Changing To Adapt ➵ TWD

➵ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜɪʀᴛʏ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ

The night had fallen, yet no sleep was caught.

Rolling from one side to the other with his hands over his ears, just waiting on that finishing gunshot. But it never happened.

Lucas hears Lori call out his name but his tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth. She ducks into the tent anyway and smiles down at him. "They didn't do it."

Lucas scrambles onto his feet, "What?"

He follows Lori past the entrance, into the cold night and stares at Rick over her shoulder, "What changed your mind?"

Rick meets his stare, expression soft and says, "Carl followed us to the barn. He wanted to watch me do it- encouraged it."

Lucas's lips part with a quick inhale, "What?"

Rick nods, glancing away.

Lucas pinches at the space between his eyes. He just feels so tired. "That's-" He shakes his head wordlessly. "Shit."

"We should have chosen differently from the start." Rick sits his hands on his hips and sighs, nodding towards him. "You were right. Tomorrow we'll-"

There's a scream.

Loud and raspy, echoing through camp and hitting them hard. It sounds male, old.

Rick yells for T-Dog to grab a shotgun.

Lucas is already gone, running towards the field bare-footed, the damp grass no match for his fear. He shoves the gate open, not seeing much of anything until Rick catches up to him, flashlight in hand.

"There!" He throws a hand towards two figures, one hovering over the other.

It's Dale, the horrifying realisation coming with Andrea's hysterical scream, "Dale!"

The wailing only increases, a deep guttural sound leaving nothing to the imagination.

Through the darkness, still further away, Daryl tackles the walker to the grass and stabs it swiftly through the brain.

Frantically waving his arms, he kneels down beside the old man. "Help! Over here!"

Lucas has never heard him sound so desperate, dropping a weight in his stomach.

"Help! Run!"

A disturbed noise escapes Lucas when he gets there, faster than the others, and he drops beside Daryl. "No, no, no."

Dale's stomach has been completely ripped open.

"Hang in there, buddy," Daryl says lowly, clutching onto Dale's reaching hand.

Noise bursts ten-fold when the others make it, screaming for Hershel, begging Dale to hold on, crying into the brisk air.

Hershel says Dale won't make the trip back to the house.

"You have to do the operation here." Rick pleads, clutching at the vet's arm desperately.

Lucas smoothes Dale's hair back from his face, the old man's wide eyes screaming with the pain he can't verbally release.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, rocking back and forth on his knees.

Why did it have to be Dale? The man with the kind eyes, gentle words and decent morals. Why him?

"Rick!" Hershel grabs the man and really looks at him.

He shakes his head.

Rick jerks away, face twisting into hard lines. "No!"

Dale writhes and groans on the ground, hand fisting into the grass, blood gushing from his open stomach.

"He's suffering." Andrea sobs. "Do something!"

Lucas presses a hand to Dale's head, "Hey, man. Focus on me, okay? Everythings gonna be just fine." His voice cracks.

Rick paces the dirt, breathing hard.

There was only one decision and just like Sophia, he had to be the one to make it.

With a harsh exhale, he slides his gun from it's holster. It hangs by his side.

Dale tries to nod, blood gurgling from his mouth. He can see the weapon. He wants this to end. Anything to stop the pain.

Rick lifts the revolver like it weighs a ton.

"It's alright," Lucas collects himself enough to say the words calmly, no tremor, brushing back Dale's hair. "It's all gonna be okay."

But it's Daryl who takes the gun from Rick's hand. Nods at him.

And with this, he finds his new place in the group, supporting Rick in his decisions. Taking Shane's place as his right-hand man.

Daryl kneels on the dirt, aiming between a set of eyes as though he's putting down a suffering animal.

Lucas doesn't flinch when Dale grabs his arm, tightening his quivering fingers into an almost painful grip. "Everything's gonna be okay, Dale."

The gun cocks.

Dale does his best to lift his head, pressing it against the barrel. His eyes are pleading.

"Sorry, brother," Daryl says his final goodbye and with a finger on the trigger -

it's over in a second.

Nothing had been the same since then.

They take a group out past the farm the next day, to check the fences for a breach, find out where the walker came from. Shane, Andrea, Daryl, T-Dog and Lucas.

Taking down a handful of walkers near the lake was easy. But they didn't want it to be.

In need of a fight, they don't kill the walkers outright. Instead, they knock them to the ground and kick at their corpses with everything they've got left.

Just like Sophia's memorial, Lucas can barely remember half of Dale's. All but Rick's last words.

"In the end, he was talking about losing our humanity. He said this group was broken. The best way to honour him is to unbreak it. Set aside our differences and pull together, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and take control of our lives. . . Our safety. . . our future."

Rick stands from his kneeled position over Dale's make-shift cross and looks at the group.

"We're not broken. We're gonna prove him wrong. From now on. . . We're gonna do it his way. That is how we honour Dale."

Lucas places a rock on Dale's grave, the stack growing higher and higher with each person.

Meeting Rick's eyes, he nods.