There's a rule in the prison for runs: always be back before dark. Whether it's a quick run into town or a trip just outside to check the snares, they'd all agreed to be back before dark unless they'd all of them agreed there was a good enough reason to stay out. And even then, there was an understanding in place. Even then, when night fell, they planned and made damn sure they could get someplace secure.
The rule, though…it'd been around long before they found the prison. It was back at the farm, their first long-term camp since the mountains, that it developed. It was that day Daryl was setting out to look for Sophia. Rick caught him on his way out by sheer dumb luck – another rule they'd picked up pretty soon after'd been to let somebody else know before you headed out – and thought it might be smart to check in with him. Daryl was the master of all things woods and tracking, but he was still just one man. All by his lonesome.
Far as Rick could see it, that was no way to be when the walkers came running.
"You okay on your own?" he'd asked. He'd meant it to be an offer at the time; he'd have rounded him up some backup, or hell, he'd have hit the woods with him, had his back himself. He was no woodsman himself, but he was handy in a pinch. Better'n nothing, at least.
But Daryl'd just started walking again. "I'm better on my own," he'd said, and Rick didn't know what it was about it at the time, couldn't quite put his finger, but something about that just…it didn't sit right. Not quite sad, not quite taken aback, but someplace in between.
He never got the chance to call him on it. Daryl'd been a man on a mission, and he wasn't slowing down.
"Don't worry," he'd called back, not even bothering to look once over his shoulder. In hindsight, Rick's started to wonder just how much of Daryl's attitude back then was really attitude, though, and how much of it was just him not being real sure on how he was supposed to act. "I'll be back before dark."
And there it was; that was the start of it – and, as he recalls now, the day Daryl more or less signed on to being part of their group – and the rule just stuck. No goin' off alone, and no coming back after dark.
Any questions there might've been to it were well enough put to rest by that night last fall, too. Rick doesn't like to think on it too much, but that night when Daryl showed up all covered in blood, saying he was bit…damned if Rick wasn't hard-pressed to try and keep anybody from going out at all.
Only, he didn't. Not really. He wanted to; Christ, but he did. But even if they could've afforded to stop runs altogether, Rick knew better than to think he could keep Daryl locked up inside that prison. Trying to keep Daryl anyplace he didn't want to be was like trying to cage water: it wasn't going to work, and he'd frustrate himself to tears trying.
He figured he had enough gray hairs already, thanks.
No, their runs when on. Daryl, just as soon as he was healthy enough to do it – and on the subject of keeping Daryl places he didn't want to be, trying to keep him on bed rest while his side and shoulder had healed up had been an uphill battle Rick'd like to have never won – picked right back up where he'd left off, and the world, at least what was left of it, kept right on turning. All Rick asked was that they kept to the rules. Two simple, important rules.
And that's why, as the sun slips well behind the treeline and the sky goes dark with still no sign of Daryl back from his hunting trip, Rick's starting to get more than a little uneasy.
It's passing midnight, by Rick's best guess. Daryl's been gone since sunrise that morning – or, he reckons now, the morning before – and since then, a storm's rolled in that's dropping buckets outside. Rick's been out in it more than a few times, checking in with Sasha in the guard tower to see if she's spotted him. Nothing doing, and he's pretty sure he's pestered the piss out of her with his asking.
Matter of fact, he reckons he's scared off just about everyone. It's past curfew, so most people have bunked down for the night anyhow. But he's been snapping at people he's got no right snapping at all night – he'll apologize for it later, he tells himself; he's just wound too tight – and pacing holes in the concrete.
It's not like Daryl to be late. Daryl knows how important it is to be back before dark, not just for being safe, but for the people back in the prison. He's got to know they'll be worried about him. That Rick will be worried about him. And sure, it ain't as if he could pick up a phone and call to let Rick know he'd be running late or bunking over or Lord only knew what else, but it still strikes him that something's got to be wrong here for Daryl to have broken a cardinal rule.
"Maybe he just got caught by the storm," Carol says. Seems she's the only one still awake dares be around Rick when he's in a mood. Which is good, he reckons, because she's just about one of the only ones he can stand to be around him when he's in a mood. And since another's MIA, that puts her pretty damn high on the shortlist.
"No," he says, and he's just grateful when it doesn't come out sounding too harsh. Optimism or not, he can tell she's just as worried as he is. "Those clouds were rolling in all afternoon, and the man's a walking farmer's almanac. He'd have known the storm was gonna hit." And knowing Daryl, he wouldn't have been out in it by choice.
See, the way Rick has it figured, the man's like a cat. Only takes to a few people at best, does what he wants when he wants to do it, dead silent walking with a vendetta against vermin – especially the bushy-tailed variety – and loves warmth but hates water. The man doesn't even care much for showers, and even if he'll go out in the rain when it's for a cause, soon as the first raindrop dampens his clothes, it does the same to his attitude. No way no how he would choose to be out in this instead of back in the prison where it was warm and dry. Not for a hunting trip when they were still so well-stocked.
They'd been stuck in for a week and a half before that, first with a walker build up at the gates and then a storm that this one seemed to be riding the coattails of, but they're still more than well-off. At least enough that they can make it a day or two until the storm blows over. It just doesn't make sense for him to be out there.
But then, come to think of it, "Has Daryl been acting strange to you lately?"
Carol's eyebrows rise a little. "You mean more than usual?" she teases. But it's said too fondly to be an insult, and too unsteadily to be a joke. Carol loves Daryl just as much as Rick does; they're family, and she's worried about him. Rick understands and respects that.
All the same, he frowns. "I'm being serious, Carol," he tells her. "He's been all out of sorts lately; I can't be the only one noticing. Hiding out in the guard towers every chance he gets, slippin' out onto the roof. I'd say he's been makin' himself scarce, except that'd mean he'd actually been around some at all."
And he knows Carol knows what he's talking about, even before she says anything, because she's nodding, and she gets this little furrow line on her forehead. He's probably got one pretty similar, only probably not that subtle. His probably looks like it's been etched in with a chisel. Probably permanent, too.
They're quiet for a second, and Rick uses the time to glance through the barred windows and briefly considers heading back out to the East tower. It's been about fifteen minutes; he'd say it's about time for another check-in. Assuming Sasha's not about ready to shoot him on sight.
It might be for the better that Carol cuts in before he can get to thinking on it too seriously, but her question kind of throws him for a loop. "What about with you?"
For a second, Rick's not really sure how to answer that. He knows what she's asking, he just…he doesn't know the answer. He runs a hand through his hair, sighing, trying to think, but the works are so damn gunked up worrying about Daryl he's gaping like a fish out of water until Carol offers him an out.
"I didn't mean to pry," she says. "I just didn't know."
That makes two of us, Rick wants to say, but instead he just shakes his head and shrugs. It's hard to say how he and Daryl are; he can't even say what they are. Still. After everything, after all the time that's passed since that afternoon in the guard tower, when they started this…whatever the hell they have going on here, they still haven't put a name to it. That'd require them talking about it, and they never really do. It just…is. They just are. They don't have to talk about it; there's an understanding between them that's always been enough.
Now, though…Rick's kind of starting to wonder if it is. Enough, he means. Because he doesn't know what's going on with Daryl, or hell, if it has anything to do with him going missing or not, but he's getting himself all bent out of shape, and twisted metal's easier to twist. So, he does think about it. If nothing else, it's a little more bearable than thinking about what could've happened to Daryl out there.
Daryl's acting funny; there's no two ways about it. Sneaking off, pacing at night. He's not eating near enough, but then, he never does. Never takes the time to get any food, and half the time he does eat, it's Carol or Beth bringing him food. Or Rick, but Rick's a bit more subtle about it. He brings his own, plus a little extra; Daryl likes picking off his plate, and then Rick doesn't have to deal with being called a mother hen.
It's nighttime, he reckons, things're a little trickier. Used to be Daryl slept the night with him just as often as not; there for a while, after his brother died and they ran off the Governor, it was nigh-on every night.
Lately, though…it's not that Daryl's not coming around him, 'cause he is. Hell, it seems like he's one of the only people Daryl cares to come around. Problem is he doesn't tend to stay that way anymore. He'll just kind of wander in at some hour of the night, lurk a little bit. Sometimes he lays down, sometimes he just leans against the wall and closes his eyes like he's keeping watch or something. And most of the time, Rick just lets him do what he's gonna do, because, well…he's Daryl. He does it anyway.
"That frown's awfully deep," Carol observes, snapping Rick out of his head. Mercifully, she doesn't ask what it's for – he's not real sure he could tell her, even if he wanted to, and he's not real sure he even wants to – just puts a hand on his shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "He always comes back, Rick. Even when you didn't think he would, he came back."
And despite everything, Rick kind of smiles at that, if only because he remembers that next morning, when Daryl finally came around. All bleary-eyed and groggy, but that smile…Christ, but that smile. Mine forever, Rick had said, and he'd meant it. So long as Daryl'd have him, he'd have him.
As for Rick…Rick just needs to have him back.