A World Like This [1]

[6]

Edited 12/29/16

Aiden and I have been in the prison for about a week now. I don't think I've been this happy in two years. We always have food and we can shower whenever we please. I walked out of cell block C' and out to the pavilion where everyone was eating breakfast.

"What took you so long?" Aiden asked after I sat down next to him. I sat right between him and Carl with Beth sitting across from me. I know I made a big deal about how you can't like someone you just met to Beth, but lately I just can't help it. Carl and I have been spending so much time together lately that I just couldn't stop the feelings that honestly, were just bound to surface.

"Sorry, I slept in this morning." I told him.

"That's a first." Carl said making Aiden and Beth laugh. I haven't been sleeping well lately. I keep waking up from little noises and bad dreams about Asher. I haven't told anyone about the dreams. It's not that I don't trust Beth, Aiden, or... Carl, I just don't want any of them to worry about me.

"Ha ha very funny." I said before shoving a granola bar in my mouth. "I have to go." I told them, standing up.

"Where you going?" Beth asked.

"I'm going on a run today with Daryl, Tyreese, Glenn, and Maggie. Anyone wanna come?" I asked looking to my brother and my friend's faces. Beth shook her head. I figured she wouldn't, she loves staying and helping with Judith.

"Nah. I'm working on the fences today. Just be careful, Okay?" Aiden told me.

"I'll be fine." I smiled at Aiden. "What about you Carl? You comin'?"

"Yeah I'll come just let me get my gun." Carl ran back into the cell block.

"Oohh Ava. 'What about you Carl? You comin'?" Beth mimicked me. I swear she is more childish then me. How is she 17?

"Shut up Beth! I don't like him like that! And I don't sound like that!" I whined to her which only made her and Aiden laugh. I rolled my eyes at them as they laugh at Beth's awful impression of me and my wining.

"What's so funny?" Carl asked. I turned around he was standing there with a smile on his face. Every moment makes me like him more. Beth and Aiden started laughing harder at his question causing Carl's smile to fade and to replace it a puzzled look appears.

"Nothing, they're just being mean to me." I responded. I grabbed Carl's hand like he's done to me so many times, and I dragged him to the fences. Daryl was already there packing stuff into the black jeep.

"Thought you weren't gonna make it." Daryl told me. "You comin' too boy?" He yelled over to Carl. Carl nodded his head, telling him yes. "You ask your dad?" Carl had a guilty look on his face indicating that he didn't ask Rick.

"If I asked then he wouldn't let me come." Carl spoke after a while of silence.

"Carl, you can't just come without asking him." I told him. "What if he's looking for you while you're gone and he can't find you? You're going to scare the crap out of him." I scolded. Carl wouldn't look at me he just kept staring at the ground. "Go ask him." I finally said when Carl wouldn't respond. He nodded his head and ran off to the vegetable garden.

"You his mom or somethin'?" Daryl said, pulling me back to reality. I honestly forgot he was even standing there.

"No, it's just not fair that he does that to Mr. Grimes. Like when he found me, he didn't even know Carl left. He was looking for him and he had no clue where he was." I told Daryl.

"You call him Mr. Grimes? Why don't you Call me Mr. Dixon?" Daryl joked. He walked over to his bike before I could even process what he said. Mr. Dixon? Dixon that's my last name, my father's last name.

"Uh... Daryl?" I called. He turned around and raised his eye brows. This is it Ava he could be your dad, but then again, he could be my uncle or my cousin... or maybe Dixon is just a common last name. "Never mind." I'm such a chicken I should have just asked him if he knew my mom.

"It took a lot but I can come." I turned to see Carl walking back down to the car, a smile plastered on his face. "He's only letting me go because you're going." Carl told me while laughing, I smiled at him. I don't know what I'd do without him, right now need someone to talk to, someone to help me get my thoughts together.

"Y'all ready to go?" Maggie asked, coming down the grassy hill with Glenn by her side. I smiled and so did Carl.

"Yep, let's go." I told her. We all piled into the car except for Daryl, he led on his motorcycle. Tyreese and Glenn sat in the front and I sat in the middle of Maggie and Carl in the back. I held my Shot gun in my hand and gripped it tight. We sped off into town but I wasn't really paying attention to where we were going. All I could think about is Daryl. Could he be my father? I still remember my mother's last few words to me,

"Protect them, your all they have now. Find your daddy, baby girl. Show him this." She handed me a gold heart locket. "He'll know. He'll protect you baby. I love you. Now go and don't turn around, just get them somewhere safe"

What was she even thinking? That I'd just find him and he'd know by looking at a necklace? She must have been out of it. She must have been out of her damn mind. She had just been bit and the walkers were coming for her. It's not like I've ever seen a picture of him. I only know his last name how did she expect me to find him? How am I suppose to know, just by looking at him? I stopped gripping my gun and began to fiddle with the necklace hanging off my neck.

"It's beautiful." I looked over at Maggie, her words being the first thing said in the past thirty minutes. I smiled at her.

"Thank you. It was my mom's." I told her.

"What's inside?" She asked. I thought about that for a second.

"I don't know, I've never opened it." She looked at me then to the locket. I carefully took it off and opened it. I didn't know what I was expecting to find but there it was. A picture of my mom and Daryl on one side and a picture of Asher, Aiden, and I on the other, it was from Asher's 5th birthday. I sat there for a second just staring at the two pictures, Maggie did too.

"Is that Daryl?" Maggie asked after a few minutes of us being silent.

"Yeah." I said. My heart stopped and so did my breathing. it took the apocalypse for me to finally know who my dad is. Fourteen years of not knowing. It's Daryl. I smiled a little. It's not just me and Aiden anymore, I have a dad.