We Ain't Ashes • Daryl Dixon •

My Hero

"We ain't staying." Rick deflated the good mood the moment everyone had finished their meal. I heard a collective, weary sigh and the energy darkened.

"You're not?" I perked up a little straighter, pushing up from the wall I had been leaning my weight into with Daryl sitting by my side. For such a quiet man, he wasn't scared of proximity apparently. He hadn't left my side since the moment we got into the cabin. It was actually kind of sweet, even if he was still a stranger to me. A friendly face was a friendly face, after all, even if I didn't know a single thing about this man.

"No. This place, it isn't a home, it isn't permanent. We'll be moving on within the next couple of days."

"I've stayed here for over a month without any disturbances until y'all. It's hidden well enough that anything wandering by hardly notices it."

"No. There's no gates, no fences to keep the walkers out." The walkers? It that what they called them? Weird. Ghouls was definitely more suitable, if I do say so myself. And I did. "We need somewhere more secure than a house made of toothpicks."

"Uh, excuse me, my cabin is perfectly secure thank you very much." Did I just wag my finger at the man? Never done that before in my life. What was this world turning me into? First I was writing in a godamn diary like a teenage girl recounting her first kiss and now I was wagging my finger like an old, sassy teacher. I put my hand down, sat on it so I didn't weild it again. The man, who I learned was called T-Dog, chuckled. "But trust me, Rick, it doesn't seem like much now, but we can easily build a fence around the perimeter once the ground thaws. I found some seeds in one of the kitchen drawers too. We can make it into something."

"Look, Charlie, I appreciate you bringing us in, feeding my family, but it's just not good enough. We have a baby on the way and we need somewhere that the kid can cry without drawing in danger. This cabin is just not that place."

Okay, that made sense. That was the same reason why we had been speaking in hushed tones for the last hour because any louder than that and who knew how many of the dead we could attract. These walls might've kept the heat in but I wasn't too sure about noise.

I nodded slowly, slouching back against the wall, in defeat. "I understand." So the clock was just ticking until I was on my own, again. This is what it always came to, it seemed.

Daryl nudged me drawing my attention over to him, "Probably isn't smart for you to stick around here either, Charlie." He said with a frown.

"But—" I sighed— "I'm just so tired of wandering around on my own, looking for the next safe place to hide. Shit gets exhausting real quick."

"Ain't we all." Commented T-Dog, who was already starting to drift off into a sleep on the sofa.

I huffed out an empty laugh whilst fidgeting with a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of my hoodie.

"You've done my family a favour, Charlie," Rick spoke up after a long silence, "and for that, I'm not so inclined to turn you away again. You could have shut your door on us and I would've had to just accept it because I'd done the same to you. But if you want to take your chances with us, you're more than welcome."

"I—"

"Take a long think about it, girl," the old man, Hershel, interrupted, "It isn't easy out there. You might have a chance in this cabin on your own."

There wasn't much to think about. I'd quite literally rather die than be left out here on my own again, even if this cabin was the safest chance I had for survival. But what was the point in surviving when there was no one around to know how hard you were fighting to stay alive, or when equally, there was no one left for you to fight for. I'd learnt that lesson the day I ran from home and left my brother behind in that hellhole. It was selfish to want to survive on your own.