Broken Wings (Daryl dixon x Reader)

It had been a week since Rick and the other brought Randall back. His leg had healed to the point he could manage to walk on it meaning it was time to take him and cut him loose

"18 miles out should do it." Rick said to Shane and Austin as they closed the trunk of the car. They had put headphones on the boy's head that was blasting music and a bag over his head as well, so he couldn't find his way back.

I hoped he would find his way alright it's hard to survive on your own now expecially as a kid.

I wondered to myself where his parents were. Did they die before this? Were they alive somewhere hoping their child would soon come home?

"Whatever you say Rick." Shane said putting a gun in the passenger door. Austin said nothing just looked at Rick.

"Come back to me." Lori said kissing Rick goodbye. Rick smiled and put his hand on her belly, "To you and the baby."

"What about me?" Carl said standing next to his mother.

"You expecially." Rick said ruffling his hair.

We watched as Rick got in the driver's seat, Shane in the passenger's and Austin got in the back. We watched until we could no longer see or hear the car, before we all hurried off to attend to the chores we needed to do.

I sighed in relief, maybe I could actually do something today instead of looking over my shoulder's all the time for Austin.

I made my way to the campsite where Carol had started some laundry.

"Want some help?" She smiled and nodded.

I started by wringing out the clean, damp clothes as much as could before pinning them on our makeshift clothesline we had set up between two trees.

"How many have you buried?" Carol asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Before everything how many children did you bury?" I stopped and looked at her for a moment.

"Fifteen infant and twenty children."

We didn't say anything for a while after that not until we had finished pinning the last shirt up.

"Sophia, she was all I had left. She died in those woods without her mama. My baby got left in the woods."

I didn't know what to say. I thought back to the paper I had to write on grief when I was in Mortuary school. I had specifically wrote a paper on grief in children. About how each age handles grief different. I thought back to when I interviewed my grandmother to ask her how my father handled loosing his father at two years old and loosing his little sister.

"It is all Rick's fault if he had just stayed with her she would be alive." She continued on.

"Tell me about Sophia."

"What?"

"Tell me about your little girl, her favorite things, what you and her did together before all this."

Carol smiled, tears brimming in her eyes that she quickly wiped away, "She was so smart. My precious girl. She didn't have a favorite color she loved all the colors of the rainbow." Carol sat down at the picnic table and I say across from her.

"She used to wake the neighbors when she was born, she'd wake up crying at 3 am. Ed would leave to go to a friend's till she finally grew out of that." She smiled and let the tears roll down her cheeks.

"She loved cats, she was so excited when you and Tyler brought the cat into camp she couldn't wait to play with it. Ed wouldn't let her though. Sometimes....sometimes I wish that I had the guts to have gotten away from Ed maybe if I did then I would have been more strong. Maybe I could have protected Sophia better. Hell maybe it's really my fault she is dead."