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Turn of Events

Moving On

30 days after the stay at the Green Farm and they had lost T-Dog and Shane. T-Dog had sacrificed himself to save Glenn from a group of walkers who had cornered him. He'd already lost a lot of blood after piercing his arm on a metal bar, and he'd made the split-second choice to save Glenn since they didn't have the medical equipment to save him. They had buried him in a nearby cemetery. The two Slayers had carried a large rock over to the grave and Daryl had chiseled 'Theodore 'T-Dog' Douglas' into the stone, followed by his birth year and the date of his death.

Shane was killed by Andrea after he threatened Rick with a gun, she hadn't meant to kill him but she'd startled and accidentally pulled the trigger. Bad luck had the bullet hitting the side of his head, killing him instantly. Too many of the group had witnessed his increasingly erratic behavior and the culmination of it for anyone to be too saddened by his abrupt demise. The Grimes family was the only exception, but Buffy suspected Lori, at the very least, was a little relieved. Andrea had been horrified by her own actions.

Three weeks after they left the Green Farm they had come across a black woman who carried a wicked looking katana and had two walkers on a chained leash who carried her bags for her. Or rather Amy and Andrea had come across her after being temporarily separated from the group after they had been attacked by the herd who had killed T. The group had split and escaped in different directions, and the two sisters had ended up on foot through the woods where the strange woman had saved them from a trio of the geeks.

They had backup plans in place so they all met up at a pre-arranged abandoned house, situated on a semi-hidden property a good distance away from where they'd separated. The deal was, if they got separated or somehow lost track of the group then they were to immediately go to a pre-determined place and wait for the others. They were to wait for one week and one week only, if the missing people hadn't arrived within the seven days then they would be considered dead by the others, and they would move on. It was harsh, but they couldn't risk going back to places crawling with hungry corpses.

It meant their group had been down to 13 for a little while and there were two fewer people to feed. Michonne, the newcomer, meant they were back up to 14. Food was becoming scarce in the area and if they didn't want to starve to death they would need to move on to someplace else. Soon.

The Greene family and their three workers were probably still at the farm, enjoying the rest of their fresh produce and trying to convince themselves the dead would not come for them. That the corpses of their dead family members were only sick and eventually there would be a cure, and they would just need to trust in their God and all would be well. Having faith, as in believing in something invisible and intangible who guided you on the right path, was a good thing in most cases, but you still had to pay attention and use your common sense to make your life better. The people back at the farm were firmly in denial and if they didn't manage to snap out of it it would be their doom.

No amount of talking from any of them had been able to convince Hershel, Maggie, Beth, or any of the others to leave their homestead and come with them. All they would say was that they refused to kill the sick or desecrate their bodies by stabbing them in the head. Buffy had tried to convince them all the way until just before she got into the truck with Daryl. Glenn had somehow ended up bumping uglies with Maggie when they took a car and drove into a nearby town for supplies and any medical equipment they could find. Despite that, he had been unable to convince her to leave her family, claiming it meant nothing. Sometimes having enhanced hearing was not a good thing, particularly if you wanted to allow anyone any privacy.

Lori told Rick she was pregnant just hours before they saw a huge fire in the distance about two weeks after leaving the farm. It had been Faith who'd seen it and she'd later told Buffy. She'd been out learning to hunt with their designated hunter. Tracking and killing the prey had been easy enough once she had an idea of what counted as possible food and what didn't, she'd done something similar with demons and vampires at times even if she'd relied mostly on Intel. It was the parts where she had to field strip her game and then cook it that stumped her. Much to Daryl's amusement and occasional annoyance. Building a safe fire in the woods had been pretty straightforward as well.

The fire had been a concern for some time but rather than wait around and see if it turned into a forest fire they had chosen to leave. It was long past the time where they should've left and now they finally had a proper incentive. Dale's RV had been switched to a newer and smaller model. The old man still drove, and he had the Grimes and Peletier families in the back so the children could get up and move around. It had been decided it would not serve any purpose to have the pre-teens go stir-crazy on the long drives.

Glenn, Jacqui, Faith, and Amy took over the Station Wagon, while Andrea drove the white van with Michonne as a passenger sans pet walkers. Daryl and Buffy brought up the rear in the truck. Four weeks without finding much new food meant they didn't have an abundance to store in the vehicles before they left for good.

They had only been driving for two days when they came across four people walking by the road. Four people who looked vaguely familiar; an old man with white hair, a tall brunette, a shorter blonde, and a brown-haired teenaged boy holding the blonde's hand as they walked.

As they drove up to the family, Daryl rolled down his window, "What happened?" It was brisk and to the point, but this was Daryl and they both wanted answers so Buffy let it go.

"The sick overran my farm and it went up in flames," Mr. Greene replied succinctly, a little out of breath, "We barely managed to get away in one of the trucks." Daryl raised an eyebrow in an obvious question and the veterinarian obliged. "It ran out of gas not far from here and we decided to walk the rest of the way to some friends of ours. They'll put us up."

What followed was an increasingly heated debate which was interrupted by Buffy, "I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but there's a herd coming up behind us and unless you want to become dinner you better get inside before we're leaving." Her Slayer instincts were screaming to either help these people or attack the undead.

Common sense prevailed when they heard the groaning and shuffling feet in the distance and the family got into the white van as it had the most space, with only Andrea and Michonne in the front. As soon as the door closed Daryl hit the gas and they were off. Adding the Greene family to the group, at least for the time being, meant another four mouths to feed. On the bright side, they now had their own doctor they just needed to find the right supplies for him. Their situation was looking up, especially Lori's as she was the one expecting.

Notes

Written for the 2018 August Fic-A-Day, Day 31.

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