RIDE OR DIE | DARYL DIXON

the giver

BOB PASSED early the next morning.

The group had sat with him for a while during the night to say their goodbyes as they could see him getting closer to leaving them. Sasha didn't leave his side until he went, and when he did, she got up without a word and began making a cross for him. Tyreese did what he had to do to prevent Bob from turning as some of the others dug his grave. He brought his body out to them, laying it down gently in the grass while they dug. But he brought the other bodies out too; Gareth's and his people.

They all stopped digging for a moment, looking at the white tarp that covered the bodies. None of them thought that they deserved a burial, but they knew Tyreese would do it himself if they wouldn't.

Willow hopped out of the hole they dug already and began another one further away from it. If they were gonna bury these people, they should be away from their own. Rick grabbed a shovel and began to help her, tossing dirt to the side with a stern face.

It didn't take long for the holes to be dug and for the bodies to be buried. They dumped the last bit of dirt onto Gareth's grave, and left it at that. They didn't intend to mark it or leave anything that would signify that him and his people were buried there.

Sasha stuck the makeshift cross at the head of Bob's grave, taking a few steps back to look at it. They stood around in silence, waiting for Sasha to share a few words, but she didn't. Her pain said everything that needed to be said.

-

Abraham was eager to get on the road, ushering the others to grab everything they could.

Willow, Daryl and Abraham stayed behind the church to load things into the bus as they came to them. There was an awkward silence between the three of them, one that Abraham continued to try to break.

"Good news is when that thing heals, you're gonna have a badass scar." He dragged his finger along his eyebrow and down to his cheek, in reference to the cut on her own.

She tossed one of the containers of food into the back of the bus, turning to him. "Yeah, I guess."

She had managed to forget about the gash on her face for a while, until he brought it up again. Maggie had told her it wasn't bad enough to need stitches, but it also wasn't going to heal without leaving a scar. She seemed to be getting more and more of those, and she felt stupid to even be bothered by it. She wasn't usually one to care about appearances, but something about having a nasty scar on her face even made her feel insecure, more so than before.

"If anyone asks, you can tell them one hell of a story of how you got it." He wiped sweat off his forehead with his forearm while he talked to her.

"Yep." She wasn't eager to keep the conversation going.

"I mean, damn woman, you took that shit like a champ. She swung and you just-"

"All right, man, that's enough." Daryl said to him, throwing one of their bags into his chest for him to load up onto the bus.

"Hello."

They spun around at the voice behind them, Daryl already holding his crossbow up.

"Who the hell are you?" He grumbled.

The boy put his hands up. "Noah. My name's Noah."

-

"You're alone?" Rick finished patting him down, the group watching as he interrogated him.

The boy nodded. "Yes, I'm alone. I've been alone for days now."

"You got a camp?" Rick stepped back, looking at the boy beginning to sit on the steps of the church.