THE WALKING DEAD
( season one episode three )

"DISORIENTED" rick muttered, glancing toward his two kids beside him. The group was sat surrounding a small crackling fire as rick explained what had happened out there. Alana rested her head on her fathers shoulder while Carl lay in between their parents. "I guess that's what came closest. Disoriented. fear, confusion, all of those things but... disoriented came closest"

Dale leaned forward in his camp chair, he began to speak from beside Amy and Andrea "words can merge things. Sometimes they fall short"

"I'd felt like I'd been ripped out of my life" Rick admitted, eyes glimpsing to Dale "put somewhere else. For a while, I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from ever"

Carl lifted his head up to see Rick properly just as rick looked down to him so their gaze met one and another's. "Mom said you died"

Rick turned to his wife, slightly smiling before his glance went back to Carl "she had every reason to believe that. Don't you ever doubt it"

Alana's eyes flickered to her mother who made eye contact with Shane. She hoped that their 'relationship' would be over now but Shane wasn't good at letting things go.

Lori's eyes darted to rick, she slowly wrapped her hand around his "when things started to get real bad, they told me at the hospital that they were gonna medevac you and the other patients to Atlanta but it never happened"

"I'm not surprised after Atlanta fell" Rick responded "and from the looks of that hospital, it got overrun"

"yeah, looks don't deceive" Shane spoke up from across the family. He had his knees up to his chest and was picking at a small piece of wood "I barely got them out"

Rick met his gaze and smiled at him "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane. I can't begin to express it"

Alana's eyes flickered to her mother. She was the only one in camp who knew about Lori and Shane and keeping secrets wasn't Alana's specialty. she knew it would damage her parents relationship if Rick found out. So she swore to herself that she wouldn't tell anyone. Lori was grieving and Shane took advantage of her. That's what Alana believed.

All of a sudden, a loud thump came from across the camp. It was ed Peletier chucking more firewood into his fire. Carol, his wife and Sophia were sat opposite him, both of them silent. It was known and talked about in camp. They called ed 'abusive' but carol always denied the rumours.

Shane spun around and sighed at the man before shouting to him "hey ed! You wanna rethink that log?"

"It's cold man" ed yelled back as the flames of his fire got bigger. It was like a calling for walkers. As soon as they saw the fire, they would run straight for it meaning it was putting all their lives in danger.

"Cold don't change the rules now, does it?" Shane repeated, making eye contact with rick as he spoke "we keep our fires low, just embers so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

"I said it's cold" ed shot back, not even turning around to look at Shane "why don't you mind your own business for once?"

Shane immediately stormed over to the man and snapped at him. He ended up putting out their fire and offering Sophia and carol to join them but as usual the two girls declined.

Lana's eyes focused on the man as he made his way back over to them. A grin formed on her face "did you fight him?"

Before Shane could respond, Rick looked down to his daughter and chuckled "that's not for you to know"

"Have you given any thought to Daryl Dixon?" Dale spoke up again, leaning forward in his camping chair. "He wont be happy to hear his brother was left behind"

"I'll tell him" t-dog told them, sat beside Glenn wrapped in a blanket. "I dropped the key. It's on me"

Rick adjusted in his seat before glancing to t-dog "I cuffed it. That makes it mine"

Glenn shook his head at the two before saying something "guys it's not a competition" his eyes averted to t-dog "i don't mean to bring race into this but it might sound better coming from a white guy"

"I did what I did" t-dog stated, glaring back at them all "hell if I'm gonna hide it"

Amy was practically glued to Andrea ever since she got back. The blonde frowned at the group. "We could just lie"

"Or tell the truth" Andrea suggested, eyes glimpsing to rick and Lori "Merle was out of control. Something had to be done or else he would've gotten us killed. Your husband did what was necessary and if Merle got left behind, it's nobody's fault but merles"

A panicked expression was across dales face as he turned to the blonde. "And that's what we tell Daryl? I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you?"

"I was scared" t-dog admitted, eyes now focusing on the ground "I ran. I'm not ashamed of it"

"We were all scared, what's your point?" Andrea asked, raising her eyebrows at the man.

"I stopped long enough to chain that door" t-dog revealed, clenching his jaw "staircase is narrow. Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any time. It's not enough to break through that. Not that chain. Not that padlock. My point is that Dixons alive and he's still up there. Handcuffed to that roof. Thats on us"

The man got up and walked off back to his tent. He clearly felt guilt about the whole situation but so did rick. If Merle was alive that meant Daryl would want to go and get him and knowing her father, he would probably go too.

______

THE NIGHT WENT BY QUICKLY and soon Alana was awake due to the commotion outside her tent. The girl slipped her shoes on — not even bothering to tie the shoelaces and ran outside.

Alana gazed around, looking to see where the frantic voices were coming from until she spotted Lori holding her distressed brother.

People were huddled up including her father, all of them tightly gripping their weapons — it was clearly a walker.

Alana hurried toward her mother and Carl, a feeling of intense panic growing in her stomach. "what happened? are you okay?"

Carl nodded, his eyes tightly shut as his face was buried into lori's shoulder.

"It's just a walker" Lori told them, glancing her to her daughter "we're alright"

Before Alana could respond, a racket came from the trees behind them. She move toward them just to see rick, shane, glenn, Dale and Jim all repeatedly hitting their bats and pokers at the walker — who was gnawing at a poor deer.

Eventually, Jim swung his axe into its head — decapitating the walker. But it wasn't dead yet. Not unless you get the brain.

The bushes began to shake just as Daryl Dixon walked into the clearance with several squirrels. He glared down at the walker. "Son of a bitch! that's my deer!"

"Look at all this —" he stated, beginning to kick at the decapitated head "filthy! Disease barren, motherless, poxy bastard!"

Dale frowned at the man before stepping toward him "calm down son. That's not helping"

Daryl moved towards Dale, yelling louder than ever "what do you know about it, old man! Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to on golden pawn?"

Daryl leaned down and pulled the arrows out of the deers dead body "I've been tracking this deer for miles, drag it back to camp and cook us up some venison. You think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

Shane shook his head as he lowered his weapon slowly "I wouldn't risk it"

"That's a damn shame" Daryl sighed, stepping over the bloody dear "got some squirrel — about a dozen or so. That'll have to do"

Cutting him off was the walker, still growling at them despite being decapitated. Daryl raised his crossbow and shot it through the eye "come on, what the hell people? It's gotta be the brain, don't y'all know nothing?"

He began walking toward the camp as rick approached his daughter stood behind them all "you okay?"

Alana nodded as she began to walk with him "I'm okay, how come Daryl's still here?"

"We haven't told him yet" Rick shook his head, he ran his tongue across his teeth.

"Merle!" Daryl shouted at the top of his voice "Merle! get your ugly ass out here, got us some, squirrel"

Shane slowly stepped toward daryl, rubbing his stubble and keeping his eyes focused on the ground "daryl, slow up a bit. I need to talk to you"

Daryl turned around to face the man and crossed his eyebrows "about what?"

"There was a problem —" Shane spoke, eyes flickering to the redneck in front of him "in Atlanta"

Daryl sniffed, glancing to everyone then back to Shane "is he dead?"

Shane shrugged "I'm not sure"

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl hissed at Shane as Alana approached her mother by the RV.

Rick moved toward the two "there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it"

Daryl frowned "who are you?"

"Rick grimes" he stated, glaring at Daryl.

"Rick grimes" Daryl repeated, mocking him "you got something you wanna tell me?"

Rick hesitated before taking another step toward him "your bother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him to a roof — to a piece of metal. He's still there"

Daryl paced around, carefully listening to ricks words "let me process this — you saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof!" He began shouting at the former sheriff across from him "and you left him there!"

Rick was stood slightly slanted as his eyes flickered up to Daryl. He began slowly nodding his head "yeah"

Daryl threw his bag of squirrels to the floor as he charged for rick. Shane instantly threw him to the floor while Rick jumped back out of the way.

"Hey!" T-dog yelled, chucking the firewood to the floor and running over to them.

Daryl got onto his knees and grabbed the knife out his pocket before jumping up and standing across from Rick. Shane quickly backed up, warning rick "watch the knife!"

Quickly, Daryl swung his knife out toward rick but immediately the man dodged him and grabbed his wrist. The two former cops both tackled him to the floor as Shane placed him in a headlock.

"Let me go!" Daryl began screaming, struggling to get out of it "chokeholds illegal"

Shane didn't let go instead he tightened his grip "come on now, we can keep this up all day"

Rick crouched down in-front of Daryl "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?"

Daryl grunted indicating a 'yes' before Shane let go of him.

"What I did was not on a whim" Rick started to explain, face to face with Daryl dixon "your brother does not work or play well with others"

t-dog jumped in, cutting off rick as he spoke "it's not ricks fault — I had the key. I dropped it"

Daryl scoffed, narrowing his eyes "couldn't you pick it up?"

T-dog clicked his tongue, hesitating to tell Daryl "well... I dropped it down a drain"

"That supposed to make me feel better?" Daryl sniffed, rolling his eyes "it doesn't"

"Maybe this will —" t-dog suggested, moving toward them "look, I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get to him"

Rick shrugged his shoulders, slightly tilting his head "it's gotta count for something"

Daryl glared around the camp at them all "hell with all of y'all! Just tell me where he is so I can go get him"

"He'll show you" Lori spoke up from beside her daughter, leaning against the RV door. Alana frowned, she didn't understand what her mother meant "isn't that right?"

Rick nodded, eyes glancing to his wife then back to Daryl "I'm going back"

Alana's mouth hung slightly open as she crossed her eyebrows. He just got back, now he was leaving again? She crossed her arms as she stormed off toward their tent.

The brunette sat beside her sleeping bag while she undid her shoe laces as her father and came in after her. "I know you don't want me to leave — but that man needs my help"

"he was a horrible person" Alana cut him off, frowning at her father "and you just got back"

"I left that man out there" Rick admitted, sitting across from his daughter "he —"

"he had it coming" she replied, slightly raising her voice and her eyes widening.

Rick shrugged "maybe he did, maybe he didn't — but I left him there. I did that and he might be dead, we don't know"

"but you just got back" Alana argued, making eye contact with her father.

"And I promise you, Ill be okay" he told her, nodding his head as he spoke "I always come back"

Alana didn't know whether to believe him or not. He was risking his life for someone who didn't deserve saving but no matter what Merle had done, Rick was too good a man not to go back for him.

Authors note

ngl Daryl before season 7 was probably my favourite era of him but I've never been his biggest fan lmao

Short chapter again but I am re-writing so hopefully they get longer 😭