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LII

A/N: Okay. So, I never plan out what I write chapters in advance, just because I think it makes things stiff and I don't really like it, BUT. I did it. From here to the end I have it all planned out, and I wanted to let you guys know that chapter LX is going to be the last chapter. I have it all planned, and unless I go crazy and split some chapters up, that's how it should work. So, we're almost there! Nine chapters!, plus an Epilogue but still that seems really close! 😭 Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy these last chapters, there won't be anything too crazy in them so they should be pretty easy for me to bang out! Hopefully I'll have it done before Thanksgiving!!

Since the plan had been made, we decided not to wait around. As soon as Daryl and I packed everything that we needed, we woke up Dale, and set off in the search of an RV. 

"What are we doing mama?" Dale asked from the backseat, sounding extremely confused and tired, since we didn't let him finish his nap, and we dragged him out to the car without telling him what was going on. 

"We're going to go see Uncle Rick and Uncle Merle and the rest of our family baby. But we have to get a special car first. A really big van that you can walk around in. It's called an RV." I explained simply, holding Daryl's hand lightly in both of mine as he drove us along in the general direction of the town he said they would be in. Alexandria. 

"Oh. Daddy? Can you tell me a story?" Dale asked, in his sleepy voice, and I knew Daryl wouldn't be able to resist. It was the first thing that his son had ever asked of him, I really don't see how he could say no. I look-up from our hands to meet his eyes, he was panicking, I could see it. He had never had to do anything like this before. Never had to take care of a child before. 

"Uh sure bud. What kind of story?" He asked nervously, glancing at Dale in the rearview mirror, and when I looked back his eyes were pretty much closed. 

"Can you tell me how you met Mommy? I've heard Mommy's version a bunch of times. I wanna hear yours." He mumbled, and I turned my attention to Daryl, who was glancing between me and the road, almost like he wanted to hear my version of the story instead. But I wanted to hear Daryl's side of it. I'd never heard it, and I'm sure it would be different than mine. 

"Okay. Well uhm... Merle, uh your Uncle, he went out on a run into Atlanta with a big group. Glenn was with him, and they were hitting up this general store, looking for clothes and stuff. Rick rode in on a horse, and got cut off by a pretty big herd, and while the walkers were eating the horse, he hid in a tank. Course I didn't know about this then, found out later. Anyway, Ri was driving by and heard the shots. Guess she figured she'd try to help but she got trapped too. With her dog, you never got to meet Bailey, but she was a good dog. You would've loved her. So, Ri was trapped in her car and Rick was trapped in the tank, and Glenn used a radio to contact Rick. Glenn told Rick this crazy plan to get him out, and it involved using a grenade to draw the walkers away from Ri's car. So he gets out of the tank, blows up the grenade and leaves a path for Ri to use to get out and to safety. She goes, and eventually they realize who each other are, and have their whole reunion and everything. Glenn took them back to the group, and Merle was being an idiot, shooting down at the walkers, and picking fights with people. Rick cuffed him to a pole to let him cool down, and Ri got to keep the key. Eventually they figured out a way to get out, but when they were supposed to leave, Andrea, who is also the woman who shot me in the head, knocked into Ri and made her drop the key. Ri of course didn't leave Merle, she stayed with him. When the group got back to our camp I wasn't there, didn't find out about all this until I got back from my hunt. But when I did I was pissed. Pissed that they left Merle, and pissed that it was this new chick's fault. So when we got up there and Merle was fine, I lost it on your ma. Called her horrible things, blamed her for everything, even though it wasn't her fault, and she was risking her life, and yours come to find out, by staying up there with him. I felt horrible for it, but I was a dick - sorry... uh a jerk back then, so I didn't apologize. Just let her keep thinking I was pissed at her. And then she got kidnapped by these douchebag Vatos. I almost lost my shit. I didn't get it then, but I was already pretty protective of your ma. Beat up this kid that caused it pretty good too. But we got her back, and we went back to the camp, and it was being attacked by a herd of walkers. Your ma jumped in, wanting to save everyone, and almost got herself killed. I saved her, and it started a trend. Your ma would always want to do whatever she could to help people, and I'd always be there to save her ass when she went to far doin' it. But that's part of love. You do whatever you can to protect the people you love. Your ma just loves more people than I do." He stopped, and glanced in the rear view mirror at Dale, who was sound asleep once again. I'm assuming he hadn't been sleeping well in the sanctuary since all he had been doing was sleeping with us. 

"You do always save me." I said with a smirk, and Daryl shot me a wink, hardly giving me his attention before turning back to look at the road. 

"I always will love." 

It took us another hour to find a store for RVs, but when we did we had the pick of the litter. There were about twenty RVs of different shapes and sizes in the gated lot of the store, but we picked out the biggest one, figuring that we would need it to accommodate everyone for however long we'd be on the road. 

Daryl said it was a 'Class A' and was at least three times the length of our little car. It had a big bed in the back, a bathroom, couches on one side of the walkway that folded out into two twin size beds, a kitchen, and a queen sized bed situated into the wall above the front seats for the driver and passenger. It was ginormous. Daryl even said we could rig it up with some of the metal from 'Alexandria' and create a plow in the front to get us through big herds. I don't know how it would work, but he seemed pretty adamant so I just nodded along with him. 

It didn't take us long to get it started, there was a large supply of gasoline inside the shop, in the back, where I assume they would fuel up any purchased RVs for the owners to take. We ended up filling up the main tank, the reservoir tank, and a large barrel that we put in the storage compartment in the undercarriage. 

Once we had everything settled, Daryl started her up, and using the map we found in the small shop, I started to direct him over the forty miles that it would take for us to get to Alexandria. We'd be there before nightfall with any luck, and hopefully we would be able to start off for our new life. 

A/N: Sorry that was an awkward ending but... oh well. I'll fix it at some point 😅

P.S.: Here's a picture of their new RV!