Forbidden Love- Rick Grimes Love story

18

We all stood at the truck awaiting for instructions from Rick to see where each of us is going to look. Rick walks up to us with the map, "Morning, guys. Let's get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover. All right, everyone's getting new search grids today. If they made it as far as the farmhouse Daryl found, they might have gone further east than we've been so far." We're interrupted by one of Hershel's people, a teenaged boy, "I'd like to help. I know the area pretty well and stuff." "Hershel's okay with this?" Rick questioned him. "Yeah yeah. He said I should ask you." The boy said nervously, he was for sure lying. Rick nods, "All right then. Thanks." "Nothing about what Daryl found screams Joey to me, Sophia either. My little girl would never hide out in a place like that. Anyone could have been holed up in that farmhouse." Shane says and I roll my eyes. Now she's back to being your little girl again. "Anybody includes them, right?" Rick asks. "Whoever slept in that cupboard was no bigger than yay-high." Daryl says putting his hand up to about Joey's height. "It's a good lead." Andrea says. "Maybe we'll pick up her trail again." Rick says looking at the map. "No maybe about it. I'm gonna borrow a horse,head up to this ridge right here, take a bird's-eye view of the whole grid. If they're up there, I'll spot them. You in?" Daryl says looking to me and I nod. "Good idea. Maybe you'll see your Chupacabra up there too." T-Dog laughs. "Chupacabra?" Rick asks looking to Daryl clearly confused. Dale laughs, "You never heard this? Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole thing reminds him of a time he went squirrel hunting and he saw a Chupacabra." The teenager laughs and Daryl gives him a look, "What are you braying at, jackass?" "You believe in a blood-sucking dog?" Jimmy asks him. "Do you believe in dead people walking around?" I ask him. He shrugs then reaches for one of the guns before Rick stops him, "Hey, hey. Ever fire one before?" Jimmy shakes his head, "Well, if I'm going out, I want one." Daryl scoffs walking away, "Yeah, and people in hell want slurpees." I laugh and walk off to the barn with him to get our horse.

I sat on the back of the horse with my arms wrapped around Daryl. He looked down at my hands, "You're still wearing that damn thing?" I look down at my wedding ring, "You know why I'm wearing it." "I told you nothing will happen as long as I'm around." He tells me and I smile. I take off the ring and look at it, it was a beautiful ring. "You gonna look at it all day or are you gonna throw it out?" I shake my head, "I don't wanna throw it out. I was thinking someday passing it down to Joey." He scoffs, "You want her to have a ring from a failed marriage?" I playfully slap his shoulder before I think, "You're right." I take one last look at the ring before chucking it off into the woods. "Sophia! Joey!" Daryl yelled. Some nearby birds screech, scaring the horse a little. "Woah. Easy now." Daryl says to the horse softly. Everything was fine until the horse steps on a snake and the snake hisses, scaring the horse. The horse bucks Daryl and I off of it and We both fall down the hill. I fall face first, falling all the way down until I splash into the creek hitting my head hard on a rock before I black out.

I wake up, my vision blurry, to see a figure stumbling towards me. "Daryl?" I ask before I hear the growling. A walker! I look around quickly to see the sharp rock I hit my head on. I grab it quickly before the walker gets on top of me and I flip us over and bash his head in with a rock. I stand up and limp over to Daryl, he's unconscious. I put my head on his chest and I hear his heartbeat and I feel his chest rise and fall. Thank God, he's alive. I quickly look around for anything to help him, but I don't see anything. "Momma!" I hear and I turn around. I see Joey peak her head out from the tree. "Joey?" I yell out to her. "Momma! Come find me." She giggles. I look back to Daryl then back to her. I quickly cover Daryl up with various trees and bushes, before limping off in the direction Joey went. "Catch me if you can, momma!" She squealed. I move as fast as I can trying to keep up with her. "Joey! Please stop!" I beg. I stop out of breath to look around and see that Joey is gone. "Joey? Josephine? You come out right now!" I yell out. Suddenly she appears right in front of my face, and I jump back. "How could you leave me here to die?" She asked me. "W-what?" I stutter. She disappears then reappears on my other side, "You left me out here to die!" I start to sob, "Joey I..." She cut me off, "I'm dead because of you!" She screamed pushing me back hard, and I hit the ground. Joey slowly changed into a walker version of herself, and she launched herself at me. "No, No!" I cried trying to push her off. I close my eyes hard as she bites into my skin, but once I open my eyes she's gone. I stand up, "Joey! Joey!" I look around to see if I can see her, but she's gone. "You're pathetic." A voice says to me, I look over to see my brother. "Jackson?" My voice is soft. "No wonder, your husband cheated on you. I mean look at you. You're nothing." He says hatefully. "Jack, how can you say that?" I ask tears filling my eyes. "He's only speaking the truth. I mean you're so horrible, your child ran from you." I turn around to see my sister, Amanda, "Mandy?" I rub my eyes, and my head feels fuzzy. "Oh sister dear, you're oh so perfect world is falling apart. What. A. Shame." Mandy laughs and Jack joins her. "Stop it. Stop it. STOP IT!" I scream and the laughter quickly stops. I look around to see that I'm alone, and I quickly run off back the direction of Daryl. When I get there I see two walker's bodies and a bit of blood everywhere, but Daryl is gone.

I head back to the direction of the farm, I keep walking until I hear rustling. I pull out my knife and look around. "Joey? Mandy? Jack?" I ask quietly. Suddenly I feel arms around me and I turn around and quickly stab my attacker in the shoulder. "Damn girl, is that how you say hello?" I recognize that voice, I just stabbed Daryl. "Oh my God. Daryl I'm so sorry." I say pulling my knife out of his arm, and he yells out in pain. I take off my shirt, leaving myself in a sports bra, tying it around Daryl's shoulder. "Let's go." I tell him as I pull his arm over my shoulder and we stumble towards the direction of the farm. Once we can see the farm in sight I drop Daryl's arm off of me and walk a little faster. I look up to see Rick, Shane, Glenn, and T-Dog running towards us. Rick points his gun at Daryl and Shane pulls his gun up to me. "Is that Daryl and Mads?" Glenn asks looking at us. "That's the third time you've pointed that thing at my head. You gonna pull the trigger or what?" Daryl says looking to Rick. "Get that damn thing out of my face, or shoot me." I tell Shane, then I hear a gunshot and Daryl falls to the ground. Then I hear a second shot and I feel my head in even more pain before I fall to the ground. Shane quickly runs over to me and scoops me up. "No! No! No!" I hear someone yell before I pass out again.

I open my eyes and jolt forward, before I feel a hand push me back down onto the bed. "Hey, hey. You're okay." Rick says to me. "What happened? All I remember is y'all pointing your guns at us." I asked him. "Andrea shot you and Daryl." He answers truthfully. I scoff, "That dumb bitch." He laughs and grabs my hand, rubbing my hand with his thumb, "I'm glad you're okay Madison. Really." I smile as I feel butterflies in my stomach. Wait what? Did I really just feel that way about my best friend that I was born with? He reaches forward pushing the hair in my face behind my ear, letting his hand linger on my face. We hold each other's gaze before we hear a cough, we look to see Hershel standing in the doorway. "She's awake Doc." Rick says before standing up and walking out. Hershel looks at me and smiles, "I'm glad to see you awake." I nod, "I'm glad to be awake." He starts talking about how I have to take it easy, but honestly I can't focus thinking about what the hell just happened. Did I have slight feelings for my best friend?

I slowly got up out of the bed and walked out to Daryl's tent. I unzipped it and climbed inside, he looked over to me confused. "I hallucinated, while we were out there." I tell him honestly. He nods, "Who'd you see?" "I saw Joey. We played hide and seek until I found her as a walker. Then I saw my siblings, Jack and Mandy. They were all saying horrible things to me, but they were all true." I tell him. "I saw Merle. He had both of his hands though. That's how I figured out in that moment what was real and fake." I laughed a little. "They told me I was the reason Joey was gone. That she ran away from me cause I'm a horrible mother. Part of it is true, I'm a horrible mom." I said a tear falling down my face. Daryl scoffs, "You're a damn good mom. You've taken metal, cuts, bruises, broken ribs, and a bullet trying to find your girl. What has Shane done? He risked his life to save Carl, but what has he done for your little girl since she's been gone? He's told everyone she's dead. He's the real piece of shit parent." I smile slightly before exiting the tent. I run into Andrea and she looks at me, "I'm sorry Mads.." I cut her off, "Listen to me princess, you go around this camp acting like you're hot shit. Maybe if you took one second to take your head out of your ass, maybe then you could tell the difference between a walker and a person. But no, that's right. You're Andrea, you had to show off to the whole camp that you can do big things, maybe you should stick to the laundry. You can't possibly fuck that up." Andrea stands there in shock and I go to walk away before I turn back to her, "Oh, and Andrea? You shoot me again, you best pray I'm dead."