So, here it is. For those of you who know me, this is very unHaitus80like. It was just one of those things that I couldn't get out of my head so I had to write it and I figured that if I was going to write it then I may as well post it. Thank you to whoever out there gives it a shot! I hope you enjoy it even though it's a little on the dark side. Not too tragic though. It's still me and I can only get so dark. =)
I always forget to add this and I better because someone may think I actually own these characters. That was sarcasm, by the way ;). So, for anyone out there that doesn't already know, I do not own The Walking Dead or the characters. I borrow them frequently and then try not to mess them all up. Now that that is all cleared up, thank you again for reading this!
They couldn't all be dead. That was impossible. He refused to even think it because he didn't have the strength to go on alone. Not anymore. He had lost his brother. He refused to believe that he had lost his entire family. Especially to something so senseless. Someone, most likely one of the newcomers that had came to the prison a few months ago from Woodbury, had left a gate unlocked. Senseless. One stupid act of forgetfulness couldn't have decimated his group.
Things weren't adding up at all though. He didn't want to believe that this was all deliberate but even if someone had left the front gate open, there was always someone on watch. Always. Their cell block and the cell block they had cleaned out for the other group were completely overrun. It was the middle of the night so even with their guard up, there had been too many. He knew Beth was lost. He had seen her fall. Hershel was gone, never even getting the chance to slam shut his cell door before the small place was brimming with walkers. Sasha and Karen were gone too.
He had been just a few feet away from Tyreese when it had happened and he saw the man die then also. Not physically but the life left his eyes. There was no light left for the man. He wasn't sure what Tyreese had done after that. The chaos raged on around him and there was someone he was desperately searching for through the melee. The first person that popped into his mind when he had woken up to the screams.
Daryl had been closest to the tunnels but they were streaming in from that direction also, telling him that this was more than just forgetfulness. This had been deliberate but he didn't want to think about that right now. He needed to get back out there. He needed to save as many of them as he could. He couldn't believe he was the only one that had made it. It couldn't have been true. Rick had to have made it. Rick and Carl and the baby. Maggie and Glenn.
Carol.
Jesus, this had to be a dream. Right? There wasn't any way that all his people were gone. Everyone that he cared about. It was too cruel. Even for this world, wasn't it? And what was he doing? He was cowering in a fucking closet, bleeding and... were those tears? Yeah. Bleeding and crying in a mother fucking closet like the pathetic pussy that he knew he was. These were not tears born of fear. These were tears born of grief. His losses were far to great this time to stand there and swallow down his pain. There wasn't anyone left to be strong for. There was no reason to keep fighting.
Maybe he would bleed out. Maybe it could be over already. He hated himself for thinking that way but the chances of him making it without them were slim. Not because he needed them to keep him alive and to have his back. Really he had a greater chance of making it on his own than he did in staying. But his own light would go out. He had seen Tyrees's light go out and his was going out as well. He couldn't lose all of them.
He couldn't lose her. Not after everything they had lived through.
Someone had shot him. He wasn't stupid. He knew no one shot him on purpose but someone shot him all the same. It was only a graze so he needed to stop fantasizing about bleeding to death. No easy escape for him unless he bit a bullet. He didn't even have a bullet to bite so he was pretty much fucked. He reached for the door handle, thinking about just stepping out into the hallway and getting it over with. He didn't want to see his group reduced to a bunch of chunks and smears on the cold cement floor. He couldn't do it. He'd rather die. He would rather opt out.
He had made it pretty far into the tunnels before he had no choice but to either die or hide and he had chosen to hide so he couldn't have really been as suicidal as he felt at the moment. It was just fear. He needed to choke it back. There was still a chance some of them had made it. There was still a chance she was out there.
A vision of blue eyes and a smile that made his chest ache flitted through his thoughts and he bit back a sob. Tears burned his face even though the air down here felt damn near arctic. He swiped at them angrily, clenching his teeth and forcing himself up off the floor. He didn't even remember going to his knees to begin with.
The stupid things were still pressing against the door. It opened outward, however, so he had stripped his belt off, looping it through the handle and then knotting it around a pipe. If one of them did figure out that they could pull the door open they wouldn't be able to all pull on it at once so he wasn't worried about them getting in. He was safe. He wasn't even sure what kind of room he was in. He hadn't explored it really. There was a few windows set up high on the wall though and he could make out that it must have been used as some sort of laundry storage for part of the prison they hadn't explored yet. It looked like mostly towels and other things that would prove to be useless to him.
He heard something on the other side of the door, a thump and a grunt. A very human grunt. He heard a tired curse. And before he could even think about what he was doing he was yanking the belt away from the pipe so he could get the door open.
He, unlike those dumb ass walkers, knew that the door opened out and when he pushed down on the lever he kicked the door as hard as he could and then plowed through it. He knocked down a half dozen walkers and his eyes scanned the dim hallway frantically. Someone was nearly leaping over the walkers that he had knocked down with the door and he caught a fistful of shirt, threw whoever it was inside the small room and then yanked the door shut just as the herd that had been chasing the person joined the group of walkers that were making their way to their feet. He secured it with the belt again before they could pry it open.
He was afraid to turn around and see who it was. The light in the tunnel was worse than the light in this room so the only thing he knew for sure was that it was a living person he had just pulled into the small space. He didn't want to think that it was just a Woodbury person. That made him feel like a real piece of shit. Especially since the chances of it being the person he needed it to be were very very slim. She was dead and he needed to accept that unless he could look her in the eye and actually know otherwise. Miracles like that didn't happen more than once and he had already had his. And he had wasted his chance.
He leaned his forehead against the cold door, his breath coming out of him in cold white puffs in the dim light. He was frozen other than the frantic rise and fall of his chest.
He felt a hand on his arm and he jerked away from it. Still not wanting to look at the person he had saved and not being able to explain to himself why. He guessed he just couldn't stomach the thought of how much disappointment he would feel if it wasn't one of his people.
"Daryl? Is that you?"
He stiffened and then cursed his mind for the cruel trick it was playing on him. He wasn't dumb enough to let himself believe that it was Carol behind him.
"I know I probably look like crap but you can at least humor me," she was trying to joke but he could hear the anguish in her voice. The strength of this woman was fucking breathtaking.
Without a word he spun around and didn't even give himself a chance to look at her. He grabbed her and crushed her against his chest. Her arms went around him without hesitation and the torrent of pain she had been holding back came rushing out of her, but still she hugged him like he was the only thing in the world that could keep her tethered there.
He held her like that for a long time while she sobbed into his neck. He kept his head close to hers and kept his arms locked around her like she'd disappear if he loosened that grip. He needed to let go and check her over. She could have been bitten or injured but he still couldn't let her go. Not again. Carol had this annoying habit of slipping away when his guard was down. She probably felt the same way about him. Not again.
"What the hell happened?" she asked in a broken voice once she had cried herself out. She still held onto him tightly.
"I don't know," he croaked miserably.
"I didn't think you made it. I didn't think anyone made it," she was choking out the words and he understood completely. He knew how she felt. Probably more than she would ever know.
"Thought the same thing," he breathed into her neck. He still hurt. He knew that he had lost people that he had cared for deeply. Rick and Glenn and even Carl were his brothers. His family. He still didn't know their fates. Hershel had been like the father that Daryl had never even let himself dream of having. Maggie and Beth and Michonne were his sisters. But Carol was more. She always had been but she'd never known it. Of course not. She was like a flame in the dark and his light was still burning brightly, alive and breathing and very much there. He felt strong again, like giving up would never be an option, even if she was the only thing he had to fight for. He would fight and they would live to see another day.
Small details started penetrating the relief that had flooded his mind. Like the fact that she wasn't only shaking out of pain and fear. She hadn't been on watch tonight. She had been in bed and all she was wearing were a pair of old sweat pants and a short sleeved shirt. The temperatures were probably in the mid twenties and she was probably freezing. More than that though, when he moved his head away from hers he noticed that there were more than just her tears drenching the front of his shirt. She was bleeding.
His heart sank. He knew it wouldn't be this easy. He knew that whatever God was looking down on them now was a cruel mother fucker, no matter what Beth and Hershel told him. She'd been bit. He knew it. There was blood on the side of his face where it had previously been pressed against her temple. He knew it was blood because it was sticky and it was still flowing warm.
His new found hope didn't just deflate, it shattered like so many of his dreams had before. He grabbed her by the sides of the face and tried to look for the wound. He didn't want to ask her but he knew he had too.
"You're bit," the words came out in a wheeze. It wasn't even a question, just a statement,flat and lifeless.
She shook her head. He could see enough to tell that her eyes were wide. "I didn't get bit. I hit my head but I didn't get bit." He saw the blood then, running in ribbons down the side of her face.
The room was only about four feet wide and ten deep and he grabbed her hand and hurried to the far wall, as far away from the door as he could get, which was never going to be far enough away for him. The light was better over here and he ran his hand, cold and numb, through her hair. She winced when his fingers brushed over a spot close to the top of her head near her hairline.
"Goddamn it, I can't see how bad it is," he said in a desperate voice.
She suddenly seized his hand with her own. "I'm okay. I've had much worse. You have my blood all over the side of your face though," she whispered as she reached up and touched his face with just the tips of her fingers.
Her fingers felt like ice and he caused her to flinch when he snatched her hand away from his face, most likely thinking that he was over all the touching stuff now that he knew she was okay. He unzipped his leather jacket and then started unbuttoning his shirt. Her eyes grew wide in the dark.
"Daryl...?"
"Shut the fuck up. You're freezin' to death. Now ain't the time to get skittish, woman, Jesus. You been wantin' to get in my shirt for months." He grabbed her frozen hands again and then forced her to wrap her arms around his waist, inside the jacket and the shirt where he knew his body heat would thaw her out a bit.
He hissed as her cold skin met his and he tried to get as much of the jacket around her as he could before he wrapped his arms around her once more. He could hear her teeth chattering as she tilted her head up slightly.
"Thanks, but I think you mean your pants." she muttered. Her lips looked almost blue.
He gave her a swift nod and tightened one arm around her slender frame while the other one snaked out and snatched one of the folded towels off the shelf in front of them. "Army of death comes marchin' at us and you still gotta be a smart ass." He pressed it to the still bleeding wound. He knew head wounds bled a lot but he didn't want to take any chances.
"Daryl?" she breathed after standing like that for a long time not saying anything.
"Yeah?" he whispered, his lips right next to her ear. She felt warm now. Warm but not feverish. He still couldn't believe that it was really her.
"Why am I wet?"
He jerked his head away from hers quickly and gaped at her. "Jesus, what the hell's wrong with..."
She pulled away from him suddenly and looked down. He followed her gaze and then she gasped, shaking her head quickly and covering her mouth. "No," she nearly sobbed.
The front of her shirt had soaked up a bit of the blood that must have still been seeping out of his own forgotten wound. It wasn't bad but he hadn't told her what had happened.
"I got shot," he said quickly.
Her frantic eyes met his and he saw that she wasn't ready to believe that yet.
"You can look at it. A bullet just grazed me, alright. I ain't goin' nowhere. I didn't get bit and I ain't gonna die." He couldn't stand that look in her eyes because he knew if she was experiencing anything like he had been earlier then she had to have been suffering something awful. It was that moment that he realized how much she must have cared.
"You swear?" she asked as she searched his eyes with her own.
He nodded slowly. "I'm fine."
She nodded but she didn't wrap herself around him again. She started glancing around the small room. "On the top shelf there should be blankets," she said quickly.
He looked up but the top shelves weren't visible from where he was standing. He abandoned her completely and reached up, standing on his toes. She was right. They weren't thick or warm alone but if there was enough of them then him and Carol would be fine for a little while. They just had to wait for those bastards to give up and finally move on. Then they could go and look for any survivors.
He worked quickly, ignoring the pain in his side as he cleaned out the tops of all three shelves and then sweeping off the towels onto the floor that were stacked along the lower shelves. More padding to keep them as far away from the freezing concrete floor. He kicked them into a loose pile and then threw several blankets on top, the whole time he kept one eye on her. She was shivering again and rubbing her hands up and down her arms briskly.
He needed to keep her warm. Whether the others had made it or not, she was his main concern. She was what he couldn't lose. He adjusted the other blankets and then sat down heavily onto the pile. It was cold but hopefully not for long. In temperatures this low it would be another miracle if she didn't have frostbite. He motioned for her to get her ass down there with him and she obliged stiffly.
If it wasn't for the fact that he was terrified that he would still lose her somehow he would probably be feeling more uncomfortable. But he wasn't worried about things like personal space when he knew how cold she was and he knew that he was the only one that was going to be able to keep her warm. She tossed the bloody towel onto the floor and sat down next to him.
He took a deep breath before he did what he had to do. He shook his shirt and jacket off and then draped it over the both of them before pushing her back and pulling the blankets up over them. He hissed again once he rolled over to face her, pulling her as close against his chest as he could get her. He hissed again when she buried her cold face into his neck and wedged her frozen hands between them.
"Take off your boots," he whispered into her hair as he did the same. He shoved his hands up the back of her shirt and started rubbing briskly, trying to get her warmed up by will and friction alone. Her skin was as cold as his hands were but after a few minutes she relaxed into him and brought her hands from between them so she could wrap one around his waist. It was much warmer now so he let himself relax too, slowing his hands on her back but unwilling, or unable, to stop touching her.
She was curled into him with her forehead pressed into the crook of his neck and her leg had somehow slipped between his, unconsciously seeking out more warmth. They were silent for a very long time and he thought she must have fallen asleep. Sleep alluded him though. He couldn't stop thinking about the others. He couldn't stop asking himself what they would do now if they were the only two left. He wasn't as bitter as he had been before. Now he just let himself hurt, but the pain wasn't unbearable like it was before he had yanked her into the room with him.
He thought about how far into the prison he had came and then found himself frowning in the darkness. There was no way she could have found him by chance alone but she couldn't have followed him all the way down here either.
She surprised him when her arm suddenly tightened around him and she shuddered. He could tell by the wetness on his skin that she was crying again. She must not have been asleep, just thinking like he had been. He moved his hand from inside her shirt and then cupped her cheek as he moved down so their faces were level.
"Carol?" he whispered after a while. "How'd you end up down here?"
She moved her head just a fraction of an inch and was silent for a while. "The last time I saw you you were standing with Tyreese and then when I saw him go down I didn't see you anymore. I looked... I ran to where you were last and saw you go into the tunnels. I..."
"Do you know how goddamn stupid that was?" he hissed.
"I said it before, Daryl and I'll say it till I'm dead and gone. I can't lose you."
He remembered the first time she had said that to him. It didn't quite have the effect on him then that it did now. Now it felt like those words had just been carved into his chest, deep and aching.
When he had felt the sting in his side he had thought that he had been wounded worse than he actually was. He wasn't going to wait around and die and either be eaten or turn so he could kill his family so he had fled. Plowing through the throng of walkers that had been coming in through the corridor. And she had seen him flee. She had turned her back on the chaos in the cell block to be with him.
"I thought I was a goner. Didn't know it was just a graze. I didn't wanna turn in there so I had to run."
"And so I had to run too," she whispered and then choked back another sob. "I thought you were dead. I almost..." She shook her head and didn't say anything else.
"You almost what?" he asked but he already knew the answer. He had been on the verge of doing the same thing.
"I almost gave up like Tyreese did. You should have seen his face. He just let them take him down. I almost did the same thing. I didn't figure there was a reason to keep going. What would be the point?"
He shook his head and then decided to be as honest as he could. "Wouldn't have been no point. I was thinkin' the same thing till I heard you out there."
"And now?" she asked hesitantly.
He thought about it for a while before he opened his mouth. She deserved the truth and he needed to voice it, even if the words would sound cheap, something brought on by fear, pain and loss. But he had to say it. How many more chances would there be?
He ran his thumb along her cheek, collecting the moisture there with the rough pad. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "Ain't nobody in this group been through what we have. That kinda shit marks a person. Me and you, we ain't like the rest. It's been like that since the start. I ain't Glenn and I don't know how to be but I'm done actin' like I have all the time in the world to tell ya shit that you need to hear." He blew out another breath, this one was from pure frustration. Why the hell couldn't he just tell her what he needed to tell her and be done with it? Why did this have to be so fucking hard?
"I love you," she blurted out before he could start struggling through another speech instead of getting to the point.
He wanted to tell her to shut up because she kind of stole his thunder. He was getting there and now she was going to think he was just saying it back cause she said it first. "Goddamn it, Carol," he growled quietly, rolling his eyes.
"You don't have to feel..."
He kissed her. He'd never initiated a kiss in his whole life but he didn't want to just say it back. He was a man of action. He was now, anyway. Words were cheaper than actions sometimes. If they died soon then he wanted to make sure she knew that what he felt was there, real and all consuming at this point. He didn't want to die with regrets. He wanted her to know now what he hoped she had known all along.
She was surprised at first, like he knew she would be but her lips softened against his and then started moving enticingly. He wanted her to know that as long she was alive he was going to fight to stay alive with her. He wanted her to know that she was the main reason he had come back in the first place when he had left with Merle. He wanted her to know without a shadow of a doubt that she was why he had become a better person.
He deepened the kiss, pouring every ounce of emotion inside him into it because words always failed him and this was a language that she may be able to understand. This wasn't about sex and it wasn't about forgetting the horrors they had witnessed tonight and it wasn't about feeling close to her because they had both survived. This was him letting her know that he loved her. Letting her know he had loved her for a long time and as long they had each other then the horrors weren't ever going to be bad enough to crush them.
For just a little while it was only him and her, warm and alive and safe. For just a little while the walkers behind the door didn't exist and the pain of losing loved ones was only a dull ache. There would be time for worrying later and there was always time for grief. But for now there was only them. The nightmares could wait a little longer.