Barely Alive // TWD // Daryl Dixon

Chapter 29 -- What It Takes

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,

but because he loves what is behind him."

– G.K. Chesterton

Before it got dark we finished cooking the rabbit, and split it into four, again I think I ended up being even more hungry than before I ate. We decided to leave the nuts for tomorrow morning because we had nothing else than that.

I sat on the hood of the car after we finished eating and lit a cigarette with the fire we made to cook the rabbit, they hadn't (turn it off yet.) I was never a smoker, I had one with my friends when we went partying sometimes, but that was it. Then at the prison it became a habit, I was doing worse things than smoking, so why not? But once I was out, I quitted immediately. I barely had money to buy food, I couldn't buy cigarettes and even if I did, I wouldn't have bought them.

"Cecilia!" Rick exclaimed angrily, already walking towards me. "What did I tell you last time?"

"It curves my hunger," I told him as I took a drag.

I found two packages of cigarettes after we had to leave that nice house all those days ago. I had only smoked four of them during all this time and the four times Rick had scolded me like a father would. The first time he snatched it from my hands and stepped on it, I was so mad we had such a bad argument and we attracted so many walkers and we agreed that he would never do that again but I knew he wanted to.

"Maybe smoking is causing you to be so out of breath, I remember you used to exercise back at the prison, run around the place and all that. You should be in better shape than us. Just stop it."

"I'll stop when we have food," I told him. "And four won't make such a huge impact on my health and shape, it must be something else. Did you ever smoke?"

"No," he told me. "I thought and still think it is a disgusting habit, my parents used to smoke all the time since I was a little kid."

"My dad used to do it too," I told him. "I didn't like it but that didn't stop me from trying it."

After the apocalypses, I had barely smoked. I did it a couple of times after the farm was overrun, I actually shared one with Merle back in Woodbury and then another at the prison, Daryl never found out. Actually, I wonder what he would say if he knew I smoke sometimes, I know he does and quite often but I never asked Daryl to give me a cigarette, I thought he would get mad at me.

When I finished, I jumped off the hood and got inside the car with Carl just as it was starting to get dark. The two of us were exhausted, I told Rick to wake me up for second watch, they let me skip mine last night but I was planning on doing double tonight, to make it up to them, but I wasn't sure if that was a good idea, taking into consideration how weak I had been lately.

"Cici," Carl said. I was in the driver seat and he was next to me on the passenger seat. I opened my eyes and turned to look at him.

"Yeah?"

"I saved you this," he said as he took a brown wrapper out of his sweater pocket. "I thought that I could save it for a time that you would get worse, like close to fainting. Maybe this piece of chocolate could help you and I wasn't sure if I should give it to you today or wait for a worse time but I think I should just give it to you."

"Is that the chocolate you bet with Michonne?"

"Yep."

"You saved me a piece?" I asked surprise.

"Of course, I just thought it would come handy at some point but you can have it now. It snapped in half but it's still good."

"I think you should keep it and give it to me during a bad time, like you said. If you give it to me I won't be able to resist it and eat it in an hour at the most, so keep it."