Author's Note: This is by request for Alien Soul and also the_wd_caryl, who leaves such wonderous reviews that she's entitled to really anything she wants, and who apparently knows just how to awaken my muse. Thanks for the prompt, you two.
The Last Dixon
The chirp of cicadas rippled through the night, giving the dark a texture that goosebumped along Carol's arms and raised the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck. She shifted the flashlight in her hand but didn't turn it on. It would just ruin her night vision and draw the attention of the walkers outside the prison fence. Still, she didn't want to startle Daryl, up in the guard tower. They may have defeated the Woodbury army, but the Governor was still out there and she knew a dark shape, even coming from the direction of the prison, would set Daryl's trigger finger on edge.
She gave a soft whistle. It wavered a little, but still managed to imitate the note they all knew by heart. Daryl did it without thinking, his hand signals and whistles second-nature from decades of hunting with his brother. Rick had seemed to be able to read them from the beginning, like it was an understanding that came embedded in a Y chromosome. The rest of them had picked up the whistle over time, using it to communicate when they were clearing buildings because walkers didn't seem to respond to it. Didn't recognize it as more than a sound of the natural world. But the Woodbury folks didn't know it yet, so even if Daryl couldn't see who was down here, he'd know it was family that approached.
He didn't return the whistle.
She rubbed her arms through her long sweater and started forward.
The spring was wavering right on that edge when biting cold started shifting to a crisp coolness, the hope of something better just beyond. Up in the guard tower, surrounded by all that unforgiving metal, she doubted it felt that way to Daryl. Not with his brother's grave still fresh across the yard.
The door at the bottom of the tower groaned open, the knob freezing her fingers. But still he didn't whistle back. Maybe he'd fallen asleep up there. It wouldn't be like him, but then, even Daryl had to sleep sometime and he certainly hadn't anytime that she'd seen. Inside the prison, the metal lattice of the perch would rattle every time he flipped over on his bare mattress. It was a clear line of sight from that to her cell, and she often pulled the curtain aside to check that the comforting, dark line of him was still out there. Especially when she was worried about him.
He'd been getting up in the middle of the night, even when he wasn't on watch, to walk the barred walls that separated their cell block from the Woodbury folks. To re-lock the lock over and over with his ring of keys that matched Rick's. Funny that he was drawn to the Woodbury refugees at night, when he avoided them all day like they were a trap, metal teeth waiting to snap closed on him. He'd wanted to bring them here, believed Andrea that they were innocent, but he still didn't trust them. Then again, trust came hard to Daryl Dixon.
She mounted the stairs, wishing she'd have brought food. He needed it, but she couldn't bring herself to push it on him. Not yet. She still remembered how food had tasted after she lost Sophia, how it clung to her tongue like greasy old socks and stuck in her throat. How suffocating it was, the idea of continuing to eat and live and speak.
He didn't turn around, so maybe he knew it was her after all. He was silhouetted, one more shade of darkness in a whole night of it, staring out across the yard to the crosses of the graveyard, not out toward the fences where the walkers moaned and rattled.
"Go," he grunted. "I got this."
"You can't just pretend it didn't happen, Daryl."
He shoved off the rail, stalked back and forth like a caged animal, like he was about to throw a punch. Didn't look at her.
"Merle's dead," he snarled. "So what. That's it. Don't need ya starin' at me. Talkin' at me. Ain't nothing to say. He's gone. Put a knife in his skull myself, made sure. He woulda done it for me."
"He would have." She kept her voice soft and low, barely pitched above the cicadas, the creaking moans beyond the fence. Daryl would hear her. Daryl always heard her, even when he pretended not to.
He threw out a hand, stomping a long step toward her. "You go on. Don't need yer pity."
"I know you don't."
She moved closer instead of jerking back like he probably expected. They both knew why she was up here. He wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping. Was disappearing god only knew where for hours at a time, like he couldn't stand all the noise in the prison. The extra sets of eyes that followed him, the kids that flinched away when they reached to touch his crossbow and he snapped at them. They weren't used to him the way the children of the prison group were, didn't know that his bark was vicious, but he never bit one of his own.
"Judith missed you tonight," she said quietly. Daryl put her to bed, most nights. Rick's worries always bled out of him, especially late at night, and fussed the baby. But Daryl eased with a child in his arms. Something in him responding to that kind of innocence.
She also thought it was something just about him that Judith liked. When he wasn't angry, he had a quiet that ran deep in him. It was why he could blend with the woods so easily. Unlike most people, his thoughts weren't so loud that he didn't notice the sound of his own footsteps.
"Lil Asskicker's fine," he grunted. "Got a dozen grammas now."
It was true. Most of the Woodbury folks hadn't seen a baby since the turn and Judith was being passed around so much she had to have two baths today because Carol couldn't stand the scent of so many people on her, and Rick was worried about germs.
"She missed you," Carol said mildly. "You need to grieve, Daryl. But don't do it by pulling away from us."
"What the hell you want from me?" He blasted away, whirling so fast the crossbow on his back clipped her knuckles.
She sucked in a tiny breath, but his feet rattled the metal catwalk so hard he didn't even hear it as he paced to the far side of the railing, then seethed back and forth like he might jump out of his skin. She raised the skinned knuckle to her mouth, sucking the blood away.
He turned on her. "You want me to cry? That it?" His normally deep, low voice had gone back to its old rhythms that she remembered from when they'd first met. Every sentence thrown down like a gauntlet, the last word impacting the hardest in a warning to keep your distance. "Tell stories 'bout how much I miss my brother?"
He came at her so fast her stomach tensed, reacting instinctively to the threat even as the rest of her recognized this was all a bluff. He was shoving everything into the blazing fire of his anger, because it was the only emotion his family had ever been comfortable with. She tilted her head back and met his eyes, knowing that connecting with him there would reel him back into himself faster than any touch of her hand on his body. She dropped her bleeding hand to her side so he wouldn't see he'd accidentally injured her.
"My brother was an asshole. Called you a skinny bitch." He glared at her, so close that even in the light of the waxing crescent moon, she could see that his sparse lashes were dry. Her heart sank. At the sight, not the harsh words. Part of her had hoped he was taking all the guard shifts so he had the solitude to grieve, but apparently he'd just been cramming it all down inside like she'd feared.
"Go ahead," she said. This anger wasn't the reality of his feelings, not by far, but if she could get him to release a little of the emotions stewing in him, maybe it would help.
His lashes flinched at the reminder of the horrible night after they found Sophia's walking corpse. When he'd moved away from the camp and hung walker ears like he was trying to warn people how dangerous he could be.
"You think I'm making that shit up?" he said incredulously. "Think I'm just talkin'? Fuck, we was gonna rob you. The only reason Merle went on that run to Atlanta was so y'all'd stop looking at us sideways and relax so we could get our hands on the ammo, and Dale's RV." His hands moved restlessly over the rifle he held.
She snorted out a sarcastic breath. "Of course I knew that, Daryl. What, like a couple of guys with plenty of ammo and woodsman skills wanted to camp with a bunch of clumsy city slickers and women for the pleasure of our company? First time I saw Merle's swastika tattoo, I knew he wasn't camping with T-dog and Glenn and Jaqui because he'd turned over a new leaf."
She took a step forward and they were close enough he had to step back or let her run into his chest. He glared hard, but he gave way before her.
"You want to hear what else I know?" she said. "I know why Merle picked a fight with T-dog and spoiled all your plans. He saw through you, Daryl. He saw how excited the group was to have fresh meat. How even though you pretended you didn't care, it surprised you to be thanked for it. And most days after that, you just so happened to come back with more game than you and Merle could eat."
She poked her finger into his chest.
"He saw what you were doing, Daryl. And so did I. When you spent so much time tracking that deer even though the two of you could never eat it all and there were plenty of squirrels and rabbits near camp? He saw the way the wind was blowing. And he couldn't stand that the people in the camp were starting to like you, that you might like them better than him. He couldn't stand to lose your love."
Daryl jerked in a little suffocated breath, and she knew she'd gone too far.
He seethed forward, crowding her with the steel of the rifle until he had her backed into the guard shack wall. Her heart rate accelerated, and fear thrilled up her arms. She trusted Daryl. But she also knew how far he could fly off the handle when he was upset and she wasn't honestly sure what lengths he'd resort to avoid facing the loss of his only remaining kin.
"You think Merle cared about love?" he growled. "You think we was nice guys, a couple of romance novel brothers? You don't know shit."
The line of the rifle bit into her belly, the bones of her elbows grinding into the guard shack behind her. She was starting to have trouble breathing and she wasn't sure if it was from the emotion pouring out of him, or the pressure on her lungs, or one of her old panic attacks.
"You think I didn't know what was going on, back in quarry camp?" he said. "Shit, woman, I got ears. I heard Ed layin' into ya. Saw him 'round camp, jerkin' ya by the arm. I knew what he did before I ever even seen the two o' ya side by side." He leaned into her face, snarling the words one by one. "I let it happen."
He took a step back and the sudden loss of pressure from the rifle left her feeling dizzy. She almost missed it. He glared, his head tipped low like he was braced, waiting for her to flee now that he'd said the worst thing he could think of.
"I wasn't your problem," she said simply. "It wasn't your responsibility to stand up for me before I was ready to do it for myself. We weren't friends, then."
His eye twitched and he stared at her like she was a language he didn't know.
"I heard him one night, worse'n the rest," he said abruptly. "Couldn't sleep with him slappin' on ya. Too loud. So I's gettin' up and Merle grabbed me. Said a bitch like you, that's all ya knew. I could put a bolt straight through Ed and you'd just go find another Ed. We laid in our tent, the both 'o us, listening to him thrashin' ya. Listenin' to you cryin'." He threw out the word as hard as he could, and it didn't hide the quiver in his lip.
Carol hugged her sweater tighter around her, aching for him even as her skinned knuckles burned. She knew how hard it must have been for him to sit there, listening to someone taking a beating and feeling utterly helpless to stop it happening. Just like he must have felt all through his childhood.
"Yeah," he said, low and gravelly. "Bet you're real sad 'bout old Merle now."
"I am." She let her sincerity bleed through the words, filling all the space between them. She didn't have to tell him why she cared about Merle. He knew it and couldn't accept it all at once. That's why he was still trying to chase her away.
He huffed an incredulous breath, paced away.
"He watched you, you know," she said. "Back at quarry camp and now, at the prison. He saw the way people here listened to you. How happy everyone was when you came back. He was so loud and cruel because he was jealous and he didn't want anyone to see how much he wanted to be a part of it. With you. Like you."
"He weren't jealous. He hated this place. Rick 'n them." Despite his words, he threw a glance at her. She could all but see the thoughts churning through his head.
"He was the Governor's henchmen, but the Governor never cared for him like Rick cared about you. Listened to you. Went back for you, in Woodbury."
"Michonne said—" he stopped.
"Michonne said what?" Carol held her breath. The group's newest member had told her the whole story of what happened when Merle kidnapped her. In spare words made beautiful and terrible by the dignity that swathed the tall woman like a set of clothes that could never be torn from her. When Carol asked her why she was telling her this, why she had sought out Carol to explain what happened, she nailed her with those shrewd eyes and said, "Because he'll listen to you."
"Nothin'. She didn't say nothin'." He went back to pacing.
She was close to breaking through, she could feel it.
"You were the only one to ever care about Merle, but he wasn't the only one to ever care about you. When he came here, he saw that. It scared the hell out of him." She paused. "Michonne told me what happened when they were alone. I think, maybe, she tried to tell you, too and you couldn't hear it." She made her voice as gentle as she possibly could, because she knew how hard it would be for him to hear what she said next. "He was trying to be like you, Daryl. And I think he went to die because he didn't believe anybody could love him. Not even you." She laid a hand on his arm, risking every terrible thing that might spur him to do. "Please don't make the same mistake Merle did."
He dropped his rifle and grabbed the railing with both hands. The sob that ripped through him rattled the metal, the whole tower quaking under their feet. He cried utterly silently, all that ripping energy pouring through him and into his hands where they fisted on the railing.
Carol moved beside him, not touching him, not yet. He needed to feel it before he could start to move past it into comfort.
"He looked up to you," she murmured. "He would have wanted it to be you who finished him. I'm so glad you had the strength. I couldn't have finished Sophia. I would have let her consume me and welcomed every ounce of the pain."
His head hung low and limp, all the tension bunched into his shoulders instead. He dragged in a wracked breath and said something, but she couldn't hear it.
She ducked closer. "What?"
"I'm the last one. Family's all dead." He slumped down against the rail, his elbows hitting it with a rattle that made her wince. "Hated being a Dixon in school. Everybody knows by the name you're shit poor and mean. Teachers hated me the first time they read attendance role. Now, there ain't nothin' hanging on my name. It's just me. I'm it."
The loneliness in his last words whirled her head. In the silence that followed, blood dripped from her knuckle, falling soundlessly to the metal grate, the ground below.
"Me, too," she whispered.
Another sob shook his back and he turned to her, reaching out. His hand hovered in midair, the fingers quivering, like he wasn't sure what to do next. She caught his hand, laid it on her shoulder, and tucked his face into her neck. Let his suffering shake her instead of the tower. He didn't make a sound other than the jagged gasps when he yanked in a breath, but his tears wet her shoulder, dripped down under her sweater. She could feel the dampness catching in her collarbone.
She bit her lip, holding on to him, but she couldn't stop it and soon, her face was as wet as his. The metal of the railing bit into her spine as she held both of them up, staring out at a night that blurred through the physical evidence of their grief. Her eyes caught on the crescent moon, waxing toward full but so slowly she couldn't see the change. At least, not in a single night.
She held Daryl a little tighter, his broad back solid in her arms even as he shook with all he'd lost.
When he finally pulled himself back to standing, he jerked to a stop when he saw her face. He lifted a hand, his fingers brushing her tear-washed cheeks. His brow creased. "For Merle?"
"No," she said. "For you."
Author's Note: For anybody who likes early-TWD Caryl, I've got an ongoing Season 2.5 fic going with a lot of slow burn Caryl, called "How Carol Got her Groove Back." Promise it's not as sad as this ;)