It was sunrise, and no one had said a word all night. Andrea was still laying over a girl, it could be her sister, I wasn't really sure. And Rick had disappeared before the sun rose to look over the quarry. But everyone else, myself included, had remained circled around the fire pit all night. Carl hadn't left my side, he was currently occupying the barely there space between my body and the arm rest of the camp chair I had been given.
Lori though, seemed to have decided that the silence was enough, and we needed to get moving on cleaning up all the dead bodies.
"Andrea, I'm so sorry. She's gone. You got to let us take her. We all cared about her and I promise we'll be as gentle as we can." Lori was whispering to Andrea over near the RV, but when she didn't respond Lori came back over to where Shane, Carl, and I were all sitting, and eventually Rick made his way over to us. I couldn't draw my eyes away from something else though.
Daryl's arms. I mean good lord. I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones or not, but his arms were freaking amazing. Even though the task he was doing was horrible (you know, swinging a pickaxe into people's skulls) the sun glinting off the sweat on his arms was amazing.
"I'll tell her how it is." Rick grumbled, snapping me out of my daze and causing me to zone back into the conversation. But before he had said anything, Andrea had drawn her gun, and had it cocked, aimed at my brother's head, and I froze.
"Andrea." Rick said, raising his hands up in surrender.
"I know how the safety works." She said softly, but I could still hear it.
"All right. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Rick said softly, backing away, and eventually she put the gun back down, and I relaxed, noticing after the fact that I had been squeezing Carl's hands in mine, and I had to rub his fingers to bring the blood back into it.
"Y'all can't be serious. Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time bomb!" I heard from behind me, and jumped when I realized that while I wasn't staring at him, Daryl had moved behind me and I could feel the heat radiating off of him onto my back because of how close he was behind me.
"What do you suggest?" Rick said calmly, sounding very much like a politician, and I readjusted Carl to my other side since my leg was falling asleep.
"Take the shot. Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance." I almost choked, and turned my head to look up at Daryl, and when he glanced down at me, it was almost like he hadn't realized how close he had moved towards me, but I tried to put how close he was out of my mind so I could explain how wrong that was.
"No. We are not doing that. Andrea will do what needs to be done when she is ready to do it. She is obviously waiting for something. Besides, it's just one person. If one person could 'hamstring us' then we have bigger problems." Daryl kind of glared at me but turned around and went back to work, calling for a man I hadn't met yet to help him. It was all going well for a few more minutes, and I was trying to build up the nerve to tell Lori, Carl, and Shane that I was pregnant, when Morales started yelling from behind us.
"You know what? Shut up man!"
"Y'all left my brother and Riley for dead. You had this coming." Daryl stormed off before anyone could say anything, and I glanced over at Merle, and he was staring off after Daryl, before he glanced at me, gave me a nod, and went off after him.
"Uh, guys?" I said quietly, to my family around me, and they stopped whatever they were talking about and turned to look at me, and Rick seemed to know what I was going to say, since he started smiling and gave me an encouraging nod.
"What's up Ri?" Lori asked gently, putting her hand on my knee in a comforting manner.
"I'm pregnant." I said bluntly, not bothering with easing them into it. This wasn't just something that I needed to tell my family. This was something I needed to tell my survival mates, as this could negatively affect everyone in the future.
"Oh! Riley that's amazing!" Lori said, seeming very shocked, but she still lunged forward and wrapped me into a hug, and Carl and Shane joined quickly after. And I cried. Again. Jesus the waterworks need to stop, this isn't me.
When they pulled back, everyone was still smiling, but it looked like Lori and Shane had realized what this could mean, but by the look on their faces I could tell they didn't want to talk about it in front of Carl.
"How far along are you?" Lori asked gently, looking down at my stomach, which was barely showing, but if you knew what you were looking for you could tell.
"Uh, I think like thirteen weeks now? But I'm not sure. I wasn't able to get an appointment with an OB before everything... you know. Ashton didn't even know before..." I cut myself off, and glanced down at Carl again, but he didn't seem to understand what I meant, which was good.
"Well... you have us. And there's no getting rid of us. We are your family, and we will help you with this. It'll be okay." Shane said gently, putting his hand on my shoulder, and I knew he was telling the truth, Shane had never lied to me before, he wouldn't start now.
A/N: Okay. But really though. THOSE ARMS!!!!
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Fight, Love, Live.
Fanfiction**Complete** Riley Grimes. The baby sister of Rick Grimes, a Sheriff's Deputy in King County, Georgia, a real southern man with a southern wife, southern son, and southern best friend, he's a survivor. Riley though? She moved to Maine when she turne...