train wreck | rick grimes

chapter twenty-seven

DANIELLE HAD A WARM FEELING IN HER STOMACH, ALMOST AS IF SHE WAS NERVOUS TO BE WALKING INTO THOSE GATES. Something had moved in the bushed and immediately, Daryl shot it with an arrow and everyone calmed down, seeing it was just a possum, which was now dead.

"We brought dinner." Daryl gruffly said just as the gates opened, revealing a man with brown curly hair, who looked awfully clean.

Aaron led them inside and the gate closed on it's own, everyone being amazed by it.

"I'm gonna need you guys to hand over your weapons." The man said. "If you want to stay, you hand them over."

Rick stepped up. "We don't know if we want to stay. If we wanted to use them, we would've started already."

The man looked down and nodded.

"Let them talk to Deanna first." Aaron suggested.

"Who's Deanna?" Abraham asked loudly, everyone having the same question.

"She knows everything you would want to know about this place. Rick, why don't you start?" Aaron told him.

Rick hesitantly nodded and gave Judith to Carl, everyone following Aaron where he told them Deanna would be.

Danielle walked slowly towards the room, her hands shaking in slight fear. Rick walked into the room, closing the door behind him.

"Are you alright?" Maggie came up to Danielle, noticing she was shaking a bit and she looked a little pale.

"Yeah. Fine." She stated simply. At the corner of her eye, she could see people walking around the community like it was a safe place and they could trust everybody they came into contact with.

"Dani?" Danielle heard from a distance, but she ignored it, just thought it was her imagination. But, she heard it again, louder this time. "Danielle."

She looked up and her eyes went wide, not believing what she seeing. "No, no. This can't be real." The woman repeated to herself.

The man walked closer to her and now, she noticed that he had a boy that looked a lot like-

"Nathan?" She breathed out as tears sprung in her eyes.

The whole group looked to her and this man and boy in shock, not knowing that Danielle had a family until now.

The man walked up to her in a fast motion and hesitantly looked closely to her face, seeing it was in fact, was his girlfriend and she was alive. He smiled and brought her into him, Danielle having no reaction as she just stood there, looking at her son who she thought was gone forever.

He pulled away and saw she was looking at Nathan and the boy looked to her, squinting his eyes as if he was trying to figure out who she was. 

"Nate. This is your mom." Will told the twelve year old boy.

"Hey..." Danielle didn't know how to act. What to say. What to say to a grown up boy? She didn't know what to do and neither did he.

"Hey..." The boy repeated, giving her a tight smile. If you were anyone who saw them on the street, you could see that the two were related. They had the same nose and same hair color, the only thing being different is their eye color.

Will smiled at the two and then brought Danielle into another hug, her being tense against him. She remembers bits and pieces of how their relationship was. They were young and different people. The woman wasn't sure if she wanted to get to know this Will.

-

"So, I hear Nathan is your son?" Deanna Monroe, the leader of Alexandria asked the woman as she ran her fingers across the books, looking around the room in interest.

"Yeah." Danielle nodded, before finally sitting down.

"You didn't know he was alive?" Deanna asked her softly.

"No. I didn't know any of my family was alive. This is all a surprise to me." Danielle said a with bitterness in her voice.

"What were you before?"

Danielle didn't know how to answer that. What did she do before the apocalypse? Although it wasn't that long ago, it was almost as if she couldn't remember. And then it came back to her, in bits and pieces.

"I was studying nursing school. Never got the chance to actually go..." She trailed off, looking out the window for a second.

"No, before." Deanna pushed, wanting to know more about what her childhood was like.

"Oh." Was all she said. "I got pregnant at a young age. Got kicked out. My baby got taken away from me... shit hit the fan." Danielle put it simple. Not wanting her to know too much about her.

Deanna hummed and leaned back in her chair. Danielle looked to the camera for a split second before sighing, looking down at her hands.

"People always have a goal. That goal might have not been accomplished but they all have a goal." She started, leaning her elbows on her knees. "In this world, people want to take things from you. Test you at a certain angle. Never caring about how you would feel. The real threat in this world is humans."

Deanna looked to her for a while before nodding. "Are you saying that your people are apart of that threat?"

Danielle shrugged. "If we have to be."