My Damaged Protector

Chapter 50 ~ Not Tomorrow Yet

We were all silent for the most part on the way back to Alexandria. Maggie and Glenn had passed around their ultrasound photos to the rest of the group before we all slowly started slipping into sleep. Daryl had thrown his arm over the back of our bench seat, my head falling to his shoulder as the soft rocking of the RV and the mumbled words of a few of our group members helped lull me to sleep.

Daryl gently shook me awake as we pulled through the front gates, Aaron running off to grab Olivia in order to do an inventory of all the food and supplies we brought home before we stored it in the pantry house. Daryl and I slowly got out of the RV, stopping to speak with Rick through the driver side window before we headed off.

"Have everyone meet in the church in an hour." Rick instructed, asking us to spread the word of the meeting we needed to have.

"What for?" Sasha questioned with a box of vegetables in her arms.

A sigh left Rick's lips. "We'll talk about it then." We all headed our separate ways, Daryl's hand linking with mine on our walk back to our house to see the kids. I knew that this meeting was to go over the plan Rick had set into place with Jesus. This new group, Negan and his people, they seemed incredibly large and very dangerous. Hell, they killed a man right off the bat when meeting Jesus and his people however long ago. I didn't want that to happen to my family. We had been through so much in the last year from the Governor and the prison falling, to Terminus and then to all those days we spent walking miles and miles.

"Daryl?" I broke the silence of our walk. His eyes glanced down to me as my hand held just a bit tighter to his. "This whole thing with Negan and his group." I worked hard to keep my voice as soft as possible, we didn't need the rest of the community overhearing before we told them what was going to happen. "You think we'll be ok?"

"Mm-hm." He nodded, his hand squeezing my fingers. "Jus' think of all the good we'll get out of it. Food, supplies, allies." He seemed convinced that we would be fine, why was I so nervous? "Could be real good for us."

"But what if the other group has allies Jesus and his people don't know about?" I couldn't stop my mind from drifting off to all the bad possibilities.

This made Daryl stop in his tracks and place himself in front of me, his hands now holding my cheeks gently to get me to look at him. "Hey. We're gonna be jus' fine. I know it. We're gonna take care of the threat, of the group that killed people in Jesus's group. We've done this before with the Governor and Terminus. You've done this before." My lip had found its way between my teeth and I gave Daryl a hesitant nod, trying to convince myself that we would be fine. "Come 'ere." His hands pulled me into his chest, arms holding around my shoulders tightly.

"Thank you." My arms wrapped around his waist just as tightly, head resting against his chest listening to his heartbeat. "I love you."

"I love you too, angel." He placed a kiss to my head just as the door to a house swung open, two loud voices coming from the house.

"Skye!" Jasper shouted, tearing down the front porch steps, Carl and Judith following right behind him.

"Hi guys!" Jasper had managed to half launch himself from the street and into my arms, nearly knocking the both of us over from his force. Luckily, Daryl's hands hand come out to my waist just in time to keep my on my feet. "I swear you get bigger every time I leave for a day." Jasper laughed loudly and dropped from my hold, allowing Carl to hug me tightly while Jasper went over to Daryl. "God, all three of you keep growing." Judith reached for me from her brother's arms. "Can I?" I asked Carl, not wanting to take her if he was spending time with her this morning.

Carl gently passed her off into my arms, her head instantly falling to my chest and her fingers grabbing onto the necklace chain. "Yer dad's havin' a meeting in the church soon." Daryl told Carl, holding a very smiley Jasper on his hip.