AN: alright I confess I'm writing a book. I'm sorry for my spotty updates and the state of my WIPs. I'm working full time as well as I am a mom. I'm trying :/ I love you all and your reviews please know I appreciate them. I've had a rough year...they brighten my day :) this will be two parts at the most...I promise. I would have finished it tonight buts 1:41 am here...here you go Vicki...:p
I do not own or profit from the walking Dead.
Xxxxx
She was drowning.
Carol looked about among the sea of casseroles. The safe zone was bustling with life as her group happily went about their way cooking food for the community after the recent herd and the brake in the wall.
It was all hands on deck, people working around the clock and her group was working in shifts to feed the entire community. Not just the bed ridden. Most of the women in her group were happy, to be contributing. They were snobs, in another lifetime she would have considered them upper middle class,they'd lucked out finding the safe zone early in the outbreak. They lived behind the walls. They were happy to help in whatever way they could, but they had no desire to be more, to be prepared. The survival switch had never flipped in their brain, they hadn't had to make the choice to be more.
Carol hated every single one of them. Jan and Sally, Yvonne and Sadie. She smiled when they spoke through gritted teeth. She laughed at their stupid jokes. She wore their stupid sweaters that they gave her. Her jaw hurt at the end of the day from clenching it so badly.
She wanted to be out helping clean up, she wanted to be going on runs to find needed supplies. She wanted to feel her knife in her hand again. She wanted more than this. She was drowning.
Maybe it was time to leave, time to set off on her own. She was hiding herself from so many people, her group still didn't know what happened to Lizza and Mika. The safezone residents still thought she was just like them, and Daryl...Daryl was a dream that would never happen.
She gave up on him, he was pulling away from her more than ever and she just didn't have the fight in her to call him on it. He barely spoke to her, her undercover act seeming to drive a wedge between them even further.
She was pissed at him. After everything they'd been through he just didn't care. He was letting the world break him. It wasn't fair...she knew he didn't know, he couldn't know what happened with Lizzie but she still resented the fact that while she rose above her pain, he sunk in his. It wasn't fair, everyone was different. It wasn't fair, he was allowed to feel how he did. She wasn't fair, he was allowed not to love her like she loved him she thought in pain, but she was pissed.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The fucking clean up would take forever.
Daryl grimaced as he stretched his back on the porch of the house. A bottle of some shitty rum he'd found on his last run with Aaron in his hand.
That's what his life had come to sitting there drinking rum like a fucking pirate, waiting on her.
He needed to know Carol was okay before he could sleep. He'd been keeping an eye on her since they had arrived, even if he had pulled away. He was trying to make it work at the safezone for Judith and Carl. They deserved walls around them, just like Beth had, just like Sophia had and Noah, and Lizzie and Mika, that's what you did for kids, for family. The problem was he'd realized Carol had become more than family, and that was a mighty big problem. He needed to know she was okay. He panicked if he lost track of her for too long. He dreamed of her on runs. She was too close and too close meant if he lost her he would feel it more than all.
So he watched her. Made sure she was alright. Happy that her little undercover mission didn't put her in jeopardy. She was alive, she was safe. He would spend the rest of his life living on the outskirts of the society at the safezone if it meant she was ok.
He heard her footsteps echoing down the street and took another swig of the sickeningly sweet rum.
He heard her footsteps falter when she saw him before she kept walking and looked up when she turned onto the side walk.
"You're late" he snarled suddenly angry.
He saw it, the hurt on her face, the surprise on her face before She steeled her back bone and mentally braced herself.
"Sorry the casserole squad ran late." She sighed moving to walk past him.
"You think this is funny? ..you're out after dark, after we just had a break in the fence. Do you even have a knife on you?" He huffed in her face.
She grimaced and turned "You're drunk Daryl...go to bed. I can take care of myself." She sighed.
Her eyes were dull, lifeless. The sparkle was gone and it made him pissed. He walked forward crowding her with his presence but she didn't back down. Somewhere in his brain he thought "That's my girl" but he couldn't back down. He was stupid drunk as Merle would call it and suddenly he needed to get some things off his chest.
"We all know you can take care of yourself." He yelled.
He could hear doors opening down the block, and heads poking out. He knew people were watching listening. He just didn't give a fuck. "What the hell is wrong with you, you walk around with this fake smile on your face, pretending like you don't know shit. Like you couldn't drop any one of these motherfuckers, like you didn't save out asses out there! You didn't want to go to hell so you decided you was going to be just like Jan, and her little casserole squad." He yelled. There it would be all over the safezone by morning the way gossip travelled around this place.
She was angry now, he saw it, he saw the flare in her eyes as she watched him. She wasn't afraid but if looks could kill he'd be lying on his death bed.
"That's rich coming from you, have you even showered yet? You do everything you can to set yourself apart. Really Daryl? drinking on the porch, carrying around dead animals? Why don't you wear a sign that says redneck drowning in pain and get it over with. God forbid your not perfect! GOD forbid you can't control fate. Sophia wasn't your fault! Neither was Beth. Beth was Maggie's sister...Sophia was MY child! We keep going, we keep moving." She screamed.
She was against the wall now he was directly in her face, sweat pouring down his face. "You ain't never dealt with Sophia so cut the bull shit. You won't even talk about Lizzie and Mika for fuck sakes." His voice was steely, his finger jabbing in her face coming a few millimetres from her nose.
"Daryl"
Rick and Michonne were behind them and the rest of the group scattered among the yard.
Her voice was cold as she responded "Do you want to know what happened to Lizzie and Mika? If it's so fucking important to you?."
She started talking, telling the story in sickeningly detail. It all came spilling out of her mouth in a grim monotone voice. She wouldn't look at him. He heard the group gasp. She was hanging her head, as he stepped back to let her pass.
He didn't know her at all anymore.
"Daryl!" Michonne snapped at him but he paid her no attention.
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with pain, the blue crystal depths drowning in tears , as he realized he'd spoken out loud
"Carol...wait." But she brushed him off, pushing her way in the house, without looking back.
Xxxxxxxxxxxx
"Daryl...wake up."
His head was pounding as he pulled the blankets over his head.
"Daryl."
"Go away Rick."
His head was pounding, he'd gotten shit faced out his mind after what happened with Carol on the porch last night. She'd locked herself in her room and wouldn't talk, so he'd downed the rest of his bottled and passed out on the couch.
Shit...he'd promised Glenn he'd go on a run with him today. He sighed rolling over, he needed to find Carol and apologize. He wasn't looking forward to it, he'd been an asshole when she'd finally been honest. He knew her, fuck he knew her better than anyone. He was an asshole and a mean drunk. He needed to apologize but first he needed to get the run over with.
"Tell Glenn I'll be a minute."
He noticed Rick's face then, the tears in his eyes, the way his hands were shaking. The group was behind him, Michonne embracing a visibly upset Carl.
"You missed the run Daryl... You were passed out. Carol went instead. She said her cover was blown..., it didn't matter anymore. She.." Rick's voice shook as he covered his mouth and Michonne placed a hand on his back.
Glenn stepped forward, visibly dishelved " She didn't make it back Daryl...she's gone."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nicholas was a dead man when she got back to the safe zone Carol thought as she slammed her knife into the head of yet another walker. They'd gotten seperated from the group. Glenn had pulled aside, warned her that he didn't trust Nicholas, and with Tara down and Noah gone he'd wanted someone he could trust on the run.
It had been awkward this morning. No one wanted to address the elephant in the room in the form of the asshole passed out drunk, snoring to beat the band on the couch.
Finally Rick had spoken up looking at her intently. "You're the strongest person I know. We all know you...no one better than him." He said nodding towards Daryl.
She nodded, gasping in breaths as sobs escaped her body and she found herself in the middle of a group hug. "We all know you" Rick said placing his hands on her cheeks "and he does to...I'll talk to him. Love makes you do stupid.."
She shook her head no, looking over at him on the couch. "It's not like that for him." She said shaking her head.
"I think your wrong..." Rick said placing a kiss to her temple. "Just give it time...feel like breaking out your boots?" He said with a grin.
So she'd gone on the run in Daryl's place. A quick supermarket job, her Glenn and Nicholas. They'd gotten seperated, and Nicholas had taken off on the first sign of trouble. Leaving her to deal with a small herd. She'd worked her way backwards. Snagged her boot on a door and tore off a buckle, scrapped her leg as a piece of wood had jammed into it.
She'd hidden, the blood to much of a risk.
Glenn came back, she saw him from a distance, the herd had grown to large. He found the buckle. He saw the blood. She couldn't yell, it would draw to much attention. She tourniquet her leg, and waited them out.
She had water, it wasn't horrible. She imagined how angry Daryl would be when she finally got back. The night passed the herd moved on. She started her long walk back.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Daryl...you can't go out there right now...not like this."
Daryl moved around Rick with momentum. Two days, and seven hours and eighteen minutes. Since they told him. Since he died inside.
She was gone.
Nicholas had seen a herd pull her under, Glenn had found a buckle from her god damn boot. She loved those boots, those damn boots.
If he stopped moving he couldn't breath. The physical pain in his throat made it impossible to swallow. Hell it hurt to breath. Everything hurt and the pains in his chest stopped him short every once in awhile.
He'd killed her. Surely as if he pushed to that walker himself. Surely as if he held a knife to her throat. He bent over at the waist as his breath came in short gasps. Everyone he loved was taken away from him. Everything he touched he destroyed.
"Breath Daryl" Rick said "Breath."
He nodded, picturing her face. The glittering blue eyes that shined in the moonlight, the mischievous grin.
Screw Around?
Why hadn't he said yes? Why hadn't he said hell yes. He'd wanted too. She was gone. Everyone he loved was taken away from him. It had never hurt this bad, he was dying. He was sure of it. That was the only reason. Two years, two years he'd wasted. All the times he'd walked to her cell at the prison only to turn around and walk away. All the times he'd only grunted when she flirted, teased. He was such a poussey. They could have been together all that time. Two years he thought again as his breathing sped up.
"Daryl...you're going to pass out...BREATH!" Michonne said somewhere behind him.
"You can't go out like this...I won't let you." Rick said
"Stop me" he growled standing up continuing to pack his saddlebags in Aaron's garage.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Glenn and Maggie were the first to see her. Tired and dirty, she made her way up the walkway to the house after having been let in the gates.
Glenn had a plate in his hands which he dropped and the both stared at her mouths agape.
"Nicholas told you I was dead didn't he?" She said
They nodded before Glenn pratically flew down the stairs to embrace her.
"I'm so sorry...I believed him...I'm sorry." He muttered over and over.
"It's ok." She smiled embracing Maggie who was smiling. "I'm exhausted and starving and dirty. Let me eat and get a shower..you can let the others know that rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."