, telling us that there was one more person out there along route 16 waiting for the group to see if they could bring us all back.

Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Abraham and Rosita all left in a group to go and see if they could find this other mysterious person that was waiting for Aaron to return; the rest of us all leaving the barn to keep watch around the perimeter. Rick stayed behind for Judith and to keep an eye on Aaron where as I stood with Daryl; everyone else in groups of two spread out around the barn.

"Are you okay?" I asked Daryl after a few minutes of standing around in silence, our backs facing the barn and my gun in my hand. I didn't know if I was going to need to fire it any time soon but it was good to have it with me; Daryl on the other hand held his crossbow as usual.

"I'm fine, Annora." He wasn't, I knew he wasn't. After everything that had happened with Beth back at the hospital there was no way he was going to be okay.

He had cared about her, in the time that we had spent away from the prison and out in the woods, he had become fond of her.

"Well, I'm not." He didn't look over to me even as I spoke. "I miss her, and Ty." Daryl sighed and finally looked towards me, dropping his cross bow to his side as we spoke.

"I wish I could have saved you sooner, I tried but then Carol got taken and I knew I was out of my depth on my own," He began talking, the guilt in his eyes was evident. "I needed the others to take them all on."
"I know, I don't hold that against you Daryl, you found us and that's all I was hoping for." I let go of my pistol with my left hand and grabbed hold of his free one, lacing my fingers with his. "Even after everything that's happened we still have each other, we're gonna be okay and maybe this thing with Aaron works out, maybe we can actually be safe for once." The idea was something I'd never given much thought to over the time we'd been living in this world, even with the prison once being our secure home. I'd never been able to actually calm myself enough to enjoy the moment of being alive but now here we were, still breathing, still fighting and hopefully this community would be a real thing and we could actually build a life for ourselves; Daryl and I could build a life.

It wasn't long before the others returned, bags filled with cans of food that were now thrown across a table at the back of the barn; all of us standing around as Rick inspected it.

"All of this is ours now."
"There's more than enough." Aaron nodded at Ricks' words.

"It's ours, whether or not we go to your camp." Ricks' authority was coming through with every word he spoke. This world was doing crazy things to everyone but Rick? Rick had had enough by now and even though I knew he was a good person, I knew what he was capable of doing to keep us and the rest of his family safe.
"Why wouldn't we go?" Carl stepped up from beside me.

"Rick, if he wanted to kill us or ambush us, he would have. We need this." I finally spoke up, everyone's attention suddenly on me. I wasn't usually the one to speak up about things like this, but this community gave us a chance to actually start living a life again; I wasn't about to pass up that opportunity.

"All of us are going," Michonne interjected, casting glances around the entire group. "Somebody speak up now if they feel differently." No one spoke and a silence fell upon the group.

Rick nodded and instructed us to eat and get some sleep; we were going to be leaving at sundown to make our way there.

I grabbed a can of beans and opened it easily with my knife. Baked beans when they were cold was no my favourite thing in the world but it was better than eating crushed up nuts and berries so I quickly dug in, eating the entire can before it barely touched the sides.