Apocalypse Orphans

19

Halfway through the night, Jay woke up to a nightmare and Nick woke to the covers being pulled of him, due to Jay sitting up.

"Jay. You want to talk about it?" Nick asked tirededly. 

This was normal after one of them got beat. One would patch the other up, and they would stay together for the entire night incase they got a nightmare, which they usually did, and it helped to have the other there incase they woke up in a panic.

"I'm okay. It's just the usual. Go back to sleep." Jay mumbled.

"Jay-" 

"Really Nick, I'm okay."

"Fine." Nick sighed. "But you better lay back down, otherwise im stealing this blanket for myself, and myself only."

Jay gave a small chuckle and layed next to his brother and Nick was happy to have the warmth of the blanket back, and did what his older brother told him to do and went back to sleep hoping that Jay did as well.

The next time he woke up was to Judith fussing and the sun had started rising so he figured it was as good as time as any to get up. He changed his shirt and walked over to the bassentte and picked up the baby, and immedeatly he knew what was wrong, she needed changing. 

He sighed and looked around hoping that there would be someone else awake, but there wasn't so he toughened up and grabbed a fresh diaper and the pack of baby wipes they had managed to find and changed the baby and she imedeatly stopped fussing and went back to sleep.

After putting Judith back in the bassentte, he made sure he had everything he needed to go hunting, his bow, extra arrows, his knives, and two of his hand guns with an extra clip for both. He made sure they were all clean and wrote a quick note to Jay, reminding him that he has gone hunting as was planned.

When he reached the gates, Carol who was on watch unlocked them for him, telling him to be safe and to make sure he was back by sunset, even if he didn't catch anything and Nick nodded and headed out over the bridge and into the woods.

The first thing he did was check the snares he and Daryl had set the last time they went out and they had caught one squirrel, and he kept on going. He tracked down one rabbit, and ran into a few walkers that he quickly disposed off.

He kept going North into the woods, heading down to the yellow jacket creek, hoping that if he didn't get many rabbits or squirrels, he could get a few fish using the tweed fishing line. He stayed at the lake for just over two hours and didn't catch anything and now noon was nearing so he started to head back to the prison taking whatever he got.

Nick was about five minutes out from the prison when he heard gunfire and he started racing out of the woods, knowing that one of two things was happening. Either a really big herd was trying to get through the fences or Woodbury had come for revenge.

Either way he ran as fast as his legs would take him, avoiding low branches and roots sticking out of the ground. He slung his bow onto his back and pulled out one of his hand guns and when he reached the tree line he saw people shooting at his people.

Using the tree's and his suprise to his advantage, he climbed one of them and took aim, taking down a few of the Woodbury men, but not before they had ran down one of the fences and unloaded a group of walkers into the field.

The Woodbury people had no idea where the new bullets were coming from and Nick shot down as many as he could, from where he sat in the tree before climbing down and crawling through the grass to get to the prison.

He ran over the bridge after noticing how many of the dead were chasing him and he caught up to Rick, who was not expecting the boy to come up beside him and pointed the gun at where Nick's head would of been if they boy didn't crouch on time.

"Friendly! But they ain't." Nick called over the gun fire and tossed Rick his spare handgun and the extra clip.

They both soon ran out of ammo and Rick resorted to using the butt of his python and Nick swapped to his bow and shot arrow after arrow, and made a mental note to come out after the herd had wandered off, to collect any arrows he couldn't get back.

Even though they were trying their hardest, they still got pinned against the fence and Nick ended up dropping his bow and scrambled to reach for the knife in his belt as he tried to hold of the walkers with one arm.

Just as he reached his knife, and arrow, coming from the woods, went through the walker Rick was struggling against and a bit of rebar went through one of the ones Nick was fighting and with one of the walkers off of him, he was able to stab the other and gave the one handed man who had helped him a nod of thanks.

Nick grabbed his bow and swung it at the next walker before pulling the arrow, that came from the woods, out of the walkers head and quickly loaded his bow, firing it at another walker, before he continued on with his knife and soon all the walkers on the outside of the fence were re-dead.

Rick looked over to the tree line and nodded and Nick looked over and saw Daryl, and he didn't know how to feel. Part of him was releaved that he was okay and came back, on the other hand he was encreadibly angry that he left even though he knew why he did it and that he would do the same.

 Nick aslo gave Daryl a nod and while the adults inspected the damage to the prison, Nick went around collecting his and Daryls arrows, before they stared to walk back up, Rick in the lead, Merle in the middle, Daryl and Nick hanging at the back.

"How's the leg?" Daryl asked noticing Nick limping again.

"Was okay this morning, but it's fucked again, just like our dinner." Nick grumbled salty about having to through the rabbit and few squirrels he was able to catch to the walkers for a momentry distraction.

"You mad at me for leaving?" Daryl asked.

Nick not knowing how he felt just shrugged and Daryl took that as a yes and sighed and they continued walking until they reached the fron't gate.

"How are we getting up there exactly?" Nick asked Rick.

"Run and pray." Rick answered.

"Great." Nick grumbled quiet enough that Rick didn't hear him but the two Dixons did.

"What's the matter kid? Don't like a little jog?" Merle laughed.

"Shut it, old man." Nick growled at the same time Daryl shot Merle a glare.

Merle just laughed some more, and Daryl took Nick's bow off him so he would have less weight to carry and stayed by the boys side so if any of the dead were to get too close, or if he was to fall, he could help him.

As predicted Nick fell, but it wasn't until they were a few paces away from the gate to the courtyard and Daryl put one of the boys arms over his shoulder and helped him through the gate.