Killing zombies (and other fun activities)

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: The Walking Dead & Battlestar Galactica
SERIES: -
RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 4 019
PAIRING(S): Canon TWD pairings in the background.
CHARACTER(S): Kara Thrace, Daryl Dixon, as well as the rest of Rick’s group as of S2 finale.
GENRE: Angst
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Daryl finds Kara in Griffin, roaring drunk and just about ready to die. Things, as it turn out, don’t quite go according to her plan, but she doesn’t really complain.

DEDICATION(S): To trovia because she prompted me with “Kara and Daryl fighting zombies “ months ago, and today being her birthday is the main reason why I finally managed to finish the fic :P

NOTE(S): Takes place in the TWD-verse, about a month after the season 2 finale.

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They enter Griffin in the last hours of late afternoon, light dimming over the white houses with peeling paint jobs that sit so close together the strip of garden separating them almost feels like a waste of space. There are dying flowers on the front porch—Daryl shoots the cat napping there before it can escape—as well as a dozen spots that could hide a walker or five, so he makes sure to keep his grip firm and his eyes wide open as he follows Rick, Glenn and T-Dog inside, and doesn’t let himself think of a pair of houses in Akes with similarly decrepit blue paint.

It’s easier said than done when he gets inside, though. Walkers—three of them—and time covered the place in dirt and grime, but there’s no mistaking the sense of barren poverty that comes with shabby, mismatched furnitures and molding walls. There are gun shells in some of the corners that don’t look like they’ve been added post-zombies, and Daryl has to step over at least five empty vodka bottles on his way to the stairs—a part of his brain can’t help whispering it should be gin. Maybe rum, but then the walls would be the wrong color…hell, there’s even what looks like a kid’s room with bikes and guns posters. Take the smell of abandon out, add some barking dogs, and Daryl could be right back where he fucking started in life.

There’s no one in the house beside them, that’s easy to see, but somehow Daryl still finds himself checking the room that has a vis-a-vis with the neighbor’s window. It’s quite obviously a girl’s room—Daryl can’t picture a boy decorating his space with rose watercolors and pink laces in a town like Griffin—and grim amusement flickers at the corner of his mouth as he pictures what Merle would have to say about that, if he were there. Nothing half as funny as he’d think it is, most likely.

Daryl takes one last look at the other window—blue frames, not white, and no curtains either—before he turns around to leave. He’s just reached the door when something small hits him hard between the shoulder blades and clatters to the ground between his feet. He looks down, blinks at the chunk of wood sitting there, and turns around with his crossbow at the ready. Whoever fired could have killed him in a second if they’d wanted to, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be cautious.

Of course, caution kind of flies out the window when he finds Kara Thrace there, the grin on her face so impish all she’s missing are the messy pigtails and jeans coveralls.

Right back where Daryl fucking started.

He must be looking pretty stupid, too, because Kara giggles hard—almost like a snort but not quite—grins like she’s trying to split her face in half, and waves at Daryl like they’re meeting up for a play date at the park.

“You fuckin’ bastard,” Daryl hisses—and then, because she’s still grinning: “I could have shot you.”

“Yeah, right,” she shoots back, too loud, before she beckons Daryl closer. “Aren’t you gonna come say hi?”

Daryl watches the orange rubber bands of her slingshot dangles along with her hand, considers going downstairs to warn the others—but his heart jumps up in his throat when he tries to turn around and he gives up on that, walking up to the window instead.

She’s too thin and dirty and drawn, dirt and mud and old blood splattered across her camo jacket and the bottom of a hair that looks like it’s been hacked off with a knife. Her teeth flash gray with ashes in her booze-sharp grin—where did she find it, that’s a mystery—and she stumbles when she readjusts her posture. She probably hasn’t washed in weeks and the stench of her manages to cross over to Daryl without effort but damn, the glee in her eyes and the familiar way she holds her slingshot haven’t changed since she was eight and trying to shoot her neighbor’s chicken dead in revenge for being called stupid one too many times.

“You look like a fuckin’ walker, Thrace.”

Kara’s laughter, shrill and far too loud for their deserted world, clatters against the walls with the velocity of gunshots before she wheezes some air into her lungs, points at the alley bellow them and says:

“My friends there helped me.”

Daryl doesn’t need to look to hear the rattling breaths and grunting climbing up to them, but he leans outside anyway and barely manages not to swear.

A few feet below, hidden from the street by a heap of discarded trashcans and a garden shed, about a dozen walkers are starting to wake up, looking for the source of noise around them, and Daryl listens with growing horror as Kara continues to speak in her usual, loud volume:

“Back garden’s packed full of them, and I can’t kick the front door open without making a hell of a racket. Figured I’d kick back and wait for the end.”

“Like hell you are,” Daryl grumbles to himself. Then, louder “Don’t move, and stay quiet.”

Kara burps behind him as he runs back downstairs, hisses at Rick to leave A.S.A.P and sprints back upstairs with Carol’s voice calling his name in his ears. He’s being loud on the stairs he knows, and he shouldn’t, but time is of the essence and speedy can’t always equal quiet. If anything, the cars rattling back to life are going to drag walkers this way no matter what they do.

He runs faster.

It takes him more time than he’d like to find a long, sturdy plank—he has to dismantle a makeshift bookshelf for the material—race back to the pink room and settle the wood between the two windows, but it’s still short enough that Kara hasn’t grown impatient with him yet.

“Come on,” he tells her, “Cross over.”

“Can’t.”

“I got over thirty pound on you at your best, I’ll break it.”

“Daryl, I’m pissing drunk with a twisted ankle and you’re offering me a tightrope over a pack of croaks. I said I’d wait for death, not run toward it!”

“Oh come the fuck—fine! Fine. Hold that.”

Daryl unloads his crossbow before he tosses it across to Kara—arrows and all—checks that the plank is stable between the two windows, and snorts. The gap between the two houses isn’t that long—barely a couple strides wide—but it’s not exactly a walk in the park, and more than high enough for him to break his neck—hopefully before the walkers get to eating him. He hasn’t seen Kara in literal years—barely even exchanged real letters with her during that gap—and the second they find each other in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse he ends up doing crazy shit for her sake. No wonder she and Merle never got along.

For a split second, he thinks about trying to preserve some kind of dignity, but decides against it pretty much right away. He’s left enough of it in shreds before and honestly, it never seemed like too big a price for staying alive so far. He crawls across the plank, spreading himself between the two windows until he’s staring at spaceship-patterned carpets while Kara pulls at his belt to get his ass inside and sends him rolling forward into a painful heap.

She seems vaguely shocked when Daryl looks up to her—behind him, the others are slamming doors shut and high-tailing it out of town, which means at least nine of them are making it out of Griffin alive. Not perfect, but far better than it could have been, considering.

He’s too puzzled by the way Kara takes his face in hand and stares at him to protest, but then something seems to snap in her gaze, panic sweeping over her in a micro second before grim determination settles over her features and she says:

“If you tell me you don’t have a ride and you stayed here so we could die together, so help me god I'll—”

“Punch me in the face?” Daryl coughs, taking her hands off him, “Nah, I got a ride. It’s just a matter of reaching it.”

“I can make that happen but I need my stuff, it’s in the kitchen.”

Daryl nods, gets to his feet and hauls Kara on his shoulders in a messy fireman carry. He hears metal banging in the alley and Kara’s head thump against a wall when he takes a too-close turn, but despite that and her swearing their reach the kitchen faster than they’d have if she’d been forced to run on an injured ankle.

He sets Kara down in the hallway and starts on the door while she goes to retrieve her pack, and by the time he’s done she’s back behind him with the stink of booze on her breath, a large back pack on her shoulders, and a hatchet in her hand.

“You go first,” she hisses in his ear, cold urgency replacing the booze-slur in her voice, “If I’m too far to reach—”

“Shut up Thrace, I ain’t leaving you behind.”

He doesn’t have time to hear if Kara has an answer for that—a walker steps into his field of vision and sends his heart jackhammering somewhere in the vicinity of his wisdom teeth. Daryl kicks it in the knee, ignores the way the leg gives under his foot as he dodges a set of teeth, shoots a second walker, gets his knife out of its sheath and prepares for the next one. Kara’s hatchet breaks into the skull next to him, and then she’s stumble-running alongside him down the street, jaw clenched against the pain.

It doesn’t take long before she’s left behind, and Daryl runs faster, a sickening sense of deja vu hanging low in his stomach as he reaches his bike, fumbles with the key, turns the gas on, yells at Kara to hurry up—watches her hack a hand off her arm before she turns and comes toward him at a limping run.

He doesn’t remember the grenades until he sees her fiddle with one, fit it to her slingshot and fire it into the group of walkers—slam to the ground with the burning blast of it and Daryl’s driving toward her as fast as he dares, gut-wrenchingly familiar terror clawing at his chest as they meet, grasp hand—finally settle into a riding position.

Daryl turns around while Kara tightens her arms around his waist, drives them out of the mess like the devil itself were running after them, and doesn’t open his mouth until he’s caught a flash of red light shining ahead of them in the night.

“You alright?”

“I think I’m gonna puke.”

They manage to stop in time to spare Daryl’s jacket.

{ooo}

They catch up with Rick and the others soon after their emergency pit-stop, and from there on follow the group into Williamson and another empty house, another thin hope, another restless refuge they know they’ll have to leave soon.

Except this time Daryl comes in last, Kara leaning on him to spare her ankle, the marbles at her waist rattling in the deadly silence.

Rick seizes her by the collar as soon as they’re through the door, slams her against the wall and puts a gun to her head in the same movement. She doesn’t resist it—barely even makes a sound—but she glares at Rick in a way that usually precedes a black eye…whether Kara or Rick’s going to end up sporting it remains to be determined.

“What kind of stupid whackjob are you?”

“Loud and funny, usually,” Kara replies—Daryl grips his crossbow tighter.

“Her name’s Kara,” he says, hating the way his stomach twist with ever fiber of his being, “She’s a friend of mine.”

On the other side of the room, Lori gasps—Daryl sees her cover her mouth with her hands while the rest of the group looks between Daryl and Kara with varying degrees of confusion, maybe even shock. It’s nothing Daryl hasn’t seen or heard before, which means it doesn’t take any actual effort to stay focused on Rick as he hisses:

“That ‘friend of yours’ nearly got us all killed, why shouldn’t I return the favor?”

“I’d stain your pretty uniform,” Kara says in a southern drawl so thick even Merle wouldn’t laugh at it.

She straightens up, raises her chin toward Rick despite the four inches gap between them, apparently indifferent to the gun barrel on her forehead. The knot in Daryl’s stomach tightens along with Rick’s eyebrows and, before any of the others can even think of stepping forward, Daryl says:

“We was neighbors back in the days. She’s alright. I trust her.”

Somewhere on the left, Carol lets out a breath and the atmosphere relaxes a little—just enough for Daryl to breathe easier, loosen his grip on his crossbow. Enough, even, for Kara to get some of her weight off her injured ankle. Overall, things are looking pretty good so far.

“Look, she’s military. She’s great with a gun, and she knows how to fight. She’s good to have in a group.”

“How come Daryl’s the one doing all the talking?” Rick asks, suspicious, “Aren’t you going to plead for yourself?”

“Your type doesn’t listen to the likes of me,” Kara says with a shrug, “And I don’t beg.”

“What’s in the backpack?”

“Nothing for rude dicks.”

“Kara.”

Daryl watches Rick’s eyes go from Kara’s resigned expression to Daryl’s face, and he must come to some kind of satisfying conclusion because he lowers his weapons, glances at Lori over his shoulder and says:

“Fine. You can stay the night. But tomorrow you’re leaving.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Kara sneers before she offers Rick a mockery of salute and limps past him.

Daryl doesn’t fully release his grip on his crossbow until she’s crossed in a different room—he doesn’t miss the way Rick frowns when he notices that, either. Neither of them comment on it though: they take a moment to put their weapons away with deliberately obvious movements—Daryl hopes the faintly nauseous fear in his stomach doesn’t show on his face—and then Rick says:

“She leaves tomorrow. You can go with her, or you can stay here, but think carefully, because there won’t be a second chance.”

“'Course,” Daryl says, like this is even a choice.

He’s pretty sure Rick’s about to nod when Kara’s voice pierces the surrounding silence:

“Hey sheriff. Catch.”

The can of preserved peaches hits Rick in the chest and clatters to the ground before it rolls over to rest in front of Lori, who looks at it like it’s gonna bite her. Kara gives Rick her patented, long-practiced 'fuck you’ smirk before she goes back to shuffling in her pack. Daryl, as he joins her, doesn’t miss the way she lets her gauze and pain-killing balm sit next to her for longer than strictly necessary, and for a split second he almost wants to tell her off for going through a stupid fight if that’s what she does afterward—but then, if she’d reacted in any other way it wouldn’t really have been Kara.

The meal after that is quick and quiet, hushed down by tension and fatigue and plain hunger, but it still reminds Daryl of the few times he’s dined at the Thraces'—of tucking his elbows in and counting seconds between bites and making sure to say 'yes ma'am’ and 'no ma'am’ and 'thanks ma'am’. Most likely, it’s just because Kara’s there—because they haven’t had a meal together in years and the whole day’s been reminding Daryl of things he’s already lived through.

It’s still awkward and weird, and he’s glad when the meal’s over and Glenn volunteers for first watch—that leaves Daryl free to follows Kara to the next room over, some kind of dressing room where the clothes have been thrown to the ground a long time ago. They arrange the fabric into a rough nest, throw the backpack between them and the wall, and lie down facing each other, tired to the bones but too wired to fall asleep, even when Rick shuts the lights off.

“You know,” Kara whispers after several seconds of silence, “I don’t think your friends like me very much.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

She laughs at him, breathes gin-sour air at Daryl’s face, and he frowns at it even as he registers all the little ways in which having her here is making things different already. There’s the weight of her next to his on their so-called mattress, the rustle of her jacket in the dark. The tiny kick she gives his shin when she realizes he’s gotten lost in thoughts.

Painfully familiar.

“Could have been worse,” she says, “The ride sobered me up.”

“Yeah. I thought you said you’d stopped drinking?”

“I did, and then the croaks canceled my AA group.” She shrugs, discarded clothes shifting under her weight. “I mean honestly, I thought I was gonna die there, what else was I supposed to do?”

There’s no countering that argument—well, there is. But it requires serious conversations about feelings and wanting people around and needing them and Daryl may be crap at social interactions but he’s still smart enough to know he isn’t any readier than Kara to handle that conversation. Besides, wanting someone around doesn’t mean jack if you’re not there to actually be with them, anyway.

Another silence—next door, Hershel starts to snore.

“When did you lose Merle?”

“Couple months ago. Rick handcuffed him to a roof, key got lost. He cut his hand off and bailed before I could rescue him.”

Kara lets out a low, brief whistle—that’s the closest she’s ever been to admitting something Merle said or did impressed her, and somehow it feels more jarring than having her stink of walkers’ gore and ash-scrubbed teeth.

“Bet he’s just living the life until he can come back and taunt us about it,” she says after a while. “Bastard’s tough as nail.”

“Yeah right,” Daryl says, even though he might have considered that possibility before, “Like that’s the kind of things that happens twice.”

“You never know. Anything’s possible with that guy.”

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“How did you even end up in Griffin though?”

“Some of the people from the Galactica were on shore leave when the army fucked off to god knows where. It took a while before we managed to find each other in the chaos, but when we did we decided to pack up and check the CDC to see if anyone knew how to stop this nightmare.”

“There ain’t no CDC anymore,” Daryl says, “It blew up months ago.”

“I know. After a few weeks when we’d made sure there was no one any of us knew who could be saved, we left D.C. by foot and came here through the country roads. We had a toddler with us. Slowed us down.”

“Yeah, Loi’s pregnant. It’s gonna be a bitch too.”

“Which one’s Lori?”

“The judgmental one.”

Kara makes a sound that may or may not be an incentive to be more specific, but she doesn’t say it so Daryl asks:

“How many people d'you have?”

“Eleven, last I saw. We’ll have to take a headcount when we see them tomorrow.”

Daryl nods, throat tight. Yeah, they’ll probably have all the time in the world to check whatever they want now.

“I mean the lot of us, Daryl. Trust me, your pal Rick’s going to come along.”

“Why? What’s your check point?”

“It’s a prison near Senoia. Everything you’ve been waiting for and more.”

She’s right, Daryl knows. With a prison they’d get sturdy walls, individual spaces, protected yards for outdoor activities, probably some spot where they could install a vegetable garden…maybe even running water, which would be a miracle in and of itself.

Maybe their group ain’t a democracy anymore, but Rick would be stupid not to check this out, especially with Lori’s pregnancy. Plus, enlarging the group to twenty people—even if one of them is a toddler—means more folks to take watch, more hunters, more chances they’ll find ways to fix their problems…just the thought of it is enough to wake Daryl up in full, make him want to try and figure out how to make things work.

“Only thing is, it probably shouldn’t come from me.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Beyond the fact that Rick is now firmly set on hating anything and anyone that isn’t part of their core group—and that’s a pretty big problem in and of itself—his first impression of Kara really isn’t the kind to make him any more trusting, even if he did feel okay with crowds.

(That can be worked around, though. Daryl isn’t a fan of big crowds either, but he’s very much a fan of not-dying, and so’s Rick. There must be a way they can come to an understanding, if only for a test run.)

“I can try and talk to Hershel about it,” Daryl says, “Rick listens to him. You sure they’ll manage to clear the prison though?”

“If it’s only walkers, yeah, I’m pretty sure. We were short on fire arms, but we’ve been collecting blades pretty much since day one. We’ve got tents, seeds, some extra clothes, and enough knowledge and books to get us through the first repairs. After that we’ll just have to figure things out on our own.”

Seeds. That’s bound to appeal to Hershel—it’s a good thing. Makes it easier to convince him—and if Daryl can talk Carol into making the prison’s case to Lori, how much safer it would be for the baby, even the thought of sharing the space with ten strangers won’t be enough to repel her. After that, democracy or no, convincing Rick to move in should be easy enough.

The only thing Daryl is unsure of is what’ll happen if someone asks Rick to step down as their leader. He didn’t really ask to be theirs, and maybe he’d like to step down but on the other hand, if he doesn’t he’s more likely than the other to make it known—and if Daryl only learned one thing from Socrata Thrace, it’s that military types can be intensely prickly about matters of authority.

“What’s your leader like?” He asks with a frown—around them, the others have finally settled down into sleep, and aside from Maggie’s occasional sleepy mumble, it’s almost like Daryl and Kara are alone in the world.

“He’s a good man,” she says with a smile in her voice. “I told you about him—Commander Adama?”

Oh, she’s talked about him alright. Not all the time, and it’s not like her letters were overflowed with talks of that guy—but when you only ever hear three or four names coming back in conversation, written or otherwise, it’s easy to remember them.

“Yeah,” he says, “I remember.”

“He and Lee are in charge, 'cause of their higher ranks. We can be creative but hierarchy isn’t where it’s at.”

She laughs, quieter but also more genuine than it was earlier today, and Daryl doesn’t try to restrain the smile creeping onto his mouth as he says:

“Our group’s alright, too. Not very good at hunting yet, but they’re learning.”

“And that Asian guy looks pretty cute.”

“It’s Glenn,” Daryl says, giving a light kick to the sole of Kara’s boot, “and he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Oh. Well, good thing we’ve got Gaeta then, it’ll expand your dating pool.”

“Oh fuck you, Thrace.”

Kara’s giggle turns into a full-on snort of laughter—in the other room, Daryl is pretty sure he hears a couple of curious conversations start, but he couldn’t care less.

As far as he’s concerned, even pre-zombies, the future has rarely sounded that bright.