A Small Mercy
I've never understood why this particular couple was so popular. After all, they've had, what, a whopping 15 minutes together onscreen and a chat spread out over two seasons? But then this idea wormed its way into my head and just wouldn't leave. Of course, it looks a lot less impressive on paper than it does in my head, but c'est la vie.
This is, chronologically, Part 2 of what may be a three part series on love and loss while the world burns.
Think of this as a possible future...
She's sat by his side for an eternity. Or she's sat by his side for seconds. She's not sure any longer. The tears keep flowing, and she doesn't bother to wipe them away. The church is cold, and the floor is hard and wooden, but she doesn't care.
She hears voices behind her. It's Abraham, again, come to tell her to do what needs to be done for what feels like the hundredth time. And Glenn, telling him to piss off. Glenn's a good kid, a brave kid, to be standing in the way of a guy who's practically twice his size. But Abraham is right. The time is short, and she knows it's not safe to wait any longer.
He's actually dead. She wants to scream, to deny that it's true, and to beg him to come back to her. It's hard to believe. He was supposed to be a survivor. He lived though Atlanta, he survived the farm, he even survived the fall of the prison. He'd walked out of situations that had killed so many others. Dale, Shane, Carol, Lori, Hershel, Tyreese, Axel… none of them made it, but he'd survived.
And yet here he is, broken apart and… gone. He's been murdered, not by a sea of walkers or some madman with a goddamn army at his disposal. But by six sick fucks that ambushed him in the woods, beat him into a pulp, brutalized him, and then carved him apart like a turkey, for food. In a corner of her mind she's thinking that it's not fair. He isn't supposed to go out like this, caught unawares on a hunting trip, a routine he'd insisted on performing for the group. For her. He wasn't supposed to die with torn apart, stripped of every shred of dignity and strength and compassion and everything that made him him. And he wasn't supposed to die like this, when she never kissed him goodbye, and never had the chance to tell him she loved him that last time. They'd taken his regular hunting trips for granted. They didn't even expect anything had gone awry until it was too late. He always insisted on going out and going out alone, so as to not disturb the game, and he always returned. Until now.
She made his killers bleed. They all did. She still can see the look on the leader's face as she drives a knife into his eye. But that doesn't matter. Killing them didn't change anything, and it never will. Nothing she does will ever bring him back. Daryl is gone.
A small part of her wants never to leave, to spend the rest of her existence here in this church with him. She squashes it immediately. Doing so would be a betrayal to Daryl, to the group, who depends on her, to Dale, who, an eternity ago before his death, begged her to choose life.
A slightly larger part of her wants to wait just a little longer, for that second life to come so that she can say her farewells. She rejects the idea as well. She was selfish, when she waited for Amy. To end it now, before that horrible change takes effect that turns a human being into a shambling, inhuman machine, would be a mercy. She wants to remember Daryl as the strong, caring, compassionate man that she loved, not as some flesh eating monster. And one cold, sober night, so long ago, it's what she and Daryl agreed on. To die without waking again is what Daryl would have wanted.
Rick, always willing to take the burdens of others into his own hands, offered to do it for her, but she refused. Daryl was Rick's friend, and his brother in arms, but she loved him. This is something she needs to do herself.
Andrea leans over the mattress. "I'm so sorry, Daryl", she says, "I love you." One last time, she kisses lips she's kissed so often in the past. And then she draws herself back, and steels herself.
To the others in the church, the gun sounds like thunder.
Sometime later, three people walk through the gateway of a walled community with their guide. They are the advance scouts for their group, looking to start a new life, a safe life, sheltered from the walking dead. They are killers, ruthless, cold, willing and able to resort to violence at the drop of a hat to defend themselves and their own. They are weary, having run so long from the dead that they've lost a little bit of what made them alive. They are mistrustful of their hosts, wary and expecting an ambush from every angle and behind every shadow, it is too good to be true. And they are amazed. Stunned. In awe of the sight of children playing in the street, of mothers pushing strollers along the sidewalk, and of people walking their pets. To them, the sight is surreal, almost like a dream.
The first man is their leader. He walks with his shoulders hunched over like he is Atlas, bearing the weight of the world. His right hand is mutilated, missing its ring and pinky fingers where a lunatic ordered them hacked off in a fit of pique, but that doesn't stop him from using the pistol strapped to his thigh or the hatchet hanging off his belt. The second man has a face that is gaunt and hungry, and eyes which look like they've seen horrors no man deserves to see. They are eyes of a man forced to destroy his own son, the memory of whom still haunts him.
The third individual is a woman. Her dirty unwashed blonde hair is pulled back into a ponytail. A rifle is slung over her shoulder, and her eyes are like a hawk's, unconsciously flitting to vantage points from where she can strike down like the wrath of the gods. Like the others, she carries a day pack stuffed with food, ammunition, and weapons. And also in the pack is a single, blunted, hand-whittled arrow.
It's all she has that's left of Daryl.
Damn it, Daryl, why couldn't you have a hat?