Blessing or a Curse? ➳ Daryl Dixon

4. Pretty Much Dead Already

Sydney had to admit that this group had a pretty nice set up, and he is not complaining at all. He slept almost completely through the night, which is something that didn’t happen often, but once again he wasn’t complaining. He didn’t even dream. It’s not that he felt safe, he never felt one hundred percent safe, but it was better than back at the library and he had a feeling this group isn’t going to straight up rob him or kill him after saving his life. He rubs at his eyes, blinking rapidly to get rid of the sleep as he steps out of his tent, stretching his arms above his head briefly. His long legs don’t appreciate the tent as much as he does, but that was equally as fine. He pats at his hair, trying to stop it from sticking up as much, slightly failing, before he eventually gives up and walks towards what he will now refer to as ‘base camp.’ Carol, Sophia’s mother, appeared to be making breakfast and his mouth watered at the sight of actual cooked eggs. He hasn’t had cooked food since it all began, these people were really living the life. As much as you could be anyways. 

He takes a spot on the ground, being one of the first few to actually arrive, along with Andrea (she was sharpening her knife) and Shane, who was kind of just observing Andrea (and him, now that he took a seat). Carol looked up and gave him a stiff smile, before returning to her job, so he had nothing to do but kind of just stare at the ground. 

A few minutes later, someone drops down beside him and of course, it was Sophia. “Hey.” He says to her, breaking the thin veil of silence that had been hovering over the camp. “Sleep well?” He hopes now that she was back with her mother, her group, she was sleeping much better and felt much better. 

“Yep.” She responds, popping the ‘p’ as she did, smiling at him. She looked so innocent. It was nice, talking to someone who wasn’t worrying about the same things that you were worrying about. And she was kind of his only friend here, so he wasn’t going to take that for granted. The two of them engage in a brief conversation, Sophia rambling about anything she could think about really, and she actually tells him a little bit about everyone in the group. Bless the lord for this kid. 

She explains about Rick and Lori (Mr and Mrs Grimes) and about their old group, where Rick had shown up after camp had been set up in the mountains, and no one thought he would be coming back. Hell, Sydney didn’t think he would either, seeing as last time he heard the guy was in a coma. Carl is their kid, which he figured out on his own, and he’s around the same age as Sophia and they met the day that everyone was trying to get out of the city. “Mr Walsh was there too, on the highway, I used to think that he was Carl’s dad.” She giggles softly, probably thinking that the idea was absurd now, and Sydney briefly looks up to glance at Shane, who was leaning against a tree. “Oh, why?” Sydney asks, but he’s not sure if he actually wants the answer. 

“Mr Grimes wasn’t around then, um, I didn’t know that then though.” She clarifies, “Mr Walsh was with Mrs Grimes and Carl though, so I guess I just assumed. They seemed like they were together so-“ Sophia trails off, looking around, as if checking to make sure no one had heard her and thankfully they were talking so low that no one had. 

Sydney lets her keep talking, of course, as more people begin to settle in around them. She’s basically giving him everything, and he takes in as much information as she can. She talks about the precious camp, how they had been attacked by those things , and she looks so uncomfortable talking about it that he kind of wants to stop her. She mentions Andrea’s sister, Jim, the CDC, the other woman that they had lost. 

“What about Daryl?” Sydney asks, once she had stopped talking, glancing around to make sure that the man himself wasn’t present. He has a feeling the guy wouldn’t like being talked about.