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Survival Isn't An Option	By : Pilgrim Category: S through Z > The Walking Dead Views: 6774 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters from the series. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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“What’s your past Daryl?” Isabelle raided his eyes desperately as he tried to step away. “There was something there then, something that bothered you when I said what had happened.”
“I just don’t like people being hurt, there’s enough of that in this world don’t you think?” He snapped, trying to pull his arm free but she kept her grip insistently.
“No, there’s something more and I want to know,” Isabelle snapped back, keeping her voice low to stop from attracting the others attention.
“Belle, what’s in the past is staying in the past,” His calm demeanour was starting to grate on her, every now and again it broke but resealed ever harder.
“Stop it, stop this… whatever this is! I’m always honest with you, I want the same respect,” Isabelle demanded, fixing his gaze intently with her own as if that would force honesty from him.
“How many men did you sleep with when you were on tour? Per night?” Daryl asked coolly and she felt her cheeks colour. “Only fair, an answer for an answer.”
          Isabelle felt her jaw clench, he was right. Slowly her fingers released his jacket and she let her hand fall limply to her side. How badly did she want to know his past? How badly did she want to keep her past from him also? She couldn’t leave that question without an answer though, no answer would condemn her to whatever label he was already constructing of her in his head.
“It depended on the area and who I was on tour with,” She whispered, not meeting his eyes. “One a night, usually of the touring group. We all did it, it relieved the stress.”
“There, not so hard was it. What’s your question?” Daryl murmured sarcastically knowing full well it had been one of the hardest things she had admitted to recently.
          Isabelle shook her head and walked away. This was not a game she was going to win. She was heading for her cell, wanting the calm and the quiet and for once she didn’t crave Daryl’s company. His eyes were boring into her back, she could feel the heat of his curiosity burning her.
“Why did you say my name Belle?” He called to her.
          She paused, debating whether to answer or not. There was no obligation to answer. She didn’t even know if she had an answer for him. Not one that made sense anyway. Raindrops were beginning to fall, he stepped up next to her, holding out his leather jacket. She didn’t accept it, ignored it until he withdrew his extended arm and tossed it back over his own shoulders. Even in the darkness his eyes drew hers, the faint glint in the dull moonlight. Promises, mischief and pain that hid behind so many layers, so many walls. She’d never break through all of those.
“I wanted it to be you,” Simple and honest, she walked the rest of the way into the cell block alone.


    Beth plonked cheerfully onto the bench next to Isabelle. Lowering her spoon Isabelle studied her for a moment before swallowing her mouthful of rice and raising an eyebrow curiously. Beth wasn’t ready yet, her eyes were still studying her. Slowly they returned to meet her gaze and she smiled again.
“What was it like being a ballerina?” She queried with just the slightest quirk of her lips.
“Um… it was hard?” Isabelle stumbled, it had been a while since she’d thought about the past. How many years had it been now?
“You had to train all day? Didn’t you ever get bored of always pretending to be happy?” Beth played with her fingers but still kept her eyes on Isabelle curiously.
“Have you been speaking to Daryl?” Isabelle demanded, expecting foul play of some sorts but Beth’s surprised expression told her otherwise. “Sorry. Yeah, we had to train all day and perform most nights. It had its perks as well though! We used to stay in gorgeous hotels and dance in the most beautiful theatres, and brush shoulders with celebrities and the rich and famous. It was better when I got to the prima ranks, I used to go to so many glamorous parties and wear gowns by the latest designers.”
“You miss it?” Beth looked curious, and genuinely interested.
“Yeah, well elements of it, I don’t think my feet miss it that much,” Isabelle mumbled with a coy smile. “I miss my friends, we knew each other inside out…”
          Daryl had said something, Beth’s cheeks had coloured at that. There was no way Beth could have discerned that meaning from those words without some form of priming. Isabelle glowered in his direction but he was oblivious while eating out of a bowl with his fingers. She glanced at Beth who was once again studying her. Out of everyone here she had thought she was safest around her, with her sweet innocence. Apparently not, right now she was clearly thinking about what Isabelle must have got up to while touring. All those innocent moments of stress relief and passion suddenly turned into bawdy tales of lust and lechery.
“Do you miss your boyfriend?” Beth whispered.
“I didn’t have boyfriends, there wasn’t time,” Isabelle sighed, realising she wasn’t going to get away from this conversation. “We just dealt with any issues between ourselves when tensions got high.”
“You know he doesn’t care about the past,” Beth stated calmly causing Isabelle’s eyebrows to almost shoot into her hairline.
“Who?” She demanded.
“Daryl, well none of us care,” Beth pulled at her ponytail. “It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter now. What you do now is all that matters and Belle, we all like you.”
          Isabelle felt her jaw drop open and she stared at Beth dumbly. Silently the young woman smiled, squeezed her shoulder and walked away. Isabelle stared at her bowl wondering what had just happened and felt tears creep to her eyes. Angrily she brushed them away and pushed the bowl until it almost fell onto the floor. It wasn’t up to these people to forgive her, her past was littered with darkness and light. The whole tawdry affair of her life was what had made her and as such of course it mattered! She hadn’t moved on, she hadn’t forgotten and one kind word from a young girl wasn’t enough to draw her away from those facts. She’d been addicted to sex, she was still addicted to it. A hand landed on her shoulder but she brushed it off and headed for the cells. She needed to get away from this group and clear her head.
          Shoving a spare set of clothes into her rucksack she strapped on her knives and holstered the gun. As she headed for the door Daryl was in her way, his hand on the doorway. She moved to brush past him only for him to stay solid in her way.
“Daryl, just move,” Isabelle pleaded, not sure she could hold her frustrated tears back much longer and she would not cry in front of him, not this time.
“You’re not going anywhere on your own,” He firmly intoned.
“I can go wherever I please, you are not my keeper, guardian or anything else,” Isabelle snapped furiously, annoyed at his behaviour.
          He seemed to shrink in front of her as if her words had pierced him like a dagger and regret flooded her heart. Her eyes met his but he wasn’t meeting her gaze once more. How she wanted to shake him. Get those thoughts trapped into his head into words so she actually knew what he was thinking about, what he wanted. Slowly his hand trailed down the doorway and he stepped aside. Quietly she stalked past him and paused, she turned to speak again but she didn’t have any words.
“Daryl, stop worrying about me. You need to stop caring,” Isabelle whispered, this time it was her turn to not be able to meet his gaze. “I’m not… I’m broken.”
          Isabelle didn’t stay to listen to any more and she all but ran to the outer gate and headed through without a backwards glance. Easily she outpaced the walkers, they were getting slower. The degrees of decay making them less threatening in open spaces. Silently she continued into the forest, not knowing where she was heading but knowing that she needed to keep walking until her head cleared. For a moment she wondered if Daryl would follow her out here like he used to. Ever in his overwatch duty where she was concerned.
          The forest thinned as she continued on. A clearing to her left drew her attention and she headed towards it. A walker was stuck in the mud, its rancid fingers half eaten and left as nothing but bony skewers. She watched it twitch and sway, completely stuck up to its knees and no threat at all. It would mean she was safe at least, its stench was enough to cover the entire camp in protective eau de dead. Ignoring the smell she clambered over some rocks to sit in the last rays of sunlight coming over the tree tops. She needed to head back really, they’d be worrying, possibly thinking of sending others out to find her or her body. Lost in her myriad of thoughts she’d wandered further than she had intended too and she still had to get back through the increasing wall of walkers at the outskirts of the prison. A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt though and she stretched lazily in the summer heat, the warm rock against her back and the sun on her face. Silently she led down and pulled her shirt up, letting the sweet sensation of warm sun rest on her belly. Within minutes she was asleep.
          Only when the chill of midnight creeped into her bones did she stir, the aches and pains of the joints that had pressed into the rock reminded her that she was definitely alive still. Undecided on if that was a good thing or a bad thing Isabelle rolled onto her side and stumbled back upright. Joints cracked and moans from the trapped walker to her right drew her attention. He could almost be closer… it wasn’t a he… it was herd. Her blood ran cold at the sight in the moonlight. All around the rock were walkers, some shuffling and some just standing and swaying. There was no escape.
          Isabelle slowly lowered herself back onto the rock, pressing her front down as close as possible. They hadn’t seen her or smelled her yet, if they did she was doomed. Her heart was in her mouth, what should she do? There was no way through them and god knows how long it would take them to shuffle past. They could notice her at any moment, swallowing nervously she pressed herself into the small crevice under the rocks next to the pond. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of the mud filled pond as it lapped against her jeans and she realised why the walkers had smelled her. The pond, the water so thick with pollution of some form they couldn’t smell her over it.
          Feeling sick she dunked her rucksack into it before pinching her nose and submerging herself completely. Something brushed against her ankle and she shot to the surface quicker than she had ever moved in her life and shrieked until she reached the mud. The noise drawing the walkers to stumble into the pond in search of the source. They flailed and sank into the quagmire and she pulled herself away, ignoring the stares from dead eyes as she stumbled past them. One or two turned momentarily to study her but the stench causing her to gag and heave was enough to discourage them from investigating her further.
          Through the darkness she stumbled and fell her way to the prison. When she reached the gates, they didn’t open as they usually did. Even when she called up to Glenn and Maggie there was no response. Her eyes turned to the prison, the distant screams, the flickering of lights and gunshots. Once warm blood now ran cold as she stared at the chaos that was breaking out in the centre courtyard where they shared their meals. There were walkers in the prison, walkers killing and feeding on her friends. Desperately she worked on the gate to try and get a gap large enough for her to squeeze through.
          There was only one thought in her head. She needed to get to Daryl, she needed to know he was all right. How could she have been so stupid to leave him again? The urgency to see he was ok now expanded intensely into her heart to let him see her also, to let him know she was ok as well. To relieve that small amount of stress that somehow bonded them together. The need to know that as long the other was all right they would both be ok, they would get through this. This demented world where the ballerina clung to the redneck, the no-one that he proclaimed to be yet he had become her entire world.
          Her fingers were bleeding from her efforts to get through the gate, causing a frenzy in the walkers surrounding the perimeter fence but eventually she squeezed through and ran up to the prison. A walker lunged for her and she stabbed it in the head before realising it was Andrew from Block D. Her stomach lurched and she lost her cool, stumbling backwards. How long had the walkers been here? She’d only been away for a maximum of six hours. They didn’t turn that quickly did they? A second walker charged her and she recovered in time to push it aside and once again use her dagger to destroy the brain of Sonia. The sweet older lady stared up at her, her eyes clouded over and her lips torn and tattered.
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Survival Isn't An Option