Hi guys! First time posting on Fanfiction for a while. I know, I know, I live under a rock. Anyway, this is the first chapter of a complete fic I've written. I'll be posting every Thursday and Sunday. Enjoy and let me know what you think!
This is a real slow burn. I hate it when OCs and Mr. Dixon meet, get it on, then fall in love all in the same week. Like, seriously, it's the freaking zombie apocalypse. Priorities people.
Warnings for the violence, emotional and physical trauma and the language. It is Daryl after all.
In retrospect, he was not the fathering type.
Daryl made peace with that, an affirmation he conceeded to a long time ago with his own father. If Will Dixon was supposed to be his role model for what real men were like, then who the fuck was he to know the first thing about good parenting.
Kids needed time, constant watch, round the clock care. You couldn't just pack up and leave them when you were tired of playing house. They were a permanent deal.
He bolted the door shut, heaving a wardrobe infront of it before sitting beside the bundle. Judith was wrapped up, her blanket muddy, sleeping on an armchair he found. He cradled her gently before sitting himself on the chair, his crossbow by his feet. His legs ached, his face was swollen, his hands blistered from the overuse of his crossbow. He looked at her and swallowed roughly.
The prison was done, there was no going back to that. No one to go back there for. The walls were broken, walkers roamed at every corner, and his people, his family, were gone. Dead or worse.
Fuck if he'd ever see them alive again, if he'd ever see them at all.
He came back to that place and there was nothing left to save and it damn near killed him then and there. He had walked away in a haze, purposeless and hollow, his stomache sick at the conclusion that he lost more in his life after the world went to shit than before. It was a desolate revelation, soul crushing. Then, between the tides of his impending melancholy, between the underbush and the trees, between the monotonous groan of the living corpses, he heard her crying.
He never ran so fast before in his entire life. She was a sight among the wilderness. Covered in dirt, her blanket over her head, and there a few feet beside her lay Tyresse and those two girls from the prison. Walkers were dead everywhere, scattered like confetti on the forest floor as the she cried.
He finished the job. Scoped the girl in his arms and bolted. After about an hour he found a motel. Baby aside it didn't take long to clear; he raided it for what little food they had and claimed a room.
The patter of rain grew from a soft thudding to a screach as the thunder rolled, the droplets hitting the window in the far side of the room hard. She stirred, her tiny arms springing up and curling out as the storm disturbed her. He didn't know what to do, all he had was base instinct. He picked her up, body fidgeting, and did the only thing he could think of. He rocked her, awkward and slow, uncomfortable with the way her mouth gawked in a mumbled whine.
She began to gurgle. Wetness from her eyes trickled down her face as the thunder grew, the clouds like crashing cymbals as they met in embrace. He rocked her, hushed her, paced from one end to the other, but her crying carried on thick. Her voice was an accompaniment to the rain's shrill waves of noise. She wasn't letting up, her big eyes red and teary, and her hands squished against her plump cheeks in dedicated protest.
He shook his head, rocking harder. His chest palpitated, the crying scratched against his thoughts, each sound a detailed statement of his ineptitude. She wouldn't shut up. He held her closer to him, held her so close her head was by his head but all she did was cry.
What was he doing?
The fuck was he doing?
He brought her down, her wriggling body looking right at him rouged and swollen, and the longer he looked at her the deeper in shit he realized he was in. He was no father. He was no Rick or Hershel, no nurturing mother hen. He didn't know the first thing about looking after a child. Hell, he just about knew how to look after himself.
As if in agreement she kept crying. She kept crying and crying and crying. She barely drew breathe inwards, it was any wonder how her little lungs could expel such distress in constant supply.
What the hell had he done? What the hell was he meant to do? How was he supposed to look after a kid in a world like this? Alone? Without help? Without an inkling of guidance?
He could leave her.
The thought whispered soft within himself. He swallowed thick as he let himself consider it. It sunk hard in his gut as the guilt weighed heavy on him. He almost shook his head to protest, almost believed the action would eliminate the idea as a whole.
No. It wasn't an option for debate. He could never abandon a baby, a child. His friend's or otherwise. It wasn't right, human.
She cried on and on.
The noise crippled him. He felt his moral cracking with every decibel she uttered and tear she spilt. He looked at her, he'd had enough.
"Stop."
She whimpered, her nose making little bubbles of snot as she banged her tiny fists on Daryl's arms. He sighed and brought her head to his chest, patting her back in repeated motions. His hand tapped her gentle, the palms soothing her in circular motions between every cautious pat. She struggled against him, moaned and snivelled as he kept at it.
"Shhh." he said his chin resting by her face, "Shhh now. 'S a bit o' rain. Be o'er in a bit. Shhh, you're goin' be fine. Nothin' goin' get you while I'm here, you hear? Shhh now."
He circled the room, his hand on the back of her head. She grew still, her cries muffled against his shirt. He rubbed the back of her head.
"There's a good girl." he whispered, "Be o'er soon. Here with ya darlin'. Shhh. It's you an' me now. 'S alright, shhh. Just you and me, you and me now."
It was terrifying. True but terrifying. Those few moments he alone when he went back to prison were the wort moments he'd ever experienced in his life. This was almost as bad. This debilitating isolation. What was he without the people he protected? Without his family and friends?
Did he exisit if there wasn't a reason for him to? If there weren't people that knew of him, cared for him? All those people he had tried to save, Merle, Andrea, Hershel, they were gone. All the people in the prison were gone. He only mattered to them and they were gone and he was alone, so was there even a point anymore?
All that was left was Judith.
Judith, who had no one left but him.
He looked at her and bit his lip when he felt the unwelcomed sting of forming tears blur his vision. He shook his head, taking his free hand and wiping them away quick. It was suffocating, all of it, everything, it was suffocating.
The rumble of thunder crackled above them. He placed his hand back on her head only to find that she was asleep. Her tiny red lips parted, her hands curled into balls that clung onto his shirt. He sat himself back on the armchair, his strong arms her cradle, and he let himself break, if only for a moment.
He was silent. The last time he cried, Merle was a few feet in front of him licking innards off of his lips with a hole through his chest cavity. This time was different, cathartic.
A year and a half of pent up frustration and trauma and rage ached within him for realse. A year and a half of unresolved loss. Now, for the first time since it started he was quiet by himself. He had no reason to keep his guard up so high.
So he cried. He was quiet, so not to disturb her. It had taken a lot to get her sleeping and he'd be damned if his little pity party woke her up again.
He was tears. He was scared. He wiped his dripping nose with his tattered flannel sleeve and looked at the sleeping baby. The revelation was hard hitting. It was true non the less.
"Ya'll I got left, Judith, " he said, "Ya'll I've got left."
