Cold As Ice

by Mia June

This was my answer to a little Daryl & Connie (Donnie) challenge: Imagine there is a time jump, Connie and Daryl haven't seen each other for a while because the blizzard and the weather went dangerous and communities had to isolate themselves. Now, imagine that first moment when they see each other

Snow, wind and blistering cold. Daryl was sick of it. He looked up in the sky and all he could see, was a milky-grayish color. No sun. He didn't see the sun for a week or more and he missed its bright, warming light. He was freezing, shivering and feeling the numbness in his fingers every day. It felt like the cold was slowly creeping inside him and one day he would turn to ice.
He thought about Connie. He didn't see her for a long time, not since she took care of Dog and then left for Hilltop. The days he spent with her before that, seemed like a dream to him now. He never expected it, but his feelings for her hit him like a ray of light in a dark night. When he watched her shooting her slingshot, fighting or writing something on her notepad. When he saw her smiling... everything about her was mesmerizing. He never felt that way before, he was so fascinated by her that he could spend a whole day just starring at her. She was beautiful too. She was like a rare flower, blooming in a field of dead grass. She was like something that shouldn't even exist in this world and still she was real. And their time together was over too soon.
The cold mirrored the way he felt inside since she left. Everything seemed pointless as the days went by.

But now he was standing in front the Hilltop gates not knowing what to do. He was wondering if she had forgotten about him. For sure he wasn't that special to her like she was to him. He went through the gates, lost in his thoughts.
The streets of Hilltop were empty, there were only few people outside. Daryl's eyes were desperately looking for her, but he couldn't find her. He froze and shivered, his mouth was as dry as sandpaper, his heart racing. He suddenly felt the urge to go away again, because he thought he couldn't take it, if she had forgotten about him and the time they spent together. If it happened he would turn to ice immediately.
But then, Dog, who was walking by his side, ran away with excitement. And after a couple of moments Daryl finally saw her. She was like a ray of light, shining through the gray sky. She greeted Dog and then she saw Daryl, standing there, not moving, like one of the walkers frozen to ice. She came towards him, slowly, taking her notepad out and writing something while walking.

It's nice to see you again, Daryl, he read and it was like every letter in this sentence made him warm up a little bit. When he saw his name written on the notepad, it felt like a fire started to burn inside him. His face was glowing.
"Nice to see you too", he said quietly. He considered hugging her, so he moved a step forward but then stopped, afraid that she wouldn't want that. She saw his movement, so she moved towards him, with a big smile on her face, and put her warm arms around him. He slowly hugged her back and he could feel like the ice inside him started to melt.