No Rest For the Wicked ~ A Walking Dead Fan Fiction

Chapter 29: Please Forgive Me

Chapter 29

Please Forgive Me

Third Person~

"Dale could- could get under your skin." The group stood around Dale's fresh grave the next morning- the fourth addition to their graveyard. It was chilly and everyone wore coats or sweaters and had white clouds on their breath. "He sure got under mine." Rick spoke, leading the funeral.

Kate stood with her back erect, still and unmoving. Her eyes didn't leave the vase of flowers, his grave marker. She wouldn't cry, not today. Elsie on the other hand had a constant stream of silent tears running down her cheeks. She clung to Kate's waist who held her back tightly.

"Because he wasn't afraid to say exactly what he thought, how he felt. That kind of honesty is rare and brave. Whenever I'd make a decision, I'd look at Dale. He'd be looking back at me with that look he had. We've all seen it one time or another."

Kate certainly had, the day she told them what she'd done. He looked so, so disappointed, so unbelieving, it had crushed her, killing her from within. She had never been able to handle disappointing others; it was one thing she always tried impossibly hard to avoid.

"I couldn't always read him, but he could read us. He saw people for who they were. He knew things about us- the truth... Who we really are."

Rick's eyes landed on Kate first, both of them remembering Dale had been one of the first to accept her. Then his eyes trailed to Shane, who Dale had seen something much darker within. Shane held his gaze steely, the lack of emotion, or guilt or anything in those blank, cold eyes scared Rick.

"In the end, he was talking about losing our humanity. He said this group was broken. The best way to honor 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. We're not broken. We're gonna prove him wrong. From now on we're gonna do it his way. That is how we honor Dale."

Shane stifled an eye roll. Just because Dale died didn't mean it was suddenly alright to slip back into fantasy land where everything would be okay and no one had to die or do hard things. That wasn't how it worked and he knew it. These people needed to get it together, to get rid of their ties to how it was and start accepting how it is. Rick was the number one guy holding onto those ties. He was weakening the group, placing them all in danger. Kate had an annoying habit of agreeing with him but Shane had faith in her. She'd said so herself she'd done many of the same hard things before, which meant she could do them again. Glenn and Eric might be harder to sway, but they didn't matter hugely as they wasn't ever very vocal anyway. Shane's eyes flicked from person to person as he assessed them and where they stood.

Elsie had a very different reaction to Rick's words. Dale had represented something bigger than himself, something she'd been starting to forget the importance of. In a way losing him foreshadowed losing that greater idea, and now being slapped in the face with it she realized just how wrong she'd been. She and everyone else were devastated by this loss, and how did she know Randal's people weren't just as devastated over him being gone? She wished over and over again that she could take back what she'd said. That Dale had never had reason to give her that look. He probably thought she was a bad person, and she didn't want to be one, nor did she want other people thinking she was. She buried her face in Kate's jacket when the noise became too hard to hold in. The fabric muffled her as Kate soothingly stroked the back of her head. She wondered if Kate thought she was a bad person.

*

"It'll be tight, nineteen people in one house." Rick was saying. He was gathered with most of the others around Hershel's ancient truck. Hershel had decided that with what just happened with Dale and the colder weather coming, it was about time they became roommates instead of just neighbours. Rick was glad Hershel had offered before he had to ask about it.