Hi, guys! So this is the one shot I was telling you about, and as you can see from the summary it's Daryl's POV. I was so nervous to write from Daryl's head, and I'm even more nervous to show you guys the finishing result. Except you've all been so good to me with every other piece of writing I've presented you, and so I hope you like this one too. I guess this is the official goodbye to the Dani and Daryl universe I have created. To any new people here, thank you for visiting and just a little note to say: it's not necessary for you to read Rabbits or One at a time, but it might make a bit more sense if you do. Thank you so much guys, and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or it's characters, and make no profit from this. I also have no beta, and haven't had one for my other pieces, so I apologise for mistakes made and any errors you find.

It all started that day at the fucking creek.

Little lost girl -vulnerable- or so Daryl had thought then. Stuck under a pile of snarling, stinking walkers and screaming against her teeth with the rage, the fear, the adrenaline, and he'd been drawn to it like a goddamn magnet. Little warrior with gold skin, eyes like mud and grass churned together, and he'd thought she'd needed help.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Yeah, okay, he'd shot three walkers down for her, eased the pressure off a little; gave her some breathing room, but the minute he stepped into that little pocket of space - her camp, her space - he'd seen the number of corpses littering the floor and the ones pinned to the tree... he just fucking knew she'd took them all down herself.

He knew she was a fighter.

He wanted to leave, wanted to step in and out, not be seen or heard, just hightail it the fuck out of there. He couldn't reasonably leave his bolts behind, would have been a dumb as fuck move, but fuck, there was literally nothing less he wanted to do on this God-forsaken Earth than get into the mess of someone else's fucked-up life. Except then she'd rolled out from under those walkers, and he'd been fucking lost. Heaving chest, and long hair tangled with dirt, mud, blood and all the shit that pours out of those filthy fuckers when you kill them.

Sweaty skin and blood smearing her neck from wounds he had caused. He hadn't even noticed that she wasn't dressed until she pointed it out. Then he had really fucking noticed. Not like he'd never saw a girl naked before, never got them to pull their panties off and let him have a go just to shut Merle up. He'd seen his fair share of naked women. Breasts, and legs and everything between them. He'd just never seen nothing quite like her. Hair that was so fucking wild it nearly made him smile. Looked a lot like how his was getting.

Eyes full of weariness, confusion and downright fucked off-ness, like she was just too exhausted for any more shit, and if he was going to decide to kill her then she wanted it over as soon as. She'd said as much herself: couldn't you aim it at my head? Brave. Cocky. Fucking fearless. Barely a couple of sentences between them, and he was enraptured by her. Waving his bolts and demanding he come and get them. Like he wouldn't fucking kill her. Like he couldn't if he tried. Her cockiness provoked him, made him want to throw it back at her: nah, ya caint.

Did she think because she was a pretty little thing half his age that he wouldn't snap her in fucking two? Wouldn't let the bolt fly straight through her goddamn eyeball? But he hadn't even really been thinking about it, hadn't even really been a thought. He couldn't see why he should kill her, so he didn't. She didn't try to kill him neither, just threw sarcasm and dry humour his way with the air of somebody who couldn't give two fucks, and he liked it. He really fucking liked it. Refreshing. All those guys back at the prison, they'd been through shit with him. Seen and done and felt shit with him that could never be undone.

They were bonded like no fucker could ever bond with him again, because no one would ever travel that literal road of hunger, pain, and loss like they did. Fear every time they looked at Lori's pregnant belly, the reminder that they had no safety, no walls. That the baby growing inside her would be their death sentence. Never again could someone do that with him, because regardless if they kept the prison or not, regardless if they ever had to run again, nothing would ever feel like that. It changed the way they treated each other. There was niceness, and there were smiles, happiness, and the way you act when you think, 'you could be dead tomorrow.'

None of that with Dani. She was fucking fearless, and she continued to prove it. Demanded he get his bolts, told him where to fucking shoot her, got naked in front of him, bathed in front of him, palmed him through his goddamn pants like she simply could not give a fuck. Then suddenly, they were fucking. Couldn't have lasted more than a handful of minutes. Then she was getting tighter, hotter and slicker around his cock, her walls clamping down on him until he groaned through his teeth and cum like a goddamn teenager. When he stood up, got his fucking head on straight and asked her the questions, it was almost, almost guilt that made him do it.

Because Jesus fucking Christ but was she a teenager? She looked young. Really goddamn young, acted like it with her plump lips trembling when she had turned and saw him with her rabbits, forming a knot in his throat that he couldn't explain. And yet, he had pinned her to the floor and rutted in her like an animal, and she had cried out and cum on his cock like she wasn't a teenager, like she was grown ass woman who knew that she wanted to be fucked into the ground, and loved every second of it. Daryl was pretty sure she did. He did. God, he really did, but he couldn't do it again.

He just couldn't, because with every minute that passed to the prison, he kept catching her in the moonlight and it washed her away. Washed away the sarcasm and the humour, and left a girl. Not a warrior but just a girl, and she looked tired and beaten down, lost and so, so young. He couldn't speak to her after that. Couldn't even look her way. Got her through the gates and made sure everyone knew he was backing her, but then he left her to her own devices. Maybe he was shitty for it, but his guts were twisting every fucking time he looked at her.

Because she was young and he could see it, and she was alone and beaten down, something broken in her eyes, and yet, still, still he thought about fucking her. Beside that fire, again, somewhere else. Thought about her being a few cells down from him with that hair, and those eyes, that body, and pictured himself just taking her. Just taking her wherever he pleased, and whenever he fucking felt like it while she creamed all fucking over him. Marking up her gold skin, and watching her face flush. Getting a good look at her in the light, at the jewel between her thighs, at her chest again.

Watch her face as she cummed and then feeling it around his cock. Making her cum over, and over. He wanted her rough, and hard and fast. He wanted her bent over for him and underneath him. He wanted to fucking ram into her, feel the soft skin of her inner thighs as they trembled, and it made him ill. What kind of sick motherfucker wanted to fuck people like that? He wanted to pull her hair tight as she sucked his cock, bite her full lips, leave bruises on her shoulders as he bent over her, get his hands around her tiny fucking waist and squeeze.

He wanted all that, and he knew, he just fucking knew she wouldn't want it. Who would? He was fucking messed up. Daryl Dixon, goddamn pervert. But God, she was pretty. More than pretty. Beautiful. Goddess. Wild hair and wild eyes, sharp tongue and gold skin. Lean legs and tight stomach, little swells for hips, the perfect handfuls for tits and the juiciest goddamn ass he'd seen on a woman since the world ended. How the fuck could he resist her? Especially when he had already had her? Then it got so much more complicated. There were feelings.

When she cried for her sister and he learned how truly young she was; when he told her about Merle and he hugged her, just to make her feel better. Then that ceiling caved in, and when he woke up with a splitting headache the first thought he had was of her. Where she was; if she was alive. What it was going to do to him if he turned his head and she was dead beside him. Or worse: if she was one of them. The strength it would take to finish the job because he wouldn't leave her.

Couldn't.

Then that cut on her forehead, blood all down her beautiful face and her leg giving out. The fear that fuck, what if they had to run? And the drive home, eating up the road as his terror pulsed through his bones. Later on: those stitches, her bruised ribs. Sleeping with her, for the second time. Being there for her. The shower. God, everything he had wanted and nothing he wanted all at the same time. Slick, wet skin and wet hair. Much like how he had first met her, at the creek. Tight nipples and tight stomach. Shaved, everywhere. She wasn't at the creek.

Coarse curls between her thighs and he hadn't felt her legs because she'd barely pulled off her jeans, but he imagined they had been fluffy with hair too. He'd wondered at first how it was possible, until he had images -reminders- of them on runs, her picking up razors, and even though at the time he was vaguely aware that razors were used to shave, he had never thought of her using them to do that. To take all the hair away until there was soft, glistening skin.

Fuck.

But then the stitches in her leg and forehead, the bruises all over her body, the worst around her ribs, the cuts lining her thighs from fighting walkers and jumping walls when they got into tight spots. The shame eating into his gut that his cock was so fucking hard entirely because of those bruises. God, he didn't want to hurt her, not really, but he did, he really did. He wanted bruises the shape of his fingertips across her thighs, the imprint of his teeth around her nipple, and it seemed like a possibility. She said it, said she liked it rough. Wanted it like he did, but no sane person wanted it like he did. Picturing her bruised worse than she already was, because he was a fucking Dixon and that name was a curse.

He told her. In a whirlwind of rage and shame and arousal, told her how fucked up he was, stormed out. Decided to leave it behind, pack it in, let her go before he ruined her. Didn't last very long. He fucked her that night. God, did her fuck her. Everything he had pictured. The taste of her on his tongue and her cumming around his cock. Bent over underneath him and throwing her hips back like the fucking goddess he knew she was, straddling him to fuck him with all she had despite her fucked up ribs. Wanting the pain as much as he did, giving him back everything that he gave her. Each word and each hoarse moan a physical blow to his system.

Daryl, I want you.

He believed her. He really fucking believed her, and it all spiralled from there. He kept falling and falling, and it started with how bad he wanted to fuck her but it expanded from there. Sleeping together, and fucking her, nearly losing her, worrying about her. Showing her his back. Watching her crack open. Cutting himself open for her. It kept growing and growing, encircling him until he couldn't fucking breathe. He had to protect her, care for her. Make sure she ate, and that she got enough sleep between his relentless need to be inside her, making her cum with his name ripping out of her throat, and everything else she did around the prison.

He told her things he had never told anyone. She told him things too. He beat walkers from her ankles and brought back gifts from runs for her, passing it off like it was nothing, like he didn't actively look for something to bring home. He did things and said things he would never have expected from himself. For this girl. His girl. For this fucking goddess who apparently really liked him and said he was enough. Said he was more than the cock he could offer her. Sometimes a nasty little voice that sounded a lot like Merle would whisper pussy whipped but then all she would have to do was smile and he didn't fucking care.

But he didn't want to put the four-lettered word to it. He didn't want to name it. He knew it was there, but he wasn't brave enough. She was. She said it. She said it as he took her soft and slow, as he stroked her spine and thought for the thousandth time how goddamn lucky he was. This young goddess who could be his daughter with her soft skin and beautiful smile. Who wanted him. Daryl Dixon with his filthy mouth, and lack of manners, his dirty hands and his scars. She wanted him. She loved him. She said it the night he got her fucking pregnant. The night they created his boy.

God, he was so fucking lucky.

So, lucky, but at the time he had been so fucking scared, said the worst thing: s'it mine? He hurt her, and he was so sorry, but she was so young, and he had corrupted her. Bruised her, fucked her like an animal, bit her, cum all over every part of her body: her tongue, her face, her thighs, her stomach, her tits, her ass. Filled her with his cum. She gave him beautiful stories of Christmases and birthdays, of her little sister and the first shy relationship she'd had, and all he could give her in return was ugliness. All that beauty and he continuously stained it. Stories of beatings, and shitty Christmases. Birthdays were a fucking joke.

When was his birthday? He had no goddamn clue. How old was he? So much older than her. He gave her his scars – both on his skin and his heart- shitty little presents from runs, things that were ugly in comparison to the old world. He gave her his calloused hands and his scruffy face, his long hair and his narrowed eyes that had seen too fucking much. God, he gave the shittiest stuff but it was everything he had, and he'd do it for as long as she wanted. She wanted him shirtless so he did it, no matter how much he fucking trembled. She was vulnerable, so he was vulnerable too.

When she was pregnant she wanted massages and sweet kisses and he did it. But he couldn't fuck her. She had been so beautiful still, more so, but she had been swollen and rounded, their child expanding her body and leaving behind vicious red marks and he had liked it. He'd always had a fascination with marking her, proving that she was his, and now the evidence was right there. The stretchmarks trailing over her bump as she nursed the life growing inside her, and every time he glanced at her -watching her without her knowing- he was so fucking hard it hurt.

Tits huge on her chest as she grew, swelled with milk, not like she didn't have big tits before when she started eating full meals again, and skin glowing with happiness. He had done that. He had put that life inside her, made her grow with it. Marked her cheeks with the flush, her stomach and breasts with the stretch marks. Filled her breasts with milk to feed their baby, and it was too much. If he got his hands on her he didn't know if he could contain himself, if he could be gentle with her.

God, he wasn't fucking normal.

She was everything, absolutely everything, and he may have ruined her, may have soiled her but she let him. She wanted him, she loved him, and he loved her. She carried, and she birthed their baby boy, kept him because she loved Daryl, and she wanted to have a piece of him he hadn't yet given her. He was still so bewildered about how it had all happened, still didn't believe he was worthy of her, but he would never stop trying. Never stop proving himself to her. To his boy. So, no, the truth was he did know how it had all happened.

It all started that day at the fucking creek.