mun seriously needs to get better and work on application for a game.

[notaafraidanymore]

Sometimes you do what you have to do, that's how you survive.

But sometimes you grow tired of having to be so damn strong all the time...

Maybe I am weak?

Comments

[notalldead]

Hey, it's the leaders who think they don't get tired or don't gotta ever be sorry that are the weak ones. Havin' our compassion's all that sets us apart from the zed and the survivors who took a bad turn.

[notaafraidanymore]

Maybe that's another thing that concerns me, takin a bad turn...

[dirtyredneck]

You ain't weak.

[notaafraidanymore]

[She just glances away from him slightly, her bright eyes going a bit glassy before she glances down]

I didn't expect you of all people to agree...

[dirtyredneck]

[He frowns at that.]

You think I think you're weak? Everything you been through? Everything you done? You're strong.

[Daryl brought a thumb up to chew on it.]

Don't mean you cain't get hurt. Strong people get hurt.

[notaafraidanymore]

[She glances up at him slightly, her eyes watering a bit more as she shakes her head slightly]

I didn't say you had to think I was...

[She closes her eyes a momemt]

Those people, what would you have done? Would you have killed them?

[dirtyredneck]

Every last one.

[He says it with a soft tone, straight forward. After a moment, he reaches out to pull her into a hug.]

It's okay that you didn't want to have to.

[notaafraidanymore]

[Her arms move to slowly wrap around him as her head moves to fall against his shoulder. This is something that's clearly bothering her. Maybe even a little too much?]

It isn't.....

[Her body aches, hell all of her aches as she clings to him a bit tighter than expected. She needs something, comfort]

I didn't want too. I had too.

[dirtyredneck]

Okay.

[He didn't argue or try to figure out what she meant. If there was more to it or not. Just accept the words and hold her a little tighter. Giving her the support she needed. A hand went to the back of her head for a moment, to tuck her against him, before dropping back to her shoulder.]

[notaafraidanymore]

She should of just ran, I told her too. She should've...

[She closes her eyes once again and just keeps her head against his shoulder]

But she didn't...

[dirtyredneck]

She did what she thought she had to. Ain't your fault she chose to stay.

[notaafraidanymore]

I didn't want to kill her....

[dirtyredneck]

She didn't give you a choice.

[notaafraidanymore]

Is there ever a choice?

[She pulls back from him slightly]

What the hell is wrong with me?

[dirtyredneck]

Sometimes there is.

[Daryl loosened his hold. He wasn't going to trap her if she wanted to pull away, however little or however much it might be.]

Nothin'.

[Well, there might be something. All of them were pretty messed up one way or the other. But for having a crisis of conscious? There was nothing wrong with her. Life had made them all killers, it didn't make them people that enjoyed doing it.]

[notaafraidanymore]

It's something.

[She mutters lowly before she glances back down]

If I didn't kill them they would have just came back, right? Becsuse they always do.

[dirtyredneck]

[Daryl nodded in agreement. That's how it happened with the Governor. How it happened with Gareth and those others from Terminus. He didn't think of those folks as 'people', not with what they did. But they'd come back all the same.]

We knew there was more of that prick's group out there. Knew they was trouble. This is just us protecting our own and stopping worse from coming. 'Vengeance for Plunderers'. Why we put that on the sign.

[notaafraidanymore]

[Oh yes the enemy always found a way back and the group had taken great losses due to that. Now they refused to take any kind of chances but that didn't make the killing easier even more so when the people didn't come off as awful monsters like some of the others. She then moves to let her head rest back along his shoulder]

I just don't want you getting hurt or worse. I don't want that to happen to any of us.

[dirtyredneck]

I don't neither. Glad you got out of there.

[notaafraidanymore]

I think they were scared. [She shrugs a little at that] They didn't really seem in to much of a hurry to kill me or Maggie until closer to the end....

[dirtyredneck]

They were stalling for time. We tracked them, watched the building. Hoped they'd take you to the meeting point. But we saw reinforcements pull up and head in. That's when Rick decided follow.

[notaafraidanymore]

I took care of that.... [She mutters lowly]

[dirtyredneck]

I know.

[Maggie had said the two of them had killed all the people. Wasn't hard to figure out that they'd done what was needed.]

It's okay.

[notaafraidanymore]

How?

[She asks him lowly. How was what she had to do alright? ]

[dirtyredneck]

Because you don't have to like it to do what you have to. It's okay to be upset about it.

[He misunderstands what she's asking, but he don't know that.]

[notaafraidanymore]

[Her eyes start to go a bit more glassy and she just shakes her head slightly]

[dirtyredneck]

[Daryl's not sure what else to say or do. So continued hugging it is. Carol would talk when she felt like it.]

[notaafraidanymore]

This is who I am now...

[She whispers lowly]

Can't just hide it...

[dirtyredneck]

Not if you don't want it to be.

[notaafraidanymore]

I think it might be a bit to late for that now.

[dirtyredneck]

No. It ain't. If you don't want to do this no more, you say the word. No one will make you.

[notaafraidanymore]

I have to...

[dirtyredneck]

You don't. It don't gotta be on you to do all the hard shit. It don't gotta be on you to carry that.

[notaafraidanymore]

Yes it does...

[She then glances up at him]

It does.

[dirtyredneck]

[Daryl wanted to keep insisting, but the look she gave him made the words die in his throat. She was so sure it had to be her burden. Only way to prove it didn't was to show her.

Since he didn't have an opportunity to do that now, he just shook his head in denial. The argument wasn't over, but he wasn't going to keep protesting it aloud. He could revisit it later.]

[notaafraidanymore]

[She reaches down and gently slips her hand within his own, lacing her fingers within his as if he would judt suddenly vansish. She glances at him again, her eyes still tired and broken with loose tears.

It was her burden because it had to be]

I don't want this on you.

[She finally confesses in a broken whisper]

[dirtyredneck]

[He squeezed her hand back.]

Don't got a choice.

[It was already on him and he wasn't going to back down from that. Both of them were stubborn in much the same way, when it came down to it.]

[notaafraidanymore]

Stop...

[She tells him softly]

[dirtyredneck]

Can't make me.

[notaafraidanymore]

[Alright Daryl that gets you a small but broken smile]

Jerk.