starts after season 4 episode 15 – Us - spoiler if you haven't seen/read the spoiler synopsis for the episode
I'm sorry I like to make fanfictions tie to where the real story has left off!
Daryl lay awake in their camp a little off from the train tracks, staring at the dark sky through the trees. He noticed how many stars you could see in the sky anymore… since this whole thing started. It took him this long to finally look up and notice that. He felt different, something he wasn't familiar with. His body felt tight and sore, his stomach churned, but looking at the sky and feeling the gentle breeze almost gave him a peaceful feeling.
"You look like you've never seen the sky before," said Joe. "Sometimes I get so caught up in all the fightin' that I forget this game is my real life now."
Daryl looked over and saw that Joe was sitting up, awake too, probably keeping watch.
"Men like us are made for this kinda life. We're gonna be the last men standing," Joe chuckled. His words uprooted something inside Daryl. There it was again, the reminder that no matter how hard he tried to protect everyone, in the end he'd always be alone. That was the worst thing you could say to him.
Joe sensed the change in Daryl's expression. "You don't seem happy about that. You in a group before us, or were you always a loner?" he asked.
Daryl felt heavy. "I had a group," he said after a short silence.
"And you were the last man standing, eh?"
The heaviness Daryl felt became a sense of emptiness. Just like that he went from feeling like the weight of the world rested on him, to feeling like he barely existed.
"When we found ya on the road, you look tired. Ain't no reason to get so down on yourself about that. The weak ones don't last out here, no point mourning over 'em. In a group like us, you can be sure we ain't bitin' it." Joe chuckled at his irony, but Daryl's expression didn't change.
"Ahh, you've let your heart get to ya, eh?" Was it that noticeable? Daryl wasn't used to wearing his emotions on his sleeve. In fact, no one had ever saw through him like that, except for her….
"Well, I guess all us men get a little lonely sometimes," Joe smiled. "How's about this, the next piece a tail we come across, I'll claim her for you, alright? That'll get your spirits up."
Joe sounded like Merle. Daryl felt conflicted, he'd grown up hearing words like that come out of his brother's and his father's mouths all the time and never thought nothin' of it. But Joe's words made his stomach churn a little more. He had no desire for any kind of frisky comfort. He didn't look at 'em that way anymore; he'd lost the ability to detach himself. He could never enjoy it, how could he when he let the one thing he had to protect get away. The only touch that made him feel comfortable. No one else's would do.
You've put that behind you. But what if I can't? You did. You had to.
He missed it. He missed her. He missed the way she brought something beautiful out of his cynical thoughts, the words he never thought twice about before now felt so wrong in his mind. He wasn't ready to think all on his own, so most of the time he tried not to think about anything at all.
