Disclaimer: I don't own AMC's "The Walking Dead." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1:Because alil2confident did something (I can't actually remember what it was) and I decided to salt the earth with the best kind of revenge. I love her though, but after this she might not love me. Welp-
Warnings: Post season six, established relationship, drama, angst, character death, suicide, so much angst – seriously guys, this is your warning.
Aoroi
"It's okay," she whispered, feeling the wind take the certainty she wanted to impart and twisting it. Thinning it out as the gun in Daryl's hand shook like palsy.
"No it ain't. It isn't. How can you even-" he stuttered, the corners of his lips spit-flecked and cracked from running after her. Nose running like grief highlights as the rustling green of the clearing hushed itself into natural obscurity.
She was tired.
Red.
Ready.
But he wasn't.
And that was the thing, wasn't it?
What happens when the person you'd take a bullet for is behind the trigger?
"You were just gonna leave? That it? No goodbye. No nothing," he hissed, an angry growl made to hurt as unshed tears stung in her sinuses.
"Every day is a goodbye," she answered, strangely numb now as the spreading flush of fever issued from the bite marks she'd spent the last two days hidden under her layers. Covering them, just like she had with Ed's finger-mark bruises as she soaked in the time she had left. Saying her goodbyes, making amends, spending what was left of her time in her own way.
She hadn't planned on this. On Daryl following her when it was time to end it. But maybe she should have. After all, there was no one alive that knew her better. And probably no one dead either. Part of her was selfish. Greedy. Glad that he was going to be the last thing she saw before the end. But the other part was angry. Angry that he was going to make her do this in front of him. Angry that he was forcing her to make this his last memory of her.
It wasn't what she wanted, but-
She realized that somewhere along the line she must have lost time, because the next time she looked up, Daryl was looming over her. Every inch of him vibrating anger, betrayal, grief. Lashing out at her in that silent way he had. The one that always made her wonder, deep down in the dark of her, if she was really strong enough to take it.
But the interesting part was that this time he was wavering. Unsteady. Young. And something in her couldn't help but reach up and pull him to her. Inhaling his familiar smell as she rested her forehead against his. Letting him take her weight – if only for a little while – as the cracking peel of his leather jacket rasped pleasantly under her fingers. Making sure her legs weren't going to buckle before she tipped back. Good hand threading into the dark of his hair as she kissed him - both of them trembling.
It wasn't the first time. But it was still just as soft, wet and imperfect as it'd been when they'd been new. Back when Daryl had barged his way through the line of guards at the gate, shoulders cut high like a singular predator walking into an enemy's den. Her lips had been shaking - just like they were now - and his had been stale. Making their own sort of perfect in the homey dim of the house she'd claimed as her own in the Kingdom. And for the first time in a long time, she'd felt.
But this time-
She pulled away, unable to handle the jutting tremble of his lower lip. Knowing that after this he would have to go on without her. He would forget all those years they'd spent firmly in each other's orbit. He would forget her likes and dislikes, her fears, her secrets, her dreams and do this all over with someone else. Someone new. So that eventually, he could walk past her grave and not be crippled by it. She would become a memory, faded and half-forgotten when the truth was, he'd known her. He'd been her person, her other half for longer than any of them had ever realized. He would do all this and more because that was the only real way to move on. It was how grief worked. How things had to be if Daryl was going to-
"Don't," he rasped. Desperate in a way that didn't really make sense as she stepped back - slow and careful as every muscle in her ached - and raised the gun to her head.
"Carol-"
She shook her head. Forgetting to smile when the springs under the trigger gave and Daryl lunged forward with a ripped-up yell. Crying out like the end of a sentence she couldn't bring herself to finish with words as she crumpled across the soft earth and sank into the soil like a tired sigh.
She never heard the peal.
The rebound.
The echoes.
Not even the gunshot.
Instead, the next thing she was conscious of was her eyes fluttering open. Looking up at the cloud-strewn sky as drizzling red started trickling down from her hairline.
She'd missed, she realized distantly.
Somehow she'd missed.
She choked on a bloody laugh. Hands spidering out as she blindly searched for the cool stock of her Glock. Thoughts muddy. Leaking. Vaguely wondering how long she'd been out and how far the others were from following the sound of the gunshot before her hands skimmed across the barrel. Making an affirming sound in the back of her throat as she brought up to rest against her breast, breathing hard.
Even so, it was the second shot that ranged out after - and the solid, dead-weight impact of a body falling heavy beside her - that made her bleed in an entirely different way.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete, thank you so much for your support and feedback.
Reference:
Aoroi – (from αωροσ, untimely): a type of restless dead. "Those dead before their time." Those cheated of their full stint of life bitterly stayed back to haunt the land of the living of which they had been deprived. In theory anyone who died of anything other than of natural causes in old age could generate a restless ghost.