chapter ten: believe in a blood-sucking dog
4241 words

"Pull your gun." Lin's hand went down on her hip, the whisper of metal against leather singing as she yanked the pistol out. She pointed it in front of her, her shoulders stiff and lodged up by her ears. "Relax your shoulders," Lin expected him to reach for them, to push them down like any only instructor would have. When she was still learning how to stitch back in her med school, her instructor would set her hand on Lin's wrist and guide it until she could do it with no help.

Lin forced her shoulders down, the action bringing her elbows in.

"Shoot." Lin squeezed the trigger, shutting her eyes at the kickback. A hand clapped down on her wrist, scaring Lin into opening her eyes. "Don't shut your eyes. If ya missed then you're dead." He squeezed his hand, his blunt nails biting down into her skin, emphasizing the fact that she would have easily been bitten. He pulled his hand back and nodded down the way to their messy target. She'd hit the board but it was far from any kind of kill shot. Her stance faltered and she dropped the gun. Daryl watched it happen, watched her analyze her own actions. "Do it again," he nodded. Lin exhaled and holstered her gun.

"Pull it." She did. "Shoot and keep your eyes open." She did. She steeled her arms against the kickback. The board splintered at the second bullet. Lin, upon seeing her improvement, spun to face Daryl with a blinding smile on her lips.

"I did it."

Daryl had to look away. He just had to. "Don't get too proud sunshine. It was one shot." But Lin could see that he was smiling. Daryl Dixon was smiling. It wasn't big, no earth-shattering grin full of pearly white teeth. It was a tilt of his mouth, the slant of just the corner. He had a mole right by his nose, she noticed, and it shifted with his lips.

Lin had a sarcastic quip on the tip of her tongue. But there was a groan behind her, really close behind her. She jumped away from the noise, her back colliding with Daryl's chest, her gun flying up to aim at the walker ambling their way. Lin's breath lodged right in her throat, her heartbeat roaring in her ears. She knew that the gunshots would attract at least one or two but she wasn't expecting it to be this soon, or even this close.

Daryl's hands hold onto her elbows. Her back on his chest meant that he couldn't reach for his crossbow. She had to take the shot.

"Daryl," Lin started. Her feet were moving, trying to push him backwards. He huffed and it blew the hair away from her cheek.

"Call this movin' target practice." Lin's knees locked, her ankles locked, hell even the joint in her damn jaw locked up at the notion. Daryl tightened his grip, stilling her shaking hands. "Take the shot, Lindsey," he hissed, the walker growing closer by the second. Lin choked on the air stuck in her windpipe and pulled the trigger. The walker went down like a sack of shit. Daryl let her go, just about shoving himself away. Lin inhaled, finally able to pass air into her lungs, and lowered the gun down. She couldn't meet Daryl's eyes, not now. Not after she'd choked again. "Lin?"

"I'm fine."

"Lindsey."

"I said I'm fine!" Lin took a staggering step away from the archer. Daryl, for one long and terrifying moment, registered the fact that he was looking in a mirror.

"Back in the quarry, ya begged Shane for a gun. Why?" The tone of his voice was hollow and Lin wished that she could tell what he was thinking, that she could recognize the way he spoke, the way he acted.

"I was scared." She jerked her head to the side, away from Daryl, away from the body of the walker she'd shot. "You heard what I told Dale. That should be enough."

A touch to her shoulder, light, barely there. Lin almost didn't turn.

"Gimme your knife, Lin." She tilted her head to look at him, the archer with his hand extended out to her. He nodded and she got the message that he was serious. She gave it to him, laying the hilt in his palm. "Ya aren't good with guns. That's fine. But you gotta learn with somethin'." He gestured with the blade. "I ain't the best at throwin' but it ain't that hard. This also ain't the best for throwin'." The bowie knife was better for combat, close and dirty fighting. For throwing it was all wrong. But she'd had to make due with what she had. "Watch."

Lin swallowed, pinning her eyes to his every move. He gripped the knife by the blade, between his thumb and index fingers, pulled his arm back and threw the knife. It sailed a little awkwardly but it sunk into the tree he was aiming for. Daryl turned to her and nodded. "Your turn."

If she thought she was bad with guns, she was worse with her knife. But Daryl was somehow patient for the better part of an hour, until she missed the tree again and the silver of the blade flickered in the leaves at the roots of the oak.

"We should get back huh?" Lin asked, stooping down to pick up the knife and slip it back into the leather on her hip. "They'll be asking about you for the search."

Daryl had the fletching of his bolt between his fingers. "I know you're scared, Lin. Ain't no reason to be."

"There's every reason to be, Daryl." She shook her head, walking over to the man, only looking up when his feet were right there under her. "This all can't be forever. You have to know that. When Carl's back on his feet and we find Sophia, this is all going to be over. We get back on the road and we just keep going. How are any of us supposed to live like that?"

"It's how I did." Lin didn't know how to respond to that.

"Daryl," she sighed. He wasn't an animal. He was a man. She knew that. She'd keep reminding herself of that. "I didn't." She picked her next words carefully. "And I don't want Carl to."

Daryl pushed the bolt back into the crossbow, running his finger along the taught string. "We best get movin'. They'll be sending the search groups out soon." He turned to look out on the woods, the glance doubling as a search for any other walking dead things that had heard the gunshots. "Get us back to the farm."

"Me?"

Daryl nodded. "So adamant on trackin' ya should be able to get us back. Think'a this as your lesson." Lin exhaled, beginning to think back to what she'd seen when they'd gotten to the house, what turns and headings they'd taken. She put the sun above her, and just walked.

When they arrived back at the camp, Rick asked everyone that was going out to search to gather around the rv. Daryl shrugged a flannel button-up cover the tank top he'd worn for their morning shooting session. It had been warm when he'd woken her up and it was only getting hotter by the hour. Carol caught Lin's eye from across the field, a silent question as to how it had went. Lin nodded to let her know that she'd be there in a moment.

"Lin, you coming?" Rick asked her, Dale coming up behind her with the bag of guns. Lin shook her head, hands coming up to sit on her elbows.

"No I'm gonna stay back here. Think I've had my share of close calls today." Her smile was sardonic, didn't' reach her eyes. Hearing about the close call at the farmhouse had the men around her curious with worry. "Carl should be moving soon anyway," she looked to Rick. "I'd like to be here to help him."

Rick nodded his gratitude to his sister-in-law.

"I'm gonna borrow a horse," Daryl pointed to the map, tracing the line of the creek. "Head up this ridge right here, take a bird's-eye view of the whole grid. If she'd up there, I'll spot her."

"Good idea," T-Dog told him. "Maybe you'll see your Chupacabra up there too."

"Chupacabra?" Rick asked. Lin bit at the corner of her lip, willing herself to not smile at this. It was a scare when it first happened, the fact that Daryl had seen an urban legend with his own two eyes. Everybody had been scared that first night. But now? Lin had to admit it was a little funny.

"You never heard this?" Dale began to dish out the guns. "Our first night in camp, Daryl tells us that the whole things reminds him of a time when he went squirrel hunting and he saw a Chupacabra."

The kid that had asked to join them- Jimmy?- laughed at the story.

"What are you brayin' at, jackass?" Daryl snapped.

"You believe in a blood-sucking dog?" Daryl shrugged, stepping back from the car he'd been leaning on.

"Do you believe in dead people walkin' round?" Lin wanted to check on Carl, talk to Carol, hell, even just sit next to Lori for a little bit. If she got to sit in the rv with Dale, she'd bee even happier. But they weren't in the quarry anymore. They couldn't sit around. She turned her head to look at Daryl beside her. She shifted so her shoulder bumped his.

"Be careful," she mumbled for only him to hear. He did but made no sign that he did, save for his eyes slanting down right to hers. He slung his crossbow up over his shoulder, heading for the stable for a horse. Lin had no idea that he could ride, but then again there was a lot she didn't know about him. She also, for some reason, really liked the idea of learning to ride. But they had bigger issues right now, other things to worry about then her personal wants.

The group consisting of Shane, Rick, T-Dog, Andrea, Jimmy and Daryl all head out into the woods. Lin dropped herself down onto one of the logs by the tents, besides Carol.

"Was it your idea or Daryl's with the flowers?" Carol asked, her hands worrying over the sweater in her hands. Lin smiled to herself, hand going on her belt where her gun had been.

"Daryl found them outside the farmhouse. I just gave him a little push." She mimed the action with her hands. Carol nodded, lips slipping into a small smile as well.

"He's a good man," Carl said. Lin waited for a contradictory addition to that sentence but the silence after Carol's statement told her that the mother said what she meant. Lin believed it. Daryl put himself out there, searched day and night for a child that wasn't his own. Lin had never seen Ed do that.

"He is," Lin agreed. "We did find something in that house. Whoever it was had to be her size." Carol reached for Lin's hand, squeezing it to thank her.

Carl had been asking for Lin almost all day, his father's hat slipping over his forehead. Lin knew it was a big thing for Rick to give it away. He'd been so proud when he'd come home with it, turning in circles in Lori's kitchen like it was a fashion show. Carl looked so much like Rick, so much like Lori each day.

"You better stop growing up on me, mister. My poor heart can only handle so much." Lin put her hand to her chest for dramatic effect. Carl giggled, pushing himself up so he could stand. It pulled at his chest a little when he did but the stitches were out and he looked better than ever.

"Do you think I'll be taller than you?" Carl asked her to which Lin nodded without a second thought.

"You will be." Any questions she had about Carl not reaching that age, not living long enough to be taller than her, she immediately shoved away. Carl was going to live, to survive this, she was going to make sure of it.

Lin hadn't worried about Daryl going off by himself before that morning. She hadn't worried about Daryl at all before. But now she was worried. Everyone had come back from their search, everyone except Daryl.

Lin tried not to stress herself out, pinning some of her laundry up beside Lori's. Lori hadn't spoken to her past a good morning hours earlier and it was setting something off in Lin.

"Hey Glenn," Lin called his attention as he stepped down and out of the rv. It was obvious his conversation with Dale hadn't gone well at all because he was hauling ass away from the motorhome. "Have you heard anything from Lori?"

"What?" Glenn stuttered. Lin's eyes widened at the blatant nerves rolling off him. "What do you mean?"

Lin shrugged, dropping her hands and playing with the clothespin between them. "I just wanted to know if you'd heard anything. You seem to be the message boy around here so I thought I'd just ask."

"No I haven't." Lin couldn't tell if that was a lie or not. But she trusted Glenn. He was a good kid, a smidge younger than her, but he'd proved himself a number of times before.

"Walker," Andrea jumped up from where she'd been sitting on watch. "Walker!" Lin clipped the pin to the clothesline, rushing over to the side of the rv. She wished she had the rifle, or even Shane's binoculars so she could see out that far. But sure enough, right on the edge of the farm, a dirty figure was limping their way.

"Just the one?" Rick asked Andrea who could see better than all of them. Lin watched Andrea lift the binoculars then drop them for the rifle, her rifle.

"I bet I can nail it from here."

"Andrea, I wouldn't," Lin told her, pressing her hands against the rv to get the blonde's attention.

"You'd best let us handle this," Shane, with for some reason only half of his shirt off, leaped at the chance to swing the axe at something.

"Shane, hold up. Hershel wants to deal with walkers."

"What for, man? We got it covered." Shane stalked past Lin, out into the fields, the pickaxe on his shoulder and T-Dog at his side. Rick cursed and darted over the rv, grabbing his gun from where he'd set it inside, and running to follow the others.

Lin watched the figure get closer. It looked like a walker alright, stumbling, head dipped and covered in blood. How a walker got this close without any noise was the question thought. The rifle cocked as Andrea brought it back up. But the setting sun glared into the scope so she laid down on her stomach, hoping that it would help ease the light bouncing off the lens.

"Andrea, don't." Dale told her, trying to get her to stop. Lin took a step forward, squinting out to try to see anything.

"Back off, Dale."

Lin watched Rick run to the front and raise his revolver at the walker. She plugged her ears, waiting for the deafening crack of the shot. But it never came. Glenn bent down to catch his breath, Shane pulled his hat from his head. And Rick lowered the gun. Something wasn't right. Why wouldn't Rick shoot? As the dots connected, the recognition finally registering in Lin's head, Andrea pulled the trigger. Lin's frantic yell fell silent against the sharp snap of the rifle.

Lin was running before Daryl hit the ground. Rick yelled, Andrea's mistake finally hitting her. She'd shot Daryl, potentially killing him for the whole group to see. Lin could feel the pressure behind her eyes, fearing the worst had happened.

Daryl's side was bloody all the way down and when Lin got to him, she dropped onto her knees beside him, touching the graze on the side of his head. She heaved a sigh at the fact that this was practically nothing. He was still conscious too. His hand fumbled around hers, going to the bleeding stripe on his temple. Lin pulled whatever he was wearing around his neck out of his mouth, Rick and Shane lifting him up by either of his arms.

"I was kidding," Daryl breathed out to which Lin didn't know the context but honestly didn't care. She went for his crossbow, lifting it up onto her shoulder to take back for him, and watched in muted horror as Daryl's head lolled back.

"Oh my god," Andrea gasped, her and Dale tearing across the field to get to them. "Oh my god, is he dead?"

"Unconscious," Rick answered, "You just grazed him."

"You're lucky you've got shit aim," Lin bit, wiping her fingertips under her eye. "I'll tell Hershel, get him to one of the beds." Based on just the amount of blood that was on him, how dirty that tank top was, he'd gotten into a lot for shit than just being shot in the head.

Lin brought her knife to the collar of Daryl's shirt, slitting it right down the front. Hershel pulled it off of him, away from the gaping wound just above his hip. They switched places, the two acting together to help the archer. The wound was straight through, and not nearly as dirty as she thought it would be. It wasn't a bite either. Daryl jerked awake when she touched it, nearly off the bed before he realized where he was. Lin wadded up a few layers of the gauze, holding it out to him.

"Put this up to your head and turn on your side, Hershel's going to stitch you up." To her luck, Daryl didn't argue. He stretched out on the bed, exposing his injured side and back for Hershel to clean and stitch up. Lin walked to the other side, sitting on the edge of the bed as Rick and Shane brought the map in. Lin would have liked to have told them to wait at least a little bit to give the man a damn break but that wasn't her call.

Rick asked him about the doll they'd found on his hip.

"I found it washed up on the creek bed right there." He pointed with the hand holding the gauze and Lin resisted the urge to thwack him on the temple. "She must have dropped it crossing there somewhere."

"Cuts the grid almost in half," Rick told Shane.

"Yeah, you're welcome," Daryl retorted, tilting his head back to watch what Hershel was doing. Lin had to give him props on the fact that he was doing this with no painkillers.

"How's he looking?"

"I had no idea we'd be going through the antibiotics so quickly," Lin felt her heart drop in time with Hershel cutting the thread of Daryl's stitches. "Any idea what happened to my horse?"

"Yeah, the one who almost killed me? If it's smart, it left the country." Lin frowned.

"We call that one Nelly, as in Nervous Nelly. I could have told you she'd throw you if you'd bothered to ask. It's a wonder you people have survived this long."

It really was. Daryl settled his head back on the pillow, gauze still up on his temple. And he looked up at Lin, at the blood streaked in an arc under her eye.

"That mine?" He pointed to it. Lin's brows crinkled in question. "The blood under your eye. Is that mine?" Lin looked over to the mirror on the vanity and saw the swoop of deep red on her cheek.

"Yeah," Lin mumbled, standing and walking to the basin of water Hershel had left. She dipped a hand into it, bringing it up to her eyes to scrub them clean. She brought the towel up to her face and in the mirror she wiped the water away. "You want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really," Daryl grumbled, sweeping his right arm under the pillow to lay on it. Lin's eyes rolled as she turned back to him.

"But you know I'm gonna ask anyway." She sat back down on the edge of the bed, further down to give him his space. He sighed and shut his eyes.

"Damn horse bucked me off. Rolled down into the creek, landed on my own damn arrow." That explained the gaping hole on his side.

"Well you got lucky. It missed your hipbone and all your organs." She nodded toward him, toward the wound. Hershel had left her to bandage it, which she was willing to do without a problem. This was Daryl he was talking about. "I need to bandage that. How's your head?" Daryl pulled the gauze away from his temple. The bleeding had slowed significantly and she leaned closer to see it and he flinched back, his snapping shut. Lin froze in place. Daryl's eyes popped back open upon not feeling anything. Lin hadn't lunged at him, or thrown hands with him. She stood, walking over to the vanity for the bandage. "This might sting a little." She wiped the site clean with an alcohol wipe, a glasses cleaning wipe but it was close enough, and laid the bandage down, making sure the edges stuck down.

She set her fingers on the edge, pushing against it to see if it would move. When it didn't, she pulled her hand away. Daryl's skin was still a little dirty but it would have to do. He couldn't shower until his stitches were out. As she stood, her fingers trailed over his hip, making him jerk at the contact. She smiled to himself, just assuming that he was just a little ticklish. The great and scary Daryl Dixon was ticklish.

"Need to wrap your head too." She held out her hand and Daryl looked between it and then realized what she was asking for. He handed her the wadded gauze. She cut away the used section and then handed it right back. "Keep that pressed." She took up the roll and walked to the side of the bed, lifting her knee up to lean over to him. "Just hold still for a moment and I'll get this done as soon as I can." Daryl turned a little bit, lying a little further onto his back and facing Lin. She brushed his hair back off of his forehead, pushing it to spike up. And somehow, despite there being no shampoo and conditioner at the end of the world, his hair was soft. It wasn't fair. Daryl's eyes were shut and she thought for a moment that he was asleep. Good, she thought, he needed the rest. She scooted closer so she didn't have to reach so far. She knew she was testing the limits here but one, she didn't care, and two, she had to so he would get better. She began to wrap the bandage around his head, her hand on his cheek to lift his head up. He was cooperative, letting her move his head as she needed.

"I'm glad you're okay, Daryl," Lin confessed into the silence. "I know you don't like girly shit or anything like that but I'm glad." She made a mention back to the day before.

She cut the end of the gauze and pressed it down, pushing his hair up and out of the way.

"You call this okay?" He grumbled, shifting in pain. Lin, going against her better judgement, set her hand on his cheek to turn his head her way. When he was facing her, she took it back.

"I call not being dead okay." This rendered Daryl silent for the rest of her time in the room. She'd finished dressing his wounds anyway and had just resigned herself to cleaning everything up. "Get some rest, Daryl. Someone will bring you some dinner in a little bit." As she opened the door and stepped out, Daryl's eyes followed until the door was shut, the wood separating the hunter and the healer.

Dinner was quiet, the entire camp together as one unit for at least once during the day. Hershel bid everyone a good night and retired upstairs to his room with Patricia following behind. Beth and Maggie cleared the tables and slowly the farm calmed down. Lin had taken a spot on the porch to just listen to the night, the cicadas humming out in the trees. She looked over as Lori stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

"Hey," she greeted her to which Lori just offered a nervous smile. "You okay?"

"Can I talk to you?" Her eyes darted to the closed screen door. "Alone?"

Lin knew then that whatever had been troubling Lori, whatever problems she'd sealed inside herself, were about to come to light. "Sure." She nodded her head to the side of the house, one where she knew they couldn't be heard. But she kept the house in her sight, in both of their eyes.

Lori was visibly nervous, winding her hands together with her shoulders slumped forward. "Lori, what's wrong?" Lin asked, catching her before she could walk any further. Lori exhaled and just said it.

"Lin, I'm pregnant."

an: hello friends, this is my first update as asgxrdians! i've rebranded because i wanted to have a shorter and like slightly more professional username than marveloushunterelf (that username is now my backup account!!) 

this update is a day earlier because these past two days have been not good for me so i wanted to do something i did enjoy which is put stuff out for you guys to read! hope you enjoy and ill see you on sunday before the new episode!! (drop a comment with any thoughts you have on the past episodes!!)