chapter twenty four: the prison
5225 words

A few weeks had turned into a month, which turned into five months which turned into eight. Lori passed her due date with flying colors and still showed no sign of labor, not even Braxton-hicks. It worried Lin and had her helicoptering around her sister.

When the morning came, the storage unit provided nothing more than a roof over their head. There wasn't food, weapons. So the group gathered the clothes that they could find for the winter and went out on the road again. And they hadn't stopped going.

Maggie was the one to spot the house. It was tucked away on a dirt road, one they'd taken a chance on. Rick, T-Dog, Daryl, and Carl went in to clear it, like they'd done a dozen times before. Lin stayed on Daryl's bike when he hopped off, hooking her foot around the kickstand. He smoothed a hand over her forehead as he went, something he'd started doing since the storage units. They were methodically, quick and efficient. Rick whistled when it was clear.

Car doors opened and everyone began to pile out. Lin rushed to Lori's side to help her, pushing through the bout of dizziness she felt. It had been days since many of them had eaten, even more for Lin because even though she kept telling Lori she'd eaten when she gave the pregnant woman her rations, she really hadn't. Beth and Carol carried some of the cushions from the sofa back in the storage lockers.

Glenn and Maggie dragged one walker body out into the hall, dropping it onto the floor. Lin let Lori walk into the living room on her own, taking a spot on the deflated cushion Carol set down for her. Rick shut the front doors of the house, the sound adjacent with Carl rummaging around in the kitchen. It made Lin's heart hurt to think how hungry he was, how they all were. She lowered herself down next to Daryl, taking her time as she did. He was busy plucking feathers off an owl he'd killed upstairs. But that didn't mean he didn't worry as she set her head back against the wall and practically went to sleep right there.

Carl darted in from the kitchen, two cans tucked up under his arm. No one spoke as he set them down. Dog food. Carl had found canned dog food and acted like it was a feast. He was shattering hearts by the moment. Rick heard the grinding of his can opener and finally looked over. He crossed the living room and took the open can from his son. He read the label and without another thought, chucked it into the fireplace.

Lin, who had her eyes shut and ignoring practically the whole world, jumped sky high at the sound. Daryl's hand shot to her knee to comfort her, to get her to calm down. She set her hand over his and squeezed. Still no one spoke. Until T-Dog hissed from the window. Lin sighed. He was lookout and that meant walkers inbound.

Lin helped Lori stand but the moment she was on her feet, Daryl had Lin's hand in his, pulling her out the back door. She jumped on the bike, taking his crossbow when Daryl handed it to her. He put his foot down on the kicker arm and hit hard until it started. He waited only a few moments until everyone was ready then gunned it to the front of the line, leading everyone away from the walkers chasing them down the dirt road. Lin held on tight to Daryl, unafraid of the contact like she once was. Daryl took his right hand off the high handle bars and slipped her hand underneath his vest to hold onto his shirt if she fell asleep. He feared that she was going to.

Lin looked back at the cars behind them, the rest of the group following. They were running again, the dead catching up because they always did. They'd been running for months and it just never stopped. Find one house, stay a few hours, keep going.

Lin buried her face in Daryl's back, shut her eyes. And they never stopped going.

When they did, it was only to plan where they were going next. They'd been tracking the herds as they moved with colored marker on the map Rick carried around. Big circles depicted the threats, innocent shapes acting as the biggest threat to all of their safety. It scared Lin at times, just thinking about it. She didn't like to and really tried not to but Rick had them going for hours and as much as Daryl lingered around her, he wasn't much of a talker. So it left her to her thoughts, her worries and her fears.

Daryl stopped the bike, cut the engine, turned to look back at Lin. It was a routine, he noticed whether he wanted to or not. She leaned back away from him but didn't look anywhere else than his back. It made him worry only a little bit. He put his thumb between her brows to smooth them, quick enough that she thought she might have hallucinated it. But then he nodded and stood up from the bike, slipped his hand underneath to crossbow strap on her chest and pulled it off of her. She'd taken to wearing it because she really didn't want a faceful of arrow when she held onto him. She stood up behind him, walking the distance behind the red van to get to Lori.

"We got no place left to go," T-Dog opened the map and Maggie helped him spread it out.

"When this herd meets up with this one, we'll be cut off," she gestured at the plain circles, the implication behind them joining enough to make everyone pay attention. Lin set her hand on her sister's as to not scare her. Lori had her head back against the headrest, her other hand under her stomach. With her being as overdue as she was, each movement they made had to matter. Lin knew and Hershel knew that Lori couldn't keep on like this. "We'll never make it south."

"What would you say? That was about 150 head?" Daryl had to ask how many were in the herd because as the days went by, it was only getting bigger.

"That was last week. It could be twice that by now," Glenn answered. Lin took Lori's temperature as an extremely cautionary measure and then left her side with a kiss to her temple. She was fine considering everything but Lin wished that she could be better.

"This rive could have delayed them," Hershel traced the blue line across one of the folds in the map. "If we move fast, we might have a shot to tear right through there."

"Yeah, but it this group joins with that one, they could spill out this way," T-Dog pointed to more of the circles, the herds waiting for them to slip up. Lin came around with Carol, stopping to put her elbow up on the right mirror.

"So we're blocked," Maggie concluded.

Rick stepped closer to the map so he could visualize something, anything other than the paths they'd already taken. "Only thing to do is double back at 27 and swing towards Greenville."

"Yeah, we picked through that already. It's like we spent the winter going in circles," T-Dog said it as a hypothetical but that was indeed what they had done.

"Yeah, I know. I know. At Newnan we'll push west. Haven't been through there yet. We can't keep going house to house," Rick brought his gaze up, past the group to his estranged wife in the passenger seat of the red van. "Need to find someplace to hole up for a few weeks."

Lin wanted to tell him that Lori was okay for now but there wasn't a point. They still had to find someplace.

"Alright," T-Dog agreed. "It cool if we get to the creek before we head out? Won't take long" T-Dog was itching to find water, scrub the dirt off is hands. He wasn't the only one either. "We got to fill up on water We can boil it later."

"Knock yourself out," Rick didn't mind as long as they went in a group. He trusted T-Dog to lead them out, bring them back in all their respective one pieces. Hershel spoke his grievance with Rick about Lori moving as much as she was.

Lin gathered her stuff to go with T-Dog and them to help out but she was pulled back by a light tug on the bow around her shoulders. Daryl. It always was.

"Lin, you coming with?" Maggie asked, halfway between the road and the woods.

"She's stayin' with us. We're scopin' out the area." Daryl answered for her even though he didn't have to. It made Lin smile because he was so damn stubborn. It made Maggie smile because Daryl wasn't letting Lin out of his sight. Lin caught onto that; she'd have to be blind not to see the way Maggie's lip curled. She pointed at the woman, a silent threat aimed her way to which Maggie just shrugged her hands up. If she and Glenn got to be camp gossip, Lin and Daryl should be too. It only seemed fair.

Lin followed Daryl back over to his bike.

"Hey, while the others wash their panties, let's go hunt." He dropped his bow down to his feet to load it. Lin rolled her eyes back at the way he phrased that whole sentence to Rick but that was just Daryl. And it had grown on her more than she'd ever admit. "That owl didn't exactly hit the spot."

Lin walked between the two boys, her bow in her hand. She didn't have an arrow out yet, confident in her ability to draw one if she needed to. They found a set of railroad track a few minutes walk off the highway and Daryl began to follow them in the hopes that it would lead them to a station or another little town they could pick through. They didn't get a town, or a station or a building. They got a prison instead.

Daryl was the first to see it, the fenced clearings of walkers, the tall guard towers. "That's a shame," he mused, coming to a stop on the tracks. For the first time in a long time, Lin felt a spark of hope ignite in her. It was perfect. If they could find a way in, eliminate all the walkers already inside, they could have a home. They could have somewhere safe.

Lin turned to Rick, the very beginnings of a smile breaking through. He saw it too. She just had to look at him to see the cogs turning in his head. He saw the potential, the promise that the prison showed. He met her eyes after a moment and she couldn't help herself.

"What's the plan, cowboy?"

They were going to clear the yard. It was a no brainer in Lin's opinion. It was staring them right in the face, the solution they'd been searching months for.

Rick put the wire of the fence between the bolt cutters, snapping each link like they were nothing. The rest of the group, everyone included, all stood as backup for the sheriff. Glenn and Maggie took the one walker that wandered too close, pressing it up against the fence.

"Watch the backside," Daryl shouted to remind them of what the plan was supposed to be.

"Got it," Lin answered, her arrow nocked, pointed straight out and away from the prison. Rick cut the fence about halfway up and the moment he had it cleared, Hershel ushered his youngest daughter though. Carl went next, ducking through and jumping away to let more of the group in. "Lori, you're next." Lin looked over her shoulder long enough to see Lori make it through then Carol, Glenn and Maggie. T-Dog threw his hand back to Lin, telling her that it was her turn to go, which would leave him alone.

"Sunshine, come on," Daryl held the cut fence open, waiting for her to just get to the side of safety. She huffed and brought her bow down, one hand over her head so the cut wire didn't snag on her hair. When she was through and T-Dog crossed over into the safe area, Rick and Daryl scrambled to close the gap. Glenn took one of the stretch cords they had, weaving the gap shut as a walker launched itself at him. But the fence held and the walker stayed out. Lin saw that as the beginning. This was going to work; she knew it.

They rounded the yard to the gate, stopping there to cover what was going to happen next.

"It's perfect," Rick said softly into the air. "If we can shut that gate, prevent more from filling the yard, we can pick off these walkers." As Rick spoke, the turned prisoners crowded the fences. Lin flinched as one smacked against the fence beside her. "We'll take the field by tonight."

"So how do we shut the gate?" Hershel asked the all-important question.

"I'll do it," Glenn volunteered. "You guys cover me."

Maggie shook her head, inhaling before she disagreed with Glenn's statement. "No. It's a suicide run."

"I'm the fastest."

"No, you, Maggie and Beth draw as many as you can over there," Rick pointed down to an empty segment of the yard. "Pop 'em through the fence. Daryl, go back to the other tower. Carol, you've become a pretty good shot. Take your time. We don't have a lot of ammo of waste. Hershel, you can Carl take this tower." With everyone able given jobs, it left just Lin and Lori. "I'll run for the gate." He looked to his sister-in-law. "Can you handle getting in there?"

Lin tightened her grip on her bow. "You know I can," she answered. After the farm, the quarry, the months of running and killing, a few walkers weren't going to stop her now. Lin held her rifle out to Lori, switching with her so she had the pistol. It would be easier to move, better to aim. But it was for an emergency only so Lin tucked it into her waistband where she could reach it. Glenn handed Rick the big clips and Lin shifted her grip on both her bowie knife and the throwing knife Daryl had given her.

Lori reached for the fence gate to open it to the yard. She looked at her sister and her husband as they prepared to run head first into what was essentially a horde.

"I take the right, you take the left?" Lin couldn't help but joke as Rick checked if she was ready. It made him smile despite the situation. He nodded to Lori and she pulled the gate open, eliminating the only thing between the two of them and the dozens of the walkers waiting.

The first few were easy kills like always. It wasn't until the rest of the hoard caught on that Lin had to try. She covered Rick as he tore across the yard to the gate. He stopped to shoot at one walker that got too close for comfort. Lin whipped her arm back, throwing her knife at a walker that began to cut off her path between her and Rick. Her aim rang true, dropping the walker down onto the gravel track. It was a rush, a run from one side of the field to the other. It was an uphill climb to get the fence closed, and even when Rick did they still had to clear the field.

Lin put her bowie blade through the skull of one dead ugly thing and prepared for the next. Slice and dice. Nothing that she hadn't been doing for months already. It wasn't until she pulled on her knife handle and it didn't budge did she start to panic. She tried to pull it out again and it didn't budge, the sharp edge grinding against the blunt edge of the dead walker's molar. She couldn't pull it out in time for the next rotting thing in line and her lack of on-hand weapon was her downfall. She pushed an arm against the dead man's chest to get it away from her as she tried to reach the gun in her waistband. Her finger grazed it, quite literally just inched past the leather grip, as the geek fought against her and pushed her onto her back.

"Lindsey!" Maggie yelled at the fence. Rick's head whipped at the sound, the objective momentarily forgotten.

Lin put her forearm against the walker to keep it off of her and she rushed to figure out something to do. She'd been here before. She'd gotten out of this before too. "I'm fine! Cover Rick!"

Rick skidded in place, torn between helping his sister in law and shutting the gate. He couldn't let her get bit but he couldn't let any more walkers get into the field either.

Daryl leaned as close to the watch tower rail as he could, his crossbow up and in his white-knuckle grip. He could take out the walker on Lin without a problem. It was an easy shot even from where he was but it was the wrong angle. If he shot now, he risked hitting her.

"Come on, sunshine," he muttered, not at all caring that Carol could hear him. "Just push the damn thing a little further." His finger flexed over the trigger, each second that she struggled chipping pieces away from his patience, from his temper. He found his moment when he didn't expect it. Lin's arm dropped down onto her chest, the walker falling closer to the exposed skin of her neck, inches away from where it could have bit her and ended not only her world but his as well. But then she shoved it up and away, her strength on its very end and Daryl took the shot.

Lin jumped as the arrow pierced the walker from the back of the head, the arrow tip startlingly close to her. But she exhaled in relief that Daryl had her back. If he didn't just fucking kiss her when they cleared the field she was going to do it for him. She pushed the walker off of her, letting it fall to the ground beside her, only to make room for the next walker to come stumbling over.

Daryl brought his crossbow back in to reload it, expecting to have to shoot the walker that spotted Lin. He got it back up and over the railing only to stop short. He didn't see what happened but he could make an educated guess. She didn't shoot the walker because he would have heard it and she would still have the revolver in her hand. She had her bow raised, hand up by her cheek. She'd taken the arrow from the dead walker, his arrow that he'd shot, and used it like a dagger because one rotting body lay at her feet and another one fell feet away, his arrow through its head. She'd used his arrow like a dagger and then fired it from her bow in a dead-on shot. He felt proud, in a way. He'd taught her as much as he could and while he never taught her that it was reassuring to know that she could handle herself.

Rick dragged the fence gate shut, clamping the hooks on either side to keep it that way. Step one of the plan down. It just left the rest of the walkers in the field which were dwindling by the moment with four up in the towers, two in the field and the rest at the fences.

"Lin!" Rick shot one stumbling dead man and yanked the door to the nearest guard tower open. She was too far to get there before the other walkers did, so she went for Lori, for the other gate where everyone else was.

Her feet skidded along the gravel as she tried to come to a stop, Lori sliding the gate shut and firing her sister's rifle to keep the hoard at bay. At Daryl's call, everyone began to clear the field. With Rick and Lori out, they didn't have to worry about crossfire and shot away until each body fell still and the only groans they heard lied outside the fence. The boom of Rick's rifle marked the last of the dead. He smiled, looking out at what they'd done from the guard tower.

Lin set her hands on her knees, her bow on the ground as she fought to catch her breath. That much action, running and fighting with not much sleep was really catching up with her. But the contagious excitement and the fact that they cleared the field had her straightening back up. She let out a wordless shout, her hands up in the air. It made Rick smile as he descended the guard tower steps to join his group in the open space.

Carol and Daryl rounded the corner as Carl and Hershel came down from their tower. Carol was beyond excited, practically bouncing as she went through the gate Lori opened. Lin ruffled the hair on the back of Carl's head under his hat as he passed, a silent compliment for his nice shooting. He'd done well. Lin asked Daryl to help her train him a bit more, just to get his aim somewhere they could work with. The kid learned quicker than anything and the fact that he was growing like a weed each month only added to it. Her nephew was growing up.

Daryl caught Lin's shoulder, making her turn to face him.

"That was a good shot," she remarked through a tired but happy smile. He looked her head to toe, satisfied at the lack of scratches or bites. His hand fell onto her cheek, fingers moving back into her hair where they tightened and brought her close to kiss her forehead.

"Come on," he spoke as he backed away but didn't leave her side. Lori still stood by the gate entrance and Lin stopped beside her to make sure she was okay too. Daryl lingered but Lin could tell he wanted to keep moving. They had all night now. There was plenty of time to spend with him.

"Go, I'll catch up with you." She wrapped an arm around Lori's shoulder, her cheeks a happy shade of pink as he nodded and trekked further into the yard. Lori leaned her head toward Lin, a sigh leaving her. Lin felt her shoulders fall, the stress melt away at the thought that they finally had a place to stay, a real place that offered them safety.

"We haven't have this much space since we left the farm," Carol turned as she walked, her arms outstretched as if she was reenacting the Sound of Music.

The excitement was infectious and soon everyone had dopey grins about them, eager to take in all the space the field had to offer. They'd earned this after months of running and fighting and not knowing if they would leave to see the next night. Rick opened the guard tower door, barely paying any attention to the walkers on the other side of the fence. The clamps would hold for one night and though he knew that, he'd still make his rounds when the sun set.

They all settled in a circle right by the gravel road. Maggie had started it, dropping down onto the grass with a rather long sigh. Beth and Hershel followed and then everyone else did. Lin sat with Lori, letting the pregnant woman rest up against her if she wanted to. The night came in quickly, chased away by a small fire they built in the center of the circle. There was a circle fan in the guard tower and with the lack of any electricity now a days, the fan was taken apart to be used as a makeshift grill to cook whatever it was that Daryl had found. Lin was glad to eat it on the condition that no one told her what it was. She trusted Daryl to not feed her skunk or something like that.

Glenn said something about the meat that Lin didn't really care to pay attention to. But it made Maggie smile so it must have been something at least a little bit funny. Lin took a piece of meat from where she had it sitting on a clean portion of her pant leg and offered it to Lori and Lori knew by the way that Lin held it right up by her mouth that she wasn't going to let her say no. She'd threatened to shove food down her throat before and it was getting to the point that Lori was sure that Lin would actually do it if she had to.

Rick walked the perimeter of the field, rounding the space over and over with Lori's eyes following him with each lap.

"Tomorrow we'll put all the bodies together. Want to keep them away from that water. Now, if we can dig a can under the fence, we'll have plenty of fresh water." T-Dog began to think out loud, the excitement for having the space turning into determination to keep it theirs.

"And this soil is good. We could plant some seed, grow some tomatoes, cucumbers, soybeans," Hershel rubbed a little bit of the soil between his fingers.

"Potatoes," Lin added. "What I wouldn't give for just a bucket of fries." Glenn nodded along with her, a low hum leaving his lips. He'd worked pizza which thankful never sold fries because just the delivery process made him never want to eat the circular dinner ever again. Fries had never sounded better.

Lin turned her gaze to the overturned bus at the front gate, or rather the archer pacing atop of it. He hadn't eaten yet and she hadn't gotten her chance to properly thank him for the backup from earlier. Lin shrugged just enough so Lori could sit up. Lin asked her sister to hand her the spare plate of meat with a whisper tucked underneath Hershel's voice. Carol reached for the bowl from beside Lin.

"I can bring it to you both in a little bit. I think you might want to be doing other things with your mouths." The woman winked at Lin, careful that only Lin saw and restrained her smile at the flush on Lin's cheeks She guessed that she wasn't as subtle as she thought she had been but she reminded herself that she kissed him in front of the entire group back on the farm. Lin thanked her quietly and left the bowl in her grasp.

As Lin stood to walk over to Daryl, Beth leaned over to Lori and said, "This'll be a good place to have the baby. Safe." Lin waited for Lori's response. Lori just smiled. This place was safe. She didn't have to worry anymore about giving birth alone on the road. This was exactly what they were looking for and Lori knew in her heart that her baby was going to be okay.

Lin knocked on the side of the bus as a peace offering and when Daryl brought his crossbow up over his shoulders in favor of helping her up, she saw it as a win. He clasped a hand around hers, the other on her wrist as he pulled her up. With both her feet on the vehicle, she turned to the archer. He was wearing a poncho he must have either found in the bus or just never brought out for anyone to see but regardless it looked very nice on him and while the winter was long gone, some nights dipped into chilly weather so the poncho look was perfect.

"I didn't thank you earlier for the shot you took. I don't think I could have taken that walker out if you hadn't."

Daryl just shrugged from beside her. "Wasn't much. I think that stunt where ya fired it from your bow was a bit more impressive."

Lin looked down at her feet, suddenly bashful at the mention of the impromptu badass move she'd done. "You saw that?"

"Don't think anyone missed it sunshine," he replied, knowing full that he hadn't seen it happen but he could connect a few dots. "Was pretty badass."

She flushed a little more at the compliment. Since when did Daryl do compliments? He wasn't rude or unappreciative by any means; he just didn't dish out compliments like they were nothing.

"Thanks," Lin mumbled. She crouched by the edge and sat down and for a moment Daryl worried that she was leaving. But she didn't. She patted the space beside her to get him to sit too. He didn't think at all about the request, plopping down into the space where he hand had been. "This place will be good for us," she turned her head a little further to look back at the fire, back at her sister, "good for Lori." Daryl watched the fire dance on the slopes of her face. She was thinner than she had been on the farm, or even in Atlanta, her cheeks a little more gaunt and sunken in than they had been before. But she was still pretty, still an effortless kind of beautiful that Daryl hadn't seen since his mom was young. Even then he could barely remember what she looked like before the cigarettes and the alcohol. She'd been beautiful in all the pictures he dug through when he was younger. Merle dragged him to titty bars whenever he could, and he'd called every girl there beautiful because it was what they wanted to hear. Sure the girls were attractive, they had to be to profit from the position, but Daryl never saw it.

It wasn't until Lin put that Cherokee Rose into her hair and shot some wise crack his way that he saw it. Lin was beautiful, in a way that Daryl wasn't sure even existed anymore. Finding dates or chasing tail wasn't exactly a goal anymore. Everyone's days were numbered. Glenn and Maggie had been lucky enough to find each other. Daryl never thought he would be. He'd given up on that a long time ago, before the dead started to eat people. But then there was Lin.

The fire reflected the red in her hair, made her blue eyes come alive, and Daryl knew he was gone.

"Are you listening to me?" Daryl had been staring and hadn't realized. She was smiling, having caught him zoned out. She was smiling, like the past months hadn't worn her down to nothing, hadn't kept her up without food and without sleep, like she hadn't nearly died more times than he wanted to think about.

"Nah, I ain't," Daryl told her honestly to which her eyebrows shot up and her smile just widened. Like sunshine, he thought as his hand returned to her cheek and for the first time in the eight months since the farm, Daryl kissed her.

an: perhaps im super soft for darlin and the gif for this chapter is too perfect. norman in this most recent episode is just so good and it makes me want to write them even faster like theres so much intimacy im ready for and so many people i want lin to meet like jesus?? aaron??? lydia???? if you think that daryl and lin aren't going to adopt lydia the moment they see her you are dead wrong. it's their word and we are only living in it. i hope you enjoy this late update today (had to make you guys wait for the kissing), watch the new episode!! and ill see you next sunday!! :))

ps i have so many headcanons for this book its unreal so if yall wanna hear those let me knoww