Flip Side {Daryl Dixon}

{Imaginary Friends}

Eevee stood with the men as they circled around a dark man in all black clothes and fancy dress shoes. She wondered what idiot wore that kind of shoe in the middle of the death of the world- that was when she spotted the white frock tucked beneath his stiffly folded collar.

"We're clear." Daryl called as he yanked an arrow from the skull of his walker victim. Rick told Carl to keep watch then turned to check on the man they saved.

"Come on down." The cop's tone made her think he was pretending that this stranger was some sort of lost cat stuck in a tree. He slid off the boulder he had worked himself onto and looked around at the dead walkers by his feet. His color whitened a shade and Eevee jumped forward to yank the Grimes man back by his coat, boots just getting spared the waterfall of vomit that the screaming man spluttered onto the grass.

"Sorry." He weakly offered his apology while wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You okay?" Rick asks with an exasperated edge to his words. The man nodded and pushed up to a full stand.

"Yes. Thank you. I'm Gabriel." He stuck out his hand, a gesture that everyone ignored until he sheepishly dropped his offer.

"Do you have any weapons on you?" Eevee blurted as her hazel eyes scoured any protrusion to his frame to indicate one. Gabriel snorted and held out his arms like he was offering a hug.

"Do I look like I would have one?" Abraham cut into the conversation with his low and rumbling voice.

"We don't give two short and curlies what it looks like." He snarled, making the preacher jump and drop his arms.

"I have no weapon of any kind. The word of God is the only protection I need." Eevee and Daryl unanimously rolled their eyes and grumbled together lowly.

"Sure didn't look like it." She lightly smirked at their unison retort to the reverend's words. He turned his blank expression towards them and the corners of his mouth quirked up in a small smile.

"I called for help. Help came." The dark man and the small woman stared at each other for a few seconds before he turned back towards Rick asking if they any spare food. The low ringing in her ears grew louder as the dappled sunlight seemed to burn her eyes like she was looking directly into a flashlight. The brunette squeezed her eyes closed and pinched the bridge of her nose to try and relieve the building pressure behind her eyes.

"Do you have a camp?" Gabriel asked with a little too much innocence, setting everyone around him on wary edge.

"No." Rick snapped, his parenting protectiveness kicking in at the idea of bringing a stranger into any form of sanctuary he had. "Do you?"

"I have a church." Eevee lowly scoffed and slit open an eye to see Rick with the same disbelieving expression.

"Hold your hands above your head." The preacher did as told and the cop started to frisk him for any hidden weapons. "How many walkers have you killed?"

Eevee lightly smiled, remembering the day they decided to start asking those questions. The same ones her own hallucinated version of the cop interrogated her with while she was dying in solitary.

"Okay, so this is the first meeting of the council." Glenn spoke as he rapped his knuckles over the wooden table in the back of the library. After they had kicked Eevee's lab out of the room, they returned it to its intended purpose and now doubled it as the council meeting spot too.

"There's something I've been thinking of." Evenorra blurted the second it was silent, all eyes turning towards her expectantly. "Are we going to keep letting people into the prison? And if so, how do we know they can be trusted?" The room was silent as they pondered her questions.