Daryl Dixon wasn't born a fighter. The aloofness in him wasn't hereditary, nor was the violence he could show when that which he loved was threatened. Survival wasn't something that his daddy taught him, though growing up with the bastard had certainly taught him a thing or two about anger, and it wasn't something he'd learned upon his mothers untimely passing when he was a kid. No, he had grown into a fighter, a survivor, over the course of time. He became the man he was because the world he lived in forced him to be that way.
Growing up under the iron fist of an abusive drunk had taught him never to let anyone get too close, to maintain a safe distance between himself and anyone who wasn't blood. Grief over his mama had taught him that it was better to feel nothing than to open himself up to the pain of losing anyone. He'd had friends, sure he had, but the neighbourhood kids didn't play with him when his brother was home and the way they looked at him changed after his mama died. He learned to live on the outskirts, to be quiet, to endure, and he survived.
The only person who had never let Daryl down, never left him, never made him feel like he wasn't a redneck loser, was his older brother and that was why he had always had Merle's back. Even Merle was gone now though, really gone this time as in no chance of him turning up again somewhere down the road. Sometimes, if he was honest he still expected his brother to come storming through the door of the cell block, stirring up hell and ruffling everyone's feathers. Wishful thinking. The only place he'll ever see Merle's face or hear his voice again is in his own head.
If not for the family he had found in the people around him, Daryl would be completely alone. If not for one person in particular, he would have retreated so far inside himself that he wasn't sure whether even he, with all his skill as a tracker, would have been able to find his way back.