This New World We Live In (A Walking Dead fanfic)

Letting Your Guard Down (Chapter 4)

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my friend Zahraa, she promoted this on Twitter, but I don't know what her user name is. ANd this is going to be a shorter chapter, sorry.

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Katie's POV

"So," A man in a Sheriff's hat asked me, "what's your name?"

Everybody stopped their independent conversations to listen. "The name's Katie Greene." I said with my southern accent coming through strongly.

"It's nice to meet you, Katie." said the brown-haired woman beside the Sheriff.

"Yeah, well I wish we could've met on better terms," I said, "But we're in the middle of an apocalypse, ya know?" I said to them, remembering my previous conversation with Daryl. I looked at him and smirked, which made his smile and shake his head. "What's your guys' names?" I said while looking back at the rest of the group.

The Sheriff stood up and walked around the circle, pointing everybody out to me. "Well, for starters," he said, "my name's Rick Grimes." He gestured to the woman and boy that were sitting next to him. "This is my wife, Lori and my son, Carl."

The Hispanic man stood up and introduced himself to me, "This is Miranda," he pointed to his wife. "Louis and Eliza." He pointed to his kids. I shook their hands. "And you can call me Morales. Might as well, everyone else does."

The rest of the group laughed as he said this.

"Nice to meet you all" I said with a half-hearted smile.

The older woman spoke up next, "I'm Carol. This is my daughter, Sophia and my husband, Ed." She said, gesturing to the little girl beside her and the man taking a smoke.

The Asian boy introduced himself as Glenn, and he said that the big African-American man was T-Dogg, "short for Theodore Douglas, but don't ever call him that" he had said. The African-American woman introduced herself as Jacqui, the slim white man as Jim, and I waited for the Deputy to say something, when he didn't, I asked him myself.

"What's your name?" I asked him quietly. This guy looked both shady and angry at the world. Not the best mix.

"Shane." he replied curtly, still looking at the ground, never once looking up to me. 

I still stood in front of him. "Nice to meet you, Shane."

"Is it?" He asked, causing me to fall silent.

Rick cleared his throat and spoke up, "The man on the RV, that's Dale." On cue, Dale raised his arm up and waved. "Now that only leaves..." he looked around, "well, I'm assuming you've already met Daryl... so what about you guys?" He pointed to the group that came on the Jeep.

* * *

Daryl's POV

"Well," The woman holding the man's hand started, "I'm Maya, this is Drew," she said, motioning to the guy holding her hand. "And this is Andrea and Amy" she said pointing to the two blond chicks behind her.

Now that we were all acquainted with each other, I took a seat next to Katie. "So, how's the ankle?" I asked her.

"It'll heal." she said, staring at it. It looked a bit better now, less distorted anyway. She had it propped up on another lawn chair in front of her. I stood up and sat on the lawn chair, putting her foot on my knees.

"I'm just going to take a look at it." I said, reassuringly. She nodded. I was glad that she did, I hated all these women who, as soon as the apocalypse started, thought that they could do everything on their own. They thought that they didn't need anyone's help, especially a man's. I clasped her foot in my hands, making her cringe. I traced around the ankle, looking for bumps, bruises, feeling for out-of-place bones. I found nothing. After I was done, I put it back on my knees. "The good news is that it's only sprained." I said. She smiled at me.

"That's good." She said.

In an effort to prevent the awkward silence that I knew would eventually come, I asked her, "So, what did you do before all this happened?"

"I worked for Atlanta PD" she responded, showing me her shirt. Sure enough, it said Atlanta PD on the logo, if you looked closely.

"Another goddamn police officer?" I questioned.

She laughed and I felt slightly more at ease.

"Katie, was it?"

I looked up and saw Shane standing there beside me, in front of Katie.

"Yeah." She replied.

"Didn't mean to snap earlier." he said bluntly.

She smiled slightly. "It's fine, could tell you were upset 'bout something... we all have bad days."

"Yeah, I've that quite a few."

"Haven't we all?"

"Yeah... see you later."

"See ye'."

* * *

Maya's POV

Drew and I sat hand in hand, having the odd converstion with the others, but mostly just resting. I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he put his left arm around my shoulder and pecked my forehead. It gave me shivers down my spine.

"You're cold." He stated. He pulled me closer and we scooted closer to the fire. "Better?" He asked.

"Better." I said, smiling. He made me feel so safe and that's what I needed right now.

Amy stood up to leave. And Andrea looked at her questioningly. "Where are you going?" Andrea asked.

"I have to pee" Amy replied, "Jeez, you try to be descrete around here..." causing everyone to chuckle. Andrea and I turned back around, laughing with the group. A minute later, we heard Amy say, "We're out of toilet paper..." she started, but Rick cut her off.

"WALKER!!" I heard Rick yell.

Andrea spun her head and looked at the man aproaching her sister. She witnessed the man sink his teeth into Amy's flesh.

She ran up to them and pulled out her kitchen knife. She stabbed the man's eye out, but then another one bit into Amy's neck. She spun quickly, and stabbed that man in the forehead. Amy fell to the ground and Andrea fell with her. Kneeling down beside her sister, as she was slipping away from Andrea's grasp.