Three against the world

66

Me and Abe waited by the gate. "We're losing time, we should go" I looked around the town hoping to spot Rick , but we've been waiting for 15 minutes. "He'll be here" I said softly, more trying to convince myself than anything. I knew Rick was pissed "three pairings don't work" I muttered before turning and walking out of the open gate with Abe on my trail. The man sighed before getting into the driver's seat of a car we had stashed away from Alexandria.

There has been more activity lately and the less sound we made by the town the better right now "it'll work out, you were never one to give up" I grunted in response and leaned my head on the window, watching the greens and browns  of the trees fly by, the sound of the rubber tires on the asphalt and gravel made a soothing lullaby and drifted me into a deep slumber

The sounds of mommy's china grandma gave her smashing ran through the house, I hid in the linen closet it was dark in here and if I hid behind the old vacuum that barley worked, it was one of those vacuums with the bag attached to to poll and the mop bucket right beside it daddy couldn't find me and hurt me. Gram gave mommy the china when she got married, Gram always told me they would be mine when I found my soulmates, but I didn't want two either.

Daddy got mad at mom and pops all the time since they found pops, daddy thinks mommy and pops are gonna leave him. Daddy thought their other partner was gonna be a woman so it would be easy to control mommy and her.

The blue and white bone china smashed against the door of the linen closet and I covered my mouth with my wrapped hand, daddy pushed me onto a pile of the broken china and told me to clean it, he than got mad at me for bleeding on the floor so I ran away and hid in the closet before he could hurt me again and wrapped a stained worn out towel over my hand. like mommy showed me a different time daddy hurt her.

My hand worked faster than my brain woke up the car jerked "woah woah, cool it soldier" I had been pinned Abe's neck against the headrest of the driver seat, my wrist pressing into his throat making his voice come out hoarse and strained. "Sorry" I mumbled and he swerve the car back onto the road flicking the wipers on to clean the walker blood off the cracked windshield. 

The memory caused me to break out in a sweat and I had to roll down the window. The smell of rotting leaves and dirt flooded the car along with the sticky sweet scent of death. One of the first things they teach you in the army is that death has a distinct smell of rot and copper, but under all that your brain can pick out a sweet smell like honey or a lot of sugar, it's an unsettling smell one humans can pick out from miles away.

I looked down at my left hand the faint scars from that night were still visible, sometimes the hand gave me troubled but I've gotten used to ignoring it "three pairings don't work" I mumbled again and Abe shot me a concerned glance "I'm scared, we haven't really bonded just had sex, we don't have time for the wining and dining that should be happening, Rick and Daryl always went out they had more time together than me and Daryl" the sun was high and Abe drove the car with steady focus "there bonding together more, what if...what if they leave and take the kids, 3 pairings don't work out, hell I promised Judy a girls night and I haven't even done that, i don't have time for my kids let alone my soulmates"

Now that we were safe and not constantly on edge, all the fears I pushed away came flooding in, we didn't have time to think of these things, just survive. Now reality was setting in, Alexandria was a good place to settle down and stop worrying, just needed to reinforce the walls and take care of the Negan problem "look kid, I can't tell ya how its gonna go but I can tell ya you gotta work for it, let Rick cool down and go talk to him in a few days. And I mean talk not talk for two seconds and than screw" I rolled my eyes but he was right, that's how our arguments usually went and he pulled into some brush we had some walking to go and we needed to prepare "when we get Daryl out I'm going to head for a place called the kingdom, you head to hill top with him"

"Kingdom?" Abe didn't look to happy about that, he was as protective as he was loyal "it's a place Carol told me about, I'll talk to their leader and see if he'll join us in taking Negan down" Abe raised his knife up and stabbed its head "Rick know this plan?" chuckling gravely I gutted the walker "he's already pissed I'll just add it to the list and deal with it after, besides. The safety of my kids come before my pissed off mate, even if it means I might lose him" Abe nodded as he smeared the guts all over me "fine but I'm on Ricks side, this is too much, were not on the field anymore you can't just do shit and we cover it up with a training exercise excuse, Ricks going to know your gone and Daryl is gonna beat my ass if something happens to you"

"Okay fair" I looked down at my gun as I made sure the clip was full and the gun wasn't jammed "this ain't the talk you need to be having with me, you need to talk to them about it" that was a good point, but we just never talked even before the world went to shit, communication wasn't it strong suit, our worst one probably "I promise when they're done yelling at me when I get back I'll talk to them, about everything" he crossed his arms "even the fact you were on the pill and that's why you never got pregnant before?" fuck, I hopped he forgot about that "I think that's one of those things that can stay in the grave" Abe does a thing with his face, it was the perfect disappointed dad face but this time he was also ticked off as a man not a friend "Rick deserves to know, hell the only reason I know is cause I found 'em in your pocket when you got shot" this was going to be a make or break conversation with my boys, but I had to have it. and I deserved every ounce of hell they were gonna give me