Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

The Fair at the End of the World

I tucked a blanket around the twins, more for my sanity than their comfort, while they snuggled into the back of the wagon like two gremlins playing house. Carl and Enid flanked them like exhausted teenage bookends, radiating the kind of "I didn't sign up for childcare" energy that warmed my cold, dead parental heart.

All around us, people milled about near the gate, doing that nervous pre-departure shuffle, checking weapons, hugging loved ones, adjusting packs for the tenth time, and pretending that a two-hour march through walker-infested roads to the Kingdom's community fair wasn't a terrible idea. On paper, it sounded wholesome. In reality, it was a traveling sampler platter of potential disaster.

A fair. A fair. With my children. The same children who once nearly burned down our house because they wanted to "make soup."

Anytime I left Alexandria with the twins, an old familiar trifecta kicked in, nausea, the overwhelming urge to sprint home and barricade the door, and the sudden conviction that our house should secede from the union and become its own sovereign nation.

"Breathe, Red."

Daryl slid up behind me, chest pressing into my back, arms looping around my waist with that quiet, grounded strength that should've calmed me. Instead, it just highlighted how wildly not calm I was.

"They're gonna be fine," he murmured.

Maybe if he said it another forty times and carved it into the side of the wagon I'd start to believe it.

I nodded, swallowing the boulder of dread in my throat and leaning into him. "I know."

He kissed my cheek with that soft, infuriating tenderness that made my heart flip like a dying fish before before calling for Chief Ramhorn. The dog barreled toward him like a furry missile, tongue lolling, his entire hind end wagging with such force I thought he might helicopter himself into low orbit.

"Load up," Daryl commanded. Chief obeyed immediately, launching himself into the wagon like it was a tactical insertion. "Guard."

Like he had been trained by a Navy SEAL instead of two chaos goblins and a pair of rednecks, the dog lumbered over and flopped across the twins' laps. They squealed, petting him with the amount of enthusiasm usually reserved for whacking a piñata.

"Chiefy, you're heavy!" Dom giggled, shoving at the dog's immovable bulk. Chief did not so much as acknowledge him. If anything, he seemed to gain weight out of spite and didn't move so much as a single saintly whisker.

If trouble found us, heaven help whoever, or whatever, decided to step to the Dixon twins and their canine tank.

"You're such a pretty boy, Chiefy," Niya cooed, smooshing his face between her sticky hands and kissing his snout with all the delicacy of a toddler wielding a sledgehammer.

Merle sauntered up beside me, staring at the scene like an exhausted, war-torn veteran. "What's that red crap all over their faces? And why's the damn dog wet?"

"Someone gave them suckers," I explained grimly.

He blanched like I'd announced the arrival of nuclear winter. "Lord help us."

The twins were a handful on a normal day. The twins sugared up? That was a full-blown category five disaster wearing Velcro shoes.

I stepped up to the wagon, giving Chief a pat (careful to avoid the sticky crime scene coating his fur). "You two behave and listen to Carl and Enid, got it?"

"Yes, Mommy," they chimed in perfect, unnerving unison like the possessed children from The Exorcist.

"What do you do if something happens once we leave?"