The Fear (The Walking Dead / Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 74 - Control Who Lives Here

Tara was still unconscious that night. They got back an hour before dark and she had barely stirred and it was now closing in on midnight. Kat hadn't left the medical bay and the Monroe family hovering around wasn't doing much for her nerves. Tara's bleeding had stopping although the swelling was coming in. The good news was that if she woke up in a few days it would mean the headache wouldn't be anywhere near as bad, the swelling would have gone down and she would have slept off the concussion. However head injuries were trickier than that.

Pete had done all he could for now. He'd gone home to his family after he and Kat took care of Aiden's shoulder and Denise looked over Tara, stopping the bleeding and bandaging it up. One of the three would be keeping watch throughout the night and Kat's job was to go and find Denise once she was ready for the other woman to take over. But she had a feeling she wasn't sleeping that night and there was a little piece of her that didn't want to entrust her friend with someone she still classified as a near stranger so she had the full intention of saying.

She found herself checking Tara's pulse every half hour followed by her temperature and if there was any change she'd write a note down of it with the time... there was no change though.

Deanna was asleep out in the waiting room... which was a couch in the living area of the house they had set up as a hospital. Reg and Spencer had gone home, barely. Deanna had encouraged them to, but they would be back first thing in the morning.

Kat sat in a chair with her feet up on the end of Tara's bed, flipping through a children's book about native American folklore.

"Interesting read?" Came a broken gravelly voice.

"Only one he brought with him." Kat smiled back at Aiden, nodding down to Luke who was asleep on the floor with a blanket and pillow. "Thought you'd be out till morning." She whispered.

"Funny how hard it is to sleep with a hole in your shoulder. I would be flattered that you're here, but I don't think it's for me." He joked, looking over to Tara.

"Don't worry. I've been checking your vitals as well." She joked back. "Your mums out in the other room. You want me to get her?"

"She awake?" Kat shook her head. "Leave her. How's she doing?" He nodded to Tara.

"Hard to say."

"How am I doing?" He then asked as Kat chuckled.

"Pete said you'll be fine, but don't expect to be moving any time soon."

"Well that sounds more optimistic than I feel. He knows there's plenty of beds around here, right?" Aiden said, now looking to Luke. Kat had a feeling he was trying to distract himself with his questions. She couldn't blame him for that.

"Oh he knows. He's not used to all this place yet either." She said softly, looking to the eight year-old sound asleep in the corner. "Doesn't like being left alone as it turns out. Even if I leave him with Maggie. Couldn't get him to go back to the house. barely got him out of the room when Pete started on your shoulder. Strange though..."

"What?" Aiden asked.

"It's normal to remove a kid from seeing something like that, but... I'd be lying if I said he hadn't seen worse. He didn't care either... about the blood. You really should try and sleep, you know." Kat said on the end, changing the topic. "It'll make it go quicker."

"Yeah... you got any morphine?"

"Sorry. It's strictly under lock and key."

Aiden did eventually drift off to sleep, but not for another hour or so. Kat stayed up right until sunrise and Deanna was up before then. She told the woman Aiden had woken up and gone back to sleep and that he seemed perfectly fine. No doubt the morphine had worked more than he realised.