Warning: This one shot is about death. People will die. I don't know where it came from and I apologize if it bothers any of you. Thank you for reading.
Chapter One
Death used to be a word spoken in hushed tones as if the volume of one's voice had the power to conjure it. Death used to have meager meaning to the speaker, like he was someone detached, safe, somehow invulnerable. Death was an enormous monolith hovering over them all, but often went unnoticed.
But that was just another forgotten luxury of a time that Daryl Dixon now referred to, in his mind, as Then. There was never a time in the history of ever that Then and Now were more clearly defined. There was no blur, no gap or expanse of any kind. Just a thin dark line separating the two spaces. There was Then which was a time before the world as they knew it ended, and then this was Now. Now they all walked in Death's shadow.
Death didn't just come for the weak, the sick, the old. Death was a machine in the Now and it would swallow them all whole. It had never discriminated, even then, but now death seemed hungry and wanted to take all of them in one great swallow.
Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier had walked a strange tattered path since the beginning. There was a mysterious parallel to their lives, Then and still. The two of them differed in many ways but none that mattered much. None that mattered in this world anyway. None that mattered here in the now. Back then, maybe their differences would have meant something but now those differences were like mist.
Daryl had been expecting death for a long time. He hadn't been able to fool himself into thinking that any of them had a chance to get very far before they were cut down. He also expected it to be hard and brutal. What was the use in trying to fool himself when the evidence was all around him? Hell, it wasn't only around him, it was inside him.
Now death was hot on his heels, breathing it's putrid breath down the back of his neck. It wouldn't be too long now that he felt that bitter sting. A small part of him actually welcomed it and it was this that spiked his blood with fear. Not the thought of dying, but the feeling of relief that it brought to him.
He didn't know how far behind the men were but he could hear them now, heavy boots hitting pavement. Any minute now the rest of them would cut him off from escape because the group had split up, unwilling to let him get away this time. They were savage, out for blood and somehow seemed to have a sixth sense about them that made it impossible to get away from them for long.
One by one, they had picked out the rest of his group. Daryl wasn't sure who was left now but he was certain of two things. One was, there wasn't many of his people alive. The second, more mysterious certainty, was that one of those few survivors was Carol Peletier.
She was out there and she was alive and somehow, before it all ended, there would be a resolution. They would die today, he knew, but when it happened the two of them would somehow go down together.
He knew this because those men chasing him down weren't the only ones that had a sixth sense about things. He had his own and he knew that he would find her before it ended. It didn't matter that it had been weeks since he had seen her. It didn't matter that the last time he had looked at her, it had been with a sick sort of knowing. Like that small unsure smile on her face would be the last smile he would ever see from her.
He had somehow known that when that strange magnetic pull brought them together again, it would be for this. They would be together, but only to fall. And somehow, this he knew, was why he was still running. He let go and simply let his legs take him to where he needed to be. He could have, probably should have, given up miles ago, but he knew that when it all ended, it would end with the two of them standing together. They'd face that dark grin and they would know that they had put up the good fight and at least when it was over, they wouldn't face that great unknown alone.
Somehow this was simply how it was suppose to be. Somehow, this had been in the cards long before the two of them had stumbled upon each other at the quarry. Before they had spent so much time together on the farm. Before the prison, where the two of them had discovered that magnetic pull, before they had started orbiting each other in that unsure way of theirs. This was how they were suppose to go.
He turned once he reached the back of the house and then stopped in his tracks, heart thundering wildly when he spotted her racing towards him from the same direction he had been heading. He felt strangely calm now.
He saw her eyes widen at the site of him and then she shook her head frantically, waving for him to turn around and run the other way. She didn't know that there was men after him that were coming from the same direction. He didn't make a move to go anywhere because there was no where to go.
And truth be told, he was simply tired. Maybe they could hide but they would be on the run again, even if they were able to shake the men for now. And if they were able to shake the men for longer than a little while, there were always the walkers. And maybe they would even be able to lose the men, and then outrun the walkers... there would be more monsters out there and they would have to run again.
Yeah, he was just too tired. Tired of running and tired of fighting and tired of killing. Most of all, he was tired of pretending there was any point to any of it, because there wasn't. He got that now. He had spent all this time lying to himself, hoping there was something better, something more. But this was it.
This needed to end today.
She slowed once she was close enough to really look at him. He hated that she could read him so easily because she saw it. Everything rushing through his mind was there for her to read. She glanced over her shoulder and then looked back at him, hope fading in her eyes, dimming them.
He closed the distance and gripped her hand hard in his own. Hers was slick with blood. It was too warm to belong to anyone but her. He could hear the men again, shouts coming from the direction Carol had appeared from and feet pounding from somewhere near the front of the house.
"There's a chance," she whispered harshly before turning and pulling him towards the house.
He didn't have the heart or the energy to tell her that there were no more chances. He envied her for believing, though. After everything, there was still a small spark of hope inside of her. So he kept his mouth shut and he let her lead him down a hallway. He felt her flinch when the back door slammed open and smashed against the wall so hard that the glass shattered.
She made a sound that was desperate but bordered on anger as she pulled open a door to their right. It was a coat closet, bare of anything at all other than a lone hanger on the floor. Daryl heard the men storming the house. There was barely any room at all in the closet and he found himself thankful for that fact. He wanted her close and she must have felt the same because her arms went around him and she stifled a terrified sob into his neck.
He tightened his hold on her, inhaling deeply the familiar scent of her and taking comfort in the fact that he'd made it. She was here and for the next minute or so, that's all that mattered.
"It's over, isn't it?" She whispered. The footsteps were growing closer.
He nodded, his hand going to the back of her head. He knew what would happen to her. He knew that, for her at least, it wouldn't be a quick end. Once the men opened the door and saw them together, whatever happened to Carol, Daryl would be forced to bear witness to it.
He swallowed down the bile that rose in the back of his throat, tightening his fist in her hair and dragging her face up so his forehead was pressing into hers. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
Her hand came up, cupping his neck. "Whatever happens, I'll be okay. Maybe it'll be quick."
He shook his head. "It won't be quick if they get a hold of you. I have two bullets. You know what we have to do."
She grew still then, the trembling subsiding as his words sank in. Her thumb traced his jaw. "I don't want you to have to do this." She used her free hand to drag his around her waist and then up her side. For a moment he thought she'd lost her damn mind but right below her left breast he felt a rush of heat pour over the back of his hand.
"Oh God," he groaned, knowing that she meant what she had said. These men wouldn't have much time to do anything to her. She was fading. He could hear it now, a strange rattling sound in her lungs.
She was dying.
The sounds of the men tearing through the house were louder now. Why they hadn't opened this particular door, he would never know. Time was running out faster than her blood. "Why did you keep runnin'? He asked.
Her thumb still moved over his jaw and he closed his eyes at the feel of it. "I don't even know. Not until I saw you standing there. I guess this was how it was suppose to happen. Me and you," a soft sound, like a bitter and tired laugh, bubbled up from her throat but it ended in a sob.
"Check that hall door. I know they're in here somewhere."
He squeezed his eyes shut. "I love you." The words were barely a breath but she heard him.
"I love you too."
He drew the gun from his hip, felt her lips press against his, warm and desperate. A flash of regret tore through him then. Why had he waited until now to say it to her when he'd been feeling it all along? But he kissed her back.
Footsteps stopped right outside the door and the kiss was broken. He raised the gun, pressing the cold barrel against her temple.
"Thank you," she said, relief clear in her voice.
He thought it strange that he felt such a calm come over him. His hand didn't shake. His heart was breaking apart, every sharp shard a new agony, but he was calm. He pressed his lips to hers one more time and then the door opened. He drew back, met her eyes for the last time and then pulled the trigger.
She slumped against him but he wouldn't let her fall. Even though Carol was gone, her body was there and he wouldn't just drop her. The strangest thing of all, as he raised his gaze to the man standing in front of him, was that he knew she had gone away because that feeling was gone now. That pull, that connection that had tethered them to one another for so long was broken.
He had no purpose here.
Before the man could speak a word Daryl turned the gun on himself and then smiled grimly.
The man in the doorway frowned. "You ain't got the balls," he snapped.
The smile died on Daryl's lips and then he surprised the man by spitting right in his face. There was no fear as his finger tightened on the trigger.
And there was no pain.